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[personal profile] frameacloud
Content warning: This article itself does not have any content that would likely be troubling to the average reader. It is rated PG and safe for work. One source links to a page that has adult content, and that link is clearly marked.

Summary: Coming up in March, we have two online conventions for dragons and elfae, and a registration window for a convention later this summer for alterhumans. I'm also highlighting eight anniversaries of events from the history of the otherkin communities: conventions of yesteryear, the creations of mailing lists and community blogs, and the earliest primary source I've found from the Elf Queen's Daughters. To combat misinformation, it's important to have regular reminders that the otherkin community is not mysteriously ancient, and it is not an extremely new invention from whichever social media site is currently popular. This article is about three pages long, with in-text citations and references.

Click here to read the full three page long article. )
 
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[personal profile] jarandhel

 Looks like there might be a bit more media attention heading our way: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4468954/Man-spends-25k-plastic-surgery-elf.html

 

'I consider myself trans-species': Fantasy fan transforms himself into an ELF with £25,000 of plastic surgery including full body hair removal, skin bleaching and eye colouring

 

The article doesn't use the term otherkin, but anyone searching for "trans-species" is quite likely to find us, and I'm sure we will be mentioned in the comments sooner or later.
frameacloud: A green dragon reading a book. (A green dragon person reading a book.)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Content warnings: None.

On 2015-02-11, the Den Theater in Chicago, Illinois will have a stage performance about otherkin, Glick's Kin Folk. As far as I know, this is the first stage performance about otherkin, by that name. Description from The New Colony Side Stage:

"Staged Reading of Kin Folk
"February 11, 2015, 7:29PM
"Written by William Glick
"Directed by Evan Linder

"After being recently orphaned, Lucy must reimagine her life. She decides to come out of the closet and reveal her true identity to her family: a dragon named Kreeka. After the announcement, Lucy is more alone than she has ever been, and she must ultimately choose between her family and a new community known as Otherkin. On her journey, she meets a young man claiming to be an elf, a giant gnome named Blubberwort, and a werewolf from Montana who shows her what it means to lead a life driven by a belief in the fantastic.

"Featuring Kate Carson-Groner, Chris Fowler, Sarah Gitenstein, Andrew Hobgood, Steve Love, Liz Sharpe and Stephanie Shum."

Hopefully some otherkin in the Chicago area can see this performance and tell how they feel it represented them. In the comments, please give links to any forum threads, blog posts, or reviews of this event.
[identity profile] houseofchimeras.livejournal.com
Content Warning: links include photos during the surgery

A Canadian model by the name of Melynda Moon paid £250 (roughly 408 in US dollars) to have her ears surgery pointed back in August 2011. The young woman states in the article by Dailymail she had felt more like an elf since childhood and during her teenage years had used make-up to make herself look more elf-like. She was inspired to surgery change her ears after the Lord of the Ring movies came out. On her Youtube video describing the modification, Moon expanded on this and stated she can waited two years to be sure she wanted the surgery done and considering how it would effect her life.

Dailymail's coverage on this story here.

Melynda Moon’s own Youtube video on her channel describing her thoughts, feelings, and reasons for the modification.   
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[personal profile] frameacloud
Content warnings: None.

September: The Silver Elves are a family of elf otherkin, formed in the 1970s. They published their second handbook for using Tarot cards. The new book is The Voice of Faerie: Making any Tarot Deck into an Elven Oracle. See their web-site for an excerpt.

Sources


The Silver Elves, "The Voice of Faerie: Making Any Tarot Deck Into an Elven Oracle." 2013-09-16. The Silver Elves (blog). http://silverelves.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/the-voice-of-faerie-making-any-tarot-deck-into-an-elven-oracle/

The Silver Elves, "The Voice of Faerie: Making Any Tarot Deck Into an Elven Oracle." 2013-09. Elves in Paradise (personal web-site). http://silverelves.angelfire.com/HAvoicefaerie.html
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[personal profile] frameacloud
Content warning: For this article, none. For the linked article: Adult content (description of body modification to genitals). Spiritual beliefs being equated with mental illness. Profanity. Clumsy analogy to transgender people.

