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As of today, I will embark on a brand new writing project that I plan on presenting as a panel at either next year’s Centaurus Festival or this year’s next bi-annual Draconic Summit. Depending on how long this project takes will determine where it will eventually go. I know for sure that it won’t be done in time for Othercon, sadly. Either way, I am happy as long as I get to see it through and share it with my community. This project will divided into two parts. The first part will be an extensive essay on the subject of my choice, which will be uploaded to both my neocities and the Alterhuman Archive. The second part will be a visual slideshow presentation going into the details of my project and the figures of focus throughout said project. My focus for this project is something I have always wanted to explore more of: draconic identity amongst fictionfolk! As someone whose draconity and fictionkinity goes hand-in-hand (or paw-in-paw, rather), the intersections of these experiences are of great interest to me.
This past weekend, I attended the Draconic Summit. My attendance of this event is what inspired me to pursue this subject further. The formatting of my project is inspired by Nimbus’s “Speculative Draconic Biology” panel, which included a slideshow presentation as well. Another panel that inspired me to pursue this subject was Luunaathh’s “The Vast Uniqueness of Draconity” panel, which was largely a discussion of Luunaathh’s own draconity and an audience discussion. At both panels, I shared my own experiences as a dragon hailing from a fictional series. Whether discussing my biology within my canon, or discussing my experiences as a dragon from Dungeons and Dragons in general, having shared these perspectives amongst other dragons led to me considering this project.
In part, my journey to realizing my draconity will also be incorporated into this work in its own way. Before I realized I am a Gold Dragon, I struggled greatly with pinpointing the details of my draconity. I am a meticulous beast, thorough to a fault even. Simply being a dragon was not enough for me. There were specific traits, abilities and limitations that were intelligible to me, but I did not have a name for the species they belonged to. I knew that the state of my draconity existed outside of the context of this world. It still held an old, mythic quality to it much like the western dragons, eastern dragons, drakes and wyverns of Earth, but this species of mine was not of Earth if that makes any sense. I realized quickly that the nature of my draconity was rooted in Earthen fiction, of worlds beyond our own that we can’t reach yet indulge ourselves in nonetheless. I was insecure about it at first. Part of me questioned if the labels between “mythkin” and “fictionkin” could coincide like that. After all, the difference between mythology and fiction is that only one of these are practiced and given faith. Only one of these were meant to explain the state of this world. Only one of these were a part of the beliefs of Earth. Fiction can mirror life on Earth or serve as an allegory for its circumstances, but it is not a part of any belief system in the way that mythology is. Even so, I came to learn that that didn’t matter. I have my reasons for still identifying as mythkin and fictionkin alike, furthermore only I can really define what that means for me. I digress, nonetheless.
The point that I’m getting at is that I realized that my draconity was inherently fictional in origin, thus I needed to investigate species across various media to understand who I was. At times, I did temporarily put down some species as my own. I felt like I needed something to specify myself in the meantime until I fully realized what I was. I went on to call these species, “Placeholder species”. As the name suggests, these species acted as placeholders until I identified my true species. I would not typically recommend this method to newly awakened dragons and draconic beings as it can be difficult and could invoke species dysphoria as it did in my case. That being said, if one still feels like they need a placeholder species in their process of figuring things out, do so with your own discretion in mind. After all, your experience with it may not be similar to mine. Perhaps, it could be comforting to you without any species dysphoria at all. That is not a given, of course. I’m just saying it’s a possibility. Another possibility is that said placeholder species could grow into being your actual species, but I digress once again. My thoughts love to wander anywhere else but where they are supposed to be.
Of the fictional species that I kept note of, the following served as my placeholder species: Gaoler Dragons from Flight Rising, Emperor Dragons from Flight Rising, Obelisk Dragons from Flight Rising, Sandwings from Wings of Fire, Temple Dragons from Dracopedia, Cooks Dragons from Dracopedia and Luck Dragons from Dracopedia. The closest of which have been Temple Dragons, in terms of appearance. For the first half of my project, I am going to use the sources I sought for my experiences as figures for my study. Flight Rising, Wings of Fire, Dracopedia and Dungeons and Dragons each have a wealth of species to explore. While I plan on going into all the detail I can for my written piece, I’ll try to narrow down as much as information as I can pertaining to the species of each background since I will be running on limited time in panel. I want to at least save space towards the end of my panel for a discussion with the audience on this subject. I’m hoping some draconic fictionfolk could give their opinions as well, whether they are fictionkin, fictherian, fictives, etc!
I can’t await to start writing soon. This will be so much fun!
Best regards from the back porch,
Br'er Lion
