donutsweeper

a plethora of things

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:58:06 GMT

In news the first - Archive of Our Own is officially out of open beta! It looks so wrong to not see the little 'beta' there after site header in superscript on the top left corner. (I do wonder if the timing was done on purpose, considering April's Fools "omega" joke where they changed it to say omega instead of beta there so when they removed the omega they just didn't have to replace it with anything.) Reading the article, I also realize I was mistaken, I'd always thought I'd gotten my account the day it went to open beta but it turns out it was the day after.

Kind of hilarious they put out a badge for it:

In news the second - all of Farscape is legally on youtube!! (here's the playlist)

In news the third - useful links update has been completed!! All links checked and either work or mention that they do not and a backup is provided if possible (I leave up links to sites that appear to just be having hiccups rather than being closed down to check randomly later on and will remove if it turns out they're down for good, but since I've had ones that were down when I started checking but up by the time I finished I try not to delete them unless I'm sure it's gone and anyway, it's only a dozen overall.) I am always amazed at how many links *do* die between checks, even in the 6 months since I did it last this time, and how alternate/backup links had to be chased down or resources removed. As always, if anyone finds a freshly dead link (or has a great resource for me to include) please let me know!

Between the twelve posts there are just shy of 2.5k links. Slightly over 250 of those are wayback machine links. Thank you internet archive, you are a wonder.

And in news the fourth - have two weeks of recthething recs (MDZS fic and and tumblr art in a bunch of different fandoms):

all the lies on your resume by someitems (58k)
Summary Snippet: After Wen Ning is cursed at his workplace under mysterious circumstances, Wei Wuxian goes undercover as his replacement to help find out what’s really going on. He unearths a web of nepotism, lies, malicious cultivation and evil schemes. But his biggest discovery of all may be that his feelings for former college crush (and current coworker) Lan Wangji refuse to stay buried in the past. (interesting modern-with-cultivation AU where WWX is a curse investigator and ends up being reunited with LWJ)

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
- He’s just too cool to not draw him, okay?… (Roy and Riza with neat fire affect)

MDZS/Untamed
- Visitor (gentle and touching art of a-yuan and LWJ when LWJ was recovering after the whipping)

Merlin
- Something eternal (gorgeous)
- Merlin and Gwen (love the depth B&W adds to this)
- Emrys: The Greatest Sorcerer; The Biggest Liar (love the dual look of this)
- Fuck You Kilgharrah! (Merlin's only yelling what most of us were thinking at various points during this show, 2 part comic)

and, while not exactly a fandom, fannish at least:
Happy 15th birthday to Nyan Cat! (the original animation and a cake for it, drawn by its original artist)

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Weather and whatnot

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:11:44 GMT

Weather here's been interesting- a storm started Saturday afternoon and pretty much continued until late Sunday/early Monday and the temp plummeted. We'd had a few weeks of 30s and 40s and basically all the snow melted and stuff started to green up and then BAM 12-15" of the stuff followed by Monday being in the negatives. It was so fun shoveling then :( we've had another dusting since but then temps started climbing and it's supposed to be in the 70s on Saturday. Mother Nature is definitely having some fun with my area.

Tumblr has also been all over the place. It pushed through an update on the 16th that was *very* unpopular (radically altering how notifs of reblogs/adding comments work) and they first tried a 'we understand you have strong feeling about this but it is what it is' response about 9 hours later (their reply to their original post) but then early on the 17th they completely walked it back although it sounds like they're still thinking of implementing something?) But as a result it got me to take a dive into the stupidly high number tumblr posts I'd favorited with the intent to read/watch/research later when I had more time. Behold:

The 'Make 45 groups of 45!' sorting game, a great game for anyone who likes lists or sorting or desires to lose numerous hours of their day(s) in a fugue logic puzzle clicking state.

For those of you who use Firefox it recently rolled out an AI kill switch and here's an article about it and how to turn it off (basically, go to settings and look for AI controls in the sidebar, it should already be toggled to off but it's good to check)

Are normal looking links too boring for you? Try Creepy Link, the URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible.

A bunch of the posts were also things I wanted to check out to add to my resource posts so between what was there and links I was already behind in adding I'm going to probably be adding about 100 new links. Since it's so many, even though it's a little early I am also attempting a full click through for all the links to check to make sure they're still good. As requested, I'll also be adding a 'last updated' date to each post as I get to them.

