More Than A Few Words on Writing | Madison Scott-Clary

Chapter 1

Sun, 10 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Hopping down from the bed of the cart, Sarai Azoulay slipped her pack onto her shoulders once more, buckled her short sword to her belt, and dug in one of her vest’s many pouches, parting reluctantly with five coppers for the last night’s fare of her journey. The first night on the road to Munjim al’Jawahir, she’d done her best to earn her keep. Men, dwarves, and the odd minotaur, however, were far sturdier folk than kobolds, and she had little strength to offer, compared to them.

#1 - Centerpiece

Sat, 17 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“Hey E,” Aaron mumbled, the cat nudging the turn signal lever up to make his way toward the right lane. “Mmm?” Erin peeked up from her book to see how far they’d made it into their journey. Still about twenty minutes. She lowered her gaze once again. “Put any more thought into the idea of a donor?” Slinking lower into the passenger seat, Erin gave a half-hearted shrug. “Not really any more than before.

Getting Lost - Chapter One

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“Alright, everyone, it’s midnight, time to start packing up,” Johansson called. “Ross, we’re short one, can you start pulling together all of the mics? RJ will help you get them sorted.” “Mmm,” RJ offered through the sound system. Ey was busy putting the theater to bed, and couldn’t spare more than a meager few syllables to the rest of the cast and crew, though ey knew that ey’d need to help Ross out.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter One

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Mom and I piled into the car at about seven that morning, squeezing ourselves in amongst a laundry basket full of a bubble of my clothes, my computers, and bedding enough for one who lives in Colorado and knows what the winters can be like. Check in wasn’t until four that afternoon, but there was still quite the drive ahead of us in order to get there on time and to give us some time in town for lunch and walking.

Chapter 2

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

With Augt’s help, Faolan and Erogan managed to wrest some shelving from the wall to pile up against the entrance through which they’d arrived. Sarai paced and prowled, recovering what arrows she could, before eventually making her way over to the king. There was a concerned, sleepy look on his face, in death, as though he were mulling over some troubling dream. The kobold bent down and gently tugged at a corner of paper sticking out from his vest.

#2 - Hostess

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Elise was the first into the living room when Aaron opened the door, exposing his wife, the Centerpiece to the rest of the party. In one sense, this was a rather muted presentation. Rather than an elaborate bondage setup, a feature of some of the previous play parties, Aaron and Erin had opted for something simple. Erin was blindfolded and bound, but only lightly: her wrists bound with cuffs, and her collar bound to those.

Getting Lost - Chapter Two

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

AwDae sat up from bed and moved to the edge of the mattress, stretching languidly and letting eir fur bristle from tip to tail, the latter bottle-brushing out in the process. Ey shook emself to settle eir fur back down and yawned widely, slender pink tongue curling and just shy of sharp incisors. Brushing eir fur down, ey stood languidly and ambled over to the dresser in the corner of the room, pulling out a thin white cotton shirt with laces up the front and a simple navy sarong, which ey tied around eir waist.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Two

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Full of bagel, cream cheese, and lax, Our route turned east along I-80 for the few miles it took to get to I-25. Even though I’d gotten a coffee to go with our lunch, I was still tired. When my mom asked, I told her it was how boring the bland landscape was after the relative excitement of the mountains and greenery. I had barely slept the night before. Despite trying to act cool about the whole moving to college thing, excitement really had taken its toll on me, and I had alternated between worrying in bed and worrying at my desk.

Getting Lost - Chapter Three

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As RJ slid eir hands from the pads and leaned back from the headrest, ey let out a full-fledged yawn, startling even Priscilla across the room with the sound and the stretch. Ey stumbled up out of eir seat and over toward the still-purring cat, stroking over her ears once more as she butted her head up against eir hand, eir mind whirling with a mix of work, of Cicero’s disappearance, and of school with Sasha.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Three

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“Is this…? Yeah, this has to be it.” My mom muttered. I jerked my head up from where I was half-dozing against the window at the words. Blinking at the light, I looked around. From the time I had spaced out an hour or so before, the landscape had changed from brownish scrublands of Wyoming to the tan plains east of the Rockies that I knew from the drives to band camp.

Getting Lost - Chapter Four

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Doctor Carter Ramirez rubbed her face into her hands, ground her palms against her eyes until she saw stars, before finally slicking her hair back. She had put it up into a bun earlier that day, but there were plenty of flyaway hairs, as there always were. She felt out of her league. Everyone did, here on her team, but that didn’t stop the fact from wearing on her. It’s not that there was no support from on high to help with the Lost, because there was.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Four

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I saw my mom off shortly before we were supposed to gather for our first hall meeting. She cried as she hugged me and kissed at my cheeks, whispering those same worries to me one last time before she went back to her car. I suppose the reality that I had just moved away from home hadn’t set in yet, but I was admittedly a little glad to see her go.

Getting Lost - Chapter Five

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

RJ allowed emself to sleep in until nearing eleven that morning, given that tonight was the last night of dress rehearsals. Many other members of the troupe held part time jobs during the day, and ey had been known to offer their services as consultant during times like these. Even so, with all that ey did, ey made enough to not have to worry about holding down more than the one job

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Five

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Our check in was on Friday afternoon, and the rest of that weekend was to be orientation. Part of the whole deal was for us to do much of the activities in the orientation together as a hall and get to know each other well, what with having to live together for the next two semesters. The whole hall went to dinner together, along with the other three halls in our wing, in what was a concerted effort to not flood the dining hall with the entire dorm’s worth of students at once.

Getting Lost - Chapter Six

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“Listen, Ramirez, I’m just not sure if you-” “No. Come on, Sanders, just hear me out.” Carter sighed and settled her weight against the edge of her desk, taking a slow breath to buy herself some time and organize her thoughts. “I’m just saying that we ought to look into social connections between the patients so that we can see if there’s some factor that’s tying these occurrences together. With that under our belt, we may be able to formulate a better theory of what’s going on here, even neurologically.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Six

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My alarm startled me from one of those sleeps without dreams that comes with exhaustion and I nearly fell out of my bed. The narrow twin-size mattress would take some getting used to, to be sure. I sat up on the edge of my bed blearily and looked out the window across the open field separating the wings of the dorm to the northwest arm of the ‘H’. I hadn’t set up my coffee maker yet, and finding a place to do so proved to be a challenge.

Getting Lost - Chapter Seven

Tue, 23 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

AwDae slowly picked emself up off of the floor, staggering to eir feet in the middle of a long row of lockers. Ey hardly felt weak, but the shock to the system of being in the tech booth and theater sim, and then suddenly being back in high school was taking its toll on eir wits. Ey swiped eir paw from left to right in front of emself to bring up the menu.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Seven

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The rest of that first weekend was a flurry of, I thought, useless and overwrought activity. There were two more tours of the campus, to add to the two I had already taken. There was a series of games we had to play in one of the large grassy areas to the west of the student center that were probably intended to get us to relax but were almost universally greeted with sarcasm.

Getting Lost - Chapter Eight

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Carter had come up against a unique hurdle. One of the problems with the genderqueer patient, the one labeled 0224ebe8 in their diagrams for anonymity’s sake, was that, although it was notionally feasible for em to have an X in their gender records and all the pronouns ey chose, not everyone had recognized that. Various pronouns flourished and died, styles of dress had come and gone, but the arcane triad of institutions — banking, health care, and government — remained stodgy and stuck in their ways.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Eight

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Wednesday. I’d made it through all of my classes at least once. My schedule had Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays fairly full with only composition and symphonic band on Tuesdays, plus a large block of time that I’d scheduled for my independent study type math class. So far, all I’d done in class, though was gotten a bunch of papers: syllabi, grading rubrics, a few questionaires. We’d played some sort of name game in all of my classes except for band, which still required another audition.

Getting Lost - Chapter Nine

Sun, 11 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It took AwDae just under two hours to find the microphone. The first hour was spent searching the auditorium thoroughly. Ey searched by walking around clapping and humming, then singing songs half-remembered from productions ey had helped with in the past. Ey would’ve whistled if it wasn’t for the structure of a canid muzzle. There was no way eir lips would manage to pull that off. Silence. After an hour, venturing even into the overhead areas where sound wouldn’t reach, ey gave up and took a break.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Nine

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“C’mon, Cory. You take friggin’ forever.” I threw my binder into my backpack and tucked the New York Times in along with it, zipping the thing up so quickly that neatly perforated a corner of the paper that hadn’t quite made it in all the way. “Sorry, sorry… wasn’t paying attention.” “You’re worse than a girl, boy,” Kris laughed. “Hell, you’re almost worse than Erin.” Now that it was a few weeks into the semester, classes were picking up.

Getting Lost - Chapter Ten

Wed, 14 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Carter hadn’t meant to dodge her subordinate’s question. They truly did need to go in to eat. The food was, as promised, delightful, and Carter made a mental note to come here more often for more good Vietnamese food. That note, however, was filed by her mind and set aside so that she could work through the implications of what had been spilled to her by the tabloid. She couldn’t visit this RJ any more than she could fly out of the second story window here and back to her lab.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Ten

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“Nah, man, that stuff makes me feel stupid,” I said, pawing Thomas’ poffered joint on towards Kris who plucked it delicately from my roommate’s fingers. “Hope you don’t mind, Cor’,” she said, relighting the end of the pungent bit of pot, the newly rolled joint glowing red at the flame and releasing a tiny curl of smoke towards the light in our room, which Thomas had covered in a bit of green-tea colored cloth.

Getting Lost - Chapter Eleven

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Sleep did not come easily. Auditorium seats, although padded, were not made for laying down on, and AwDae found that ey had to face toward the backs of the seats, or else eir tail would get crimped against them. At first, the faint dusty smell of the seat fabric had inspired nostalgia, but it didn’t last long. Eventually, ey got up blearily and began pacing around the auditorium, looking for some way to get some rest that did not involve the seats.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Eleven

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I woke with a start. The music was stopped, but my computer’s monitor was still on, the simply displaying the time in one corner. What passed as a screen saver for me. I was cold and thirsty, and the only thing near by was the half-full beer bottle. I grabbed at it and held onto it for a moment before deciding against it. I needed water. At least the bottle, by the slight chill, told me I hadn’t been asleep too long.

Getting Lost - Chapter Twelve

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Johansson’s hands dwarfed the pint of ale. Once they had managed to find each other in the post-theater rush of the pub, they’d managed to stake out a small two-top table, crammed against one end of the bar itself, leading the larger man to lean slightly to the side away from the noise coming from above it. He’d hardly touched the beer, but it seemed to take on an almost talismanic significance to him.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twelve

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I had the drapes pulled closed enough to shield my monitor from the sun glaring off the snow outside. The second week in November and we had only just now had our first snow. People told me it was a dry year, but I still felt as though I was living in some place vastly different than home; a place where I didn’t have to clear the sidewalks starting in October.

Getting Lost - Chapter Thirteen

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

AwDae stood in the sunlight for a moment, blinking. Ey felt weak. Not from hunger, nor lack of sleep. Just worn out, exhausted. This was starting to feel like grinding: that drudge that you went through when playing some role-playing game in order to level up. It was always cast in a negative light, but then, you could quit a game. Here ey was, finding clues and all the nonsense that went along with gaming, and for what?

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Thirteen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The credits rolled on the film and Kris sagged heavily against me. She was in the process of educating me in film with some of her artsier DVDs. I wasn’t quite sure what role alcohol played in the process, but when I mentioned that I had procured a bottle of gin through one of Thomas friends, she had insisted upon a movie night as if the two were inseparable. So Friday night found us lounging on my bed with the pillows cushioning the wall we lounged against, drunkenly watching movies.

Getting Lost - Chapter Fourteen

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Home was unlocked. AwDae wasn’t terribly startled by this fact. Although the front door had always been locked when ey had been growing up there, the fact that this whole sim seemed oriented around clues led em to believe that ey’d be able to gain entry to eir old townhome. On a whim, ey checked the other doors in the complex, and they were all locked, as expected. Although ey had braced emself for it, there was still a surge of emotion and memory as AwDae stepped through the door and into the entryway of eir old home.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Fourteen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My computer had been packed into a Corona box given to me by Thomas — all except the monitor — and my clothes were packed back into my laundry basket with my trumpet laying packed within the clothing, still inside its case. All of this had been lugged outside to the picnic table near the road at the first call from my mom and I waited with it as she tried to find her way through campus back to my dorm.

Getting Lost - Chapter Fifteen

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

That night, Carter dreamed of shadows. And through it all, there was the river. The muddy and sometimes stinking river. The Thames which only seemed to generate affection that one might call ‘grudging’ when she thought of it. When she had first moved to London, it had been one of her best guides - the Thames was always vaguely downhill. She strode aimlessly along the south bank of the Thames. The constant renovation of the area had led to not just a single revival, but countless smaller revivals, as buildings were torn down and raised back up, plots of land chopped into smaller portions, buildings growing higher, never quite managing to match.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Fifteen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I climbed out of bed after an hour of trying to sleep and sat on the floor in front of my computer, watching the screen dully as it lit the room with streaming characters, the boot sequence scrolling by haltingly. The grayish glow it cast around the room left only a rectangular shadow from my bed against the wall, my room almost completely empty other than that, a few boxes stacked in one of the corners contained most of the rest of my stuff.

Getting Lost - Chapter Sixteen

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Sasha clutched at the arms of her chair, white knuckled, before standing up. That her relationship with RJ was so casual was working against her. She knew ey was in the UK, and that they worked at a theater, but for the most part, ey talked about other things. Ey talked about Cicero and Debarre. Ey talked about The Crown Pub. Ey talked about eir past and eir shared world, eir syncosm.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Sixteen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Thanksgiving had come and gone without any flair. Dad had spent his inventiveness with the holiday early on and, a few years ago, cooked turkey once a week for about a month and a half in order to find the best and simplest recipe, rather than every year trying something different. I suppose it was his attempt at working toward tradition. He had tried to make deep-frying the turkey the tradition, but on only the second year, he had splashed the oil on himself and burned his hand badly enough to put that project permanently on hold.

Getting Lost - Chapter Seventeen

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“You seem kind of frozen, kind of stuck, in a few ways.” Sasha’s words, that night in The Crown Pub, pressed in against AwDae, pushing thoughts out of the way and blanketed eir mind. Ey had lingered around the house for a few hours, simply laying on the floor and poking around in various rooms, all as empty and static as the school had been. Eventually, ey paced back outside and across the road, to the countless acres of state-managed open space that abutted the foothills.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Seventeen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Kris fell asleep about halfway between Boulder and Fort Collins, so I took her straight to her dorm, helped her unpack, and saw her to bed. She said that she hadn’t been sleeping well at her parents since all they had left of her room was a mattress on the floor and all of the rest of her stuff in boxes in closets. I kissed her a few times and made sure she went to lay down before slipping out of her dorm and back to my car.

Getting Lost - Chapter Eighteen

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Dr Carter Ramirez We’d like to thank you, first of all, for all of your efforts in working on these cases of the Lost. Your services are invaluable and are providing the families and friends of the Lost with hope, not to mention the world at large. We have come to rely on this technology in our daily lives in almost all spheres of work and pleasure. As you know, research here at UCL is funded through a series of organizations and foundations working together.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Eighteen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The confusing swirl of dreams resolved itself into my alarm chirping at me from my desk. I reached a sleepy hand up above my to whack at it until I managed to hit the snooze button. I rested on my back for a few moments longer before rolling over to slap at the power strip on the floor until I found the switch, gratefully rocking it to the ‘on’ position.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Nineteen

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“This,” Thomas declared in a reverent tone. “Is Salvia divinorum.” I blinked up from my computer. “What?” “Salvia!” he repeated, dropping his backpack unceremoniously and flopping down onto his bed. “It’s a hallucinogen, I guess, but it’s legal. Got it at a head shop just off campus.” I twisted myself around in my chair. Thomas laughed, “I knew that would get your attention. Couldn’t get you any shrooms, sorry, but I figured this is the next best thing.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“’Sup, druggie,” Kris jibed, elbowing me in the ribs as she accelerated to walk next to me. With less than a week before finals, we had made a study date at one of the local coffee houses off campus. “Yeesh, nice to see you too, stoner,” I shot back. She laughed and threaded her hand through my arm as I leaned over to kiss her on the temple. “At least I like innocuous drugs that don’t do a whole lot.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-one

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The hall was dead quiet. Far quieter than any normal Friday night and weekend, but since finals started on Monday, we had been put under a set of rules that was apparently more conducive to studying. It meant that I had to listen to my music with headphones on or the volume very low, even though Thomas was, of course, no where to be seen. Of the umpteen weekends I had spent in the dorms so far, I think he had stayed in for the whole weekend only twice: once when he was sick, and once when the party was at our place.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-two

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Come Monday, I decided it was finally time to really get down and study. I woke up at about eleven in the afternoon and lazed around with some coffee, listening to music, and by noon, I pulled out my theory book for the start of the studying. I figured I could catch up with Kris after all of her finals with the excuse of studying for our shared exam by Tuesday.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-three

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Kris and I pooled our resources. Kris had a joint and a half, I had half the bottle of Gin left, plus a beer. Our combined monetary assets were a handful of bills totaling fifteen dollars and seventy eight cents (three pennies courtesy of the bottom of Kris’ backpack — I only ever kept quarters). By our powers combined, we were going to make the most of our Wednesday night. After all, I would drive Kris back down to her parents’ the next day on my way to my Dad’s.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-four

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Kris’ parents, Kris, and I sat around their kitchen table drinking coffee later the next day. While certainly coherent enough to get us both down to Boulder, I couldn’t shake a lingering tiredness from the night before, even with a pot of coffee. “So how was moving out?” Kris’ mom asked. “Kinda dumb,” Kris answered, hands wrapped around her coffee, which appeared to be more milk than coffee. “Just had to pack everything up and throw a bunch of food crap away since we were going to be gone so long.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-five

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I wound up spending the first few days at my dad’s since Colorado Springs seemed closer at the time than Steamboat. When I made it back up to the mountains again, I met my mom at a restaurant near our house rather than heading straight home. “Thanks again for dinner,” I said, our initial greetings out of the way once we had been seated. “Of course, Cory,” she smiled. “It’s good to have you back home for a little bit.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-seven

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Things were less hectic at my dad’s, owing of course to the fact that no one had recently lost their job. Christmas dinner proved to be more turkey, which was excellent as usual, as well as a few beers on everyone’s part. Thusly inebriated, my dad, Jenny, and I got into a discussion about relationships, particularly after I mentioned the strain I had felt between my mom and Jared. Both of them offered their support, which I knew I wouldn’t pass on in order to avoid any awkwardness.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-six

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Losing his job, it turned out, put Jared in a rather foul mood. I spent rather more time with my mom out on walks or locked in my room than I did just hanging around the house. It was better to face the slings and arrows of the internet alone than to take up arms against an angry stepfather, I had decided, and now that I was back, I really was glad to have mountains around me.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-eight

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I shared breakfast with the Careens on the first of the new year. Brunch, was more like it. Kathy cooked eggs to order and some turkey bacon, and there was plenty of coffee to go around. Kris and I then spent some time calling around to various places we thought the party might happen at. Results were mostly disappointing due to us waiting until so late a time in order to try to reserve a room.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Twenty-nine

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It turned out that there were still quite a few people flumoxed by those newfangled computer things that people seemed to go on about. Purchasing one had proved to be quite an adventure and, despite the promises made by salesmen at every location, they weren’t quite as easy to set up as anticipated. Another hundred dollars found its way into my pocket by means of five hour long lessons given across the town.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Thirty

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I decided I would stay up in Steamboat until Sunday in order to spend a bit more time with my mom and Jared, though the latter I tried to avoid for the most part. It did, however, give me a chance to head out with my mom on another few of her forays out with the dogs. The mountains were comforting, and the more I thought, the more I had to share with my mom who, I felt, was much easier to talk to than many others in my life.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Thirty-one

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

By Monday evening, I was itching to get out from under my parents. It wasn’t that I was particularly tired of being back home or even that I wanted to get back to school. Simply put, so much of the rest of my break revolved around the planned trip that everything else just seemed like so much of a waste. Without the briefly interesting computer work, I was left with little to do other than sit around online or try to find something to do in a town I didn’t even know all that well.

