Shimmering Dragon

ANIMAL is a new independent literary magazine devoted to featuring works by individuals with animal identities, including furries and animal-identifying alterhumans. We are seeking literature and art from individuals who identify with or as an animal in any capacity, be it through gender, spirituality, or/and another one of the many ways one can be animal. As a catch-all for such communities, we use the phrase furry&alterhuman, with a non-spaced ampersand to represent animals who exist around, between, and in both communities.

Our mission is to build a community founded on the celebration of animal-made literary works. Through this project we hope that we can further understanding and respect for our communities.

ANIMAL is based on Substack at animalmagazine.substack.com. Take a look at our website to find submission information and to learn more about us.

My dragon xenofiction book discord is having its 5th anniversary! It's got 2000+ people, like 50 authors, and a ton of therians/otherkin, so if you like reading books like Wings of Fire and want more dragon content, check it out!

https://discord.gg/bookwyrms

Sometimes it’s weird being a draconic with a mostly psychological identity. I know I’m a dragon, the fire-breathing blue-scaled type with two wings and four legs, but what exactly a dragon is, even within this category, varies a lot depending on who you ask. There are a wide variety of draconic archetypes: feral non-speaking animalistic dragons; evil gold-hoarding human-devouring dragons; wise magical solitary dragons; and dragons who are just like normal humans in scaly suits. Since I have minimal past life memories if any, the way I figure out what sort of dragon I am (am, as even if I was a dragon in a past life, my draconity is what I experience now) is by gut feeling. Some parts of these draconic archetypes feel right to me, like that’s what I am, and others feel wrong. Sometimes this involves looking at my own personality, instincts, and behaviors and comparing, although this can be troublesome as some of these are possibly symptoms of mental health issues I have, and we all know that mundane issues shouldn’t be attributed to one’s draconity.

As a dragon, every representation I see of myself is filtered through legend or media. I’m able to look to Earth animal behavior too, but just as dragons are physically described as a mix of different Earth animals, so may we be in our nature. A lot of times, I and other dragons I’ve met have ended up using fiction as a way to explore our own identities, to look at (and often read) about dragons, and ask what they get right or wrong, and use that to figure out who we are. And sometimes, this process of feeling out what is right or wrong can be weird. I can feel that multiple conflicting archetypes are the right ones, or can have what feels right change over time. This raises a lot of questions about myself that I’m still exploring. If multiple archetypes are right, does that mean that I’m a fusion of them? Perhaps just as I change, what sort of dragon I am changes with me?

In some way, this seems a little bit silly. I am who I am, regardless of archetypes. Still, I feel like that’s too reductive an answer. I think that I who I am has been influenced by these archetypes somewhat over time. The relationship I had with them a decade ago isn’t the same one I have with them now: I can look at old writings I had about how dragons are actually peaceful and just misunderstood, which contrasts with how I feel far more animality and even perhaps “evil” now. Is it just that I embraced the dark and violent parts of my draconity, of myself that were always there? Or have I changed over time? I think it’s probably some of both.

Being psychological* otherkin, the concept of having a specific type of dragon that I am doesn’t always make sense for me. While I know that I’m a dragon, and a lot of my general features I’ve figured out from noemata (even if they sometimes conflict with each other), there are certain aspects of my draconity which I don’t know in that way. This includes details of physical features, along with some species-related instincts or behaviors. In many cases I don’t think these are things I have yet to figure out - I just don’t think that inherent knowledge exists.

Because of that, I’ve occasionally instead created parts of my draconity and what I consider to be my dragon species (in a sense, filling in the blanks). As an example, I write fiction with dragon characters, and sometimes don’t have an intuitive sense of what the correct body language for a situation should be. In these cases, I’ve often taken inspiration from canine, feline, or even human body language for my writing. Interestingly, because I write using my own dragon species as inspiration, this ends up changing my own species. What wasn’t there before becomes created knowledge that affects my own behaviors or appearance.

This isn’t noemata, which is inherent knowledge about one’s kintype and isn’t chosen. Discussing a bit on the Otherconnect discord, this doesn’t seem to be an experience that’s specific to me. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t any terminology for it, and I think that it might be useful to create some (with ideas below). The idea behind this is to have a word that represents “knowledge about one’s type”, but that could be of voluntarily created origin, or possibly quoilintary or mixed-voluntary. Here I specifically used the word “type” because I don’t think this experience (nor noema) is limited to just otherkin, and that it can apply to otherhearted or otherlinkers.

Just listing out a few of the ideas for a word to describe it that were discussed:

-Aspect could be used to be any sort of knowledge about one’s type, with whether it’s involuntary or voluntary being a modified. For example, “an involuntary/inherent aspect” would mean the same thing as a noema.

-Linkstory or linkcanon could be used for specifically voluntary knowledge.

-Insight could be used to mean any sort of knowledge about one’s type, with kinsight and linksight being the (in)voluntary versions.

@who-is-page and @frameacloud's panel at Othercon has gotten me thinking about writing essays about my own alterhuman experience... I was thinking maybe I should write something about why I write fiction, and how that relates to my own identity. But thinking about that made me realize that one of the reasons I write is because I identify as a fictional self-insert character that I created when I was a hatchling in make-believe games. Like, that's the way I view myself - not as a generic blue dragon, but as that specific character. Additionally, given that many of those games were based loosely in books I've read, it means that my identity is based in fiction as well. Though I don't identify as him, my name is even based on a fictional character's!

