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oh well
General | Posted 3 years agoI can never set foot in another furry con ever again. :)
Honestly, they were too much work at this point in my life anyway.
Honestly, they were too much work at this point in my life anyway.
huh
General | Posted 4 years agoMy faves and comments all seem to be disappearing!
Did I do something wrong?
Did I do something wrong?
Respawn
General | Posted 5 years agoI self-published Respawn earlier this month! Check it out:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KRZ4TCM
Respawn is a story told in three parts:
No one dies for good in the System but, the more Ghost and Orchid look into the murder of an Arbitrator named Kacey, the more the two investigators suspect this may be about to change. Arbitrators are notoriously hard to kill and, if one of them can be taken down for good, no one is safe. In time, their investigation ends up taking them down a road that leads them to question everything they've been taught to believe.
Jackie always resented living in the System and, after what some of what she's been through, who could blame her? After spending so much time and energy looking for a way to escape from it, it's no wonder she's crushed when her hopes are dashed. But her tampering didn't go unnoticed, she gets more than she bargained for, and she'll have to spend a long time unpacking the can of worms she's opened.
Growing up trans, ace, and struggling with a wide variety of mental disorders, Fran often felt like Earth was a place where she'd never truly belong, and looked up at the stars. After a freak accident actually drags her from Earth to the System herself, it looks like she's going to get a chance to see if she could belong somewhere else after all. As she strives to make a place for herself in the System with Jackie's help, glimpses of her life back on Earth put things in perspective for us.
Respawn is a story about doing your best in a world built for someone else that expects perfection from you. It's a story about questioning all of our underlying assumptions about what's necessary for a society to work. It's about how one person's trash is another person's treasure, and about choosing to live in a world that wants you dead.
I hope that, by the end of it, you'll see some measure of beauty in my little realm up among the stars, warts and all. The question science-fiction always *seems* to ask is "Are we alone?" But the question science-fiction *really* asks is, "Am *I* alone...?"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KRZ4TCM
Respawn is a story told in three parts:
No one dies for good in the System but, the more Ghost and Orchid look into the murder of an Arbitrator named Kacey, the more the two investigators suspect this may be about to change. Arbitrators are notoriously hard to kill and, if one of them can be taken down for good, no one is safe. In time, their investigation ends up taking them down a road that leads them to question everything they've been taught to believe.
Jackie always resented living in the System and, after what some of what she's been through, who could blame her? After spending so much time and energy looking for a way to escape from it, it's no wonder she's crushed when her hopes are dashed. But her tampering didn't go unnoticed, she gets more than she bargained for, and she'll have to spend a long time unpacking the can of worms she's opened.
Growing up trans, ace, and struggling with a wide variety of mental disorders, Fran often felt like Earth was a place where she'd never truly belong, and looked up at the stars. After a freak accident actually drags her from Earth to the System herself, it looks like she's going to get a chance to see if she could belong somewhere else after all. As she strives to make a place for herself in the System with Jackie's help, glimpses of her life back on Earth put things in perspective for us.
Respawn is a story about doing your best in a world built for someone else that expects perfection from you. It's a story about questioning all of our underlying assumptions about what's necessary for a society to work. It's about how one person's trash is another person's treasure, and about choosing to live in a world that wants you dead.
I hope that, by the end of it, you'll see some measure of beauty in my little realm up among the stars, warts and all. The question science-fiction always *seems* to ask is "Are we alone?" But the question science-fiction *really* asks is, "Am *I* alone...?"
empty
General | Posted 5 years agoWithout the chewy center that holds it all together, everything around it in life is just so much filler
why
General | Posted 7 years agoWhy ruin something pure and beautiful like porn by making it about something horrible and triggering like Christmas, my dudes?
Halloween
General | Posted 8 years agoEnjoy some Halloween-themed tweets from two years ago, why don't you:
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....28365452673024
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....83680046694400
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....82456610160640
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....76981407637504
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....72293874458624
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....66511191707648
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....61817438441473
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....58409750986752
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....54282518036480
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....51021169913856
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....48311578165249
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....45318078234624
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....42419382226944
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....41871719370752
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....40239363317760
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....39291723223040
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....37632448229376
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....37099901612032
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....28875672616960
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....21008366206976
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....08321058025472
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....28365452673024
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....83680046694400
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....82456610160640
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....76981407637504
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....72293874458624
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....66511191707648
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....61817438441473
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....58409750986752
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....54282518036480
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....51021169913856
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....48311578165249
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....45318078234624
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....42419382226944
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....41871719370752
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....40239363317760
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....39291723223040
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....37632448229376
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....37099901612032
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....28875672616960
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....21008366206976
https://twitter.com/spacewastrel/st.....08321058025472
novel out!
General | Posted 9 years agoReposted, fixed so it's available in Canada & in the US now:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01NBM1765/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1482136350&sr
Support me by buying my novel if you feel so inclined :)
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01NBM1765/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1482136350&sr
Support me by buying my novel if you feel so inclined :)
so much for that
General | Posted 9 years agoSomeone said something to me that forced me to give up writing for good.
My writing is appropriative. There's no getting around it. Everything I've worked on for all this time is trash.
I'm gonna be honest, as someone with chronic, clinical depression, I haven't been this depressed in a really long time.
What a shitty fucking year it's been.
My writing is appropriative. There's no getting around it. Everything I've worked on for all this time is trash.
I'm gonna be honest, as someone with chronic, clinical depression, I haven't been this depressed in a really long time.
What a shitty fucking year it's been.
commission offer
General | Posted 9 years agoThis is a long shot, but would anyone possibly be interested in a short story commission from me for $5/page?
I have short story examples all over Sofurry and FA.
I typically write furry characters but I've written human too.
Almost any genre will do!
Any takers?
I have short story examples all over Sofurry and FA.
I typically write furry characters but I've written human too.
Almost any genre will do!
Any takers?
retrospective
General | Posted 9 years agoSince I'm at a point where I'm out of ideas for new short stories for now and we could all use a break from politics, I thought I'd ramble a little about some of the writing I've posted over the years.
I've had 3 drafts of Surface so far. The 3rd is officially the "canon" one, which I'm still intending on trying to publish when I can, possibly on Amazon Kindle. I started writing the 1st one all the way back in 2005, but gave up on it in 2007 or so. I wrote the 2nd one in the summer of 2014. There were various reasons for which I thought the 2nd draft was better than the 1st one, as well as why I thought the 3rd one was better than the 2nd one.
The 1st one suffered from being overly verbose, when I look back on it from today. I tried to address too many things as part of one sentence, without really giving the reader a chance to catch their breath. I also wrote conversations in a clumsy format, with too much straight up back and forth without any descriptions of actions in-between - a problem I'd at least fixed by the 2nd one. I went into too much detail about everything, and took too long to get to the point. I was basically putting down whatever was coming through my head as it did.
I do vaguely miss the scene where Mano, thinking about the importance of helping others, has to fend off an overly aggressive beggar at a bus station insisting that she give him ten dollars. It was darkly comedic, but from my current perspective it has problematic elements that I worried could be misinterpreted as Objectivist. It was supposed to be about the difficulty of striking a balance between selfishness and being taken advantage of - and based partly on my own experience at a bus station, incidentally.
I still have the 1st draft posted on an alternate LiveJournal account from way back, for archival purposes and to keep the feedback I received about it there back then. Unfortunately the 1st draft never recovered from the end of the Boko arc. I didn't have things plotted out clearly enough in my head for what was going to serve as connective tissue between Klein and Mano's storyline leading up to the cult storyline, and my cow and archaeopteryx characters fell flat compared to the previous ones. It was abandoned without being finished.
The 2nd draft already seems to me from today like it could've been written by a different person. This one started out simply because I decided to take my characters and write an old school martial arts tournament series of seven short stories involving them, more for my own entertainment than anything else. Once I'd finished it, I started thinking about how maybe it could be used as connective tissue between the Mano/Klein arcs and the cult storyline, so I rewrote the intro chapters, then continued until I'd finished and reorganized the whole thing.
