gossamer_musings | Recent Entries

Hello all! This is our sticky post. Here, you can find information about the authors using this account and what kinds of topics and themes you might hear from them.
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Other Wonderbeasts
This isn't everyone in our system, but the others will introduce themselves if and when they post!

Current Mood: cheerful

This year, my goal is to write four short stories--one for every three months. Despite wanting to be a writer, I have rarely actually managed to finish something, afraid, as I have been, of failure. I don't need it pointed out to me, how paradoxical that statement is. I know. How was I ever supposed to improve without setting words to paper? But this year will be different. By finishing my stories and posting them, I hope to inoculate myself to the work of failing at my craft.

I started this one last year, and I have many gripes with it. I won't enumerate them here, before you have had the chance to read the story. Let me, instead, talk about what inspired this one.

We have lived with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome) for going on seven years now. A not insignificant amount of that time was spent in an abyss of fatigue, brain fog, and suicidal despair. We're really only just starting to pick up the pieces of that now, despite resurfacing in 2022. This story is about that experience, if it happened to someone else, and if they had literally died. I wrote this piece as if the character were a vampire, because the undead are such a rich textual ground for explorations of chronic illness.

Reader advisory: this is a short story about a vampire struggling to feel like a person again, with prose intended to put you, the reader, in the shoes of the main character. It ends on a hopeful note.

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( Read on... )

Current Mood: hopeful

This year, we are making an effort to read more widely than the narrow scope of fantasy/sci-fi we've squeezed ourselves into. I had a discussion with Argantael about it, and she proposed that we post short, informal reviews of each book that we finish. This is my first attempt at doing so!

Of course, the first book I finished this year was a fantasy novel. But the aim is not to read no fantasy at all, but rather to pick out books that challenge us, demand from us critical thinking and emotional response, and--for me--to help me grow as a writer. I've had The City in Glass on my list for a while, but ended up picking it up now because I love Nghi Vo and I needed a short book as a palate cleanser from trying to read The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (which is really good, but there's enough cruelty in the world already).

"From the topmost tower of the observatory to the floating docks on the beach, the city of Azril lit up with paper lanterns, with candles, with girls throwing flaming knives and boys in firefly crowns, with passion, with desire, with hatred, and with delight."

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Current Mood: awake

Pax of the Wonderbeasts muses about his relationship to Odysseus, and what it means to be fictionkind

Mazarin and I have been discussing this privately of late, and this is the quandary: one of the primary ways to be grounded in one's fictotype is through exomemories--a phenomenon my system seems incapable of experiencing.

This is not a surprise. We have other memory issues--something called severely deficient autobiographical memory--which dislocates our memories in space and time, until yesterday may as well have happened last week, and the day before is lost to the mists of oblivion. What was I doing on Sunday? Unless I was doing something particularly memorable, I actually cannot recall what the experience of that day is like. Our autobiographical memory loss is near total. Obviously exomemories will be entangled in that!

But then, if the me of last week is a mystery to the me who exists now, how can I recognize myself in a work of fiction? I want to say something here about the continual re-experiencing of the self and continuity of that through time, but I'm too tired and it sounds like word salad. This is going to be a very informal post. To be honest: I have no idea why I feel so strongly that I'm Ged. My working theory is introjection, but that feels like only half the picture. A huge part of the toolkit of fictionkinity is lost here, so I'm left with no "proof" to lean on. I am Ged--I feel, I believe, I know, I experience myself as Ged in this present moment. I'm Ged if he grew up in a now 23 year old chronically and mentally ill body, with ipseity disturbance issues, a love of fiction, and at least 9 headmates. This belief exists irrespective of memory, of universe, and of fictionality.

What does any of this have to do with the Odyssey?

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Current Mood: frustrated

For worse or better, for shame or amusement, my fictomere is the MCU's Tony Stark. Now, I am a very very very non-canon Toni Stark from a completely different universe, but seeing Tony awakened me, and so, for all its (many) flaws, I'm forever emotionally tied to a billion dollar billionaire cringefest. I don't mean to disparage my source so severely, but it's true! Tony Stark is the self-insert wet dream of a myriad billionaires and multimillionaires. He represents the supremacy of American capitalism and imperialism projected into the future, a vision that--I would argue--is representative of the politics of Marvel at this point in time.

Why am I bringing up the MCU in a post about Superman?

Great question! Please know my background with my source is relevant to my post and don't click off. Thank you!

I watched Superman (2025) yesterday, and first of all I can't BELIEVE I finally got to see a competent superhero movie (maybe aside from the Iron Man trilogy... but that's a stretch). I won't get into it, but I really enjoyed my time watching it. The reason I'm making this rambling post right now is because I want to compare superhero accountability in my source and in the new DCU.

It wasn't a huge theme in Superman, but the question of how to handle metahumans interfering in national and international conflicts did make an appearance. This was a huge cornerstone of one of the phases of the MCU (Captain America: The Winter Soldier onward) but got dropped entirely in Infinity War (thank god, the politics were incompetent). Personally, the Accords are a shit show. Not because it's a bad idea to curtail the power of (essentially) nuclear bombs with emotions (it isn't, holy shit) but because the Avengers were stand ins for the US military, and the question of how the US should present itself on the international stage, except the Russos forgot the US's long-standing history of imperialist violence in their debate! Pretty much entirely! I cannot emphasize enough how stupid I found the Accords. I stopped watching not long after.

By contrast, Superman has a little more nuance. He's at least acting against US military interests and the interests of a billionaire (slay!) (disclaimer: this Toni Stark is a socialist) and on his own terms, but the movie doesn't even address the question of how to solve the problem of metahumans interfering in international conflicts.

I don't think there is a solution, not a perfect one. Maybe every country having their own version of Superman, exactly as powerful as him? But then every country just has a nuclear bomb (now with emotions!). Bad!!! That's a really bad idea! It's a bad idea in our world! In my world, the Avengers seceded entirely from the US and founded our own country in order to be able to enter into a treaty with the UN on our own terms instead of being used as weapons in America's arsenal.

My intention here isn't to propose a solution, more to say that this makes a great plot for superhero fiction and I want to read something that actually digs into this idea.

Toni out!

Current Mood: geeky

INTRODUCTION

The alterhuman community doesn't talk about conceptual experiences enough. This essay aims to pave the way for a broader discussion of this way of being, so that others can begin to gather the language to make sense of things like this, instead of struggling to put it into words. Conceptual alterhumanity can take many forms, and I write from my own perspective only. It is impossible for one dragon to cover every possible aspect, and I may leave out things which the reader may wish to see covered. I invite the reader to cover it themselves.

For a long time, myself and the two people in my subsystem (Solander) have struggled to understand the way we experience draconity. Make no mistake, I am--we are--a dragon. But the mark that our draconity left on us seemed to be different than how both therian and otherkin dragons have approached their identity. Since there is little to no draconic community left (a fact we mourn to this day), this was a worry we could not allay by talking to others.

And then there was storytelling.

In the same way that my species is dragon, my species is also storyteller. This has consistently felt like an experience that goes over the edges of the map (which, luckily, is draconic territory). We are a Storyteller to the bone, it is intrinsic and fundamental to our sense of self. To take it out would even be to remove our draconity.

