What We Do In the Shadows & Sleep Again

I am so behind on this show because I don't have cable, but they just added season one to Hulu, so I binged all ten episodes today. I loved it, it's got all the same dumb and charming energy of the movie. I am in love with Nadja and her protégé, Jen. The episode with them at the college party was adorable. Nadja is also a real babe, the painting of her in the opening sequence is amazing and I low-key would love to be able to buy a poster or something of it.

I haven't played much more of Final Fantasy XV because our Xbox One controller seems to be really dumb and it's stopped holding a charge. This has happened to me before with an old Xbox 360 controller too, it's like if you don't use them for awhile, they just ...stop working altogether. I found a few options online to see if it's fixable that I'm going to try tomorrow. If not I might have to suck it up and buy a new one. I hate how expensive they are though. I do have an Amazon gift card and I hate to spend it on something like this instead of IDK something more fun? so hopefully one of the tests to fix it will work.

Discovered some new pain this evening, I'm hoping it's nothing to worry about just pain from healing. I stopped my meds a few days ago because I'm feeling okay without them. My sleep is obviously disturbed though as I withdraw from them (they were heavy opiates) and this morning I slept in our wingback chair for like five hours because I was so exhausted from not sleeping last night. I'm trying not to have a repeat of that tonight. I did discover that I can sleep for short periods in the bed now, with lots of pillow support. So I might crawl into the spare bedroom in an hour or so and see if that'll work.

Last night when I couldn't sleep I finally started my intoabar fic. Since I got the assignment I've had a strong concept for it, I just hadn't actually sat down to write it yet. I think it's bordering on 1k words already, so I'm over the min word count but I feel like it's really just starting. So I need to be awake enough at some point in the next few days to get it posted. I didn't anticipate the second week of my recovery to still be so tired and out of it most of the time, so maybe accepting a fic challenge was a bad idea for this time period, but I'm also really enjoying what I am writing of it, and being able to focus on something creative, so I don't know what the right answer there is.

I got notice from the benefits company that handles short term disability claims for my office, and they think I should be able to return to work on September 1st, which feels like WAY too fucking soon, given the trouble I'm having getting back to normal in my second week. I know I have an office job that's pretty sedentary, but um... I'm having trouble sitting upright comfortably when I am awake and feeling good. Plus, my first check-up with my doctor isn't until the 10th of September, which indicates my doctor sure didn't expect me to be up and around and working until before that time period. So I'm going to call them tomorrow and try to explain at least the check-up part and see what they have to say. Last I saw they were still waiting on info from my doctor's anyway, so they don't have all the info to make a real decision based on what my doctor had to say about my discharge and recovery requirements. Mentally, aside from the fatigue and sleep schedule being shit, when I am awake I feel pretty with it, just sore with certain needs for sitting/resting comfortably. I could work for short periods of time, but not a full eight hours every day and still feel competent at my job.

Putting Insomnia & RLS to Good Use

Still slept like crap last night. Didn't work on my intoabar fic either. Instead, in some kind of fugue, I wrote a really sad Aveline/Isabela piece for fan_flashworks. It's not on AO3 yet, because I wrote it during the amnesty period and have to wait for that to end but if you're interested in reading it, you can find it there. Information below, but the story link will take you to the community post for it.

Title: Diamonds and Pearls
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: T
Length: 1,326 words
Content notes: pirates and a brief battle
Author notes: This is sad, I'm sorry
Summary: This is an ending of something unsustainable.

"This meddlesome, troublesome, imperfect pirate took what was left of her crushed and silent heart and turned it into this fullness, this overwhelming infatuation that her chest can barely contain. Even now, even as she knows this can't last, that she can't live this way, she wants to scream her love to the sea, to the stars."

► Diamonds and Pearls

I know it's sad, but I hope people read it. I'm proud of it, for what it is. And it's so in line with a few other small Aveline/Isabela things that I'm thinking at some point I should archive the older pieces and combine them into one thing that makes a cohesive story. It'll take some effort, but I'm kind of excited to do it. I recently (with my Camp NaNo discount) downloaded Scrivener, so putting this together into a single story might give me good practice with the program.