(TL;DR before we get into this / Medical Stuff CW: I am home safe and sound after getting both my appendix and gallbladder removed + a 3 day hospital stay. Everything seems to have gone well, and I'm resting a lot and I will just be out of it for another week or so I think. But I had the idea for this "con" report while hella high in said hospital, and I decided to type it out really fast. So anyway!)

===


So I’m home safe and sound, but damn, it was one wild weekend for #GallbladCon2025.

First, I had to leave crazy early Wednesday morning, it was a real pain in the gut, but thankfully Teiran was there to handle the travel with me. Check in took at least 2 hours, and one hella expensive awoo-ber, before I got to the main hotel, and then registration took another 10! I saw soooo much of the hallway’s ceiling.

By the time I got to the O room venue for the dance, I was so out of it, that I vaguely remember hitting up some hella strange O2 bar, I don’t even remember what happened until I woke up in my room a few hours later. But boy, was I sore!

I wasn’t hella social over the weekend, I was in such a brainfog that I barely checked telegram. But the hotel staff was super nice, the night shift folks anyway.

Food was honestly a lot easier to get than even at TFF, and a lot of customizable options. There were even little popup free food markets called oddly “Nourishment Stations”, they tended to have more snacky food like popsicles, and oddly broth packets, but damn, it was better than a lot of the convention grab-and-go stands I’ve had in years past, lol.

The dealers den was a bit weird, a lot of strange mass market merch. Not really a lot.

I don’t think I’ll go back again, tho. I am far too sore, and I no longer had the admission entry fee for either #GallbladCon2025 or it’s sister convention #ApendiCon2025

But! I hope anyone else that goes has a smooth time like I did.

Okay, I've had covid for the last two weeks. I have been asleep for most of that time, and hella out of it. I had paxlovid, and that helped, but it's been hard to get more than two braincells together.

I'm slowly getting better, but I go up and down a lot.

So, Is there anyone I forgot to update on anything in that time?

I have a few projects going on, and I want to make sure I've responded.

October is #FurryBookMonth!

For the entire month, save 10% on all orders by using the following coupon code at checkout: FBM2024 at furplanet.com

And save 15% on BadDogBooks.com with the same code, FBM2024.

I've just been so busy, I forgot to mention it XD

I'll be at the FP dealer's table like always if anyone wants to say hi~

Question: if you were to get a bag at a con from either the con or a dealer, what would you rather have? What would you actually use?

1. Cloth Shopping Bag
2. Plastic Bag
3. Draw string backpack
4. Laptop backpack bag
5. Messenger Bag
6. Other (please let me know~)

It's a long shot, but has anyone been to the Circle J Ranch?

I'm trying to find something closer than Grizzly Pines.

How safe is it, friendly, etc?


#ClothingOptionalCamping


https://circlejguestranch.com/

It seems birdsite had issues again, so as a reminder I am on Mastodon. It's pretty awesome, and anyone can sign up. Wobbl.xyz and Bears.Town would be my recommendations for anyone looking for a place to start. The mods and owners are cool, and they each are very nice chill places.

https://bears.town/@Saintajax33

I'm also a few other places as well:

https://allmylinks.com/saintajax33

I often see a lot of automated posts that don't use keywords. You can't suggest them on FA, but if I left a comment with something formatted like:

"Gosh that's hot!


Keywords to help people find this: biting,blush,breast,breasts,ff,furry,grinding,kangaroo,large,lesbian,milf,nipples,paws,play,pouch,roo,shower,wolf
"

Would that be rude? Since FA's search does actually look through comments when you don't use "@keywords", so people would be more likely to find it that way.

I bet you're kind of sick of hearing about this, but over the last few weeks I've decided something.

I still hate the policy, but I'm going to walk back where I said I'd post to other websites early. I've been trying to keep up with it, but trying to figure out the scheduling for the delay just makes it way more work than I have the time for.

I'm not in my 20s with unlimited free time anymore, I have to be as efficient with my time as possible, and with how I post, it just doesn't make sense to delay somewhere. And if I have to pick between writing or spending extra time posting, the writing will win.

I submitted one last trouble ticket laying out my case against 2.7, and really that's all I or anyone can do. I feel like this decision is going to go through no matter what. It's pretty clear FA has no intention in listening to us.

So good luck out there folks, and keep your stick on the ice~

So when rich space asshole McGee bought twitter, I decided to try and step away from it and use Mastodon.

It took a little while to get used to the vibes, but I quickly began to love it. I don’t think I realized how much twitter had come to distort my reality until I stopped using it.

Twitter’s algorithms are designed to push down on your anger buttons. They want to flood you with rage, make you hurt, and want to scream into the void that is it.

I was only tempted to get back on it once, when FA decided to do their stupid 2.7 policy update, so I could try and convince the mods to roll it back. Why? Because I was angry. Twitter was the first place I thought I should go to when I was angry, because I’d been so conditioned to think of it as the place to vent my rage.

Mastodon isn’t like that. Its culture is designed to put a damper on things that will make you angry or upset. The content warnings might seem a little dumb and excessive at first, but you start to think of them as “keywords” and your brain can learn to skim them, decide if the content is worth interacting with, and then pass over it.

I also don’t experience as much fear as I did on twitter. With its call-out post culture, I was always afraid I was one step away from my entire life being ruined. It wouldn’t matter if the thing was true or not, or so long in the past it didn’t matter, the mob would come for you and tear you asunder without an ounce of remorse.

It was always: “Destroy someone’s life, ask questions later.”

Hell, I logged into twitter to deactivate my accounts, and the very first post I saw was a callout for someone. Like… that place just thrives on hate and terror.

It doesn’t help that Space Asshole is also super transphobic:
https://cohost.org/Saintajax33/post.....ransphobia-twi

So I deactivated my accounts permanently, if you ever see anyone on their with my names, it’s not me.

After the 7 months I’ve been on mastodon, I’ve watched the furry communities there steadily grow, and I can really see the potential the fed-verse has. There’s already servers being spun up to replace reddit, and there are wonderful gallery services like PixelFed:

Examples:
https://pixelfed.social/pongrebio
https://pixelfed.au/haruki_zaemon

You can follow those accounts from your main Mastodon account, so there is no new login or site required. And when they update, you’ll just get an in-timeline notification.

There is a bit of a learning curve, and there are some things that can seem scary and complicated. Like, even as a tech person, it took me a bit to figure out how to migrate from one furry server to another.

But, that is the advantage of having something server based and decentralized rather than one giant company that can pull the rug out from under you. If the server you’re on does something you don’t like, you can pick up shop and move your followers, and who you’re following, to another server with rules more inline with your values. It’s not like say, FA, where they can decide wanting to fuck Eevee makes you sus, and you have to follow those rules. You can just pick up and move next door where those rules don’t apply. You never have to lose your following.

