GOOD
*Captain Marvel
*my buzzed skater boy haircut

BAD
*having a cold
*razor rash on the back of my head

UGLY
*this head and body ache
*the price of eyeglasses even with insurance

I wish I had the kind of brain that could produce meta, or even a coherent commentary, but I'm wired more for rumination and narrative. I will say that I look forward to watching Captain Marvel many more times when it comes out to own.

• Nick in the beginning slog of a third career, the way he keeps his footing through all these jolts and twists, keeps his eye on the big picture.
• Maria, a test pilot in her military career because she was denied the chance to fly combat, not only flies the cobbled together Terran-Skrull quadjet, she does so 1) in space 2) in combat 3) flying civilians to safety.
• 4) as a mom.
• Does *your* space combat dogfight pass the Bechdel Test?
• Annette Bening x2, you complete me. I have a tendency to fill in older women OCs into my MCU stories, so I'm thrilled to see them actually add that demographic into the canon universe in several movies now. Especially older women as complicated characters in their own rights, and in relation to younger characters that aren't coded as maternal relationships.
• Bening plays with this difference, because the AI manifests a condescending maternal pride in Vers, tough love but smarmy, her "prove yourself to me, little one" sours in their final confrontation into the dismissive "you're only human". The conditional love of a parent you can't ever please. Dr. Lawson is very different with Carol, her professional-scientist coldness warming into respect, and their final scene is about Mar-Vell trusting Carol with the truth, and Carol trusting her so much she embraces death to complete the mission.
• *flails*
• The mid credit scene where Steve makes an interesting suggestion about the pager, but it's when Natasha says 'jump' that Bruce hops to. 
• Carol and Natasha...*daydreams about their shared interests in ballsy leadership and deadpan messing with people*

I think I need a beta to read for plot and story arc to help me wrap up Electronic Thumb, but at this point where would I even find one? The heartbreak of having an esoteric take on a niche pairing.

Post CA:WS/ Post IM3, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark: road trips, Americana, mind control aftermath and recovery, magical realism, bed sharing, Extremis is the Third Heat, canon pairings.

I think I need a more objective read on the character through lines, if I've dropped threads, if I've wandered off. I dunno. It's got about three more chapters to go and I've been chipping away at it for so long and I want it to be a whole satisfying piece when I'm done. 

misbegotten was kind enough to ask about three of my icons for the meme going around:



This is Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers from The Big Sleep, which is an intriguing but not very coherent movie compared to Philip Marlowe's book, which is a much tighter story if you can get through the period-typical homophobia and Comstock Laws (and not just think, fuuuuuck, we have no clue how much crime and suffering we're preventing by not being such assholes about sexuality these days). Anyhoo, it's my icon for the puzzlement, substance use, or the challenges of interpreting between different media.



I suspect the restaurant's owners who put this up one week instead of Chick Noodle or Clam Chowder were very involved in scouting, but I feel that we can all use more flamboyance in our lives. So the soup du jour is CAMP.



Oh, John Crichton, hunted into a corner and lashing out like a rabid badger. I think he was so used to being at the mercy of forces larger that he was that he never appreciated the hubris of the people who thought they could control wormhole weaponry. It really did take a concrete demonstration of "This is what you asked for, and if I don't stop it soon, we are ALL DEAD, because THAT'S WHAT THIS DOES." Cake or Death? Why the fuck do you people keep choosing Death?

What annoys me about staying home sick, aside from the symptom list, is that being too sick to work is also too sick to do anything even remotely amusing. Also, we've lost the thermometer at some point, so while I know I'm feverish, I have no solid data on *how* feverish. But while I used to work through everything up to and including pneumonia, I tackle this stuff proactively now so I don't infect the people I work with. Amazing what  miracles can happen when you 1. have time off 2. are encouraged to use it.

I still feel a little like a slacker calling in, but after a few years at this place I know that it's my own damage talking. I can say that it's both mentally and physically one of the healthiest places I've ever worked, exactly because of this attitude of "stay home, get better, you're not doing us any favors coming in" that's backed by leadership modeling that same behavior. So you don't look dedicated dragging yourself through your tasks looking like crap, you look inconsiderate and your boss looks like they can't manage since they can't arrange coverage. And lo, we don't experience the same vector effect where you can trace a virus through the organization--we get clusters, two or three in a row, but rarely.

Normally when my head hurts like this I apply ice, but even the thought makes me shiver more. Ugh.

