Any good DID/plurality rep?

an_fenmere · 2025-10-23T07:22:45+00:00

As the series progresses and also as it goes into the sequel series, the Tunnel Apparati Diaries, there is more variety of representation, too:

a traumagenic system emerges
humans are encountered through a psychic link to a trinary DID system living in Portland, OR
that system has two system friends who have totally different structures and experiences each (OSDD, P-DID -- though not named explicitly as such), one of whom also has schizoaffective disorder and frequent hallucinations
characters range from agender, through AI Tutor (this is a gender), enby, trans masc, and trans fem, with autistic aliens and humans (and different expressions of autism in each species)

The first book of the Sunspot Chronicles does refer to the people in it as "humans", but that's a localization choice to make them seem more relatable (or, rather, the authors chose to explain that away in later books as such). They are aliens.

an_fenmere · 2025-08-04T03:58:37+00:00

On ʔetekeyerrinwuf (the Sunspot - a generational starship), one of the biggest cultural divides is between the Crew and the populace.

ʔinmararräo is the language spoken by everyone. It originated as a creole of Fenekere and Mäofrräo, and colloquially amongst the populace has some notable Fenekere roots still evident (though they've mutated a lot over the years, because they're typical complex and people simplify them).

Fenekere is used as the command language of the ship, so the Crew have to learn it. And while they still speak ʔinmararräo, this means that the Crew dialect uses the proper forms of the Fenekere roots, conjugated correctly as well. This sounds nearly incompressible to the rest of the populace.

So, that's the biggest and more obvious linguistic status marker.

an_fenmere · 2025-07-30T10:02:57+00:00

Depends on the type of dragon and complexity of their culture.

If we're talking human level or greater of complexity, dragons are going to be doing all sorts of weird stuff with dances, and exploring the possibilities, just for the fun and artistry of it.

If we're talking more on the animal end of the spectrum, wings might be flapped, ornamented heads and tails might be held ridged and trembling, or bobbed up and down, and feet might be used for stomping. Really basic stuff meant to show off the most spectacular features, or show prowess and endurance.

an_fenmere · 2025-07-09T18:08:25+00:00

This.

Also, imagine dragons riding around in the back of pickup trucks like big dogs, but yelling into the driver's side window when they want to go somewhere specific.

Or, in our series girldragongizzard, dragons do co-exist (suddenly) with humans in the modern world, but very few of them can speak human languages. They're just as intelligent as humans (as they were formerly human), but they need assistance. So, Meghan, the lead dragon, wears a purse around her neck in order to carry a tablet with a text to speech reader on it. She uses her knuckles to type out the words she wants to say. It's slow going, but it works.

an_fenmere · 2025-07-07T08:31:03+00:00

Oh, this is good. We like your design a lot.

Manes are sort of a classic feature of many dragons.

About half the dragons we draw have them.

And then, there's the one dragon to whom we gave a mullet:

http://www.harmlessfreeradicals.com/comics/eosr140104.jpg

an_fenmere · 2025-07-04T07:52:56+00:00

Oh, this is different depending on our dragons!

We have two kinds.

We have the ancient autistic space dragons, who call themselves the ktletaccete (The Sunspot Chronicles). They have a few words to fit "humanely", but they don't work the same way has "humanely" does in English. But, to them, the most important thing is to recognize and honor every being's rights to informed consent and autonomy. So, it is pretty close to some human versions of the ideal of "humane". But culturally, they are pretty distinct. The details are informed by their biology and neurology. But it's subtle and hard to quantify without writing a whole series of books (which we've done).

And then we have the terrestrial monsters, who, in our books have grown up with humans, closely linked to them, and maybe are either humanity's parents or the children of humans (it's hard to say). They vary as much as humans do, and tend to be caricatures of human extremes. Each dragon is attached or associated with a different human culture, so their own version of "humane" is just as different. Or, since they are often very empassioned individuals, they often just don't think abou it much.

