the trick is to keep breathing

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 02:16:56 GMT

i'm tired. i'm just... tired. more later.

comments

porter (again)

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 14:01:56 GMT

Mr. Poof Poof will be leaving us Monday afternoon. I have a service coming to the house so he can be surrounded by comfort and familiarity. He's declined, and it's time. Expect a big fluffy embarrassing memorial post.

comments

porter

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 13:19:06 GMT

TW for pet illness, which is how I am letting you all know that the famous and majestic Porter K. Poof is on his way out, my friends.

( The story )

There will be plenty of pictures. We are going to celebrate the fuck out of this old man. He's had a hell of a life, and he's still kicking.

comments

well. (covid post)

Sat, 04 May 2024 00:04:59 GMT

context note 1: i have avoided having covid until today.
context note 2: i made plans in february to visit a friend in canada for my birthday weekend this year to watch some fun tv (JJ) and then go to a fibre festival and spend copious amounts of money on yarn
context note 3: MH (basement housemate) came home from a dog show monday and tested positive for covid on tuesday. other than 5-10 mins on monday when we were unaware we have been on separate floors of the house.

story: i discussed with friend and we came up a with a game plan that seemed fair and would keep everyone safe. tested thursday: negative. awesome! woke up today (fri) with no symptoms. packed the car up and got on the road.

a bit in, started coughing. felt a bit like bronchitis, or an asthma response. took my inhaler; didn't help much but, y'know, asthma can suck. whatever.

bit later, got the chills. that's unusual. i am never cold. but at that point i was mentally psyching myself out: this is covid, i'm thinking. i'm going to bring it to canada and that sucks. meanwhile the rest of my brain is going: you feel fine you're just overthinking a psychosomatic bullshit thing because you're nervous. cause after 4 years of avoiding a lot of in-person friend activity, you get a bit obsessed.

huh, i think. the Sevparents happen to live on the way to Canada Friend. i'll just pull off the highway, covid test, show my brain this is dumb, and go on.

nope. within 30 seconds that line was red and while i waited the full time, it didn't change.

the irony of making decisions to avoid a lot of in-person activities, except for a few people and a few safe places, only to get covid for the first time on my birthday while in the car driving to what should have been an awesome outdoor birthday celebration, meaning that i can't go to the one silly thing i've been looking forward to in order to get through all the bullshit from the last post in my life. it is not lost on me.

but whatever, i guess. i'll roll with it. i just eagerly await the one thing that might want to go right this year.

comments

emotions / sorry for myself

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 15:47:19 GMT

been a while, etc etc. catch up later. things being better doesn't mean they're great, no? had a meltdown yesterday. need to talk about it.

last week a bunch of my close discord friends started planning a trip to barcelona in june to see hozier. and it turned out that almost all of them could go. this is a close-knit group; we've been in a small personal discord since 2020 and talk nearly every day. we met through good omens fandom but we've been close close friends through tons of other fandoms together ever since them. we watched hannibal and ofmd and the witcher and played dbh and disco elysium and got into all these fandoms together. we write together. we gift each other things for birthdays. we send postcards.

the core of the group is european so ofc its easier for them but the chances that this many can get together? unreal.

poland, canada, austria, UK, greece, netherlands. six! feral! friends! meeting up in barcelona!

i want to go.

to fly from the US to barcelona at that time is already $1300 for just the ticket. the trip itself would probably be $2000-$3000. for like. 4 days.

i'm sitting on so much credit card debt. my house is falling apart. i need a new garage door. my couch is a piece of shit; my seat is completely broken. i sit on a couch cushion stacked on top of 3-4 throw pillows inside the couch because it is busted.. literally. and that's non-emergency. i'm still paying off the new water heater i had to get last year. my ice maker stopped working and i can't fix it because the money went to fixing the issue that had the fridge leaking through to the basement. i live in fear of the next thing that breaks.

my best friend, living in my basement, owes me back rent that would make this doable. but his financial situation hasn't been better either. that sucks ass for me, and it's its own issue, but the money literally isn't there.

i have gainful employment that will get me out of this situation eventually. but i'm not out yet.

i know i can't go. i know i should not add to my debt for this. that amount of money is the new couch i need. it's the garage door. it's a debt payment.

but i want to.

so i called my mum, looking for advice, cause i'm shit at emotions, and she basically said, yeah, that sucks that you can't go.

i had a fucking meltdown on the phone. actual breakdown. had to hung up and spent an hour in a crying fit like a small child.

realized later that evening that i had been hoping she would say, fuck it. go. spend this time with your friends while you're young(ish) and you can. go meet them all in one place. do it while your body works. go do the thing.

she called back later, and i told her that, and she still said, yeah, it sucks that you can't go. but don't do it. think of the long-term.

and i realized when i hung up that again i had been hoping that i would tell her i had been hoping for another answer and she would say, yes, sev, go for it. be impulsive and stupid and do the thing. and again she didn't.

and i realized that i wanted her to say that because i wanted to go, so badly. and it's so rare that i feel things. even now. and it's so rare that i want things.

and this is one i can't have, now, and that sucks. so i'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself. which also sucks.

