Zarla's Updatey Journal Thing

UGh there are so many stressful/scary things going on lately, and my arm is STILL bothering me a little, and I'm really struggling with the backgrounds of the next Handplates page and it's frustrating but I DID UPDATE VARGAS! IT ACTUALLY UPDATED AND IT'S BEEN LESS THAN A YEAR!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? the last time this happened was like 2007, not to mention all the sidefics and everything, what is going ON

I split it into two parts because it ended up like 46k which is just... a lot to ask of people. It IS one scene technically but I think breaking in the middle was the right call oh god i'm the mgs4 of fanfic

Chapter 33 - Destroy
Chapter 34 - Quiet

SO MUCH happens in these two like... it's hard to even make a list, haha. I do want to write up more details about them at some point, but ugh... my arm makes it hard to type for too long or too much. It's getting better, I know it is, it's just at a frustrating place where it feels SO close but just can't quite make it there, if that makes sense.

I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

My arm is getting better still! It's not at 100% yet, but the soreness and tingling is getting weaker, and I can type and use the mouse with my right hand again, and boy it is such a relief, haha. I can draw things! Well... little things. I can't go for very long without it starting to get sore and crabby, but progress is being made! Ah it'll be such a relief once it's really back to snuff again... this whole experience has been awful as you can imagine, haha. I'm sure people are waiting anxiously for the next Handplates page and the little things aren't very satisfying, but I've got to work my way up slowly... and little things are satisfying too after not being able to draw for so long. I already know the next Handplates page is going to take a while anyway...

In the meantime I've been watching Friday Night Funkin' videos here and there, and I got curious about whether or not I could draw Zar in that style.

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I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

Arm seems to be trending upwards! It's feeling pretty okay most of the time, and typing feels okay in general, or at least different than it had before. I've managed to draw a few little things without it hurting or anything, although it's not at 100%. But soon maybe this'll be over!! SOON MAYBE IT'LL BE OVER!! I WANT THIS TO BE OVER!!! You have no idea how much I want it to be over, haha.

But in brighter news, the next Vargas chapter is ready to be beta'd CAN YOU BELIEVE IT I CAN'T IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN TWO YEARS YET BUT IT'S APPARENTLY HAPPENING well after I hear back from her that she has the time to look at it. It is a completely ridiculous 46k right now. I can't even believe this. Well yes I can, it's always been tl;dr but I think this is a record. The thing is it's one continuous scene too!! And I really would want it to be one chapter (or rather, I want one chapter title to refer to it) but that's just really unreasonable to ask of people, I know. No one wants to read a 46k chapter in one whack, that's bonkers. There is a good place I can break it in half at least. I'll still think of it as one chapter though (much like the last three... I still think of it as one chapter called Adapt, instead of three called First/Deny/Delay). THIS IS THE STUPIDEST PROBLEM TO HAVE

Just... so much stuff happens in the next one. Adapt was pretty low-key in a kind of build to this one, just... so much stuff. One of the things that sucked about my arm getting wonked is that I couldn't write either. :/ If I couldn't draw then at least I could type! But even that got hamstringed, haha. But editing wasn't too hard!

Oh yeah, that reminds me! I finally did end up posting that one Vargas fic I was waffling about for a long time, I called it Unnecessary for a few reasons, one of them kind of meta - it's a sequel to Trust Exercise, and Trust Exercise ends on a kind of... positive? Note? I guess you could say? Or at least... I don't know, intriguing? Something not totally horrible, even if it's unhealthy? I don't know, without seeing Edgar's POV on what happens the idea of escalating doesn't seem that awful, since Nny seems like he'd be okay with it, up to a point, and Edgar seems flustered but you don't have to look too deep into it from Nny's POV.
Then in Unnecessary it DOES escalate and it's actually incredibly hideous and kind of casts Trust Exercise in a different light in retrospect since you get an idea of how Edgar feels about what happened. It's just really awful and sad. :( I'd like to do a longer post about it (and Wish Fulfillment) at some point but I still don't want to work my arms too much while they're building up... it's hard to know the exact balance between not letting them atrophy and not working them too hard, you know? I don't want to irritate them but I want them to build up the muscles they need to get back to normal. I'm not as scared about it as I was before though, especially since they do seem to be feeling better lately. Progress being made! Just have to trust in that.

I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

I don't want to type too much since my arms are still bothering me (now my left arm is acting up! I never used it for anything really before so I think it's just tired since I'm using it for practically everything now) but I went to a physical therapist and they said I don't have tendonitis, I just overexerted the muscles in my arm! So that's a relief, haha. Apparently resting it so much wasn't hurting it, but it wasn't making it any better either, which is why it felt like I wasn't making any progress. They gave me a list of stretches to do to help build the endurance in it again (they said it wasn't a matter of strength, but endurance) and hopefully it'll start feeling better in a week or two. :O The therapist said they thought it was unlikely that I'd need more help in two weeks when I have my next appointment, which is encouraging! I'm going to keep up the stretches even after it feels better to keep the muscles loose I think. But boy I can't tell you what a relief it is to know what's wrong and to have a gameplan, haha. And also have some idea of when I'm doing something wrong, since that was a huge concern before...

