#cat-síth

[dailydemonspotlight]

I really love these posts could you do one for Pele or Cait sith

Cait Sith - Day 41

Race: Beast

Alignment: Neutral

May 17th, 2024

There are a lot of cats this week! What's up with that? Cat monsters are a dime a dozen throughout mythology, and for good reason- whether it be the Bakeneko, Bastet, or the Wampus Cat, as I've said before, cats are aplenty throughout several spurts of folklore. One of the most famous, though, is the legendary hero of Puss in Boots, the eponymous pussycat in question. This 1600's story has had several bits of backing throughout the centuries following its publishing, but like most fairy tales, it wasn't just spurred on by a stroke of imagination or a fever dream- no, Puss in Boots' origin can be traced back years earlier to a celtic monster that serves as our demon of the day: Cait Sith, the fairy cat of Irish myth.

Accounts of the Cat-Síth, commonly misspelled as Cait Sith, date back far into the past, likely around the 13th century in a story titled "Le Morte d'Arthur, Morgan le Fay," though that was only really when the term was solidified. Fairies have been used as shorthand to explain paranatural phenomena for years before, albeit under different names, or even in different cultures- per instance, a Yōkai could be seen as a type of fairy, just centered in Japanese myth. Getting back on topic, though, one of the most peculiar of these fairies is the pitch black oversized cat in question. Typically depicted as a cat the size of a dog that is all black save for a white spot on its belly, the Cat-Síth is portrayed with many peculiar abilities, having humanlike intelligence and walking upright on two legs.

Due to these unique abilities, some purport that the Cat-Síth isn't exactly a usual fairy- many people support the idea that it is a witch who is able to transform between cat and human, and part of that legend also ties into the belief of cats having 9 lives- as the legend regarding the witch goes, she can transform between cat and human only 9 times, and if she were to cross that threshold, she'd be stuck as a cat for the rest of her days. I'm not sure if this is directly correlated to that old wives tale, but the connection between cats and 9's in folklore and idioms is certainly something to look into.

The origins of the Cat-Síth are unclear, with many scholars purporting the idea that the stories surrounding this feline fairy are headed and inspired by the Scottish wildcat, or the endangered hybrid between said wildcats and domestic cats, the Kellas cat. The main source for this seems to originate in the fact that Kellas cats share similar features to contemporary depictions of the Cat-Síth, being 'dog-sized' pitch black cats. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I have a personal theory relating this to the stories of the Nekomata from Japanese myth as well- the odd behaviors of the Cat-Síth may have the same origin as the Nekomata's behaviors, that being a cat infected with rabies. This is my own personal pet theory, though, based on the similarities between yōkai and other such cryptid-esque monsters from the past. Yōkai, fairies, demons, cryptids- they could all have similar roots in animals infested with disease or people who had gone mad, only bastardized through the years and storytellings.

This fantastical feline fairy firmly roots itself as a strange bit of folklore, but what's up with its design in SMT? It's an obvious homage to a famous fairytale, drawing a connection between the Scotsman cat and one of the most popular cat creatures in history, that being everyone's favorite death defying feline, Puss in Boots.

The connection drawn between the devious daredevil Puss and the tricky tabby Cat-Síth is somewhat obvious, as both are legendary european stories based primarily off of the weird and crazy shit cats will commonly get up to. This spotlight is growing a bit long, so I won't regail you with the details of Puss's entire life story, but the curious connection drawn between Puss and the conniving calico that is Cat-Síth throughout the series' many demonic compendiums brings to mind a lot of curious ideas. It does seem entirely possible that Puss was partly inspired by this guileful grimalkin, given the relative timeframe between the two stories.

Jeez, I'm running out of wordplay, so I'll have to wrap this up. Cat-Síth has even more to it, frankly- this cat could have inspired so much more, indirectly, and I haven't even touched on Final Fantasy yet! This conniving cat is a recurring demon throughout the series for hopefully obvious reasons- Cat-Síth is probably the first fairy one thinks about in celtic lore, and this impish pussycat is certainly deserving of the demon of the day. Now, I'm gonna have to restock on catnip.

[mattievictoria]

Happy first day of Fall in the northern hemisphere! To celebrate the start of the Spooky Season, I’ve drawn two mischievous cat-síth paying a Halloween homage to the dearly departed Old Tim, the King o’ the Cats. I hope your beginning of the autumn season is a wonderful one ✨🍂

[random-headcannons-and-aus]

Over the garden wall headcannon

I think Enoch is a cat sí

We know his true form is a black cat inside his giant, pumpkin.

