Three things make a post
Sep. 20th, 2022 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primeideal-Over a year ago there was a book sale on mostly academic nonfiction books from a university press, so of course I splurged on a bunch of e-books and then...didn't read them, usually when I'm staring at a laptop I'm not in "book reading" mode. Then I got a Kindle, but womp womp, Amazon won't transfer those file formats. So I've been procrastinating on them but slowly getting through a couple, usually as palate cleansers between the SFF bingo stuff.
One of them was about visual art/imagery around the Olympics, and I wasn't sure whether it was going to be mostly a photo book or what. Maybe it would be a fast read, just browsing pictures. Turns out there's a lot of writing/analysis surrounding the artworks. But it also turns out that...none of the pictures display because they don't have a digital license. I can try Googling the captions, but can't copy-and-paste them because plagiarism bad. Someone did not think this through.
-It's amusing how good/bad fanfiction search can be. Today someone posted on reddit they were trying to find a fic they'd read in the past about a nameless Animorphs character who shows up only in book 29. They don't know the title, the author, or the name they gave to that character, and suspected that it would be very hard to search for unless someone had read it recently or frequently. I have not.
Well, lo and behold, when you type "29" into the search box for the Animorphs page on Ao3, there are only 14 hits, and from there it's straightforward to skim through and figure out which one it is from the summary. I'm a genius! ...Actually no I'm just lucky and familiar with Ao3. (Edit: OP confirmed, yes, this is the fic in question--although it's a WIP that was last updated in 2019.)
But then I realized I had mentally thought of a fic about a different nameless character who shows up only in book 29, a few pages later. If it's on Ao3...let's see, it's probably in English, marked as "complete," not a crossover, probably less than 5000 words? And doesn't contain any of the major characters except maybe Cassie. Boom, that filters from ~1600 works to ~130. Sort by kudos and I can browse through the first couple pages--if it's not there, it's probably not on Ao3 at all. Now what? Search on FFN, but what keywords? "Controller"? "Infested"? That's for the first fic, not this one. "McDonald's?" Hmm...
Okay, forget FFN summary search, just go to Google. site:fanfiction.net Animorphs McDonald's door. Boom, page 2, hit from 2004. And yes, I backed it up.
-I had an appointment with a new-to-me counselor last week and another one today. And by the end she candidly said "I don't think I would be a good fit for you, you should look for someone who takes a different approach." I admire the honesty! Because I feel like a lot of my conversations with counselors go like
Them: so what helps when you're feeling anxiety?
Me: talking to my parents.
Them: anybody else?
Me: not really.
Them: why not?
Me: I hate it when people dump on me so I'm not going to be a hypocrite and dump on people.
Them: okay, what else helps?
Me: sometimes writing about it indirectly, not in the moment, but later when I've calmed down and am trying to deal with the hypocrisy of the world.
Them: wow that's great!! good for you :)
Me: thanks.
Them: so what can I help you with?
Me: please help me to have the anxiety be not so severe/debilitating.
Them: okay, when you have those awful thoughts about how everything in the world is your fault, consider: maybe you are wrong, and in fact, not everything in the world is your fault!
Me: I'm a mathematical logician, it's not very helpful for me to be told "maybe your thoughts are just wrong," I have to rely on my thoughts being generally accurate and logical to make it through life!
Them: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
...Anyway, at least we got to this point early and didn't waste each other's time.
One of them was about visual art/imagery around the Olympics, and I wasn't sure whether it was going to be mostly a photo book or what. Maybe it would be a fast read, just browsing pictures. Turns out there's a lot of writing/analysis surrounding the artworks. But it also turns out that...none of the pictures display because they don't have a digital license. I can try Googling the captions, but can't copy-and-paste them because plagiarism bad. Someone did not think this through.
-It's amusing how good/bad fanfiction search can be. Today someone posted on reddit they were trying to find a fic they'd read in the past about a nameless Animorphs character who shows up only in book 29. They don't know the title, the author, or the name they gave to that character, and suspected that it would be very hard to search for unless someone had read it recently or frequently. I have not.