(edit) on the plus side, me removing myself from the group allowed the remaining 6 to get a very well-placed and affordable 6-person hostel room that will save them all money, so i can at least feel good about that. on the down side, the cost of the hostel is so fucking cheap that i'm stuck here wondering whether i could have made it work after all. on the real side, however, having a 7th person would have meant they could not get the really good 6-person hostel room anyway, so the point is entirely moot.

comments

i am finally coming back to the real world

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 16:05:59 GMT

No, I haven't been doing very well. and when you're an immensely qualified person struggling to find even basic work because your resume is confusing and the world is a shitshow, it's pretty hard to feel like you're worth fuckall.

I've never been good at keeping in touch with people and the pandemic has pretty much made me a hermit anyway.

All that to say I've finally landed a writing position with a contracting company and will be doing work very similar to my previous government contract, which I loved. I've finally cleared the background check and start formal employment with them 10/02.

you can tell my life has gone to shit. my house is a disaster that needs some real tough love. i haven't slept in my own bed since before our florida trip because it's still covered in clothes and shit, and it's been too hot for me to get work done on the 2nd floor (my meds make me overly heat sensitive). i'm struggling to get from week to week, i have no health insurance, my unemployment is fucked up, my credit card debt is obscene, and AH still has no job -- it's really been A Time.

but i survived, and sometimes that's the gold star you get.

if things could just settle and stabilize for a bit. that would be nice. i'd like to come back to the real world.

comments

eh, what the hell

Thu, 18 May 2023 23:01:49 GMT

or: Sev's Adventures With ChatGPT

This is not an article defending AI scraping programs in any way. I find their existence worrisome and exploitative. However, while reading what's going down at AO3 with regards to AI-generated fanworks - more specifically, writing - I realized I actually don't know a lot about what these kinds of things actually produce.

I am, of course, teh lady who thought the band was actually called One Directional, so. No wonder.

But I decided I would take a little look and see what the concerns are with regards to written fanworks. (Again, this is in NO way defending the way these programs were trained on the backs of content written by others. That's separate.) I wanted to see what a fanwork might look like coming out of one of these guys.

I wanted to see how - threatening? - AI-generated content is at the moment only in terms of comparison to other fanfictions. Again, this says nothing about legal use or existence as a transformative work. I wanted to see if I could make it make me a fanfiction.

So if you, too, were curious about it, but didn't want to use the AI guy / were too lazy to do so, here's my short 15 minute experiment.

I figured I'd start somewhere I've been a while: Winterhawk fandom. So I said:

Help me write a story where Bucky Barnes and Clint Barton get together while working at a restaurant and eventually kiss.

You might recognize this premise from the garlic fic.

( Here's what it gave me: )

So on one hand, I was expecting the writing to be terrible, and it isn't. But this reads more like the summary of a story than an actual story, right? Plus, the phrasings are ultimately cliche: the soft glow of the moonlight is easily predictable text because it's been used thousands of times. This isn't bad, but it isn't something I see as being at all popular over other fic offerings.

But, I thought, maybe I'm using it wrong. So I made the sacrifice and put in the first 3 paragraphs of Old Vines. Yes, ChatGPT now has the first 3 paragraphs of Old Vines in its database. I'm sorry / You're welcome.

( and )

It's basically... a summary of the first three paragraphs. Rewritten.

So I put in the 4th paragraph.

( next )

Again. It's just rewriting my words.

So then I asked it:

what happens when Aziraphale lands in wine country

mainly because I was curious whether it would find Old Vines itself somewhere, or like, idk. I was just curious.

( So it gave me this: )

What a lovely story that would have been! Y'all never would have had to deal with Gabriel.

and THEN i thought, well, OV is a relatively small fanfic i'm using because it's mine. I wonder what happens if I ask:

what happens when he meets Crowley

( And )

Note the mention of "the apocalypse" and "angel and demon" -- the addition of Crowley to the mix has led it back to Good Omens source material. None of this is in OV, which is an AU, and way way way way way WAY smaller than Good Omens as a whole, obviously -- but it didn't pick it up from those paragraphs. It knows Crowley and Aziraphale stopped the apocalypse.

And it's also still very much a summary of something. It isn't... it isn't writing what I would call fanfiction.

So what am I saying here? Nothing yet. I know a lot about writing; I know very little about AI.

I find its general coherency surprising and worrisome -- I'm so cynical that all I can see are the ways people could use it to steal and rewrite work, or fuck stuff up, but I'm sure there are cool things about it too. I don't think it's yet a challenger to work on AO3 written by humans.