I wrote out standalone character ideas back in 2010. At that point, those characters weren't connected, some of them had different genders and names, and were otherwise completely unrecognizable compared to who they became today. But in 2014, I started thinking that they could help me fill in the blanks I'd had so much trouble filling in during my previous attempt at it. Rakim wasn't even Muslim or trans back then! Ogun didn't do Voodoo, and wasn't even named. Fugue and Bridges were mentioned in passing. Mandrake wasn't Jewish.
I assumed that readers had very little patience for plot development and character growth in this one! I thought that people would get bored with too many details about the characters' personal lives and that they'd prefer more action. This turned out to be a mistake. The excess of action collapsed under its own length, and didn't have enough momentum to sustain the reader's attention in the long run. It was only in the 3rd one that I realized that I had to approach the story from the perspective of the characters' spiritual lives in general.
Rakim was kind of rude in the 2nd draft in a way I don't really picture him being now, especially in his fight against Klein. The way they'd talk to each other during fights as they'd watch them together after that is still how I picture their friendship starting though, but there was no way to seamlessly include it into the 3rd version, so it had to be sacrificed. Ogun as I picture him now would never torch Mnemos with his fire breath, especially not in front of Rakim. I still like the surreal vibe of her blindfighting scene against him in the 2nd draft's "Dead Trees," though.
What I was trying to go for with the tournament was an "anti-narrative" of the "typical" tournament storyline basically. Klein's mistake is that he misinterprets everyone's intentions when they tell him he shouldn't be in it as arrogance on their part. He thinks he's in a "traditional" male narrative of having to prove himself, when in fact, the other characters simply care enough about him to warn him he's really out of his depth. He finds this out when he loses cruelly at the end. I liked the "Wonderland" quality of the moment when they all gather around him to lecture him about it at the end.
Instead of bragging about his victory like the "jerk" the audience is usually encouraged to imagine, Ogun's response upon winning is to panic and ask Klein "Shit, are you okay?" The 2nd draft was too "shonen manga," but it still broke expectations in a few ways, at least. The Dawkins VS Muslims combined with the refugee crisis that I thought more about between 2014 and 2016 made me reconsider some of the subtext in the 2nd draft, which I decided to approach in a different way when I set out to write the 3rd one specifically. The 2nd also had too many dangling loose threads.
I started writing the Rakim series in early 2016. When I first started writing it, I had no intention of including it as part of anything else. It was going to be a standalone series, one that I expected to be much shorter than it turned out to be when I first started writing it, at that. Once I'd finished it, though, looking at it and thinking about it, I realized that it'd integrate very well with the Mano and Klein storylines by providing a counterpoint to them that the more extensive Mnemos arc would also complete. I gave them all a "real" ending that was missing from the 2nd draft.
While I think I'm done fiddling with the 3rd version as such by this point, I've written a half-dozen other short stories in the same universe this fall, some of them taking place during Surface itself, some of them taking place after it. I've wondered whether or not I should include some of them as a kind of multi-part epilogue to Surface or not. I want it to be streamlined, but they also address elements of Surface that I became worried could be misinterpreted - which is ironically appropriate, since it's a story about the disastrous effects of misinterpreting someone's work in the first place.
I was considering a shortened, clean, edited version of Fish Out of Water, Only In Dreams, For Sore Eyes, Gaslight, Lemmings, Spheres of Influence and Sands of Time. Some of them are a bit darker, so they do risk bringing the reader down from the high note that Down The Stream tries to leave them on. Although Sands of Time arguably does the same, it still leaves Mano in a bad place. It makes the overarching arc more about Rakim than about her, which I'm not sure is what I want to do. It also has Mnemos have a bad time, but it does introduce us to the rest of the Cat's Eye.
During my outline for the 1st version all the way back in 2006, Mikra was my initial vision for what Klein's story with Rakim was going to be! Klein was going to meet her after Boko, Fugue and Bridges but before Shinai. I ultimately never got to that part of Klein's story back then because I dropped the 1st draft before getting to it. After having decided to scrap it for good, I finally decided to recycle it as part of an alternate timeline during Sands of Time, Rakim's big time travel "episode." Reintegrating old writing has been a crucial step the whole way, the more I think about it.
I've had 3 drafts of Surface so far. The 3rd is officially the "canon" one, which I'm still intending on trying to publish when I can, possibly on Amazon Kindle. I started writing the 1st one all the way back in 2005, but gave up on it in 2007 or so. I wrote the 2nd one in the summer of 2014. There were various reasons for which I thought the 2nd draft was better than the 1st one, as well as why I thought the 3rd one was better than the 2nd one.
The 1st one suffered from being overly verbose, when I look back on it from today. I tried to address too many things as part of one sentence, without really giving the reader a chance to catch their breath. I also wrote conversations in a clumsy format, with too much straight up back and forth without any descriptions of actions in-between - a problem I'd at least fixed by the 2nd one. I went into too much detail about everything, and took too long to get to the point. I was basically putting down whatever was coming through my head as it did.
I do vaguely miss the scene where Mano, thinking about the importance of helping others, has to fend off an overly aggressive beggar at a bus station insisting that she give him ten dollars. It was darkly comedic, but from my current perspective it has problematic elements that I worried could be misinterpreted as Objectivist. It was supposed to be about the difficulty of striking a balance between selfishness and being taken advantage of - and based partly on my own experience at a bus station, incidentally.
I still have the 1st draft posted on an alternate LiveJournal account from way back, for archival purposes and to keep the feedback I received about it there back then. Unfortunately the 1st draft never recovered from the end of the Boko arc. I didn't have things plotted out clearly enough in my head for what was going to serve as connective tissue between Klein and Mano's storyline leading up to the cult storyline, and my cow and archaeopteryx characters fell flat compared to the previous ones. It was abandoned without being finished.
The 2nd draft already seems to me from today like it could've been written by a different person. This one started out simply because I decided to take my characters and write an old school martial arts tournament series of seven short stories involving them, more for my own entertainment than anything else. Once I'd finished it, I started thinking about how maybe it could be used as connective tissue between the Mano/Klein arcs and the cult storyline, so I rewrote the intro chapters, then continued until I'd finished and reorganized the whole thing.
I wrote out standalone character ideas back in 2010. At that point, those characters weren't connected, some of them had different genders and names, and were otherwise completely unrecognizable compared to who they became today. But in 2014, I started thinking that they could help me fill in the blanks I'd had so much trouble filling in during my previous attempt at it. Rakim wasn't even Muslim or trans back then! Ogun didn't do Voodoo, and wasn't even named. Fugue and Bridges were mentioned in passing. Mandrake wasn't Jewish.
I assumed that readers had very little patience for plot development and character growth in this one! I thought that people would get bored with too many details about the characters' personal lives and that they'd prefer more action. This turned out to be a mistake. The excess of action collapsed under its own length, and didn't have enough momentum to sustain the reader's attention in the long run. It was only in the 3rd one that I realized that I had to approach the story from the perspective of the characters' spiritual lives in general.
Rakim was kind of rude in the 2nd draft in a way I don't really picture him being now, especially in his fight against Klein. The way they'd talk to each other during fights as they'd watch them together after that is still how I picture their friendship starting though, but there was no way to seamlessly include it into the 3rd version, so it had to be sacrificed. Ogun as I picture him now would never torch Mnemos with his fire breath, especially not in front of Rakim. I still like the surreal vibe of her blindfighting scene against him in the 2nd draft's "Dead Trees," though.
What I was trying to go for with the tournament was an "anti-narrative" of the "typical" tournament storyline basically. Klein's mistake is that he misinterprets everyone's intentions when they tell him he shouldn't be in it as arrogance on their part. He thinks he's in a "traditional" male narrative of having to prove himself, when in fact, the other characters simply care enough about him to warn him he's really out of his depth. He finds this out when he loses cruelly at the end. I liked the "Wonderland" quality of the moment when they all gather around him to lecture him about it at the end.
Instead of bragging about his victory like the "jerk" the audience is usually encouraged to imagine, Ogun's response upon winning is to panic and ask Klein "Shit, are you okay?" The 2nd draft was too "shonen manga," but it still broke expectations in a few ways, at least. The Dawkins VS Muslims combined with the refugee crisis that I thought more about between 2014 and 2016 made me reconsider some of the subtext in the 2nd draft, which I decided to approach in a different way when I set out to write the 3rd one specifically. The 2nd also had too many dangling loose threads.
