Therian

It's Mira!

I'm turning something around in my head here. We've said in some places before that we only call ourselves "Furry" at this point out of convenience. Trying to draw a distinction would be kind of ridiculous, but we see furry as referring to something like a hobby. We have a lot of friends in the community, but don't especially feel attached to it directly. That might feel like splitting hairs but its how we feel. I don't need a word to describe myself other than "a kitty cat."

Those concepts exist, though. To not be human is, as it turns out, a profoundly human thing. Growing up there were otherkin, and most of our thoughts about that are likely tainted by bad stereotypes. The word "therian" is more popular now, and adopted by plenty of wonderful critters we know, but it seems to be mostly the same thing. Or similar. Maybe kind of a bi vs pan situation. As far as we can tell, there's been a lot of inane discourse around it and we make a point to avoid caring about things like that. That said, there's less of an explicitly religious bent to the therians we see nowadays, and certainly that would suit us better.

The term doesn't work for us, though. We don't get any joy from the idea of it. It can be hard to really understand why that is. It feels like something different from me, though, even if its close. It carries the connotation, to me, that you should want to be living a different life in the woods or whatever. Or that you should want to change your body. I mostly like our life, and I'm definitely a domestic cat. I like a warm lap. And my relationship with our body is naturally very complicated. Sometimes being a small cat is a nice idea, but for the most part I'm just me. The pictoral representation is who and what I am, beyond the reality of this human body. That's true for all of us, but all our feelings about ourselves are a bit different.

Being a cat is partly a matter of description and partly a matter of aspiration. I see myself in the cats I know, and I want what they have. I want to be loved like how people love them. It's not that there isn't a bodily aspect to the whole thing. I'd love to have nice, soft fur. I'd love to have it rubbed gently as I lounge around. I think I'd appreciate big cute cat ears. Sometimes I can feel them if they're being teased enough. Sometimes I get this desire to nuzzle and rub against the things I love. How much of this would exist without me already being a cat, I'm not sure. The thing is, when I have what I need, I can handle a human body without issue. I have an owner who wouldn't have any problems with it either, if such a thing were possible in the first place.

Maybe that's part of it. That feeling of "this isn't what I actually want." A change in this body would, at best, be a means to an end. I'm just a cat who wants to be snuggled closely, and that doesn't seem like such a tall ask to me!!