Tilly

Making it a list and postdated, so that it HAUNTS ME until I write the things on it. It was originally a text file, but that's easier to ignore.

Someday I'll also add a master list to this to cover older fics pre-list, but my wordpress tags will have to do for now. They're partially sorted, so things like Series: Foo and Genre: Bar will all be together.

( Neverending plotbunny train to the sky (plus links to finished items) )

I get stress/heat-related excema pretty easily, which I'm sure the hormonal changes I have going on is only aggrivating further. I've had it escape onto my neck before, which is quite unfun.

The excema all over my upper back is new.

NO. DO NOT WANT, BODY. Immune system and other bits, can't you cooperate with skin for once?

I'm going to try nonprescription cortisone creams first, which usually do nothing, but I'm too busy flailing about surgery to deal with the dermatologist right now. Mine is nice, I'm just...stressball and going out of the house is hard then.

Sometime in here I should probably bother LJ with further thoughts on boobs. Yes.

~1055 words for Fist of the North Star this time.

Today's Decisions, which involves Shuu readjusting a short time after the whole "screw your rules, I'll gouge out my eyes" incident. (Does not contain any onscreen eye gouging.)

Dorkier note not included with the actual fic: In my headcanon mind's eye is less convenient exact vision substitute—a tired trope re: disability in fiction, to say the least—and more like being blinded while having ESP in Nethack. That is, you see in living bodies/life energy, and you can judge unfamiliar surroundings by using their motions...but it's not the same as seeing. Shuu, you should really be wearing gloves.

(Zoids people: Sorry for the lack of Gunblusters. Mine is too dusty to photograph right now.)

Stuff I need to pack and send people:

mystickskye: Hiou and a box of Thin Mints
zinkymomo: Saberlion (same addy as the card?)
rustydragonfly: Assorted stuff
hanyoutai: Burnt Zoids media DVDs
plink_chan: PONY (well, ponies)
SyncSaix: Dig out Command Wolf LC, check for completeness, add in gun/box top/stickers

If you are missing from here, let me know!

• Updates have fixed Nightly!Firefox again. Hooray.


• Bitey, on the other hand...I've managed to break off one of the clips that holds the battery in, rendering her difficult to use for now without it escaping. The way the (larger, not the flat stock one) battery sits means it's not easily tapeable in place, too. Thanks, reflexes, for prioritizing "water bottle" over "netbook" when dropping things above a concrete floor. I've found what might be a replacement part as scrounged from a dead Mini 10, but it's going to take a while to get here and then I have to try and pretty much disassemble everything/hope I can get it in there safely oh lordy tiny little connectors. I'M SORRY, BITEY ;_;.


• Also broken: mplayer and mplayer 2. Anyone else had problems with the latest versions getting stuck at the end of some H.264 files, particularly ones downloaded from Youtube? I'm not quite sure yet what's the common factor between them, but it in turn messes up the repeat feature in SMplayer and thus my habit of leaving vids on loop as positive sensory input.


• I still have to ask a few questions/contact an anesthesiologist and work out my various Issues there (oh, what fun), but I have a surgery date for the 31st of May. I'm still rather "when did this become something that is actually happening" about it, and of course second guessing myself. But my brain second guesses everything before I actually do it, so it can shut up.


• I've been wanting more holdable-in-one-hand internet for when I'm feeling crap/laid up and not able to move my arms much, but smartphone data plans are ridiculous here and I don't like 10" tablets very much. I've thus been eying the 7" Galaxy Tab Plus. Anyone used one/got Android app recs, especially for drawing? I've already found a few promising text editors...though annoyingly, the app for Tomboy can only read notes at the moment, not write. At least Ubuntu apparently runs well on top of Android.


• WHAT DO I NAME IT if I get one? This is important, because computer names are prophetic. I wouldn't want to, say, name it Shuu and find it crushed one day under a rock or a Gilvader.

Because I'm lazy, my early thoughts on things Intuos4 on Tumblr.

The USB port makes me so nervous. I wonder if I should open it up and fix the thing more firmly in place as a preventive measure, but...warranty. Sigh. Anyone know of any micro USB cables with a really flush-with-surface kind of connection? My mp3 player's headphone jack has similar fail, which my AKGs fix by having a wider metal bit right against where they plug in that moves the jack back into alignment and holds it steady even though it's a little loose.

