Leaf Lines - Blog Posts

I think they should be welcomed here but they should (and I mean the general tiktok side of the community) mature a little? I think the culture shock will help a little, but both of us can see that there are bad parts specifically of the tiktok branch that should be shed off over time

Like the demonizing of certain dysphorias or how to deal it, or how they handle disabled and disordered people in their community

With all my complaints I have with that side of the community, I don't hate them nor do I want them to stay away, I want to mature though so they can be kinder to each other and themselves, as the discourse they have over there has hurt people

okay, ive seen way too many posts on the community tags talking about the tiktok ban and saying stuff like "i hope tiktok therians dont come in here theyre so awful and i hate them lol". and... i dont know what to tell you guys, i think thats mean as hell.

imagine, just for a second, that youre a therian on tiktok. at 13 years old, youve found a friendly community where people express themselves with masks, tails, and a type of movement called quadrobics. they seem to be having fun, so you decide to join in. and for a while, youre having fun too! you start practicing quadrobics, which is tough at first but you work hard to get better. you ask your parents for some cat masks, which you decorate with paint and faux fur. you make videos of yourself and your friends, wearing cat masks and dancing on all fours to some bland indie song.

then, out of nowhere, one of your posts goes viral. and suddenly, youre not having fun anymore.

"therians are crazy", "if you identify as a dog you should be chained and made to sleep naked outside", "my little brother came out as a therian and i bullied him until he stopped lol", "if i see a therian in the woods im shooting them", "if you want to be an animal, ill treat you like one".

again, YOURE 13. so you get defensive, because people you dont know are attacking you online and as a young teen, you dont know what to do to make it stop. so instead of confronting them, you try to please them instead. "im not crazy, im just having fun" turns into "i dont identify as an animal, only crazy people do that!" and then to "therians dont actually think were animals; thats lycanthropy and its wrong". this is what others in your community are saying, so it must be true, right? it helps slow down the criticism at least, if only for a little while; even if it never fully goes away. so you keep saying it, even to others in your community, because if it protects you from judgment, why not?

but now youre dealing with the possibility of your platform disappearing. youll lose your friends, the community youve worked so hard to be a part of. you heard some friends say they might switch to instagram if tiktok gets banned, while others prefer reddit or tumblr. Feeling curious (you didnt realize there were therians on other sites!), you decide to check out tumblr to see what that community is like there. the first post you come across at the top of the tag? "i hope tiktok therians dont come here theyre so awful and i hate them lol".

so yeah. thats the problem with making blanket statements like these; it only pushes away members of our own community. shame is not a motivator, and your aggressiveness gets us nowhere. remember, one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. so be kind.

Actually, I now see why that turned into such an argument

Glad to get out of that thing fucking hell

Man I make one post that doesn't go into an entire essay and people assume I've seen the things they've seen, which I have not

Man I make one post that doesn't go into an entire essay and people assume I've seen the things they've seen, which I have not

Tiktok therians: Therians don't ACTUALLY believe they're animals!!

The observable universe:

When will people finally understand that therianthropy DOESN’T end when it comes to genital dysphoria or in the bedroom?? That so doesn’t make therianthropy inherently sexual but god it’s not like it just packs its bags and leaves when it’s deemed too much for chronically online alterhuman antis to understand ????????? Fuckin hell bro

I think this is because people (especially on TikTok) like to point to figures of authority even when it's not applicable

A good majority of this we can also blame on right wingers, transmeds, and a small bit of those very specific detrans grifters who make it seem like the trans community "groomed them"

All those groups went for years going on about how dysphoria is a very special mental illness to the point of taking away people's autonomy on how people perceive themselves

Species dysphoria *is* somewhat recognized, just not fully or medically (and I'm not sure it would really be good if it was either or both of those considering how most people treat clinical zoanthropes already)

But people can't point to a disorder and (think) they can't point to any papers (despite them existing) so it MUST NOT EXIST! the assumed authority has said so! (Which should be left to the creature, not anyone else). But if species dysphoria *does* get medically recognized then you're gonna be called even more delusional than usual because "look! It's a disorder! Something is clearly wrong with YOU!"

I hate when I mention species dysphoria on tiktok and half or more of the comments I get are telling me it's not real or I cant use the term dysphoria for that, I've already gone into why dysphoria is a okay term to use several times, but like you can't just say its not real when many others experience it- sure I don't think its recognized in the medical field (might be wrong idk) but that doesn't just erase others feelings and experiences

Like I'm just confused what people think commenting that isn't real is gonna do, doesn't change what Im feeling, I wish it did honestly because I'm tired of feeling like this but like obviously it's not changing anytime soon even if you decide to pretend like Im making it up for some reason

because the tiktok ban is supposedly true and is going to happen in like january(???dont quote me on that) im kinda worried that people who migrate to tumblr who have.. never had tumblr before.. will, for lack of better terms, tiktok-ify tumblr!!! esp in the nonhuman community because we all are aware of the tiktok therians and how they see stuff, so if/when they come on here, i fear they will be in for a rude awakening!

Sometimes therian spaces just feel like "therians are valid! but-", then they give you an entire paragraph about why you aren't one of the "alright therians"

I think

"You need to let new people learn and grow and make as many mistakes as they do because they'll never actually find themselves or be comfortable with a community like ours if we don't lend a helping paw"

And

"older members of the community have a right to be angry at younger members when they shame, water down, or overall push out certain things and people of the community who/which are harmless"

Are ideas that coexist

Saw a tiktok of a guy saying he doesn’t feel comfortable talking to minors because he’s 19. And it’s just. I’m so fucking tired of this.

And like to be clear, I’m speaking as a victim of pedophilia when I say: We need to get over this collective fear of endangering children. Because holy shit, this stuff is getting out of hand.

