Pearoast because the last one is in danger of FA's journal prune. I support the prune.

*

I've had a fursona for several years now, and I think it might be time to explain exactly what it is; as far as I'm aware, no-one but me knows the full story or the way it all works. For the purposes of the journal "Fara" refers to the fursona representation, though Fara is my name, and I feel now by this point when I draw a Fara I draw myself.

Species first. Daeva. A being from the religion of Zoroastrianism. "Daeva in Avestan language meaning "a being of shining light," is a term for a particular sort of supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. The daevas are a distinct category of "quite genuine" gods, who had, however, been rejected." which sums me up perfectly. As for the manifestation thereof, it's everything, and nothing. The term I use is "non-default shape-shifter" which means it doesn't have a this form, or a that form, but can be anything at all, so long as it can, or could, shape-shift. So a fox is fine, because it's a living thing with thoughts and control, Fara can be that. But Fara cannot be a box full of knives, because it's not able to control its shape, it is non-sentient and quite inanimate. Fara can also make living things from itself, for example shape-shifting a mouse from its arm, then cutting it loose so it can be a mouse of its own. The loss of a part of Fara is then made up for from elsewhere. This brings me on to the next aspect.

Fara cannot mass-shift. It weighs roughly the same regardless of form, it has a set amount of biological material, water, minerals, and general matter to work with. So no transforming into a dragon the size of Switzerland, or transforming into a worm and going for a swim in a tequila bottle. Mass can be altered by cutting parts off traumatically, or by eating. Fara generally maintains mass consistent with a small human form.

The shape-shifting itself is part biological and part molecular. It's not spells or potions. The idea behind it is that DNA is only slightly different from an eel to an elephant, and even tiny changes in DNA can create wildly different creatures. Fara can consciously manipulate the material of the body, on a molecular level, and this includes the DNA strands of the cells. This DNA shift mutation would take years on its own, but because the other molecules of the cells can be manipulated, they're deconstructed, and reassembled according to new requirements, much like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. This process is like rebooting a computer, and takes roughly the same amount of time, perhaps a little longer for some than others. It is done through blood, rather than nerves.

Fara can also create dead parts, such as metal components, crystals, wood, and other such things. These parts can be removed from the main body but not turned back into living material, because the dead parts cannot shape-shift. For example, Fara can be a shape-shifter with a robotic arm, but since robotic arms cannot themselves shape-shift, as it is machine, it cannot be further transformed into anything else, and must be torn off when it is removed. Any injuries can be healed in as little time as it takes for the shape-shift to happen. If Fara is shot, it can shape-shift into a version of itself that has not been shot, and thus heal almost instantaneously. Some injuries are fatal, as in zombies "removing the head or destroying the brain" will mean that no control over the molecular construction is possible, no fix or shift can be done, and Fara will die.

Fara ages. While it's possible to shape-shift into a younger version of the form, and be youthful, there's a "realtime" clock that is always running. I'd guess that the life expectancy of Fara is about 55, maybe 60. Currently the realtime clock has about 46 or 47 years on it.

What makes a Fara, and where it comes from. This is the most bizarre point of it all. It is its own creation. It formed out of a desire to live out ideas. "We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan. Fara is a higher level of this. More control over the stuff it's made of, coming from cosmic matter, the materials that're all around, brought together by a massively powerful creative force. The desire for the ideas to be brought into the world threaded it together, and it became a kind of life.

That's the serious stuff dispensed with. Fara also comes with a bunch of silly stuff. One of the rules of shape-shifting is they can only do it if there's absolutely no good reason to. Healing wounds to continue living doesn't count as a good reason, apparently. Fara has access to hammerspace. You know when cartoon characters pull a giant hammer from somewhere, or when game characters can stash a rocket launcher somewhere concealed in normal clothes, Fara can do that, but only in a very specific place, and only when mostly female in form. Faramix is Fara's DJ alter-ego, who claims DJing/mixing makina is "easier than breathing" and generally comes in the quokka form, also usually nude.