It was hard to fit my ideas of draconity into existing alterhuman frameworks. It was impossible to make sense of myself. I felt like a failure at being a dragon. But I was looking at everything wrong. When I reanalyzed my draconity under a conceptual framework, everything fell into place.

DEFINING CONCEPTUALITY

What is conceptuality in this context? For the purposes of this essay, I am referring to identification with the abstract understanding of a real object, phenomenon, property, or other thing that exists in the world. I'm also referring to symbols, metaphors, social roles, and archetypes.

The term conceptfolk was inspired by the term fictionfolk, and it is intended to serve the same purpose–an umbrella term that makes it possible for all manner of people to find community with each other based on a shared quality of their alterhumanity. In the same way that fictionfolk is inclusive of anyone with fictionality, conceptfolk is inclusive of anyone with conceptuality–the state or quality of being conceptual in some way.

In order to get a better idea of what conceptuality can entail, let us examine some experiences that I believe fall under the term.

I based this list off of an incomplete list of alterhuman frameworks that's currently being collected by our friends in the Dragonheart Collective.

Cocneptfolk includes, but is not limited to:

Being the concept of something, being the embodiment of a concept, identifying as a concept.
Embodying a role, profession, or archetype, or understanding yourself through the lense of an archetype, narrative, or trope.
Intimately associating yourself with a concept (e.g. an aesthetic, subculture, or symbol).
Relating to, identifying with, caring deeply about, being affected strongly by a concept.
Basing your sense of self around a concept, so that, while you are not that concept itself, you are inextricable from it.
Feeling like a part of, a shard of a concept.
Feeling at home with a concept.
Feeling like a concept or akin to one.

I've purposefully kept this list free of terms so as to be as clear as possible, and also because I would like for people to choose for themselves whether or not they want to be associated with this term and community. I don't view conceptuality as its own phenomenon per se, but rather an approach anyone might have to their identity, an element or quality of alterhumanity that can be present no matter what the identity is.

Conceptuality is based on an abstract or symbolic understanding of something that exists in the world. It involves identification with, as, or like a continuum of ideas as opposed to a discrete and defined entity. And it explores symbolic, metaphorical, and abstract forms of alterhumanity, not in opposition to more literal forms, but in partnership with, or adjacent to them.

I see a clear need for a term like this in our community for a few reasons. Firstly, while conceptuality is very intertwined with other forms of alterhumanity, my personal experience of, and the way I have seen other conceptfolk approach their identity is often very different from the frameworks provided by other communities under the alterhuman umbrella. Secondly, there are no widely used words or terms that I am currently aware of which take these nuances into account and also provide a larger umbrella term for alterhumans with related but still different experiences to cluster under. All of this results in a lexical gap, where the ordinary language of alterhumanity falls short.

TERMINOLOGY

The main point of this essay is less to talk about conceptfolk as a term, and more to go over some terminology and frameworks I want to propose to make it easier to discuss conceptual alterhumanity. I have three proposals, which I am really eager to see people expand on, disagree with, dissect, and apply to their own lives.

First, I want to talk about the with/as dichotomy, and propose a way to at least make it a trinary, if not open the way for even more ways of talking about alterhumanity in general.

Second, I want to talk about embodiment. I will be pulling from conversations we've had in the Archetroper's Guild discord server for this.

Third, I will discuss keystones, which I've come to understand as a core part of my experience of conceptual alterhumanity.

METAPHORICAL, SENTIMENTAL, AND LITERAL ALTERHUMANITY

We've probably all heard otherkinity, therianthropy, and fictionkinity defined as identifying as something, while hearttypes are defined as identifying with something. But have you ever identified like something? The with-as dichotomy is often reached for when explaining alterhumanity. Some people identify with these things, other people identify as these things. I want to complicate this dichotomy.

Literal alterhumanity focuses on the object of identification as itself. Often, this is accomplished by being the thing in question, but I would argue that, while that sense predominates this category of alterhumanity, it is not the exclusive domain of identifying-as. In literal alterhumanity, each 'type is focused on one singular entity, and generally focuses on the lived experience of being that thing, whatever it is. This type of alterhumanity is not specifically focused on things that exist in the world, but rather focused on one's type in a practical, literal, occasionally material sense.

Sentimental alterhumanity is about the connection someone feels to their type. With a type that's primarily focused on the experience of that connection, the emphasis may be on the importance of the type to someone's sense of self, previous experiences with the type, and the ways in which the type impacts or influences the person in question. However, a sentimental connection may also compel someone into identifying-as that type, or it may become literal through the practice of embodying it.

Metaphorical alterhumanity is focused on the narrative, symbolic or other resonance of a type for the person who has it. The focus here is on the ways in which the person is like their type, whether in behaviour, symbolism, or narrative. This can be a more abstracted form of alterhumanity, but it is no less impactful and directly relevant than the other two.

These distinctions make sense of how people approach their alterhumanity, they are not origins part two (even worse), and they are not a reason to get into slap fights over validity. The whole point of this section is to give people tools to talk about their approach to, and experience of, alterhumanity in a more comprehensive and easier to understand manner. These are also not intended to be used as microlabels. Any one, of any stream of alterhumanity, may fall under any of these categories depending on their own experiences and feelings toward their types. These categories are also not intended to be exclusive to conceptfolk, but are likely useful tools for any alterhuman.

Where do conceptfolk fall into this? Seeing as these are tools to analyze your alterhumanity, conceptfolk can fall anywhere among the three categories. I personally fall along a spectrum of metaphorical to literal, wherein my connection to draconity is focused on the ways in which I am like dragons, but becomes literal in my lived experience because I am one. My behaviour and my thoughts are dragon behaviour because I am like a dragon.

EMBODIMENT

This is a concept I first heard discussed within the Archetroper's Guild discord server. For those who may not know, archetropy is an identity based on an archetype, job, or role that is typically not extant within present society, common examples include paladin, jester, storyteller, shrine maiden, dragon, dog, or beast of burden. The archetroper is deeply influenced by their archetrope in all areas of life, including in relationships, jobs, hobbies, and other alterhuman identities as well. The archetrope may be focused on the performance of the role in question, or on the narrative likeness of the archetroper to their archetrope.

The discussion around embodiment (or syncing) arose from the question of if archetropers get shifts. Shifts are based on a presence of phantom limbs, a change in envisage, or mental state.

But not everyone with a concepttype may experience shifts like this, especially if their type is intangible or they do not identify as them. To that end, I propose a sync or moment of embodiment for conceptfolk as being a moment in which they may feel uniquely connected to their concepttype. The metaphor I use personally is that it feels as if I have become part of a larger idea and act as its channel in the world. This is a very common experience for me, and it can manifest in different ways. Beyond in the moment experiments, I would define embodiment as also referring to the life long process of aligning oneself with their concept in a myriad of different ways. Just as an archetroper's archetrope may influence all areas of their life, from job to hobbies, from name even down to kintype, the keystone of someone who is conceptfolk may do the same, or steps may be taken to make it so. This likely holds true for conceptfolk of all types, not just conceptkind.

