Spirit of the Wind

Two side stories I wrote for a recent plot I'm doing for the Realm of Kaerwyn, set in my weird fiction setting--the one with the acitan (the cheetahs with hands). I'm pretty sure no one reading this will understand the background, but eh, felt like posting them anyway. It's my journal.

( Warning! Stories with minimal context contained within! )

The trees are nearly bare; brown and yellow leaves litter the ground. Flowers are but a distant memory, and the wildlife of summer is long gone. Temperatures aren't regularly dropping below freezing, but we're starting to get there. Few more weeks, and things will be quite cold indeed. Possibly downright frigid, if the polar vortex destabilizes this year again.

The birdfeeder outside my window is mostly being visited by sparrows and woodpeckers, but I've seen juncos, too. There have been a few jays outside town I've seen.

I tried to watch the lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, it was much too late for me; I had work. I stayed up until midnight but I couldn't even see the edge of the Earth's shadow moving across the Moon.

Watched Arcane (the Netflix series). It's actually one of the only recent TV series that I've been able to stand. The depiction of Jinx's mental illness is top-notch, it avoids being pointless fanservice, and despite being based on a combat game, it doesn't glorify violence.

RPG stuff goes well. I have been running a Mesoamerican god game for the past few months, and the players are liking it. Updates are sometimes delayed due to work stuff, but I've been getting them done.

I am finally running the big war plot on Kaerwyn that I've wanted to run for a couple years, which is very good. The PCs are trying to head off a war between Kemet and the cheetahs with hands.

So, college has started. I’m taking multiple architecture courses, a biology course, and a course on speech communication. So far, the biology couse seems to be the most interesting, even if I will have to negotiate my way out of dissections. Because, if there is one thing I can’t really do, it is dissections of animals. Plants are quite fun to dissect, especially if you can laugh maniacally while doing so.

Went to Philadelphia, and met up with Mobius and Lindiel, who are awesome, at the Philadephia Zoo. Got up to various wacky adventures, ranging from establishing that ducks experience rebellious teenage years to hating Victorian architecture. Also, we are all united in a hatred of small loud children. Also in Philadelphia, discovered the wonders of pub fries with spicy ketchup, high quality gelato, and pistachio cream sauces. *licks lips* And I have found blueberry vanilla goat cheese.

Back home, my mother developed a strange obsession with canning things, which is why there are currently a whole bunch of pickling green beans. I personally doubt it will end well. I also found a whole bunch of vegetarian recipes, which I would dearly love to try cooking.

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Found Souls, joined, and have found it to be a great deal of fun. It’s a post-apocalyptic setting where you play a werewolf (canine changed by a virus, not a human altered—humans don’t figure in the roleplay because they’ve been almost entirely wiped out) called a Lupercai. I’m not a huge fan of the limited lifespan—Lupercai can live maybe 18 or so years at most—but you can hang around as a ghost indefinitely, so there’s that. Aside from the ability to transform, the presence of ghosts is the only magic allowed in the setting.

Haven’t gotten any writing done in a while, so roleplaying in Souls could help stimulate that. I want to get work on Spiritwalkers done, as well as expand the game world for the Pathfinder campaign. Currently on the Australia sourcebook, which has:

* a civilization that spans the entire Indo-Pacific region and rides giant turtles large enough to support entire ecosystems
* the point where life began
* cults, cults, and more cults
* references to the Inferno

I hope to also provide:

* details of Sunhill, both its people and structure
* specifics on the Apocalypse Wars
* the full text of the pact between the greatest powers of the universe that prevents them from acting directly
* a discussion on how the Australian spirit world works (I’ll have to study legends of the Dreamtime to figure this out, though it’ll be in broad strokes—but I’ve been calling Australia the Dreamlands, and Aboriginal legends are too interesting not to include in some capacity)
* hints to the Africa sourcebook, as well as the Antarctic one
* details on how raccoons got to Australia

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Unfortunately I haven’t been paying much attention to the news, though I have heard what happened in Ferguson, and am naturally quite disgusted. Also rather unsurprised that there are the usual apologists saying, "Oh, we don’t know what happened" (okay, I suppose that if there’s no video of the incident that may be technically true) and "He lunged at the officer and the officer shot him in self defense." Of course, police in this country are pretty much immune from real consequences of their actions.

This is why every single officer should have a body camera attached when they are working. They’d be a lot less likely to do such things if they knew they had a camera attached to them, and we’d be able to point to close up video evidence in every single case.

Which is probably why in the places that did this, incident rates dropped like a fucking stone.

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Joined Atlas Obscura, which is full of interesting things, ranging from a bioluminescent bay, to a bioluminescent cave, to a field of lightning rods, to an abandoned missile base, to a place where they keep a bunch of snakes in big outdoor enclosures and use them to produce antivenom. I highly recommend it, and there are even a few locations in Kirksville. Lame locations, but still locations.

Back at college, and, rather ironically, that is actually less of a workload for me. Due to various factors beyond my complete control,I was unable to complete the architectural log that was due in ARC 121, so the teacher talked me into accepting an extension. I was reluctant at first because it went against my personal sense of honor, but when it's such a significant grade... well, it's easy to cave. When I have the architecture log back, I'll upload the drawings, and when it's done being graded I'll upload what essays I've written. Mostly they consist of my architectural musings on green walls, Vincent Callebaut, and how I disapprove of UAE dick-waving contests that lead to opulent, giant, sprawling cities being built in the middle of the desert to assuage the ego of a powerful ruler.

Aside from that, though, I did very well with my final grades--I got one B and the rest were A's. Naturally, my parents were rather pleased with this development. I predict I won't do as well this semester, though, because I ended up with a 400 level class... and I'm a freshman in my second semester. I mean, I'm moderately confident that I can pass, but still...

Since I had to change which architecture section I was in, I ended up having to drop out of one class, and picked another. The other class I picked was Lesbian and Gay History 4-something-or-other, which, to my surprise, means that (barring failure), I will get a minor in history this semester. Which I'm pretty sure qualifies me more than some middle school teachers I've had. Oddly, Lesbian and Gay History is GLBT+ History. Is there some rule preventing them from using acronyms? If there is, is there also a maximum character length?

Speaking of which, an academic journal on trans* studies (at least, that's what it appears to be from what I've seen) has sent out a call for academic papers. I'd like to try my paw at submitting a paper, but I really don't have the expertise, qualifications, or knowledge of the jargon--so I'd end up looking like an idiot. Beyond that, I'm not completely clear on where they're going with their idea. There's very little data, so I would be limited to finding essays that explored the concept, of which there are not many.

But hey, if someone else was planning (or is planning after reading the call) to submit a paper, I look forward to seeing it.

The Pathfinder campaign I'm running is going rather well; I've started detailing some ideas for a more exhaustive setting--with major countries, political structures, et cetera--but it helps that I've already got some information--for instance, information on a bunch of Elemental Planes--already written. And I'll probably custom-build some monsters and races. *rubs hands together* I have some very... devious... ideas.

Should be able to get many of my projects--like the Werelist Poll of 2013, a few sections of the Pokemon fanfiction, et cetera--done soon, since my workload is fairly light, at least for now. And you guys should see more of me around; I haven't commented on various people's journals (or on the Werelist) as much as I'd have liked to.

I'm also going to try to be more social IRL, which I hope ends well.

Oh, and I was beating the highest ELO debater on Debate.Org in a tournament debate, but then mysteriously five heavily conservative judges show up within five hours of each other, one of which acknowledged being contacted by my opponent and abstained because the first paragraph of my opponent's argument made him facepalm. So now I'm losing by nine points.