Feline-Kin Self-Care
Catnip Natural Lip Balm - $7.85
The Ultimate Cat Sticker Book - $6.00
Kitty Nail Files Pack - $7.24
Cat Sleep Mask (W or W/O Lavender) - $10.50+
Tension Tamer Tea - $2.33
Kittea Infuser - $17.00
The cat sleep mask and the Catnip lip balm are from etsy shops, if the link says the item is sold, please check for re-listings or ask if the seller still makes these items!
Tension Tamer Tea contains catnip in its blend~
Little essay under the cut for those who feel like reading otherkin-ish stuff.
A lot of new 'kin ask about finding the right kintype, and while the path to that lovely moment of self-discovery is different for everyone, I thought I'd write out how I figured it out. Just for funsies.
And because I need a bit of a break from the Starscream-feels before I completely exhaust my ability to function without frustrated fangirl-tears.
ANYWAYS.
So, my story starts the same way most 'kin stories start: back in the day, when I was a wee little thing, I was a little... odd. Most of my playtime involved running around on four legs. Well, the closest I could comfortably get: I would crawl about so much I wore the knees out of all of my pants; drove my mother crazy. Non-human noises like growling and snarling. Wanting to be an animal. Curling the fingers into claws when startled. Curling up like a cat. Simply pretending that I was a cat.
As I grew up, those little idiosyncracies remained. I still growled or hissed when startled (I did learn to tone it down so no one really noticed; I also got lucky: the ones who did notice were my friends and just accepted it as my norm). I still clawed. If you woke me up without warning and were close enough, you'd end up bitten (my father learned this the hard way; just once).
Other idiosyncracies popped up. I learned how to move my ears. They move all the time now, following sounds, flicking back when I'm annoyed or nervous. Once I left my parents' house, I found I preferred to keep my nails sharpened into points (actually really utilitarian, but I digress). When I'm alone, emotions tend to be conveyed by throaty grunts, little purrs, and quiet chuffs.
The urge to walk or run quadruped comes and goes. The feel of a tail comes and goes. Walking digitigrade is pretty standard when I'm at home.
Mentally, idiosyncracies continue: moments of a hunter's aggression. The love of and need for solitude. Occasionally ridiculous territoriality. Oh, I could go on, but y'all get the idea.
So how did I come to the conclusion that I was a lynx and not a lion, or a tiger, or an ocelot, or whatever?
Well, my paws, when I felt them (often when I dreamed or meditated), felt too big to be a house cat's, but too small to be a tiger's. I knew that the body I wanted, the body some bit of my brain kept telling me I should have, was medium in size. That took out a lot of the big cats. I also knew I purred. That further took them out.
Beyond that? Well, beyond that, I didn't much care. You see, I knew I was felid, some sort of small cat, and that was enough for me. Putting a name to it was not hugely important to me. I knew what my behaviors were, how I felt, and putting a name to it would not change what I was. Calling myself "cat" was enough.
But then one day, I just sort of... wanted to. Because I was bored, because I was curious, maybe just so that people who asked me could get a straight answer; who knows. The point is, I ended up doing it.
I'm a logical creature, and so I sat myself down and asked myself: where are you from? What do you see when you think of the perfect home? What sort of creatures make your ears perk, make your mind say "stalk, pounce, kill?"
I wasn't tropical. I didn't want tropical. I didn't want desert. I wanted temperate, northern. I wanted snow, but I also wanted spring and sun. I wanted deep forests, somewhere to hide. I could do with mountains, but I was not of the mountains.
The best thing to chase was the rabbit. Other small things. No part of me looked for companions that would help in the kill of something too large; I was no lion. The biggest thing I liked was deer. I liked watching them run. A part of me REALLY liked watching them run.
And the chase would happen in the fields and the forests. Not boreal, but temperate. Where the leaves would fall in the autumn.
And eventually, after researching and asking myself these questions and more, I settled on lynx.
And THEN, I had this really entertaining moment of realization that my OC, a person I had identified with since I was... oh... thirteen or so, had a lynx's face. And then my best friend laughed at me and told me that that was obvious, but that's another story.
And that, friends and neighbors, is how CF figured out she was a lynx-monstrosity and not a sandcat or a puma or whatevs.