Last May: A blog re-posted an interview with Luke, a Daonine-Sithe elf otherkin. This interview was supposedly originally published in “Dirty Bristow, a now dormant magazine,” but there’s no date or issue number given for when it was originally published.

Luke’s interview is mostly made of dubious claims. As Disinformation pointed out, “he worships Corellon, God of the Elves – a deity created for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.” I haven’t seen anyone else use his slang “Innate Species Persona (ISP),” and a search for that phrase only brings up his interview. I haven’t found evidence of people in the otherkin or therianthrope communities doing extreme body modifications at all, particularly not the one he describes. He claims there were groups of supposed otherkin back to the medieval ages, but there's no evidence of this. His description of the typical dragon otherkin doesn’t sound like he's been in the dragon community. His interview is the only Google result for the group Political Inclusiveness for Xenontic Individuals (PIXI). I don't know what "Xenontic" means, but a search for it mostly brings up role-playing resources.


Sources


Danny Smith (?), “Elf Reforms – an interview with an Otherkin.” 2013-05-28. Edge Trinkets (blog). http://edgetrinkets.com/2013/05/28/this-is-from-dirty-bristow-a-now-dormant/

Matt Staggs, “An Interview With An Otherkin.” 2013-05-28. Disinformation (online magazine). http://disinfo.com/2013/05/an-interview-with-an-otherkin/
frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Content warnings: Spirituality (magic, reincarnation).



August: Elvendrums is a band of musicians who identify as elves, and who have connections to the otherkin community. They released a new album this month. It's titled Wildly to the Night. The album has original songs on themes of otherkin spirituality, reincarnation, and magical practices. On the band's official web-site, you can listen to clips of the music, and read the lyrics. Shown above: a clip of one of the album's tracks, "Othertimes."

(Thanks to Arethinn for mentioning this.)

Source


Elvendrums, "Wildly to the Night." Elvendrums. http://elvendrums.com/cdwildly.php
frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings: Voluntary surgical body modification. Links to web-pages that include photos of the gross stages of the process.

Between the mid 1990s and 2007, body modification artists began making people’s ears pointed, like those of elves. At least eight people have now had this procedure, which involves cutting, folding, and sewing the ear cartilage to the desired shape.

I’m not sure when ear pointing started, or by whom. When I wrote the previous article on Otherkin News about ear pointing, the earliest I found was in 2007.1 In an interview in 2012, Tye Olsen claimed he got his ears pointed in 2004, saying they were one of the first couple sets ever done. He doesn’t name the artist, apparently for legal reasons.2 (Odd, I thought it was legally wise to always credit an artist for their work.) Tattoo artist Katzen the Tiger Lady3 is said to have gotten her ears pointed “in the mid 1990s” by body modification artist Steve Haworth.4 (Haworth is the Guinness World Records’ “most advanced body modification artist”5 who did much of the innovative surgery on the late Stalking Cat.) I haven’t seen any clear photos of Katzen’s ears, but another ear pointing is in Haworth’s gallery.6

The artists are still exploring new techniques for ear pointing. All methods result in smaller ears, because they only work with the cartilage that’s already there. The methods that had been used by body modification artists Russ Foxx, Steve Haworth, and Brian Decker, result in an ear with a flattened pocket inside the tip. Two new methods were recently created that result in different looking pointed ears than that. Brian Decker created a new method that makes an ear with a more natural looking helix running along the tip.7 Samppa Von Cyborg created an entirely different method of reshaping the entire ear, not only pointing the tip, but also removing the lobe.8

Please correct me if I have made any errors in the above, regarding crediting artists, or finding out who created a method.

I still haven’t heard of anybody in the otherkin or therianthrope communities who have gotten ear pointing surgery.

