@FogLikesFeathers14

I think in a lot of ways you are right. Imprinting fits into this theory of animal instinct/knowledge, which feels like it's a correlating factor in a lot of therian experiences. Growing up, I had 3 cats and 2 dogs which I feel influenced my behavior (especially since relationship with parents was bad) and they gave me a space to learn new skills as if I was another (normal) animal they had taken in. Closer to the time I discovered therianthropy, I had a huge encyclopedia of animals and I would go through and read the entries like it was a regular book. That knowledge of animals I connected with, and probably liked from previous media, might have influenced my therianthropy in many ways.
Very interesting thought!

I want to backtrack just a bit and discuss something I've personally noticed in regards to wolves being so common because they are the most familiar and similar to humans.

While I agree partially (no doubt humans and wolves have the most complex and intertwined history and relationship of any animal because of this), I notice things about my experience as a wolf that complicate the similarities. I think this is why it can matter what type you are. It helps in understanding your own experience as well as your type. There are a lot of misunderstandings about wolves based off of stereotypes that are no longer accurate or come purely from media.

Anyways, here's the biggest one in my life: the similarity of wolves and humans both being social. While true, the experience of both is different. Wolves remain in a close pack that doesn't change much most of their life. They develop extremely deep bonds and rely heavily on each other. Human relationships are more numerous and fluid. It is expected now for people to come and go in your life, but to me it feels unnatural. I bond too strongly to people and a huge point of contention with my therianthropy is that I can't be in a stable group like a pack. Something like that is just too hard to maintain as a human now.

There might be something there that because humans are social and desire connection it could be interpreted by someone with more animalistic tendencies that they are a wolf because they are the most familiar social animal by many. Every social animal has different social patterns though, including wolves and humans, so I know for me, my type isn't based off of the human/wolf familiarity or my knowledge of them because I grew up with those stereotypes. I determined my type based off the knowledge of what I know to be true of myself and that lines up with what I understand of wolves now. But I agree that many who start out as wolves, especially younger, could very well be influenced by what you are describing.

Oh right almost forgot about this.

I'll try to get the reboot done beforehand so that I can do it at a time when I'm around to fix everything up.

But it's possible I won't have time so in that case, it'll take me until the end of the day to get home from work and fix everything. As @TherianRose said though, I expect the forums will be back up in a few minutes but the chat links probably won't automatically recover.

LP,
Dusty

Hey folks, happy October! Don't be scared, this is just a quick tech announcement

Part of the TG server infrastructure requires a partial reboot on October 28 at 8am UTC to apply a few updates.

This shouldn't cause any issues on the forums itself, but connections like the shoutbox might be down temporarily. Rest assured that if anything stops working, we're aware of it and will get it back up as soon as we can!

Much love and stay spooky,
~ Rose

That is a fair question @skippi
I think it just provides a comfort knowing exactly what we are. Humans putting labels to things gives them structure within our current reasoning. I don't think that the intensity of either one matters as much as simply knowing which one it is and why it exists. Yet this is from my perspective, everyone yet has a different perspective on different things.

This is an idea I tried to get at with a previous thread of mine, but you said it in a much more clear and eloquent way. It's also something I've been thinking about myself a lot as I once again question my identity/theriotype.
After reading through this thread though, I have to wonder how much your specific theriotype even matters? I personally gain euphoria from anything that makes me feel less human. Does it matter if I identify more as a dog or a cat or a horse or anything else?

I believe my therianthropy comes from being neurodivergent and traumatic experiences. During most traumatic experiences in my life I've had house hold pets or strays outside that could keep me company and that I learned a ton from. Those animals were my family in a way, and still are by how what I learned from them sticks with me.

When this whole life thing gets really challenging for me I just go outside and learn about animals and plants (nature) through reading and observation. I'm not a huge quads. guy, but if I ever do them it's while I'm outside connecting with myself. Learning and ESP observing is oddly enough an introspective practice of mine that allows me to connect with and understand who I am as a therian/animal.

Probably linked to being autistic and always feeling different from everyone else?
It’s always been a part of me, and I think it always will!

Over the years my personal definition of therianthropy has definitely loosened from what it was when I was 12-14. Having met so many people who are not even close to feeling appealed to therianthropy or wishing to be an animal at all makes me realize that the difference between therian and non-therian is wide enough that questions of voluntary or involuntary become somewhat..meaningless.? The answer is more consistency in the feeling and identity. I think as you grow up (or at least as I grew up), there is a frequent inward checking on whether you're "actually" therian, no matter how different you are from your peers as a baseline. And of course, a lot of young critters growing up therian may phase out as they reach late teen years and adulthood. For any number of reasons. Whether or not they still resonate with the term "therian" or might be considered by some omniscient force as Therian depends on whether or not they want to reconnect with that part of them in adulthood. So in that sense, is it voluntary? It is so hard to know what is voluntary and involuntary unless it is a negative experience, from what I can tell, and so it comes back to consistent connection/tapping into the identity and not getting bogged down by the humannness and exhaustion of daily life.

Similarly to the suspected cause of transgender (Differences in the brain making it more like that of the opposite gender), I feel like it's differences in the brain that connects said person to what they kin.