Collected Thoughts

So I'm up to episode 6. I realize there aren't many left. It's holding my attention more than most shows. Lately I've struggled to get through a whole hour of tv in one sitting. I still play Merge Dragons too much when I'm watching the Witcher but I pay more attention to what is going on. It's a very beautiful show to watch and there are usually little things to watch for. Like when the doppleganger is at the forest and you can see the outside and the snow.

I got The Last Wish from the library and read through the first chapters.. stories.. I guess in it. The first 2. Anyway they are quite different from who it is in the show but I'm still trying to figure it all out. I saw a youtube video about how the show is a terrible, terrible adaption of the book and I haven't watched all of that because I hadn't gotten to some of what he was talking about on the show or in the book to compare. But I have issues with what I did see. First the guy talks about how things are left out in adaptions and it's often necessary but certain things aren't and every word in a well written story is needed and The Witcher is well written so that everything should have ended up in the show. I admit there is some stuff I don't know because I'm not familiar but it's not keeping me from enjoying it or getting the gist of it. The time shift thing, once I figured it out and went back and watched the first episode there are indications. Like there is the scene in Cintra where Calanthe and Eist are talking about the invasion and Calanthe is trying to spare Ciri "she's a child" and Ciri pops up with you won you first battle when you were my age. Then we flip to the forest and Geralt and Renfri and she's talking about what Stergabor did to her and how Queen Calanthe just won her first battle.


Now I didn't catch that the first time I watched but the second time (after I figured out about the time jump) I caught it.


Anyway, this was written with the idea that you know the source material and I don't have a problem with that. It does mean some things are left out and the characterizations aren't going to be true to the books or games as much (I assume) but I've also seen things that have way too much exposition or spend too much time spoon feeding information so everyone is caught up and I would rather have to think and pay attention than have to sit through exposition to explain something that's been clear but we still have to wait until every little bit is spelled out and there's no mystery.

Ok so .. I am just going to go ahead and dive into The Witcher fic and vids (hopefully vids too). Any recommendations?

So I resubscribed to Netflix. Too many things I want to watch. I'm starting with The Witcher. Which means maybe more fanfic for me and fannishy things if I get into it. I knew there were video games but not that there were books so I requested the first book from the library (they have curbside pick up at most locations right now).

I managed to pick up an extra day of work and then extra hours today so I got my week up to 38 hours. I ended up working 9 days in a row but I'm off for the next EIGHT DAYS! Woot!

I've been expanding my fanfic reading, although not my tv or movie watching much at all. I've moved into Suits, where I am familiar iwth the first few seasons and after that it's a blank but it turns out it's not something I'm super fannish about. I mean I like some of the stories but a lot of them I just keep thinking "yeah , I don't know if they would act like that" (I mean I have no idea really I just have.. random opnions).

Anyway I did read Pizza Verse. An AU, where Mike is a pizza delivery guy and meets Harvey that way and there's no "fake lawyer" thing going on. Mike delivers pizza to Harvey, they trade quotes and kind of flirt and then it goes from there. The other 2 stories in the series are from Harvey's POV and then Donna's.

I also don't read a ton of Miss Fisher fanfic (but I should read more) however I do likeUndercover Revelations. Phryne and Jack are undercover in a private club and Jack , learns some things about himself...

 One more week until vacation! Actually a little less because I have Saturday off so I'll have 8 days in a row. I'm working 7 days right now (well in the middle of it) will have Thurs off, work Friday and then off

And Friday will be a shorter day since all our days are shorter because our hours got trimmed again. A big problem is people ARE NOT taking their PTO (we will use all accrued PTO on Oct 31) and they are saving it I guess. Or waiting u ntil Oct. Except not everyone is getting off in Oct there's no way to do that.

Our company is pretty generous with PTO and Personal Days and then there are people who have been working here for 15 or more years so there are some people who have carried over PTO as an exception (they don't carry over any more) AND they end up with like 6 weeks a year AND they really haven't taken any. 

