quixotic chaotic

Ficlet: Good Dreams

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 06:39:41 GMT

Crowley is snuffling and a little restless in his sleep where he’s sprawled out across the sofa in the bookshop’s back room, and Aziraphale finds he can’t help himself: He miracles up a soft throw blanket, treading quiet as can be across the room to drape it over him. Surely, this is allowed. The demon does always complain of being cold, especially since they’ve settled so far from the equator, so far from where it all started... It’s a caring gesture, tucking the blanket securely around him, a kind gesture, nothing more, nothing that can’t be attributed to millennia of friendship. And now, after the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t, now Aziraphale is finally allowed to show that care without fear of reprisals from either Above or Below.

The hand that strokes gently through Crowley’s hair next also can’t help itself, though, he knows, it is much more difficult to explain away as mere friendship.

Crowley murmurs and shifts in his sleep, and Aziraphale freezes. The demon’s fists clench in the blanket, his entire form seeming to tense, curling in on himself, and then, to the angel’s horror, before he can pull his hand back, gold eyes blink open the tiniest amount. Aziraphale holds very still, leaning guiltily over his friend as his eyes flick around the room, still sleepy and unfocused, and then the tip of a narrow, forked tongue darts out between his lips – scenting the air, an action Aziraphale knows, after all these centuries, that Crowley doesn’t allow of himself unless he is very stressed or very, very relaxed. Crowley hums back in his throat, eyes sliding closed once more and all the tension seeming to melt from him. Aziraphale breathes a sigh of relief, but then freezes again as Crowley suddenly stretches and pushes his head firmly against Aziraphale’s palm.

“Mm, good dream for once...” the demon sighs, a lazy sort of almost-smile spreading across his face as one long-fingered hand comes up to encircle Aziraphale’s wrist. “‘Snice...”

Aziraphale holds his breath as Crowley's slowly evens out, deepening with sleep once more. His grip around the angel's wrist slackens but doesn't fall away entirely, and Aziraphale finds he is loath to pull his hand back, especially if that is the sort of reaction such a simple, indulgent touch garners.

"Sleep well, my dear," he whispers, finally allowing himself to move, fingers sweeping back through the soft, fiery locks and thumb brushing gently against Crowley's hairline. "There'll be many more good dreams to come, I'm sure."

Crowley hums again, but doesn't otherwise stir, and Aziraphale finally pulls back, content – and confident – in a way he hasn't felt in... well, ever.

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6SS: IWTFY

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 22:14:04 GMT

A bit from a Good Omens oneshot I’m working on, for Six Sentence Sunday:

Aziraphale glances up at him, and the small smile spreading across his features makes Crowley wonder if the angel hears the same promise there as he does: tomorrow, not I’ll see you when I see you, not in a few months, a few years, a few decades, not ‘Oh well I’ve got this assignment so I really don’t know if—’ Tomorrow.

Crowley would, of course, stay right here, forever, if he could, but there’s also something delicious about this thing he’s been doing more and more since the not-pocalypse: going away for a bit just because he knows he can come back again, a little bit of denying himself just for the sharp, sweet anticipation of seeing Aziraphale again in what really amounts to just a few hours in the grand scheme of things. He’s spent the last six thousand fucking years stealing whatever little snatches of time he can with the angel, and spent half that time worrying that Above and Below could see right through their little arrangement, right through to what Crowley really desires in a heart that’s supposed to be so blackened as to be beyond such things. Or worrying that one of them is going to be abruptly sent halfway around the globe, that it’ll be years and years until he can come up with a good excuse to run into Aziraphale again.

Now, he can say tomorrow and mean it.

(Imported from my tumblr)

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WIP Wednesday: IWTFY

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 22:10:12 GMT

I missed Six Sentence Sunday this week, so here’s a bit more Good Omens fic for WIP Wednesday:

Two arms suddenly close around him with divine strength and then Crowley is being hauled bodily backwards. For a thousandth of a second he actually thinks, Oh, this is it, they’ve found us out, and there’s no chance to swap faces now, or even if they did Heaven and Hell would surely have devised some different punishment, something more terrible than fire and water, maybe not intended to kill them but just make them suffer for all the rest of eternity—

But then he recognizes Aziraphale’s cologne, feels the weight and shape of him pressed all along Crowley’s back, arms clutching tight around his middle and cheek pressed to Crowley’s shoulder. His breath is hot and still smells faintly of wine as he almost pants against Crowley’s jacket, as if he’s beyond even making petty excuses about the rain and is prepared to keep Crowley here by force if need be.