It’s not like twitter where the fear of migrating off of it keeps so many people using a site that’s just bad for them and the world.

Now might be the time to give it a chance, before twitter goes the way of myspace before it. If you have any questions, I’d be willing to help~

Helpful guide:
https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-.....-use-mastodon/

Furry instances:
https://furryfediverse.org/

So I realized a little while back that my story icons were a bit generic. I was starting to see others like them pop up, and I wanted to do something to make them unique.

I've gone through and gave every one an update, and I've color coded them in the corner to indicate what they are. These are supposed to reflect the main theme of the story, and don't necessarily indicate everything within it.

Some have corners that help show they're part of a series. I only did this for a select few, things that would really need to be read in the order they were posted to make sense.

I've also added emojis to signify what species is on top or bottom, or what multiples are involved if there's more than two people.

Pride Flag: General gayness, anything gay, but doesn't have a specific theme.

Pink: Everything in the Mareboi Universe

Red with an Orange Stripe through it: Incest

Swirling Pattern: Mind control, hypnosis, and anything mind altering.

Countryside Farm Pattern: The Fuckchester Universe

Green: General Puppy Play, Master/Pet, Or Slavery

Bisexual Flag: Anything Bisexual

Trans Flag: Anything gender transformation or contains a trans character

Gold Locks: Chastity

Purple with Tennis Balls and Dog Toys: Anything from the "Daddy's" series

Deer Skull with Crown: Mage's tale

Fishing gear: "Fishing for a bear" series

Forest theme: "Getting Lost" Series

Check out all the stories here

The #FurAffinity discord locked the final thread and bans anyone talking about the policy in the chat. The only way to protest the policy change now is to submit a trouble ticket that will probably be ignored.

I thought about staying in there and trying to fight as long as I could, but it's kind of pointless. The rules of the discord actively discourage people talking policy and they have an "UwU no PaWoLoTiCs" rule.

The discord was never meant to actually be a way for us to give feedback like the forum was. Sure there's the feedback tickets, but judging by the responses I got, it's basically a paper shredder inside a box.

It's clearly going to be a case of people bowing down to puritanism and going against what the majority wants.

As I've watched how the world has changed in the last few years, it's felt more and more like there's no safe spaces to be a kinky queer adult. You have to live in this state of dread wondering if what you like will be the thing people come for next.

I want a world where as long as you're not harming someone* (unless consensual and not mentally damaging either) or some thing, you're free to do what you want. Even if that's dressing in drag, wearing a puphood at pride, or drawing your OC fucking a consenting adult eevee. Hell, I'd love to just go shopping au-naturel if I could.

FA was always kind of that place for me, it was the one stable 3rd space I had for my adult life. It out lived livejournal, tumblr, and now twitter. But it's most likely going to go down hill too. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it. It's just been... depressing? Taxing? Emotionally draining?

I guess a lot of us are destined to be shoved to the margins of the margins eventually. You always forget the kinksters that pioneered a space before being shoved out.

I'mma gonna fight where I can, but some things just are failing battles. So I'm giving up on this. I'll still post here, but honestly? Interacting with the site is kind of a bummer now. I always fought for FA, I loved it here, but now it just feels like an open wound.

Here's all the other places you can find me, I added an inkbunny and I'm rezing my Weasyl and FN.

Itaku is shit for writers atm, so I'm not even gonna bother to make an account there. And A03 has had me in account limbo for months.

https://allmylinks.com/saintajax33

What do you plan on doing for your daddy this father's day?

Welp, I was holding off for the clarification, and it's worse than I thought.

If you haven't already, I would strongly consider submitting a feedback ticket saying that you're against the change.

I'll also be canceling my FA+, assuming it lets me.

I'm still going to post here, and still use it, but I can't justify defending or supporting this site financially anymore.

If they reverse it, I'll re-sub, but until then? The 5% search bump isn't worth it.

Edit: anyone know how to remove the Furrified badge from your username?

Update: lmao, they just basically threw my feedback ticket into the trash. I got a canned response, which was clearly not read.

So much for hoping this would get overturned.

I deleted the last journal about this, because there were some updates, and "The Document" that gives more info will hopefully be out on Monday. The discord chat admins have been saying that.

I think the reason this has been so upsetting, is because it's another push forward into the plague of puritanism I've seen the last few years. I don't even really like Pokémon porn that much, but if you get off to it? Have at it hoss.

I want a place where it's safe to be cute, kinky, and myself. I had a few over the years, Tumblr and Twitter mostly, but one died to puritanism and the other died to ego.

I don't want that for FA. I actually LIKE FA, and have been here for years. But this feels like another stab in the chest of being a kinky queer person. There's this massive drive to make everything safe and fluffy for any tender eyeballs, but don't adults deserve to have safe spaces too? Somewhere we don't have to worry about being ourselves?

If you're cis and straight, you have multiple options for that, I guess. But if you're queer? There's a massive backlash against us now, and I'd like my online life to at least feel stable if the "real world" can't be.

I feel like we need to squash puritanism anywhere we see it. We need to resist and not be the "good" gays they want us to be. I want to be the weird people with piercings, rainbow hair, who play a sparkle dog online, and has glitter suck to every surface. Or the people who seem "normal" right up until you see their BDSM dungeon and leather jock collection.

So if bonking a Bulbasaur does it for you. You do you bea.

The rules were fine the way they were, this is a change no one wanted, and has done nothing but cause pain, confusion, and stress.

So I’ve written a lot of longer stories lately, including a novella, and I’ve been wondering how long is >too long< for a single submission.

The novella sits at 25k, and I knew that would be way too much for one sitting, so I’ve cracked that into 3 parts.

But in general, what’s the length you look for? If you see something too long, like 15k words, do you dash away? Or do you not care?

For example, would you rather have a story with two knotty (heh) scenes broken into two parts, so you can hop from one and then to the other when you get the chance? Or would you rather have the whole thing in one place?

For those of you who have read "Mine" and "Mareboi".

I've been doing more with the world, and I kind of want to create a better term for a male that becomes a mareboi.

When I first made it, it was just supposed to be a silly kink idea, but I have some more stories coming with it... and the name feels like it undermines some of the seriousness.

So far the only thing I've been able to come up with is "es-gendered". The "es" coming from "estrus".

Anyone have any ideas?

Lazy Scales Review 1-6

I was a bad dog and went on a book binge the last couple of days. This review is going to take place over 3 audiobooks and 3 kindle editions, so some points I might bring up may be wrong because I misheard them, and I DO NOT have the time to go re-listen to them, but I need to get some thoughts out of my heard and this is going to be the best way to do it. This will have spoilers.

