Currents of Time

LJ keeps sending me emails telling me, oh, no! Your paid account is about to expire! You'd better hurry and give us moar monies if you don't want your paid service to be interrupted!!

LJ, piss off. I am angry with you and have no intention of giving you moar monies. Stop sucking so much and maybe I'll entertain the idea. Maybe.


I all but gave away a bunch of Transformers toys to my coworker's son. He's really digging them, and they were ones that I never really played with, so I'm glad they've gone to a better home, but it's kinda weird. I've never actually got rid of any of them before. I keep waiting for something in me to freak out and for me to go screaming over to her and demand them all back. ...Hopefully that does not actually happen. (Also last night they invited me over for a barbeque/grill/meal thing and it was a lot of fun except then I also had to go to a wedding shower today and now my social stamina's run out on me.)


Speaking of Transformers, sort of, er, there are a couple of you on my LJ friends list that I met either on the friending meme or at BotCon (if we're friends on DW, you can skip this entire paragraph. And if we're not friends on DW for whatever reason, feel free to add me. Every entry links back, anyway) that I do not see around at all anymore? Er, I am not sure if any of you are even reading this, but because I am weird about such things, I am thinking I might do a small list trim. Basically if I've seen you update or comment any time in the last four or five months, you're fine, and if you haven't, you're... probably not reading this, anyway, and won't notice or care if I remove you, but here's your fair warning, I guess? I don't know.

My life feels too cluttered right now. AND PPARENTLY JOURNALS ARE CLUTTER. Maybe I need to up my meds.



Also, hey, remember, it is April First, so keep your wits and expect people to be trying to prank you everywhere.

Awesome: I have 31 hours next week (and despite this, I am only closing once! Which is very exciting) and the first two days of November off! I did not ask for them, they were just GIVEN TO ME. So I at least have the option of getting a good start on NaNo. And I am feeling a lot better than I was! AND WE GOT THE NEW GLOVES AT WORK YAY YAY YAY they are so much nicer than the ones we've been using oh my gooosh.

Less Awesome: oh god nanowrimo. Also, apparently there are no interesting Halloween events anywhere near me, so I guess getting out from work early on Monday (and not working at all Saturday) doesn't really make any difference. And my NaNo region has absolutely nothing planned for write-ins or even a pre-November meet up. EVERY SINGLE TIME I DECIDE I WILL FIND SOMETHING TO DO TO BE SOCIAL... see, this is why I don't bother. Well, that and the fact that it never comes to anything anyway, 'cause I'm a loser.

EVEN LESS AWESOME: Square has apparently hit the bottom of their coffer for FFXIV, and so, sometime next month or perhaps in December (there is no information on this anywhere, other than that it is happening), they are going to start charging for the game. How much will they be charging? WHO KNOWS! THERE IS NO INFORMATION ANYWHERE! Hopefully not the full $13, because it is not worth that yet, and are they going to stick with their original plan of cutting fees if you play FFXI, as well? Basically I am really kind of freaking out (like, unreasonably so) because NO NO NO I don't want to have to pick one or the other and damn it, considering their plans for FFXIV v2.0 next year, I really, reaaally don't want to miss this once in a lifetime storyline (APOCALYPSE!! Or CATASTROPHE, anyway, since part of the plan for 2.0 includes completely reworked maps, so the entire world is going to be redesigned. And characters won't be reset, so it's not even like they're ending the world and starting a new one, this is really an actual thing that is going to happen in Eorzea. WANT TO SEEEE). So, uh. Damn it, what do I do? Other than cry over my current inability to afford both games, I mean.

LEAST AWESOME: I know I said I was done talking about the Family Drama, but adskjflgbfjdbhs my cousin's mother-in-law has had to quit her job and move in with him because she was the best option, and he's got to go back in for another round of spinal fusion surgery and either something else is going wrong or it's just psychosomatic but his vocal chords are beginning to not work so I DON'T KNOW I am resisting the urge to throw things across the room only because I know it wouldn't do any good. BUT I have her address, now, so I can write her letters, if I want.

OFFERED AWESOME: oh right speaking of letters - I do have a couple people on my mailing list WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT they probably know who they are, but I feel like bombarding the post office again (every time their state of NO MONEY AT AAAAALL makes the news, I remember I am supposed to be single-handedly reviving them), so if getting snail-mail interests you, check out this entry, here, please.

