Moved to @liondrakes

Looking back at Dungeons & Dragons, the game prided itself on incorporating everything that shapes an ideal fantasy experience… even its unsavory qualities. On one hand, that’s part of why it became such a staple in pop culture. On the other hand, I found it hard to overlook said qualities. You don’t truly love something enough if you don’t have the heart to see its flaws where they lay. That’s what I think, at least.

Even as a child, it didn’t surprise me to see orcs depicted with the same flavor of inhumanity as many racial stereotypes you’d find on Earth. Couple that with the artistic choices of exaggerated features and tribalist imagery, and you’ve got a recipe for one of the most controversial figures in the genre. None of it went over my head. Rather, it gave me the idea to explore these characters beyond the page.

I wasn’t convinced by this painting of orcs as club-swinging, bloodlust-driven brutes. When it seemed like their purpose was to be beaten by medieval-esque heroes, it didn’t sit right with me. I felt like there was something more to orcs. One-dimensional portrayals held no weight, not as long as I could see the humanity in them.

On top of that, outside influences stoked these feelings further. I owned some movies about a certain green-skinned, swamp-dwelling man on DVD. Said man reminded me of the tusk-sporting people I connected to. That alone did more than enough convincing without having to involve orcs. Orcs and the ogres of Dreamwork’s Shrek franchise were so alike in their treatment that it solidified my belief. These books and games had it all wrong. Of course, I couldn’t tell the publishers that as a fourth grader. It’d be a pointless endeavor. Even so, I can say with confidence that orcs and I go way back.

When you grow up in a place that’s as tumultuous as many fantasy settings against anyone who is “outside the norm”, you start to connect those dots at a young age. It’s unfortunate, but I saw the good in it as well. I saw that I had enough mind to see people as people, fictional or otherwise, despite my circumstances. Can’t say the same for the kinds of folks I come across in the Southeast.

Amidst my kinship towards orcs, guilt would consume me whenever I was put in a position to confront them. Plenty of players know the deal. In some combat scenarios, they must go out of their way to fight an orc hoard in order to progress, but in a metaphorical sense, all I knew was the opposite: I was the orc standing before the hero. I was the one who didn’t belong, who got in the way by simply existing.

Defeating them wasn’t my goal.

Communing with them was.

I find it ironic that I feel closer to orcs than I do with any popular race, given that I have a few elven fictomeres. I see a lot of myself in orcs and how they are treated. This is because of the marginalization I experience in this world, largely in context to my racial identity but I can see where it overlaps with other experiences as well. I can’t say the same about most depictions of elvenkind, however.

Even curiouser, I used to hate most depictions of elvenkind. These feelings developed for two reasons:

Older fantasy media had a nasty habit of putting unnecessary emphasis on the contrasts between races like elves and races like orcs. It was the fair, intelligent and good-natured folk versus the barbaric, senseless and war-mongering folk. Knowing what I touched on earlier about orcs and marginalization, you can see why I wasn’t too fond of how fantasy media framed elves. God forbid if they did it while implying that elves are seen as “superior” to other races. I wonder where I’ve heard that notion before!

I didn’t know it yet as a child, but I am a black elf myself. This past hatred was also a rejection of the self. I rarely ever saw elves like me. Name any eurocentric beauty standard you can think of, and I guarantee it’ll be somewhere in the description of an elven character. Even in one of my own sources (World of Warcraft), Blizzard’s elves are either pale and blonde-haired or lean heavier in the imagination department (ex: Night Elves). Isolation from your own kind can be heavy, even when you aren’t aware that you belong yet.

All in all, it brought me back to that place where these settings felt no different than the world around me. To this day, I still find myself annoyed by older entries in fantasy literature for how orcs are depicted in contrast to others. It’s to be expected, but that doesn’t make it any less grating to read.

One such case is whenever I read Tolkien’s works. Granted, I can tolerate their behavior in The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Luckily, they’re more like ogres in fairy tales than the off-putting tribalist caricatures I’m used to. I can’t say the same about how Dungeons & Dragons treated its orcs in the beginning, though.

Of the hearttypes that I have, very few of them have been with me for this long. Of course, I didn’t have a word for it as an elementary schooler but I finally did when I awakened. The only hearttype that have been around as long as orcs are werewolves, and that’s largely because of my own experience with ailuranthropy. Besides that, there’s Kovu. The reasons behind my heartedness towards him are far too personal for me to convey here, but I can confirm that I’ve resonated with him since my childhood too.

