I always liked were'animal stories. The light ones, not the monstrous horrors. When I was a kid, there was a time where I got into those "spells" - the ones where I’d perform "very real and serious", for a kid, rituals to turn into a cat, using pieces of paper with wishes written on them, potions with some random drinks and foods, and so on. You know what I mean, right?
I often had evenings where, right before falling asleep, I’d feel my body changing - my hands turning into paws and stuff like that. This cat idea I had was a general concept; it wasn’t specifically a house cat. I didn’t really think about it - whether it was a house cat or a wild felid, it was all similar to me, just feline. I didn’t even have any pet cats back then - so where did that come from? :)
I just desperately needed to become a cat, you know? To wake up the next day and surprise my family - wondering how such a creature had appeared in their house :) This continued through middle school and was still evident in high school in high school. Quietly snarling at annoying teachers and classmates walking by, standing against the wall during break while waiting for the bell, was a sacred ritual. And I thought that this was how it was for everyone - that there was nothing unusual about me - that every person around me had secret animal sides, they just didn’t want to express them, which is why I personally didn’t see it. Somehow it was just the background - well, if I’m such a cat, then surely everyone else must be some kind of secret animal too. It turned out later that they weren’t.
The Lion King remake. This movie played a significant role in my immediate awakening. August 2019. I was 19 then. A movie theater, a full house. Near the end of the film. The first incredibly vivid m-shift, expressed as an overwhelming desire to leap into the screen and, swiping with my claws and biting, rush to the aid of the animated lions. I almost roared out loud to the whole theater. Well, there you go. I snapped out of it.
It was strange. Refreshing, even pleasantly dizzying, but unusually strong.
Later, several days after that experience, I realized. THAT is THE CAT, it's not that generalized feline.
A lion. Me. The life of a lion - it’s mine. Those big paws, those sounds I’ve been making since childhood. Not just a cat. But a specific felid: a lion.
Although I’m still constantly haunted by imposter syndrome, as if I don’t measure up to that identity, because a lion is majesty, coolness, arrogance, and ferocity — not what human society has made of me. Human stereotypes are strong okay?
One day in September, I went online to read about were'animals, looking for feline stories, especially about the lion shifters. And here we are. There’s a word called therianthropy - a term essentially meaning human-animal shapeshifting. And then I came across information about our modern community, the one we know today...
I was surprised. I’m not alone. There really is a community of weres, beasts in human bodies, spiritual, psychological, physical, such diverse!
Why didn’t I figure this out sooner? I hadn’t really come across anything about lions before. /shrug/. I didn’t used to have much interest in animals as a child and early teen, and I didn’t watch documentaries at all back then - and later I realized why.
I physically can’t watch shows about lions without getting upset - they make me feel incredibly melancholy.
With other cats - and other animals in general - I can handle it, but with lions… I just can’t.
/insert a roar full of pain sound/