I don't know what else to say about it but I wrote this whole thing, so like, idk man.

comments

FINAL FANTASY KISSING BATTLE 2023: FASHIONABLY LATE

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 15:48:11 GMT

murderstomps into the lecture three days late with starbucks what's UP CHUCKLEFUCKS it's time for your favorite kissy event of the year: Final Fantasy Kiss Battle 2023 is a GOOOOO!

This event is open to everyone, even if we aren't DW circlefriends! (feel free to friend me too; i promise i'm not crazy ~~that's a lie~~ but at least i'm sometimes funny). If you aren't on DW, you can still play via anon or OpenID!

The Kiss Battle is simple. Players leave prompts in comments under each specific fandom, using generalized fandom nomenclature: a relationship of some sort, and a concept to inspire other players.

For romantic relationship kisses, we use X / Y
For platonic relationship kisses, we use X & Y
Absolutely open to relationships with more than 2 people involved! X / Y / Z (/ A / B ...) welcome to this party!
Prompts can be a word, a sentence, an image, a song lyric; it's a suggestion, rather than a request
it's a kiss battle! there will be smooches!

Players then go looking for smoochin' prompts they'd like to fill. Fills can be fic, art, interpretive dance, whatever you're inspired to; they can be filled in a responding comment, or as a link (to AO3, tumblr, etc). FILLS GOTTA HAVE A KISS IN 'EM. IT'S A KISS BATTLE. What counts as a "kiss" is up to you, though -- you can be creative!

Fills should use the comment header to let people know what the fill is; please use a format like "X / Y, (title), (rating), (any content warnings that might apply)"
- "Eiko & Vivi, friendship, G"
- "Aerith/Tifa, memorial, G"
- "Cloud/Squall, just in time, R (blood)"
Prompts can be filled multiple times! Don't worry if someone got there first; we love Two Cakes up in this event! The more kisses we get, the better!
You can fill as anon if you want/need for any reason
You can of course crosspost anywhere you'd like

It's a very simple game, and is meant to be played in good faith without anybody being a shitbag about pairings or characters. We're all too old for this.

FANDOM LINKS Fandoms with compilations and expansions should fall into their titled macrofandom. For example:

FFXIII also includes FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns (FFXIII-3)
FFX also includes X-2
FFIV includes the After Years

If you need to specify a certain microfandom / singular canon, please do so in the prompt or in the comment header!

FINAL FANTASY I
FINAL FANTASY II
FINAL FANTASY III
FINAL FANTASY IV
FINAL FANTASY V
FINAL FANTASY VI
FINAL FANTASY VII
FINAL FANTASY VIII
FINAL FANTASY IX
FINAL FANTASY X
FINAL FANTASY XI
FINAL FANTASY XII
FINAL FANTASY XIII
FINAL FANTASY XIV
FINAL FANTASY XV
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0
FINAL FANTASY RECORD KEEPER
FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS
BRAVELY DEFAULT
OTHER FINAL FANTASY CANONS
FF CROSSOVER PROMPTS
FF / OTHER CANON CROSSOVERS

MAKE FRIENDS! If you're interested in meeting more FF fandom people, this comment thread can be used as a friending meme! Tell us a little about yourself, which FFs you've played, favorite characters/ships, and look around for new friends! FF FRIENDING THREAD

You can also join the Final Fantasy Old Folks Home Discord and come gripe about those kids on our lawn and the old days where you had to level grind by hand lmao. Open to all FF fans! -- EDIT Discord link has been updated!

AO3 COLLECTION
If you're posting your work on AO3, add it to our collection here!!!

BLITZ KISSINS
If you already know what smooches you want to write, you don't need to wait for a prompt -- just comment into the relevant fandom thread with your kiss!

REMEMBER
It's only fun if everybody plays, so if you leave a prompt, try to fill someone else's!

COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS??
Hit up this thread and myself or lassarina will help you out!

SHARE
just copy and paste the following line anywhere you like!

  <a href="https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/444591.html"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/yRKqb6E.png"></a>

AND NOW... GET TO THE KISSING!

comments

HELLO?

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:28:12 GMT

there are a bunch of new people following me! would you like to introduce yourselves? I'd like to know a bit more about you to follow you back!

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GYWO 2022 and How I Fucked Up

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:58:13 GMT

no, this is not the post about job search depression. not yet.

I participate in Get Your Words Out every year as something that motivates me to make words, much like NaNoWriMo -- it isn't necessarily about "winning" either, but it's about having a reason to track words, which then becomes having a reason to write. In 2020 or 2021, I forget which, I managed to write somewhere near 350,000 words. What a fuckin' banger. A lot of it was Old Vines, and some of it was work words, and all of it was fun as hell.

The thing I noticed at the end of the year, however, was that my writing was just inconsistent -- I was carrying myself towards that goal with days where I wrote 5000, 7000 words in one day, and then not writing for the next 4 days in a row. So if I could get my ASS to the COMPUTER to do the THING, i usually could get a significant number of words done. So let's focus on that, sez my brain, and we'll be a super-writer.

