the old guard

one other thing has happened. in fact, it happened on saturday.

cooper told everyone during my set that he was going to send out a group notice within the next few days about a name change. the old guard was going to be renamed, and everyone would be getting an invite to a new group, and ejected from the old ones. the last vestiges of tajah destroyed.

cooper leaves while i'm spinning, and the notice goes out. that the old guard was going to be renamed "d/s embraced lounge and club" with a group invite going out to the members before being ejected from the old one to close it down. no one took this decision well, and it was openly derided by everyone present.

after my shift was over, i headed off to the masquerade to dance while i mulled over the most recent changes in my mind. after parzival logged for the night when it was over, i teleported back home to rest.

while i was doing so, i get an im from bryan. he sent me a notecard, so i pulled it up to read it. flowery speech aside, it was cooper firing him as a host at the old guard.

i quit.

that was the response i sent to bryan. i quit. i'm done. i'll follow you wherever you go, i'll even follow you to hell. but i quit the old guard.

forty-eight hours later, it still doesn't feel real. every saturday for the last two years i had a shift there. when other jobs fell through and i began to drift, i always had the old guard to fall back on.

and now, now it's gone. for good. i don't intend to go back.

for the first time in two years, i don't have a shift to do. no set to build. no theme to wear.

it's kind of like my balloon popped. and for the first time in forever, i truly don't know what to do with myself. my only other gig is monthly, and the two other places that hired me have yet to open.

i guess i'll find something.

betrayal

something happened on friday that i'm still not okay with. i'd been shaken to my core over discovering my stalker had been at the show, three seats from me. with everything going on, i was too busy being focused on wrangling dancers and announcing songs to notice. when it was over, i stood up after signing off and turned to find the staff member that was in charge of wrangling people like me, to request that she flip the radio to the correct stream because i didn't have it.

that was when i spotted the gray jelly doll. when my brain registered the name, i completely panicked. i slammed into two inboxes, using an emergency phrase and all caps to get their attentions. one of them bolted to my position, the other one simply told me to ignore him.

yeah. ignore the guy who's been stalking me for three years. awesome. NOT.

i get a teleport request, and i jump on it. i'm shaking so badly i can't move. i can barely tell my husband what was going on, and he held me while i trembled and tried not to cry. i was severely rattled on top of the stress, and i was very close to my breaking point.

i tried to calm down at ymo, watching the others dance and even joining in with a pony at my side.

after a time, i get a surprise message from someone that i know of, but don't actually know. i rarely speak with them, as they are too much for me energy wise and i tend to hide in the shadows when they're around.

they had wanted my full attention, so i paused the music i was playing while stumbling through a set list, and i shifted myself so that they would get it.

and they tried to hypnotize me.

without my consent.

it actually almost worked, which both terrified and angered me. i fought as best as i could, but i realized they'd been described as like the sun for a reason. just when i was slipping under their control for god knows whatever reason, they said something that i found so hysterically funny i felt their grasp shatter on my shields harmlessly.

they'd had me when they said i was part of their pack. but when they called themselves alpha of me, i snapped out of the hypnosis and laughed my ass off. you see, no one is the alpha of me. i run with a chosen equal at my side, but no one is the boss of me.

from there, i watched them continue their mind games while i mentally shored up my defenses. i did not let them know they had failed, i wanted to see what they would do.

after they thought they were successful, they gave me an order. and i felt instant rage. no one tells me what to do. NO. ONE. i ignored their messages while they became unsure of the imaginary hold they had on me.

and the one person who had previously been angry over someone trying to hypnotize without my consent, then messaged me saying they agreed with the order, and to follow it. my rage was so palpable i could taste it.

i logged off before i screamed at either of them.

logging on to discord, my pony made the mistake of being the second echo to the order, and i promptly ripped his head off and shit down his neck.

it was only when i had calmed enough to explain why he was being verbally murdered, he realized his mistake and backed off. so i then took the time to vent for a while, but i was still angry over what had happened.

not one, but two people were completely fine with this person hypnotizing me. the person who had never gained my consent, simply assumed it was given and tried to get inside my head to become their mindless little puppet.

