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Welcome to the seal tattoo gang

i made the tattoo design!!! What do y'all think about it? :3

edit: guys that's a tattoo I'm getting!! please don't tattoo it yourself since it has a really big meaning to me and my childhood, it symbolizes the few good parts from my childhood (there weren't many) and i wouldn't like you getting it!! you can dm me and i can make a similar design for you for free!

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hitting you with your regularly scheduled silly post from your local seal.

I've said it here before, but I'm in university for criminal justice. I study forensic science and psychology. and I think it would be really funny if I took this all the way and tried for something like the FBI. They have summer internships that I can apply for through my school, which could lead to an actual FBI job at some point after I graduate.

IMAGINE. A HARBOR SEAL. AN ACTUAL FUCKING SEA CRITTER. WORKING FOR THE FBI. I have a golden opportunity to do the funniest shit ever.

granted the fbi for sure deep dives on all their applicants so they'd probably find this blog which would immediately nuke my chances BUT. IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY. maybe if I get good enough at forensics they'll ignore the part where I'm physically a seal and let me in anyway.

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I'm a dark brown harbor seal, my face and flippers are darker than the rest of my body. I have white around my eyes and mostly white spotting, though I have some spots that are slightly darker than my body. It's not shown in my drawing, but I have more spotting on my underbelly than on my back. I'd say I'm maybe slightly smaller than the average harbor seal, I don't think it's a huge difference but it's visible.

THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT I LOOK LIKE. I've been sitting on this idea of drawing a self portrait for a while, and these prompts were a great excuse to do it. It's not exact, but this is pretty close to what my real body looks like. Sometimes when I'm swimming I can almost see it.

15 nonhuman writing prompts!

here are some nonhuman writing prompts i came up with that hopefully will encourage you to be introspective and deeply think about yourself and your relation to the world. i find that some lists of prompts don't inspire me to write much, so i hope you find at least one useful prompt here!

What do you look like? Have you always looked like this? Describe in as much detail as possible. Draw a picture if you'd like.

Where (habitat, planet, etc.) do you come from? Draw a picture or map if you’d like.

What makes you most sad about your experience? The happiest?

Would you change anything about your species (its behavior, appearance, etc.)?

What is something you think is under discussed about your species? Over discussed?

How has being your species helped you grow in your understanding of self?

Are you spiritual and is it related to being your species? Are you spiritual unrelated to being your species?

How has being your species informed your relationships (familial, platonic, etc.) with others? Has it been beneficial? Detrimental? A secret third thing?

Does being your species impact how you feel, show, or receive love?

What is something you would tell another member of your species about living amongst humans?

How do you view technology? Is it helpful to your life as your species? Is it destructive? Is it complicated?

What risks are you willing and unwilling to take when it comes to being yourself? What risks do you already undertake willingly or unwillingly?

Write about your ideal day as your species. What would you do? Where would you go? Immerse yourself.

Write from the perspective of someone else studying your species. What would they notice? How would they correctly or incorrectly interpret you?

Write a love letter to yourself or species. We all benefit from a boost in self esteem.

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Just found out one of the names for a group of seals is a bob. Will be inviting my one human into my bob of seals. Honorary seal friend!

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HOLD ON GIMMIE LIKE 1 TO 3 BUSINESS DAYS I’LL BE BACK

15 nonhuman writing prompts!

here are some nonhuman writing prompts i came up with that hopefully will encourage you to be introspective and deeply think about yourself and your relation to the world. i find that some lists of prompts don't inspire me to write much, so i hope you find at least one useful prompt here!

What do you look like? Have you always looked like this? Describe in as much detail as possible. Draw a picture if you'd like.

Where (habitat, planet, etc.) do you come from? Draw a picture or map if you’d like.

What makes you most sad about your experience? The happiest?

Would you change anything about your species (its behavior, appearance, etc.)?

What is something you think is under discussed about your species? Over discussed?

How has being your species helped you grow in your understanding of self?

Are you spiritual and is it related to being your species? Are you spiritual unrelated to being your species?

How has being your species informed your relationships (familial, platonic, etc.) with others? Has it been beneficial? Detrimental? A secret third thing?

Does being your species impact how you feel, show, or receive love?

What is something you would tell another member of your species about living amongst humans?

How do you view technology? Is it helpful to your life as your species? Is it destructive? Is it complicated?

What risks are you willing and unwilling to take when it comes to being yourself? What risks do you already undertake willingly or unwillingly?

Write about your ideal day as your species. What would you do? Where would you go? Immerse yourself.

Write from the perspective of someone else studying your species. What would they notice? How would they correctly or incorrectly interpret you?

Write a love letter to yourself or species. We all benefit from a boost in self esteem.