Lazy Scales book 1.

This is a classic version of the “I’m a kid who suddenly turned into ___! Oh no!”

It’s a little more graphic than you’d expect, it’s a young adult book, but it has some pretty detailed hard vore scenes I didn’t expect. Like when he eats a human just after he first transforms. They make sense from a plot perspective, and they’re nothing worse than you’d see in a PG-13 movie.

There’s also a really graphic skin-ripping transformation scene, which leaves enough DNA evidence for them to think Lewis, the main character, is dead. It’s the only violent transformation scene in the 6 books I read, oddly.

There’s some great character interaction, and I really love the spirit of the last dragon who lived, Lasthope (said as: Last Hope). Lewis/Lazyscales has some great conversations with him, especially in audiobook form, and he jokingly refers to him as “ghost dad” occasionally, since it’s the spell Lasthope last cast with his dying breath as dragon slayers killed him that randomly transformed him.

Book 2: Idle Claws

Lewis/Lazyscales is having some hard time adjusting, getting food as an untrained dragon hiding in the mountains who can’t fly is not an easy feat. Lasthope is trying to teach him, but Lewis is someone who has always had their head in the clouds and that didn’t change as a dragon. Lasthope can be kind of an ass at times, but I kind of understand why. If he wants Dragons to continue, Lewis is his one and only hope of doing so. Just like he was the Lasthope before him. The old dragon has generations of trauma to deal with, and being dead does not help with that.

I liked this one, it had a lot of good character building, and introduced a great villain with the Dragon Slayers.

To TL;DR it, he goes on a very public rampage, eats the immortal dragon slayer who tried to kill him and kidnapped his friends. The cops the cops want to kill him, but the mayor steps in and makes a deal with him to allow him to live. He just has to agrees to raise money for the town to fix the damage he’s caused. And also, doesn’t kill anymore (tasty) humans, and wears a shock collar to keep him on his mountain. He agrees, and that leads to book 3.

Book 3: Dull Teeth

He's been able to get close with most of his human friends again, Becca and her girlfriend Lucy most of all. He’s figured out that if he adds them to his “horde” it allows his nose to ignore their scent and not think about how good they’d taste.

Both the town and Lewis know that the more fed he is, the less chance there is for him to go on a hunger fueled rampage through the streets. They start stuffing him full. He actually starts to get a little fat and has a hard time flying.

This book sets up more of the magic in the world, and leads to a big climatic battle scene where he fights the old witch who has been trying to kill off every dragon on earth to bring back the Fea, since like in True Blood for vampires, they’re SUPER DELICIOUS to dragons. And if dragons are still around, then she can’t bring them back without fear they’ll be hunted down.

In this one you find out that the reason Lasthope’s spell targeted him. There’s some plot reasons stuff, but to TL;DR it: The old Crone is the last of the immortal fea and Lewis was her great grandson, and as it turns out, Becca is her granddaughter birthed by one of the daughters the immortal human dragon slayer gave her over the centuries. So Lewis had a buttload of magical potential, so the spell latched onto him like a lightning rod.

But the major thrust of the books is a coming out story. He’s an anxious teen who wants to let his parents know he’s still alive, but he’s afraid they’ll call him the M-word (monster) or worse, that he’ll accidentally hurt them, or maybe eat them. But Becca can see it’s tearing her friend apart, just like it had been when she’d been struggling with being bisexual. More so since he knows his parents think he’s dead, and he knows that’s hurting them. He can’t decide if them thinking off he’s dead is better than them knowing he’s a dragon. In the end, he decides to come out of the cave.

Book 4: Broken Horns

In the last battle, Lucy fainted, and started to show the same signs that Lewis had when he first started to transform. She’s rushed to the same hospital he was, but her transformation takes longer. Everyone is confused about what’s going on, and why there are two dragons now. Lasthope is thrilled, but they have no idea why she changed, since she had no Fea blood in her. They come to find out that Lasthope’s spell tried to target Becca, but because she was hugging Lucy at the time, the spell basically grounded through Becca and into her.

The witch reappears to beg for help, because she’s found out Lasthope’s spell never had an end worked into it. With each new dragon it creates, the more energy it has to pull from, and the faster it can trigger again, and again, and soon everyone on earth will become a dragon. Starting with the part Fea descendants she'd hoped to elevate to full Fea in a few generations. She can feel their connections getting snapped one by one, and after her fight with Lewis, she only has enough power left to protect Becca from the spell’s effects. With each minute they wait, the worse it will get.

The book has a lot of great tension in it, and I loved most of the character interactions. But Lasthope, who seemed to be growing more attached to Lewis/Lazyscales, gets mad they’re trying to stop his spell, this is better than he ever dreamed. He tells them he won’t help them stop the spell, but he won’t try and stop them later. This is understandable, it is sort of the undoing the last work of his life, and is against his plans.

Skipping a lot, this leads to another gran battle in Lasthope’s former home, where the spell is etched into the rocks of the cave and the last library of ancient dragon knowledge is stored. Prior, Lasthope had tried to talk Lewis out of destroying the spell, wanting the world to be filled with dragons, consequences of having 8 billion meat eating dragons destroying the environment be dammed.

When Lewis, his friends, and The Crone try to stop the spell, Lasthope jumps in and does something to Lewis he said he would never do. He reaches in and pulls out the human parts of Lewis’s soul and memories that were attached. The dragon is left confused, thinking that he’s only ever been a dragon and that Lasthope was his actual father, since the last two months are all that he can remember. He attacks his friends, and almost stops them, until Becca breaks the protection spell, letting Lasthope’s spell target her, and become a dragon to stop him. She manages, but when she does, the broken spell severs Lasthope’s connection to the mortal world, and he fades to the after life, accidentally dragging Lewis with him.

There’s a very tender scene where Lasthope apologizes for what he did to Lewis/Lazyscales. During this, Lewis’s soul keeps flickering between human and dragon shapes as they walk across the dragon version of the rainbow bridge. The young lad forgives the old dragon, and when they cross the bridge, Lasthope finds his parents. You watch as the years fade off of him, and he becomes around Lewis’s age, the same age he was when his father died, and he was left alone for the next few centuries to try and rebuild the dragon world by himself. There’s some more touching dialog, and the ancient dragons from the afterlife give Lewis/Lazyscales the language knowledge to read all the ancient books in Lasthope’s library.

The problem is, Lewis’s form keeps flickering between his human self and his dragon self. As he goes to fly out of the afterlife, his soul rends. The human bits fall down into the abyss, while the dragon parts manage to ascend back into his body.

