Plenanima

This text was taken mostly verbatim from my dreamwidth post here.


In making pencorpus for myself, I've unleashed a beast and now can't really think of a way to talk about myself without having an opposite of pencorpus.

We know that pencorpus is about nonhuman experiences I have that are not incredibly important to me. I experience them, they aren't somehow "lesser" than or "less vivid" than other experiences. They're just not central to my identity. But that leaves a gap in my vocabulary- what IS central to my [nonhuman] identity, and how do I talk about it in regards to my pencorpus? I've drawn a line between "central to identity" and "not central to identity" but only named one side of it. So I'm going to call this unnamed side, this bag that holds all of the identities that are central to my sense of self, a plenanima. Full (plen) soul (anima), to oppose the pen (almost) corpus (body). This allows me to differentiate between these two types of things I experience.

Being a gillman otherkin and alien satelle are the two big players in my plenanima, with my xenomorph link and stitch fictionkin nesting inside of the alien satelle. There is my gargoyle otherheart, as well. I am unsure where my minotaur archetrope sits, as it effects my pencorpus but is central to my identity. Respontis, perhaps. An item (res) that briddges (pontis), although I'm not sure if labeling this in-between is necessary right now. But I'll put respontis in my pocket just in case. This is about plenanimas.

Like my pencorpus creates a jersey devil, my plenanima creates a gillman. There is, of course, a gillman kintype within the plenanima, but I simply can not ignore how my connection with cephalopods, bugs, shellfish, other invertebrates, and fish as a whole deeply impact my form as a gillman. I like gillmen, I'd enjoy being one without all of this extra stuff, but the wonder and connection I feel when I see some of these other beasts is so strong and so important to me that I can't meaningfully talk about my identity as a gillman without at least acknowledging all of these different influences. Otters, seals, eels, cetaceans, and so many others.

There has always been an element of fluidity in my identity. I've talked about this, and it's not new to me. I've changed shapes and forms multiple times. I don't like to be pinned down to a singular thing, if my identity gets too singular I have to leave and run for another. This hasn't been happening with nonhumanity, but I feel like the language I have to describe myself is limited to "multiple full, separate things", "lesser things", and "fully shapeshifter". I haven't found the language to talk about how all of these things are connected all of the time, how this fluidity still revolves around a single concept, that even cameo shifts and paratypes impact everything else. Plenanima and pencorpus let me do that, and I can talk about an identity with the added context that it interacts with every other thing in this identity bag I've made for myself.

I'm not going to make a coining post for plenanima like I did satellotype or pencorpus because I just don't need to. Satelle and pencorpus were always for me, and no one else. I don't care if others use them, I'd be glad to know that others find value in them, but I'm not a term or identity coiner and looking back I think it's a little silly that I formatted those posts like that.

In my post "On Octopi" I talked about how I was going to avoid plenanima because I didn't want to split up my identity into so many different parts. That's still true, but ever since I introduced myself to the idea of plenanima, I haven't been able to shake it. It works so well, it makes so much sense for me. Over the past month I've been trying to think about my fluidity like I did before I knew all about the different nonhuman terms. Small bits that make up a larger one, like a blackberry. Not separate things to be named. That's what my goal for plenanima is, I think. And it's been working so far. It feels great.

Thanks for reading.

Godbwye.