And this is—

Well, this is an entirely different sort of torture than what Heaven or Hell would have intended. They should pay attention; Aziraphale could teach them a thing or two.

(Imported from my tumblr)

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Europe!! :DDDDD

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 22:34:44 GMT

So this has been up in the air for a while, not sure when or even if this was going to happen, but it's finally all set: We're going to Greece!!

We got our plane tickets sorted out yesterday and I got the pet sitting scheduled today, and we're going at the end of May! We'll spend a couple days on one of the islands, then a couple days visiting family who live in Athens, and then we're going to visit more family over in Slovenia, then home by way of London. I've never been to anywhere in Europe before, so I'm honestly more excited than I can describe! ~~I, er, might have already started packing, even though it's still over a month away n_n;~~

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Thu, 11 Apr 2019 19:39:58 GMT

I just caught one of our neighbor's two dogs (Tesla and Isosceles, who has three legs :D) running around our neighborhood without any people. I was able to return them home without too much trouble, but now I smell so strongly of dog. I had forgotten how much that smell clings, even after washing my hands, after nearly half a decade of cats only. On one hand, it kinda makes me miss our dogs from when I was in high school & college, and on the other hand... Rory keeps wrinkling his nose at me and trying to rub his smell all over me again, lol.

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Fic Update: To Halve and To Hold Chapter 9

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 19:23:48 GMT

To Halve and To Hold

Chapter 9 is now live!

The Company might be friendly, he thinks, but that does not actually make them Bilbo’s friends. They are Thorin’s followers, and his kin, and as far as they’re all concerned Bilbo is only here – only tolerated – because he happens to be the lesser half of their great leader. He really ought to avoid reminding them all about just how frequently and vehemently he refuses to believe in any of this soulbond nonsense, especially if he wants them to remain friendly.

Bilbo/Thorin, Soulmates AU, Quest retelling, currently at Ch9/~35, 49k words

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Fic Progress: THaTH ch9

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 04:47:27 GMT

It's done! I'm all done writing the chapter, and am going to do one more editing pass in the morning, which hopefully shouldn't take long ~~because I always edit obsessively as I go~~, so the chapter should be up sometime on Monday! :D

…And then I can get working ch10, which is literally one of the earliest scenes/conversations I originally planned when this fic was first taking shape in my head, before I even wrote any of it down :D :D :D

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The More Cakes Principle

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 01:27:49 GMT

There's something really comforting and satisfying about reading a fic that is almost like one I've been low-key working on for a while. Like it scratches the itch of a particular trope or setup -- and without me having to write it!! -- but at the same time it's just different enough that I can still feel good about the one I'm writing & maybe someday get to a point of being able to post it... and in the meantime, I have something delightful to read <3

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Mon, 11 Mar 2019 05:43:40 GMT

I'm having some anxiety about posting this next chapter of THaTH… I got a review on ch8 the other day that, while overall positive, ended by saying they hoped I would come back to this fic someday. I was… well, not shocked, I guess. It has been just past 6 months since the last update on that one, after all. Maybe a touch disappointed, I guess? That readers are apparently looking at this fic as abandoned already. And like, this wasn't even the worst one I've ever gotten – I think I once got a reviewer who clearly thought a fic was abandoned after less than a month! Because if you're not updating every other day, you must be dead, I guess???

But anyway… Six months is a long time to go between updates. Even by my slow writing standards. And now that I'm cutting ch9 shorter than originally planned, it's looking like it'll come in at around 6k words, give or take. So not the shortest chapter in this fic, but several thousand shorter than the last few. And I guess a part of me feels like I have to justify why it took this long to write this chapter, and that the only acceptable answer – or the only thing that makes up for the long wait, I guess – is for the chapter to be monstrously long.

I know that's irrational, and unfair. I know exactly what I've been dealing with irl that's prevented me from writing more. Some of it is the usual chronic illness, fatigue, depression, etc. while in some ways the last four or five months have been about the worst time I've experienced since I got out of the army 6.5 years ago.

But knowing that I have my reasons, and that a lot of those reasons are outside my control, doesn't stop me imagining other people being heartless or cruel, even unknowingly. I found myself just now imagining getting a comment to the effect that the chapter is an anticlimactic disappointment after such a long wait, and then imagining how I might respond to that, and then going through all the self doubt and guilt and wondering if I was too up front or harsh or just downright mean to this imaginary rude reviewer, and if other people would side with them and then I would have to deal with a barrage of their friends & supporters dog-piling and telling me how awful I am and maybe descending on my other social media accounts to further harass me and and and—

And all of this over a chapter I haven't even finished writing yet, muchless posted where anyone can comment on it.