When Lazyscales wakes up, he can’t remember ever being human, and he thinks he’s always been a dragon.

Book 5: Kindled Flames

This is the main reason I’m writing this. Because there’s something that’s been nagging at me ever since I read it, and the more I think about it, the more it begins to make sense, but I have no way to prove it.

Two new characters are introduced, Rocktooth and Aroura. Rocktooth is a famous rockstar who became a dragon, but Aroura is the one I want to talk about.

From the way her entire character reads, it feels like she was supposed to have been trans, before she became a dragon, but it was scrapped and re-written. When she’s introduced, her parents are having this massive fight, and a line of dialog reads something along the lines of “if you hadn’t coddled him so much”, I think in any other series I wouldn’t have paid attention to that, but considering how queer this book is, that gave me pause. This could have been about her brother, but there was an entire book that was basically a coming out story, so I don’t think that they were talking about her is that farfetched.

There’s also the way she thinks and talks in those first few paragraphs when you see her when she’s still human. She mentions some things like they were new in her life. She wants to run away, because of how abusive her folks are, and she even gets ready to do it, packs a bag and goes to leave. The way she acts though, it feels like there’s a layer under there, like there’s more of a reason to leave than just how shit her parents are. She has this conversation with her young brother, who is around 8, he asks her if she’s going to leave and if so why, she deflects and says something along the lines of “I’ll tell you when you’re older”. Which is another weird reaction.

If she was just running away because her parents were abusive assholes, surely, he would know why. It seems odd she doesn’t want to tell him the reason. Maybe she’s trying to protect him, but it just feels like there’s more. There’s a weight to it.

Later, when she’s brought to the dragon preserve after she transforms, her parents bring her in a horse trailer that’s way too small. Lazyscales can tell she’s in there before he can ever see her, and when she confronts her parents, he's like:

“How could you do this to her?”

The mom seems confused at that. She’s confused about how he can tell Aurora is a girl dragon without seeing her. Lazyscales says it’s the smell, but this is the one and only time this is used to figure out a dragon’s sex. Every other time, it’s been based on their horns and size.
2 horns and smaller = female
4 horns + bigger = male.

It almost feels like it was added in so we KNEW this dragon was a female now. The dialog also seems to go out of it’s way to use pronouns, almost like there was an original version where her parents were constantly misgendering her during the whole conversation. Lazyscales eventually rips the horse trailer apart to get her out, and he has to help her back up the mountain because she’s half starved.

She’s introduced to the others, and she almost feels surprised that they’re being so nice to her, and know she’s a girl. They even show her to the female side of the cavern and let her know that’s where she’ll stay for the time being, and she seems shocked that she would be sleeping on that side of the cave. She sputters out some dialog about it’ll feel like getting to go to college, and stay in the dorms. But the way it’s said feels like it was altered after the fact.

Later there’s a scene where they’re picking their dragon names, which are just basically a mashup of two words. The rockstar picks Rocktooth, and Lucy and Becca had long since picked Rosethron and Moonshadow as theirs.

However, Aroura keeps her name, mentioning, “Oh, it’s not my birth name, and I’ve used it for a while.” Which is another one of those, “wait a minute…” kind of flags. From the way Lazyscales and Aroura are starting to act now, it’s clear that both are starting to get a crush on each other.

Some more plot happens, and Rocktooth convinces them to let him hold a concert to raise money for the dragon preserve, since he is one now, and even though he plans on leaving after he’s learned how to be a dragon, he still wants to help.

This leads to some very interesting conversations between Rocktooth, Lazyscales, and Rocktooth’s manager, Shannon.

Shannon knows Rocktooth wants to go by that name, and not his original, but she keeps deadnaming him, and Lazyscales and Rocktooth seem upset about it. They don’t make a big deal about it at the time, but later they have this exact exchange:

==
“Your Shannon human does not seem to respect your newly chosen name,” Lazyscales pointed out as they plodded side by side up the mountain trail back towards the caves. His claws squished into the mud, and while he didn’t mind it, he could see Rocktooth wincing every few steps.

“It’s just force of habit. I’m sure she’ll come around soon enough,” Rocktooth said with a shrug. “She’s known me for years. It only makes sense there would be an adjustment period.”

Lazyscales shrugged. “Respecting one’s chosen name versus their assigned name seems simple enough to me.”

==

And it’s like… that is a trans allegory flag waving so high it puts those 50 foot American flags that car dealerships have to shame.

This one is big enough to block out the sun.

For the rest of the series Aurora can tell she really likes Lazyscales, but it seems her past abuse holds her back. But the way she does it, makes her feel like she’s worried that he’ll not love her once he knows the real her and that no one could love someone like her. There’s also a scene where she asks if there were any gay dragons, and Lazyscales is like, yeah of course, Moonshadow and Lucy are a couple and with such long lived creatures, it would be weird to not be more heteroflexible. This could also be for some other character reasons later on, but I’m not so sure.

There’s also some interesting talks about sexual dimorphism in this. They mention it’s supposed to be hard to tell that a dragon is male or female other than the horns, there are other ways to do it which are way harder, but Lazyscales tagged Aroura through her smell. Something that should be easier than even sight, so that smell comment makes even less sense now. Like it was tacked on after the fact, and they forgot to change the parts later in the book. And all the dragons are fairly young as dragons go, so sex isn’t the only thing on their mind like horny teenagers. At one point, one of the male dragons even asks if they have balls. He looks between his legs, but his question is left unanswered. It’s like it was a segway to about the internal workings of dragons, because everything points to everything sexual being internal.

So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Aroura didn’t >know< she was biologically female to match the gender she’d always felt, until she met Lazyscales the first time. And she was transformed with magic, and if your soul remains, I see no reason a MtF transition is out of the question.

The end of the book is where things kind of start to break down. Rocktooth goes on a rampage during the concert, because he’d been so busy he forgot to eat. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because he’d been a dragon for a while before coming to the dragon preserve, and by then he and his manager should KNOW that him not having eaten is a dangerous thing. There should have been an entire pig dropped at his feet the day before as a precaution.

It almost feels like there was another way it was supposed to end, but it changed at the last second. When Rocktooth first starts singing in a rehearsal, it triggers familiar memories for Rocktooth, and it makes him feel good. But, if everything that was human should have been left in the abyss, that shouldn’t have happened. At one point, the Crone even explained that Lazyscales and Lewis’s souls could merge back together on their own with time, but that thread feels like it got dropped. Through this, Lazyscales starts having headaches.

Book 6: Beating Wings

Lazyscales is sadly no longer pudgy. He also gets violently ill from having a missing portion of his soul.

