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Transformative Works:

I have no problem with people creating fanart, fanvids, podfics, remixes, etc. based on my fanworks. Translations into any languages are also fine. All I ask is that you let me know about it and link back to the original fic or vid that it was based on.

As a reminder, all of my works can be found here. Fanfiction, fanvids, and original writings are all posted there.

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Money Stuff:

CashApp
PayPal
Venmo
Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com)

This will be the last post that I crosspost from Dreamwidth to LiveJournal.

I'm not completely deleting my LiveJournal account, at least not at this time, and I will continue to at least keep an eye on my LJ friends list semi-regularly. That said, I'm no longer comfortable posting to LJ considering some of the things that have been happening the last few months. As of today, Dreamwidth will officially be my main blog, which - to be honest - has been the case for years.

As per usual, you can find me on AO3 if you're looking for my fanworks, and Dreamwidth, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter for everything else. Please feel free to follow me on any of those sites.

I know that there are a few of you who have no plans on every moving to Dreamwidth (or other social media sites) for personal reasons, and I'm sorry if this means we might lose touch. For my own personal reasons, though, I'm no longer comfortable using LiveJournal. So here we are.

I've had my LiveJournal since 30 June 2002, so it seemed fitting that my last post be on 30 June 2017. Fifteen years. That's a hell of a long time, and literally over half my life (by a few months, at least). I really wish that it didn't have to end this way, and even though I know it's extremely unlikely a part of me can't help but hope that maybe I'll get to come back someday. Unless things change, though, that seems unlikely right now.

Goodbye, LiveJournal. I'm going to miss you.

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As I'm sure most of you who care about such things know by now, VividCon will be ending as of 2018.

Needless to say, I'm heartbroken. I've been involved in vidding fandom since before VVC ever started back in 2002, and I've attended every year since 2006. What with everything that's going on in the world right now, and losing Tali, and now this, it really feels like the universe in general has basically said "sorry, but you don't deserve to be happy, so we're taking away absolutely everything you care about and by the way, fuck you." Which... kind of sucks. A lot.

A lot of people keep talking about how it was obvious that this was going to happen, but there are also quite a few of us seem to have been caught completely off guard by the news. So I'm not certain if there have been conversations happening that those of us who didn't see this coming just haven't been privy to, or if it's because we've been hanging out in completely different parts of fandom, or what. But there definitely seems to be a clear divide going on when it comes to people expecting this announcement and people who had no idea it was coming.

If you haven't heard, there is going to be a new con starting in 2019 that will focus more on fanworks as a whole. I'm probably going to try to attend, depending on where/when it happens, but it's definitely not going to be a replacement for VividCon. A con that happens to include vidding in it is very different from a con that focuses on vidding, and VVC ending is very much going to leave a void for me. Honestly, I kind of suspect that VVC ending might be enough to make me completely stop vidding.

2017 can bite me.

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Those of you who follow me on Tumblr and/or Twitter have probably seen this already, but I adopted a new cat a little over a week ago. His previous owners (who are re-homing him due to their daughter's allergies) brought him by my apartment last Friday, and I spent the holiday weekend trying to get him and Garrus used to each other. It... went well, after the first 36 hours or so. As for the first 36 hours or so, well, the less said about them the better.

Most of my injuries from those 36 hours probably won't scar?

They're both adult male cats (with Garrus at just shy of 4 and him around 8) so, needless to say, there was quite a bit of posturing at first. They're still batting at each other from time to time now (no claws out, just with the flat of their paws), once they hit their limits for dealing with each other, but they're at least on their way towards being friendly with each other.

















Everyone, meet Purrcival Threadrickstein Von Meowsel Clawsowski de Rolo IV. You can call him Percy.

He's older than Garrus, as I mentioned, and he's also larger than him. Which is impressive, considering Garrus is 16.5 pounds. But, yeah, Percy is a little over 22 pounds, and he's mostly Maine Coon... which, you know, explains the size somewhat. Personality-wise, he and Garrus are very similar. They both love being petted. They both purr at the drop of a hat. They both love sitting in the window.

They're still getting used to living with one another right now, but once a bit more time has passed? I think they're going to get along well. I've already caught them grooming each other from time to time, and they tend to stay near(ish) to each other.

I'm still definitely missing Tali quite a bit, but having Percy here is helping. He's a sweetheart, and it's easier to deal with Tali being gone when I can sit here and say "if she was still here, then I never would have met him." That doesn't mean it's easy, by any means, but it does help some.

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I've mentioned before that I do online surveys and such very regularly, that I can then trade in for things like airline miles (enough for a free flight almost every year), Amazon gift cards, cash, and the like. Several people have asked me about them, so I thought that I'd type up a post for anyone who might be interested.

First is the National Consumer Panel, which is run by Nielsen. The way it works is that whenever you go grocery shopping, once you're done you scan the barcodes on your groceries using an app on your phone. (There are also some surveys you can do from time to time as well.) It's fairly quick and easy, and once you get used to it then it adds maybe an extra minute or two to unpacking groceries and putting them away.

