Orion Scribner

My name is Orion Scribner, and my handle on most platforms is "frameacloud." My handle is a reference to one of my favorite quotes about dragons. It comes from page 6 of The Book of the Dragon by Judy Allen and Jeanne Griffith. “It is no more possible to find the definitive dragon than it would be to frame a cloud formation.” It is about how dragons in folklore from around the world look and behave so differently from one another that it is difficult to name what they have in common that makes them dragons, but somehow people still recognize all of them as dragons. Anyway, e-mail is the best way to reach me, and you'll see that it has that handle too.

E-mail: frameacloud@protonmail.com

The rest of these are in alphabetical order. The purpose of this list is so that you know that all of these accounts are me.

• BlueSky: frameacloud at bsky.social. I use this to announce a new post I made somewhere else, or to reach out to people who I'm not sure how to find anywhere else.
• Discord: frameacloud. I chat on here pretty much every day.
• Dreamwidth: frameacloud. That's this blog! I mostly use this blog to interact with other blogs here. I use it when I run these communities here: otherkinnews, for current events relevant to all sorts of alterhumans, not just otherkin anymore; alterhuman_writing, for us to share our essays, poetry, and other creative writing about being alterhumans; and therithere, for discussing my comic about therianthropes and otherkin.
• itch.io: frameacloud. Some of my writings and curation projects are on here. For example, A Simple Introduction to Otherkin and Therianthropes, a short essay that volunteers are translating into many languages; and Otherkin Timeline, a community history book.
• Ko-fi: frameacloud. If you like the things I make, this is where you can give me a tip or buy me a coffee.
• Mastodon: frameacloud at weirder.earth. I use this to announce when I've made a new post somewhere else.
• Patreon: frameacloud. That's where you can subscribe to give me a tip every month.
• Reddit: Orion_Scribner. Every once in a while I use this to comment on others' posts.
• Tapas: frameacloud. These are comics I've drawn and written, such as Theri There, my comic about therianthropes and otherkin.
• Tumblr: frameacloud. I have a queue that reblogs things once a day. Sometimes I (re)post my own art and writing there. I help moderate the Alterhuman Community.
• X (formerly Twitter): frameacloud. That's a bad site and I no longer use it. I'm listing it here to help folks migrate to following me on other platforms instead.

The discussion threads for some previous pages of Theri There were on my personal Dreamwidth, but I think I'll switch back to having them in the community for it, at therithere . There's a new page today, you can find out about it and talk about it there.

Summary: Tumblr is banning many blogs, so its users are moving to different social media sites. Here are resources about why this is happening, and what people are doing about it. I expect to keep adding to this post, so check later for updates. ( Read more... )

On my Patreon, patrons who give $9 each month can ask me for a short writing on any topic they wish. One such patron, Bard Bloom (bard_bloom), asked for a story about one mundane aspect of the everyday life of a dragon. This short work of fiction is about how some dragons designed their homes to suit their needs as folks who fly or breathe fire.

Snap Norwich is a very wealthy dragon with a home custom-built to suit their body shape: a classic Western dragon, with wings and four legs, resembling the one on the flag of Wales. Let's look at the architectural and decor features made to accommodate a person of this figure type.

The grounds of Snap's estate are meant to be pleasing to fly. For the most part, Snap keeps trees and hedges trimmed to provide no obstacle in the airspace over the green hills, but there are also several corners involving an obstacle-course garden, a sort of playground for fliers. These have a three-dimensional maze of hoops and narrow spaces to try to fly through, and walls that encourage a thermal updraft. Perches and sky-high pavilions are carefully positioned to give an ideal view of the gardens.

Regarding the inside of Snap's home, a primary concern of interior design for quadruped citizens is that they do not sit the way that bipeds do. They do like to have a soft place to rest, up off of the floor. Instead of chairs, Snap has angled sofas, which have some resemblance to massage tables. They support their underbelly and rest their hind legs, while freeing up their forelegs to hold books or soup spoons. There's also a chin rest, because Snap's long neck does sometimes get tired of holding up their heavy horned head. (Some horned dragons get theirs trimmed back much farther, but Snap thinks they frame their face attractively.) These sofas are arranged alongside a relatively low table. It's something like the Roman tradition of reclining on sofas while eating.