- O. Scribner


Sources


1. O. Scribner, “Ear-pointing surgery.” 2011-04-08. Otherkin News. http://otherkin-news.livejournal.com/7821.html

2. Shannon Larratt, “Video interview with Tye Olsen.” 2012-10-04. BME: Tattoo, Piercing and Body Modification News. http://news.bme.com/2012/10/04/video-interview-with-tye-olsen/ Or:
PangaeaPiercing, “Tye’s surgically modified pointed elf ears- THE MODIFIED WORLD.” 2012-09-28. http://youtu.be/1PNR7RJCYGk

3. Steve Gilbert, ed. “Enigma interview.” Based on interviews from 1996 and 1999. http://tattoos.com/enigma.html

4. Shannon Larratt, “Full ear reshaping by Samppa.” 2012-10-4. BME. http://news.bme.com/2012/10/04/full-ear-reshaping-by-samppa/

5. Steve Haworth. http://stevehaworth.com/main/

6. Steve Haworth's gallery. http://stevehaworth.com/main/?page_id=334

7. Shannon Larratt, “Refining the ear pointing procedure.” 2013-02-14. BME. http://news.bme.com/2013/02/14/refining-the-ear-pointing-procedure

8. Shannon Larratt, “Pointing versus shaping.” 2012-10-10. BME. http://news.bme.com/2012/10/10/pointing-versus-shaping/
frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings: Paranormal phenomena.

This month, paranormal investigator and cryptozoology blogger Lon Strickler1 posted a witness report (purportedly collected in 2009) from a correspondent named only as Dee, regarding her sighting in 1990 of short, elf-like humanoids who emerged from a portal in New York. The portal was an area of open air that shimmered like water, accompanied by a humming sound.2

Paranormal investigator Robert Goerman, of the Nonhuman Research Agency, noticed that Dee’s report closely resembled another report. As Goerman pointed out in Fate Magazine,3 the similar report was published in Philip Imbrogno’s and Marianne Horrigan’s Celtic Mysteries in New England (2000), in which an anonymous team of paranormal investigators saw bearded, dwarf-like humanoids emerge from a buzzing, shimmering portal in New York in 1992. As with the other story, the portal appeared near a group of boulders.4

As always with witness reports of paranormal phenomena, both reports could be fabrications. The many similarities between the two reports suggest that one may have been based on the other. If they are merely tall tales, it's still interesting to track elf and dwarf folklore in modern New York.

- O. Scribner

Sources )
frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings: criticism of otherkin.

I thought that I would post a link list like this every month, but the otherkin community has been so creative recently that I find it hard to keep up! Scarcely any time after my previous link list, I’ve already got a long list of new articles and projects. Maybe I should post a link list here on a weekly basis instead of monthly?


New articles introducing otherkin-related concepts

Cladotherianthropy,” by Pantairin, of Chimera. 2011-07.
A cladotherianthrope is one whose animal side is a generalization of all animals within a taxa, such as an entire genus, rather than a species. A very well-written introduction to the definition and history of this concept.

A short history of soulbonding,” by Tatsuya Rokurou, of the Flatlanders.
This article is written with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with multiplicity. In 2001, the first mention of “soulbonding” (mentally communicating with fictional characters). An overview of this concept’s changing relationship with fan-fiction and multiplicity. The development of related concepts of “muses” and of “otakukin.” How the definition of “soulbonding” changed in 2003, and problems with that definition: it assumes that every soulbonding relationship is the same, which is false in actual practice.


New articles criticizing otherkin, and new responses to criticism

Otherkin troll bingo!” by Tsu. 2011-11-12.
A list of the phrases that people most commonly use to discredit otherkin, followed by a list of short responses from an otherkin correcting misconceptions in all of those. Both parts were created by a bird otherkin.

We are not sick and dangerous, for the record,” by an anonymous otherkin. 2011-10-27.
An otherkin described being otherkin to mental health counselors, and they responded positively. They don’t see it as disassociation, schizophrenia, or anything harmful. It just exists, so the responsible thing to do is to deal with it existing as best possible.

The parable of the were-duck,” by Aura Escher. 2011-08-24.
A vampyre criticizes therians for claiming to be animals, saying that therians are not animals in any real way. Escher expresses the opinion that what therians fool themselves into mistaking for their “animal side” is actually something else which is present in all humans, and not an “animal side” at all.