I think I've covered everything. Any questions?

Nurse Fara has a chainsaw,
but instead of having cutting teeth on the chain, it's got various syringes.

Run.

It's amazing here. It's like having the Sue Dunn Emm gallery all around me.

=D

Need a new scanner. All out of money. Help would be appreciated and I'd do things in return. Please?

So, I've got some angular melodic rock Kerbdog-style tracks knocking about from when I was in a band called SPENCE over ten years ago. But they're currently in my head. All the riffs, drums, lyrics, and most of the bass parts are all worked out and ready to go. Only problem is, I have no fucking instruments, and I am shit on ModPlug and Fruity Loops. All I can do is fuck about with arrangements of electronic dance music. Post-punk rock stuff is going to be well beyond me.

Obviously I can't get a band together in one room, so each bit is going to require recording from across the globe. Fortunately this is very cheap. Unfortunately, I don't really know where to start finding decent musicians. But since my creative outputs come here to FA, this is my best guess. Do you know anyone who is a talented drummer, guitarist, bassist, or vocalist, and is capable of recording in reasonably good quality? Or know anyone that might know someone?

Help appreciated. These tracks are monsters and I want them to be set free.

So is it OO7 or 007?

If you stumbled across your page, and you hadn't seen anything of it before, would what's there interest you enough to watch?

Can someone make me a short skirt and long gloves from synth-pop?

There's some great music I'd love to wear in public. Thanks, Ishi.

Here we go again, poking a highly controversial issue with a stick. Really short and not-at-all as good as I'd hoped because I have to leave for work in a few minutes.

A whole lot of the trendy internet quotes from online homosexuality advocates that mock homophobia and discrimination have a common theme whereby they imply that homosexuality is not a choice, but a trait that is largely defined either at birth or from a very young age, and that no-one chooses to be gay in the same way that no-one makes a decision one day to be straight. This is fair enough, I don't denounce this at all. I'm pretty sure that this is pretty well common knowledge by now, thanks to the works of both online and offline advocates for the acceptance of homosexuality.

Virtues and morality often go together. Morality and values often do too. Pride is not a virtue, or an aspect of morality, or even a value to hold. It is merely a feeling of self-accomplishment that people have in particular with regards to the accomplishments of others. One can be proud of making, doing, or otherwise producing something that others would not be able to do, or have done. This can be an almost unlimited myriad of things not at all limited to sports wins, artistic creations, languages learned, and even completion of difficult games or challenging books. Things that must be earned, things that must be achieved. This achievement is where from pride doth come.

To be proud of your sexuality, whatever orientation it may be, is by this measure, stating that it is some kind of achievement.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have achieved homosexuality!"

This goes very much against the idea that it is a trait given from birth, or from a young age. Virtues come and go in people, as does morality and values. Sometimes we have to fight to uphold them, but we should rarely ever fight to attain them. Belief is often about knowledge, and as our knowledge changes, our beliefs can follow. In even very simple things such as not believing chocolate tastes good, but then trying it, and gaining the knowledge that actually it is delicious, the belief is then changed. The disposition to like chocolate was there all along, the belief just had to be installed. We cannot simply choose whether or not chocolate tasted good to us. Liking chocolate is not then a feat that has been accomplished, just one that's been discovered, and since that hasn't been earned, but given since birth or from a young age, pride over such a thing is mis-placed.

The same applies with sexual orientation. The idea of pride over one's sexual orientation is, then, not to do with accomplishment. I said earlier, that it was accomplishment in particular with regards to to the accomplishments of others. So if pride isn't from accomplishment in one's self, it must be with regard to others. The pride is from the idea that sexual orientation is somehow something that is more worthy of favourable view than that of others. In that respect, it is largely on-par with white pride. Skin colour is determined in the conception and developmental stages, and of course not a choice. Largely in the same way that sexuality is. White pride is, as with sexuality, not a pride that comes from an achievement but from a given, and such it must be from the belief that white people are somehow superior to black people. If we apply that logic to pride of sexuality, then pride therefrom must be from the belief that some sexual orientations are superior to others.


