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silveradeptOr, Silver manages to stumble across a cosmic joke arranged in his honor. The premise is actually the user icon I'm using for this post, sort of. (If you read my journal directly, you'll have to use a friends' list to get the full effect) Actually, I suppose it's the punchline, but it's also a premise, in some way. So let me start from the beginning. Today, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lordmork posted a link in his journal to I Drew This, which has some really good political cartoons (some of which I recognize from earlier postings). It was actually the writing part, where the artist claims that the future inexorably moves in a liberal direction, even with attempts to freeze or retard this movement. It's the joke about Democrats (having no heart) and Republicans (having no brains). Those who manage to stay liberal through their lives are very impressive, indeed. Anyway, it turns out that the cartoonist of I Drew This is also the cartoonist of Ozy and Millie, a comic that has quickly worked it's way into my rotation (after an archive blitz that took much of today), and not just because of Llewellyn, the dragon. He very well could be the spitting image of what I'd like to become. And his dragon-ness only makes it better. I hope 
he doesn't mind if I borrow a few shots of Llewellyn for userpics.
Which actually brings me to the point, and the punchline, as it were. You see, not too long ago,greyweirdo or goji (I don't remember which) posted links to ghostway's Dragon Illuminati wallpapers. Initially, with no knowledge, I thought they were pretty cool, assumed it to be some sort of in-joke, and set about modifying it in the fashion you see, in a quasi-humorous way of producing a "rival faction" to the idea, since the poster used it in conjunction with a post about his world domination organization recruitment. I think it's greyweirdo, but I'm not 100% sure. Well, the joke was that I looked around the Ozy and Millie store, and what should I see, but the Dragon Illuminati logo? This was the biggest laugh of the whole archive trawl (and believe me, I laughed a lot in that trawl. Enough, perhaps, that I want the books just so that I can have it on paper).
So now, as I reflect on it, it's a perfect thing to do, considering what we know about Llewellyn's family - perhaps it's part of my conspiracy training, or something. If nothing else, Isolde, I have an internship for you...
Thus, having screwed up badly, laughed and studied today, things were somewhat more productive than yesterday. There's still time to do a few things myself. Like a comic, which I neglected to do for Wednesday. I'll never be a regular comic artist without either a long lead or a lot more free time than I have.
Plus, it would help to devote time to drawing, I'm sure. Considering I can barely manage stick figures, I'll probably need a lot of time. Maybe I should do better as someone's scriptwriter or something and forego the actual drawing and posting part. Although I've been told I actually have readers (scary as that is, considering my drawing lack)...
Comic's done now. Both the one I missed and the one for tomorrow. Plus the two user icons. Whee, productivity. Perhaps it will help get rid of the lingering effects of this Godsdamned cold I've been carrying around for so long.
And yes, it's true, no matter how much to the contrary it appears at times: I did not start a Live Journal for the sole purpose of being an attentionwhore and having everyone pity you because of your sob stories. (It's another of those "put this in your LJ" things, and the first one funny enough to be worth it.) I'll let someone else do the garnering of attention (and incoming fire, if he should happen to earn it): greywerido has an open letter to America. As, apparently, do the blue states. And if you wondered just how close this election really was, try this on for size. It's even from the same website as my university.
Unrelated, but if you're down this far, a reminder: I haven't got any answers to my question about the lady in the dress with the gloves and the beauty and all that. (It's not too far down my main page list.) I still don't get it, and I could really use an answer or two to that.
And the odd news for today: Lap pillows, escort dolls, and supermarket secret codes. Mix well with an ancient store that was selling things before Wal-Mart was even conceived, and you get a pretty fruity cocktail of oddities.
Oh, yeah, and there was one more thing, and it being down here at the end has nothing to do with it's importance. In fact, it might be here just as a trap for skimmers (but I hope that you always read the parts that are interesting if you don't read the whole thing), and it's related to the Ozy and Millie realization from before.