Anxiety is the worst.

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Kicking the tumblr addiction

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 01:11:50 GMT

I'm still having a hard time stepping back from tumblr... Liberal unfollowing has helped, as well as embracing a 'no discourse of any kind' mentality. Reblogging fandom gifsets, recipes, and pretty photography is all I want to do on there anymore, bc there still isn't really another platform that allows that sort of sharing. Anything that I start having a stress response to -- not only including but maybe especially anything that I then feel guilty about possibly not reblogging -- goes right in the bin, though. That and concentrating on queueing up the, er, thousands of things I've had sitting in my drafts, rather than letting myself scroll the dashboard so much, has also helped, but it still feels like a frustratingly slow process to break this habit.

I did at least finally manage to update my header info on tumblr today, so it now points toward my other social media accounts, primarily this one. I've been meaning to do it for weeks, and it feels sort of like that thing where stating your intention is the first step towards quitting a bad habit -- or working on a new, good one, namely blogging on here more regularly.

So hello to anyone who's come over from my tumblr page! And, in the spirit of trying to use this blog more, some other things I've been meaning to write about: the scratching post I built for Rory; my first appointment with a psychiatrist & getting my first mental health rx; my various knitting projects; rewatching the first few seasons of Fringe for like the 3rd or 4th time, this time with my parents & getting to see their reactions; random cute things Rory does; and general real life goings on...

Wish me luck, I guess?

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Fic Progress: THaTH

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 22:56:36 GMT

I added about 360 words to Ch9 of THaTH last night.

I also did a lot of reconsidering & made some hard decisions about the pacing for the next bits of the fic, and... What I had originally planned for this next chapter I've decided makes more sense spread throughout Ch10 & 11. Ch9 is sitting at about 5100 words at the moment and only about 1/3 of the way through my outline, and, even disregarding real life delays, it was beginning to feel like a never-ending chapter. The problem I've been having is that a) there's a lot of stuff I want to fit in while the Company are still at Rivendell, but b) almost all of it seems to be Bilbo-centric and thus needed to be from his point of view. I intend to keep alternating between Bilbo's & Thorin's points of view each chapter, so this was a major problem, as it was looking like I had about a bajillion things to fit into Bilbo's chapter before I got to anything for Thorin's pov next. So last night I took a closer look at the scenes & conversations I have planned for the fic's near future, and started reworking some of those scenes to be from Thorin's pov instead, so that I can cut off Ch9 and keep moving on the outline in Ch10 from Thorin's pov.

Which is to say: after a little outline fiddling, Ch9 has suddenly gone from being less than half done to being, like. 95% complete. Like I just need to finish this one last scene, and then it can go up.

I'm kind of in shock.

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Fic Progress: THaTH

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 20:48:29 GMT

I spent a fair amount of time last night writing down some scenes for later in the fic, things I've had sort of vague ideas about thus far but now have actual dialogue & flow for the scenes in question, which also means putting more detail into Bilbo & Thorin's larger emotional arc(s). A few days ago I also got a big long sequence for the end of the fic all worked out. I'm really happy with where it's going and I'm so excited to get there, yall.

Which means I need to finish this next chapter, of course. I got some good outlining in last night for the next sequence of Ch 9, but I seem to have caught the nasty headcold that's been going around here, so prose of any sort is unlikely today. We'll see, though :P

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A trash bag, many Clorox wipes, lots of handwashing, ALL the Purell, and a scented candle later...

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 04:20:37 GMT

CW: small animal death, courtesy of an 11 pound tiger

Just cleaned up a dead mouse from under one of my bookshelves 🤢

Rory caught his... seventh? I think? mouse sometime late last night. This infestation had several months to grow over the past fall/winter, between when Madea passed away & we brought Rory home, and we haven't used any poison because of the risk of second-hand poisoning to pets who then catch the mice. And since Rory has shown himself to be quite a good little hunter, I'm very glad we held off on putting out rat poison, especially since I know he's eaten at least one mouse in the past.