I digress, so people aren't taking PTO so we aren't getting hours to compensate for their lost hours and the hours we get is more than we typically get scheduled. The store gets 40 hours for each person taking PTO but has been scheduling us 35. Except now we are down to 29.5

We were at 30 and they were scheduling hour lunch breaks even when we were working 6 hour shifts. EXCEPT people were only taking a half hour when we have been repeatedly told we have to take our full hour. So now it doesn't just look like we need more hours to schedule but we've been going OVER our scheduled hours. Plus some  people weren't even taking their lunch break at all . And even though we are all adults and should be able to go on our breaks on time a bunch of people can't for whatever reason.

So new solution - we are getting shorter shifts and no breaks. Because what I really want to do is work from 9:45 to 3:45 or 1:15 to 7:15 without a break. and people will bitch because that's what they do. I guess they could try scheduling half hour breaks but considering all the problems we are having now it's too much of a hassle.


There are some people who clock in and out on time but then they don't actually get to the salesfloor in a timely manner. There is one associate (and I admit we don't get along) but she consistently shows up 15 mins or more late to the sales floor many days and then our lunches have kind of crossed where I've seen her go to (I assume) to her break late and then I go at the top of the hour, get done with my break and then she's still on hers and meandering back to the sales floor about 10 or 15 mins after I've come back. But I think she will clock herself back in and then just .. not go back immediately. 

It's sales tax holiday this weekend so no sales tax on school supplies and clothes and we are busy but not as busy as we would normally be. Which is good because we are running low on key things because we are getting product in more regularly but we aren't getting as much in each time and some brands haven't sent us anything new since before we shut down (or during the shutdown).  I dont' think our private label brands are being produced , at least it doesn't seem like it.   Or maybe brands are focusing on key demographics, I know we have a lot of Adidas for kids but we haven't gotten any mens stuff in since.. before March.  But we have tons of Champion.

Our kitchen section is getting bare. And we aren't having a lot of mark downs right now, partly because our prices are so low but also because I think we don't have anything to replace it with.

 I've been reading a lot of fanfic since the Pandemic and all kinds. Kinky stuff, general stuff, fandoms I barely remember anything about , and been branching out trying to find things that may not be on A03 right now or never archived there. But mostly just sticking wtih A03. I had a nice little extension thing that went kaboom and nothing carried over so all the stories I had starred and all the tags I had blacklisted are gone and have to repopulate it.Which is sad because there are a lot of one off stories I may want to read again but.. damn if I'm ever going to remember to find them because I stumbled across them in my quest to read some rare pair or random tag search.

But I have some definite feelings about how stories are tagged and the problems finding things. For awhile  I was really craving some nice character pieces and those are hard to find. Some stuff is listed as character study but not a lot and then it's just a matter of .. searching for a character and the rating and excluding a crap ton of tags and relationships and being left with.. like story that looks interesting but the character is only tagged because in the last chapter there is some vague reference to them and so there is a tag...

And then there is the Wall O'Tags thing.. when there is a more tags than story or as many words taken up for tags than the story. I often read on my phone so if I have scroll through like,  2 screens of tags I may never read anything by that author. Seriously people don't have to tag EVERY SINGLE Concept , idea , character , or vague sex act that may happen. 

If it's m/m story just tagging it as plot what plot or sex smut or explicit sexual content will tell me there is going to be SEX. Probably (hopefully!) there will be proper preparation or at least if there's not there better be a good reason why.  So "anal fingering" doesn't need to be a tag unless it's just fingering and that's the thing. 

Other tags I hate are:
anything that says the author doesn't know canon at all
any tag that indicates the author is possibly ashamed of their story
tumblr style tags or whatever that stream of conscious, separated by commas, it makes on sense to me, but it's there because someone you know, thinks it's cool, and so those are all now , separate tags, which, makes no , sense. 
Having multifandom whatever with lots of parts and then tagging EVERY SINGLE fandom and relationship and kink or situation so that , you know in that rare pair I was really hoping to read there are 30 search results and 20 of them that are linked together but 19 of them have NOTHING TO DO with the pairing or whatever because there is a 500 word drabble about the pair and that's it. My hopes got up and now they are dashed ...

Tags instead of summaries. 

