my holothere experiencee

Written 1/5/2024

As a holothere and a therian I have weird overlaps. It shows up in that I 'am' all of them, but there are some which I specifically consider theriotypes.

I have a body that takes certain forms. They are animalistic, but the entirety of my body is original to me. I am my own species of something. Using my form as a baseline, I can find specific animals in the present Animal Kingdom that align with me.

I am a bird, cat, donkey, and squirrel.
My theriotypes are Balkan donkey, cat cladotherian, bird ambitherian (macaw and burrowing owl), and Sciuridae cladotherian.

The with/as debate is tricky for me right now, it's easier to do this when coming from a body that isn't your own. A body that doesn't give euphoria. But my body now is who I am. So I suppose what I say when I say an animal is my theriotype is that the idea of being that animal physically would align with my sense of selfhood. It would give me euphoria, even if it's not me now. A single change of word can't really describe that.

I have a spectrum of -types. Some are me physically, some psychologically, some spiritually, some mirror who I am now, some represent what I want to be. All of them somehow me. Maybe that's breaking the rules of what a kin can be, but I don't share this with anyone except myself and my partners. So Tumblr doesn't have to know...

Sometimes labels hold me down. Some of my identity is very boxy (archetrope, bug paratype, Fung Pray steltype), other parts are not. The reason I now go by those simple animal groups instead of all the terminology is because that's the way I experience life.

I see any cat, I see an owl, I see a squirrel, I think the same thought - that's me. I flex my wings, perk my ears, curl up with my tail at night however it looks today. I exist without thinking.

I hope you can as well.