And, as always, last but not least, 2 weeks of recthething recs (tumblr art for Addams Family, Leverage, MDZS/Untamed, Merlin, Murderbot, and ST:TOS and a fic for MDZS/Untamed):

The Addams Family
- Addamses (absolutely gorgeous Gomez and Morticia)

Leverage
- the rundown job aka the episode that just kept on giving (gorgeous Parker, Hardison and Eliot)

MDZS/The Untamed
- same grumpy face, no matter how old he gets (baby and teen jin ling, so well done)

Merlin
- Merthur and a unicorn (love this)
- Arthur (gorgeous blue-tones digital art)
- once and future (love the framing of this with them on either side of excalibur and just their looks in general)

Murderbot
- A mini papercraft commission of Murderbot (I love these papercrafts and this Murderbot is great)

ST:TOS
- Best tos episode (Uhura and tribbles, hilarious!)

MDZS/Untamed fic:
Madam Gentian and the Fugitive by azure_enechelon (185k)
Summary: Wei Wuxian befriends a mysterious woman in a hidden corner of the Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji has a mother to confide in. Madam Lan does her best to make up for a lot of bad parenting. It isn't going to change everything, but maybe it can change just enough. (Recently completed very long, but wonderfully detailed and interesting AU)

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Exchanges and Crafting and Recs and Whatnot, Take Two

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 01:48:42 GMT

Another exchange, Battleship, announced it won't be running this year :( It's totally understandable since even before it had so many signups it was so intensive to run but with the #s it had and all the chaos from last year it makes sense they'd want a break but I'm still sad it's skipping this year, I really only do three exchanges a year (h/c ex, battleship and yuletide) with two not running it's such a change for me and leaving me frustrated and wrong footed.

Being totally out of touch with current popular fandoms and fannish trends doesn't really help either. I have tried more popular/commonly found in exchanges canons but either they are very much not my thing or something that I enjoyed enough but have no interest in delving into fanfic/fandom-wise (like Heated Rivalry, I enjoyed the show but was perfectly content with the story it told, I don't have the desire to fill any of the plot holes or explore any other aspects of the sandbox it exists in or AUs of it, etc). And I haven't had a fandom I truly wanted to dive into on my own in a while either, there's been a few where a story idea here or there called to me, but once I wrote it I was good and if there were requests I might treat them but if not I probably won't be engaging with it much outside of reblogging a gifset here or there if I happen to find one.

Oh well.

Crafting babble under the cut (nalbinding babble and a recently completed rug)

I did stick with the nalbinding long enough to figure out a lot of the stitches. It is an interesting craft but I mostly wanted to learn it for making socks and while I liked the coptic stitch (which was how Romans and Egyptians made their socks) I could *not* get the increases to lie flat (apparently this is common according to the vids I watched) and while I could get the york stitch ones to do so, in general working it (and all nalbinding actually) just took so much attention I couldn't really do anything else while crafting and there also was quite a bit of eyestrain. Glad I gave it a serious try, might pick it back up some day, but for the moment it's a done and dusted thing for me.

After that I decided to try to replace the rug we'd had under the rocking chair that the moths got to. It was an old wool round one we'd inherited and while I've gotten pretty good at knotting rugs these past few years I tended to focus on oval ones since my first two attempts at round ones hadn't been great. But, I had a lot of premade strips that actually matched to use up (3 men's button down dress shirts (white, grey, and royal blue) and a bunch of random white strips left from two different sheets I'd previously made into rugs) which I quickly realized wasn't going to be enough so cut up two crappy pillowcases in the to-be-rugged drawer (green and a blue/grey) but then *that* wasn't enough so grabbed 3 more pillowcases (scratchy dark blue ones) and some more random stained white fabric and stripped all of that. (Strip prep actually takes a while, tshirts and sheet fabrics are different enough the method/result isn't all that similar, for sheets it involves cutting measured notches along one edge and then tearing down to the other end and then I roll the strips into discs to make sure they ripped evenly and also collect all the wispy flyaway schmutsy scraps so the strips will be cleaner to work with later - usually I gather it into a little bags and then use that for fillings when making amigurumi later). So it took a lot longer than planned but still, viola! Rug! 39"/100cm ish circle!

Very happy finally figured out how to make a circle rug; I don't think it'll be something I make often due to lack of place to put it and also the amount of space needed to make it but still. Yay, rug!

