Flight Rising Discussion

I think I'm not really excited for the scroll [i]because[/i] of all the people hyped for their trans dragons. I'd love a scroll that lets dragons change from male to female or female to male, both for trans stuff and because of game mechanics, but this is just cosmetic. If I take this dragon: [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/60307258][img]https://www1.flightrising.com/rendern/350/603073/60307258_350.png[/img][/url] And give him the scroll, his information will still say he's a male dragon, and he'll only be able to breed with female dragons. He's still essentially and functionally only male, he just looks female. Sometimes. The toggle ability also kinda bugs me for the people saying it's for trans dragons. My boy before could basically swap and go boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl as much as I want. Not... really transgender? More like genderfluid or genderqueer or nonbianry or demi-boys and -girls, and the kinds of identities that fall along that line. Or even being able to have drag queen/king dragons. (Heh, [i]drag[/i]ons.) Which is also fun, I'm not knocking it, but I guess I just got annoyed at everyone calling a peach a mango, basically.

[quote name="bellyacher" date="2020-09-15 07:04:02" ] And as a nonbinary person, I feel like charging 400 gems for a scroll to toggle the already existing artwork is monetizing my identity. [/quote] While you are entitled to your feelings, the problems I personally have with this mindset is that utilizing this scroll does not mean that the dragon is nonbinary.

another nonbinary person dialing in to share my thoughts.

this kind of "pose change" scroll has been a community request since the start of FR, and i'm very content with how they have implemented it.

frankly, i was surprised with how low of a price these silhouette scrolls have. eternal youth scrolls are 50g cheaper, and are a permanent change that requires another scroll to undo. in comparison, these new scrolls allow you to change the poses at will, while also doubling the amount of skins and accents available for that breed.

also, the idea of the 400g price being completely inaccessible for casual players is a blatant misrepresentation. 400g is in no way a cheap purchase, but the majority of treasure scrolls are comparably expensive and provide a challenge for casual players to afford. gems are obtainable from dozens of different methods for non-paying players. if you are a casual player that only logs in to get your daily gem and treasures, then the vast majority of the site's purchaseable items will not be available simply because you are not playing the game.

also, to comment on the other trans people who feel like this is monetization - trans dragons were available before this scroll came out. this is not a trans scroll, this is a pose change scroll that can be used for many purposes including the personal appeal of having a dragon being an assigned sex at hatch(?) and presenting their identity in a different manner. not to apply IRL trans politics onto a fantasy pixel game, but if you have a trans dragon in your clan it is frankly transphobic to insist that they need to look a certain way in order to be trans. a dragon who is transmasc in your lore can have the male or female icon on them, and it will not change the fact that they are trans. this scroll is a cosmetic feature that does not change the fact that a dragon is or is not trans in their lore - you are paying for a change in appearance, not an identity.

@AriesOnMars
Afaik genderfluid/nb fall under the trans umbrella, so the people saying its for trans dragons are probably including them there

As for the example dragon, whatever the site says doesn't *really* matter to a lot of people. The scroll may be cosmetic on a functional level but imo, if you have a dragon with the male marker, but use she/they/etc for them, that's enough. They don't need official site status to be valid, so I'd disagree something with a scroll is "essentially" still what the marker says (unless you want said dragon that way of course)

Of course that stuff *is* nice, but like how most people with trans dragons aren't going to use the scroll and just go on bios, because those dragons are just as valid as the people who are using the scrolls, I don't think its required to have a "trans function" to make lgbtq dragons

Some people are going to read into what I say in a way it was not meant to be read into, and that's okay. I'll respectfully not ping the person in this, but I think there was a lot of misunderstanding of my points.

That being said:

@AriesOnMars I think you kind of hit one of the things I was trying to say, but wasn't quite able to get out. That it's almost this like. I don't want to say faux placation, but it kind of feels that way? People are free to do and think what they want, but I have a big feeling this is going to become one of those things that just. Gets out of hand very quickly. With regards to people not being very nice about it.