Well, lo and behold, when you type "29" into the search box for the Animorphs page on Ao3, there are only 14 hits, and from there it's straightforward to skim through and figure out which one it is from the summary. I'm a genius! ...Actually no I'm just lucky and familiar with Ao3. (Edit: OP confirmed, yes, this is the fic in question--although it's a WIP that was last updated in 2019.)
But then I realized I had mentally thought of a fic about a different nameless character who shows up only in book 29, a few pages later. If it's on Ao3...let's see, it's probably in English, marked as "complete," not a crossover, probably less than 5000 words? And doesn't contain any of the major characters except maybe Cassie. Boom, that filters from ~1600 works to ~130. Sort by kudos and I can browse through the first couple pages--if it's not there, it's probably not on Ao3 at all. Now what? Search on FFN, but what keywords? "Controller"? "Infested"? That's for the first fic, not this one. "McDonald's?" Hmm...
Okay, forget FFN summary search, just go to Google. site:fanfiction.net Animorphs McDonald's door. Boom, page 2, hit from 2004. And yes, I backed it up.
-I had an appointment with a new-to-me counselor last week and another one today. And by the end she candidly said "I don't think I would be a good fit for you, you should look for someone who takes a different approach." I admire the honesty! Because I feel like a lot of my conversations with counselors go like
Them: so what helps when you're feeling anxiety?
Me: talking to my parents.
Them: anybody else?
Me: not really.
Them: why not?
Me: I hate it when people dump on me so I'm not going to be a hypocrite and dump on people.
Them: okay, what else helps?
Me: sometimes writing about it indirectly, not in the moment, but later when I've calmed down and am trying to deal with the hypocrisy of the world.
Them: wow that's great!! good for you :)
Me: thanks.
Them: so what can I help you with?
Me: please help me to have the anxiety be not so severe/debilitating.
Them: okay, when you have those awful thoughts about how everything in the world is your fault, consider: maybe you are wrong, and in fact, not everything in the world is your fault!
Me: I'm a mathematical logician, it's not very helpful for me to be told "maybe your thoughts are just wrong," I have to rely on my thoughts being generally accurate and logical to make it through life!
Them: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
...Anyway, at least we got to this point early and didn't waste each other's time.
no subject
Date: 9/21/22 12:21 am (UTC)No pressure to answer, of course -- I'm curious as to why talking to your parents helps? What do they say that is helpful?
Me: I'm a mathematical logician, it's not very helpful for me to be told "maybe your thoughts are just wrong," I have to rely on my thoughts being generally accurate and logical to make it through life!
Hmm. Is that really true? I have two thoughts about this:
1) I feel like I need to rely on my reasoning process being reasonably accurate and logical, but that doesn't mean that I can't also have thoughts that defy that reasoning process and can therefore be inaccurate and/or illogical. (So, when I think "everything in the world is my fault," it's usually the case that if I actually do subject it to my usually-accurate reasoning process, I'll say, well, okay, it's clearly true that X is not my fault, therefore everything can't actually be my fault -- but the thought itself arises from outside the reasoning process.)
2) Sometimes my reasoning processes are actually faulty when they are applied in situations where emotions or anxiety is predominant, which is not usually the case when I'm doing, say, technical work for my job, or otherwise analytically analyzing whatever-it-is. (For much the same reason, I'm terrible in emergencies! In emergencies, I will almost always make decisions that look really stupid when looked at in calm hindsight, and which I probably wouldn't make if I had time to think about it calmly.)
no subject
Date: 9/21/22 12:50 am (UTC)Point taken on #2. Re: #1 I feel like the conversation I have many times is "I'm not just having this thought because I like to or I choose to, it came from somewhere outside of me. Therefore I made the inference/deduction from things other people were saying, because I am logical. (And it can't be that I should just stop inferring and jumping to conclusions, because failing to do so is the most autistic mistake!)"
no subject
Date: 9/22/22 04:37 am (UTC)Heh. Well, you seem to see the flaw in your reasoning there, so I guess that's okay? :)
Brains and emotions, man. It is sort of interesting to look at myself make completely typical cognitive mistakes even while my brain is generally speaking reasonably atypical, but also kind of annoying.