The Morning After by editor J.F.R. Coates

12 minutes ago
15 min read

Updated: 5 minutes ago

Topics: Transformation, Queerness, Transgender themes

Genre: Short Story Anthology

Age Rating: Ages 18+ for explicit sex

Blackouts by Kewey Tanuki

How fitting for a transformation anthology to start with werewolves. The explanation for this story is a bit complex, so strap in.

Blackouts follows Stephanie, a recently-turned werewolf who lives in a world in which werewolves have been slowly integrated into society. Stephanie is also transgender and, with the help of a werewolf clinic, has also used her transformations to transition from male to female. However, because she still blacks out when transforming, that same werewolf clinic has been forced to designate her as a potentially dangerous werewolf. This means she's required by law to relocate to a local werewolf neighborhood. But getting there turns out to be harder than anticipated, as Stephanie's abusive ex-boyfriend, who threw her through a window earlier that morning, is after her, and has even roped the police into the search. Stephanie will need to evade the police and get help from friends to make it to the neighborhood and settle into her new life.

Yeah, that was a lot. It reflects the complicated world of this story, which I enjoyed quite a bit. There's so much cool worldbuilding done in an impressively brief amount of time. It's clear that werewolves have been around in this world for a while now, as there's a whole threat level and microchipping system, and werewolf communities are able to be established and even self-govern. Details like that do a lot to flesh out the world for me. I think one of my favorite details was the line of anti-werewolf protesters outside the werewolf clinic screaming at people who walk in for treatment. That was a clever parallel to those awful mobs that harass people outside Planned Parenthoods. I also appreciated the optimistic tone in the face of oppression from the police and other bigoted factions. I got the impression that their defeat was inevitable as long as this new werewolf community stands together, and that warmed my heart.

Chasing the Sun by Marshe Summers

Another story with interesting worldbuilding, if less complex than the previous story. This one stars Evie, an anthropomorphic avian who, of course, did not start out as one. When we meet her, she's going through physical therapy to get used to her new feathered body, having obviously been a human before her transformation. We soon put together that not only is she now a bird, but she's in an all-avian world, complete with neat treetop architecture. Further reveals are what I think make the story more interesting, so I'll stop the recap there and let you go find out the rest.

I stop the summary there because the revealing of context for Evie's situation is one of my favorite parts of the story. It's not so much the reveals themselves as the methodical way they happen. This story breaks up exposition brilliantly, staying engaging and leaving me hungry to know more the whole way through. That element of the unknown really worked for me. Paired with the worldbuilding of an unfamiliar avian society, Evie's journey makes for a great story about adapting to a mysterious new beginning. It seems to me like it could be the start of a bigger story, as well.

Of Snakes and Stone by Deborah L. Davitt

The first non-furry story in the bunch, this is the first story in a format I like to call the "people around the world are randomly transforming into things" format. Quite a few of the stories in this anthology feature this format, where the world has been stricken by random transformations with no apparent cause.

This one takes place in a world where you can transform into more than just an animal, as shown by the main character, Jade. Jade is a child who has recently transformed into a medusa, snake hair and all. Unfortunately, this also comes with the famous medusa power of turning people to stone by making eye contact with them. With this power, before the story begins, Jade accidentally killed her mother by turning her to stone.

Jade is now able to wear sunglasses that prevent her eyes from petrifying people, but that has come far too late, and she and her father are left in mourning. The story follows Jade as she waits in her school's office while her dad negotiates with the school administrators who want to keep her out for fear of her powers.

It's a messed up situation played mostly straight, showing a lethal consequence of transformation. Most of the stories in this book are pretty pro-transformation, so it makes sense to have at least one in here that shows the potential tragedy that can come with it. As a transformation optimist myself, it's a bit of a sobering story because of that. However the story didn't leave me in tears; there is enough of a hint at the outrageousness of the situation, and at the promise of new friendships, for the story to end on a positive note.

Monster with Wings by Sasha Drachen

Monster with Wings is pretty ambitious. It's one of the longer stories in the anthology, set in a fantasy kingdom packed full of all the things you'd expect of a dark fantasy world. Prince Baldric, heir to the throne, is transformed into a dragon and hunted by his younger brother, Aetius, who hopes to usurp him. He plans to frame the beast he's turned his brother into for killing said brother. Dastardly.