2022 Sev said well, hey, there's a habit pledge for GYWO, so: I took it, with the rather extreme idea of writing 240 days out of the year. that's like 4-5 days a week. But hey! It isn't wordcount! Although I still fucking decided I was going to try to write 300,000 words. just 300K. Not 350K. lol. I'm stupid.

Then at the beginning of 2022 I lost my content writing job - more like, they hired someone full-time and let all the contractors go without warning, yes, I'm still mad - and therefore lost one of the major impetus for me actually sitting down at the computer to write. Plus, I'd been counting work words as part of the yearly target -- which I think is fuckin fair when you write for a living, yeah?, so.

And then as I realized other work had also dried up and I was going to have to start major job hunting - and then the experience of that job hunting - there was a depression zone where I absolutely dried up on words. Like, nearly completely. Most of my WIPs just kind of hung in space, and I had to start an entirely new Good Omens fic (forth the fifth) to have anything going on, and THEN it was only a super-hyperfixation on Detroit: Become Human that really pulled me out of the wordslump and back into writing things. Getting back to the WIPs has been challenging.

And with my new job, there aren't wordcounts I can tally towards anything -- I'm writing and editing at the same time, and sometimes working on things like how the fuck do we cite this and a surprising amount of meetings, and the moral of this story is that I'm unlikely to make either my formal or informal GYWO target this year -- which again, I don't do it for the win, but boy howdy did I misjudge this year.

And what have I learnt about my writing process this year? Since that was the entire point of trying a new target and a new approach? Well, fuck, I'm not sure I've learnt anything, except that it's more fun to write when people are directly cheering you on, which isn't anything new. As of today I've written about 150K, and 135 days out of the year. I am 69 days behind where I should be and there are like. Idk. 70 days left in the year? So obviously I'm not gonna make it lol.

Anyway this has been a long ramble about things that are only important in my head, with no real conclusion. Clearly I am a professional! And I need to get back to actual work!

Stay tuned for NaNoWriMo, where I try to get my 3 FTH fics out in a month while still updating at least 3 WIPs! oh my god, why am i like this? I'm so stupid?

Talk to me about your 2022 writing (or creating in general, if you're a creator but not a writer!). How did you do. How dumb am I. It is a mystery!

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wording out: when you can't write (1/?) - chronic fatigue

Tue, 24 May 2022 16:27:35 GMT

IDK if y'all are aware of this, but I've really been struggling with words lately. I'm a full 40 days behind my GYWO writing pledge for Days Written, and based on an informal expectation that I would write the word count I did last year, I'm only at 55%. And it's almost June, which makes me pretty damn behind.

There are a few things I've been meaning to talk about as reasons I haven't been writing -- please note this isn't because I think I owe anybody anything (except for a few lingering comms for v understanding friends) or that I really think anyone cares. It's just interesting stuff for a dialogue, really.

The key part of me not writing is that I've been caring for my three nieces weekly. This involves a 2-hr drive to my brother's house on Monday, where I pick them up from school (METL MUM) and watch them for 3 hours, then start / help / eat dinner. After dinner I can escape to the basement if I have things to do (and often do), but 3 hours with 3 young and very energetic girls can be exhausting, so it's rare that I have any spoons to write after, say, 20:00. Tuesday I wake up early to take them to school and have like 9:00-15:00 to myself, at which point I do the same thing, just a little more tired. Wednesdays I take them to school and then drive the 2 hr back to my house, at which point usually I collapse.

and there's a lot of this that has just taken far more energy than I expected. The girls, the travel, being away from my cats and my OWN grocery shopping and my safe spaces, sleeping in a strange bed (although at this point it isn't THAT strange), the wear of scope creep as weeks went on. 3 girls for 3 hours is a lot of overstimulation, which is one of the things I'm critically sensitive too -- more likely to wear me out than almost anything else.

Part 1: Fibro Sucks

We all know spoon theory, right, but -- a lot of the time I explain fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions using a credit or debit card analogy. Say you've got a card and every day you get X number of task energy loaded into that card. Then every time you do an activity, you swipe the card and it charges you. Some tasks - eat breakfast, shower - might be one unit of energy, while others - work 8 hours - might be six units, or eight, depending. For most ablebodied, neurotypical people, the number of tasks they can load onto their card in the morning usually averages out about equal to the energy they need for the entire day.

With fibro, first of all, you don't know how many energy credits you're going to have on any given day. You might wake up and have a 'normal' amount of energy. Or you might wake up and only have, like, 8 tasks on the card. And you have to pick how you want to spend them. Most of the time people with chronic pain disorders wake up with fewer task energy credits in their account, comparably -- this is why we're always complaining about not being able to keep up with the dishes, the laundry, the vacuuming. Our credit cards are a lot more limited. We don't get as many tasks per day as most typical people. Most people with fibromyalgia continuously run on a deficit.