They have a variety of rewards you can trade in points for, including Amazon gift cards (which is a big one for me). They also have random drawings throughout the year for prepaid Visa cards of varying amounts. I've won those several times without doing anything special.

Another that I really like is e-Rewards, which is solely taking online surveys, but unfortunately it's rather difficult to sign up with them as they're invite only. You have to get an invitation from one of their partners in order to join. That's the site that I get my airline miles from, so it's very much worth it if you can get in with them. If it helps any, I got my original invite to join their site by signing up for e-mails from Pizza Hut.

InBoxDollars is another site that I use. It's not as profitable as the others, but they pay cash. I usually earn $50 or so a year from them, but I also only visit their site sporadically each week. I'm sure if I were to spend more time there, it would be more profitable. And I can verify that they do actually pay you, as I've gotten several checks from them.

Last but not least is Swagbucks. It's another one that you can trade in for all sorts of things, including Amazon gift cards or even cash. In my opinion it's more time-consuming than the others, but it's definitely possible to make decent money on their site if you're willing to spend time attempting every survey and such that they offer.

They also have the option to get money back from online shopping, so it can help if you get in the habit of going through their referral link when ordering things online. For example, I used their site the last time I ordered a computer from Dell, and I ended up getting something like 15% back - which is a fairly decent amount of money on large purchases like that.

I've used others in the past, but those four are the ones that I've found to be most profitable and therefore the ones that I've stuck with. If you have questions about any of them, let me know.

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I finally sold my car! \o/

The guy who bought it gave me $200 cash for it (which is about what I was expecting) and towed it off as soon as I handed over the title. He's taking it back to his place to break down what he can for parts, and then he's donating it to the local fire department to use for training. So, you know, that works. I got some money for it, plus it's going to be put to a good purpose.

Unnamed Nonprofit is closing at lunchtime on Friday, so I'm heading to the MVA afterwards to turn in my plates and tags. Luckily, it's literally next door to my apartment complex, which is very convenient when it comes to walking home afterwards. Then I can cancel my car insurance, find out what my renters' insurance will be going up to (since I was getting a multi-line discount), and not have to worry about any of that anymore.

Now that I've actually managed to sell my car, I'm feeling much more positive about making it to VividCon. I've got cash in hand for the car itself, plus by the time you add in the small refunds I'll be getting for my car tags/car insurance as well as the fact that my car insurance won't be renewing three days before VVC? That should be enough to cover the costs of the con, especially since I don't have to worry about airfare.

(That said, I'm waiting until June to register. Just to make certain nothing else unexpected happens. Because 2017 has been hell, and I don't trust it.)

Speaking of cons, I'm seriously considering going to Philly in November for PAX Unplugged. The cost of the con itself is very reasonable, and since it's in Philadelphia it's much more plausible for me to pay $20(ish) to just spend a few hours on a bus to get there. The big cost would be a hotel, but I'm hoping that either roommates and/or staying somewhere other than downtown would help.

I'm finally playing Mass Effect: Andromeda thanks to my mom buying it for me out of the blue. I haven't had a lot of time to play yet, but I'm hoping to spend a fair bit of the holiday weekend digging into it.

On the cat front, Garrus has been doing... okay(ish). He's definitely extremely clingy when I first get home from work in the afternoons, and he's being more vocal than I've heard him in the entire 3+ years that he's been here. I'm looking into adopting another cat so that he'll have someone to keep him company during the day, as it's very obvious that a lot of the problem is that he's home alone for 8+ hours on weekdays. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure at least some of it is that he misses Tali specifically, but I'm getting the impression that's not all of it.

I'm supposed to get Tali's ashes back in the next day or two (although I won't be surprised at all if it's pushed back until sometime next week thanks to the holiday weekend). While I'm slowly getting used to not looking for her, I think that's definitely going to hurt. I already know where she's going to be staying, though, so the fact that I've prepared that much will hopefully help a little.

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So, yes, I've been mentioning this in other posts for some time now, so it's about time that I typed one up on the subject. As I've said before, I'm currently trying to sell my (nonworking due to a starter issue) car and my (in almost new condition) bicycle on craigslist. And, wow, I've had some responses that deserve being shared.

Some of my favorites:

* The person who sent me a lot of questions about my car before asking what I wanted for it. (Which, by the way, is listed in the post itself.) Their response when I said "[insert dollar amount here] or best offer" was an almost immediate "... oh, you want money?"

* The person who I went back-and-forth with via e-mail for several days, to the point where we where we were talking about arranging for him to come see the car. He then asked where we should meet. I replied back pointing out that, since the car won't start until it has some work done (which not only is in the subject line and body of the craigslist post, but was also the subject line of every. single. email. that we'd been sending to each other), we'd need to meet at my apartment complex since that's where it was parked. Somehow, despite all of that, he'd managed to miss the fact that the car has starter issues and wouldn't turn on.

* The person who offered me $50 for the car but only if I'd pay for it to be towed to him (which definitely costs more than $50 in this area). And who then kept sending me e-mails for days after I told him "no" and stopped replying to his messages.