The last alternative to explore goes back to accomplishment. The advocates of equality have made some fantastic changes over the last 60 years, changes that some can really be proud of. This, too, can be a source of pride. Not for what one is, but for what one has done. When a sports team wins, the whole team are proud, regardless of the individual roles they have played. This is earned pride. It's not a given, but a choice to make a difference, a decision has to be taken and a process of earning and achieving must follow. This pride, in sexuality, does not come from thinking that a sexuality has been earned. It does not come from thinking a sexuality is superior to others. It comes from real accomplishment.


Next time someone pushes their sexuality pride onto you, perhaps ask which place of thinking that pride actually comes from.

I don't really do any journalism or creative writing at all any more. But I still have ideas.

This is just a copy/paste from a conversation I had with Stush, but I'm gonna turn it in to a properly written thing and see if I can get it into a newspaper or online news site.

*

So, I have the solution to the welfare system.
I don't know if you have the same problem there as here, but there's really two problems with the welfare system. First one is the benefits lifestylers, the people who claim every week and never want to work. These are the people with everything; they always have the latest iStuff, always at the pub, never work, and have masses of unprotected sex. Life-long holidays at the tax-payers expense.

Second one, and more of a problem, is the idle aged. The generation who were born in/around the forties, had the benefit of the growth in the fifties, were teenagers in the early sixties when it was great to be a teenager, had the stability of the seventies to carve a career, had the booming loads-a-money eighties to make a fortune, the grounded nineties to set up for retirement, and have now retired and are still getting everything their way with a state pension, despite being very well-off already. These are people who have been comfortable all their lives, and now live in luxury. They cost the country billions.

(on a side-note the government has already begun taking steps into implementing this what I done wrote about 5 of 'em ago which is good to see)


So I was thinking, instead of giving these people actual money, to spend foolishly on iRings, tattoos, or silver-plated candelabra that "would look well nice on the window eh dear" instead how about tokens or coupons for practical stuff? Non-transferable, so that they can get what they need, things like food and medicine, clothes and utilities. Stuff people need to live on, rather than to squander on furnishing their taxpayer-funded eternal holidays with non-essential luxuries and fashion. When redeemed, the coupons would charge the price of the item to the government or handling organisation. So the benefits would still be paid for by the government and the tax-payer, but they'd be spent only on approved things.

If people did not spend their coupons/vouchers, then there is no charge. Handing out money at a set amount each week guarantees a loss of that much money each week. With coupons, if some went unspent, then that would reduce losses. Not everyone is going to spend every one of their coupons/vouchers every single week, and that alone will save enough money to run the scheme.

But here's the clever bit.
Companies could make the government quota their goods. Take bread as a basic example. The government would print out a sheet of coupons to buy things with, and on there is a coupon for a loaf of bread. But not just any bread, it has to be Kingsmill bread. Kingsmill could pay the government a kind of official kickback, or offer their products at a reduced rate for people paying with coupons/vouchers, and in return the government supports Kingsmill bread. If the makers of Hovis bread want to get in on it, they can out-bid or under-cut Kingsmill for a month, or a year.

Everything the coupons provide would be a battleground for companies. It'd be huge business for the likes of Huggies and Pampers, with all those benefit-claiming baby machines who pump out offspring for the welfare income. The companies would corner a huge market, which would make their profits huge, some of which would go to the government, and some of that would be put back into more product coupons. They would make up their losses from buying the quota, or from having to sell items at a reduced rate, simply by the huge additional volumes that they sell.

Under the old system that money given out as welfare would just go into things that people buy, and have to be replenished by the tax-payer. That's how it currently works. But after the changes, there would be control over where it's spent, and thus some of the money could simply come back from the companies themselves, thus saving the tax-payer a huge amount on the massive welfare spending that is currently done. As a result, even the people claiming could benefit, as some of the money saved could be put back into them, so instead of receiving 100 worth of cash, the could get 120 worth of goods. This would allow people to live better.

