Indi Latrani @indi@awoo.space

@starkatt My best understanding of it is as a subjective experience that is, at least initially, defined negatively. "It feels like there is more here than fan-appreciation for me. Does anyone else feel the same way?" And in each of the above cases, other folks said "Yes" and started building a community out of that. It's intrinsically built on drawing connections between internal/subjective experiences.

@starkatt Now I'm thinking I should do some writing on this myself. :)

A piece of the answer, I think, is the realization that this sort of stuff arose _out of_ costume/RP fan activity. And it happened multiple times. Independently.

Therians out of alt.horror.werewolves

Psychic vampires out of V:tM

Otherkin out of fantasy novels

Lifestylers out of funny animal fandom.

It's _defined as_ "this feels deeper than fan activity" and it _keeps happening_

@starkatt Not offhand, but I could boost this to see if anyone else does? :)

@starkatt Further thought on how I'd explain it: It probably goes back to (non-)falsifiability, subjective experience, etc. Which I guess means I'm talking in terms of qualia, or something like them. If someone's gonna argue that qualia don't exist (or "aren't a coherent concept"), we're probably living in worlds that are too different to effectively communicate about it.

@starkatt Sure :)

@starkatt If 'metaphorical' is the right word for you, by all means use it to describe yourself. I'm not sure what word I would use there myself either, maybe I'm just not in the habit of talking to folks where I need to defend the initial statement against prescriptivist linguistics. If've found trying to defend this stuff to logical positivists is a fool's errand not even fit for this coyote. ;)

@starkatt I think having that conversation when one is saddled with the 'metaphorical' label is important.

I think some folks really do feel it as metaphor and find it valuable, and I want to make sure they're covered and supported too.

What I don't want is folks feeling like 'metaphorical' is _definitional_ for these sorts of identities.

@starkatt Yep, was writing my previous post just as this came in. ;)

@starkatt Yeah, I've had that same argument (Though in my case it's "Well, I don't, but even if I did, that wouldn't matter")

I'm just not sure going to bat FOR metaphor is actually winning anything. It feels like conceding ground.

@starkatt And, it goes further: As I've seen folks discuss lately elsewhere, it's true in a sense that 'prefer', 'identify as', 'metaphorical' are useful constructs to use in discussion with how we relate to these descriptors. But I think using them in the core statement is giving something for no actual gain.

@starkatt

RIghtly or wrongly, 'metaphorically' waters down that statement, based on how people understand the words.

I don't 'prefer' pronouns. These are my pronouns.

I don't 'identify as' a gender. This is my gender.

I'm not 'metaphorically' a metaphysical identity. It's my identity.

@starkatt Oddly enough I was in the midst of writing something about the respectability question right when your reply came in.

I don't think that softening or broadening a metaphysical stance in the interest of getting respectability has ever worked. Did you think that when the therian community decided to talk about it entirely in psychological terms, everyone said "Oh gosh okay THAT'S reasonable, we fully accept you now." All it did was alienate the spiritual folks.

@starkatt I agree with you there, but in that case, maybe a good focus here is broadening the definition of 'literal' rather than reclaiming its antonym?

Maybe it's just me but:

When I hear "You're not literally a coyote" I tend to want to say "Okay let's talk about what you mean by literal"

When I hear "So you're metaphorically a coyote" I tend to want to say "Why the fuck did you need to put that extra word there."

@starkatt It's fine with me if someone wants to self-describe their mysticism/furry ID, etc, as 'metaphorical', but the word is still used often enough to delegitimize such things that I'm really uncomfortable with it getting presented as the default or base-case for them.