Personal Introduction
DISCLAIMER: Please do not take anything you read here literally. I am not really missing my middle fingers, I just wrote that as a metaphor for a personal struggle of mine.
But yeah, here's my personal introduction. I will be uploading this story here, at weasyl, and at furaffinity. I'm trying to extend my audience as far as possible.
Personal Introduction
My name is Jordan Echoes. Let's call a spade a spade: my last name is a pun. No one else in my family is a bat, though. My parents are straight out humans, my older brother is a tyrannosaurus, my older sister is a bald eagle, and my younger sister is a scorpion. I guess I get to be a bat by virtue of being the first to remove my human disguise (in front of you guys, anyway). I'm not bragging, though. I still have to wear it in front of other people, although sometimes a patch of fur sneaks out from under my gloves. That's me over there, the blue guy non-chalantly flinging the latex mask behind him. Not much to look at, huh? I'm not great with the pen tablet. Or else, I'm using the wrong software for the kind of drawing I was trying to imitate. Or I could just be plain ugly, with or without my human mask.
Anyway, I'm a leaf-nosed bat. In lieu of wings, I have webbed claws. I can't honestly say I would use wings if I had them. God only knows the number of things I have that I don't use; clothing, furniture, books... my mom once advised me against turning my room into the local library. To hell with that. I already am the local library, and the rural one, too. I digress. On the matter of clothes, the ensemble you see make me look something like a waiter. Appropriate. I've pretty much been a lackey wherever I've been. I've never worked in the food industry; No, my line of work involved shelving books at a library, and I couldn't even do that right. More on that later, if I haven't already scared you away, like most of the other people I've tried to befriend. You may have noticed my missing middle fingers. I sliced those off when I was seventeen. Deliberately. The fact is, I'm so afraid of offending people that little thoughts like that enter my head from time to time. That was the only time I've ever consummated it. My parents made me buy a couple of prostheses for my human gloves, which makes the occasional bird inevitable. Ironic, isn't it?
Then there's the issue of my shackles and hand-cuff. I don't know if anybody else can see them. You certainly can, and so can I, but what about the people I meet in person? They're a survivor of my Baptist upbringing. Up until sometime last year, I've been a slave to my religious community's convictions. I hesitate to say joining the furry community is proof of my liberation, lest somebody from both groups stumble across this and challenge my assertion. I will say that I have a fairly certain idea of where my cuff and shackles came from, though. I have an acute awareness of how my childhood, teenhood, and collegehood culture has influenced me.
Does this all seem depressing? Do I sound like I'm trying to wring pity out of you? I draw your attention to my handcuff-free wrist. That's my "pencil hand." I believe that I can find a way out. I found a way out of my spiritual confinement, and I found a way out of my professional confinement, and I can find a way out of my social confinement. I couldn't do it alone; I needed the help of a counselor along the way. And I'll take any morale support I can get.
Right now, all I have to offer is my honesty. I know that words alone can only convey so much, but my hope is that the semi-autobiographical short stories that follow will lend you understanding and, God willing, lead to a little heart-to-heart conversation. I yeard for your companionship. I've spent so much time hiding this side of my personality. I don't want to hide it anymore.