Here's a few weeks of recthething recs, all MDZS/Untamed fic recs:

A-Yuan Talks to the Police and Finds His Baba a Friend by fieldofvision (2.5k)
Summary Snippet: Police officer Lan Zhan helps A-Yuan find his Baba at the farmers market, and A-Yuan finds his Baba a friend (cute little ficlet)

Honey, ginger, and the warm flavor of care by by Anaxyat (2.3k)
Summary: Jiang Yanli used to be the first person Wei Wuxian would call whenever something was wrong. After her, it would be Wen Qing. However, she had not received a single call in the past few days that could explain what was now unfolding before her eyes. (cute JYL modern no-powers AU sickfic)

Frame the Halves, and Call Them Brothers by Bodldops (41k)
Summary: Lan Xichen meets the Jiang's new (and terribly young) head disciple. A relationship blooms from there, and though he doesn't mean anything by it in particular, it is the small stone that starts an avalanche involving three of the great sects. (wonderful WWX&LXC friendship no-war AU)

I'd known about The Bibliotheca Fictiva (the world’s largest collection of literary forgeries, maintained now by John Hopkins) for a while now thanks to an NPR article from 2014 but it was very interesting to see this more recent article discussing it and looking at it via an AI and updated lens. Very interesting.

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Language Quirk/Definition Poll Time!

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:23:26 GMT

I am curious what people think about this (and will explain why I am asking this under the cut but please answer the poll before looking)

View Poll: Primary

Okay, so recently I was doing a survey and it asked "Who was the primary drummer for The Beatles?" and while I am not a Beatles fan, via osmosis I knew that there were four of them (George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Ringo Starr) and that Ringo was the drummer but then scrolled down only to find it offered the following three choices: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Pete Best.

I had never heard of Pete Best but knew the other options were incorrect so clicked him and was told I got the answer correct. After googling I learned Pete Best was the first 'official' drummer for The Beatles ('official' in the sense that it seems like they'd played with random drummers here and there but he was the first to actually join the band and *was* a Beatle from 1960-mid 1962 when they fired him and hired Ringo just before recording the record that catapulted them to fame and remained with them until the band broke up).

All the dictionaries I looked at gave multiple definitions for "primary." Amongst the definitions were always something to the effect of 'first in order of events/sequence' as well as 'most important or well known' although where those two were placed in the list of definitions wasn't always the same.

So, technically, Pete Best was the primary drummer for The Beatles using the 'first in order' definition but probably not if using the 'most important' since I think most people would consider Ringo Starr the better known Beatles drummer.

So that leads to poll #2:

View Poll: Primary, take two

and then poll #3

View Poll: Primary, take 3

I was honestly a bit thrown by their use of 'primary' in the poll. While, of course, it *can* mean first in a question like that I interpreted that they were asking for most well known instead and was curious about what others thought of this.

Anyway, thoughts?

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Exchanges and Crafting and Recs and Whatnot

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:45:18 GMT

In exchanges news, Candy Hearts exchange had reveals- I wrote an angsty triple drabble for S.C.I.谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (TV):
- To Banishing Memories Summary: It wasn't a bedside vigil, it was more that Bai Yutang just couldn't make himself leave.

hurtcomfortex also announced it would not be running this year :( but will be back in 2027 :)

Since the beginning of the year I got it in my head to teach myself nalbinding (an incredibly ancient technique, while now thought of mostly as a Viking era thing it actually predates the Vikings by thousands of years, with textile fragments made using the technique found at the Nahal Hemar Cave (modern Israel) dating back to 6500BCE and from 4200BCE in Tybrind Vig (modern Denmark) but there's lots of evidence from many places more "recently" like socks from 4th C CE Egypt and hats and shawls from Peru from 300BCE to 300 CE) and post-Birthday Bash really threw myself into figuring it out. There are SO many different stitches and techniques and very little standardization and there's very, very little out there about it (i.e. NO patterns basically whatsoever). After watching approximately eleventy billion videos and trying to muddle my way though some articles and books I have sort of figured out a few different styles/stitches but who knows if I'll manage to actually make anything. It's been fun (and frustrating but whatever) to attempt though!

And, as always, recthething recs (tumblr art for Bridgerton, Doctor Who, Merlin and Under the Skin):

Bridgerton
- Sophie at the ball (gorgeous)

Doctor Who
- Sillies (cute doodle of Ten and Thirteen interacting)

Merlin
- Happy Valentine's Day!! (adorable modern!au doodle)
- I once read a fanfic with a modern AU where Arthur is a restorer. Now I think about it all the time (I haven't read that fic - it's in Russian and incomplete - but I really like this art for it)

Under the Skin (TV)
- Cuddle (adorable Du Cheng hugging Shen Yi and settling in Shen Yi's lap)
- uno reverse of the cuddle (so gentle and sweet of the two in reversed positions)

If, like me, languages interest you, I thought these two Old English/Middle English/Modern English story telling techniques were a fascinating way to show the way English has changed through time. How far back in time can you understand English? (posted story) and From Old English to Modern American English in One Monologue (video).

