Valentine

𓆝 𓆟 I believe in a universe that doesn’t care, and people who do 𓆝 𓆟 They/It ᵥ ^ · ───+─ ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ─+─── ·^ ᵥ 𓃥 21 ✦ were’ ✦ furry ✦ ΘΔ&∞𓃦

[no-endlings]

˖°𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧.

Welcome to the Wetlands

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣.𖡼°˖

🐞 Disclaimer: this blog will contain tagged mentions of kink, substances, and other mature topics, enter at your own risk <3

The Basics 🌙🌿

☆ | Name: Valentine

⊹ | Pronouns: They/It

☆ | Gender: Genderqueer

⊹ | Age: 21

☆ | ‘Types:

Red Wolf

Werewolf

Equine (Przewalskis? Unicorn?)

Who am I? 🌏🔬

I am a southern Were’ focused on getting outside, building local community, and advocating for the underdogs of the world. I am very passionate about the conservation of red wolves and other endangered species. Here to have fun, motivate others, and share a slice of my life living as a Were! I really look up to the greymuzzles & history of our community, and I always love to learn new things.

Interests 🌱🎞️

Some of my main interests/hobbies include but are not limited to …

Furry Fandom

Digital Art ⤴︎ (dabbles in 3d modeling)

Fiber Arts (sewing, embroidery, altering, patch making, general diy stuff)

Oddity and Antique Collecting

Reptile/Exotics Keeping (esp. snakes!)

Wildlife Conservation

Thru-Hiking / Camping

Houseplants & Gardening

Dog Training / Ethical Breeding

Pet Play / Primal Play / Overall BDSM Community <3

Internet Archiving / ALT-H History

My Boxes 📦📓

Other misc groups I fall into …

Disabled (H-EDS, POTS, occasional cane user)

Neurodivergent

Therian / ALT-H

Trans / LGBTQ+

Ace-Spec

Atheistic

Plural

Soft Dom

Polyamorous

🍃🍄🥃 User

Blue Collar Worker

Boundaries & Interactions 📌💌

I am a fairly open book and do my best to use the most up to date information available, my dms and askbox are always open to anyone in good faith who wants to chat or ask questions (although I am a very busy wolf & can’t always reply in a timely manner).

I do not have a DNI and really avoid discourse wherever possible. I stand alongside POC, Disabled, Mentally Ill, Plus Sized, and any other minority individuals & will uplift their voices before inputting my own.

This is the only social media you’ll find me on, but you can message me if you’d like my discord or artfight. I will also be attending Anthrocon 2026!

With that all being said-

welcome to my blog!!

[radicalmedusa]

on female werewolves

Howling (and Bleeding) at the Moon: Menstruation, Monstrosity and the Double in the Ginger Snaps Werewolf Trilogy

“HAIRY THUGGISH WOMEN” FEMALE WEREWOLVES, GENDER, AND THE HOPED-FOR MONSTER

Why Are There No Great Female Werewolves?

The Tyranny Of Sexy: Female Werewolves In Pop Culture

The Problem With Female Werewolves

She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves

the female werewolf and her shaggy suffragette sisters

The Girlie Werewolf Hall of Fame

Girlie Shape-Shifters with Five O'Clock Shadows: Surveying Representations of She Wolves, Wolf Girls and Female Werewolves in Printmaking and the Visual Arts

Wolf girls and hirsute heroines: Fur, hair and the feminine

Beware the Full Moon: female werewolves and ‘that time of the month

One Wolf Girl Battles Against All Mankind: The New Breed of Female Werewolf as Eco-warrrior in Contemporary Film and Fiction

Female Werewolves and Boobs [it’s about a short story called boobs, not actual boobs] / Boobs [the short story]

CINEMA’S BLACK WOMEN WEREWOLVES

Reading the Feral Woman: Female Werewolves and Liminality in Fantasy Fiction

[romeovanity]

Slumber

[no-endlings]

Big news critters,,, 👀

Not sure exactly what route I’m planning on taking yet, but I’ve been considering going on T for awhile now. In the meantime if anyone has any recommendations or information I’d love to hear.

