Shadow Muse

Hey, y'all? My friend snowcoma's dad just died, now she has to organize a cross-country funeral and trip and all of that, and cope with bills and that sort of thing, all on basically zero budget until the estate is cleared.

Kind of a tight spot for a friend to be in. I'm in no position to help, personally, but I am boosting the signal, and if y'all could boost it, too, I would be really grateful. She's a personal friend, and I will vouch for her. Without getting too up in her stuff, she has a lot of the same issues I have, only worse, and she has less support, and I am worried about her.

Can I get some help all up in here? Even $5 would make a difference.

You can find a donate button here.

Thank you. Please repost if you can. Smooch thinks it's a smashing idea.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

Awesome:

Perverted sex dream about playing with a giant horse-cock shaped sex toy.*

Awkward:

Whole thing takes place on your mom's bed.

Alarming:

Your mom has been dead for a number of years.

At least:

She wasn't still IN the bed.

. . .

Not cool, subconscious. Not cool.

* Shut up. Don't you judge. It's not like I actually HAVE one.

Fuckers are expensive.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

So, Lapis over on LJ has found a beautiful but starving-thin kitty. Being a decent person, she has brought her inside and is feeding her, but she's already overloaded with fosters, can't afford the vetting or the room, and this girl really needs extra loving attention.

She's so thin that Lapis is aware -- as am I -- that she must be kept from the pound, or she will be put down. (As I am only too aware from my personal life, the triage enforced by limited resources is cruelest to those most in need.) We've got about a week to find her a foster home or a forever home within 4-5 hours of Dallas (or within 4-5 hours of someone willing to drive her further), and I really think we can do it.

She's a complete darling, not feral but apparently someone's unwanted house pet. She's rail-thin, terribly sweet, and is eating and using the litter box normally. She doesn't appear unhealthy in any other way, but will need veterinary attention for a little while, to give her a checkup or two and get her vaccinated if nothing else.

If you can help out, you can email Lapis at: lapiskelinia at gmail







From the post:

Normally I would foster a cat like this until she was both healthy and adopted, but my hands are too full at this time. I just don't have the capacity, and my vet bills are already stretched to the max with my own cats, and the other most recent foster. I'm asking for help to get this cat to either a forever home or a foster who is able to give her the time she needs to regain strength and body mass before going into the adoption network. Please help her! She is clearly not a feral, but a lost or dumped housecat. I will be calling the local shelters for lost cats in the morning because the holiday weekend will be over. She is equally torn between desires of food and wanting cuddles. Case in point, she fell asleep in my arms tonight. I have about a week before I have to take her to the pound, where I doubt she'll be given recovery time before getting a needle.

I am feeding her graduated amounts so she does not get sick, and already see a difference. So far she has not exhibited gorge behaviors. She is more vocal, and you can feel her stomach and intestines now. (How horrible that she is that starved to have virtually no muscle mass!) It took about 20 hours, but she started using the litter box. Tomorrow I will buy her some kitten chow, which will help supplement her.

So far she has not exhibited any obvious bad habits. She has pretty copper-yellow eyes, a strong voice which she seldom uses, and a beautiful silver-blue tabby coat with hints of peach. Once healthy, she would be a stunning cat, and sweetly dispositioned. I have no idea how she handles other cats since I'm not exposing her to mine since she hasn't been to a vet yet, but so far she perks up when she hears them calling at the door but does not growl or get tense.

If anyone has the interest in offering her a forever home or fostering her until she gets adopted, *please* let me know. I cannot do more, since I don't have the space. But if you know anyone who can give a nice cat a second chance, pass on the information. I am willing to drive up to 4-5 hours (which is a good radius centered on Dallas) to see that she gets help.

She is really beautiful, even as pitiful as she is. Can anyone take her in for a while longer, while a forever home is found? Or can anyone take her, period? Because someone out there needs this pretty girl as much as she needs them, and I would like to help them find each other. I would like this to be a rats-to-riches story. Let's make it happen.

Can I get signal boosts?

If you have questions or need more information, head over and read the rest of the story. I'll be forwarding comments over to her, so if you have questions, it's probably best to ask 'em there, but I'll try to make sure that everything gets where it needs to go!

You can also email her at: lapiskelinia at gmail.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

Y'all are great, seriously. I love you, and you help more than you know.

In the comments to the last entry, several of you weighed in -- thank you -- saying that at least when things suck, I can write about it articulately and make it into something that illuminates, or that helps other people.

Lately, I've been writing less. Mostly I have nothing happy or interesting to say, and I don't want to be all doom and gloom all the time. Then I snap and write something like I wrote the other day, when I was pretty damn upset, and I get an unexpected response. I forget, sometimes, that talking about this shit has value.

Life gives me lemons. I can't change that. By the nature of the obnoxious thing I have to deal with, I can squeeze precious little that is positive from my disorder. Nature of the beast. It absolutely helps me to write about it, but mostly I write about it because the best thing, often the only thing, I get out of it is knowing that what I write sometimes helps other people. So I squeeze those fucking lemons to make the lemonade that I can't drink, and I offer it to other people for whatever value it may have.

It sounds hopelessly one-sided and bleak, but it's not. It's really me paying back all the times that stuff other people wrote helped me. I owe a lot to the people who wrote about going through the same or worse, including a number of you reading this. Reading this kind of thing by other people? Drinking that lemonade? I think that is in no small part what kept me from getting scurvy of the soul.