Well, Baldric manages to evade his brother with the help of a badass gryphon named Lana. Soon he realizes that not only has he turned into a dragon, but "he" is now "she" as well. The story follows the dragon as she continues to evade the hunt, and as she attempts to figure out what she wants in life as she carries her new identity into the future.

It's an action-heavy story with a lot of great tension. Plus I'm a sucker for a story where someone wonders why they feel better as a beast than they ever did as a human. It's heartwarming to watch someone discover who they really are, and this story delivered that very well. I also liked how the complexity of all the very human betrayal and political scheming served to better frame her transformation as an escape from humanity into her ideal self, even if that part might have been unintentional. The mixing of these thematic elements into the fantasy genre is always appreciated as well.

From Tractor Sales to Fluffy Tails by Koda Copeland

I never get tired of gay werewolves.

This story follows Clay, a tractor salesman visiting the town of Cherry Creek, Oregon to make a sale. While he's there, he hooks up with a guy named Raife for the night and, well, Raife turns out to be a werewolf. And although sex with a werewolf isn't supposed to be able to turn a person very easily, Clay nonetheless wakes up the next day with that titular fluffy tail. So, Raife has royally screwed up, and must take Clay to visit the mayor of his community of werewolves to hopefully get things sorted out.

One of Koda Copeland's strengths as a writer is blending the personality of his main character into the prose (See his novel, My Remise). Because of that, I really liked the narration here. It has an engaging voice that reflects Clay's frustrated and confused personality. The story is otherwise pretty standard gay transformation fare with some cute and erotic moments. Luckily, Clay has a sweet and caring new werewolf boyfriend to help get him settled into a new life. Now if only these hidden werewolf communities existed in the real world…

A Professor, A Pet, A Promise by Yana Caoránach

After reading this story I posted online that I would need to take a long, cold shower. We have finally found the kinkiest story in the anthology, and it has pushed many, many buttons.

This story is about Rhia, a female-presenting professor of magic who accidentally transforms herself into a Gryphon. As she frustratedly tries to find a way back to her human form, she is sabotaged by Pender, a fellow professor. Instead of helping her return to human form, he takes the opportunity to kidnap Rhia, put a bunch of kinky spells on her, and starts keeping her as a pet. He also uses magic to make her more pet-like, such as sometimes taking away her ability to read or speak.

So yeah, I can confirm this story does exactly what it sets out to do. It's the kind of indulgent wish fulfillment fantasy I love, and it comes with the addition of some lessons about the importance of idle time and of learning to relax when you find yourself overworked. The story is listed as "consensual non-consent", which always makes me a bit nervous; sometimes writers get so worried about adhering to consent ethics that the story feels like it's walking on eggshells. But it's handled very well here, resulting in something very sweet and caring instead.

Tailblazer by Pão Pão

Tailblazer takes place in a world in which anthropomorphic animal people were genetically engineered, but were liberated before they could be exploited as planned by the ones who engineered them. As a result, the "genfolk," as they're known, have become part of everyday society by the time the story begins. But just recently, a treatment has been developed for turning humans into genfolk as well. These people are called "tailblazers," and our protagonist, Mathew, is one of them. Mathew is being transformed into a fox, and he must navigate his relationships as he undergoes his transformation--most importantly, his relationship with his vixen coworker, Louise.

I love the name "tailblazer" for people who want to become furries. It's clever, and the fact that it's essentially meant as a platonic alternative to "tailchaser" is a smart justification for the term. I think the highlight of this story though is how it explores the motivations behind the change. Mathew wants to become a fox for his own therianthropic reasons, but he also has a crush on his vixen coworker, which means he risks being perceived as someone who's doing all of this just to chase a girl--or worse, to chase a fetish.

The story doesn't go as deep into that as I would have liked, and it perhaps wasn't the intended focus of the story, but it's what this gay, therian reader honed in on. I thought it was a neat angle to explore for a transformation story.

Making the Best of It: A Soul Lynx tale by Wildeflit Dreams

Alright, we've had a story set in a traditional fantasy world, now let's read one set in a traditional science fiction universe. This one takes place on Mars, where a colony has just produced a new squirrel-like hybrid species that will be better adapted to the planet and thus help to better run the colony. Yuki is one of these new "shabicks," created from the copied consciousness of a colonist. The story follows em starting eir new life, learning what eir new body can do and how ey can help maintain the colony into the future.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Well, here's the part that makes the story for me: The person whose consciousness was copied into Yuki is a therian, and ey are heartbroken by the harsh reality that they're left behind as a human while a copy of em is put into what would be eir more ideal form. That's some top tier existential agony right there. I don't know if I'd be strong enough to handle that, myself.

