straightforwardly

► Another day, another entry! This time, I want to share the stories that I personally wrote for White Dwarf Rabbit Hole and Press_Start, because… just because, really.

( oh darling )

► So, I said that I’d do a link-dump this post, but now that I’m actually here, I… have no idea how I should start. I need to organize everything somehow, but there’s just so much, and just, agh. I think I just need to dive in.

► Let’s start with recipes! I had a craving for tomato soup the other day, despite it usually not being my thing, and so tried out this recipe for dinner. It...technically tasted good, and my family liked it fine— I might even make it again— but it wasn’t the flavour I was looking for.

Looking up recipes for that did lead me to other soups / autumn-y dishes that I’d like to try out, though! Here’s some of the ones that intrigued me:
( cut for length )

As for things I’ve actually made: I made these pumpkin muffins (though I threw in some banana chips in the mix) and these apple scones (though in the interest of using up our garden’s produce, I turned them into zucchini-apple scones) recently, and both were absolutely delicious.

Oh! And I made this watermelon sangria for the American Independence Day, and it was also very, very good. I loved how straightforward the recipe was, and the lack of added sugar.

► A few other food-related links that aren’t recipes:

• Pantry Staples (okay, I just like looking at things like this)
• 10 Uses for a Food Processor (aka one of my favorite kitchen appliances ever ♥ )
• Apple Recs (well, okay, it’s technically wank about the Best Kinds Of Apples, iirc, but I’m using it as a recs page)
• Canning Tips
• 15 Kitchen Gadgets To Help You Eat Healthier (some are ridiculous, but others actually look pretty promising)
• tips & recipes for making chai lattes

► As for non-food-related links: I first saw this on the Yuletide fandom promotion post (I think), and while the other tweets from this account don’t do much for me, this one made me laugh:

( cut )

► And I think I’m going to leave this here for now— I still have plenty of links to go through, but I’ve made an indent at least, and I’m tired now. I didn’t quite get to talking about Yuletide proper, but oh well. Until next time.

► Today's question/topic for the book meme-thing is Best Sequel Ever.

This... is a hard one. I have a thing about favorites: I don't like choosing them. At all. I'd much rather write a list of my favorites. Which make answering questions like this concisely difficult for me. Plus, what does this mean by "sequel"? Does it simply mean a book-that's-not-the-first in a series, or is it limited to simply being the second book published in a series/trilogy/pair/whatever.

In any case, for simplicity's sake I'm going with the latter definition.

My first thought is Wolf-Speaker by Tamora Pierce. While it's not my favorite book from the Immortals, but: 1) it is my second-favorite, 2) it introduces my favorite character, and, perhaps most importantly, 3) I like it much more than I did the first book.

I don't think I can call it a favorite, but Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor really stands out because I enjoyed it much, much more than I did Daughter of Smoke & Bone.

There's also The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin, although I don't know if I should count it. I remember loving it dearly, but for whatever reason... it doesn't feel very sequel-y to me? I don't know. It could be because I actually read it before I read The Wizard of Earthsea, but the same is true of Wolf-Speaker and Wild Magic and I don't have the same problem with those books, so I really don't know.

I'm probably forgetting plenty, but I have a few answers, so that's enough for now.

► Speaking of Crusader Kings II... I now have a dilemma. My interest in it has been sparked, due to the reasons I talked about in yesterday's entry. The problem is that today's Flash HumbleBundle includes the game the Russian & Norse Unit Packs for $16.

Which is tempting. Except Steam is also having a sale, and apparently, if I were to spend $40, I would be able to get both the game itself and most of the DLC— which apparently includes that fantastic idea of Aztecs invading Europe, have all my hearts. Which makes it the better deal, right?

Except, when looking at the HumbleBundle, I did become vaguely interested in some of the other games that would be included. I've never heard of any of them before, though, so I have no idea if they would actually be any good or not. I mean, I could just buy Crusader Kings II on Steam, and then pay $3ish on HumbleBundle and the not-Crusader Kings II games, but... I don't know. On top of all of this, I really, really should not be spending any money at all right now— I haven't even bought the ORAS remakes yet partially because of that (and partially because I'm still torn on what version I should get, ugh).

Honestly, if I know myself, I'm probably not going to buy anything from the HumbleBundle, and maybe not even the Crusader Kings II despite how much I really, really want to play it, because I really hate spending money. Still, I'm tempted. Very tempted.

► I'm going to finish this entry off with a bit of a link dump. Specifically, I'm going to drop links to some of the articles I've been reading over these past months, so I can get them out of my bookmarks. I'm not going to include the fandom-meta I've been reading, though— I think I'll save that for an upcoming post. That should make this list much shorter, but better organized.

• 'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative (has some really, really pretty art embedded in it and, despite the weird llama metaphor, does make some good points about history)
• 5 Things in Historical Romance I Wantonly Desire to See in Epic Fantasy
• Confessions of an Awkward Teen Girl (...I am really behind in sharing, because this was written back in May. Whoops.)
• The Chilling Familiarity of Gamergate (I usually get a kneejerk reaction which involves hitting the backbutton when people bring up Nazis/the Holocaust, if only because people try to compare everything to it, even when it doesn't fit, but I liked this article despite it bringing up the Holocaust, at least in part because its conclusion is not "GamerGate is the second Holocaust!!1!" [and also because I felt like it took a fairly nuanced approach to the whole thing.])
• Disney Princesses Are My (Imperfect) Feminist Role Models
• Otome Gaming Guide For Beginners (I am definitely not a beginner— I've loved otome for years, for all that not speaking Japanese has made my access to games a bit spotty— but this had some really good information in it.)

AND that's all for today. Now I need to go do some more schoolwork, sigh.

Because I love poetry, and I'm about to go to the dentist, and why not?

( and carry you down into sleep )

Another post where I dump some links to poems I've run across, enjoyed, and bookmarked. Fair warning: Most of the poems near the end of this post are about grief.
( so remembering him )

► Because I'm a softie, and this reminds me of how my mother has informed me that our neighbours haven't been letting their cat go inside overnight despite the increasing cold and lack of shelter: How To Assemble a Cold-Weather Cat Shelter. (Which reminds me, I need to ask her if she ever made him a warm place to sleep like she was planning to.)

► Why didn't I know about this mug existing earlier? One of my favorite lines from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and tea? Definitely a major do want. I only wish I didn't own so many tea mugs, because it makes it difficult to justify buying this. Sigh.

► Speaking of things I want to buy... a DVD set of CrashCourse World History? Um, yes please? And not only is it CrashCourse, which I loved, but the aesthetics of the actual boxset are absolutely lovely!

► I'm generally pretty indifferent to Benedict Cumberbatch— I really don't understand either the love or the hate— but this video of him reciting John Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale" makes my heart go doki-doki. Seriously. I listened to it 24 times in a row when I first ran across this.

► I haven't gotten around to checking this out more fully yet, but Thomas Jefferson's Cut-&-Paste Bible sounds quite intriguing.

► How Legalising Prostitution Has Failed was the opposite of cheerful, but still an interesting read.

I'll stop here, because I need to head for class soon, and figuring out how to tag this is going to take a bit of time.