So y'all come on by and have a glass anytime.

And maaan, would I like some actual for-real lemonade.

. . . I don't know if I remember the right proportions for my recipe. X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

Because I didn't feel like leaving it JUST on Tumblr, I responded to a good post by patheticfangirl about guys who are angry that there are yucky-ucky girls and gay people in their fandoms:

Seriously.  Hear fucking hear.

You don’t get to complain that there are no women in fandom and that you can’t meet “cool” chicks AND try to define how women DO engage with fandoms when they do.  I mean, you CAN do that, but it makes you a juvenile asshole.

It would be especially great if your objections didn’t so often boil down to “OMG TEH GAYNESS EWW!”  That’s just pathetic and sad.

So what if it’s “out of character” and “not canon”?  Women have had to put up with CANONICAL inconsistencies of character, stupid outfits, ridiculous pairings, sexist storylines, and blatant pandering to a male audience.  That shit insults us as women and as readers (if you are taking notes, that means it’s insulting your intelligence, too).

GLBT people have had to put up with the fact that people like us pretty much do not even fucking exist in comics and derived works, that when a gay character is presented, it’s unusual, and that small-minded dipshits would literally shit their pants in rage if you ever had a trans character in a mainstram comic.  Characters like us are considered a threat.

Racial issues?  Don’t make me fucking laugh.  Er, vomit.

Complaining about how fans enjoy their fandom is basically saying “Hey, you aren’t the kind of person I want in my fandom.”  Know what?  You don’t get to decide that.  We’re here, and we’re not going to take our dollies and go home crying just because you want to preserve your fandom as a pristine preserve for the oh-so-rare-and-endangered free-roaming male gaze.  Your fandom will change to accomodate us because we are here.  And we get to help define our fandom for ourselves, just like you have been doing.

We really ought to get along.  All of us.  We all have the same basic interests at heart.  We like geeky things.  We like superheroes and spaceships and snark.  We aren’t just here for the tight pants — we’ve been here all along.  The difference is now we have at least some fanservice directed at women to enjoy, and there is finally a great enough density of us on the internet to connect with one another and start carving out our own corners of fandom.  The difference is that you have finally noticed us.  And you don’t like what we’re doing.  And you know, you don’t have to like it.  You can walk away.

It was irritating when your parents and teachers and everyone else in the goddamn world acted all disgusted at your choice of entertainment, right?  You remember that feeling?  Yeah.  That kind of petty, judgmental crap is exactly what is being directed at us.  Knock it the fuck off.

I don’t write fanfiction.  I barely even read it.  I think, in all the years I’ve been on the internet, I’ve read maybe ten fics.  Most of it’s just not my thing.  And yet, my world has not imploded from the weight of gay Avengers fanfiction, or been torn apart by the lack of the fanfiction I would like to read.

If I can manage to cope with an internet full of things that do not interest me, and a fandom that does not always cater to my every whim, you can, too.  You can grow up and share.  You can decide that it’s great that people who aren’t like you are interested in the same things you are interested in, even if they show that differently, even if they are demonstrating their appreciation in ways that — shock and horror — do not include you.  Step up, grow up, act like an adult, and be part of a bigger, more inclusive fandom.

If you really need the help, you can borrow my big-girl panties.  THEY WILL BE COMING OFF JUST AS SOON AS MY COPY OF JOHN CARTER A PRINCESS OF MARS GETS HERE.

Oh, and JSYK, tonight, in honor of all the blatant, petty homophobia that gets slung around on threads like these, I am going to ship the ever-loving balls-deep FUCK out of John Carter and Kantos Kan.  BECAUSE IT IS MY GODDAMN FANDOM, TOO.  And Dejah Thoris would totally watch the shit out of that.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

I filled out the functionality report this week, which is a many-pages-long form that they send you when you apply for disability. You have to fill it out and send it back, and they use your answers to help them decide how fucked up you are.

What a bastard.

I had not expected it to be as difficult as it was. It's like the world's worst homework. Ever.

First, the Y/N questions. "Do you finish what you start? (For example, conversations, chores, watching movies, reading books.) Y/N" "Are you able to leave the house? Y/N" "Do you prepare your own meals? Y/N"

HOW ABOUT "Y/N/SOMETIMES?" Radical notion.

Most of those questions came with a space for you to explain any "no" answers, so I put down "no," and explained the shit out of that. But some were just Y/N, and left sitting there on the page like an unburied cat poop.

That was just annoying, though. That wasn't really painful.

What was painful were the six lines they give you to answer "Explain how your condition affects you."

I told Bat_Cheva that I could do it in four words: "Fucks my shit up." But they want specifics. "Fucks my shit up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. . . ." is not the sort of specifics they want.

Maybe for someone who is missing part of a leg or has no arms or is blind it is easy to describe how you are affected. At least the people looking over the application most likely have arms and legs and eyes and so on, and therefore no matter how stupid or non-empathic they are, must have at least a rudimentary idea of what those parts are used for and what it might be like to not have them.

With mental illness, not so much. Being crazy fucks up parts of your mind you didn't even know you had. Parts of your mind that lots of people don't even believe in. Like, all those "You can choose to be happy!" people who are all "You can look at the negative or the positive, so look at the positive, and everything will be fine!" and don't just apply it to themselves, but to you, too? Those people? They Do Not Get It. I can look at the positive all I want -- I do -- but when the problem is "I am frequently incapable of feeling happy, or even somewhat content," all the half-full glasses in the world won't do a damn thing to change that.

