Welcome back

Ozoneocean wrote:
I learned something interesting the other day- a guy down the road from me used to always park his car on the side of the road across from his house, till he made a nice garage for it. It was a pretty grey gull-wing Mercedes. Very old.
I knew it was a fancy car but only just learned that they go for 1.5 to 10 million dollars O_O

Wow! These things are rare. They never built that many back in the 1950s to begin with, specifically designed to show off what awesome, modern fancy sports cars they could build, and of course almost just as unaffordable for normal people as today.
Fun fact: Back in the day, Mercedes had a lot of success in Formula 1 racing with cars nicknamed “the silver arrows”. Originally these racing cars were white, but then it turned out they were slightly heavier than regulation allowed, so the racing team removed all the paint and met the desired weight. So when they built sports cars, there was a choice of colours, but silver metallic paintwork would have been considered the real thing by purists.

Your neighbour's one lucky guy.

Genejoke wrote:
Welcome back

Thank you! Thank you!

I've been lurking mostly, but I got a whole lot of catching up to do with so many people!

damehelsing wrote:
Hey! It's been awhile since I've been here.

I hope 2023 and 2024 has gone well for all of you!

How have you been????? I've missed you!

Genejoke wrote:
A Flock of dreams might actually be finished…

Pending approval from Ozone of course.

Wow!
Congrats on that! It's been Sunday and Monday now so I haven't been looking at my emails yet XD

This waits till I get home from the office and start on the Quackcast edit.

PaulEberhardt wrote:

Wow! These things are rare. They never built that many back in the 1950s to begin with, specifically designed to show off what awesome, modern fancy sports cars they could build, and of course almost just as unaffordable for normal people as today.
Fun fact: Back in the day, Mercedes had a lot of success in Formula 1 racing with cars nicknamed “the silver arrows”. Originally these racing cars were white, but then it turned out they were slightly heavier than regulation allowed, so the racing team removed all the paint and met the desired weight. So when they built sports cars, there was a choice of colours, but silver metallic paintwork would have been considered the real thing by purists.

Your neighbour's one lucky guy.

I did not know that about the paint O_O

Ozoneocean wrote:

damehelsing wrote:
Hey! It's been awhile since I've been here.

I hope 2023 and 2024 has gone well for all of you!

How have you been????? I've missed you!

Could be better! Could be worse! I had quite an eventful 2022/2023 and so far 2024 has been exhausting, but I'm trying to be positive and excited for the future lol, happy to be back and see everyone is still up and at it! I tried to lurk and keep up the best I could!

How about you?? How are you doing!!!

damehelsing wrote:

Could be better! Could be worse! I had quite an eventful 2022/2023 and so far 2024 has been exhausting

What's happened?

How about you?? How are you doing!!!

Not bad. I completed work on a short collab comic with Banes and Tantz that will be part of the new DD anthology. It was really cool to stretch my legs in that and try a more open style. But now it's back to the tighter style in Bottomless Waitress again. It's been tricky to adjust.
I can't wait to do another co0llab with them.

What's happened?

I lost my furbaby Maximus late 2022 - and it hit me really hard, to the point I couldn't work on any creative project during 2023 and SCORNED went on a whacky hiatus. Luckily late 2023 I started to recover from the loss and I started to get slowly back into it. Finally been able to work on SCORNED consistently.

Not bad. I completed work on a short collab comic with Banes and Tantz that will be part of the new DD anthology. It was really cool to stretch my legs in that and try a more open style. But now it's back to the tighter style in Bottomless Waitress again. It's been tricky to adjust.
I can't wait to do another co0llab with them.

That sounds exciting! It's always nice to try new styles. If the style you used in the anthology is one you prefer, maybe you can slowly introduce that style into Bottomless Waitress.
I notice that not a lot of readers will notice a style change as they read a webcomic, they're already vibing with the story too much to notice lol

Good to see you active and chatting here again, Damehelsing:) I still remember when you used to be the one who managed the sunday blog posts here instead of me. Your interviews and reviews were awesome👍

Hello! Grats on doing the Sunday articles! Unfortunately my brain only does so much running and I always wanted to put out intriguing articles buuuuut that year was honestly not the year for my brain! Unfortunate, but it is what it is! I hope you've been having fun tackling it!

damehelsing wrote:

I lost my furbaby Maximus late 2022 - and it hit me really hard, to the point I couldn't work on any creative project during 2023 and SCORNED went on a whacky hiatus. Luckily late 2023 I started to recover from the loss and I started to get slowly back into it. Finally been able to work on SCORNED consistently.