I can type a little but as mentioned my arms are still a bit sensitive, so I may be in and out... the therapist said my arms were strong though, which was a surprise to me since they look like twigs, haha. They also said I'm very flexible, which wasn't a huge surprise. I can hyperextend my elbows apparently! I spend half my time at the computer folded up into a pretzel which probably has something to do with it.

There's a chance that some weird hidden thing is wrong and it still won't get better, but even if it doesn't I have that follow up which should hopefully figure out what's wrong from that point. I'm wary of being too hopeful after all this time, haha. BUT HOPEFULLY IT'LL BE BETTER SOON

I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

My arm still hasn't healed and I'm so miserable about it, I can't even describe how awful it feels. It's not even that it hurts, although it does do that sometimes, it woke me up today actually, although it's not the worst pain. I'm just constantly afraid that I'm doing something wrong and it's not healing right. I've looked up lots of sites and guides and information on inflamed tendons and tendonitis and that kind of thing, and most of them say the same thing, just to rest the arm and sometimes put heat or ice on it it depends on the site, some recommended compression bandages, that kind of thing, and I've been trying to do those at times but I'm always worried I'm making it worse.

They all say it just takes time, like 2 to 3 weeks usually, so I spend a lot of time doing math in my head to try and calculate how long it's been and and how much longer it will take for it to heal, like there's some kind of deadline. But then every day I wake up and it still hurts, it feels like I must be doing something wrong or that I could be doing something more to help it heal, like it should be a sliding scale from hurt to not hurt. And I'm sure that's not how it works, but that's how it feels, so I'm constantly stressed about whether or not I'm doing something wrong and what I'm going to do if something is really wrong and maybe it never gets better. I mean I feel behind on things in general which also doesn't help, but mostly I'm scared about the arm not being healed yet, which I think is also making it hard to sleep which ALSO doesn't help. Its kind of a general miserable time all around. I'm trying not to type with it even now since it felt like it was making some of the muscles tight, or a little achy at times, although I can't type with my left hand too much because that is bothering me now because I'm using it a lot more than usual. It feels like it never ends! I just want this to be over. I'm using a site to dictate things into now, but mostly I'm just trying to do things that don't require a lot of typing, which also tends to me not talking to people too much, which also doesn't feel great.

I hate being the scared when I know I just have to be patient, even more so when I know that stressing out about it will probably just make it take longer. It's kind of a closed loop. Bleh.

I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

So I went to the doctor and she said the tendon on my arm is all irritated and inflamed. :( Basically tendonitis, so all I can do is just wait it out until it heals. I DEFINITELY want it to heal completely if at all possible before I start drawing again, although I dunno how long that'll take... a week or two weeks? I hope it's soon. :( The swelling seemed to go down today I think... every day I wake up hoping it'll be better, haha. Although really, it's only been like a week since I've really been taking proper care of it... that's not really so long. Before I was doing stretches but I think those were just irritating it more. :( Now I'm just resting it as much as possible, aside from typing every now and then, although I do stretch my fingers out a bit here and there to keep up the flexibility of it. There's not too much more I can do for it but rest it and take some ibuprofen and such, and that's what the doctor basically said too, haha.

Whenever it hurts a bit or feels tense I always start worrying that I'm irritating it again and it'll never heal D: Have to keep reminding myself that even when I broke my foot and had it wrapped up and such so it could heal, it still hurt every now and then. I'm taking very good care of it! The most I'm doing with it is typing and the doctor said that was okay, and I'm not even getting too crazy with that. I really hope it heals soon though... and it heals completely. I don't want to have to deal with chronic pain regarding this! I keep trying to pinpoint what I did wrong for this to happen, even though that's not really helpful at all, haha. In the future I think I'm gonna shake my hands out before starting drawing, and probably set a timer so I take regular breaks to stand up and shake my hands out at regular times while I'm drawing for a while.

The next Handplates page is very long and ALSO very difficult... man, I dunno when I'll be able to get it done. So many things I want to drawww and I caaan'tttt

Have been doing a bit of writing and editing though at least...