I started writing the Rakim series in early 2016. When I first started writing it, I had no intention of including it as part of anything else. It was going to be a standalone series, one that I expected to be much shorter than it turned out to be when I first started writing it, at that. Once I'd finished it, though, looking at it and thinking about it, I realized that it'd integrate very well with the Mano and Klein storylines by providing a counterpoint to them that the more extensive Mnemos arc would also complete. I gave them all a "real" ending that was missing from the 2nd draft.
While I think I'm done fiddling with the 3rd version as such by this point, I've written a half-dozen other short stories in the same universe this fall, some of them taking place during Surface itself, some of them taking place after it. I've wondered whether or not I should include some of them as a kind of multi-part epilogue to Surface or not. I want it to be streamlined, but they also address elements of Surface that I became worried could be misinterpreted - which is ironically appropriate, since it's a story about the disastrous effects of misinterpreting someone's work in the first place.
I was considering a shortened, clean, edited version of Fish Out of Water, Only In Dreams, For Sore Eyes, Gaslight, Lemmings, Spheres of Influence and Sands of Time. Some of them are a bit darker, so they do risk bringing the reader down from the high note that Down The Stream tries to leave them on. Although Sands of Time arguably does the same, it still leaves Mano in a bad place. It makes the overarching arc more about Rakim than about her, which I'm not sure is what I want to do. It also has Mnemos have a bad time, but it does introduce us to the rest of the Cat's Eye.
During my outline for the 1st version all the way back in 2006, Mikra was my initial vision for what Klein's story with Rakim was going to be! Klein was going to meet her after Boko, Fugue and Bridges but before Shinai. I ultimately never got to that part of Klein's story back then because I dropped the 1st draft before getting to it. After having decided to scrap it for good, I finally decided to recycle it as part of an alternate timeline during Sands of Time, Rakim's big time travel "episode." Reintegrating old writing has been a crucial step the whole way, the more I think about it.
well
General | Posted 9 years agoOne of the women I followed on Twitter before being forced out is going through a pregnancy that's a serious threat to her health and might now not be able to get a life-saving abortion.
Tell *her* that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump.
One of the women I followed on Twitter was raped six times. Now she's learned that her rapist can become president but she can't, because rapists become president but women don't.
Tell *her* that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump.
Eight trans people killed themselves on the night of the election. Others I've seen crash because in Trump's America they'll never get to transition, or even go to the goddamn bathroom.
Tell *them*, tell their loved ones, that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump.
Muslims are being assaulted in the streets. Jewish journalists are being threatened at work. Queers are being disowned, losing marriage, job, housing protection. Disabled people lost health coverage. BLM is about to be declared a hate group.
To tell me that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump over some e-mail bullshit is to spit in the face of every minority that you conveniently don't have to think about most of the time.
Tell *her* that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump.
One of the women I followed on Twitter was raped six times. Now she's learned that her rapist can become president but she can't, because rapists become president but women don't.
Tell *her* that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump.
Eight trans people killed themselves on the night of the election. Others I've seen crash because in Trump's America they'll never get to transition, or even go to the goddamn bathroom.
Tell *them*, tell their loved ones, that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump.
Muslims are being assaulted in the streets. Jewish journalists are being threatened at work. Queers are being disowned, losing marriage, job, housing protection. Disabled people lost health coverage. BLM is about to be declared a hate group.
To tell me that Hillary was "just as bad" as Trump over some e-mail bullshit is to spit in the face of every minority that you conveniently don't have to think about most of the time.
birthday
General | Posted 9 years agoHappy birthday my 
flippthebunny~! <3
flippthebunny~! <3 Soundtrack
General | Posted 9 years agoI've seen other writers talk about which music they were listening to while writing now and then, so I figured I may as well do the same. If Surface was a movie or a TV series, and copyright was not an issue, this would be its soundtrack:
Pachelbel - Canon in D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkSp8wc8lKw (Bridges’ Theme)
Robert Johnson - Crossroad Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsB_cGdgPTo (Sand in the Gears)
Jeremy Soule - Fire Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXd1P54rIzQ (Saved – Ogun’s Theme)
Konami Kukeiha Club - Heart of Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq_heq7GLI8 (With Strange Aeons)
Greater Than One - I Don’t Need God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjslqLHUlDM (Mandrake’s Theme)
Michel Rivard - Je voudrais voir la mer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcCZsLgh5Ks
Bia - Inti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0vmzWBl0sE (Rods and Cones)
Charles Trenet - La Mer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_nopTFuZA&index=4&list=LL4hn2kzgwCrb2MA8CHnSxqQ (Saltwater)
River Ocean Ft. India - Love and Happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay89SX8fuqo (Mano's Theme)
Dark Rift - Nikki https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOUYmvWqLSo (Soma's Theme)
Blue Man Group - Rods and Cones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-yLfm5HsHc (Boko’s Theme)
Porter Robinson - Sad Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAIDqt2aUek (Saved – Rakim’s Theme)
C Cat Trance - Shake The Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd5VHCqr6Fw (Fear to Tread)
Jeremy Soule - The Rat's Chamber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naA2cWGP_M0 (Mnemos' Theme)
Skye Edwards - The Sea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnCS25z18pI&index=1&list=LL4hn2kzgwCrb2MA8CHnSxqQ
Vast - Touched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpx_PcZjByY (Fugue's Theme)
Pink Floyd - The Trial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMHmDnfD6I (Maat’s Theme)
Vampire Weekend - Unbelievers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv1Ahv2lO0I (Eli's Theme)
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIyMBuM5AVw (Klein’s Theme)
Pachelbel - Canon in D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkSp8wc8lKw (Bridges’ Theme)
Robert Johnson - Crossroad Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsB_cGdgPTo (Sand in the Gears)
Jeremy Soule - Fire Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXd1P54rIzQ (Saved – Ogun’s Theme)
Konami Kukeiha Club - Heart of Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq_heq7GLI8 (With Strange Aeons)
Greater Than One - I Don’t Need God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjslqLHUlDM (Mandrake’s Theme)
Michel Rivard - Je voudrais voir la mer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcCZsLgh5Ks
Bia - Inti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0vmzWBl0sE (Rods and Cones)
Charles Trenet - La Mer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_nopTFuZA&index=4&list=LL4hn2kzgwCrb2MA8CHnSxqQ (Saltwater)
River Ocean Ft. India - Love and Happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay89SX8fuqo (Mano's Theme)
Dark Rift - Nikki https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOUYmvWqLSo (Soma's Theme)
Blue Man Group - Rods and Cones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-yLfm5HsHc (Boko’s Theme)
Porter Robinson - Sad Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAIDqt2aUek (Saved – Rakim’s Theme)
C Cat Trance - Shake The Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd5VHCqr6Fw (Fear to Tread)
Jeremy Soule - The Rat's Chamber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naA2cWGP_M0 (Mnemos' Theme)
Skye Edwards - The Sea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnCS25z18pI&index=1&list=LL4hn2kzgwCrb2MA8CHnSxqQ
Vast - Touched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpx_PcZjByY (Fugue's Theme)
Pink Floyd - The Trial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMHmDnfD6I (Maat’s Theme)
Vampire Weekend - Unbelievers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv1Ahv2lO0I (Eli's Theme)
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIyMBuM5AVw (Klein’s Theme)
story ramblings
General | Posted 10 years agoSo I've been trying to rework some of my stories to turn them into an actual novel I'd like to try to submit to a real furry publisher by fall.
This means that the 19-chapter version of my story that's currently up under the name "Surface" will probably end up being my second draft which will have led to what will become my upcoming third draft. It will stay up, but several chapters will have to be removed for the final version, a few will have to be added, and parts of the existing ones will have to be rewritten to make it more cohesive and to the point. I've been going over some of the changes that will need to be made for it. I've been meaning to write the last chapter of the Rakim series - I know exactly *what* I want to do with it but I'm not sure of *how* to do it yet. I've been writing it in my head for months, but every time I try to, I can't concentrate and I start stressing out about other things in my life or getting depressed or otherwise distracted, so this is what you're getting for now until I can push through that instead, because I really don't want to rush through and fuck it up.
