@volpi

Account for posts I want to keep separate from my main account.

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Wyvern-shaped software developer and hobby vector artist.

Pronouns

Website https://volpeon.ink/

Speaking German, English

Age 30s

Pronouns he / him

Main Account @volpeon

This user has migrated to a different account.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@IceWolf

If that's how you want to handle it, then that's fine.

To me, this isn't a matter of wanting to call myself nonhuman. As I said, it doesn't make a difference to me. It's rather a matter of deciding if calling myself nonhuman would align with my values. If it doesn't, there's no point in doing it.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@ziphi

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

A small continuation of icy.wyvern.rip/notes/a2uua7tofjz5ac8j

Now that I highlighted why I like furries and the concept of fursonas so much, I'd like to dig into what it is that makes alterhuman communities not work for me.

The basic premise of those communities is identifying as nonhuman. And that simply doesn't apply to me.

My body is human. That's just a fact.

My mind is human. Or at least, I can't claim it's nonhuman.

When we think about minds, we can only look at them through the lens of our own experiences and observations. We might think we understand what's going on, but our assumptions are likely to be flawed and can easily turn out to be false. A good example of this is the disproved dominance hierarchy of wolves, but it happens all the time in our daily lives with other humans as well.
So when we think about, say, the "minds of foxes", what it really is is "our idea of the minds of foxes based on our observations of their behavior".

The implication here is that you can't even be sure you have a human mind. But I am at least certain that my mind isn't closer to animals than humans.
Animals don't sit in front of a computer and have discussions about identity and concepts, write software or draw vector art.
Nothing sticks out to me as inherently "nonhuman", and on the other hand the desire to experience life as an animal serves as an affirmation of my humanity.
Even if I were to find parallels to what I assume animal thoughts to be — the fact that I'm able to participate in this society on equal terms with humans and do things animals can't shows that my mind must be fundamentally different from a regular animal's.

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I think this section shows what my values are: I want to see the world the way it is, without obfuscation through my own feelings, interpretations, labels, etc.

Alterhuman communities, however, are very focused on building abstractions. I just don't find this fulfilling and rather explore my identity creatively and without any expectations via fursonas.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@colinstu Only the last paragraph

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

Another edit to characterize the last waves better.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@Zypheran

Now you got me thinking if convincing armwings would be possible, especially with movable digits instead of being all floppy. Paired with the stilts, the result would be amazing. Shit, I really want this now. The impracticability would be off the charts, though.

I'll try to find some examples, but I don't keep track of the fursuits I liked so for now, this is all I have:
bsky.app/profile/2pfoten.bsky.social/post/3kuuzlbdm3s2c

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@fudge_the_sphinx Oh yeah, I remember this! They were also considered strange, so at least things were consistent, I guess

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@vaartis Ironically, nowadays the label "therian" has changed so much that even people who only want to be their anthro fursona use it.

I don't think therian applies to me, though. In the past, it was because I didn't have any of the experiences that were considered common in the community. And nowadays, way too many discussions taking place are about extremely specific labels.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

If I had a fursuit, it would be the most impractical thing.

I mentioned in my previous post that the only fursuits that appeal to me are those having an "animal vibe". It's hard to put into words, but I understand my taste and that gives me an idea of the criteria my fursuit would have to fulfill.

It mustn't be completely impractical. I want to have at least a realistic chance to be in a fursuit without killing my back or other body parts after 10 minutes. So things like quad suits would be right out.

The species would be a were creature.
The problem with humans in costumes is that all they can really pull off are humanoid creatures. Trying to mimic anything else will inevitably look off, so I wouldn't even bother.
Fursuit makers have some tricks to adjust the perceived proportions of limbs without negative side effects. I think it's cool, but I would go one step further to really push it from the "anthro" into the "were creature" category: Stilts. I don't have the link anymore, but a few years ago I came across a project site to build stilts which essentially elongate your foot in a way that makes your legs look convincingly digitigrade.

And that's when things would become impractical, and I'm sure it would still start to hurt very quickly. But it's the most realistic solution I could think of to have a fursuit even I would be happy with.