The Consequences of Dissonance - Chapter Thirty-two

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Jamen showed up at my dad’s apartment fairly early that morning. We had planned on the drive taking quite a while, and since the room was registered in my name, I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave anyone waiting just because I had gotten bogged down in traffic somewhere between the Springs and Denver. So I wound up waking up at around seven thirty that morning and puttered around, useless until I had my two cups of coffee, and by the time Jamen knocked an hour later, I was packed, showered, and ready to go.

I Wish I Could See Your Triumph

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

To a worthy foe, I wish I could see your triumph. I really do. That’s the thing about enemies, you see. There is a certain amount of love that has to go into that struggle. There is a certain amount of need and desire, because if there is no one there to vanquish, then what are we who strive even to do? I wish I could see your triumph.

Jump

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Some folks, they’re just built to jump. Sim, you know, he was quick to jump at any opportunity, ‘cause when Sim sees an opening, there was just no other possible steps for him to take. That’s how Sim works. Sim jumps, can’t help but. So Sim jumped when there was that convenience store. He jumped ‘cause the gun was under the seat in their shitty beater van and the convenience store had a completely empty parking lot and the lights were on and he couldn’t see the clerk.

On surprise --- see the subject in others

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta. Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning The Market, whatever that may be. At some point, who cares how long ago, death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again. Who knows how well they knew him, their backs turned, studiously deciding that he is no longer of them?

2020 in review

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

January Started on a bunch of Hybrid stuff February Left New Vector March Wrote “The Presence Between the Pages” April “The Fool” on TVoD Changed up my writing process May Wrote “The Hand of God” Stimmtausch.vim and Stimmtausch snap June Released ally Wrote “Gigs” July Started at Nvidia “Foxes and Milkshakes” on TVoD August Started discussing Argyll Productions acquiring Hybrid “Disappearance” on TVoD Stimmtausch character counts September Wrote “Where do you see yourself five years ago?

Unseeing

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On the morning of every day, when days are warm and there is no rain, on days when Lyut knows when it is day and when it is night, he will gather his ingredients onto a small board and sit at the entrance to his cave and make his incense for three days hence. Lyut works with measured care, for he does not want to injure the pads of his paws nor nick his already-scuffed claws nor shave off any of his fur, nor, Ýng preserve him, damage his carefully honed equipment.

Pale She

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Her eye turns inward, vision dims and movement stills as winter claims her. Thoughts like leaves fall slow, hesitate, drift, rustle, sigh. Frost-rimed remnants rot. Some paler she asks: do you see the sky through me? Do I frame its mien? That pale she lacks words. She does not speak, cannot speak without the wind's hum. Still she asks, all breath, am I invisible yet? Does snow tend steel skies? And when her breath fails, dark branches write on the clouds: Summer is a dream.

Where do you see yourself five years ago?

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Where do you see yourself five years ago?” The signs hollered at him. Shouted. It was so noisy in here. No one talking. No music playing, everyone just sitting and waiting, reading or toying with phones or lost in thought. It was the colors, he suspected. All those posters and signs on the walls. The “cheery” green of the paint and clashing purple of the carpet. They were the ones leading to the sense of din.

Gigs

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Well, shit. Winter trudged heavily through the piles of dead leaves lining the gutter, the lynx’s broad paws crunching through them. There was a sidewalk, but this wasn’t a mood for sidewalks. This wasn’t a mood for keeping clean, staying out of the way. This was a proper sulk. She pulled her phone out for the umpteenth time and thumbed at the screen, tapping out yet another message to Katrin that she wouldn’t send.

The Hand of God

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The day began with the botanist giving the physicist a hand in setting up countless contraptions around the rim of the clearing, describing an invisible net of arcane geometries held there five feet above the ground. She lugged the total station while he placed the equipment. He prattled on as he went, describing what he was doing, what tools he was using, what equipment she was carrying. She largely lost track after the word ‘theodolite’.

The Presence Between the Pages

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Every five years we must take down every scroll, stack by stack, and replace the rugs beneath them. We must also unroll the scroll and make note of its condition,” the monk rasped. “The latter will not be your responsibility, young one, but we are happy to provide you with a cot in the dormitory, and you will be welcome at the refectory during your stay here. Can you eat our food?

An apology

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I learned a lot of things in very quick succession last night, and would like to apologize. While at FC2020, a group of trans folks gathered around Sonic Fox to take a picture, and since I was feeling cheeky, I decided to play that dumb Circle Game, where you make a ring with your index finger and thumb and show it subtly so what, when people notice it, you can say “got ‘em” (and sock them in the shoulder, depending whether or not you’re still in middle school).

2019 in retrospect

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

January Migrated [a][s] to Jekyll-based sites Finished up explore621 Created new presentations Created trck.ai Started Stimmtausch, Snuffler, and ansigo 1.0 of polycul.es February 0.0.1 of Stimmtausch Forked tv2 March Migrated personal sites to Hugo Wrote some poetry April Not a good month. May Wrote Every Angel is Terrifying June Started pulling together Restless Town Started reverse-engineering Dogtra remote signals July Wrote What Defines Us Created Peak Millennial with Judith (Re)released Rum and Coke Released Piano Works Vol.

Inktober 2019 #2 - Story and poem courtesy of Sariya

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Europan Dim light of distant suns. Salt-slush of silent seas. Gravity: a tension of sorts, tidal. Deep vents, temperature gradients, hot, cold, hot, cold hot. Fermentation. Combustion. Digestion. It had so many ways to keep going, to stay powered, to stay alive. All those failsafes and backups, redundancies well into the double digits. Piezos, catalytics, photovoltaics, turbines, even a very efficient stomach, all in perfect working order, all ready to snap into action.

Inktober 2019 #1 - Poem and snippet courtesy of Lorxus

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A year starts not on January first. The days may hunder but the seasons speak of time's long march, of fast time, slow time. Thirst for "start" and "end" neglects the limen sleek. So, why do some unsubtle sciences forget about the in-betweens? Those pure uncolored dreams made mere contrivances; "between the years" now simply: "year, then year". These rough mechanics, held unseen, can spoil the beauty of our silent spaces, take from us the liminality, embroil our lives in cold and tired minutiae.

What Defines Us

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Darren, Haven’t heard from you in a while. Do you think I could come up and visit for xmas? Been a while since I’ve seen the little monsters. Let me know before prices go up. How are you? How is Leila? LYF Mom Mom, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you recently. Things on our end have been awful, if I’m honest. Leila and I are thinking of splitting up.

Rush

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A flash of coppery sweetness, A clearing of the sinuses, A burst of unnamed colors, A rush of creativity, of wonder, Velvety softness, a low hum, And then the wave recedes.

Every Angel is terrifying

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I take the bus to the edge of Sawtooth, basically as close as I can get to the highway on local transit. Beyond here it’s all industrial. All warehouses and junkyards and hulking, silent buildings painted gray or beige, or not painted at all. Machine shops, garages, or simply anonymous buildings with rows of doors and loading docks. Beyond here, there is no living. It is a liminal space. That’s okay.

Mi glutos mian amon

Fri, 10 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Mi glutos mian amon por vi. Mi glutos mian amon. Mi glutos mian amon por vi Kaj frandos la ekflamadon de magnezio, Ĝuos la oferbuĉadon, Ĝojos la aŭtolizadon De sekretaj ĉeloj. Mi glutos mian amon por vi. Mi glutos mian amon.

Kiun ŝi povas ŝati?

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Kiun ŝi povus ŝati? Kiun ŝi povus ami? Ŝi demandis al Ŝi mem: Kiel ŝi volus diri Kial ŝi tiom zorgas? "Vi devas ŝati vi mem, Vi devas ami vi mem." Ri respondis al ŝi tiam. "Vi ne devas diri Kial vi tiom zorgas." "Mi neniam priparolas Miajn multajn zorgojn." Ri daŭrigis trankvile. "Finfine, mi neniam diras, Ke mi ploras por mi mem." "Ve, mi ĉiam pripensas Viajn belajn vortojn." Ŝi respondis larm'plene.

Headless SparkleShare with sparkleup

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Update: this is now a project you can use! I found myself wanting a headless version of SparkleShare, and was stymied by the lack thereof. I wanted to keep some IRC and MUCK logs in a SparkleShare project, but I run my clients for those in a tmux session on a server. However, that server lives elsewhere, and has no X, so, alas, the usual SparkleShare clients were right out.

Asertu

Sun, 07 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Disvolvu mian haŭton el mia karno Verŝu mian sangon el mi kiel vino Prenu mian vivon, tenu ĝin sub via lango: Amara pilolo por gustumi Bruligu min, entombigu min poste Loku ŝtonon super kie mi kuŝas Lasu tempo manĝi vian memorojn pri mi Lasta peceto por gustumi

Numeno

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Inter ĝuo kaj timo Estas loko de tro da signifo. Apud kompreno, ekster saĝo, Tamen ĝi tutampleksas. Mi kompareble malgrandas Kaj ĝi tro granda estas. Nekomprenebla Nekontestebla, Senmova kaj ĉiam ŝanĝiĝema.

Fisher

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Alv pinned his ears back against his head as he stomped down the length of the block. His boots were too much for the drizzle that the weather offered, but it was that or his threadbare sneakers, and some tiny part of his mind had done the calculation without the rest of him knowing, and he’d tugged the heavy things on for the walk. The air inside had grown too stuffy for the old fisher, or perhaps his eyes had grown too tired of reading, or maybe it was something in his joints, a feeling of too much space that needed to be compressed down.

Fair and Square

Sun, 08 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I bought my name fair and square; Bespoke, built from whole cloth. I wrote it again and again, Savoring every J, Skipping every fifth tittle, Until it felt right, Like sitting inside and watching the snow fall Through the window Or finding the perfect way that branches in two trees Line up with each other Or when the windshield wipers move In time with your music. I built myself fair and square With hands raw from coarse identity.

Growth

Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

“Growth” by Julian Norwood Used to be you and I daily would walk through the fields out back of the house and talk for hours, spilling words and emotions. These walks were our daily devotions to each other over the years. The fields, dotted with ponds, were our space. We tramped those trails strung like lace along shores and through tall grass, murmuring now like winds, chattering now like brass in some changeful duet.

Twitter Haiku Collab

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Makyo Seven flies circle, Trimmers chatter down the block: The hum of summer. I listen, silent, waiting, Breathing in sun and out shade. Dwale Scent of cinnamon Light slips over the mountain Cirrus clouds blushing. Mog Warm wind from the west Sunlight pours across the plains Cicadas singing Four-hundred miles from home This western land not my own Makyo Fig leaves like fingers paw feebly through still hot air and come up with naught.

Post-op images

Sun, 20 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Saturday is for mechanics. Sunday is for terror. Monday is for acceptance. Tuesday is for purging. Wednesday is for anxiety. Thursday is for sleep. When I am asleep The world changes around me. In spring, I am changed. I'm no good at images, only words, and yet for days after surgery, as anesthesia and countless milligrams, milliliters, millions of drugs leave my system, I'm lousy with visions, each lousy with meaning.

Prima materia

Fri, 04 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Calcination They say the fire cleanses That it purifies. Then, cool fire, soft fire, Cleanse and purify me. Blanket my shoulders And sing me to sleep. Sing the fox to sleep And let her rest Content in the work she has done And the lives she has touched. They say the fire cleanses That it purifies. Then, cool fire, soft fire, Sing me to sleep. Dissolution Sweet as honey, spiced with time, You were me, and I you.

Somehow, she's me

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Her hair is tied with a ribbon Saying "This is not for you." She wears a pendant of stamped brass Saying "Non sum qualis eram." "I have been a hero since birth," She tells herself, As though that will somehow Explain her scars. She pierced her own ears, But did a shit job of it. Her tattoos tease around the edges of her identity. Her bones are ley-lines, She tells herself, Strung with symbols Heady with meaning.

Beneath her coat was a whole identity

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Beneath her coat was a whole identity: A subtle form of ideas under soft fur, A constantly shifting mass of meaning... And somehow, she pulled it off. She would go for days without shedding a thing, And then, as if a bottle rolling off a counter, She would shatter, sending shards of self flying, And then we'd all see. Then we'd all see the terror, the joy, Then we'd all see the grief at nothing, Then we'd all hear her say, "

You're Gone

Fri, 26 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

You’re Gone is an exploration in grief, told through instant messages to a dead loved one. All you need to do is send the messages. Hard as that may be. Play the game (or read the script) You’re Gone is a story as told through instant messages. It’s playable in all modern browsers. This version ties in with the Sawtooth Universe. It stands on its own, but is gently furry.

You're Gone

Fri, 26 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

h3 { padding-left: 2rem; font-size: 12pt; color: #aaa; font-style: italic; border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa; } Sunday, March 30 1:39 PM Markus> Doctor Maura told me I should start journaling when this whole crazy process started. She said it would keep me grounded, let me set milestones of memory, some BS like that. 1:40 PM Markus> I told her I’d give it a think and then promised myself I’d forget about it.

At His Whim

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Sex; hypnosis; dubious consent Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. How the fuck did I wind up here? Okay, cat, come on, you can do this. Mind’s all sorts of hazy, but just need to keep track of things, try and remember back to where things got started. Oh god, so full…how does…oh god… I reasoned that a date was probably a good excuse to get all prettied up.

Accessing the Juju CLI from within the GUI

Sat, 30 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the Juju GUI 2.11.1 release, we are excited to bring a new feature we’ve been working on for a while now: the shell in the GUI. The GUI is a powerful tool, but at times the command-line is necessary. For instance, the ability to SSH into a unit helps for debugging processes or accessing data directly. Running debug-hooks is another: if a unit is stopped during one of its hooks and you need to see if you can get it up and running, sometimes debug-hooks is your best bet.

Acts of Intent

Sat, 16 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Lines and curves, lines and curves. Beginning now. Seven o’clock, and the 13th Street crowd was headed to dinner, or focusing on a postprandial stroll. Jacob was focused on lines. On arcs and straight edges. On corners and angles. The cans of spray-lubricant had clanked onto the counter, earlier that afternoon. Three of them, some of the cheap kind. The poor stoat behind the till scanned them numbly, seemingly on autopilot.

A Theory of Attachment

Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A cool, pale blue lightness sitting just behind her sternum, Sélène made what she promised herself would be a quick pass through the kitchen She brushed her fingers along the edges of cabinet doors. Each one was opened and inspected, leaving her standing on tiptoes to peer in those above the counters. Nothing but cups and glasses, plates and bowls, cutting boards and pots and pans and trays and dishes. All clean and neatly stacked.

#WarOnChristmas

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On December 4, 2017, Sam Sykes tweeted: I have but one request this Christmas, guys. Take the #WarOnChristmas hashtag and fill it with accounts of the horrors of battling elves across snowy fields and firing anti-aircraft missiles at sleds streaking overhead. — Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2017 Good enough prompt for me! Bonus restriction of 280 or fewer characters! Here we go… #WarOnChristmas War, as the saying goes, is hell.

Flash: Mind Your Manners

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“I’m sure that we can find something for you here, sir. We have the largest selection of mattresses anywhere in Sawtooth.” An angry opossum, Jake decided, looked basically like an angry rat. They all looked about the same, when they were angry. they get their teeth out. They make a show of balling their fists as if to say my claws may be manicured, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still sharp.

Where The Dust Comes From

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“Alright, now, as soon as you see it, you must scoop it up!” “Okay!” “So what do you do when you see it?” “Scoop it up!” “Good boy, good. Now, watch…” Anne tapped the tip of her ‘wand’ against the edge of her plate. Once, twice…three times and a small plume of dust spilled out onto the table. Jamie, wielding his cooking scraper well, scooped the dust off to the side.

