nikkiscarlet

The flu’s really tearing its way through everyone this year. Danielle and her husband and kids are all sick (they got hit with a stomach bug and the flu one after the other 😵‍💫), and my parents both got hit hard. My brother can’t come down to visit as was planned, because my parents don’t want to risk transmitting it to him. For the same reasons, I’ve mostly been sequestered in my room in hopes of not catching it. I think we’ll be postponing our family celebration for at least a few days. Given that I also got my COVID and flu jabs later in the year than usual (literally and coincidentally the same day my dad first started showing symptoms), I’m also probably not going to go visiting any of my friends until the new year.

On top of that, my friend Sparkle just let me know that she’s been hospitalized with what she originally thought was the flu, but actually turned out to be an ovarian cyst. 😭 She lives in the US at the moment, but her wife lives in Canada and is flying down to see her. I just hope her wife’s travels are safe and uneventful, given everything going on in the US right now. Cross-border travel is . . . ill-advised for Canadians these days, especially if they’re not white. Sparkle’s wife is biracial.

Lennora seems to be doing okay so far, and I hope that holds out for her. She told me she wishes she had that day bed she’s been thinking of buying so she could offer it to me as a place to wait out my parents’ flu. Honestly, though, I’m doing okay for now. I think I’m approaching the point where both of my parents will no longer be contagious, so just a few more days until I can be pretty sure I’m safe, I guess. And even if Christmas ends up being quiet, I have plenty with which to entertain myself, including two very snuggly cats. I just feel bad for everyone else! 🥺

I hope your holiday season is going well and that you’re able to stay healthy and safe. Times are tough, but I hope you can find joy where you’re able.

Mirrored from NikkiScarlet.net.

Current Mood: tired

You know what? I’m beyond tired of “snark.” If a book is marketed at me as having “snarky” MCs or banter, I’m skipping it. There’s so much mean-spiritedness in snark.

Give me “goofy” characters instead. Give me “witty” characters. But above all, just please give me “kind” characters.

Current Mood: drained

Screenshot of a social media — I think it’s from Threads? — post by user onelife_livedwell. The post reads: So much of healthcare still relies on the patient's ability to advocate, organize, and persist. But fatigue, brain fog, and systemic barriers mean those most in need often can't. Access shouldn't depend on who has the energy to fight for it.

"You can tell something was written by AI if it has an em dash in it. Real people generally just use --."

Dammit, my nerdy writer ass memorized the alt code for em and en dashes years ago and now AI is making my genuine human effort look sus.

It's Alt+0151 ( — ) and Alt+0150 ( – ), btw.

Current Mood: nauseated

After this week’s release of the more thoroughly researched article laying out the absolutely horrific details of Neil Gaiman’s (alleged) sex crimes, I remembered I actually still had an old user icon of him and Amanda Palmer from well over a decade ago still sitting around among my other Dreamwidth icons (and LJ icons too, as it turned out). So, that’s been deleted now, on both sites.

While I was in there I ended up culling about 80 or 90 other icons, largely from fandoms I’m not really all that into anymore. I may end up purging more later, but it was nice to free up the space. I might use the freed up slots to house more Good Omens icons.

Good Omens is still very close to my heart and I intend to remain in the fandom, but I’m treating it as a Terry Pratchett property — which is what the Terry Pratchett Estate seems to be doing, as well. All the other Gaiman books I owned have been purged from my shelves. My friend Lenn was a bigger Gaiman fan than I was and she’s done the same thing.

Two sequential screencaps from "The Simpsons" in which the town of Springfield have gathered at the train station to collectively ensure that a man they've tied to a chair (and then tied the chair to a train car) really does leave town with the train. In the original Simpsons episode, it was the man who originally bore the name Seymour Skinner (before Principal Skinner took on his identity). In this image, however, Neil Gaiman's head has been pasted over Mr Skinner's, so that it looks like it was Mr Gaiman that the town of Springfield has securely strapped down to send away. The top image is a closeup of the tied-up Gaiman, captioned with him appearing to say, "But I wrote Good Omens!" In the bottom image, we see everyone watching the train pull away with Gaiman on it, with Homer / Springfield as a whole replying, "And we thank Terry Pratchett for it. Now, don't come back!"

Current Mood: tired

Friendship ended with Kraft. Now Jif is my peanut butter.

Current Mood: confused

I have this. Urge. To buy myself A Little Treat. But everything on my wish list at the moment just sort of feels like, “Ehhh, that can wait.”

It’s like part of me is craving something, but then I ask myself, “What is it? What do you want?” And all I get back is “I YEARN.”

A screen capture of a May 24 post from Twitter account "100% correct our flag means death quotes", with the username @incorrectofmds. It features two pictures. The first picture is from the series Our Flag Means Death, and is the scene where Blackbeard is lifting the white blindfold off Stede's eyes, having just saved him being executed via firing squad. Stede's wrists are still bound behind him. They are looking at each other lovingly. In the second picture is another screencap, this time from a post by Tumblr user "branyard". Their post reads "I stand with my cancelled wife." The implication of juxtaposing these two images together is that Ed is standing with his "cancelled wife", Stede.

Current Mood: annoyed

My workplace’s website runs on Squarespace. Speaking as someone who’s been building and maintaining websites in various fashions since the 1990s, Squarespace is stupid and finicky and if I could scrap the whole site and rebuild it on a WordPress install, I would do it in a heartbeat.

EDIT: Seriously, it's like trying to design a website in fucking Microsoft Word. 🤬

Current Mood: indifferent

Whoops got my nikki.scarlet account suspended from Instagram lol

So, I mostly don’t use the big social media platforms anymore. I have RSS feeds set up to follow a few specific Twitter users, but I only check in on Facebook once every couple of months or so, and most of the time I don’t even remember I have an Instagram. But there were a few people on both FB and Instagram that I wanted to keep up with if possible.

So I’d found a browser extension that claimed it would allow me to follow Instagram remotely, RSS style, and I thought, “Cool, I’ll give that a try.”

I didn’t realise the extension actually logs in through your Instagram account and Instagram’s servers can tell that it’s doing so, and logging into Instagram with a 3rd party app is a violation of their TOS.

I also didn’t realise that attempting to set up a new account under a similar-but-different email address and user name will just result in your new account being immediately suspended, too, but probably should have guessed.

I have something like 180 days to appeal. I was clearly in the wrong on this one, though, so I’m not sure how effective it’d be. And also I’m not sure how much I really care. Like I said, most of the time I genuinely forget Instagram exists, and I really only casually wanted to be able to follow a few people’s accounts. The last picture I posted there was from 2016 or thereabouts. If I do end up wanting to start posting images, I can easily set up a gallery of my own on my website. It just doesn’t seem that vital to me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, yeah. If you do see a Nikki Scarlet on Instagram, it probably isn’t me. 😅

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