maybe i'm a lion
Aug. 16th, 2020 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raxso i think i (at least, the part of me talking to other people most of the time right now [0]) might be a lion. i love foxes, and i'm not _not_ a fox, really, i don't think that's a thing i could simply stop doing or being! just. i think of foxes as tricksters or trickster-adjacent, finding clever ways around work and problems or avoiding getting ensnared in problems to begin with, or talking their way out of jams. i have done that many times in the past! it's really cool! but at the moment i feel called to things in my local life and in the world around me that can't be outclevered, that are really about just doing the work. and with my fox mask on i kind of chafe a little at that, tbh, i keep looking for a solution that isn't there to a puzzle that isn't really a puzzle. the work is scary! the work is too big to do alone as a slinky forest creature who dodges traps and answers riddles!
and so behold, it me:
and maybe it's weird that i see being a lion as being about _doing the work_, given the sleepy/lazy/&c. image of "lion around," but i think especially for a lion whose maleness is deeply contingent, who is not the leader of a pride, who's not the patriarch and has kind of intentionally set any chance i might have to be the patriarch on fire and watched it burn itself out floating away down the river of bring aggressively and openly trans... wow this sentence also went down that river, bobbing up and down, losing whatever clause was supposed to go here as it went. that's fine. the estrogen in the water supply will wash away prescriptive grammar and/or give it hips. it's fine.
because here's the thing: lionesses do the work, individually and collectively, managing raising children and hunting and social organization at the same time. inasmuch as those are things that lions do, at least, as opposed to human concepts being mapped imperfectly onto lions, which is kind of what furry identity is at the best of times: taking the ways we've anthropomorphized animal behavior and turning it back on ourselves in a way that lets us learn more about both ourselves and the animals who are not us. and i'm not a lioness. i'm a _boy_ lion. but in a way i can only be after having chosen irreversibly not to be a man and to forcelose the possibility that i will ever be seen as a man, so that i can and must do my share of the work. that could be its own entire thing i write about some other time i guess.
and let's be frank: a regal lion from the savannah, coded with some sort of implied Naturalness is maybe not a thing in my right of way, anyway. [1] But a white lion --- not even a pure white lion, a beautiful pastel disaster with funny-colored rosettes, a copy of a copy with weird body issues who was raised in an environment divorced from the originary [2] as an entertainment [3] rather than a hunter or a warrior or whatever? yeah that's kinda me. like i feel like my upbringing kept me in isolation from my _own_ culture let alone any culture i might try to appropriate based on a furry identity. that is also probably a different post than "hey i got a new fursona look at it i'm pretty" but. hey i got a new fursona. look at it. i'm pretty.
i also wanted to like... really reflect my actual material body in the way this fursona looks. this isn't _exactly_ me in a couple of ways, but i recognize myself in it in a way that is sometimes hard when more of the detail of my body shape is abstracted away, while still thinking i look _damn cute._ the artist did an amazing job and was very helpful in making that happen and if you like to look at or commission furry art i really recommend kresendoe for both of those things!
[0] lol i'm rhess but this post is, other than this footnote, composed in an effort to be "omg i don't get this whole plurality thing it's confusing" compliant because even among friends i feel tremendous pressure to be legible in ways that chafe at my understanding of self! this is probably like. a thing that's worth interrogating at some point but i don't really want to argue about the nature of consciousness i want to be a cute lion. this is a post about being a cute lion. and also about manifesting my politics in my furry identity but that's supposed to be ✨subtext✨ so if you are reading this and then saying "wow this is about manifesting politics in your furry identity!" please remember that i implied that cleverly and didn't state it explicitly in this footnote, thank you very much for your cooperation in this matter
[1] to be maximally explicit: i think lions are part of the collective human mythos at this point that it's possible to be a white person with a lion fursona and have it not be jacked up, but i think it's absolutely possible to do it wrong. most of the doing it wrong i've seen has imo involved weird primitivism and masculinity shit. i am not immune to propaganda but i'm _pretty_ sure that's not what i'm doing here. if it turns out it is, well, fuck. i will have to fix that.