We usually ring in the new year sleeping, so here's to the door not hitting 2018 in the ass on the way out.

I want to continue the good stuff I worked hard to build into last year; exercise, consistency, writing screeds to my reps and stories for myself.

I want to draw more. I need to figure out how to make that happen where it's low stakes and not just me with a pencil in hand staring down a sketchbook and wallowing in how I suck.

Maybe this is the year I get a tattoo.

Here's to a good year, everyone.

 Saddling back up and doing gym stuff after four weeks away. Which is a lot less than my usual mid winter break. It also helps to know, "hey the reason you've still been so winded despite training is that you have no iron reserves, and haven't for so long even your red blood cells are shrimpy and small."

So we're now working on getting more rust into my system, and a big stimulus to make more blood is being winded. So imma go do that, and hate it, and maybe at some point feel better.

 lunabee34 asked: "What fandoms are you reading fanfic in right now?"

I've been reading mainly MCU for the last few years, but I'll follow a link, and I'll give authors I like a chance when they post in a new fandom. When I'm actively writing, I tend to be pickier and more easily distracted, and I've been writing a ton since AoU offended me to my fucking core. I have some stories I've subscribed to that I really want to finish, so I can read them. I chronically plunder Thassalia's AO3 bookmarks, and when I read in a fandom I tend to go by authors and their bookmarks to find my way to the good shit.

Currently, I've been tearing through the Ankh-Morpork stories of Discworld--I'd saved a few, squirreled away for a rainy day.

nanslice asked a few questions: "What do you hate most about fandom at large and what do you love most?"

I hate that we're shaped by the platforms we use, instead of the other way around. I love that I grew up with the fandom attitude that storytelling, art, tech, community, these are all things that we inherently own and can build for ourselves.

"What are some of your favorite fic tropes and why?"

I really love deep character work, no matter the story mechanics of how it's achieved. When one person looks at another and the penny drops, and they have this sudden lens-changing understanding of that person--that's hard to do as a writer, you have to not only do the work but also have a mutual trust with your subconscious. I loooove that shit.

"What do you miss most about your earlier time in fandom? (examples: geocities, yahoo!groups, fansites)."

I miss community. The Scullyfic email list did an annual spring retreat which was this awesome pajama party in a cabin, with mini golf and nature walks and snacks and we did swaps, little stupid delightful gifts for each other. I miss talking Farscape and not-Farscape in the bar of the Burbank Hilton. I miss getting to know people, and meeting them, and sharing the love of these stories and characters and integrating that into the rest of life, into friendships that had deeper soil to grow in.

st_aurafina asked: "Favorite recipe? Or, idk, food? (wine? bee, maybe? There's lots of kinds of bees as it turns out...)"

I love tea, I really do. Black tea, with milk. I've been drinking puer types lately, because I adore the deep forest floor funk of them, and I like that I can just keep adding hot water and re-steeping. Wine-wise, I can't drink reds generally but I still love port.

The big downside of moving (back) to a platform with more interaction is that, two days from the winter solstice, my brain is a chilly pudding that just sits there, burping up half-digested thoughts and vaguely aching.

So! I'm open for topics, questions, rant requests, anything at all! Hit me! Give me something to gnaw on for a post, fuck, please.

 Winter has my brain in a headlock, but not an alligator death roll, so things could be worse. A couple times last week I dredged up the focus to write a little. Then this morning I resolved a plot problem out of the blue, so that's a fucking relief.

Been reading a lot. Twelve days until the solstice, just a handful of daylight minutes left to lose, so thing will start picking up after that.

I haven't been to the gym for a couple weeks, but the year of regular exercise has been paying off, taking the edge off. It's a lot easier to initiate activity when I'm baseline stronger and fitter. I haven't been ravenous for starches. I haven't had any viruses or coughs yet, which is a change of pace from the usual winter. I can still enjoy things, which is often rare when the body would rather be hibernating.

The Box Set (6904 words) by Thassalia, feldman
Chapters: 1/8
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanoff
Characters: Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor, Clint Barton, Maria Hill, Helen Cho
Additional Tags: Baked Goods, male submission, Amphibians, scientific ethics, bespoke tailoring, Marking, kink as communication, background threesome, Fuckbuddies
Summary:

Pain for pleasure’s sake, stripteasing down to the soul--maybe for these two, the real kink is trust, the real danger is catching feelings. A story of cookies and monsters and love in real life.

( collage on cover contains NSFW imagery )