Everyone involved benefits from something like this; the tax-payer, the government, the companies making the scheme-endorsed products, and the people claiming welfare themselves. Yes, it takes away the choice for a lot of people currently living on the hand-outs. But as has been said for hundreds of years, beggars cannot be choosers.

*

DJ Faramix's next mix is in the build!

Faramix has over 140GB of Japanese music, and between us, we've listened to every track, and picked out ones with something special. The theme of the album is unrevealed just yet, but it's already looking to be a beast that showcases the variety of the modern Japanese underground music vibe. Faramix has also been working with DJs and producers from Japan to create some distinctly J-mix versions of huge UK/US tracks (can I say Skrillex/Pendulum?) for a bit of contrast, familiarity, and big noise.

However, Faramix has some new neighbours in the apartment block who are not yet Faramix fans. Or fans of any kind of sound, other than the sounds of heavy construction that they themselves make as they have their apartment re-fitted and furnished. I fitted my apartment with double-layer soundproofing, both soft mat and hard tile, because I know I love to nudge to volume sliders a bit, but I'm still courteous to those around. Sadly those around are not courteous to me, and have called the police twice (no really, they called the police, twice) for "unreasonable disturbance" caused by my typing. I shit ye not, my typing. I have an old-school off-white keyboard with a metal back and clicky keys. It's late 1980s and it does make a typing noise when you type on it. I wouldn't say it's an unreasonable disturbance, and it certainly does not warrant two phone calls to the emergency services.

But, they think it does, and as such, mixing or producing any music will be on hold until Faramix feels the inspiration to use headphones, which she describes as "like having sex with a condom. Not with a person, using a condom. Just the condom."

What I may do is find a live venue that'll let Faramix have a DJ slot somewhere, then the mix can be done there, live. Much more inspirational.

*

"Science & technology are cool, but honestly they are nothing special. They're not unique. Think about it. Physics is a thing that's objectively true. You don't create it; all you do is notice it - so any intelligent species, given enough time to look around at the universe, is going to eventually figure out things like optics and chemistry, Newton's laws and Einstein's theory and all that stuff. They will eventually build computers and cars and rockets.

Not every "advanced" species will produce a Michelangelo. Not every civilization will build pyramids or a Great Wall. Not every culture will write Hamlet or Gilgamesh or The Tale of Genji. There are thousands of nuclear warheads, but there is only ONE golden mask of King Tutankhamen. There is only ONE Mona Lisa. Painting the Sistine Chapel or composing a Fifth Symphony is a wholly different thing than, say, discovering how hydrogen sticks to oxygen to make water, or building a Ford Model T.

I'm not saying that making cars and knowing how water is constituted isn't important. It's just that one thing is meaningful while the other is merely useful.

Art is unique. Art is more than an expression of what we know about the universe , or what we're technically capable of doing. Art is an expression of who we ARE. It is primal; it is important; it is the First Thing about being human, and apparently the only Thing worth protecting. Before there were computers or cars or rockets, there were paintings of mammoths on cave walls. There were legendary epics inscribed on clay tablets. There were portraits of statesmen and idols of gods. Stories seem to have been more important - or at least more durable - than facts. What does this say about ancient people? What does it say about us? What are our dead, crumbling computers and cars and rockets going to mean to the people who find them, thousands of years later?"

I'd like to do something big and/or special to thank those who have supported me and the stuff I've done over the last 6 years here.

If you've been a long-term supporter, or would consider yourself a "fan" please post here! I know a lot of you, and have formed a lot of my own ideas about who are my biggest fans, but I'd like to know who considers themselves a die-hard Fara fan, just in case I've missed anyone, perhaps because you don't comment even if you do appreciate the stuff I do, or in case anyone I consider a regular appreciator actually couldn't give a snotfart about my work. Let me know!