This is probably my least favorite of all the books. I liked the decent into hell/the afterlife to rescue Lewis’s soul, it was fun.

I also really loved when Lasthope takes Lazyscale’s soul to the dragon afterlife for safe keeping.

More when you see how Lazyscales becomes aware of this when he hatches from a dragon egg, and he turns out to be the most adorable little hatchling ever. Lasthope greets him, the dragon still looking much younger than Lazyscales ever saw him. His dragon dad explains that the afterlife is a place for souls to heal, and the younger you look, the more your soul needs to heal and growl. That’s why he and Lazyscales look so young.

They have a lot of very cute interactions, and he gets to meet his dragon grandparents.


During this whole thing, everyone keeps telling Lazyscales that he is Lewis, and even if they manage to merge their souls back together, he’ll still be Lazyscales just as he is Lewis. Lazyscales doesn’t like it, but he knows he’ll die if he doesn’t go back to the world above and there will be no one to help the new dragons. He’s scared and worried about this, and you can tell the thought hurts him so much.

Lewis gets rescued, and they convince Lazyscales to merge back with him. But from the start… it’s clear Lewis is the one who is fully in control. It isn’t a merging of his personalities and from the lessons he’s learned, he’s still just that human boy in a dragon’s body. Lazyscales guides him for a bit, but it sort of feels like he just fades away. There’s a coup subplot for the last 20% of the book that I don’t want to get into, but it was dragons + American capitalism = bad (which I 100% agree with).

Lazyscales gets one last speech, getting to be the dragon I’d sort of come to really like over the last two books, before he just sort of defaults back to Lewis, who has no character growth from the experience. There’s a rushed epilog that explains the after events of the coup and the dragons going off to populate other areas in the world, and in that, it even says Lewis no longer goes by Lazyscales at all. Which is his chosen name, and he’s right to do whatever, but the way it’s written, it sort of feels like Lazyscales died. The parts of himself didn’t come together, just one part was eaten by the other, and he’d been forgotten.

He did pick Lazyscales sort of at random, originally it was something Lasthope kept saying to describe him. Because he was a Lazydragon, so I can see why he wouldn’t have a big connection to that name, but Lazyscales liked it because it was what his ghost dad liked. I feel like it would have been more realistic after the re-merge to go by L-scales or maybe Lewscale, to show that he had changed a bit. But he was still two parts that now made a whole.

The series was interesting, and the writer was very good at keeping you hooked. I read all 6 of these books in 3 days. My eyeballs still kind of hurt. There’s another series of books after these that focus on Becca, but I’m going to skip those for now, I kind of burned myself out. Plus, I need some time to process what happened to Lazyscales.

3.7 out of 5.

I've kind of come to love the site now that so many folks are using it. There's so much interaction there, and it's a lot of fun.

I'm on Awoo.Space, and I've made an AD wobbl.xyz (a fat furry specific instance) for fun.

Also, Awoo.Space uses a whitelist instead of a blacklist, so you might run into issues following me there.

I'm still figuring things out, so I might migrate off of Awoo.Space eventually. Mastodon has a neat feature that lets you change instances and keep your follows/followers, so it's doable. But I like being able to awoo! for my posts~

https://awoo.space/web/@saintajax33

https://wobbl.xyz/@saintajax33

Also, I've been extremely disappointed with cohost. It was fun at first, but I've spent the last 3 days arguing with randos about why showing nazi imagery is bad, and it's kind of soured the whole site for me. It's just not had good vibes for me.

Hello everyone,

If you’re reading this, you probably know me already, but for those that don’t. I’m Ajax B. Coriander.

I’ve been using FA and writing on it for over the last 10+ years. In that time, I’ve learned a lot on how the search works.

I’m not someone who has seen the sausage is made, so all of these are just observations, I’m unaware of the exact coding behind each one.

That being said, I’ve been able to figure out a few things.

First off there are two main ways to search.

Using the @ keyword (no space) function, which will only search in the keywords a user has assigned.
Just entering the text straight into the textbox, which will pull from the submission, keywords, text, comments, the filename, and maybe some other places I’m not aware of.

The 1st example is what happens when you click on a keyword within the keyword box, you’re taken to the search, and that function is put into place. This ensures the only results you see are exactly the ones that have been tagged with that keyword.

The 2nd works because of the way the search was introduced. It’s not something that was designed into the site from the start, it was something that was added much, much, much later.

They needed a way to grandfather in all the submissions that existed prior to the keyword field being introduced. Without doing so, there’s 10s of thousands, if not 100s of thousands, of submissions that would have had no way of being searched out. So this feature is there so everyone has a chance to be seen — even if their content is old, they’re unable to update any longer, or they just didn’t think to use a particular keyword.

Which brings me to how the search results are sorted:

Date, Popularity, and Relevancy.

Date:
This one is pretty self explanatory. It looks for your search, and displays everything in order of its creation.


Popularity:
How “popular” something is. From what I can tell, this is weighted against views, comments, and favs. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but this can even sometimes bring in a result that caused something controversial and had a lot of discussion in the comments. But basically, the more interaction the post has, the higher it gets ranked.



Relevancy:
The system does its best to find something that’s the most relevant to your search. I’m not exactly sure how this works when using @ keywords (no space), but when not using it, it seems to take a look at the comments, text, keywords, and submission to figure out how relevant it is to your search. Like if you search “bear”. It will find the bear submissions, see how often it’s mentioned, and then display out the thing that seems the most relevant.


After you do a search, you can also select the “advanced search” and find a few more things. Like:
Phrase searching: "hello world"
NOT: hello -world -or- hello !world

But those are going to be used for when you want to find something super specific.

Something like:

“Bandit” & “chilli” & !"stripe"



You could even create your own custom URL you could set as your homepage that sets up all of your relevant interests.

Example:


Example

https://www. Furaffinity. net/search/?q=something&page=1&perpage=48&order-by=date&order-direction=desc&range=all&rating-general=on&rating-mature=&rating-adult=&type-art=on&type-flash=on&amp;type-photo=on&type-music=on&type-story=on&type-poetry=on&mode=extended

Big shout out to quoting_mungo for the feedback, and DUVMik for showing me the search link example.

Forum post where I had people check my work

Please let me know if anyone has any questions!

Did you know FA has it's own custom emoticons?



https://www.furaffinity.net/view/34443793/

Grizzly Pines

Growing up, it’d always kind of been a fantasy of mine to be naked in the woods. When I was young and on a farm, I got a few seconds here and there to experience something like that, but it was never for long.

