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December 2024

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Wheeee, I got my first vaccine dose!

I did have some side effects (sore arm, aches, and chills), which I mostly slept through last night. I actually feel pretty good now, but not 100%. I'm planning to go cross country skiing later today, so hopefully that'll fend off the rest of the ick I'm feeling. Well worth ~ 12 hours of relatively mild discomfort to start feeling a little safer. 😊

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: my home office

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draconic diary

I'm alive! I've been extremely busy studying for my comprehensive exams, which, if I pass, I'll move from PhD student to PhD candidate. I'm not terribly worried I'm not going to pass, but I AM worried about how much I'll be humiliated in the process if I don't study, so I've been burning through as much ecological literature as I can to understand my study species and statistical modeling. I expect to take my exams in April, so I likely won't have much time in the near future to update the website or just be around in general.

On a more exciting note, the panel I submitted for Othercon 2021 has been accepted! I plan to do a presentation on cooking for your non-human identity, and safe methods to do so. Still considering details (it's in August, so I have plenty of time), but at this point, I plan to run over basic food safety, suggest some safe alternatives for commonly requested foods, and then show step-by-step videos of how to make a few dishes. I plan to record this ahead of time (it's hard to cook multiple dishes properly and do them justice in under an hour for a live audience!) and then spend some time near the end doing some live Q&A.

Last but not least, I've decided at some point I'm going to start going through the Alt.Fan.Dragons Google group and recording the history there. The messages start in December 1993, so I've certainly got my work cut out for me, but as the longest-running draconic message board, it's incredibly pertinent to draconic history and one of the reasons dragonkind have a bit of their own culture compared to other mythkin.

I guess, while I'm on the topic, a few years back I discovered there was another dragon on AFD named Kiera, who sounded extremely similar to me from a morphological standpoint...smallish, black, western, etc. Wild! I wonder what happened to them. I guess I have a doppelganger somewhere out there.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: home...where else would I be?
Current Music: white noise

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I've been waffling about this for weeks now, but I think I'm solidly ready to confirm a new heart-type! I'm fictionhearted with andalites (kickass blue alien centaurs) from the Animorphs book series. It struck me one night randomly that andalites hold a special significance in my life somehow, and I actually thought I might have an andalite fictotype for a second, but that doesn't feel remotely right. They're a super cool species, but I ain't one. I did pretend I was one a lot running around on the playground as a kid though. Good times.

Definitely didn't think I'd be as excited about this as I am, but it's cool! It makes sense! And yay, I have an excuse to think about andalites more often! :D

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Location: still in my home office...
Current Music: Kamelot

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I made some claw gloves this weekend so I can have claws when I feel like it without having to glue nails to my fingers or fiddle with claw rings and stuff!

Pros: close to the right colors, I don’t have to glue nails to my fingers for claw feels, clacky sounds when I touch things, easy on/easy off, kitties love claw glove scratches, comfy!

Cons: I used water soluble glue meaning these can’t get wet, the nails I used are definitely not the right shape, no scale or hide texture, just weird fabric texture (physically and visually), cat hair magnets.

These are actually sun gloves I usually wear outdoors when the UV index is really bad (if the universe got one thing right when putting me in a human body instead of a dragon one, it’s that I was made to live in the dark...I honestly can’t handle sun exposure much at all cause I’m too darn pasty).

I purposely glued the nails on with water soluble glue, so that when I actually want to use these again next summer or swap the nails out for ones that look/feel better, I can just soak them in the sink for a bit. Not perfect, but a start!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: My home office...still
Current Music: NIghtwish

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Winter's coming! Over the past few days it's gotten really cold, and we're supposed to get snow this weekend. Seems like out here the seasons hit like a sledgehammer. Other than digging out my blankets and nesting, I've just been trying to keep my head above water with grad school stuff. I'm taking a spatial analysis class, and it's a lot more work than I anticipated. Plus the software keeps crashing on my computer, so that's fun.

Anyway, I've been baking and doing socially distanced backyard hangouts with my friends to keep myself sane, and we've all pledged to break out our winter gear so we can hang out together outside in the snow when things get really cold. Man, I'm glad I have outdoorsy friends...otherwise I'd be sitting alone in my apartment all winter because I sure as hell ain't hanging out with people indoors until we get COVID under control. *sigh*

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: GW2 soundtracks

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draconic diary

Bleh, I’ve been so bad about keeping up with posting rocks...I’ve been so friggin’ busy with the semester. Anyway, here are some more tumbled rocks!