* The thirteen different people (so far!) who've sent me e-mails asking about which motor the car has in it, how many miles it has, etc. despite all of that information being listed very clearly in the craigslist post.

* The guy who, for something like two weeks straight, kept making plans to come see my bicycle only to never send me a message on the day we'd arranged asking the address to meet (as I told him I'd send him more information once he was sure he could make it). I'd get an e-mail something like 12 hours later saying that "something had come up" and making plans to meet on a different day.

* The guy who sent me several e-mails asking about my bike before asking for more information about where I'm located. (Not the address, just general info.) Which was already in the craigslist post. He then disappeared for several days, making me assume he'd realized how far MoCo is from NoVA (where he just moved), before sending an e-mail asking to come see my bicycle the next day. I said "sure" - and didn't hear anything from him for three days. Then he sent an e-mail asking to meet last night. I said "sure" - and, yet again, didn't hear anything back from him until 2am this morning (after I'd already gone to bed) asking if he could meet me first thing this morning to take a look at the bike. I sent him an e-mail and a text when I woke up this morning at 9am, but I haven't heard any reply.

* The guy who called me several inappropriate terms, over the course of five e-mails, because I wouldn't sell the bicycle to him for $25. I was going to make him look like a bad guy to his girlfriend, because he'd already promised to buy the bike for her! How dare I not accept his offer!?

* The woman who very clearly knew absolutely nothing about bicycles but was trying to buy one for her still-a-fairly-young-child grandson. (I explained to her just why my bike wasn't a good option for a kid and pointed her towards some places to get more information about what would be appropriate.)

And that's not counting the dozen or so people not mentioned who've sent me some e-mails asking about my bike and/or car, some of which have gone so far as to ask when would be a good time for them to come see them, only to disappear into the ether without another word.

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It's been a tough week, for obvious reasons, but things are slowly going back to as normal as they can be. Garrus seems to be settling in to the new status quo, although he's definitely sleeping more than usual. I'm not entirely certain if it's because he's depressed and missing Tali, though, or if it's more due to her not being here to wake him up. Their sleep schedules were always a bit off, and she would wake up from her naps sooner than him and immediately make certain that he joined her in being awake.

He's definitely been a bit clingier the past few days, although it does seem to be tapering off the last 24 hours or so. His naps tend to be within sight of me rather than in other rooms, as they have been in the past, and he's been spending all night in bed with me rather than only part of it. (Although, once again, that might just be because there's no Tali to wake him up and not let him sleep.)

I've been fighting a headache (that turned into a migraine for a bit before fading back into just a headache) since Tuesday, but it finally seems to be fading. I made it to work for about half of Wednesday, stayed home on Thursday, and then went in again for a little over half the day on Friday. Luckily I have plenty of PTO, so I had it to spare. Still, it wasn't exactly the best week for it considering several people are out of the office at the moment. That's life, though.

There's still some craigslist-related drama going on in regards to trying to sell my bicycle and car that I totally need to type up a post about at some point. I'm getting closer and closer to saying "fuck it" and just donating the car to charity, at this point. Yes, I'd like some cash up front now, but that way I could at least get a tax credit next year. Besides, the sooner I get it taken care of, the sooner I can get my car insurance cancelled and try to get a partial refund for my tags.

D&D continues to take up quite a bit of my brain space, which is good for distraction-related purposes at least. In our Friday night game, it looks like we're getting ready to start a fairly serious dungeon crawl that's probably going to last quite a while based on the map we were given. I think we're all excited and a bit terrified for it.

Back on the cat front, I'm definitely thinking that I need to find a new companion for Garrus sooner rather than later. I haven't been away for a full eight hours at work yet since Tali died, but just being away for 4-5 hours on the two days that I made it in to the office seemed to be pretty hard on him. He's definitely not used to being completely on his own for extended periods of time. I'm not quite certain how ready I am for a new cat right now, but I do think that he needs someone to keep him company.

If anyone in the DC area knows of someone who's trying to rehome a cat, one who gets along well with others, let me know? I'm mostly keeping an eye on craigslist right now. Local animal shelters are technically an option, but a lot of them tend to require written confirmation from my landlord that pets are allowed and a vet recommendation (and some of them even require things like paycheck stubs as proof of income). All of which, you know, are technically possible for me to get but will take some time and effort due to my work schedule/lack of a car. So I'm looking into one-on-one arrangements first.

Still, I'll just have to see how it goes.

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I'm honestly not sure it's sunk in yet that Tali is really gone. She was going to turn four in July, so she was still very much a young cat. She was healthy. When I left for work yesterday morning, it was just another day. She was curled up in her usual spot on the back of the sofa, awake but very much not willing to move yet. I kissed her and Garrus goodbye, told them to be good and not destroy the apartment while I was gone... and that was the last time I saw her.

It seems so quiet in the apartment without her, which is odd because she's always been the quieter of the two of them. But she was always the one sitting in the window watching and waiting for me to get home, and whenever I'd walk in the door she'd come running up, climb halfway up the back of my sofa, and then dangle there waiting to be petted. It's why I always called her my monkey cat.

