2023-12-10, 11:12
Hello,
We've been getting more new people here talking about "their Awakening" and what happened because of it, and I found out we don't have a thread about this here yet.
So... in general having words that are only used in the therian community is bad, because it makes us look like a cult. It also makes people like new therians, who don't understand what the words mean, attribute meaning to the words, that they do not have.
So, to avoid any further misunderstanding, allow me to explain to you what exactly Awakening actually is:
Your Awakening is not some magical thing that converts you from a human into a therian creature or anything like that. The Awakening is simply a word that describes the excitement we therians usually feel when we first discover the community.
The word stuck, because every one of us has at some point felt excited to discover the community and there's not really like a quick way to describe it, other than to call it an Awakening, which is what it was called for a long time (I mean in the history of the online therian community, 1994 is a long time ago).
Many of us feel like therianthropy is something in-born and therefore you do not ever actually become a therian -- you were a therian all along and then at some point you discovered what being like that was called, when you learned about therianthropy and discovered the community.
This is typically a pretty positive experience, at least that's how I remember it. I know that things are changing, but back when I discovered therianthropy on AHWw, there wasn't much of a community yet, I just read that FAQ about it and found 2-3 other people who thought they experienced the same thing as me. I was suddenly no longer alone and the things about me that I learned were therian, suddenly made sense.
Keep in mind that finding a place to belong is a positive experience for everyone, and there will always be people who find us and will be happy to have found us, who are not therians. We can't tell you if you're a therian or not, you have to find that out on your own, so... welcome. And please try and stay true to yourselves... even if it turns out you're not one of us, we can still be friends.
LP,
Dusty
We've been getting more new people here talking about "their Awakening" and what happened because of it, and I found out we don't have a thread about this here yet.
So... in general having words that are only used in the therian community is bad, because it makes us look like a cult. It also makes people like new therians, who don't understand what the words mean, attribute meaning to the words, that they do not have.
So, to avoid any further misunderstanding, allow me to explain to you what exactly Awakening actually is:
Your Awakening is not some magical thing that converts you from a human into a therian creature or anything like that. The Awakening is simply a word that describes the excitement we therians usually feel when we first discover the community.
The word stuck, because every one of us has at some point felt excited to discover the community and there's not really like a quick way to describe it, other than to call it an Awakening, which is what it was called for a long time (I mean in the history of the online therian community, 1994 is a long time ago).
Many of us feel like therianthropy is something in-born and therefore you do not ever actually become a therian -- you were a therian all along and then at some point you discovered what being like that was called, when you learned about therianthropy and discovered the community.
This is typically a pretty positive experience, at least that's how I remember it. I know that things are changing, but back when I discovered therianthropy on AHWw, there wasn't much of a community yet, I just read that FAQ about it and found 2-3 other people who thought they experienced the same thing as me. I was suddenly no longer alone and the things about me that I learned were therian, suddenly made sense.
Keep in mind that finding a place to belong is a positive experience for everyone, and there will always be people who find us and will be happy to have found us, who are not therians. We can't tell you if you're a therian or not, you have to find that out on your own, so... welcome. And please try and stay true to yourselves... even if it turns out you're not one of us, we can still be friends.
LP,
Dusty