So you are left trying to describe the horrific thing that is devouring your life to someone who a) does not know you and therefore does not in any way care, b) is motivated to find reasons to reject you, and c) might not even understand that depression is a real thing that screws up even the most basic parts of your life.

Then there was the part where you have two lines to explain how your social life has changed since you became disabled, or describe what things you are no longer able to do that you used to be able to do, or the bit where it asks how often you are able to do things that normal people do every day and you have to admit that you are able to do them maybe a couple times a week, if it's a good week.

Or they part where they ask you to describe your typical day, and you do, and then you feel like a pathetic failure because it goes pretty much like this:

Get up. Brush teeth. Get reminded three times to take your fucking pills. Surf the internet. Wait for someone else to cook your goddamn food. Try to write something meaningful. Fail. Watch Youtube videos of explosions and bathtub farts. Try to make something pretty. Fail more often than not. Think about calling a friend. Decide that the phone is evil and should be avoided. Play video games. Think about doing some chores. Decide that you would rather give yourself a lobotomy with a rusty icepick. Watch a movie. Fall asleep halfway through. Answer some email. Pet the cat. Maybe take a shower. Go to bed. Get up, take pills you forgot to take. Go back to bed. Sleep badly. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Which, admittedly, describes a not-very-functional person's day, but you try writing that about yourself without feeling crappy about it.

It's not that I judge other people for being this way, or judge myself. It's that I hate that I -- or anyone -- must live with this. It's that it genuinely does suck, it sucks unbelievably, and having to describe it is so depressing. Especially when odds are good that they will look at this and somehow decide "Yeah, this person could totally go and get themselves a 40-hour job and support themselves without going completely off the deep end."

It doesn't help that my typical day during which I am supposedly disabled looks a whole fucking hell of a lot like most folks' days off. You know, excluding the failing at doing anything constrictive bit, and the part where I am crushingly depressed some days, and the bit where I can't cope with normal things like going three different places in one day or making food for myself or cleaning up the goddamn kitchen.

Frankly, most of my time involves sitting around desperately bored and wanting to do something else, and wishing like hell I felt like doing something else. And we are taught from a very young age that this is wrong. Not just an incorrect way of feeling, like giving the wrong answer to a simple question, but a moral failing. When you say "I wanted to go and paint and I tried and I couldn't," or "I wanted to write, but I couldn't," or "I wanted to get my room cleaned up, but I couldn't," people hear "I didn't want it enough."

Believe me. I want it. I want it so fucking bad. But we are taught that if we want something really badly, we can get it. You just have to want it enough. We aren't taught that sometimes, just wanting will not bridge the gap between desire and ability to execute that desire. We are not taught that we may have drives and desires and hopes and dreams that cannot be fulfilled. We aren't taught how to deal with that, not for ourselves, and not when we encounter it in others. And when people like me complain that we are not made for what we want to do, we are told we are spoiled, that we expect engraved invitations and silver platters, that we should be ashamed, and we should shut up and work harder. Or we are told that we should want something else, as if it is just that easy.

During the evaluation for the low-cost mental health care I'm in the process of getting, the trainee doing my intake survey asked me "What is your purpose in life? What is your goal, what do you want?"

I thought about it, and I told her that at one point I would have said "It's to be the best companion I can be, the best person, the best friend and partner. To be a good person. I am here to make the world a better place."

Then I explained that, fuck that shit, I want to be the best at doing the things that only I can do. I want to write the stories only I can write and make the art only I can make. As far as I am concerned, that is why I am here. That is what I have to offer that no other human being could possibly offer. Yes, I want to make the world a better place. I want to do it by expressing myself fully, not by trying to make other people happy.

I am a good companion, a good person. Not perfect, but pretty good. It's not what I'd call easy, and I am working within some limitations, but I can do it. I don't need to make it a goal. I am already there, and part of being there is that you never stop trying to be a better person. So, you know, I actually think I'm doing okay there.

I certainly don't need to make my value to other people as defined by what those people consider valuable part of my goal in life. If I did, I'd go back to starving myself. I'd have gone to college.

I only need to care about the things that make me valuable to me. And that is what is fucking murdering me by inches every day. Those things, the things that I love and which define me to me -- specifically, the writing -- are inaccessible. Gone. The things I care about most are out of my reach. The things that make me me are out of my reach. I am unable to be myself in the ways that mean the most to me.

THAT is the effect that this shit has had on my life.

That is what I cannot put into six lines or less, and what they probably would not care about even if I did, because all that matters to the government is whether I can Keep A Job, no matter how soulless. I'm so goddamn broken-down from not even being able to be myself, there is not a chance in hell I could Keep A Job, even a wonderful one. I can't even cope with scooping the goddamn cat litter, or washing my sheets. I can barely cope with having a set time to get up once a week. Twice a week is out of the question. How in the name of Zeus' butthole could I work 40 hours a week? I am not kidding when I say that even if I was working at the all-day kitten-snuggling and incredibly attractive Brazilian model grooming and obedience training day center, I still could not do it every day. That, my friends, is sad.

So I had to finish that seven-page travesty and turn it in, with all the weight of what cannot be expressed in a few short answers to a few inadequate questions pressing in on me, and all the things I cannot say suffocating me slowly, with the knowledge that it will most likely be denied. That my human pain will be weighed, measured, and found wanting.