She'd curl up on the back of the sofa or the top of the fridge or a random chair, and then she would stretch so far that she'd often roll right off. And then immediately flip over, all nonchalant, like she'd totally meant to fall off of where she'd just been. She could open almost every drawer and door in the apartment, and the handful of ones that she couldn't open due to her size she'd trained Garrus to open for her. Whenever I took a shower, the odds were high that at some point during it there would be a small black head poking in at the back of the bathtub to get misted with water.

She loved people food. Whenever I opened the refrigerator, she would come running. I had to eat standing up more often than not, because if I tried to sit at the table or my computer desk, she'd come after my food. Just Monday night, I ordered pizza for dinner and made the mistake of trying to eat at my computer, and she made an adorable nuisance of herself the entire time. And she absolutely adored boxes and bags. Whenever anything arrived in the mail, I'd end up leaving the empty cardboard box sitting in my floor somewhere for at least a few days until she got bored with it, because I didn't have the heart to take it away from her.

If she was startled, she would look twice as large as she actually was. Her fur would stand straight on end, and she'd arch her back like the stereotypical black cat from Halloween decorations. The rest of the time, the size difference between her and Garrus was hilarious. They were from the same litter, but he was literally over twice as large as her. And their eyes! His are light green, but hers were so yellow they were almost orange. When you saw the two of them beside each other, it was always so noticeable.

Tali was my demon and my angel. I have a ridiculous number of scars on my arms and elsewhere on my body from her claws, and I still have scratches on my stomach from Sunday night when I got back from my trip to Tennessee and she made her displeasure known for my leaving them for 36 hours. She shedded like there was no tomorrow, and there's a good chance that I'll still be vacuuming up some of her fur for months to come - if not longer.

I'm going to miss her so much.

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I very much don't have the spoons to try and respond to everyone's comments individually, not right now. But I wanted to post a huge "thank you!" to everyone who donated money towards covering Tali's vet bills/cremation and/or who helped spread the word of it. Thanks to all of you, I have enough money to cover all of the expenses from the vet, plus I should have enough to adopt another cat sometime in the near(ish) future.

I'm trying not to think about that part too much at the moment, because just the idea of it hurts so fucking much. Still, it's quickly becoming clear that it's not going to be good for Garrus to be by himself. I was gone for about four hours today, because I went in to work for the morning, and when I got home at lunchtime it was clear that leaving him alone during the day definitely isn't a long-term option. He needs someone else to keep him company.

Speaking of which, Garrus is doing... okay(ish). ( This gets a bit long, so I'm going to put it under a cut.Collapse )

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Tali died a little while ago.

I got home from work to find her curled up on the floor beside my computer desk, unresponsive. It appears that her leg somehow got caught on the power cable to my computer, and she tried to chew her way loose. I rushed her to the emergency pet clinic, as it seemed to have happened fairly recently, but they weren't able to resuscitate her.

I've set up a YouCaring page to try and raise money to cover the vet bills/cost of cremation. I also have PayPal set up with settiai [at] gmail [dot] com.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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So, yes, I'm still alive. Doing horrible at actually posting to DW/LJ, clearly, but that's par for the course nowadays.

Let's see... what's been going on?

Nothing has changed on the car front, as it continues to remain dead. I haven't sold or donated mine yet, although I've had quite a few Adventures™ trying to sell it on craigslist. I'll try to type some of them up at some point in the near future, because it's gotten to the "you have to be kidding me" stage at this point. I've decided that if it doesn't sell by June, I'm most likely going to donate it to one of the many charities that take nonworking cars. If nothing else, I should get a $500-650 tax credit that way, which is better than nothing. And, you know, the car will get towed off and stop sitting out in the parking lot so that I can cancel my insurance/get a partial refund for my tags. (That said? I'm still really hoping someone will give me cash for it.)

No luck finding a part-time job. I'm hoping now that the weather is getting nice maybe I'll have some better luck, but I'm definitely limited by my lack of a car and the fact that I already have a 9-5 job. So many places want me to be there for an evening shift by 5pm, which I can't do because of my full-time job. Grr.

Money's still a bit tight right now because of that fact, but I'm doing my best to move my budget around enough that I can afford to go to VividCon this year. A lot of it's going to depend on whether I can sell my bike and/or my car, so... we'll see? It will definitely help a bit once I can officially take my upcoming car insurance renewal off my budget spreadsheet (and potentially get a partial refund for the previous payment?), even if I end up donating it instead of selling it.

That said? I'm still hoping for that winning lottery ticket. Just saying.

Critical Role, the D&D webseries that I've been watching for a year or so now, continues to eat my life. As does D&D in general, since I'm now playing in two weekly games and DMing a third. Speaking of which, I should probably type up a post about that at some point too.

... so many posts that I need to make. I guess that's what happens when I disappear from DW/LJ for months, huh?

Hmm. What else? I'm sure there's more that I need to talk about.

Continuing on the fannish front, I'm slowly poking my head back into Doctor Who. I still can't manage to rewatch some of Capaldi's previous series, but I am enjoying this current series more than I was expecting. He feels more like the Doctor to me, which is definitely a good thing.