All the people running attack ads lost the election again. :3 VERMONTERS DON'T LIKE IT WHEN YOU BASH THE OTHER GUY. WE DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT HIM WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO FOR US (I mean, it was very, very close, but still. I am glad we once again show that that shit doesn't work here.) (This also means that the positions I cared about will all be filled by the people I preferred. Double win!)

NaNo. I'm already behind, but I've also already written more in the last two and a half days than in the five months prior, so I'm calling it a win, anyway. LOOK, WORDS. I MADE THEM!


So, you know what bothers me a bit? When people who should know better by now do that whole asexual = aromantic and possibly asocial or even antisocial thing. A little earlier this week, I was talking with someone and they said something that I'm hoping was supposed to come out as, "Boy, I wish I were more like you in that I could be perfectly content not being in a relationship because DAMN, they're a lot of drama and heartache!" ... but which came rather out more along the lines of, "Boy, you're so lucky you're a heartless icebitch who's going to live and die all alone because you hate everyone!" Followed by a, "you know, even if you do ever get into a relationship, you'll have to have sex. It's the law!" Because, yeah, asexuals? Are NOT AT ALL aware of sex being an important part of a relationship to non-asexuals! THEY SOMEHOW MISSED THAT MEMO. It's not like society throws it in our face every day! RRRG. Fortunately, I won't have the opportunity to speak with the individual in question for another few days, which should be more than enough time for me to stop being all snarly about it, now that I've vented my frustrations. (To the individual in question, who'll probably see this eventually: please don't bother apologising. I'll have put it behind me by the time you see this and all you'll manage to do is remind me that I was annoyed. Instead, just don't do it again.)


...AND IN "WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH MY LIFE" NEWS, AS OF THIS WEEKEND I WILL HAVE BEEN PLAYING FFXI FOR SEVEN YEARS OH MY GOODNESS and still not a single level 75, though that's not the level cap anymore, but shut up. This calls for ... something. I don't know what. (AN INTERVENTION??) Thank goodness FFXIV isn't near as excellent, or I'd really be in trouble now.


(Hi, by the way. I'm back from being a hermit! I would make an intro post for the newcomers, but I already linked to my old one and, really, sadly, nothing much has changed... Whatever, here's the old one again.)

OH WAIT I AM NOT DONE Halloween! We didn't get anyone looking for candy (MORE FOR ME I only bought one bag this year, though, after last year's turnout), but I am mostly glad that I did not have to WALK HOME. 'Cause it was on a Sunday. And the buses don't run! So, three miles in the dark, alone, past a cemetery. AAAAA but I was saved from being eaten by ghosts and instead me and a few friends sat around watching Halloween-themed movies for a bit and it was fun. Yay!

(Also, I saw a lot of people wandering around in costume on Saturday. One of them was a Mudkip.)


ONE MORE EDIT I'm going to pull the links from this music meme at the end of the week, so if you've any interest, you'd best head over.

oh hey look more baby spiders in the ceiling. TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SPECIES!

To be fair, I am not sure they are actually in the ceiling this time. Just, I have seen a sudden surge of (two different types of) tiny spiders crawling all over my desk. And a couple in my bed. Yeah, that was awesome. NEVER SLEEPING AGAIN.

Time to buy a can of Raid, I guess.


Woke up this morning in misery. Headache, spine-ache, stomachache, just ache. And fatigued. And my body appears to have lost its ability to regulate its temperature, which made today's 8 hour shift of running in and out of the walk-in freezer and pushing things in and out of the oven interesting.

I guess it's some sort of bug. My parents both had it this last weekend. Apparently it's over fast, but that hasn't made today any less miserable. Ugh, what is wrong with meee.

Also, my brother is visiting, so I'm spending a lot of time at my parents' house, which is how I was exposed to this stupid thing at all. I have tomorrow off. Maybe I'll sleep all afternoon. (The other explanation is that I just don't do well sleeping on a mattress on the floor. There is currently only one guest bed, and my brother has it.)


My WIP writing folder is ticking me off. It's huge, and I've made no progress on anything in it for months. I have no motivation and no one to really go to for motivation (I could probably find a person or two, but then I'd have to infodump all over the place and ugh). NO ONE CARES but I'm whining about it anyway. Maybe I'll just delete the whole thing and start over on the ones I decide I actually want to work on.

... Yeah, I'm liking the sound of that.



... anyone have any idea why LJ ate my layout and replaced it with black on white? Crap, I wish I had a screenshot of what it used to look like or something. (Or does it still look normal to everyone else?)