This contains SPOILERS for my novel I suppose!
Most of the tournament will have to be taken out. While I love to write elaborate fight scenes as an exercise because it's fun, having too many dampens their impact on the overall story, so they need to be spaced out more so that it will really grab the reader's attention when there is one more, as something that will have consequences each time. The tournament was useful to write because it forced me to think more about who these characters were, how they'd interact and where they were coming from in a familiar setting, where it didn't matter as much if I failed. However, the final version should only have the fight scenes from But Not Gone, Flame War, Still Life, Milgram, Before A Fall, Join the Dance, and Face the World - I still don't think the plot can make do without those in particular, though! The tournament will still be canon, but as apocrypha.
The Rakim series will definitely be included, maybe with very few tweaks but not many. To a large extent it was the one missing piece that ties the rest of the narrative together. By interweaving it with the Mano, Klein and Mnemos stories, I hope to encourage the reader to compare and contrast how they deal with people, gods, and objects, with the ways in which they can be similar or different based on the situation.
I had to make some decisions with Rakim that may raise questions. I tried to do some research about Muslim trans youth IRL, but of course everyone's experience is going to be different. I've seen the "mish-mash" approach raise concerns over Asian characters, so it seems I should address it: he's not from any *particular* country, because I wanted to keep possibilities open, but at the same time it has to be believable that he comes from a specific one. Sufism is from Iran, and silat - often a Muslim martial art that some won't even teach to non-Muslims - is from Indonesia and Malaysia. So Irshad would either have to have been Iranian but learned silat from a foreign master, or to have been from Southeast Asia, but to have studied Sufism out of spiritual interest. It's a bit of a stretch but hopefully not enough to break it as believable.
The Sufi metaphors around the moth to the flame are central to the story's extended metaphor, so they can't be taken out. There is a legitimate Iranian fighting style - Kung Fu Toa - even invented based on Sufi metaphors. But! ... I find silat a lot more aesthetically pleasing, I'm much more familiar with its techniques and strategies, and its interplay of danger and beauty seemed fitting for Rakim's themes. I also didn't want to pin down which country they were from because, frankly, I wanted to be able to imagine that he and Irshad could have come from *any* of the countries we've bombed and won't accept refugees from. That's my main reason for not picking an "official" country.
Elizabeth needs to be more likable! I realize I didn't make her as likable as she could be because it's hard to get attached to characters that you know are going to die, but it's also really important for me to push through that. As an atheist I want a character that represents atheism in a likable way, and I want readers to understand why Mano was attached to her, why it hurts her so much that she'd be gone, and just how she gained such a posthumous following. I need to make sure to disconnect her depression from her atheism, and explain it has more to do with the abuse she endured and carries, to describe her relationship with Mano in better detail, and how her political ideals play into her gender fuckery never really materializing for what it is, until it's too late.
I rushed through too many parts that were hard to write about in the name of expediency. My characters experienced crushing loss - they need to actually talk about what it means to them to process it, or the ending is at least partially robbed of its impact. I need to have more situations in which Mano is struggling because of how hard it is to exist as a fish in their society, to show that the villain's cult is tapping into very real resentment that's caused by problems that affect her every day. On some level, the villain sees himself as "at least doing *something*," whereas he sees Mano as doing nothing. The middle way of direct action, between terrorism and slacktivism, isn't always cut and dry, and it's easy to tell people to have more patience for problems that don't affect us - but it's also easy to look for shortcuts to our problems that leave other underprivileged people in the dust.
I have a tendency to rely too much on subtext as a shortcut, but we live in a low-context culture, not in a high-context one - people here don't reflexively decode symbols to that level. I need to play up the Daoist aspects of Klein's story, why he had to be a skunk rather than something else. I need to eventually make him confront the clothing industry's practices that basically spurs on his story more directly than simply by escaping from it, and by extension all judgments about others based on their clothes "making the man" and appearances in general (tying it to Rakim's thematic). I need to make the contrast between poetic animism and Boko's collecting as a metaphor for the rejection of the accumulation of capitalism more explicit. I need to follow Klein's trajectory from Boko to Brazil back to the Bolgia, and expand on Bridges and Fugue's backstory in their own chapter, because they have relevant repercussions later on.
The metaphor of Bridges the otter "getting at" what's good in an "urchin" who can be "hard to approach, but with a chewy center" needs to be spelled out, the "object" theme explored through Fugue's stitching practice on plushies, and the "precision" aspect of his OCD should be a logical factor in why he eventually refuses to "let God sort them out" even when Atlan tells him to do so. Klein being responsible for someone losing an arm makes his story a great complement to Rakim's, just as being queer religious immigrants connects Rakim to Mano. Mandrake also needs an "origin" chapter, where I talk more about his spiritual, family and professional struggles, and describe his resulting humanizing approach to logotherapy. I need to talk about him being a Jewish otter, thus refusing to eat shellfish - the favorite food of otters! - even though he's a homosexual, to emphasize the ironic frequency of the opposite leeway/strictness interpretations, plus gay history with therapy. Diaz is important because what happens to him through Boko is the "dark" version of what happens to Rakim through Ogun.
I need to actually talk about what's similar but very different between Fishism and candomble! Or the opportunity to have Klein fight the Fishist lobster is practically wasted, beyond a more cursory stab at determinism. And yes, the red fish Betta from Flame War is the same one who attacks Soma in Before A Fall. She starts out as a 'good' or at least neutral character, deliberately to become a villain in the second half, to show how becoming deeply embittered can take someone from passionate activist to rampaging sociopath without really noticing where the shift is happening to you. I don't want the Fishists - I didn't include that as the name but that will definitely be it - to come across as random nutjobs, since on some level I'm comparing every religion at its inception to them. I want them to come across as legitimately pissed off, but not really knowing what to do about it, so latching on to something that comes along that tells them what that could be, even if it might be "questionable," because all belief has to negotiate to which extent that compromise is acceptable or not.
What if you were alive at a time when someone was trying to make a religion based on the words of an atheist you loved, but to turn it into a religion of violence against their enemies? You'd probably try to stop them, wouldn't you?
This means that the 19-chapter version of my story that's currently up under the name "Surface" will probably end up being my second draft which will have led to what will become my upcoming third draft. It will stay up, but several chapters will have to be removed for the final version, a few will have to be added, and parts of the existing ones will have to be rewritten to make it more cohesive and to the point. I've been going over some of the changes that will need to be made for it. I've been meaning to write the last chapter of the Rakim series - I know exactly *what* I want to do with it but I'm not sure of *how* to do it yet. I've been writing it in my head for months, but every time I try to, I can't concentrate and I start stressing out about other things in my life or getting depressed or otherwise distracted, so this is what you're getting for now until I can push through that instead, because I really don't want to rush through and fuck it up.
This contains SPOILERS for my novel I suppose!
Most of the tournament will have to be taken out. While I love to write elaborate fight scenes as an exercise because it's fun, having too many dampens their impact on the overall story, so they need to be spaced out more so that it will really grab the reader's attention when there is one more, as something that will have consequences each time. The tournament was useful to write because it forced me to think more about who these characters were, how they'd interact and where they were coming from in a familiar setting, where it didn't matter as much if I failed. However, the final version should only have the fight scenes from But Not Gone, Flame War, Still Life, Milgram, Before A Fall, Join the Dance, and Face the World - I still don't think the plot can make do without those in particular, though! The tournament will still be canon, but as apocrypha.
The Rakim series will definitely be included, maybe with very few tweaks but not many. To a large extent it was the one missing piece that ties the rest of the narrative together. By interweaving it with the Mano, Klein and Mnemos stories, I hope to encourage the reader to compare and contrast how they deal with people, gods, and objects, with the ways in which they can be similar or different based on the situation.