The idea of embodiment is parallel to the idea of shifts, as it encompasses more than having phantom limbs, and the emphasis is on both short and long term alignment, it is also blind to distinctions between voluntary and involuntary embodiment, and it is focused around lifestyle and sensation both. But it isn't in direct opposition either. I want it to be another tool in your vocabulary to describe what you are going through! Relatedly, I think embodiment may be a useful term for non-conceptual alterhumans as well, especially to describe long term alignment.

KEYSTONES

A keystone is the central organizing principle of someone's conceptuality, the thing your conceptuality is about in some way. For conceptkind, this keystone may be the concept they are kin with; for archetropers, their archetrope; and for those who are concepthearted, it may be their hearttype. Your keystone may be as abstract or literal, as broad or specific as needed; whatever makes sense for the person to whom it is important. Conceptfolk might also have more than one keystone. Your conceptuality may influence other aspects of your alterhumanity, and your identity in general, or it may not. For some, every aspect of their identity may be influenced by, or just be conceptual in some way, and for others it may form only one part of a greater picture. That entire spectrum of experience is welcome under the conceptfolk label.

in terms of use, keystone is similar to fictomere, the organizing principle of someone's fictionality, the thing your fictionality is about. It is not intended to be a standalone term, but instead describes the domain of your conceptuality, the lense through which you understand it, the theme of it, and the role you might play as a result of it. I describe this common experience with a singular term here to make it easier to talk about in shared company, as I believe it to be a unifying feature of conceptuality.

My keystone is illumination. My life orbits around the principle of the revelation of things that are hidden. This principle is the reason why I am a storyteller, and the driving force of my draconity. It also has something to do with my possible phytanthropy. When I am embodied, it is because I am carrying out the task my keystone gives me. This is an example that's specific to me, though I've talked to others with analogous experiences with their own keystones.

CONCEPTUAL STARVATION

Let me start by saying that I am unsure if this is a thing for other conceptfolk, at the very least in the same way. It is not a mandatory feature of conceptuality. Nevertheless, it is a phenomenon that affects me deeply, and which has come up in conversation with others who have expressed interest in seeing the concept developed further.

Currently, I'm calling this phenomenon conceptual hunger, or conceptual starvation. For me, this phenomenon sets in when I haven't interacted or embodied my keystone in a while. It is marked by lethargy, frustration, and a simultaneous restlessness which can deepen the more you are deprived. It is the opposite of embodiment. It is a hunger for meaning, for purpose.

I find that my conceptual starvation gets worse the longer I go without interaction, and it is not really ameliorated by short term engagement, but rather requires consistent, long term embodiment. In short, I am not myself when I'm suffering with conceptual starvation, and I must structure my days around satisfying these urges. To that end, I write, a lot; I try to learn new things and ask questions; I engage in my community to help others understand the world; I sculpt with clay; I, apparently, coin new terms and write 2000+ word essays about it to help others understand themselves. And the more I do it, the more embodied I feel.

I think my hunger is shaped by having a role (storyteller) that I am meant to fulfill. I want to know if others experience this hunger, particularly if you have a conceptual hearttype or other such experiences. What does it look like for you?

CONCLUSION

If you have reached this point, I want to thank you for taking the time to read my words. This is a subject very close to my heart, and, I think, an important one for the community at large. My hope is that I've laid out my case clearly enough for others to build on my ideas and make them their own.

In this essay, I have covered my ideas on conceptuality and proposed a few terms which may be helpful for others as a tool to frame their thinking on the subject. I argue that conceptuality is an approach or quality that anyone may find in their alterhumanity, while the term itself is for those want to find community with others that share this quality as a significant aspect or component of their identity. I outline my idea of the character of conceptuality, which is its foundation in the symbolic, metaphorical, and abstract forms of alterhumanity, its identification with a continuum of ideas rather than one singular entity, and its basis in the conceptualization of things that exist in the world. I also outline who might find a home under this term. I then set out my ideas for three different types of alterhumanity, the literal, sentimental, and metaphorical; I define embodiment and keystone, and discuss my own experience of conceptual starvation.

Conceptfolk is a term, but it cannot become a community without your help. Below are some questions for you to ponder if you found anything in this essay spoke to you. Consider joining the conceptfolk Dreamwidth and posting your answers to them there.

Think about your alterhumanity from a metaphorical angle. In what ways are you like your type? Is this way of thinking about it useful to you?
Do you feel you have a conceptual element to your alterhumanity? Why, or why not?
What is your keystone? How has it impacted your life?
In what ways is a label like conceptfolk useful for you?
What elements make up your conceptuality? How did you first come to understand it?
Who do you think you would be if your keystone was not what it is?
What is your experience of conceptual starvation like? What alleviates it?
Is your approach to your alterhumanity literal, sentimental, or metaphorical? Or multiple of these? What does that look like for you?
How would you define conceptuality in your own words?
How does conceptuality feel compared to non-conceptual identities?
If you have multiple keystones, are they interrelated or distinct?
Is your conceptuality distinct from your other alterhuman identities? If not, how do they influence each other?
How do you embody your concepttype, if at all?
How do you embody your concepttype in day to day life, in small ways?
How does your conceptuality interact, impact, and influence your identity in general, not just your alterhumanity?

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Over the moon

Lately, I've caught myself thinking about my alterhumanity in a strange way. I think "oh, but I could drop this if I wanted to" or "this isn't important to me actually, I'm doing it for fun" or "I'm not really a dragon." It sucks. I have a hard time telling if they're true or not. It feels like they could be, just because I'm thinking them (constantly), but, then, why do I keep engaging with my alterhumanity? Why write was is by now a nearly 3000 word essay on it? Why maintain a blog, talk about it to friends, incorporate it in my daily life?

What's the use of all this effort if I'm just pretending?

I don't know how to quiet this nagging. I think I just need to keep doing what I am already without paying it any mind, and maybe, one day, it will go away on its own. Maybe being closeted by necessity is what's driving it. Would I be open about my draconity if I could?

And so what if this is all for fun, actually. It enriches my life. It makes me myself. It's let me know some of the coolest, kindest, smartest people ever. I could drop this, if I wanted to. But I don't.

Pax and I want to start posting more casual entries to our Dreamwidth, so this is my attempt to start with that.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Violin Concerto in D., Op. 61 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Pax of the Wonderbeasts talks about his connection to the Books of Earthsea and being an introject with caveats

I first came across Earthsea as a child. At that age, I only had access to A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan. I had no opportunity to read The Farthest Shore, the book that marked me strongest out of all of them, beyond even the young Ged of A Wizard, whose name and face I've taken on. Seeing as I don't remember much of our childhood (nor does anyone here), I can't tell you how I felt about the book when I first encountered it. I recall reading it with a kind of nauseous awe at the world and the story. I would like to tell you that Ged inspired me to confront my own shadows, but that would not happen for years.

Looking back, I can trace the unconscious fault lines which that world might have carved into me. The way my teacher's teacher made herself one with the mountain of Gont to stop an earthquake from destroying the port, I too seem to have made myself as one with the text. Or made it one with me?