Edit:
And pretty much as I hit post on this thing, my dog lost control of his bladder. Mom's put an improvised diaper on him to prevent him from leaking all over the house, and she's going to try to get him to the vet in the morning, but this probably means we'll be putting him down in the very near future.

I was reading a fic last night! Transformers, picked it up browsing one of those rec-communities, or maybe tfiwts, I don't remember (doesn't matter), anyway. Someone gets a car, weird things happen, DECEPTICON CAR CHASE OH NO THE CAR ISN'T RESPONDING NOW WHAT oh it's a robot and - I sit back and go, oh my god I know I've never read this but I can't prove it and what if someone accuses me of copying it?! It's just a weird fluke, I swear!. These things happen sometimes! THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY WAYS THESE SCENES CAN PLAY OUT, ANYWAY! But it was published a almost a full month before mine! And I don't think I ever posted any of that scene prior to the finished story because I was always stressed about it! AAAUGH!

A few hours later, I remember - "GT" went up in 2007, not 2008. durrr....


Still, that was a fun, what, fifteen minutes I got to spend in a state of panic, wondering how I'd defend myself should the subject ever come up. MY BRAIN. ~__~ (The fact that the first movie also goes similarly has, for some reason, never made me freak out.)



In other news, I'm going to try to make beef stew tonight.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IS APPROACHING, BRAIN, you have picked a terrible time to reset our own internal clock to, what is this, Tokyo time? I WILL STAB YOU. With, uh, a cotton swab or something, maybe, anyway, I don't know. If only my brain really were a completely separate entity that I could punch or lock away somewhere (this originally read "in the closet", but considering the closet here only has half a door, this wouldn't be an entirely effective course of action) when it acts stupid.


I am totally working on fics! Hooray! PROGRESS! Only, uh. I'm writing literally everything in ... shorthand? It's not really shorthand, but it's not really story, either, because it's written with a lot of all-caps and ridiculous sentences and summaries of action and... stuff. It's like - hrm. I don't want to post any of it because the scenes I'm working on at the moment are all either supposed to be closer to the end or part of Important Plot Stuff and if I ever finish anything and then actually post it (publicly, I mean. Not just under private-lock. YES, I HAVE DONE THIS. SORRY GUYS, I KNOW IT'S LAME OF ME. The first step is admitting the problem?), then it's not stuff I want people going in knowing (this assumes anyone would READFGIKHLME BAD BRAIN STOP BEING SELF-HATING) (totally unrelated, aside from the fuck you, brain thing, but apparently now some are thinking depression is actual brain damage and not just blarhg chemical imbalance, which is kind of interesting and kind of makes sense, but is also kind of even more ARGH!-inducing) and I have completely lost track of this paragraph because everything I write is coming out ridiculous these days.

RETRY: I don't want to post any of it because the scenes I'm working on at the moment are all either supposed to be closer to the end or part of Important Plot Stuff and if I ever finish anything and then actually post it, then it's not stuff I want people going in knowing, and apparently right now I am too lazy to change character names and strip out the one or two actually relevant sentences. ...Also it is probably not actually that interesting and then you would all feel cheated by my idiocy or something.


Ugh, this is stupid. I can't decide if I want to delete this entry (which I have been doing a lot of lately YES EVEN ON THE THREE ENTRIES DAY) or just suck it up and post it.

Also I have changed my mind and locked it.

...ALSO IF THIS ENTRY DISAPPEARS LATER, I GUESS YOU WILL KNOW WHY. Unlocked again now.

I was thinking about writing and characters and fanfiction versus original fiction and all that sort of stuff this evening while waiting for the dishes to dry so I could cook dinner! And. I was going to go into some wordy back story here, but really it was only ever one person, wasn't it? I don't know. I know other people's original characters/universes are generally not that exciting! TOO BAD I'M TALKING ABOUT IT ANYWAY. Anyway. One or two people have, on occasion, asked something about Okame-verse (which still needs a better name) and the timeline and overall storyline and I... generally don't have an answer for it! And I (finally?) put the why behind that into words. A lot of the time when you've got characters that you write about, you write, you know, a story. And, the thing is, with those two, there isn't really one. There's no big, overreaching ... thing. I mean, when I write about them, it's just an incident in their lives. That's all.

I do have a universe or two with, you know, actual plots (I've pretty much never posted about them, though), but this isn't one of them.