to say i'm angry with them is an understatement.

the show must go on

i had meant to write this a few days ago, but i've been too rattled. so here it is.
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the show must go on. that's the mantra that had repeated through my mind all week. the show must go on. DJ's net crapped out and we were a half hour late starting? the show must go on. i stepped up, grabbed the stream, did my best. had one of my worst anxiety attacks in a long time.

did show number two. played the wrong song, announced the wrong name. the show must go on.

put out fires. soothed dancers. consoled dancers. kept the audience happy. made sure everything ran smoothly while it felt like i was so out of control i would shatter apart at any second. the show. must. go on.

show number three. i hauled ass home from a movie on my bike in the rain. almost didn't make it. the show must go on. a buddy of mine had my back and kept everything going smoothly until i could take over. then there were glitches with the stage and a couple dancers cried. the show must go on.

somehow, i pulled it off. i played three shows, and ensured the audience had no idea that so many things had gone wrong. i was unbelievably stressed out, was actually dreading doing the third show.

i made up an excuse to not do the last show. i was at my wit's end. i had a backup in place for a different DJ, and i slept well for the first time all week. the show must go on. i don't know how it went, and i quite frankly don't care. i did my job, and that's all that mattered.

i ensured that the show went on.

wing and a prayer

my head is still reeling, but i should probably write about it while it's still fresh. as i mentioned, the fantasy faire opened on the 19th, and i've been cavorting about, having a blast with friends old and new and buying a couple trinkets. i've caught some concerts, storytelling, fun games and shenanigans.

today was the first of four shows from the troupe i'm with, the moonbeam dancers. and hoo boy did it not get off to a good start.

everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. one dancer quit on the spot, and the other one pulled out. i completely panicked, and with the dancers asking for help with a backwards stage and a non-existent stream ten minutes in, i stepped up.

i asked for everyone's songs and i somehow pulled a set out of my ass at the super last minute. because i'm a trained actress, i managed to get everything going. that is, when i wasn't hyperventilating and having one of my biggest anxiety attacks in a long time.

while i flubbed a name, played the wrong song and quickly covered, and overall felt like i did a mediocre job, everyone was saying thank you for stepping in when shayna's net gave out and she was kicked offline.

the dancers were right there with me, trying to soothe me while i scrambled their songs as fast as i could and announced them live in front of about fifty people. kingston was there, also reassuring me.

i got a shoutout when it was over from one of the dancers, saying how the show wouldn't have worked without me. which is true, one was saying to just pull it until i pulled a miracle out of my ass and jumped on the airwaves.

the audience was happy, they laughed at my improv and i got complimented (though they didn't know the elf in the front row was the one who was spinning until the shoutout). hell the dancers even begged me to stream for the rest of the shows. i felt i should probably have the set ready for tomorrow, just in case.

i kept getting compliments and thank yous and everything, but i don't feel like i did a good job. and i don't know why. maybe because my anxiety was cranked to eleven, and i was doing everything in my power not to faint or throw up while i shook so badly i almost couldn't run my program properly.

one show down, three to go. help.

blast from the past 2

so, i was digging through my emails from six years ago to provide screenshots in an unrelated manner when i stumbled across a story i had started and later abandoned. i think i should work on it again. in the mean time, here it is as i wrote it back in 2012. it is currently untitled. this is the only other chapter!
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The sun had just gone down when Ziria decided to go to bed early. She knew that her husband would be home late, as usual, so there was no point waiting up for him when she could just get a good night's sleep instead. With those plans in mind she changed from her outfit into a soft polyester nightgown that reminded her of silk. Unbraiding her thigh-length snowy white hair she gave a soft sigh of relief.

It was a pain putting her hair up every single day, but if she didn't then Darian would just start another argument with her on how unseemly it was to have her hair down like an unmarried woman. She just couldn't understand him these days, he almost seemed like a different person. In the ancient times it may have been customary for a bride to wear her hair up, but this was the modern century and times were different. Sure, people still used swords as opposed to guns, but they needed them to combat the creatures that tended to reside in the forests that lay in the valley outside of town.