Although he doesn’t have a white spot, his role in the story could be that of a cat sí. They steal the soul of the deceased before it was claimed by the gods. He collects skeletons during the harvest. I have a theory he could that Enoch could be steeling souls from the beast.

[gorekody]

This thing

[elderitch-poet]

Title: Samhuinn Sacred

Scarred bones in the wailing flame,

Souls entwine when the veil is thin,

And the deceased return,

If only for a night,

Light your lanterns,

And do not stray,

For the fae can be friends,

But also fiends,

So celebrate til your heart's content,

Another year dead without fear,

So, beware of the cat and that of it's ilk,

Oh, and don't forget to leave out the milk!

[thesebonesbite]

Here's something I did of Oliver, my Seer oc. And yes. That cat is an oc too. Her name is Matilda, and she's a cat síth

[xxmia0wm4yh3mxx]

this again

i love the dynamic of a like a 40-50ish year old man scienctist with repressed emotional tramua and a RAWR XD scene furry kid is just so funny 2 me idk

[fishoutoflovebeach]

just saw a cat.. perhaps a cat-síth maybe?? in any case it was very annoyed that i attempted to pet it

[lilystargazerwhite]

FINALLY REDID MY COCO DRAWING!!!

It’s coco she’s a cat síth and based on el coco

The soul-stealing king of cats!

Name: Coconini Gaga (ココニーニ・ガガ)

Species: Cat síth ( Undead eating cat fae)

Age: six years old she 6 she’s small an 6

Ability: ability to consume and steal the souls of the unblessed living and dead (祝福されていない生者と死者の魂を食い尽くし、奪い取る程度の能力)

She’s Mexican, and a cat, and a gravedigger but not a good one because the shovel is too fucking big.

I’ve had her for years. Here’s her old ref from 2021

My friends adore her and call her my Neco ark

I love you coco

Originally named after my cat who passed last June due to liver cancer. I love her.

I should also note that while I haven’t made a theme for her, she has a shit ton of reaction images and an UTAU as well and uhhh here’s some https://youtu.be/OKeqi2Qvo5U?si=Og7f1Sm_4ORy3tp1

[dailydemonspotlight]

Day 17 - Nekomata

Race: Beast

Alignment: Neutral

April 12th, 2024

Ferocious felines are a commonplace story in fiction- Whether it be the Matagot of French fairytale, the Wampus cat from Cherokee myth, or the Cat-Síth of Scottish folklore, many a cat has become a cornerstone of popular mythology. However, none are as famous, or perhaps infamous, as the yōkai pair, Bakoneko and Nekomata.

Based primarily in the mountainous regions of Japan, though some are domestic, Nekomata are twin-tailed cats that are perceived as ferocious monsters while out in the wilds, yet kind and loving long-living pets when domesticated. Nekomata purportedly had very long shelf-lives, so to speak, typically growing very old, and as each year goes on, their tail would grow in length. This is actually due to a reason for why they come to be, as it was commonly believed that, when a normal cat grew old enough, its tail would split, and it would become a Nekomata. As Arai Hakuseki put it, "Old cats become 'nekomata' and bewilder people."

This is a borrowed observation from Tony4You, but commonly, people inflicted with a so-called Nekomata disease from the mountainous variety of these mystical cats likely began to suffer from rabies instead, and the erratic, almost unnatural behavior of the cats within the mountains was likely as a result of them being rabid as well. Nekomata likely had a very real and natural explanation, as unfortunate as rabies can be.

In terms of the SMT series, Nekomata is a very common early-game demon, typically specializing in physical and force skills. This likely is related to the commonplace depictions of Nekomata lashing out physically within the mountains, as well as their wise ways possibly giving way to an understanding of magic. The depiction in the series is rather faithful visually, with my personal favorite version being far more unique with a humanoid shape and brown, long hair, alongside a furry coat and black tights. It looks like something that I would personally wear, honestly. My main question with the design is, where are the two tails? The double tails are the main thing separating Nekomata from Bakeneko, yet they appear absent in the SMT design.

Despite that, Nekomata are a rather strange bit of folklore with a very real explanation, and they have one of the most iconic and cute designs in the series, earning a favorite spot from me.

[mattievictoria]

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃🧡 I hope you have a spooky and safe night! #scottishfolklore #catsìth

[kits-shrine]

Feeling particularly mischievous as the old cat-síth was throughly distracted, as she heard an oof and a complaint of, “careful youngster I’m old!” Laurel brushed feather soft kisses against the skin of Yurei’s neck and shell of his ear.

~

Tony sporadically added in gold coins for Ossia to catch as wellZ

The fox chittered and happily nuzzled him more.