But I still fucking did it.

I think I did a pretty good job, and I feel sort of like a rock star.

Mad props to Sargon, who also filled out the version of the quiz for the person who knows you best, which can't have been easy. But I can't write about that, because I didn't have to do it. If I get through this at all, it will be because of him.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

Look who's finished!

And look who's on eBay!

I'd really appreciate any signal boosting you wanted to do for this one.



I did decide to curl her hair! The uneven and kind of messy look is all right, I think, in the context of a wild rose pony. I am not 100% sure I prefer it to the straight hair, but I'm leaving it as it is. If the person who winds up with her reeeally wants to straighten it, they can do so, and I'll tell them how (not responsible for results, but it shouldn't hurt her).

( You SO need to see all of these pics. )



The silver around her eyes is so pretty.

So, I learned a lot from her, and I look forward to putting all that learning into play on my next pony.

And, again, because clearly I haven't linked it enough, eBay! Yes, bidding is starting high. There's actually fifteen dollars' worth of hair there all by itself. Not to mention the OMG hours of work. So bid freely!

Questions? Ask 'em!

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

I went out to the appointment last week and applied for disability on the basis of being so damn bipolar. Everything went fine; it was difficult but less harrowing than I was afraid it was going to be.

I just . . . I know they'll probably turn me down,* and that's when we call the lawyer, and I'm fine with that, mostly. Sort of. All right, not really, but I'm doing it this way because that is what I've been told to do. But . . . damn, guys, I've been so poor ever since I got married that before around 2007 I'd never been to the doctor for shit like, you know, the entire year I spent having two-hour panic attacks almost every day, or the eating disorder, or the not-suicidal-but-still-atrocious depression that I've had since I can remember. I've had this shit dogging me since I was a teenager, yet I have no documentation for it. It is so monstrously stupid and unfair.

I will persist, of course. There isn't another way open to me right now. Traditional employment is out of the question, I'm not able to write, I cannot take commissions, and our other ventures are not performing particularly well.

I am still depressed -- that isn't something that just goes away -- but knowing help is coming makes things easier. I don't necessarily expect that everything will get solved and I'll be as un-fucked as someone who was never crazy in the first place, but I am hoping to get some concrete advice about meds and coping strategies and all that, so that I can live with this if not more productively, more comfortably.

I am trying not to be all doom and gloom about this. It's just kinda rough, especially coming at a time when I am so low. And sometimes, with things that suck, just the truth can be doomy and gloomy. I am upbeat. You can tell, because I'm doing things like rearranging my studio closet and storage space, optimistically hoping I'll be able to work at least a little.

On a brighter note, we have gotten our sleeping schedule turned around in a good way, and I am hoping that lasts. I just got up about half an hour ago, at five thirty a.m. Being awake during the daylight is so weird.

* I'd strongly prefer not to have the "Did you know it's difficult and could take years?" conversation. I do know. That's why I didn't do this ages ago. I am choosing not to think about anything more difficult than the very next step. Nothing matters but that I take that one step. Nothing else even exists. Thank you. I know y'all understand.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

I finally got the cash together to do a hair order and got the hair I needed to finish her!

I kinda want to leave her like this, but she is going to get her hair done up in ringlet curls. Partly because I think it will be really pretty, and partly, I admit, because I want to practice it before doing it to another pony I've already almost finished, but am more afraid of ruining. It's just taking me a while because it's super-long and I am new at it and it is proving . . . challenging. I know I said I wouldn't do another with the ultra-long hair, but I saw that red color and it was so gorgeous and I just couldn't bring myself to make there be LESS of it in any direction. I am, in fact, contemplating making her tail a bit fuller.

So these are the pics I took just in case the hair thing goes badly and I drop her into a vat of acid or she gets eaten by lions or something equally unfortunate and unsavory. They were super-quick but I think they came out really cute.







What you REALLY can't see in these pictures is that the roses and vines are outlined with satiny silver. In person she is amazing.

Her hair is nylon in a mix of Vampire Kiss and Cherry Pie, with Starlight for the silver streaks and Poison Ivy and Envy for the green.

I hope you like her! There will be more pics once her hair is done, hopefully taken outdoors. If there is interest I may put her up on Etsy or eBay. I don't want to do these as commissions -- I'm not taking any commissions at all right now -- but if I keep every single pony I make I will have no room to do things like turn around or swing a cat.

Thoughts?

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

Sky Pirates of the Rio Grande is out on Smashwords and Amazon!

You can get it at Smashwords here, and the Amazon link is here. We get the money faster and get a better cut if you buy through Smashwords, and reviews are great everywhere.

I'm sorry for not getting it out sooner. I know some of you have been waiting, and I apologize for that. Things got a little rough. But here it is in all its cheesy glory! How, I ask you, can you not love a book that has a hot tiger-striped chick bronco-busting a pterodactyl?

But wait, there's more!

Sky Pirates of the Rio Grande!

The year is 1867, and mad science has made the Wild West even wilder. Sky pirates haunt the western territories, savage prehistoric beasts have been set loose to roam the grasslands, and the science-enhanced Experimentals are hunted by the government that made them.