In a system that largely rejects the framework of introjection, the safe umbrella of medicalized plurality, for alterhuman origins, I stand out as an outlier. I don't believe that I've always been Ged, or that it was inevitable for me to become him. I think I introjected him, his world, his story, and made them mine.

The Farthest Shore is the last tale to feature Ged as an active character. When magic begins to fade from Earthsea, Ged and his young companion Arren set sail to save it. The songs are lost, the true speech falls silent, the art and and power of Life is being sapped away across all of Earthsea. They come to learn the cause: a necromancer named Cob, who promises all those with the gift eternal life, at the cost of their Name, their magic, their love; in short, at the cost of losing everything that makes us cling to life in the first place. Arren falls under the spell of the wizard Cob, and in his black despair Ged speaks to him.

“You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?”

He asks.

“Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the hunger of your mind, to buy safety?”

He comforts.

"Lebannen, this is. And thou art. There is no safety, and there is no end. The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss."

When I first read The Farthest Shore, I was twenty one and alone in a strange city, at a university I was barely able to attend, and unable to leave the concrete box of my room to experience life. I was despairing and drowning myself in it. At that time, I did not know myself. This was prior to our syscovery, and so I had no concept of myself as an independent person with a mind, and heart, and a name of my own. I consumed myself in a search for my own being, and afraid that I was not a person at all. I cannot describe to you the relief, the comfort, the hope his words gave me.
"It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea," but "this is. And thou art." For the first time in years, I felt myself not in the abyss but dancing on it; dancing on the sunlit waves of the sea.

I am Ged in all the ways that matter. Despite using language borrowed from medicine, I don't approach myself as a collection of pathologies. I will confess here, on a site no one will read, that I treat these books as religious texts and so my approach to my identity is very much a spiritual one. I think of my Ged-ness as a mask I wear, a mask that indicates my true self to the audience of my life's theatre, so it is at once distinct from and wholly part of me.

At the end of The Farthest Shore, Ged sacrifices his powers to close the gap in reality that Cob opened, and must cross the far side of the Mountains of Pain carried by Lebannen (Arren) to return to the world of the living. He is borne back to Gont by the dragon Kalessin, and must come to terms with a life without magic--a life of being, not doing. I marry and adopt a daughter who turns out to be a dragon. And at the end of my life, I sail into the vast seas of the cosmos before the dawn of creation, free.

Current Mood: melancholy

Written by Daystar Solander of the system of Wonderbeasts

Introduction: Hello world, can you hear me?

The alterhuman community doesn't talk about conceptual experiences enough. This essay aims to pave the way for a broader discussion of this way of being, so that others can begin to have the language to make sense of things like this, instead of struggling to put it into words. It is not intended to be a conclusive or final word on the subject, it is an entry point and only one person's way of thinking.

Rather than being based in physicality--having phantom shifts, draconic instincts, and the like--our draconity seemed to be the product of culture, almost of the ideas of what dragons are, rather than any specific dragon in particular. Our draconity was not focused on a discrete entity. This is a term I will return to in the essay, so it's useful to define here. 'Discrete' is here defined as taking on or having a finite or countably infinite number of values. This in and of itself is a very draconic characteristic, ironically. Our draconity felt malleable, based on abstract ideas and stories in a very direct way that seemed unusual for dragonkin.

And then there was storytelling.

I don't believe that already existing alterhuman frameworks (eg otherkinity, therianthropy, heartedness) can be easily and directly translated over into the conceptual realm all the time. I've found it really hard to make sense of myself when thinking in an otherkin framework, and also that it has been hard to fit into an otherkin community when my approach is so different.

What is a Concept?

'Concept' is an inherently difficult word to define. Let's go with the dictionary definition first! Merriam-Webster defines Concept as 1. something conceived of in the mind and 2. an abstract or generic ideal generalized from particular notions. Historically and currently, within the community, the definition of concept has ranged far broader than that, and so in an attempt to be thorough but by no means conclusive, we understand Concept (in an alterhuman context) to be defined as

The general idea or understanding of something
A unifying idea or theme
An abstracted understanding of something that exists in the world
A symbol, metaphor, glyph, idea, archetype, role, persona, analogy, simile, signifier, sign, and other such things
An abstract representation of something else, which may or may not have acquired additional dimensions beyond being the abstract representation of something.
The way honeybees may not just be honeybees, but are also a human's understanding of honeybees, as the literary symbol of honeybees, as a religious and mythological symbol/character/concept, as an artistic symbol/character concept.

The problem with this definition is that it still does not include everything and everyone who has been using the conceptkin label at the very least. Anything can be a conceptual identity, anyone can be conceptfolk.

Viewed in this manner, I can say that my draconity based in being a symbol of the power of fantasy and myth, being an archetypal Other, and existing in dialogue to ideas of humanity as both monstrous and divine. These ideas, coalesced into a symbol, are things I live out in my day to day life.

Conceptfolk

The term I want to propose is an umbrella term, inspired by 'fictionfolk', which is inclusive of anyone and everyone who feels it applies to them. I don't want to set limits on this label, if it takes off; this is for all of us. But, in order to illustrate what and who could fall under this term, let's set out some examples, which are not at all exhaustive. I've chosen to go with experiences rather than labels, as I think it will make it clearer.

Being a concept, or conceptkin. This one, I think, is the most intuitive for people to understand. It involves being the concept of something, being the embodiment of a concept, identifying as a concept.

Embodying a role, profession, or archetype, or understanding yourself through the lense of an archetype, narrative, or trope.

Intimately associating yourself with a concept (eg an aesthetic or subculture).

Relating to, identifying with, caring deeply about, being affected strongly by a concept.

Basing your sense of self around a concept, so that, while you are not that concept itself, you are inextricable from it.

Feeling like a part of, a shard of a concept.

Feeling at home with a concept.

See: an incomplete list of alterhuman frameworks for more ideas.

I think conceptfolk can associate with the thing itself and also with the idea of the thing. Usually both at once. We are a dragon because we embody the ideas of draconity most resonant with us. We are a storyteller because we perform the role of storytelling, and because we identify as one. Conceptivity (is that a word?) is often an abstract, symbolic, non-literal thing which is anchored in the person embodying it in such a way that it becomes concrete, specific, and personal. It is as real, direct, and impactful as other forms of alterhumanity.

Proposals

In this essay, I have found myself using the term embodiment again and again. This being not the first time that I have encountered it in an alterhuman context, I should probably provide some background.

Within the Archetroper's Guild discord server, discussions around the nature of archetropy have begun to lay bare a different paradigm, which I think is more in line with conceptual alterhumanity. This begins with the concept of embodiment. In simple terms, embodiment is archetropy's version of what shifts are to many alterhumans. There are some key distinctions within this specific context.

First of all, there is no voluntary/involuntary or with/as divide in our emerging framework of archetropy. Archetropy can be both chosen and reinforced consciously and it is usually both an identification with and as the archetrope. The elimination of two very big stumbling blocks has lead to a really interesting discourse on what being your archetrope really means. That's where embodiment comes in.

