I say drop the chapter style you've got there and go along the "no real standard" model that me, VanZandt, TerrorWolf, and many others subscribe to.  Then, go to another site that has a strong community, not a werewolf fansite with a interest based side-forum.  You might also look at the many books and other works that have already been published on the subject, and their receptions, (which are always less than half positive) such as the ones by LupaBitch (like "A Field Guide to Otherkin").

Of course, I think I should tell you that I'm tempted to just give you the advice of not doing it at all.  You haven't been active in the therian community like the few people who managed to publish books without widespread hatred have been.  In fact, I haven't seen you very much at all.
Judging by what I'm perceiving of you (including the fact that you included "Slayers" as a whole chapter there), I really don't think you're ready to even think about writing a book like this at this point, and statistically, you may never be.  Therianthropy is a broad and complicated subject, and to understand enough about it to consider writing about it takes alot of time and research.  Perhaps you could write an article explaining what it is, but there's already alot of those out there, and we don't really need any sort of publicity...
In any case, do what you want, I'm just saying, I don't think you should attempt it, and you're not going to get alot of support if you do.

thanks for the advice guys im not a skinwalker or the like, and although i am active as a therian on the cafe here and werespace when i can, i probably do need a lot more experience with other therians as well. the chapter of slayers was dedicated to Slayer here from the cafe. I wont attempt it yet, maybe a few years down the road.

Writing a book on Therianthropy would certainly not be impossible, Vindicator.  I think Sherlawk was pointing out that Ashen hasn't exactly the experience or research foundation to produce a book that would be supported, more than likely, by virtually anybody (as suggested by solicting help for this on  a werewolf fansite which is not exactly the greatest place to ask for help on real werewolves).  There are several forums scattered around, mainly run by the owners and reflective of many of their own personal beliefs.  There are a few clearing-houses for therians -- "Crossroads", if I remember right, "The Awareness Forums", and "Werelist" are a couple of the bigger ones, although the only one of those I know is still active is the Werelist.  I'd spend a lot of time trying to get to know the various ideas of what's going on before trying to present something to the public that makes it seem like I know what's going on (ie, writing a book).  And no offense to "Slayer", but if you were going to dedicate a chapter in your book to any one person in particular, really VanZ would probably be the most visible and well-known person you could go with.

Also, like Shady pointed out -- while "berserkers" could arguably fall under the category of "therianthropy" -- "skinwalkers" most definitely don't, so the scope of the project seems a little scattered. 

And I appreciate the enthusiasum, but I agree with Sherl in that I'm not exactly looking for any sort of publicity, either.  Or course, I can't speak for the rest of the community.

Of course you don't have the research background.  VAN ZANT AND I COMBINED don't have the backgrounds to write much more than a 4 page article.  A book would take years to formulate.

Stormwolf wrote:

There are a few clearing-houses for therians -- "Crossroads", if I remember right, "The Awareness Forums", and "Werelist" are a couple of the bigger ones, although the only one of those I know is still active is the Werelist.

You forgot WereSource.  I like WereSource.  And Crossroads is still up.
You also forgot Therian.Wikia, the site I administrate, and that means you don't get a doggybone from santa-coon for winter solstice this year. >:|

And no offense to "Slayer", but if you were going to dedicate a chapter in your book to any one person in particular, really VanZ would probably be the most visible and well-known person you could go with.

Even then, VanZandt would be a bad choice to write a chapter about.  He is, in fact, very well known in the community, but that doesn't mean he's any sort of authoritative representative.  If you present him in an informative context, you have to present the many others like him, which means pulling out people like ShadowMyst (admin of aforementioned crossroads), TerrorWolf (Admin of Weresource), Coyote (founder of Werelist), Jakkal (Awereness), Savage Tornclaw (I'm not even sure what she/he did), and MagusFenrir (TherianTemple), and that's not even a good summary of all the people with influential views. (really, it's just a list of random names that pop up alot I randomly came up with)

Aye, if you could track down Otter - the one that brought up the issue on Alternate Horror: Werewolves to start with you'd really have something to write about. Then there are all the earliest Weres like Smash and Katmandu. What we need is a definitive history of the Therian community and that would take a considerable amount of time interviewing people to nail down times and places, pouring over the AHWW logs and such.

SherlawkDragon wrote:

Of course you don't have the research background.  VAN ZANT AND I COMBINED don't have the backgrounds to write much more than a 4 page article.  A book would take years to formulate.

Stormwolf wrote:

There are a few clearing-houses for therians -- "Crossroads", if I remember right, "The Awareness Forums", and "Werelist" are a couple of the bigger ones, although the only one of those I know is still active is the Werelist.

You forgot WereSource.  I like WereSource.  And Crossroads is still up.
You also forgot Therian.Wikia, the site I administrate, and that means you don't get a doggybone from santa-coon for winter solstice this year. >

And no offense to "Slayer", but if you were going to dedicate a chapter in your book to any one person in particular, really VanZ would probably be the most visible and well-known person you could go with.

Even then, VanZandt would be a bad choice to write a chapter about.  He is, in fact, very well known in the community, but that doesn't mean he's any sort of authoritative representative.  If you present him in an informative context, you have to present the many others like him, which means pulling out people like ShadowMyst (admin of aforementioned crossroads), TerrorWolf (Admin of Weresource), Coyote (founder of Werelist), Jakkal (Awereness), Savage Tornclaw (I'm not even sure what she/he did), and MagusFenrir (TherianTemple), and that's not even a good summary of all the people with influential views. (really, it's just a list of random names that pop up alot I randomly came up with)

Is the Therian Temple still up and running as well?  I really wouldn't even include anything but a passing comment on that, especially considering that it's never been more than a very small aspect of the overall community and is pretty much disregarded by everybody but the members who belong.  Besides, include that in a book and they're liable to file action against you for it, from what I've been able to gather from passing comments on the Werelist.  And I did forget the Weresource.  There's a "library" too with lots of great essays floating around, but I can't remember the addy.

