http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaFHl1WLJGA&feature=&p=AE2DCCACB90C4525&index=0&playnext=1

I played and recorded these playlist movies myself. Waluigi doing the thing he does best, if you catch my drift. For LOLs. :3

Um, can someone tell me how I embed a YouTube playlist? I tried to embed it using BBcode-style tags I read about in the FurAffinity help, and it didn't work, so it's just that bare URL for now.

 nagagraywolf has been without a tablet for some time now. :( He's such a nice artist - I wish we could all help him out.

It is one of my biggest pet peeves. That is all.

Homophobia means:

* I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

* I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

* I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

* We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

* I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

* I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

* I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

* I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

* We are the couple who had the Realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

* I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

* I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

* I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

* I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

* I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

* I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

* I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

* I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me.

* I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

* I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

* I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.



Re-post this if you believe homophobia is wrong. Please do your part to end it.

17 top reasons why gay marriage is wrong

17. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
16. Gay culture is a new fad created by the liberal media to undermine long-standing traditions. We know this is true because gay sex did not exist in ancient Greece and Rome.
15. There are plenty of straight families looking to adopt, and every unwanted child already has a loving family. This is why foster care does not exist.
14. Conservatives know best how to create strong families. That is why it is not true that Texas and Mississippi have the highest teen birthrates, and Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire have the lowest. This is a myth spread by the liberal media.
13. Marriage is a religious institution, defined by churches. This is why atheists do not marry.
12. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why our society has no single parents.
11. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
10. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
9. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
8. Gay marriage should be decided by the people and their elected representatives, not the courts. The framers checked the courts, which represent mainstream public opinion, with legislatures created to protect the rights of minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Interference by courts in this matter is inappropriate, just as it has been every time the courts have tried to hold back legislatures pushing for civil rights.
7. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because "separate but equal" institutions are a good way to satisfy the demands of uppity minority groups.
5. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
4. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
3. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
2. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
1. Meteors, earthquakes, and volcanoes

(If you didn't realize it by now, this is a PARODY - activate the sarcasm detection center of your brain. :3 Anyway, I didn't write this originally - I found it on an online newspaper message board, but the page has since disappeared.)

I just turned 30 years old! :D

I finally gave Star Fox 64 a good honest play - the first time I've ever done so, 13 years after the game's release.

And...I just can't get into it. Completed Corneria. Completed Meteo. Reached Fichina. By the time the Star Wolf battle came around, I was feeling a telltale feeling - disinterest; boredom.

I tried. I guess I'm still a huge SNES Star Fox fan, but Star Fox 64 does nothing new for me. Note that this doesn't mean I hate Star Fox 64. It seemed worthy in concept and has some redeemable qualities (and seems to bring genuine enjoyment out of a lot of people), but for me personally it falls flat in execution compared to how much I enjoyed and still enjoy the SNES game. When I was young, I felt a stubborn teenaged FanDumb against Star Fox 64 - now that I'm almost 30, it's mellowed out to a mere benign disinterest and indifference. Maybe I'm growing up.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my affection for the SNES game has to do with the music composed by Hajime Hirasawa. I liked almost the entire soundtrack. It danced on my neurons. But then Hirasawa never did another Star Fox game (unless you count the "Space Armada" theme he rearranged for Super Smash Bros. Brawl). As music can be a make-or-break issue for me as a musically-sensitive gamer, the fact that I find Star Fox 64's soundtrack so bland and uninteresting is probably worse than if it had no music at all.

That's it! :D Since Star Fox 64's music can be muted (while its other sounds can be kept in), someone should do a playthrough that mixes SNES Star Fox music over the music-free video, giving it more of a Hirasawa feel. And though Hirasawa didn't compose the music for Star Fox 2, some of that game's music could be included as well (such as the Star Wolf battles), since it was co-composed by one of the F-Zero composers who I do like (if you can judge from the number of F-Zero MIDIs I've made).

Ahh well... I'm not quite sure anyone really shares my interests and sentiment. Star Fox 64 seemed to utterly replace the previous Star Fox fandom, which is part of what led to my increased FanDumb. There are a lot of people who have played Star Fox 64 who have never touched the SNES game, and the SNES game is no longer even considered Star Fox canon. Canon or non-canon, it's still a great game.

Yes...sequenced a whole new version from scratch. Uploaded the new MIDI and a new MP3 recording of it as well.