Confessions of a former otherkin,” by BellaDonna Saberhagen. 2011-11-13.
A personal reflection by a Neo-Pagan who once self-described as fairy, describing how inexperienced Neo-Pagans often initially go through a phase of deluding themselves and one another into believing excessively far-fetched things, including that they are dragons, werewolves, angels, or even gods, who will play a part in the end/transformation of the world. Saberhagen advises the reader to take caution with spirituality, and accept being human.

The skeptical otherkin #3: How inappropriate,” by Feathertail. 2011-11-21.
An otherkin asks, how do we determine whether the use of an idea is cultural appropriation?


Articles on what it's like to be a...?

Motionless claws,” by Citrakāyaḥ. 2011-07.
What it’s like to be a cheetah therianthrope.

Certata: From the blue fleet,” by Earth Listener, of Chimera. 2011-11.
What it’s like to be a blue glaucus sea-slug therian.

Tell me what it is like to be a swangirl,” by Tsu. 2011-11-18.
What it’s like to be a swan.

Untitled (swangirl), by Tsu. 2011-09-06.
On how the human and swan sides get along without clashing. On being autistic and otherkin.


Other new articles
People are only visible when they’re encouraged to speak,” by an anonymous author. 2011-11-12.
The otherkin and therian community mostly limits itself to conversation in English. As a result, we hear less or not at all from people in non-English-speaking parts of the world.

From fictionkin to animalkin,” by Mist Weaver, of the Chimeras. 2011-06.
Written by a fictional animal member of a plural system. Assumes the reader is already familiar with the concepts of fiction-kin, therianthropy, and plurality.

More thoughts about monsters,” by Tsu. 2011-10-17.
On the sacredness of that which is seen as different, strange, wrong, unacceptable, or scary. Whether you are a monster or not, you deserve to exist.

Untitled (mythology), by Tsu. 2011-08-28.
On the value of mythology

The upside-down of grounding,” by Child Of The Fae. 2011-11-15.
The metaphysical anatomy of this Fae otherkin differs from the standard metaphysical anatomy of a human. This creates a challenge when performing metaphysical acts such as “grounding.” Assumes the reader is already familiar with the concepts of metaphysical anatomy, otherkin, and grounding.


New foreign-language articles

Otherkin – dziwactwo czy fantastyczny sposób na życie? (Otherkin – a quirk, or a fantastic way to live?),” by Ewelina Czarnecka. 2011-08-29.
(In Polish.) An introduction to otherkin for outsiders. This polite and not sensationalistic article is in a women’s online magazine, We-Dwoje, which is otherwise mostly about fashion and health.


New art

Otherkin comic, by Drakmanka. 2011-11-13. Very nice.


New Podcast

The Pagan Musings podcast is having a show about otherkin, interviewing three otherkin: “Arthur,” Stormcrow, and Lupa.


New projects

The Beyond Awakening blog focuses on exploring otherkin-related topics that have had relatively little written about them. The latest essay prompt is titled “Challenge: Energetic Health.” Meirya asks otherkin to write about how their metaphysical energetic anatomy differs from that which is defined as “normal and healthy” in most literature on the subject.

Waoterlelie is running a survey, and is asking for otherkin to take a Meyers-Briggs personality test, and then send in their results.


New web-sites

Walking Between Worlds, a collection of essays written by two anonymous Vanir elves: one, an otherkin, the other, her spirit companion.


New blogs

The Other Problems, or, Dear Solace: A secrets and advice Tumblr. Anonymously send in your otherkin-related secrets or pleas for advice. The person running this blog is familiar with both psychology and otherkin, and patiently offers very wise advice to any who ask for it.

It Was Never Perfect But It Was Always Right, an otherkin-inspired work of ongoing fiction that has only just begun.

I Want To Go Home: Send in pictures of places that feel like Home, pictures of places for which your otherkin side feels homesick.

Little Otherkin Things And Problems. Short blurbs summarizing small things that are distinct to otherkin experience, whether joyful or sorrowful.


Other new link round-ups, like this one

Link roundup and some news,” by Meirya. 2011-11-26.
Includes some summaries of how the otherkin community has been changing recently.

Non-human blogs, resources, and projects,” by Tsu. 2011-11-26.