And in addition -- yeah, you can borrow from the next day: you can overcharge the card. But not only does that give you less energy for tomorrow, the bank (your body) hits you with an overdraft fee, such as extensive pain, brain fog, exhaustion, or even illness. These things compound on themselves, too, until you've built up such debt that you have to spend an entire weekend in bed.

Recovery Days: When Brain and Body Are Just Done

The problem with all of this travel and work hasn't necessarily been the care itself (although man it's been great seeing the girls like this and ALSO oh man i'm super tired) -- it's been recovery. If I get up, drive / take the girls in, put in whatever work I can manage that day, care for the girls BY MYSELF, make dinner, etc... that's a full day. That's a full day for a parent. So even when I slip downstairs at 19:00 to relax, I've still put in a lot of work. And that plus the dissonance of continuous traveling has just ... it's worn down my credit card a lot.

The problem has been that I'll come home and do nothing Wednesday and usually need Thursday as a light-brain-and-body day until I'm recovered enough to feel like myself. By the weekend (when I see Actual Husband) I'm usually alright, but at that point I'm trying to forward-bank energy for next week's child care. When you run on a deficit like this, well -- my time w the girls is my top priority, they're my nieces, but/so other things start to suffer.

So one of the reasons it's been hard to write much of anything is because I've been spending far more time in Recovery Mode. Like, Hardcore Recovery Mode. (Fibro's one of the biggest reasons I don't have children of my own, although there are others.)

It's no surprise that the only things I've posted this year are comfort fic (forth, the fifth) and feral birthday gifts (weirdly specific AUs) where I had people cheering me on as I was writing AND a deadline. That encouragement piece has really, until now, been the driver. I'm finally starting to crawl out of the hole, finally looking at WIPs again, but.

And the funniest/worst piece is that I hadn't really realized up until just recently - when I started climbing out of the hole - what it was. It isn't necessarily writing burnout - because I still wanted to write - but it's other burnout, spending my energy elsewhere on other people and then needing to plug myself in like a dead phone. (My other favorite fibro analogy is the mobile phone with a shit battery and too many apps analogy.)

you just get tired of being tired, my friends. you get really tired of being tired.

comments

Fandom Trumps Hate 2022

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 15:56:53 GMT

Here’s my FTH offerings page! If you want a nicely sized fic from Good Omens, Marvel/MCU, or Final Fantasy, please consider bidding! I cant donate as much to charity as I like this year after losing my main paying job, so this is my way of giving back right now. But I wrote 7000 words yesterday and I’m hoping to do it again!

Yes this is a second post. I’m advertising okay. Blatant and shameless self-promotion ftw

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Fandom Trumps Hate 2022

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 06:16:39 GMT

Guess what: I'm offering a bunch of fic!

Here's my page, where I'm offering longer fic in Good Omens, the MCU, and a Final Fantasy of your choice (as long as I've played it!). Any fic I offer will be over 10K, which is why the bidding starts high. If you've ever wanted something creative from me, now's your chance!

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FINAL FANTASY KISS BATTLE 2022!!!

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 14:02:46 GMT

well HELLO FRIENDS????? after MUCH delay which is MY OWN FAULT, i am here to present to you the tiny fandom event of the year: Final Fantasy Kiss Battle 2022!!

The Kiss Battle is simple. Players leave prompts in comments under each specific fandom, using generalized fandom nomenclature: a relationship of some sort, and a concept to inspire other players.

For romantic relationship kisses, we use X / Y
For platonic relationship kisses, we use X & Y
Absolutely open to relationships with more than 2 people involved! X / Y / Z (/ A / B ...) welcome to this party!
Prompts can be a word, a sentence, an image, a song lyric; it's a suggestion, rather than a request
it's a kiss battle! there will be smooches!

Fills should use the comment header to let people know what the fill is; please use a format like "X / Y, (title), (rating), (any content warnings that might apply)"
- "Aerith/Tifa, memorial, G"
- "Cloud/Squall, just in time, R (blood)"
Prompts can be filled multiple times! Don't worry if someone got there first; we love Two Cakes up in this event! The more kisses we get, the better!
You can fill as anon if you want/need for any reason
You can of course crosspost anywhere you'd like

It's a very simple game, and is meant to be played in good faith without anybody being a shitbag about pairings or characters. We're all too old for this.

FANDOM LINKS Fandoms with compilations and expansions should fall into their titled macrofandom. For example:

FFXIII also includes FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns (FFXIII-3)
FFX also includes X-2
FFIV includes the After Years

If you need to specify a certain microfandom / singular canon, please do so in the prompt or in the comment header!

AO3 COLLECTION
If you're posting your work on AO3, add it to our collection here!!!

BLITZ KISSINS
If you already know what smooches you want to write, you don't need to wait for a prompt -- just comment into the relevant fandom thread with your kiss!

REMEMBER
It's only fun if everybody plays, so if you leave a prompt, try to fill someone else's!

COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS??
Hit up this thread and myself or lassarina will help you out!

SHARE
just copy and paste the following line anywhere you like!

  <a href="https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/442726.html"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/fmiLCcl.jpg" width=500></a>

comments

only murders in the building

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 21:51:29 GMT

So I actually went into Only Murders In The Building expecting to not be entertained. I mean, Old White Guy comedy really is not my thing, and while the word murder won me over for trying it, I was expecting something cringe, boring, and predictable. Instead I found it a quirky, funny, entertaining show where I only guessed the killer 2 episodes early.

It was incredibly enjoyable. I think because Steve Martin and Martin Sheen were both the butt of the “joke” enough times without making it all about their comedy — but the show also managed to mix in some deep sadness and poignant statements about relationships alongside a truly enjoyable murder mystery and true crime podcast type setup.

No more in the entry; spoilers may be in the comments. Has anyone else watched it? I actually recommend it for a nice little bite of feelings!

comments

Fandom Trumps Hate 2022

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 23:55:51 GMT

Hi Dreamwidth and Tumblr friends: I have officially signed up for fandomtrumpshate (tumblr) this year!

I'm offering THREE multichapter fics: one each in MCU, Good Omens, and Final Fantasy fandoms. My minimum bid will be $50, which will get you 5 chapters, 10K-20K total. And for every $10 over my minimum, that gets longer, so. If you've wanted a Sevdrag fic now is your chance to not only get one but help charity as well!

Browsing begins on Sunday 20 February and I'll be linking it everywhere, don't worry. We have until the end of 2022 to get your fic written, so don't worry about deadlines -- I wrote over 300,000 words last year, and I LOVE writing for prompts.

Use either of the links above to find out more about it if you like, and stay tuned for details. Follow me here on DW or Tumblr to catch the latest!

comments

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:50:56 GMT

fucking bronchitis

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sorry, algorithm men

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 00:01:15 GMT

anyway one of the best things about my job(s) is that Google and other algorithms have absolutely no idea what to make of me. here i am one day googling garden and plant care; the next, brushing up on financial terms. now i'm looking up stuff for a fanfic, like "which grapes ripen first" or "what years did X perform on broadway." the next day i'm researching apoptosis and necrosis, annexin V, and phosphatidylserine. then here i am at 3 am watching callmekevin on youtube. fuck man if you can figure out from that mix what i'm interested in, fucking godspeed

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it's been a while

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 17:28:50 GMT

Right right right. so much going on:

still taking care of the 3 girls. i drive out monday around noon, do my duties, drive back wednesday mornings. it's very tiring but i think i'm finally getting used to the schedule because i didn't hit the absolute exhaustion point this week, which would have felt good except that my throat's sore (from allergy drip, not covid) so i didn't sleep well anyway. but it's improving, as is my ability to focus on work while i'm there.
work words 1 (content writing) continues to be relatively consistent; not the same every week, but close enough that it's still reasonable income
work words 2! so i got a THIRD job, writing scientific and technical blurbs for a company that produces analytical chemicals for life / bio science applications. it's fascinating stuff and it's so much more like the kind of writing i WANT to be doing, so that's great. they do require substantial research and it's easier to do them from my house where i have double giant monitors, so that's the only real downside rn. not enough of it to ditch any other work but it's good value AND something i want to put on my resume, and there's a possibility it will expand into additional work at some point, so. so
basement gremlin (my bff who is renting my basement, aka my FOURTH INCOME STREAM aaaaa) has a critical appointment with his service dog prospect tomorrow, so please cross your fingers for us and mr eddie brock
i've been working at more frequent updates on my patreon (my FIFTH income stream fml) including early access to some of my chaptered GO fic... that requires writing them, though ... yeahhhh
i actually am staying reasonable w nano. even though so far it's mostly been work words and some fanfic, it's still words and i'm allowing it. my actual nano target this year is still 50,000 words, but only 25,000 of them have to be my original novel (which will ALSO be posted on my patreon! if you're interested! even for just $1 / mo!) and the rest can be work words (because they take away from my ability to write other words, i'm going to count them) or fanfiction (i don't want to abandon everything for an entire month), so. so. so i guess it's 10 days in and I'm absolutely behind but i haven't given up on it yet
sitting here like WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE GOING ON as if this isn't A Lot

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Sat, 02 Oct 2021 17:31:53 GMT

me: let's do inktober! and WIPtober!

also me: still adjusting to TWO new jobs, completely faffs the first day of october, has a ton of work to do, wants to quit immediately

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INKtober and WIPtober!

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 17:08:55 GMT

So oddly enough, even though I'm seeing an increase in my workload, it's getting me on more of a schedule than usual. and because of that I have some PLANS for October.

