Draconic Summit Spring 2023 - fire-and-discourse

The fire and discourse channels serve as places for civilly debating controversial subjects regarding otherkinity, spirituality, identity, plurality, and the state of living situations. These channels are NOT for discussing political figures, topics, or conspiracies. These channels are also not your free pass to disrespect others attending the event, disrespect minority groups, or question someone’s identity. By participating in these channels, you are expected to act civilly towards all parties involved. If you do not act civilly or blatantly break the rules of the event, a ban will be put in place. The discussion of the state of human rights, experiences with discrimination, and the debating of corruption does not apply in this case, they can be spoken about.

(A Vuulluunnthhaaiiill Lol) pinned a message to this channel. 6/3/2023 9:03 pm

I'll talk about a different unsavory subject.

Even though I try to be civil about it, I hate it that so many dragonkin spaces are genuinely unsafe to be in.

1

3:36 am

I have never ever felt safe in a dragonkin server that I haven't personally run. It sounds a little self centered, though that's just my experience. There's one now deleted server that was run by someone here that I felt safe in, though that was years ago.

Wish I could track down my old server, alas I am pretty sure it was handed off to someone I no longer really talk to u-u

Far too many dragonkin servers that are openly advertised are filled with drama, allowance of toxic behavior/people, elitist mentality, or just general disorder.

3:42 am

I don't want to say too much or call any servers out specifically, though I'm tired of elitism, I'm tired of not feeling safe in any draconic servers other than the spaces I make sure are free from elitist bullshit. Any servers anyone recommends to my being that are draconic related are places I will 99.9% most likely not feel safe in.

I've been in two dragonkin-specific servers besides the ones Luunaa runs, and I left them both because I or a headmate, or both, felt uncomfortable due to the way people acted in them. I'm in one otherkin-specific server that I actually joined when it was advertised during the winter Summit, that I feel comfortable in. The only other Otherkin-specific server I've been in, I left because ironically, people there didn't like me because I'm a dragon and they expected me to be an elitist asshole without ever giving me the chance to show who I am.

I'm sorry you had to experience that friend...

3:43 am

What pisses my being off most is that everyone in the dragonkin community has bad experiences with elitists. It means everyone has been subjected to unfair treatment and hatred just for having unique experiences.

3:45 am

I genuinely get depressed when I run the summit sometimes, since so many express that this event is the only place they've felt comfortable expressing themselves as draconic for so long.

2

I'm curious what specifically you guys mean by elitism? Just wondering for a lil more context, is all ;o

It makes my being want to cry when I hear that others here have been through such horrible things. None of you deserve to be judged for expressing yourselves. None of you deserve to feel alone or unappreciated because others don't accept you for who you are. None of you deserve to face unfair judgement from assholes who think you need to conform to their views or else you're "not a real dragon".

3:48 am

I'm actually welling up with tears right now. You all deserve so much more than the wider dragonkin community has given you. You all deserve to be accepted and loved for your unique experiences. You all deserve to have spaces where you feel safe in, where you can talk about your unique experiences and not be judged.

2

Revolution Radio

I'm curious what specifically you guys mean by elitism? Just wondering for a lil more context, is all ;o

digging into my memory, it's like a heirarchy? one thinking they're above everyone else (edited)

2

You all deserve so much better, you all deserve acceptance and love, not the hatred the wider dragonkin community so eagerly gives out.

3:51 am

Maybe expressing my views like this isn't the proper thing to do, though I want to be transparent with everyone I guess.

3:52 am

I genuinely care about each and every one of you, I genuinely want all of you to be accepted by others and appreciated for your unique experiences.

We get it Luunaathh, you got your point across.

3:53 am

No need to snowball.

It's more the crowds and social anxiety that have stopped me from interacting much with any draconic specific community before or any otherkin server besides Celestian Space Station. I get nervous around new people, and lots of new people makes me extra nervous and skittish

1

Entirely understandable

I do too, it took me a few tries to stick around in the Basin server when joining earlier today The only other otherkin centric space I've been in is a small server a friend made specifically for Pokemon kin

I understand, other servers can be intimidating to get used to, I don't blame you.