Also sorta speaking of Doctor Who, I've also been enjoying Eric's TBD RPG, which is another show on Geek & Sundry (who also do Critical Role). Right now, they're playing the Doctor Who RPG, but they're switching to a Star Trek one soon(ish). I'm definitely not as hooked on it as I am CR, but it's still quite enjoyable.

Oh! Here's an important one:

I just got back from a trip to Alabama/Tennessee for the weekend, which was fun. No, wait. Not that word. The opposite. Don't get me wrong, it was a lot better than I expected, mostly because it was my mom's side of the family that I saw. (My youngest cousin got married yesterday.) But still. My family. Things were a bit tense, even with more controversial topics purposefully being avoided on both sides.

That said, I survived. I made it home earlier this afternoon in one piece. And neither Garrus nor Tali appears to have destroyed my apartment while they were left alone for 36 hours. So, hey, I'm counting that as a win.

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Question for those of you still watching the show:

Since there's a new companion in the TARDIS, do you think that I should give it a try and see if the new series pulls me back in? I'm wavering back and forth.

I stopped watching regularly in late Series 8 (the first series with Capaldi). I've never been a huge fan of Moffat as showrunner; his writing style works for one-offs but not so much series-long story arcs, IMO at least. (I also hate plot holes with a passion. That probably plays a role.) And Capaldi wasn't working for me as the Doctor, which made me sad because I really do love him as an actor. I found his portrayal of the character too dark to keep my attention, and combined with Moffat's writing it just didn't work for me.

So, with those caveats in mind, do those of you still watching thing that I should try to jump back in? Or do you think I would be better off waiting until the show has a new showrunner and actor in the role of the Doctor before giving it a try again? I'm at least a little curious about the new companion, but I don't know if the things that drove me away from Doctor Who several years ago have gotten any better or not.

Anyone want to chime in? Because I really miss Doctor Who, and I would adore to be able to start watching it again. I just don't know if it's at a point where I can yet.

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Dungeons & Dragons still continues to eat up most of my free time. Not that it's a bad thing! I'm just very amused.

So, yes, my week is very D&D-filled. I have a new game on Tuesday nights that's fairly casual. It's been a bit hit-or-miss since it started, as we've had some issues with players dropping out and having to be replaced, but we have two new players joining us for the next game so we'll see how it goes. And then there's Critical Role on Thursdays, where I get to watch professional voice actors play D&D and generally be awesome.

Fridays are still my main D&D game, and I'm having a ridiculous amount of fun with it. We've actually taken a few weeks off, first because of "people are out of town" reasons and then because our bard decided to play guest-DM and ran a bards only oneshot this past week.

It was a whole lot of fun as you can tell from my tweets on the game. And it was made all the more impressive by the fact that it was only our guest-DM's second time DMing ever.

And then there's Saturdays. What's up with Saturday, you might ask? Well, you see, since I haven't had any luck finding a part-time job, I decided "why the hell not?" and am going to start DMing a game on Saturday nights. Our first game is on April 29th, to give the players time to create their characters and get things set up on Roll20 (since most people playing are new to that site, as well as D&D in general).

I'm both terrified and excited? It's my first time DMing, so that's where the fear is coming in. I know that I'm decent at storytelling, though, and I've had enough experience in the past with both good and bad DMs that I'm fairly certain I can do at least a decent job. We'll just... have to see how it goes, I guess?

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My car still isn't turning on, and I'm getting closer and closer to calling the nearby junkyards to see who will give me the most money for her. It's almost definitely an issue with the starter, which would cost more than I'm willing to spend to fix. And even if it's not the starter but something that's at least a little cheaper to fix, by the time I paid for the car to be towed to the garage and then fixed, it would still be too much.

Basically? It's not looking good.

On the positive side, during the day the bus route that goes by my apartment (at least, the one that I need to take) runs every 20 minutes. Even if it's running late, I have two other options for different routes that will take me in the right direction, so the only time I'd have an issue is if all of those buses were late. And if that happens, it means traffic in the entire area is fucked up so it's not a big deal because my coworkers who depend on cars will be just as screwed.

Plus my coworker RB has basically said that she's willing to give me a ride most days, because it literally makes her drive a few minutes shorter as long as I'm outside waiting for her. (My apartment complex is huge. By cutting through it instead of going around, she bypasses multiple traffic lights.) So I'll only need to depend on buses/walking if she's going to be out of the office or if I need to go in early/stop somewhere on the way to or from work.

Grocery shopping isn't as complicated as I was afraid it might, for the most part. I'll probably need to end up switching from the pharmacy I've been using to the one in the grocery store next to my apartment, but that shouldn't be very difficult. And I'm definitely going to be making several smaller trips rather than one larger one, but other than that it should be fine.

So, yeah, that's happening.

On the work front, things are finally calming down at Unnamed Nonprofit now that our busy season is over, which is very much a good thing. There's been some drama happening the last few weeks (not employee-related for once), of the kind that's made things really not fun for those of us on the phones. It's hopefully dying down, though.