In 1993, when I was 13, the original Star Fox game camed out for Super NES. It was, and still is, one of my favorite games ever. I like almost everything about it - the setting, the characters, the worlds, the music, the gameplay - all of it. I ate up each new chapter of the Star Fox comic that was published throughout that year (illustrated by Benimaru Itoh). And for the next few years, I kept wanting more Star Fox, and maybe even 2D adaptations for Game Boy or something. I didn't care. I loved Star Fox.

In 1997, Star Fox 64 came out. Because of my interest in the Final Fantasy series, I got a PlayStation instead of a Nintendo 64, so I couldn't play Star Fox until years later on emulator. By the time I did... Star Fox 64 was a huge disappointment for me. They rebooted the still-young series (something I was not happy with at the time), they had different music composers with completely different musical styles (which I was not very fond of - I absolutely loved Hajime Hirasawa's music in the 1993 game), and the voice acting was horrid. I also was not wholly fond with how they redesigned Falco's face - he was my favorite Star Fox character, and they changed the shape of his beak in such a way that it looked fundamentally different, and they went on a general trend of making him more bishonen in appearance as the series went on. I have since come to accept most of the changes that Star Fox 64 brought about in Star Fox canon, and I didn't mind the exclusion of Fara Phoenix so much, except...

In 2002, Star Fox Adventures came out, and the concept was interesting. Once again, I didn't buy it because I had a PlayStation 2 instead of a GameCube. But there was one thing I didn't like about it at all, and that was Krystal - I really can't stand her.

Which made it even more disappointing when she became a regular part of the Star Fox team in Star Fox Assault in 2005. By this time, I was ready to wash my hands of the franchise. Practically everything I liked about the original game was seeming ignored and forgotten.

I bought Star Fox Command in 2006, but I really have never gotten far into it. I could not get used to the stylus controls, and gave up in frustration.

But now, I think I'm willing to forgive the fan abandonment of the past 17 years, and try to re-explore what was done in that time. And I've come to realize that the 1993 canon and the 1997-to-present canon don't have a huge amount of mutually incompatible differences. Even the cancelled Star Fox 2 (before the 1997 reboot) had Star Wolf in it. And Papetoon (Fox's homeworld) was apparently still mentioned as his birthplace in the Japanese manual for Star Fox 64. In the end, I didn't really care much if Fara Phoenix was in the continuum or not (though she wasn't a bad supporting character), but I still was not fond of Krystal or her place in the Star Fox team, and especially not the notion of her having Fox's children in one of the (possibly non-canon) Star Fox Command endings.

So, I think I'm recovering from a lot of the old disappointment, and I have a lot of catching up to do. I wonder how good GameCube emulation is these days...

Both the MIDI and its MP3 recording.

After that last MIDI, I'm feeling light-headed. So I drank some water and had a hearty healthy meal, and gonna take it easy.

I really wish I had some hazelnut milk chocolates about now. Not the cheap convenience store stuff - the kind you import from Germany or Belgium and doesn't taste sour.

Finally, my last trouble ticket on the issue was answered promptly and competantly, and throughout FA you can now listen to .mid file submissions on theh submission pages, instead of being forced to click "Download" to listen to them each time. The workaround is a simple embed, leaving the browser to decide how to handle the file. In most cases in most modern browser setups, that means Quicktime's browser plugin loads the MIDI. Click play and it starts. Yay! ^___^

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13984481

This is just precious. XD

I'm always late to discovering these memes.

In Japanese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUVdA9ABzpg

In English:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLzCfUM7BM8

Alternative video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gq-PdDwY6A

Snagged from  punktiger

Fire
[] If you get in my way I'll POUND YOU!
[x] I confide in my Passion!
[] I can beat anyone with my superior will!
[] I don't like to wait to get what I want.
[] I like warm weather and lots of sun.
[] Caution is not worth sacrificing efficiency, in some cases.
[] I have a short temper.
[] I like Spicy/Savory food. And it's gotta be hot!
[x] It's important to fight for what's right! Very much!
[x] Music should be fast and powerful. It should make me want to dance!
Total: 3

Water:
[x] If you get in my way, I'll just go around you.
[x] Versatility is invaluable.
[] I can overcome anything with my superior wit.
[] I'll get what I want using a method you hadn't considered.
[x] I like when it rains.
[x] I'll help you if you need it, but don't get greedy.
[] I'm willing to bend my morals for the sake of progress.
[x] I like food that soothes my body. Like how you can feel water run all the way into your belly.
[x] A solution can be found with diplomacy.
[x] Music should be soft and soothing, but also focused if that makes sense.
Total: 6

