The month of June has swept sleepily past us, in a lazy rush that left me wondering how we suddenly leapt  from May to July! Around Shayol Ghul, June has been relatively quiet – which is to say, Ed only spammed sometimes. Occasionally one of us mustered enough energy to stab someone, now and again you'd see a Grey Man assignation taking place, but really it was just going through the motions. Or was it?

I got to thinking... then I sobered up and I couldn't remember what I was thinking. Then I started drinking again, started thinking. Again. Even without tons of wild antics going on, SG is still the coolest place around. One must therefore logically deduce that it's the people who make it so great. Even the cranky antisocial ones! And that's when I decided that sleepy old June was the perfect month to talk about some of the fine upstanding folks you'll meet around SG.

Now, SG as a social group is a highly organized society with a strict hierarchy and several politically charged factions competing against each other for glory, power, control, and just the sheer fun of creating mayhem! In terms of 'who's-who' in SG, we're run by a ruthless dictator who routinely picks fleas and ticks out of his fur and feeds them to his loyal subjects – none other than our beloved  cosmicpanda. Directly under him are the three dreaded faction leaders – Verbal for the Shadow Spawn, Nae for the Black Ajah, and Moghedian with the Dreadlords. They all  make up silly, self-important titles for themselves, and for the life of me I can't remember the titles for any of them. Now directly under the faction leaders are the Chosen of each faction – Pete, Alaksuleiel, and Ed respectivlely.

But I'm not going to talk about them today.

No – today is about the members of SG! That's what SG is really all about, you see? The staff and leaders of SG hog enough of the limelight with their attention seeking ways! I say, let's shine the light on the humble, salt-of-the-earth regular old people who make up the lifeblood of our dear social group! Down with the bourgeoisie and power to the people! Viva la revolution! Yes that's right – the June blog is a coup-d'etat for the non-staff members of SG.  They are some of the most interesting people you'll ever have the pleasure of being stabbed by, and they are the reason our little organization is such a wonderfully evil place to be!

So to give you an idea of what our members are like, I'll give you a little sampling of some of the people you'll meet here. Now, I simply can't mention everyone. Just the ones that paid me a lot of cash and/or points. Oh.. and the ones that blackmailed me. Haha! Okay okay I'm kidding, I love everyone equally (except the ones that are blackmailing me).  Nonetheless, I wanted to take a chance and spotlight some of the people that I think really add to the atmosphere of our little social group!

People often think of us as highly evil, but the truth of the matter is we're probably not so much evil as we are painfully honest with a razor sharp sense of humor. But there ARE those among us who are the sweetest little delicate flowers that you ever could meet! Talya, Amadine, and Tigraine are the first ones you'll see posting well wishes and encouraging words to anyone wandering into our little corner of hell. Oh, they'll cut your ears off and wear them as interesting fashion accessories if you provoke them, but by default they are just delightful. Talya of course moonlights as the illustrious leader of the Black Tower, and so any time we get with her, we cherish! Amadine is an accomplished graphic artist and a solid mafia gamer  – if you happen to land on a team with her in mafia, I highly recommend steamrolling her though – it's a highly satisfying experience!!! ('love ya Ama!!) Tigs of course deserves special mention as having hands down has the most dramatic, exciting, suspenseful, action packed life of anyone I've met in SG. Others might stick their head in the sand while life batters them, but Tigs drags her life along behind her, determined not to let it spoil her fun -  whether she's in jail, being run over by cars, or sorting out brouhahas. This girl is one trooper. Expect to see posts from her like “guys the plane I'm on is crashing and I have to stick my arm out of the window to try to hold the wing together – I'll post more when I can.†or “Some bounty hunter has mistaken me for an international provocateur and I'm currently in a prison camp in east Cambodia – could someone send in my night action for me?†Yet none of it mars her sunny disposition!

Then there's people like Lily. Do you remember that old John Hughes movie about the two geeky kids who blew up their house in a mad science experiment to create the perfect woman? Well, after the movie was over, the perfect woman moved here to SG and called herself Lily.  That's really all I can say about Lily. You can always find Lily in a thread, and she always makes it better. Or more evil. Same 'diff.

