Recently, I had a bit of a furry identity crisis. I had been asking friends who fit the label of "therian" and apply it to themselves about it for quite a while; I wanted to confirm if my presuppositions of what a therian is according to their experiences.
I found that it touched on a lot of aspects relating to one's internal sense of self that already converge quite heavily with furry, at least when it comes to inhabiting your own fursona. But hold on... did I inhabit my own fursonas?

I definitely did at some point. Lucario is a fantasy creature that I felt very connected to, and through which I was able to construct a representation of myself that embodied that harmony between my humanity and animality. I did have a thing with bunnies as well, and Riolu was (perhaps still is?) a cute metaphor for a wilder, beastlier and more playfully sexual side of my psyche that I discovered after changing my HRT. They're also very adorable creatures and I desperately wish I had their fluffy ears and enchanting faces. And yet, I found myself separated from them.

I don't know when exactly it started, but at some point, the changes I made to my fursonas became more about what made sense or seemed interesting and compelling than what felt right and me. In identifying that I had an unconscious aversion towards using the first person for them -opting instead for "my lucario/riolu/bunny fursona"- I became aware of a growing disconnect between me and something that's been a very important part of my identity for almost half of my life!

That realization sent me into a bit of a freakout... at work...
Did I need new fursonas? Should I fuse them all? Do I need a new name, new socials? Should I just sleep on it and try to change my mentality around them?
I spent the last of my, fortunately uneventful, shift and the rest of the night creating proto-fursonas: I thought of multiple animals, monsters, pokemon, digimon, etc, and tried to see if I could somehow fit my heart in their conceptual bodies. If they passed that initial test, I would begin doodling whatever seemed right and representative of them; they'd get a signature pose, a hairstyle, a cock and balls, expressions, etc.
After an embarrassingly long time to be looking up different critters, I ended up with a lion, a boxer dog, an andean mountain cat, another bunny, a Torracat, and a Riolu with signifficantly more cat-like features. I noticed felines clicked with me in a way other species did not... which retroactively made me realize I have way more cat-like behaviours than I thought.

I felt fuzzy when looking at the andean cat (that's why it has thicker lines, I did those after the fact) and, after looking up feline-lucario hybrids, felt just as well when I doodled a kittycario of my own (admittedly, it took me a few attempts to find one I was satisfied with a design).

Finally, I made a proper first drawing of the new lucario; something to say "this is what I am now".

So, there I am! Stretching to get a feel of a new design that's the most me it has felt in a while. As of when I'm writing this, I don't have a drawing of the Andean cat, but there will be.
I hope I don't close myself off again. My request to myself is that I allow for my fursonas to change moving forward, be it in species, design, or in my braaaainnnn.

and i'm 99% sure that brain has a lot of cat in it meowmeowmeowwr