I had to make some decisions with Rakim that may raise questions. I tried to do some research about Muslim trans youth IRL, but of course everyone's experience is going to be different. I've seen the "mish-mash" approach raise concerns over Asian characters, so it seems I should address it: he's not from any *particular* country, because I wanted to keep possibilities open, but at the same time it has to be believable that he comes from a specific one. Sufism is from Iran, and silat - often a Muslim martial art that some won't even teach to non-Muslims - is from Indonesia and Malaysia. So Irshad would either have to have been Iranian but learned silat from a foreign master, or to have been from Southeast Asia, but to have studied Sufism out of spiritual interest. It's a bit of a stretch but hopefully not enough to break it as believable.
The Sufi metaphors around the moth to the flame are central to the story's extended metaphor, so they can't be taken out. There is a legitimate Iranian fighting style - Kung Fu Toa - even invented based on Sufi metaphors. But! ... I find silat a lot more aesthetically pleasing, I'm much more familiar with its techniques and strategies, and its interplay of danger and beauty seemed fitting for Rakim's themes. I also didn't want to pin down which country they were from because, frankly, I wanted to be able to imagine that he and Irshad could have come from *any* of the countries we've bombed and won't accept refugees from. That's my main reason for not picking an "official" country.
Elizabeth needs to be more likable! I realize I didn't make her as likable as she could be because it's hard to get attached to characters that you know are going to die, but it's also really important for me to push through that. As an atheist I want a character that represents atheism in a likable way, and I want readers to understand why Mano was attached to her, why it hurts her so much that she'd be gone, and just how she gained such a posthumous following. I need to make sure to disconnect her depression from her atheism, and explain it has more to do with the abuse she endured and carries, to describe her relationship with Mano in better detail, and how her political ideals play into her gender fuckery never really materializing for what it is, until it's too late.
I rushed through too many parts that were hard to write about in the name of expediency. My characters experienced crushing loss - they need to actually talk about what it means to them to process it, or the ending is at least partially robbed of its impact. I need to have more situations in which Mano is struggling because of how hard it is to exist as a fish in their society, to show that the villain's cult is tapping into very real resentment that's caused by problems that affect her every day. On some level, the villain sees himself as "at least doing *something*," whereas he sees Mano as doing nothing. The middle way of direct action, between terrorism and slacktivism, isn't always cut and dry, and it's easy to tell people to have more patience for problems that don't affect us - but it's also easy to look for shortcuts to our problems that leave other underprivileged people in the dust.
I have a tendency to rely too much on subtext as a shortcut, but we live in a low-context culture, not in a high-context one - people here don't reflexively decode symbols to that level. I need to play up the Daoist aspects of Klein's story, why he had to be a skunk rather than something else. I need to eventually make him confront the clothing industry's practices that basically spurs on his story more directly than simply by escaping from it, and by extension all judgments about others based on their clothes "making the man" and appearances in general (tying it to Rakim's thematic). I need to make the contrast between poetic animism and Boko's collecting as a metaphor for the rejection of the accumulation of capitalism more explicit. I need to follow Klein's trajectory from Boko to Brazil back to the Bolgia, and expand on Bridges and Fugue's backstory in their own chapter, because they have relevant repercussions later on.
The metaphor of Bridges the otter "getting at" what's good in an "urchin" who can be "hard to approach, but with a chewy center" needs to be spelled out, the "object" theme explored through Fugue's stitching practice on plushies, and the "precision" aspect of his OCD should be a logical factor in why he eventually refuses to "let God sort them out" even when Atlan tells him to do so. Klein being responsible for someone losing an arm makes his story a great complement to Rakim's, just as being queer religious immigrants connects Rakim to Mano. Mandrake also needs an "origin" chapter, where I talk more about his spiritual, family and professional struggles, and describe his resulting humanizing approach to logotherapy. I need to talk about him being a Jewish otter, thus refusing to eat shellfish - the favorite food of otters! - even though he's a homosexual, to emphasize the ironic frequency of the opposite leeway/strictness interpretations, plus gay history with therapy. Diaz is important because what happens to him through Boko is the "dark" version of what happens to Rakim through Ogun.
I need to actually talk about what's similar but very different between Fishism and candomble! Or the opportunity to have Klein fight the Fishist lobster is practically wasted, beyond a more cursory stab at determinism. And yes, the red fish Betta from Flame War is the same one who attacks Soma in Before A Fall. She starts out as a 'good' or at least neutral character, deliberately to become a villain in the second half, to show how becoming deeply embittered can take someone from passionate activist to rampaging sociopath without really noticing where the shift is happening to you. I don't want the Fishists - I didn't include that as the name but that will definitely be it - to come across as random nutjobs, since on some level I'm comparing every religion at its inception to them. I want them to come across as legitimately pissed off, but not really knowing what to do about it, so latching on to something that comes along that tells them what that could be, even if it might be "questionable," because all belief has to negotiate to which extent that compromise is acceptable or not.
What if you were alive at a time when someone was trying to make a religion based on the words of an atheist you loved, but to turn it into a religion of violence against their enemies? You'd probably try to stop them, wouldn't you?
Feral 2015
General | Posted 10 years agoSo!
flippthebunny and I finally went to Feral this year. It's something we'd wanted to do ever since we first heard about it all the way back around '98! About half of my lifetime, let that sink in. Naturally it had a lot of buildup to live up to. There were ups and downs, as there are wont to be at every con, but it was definitely worth going to! Easily enough that we would love to go back next year if we can. We both took lots of pictures and some video - I can't wait to post mine. Most camp staff were absolutely stellar, to give credit when credit is due.
Mental note for next year: Sleep more the night before! XD In any case, someone helpful from the local group (
Monfur) came and picked us up to bring us to 
loopywolf's on Thursday morning, from which Insane Foxx picked us up and drove us the whole rest of the way, stopping by Ottawa for lunch and continuing all the way to Camp Arowhon in the late afternoon, which was way further than we expected! After getting our badges and shirts from staff in the right lodge, we dropped off our things at the Monfur cabin. I'd like to thank the other attendees in it for letting us stay with them there, btw! I listened to Loopy's guitar for a bit and went to the drum circle where I was glad to recognize someone else from the Monfur cabin as well.
The con was kinda rough on our health, though! It hit Flipp harder than me but I still also got sick enough that it hasn't completely gone away by now. On Friday we finally started becoming used to just how different life is at camp in some ways, explored everywhere around and talked to a wide variety of people there. We took part in the raffle, in which Flipp actually won something! I didn't get anything at the trading post, but I checked it out, grabbed some people's cards and took some notes. We went to the s'mores event around the campfire, where I got to have snacks even though I can't have marshmallows. Food was very veggie-accessible in general! And I was happy that I recognized a lot of the songs at the campfire singalong.
On Saturday I went to observe some of Flipp's work at the leatherworking workshop, but I was too sleep deprived to stay until the end. I went to a writing workshop, to watch Foxx and
stripes playing Watermelon Football for a bit, then to the archery range. What fun archery is! I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do at camp, but of all the activities, if I hadn't gotten to do this one, I would've regretted not having done it the most. I'd never done archery before in my life, and it was something I'd wanted to do for a long time. Most of the others were doing better than I was, but still, I did manage to hit the target 20 times, which I figure is prolly not too bad for a first try. Props for the sponsors' event that evening, well put together.
On Sunday I really wanted to do the lake swim! But my head felt like it was going to cave in from sleep deprivation so I just couldn't bring myself to do it and, instead, I sat and watched people swim across and back for a while from the docks. People took from about 45 minutes to about an hour, which at least gives me a bit of an idea of how long it would be. I used to love swimming, and miss it quite a bit in fact, but I just couldn't summon up the energy at the time. Next year hopefully! We missed most of the comedy sketches because we were preparing for the dance, but I especially liked "Love Under The Stars" and "Star Trek Voyageur." The dances were as fun as I'd hoped, and Flipp pulled off a great DJ set! Check it out, if you will:
https://www.mixcloud.com/bunniesfor.....mp-feral-2015/
Finally, on Monday we played a bit of "Tetris" to pack all our things, went to be part of the group photo (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17506225/), then Foxx generously drove us and Stripes back from Camp Arowhon to Montreal. While I felt depleted from camp, I still felt a lot more energized on the drive back than on the drive there for some reason, for which I'm not complaining. I can't wait to try the events that I didn't get to try this time someday! I played in a melee about 10 years ago so I have an idea of what it's like, but I have my sights set on the dodgeball (the only team sport I was ever good at as a child) and on the low ropes course (something else I've wanted to do for years) for next year. Met lots of neat people! Still trying to track some of them down online for now.
