While taking a quick look at the browse page and I see a cute image that ticks a few boxes for me and I check out the user page.

 tiachan only signed up this year, so the gallery is a little sparse but they recently posted several in the past week. Go check them out and give them some love, yeah?

I've been debating about wether or not I should post this, given how it seems to have jinxed me in the past. But my life situation seems to be in a stable place for the first time in six years, and I don't want to let the anxiety that that has left me with control my life.

So, yeah. I'm back. And I hope that I can stick around this time.

I finally have enough time to spare to think about writing again. I want to pick up School Spirit but I lost most of my notes and even after reading the two small pieces that I did, I can't recall where I was going with it. Well, that's not entirely true. I can remember some of the beats that I was planning on hitting but that's about all that I can remember.

So with School Spirit still in hiatus, I started casting my mind around for something else, a little one-shot just to get the ol' creative juices flowing again and I'm drawing up a blank. This is the frustrating bit. I want to write, to create and I can feel that I have that spark in me again, but right now I can seem to give it shape.

I'm seriously not happy with this particular cultural import. Having to spend a weekend watching over fuckwits who have latched onto yet another brainless excuse to get wasted and puke up all over my pants while I pour them in to a taxi...

On a lighter note, I came back to a message from a friend of mine who said that one kid had actually tried trick or treating. He'd opened the door, wondering who in all the hells was ringing his bell on a monday night, only to find some strange child with shitty facepaint saying "trick or treat!" His reply was "We're not in America, dude." and then closed the door. He has resolved that next year his reply will be "Do you see a pumpkin on my porch?"

People randomly sending you a note asking you if you would like to commission them?

And once again, Asian pop-groups have me drooling over their outfits almost as much as over the ones wearing them.

So I'm working on more background information for my 'sona in the hopes of being inspired enough to actually WRITE something. To that end is the previous journal post and now this. A brief description of some of the technomagical doodads that shi has either lying around or regularly uses. Ideas are welcome.

Not a familiar but...
A tech-spirit that takes the form a semi-transparent collie. A 5cm tall one at that, complete with scan-lines and flicker. His name is Tanuki and he lives in an aging tamagotchi that Ellys altered for that purpose.

Always listening
Inside hir earrings is a pattern of mystical circuitry that let's hir "hear" magic. Shi prefers it to optical effects as shi finds it less distracting.

Some basic protection
Hir wristband and collar are each a simple warding system that tries to siphon power out of hostile magical effects and the discharges can arc between the studs.

The infamous hammock
The hammock is not without purpose, either, and may be hir most complicated system to date. The hammock's "strings" generate a field that promotes good health whilst keeping hir infertile. While Ellys has a naturally low fertility, shi has no intention of becoming a parent and doesn't what to risk that the health boost would make it possible for hir to conceive. The frame that the hammock hangs from includes numerous crystal and spark-gap transmitters that interfere with aportation and scrying effects and was based on the techniques used in dream-catchers.

The rig
Hir personal gaming rig (seen here) has been enchanted to extrapolate game-data and allow hir to experience VR gaming in games never designed for it.

It's been some time since the last one so let's open up the floor again.

Just a reminder of who we're talking about.

Ellys Perani (my 'sona) - Technomagus who works as an IT Administrator. The Eldest (in her late 30's)
Gabreila Perani - A graphics designer. (Early 30's)
Christabelle Smythe nee Perani - Homemaker (Late 20's)
Natassha Perani - University Student (Mid 20's)

So, I've been off work all weekend with no internet time to show for it because I've been sick. So I get to see my doctor today only to get the diagnosis of severe bacterial Gastroenteritis. Just letting people know that I'm not dead, just mostly dead.

It was actually on Thursday, but I am level 38 now. It looks like I've take another level in overworked despatcher, though.

Does anyone know what information the recipient sees when you send someone money through this service?

I ask because I had a very bad (terrifying, actually) experience a few years back with paypal and since then I have avoided online, personal transactions. It's the big reason that I've never commissioned anyone, actually. I've just become fiercely protective of the separation between my online and RL identities.

