Some guy is spouting off, claiming that various cities are going to collapse today. One he mentioned was Las Vegas.

Does this mean I shouldn't go to the gym today?

I think the world would be a better place if every transwoman on the planet had a bitchy bio-girlfriend to point out the errors of her ways. The worst mistakes I've seen made are:

- Poor makeup choice, particularly when it comes to colors. Always remember that the harsher the color, the harsher it makes your face look. Lots of bio-girls use dark, contrasting makeup colors, too, and either they have a soft enough face that it works or they look pretty gnarly. If you weren't born with XX chromosomes, then dark lipstick and raccoon eyes are going to look even worse on you than they do on bio-girls. Lots of rouge is just going to draw attention to masculine cheekbones. And pick a foundation that matches your real skintone, for God's sake. If your face is orange and your neck is pale pink PEOPLE WILL NOTICE.

- Being too skinny. Seriously, now. What do you think those hormones you're spending a fortune on are supposed to be doing? Aside from making hair removal easier and stimulating breast growth, the most helpful thing they do is redistribute your body fat. This means you need some. The fat will fill out your face, making your bone structure softer, and will also add additional padding to your breasts, hips, and thighs. Yes, I know, all of those curvy models in magazines claim to be 5'7" and 110lbs. They are lying. Go eat a sandwich.

- Hair styles. Biological males have higher foreheads than women. This means that long, straight hair styles that are parted in the middle are going to showcase a big ol' man head. Some of the most stunningly beautiful transwomen I've ever seen have had boy haircuts that they grew out and styled a bit. Long, straight hair will make your facial bone structure look sharper. Straight hair, no matter how glossy and pretty you think it is, also looks a lot thinner than curls. Guess who has thinner hair than women? Bingo! Invest in a curling iron or a perm, and learn how to do something with your hair other than swinging it around, rejoicing that it's long.

-Clothes. Dear God, if you have no hips, no breasts, and no waist do NOT wear lowrise jeans and a baby doll t-shirt. You know what you look like when you do that? A crossdresser. Congratulations. Until you have a bit of padding on your belly don't go showing it off, seriously, because all of those girls out there wearing those clothes don't have six packs, I assure you. In fact, the women that do have six packs don't often wear such clothes because they make them look less feminine. Lowrise makes the ass look flatter and the hips look narrower. Until you've got enough curves that you can handle hiding a few don't do this. Jeans with a slightly higher waist will add emphasis to your hips. Shirts that go past your waist and have longer sleeves will help make your torso look longer and your shoulders narrower.

All of these are mistakes that some bio-girls make, too, except that most bio-girls will not have the combination of flaws that you do coming into this. Maybe transwomen have a better idea of what you're going through, but a bio-girl has the best idea as to what the end product should look and act like.

It's been a long time since I've really been on LiveJournal, but I was reminded that it existed and wandered back over to it today.

I don't really have anything new to add here, though. I've been writing a lot lately, but my field guide is kind of languishing. See, the field guide is this book I'm writing, based on a certain type of community here in the Las Vegas area. People calling themselves vampires are the main focus of what I'm writing about. All of the books out there on the topic now are pretty ridiculous for the most part. There are, generally speaking, just three stances found in non-fiction books:

1. People claiming to be vampires are lying/crazy. These are really just a bunch of goth kids looking for attention.

2. Vampires exist metaphorically/spiritually, but there's no such physical being as a vampire.

3. Psi-vampires exist and they are dangerous. You must guard yourself against them.

Seeing as there's nothing written by someone who's actually attempted to understand these communities (aside from what vampires write for themselves) I'm trying to go for a sort of field guide here, separating fact from fiction. I don't want to expose anyone, so I'm avoiding real names or favored pseudonyms and other identifying features.

I've got a lot of material right now, but nothing really put together in a coherent fashion. I'd hoped to kind of use this as my writing journal, but that hasn't worked out so well.

Lord Davidian keeps showing up, making plays for power, and then disappearing again when people recognize who he is. He's from Romania and keeps using different names in the Las Vegas vampire communities, but...everybody always remembers the vampire from Romania, I suppose. Personally, if I was trying to hide who I was I wouldn't keep mentioning the strange country of my origin.

God. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

"Psychic" vampire implies that the vampire in question has psychic powers, not that the vampire feeds psychically. It's the most common term used by the layman, but considered inaccurate by those who consider themselves to be vampires. Their preferred term is "psi-vampire." "Pyschic" refers to how the feeding takes place, while "psi" is what they feed on--psionic energy, also often called prana, chi, or etheric energy.

Sometimes, psi-vampires are fairly ordinary people who are suffering from some sort of illness, which has caused a loss of natural etheric energy, and so they begin to draw upon the energy of those around them to sustain them through the illness.

The symptoms of this include weakness, lethargy, frequent illnesses, and depression.

Since it's been scientifically proven that there are physiological differences between how an extrovert and an introvert react to social situations, all of this isn't really that surprising. An extrovert, by definition, gains energy from being around other people, while an introvert creates his own energy and is drained through social interaction. A psi-vampire could just be some extreme from of extrovert, incapable of sustaining herself energetically she must seek out those who create energy on their own to survive.