Ah that's hard. I lost my little fur-gal Esk. It was super hard at the time. The vets were worse than useless and I will never use them ever again. lucky there are other vets in the area that I can go to instead. I went to them for years but they failed so hard in that instance.

Her brother Mouse survives her and he's flourished since she died though. He's come more into his own personality and become bolder and more independent. His sister was a lot smaller than him but very dominant. In my experience that's how female cats tend to be over the male ones. But especially true in Mouse's case.

I notice that not a lot of readers will notice a style change as they read a webcomic, they're already vibing with the story too much to notice lol

True!
I may do that… not sure though.

damehelsing wrote:
Hello! Grats on doing the Sunday articles! Unfortunately my brain only does so much running and I always wanted to put out intriguing articles buuuuut that year was honestly not the year for my brain! Unfortunate, but it is what it is! I hope you've been having fun tackling it!

Thank you^^ I've had my fun with it for sure. There was this minor period - at the end of 2022 I think it was - where I wasn't sure about the articles I wrote and kind of just stuck with writing poems after that, which I still do mostly. But I think I've just started to settle in, feeling confident enough to speak my view on things.

Ozoneocean wrote:
Ah that's hard. I lost my little fur-gal Esk. It was super hard at the time. The vets were worse than useless and I will never use them ever again. lucky there are other vets in the area that I can go to instead. I went to them for years but they failed so hard in that instance.

Her brother Mouse survives her and he's flourished since she died though. He's come more into his own personality and become bolder and more independent. His sister was a lot smaller than him but very dominant. In my experience that's how female cats tend to be over the male ones. But especially true in Mouse's case.

I'm really sorry to hear. :( it's never easy losing a furbaby or losing anyone that you love. May they have the tastiest treats in Rainbow Bridge.

I may do that… not sure though.

Absolutely do what you want or you feel is right! But don't forget you get the right to have fun too! If you think the new art style would help you work on Bottomless Waitress more, that might be better for you - but always go with what you think is right, if anything!

@damehelsing - It's never easy, no -_-
Her brother is a super handful now. When I'm home he's constantly by my side and even orders me to come and play with him <3
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Ahhh, bottomless Waitress. You know I'm thinking about going over old pages and redoing artwork now XD
I look over old art and I can't stand it haha!


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Lucid dreaming/controlling dreams- THIS is a subject that crops up occasionally. I just now saw they did a program on it on BBC radio 4.
I think it's one of those things that's speculated on and fantasised about by people who have never really actually done it.

I learned how to get full control over my dreams years and years ago but deliberately chose NOT to.
Ever played a sandbox video game with god-mode and all cheats on? It's like that but you have more control. And it is BORING.
Dreams can be so cool and creative because your mind is making up stories based on the connections between random imagery and scenes, they're like being part of custom made, personalised movies. Why sacrifice that awesome gift and instead chose to do all that creative work yourself?
That is honestly one definition of hell to me: to be in a “dream” that you are creating yourself.

These days the most control I use in dreams is just turning around obvious nightmares so they're not nightmare anymore and more like action movies.


It's funny that while having no control in life is a horrible, horrible awful thing, having full, absolute control over your environment and “reality” is psychologically horrific. - Can you imagine being a god, where you know everything that is going to happen because you are making it happen, you know what people are thinking and what they will say because they're not real, just extensions of yourself… That's horror.

For people who have lots of nightmares and night terrors lucid dreaming can be a very important skill.
I have plenty of recurring tropes in my my dreams that I've had to work out with lucid intervention. It's like “here we go again.” We are not going there– it's a dream I can do anything I want so let's see –
I have some running jokes too. Like I did high school twice. They couldn't find my diploma so I had to repeat all four years. When it threatened to do it a third time I switched it to student teaching. Not too much intervention.

The only “nightmares” I have are things that are sneaky and get past the gate by not being traditional bad dreams 😅
But as soon as they show their true colours they're over or changed.

“Lucid” dreaming is fine to a limited extent, but it's a very hard balance between knowing you're dreaming and taking full control :(
(When I dream I often
have to work to keep myself from becoming aware and stay in the dream state)

It's the people that fantasise about full control of their dreams that I don't get. It's not a good experience.

