a thousand lives I cannot live

♪ The bows and arrows in your words / The words behind your broken teeth The broken glass that’s under foot and paw and hoof / and high and low, whatever nonsense you believe The vast unknown laid out ahead / The tears and anger, good and bad The big adventure still at hand and paw and whiskers / Grey, blue, red, whatever—I will understand ♪

[windswept-shapeshifter]

Who am I? What am I?

Hm. Good question.

· ———— ·*¨ ~ ¨*· ———— ·

Hello, you can call me Windswept. This is my speciesqueer sideblog (my main blog is @/galaxicalphoenix).

I’m a lot of things, but the ones I know for sure are: cat, American crow, dog, horse, wolf, fishfolk / sea monster, merfolk / mermaid, night fury, and uh… Eridan Ampora. and also an OC that I’m not rly able to talk about

Questioning: ant, bee, deer, orca, some unidentified other bird/s, some mammalian prey animal/s, Equestrian (MLP) siren, Vaporeon, some bird-winged humanoid, fuckigf. Genericheart, Homura Akemi, Shadow the Hedgehog, Twilight Sparkle, Wolf/TP Link

I’m also in love with the wind / moon / sea / evening star, don’t worry about it

· ———— ·*¨ ~ ¨*· ———— ·

Original intro

Tags Directory

OC assignment game cuz why not

· ———— ·*¨ ~ ¨*· ———— ·

Aerial views. The ocean, the wind in the trees. Beaches, sea cliffs, forests. Grasslands, mountains. A hundred different feet, paws, claws, hooves, fins, feathers. A thousand lives I could have lived

but I only know this one.

[windswept-shapeshifter]

tfw you’re just barely canon-divergent enough to put yourself on ArtFight :0

[siosin]

Luca: Snyder cut

[seawaterdreams]

Tonight was the first time i have ever truly and completely felt connected to my selkie side.

For the first time in years, my country was directly in the path of a total lunar eclipse, which isn’t particularly rare, but what does make it rare is the fact that the sky was actually clear, and we were able to see the whole thing.

i went down to the beach with my family and fiddled around with my phone trying to take an image (did not work unfortunately) before eventually giving up and just watching the eclipse right before totality. Because the moon was full, the tide nearby was at its peak and i could hear it crashing onto the rocks. I then had the sudden urge to go down and stand in the water, so naturally i ran across the grass and carefully climbed down the wet rocks and slipped a couple times before making it to the water and looking up at the moon.

because i’m part human and was raised in a human environment, i was never taught any real selkie songs. no melodies or words come to me naturally, but i knew that it didn’t really matter to the moon and sea what i sung, and so i sang some of my favourite songs that i hold a lot of sentiment towards. I started off quiet at first because it wasn’t something i did often, but then as the waves surged harder and the moon glowed orange i think it urged me to sing properly, and then i looked down and i saw bioluminescence.

i ran to get my family and brought them down to the water, and as the full moon shone red-orange above and the wind blew against my wet skin and my clothes became soaked and the cold water settled in my bones and the stars of the sea twinkled on my skin, i sang to the sea and i sang to the moon and i danced and danced until i felt sick and couldn’t dance anymore, and then i played with my siblings in the water and showed my mother how the washed up seagrass glowed when you shook it hard enough and for the first time ever, i think this is what it truly truly means to be a selkie. I’ve always wanted to perform in the full moon rites that my kind traditionally partake in to celebrate their existence and their creator, but i’d never really had the chance to until now.

There won’t be another blood moon like this until in two years time, and even then i doubt it’ll be the same, because tonight was so special and so incredibly meaningful to me that i doubt i’ll ever experience something like it again. These are the kinds of things that make me really believe that magic exists, and you just have to know how to find it.

tomorrow i will most likely be even sicker and i will be utterly and completely miserable, but it was all worth it for that half hour in the glittering water with the red moon above. I’ve finally started to truly connect with my selkie side, and i hope that i can do my own little rites every full moon.

tonight i hope to dream of the sea and the moon.

[fishstims]

elquatic.id on instagram

[lindamarieansonsnaps]

[silly-comet]

I dont need to go to therapy i need to go to a wildlife rehab center

[indornaga]

Species-Based Misgendering

The goal of this survey is to gather information of on incidences of species-based misgendering within the Alterhuman community. Please do

Introducing a survey on Species-Based Misgendering, hosted by Duranos of The River System.

