Sorry if you're asked this a lot, but do you have any good sources to read about theriantropy? Especially off Tumblr? Im trying to reconnect with my therian identity and it's been a while since I've done any reading so I have no idea where to start lol. Thank you!

Here's a list on some stuff where you can read about therianthropy and therian experiences. This isn't the end-all be-all to what's out there, and some things in this may be outdated but still worth a gander:

Alterhuman Archive's therianthropy section. An archive with 230~ writings by therians or otherwise about therianthropy. Don't be afraid to poke around the websites or blogs where these writings are linked from, either!

Radiant Obscurities. A project dedicated to showcasing writings about personal animality (especially those of more uncommon or rare theriotypes.)

Project Shift. An older information and resource site about therianthropy. Some things may be very out of date, but it's still worth looking into-- just keep that in mind.

WereLibrary. An archive dedicated specifically to writings about therianthropy, with 84 writings.

I also recommend my partner system House of Chimeras' Therian Timeline ebook. I know there's more out there too-- check the notes on this post to see if folks have added in their own recommendations!

it's so cool that therianthropy is a spectrum, including all the nonhumans and inhumans. don't let anyone make you feel like you're not a therian or you have to change your label unless you want to.

talk about somatic shifts. about finding it hard to walk or talk, about annoying phantoms, about your senses being too much for this world.

let's talk about going about your day feeling like an animal dressed up, not a human with ears and a tail. wondering how you can write with your hand-wings.

lets talk about always being that way, vacillant therianthropy, not experiencing shifts but being an animal anyway. no matter how little "proof" there is, you know it in your heart.

lets talk about the fact that clinical zoanthropes, endels, etc. are not "crazy", or "scary". it is not somehow wrong to have delusions. and how even if someone has a different presentation, they are free to use therian too. they're animals too.

therians are animals. therian is a community. not sure when some people let saneism and misinformation take over. but we gotta fight it.

-river

hi!! ive identified as a wolf therian for almost a decade, but recently i've started wondering if im a.. cladeotherian? is that what it's called? uhm, basically it means that i feel like im, at varying times, almost all kinds of canine.. of course, it can get really specific and i think mainly im a wolfdog. but im wondering if you have any information on this, or interviews or know any other people like me?

Yes, a cladotherian is someone whose kintype is best represented by a whole clade of animals (which can include paraphyletic clades). Here are a few essays by cladotherians:

"Cladotherianthropy" by Pantairin, a deer cladotherian of the House of Chimeras. This essay goes over just what cladotherianthropy is and encompasses, as well as some light history of the term.

"My Antlers Tell Lies" by Pantairin. A more personal essay about her experiences as a cladotherian.

"Wild Dog" by Teja, a wolf/dog/proto-dog therian. This essay explains their struggles with pinning down a specific species and how they feel a kinship with all early dogs, semi-domestic wolves, and proto-dogs.

This post by Cayo, a canine cladotherian. They very briefly explain how they came to the conclusion that they're a cladotherian, what it feels like, and how it works.

There's also the essay "Diagrams" by Keller (a leopard therian, not a cladotherian), which mainly talks about contherianthropy, but briefly discusses the etymology and community response to cladotherianthropy back when the term was first coined.

And while I was certain Aethyriek had written about being a bat cladotherian at some point, I unfortunately can't find anything, so if someone could send me a link I'd appreciate it.

Seeing posts on people misinterpreting their theriotypes reminded me to write up this sort of manifesto on psychological therianthropy.. it's not a response to anyone and I do still agree that it's annoying when people get their animal facts mixed up (speaking as a conservationist, that has a body count!),

But I feel like many people don't seem to engage with the concept of psychological therianthropy to its logical conclusion and simply take it as a non-spiritual stand-in for past-life therianthropy or spiritual connection therianthropy. They'll take it as "unspecified cause for therianthropy" and leave it there. But the thing is that this origin of therianthropy, within the brain, necessarily contradicts the idea of a True Theriotype, or a Real Animal Trapped Inside.

To take an example I've seen around, mistaking a husky for a wolf - well what if their theriotype is a wolf that looks like a husky? Why is that impossible or unacceptable under the framework of psychological therianthropy? What the person is experiencing is a series of mental sleights-of-hand that can take any form, really, and if "husky-looking wolf" is the closest match then so be it. Does this disrespect wild wolves? No and they don't give a shit. If the person is otherwise educated on the animals that make up their theriotype then there's no harm to it. And even if they aren't, ignorance isn't a crime.