Earth:
[] If you get in my way, I'll get in your way!
[x] I center myself on Focus!
[] I can't be overcome by anything. I'll stay right here until you give up!
[x] I can wait for what I want.
[x] I like cool mornings and lazy evenings.
[] I bet I could beat you in a staring contest. Don't lose focus!
[x] I won't sacrifice my morals for anything. I have them for a reason.
[] I like earthy/savory foods. Like heavy breads and red meat.
[x] I respect devotion and order.
[x] Music should be strong and steady. Like the beat of your heart.
Total: 6

Air:
[] You can't get in my way. Haha!
[] I believe in total freedom!
[] I already have everything I could want.
[] It's impossible to stop me, because I'm not limited by the same things as you.
[x] I like a refreshing breeze on a warm day. With lots of white clouds.
[x] I live in the moment and act on my impulsive desires.
[] What's the point in getting angry? Just have fun!
[x] I like light and sweet foods, like sweet breads and water-based broths.
[] I'll do anything to be free and happy.
[x] Music should dance in my ears and remind me of what it's like to cut loose.
Total: 4

Nature:
[x] Oh! Am I in your way? Let me move.
[x] I believe life should be cherished above all other things.
[x] I will submit for now, but I will never give up.
[] If I play my cards right, everything I want will be provided for me.
[] I like windy days that make the trees sway and whisper.
[x] I will not hesitate to help you if I am able.
[x] Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I will fight for that right only.
[] I love fresh fruit and vegetables.
[x] I would compromise before I would argue.
[x] Music should be honest and gentle like leaves blowing in the autumn wind. Or the creaking of a great tree.
Total: 7

Ice:
[] If you get in my way once, I'll find another way. If you do it again, I'll kill you.
[x] My strength is drawn from Clarity and Understanding.
[] Come winter, you'll freeze to death, and I won't have to bother with you.
[] I'll endure much suffering to get what I want.
[] I love cold, cloudless days.
[] Your problems aren't my problems. Bother someone else.
[] I'm not easily impressed.
[x] I like cold and sweet foods. Like cold soups and shaved ice.
[] Justice is indefinite you fool.
[x] Music should have clear, bold sounds. Like bells.
Total: 3

Lightning:
[] Try getting in my way! I'll blast right past you!
[] Confidence is key! I just lose it and forget to check under my doormat, sometimes.
[] I don't stop until I win!
[x] I don't like waiting for what I want. If it takes to long, I'll find something else.
[] I'd prefer not getting rained on, but I love thunder and lightning.
[] I'll do anything for my friends.
[] I'm easily excited
[] I love sour!
[] I'll fight tooth and nail for my pride!
[x] Music should be fast and upbeat. Techno and Electrodance baby!
Total: 2

Darkness:
[] Don't ever cross my path.
[] I draw my strength only from myself.
[] I'm not afraid to be underhanded.
[] All I want is for people to leave me alone.
[x] I like the night. And the shade during the day. I prefer to avoid the sun.
[] People like Batman's The Joker, and Naruto's Orochimaru are my idols.
[] If there is no profit in it, I don't do it.
[] I like salty and bland foods. Potatoes are a must.
[] I would be an executioner.
[] Music should be low and slow. I should feel the darkness of the composer's heart in the beat.
Total: 1

Light:
[] No obstacle shall obscure my righteous path.
[] Justice and Loyalty are of the utmost importance.
[x] Valor will overcome all forms of treachery.
[x] I want to see peace throughout the world.
[] I love warm sunny days where the wind blows across the golden fields.
[x] I find the world to be dismal and seek to correct it.
[x] People have called me stuck up.
[x] I appreciate food that is prepared with hard work and love.
[] Those who are wrong must be corrected!
[x] Music should be beautiful and imposing. Drum, Trumpet, Piano, Harp, Flute, etc... are lovely.
Total: 6

Space:
[] I know all the alternate paths. No one can get in my way for long.
[] I pride myself on my Awareness.
[x] I just want to enjoy the scenery.
[] My tastes change often, so getting things I want is sometimes a chore.
[] I like wide open spaces. Like sparsely treed fields and big houses.
[] I would prefer to travel than live in one place.
[x] Don't crowd me!
[] I like things you can eat a lot of without getting full.
[] I'll fight for the best seat in the house.
[] Music should be grand and boisterous. It should echo!
Total: 2

Time:
[x] If you get in my way, I'll wait for you to leave and come back.
[x] Among all things, Patience is the most valuable.
[] I can outlast anyone at anything.
[x] Everything is finite. I'll take what I get and leave what I don't.
[x] As long as it's convenient to me, I like any weather, for the most part, anyway.
[x] People should go out of their ways to spend time enjoying things.
[x] I can easily become lost in thought.
[] I like hardy, filling foods.
[] I don't bother fighting over things. People will eventually wear themselves out.
[x] Music should be timeless. Enjoyable by all people through the ages.
Total: 7

Fire=3
Water=6
Earth=6
Air=4
Nature=7
Ice=3
Lightning=2
Darkness=1
Light=7
Space=2
Time=7

his journal entry

He's in a hotel in Bangkok and is running low on funds at the moment. He's accepting paid art commissions. Help him out?