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Birthday Bashes Bashed and Rugs and Recs

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 22:34:00 GMT

EAD's delayed Birthday Bash just had reveals and (as I am sure you will all be shocked to read) I crocheted a lot for it. A LOT a lot. Like 12 things in total, 11 of which were decent sized amigurumi. Between the one I accidentally posted to my main and all the works I posted to my BBsock I now make up 13% of AO3's crochet tag :) I'm sure that will change soon, I'd dropped to just over 11% before all these revealed, but it's a neat stat for now. My favorite of the works was this cute little froggie "knitting"

who is actually not knitting because I tried but couldn't get the knitting to work on toothpicks so instead it's Tunisian crochet threaded onto the toothpicks.

Besides the frog, I made: a hat for it (as per the prompt), a bumblebee, a small doggie "with zero thoughts behind its eyes", a dachshund, two different small dragons, a groundhog, a mola mola sunfish, a fat kitty, a potion bottle, and a Moopsy from Star Trek: Lower Decks. Like I said, far too much to crochet in four or five days or whatever it was. Like usual, I did a group photo of them all:

We went from some of the coldest weather in years here (-40ish or below with windchill) to some serious warmth (relatively speaking) where it's been not only above freezing the last few days but saturday might hit 50f/10c! Which is insanely warm for mid-February.

Just before Birthday Bash took off I finished a bag rug (50 refrigerator bagel bags, halved, for the main and 36 hamburger bags, thirded, as the runner. It's a decent sized one, 27"x18.5" or so:

Last but not least, have some recthething art recs (Bridgerton, DCU, Heated Rivalry, MDZS/The Untamed, Merlin from tumblr and on AO3 from BirthdayBash MCU/Groundhog's Day (the holiday, not the film) and Original Work):

Bridgerton
- happy benophie eve! (this is lovely)

DCU
- Hey Old Man, lose two sleepy superheroes? (Adorable Nightwing, Damian and Jon)

Heated Rivalry
- what do you guys think ilya and shane’s dad talked about while shane and yuna were outside (hilarious comic)

MDZS/The Untamed
- you can pry thicc LWJ from my cold dead hands (yes excellent)

Merlin
- healer Merlin tending to Arthur’s bruises/wounds (excellently done)

--AO3--

MCU/Groundhog's Day (the holiday, not the film):
- Winter is staying? by Odalyn. Summary: A bunch of interviews about the future of winter. Come meet this year's predictions from the paws of our beloved weather casters. (8 different traditional (and non-traditional) Groundhog's Day groundhogs and other creatures and their predictions, absolutely adorable comic)

Original Work:
- More than 8 Ducks by Odalyn. Summary: Duck! (adorable animation of 12 little duckies)
- A Beautiful Hen by Meatball42. Summary: A beautiful hen in a flower crown. (very pretty chicken)
- Ocean Sunfish by RynRose4. Summary: A sketch of an Ocean Sunfish who is up to no good. (excellent mola mola)
- [ART] Parade by ChezPillow (PillowLord). Summary: Animals parade. (3 cute little animals in a parade)

Hope everyone's doing well!

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recs and rugs

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 01:32:40 GMT

Quick post because I wanted to get these recs posted while it's still Threshold day. In the past two weeks I finished two rugs (pictured below) and am about half of the way through a third. Rugs:

21.5"x14.75"ish rug made from sheets

23"x13"ish rug made from three t-shirts (one white, two tie-dye)

Assorted tumblr recs (Batman/DC, Doctor Who, Heated Rivalry, MDZS/Untamed, Merlin, The Mummy, and ST:Voyager)

Batman/DC comics:
- Red Hood (amazing digital art of Jason)

Doctor Who:
- Nine (love his expression, perfectly him)

Heated Rivalry
- ilya destroying that plate of spaghetti right before this sweet moment is so fucking funny (adorable comic version of the e6 spaghetti scene)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Personal time with their little radish/little bunny (adorable WWX & A-Yuan and then LWJ & A-Yuan)