Eden Kane is a shy girl working a dead-end job as a clerk with the Smithsonian's Department of Hazardous Artifacts. Unable to explain that her brilliant Experimental mind makes her uniquely qualified for the task, she is rudely refused a position on a dangerous assignment to reclaim the sky pirates' secret Dark Aetheric Transmitter.

She mounts her own expedition, freeing Zenobia Santiago, ex-bandit and Experimental tiger-woman, to guide her through a West full of criminals, rogue Experimentals, and dinosaurs, and into the secret lair of the Sky Pirates of the Rio Grande.

A secret war is brewing in the West. Hunted by desperados and government agents alike, Eden and Zenobia may be the only two people who can stop it.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

I have been interviewed by the lovely Dishevelled Domina, also of Tumblr fame. (The interview link is work safe, the Tumblr link is really, really, really NSFW.)

We talked about a lot of fun things, including tabletop RPGs and '80s cartoons, as well as more thinky stuff like feminism and kink and marriage and so on. I talk a little about my own history and how I became aware that I am a big ol' pervert, which I haven't actually done all that much of, especially recently, so that was interesting. And there's a picture of me in a pirate hat.

So please, stop by and read and comment! I'll be checking in and answering questions. (Although I am almost always up for fielding questions either here or on my Tumblr, JSYK.)

Have an excerpt! My two favorite questions:

How did you discover your power exchange preference?

It just kind of . . . blossomed. I’ve had sadistic/masochistic fantasies ever since I was five or six. Once I became aware of BDSM subculture, somewhere around the age of twelve, I was intrigued by it. By the awesome clothes, by the glamorous people, by the strong presence of female sexuality, by the way it was forbidden.

Of course, I grew up and discovered that BDSM culture is far from perfect. And, sadly, as I explored the idea, I became aware that the female sexuality showcased in most BDSM photography and porn/erotica had little to do with my personal desires and values. But the core of that appeal remained. Pain, lust, beauty . . . I have always found the idea of a beautiful man suffering intensely erotic.

Flashback to the ’80s: I remember there was this one episode of Thundercats that had my favorite character, Tygra, getting strapped into this torture/execution machine called The Four Winds, which was basically designed to rip a person’s arms and legs off. It wasn’t the drawing and quartering I found sexy – I thought that was creepy and gross – it was that Tygra was chained in it, waiting, for hours. The anticipation was lovely. The peril. And the being chained up spread-eagle.

I only saw the episode once, but I had all kinds of fantasies about it; someone whipping him, someone cutting his clothes off, someone hurting him with pointy things, performing painful and humiliating experiments on him. I acted these out with my action figures to excess. Right in front of all my My Little Ponies, too. I’m sorry you had to see that, Moondancer.

Do you think there is a connection between feminism and femdom? If so, how would you characterize it?

Only in the sense that any issue involving women claiming their sexual desires, especially ones forbidden by the cultural roles thrust upon them, can be framed as a feminist issue.

I am an avowed feminist, and I find the conflation of “feminist” with “thinks women are superior to men” annoying. I do not believe that. Interestingly, woman-as-goddess is a huge part of the fem-dom fantasy. It’s common to see men painting women as the superior sex, especially submissive men. I have no use for that. It’s not any better, to my mind, than telling me that men are superior. It’s offensive to me as a person, and I am really tired of it, and tired of people who dismiss feminism because they do not understand what it’s about. There are legitimate bones to pick with modern feminist dialogue, it has its areas of ignorance, but one thing it is not about is putting women above men. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

I do think that femdom is often depicted in an incredibly sexist way, and while leather-clad ice-queen porn can still be well-produced and very hot, and while I don’t fault people who like it or fantasize about it (what gets you off gets you off, have a great time and don’t be ashamed), its rampant exclusion, as a genre, of the desires of actual dominant women is a huge problem, a huge turn-off, and a huge barrier to dominant women recognizing their own dominant inclinations for what they are. Thankfully, it’s changing, and I have hopes that we will be seeing more appealing male-sub imagery and writing. I am trying to contribute to that by writing erotica that appeals to me personally.

I also think that for a lot of people, the femdom fantasy does derive a great deal of its power from the subversion or inversion of traditional roles, whether we are aware of that individually or not, whether that’s affected us individually or not. I can’t honestly say whether that’s had an effect on me. I was so young when I started having these thoughts that I am inclined to think that a desire to reverse traditional roles had nothing to do with it. Those roles are probably what kept me from recognizing it for what it was in the first place.

So drop on by and say hello! And peruse the other interviews while you're there! They have been a fascinating cross-section of kinky folks, and I really admire the project and what DD is trying to do.

Penthesilea's interview is especially excellent, and what she has to say about femdom/kink/BDSM and feminism is spot-on, and I wish I had read it when I answered that question, because I could have just pointed to it and said "What she said."

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

Hey, everyone!

I am really sorry I haven't been around more. My laptop was on the fritz, and I also have not been doing so hot.

The bad news is that I may not be around much for a while longer, because of the not doing real well thing. I need to concentrate on navigating this rough patch, which is as bad as it's been since 2007 or so when I was first diagnosed as bipolar. It's not as bad as that was, but it isn't any fun, and it's taking a lot of energy just to hang on.

The good news is that I am getting help, thanks to a good friend who referred me to a low-cost clinic where she works, and I am profoundly grateful for that. It will be a while, maybe a month, before I am able to see anyone, but I've gotten the ball rolling, and hopefully it will continue to do so.