I've never really thought about calling myself fictionkin before now. When I joined the otherkin community initially, I had some bad reactions to talking about my identity in that way. And then some more bad reactions. My identity as a dragon is involuntary; I couldn't change it if I tried (and I have), and it isn't something I intentionally made into an identity. It's a bit of why I never really got why everyone insisted strongly on the distinction between otherkin and otherlinkers. Though I'm not opposed to the idea, I don't feel like my fictional identity was made by me channeling a past life either, which felt like it was the acceptable explanation for this back in 2016. Otherwise, creating a kintype wasn't "allowed."

For a while, I felt like I separated my identity into a dragon otherkin aspect, where I was just "a dragon", and had character me on the side as a fun thing - what I considered my "kinsona". But I think this is a false dichotomy. The two aren't really separable; who I am as a dragon was created through books and play. It wasn't really until @aestherians's posts in early 2021 - five years after I found the otherkin community - that I felt that the community had finally decided that the definitional line between kintype and linktype, voluntary and involuntary, didn't have to be such a strict line after all. (I'd been arguing that "involuntary identity" shouldn't be a part of the definition of otherkin for four years by that point, so yes, I'm still both smug and salty.)

So, though I didn't expect this to lead to me coining a new term when I started out writing out this post, I've decided to do it. I'm not sure if anyone except me is going to use it, but I think creating it as a concept gives it both a bit of legitimacy and permanence. I hope it will be of use to someone else, and if anyone else shares a similar experience, I welcome them to talk about it in more detail - at some point now, I think I definitely should describe mine.

@who-is-page and @frameacloud's panel at Othercon has gotten me thinking about writing essays about my own alterhuman experience... I was thinking maybe I should write something about why I write fiction, and how that relates to my own identity. But thinking about that made me realize that one of the reasons I write is because I identify as a fictional self-insert character that I created when I was a hatchling in make-believe games. Like, that's the way I view myself - not as a generic blue dragon, but as that specific character. Additionally, given that many of those games were based loosely in books I've read, it means that my identity is based in fiction as well. Though I don't identify as him, my name is even based on a fictional character's!

I've never really thought about calling myself fictionkin before now. When I joined the otherkin community initially, I had some bad reactions to talking about my identity in that way. And then some more bad reactions. My identity as a dragon is involuntary; I couldn't change it if I tried (and I have), and it isn't something I intentionally made into an identity. It's a bit of why I never really got why everyone insisted strongly on the distinction between otherkin and otherlinkers. Though I'm not opposed to the idea, I don't feel like my fictional identity was made by me channeling a past life either, which felt like it was the acceptable explanation for this back in 2016. Otherwise, creating a kintype wasn't "allowed."

For a while, I felt like I separated my identity into a dragon otherkin aspect, where I was just "a dragon", and had character me on the side as a fun thing - what I considered my "kinsona". But I think this is a false dichotomy. The two aren't really separable; who I am as a dragon was created through books and play. It wasn't really until @aestherians's posts in early 2021 - five years after I found the otherkin community - that I felt that the community had finally decided that the definitional line between kintype and linktype, voluntary and involuntary, didn't have to be such a strict line after all. (I'd been arguing that "involuntary identity" shouldn't be a part of the definition of otherkin for four years by that point, so yes, I'm still both smug and salty.)

So, though I didn't expect this to lead to me coining a new term when I started out writing out this post, I've decided to do it. I'm not sure if anyone except me is going to use it, but I think creating it as a concept gives it both a bit of legitimacy and permanence. I hope it will be of use to someone else, and if anyone else shares a similar experience, I welcome them to talk about it in more detail - at some point now, I think I definitely should describe mine.

Therianthropy Day is on the first full moon of November each year. This year, it will be on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. According to NASA, this will happen to be a supermoon, which means it might be slightly brighter than usual.

Why that date, and what is the history of that holiday? 

Therianthropy Day commemorates the first Howl, which was held 31 years ago in November 1994. A Howl is when therians meet up together in person. That was a year after the first therians started to meet up together online in November 1993. Therians first proposed commemorating it as a holiday on that date in 1996, in a conversation thread you can still see here. Based on that history, in 2016, Muninn the Raven proposed observing it as Therianthropy Day, though the first posts and community poll about it attracted little attention. I think the holiday finally really caught on in 2021, when I first saw many therians posting on social media about fun things they were doing for it.

What are therians, anyway?

If therianthropy is a new idea to you, or you want to explain it to others who are unfamiliar with it, this essay is a quick and easy introduction to it. It’s available in several languages, and the project welcomes more translations!

Learn more about our history by reading the Timeline of the Therian Community written by our community historian @liongoatsnake

What can we do for Therianthropy Day?

Therians have been celebrating it by wearing gear (for example, a necklace with the therian symbol, a tail, or clothes with pictures of their species), meeting up with their therian friends, and howling at the moon. (If you're meeting in person for the first time, stay safe!)

If you're not so open about your therianthropy, you can indulge in some quiet reflection by yourself with a guided meditation and self care.

Enjoy more than 40 games, zines, and other creations about therianthropy from this hand-curated itch.io collection.

Put on some jams that the Alterhuman Music blog tagged as therian, many composed by self-described therian musicians.

Cook a recipe inspired by what your species of animal side would eat. (Even if you're not a dragon, I recommend this presentation as an introduction to this practice because of the advice about how to adapt the sometimes strange foods that you may find species-affirming so that they'll be safe and delicious!)

Create something about your therianthropy! Draw a comic, write a zine, compose a song, design a game, craft some gear, use whatever creative medium you like. Everyone in our community takes part in creating it, it's all very much about DIY and self-expression.

Are there days for other sorts of alterhumans too?