With the advent of cell phones and computers came smarter creatures, impervious to bullets but still felled by steel blades made in the times of old. Ziria had no idea why that was, she just knew that was how the world worked and she accepted it without question. Either way, the day had been too long and she was far too tired to think about it anymore. Lately she'd been fighting with Darian over trying to start a family, and tonight she feared that there would be another argument if she stayed up again.

That was why she was going down to sleep and there would be no qualms about it. Sliding between the sheets, she couldn't help noticing the moonlight reflecting off of her pale skin. As a child, she had been nicknamed 'ghost girl' since she was nearly as pale as your average albino. There was one key difference between an albino and her though, and that was the fact she didn't burn in the sun like they did.

While her eyes were a deep sapphire blue as opposed to the pink of an albino, they had a tendency to turn ruby red when she was extraordinarily angry. It was part of her heritage, something she knew very little about and quite personally wanted to keep it that way. Putting those thoughts out of her mind she closed her eyes and promptly drifted off to sleep.

~*☼*~

A noise woke her up several hours later. Thinking it was just her husband getting home, Ziria didn't get up right away. When it happened again, she got out of bed and padded into the hallway. Hearing nothing as she approached the head of the stairs, Ziria then decided to turn around and go to the bathroom and get back into bed.

It wasn't too long after that when her alarm went off, waking her up for the day as usual. A tremendous crash below caused her to vault out of bed and come running down the stairs just in time to see someone running across the lawn and launching themselves into the air. Rubbing her eyes, Ziria wondered if she was still dreaming. Her mouth pursed when she realized that she was in fact wide awake, since the patio door was ruined and shattered glass lay on the flat porch.

Thinking then that a burglar must have broken in, she wandered around the house to see if anything was missing so that she could inform the police. After about twenty minutes she couldn't find anything out of place, so she decided that whoever it was must not have been after any valuables. Sometimes homeless people would break in just to have a warm place to sleep for a night, so she simply placed a call to have her patio doors repaired. Darian wasn't home, but that didn't really come as a surprise either.

He had a tendency to lie low when things were going rough. Either way it was nothing to worry about since he would come home and talk to her like they always did; that was their routine as of late. Repairmen tended to work regardless of whether or not people were home, so Ziria knew that even if her husband came home before she did it wouldn't be a surprise to find unlocked doors. With that she went back upstairs and got herself ready for the day.

Going through her closet she selected a plain off-white shirt and black slacks. The stark contrast brought attention to her pale skin and paler hair, but she didn't mind as she was going to put on makeup anyways. After getting dressed she went into the bathroom to apply her 'daytime face' as she liked to put it, swiping a thin layer of mascara on her eyes and using a hint of blush to bring some color into her cheeks. The effect was mesmerizing, and she completed the look by applying some light pink gloss to her lips.

Now she looked like a vampire out on the hunt, a thought which made her giggle. Vampires never wore white and they certainly didn't get ready for the day when the sun was actually up. Ready to go now, Ziria grabbed her bag and her coat and headed out the door. She was looking forward to getting to work and distracting herself until it was time to go home and see Darian.

~*☼*~

The day was nearly over when it was time for her to come home. The sun was approaching the horizon, turning the sky red and gold while she drove through town to grab a snack and ingredients for dinner. Drumming her hands on the steering wheel in time to an obscure song on the radio, it occurred to her that she hadn't heard from her husband all day. Finding that odd, she picked up her cellphone from where it rested in her bag on the passenger seat and called him.

Voice mail. Frowning, she put the phone away and pulled into the parking lot. With those thoughts in mind she went back to that morning when she had discovered the broken patio door. Had he been abducted, perhaps? While uncommon, some vampires did steal their prey from houses even if there were serious consequences for those actions.

Deep in thought she made a face while wandering into the store to grab her food. It wasn't very likely that a vampire would bash her patio, but stranger things had happened; and that was the understatement of the century. Shaking her head Ziria grabbed a shopping cart and wandered up and down the aisles listening to gossip while grabbing cans and various other items. Surely if there was someone abducting people it would be making its way through the grapevine, but there was nothing of that nature today.