I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

My arm started feeling weird while I was working on the last Handplates page. D: So it started around the 15th, and then I ended up drawing more on the 16th anyway, but since then I've been trying not do much with it and haven't drawn or anything but it's still kind of bothering me. D: I've been doing stretches I've been seeing, icing it, putting heating pads on it... it's not necessarily that it hurts exactly, it just feels kind of tight, or strange. Sometimes like the skin is irritated or cold? Sometimes a little ache near my elbow or my wrist. I am deathly afraid of getting carpal tunnel or something because I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't draw anymore. Like I literally can't, I don't know what the purpose of my life would be. I HAVE TO MAKE THINGS. I HAVE TO MAKE THINGS OR WHAT'S THE POINT OF EVEN BEING ALIVE
Even now just trying not to draw for days on end is like torture, I WANT to draw so badly but I can't, I keep having to like actively force myself not to. I keep trying to pinpoint what could have pushed it over the edge... on the 11th I worked for two hours straight on something, on the 12th I worked for six hours straight on something, on the 13th there was something for three and a half hours straight, I think... then the 15th was eight hours straight and that's when it started feeling weird at the end. It doesn't SEEM like that was enough to hurt my arm since I think I've done multiple days that long before, but I dunno. SOMEthing happened to it, anyway...

If it's still bothering me by Monday I'm going to call the doctor and see if I can get it looked at. I hope it's just like a repetitive strain injury and not something more serious. It's not in my hands or wrists or fingers or anything, they all feel fine, and my arm and hands don't feel weak or anything, they don't feel any different in the morning... it's just this weird, off feeling. Ugh.

In other news, in the meantime I was poking a bit at the MSP to see if maybe I could figure out a way to make a kind of art gallery that'd be easier to update than a list of links and at heart, MSP was mostly an art gallery. Looking into php, it was surprisingly similar to ghost coding! I didn't realize ghost coding would carry over to other coding languages... anyway, after a fair amount of work I did set up a neat thing where I can have it auto-populate little gallery sections with links and thumbnails but then I was like... I dunno how I want to break things up or what to include. Should I break it up by date, like March 2021? Should I break it up by fandom? Should I break it up by single shots, color comics, b&w comics, sketches? It's all set-up but I can't decide what to actually do with it, haha. I'd like to put some of my prettiest shots on there, but some of them are already in their respective site sections (ladyzombies, vargas). What do you guys think, how would you want the whole thing broken up? Getting too granular like mini-sections for Vargas sketches/comics/full art starts getting finicky to sort out... I think a top section for new art would be good though. I guess technically I could also make multiple gallery pages like this for different things, like one for comics that's split up by fandoms... although again that's getting fairly granular, but I guess I could do that, hmm. I dunno though!

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dreamwidth post

ANOTHER ASHIDO.COM UPDATE added a page for links to other sites and made the tetris blocks bigger, also cleaned a few of them up. Again you might have to refresh the page for the changes to show up.


Dreamwidth being really annoying about crossposting lately, the DW entry is here.

OUT OF NOWHERE, ASHIDO.COM HAS BEEN UPDATED!

I know right? I was talking with some people about the death of personal websites and it got me thinking I should redo ash.com with a cool layout or something but then instead I just cleaned it up and updated a bunch of pages in there, sure.

Featuring:

-An actual helpful intro page
-Redone link page with more current links to everything and actual explanations of what each site is
-Also added all the flash videos up to this point, although many of them are dead since Flash is dead. It does make a handy reference list for what to convert to mp4, eventually
-Also dated when I did each video
-Added all the ghost-related pages
-Slightly updated the other three pages as well

I also did some mild touch-ups to like, the Doll Shoppe page and the Otaku Mascot page but nothing super major. Man, Otaku Mascots, remember those? I'm willing to be no one does, haha. An early precursor to my tendency to overcomplicate pointless desktop doodads. I ran it and it actually does still work which kind of shocked me, honestly.

I should probably add some more pages to add more tetris blocks but I can't think of any lol. You might have to refresh the pages to get the changes to show up.

I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!

Man, a day or two ago I got super nauseous and I'm not entirely sure why, I'm pretty sure it was drinking too much coffee on an empty stomach but ugh, it was so bad. I spent most of the night in the bathroom in case I threw up, and the whole time I had the soundtrack to Friday Night Funkin' in my head like it was mocking me, haha. IT'S SUCH A GOOD SOUNDTRACK THOUGH

Still banging out a bunch of words for this dumb angel/demon idea I SHOULD REALLY BE EDITING THE ACTUAL CHAPTER UGH but I guess I got to follow inspiration where it takes me. There's another Vargas fic that's pretty much done, but it's really awful and upsetting, I'm still not entirely sure if I want to post it. I wonder if hesitating is in itself answer enough for it? Eh.

I should make a post about Manual Override though! I haven't done that yet, I keep forgetting. As a warning, the fic is about non-con, and thus it will be talked about a lot in this entry! So exercise caution in reading further.

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I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!