Overclassification

Mon, 04 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“Some would say that the primary goal of folkloristics is one of anthropology, of understanding a culture’s view of itself. I, naturally, disagree.” Professor Haswell’s voice droned on even in sleep, even these many years later. Dani hated it, hated these dreams. “Folkloristics works from the other direction. It constructs a semiotic niche out of so many umwelten…” How damning was it to have such boring dreams? Dani would write this one down on a fresh page in the morning, as she always did.

Every time I fall

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Every time I fall, The ground tells me I'm in love. "'Cause love is All low," it says. "And loves is Places." And I always argue, That love is all people. That love is dogs, And cats. And love is Emotions. But every time I fall, The ground tells me I'm in love. That gravity is Some awkward embrace, And love is Permanence. And I always argue, That love is temporary.

Disappearance

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“This is going to sting.” I nod. “No, this is going to sting a lot.” That warrants a dry swallow and a second nod, more nervous this time. The first thing they’d done at the mod parlor was shave my fur. A smooth line back from my muzzle toward my ears. They’d gotten all of both of my cheeks, down to the jawline and up toward my ears, though not quite all the way.

Standing up long-running GUI instances with guiproxy

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently while working on Juju, we’ve started to use a tool called guiproxy. This allows us to talk to all of the various services that back our application in its live environment while proxying websocket requests to where they are going, as the proxy knows all of their addresses, while the GUI does not. We’ve mostly used this for developing locally, where we start the GUI with make run and then run guiproxy.

Bruise Vision

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

.row { display: block; vertical-align: top; } .col-md-4 { width: 30%; display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; padding: 0.5rem; } .text-right { text-align: right; } .col-md-8 { width: 60%; display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; padding: 0.5rem; } @media only screen and (max-width: 500px) { .col-md-4, .col-md-8 { width: 100%; display: block; } } I Geese Level: Unnerving Expect: Anxiety A hundred geese overhead — A thousand — A million — Heady scent of premonition.

The Fool

Mon, 08 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The badger looms over a small table, the short sleeve of her smock tugged down toward the table by a glass candy thermometer. A deck of colorful cards rest neatly stacked on its surface. Contrary to expectations, the room is bright and spacious. No hint of incense or dark velour drapes, just a simple living room in a simple home, a simple badger and some simple cards. She can’t be older than fifty, and she’s of a more motherly bent than a mystical one.

Furry Writers' Guild Presidential Candidacy

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Back in 2015, when I joined the Furry Writers’ Guild, I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into. [adjective][species] was chugging along, which felt good, and I was only then starting to get into furry fiction. I’d been writing loads of non-fiction for years, of course, but finding a few stories I had to tell started pushing me into wider realms. When I joined the Guild, it was as an associate member.

Editing Arcana

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I got some good feedback on the previous post from writers who appreciated the insight into the editing process. Heck, even I got a lot out of writing the post, because it allowed me to set down in writing a lot of vague thoughts that I had about what worked and what didn’t. That’s one of the big reasons I write as much as I do, a sort of “how can I tell what I think till I see what I say” thing, if we go by E.

Lessons from Arcana

Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

At the end of 2016, I decided to take on Arcana as a project. I’d been thinking for a while that writing and editing were something I’d like to do more seriously. Like, I’d done the software thing for a while, and it treated me well; maybe now it was time to see what I could do with my love of words and stories. Arcana is an anthology of stories using the archetypes embodied by the major arcana of the standard Tarot deck.

Heligoland

Mon, 20 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Too many wine-dark seas need daily traversal, And here the shipping forecast calls for rain. The shipping forecast! What a load of bollocks. You can listen from start to finish And not hear a single word about how a day will feel. Or maybe it's a pale, tired, steganography: Moderate, becoming poor, violent storm 11. Burning up, drowning, torn by wind, and all I can manage is to tell you southwest gale 8 to storm 10.

Completed poems from "Missives"

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Though the flow'r may bloom ere long and night recede unto the dawn, so yet may love's embrace grow fond and still be spoilt upon the wan. Brave are you and wield your smile: A cudgel, tool, a keen-edged blade. You are not wan, love is not spoilt; thus I be slain and love not fade. Have I any need for flow'rs? For nights, for dawns, for words or breath? With so keen and fond a blade, There's naught to fear in life or death.

Meaning & Self

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There's some duality between sources of meaning, Between the types of stories we use to back identity. It's not quite good & bad or light & dark, Though I'm not yet sure just how to define it. Dad used to punish the dogs by locking then in the basement. If he was really mad, he'd toss then down there by the scruff. Mom moved me & her dogs to a new house — moved us three days early during the divorce.

Flash: Sorting Laundry

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

“You always have to sort your laundry,” her mother always said. “Separate the lights from the darks, at the very least. Try to get all the bright colors in one load, at least for the first few washes, than you can mix them with the dark.” Yes, ma. “Remember how daddy got his pink shirt?” Yes, ma. “Just remember to sort, and you’ll be fine. And don’t use fabric softener on your towels, they’ll stay softer that way.

What Remains of Yourself

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

sex; drugs; dubious consent Boots? Check. Knee-high stompers with buckles from ankle to top. Dark enough brown to pass for black. Cradled the paws oh-so-nicely. Leggings? Check. Clingy and stretchy, form-fitting. Dark enough red to pass for brown. Showed off those big, no-nonsense calves and thighs. Skirt? Check. Pleated, short, the barest hint of lace. Black and polyester, but shiny enough to pass for vinyl in the right light.

Qoheleth

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is Qoheleth in its entirety. During the process of running Qoheleth, each chapter was reveiled as a step of a puzzle that readers had to solve. There is more to this than is exposed here, but is primarily of a technical nature. For information on that, please see the repository.

1 (Torah)

Ioan Balan awoke to an urgent message.

Ey didn’t really like these, the sensorium messages. Ey liked paper messages. Ey mostly just liked paper. Ey was always accruing more. Paper and pens. Eir friends thought it creepy. Paper messages, or those rich messages that came attached to paper, played on its surface, or even messed with eir sensorium. To have one that just barged in on eir vision and endocrine system like this made em quite anxious. This one included a tiny jolt of adrenaline as an alert. Waking up with that jolt to have a partial sensory takeover just felt rude.

The benefit was that ey didn’t have to get out of bed to deal with it.

Après un rêve

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage, Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore, Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l’aurore; Echoes of Grace singing, memories and emotions, clashed with the doctor’s words. “I know you’ve signed the waivers, but I need a verbal confirmation. Do you understand this?” Sylvie nodded. It was strange not to feel her hair, always so frizzy and buoyant, not following the motion a scant second too late.

Jonas Clade Digest

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Systime 305+168 0600 Ar Jonas writing here, would like to give a small update about the family. Things have been going well. Lena#tracker and I are getting by with some impatience as the investigations into a child continue. We’ve explored many of the options around child templates and found a few that we think will provide a good base for what aspects of our sensoria we can provide. It’s got Lena’s quick wit and my dashing good looks.

How Charming - Part 3

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the previous entry, we started the process of pulling together our charm, including a lot of configuration values. Some of those were standard charm fare, metadata and configuration values, but some were configuration for the charm layers. We also investigated what layers were and how they’re different from hooks. If you haven’t read the first two entries, please make sure that you do so, or this one won’t make much sense!

Gallery Exhibition: A Love Story

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This gallery exhibition serves as the capstone for Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled, of the Ode Clade in its role as fellow. The fellowship in instance art was created specifically for Dear in recognition of the excellence it brings to the field.

The Simien Fang school of Art and Design is proud to invite you to the opening of the exhibition. Location, time, and your ticket are attached to this message. We kindly request that you fork and send a non-#core/non-#tracker instance. We look forward to sharing this experience with you.

RSVP

Assignment

Mon, 26 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The feeling of an instance merging state back with the tracker would never NOT make Ioan Balan#tracker uneasy. It wasn’t the differences in experiences, those could be anticipated, so much as the tiny changes in identity that resulted. Having to internalize a slightly different version of yourself was too close to experiencing a doppelgänger. Or perhaps hanging with a sib, fresh home from a semester abroad. Ioan#tracker had never been abroad, had no siblings.

Notes from Surgery Consult with Dr. Dugi

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is mostly a scratchpad of notes right now; I will likely clean it up when I have more spoons, but getting my raw notes out felt like a good idea. Schedule Next fall, probably september or october big effort to emphasize hair removal, usually the blocker Staying in the area plan on staying nearby for about a month Surgery timeline learn dilation during first visit (3xday 30min each) - pelvic floor pt for dilation within week before surgery

How Charming - Part 2

Fri, 16 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In the previous part, we started to nail down what it is that we’re going to do to try and accomplish our task. We’re going to write a charm - a package that represents a way to deploy a piece of software repeatably to the cloud - which does all that’s needed to host a WSGI app. It will be able to talk to several different services and use any WSGI server.

How Charming - Part 1

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

When I take a step back and look at it, I’m pretty happy with Honeycomb. As part of the Writers’ Guild, I take part in weekly…well, meetings isn’t quite the right word. We call them Coffeehouse Chats, which is closer to what they are. They’re something between a formal meeting, in that we have a loose schedule to adhere to, and a group of friends meeting up for tea. We start with our accomplishments from the previous week and we end with our goals for the next week, but the intervening forty to fifty minutes are spent basically doing whatever.

Gender: Furry - An investigation into the interplay of gender and fandom

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Gender: Furry was originally commissioned for and published in Furries Among Us II, released by Thurston Howl Publications Many people, I suspect, use the idiom, “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” in a way that is better served by other, more appropriate words or phrases. The sense in which I hear it most commonly used is perhaps more adequately covered by the beautiful portmanteau, “regretrospect”. That is, now that things are said and done, I regret a lot of what happened during this adventure.

When I fall, I will remain whole

Mon, 14 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I keep hoping that, one day, I'll spring palladial from the bole of a tree. Fully formed, sexless, Conceived without desire or intent. My body will be virginal and clean, My mind fresh, my soul at ease. The tree, behind me, will stand crooked, Bole seeping until time and air dry sap. I will be a flat expanse of green, made up of new cells. Everything will work together, a smoothly running machine.

Teas of Late

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I know I kind of fell off the wagon of regularly posted tastings. I really do feel bad about that, too, because it’s a lot of fun to drink a tea and think about the whole sensory experience that goes along with that, then try and distill that down into words. I’ll really try to get back into that soon. For now, though I figured I’d pull together some impressions of the teas I’ve been drinking of late.

Missives

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Sir,

If it please you, I write concerning our last meeting one week and six days ago at Mister G-’s manor, wherein we spent a happy hour discussing the finer points of his garden. You requested that I write back upon returning home and I find myself with unanswered questions.

Identity is not a conversation

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have to be honest, I’m feeling a little stuck around some matters of language and the consequences that I’m living through. When I first started to really transition, I used language in a very deliberate fashion. I used female pronouns and I called myself “trans” without any additional modifiers. I chose to make these steps because I felt that, if I didn’t, I might miss out on treatment, both medical and social, that I wouldn’t otherwise get if I had chosen some other pronouns and labels for myself.

There is too much fire in me

Wed, 04 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

There is too much fire in me to be described by the soldering iron's tip. If I were to draw that across my flesh, it would all spill out at once. I'd melt, eaten whole by flames, and flow into a pool of molten silver. I would be borne up through the clouds, and grow lighter by the second. Sublimation would claim me then, atoms would scatter, diffuse. All that energy poured to the air around me, an imperceptible increase in temperature.

Chana Masala

Sun, 01 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Every now and then, I go through a vegetarian kick, though I don’t think the household will let me make it permanent. Even so, it’s nice to have a protein filled veggie dish to remind everyone that they’re delicious! I knew this as chick-pea curry, at first, but it’s a little more complex than that. Ingredients 2 tbsp ghee or vegetable oil (recipe below) 1 16oz can low sodium chick peas 1 14.

2013 Odell's Amuste

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In early 2013, I was just settling into my job at Canonical. I was fitting in well with the team, was enjoying the stuff that I was working on, and was having a good time traveling to various places both in the US and around the world. The best part about the travel was meeting all of the wonderful people I had, until that point, only ever met online. In the early spring of 2013, I found myself traveling to Atlanta, where I knew a scant few people (hi Talaer, nrr, and Kieran!

2015 White 2 - Brown Sugar Shu

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It’s no secret that I love White 2. Their teas are fantastic, their marketing is fantastic, and their owner runs a rockin’ blog. The more I got into pu’er, the more I found myself gravitation towards White 2’s offerings. So, of course, I had to jump on Brown Sugar. The wrapper just absolutely tickles me. The idea of a (relatively) lightly fermented huangpian shu sounded fantastic. The thought of grabbing one brick to age and one brick to drink appealed to me.

White 2 - 2014 Laochatou

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

One of the other White 2 new arrivals that I’ve been eagerly looking forward to! The process of making shu – ripe pu’er – is a relatively recent adaptation. Some of the great pu’er teas are those which have had years and years to age, the ‘fermentation’ process calming down the tannic aspects and resulting in a rich brew. Aging isn’t exactly profitable, though, so tea factories found new ways to get similar flavors from younger teas, and to do so in ways that took only a few months rather than two decades.

White Raw Pu'ers from Bana Tea Company

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“This […] is listed by Bana as a raw pu-erh,” writes Lion on Steepster, “but if you were to just walk up to this sitting on a counter unlabeled, you might easily mistake it for a white tea.” White tea is right - both of these teas look decidedly like silver-needle style white teas, though they are apparently prepared in much the same way as many raw pu’er teas. I’m new to all of this, though, so I can’t speak to the details.

White 2 - 2016 Fade Sheng

Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I finally got more tea in! I got…a lot. It’s going to take a while for me to work my way through the backlog of tasting. I have some notes from two aged white teas from Bana, as well, that need to be written up. I’m still drinking plenty of tea, but writing has fallen by the wayside as work goes nuts. There’s a lot that goes into marketing tea.

New American Absinthe

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Print PDF The lineup, in no particular order. The weather is finally starting to turn. Well, I say finally like this winter hasn’t been a rollercoaster, when it comes to weather. We’d get a foot and a half of snow, then be back up in the 50s and 60s later in the week. It makes it difficult to pick drinks, really. Over the winter, I tend toward darker, warmer drinks, such as heavy red wines, scotches, and heady mixed drinks without carbonation; if I’m going to have something carbonated, it’s more likely to be a sweet ale than anything.

2013 Da Hong Pao brick (from Bana Tea Company)

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I started taking tasting notes because I wanted to be more cognizant, more present with the things that I put into my body. I wanted to think about what flavors were there, what made me enjoy - or not - the things that I ate or drank. The inspiration for this idea came from the thought and care that I saw others put into their tastings and ratings of various things.

Misty Peaks - Spring Mountain 2015 Pu'er

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been getting into tea lately. I move through interests with some frequency and pick them up with quite a bit of intensity, so it was no surprise when I latched onto pu’er itself as something to explore. Tea, like many things, has fractal depth: the more you look into it, the more you find. You can keep digging and digging until you get way down deep and there will always be more for you to find out.

Juju Cards

Wed, 02 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

One of the new things that we’ve been working on over on the Juju UI team is the idea of cards. Cards are a simple concept that allows others to see at a glance both what you’re offering and a means to test it out. Juju is perfect for this because it’s so easy to spin up a local environment and then juju deploy [x]! Here’s an example for a relatively complex bundle:

Phở

Sun, 28 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Phở is a Vietnamese noodle soup usually served in the morning. It’s a build-your-own type meal: you get a bowl of broth and noodles, then you choose which type of meat you want (some of which may be cooked by the nearly-boiling broth), and any accoutrements that you want, featuring fresh herbs, onions, peppers, and hoisin sauce and Sriracha. Ingredients Broth 5 lbs. beef bones (oxtails and chuck neck bones) Water to 2 gallons 2 medium onions 4 cloves of garlic 2” knob of ginger Spices: either a phở spice pack, a tablespoon of Chinese five spice powder, or a mix of star anise, cinnamon, mace, white pepper, and one clove.

Chard, Tomato, and Salt Pork Soup

Sun, 24 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

One of those throw-stuff-in-a-pot recipes that turned out good. This time, however, I wrote down what I did! This is a savory, filling soup just barely on the edge of being creamy, that doesn’t overdo anything: two bowls is more veg than anything, and the broth is still fairly light, despite the cream and fat from the pork. Ingredients 1 pkg (12 oz) salt pork 1 medium onion 1 bunch Swiss Chard 5 tomatoes 3 cloves garlic 6 cups broth or stock (I used chicken) 1 bay leaf 1⁄3 cup sour cream 1⁄2 cup pearled barley salt and pepper to taste Preperation Dice and sautee the salt pork over medium heat, adding the onion once the fat has started to render.

San Jose Style Orange Sauce

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Orange sauce. The number one condiment for a burrito the size of your head when you’re down in San Jose. Ask anyone and they’ll have their preference for taquerias, with strong opinions as to who has the best orange sauce. Despite its creamy appearance, this sauce is vegan and relies on emulsified oil and blended garlic for its texture. For those who are curious, this one takes most after Iguana’s orange sauce, with the addition of the citrus.

On [adjective][species]

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This last weekend, I resigned as editor-in-chief of [adjective][species], a site that I founded in 2011 to explore the furry fandom and the what it means to call oneself a furry. I did so in a brief and considered post - I hardly wanted to clutter up the site that I worked so hard on with a big tearful goodbye or anything - but I realize that this was perhaps too little for people to hang their hats on (or fursuit heads, as the case may be).

Editorial: On Friends

Sat, 17 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever tried to delineate your past into phases? And not necessarily based on school. I mean, school and work do tend to serve as markers for a lot of our perception of time, and it seems almost habitual that we use them to mark out the periods in our lives. When I grew up, you went to preschool to prepare for kindergarten, which prepared you for elementary school. Fifth grade prepared you for middle school, and eighth grade for high school.