Thanks!

It seems these days that Steam is bursting with innovative new simple-but-fun retro-styled games. Stuff that goes back to your childhood, even though you're probably only in your early 20s. I'm not in my early 20s, I'm considerably more seasoned. So I'm seeing games both original and remade, that I knew when they were new, games that passed me by, games from my childhood and beyond, all popping back up as the new retro sensation among both the people who shut out the sun with the brightly coloured plastic sunglasses, and the people who shut out the sun by staying indoors all hours, gaining weight and growing scruffy facial hair, as well as many in between.

Minecraft has a great deal to answer for here. Keep it basic, make it fun; the retro gaming experience.

To actually namedrop one of these games, although not one that is available on Steam just yet, Drift Stage is a modern arcade-style racer with 80s looks, 80s feeling music, and from the looks of the videos I've watched, decidedly 80s physics as well, featuring no simulation of weight transfer and seemingly digital steering. The people in the bit where the Venn diagram for car people and gaming people intersect has become somewhat afroth over this game.

Another game that's entered my consciousness through its popularity is RODINA. Available on Steam. Sole developer. What is it? Apparently fills the hole left after an EVE Online subscription runs out, by doing a largely similar thing. Also described (by me) as being "like Minecraft in space" and I'll come back to this comparison later. Not retro. It's a thoroughly modern game, save for a few of the graphics such as fire, which at the current stage of development are just coloured squares.

It's pretty cool. I like it, it involves flying about, landing on planets, shooting things...

Like Zarch.

WTF is Zarch?
Well, it kinda followed on from such games as Defender, Lunar Lander, and Thrust.

Oh dear, you don't know any of these games either?

Zarch is one of the first solid 3D games ever made. It's from the late 1980s, was written in three months, by one man. It was available on the Atari ST, the Commodore Amiga, and the ZX Spectrum; three of the most revered retro consoles of the era. The game is blocky, colourful, simple, challenging, replayable, and totally fucking cool. Except it isn't. Despite having absolutely everything that a retro game requires to be popular among the trendy sun-avoiders, even a freely downloadable Windows version, for some reason it's been totally forgotten.

So I'm putting this little chunk of text out there onto the internet.

If you're into retro-styled games and you're not conceited, Zarch is the daddy.

I've been on a geology tour with the impressively tolerant and wonderfully wonderful Sue Dunn Emm over the last couple of weeks.

Soak my ladyfingers in coffee, cover me in cream, and call me a Faramisu! What a great time. Full write-up will be on Tumblrse within a week, as well as GIGABYTES AND GIGABYTES of photospam of pretty rocks, pretty views, and other relevant things.



Super gratitude!

...I'm not gonna be what people expect me to be any more.

http://maxcdn.zenpencils.com/comics.....-13-chrisg.jpg


5 Things to Do Before You Die

1. Spend the most energetic and creative forty hours of your week doing a few limited tasks over and over again so that a pathological profit-oriented corporate-establishment can maintain itself a little better.
2. Cram the wild, ungovernable, truly creative and madly generous part of your psyche into evenings, weekends and a few weeks off, when you’re too knackered, uptight and rushed to meaningfully develop it; when you’d much rather blitz out or just buy some entertainment than create anything for yourself.
3. Talk about two and three, and all media reports of two and three, over and over again: ideally by complaining.
4. Use any other microns of free time to pursue sex, drugs, excessive CGI stimulation, money, power, crude feelings of tribal bonding and whatever momentary prestige tokens you can acquire within the constraints of the system.
5. Repeat until your death bed, when you suddenly realise that your whole life has been an utterly pointless sham and the pure experience of solitude that encroaching death brings on is utterly impossible to communicate meaningfully to any of your so-called friends and loved ones, who watch on helplessly (or even impatiently) as you the psuedo-life you have lived passes inexplicably into a moment of genuine aliveness that nobody can understand.

