Cat Girl is a lady character who either has cat attributes or a cat costume because that is adorable/ maybe she has some cat-like personality qualities and Cat Folk is a species of humanoids based on a feline animal. They are a similar thing but they have different applications/ meanings.
Cat Girl is a subtrope to Little Bit Beastly, if you want to lump we could move all Cat Girl examples to that trope, but I think there are enough to split it to its own page, especially since Cat Girls have some more specific personality traits associated with them than other cutesy animal girls.
edited 4th Aug '14 10:19:52 AM by rexpensive
Zzzzzzzzzz
Declining to open.
You have offered no reason why
"a character that looks mostly like a human but she has some parts like a cat, usually the ears, tail, eyes, and sometimes claws or even a natural Fur Bikini. A Catgirl is not furry, and should still have human skin, human hair, a human face, a completely human nose, and a human skull and torso structure. ...She might also have a Verbal Tic that imitates the sound of a cat. She might also demonstrate a Faux Paw. ... Other Catgirls merely wear cat-themed costumes, sometimes as part of feline themed Animal Motifs. These Catgirls would be a subcategory of Animal-Eared Headband. Faux kitties will wear at least fake ears, and often a fake tail. Sometimes they wear gloves resembling cat paws. "
should be lumped in with
"Cat Folk are Fantastic Sapient Species that are based on felines. They generally have a body type resembling felines to one degree or another, and are sometimes named after Real Life feline species. They can be science-fiction aliens or fantasy races. In terms of appearance, they can fall anywhere on the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism from fully animal looking to barely non-human, however they must be sapient, non-human, and a distinct species from Real Life animals. Unlike Catgirls, Cat Folk have no particular tendency toward being female.
While Cat Folk have been depicted with a variety of behavioural and cultural characteristics, it is common to base at least some of their behaviour on feline Animal Stereotypes. Cat Folk based on large predatory cats, such as lions, tigers, and panthers* , are generally depicted as being exceptionally strong and aggressive, with a Proud Warrior Race culture. Those based more around domestic cats are often depicted as selfish, arrogant and vain, with their fighting styles bent more towards dirty fighting, speed and agility. "
beyond "I don't think they should be separate."
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
You know, I've covered it once already so I'm just going to quote it
I say we just merge them under Cat Folk, for all cat people. It will be a related trope to Beast Folk, Animal Themed Super Being and whatnot. If you want to be really pedantic the page can still have a soft split between "individuals" and "groups" but as of now, the whole thing seems more complicated than it needs to be.
Take the page image. She's from a game where most of the Cat Folk are men. Looking through the Fire Emblem Tellius character pages just shows how silly it is to single out female examples of cat people. Even the page quote makes reference to a male example.