Mapping party

Saturday, 3 January 2009, 23:38

(Well, sort of like a mapping party, if you don't have friends or GPS or an interest in the outside world.)

Tonight I added a map of Shade to Twine.

It's rubbish in particular because (other than the facts that I don't have Illustrator and that I spent much less than 12 hours on it):

  • Probably too little land area, i.e. bits need enlarging all over (haven't I received a few emails from various senders about that topic recently?)
  • Soprone's mainland mass is not how I envisaged it, but I can't make up my mind what "how I envisaged it" IS. I think it should be touching the nearby continent, or almost
  • Obviously, all land masses need edges detailing
  • I think the land bridge between the north pole and Lotsi's homeland needs to be a lot thinner, otherwise there'd be some very grumpy dinosaurs coming down complaining about the noise

The island chain north of the blue continent is meant to be unshaded, though, because the blue folks are very definitely not seafarers and nobody else has snaffled it up yet. (Maybe there should be a large island, close to the blue mainland, that was settled by chance. That's one for the next update, though.)

Filed as: Profusion, worldbuilding | 0 pawprints »

BEST-YEAR? Or... prelude to EVEN BETTER YEAR? Buy next issue to find out!

Thursday, 1 January 2009, 0:51

Well, a little year-end status report seems appropriate.

Way back in December 2007/January 2008 I thought I'd have a stab at writing a poem a week throughout the year. I made it to half the total, 26. You can read them here. That total includes some I'm genuinely proud of, such as the sonnets (Railing is my favourite; here are some kitties too) and Wefty's little apology/self-hatred/guilt trip/mourning poem (I don't care that it met with general apathy and criticism; I'm proud of it), as well as some lighter ones I wrote to amuse colleagues and others.

Plenty about dogs, too. A late favourite of mine is Country Road Meeting... not exactly light, but definitely enjoyable to write, and hell, I find it funny.

What did surprise me, and is one reason I'm laid-back about the poetry target, is that I suddenly started artsing again. I honestly never expected to use my Wacom tablet for anything serious again, after going through a particularly horrible time of hating my 'art'—and this was serious; I can't tell you how severely without scaring you—and generally thinking I'd never make another visual thing. I can't explain why I was able to pick up the stylus again, or why I did so, but it's been fun. The first thing I painted was a giant crow made of insects, which won me pictures of Weft as a furry in return. (It's impossible to explain to those not in the know how incredibly funny this is.) I laid into some huge projects, too, including a parrot, an elf (half) and a grandmother.

Other artwork included owl, dog with furry (I like this one a lot, probably because of the boar piglet), red panda (I should definitely do more of those), dog jumping, dog-in-costume, Egyptian wolf, sketch wolf, inky-style sceptical demon and human (warning: human).

Here also are some (sort of) kitties for you cat-loving epic(fail)ures.

A lot later in 2008, we set a deadline for "the end of the year" to start our epic Profusion project, formerly the 'Great War', which we've now retitled to 'The Twine Wars' to make it a little more distinctive. And all right, I left it until the last minute, and yes, technically it was 2009 in NZ already, but nevertheless, for readers in any time zone west of Finland's, the very first Twine Wars posting did indeed go up before the end of the year.

Which is nice, very nice. My major characters aren't yet in play this early in the storyline, but I can already tell I'm going to have fun with Paraskive Taxidies ("parra-skeevuh tax-ee-dee-ess"), my viewpoint character for this region, who is also one of my comparatively rare female characters.

If Weft would stop cuddling Sweetoff and get in character, I have prequel short stories to write for both of them, long before they met. I might even have yet another stab at drawing one or the other of them, too.

I'm also fatass again after going nuts over the holidays (sigh), but that is soooo temporary. Diet starts tomorrow. Well, technically today by now, but I'm finishing this can of lychees before bed, because DUDE LYCHEES. OM NOM NOM.

Filed as: Profusion, artwork, creative, food, health, personal, poetry, writing | 0 pawprints »

General update

Monday, 1 December 2008, 14:21

Cold today, indoors and out (less so indoors now I've complained to the appropriate person and she's apparently fixed the overzealous air con). The Metrolink was buggered earlier today; the machine they use to clear ice off the tracks was broken, according to t'radio.

