meerkat ramblings

Revolting little machine I hope someone guy fawkeses you too.

Know that to some of us, there is never a fic too long. We always want more. I've read creations that have gone into the million word wordcount and it wasn't enough. I'd read a million more.

If you feel like you need to wrap up the end quickly because the beginning meandered for four extra chapters, there is no need. I want it. Please make my day/week/month. ✨

When I was a teenager writing fic, I remember finding out that one of my favorite authors was in her 50s and that just was SUCH a revelation for me!! What do you mean, 50 year olds can write fanfic?!? Does that mean I can write fics when I'm her age?? That's AWESOME! I seriously looked up to her so much. And now I'm 35 with a husband and kid, and I'm still writing fanfic and posting fandom content - and I have no plans of stopping!

I don’t want to sound like I am hating on younger people in fandom, but god, y’all need to stop it with the ageism. You don’t have to give up what you love once you’re an adult. Honestly, the belief that you have to is pretty bad. It sounds like it would make people afraid of aging. Granted, modern society is so very afraid of aging.

- what time it is

- how long you’ve been reading

- how many chapters you’ve covered in the last 24 hours

- what you were late for because you were reading

- the woeful few hours you have left to sleep

- the emotional outbreaks you’re experiencing

- the inappropriate place you’re having said outbreak

- the general public’s reaction to your outbreak

Someone posted a picture of a piece of chicken between two hamburger buns titled “Chicken Burger” to /r/food. Another user commented “Chicken Sandwich” on the post, and was slapped with a 30 day ban by the mods. When they responded to ask why, the mod said

“Correcting someone in public is public shaming, on top of being incorrect, it’s a pretty shitty comment to leave.”

So now /r/food is on lockdown after being spammed with posts titled “Chicken Sandwich” and other variations. The mod that handed the ban down pinned a post doubling down, comparing the situation to “Pride posts that always fill up with bigots” and “removing racists from posts featuring POC”, and including a link on “how to correctly, correct someone.”

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. go to work. go out to eat. don't be afraid.

They weren't killed by the slashing of the CDC. They weren't killed by the administration's demonization of masks, that brought on by the vanity of one man who didn't want his bronzer to come off. They weren't killed by an industrial food system which will only do things Right if it's forced to, if it's inspected and made to, and over which there are far fewer watchdogs than there used to be. No! Don't worry. They were killed by underlying conditions.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. the engines must keep running. don't be afraid.

Don't think about the fact that 12% of the population, or just about the same percentage of the population that marked themselves as Black on the 2020 Census, has diabetes. Don't think about the fact that 10% of the US population, or approximately the same percentage which has blue eyes, has at least one autoimmune disease. Don't think about the fact that 6% of the adult US population, or approximately the same percentage as 'people under the age of five', has a chronic heart condition. Don't think about the fact that the CDC says that 40% of the US population is obese, and that is an "underlying condition," too. That percentage? It's about the same as every US resident between the ages of 25 and 54.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid.

"Underlying conditions" is a way to wave away responsibility, yes, but it's more than that. It's a way to put separation between the average citizen and the two people -- so far -- who have died from food infested with parasites, the two people who literally shit themselves to death because the Trump administration has fully abandoned all of its proper functions in order to strip down everything it can get its hands on and cart it away for itself. It is not enough to grift billions through American Liberty World Financial Bitcoin, Gold Shoe, And Bible-Printing Emporium. It is not enough to set up a literal "please bribe the President" ATM for foreign governments to shovel cash in via cryptocurrency. They have to grab everything they can that isn't nailed down, and to do that, they have to rip everything they can out of the walls, fire everybody they can get away with, and shuffle the money into ICE, and from their into the pockets of friends no-bid contracts.

It is not enough, and so they whisper "underlying conditions," because that tells so many Americans, "Hey. Don't be afraid. It's okay. You don't have 'underlying conditions,' right? You are good and virtuous. You have done Everything Right, and are thus blessed with Good Health. You have Worked Hard and Been Proper and thus you will not be touched by the seemingly-random hand of fucking death hiding in a bag of Kroger lettuce." It's the same voice that says, "You don't want those layabouts getting disability and cheating you out of your money, so we should make it harder," except now it's saying, "Actually, just like COVID, the only people who died were the people who were sick already, and obviously you only have underlying conditions if you weren't taking care of yourself, which you are, so don't worry! We don't actually have to do anything. This will sort itself out."

I'm finally taking the leap and getting off docs. Since I'm taking the hiatus from writing, I figured its a good time to move all my work. I know you highly recommend scrivener, but my new concern is I basically have 2 computers I write on (my PC in my office and my laptop). I can't transfer files between both of those computers with scrivener, right? Since the files live locally on your computer? Is there any kind of cloud service? Or would Ellipsus be best for my case?

First off, congratulations on taking the leap to move off Google Docs. A hiatus is actually the perfect time to handle the logistical headache of migrating your work so you can return to a fresh, organized space.

And this is me watching you making sure you are doing your haitus. My hair is even gray. Oh my. /jk

Now, onto your question. You absolutely can use Scrivener across two different computers without losing your mind or manually dragging files onto a thumb drive every day. While it's true that Scrivener saves your projects as local files on your hard drive, it works beautifully with cloud services like Dropbox, OneDrive, or iCloud.

I used to bounce between a desktop and a laptop by simply saving my active Scrivener projects directly into a OneDrive. The only major rule is that you have to let the cloud service fully finish syncing before you open the project on the other computer, and you shouldn't keep the file open on both devices at the exact same time, or you risks creating conflicted copies.

That said, if the thought of managing local file syncing feels a bit nerve-wracking or tedious, Ellipsus is a genuinely fantastic alternative to consider.

Because Ellipsus is entirely web-based and built specifically for creative writers, it gives you that seamless log in from anywhere and pick up exactly where you left off experience that you're used to with Google Docs.

From what I seen with my friends' snippets and shares, It has a distraction-free interface and a system that lets you keep multiple drafts of the same scene without cluttering your sidebar

The choice comes down to what kind of environment you want to return to after your hiatus. If you want a digital powerhouse with heavy-duty plotting tools, character sheets, and deep organizational compile features, and you don't mind the 5-second discipline of letting a cloud folder sync, I'd go with Scrivener.