I feel more like a dragon in human skin than an actual person sometimes.
Wolf, circa 2022
I kinda lost track of where I wanted to start this lmao
I logically know this is a very common experience, but I’ve always felt very… isolated? It’s like there’s a pane of translucent glass between me and my peers, and part of that is a genuine lack of understanding social rules and “unspoken contracts” between people. Growing up I had my waxing and waning phases on whether this quirky inability to blend in made my life hell or gave me a weird superficial popularity. Maybe that was genuine, but even in the height of my senior year of high school when I won prom court, I felt like I wasn’t connected to most of the people who even voted for me. I had a core group of friends and even in that there was someone trying to cuckoo bird me out for about a year.
In college people liked me well enough, but I really attached to very few, and those few understood that I was…quirky. Thankfully the bachelors degree I was able to obtain was in Theatre, so being unique played strongly into success. Even then, though, I was socially uncomfortable to be around– I was told I have outbursts, I made crushes feel awkward, I went to parties and while everyone was pairing off and drinking I was hijacking the aux cord to DJ based on vibes.
I graduated and chose not to walk the stage, I missed a chance to make that accomplishment feel real because I felt like I didn’t have anyone to enjoy the occasion with, and then I got a text from an ex-roommate saying she wishes she could have gotten pictures with me. I felt awful, I just seem to lose social cues so easily.
Fast forward past 2017, past my attempt to finish a second bachelor’s degree that failed, into 2022. At that point I’d been living in Texas with my mamaw for about half a year. I get a chance to see Beetlejuice on Broadway with a close friend and another one of my past roommates from college. I kind of butchered that visit a number of ways, but I remember telling my friend that I don’t feel like a human a lot. I don’t understand people, I don’t have common sense in the common meaning of the phrase. I’m still unpacking in therapy the concept that common sense still needs to be taught at some point in the learner’s life.
So I said vaguely that I might as well be a dragon in human skin, watching people and trying to learn through mimicry.
And then I got back to Texas and what I said stuck in my head. And I started having fun with it.
The first doodle I have that leads to the dragon critter comes from the end of 2022. I’d spoken with someone online who encourages me to express myself as freely as I want to– they suggested a color that might fit me since I have the color sense of a toddler (“MY FAVORITE IS PURPLE YAAAAAY”) and I drew a draft of person me with dragon aspects:
But the critter came about as shorthand, sometimes for comedic effect and sometimes with genuine intent. That started around when I joined Broadwaystuck (early 2023).
I tried to do bipedal designs sometimes–
But for the most part I use the “critter form”. It became a comfortable shorthand for myself. And I draw it constantly.
Nowadays when I do draw myself as a human, I keep some of the aspects of this critter too
Simply, this has become part of how I choose to put myself forward and view myself for now, and has been for a few years. It’s comfortable and easy to wear
From meme draw-overs and redraws to sporadic doodles, I’ve enjoyed this process. As much as I look back with dread at 2023-2024 for a number of reasons, I am very thankful I’ve gotten to explore some dorky form of expression throughout the Horrors.
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