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| My fifth birthday. Try some cake kitties? |
I jumped on Blacklight Retribution for rivalrous fun with a friend and found an ambuscade of people identifying as “furry.” In my random interweb wanderings I’ve come across a furry here and there, just undercurrents in diminutive subcultures. But in Blacklight, more than half the people I’ve chatted with tell me first and foremost they are furry. Perhaps they are just more chatty than others there?
In the past, upon meeting, I’d pause to celebrate the shine found in an ardent furry spirit. Part of my nature is to give a moment of worship to any truly passionate person– whether art is their identity, music, research/wisdom and yes, even cosplayers and furries.But many of these Blacklight furry folk wear the furry like it is a girl scout badge– another trend followed– and I wonder if it may be oft with little self-thought or understanding. Just another bandwagon…
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| My grandmother’s grave. |
I don’t claim “furry.” I never had an identity conversion to furrydom. I feel no need to draw animal cartoons or dress in adorable ears for myself, but I do appreciate some of the prodigious expressions I’ve seen.
Yet, I’ve always been animal. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy costumes and dress-up roleplay. But I just experience the old animal me, dressing as a different animal. I have no totem. Having a theriotype was not a choice I could make. I am that I am. Manifest me and no amount of taming will ever categorize, cage or quench me.
As soon as I could walk, I had a shamanistic attitude toward the world around me, living or inanimate. My mother’s friends smiled at how I would delicately toddle into a flowerbed, gently bend the flowers to the side and step over. When I did fall on one of my mother’s animals or a plant, I would cry and caress it, even before I could talk.
My early childhood homes were full of dogs and cats. I had an inarguable anthropomorphic view of animals and I completely refused to leave the house without a pet. For anything.
I understood their bodies were different than mine, but it wasn’t fair that I got to explore the world and they didn’t. The world is a dangerous place and so I was content to bring one at a time, knowing I wouldn’t be able to protect more than that in a strange environment. My mother always wanted to go somewhere and in tow came me and most likely a kitty: library, stores, restaurants, graveyards, hikes, Pow-Wows, parades, swimming, and even to her random courses at the local university.
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| Indian painting caves near Billings Montana |
No one fussed about my completely inappropriate pets. There was no question– anyone who saw me could tell there would be no separation without bloody mayhem. My mother knew this wouldn’t fly in kindergarten, so she didn’t bother enrolling me.
One early morning, when I was five, I walked by the bathroom and saw that my mother had left the lid off the tall plastic hamper. My mother was mentally ill, there were always random odd things I was doing for her and without hesitation, I picked up the hamper lid and set it back on. Later, I went out with my mother and a cat for a picnic with some of her friends in the park. We were gone for hours.
That evening, I popped open the hamper to put away my dirty clothes and found four smothered kittens. Mama cat must have tucked them away in the morning and then gone off to eat or something.
At that point, I clamped down on my animal anthropomorphic tendencies. I still felt Therian, but I realized that I had the capacity to hurt others, especially unintentionally. I remain as collared as I can be, but as a moth to flame, there are some energies I just can’t resist, despite the destruction that may ensue.
This past month, on Blacklight, it has truly been worth sifting through chaff to find the sparkles. I’ve met a couple of kin that aren’t completely superficial children playing with a new trend. And surprising myself, I even joined a furry clan run by one of those sparkles. I feel a little like an invader but truly, she is an adorable spirit… with guns and boom to boot.
[UPDATE: Note to self- Don't kill clan leader with a machete. Ever again. oops.]
And that ends my vulnerable exposure for the day.
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