the Wired

“That was definitely a thing that happened.”

So much has happened. So much. I thought things would untangle over September; they really didn’t. They tangled further. So dot points, because I can hardly think in a straight line.

Let’s start with the medical shite.

  • the cancer scare has been downgraded to “if the next exams come up clear, you’re all good!”, which I am endlessly, crazily, gloriously grateful for. Not just for my own sake, but for everyone who was worried about me. (Apparently my Dad took it very hard; I feel horribly guilty about that, which is stupid and I know it, but…there it is. :/)
  • we have an answer to all the symptoms: ME/CFS. (Sod the CFS, actually, I’m just using “ME” because that’s what it was originally called, and is far more accurate a term.) I have myalgic encephalomyelitis. I’ve probably had it since I had COVID the first time.
  • this means that all my future plans — turning my life around and becoming a doula+midwife, which I was so serious about I cut eight inches off my hair to mark, y’know, a decision made seriously and happily and with hope — are now in the bin. I don’t have a big enough ‘energy envelope’ to go back to university studies. Any of them.
  • I’m going over everything I do on the daily to try and get better at knowing where my limits are, what triggers things, what helps, what hinders, etc etc etc. It’s important, and knowledge is power, bluh bluh bluh, but it’s just…so frustrating and trying to condition myself into basically stalking myself is unfun. Yeah. Unfun. And saddening.

Emotional shite.

  • It’s really fucking difficult to cope with people you admire and dare I say, love, associating with people who purposefully went out of their way to hurt you, for god alone knows what reason. (Clout, I guess.)  But I’m not like She Who Must Not Be Named; I don’t dictate who my friends can and can’t be friends with. It just…hurts. To see layouts by someone and links to someone who didn’t even have enough honour in them to come directly to me with their problem, but instead spread it all over a certain forum. Lying.
  • Sometimes I just wish I’d never started making fanlistings whatsoever. I’ve quit absolutely now, and quite frankly find a lot of the staff members outright dismissive of problems I brought to them, in good faith. I am done with the vileness that is T(A)FL; but I just wish I’d never started, back in ’16. The community is a pit of vipers.
  • I just realised; fanlistings in general are probably one of the things that exacerbate my ME symptoms (because yes, emotional and mental turbulence also sucks up your energy).

And we’ll end with the far more palatable Things That DON’T Suck!

  • Our local pale-headed rosella couple have decided to start nesting…in my brushtail possum’s box. Poor Eustace has been essentially evicted from his former home and Helyanwion and Vilyaranel have moved in. Eustace essentially shrugged his shoulders, and just moved “over the road” to the first possum box. Bothered? Nah mate, that takes too much energy. XD
  • It’s absolutely delightful to watch the rosella couple go in and out of their new nest, peeking outside when a sound worries them a bit too much or just out of curiosity. I think Vinyaranel has already laid eggs, or is going to very very soon. ♥
  • Recipes for my family that have the tick of approval: Mum’s Teacupcakes, and mulberry muffins. Also, Dad declared that my peanut butter fudge is better than his favourite lollies. I just about passed out. Gonna have to do a pantry restock very soon…and pick more mulberries!
  • I’ve almost perfected my microwave cinder toffee. Almost. And semi-successfully made a cake-in-a-mug into really tiny cupcakes! No idea where I found those tiny little muffin papers, but hey!
  • Started beta-testing a cute game called EverGrove Idle: Grow Magic. It’s just your regular sort of idle game, I think, but…I’m kind of in love with a couple of the characters already? The visual-novel romance part of the narrative unrolls as your reach certain levels, and I’m just like…(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄  when can I ask Seren to marry me she is my silver sparkling star she is EVERYTHING?! And can I kiss the Warden if only to see him smile? fdjskalfdja;j
  • Playing all the Tsuki games now, but still loving Odyssey the best. I’ve unlocked the area between Momo’s teahouse and Bobo’s ramen cart, FINALLY! First thing I did was put up a row of very bushy trees between the two, plopped a waterfall beside Bobo’s cart (ambience, y’know?), and as a sign of trying to keep the peace…we have a Peace Lemon tree. It belongs to both of them — because lemon is a common tea accompaniment, and Frith alone knows what Bobo puts in his weirder creations, so. They both share the fruit of the tree and try to get along, as far apart as possible and with a line of greenery between them. XD Sigh. I wish I could create a bedroom for Pipi, or put more elegant things in Scarlett’s loft…(I need to do a whole stupid post about Tsuki nonsense, don’t I? XD)
  • pondering starting up a new Stardew Valley game, seeing as there’s going to be a lot of sitting around and stuffing energy into an envelope desperately in my future.