I have a lot of people that I associate with, at least here on the Internet, that are anthropomorphs or express themselves at least partially in a anthropomorphic avatar. Is this a phenomenon of the places I hang out, or is it merely that at the intersection of the several subcultures that I take an interest in, there is an associated population of furdom in those same subcultures? (Merely.... hah. As if anything were 'merely' so.) Is it that the fur community is larger than I perceive it to be, or am I just in an unusual concentration of them?
Now, this, in and of itself, is neither a good nor a bad thing - I have very little difficulty with furry people. (No judgment yet on fursuiting, but since I take cosplay fairly well, I don't think I'd be too worried about fursuiters. And the pictures I did see of people who were, I didn't recoil in horror from.) I just wonder if this isn't an expression of finding a totem animal and adopting its characteristics. I know there are some people who think they were other species' born into human form (Otherkin, I believe, is one of the preferred terms to use to describe this situation) and thus, the avatar is the expression of their true form. I don't believe that, but I do imagine having a dragon on my shoulder to banter with (as does one of my characters - but I think mine came first, or so the dragon tells me). So since I'm displacing the animal as more of a familiar or totem, I suppose I don't consider myself part of the community - although I do wonder if there are people who do as I do and still consider themselves furs/anthropomorphs.
Is this a sort of modern version of the totem animal quest, or something new entirely? Should I be at all worried that I seem to fit best with a dragon on my shoulder, rather than something more "real"? (At least it's not a fox-spirit. I've heard they can be very mischievous.) Is this another one of those personality fragments thatrimspace commented about, or is it another entity entirely?
Perhaps I just need a good explanation of what people in a furry community take as truths and work my way outward from there. If so, I'd be prepared for a lot of silly or stupid questions that the outsider's perspective will probably force me to ask.
I'm full of questions tonight. None of the life-shattering variety, I suppose. But all very interesting to me - perhaps further proof that librarianship might be a profession well-suited to me. Tomorrow, I attack the paper again, as well as the studying for the exam. If I'm lucky, I'll get people to play some Morton's List tomorrow night. (And that will be fun.) Thanks for reading all the way through, if you have. I know that my long posts can be a bit on the boring side.
lordmork posted a link in his journal to I Drew This, which has some really good political cartoons (some of which I recognize from earlier postings). It was actually the writing part, where the artist claims that the future inexorably moves in a liberal direction, even with attempts to freeze or retard this movement. It's the joke about Democrats (having no heart) and Republicans (having no brains). Those who manage to stay liberal through their lives are very impressive, indeed. Anyway, it turns out that the cartoonist of I Drew This is also the cartoonist of Ozy and Millie, a comic that has quickly worked it's way into my rotation (after an archive blitz that took much of today), and not just because of Llewellyn, the dragon. He very well could be the spitting image of what I'd like to become. And his dragon-ness only makes it better. I hope he doesn't mind if I borrow a few shots of Llewellyn for userpics. Which actually brings me to the point, and the punchline, as it were. You see, not too long ago,
greyweirdo or goji (I don't remember which) posted links to ghostway's Dragon Illuminati wallpapers. Initially, with no knowledge, I thought they were pretty cool, assumed it to be some sort of in-joke, and set about modifying it in the fashion you see, in a quasi-humorous way of producing a "rival faction" to the idea, since the poster used it in conjunction with a post about his world domination organization recruitment. I think it's greyweirdo, but I'm not 100% sure. Well, the joke was that I looked around the Ozy and Millie store, and what should I see, but the Dragon Illuminati logo? This was the biggest laugh of the whole archive trawl (and believe me, I laughed a lot in that trawl. Enough, perhaps, that I want the books just so that I can have it on paper). So now, as I reflect on it, it's a perfect thing to do, considering what we know about Llewellyn's family - perhaps it's part of my conspiracy training, or something. If nothing else, Isolde, I have an internship for you...