Yurei shivered with a little laugh "That Tickles." he informed her delightedly.

~

The youngest mer was slightly hampered, to her mothers amusement, by her arms filled with her golden frog and chosen flower.

[eguzkilorethelynx]

Tbh, since little I feel really connected to animals and I barked and meowed and got on all fours and act like an animal, I discovered the Alterhuman when searching about the meaning of kin and kinning, and found the meaning of Therians and after investigating a lot I found it fitted me perfectly, then I saw OtherKin and FictionKin and my brain just made a click and was like "I'm this"

My current labels are: AlterHuman, Therian, FictionKin, OtherKin, TransSpecies and BeastPunk

At the moment I identify as:

Therianthropy and TransSpecies: Iberian Lynx, Wolverine, Bearded Vulture, Cantabrian Brown Bear, Golden Tiger and Black Maned Lion.

FictionKin: Joseph Joestar(JJBA), Sol Badguy(Guilty Gear), YellowFang, BrokenStar, TigerClaw(Warrior Cats) and Shamane(Reverse:1999)

OtherKin and TransSpecies: Cú-Síth, Pùca and Selkie

Non-humans, what led you to realizing you weren't human? What labels do you currently use to express your non-humanity (if any), and what exactly do you currently identify as?

I'll go first!

(Due to the fact that we as a system share memories due to the lack of blackouts/complete amnesia and are for the most part collectively non-human I, Wolf, will be speaking for us all collectively.)

As a child, from the moment we were able to form a sense of self, we knew we weren't human. We always had that feeling that there was something different about us, something nobody around us would ever understand. So we stayed quiet about it. Why would we ever talk about something that nobody would ever truly understand. Well, that's what we thought for the next 13-ish years of our life. When we first discovered alter-humanity it was through Therianthropy tiktok in 2021 (yes, I know, not the best source of information.) and we started identifying by tiktok's definition of a therian because we thought that's all we needed to know at the time. Just having a "special connection" to animals felt good enough at the time. It wasn't exactly how we felt, but it was "good enough" we thought. Something that we could tell people and they might actually understand. Around a month passed of this situation before we decided to actually do our own research (finally!). And we discovered that Therianthropy actually meant identifying as some non-human animal to some level. We felt like we'd been heard, like we could finally be accepted by a community of others just like us. And that's how it was for about a year. After a year had passed since my discovery of the true definition of Therianthropy, I decided to make my first Therian pack (which was open to all sorts of Therians). This is actually where I met my current best friend, Calix. I'm not gonna go through every detail of what happened during the era of this pack but what I will say is there was some drama and we had to do the right thing which resulted in the loss of my "pack" entirely. But in the end, I realized who my pack truly was (Calix). Sure, maybe it was a small pack but it felt like home to me. An amount of time had passed since then and I became more knowledgeable of the Non-Human community through my Wolf friend, Calix. A lot of things happened but so far along my journey I have discovered more and more about non-humanity then when I started out. Most of my knowledge is accredited to Calix. At some point, he discovered the term "Transspecies" and eventually "Holothere" A.K.A. physical non human, which are two terms we now use as a part of our identity (most of us anyways).

All of the labels we currently use include Therian, otherkin, Holothere, Transspecies, and Non-Human canine (specifically a dog/wolf/werewolf).

At the moment, most of us identify as some type of canine.

What about you? Tell me your story, friend :)

[mercerspoems]

Caturday Special: The Scottish Wildcat (Felis silvestris grampia)

Caturday Special: The Scottish Wildcat (Felis silvestris grampia) - The UK's only extant wildcat species and a true tabby beauty. The wildcat faces so many problems it leads us to the question of what a species even is.

Boop! Captive wildcat mother and her kitten at the British Wildlife Centre, Surrey. Notice the thicker-set face, the slight…well chonkiness compared to a domestic cat? That and the banded, round-ended tails are basically the only way to tell them apart. (Credit: Peter Trimming CC-BY-2.0) A sub-species of the European wildcat, the Scottish wildcat is as near and dear to my heart as anything…

[xxmia0wm4yh3mxx]

MEH NEW PFP!!¡!!!!!! :3

[onikiribattousai]

A new resident and maid for the Ainzschwitz Manor, Felina Síth

She is a Cat Síth, a scottish soul stealing black cat demon. Like Pluto, Felina can't speak except meowing or purring (but she can say few words). She was taken in by Erika, due to the fact that her senpai, Sebastian can't took her in. Luckily, Erika doesn't mind for having a pet cat.

Felina communicate with others sign language.

Voice Actor: Ayaka Suwa (JP) Marisha Ray (EN)