around me black bats dive up from the dark.

now, if you can scoop the cat's litter and take your trash out, you can have a Habitica treat.

it's okay that your dad offered to do those things and you said no. that wasn't 'wasting energy.' you were dysregulated from spending four days in his house. you wanted him to leave.

I do think you can physically deal with this set of chores. if you need to modify the activity, that's fine!

reading Sleeping Giants.

PDFs organized neatly while listening to a podcast.

alpaca game while listening to a podcast.

2025 while listening to a Youtube video.

mix and match

fun podcasts

friends at the table relisten

critical hit

dimension 20 (spiritually a podcast)

a hot dog is a sandwich.

big mood little mood

alice isn't dead

free space: do whatever you want forever.

youtubes

friends at the table playing 2025

mythical kitchen in general

the second half of Noah Kahan's last meals specifically

film history crash course.

you can work on Fast Heart. you can. but you know that. so this post is about your other options, in case you need a reminder

things that might be fun

your Dungeon World solo game

do you want to work on Valiant Strike?

do you want to look at Better Sisters and see what the outline looks like if the documentary crew is in play?

do you want to outline Triggering Interactions?

do you want to find a tabletop system (Beam Saber? Scum and Vilany? Girl By Moonlight?) that lets you approach Naomi and her friends and play in their space

do you want to start the support group story?

free space: do whatever you want forever.

writing-adjacent fun

research for the scheme in Fast Heart

your new spreadsheet but only if it doesn't turn into a mind prison.

reading Sleeping Giants.

tabletop with other people

you have more homework you could do for your Heart game. candles. (redacted). geese.

you want to start a new Fiasco playset

you still want to set up Eldritch and Sensible

brainstorming for your pbta project (this loops back around into the first category and that's fine)

going and not going places

do you want to go to church tomorrow? it's the Tuesday service you liked last time. I think you will be glad if you go.

the soup you and the government both want us to eat

physical therapy. this one's important. it feels horrible but it will help us.

volunteering. this one is easy. it's soup but you like your volunteer supervisor and the work you're doing. and you can do it on your couch for an hour.

volunteering

text N.

look over the document you're editing

good job eating the ravioli today! good job getting food into your body when you were upset.

now. tomorrow.

breakfast

cereal (cinnamon toast crunch/honey nut cheerios/rice krispies/frosted flakes)

toast (cream cheese/peanut butter/nutella

fruit. (mango/grapes/watermelon)

toaster strudel

the burrito (it's in two lists)

lunch/dinner

the apple cider pork (new)

the potato salad

the egg salad (new)

the refrigerator quesadillas

the burrito (still in two lists)

the frozen sausages

the frozen egg rolls

snacks

cookies (new, big, exciting)

nutter butters (familiar)

salt and vinegar chips

the sun chips

ruffles

ice cream

popcorn.

you have peppermints and the big bag of sour candy, too.

can you find the small bag of sour candy? you like those, too. they're a good texture.

things you can get tomorrow if you want

chocolate chips/m&ms

more peppermints if you want

okay. no problem. let's not do that.

but. today dinner was delayed because I was too mad about choices and energy and spoons to pick a dinner option. and we haven't been writing as much as I want to because we know we need a break from Fast Heart right now but choosing a different project is hard.

and choosing a wind-down activity? we haven't even tried to do that today but you can foresee problems on the horizon.

so! let's make some lists!

list of lists of lists

meal-shaped foods

snack-shaped foods

writing projects

fun things.

anyway, he asked me to talk about "I know there's better sisters but you're the only one that's mine" which is the werewolf novel.

it will need a real title at some point but it's currently the beginning of a draft that was broken, an outline, a longer beginning of a better draft that turned out to still be broken, and a whole stack of notecards. so "better sisters" is fine.

the better sisters are Rose and Lily (their mother did that on purpose) and they are werewolves. they get it from their father. their mother got custody when they were little ones. when they were eleven, she sent them to Silverbrook, which is a special school for werewolf children that helps teach them to get along in mainstream society.

(disability? in my werewolf novel? exactly as likely as you think.)

anyway, Rose got caught in the school system punishment loop where you're a bad kid so you're a bad kid so you're a bad kid. you know. schools. Lily managed to avoid the descending spiral staircase by being a Good Kid. good for her?

their dad found out what was happening and sued. he got custody of Rose and tried very hard to get Lily but, you know, she was thriving! at! school!

the novel (excluding flashbacks) takes place when they are adults. Rose is involved in werewolf advocacy and has a loving relationship with her dad and her large extended family of cousins on his side.

meanwhile, Lily is Doing So Well! she got a job at Silverbrook where she is not being tokenized at all. she's the nicest staff member and a lot of the kids love her. sometimes she feels sorry for some of the kids who are clearly on the Bad Kid spiral staircase but that's... they need to learn... (error message. footage not found.) anyway!

Rose sues the school along with the family of a more recent set of twin students and the backing of the advocacy organization for which I once asked Zoe to help me come up with policy priorities werewolves would have. Lily is so disappointed in her sister and Definitely Not audibly ticking. no smoke, no steam, no ominous grinding and creaking noises. she is Doing Great.