Embodiment in an archetropal context

A moment in which an archetroper feels uniquely connected to their archetrope, as if they have become part of a larger idea and act as its channel in the world.
A life long process of aligning oneself with their archetrope. Aligning one's aesthetic, hobbies, career, values, interests, ethics with their archetrope in order to better embody their role socially and narratively.

See: moments of moreness (note that syncing is the word used here, but that I prefer embodying. I feel like both are terms to use and explore )

I believe this concept is more widely applicable to conceptual experiences (archetropy itself being one such experience).

The other term I wanted to bring up for discussion is an idea I circle around in the above list, too. In my very limited experience, conceptfolk tend to have a concept that they are oriented around in some way. Naturally, I suppose. This concept is something central, and acts as an organizing principle for this identity. It can be as general or specific as suits the user. I propose for this to be called a keystone or lodestone concept. I prefer lodestone, as the actual object is an magnetite-rich rock that was used as an early compass. Lode means "course-stone" or "journey-stone" in Middle English, which is very representative of the concept I am trying to express. I am sure that there are different metaphors that suit other people better than this one, and I would encourage people to experiment with their own terms, too!

A lodestone concept, therefore, is the central pillar of one's conceptual alterhumanity, the concept a person is oriented around. For example, my lodestone is storytelling. Being oriented around this concept, for me, has affected my life path and self identification. I am a storyteller and a dragon (a dragon being of the same stuff that stories are made), I write, I seek out roles involving communication, I try to create community, I read voraciously, I think deeply about narrative and symbolism. Not doing any of these things, as has happened in the past, feels like starvation. It's who I am.

Conclusion: Where do we go from here?

In this essay, I've tried to set out the fumbled beginnings at a project that I simply cannot carry out on my own: the creation of community. If you have read this and been struck by any of my ideas--positively or negatively, in agreement, in curiosity, in disagreement--I implore you to talk about it! I would love to read people exploring their own conceptivity, I would love to read people exploring why they aren't conceptfolk. My hope is that I've provided the initial tools to get the conversation started, and that this idea will flourish, but community is built by everyone.

Current Mood: hopeful

Communicating with your daemon might mean changing the patterns of your thoughts. Not everyone thinks in monologue, let alone dialogue! But the good news is: it’s not impossible to get used to a new style of internal communication. Let’s go through the three steps to jumpstarting communication with your daemon: Narration, Dialogue Separation, and Discussion!

Narration
Narration is something you might already do unconsciously. It is the daily jumble of thoughts & feelings and is often found as an internal monologue.

Examples:
"I should have done my project differently. I noticed these three issues. No, I liked my project the way it was. But I didn't do well on it. That means I should do better next time, not that it was bad."
"I have some free time after I finish the chores. I can watch a couple of episodes. There are a few interesting ones I can watch but I'm undecided."

When you notice yourself thinking, slow down and actually listen to your thoughts. Don't do anything with them just yet, just focus on what you're saying and direct it towards the second presence you are trying to build. Tell them stories, talk about your day, discuss projects you want to do, complaints you have and so on. You may notice this slowing down your instinctual thinking to something more verbose. Don’t panic! This is normal & a good part of the process. The whole point is to notice the content of your thoughts. In the examples above, there is already a second partner to the dialogue there, just being processed as part of your own monologue instead.

Dialogue Separation
This is the second part to narration! In any mental narration, you may be considering a given thought or situation from multiple points of view, emotions, opinions & thoughts.

Example: "I should have done my project differently"

"But I really liked how it turned out!"

"I still failed the grade though."

"That means you know what to improve next time, not that it was bad."

When you start to become more aware of your narration, you can more easily separate out this second voice. This will be your dæmon. Purely and simply: a dæmon hides in your second thought. When you narrate, start to pay attention to what these thoughts say and do. Replay previous conversations with yourself and separate out the second thought. Imagine your dæmon is responding to what you're saying as a new friend of yours whom you are telling about yourself. You don't know them well yet, but they seem nice and they would like to hear about you!

Remember that your dæmon should be responding compassionately to what you say. They may not always say what you want to hear, just like a good friend might be brutally honest with you, but they are not your negative thoughts. More often than not, they are the one doubting the negativity.

Discussion
You know your second voice now. The next step is to initiate an intentional discussion with your dæmon. It's useful to write these things down initially, as it helps to focus & clarify the conversation. Put together narration and dialogue separation into one practice. In fact, you may already be doing this instinctively! But now, take the time to really do it intentionally. Take some time out of your day to focus on your dæ.

Example:
Me: "Hmm, there are a few shows I'd like to watch right now, but I'm not sure what I should pick?"

Dæ: "Well this show is about X & you are in a Y mood, those don't mesh well. Plus, Z show is much more fun! I want to watch that one."

"I liked my project, but the feedback makes me doubt it was any good."

"Don't worry, you can improve next time. You got this!"

Depending on how you operate, it is simplest to proceed in one of two main ways. One option is to talk about an emotionally charged subject for you. This is good if you already know your mind on the topic, as the charged nature and your subjectivity will help bring out the second thought. The other option is to start talking about a subject you may casually enjoy or already have thoughts on but maybe aren't sure how to proceed. This is better if you have trouble thinking when processing emotions, or if you want to allow more room for you and your dæmon to explore something together. Both methods are possible and valid ways to approach this! You will end up engaging in both these conversation types & many more as you build your relationship with your dæmon. Go with what feels right at the moment.

One thing to note is that this discussion will most likely feel forced at first. You are drawing on reasoning you've already worked through but haven't given voice to when you first do this. Your dæmon may not have strong opinions of any kind. That isn't important. The important step here is to take that thought process & attribute it to your dæmon. Teach your brain a new trick!

Also, you've just had your first intentional conversation with your dæmon! Congratulations! Take some time to celebrate; that's a huge first step.

Next Steps
From here, it's mostly practice, practice, practice! You are ironing out new neural pathways, which doesn't happen in a day. Keep narrating & separating, keep asking questions.

Some further advice for you as you progress:
1. Choose a specific time of day to check in with your dæmon. It's okay if this doesn't happen every day, especially at first! But really sitting down, maybe at the end of the day, reviewing things that happened and asking for thoughts and opinions from your dæmon, retroactively attributing mental chatter and just spending some time with them is an awesome next step!
2. Similarly, you could pick a specific activity during which you talk to your dæmon. Maybe you walk to school or work, or maybe you do the dishes every two days. Find some time to check in and really say hi!
3. Play simple games with your dæmon throughout the day.
1. Word association: Think of a word and have them come up with a related concept. Mental ping pong!
2. Eye spy: "I spy with my little eye something that rhymes with hello..."
4. Imagine scenarios which involve interacting with your dæmon. They can be as simple or elaborate as you like. Maybe transpose yourself in your favourite TV show together with your dæmon, or create a whole new world to explore together! The main focus isn't the world, but seeing how your dæmon interacts with it and how you interact with them.
5. Have your dæmon talk to you about a concept you are passionate about. This one is maybe a bit more advanced, but really truly have them explain a fan theory, or mechanical engineering. It gets you to externalize your thoughts as them and helps them find something to talk about.
6. Google conversation starters, prompts & ice breaker questions. Pick one you both like & have a conversation based on it! There might be some initial awkwardness, but push past it and remind yourself about why you want a dæmon.