Just the usual cattle rustling, petty theft, nymph slave auctions, and other nonsense drama. Nothing to really tell her that there was something out of the ordinary. Trying to call him again she once again got voice mail, and once she got out of the store she had gone from concerned to worried. Without a body, no evidence, and nothing more than a shattered door there was no way the police were going to do anything, so it was up to her to find out what had happened to him.

On the way back to her car with a cart full of groceries she passed by a random person handing out flyers, and without thinking about it she grabbed one. It wasn't until she was driving home that she thought to look at it, and Ziria wondered if it was a coincidence, or there was something more to it, like fate.

WANTED
Information leading to the identity of the "Phantom Burglar"
Victims disappear overnight, never to be found again
None of the covens and clans are claiming responsibility for these crimes,
but someone out there must have something.
CONTACT Mizurei at 555-1246 for more information/investigation

There was more on the page itself along with a photo of some smiling guy, but Ziria was already dialing the number. Looking up at the road she jerked on the wheel to avoid crashing into a parked car, she continued on the way home without any further incidents. Once she got back to the house she remembered to hit the green button and initiate the phone call itself, and she set up an appointment to go meet up with this guy Mizurei to see if she could find out more about what was going on and why her husband had suddenly gone missing.

blast from the past

so, i was digging through my emails from six years ago to provide screenshots in an unrelated manner when i stumbled across a story i had started and later abandoned. i think i should work on it again. in the mean time, here it is as i wrote it back in 2012. it is currently untitled.
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Firelight reflected off Ash's face as he sat in his chair, contemplating. His thoughts were centered on the logs that fed the flames, and occasionally they would crack and pop, sending showers of sparks up into the floo and out the chimney. It was almost hard to believe how much time had passed now, but all he had to do was look out the window to confirm it was true. Where once was just a lush valley that lay under a mountain range now held a large city, full of concrete buildings and flashing cars. It had been hard to accept, at first, but over time he realized that the march of both time and technology would continue on whether he liked it or not.

His cabin had changed little, aside from his collection of leather-bound journals growing larger and the extra bookshelves he had installed to encompass his huge library. Eventually he looked away from his fireplace to look around his simple home, neither pride nor sorrow welling within him. The place was simple, furnished enough to not look spartan but it didn't quite evoke that homey feel to it either. One could argue that it needed a woman's touch, but Ash had never suffered a woman long enough to bring her home.

He felt that a partner wasn't necessary, since his work was grisly and many wouldn't understand how important it was. Aside from the bookshelves there was a simple wooden floor, a few windows in the log walls, a seldom-used dining room, a bedroom near the back of the cabin, and a small bathroom attached. Used to cooking his dinner with the fire pit out back he had never bothered updating his house beyond the sink and eventually a toilet. The old ways were a hard habit to break, and since he had built his home by hand it had no need of an electric heater as one fire would do just fine.

Ash's stomach growled then, and he went outside where a cook-fire burned merrily with a spit of pork and rabbit rested over the flames. The smells were tantalizing, and as grease dripped off it sizzled as it hit the coals. His mouth watered as he went over to inspect his food, slicing off a thin layer of meat and popping it into his mouth. Immediately regretting it he gasped as he burned his tongue, but managed not to spit it out and smiled.

With dinner in hand a few moments later he returned inside with his plate and silverware to eat heartily of the game he had hunted earlier. As he chewed his mind wandered to the altar sitting in the bedroom, but he didn't really feel compelled to go in there. He hadn't used the crystals for weeks now, and it was beginning to show. Those who needed to be judged were getting bolder, and the ones who now rested eternal were waiting to be disposed of by nature.

It was hard and thankless work, which was why he had stopped in the first place. Too long he had gone unnoticed, which was important, but a small part of him felt that he at least deserved some kind of mention out there in the world. He grimaced as he remembered that the few people who knew what he did were now dead, long forgotten to the passages of history aside from the notations in the inscrutable journals. Sighing, he put down his half-eaten food and when into the bedroom to stare at the altar.