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if you see me in an all consuming relationship with a body of water, do NOT save me. I'm exactly where I want to be

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"hey man just be yourself"

yeah man no problem let me just

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Reflecting on my "theriotypes"

There's a TL;DR at the bottom for those who don't want to deal with my walls of text. I get it.

I think my “shallowest” type is probably my dhole and german shorthair pointer types. I think a lot of my “canine” behaviors come from being a seal. Seals have a lot of things in common with dogs, there’s a reason they’re commonly referred to as “sea puppies”. I’ve been seriously considering dropping the canine labels all together, but I’m going to think on it for a while before making any definitive decisions.

My seagull identity isn’t as shallow as my canine identities, but it isn’t the same as my seal identity. I don’t physically identify as a seagull, but I still think of myself as one often. I’m not really sure where my seagull-ness falls, but it’s not something I plan on dropping or letting go of. Calling myself a seagull feels right, I just don’t know what that rightness really is yet. We’re working on it.

The real nitty gritty comes from my seal identity. This one is complicated.

I haven’t said it out loud, haven’t written it down, haven’t admitted it to myself before this. But I physically am a harbor seal. This is something I’ve been grappling with for months, fighting with myself over this simple fact. I’ve felt a lot of fear over this, a lot of conflict. It feels like I’m arguing with a second person when I think about it. In my heart I know I’m a seal, but my “human logic” keeps yelling and screaming that it’s not possible. It shouts and screams that if I got genetically tested it’d come back human. That this human suit is my “true” body, that it’s never been anything else.

The best comparison I can draw here is to gaslighting. It feels like I’m gaslighting myself. I know I’m a seal, but there’s this tiny voice in my head that says that’s impossible. It’s been a fight to wrap my head around myself and what I am. That’s part of why I’m journalling and posting my thoughts on Tumblr.

What I’ve figured out is that I am a harbor seal. I might not be the right shape right now, but I firmly believe that at some point before I was. I’m not sure what happened that ended with me stuck in this human suit, but it happened. And before it happened I was physically a harbor seal. This wasn’t a past life, or some psychological fluke. I was a harbor seal in this life, then something forced me into this shape. On a biological level I am still a harbor seal, it's just masked by a human trick.

I’ve wondered if I was a captive or wild seal before I was taken and twisted into this shape. I don’t think I was a mature seal when I was turned into this thing. I’ve had nightmares about being twisted into this vile creature, of drowning in cold water with hands holding me down and blinding lights shining in my eyes. It’s all been confusing and distressing, and I’m still trying to figure it out. I’ll continue sharing bits and pieces of my journalling to understand myself, both to hear from others with similar experiences to my own and to help shine a light on the atypical alterhuman experiences.

One day I hope to live as a seal again. I haven’t figured out how to achieve this yet, but I’m willing to dedicate the rest of my life to figuring it out.

I've considered dropping the term therian all together, since I don't feel it fits what I experience as a seal. Not sure about it yet.

I'd love to hear from those of you who have similar experiences or struggles.

TL;DR- I am physically a harbor seal that's been forced into the wrong shape, regardless of what anyone tells me. On some level I still identify as a seagull, I will not be dropping this identity. Seriously considering dropping canine types, I think it was misinterpreted seal behaviors. Considering dropping the term therian.

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Not human, don't think I ever was

this is a vent post. tbh I don't know what warnings to slap on here to read at your own risk.

Finding the online therian community has been a blessing for me. But in some ways, it’s also been a curse. The time I’ve spent in the online therian community has taught me so much. Accurate information is much easier to find than when I was younger, and there is an active online presence of other therians to meet and talk with. I’ve been able to connect with other therians and read about their experiences. But this has also taught me what could be considered the “typical therian experience”. I’m beginning to wonder if I fit that experience.

While I’ve gotten knowledge and connection from the online therian community, I’ve also gotten feelings of isolation. Of being lost and alone. The more I learn about myself, the less I feel I truly know.

I don’t know what I am. I don’t know why I’m trapped in this body.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

All my life, I’ve felt like my skin isn’t my own. Like it’s some kind of restraint or straight jacket keeping me trapped. Like if I could just peel if off, rip it away, I’d find my real body underneath. There are day’s I can’t stand the sight of “myself” because it isn’t me.

This is supposed to be reality, but every day it feels more and more like some kind of sick nightmare.

There are days where I can’t stomach human food without being violently ill. Where I feel like if I can’t get out of this ill-fitting human suit I’ll explode. The need to sink my claws in and tear myself free is overwhelming. On those days I try to go to the water. When I’m alone, floating with my eyes closed, I can almost feel it. My body. My fur and flippers, my stiff whiskers, my blubber. But eventually, inevitably, I’m forced to open my eyes and accept this reality.

But I know it’s not the truth. This body isn’t mine, this fleshy human shape. I don’t know how I ended up this way, but sometimes I wonder how much longer I can bare being trapped this way.

