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Therians of color expresses discomfort with white therians self identifying with K-9 units because said therians of color have trauma with police, because police are inherently a tool of systemic racism, and/or because these white therians spread copaganda and sympathize with murderers in blue. This starts a whole controversy in nonhuman spaces about the validity of this discomfort, and the loudest voices are rarely people of color. The comfort of white therians is centered instead of the marginalized voices in the community, and therians of color are accused of dividing the community with "unnecessary drama". In the end its decided that people who don't like K-9 therians are alterhumisiacs despite the self-identification of K-9s either showing a lack of knowlege about K-9s themselves or a disregard for how K-9s are used as tools of systemic oppression and racism. Do not tell me this "never happened."

A more personal example, way back when I blocked a canine therian on TikTok whose whole account was dedicated to the aesthetics of Russian military dogs. I made the shit mistake of later venting about Americans normalizing Russian aggression publically and eventually it got to them. Now tell me, if a group of people were actively killing you via famines and wars for centuries, passively exterminating you by supporting the agressors economy, by mothering and dating soldiers going off to kill you, by making components to weapons safe in factories, would you want to be around them? And if someone were to aestheticize this, hiding behind an "involuntary" identity doing so, wouldn't you be rightfully disgusted? As it turns out, a lot of American therians would disagree, because I was ran off of said account for "invalidating" someone's identification as a tool of Ruzzian oppression.

After all of this, I have a hard time believing you things can turn around and say "its fine to push away members of my own community in favor of comfort," when you pieces of shit twisted the words of POC to say just that, and then bullied them off their platforms for it. I have a hard time believing "I just can't interact with them because of trauma," when you prey on victims of war that do just that, because you can't handle trauma that isn't apolitical.

It was always about falling for propaganda "wokely". Pro-cop propaganda that functions as good PR for police departments as well as an easy way to make POC look non compliant (contrary to popular belief, its hard to follow commands when a dog is so much as barking in your face, let alone lunging and snapping at you.) Pro-fascist propaganda to make a defending country look evil for defending itself, even when the weapons the aggressor uses are animals. Pro-ecodestruction propaganda telling you to kill more of our many ecosystems backbones, so thay you'd turn a blind eye when they do it as well.

[PT: "I want to 'link, but I'm not sure what to choose as a linktype" /PT end]

You want to 'link, but you're not sure what to choose? Here's some questions and suggestions, that maybe will help you.

Do you have an animal/a character/an object/a concept/etc. that you feel connected with in some way? If you feel a connection to something, maybe try 'linking this.

What's your reason for 'linking? E.g. if you wanna become more brave, try 'linking something that you associate with being brave (e.g. a lion), or a character that is brave in their source. Or maybe if you wanna 'link in order to cope with something, you can look for characters that went through similar experiences as you and found a way to cope, and you could 'link them.

If you have any other alterhuman identity already, maybe you could 'link something related to that. E.g. If you're an otherflicker and miss some of your 'flickers or want to make them permanent, you could 'link them! If you have a hearthome, you could 'link something related to it (e.g. if any species/characters live in the place that's your hearthome, you could 'link them).

Did you want to be a specific animal/character/object/concept/etc. when you were younger? Maybe you could 'link that, if you still feel some connection to that!

Or maybe there were characters or animals that you used to roleplay as? You could 'link them, too!

Interact with some media, and maybe you'll find some ideas for linktypes.

You can also read some encyclopedias. Maybe they will give you some ideas for a linktype. And even if after reading you wouldn't get any ideas, you still would have learnt something new!

Look around. Maybe at your home, or somewhere in your area, there's something that you could 'link!

You can read about experiences of other otherlinkers to learn about what made them choose their linktypes.

These are only a few ideas. I hope these will help somebody! If you have your own ideas or suggestions, feel free to share them in the reblogs! And if you already chose a linktype/linktypes, feel free to share what made you choose them.

i noticed somewhat of a trend of radio collar ids for wild canines so i looked into it. But since they are not as popular for wild horses i propose something else: Freeze Brands

They are used by the american BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and are actually an 8-digit ID;

The last three digits narrow the location even more down. A pdf with a lot of those "herd codes" can be found here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161227055746/https://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/statistics/2005/FY2005_Stats.pdf

Obviously this isn't a perfect solution, but i really liked the idea and wanted to share my take on it.

Since i am not american but my country doesn't really have any actually wild horses (just some in nature reserves so there is no real need for monitoring) i adapted it a bit:

i think something cool that us domestic horses could do is create a symbol for themselves! heres some info about what different placements and common symbols mean from the American Quarter Horse Association.

"The Chincoteague Pony Association was run by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company (CVFC) from 1994 to 2012. All of the stallions and mares in the feral herd were assigned a number. From 1994 to 2008 the auction numbers were the dam's number. It wasn't always reliable, but usually if you know a foal's auction number from those years then you can identify the dam. The ponies in the feral herd when the association was founded in 1994 were branded with their number, usually on their shoulder. Accompanied by an F, for the fire company. The stallion numbers were S with a number. This was also when all of the feral ponies received names. Friendly Girl/Witchkraft was the last living pony in the herd with that brand. Ponies after that usually just had the birth year branded, like they do today. And occasionally with an F. Thanks to a lot of hard work over the years the pony community has figured out many of the numbers. There's still some we know the name and number but haven't figured out which pony it goes to. Others we know the number and the pony but not the name. Or we know the pony but not the name or number."

