I like this phrase in particular, that personal expression does not end in en homme vs en femme. I am going to have to roll it around in my thoughts for a while. I have a feeling that it is the outline of a much deeper cache of useful tools for survival and expression.
Of the partially-human archetypes that are easy to express in street-clothes, en chat could work particularly well, because people have ideas about how to relate to cats and cat-people.
"The archetypes that called to me, the limb I stitched on to replace those taken from me as the woman in the image did, I took not from humans but from foxes."
This is fascinating. In contrast with therianthropes who believe that they were born animal at heart, and who work to reveal that true heart, this essay shows how a personally constructed animality, too, is equally powerful and sincere. Though the traits of the furry animal self were chosen and built, they are potentially no less earnest than than the discovered and not-chosen traits of a therianthropic animal self. Discovering what was latent (in the case of therians), or building what needs to be restored (in the case of your furry self), are structurally similar acts.
I think your essay is particularly illuminating if viewed as the complementary companion of Akhila's essay on therianthropy and the social construction of animality and humanity, "For a non-essentialist understanding of animality."
"When the narrative of the human cannot staunch my wounds, I find another." One of several lines in this that would do well as framed calligraphy.
I have no specific line of theirs to cite, so I hope that I am not misrepresenting them: I have the impression that for the Silver Elves, their being elven is partially based on recognizing what traits of humankind (the self-proclaimed "normal people") that the Silver Elves dislike and cannot align with, and then being otherwise. (For example, humanity's inclinations for warlikeness, conformism, and disrespect for the environment. The Silver Elves speak against those traits in particular.) Zardoa of the Silver Elves wrote that part of how he came to know that he was an elf was because he had tried to be a "real man" (source). He found it was not in his nature to be a Man, but an Elf, an archetype that only seemed outside the realm of possibility until he met other real elves.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 01:32 am (UTC)"going out en chat" ♥
I like this phrase in particular, that personal expression does not end in en homme vs en femme. I am going to have to roll it around in my thoughts for a while. I have a feeling that it is the outline of a much deeper cache of useful tools for survival and expression.
Of the partially-human archetypes that are easy to express in street-clothes, en chat could work particularly well, because people have ideas about how to relate to cats and cat-people.
"The archetypes that called to me, the limb I stitched on to replace those taken from me as the woman in the image did, I took not from humans but from foxes."
This is fascinating. In contrast with therianthropes who believe that they were born animal at heart, and who work to reveal that true heart, this essay shows how a personally constructed animality, too, is equally powerful and sincere. Though the traits of the furry animal self were chosen and built, they are potentially no less earnest than than the discovered and not-chosen traits of a therianthropic animal self. Discovering what was latent (in the case of therians), or building what needs to be restored (in the case of your furry self), are structurally similar acts.
I think your essay is particularly illuminating if viewed as the complementary companion of Akhila's essay on therianthropy and the social construction of animality and humanity, "For a non-essentialist understanding of animality."
"When the narrative of the human cannot staunch my wounds, I find another."
One of several lines in this that would do well as framed calligraphy.
I have no specific line of theirs to cite, so I hope that I am not misrepresenting them: I have the impression that for the Silver Elves, their being elven is partially based on recognizing what traits of humankind (the self-proclaimed "normal people") that the Silver Elves dislike and cannot align with, and then being otherwise. (For example, humanity's inclinations for warlikeness, conformism, and disrespect for the environment. The Silver Elves speak against those traits in particular.) Zardoa of the Silver Elves wrote that part of how he came to know that he was an elf was because he had tried to be a "real man" (source). He found it was not in his nature to be a Man, but an Elf, an archetype that only seemed outside the realm of possibility until he met other real elves.