Well, today, May 29, is my 29th birthday. You only turn 29 once and only once does your age coincide with the date of your birthday. But no cake today—I'm still sick (and now we think it's not a cold but a flu, of which today is at least day 7) with a sore throat, congestion, painful coughing and weakness, so we postponed ordering the cake for at least a few days. We'll likely be having it in early June. I wasn't born in June. ;.; X3

[ ] public speaking
[ ] staying single forever
[ ] Rejection (COMMENT: I used to be badly afraid of this. Not being rejected by strangers, but by someone I'm already close to. But I've grown up in a lot of ways, and I know people change naturally over time, and I know that life can go on peacefully and happily.)
[ ] being a parent
[ ] giving birth
[ ] being myself in front of others
[ ] open spaces
[ ] closed spaces
[x] heights (COMMENT: I get vertigo even playing Super Mario 64 DS.)
[ ] dogs
[ ] fish
[x] spiders
[ ] flowers or other plants
[ ] that Scary guy... D:
[ ] being touched
[x] fire (COMMENT: Even a candle flame makes me nervous. I'm afraid of how quickly fire can spread if it meets something flammable.)
[x] deep water (COMMENT: Ironic considering I grew up in the Marshall Islands. But the atoll lagoons had shallow beaches.)
[ ] snakes
[ ] silk
[ ] the ocean
[ ] failure
[ ] success
[ ] thunder/lightning
[ ] frogs/toads
[ ] my boyfriends/girlfriends dad
[ ] my boyfriends/girlfriends mom
[ ] rats
[ ] jumping from high places (COMMENT: I'm afraid of a painful injurious thud, but not of jumping in high places if there's something to catch me safely.)
[ ] snow
[ ] rain
[ ] wind
[ ] crossing hanging bridges
[ ] death
[ ] heaven
[ ] being robbed
[ ] falling (COMMENT)
[ ] clowns
[x] dolls (COMMENT: but not stuffed animals)
[ ] large crowds of people
[ ] men
[ ] women
[ ] having great responsibilities
[ ] doctors, including dentists
[ ] tornadoes
[ ] hurricanes
[ ] incurable diseases
[ ] sharks
[ ] Friday the 13th
[ ] ghosts
[x] poverty (COMMENT: I'm already rather poor. I'm afraid of being *really* poor.)
[ ] Halloween
[ ] school
[ ] trains
[ ] odd numbers
[ ] even numbers
[ ] being alone
[ ] becoming blind
[ ] becoming deaf
[ ] growing up
[ ] creepy noises in the night
[ ] bee stings
[ ] not accomplishing my dreams/goals
[ ] needles (COMMENT: The notion of getting inadvertently cut by a sharp object makes me very nervous, but a syringe - which has a specific purpose - does not.)
[ ] blood
[ ] dinosaurs
[ ] the welcome mat
[ ] high speed
[x] throwing up (COMMENT: I haven't thrown up in nearly a decade. But I've been uncomfortably nauseous, and that's when I'm afraid of throwing up even though I know I won't.)
[ ] falling in love
[ ] super secret

Final Total: 7

(COMMENT: I have fears that aren't on this list, but they're less common and more OCD-based. Fears such as touching the swinging lid of a public trash can, for fear of gross-feeling residues getting on my fingers. Yes, I know it's not rational. No, that doesn't make a difference. X3 OCD tends to be a bitch that way.)

If you wish to post this in your journal, it's been requested that you title it I'm afraid of __ out of 75 common fears.

If you get more than 30, I strongly recommend some counseling.
If you get more than 20, you’re paranoid.
If you get 10-20, you are normal.

Now that FurAffinity actually seems to support search and browsing by submission keywords, I have taken the time to add keywords to all my submissions to the best of my ability. Try some keywords. I hope FA's keyword database backend is working at the moment. Also, I think it's possible that new keywords may not show up immediately in searches, so my own newly-keyworded submissions may not be showing up yet.