[two-facedgod]

sanctuary (a two-faced god production)

Maybe I'm crazy (and I am!) but a thought struck me as I was on my afternoon walk - when you find your true kintype(s), you will know. It will feel different. It will feel like... like your soul completely embodies it, like you fit in every nook and cranny of it. You won't have to try to make the pieces fit. You will never feel like you've gotta take a knife to your soul and excise all the parts that don't match.

I'm not saying you won't have questions - you should question it! And I'm not saying you're not going to have your doubts. Doubts only mean that you're actively testing your reality, and that's a healthy behavior.

What I'm saying is that, when you find the right one, you won't have to try to fit into a box. You'll just be you. You'll just be whole - as whole as one can be in this broken world.

[neighhhh]

PSA to always groom/preen yourself for ticks after you've been in a forest/grassy area, especially if deer live around there!! they can transmit Lyme disease, which can result in some serious long-term health issues if not treated efficiently.

they can hide under fur and feathers and wedge between scales, and they tend to like crevices on the body. stay safe everyone!!

[no-endlings]

Gotta help a fellow critter out

[no-endlings]

Idk how the younger folks do it, I’m always so shy about being on camera =x=;>

shaking the pesky mosquitos out of my fur 🫯

[no-endlings]

Come explore the bog with me 🌿

(Sound up!!)

[no-endlings]

Saw an angel in the wetlands today

(White Egret)

[no-endlings]

Had an opportunity to adventure today and took it … pictures coming soon :p

[no-endlings]

I really wish there was more longform video content/podcasts on therianthropy/alterhumanity as a whole, especially coming from adults/older members- I guess I’m just used to being spoiled growing up in the golden era of furry YouTube >x>

Anyone have good recommendations for longer therian content?

[ecotherian]

My Journey With Gear

— ↟𖠰˚☀︎ᨒ↟𖠰 —

Really quickly I’m going to define gear for those who don’t know too much about it. Gear in the therian community is defined as anything that can aid an individual in connecting/expressing with their nonhuman identity. It does not need to be wearable.

With that out of the way- let’s get into the gist of this post!

— ↟𖠰˚☀︎ᨒ↟𖠰 —

My journey with gear has been a very long and complicated one. I’ve always been fascinated and enamored by gear, and it already incorporated pretty well into my fashion sense. So it just made sense to me to wear it. I bought a theta delta necklace back in 2019 (which is the one I still wear to this day), and never looked back.

However, back then, gear was just on the rise. So for a creator to succeed, to stand out, they had to have it. It made me turn more towards gear and using it as a crutch rather than expression. I felt obligated to wear gear when I was presenting myself as a therian. So I bought masks and tails hoping that I’d feel better about myself from that. But turns out I didn’t.

I started to somewhat resent “traditional” therian gear. I sold the masks I had bought and worn as well as a lot of my tails because I felt it didn’t actually represent me; that I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t. Which in reality, at that time, I was. So I started to wear less and less, and felt myself using different kinds of gear (and other ways) to express myself. I got permanent gear (tattoos). I only wore my necklace and a few of my tails. I felt such a disconnect from the community and in turn my identity because of this. Because the community was/is so focused on gear, I felt I didn’t belong. So I distanced myself.

In that time I did more introspective work into my identities. I firmly believe that this time offline and away from the community helped me become my true and best self. It made me more confident and know who I truly am. I will ALWAYS push for having time to yourself offline as to not be influenced by outside perspectives. Get to know yourself without the aid of others.

Over my time of being offline I had started to incorporate gear into my expression again. Mostly tails, keychains, and jewelry. I stayed being more true to myself and my expression everywhere, not just in the comfort of my own home. I became more confident and happier knowing that I was still me, whether I wore/had gear or not.

And that brings us to now. I’m much more comfortable with my identities and expression of them. With that, I’m able to understand how to express myself more through gear. Do what’s comfortable for me and not care what others think. I don’t wear gear 24/7 (besides my permanent gear) but that still makes me as much as a therian as when I do wear gear. The reason a lot of therians and myself wear gear is to feel more comfortable with themselves in these bodies that are inherently not true to ourselves. But some therians don’t want to wear gear, can’t, or don’t have any, and that is entirely okay. Not everyone will express themselves in the same way, but that’s doesn’t make them any less valid.

