Kaymyth

They...they just announced that next season, Supernatural is going to have an animated Scooby Doo episode. I do not know how to feel about this.

Aw. You're gonna make me blush.

I genuinely have no idea. Obviously I'm not going to convince any of you that I'm boring, but I just have so many weird random nerdy things that I am into that I don't know which one is the most interesting.

Right now my concern is the wig. (And, of course, the rest of the costuming. I already have the necklace and a scale mail bra created. The rest of the costume is in progress. And I'm going to have a friend do a major body henna job on me for the event.) Oooh. The necklace. Y'all need to see this. So I decided I needed to try to recreate the necklace commonly seen depicted on statues of Bast. (At this point, I had no idea if she was going to make it in, but I figured it was a good devotional project anyway.) So here's the statue that I used as a reference: And here is the finished necklace. It took me a couple months to get it right. I had to unstring and restring layers several times before I worked out the right ratio for the spacer beads, but I am extremely pleased with the finished product. And a close-up of some of the detail: It's actually something that's pretty unique to my Pagan Unitarian Universalist congregation, but the root of the idea actually comes from ancient Egypt, where temples used to compete with each other to earn the honor of their god being the city's patron for the next year. So it starts with Penny Auction in the spring. In the few weeks leading up to the equinox, people nominate deities (or powers, archetypes, etc.) to be put into consideration. We cap it at 20, but rarely actually have to enforce that cap. Then from the Equinox to Beltane, people vote in the Penny Auction by putting coins into one or more of the Powers' jars. We tally it weekly and keep people updated on who's ahead. Once Beltane ritual is closed out, we take the final tally and the top three (in the past it has sometimes been four) Powers are the ones competing in the God Auction. It's held in mid-July so we all have about 2 1/2 months to prepare. Whether it be by volunteer, voluntell, or just plain begging, someone is designated to portray each Power. They also each get a Scribe. During the event, each Power argues for why they would be the best patron for Gaia Community in the coming year, with the speeches organized by rounds of questions. 1. What would you do for the Community? 2. What do you expect the Community to do for you? 3. A question chosen by each team, usually to address something specific about the power that is either important or needs attention. 4. Questions from a hat put in by members of the congregation and/or anyone else who cares to show up. We operate the event as a fundraiser and food drive for Harvesters. Each individually packaged item counts as equal to a dollar, so a lot of people will hit Costco or Aldi's to get a good bang for their buck. Kids are out of school for the summer and they're generally not getting school lunches at that time, so a lot of us try to make sure we put in a bunch of food that's easy for a kid to prepare themselves. And people do put in plenty of money to the church as well; it's by far our biggest fundraiser. Scribes' main duties are to introduce their Power and keep a running tally of their team's donations. These days we use an app that one of our members coded for us, so it's a lot easier than it used to be! The winner of God Auction is the Power who collects the most combined donation points. ...and I say "Power" because it's not always gods who get portrayed. We've had in contention in the past archetypes like Rabbit and Beaver, concepts like the Green Man, the Flying Spaghetti Monster...and even Captain James T. Kirk.

Hee. Honestly, I don't disagree about the other canon Batgirls. I thought she played a much more important and interesting role in the DCU as Oracle. She knew everything, man, and kept things running smoothly for everyone behind the scenes. She had so much more room for character growth and change before they rebooted the universe.

It's really not quite that simple. Early on, she was associated as a lioness, and later as a desert wild cat (never, as is commonly believed, a domestic cat). Either way, she was always a solar goddess, and always an Eye of Ra. There were a number of goddesses who carried that title, and none of them were ones that anybody wanted angry at them. There's a common belief that Bast was "tamed down" to accommodate Sekhmet when the Upper and Lower Egypt pantheons merged, and used as reference the change from "Bast" to "Bastet" taking it as evidence that the addition of a diminutive suffix denoted her newer, gentler role. Except that's actually a load of crocodile dung, because it was later figured out that the change in her hieroglyph was due to lingual drift and 't's starting to get dropped on pronunciation; the additional glyph just told people to pronounce it. The moon connotations have absolutely no basis in Kemetic practice. The Greeks and Romans just had a superiority complex and decided to make everyone else's gods fit into their pantheon. They equated Bast with Artemis, and that's where the moon stuff came from. The short version: Kemetic gods are complex, and trying to compartmentalize them like that is difficult at best. Her connection to me is very much the warrior protectress, so that's mostly what I'm focusing on in my preparations, but who knows how things will change on the day. And ha. No, nobody getting clawed and I do not intend to damage any breakables. God Auction doesn't get that rowdy; the worst that ever happens is deities/powers/archetypes trash-talking each other (which can be hilarious). This is how we choose our next year's Patron; current Patron is Dionysus. We've also had gods like Brigid, Thor, Thoth, Athena, Lugh, Quetzalcoatl, and Danu serve as community Patrons in the past, so we run the gamut. That sounds like poor life choices.

Maybe...? I dunno, my childhood was firmly centered in the 80s, and these are all things I think of as my generation's touchstones. But I get your point, the 90s were just kind of...there. (You poor thing. I still quietly seethe at what they did with Batgirl.)

So. Bast has made it into God Auction. That means in two months, I will be letting her fully into my brain and portraying her in a bid to make her our patron for the next year. Dear sweet gods what have I gotten myself into? Yep! I got to participate in a sealed deck pre-release tournament at JordanCon. I found the theme interesting. ...and there were kitties.

Hee. This is just a place where I've been gratuitously posting my costume creations for a while now. People discover it either at random or when I've shamelessly plugged a new addition.