EDIT: They're showing up now. I guess it does take some time for the database to catch up. :3

dermot
hamauzu
hirasawa
font
kaida
kikuta
mitsuda
naruke
uematsu

In line with my previous journal entry, I've been considering a variety of different personal linguistics projects to upload to my FA account, as PDFs in scraps. There was some interest, but if you hear what my projects actually are, I'm not sure they'll still be interesting. X3 This is a nonexhaustive list, but all are very cerebral in nature:

* English spelling reform
* alternative romanization of Korean
* Finnish written in modified Japanese kana
* English written in Hebrew letters of my own orthography

I haven't fished out any of my old bitmap fonts yet. I'd rather do those as a decent collage if anything. Maybe. I dunno.

You may have noticed that, now and then, I dabble in linguistics. How many of you would be interested in my random linguistics posts, even if at times they had nothing to do with furry or even with anyone in particular?

Sometimes I like to design alternative writing/spelling systems for real languages, or things like that. Do you feel it would enrich you see it from time to time, or would it just clutter your already-clogged journals watchlist?

Also, sometimes I have designed bitmap fonts (pixel art) of various styles of script or of non-English alphabets. Now, I know this is not deviantART, such submissions are not very furry, and I would surely post such things to scraps if I were to post them. But would such things be interesting to any of you, or do you think they would just be new submissions clutter?

I ask such questions because I want to have an affinity with my watchers and with other people on the site. Afterall, you are furs, and I want to have an affinity with you, thus this is FurAffinity. :3

(EDIT: Fixed phonotactics. I made the mistake of overlooking that words can only begin or end with one consonant, and only up to two consonants can occur between vowels. So I changed a lot of the names to reflect this. Fortunately, ch/tx, cu/uc, hu/uh, tl and tz each count as one consonant.)

It started with I was talking to my friend  panchi-tiger.

Now he loves chilli peppers. I mean really loves them. The hotter (the more capsaicin in them) the better. He drinks super-hot chilli sauce like a drink. He's adventurous to try the newest hottest chilli peppers he's heard about. He's probably gradually desensitizing his body's ability to feel capsaicin's hotness. :P

But one thing Panch has tried very little of...is authentic Mexican cuisine. Mexico, afterall, is the natural indigenous home of the chilli pepper, and makes some of the most diverse culinary uses of it. And not just in salsa, but in things like...chili con carne, and also mole poblano, a quintessential Mexican dinner sauce made with chilli peppers, unsweetened chocolate and spices, and served over turkey as if it were gravy. Panch hasn't tried many of these things. He then insisted that food should be sweet or spicy but not both, and I told him he was limiting himself too much and should diversify his culinary palate. :3

To tease him, and using my linguistics geekery, I found myself rendering his name into Classical Nāhuatl, the great classical written literary language of the Aztecs and of early Christian Mexico.

Panch = Panchitl

Basically, it works like this. First, you make sure that you have a root (like "Panch"), and make sure it uses no consonants or vowels that are not native to Classical Nāhuatl phonotactics, and convert the ones that aren't to ones that are:

a = /a/
ā = /aː/
c = /k/ (before a/o), /s/ (before e/i)
ch/tx = /tɕ/ (similar to English)
cu/uc = /kʷ/ (similar to English qu)
e = /e/
ē = /eː/
h = /ʔ/ (glottal stop)
hu/uh = /w/
i = /i/
ī = /iː/
l = /l/
ll = /ll/ (not like in Spanish)
m = /m/
n = /n/
o = /o/
ō = /oː/
p = /p/
qu = /k/ (only used before e/i)
t = /t/
tl = /tɬ/ (like t + Welsh ll sound—very rare in linguistics)
tz = /ts/
x = /ɕ/ (similar to English sh)
y = /j/ (like in English)
z = /s/ (typically only used before a/o)

Then, you add the grammatical noun suffix. If the root ends with a vowel, add -tl. If it ends with a consonant, add -tli instead. But if the root ends with -l, it's not -ltli, but -lli. This is true for many of the originally Nāhuatl nouns of familiar words:

āhuacatl (avocado)
cacahuatl (cacao/cocoa)
chīlli (chilli pepper)
chocolātl (chocolate)
coyōtl (coyote)
Mēxihcatl (Mexico)
peyōtl (peyote)
tlālōcēlōtl (ocelot)
(xi)tomātl (tomato)

In my conversation with Panch, I started coming up with names for other people we knew too. And they started to unfold:

Sippo Abasiri = Apacilicippotl
AlphaChimaera = Alpaquimēlatl
Arthur = Altolli
Aster-Marion = Aztelmaliontli
Azaghal = Azacālli
Bauske = Pōzquetl
Brown Kuma = Palaoncomatl
Buzz = Poztli
Captain Ger Bear = Captenchelbelli
Seno Daichi = Taychicenotl
Dan (the Bear) = Tantli
Dermot = Tialmattli
Greening = Quilīnintli
Grimal = Quilimālli
Himachi = Imachitl
Ryū Inugami = Inocamiliōtl
J. K. Roo = Chēquēlōtl
Kalenidus = Calenitotl
Kensuke = Quenzoquetl
Nagao Kō = Cōnacaotl
Lupus Signatus = Lopozcicnātotl
Lykanthrope = Līcantlōpotl
Manya = Maniatl
Mokojumbie = Mocochompitl
Naga Gray Wolf = Nacaclēhuolpotl
Negger = Nequelli
Ninja Vanish = Ninchahuanixtli
Noir Theater = Noalteatlotl
oCeLoT = ōCēLōTL (already Nāhuatl)
Poop = Pōptli
Rask = Lazquitl
RedRodent = Letlōtentli
Ryuu Majin = Liōmachintli
Silver Fenrir = Cilhuelpenlitl
Strype = Citlaiptli
Terra = Tellatl
The Wielder = Huīltelli
WolfKnightX = Huolponayteccitl
Wolfstar = Huolpoztalli
Eiji Yanagami = Yanacamiēchitl

(Copied from my November 15 2008 LiveJournal post, because I feel strongly about it once again.)

In recent days, I've been hearing about a great deal of anger at Mormons for pushing so hard with so much money and influence to pass Proposition 8 in California. "Mormons stole our rights." "Boycott Utah." "Boycott Marriott." "Mormons are our oppressors." "The Church should lose its status as a tax-exempt religion." And there's been nationwide protests outside churches and temples, from Los Angeles to New York City.

...and I can't help but think sometimes, that maybe it's somewhat deserved. I'm a liberal Mormon. I've always been a liberal Mormon. My family is predominantly liberal. But in wider Mormon culture, for years now, there's been a creeping advancing...cultural sickness. One where people demand absolute loyalty and obedience from one another, and where they demand the most far-right possible social and political position, and where difference of opinion and freedom of thought themselves are now treated with scorn, contempt, stonewalling, and in some rare occasions even violence.

In seminary, I'd been taught that...everyone (even someone in the Church) is entitled to their independent political belief, and to their own conscience and their own link to the Spirit. That the Church does not put itself at stake in politics because it would be a giant untenable conflict of interest. That I as an individual can search, and ponder, and pray for myself about questions ethical in life, and have my questions answered personally from a greater source. But now, it feels like this sickness has become so predominant that the Church leadership itself has begun to break these rules.

Don't get me wrong. I still believe. I still believe in...so many of the same things. I am still a Mormon. But for me, being a Mormon was never this. It wasn't the bashing and disenfranchisement of social and political liberals and their allies. It wasn't the intimidation of people who think differently than the most vile prejudices of people. That is not what I believe in—it is not my faith and not my testimony.

Fortunately, I have found that I'm not alone.
Mormons for Marriage (Equality)
Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons

I fundamentally believe that God loves all his gay and lesbian children, and understands who they are, and the love and purity in their hearts. I fundamentally believe is not at all wrong to be gay, any more than it is wrong to be straight, or a person of color, or a Buddhist, or a Pagan, or a liberal. None of that makes you an evil, bad or wicked person, and that has always been my mature understanding. I do not believe it is wrong or corrupting for same-sex couples to have all the same secular legal protections as opposite-sex couples who register a full civil marriage. Same-sex couples are perfectly fit in every way and should have every right to be seen together in public, and to raise children, and to speak their minds and innermost hearts without fear or realistic threat of retribution.

As for the Church, I have one understanding of a church—a temporal organization of mortals in common agreement in worship. Religious history has shown that churches—even those based on the absolute truest and purest of principles—have repeatedly had to reinvent themselves when mortal members and mortal administration became more stiffnecked among themselves, and more kneejerk in action, and less loving and less benevolent. Sometimes these churches imploded quite painfully, but still with hope that something better and nobler and wiser could rise out of the ashes. If the Church I grew up in becomes more and more socially and politically rigid, it will end up not only alienating a great many good and ethical people, but will become brittle, and crack and break under its own mortal temporal ethical weaknesses. Nothing made by mortal men is perfect or lasts forever, but needs the Lord's blessing and guidance to continue to thrive. And it is possible, through ones own great pride and arrogance, to break that blessing, and become brittle and break.