( Read more... )

If you’ve got an account on Livejournal, it’s time to wipe it out and migrate to Dreamwidth instead, because Livejournal-- which has been Russian-owned for some years-- just moved their physical servers to Russia. That’s likely to be bad news for the privacy of folks posting there, especially if involved in LGBT issues and politics, because your content there is no longer protected by US laws. This thread has some tips on how to migrate your content from that site. You can migrate communities, too, comments and all.

After you've backed up your LJ content and migrated it to Dreamwidth, use LJ-Sec to mass delete all of your old Livejournal posts in just a few clicks. I've used LJ-Sec many times before for managing my LJ posts.

Some more places with information about this issue:

Diane Duane: Some links on the Livejournal situation

Metafilter: Livejournal represents social media without borders

I've now migrated completely from LJ to Dreamwidth. I won't post or crosspost to LJ anymore, only to Dreamwidth. I'm keeping my LJ account, and I may use it to comment or contact others, but that's all. Sigh... LJ was an important part of my life for many years, but all the people are going to be there even less than they had been.

[Edited 2017-01-01 to add more information.]

For a long time, I had a personal blog on Livejournal. I recently moved my personal blog from hosting on Livejournal to Dreamwidth. I am going to stop posting in my personal Livejournal. For my personal blog, please see my Dreamwidth blog instead. I'm going to stop even cross-posting there, so if you're watching my Livejournal, you're not going to see new things there. You're going to have to watch my Dreamwidth instead. Please switch to watching it now, so that you don't miss anything.

I'm going to keep the Livejournal blog in order to interact with some communities on Livejournal, particularly these: Otherkin News, Theri There, and some others. In general, there are more active communities in Livejournal than in Dreamwidth. I'm also keeping my Livejournal so that I can interact with people who are active on Livejournal and not on Dreamwidth.

If you have problems following me to Dreamwidth, please let me know.

I'm continuing to work on my history book, the Otherkin Timeline. There are some people who I need to interview, but I can't find any functioning contact information for them. Can you help? Do you know their current contact information? Do you know of any friends of these people who could help me contact them?

Blackburn (S. M.), one of the first self-proclaimed dragons on alt.fan.dragons. Their addresses at Delphi and Mindspring are non-functional. They have a MySpace page, but since I don't have an account on that site, I can't send them a message. Can you?

Greffindel the Plaid, active on alt.fan.dragons during the Nineties. Their .edu address is non-functional. Does anyone know how to contact this person now?

Yaiolani, author of the Werewolf and Shapeshifter Codex, active on alt.horror.werewolves during the Nineties. Does anyone have a functioning e-mail address for Yaiolani?

KatmanDu, editor of the alt.horror.werewolves FAQ, active on alt.horror.werewolves during the Nineties. Their .edu and Negia e-mail addresses are both non-functional. Does anyone know how to contact them?

LanceFoxx, active on alt.horror.werewolves during the Nineties. I can't find an e-mail for them, so I settled for sending them a PM. That was over a year ago, and I haven't heard back from them yet. Does anyone have a functioning e-mail address for them?

Today, I finished my commentary on Lupa’s book A Field Guide to Otherkin. Here it is. It’s 12 pages of updates, errata, and reader opinions about the book. It also includes some contextual resources: a list of writings that cite or review the book, and links to a few of the original surveys that have been made public. I’m still looking for more submissions from other readers, so if you have anything to add, please tell me.

I'm eating icecream.
Watching the FarScape marathon on the SciFi channel.
Talking to Thrames.
No further notes.

Hmm. Wish I had a registered version of AniMagic... wanting to make some gif animations.

*Purr.*

I don't really have a hell of a lot more to say than that. But that's enough, isn't it?