Thanks to everyone who made Feral possible!
flippthebunny and I finally went to Feral this year. It's something we'd wanted to do ever since we first heard about it all the way back around '98! About half of my lifetime, let that sink in. Naturally it had a lot of buildup to live up to. There were ups and downs, as there are wont to be at every con, but it was definitely worth going to! Easily enough that we would love to go back next year if we can. We both took lots of pictures and some video - I can't wait to post mine. Most camp staff were absolutely stellar, to give credit when credit is due.Mental note for next year: Sleep more the night before! XD In any case, someone helpful from the local group (
Monfur) came and picked us up to bring us to 
loopywolf's on Thursday morning, from which Insane Foxx picked us up and drove us the whole rest of the way, stopping by Ottawa for lunch and continuing all the way to Camp Arowhon in the late afternoon, which was way further than we expected! After getting our badges and shirts from staff in the right lodge, we dropped off our things at the Monfur cabin. I'd like to thank the other attendees in it for letting us stay with them there, btw! I listened to Loopy's guitar for a bit and went to the drum circle where I was glad to recognize someone else from the Monfur cabin as well.The con was kinda rough on our health, though! It hit Flipp harder than me but I still also got sick enough that it hasn't completely gone away by now. On Friday we finally started becoming used to just how different life is at camp in some ways, explored everywhere around and talked to a wide variety of people there. We took part in the raffle, in which Flipp actually won something! I didn't get anything at the trading post, but I checked it out, grabbed some people's cards and took some notes. We went to the s'mores event around the campfire, where I got to have snacks even though I can't have marshmallows. Food was very veggie-accessible in general! And I was happy that I recognized a lot of the songs at the campfire singalong.
On Saturday I went to observe some of Flipp's work at the leatherworking workshop, but I was too sleep deprived to stay until the end. I went to a writing workshop, to watch Foxx and
stripes playing Watermelon Football for a bit, then to the archery range. What fun archery is! I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do at camp, but of all the activities, if I hadn't gotten to do this one, I would've regretted not having done it the most. I'd never done archery before in my life, and it was something I'd wanted to do for a long time. Most of the others were doing better than I was, but still, I did manage to hit the target 20 times, which I figure is prolly not too bad for a first try. Props for the sponsors' event that evening, well put together.On Sunday I really wanted to do the lake swim! But my head felt like it was going to cave in from sleep deprivation so I just couldn't bring myself to do it and, instead, I sat and watched people swim across and back for a while from the docks. People took from about 45 minutes to about an hour, which at least gives me a bit of an idea of how long it would be. I used to love swimming, and miss it quite a bit in fact, but I just couldn't summon up the energy at the time. Next year hopefully! We missed most of the comedy sketches because we were preparing for the dance, but I especially liked "Love Under The Stars" and "Star Trek Voyageur." The dances were as fun as I'd hoped, and Flipp pulled off a great DJ set! Check it out, if you will:
https://www.mixcloud.com/bunniesfor.....mp-feral-2015/
Finally, on Monday we played a bit of "Tetris" to pack all our things, went to be part of the group photo (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17506225/), then Foxx generously drove us and Stripes back from Camp Arowhon to Montreal. While I felt depleted from camp, I still felt a lot more energized on the drive back than on the drive there for some reason, for which I'm not complaining. I can't wait to try the events that I didn't get to try this time someday! I played in a melee about 10 years ago so I have an idea of what it's like, but I have my sights set on the dodgeball (the only team sport I was ever good at as a child) and on the low ropes course (something else I've wanted to do for years) for next year. Met lots of neat people! Still trying to track some of them down online for now.
Thanks to everyone who made Feral possible!
back
General | Posted 10 years agoFeral was quite an out-of-this-world experience!
Intending on posting a more thorough recap of it soon.
Intending on posting a more thorough recap of it soon.
your attention for a moment please
General | Posted 10 years agoMy sweet 
zanian finally opened up about his suffering recently:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16689811/
Any words of support you may have for him would mean the world to me.
Thank you.
zanian finally opened up about his suffering recently:http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16689811/
Any words of support you may have for him would mean the world to me.
Thank you.
crookery
General | Posted 11 years agoRespect yourself. Respect your work.
If someone is asking you to do work for them for free, stop and think about what that means. Nobody gets up to go to work on any given day hoping that their employer will like their work enough to decide to pay them at the end of that particular day. People show up to work because they know that, even though they may get fired if the work they do isn't up to par, they're getting paid until the end of that particular day. It's not like buying a lottery ticket.
If you buy a drawing from an artist, they may show you a sketch of their progress to give you a chance to make adjustments, but once they've drawn the finished piece, especially if you had access to tons of their artwork where you could see it to get an idea of what you're getting, even if you decide that you don't like it, you may decide not to commission that artist again, but you certainly owe them money for the work they turned in at that point! This is true regardless of whether the situation applies to a visual artist, a writer, a musician, a translator, a suit maker, any artist as the case may be.
Corporations love to hire interns for unpaid internships. This is always a terrible decision for interns! The same thing often happen when people with an oversized sense of entitlement end up "crowdsourcing" much of the work that goes to their bottom line. This is especially true for idea work! Remember when Kramer shows up at Calvin Klein suggesting "The Beach", gets laughed out of their office, and moments later they come out with exactly that? People who want your ideas for free can do whatever they want with them after they pretend to reject them. It's called taking advantage of people.
You'd never get on a bus, and expect to only have to pay bus fare when you get off the bus if you liked the driver's driving. You wouldn't go to a restaurant, order three meals, try them all, and only pay for the one you liked best. Money and work simply don't work this way. When someone puts in their time and effort, regardless of what form it takes, especially if they bring considerable training and experience to that effort, given that it's time and effort that they can't dedicate to other ventures which could be profitable for them instead, it deserves compensation.
If you're an artist, don't be Kramer, and *gods*, if you're a commissioner, don't be Calvin Klein.
Respect yourself. Respect your work.
If someone is asking you to do work for them for free, stop and think about what that means. Nobody gets up to go to work on any given day hoping that their employer will like their work enough to decide to pay them at the end of that particular day. People show up to work because they know that, even though they may get fired if the work they do isn't up to par, they're getting paid until the end of that particular day. It's not like buying a lottery ticket.
If you buy a drawing from an artist, they may show you a sketch of their progress to give you a chance to make adjustments, but once they've drawn the finished piece, especially if you had access to tons of their artwork where you could see it to get an idea of what you're getting, even if you decide that you don't like it, you may decide not to commission that artist again, but you certainly owe them money for the work they turned in at that point! This is true regardless of whether the situation applies to a visual artist, a writer, a musician, a translator, a suit maker, any artist as the case may be.
Corporations love to hire interns for unpaid internships. This is always a terrible decision for interns! The same thing often happen when people with an oversized sense of entitlement end up "crowdsourcing" much of the work that goes to their bottom line. This is especially true for idea work! Remember when Kramer shows up at Calvin Klein suggesting "The Beach", gets laughed out of their office, and moments later they come out with exactly that? People who want your ideas for free can do whatever they want with them after they pretend to reject them. It's called taking advantage of people.
You'd never get on a bus, and expect to only have to pay bus fare when you get off the bus if you liked the driver's driving. You wouldn't go to a restaurant, order three meals, try them all, and only pay for the one you liked best. Money and work simply don't work this way. When someone puts in their time and effort, regardless of what form it takes, especially if they bring considerable training and experience to that effort, given that it's time and effort that they can't dedicate to other ventures which could be profitable for them instead, it deserves compensation.
If you're an artist, don't be Kramer, and *gods*, if you're a commissioner, don't be Calvin Klein.
Respect yourself. Respect your work.
writing
General | Posted 11 years agoI'm still supposed to proofread a book for someone before school starts again. I have not forgotten this!