Tagging for a kink that doesn't actually show up in the story.   Bondage is not the same as one character lightly holding someone's wrists down on the bed while they kiss them. 

And then there is the under tagging or using some cutesy weird phrase so I can't block it or recognize it and stumble into something I reqally don't want to read.  I don't like.. no wait,  I LOATHE A/B/O stories of any form.  Like a generic-y werewolf story I might be ok with but A/B/O anything related with mating cycles and heat and mpreg and all that .. and I keep stumbling into something that isn't tagged clearly and then I have to figure out. ...

Although I'm weird because I do'nt like when people tag a relationship and then tag the people individually (like yeah they are in there and may interact with others I get that) but I really wish that Reader got tagged along with CHARACTER/READER because i hate those stories. 

Okay enough of this.. maybe I should start talking about the stories I found and really liked.. in other posts obviously 

I seem to have lost a lot of the vids I had downloaded and I keep hearing songs lately and realizing I first heard them from a vid but can't remember what or where or when or how to search anymore. 

like Liz Phair's flower. I can't for the life of me remember anything but know there was a vid. ARG . I hate this. and the Blue Orchid vid for Hot Fzze seems to be gone.

I need to ..like particpate more and I struggle with interacting with people so much. I need to stop being in the sidelines.

 I'm on Day 4 (I think) of  not going to work. Supposedly we are going to go back on March 31st but I some how doubt that. We are getting paid our scheduled week for last week and then 23 hours or so this week and then.. who knows.  

Yesterday I went out for a walk but it was way way too crowded so I'm going to stick with laps in the backyard.  We aren't under Shelter in Place orders or anything like that but I am trying to avoid going out. 

I took my debit card out wiht me on my walk y esterday in case I wanted to stop at the convenience store and then last night I couldn't find it so I put a hold on it and have to call tomorrow to get a new one, unless I find it today. Hopefully they can expedite the replacement. Fun fact there is not a physical location of my bank with a drive thru that is close to me.  Not that I need to spend money but I have bills to pay and am locked out of my account from the website. so fun times.


My bf's mom is stressing me out. Living with someone who has paranoid schizophrenic during a pandemic is tiring. She is taking her meds and she is stable but she won't quit watching the news. ANd she's bored and she has a short attention span and a bad memory and doesn't read, do puzzles  (crossword, search a word, jigsaw), listen to audio books etc so she watches tv whcih has the news. And she is worried about people breaking into the house to steal our food. Not to the point where she is tryign to protect the house but she keeps mentioning it. But she also hates being stuck inside so she keeps leaving the house for a variety of reasons.  Today she was going to go to Wal Mart because they have bread and milk etc but are only limiting it to 1 per person so she wants to get some food so we don't run out. We have enough food to last us at least 2 weeks before we have to stock up at all.  IT would be nice to get some more fresh produce this week but honestly we 'd be fine without. But we only have one back up loaf of bread and 1 gallon of milk so that's not enough.

I just want to go back to work. I'm worried I'll be laid off. I work in retail, odds are it will happen at some point this year.  So Bf's mom keeps asking if I'm going to apply for unemployment... i keep explaining I'm not unemployed right now, "well you can work some and get unemployment" ok but I'm actually employed full time right now so ...

And I'm bored. I know there are things I could be doing but I have no motiviaion. Apparently I'm only motivated right now to log into Second Life, and then just stand around doing nothing while I go back and reread Die Hard fanfic on AO3.  I don't know why  a fandom with less than 700 stories has become my comfort thing but it has. Ihaven't seen any of the movies in years and it doesn't look like they are streaming anywhere I can get so I'm just reading the fic. and the stories are all running together so I'm getting things confused.

I kind of want to do somethings like bake but I really also don't have a lot of motivation. Also I didn't take my ADD meds today because I'm trying to take less in case there are issues iwth getting some and I really need it. Plus it's expensive. 


I'm kind of spinning around where I want to do things but nothing seems like the right thing and it's just blah. I look back at all the times when I've isolated myself from the world and it was ok and I'm not that person. It's harder for me to disassociate (whcih would be really nice at times now) and even though before this I just went to work and came home for the most part there were still things I did and I liked being out in the world.

