Talking about my "origins"
It's always been hard for me to talk about what kind of alterthing I am from a definition standpoint. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that my Watcher kintype is spiritual - I get glances of memories, much more often emotional bursts that feel like deja vu just sucker punched me either with joy and intrigue or pain and sorrow.
I tend to assign the spiritual label to my Cryptid kintype for the same reason, as I have reason to believe that past life is technically the same one, just after the Fall. When I came down from whatever cosmic perch I had, I had to assume a form and the Lone Pine Mountain Devil is the absolute closest entity I've found to what I connect and identify with. It's like looking into a pond to find a reflection but it's always drizzling a bit, the picture is clear enough but not perfect - but when I look in that pond, I can still recognize it's me, just with a LOT more eyes than normally depicted. How I was for a time and likely will be again.
The haziness really comes in when I think of my other types. I feel like a lot of therians are able to pinpoint, at least with time, what kind of origin best fits them. Ex. "I was a wolf in my past life, and I feel I am still a wolf in -blank- way." Most folks, at least outwardly, keep it pretty simple and assign that as spiritual unless there's some other congruent factor to be physical, psychological, etc.
Some folks were like me growing up, they formed a special interest around most/all animals, likely focused on a certain species or two, and it stuck with them and fundamentally changed who they are. They'd probably say they're an otherspin, or an otherfix, depending on the species/reasoning. Even if it takes a while to find the origin that they feel fits (which is not a requirement btw, but it brings a lot of folks, including myself, comfort), they're usually able to identify for each species or category of creature/thing that they are.
I feel like multiple things are true for my theriotypes.
I honestly, truly feel like my therianthropy is so hard to pin down and get comfortable with because of how many overlapping exomemories I have, the instincts get muddy and human life stressors make it harder for me to shut my brain down and just feel things. I am a fallen watcher and when I fell, I either gained or kept an ability to change my form. And what I did for thousands of years was explore the area that I had a special interest in as a celestial being.
Sometimes when I look at my theriotypes, I feel the same joy and intrigue that I have when looking at my favorite anime now, but it feels detached. This interest, this feeling of wanting to stick to the shadows and observe every movement of my theriotype, see how they are, what they do, how they act - that part isn't the me that's alive right now, that's from before, the Watcher I was, being entirely entranced with animal life on the planet, finding the coasts of North America breathtaking, wanting to break free of the cosmos and fall headfirst into the ocean to see the creatures that don't breach the surface or only come up for air sparingly.
I think, honestly, that my past self realized polymorphing into these creatures was not sufficient to experience what I craved - to be that animal and understand it, you have to be one from the beginning and learn from the others how to be that animal, those instincts come from somewhere specific that can't readily be replicated. So, I reincarnated instead.
I think some species I came back as more often than others, or maybe some I kept reincarnating until I could really get it, like maybe I was always the odd one out. The one on the edge of the herd, the dispersal wolf who never quite got the family hierarchy the first few tries, the seal who just wasn't that good at avoiding predators so it took a lot more iterations. I don't know, but I know I was those animals, just not only those animals. I'm a cosmic being cosplaying those animals until I truly became one, and so I still am them, by being marinated over time with love and practice.
My theriotypes are not spintypes for me but they likely were before I took this form. I am fenikae, I feel absolutely certain that when I die I will be my old self again, a Watcher who has a deep love for animals, even human animals. I loved them so much I wanted to reincarnate as different species, again and again, to experience what they experienced and be so beautiful, and to feel what they felt.
My theriotypes are instinctual, I do not tend to get fully formed memories from them, instead I get direct urges/the motor memory of an action; digging into the shore to snatch up and crack open a clam, huffing to get others attention or wanting to howl but never wishing to bark, wanting to score my claws deep into a tree and just climb towards my den, giving a brisk/hard stomp as warning and wanting to just headbutt that asshole with my antlers, diving into freezing water headfirst and gliding so naturally in search of a meal.
But behind all of those instincts is a cosmic being with Too Many Eyes who is so thrilled and giddy about all this and wants to do it again, maybe the same animal, maybe a new one, maybe another human this time, maybe I can get things "Right" next time. I probably never will but that's fine, the differences are also the beautiful thing about creatures. I may not be a perfect human or seal or wolf or bear, or anything else I've been, but I know I was and still am in a lot of ways even if I can't always pin it down at that moment.
I think I was born otherkin and I will be in every life I live, 'cause there will always be something else in the back of my mind, no matter what animal I get to be. So I guess I'm just a Not-creature in every life.
For me, I guess that can be its own origin.