Merlin
- I have absolutely no time to draw, but I have the silly little ones in the silly little costumes (adorable Merlin and Arthur doodle)
- Not your type? I'm everyone's type! (hilarious Methur comic)
- The power couple they would have been… (gorgeous)

The Mummy
- I am a librarian! (gorgeous)

Star Trek Voyager: (assortment of arts celebrating today which is the 30th anniversary of Threshold Day)
- you know how it goes (doodle of cute threshold baby wearing a party hat)
- Happy Threshold Day! Animal Crossing Threshold Baby design. (wearing a cute little starfleet outfit)
- Happy 30th Birthday to the Threshold babies! (neat take on a character card)
- This is a new blend. I’m calling it Paris Delight. It’s in honour of you. (Janeway and a threshold baby, drinking coffee - adorable)
- Janeway is off doing Captain things and Tom is left to babysit the kiddos :3 (adorable #1 dad 'photo')
- Good morning and happy birthday babies🥰🥰 this years threshold craft is embroidery! (love the embroidery, the lizard babies and the quote chosen)

Oh, and nearly forgot to mention, but I managed to rec something every week again last year, that means over 4.5 years of weekly recs! No idea how long I'll be able to continue that but still, quite the achievement!

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insert pithy quote here

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 21:12:00 GMT

Ok, I am not going to lock this post. I will put it behind a cut though since I totally understand not wanting to read about any of this. ( Post about ICE in MN )

Stay safe out there, both to those affected by the current weather craziness and the general *waves hand at the world today* craziness.

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2026 sure has been something so far

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:55:06 GMT

So... ummmm... this January has been something, huh? Although I don't go out of my way to talk about where I live I don't try to hide it either so let me just say that while things are chaotic in my general area, it's not in my (very) specific immediate area and me and mine are fine. Generally speaking, there's the potential for things here to get as bad, if not worse, as when there were the riots a few years ago but here's hoping it all dies down before then. With the egos involved it seems unlikely (which really says something about the world today that I am even typing that) but, hey, it's possible.

But, in trying not to dwell on any of that or going into details on an unlocked post... craft spam time!

Feast your eyes upon this adorable Werewolf in a Top Hat (made by request and done by adapting a few different patterns)

He's a fine gentleman and tipping his hat to you in greeting. :)

I've also made two rugs

The pictures are a bit deceiving, the white and grey one is small-medium sized, 27"x17", while the following blue and white one is one of the larger I've made, 43"x30".

I don't really have a plan or a place for either (nor for the one I'll make out of the fabric strips I'm currently cutting) but upcycling stained/torn sheets and shirts is better than tossing them and I enjoy doing it so who cares.

Have two weeks of recthething recs! One MDZS/Untamed fic and tumbr art for that, Merlin, Murderbot and ST:TOS:

I'll Stop the World (And Melt With You) by Rainewritesfanfics (28k)
Summary: Lan Zhan comes from a long line of aerokinetic heroes. Over time, his family came to found the Cloud Recesses School for Young Heroes. Lan Zhan will now be attending this very same school, however he, unlike his relatives, has no powers. To make matters worse, even though Wei Ying is only steps away, they are barely on speaking terms since the incident before summer break. Add in a dash of conspiracy, a school full of ghosts, and cryptic fortunes, and Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are in for a lively first year! (This is a Sky High fusion but I only know the broad strokes of that movie and still thoroughly enjoyed this fic and its accompanying art)

tumblr art:
MDZS/The Untamed
- Something is gained when something is lost (3 panels, LWJ and A-Yuan, oh my heart)
- When had children started growing up so fast? (two LWJ raising A-Yuan sketches, adorable)
- Wei Ying and his ducklings (adorable wwx and the juniors art)

Merlin
- Still waiting for his king… (hauntingly beautiful)

Murderbot
- I just want to watch my shows I can relate, Murderbot. I can relate. (too valid these days)

Star Trek:TOS
- uhura sketch ^^ (love this style)

And, not rec related, but I know there's some due South fans here and I wanted to share an excellent fandom-specific resource I just discovered: A due South tumblr that posts archival stuff from the show like making of episodes and scripts as well as character bios and episode storylines and whatnot. (I really love the first 5 pages of the second draft to the pilot posted here)

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Yuletide! And More

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 21:27:28 GMT

yuletide had author reveals (and some earlier chaos) so usual ficlist of what I made and received under the cut along with some of the said-chaos related stuff