I've always wanted to do an Inktober, so I'll be doing a drawing-every-day in October. I don't think I'll use prompts, unless I can find a list I like, but I'm doing some kind of doodle/drawing every day. I'll be posting them on Ko-Fi, where you'll be able to leave a prompt with a donation if you want. I don't have any goals other than drawing something fun and posting it every day, so don't get too excited, lmao. On Mon and Tues when I'm with the girls it might be a drawing of my hand as a turkey okay. I don't make the rules

My second plan is for writing. I'm focusing entirely on WIPs this month. I've counted out 15 WIPs (shut UP) on AO3 and in my drafts. My goal is to update at least 7 and finish at least 3. This is actually more reasonable than it sounds; both New Roads and He Thinks Like A King are active right now, and a lot of them have the plot planned and just need the words to go along. They're taking up mental bandwidth and I'd like to clean some of them up. If you want to join me for WIPtober, feel free!

This means the only "new" stuff I'll be posting in October will be what Patreon votes on, if you want to get in on that action. I do have at least 2 more longer fics I'm looking to start, but it won't be this month.

November will be my second attempt at my original novel for NaNoWriMo, and December will be focused on cleaning up WIPs and outstanding commissions.

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on writing, again

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 18:22:56 GMT

i think i've miscalculated a bit on my writing projects.

last year i wrote over 300,000 words, work and fiction and fanfic combined. it was great. so i said, hell, let's go for 350,000 this year (i am a member of Get Your Words Out) and see what happens.

but i kind of got ... locked up. old vines finished early this year, and there it was, the biggest writing project i've ever completed, done. i had a big worry about "what's next" and "do something as big this time." the concept for new roads has been sitting in my backbrain for years (thanks, feral server) and so i said, yeah, this is what's going to come next.

for some reason, it isn't coming. it's still a story i very much want to write, but my head isn't in that place right now. i have a great outline and beats to hit and i open the document up and stare at it for a while, daily, until i just close it again.

i think i've made a mistake with trying to be predictable -- scheduling things. i wanted NR to some out every 10 days, but what that does is stop my brain from working on anything else if i haven't done new roads, even if i can't write NR at the time, and that just ...plugs everything up.

this is why im also taking a break from zines and events -- it's that commitment to a due date, i think? i'm not sure, but like, it feels that way. zine pieces i have to craft to get within the wordcount, which makes them good (IMO), but then you sit on the piece without feedback for a while and it's strange. i've been lucky enough to get into every zine (5? 6?) i've applied for and it's really awesome seeing my work presented as such, but like. i think that's also enough for the time being.

same with He Thinks Like A King, the fratt big bang piece that slots into place in my Marvel / Criminal Minds AU universe. it's so good, so fuckin good, the art i got is amazingly inspiring, and then the time i had set aside to hammer down and finish the fucker up ... vanished when i fell down some fucking stairs. so now i open that one, stare into it, and close it again. HTLAK is going to be some time.

(and yeah, a bunch of commissions. i. uh.)

anyway, i'm way behind on my wordcount for this year, to the point where i fell behind in tracking it, even, because stares into my own brain (accusingly). i know i can catch up but it's only going to happen if i can get myself out of this feeling of writing-for-obligation and back into writing-for-joy.

not quite sure yet HOW to do it, but oh well

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two weeks since the fall (and all i got was this lousy tshirt)

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 14:55:01 GMT

(content note: me still talking about my damn fall)

In some ways I already live disabled, so there hasn't been a lot of transition. Take meals, for example: because I live with fibro, I already know what frozen things to stock up on that take very little input or effort and provide a tangible delicious reward for putting them into the microwave. I'm always prepared for days that I can't find the fucks to actually make a meal, so the act of preparing for 3-4 weeks where I can't actually make a meal isn't that far from my regular life. Nothing odd there; I already eat a lot of paninis because sandwiches are dumb easy to make and putting a sammich into the panini maker improves its awesomeness by a factor of a lot.

Likewise, I already don't shower daily, because in the last few years my fibro has developed this fun game where there's a one in ten chance that the feeling of water on my skin is going to cause me to break out in painfully itchy hives that make me gruesomely uncomfortable for hours -- so using face and body wipes to stay fresh inbetween isn't that big of an adjustment.

However, not being able to fucking walk wellllll that's a big one

It's goddamned excruciating, the amount of effort it takes to go fill my water bottle, or make a cup of coffee, or even to go have a pee. Not only is it painful, but I'm at the point where I'm just irritable, so it becomes extra irritating on top of everything else. Now, granted, I'm doing a lot better than I was: I still can't walk, but I can stand for short periods of time if I'm braced on something for balance, and I can finally use my heels to help propel and direct the wheelchair, which makes that a bit easier. (Wheelchairing around when you can't use EITHER foot for ANYTHING is HARD WORK.) Getting up and down and moving from one surface to another is becoming more reliable. These are all good things!

