Alt.fan.dragons

alt.fan.dragons, also known as AFD, "Here," or a variety of other names, is a Usenet discussion group created on December 1, 1993, and is dedicated to the discussion of the beings known as dragons, as well as discussion by dragons--of the roleplay, therianthrope, totemic, and many other varieties. (The story behind its Usenet description is a Society for Creative Anachronism pun; SCA'ers call their cars "dragons" and Pennsic is a popular SCA festival.)

In its early days, some of the group's members adopted the fiction of having a "pet human", who represented their players as a typist. This shared fiction helped those who believed they were dragons to co-exist happily with those who believed they were roleplaying as dragons, and was a way for the former to express their views towards therianthropy.

During its heydey, the group spawned several channels on IRC's Dalnet, including #afd, #afd_poetry, and others. There is also a related MUCK (Alfandria), and various LiveJournal communities.

Newbies on the group are referred to as "nuts," and long-time posters are referred to as "fruites," "fruits," "old fruits," or tongue-in-cheek as "whines."

The MUCK can be accessed via telnet. It is found at jaguar.chameleon.net, port 8889 or 8890.

In about 1997, a group of writers broke away from AFD and formed the Nexus writing group, as there was some confusion and misunderstandings between the writers who were writing characters and roleplaying, and the writers who were writing as otherkin or therianthropes. Some writers remained members; others never returned.

As with its Usenet sibling, alt.horror.werewolves, a large number of dragon fans overlap this interest with the ones of the furry fandom, causing the inevitable blurring of both genres.