The bulk of it compared to the 2 is bugging me too. I know most artists like bigger tablets, and I imagine I would if I were more serious, but I liked "small and I can curl up around it", dangit :(. Anyone who's seen me sit will know why, I fold into all kinds of odd positions and proper ergonomic ones are often uncomfortable to me, both for sensory reasons and for "I have no padding on my ass" reasons. The surface, on the other hand, is getting less weird-seeming already, and I think if I'd bought something like a Bamboo for the cheaper/smaller I'd be annoyed with the sensitivity. The 4's is indeed really nice.

I'll see how it does in Elements 10 once I install it, too. Why are you 1.5 gigs, Elements? You can fit a whole OS in less space than that!

Eat? Horrible pain and my guts rejecting food, sometimes violently, but mostly with it hurting all the way through.

Don't eat? Obvious problems result, being as I am not a solar-powered robot and (sadly) require food to function.

And because it's April, the internet is full of people singing the praises of a charity that dehumanizes people like me because omg autism awareness!!1!. You want to help an autistic? SHUT UP ABOUT AUTISM SPEAKS and stop giving them money. There, you'll be helping my stress level and maybe I'll be able to ingest something without feeling like it's actually made of spikey death.

Even better, tell other people how horrible they are when you see them around, because so many people think they're genuinely helping—hey, look, awareness. If just "they hardly give any money to what they say they're helping" isn't enough for your do-not-give educational attempts (or you want to get into more detail):

Here's a good summary with links to lots of other posts.

Here's another. The site's a bit old, but it has details on some of their charming videos (which they seem to now pretend didn't exist) and their silencing an autistic teen's parody of their site with ridiculously over the top legal threats.

Here's them stealing an autistic's work on top of that. Yep, they really speak for us, all right.

You'd be better off buying RIAA label music and giving it to an autistic kid. At least then your scum-supporting cash might actually help their sensory issues.

My boobs are weirding me out again, still in the "what the hell are these doing here?" sense. I seem to have that don't even seem part of my body thing more now, aaaand I'm still really hoping that doesn't escalate much more until I can do something about it.

Speaking of which, I have a surgery consultation April 18th. Fingers crossed the hospital in the area is willing to work around a few of my dealbreaker-level issues; I'm actually more worried about them than the surgeon from what I've heard of him. If the hospital's an ass I'm...not going to have many other options (this place is in Chicago, which means no air travel), but I'm trying not to think about that.

PLUS SIDE, once it gets here, I'll have a working tablet again. And I will try to draw more, so as to make better use of it. Go away, creative output blocks in my brain. Shoo!

(I've also been sleeping badly, for anyone wondering where I am. Though I've stopped sleeping way too much all the time and appear to have gained weight, which is actually a good thing for me :p.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_nccfIpWuI

Some nice Zoids (and Vocaloid, which I admit I'm not familiar with) fan CGI. The Zeros are very expressive, there's a lot of attention to little details like the rolling caps...and I love how the SLC'd Saber doesn't just fall down, it trips and lands messily all over the place and then gets cleaved. And the nekkid Liger's Silver Fang-style neck roll attack a little over seven minutes in makes me happy, ridiculous or not :D.

I'm a bit eh on the run cycles (the forelegs are bugging me), but still. That easily outdoes Tomy's promo stuff and some bits of the anime, imo, and I wonder if some of the run issues are Kotobukiya's "short torso, really long legs" build on cats carrying over.

Also cool: the slow leaping well-telegraphed-in-advance double SLC fails! And ddhfdkfh the Ligers carrying bits of stuff back to the Hover Cargo as credits. So cute.

I still don't know how to tag it on AO3 (though I'm leaning towards fandom as original with the actual fandom in the other tags, even if it's technically fanfic), but if anyone reading reads rustydragonfly's series, I wrote fic for it.

The type of fic should not come as a surprise for me these days. (It's trans fic, involving Vesin.) Though I also poked a bit at religion, which is unusual for me. Usually my characters tend to default to not thinking about it, just as almost every character I touch ends up some degree of queer. I'm not sorry for the latter, as it can make up for all the straight as default in fiction and fandom. The religion part I should work on, even if it's a thing I don't personally grok.

Maybe I'll have to write Helic. It's canon he's at least fond of overdramatic prayer :p.

I have a ridiculous number of stories that need titles. Two I'm sitting on are ready to post once they have titles. I'm sitting here and coming up with nothing. (Well, one's waiting on possible edits of another story to post, because the other one should go up first, but whatever. The draft will be done and ready if it gains a title.)