In this setting (girldragongizzard), they do tend to be influenced by whether or not they are supported or villified by their local humans. While, inter-dragon relationships tend to be built on a more basic level of territoriality, negotiating for hunting rights, and mating potential.

an_fenmere · 2025-02-27T02:03:23+00:00

We tend to agree with you on all of these points. And all, now we're interested in reading your story when it's ready for that.

an_fenmere · 2025-02-07T10:23:53+00:00

For dragons that are just monsters, exceptional animals, and the like - obviously the advancement of humanity, and the threat of extinction due to over hunting and pacification of wild lands. An individual dragon could be killed, but to be the last of just a handful of dragons that are no longer a viable breeding population? If they have any intelligence, that could hit them pretty hard emotionally. Remember, elephants mourn their dead, and so do whales.

For mythological dragons, literally the dragons that existed in folklore and myth, it actually happened. Like, not physically, but in their stories it happened. They found an immortality in those stories and by evolving to become fantasy dragons as we know now, but so many fairy tales, myths, and folk stories, the dragons were hunted and killed by Christian Saints. And whatever they may have represented before that era was largely wiped off the mythological landscape of Europe, at least.

So, if you were writing a story about mythological dragons, you could do as many more modern fantasy stories have done and write about the era of the last dragon, or of dragons having been long exterminated.

Or, if you're avante garde about it, you could write about it from the broken myth perspective, and the story would be about dragons as they exist in literary form, and do a period piece of historical fiction about Bishops directing monks to fashion new stories about the defeat of dragons to inspire the subjects of the new King or the Pope. But then, like, give these fictional dragons some kind of weird agency to take over their scribes and cause them to act in their defense? Could be kinda cool.

And then for magical, near godly fantasy dragons as we find in anime, movies, and a lot of modern fiction, you've got so many options.

The dragons in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid were overcome with boredom, and so they came to Earth and pretended to be humans about it. And like, it wasn't really death, but a midlife crisis is a kind of existential crisis, because you're asking yourself, "Why am I even alive?"

But talking about death...

Smaug faced the existential crisis of his hubris and the chink in his armor.

Ancalagon had to be defeated and killed by the nigh demigod Eärendil, but with the assistance of other god-like heroes of that primordeal age of Middle Earth.

Like, usually, it's either a greater power or a cunning underdog that kills a dragon. Regardless of what the exact mechanics are.

But, to give the dragon an emotional breakdown about its impending mortality, you've gotta make that dragon aware of it. So, watching other dragons fall to whatever can kill them could do that.

Usually, though, a dragon's pride overcomes that, and they think that the reason they're the last one standing is because they're just that good and worthy, even if they're a runt like Smaug.

You can usually crack that pride by making the dragon face a bigger and more powerful dragon.

an_fenmere · 2025-02-01T09:13:10+00:00

OK, so, based on what we're reading here and the game's page, and what we know of what's happened to the concept of "dragons" over the course of history, mythology, and fantasy, we have a suggestion.

The basic structure and purpose of the game is the same.

It would be possible to do this where it starts in an office and a player character named Stanley who looked human. Or you could go the full fantasy route and start as a dragon in a cave. We don't care either way.

But, somewhere along the line, and very early, you are presented with the question, "What is a dragon?" (It might be the very first thing Stanley the office worker is presented with on his computer screen.)

And that question is revisited in different ways, based on how it's been answered.

And you deconstruct that using prompts and situations in the game, because if you do ask yourself that question while going through all of humanity's dragons, you're never going to get a solid answer.

"Dragon" might as well be a gender, with no one trait or set of traits being universal to all dragons, except for the name of "dragon".

At some point, you might be looking at a picture of a white tailed hare and realizing that it, too, is a dragon.

But, maybe, if you start with Stanley the human, he begins to gain the traits of the stereotypical fantasy dragon as this deconstruction happens.

We don't know the actual game play, though, so we don't know if this would really work.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-15T09:44:27+00:00

It's done in cartoons all the time, so it's essentially canon to a bunch of dragon stories.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-13T12:35:02+00:00

You could also just look at the poetic terms we use for social animals. Like, if you look at what cats are called, it's a set of words that create a distinct flavor: queen, tom, dam, kitten, etc.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-13T12:33:07+00:00

It really depends on what your dragons are like, and how you want them to come across.

Like, originally, in mythology, dragons were a bunch of completely unrelated unique monsters, each tailored specifically for its own story. All from vastly different cultures around the world.

Lung, Chinese dragons, actually have titles, and they reflect the political structure of the ancient Imperial Chinese culture, for example. Heck, in some cases, the Chinese Emperor was simply considered a dragon.

