serene-octave

[serene-octave]

thank god for the mythbusters though because it used to be that whenever i knew i had insomnia i’d just kind of accept it and stay up doing whatever until my morning classes and spend the day feeling like shit

but then they did an episode where they established that even just fucking laying there for a half hour, not even sleeping just laying there and not even for an hour, makes a significant difference and you’ll feel way better

it has made a huge difference in my life to know that it’s okay if i can’t fall asleep, it takes a lot of the pressure off and ironically helps me fall asleep better

[serene-octave]

[serene-octave]

TL;DR: My heart is failing. I have to go through a bunch of testing before they feel confident doing surgery, but surgery WILL happen.

Disability is going to take the majority of a year to hear a decision, let alone getting approved.

If you don't want to use GFM but would like to help, there's other places:

Paypal

Cash

Ko-fi

Buy Me A Coffee

Patreon

You can also buy handmade crochet dolls from Sam on our Ko-fi as well.

Remade the post to update and the other one was getting too long and wanted to thank everyone who has already helped out both sharing and donating. Thank you so much.

Cat tax:

[serene-octave]

don't give up

[serene-octave]

[forgetting I am mentally ill] why do I feel so Bad

[serene-octave]

In your view/experience. is the rate of "incompleteness" among webcomics more or less the nature of online personal projects as a whole? Or is there something specific to webcomics like laboriousness, audience expectations, relative medium infancy or whatnot?

well for one thing webcomics has changed significantly in the last ten years. it used to have a much lower barrier for entry, just get a smackjeeves account or set up a website with a wordpress plugin. starting a webcomic when i started my webcomic vs starting a webcomic now are totally different experiences.

so i can only speak to people who started their webcomics roughly ten years ago. and roughly ten years ago a lot of us were a whole lot younger with a lot more time and energy to spend on a comic for free. this part is probably still somewhat true for new artists.

but then you get older. your ideas change. your skill develops and the old stuff isn't as good. or you don't have as much time, you got a day job. unless you're one of like five people on earth your webcomic is not paying your rent. you need to make money. your shoulder hurts. you're 30 now. you're struggling to make updates on time between whatever else makes you happy and what else you need to do to live. you wrote this story when you were 21, you don't relate to it anymore, you have different ideas, you've grown up, your audience has noticeably dropped off from the peak, social media managing is hard, you have to go to work, you're so tired, all the time.

it's a lot of things.

[serene-octave]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[serene-octave]

It’s definitely not “do whatever you want bc nobody cares” it’s somewhere between “people don’t care as much as you think they do” and “if you want to truly do what you want you have to not care about how much other people care”

[serene-octave]

A couple weeks ago I ended up on the ER. In the initial testing, they did a CT scan, and it revealed I have issues with my heart that were completely unrelated to the symptoms I went in for. The combination of those issues, even with as little testing as they've done so far, is frankly pretty bad. Instead of a funding an out-of-state move, this will help us find and maintain a place in the Seattle area so I can still easily see my specialist and other doctors I'll be seeing for my conditions. It would also give a financial cushion for my partner to help me with doctor's appointments and recovery, which he’ll have to take time off work to do.

I have now spoken to the specialist and to say things are "not great" would be accurate. Surgery isn't happening right now but I am going under regular observation for the next 6 months with multiple rounds of testing before they decide.

Now that I've talked to the surgeon about it, I can say everything that's wrong properly. My heart is failing. I have had an aortic aneurysm, on top of other conditions compounding into a major problem. The other conditions are near-constant tachycardia, even when resting; as well as the left chamber of my heart being thickened and taking longer to charge up than the right side between beats.

The aneurysm has also weakened my aortic valve, which is allowing blood to flow back into my heart. All 3 of those things combined are raising my blood pressure dangerously and putting more pressure on the aneurysm itself.

Basically, I need to constantly monitor my blood pressure and heart rate and keep them as low as I can so prevent the aneurysm from rupturing. If it does, I have a 50/50 chance of living long enough to get to an emergency OR and a fairly low chance of living if I DO make it there.

I'm going to be in and out of the hospital a lot over the next 6 months while they do a bunch of testing and decide if I need surgery now or later, but as the surgeon I just talked to said "Surgery is inevitable, it's just a matter of how long can we make it without."

Before, I was looking for work, but right now I can’t. I'm working on applying for disability again, but that's a long process I've already been denied twice for. They may approve me after more testing, combined with my already existing disability from my hit and run in 2019, but that's unknown given the current political climate surrounding disability funding. Until then, we are relying on one income, and it's not enough to keep us afloat for long.

Thanks for your generosity—we need all the help we can get.