Murasaki Shikibu was wa-la-wa~, change my mind. Not sure where to put that, so it’s here, and also, you’ll never change my mind. ♥

a tale of stranger fortunes

I am never, ever speaking about the weather, my mental health, my physical health, productivity, and level of creativity if any of those things are good ever again, because I just jinxed the living flip out of myself on all those levels, and then some. It’s miserably humid and rainy, I’m Extremely Sad™, my back is so painful that I literally cannot stand up for more than five minutes at a time, I have completed nothing since the sixth because of all those reasons, including my mother’s Mother’s Day gifts, which makes me feel like the biggest ass on the planet, and the most creative thing I’ve done lately is make two origami cranes.

Hopefully saying this is like…anti-jinxing myself and things will start looking up tomorrow. Or the day after, I don’t care. Can we at least do away with this BS back pain nonsense? Please?

Only good thing that’s happened: my brother broke up with his abuser. BIG YES. I mean, I doubt he’s escaped her hideous, nasty, malicious, manipulative little claws forever, but…who knows. We can always hope. I’m not happy that he’s alone, I’m happy that his abuser will now hopefully leave him alone…for a few weeks, at least. Vile cow. (Not sorry; I refuse to extend any respect towards that creature. I am sick to death of her, and people like her. I do not apologise.)

We have a new Pope! Or, er, I guess the Catholics do? I’m not quite sure whether the Pope is everybody’s big Catholic or just the Catholics’ big Catholic. Either way, he seems like quite a nice fellow, and he’s anti-MAGA (or as close as a holy person ever gets to being “anti-” something…again, the semantics!), so fingers crossed. It’s always just nice to have good folks in powerful positions.

(I also learned that the Room of Tears is literally called that because so many Popes end up weeping there, for many reasons. I don’t know why, exactly, but I did find that strangely touching.)

I’ve been deliciously devouring the McKinney translation of Shounagon-oneesama’s Pillow Book and have gotten to the parts I never reached before in my original interrupted reads, and…siiiiigh. ♥ She’s just…SO delightful. Ito wokashi, even. ^_~  I deeply enjoy Dr. McKinney’s translation “voice”, and I love that she chose to translate so much more of the text (or texts, to be precise — there are four main variants of the original text; the one that Dr. McKinney uses for the most part is the “Sankanbon”, considered one of the most accurate variants) than Ivan Morris did, and much, much more than Arthur Waley — not that I dislike either of their translations, mind you! Dr. Waley’s writing was poetic and beautiful, and I’ll always have a soft spot for Professor Morris’ translation, because it was so obvious in his translation and footnotes that he admired Shounagon, if not being outright fond of her — and it’s presumptuous of me, but I honestly have a silly dreamy thought that Shounagon would have been rather fond of him, as well.

And I’m so full of thoughts about Shounagon’s Empress…she seemed like such a sweet soul, and the love between her and the Emperor seemed so genuine. Plus, how close and happy her family was, and it was so obvious that Regent Michitaka was so, so proud of her — of all of his children — and he expressed himself in such a jolly, honest, playful way…it’s heartbreaking to think of how it all ended. I was planning to read A Tale of False Fortunes when I finish The Pillow Book (or even before), but I’m not sure how much more sadness I can take! Ah, poor Sadako…if only you could have had your fairytale ending in that life. ;_; 24 years is far too young to die, and far too young to shoulder all that tragedy all alone…aaahhh, I’ll have to change the subject or I’ll start crying!

Apropos of Japanese translations and whatnot: why do letters with a macron (ō, etc) look so ridiculously ugly in some fonts? Either the letter itself is weirdly bolder than a macron-less letter, or the macron itself isn’t aligned with the letter below it…it’s so frustrating! And let’s not even mention that ō itself doesn’t appear to have an ALT code that actually works? I suppose I can use a circumflex o (ô…ALT+0244, for the record) in a pinch, but using a macron for long vowels in Japanese transliteration is the universal standard, so why is it so ridiculously tricky to utilise?! ><;

the poison, the rot

Honestly starting to question if I want to be online at all.