But like. Sometimes the right one just aches no matter how I have positioned the boot, and I swear sometimes I can feel the break stitching itself back together, it hurts so much. It'll pulse with sharp jabs of pain and when it's doing that, lifting the foot at all to move the boot is like impossibly painful; I have to use my hands to do a lot of the work. And the left one is feeling better internally, but all the external bruising has finally come to the surface, so even the skin hurts and it's hard to get it comfortable no matter how I arrange it. I've been leaving it in the brace more than last week just as protection for the bruising; I'll probably put it into a compression sock this weekend.

As long as they don't have any bad news at my checkup next Wednesday I think I'm ready to get into those crutches, which I'm very eager to do. I'll have to find a backpack.

This week has been harder than last week. I'm hating the tedium more and just irritable about a lot of stuff. I haven't been able to translate pent-up energy into writing (except last night i guess) and haven't had a lot to distract me other than the Sims 4. I oscillate violently between wanting to do everything myself because I can and just wanting somebody to go make me a cup of coffee so I don't have to move. I drank a lot this week because it was better than sulking but that isn't a habit I really want to rely on during these shenanigans.

I do still at least have the wherewithal to do my paid writing jobs, which is good because I haven't seen the bill for the emergency room yet, but it's probably going to be massive.

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So I cant walk

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 22:05:26 GMT

So last Thursday around 10:00 I had a bad fall and ended up in the emergency room, with both ankles basically busted.

Cut for discussion of injury. ( yeah )

Can’t really walk. Couldn’t really even stand the first few days without supporting myself on wheelchair / nearby table / couch / something else. Crown helped make the first floor wheelchair accessible and put together one of the basement beds for me to sleep on in my sunroom cause i cant do stairs. Feathers brought me down enough toiletries that I could brush my teeth and actually wear deodorant. My parents came to visit with groceries and fruits and lots of help getting everything set up so that I can survive first-floor-only for a little while.

Check-up with the ortho on Wednesday put me into a boot - good news; boot FAR better than cast! - and predicted about 6 weeks before I’m back to any normal kind of motions, with next check-up in two.

This certainly isn’t my first time impaired — I spent most of my senior year of high school on crutches or in a wheelchair for a variety of reasons. But that’s very different; you have friends at school willing to help you out so that they can use the elevator, and you have parents at home who still do your laundry and get your mail. I’m nearing 40 and don’t live with my husband for a variety of mutual personal reasons, and I’m kind of lucky to have a basement gremlin in Feathers at this point or I would be, just, you know. Boned.

All projects are behind. Drawing? Writing? Don’t know ‘em. Today for the first time I sat down at my desktop while in the wheelchair and while I can make words, it isn’t really that easy, or that comfortable.

My life as a cripple (patent pending) so far has been interesting. I have my grandmother’s wheelchair, which is great because I have it and didn’t have to pay for one, but not so great in that it’s made to be pushed, rather than for self-propelling. And wheeling myself around on carpet also not made for wheelchair ease is, well, fucking exhausting. I better have massive arms after this. I’ve had to rearrange nearly everything so that I can access it without having to stand up. Hell, even a trip to the bathroom is like a 20-minute quest montage from Lord of the Rings.

The poor cats are not adjusting very well at all.

ANYWAY! Friends! I will be literally useless for at least the next 6 weeks. I still plan on putting out fan stuff just to keep my own sanity, but will it be quality? Who knows! Will i open commissions again? Depends on the emergency room bill! Do i consider crying at least once a day? Of course!!

Love, Sev

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Ghost Avengers 01.01 - 01.06!

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 18:27:05 GMT

Buckle up, chucklefucks, cause here comes Ghost Avengers!

GA will update every Friday with 3-5 new pages depending on the flow of the story. (Weeks I get too busy, you’ll still get a placeholder art, info page, or cutscene.) Patreon will see it first, then KoFi, then the public — meaning Patreon will be 2 weeks ahead, and KoFi 1 week ahead!

These first 6 pages will be posted publicly everywhere to celebrate. You can follow on: Patreon —> KoFi —> Tumblr, Instagram —> AO3 (once i figure out final hosting, AO3 will be the most readable archive).

See the Ghost Avengers carrd for links on where to follow!

Patreon Chucklefucks at all levels will be able to see the comic. Patrons in Suggestion ($3) and Voting ($5) tiers will get to suggest and vote on outtakes, minor story directions, placeholder requests, and so on, as per each level.

This story concept has existed since 04 October, 2018, according to Google Docs. I’ve worked out where I want it to go, and I’m excited to be putting it onto the page in this new format! Bear with me while things get rolling.

I'm not an artist; that should be obvious. But I'd like to be. And the way to do that is practice, and the way to practice is to be motivated to do something. And thus: Ghost Avengers.

Is this a really silly story to make fun of a whole bunch of ghost hunting shows? Of course. Will there be serious bits exploring Marvel characters in this new setting? You bet. Do I have any idea what I'm doing? Only slightly!

I'm a storyteller and this is my first attempt at telling a story through dialogue, thoughts, and art. Why not give it a try? I can always write the rest if this ends up not being what I want to do.

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