The story doesn't entirely focus on this tragedy, but a lot of attention is given to it, with both the human and shabick versions of this person meeting for cuddles just so the human can get some feeling of consolation. It really made my heart ache, and though that's not the main focus of the story and the rest of the story is a bit more optimistic, it's what made the story really work for me.

Point B by Geo Holms

Point B probably fits the theme of this anthology the most out of these short stories. It's a "people around the world are randomly transforming into things" story, taking place in a world where people are randomly permanently turning into squirrels. Nuts. The unnamed formerly-human squirrel in this story has been adapting to his new form for a long while by the time this tale begins. So, as he goes through his morning routine, he helpfully narrates to us his experiences and the insights he's gained from being a squirrel.He approaches his squirrelification very analytically, recognizing patterns in his new life and analyzing this new world with an engineer-like scrutiny that might even suggest some neurodivergence. He even recommends helpful YouTube essays for us to get some background on the phenomenon and how it's affected the social order. He goes into everything from the difficulty of his morning routine, to the dangers of public parks (mostly due to birds of prey), and he even dives into his experiences with squirrel support groups and dating apps. I had a lot of fun with this one, as I really respect a story that can stay so engaging while also being heavy on narration.

It's a short story by comparison to the others in this anthology, but it manages to pack an impressive amount of information in. It unfortunately is also the story with the most grammatical errors and typos, which hindered the otherwise great experience for me a bit, but hopefully that gets fixed up in future editions.

Misfit by Anhedral

I'm a big fan of Anhedral's work, so I was happy to see another entry in his world of Spontaneous Adolescent Lycanthropy appear in this anthology. In the SAP world, a small fraction of the world's population begins turning into werewolves, most of them in their adolescent years. So, it's a "people around the world are randomly transforming into things" story. As you can imagine, this results in a lot of civil unrest, but the whole series has a very optimistic tone regardless, suggesting a brighter future as a result of this phenomenon. There are quite a few additional stories available on his Furaffinity. I highly recommend checking those out.

Anyway, in this entry, an 18-year-old named Gary transforms into a lycanthrope one fateful night. He seems to have hoped this would happen, and he's pretty psyched about it until he realizes that the transformation hasn't gone the way he expected. Gary has become a rare hybrid variant rather than the wolf he's dreamed of. He's part wolf, part bat, which means he has big membranous wings on his arms that he finds rather awkward and ugly. Regardless, since he's changed, he must relocate to a commune of lycanthropes, where he'll be able to adapt to his new form and find a new path forward in life.

This story universe has expanded before with other concepts, so it's fun to see the introduction of hybrids here. At least I think it's the introduction… it's at least the one most character-focused. And that character focus works to its benefit, putting some nice emotional drama behind the introduction of the concept. Also I just love seeing all these werewolves being so kind to each other in these stories. No exception here. There's a lot of wholesome help to be had for Gary when he arrives at the commune, and as usual it provides a nice sense of community I always enjoy in this universe. I expect this story pays off a lot more if you're familiar with the universe, so again, go check out its other entries on FA.

Horse Sense by Lauren Rivers

This one tickled me. In Horse Sense, everyone on earth suddenly transforms into horses, and everyone is freaking out except the main character, Lisa, and her girlfriend, Cataleya. These two immediately start heading out of the city for literally greener pastures while everyone around them is having a collective mental breakdown. I couldn’t help but laugh at this, because I like to imagine that in the case of a mass transformation event, furries and therians would be hyped and ready to go while everyone else is losing their minds too. It just fits.

Anyway, the story follows Lisa and Cataleya as they make their way out of the city to find a nice place to graze. On the way, they pick up new and interesting herd members, such as a deaf colt they call White Blaze, and they also end up dealing with a guy who's try to do horse capitalism. It's a whole thing.

While I think this story is rather idealistic, handwaving a lot of perhaps important considerations because being a horse is awesome, it was still fun and cute. In an anthology filled with characters who at least spend a bit of time brooding about their new lives, it was refreshing to have two characters who are absolutely all about it and ready for the new world from the get go.