"National Park Service assigns numbers to Maryland Assateague Horses. These numbers are called Keiper numbers after Dr. Ronald Keiper who devised the system. The number identifies and tracks the maternal line of a pony. Dr. Keiper gave each herd a letter in 1975 and then each pony a number, such as N10. A letter is assigned to each birth year starting with A in 1976. The example pony N10OY descends from the original N10, who then had N10O born in 1990, who then had N10OY born in 2000. Horses having X numbers had unknown parentage at the time they were recorded. Some lost their X designation and were renumbered thanks to a genetic study performed in 2005."

"F means the pony is/was a feral pony living on Assateague. All Maryland feral ponies have this designation. Only some of the Virginia feral ponies do. If the pony is not a buyback (or not known if they are) then they have an F rather than a B. Some ponies were simply kept and thus don't have a buyback donor. Others were donated back to the herd later and have a donor but are not a buyback. B means the pony is a buyback and was/is a feral pony living on the Virginia end of Assateague. A buyback is a pony that was donated back to the CVFC by someone(s). The buyback donor usually selected the pony's name. Occasionally we never found out what name the donor selected. The name of the donor is listed in the record whenever possible. We thought that having both F and B on buybacks would be redundant. M means that pony is a descendant of Misty of Chincoteague. Their relationship to Misty is listed in the notes of the pony's record. H means the pony is a half Chincoteague Pony. Only one parent is shown on their record, their Chincoteague parent. The name of the non-Chincoteague parent is listed in the notes and their pedigree is linked to whenever possible. Half Chincoteagues that were part of the Virginia feral herd are considered full Chincoteagues and do not have this designation."

"The Chincoteague Pony Pedigree Database is the official database and studbook of the International Chincoteague Pony Association and Registry (ICPAR). The CPPD was founded in 2015 and then partnered with the ICPAR at its founding in 2021. The partnership provides an online studbook for the breed association, something that's common with many horse registries. The CPPD is a separate entity."

i noticed somewhat of a trend of radio collar ids for wild canines so i looked into it. But since they are not as popular for wild horses i propose something else: Freeze Brands

They are used by the american BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and are actually an 8-digit ID;

The last three digits narrow the location even more down. A pdf with a lot of those "herd codes" can be found here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161227055746/https://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/statistics/2005/FY2005_Stats.pdf

Obviously this isn't a perfect solution, but i really liked the idea and wanted to share my take on it.

Since i am not american but my country doesn't really have any actually wild horses (just some in nature reserves so there is no real need for monitoring) i adapted it a bit:

i think something cool that us domestic horses could do is create a symbol for themselves! heres some info about what different placements and common symbols mean from the American Quarter Horse Association.

archetrope: An identity under the alterhuman umbrella in which one heavily identifies with or otherwise experiences an archetype, trope, or otherwise preestablished character model in a way that is central to their identity. It may not necessarily be inherently nonhuman, but has a significant enough impact on one’s identity to be experienced in similar ways as other alterhuman labels. Archetropy may specifically or especially inform one’s identity in deeply influential ways in regards to aspects such as personality, occupation/profession/field of study, gender expression or identity, philosophy, spiritual beliefs, or political alignment. It is a nuanced and complex identity which can fall anywhere on the voluntary-involuntary and “identify with”-“identify as” spectrums. This identity can also have spiritual, psychological, or other origins. It could present as an intrinsic identity one is born with, an identity one takes on for the purpose or self-expression and enjoyment, a coping mechanism, or in a myriad of other ways. It is a flexible term that describes a broad range of experiences of identity and alterhumanity. (Examples of archetropal identities include pirate, clown, ranger, royalty, etc.)

“person who is” noun form: archetrope (For example, “Jane is an archetrope.”) “state of being” noun form: archetropy (For example, “John’s archetropy affects their identity.”) adjective form: archetropal (For example, “Jane’s archetropal identity makes them happy.”)

To refer to specific archetrope “types” (as one would specific kintypes or kithtypes) use the prefix “arche-” followed by the identity itself. (For example, “I am an archepirate,” “They are archeroyal,” etc.) The term can also be hyphenated if the identity label starts with a letter that would make the term difficult to read such as in “arche-explorer,” if the term is multiple words long such as “arche-raised by wolves” or “arche-mountain man,” or if one simply prefers to use that syntax.

It is very important to note that those who created this term do not believe in anyone being forced to identify with any particular term or label themselves any specific way! This term exists to describe a community and identity that is commonly experienced but doesn’t have any specific preexisting terminology, but no one should be forced to identify with it if they prefer to describe their identity in some other way. The way you define yourself is up to you, this is just another option!

This term was coined (and both its flag and symbol were designed) collaboratively in this thread on the Nonhuman National Park forum. Additional credit goes to @monsterqueers and @thelightfluxtastic for their contributions.

For more information on flag and symbol meanings, see the information below!