Orca Hunting Herring. Filmed In Norway. From The Norwegian Fjords: Life In The Twilights (2018).

Pod.

I often enjoy making up a family in my mind. My mother, grandmother, and my siblings. While at first it can be quite embarrassing to admit one has "imaginary friends", honestly... It's one of the only few things that help me nowadays.

I enjoy imagining them swimming around me—swimming with me—staying close to me whenever I have a hard time.

I think of them before sleep, and I think of them whenever I cry.

I do not know if my real pod is still out there, if they're alive... So, I make up substitutes. I felt guilty at first, but then remembered that my actual pod would like for me to be happy, especially my mother.

Also, among all of this, I always wished to have something akin to a brother figure—which is why I drew myself (the freckled male) close with the other adult male in the drawing, with what could be my mother on the bottom of the drawing, and my grandmother in the front, with the calf.

It's a good way to cope with my feelings, imagining a pod constantly being by my side... It helps by a lot. I don't think I'll ever stop.

T I M E S I N K

Black fins, blue mountains, pink skies (Orcas in Norway) by Koen Hoekemeijer

not an overwatch post but here’s some animals i drew 🫶

Activities for nonhumans. Tested by me.

In the morning, stretch. Take time stretching every muscle and joint to the best of your ability, even if its only for 5 minutes. Take up a yoga routine if you wish. This has helped immensely with my chronic joint and muscle pain.

Sit in the sun for a few minutes. Soak it in, enjoy the slowness of the world for a second.

Meditate. Learn to be in your own mind. Learn to be bored. Sit in the woods and listen to whats around you. See and feel from a standstill. Learning boredom has helped me curb some of my ADHD symptoms

Journal. Decorate jt with stickers. Make lists and notes and write blurbs about your day or your species. Practice introspection, gratitude, positive affirmations. Look at things objectively, but also analyze your emotions. Chronicle our history as a community, write everything that you can find about nonhumans down. History will thank you. Log your shifts, your days, the weather.

Take up a workout routine. Calisthenics is the poison I picked; it focuses on moving your body instead of moving a separate weight. It builds muscle you can use for a range of activities rather than a few set scenarios.

Quadrobics leaves too much room for injury if you go any farther than bear crawls. Most people parroting tips for quadrobics are children with no background in exercise. My alternative is going for a run; it gets out energy and achieves everything quadrobics would.

Go into the woods. Use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique to test your senses in an environment you've never been in. Get curious, take pictures and note the species of flora and fauna in your area. Scout the area for unique formations and spots. Doing this has increased my confidence as a visually impaired man tenfold; I've learned how to use hearing to my advantage in most aspects of my life.

Go swimming in a creek. Even if your species doesn't swim, it can be euphoric. Dry yourself out on a rock in the sun afterwards.

Hell, just look towards going camping or backpacking for more than a few hours. Save for it, plan for it, prepare for it. Camping alone builds independence, camping with friends builds community.

Check out INaturalist. Its a website where others post pictures of flora/fauna, including the general location of where they found it. You don't need to post anything, just being on there and seeing the kinds of organisms in your area is enough.

Start a recipe book of things your species could and would eat. Even if they're just ingredients, its still a good activity.

Connect to your community. Join clubs and groups in your area. Volunteer at places that need volunteers. If you work, unionize. A real life community is essential for your mind. Lacking community is probably why you feel like shit.

Don't just stockpile gear, make your own. Don't resrict yourself to masks; ears, tails, collars, hand paws, feet paws, claws, wings, beaks, scales, fins, all things you could make with materials that lie around your house unused.

Apply makeup and body paint to mimic your species' markings. Enjoy the process as much as you enjoy the outcome. Look towards getting tattoos if wanted.

Sea salt spray can give your hair a wild look, if thats something you want. It can also cause it to change color slightly.

And, if possible, look to take supplements that cause hair and nail growth, if youre a hair/nail having being.

Drop your shaving routine if you wish. Shaving isn't really hygeine. Or implement one if your species is smooth. I like to shave in similar patterns that cats would be shaved in.

Take the time to clean yourself beyond a simple body and hair wash. Deep clean everything and emerge a new being.

Fuck it. Use horse shampoo.

Let yourself Feel. Suppressing emotions is a human construct made to weaken you, made to make you subservient. If you're angry, be angry. If you're sad, be sad. If something makes you happy, never stop doing it.

Let shifts come and go. Acknowledge them. Log them. Never supress them. They'll only emerge later.

Accept yourself as you are. Affirm yourself. You are enough as you are and you dont need to do anything to prove yourself.

Redecorate your spaces. Revamp your nest, light some candles or put on a humidifier. Introduce plants, crystals, and generally outdoor things into your indoor living space.

Clothing is everything. I find that clothing I can't freely move in makes me dysphoric, so I stick to tank tops and light sweatpants. I dress light and I show skin. Similarly, find the styles of dress you find comforting and euphoric.

Scent your area. Spray something around your house, wear a perfume you like. The stronger the smell, the better.

(Edited 20th Jan 2025 @ 9:14 PM - Fixed Grammar + Readability)

shirazi pigeons

hi, it's another different anon, wondering if we could get more black winged cats? Thanks!!

so i recently found out / realised that i’m also a bird or something? Not quite sure yet what, but i’m trying to figure it out rn. The first thing that made me realise was that i randomly had phantom wings, completely unprompted. anyway, so far into today i’ve been phantom shifted basically the entire time and here are some things i’ve noticed.

first, when i close my eyes my "arms" become my wings and i’m just like a normal bird. When i open them my wings are attached to my back and i’m generally more like the typical avian-hybrid humanoid.

My feathers are brown with some pattern but i cant exactly pinpoint what pattern.

also, i can look into the mirror shifted without feeling really uncomfortable / disphoric and i can almost see my wings. Like, not actually but i know exactly where they should be in my mirror image and it doesnt make me feel weird.

and i dont like being touched on my back. It just feels very wrong.

i’m still pretty new to phantom shifts and everything cause i only really accepted and started embracing me being not being human like two or so months ago (even though i knew for far longer) so all of this is still mostly very exciting.

more birdsy stuff;

so i’m definitely an avian hybrid thingy (you know, bird legs, wings, feathers and tail but still humanoid) but i might also be a bird therian? like i can very much see myself as a bird, especially falcons or similar birds and parakeets or similar birds, so maybe something like a cladotherian bird? Idk