Something about the thought always allured to me, like being in a nature state like we were intended to be, completely free to the world and apart of nature instead of just existing in it. But it always seemed too impossible. I looked into some nudist resorts and beaches, but they were either too far away or very heterosexually family focused. Which didn’t feel very welcoming to a young gay boy.

I got older and toyed with the idea some more, but I always ran into the same roadblocks. But one day I was on twitter, and I saw a post from someone naked by a pool in the early morning, and it looked like a campground. I got curious and did some digging, and found out that near Houston there was a gay clothing option 21+ campground with a bitchin’ pool.

Weirdly enough it turned out they had a YouTube channel, and did some more research. I began to realize this was everything I’d ever wanted.

1. Clothing option
2. Beautiful location
3. Gay focused
4. And 21+

The 21+ only part was the biggest selling point, it was a safe space for adults where they could just be adults and not have to worry; a vibe cons don’t really have. The camp has some good rules in place to like you can’t bring in cameras other than your own, and if you do take photos, other people can’t be in the photos to respect other people’s privacy:

“Cameras are not permitted on the property other than those on your phones (your are not permitted to record, videotape or capture any other persons). Cameras includes drones, mounted cameras, remote controlled cameras or anything intended to view, record, or retain video or pictures. This is to protect everyone's privacy while inside the park.”

I saw all of this, and was instantly hooked. I started planning the trip. With the way my schedule worked out, I had to go for a non-event weekend. But those tend to be sold out way in advance anyway, so it worked out. They did look interesting: they have everything from lumberjack weekend, brisket cookoffs, leather pride weekends, pup days, and so much more.

Myself and the friend didn’t have a tent, so we decided to rent one of their RVs. This was fairly clean, the only dirty spot I can think of was a bit under the sink cover that had some leftover soda on it.

The place had a fake fire, a fridge, a microwave, stove, it’s own hot water, a washer and dryer, a working bathroom, two super powerful air conditioners, and every kind of cooking utensil you might need. There was even a Keurig and coffee grinder… you could kind of tell that many gays had been in this RV before us… The bed was kind of underwhelming, you’d sink to the boards when you laid down, but oddly, every day I’d wake up feeling super rested. I just sort of woke up naturally with the sun and it felt amazing. I was talking with some other folks there and apparently all the new cabins have brand new beds that are super comfy.

My favorite part was the porch outside. It was angled to overlook the rest of the campground and it always seemed just completely idyllic. In the early morning it was so beautiful to sit on, have a cup of morning coffee- the campground shared a fence with a horse farm, and if you’d look through the trees occasionally, you’d see horses majestically grazing in the morning sun… it was just too heckin’ pretty.

There were a couple of a permanent RV sites where people had added elaborate decks and gardens. The one next to use had palm trees and humming bird feeders, they’d constantly be flying around and so many butterflies got attracted to their flowers. I felt like I was in wonderland.

Oddly, I don’t think I had a single mosquito bite me the whole time, whatever they’re doing to mange those is clearly working. I was using bug spray just in case, but even then, one or two usually sneaks through.

The whole place just had this amazingly chill vibe, the whole campground was covered with pine trees that provided some wonderful shade while reminding you that you were out in the woods and in nature. There was some smart design work, and the pool is centered in the campground and is kind of the centerpiece of the whole place. That’s where the most gatherings seem to be, and the place people spend the most time at. It’s hecking beautiful early in the mornings when the sun is hitting it just right. There’s also a hot tub, which was very nice.

There is a food stand there that’s open weekend nights, so even if you didn’t bring food you have a place to eat. There’s also a Checkers/Gas Station/Corner Taco down the road, a small micro-Walmart within 20 minute drive (with a bunch of food fast food places around it), and Houston is only 45 minutes away. I brought way too much food, and we usually just ended up going out to eat; we went out to House of Pies twice to fill up on tendies and sweets…

I would really advise bringing some folding camp chairs, it’s the kind of place you just want to sit and chill and that keeps your options open and let’s you sit somewhere sans pants with a little more comfort. It took me a little while to get used to the nudity part, but because it was clothing-optional rather than fully nudist; it took all the pressure off and just let you do what was comfortable. I’m really going to miss just rolling out of bed and little the morning sun hit my nuts as I drink a cup of coffee. Then just dash to the pool and jump in.

Everyone was pretty friendly, but they usually kept to themselves – which was expected. It was like any campground in that regard. I don’t think I’d want to go alone, I think having someone with you makes the whole thing more enjoyable. However, I did go during a non-event weekend, so it might be more energetic during those times, but I honestly think it would just make it all the more fun.

I’m really looking forward to going back. I don’t think I’ve felt this relaxed in a really, really, long time.

I’m not the same person that went into quarantine.

I guess that’s to be expected. There was a whole year of my life where my entire routine was smashed. But it was more than that too, it was the constant state of stress where I was in survival mode and the rules were constantly changing an evolving.

Don’t wear a mask.
Wash your hands a lot.
Wear a mask.
Stay three feet away.
No, six.
Here’s a horrible new thing that comes from getting covid even if you were asymptomatic.
Check out this hot new symptom in your area.

Then there was a group of people who seemed to want to do everything in their power to spread the virus as fast as possible or those who refused to take it seriously – and then died or spread it to someone else.

It was so weird watching the truth become distorted every day. There were undeniable facts, but people had to put on their tinfoil hats and constantly pick at them, saying that dead communists were to blame.

There’s always been a bit of that in American culture, we love a good conspiracy. JFK, the moon landing, Elvis, etc.

I guess it’s because we like to be the center of the known universe, we want to think we know something that no one else does, and we’re the only people “in” on it. We’re the only ones with the secret knowledge that will set us down in history as a savior and a person whose name will never be erased by time like a name on a weather headstone.

I used to just kind of laugh at these, but now every one of these conspiracy theories causes bile to rise in my throat and rage to fill my veins. They’re not funny anymore. They’re a symptom of a systematic narcissism American culture had pushed upon us where we want to be the most special person, and we value ourselves over the group. This idea is so ingrained in us, that as I write this, I’m trying to carve out caveats to why it’s okay to feel this way. But we need to realize, that most of us won’t be the person breaking the conspiracy and waking up the masses, we’re just cogs in the machine that keeps it clicking on.

It reminds me of a phrase that I used to love, but I’ve come to hate.

“I want to believe”.