Yet, of those three, I still see my orc hearttype as the most complex. But what of kobolds?

To avoid confusion, I must specify that my heartedness is towards the kobolds of Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t experience heartedness towards kobolds on a general basis. If I went into detail about the many ways in which fictional kobolds have branched off from their folkloric counterparts in Germany, I’d be going on a massive tangent.

But, I digress. There’s still a question left to be answered: how did I find resonance in Dungeons & Dragons’s kobolds?

My heartedness towards kobolds isn’t as complicated as my case towards orcs, thankfully. When I think of kobolds, I think of community. I think this because when it comes to kobolds, they have a “strength in numbers” sort of culture that many enemy races exhibit. It’s not the first thing that a lot of players would say, I’ll tell you that much.

Now, the obvious explanation behind this behavior would be to accommodate the physical disadvantages of fighting on their own.

In my opinion, the best explanation lies in Volo’s Guide to Monsters:

“Kobolds are often dismissed as cowardly, foolish, and weak, but these little reptilian creatures actually have a strong social structure that stresses devotion to the tribe, are clever with their hands, and viciously work together in order to overcome their physical limitations.”

While it’s accurate to point out those limitations, I love how this excerpt describes kobolds. Not only is there the implication that kobolds actively look out for each other, it is flat-out stated that kobolds are fiercely devoted their people. This is why community comes to mind, which is something that I admire so much about D&D’s least respected “enemies”.

It’s uncommon for groups of “enemy” races to be seen as communities. If anything, they are treated as hostile gangs or thieving miscreants. Notably, they usually have a pecking order in combat encounters. Traveling parties are expected to pick off the little guys first and deal with the big bad last. We all know the deal.

A good example of this are bugbears and goblins. Technically, bugbears are also goblinfolk in Dungeons & Dragons; yet, they are rarely ever depicted as equals to their goblin companions. Instead, bugbears’ relationship to other goblins is similar to the typical relationship that’s depicted between kobolds and dragons: a massive master and their small, scrambling minions.

When exploring my draconity, I never could relate to the idea of having kobolds at my beck and call. I deeply respect the kobolds of my source. The thought of tearing these communities apart just to have a few underlings made my stomach convulse. Furthermore, kobolds are no different than dragonborns, draconians and lizardfolk to me. The point being that their size and portrayals aren’t excuses to deny them their personhood.

If you treat a dragonborn as you would a human or an elf, why not do the same towards a kobold?

Does the hardiness of a mountain dwarf trump the cleverness of a kobold? If I weighed either concept on a scale, they’d balance out.

Yet, I’d wager that the dwarf gains more respect than the kobold because the kobold lacks an overtly human appearance. The closest thing they have to it is their anthropomorphic physiology. Fantasy dwarves are also more “familiar”, what with their background as both playable characters and dependable allies. Kobolds, however, are almost always combatants that block one’s path. In short, anthropocentrism is no stranger to speculative fiction. Many a fictional world is rich with nonhuman people and their societies, but that doesn’t mean the focus will ever turn away from humans and those that favor them.

Despite my resonance with kobolds having such simple roots, it also shares some similarities with my feelings towards orcs.

Much of my heartedness revolves around the fact that I too belong to a heavily ostracized, demonized community and have been underestimated for things that I can’t change.

I could never see these groups as my “enemies”, not as campaigns and stories would want me to. Seeing how this world treats me and my people, I hold orcs and kobolds in high regards. The best way I can describe this type of heartedness is solidarity.

I understand their plight. I support their resolve. I share their desire to live above all else.

That said, not much observation can be done nowadays. After the incident with that Necrozma, many members of this species have turned to migrating to pocket dimensions. The farther from places like Ultra Megalopolis and Alola, the better. Most people aren’t aware that Necrozmas are psionic beings until it is too late. When one is captured and drained of its life source, it is naturally going to send out distress signals. Rather than save another member of their kind, many avoided the city out of fear of exploitation.

I can’t remember when I stopped existing as a Necrozma, but I do remember how the end of this cycle occurred. It was less harrowing in comparison to the capture of the previously mentioned Necrozma. For some time, I hadn’t found a strong enough light source to stabilize me. The last time I did, it had been through fusing with a wild Solgaleo. I would have preferred a sun, but it sufficed for the time being.