All the tools were there, he just needed the inspiration. Judging was easier now with the onset of cellular phones and things called computers, as regular humans tended to use them as a way to both tell and hide all their dirty little secrets. It was becoming repetitive though, people dying for the same reasons all around the world. That was why he had stopped, because if everyone was doing the same thing then there was no point in trying to stop them with a cleansing.

Now he was paying the price, those who deserved to die had gone on living and were beginning to breed. That was unacceptable, and he knew if his father still walked the earth he would have gotten a severe talking to about it. Ash hung his head as he mentally berated himself. Well, time to make those wrong things right again.

~*☼*~

His breath fogged outward as he panted. The deed was done, the man lying dead before him. Judged for the crime of adultery and theft, he had reaped his just rewards with the blade in his heart. Ash's golden eyes roamed the room at large while he thought of how he was going to leave with his prize.

He had let himself in as he always did, locked doors becoming unlocked to his touch though he never used any tools to break in. He knew that the people who were referred to as "police" found that odd, but so far they chalked it up to some kind of burglar. It was no real mind to him, if they wanted to blame an imaginary person that was fine with him. Strands of his long midnight black hair shot with deep burgundy fell into his eyes, so he paused long enough to shake it out of his face.

Time was wasting, so he bent down to grab the body and move it outside when he heard a noise somewhere above his head. He froze. Was someone awake? Had someone heard something? His heart began to pound and tendrils of unease began to wind their way through him. Listening intently, Ash's eyes strayed upward to the ceiling while he waited.

Yes, someone was walking around upstairs. He couldn't risk moving the body now as it tended to create noise, and he didn't want whoever it was to come investigate. It was better for family to think their loved one had disappeared as opposed to rotting away where ever nature chose to dispose of them. After a few minutes of him tersely holding his breath, the sounds stopped and he knew that the person had gone back to bed.

Now he could continue on with his work in peace without fear of being interrupted. With that he pulled the knife out of the corpse and put it on the floor while pulling his prize outside. From there he did what came naturally now, gathering the shadows to himself until he felt his wings rising outward from back. Leaping straight up into the air he went off towards his hiding place to make sure that nature took care of the rest like she always did.

~*☼*~

Dawn was beginning to show its face in the sky when he was finally done with his work. The sun hadn't actually shown its face yet, but the midnight sky was heralding its arrival by beginning to don the plumage of turquoise, pinks, oranges, and golds before the fiery ball ascended into the heavens. Ash looked around at his surroundings, knowing it was time to get home before the day actually began. Out of habit he took stock of what he had left home with, making sure he didn't forget anything that could be traced back and thus used against him.

He patted himself down, mentally going through his checklist of belongings when he paused. Uncertain, Ash started over, going through the items checklist again. Again, he paused. Then he hung his head, cursing.

Damn, after all that effort of not getting stuck in that house he had accidentally left his sacred dagger behind. Now he had to go back and go get it before whoever that person was woke up and found it. A disappeared loved one was one thing, another was finding a bloody knife with their DNA all over it. Making a face at his clumsiness, Ash immediately took flight back to the house.

On the way he gave himself a severe tongue-lashing for such a novice mistake. It was how his brother had died, by making a stupid move like that and was burned at the stake for being a murderer. Townspeople then didn't understand the services his family had provided, and he highly doubted that the descendants who lived here now would understand it either. A grim countenance adorned his fair face while he hurtled towards this pit stop.

Once again, as he landed and his wings faded away the door opened to his touch. He was unafraid of being fingerprinted as he never left any behind, no matter what he touched. One of the few good points to being what he was, even if he did see it as nothing more than an irritating curse that would end with his death since he had taken pains to never sire children. Back in the house, he looked around to see where he might have left his dagger after taking it out of his victim.

He didn't see it on the carpet, but he did see where the body had lied afterward since the fibers were kind of squished. Quickly scuffing it back up with his boot Ash frantically searched the room at large while trying to be as quiet as possible. After a terrifying few minutes, he spotted the knife on a coffee table near the door he had entered. Of course, he had put it down to open the door and wrest the body outside.

