Swamp Sounds

In 2025, particularly on tumblr and on tiktok, from what I can see of it, there is a peculiar detachment in the nonhuman part of alterhuman communities from the concept of "being human".

While historically, being a therian or otherkin was often understood as being an animal or mythical beast stuck in human skin, there is now a whole movement for removing that distinction, of being physically nonhuman, either by reclamation of the body as itself nonhuman, by transition, by belief, and probably many other i'm not thinking of. 

This has been a very popular change. Many people who have experience just like me now call themselves physically nonhuman for a reason or another. I can understand the mindset : it was never uncommon for therianthropes to reject their human body, to hate it. We are, whether some like it or not, the species dysphoria, species transition community. Many, many therianthropes and otherkin have wished, or tried, to physically shapeshift. 

But truth is, it bothers me. 

I've got many qualms with parts of how that community puts itself in place: it is one that is often dangerous to the stability of my perception of reality, as a schizospec person, with many, many untagged psychotic triggers. It rubs salt in the wounds that i now see people claiming they "have never met a psychotic person who had been hurt by untagged physical nonhumanity". Yeah guys. because we fucking left. For our own sake. As you told us to do. 

But that's not really the point of this post. It mostly bothers me because it has been concurrent to a mindset in the therian community where reality has no impact. People are only their avatar online. Their experiences are solely the ones inside their brain. They can feel they are a falcon/a dog/a unicorn/a pokemon. In fact, they're typing with their paws right now. Let's make a pack on discord where we all roleplay running into the wood with our real forms ! Less and less long form essays, more and more shallow memes. People shouldn't have to write, they can just feel. Being a therian is just feeling. feeling, feeling, feeling, in a void, devoid of all outside yourself. 

I'm studying for a master's degree. I am an adult, with my own money, my own choices to make. I'm balancing my birdhood with my very real human life. My therianthropy isn't just feelings. It has consequences. It will impact where I live. What job I do. Who I love. How I love. How I socialize. What I care about. What I do about it. I don't. fucking care that you're a dog online frankly. 

And frankly, that one isn't even the fault of the actual physical nonhumans ! I see many who are in fact talking about the problems of living as something perceived as human while not being. But it has given an out to all the people who were desperately searching for an excuse to completely negate this very border line that makes the alterhuman community who we are. Many, many people have tried to remove any connection to humanity from therianthrope, alterhuman, and other community, but the truth is i don't think it's possible and i don't think it's interesting. 

I think the best conversations about our lives will always revolve around how we are not humans, in a human world. We cannot absolve ourselves from living in reality, because if we do so, then we just... stop talking about ourselves. People complain over and over and over again that the community doesn't feel like it used to, doesn't feel like a community, like helping each other, but it's because the biggest part of it has sanitized the very paradox of our existence into being borderline taboo to mention. So for sure it feels completely shallow. 

Old forums are ripe with people discussing real things. Jobs. Family. How to find a home in a place that feels like territory. How to deal with ugly instincts. How people found each other and loved each other despite the odds. Political views tied to feeling like an animal and wanting our future to be better, both for us and our theriomorphic counterparts. Growing up. Deaths. Real way to alter your life to feel like you. Real goals for nonhuman transitions. Spiritual beliefs and worship. There is something you can hold, you can cling to. Helped by the fact it doesn't just fade away, for sure. You go on a forum, and some guy-wolf from a dozen years ago shows you the forest past his backyard. There is a "people lived here, people still do" feeling to this. One that made me think perhaps I could figure it out too, which is painfully absent from particularly the tumblr community and part of what made me leave. 

At least the tiktok kids are actually outside doing shit. What's a dog even doing online. That tells me nothing about you. You are no more like me, by posting pictures of cute dogs, no more relatable, than any orthohuman who does. In fact the orthohumans also posts about paws and ears and whatever. Because that is in the fact the shallow side, the easy side. It's the fun side. It's not the one that makes us therians. The fantasy is not what makes us therians. It's living it. 

I think we should go back to calling ourselves therianthropes, heavy on the -anthropes. I think no one is fully nonhuman in a human world we are forced to participate in. If you're physically nonhuman, then you're still socially human. If you manage to flee to the most unknown place, undisturbed by any human presence, you will still have been marked by humanity. We are imprinted animals, to our cores, and i think denying that is just kind of avoiding the question of why we even need a word. If you're all that nonhuman, fully untouched by humanity, then there should be no difference between you and a theriomorphic animal. But there is. that's what the -anthrope is for.  I think the real important part about the -anthropy part of therianthropy was never whether it's human skin or socialization or whatever. It was about coping with a human world that sees us as human. That's what's partially human, why we are weres. Because we're animals moonlighting as humans whether we want it or not. 

As a closing note, i'm sure many would dislike this. Because being human is icky. Because we don't want, or don't perceive ourselves to be human. Because some of us have been harmed by humans, or "being human", or pretending to be. Well, godspeed I guess. Hope that gets you somewhere, because from what we currently see, i'm not optimistic.