If he doesn't kill the mouse immediately, I try to get it from him & pop it in a little box to be released outside. My Dad very sweetly took the previous mouse for me & drove it across town to a field to release it, as supposedly you need to take them at least 2 miles from your house so they don't just move right back in. Dad had already sealed up one spot on the house where it was clear they were able to get inside, but we don't know for sure if they've got other means or if they would just try to make a new way in if we dropped them too close to our house...

Anyway, Rory sometimes will kill them quick, though I think usually by accident, as he'll contnue to play with them like he expects them to keep running around. Because what he seems to prefer is to catch the mouse, carry it around -- usually toward wherever I'm currently sleeping, so he can show off his prize, though thankfully he's never dropped a mouse on my bed or anything -- and then release it so he can continue to chase & catch them, over and over. I try to get a box or tupperware or whatever ready as soon as I see he's caught something, because a) I always feel bad when his torturous play goes on too long & the mouse is clearly terrified & hurting -- I mean, I know they're vermin who've invaded our house & could spread disease as they try to chew into our food & leave their droppings everywhere, and since Rory's an indoor cat it's not like he's going out and terrorizing ecosystems of little animals just minding their own business... but at some point, it's just a little furry animal obviously scared out of its mind & dying a slow, painful death, and I just can't stand that.

And b), which is more just practical: I'm afraid that one of these days he's going to let it go to play with it some more, and then it's going to get away from him for real.

Which is exactly what happened last night -___-

He let the mouse out of his mouth to bat at it & chase it some more, and it scurried in amongst the stacks of canned cat food in a corner of Rory's stuff. He charged in after it, but the cans gave the mouse just enough time & cover to then squeeze into the gap behind one of my bookcases, created by the baseboard in this room, meaning that the shelves don't sit entirely flush against the wall. We're talking like a quarter inch, maaaaybe half inch, but these are also very small mice, who we've seen squeeze under low doors before. It must have stayed back there for a while, because Rory eventually lost interest & settled back down to sleep for the night.

But then today, I was sitting in my armchair reading, on the far end of the line of shelves where the mouse had escaped. And I started to smell something funky. Now, years of working in pet care plus having cats at home seem to have messed with my sense of smell. There are things that others describe as being overpoweringly disgusting that barely faze me, and then times when food cookiing -- even food I genuinely like to eat! -- will make me gag & feel like I'm suffocating. So I never really know if I can trust my nose anymore. So the only thing to do was to get a flashlight and check under the shelves in here (all of which stand up an inch or two from the floor, since flooding is sometimes an issue in my apartment). Not two seconds of searching but there it is, a little dead mouse on the floor nearest my chair, three full bookshelves away from where it had disappeared the night before. Rory must have actually wounded it before it got away, and it crawled out from behind the bookshelves at some point after he went back to sleep.

Maybe the cat caught it, but the mouse got away, and maybe it didn't get far, but it did get the last laugh, stinking up our living quarters. Because I swear, when I went to bag it up, the little critter had a tiny, smug smile on its face.

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Fri, 22 Feb 2019 18:43:27 GMT

Just watched the first episode of The Umbrella Academy. It's pretty awesome so far :D

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WIP Wednesday: THaTH ch9

Thu, 21 Feb 2019 05:21:10 GMT

A little late, as usual… But anyway, here's a bit I added the other day to the next chapter of To Halve and To Hold:

His mother was never one much for reading, but she had described the grandeur of Rivendell’s libraries whenever she told the story of her travels here, knowing how it would delight her studious son and husband, and now, Bilbo finds, even her soaring retellings failed to do this place justice. There are books from every kingdom and people Bilbo’s ever heard of and many more from places, or in languages, he doesn’t recognize at all. Books taller than he is are laid out on grand display cases, while the towering shelves are populated with books covered in the humblest linen and the shiniest gilt… Even books with dwarven runes running down their spines, he realizes with a start, finding he has wandered into an entire, if small, section of Khuzdul writings.

Bilbo's pleased to find he can recognize a word here and there as he scans the shelves before him, and sound out more that he can't translate. He actually speaks the dwarven tongue more than he can read it, rather the opposite of most of his linguistic studies in the past, but it can't be helped, as most often any runes they teach him are cut into the dirt around the campfire and then stomped out again the moment they're done, lest any future traveler come upon them. It all seems so unnecessarily secretive, he thinks, frowning at the memory of dinner last night and how offended Thorin was when Lord Elrond had spoken that word in Khuzdul… And after the elf lord has helped them and given them shelter and—

His thoughts come to an abrupt halt as he nears the end of the row, realizing half a second before he rounds the corner that he recognizes the voices up ahead.