I haven't been in a very good place mentally since Slen moved out. Things have been tense at best: not an improvement, and I'd say overall worse. Frankly, I've felt bullied on a number of occasions - nothing a normal person would consider omg awful, just being forced into stress situations (eg loud noise) and suppressive atmospheres (eg "shut up or you'll get extra chores"), and generally belittled (eg "oh, complaining again are you").

Perhaps I miss him, too. I won't know that until next time I manage to interpret a hint of emotion in my thoughts. It's a bit awkward being autistic. Rather than one day feeling "man, I miss so-and-so", you have to wonder "do I miss so-and-so?" and wait until you find yourself thinking of them, perhaps try to estimate the ratio of positive and negative thoughts you have towards them, and then work out what that means. (For example, when I miss someone I don't idealise them; I remember irritating things about them and fantasise about telling them exactly what I think of them. I also remember irritating things about people I am glad I don't see any more, and fantasise about telling them exactly what I think of them. You see the problem...)

I hadn't got to see very much of him recently anyway. It's still a bit of new girlfriend syndrome, and she seems every bit as obsessive and disorganised as he is. (She is only relatively young, though.)

Paul's off in Ireland for most of this week, too.

Lost hardly any weight over the last week, which was expected because I've been trying eating green vegetables as well as the sachets and imagine I've put plenty of weight of chlorophyll and water into my formerly empty innards. However, if I don't lose much during this week I'll know something's going wrong. I have to admit that eating until I'm satiated is a relief. I'm eating once a day and as much as I feel like (because, come on, it's cabbage, sprouts, spinach and green beans, could we get any more lapine?). Plus hot food is definitely helpful, because I'm so cold all the time. I wish I could still wander outside barefoot in the snow, but that's evidently the price for losing so much of my body weight over the last couple of years.

I feel like nothing much is moving on other personal fronts. Everything's stalled. Oh, except that I awkwardly 'came out' as neuter-critter on a mailing list. One or two of the people on there met me IRL, so I thought it wise to take the opportunity when the subject (of gender options on forms) came up on-list. As usual, I think I made a pig's ear of it, but am most heartened that nobody much has reacted.

At least writing stuff feels like it's going better. Laffent Ferrl's brother introduced himself to me properly this morning and offered his services as an occasional viewpoint character (i.e. I like him and he'd be fun to follow), and I even remembered what I had been planning to call him. I don't always write this stuff down, because I come up with it at random moments, so I had known his first name at one point and then forgot it.

Laffent is a seven-foot, beautiful, blue, curvy, longbow-wielding, soldierly, proportionately muscular woman. (A very nice specimen of orchood, if you happen to like that sort of thing.) She got the looks and the brains in this family. Her brother's the charmer - and a bit of a redneck, if one can use that word about people whose skin colour is determined by their literal blue blood.

Filed as: Profusion, aspie, family, food, gendaargh, personal, work, writing | 0 pawprints »

Instarrian language musings

Friday, 28 November 2008, 14:53

Notes to self:

  • How about if all yowels (or all except one or two overlaps, probably including au) make alternating sounds depending on the word (i.e. consonants') gender?
  • I'd have to change some pronunciations, but at least not spellings again.
  • This is not a hard/soft vowel distinction, but some cultural crap, just like e/o.

Consonants phonetic and yowels not? Works for me. They don't write in Latin anyway - the yowels are written something more like J/T^J-T and WvSWvS\L. (For v read an upside-down caret.)

Filed as: Profusion, writing | 0 pawprints »

Sketchies: attempts at Weft #1

Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 23:56

These are NOT final, but are approaching how he should look.

Weft sketches #1 with shading, trying to show how steeply his face narrows, going from the back to the front. I'm finding it impossible to get the sharp corners, the width (at the back) AND the femininity into his chin/jaw all at once.