I'm still looking for a part-time job. Most of the places I've put in applications have gotten back to me with a "no" (because, yet again, they're looking for people who have at least some weekday availability), but some of the online jobs I've put in for haven't given me a "yes" or a "no" so I'm at least keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh! By the way, I'm trying to sell my bicycle again now that the weather is warm again and people might actually buy it. If anyone in the DC area knows someone who might need a bike, point them in the direction of my craigslist ad. I've very much figured out that I prefer walking to biking (at least in this area, where it's on the sidewalk/street instead of offroad), and I could use some money more than a bicycle.

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Well, I'm still without a car.

After quite a bit of trial-and-error, it's looking like there are two separate issues with my car. One of them is with my neutral control switch, which is an easy fix. As long as the starter clicks when I try to turn my car on, all I have to do is hit the brake and switch the car to neutral - it starts without an issue then.

The much bigger issue is that it's completely random whether or not the starter clicks. Which seems to imply there's some type of issue with the starter itself, although whether it's going bad or there's a loose connection somewhere remains a question.

With my particular model/year, replacing the starter is going to be somewhere in the $400-600 range. And with a 21-year-old car? It's not worth it. I've checked, and the KBB value of the car is less than $700.

So... yeah. For the time being, I'm alternating among walking, taking the bus, and catching rides with coworkers (since RB literally drives past my complex on her commute) when it comes to getting to work. Luckily, there's a grocery store a 5-8 minute walk from my apartment that has most of what I need, at least. Getting to the store where I usually get all meat other than chicken is a bit more complicated, but it's still doable. Ish. That said, I foresee myself eating less meat at home in the future.

Work hasn't moved to the new office yet but we're getting closer, which will help a lot since work will be less than half a mile away rather than two miles away. So I'm not nearly as panicked about potentially not having a car as I would have been this time last year.

I'm going to fiddle with things a bit longer, to see if I can get anything to work. I know enough about cars (thanks to basic mechanic lessons from my dad when I lived back in TN) to theoretically try a few bypasses, just to get an idea if it's the starter itself or a connection issue. And, you know, I'm still hoping against hope that I can get it fixed.

If not? Well, my car insurance is due to renew in August, so I definitely want to make a decision before then. If my car still won't turn on by summer, I'm probably going to get in touch with the local junkyard. They'll probably give me at least a few hundred for my car, since the engine itself is still in good shape and the car's old enough to be made of mostly solid metal, and - most importantly - they'll come tow it away themselves. Which is important since towing costs in this area are ridiculously high.

So, yeah, that's happening. :-/

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I just spent the last hour or two going through and cleaning up my friends list on LiveJournal for the first time in years. I've unfollowed everyone who's inactive, whose only posts are their Twitter feed (since I can read that on Twitter itself), or who have a Dreamwidth account. In the case of the latter, I should now be following anyone who falls under that category on DW instead of LJ.

If I unfollowed you but you don't fall under any of those categories (and, you know, you're still reading my journal), please let me know. There's a definite chance that I might clicked the wrong box or two, considering just how many accounts I went through.

Also, if you have a Dreamwidth but I'm still following you on LiveJournal, please let me know. I'd much rather follow people on DW if it's a possibility.

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I'm still going to be crossposting to LiveJournal for the time being, but the new terms and conditions definitely make me a bit wary. Especially since the English version isn't binding, only the original Russian text, which I can't read well enough to determine whether there are any major differences between the two.

That said, if you're reading this post on LiveJournal and do have a Dreamwidth that you crosspost to, please let me know. I'd much rather follow people there, if possible. While I'm not at the point yet where I'm abandoning LiveJournal, I do think that day is getting closer.

(Car-related update coming eventually. Short version: still no luck in getting it running.)

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Well, I'm at home right now. My car, however, is still at work. It's been one of those days. :-/

For something like four years now, my car does this odd thing where from time to time it just... won't start properly. The radio turns on. The AC turns on. The light turns on. But the engine itself doesn't actually turn on. If I leave it alone for 5-10 minutes, it will usually start working on its own, but once in a blue moon it takes an hour or two of ignoring it before the problem resolves itself.

Today was apparently one of those rare times where it takes forever to start working again. At least, that's what I'm hoping. If it's still not working tomorrow, then the panic will start gaining a foothold.

When it pulls a stunt like this, jump starting the car doesn't actually fix the problem because it's not actually the battery that's the issue. Since my only other option was hanging around the parking lot for an hour or two and hoping it eventually started (which I didn't particularly want to do), one of my coworkers gave me a ride home. It's usually not an issue to leave a car in the parking lot overnight (not unless it's there for several nights in a row, at least), so she's going to pick me up in the morning and give me a ride back tomorrow in the hope that it will be working again by then.

My fingers are very much crossed that it's the same issue as always and the car starts normally tomorrow. It's been ages since it didn't turn on properly after 5-10 minutes, though, so I can't help but be a bit worried. If it doesn't work tomorrow, well, then I can start panicking about trying to raise money for even more car bills.