Same, I'm in a couple small private servers friends have invited me to, but they aren't even otherkin-specific, they're just otherkin-tangental. Which is kinda nice tbh, to interact with humans who "get" and accept us.

1

I just join a metric fuckload of servers and whichever ones "stick", I stay i n

3:56 am

I also do a heck of a lot of lurkin

Revolution Radio

I just join a metric fuckload of servers and whichever ones "stick", I stay i n

we should compare notes /j

(A Vuulluunnthhaaiiill Lol)

We get it Luunaathh, you got your point across.

I just want to be transparent;;

I originally joined Discord to keep up with my cousin's gaming livestreams on his private channel. He's pretty much stopped doing that now, life and all that, and now I'm a member of way too many servers (for me anyway) and have over half of them completely muted except for @s.

(Luunaathh)

I just want to be transparent;;

That's fine, though you don't need to showcase such behavior. Respectfully you need to chill out.

I mute every server I join, even the ones I own

4:03 am

(A Vuulluunnthhaaiiill Lol)

That's fine, though you don't need to showcase such behavior. Respectfully you need to chill out.

Not sure how to say this without embarrassing you, it really isn't my intention, though you're running an event, act with some maturity ffs.

I usually give a new server a day, and if I'm not really interacting much I mute it, and if after a while I'm still not interacting with, and have no people there I want to keep in touch with, I leave.

Most I tend to do is just turn off the notif sound, I've just quietly accepted that there will slways be the white dot on my Discord icon on desktop

I’m in a state of constantly slightly overwhelmed from the sheer number of white dots I keep around

I always read things, usually read back if I was asleep

Same. Sometimes scrolling back to the beginning of what I missed makes me going "damn, why couldn't I have been up for this??"

1

I think it is frustrating to know that so many dragonkin servers are toxic places to be, like Luunaathh stated earlier though.

4:14 am

I think she could have said it better without snowballing, though I don't dare step into other draconic servers since I know someone in any of those servers is going to think I don't exist and I'm not draconic as Madara for whatever reason.

4:18 am

It's not to say that the summit and its related draconic servers are the only places where elitism is heavily despised and members monitored for toxic behavior, though Luunaathh and I really don't trust other draconic servers. We don't trust others to be firm with elitists. (edited)

4:19 am

Otherconnect is a chill place, though I don't have the time to be active there anymore.

maa, there are decent place still. but yeah, it takes a lot to find them and for them to stay that way. But also things change all the time

This is true, though I of course am careful where I step.

4:37 am

Too much effort to find other places when I could just bully Auuthhiiiviiirrokk for loving quail in celestial spire

Usually i find places i like, but i gotta admit there's a certain type of people that i struggle getting along with/who tire me who are. Very common in most communities, mostly ppl who act in that stereotypical furry way. Technically nothing wrong with them, but i tend to abandon ship when a server starts having too much of that in it bc ehhh not my thing

12:15 pm

I think other than that my main struggle tends to be finding places that are not extremely tilted toward spiritual to the point where i don't relate to most discussions on it, but that again is more personal preference struggles

i've joined and left a few otherkind servers, and only really participate in the spire, currently. some servers were.. poorly run (to attempt politeness) or we didn't mesh with the community there very well. it's awkward, because i am not at all a major or primary fronter, and the rest of the system doesn't talk there. we wish we had a low drama adult fictive/fictionkin/plural server for the rest to spend time in.

I tend to only spend my time in very niche, source-specific Fictionkind servers, if I do end up making, or joining, a fictionkind server

12:39 pm

For example, instead of joining the larger "general fictionkin" servers, I will stick to something more specific, such as a server for a specific source

I just kept finding myself in dragonkin servers that had a lot of transphobia, anti fictionkin, and elitism. Pointing it out would usually be met with me being told to just deal with it or me being wrong so I just left /:

Transphobia among dragonkin? That seems awful! How could dragonkin not relate to feeling trapped in the wrong body?