Thank you

Thanks to Earth Listener for telling me about several of these new things. Thanks to Tsu and Meirya for also collecting lists of new links on their blogs. When the otherkin community is so wonderfully creative and active, I appreciate any kind of help for keeping up with the fast pace!

- O. Scribner
frameacloud: A green dragon reading a book. (Default)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings for this article: environmentalist issues, suffering nature spirits, credulous and incredulous views of supernatural. Work-safe.

During this July in the village of Bolungarvík in Iceland, human construction of an avalanche wall and a tunnel through a mountain were halted by strange accidents, including an accident with dynamiting in which flying debris caused damage to the village. Seer Vigdís Kristín Steinþórsdóttir claimed that the accidents were caused by the spirits who live in the hills, including both elves (huldufólk, hidden folk) and giants. (No relation to the Earth Liberation Movement [ELF], which has also been known to sabotage construction.) These spirits were angered because the humans didn’t ask for permission to work in their hills. According to Steinþórsdóttir, some of the spirits had been hurt or killed by the construction.

To appease the spirits and give them time to safely evacuate, locals held a ceremony in their honor, and sang for the elves. Local musician Benedikt Sigurdsson performed and said, “I have now been asked by both elves and men to broker a compromise here, and I hope that this song will suffice.”

Officials avoided associating themselves with what they saw as an irrational explanation. “The mayor Elías Jónatansson did not attend the ceremony.”1 “Seers requested the Bolungarvík municipal government make a full apology to the hidden people [but] the council … refused to co-operate.”2 After the ceremony, construction resumed.3

The hidden folk are a significant part of Icelandic folklore. The Icelandic Elf School (Álfaskólinn), established 1991, educates about this folklore by collecting stories about them and offering field trips to sites thought to be haunted by hidden folk. The head of the school, Magnús Skarphéðinsson, claims that according to a 2006 survey, “26% of Icelanders believe in elves.”4


Sources )
frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings for this article: voluntary surgical body modification, links to web-pages that include photos of the gross stages of the process.

In the past few years, at least five people have had a kind of body modification or cosmetic surgery called “ear pointing” to make their ears have a pointed shape, like an elf.

In October 2007,1 Kimberleigh “Kimmie” R., had her ears pointed by a professional body modification artist, Russ Foxx. They took a couple of weeks to heal, and she posted photos of it in various stages of healing.2 With Kimmie’s permission, her friend “Laminterious” posted some of photos of Kimmie’s ear-pointing on Instructables.com a few months later, with commentary explaining the importance of taking time to decide and do research before getting any kind of body modification.3

Also during the time of October 2007, a website purportedly that of a cosmetic surgeon named Dr. Lajos Nagy claimed that Nagy had performed over a thousand ear-pointings, but Nagy’s site appears to be a hoax.4

In January 2010, Russ Foxx posted before-and-after photos of more ear pointing on at least two unnamed people,5 and put out a request for other people who wanted ear-pointing surgery.6 He hasn’t posted anything about it since then, so I don’t know if he’s done more ear-pointing.

On the seventh of this month, the ABC Good Morning America show talked about ear pointing.7 They showed two more people who’d had ear-pointing: Jordan H., who explains that she contemplated the surgery for eighteen months before having it done, and an unnamed woman with a Mohawk. Both of them had their ears done not by Foxx, but by another body modification artist, Steve H. of Phoenix, Arizona. (If the above video is no longer available, the Daily Mail wrote a summary of some of the key traits of the episode.)8

The commentary provided by ABC includes some exaggerations that could create confusion. They claim that ear-pointing is a craze sweeping the nation, the latest fad popular among the kids.

However, as far as I can see, five adults constitute neither a craze, nor kids. The two ear-pointed people who have publicly talked about their ear-pointing have said that they thought about their decision for over a year before they did it, and that they were well aware of the risks involved. All five of them had their ear-pointing performed by expert body modification artists. The five ear-pointings happened over several years. So long as ear-pointing is not an impulsive choice performed on minors by unskilled people—as ABC was trying to suggest—then I don’t see anything to worry about.

