(I answered the other ones first 'cause they were simpler.)
There's not really a clear answer. We started questioning in late 2020, but didn't really come to our current understanding until early 2023.
Honestly, I don't think we're ready to dive into some of this. But what I can comfortably say is the thing that, in conjunction with getting a better understanding of plurality, kickstarted us thinking about it in December.
I realised that my kintype of cat1 was different to "my" kintype of sylveon. So I did some research, and hit the words kinfluid and polykin, which each offered slightly different explanations, while still keeping possible plurality in mind. Then I noticed that each kintype correlated to a different experience with gender—my she/it pronouns catgirl, while the sylveon kintype was associated with our "fursona" Sparkles, fae/faer pronouns,2 and definitely a fae definitely not a girl. This made the competing possibilities:
- Genderfluid and kinfluid in perfect sync for unspecified reasons.
- Plural.
Then while we were still very confused about the whole thing, @gnotknormal did a followers' art giveaway, and made the amazing piece of art Sparkles uses as a profile pic.3 The process of fixing up a proper ref pulled Sparkles to the front. It actually took us a little while to really notice, and it was seeing the finished piece where Sparkles realised she was seeing faerself in it in a way fae didn't in my icon, even though I did see myself in my icon like that.
This is still an abridged telling, avoiding a couple of relevant bits that we're not up to discussing right now, but that was the big break.4 Cohost has been such a boon, being a social media site we acutally feel comfortable posting on, and I'm genuinely glad that I landed here right before Scarlet/Violet kick-started this by inspiring a new "OC".
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I prefer lynx now, but cat's not wrong either.
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Not she/her at the time.
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I gave Gnot free reign to choose from all of "my" "OCs", and he chose Sparkles.
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Breaks? There was like a month in the middle, but it felt much quicker.