Chirp! Bark! Hey!
Funny plural system made of a murder chicken, a murder dog, and just some guy talk about their life.
Funny plural system made of a murder chicken, a murder dog, and just some guy talk about their life.
Written by Max Biscuit-Machina on December 4th, 2024.
I have theriotype-affirming gear, wereside-affirming gear, and it's even a mask - but it's not a painted and crafted animal mask made to resemble the face of my theriotype. I think those are really neat, from what I've seen on TikTok and other more visual platforms, and the creativity is wonderful! It's just not the same thing as what I've ended up doing - so I thought I'd talk about what I do for species affirmation, to add another voice to the conversation!
See, I'm a velociraptor - and I also talk to my raptorbrain. Wei're a median system, where it spends its time happily as the nonhuman animal part of me. When I'm doing my day-to-day human activities, it dips out of talking to me or interacting with the world around me, because, frankly, it gets bored - it's a nonsapient animal with approximately the worldly comprehension of a cat, which means it doesn't understand things like maths or biochemistry or writing. It would much rather eat a lizard.
In fact, it would rather eat a lizard so bad that it perks back up to shift and chitter and want to stalk-and-hunt when we're outside walking and it sees something that looks like food, like a squirrel or a perching bird or someone's small dog on a leash. And it doesn't like when wei're being annoyed by somebody else, except it would rather not use words and instead growl, hiss, or snap its jaws threateningly in their direction.
This is where the therian gear comes in: single-use disposable face masks. Seriously. That's it.
I wear a face mask for many reasons - avoiding airborne disease if I'm not sick, not passing on a disease if I am sick, warming my nose and air in the cold weather, hiding any embarrassing expressions from strangers, and my private species affirmation.
I wear a face mask because, hilariously enough, it does feel like the closest thing we have to a muzzle made for human jaws - like any well-fitted muzzle, it doesn't restrict breathing or speech, but it does provide a barrier over the mouth. It prevents me from putting anything directly into my jaws, unless I pull it off with my hands.
This feels species-affirming to me, in that I'm both the animal and its keeper. Having a mask on reminds me that I'm an animal, which affirms my nonhumanity, and reminds my raptorside that it's an animal in public, which means it has to be polite and can't go around snapping at annoying people or trying to hunt small animals. It reminds me that I'm the handler, which affirms my humanity, and reminds me that I'm practicing my personal sort of responsible animal management, which means keeping it under control in public so it doesn't growl or snap in a way that negatively disrupts muir lives. Wei take the mask off at home, and can chirp and hiss and make muir odd raptor noises as much as wei want indoors.
As species affirming gear goes, this is completely mundane. I'm not doing anything that makes me stand out, or makes me look outwardly nonhuman, or requires any artistic effort on my end - but it doesn't have to involve any of that. I feel fulfilled in my self as a human animal and as a nonhuman animal, just by wearing a disposable mask. Gear doesn't need to fit any sort of mold; it can be anything you wear that affirms what you are, no matter how odd or small it might seem!