A while ago, sometime last year, I wrote up a long post about the bliss of feeling plushie, inanimate, synthetic, completely non-human. I never shared it. I've grown into this identity more since then and have digested the feelings as I was still fairly new to embracing it, back then. It didn't have time to fully sink in, my seams were still freshly sewn.
Now that I know myself better and have come to an even greater peace with my various non-human identities, a comfort has settled in. Friends acknowledge me as a plush, paying attention to my seams, the fluff inside of me, the textures my fabric have, knowing that using Discord's soundboard to make squeak toy noises is just inherently correct. It feels good. There used to be a bit more anxiety tied up in this, waves of relief flooding in when I was addressed as the object I know I am but also still feeling shame or embarrassment that I was just trying to ply pretend too hard.
I'm not.
I'm just a plushie sometimes.
I'm soft, squishy, and the bliss I feel being a comfort item for those I care about is indescribable, but it's good. My owner speaking softly to me before I go to sleep, filling my head with fluff and feeling the textures of my blankets touching me and becoming indiscernible from my own fabric makes me melt every time. The weight of being a plush the size of a person leaves your limbs and body feeling heavy and I feel like I just fit in with the pillows and other plushies that surround me. The feeling of listening to music that causes me to be excessively aware of my seams, how my fabrics are woven, the fluff that fills my body is unlike anything I've ever experienced. But again, it feels correct.
Growing up, pretending to be a person, not knowing I was neurodivergent and feeling like Something Else left me feeling so othered at times. Conversing with people was an awkward balancing act of navigating rules I never knew. Not knowing why certain textures and sounds made me want to claw and bite and cry was embarrassing. But learning that I am autistic, and now knowing the comfort of being perceived as I really am, an animal, a plushie, has brought me more relief than being a person ever did. I still pretend. Its easier to be a human when I need to be now. But now I know the comfort of surrendering all of that.
I am a soft presence to my friends, I am my owner's favorite toy.
I am a plushie. I don't need to be anything more~


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