wild for to hold

I finally got a call from the hospital and my outpatient psych program starts on May 15! *puts on party hat* I'm really excited and a little bit anxious. But I'm sure it's going to be really good for my mental health. I'm excited to see what kinds of ERP they're going to have me do, if any at all. I'm also looking forward to group therapy again, it's been a while since I've had that & I've always found it really helpful.

The semester has started again & Swedish class is being super fun! This week we read Förrättningen (The Official Act)* by Håkan Nesser, a short story about a son who is about to meet his imprisoned father for the first time. It was so amazing that I'm on the hunt for more things by Nesser to read. Last week I had some pretty intense social anxiety about attending class, but this week felt much better in that regard.

* This title is an absolute bitch to translate. Google Translate offered me "The Function," which, yeah, okay, but also no? Lol. The Official Act is the best I can do. xD

My MCU feels are still going strong. I have started another Wintershock (Bucky/Darcy) fanfic where they go undercover as a couple at a beach resort. I've always, always wanted to write fake relationship stuff & this is a wonderful opportunity! There will be pining and not-really-unrequited feelings and lots of UST. I'm very excited for it & compiling a soundtrack on Spotify! Roll Over Beethoven by Chuck Berry is on it because at some point there will be dancing.

I have been rereading some of my old favorite Steve/Tony and Steve/Bucky fanfics. Steve/Bucky is my MCU movieverse ship, and Steve/Tony is comicverse canon for me; I tried to ship them in the movies but there's just too much animosity for me, I think. (I do like enemies to lovers, but only if it's done in a really specific way that's hard to put into words.) I remember ye olden days of LJ when I hung out at ship_manifesto & cried actual tears over the amazingly well-written comicverse!Steve/Tony post there. Those were the days!

Oddly enough, I have never really felt the urge to write Steve/Tony fic myself. Maybe because I haven't read the comics. Steve/Bucky, on the other hand, I really want to try some time. I have some questionable post-CATWS ideas that mostly ignore CACW.

Omg my roommate is eating ice cream out of a bowl on their lap and just
Me: For a second it looked like you were pulling a spoon out of your crotch. From this angle I can't see the bowl.
Roommate: Prison wallet.

✈ My roommate and I just watched Castlevania S4 and we're both emotionally destroyed now. It was SO GOOD. No spoilers, also because I can't even put any thoughts into words yet, but oh my God. Oh, God. FFFFFUUUU-- I'm so happy. The ending was perfect imo. <3

✈ Got my first shot of the covid vaccine last Friday! I was super nervous before the appointment itself, and double-triple-checked if I had all my paperwork in order, but everyone at the center was really nice and patient with me. Aside from a sore arm, I felt no ill effects at all, though I've heard the second shot hits you harder. My second appointment is in June. I will be SO freaking relieved once that's in the bag.

✈ My crafting has slowed down a bit. I'm joining lots of granny squares for my blanket & discovered I don't have enough yellow yarn to finish the stripes... so I may have to buy some after all, although I inteded for the blanket to be a stash-busting project.

I recently had to frog a big section of my Rosewood scarf because I'd dropped a stitch--half a stitch?--a couple rows down. I tried to ladder it back up, but just made it much worse until I decided to unravel to just below the dropped stitch. Then I discovered that picking Fisherman's Rib stitches back up is a pain in the ass, and essentially had to knit & twist every single stitch individually because I couldn't figure out how to do it all in one go. But the scarf is back on track now. \o/

✈ Fandom-wise, I'm back in MCU hell, currently reading a lot of Steve/Tony fic, trying to comment more, and somehow... collecting Darcy/Bucky and Steve/Bucky plot bunnies like I'm running a shelter. I've started writing some of both, and it's at the same time daunting and fun; I've never written MCU fic before, but I really want to try, so I hope that something publishable will come out of this. My main WIP, if it can be called that, is a post-CATWS Darcy/Bucky fic where the Winter Soldier pretends to remember his past life & Darcy finds out about his deception. Also, HYDRA chases him relentlessly while brandishing the trigger words. At one point it'll involve one of my favorite tropes of all time: a roadtrip where Darcy and the Soldier run from HYDRA together. There shall be seedy motels, only one bed, long hours on the road, near-misses with their pursuers, and lots of pining. \o/?

The Steve/Bucky I'm writing is pure, potentially embarrassing self-indulgence: they roleplay an encounter in which Steve 'saves' the Soldier and helps him remember his past. Look, I just write what my downstairs brain wants to read. I don't make the rules here. (That's a lie, I'm actually quite embarrassed for no good reason. But I really want to teach myself to feel less shame about the fluffy h/c fics I want to write. It's not even ~problematique~ content, ffs, I don't understand what I'm so scared of being judged for.

✈ I picked up Hollow Knight again, but I started a new playthrough because I'm frustratingly stuck on the Traitor Lord in my original one. :'D My main goal with round 2 was to get the Dream Nail asap, which worked out surprisingly well, and I had the pleasure of dream-nailing Hornet during our first fight. I also beat her on the first try??! The learning curve is amazing, considering how long I was stuck on her the first time.

✈ Resident Evil 8 is FANTASTIC. I'm watching jacksepticeye play it & so far I love almost every single thing about it; it's the first RE game I've felt the urge to play myself. The environments are stunningly beautiful & I want to take many screenshots & repaint them with gouache. <3 I love Ethan & Mia--I squee'd quite loudly when they revealed 8 would be a sequel to 7 just because I liked them so much. So far, the character that gave me the most feels was Moreau. ;_; I wanted to adopt him and shower him with love, okay. Mother Miranda can suck an egg.

✈ I've somewhat gotten into the habit of taking walks. I stopped running some time last year, and I haven't been able to kick myself back in gear so far, but I thought taking walks is better than nothing! I've downloaded a step-counting app on my phone & it's surprisingly motivational.

✈ Song rec! Baby Don't You Lie To Me by The Fratellis. ♥ I'm currently rediscovering The Fratellis; their music accompanied me through uni, but I hadn't really checked out their newer stuff, which I'm doing now. Most of it is SO GOOD. The urge to learn how to play the guitar is largely foreign to me, but I feel it when I listen to their music. :D