Lots of agates this time! The really orange one is from Lake Superior...honestly not sure how I managed to get my hands on such a nice agate by digging around in a lake. No idea what the green ones are still, but the larger chunks are quartzite, and the one that broke into three pieces in the bottom progression lineup is banded slag glass.

In other news, the semester and the state of the United States is slowly wearing me down, so I'll be very happy for a break this winter. I'm doing alright, but man I need a vacation and a good solid sleep.

Current Mood: exhausted

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draconic diary

Othercon (and oddly the giant bird conference I was at too) inspired me to be a little more forthcoming about my draconity, so I made a faerie star bracelet! It's a tad delicate for my jewelry tastes, but I was too cheap to go out and buy thicker chain. I actually really like how it came out though, and considering the charm is literally just a smashed dime with holes poked into it, it was really cheap to make. Took a bit of effort to figure out how to hammer the star design into it though, and I'm sure my neighbors didn't appreciate me experimenting!

It also doesn't have a clasp so I can't chicken out and take it off 🤣

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: still stuck in my office

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I finished polishing these like a week ago, but forgot about posting them until now...they turned out great! Some of them have a literal mirror shine on them. No idea what they are, but they’re pretty anyway! Here are the finished products, and there are progression photos below.

Honestly I’m pretty excited about these, since I collected all of these myself this time (nothing bought), and some of them came out so great! Here are the progression photos (over ~4 weeks):

My next batch is for my mom, so I’m not photographing the progression on those, since there are a zillion of tiny rocks, and I don’t wanna deal with that. Might post finished pictures of them though, if they don’t reek as badly of sulfur. x_x

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Sarah McLachlan

Tags:

draconic diary

Found a couple sketches I'd forgotten about in my art folder! These are based off of the above doodles I did when I was maybe six or so. Clearly six-year-old me had some creative dragon species names...

I actually found the plain lineart of the new versions a couple days ago and started coloring them in, but then GIMP crashed and I lost everything because I was dumb and didn't save...then realized I had nearly finished copies in another folder. Whoops. On the bright side, these versions are way better, and funnily enough, I actually ended up choosing the same colors for both pieces on both attempts, despite having forgotten about them for a good four years.

Current Mood: allergic
Current Music: Kamelot

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my art

My semi-kinself-based custom face mask came in the mail! Took some artistic liberties with it, so it doesn’t make me feel particularly shifty or anything, but it’s quite comfy and is fun to wear.

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Location: the sidewalk of my very Mormon neighborhood
Current Music: GW2 soundtracks

Tags:

draconic diary

Made some minor FAQ updates over on the website, including refocusing a couple sections on alterhumanity as a whole instead of just on otherkin, or at least broadening otherkin-centric answers to otherkin/therian + fictionkin. Also removed some unintentional ableism in a couple of points and clarified some stuff. Some of the FAQ was written back in 2015 for my Tumblr account, and some of it has aged well! Other parts, not so much. It'll always be a work in progress, and if you ever see something I should correct or clarify, just shoot me a message or whatever.

Also, why is 'caffeinated' not a mood on Dreamwidth... ☕️

Current Mood: energetic

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website

Alright, a new batch of rocks is grinding away! These are almost all from Wyoming, from nearby that friggin’ cool volcanic protrusion pictured above, so I have the feeling some of these rocks are fairly interesting geology-wise. Some of the green ones may be nephrite jade, but I’m not entirely sure yet.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: not in the desert
Current Music: sound of rocks tumbling

Tags:

draconic diary

Heck yeah, I’ve fixed my polishing issues and now I have so many shiny rocks! I even went back and re-polished a few from the first batch. If you're so inclined, you can so see the photos of the raw rocks I tumbled a second time [here]. Here are the finished products, and there are progression photos below.

These are the progression photos (over ~5 weeks), and rocks tagged with blue are ones I collected myself, and ones tagged with red are ones I bought:

Check out that giant bar of amethyst!!! I want to keep all of these, but if I don’t start getting rid of them soon, I’m going to be drowning in rocks, even more so than I already am. Might set up an Etsy and sell them for cheap or something.