I have not seen any articles where these ear-pointed people openly say that they are otherkin. Surprisingly, despite our unusual self-identifications, extreme body modification seems very rare in our community. Over the years, I’ve seen the topic come up for discussion many times, and I’ve often heard otherkin musing about or making plans for such things, but I’m not aware of a single otherkin who has written publicly about any extreme body modifications they’ve had, including ear-pointing. (That is, not counting tattoos or piercings. Those aren’t rare among otherkin.) I’d like to be proven wrong about this, but I’m also not interested in outing anybody’s private life.

- O. Scribner, 2011-04-08

Sources )
frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings for this article: loss of information. Work-safe.

From its foundation in 1994, and until its shut-down in 2009, GeoCities was a popular free host for personal web sites.1  Among these, there were some sites about otherkin and therianthropes.  Before they disappeared, I searched for those sites and archived them, as detailed in my first and second articles on the topic.2,3  Now, the next step: I’ve tried to contact all the site authors to find out where—or whether—their content will migrate.  If you’re wondering where to look for them now, check the list in the rest of this post.  I’ll update the list if I hear anything new. 

Read List )

frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings for this article: information loss. Work-safe.

Last April, Geocities announced that it would shut down its website hosting service, but it gave no date.1  The deadline has now been given: Geocites will shut down on October 26, 2009.2  You don’t have long to archive your favorite sites on Geocities.  How can this be done most efficiently?  What sites might you want to save?

If Firefox3 is the web browser that you use, you can quickly find Geocities sites in your bookmarks (favorites) with an add-on such as Enhanced Bookmark Search4.  If you usually browse the web with Internet Exporer instead, you could import Explorer’s bookmarks into Firefox, in this way: in Firefox’s menu, go to Bookmarks, Organize Bookmarks, File, Import.

This isn’t the quickest way, but you could download the sites manually, by hitting the “Save” button on each page within a site.  (In most browsers, “Save” will be in the menu on the upper left, under “File.”  The drawbacks to this method: it’s tedious, and it doesn’t capture web page elements made with Cascading Style Sheets.  CSS is included in downloads made by a Firefox add-on called Save Complete.5)

It would be faster to download sites automatically using a program to do the work for you, such as an offline browser.  I tried HTTrack Website Copier6, and I was sufficiently satisfied with its results that I didn’t try out some of the other free offline browsers I’d noticed in a Google search.  (The others were Webreaper, Wget, and PageNest.7)  HTTrack is a GPL offline browser for the operating systems Windows and Linux. HTTrack is easy to use: you give it an url (website address), or even a whole list of urls in a text file.  (I’ll provide such a list at the end of this article.  This method is the fastest because it requires less of your involvement, but it can cause problems with sites that don’t have an index page.)  Then, all by itself, the program downloads the entire site, including the sub-pages, pictures, and anything else it finds in there.

After you download a back-up of a site, make sure you skim through it to make sure it’s all there.  Sometimes Geocities says “Service temporarily unavailable,” and so those pages will fail to download.  There are a couple of reasons why this problem is happening: maybe Geocities is getting overloaded with traffic because everyone is rushing for their last chance to download their favorite sites… or maybe Geocities’ service has always been unstable. 

If your own website was hosted by Geocities, I hope you’re planning to move to another web host.  Free web hosts are more common these days, so you can choose among them for the traits that suit you the best.  The daily-updated website http://www.free-webhosts.com8 is a good way to compare free web hosts.

You can use Google to comb Geocities for web sites on specific topics.  Type in your search terms, and then include the words “site:geocities.com” in that search (without the quotes).

 I spent more time trying out keywords that could bring up sites on therianthropes and otherkin,9 animal-people and persons who consider themselves to be other than human, often in spirit.  I discovered many more sites in addition to those that I described in my previous article.   I have archived all the following Geocities sites, so if you miss out on this, you can ask me for a copy of the ones that you need. Read more... )

frameacloud: A white dragon with its tail in a knot. (Heraldry transparent)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Trigger warnings for this article: information loss. Safe for work.

            Geocities.com will disappear in a few months, and all the personal websites hosted on it will vanish along with it.  This includes some decade-old sites about therianthropes and otherkin.

