Dino

(Will be edited whenever)

Hi! I’m Dino (short for dinoflagellate, but if you like dinosaurs then that too!), and I’m a leopard seal. Or to be more specific, a Selkie. I’m a Selkie stuck in my human form, and I’m searching for my sealskin. I’m think I’m also every other pinniped species and everything to do with the ocean itself all at once, but it’s all embodied into one tiny leopard seal-shaped vessel. I use any pronouns, and I don’t mind if you refer to me as human or not. I’ll occasionally use seal terms for myself (flipper, snout, whiskers, blubber, etc.) when I feel like it.

I’m a HUGE seal nerd. I love all pinniped species, but I'm biased towards true (earless) seals. I also really love anything marine/aquatic related—and Selkies of course, everything to do with them! Like I cannot overstate this enough I LOVE seals and Selkies.

This account is used for talking about my experiences and feelings as a leopard seal Selkie, posting and reposting seal/ocean related creations I like or that I’ve made, and general marine things. If your account is about that too, I’ll follow you, but please don’t take it personally if I unfollow. It’s just me curating what I want to see, which is stuff related to this account.

Being chronically ill, I will also sometimes post about that and how it affects my identity, but it won’t be very often. It will however sometimes be very graphic, but it’s not my job to sanitise my own suffering for you, so if you don’t want to see it, press not interested and move on.

I will block freely if anything about your account or your views make me uncomfortable. I won’t interact with any drama because i’m only here to talk about my feelings. I’m very fond of answering questions in as much detail as you ask for.

Listed below are resources for various seal/Selkie related things. The list will be edited and updated as I find more things/am bothered to make it neater, but for now it’s just pretty basic.

RESOURCES: Selkie playlist on youtube music The Turning (Selkie book by Emily Whitman) Research article about ringed seals (with links to other research articles) Official info about the seals at Tokkari center (will need to translate) Plain Jane and the Mermaid comic (the website has a lot of ads, the comic features Selkies) Weddell seal science (so many research articles about them! Awesome!!) Some cool info about spotted seals Leopard seal sounds! Leopard seal study Differentiating various NZ pinniped species Leopard seals in NZ and everything to know about them How seals (and other marine mammals) sleep Basic leopard seal info Thesis about evaluating leopard seal body condition Link to many articles about leopard seals (you will have to access most/all with an organisation such as a university, or email the authors and ask for the full articles. It works!) Baltic ringed seal foundation A LOT of info for the ringed seal and it’s sister species/subspecies How leopard seal bodies are adapted to their habitat Beautifully written short story about love and Selkies Some more stuff about weddell seals (funny little article, very endearing)

Swim free swim forever🦭🌊💜

i long for the sea but i long for the moon just as much. I want to be consumed by it all, lunar cold tides with the shifting phases like salt waves. I want to be bathed in her light forever. I want to feel the salt seep into my skin and the moonlight seal it in like a tattoo of my worship. It’s never enough, i want to bleed and watch the blood in the moonlight. I want my insides to be shown to the pale glow. I want to swallow it all and feel it from within. Love is consumption to me, love is hunger, to love is to eat and to eat your love is to be adored. I want to be split open beneath the light, i want to be spread out until every part of me is bathed in it, kissed by it.

because of my chronic pain and illness, i get flareups regularly which means i’m knocked out for most if not an entire day at a time. I tend to lie down in bed a lot because it’s the position that makes me feel the least bad, and i often nap when i’m comfortable or exhausted enough to. I don’t move around much at the moment except for when i feel well enough to go on walks to the beach, and while swimming is good for me in the warmer months, it’s not exactly viable currently.

all in all, i live a very sedentary lifestyle. This makes me ashamed and sad most of the time because i know how bad it is for my body and i want to achieve more, but i’m physically unable to. Yet at the same time, i feel pretty happy about it. Seals obviously spend a big chunk of their lives lounging around and sleeping to conserve energy for when they hunt, and oftentimes i can’t help but think i am the way that i am because of that. Lying down and/or napping genuinely does make me feel better too.

when the water starts to warm again, i’ll definitely be making up for all the resting by swimming for hours every day!