How do you people who write a lot title things? Word association and the reverse dictionary have failed me (though this thing is cool). Song association has netted me THIS SONG STUCK IN MY HEAD. Thanks bunches, foobar.

Please, no funny advice :p. Titles like to trip me up like names, I attach too much importance to them. Who pays attention to titles on short stories, anyway?

(edit) So this isn't entirely me whinging, a note to self from the end of a failed bit of word association: "a slightly awkward affair sounds like it's Man From UNCLE porn."

(Meanwhile, something I'd chucked on the "I'd write it but have no plot" pile has half a plot but no middle and wants attention anyway. WELL, IT CAN WAIT.)

And I go from sleeping in computer chair too much-type loop to...let's see how long I can stay awake, not counting naps. I actually missed this sort of addition to my sleep pattern (if mine can be called that); let's see if I can keep it up and write on it still!

My inner five year old also wishes to say:

( TINY GLITTER PONIES. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

...and people who watch subbed things. Ignoring I could probably get better video quality out of the discs, how does this look?

Self Control test, take 2 (right click/save file or target as)

I am thinking I may want to move the romaji a bit higher up in relations to the actual Japanese...they seem a bit squished together right now. Possibly also make it a tiny bit smaller, though not at the cost of being all TEENYFONT like a lot of subs are these days. I need big fonts.

No karaoke effects, unless someone else times them for me. I am the world's most rubbish timer ever! Though I do plan to do the intro too, as well as a hardsubbed file once I'm happy with the styling.

(If the subs aren't displaying right but you know your player supports subs, the fonts used are Arial and MS Gothic. SMPlayer and VLC both work for me media player-wise.)

Tablet working fine: No will to draw

Tablet is being screwy: Brain wants to DRAW ALL THE THINGS

So, people who may have tried both: If this thing is on its way out like I'm starting to fear (it keeps doing this and I swear the sensitivity's off in general): Intuos 3 or 4? The 4 has a lot of reviews saying it eats nibs, which makes me leery, and I'm not sure I liked the rougher surface on the Bamboo tablet I tried. And the 3 is still relatively available for now...

(And, of course, as I say this, it starts behaving, but I don't trust it not to implode now and want to know what to do if it does.)

Also, mystickskye, if you gave me your address, I lost it again. And I have a box of Thin Mints you can have if I get it before I end up eating them myself :p.

1) I need a couple of imaginary kids' book titles that a kid in the 6ish years old range might bring to read to someone recovering from injury who'd read to her as a kid. Timeframe is uh...early 80sish, setting Japan, so if anyone actually knows that area/time well enough to riff off that (or has resources I could riff off of, because I keep getting US-centric things trying to ask Google), it'd be extra super awesome. Cute is totally fine, though the story tone is mostly serious, so I don't want ha ha funny/joke cute that'd distract from that.

2) A fun one for AO3 users: I wrote fanfic of an original series. Said original series is hosted on AO3 too, since it's more done fannish-style. So do I put the fandom as original (brain argues that it's not, since it's fanfic of original and thus fanfic), or do I put the fandom as the name of the series? Which would be fine if it were elsewhere, but is kinda confusing with it being hosted there too.

I'm aware of the inspired by thingy and plan to use it, I'm just wondering what to do for the fandom tag specifically.

(I'm also not interested in baww original doesn't belong there debate, I'm just wanting to tag usefully :p.)

Occasionally I write weird little stories in the fillin blanks of surveys, usually when they ask me ridiculous things. They're not mean-weird, just hopefully making someone's day a little more interesting.

This time, one got stuck. Or maybe surveyspot got stuck. And I couldn't remember which bits of it I'd taken before, so as apology for possibly messing up the data, I wrote whoever is stuck sorting out the answers ( this lovely bit of constrained-by-character-limit fiction )

Fabulous literature. Yes. I don't think this will make it onto Wordpress, unless I do a page collecting it and past highlights like Jeremy And The Wig Challenge.

Silver Fang shorts for Kyoushiro and Tesshin.

Foocubus ...exactly what it says on the tin. A Nethack joke combined with "let's see if I can write an entire story without any gendered pronouns". Singular they~.

I swear I have more substantial WIPs lying around. Except I looked at them and realized I had two introspective gender/trans issues ones in a row. Different characters, different situations, but dammit, self.

I also still can't title things. I swear, my inability to title things is up there with my self doubt in "things that make me delay posting", I'm that bad at it. I should just give in and make everything song references and call it a style. Yes.