In April, Yahoo declared1 that it will shut down Geocities.com later this year.  A specific closing date has not yet been announced.2  Geocities, a once-popular host for personal web pages, was a significant part of Internet culture during the mid- to late Nineties.  It’s now considered obsolete, and receives less traffic3 than it once did.  Yahoo itself says4 that it won’t offer an equivalent free web-hosting service, but Geocities e-mail addresses will continue to work.  Coilhouse, a blog of alternative culture, provides heartfelt commentary5 on this sad event.  

Most Geocities sites are archived in the Internet Wayback Machine,6 along with everything else on the web.  (Boy, if the Wayback Machine itself ever went down, I don’t know what I would do!)  Some people are making efforts to archive Geocities7 in particular, although they don’t yet know how their archive will be redistributed.  Unfortunately, you can’t rely on these  to collect a complete snapshot of websites… there are usually parts missing.  The parts overlooked by the archives are often image files, but sometimes they’re entire pages or sites.  Now would be the time for you to download a personal copy of your favorite sites on Geocities.

If you’re a therianthrope or otherkin, some of your favorite Geocities sites may well include sites such as general introductions to therianthropy such as Yaiolani’s Werewolf and Shapeshifter Codex.8  The enormous Codex of werewolf legends and therian spirituality was formerly on Lycanthrope.org in 1996 as the Werewolf and Shapeshifter Handbook and The Shifter’s Edge.  (The copy of the Codex on archive.org is incomplete to the point of being unnavigable.  That goes to show how it’s worthwhile to download one’s own copy.)  Other introductions to therianthropy are hosted there, such as Lady Shadowmyst’s Werebeast Support Page,9 and Snowwolf’s Therianthropy Resource,10 which collects essays by various therians: Autumn Fox, Katmandu, Shadow Nightwolf, Pinky, Polar, and Sterling.  The Otherworld Adventure11 contains the home page for the Otherkin Gazette, a mailing list.

There are personal sites of otherkin and therianthropes on Geocities, such as Valindë’s Otherkin,12 which tells about species such as the Brinn, and the Wlfdog’s Lair,13 with an essay about a wolf therian’s experiences with awakening.  Another therian, Sabersinger,14 describes her vivid dream-shifts.

Will these sites relocate to new hosts to survive the shutdown of Geocities?  I e-mailed the maintainers of each of these sites to interview them.  Sabersinger said she was uncertain about whether she would migrate her site.  “I have grown ambivalent to my site because I have changed a great deal since I created it.  When I first made it, I had just discovered my were-sides and was excited about this new revelation in my life.  Then, I graduated from university, started work and got married and had a kid (and another one on the way now).  So, real physical shifts came along - as in that I grew up, matured.  My were-sides are there, just quieter but still a strong presence. I don't see a pressing need to show it now.  I might transfer to my site to Dreamwidth, either temporarily or permanent, I don't know still.  Will let you know once I have done the transfer.”  

Several of my e-mails bounced: those e-mail addresses are no longer in use.  This implies that Yaiolani, Adara, and Valindë are no longer maintaining their sites, so these parts of therian and otherkin history are likely to disappear.  This is much like how significant portions of the animal spirituality conversations on the newsgroups alt.horror.werewolves15 and alt.lifestyle.furry16 are no longer available from the archives.

I searched high and low to find the therian and otherkin sites that are still extant on Geocities.  This is what I was able to find, but I’m sure they’re not all.  If you know of any that I’ve missed, please share them, so we can assemble a more complete archive of them!  If you someday read this article and find that the Geocities sites I’ve described are long gone, even from the Wayback Machine, you can contact me.17  I’ll send you a copy, because I’ve already downloaded them.  (I won’t repost the sites publicly.  If you created those sites and don’t want me to distribute them privately, just say so, and I’ll respect that request.)

- O. Scribner

Sources )

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Otherkin News is a collaborative, volunteer-run blog for sharing news for otherkin, therianthropes, fictionfolk, plural systems, and all sorts of alterhumans. You can join and post here about current events in our communities and newspaper articles that are about us. The person moderating this is [personal profile] frameacloud. Everyone is welcome to subscribe and explore our tags.

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