Look At Yourself With Kindness And Love

She/him | Domestic and feral horse Alterhuman/therian focused blog ☆ [ I keep anon off for my own sake, but please feel free to send in asks! This horse doesn’t bite well-meaning people, I promise :o) ] ☆ I like and follow from @leaf-shakes

[pinto-leaf]

My name is Leaf!

⟢ Horse cladotherian, grey wolf otherheart, chicken otherheart, brown bear otherlink.

Yellowstone National Park is my hearthome!

This is an identity blog focused on my non-human side.

[biblically-accuate-bird]

Another Missing My Hooves Hour

[pinto-leaf]

I had a dream two nights ago where I rode a horse. Now can I please have one where I’m the horse? Pretty please?

[oddlygreenonion]

I don't see lots of nonhumans talking about leg dysphoria, so here we go;

To me, my legs feel absolutely deformed. Sometimes I become aware of them when I walk or sit and it doesn't just feel dysphoric, it feels straight up wrong.

Y'know those analog horrors with creatures whose joints are too many or misshapen or at the wrong places? That's what this feels like.

I'm a hare, I'm known for the fact that my hind feet are giant and I can use them to leap across fields in seconds and outrun pretty much anyone. I'm also a canid, I'm supposed to have legs that allow me to run, chase and hunt, with claws at the ends. But guess what? I don't. And it's something that I will never be able to change. I will never reach the speed I'd be able to reach if I had the correct body. Not to mention having to run on 2 legs instead of 4 is already a pain (unless your theriotype has 2 legs). I can imagine therians with more than 4 legs like insectkins, bugkins, otherkins with many legs, etc feeling this too and I can imagine creatures without any legs perhaps dislike having them at all.

Of course, there are shoes I can wear to simulate the feeling of hooves or hare feet, but they are still not mine. Leg warmers can look nice, but they don't change the shape of my legs. I can get into quadrobics for the way I feel about running, but that way I'm even slower than on two legs and all they do is look awkward and bring me pain because they are longer than my arms. (Besides, not everyone can do quads for a multitude of reasons, just like not everyone can run, obviously.)

TDLR: At least to me personally, I hate my legs because they don't and will never look or function as those of my theriotypes and I don't have a way to change it. The feeling of them being deformed in a strange way makes general everyday life and walking/running feel uncomfortable. Creatures with more or less legs who feel dysphoric about it don't get enough recognition, in my opinion.

[yuristone-national-park]

I'm a girl in a human way but also female and male in a creature way but also genderless and sexless in a geographical feature way

[neighhhh]

happy wet beast wednesday!!

[pinto-leaf]

Happy wet beast Wednesday!! >_<

[alfalfafreak]

I’m super curious to see what specific sorts of equines roam the wilds of tumblr.. If you happen to be an equine of a specific kind, please reblog and tag your breed/species!

I like to be nosy.

[pinto-leaf]

Apple slices for meeee :3c

[creatureheart]

Hello Alterhuman Community!

I decided to make a general post so I can reach out to everyone who sees this so I can get some feedback and suggestions for content that I think is important to make.

I have had a tiktok account for a while now specifically for interacting with the community that is on the platform — as terrifying as they may be to some — and while I have made a few posts in the past I have decided to try and step up my game to help combat misinformation and spread proper community teachings there.

This is where you come in!

I am looking for:

posts

essays

blogs

experiences

etc

that you would think would be good to share to help spread information and awareness to the community on tiktok.

Because of this I am also asking permission from those who post said things, — if they do wish for me to share their posts, or if they see someone else suggest their writings, — if they would be ok with me reading their posts, and whether they would prefer to stay anonymous or not. Also disclaimers that may be included with posts that are ok with being shared!

I know that some parts of the community are much more wary than others about what is shared around, which is why I don’t want to just grab random posts myself without first making sure others are ok with it.

Reblogs and replies to this post are welcome! I look forward to seeing what you all may share!

[pinto-leaf]

Shitty photo of my drawinggg :P

[yuristone-national-park]

HAPPY FANTASTIC HORSE FRIDAY!!!!

If you are a fantastic horse, happy friday

[pinto-leaf]

Happy fantastic horse Friday!!!!! 🐎

[leaf-shakes]

Jumping for joy!!! ⭐️

[pinto-leaf]

I’ve been looking back at some of my pictures from my trip to Yellowstone last summer, and I miss it so much. This was the first time I’ve been to Yellowstone despite having been very interested in it since I was a little kid (can you tell I was raised on WolfQuest)

What kind of tracks are those in the middle? I didn’t think horses lived inside of the park ^

The scenery was so beautiful. I really love open spaces. Surprisingly I miss the smell of the hot springs

At one of the places we stayed at (I believe it was outside of the park) the neighbors had a few horses that hung out at the front of the house. They were all so sweet and the buckskin (?) let me pet her :D

At the house they had a dvd of Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron, so I got to watch that one of the nights, which was great

I want to go back to the park sometime. I’d like to make it an annual thing, but right now I am not independent enough. One day I’ll make it happen! One day!

[unknownwildsoul]

I love these pictures, they’re so good! [Fellow WQ kid here, I get it xD]

I think the tracks in the middle are bison! They look like they’re split in the middle as far as I can see xD

That sounds like such a good trip all in all though, I’m glad you got to enjoy it :]

[pinto-leaf]

Ohhh that makes so much more sense that they’re bison tracks, it was hard for me to see that there were two toes!

Thank you for the kind words! It’s nice to meet another WQ kid :D

[neighhhh]

quick study of a mustang (my pfp) bc i want to get better at shapes and colors and lighting!!