Thus, having screwed up badly, laughed and studied today, things were somewhat more productive than yesterday. There's still time to do a few things myself. Like a comic, which I neglected to do for Wednesday. I'll never be a regular comic artist without either a long lead or a lot more free time than I have.
Plus, it would help to devote time to drawing, I'm sure. Considering I can barely manage stick figures, I'll probably need a lot of time. Maybe I should do better as someone's scriptwriter or something and forego the actual drawing and posting part. Although I've been told I actually have readers (scary as that is, considering my drawing lack)...
Comic's done now. Both the one I missed and the one for tomorrow. Plus the two user icons. Whee, productivity. Perhaps it will help get rid of the lingering effects of this Godsdamned cold I've been carrying around for so long.
And yes, it's true, no matter how much to the contrary it appears at times: I did not start a Live Journal for the sole purpose of being an attentionwhore and having everyone pity you because of your sob stories. (It's another of those "put this in your LJ" things, and the first one funny enough to be worth it.) I'll let someone else do the garnering of attention (and incoming fire, if he should happen to earn it): greywerido has an open letter to America. As, apparently, do the blue states. And if you wondered just how close this election really was, try this on for size. It's even from the same website as my university.
Unrelated, but if you're down this far, a reminder: I haven't got any answers to my question about the lady in the dress with the gloves and the beauty and all that. (It's not too far down my main page list.) I still don't get it, and I could really use an answer or two to that.
And the odd news for today: Lap pillows, escort dolls, and supermarket secret codes. Mix well with an ancient store that was selling things before Wal-Mart was even conceived, and you get a pretty fruity cocktail of oddities.
Oh, yeah, and there was one more thing, and it being down here at the end has nothing to do with it's importance. In fact, it might be here just as a trap for skimmers (but I hope that you always read the parts that are interesting if you don't read the whole thing), and it's related to the Ozy and Millie realization from before.
I have a lot of people that I associate with, at least here on the Internet, that are anthropomorphs or express themselves at least partially in a anthropomorphic avatar. Is this a phenomenon of the places I hang out, or is it merely that at the intersection of the several subcultures that I take an interest in, there is an associated population of furdom in those same subcultures? (Merely.... hah. As if anything were 'merely' so.) Is it that the fur community is larger than I perceive it to be, or am I just in an unusual concentration of them?
Now, this, in and of itself, is neither a good nor a bad thing - I have very little difficulty with furry people. (No judgment yet on fursuiting, but since I take cosplay fairly well, I don't think I'd be too worried about fursuiters. And the pictures I did see of people who were, I didn't recoil in horror from.) I just wonder if this isn't an expression of finding a totem animal and adopting its characteristics. I know there are some people who think they were other species' born into human form (Otherkin, I believe, is one of the preferred terms to use to describe this situation) and thus, the avatar is the expression of their true form. I don't believe that, but I do imagine having a dragon on my shoulder to banter with (as does one of my characters - but I think mine came first, or so the dragon tells me). So since I'm displacing the animal as more of a familiar or totem, I suppose I don't consider myself part of the community - although I do wonder if there are people who do as I do and still consider themselves furs/anthropomorphs.
Is this a sort of modern version of the totem animal quest, or something new entirely? Should I be at all worried that I seem to fit best with a dragon on my shoulder, rather than something more "real"? (At least it's not a fox-spirit. I've heard they can be very mischievous.) Is this another one of those personality fragments that
rimspace commented about, or is it another entity entirely? Perhaps I just need a good explanation of what people in a furry community take as truths and work my way outward from there. If so, I'd be prepared for a lot of silly or stupid questions that the outsider's perspective will probably force me to ask.
I'm full of questions tonight. None of the life-shattering variety, I suppose. But all very interesting to me - perhaps further proof that librarianship might be a profession well-suited to me. Tomorrow, I attack the paper again, as well as the studying for the exam. If I'm lucky, I'll get people to play some Morton's List tomorrow night. (And that will be fun.) Thanks for reading all the way through, if you have. I know that my long posts can be a bit on the boring side.