In a community so focused on appearances and gear, no one should feel forced by social media to express themselves in a way that’s not true to them. You don’t need gear to be a therian, it’s an identity, not an outfit or items. I think we forget that a lot.

My journey was a long and complicated one, and of course still ongoing. I recently got a mask after not thinking one would suit my expression. However, I adore seeing my true face looking back at me whenever I wear it. So I’m still learning new things about myself. We grow and change and with that, so does our expression and identity. It’s completely normal.

I hope this more personal experience was fun and interesting to read. I love talking about things like this and helping others on their journeys with my own. So I hope this did just that! I also hope all you creatures have been doing well, and as always, thank you for the continued support.

— ↟𖠰˚☀︎ᨒ↟𖠰 —

[no-endlings]

gah my body has been yearning for the woods again. anytime I spend too much time around people I just get this calling for a release.

Human life has unfortunately been taking the forefront of my responsibilities recently. I think I need to take more time to engage with my were’side and let loose a bit. 🌗

[vagabond-beast]

Am I a Therian? [A Greymuzzle's Insight]

"Am I a Therian?" you ask with a quizzical expression.

"I like bathing in the sun. I hate taking baths. I'm highly active at 3am," you explain, and so you conclude, "I must be a cat therian!"

Why?

Don't humans also like sitting in warm sunlight? Don't some humans hate the sensation of baths? Aren't some humans more active at night than at day?

Aren't those normal human behaviors?

"I like to howl, bark, and growl! I like to dig in the dirt and play tug-a-war!" you shout excitedly, and so you conclude, "I must be a dog therian!"

Why?

Don't humans also like to be vocal; shouting, hollering, and yelping? Don't some humans love digging in the dirt to see what's beneath? Do you not see the kids playing tug-a-war? Aren't those normal human behaviors?

"But..." you pause and you think. You finally state, "I feel a call to Nature. I feel at home among the trees, when my bare feet touch the Earth. I feel a pain in my heart when looking at my body, like it doesn't feel right. Surely that means I'm a Therian."

Why?

Aren't there humans who feel a call to Nature? Who live by themselves in the woods? Aren't there humans who also feel like something is missing with themselves?

Aren't those normal human behaviors?

"Then how do I know if I'm a Therian?"

Why... are you asking me?

You clearly know yourself better than I do. You have already given so many reasons as to why you must be a Therian, right? So why ask me what you are?

"Cause you're a Therian, too, aren't you?" you ask.

"I am," comes the answer.

"So then tell me," you urge with impatience. "Am I a Therian?"

"I can not tell you," comes another answer. "Because I do not know. I do not know your identity. I do not know what bristles beneath your skin or echoes in your heart."

There are no set rules to define someone who is a Therian. There is no checklist to go through to determine who is a Therian. There are no guidelines to follow under to know who is a Therian.

"Are you an animal?" comes the question. "Are you, in any sense or form, an animal?"

You pause. And you think.

You already know the answer.

"I am an animal."

Then congratulations.

You're a Therian.

[vagabond-beast]

Hi! Wolf here.

I’ve heard some rumors from the physical shifting community that p-shifters were “pushed away” from the otherkin community back in the 90s? Not sure if there’s any truth behind this though.

Hi there!

I can help shed some light on this, I think.

So the negativity I'm familiar with when it comes to 'p-shifters' is the stigma of actually physically shifting; as in restructuring ones DNA to take the shape of a real life wolf.

When I was active (2002-2015) it was a commonly agreed upon statement by the majority of the kin/therian community that although we were nonhuman, we were all still biologically human. As in our DNA would still show up as human if we got our blood tested. That was a fact that could not change. So it was also agreed upon that while some of us also felt shifts such as mental, aura, dream, etc.; physical shifting was something that just could not happen.

Yet, there would still be some people who claimed they could physically shift into a wolf (or x animal, etc.).

Now, I personally stayed clear of this topic. I was in communities/forums that quickly dismissed and banned the discussion of physical shifting simply because 1) there was no evidence and 2) it was no possible in this reality.