Bagginshield Soulmates AU set during the Quest for Erebor, currently at Ch 8/33 & 42k words

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Sun, 17 Feb 2019 13:01:49 GMT

I love how when fanfic authors talk about how disheartening it is to get zero feedback on our writing, we're called demanding & entitled & like we're treating fandom as transactional, 'I wrote the thing, now you owe me praise!' Even when like… we're just asking people to push a single button? A button that doesn't affect readers in the slightest, it doesn't then display a list of fics on their profile that this person left kudos on, or anything like that, it literally is just a zero-cost, zero-commitment, zero-effort thing a reader can do to let the author know that they read & even mildly enjoyed the writing, after the author spent days, weeks, even months working on a piece for people to read for free.

Or the discussions about how to comment on fic, trying to reassure people that you don't have to have anything long or deep or original to say, literally just a happy face or single word or emoji will mean the world to us… And then that conversation almost inevitably has some shithead who feels the need to remind us that readers don't OWE us anything!!!!111 Or tries to argue that we should be GRATEFUL to get those 'update soon' and nothing else comments, because hey, it's technically a comment! (Now who was it that was entitled & demanding again?)

But now… now what I'm seeing going around tumblr all the time is gif makers whining about their declining notes. And declaring that if you like a post they made, you should *always* reblog it too! The posts like this that I've seen most recently have even dropped any pretence of 'it's your blog, so obviously you only have to reblog what you want, but it'd sure be nice if…' Now I'm seeing people just straight up post screenshots of the thousands of notes they used to get months ago vs the dozens or even hundreds of notes they're getting now & talking like other bloggers have some obligation to share their posts simply because the OP wants more exposure. And, unlike clicking kudos on a fic, reblogging means that that content is now displayed for everyone to see on your blog! It's like these artists have no concept that someone can LIKE what you made without necessarily wanting to broadcast it to the world.

This feels weirdly like the way fandom on tumblr flipped the fuck out a few years ago because some authors DARED to say they would start offering fanfic commissions. Never mind that fanartists offer commissions for & sell prints of their (copyright-infringing) work every damn day. But when it's written work, suddenly they're all 'fan works are for free/fun' purists. It seems like this specific attitude has calmed down a lot, thankfully, possibly with the rising popularity of Patreon, but I still see fanart commission posts every single day whereas I can count the number of writing commission posts I've EVER seen on one hand. There is also no way in hell that every single fanartist with a Redbubble or similar account has their profit margin set to zero, nor can I believe that everyone who sells fanart at conventions is pricing things so that they just barely break even & only pay for the cost of printing or manufacturing. Meanwhile, people are HAND BINDING beautiful books of their fanfiction only to assure everyone that they would never ever ever sell such a thing for anything more than the cost of the materials (because our time & skill is apparently worthless in the eyes of lots of fandom types…)

Idk, maybe I'm just extra snippy right now because of having only gotten like 4 hours of sleep, but the fucking double standards around different types of fanworks always really, really bug me. And that's on top of the gross entitledness displayed by these gifmakers when they start yelling about "only" getting likes… as if authors aren't over here begging people to just, at least click the like button, only to get shat on & called entitled by the very same visual arts side of fandom that has always felt perfectly secure in making money off their work & who are now whining about """"ONLY""""" getting hundreds of notes, instead of the thousands of a few months ago.

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Uuuuggghhhh

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 09:40:14 GMT

I fell asleep today after taking only one dose of melatonin, and now I am regretting everything. I normally take a small handful of pills before bed to get through the night, which includes my prescription pain killer. Which I didn't take when I fell into bed earlier. So now I'm awake again and everything hurts.

It's actually kind of amazing that I didn't wake up sooner, and shows how tired I was – normally my insomnia & chronic pain will have me up multiple times in the night, so making it to ~4am without waking up is a lot… but it also means it's been far more than 24 hours since my last rx pain meds, and boy am I feeling it.

It also occurs to me that I should probably start taking my pain meds in the morning again for the time being, since the past week has been characterized by the question 'why the hell am I so tired??' And like, as someone whose fatigue is generally more disabling than anything else, that's saying a lot. And being in pain could absolutely help answer that: My chronic pain does this nasty thing where if my entire body hurts, I don't notice it, as opposed to like, if one knee or hip is acting up. So then I spend the whole day just extra tired & cranky, and have no idea why… Gee, maybe you should actually TAKE that medication with which the VA has so helpfully provided you!