Happy Monday?

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It's amazing how much better I feel after calling into work today. ( Talk about chronic headaches and some mental stuff under the cut.Collapse )

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So. I'm going to Tennessee (and Alabama) for 36 hours in May. The universe apparently decided that, since I didn't see my family at Christmas, it couldn't leave well enough alone so I have to see them six months later instead.

Thank you, universe. :-/

In all seriousness, my youngest cousin is getting married. It's a bit of a whirlwind engagement. He proposed in mid-January, and they announced the May 13 wedding date a few days later. (No, she's not pregnant. Just graduating college and therefore losing student housing. Also, they're wanting to do a mission trip to Africa which requires them to be married for a full year before they can leave, so they're trying to get it done ASAP.)

This is one of my two younger cousins who are actual human beings (although I'm closer to her sister than her), so I wanted to actually make it to the wedding despite my minor bitching about having to see my family. It hopefully won't be too bad? I'm literally leaving work on Friday and heading to the airport. I'll land in Huntsville (which was cheaper than flying into Nashville for the first time ever) sometime between 8-9pm CST that night, my dad will pick me up and make the over-an-hour drive back to his house, we'll sleep, the next morning we'll make the over-an-hour drive back to Huntsville for the wedding, wedding things will happen, we'll make the over-an-hour drive back to my parents' house, we'll sleep, and the next morning we'll make the over-an-hour drive yet again for my 10am flight.

... oh gods, I'm going to be in a car with my dad for something like five hours over the course of 36 hours. Until I wrote it out, I hadn't really thought of it from that point of view. Gah!

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So, yes, I'm doing great at this whole "remembering to post regularly" thing, aren't I? By which I mean, you know, not at all. /o\

Things are slowly but surely getting back to normal for me. Thanks again to everyone who helped with my financial issues back in January. Everything is mostly taken care of at this point, save for some continuing drama with the Former Part-Time Job completely fucking up my W2 and still not getting me a corrected one that's correct. I've got plenty of time to get that resolved, though, so I'm not worried. Well, not too worried, at least. (My taxes were already filed by the time they sent me the first incorrectly corrected W2, so I'm going to have to do an amendment or whatever it's called whenever I finally get the right one. Which gives me a fair bit of time, apparently, according to my googling.)

I might make one more Virtual Garage Sale post in the near future, just to see if anyone is interested in anything on the list, but it's very much not urgent. It's more to try and give me a bit more of a cushion for future emergencies, with a side of actual spring cleaning because selling a bunch of things really did bring it home just how many things I have that I don't use that are simply gathering dust.

Speaking of which, if anyone hasn't gotten your package from my last sale, please let me know. I'd really hope that even the international ones would have arrived by now, although I'm not 100% certain since I don't usually ship things to places like New Zealand so I could be completely overestimating how well various postal services work. The Canadian ones really should have arrived by now, though, unless something odd is going on.

Let's see...

Work and family will both get their own posts, either later tonight or within the next few days. As will D&D, which has eaten my life even more than usual lately.

Other than that, not much has happened. Life's been stressful, but it hasn't been anything out of the ordinary since my issues with taxes were resolved. My finances still aren't looking great, since I haven't gotten a replacement part-time job yet, but I'm at the point where I think that I can still stay afloat even if I don't find one. Although, you know, I'm hoping to find one.

(Or to find a buyer for my bicycle. That would help things too. Or at least cover the majority of my VividCon costs, since I do want to go this year if possible.)

Fandom-wise, I'm still pretty much deep into Critical Role, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect. With some occasional forays into Star Wars and various Tolkien fandoms. By which I mainly mean the Reprise time-travel fix-it series, the Jedi Shmi AU, and Sansûkh whenever new chapters of any of them are posted. (If you haven't read them, you should! All three are excellent.)

ETA: Oh, yes! I forgot! I'm officially no longer a twentysomething. Thanks for all of the birthday wishes last week. ♥

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Lay Me Down to Sleep (11658 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Characters: Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Kaidan Alenko, Thane Krios
Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Multiple Relationships, Nightmares, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Ruthless (Mass Effect), Soldier (Mass Effect), Tumblr: masseffectholidaycheer
Summary: Shepard's story is made up of sleepless nights, cooling cups of coffee, and conversations.

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Balancing Act (1418 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Harry Potter/Fred Weasley/George Weasley, Fred Weasley/George Weasley
Characters: Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Harry Potter
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Holly Poly, Injury Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Not Epilogue Compliant, One Shot, Polyamory, Threesome, Threesome - M/M/M
Summary: Looking back, Harry wasn't entirely certain how he'd ended up working for the twins. With the twins. One of those, at least.

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Unconditional (Except When It's Not) (1902 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke, Female Hawke/Varric Tethras, background Female Hawke/Isabela, background Fenris/Isabela
Characters: Female Rogue Hawke, Fenris (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras
Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, Hangover, Holly Poly, One Shot, Polyamory
Summary: Hawke hadn't seen it coming. Oh, it made sense, when it was all said and done. None of it was really all that surprising. She just hadn't seen it coming. Life was like that.