So far we've covered sweet and perfect, and now to look at odd and unusual!! WWWwombat. You know, I've sometimes wondered whether the triple W's were just a warm-up to get to the actual 'wombat' part, or more a stutter of some kind, or if indeed it is the 'world wide web  wombat'. No matter how you slice it, Wombsy definitely makes waves wherever he goes. My strong suspicion is that he's a part-time English literature major with an enviable vocabulary, and an over the top style and humor that sees him through any situation in life. I fully expect to see him parachute into the super-bowl one day with explosives taped to his ears screaming “You're all scum!â€

Jelly though is definitely not scum. I don't actually know Jelly, because she is always on LOA. I mean always. And she dutifully posts every LOA in the LOA thread (what else would an LOA thread be for?) so cheerfully! “I'm on LOA the next 4 days!†“I'm back from LOA but now I'm gone again for another weekend†“I had a great weekend but I'm only popping in as I head back out on LOA!â€. Seriously, I want her life!

Wombat is wonky, Jelly is permanently MIA, and then there is the hairy nail-biter Krak, and Aemon the pit-bull American in long-term residence south of the border! I can't really spell Krak's entire name, and I can't be bothered to go check it. When I first started in SG, Krak's avatar was a picture of a big fluffy cat biting his paw,  and forever more I've associated him with that image. A hairy nail-biter.  Now he's sporting a pic of  Calvin and Hobbes boogy'ing down – and while he's still probably a hairy nail-biter, I have to admit the new pic suits him well because he's as crazy as Calvin and - rumor has it -  he has this great big tiger tail just like Hobbes. I group Krak and Aemon in the same category because they both seem a little unhinged to me. Aemon and I joined up around the same time, and as a result, we ended up doing a lot of the same games and Grey Man Tasks. Of course, Aemon gained much more notoriety than I, for two main reasons. One, his ferocious approach to mafia games. I've seen pit-bulls attack with less tenacity! And two, that scandal out in the Blight – for that GMT where you have to spam all the threads? I did that same task just after him, and now every time someone mentions his name I see twin yellow smilies!!! If you don't know what I'm talking about, just go pick any thread out in the blight and you'll see! We actually don't see enough of Aemon anymore, because he's too busy getting lynched on the first day of his all his games!!! (I, of course, have nothing to do with that!!).

Limi, Al Jenn, and Adella. I group these three together because in my mind, I've always thought of them like that three-headed monster from Greek mythology. Or like Fred, Daphne and Thelma. Janet, Chrissy and Jack. Dorothy, Rose and Blanche.  Whatever the threesome, these triplets are like the poppular cool kids who everyone really wanted to be friends with in high school because despite being so popular, they were genuinely nice! Oh, they'll have no problem stabbing you, but they'll be quite congenial about the whole affair. Particularly poor Al Jenn, who is is having the WORST time trying to be mean for his latest Grey Man Task. Which is particularly shocking given the number of role-models he has!! Limi has had a meteoric rise in rank, due in large part to a skill with graphics that is on par with Amadine! And of course Adella is the sweetie of Ed, and this means she is a very very special person indeed. Except I'm deliberately repressing all thoughts of Ed today, so that means Adella is just special! :D

So, when people ask me - “hey, why do you love SG so much?â€, and I reply “well, it's the people of course!†these are the people I'm talking about! If you're new to the forums or unfamiliar with SG itself, I've given you some incentive to join us here in SG - and given you some great talking points to strike up a conversation with the interesting people you'll meet here! If you're a regular of SG, I bet you chuckled with familiarity at some of what you've read! And if you're a member of SG and NOT mentioned in here, it just means you're not one of my favorites. LOL! Kidding kidding kidding. Really it means you weren't able to twist my arm with the threat of revealing some of my more embarrassing proclivities!! All joking aside, this month I wanted to give people a glimpse of how much I like and admire the people of SG, and I know I fell well short of my ambitions – you'll simply have to come check us out yourself to really see it. Trust me – murder and mayhem never felt so good!

~ Aust