If I could pull away this human suit, this cruel façade, maybe I’d finally find my true body underneath it all. Whatever force twisted me into this shape left behind too much, because I remember. I remember enough to know this isn’t who I am, or what I’m supposed to be. I’m a harbor seal. Even if I don’t look like it on the outside, even if I don’t look like it now, that’s what I am. And one day I will find a way back.

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I’ve reached my target demographic

Check out this sick ass bug I found in the woods

M O T H

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Your post on AI has actually inspired me to write an essay on the topic for a school assignment (if I find one that I haven’t decided a topic on already at least). Do you mind if I use that post as a reference? If so do you want me to credit it a certain way? I’m asking this on anon so my classmates can’t find my tumblr lol

Glad I’m not the only one on an anti ai crusade XD

You can absolutely site my post for your paper! You can just credit it to my tumblr. I’d love to read your paper when it’s finished!

I’m an absolute nerd for academic papers tbh y’all should see my browser bookmarks

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Check out this sick ass bug I found in the woods

M O T H

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Part of the reason I'm so adamant about encouraging people to get comfortable with bugs, my own interests aside, is because we cannot have a bright, solarpunk future without them.

A green future is not a bugless future. It is, in fact, a fairly bugful future. If you care about ecological stability, then you need to start with bugs, because they're the most at risk with our current use of pesticides.

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hey what's that smell?

*sniffs you sniffs you sniffs you*

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Outwardly "Human", Inwardly Seal

I was today years old when I realized not every therian considers themselves not physically human. While I've known I'm a therian for years, I'm still fairly new to therian online spaces and all the different terms and distinctions within the community. I didn't realize until the last few days that what I experience may not be considered "the standard therian experience".

I've never thought of myself as human. My parents have stories they tell of when I was young. That I demanded my parents understand that I wasn't human. That I loved them and they would always be my parents, but that something was wrong and I wasn't supposed to be this fleshy, bipedal creature everyone said I was. They tell these stories as silly anecdotes now, of how their oldest had one of those "phases" children seem to have when they're still growing. As a child I was obsessed with water and swimming, at one point my parents enrolled me in swim lessons just to get me out of the house so I'd stop begging to go swim. They got an inflatable pool for our yard, and still talk about how I'd spend hours swimming in circles until they made me come inside to eat and do schoolwork.

These are things I have since "grown out of" according to my parents and family. Now I'm a perfectly normal adult. One who doesn't say they aren't human and begs to swim for "just five more minutes".

Except I still don't think of myself as human. When I look in the mirror I know a human face is looking back at me, but it's not my face. The human body I live in isn't my body. I know that when humans look at me they see another human, but that's not what I am. I was never supposed to be born in this shape, in this body. I don't know how I ended up this way, but I don't want to stay. I am not human, I've just been twisted to look like one.

Through online therian spaces, I've learned this isn't considered a normal experience. That physically being an animal isn't "the norm". I don't know what any of it means. Just that something is very wrong. And that this wrongness isn't something that every therian feels.

I was born in a human shape. But I am not human. I am a harbor seal. That is what I was always meant to be.

These hands are not mine, this skin is not mine. These flat teeth are not mine. This is not my body. I do not have a human heart, or human mind. I simply wear a suit of flesh designed to hide what I really am. A suit I do not wear out of choice. A suit I fear I will never be free of.

I don't know what I am, except trapped.

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Orca action month is NOW! Help save the Southern Resident Killer Whales!

Donate a minimum of $5 to the Orca Conservancy for a YCH!!

The YCH:

Reblog and dm me with proof of donation (Show me you got an email receipt for donating, and the amount of money paid) and your oc/sona/theriotype or a real whale of your choosing! If you donate $10 or more, I may make you a little something extra!

Even if you aren't donating, PLEASE REBLOG!!

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I was going to make a long-detailed essay about the discourse, but honestly, I really am just so tired of it all. I am tired of us being a source of discussion and debate. I am tired of everyone and anyone needing to have a “take” on our existence and our community even if they never post in our tags otherwise. I do not want to turn this into discourse and just vent my experiences which is why it has no title or word count.

My experience with therianthropy has been a really quite isolated one. I have clinical zoanthropy, and because of that I was never really welcomed into normal therian spaces, more of a tolerated interloper so long as I understood that my experience was not real in the same way theirs was and I did all the double bookkeeping and other dances they demanded.

Therianthropy is a pretty wide range of experiences, though the acceptable range is often quite narrow. I was often told that therians are a sort of Human+, and while that leaves room for plenty of people, it also excludes very many. There are those of use whose experiences are much less human with an animal soul or of psychological reasons but is far more visceral and literal.