I've also had Queen's "Somebody to Love" stuck in my head for literally days now. It was fun at first – it is a good song, after all – but now it's driving me up the wall, and I just want some SILENCE, but every time I stop listening to other music, it starts up in my head again. Still better than when I've gotten any number of super annoying commercials stuck in my head for days and days, but still not exactly fun. I've got my instrumental sleep playlist on now, which is also conducive to writing, so maybe I'll try to work on THaTH until I fall asleep again (google docs on the phone ftw)

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Fic progress: THaTH ch9

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 17:50:06 GMT

I added ~250 words to the next chapter of To Halve and To Hold last night, and about 600 the night before. Things are finally moving along again! :)

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Fic Update: As Through a Swirling Mist Ch 11

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 05:00:12 GMT

~~IT'S DONE OMG IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DOOOOONNNNNNNE~~

Ahem. Now on AO3:

As Through a Swirling Mist

Chapter 11

Bilbo is prepared for the press of Thorin’s forehead against his, has seen his dwarves exchange the gesture both as a greeting and in tender moments of relief after some of their more harrowing misadventures, had even been the recipient of such on a few occasions himself. He lets his eyes slide closed, lets himself enjoy the nigh overwhelming feeling of closeness that comes in these moments, of feeling another living being so near to him, hearts and breaths beating together, blocking out all the rest of the world and simply being for a few precious seconds, being right here, with the one person he loves more than any other in all the world…

Bilbo/Thorin, 21.6k words, Ch 11/11, Ghost Bilbo, Halloween fic, angst with a happy ending

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why are US politics so gross

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 17:31:31 GMT

Watching the disgusting nonsense coming out of the Virginia state government, I'm struck by the double standard. I mean, I got real tired real fast of hearing about the governor's racist med school photo, like, okay, he's a racist, impeach him or get him to resign, and move on. I didn't get why it had to be talked to death… But then these allegations of sexual assault came out against the lieutenant governor, a black man, and suddenly it's not just people saying he should resign, but Democrats in the state saying they're actually going to start impeachment procedures against him (the lt. gov).

Neither of them should be allowed to stay in office if these things prove true. What strikes me, though, is the double standard of Virginia Democrats offering this relatively weak tea of 'the (white) governor should say sorry and resign,' ie leaving the consequences entirely in his own hands, even though he has ADMITTED to MULTIPLE cases of this racist behavior, but then they immediately jump to impeachment for the (black) lt gov, enforcing consequences out of his hands, when he's denying he did it & is asking for an FBI investigation, which hasn't yet been completed, if it's even begun.

And yeah, some people might say the black-face in the governor's case is bad, but it's not like he *assaulted* anyone, right?

My response to that is: If a guy showed up at a costume party dressed as Brock Turner or someone similar, wouldn't you be suspicious that maybe he *has* assaulted someone, or at least that he doesn't think it's a big deal if other guys do? That's the equivalent here. Maybe the governor hasn't actually burned a cross into anyone's lawn, but, at the very least, he apparently thinks it's not a big deal if other people have & it's all just a big joke.

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8 Colors of Fitness

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 03:20:38 GMT

So I just took the quiz over on the8colorsoffitness.com, at my Mom's recommendation & just out of curiosity. She's rather fitness-oriented, like actually enjoys it, & recently got into the whole FitBit thing (I think she got one for Christmas).

So it's like a personality quiz about your approach/attitude towards fitness, where you answer a series of either/or questions, like 'which of these statements is more true of you' and you end up with a color that I guess is also supposed to be sort of correlated with your Meyers-Briggs profile... I'm an INFJ, but just barely, just past borderline Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving, and that's generally what my result here matched. I also felt like mine *highly* matched a classic Taurus profile, lol, and there's this saying that MB is astrology for people who think they're too smart for astrology, heh. Of course, I just happen to be someone whose zodiac sign(s) actually really fit me, but I know people who are almost exact opposite of what their sign says, so *shrug*

Anyway, when Mom was first telling me about her results, I jokingly asked if there was a 'begrudgingly, only because I'm stuck in this meatsuit & I guess things get stiff & painful if I don't, so FINE, ugh' approach to fitness. The one flaw in this quiz is that it assumes you actually do *seek* fitness in some capacity, and then goes from there... I got the color white (Mom is blue), which seems to be as close to the 'begrudging' profile as possible, lol. I thought it was at least mildly interesting, even if some of the questions were a bit hard to parse, or like I felt like I needed more context in order to answer confidently, but eh. Also thought it might be an interesting thing to share with my therapist when I next see her, part of that holistic approach where she includes physical health as a factor in mental health too.