There are people who suffer from nightmares and especially night terrors that need the lucid dreaming skills. I've introduced a few people to it because the basics are very easy to learn and can make sleep restful again.
There are people who are afraid to sleep because they wake up exhausted from extremely horrific dreams. So introducing them to lucid dreaming is very helpful. I have real nightmares because of my PTSD and have to repeat various things to myself so I won't get trapped by my subconscious.
Complete control is impossible for most people and not fun. I end up with a running monolog and producing a movie. but there are tricks to get yourself out of that nightmare situation.
– flight. Throw yourself at the ground and miss.
– superpowers. I can fight like Jackie Chan in my dreams. Why not, it's a dream and it rehearse the moves for my comic.
– guest stars, it's a dream. Chuck Norris can show up to rescue you.
– if there is a repeating theme – repeat a go around to yourself before you fall asleep. One of mine is not finding my car in the parking lot. So I tell myself every car is mine.
– it's a movie and scream “cut” or just a TV show you were watching. Roll credits and put your name in there to give your ego a boost.
– Pythonesque it. Make the situation utterly ridiculous and a comedy. Is there a chase? Add the Benny Hill theme. Add cartoon sound effects. Suddenly it's not a threat and full of horror but a comedy.

All those nightmare short circuits are automatic for me and have been since I was quite young, I do those instinctively.

The earliest I remember is a nightmare about a haunted house with a vampire, that ended with me making fun of the vamp because he looked exactly like Bela Lugoosi and that was such a silly thing to me. The whole hunted house concept was also dumb. I found it so funny, standard nightmares never worked again.

These days if it's someone or something violent coming after me I just “find” a bigger weapon. And either the dream exhausts itself because I'm undefeatable, or it changes to something much more serious where it's a contemplation on the use of violence and weapons to solve issues- That's the only way they can turn into more serious bad dreams again; NOT by making me fear for my life but the opposite; by making me horrified at the idea of seriously injuring or killing a person.
Which all and all is a good thing!

Dreams are all very well but I have a hard painless lump on my chest under my right pectoral towards the middle. I thought it was a pimple initially but those usually hurt and turn red.
It's causing me worry :(

It still might fade away though. Might be a silly skin thing. It came on pretty quick- only about 7 days, so it's a good possibility it's nothing.

damehelsing wrote:
Hey! It's been awhile since I've been here.

I hope 2023 and 2024 has gone well for all of you!

2023 was one of the worst years of my life; I felt like an NPC wandering around in a simulated void much of the year. 2024 has only been a slight inprovement.

Ozoneocean wrote:
Dreams are all very well but I have a hard painless lump on my chest under my right pectoral towards the middle. I thought it was a pimple initially but those usually hurt and turn red.
It's causing me worry :(

It still might fade away though. Might be a silly skin thing. It came on pretty quick- only about 7 days, so it's a good possibility it's nothing.

Please get that checked out. My dad had a growth under his left ear that his doctor kept dismissing as nothing more than a mass of tissue. It kept growing bigger and bigger until it blocked his hearing, and when they finally imaged it, it turned out to be cancer, which contributed to his death almost three years ago. Don't let that happen to you.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
My dad had a growth under his left ear that his doctor kept dismissing as nothing more than a mass of tissue. It kept growing bigger and bigger until it blocked his hearing, and when they finally imaged it, it turned out to be cancer, which contributed to his death almost three years ago.

Oh jeez that's awful :(
Bloody doctors -_-

I will try and get to the doc after work tomorrow. Hopefully nothing series as all.

J_Scarbrough wrote:

damehelsing wrote:
Hey! It's been awhile since I've been here.

I hope 2023 and 2024 has gone well for all of you!

2023 was one of the worst years of my life; I felt like an NPC wandering around in a simulated void much of the year. 2024 has only been a slight inprovement.

I understand. Throughout 2023 and 2024 I keep getting piles of the gods' absolute shit piled on me… but I could be in a far worse situation.

