death by confetti cannon

Okay, so, time for an update, right? Just trying to write this post is giving me super anxiety. I've more or less battered my depression into submission, but the anxiety is flaring up again. But today is better than yesterday? Then again, yesterday was REALLY BAD, so, you know, in comparison it might not actually be that much progress. Whatever, man.

Okay, three good things to start off, because optimism and shit.
1. Since the start of the new year I've lost 21 pounds. That's good, right? IDK, I don't want to make it a ~thing~ on social media because, man, our society is screwed up about weight and weight loss and I'd prefer not to play into that if possible. The change is mostly because I've been changing my medicines and finally (FINALLY) got off the one that makes you feel hungry 100% of the time, so that has helped. Also I stopped eating candy and went pescatarian, though those are only vaguely motivated by health concerns. I still don't exercise that much...which I should change, but it's a work in progress. I sort of would like to lose 14 more pounds by the end of the year, but I'm just sort of playing it by ear, you know? I know myself enough to know that I DON'T have the energy/organization/whatever to devote to a really rigid diet and exercise plan, and if I try it then fail, I'll just feel like shit. So for now I'm just going to generally try to eat healthier and tell myself I'm a boss bitch when I don't eat skittles during my super long road trips anymore. (Skittles are so gross- they seem like a great idea for like 2 minutes, and then there's that weird Skittle juice and they make your jaw hurt).

2. My birthday is on Saturday. 29! I get a little thrill whenever my birthday is a prime number, which is very silly. This year has been super eventful w/ lots of big changes mainly with my job and moving to Columbus (and family drama). A transition year. I'm trying not to do that 'oh god, I'll be 30 soon' stress-out about all the life accomplishments I haven't done.........idk, man, sometimes I feel like shit because I'm almost 30 and single, but I have people in my life who love me and I don't really feel lonely (except when they play slow dances at weddings- the bane of my existence!) so it's not a really big deal on the global scale.

3. I've been writing for a comics site, mostly doing news round-up posts, but there's a couple cool things that of mine that have gone up lately. An essay about my love of A Wrinkle in Time and a piece about Isaiah Bradley's importance to the Marvel universe. It was nice to do some more personal non-fiction-y stuff?

Okay, real purpose of the entry. I am...insanely behind/inactive at RP lately, and I want to FIX that but, oh god, my anxiety is so high about it all. It's gotten to the point where I get hand-wringing, useless stress just from checking the comm or looking at my inbox because I WANT to tag and play but I'm so behind/my tags are SO old that I just feel like a very horrible player. I haven't posted an EP in ages. There's so much I WANT to do and play and tag into but I've just got this huge anxiety wall in my head.

What happens is.............like, even on good days when my anxiety is more or less under control, I am so utterly exhausted by the million-mile race going on in my head all day. You would think I spend 12 hours a day digging ditches in the hot sun by how weary I am at the end of a day- and those are the normal days, sometimes I have actual work days that involve 6+ hours of driving which is legitimately tiring. So I'll go a day without tagging back, and then it snowballs out of control, and I feel like a Bad Player who is Disappointing People, so what are actually super easy (and fun!) to do become this horrible burden. It sucks. It's stupid.

I just. Like- logically, if anyone else were writing this, my reaction would be 'no one thinks you're a bad player! let's try to thread together to get you back into things! everything is okay, if you take things at your own pace or need a hiatus!' My brain is sooooo bad at internalizing that though. :b And it's not like I don't have time to do them! I have TIME. I just sometimes it's- things so easily become too big in my head, and so I avoid it to deal with the fear/anxiety/stress and then suddenly I'm like a month behind and am a piece of trash. SIGH.

In summary, I continue to be a work in progress.

I'm going to try to make an Effort to update this more, because...self-reflection is awesome? Sure!

Anyway, I am technically off for the holidays, which is awesome, because while I still have tons of shit to do in the meantime I can at least do it at home in pajamas. I'm still not sure how GOOD at this job I am, but I'm learning, and it feels good to do work that doesn't make me feel like shit. Even if sometimes I just want to shout at the sky that ALL NURSES ARE CRAZY AND NEED TO LEAVE ME ALONE.

I'm having a very hard time sleeping lately, because I'm trying to get off my psych meds and they normally help me sleep. So to cope I take melatonin to help me sleep, which konks me out so good that I'm still in hardcore REM sleep when my alarm goes off. Thus lots of crazy nightmares, though they're much more of the surreal upsetting nonsense kind than the traumatic flashback kind, which is good.

So, my brother has this...criminal issue going on, and I just got news of a potential plea deal that might be on the table. For those who aren't aware, my brother is 20, mentally ill, and just...has no sense of consequence of anything. It's infuriating and depressing to be around, and just pretty awful in every direction. It hurts knowing that he's going to have to carry around these awful consequences of his fuck-ups for his whole life, when I know that he's not really well (and even though he's screwed up in the head it's not so bad that he can't stand trial or whatever). I hear about it and I just...get so so exhausted. And helpless and sad.

It'll be a depressing Christmas, mostly, but...such is life, sometimes. Mostly I want to take a nap and then dive into silly cheery RP to put all this shit on the backburner for a while.

I am overdue for a RL update but! I am too weary for the necessary self-reflection. Weary because I wrote belated holiday TR fic!