For the past few days, my focus has primarily been on offline endeavours. While my head isn’t in what I’d describe as a healthy place — I think that ship has long since sailed and won’t ever be returning to harbour — I definitely had it above water, so to speak. There was room for improvement, but I didn’t feel all…compressed and scrunched-up, soulwise. Boredom was a slight problem (but there again, it always is, even at the best of times), but otherwise I was mostly okay.

I step back online, and within a few hours of operating within the circles I’m in (largely out of lack of knowing what else to do, truth be told), I start feeling horrific again. Tears, anger, annoyance, and zero patience for what may be innocent mistakes. And I’m right back to feeling like a worthless outsider, to boot.

This…will require fixing.

It’s not being online as a whole — I like keeping in contact with friends, I love to code, I love to spend hours with my eyes glued to tutorials, and I love organising and planning different static sites. But there’s a certain…realm…I guess…I kind of have to keep up with, due to the content I create, and honestly, it and the majority of people in it, their careless actions and flippant attitudes have just crushed me.  (And I do realise I’m being vague here; I have my reasons. Chances are you know precisely which sphere of the net I’m speaking of, but if you don’t…don’t worry. What it is isn’t really important; what it does to my is what matters here.)

I want eyes on my sites, but I don’t want to be under the constant eye of a digital equivalent of a homeowner’s association with a penchant for favouritism.
I want to make friends and forge connections, but I don’t want to be flavour of the month to someone and snarked about behind my back when they get bored. I don’t want to be carefully put into a place where I can’t defend myself from outright lies.
I want to create, but I don’t want to force myself to fit into a mould that crushes my heart to do so.
I want something real, not just lip service and an “affiliate” link.

This should be fun. This crap? Is not fun.

I think it’s time to quietly just step away from the whole poison lot of it. Maybe it’ll cost me visitors. Maybe that’s actually a small price to pay for not feeling like dirt on the bottom of someone’s shoe and stress headaches. I won’t feel this way in all communities I ever participate in…right?

Maybe it means I’ll always be alone, no matter how much I yearn for that connection.
Maybe even being alone would be better than trying to keep myself from falling apart in a mean place.

Or…well, no. Because I’m not alone on the Wired; I have real, genuine, decades-old friendships that with people that I would honestly die for.

When I was a little girl, I could play for hours and hours with my school friends. I was more than happy writing little storybooks just to distribute amongst them, I loved all the made-up worlds we spent hours building together; I didn’t feel lesser because I didn’t have an audience.

I shouldn’t feel lesser now, just because the only people who ever see the things I create are my friends. If only three people ever read Akayoroshi, that won’t make it unworthy or a waste of time.

I would rather feel real appreciation and joy in a tiny world, than tear myself to shreds in a huge one for the merest chance of someone giving the things I cherish and throw my whole heart into just an idle glance. If I created and played just for the sake of joy and the sake of my friends as a child, I can damn well do the same thing now as an adult — and the friends I have now are worth a thousand times more than any I had as a child, to boot.

at a low ebb.

today I am full of ire and indignance and frustration and unseelie feelings. I want to scream, I want to rage, I want to sob into my pillows…but I cannot. I need to stay in control. expression doesn’t help; undamming the reservoir during a flood makes everything worse, so much worse.

keep control. keep silent.

but nothing changes if nothing changes.

a butterfly trapped in a chrysalis. a flower doomed to remain a bud forever. a moon forever gibbous, never reaching the full.

on and on, etc etc, same as it ever was.

there must be some way outta here…

anyway….

I hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying this, but I’m terribly afraid my laptop computer — my mirror in the tower (I should have named him Shalott), my lifeline, the one who knows me to the absolute — is starting to tire out. I am hoping and literally praying that this isn’t the case, and he’s just slightly sick of humidity and summer heat, but he is ten years old come March (perhaps that is 80 in computer years? He’s a fine old gentleman, I love him so…), so it wouldn’t be surprising…but it would be horrifying. There is no possible way I could replace him at the moment — I don’t have that kind of money in my situation, and thanks to certain people* throwing about the words “grifter” and “get a job”, I can’t even begin to consider crowdfunding or asking for financial help.

(Here’s the thing: holding down a job when your nerves are literally fraying is actually impossible, my other disabilities notwithstanding. Employers tend to prefer healthy and able-bodied employees — trés fou, non? Here’s another thing: mind your own business, you vile, odious, horrid little cretin.)

do it now!

