Tech Fun Fact #7

Territory, and What it Is to Be a Dragon

That last essay I reblogged got me thinking about what being dragon really means to me, what the core of it is, so here I am writing.

(Obviously my experiences of draconity and what it means to be a dragon are not going to be universal. When I say "dragon" in this post, I mean specifically my species of dragon; I just don't know what we call ourselves in our own tongue, so I only have dragon to call it.)

Disclaimer aside:

What is it to be a dragon?

Dragon is many things, many small things that come together to form a larger picture. Or at least, that's how dragon-in-human-skin is.

Flight, for one. Flight is the first thing I remember wanting so badly that it hurt all the way down to the core of my bones. What is there to say about it? It's home, it's life; a grounded dragon is a dead dragon. Flight is hard work, yes, but the sky is where we are safest, where the only thing that can touch us is another dragon, and it's difficult for even them to approach unnoticed. Hunting from above is the safest and most effective way to do it. Patrolling the territory is easiest when one doesn't have to contend with any obstacles but the currents of the wind.

I have to concur with Rook (@/words-of-wolf) in that aforementioned essay; the violence in me does not come from the hunt, it comes from the territory. Dragons are viciously territorial creatures, more often than not willing to die for our claim, our lair, our hoard. But the hunt... the hunt is swift, and lethal, and does not strike dragonbrain as particularly violent. A hunt isn't a fight. I don't know whether dragon!me thought of my prey as beings capable of fear and pain; we were sort of sapient (enough so to have names, at least), but only sort of.

Territory, though. Territory is core to being dragon, for me. A dragon needs to claim things and places as mine, and it will, whether or not that claim is appropriate. Much like a parrot, if it doesn't have an appropriate outlet, it will make an inappropriate one (and sometimes it will do so even if it is given an appropriate outlet - despite having an actual territory my brain likes to claim any room I spend a significant amount of time in as mine, even if it's technically shared space, and I've almost lashed out at a coworker for the crime of turning the fan off in my room when it was just as much his room as mine). There is a certain amount of possessiveness to a dragon that is inescapable.

My mother often questions why dragons hoard gold. I can talk about courting behaviors, I can talk about how it theoretically proves you're able to protect something precious to a mate, but in the end, the answer is simply because we must. Hoard is core to us, as much as allogrooming is to a primate or hunting is to a cat. My hoard serves no purpose now; I have no other dragons to court even if I wanted to. But still I am driven to hoard nonetheless, just as a cat is driven to hunt no matter whether it's actually hungry or not. Dragonbrain only sort of cares about why territory and hoard are important, how they feed and protect and offer mating opportunities. It just knows that they are important, and that it will fight to the death to defend them - why only sort of matters.

This is, I think, a lot of where my draconic pride comes from. Draconic pride is something we talk about in draconic spaces with some regularity; whatever the kind of dragon, there's more often than not some amount of pride and vanity associated with being a dragon, any kind of dragon. It's instinctive for many of us. It's probably culturally learned for all of us. But there is also a sense of natural pride that comes with this is mine, none can take it from me, I think. Pride, too, is core to draconity, in all its flawed glory, but it is integrally tied with these things, and perhaps that's why it's so core to draconity. (Perhaps that's why it's so common as well - I've rarely met a dragon who isn't some degree of territorial.)

【すみだ水族館】 光合成中。 2014.2.23

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one_becky_blue

夜明けの細い月

Cool, clear waters

© gif by riverwindphotography, May 2023

にこ淵

unhinged 30 days of otherkin challenge

Saw someone mention doing this ages ago and I wrote up my own for fun, but then forgot about it. So, here, uhhhh have this

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rules:

- go feral

- if you're polykin, pick whatever kintype is most pertinent for each question, or the kintype you'd like to answer for

- anyone is welcome to do this, despite this being labeled for otherkin

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1. what type of dirt would your kintype eat?

2. warm or cold ocean water

3. describe a pie made from three ingredients your kintype would eat, crust included, go

4. if your kintype suddenly opened their eyes, what would they be looking at?

5. do you like sticks

5. 5 again. do you like leaves

7. does your kintype migrate

8. sleepy or awakey

9. are you smaller or larger than a breadbox

10. describe the vegetation around your kintype's feet

11. what's the most specific or unusual shift (if you experience them) you've experienced

12. what website is your kintype most like

13. hey, how's it going

14. if given a cellphone, what would your kintype do with it

15. how do you make your room/home/surroundings more suited to your kintype

16. tell me about your favorite kind of fabric…like, just in general, unrelated to your kintype(s)

17. are you bitey

18. how does your kintype feel about chia seeds

19. can your kintype knit? if not, could your kintype knit if given instructions

20. describe your kintype's skin texture in great detail

21. glossy or matte

22. wildcard, I'm getting tired of writing these

23. you hear a scratching noise around the corner, what does your kintype do

24. what's your kintype's most acute sense

25. alone in a forest with no provisions, how long does your kintype survive

26. describe your kintype as a canned vegetable

27. it's getting dark out, does your kintype sleep, wake up, or PANIC

28. how many fingers do you have and why

29. what's a really nice smell

30. has 30 days of this unhinged you further?

i need to rb more non-mammals. there's a serious mammal bias on this blog