Ideally he should look older and more battered. His middle-agedness is mostly visible in the skin texture because his species doesn't wrinkle much, meaning it's hellish to portray. I can't go for jowls because he's kept thin and very fit. I suppose I'll probably cheat by adding small wrinkles as well as sink the eyes in and go for general hangdog (well, hangkitty) demeanour. I don't know. Ideas welcomed!

Note to self: their skulls are SO wide that the "neck as wide as head" thing really can't apply here. Make it narrower; about as wide as the skull'd be if it didn't expand after birth?

Filed as: Profusion, artwork | 0 pawprints »

#25, Riddle 4

Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 9:43

I like riddles. The final one written for that roleplay thread.

My first begins a Song,
my next's the end of time;
my third's in neck and scratch,
my fourth in sword and prime:
a comb upon its side;
a headless scarecrow-frame;
now put my parts together
and you shall learn my name.

(Be wary of the comments in case the answer's given there, of course.)

Filed as: Profusion, poetry | 0 pawprints »

Kittymonk eye sketches

Monday, 24 November 2008, 23:43

Sketching this evening.

Weft eye reference (current as of today's date)
800×600, 94KB

I'm the very last person who should be trying to draw inhuman faces, because I am congenitally, clinically, registered disabilityishly unaware of what a human face looks like. ;) Weft's features are meant to look both feminine and alien. Have I hit those? Feedback welcomed.

He has huge eyes and an extremely wide skull. He's both angular and feminine. It gives actual artists trouble, so no wonder I've never managed to set him down to my satisfaction. Getting closer, maybe...

(Thanks are due to Angelina Jolie's makeup artist and a bunch of cats on Flickr.)

Filed as: Profusion, artwork, aspie | 0 pawprints »

Profusion futures

Friday, 21 November 2008, 11:33

Drupal NW user group meeting last night was pretty good.

I wouldn't say I'm entirely sure how to go forward, but that'll come in time, and meanwhile someone did a good demonstration of using views in 6.x to do just about anything. I'm still at the "planning how to organise data" stage just now. To that end, I got an answer to my "how do I add y/n options to a node" question (surprisingly complicated). So, first I'm upgrading my test install to 6.6 and then I'm playing!

It'll be such a relief to drop Discus with their secretiveness and complete lack of release schedule. Drupal, apart from being FOSS and far better supported with a large contributor base, is much more geared to community sites anyway; with all the modules on offer we may be able to do just about everything we want within the CMS.

Could we start a pie-in-the-sky wishlist? Maybe I'll start a topic for it on the boards. Yep, done. Comments disabled, so please post on the boards.

(It amuses me that a search for Discus 5 turns up a thread on how to migrate Discus to Drupal. From the thread: Discus 5 is coming out in mid-Feb [2006] (I hope!:) ) Looks like I'll be strictly on my own migration-wise.)

Filed as: HHnet, Profusion, drupal, web | Comments Off

Pro portal page

Thursday, 13 November 2008, 13:08

After a little fiddling with NetVibes, I've made a Profusion portal page.

Not bad. I can see me using something like this for Profusion's eventual homepage once I've found some time to get Drupal up and running. And yes, I do still intend to do so at some point.

If I've missed feeds that would be relevant or useful, lemme know. This isn't to be a collection of general writing links or anything like that.

Filed as: Profusion, web | 0 pawprints »

#24, Riddle 3

Monday, 10 November 2008, 8:28

'Tivo may appreciate this...

This makes no sense out of context, but hey, puns. Again, a rhyming 'clue' written for a roleplay board: this one refers to some things that have been lurking in the background all the while.

Riddle 2008:3, 9 Nov

The beast is dead; long live the beast!
Your quest moves on a-canter
But hark, what things are stalling here
Attending to your banter?
We blow no horn; we sound no bell;
We're neatly groomed and stable,
All creme except one à Palouse -
Now find him, if you're able.

The servants in this scene are all wearing horse masks. One of them, as one of the characters noticed much earlier, has a black spot painted on him.

Hmmm. If I make it to half my 52-poem target for the year I'll be quite satisfied.