One thing that I feel has gradually broken is my greater sense of active communion with the Church. There still remains a great deal of abstract bedrock communion, in terms of affirmation of common truths. But active communion broke when it became a genuine danger to my welfare and quality of life to adhere to the dictates of my own conscience. Children of God should not treat one another the way so many members of the Church have been treating other children of God in recent years. It's...very wrong. It breaks my heart. We have only those gifts God has given us, and among the most precious of those is individual freedom of choice and will. That's been cruelly trampled, and it's ironic, because the Lord wanted us to have free will—it was the Adversary who originally wanted to deny free will and force everyone to be equally obedient.

(Since I posted this, I found myself a couple of times slurred by other gay people who were angry at all Mormons for allowing this to happen. The fact that I was diametrically opposed to Prop 8 didn't matter. But ironically, opposing an entire category of people because of their background is exactly what allowed bile like Prop 8 to pass. Gay people shouldn't turn to hate—they should make alliances with people who support them, even if those originated from the ranks of those they might consider their natural enemies.)

When I was a teenager, I went to high school in Utah Valley, one of the most socially conservative places in all of North America. Now, I am not from Utah Valley, but was born and raised in both locales and in a family that was significantly more socially liberal.

Even back then, I was into anthropomorphic and therianthropic art. Before I had a laptop, I had a bound notebook that I carried with me everywhere. And sometimes, if I found some pictures I really liked, I'd print it out and keep a copy with me in my notebook to look at occasionally. Sounds reasonable?

It was soon after I'd collected printouts of some of pictures of Nick Boos's fox character, Smudge. I had this picture and this picture. In those years, Nick Boos was my absolute favorite artist, and so naturally I treasured his pictures.

Anyway, I was in a creating writing class, and I took one of the pictures out and was looking at it. I didn't really think much of it. I'd even shown my family, and they thought well of the pictures. But what I didn't expect was that some of my classmates reacted with discomfort when they saw me looking at these pictures. I tried to assure them there was nothing wrong with the pictures, and brought out the other picture too. At least one, maybe two of the other students told me that the pictures looked pornographic. Pornographic? Because the pictures were lewd and indecent to them.

The character at the beach in the picture wasn't wearing a shirt, and he had muscles. Now this was a scene I'd seen many times on the island, where I grew up when I was even younger. But in high school in Utah Valley, it was apparently something that 16-, 17-, 18-year-old students did not care to see, as it offended their senses and their morality.

I think that was one of the most important defining moments that completely alienated me from the area culture at that time. I had had many pictures just like this pinned up on my bedroom wall in plain sight of everyone, and suddenly they were not welcome in my notebook at my high school. Since other students my age thought I was looking at pornography in class, I realized that different people in different places would have vastly different notions of what pornography is.

And that culture and I have only continued to drift apart from any common ground we might have had before. If some people simply define pornography as something you can't wear on a T-shirt, then you have to consider where you live and how people think where you live. And since I clearly could not think like them, I had to think even more for myself.

When it comes to something like this, you will always find people who will disagree with your definition of what pornography is or is not, or even indeed the wider question of what is benign and what is immoral. And to be honest, that's okay - people don't have to agree about everything. But they still have to interact and work together. A little kindness and patience can go a long way, if you work with it and let it.

This is philosophical post by a liberal thinker. You have been warned. :3

Recently, I had a very long argument with someone on the definition of pornography. I won't go into too many details, but it got me thinking...

What defines pornography? Many people are taught in conservative homes, or in conservative schools, or in conservative places of worship, that pornography is anything that is prescribed as undecent by arbitrary standards of decency. Often in today's world, this means anything that is skimpy or has eroticism. As people grow up, they discover that at least some of this isn't so bad. And I've even heard friends make distinctions of "good porn" vs. "bad porn". But something about this has always set badly with me. You see, I've always believed there is no "good porn", but also that a lot of what many people might call "porn"...isn't porn. And I'll explain.

Me, I actually had a fairly liberal upbringing, and came to understand that the definition of pornography is more nuanced. So, out of curiosity, I checked the definition of 'pornography' at dictionary.com, and the definition at the top matched squarely with the definition I'd understood: "obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit." Then I looked up 'obscene'. The entry at the top had three different definitions, and I realized that even this is a word whose meaning has multiple interpretations. The definition that fit my life's understanding best was #3: "abominable; disgusting; repulsive."

