WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP

There are a lot of people who feel a connection to an animal without identifying as it and still use the label “therian” on themselves bc of misinformation (ending up spreading even more).

I’ve recently saw a post on Pinterest about the differences between a furry, a therian and an otherpaw and it was clearly saying that therians identify as animals. However, the comment section was full of comments like “I’m a therian, but I don’t identify as an animal, I just feel a connection to it”.

Because everyone it’s always “differences between a furry, a therian, an otherpaw and a clinical lycan/zoanthrope” and I don’t often see otherhearted among these ones, which is not good.

I think the otherhearted experience is more common than the therian one and so it needs to be recognised, so people can find the right label for themselves.

and let's not diminish otherheartedness while we're at it. Too many people correct these folk by saying stuff like "you're not therian, you're just otherhearted!" as if it was a lesser identity instead of what it is: a different one

American alligator sponsored by a bsky user!

I love crouching down and sliding through the water, holding onto rocks and pushing myself forward

A friend of mine once told me they were astonished over how ""fast"" I was able to crawl, and other people got confused by how I was able to swim in water that barley reaches up to my ankles

I guess it's because I've swam in that river ever since I was a baby so I just learned how to navigate it? But it's nice, thinking "nono trust it's TOTALLY cause I'm a crocodile!!!"

Botanical [ 8 colors ]

I love existing in a place I know I belong. I love sharing my affection for and interest in my hearttypes.

I love looking at pictures and going "yes that's me", "yes that's my home" , "yes that's what surrounds me".

I got to the end of the chapter yesterday, and I’m still feeling as somber as Brusatte about what became of dodo birds. It really irks me that colonialism was the main contributor to their extinction, then learning that Western scholars tried to disprove the existence of dodo birds for a while.

I can see how massive oversight was a factor, at least in context to the event of their extinction. Expecting colonizers to recognize how harmful their behavior was is like expecting money to grow on trees. Extinction wasn’t a thought that passed their mind as they documented how delicious the bird was and how many of them they hunted. They also had sailors and a menagerie of mammals (mainly dogs) to feed, a class of animals that dodo birds were not yet exposed to. So again, these results aren’t surprising. With the exception of the colonizer(s) themselves, all life is treated as expendable in the act of colonization.

It’s believed that when it was discovered it was already endangered due to the climate changing what from it what evolved in but Russian fur traders exploiting the natural resources in the area sealed its fate. They were specifically targeted for their blubber and these hunters bragged about how easy they were to hunt because they lived in the shallows, were physically unable to submerge, and moved very slowly. After they killed one its mate or family would remain nearby making them easy targets as well. The fur traders also targeted sea otters and as the otter population declined the urchin population grew and decimated the kelp the sea cows lived on.

Given that the species was already struggling there’s no guarantee that if it had been left alone it would still be around today but the fact that it took less than 3 decades of hunting to completely eliminate a species that had lived there for millions of years is a tragedy. I’m so sorry beautiful beasts, you truly were stellar.

collect my pages boy