[2] my first draft said "raised in captivity" and while i think there's a way in which many childhoods and particularly childhoods with abuse in them feel that way, there's a material difference between that legitimately agency-stripping experience and literal captivity, so i found something else here. six months of quarantine has not made me feel less like a zoo exhibit, though, where the zoom window is the little glass bubble you can get up close to the lions in and periodically they release a new set of magic cards and airdrop it in so that the animals have enrichment. the ikoria draft format was way better than just clawing up a cabbage or one of those food hidey balls! m21? eh i'm just going to sit in a cardboard box but thanks for thinking of me i guess
[3] it turns out there's a shocking amount of discourse and misinformation about white lions, enough that to be ultra confident in what i was saying here i think i'd need to do a lot more research than i have. but in the US in particular and other places as well, white lions are interbred in ways that cause genetic issues, so that there will be white lions for stage performances (such as Siegfried and Roy), attention at zoos, and so on. i remember being in vegas 15ish years ago actually and having the opportunity to hold lion cubs and get a picture taken for $20 and turning it down. that was clearly the right thing to do but also: yet another time living my values sucked lol
[4] holy shit dreamwidth has built in functionality to link to fucking ftp and nntp posts. can you imagine linking to an nntp post in fucking 2020?? that's fucking hilarious, and i'm not lion. except i am. a lion. i am just not being dishonest. A NEW WORLD OF PUNS JUST OPENED UP TO ME OKAY don't judge me if i come roaring in with them. this is my mane form of entertainment at this point. i'm not just being simbaolic okay that one was a stretch i should just publish this fucking post and go make some lunch.
[5] it's two thousand whatever. we make footnotes with no originary text now
and so behold, it me:
and maybe it's weird that i see being a lion as being about _doing the work_, given the sleepy/lazy/&c. image of "lion around," but i think especially for a lion whose maleness is deeply contingent, who is not the leader of a pride, who's not the patriarch and has kind of intentionally set any chance i might have to be the patriarch on fire and watched it burn itself out floating away down the river of bring aggressively and openly trans... wow this sentence also went down that river, bobbing up and down, losing whatever clause was supposed to go here as it went. that's fine. the estrogen in the water supply will wash away prescriptive grammar and/or give it hips. it's fine.
because here's the thing: lionesses do the work, individually and collectively, managing raising children and hunting and social organization at the same time. inasmuch as those are things that lions do, at least, as opposed to human concepts being mapped imperfectly onto lions, which is kind of what furry identity is at the best of times: taking the ways we've anthropomorphized animal behavior and turning it back on ourselves in a way that lets us learn more about both ourselves and the animals who are not us. and i'm not a lioness. i'm a _boy_ lion. but in a way i can only be after having chosen irreversibly not to be a man and to forcelose the possibility that i will ever be seen as a man, so that i can and must do my share of the work. that could be its own entire thing i write about some other time i guess.
and let's be frank: a regal lion from the savannah, coded with some sort of implied Naturalness is maybe not a thing in my right of way, anyway. [1] But a white lion --- not even a pure white lion, a beautiful pastel disaster with funny-colored rosettes, a copy of a copy with weird body issues who was raised in an environment divorced from the originary [2] as an entertainment [3] rather than a hunter or a warrior or whatever? yeah that's kinda me. like i feel like my upbringing kept me in isolation from my _own_ culture let alone any culture i might try to appropriate based on a furry identity. that is also probably a different post than "hey i got a new fursona look at it i'm pretty" but. hey i got a new fursona. look at it. i'm pretty.
i also wanted to like... really reflect my actual material body in the way this fursona looks. this isn't _exactly_ me in a couple of ways, but i recognize myself in it in a way that is sometimes hard when more of the detail of my body shape is abstracted away, while still thinking i look _damn cute._ the artist did an amazing job and was very helpful in making that happen and if you like to look at or commission furry art i really recommend kresendoe for both of those things!