And sometimes I feel kind of bad, or weird about that? I dunno. Like, how does Okame freaking out this time relate to wherever you're eventually going with this? And I'm not eventually going anywhere with any of it. I mean, yeah, sure, depending on when in their lives I write them, they act different, or stuff has changed, but they're (probably) never going to do anything special or, uh. Interesting, even, haha. I just like them. Even if they won't ever solve the world crisis of doom or save the whales or anything.

I was going to make an allcaps-y sentence about how they're both weird and dysfunctional and totally not girlfriends shut up Jade will kill you, but I feel like I've been seeing a lot of internet drama lately and don't want anyone to jump on me for accusing [x] group of people of being completely mad. Or socially inept. Or dysfunctional. Or ... whatever. So, uh, I guess I won't.


Good sign you've been spending too much time pounding away at a word doc (EVEN IF YOU AREN'T GETTING ANYWHERE ARGH RAGE): you keep reflexively hitting ctrl-s every paragraph or so. I've attempted to save the update page five or six times now. Good job, self!

( And now boring real life whining )

For your daily dose of is she really still talking about that?, San d'Oria took Sarutabaruta in conquest this week, which is pretty awesome! We've claimed Gustaberg quite a few times, but we've only rarely taken Saru[tab] and, to my unending frustration, those times have always been during weeks I haven't logged on for whatever reason. (Oh, yes, this is FFXI-talk now, if you didn't know what any of this was about.) BUT THIS WEEK - haha! So now I've run supplies to the outpost by Windurst and so now I have finally done the supplies quest for every outpost (on Hisime, and that I have access to, anyway. No Sky yet, but that's the only one, now). I took Aya and Ki out, too, since, you know, Windurst? FAR AWAY. And Ki can't airship it, so, uh, yeah. Long trip for her no matter how you go about it. (EXCEPT NOT ANYMORE i love op warp)

Also, it's been over a year and a half since my brother started trying for the m.kris and all it's got him so far is a couple hundred thousand gil down the drain. He's considering giving up and, since that would mean he can't go anywhere (or going to gt a Joyeuse, which he doesn't have time for), quitting. So right now he's trying to come up with a way to make 3.5 million, because the thought of fishing for more marlin (only for, again, absolutely none of them to give a chart, and even if they did, for the fight to them only give us another fuscina or piece of oxblood and a dwarf pugil) is too unbearable. Dear SE: it would not kill you to be just a little nicer to your playerbase on occasion!


To end on a random note, here's an amusing article on why the US Life on Mars was STUPID. Or at least not as good as the original. Reading that has had the perhaps unfortunate side effect of making me want to rewatch the original again.

HI SORRY I NEED TO MAKE A REQUEST OR SOMETHING and then go to bed, man, how is it almost 3 am why have the last couple days been an incoherent blurr ONE 'R' JECCA. ONLY ONE 'R'. Don't hurt yourself.

nnnrrrg how to word this. Um. When I sit down to write stuff, sometimes I can just write it or work it out on my own, but sometimes I need someone I can bounce ideas off of (and which area things fall into seems to be more reliant on my mental state at the time than having anything to do with what I'm writing about). And the people I normally resort to in these situations are not available for a variety of reasons. So, I guess I am kind of hoping someone will let me annoy them for a while?

I know some of you don't have / use instant messaging stuff so, uh, you can just ignore this entry I guess (needs to be real-time. Voice conversation - phone or skype - works, but I have to record it so I don't immediately forget everything), and I know I live in a different timezone thannnn at least half of you? (I can be awake at pretty much any hour, though, so unless I have work... And okay I plan on going to bed pretty much as soon as I hit post, here, but beyond that.)

But it is relatively simple? I plot-dump all over the place (if you've ever wanted to witness my brain in action, this is pretty much the best way to do it) and backtrack and rewrite ideas mostly on my own, but sometimes I need to ask for input. (Like: I think that might be too ridiculous. Is that too ridiculous?' And someone needs to tell me yes, it really is, or else I could actually go through with it.) I've got a couple specifications (the things I need to BRAIN at people about are all various fanfiction-related stuffs this time, so I'm pretty sure everyone fits into at least one of them, and another one is really easy to match) (and uh obviously you might be spoiled to the moon and back for whatever I eventually end up writing), but we can worry about that after we determine if anyone is actually interested in dealing with me spamming walls of text at them for potentially obscene amounts of time.