I can close my eyes and still see that grainy poster on Mulder’s office wall under the tile full of pencils he lobbed at the ceiling. That fake UFO whooshing over the forest. It used to make me smile, because it seemed so silly, and now that phrase makes me grit my teeth. It sums up a lot of the human experience that makes the lives of people miserable who don’t have the luxury of living in their own fantasies about the world. It can be applied to so many things:


I want to believe in aliens.
I want to believe that the government is trying to kill me.
I want to believe that only bad people get punished.
I want to believe my story is the best in the world.
I want to believe that my child isn’t torching other kids at school.
I want to believe that beating my kid because it makes me feel better about myself will make them a better person.
I want to believe that they wanted it.
I want to believe that American doesn’t have a problem with race and that our systems have been designed from the start to put anyone in the “other” category down and make their lives as miserable as possible.
I want to believe that vaccines cause autism.
I want to believe that Covid isn’t real.
I want to believe that humans don’t cause climate change.
I want to believe it’s an individual’s fault for climate change, and not an problem caused by a hand full of companies who have done everything in their power to make sure they never suffer the consequences of their own actions.
I want to believe that we can’t do anything to stop climate change.

Some of the above are harmless, but others have caused so much suffering and death. Or they will cause suffering and death in the immediate future.

Some of it comes from nihilism, but a lot of it comes from the individualistic value you have where we don’t want to think of our group as a whole, and we only want to focus on what affects us, and only us.

It’s why I don’t trust Geoengineering, which would fix some countries, but break others who don’t have the power to stop it.

Or nuclear power, which we can’t be trusted with as a species yet. We can’t make a pipeline that won’t spill, what makes you think we could make 1000s of full proof reactors that won’t just end up hurting poor people?

We want the easy fixes, because we don’t want to admit that we need to start working together for the betterment of humankind, and that it’s someone else’s problem.

I watched the world burn last year, figuratively and literally (example: https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/12.....-large.jpg?v=2 ). You did too. We all did.

Hell, this year even, we watched on live TV as the Capital of the United States was almost taken over by insurrectionists who wanted to believe that Trump won the election. That they were in the know on some great conspiracy, and not just a part of the system like the rest of us. And a week later Texas had people froze to death because some of those same people wanted to believe that the PowerGrid being isolated from other states was a good idea.

All of this changed me.

I’ve learned that sometimes there is no “next year” or “later”. Every second you’ve managed to hang onto the edge of your grave and keep from getting sucked under into the void is a blessing, and you need to fight for every breath you take like it’s your last- because it could be. I need to take more chances, see people more, do more things.

The second I was vaccinated fully, I started to try and do something every weekend, not just stay holed up at home and close myself off from the world.

I’m also trying to make more of an effort to be the organizer of these things or try and join them. I can’t keep doing what I was doing. If I want to be involved in the world, I have to make an effort to be apart of it.

I’m also not as socially anxious as I used to be. I don’t know if it’s the new meds, or after being on high alert for an entire year with Klaxons sounding every day, that it’s become easier to ignore. I think the masks help with this some too, suddenly I feel like I can be my real self, and not the meat suit I’ve been forced into.

I also don’t take the bullshit anymore. I don’t want to let people get away with stupid opinions beliefs anymore.

That blue lives matter shirt? Just a confederate uniform in another color.
Nose-dicking after a year in a pandemic? Virtue signaling that you think you’re better than everyone.
Not wearing a mask? Just wanting to die, so you can “trigger the libs”.
Blaming plastic straws on all of the world’s woes and climate change, rather than looking at the companies that make the straws in the first place, and don’t try to make a better product or a better way they can be captured? The false belief that capitalism is the most perfect system and that it can do no wrong.
Believing you need to work with people who actively want to kill a segment of the population because you don’t want to seem too progressive? Bullshit.
Wanting to blame kink for all of the fandom’s problems? You just want daddy to not think you’re “one of those queers” or you huffed too much of that purity ring dust in high school.

I used to just say block these assholes and move on, but now I think it’s important to fight* them even if you know you can’t change their mind, because someone else might see it and rethink their own shitty opinion.

Maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe you’ll wake someone up. You never know. But if you don’t engage, they’re getting to shout the loudest and they’re the only ones that will gain followers to their shitty opinions.

But do not fall for the callout post trap. Don’t blast someone’s name across your platform by uttering their name, quote tweeting, mentioning them, by naming these people you only give them power and spread their opinions farther.

I wish I had a guidepost to really show how to change people’s hearts and minds, but I honestly don’t know what else can be done.

This all has remined me of what the original Greek origin for the word “apocalypse” was.

“Apocalypse comes from Greek apokálypsis “uncovering,” a derivative of the verb apokalýptein “to take the cover off”.
I survived the cover being taken off. I survived having my whole self shattered and exposed to the world. I survived the apocalypse.

It wasn’t zombies.
It wasn’t nukes.
It wasn’t war.

It was people wanting to believe that a pandemic wasn’t real, wanting to believe that racism isn’t real, wanting to AstroTurf over climate change and pretend there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

Well now I don’t believe any of that, I know for a fact that racism is real (I never doubted this btw), wearing a mask will protect others, and that we can do something about climate change if we MAKE people listen.

Remember: Trans women are women, trans men are men, black lives matter, all cops are bastards, no human is illegal, and party on dudes.




*I am not suggesting violent actions, it was more of a figurative statement.

3 days of frozen hell.

As I write this, I’m safe, warm, with power, internet, food, and water, but that state has fluctuated over the last 3 days. And many, many, many people in my state of Texas aren’t as lucky as I am.

I’m writing this as much as a warning to others as a way to decompress and process everything I’ve just gone through.

Texas is not a state designed to work in the cold. Everything from our grid to our roads is not designed for snow or ice. There are roads that travel 4 stories into the air on massive twisting and interlocking chaos that turn into twisted metal death traps the second it’s wet and below freezing. There are no salt trucks. There’s a few snowplows, but because of the road dots (reflective safety dots on the road) they have to be incredibly careful or they’ll cost the city millions in damages. The roads also have insane inclines that turn the roads into sledding hills. And houses are designed to let heat out, not keep it in.

This storm fucked us. Our governmental leadership ran away to Cancún, tried to blame ANTIFA for the weather, or AOC for magically converting the whole power grid to renewable energy (it’s only 10%) and for not listening to the federal government to weatherize the grid.

I feel like the only reason I got through it relatively unscathed is the kindness of friends and the fact I had prepared for something like this since I was a teenager.

I don’t like the word “prepper” because it tends to bring to mind MAGA chuds and treasonous assholes, but I’ve always liked to be prepared for an emergency. I think this came out of watching Zombie movies as a kid and watching people die over preventable things. So I’ve always had a little go-bag in one form or another growing up, and in 2020, when everything was going to complete shit, I expended on it extensively and threw some actual resources into it, and I think that’s the only reason I was able to ride through the storm in some comfort.

But, this was a way to find considerable gaps in my planning and preparedness.

Let’s start with the things that worked.