Back on the exercise game, cause I ate way too much on vacation and gained some pounds. I need to remove this belly pudge; my heart and my knees will thank me. ConQuesT in two weeks. I and my team will be making sure our four guests of honor are fed, happy, and in the right places at the right times. I also need to finish up the amigurumi gifts I am making. Because yarn. Yay yarn! Most of your things listed were from the 80s. But the lack of Princess Bride kinda makes my heart sad. That one's the best of the bunch.

The rep ranks are multitudinous and occasionally silly. Enjoy them as they go by. You can also create your own Member Title, which is the little bit that shows up directly underneath your name on your posts.

Heh. But I'd go full Philistine and say, nah, I'll watch all anime that way. Because I just can't sit there and not work on something. Manual skills can be learned. Don't worry about it too much. It probably dropped through a portal into Narnia or something. Dude, I just pointed that out on this same thread just a few hours ago. (Though mostly because I wanted it all in one place so I could be sure and not miss any part of it.)

Dang, I go on vacation for a couple of weeks, and come back to 14 pages of new Random Stuff. Hawaii, by the way, is amazing. We did many fun things and made a few poor life choices, but altogether my first trip to the tropics was most enjoyable. But. Guys. The moon. The crescent moon was hanging at such a crazy angle all I could think was, "Dammit, moon, go home, you're drunk!" (Realistically, I should have expected the moon to phase at a different angle at that latitude. I just didn't think about it until I saw the dang thing spilled over on its side.) Now I am going to respond to things, some of them very old! Really makes you wonder why nobody has thought to weaponize them yet. Hee. Just wait till you get sucked in fully and those suitcases start getting packed with costumes. They are cheerful little woodland sprites that hide in strange places all over Breath of the Wild. And you have to solve puzzles to find them. Sometimes just recognizing that there is a puzzle to solve is a puzzle in and of itself. And while yes, they may technically be optional, they expand your weapons and shield slots, and you really cannot get through the game without collecting as much crap as possible. You might check out JordanCon's website and take a look at the schedule for their SanderTrack. They have a wide variety of Sanderson-related panels that run constantly through the convention. So your real challenge isn't going to be thinking of something, but narrowing it down to just one thing. I would like to watch Fullmetal Alchemist. But on Netflix they only have it subtitled; no dubbed version. Which I realize will make serious anime fans cringe that this is my preference, but I really cannot just sit and watch a show without doing something else. I need to be crocheting or working chainmail or something to keep from fidgeting off of the couch. And I cannot do that and read subtitles at the same time. I suppose it's beyond your abilities to figure out what the heck ever happened to my passport. The house ate it six years ago. I always figured it'd turn up when we moved, but it never did. STAHP Though now that he's away, I can tell you that I am slightly jealous of your new position. Not because of the ranking or anything, but just cause your name gets to be purple. Us regular mods just get that ugly mustard yellow color. Purple is the vastly superior color. ...oops. Er, I and my mustard yellow name salute you! @TwiLyghtSansSparkles really needs to compile it into a single thread in Creator's Corner.

I've been working in Twi for over a year. A bunch of us being there would be fun. And I think I can trust you guys to behave in the panels. There have been problems in years past when Brandon shows with some of the folks who self-identify as Sharders (though no screen names I recognize; the few I know who regularly attend the con are good folk, and one is a regular panelist) disrupting panels by getting into arguments while sitting in the audience. I would really like to see a bigger showing of more regular Sharders who actually know how to behave in public. It was interesting this year seeing how many more Shard lurkers recognized my screen name than last; that moderator color really makes me pop out on the "people online" list.

Dooo eeeet! On the Sandertrack. Nothing's been assigned specifically, but my name is at the top of the track director's little list. You know, we actually do have regular attendees who come in from Australia. I'm just sayin'. Oh, you poor, unfortunate soul. I'm not sure it's possible to find all of them without help. Though a friend of mine has theorized that if you could just get them all to work together, you wouldn't need the Master Sword or the Divine Beasts to defeat Ganon. You could just have the Koroks mob and smother him to death.

We do. And they are. They're a sort of pinkish color. Heh. They do like to sneak up and spike us when we're least expecting it.

I still seeeeee iiiiiiit! Bwahahaha!

Yes, it's in Atlanta. The convention directors are all local to there; it grew out of the WoT track at Dragon*Con into its own thing. aww April 20-22, 2018

Guys. GUYS. JordanCon was amazing. And next year is the 10th anniversary! Brandon will be back! I will be on panels! afdklsjaghkdlksa;

Ahh, gotcha. That makes sense; I've never used cassia, and I prefer a red that leans more towards the auburn side than the blonde side. (Which is why I henna in the first place; my natural heavily strawberry blonde just isn't red enough for me.)

Huh. I use henna regularly, and my results are pretty consistent. I mean, it helps that my hair is already pretty red to begin with, but high-quality henna should give you similar results every time. Where are you getting your product from?

Hi, guys! I am alive! Just...y'know...drowning in convention prep. (I seriously need to convince more of you to come to JordanCon...) Well, Australian and New Zealand accents sound identical to me. So there. That northern Midwest thing sort of blends into some regional Canadian accents. The northeast has its own range of different accent types. Southern and Texan accents are subtly separate and distinct, and Southern has different subtypes. I imagine if I lived in the South, I'd be able to tell the difference between, say, Georgia and Mississippi accents. Don't be silly. Jesus wasn't a zombie, he was a lich.