As I understand physical therians now, it's possible a small portion of 'p-shifters' back in the day might've been what you all recognize now. But back in the day, it wasn't easy to accept the idea because a lot who claimed to be a 'physical shifter' were saying it in the sense that they quite literally physically transformed. They would try to claim rituals to use or post How-To's and older therians knew how impressionable younger therians were, so it was quickly blocked out.

I don't necessarily think the community was trying to 'push out' or invalidate a type of therian. I think the fear came from misinformation and misleading/misguiding younger members of the community. People wanted to make sure that there weren't any disillusions when it came to therianthropy and that younger individuals weren't falsely mispresenting themselves as a therian because they heard that "therians can physically shapeshift, so I want to as well". Therianthropy wasn't *as* widely known as today and we were a community still trying to be established serious enough to be recognized as an identity. A lot of people still thought were were roleplaying, you know?

Even today, I still hold to the belief that a person, regardless of identifying as non-human, is still biologically human. I have accepted that about myself despite identifying as a wolf in every way I can. The hands I use to type are paws, the mouth I use to speak is a muzzle with sharp canines, etc. Acknowledging that I am, in this reality, a human doesn't make me any less of a wolf. But it's something integrated into from before, information passed down from older therians when I first entered the community.

A lot has changed since then. For those just joining within the last 5 or so years, there's more acceptance now when it comes to identity. It's more open to all sorts of labels.

You have to understand, back in the earlier times, what's around now wasn't quite heard of yet then. Or if it was, it was in very very small corners. Objectkin, Plantkin, Fictkin - I don't think they would have been taken as seriously as they are now. Even polytherians, while it was a thing then, it wasn't taken as seriously. The mere idea of someone having 5 theriotypes was enough to get them denied entry into a lot of online forums/spaces let alone make it tough for them to be acknowledged as a legit therian. Can't imagine someone from today with 20+ trying to be taken serious in that time.

But, just as all things do, there's progression, growth. Time has passed and, I'm still a bit old-school and I'm still learning some of the new stuff, but the community has broadened its horizons and opened up to a lot of new things. I might've rambled, too, here, sorry about that, haha.

I hope I managed to answer your question in some way. Don't think too badly on the community in its previous years. We weren't a terrible place, promise. And us older therians, while we're slightly set in our ways, we're not so bad either. We still have some thoughts and wisdom to share to the younger generation.

We're just a much simpler bunch, is all.

[who-is-page]

Greener Grasses and Fossilized Paw Prints: Where (and Why) the Greymuzzles Go

Author: Page Type: Essay Words: 1,229 Summary: Page's personal experience as an adult canine psychopomp, and how it applies to the dearth of older otherkin in general alterhuman community spaces. Answering the question of: where are all the older otherkin? And why do people always seem to eventually leave? Author's Note: The term "greymuzzle" is used within the scope of this essay's title to reference older otherkin who have been active in alterhuman spaces for extended periods of time (a nod to the word's original definition within furry spaces), and is not referring to greymuzzle's most frequent definition in alterhuman groups as a community-given term denoting an individual with noteworthy activity and contribution.

[Part of the Sol System’s Alterhuman Writing Project for 2024. If you don’t want to see these posts, block the tag #inkedclaws]

When I was a young otherkin, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, I found it difficult to conceptualize why there was such a dearth of older community members, especially those 30 and above. I could understand the theoretics behind the disparity, of course— social media platforms, as we all know, tend to skew towards younger audiences due to generational differences in technological proficiency/preference. Established adults with working lives and families don’t necessarily have the same amount of free-time that young adults or teenagers do, either. But even with all that taken into account, it seemed like the number of otherkin aged 13-21 in comparison to the number of otherkin aged 30+ was less a gradual decline and more an unfathomable chasm of difference. The community had been around for decades at that point, with plenty of ghost town groups and abandoned forums to demonstrate that fact… and unless the Veil was secretly age-restricted, those people hadn’t up and disappeared into thin air. So where were people going? And, more importantly, why?

It was a question I’d never been able to answer in a way that felt satisfactory as a teenager and later as a young adult. But now, feeling the call of the void myself, I finally do have an answer and an understanding that I never could have achieved five or ten years ago: why the fuck would I be online when I could be playing video games or having sex with my hot partners instead?