[talonsonsilk]

Woahhh you look gorgeous

[neighhhh]

thank youuu!!! ^__^

[pinto-leaf]

I’ve been looking back at some of my pictures from my trip to Yellowstone last summer, and I miss it so much. This was the first time I’ve been to Yellowstone despite having been very interested in it since I was a little kid (can you tell I was raised on WolfQuest)

What kind of tracks are those in the middle? I didn’t think horses lived inside of the park ^

The scenery was so beautiful. I really love open spaces. Surprisingly I miss the smell of the hot springs

At one of the places we stayed at (I believe it was outside of the park) the neighbors had a few horses that hung out at the front of the house. They were all so sweet and the buckskin (?) let me pet her :D

At the house they had a dvd of Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron, so I got to watch that one of the nights, which was great

I want to go back to the park sometime. I’d like to make it an annual thing, but right now I am not independent enough. One day I’ll make it happen! One day!

[canislupuslatrans]

This might be kind of a hot take but I feel like the community has shifted away from identifying as animals to identifying with animals. I'm not a big fan of how many folks don't understand their own species behavior or know a lot about their species, it has led to me feeling very isolated around other canines due to how many of them don't present their species behavior (or even understand a single thing about how packs or canine behavior even works)

This is just my own personal take, but it feels weird to try to socialize with most folks in the community because most of the time its seen as "taking it too far" when you actually act as your species. (coughcough wolves are not friendly social creatures to strangers and can actually be quite shy, and growling is not always a form of aggression, on a similar note a wagging tail isn't always a sign of friendliness either)

Now, this isn't to say that those who don't show behaviors like their species are "faking it" (because thats a whole load of shit), it just feels like the community has gotten a lot more anthropomorphized (or humanized) from when I first discovered it

[thetadelta]

My suspicion is that this is exactly why more and more people who don't seem to actually physically identify as their theriotype have been using labels like "holothere". A lot of mainstream "therian" content has gotten focused on activities/aesthetics that aren't inherent to therianthropy– like masks and quads– so people who have intense animal instincts and phantom shifts (which are very normal and common!) feel alienated and need to assert that, no, they're really an animal. Which has lead to terms like "physical therian" getting watered down and misused.

The TikTok "therian" culture seems like it's largely to blame for this, but it's also a side effect of people moving from forums to public social media platforms. It isn't really possible to post on social media about genuinely "weird" experiences without the risk of bad actors seeing it and harassing you, so people (intentionally or not) downplay or cute-ify their experiences to make them more palatable for a public audience. It's part of the same trend as people self-censoring swears when there isn't actually any evidence that that has any effect– there's been an increasing push toward toning down anything someone might find objectionable, to the point where I don't think most people realize they're doing it. And people doing that leads to outsiders seeing "therian" stuff and going "that looks like fun! I want to do that!" because there aren't any immediately available resources to explain to them that therianthropy isn't a roleplaying trend– which is how we've ended up with people on TikTok saying stuff like "therians don't really think they're animals".

People co-opting community terms, toning them down, and calling the original community "taking it too far" happened already with fictionkin, and it seems like therians are next. The best thing we can do is to just hold the line, correct misinformation, and keep being loudly authentic.

EDIT: And to be clear I am the number one encourager of having fun and being silly with your theriotype! I do it constantly! There's just a difference between that and having fun with the aesthetic of an animal you don't actually know much about. If you identify as something it's a baseline respect to yourself and to that animal to know basic facts about it. It's also a baseline level of respect to accept that others in the community will experience therianthropy differently than you.

[thetadelta]

Thinking about this more, and I feel like this is also the result of an overcorrection in response to the old grilling/fakeclaiming culture that used to define the therian community. People used to oppressively gatekeep therianthropy and most of us got sick of it, but because of that community history I think a lot of people now have the idea that encouraging someone to do more introspection or suggesting that they might be misattributing their experiences to the wrong animal/creature is "invalidating" someone's identity instead of a good-faith attempt to help them feel more self-actualized and confident.

The whole questioning process seems to have fallen by the wayside in a lot of places, so you get people who, for example, feel a canine-shaped tail or a connection to werewolves and immediately go "I'm a wolf!" without considering other options, and nobody encourages them to question that assumption because they're worried about coming across as gatekeeping– even though that person would be happier and more secure in their identity if they took the time to introspect and learn about other animals before settling on something.

"You can be whatever you want forever" is a mostly true statement, but self-discovery is a long and personal process, and I absolutely believe that other people asking you (polite, good-faith) questions like "so why do you think you're X and not Y?" is a helpful bordering on necessary part of that process. Helping people figure out what they are used to be half of what we socialized about in the community! It's how we shared experiences and bonded and welcomed people! But I feel like now, asking questions like "you seem to act a lot like a dog, so what lead you to identify as a wolf and not another type of canid?" is often seen as rude or as an attempt to invalidate that person's identity. And it shouldn't be! Answering questions like that is how other people learn about what therianthropy is like for you, and if you're secure in your identity being asked these things won't make you feel defensive or invalidated, they'll make you excited to talk about your experiences with others. "I express my wolf theriotype in a doglike way because I was raised by humans like dogs are" is a perfectly valid and interesting answer to that question, for example.

Too much questioning is bad, but so is too little questioning. I would love to see more introspection posts by newer, questioning community members. Seeing and helping other people do self-discovery used to be my favorite part of being here!

[pinto-leaf]

Small clay horse head I made that I want to turn into a necklace once it’s finished :3

I’d like to get more horse themed jewelry and just more subtle theriotype gear in general. I’ve been on the lookout for some stuff at thrift stores and such but I haven’t found anything yet :P