Dragonkin

What dragonkin means

A dragonkin is an otherkin whose kintype is a dragon. The word describes an identity, not a body. Dragonkin do not claim scales, flight or fire. They say that, in the way that matters most to them, they are dragons, and that this has been true for as long as they can remember.

Like every kintype, it is recognized and not chosen. Plenty of people love dragons, draw them, collect them and read every story about them. That is a pleasure and not an identity. Dragonkin describe something quieter and more stubborn: a sense of self that keeps returning to the same shape whatever their interests happen to be that year.

Dragons across traditions

There is no single dragon. The word gathers creatures from many peoples, and their stories disagree about almost everything.

The winged dragons of the west

In the legends of Europe the dragon is usually a great winged reptile, often breathing fire, that lairs in a cave or a barrow and broods over treasure. An Old English poem ends with such a dragon, roused to fury when a single cup is stolen from its hoard. In Norse legend Fafnir guards stolen gold so jealously that he takes the shape of a dragon to lie upon it. These dragons are mostly adversaries, but not only that. The red dragon of Wales is a national emblem, and dragons stand guard on many old banners and coats of arms.

The serpentine dragons of East Asia

In China, and in the related traditions of Korea, Japan and Vietnam, the dragon is long and serpentine, usually wingless, and moves through cloud and water as easily as through air. It brings rain, governs rivers and seas, and stands for wisdom, strength and good fortune. Dragon kings rule the waters in many tales, and the dragon long served as an emblem of emperors. These dragons are not museum pieces. They dance through the streets at the new year, appear in temples and on festival boats, and are part of the living culture of hundreds of millions of people. Dragonkin who feel drawn to them generally take care to learn from that culture with respect, and not to treat it as decoration.

Many other peoples tell of great serpents and sky beings, some of them sacred in living traditions. Those are best left to their own tellers. The library's page on serpent brides and dragon kings follows some of the stories in which dragons take human form.

What dragonkin commonly describe

No two accounts are the same, but certain experiences come up again and again.

• Wings, a tail and a long neck. These are felt as phantom limbs: a weight behind the shoulders, an awareness of a tail when sitting down, an urge to stretch a neck that is not there.
• Size compressed into a small frame. Many dragonkin describe feeling far larger than their bodies, as if a great creature had been folded down to fit a human outline. Doorways, crowds and low ceilings can feel subtly wrong.
• Attachment to territory. A strong sense of a home ground, and unease when it is disturbed.
• Carefully kept things. The legendary hoard often appears in a gentler form: a shelf of books in exact order, a box of stones, a collection tended for years. Dragonkin are quick to say that this is about care and not greed.
• A long sense of time. A patient, far-sighted way of thinking, slow to anger and slow to forget, which can sit awkwardly in a hurried world.

Some feel an affinity with heat and high places, others with deep water, often depending on which tradition's dragon feels nearest. Not everyone has all of these, and a dragonkin with none of them but a steady inner certainty is still a dragonkin.

A similar turn in 1993

Dragons had their own meeting places from the early days of online life. In 1993 an online discussion group for dragon enthusiasts went through a change much like the one happening at the same time in a group devoted to werewolf stories. Some of its regulars began to say, in earnest, that their interest in dragons was not only an interest. They felt themselves to be dragons inwardly, and others answered that they felt the same.

The two groups grew up side by side, shared members and borrowed each other's words. The history of the communities tells the wider story, and the page on how the words changed follows the vocabulary that grew from it. Dragonkin have belonged to the otherkin community almost from its start, and dragons have remained among its most common kintypes.

A large being in a small life

Most dragonkin live ordinary lives. They rent small apartments, sit at desks, take crowded buses and wait in line for coffee like anyone else. The contrast between the size of the inner self and the size of the daily round is one of the most common things they write about, sometimes with humor and sometimes with real ache. When the ache is heavy, the community calls it species dysphoria, a community term and not a diagnosis.

The things dragonkin most often say help are simple ones:

• Wide views and open sky: a hilltop, a high window, a long beach.
• A home arranged with care, so that the sense of territory has somewhere to rest.
• Long projects that suit a long sense of time, such as a garden, a craft or a collection built slowly.
• Swimming or time near water, for those who feel close to the river dragons of the east.
• Company that does not need the identity explained.

None of these changes the body, and none is meant to. They give the larger self a little room. The essay A Dragon in a Small Apartment describes one such life from the inside.

Dragonkin and dragon-hearted

Not everyone who feels a deep bond with dragons is a dragon. Some people, after long and honest thought, conclude that dragons are their kindred and not their self. They feel at home among dragons, recognize their ways, and are moved by them in a way that goes far beyond liking, but when asked whether they are a dragon, they answer no. The word for this is otherhearted, and in this case dragon-hearted.

The difference is between identifying as and identifying with. Neither is a lesser version of the other. A person who settles on dragon-hearted has not failed to become dragonkin. They have found the accurate word. The page on the alterhuman umbrella sets these terms side by side.

Two other words sometimes come up. A person who experiences their dragon as an animal, with instincts and a body more than a spirit or a story, may prefer to call themselves a theriomythic therian. And a person whose dragon belongs to one particular invented world, and nowhere else, may find that fictionkin fits better.

If you are wondering

If you suspect you may be dragonkin, the advice on the awakening page applies with very little change. Start from what you actually experience, in plain words. Read the old dragon stories from more than one culture, and notice which parts leave you cold as well as which ring true. Give it time. A kintype that is real will still be there after a year of careful doubt.

Be wary of anyone who claims to know what you are, or who offers to confirm it for you. Nobody can. And whatever you conclude, nothing about it calls for claims of power, age or fire. The dragons of legend are grand. The dragonkin who are best regarded tend to be modest, patient and kind, which may be the most draconic qualities of all.