I've recently played through Shadowrun: Hong Kong again and a quote from Stephen R. Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is mentioned at several points.
*spoiler (Highlight to see)*
In fact, it can even become a major point in reconciling with your character's father.
*end spoiler*

The quoted piece is, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
The idea is simple. When people listen, they don't actually hear what the person is saying because they're already comparing it to their own viewpoint and their attention is focused on formulating a rebuttal of anything that contradicts or challenges that viewpoint. I could go on about how all communication is the application of force, the philosophy of soft and hard forces and how this phenomenon is a reflection of our natural inclination towards hard styles over soft, but I won't.

What I want to talk about is a problem that crops up from time to time, where I see an artist's post receive criticism after criticism and not of the constructive type. These comments come from people who don't, and I'll paraphrase here, "look with the intent to understand; they look with the intent to critique." It doesn't matter if it's visual, auditory or read. Every artwork is created with an intent and is attempting to communicate in some fashion. We need to remember that and seek to understand that intent and then respond. I have a huge collection in my favorites but rarely comment. Why? Because I had nothing constructive to offer beyond a "Great work, I really like it," which is what I'm already communicating by clicking that favorite link. But when I do comment, it's often because the artist has tried something different and I can see what they were trying to achieve. I point out what parts of it I felt worked for me, and it has to be that "for me" part because a large part of art is subjective.

Beyond this, I've also proof-read a few pieces by rhazzazor because I know how disheartening it can be for a writer to see a wall of criticisms about how they should learn to spell. English is not Rhazzazor's first language and thus, some terms can get misused or spellings of phonetically similar words can get used that completely alter the meaning of a sentence. And where possible, I have pointed out what they said and what my correction said, just to be sure that the final piece that gets posted is what Rhazzazor intended to communicate. Constructive criticism is criticism that honours and respects the intent of the creator. And yes, that includes intentions that you do not like. Me, I don't like testicles on my herms. But you will not see a single post by me under a piece criticizing the artist for drawing or describing testicles on their herms. I'm just not likely to like it. Personally, I'm not going to like anything involving non-consensual sex or harm, either, but I'm open-minded enough to see that fantasies involving it are not the same as reality involving it. Just remember that generally people who have suffered such in real life don't like to be reminded of it and there should be warnings and tags to help them blacklist/filter that content as much as possible.

I am a lesbian.
I am also religious.
I am not Christian.
I am a Taoist.

In our shared grief and rage, please do not paint all religions, nor all followers of a particular religion with the same brush.

Show me the path to comfort, the way to acceptance,
loss has visited my life, and I have been devastated,
my hopes and beliefs have been challenged
sadness waits for me at every turn.

Let me see beyond the pain, beyond loss,
moving beyond the sadness that now engulfs me,
I am beginning to heal and accept that the loss is real.

Let my spirit be filled with hope and understanding,
let me to know that all lives contain sorrow,
accepting that my life is blessed, even in loss.

Comfort comes to me now, as I begin to accept,
time is beginning to heal me, slowly and gently,
a soft smile is preparing to cross my lips.
Bless me now, as I accept, grieve, and heal.

Every now and then, there's a movie that pops up and everyone talks about it. It gets a lot of attention, references are made and it just enters the popular consciousness seemingly overnight. And, as in my case, it can take a while before you get a chance to see it for yourself and, when you do, you just see what all the fuss was about.

For me, that movie was Napoleon Dynamite. I just didn't get it. I finished the movie asking myself "What the hell was that? I just sat down and wasted 90 minutes of my life."

Has anyone else had a movie like that in their experience? And if so, what movie was it?

Quick show of hands.
Amy Yasbeck, Isla Fisher or Allison Smith?

Your reasons can be your own.

It is sometimes claimed that bullet proof vests were invented by a woman, usually in this smug little trivia question.

Q: What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all have in common?
A: All were invented by women.

The problem? The first commercially available bullet proof vest was invented by one Casimir Zelgen in 1901. So where did this trivia come from? That would be Stephanie Kwolek, who invented Kevlar in 1964 while working for DuPont. This invention basically created the field of polymer chemistry that we know today giving us substances like polythylene, polystyrene, (almost anything starting with "poly," really), Teflon, Neoprene, Nomex, etc...

