*muffled cursing from the next room*

I have ordered myself some of the best tea ever, Dark Chocolate Pu'er by The Cultured Cup. I bought $40 of it so I will not be running out any time soon ... MAYBE.

Dresden Kodak, the weirdest and best webcomic is updating again! Slowly, but still: yay!

Do you need a bookshelf that transforms into a coffin? I think you do.

Want a playlist of fast, heavy classical music to work to? Write an action scene, exercise and work out your bad feelings, clean a house with vigor!

Grains from the sea? And they're healthy? Sweet!

For my writers: here is a phrase counter so that you can see if you are overusing anything, and a podcast about a different kind of story structure than the ones I had heard of. If you have any good writing tips or tricks, please leave them in the comments. I have decided to get better at this writing thing, so I'm gonna research the crap out of it and see what comes of it.

I have finally figured out what does not feel right about the Loki vs Hydra story, in that it does not really have an emotional center yet. I need to find something to do with that and fix it. So far the getting-better-at-writing plan is going okay!

What do I say about Fundamental Force Carriers, other than that I am reading it now for the fourth time? That before this fic I was just dipping my toes in this fandom in honor of Space Mom, but now I love everyone in this bar? That this is possibly the best thing I have read in a year, and that someday I would like to mix humor with emotional horror this well, but doubt I will ever have a tenth the skill? It’s an amazing time-travel fix it fic in the Star Wars universe, and if you take none of my other recommendations, this is what I’d like you to read. Go watch post-RotJ!Anakin Skywalker get sucked back into a Clone Wars era body, and proceed to fuck up allll of Sidious’ plans. Fundamental Force Carriers. You’re welcome!

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The reason I dipped that toe into the Star Wars fandom in the first place is that someone on my flist swore up and down that we all needed to read this. It is a sprawling epic, so the tab sat open on my desktop until I was prepared to jump into 153k of fic, but once I did ... I didn’t even know that I liked political dramas. Apparently I like them if they are well done? Plus: sensitive portrayals of complicated people are definitely a weakness of mine. It’s just really good, and reading it kinda made me a better person? If any of these are your thing: The Don’t Look Back series Is also a time travel fix it fic, but in which Leia winds up in the prequels. The premise sounds odd, but what they did with it is ... *gestures wildly about feelings*

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Want an epic comedy about Reincarnated!Fem!Loki being a failsome but awesome trickster? Do you like your fic by turns hilarious and kinda creepy? A Bright And Bitter Flame is probably a good fic for you. Do not read if laughing makes your ribs hurt. WIP.

I'm 3/4ths done with the first of a pair of fingerless gloves for ot_atma, and may actually get them done before Yule. The hat for rubyredro5e will definitely not be, but the yarn and pattern we've decided on are going to be lovely, and it should be done by January, the small gods willing.

Because of Like Fire In Our Bones and Fundamental Force Carriers I guess I now have a new fandom? I've been mainlining a bunch of time-travel fix-it fics in the Star Wars'verse. I just borrowed Season 1 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars the cartoon series from a friend (Thanks, bestmiaou!) LBR, I just collect all the polyamorous 'ships, and Padme/Anikin/Obi-Wan is a failboat of great awesomeness. Not that either of those two fics ship it, but y'all know how my brain works.

I wrote a 12k fic for NaNo and it will be betaed sometime this month probably. It's Lady!Loki/Darcy and sure to be a crowd pleaser for the winter Holiday season. I'm wondering if I should make it more Hallmark-y? First we'll see if I overplayed the stalker ex-gf angle and fix that if it needs fixing.

I may be about to dump the current crop of icons and make a bunch of new ones.

I am bored of listening to youtube videos and doing crochet, and nothing quite appeals right now like maybe drinking, napping, or eating ice cream I don't have. I am not going outside until the dust has mostly passed, and I will be sending Ghost to the store even so. I was having a sore throat a few days ago, even before the Saharan dust, and I will not be exposing people to me out of an appropriate level of caution.

The cropped cardigan for my friend rubyredro5e has been started and will be done in probably a month.

Fandom-y things I have been thinking about because I am secretly Darcy/Loki trash:
It is not rare for children raised to not identify with their race, or transplanted into a culture that is prejudiced against them, to develop lasting mental health problems or commit suicide. I am still going to finish my Agender!Cap story, but right now I am kinda feeling like writing a Darcy/Lady Loki short story, just a sort of character exploration slice of life thing. I want Darcy (the fandom insert character) to have nice things, to have someone to take care of who appreciates her. And I want Loki to have a space with someone that feels safe to unpack some trauma and grow as a person away from a childhood deeply rooted in abusive narcissistic dysfunction and Odin's A+ Parenting ^TM.

I have mixed blueberries and heavy cream into lemon yogurt, and it is not quite ice cream, but it is a decent substitute. Also, mixing Amarula into masala chai is amazing and you should try it sometime.

Can I just complain that writing is hard every day until I'm done?

I started reading Stephen King's On Writing to maybe get some ideas on process that don't come from years of being in fandom and reading the blogs of people who occasionally mention their writing process, which I like? Vaguely? Remember? And that was enough to write the first installment of my story, and yay, I did the thing.

But now there's more thing in my head, and it's not going anywhere, so I guess I'd better get serious about writing so that I can at least bring it to people in a way that maximizes their enjoyment of the thing I want to write.

So you have this interaction spectrum that starts with people you don't get along with. You slowly move up the scale to people you see more of and have in your life more.

Some people are "sometimes friend"s. You get along best when you see each other a few times a month, but maybe one of you has a lot more energy than the other, or maybe your interaction styles are different enough that you annoy each other if you try to integrate for longer than six hours a week. With me so far?

Some people are "everyday friend"s. You can get along with them for eight+ hours a day every day. Your energy levels, anticipation of each others needs, and interaction styles are largely compatible. You would make decent roommates.

Then you have a different spectrum, an intimacy spectrum, and people from anywhere on the previous spectrum can fall anywhere on here. I love my dad, but we do not get along. We see each other face to face roughly every five years. But he changed my diapers and has held my hair while vomitting. That's pretty intimate. It's non-sexual, but speaks to being comfortable with having an important role in my life.

A lot of what women envy about bromance is that men's relationships with each other have sacrificed touching for other forms of these nonsexual intimacies, and then basically declared those intimacies bro-only. You'll clean up your friend's vomit, but cringe at buying your girlfriend tampons? Welcome to an unfair double standard that allows the intimacy of body acceptance for one set but not the other. Men are allowed to know what "embarrassing" things their friends like, but they have to be "cool" in front of a girl - denies even the opportunity for intimacy. There are a lot of little ways that there are his and hers sets of what is okay for intimacy by gender, and there's only two sets of norms. And it's sad, and I hope it dies a rapid death.