This is a (slightly) edited draft of a dialogue separation guide I wrote a few months ago for TDF. I think there's a lot I could add to it, and quite a bit that I honestly would prefer to change, as my views and experiences with dialogue separation and other forms of internal communication have evolved quite a bit since the time of writing. That's a project for another day, though. Hopefully this guide is useful to someone!

-- Julian & Ki, of the system of Wonderbeasts

Current Mood: good

Pax is pushing me to actually write this instead of loudly thinking about how I want to, so this is a favour to him alone. Please stop sighing at me! I'm doing it!!!!!

Lately, my thoughts have turned again and again towards the prospect of linking some kind of plant. For a while that's all it was, idle musings. I found that I could not really imagine what plantness is, and that held me back from even considering the question seriously. But the desire keeps resurfacing again and again, so I've decided to properly try!

The first step was in determining what plant I wanted to focus on. It might have been nice to find a flowering plant or some kind of shrub, and I'd probably like being a reed of some kind... cat tails maybe. My heart was set on trees though, because I gravitate to size and silence most of all. Even then, there are so, so many kinds of tree and many kinds I really love. I thought about birches, balsam fir. We've always had a special connection to ginko, as there's been ginko trees in every place we've lived. I seriously considered linking Pando, the giant quaking aspen colony in Utah, which is really really cool to learn about.

But as I searched through my memory of trees, I recalled the existence of white oaks--quercus alba. The tree has been an on and off fascination for me; I first encountered it when I was still intending to be a candidate in the AODA (Ancient Order of Druids in America). They used to thrive in the ecoregion we are in, the Southern Great Lakes forest (as defined by WWF). Canadian classification labels this as the Mixedwood plains. As I really love my home, linking a tree that grows here felt like a no brainer, and googling photos confirmed the decision immediately. White oaks are beautiful, and looking at them gave me an immediate sense of euphoria.

So that's that, right? Well, no, of course not!

I've lately been discovering in myself a great and quiet joy in movement. This is a very animalistic impulse and a very natural one, seeing as I am an animal in both body and mind. My draconity gives me delight in moving my muscles properly, in leaps and spins, and even in dancing. Having been sedentary for so long, a necessity when living with severe chronic fatigue syndrome, it feels impossible to cease that movement and demand stillness of myself, as plants do. From an animal point of view, animals are active and plants are wholly passive. Except that isn't really true. An oak tree, of course, is stationary. It is anchored to the ground it first sprouted in unless moved by an outside force. But a mature white oak tree, who can live to about 600 years old, will probably die if it is dug up and replanted elsewhere.

My first attempts at finding the mindset of such an oak were failures, then, because I assumed that passivity meant being wholly shut in and self oriented. Dumb. Vegetal. Oh the arrogance of apes and lizards... (said lovingly, of course, for I greatly treasure being an ape and a lizard both, and a human and a dragon besides).

The passivity of white oak trees is characterized by an intense awareness. A constant, mindful attention. Being so long lived and so solid, they can observe the world around them at leisure, and notice things we never could. What looks like passivity to us, for whom stillness is a condition only diagnosed in sleep or in death, is one long, slow listening and observing. The actions and movements of trees are simply different to the actions and movements of animals, but they are there, if you know how to look in turn.

There is the process of growth itself, from seed to seedling to tree. The cycle of xylem and phloem, the intake of water and nutrients from the soil, the constant process of photosynthesis, the creation of acorns and their releasing. There is the movement of animals taking up residence in your branches and roots and under your bark. There is the wind setting your branches to swaying. There is hibernation. And the wonderful part of it is that you always know exactly where you are. You change, of course, and the world changes with you and for you, but it is always around you. Your place in it is secure, and so you can devote a great deal of time to observing it.

So far, I have not really experimented much with reaching this kind of state, and certainly not for long periods of time. It doesn't come naturally to me, and it isn't always wanted. But I don't want to be in motion all the time, either. Sometimes it is a welcome pleasure to root myself and just watch the world instead. I'm currently working on finding the sensation of photosynthesis. I have no idea if there's an equivalent sensation in a human body, but it's still nice to stand in the sunlight and feel the warmth of it.

My next steps are to find white oak trees close to me, so I can observe them in person, to research their life cycle and environment so I can shape my attempts at inducing shifts, and to start thinking about what roots feel like. I'd like to try and continue documenting my attempts at linking, but we'll see if my memory lets me hold to that desire.

Written by Julian of the Wonderbeasts, on March 9th 2025.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: The Goldenwood
Current Music: Violin Concerto in D Major by P.I. Tchaikovsky

Pax of the Wonderbeasts discusses our approach to embodiment and his philosophy of body as place.

The topic having recently come up in a server we are in and myself wanting an excuse to write something for our Dreamwidth seems a match made in heaven. I want to discuss my system's negotiations towards our own embodiment and the terms on which we have accepted it.

Many plurans--and many other people--are likely to have a fraught relationship with the body they occupy. It comes as the result of a toxic mix of not looking the way you would like to and the denial of your selfhood by other people, I think. We have disputed our embodiment for a long time, but I think we are working our way towards some kind of compromise.

We (Julian especially) have struggled with depersonalization/derealization and ipseity disturbance for a long time. His dissociation most often manifests as feeling reduced to or trapped in the body's eyes as his body reacts to things on autopilot. This dissociation mostly results from trauma, but we suspect the ipseity disturbance would have occurred anyway and these clinical factors combined with our transgender identity, nascent nonhumanity and alterhumanity and burgeoning plurality to create a very toxic stew.

What, then, has changed?

Most obviously, the fact that the rest of us have properly manifested ourselves seems to have reduced the ipseity disturbance by a lot. We still feel it, especially in these early days where establishing ourselves as independent people sharing the same brain is an ongoing process, but it has reduced his/our distress by a lot. Julian has wanted to be plural for years and for years was hesitant or unable to make it happen because of his mental health issues and our ongoing chronic health problems.

I've been present for years. My earliest memories are of middle school. Arthmael played princess as a child. Ru emerged when we learned how to cook. Mazarin was probably the one pretending to be a Hunter of Artemis. Julian, in though present in various iterations before then, has solidly existed since age 14. I suspect that part of his ipseity disturbance was the result of trying to mask our plurality, trying to accommodate for very different self-consciousnesses.

There are different ways to configure one's relationship to their body, especially when you share it with other people.

A non-exhaustive and very brief list of positions we've encountered and some we've adopted:

The body belongs to one headmate (usually the person who most identifies with the physical body)
The body is shared between everyone
The body belongs to whoever's fronting
The body is a vessel or a machine that holds our consciousnesses

Different configurations will, obviously, work better for some people than others. At one point in time, number 5 was our preferred approach, but that's been changing as each of us work on existing more as people. I want to document our nascent approach.

I think it started with me; I've been interested in developing a religious framework for our system and was researching how religions form for that purpose when I came across a quote from the philosopher Edmond S. Casey on the Wikipedia article on culture (accessed on October 4th according to my notes).