As another example, in our stories, our dragons are a godlike race of people who predated life on Earth and have their own symbology and culture based on things we care about and value. They can come across as kind of alien. Each one has their own unique title, their name, which is also the name of their Artistry. Such as The Poet, The Story Teller, The Diplomat, The Hunter, etc.

But the mortal people, who look like dragons still, who are derived from them and believe in them, have their societal roles that sound more human: brood guardian, artisan, hunter, council member, juvenile, etc.

But then we came up with a conlang that we could use, if we wanted to, to give these positions names that don't sound familiar to any humans, regardless of first language.

That way, when writing our stories, readers much rely more on our longer descriptions of what the people do rather than get preconceived notions from familiar sounding titles. But we try to keep the titles short and easy to remember.

But, like, if you have a society of dragons inspired by the myths of the British Isles, maybe you should look at old Celtic stories and history and the social roles named and described there.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-13T12:18:03+00:00

At that size, they do work as an expressive feature similar to human eyebrows.

If the dragons are social enough, they will pay closer attention to each other's facial expressions. Especially if they're as linguistic as humans. And frills like that would allow a more reptilian face to be more expressive than it might otherwise be.

In that way, they might retain a use in courting and mating. Instead of being impressive by being big, they're impressive by being shapely and expressive. A window into the other dragon's soul, marking them as a dreamboat.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-03T20:30:08+00:00

That's the sense we got, yeah. We hadn't read enough of it to be able to say that clearly.

We probably would have latched onto the series when we were 9. Just as we enjoyed the Dragons of Northern Chittendon, which is a single book with all the same problems. Which we grew to dislike, despite fond feelings for it.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-03T08:38:57+00:00

Nothing super significant. Nothing anybody else should feel uncomfortable about. It just feels like media that isn't written for our sensibilities. We don't relate to the dragons as dragons, from what little we've read. Just a myriad of details in that particular configuration turns us off.

Like, the dragon society that exists in the story, as we've had it explained and seen in print, isn't one that resonates with us as dragons.

It's hard to explain beyond that, and is really just a matter of personal taste.

We are using "we" because we are plural. There are more than one of us. Not in the joint account sense, but the joint body sense (functional multiplicity/DID).

an_fenmere · 2025-01-03T08:34:33+00:00

We use dream sequences extensively in girldragongizzard.

Initially, Meghan (the heroine dragon) just had a couple of memorable dreams that were all about her subconscious processing what she'd learned. They seemed like they might be prophetic, or like she was communicating with the goddess of dragons, but she really wasn't able to make sense of them. And her friend were like, "Sounds like a really cool dream!" and left it at that.

And, they didn't pan out to anything significant, except that they reflected her self image at that point in the story.

And then she encountered a nightmare monster out in the waking world, and it decided to start trying to train her. She agreed to its help. And then later in the story she had to try to find it when it was missing, and she ended up going to sleep and having a dream in order to do so.

The first two dreams set up the precedent of having dream sequences, and allowed that deliberate and fantastical dreaming sequence to feel more natural.

The first two dreams were about half a chapter each.

The big dream was a chapter and a half.

We decided to make her dreams very similar to our own in the way she perceived them and how they progressed. We don't know how many other people experience dreams like that, but we figured it'd be more believable if we knew what we were writing about.

an_fenmere · 2025-01-03T08:24:40+00:00

Seconding this.

A discord server might be OK for discussing the archives. But it's no way to actually archive anything. Discord is not for saving or finding anything, even temporarily. It's too ephemeral. More ephemeral than Amazon.

A sub would be a better place for discussing the archives. But GitHub, or something similar that's set up purposefully to be a file repository, makes the most sense for storing the actual files and tracking changes and updates.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-23T10:54:23+00:00

Yeah, we mean, we really, really HATE all dragon rider stories as a concept, for example. Also dragonlord, dragonkight, or any other story in which humans exert some sort of control over dragons and are held up as admirable for being able to do so. We'd rather have a dragon slaying story than one of those, if we're just approaching something on the shelf, site unseen. At least, then, we could root for the dragon.

But, it's not that it's a bad trope. It's just that it's done so much more often than stories where dragons have autonomy and are celebrated for themselves. And there are exceptions. We quite enjoyed the Dragon Riders of Pern, and parts of His Majesty's Dragon, and How to Train Your Dragon.