I understand that this is a sort of radical approach but look I've been in these spaces for a long time (longer than some of you have been alive) and I've seen my fair share of people explaining their theriotypes and their theories.

I've seen a related but not identical phenomenon of ultra rational Earth Animals Only therians still clinging onto the spectre of the True Theriotype/kintype. Under the framework of psychological therianthropy, in the absence of some mystical True Essence of an animal making a spiritual connection to you, you have no right to believe that someone is for sure a wolf but can't be, for example, an anime character. Absolutely none. If you draw the line there, you reveal that you do actually hold some type of spiritual or magic belief wherein theriotypes are only acceptable if they perfectly mimic a real life animal. Why would that be?

There is no real, true, essential animal trapped inside, isolated like an insect in amber from all other parts of your life, identical to a wild individual of the same species. There can't be. There is no erne inside me, there is only me and the misconceptions I have in my core about wild animal behaviour that lead to my shifts, because we have no true way of knowing what a wild animal thinks. We can't read minds, only interpret external behaviour to our best knowledge.

Therefore, I believe that every person is completely wrong about their claimed theriotype species in some way or other, but that it doesn't truly matter because the theriotype itself is not a true species but an amalgam of shifts, instincts, sensations, thoughts, and so on that become extremely meaningful to each individual. That's what the theriotype is and why it's so fucking dumb to say things like "I wonder how many griffons are actually bird and cat polytherians who just don't realise" (real example I have seen). That line of thought supposes a True Theriotype (bird and cat) and a false theriotype (griffon), concepts fundamentally antithetical to a psychological framework as outlined above.

Ok bye

Suggestions for more experience posts

I've noticed more requests in the tags for experience-based posts and posts that are generally more in-depth than gif sets and playlists, but I've yet to see anyone provide solutions that will help others create these posts, so here are a few of my suggestions!

See someone with an experience you want to learn more about? Or want to communicate with someone with similar experiences? Send asks! Be specific, or even vague like "hey this is interesting, can you talk more about X?". Lots of blogs love asks, ask away.

Create prompts! It doesn't have to be a prompt list, but lots of blogs love to post about experiences but have no idea what to write. Think about a question you'd love to have answered and send it off into the tags in the form of a prompt. Tumblr loves prompts.

Have conversations! A meaningful discussion might inspire others to write and cause an influx of new posts. One thing I don't see much of nowadays is scheduled mini-chats. They're different from larger events in the sense that it revolves around starting an online convo with a specific scope that begins at a certain time, and then said chat disperses afterwards (and are much smaller scale, like usually < 25 acquaintances but not a hard rule). The online version of meeting a group for lunch. Idk what platform would be best for smth like this, but it's a neat idea

Especially with "rare" or underacknowledged experiences I feel like maybe the whole obsession with validation thing is too much. It's shallow, and it introduces no value to the nonhuman community. An unusual demographic, like, idk, flamingo therians, are going to benefit a lot more from ONE flamingo just posting shit about its experiences and identity in the tags than they will from a thousand users who aren't even birds posting "Shoutout #45: Flamingokin exist!" and making pink pride flags and shrimp themed stimboards. Reign me in if this is too blunt but we will only find nonhuman community by actually talking about ourselves as nonhumans, not by note farming.

Even if you're pretty sure you're the only one here of your species. Ok, you're a Megatherium, and you've never even seen your kind mentioned before, and it's so cool that someone has included giant ground sloths in a mile-long list of "who's valid" (that ends in "any everyone else!" anyway). But what do you think you're getting out of a single shoutout to your species from someone who's not a member of it, doesn't know anyone who is, and doesn't even know for sure they're speaking to a real audience at all because they don't know you exist and just threw it in there because they heard of them in a book?

Discord here!

Quick Intro Post

Howdy, I go by Ben or any variation of Phantom Terrier. I am a psychological therian - specifically a domestic dog (and I am suspecting Airedale Terrier)

I'm very new to Tumblr, so please be patient with me as I'm learning this website. I created this blog to interact with fellow Therians, so that's mainly what I'll post about, but I'm open to talking with anyone.

I don't have a set DNI list, but I'll block you if I feel the need to. Thank you for stopping by!

I am not build for all these academic exams. I am built to run through fields of grass so tall that I need to keep jumping to see where I'm going.

"I'm in my head now, Peter. And it's where I should be"

A terrible thing I have crafted tonight.