"The very word culture meant 'place tilled' in Middle English, and the same word goes back to Latin colere, 'to inhabit, care for, till, worship' and cultus, 'A cult, especially a religious one.' To be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensely to cultivate it—to be responsible for it, to respond to it, to attend to it caringly."

I can't verify that the quote comes exactly from his work, this was quoted from a book called Intercultural Communication: Globalization and Social Justice by Kathryn Sorrels. For my purposes, the quote's context doesn't matter as much; what struck me was the last line: to be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensely to cultivate it--to be responsible for it, to attend to it caringly.

I've been thinking about our body as a beloved place, cultivated and cared for such that our culture arises from our interactions with and within it. Because I inhabit this body, I become myself; I feel emotion, I use my senses, I talk to my headmates, I have memory and life. My body is not me, and I am not it, but each of us benefit from this partnership. We look after it and it rewards us with a rich harvest. I think attending to the body as a landscape we all share has been really beneficial for us. It creates enough distance between our selfhood and our presence in the body that we can share it as desired, it's helped Julian to feel his emotions more (by imagining them as weather patterns that he can assess, prepare for, and survive because they are temporary), and it's helped us come to terms with not seeing ourselves in the mirror. Because this body is shared, the face that looks out at us from the mirror is a reflection of who we are, individually and as a shared culture. Clothing, tattoos, hair style and colour, hormones--all become extensions of our cultural aesthetic and values. It's been helpful for us in agreeing on transition goals and personal aesthetics. It hasn't eliminated conflict by any means, but we have a common ground to agree on. Those of us who experience dysphoria at occupying a human body have found this approach useful too, because we can agree to take care of its needs without making them our own.

There's a lot we're still establishing though. Julian and I are both interested in creating a symbiont to inhabit the body fully and act as a genius loci or representative for its needs and desires, but we're still discussing that with everyone. We'd have to think of how to create the symbiont as well, which I think will entail a different process than the ones usually used to create thought forms. I know I'm going to have fun with that.

Current Mood: contemplative

In talking to Julian's therapist today, we have realized that being a writer--the state of being a writer--is important to us, but that desire has eclipsed the ability to write. In that vein, I wanted to reflect on our experiences of selfhood a little.

One of the commitments that helped us drag ourselves out of the ipseity disturbance hole was a firm commitment to defining ourselves by the things we do. But a body does so many things in a day, and many of them unconsciously. Am I a breather; am I defined by the action of breathing? In some ways, yes, I am. Without drawing in breath, this body could not live. The state of not breathing is the state of death. And a dead body could not support our thinking selves. Why do I not include unconscious acts within my self image?

Descartes argues that a human being is a 'thinking thing.' Whereas all other objects in the universe are just matter extended in three dimensions (including animals and plants), human beings are made of res cogitans, the act of thinking itself. God ties us to the world through some mysterious organ in the body, subjecting us to the imperfect horror of a subjective world, where we must struggle to perceive eternal truths which our bodies conceal from our immortal souls. Or something like that. I only ever took an introductory philosophy class.

Let me take Descartes seriously for a moment though. I am a thinking thing inside a body composed of matter extended in three dimensions. Anything I perceive clearly and distinctly--such as the width of a triangle--must be true. I know I am a thinking thing because I perceive, through clear thought, that I am this. Here again, act supersedes being, as we have tried to allow ourselves to believe.

It makes sense to me that a mind mired in uncertainty would clutch at the definition action gives the world. Action produces change. Action shows me that I am still real.

Looking back, this is what I would say to that older us.

I am what I am. The substance I am made of is me. I am the substance of myself. I will be what I will be. I can only be what I am, because I am made of my substance. 'I' is a neutral quality. Being is an act. I can define myself only with reference to myself.

Breathing is part of me because I breath. Writing is part of me because I write. Thinking is a part of me because I think. If I do wrongly, it is part of me. If I do well, it is part of me. But none of this is me.

I will be what I was and I was what I will be.

The self is without reference and without peer, the self is indefinable, and yet it permeates the world.

I am what I was I will be what I am I was what I will be.

Current Mood: thoughtful

I suppose most of you are already filled with questions at the title, though to me it seems quite self explanatory. Before I begin to explain why I've chosen to name my experience as such, and examine it a little further, let me disavow something.

I do not believe that any traits, behaviours, activities, beliefs, or even the concept of personhood, culture, and sapience itself belongs wholly to humans, and this is not something I intend to argue in my writings, ever. What makes these things human, for me, is when they are set into the broad context of human evolution, human history, and human cultures. In other words, the behaviours themselves are not exclusively human, but the context in which they become important to me is.

-------------------------------------------------------

I know that I have felt ancient from a young age. I have felt disconnected from and denied personhood from very young too. I know when I was younger, I was much more animal, and much more aware at the same time. It's a specific locus of feeling that I can only label draconic in character. I felt subject to instinct because instinct was denied to me, and cursed to be an anthropologist among members of my own species. Some of this was likely undiagnosed autism, as I have come to realize decades later. And perhaps being autistic is the only explanation someone may need to understand these experiences. But, I was a dragon when I was younger, and I still am one today. In grade ten, I realized that the ostracism I had experienced from my peers, and the abuse from my father, resulted in a completely alien framework of morality that had no room for compassion--indeed, it had no room for anyone else except me. It was the small, cold, detached world of an ancient creature that I operated under. It was also the small, cold world of someone denied companionship, denied affection and care from a young age. Though, looking back, I think I make this disconnect worse and wronger than it was. I know, now, that it was a coping mechanism. If I could stop myself from caring, then the world could not hurt me so. But I resolved, then and there, to change it.

The long and short of the change which occurred that day in grade ten is that I resolved to make myself human. The kind of humanity I had read about in books, and heard talk of among adults in my life.

It is here that I want to make an aside to discuss the origin of our ideas of humanity within the Western cultural sphere. I will discuss Renaissance humanism, but I must first discuss the Age of Enlightenment, and the refusal of humanity to non-European humans.

It is imperative to understand that a continuation of the tradition of humanism, which was first explored in the Renaissance by humanist philosophers, made itself known in an abhorrent way during the Enlightenment period (the 17th and 18th centuries). This is the immediate post-contact period and the focal point of the consolidation of empire and imperial ambitions. This period sees the codification of the nation state as the primary political entity. Liberalism as a philosophy emerge from this context. Capitalism, though having begun the process of development a century or two earlier, begins to take on its modern shape at this point in time, and finds an advocate in Adam Smith.

Broadly speaking, the aim of Enlightenment philosophy was to construct human society on the basis of human knowledge and skill, rather than around a Divine plan. This was done through the separation of church and state, the abolishing of the divine right of kings, and the challenging of the idea that some men should have more power and privilege, more of a say than others. All men are created equal.

And all of this, all of this was done on the backs of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. The concept of corporations comes from the English and Dutch East India companies, the first joint-stock companies in the world. Any English of Dutch citizen could buy stock in these companies, and thereby directly profit from the colonial enterprise.

The restructuring of power to, in some limited way, be more democratic in the past, and the granting of citizenship to all (land-owning men) was only possible through the denial of personhood, the eploitation and death, the genocide of non-european peoples.

The definition of human originates from this period as a way to justify and accomplish imperial violence.