I could really use a break. I haven't had a good rest in three weeks. Nor the chance to make new pages or translate any old ones. Only work, stressing, cleaning and hunting for rentals. Now it appears we've found one, so the next two weeks will be about work, moving, cleaning and repainting the old one, throwing out all the junk, hoping our previous landlord won't try to pull one over us financially if she's unsatisfied… and of course running from A to B and getting paperwork done. I'm not even sure I can begin my DDA 2024 volunteer work in the first week of August. It's sure as shit I won't have capacity to make new pages for Friendship Material or Mirage during this summer, but I at least have to meet my deadlines in translating Blessed Days. And THEN I can maybe, possibly, if everything goes well get some decent sleep and just chill in front of the tv or something. It'll hell of a fun trying to box everything and get the moving done and repaint an apartment knowing that out of the next 6 days I'll work 4 in 12-hour shifts. I'm just so exhausted.

Last night I went to the AFI and 30 seconds to mars concert in auburns white water amphitheater and it was amazing! I brought a ton of little round “Craters Edge” stickers that have a picture of “Eeve” and a link to my comic and tagged the shit out of the venue. I stuck stickers on concert seats chairs and tables and bathroom stalls. My cousin and his wife tagged a bunch of stuff around the concert venue as well. It's a good idea to advertise your comic and sticking stickers with your comic link on them is a great way to do so!

Well my chest bump is a sebaceous cyst so no worries there :)
No infection or anything, just fluid.

But my right hip as been aching annoyingly on and off for a month now, right in the ball joint, getting pretty bad at times and going away to dullness. I'm not sure what to do. I hate going to the doctor for things :(
It can make it pretty exhausting to walk a distance.

I wonder if it's related to the bad horse fall I had last year? I was pretty bruised up in that area and I still have zero memory of the actual fall or the aftermath XD

One moment I was riding a horse in full hussar costume and the next second I was fully dressed in my normal clothes, hurting all over and carefully packing my stuff away.

I'd go to the docs, might just need rest but better to be sure. I'd imagine youd prefer to avoid a hip replacement.

I don't like sports. Never watched the Olympics. I'm no expert on these things and I won't pretend to be, as opposed to millions of people right now with very strong emotions and opinions about the subject (Imane Khelif). It's possible that the games could be more fair, taking various genetic advantages into account and if that's an option, they should be more fair, yes. But I think most people I've read from about the subject are completely detached from what's fair, for example many locals here calling this person a “genetic waste” and of course “a man”. Khelif didn't make the rules. She qualified. She worked her ass off to get where she is now, worked harder than probably any one of us ever have and this is her moment, just like the others who are competing. She doesn't deserve millions of people calling her a cheater, spouting speculations about something she could've been confident about her whole life (being a cis woman), especially knowing that in her country being trans often gets people locked in prison or gets them killed. I don't think most women's lives would be easier with higher than usual testosterone levels, but she did the best she could and she got bested by female opponents before, but didn't give up. So if people's idea of fair is a system where such would never even qualify to begin with… I don't think that's fair enough. Again… I don't know shit about sports and it probably shows, but I'm just sick and tired of all the hatred spouted towards those who never even did anything wrong.

It's just the bigots and the transphobes who are letting their hatred and judgment speak for them without taking anything else into account; Trump has let them get too comfortable with running their mouths off unfiltered. Just like all these hoity-toity, holier-than-thou religious zealots and their, “WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!” response to the opening ceremony depicting Dionysus (not the Last Supper) . . . I guarantee children have no interest in watching the Olympics.

There's actually no verification that the genetic test was even done. High testosterone isn't uncommon in female athletes. XY chromosome but physically female is a studied and known condition going back decades. I know someone who did a paper on it for their degree in human sexuality thirty years ago.
As more and more people get genetic testing they're finding sex chromosomes aren't binary at all and don't always end up determining sexual characteristics. But who cares about science or evidence when it comes to reactions based totally on misinformation, misinterpretation and emotion?

I learned about that boxer lady on a social media post. They showed pics of her as a young girl and stuff with her family, in other boxing matches, losing fights etc…
She's just beefy now because she's in fighting condition.


The truth about the bigots is that they really wouldn't be happy unless NO women at all were boxing or doing anything at all “masculine”, and basically wearing dresses and stockings and high heels and having long hair, round faces, wide hips and big breasts. To all of them that is the only acceptable state for a “woman”.
And that has to scare you I think. It has to scare all of us that there's a massive group out there that want to police how half the population exist.
Gender is cultural and sex is a spectrum.

Genejoke wrote:
I'd go to the docs, might just need rest but better to be sure. I'd imagine youd prefer to avoid a hip replacement.

Ah, too scary to think about :(