Sighing with relief he picked it up and pocketing it, noting no blood had dripped onto the polished wood, a blessing in disguise. He did a double check of the ground floor to make absolutely sure he hadn't forgotten anything else, and satisfied that there was nothing to tie him to this potential crime he got ready to leave again. With his hand reached out to the door he heard a startling beeping noise, like an alarm of some kind. Panicked, Ash lept at the glass patio door and crashed through it, running across the lawn and summoning the shadow wings to get him the hell out of there before the person behind had caught him.

When he made it back to his house he collapsed with relief against the doorjamb, confident he hadn't been caught by the occupant. With that he put his tools away and went to bed, satisfied with a job well done after all.

fantasy faire

so because i've been so excited, i've been dropping the news about the fact that i am one of the many performers in fantasy faire on second life this year. it's been a big deal for me as it's one of the biggest events of the year, the other two being second life's birthday party and the rock your rack event in october.

i felt- i feel, really, like it's such a big deal because it kind of is one. but it also seems like at least one person has gotten the wrong idea about how this all came to be. so lemme pull back the curtain, and reveal how this small fry ended up a part of this amazing craziness.

what i did?

i made a friend. her name is shayna, and i ended up mostly talking to her because she had moulin rouge tags on at divine sadism one day, and it clicked suddenly that that was why her name was so familiar to me. we chat for a while, and the fantasy faire comes up as a topic.

she's a dancer, has been for three years and mentioned that she's doing it this year. i don't actually remember how, but the subject of me being a DJ came up, and she asked me if i wanted to do it with her. i said i was interested, but for what she wanted i would likely need training.

next thing i know, my name is on her application and i get the invite to the group that's reserved for performers, bloggers, merchants, and the staff. i didn't know how to react at the time. it didn't feel real. it still doesn't feel real. my name, my user name anyways, is listed on the official website in the credits. thousands of people are looking at that, and they're seeing me.

it's beyond my comprehension, really. who knew that making a friend would lead to all of this?

i mean yeah, i'm the backup DJ for the moonbeam dancers, but i'm still there. i'm a part of this. i'm one of the people who is going to help raise lindens to donate to relay for life. it's insane, really. i mean, i've done charity events before as part of the purple man group, but this is different.

i'm not crooning over the radio waves as a DJ on a station, all fancy and professional and awesome. i'm pretty sure i mentioned how i feel about being a small fry in it's not about the linden, but the full, honest disclosure is i'm not being paid for this. not a single linden is going to me, it's all going to the charity organization.

i don't remember the parameters exactly, but it's going to i think a clinic or something like that in kenya so we're going to help out with that. which is really cool.

but the one thing that's bothering me is the level of saltiness over this. it's not like i went "yeah i'm a DJ so you should totally let me join you in this thing" and did some schmoozing all sneaky-like to land this gig. it was a complete fluke, i swear. i had no idea i was going to be put on shayna's application, let alone listed on the website like a fancy pants professional who knows what they're doing.

the application deadline was also like march 15th or something, i don't remember. i only barely glanced over the notecard before choking over my name. and honestly, i kind of hope i don't end up spinning because the amount of anxiety is unreal. i've had to have kingston and parzival talk me down a couple times now, and it hasn't even started yet.

but yeah, um fantasy faire opens the 19th and it runs until the 29th. the troupe i'm with, moonbeam dancers, they perform the 24th, 25th, 27th, and 28th. i don't remember what time off the top of my head, but i'll send out notifications about it in my little fan club group on second life.

grief, and other things

grief takes on many forms, in many ways. grief never really ends when you lose someone, and it took me until yesterday to figure out why. someone on my facebook shared an image that explained grief is the love you want to give someone desperately, but you can't because they're gone. that it comes out as a lump in the throat, pain in the chest, tears down a face.

and it made sense to me. even after eight years i grieve my son, and i realized it's because i love him so much even though he never got to take his first breath. that i still get a lump in my throat because i'll never kiss his skinned knees, never praise his artwork in school, or hear him explain his world and his friends. how he'll never know the joy of owning a dog, or petting the cat.

fuck, i got choked up just typing that.

but now it makes sense to me, and at this moment my heart hurts. not for me, but for her.

because she's trying to be strong for the one she loves, who is facing a family member with a terminal illness. and i can't bring myself to get too involved. it hurts too much. and the guilt eats me alive every time i take a breath. i had to distance myself because it was beyond anything i could help with. but a small voice whispers that i didn't have to, i chose to. and so i grieve quietly with her, with them, because i am unable to do anything else.