More informally, there's another friend whose arc story I need to re-read and catch up on when I get the time to.
Plus, some shorter informal proofreading for someone else as it comes up, and a weekly short project during the same period.
What all this adds up to is... really wanting to go back to doing something creative myself on top of it all.
It's difficult to work at a cooking show all day, then get home and not want to eat just about everything. Monkey see, monkey do.
I've realized that what I've been popping out this month so far, purely out of self-indulgence mind you, works as great connective tissue for an older story.
I started Surface as a NaNoWriMo attempt all the way back in 2006, dropped it in 2007, fiddled with it in 2010, but I never finished it.
Over the years it's become just another one of those things I started but never finished, but I'm tired of looking everywhere around me seeing things like that.
It may not be all that good, but regardless of whether it is or not, it's begun dawning on me that if I don't finish this, no one else is going to.
It's gotten so close to the end that it'd feel stupid to just leave it as it is by this point, even only as bad pages to push through to better ones.
I need to make sure that the earlier format and style matches the way my writing's evolved since then, so it'll be consistent and won't clash.
When I'm done with this whole thing, end to end, it's going to amount to a book, maybe one I can take to furry publishers, maybe not - time will tell.
It'll consist of re-worked Surface 1 to 13 + Diaz & Mandrake (they look sloppy to me today), my recent Tournament series, and 7 chapters after it (3 done, 4 to go).
I know I'm being scarce, but I just need to finally be able to move on from it, after eight long years, to put it behind me.
I'll put the whole thing up for download as a single file when it's done. I ask that you please bear with me.
The next one is sort of gross! I'm sorry. :)
More informally, there's another friend whose arc story I need to re-read and catch up on when I get the time to.
Plus, some shorter informal proofreading for someone else as it comes up, and a weekly short project during the same period.
What all this adds up to is... really wanting to go back to doing something creative myself on top of it all.
It's difficult to work at a cooking show all day, then get home and not want to eat just about everything. Monkey see, monkey do.
I've realized that what I've been popping out this month so far, purely out of self-indulgence mind you, works as great connective tissue for an older story.
I started Surface as a NaNoWriMo attempt all the way back in 2006, dropped it in 2007, fiddled with it in 2010, but I never finished it.
Over the years it's become just another one of those things I started but never finished, but I'm tired of looking everywhere around me seeing things like that.
It may not be all that good, but regardless of whether it is or not, it's begun dawning on me that if I don't finish this, no one else is going to.
It's gotten so close to the end that it'd feel stupid to just leave it as it is by this point, even only as bad pages to push through to better ones.
I need to make sure that the earlier format and style matches the way my writing's evolved since then, so it'll be consistent and won't clash.
When I'm done with this whole thing, end to end, it's going to amount to a book, maybe one I can take to furry publishers, maybe not - time will tell.
It'll consist of re-worked Surface 1 to 13 + Diaz & Mandrake (they look sloppy to me today), my recent Tournament series, and 7 chapters after it (3 done, 4 to go).
I know I'm being scarce, but I just need to finally be able to move on from it, after eight long years, to put it behind me.
I'll put the whole thing up for download as a single file when it's done. I ask that you please bear with me.
The next one is sort of gross! I'm sorry. :)
assumptions meme
General | Posted 11 years agoI must've seen like a half-billion people post it by now, sure, why not.
Tell me something you assume about me, anything that comes to mind, and I'll let you know whether you're right or wrong in that assumption.
Tell me something you assume about me, anything that comes to mind, and I'll let you know whether you're right or wrong in that assumption.
offre de révision/traduction
General | Posted 11 years ago(This is the French version of http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5857869/)
Donc, bien que ça ne me serait pas passé par la tête par moi-même, je me suis fait encourager par quelques-unes des personnes que je connais à essayer de rejoindre les rangs des furries offrant leurs services professionnels à d’autres furries sur FA. Bien que des commandes furry soient plus souvent dessinées ou cousues, la communauté a aussi fait une place à des musiciens, des écrivains, des danseurs et même des joailliers, alors qu’est-ce que ça peut me coûter? Ma formation se trouve à être en traduction anglais-français et en révision.
J’ai obtenu mon diplôme avec mention en traduction anglais-français il y a maintenant une décennie. Depuis, j’ai été engagé et payé pour des contrats de révision et de traduction par plusieurs clients qui n’ont jamais entendu parler du furry. Je porte votre attention là-dessus pour souligner que je ne suis pas seulement un bilingue moyen essayant de mettre son bilinguisme à profit, si vous voyez ce que je veux dire. Je peux traduire du français à l’anglais tout autant que de l’anglais au français et je peux réviser aussi bien en français qu’en anglais.
Le groupe dans la région de Montréal en particulier semble avoir un bon nombre de personnes qui écrivent et/ou qui commandent des histoires à d’autres. Il semble aussi y avoir un bon nombre de personnes soit dont l’anglais est meilleur que le français ou dont le français est meilleur que l’anglais, devant toutefois pouvoir interagir dans les deux langues. Dans un tel contexte, repérer un intérêt pour des services langagiers ne semble pas complètement tiré par les cheveux.
Pour l’instant, comme je débute je songeais demander 4$/page pour la traduction et 2$ par page pour la révision, comptant une page comme 550 mots. Le coût sera calculé dans le texte de langue originale qui me sera donné, pas dans le texte de langue cible que je vous remettrai. Il y aura souvent une légère différence pour ce qui est du nombre de mots puisque le français et l’anglais formulent les choses différemment, et je tiens à ce que vous sachiez que vous payez pour ce que vous avez écrit même si la traduction est plus longue, qu’elle ne peut pas augmenter le prix en étant plus longue par définition.
Pour ce qui est de la révision, j’offre quelques services différents qui coûtent tous la même chose : d’abord, vous pouvez simplement m’envoyer le texte pour que le révise et que j’y apporte toutes les corrections nécessaires moi-même, pour ensuite vous en envoyer la version corrigée. L’avantage de cette approche « lousse » est que c’est moins de travail pour vous; le désavantage est que vous devez vous fier au fait que j’ai bien effectué le travail. Je peux soit surligner les passages où des corrections ont dû être apportées afin de « montrer mon travail » ou vous envoyer une version sur laquelle les passages à corriger ont été surlignés si vous préférez y apporter ces corrections vous-mêmes.
Ou alors! Si l’approche « directe » vous interpelle davantage, ce que j’ai déjà fait pour la même personne plus qu’une fois de façon informelle et peux faire pour vous est que, lorsque vous avez le temps, vous pouvez m’envoyer votre texte en chattant et, en le lisant, je vous informe de quels passages doivent être corrigés par page, paragraphe et ligne afin que vous puissiez les corriger « en direct » au fur et à mesure. Le désavantage est que ça représente davantage de travail pour vous. L’avantage est que plus vous le faites, plus votre français (ou votre anglais) s’améliorera et le moins vous aurez de chances de commettre les mêmes erreurs de nouveau, ce qui, si vous êtes le genre de personne à vouloir faire réviser un texte au départ, pourrait vous intéresser.
Je répondrai volontiers à vos questions ou commentaires si vous en avez. :)
Donc, bien que ça ne me serait pas passé par la tête par moi-même, je me suis fait encourager par quelques-unes des personnes que je connais à essayer de rejoindre les rangs des furries offrant leurs services professionnels à d’autres furries sur FA. Bien que des commandes furry soient plus souvent dessinées ou cousues, la communauté a aussi fait une place à des musiciens, des écrivains, des danseurs et même des joailliers, alors qu’est-ce que ça peut me coûter? Ma formation se trouve à être en traduction anglais-français et en révision.
J’ai obtenu mon diplôme avec mention en traduction anglais-français il y a maintenant une décennie. Depuis, j’ai été engagé et payé pour des contrats de révision et de traduction par plusieurs clients qui n’ont jamais entendu parler du furry. Je porte votre attention là-dessus pour souligner que je ne suis pas seulement un bilingue moyen essayant de mettre son bilinguisme à profit, si vous voyez ce que je veux dire. Je peux traduire du français à l’anglais tout autant que de l’anglais au français et je peux réviser aussi bien en français qu’en anglais.