And with that revelation, the last week is put into perspective and all makes sense again. It will never cease to amaze me the way SAD (seasonal affective disorder) manages to sneak up on every year. I know it’s coming. It always comes. But it always takes me by surprise. Ugh. Hate body. WINTER GO AWAY.

Been plotting (for example, I've completely scrapped a 12 page section I had written, but I like the new idea a lot more, so I can't be bothered to care too much about it. I saved the old stuff in a new document and filed it away), but not actually writing. What I want to do is write a shorter, simple piece before launching myself back into one of the many ridiculously long (or at least detailed) stories I've got going, but I'm hung up on the stuff I've already started. I try not to do this too much, but anyone want to see anything from FFXI (since my "ffxi" tag is too generic. Or just check here for lunacy), Jade/Okame-verse (I... really need to come up with a name for stories involving either or both of them), or maybe "GT" (so, original characters, more original characters, or mutilation of reality)? I'll take prompts relating to those things, because I'm reasonably confident I can hammer something out without putting myself through my brain's nitpicking (those all have an automatic filter in place, or something).



I had something to say earlier, or maybe it was yesterday, but I don't remember what anymore. Just tired... (On the positive side, I have to be at work earlier than usual tomorrow, which will hopefully be enough motivation for me to get out of bed before, say, noon.)

So I just put up a hugelong rantramble that directly involves my mother and something she said to me in a place where she’ll see it (I probably won't be cross-posting it, so it's here on Facebook, mostly about asexuality, if you're curious. ...yes, my mother joined FB). Kind of hoping this doesn’t turn into drama! I don't mean for it to, I just don't see the point of hiding it from her. Been in a bit of an inexplicable rage all day, though, so maybe I do mean for it to cause drama? I can't tell. Anyway. Yeah. This was going to be the Dissidia post, by the way, but I got distracted and sidetracked myself halfway through and so I have cut it down to just this, instead. The other stuff's all saved in a word doc, anyway.

Fic. Apparently I'm actually considering plot. Not any more confident about it, but I feel obligated now that other people have prodded me towards the fact checking I needed. (Turns out what I'd thought was right, but I managed to misspell my own name twice today and then lost track of when it was to a point of years, which probably says enough about my mental state and why I really do not trust my brain at all these days.) I have t-- two? Three? Days off after tomorrow, so assuming I don't get called in (and that the oven does not explode - hey, we have a new heat sensor that we attach inside the door and that rests on the door handle, so you drop it on the floor every time you open or close the oven, and the sensor pad on the wire that goes inside the oven is missing, so really it's not effective, either), I should be feeling marginally more functional (coherent is probably too much to hope for) by the weekend.

I am making a poll. It does not, for the curious, have anything to do with the fact-checking I needed to do (those were, you know, facts, and what I'm asking about is more opinion, unless I am forgetting things, which is entirely likely), but I was poking around the fanbase - oh, I'm talking about FFVIII again, here - earlier this afternoon and, you know, stuff, train of thought jumping all over the place, I don't remember where I was looking that this jumped back into my brain, but I'm just wondering what other people think about it! Because I've seen a lot of different thoughts on it (and given it a fair amount of contemplation myself. It's one of the things I always wish they'd addressed more in canon, even though I know there was not really anywhere to work it in), though I think I narrowed it down to the ones I've seen the most? And actually since this will probably end up playing at least some role in the fic I am at least going to attempt to write (no guarantees) (it would be set post-game), if most everyone has different ideas than mine (or if there's stuff in canon), I might work with some of that instead?

(Also, late edit: it is probably better to consider the third question as relating to events post-game.)

( Poll. Contains spoilers for FF8! )

RANDOM COMMENT: it actually makes me really (and irrationally) angry when people say that Final Fantasy XI “doesn’t count” for [insert reasoning here]. Because it’s stupid. Because you have to pay for monthly access. Because it’s online. You’re allowed to not like it! You’re allowed to not want to play it, or to think the MMORPG format isn’t a good one, but it counts. It has a story. It has characters (beyond you and the other players you meet) that you care about. Sure, you’re along for the ride a little more directly than usual, but you’re still not the hero. That role still goes to the NPCs. IT’S CALLED FINAL FANTASY XI. It is a number in the sequence! And I just get kind of upset when people dismiss it (as they often do). Really. You can say “I’ve played all the games in the series except XI” WITHOUT tacking on “because that one doesn’t count” at the end. If it doesn’t count, why do you feel obligated to mention it? No one is judging you. You don’t have to put it down like that. I promise.