I have a solid support network of local friends that I know I can rely on if I get in a really bad way, and I know that there are a lot of you who are available to me pretty much whenever, if things get too rough, and believe me, I have never been more grateful. I am perfectly willing to call in those little favors if I have to, don't worry.

I miss you all, and am sorry I'm not around more. I really hope I'll be back to my usual antics again very soon.

Wish me luck. I doubt this will be easy, and I am not even sure it will work, but I want it to, and I am trying really hard to have hope.

Stay tuned, though! We have news for next week, and it will be all kinds of fun.

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Question for people who have experience with Amazon's Kindle publishing platform.

I uploaded Pride and Prostitutes to Amazon's KDP.

I listed it under both of our names.

The book is there in Amazon's marketplace. You can search for it, and you can buy it.

When I go into the guts of the KDP, it is not there among the other books I have listed.

I do not have an Amazon account under any other email address.

I checked under my husband's email address, and it is not there either. That address had never been used to log into the KDP.

I have tried resetting my password as described in this link. It still did not appear.

Where did my book go and how can I find it? I need to be able to administer it, obviously, and I am really, really concerned that my intellectual property has fallen into "limbo" and will be unretrievable. Obviously, I cannot comfortably register any new books with Amazon until this is resolved.

Please advise.

If you know anyone who has experience with the KDP, please consider forwarding this to them. I could really use an answer on this.

Notes:

* I have emailed their customer service department with this, but if I can resolve it faster than they can get back to me, I'd be really pleased.

* Please don't tell me to stay out of Amazon's pool. Not helpful or relevant.

* I know that Amazon is evil, and that their customer service sucks. Pointing this out is also not helpful. Please try to be constructive.

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If you want something from my Etsy shop, now would be a great time!

I've dropped the prices on a LOT of stuff so go take a look!

Morningstar Hall

Also, putting in the code MAY2012 at checkout will get you 15% off.

Click the picture to visit!



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I am really proud of this one, but it was a lot of work!

I applied a glossy three-dimensional effect on the design and the flowers -- I will get a better picture of that next time I am in the studio -- then gilded over the roses with foil leaf. I added silver leaf to the straps, too. And, finally, I gave it a real cloth lining in red satin.

All of that makes it sound way less complicated than it actually was.

The best thing about it is that it's for sale on Etsy!

( See more here! )

It is the most luxurious of the rose boxes I've done so far, and the price increase reflects that (also reflects the fact that I haven't raised the prices on my boxes for years).



I'm running a special on Etsy!

Buy this box and get a free pirate map and envelope! Both handmade and ribboned and awesome! Normally a $23 package.

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As a remedy for a sad few days, have some awesome stuff!

Day 9: Andromeda



Source. Tambako takes the most amazing animal pics, and this golden tiger is incredible.

This is not an accurate portrait of a sabertooth, nor of the Atlantean Irregulars' traveling companion, Andromeda. Nevertheless, it is A portrait. And I am pretty pleased with it. I like the eyes. Took about an hour and a half, maybe two, overall.


Day 10: Captain Savage's hairless cat.





Source. Thanks to Kinsey and his people.

I wanted to paint Captain Savage's little devil-horned gremlin cat, so I found a nice CC-licensed pic of a sphynx, and went to town. I gotta admit, I blew myself away with this one. I started out expecting to fail miserably at such a challenging subject, and . . . well. Yeah. I will go back and finish this one at some point, put some books on the bookshelf, fix up the horns, put the horns' shadows in the right place, all of that.

I am really proud of the ears. Really, really proud. Translucence is so difficult to paint. Took about six hours, though.


Day 11: Friesian in an Invisible Harness!





Source. Didn't get around to painting in the bridle.

I am really proud of the detail on the mouth, obviously. It's a really textured and soft and mobile area, and it's a challenge to convey that. I will go back and add the harness sometime, it looks weird without it. Probably put a background on there while I'm at it, since it looks awfully stark.

I am taking today off, I think. I am just tired and wrung out and I am so ready for it to be next year.

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The Red Winter Queen, Chapter 1

We're starting something new! It's not typical for us, it's dark and weird and lyrical and literary, but I think that it's probably the best thing Sargon has ever written. I'm gonna let Sargon speak for himself, here, because I think he does a better job of it than I could:

So today we begin posting the new work, entitled The Red Winter Queen, my dark, dark retelling of a kind-of sort-of Snow White. Seems like everyone from Hollywood hacks to Cat Valente is working this one lately, and I don't know how I feel about that. I've never been much for trendy.

This has been a terrible time, this last week. It seems somehow appropriate that this story begins in a time of sadness, weakening, and pain. I had been feeling the pinch of the work we normally do here. I love our stories so much, yet the more bare-bones style we use for them had me feeling constrained. I wanted to push myself, work at the limits of my abilities for a change, and really go for it stylistically. Thus this story is darker, heavier, and far more florid in style than our usual works. I don't know if people will like it.

It was hard, even at the length it is. I resolved early on to illustrate it chapter by chapter, and to do it my way: paper and pen, only minor touch-ups in PS afterward, mostly to hide the pen-strokes. What you see is 95% what I did. Working on a chapter and an illustration every two days was exhausting, I won't lie.