Some of these I took out at different stages and didn’t put back in because they were too soft, which is why a few stay the same throughout most of the progression.

Also, behold, the fugliest tumbled rock I’ve ever seen:

It was dyed completely pink originally (it was actually pinker than in the first progression photo because I started tumbling it before taking a picture), but whatever dye they used seeped into parts of it, so it’s half nice polished tan and half rough, kind of chalky brown-pink. Ah well.

Next batch in soon!

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Location: still stuck at home
Current Music: Nightwish

Tags:

draconic diary

Since I've been at home and not commuting and stuff, I've had a little more time to work on my website! I haven't posted much beyond adding a few more definitions and a couple new resources, but it's something! I really need to redo my "why p-shifts aren't real" section thing because it's sort of stream of consciousness in some parts, but it still gets the point across as is I think.

Anyway, go check it out if you want: https://www.beyondhumanity.net/

Also, My next batch of tumbled rocks should hopefully be done next week sometime! I have higher hopes for them than the last batch, since I might actually know what I'm doing now. I ended up re-tumbling a few from my first batch along with the rocks from this second batch, so hopefully they'll all shine up really nicely and I can start giving them away or making stuff with them.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Monterey Bay birdwatching livestream with #BlackWomenWhoBird

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Originally posted: May 18, 2020

A few thoughts about things I’ve noticed after spending over two months almost entirely without direct human contact...

I feel like living alone and knowing that I’m not expected to hang out with anyone/not going to have people over for many more weeks because of the pandemic has somehow allowed me to let my guard down a little when it comes to my draconity.

I feel comfortable. My ph-shifts don’t feel so much like dysphoria but more just shifts that I can just kind of let be as I go about my day.

I also feel more free to express myself without that little voice in the back of my mind telling me I look stupid or whatever...I can quad-walk around the house without feeling weird about it, I can perch on my desk chair without worrying someone is going to walk in and see me doing it, and I can chirp and trill and whatever without people hearing me. I’m getting used to just sort of being me after training myself so well to repress my identity on a daily basis, and I don’t have excuses anymore for not moving and thinking and acting according to what feels natural, beyond sheer laziness (doing things your body’s not meant to do is hard!).

As I’ve detailed before, I’m inherently super closeted about my identity, even though I fully support others being 100% out about theirs (that’s kind of how I am about everything and I realize it’s probably not terribly healthy), and even if this isn’t really a permanent step in the direction of being more open and I just revert back to my old ways after we’re able to end social distancing, at least I’ve gotten a taste of freedom, and can push myself toward that as I grow and explore my identity as time goes on.

Current Mood: restless
Current Location: my brain

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My first batch of tumbled rocks is finally finished! Here are a bunch of pictures of the rocks and some thoughts about my experience the first time around:

So, tumbling rocks is a lot less foolproof than it seems! A good number of rocks didn’t shine up as I’d hoped (too soft, too small, weird shapes, etc.), and it turns out some rocks can bruise (???) if you don’t cushion them enough, but the learning curve isn’t that steep, and some of these came out glorious regardless.

Here’s the finished product:

I also had the presence of mind to take initial photos of them before I put them in, so I have some nice progression pictures of the rocks. Here are the progression photos (over ~6 weeks), and rocks tagged with blue are ones I collected myself, and ones tagged with red are ones I bought:

There are rocks in here I collected from Utah, Wisconsin, Alaska, Michigan, Kenya, and Japan, so quite an international batch! Anyway, some more about specific rocks that I’m super proud of:

Here’s the one that started it all (below)...for whatever reason I had a feeling it would make a really good polishing stone, and I’ve been meaning to polish it for probably at least six or seven years. No idea where I found it or what it is. Whatever it is, it’s super hard and relatively translucent, but when you shine light through it, it’s orange inside and blue/purple on the edges.

Pretty sure this one below is a chunk of magnetite...it’s super heavy and magnets stick to it. It’s also got really cool shiny inclusions (specularite?). I collected it from a mine in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

Sorry for all the gifs but it’s super hard to show what these actually look like with static pictures. Check out the mirror shine on these agates I got from Lake Superior!