Milkshakes and Foxes (G)

Sat, 17 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Two foxes walked into a bar. Well, okay, a diner. But most of those middle-American diners are outfitted with a bar type area, complete with red-and-chrome stools - you know the sort - which is close enough. Both were full of giggles, outfitted with grins and their most casual of “nice” clothes. Somehow managing to look similar without being related, the two got along as though they were brothers. One was taller than the other, and though both were thin, he came off as lanky, whereas the the shorter fox seemed more waifish - more of a track runner than his friend, the basketball player.

Being Transgender

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

You get to explain gender to all of your friends — And all of your family — And maybe once more to be sure — And random strangers — And maybe, like, doctors and nurses who should probably know better; You get to explain to your partner that nothing has changed — And that you were always this way — And that really, honestly, nothing has changed — And that this has no effect on your love for them — And I promise; You will get to come out again — And explain that it wasn't that being gay wasn't enough — And explain that it has nothing to do with who you like — And explain that that shouldn't matter — And — oh right, this means you might be straight after all; You get to go through that awkward period of growing your hair out — And learning how to ask for a more feminine haircut — And trying a curling iron for the first time — And figuring out how to eat noodles without also eating your hair — And the worries that you're just trying to be rebellious; You get to worry whether you're maybe just trying to be rebellious — And whether or not you might just be faking it — And whether you're really Trans Enough or not — And whether you're maybe just appropriating femininity — And whether or not passing really matters to you anyway; You get to dress up in your best clothes — And your best makeup — And worry that your shoes are too masculine — And have your hair game on point — And convince the doc that you deserve those patches and pills; You get to go through puberty again — And it will be weirder this time around — And your skin will grow soft — And you'll get more sensitive to temperature changes — And — YEOWCH!

Editorial: On Words

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Three years ago, on September 6th, a friend of mine passed away.

I’d not really had all that much exposure to death before that, if I’m honest. My step-adoptive-grandfather died when I was fairly young, and all I really remember out of that was the funeral, and inheriting a small medal he’d won from Colorado State University, something about soil science and geology. After that, I had dream after dream about what winning that medal must’ve been like, walking through some grand oaken hall to receive a pewter medal on a velvet pillow. That I later attended CSU, and that CSU had no oaken halls as in my dreams, always left me vaguely disappointed.

Other than that, my brush with mortality was limited to my grandmother, who passed some time later. The unfortunate part of her passing was that, for years before, she had been deep in a mire of dementia that left her a pallid shadow of her former self. From her, I remember that a lot of our final interactions were beset by confusion, frustration, and tears. “You’re [my mom]’s son, right?” she asked in the airport. She repeated the question seven or eight times, being sure, each time, to comfort herself that the person pushing her wheelchair was someone known to her.

My mom and I had flown out to see her as she got settled into a final stage of her life in Charlotte, North Carolina. My mom flew out to see her one more time before she died, but, after a long talk, it was decided that I would stay home. “I can’t handle it. I can’t be in that role again,” I pleaded, and my mom let me stay with my dad while she flew out of town.

Again

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Michael woke blearily to the sounds of muffled giggling, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and lifting his head off the pillow. He couldn’t quite make out what was going on in the bed next to his own, but it appeared to be quite fun, or at least funny. Rooming with his friends came with its benefits, but also its drawbacks. No one had been particularly shy about the fact that part of the reason they had come to the convention in the first place was to play around and get laid, and that was just sort of part of the bargain when it came to rooming with others.

How Many?

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

“Oh for pete’s sake, quit fretting,” Andrew chided, bumping his elbow against Ian’s as they crowded into the too-narrow seats. Neither of them were all that skinny anymore, and Andrew was bordering on fat, to Ian’s stocky. Ian closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, focusing on wedging himself in between the window and his boyfriend, counting up slowly through the numbers as he absentmindedly slipped the buckle around his waist.

What I Expected

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Painting their nails had always calmed Sascha down. The simple act of dragging a brush slowly and carefully, following along the contours of the curved nails in smooth strokes, moving deliberately so as not to bump those nails already painted. The whole act seemed to be almost a meditation, calming to the core. At least, usually it did. It was difficult to contain the nervousness and excitement that filled them, and they found themself anxiously cycling over the list of things that needed doing before they headed out.

On Postfurry

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not really sure how I wound up getting involved with the postfurry community. I mean, I can point to the moment that I found furry itself and how what went from a curious interest built into something decidedly more (a passion? an obsession?), but the same isn’t necessarily the case with postfurry. If I start tracing the lines backwards, rather a lot of them converge on one critter in particular, Indi.

Running Away

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Content warning: frank talk of suicide. I think we all have a lot of formative moments in our lives. For me, it was stuff like coming out, the realization of my own mortality, the suicide attempt, and so on. I think that they tend to fall into two basic categories: those which affect us consciously, which we think about from day to day, with enough frequency to say ‘often’; and those which affect us more subconsciously, where we can go years or decades without really thinking about them, and yet they still inform so many of your actions.

The Path - and New Beginnings

Fri, 29 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hindsight is, as they say, twenty-twenty. That’s a core part of the trans narrative, just as it is for so many narratives for minority identities. It’s usually expressed something like, “I’ve always known I was trans. I mean…I didn’t think I was trans growing up, I didn’t have the language, but looking back, there was this book I secretly read and I often fantasized about such and such, and it became much clearer later on.

Done vs. Finished - On Code Reviews and Learning Languages

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As part of my yearly goals at work, I’ve been doing more and more work in Go. It’s a pretty fantastic language, I’ve found, and fairly easy to pick up, minus a few little caveats (goroutines took me a bit to wrap my head around). A lot of this has been taking place in a little project, jujusvg, which takes a Juju bundle and outputs an SVG representation of that bundle for displaying in webpages such as jujucharms.

Dogfooding - Pt. 2

Thu, 09 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is a continuation of the first post; you should read that first! This is part 2 of the “Dogfooding Juju” series that I’m doing. This time, I want to go into a little bit of detail about the Warren charm and how I wound up structuring it. As I mentioned in the previous post, there are perhaps more elegant ways to do this, but I found the documentation to be lacking in ways that prevented me from dedicating relatively scant free time to the task.

Dogfooding - Pt. 1

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I work for Canonical, Ltd, a company focused primarily on open source software, best known for their operating system, Ubuntu, a distribution of Linux focused on both the ease of desktop use, as well as a seamless experience across desktop, server, mobile, and TV. That’s not all that we make, though, and our umbrella of products and services stretches across several sectors of the software market. I am on the Juju UI team.

Summer salad

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Super easy and super tasty, and a perfect cool treat on a warm day. Ingredients 1 cucumber 2 medium tomatoes 1 small red onion 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1 tbsp olive oil salt pepper Preparation Slice vegetables into bite sized pieces and combine with other ingredients in a glass or ceramic bowl. Refrigerate the salad for at least one hour to let the flavors mingle, stirring at least once.

The Dogs Assure Me

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The dogs assure me: There are volumes of meaning — Life and death — And time; Past, present, future — In the scent of a rotting fish left after the flood, Or a trace of scat, Or the coyote, long passed, But not everyone reads poetry. I'm not so lucky, all told: The rich scent of meaning — Heady, intoxicating — Rises only from words And the way you rest your hands on the table.

On the Path

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I realize that it’s been a while since I’ve written in this section of the site. Things have been busy in general, and particularly overwhelming of late. I’ve written a little here and there, but I suppose so much has been happening out of the realm of this site that I’ve not felt the need to put so much down in words. I’ve been talking with friends, a therapist, a psychiatrist, and as of last week, a physician about gender.

Easy Crock-pot Green Chili

Tue, 02 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve posted the recipe for an oven-based green chili stew before, but I don’t often have the time or energy required to do a slow roast in the oven of an entire pork shoulder. What I usually make instead is a crock-pot version. It’s faster, easier, and still pretty tasty, all things considered! Ingredients 4 4-oz cans of diced green chiles 3-4 cups water (less water equals more chile flavor) ½-1 lbs cubed pork (usually sold as such in the supermarket) 1 medium to large onion, diced 2 potatoes, peeled and diced 2 chipotles in adobo sauce, diced 1 tbsp adobo sauce from chiles 1 tbsp chile caribe 1 tbsp chicken or vegetable Better-Than-Bouillion or one cube veggie bouillion (such as this) Optional additional veggies such as zucchini, carrots, etc.

Witnessing and Mirroring

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t often read Reddit - the site and I get along fine, I just can’t seem to maintain interest in any subreddit for more than a few weeks - but I do occasionally find a good link or two when I wind up there. Most recently, I was trawling several different subreddits about gender and came across a set of delightful concepts that I think fit in well with the furry fandom.

Coming Out to Dad

Sun, 26 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hey dad, Things are going fine at the house, though things are always more expensive than they first seem. We got the old house rented out, though, and that really helps; the mortgage on that is about $650, and it’s renting for $1550, so the extra cash really helps with the new place. Other than finances though,it’s going really well. Loveland’s kind of a desert for restaurants and things to do, but we’ve got enough to keep us occupied at the house.

Enjoying the Problematic

Sun, 14 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, on [a][s], I wrote about the ways in which one may interact with furry in different ways, and how these little trends with in the larger trend of furry (such as the micro/macro communities, etc.) lead to a more durable fandom overall. I stick by these words, too. As is often mentioned by countless members of our subculture, I think that the furry fandom itself gains much of its strength from the fact that it lacks a central canon. As a result, we find it easy to create our own microcosms within the microcosm of furry, and these may often flourish, sometimes despite the problems inherent in their existence.

It’s often my habit to talk about taking a step back and looking at something from an outside point of view, and that’s no different here. I want to take a step back and look at some of the problematic aspects of sexuality within the fandom. That the fandom intersects with sexuality in many ways is hardly surprising anymore, but the intersection between sexuality and problematic content is something that is occurs on a very fundamental level within society, and so it’s worth taking a look at the ways in which furry sexuality can be problematic.

Play In Furry

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

On a recent work trip to London, I had the privilege of attending a LondonFurs meet, which I have to say was spectacular. There’s not really an analog around where I am, though I imagine the meet known only to me as “Chicken” in California might come close. It was big - hovering around 50 or so people - and there were a good percentage of the attendees in suit, which was new to me.

Trends Within Trends

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It started innocuously enough with a tweet. I don’t remember the exact phrasing of it, but I had been having a rough day and was feeling the need for some sort of protective affection that I just couldn’t quite find offline; I’m rather tall and so it’s hard for me to find a way that’s comfortable for all parties involved to get that sensation of being held and protected. I think I wound up tweeting something silly to the effect of “I just want to curl up in a shirt pocket where it’s warm, cozy, and hidden.

Furry Mythology

Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One day, a fox and a cat were walking through a field. The cat seemed unusually distracted, however, despite the fox’s animated conversation. While the fox surely noticed, she did her best to try and draw the cat out through sheer ebullience. It had worked in the past, why not now? “What’s bothering you?” the fox asked, relenting. “Oh, it’s nothing,” said the cat. “Come on, if it was nothing, you wouldn’t be such a sourpuss, now, would you?

Omens and Portents

Thu, 13 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt, and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." - Lewis Carroll I've mentioned ritual before, but I think that's tied into the larger feeing of portentousness. Ritual is one way to sate that sense of intense meaning surrounding an act or an object.

Directions

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

And now comes the time when I have to write a very important, rather personal article. Again. I can see you all bracing yourselves already. “Oh no, here goes Makyo…” I actually feel kind of bad for starting the article out like that, to be honest. Recently, my boss (and biggest ally at work) resigned by calling us all into a meeting and announcing, “So now is the time when I announce you that I’m quitting” and we all sat there in stunned silence.

On Ritual

Sun, 29 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

First of all, let me state that I’m feeling pretty good as I write this. I feel the need to state such because a lot of my tweets and a lot of my previous entries could be construed as worrisome, and probably legitimately so, because I have the tendency to vent freely. If I feel bad, I write, and if I’m not at a computer, sometimes that ends up on Twitter.

Holiday Donations

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hi! Thanks for reading this. After the success of last year’s combined drive on Twitter, and in memory of my pup Millie, I will be donating $1 to the Humane Society of the United States for every retweet of this status update on twitter. Additionally, I will be donating $1 to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley for ever retweet of this status update on twitter. I will donate no less than $500 to each charity, and no more than $2000 total (I still have to support the house!

On Advertising: Part 2 - After

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

(This is the follow-up to the first article, published October 9th, On Advertising: Part 1 - Before which explores the hows and whys of our little experiment in advertising. Start there if you have yet to read it!) And so it’s over. We ran advertisements for one month on two furry sites to try and gain some insight into the way furries interact both with ads and with those sites in general.

On Time

Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote a story in high school called “All of Time at Once” which was about the first large-scale time-travel proof-of-concept project. It involved sending one person back in time two years to meet themselves with minimal exposure to the outside world at large. Additionally, they were not to let on that they were the same person as themselves to themselves in the process so as to keep any sort of psychological break from happening.

A Small Update

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Both partners and several friends have expressed some concern of late over the pattern of anxiety and panic that has emerged after starting treatment for the same. To that end, I scheduled a phone session with my doctor to discuss that, and I think it’d be good to get down in words some of the results of the call. All of our concerns basically boil down to some variation of “I can’t tell if you’re getting better or worse”.

Medication and Analogies

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

My doctor laughs at me for the sheer number of analogies I use to try and describe anxiety, panic, and depression. During our last session, I think I used three in quick succession. “It’s like reading under a blanket at night when you’re a kid and all of the world is whatever you’re inventing in your head and everything ends beyond the flashlight-lit underside of the covers” - describing derealization and paranoia; “I feel like I’m on the other side of a chain-link fence from anxiety: about twenty feet away, but then, as the effects start to wear off, whatever’s beyond the fence starts to attract my attention and draw me near; panic would be the point where I hop the fence to go see.

On Advertising: Part 1 - Before

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’m trying a little bit of an experiment with a few projects of mine. Advertising. I am unashamed to admit that I run AdBlock almost all of the time that I’m online. I think that advertising is a shoddy and cheap, albeit necessary way for many online services to derive income, in general. I also think that, in general, ads are effective on a level that is perhaps not in line with the goals of an organization determined to be as introspective as possible, in a lot of ways.

Millie

Sun, 06 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Matt, I hope you guys are doing OK. I just wanted to let you know that we had to have Millie euthanized today. She hadn’t been feeling well for a couple of days and it turned out to be cancer that was causing internal bleeding. It doesn’t get any easier to go through this but it was a gentle, painless way to go. If there is such a thing as a “sweetness gene” she had it.

Lazy Aplo Manti

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Manti is a Greek dish comprising bulgar, ground meat, and spices mixed together in a dumpling made with phyllo dough. Aplo Manti (or mock Manti) is a similar dish - the filling in a casserole covered with leaves of the paper-thin dough instead, leading to much faster preparation times. This is even lazier. We bypass the phyllo in favor of a sort of mixed casserole of grain and vegetables, with optional meat and cheese.

Communitas: Liminality, Marginality, and Outsidership

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The idea that furry is a slice of ordinary society is one well worth keeping in mind. I wrote about it as my very first article on this site, even. It’s important to consider the ways in which we, as furries, are not somehow separate from the rest of the world; furry does not take place in a vacuum, as I believe I’ve said before. We are all members of our own social structures both within and without this subculture, and it’s that mixture of individualities and social ideals that belong to its members that help to make us who we are as a fandom

Identity and Expression

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been seeing Dr. Johnston for almost two years now, and I think that he’s been an incredibly grounding presence in my life, for various reasons, but particularly in the way in which he has of boiling his thoughts down to ideas that can be applied across a broad spectrum of experiences. The most important, of course, is this: Identity is psychopathological. I’m pretty sure that’s come up before, but it was one of those short quips in the middle of a session that just kind of stuck with me, because it fit so well in so much of my life.

Self Esteem

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

After forgetting my midday pill until almost three, I found last night’s anxiety slowly welling back up inside of me. I was awoken at 1:20 or so in the middle of a panic attack, snapping awake as one would from a nightmare, though the dream itself had been rather pleasant. I didn’t make it back to sleep until nearly four, once the panic had subsided. Despite the lack of sleep, I did fairly well this morning, though that all caught up with me in the early afternoon.

Anxiety - Follow-up

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The last few days have, honestly, been a bit of a rush, in terms of just how real I feel, compared to the last few weeks, minus this afternoon. I never do well with shopping on the weekends. I love shopping, really, and I also love weekends, but these clots of people studiously ignoring each other exert a pressure on me that is not within my power to ignore. This continued on throughout the day, but given not only the medication I’ve been on of late, but also the amount of attention I have been paying to myself in this realm, I’ve been able to, if not totally control, though there was some of that, at least play a spectator to the mechanisms and action of my anxiety as it unfolds.

Recent Anxiety

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I think that it’d be helpful for me to have some outlet for expressing more personal things in my life, and the last few weeks have really hammered that home, so I’m starting up a new section here, which won’t show up on its own, just as a place for me to dump some of this stuff. I’ve been dealing with generalized anxiety disorder for…well, forever, but it’s really become obvious in my adult life.

Let's Talk About Sex

Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I spend a lot of time burying myself in the fandom, reveling in the connections we build and giving back in the best ways I can manage. I’m not a good artist (just trust me on this - it’s best for *everyone* if I don’t draw), and my music career stalled after I graduated college: I’ve not yet found the means to jump-start it. When it comes to fiction, I’m afraid I have more ideas than I have motivation. It’s not a good combo, really, as I wind up with (quite literally) notebooks full of ideas with all of two stories to show for it. I have a doofy time-travel story that somehow managed to involve choir music, sigh, and a short piece of erotic fiction that involves two foxes and some milkshakes.

I’m not an excellent writer. My prose is loose, and the fact that keeping it that way is the only way I can manage to get anything done does not speak well for improvement down the road. I can pull a mean metonymy, I’m average at alliteration, and if I squint for a while, I’m sure I can squeeze out a metaphor, but I have no formal training in writing beyond the minimum required to graduate high school, and whatever it took to get my music degree.

What I do have going for me, however, is words. I’ve got a lot of words.

