oh god I hate reccing books because I have trauma about it! lol. but here are some of my faves:

Martha Wells' Raksura novels (the first one is The Cloud Roads) -- Wells is better known these days for the Murderbot books, which are great, but the Raksura ones are probably my favorite of her books. They are not comparable to anything else, they're incredible; if you like the way I worldbuild, you will like Martha Wells. (I also love her Ile-Rien books and her standalones. Her tie-in novels -- she did one for Star Wars, right before the EU got legends-ized, and two for Stargate Atlantis -- are also wonderful adventure romps.

for @kerrykhat

(I chose synthesis)

I chose synthesis because:

I wanted to break the cycle, and that was the cleanest break.

I wanted to preserve as much life as possible, even though it was going to cost my own.

I couldn’t let EDI die.

I made it to the Citadel by making people make friends, and it seemed like a good plan to keep doing that.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

Worf tries really hard.  Look, I have a hard time liking him a lot of the time.  He’s the straight man, he got in the middle of my OTP when I was very young, he’s a total parenting fail, I don’t think he’s evolved enough for Jadzia.   But he’s not a bad person.  He’s doing his best.   He wants to do the right thing.   I think that’s maybe why Starfleet appealed to him.  He knew he needed more than his own rigid interpretation of Klingon honor.  He needed guidance and purpose and to work on learning more.  And that’s more than most people would do, seeking to put himself in a position where he would have to change.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

I don’t think anyone wants to hear me scream again  about how Chakotay is not a dom/top ever and never will be so let’s go with something else.

I’m in the U.S.and I’m almost exclusively a sock knitter, so that skews what I buy a little.  I’m still slowly building my stash back up after not knitting for almost four years after injuring my wrists in 2013, so for a long time I was knitting off the stash I had then before buying anything else.

Right now I’m really into The Farmer’s Daughter Fibers (U.S.)!  I find the aesthetic extremely soothing at the moment, and they’re Native American and female-owned, so I feel good about them, plus they’ve been doing “Small Business Alliance” kits recently which are a bunch of fun -- they’re usually a pattern, yarn, and then coordinating products from other small business. (I just finished knitting up a cowl from one, so that was the cowl pattern, the yarn to go with it, a hand-thrown mug, bean-to-bar chocolate, and tea; and another one just came in the mail which is a shawl pattern, yarn, a candle, and a foot soak.)

I have a ton of gorgeous yarn from Jellybeans Yarn (UK), which does some of the most incredible colorways I’ve ever seen, and it knits up very soft and squishy.  She carries some very neat notions, too  (I will note that I last ordered from them RIGHT at the beginning of everything going into lockdown, and it took a month to come; when I ordered from them last year it got here within a week, but I think everyone knows about the international mail situation at the moment.)

The yarn I’m knitting right now is from Rebel Woolworks (US); I like the yarn but the colorway (Electric Mermaid) isn’t my aesthetic, it just showed up more muted on my monitor.  She has some very nice colorways, though, and I just ordered more yarn from her.