And then there's Anna Connelly who patented 1887 the idea of a series of exterior metal stairs with railings and platforms at every floor. Yes, the modern fire escape. But the first fire escape was, in fact, invented by an Englishman by the name of Daniel Maseres in 1794. So, yes, Anna Connelly invented the "modern" version of the fire escape, but not the fire escape itself.

Fortunately, Mary Anderson's invention of the first effective windshield wiper is a clear-cut case. Of hiring someone else to design it and file for the patent. Said designer (male or female) remains unnamed to this day.

Okay, what about the laser printer? Huh? Gary Starkweather? What kind of parent names a girl, "Gary?" Oh right. No parent does. He invented it while working for Xerox in 1969. Nobody knows where the idea that a woman invented came from.

So where is this all leading? Well, it's because little false factoids like this are what I typically hear from the louder breed of feminist (male and female alike) and it grinds my gears, because they miss all the really great women out there. Stephanie Kwolek is awesome because she pioneered a field of science and engineering that has shaped our modern world. Anna Connelly is awesome because she was the first woman to be able to legally file a patent claim with the U.S. patent office. But what about Susan B. Anthony, a vocal advocate for civil rights (not just for women, but for all people) in an age that was telling women to sit down and shut up and were (Gross simplification) shooting each other over the ownership of other human beings. Or Marie Curie. Seriously, look her up. Or any other number of awesome historical women.

But worse, the worst ones are the ones who condescendingly claim that you are the one who is wrong when you try to correct them. That it's either "another case of men appropriating the achievement of women" or some other fucking drivel. Can we please focus on REAL issues, like a woman's pay still being 70 percent that of a man's in the exact same job, on average? Or a woman being EXPECTED to dress in a less "aggressive" manner than her male co-workers?

To all these feminists, stop claiming to fucking speak for me. I'd sooner let the fucking Westboro Baptist cult Church fucking speak for me.

It's been a month since I was able to get any FA in? Sheesh. So, I've put my foot down at work and told them that I need to actually have some reliable time off, so they at least made someone else the on-call despatcher for the time being. Maybe I can actually try catching up with people, now? Here's hoping.

So, in case any of you haven't heard of Furry Andy yet, this fellow has been posting a lot of images on instagram after removing any trace of the artist's watermark or signature.

If you are an artist, I strongly urge you to check their collection out and report the bastard if you find anything of yours there. A lot of these images look familiar to me and it looks like a large part of his collection comes from here.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/furryandy/

Even if you don't have your own instagram account, you can report the violation here: https://help.instagram.com/contact/372592039493026

Scumbag also maintains a youtube channel where they upload stolen material. Drown them in dislikes.
Youtube: http://m.youtube.com/channel/UCBIJj.....9Td9T8OyjqkDOQ

Oh, wow. In my rage I had forgotten the idiot lesbians with bisexual girlfriends who think they can "fix" their girlfriends and "show them that they don't need men." This is exactly the same sort of hypocrisy as the "all they need is a real man" style of thinking.

Fuck me, but why are people so fucking stupid?

Okay, checking around for Yuri Ecchi Anime, I find that there are... ...none. You read that correctly. There is no title whatsoever that exclusively features Girl-Girl sex scenes. Hells, even the few that focus on Futa-Girl throw in a guy here and there or a tentacle monster. Now while I can admit that rhazzazor sparked an interest in tentacle porn that's percolating quite nicely, the type featured here almost always has a heavy, masculine vibe. (Which I'm being fair and letting be because, well, fair enough.)

A small amount of Manga, a couple Eroge and a few Doujinshi. That's it. Buy Yaoi? Plenty of that even if you don't include Doujinshi.

If anyone knows of any Ecchi Anime that exclusively features girl/girly-futa on girl/girly-futa, I'd love to hear about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to curl up with some Yurika's Campus Life.

I've heard that it can be a little odd trying to play Changeling here in Perth (at least Larping), simply because we don't have the orderly progression of the seasons. We don't really have 4 seasons at all. We have the Mad Bitch that is Summer, who you can imagine as a manic ball of hyperactive energy that just. will. not. stop. being. sunny. (Unless she's been hitting the Bundaberg Rum, at which point it's lightning, fires and fire-tornados.)