And Coyote wasn't just the founder of the Werelist, but I also caught him featured on a special that Animal Planet did on "Hum-animals".  He's a great guy and would be an awesome source of information, if you can track him down.  I think he's sort of gone "hermit" in the past couple of years.

I hope people don't dig through the AHWW archives in the dusty corridors of Usenet history too deep or they might run across me.xD  I wasn't as active back then as I am now...but it's weird to think that I'm one of those oldies who was around back when these things were first starting to kick into gear.  I still remember hearing people complain about Katmandu's chili...

SherlawkDragon wrote:

Stormwolf wrote:

Is the Therian Temple still up and running as well?

Um... Does it have a reason NOT to be running??? O!o

I don't keep up with their comings and goings-on, Sherl.  Why the hell would I know what they're doing?

Aye, the Animal Planet special was pretty awful, but it's occassionally nice to see what's being feed to the general public about some things.  Plus, it was kind of cool to see someone I know and have talked with on a special that's sort of loosely related to some of this.

Stormwolf wrote:

SherlawkDragon wrote:

Stormwolf wrote:

Is the Therian Temple still up and running as well?

Um... Does it have a reason NOT to be running??? O!o

I don't keep up with their comings and goings-on, Sherl.  Why the hell would I know what they're doing?

I don't know, why would you think they had disbanded though?? O!o

Stormwolf wrote:

I didn't think anything.  I haven't heard any rumblings about it for some while now, which is why I asked.  If you remember, I wasn't sure if even Crossroads or the Awareness forums were still up and active.

Well, then you aren't "active" like you said. *nitpick*

There are also some popular therian chatrooms floating about the Internet for those trying to talk to other therians on a more personal level and learn more about individual's views and experiences outside of posting on forums, if it hasn't already been mentioned elsewhere.

I think Weresource has the best ones...

As a general rule of thumb, just posting up in a chat room and listening to others can sometimes teach you more than you'd learn by asking a lot of questions.

True.  You might also sit in on one of the public STDCs on Weresource, or read old logs. (of course, what will be made obvious is the fact that we all have different views and ideas.)

Stormwolf wrote:

I said I'm more active now than I was back on AHWW, which is definitely not the same as me saying that I'm particularly "active" now.  Come on, Kiddo -- track the conversation.xP~  Besides, you know better; in all the years you've know me, Sherl, have you ever seen me more often than sporadically active on a handful of forums?

I've seen what you did last summer, you SICK FREAK. >:|
Sorry if this is private, but didn't your parents have something to do with that?  I seem to recall picturing your parents as what can only be understated as "raving lunatics"?

But, it is quite true that practically everyone has some different views and ideas about Therianthropy, which is one reason why any type of comprehensive and accurate book would be such a huge undertaking.

Yeah, huge like a certain female who you are directly decended from. (not gonna say who)
It's actually very interesting how not only can views on individual issues can differ so widely to so many extremes between two people who agree on one issue, but the individual feelings on their own therianthropy.  Ask 10 therians about therianthropy, you'll get 11 answers. (unless one is someone like WordWolf, then you get 11 from him alone, 'cause he has no life outside of lexicography. >:|)

Actually, if someone really wanted to work on a fleshed-out and well-rounded perspective of all the views and ideas out there, they really shouldn't necessarily just stick to the large clearing-house sites and huge chat log archives, but might also want to dig around the smaller, personal forums run by individuals.  I've actually found more New Age spirituality on the larger forums and more hardcore pagan, old-school beliefs reflected on smaller forums.

Yeah, I've noticed that.  There tends to be a degradation of quality that just comes with a large, open community.  Meanwhile, I see alot of opinions which I really like on those smaller boards, and they just don't ring as loud when there are 5 pages of posts in a thread on the first day it's posted, and things don't get discussed as much when that happens, diminishing the likelihood of someone like that popping up.  I know this one pagan hawk therian who married an eagle therian, she is a BIZZARE type of fruit (possibly a blue mango grown in Canadia), but the amount of reason behind everything she says makes her really interesting to get opinions from... Meanwhile you get boards like CT which draw a unique crowd that discusses things you don't see on big forums.

Individual therians usually run therir own forums under their own ideologies and if someone wants to make their own informed decision about what's going on, it's good to have as much information as possible, right?  Not to mention, as the on-line community as a whole goes, if something is relevant because it's out there then those perspectives are just as relevant as others.

Sepaking of those, I loosely administrate Therian Forest if anyone wants to look at one of those less-open, small communities.  We don't have anyone that stands out at the moment (well, maybe me, but I don't know about tagging myself, especially being the admin) but we get some interesting stuff that flies around that you don't typically see on Werelist.  What's also a little interesting is the content of Therian.Wikia, which reflects the general opinions of the people who bother to edit (this happens to be comprised mainly of me and people who like to write articles titled "Therian Sex" and what not)
Anyway, I feel like I rambled that, and I'm going to bed, so night.

Edit: Post 444!
Another Edit: And Stormwolf is at 32!  Even better!

Last edited by SherlawkDragon (2009-12-23 03:33:29)

Me senile?.....just remind me what the topic is and I'm ready to go.

Last edited by WolfVanZandt (2009-12-24 02:14:58)