Badger awakening
Jul. 10th, 2020 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitcorvvinI have gone through so many species before finally understanding this kintype.
When I first came into the community, I briefly thought I was a cat. Then I realized my shifts were of a longer muzzle and a bushier tail, so I thought red fox. (No indication, of course, that the tail was particularly long.) Then my family took a trip to Arizona (and every day I wish I could go back), and I realized I had to be some sort of desert animal, as being in the Sonoran desert brought the shifts on at full force and I felt right at home. I labeled myself a swift fox, because I’m bad at geography and thought swift foxes lived in the Sonoran desert. It wasn’t until three years later that I learned it’s kit foxes and not swift foxes that live in the Sonoran desert. Swift foxes live in the Great Plains region.
So I called myself a kit fox, and I slipped into it easily. I had no inkling, not a single hint, that it was wrong. I had been a fox for four years and it felt like the most natural thing. No way I could be something else. Hm… a nocturnal desert predator with a bushy tail and long snout. What other than a fox? Right?
Around the time that I learned the shocking truth about kit vs swift foxes, I started to think I had another, aquatic kintype; I took some of the traits I felt in shifts that did not yet have an explanation: long bear-like claws (badger), hunting urge towards fish (osprey), and calling toward the ocean (osprey). I decided on Yaguarasaurus, a type of semi-aquatic early mosasaur. That didn’t click. I learned about Kutchicetus, a type of terrestrial whale ancestor, and adopted it. That didn’t click either.
It took me longer than I care to admit to even consider the combination of badger and osprey. I had long described these claws I felt as “badger-like” and never even considered once that they might be exactly that. I'll admit right now I was too caught up in the joy of having “cool” kintypes. There is a different kind of joy in knowing what you really are, though.
When I first came into the community, I briefly thought I was a cat. Then I realized my shifts were of a longer muzzle and a bushier tail, so I thought red fox. (No indication, of course, that the tail was particularly long.) Then my family took a trip to Arizona (and every day I wish I could go back), and I realized I had to be some sort of desert animal, as being in the Sonoran desert brought the shifts on at full force and I felt right at home. I labeled myself a swift fox, because I’m bad at geography and thought swift foxes lived in the Sonoran desert. It wasn’t until three years later that I learned it’s kit foxes and not swift foxes that live in the Sonoran desert. Swift foxes live in the Great Plains region.
So I called myself a kit fox, and I slipped into it easily. I had no inkling, not a single hint, that it was wrong. I had been a fox for four years and it felt like the most natural thing. No way I could be something else. Hm… a nocturnal desert predator with a bushy tail and long snout. What other than a fox? Right?
Around the time that I learned the shocking truth about kit vs swift foxes, I started to think I had another, aquatic kintype; I took some of the traits I felt in shifts that did not yet have an explanation: long bear-like claws (badger), hunting urge towards fish (osprey), and calling toward the ocean (osprey). I decided on Yaguarasaurus, a type of semi-aquatic early mosasaur. That didn’t click. I learned about Kutchicetus, a type of terrestrial whale ancestor, and adopted it. That didn’t click either.
It took me longer than I care to admit to even consider the combination of badger and osprey. I had long described these claws I felt as “badger-like” and never even considered once that they might be exactly that. I'll admit right now I was too caught up in the joy of having “cool” kintypes. There is a different kind of joy in knowing what you really are, though.
