wereanimal au posting again
i think out of the three of them, mira is the one who's the least Connected with being an animal person. it's genetic to be an animal person, but skipping generations isn't crazy uncommon by any means (and it's also the #1 way people are convinced they just "came out of nowhere" when it was actually passed down from a grandparent or something), and in mira's case it's exactly what happened to her!
her maternal grandma was a fox, the gene skipped her mother, and it ended up going to her. because Literally No One Else in her family was a fox like her (and she never met her grandmother) she had to hide it pretty hard, and she also had exactly Zero point of reference for what to expect or what it was like or anything like that
she pretty much exclusively lived her life as being a human up until she meets rumi and zoey, both of whom are So Much More connected to their animal than mira could ever dream of. it started off as a safety thing not to shift and then it sort of just turned into a "well why would i ever do it in the first place . i work just fine as a person i don't need this extra bullshit in my life"
it's not like she's ashamed or anything, but she really just hasn't had a chance to get to do much more than what she's been doing. her system has worked pretty well for her (fully just Being Human all the time) until it no longer is, and she doesn't really know how to deal with that. the idea of shifting so freely or even spending any large chunk of time as a fox is so weird and out of the norm for her that she genuinely doesn't do it even after their Big Discovery because why would she?
this is COMPLETELY different for rumi and zoey, who both grew up in households where either Everyone was an animal person or Almost Everyone was an animal person. for zoey, she grew up with her pack! wolves do in fact still follow the pack stereotypes here and her family is not any better BAHSGDSHFG both her parents and her brother are wolves like her, and honestly most of her extended family is made up of wolves too! really the only humans in her pack are there by marriage
outside of her pack though, zoey doesn't Really know any other animal people of any kind. she still grew up in a super supportive and quite frankly Great environment, like she never Once had to worry about accidentally shifting or not knowing what to do. there was never the "oh god i turned into a wild animal What The Fuck Do I Do About It" BAHAHAHSDGF
as a result she has like . CRAZY good control of her wolf form and has genuinely never had any issues with being an animal person. she's very good at shifting without issue, she has a really good idea of where her strength and speed come from (bonus perks of being an animal person! all animal people are generally stronger + faster, zoey just has a better idea of how that specifically presents for her), and she generally just doesn't have problems surrounding Being A Wolf
rumi's upbringing was fairly untraditional for animal people mostly just because she was. raised with Three Different Kinds BAHSGAHSGF she has her papa (riwoo) to thank for Being A Tiger, then celine is a stoat, kimmy's a polar bear, and miyeong is just. a human. so rumi kind of picked up behaviours from All Four Of Them and it Shows
she's 100% ultimately a tiger, but you can also tell she was raised by different types of animal people + a human BAHSGHSHFG she doesn't have any real trouble shifting and she is SO KEENLY INSANELY AWARE of her strength because of celine and her mom. she knows what's generally normal for tigers because of her papa, she just has a lot of traits from the four of them and behaves as such!
in a sense her Being A Tiger Specifically is less important to her than just being An Animal Person, whereas for zoey being A Wolf is kind of like a big deal. mira doesn't feel anything like that, she doesn't really refer to herself as A Fox until she hears rumi and zoey doing it and goes "well. i guess huh."
i think it takes a lot of time for mira to really come around to Being A Fox Actively more often. she typically stays as a human more than she's a fox, but she does shift a LOOOOTTT more than she ever has, especially once the three of them move into an actual house and leave their apartment behind