Commonality Amongst Community
I think sometimes I’m envious of those with uncomplicated ‘type.
Sure, dragon is a rather common ‘type, at first glance.
Once you dive deeper, you’d understand how diverse, how wildly different, how not alike many of us are.
I talk a lot to the community about that diverseness, constantly reminding. But sometimes, I wonder if people talk about the common ‘type because it is easier.
I have several “common” identitype. But because the variation of ways they are, the connection I have towards the respective subcommunity is tentative at best. Pokemon is one of the more common fictionfolk sources, but all I have is an archetrope of one. I can sit in their space and feel approximately like one of them, but I am not.
I can’t really even begin conversation with foxfolk, because my feeling is layered underneath my Naruto hearttype, my foxness is a paratype that got folded into a enfield-kitsune heartlink. I made it unique, and whole, but I’m also left with loneliness.
Amongst the dragons, there are a lot of things other dragon likes to talk about that I feel more or less aligned with sometimes. Hoarding, territoriality, or liking of precious stones, etc, etc. Like people talking about attraction in definitive terms, sometimes I can connect, sometimes it’s so nebulous, I wonder if I’m some sort of fluid attraction type. Demiattraction still seems like a good label.
As a dragon, I have divinity, I am shapeshifting, and I have largely avian instead of reptilian features and behaviors. Not to say I feel lizard can’t describe me, but I am far more comfortable amongst birds. I don't have any scales, membranous wings, or any sort of breath weapon. Other dragons can find comfort in most dragon things out there, but the common ones only give me discomfort and alienation, especially all the focus on scales and fire. Even not as a breath weapon, the element of fire feels like a rejection, because I am different, I am other.
Belonging, that’s the word. I flitted between places to places, finding that taste. The various spaces all itch my need to connect to something inside me. These places can offer an understanding of my various pieces, but they are in pieces. To have the most common type within the larger alterhuman community, yet unable to fit in with the supposed grouping at times, it is, well.
It feels rather like my situation with my ethnicity and race. Seeing people talk about their experience as PoC and how that interacts with their alterhumanity makes me want to say something too. It makes me want to be a voice within the community as well, to tell others that they aren’t alone. Ironic, considering all that I’ve talked about here. Or not so, considering this is the exact hang-up.
I’m Asian. I can’t tell you the specifics, and I won’t. It feels far too limiting, far too constricting, far too concrete. It is so, so complicated. Maybe it won’t have to be, maybe people would understand. I don’t understand what it means to be PoC, I just know I am categorized as one. I know the cultures tied to me, I know the history, I have the behavior and way of thinking, but not wholly. I am Asian American. I know there are others that share my confusion over one’s own cultural identity.
Something familiar, something alien.
You don’t belong anywhere.
Reflecting back to the top, I suppose I find those that are able to talk in definite terms about their race and ethnicity in connection to their alterhumanity inspiring. I just don’t know if I can replicate that.
Thinking about my ethnicity is uncomfortable. I’ve been an outlier amongst my ethnic race, and yet I’m an outlier still when in other spaces. I don’t think I know what being especially different means when I’ve always been different. If you are always experiencing gray, what even is black or white to you?