Pixie Trix by Sandy Andrews

Another story about a mass transformation event. When everyone in the world transforms into things both large and small, a guy named Steve transforms into a female pixie just a few inches tall. She wakes up in a strange realm, which turns out to just be under her pajamas and bedsheets, and as she makes her way out of those she has to deal with her tiny size in order to get to her phone to call for help--made difficult by being just a few inches tall and not knowing how to use her wings yet.

I think this story is the best at showing what it's like to turn into something tiny. The character's room is written almost as if the change in proportion makes it an alien realm. Everything is a new obstacle requiring new consideration. Whereas a story like Point B focuses more on what society is like when small, Pixie Trix focuses entirely on the world close at hand. I especially liked how hard it was for her to just get over to her side table and use her phone. This story is filled with a lot of great conundrums like that. I'm sure it'll appeal to micro fans as well.

After the Party by Televassi

I did beta reading for this story a long time ago, so it's interesting to see its final form here. This story also follows the "people around the world are randomly transforming into things" format. It follows a wolftaur who is preparing to be interviewed about their unique new life. But the story soon flashbacks to their experience at a party where their friends are trying to show them there's joy to be had in their transformation. The taur spends most of the night on the balcony though, having a melancholy conversation about their transformation troubles with a wolf named Van--a conversation that leads to spicier territory, as conversations so often do in Televassi's stories.

Mainly this story is about the wolftaur accepting that they can't live amongst humanity anymore, or at least not in its cities. And that perhaps they never fit in even when they were human. It delves into the kind of philosophical depth I love to see, and that Televassi is always so good at unpacking. Their dialogue and prose is also exquisitely written, as usual, showing their years of furry writing experience. The story does follow a usual story format of melancholic conversation followed by sexy times, but that format always has a deeper meaning to it that tends to register a lot with me.

The Long Train by Eric Malves

In another story that follows the "people around the world are randomly transforming into things" format, Sam is a woman who has been turned into a peacock with the plumage of a male. This means she has an eight-foot-long train of feathers trailing her at all times. As you can imagine, that causes some problems for her in her everyday life. Not only do people trip on and stomp on the feathers, but she can hardly fit anywhere without a lot of awkward maneuvering. Worse yet, her job has started to get on her case about it, and is clearly trying to skirt the law in order to get rid of her.

The highlight of this one is the awkwardness of that cumbersome tail. The story really emphasizes how hard getting through everyday life is with it, and the many unique problems that long train causes, both big and small. I liked seeing a real ever-present inconvenience of a transformation like that. Plus the complete unwillingness of society to accommodate the inconvenient features of new transformations will be familiar to anyone with a disability in the workplace, so there's some good real-life relevance there. It's a short, straightforward story with a good sense of triumph at the end.

Shifting Scales by Peter Vriens

Awww, yeah, another dragon transformation. Mark has spontaneously transformed into a female dragon during a camping trip. After some initial confusion, she comes to like her transformation and fully embraces it. Still, she's carted off to a facility where they attempt to find a cure for her transformation. The entire time, scientists, psychologists, and her own family attempt to make her become human again and renounce her insistence that she's happier as a dragon.

The story has some obvious parallels to the common queer experience of your own family trying to "fix" you when there's nothing to fix. Mark, or Dyrsenier as she soon calls herself, is happier than she's ever been, but the world treats her transformation as some sort of great tragedy or delusion. It's a scenario that will be very relatable to queer readers, as it was for me.

I also loved that Dyrsenier shows how self-sufficient she is as a dragon, hunting for her food and flying around all day, only returning to the facility at night because there will be an uproar if she doesn't. Unique to many of the stories in this anthology, Dyrsenier completely does away with her humanity, happy to leave the comforts of human society behind and give in to all the instincts and desires of a dragon. It was good to see one of these stories explore transformation from a more mentally and physically feral angle, which I think also made it a good story to end on.

Final Thoughts

This anthology is a lot of fun. Mostly upbeat, with plenty of delightful and sweet moments to be had--not to mention some sexy ones. There's a good variety of light and heavy stories to be had here, along with a variety in species, gender, and sizes. The female and transgender themes were also well represented, meaning Transcendent Fiction continues to do a good job of fulfilling their mission statement. I'm eagerly looking forward to the other anthologies they have planned. I hear there's a therian one on the way, so until then I'll be preparing myself for the yearning and existential crisis it's sure to spark!

Shiloh Skye