Also that is a hecking GORGEOUS dragon.

@Lednik
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say at the end, I think. I used my dragon as an example to get across what I found lacking about it, that on some level he would always be considered a male on the site, there's no real way to make him fully female, which is kind of sad since there's ways to change genes and colors and eyes and breeds using scrolls.

You are right about other identities being trans, I think I was just thinking about me and how I am, and how I wouldn't say this is good for representing that kind of thing. My bad there.

didnt take too long for there to be a thread complaining about the new feature, huh?

My thoughts on everything in this thread, not just OP's post:

- It's not specifically to change gender or to make dragons trans. It's not monetizing anyone's identity or anyone's gender dysphoria or anything like that. It's literally just to change the pose. If you automatically see a pose as the gender the site says it is, that's fine, and if you want to use the scroll to make trans dragons, that's fine too, but please don't act like every single dragon with this toggle/scroll is a trans or non-binary dragon. Especially when it comes to things like gen1s or breeding projects; some people just like one pose over another, and/or can't find a dragon with those colors in the other pose. I know I've skipped out on buying many a dragon purely because I don't like most female poses.

- Being able to change the gender markers on a game so based around breeding wouldn't make much sense. Yeah having "male" on a dragon you headcanon as a trans woman (or even a cis woman) can hurt a bit, but both the site's code and people involved with the dragon need to know what dragons it can and cannot breed with.

- Honestly I expected the scroll to be way more expensive than what it is, haha

@qunii
Yeah, the item wasn't made specifically for trans dragons, or for anything at all other than making a dragon pose differently, but that was how people reacted to it. I don't have anything against the item or who's excited about it or who uses it, but the initial reaction was something that put me off about it, and I just wanted to be able to get that out.

Also, I don't want to change just the gender marker on a dragon. I'd want the dragon to become functionally a different gender, to be able to breed like they're male or female. Like you said, this is a game about breeding, and an item like that would be incredibly valuable. (To the point where I could see it being a cycled item with a much, much steeper price tag, and be a permanent change to a dragon.)

@Scultone

You hit another big point, and is one of my concerns with the scrolls. It's not REQUIRED to make a dragon a certain thing. Its a digital dragon. It can be whatever and whoever you want the dragon to be!

I don't think the 400g is completely inaccessible, but for folks like myself who don't have the time to farm and such, it is a little steep. And I think saying that someone, again, like myself, who just logs in and dibbles around with feeding and such isn't playing the game is a bit harsh. I still consider myself a casual player. But it's a miracle I remember to log in every day, let alone find time to do more in depth things. Like contribute to a conversational thread about an update, LMAO.

@Jessyta

Right, precisely. It's not a gender change scroll. It's a pose change scroll. I've mentioned that a few times throughout my replies here that it's one of the conflicts I'm seeing. That LGBTQ+ friends are using it for representation, but it's not REALLY representation. It's a bit like...humm. It's a bit like JK Rowling retroactively saying certain characters are gay. Yes, sure, some people will use that and be happy with it! But others, not so much.

And that's sort of what I was getting at. I'm happy people see it that way. But it ISN'T that way. And me paying 400 gems for that kind of "representation" is. Monetization probably was a poor way to phrase it. I feel like I might be talking circles, my brain is kinda of...shot after all this.

@AriesOnMars sorry that was me, I wasn't clear >.<
I'm struggling to put my own thoughts into words so this might come out horribly wrong but I think I'm coming from: the idea that it's not repping trans dragons by not altering the base function (strictly m to f) is a bit hm to me because sex and gender identity and gender performance aren't really all the same things? A trans woman is a woman, no matter what she was supposedly born as (or still has), same for trans men and so on, so the idea of they *must* be the opposite to be actually trans on site, does make me hm a bit which might not even be what you're saying and I'm just being a complete loon