Le groupe dans la région de Montréal en particulier semble avoir un bon nombre de personnes qui écrivent et/ou qui commandent des histoires à d’autres. Il semble aussi y avoir un bon nombre de personnes soit dont l’anglais est meilleur que le français ou dont le français est meilleur que l’anglais, devant toutefois pouvoir interagir dans les deux langues. Dans un tel contexte, repérer un intérêt pour des services langagiers ne semble pas complètement tiré par les cheveux.
Pour l’instant, comme je débute je songeais demander 4$/page pour la traduction et 2$ par page pour la révision, comptant une page comme 550 mots. Le coût sera calculé dans le texte de langue originale qui me sera donné, pas dans le texte de langue cible que je vous remettrai. Il y aura souvent une légère différence pour ce qui est du nombre de mots puisque le français et l’anglais formulent les choses différemment, et je tiens à ce que vous sachiez que vous payez pour ce que vous avez écrit même si la traduction est plus longue, qu’elle ne peut pas augmenter le prix en étant plus longue par définition.
Pour ce qui est de la révision, j’offre quelques services différents qui coûtent tous la même chose : d’abord, vous pouvez simplement m’envoyer le texte pour que le révise et que j’y apporte toutes les corrections nécessaires moi-même, pour ensuite vous en envoyer la version corrigée. L’avantage de cette approche « lousse » est que c’est moins de travail pour vous; le désavantage est que vous devez vous fier au fait que j’ai bien effectué le travail. Je peux soit surligner les passages où des corrections ont dû être apportées afin de « montrer mon travail » ou vous envoyer une version sur laquelle les passages à corriger ont été surlignés si vous préférez y apporter ces corrections vous-mêmes.
Ou alors! Si l’approche « directe » vous interpelle davantage, ce que j’ai déjà fait pour la même personne plus qu’une fois de façon informelle et peux faire pour vous est que, lorsque vous avez le temps, vous pouvez m’envoyer votre texte en chattant et, en le lisant, je vous informe de quels passages doivent être corrigés par page, paragraphe et ligne afin que vous puissiez les corriger « en direct » au fur et à mesure. Le désavantage est que ça représente davantage de travail pour vous. L’avantage est que plus vous le faites, plus votre français (ou votre anglais) s’améliorera et le moins vous aurez de chances de commettre les mêmes erreurs de nouveau, ce qui, si vous êtes le genre de personne à vouloir faire réviser un texte au départ, pourrait vous intéresser.
Je répondrai volontiers à vos questions ou commentaires si vous en avez. :)
AC Threat Warning!
General | Posted 11 years agoA warning for everyone going to AnthroCon, someone has apparently been threatening to shoot up the con.
If this is some kind of joke it's the most tasteless kind imaginable:
https://twitter.com/_corgii/status/.....47057669517313
http://i.imgur.com/QfbJHrL.png
It's of course always possible that this is just some troll trying to scare people.
That said, having looked at transcripts from previous shooters, I don't like the look of the second thread at all.
If this is some kind of joke it's the most tasteless kind imaginable:
https://twitter.com/_corgii/status/.....47057669517313
http://i.imgur.com/QfbJHrL.png
It's of course always possible that this is just some troll trying to scare people.
That said, having looked at transcripts from previous shooters, I don't like the look of the second thread at all.
proofreading/translation offer
General | Posted 11 years agoSo, while it wouldn't have occurred to me to do so on my own, I've been encouraged by a couple of people I know to make an attempt of my own at joining the fray of furries who offer their professional services to other furries on FA. While someone may more readily think of furry commissions in terms of visual artwork or sewn crafts, the community has also been known to have given a place to musicians, writers, dancers and even jewelers, so what can an attempt cost me? My own training is in English/French translation and in proofreading.
I graduated with honors in French translation just a decade ago, and I've done and been paid for both proofreading and translation contracts for several clients who have never heard of furry since then. I mention this so you know I'm not just some random person who's leveraging regular bilingualism on its own, if that makes sense. I can translate from French to English as well as from English to French, and I can proofread just as well in French as in English.
The local scene here in Montreal in particular seems to have a lot of people who write and/or commission stories from others. It also seems to have a lot of people who are either stronger in English than in French or stronger in French than in English, while still having to navigate between the two of them. In this context getting some demand for language-related services doesn't seem altogether outlandish.
Right now I'm testing the waters and tentatively thinking of charging $4/page for translation and $2/page for proofreading, counting 1 page as 550 words. The cost is to be calculated in the original language text which is first handed to me, not in the translated target language text which you will receive from me. There will often be a slight discrepancy in the number of words since French and English formulate things differently, and I want you to know that you're being charged for what you wrote even if the translation is longer, that it's not longer to inflate the price artificially.
For proofreading I will offer several possible choices, all of which cost the same: 1st choice is, you give me the text, I proofread it all on my own, I make the corrections myself, and I send the corrected version back to you. The upside of this "hands off" choice is it's less of a hassle for you - the downside is you have to trust I did any actual work. I can either highlight the parts where corrections have been made so as to "show my work", or send you a highlighted version if you want to make the corrections based on my indications yourself.
Or! If the "hands on" approach appeals more to you, one thing I've already done for the same person more than once informally is, when you have time, you send me the file over chat and, as I read through it, I can tell you which parts of the text need to be corrected by page, paragraph and line so you can correct them "live" as I go along. The downside of this is that it's more work for you. The upside is that the more you do it, the better your English (or French) will get, the less likely you are to make the same mistakes again which, if you're having something proofread in the first place, you might care about.
A French version of this may follow.
Questions? Comments? Ask away!
I graduated with honors in French translation just a decade ago, and I've done and been paid for both proofreading and translation contracts for several clients who have never heard of furry since then. I mention this so you know I'm not just some random person who's leveraging regular bilingualism on its own, if that makes sense. I can translate from French to English as well as from English to French, and I can proofread just as well in French as in English.
The local scene here in Montreal in particular seems to have a lot of people who write and/or commission stories from others. It also seems to have a lot of people who are either stronger in English than in French or stronger in French than in English, while still having to navigate between the two of them. In this context getting some demand for language-related services doesn't seem altogether outlandish.
Right now I'm testing the waters and tentatively thinking of charging $4/page for translation and $2/page for proofreading, counting 1 page as 550 words. The cost is to be calculated in the original language text which is first handed to me, not in the translated target language text which you will receive from me. There will often be a slight discrepancy in the number of words since French and English formulate things differently, and I want you to know that you're being charged for what you wrote even if the translation is longer, that it's not longer to inflate the price artificially.
For proofreading I will offer several possible choices, all of which cost the same: 1st choice is, you give me the text, I proofread it all on my own, I make the corrections myself, and I send the corrected version back to you. The upside of this "hands off" choice is it's less of a hassle for you - the downside is you have to trust I did any actual work. I can either highlight the parts where corrections have been made so as to "show my work", or send you a highlighted version if you want to make the corrections based on my indications yourself.
Or! If the "hands on" approach appeals more to you, one thing I've already done for the same person more than once informally is, when you have time, you send me the file over chat and, as I read through it, I can tell you which parts of the text need to be corrected by page, paragraph and line so you can correct them "live" as I go along. The downside of this is that it's more work for you. The upside is that the more you do it, the better your English (or French) will get, the less likely you are to make the same mistakes again which, if you're having something proofread in the first place, you might care about.
A French version of this may follow.
Questions? Comments? Ask away!
WTF 2014
General | Posted 11 years agoSee those of you who are going to What The Fur 2014 there this weekend!
My flippthebunny will be DJing on Saturday night at 11:30pm, don't miss it.
I'll also be spending some of the con assisting my zanian in the dealers' den.
I hope everything will go smoothly for everyone.
My
flippthebunny will be DJing on Saturday night at 11:30pm, don't miss it.I'll also be spending some of the con assisting my
zanian in the dealers' den.I hope everything will go smoothly for everyone.
TMI Tuesday 4
General | Posted 11 years agoHaven't done one of these in a while, and nothing might come of it for all I know, but I may as well put it out there while I'm at it, I suppose.