When I came to tumblr I was not expecting to find others like me, it was mostly a way for me to log my process on constructing this whale suit. But I did find others like me. If you have not been so horrendously isolated and rejected by what is supposed to be your own community, it is hard to explain how freeing and comforting it is to find others and community. I imagine to some extent; a lot of therians can relate to this being rejected from wider society and finding therian spaces.

However, since then, I am feeling more and more pushed out of the spaces we curated for ourselves. It has happened with physical nonhuman, it has happened with holothere (not that I personally connected to that term), people have in the past at least appeared to appropriate zoanthrope and clinical zoanthrope, and it is happening now with transspecies. Most of the people using physical nonhuman even six months ago were talking about visceral physical experiences, but now much of the tag and much of the discussion is focused purely on this philosophical notion of ‘I identify as [X], therefore I am [X], therefore my body is that of [X]’.

This has happened for a lot of terms and subcommunities. Therians seem to have this overly entitled attitude and demanding constantly to be included in communities and practices and that they cater to them. Although this discussion is on how therians appropriate terms and take over spaces, this sense of entitlement extends beyond them to continued use of slurs towards intersex people to describe their type or the use of a spirit-creature from a number of northern American indigenous cultures despite both those groups asking repeatedly for people to stop. It also extends to the creation and demand of the use of the term alterhuman, or even of the term therian itself demanding others submit to those terms even if at the same time making them unwelcome.

There is this attempt of overinclusion to make sure that anyone can feel represented by a term. Physical nonhuman has gone from having a wide range of meanings to being dominated entirely by the philosophical argument. Even as we can celebrate physical nonhumans being more accepted in the community, looking beyond a surface level still shows the same biases. People with “delusions” that is that our animality is literal and not of metaphor were pushed out of the community – it is hardly a month since discussions of a zoanthrope exodus were filling our tags. Similar has happened with the term holothere. There was even a thing recently of methylation as figurative.

This is happening again with transspecies. The tag even a month ago focused far more on physical experiences and processes or plans to transition (at least for the parts that weren’t porn bots or radqueer tagspam). There was a trend recently of species transition plans. At first it was cool to see different ideas people had, but it very quickly turned into consumption and shopping lists. Since then, the tag has been different – less physical and more metaphor and I and others are starting to feel pushed out of our community again.

[Therians,] Not every term has to be for you. Not every community has to cater to you. Not every space has to include you or your experience. In these sorts of spaces, therians, you -are- the hegemonic power. You find a new term, appropriate it, and effectively colonise the community, demand definitions change to meet you, and then throw ablism back at us until we feel we have to leave.

It is not wrong for us to want our own communities and spaces to discuss our experiences that are unique to us. My experience as a zoanthrope and as someone who is transspecies is not something I can simply take off. My struggle to properly interact and imitate human behaviour. My crutches and gait from a body that does not fully understand what legs are cannot be taken off. The gloves I cover my hands in so I do not see my human skin are something I can literally remove, but metaphorically I cannot when I do literally remove my gloves (either because of heat or need for function) I need to be careful not to look at my hands where I would see the human flesh (though this has improved over the past year). My schizophrenia which the humans use to explain how I experience the world is not something I can take off. It defines how I exist, how I interact with the humans around me, what care I can receive, and even what opportunities I have. This in particular also affects how and where I can interact with the therian community and how they in turn treat me. There is nothing metaphorical about my experiences, and my hopes to return to the water are very literal.

The reality for myself and others is that we cannot relate as fully to others whose identity is less literal. I am very glad for the people I have met here in particular Sonar and Sigr, I am glad to no longer be alone. Still as I look at the feed and my tags, I am watching as my community is again taken over. I am reminded over and over that to many therians we will never really be equal or welcome and we will never have our spaces. They will constantly be taken over as therians seek terms they think will make their experience sound more “real” or unique or special while further subjugating marginalised sections of their own community.

I am watching seemingly in real time spaces that were once special for me and welcoming to those like me be taken over and destroyed. The freedom and community I once felt is being destroyed by entitled therians demanding every space. And I am left now feeling once again isolated on here except for my kind friends in the personal messages.

With how things are going this is really only going to end one way. Eventually our communities will go from semi-open and public, to private and closed. We will have to secure ourselves and our communities to be allowed to exist as anything beyond lunatics and delusional. We will also likely need to bring back the harsh grilling people used to experience so the people that join our communities are genuine and will not try to appropriate and dominate our spaces. And unfortunately, this means that inevitably, people will be hurt. Some will be hurt in the way I was - a crushing isolation and understanding you are not really welcome anywhere and unable to find others like yourself. And others will be hurt by bad actors who use the new situation for power and control as people commonly reference with P-shifters. If things continue as they do, this -is- an inevitable outcome. We have already been forced out of many tags, and others have sustained harassment and have left the site, some forums have even already started to be made, there are discussions of making a new term though that seems only a temporary measure until that too is taken from us. Just let us alone.