The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikavonkaiser]

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[erikavonkaiser]

am......................sleebjy

[erikavonkaiser]

I survived!

Work has been nuts this month, I have almost 50 cases (without crunching actual numbers I would guess my normal case average in a month, excluding outliers like when COVID deaths being our jurisdiction brought me to over 100 in one month ha ha I wanted to perish, ANYWAYS I'd guess my average is 30-35 cases? so 50 is notably more than usual). Last night I felt like my entire brain was out of gas and even talking on the phone was getting difficult, so I'm glad it's my weekend. Today I intend to pretty much rest and play video games, mixed in with a few chores + adulting tasks (mostly I need to pay bills and order Baby Dog some more food and old lady joint supplements) and at some point I'll exercise. I'd also like to do a goals/end-of-year wrap-up kind of post but I'll save that for when I have regenerated a few more brain cells.

Okies I'mma drink my coffeedrank and do some chores in bungame while I remember how to think

[erikavonkaiser]

This year I:

• started regularly reading again!

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Definitely a positive change for me, and it's also resparked my love for fantasy fiction! It's a genre that's always been dear to my heart but I often felt compelled to read more "high brow" literature suck my entire ass, Ky or was overwhelmed by the amount of fantasy fiction that's YA or what's being called "romantasy" now, which aren't crimes, but not my jam. I want swords and adventure, and sometimes that means I read Drizzt Do'Urden novels unapologetically

• didn't quite write regularly, but did write a lot, including some short OC fiction I'm pretty proud of:
Gold and Rot, about Merillian realizing a peculiarity of his transformation into a fishman
Moonflower, about Sevaufein having a bad time as a kid (edit: lmao I forgot how Drow work he's like a 30-something in this)
Tache Noir, about Sevaufein having a bad time post-game
And here have a fluff one just to prove I'm not mean to Sevaufein 100% of the time

I actually wrote a whole bunch more little character-building stuff like that and made decent progress on my story! I'd say it's 90% done?

• re-evaluated my relationship with social media in ways that have also been positive for me

• started drawing again! I'll do a proper before vs after post w/ this because there's a specific illustration I'm trying to finish as a comparison point, but it's been nice to make art with my hands even if I'm not amazing at it (and re: the change in how I use social media, it's been nice not to feel compelled to share it with strangers)

I think those are the main highlights, which isn't to say I haven't done other things, but those are things I consciously tried to change or do better about and feel like at least the attempt improved my life.

Next year I'd like to finish my story, which was a goal for this year but I'm not gonna beat myself up over not quite making it. It's hard to tell an entire story when I work as a first responder 40 hrs/wk! I do want to get back to a regular/stricter writing routine, and treat work on my novel projects or publishable things as a "chore" in the sense that I want to check it off and finish it the way I do cleaning dishes or my strength training. Oh, and speaking of strength training, I do want to amp that up! I've been running regularly still because it keeps me sane, but ever since my medical emergency back in June-ish I've been really hit-or-miss with my strength training because I was in pain for so long and then honestly fell out of the habit. Aside from that I'd like to keep up reading and making art, and see about spending some additional time doing something like taking Polish lessons or trying to finally learn guitar. I know I can't, and shouldn't, do all of the things, but I've gotten better at assessing when I do/don't have spell slots available, and if I have some I want to use them on things that enrich my life.

I also need to go to the fucking dentist. Just do it, Erika. You have dental insurance. It's just scary and hard and you haven't been in a bajillion years but you gotta do it, you gotta do the thing girllllllll

ahem

Regardless of the downs, I think it's mostly been ups, and I feel very lucky to be where I'm at and to have the support group that I have. I've even taken a major step to solidify that -- in a week or so I'm signing legal documents that remove my blood family as my legal next-of-kin even posthumously, so that my friend Masque is now legally my family. The hurt and loneliness from being disowned will never fully go away, but I'm so lucky to be able to fill my cup back up in the ways I can. I'm going to keep protecting my free time, I'm going to keep remembering to be kind, I'm going to keep putting earthworms I find on the sidewalk back into the dirt.

The world is big and scary and I am just a tiny little lesbian, but I'll do my best.

[erikavonkaiser]

also just as a random note another thing I did this year was start taking a daily vitamin gummy because I was troubleshooting several weeks straight of notable physical fatigue/lethargy, and it really seemed to help! idk if it's the placebo affect or if, more likely, I did genuinely have a vitamin deficiency of some kind, but I'll definitely keep doing that going forward

[erikavonkaiser]

affect? effect. affect. effect.

I'm a writer I swear

[erikavonkaiser]

also I'm gonna keep commissioning art no matter how self-indulgent it is because holy shit look at this Amano-style piece I commissioned of Sevaufein and Astarion, it's so soft and homoerotic I'm gonna cry

jn_WhU5a.png

[erikavonkaiser]

if I have learned anything from the Final Fantasy 14 fandom it's that the average person (in the parts of that fandom I see, at least) are a LOT more forgiving of male characters who "adopt" a young girl than I am

like I can respect a Joel/Ellie to some degree or, actually off the top of my head my favorite is probably Lee/Clementine, but Thancred is an absolute piece of shit and him giving a good-natured smile to Ryne once in a while has not won me over

ok cool man if you wanna be in charge of this young woman's health and development then get to fucking work, you were an enormous dick to her for literal years because you have waifu issues, get the fuck outta here

[erikavonkaiser]

almost like a man does not immediately gain a personality or actual humanity because now he is responsible for a woman. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm almost like that whole concept is a little gross

[erikavonkaiser]

Lee/Clementine

see okay but to dig in further the reason this one works for me (and I guess I should specify this is Lee and Clementine from the Telltale Games Walking Dead games) is that Lee finds a young girl in distress; she's alone, her parents are dead, there's zombies everywhere, she's hiding in her tree house. He shows her he's a friendly person who means well and spends basically the rest of his existence keeping her safe, because it's important to him that she stay safe. She's a child, he's an adult, he wasn't out stomping through the narrative in desperate need of wholesome character development, he just knew that this was something, as a good human, he had to do. People have to look out for people, and frankly especially children.

Screenshot 2023-12-30 174500.png

then you have Thancred who bullies the fuck out of a girl who has been reincarnated numerous times, which she didn't ask for, and has been entrusted with the legacy of the Oracle of Light, which she has no idea how to fulfill, and who otherwise has spent most of her short life in captivity like a zoo animal. but somehow it's okay that he was cruel to her, because he had manpain