The healthcare thing I signed up for at my doctor's office has some of my old medical history from a past (fail) doctor with the same group. It's missing a large chunk in the middle.

It thus is reminding me that I am overdue for "PAP SMEAR - CERVICAL CANCER SCREENING". As of 2007.

It also says I'm overdue to be immunized for HPV starting from a date nine years previous to the vaccine's approval in the US. Time travel required!

My experience re: testosterone so far has been mostly that it's mellowing. Not in a dulling way or the thick brainfog but heavier calm Xanax has; the emotions are still there, they're just less of a holy rollercoasters and fail, Batman kind of thing.

This has, in turn, mellowed the OCD a liiiittle bit by way of the panic being less intense. I haven't touched Xanax in a while. Which is good, because I mean damn, does it work nicely, but the brainfog is not anything I want longterm (and Xanax is bad longterm anyway).

( Cut more 'cause it's lots of text. )

Or: The best way I can come up with to summarize what I've been up to.

• My writing archive works well on both a Dell Streak and a recent iPhone. Very readable, easy to navigate, scales/shifts well with the tilty thing. Take that, complicated layouts :3. There are things I could improve, though...I must keep forking it.


• I actually want a smartphone or phone/tablet hybrid now. Not to use as a phone, but to type stories/get email on something that's pocketable. I wasn't too bad on the Streak's keyboard, once I got used to the swipey thing. The iPhone's frustrated me, but me + Apple never ends well. Both Apple and Google have different ideas re: intuitive than how my brain works, and never their GUIs and my needs shall meet.


• It would seem that if you put the same testosterone in the same inactive ingredients and stick it in a plastic pump, you can charge someone 500 USD because you have exclusive rights and a ~name~ attached to this. I didn't pay that (not that I could), because there's compounding pharmacies around here. But still, damn. No markup there, am I right? (I'm keeping track of feelings/potential side effects and so on. I'll likely post something more coherent after a few weeks. Nobody wants my raw notes to self!)


• I appear to have partially broken the part of me that feared starting on drafts of fics. I can actually produce NaNo style messy ones on occasion! Problem: I still sink into a sea of doubt and self-loathing on both the "make quality draft before final edit" and "final pass of final edit, post" steps. I also seem stuck in present tense, though that's not a problem problem other than the whole story that's now half present and half past, oops.

Aaaaand I am now safely back in Wisconsin.

Brains are so very brains, even if I slept part of the night. Disconnecty brainfog, my favorite. Not.

It feels like I just got used to being in England. Now everything is weird again and I have no rustydragonfly. Only what seems to be the starts of a cold. Immune system, you disappoint me!

"That Tilly is the most impressive of humans. It takes a lot to make me, Pastry, sunny and cheerful! As a show of affection, I should chomp down on the Trainer's neck... Hahaha... Have no fear... I was merely joking..."

At least my Gastrodon loves me. I think.

Dear self: While you lack in practical laundry experience, you still should know better than to, when selecting other things to wash along with a left-out-too-long towel on super-hot-death settings, to include a pair of dark (and relatively new!) tie-dye pants.

I now have a faded pair of tie-dye pants...and a lot of underwear and a towel dyed a sickly pink-orange color. It's not even a fun pink!

I started having one of my long plotty like woah dreams. I can't remember what was in this one, but it had a really vivid setting and some kinda mobster type thing going on. People trying to kill me, deals being exchanged for objects kinda thing.

( I lost all the plot, though. )

(03:28:16 PM) Tilly: the whole thing was HYPER REALISTIC until then
(03:28:31 PM) Tilly: like, all the textures/little details people usually claim dreams don't have
(03:28:40 PM) Tilly: and then SPONTANEOUS PINKIE PIE

I have three two more things to draw, my hands are wobbling, and I have...three two hoursish before I need to get to the post office or else wait aaages for it to be open post-holidays. The cards have fairly sleek paper, and Microns take time to dry on it. (Sorry, people who will have a few inkspots!)

Fun fun :D. Oh well, super late cards are...still cards, right?

I have three cards left and can send you one if you PM/email me an address and don't mind caffeine-induced last minute scribblings. I'll strikethrough this bit once I'm running out of drawing window. Still have three cards left, but they'll be SUPER late if you want one!

It irks me that I can pen freehand Zoids better than I can draw them with a tablet. I think some of it's the loosening up that comes with drawing with no erase/undo, but still. WHY. (edit) Also WHY, horse legs. Horse legs. I've been putting off practicing horses, mind, so this is good excuse to learn more.