Eleven chapters, no compromises. I was well into working on it when the whole Smashwords/PayFoe thing hit, and I found it suddenly amusing that here is a work that is not only, I think, the best thing I have written in years, but that also crosses every line drawn in that battle. Here we have incest, cannibalism, bestiality, rape, and even necrophilia all wrapped up in the best prose I can produce. To paraphrase de Sade, here you will find no act uncolored by some infamy.

And yet I did not set out to write something "transgressive", or try to make it horrific or gross or discomfiting. Here is myth, or rather Myth. Here is the primal story of the Dying God and the Eternal Goddess - devouring and immortal. Here is my tale of the passing of one legend and the birth of another. Here. Taste it.

Thus saith Sargon. He cut deep to get this one, and the results are extraordinary. I hope you'll give it a try.

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Apparently I post a lot when I am depressed and avoiding panic attacks. WHO KNEW.



Sauce.

This is a kizza kitten at about five weeks. Rough sketch, WIP, all of that. Her ears should really be bigger.

Kizza are critters from our current tabletop RPG setting, Ethrus Prime. They are like little fennec catbunnies. VENOMOUS fennec catbunnies. They make great pets, though, and are So. Goddamn. Adorable.

Cuteness! Ees good!

One of the drawings I lost was a really beautiful picture of an adult. I am so fucking pissed.

I did find one version of the picture of the actual jandar, also a WIP:



So there you go. Something to look at.

I am going to edit some pics for this week's Thing I Made Thursday, which SHALL NOT BE DERAILED. Because I really want to sell the goddamn thing.

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I am just not having a good time.

So, rueful laugh, I managed to lose/delete three pieces of digital artwork that were important to me in that they made me very happy and I was sort of proud of them.

One is the large version of my character portrait for Rukh Jandar. I have a smaller version of it on Flickr, so I'm sort of okay there.

One is the full version of my horned black panther icons, which are jandar-the-animal icons. I know I have a smaller version of it uploaded somewhere because I posted it in a comment in a community or on someone else's journal but I have no idea where or when that was, and can't find it in any of my photodump sites. I can't summon up the LJ notification email for that comment because that comment was never replied to.

And one is a drawing of an adorable little fennec catbunny thing called a kizza, from the same setting. I have no version of it anywhere, and cannot remember if I ever emailed it to the gaming group. And it's the one I am most upset about, because it was the best one.

I am not the sort to swear and kick things and throw stuff and yell and have a hissyfit, but I am so fucking displeased, seriously. I almost NEVER lose things like this. I have three thumb drives, a backup drive, and two computers. Most stuff is archived SOMEWHERE. I cannot remember, literally cannot remember, the last time I for-real lost a file.

Also, I went to get some beads to fix up a necklace I got (FOR JANDAR NO LESS) and got the wrong damn size of beads.

In our weekly game, Jandar's luck is . . . dreadful. I mean, really dreadful. Golan/Torin/Amaris/Sunder's luck is almost as bad, but is spread out over, like, three personalities, so Jandar's is probably still worse. It's such a notable effect that I wrote a parody song about what it's like when the dice fucking hate your character, but you are too stupid to kill him off and roll up another. (Dice of the Jandar, to the tune of Eye of the Tiger, and aside from the specific character reference in the chorus, it could apply to any campaign that fucks you and fucks you and then fucks you some more.)

And now Jandar's Luck is apparently spreading to real life.

I am not okay with this. I think maybe I need to get back to playing the guy who can roll below a seventy-five.

And right now, that guy is telling me to get my ass into bed. Sigh. I obey.

I want my friggin' kizza. And I am going to concentrate on that fiercely, so that I am not thinking about the other huge and important things I am missing and want back.

Goddamn, can it be next month already, pleeease?

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Mur Lafferty: "Dear daughter..."

Worth reading in its entirety.

Dear daughter -

You should know that you are hated.

I’m not sure why they hate you. You didn’t do anything to them. You don your princess crown, take up your sword, and pretend at Pokemon. You read your books and you learn how to draw comics and dragons and you play piano and practice kung fu. You delight in pretty dresses and weaponry. You love me when I nurture you as a mom, train with you as a warrior, and play video games and card games with you.

There is nothing worse than being a girl. I’m not saying this as a former girl - I quite liked being a girl. I’m saying this from the POV of the entire rest of the world. There was a lovely feminist TED talk – A Call To Men – where a man discussed his conversation with a twelve year old boy, and the boy said he would rather die than be called a girl. And the man thought, Good Lord, how do these boys view girls, if being compared to them is the worst thing in the world?

I’ve seen boys cry when injured. Frustrated. Feelings hurt. Blocked out of play. Denied something. It’s what kids do as they learn the world around them. The world is tough; before you learn to cope, you cry, whether you sport the penis or the fallopian tubes. It’s fucking lesson #1 after you take your first breath. I cried. You did too.

So. The world hates you. You are considered the worst thing to be compared to.

It's actually uplifting, at the end, and beautiful. And encouraging, that there are mothers out there who know the deal and are preparing their daughters for what they will face lovingly, without being like my mother and telling them that they don't have a chance and will never make it.

Her daughter's tee shirt at the end is the perfect punctuation, pale blue on black, under a cartoon crown:

Self-Rescuing Princess

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Today was very bad, and I considered -- briefly -- posting one of those alarming and cryptic "I have forgotten what hope even feels like and all my dreams are rubble" updates that tell nothing, vaguely threaten, and tend to disturb everyone who reads them. Decided not to, and will save it for when I know more and am less upset and won't just worry everyone. It's mental health stuff, so it's not like it's anything new. I'm all right, I'll be all right, I just don't feel like it right now. But I know that's how this shit works, and I'm not playing that game. I lost my shit earlier, and that is enough.

