Rushing River: a Wolf Shifting Journal

A New Beginning and the Death of kindaKyo

At 13, I began to have the feeling that I likely wasn't human. I didn't exactly know what I was quite yet, but it was at that point that I dove headfirst into the mythical community.

Although almost everyone here knows me only as Kyo, that wasn't the name I started with. The first name I ever used on this account was actually Blue, which I then briefly changed to Clover, before finally settling on Kyo.

Just as it took me a while to figure out my name, it took me even longer to find my mythical type. I tried learning about multiple different mythical types to try and understand myself. I remember researching about selkies, avians, kemonos, shifters, kinetics, and so many others. I dug deep into my family's history in an attempt to understand just what I was.

About 2 years later, I finally discovered my mythical type: a half demon. With that figured out, I began to structure my account around my experiences as a half demon, and began regulating the content I posted to be more relevant to my mythical type.

Why am I telling you guys this, though? You see, although discovering I was a half demon answered a lot of my questions, it didn't answer all of them. I should've been happy to figure myself out, and I was, but there was still a lot of confusion beneath the surface. I knew I was a half demon, I was (and still am) 100% sure of it, but something was missing.

So what was it?

It was at that point I began to acknowledge the fact that I might not be only a half demon, but something else as well. Most of my long periods of inactivity (excluding the mental health breaks I took) were spent researching. I mostly kept quiet about this, since I wanted to be absolutely 100% sure of myself before I posted something about it.

That brings us to today. In my research, I noticed that many mythicals (even the ones that weren't born mythicals) had a strong connection to their type before realizing what they were (or were destined to be.) I spent months digging through my past to see what my connection was, and I came to my conclusion.

As embarrassingly stereotypical as it may be, it's wolves. I've known I was a wolf therian from a young age (and actually used to be active in the therian community on YouTube, although that channel is long dead), and my own parents used to comment on how I acted like another one of our dogs. It feels right, it's something I've known in my heart for a long time, however I needed time to fully understand.

For 3 years I've been Kyo, the half demon, and that's how most people here know me. However, it's time for a change. While I'm still a half demon, I think it's time to change up my account to better focus on my newest journey: becoming a wolf shifter.

With all the changes I'll be making, I decided to change my name for the first time in 5 years. Instead of kindaKyo, my username will be RiverOnyxDawn, which is a combination of all the names I used in the therian community. I'll just be going by River, though, since it's the name I used the longest and felt the most connection to. From now on, I'm no longer Kyo: the half demon. Instead, I'm River: the half demon & wolf shifter to be. I hope you'll all still support me. I'll be changing the look of this book and my account shortly.

I'm really nervous since I know shifting can be very taxing, and it seems like fighting an uphill battle. It's going to be very different for me since I was lucky enough to be born a mythical & never had to put in the work like this to become one, however I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm going to put in all the effort I can and more to become a wolf shifter.

- River