Now, this energetic extroversion doesn't have to manifest itself through perky behavior and social butterflyism. It simply means that in order to gain energy this psi-vampire must seek out creators of energy. Other vampires won't be good enough, because it isn't that being around other people creates energy for them, as it would for a normal extrovert. Instead, they literally drain energy, and so can only take it from renewable sources, lest they quickly starve.

This needs more, because I know there's some stuff that I'm missing here, but I've got most of the basics so far, I think. Much revision coming!

Psychic Abilities and Magick
Psychic powers operate on the astral plane, while magick operates on the etheric. Magick requires some sort of ritual and use of imaginative visualization, while psychic powers are innate abilities. However, they overlap in many ways. Few can access their psychic powers without at least some ritual and visualization and few can perform magick without at least beginning to develop their own psychic abilities. Therefore, the most powerful magick would incorporate well developed psychic abilities with some form of ritual and would affect both the astral and the etheric plane and thus be more likely to affect the physical plane.

Astral Projection
Projection of the consciousness into the astral body, and observing from the perspective of the astral plane, which lies just above the etheric plane.

In an astral projection, physical objects and places are not seen as in etheric projection. Instead one can see exact copies of them. In fact, the astral plane is said to contain exact copies of everything physical, in addition to much more. Thought here can influence manifestation and therefore one can create by will, or effect change first on this level and as a result, the physical level. Colors have been said to be more vivid, and sounds more pure.

Auric Vision
The ability to see or sense the energy emanation or "aura" that surrounds all life forms including humans, animals, and plants.

Clairaudience
The ability to hear things beyond the range of normal hearing.

Clairvoyance
The ability to see objects, places or events beyond the power of the range of vision, in either the past, present, or future. When the events seen are in the future the ability is called "precognition" and seeing an event after it has happened is called "retrocognition." Another form of clairvoyance called "remote viewing" involves receiving sensory information about a remote event/place in the present.

Divination
The use of objects to "divine" the future. "Scrying" involves gazing into a medium such as water or a crystal ball to see future events, "tarot" uses pictorial cards to gain future insight. Another form of divination the "ouija" board has been in use for centuries. Ouija boards can also be considered a form of mediumship where spirits are contacted.

Empathy
Empathy is the ability to sense the feelings or emotions of another. Empaths (people who have the ability of empathy) receive their information usually through touch or close contact, though sometimes it has been reported over long distances with a close loved one. This has been reported in many instances with identical twins. This is not the same as mundane empathy, which is simply experiencing the most likely emotions of others upon knowledge of a situation. That is the result of being empathetic--not an empath. It's a normal ability that is hopefully developed during childhood.

Etheric Projection
Projection of the consciousness into the etheric body, and observing from the perspective of the etheric plane which lies just above the physical plane. Since in etheric projection one remains closest to the physical, the physical surroundings can be observed real-time but without the normal physical limitations.

Since the etheric body retains some influences and properties from the physical during an etheric projection, movement can sometimes be difficult and vision sometimes distorted. These symptoms usually improve over time though and with practice.

ESP
Extra Sensory Perception or ESP for short is the generalized term to describe the ability of one or more of a multitude of psychic abilities. It doesn't strictly refer to having a "feeling" that something is going to happen.

Evocation
This is summoning non-physical beings, such as spirits, elementals, angels, demons, or gods. It is extremely dangerous if not done properly and can lead to an unhealthy obsession with an entity or the anger of the summoned being. This is only suggested for benign spirits, elementals, and angels.

Invocation
This is the internalized version of evocation. Rather than summoning an entity into the circle, the magician channels the being through his own body. When the presence of a god or other powerful, sentient entity is required this is the safest way to do it. It's also strongly suggested that such beings be politely asked, rather than commanded.

Healing
Psychic or magickal healing takes place almost entirely on the etheric plane, but by healing the damage on this plane the damage on the physical plane because much easier to deal with. Victims of psychological or sexual abuse will often have severe damage to their etheric body, regardless of whatever damage might have been wrought to their physical one. Similarly, victims of demons, vampires, malicious fae, psychic attacks, etc. may find their etheric bodies damaged far worse than their physical bodies.

Such healing can help to protect an individual from future attacks, since a damaged etheric body makes it much easier for demonic possession or obsession to occur.

Mediumship
The ability to communicate with the deceased. A medium receives information from the dead through clairaudience, or sometimes in a trance as a channel for the deceased to communicate while using the medium's body.

Necromancy
This is a broad range of abilities, covering everything from raising oneself as a vampire to working as a medium. It is power over the dead.

Psychokinesis
Also called Telekinesis, the ability to affect matter using only the mind. Examples would be moving an object, or bending a spoon by concentrating on it.

Psychomancy
The ability to gain knowledge--either through clairvoyance, clairaudience, or some other mode--by coming into contact with an object that is in some way associated with the event or person whom the psychomancer is trying to gain knowledge of.

Pyromancy
The ability to control fire through psychic or ritual means. While minor manipulations are sometimes possible, any control greater than making the flame on a single candle flicker, grow, or shrink is improbable.

Telepathy
The ability to communicate with another person using only the mind. Some telepaths are better "receivers", meaning that they can only receive information sent by another telepath or they are better at receiving than sending. Others are better "senders", being able to send out information more than they can receive information back. Rarely, a telepath may be good at both abilities.