So: lets sit down and have a little chat about sex. Or - wait, cancel that. Let’s have a grand discussion about it

Species Selection and Character Creation Follow-Up

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is just a quick follow-up with some further information about the Species Selection and Character Creation article posted last week. I normally post on Wednesdays and I had an article that could have been scheduled today, but with that article likely needing more space than this one and the desire not to distract from it with a simple addendum, I figured I’d swap the two days around and give tomorrow’s real article its time as the featured post!

Last Wednesday, even as the article was going live, I was packing up my laptop for an afternoon at a coffee shop (The Alley Cat, where the phone is always answered with a personable “meow!”) where I would spend a few hours talking with the inimitable Klisoura about furries and data. Among other topics (some of which will show up here on [a][s] quite soon), we poked around some of the species data a little further, and found some more interesting facts. That, combined with some input from others both on Twitter and FurAffinity, and some volunteers in private communication, got me thinking that more information is always better than less, and so here we go!

Species Selection and Character Creation

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend, I had the privilege of helping facilitate a panel at Rocky Mountain Fur Con 2013 surrounding the topic of species selection and character creation. The panel was a delightful discussion about the ways in which we build up the avatars we use to interact within our subculture, and why exactly it is that we choose the animal (or animals) that we become with our character (or characters).

That’s not all, though. I also had the privilege of sitting down with Klisoura, [a][s] contributor of Furry Survey fame, and having not only several delightful discussions on topics as diverse as tennis balls and coyotes, but also a little impromptu hack-a-thon in the hotel lobby on the subject of species selection. This tied in well enough with the panel that some of the results of that were shown during the Q&A after the discussion, and even led to several other conversations with various different furries over dinner and the next day. The whole weekend was a blast, but I’d like to tie up some of these conversation threads and ideas into something worth showing here on [a][s].

Online Relationships

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A version of this article originally appeared on [adjective][species] in December, 2011. It has been updated and edited to better fit LSF.

I spent a night a while back cooking dinner for my fiancé (now husband), who was sick with the flu and a sinus infection. Though I was either cooking or working, we had a few moments of banality together, talking about work or taking NyQuil for the night. Eventually, I sent him to bed before he could start another TV show; I was feeling jealous that I was working so much and he had taken the day off. We said our goodnights and our I-love-yous, and he left to go lay down. As he did so, I was immediately struck by how weird the whole evening was to me, then fascinated that such would be the case. The whole night was totally mundane, as are so many others, but it took place in person: something relatively unique to me and seemingly uncommon in the circles in which I hang out in the fandom. Even all of my relationships that weren’t strictly based online still had some interaction in that arena, and I think there are a few good reasons for this.

Furry is really important to me. Like, really, really important. I’ve thoroughly entrenched myself in the fandom, have lived it for more than a decade, and relish every moment of my interactions with it. That’s the whole reason I started these projects, really: the act of writing helps me understand what this is and why it’s important to me, and the act of sharing what I write is one way that I feel I can give back to the community that has meant so much to me. I’ve written about a lot, lately, and I feel that my topics have been fairly diverse, but not without their common threads. Of course, there’s the difference between how we feel and how we act, and the importance of a character separate from our selves, but what I think is the most important attribute of our fandom is the way we interact and the relationships we form with each other in the context of furry. There is a reason that the most-used tag on [a][s] is the “social interaction” tag. Second to that is, of course, “Internet”, and the obvious combination of the two leads us to online relationships - that is, dating - which play an outsized role in our community.

Kimchi

Sun, 21 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been hooked on kimchi ever since I visited Korea in 2005 (well, a touch beforehand, since I spent the weeks before researching food - always a fun time). I found a place in town to buy jugs of kimchi, which is certainly delicious, but once I found out how easy it was to make, I’ve made it regularly ever since. After a bad experience with some spoiled fish sauce, I’ve also been making it vegan, which is the recipe I’ll post here.

The Importance of Role-Play - Part 2

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Previously on Love ◦ Sex ◦ Fur…

Okay, so we’re hardly a television series here. Last time I wrote, though, I spent nearly two thousand words on just how interesting I think sexual role-play is. Once I started nearing the end of the article, though, I noticed that I really sort of forgot to include more than a few token references to just how role-playing fits in with relationships. Sometimes, my writing suffers from the fact that I get so easily focused on a smaller aspect of a larger issue, and it’s hard to step back far enough to see things from a broader point of view without losing the train of thought. Also, given that I finished the article literally fifteen minutes before it was supposed to go live due to a ridiculous power outage, I figured it’d probably be best to leave things as they were and instead dub that article Part 1 and save Part 2, this article, for an exploration of how TinySex and role-play in general fit into relationships, both romantic and otherwise.

On "Real Life"

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

One of my classmates in college was pursuing what I believe was a double major in engineering and music composition. He was a pretty great guy, at his most helpful when it came to the discussions on sound and acoustics. He was also a huge nerd, but so were we all: we were the first class to help get the composition department at the university up and running, so we were the ones actually pushing to get the degree program started - my nerdiness took the form of running the composition lab.

For his junior recital, one of the two we were required to give consisting entirely of pieces we composed, he performed an extended three-movement piece for solo French Horn titled “Journey To Arelle”. It’s one of those titles you have to say out loud to get the joke. The song was a tone poem about what mental processes a character left to idle on Word of Warcraft must go through when their player went off to “deal with RL”.

The idea of RL - “Real Life” - in opposition to things furry is, I think, an interesting and telling one. There’s a lot to be said for immersion when it comes to gaming, for sure, but many furries apply it to much more than just an experience that can be had sitting at a console. We’re hardly the only ones, of course, but it helps in understanding just how the fandom works to know that it occurs in a context that is not always “real life.“

The Importance of Role-Play - Part 1

Sat, 29 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Sexual maturation is a process that, I would argue, lasts easily ten years, if not more. Sure, the body may be just about done with the surge of hormones after a few short years, and you probably stop growing (and start shrinking) at around eighteen to twenty years old, but the process of maturation is far more than physical. Even if it were to take an additional year to digest each year of puberty’s changes, a generous estimate, that still only gets you to about twenty. In my case, I would say that it took another five years to fully grow into myself as a sexual person; that is, as someone who was not only capable of having sex, but someone who was capable of sexual interaction, in all the ways that implies, with others around me.

Honestly, I matured as a sexual being primarily online, and it was through text and within the context of furry that I experienced many of my most formative sexual experiences. Role-play, TinySex, cybering, type-fucking, co-authoring erotica - whatever you want to call it, the sharing of sexual acts and ideas across distances and through text does play quite a role within the furry fandom. And, for better or for worse, I think I’m hardly alone in the style of my coming-of-age.

Fantasy and Frameworks

Sat, 22 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Fantasy, notably sexual fantasy, plays a vital role for us as we grow into sexual people. There’s a lot to be said about Just how formative fantasies can be, as well. Even though one’s first sexual experience no doubt plays a large role in one’s life, the fantasies that lead up to that and the way they change afterward (and are refined throughout life, of course) figure prominently in making us who we are.

However, fantasies do not occur in a vacuum. After all, they certainly wouldn’t change all that much after a sexual encounter of any importance; the first being a notable example, but any particularly delightful (or particularly awful) encounter can change the way we fantasize. So it really isn’t any surprise, if our fantasies don’t exist in a vacuum, that if we structure our life around a certain set of ideas, a certain framework, that our fantasies will have something of that structure as well, and there’s really no better example of such a framework for a website devoted to talking about love and sex in the furry fandom than the furry fandom itself.

Link Roundup 2

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

More and more links, less and less bandwidth. Most of that is because I’m writing in earnest about other things again, and that feels really good! The downside is that I just can’t bring myself to write a thousand words about some thousand-word article I found anymore. I do still find all of this stuff interesting, though, so I’ll pass it on. Games This is a category that I fear will never be empty!

An Argument for Non-Conformity

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Okay, so the title is a bit grandiose.

I want to address some of the ideas that JM’s previous article brought up for me. It’s a magnificent read about the ways in which the mainstream can benefit those who participate, touching on privilege, presentation, and what we do in private. JM and I seem to come to a firm agreement that his articles are the more immediately applicable, whereas I’m busy navel-gazing; furry does not occur in a vacuum, though, so perhaps I ought to talk some more about the wider social implications of furry.

As with anything that can be simply negated by adding ‘non-’ or ‘ab-’ (you know, like Abby-Normal), there are two sides to the coin, and more often than not, the interaction between the two is hardly a simple binary, often involving friction, and sometimes quite a lot at that.

As many readers can attest, there has been a wave of “be yourself” propaganda pushed on children and young adults in America over the last thirty or so years, appeals to the sense of non-conformity that each of us carries within us to some extent. Much of this, of course, was awful, saccharine filler that served no purpose other than to make someone money, and blanket non-conformity is hardly something I’d advise someone to undertake. However, just as in the rest of the world, furry has something to benefit from careful application of non-conformity.

Kickstarter and Censorship

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

So, let’s talk about censorship and transgression. I wrote about transgressive behavior earlier today, notably why it’s important for minority identities and subcultures, and how it winds up benefiting the majority of society in the end. I think it’s an okay read, even if it does gloss over quite a bit - I mean, I had to get to the point somehow! Today, however, it came up that somebody was aiming to fund a book through Kickstarter to teach the art of seduction via quite a few creepy and objectifying lessons, boiling down to: Men, you are Men, and they are Women, and so if you want to Do The Sex with Women, here are the steps to woo that alien species.

self.update

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I told myself when I started writing more that I’d spend less time writing about myself and more time writing about the things that I was learning. There is use, however, in being able to think things through in the process of trying to form them into words. The effort it takes to translate things into language from thinking or feeling is sometimes enough to tease them into greater clarity. Besides, I’ve written one of these before, and I suppose I should document at least some of the stuff that’s going on.

Adding Structure to Life

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Every now and then, it’s important to take a step back and gain a little bit of perspective. It sounds cliché, of course, and there are a lot of people in my life I can imagine scoffing at the type of post I’m about to write, if not that very phrase itself. In fact, there are plenty of other posts that I have in the docket, but they can wait for another time, and I hope you’ll begrudge me a fluff post while I gain my perspective. Also, a trigger warning for some brief but frank discussion of suicide, and excessively sentimental foxes.

Link Roundup

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hey! I haven’t had the energy to write for a little while, so I’ve fallen way behind, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been reading, so I now have a huge backlog of links. Given that still don’t have the energy to write a full post for each, I figure I’ll just do a little round up here with a little blurb about each so that a) I’m still writing but b) I’m not spending all day writing :o)

Pork Green Chili

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I make this or something like it quite often. It’s good on most anything, and a very easy starting point; feel free to play with the flavors! Ingredients 1 small pork shoulder 1 tbsp vegetable oil 3 7-oz cans diced green chili peppers 6 cups stock or broth 1 medium onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tbsp chile caribe 2 bay leaves dried regano very small pinch ground cinnamon (optional) 2 tbsp tequila (optional) 2 tsp lime juice (optional) Preparation Preheat the oven to 275° F.

Words Android Refuses to Type

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I keep running across words that are disallowed by autocorrect on Android 4.2.2 using swiping on Android Keyboard (AOSP). They’re not censored, as you can type them by hand, but they will never autocorrect. I’m not really sure of the reason, perhaps it has to do with trying to prevent users from autocorrecting themselves into trouble? Some of them are pretty out there, though, and honestly, there has to be better UX around that (say, having a list of words that never autocorrects to that word by default, but is still on the list of selectable words).

A Full Life

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading articles like this, and, even though I really don’t play any games at all, I really like the idea of communicating an experience more directly than with just words. It’s interesting: a lot of the early uses for technology centered around this, with MUDs and Virtual Reality and all that, but everything sort of skipped off into a television-like experience of interactive fiction.

Advice

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently asked over lunch to provide some advice for someone going through my alma mater’s computer science program. I took up the whole of lunch rambling on, and dropping in comments like, “Maybe I should just write this down,” and “I’ll put this online so you can just give it to him directly,” and so on. It’s a real problem I have. I think, “Oh that’s a simple question to answer,” and really, if ever there were a signifier that a question is anything but, it’s that exact thought.

Ground Lamb and Olive Tapenade

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Ingredients 1 lb ground lamb 1⁄2 cup olive tapenade 1 onion, diced 1 small handful (about 1⁄4 cup) finely chopped parsley 1 tbsp garlic pinch sumac pinch savory pinch salt pita bread spinach sliced feta cheese tzatziki sauce Preparation Brown the onions in a bit of olive oil with the savory over medium heat.* Add the garlic and stir for about thirty seconds. Add the lamb and stir to separate.

Tabbouleh

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Ingredients 2 cups bulgar 2 cups boiling water 1 bunch (approx. 1.5 cups) finely chopped parsley 2 medium tomatoes 3 green onions 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp ground black pepper 1 tsp sumac 1⁄2 tsp salt 1 half lemon 3 tbsp olive oil 1 heart of romaine lettuce 1⁄3 cucumber, striped and sliced Preparation Pour the boiling water over the bulgar and let sit for an hour.

Braised Short Ribs with Seared Broccoli

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’m traveling on my and JD’s anniversary, so the night before, I decided to make a rather nice meal out of the short ribs he had picked out. Again, this isn’t anything in particular, though it uses quite a bit of Asian flavors from various countries. Even so, it’s “international” enough to serve with a loaf of fresh-baked (well, take-and-bake) bread without things seeming out of place, but I’d imagine it would be just as good with sides of rice and kimchi.

Lamb Shank Stew

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I know I’ve been on a bit of a middle-eastern kick recently. I’ve been mowing through hummus, pita, harissa, and so on for a few weeks now. I can’t help it, though, it’s delicious! This isn’t any dish in particular, just something I’ve made with ingredients I’ve had on hand, and it’s been pretty good. It only makes a few servings, restricted as it is by the fact that lamb shanks don’t really have all that much meat on them, and so we’ve never really kept any around - it always disappears.

Talking About Gender

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

How do you talk about gender? How do you best express a concept that everyone experiences in their own totally unique way? How do you help someone to understand this totally abstract thing that’s not quite a feeling, but not quite not a feeling either? Someone that I follow recently posted their own description of gender, and I think there’s a lot of really good stuff in there, but a lot of it is wrapped up in “just how do I explain how I feel.

Israeli Couscous with Mixed Mushrooms

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I bought about 5-6 cups of Israeli couscous on a whim the other day and wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with it. I’ve been on a mushroom kick, recently, which is all well and good, but I just couldn’t decide how I wanted to put the two together. I decided to balance the mushrooms and some spicy sausage (which is, of course, optional) against the sweetness of Lillet, honey, and green onions.

Is gender dysphoria simply recognised as fraud in the eyes of the law?

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Growing up identifying as gay in Colorado, and then specifically moving north to Fort Collins, led to a good amount of exposure to the “gay panic” defense, with the murder of Matthew Shepard. It was everywhere in the news, it seemed like, and it was talked about quite often in the support/social groups of which I was a part (OASOS in Boulder, and SOGLBT at CSU). The thing that hit me most about this article was the following:

Appropriation in Furry

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There are a lot of ways to think about furry. Tons and tons. It’s a bit confusing at times, trying to sort out how best to talk about what we are and how we fit together as a subculture. Even the choice of the word “subculture” is loaded with its own meaning, just as is the word “fandom”. Both imply certain ways of thinking about how furry works. It’s a bit confusing, but, well, it’s certainly served us well here at [a][s]: we’ve got plenty to write about, after all.

One more way of thinking about furry is to think of it as appropriation - or, rather, a series of appropriations - that help provide something of a common core to our being a relatively coherent group. Appropriation is a big and complicated word, and there are several connotations attached to it that I’ll get into closer to the end of the article, but first, I’d like to explore furry through this lens and see what can be gleaned from thinking of ourselves in this light.

The Trans 100 2013

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is really cool! I can understand some concerns that people might have regarding the list, and I do think it’s a good thing for the creators to include a list of concerns and responses at the beginning of the document itself. They do a good job of addressing them as well as summing up a lot of the reasons why I like seeing such a document put out there. The list provides good examples not only of all the work being done with gender and trans* issues, but also just the sheer diversity of those involved and their stories.

Mushroom Cream Sauce

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This was JD’s birthday dinner for 2013, and it went over very well. This is based loosely off our standard stroganoff recipe, except that it uses heavy cream and brandy instead of sour cream and wine. This is a pretty standard mushroom cream sauce, but we spiced it up with truffle oil and spicy italian sausage. Ingredients 8-12 oz mushrooms, preferably two kinds (I used maitake and shiitake) 2 tbsp unsalted butter 1⁄2 onion, chopped 1+ cups heavy cream 1+ tbsp rubbed sage 2-3 cloves crushed garlic crushed black pepper salt splash brandy or white/rose wine dash of truffle oil (optional) 2 Italian sausage links (optional) Preparation (Skip to step 3 if not using sausage) Slice sausage and fry until cooked in a skillet over medium heat.

“Video games showed me who I could be:” transgender gamers sharetheir stories, joys, and fears

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I realized recently that I’ve been saying “I’m not really into video games” quite a bit. Its not false, necessarily: I don’t own any consoles, I have a desktop computer that I never use, it has Steam on it with a few games that I never really played, I joined the Steam-on-linux beta through work, installed TF2, but still have yet to play it… I just don’t really get into it all that much.

Leadership in a Decentralized Subculture

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Furry as a subculture may not be “mainstream”, but neither is it small. The fandom has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few decades with expanding easy access to the Internet, the proliferation of furmeets and conventions, and even just plain old word of mouth. Estimates put the current size of furry at somewhere between 20,000-50,000. This is, of course, a very rough guess based on responses to The Furry Survey and other polls out there, but even at this size, we’re talking about a good-sized town (Fort Collins, Colorado, where I live, has about 70,000 people living in it, and about 25,000-30,000 of them attend or are otherwise affiliated with Colorado State University, so maybe we can guess at the size of a popular American university), with one very important distinction. A city in America has a council and a mayor, and belongs to a congressional district and a county, which fit within a state, which fits within the country, which is part of several overlapping groups of nations, all of which are (currently) stuck on one world. It’s as if much of our culture here comprises a series of nested centralized forms of leadership and government. Even the university analogy works similarly.