     Species-Based Misgendering: the assumption of one's gender and/or pronouns based on the expectations of one's species, stemming from biases, when the expected gender does not match the individual's gender.       Gendered Expectation: the expectation set for a species' gender, whether this bias comes from a cultural or folkoric background, establishment in a media, a linguistic framework, etc.

The survey is open both to the identities underneath the alterhuman umbrella, as well as nonhuman/human+ folks within plural conglomerates. While this survey is primarily looking for responses from those who have been misgendered based on their species, those who have not experienced species-based misgendering are welcome to complete the survey as well. Interpretation of what counts as species-based misgendering is open to interpretation by each individual, and there are long-form fillable responses throughout the survey to accommodate this.

The survey is set to close on July 31st, 2026. I welcome folks to share the link to the survey wherever you are active in the alterhuman community.

[roadmovie-travel]

Raft Cove - Rain Day

[heylsgowt]

[thismousedraws]

It was almost 100°F today

[world-of-yana]

[pathswaves]

tree view of ocean

[a-dragons-journal]

On "Theriocentrism"/"Canine-centrism"

Recently another wave of posts has cropped up complaining about therian-centrism and more specifically canine-centrism in the alterhuman community, and while this can be a real problem, I feel like a lot of posts complaining about it are... kind of missing the mark, to be honest.

Therian-centrism in the alterhuman community, and canine-centrism within that, is sometimes a real problem. You'll see posts marked as "for alterhumans" that are clearly actually just for therians, or community resources that seem to assume everyone viewing them will have paws and fur, or things like that. This can be genuinely grating, and kind of alienating for those getting subtly (or unsubtly) pushed out of our own words, and it absolutely is something to push back against.

But... a lot of the posts I'm seeing complaining about "therian-centrism" or "canine-centrism" are just complaining about there being a lot of posts about canine therian experiences. Fellas, that is not therian-centrism or canine-centrism. That's literally just people talking about their experiences. A lot of people in the community are canine therians, therefore a lot of experience posts are going to be about canine therian experiences. They're not excluding anyone or erasing anyone by just... existing and talking about their own experiences. I feel like we need to be careful, when talking about the real problem of community spaces and resources forgetting to account for experiences outside of the most common, to not start talking like people with those common experiences are wrong to discuss those experiences at all. Yes, it can sometimes be a little annoying to have so much of the otherkin or alterhuman or whatever community tag (or whatever space) be irrelevant to you - but those spaces are for those people too, and low-key implying that canine therians should shut up and stop talking about their experiences just because there's a lot of them is wrong and bad for the community. The annoyance is unfortunately just something you're gonna have to live with. Some experiences are always going to be more common than others, and thus you're going to hear about them more. There's nothing wrong with that, it just is.

In short,

Things that ARE therian-centrism/canine-centrism/whatever:

Community resources marked as "alterhuman" that only actually provide resources for therians and don't even acknowledge that alterhumans who aren't nonhuman exist

Surveys and polls marked as "alterhuman" that only contain questions relevant to therians, without a "N/A" option and without similar questions relevant only to other alterhuman identities and not therians

People misdefining "alterhuman" as "identifying as something nonhuman/an animal" and thus excluding everyone else

Resources like species dysphoria alleviation suggestion posts that are marketed as "for therians" but contain only suggestions clearly aimed at canines

People crosstagging their therian/canine specific posts with a bunch of irrelevant alterhuman tags (otherhearted, hearthome, archetrope, etc.) "for reach"

Things that ARE NOT therian-centrism/canine-centrism/whatever:

The alterhuman, otherkin, and therian tags having a lot of posts by therians/canines about their own experiences

Surveys and polls marked as "alterhuman" having questions relevant to only therians while still having an equal number of questions focused on only otherhearted people, only those with hearthomes, only archetropers, etc.

Resources specifically aimed at therians/canines existing

[windswept-shapeshifter]

Too many things, without an anchor to tell me what to work towards

[windswept-shapeshifter]

Seeing the almost-full moon out the window and becoming immediately entranced

[windswept-shapeshifter]

everyone else seems to know so much more about themselves than I do