It’s childish of me, but if someone keeps refreshing one of my cliques literally 20 times in an hour waiting for me to update it, I kind of feel like gritting my teeth and making them wait a week until I add them. It’s like the digital equivalent of being tailgated and slowing down in response.

I’d get it if I was using at automated joining system like for a fanlisting, but all my cliques are run entirely by hand — manually, if you will. I can’t just drop everything I’m doing and add someone the instant their application hits my inbox. Also, it makes sense to wait until a few application emails come through, and to do them all at once to save time and frustration.

(Also, it’s just a webclique application, not a call to 000. It’s just a fun little timewaster at the end of the day, your appearing on the members’ list is not remotely time-sensitive.)

Between layout thefts, resource misappropriation, non-linking, refusal to read rules, and this thing, I’m getting really, really sick of how entitled the majority of Neocities users are. Lain didn’t give up her physical presence for this shit.

(& yes, I’m super grumpy because this headache refuses to either go away or turn into a proper migraine, and has been doing so for the past 12 hours.)

well, that was…irritating.

fasl;kfjda FINALLY, uNU is back. Not that I have anything to say, except “argh I wish the nunames (or whoever) people wouldn’t waste mine AND my lovely hosting service’s time, and would send emails that should be sent”, but still.

Still waiting for a whole bunch of others to come back online, including the backend, but at least Wings and uNU are working. And of course TFL got on my ass less than 24 hours after the initial go-down, but who’s surprised there.

cherry picks

I’ve sat on this for the better part of a week now, waiting for my temper to cool so I could communicate more effectively, and also to see if my feelings changed at all. While the former has happened, the latter has not, so…onwards, I suppose.

I’m a little bit miffed with The Anime Fanlistings at the moment, to put it…delicately.

So, recently, one of my wishlisted fanlistings were open for application; naturally I applied. There were a few others that were recently closed that I applied for, as well — not particularly popular characters (does anyone care about Deed-chan? …well, they should, she’s badass :P), but I don’t apply for listings I don’t want. I wouldn’t find the drive to create them, otherwise.

When I got knocked back for the wishlisted one, plus another I was hoping so much to get, I was in a pretty bad headspace, so it was a blow, but I didn’t take it overly personally after the dust settled, and I had the unpopular characters approved (surprise surprise…) but I did say something half-jokingly in an aside on my microblog — I swear, if a staffer ends up with one of those listings I was knocked back for…

…turns out I can see the future.

I’m just…not horribly amused about it. Especially considering that said staffer runs the category the fanlisting is in. They also run a massive number of other incredibly popular character listings, as well, which…

Look, not to put too fine a point on it, that pisses me off. That’s unfair. That seems like favouritism in its most blatant sense. The network in general can go on and on about how of course there isn’t anything like that happening, but…really? Really? It’s mere chance that the staffer for that category runs the most popular fanlistings in said category? Over and over and over?

Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

Like, I don’t think that staffers should be forced to give up all the FLs they already run when they become $CATEGORY_HERE staffers; that wouldn’t be fair. But I think if you’re the staffer…you shouldn’t be allowed to apply for more in the category you run. (If that even happens — I’ve heard some insiders tell me things that make me raise my eyebrows, and I know for all TFL’s prating that they don’t award FLs on a first-come-first-serve basis, “we hold all applications for at least a week!” — that’s an outright lie). They have an unfair advantage in spades right there.

Not wholly sure I had any grand point to make, nor do I think this will result in anything seeing as I have, like…three people who read this thing, and none of them are FL makers themselves, so. Just wanted to vent a bit, I guess. Some things have changed in the wake of Web 2.0, but the general attitude of the anime domain design community never will. If you’d have told my seventeen-year-old self I’d be ticked off with this sort of behaviour this far into the future, I don’t think she would have believed you.

These people are all the same age as I am, no less.

Hooray for the Wired, or something.

medical hiatus; mission critical

ON INDEFINITE HIATUS:

CLOSING:

STAYING ACTIVE:

Basically, everything that doesn’t spark enough joy currently will be put on hiatus (or closed). Quite obviously I’m immersing myself in all things Tolkien, seeing as I’m slowly finding delight in my Middle-earth again; one that I don’t have to share with lying fairweather ‘friends’. (No, I’m not sorry — if you want me to say nice things about you, ACT BETTER.)

Pretty sure today that the internet was a net, ha, loss for humanity, but what can you do.