August 28, 2017
Over the years, I’ve heard many an argument that otherkin, therians, and fictionkin are just overly fond of a particular animal, mythical creature, or fictional character. Sure, some non-humans are certainly very fond of their kin/therio/fictotypes, but that’s not the point. Liking a particular creature does not equate to otherkinity…in fact, it more closely aligns with other-heartedness than otherkinity.
To hopefully clear up some confusion, I’ll briefly detail why, despite my great love for house cats, I am not a cat therian.
In kindergarten, around the time I first began experiencing the first hints of otherkinity, I also discovered my fondness for house cats. I don’t know where the feeling came from, but I realized very quickly that I wanted a kitten. My mother was allergic to pets, and I realized this, but I kept asking and asking and asking for a pet cat. Finally, after months of me begging, my mother happened across a stray kitten near her office, and decided we could keep the cat for one week, and if she didn’t have an allergy attack, we’d keep it. Miraculously, my mom didn’t have an allergy attack, and we adopted the cat as our pet.
I loved this cat. She was a shorthair tuxedo cat, and despite only being 60% or so black, I named her Blacky. She was a grumpy old lady from the start, but my love for her was boundless. I brushed her, played with her, followed her around, dressed her up, and generally annoyed her. Being six years old, I copied her behaviors and pretended I was a cat too, and I occasionally even demanded that my parents fill bowls with dry cereal and put them on the floor for me so I could eat next to Blacky and get the full cat experience. I was completely obsessed. I had cat themed everything. I even went to a showing of the musical Cats, dressed up as Blacky.
As I got older, my obsession let up a little, but I was and still am in love with house cats, even though I’ve been bitten and scratched many times, and I’ve come to realize cats are really quite a destructive species, especially when it comes to birds (please keep your cats indoors, folks!). My partner is obsessed with cats the same way I am, so whenever my partner and I see cute pictures of cats, we act like complete idiots, because if there’s anything that makes me want to punch myself it’s so cute, it’s definitely a picture of a tiny fuzzy kitten. Anyway, to this day, whenever I see a friendly cat on the sidewalk, I take the time to greet it and pet it, and will sometimes even sit down with it for a few minutes, simply because I enjoy being around cats. I like and appreciate dogs, but I'm really not that interested in seeking out their attention. I might give a passing dog a hand to sniff or a nice pat, but my interest in being spending time with it really isn’t the same.
So, if I’m so obsessed with cats, why am I not a cat therian? The answer is simple: because I do not identify as a cat. I love them. I want to be around them. I want to adopt them and give them a good home. I’ve even had cameo shifts of cat ears and cat claws. But I do not feel I should be a cat on any level.
Let’s look at this from another point of view: why I identify as a dragon, even though I haven’t spent the last four paragraphs ranting about how much I love them. Since I was young, I’ve felt drawn to dragon characters and images, and I always found drawing dragons exciting and fun. I have some personal belongings with dragons on them, and I have a number of books featuring dragon characters. However, I am very, very tired of dragons. They’re absolutely everywhere. In books, in TV shows, in computer and video games…even in boardgames! Dragon art is posted so frequently online, that it’s hard to get away. But I can’t get away, because I’ve felt I should be a dragon for almost 20 years. I’m not particularly distressed that I identify as something that’s so commonly portrayed, but yet another dragon end-boss in the newest RPG or another drawing of a “cute” baby dragon generates very little excitement in my brain. Focus on mermaids for awhile or something, please.
Despite my apathy, I experience phantom and mental shifts as a dragon, I’ve picked up mannerisms I believe are draconic, and I feel very comfortable imagining myself with a dragon body. I’ve been waiting for years for a dragon VR simulator to come out so I can finally fly around (virtually) like I feel I should be able to. I can imagine myself as a cat, but there’s a certain alienness to attempting to feel like a cat that I don’t feel when I imagine myself as a dragon. It feels completely wrong, and despite having watched the way cats move and act for almost 20 years, I don’t quite understand how it should feel to be a cat. Granted, I can’t really know what a dragon moves or acts like because they don’t exist, but somehow what I experience as dragonkin is definitely dragon, and it definitely feels right. Dragon is me, I am dragon, end of story.