Xenofiction is a piece of fiction written in the point of view of an animal. For some reason, I've always been more attracted to xenofiction than "human" fiction. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment I satrted reading more animal books than human books. Perhaps there wasn't a specific point in time. In this shrine, I want to express my love for xenofiction and talk about its creative influence on me.
I first experienced xenofiction through books. Mostly, Wings of Fire. My one an donly obsession have always been dragons, though I really like dinosaurs as well. Think of me as the dragon equivalent of a wolfgirl or horsegirl, a dragongirl if you will. I used to play being a dragon with a friend in preschool. I really enjoyed that, I don't even remember that friend's name now...
Anyway, Wings of Fire. I went to some distant uncle and aunt's house with my mom in 2016, which is when book 4 came out in France. My distant cousin was reading this series at the time and got the fourth volume twice for his birthday, or something like that. So he gave it to me. I had never heard of WoF before, and being the bookwyrm I was (and still am !) I was in awe of the mere existence of a book series written in the point of view of a dragon ! I did not read it immediatly, because I wanted to start with the first book. I must've been 9 at the time. When I got the first book, I DEVOURED it. Then the second. And the third, and fourth, and so one... I used to re-read these books a lot, I read each one in the fist arc at least ten times, maybe even more. My favorite is the fifth book, I was especially impressed by the ending, when the queen is chosen, and I found Blister's death very cool. I was very sad that Kestrel died... I wish she had time to live after a full redemption arc.
Afterwards, I actively seeked more xenofiction books. I discovered in middle school a bookshop near where my grandparents live called La Librairie du Renard ("The Fox's Bookshop") and I found many, many books there ! Including Foxcraft, Guardians of Ga'Hoole and Warrior Cats. I already knew about these books but did't get the chance to read them. So every time I went to my grandparents' house, we went to this specific library. I read all of Foxcraft and LOVED it, I read Guardians of Ga'Hoole up until book [number] because the newer french edition stopped after this one, so the only way for me to get new books was to ask for them for my birthday or Christmas, in the previous edition. Which make it that, to this day, January 2025, I am still not done with GoG... sigh... I am going to try and get thet remaining 4 books I'm missing as quickly as possible ! I also read the first arc of Warrior Cats, I tried reading the second arc but didn't like it as much, I think I only rezd thee first two books... I really liked WWC's firts arc though ! I also tried reading Wolves of the Beyond, but then realized it took place after GoG, so I preferred waiting 'till I was done with GoG before reading Wolves of the Beyond. I also read the Silverwing trilogy along with Darkwing, which I absolutly loved too ! Except Firewing, I utterly hated. Sunwing ended in such a perfect way, I was really impressed as how Firewing managed to make a coherent continuation. However, what actually happened in the book... Why ? Just why ? I also read Call of the Wild and then Doglands, after my school library's teacher recommendations. I got Call of the Wild through a Christmas mystery book program, in which one pick a book by only reading the themes and then gets to borrow it from the scholl library, and when I told my teacher that I liked it, she suggested me Doglands. I was, if I remember correctly, in my first year of middle school. She warned me that it was a book meant for a higher level,, so maybe it would be a bit difficult for me to read. It has been, in fact, one of the best book I've ever read. I think that the fact that read it in a younger grade, it made me feel like it was grandiose.
In my early days of searching for Xenofiction books, there were several more series I found but hadn't got around to reading them yet. Obviously, I want to read Erin Hunter's other book series. I suppose they would be very similar to WC, in terms of worldbuilding and tone. But I liked it, WC was simply too... big. There are over 40 books in the main series, reading only 6 seems much better. If I happen to really like Seekers, Survivors, Bravelands and Bamboo Kingdom, I would read the second arcs. I remember, on my old phone, I useed to download the free extracts and read them again and again and again... I also want to read Mouseheart, Redwall, Mistmantle, The Erth Dragons, Age of Fire, La Tribu de Vasco, The Guardian Herd and Riders of the Realm, La Quête du Renard Blanc, The Familiars, and Kathryn Lasky's other books series, Horses of the Dawn, Bears of the Ice and The Secret of Glendunny. I wish to finish at least GoG and maybe read mouseheart this year (2025).
One of my favorite gale was to try and guess what Erin Hunter's next animal would be. I started imagining before Bravelands came out, my best guess was horse. I don't think theh'll ever do dragons because of Wings of Fire, and probably not foxes with Foxcraft. Wolves wouldn't be too surprising, but I don't know... it's such an evident choice, if they wanted to do a wolf series, they would've already done it. I was quite surprised when they release Bamboo Kingdom because they've already done bears with Seekers... Oh well. Even if I don't follow Erin Hunter's books closely, I'll continue woth this game. I still think they'll do a horse book seriez someday !