Furry as a subculture, however, is almost completely decentralized. Many of us meet up and talk on the Internet, where we share our art and ideas, but many of us do not. Many of us meet up in person at furmeets, conventions, or even unrelated events such as parades, but again, many of us do not. The whole concept that “many of us do, but many of us don’t” is consistent across all of furry and can be applied to creating art, role-playing, fursuiting, or most any activity that takes place within the fandom. Given this decentralized and diverse fandom which nonetheless holds itself together, how does the concept of leadership fit in?

Bisexuality and Binaries Revisited

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is the interesting read I’ve been working up to all night. I have heard countless [bisexual, multisexual, no-label, omnisexual, pansexual, polysexual, and queer-as-in-sexuality] people ask, “Why do we have to label our sexualities?” I do agree that we should not be forced to reduce our complex sexual attractions and orientations down to a simple moniker. But as an activist, I would argue that the most persuasive argument for why BMNOPPQ folks should unite around some kind of umbrella label (whether “bisexual” or otherwise) is to challenge monosexism and bi-invisibility.

Gender Dichotomy is a Fairy Tale We've Been Telling Ourselves to Sleep at Night

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is pretty intriguing stuff! The writing style at The Marry Sue, like at Wonkette and a few other places, can occasionally get a little snarky for me (I’ve really been trying to be more earnest overall, and I think this and the direction in which [a][s] has headed are examples of that). Sometimes that snark works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. Here, I’m a little mixed, because on the one hand, it comes off as a bit strong, but on the other, it is actually pretty refreshing to see science and meta-science being done on this subject: that is, it’s nice to see a study turn itself on its discipline and notice that, hey, the way we divide up our subjects, respondents, and what-have-you may not be as valid as we had thought, and where did that supposed validity come from, anyway?

Problems With The Kinsey Scale

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Speaking of the need to classify… There’s a lot to be said about the evolving classification surrounding sexual orientation. From what I’ve read (which, I’ll admit, is quite limited), we went from church-approved/sinful to normalsexual/pathological to heterosexual/homosexual, to straight/gay, then added lesbian and maybe bi, then definitely added bi (but maybe only for the acronym) and poooossibly trans, to GLBT, then LGBT, to LGBTQIA+ or however the acronym goes these days (the last coming from a link I’ll post later).

self.update

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I believe that I posted something to the effect of this on National Coming Out Day last year: “I’m pretty comfortable with pansexuality, I’m still figuring out the polyamory, and I’m terrified of the transexuality.” I can’t tell for sure because you can only access the last 3,200 tweets, and boy howdy is it depressing that I tweet that much. I had a bit of a rough evening tonight due to the tic in my neck, and so I decided to take a bath, which always leads to reminiscing.

LGBT Posters

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I work with a lot of data - like really, a lot - both as a job and for funsies, and the whole infographic thing really kinda irked me when it started working its way into common parlance. I don’t really like the portmanteau, in the first place, but I always got the impression that infographics were data visualizations dumbed-down for media consumers. The thing that really changed my mind on their usefulness, however, was seeing them as a poster in school (I think it was a donut chart showing duration of art shows on campus, with some quips in the middle).

Growing Up Trans...The Inbetweeners Of Society

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is a neat little interview, really. There’s a couple of points that echo some things I’ve said before here, but written much more clearly. Gender roles are a very tricky thing for anyone who is transgender, whether they are pre or post transition. I was watching some videos online made by a female to male transsexual, and he summed it up beautifully. He said that even though transgender/transsexual individuals rely so heavily on gender roles, (e.

Never Shopping Here Again!

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t have a GENDER! Gender is a grammatical property (masculine, feminine, or neuter). I have a SEX. Sex is a physiological property (male or female). STOP corrupting the language, Bizrate! Use appropriate words in your survey. Negative review on Google shopping. Stop corrupting the language, I guess! Though +1 for neuter! :o)

On Giving

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Normally, I keep myself a list of articles that I’d like to write for [a][s], and I try to space them out throughout the year so I don’t write, say, too many articles about art or conventions in the same time period. Another thing that I’ve instinctually stayed away from are seasonal posts. It’s a little too easy, I think, to get caught up in the [season] spirit and doing so can cheapen the content of the post. The last thing a lot of people really want to read, I think, is some ode to giving spilled out on a blog during the winter holidays.

So, I’m sorry.

The problem I’ve run into here is that this is one of those cases where inspiration for a specific topic coincided with the holiday season due to a few external events, and now I’m stuck really wanting to write an article for the first time in a long time despite habits saying otherwise. It was a three-pronged attack, really, and so now here I am, writing for the first time in quite a while, looking into furries and giving.

Reduced to Their Maddest Edges

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The title is a phrase from Jon Ronson’s book, The Psychopath Test, and refers to the way our society treats individuals in certain circumstances. Specifically, it refers to the way society, and media in particular, treats individuals who have attracted attention to themselves, whether intentionally or not. It describes those who wind up on Springer-style daytime shows, folks who have been reduced to their maddest edges by media in order to create a story; it describes those who have wound up in the news for whatever reason, who have been reduced to their maddest edges, had all of the life polished from them in order to make for a story.

60 Reasons to be Proud in 2012

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The single trans* item out of sixty aside (which, as I’ve posted already, is very much debatable), I find it interesting that just about all of these items are about visibility and new norms. It is important, especially for LGBT youth, to have positive role models in the public, and I appreciate that it’s not really newsworthy for someone to come out anymore, but just an article full of “hey this celeb is gay and so is that one and so is that one and that one even has gay friends” is kinda strange.

Uh...Which Do I Click?

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I had to sign up for Pandora in order to get a gift this year, and was presented with a required question asking my gender with the two standard options. It’s apparently required in order to provide targeted ads, which, well, okay, but boy howdy did it make me feel super awkward for some reason. Just kind of makes me feel like a weirdo :oP

Google funds research tool for gender role analysis in TV, films

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Via @teamvalkyrieftw - Google granted $1.2 million to a nonprofit organization to help with gender stereotyping research in the media on Thursday, according to Google’s websitefor its own Global Impact Awards. The money will go toward developing a tool that will automate the process of identifying women and their actions in hundreds of hours of video. This is pretty neat, actually, especially if the data is made available.

Gender and Race: How Overlapping Stereotypes Affect Our Personal and Professional Decisions

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

An interesting article I found through TMW. From the link: “This research shows that the intersection of race and gender has important real-world consequences,” Galinsky concluded. “Considering the overlap between racial and gender stereotypes — our gendered race perspective — opens up new frontiers for understanding how stereotypes impact the important decisions that drive our most significant outcomes at work and at home.” Stereotypes are, of course, quite slippery.

Katy Perry Perplexingly Honored By The Trevor Project for LGBTQ Visibility

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I was really, really hesitant to post this, to be honest. I still feel torn. I strongly recommend reading this article, but I also recommend reading it with an understanding of bias (like you do on the Internet), and as always, please be careful reading the comments (like you do on the Internet): there are a higher percentage of good ones than elsewhere, but still…comments on the Internet. I’ve never been a huge fan of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, or Dan Savage, but I’ve never felt very strongly against them, either.

Response to the Proposed Psychiatric Diagnosis of 'Gender Dysphoria'

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I hadn’t realized (though am not surprised) that with the ever-changing DSM, Gender Identity Disorder had come on the table as something that needed to be revised. I also hadn’t quite understood the process for change, which appears to require a task force to submit a proposal and report regarding the treatment for the diagnosis at hand, at least in some cases (the story of the first DSM is quite interesting, at least as told through Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test - excellent, fun book).

Associated Press bans the word 'homophobia'

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

…and ‘transphobia’ and ‘Islamophobia’… On the one hand, I can sort of understand their argument, and those made when I brought this up online, that phobias are certainly real, medical things, and the tunnel-vision-racing-pulse-headache-shallow-breath panic attack that comes with any window or balcony over about two stories certainly agrees with that. However, it’s easier for me to see the other side presented. A hatred is born in fear, just like a lot of fear is involved in the whole zero-sum game so many think is being played when it comes to gay rights being improved.

On the Recent Spate of Breathless End-of-Men Articles

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve seen a whole slew of ‘end of men’ articles come around recently, from various sources (The Atlantic. Fox, and some others), and I’m a little confused. This all sort of goes back to that zero-sum quote from the Suffrage Postcards article I mentioned a while back, where the reaction to a lot of advances by one group, particularly in a binary, fearing that their rights will be lessened by the act.

While Barbie Talks Tough, GI Joe Goes Shopping

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This made me giggle a little. The idea of it, to be sure, but also the execution, though it sounds like some folks aren’t quite so happy. The quote calling it “terrorist acts against children” was a bit of an eye-roller. Additionally, I do agree that it’s not going to…necessarily do a whole lot. I mean. three hundred toys out of the entirety of all toys, all things that children see, all over the United States is going to be a curiosity, rather than any successful subversion of gender roles that will get people thinking.

Androgynous Models Who Ignore The Gender Rules

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Agh, I forgot the description when posting this. I may or may not be getting in on the whole thing ‘cause of the 72 year old Chinese male model, which is just kind of awesome. However, it’s a neat article all around - not entirely filled with positive news, and there’s a comment about Crystal Renn, the ex-plus-sized model, that’s a little weird - but still a good read.

DailyMail article on a man marrying a transsexual woman without knowing

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I follow a neat twitter account, @TransMediaWatch, which posts articles from the UK daily about gender news of all sorts, and this came up as a negative counterpoint to a more positively worded article. It’s certainly a very poorly written article. There’s a lot of weird phrasing that’s just sort of, kind of, maybe trying to hide a bias, but not really succeeding, including good examples of using an adjective to objectify, as in “the transsexual hails from…”.

NoseFetish elaborates on why trying to respond to creepy PMs with "Thanks I'm not interested" is an exercise in futility.

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is a very long read (that I’m sharing as a link because reblogging makes it hard to get to all of the post), but certainly worth reading. A redditor posting in /r/creepyPMs explores why it’s often counterproductive for a woman to reply to unsolicited PMs (or any such similar attention) with a denial: it’s the attention that carries the weight, not so much the content of the reply. Reading through this, I was searching back through my own past to see if there was anything analogous in same-sex interactions, and I feel as though there was, but I can’t remember clearly (it’s tough to disentangle such interactions from role-play, sometimes, given the nature of furry, especially when the interaction may be between differently-sexed characters but same-sexed players).

Up is Down and Girls are Boys: Swedish Toy Ad Flips the Script on Christmas

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I have a lot of links, I’m sorry. Sweden’s been going down an interesting track with the whole gender-neutrality thing, recently, and I suppose I can’t complain, though some of the things they’ve been doing have been a little silly. The preschool that has abolished gender is a little strange, given that the children likely go home to a family that uses gendered pronouns. It kinda begs a study of whether or not the kids treat ‘hen’ as slang at school, then, sorta like the whole ‘yo’ thing that came up a while back.

asexual-not-a-sexual's Gender And Sexuality Masterpost

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The ideas of taxonomy have come up quite a bit recently, mostly in a lot of the stuff I’ve been reading, but also in a few conversations here and there. Looking back on classifications, there are the obvious examples of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, Kraft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis, and the first edition of the DSM with Menninger leading, all examples of a perceived need for classification. In Psychopathia Sexualis, some of the motivations were quite political, however scientific the taxonomy purported to be; while the first DSM was, according to Jon Ronson in The Psychopath Test, a sort of race to list everything any of the team of mental health professionals had ever heard was a problem.

On Anxiety

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I have a hard time with anxiety. Like…a real hard time. I know that the Internet in general and tumblr specifically seem to be focused around talking about a lot of the things that aren’t right in one’s life, but its pretty pertinent here, I think, where my whole goal is to talk about all those weird and awesome (and weirdly awesome) things about gender, sexuality, and so on. Anxiety is, first of all, not quite the same as stress, though people may often say that a stressful situation is making them anxious.

That sure is a distinction

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

That sure is a juxtaposition

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

On Gender Bending

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Part of the problem with bending gender in some ways is that necessitates acknowledging some contentious gender roles. It’s some sort of mixture of fun, comfortable, and acknowledging a personal problem to say, shave my legs or paint my nails, to worry about my looks (well, it’s a big deal in my industry) to whatever extent and shave daily or dress nice. On the other hand, a lot of these little steps toward stirring up those roles are, in their own way, an acceptance of the same.

Memes From the Suffragist Era

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I read this excellent article a while back when Kate Beaton posted it, and was tempted to write about it somewhere, but lacked the outlet. I posted a quip on my main tumblr, but then felt bad for doing so, because that was mostly just a place to post cute little furry things and to follow others. I mean, I dig the whole separation of concerns online; I think it really helps to have a place for each of the things that interests you.

Books and History

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The notion that gender - the social aspects of sexuality - might be separable from biological sex did not become widespread until the second half of the twentieth century. Hanne Blank, in Straight: The Surprisingly Short history of Heterosexuality I wound up wide awake at 2AM this morning, after hearing what sounded like a car crash outside. Turned out to be a trash can being tipped over, but I was up, and sleep was gone for the time being.

The Transgender Visibility Timeline

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Well! Speaking of both history and “infographics”, Trans Media Watch posted this before I got up this morning. Just sort of an example of the short history thing from the last post. According to the first few pages of that book, the word ‘transsexual’ was first used in only 1959.

'Woman'' vs. ''Female''

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The difference between ‘woman’ and ‘female’. In a nutshell, the former’s a noun, and the latter’s an adjective. It’s…very strange to me, that, in some places (coughfurrycough), it seems to be the norm to call women ‘females’. To be fair, men are often referred to as males, but I don’t really know that that makes it better. It feels like being referred to as cattle. And foxes are not cattle >:/

DC Comics' new Knight's gender shines forth

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Some discussion on a DC character’s apparent admission to…something like some sort of non-normative gender/sex. It’s hard to tell, as the story takes place in the time of Camelot, really. I’ll at least give it to the creators for keeping that part sort of authentic (I know, I know, comics…but still, sometimes the little anachronisms are the ones that stick in the craw). However, I’m not quite sure what to think of this, over all.

NIAGARA FALLS NEWSPAPER OWNER SIMPLY DOES NOT CARE FOR SNARLING FEMINISM LIKE SNOW WHITE'

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Wh…well…ah, hmm. It may be worth reading the letter that actually inspired Wonkette’s post, here. You know, I just recently had a discussion over Twitter about how, when I was in elementary school, a friend of mine roleplayed The Phantom of the Opera over and over again, except Raoul was bad, the Phantom was good, and we may have been kitties, as well. There were plaster Phantom masks and interpretive dance on the playground balance beam in front of our parents.

The Strange Depths of Self Harm

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It has become increasingly clear to me over the last month or so that self harm is still a healthy portion of the subconscious reasons for doing this. I don’t think that it was clear to me at the beginning that I was doing something other than some sort of noble, post-human experiment, exploring the overlap of gender and sexuality by removing it. I had broken my intentions down into three goals: something to write about, exploring gender neutrality as best as I could, and seeing what James was on about.

Recent Thoughts on Gender

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I was thinking I’d write a whole big post on gender and how things have been going recently, but work’s taking up all of my time, and even if it wasn’t, I just don’t think I’d have the energy to do so. Bullet points instead. Sometimes, the whole gender thing is just a little whisper that I can ignore, or quietly shush. Other times, though, it’s a shout, a constant loud banging that I really don’t have the power, or at least the energy, to shut out.

Subconscious Aspects of the Fandom

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that I used to read tarot cards? I still have the embarrassingly large collection of decks, books, and other accessories that go along with the practice. I pull them out every now and then to remember the person that I used to be. I used to be intensely focused on the subconscious and all of the ways in which it wound itself through our waking lives. I used to daydream about spending the requisite hours necessary for a 78 card spread using every card in the standard deck, even if I only did it once, At one point, I even vowed to do one reading for myself a day for 78 days in order to write a book about the experience (an idea that crops up with just about every interest I pick up, I should note).

I’ve talked about change before, and I have even laid bare some of the changes I have gone through personally. Even though my fascination with tarot has waned, I still retain the general interest in the ways in which the subconscious works in our lives, and I can still appreciate the deep symbolism that goes along with it. I would be lying, in fact, if I were to say that there wasn’t some subconscious link tying me to the furry fandom. And, having had a few conversations on that point, I think that the same holds true for a lot of us here.

Shot Day

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Figured I’d snag some pictures of the process. Be warned, needles below!

Participation Mystique 3 - On Pronouns

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I seem to be drilling down with this (very spread out) series. I started out with a general overview of participation mystique in the fandom, narrowed it to some specific uses of words, and now I’m focusing specifically on pronouns. I can’t say that I have any plans for a fourth iteration, but I’m assuming that it will start going into syllables. Arf, bark, and the like. Pretty good syllables, if you ask me.

Pronouns are already short enough as it is, usually only one syllable. They’re some of the most common words that we use, and for good reason: they help us keep our speech and writing concise and varied by letting us use a placeholder instead of a name or a noun. They carry a lot of weight for their relatively small size, however. Weight that, I think, can tell us quite a bit about how some people interact with the fandom, or even identify with their personal characters.

Haha, well...whoops!

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Kind of accidentally told a whole bunch of people. I seem to go through this honesty streak every now and then, and it’s been hitting really hard recently. Two AMAs on Reddit, sharing a few other things with people, and now this… Makyo buries its head in pillows so that the rest of it twitches instead because god damnit can’t even type >:/ Polaroid looks up at TIGR, too! He just happens to be standing right in front of him.

Furries are Awesome

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the dearth of articles, recently. It really weighs on me, and I feel that I’ve been neglecting one of my favorite things ever: writing too-long articles about animal people. Not all of my time was just sitting, twiddling my thumbs, though. I did wind up with a cool new job, and that panel for RMFC took up quite a bit of my time, actually. Most of what has been going on, though, at least in my spare time over the last few weeks, has been dealing with a few health problems that had me a little down.