...to try and rip out my heart, will find that I have ripped out their lungs.

*

Sometimes you look at a clock, and the time isn't what you felt it was, sometimes a totally different time of day.
That's what happens when I look at a mirror, expecting to see myself, and I don't.

1. Why did you join FurAffinity?
Because "these people like anthro art in a kinda geeky way"


2. What does your username have to do with you?
It's my name.


3. What is your current avatar of?
Becky Farrah from Gunsmith Cats.


4. How many watchers do you have, and how many do you watch?
680, and 419.


5. Do you have more than one account?
Nope.


6. Name 3 of your favourite artists on FA.
midnightfury, Ergo_Sum, RJ-Pilot


7. What artist do you admire because of their personality?
Lots! Morphia, kernowwolf, Stush, dastiger, ZeeM, Aramet, direwolf505, Fenris49, Shima, DaZteK, Halcy0n...


8. Do you comment, fave, or both?
Both. Comments generally, faves are my way of power-appreciating stuff that moves me.


9. What do you typically post on FA?
Half-arsed crap that starts with grand intentions.


10.What's your favorite submission in your gallery?
hf_19_gtx


11. What are the things you wish you could draw better?
Animals.


12. How many hours a day do you spend on FA?
1.5 on average.


13. Are you a fast, slow, or medium typer?
Slow.


14. What is the most annoying thing people ask you?
What my job is. I am not my job.


15. What is the most annoying/offending comment you've received?
From the Connie Project, someone said they would dance to a song about literally dying from loneliness.


16. What/who inspires you?
Renard.


17. Everyone has considered leaving FA once or twice. Have you? Why?
I have, because nobody likes me. Now I just strike a better balance where I come here less.

So I did the tourist thing and cycled down to Tokyo, or what I would call "part of the Tokyo urban sprawl" - this in itself was hard. Shrink-wrap yourself, sit in a cranked-up sunbed for 6 hours, and only breathe damp air from a laundry dryer hose, and you'd have similar conditions. Add constant cycling and put a 35lb backpack on, you're getting closer.

But I made it, and I feel so cool. Not in terms of temperature, it reaches 30 celsius and beyond, and humidity never drops below 100%. I mean I am like an animé or RPG character that has come to life and is walking among the normal people. I feel like the coolest thing in Tokyo.

I am rinsing through money like you just can't imagine. Time to budget hard.

...just enemies I haven't made yet.

So I finally got my arse in gear, quit everything, and bought myself an open-ended ticket to Japan.

Going back home for a bit!
This place objectively isn't much different, but it doesn't feel like where I belong.


The plan for when I come back is the same as it's been, on and off, for a good few years. Get a shit job, rent a shit one-room apartment, have a shit life, build up enough dinero to warp to Ontario, Canada, re-start the old print media company I inherited back in my teens that I still own all the rights and registrations for, work myself into the ground, and die miserable and alone with too many cats and so much love that could have been so good rotting away in my unwanted heart.


Nice to have a plan though.

I've got a lot to get done over the next few weeks, so I'm closing my free art offer.

Thanks to everyone that read my last journal, I do aim to get everything finished in the next three weeks even if I have to lose sleep over it.

This is a list of all the people I'm supposed to be doing art for,
in no particular order, just so everyone's aware they haven't been forgotten,
and gives me a live list to work from, and platform for correspondence.


DaZteK - con-tag
NorfolkFox - con-tag
andybigfeet - Send me a note with what you want!
SpikerDragon - Also note me!?
Neptune - I think I said I'd do something, ja?
DireWolf505 - still need to do yours grrrr
"that Qaja guy" - because it's about time
ROO! - BECAUSE ROO
bulletbunny15 - Trade of some kind.
Feyyore - glowing wiggle-machine
TheMalodorousMephit - Something for the thing.



I'm sure there's more! If I forgot you, let me know!