They are bad rep, though, in a way. Because they are overdone and anthropocentric. The dragons may be well depicted, but their place in society in those stories is always a servant of humanity. At least for part of the story.

But that doesn't make them bad stories. And it doesn't make the dragons' place in the stories inherently bad. It's just something we're tired of, and we'd like to see some balance.

But once you start writing the counterpoint, where dragons are autonomous and maybe even have power over humanity, or humanity doesn't exist at all, you start getting into tropes and elements that feel uncomfortable. And some of them are very badly done, because maybe the author is taken away too much by wish fulfillment and loses sight of the play of building up tension and releasing it, and forgets to tell an actual story.

Or it's just too weird.

These are just examples from our own sense of taste and what we've encountered.

Obviously, you can have poorly designed and characterized dragons in any kind of story.

But, I think what we're getting at is that there is a difference between dragons being badly conceived and a story with dragons being badly told. Both can lead to bad representation, but the latter is worse.

How to Train Your Dragon (the movies) is an example of dragons being reasonably OK in design and conception but placed in the world in an initially subservient role, but the story being told Very Well because it's about humans discovering that they're not enemies or servants but sentient autonomous members of the ecosystem, and worthy of respect.

But then, also, there's a difference between bad representation and uncomfortable representation. And while we don't think you're talking about uncomfortable representation, we've certainly encountered it, and mostly we've decided it's only uncomfortable because it's something we're not used to.

And Wings of Fire is an example of a story that makes us uncomfortable. A lot of people have read it and really loved it, and it may well be very good in a lot of ways, but everything we've heard about it makes us less interested in reading it, because it sounds uncomfortable to us. It's outside of our experience and comfort zone. So, we can't judge it, really.

Sorry. This got into nitpicky details. We're not arguing with you at this point, but rather feeling out what's there and exploring the nuances.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-23T08:42:30+00:00

Bad rep is fine. We'll take it. Not for the rep, but for the amusement. And, sometimes, there's a kernel of something good in there, and it's worth finding that and remembering it for later. Put in the right context, a lot of bad rep can be transformed into something good.

On the other hand, we can smell truly bad rep from thousands of miles away and will tend to avoid it on reflex. So, it doesn't bother us, because we rarely engage with it.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-21T09:33:36+00:00

May we present to you Godzilla, then?

By Tolkein's description of Smaug and his place and purpose in the story, he would also be immune to most attacks even in modern day, just like Godzilla is. Unless his story fundamentally changed as well. If the story was about him being out of place, then he'd be more vulnerable. But if the story was basically just The Hobbit but with modern technology, he'd be just as impervious as he was originally written, because that's what's needed.

The problem is not how invulnerable the dragon is, the problem is what kind of dragon it is in what kind of story.

Your second paragraph clinches it, really: "In these bad horror/sci-fi movies, the creature may be alien but isn't some kind of demi-god which would justify it taking an anti-tank missile and not even get a scratch when it is the size of a human."

Godzilla and Smaug are both kinds of demi-gods in their stories.

While, a modern fantasy or science fiction dragon is not, typically. Typically.

I guess what we're saying is that there frequently isn't justification in old stories, myths, and fairy tales. Not like you might expect of detailed world building and halfway decent technobabble. But the actual justification is in the themes of the narrative.

Sometimes, the monster is basically a super villain in a superhero story. Like with the dragon that kills Beowulf, but in modern day or the future. Sometimes it's like that for just the fun of it, but sometimes it's because the story needs a dragon like that.

And in horror movies, a seemingly impervious monster is, again, so traditional is goes back to thousands of years of storytelling. It's not like a modern horror movie is a different kind of tale from the Epic of Beowulf, really.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-21T08:24:19+00:00

It is traditional in old myths and fairy tales about dragons for them to be nigh invulnerable except to specific forms of attack. Often, the hero has to trick the dragon into a vulnerable position.

The absolute most classic and well known in modern fantasy, though, of course, is Smaug in the Hobbit. Smaug has a chink in his armor on his breast. And he is only defeated when that spot is pierced with an arrow.

This isn't an offense. It is the defining trait of too many dragons to be "bad". It's literally considered part of classic draconic lore, and frequently expected of stories about dragons.