One aspect of animal fiction I was really into was amateur original youtube series featuring wolves, as well as other animals, but wolves were the most popular ones. Fandom AMVs, PMVs and MAPs and these original series shaped me creatively (along the books too). However, I did not speak english well at the time, so I couldn't watch too many of them, much to my dismay. I remember really liking Accursed, Wings and The Chosen One. I have recently Read Wygolvillage's wolf shrine, which actually inspired me to write this shrine; I highly recommend reading Wygol's wolf shrine !! They mentionned a lot of wolf things, which made me rememeber these series I wanted to watch. There were so many I thought "oh, I'm gonna watch this one too !" but never did. For many things, I am currently trying to right the wrongs in my life. It started by getting the correct 3DS case (the Alpha Sapphire one, because I got the Omega Ruby one for Christmas while I got Alpha Sapphire), and watching those series is a thing I must do. To make my kid self happy.
I also wanted to maky my own. The story of how I made it is actually quite crazy when you think about it. At the time I used to watch a lot of MAPs, AMPs, PMVs and animator tributes. I saw one that looked good, and I was about to click on it to watch it. But as I was about to open it, my mom called me to dinner. I only saw the title and thumbnail. It was the Legends Never Die animator tribute posted by Frolix 6 years ago (as in 2025). Which means that I wouldn't be able to watch that video 'till the next day. So I tried to imagine what the story of that cat in the thumbnail was. I ended up creating what is now my most developed universe, with tons of characters, a mythology, several dimensions and stories happening in them... I Wanted to make it an animated series, much like those I enjoyed watching. I even started, on my previous phone ! I used Flipaclip to animate, and my finger. Of course, it did not look good, but it was fun, although too difficult for 12 years old (or something) me. I planned the songs for this animation, each song corresponded to a part of the story. Here is what the playliste looked like : Secrets (OneRepublic), Crue World (Tommee Profitt), Crystallize (Lindsey Stirling), Carnivore (Starset), Legends Never Die (the song that started it all...), and then... I'm not too sure anymore. There was supposed to be some more songs I think but they were added later on so I can't remember well. However I do remember that I was planning on maybe adding Secrets again, to mirror the beginning. I won't go in too much details but basically, it is the story of Tyld, a youg fur (that's the fictional species, think cat-wolf hybrid) taking revenge on her father's death, being accompagned by Stryke, her adoptive brother, who's a fev (as in "feather" but shortened, they look like birds), Remus, a mysterious fur and Sowrû, Remus' best friend who is a fish (scaled creatures are alled "scal" as in "scale", but idk abouyt fish... technically they'd be scals too I guess ??). I must also mention Frolix's Run Wild animation tribute because, once again, the thumbnail alone inspired me a story inside of this universe.
I would also like to briefly mention Ilkyra's animation works. They are AMAZING. Of course, I have many favorite animators on youtube, but talking about them all means that I'd have to go in details about animation memes and animation itself, though for now I'd rather just stay on the animal part of her works. I would like to focus on her Blue Blood mini AMV. because it inspired me part of the story of the universe I was talking about just earlier. the same story as the Run Wild animator tribute. I even named one of the main characters Yllquira after her...
Wolf comics were a huge deal on DeviantArt, The Lion King comics too I remember. However, I didn't have a DA account, and the same problem as with the series arose : I couldn't understand english very well. And I probably didn't think of using google translate either... But I remember some french translations existing. But most of the time, they were wayyy under schedule or on hiatus... That's how I read some part of BlackBlood Alliance and a Spyro fancomic. I really liked that Spyro comic, but can't remember the name, something with "light" maybe. It was about a young purple dragon who had to hide the fact that he was purple because the last two purple dragons (Malefor and Spyro) became insane and evil. I remember disliking the fact that Spyro was a bad guy.
I also found Skailla's work somehow. I was really interested in the No North comic, tho it wasn't actually available when I learned about it, then I kinda forgot about it, it was just something in the back of my head. However, now that it is out, I will totally read it, as well as her other works !
Well, of course, I still read Xenofiction. If I weren't reading xenofiction, it means that I have been killed and a doppleganger took my place. I have discovered more books, séries, movies... I also started writing. I had a novel idea featuring mythological créatures in primary school that was like... a complete Wings of Fire ripoff... and in middle school, we learned about real-life animal hybrids, and they fascinated me, so much that I imagined another novel with a tigron as a main character. I gave up trying to write either of those in middle school because... well writing is hard. Sometime in high school I found someone on babelio, while looking for cenofiction books. She had the same exact book taste as me, so of course I followed her. In my last year of high school I decided to message her, just to say hi and thank her for making me discover this many books. Messagin her has been the best decision of my life. We now regularly talk about books, séries, movies and so many différent topics ! We tell eachother our story ideas and characters, and we write ! Thanks to her, I have picked up my old, abandonné stories and actually worked on them. I am so proud of what I've done with them now ! Working on these universes makes me really happy.
Now, I would like to list each piece of xenofiction I have read/watched. Or at least most of them. I will talk about them in more details in the book section of my interests section, this is just to filter out non-xenofiction stuff. This section will regularly change and be updated, so come check often ! :3
Wings of Fire (I'll make a whole shrine for this one too)
Guardians of Ga'Hoole
Accursed