Trying to think up ways to explain Mental Health Stuff to my co-workers, who get it or want to get it, but are having a bit of trouble. 

I like this metaphor:

I’ve carried too much stress for too long, and I’ve sprained my brain. It took one bad day to do the big injury, but a lot of little stresses before then really didn’t help. I had a less-than-resilient brain to begin with. (Kind of like having weak ankles.)

“But so-and-so works the same hours and he’s fine.”

Yup. His brain is more resilient than mine is.

“So take a bit of time and then just go right back to those hours.”

Nope. I’ll just sprain my brain again. Gotta cut back.

“Okay, fewer hours. And more time off. So now that this is in place, you should be fine right away, right?”

Nope. Still have a sprained brain. That’s going to take time to heal. 

“But we love you and we’re all on your side! Why are you still anxious at work? Why are you still sad? Don’t you like working with us?”

I love working with you! I love my job! But I still have a sprained brain. That’s got to heal before I can get back to where I was. I’m so, so happy and thankful that everyone here is on board with helping me out. Now hang in there with me while I get better, and pretty soon things are going to be just like before. No: better, because when I’m smiling and laughing, I’ll really mean it.

Spent the evening making shoelaces from satin ribbon. Great fun heat-sealing the ends. I am, overall, extremely pleased.

cosmictuesdays asked:

Would there be any historical timekeeping based on Cardassian lunar cycles? Would any of that have survived to the present day, much as the common Western names for some of the days of the week come from Greek and Norse and Old English - Sun's Day, Moon's Day, Týr's Day, Odin's Day, Thor's Day, Freya's Day, Saturn's Day?

tinsnip answered:

God, there MUST be, mustn’t there?

Mmmmph. Three moons, though. Wide-eyed moon, side-eye moon, blind moon. (Or something. Vyc knows.)

Perhaps the month rotates around the brightest time and darkest time, instead of a specific moon’s rotation.

Perhaps the length of months varies as the moons wax and wane. You’d have long months with big separations, and short months that might consist of only a week.

(Which, I remember, we worked out some time back would be thirteen days long. Because Cardassian memory can handle it no problem, and it works out neatly.)

God, what a bitch that would be. I love it, she said, enraptured. ^^

And most certainly the days would wear names that aren’t as meaningful as they might appear. I wonder if they’d have links to Hebitian myth? That seems pretty funny. :)

[feltelures]

How many moons there are actually depends on which canon you’re using! If you go by the novels, there are three: Letau (the closest to Cardassia Prime), the Blind Moon, and one other that doesn’t get named (I think). (Either of you wanna fix that?) (Note to self: Translate “Blind Moon.”) If you go by the Cardassian Sourcebook, there’s only one, that’s nowhere near as interesting.

I’d love to find a place where you could model lunar cycles of a planet with three months, because I’m having a lot of trouble picturing it. orz

Remind me to put the finishing touches on the document where I’ve collected the various cultural things from the sourcebook–there’s a ton of Hebitian religious stuff in there that would be useful for naming days/months/etc. I could probably manage it within the week, provided I don’t get distracted again.

[tinsnip]

Didn’t we work this out once upon a time? leta’U and such?

Let me go and see…

Yes, here it is! Edited for spelling, grammar and capitalisation errors, all entirely mine, because wow, was I drunk?

* * * * *

tinsnip wrote: Hey, what do you think re: “Watcher” for Cardassia’s sun? Big eye in the sky, seems appropriately paranoid and/or protective, depending on how you look at things.

“Watcher sees everything today” = it’s too bright out

“Good day for secrets” = it’s cloudy

ajev = watcher already

In fact, call it “The Watcher,” ra'ajev, because she’s the ur-watcher, the watcher of all things. She deputizes the moons to spy for her when she’s sleeping. There are three of them. We can give them names too–I don’t see names in the file! What do you think?

feltelures wrote:

XD That sounds very paranoid and Cardassian. And I absolutely agree that ra'ajev is the better name, because all other watchers would have been under her aegis. (Possibly in ancient times the sun goddess would have been the patron deity of the police? Would there still be sun symbolism surrounding law enforcement?)

IIRC in ASIT at least one of the moons was given a name–I’ll have to check to be sure the other two weren’t as well.

…

feltelures wrote: Memory Beta says Letau is the name of the innermost moon, but the last one doesn’t seem to have a name.

[…]

tinsnip wrote: Mnnnnnn right okay moons getting back to this–

So we have ra'ajev, “The Watcher”, for the sun.We have three moons. Let’s deputize them as the watcher’s spare eyes. So we have the brightest one, Keen-eyed moon. We have the slow, fat one, Low-lids moon, who might be watching, might not. And we have the tiny, pale one, Blind Moon. Perhaps with blind not literally meaning blind; perhaps with blind meaning more in the sense of “choosing not to look” - the forgiving moon. I like the idea of Letau being the blind moon. 

So let’s have letaU (leh-tah-oo) mean “unseeing (with connotation of choosing to ignore)”.

Keen-eyed moon is Chov, also meaning “watchful”.

And Low-lids moon is ca'pris, literally “half-eye”, which can also mean the expression of someone who is pretending not to watch but is watching very subtly. (Garak is the maaaaaster of ca'pris.)

Thoughts?

(I know the suffix for moon/satellite is -ok but it didn’t seem to fit. Perhaps if these three are being formally named, they’re letau-ok, Chovok, and ca'prisok?)

feltelures wrote: Oh, I like the idea of the deliberately forgiving moon, the one who knows but turns away. letaU it is! Chov is good, and mmmmmm, ca'pris–delicious! Though Garak spends quite a bit of time talking about letaU in ASIT, I can’t help but think he would identify with ca'pris quite a bit!

I like the idea of -ok being the official/scientific designation–that’s certainly the impression I got from the sourcebook. letaU, Chov, and ca'pris would make great common names.

bmouse.tumblr.com

Fanfic Trope Meme

[ficmemes]

Put a number in my askbox and I’ll tell you my thoughts on the trope you’ve asked me about and if I’ve written it myself, or if I ever would

1. Genderswap
2. Bodyswap
3. Drunk!fic
4. Huddling together for warmth
5. Shag or die
   
6. Undercover in a gay bar
7. Pretending to be married
8. ...

amango-tea asked:

5, 14, 25 for the meme!

Oh boy oh boy.

archiveofourown.org

can't steal happiness (4457 words) by tinsnip [AO3]

Chapters: ¼
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Deep Dish Nine - Fandom
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Characters: Julian Bashir, Elim Garak
Additional Tags: Vignettes, Romance, Love, Infatuation, happiness, Tingles, Dialogue, And general schmoopy bullshit
Summary:

Four Deep Dish Nine Garak/Bashir vignettes, worked around the pattern of The Weepies’ “Can’t Steal Happiness”. If you like it, buy it! They’re amazing and worth supporting!

Fair warning: this is schmoopy stuff. No sad, all glad.

This fic uses Lady Yate-Xel’s versions of Elim Garak and Julian Bashir. It is not part of her storyline; it’s just me having fun with her characters.

For Lady Yate-Xel, as all things are, because all of this, all of it, came from our endless spinning DD9 discussions. Thank you, Lady! Without you, nothing!

Schmoopy bullshit alert!

I wrote this approximately eight million years ago–srsly, like, I think it was April? Finally it makes its way into the world, creeping like a creature from its dark and dripping lair into the light of tumblr!

Idek. Anyway, I’ll put up one chapter a day. Today: coffee!

“Oh, Garak, you know, it’s all just so complicated… I really think you’d better walk me through it step by step.”