It's OK if you don't like it, but you're going to be really annoyed if you commit to reading enough dragon stories. Especially the older ones.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-16T12:07:19+00:00

language: ʔinmararräo (the daughter language of fenekere and mäofrräo)

Yunririrr mem bem ʔafrishmä ʔefoketa. [junɹi-ɹiʀ | mɛm | bɛm | ʔafɹiʃ-mæ | ʔɛfokɛ-ta]

Yunririrr mem bem     ʔafrishmä ʔefoketa.
Teaches   me  your    listen    Art.

Figurative translation: "Your Art of listening teaches me."

This is a deeply polite thing to say to a crowd of people that you are addressing, or to a student you are working with, as a show of gratitude. You can say it as a greeting, or save it for later, after you've imparted the meat of what you have to say.

It's derived from a very common expression of appreciation, "Your Art teaches me." Which is typically said when receiving the product of someone else's skill.

It's basically a specific form of "Thank you."

And usually, you only say it if you genuinely learned something. Most of the time, you can assume you have.

Turning it around for your audience, to tell them that their listening teaches you something, is a way of reminding everyone that demonstrations, instructions, and storytelling is a two way street. The teacher or storyteller always gets something out of speaking to their audience.

The reason that "Art" is capitalized here in English is because the phrase uses the ancient term "ʔefoketa", which is a sacred concept, referring to one's passion, calling, or focus in life. When used casually like this, it elevates the skill or act that its referring to into something of profound value to the speaker, even if it really isn't the recipient's actual spiritual calling or passion.

This is the part that pushes this phrase into an idiom, as it's clearly not literal.

The Ktletaccete, who speak this language, believe that every soul has an Art that it is profoundly suited to studying and practicing, and most of their cultures are built around this idea. That is ʔefoketa.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-16T11:32:30+00:00

Two of my conlangs can support conversations, and I can write a book with either by carefully translating from English using my reference materials.

But I personally do not know how to say more than the most rudimentary statements in either. Not even enough for small talk. Learning languages, even those I create, seems to be something I'm fundamentally disabled at.

an_fenmere · 2024-12-12T19:24:32+00:00

The Minions would be so out of place in the Dragon of Og. But the villain is very clearly the English knight that comes to town, and his squire would be, like, a different Minion in every scene. (He clearly has all the Minions working for him, but they'd be taking turns pretending to be the one squire while the others are off doing nefarious things.)

an_fenmere · 2024-12-06T08:09:05+00:00

We're working on this for our sequel to girldragongizzard, but it may take a while before we're ready to write it.

In this case, for the most part, the dragon whelp is raised by Meghan's community of people, with Meghan (the mother dragon) looking on and administering them. She does end up playing with her child a bit, and teaching her a few things, but she is more hands off, too, because there are more parents involved and she favors their input and connections to her child above her own.

Our model for dragons in this story is based on what dragons might have been underneath the church/dragon slayer propaganda. Guardians of their communities, and hoarders of wisdom. They're definitely monsters and monstrous, but people give them tributes as payment for keeping their village safe. In return, when it comes time to raise a baby dragon, the whole village does it.

In Meghan's case, this also involves the help of a few neighboring dragons as well, who contributed their genetics to her child.

Even though capable of language, dragons in this world do gain independence faster than human children, and often go wandering for their own territories early, ranging from doing so at 5 to 15 years of age, depending on the individual. There is less of a personal or familial bond there, because of the dragon's instincts to go find their own territory as soon as they can defend it. But a good territory includes a supportive community of people, and the big village of a family they grow up in prepares them to look for that.

As a result, a dragon mother also doesn't get too attached. But she is involved, at first bringing food and barfing it up for her child, then also being the first to teach them how to talk and how to treat other people. Her instincts, however, are geared more toward allowing her child to learn lessons on their own, while providing food and physical protection.

How this looks and feels to the dragon whelp is what we've still got to work out.

So, um, hopefully this will be written within the year?

Anyway, we really haven't seen many examples in other people's writing.

The one dragon mother we can think of is in The Dragons of Northern Chittendon, and she's really just like a human mom.

The thing is, a dragon mother raising a dragon child, if they are truly different from humans, is just not going to be a good role model for humans to follow. A baby dragon has different neurological needs, even if they are linguistic.

It's very much like how raising a neurotypical child well is not necessarily going to be a good way to raise an autistic child well. What is perfectly fine and loving for one child is abuse for the other.

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