I posted a story yesterday:

These Facts We've Mistaken for Our Lives (@ AO3)
Winter Soldier; Natasha (past Bucky/Natasha); pg; 2,590 words
They say you can't miss something you've never had, but Natasha knows they're wrong.

This is a post-"Widow Hunt" not-really-a-fix-it, in terms of either Natasha's memory or her relationship with Bucky, but it is a fix-it for the way her agency was removed with that conclusion (hence the "giving ladies back their agency" tag), and mostly it's a cri de coeur because I was - am still - so angry about how that was handled. I can deal with my canon OTP being broken up if there are good reasons (and there could have easily been good reasons), but this was just bullshit.

I started the story fairly shortly after the issue came out and then just got stymied with how it should go - mostly the Sam section, which is why that's so short; Sam wasn't part of this particular decision, but he was part of the group who kept Sharon in the dark about what happened to her while she was brainwashed, and I still have some residual anger about that debacle. That's why Sharon is the one who clues Natasha in. When I originally conceived the story, I thought it would be Logan, but almost as soon as I started actually writing, I realized it HAD to be Sharon, because of the similarities in what happened (forever side-eyeing Brubaker over that) to her.

And once I got through the brief Sam section, it all just kind of happened yesterday. I waffled about putting Rikki and Anya in - I even excised that section briefly - but one of the things I love about Natasha is that she does mentor other young lady heroes, and she totally took Rikki under her wing even as she mostly kept her separated from Bucky, and also since I was angry and writing a fuck you to the canon, I decided Rikki wasn't dead, because fuck you, Marvel, she's not dead.

Anyway, that was cathartic.

Then, of course, I had the IMMENSELY FRUSTRATING experience of trying to fix a typo in the tags on AO3 (in the tag Fix-It, funnily enough), because I had it as FIx It, because the canonical tag, which it turns out has a hyphen (Fix-It), did not autofill, in either Firefox or Chrome, so I had no idea there needed to be a hyphen, but every time I edited the tag to fix the typo, it didn't change! And I tried numerous times, in numerous browsers (and not once did the actual canonical tag come up. of course the Winter Soldier (Comics) tag didn't autocomplete either on the first try, so I don't even know what's up with that) and it was quite rage inducing. This morning, the canonical tag did autocomplete, so I was able to change it, but now the tags are out of order, because it wouldn't let me move the "but not really" tag to be after the new "Fix-It" tag.

My life is the hardest.

(And in regard to the rant you probably were expecting, if you don't like tumblr-style tags on AO3, I don't fucking care. Every time someone rants about how awful they are, I am tempted to re-tag all my stories in that style. I TAG HOW I WANT THOR. My understanding is that they they cause no undue load on the tag wranglers or the servers, so why the fuck should I care how other people use the additional tags? They might be a tip-off that the story is not one that I'm going to want to read, but then again, they might not be. You can turn off having them show up, so what's the big deal?

Otoh, I am still irritated that if I use the minus sign to subtract all the Steve/Tony stories out of the Steve/Bucky tag, it subtracts things that are not labeled Steve/Tony. I know this because MY STORIES disappear and trust me, I have never written and am never going to write Steve/Tony. Just because Tony is listed in the character tags of a story doesn't mean that story should disappear when I try to search without the pairing tag. There's got to be a better way.)

Possibly I am really cranky about the whole exercise.

***

Wednesday reading meme:

What I just finished reading

I read A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow, which is the first in the Kate Shugak series. It was okay? I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I probably won't pick up the others in the series unless the library has them as ebooks, though.

I also read Cold Steel, the third book in Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker Trilogy. I like that it jumped right to the action - no more weirdly awkward upfront exposition.

CAT! BEE! RORY! ♥♥♥ I love that Cat and Bee's relationship is so front and center and so important, and that Bee got to shine in her way (and that Rory discovered a hidden talent for nursing. Oh, Rory.).

Plus, it was ALL REVOLUTION, ALL THE TIME. \o/

I'm not a huge fan of the Cat/Vai romance, but I like it well enough, and I liked that Cat basically spends a lot of her time rescuing him. I also like how it handled their disagreements, and that her issues with him were treated as legit not just by her friends but by the narrative (and not just because it was in her POV). Because they were legitimate!

I also really liked the severed head of the cacica, and Cat's relationship with her.

So that was satisfying.

I also read - I don't think I mentioned it but it was a couple of weeks ago - The No Recipe Cookbook: A Guide to Culinary Intelligence by Susan Crowther. I forget where I saw it recommended (some food blog or other, no doubt), but I bought it as a gift for L., who doesn't enjoy cooking but would like to try, though I wouldn't have if I'd known it was a vegetarian cookbook. (L. is decidedly not a vegetarian and would also like to learn how to cook meat.)

It was an interesting read - some of the material was useful to me (mostly the ratios she gives instead of recipes), but most of it was stuff I already know, probably because I've been cooking since I was 10 and in addition to learning from my mother, who is to this day super attached to following recipes exactly as written, I learned from my grandmother and Aunt Jean, who did everything by feel. I'm very okay with substitutions as necessary (and as a finicky eater, I find them necessary pretty often), though I often have to look up the amounts, and unless something is THE KEY INGREDIENT, I have no problem swapping it out for what I have on hand.

What I didn't like was that there were times the author shaded into preachiness in a way that really set my back up. Don't tell me I shouldn't drink caffeinated beverages, lady. That's not what I bought your book for. And you're not my doctor. Ahem.

Anyway, if you are still new to cooking or if you don't enjoy it or are caught up in the mindset of MUST FOLLOW RECIPE EXACTLY, this book might be useful for you. If you're a pretty accomplished home cook, maybe not.

What I'm reading now

A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy. I've never read any of her books, and this one is enjoyable, if slight. It's structured so that it follows each character separately, even though they all intersect during the titular Week in Winter at the Stone House, which is kind of a B&B in the west of Ireland. I mostly am interested in Chicky and Orla's stories, rather than the guests, but I have hope the narrative will come back around to them before it's over.

What I'm reading next

Couldn't tell you. I have a ton of stuff so I'll see what strikes my fancy. I still need to catch up on comics, too.

***