Of course, having one would also require going to events with people because there wouldn't be much of a point otherwise, and that makes it very unlikely to ever happen.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

I feel more attached to the furry fandom than other communities you'd expect to be more relevant to me. After all, even when I joined furry forums for the first time, people who expressed a genuine desire to be an animal were considered weird — at least in the German corner of it. Someone once called me a "hardcore furry" because of it, a label which still baffles me because I'm not even interested in a lot of things furries usually are.

I don't care about fursuits. The only exception are those having some kind of "animal vibe" to them that I can't really explain. Here's an example: bsky.app/profile/2pfoten.bsky.social/post/3kuuzlbdm3s2c

I'm not very interested in anthro animals in general. On the scale I attached, my interest rapidly declines after 2.

I don't go to cons because I'm very much not a people person.

But it makes up for all of it with art and the concept of fursonas. I just love the creativity and directness of it. All it takes to be a furry is an interest in animal characters. Whether you come up with a fursona for yourself and how is entirely up to you. It's a creative and individual process without expectations on what your character means to you or what your thought process was. You may choose to make it a representation of yourself, your ideal form, an expression of your creativity or anything else. Whatever you do, the result will be an amalgamation of your choices which ultimately are an undiluted reflection of your personality, desires, likes, dislikes, all the things that make you you. I think that's awesome.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@fudge_the_sphinx I think I made that connection because the last story I read with this theme ended up doing exactly that. Transliterated could go in the same direction if it wanted to with the Beacons, but I don't think that will happen.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@sam Apparently Reddit has multiple communities, so that's that. I haven't checked them out myself (yet), though.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@Legion495 I wish

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@fudge_the_sphinx Yup, that's what I meant

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

Trust me, I can handle running multiple accounts

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

Some notes after some browsing:

- On a positive note, explanations of one's experiences and feelings still happen, so it would be wrong to claim it doesn't happen anymore.

- However, a big number of posts are focused on finding, establishing and discussing labels.

- There are indeed people who "identify as an animal on a physical level", albeit not many. The line of thinking is exactly as I had guessed.
Apparently, the Reddit community largely rejects this concept, but it's fine on Tumblr.

- I recognized some people, which is neat. Cameos are fun.

- The meta is as tiresome as everywhere else.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@errant There's Tumblr and posts on fedi and Bluesky under the right tags I guess. No idea how representative all of that is compared to the huge black box that is Discord

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

Today I'm going to take a closer look at current interactions in the community to see if my impressions really are accurate. No Discord servers, though, because they draw attention to you when joining and I don't like that at all.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@fudge_the_sphinx

Yeah, the description on Wikipedia is a bit hard to grasp. It took me a while to really understand it.

I don't have in-depth knowledge about all the discussions happening, so I appreciate your perspective. Please correct me if I make assumptions that aren't true.
All I have is a very far away perspective where I see bits and pieces of where the discourse is going, as a general trend. My impression of Tumblr over the years has always been of a place where people keep coming up with more and more labels. And as time went by, those labels felt increasingly empty and redundant to me. Maybe it makes more sense to view those waves with blurred boundaries.

When I said "subsequent waves have pretty much removed this level of elaboration", I think I left out too much information about what I mean. I don't think those waves have completely gotten rid of explanations, but they shifted to be more about other concepts and terms rather than actual experiences. Holotherianthropy seems like the perfect example of that to me, and I still do believe it's a perfect example for the "pure simulacrum" stage.
The statement "I am physically a wolf" is objectively false, so the only way to have it make any sense is to disconnect the concept "physical form" from its roots in our common reality. The pedantry you're talking about are efforts to achieve exactly that.

None of this means that those labels can't have any meaning to those people, and that wasn't the intention of the original reply on Werelist nor was it mine here.
It's just a very plausible explanation for why a lot of modern discourse has felt so inherently empty to me, as if people are saying things without saying anything at all.
Some of the things they're saying are actually outright offensive to me. I wouldn't be suffering if I could "physically be a dragon" just by saying so. Maybe this statement means something to them, but to me it's all meaninglessly throwing around words and concepts.

As for the quadrobics thing, the original post didn't specify the stage it corresponds to, so I just kinda assumed he included it in the third wave. He may have intentionally left it out because it's an entirely different beast.

Volpeon (Bonus)

@volpi@icy.wyvern.rip

@vel Oh no

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