I collected this one from Lake Superior too, and it probably was one of the best glow-ups of all of the rocks...it’s incredibly colorful and has these weird starbursts of yellow and red.

These four are all ones I collected too...I think the upper right is some weird swirly rock from coastal Alaska and the pink granite is from Lake Superior. I have no idea where I found the bottom left, but it’s cold and shiny and has little purple and blue divots in it, along with what looks like pyrite (fool’s gold). The upper left is one I got from a little creek near my grandparents’ house in Michigan that I kind of thought might be a garnet, and I was right!!!

The garnet kind of shattered while it tumbled, but now I have all these little garnet bits:

I could go on forever, but here are the last couple I got good pictures of:

Something that looks like granite from Alaska that’s super orange/pink with these cool green inclusions, and a rock that wore down a ton (it’s in the first progression picture) that I found while doing a pay-to-dig excursion at a copper mine in Michigan.

I have another batch tumbling right now (I'll post a picture of the raw batch a bit later), so hopefully in four or five weeks, I’ll have some more to show y’all! I collected some of the rocks locally, so hopefully they’ll turn out nice. Now, what to do with all of these polished rocks...

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: my home office
Current Music: HEALTH

Tags:

draconic diary

Just as the title says...camping last night was lovely, even if there were some loud people camping up the canyon a ways. I basically just sat around and played with the fire and perched up on the rocks all evening, and then went to bed. Being up so high made me really shifty, and I climbed up some of the rocky outcroppings while it was still light out. It was super nice to just be out and not worried about people or bothering anyone.

Behold, pictures!

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Kamelot

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draconic diary

The rock tumbler is still humming (clunking?) along nicely, and by next Monday I should have my first batch of rocks done! I've been taking progress pictures every time I take them out to switch the tumbling grit, but I'm way too lazy at this point to organize and post the pictures. I plan on posting side by side progress pictures once I finish tumbling them. I've gotten really used to the sound of the rock tumbler going, and it's quite nice, especially considering the house is silent otherwise. I guess I have to start another batch as soon as this one finishes!

Otherwise things are fine here...we're getting more and more cases of COVID-19 in the county, and I've been staying away from human contact as much as physically possible. I'm going solo camping tonight though, so that'll be a nice outdoor excursion to keep me sane. I've been to this campsite once before last month, and it's really remote and away from humans...it's technically not a campsite, but a wilderness area with camping allowed anywhere as long as you follow certain rules, so literally no one should bother me. It was a bit chilly last time, but now it's solidly spring here, so hopefully I'm comfy!

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: BONES UK

Tags:

draconic diary

Some updates on the tumbler...

First of all, it ended up being louder than I initially realized, so I made a snazzy box for it to hang out in that actually muffles the noise quite well. It's become white noise to me, and I can hear it from my room when I sleep, which is quite soothing. It's like a low constant rumble now, and I forget it's there most of the time.

I checked on the rocks yesterday and realized some of them were wearing down faster than expected (softer material), so I dug through the tumbling sludge and took four of them out.

I'll put these back in the tumbler on Monday when I swap out the tumbling grit I'm currently using for a finer grade. Even though they're still pretty rough, they look way better already!

Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: the sound of rocks tumbling

Tags:

draconic diary

My rock tumbler came in the mail today! I’ve been wanting one for ages, considering I have so many raw rocks lying around that I think would polish up nicely, but getting a high quality one isn’t easy on the wallet.

Here’s what went in today (decided against the x’ed out one because it was too big). I’ll check on them in a few days, but from start to finish with all four grades of polish, this batch could take up to a month 😭

Anyway, I can’t wait to see how these turn out, and I’m a very happy derg right now!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: the sound of rocks tumbling

Tags:

draconic diary

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December 2024

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Vaccine #1!

Quick update

New heart-type, baby!

Claw gloves!

General Life Updates

Tumbled Rocks: Batch #4

New bracelet + Othercon

Tumbled Rocks: Batch #3

Dragon doodles, old and new

Custom mask came in the mail!

Website updates, kinda

Batch #3 In!

Tumbled Rocks: Batch #2

Yoooo, added some more definitions to my website dictionary

Pandemic Thoughts

Tumbled Rocks: Batch #1

Camping is definitely keeping me sane

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The rock tumbler has arrived!

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