First, for tempusfrangit, who should totally think of this as a slightly delayed Secret Santa gift. Future TR fic! Cat is totally the child that makes Robb's hair go all gray and silverfox. :b

( An Adventure, or, An Unexpected Rescue )

And! For ashkitty, a fic set in our very ridiculous AU that I refuse to apologize for. :b Kivrin and Reynald spend a winter's night together.

( Rounded With Sleep )

It's the first glorious cool weekend of fall, which means tomorrow I am going to take my book and head down to take a wander by the lake. I'm reading Cuckoo's Calling by nom-de-plumed JK Rowling, and I'm enjoying it! I think she does a wonderful sense of place, it's really easy to envision where the characters are. We're reading it for our new book club, so it will be interesting to hear what everyone else says about it. I'm about 100 pages away without having any clue what the reveal will be, so that's fun.

My mom and I went out for delicious Cambodian food this week. I don't have it often enough to have a favorite, but I usually like what I get. This time it was nom banh chok a.k.a. Khmer noodles. I am going to try to start packing my lunches more often for work but, failing that, I've got to at least get out of the office to get better food than is around there.

Here are a few links!

-Oh Joy Sex Toy Who doesn't like an adorable sex-positive, LGBTQIA comic about sex toys?

-A mother cat teaches a baby cat to drink water. And I have a cute-induced heart attack

-Household by Sam Alden This is a beautiful story, especially with the way it thoughtfully handles its challenging content. (tw: incest) And the things he does with light in this comic, hooooly shit.

-A glorious redesign of Steph's Robin uniform For the AU where DC doesn't make all bad choices.

And, finally, the cover of Sandman: Overture, the new comic written by Neil Gaiman (!) and drawn by JH Williams III of Batwoman fame. ( Because yay Sandman but even more so, oh god, how so pretty )

I find myself in need of distraction. Let's have a meme, stolen from musesfool:

Comment with the name of a ship from a fandom I know and I will tell you a bit about how each of the following scenarios would go down for them:

Fake dating
Bodyswap
Sexpollen/fuck or die/aliens made them do it
Dark!fic
Secret kinks
Their first kiss
Meeting the parents
Moving in together
A crossover of my choice
An au of my choice
If you like, another trope/scenario of your choice

Siiiiiigh, job hunting continues to be so frustrating. This time the mistakes weren't on my part but it still sucks to stress all day for something only for nothing to come of it and the whole thing turn out to be a total wash. PLUS I have to return to Ohio on Saturday and that weighs on me more and more. Because I will miss eudaimon and be disconsolate and grumpy about it for days after. That and the state of my life just makes me dread going back. Clearly something has to change so that I don't feel like that anymore. I just don't know what, and I don't know if I have the resources (time, money, energy) to actually get there.

Would anyone want to do a thread? I could use some pleasant distraction and don't have the time to commit to an EP over the next few days. Something fun. It could be AU even! Anyone?

For this year's Yuletide (which is the first I've participated in since...2007 maybe? Like five years ago. So good to be back), I wrote just one story:

When You're Busy Making Other Plans Pitch Perfect, Beca/Jesse for abvj.

This is set five years post-graduation when the two of them, both successful in their careers in LA, run into each other at a party. Things develop from there, and there are sexy times, texts from Fat Amy, and adorably ridiculous romantic gestures.

I was all set to write The Mindy Project instead, but found myself writing this instead. It was always going to be Beca/Jesse but they turned out way cuter and sweeter than I anticipated. I liked it, the recipient liked it. Yay, Yuletide :D

And I received the most amazing story in return:

Wordless Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle by CG (NYC Scribbler)

It's the most beautiful character study of Calvin O'Keefe, the kind of story that delves into canon and makes it so much richer in the process. BEAUTIFUL. If you ever liked A Wrinkle in Time as a kid, you'll like this fic. It makes me want to app him all over again but play him even better.

Meanwhile, I am in England and having a wonderful time. More about that and maybe a SOTP later.

Life is moving along steadily. The job search is killing me not-so-softly but I'm actually in a pretty good place mentally for the first time in a few years, so, ups and downs. What's getting better is recognizing when I'm having intense anxious feelings/negative thoughts/depressive habits. My coping skills are still not great? But I have people who can help talk me through it so ♥

I'm loving TR more and more and enjoying EOF as well, though I'm super overdue for a SOTP for both. Sometimes (surprise) I get anxious about characterization but, instead of paralyzing me like it used to, I tag anyway and the feeling recedes. Also it helps that I really really love my pups and their canon.

Let's do a fun meme from newredshoes

Pick a character* I've written and I will give and explain the top five** ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

* Try to make it someone I've written either often (including characters I RP'ed) or recently in order for me to answer.
** May not actually be five.

Give me all of these:

Pick a trope from this list and provide a fandom/pairing and I'll tell you something about the story I'd write for that combination (i.e. write a snippet from the story or write not!fic or tell you the title and summary for the story I would write)

1. genderswap
2. bodyswap
3. drunk!fic
4. huddling for warmth
5. pretending to be married
6. secretly a virgin
7. amnesia
8. cross-dressing
9. forced to share a bed
10. truth or dare
11. historical AU
12. accidental-baby-acquisition
13. apocalypse fic
14. telepathy
15. High School / College AU

MEANWHILE, I still don't have a job but I have most of Bran's app written! Just need to buckle down and do his EP. Yessss, come to me my little grumpy warging baby.