It’s a crude and simplistic way to put it, but just hear me out. As an established adult, I have access to funds, stability, and freedom that I never had as a teenager or even as a young adult who still felt at the mercy of an uncaring universe’s slightest whims. My support systems in high school and college suffered from the same sort of financial and social precariousness that come with the territory of navigating the world as a young adult, but my support systems now are made up of other established adults; while I’ll never say that everything is always perfect for all of us, it’s much easier to get on your feet and stay on your feet when your arms are linked with people who are more firmly rooted in one way or another. I have access to a type of freedom that I could never have imagined as a teenager, because it was literally outside of the range of what was possible for me and my peers.

And more than just that freedom is the fact that I, as an adult, have a family! “Having a family” has, in my experience, some shitty, heteronormative connotations. As a teen, I always took it at face value as juggling bills, kids, white picket fence, other boring responsibilities that eat up your time, etc. But as an adult, now I know that having a family can be anything you make of it, and I make it extremely, obnoxiously queer. In my case, it’s living with people who understand me on a deep, foundational level, and who love me not in spite of who I am but because of who (and what) I am. It’s not passively being around those people; it’s actively, enthusiastically spending time with them because it’s fun and because I love them too and because they’re my people and I picked them and they picked me. As a kid, I’d never consciously recognized the difference between people you’re passively around because you have to be versus people you intentionally choose to be around and who intentionally choose you right back. In part, this is because as a kid you often don’t get the option to make that choice, while as an adult you have more control over your environment. Too often online environments feel like the former, rather than the latter, even if being within them is, technically, a choice. But here, now, I have people in my household who will go out of their way to intersect their daily lives with mine and ask, “You wanna walk to the park?” “You wanna grab a coffee?” or “You HAVE to see this YouTube essay I’m watching and no I don’t care that it’s 4 hours long on a topic you know nothing about, just trust me!!!!!” and that’s such a radically different and wonderful experience.

As an adult, I live with a group of people who make being alive more fun than I could have ever imagined. I have the ability to make my own fun in ways I couldn’t as a kid, for a variety of reasons. I don’t have to feel like an anxious purse chihuahua 24/7, agonizing over my existence and every possible thing that is liable to go wrong if I frivolously spend money on so much of the thought of a hot coffee. And I finally, finally understand why older otherkin disappear off the face of the Earth. It’s because being an adult nonhuman-identifying person is amazing in a way almost no one ever talks about: the euphoric experience of being known and loved, and of knowing and loving yourself.

There are so many exciting and wonderful things I could be doing in the meatspace with people I have actively chosen to spend my life with, and who fully accept and understand me as someone who’s queer, plural, and nonhuman. There’s so many enriching ways I could be engaging with my hobbies, the environment around me, and my local community. With this all in mind, why the fuck would I ever be in public online spaces where people try to argue with me about whether or not I exist, or if my experiences are real, or if I’m using the right and latest lingo to describe my experiences? Why would I subject myself to that when I could just roll my eyes, close the laptop, and go be a beloved canine psychopomp in the comfort of my werehouse instead?

That’s the crux of it. As adults with families and support networks, we have the option to not subject ourselves to the morifying ordeal of being known by asshole strangers online if we don’t want to. We can stick to just our families and our friend groups, and we will still have people around us who understand and who acknowledge and interact with our alterhumanity. The alterhuman community isn’t the only or even most important place for being our authentic selves; rather, it takes a backseat in the day-to-day life. It’s still something that’s fulfilling and worthwhile to engage with, but only on our own terms (terms that are quickly becoming incompatible with the ways Internet culture is evolving). But more often than not, there’s just more fun things to do.

In some ways, it’s kind of a relief to have had this epiphany. People haven’t vanished from alterhuman community spaces because they collectively ‘grew out of it’ like some anti-otherkin insist, or because the various generations of otherkin are so extraordinarily different from one another as to be oil-and-water. People vanish from online alterhuman spaces because offline life as an adult alterhuman is awesome. As an archivist it’s frustrating, but as a nonhuman, I find it a specific type of happiness that’s worth celebrating in its existence and prevalence. It’s an assurance that life only gets better as you get older: isn’t that grand?