4

you'd be surprised

I will never understand why someone is bothered by something that doesn’t impact them personally at all

projecting personal insecurities

i legitimately have no idea how a dragonkin (or any otherkin or therian) can be a transphobe or justify transphobia, like, how does the cognitive dissonance alone not drive them crazy (edited)

7

6:13 pm

it's sorta (but not exactly) like when i see gay people echoing transphobic talking points; but there it's like, how do they say that stuff and somehow not realize it's just the exact same bullshit homophobes have said about us gays, just slightly reworded? (edited)

That is baffling

I feel much the same about gay people saying Asexuals don't belong in the queer community. They don't seem to realize they're saying "This sexual minority doesn't belong in the sexual minority group!"

Rakeela

Transphobia among dragonkin? That seems awful! How could dragonkin not relate to feeling trapped in the wrong body?

Right? That's what always gets me!

Also how in the WORLD can a dragonkin be anti fictionkin with a straight face. How.

7:57 pm

Do they not realize dragons are considered fictional or mythical creatures 99.9% of the time

8

i dont have much experience with online dragon communities so i was just reading everything respectfully but i just realized i did have a very strange interaction that might have kept me from understanding my draconicity earlier. i remember a conversation i had when i first joined the furry fandom with a person in a "furs in STEAM" group. I was talking with them about fursonas and how much i admired dragons and was musing on what species felt right for me and he told me very specifically that i shouldn't bother making a dragon fursona as dragons are a special group and that i wouldn't fit in. i didnt want to start an argument so i went along with what he said and kind of stopped bringing up dragons. i ended up having a bird fursona that i didn't connect with at all and only a year after that conversation did i start to explore identifying with raptors and then dragons. i still wonder if i had made a dragon fursona at that time if i would have come in touch with my draconity earlier. ill never know for sure but it strikes me as so strange that people dont act like that about any other species. (edited)

What an odd gatekeepy thing to hear from a furry group tbh

I was outright harassed by a dragonkin server two years ago, so that’s another reason why I’m so hesitant to hang around other draconic spaces. The same group was mocking my draconity and my draconic language and that was Not Pleasant.

Revolution Radio

What an odd gatekeepy thing to hear from a furry group tbh

i know! i joined the fandom because it was so inviting and open to all kinds of identities. i guess there's always some people who want to create some kind of hierarchy even in open communities like furry and otherkin

The communities have come a long way in accepting fictionkin in the past decade, but its not quite as normalized as other kinds of otherkin or even just alterhumans.

I'd argue fictionkin is quite possibly one of The Most "normalized" identities, it's just unfortunate that it was via KFF and misinformation about what Fictionkinity is, that this happened

10:25 pm

Although this highly depends on what you mean by The Communities

Within the alterhuman communities, fictionkin are definitely much better received now versus 10+ years ago

Better, but not yet properly accepted. Still, progress is progress. I just hope it keeps moving in that direction.

I know this is not the vent area but man I really . . Hmm Yeah I just kind of. Got into a Daze and forgot to put up my energy filters while online Otherwise I physically feel the energy of the things I go by. I just kind of. Got into a Daze and felt like asking a tarot reader a question (who was doing them for free) They told me to not tell them what to do (?) In a snappy way and I said "okay thank you" and they snapped at me again. Maybe it was my trauma but man that sucked

4:48 am

I think it might also be my autism not getting whatever miniscule social cue she was giving ?? I don't know. But either way. I did not understand wtf that was about

3

What an odd thing for someone to do. Like, you're offering to do readings and then get mad at people for asking you to do a reading...? Weird, sorry that happened to you

Yeah tbh I expected them to be a bit ... Drama focused bc they were doing lots of couples focused readings "will I stay with xyz" "is zyx cheating on me" kind of thing Regardless, thankfully it's over