My general solution to the anxiety and emotional weirdness involved with those sorts of things, when they get bad, is to seek out as many positive (pawsitive, if you will) things. The usual method is to ask on Twitter “what’s awesome right now?” I love getting the responses, hearing what people think is neat and cool, hearing all the wonderful things that are happening to people. ”Exciting new development at work for me!” ”Free bagels.” ”My coffee.” As I poke my way through the replies, though, favoriting most of them, I notice that just about every icon has a muzzle and ears. So you know what’s totally awesome to me? Furries.

Status Update

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t posted in a bit, due mostly to the fact that I’ve been keeping myself quite busy, or at least quite anxious. Things are going well, however! I think that, overall, I haven’t quite felt this good in a while, except for a few things, and I’m not sure how much they are entangled with the fact that I’m really messing with my hormones, or if they’re totally unrelated.

Gender Neutral

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I had an interesting discussion the other night that I’d just like to mention briefly here. I spend quite a bit of my time talking with friends in an environment (a MUCK) which encourages both speech and action. Rather than the anonymous room of an IRC channel, rooms are actual locations that you can wander through, and you can interact with objects and others. I say “can”, but in reality, if you get any group of people together online in one location, odds are is they’ll form a bar, tavern, or meeting hall type location and mostly just shoot the shit in there.

Side Effects

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

There are, as to be expected, several side effects that go along with a regimen such as this. I’m sure that I’ll keep finding new ones as time progresses, too. I’ll try to keep this list updated with effects found by both James and myself. Temperature sensitivity – James reports that it’s worse with cold, but we are both having a hard time with the hot summer, this year. I’ve overheated a few times, to the point of shaking and panicking, needing a cold shower and a bit lying down to stay calm.

Third Shot Update

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

James mentioned last time that he wasn’t sure how much there was to say on the recordings anymore, which I suppose is understandable, given how much we got out of the way on our first try, so there’s no interview transcript to post from yesterday, when we each took the third shot of Depo. This was, by far, the roughest of all the shots, so far (granted, with a history of four total, that might not be saying much).

On Suicide

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

On March 21st, 2012, I tried to kill myself. It's amazing how such a simple statement of fact reflects (at time of writing), months of strange tension, slow recovery, and a whole lot of trying to understand what really happened. It's not a comfortable thing for anyone to discuss, but it's one of those things I need to discuss, need to get off my chest. A little to much of what makes life meaningful for me now is wrapped up in that one night.

The Second Interview (2012-07-14)

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here follows the second interview. These interviews are recorded in conversational fashion within a few hours after each injection (this time during), about once every two weeks. This is more of an update than anything. Matthew: Alright, so it’s july 14th 2012, time for the second shots…bunch of bills on my bed. James: laughs M: I’m also running the still now so we’re doing both at once the shots and the recording.

The Different Parts of Sexuality

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It feels, at least in one way, as though we’re deconstructing sexuality in some way, here. Earlier today, a mutual friend of ours came over, and while I was working, he and James got into some pretty heavy stuff about various kinks that I’m really not into, myself. Had I been invited, or even been able to peek in, instead of slaving away on the computer, I’m not sure that I would’ve found any of it interesting, and may have found a few things disturbing.

Part 1 - Participation Mystique

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

So. What is furry? That’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. If you ask any ten foxes or wolves on the street, you’re likely to come up with something like twenty or thirty definitions of what a furry is or, failing that, what a furry is not. Not only that, but those ten canids will simply leap at the opportunity to tell you about it. Perhaps a furry is simply one who is exceedingly willing to tell you what a furry is.

Introduction

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Usually, I’m the type to skip past introductions. It seems like much of the time, they’re used to give the author a little room to talk themselves up and rarely add much to the content to the book. When they do have some pertinent information to add, it tends to be just reiterated later on in the book. Of course, here I am now, writing a book, and I don’t think I can really get by without an intro.

So Far

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

On Saturday, James and I took the second round of Depo injections, and the Wednesday before that saw the start of the cyproterone (25mg twice daily for me, 50mg twice daily for James). At two and a half weeks in, I think I can safely say that it’s working. Speaking yesterday with one of the few people with whom I’ve talked about this, I mentioned that libido was down around 50%, but I think I’m going to re-estimate that downward.

Tools

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick picture of what exactly is going into this.

Gender

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I seem to have littered previous posts, including even the interview, with vague hints at “problems with gender”. When I say problem, I suppose that I mean something closer to the sense of a word or logic problem. Something that should be teased apart. After the last few days of talking with a few friends and with James, I think I should probably clarify in words what exactly I mean by that, because I think it’s engendering (ha) all sorts of very real problems.

Art and Money

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The relationship between art and money is always tense. In fact, one of my favorite books that I read during my time in the music composition department at school was Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland (which I very highly recommend to any artist readers out there). They describe the relationship, in part, as “There’s one hell of a lot more to art than just making it.” The tension shifts in the world of ‘crafts’, functional art, and the like. The website What The Craft dissects the problem of working with money in craft in two excellent posts, one about why handmade is “so expensive” and another about how to price hand-made goods. In both cases, the author explains that “[h]andmade goods mean attention to detail, quality craftsmanship, and a significant amount of TIME and SKILL”, which can in turn lead to the higher price.

Furry art, then, fits in a strange place in the middle, what with the “traditional art” aspect of a commissioned artist creating a work, as well as the custom, attention-to-detail oriented aspect of handmade crafts providing a visual representation of our characters. I’ve written before about the how the connection between a visual representation of one’s character can affect the way one interacts with an artist, but I spent little time on how the financial aspect of the transaction plays in the scenario.

Asexuality, Celibacy, and Whatever-this-is

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In the process of sorting a bunch of stuff out here, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading about asexuality. The way in which I found myself looking into that was through researching agenderism, which is something that’s intriguing, almost alluring to me. I’ve mentioned the idea of escapism before and how it fits in with my goals, and perhaps this is just another aspect of that: being without gender would certainly appear to solve a lot of problems with gender, on the surface.

The Awkward

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t doubt that, in America, a male losing his sexuality is kind of an awkward thing to behold. Men place so much on their ability to perform, their masculinity, their machismo. I know I’ve got the whole gender thing going on, but I’m still a guy. I was raised a guy, I have guy thoughts, and I have a guy body, and I don’t…necessarily want to get rid of either of those.

The First Interview (2012-06-30)

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Here follows the first interview. These interviews are recorded in conversational fashion within a few hours after each injection, about once every two weeks. This first interview addresses the question of “why”, as it pertains to both Matthew and James. Matthew: So six.. June thirtieth, six thirteen PM, took 300 ml each of.. it’s milliliters? James: Yeah. M: of uh Depo Provera, one shot in each thigh earlier today about 2:30.

On Money

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Like many of those who who identify as members of the furry fandom, I joined at a relatively young age. I was reminded of this, recently, when a friend from years ago came out to visit, this last weekend. When he and I were talking most frequently, that was eleven or twelve years ago, which would’ve made me (gulp) fourteen or fifteen. I’ve been dwelling on that point for the last few days, as I worked up the outline of the rest of this article, and things finally fell into place when I consider who I was and where I was in life at that time. I was young, for sure, and just getting into the whole furry thing, watching artists on Yerf and VCL (and Side7 and Elfwood, oh man…) create these awesome drawings, most of which seemed to be spur of the moment things, or works of art created for the sake of creating art. Some, however, were commissions, and that was something I just could not fathom.

An artist - someone I didn’t even know - would draw whatever I told them. *For money!*

Dimensions of Character

Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

One of the things I’ve noticed more and more as I continue to grow up - not sure I’d call myself a grown-up, yet - is the way in which the divisions in our life become both less clear and more profuse as time goes on. I think my first intimation of this came at about the time I was finishing up middle school (8th grade, in my district), and started secretly reading up on this whole “gay” thing, on the suspicion that I might fall into that category.

It wasn’t a really easy thing for me to accept about myself at the time, as I suppose it rarely is for a kid in the southwest States. Colorado is a unique state in that, while much of its area is of a more conservative, Christian character and not generally accepting of homosexuality, there is a stretch that goes from about Fort Collins on down south of Denver along the front range that tends to be more socially liberal and less religiously oriented overall, and certainly more open to differences in sexual orientation than the surrounding areas. I spent a lot of time growing up in that front-range area where most of those around me likely would’ve been okay if I had come out, and some of them would have probably rushed to tell me just *how* okay it is to be gay: Boulder, as a town, is almost intrusively cool with it. Even so, there was this sensation that if I were to leave the Denver-Boulder area, I would be immediately be set upon by both protesters and perpetrators of hate crimes both.

What can I say, I was a dramatic kid.

Spiritual Animals

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Spirituality is one of those slippery words that can be ridiculously hard to pin down. I’ve found that you can usually tell when one of those is coming up by looking at the length of it’s Wikipedia article, as odd as that sounds. If the article can basically get right to the point and then spends the rest of the time exploring fine details such as history, examples, and important figures, then the topic is not likely very complex to define. If it wanders down a long path, peppered with links, is topped with a sidebar and tailed by a category box…well, needless to say that Spirituality’s Wikipedia article is a prime example of a “difficult topic”.

It really seems to come down to the fact that spirituality means different things to different people, has to do with the search for meaning in things that we don’t understand and don’t seem to be explainable by science, and is self-referential: numinous things are spiritual, spirituality has to do with numinous things. While my gut instinct tells me that the concept of a spiritual fur has been on the decline in recent years, I still see and hear mention of it quite frequently, in some form or another. Us spiritual animals have rich histories to draw on, adopt, and appropriate, not to mention the ones we create for ourselves, and we seem to have done so with a will.

Three Meditations

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

As mentioned before, I’ve been totally slammed by offline things over the last few weeks. It’s been crazy, it’s been fun, and it’s certainly left almost no time for the writing process besides thinking in bed before sleep. There certainly is a place for that in writing, however, and so I hope you’ll all forgive me for a post consisting mostly of introspection. Now that things have mostly cleared up, I hope that I’ll be able to get back into the swing of writing about the fandom in a less navel-gazey way. Until then, here are three ideas that I’ve not been able to get out of my head, recently.

Meaning Within a Subculture

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an idea that has been tumbling around in my head ever since I started this site. In fact, I suppose you could call a lot of my earlier posts a sort of fumbling around as I tried to articulate this idea. The idea that I’m talking about is the concept of what furry is. That is, not only what a makes a furry a furry, but how is furry a thing, and where did we all come from.

Death in the Fandom

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If we accept the fact that the furry subculture, the fandom as a cohesive group of somewhat like-minded individuals, has only existed for about thirty years, then we have available to us a growing and expanding membership at the beginning of what I hope to be a long thread of human society. We’re still in that bright, almost expansionist era of our creation where we are doing out level best to create more than we can consume. We bring in new members not only through the shared interest in anthropomorphics, but also through both the vibrancy of our existence and the social currency of our creative output. Furry, such as it is, is on the rise.

We are still young though, there’s no getting around that.

Thirty years, in the grand scheme of things isn’t really all that long of a time. The United States has lasted eight times that long, Christianity approaching 70 times, and, according to some, the universe almost 200 times that long, and that number is considered very, very small by many others. Our vibrancy and social currency is strong, but we are not the only group on the rise out there. In western culture, the anime fan base is taking a similar track, as have countless other subcultures and fandoms before it. Our output is copious and so, in turn, is our social currency, but they are not out of proportion.

Our fandom is young, and given the median age of about twenty years old, we are a fandom made up of many, many young people. Really, then, it’s no surprise that a single death among our ranks affects so many of us so greatly.

Makyo's Kaddish

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

*I had originally intended to write a different article this week, but due to recent events, I’m going to put that on hold. Since I had already started writing it and had limited time to come up with an alternative post, I decided to do something a little more personal. I hope you all don’t mind a bit of a fluff post this week. Apologies for the wandering train of thought, I had to hurry to get it up in time!*

Doxa

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sure I’ve gone on before about the benefits of working within a community, but I’ll say it again: you guys are ace.

While running the [a][s] Twitter Account, I do my best to follow back everyone who follows the account. This isn’t simply a nice-guy type thing to do; some of the best inspiration comes from all you fuzzies out there. After all, the articles here would get pretty boring if they were solely about what it was like to be a furry without being a member of the furry subculture. This week’s article comes from a recommendation and brief conversation with Drenthe, a raccoon of quality, about a book he had seen a review of which I subsequently purchased. The book was Hanne Blank’s Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. I think it’s fairly obvious by now how much gender and sexuality interest me.

One of the early chapters of the book brings up an interesting concept that I only recently thought to apply to the fandom, and that’s the concept of doxa.

The Dramagogues - Episode 3 - Making Waves

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

How many of you remember Sibe and Furry XDCC?

What about the PayPal kerfuffle with FurAffinity? That was more recent.

Ooh, or “Kristal can’t enjoy her sandwich”? Remember that one? That was a good one. It was pretty closely related to Yiffyleaks (insert eye-roll here), banning cub porn, and not banning Sonic art. They all sort of circle around FA.

Those were all pretty big deals! Remember them?

Now, when was the last time you thought about them?

interconnectivity

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Some things are better enjoyed alone.

Driving, for example! That we even use the phrase “back-seat driver” points to it being an endeavor best carried out by oneself. Typing, as well, and writing. And programming for sure; I know that I certainly have a difficult time with paired programming (because I’m right, of course). Exploring one’s own emotional state, plumbing the depths of one’s psyche, and working through one’s own problems are certainly meant to be solo adventures. Sometimes we just have to be solipsistic, separating ourselves from those around us to figure out what’s going on within us.

Furry, however, has become something that goes beyond solo. It has become a subculture, past even a simple fandom. It’s something to be shared, to be experienced with others, and I imagine it would be difficult to find an individual who would identify as a furry solely in a solipsistic sense.

Cycle

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Up cycle Down cycle Round and round Push cycle Pull cycle Round and round and round Here cycle There cycle Round and round Bounce cycle Slide cycle Round and round and round Free cycle Wild cycle Round and round Unstoppable cycle Uncontrollable cycle Round and round and Slam cycle Crash cycle And round and Cut cycle Burn cycle And and round and Crush cycle Destroy cycle And Plan cycle Note cycle Rou- Shower cycle Wash cycle .

Participation Mystique 2 - On Words

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is a post I did not intend to write. I certainly did not intend to continue the Participation Mystique post into another.

Actually, truth be told, I had planned on taking a week off from writing; coming up with some fluff post pulled together from a combination of responses with some neat witticisms thrown in for good measure, or even just tossing up a guest post. Work’s been decidedly hellish, and when I haven’t been working, I’ve been feeling some emotional strain resulting from a large case of over-commitment on other projects. Come Monday, however, I’d caught up on sleep, and started rifling through comments and tweets in response to a few statements I’d made over the past few weeks. I eventually decided that I shouldn’t be a lazy fox-man and pull together a formal response here in the form of an article.

So. What is furry?

Eighty-Twenty

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

One of the interesting things about running a blog is that you get to write about what’s important to you. And one of the interesting things about running a blog with more than one contributor (hi guys!) is that rather than focusing on the whole field, you’re more able to spread the labor around and focus on specific things within the field that are very important to you. Given that I’ve already written a more broad-picture article on gender and am now about to delve into another 2000 word essay on the same, it’s safe to say that I think the whole thing’s terribly interesting, and that furry itself is probably one of the more interesting subcultures in which to examine gender, sex, and sexuality.

Furries and Music

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Furries and music definitely have a thing going on. I’ve wanted to write about it for quite a while now, but I’ve never quite found the right entry point, the right way to piece together a story about how the two might connect. I actually started thinking about the current topic when Klisoura of Furry Survey lore was in town over the week between Christmas and New Years, and the topic came up of how furries have a tendency to consider themselves “ahead of the curve” when it comes to music, television, and video games, or even trying new things, yet do not necessarily consider themselves to be hip or paragons of pop culture (ref). While I’m really as much of a fan of new music as anybody out there in this subculture, I wasn’t quite sure how well this held up. What the data seem to be saying is that furries showed a tendency to eschew popular culture in favor of the type of things that would become popular culture. While some of our number may fit within that category, it’s oddly specific for a subculture that doesn’t, at its roots, have as necessary an intersection with popular culture as might, say, the fans of an actual genre of music, television series, or video game.

A survey is a survey, though, and can only really tell so much about those who really should be telling the story. I turned, instead, to Twitter, and invited an email barrage on myself to see what those who had the stories to tell had to say about the matter, asking “Do you think furries are more or less musical than non-furs?” and “Do you think furries are ahead of the curve in terms of music?“.

Participation Mystique

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Despite my frequent use of the word, I am more of the opinion that furry is a subculture, rather than a fandom. That’s part of the problem of being a writer and having mostly just one topic to write about: thinking up enough ways to refer to the same concept again and again without sounding repetitive can prove difficult. I think that part of the reason that I keep referring to furry as “the [furry] fandom” is that it is a phrase engrained within our subculture, due to its historical use. Perhaps at some point in time, furry consisted mostly of a collection of fans, but as furry grows, so do the means with which it’s members connect with it. That’s why I enjoy subculture as a word to describe us: it is much more all-encompassing and, in the end, perhaps a little more accurate in describing our hodge-podge group.

When I was reading William Gibson’s book Pattern Recognition, I was introduced to the term participation mystique, which comes from early Jungian psychology, adapted from Lévy-Bruhl in order to describe the means by which we, as people, can define a portion of ourselves through membership in a community or association with an object. This, I think, is the core of the furry subculture.

The Dramagogues - Episode 2 - Drama

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In the last post about drama, I wondered whether or not we, as a community, really were more dramatic than those around us, and if so, why, or if not, why we seem to think we are. Much of the content of that post came from responses to a few questions on twitter. Perhaps the best thing about our fandom is our willingness and ability to communicate, and that really is the basis of much of these articles, I had asked previously whether or not we were more dramatic and why, and gotten several very succinct answers as to why that might be the case, Beyond that, however, I also asked if our drama is in some way different than that in the world around us, and got several additional responses to this question, which is the basis for this, the second episode of The Dramagogues.

