Pigs and my Pencorpus
Oct. 1st, 2025 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gillman Originally posted on tumblr on Sep. 28, 2025.
Been getting a hog tail for a bit now and it's so fun. Tails are so rare for me, especially the more common types like canine/feline. And although I get fins, I am not merfolk so I don't really get any fun fishy appendages.
Went to go look at it to figure out how long it was and.... it wasn't there. But it goes down to about my knee when straight. Curves in a loop right at the end when relaxed, not up against my body like a lot of pigs have. It also feels more prehensile? I have a lot of really specific control over it.
I'm 99% sure this came from a Pathfinder character I play, Pan. I get cameos for my cow minotaur, Io, when I play her as well. They're one of the reasons why I keep debating over minotaurs and if there is any connection with me to them. It didn't start with Io, it started with reading Circe in 2019. The chapters with the minotaur always did me in. There is Something About Them that really resonates with me and I'm not sure what it is. Anyway it's no surprise that they trigger cameo shifts.
Both of them fall into my jersey devil pencorpus, which is always really interesting. My jersey devil is always changing, always shifting. It's a ton of fun. I've been having these very basic red dragon wings with it, but I'll often get bird or angel or (more accurate) bat wings. It's great it's wonderful. Hooves are so much fun.
I simply really enjoy my pencorpus and I'm very excited to finally have a word for it that feels right and that lets me talk about it properly. I've noted "plenanima" before on tumblr, and I'd like to explore it more when I have the time/energy. But it's really the opposite of pencorpus. My plenanima consists of being a gillman otherkin and alien satelle and all my mermaid/selkie/siren paratypes, and a few other things. That all sort of form this "gillman (expanded) experience". My gillman plenanima isn't just being a gillman otherkin, it's also every other identity that I feel Deep In My Bones. When I say I'm a gillman, I am including all of these other tangential feelings and experiences that may not always be gillman specific, but rather very important to my sense of self and overall nonhumanity.
Whereas pencorpus is the same gathering of identities and experiences that I may enjoy and love, but aren't necessarily crucial to how I as an individual feel or experience the world.
The name of the pencorpus or plenanima (jersey devil or gillman, respectively) aren't necessarily literal, but just the best interpretation of the picture both of these are making. I'm tracing the shadows of these identities out in chalk and looking for pictures in them the same way I look for pictures in clouds but like. A little deeper than that. If this makes any sense at all.
On The Minotaur and Myself
Oct. 1st, 2025 11:47 pmgillmanOriginally posted on tumblr on Sep. 29, 2025.
Been thinking more on the minotaur archetype. I haven't seen anyone talk about what that means, nor is there much discussion on the minotaur archetype in general. Most of it what I can find are ai written articles. Which actually really sucks. I may look a bit deeper and in a few different places to see what good analysis of the minotaur I can find, but seeing that I can not seem to find any other mention of a minotaur archetrope anywhere, it's probably on me to define it and talk about it. Since I guess I've decided that I am one now.
Been thinking more on the minotaur archetype. I haven't seen anyone talk about what that means, nor is there much discussion on the minotaur archetype in general. Most of it what I can find are ai written articles. Which actually really sucks. I may look a bit deeper and in a few different places to see what good analysis of the minotaur I can find, but seeing that I can not seem to find any other mention of a minotaur archetrope anywhere, it's probably on me to define it and talk about it. Since I guess I've decided that I am one now.
This is, again, a concept I've been chewing on for close to a year now and something I've been feeling about myself since 2019 when I was first introduced to the minotaur as an individual, and not just the monster that Theseus killed that one time (thank you, Madeline Miller, for writing Circe). The timing worked out wonderfully, and I was given the chance to make a minotaur TTRPG character right around the time that I first started thinking of myself as minotaur-like. It's been fun to explore myself through Io.
The minotaur came from a union that was foolishly made. He inhabits both the status of his mother and the temperament of his father. Because of his humanity, it would be cruel to treat him as an animal. Because of his animality, it would be detrimental to treat him as human. So, instead, he is retired to the labyrinth. I won't go into the details, because then it feels melodramatic and vent-y, but it's good to note that its there.
Like the minotaur, I inhabit a place between what is expected of me as a human and what is inherent to me as a beast. I sit at a midpoint between "so different that she can be dismissed" and "exactly what she should be". I am uncanny. So I get to tag along with everyone who is Good and Proper, but I don't get a seat at the table.
I don't want to change, and I'd rather be in my labyrinth than hide my cow-head. I enjoy getting beastly with it. I'd rather embrace and talk about beasthood than pretend to be something I'm not. But that doesn't mean that the other half of me is inaccessible or doesn't exist. It just means that you can not interact with one without encountering the other. This experience is... very integral to how I see myself in relation to my family and then world I'm from.
The minotaur means accepting and embracing that duality, it means turning my labyrinth into a garden instead of a briar patch. I am a beast to this world, and neither extreme that I sit between will ever feel "right" to me. And that's okay. There is joy to be found in that, and the minotaur archetrope really encapsulates that experience for me.