Filed as: Profusion, poetry | 0 pawprints »

Random monkie-musing

Thursday, 23 October 2008, 18:25

Wefty-post with some religious detail, beware spoilers for Roofrats.

Here I've played him straight for once, not aiming for sympathy, for laughs or to make him obviously wrong. I actually enjoy doing this, and should do so more often.

It is, of course, my own fault for making a character that's so easy to abuse thus. When you're portraying someone illogical to a readership that has a critical mind (and surprising attention to detail, some of them), it's easy to flag up the insanity of his worldview while hardly trying.

I'm also reasonably satisfied that I managed to portray the other character in this scene pretty much as I imagine him. Well, at least courteous and not bamboozled. I'll probably get better at him in future, of course, which is just as well. We haven't seen the last of him.

This wasn't intended to be a "pat my own back" post, more of an equitably self-critical one. Argh.

Filed as: Profusion, writing | 0 pawprints »

Pro up and running again

Saturday, 4 October 2008, 16:16

We're fixed and back up again.

That was hard, but a search of the Discusware support forums and a lot of stressing on my part paid off. And I didn't crack up and eat the peanut butter chocolate bar in front of me.

Heh.

Filed as: Profusion | 0 pawprints »

Boards down

Friday, 3 October 2008, 21:49

I know the boards are down. I'll have to fix it tomorrow; I can't do much from here (am at Paul's) and nor can UH Support.

In the meantime, please feel free to hold posting frenzies in the comments of this entry (here or LJ, whichever). Or use the moonburntlounge LJ community.

Twine should still work. It doesn't rely on MySQL.

Filed as: HHnet, Profusion | 4 pawprints »

Yay, a universe map! Or sort of...

Wednesday, 1 October 2008, 20:08

An overview of those bits of my universe that are connected to the Worlds War storyline at Profusion.

Written for Charlycrash's sake and because I needed a decent summary anyway.

Obviously ignore the old notes below the double line. They're to be rejigged.

We're starting the War arc project! I've no idea if some of the other writers are still around (for example, Suitov's sometime-girlfriend is pretty scarce, so I've been tentative about planning anything with her). But Anke has convinced me of the completely obvious fact that far from being a reason to dither, this proves why we should press ahead and start having noisy fun.

Filed as: Profusion, writing | 0 pawprints »

Lots of pictures of Weft as a furry

Thursday, 28 August 2008, 21:14

I just realised I never posted these after all. You should've reminded me, guys!

For those who haven't been watching long, I received these pictures after winning the art exchange on the "Jack" webcomic's fan forum with my picture of SwarmCrow. I worked hard on the picture and was delighted to win. Since all the members are furry artists, for my turn I asked for Weft drawn as a Tonkinese.

Here are all BUT ONE of the images I received of Weft-as-Tonkinese-furry.

(The BUT ONE is a Third Picture™ by Salkafar, and thus NSFW. Salkafar is the resident furvert on the art exchange and likes to draw all the entrants in bondage gear.)

Special mention to Skurvy. Damn, dude. My soulful little self-loathing killer never looked so huggable.

Filed as: Profusion, artwork | 0 pawprints »

Writingstuff: draft of section of Wefty monastic rule

Thursday, 28 August 2008, 18:00

In working out what mental gymnastics Weft needs to go through in order to reply to a question, I got down to first principles. Here's the first draft of my workings. St Benedict, that old advocate of whipping young boys, was a little helpful in this case, though my general reading and absorption over the last few years working in religion was probably moreso. The Mercies have a lot of (the sensible bits of!) Islamic attitude in the mix, and even some ideas from religions of more recent mainstream recognition.

read more...

Filed as: Profusion, religion, writing | 0 pawprints »

Quick-ish straw poll

Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 2:00

If anyone has a couple of free minutes, please could you have a look at the short story-thingie I just put up? And then come back here and answer a question about it?

(It has a couple of naughty words; sorry about that.)

Here's the story. I'll wait here. The question's slightly spoilerish in itself, you see...

Ah, some of you are back. Thanks. So: could you tell what the protagonist was, by the end? Too obvious/not obvious enough?

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