~~Two posts in one day?? Madness!~~

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New Cat!

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 22:50:56 GMT

Actually, the new kitty came home three weeks ago today. I've meant to post about him many times in the past several weeks, but RL/mental health stuff has been standing in the way.

Anyway, he's a brown & black tabby (pictures here, on my instagram ♥) whom we've named Rorschach (Rory for short), because of how his markings look like an ink blot test ~~and because we're a bunch of nerds over here~~. The undersides of all four of his paws are also all black, so we've taken to joking that they're covered in ink, because he's obviously the one who makes the Rorschach ink blot tests, so they're named after him :D

He's relatively independent, but has definitely been growing more affectionate & snuggly as he's settled in. He's also suuuper talkative, and incredibly playful. I've been able to repurpose a fair number of Madea's old toys for him, but it's definitely been a process of figuring out what he likes & adjusting things accordingly. (He loves catnip, which Madea didn't react to, so I've got lots of those little baggies that come with scratching posts/pads saved up that I can use now, lol. Also won't chase the strings/twine I had on Madea's toys, but looooves them now that I've replaced them all with light-weight silky ribbons. I guess they move slightly differently, more floaty or something?)

He has also already caught two mice in the last couple of weeks! One of which I actually saw him catch/play with the other day (and that I managed to dispose of before he could eat it), while the other I only found some, er, internal organs on the floor after the fact o_O; Cats, man... We didn't adopt him to be a mouser or anything, but we do seem to have had some mice move in since last autumn & we were just starting to see droppings in the house when he started waking me up in the middle of the night with that 'pounce! crash!' combo that cat owners know so well. Only two nights ago those noises were followed by tiny, distressed squeaking, which got me hopping out of bed immediately -_-

So that's been the biggest change in my life recently. That and starting with this app Habitica, which I've found to be a really great aid in getting regular IRL stuff done every day. You put your to-do list into the app/website & get awarded with gold, XP, and various items whenever you check anything off, which makes your little 8-bit avatar gradually level up like you're in a little fantasy RPG. When I was telling my therapist about it a week or two ago, I commented that it was like I needed a reward system beyond just like real life, like the act of taking care of myself isn't enough of a reward in itself like it might be for a mentally healthy person. It's also really nice having this record of what I've done not just each day but longterm as well, as my character gains levels & equipment & items, because I think one problem I have is feeling like I've done nothing, even though I have, or like nothing I've done actually counts for anything, but this way I have the XP & gold & items to show for each time I've managed to wash some dishes or brush my teeth or whatever. Plus having it as an app on my phone that I can pull out at a moment's notice means I've actually been able to add things to my to-do list or shopping list or whatever, whereas before I would often forget whatever it was that I needed to do just in the time it took me to go find a pen & paper to write it down.

So yeah, anybody struggling with any sort of motivation, self care, organization, mental health, etc etc etc – I highly recommend this app. It's Habitica on the Google app store (& Apple too, I believe), and they have a website where you can do all the same stuff (& some additional things that are impossible or at least hard to do on the app.)

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Wed, 30 Jan 2019 09:43:25 GMT

There is little in the world more depressingly ironic than seeing a video ad for a bunch of makeup products & how to use them with the tagline 'Love yourself just the way you are' written underneath it -_-

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Uuuugggghhhhh

Sat, 26 Jan 2019 06:03:50 GMT

Man, tumblr really is just kind of… awful. And I don't really know how, but it keeps sucking me back in. I've unfollowed a lot of people & said I was only going to use it for reblogging photos & fandom gifsets & the like, and mainly to just clean out my drafts folder, queue all that up until it's gone, and then be done with the website as a whole… but then there'll be an innocuous-seeming post on my dash & I decide I have the energy & focus & words to comment on it, and everything seems fine for a day or two, until someone decides to quote my exact words in an anonymous message & somehow twist it into some kind of petty competitive thing??

Like this was literally just nothing. A post asking what sort of word count range people prefer in fic, both for reading & writing. It was opened up to all followers to share their views, so I shared my experiences as a writer & how it varies from story to story & depends on what kind of tone & pacing & suspense (and any number of other things) you want to establish. I've had stuff ranging from a few hundred words to 20k in a single chapter, and it's all just down to context.