If you want to help but don't want to use that particular donation site we also have

Paypal

Cash

Ko-fi

Buy Me A Coffee

Patreon

You can also buy handmade crochet dolls from Sam on our Ko-fi as well.

Thank you so so much.

[serene-octave]

A couple weeks ago I ended up on the ER. In the initial testing, they did a CT scan, and it revealed I have issues with my heart that were completely unrelated to the symptoms I went in for. The combination of those issues, even with as little testing as they've done so far, is frankly pretty bad. Instead of a funding an out-of-state move, this will help us find and maintain a place in the Seattle area so I can still easily see my specialist and other doctors I'll be seeing for my conditions. It would also give a financial cushion for my partner to help me with doctor's appointments and recovery, which he’ll have to take time off work to do.

I have now spoken to the specialist and to say things are "not great" would be accurate. Surgery isn't happening right now but I am going under regular observation for the next 6 months with multiple rounds of testing before they decide.

Now that I've talked to the surgeon about it, I can say everything that's wrong properly. My heart is failing. I have had an aortic aneurysm, on top of other conditions compounding into a major problem. The other conditions are near-constant tachycardia, even when resting; as well as the left chamber of my heart being thickened and taking longer to charge up than the right side between beats.

The aneurysm has also weakened my aortic valve, which is allowing blood to flow back into my heart. All 3 of those things combined are raising my blood pressure dangerously and putting more pressure on the aneurysm itself.

Basically, I need to constantly monitor my blood pressure and heart rate and keep them as low as I can so prevent the aneurysm from rupturing. If it does, I have a 50/50 chance of living long enough to get to an emergency OR and a fairly low chance of living if I DO make it there.

I'm going to be in and out of the hospital a lot over the next 6 months while they do a bunch of testing and decide if I need surgery now or later, but as the surgeon I just talked to said "Surgery is inevitable, it's just a matter of how long can we make it without."

Before, I was looking for work, but right now I can’t. I'm working on applying for disability again, but that's a long process I've already been denied twice for. They may approve me after more testing, combined with my already existing disability from my hit and run in 2019, but that's unknown given the current political climate surrounding disability funding. Until then, we are relying on one income, and it's not enough to keep us afloat for long.

Thanks for your generosity—we need all the help we can get.

If you want to help but don't want to use that particular donation site we also have

Paypal

Cash

Ko-fi

Buy Me A Coffee

Patreon

You can also buy handmade crochet dolls from Sam on our Ko-fi as well.

Thank you so so much.

[serene-octave]

yeah fuck bungie. fuck new marathon.

this is a disgrace

[serene-octave]

my personal argument for open borders is really simple it just boils down to "i believe restricting human movement and barring certain people from certain places on this earth is a human rights violation"

[serene-octave]

After 6 years, my partner and I think it's finally time to move on from Seattle. We love the city, but it's just gotten too expensive to stay here. Food costs have skyrocketed in the last couple years, rent is higher and higher, even the bus fare went up last year. Without our support system nearby, being disabled and living in Seattle has become untenable and we need to leave.

We're planning to move to a city in Colorado; we'll be near our other partner, and the cost of living is much lower than Seattle. We'll have a more secure community and safety net. However, we're struggling just to keep up with the expenses we have as-is, and need help relocating.

We cannot save to do this, and other than our clothes and essentials, we're going to have to completely start over. Neither of us can drive, and paying movers to drive from Seattle to the new city is over 5 figures ($11,000 on average from the quotes we've gotten), before everything else. We're going to have to rebuy anything that we can't pack into bags. (We will be shipping our computers, because the cost to replace those is far too high).

We're estimating travel costs based on train tickets $650 (about $450 depending on timing with another $200 for food expenses while on the train) as neither of us want to fly or deal with airport security. We'll need to stock the kitchen ($600), and buy new furniture ($2500). We'll need enough for a security deposit ($1000-$1500 depending) and at least one month's rent (another $1000-$2500) as well as at least a second month's rent as a cushion in case one of us takes longer to find work.

We're setting our goal at $15,000 so that if anything goes sideways, we're safe and can get back on our feet without having to ask again. Our current accommodations last until September, so we’re setting the goal for August.

Thank you in advance to everyone who shares and donates—we can’t do this without your help.

[serene-octave]

don’t like that

[serene-octave]

As Netanyahu said, I will increase this escalation, expand the ground operation, and increase the number of deaths.

Now, now, They bombed a house next to our tent, and there are a large number of wounded and dead people, and the ambulances are unable to retrieve the large number of wounded and dead people

[serene-octave]

They should block chatgpt on uni WiFi the way they used to block coolmathgames

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