- Ashe Mischief wrote about improbablecog jewelry, and you should check it out, because the jewelry is effing amazing!
- Soo, Avatar: the Legend of Korra got announced, and I am SO EXCITED about it. Not even going to lie.
- This is what progress looks like.
- How other bloggers network, promote, and get their blogs out there – Corrine has been doing some great posts lately & this is one of them.
- The case against “I’m so fat”
- Blaze through nonfiction books like butter! (I’m often guilty of exactly the same things Pace talks about, no lie. Also, that exclamation point wasn’t originally in the title, but I felt like it needed to be there.)
- On glamorising vintage life
- Consent conschment: dudebros need entertainment! – ugh ugh UGH that ruling made me so angry!
- The fox who designed video games.
- The best argument against the evidence of democracy in fashion is a conversation with a fat woman & more great things from Natalie; Lane Bryant apparently felt it necessary to slam Natalie’s wares on Twitter but apologized after an uprising of #teamfance. DAMN STRAIGHT.
- Go Mephisto sent me a link to see if their shop was something I thought my readers might be interested – it’s worth a look, if you’ve got a large shoe budget & a penchant for comfortable shoes!
This is a video of Laurie Halse Anderson, reading a poem comprised entirely of letters she received after Speak was published. (Transcript here, trigger warning for transcript & video regarding rape.) It is beautiful and moving but uh, I wouldn’t watch it or read it if you don’t want to get the sniffles.
- The Dangers of Standing Out
- ‘Cause I’m Nerdcore Like That: Towards a Subversive Geek Identity – SO MUCH YES! Subversive geeks FTW.
- 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life, via Natalie
- I was recently told about Dirpy, which is pretty much the best idea ever. It takes music videos from YouTube and turns them into mp3 files. You’re welcome.
- Crystal Renn on her skinny photos: “I don’t look like that!” I especially love:
CRYSTAL RENN: My message is that we should allow everyone, including models, to be the way they are: size 2, size 12, size 24. It shouldn’t be, “Oh, my God, she gained 5 pounds. Oh, she lost 5 pounds.” The big picture is let’s bring all body types in.
GLAMOUR: What would that look like in fashion?
CRYSTAL RENN: Right now, you might see a runway show with all these girls who are size 2s, and then one who’s a size 16—that means you really notice size. Well, imagine you see a runway show where you see all different types: petite, tall, black, white, Asian, everybody’s in there. You’re just going to see beautiful women. There’d be no more weight debate. It’s done. That’s my vision for this industry. I guess you could say it’s quite grandiose, but I don’t care. I have to believe that what I say matters.
Okay, that’s the links for this week! and for an update on the state of me & the blog, read on:
I’ve got a lot of the stuff on my plate knocked out and most days my stress levels are pretty low. Matt passed his CO test (YAY!) and thinks he did well at the interview; unfortunately it can take up to 45 days to run a background check, so it might be a while before we know for sure whether he got the job or not. We’re crossing our fingers & any support would be wonderful/amazing/super appreciated 
If I can just get back into the groove of writing regularly again, I think the hiatus is effectively over. I’ve got a few different posts on several different topics about half done, and a few things I want to crosspost from Tumblr as well. I might not quite be up to the 3-4x a week posting schedule just yet, but 2-3x a week is definitely do-able right now. I still haven’t got the first chapter of the Valkyries finished; I have made quite some progress with the website though! I’m so excited to finally get it up and running. My goal is to get well ahead (like 3 months or maybe even more) on the Valkyries so that I can start on my other webcomic idea – it’ll make me pretty busy, but I really don’t want to wait until I’ve finished the Valkyries before I start anything else, because who knows how long that’ll be.
Oh, and happy Lammas/Lughnasdh/Freyfaxi!