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So, yes, I kinda disappeared off the face of the internet for a while there, didn't I? Oops. Life got a bit complicated for a bit, and I just didn't have the spoons to deal with a lot of things. Anything more complicated that the occasional tweet over on Twitter was too much to think about, and even that slipped to the wayside a bit at times.

Let's see. If you bought anything from my Virtual Garage Sale post a few weeks ago and live in the States, you hopefully should have received your items by now. Let me know if they haven't arrived, and I'll try to look into it. (International people, yours will probably take a bit longer to get there.)

On a related note, that post is still up if anyone is still interested in anything. My finances are looking better for the time being, thanks to everyone's help, but it definitely wouldn't hurt for me to get a bit more money to throw at my credit cards and/or my savings account. If nothing else, it would give me more of a back-up in the future if things explode again.

I'll probably make some family- and work-related posts over the next few days, and maybe even some more fannish ones if my brain is up to it. We'll have to wait and see if it cooperates?

ETA: I mailed out the packages in batches, since I have only have a 45 minute lunch break to run errands during so I couldn't send out more than a few at a time. It's looking like a few people (two so far) who I'm fairly certain were in the last last batch haven't gotten theirs yet, despite it being over a week since they mailed out. They'll hopefully be arriving within the next day or two, if you haven't gotten your package yet, but please still do let me know so that I can look into it.

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Oh, thanks gods! I have a way of paying off my taxes (or, at least, most of them).

Don't get me wrong, I'm still trying to get as much money together as possible. (On that note, there are plenty of books, comics, DVDs, action figures, etc. for sale in my previous post.) But this gives at least gives me options other than borrowing money directly from people.

It's amazing how much that bit of news has made my stress levels drop. I have options again.

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I'm calling it quits on finishing the Talking Meme that I was doing, at least for the time being. With the RL financial stuff that's going on, on top of work and family drama, not to mention the current political climate... yeah, I can't do it. Just the thought of playing catch-up is enough to make my heart start racing.

A huge "thank you!" to everyone who donated to my Ko-Fi page. Everything helps, and I greatly appreciate it. It's looking like I might not have to borrow money from my parents to cover next month's rent/utilities after all (at least, not unless my gas bill ends up being too high - it hasn't come in yet), which is a huge deal. ♥

(Also a special thanks to the two people who bought me ebooks off my Amazon wishlist as part of More Joy Day. Thank you!)

I'm working on getting a few things together, but I'll probably be making a pretty large virtual garage sale post sometime in the next few days. I'm also actively searching for a part-time job, so if anyone knows of any online/work-from-home positions please point me that way. I'm still looking for a restaurant/retail position, but it's a horrible time to try to find one of those in this area.

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Okay, I can do this. I'm mostly done panicking about recent financial news (of the "holy shit, what do you mean I owe $1000 in taxes?" variety), which means I can try to earn as much money as possible between now and late March in the hope of not having to borrow any more money from my aunt.

I'm going to keep trying to find a part-time job. There's got to be somewhere out there that will hire me, despite my already having a 9-5 job and therefore being somewhat limited in my availability. Maybe one of the places where I've applied over the last few weeks will call me unexpectedly? Or maybe one of the work-from-home positions that I've sent in my resume for will get back to me? Or, if nothing else, maybe the odds of finding something will get better once it gets into February since January always sucks for finding a job in this area?

I'm also going to spend the next few days going through basically everything that I own and trying to figure out what I'd even remotely be willing to part with. I've cleared out a lot of things over the last few years, but I have enough blu rays, DVDs, books, action figures, and various other items that I can probably get at least a little bit of money for them.

On a similar note, if anyone in the DC area knows someone who might be interested in a bicycle, please point them in my direction. Or point them at my craigslist listing for it.

Winning the lottery would make all of this so much simpler.

And, last but not least, I know it's more of a Tumblr thing but I do have a Ko-Fi page if anyone is possibly interested. Every little bit helps, right?

... and now, if you'll excuse me, I think that I'm calling it an early night and going to bed. I was going to try to catch up on my January Talking Meme posts tonight, not to mention the Creativity Challenge I'm participating in over on Tumblr, but it's becoming very clear that neither of those will be happening tonight.

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What's your favoritest scent?

Absolutely anything even remotely coconut-related.

It's not really that surprising, to be honest. Coconut is also my favorite flavor, and it's ridiculous just how much coconut I take in pretty much daily. Shredded coconut in my oatmeal/yogurt. Coconut black tea, often with coconut milk added. Coconut milk in general. Coconut oil. Coconut butter. Coconut water. Absolutely delicious coconut and chocolate truffles. Hell, I sometimes even have fresh coconuts in my kitchen.

But, yeah, coconut is a major thing for me. My shampoo and conditioner are coconut scented. My bath soap is coconut scented. A lot of my lotions are coconut scented. My dish soap is coconut scented. My hand soap is coconut scented. Some of my candles (which I keep burning regularly when at home) are coconut scented. A lot of my favorite perfumes have coconut scent included in them.

... are you noticing a trend yet? :-P

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