I've been thinking a lot, lately, about my therianthropy. Specifically, about my phenotypes - I am, after all, a polywere, albeit a reluctant one. As much as I preach that one need not know their phenotype to be a therian, it's been driving me up the proverbial wall. Horse was a comfortable fit, considering the sheer strength of the shifts I could induce, but I'm not horse.

I wish I were. I see Zorro in the field and I see the way he moves: the subtle strength under his skin, the wary quietness in his trot; I want to be that. I want that in my head, I want the shifts I can bring on so easily to be genuine. The line blurs - do I know what therianthropy even is? Perhaps all shifts are only cameo shifts.

But I am wolf, and I feel it to my toes. When I'm in a wolf phantom shift, it isn't something I concentrate on... it simply is. Wolf. Myself. I am wolf.

I wish I could stop there. I wish that Wolf were enough. Some days I think it is, that it might be... and then something else blinks, and I have to recognize it as it's own. I am Wolf. What else am I? Three years and I'm still not certain, and that frightens me. How can I be a contherianthrope if I'm more than Wolf? Wolf is dominant, yes, because I'm aware of it in a very real way.

Who am I?

I've narrowed the list a little, but it's so wide ranging that it boggles the mind. How can all these species feel so closecloseclose? I need to research. I need to soul search. Wolf was so easy to see, but three years of trying to make myself into Horse have dulled my capabilities to recognize what the Other might be as simply as that. I need to look further into raptorial birds; cougars; leopards, including snow; and ocelots.

These are all predators! Parts of me make me grit my teeth at that - predator, predator, predator. I took an odd sort of pride in being a Horse, in being a herbivore. And how could I mistake a feline, or a bird, for a HORSE? Disillusion, repression, and shifts so powerful they leave me in tears that they're not real. They're hollow, like dressing up for Halloween - no matter how convincing the costume, it still remains a costume. It's frustrating - I want to go back to horse, but I know I won't find solace there anymore. The shifts are still as powerful as ever, when I choose to shift Horse, but knowing that it's only a choice dulls some of the strength. Cameo shifts were always easy for me, making this all incredibly difficult.

Until then, I will howl, because that is the one thing I do know that remains a constant.