**************************************************************************

in the two weeks since my sabbatical became official, i've been puttering around sl looking to pick up shifts. the idea has me happy, albeit somewhat busy which means i'm putting off a couple things again. i have snagged two more places under my belt, except both places are new and haven't had their grand openings yet.

i was made a co-owner of one of them, and hired a friend of mine who recently became available to work (see problems at the old guard). i shot a message over to my friend and boss that i was doing so, and then sat back to relax at the moulin rouge and get tangled up in petty drama.

it's driving me up the wall, but since the drama llama quit her job, i am now free to enjoy the dances again without a bee buzzing away in my bonnet.

the other club i've been quasi-hired at, is getting a makeover within the month, and i told the owner that i'm not in a hurry and to take their time. they're also working on a music logo for my company, and i've been puzzling over how to provide payment in my thanks and gratefulness. i don't really know how the power structure in mooncheeks music works, but i made io COO of it since it was her brainchild.

i place myself mentally under her in the totem pole, and i place spitfire under me as an employee, but above the fans. i want to start shopping around for people to hire, but we don't have an in-world headquarters. i can probably make that work though, that all of us are together as a company, and we come to you for parties and weddings and stuff.

probably kind of weird that for how good i am at hiring people, running messages, delegating and all that jazz, i never see myself in the boss/leadership position. i'm more comfortable as a lieutenant, the secondary who does all the things and makes the boss happy.

problems at the old guard

i'm not even really sure how to start this one. i'm just trying to get things out of my head before my headache gets worse. there are things i want to say, but experience tells me that doing so will get my ass fired in a heartbeat unless i quit right after doing so. so i've turned to my blog, because the owner doesn't know it exists and i can vent safely.

i've made no secret to my friends that i didn't like it when tajah was released from her dominant. that i felt she deserved her chance at redemption, which wasn't given. but that is now just old news, though relevant to this post. because now there's a new girl, angel.

and angel just made a lot of enemies.

for someone who claims they have zero power, they sure are pretty mouthy when it comes to decor that nobody liked, and while everyone holds their silence on it now (when she's around anyways, we're still human and gonna gripe while agreeing with each other), she brings it up like a child waving a flag.

i'm getting a little ahead of myself, though. i need to rewind to the start of last night, trivia night at og. normally my trivia ball is used, but since it had been returned to me, i assumed a new one had been bought to replace it so i didn't put it back out. i have since learned that was not the case, and i intend to put it back where it was by the chandelier for the next round of trivia.

everything was going well, until suddenly it wasn't. since my ball was not on the sim, bryan and wanda were using google for trivia so people could play the game. one of the questions was "Sienna law forbids women of what name from prostitution?" and eternatee guessed first, with maria. she was right, but since chat was busy other people were still guessing.

cherokee guessed "angel, or angelina" quite innocently. tammy thought that angelina might have been the correct answer, so she made a joke about it while also wondering why that would be a law.

and all hell broke loose.

angel decided that tammy was making a direct comment about one of the members of the old guard named angelina, and threatened her. tammy was understandably confused and a bit irate, explaining that no, it was not a personal dig at anyone, it was just one of the guesses for the trivia question.

but angel didn't back down. bryan asked her why she went after tammy when cherokee was the one who had made the guess, and angel went off on him. bryan talked to cherokee to see whether or not he meant anything malicious or was just playing the trivia game. cherokee lost his shit and told bryan he and eternatee were not coming back.

eternatee then imed bryan saying that if cherokee wasn't coming back, she quit. she was irate thinking bryan had been making digs at him, which wasn't true but based on the way bryan had phrased a few things realized his error and fucked up. he apologized profusely over and over, but the night wasn't over. oh no. there was still more to come.