The average person is not a threat to a child.

And also!!! It is actually really really good for kids to have friendships with adults that aren’t their family.

Having friendships with adults when you’re younger prepares you for adult life in a better way then only interacting with adults that are family members or teacher as well.

And also if there’s any sort of weird behavior happening with adults or teachers, it’s very helpful to have unrelated adults, you can go to, and also have a model for what normal adults are supposed to look like.

And also! You’re just making it way easier for pedophiles to prey on children when you completely avoid interacting with them as an adult. Because kids are naturally inquisitive and curious. They are going to want to interact with adults and they are going to want to ask questions. And if the only adult adults that are willing to interact and speak with them or adults who have ulterior motivations. Guess what’s gonna happen.

Also on a more general note. Having a model for what a normal healthy adult is supposed to look like makes it way easier for kids to be able to recognize and identify when adults in their personal life are being weird.

I am begging y'all to stop they/themming folks who don't use they/them just because they don't pass, or YOU personally don't "feel comfortable" using their pronouns.

Use his pronouns. Use her pronouns. Use its pronouns. It's common courtesy.

adults: oh silly children with no responsibilities no real trauma no life experience no worries and yet oh so dramatic about nothing

also adults: oh thank fucking GOD i am not in school anymore, i had another nightmare i was THERE again, i woke up in a cold sweat bc i didn't study for my TEST-there's nothing not anything like the sweet relief of realizing that you actually don't have one and you won't have one in a very very long time, i still remember what the hallways smell like, i graduated years ago but i don't feel safe yet

How I look at them therian tiktoks saying "therians are people who identify as animals but we don't ACTUALLY think we're animals we know we're humans haha" :

Like get yo ass outta here

(PSA: I'm not hating on these creators it's just annoying folks trying to change people's experiences and the definition of therian or otherkin to conform to non-therians/otherkins, to be 'digestible' and 'normal')

help me WHAT

listen to me rant about therians on tiktok and animal packers!!

under cut bc there’s a few pics and don’t want to clutter up people’s feeds 😋

so i’ve said it before but tiktok therians are just 😟 they wouldn’t last two minutes on tumblr or twitter/x

psychosis?? mental illness??

the caption honestly just tops it off lmfao this person clearly has NO IDEA what they’re talking about.

as someone who’s been (unwilling) exposed to genuine zoo stuff… packers are not that. real zoophiles want to put their stuff in dogs not put a silicone shape (or even a damn stuffed sock) in their pants

and who the fuck even cares if someone has a little silicone thing in their pants? you’d only know if the person told you?

repeat this after me:

PACKERS. ARE. NOT. SEXUAL.

THEY. NEVER. HAVE.

THEY. NEVER. WILL.

it’s giving “oh so your ‘gender’ is this? well whats in your pants? because that’s what your ‘real gender’ is.”

it’s giving transphobes who want to have a peek in your pants. it’s giving transphobes who care entirely too much about whats in your pants.

as a trans man and a therian myself (who personally doesn’t wear a packer at all due to financial restrictions), it’s kind of just people trying to hide that they’re actually transphobic but what to hide it behind “but it’s an *animal* packer! gasp! that’s so clearly zoophilia (idek what that word means so im just throwing the word around so much it’ll lose its meaning soon)!”

anyway, oscar out

Normalize not sharing the specifics of your alterhuman identity. You DON’T need to share if your identity is voluntary or not. That doesn’t fucking matter. You are what you say you are. Full stop.

Do NOT reply to this saying that “copinglinkers will never understand what it’s like”. YOU don’t know what it’s like for them. Some of you assholes seem to think that ‘linkers are the same as kin-for-fun. They’re not.

‘Linkers aren’t appropriating your fucking terms. They just want to be seen as their fucking linktype, which is made difficult by the fact that voluntary identities aren’t taken seriously. Keep that in mind.

Anyway, there’s a lot more nuance to this situation than anyone seems to want to admit. The line between voluntary and involuntary identities isn’t as clear as we’re all pretending it to be.

Not forcibly sexualizing trans bodies includes not sexualizing packers against the users will

Do I think it's disgusting to sexualize others dysphoria against their will?

Yes

Do I think it's fine for people to alleviate bottom dysphoria with packers?

Yes

Why does it suddenly change when specie's dysphoria is included

Told someone "I don't like it when people sexualize bottom dysphoria against others will" and bro really said "okay but do you support animal packers"

BRO

DID I OR DID I NOT SAY "don't sexualize others dysphoria against their will"

CAUSE I THINK I FUCKING SAID I HATE THAT

And that's literally THE ONLY reason people are against packers like that

I think there's something that hasn't been noticed when I comes to the "animal packer" situation

The person at the center of this is 17, turning 18 sometime this December

They still live with their family, they still go to school.

They have been put in danger after their home and school being doxxed

The way I heard about this is hearing that "someone was marketing this to minors!", I already felt iffy because the way it was said was sexualizing dysphoria, but it got worse when realizing WHY it was probably seen or "marketed" to minors!

CAUSE THE KID WAS A MINOR

It wouldn't matter if it was posted by an adult, I would still be angry, but I'm angrier because of how much danger has been put on a teen

How does this affect their school life? Are they going to be majorly bullied now? What's their family going to do or say to them?

Not only has it put them in danger, it's put just regular trans minors in danger, considering how many people are making it seem like bottom dysphoria or packers are a 100% sexual thing, which the ENTIRE trans community has spent fucking forevers trying to disprove! And it's even more dangerous to have this happen now!

When trans lives are in danger, and a teen is at the center of an entire platform harassment campaign this is possibly the worst way TikTok leaves off

I'm gonna be happy when it finally disappears, but this last bang will do damage, and I feel like it already has