[0] lol i'm rhess but this post is, other than this footnote, composed in an effort to be "omg i don't get this whole plurality thing it's confusing" compliant because even among friends i feel tremendous pressure to be legible in ways that chafe at my understanding of self! this is probably like. a thing that's worth interrogating at some point but i don't really want to argue about the nature of consciousness i want to be a cute lion. this is a post about being a cute lion. and also about manifesting my politics in my furry identity but that's supposed to be ✨subtext✨ so if you are reading this and then saying "wow this is about manifesting politics in your furry identity!" please remember that i implied that cleverly and didn't state it explicitly in this footnote, thank you very much for your cooperation in this matter
[1] to be maximally explicit: i think lions are part of the collective human mythos at this point that it's possible to be a white person with a lion fursona and have it not be jacked up, but i think it's absolutely possible to do it wrong. most of the doing it wrong i've seen has imo involved weird primitivism and masculinity shit. i am not immune to propaganda but i'm _pretty_ sure that's not what i'm doing here. if it turns out it is, well, fuck. i will have to fix that.
[2] my first draft said "raised in captivity" and while i think there's a way in which many childhoods and particularly childhoods with abuse in them feel that way, there's a material difference between that legitimately agency-stripping experience and literal captivity, so i found something else here. six months of quarantine has not made me feel less like a zoo exhibit, though, where the zoom window is the little glass bubble you can get up close to the lions in and periodically they release a new set of magic cards and airdrop it in so that the animals have enrichment. the ikoria draft format was way better than just clawing up a cabbage or one of those food hidey balls! m21? eh i'm just going to sit in a cardboard box but thanks for thinking of me i guess
[3] it turns out there's a shocking amount of discourse and misinformation about white lions, enough that to be ultra confident in what i was saying here i think i'd need to do a lot more research than i have. but in the US in particular and other places as well, white lions are interbred in ways that cause genetic issues, so that there will be white lions for stage performances (such as Siegfried and Roy), attention at zoos, and so on. i remember being in vegas 15ish years ago actually and having the opportunity to hold lion cubs and get a picture taken for $20 and turning it down. that was clearly the right thing to do but also: yet another time living my values sucked lol
[4] holy shit dreamwidth has built in functionality to link to fucking ftp and nntp posts. can you imagine linking to an nntp post in fucking 2020?? that's fucking hilarious, and i'm not lion. except i am. a lion. i am just not being dishonest. A NEW WORLD OF PUNS JUST OPENED UP TO ME OKAY don't judge me if i come roaring in with them. this is my mane form of entertainment at this point. i'm not just being simbaolic okay that one was a stretch i should just publish this fucking post and go make some lunch.
[5] it's two thousand whatever. we make footnotes with no originary text now
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-16 05:53 pm (UTC)Your new fursona is an extremely cute lion and I am glad you have art that reflects your physicality instead of eliding it in favor of the prevailing metaphor, although while we are discussing metaphors I think the headphones do strongly and successfully signal that you are not going for the weird primitivism thing, also I believe those headphones are entirely literal.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-16 06:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-16 07:59 pm (UTC)Likewise! And it sounds as though at least some of you may be doing more than merely enduring, which for God's sake somebody should.
it turns out the artist changed the headphones from the literal model, but i should be thinking about new DJ headphones in the future, so possibly it's prophecy rather than fiction.
Hee.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-16 11:18 pm (UTC)—Ashes, who happens to be a lion shifter, but also happens to be a girl lion with a mane. You can be who you wanna be! You have our support, fwiw.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-18 08:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-19 01:16 am (UTC)maybe it's weird that i see being a lion as being about _doing the work_
Last we got together for cider (eons ago -- this observation is very dated), you and Simon were sharing the day-job work and at least occasionally being co-present. Khorah also sounds like she takes her (internal) job extremely seriously. I am not at all surprised that *your* concept of a lion includes diligently doing the work.
(There's probably at least an essay if not a book on sex and gender roles in being a male lion doing the work of a lioness.)
I'm more surprised that you've changed up your color palette and let go of your heart spots than that you changed your species metaphor. :)
Also, congratulations: seeing that a major aspect of your self-image is not helping with the work you want to be doing currently sounds hard. Consciously swapping that aspect out in favor of one that will support that work sounds much harder.
And thank you for that concept/point of view/insight. Whether I can apply it effectively is an as-yet unexplored question, but if so it may be quite helpful.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-20 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-20 09:14 pm (UTC)...like a zoo exhibit...
The "nature preserves" we have all over Texas sprang to mind. Fossil Rim is one of the less dodgy examples.
As for NNTP, I think that functionality also lets DW be read from newsreaders and email clients.