Hamsterplurid

Where it comes to how hamsters collectively influence our system's identity, it involves otherkin, but also other areas.

The reason for our attachment to hamsters comes from a fixation on rats we developed around the age of 12. Our adoptive family did not like rats or most rodents, but they compromised by letting me get a hamster, so at 13, I got my first hamster - a black Syrian teddy bear hamster.

A teddy bear hamster is a breed of Syrian hamster - also known as a golden hamster, but they can be many colors in captivity. The teddy bear hamster is a golden hamster that has a genetic mutation that makes it very very fluffy. Male teddy bear hamsters are fluffier than females due to the gene being connected to testosterone.

Some of our transmasc or GNC male headmates who have long hair in headspace enjoy this connection between teddy bear hamsters and gender. They like that a teddy bear hamster being more masculine by hamster standards makes him cuter by human standards, thus connecting softness, fluffiness, and cuteness with masculinity.

Many of them are hamster therians who turn into hamsters in headspace. The hamster therians have a very important role in our system, as our last hamster died in 2021, and our living situation is currently not ideal for keeping a pet.

The thing about the hamsters is that, not only is being a hamster a big part of their identity, taking care of the hamsters is a big part of the identities of their in-system caretakers. Sometimes this is a petplay arrangement, and sometimes it is pet regression unrelated to kink and is more like animal-themed age regression for those who have difficulty actually age regressing.

All our friends know about our love for hamsters, and many of our friends interact with our hamster therians as hamsters - that is, the hamsters will roleplay things over text like running on their wheels or sniffing our friends, and our friends will give them yogurt drops and pet them.

Furthermore, hamsters are an important part of our DPD recovery. We compare having DPD to being a pet hamster that, in the area we are from, is not a wild animal and cannot take care of itself. This especially stands in comparison to rats, a common kintype of the system. A pet hamster needs to be taken care of by an owner even in areas that have wild rats.

However, hamsters DO exist as wild animals in other parts of the world, including Germany, where our adoptive father once lived. Wild hamsters can take care of themselves, and our hamster therians with DPD see recovering from DPD as learning how to be a wild hamster. This makes our enagement with nature a part of our DPD recovery, because it feels like we're going out to be a wild animal.

While it's convenient to say we're collectively hamster kin, it's honestly much more than just BEING a hamster. It's also our history owning hamsters, taking care of hamsters in the system, how they relate to gender, and hamsters as a metaphor for mental illness and recovery from it.