not only was angel pissed that bryan had talked to other people even though "she had apologized to tammy for making an assumption" because she was unaware that he often finds everyone's point of view on an issue so that no erroneous conclusions are made (like the one she made), she also got the owner, and her dominant involved.

and that dominant sided with her, and reamed bryan a new asshole for doing his job and trying to mediate before the explosion got any worse.

so now i am left knowing these things: out of spite, tammy and horace will likely be banned. roo and i are on thin ice because we don't agree with the decor (i have yet to mention this around angel and her man, but i have pissed him off before so i know i'm on my way out the door), and kingston is just tired of angel and her shit in general.

if eternatee doesn't come back, that makes three employees that have walked away because of the owner's actions.

i already told bryan that all he has to do is say the word, and i will quit the old guard and leave with him. my loyalty is to him, not the castle. he told me he won't be quitting over angel's behavior, but i have a feeling the future does not bode well for us.

roo, kingston, and i may be out of a job. bryan too. and what then, cooper? when the old guard has nothing left, what will you have won aside from the contempt from the employees you fired for unprofessional reasons?

angel's mouth just showed us that she's dangerous. and that she thinks somehow by giving us "...ALL of you including Tammy a position here on the sim to make everyone feel like they are needed and included" something purely symbolic will help, it won't.

we all saw your true colors angel, and it's not pretty. you are clearly a venomous woman who doesn't like the fact that people have opinions that dissent to yours. we are allowed to dislike decor. we are allowed to not like gor. we are allowed to make silly jokes that might be a bit non-pc, but we know we are not trying to be malicious and generally have fun.

the only person who has a problem with us, is you. and you will destroy old guard to get your way. i don't have to do a thing.

the gift

i don't know why i forgot to write about this, but i did. reading io's entry reminded me that while i mentioned it on facebook, i had not blogged about it. oops.

a long time ago, before penny was my pony, i found out he worked with alpacas, and i begged for some fleece. i had no particular reasoning aside from carding the wool and making yarn from it (which i don't know how to do), or perhaps selling it. i'd been promised a care package for ages, but life kept getting in the way.

one was sent to me, but in the midst of customs it turned out my address hadn't been written right, so it was sent back to the great white north. double checking, triple checking, i get pinged that the package has been sent again, and it was bigger than before. i didn't really know what to expect, all i had asked for was some soap that he hand makes and even some fleece.

a few days after the confirmation that the package was mailed, it appears on my doorstep.  i brought it inside, unsure of how to open it. io, my beloved waifu, has a habit of sending glitter bombs to people she likes, so i was admittedly a little apprehensive.

penny assured me there was no glitter in it because i have dogs, but still. she is a trickster's daughter same as me, so i was a bit skeptical. with the help of jason, we carefully sliced the medical tape off of the box (that made me laugh, because they were out of regular tape. i do that too), and i waited for a puff of glitter.

when none came, i peered inside. all i could see was fluff. confused, i sat down on the couch and opened the box all the way. inside there was raw fleece, and a bunch of little stars. i got excited, io had sent me loads of pictures of the origami stars she makes, and how she has glasses and glasses of them full. a rainbow of colors and shades, different sizes that tormented me in their cuteness.

carefully picking the stars out, jason got a bag and i put in the first layer of fleece. underneath that were some soaps. then fleece, then soaps, repeated until i got to the bottom of the box. i felt like a kid at christmas, and i have the fleece contained in a bag while i decide what to do with it. the stars are on my table, and the soaps are in the box to keep the dogs from eating them.

i have a gift for them too, four jars i made myself. i just haven't had the time to mail them yet, so after easter is over, i will go to the store to get bubble wrap, and some stamps too before i figure out how the heck i'm going to mail them to the island.

i also plan on taking more photos of flat romana once the weather stabilizes. i haven't decided on a location yet, but i may go to westport or montesano and snap more pics on a quasi-educational jaunt like last time. i fully intend on healing the hurt from the broken promise of someone claiming they would take photos in scotland, and never delivering beyond the one.