So, as I've understood it, pornography is necessarily obscene (repulsive), and usually of little or no artistic value. However, as a long-time art collector, I've come to believe that art is often what you make of it.

Me, I like art because something about it moves me. And not my pants - something deeper, something more thoughtful, something more nuanced. And even though many artworks may have been conceived with a specific intent, it is still up to the viewer to feel impressions of his own - that is part of what makes art so special.

There are lots of things I find absolutely repulsive. But there are also things I find truly beautiful, touching, inspiring. I am long past my childhood years when "all sex is bad" - we're human beings, get over it. But perhaps there were things I just didn't have the faculties to appreciate when I was a child, that I can appreciate better now that I am fully grown.

One of those things is "mature content". Now, there's the key word, "mature". It doesn't merely mean being of mature enough years to look at it. Lots of people witness mature content and are anything but mature in their reaction to it. Part of maturity is about having the sense of mind to think and react in deeper, more thoughtful, and more subtle ways than a child can. When you're a child, everything can hurt you, everything is off limits, everything is something you are protected against. When you're an adult, you (hopefully) have learned how to better make those decisions for yourself.

Now, consider the act of two mates making emotional love with one another. Is it a mature or adult situation? Hell, yes. But is it obscene? ...it's very touching, and...my gut just tells me no. Is it of artistic value? ...well, when lovers express their love and want to do it in the medium of art, it is difficult to imagine how they had no artistic intent. Since the presence of mind to consider it art was there, then the answer is emphatically yes. But that's not all there is to deciding whether or not something is artistic. An artwork can even be conceived with rather shallow motives, but there can be things about it that can still have a profound artistic effect on the viewer, who interprets art for himself.

And here is the (not so) revolutionary idea... Though many artworks may be mature or adult in nature, many things routinely called "porn"...are not porn at all. In the impartial sense, they can be porn if they were intended to forcefully throttle the senses and especially if they don't seem very artistic at all. But sweethearts making love...is not disgusting. So an artwork can erotic, and even have intimate and even very sexual situations in it. But it still might not be porn.

You see, the conservative ultra-broad prescribed definitions can be damaging to us as we grow up - they encourage knee-jerk generalizations and discourage deeper, nuanced free thinking. It isn't merely important to understand something to be a certain way because someone tells you it is. It is important to think, and reflect, and try to understand why something is the way it is, or whether it is at all.

Dictionaries demonstrate that words can have more than one meaning, and this is often not only because of context, but of accepted cultural meaning. And even in a socially liberal context, it is still possible for "pornography" to be considered a bad thing if it is understood to be something so inflamatory to the senses as to have no redeeming value. But cultures are different. And cultures also change. A lot of what was considered obscene 30 years ago...is not considered so today. And the reverse is also true - some things seem more obscene with time than they did previously.

And just as definitions can be flexible, the judgment of the practical uses of the word are also flexible. "Is that porn?" One person might say yes. Another person might say no. And in the contexts of their upbringing and understanding of the word and of how to apply the word, they could both be correct.

And this is what I think: There is no good porn. But not everything is porn. If an artwork is erotic (even if it has explicit sexual situations), but is inspiring and uplifting to the senses, then it is 'erotica', defined as "literature or art dealing with sexual love." And love can be a lot of things - anywhere from two mates, to even just good friends. I value a great deal of erotic art - it can be very beautiful and it can just as equally be unobscene in proper context. But I feel it is an insulting mischaracterization to call it 'porn', defining that which enflames ones senses. You see, I don't like porn, as it is something I consider that which is offensive (instead of beautiful) to my senses. It just strikes me as crude and uninspiring and unredeeming. Fortunately, not every intimate sexual act has to be porn.

When people call all erotic art "porn" and even distinguish "good porn" from "bad porn", they are diminishing the spirit of the word, and become desensitized to the reality that all true porn is bad. You will never hear me calling good erotic art "porn". And I am most offended when I feel genuinely pressured to abandon my nuanced deep-thinking distinctions of "erotica" and "porn" for the unthinking practice of calling all of it "porn". That's how a social conservative thinks, as they think it's all bad. But if something truly inspires you, then it's not all that bad, right? If what we mean is the "good porn", then no matter how erotic, we should more clearly be calling it "erotica".

There's an expression I've once heard. "No, porn is what you like. Erotica is what I like."

Here are some very good erotica artists here on FA, though there are certainly more than these. Whether what some of what they draw actually is porn is not my interest. But they draw plenty of very good art, much of which you can find in my FA favorites list.