I've had a fursona for several years now, and I think it might be time to explain exactly what it is; as far as I'm aware, no-one but me knows the full story or the way it all works. For the purposes of the journal "Fara" refers to the fursona representation, though Fara is my name, and I feel now by this point when I draw a Fara I draw myself.

Species first. Daeva. A being from the religion of Zoroastrianism. "Daeva in Avestan language meaning "a being of shining light," is a term for a particular sort of supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. The daevas are a distinct category of "quite genuine" gods, who had, however, been rejected." which sums me up perfectly. As for the manifestation thereof, it's everything, and nothing. The term I use is "non-default shape-shifter" which means it doesn't have a this form, or a that form, but can be anything at all, so long as it can, or could, shape-shift. So a fox is fine, because it's a living thing with thoughts and control, Fara can be that. But Fara cannot be a box full of knives, because it's not able to control its shape, it is non-sentient and quite inanimate. Fara can also make living things from itself, for example shape-shifting a mouse from its arm, then cutting it loose so it can be a mouse of its own. The loss of a part of Fara is then made up for from elsewhere. This brings me on to the next aspect.

Fara cannot mass-shift. It weighs roughly the same regardless of form, it has a set amount of biological material, water, minerals, and general matter to work with. So no transforming into a dragon the size of Switzerland, or transforming into a worm and going for a swim in a tequila bottle. Mass can be altered by cutting parts off traumatically, or by eating. Fara generally maintains mass consistent with a small human form.

The shape-shifting itself is part biological and part molecular. It's not spells or potions. The idea behind it is that DNA is only slightly different from an eel to an elephant, and even tiny changes in DNA can create wildly different creatures. Fara can consciously manipulate the material of the body, on a molecular level, and this includes the DNA strands of the cells. This DNA shift mutation would take years on its own, but because the other molecules of the cells can be manipulated, they're deconstructed, and reassembled according to new requirements, much like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. This process is like rebooting a computer, and takes roughly the same amount of time, perhaps a little longer for some than others. It is done through blood, rather than nerves.

Fara can also create dead parts, such as metal components, crystals, wood, and other such things. These parts can be removed from the main body but not turned back into living material, because the dead parts cannot shape-shift. For example, Fara can be a shape-shifter with a robotic arm, but since robotic arms cannot themselves shape-shift, as it is machine, it cannot be further transformed into anything else, and must be torn off when it is removed. Any injuries can be healed in as little time as it takes for the shape-shift to happen. If Fara is shot, it can shape-shift into a version of itself that has not been shot, and thus heal almost instantaneously. Some injuries are fatal, as in zombies "removing the head or destroying the brain" will mean that no control over the molecular construction is possible, no fix or shift can be done, and Fara will die.

Fara ages. While it's possible to shape-shift into a younger version of the form, and be youthful, there's a "realtime" clock that is always running. I'd guess that the life expectancy of Fara is about 55, maybe 60. Currently the realtime clock has about 46 or 47 years on it.

What makes a Fara, and where it comes from. This is the most bizarre point of it all. It is its own creation. It formed out of a desire to live out ideas. "We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan. Fara is a higher level of this. More control over the stuff it's made of, coming from cosmic matter, the materials that're all around, brought together by a massively powerful creative force. The desire for the ideas to be brought into the world threaded it together, and it became a kind of life.

That's the serious stuff dispensed with. Fara also comes with a bunch of silly stuff. One of the rules of shape-shifting is they can only do it if there's absolutely no good reason to. Healing wounds to continue living doesn't count as a good reason, apparently. Fara has access to hammerspace. You know when cartoon characters pull a giant hammer from somewhere, or when game characters can stash a rocket launcher somewhere concealed in normal clothes, Fara can do that, but only in a very specific place, and only when mostly female in form. Faramix is Fara's DJ alter-ego, who claims DJing/mixing makina is "easier than breathing" and generally comes in the wombat X pine-marten form, also usually nude.

I think I've covered everything. Any questions?

...but I want this played in the capsule at my space funeral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkfuLA5GMCA