I do feel considerably better about one thing after FINALLY seeing the dermatologist. He walked in the room, took one look at me, and said "ROSACEA FULMINANS." And now I have a bunch of samples of something new, a prescription for some other stuff, and an appointment in three months. I don't know if I've discussed my horrible ongoing skin problem here enough for people to remember I have it, but there it is. I've been a flared-up, crusty, pimple-covered mess for months now, it fucking hurts, it's ugly, and I have had enough.

He did confirm that my skin care regimen is not making it worse, and that I've been basically doing everything right, so this is in no way my fault. I knew that, but it was good to hear.

I hope this stuff works. And I have hope that it will. Which are two different things, you know. So cross your fingers for that. If I could have just one less thing to deal with, one fewer painful thing jabbing me every couple of minutes, the rest of it would be a little easier.

Etrigan went with Sargon to the vet today, and we really do think it's asthma. So he's on prednisone, and we'll see how that works out. I will keep you updated as we learn anything. I really don't want this to be a chronic drain on our resources, but I love the little bastard, I love him so much, and there's no way I'm sending him to live with anyone else. He is so stupid, which means he does everything with singular delight, and it's hilarious to watch. And he is learning to cuddle. When he does, it is epic, he is a wonderful cuddler if he is in the mood for it. When he's not, it's like trying to hold on to an angry squid. That farts. It's hard to love him, he's kind of a butthole, but once you do, you can't really stop.

The money you all donated for his vet care has made all the difference. What we haven't used will unfortunately have to get put toward medical care for me, but that's worthy, I suppose. I am also an excellent cuddler, when I want to be.

Right now there are so many things to do and to deal with, and I feel like everything is running away from me like sand. Things aren't good. Not even close. Oh my god, no. Not even close. But there are things I still love, like bags of My Little Pony hair and new Sharpies, and my one-eyed cat looks at me with such awkward affection that he doesn't know how to express, and my husband is the best backup ever, and I have friends who are there if I need them, for real, and I have my imaginary people who are there when nobody else can be, and maybe that's enough to get me through.

Maybe that's enough.

Well, that and a buncha this:



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Thank you all so much for your kind words and support and general awesomeness. I will try to reply as/when I am able. I still don't expect to be around a whole lot, but who knows? I may not have the energy/giveafuck to do anything but goof off on the computer.


For reference (the good):

I have a lawyer I can call who specializes in these sorts of cases, and I may involve him straightaway, I don't know.

Y'all are marvelous.


The not-so-good:

I know it's not likely to work the first time through.

I know it's not easy, and that it takes a long time, and it's frustrating.

Aaand I kind of need to not hear that right now. I already know it, which is part of why I haven't tried before now. Dwelling on that, or even thinking about it, is only going to make me do something short-term sensible, like quit before it drives me insane.


Department of IDEFK:

I had an awesome dream that when the settlers came to America, the native tribes drove them off WITH DRAGONS. So that was cool.

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A good friend of nigh on 20 years passed away last night, K.D. Wentworth. She was a really great lady, a fine lady, with a dry wit and a cool facade, who was always willing to help when and where she could. She made us welcome in her home many times, and those are some of the best memories I have. I love her, and I will miss her, and this utterly, utterly sucks. Please keep her husband and her friends in your thoughts today. It's a big loss.

So if I am gone, it's because I'm fucking off and trying not to let it all eat me. On top of some other necessary and so very good in the long term but really unpleasant personally stuff I had to process today, I am a mess, and I don't think you should expect to hear from me again before next week.

I have something so kickass to show you all for Thing I Made Thursday (which I really love, for all that I keep missing our dates) but I lack the fortitude and will shortly, if all goes well, lack the necessary manual dexterity and critical faculties to do so for the next eight to twelve hours. So whenever I get that done, I will post it, and declare that day to be Thursday. Because . . . because that's what I am gonna do.

Man, seriously, fuck cancer. Just fuck it right to hell.

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We've started the process of getting me on disability, since it's apparent that I will never be able to function the way society wants me to function. I am not functional enough to make it to a regular job every day. I never have been, I guess that I just thought, on some level, I would snap out of it or grow up or get better, or that my situation would improve to the point that I wouldn't have to worry about it. Foolish, considering I have had a "real" job for precisely two days in my entire life, and that was years and years ago. I am not even capable of doing my not-regular job every day; I go for weeks without being able to write, and the art has just been a bust all around since stopped taking commissions, and that is what everyone wants.

I don't want this. I need it desperately, but I don't want it. I want things to be different. I'm ashamed, and I'm embarrassed. I know I should not be, but I am, and it will take some time for me to get over that, the way it took time for me to get over needing meds. Only I am pretty sure this will take longer.

Just . . . cross your fingers, okay? I am such a fucking mess, I am so goddamn broken, that I can't even make the phone calls myself. I physically cannot make myself do it. I've tried, by myself, with nobody looking. Relying on others to help me with it only makes me feel awful and more frightened.

I love you all, I miss you, and I just want things to be even as good as they used to be, when I blogged more and commented more and responded to comments more and wasn't so fucking lonely and so fucking bored and with so few fucks to give about anything. Stick with me, okay? Things will get better.

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