Then there's cool and collected Winter. She usually brings gentle rains but she can be tempestuous, bringing torrential downpours and some rather exciting storms. And while she can bring near freezing nights, the days are usually merely brisk.

The problem is that Summer is an attention whore who refuses to relinquish the stage when Winter's turn comes, resulting in an autumn that one would expect when these two are fighting over the one remote to the television that is our weather. Wave after wave of each one's preference, hot then cold then hot then cold. Eventually though, Summer will tire out and head off to bed in a foul mood and Winter will often hit us with a sudden blast of her redirected displeasure. But come springtime she's mellowed out and if we're lucky, Summer hasn't slept very well and takes about a month or two to wake up properly and start to party hard all over again.

When we're unlucky, it's like "Surprise Fuckers! Party! Party! Wooo!" and she just comes at us full steam. Spring? Spring? What is this Spring that you speak of? So here we are, with autumn finally starting and the two are wrestling with the remote as we speak.

And before you start to correct me on when the seasons start, don't. This is Perth. Winter is 3 months long, Autumn is only 2, Spring is 1 or 2 and the remaining 5 to 6 months is Summer.

Did I mention that I hate the heat?

Have you ever lost hours of work to a sudden blackout or your computer crashing on you? Well,  kittkitten has found a little helper for this eventuality and even made this handy little PSA for us all. Check it out.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19371196/

I'm really starting to get annoyed with misplaced tags and out-and-out fucked up behavior. Do you know how hard it is getting to actually find lesbian content at times? I find so many things labeled or tagged or, even worse, filed as "lesbian" just because two girls are involved in the act. "Okay," I hear you say, "isn't that what lesbian means?" Well, yes and no. I'm fine with that definition when that's ALL but when it's actually two girls riding a dude, or just happening to be looking at each other while they each get plowed by some fat-arsed sweaty guy... no. I especially hate it when I see it in lesbian categories on sites that try to compartmentalize their content. Sorry, no, it's not lesbian. Once you inject a man into the scene in any sexual fashion, it's not lesbian.

Do I mean that it's not lesbian if the girls are letting some guy watch? No. It's not my thing, but I know enough girls who, while they get off on that kind of thing, still wouldn't let a guy touch them in any way more intimate than a hug. Just like I know plenty of my fellow honey-eaters who don't go in for futa. Some people will argue that futa can be included as lesbian, and while I'm a lesbian who likes her futa (minus testicles, if you please) I tend to categorize it as futa, in it's own little category. Now, a lot of sites are trying to avoid issues like this, but then along comes someone who just doesn't fucking get it and thinks that so long as girls are into each other, that's lesbian. I have a word to teach these fuckers. It's "bisexual." For fucks sake, I've had bi girlfriends and lovers and only one of them tried getting a guy involved, much to the poor guy's dismay as he was left blue-balled when she chose me over him. I should have told her where to get off, to be honest, but that girl could do this thing with her tongue that, well I still don't know how she did it because my memory always gets a little fuzzy around that point.

It doesn't help that while there's a reasonable about of lesbian content out there in terms of live-action, animations and static images, there's hardly anything in Eroge or Ecchi Anime. Oh, there's plenty out there with a lesbian scene but it's so often a single scene (maybe two) in an otherwise heterosexual piece. And often it's portrayed as either a foolish schoolgirl phase (yes, I am aware of the shoujo subculture, so I know that this is art emulated life to a small degree) or worse, as the just just needing a good dicking from a man to see the error of her ways. It's fucking James Bond and Pussy Galore all over again. FUCK! I like what little genuinely yuri content that I've come across, so much so that I'm here pissing and moaning over how little there is of it.

This is especially annoying as despite people being of the belief that it's more socially acceptable to be a lesbian, there is soooo much man-on-man content out there. Even on the Eroge/EcchiAnime front, straight up Yaoi is easy to find. Yes. I'm so pissed about this that I started to look for stuff that has absolutely nothing that I want to see in it, just to see how easy it is in comparison. Just to see if it's the age old hetero-normative bullshit. But it isn't.

Fuck me.

I had to skip anything fun this weekend. Thanks to a bunch of people not picking up shifts, the rest of us were stretched thin. It also meant that I had to skip Sunday Spelunking. Again.

No Sunday Spelunking this week. See Title.