 

 We have reduced hours for the store. 11-6 M-Sat and 12-5 on Sunday. Full time only gets 23 hours and part time 3.  WE can use PTO to make up the difference. I just got moved to commission position so my hourly pay just went from $14 to $10. This is not good for me. But tthey can't change my pay however the manager is just doing non productive time for all of us on commission so we won't go into arrears.  It is what it is and  I'll just have to get through it.

I cancelled my scheduled PTO . I'm getting stuff done at work that isn't helping people. Today I did $550 in sales, well before returns.On a normal Monday I think the sales should be around $1800 or so. The company lost $5 million in sales on Saturday.  They have these reduced hours to try and 1) minimize the exposure people have and 2) to minimize payroll and (I assume) electricity for having the lights on and stuff running.  They don't want to have to lay more people off (we just had restructuring/layoffs) and I hope that won't happen.

When the store has to close for an extended time (and at this point I know it's when and not if) we will get paid for a regular schedule of the minimum hours- 32. while th e store is closed. If someone tests positive or has to self isolate because of exposure and has a doctors note they can get paid but there is a form that has to be filled out etc.  Of course there aren't that many tests right now and you can only get tested if you have a dr's referral  so not everyone is going to get tested. At this point I assume I've been exposed to it .

Mostly I've been watching Harry  Styles , Liam Tomlinson and Niall Horan videos and interviews and Liam Payne interviews but not videos because I'm not really a fan of his music. I also read my way through almost all 600+ Die Hard stories on AO3 because.. I dont' know why it seemed like a good idea the last few days.  

I haven't seen mom because I dont want to expose her. I am going to try and skype with her soon. I am not looking forward to be stuck in the house with my boyfriend and his mother. they don't have the best relationship and his mom is impulsive and forgetful and paranoid and I may  just spend most of this hold up in my computer room with the headphones on listening to wahtever and pretending I don't hear them arguing. If I can go for walks I may start taking long walks just to avoid the house. 

We are prepared for a long time in when we can't leave. I am assuming I'll get sick. I also felt a little like a hoarder but I am not running out to the store anymore , except to find a few things that are just non essentials but would be nice to have. I have never done self isolating with other people bu tI have done it with my self and I know after awhile everyhthing feels so monotonous. so i bought some sour candies and gummies and some hot sauce and stuck them away for when things start to get realy feeling too monotonous and we need something new. Or I do. 

Sooo I've really gotten into Harry Styles music and have been posting various videos on my FB feed and people are into. I'm also posting fashion pics because how could I not? This means spending time on  Youtube watching/listening to live performances, interviews and videos like - Harry Styles with kids or Harry styles with Fans or stuff like that.

The thing with watching a lot of Harry Styles videos (and listening to the songs) is eventually the One Direction stuff starts popping up. Because Harry was in One Direction and a lot of the compilation of Harry with fans or kids is from the One Direction days. And then on the side are the other videos ...the shipper ones.

I fell into a hole of shipper vids and I am not going to admit how many I watched. Some of the stuff -- spot on . Some of it is really I think pushing it.  But I never expected to  spend  ...that much time watching shipper vids. And then there are the other ones, the not the main ship ones. and now my youtube home page is like 90% Harry Styles  and various  One Direction member solo songs and the rest is like Kesha, Corridor Crew videos , and some random reaction videos, SNL, and Taylor Swift .

I was not going to look at One Direction fanfic because I don't do RPF,  it's not my thing, I'm fine with other people writing it and reading it but it's never been my thing at all. But I was on AO3 and you know I was curious and now.. I've read some but not a lot but ...  it's weird. The whole thing about becoming interested in this so late in the game is weird. I mean they are all young enough to be my kid (although I would have been a young mom) and they were.. or well I guess Harry was underage when a lot of this went down and the fic is written about him and it's just..weird. 


But mostly I'm just watching Harry Styles videos because watching him interact with the crowd and sing and dance around everything just makes me happy. Except the sad stuff, which is sad but even that is good to see when the world feels like everything is going to shit.