And then, partially because of the massive chorus of comments I'd seen on that post of people saying they hated reading long chapters, that anything over 5k was a w f u l and a punishment and they hated if a chapter took more than five minutes to read – partly because of all those comments I'd seen, but mostly just because this is how I actually feel, because I'm the type of person where if I'm enjoying something I basically want it to never end, I added a little: "and as a reader, longer is always better to me :D" on the end.

Innocent enough, right? I mean, the majority of my comment was very clearly, explicitly, describing my own personal experiences & feelings. And in that last part I even made a POINT of adding that "TO ME" at the end of the sentence, bc I guess some part of me was already worried that some fucker would try to twist what I was saying into some general decree that I expected everyone else to live by.

So guess what fucking happened today.

An anon sent in a comment to the OP of these fanfic discussion posts & directly quoted my comment, or at least a little part of it: just the "as a reader, longer is always better" that they saw on a comment on a previous post… And then they wanted to assure people who wrote under 5k stories that they are loved and valued!!!!!!!!!!uwuwuwuwu

…As if it's a fucking competition? As if my saying that I, personally, for my own reading pleasure, happen to enjoy longer chapters & fics? As if that somehow takes away from short fic writers (of whom I am one, just for the fucking record)?? As if there wasn't already a fucking TIDAL WAVE of people saying they n e v e r read long fics, and that authors are somehow being inconsiderate or needy or something when they post a longer chapter????

I spent a good ten minutes ranting about this in my head, but felt there was no good way to address this on tumblr. This level of petty, passive aggressive shit feels like a trap waiting to spring, so that whoever calls them on their passive aggressiveness will then get accused of starting drama – instead of the person who felt the need to take issue with my own personal opinions & experiences, as if me having a different reading experience & preference than them is somehow an attack??!!! I mean, seriously, what the fuck.

As always, my younger sister is a goddamn lifesaver. She & I have a standing arrangement where, in addition to just regularly chatting, we call each other about anything that's bothering us, day or night, everything from massive depressive episodes (which we have in common) to Someone Is Wrong On The Internet And I'm About To Explode From The Outrage (Even Though I Know This Is Reasonably A Rather Small Thing). So she let me vent & then commiserated & agreed about the very particular brand of nasty drama that seems almost inherent to tumblr these days, and why we're both trying to disentangle ourselves from it…

Which brings me back to my original point, that I don't know how it keeps sucking me back in. Just force of habit, to some extent, I guess. I just wish DW was a bit more accessible, especially on days when my words have all run away. The visual nature of tumblr was good for that, though I think it also became a crutch, or like a cast on a broken limb, making the muscles atrophy, because I could still feel like I was in fandom without actually opening up or talking at all.

Anyway… This got unexpectedly introspective here at the end. I really want to integrate myself more fully into DW, but it's haaaard :/ Words are hard, especially words about myself and not fictional characters. But I'm trying, and I think it's worth the effort.

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WIP Wednesday: ATaSM

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 05:14:58 GMT

It's been a rough couple of weeks, with about the worst, most extreme mental health crisis I've yet experienced, but also, finally, being able to meet with my therapist again. We also adopted a new kitty, and so I've spent much of the week helping him settle in, on top of trying to enact some better mental health strategies (including this app Habitica, where you get rewards for your little fantasy rpg avatar for checking off things from your to do list or practicing good habits irl; I'm really liking it so far), so writing has sort of fallen by the wayside. Sometimes it can be an outlet or stress reliever, but lately I've just been feeling too raw & worn out to produce much of anything creative.

I added about 300 words to the final chapter of As Through a Swirling Mist tonight, though, and even though it's a few minutes past midnight here, I thought I'd share for WIP Wednesday:

Something seems to ease in Thorin's expression as he returns Bilbo's smile, some tension now replaced by relief, and gladness, and hope. “Bilbo,” he murmurs, pushing himself more upright again and leaning closer still.

“Yes,” Bilbo answers, tipping forward himself. He is prepared for the press of Thorin's forehead against his, has seen his dwarves exchange the gesture both as a greeting and in tender moments of relief after some of their more harrowing misadventures, had even been the recipient of such on a few occasions himself. He lets his eyes slide closed, lets himself enjoy the nearly overwhelming feeling of closeness that comes in these moments, of feeling another living being so near to him, hearts and breaths beating together, blocking out all the rest of the world and simply being for a few precious seconds, being right here, with the one person he loves more than any other in all the world…

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