Water:
I had a buttload of clean drinking water. They sell water in soda cans, I had that along with some plastic bottles, and some gallon jugs just laying around the house. This was so magical to have. Just knowing I could pop the top on something and drink it – knowing it was 100% safe was a life saver.

Power and Light:
I have multiple power sources and lights. When I saw the weather reports rolling in, I decided to charge everything.
I also had a solar panel which was a god send. On day 2 with no power, I was able to pop this bad boy outside and charge up two of my power banks to full in just a few hours. I never once had my phone die this entire time because I had all of those chargers.

https://www.anker.com/products/vari.....solar/A2421011

Quick side note on this though: I tested it in the summer, and the devices you’re charging can overheat if stored directly in the pouch on the panel. It’s better to have some long USB cords, and place the devices – like battery banks – somewhere protected from the sun. Like under a chair or just with a t-shirt thrown over them. In the snow though, I had no issues. I did wrap them inside of a ziplock bag, just to make sure no water shorted them out.

I also had a weather radio/light/charger that was incredibly handy. It was easy to stand on end and turn into a makeshift lantern to illuminate a room. It was also nice having a way outside of cell reception (which was horribly spotty) to get news updates and have some entertainment.

The best part about it? It can also be run off of AAA batteries or cranked by hand if you’re really desperate. There’s a solar panel on it, but that takes days to charge it. But after 3 days, I never needed to charge it.

https://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Po.....=1&keywords=weather+radio&pd_rd_i=B07W6SGPGB&pd_rd_r=c03ed5ff-913e-4c75-b9ca-0e97a12bd585&pd_rd_w=vCqgc&pd_rd_wg=GDsaY&pf_rd_p=79c6e13e-fbdb-4ab1-8d83-9d1dbd2f11f4&pf_rd_r=KG3X6NWHFX4529S6J0BH&qid=1613718018&sr=1-3-5519553e-2baa-451e-af83-b0156e5c6669

Glowsticks were also amazing to have on hand, I just snapped them and instantly there was light.

This lantern was also great to have. I’ve had it for over a decade, and just kind of floating around the house, and it instantly turned any space into something workable.

https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Wa.....1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyNzE4NlRYSEdEVks1JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNjc1NzI0MTI1TDYzVkFSMDBQOSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwODM2NzQzMkQxSU1OM08xSDNRWiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Having a headlamp was also a godsend, I was able to strap it to my head and I had both hands free to do whatever I needed. Weather that was digging the car out of the snow, strapping blankets over the windows, or trying to find something buried in a dark closet in the middle of the night.

Clothing:

I had some thick wool socks that kept my feet warm, and when combined with these down booties, I my paws never felt cold:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B.....UTF8&psc=1

Food:
I had a bunch of jerky, canned fruit, crackers, freeze dried ice cream, etc that I’d bought just in case I needed some quick calories to keep me going. After you haven’t eaten anything warm for hours, biting into a piece of jerky that you know is going to fill your belly helps keep you going.

Now, let’s talk about where I fucked up:

Fire

I had dozens of ways to start fire. Fancy electric lighters, flint and steel, matches, lighters, etc. I had kindling, like cotton balls covered in petroleum jelly and this stuff called “fire cord”. I even had fuel for the fire: Wood, charcoal, and fuel alcohol.

Do you know what this dumbass didn’t have? Something to put the fucking fire >in<. I’d tried to go camping over the summer and left a cooking stove I had there, and hadn’t gotten around to replacing it. So I had limitless options for fire, but no receptacle to hold the fire. I tried to make a charcoal grill out a bread pan, it worked for about five minutes before the wind blew it out.

This means, I had no way to boil water or cook food. I had DOZENS of freeze-dried meals, all ready to go, just waiting for the hot water to enter them and make a hot meal to warm the body and soul. Or just brew a cup of tea and get some warmth in me that way. I would have fought someone for a cup of tea by day 4.

I have fixed this. I have ordered a propane stove, a alcohol burner, and a small wood stove.

Thankfully, if the water had been contaminated, I have a lot of ways to filter water to make it drinkable even without heat.

On day 5, when we walked through the door, and threw everything away in our fridge, I was so happy when I got to sit down with some freshly boiled water and eat one of the freeze-dried meals. It warmed me to my soul, and I don’t think any meal will ever taste as good.

On day 3 to 4 we had escaped somewhere that had a gas fireplace, but the issue was we didn’t really have a way to put a pot in it to boil water in. So again, I had all this food, but no way to really make it. I’m aware I could have just put cold water in it, but I wasn’t that desperate for calories yet – thankfully for that jerky and an excursion to find a McDonalds.

I was tempted to put a tin can right in the fire, but I didn’t have a good way to get it back out. I was also worried about it overflowing and breaking something inside of the gas fireplace. Like causing the ceramic log to crack.

I have bought a set of backpacking tongs/utensils to correct this.

Another minor issue: Organization

I noticed, I would always know I had something to do a task, but finding it in my bugout bag or in storage was always a pain. I lost tools in my bag, and would have to dump everything out to find them. I found a pair of pants I’d been missing for months that I didn’t know I’d packed in there. I couldn’t find my Leatherman and eventually realized it was stashed in my toiletry bag.

Before leaving for the friend’s house, I picked up my cooking set, and thought about bringing it, but I put it back down because I thought I wouldn’t need it and I didn’t want it to take up space in my bag. If I’d just had that, so many options would have been open for me. I’ve decided to get something smaller to replace it, and prevent me from ever making that mistake again. Plus, it can hold my alcohol burner.

I should be able to close my eyes and find anything in that bag without thinking. I really need to look at how I’ve packed and try to streamline things.

I’m not going to go through everything I have in this post, but needless to say, I’m very thankfully I was prepared as I was. I can’t tell you how happy I was knowing I had a solution for almost any problem.

If you’re interested in making a kit of your own, here’s a checklist put out by fema a few years back which is a good starting point:

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/.....5ed4617047ba9d5eb9c9fd204004~mv2_d_1879_2420_s_2.webp


And here’s a website that’s created by the US government that can give you some ideas:

https://www.ready.gov/kit

As we go into a more uncertain world as the climate changes, things like this will happen more and more often.

Floods, fires, and freezing temperatures are just going to be the norm. Don’t get caught off guard. Make a kit, and save for your life.

And for the love of god, never run a generator in your home or your car in your garage. Don’t make it easy for the grim reaper to take you, fight like hell, and don’t give up.

A special shoutout to the women who opened their home and let us recharge and eat a hot meal for the first time in days. Ya’ll were life savers.


Keep your stick on the ice, folks. We’re all pullin’ for ya.

Happy new year!