The Dramagogues - Episode 1 - Strife

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been tiptoeing around this subject for a while now. It’s one of those topics that is both a pretty big deal and should be talked about, as well as one that is pretty divisive and some people could be tetchy about. My big worry in bringing it up I not that I’ll open a discussion on the topic, because that’s what I want to do. Rather, I worry that any discussion that does happen would be more inflammatory than anything. It’s one of those topics that a lot of people seem to agree on, but not agree on why, and it’s difficult to describe in words in any event. So I’m going to do the band-aid thing here and just say it all at once: either furries are more dramatic people than other groups, or they think they are, and either concept is fraught with implications and certainly worth exploring, given how much time and energy the fandom seems to put into its drama.

Layers of Fantasy

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I found out recently that there’s a name for the concept behind the movie Inception: mise en abîme. It’s a French phrase which means “placed into abyss”, and refers not only to the sort of dream-within-a-dream concept so heavily pounded upon in Inception, but also the concept of any thing within itself, such as a representation of the painting within a painting, or the feeling of standing between two mirrors and seeing the infinite representation of self receding into the distance. It also has to do with different layers of representation and meaning in art, and, even though I’ve mentioned before that it’s surprising how mundane much of our interaction is, that’s what strikes me about the prevalence of fantasy and science fiction within the furry fandom’s artistic output. It is a sort of stacking of different layers of fantasy, with our focus on anthropomorphic animals being layered atop science fiction or fantasy elements.

Interpreting an Avatar

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

So there I was, pretending to be a fox person (as all good stories should start), when I noticed something rather strange happening. It’s probably telling that it wasn’t me pretending to be a fox person that was the strange part, but I think by this point in my life I’ve so thoroughly integrated that aspect of myself, that avatar, that not having that at least at the back of my thoughts seems outlandish.

The something strange was twofold: first, I started noticing that the way in which I interacted with others when I was doing the fox thing, down to my speech patterns, was totally different from the way in which I interacted with just about any other part of my life. Additionally, that change in style had rather profound impact on the ways in which others interacted with me, or at least with this constructed avatar. The more I thought about it, too, the more I realized that this construction of our front-stage personalities goes further than just how formally, submissively, or whateverly we act, but all the way down into the nuances of language, the subtleties of inflection, and the smallest of gestures.

Online Relationships

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I spent a night a while back cooking dinner for my fiancé, who was sick with the flu and a sinus infection. Though I was either cooking or working, we had a few moments of banality together, talking about work or taking NyQuil for the night. Eventually, I sent him to bed before he could start another TV show; I was feeling jealous that I was working so much and he had taken the day off. We said our goodnights and our I love yous, and he left to go lay down. As he did so, I was immediately struck by how weird the whole evening was to me, then fascinated that such would be the case. The whole night was totally banal, as are so many others, but it took place in person: something relatively unique to me and seemingly uncommon in the circles in which I hang out in the fandom. Even all of my relationships that weren’t strictly based online still had some interaction in that arena, and I think there are a few good reasons for this.

Convention Mystique

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I was too excited to sleep, the night before Anthrocon 2005. It was the first convention I would be going to, I’d be meeting some truly awesome people for the first time basically the minute I stepped into the hotel, and sleep just wasn’t going to happen. In order to make sure that I could make it down to the airport without crashing or anything, I planned on subsisting almost completely on black tea through the night, then stopping on Starbucks twice on the way down from Fort Collins to Denver. Unfortunately, both my roommates were asleep, so I was listening to music on my headphones. I had forgotten that I had put the kettle on for tea, so I was interrupted from my jittery reverie by my roommate knocking on my door to inform me that the kettle had been whistling for five minutes or so by that point. I was lucky I hadn’t boiled it dry.

With the lack of sleep and my excitement, I was basically useless for the first day of the convention. I got into Philadelphia at around 2:30 or so in the afternoon and to the hotel by 3PM. I stumbled into the lobby and met, for the first time, my friends, some of whom I had known for five years, by that point.

Dressing Up

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been within the fandom for about eleven years now, and only relatively recently (about a year ago as of this post) did I get into fursuiting. Prior to that, I must admit that I didn’t understand the concept at all, and even found it vaguely creepy. While I understood the desire to more physically look like your character, I didn’t understand how fursuiting would be the solution: it seemed like wearing a onesie of faux fur combined with slippers, gloves, and a ski-mask coated in fur-covered foam was rather more like some elaborate Halloween costume effect than getting nearer to one’s character. However, having gone suiting and wound up with a fursuit of my own, I think I’m gaining a better understanding of it now.

Character versus Self II - Notes and Trends

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I pulled together a few additional ideas on the concept of character versus self visited in a previous post. A lot of these rely on little ideas dropped here and there by comments either on the blog itself or on Twitter. They’re all kind of neat, but none of them really warrant a full post. I pulled together these three smaller ramblings here into one larger post in the hopes that I can still get my thoughts out there on the subjects. Enjoy!

First Impressions

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The world is headed in some pretty interesting directions when it comes to things like Augmented Reality. From little things, like QR codes next to items to allow further investigation of them, Google Goggles, which overlays locations of restaurants or other map markers on a real-time video of your surroundings as taken by your phone’s camera to all of the concept videos coming out from various places around the ‘net. One of the more important, if not the most important, uses of AR is the addition of a data layer over what we perceive around us. Need to know more about someone from their business card? Snap the QR code on it and find out all you need. It’s that simple, and let me tell you, furries are totally prepared for this additional layer of information: we’re already pros.

Character Versus Self

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

When I first got into furry, I was probably fourteen or fifteen. I know that it was the fall semester of my freshman year of high school, and that I started getting into it in my downtime in my first computer class at school (well, during class, too), as well as at home. I wound up finding Yerf and FluffMUCK back in their prime, and played around with IRC on YiffNet, as well. I found the whole thing from a website I was on called Puberty101 - which now sounds like a pedophile’s paradise; the name was later changed to GovTeen - a forum site for (supposed) kids to ask questions of other (supposed) kids about things like sex and sexuality, emotions, and all that jazz. Just so happened that I stumbled over a few posts regarding this thing called furry, one of which had this abstruse collection of letters, numbers and punctuation at the end, which was described as a ‘fur code’.

Boys, Girls, and the In-Betweens

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

For many, perhaps most, it’s easy to envision furry as being made up in large part of gay males. Some evidence bears this out, even; results from the Furry Survey suggests that a majority of furry is indeed male, though the sexual orientation side of things suggests a different story, which is still, of course, far and above what’s considered standard in western society. The point of interest comes in the way gender and sexuality are explored strictly within the context of furry, whether through art or through text, particularly on the Internet.

The Default Furry

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

When I write a blog post - either on here or my personal blog - I tend to “stub out” the entry before I even write it, sometimes days or weeks before I get to it. It’s something like outlining, though not as structured as that implies. More like jotting down ideas in the order in which they should occur in the article, though more structured than that implies. For this article, the first line read: “witty comment about the standard furry - fake psych exercise to envision a default furry”. As an introduction, I was going to come up with some sort of goofy little quip about how one would envision the standard fur. I’m only referencing it instead, because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s been done before. Countless times.

Just like the rest

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I can almost pinpoint the time I realized that furry was just a slice of humanity as a whole, and not some special fandom elevated above the dregs of the world. I think it came sometime in around 2007, and it probably happened in a text-only, electronic gay bar on the Internet (and I’m pretty sure it was while pretending to man-sized fox wearing a nice suit on the internet, but that’s a given).

Milkshakes and Foxes (X)

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Two foxes walked into a bar. Well, okay, a diner, but most of those are outfitted with a bar type area, which is close enough. Both were full of giggles, outfitted with grins and their most casual of “nice” clothes. Somehow managing to look similar without related, the two got along as if they were brothers. One was taller than the other, and though both were thin, he came off as lanky, whereas the the shorter fox seemed more waifish than anything - more of a track runner than his friend, the basketball star.

High School Poetry Notebook

Wed, 04 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I found this digging through boxes for stuff to throw out. Kept it on a whim, at least long enough to type up. Cleaning Woman I'd clean for him I would but Cleaning, I'd hope for a little something back. I told him I told him once Telling, I'd hoped for something to fill me. But I cleaned for him as he'd asked, my husband. And here I am and nothing's changed.

Light

Sat, 12 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

A kiss. Light, and only to the cheek. Yes, that’s how it would start, I suppose. I’d settle in behind him, and crane my neck over his shoulder to give him a kiss on the cheek. Light. A touch. I wouldn’t hold him tight, either. Not squeezing, at least not now. Just slide my arms loosely around him, above the paunch, below the breasts, the place where the arms just rest, adding to him lightly instead of pressing.

All of Time at Once

Wed, 21 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

“A driver after my own heart,” I muttered to myself. I’d taken to talking to myself while driving to help keep the more drastic emotions to a minimum. I’ve been working on reducing the negative comments in favor of more positive ones — make your drivers happy drivers! — and with this utterance, I was praising a slightly battered Jeep that was driving at my usual, comfortable two miles above the speed limit: I was neither gaining on him, nor was I lagging behind, so I forgot about him and set about losing myself in the music.

I should note

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

The undersides off gray of clouds drift while I on the path stand above where the crow flies me. Off with purple gray, I wandering ponder, should in a perfect were there such a thing world be a though the word is plain color with it's own to name as they say creates word. It soothes.

The Four Winds

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

I. Borne through air, Close my eyes. Wind ruffles hair Soul sighs, Heart flies; I’m the wind. I flow east: Over the plains, Over land creased. Current refrains, Cloud stains As I build. Trees bow at my Will To move drives me Onward I push through Mountains Do nothing but Divert The rain as I Flow. II. Borne through air - Rise up high - Driven there, Earth nigh, I sigh; I’m the wind.

Tu pater et mater

Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Tu pater et mater lacrimis retinete dolorem, nam fato raptam non potes eripere. You, father, and mother, hold back your sorrow with tears, for you’re not able to take back what fate has snatched away. The withered old man held the punt steady against the shore as the young boy clambered aboard. The boy was only nine or ten at most, short, with brown hair, and obviously not a slave.

The Rise and Fall of Gods - a fragment

Sat, 11 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000

I. What hath man wrought! When faced with the question of love Or seeking peace with the answer thereof, Or faced with life peril-fraught, Created a god, or several, to satisfy Some need to fulfill or deny A lacking - A slacking On someone else's behalf, Or his own behalf - And on the world a question of faith brought. And when a man, endowed With the ability to make his own God, Does so with nary a nod, And finds the god shan't be cowed, What does he then?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kickstarting an anthology Finances 120,000 words at $0.06/word comes out to $7,200 with a goal of $10,000 —|— $7,200 | Paying authors $800 | Cover artist $2,000 | Other costs - contributor copies, KS rewards, etc. Ideas Arcana (or other Tarot thingy) but for mainstream press Post-Self (or other shared-universe anthology) Stories about transition - maybe individual aspects or snapshots of portions rather than the whole thing Transition in the future - the how, the why, the social aspects, looking back historically, etc.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tweet How Charming - an exploration of writing and deploying charms for #Juju - part 1: http://writing.drab-makyo.com/posts/tech/how-charming/2016/12/13/part-1/ @jujuui Todo Background Layers and hooks Base charm and actions Explain relations, make a bundle Deploying

Arcana - Extended Call for Submissions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Submissions for the extended call are not yet open. Keep an eye out for more information! In November of 2016, a conversation in the Furry Writers’ Guild around the archetypes involved in the major arcana of the Tarot turned into an idea for an anthology. That idea was soon turned to reality after Thurston Howl Publications picked up the anthology for publishing. That led to a call for submissions, which closed on March 31, 2017.

About Madison Scott-Clary

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Madison Scott-Clary, Sometimes seen around as Makyo, is a writer, editor, and publisher living in the Pacific Northwest. She has been writing seriously since sixth great when she discovered that she really rather liked writing five paragraph essays. In 2011, she founded [adjective][species], a metafurry resource, as writer and editor-in-chief. [a][s] featured essays, art, and data surrounding the furry subculture, a process of exploration to help us, as furries, figure out what went into our own subculture.

About the world of Sawtooth

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sawtooth, Idaho is a city slightly larger than Twin Falls, with perhaps 50,000 residents. As a university town, much of the younger population is only living there temporarily, but it leads to the core of the town being fairly well-off. The University of Idaho, Sawtooth itself is the largest employer in the city, followed by the tech industry, and then manufacturing. The Sawtooth city flag: the blue symbolizes the wide-open skies, the green represents the fertile fields to the east, the yellow symbolizes both the sun rising over the Sawtooth range, as well as the stone of the range itself, and the five peaks represent the five families who homesteaded in the area and incorporated the town.

Collected Haiku

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Arctic fox's den adorned with flowers and snow garden in winter A measure of grain and a measure of water — spring's own time and heat Air carries the scent of myriads of lives spent on summer's warm breath Crumb and density, warmth buried beneath crisp crust — autumn's crackling leaves. Loves and loaves and loaves baked for comfort in the cold — winter calls for stores. Leaves fall, grass withers, and I step back to witness winter's frozen form.

Commissions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey there! I’m looking to take on the occasional short story commission. I am currently open for one or two 1,000–5,000 word commissions. Terms of service Credentials I work as a technical writer by day and an author of various things by night. I’m currently working on my MFA in creative writing from Cornell College. I’ve published eight books (three short story collections, three novels, a memoir, and a poetry collection with another novel on the way), edited a short story anthology for Thurston Howl Publications/Bound Tails Press, and helped organize a collaborative anthology.

Genderful

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Getting Lost - Chapter Nineteen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sasha wanted to be pleased with the rapidity with which everything was taking place. It hadn’t even been a week, and here was one of the lead researchers of the Lost getting in touch with her. And yet, she wasn’t. It was all wrong. Everything about all of this was wrong. There was no way that she would be able to forget that, despite feeling like things were actually getting done, she was still doing all of this for what was widely acknowledged to be a lost cause.

Invitation for closed cards

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi there, Makyo here! As the anthology moved forward from an idea, it became clear that getting a fair distribution of submissions across all of the available cards was actually going to be pretty difficult. I started with a few ideas on how to help this out with a lot of help from way more experienced folks. After a lot of discussion with Thurston Howl, the publisher, we’ve settled on a process that will hopefully help out here.

Major arcana cards and meanings for Arcana

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

← Back to the call for submissions page The major arcana, followed from the first card to the last, tell a story of growth and fulfillment. The meanings can be strung together to form a coherent plot, as many have noticed. When writing a submission for a card, you are writing a self-contained story, of course - there is no shared universe or characters required - but you’re also writing a story focusing on a character or characters as they experience the part in a journey that the card signifies.

More Than A Few Words

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the writing home and blog of Madison Scott-Clary. I am an author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry living in the Pacific Northwest. My interests lie in the realms of furry fiction and non-fiction, collaborative fiction, and hypertextual writing. I am a member of the Furry Writers' Guild, and editor for several projects, fiction and non-fiction. This site collects several of my written works, as well as blog entries that touch on several topics.

Rules of Sawtooth

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sawtooth is a fictional town in Idaho in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals. As such, there are certain rules that apply to the universe to maintain consistency: Interspecies relationships allowed (if frowned upon by older generations), but no hybridization Scent plays a big role, and similar anatomical considerations However, species plays only a slight role in size Sawtooth natives are Idaho native species “Noble birth” is shown through domesticated species, however, it has lately become largely discredited, and is starting to dissolve If you would like to write a story set in this universe, you are more than welcome to!

Shakshouka

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shakshouka is a Tunisian dish consisting of a sauce made from tomatoes, peppers, and onions, in which eggs are poached, served with crusty bread. It’s an excellent, hearty dish to serve when it starts to get colder out. Ingredients 1 28oz can of peeled, diced tomatoes 3-5 Anaheim peppers 1 medium yellow onion 1⁄2 pound feta cheese 1⁄2 cup water 4 eggs 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp paprika (normal or Hungarian hot) 1 tsp cumin salt Preparation Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Support

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Howdy! I’ve been writing for years now. I still have some stuff from high school that I rather like. The style and technique needs work, obviously — that was thirteen years ago! — but I still think it’s worth something. Lately, I’ve been trying to ramp up the role that writing plays in my life. It’s a load of fun, but it’s also something I care deeply about. I’ve been doing this by, obviously, writing more, but also by editing and publishing works by others.

The Manifesto Project

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This set of essays on personal belief was part of a larger public project started among a few friends on LiveJournal. The project has since gone away, but the essays remain. History of the matter — One step closer to Ein Sof — Shock and Awe — Coming to terms with being a terrible person I am not writing this for it to be believed, or even seen as a creed — how could I hold that power over anyone?

The Shortlist

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Looking for a short list of stuff to read? Here's some of the stuff I'm most proud of. Fiction Disappearance A weasel attempts to escape from her life in Sawtooth to Oregon, but finds her old life still tied to home. Part of the Sawtooth universe. Overclassification A chronically neat otter's life is thrown into disarray when she takes a homeless ringtail in from the cold.

Unimportant verse about important people

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I see your past in cross-processed film, in blown-out colors and over-saturation. You told me all about it, told me grand stories: you were going to go back in time and save the world. I see your past in yellows and browns, in umber and sienna and amber, in a younger sun. You sat and told me how — and you were always sitting — you thought past-you dreamt of a future less complicated than today.

We need to give up transphobia

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

(Note that the article in the link references a second article, also worth reading, which is available here) A couple of recently published articles caught my eye this week, both of which focused on the issue of transphobia within the larger lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. I really wasn’t all that sure of how to write about them, really. I really feel like it’s something that needs to be talked about quite a bit more than it is, and it fits really well into the whole idea that the ’T’ part of “LGBT” is often very, very minimized, and only in part due to visiblity.