Eventually, the light that made up my body began to disperse. Some Necrozmas do this as a failsafe to avoid fading out (dying) or reverting to a weaker state (the crystalline form). I focused my consciousness into a singular part of me. If I was lucky, that light could evolve into a separate cosmic being— perhaps, a Cosmog. Instead, that light transmutated into something else. I awoke far from the reaches of spaces and in the world of Pokémon. That is how my parallel life began, and my life as a Necrozma ended.

Originally, I thought the life I had before was that of a Koraidon. I knew I experienced some kind of nonhuman animality before becoming a trainer, but due to its recency, I assumed that animality existed in the context to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. I tried piecing together a possible origin for a life that didn’t feel nearly as close as this one, so I wound up re-evaluating how I existed before my parallel life came around.

Around the time I came to learn of my past as a Necrozma, I started piecing together how it related to my current identity. I noticed right away that this experience aligned with my draconity just as much as my other kardiatype had (the one based in The Elder Scrolls).

My draconic identity has a lot in common with my past life as a Necrozma. Examples include:

Both gravitate towards light. In context to my primary ‘type and my kardiatype, both are especially connected to the sun.

Both exist in a metaphysical context, specifically as draconic beings from alternate dimensions.

Both are alterfictional. No matter which fictomere you focus on, my draconity is entirely based in fiction. I am no longer a Necrozma, but this kardiatype is still a core influence on my draconity since it was once among my draconic fictomeres.

Both are equal parts draconic and leonine. This is a pretty blatant connection. I’m primarily a gold liondrake, meanwhile this kardiatype was a dragon type that fused with a cosmic lion in order to maintain itself.

Both hold a connection to knowledge. As someone from Faerûn, my scholarship and overall connection to Candlekeep is self-explanatory. For my kardiatype, it had been a psychic type, a typing known for being represented by highly intelligent Pokémon— some, like Alakazam and Metagross, being even more intelligent than human beings.

Both also hold a connection to creation, just in different avenues. As a Celestial, I uphold the Creation Domain in the artistic sense. The existence of the creative spirit is what binds my place of origin together, thus I always support and build upon creativity in whatever way I can. As for my kardiatype, consuming light from others allows it to create and emit its own light. This was unbeknownst to Ultra Megalopolites when they first captured a Necrozma, hence why its form deteriorated so fast.

For the sake of reference, I’ve kept notes of these similarities. While I’m not a Necrozma, the connection I had to this species’ “Ultra” form still lingered. Not only in context to being a past experience of mine, but also as a reflection of what draconity looks like for me. I thought about those implications.

I didn’t long to be a Necrozma again, but I did see this species as an ideal state of draconity. For a lack of better words, my current identities embodied this flavor of draconic expression. I didn’t have to be a Necrozma again for that to be the case.

Yet, during these discoveries, I didn’t have a word for these feelings. I settled for regarding Necrozma as a kardiatype, one that was very significant to my draconity. I left it at that up until recently. I forget how and when I learned about mirrortypes. Regardless, @/starsailor-kinthepast and @/fish-and-forbear’s coining post finally put a word to this connection.

How Uru felt about Elsa reminded me of how I feel about Necrozma, be it the one featured in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon or the species as a whole. An Ultra Necrozma, i.e. the species at its truest form, harbors very key characteristics that align with my own draconity. The kind of draconity it exhibits is everything I see in myself.

Similar to Uru’s case with Elsa, I’m not a Necrozma for experiencing this either. I see it in the same sense as having a kardiatype or a hearttype. I don’t identify as it, but I still hold a unique connection to it.

Ultra Necrozma is a reflection of the kind of draconic being that I am. My draconity can involve me being a dragon. Comparatively, it can also involve me being an abstract entity such as the case of a Necrozma with its true form and its crystalline form. These qualities further highlight the ways in which draconity exists within me.

The significance of having been this species and the general existence of it are overlapping circumstances that greatly shape who I am. Draconity is a unique experience to all, and I’ve found that this species does a good job of capturing what that looks like to me. It just happens to be a part of my past, which is an added bonus in my opinion.

In a way, the dispersal of my light was an evolution of its own. It never felt like death as most folks describe their past lives. It felt like an emergence into something new. A metamorphosis, even. That said, I still see it as a reverse Mystery Dungeon type of scenario but one that was done out of necessity.

In this world, I’ve left what I was behind. Yet, it’s remained alongside me in ways outside of being. The feelings I have towards this past experience also differs from how my parallel self feels about it, but I’ve already touched on that in shorter writings.

Either way, Ultra Necrozma is symbolically a part of me. No matter how far the light dispersed, or what became of that light as a result, it represents not me but the kind of beast I aim to be.