There is no easy way to reckon with this history, and I do not think it should be easy to do so, especially as we feel its repercussions today. Especially as BIPOC are still denied humanity today. I think my own grappling will have to come later, as it is beyond the scope of this essay right now. But it was important to me to acknowledge this fact and to build my own conception, not within its legacy, but in opposition to it.

I think the deconstruction of humanity as a historical construct is perhaps best saved for another essay. I need to consolidate my thoughts on that much more before I can come to any (necessarily preliminary) conclusion.

-------------------------------------------------------

What is being human, to me, then?

Much more than a species identity, or the body I am in, humanity is a set of values, a guide to who I want to be in the world. These values, for me, consist of resilience, compassion, curiosity, and creativity. True to the original definition of archetropy, my understanding of humanity is shaped through the stories humans tell about themselves, though more than a specific role in fiction, I locate myself within the project of fiction as a whole being a way that the humans of this world use to make sense of it. Because that was what I did, and do. Even if I was not human, and am not human, I saw myself in that storytelling urge, that refusal to be only what we are, and instead imagine ourselves as what we want to be. Because I made sense of the world through story, I became the storyteller, and I became human. Gold dragons, too, strive to understand the world around us, and to make it better than how we found it. Because of this, and because dragons can take on a human form, I do not, in the end, see much conflict between my species and my humanity. They are not the same, but they are fundamentally alike.

My humanity has impacted my selfhood in ways beyond moral as well. My hobbies (gardening, cooking, storytelling, fibre arts, clay sculpture, painting, music) are also ways in which I feel connected to humanity as an archetrope. It is then fitting that I find myself mostly aligned with our ideas on paleolithic humans, and how they live. I have my vocation as philosopher, and potentially as archeologist to thank for it. My own hearthome lies within Paleolithic Europe and the Neolithic steppes of Anatolia.

I am rambling, now, and do not have much more to say. Perhaps I will expand on this concept in the future.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: The caves of Lascaux

I once identified quite strongly with paladins. There's still a lot about that archetype which appeals to me--the devotion, the oath, the faith, the code. But none of that is exclusive to paladinry! Nor even to adjacent archetypes like the knight. Truthfully, I am a peace-loving person, who cares less about some grand quest and more about the people they are surrounded with. This is the cornerstone of my archetype--the service (and the stories). There were always things which did not fit about paladins. Imagining myself in armor was laughable, much less at the court of some great king (and yes, I know that wouldn't have been possible within a modern context anyway, but the archetypal narratives are still there no matter what period one finds oneself in!). I am also much more closely entwined with knowledge than paladins tend to be, as well as community building, storytelling, and spirituality.

For all these reasons, paladins don't fit. They are certainly a para-archetype of sorts, for the reasons I was drawn to them in the first place, but they are not me. But what is? I started to think carefully about which details fit me and which didn't, assembling a list of traits that summed me up in the process.

The list is as follows:

Community-oriented; my focus is around helping & serving a community more than an ideal or an oath.
Devotion; despite my focus on community, I am still devoted to some higher purpose/cause/being.
Peace-loving.
Committed to knowledge, the preserving & dissemination thereof.
Tangible acts of service; living rather than questing.
Spiritual.

Those of you who have seen the title, or know anything at all about monks will be screaming at my ignorance at this point, but truly I did not realize who I was until I was contacted by Them, whom I will call Fairlight.

Fairlight has appeared to me several times over the years, always in similar visages. Owlish faces, brilliant light, outstretched arms were all common, as were stars, wings, and the sun. In my childhood I knew Them as Athena and Artemis, Apollo and Hestia, I knew them as Brigid and God, as Inspiration, Muse, and Story--They wore many names and faces for me. But at last They have appeared to me with Their own face. And I have found my purpose at last.

A monk cannot enter into service without knowing his God. Now, I know mine.

Current Mood: loved

I go looking for myself, catching glimpses

Seeking the mirror, I am bared of

The familiar, moulded into a body that is not mine.

My freckled nose and the scar from four years old

My moonish belly, white & round, and
Nose arched and crooked. My legs bear marks,

My eyes are bleak and my shoulders droop with misery.

But search deeper.

Find my eyes in the saw-whet owl.

Find my cheer in dandelions.

I soothe as river water,

Yet endure as granite will.

My dreams bear flight on monarch’s wings

And the art of spiders cobwebs my thoughts.

Take me off on flightless reverie,

And show me what I might be.

My teeth become the river rocks,

My eyes, the sun and moon.

Split my veins into waterways,

And my mouth opens to the cry of a loon.

From my marrow comes the ocean,

And freely flow my blood cells as fish into the sea.

My hair, as kelp, it tangles,

Ensares you to my side.

And though you begin to struggle, you should not be terrified.

Oh, you are a strange animal, stitched of love and bone

Made of blood and promises where you were called into your own.

Touch your hand to mine through the mirror and look at me through my eyes,

See the soul of the wild in your thoughts and mine.

And I know now, for all I have seen and seemed to be

The word for you is me.

Oh, you are a strange animal, stitched of love and bone

Made of blood and promises where you were called into your own.

Touch your hand to mine through the mirror and look at me through my eyes,

See the soul of the wild in your thoughts and mine.

And I know now, for all I have seen and seemed to be

The word for you is me.

Taste my tears as sweet molasses,

And watch me weave a lesson from morning dew.

Hear me, I speak directly to you.

Through the world I inhabit myself.

I am part of what’s around me,

I live because you do.

Because I am what surrounds me, I vow to love all mortally.

Let my tears run as sunshine rivers,

Let my mind bear witness to atrocity.

Let my mouth shape feral stories,

And my blood sing with secret things.

I have looked into the face of the Other

And I discovered my own face reflected back at me,

In all my wildness, in all my cruelty,

I am set free

I am embraced for who I should be.

Now, when I see you I see me.

Current Mood: contemplative

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February 2026

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Page Summary

A Long Overdue Introduction
Eternal Rest (a short story by Julian Solander)
2026 Reads: The City In Glass by Nghi Vo
In search of an odyssey
Superman (2025) and the theme of international accountability in superhero movies
Exploring Conceptual Alterhumanity, 2nd ed. (Or: the revised and edited conceptfolk essay)
On doubt and the urge to run away
Myself and Earthsea
This is not a dragon: exploring conceptual alterhumanity
The Narrative Daemon Building Method: A quick guide to jumpstarting communication
White Oaks
Relationships to Body; Body as Place
Being and Doing
Constructed Humanity: Why I term myself a human archetrope
Monasticism; or Further Developments in Archetropy
Self Portrait in F-Minor: You Are A Strange Animal

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I have seen dragons on the winds of morning

Recent Entries

Sticky: A Long Overdue Introduction

Eternal Rest (a short story by Julian Solander)

2026 Reads: The City In Glass by Nghi Vo

In search of an odyssey

Superman (2025) and the theme of international accountability in superhero movies

Exploring Conceptual Alterhumanity, 2nd ed. (Or: the revised and edited conceptfolk essay)

On doubt and the urge to run away

Myself and Earthsea

This is not a dragon: exploring conceptual alterhumanity