Arthropod-heart [15/03/2026]
[1min read]
“Other-hearted” is not exactly a concept specific to alterhumans and therianthropes. In fact, I meet many people every day who would qualify as animal-hearted.
It simply signifies a strong attachment to a specific animal. It could be in many ways : some people spiritually feel attached to animal spirits, some people feel a strong tie to the symbolism of an animal, some people have been associated to a specific animal in people’s mind. Some people just feel very strongly about their favorite animal.
I am arthropod-hearted. My favorite creatures on earth are insects, spiders, centipedes, etc. This may matter more to my daily life than my therianthropy. After all, I am just a bird. But my love for insects has led me to consider a career in entomology.
Many people think that someone’s favorite animal has to be their theriotype, in our cases. I guess it’s because for someone who isn’t a therianthrope, that phenomenon of liking an animal so much it becomes part of you, in a way, is the most similar. But while I did not choose to experience therianthropy, and while I now appreciate roadrunners due to what they represent to me, my heartedness was much more intentional.
I have loved arthropods since I was a child. I have many memories of finding praying mantises, of feeding spiders, of trying to let out bugs that freaked out other children. I have always felt a lot of sympathy for them. Especially the more unloved ones.
Knowing about insects has led me into my love for environmental biology overall, and then toward research. I now am a naturalist, with a hobby of insect identification. I study, in a lab, Hymenoptera neurology, reconstructing structures from scans. I may, in my life, study many different insect species.
If therianthropy is a machine, a structure of what I am, then my love for insect is my fuel.
I do experience things that are more on the unusual side, due to that interest. My theory is that my brain, used to the strangeness of my therianthropic experiences, happens to more easily then experience other odd perceptual experiences of the sort. I am therefore able through visualization to put myself in sort of trance states where I experience “shifts” toward more arthropod like experiences, as if I temporarily took on an insectoid therianthropic mantle. I enjoy provoking these experiences intentionally. They are brief, and seldom happen without me purposefully making them happen. I sometimes write logs of them, as there is very few insect therianthropes. I would be interested, someday, to compare these experiences with their owns.