Despite random RL chaos I managed 5 main collection works and one drabble for Yuletide this year:
One Ultimate Note fic:
- Xiaoge's Memories. Summary: Unfortunately, it turned out the weren't going to be able to retrieve any of Xiaoge's memories from Banai; fortunately there was another way for Xiaoge to reclaim some. (1333 words)

One The First Shot fic:
- Cold Makes Warmth. Summary: It was a good plan but that didn't mean Zheng Bei had to like it. (3429 words, GYR/ZB)

Three Under the Skin fics:
- Carrying Your Lead. Summary: He Rongyue comes to Shen Yi for a favor. (1532 words, HRY&SY fic)
- Another Fine Mess. Summary: It had seemed like an open and shut case until Shen Yi wanted another look at the crime scene. (2096 words, DC/SY fic)
- Riding Herd. Summary: Since Shen Yi was incapable of taking care of himself it had somehow become Du Cheng's job. (2002 words, pre-DC/SY fic)

and a drabble for Without a Clue:
- A Deduction of One's Very Own. Summary: It might have been a simple deduction, but it was still a solid one.

I got a wonderful The First Shot fic: It Takes a Village. Summary: The question of who has the stronger willpower — himself or the chicken van, temperamental as an aging opera diva and with abandonment issues worse than his own — remains unanswered for the day. Before he can retrieve the car keys, one of the uncles who he recognizes as a restaurant regular calls out his name, and Gu Yiran obediently trots in his direction, wondering what kind of errand the community of Halan might want of him today, in the absence of their load-bearing pillar. (6957 words, GYR/ZB)

There was a big of 'excitement' this yuletide when, 20 minutes or so after the mods revealed the main collection AO3 decided to reveal the authors as well and the mods scrambled to work-by-work unclick and then reclick to re-anonymize everything. It's a bug that's happened before (several of the Battleship subcollections got caught by it this summer) so to see if they could get it to do it to a collection where the works could be kept unanon without issue the tagmods threw together a treating challenge and got a bunch of works posted to it and revealed it but AO3 behaved and it went normally (as did Madness, no clue why the main collection mucked itself up) but anyway, I posted a cute crocheted hippo, The Hardest Worker Of All to it and got a sweet double drabble for S.C.I. Mystery Pasta Making with Chef Bai.

Two weeks of recthething recs - one (very very long) MDZS/Untamed fic and tumblr art from Guardian, Merlin, The Mummy, ST:TOS and SPN :

When Plums are Ripe (There Must Be a Road) by somevariationofgay (105k)
Summary: When his army is defeated at the border, Wei Ying - a former General of Dazhi - is taken as a prize by the victor nation Beicui. He's resigned to a life of hard labor and an early death when a chance encounter alters his fate - he ends up in the manor of Prince Qing as a concubine instead.

Wanting nothing to do with the fights of an inner courtyard, he takes pains to avoid the attention of the prince's legal wife and the other concubines. But all his efforts go to waste as the petty struggles for favor that consume the inner courtyard overflow, leaving death in their wake.

Throwing himself headfirst into treacherous water, Wei Ying struggles against the current to create a future where he belongs and thrives, survive a present where danger hides in beauty, and tear down the powerful to get justice for the dead. (very interesting no cultivation harem AU with quite the different premise, intersex WWX is taken by the emperor's younger brother (NHS) as a concubine and has to navigate numerous plots and problems in the inner courtyard and beyond, this (vaguely) a NHS/WWX fic with a splash of NHS/JYL/WWX as well as Jiang Yanli is NHS' wife, LWJ does not appear)

Guardian
- If Guardian V1 by Priest were to ever get a hardcover edition (gorgeous novel take of Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei and Da Qing)

Merlin
- merthur (gorgeous triptych)

The Mummy
- Rick and Evie (love this)

Star Trek:TOS
- "Sometimes I draw ink/anime Spock, some others I paint blocky pastel Spock- Bottom line is: there’s always a good reason to draw Spock"(excellent spock)

Supernatural
- Castiel (love the B&W pencil style of this)

I've also done a bunch of crafting recently but haven't had a chance to take decent pics yet (hectic time of year made more hectic due to lots of snow and therefore shoveling). Oh well. I'll manage that in the new year, and on that note... Happy New Year everyone!!

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recs and whatnot

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 19:04:41 GMT

Got my yuletide assignment posted and have been keeping my eye out for pinch hits over at the PH comm, yuletide_pinch_hits but so far there's been nothing I could take. I am hoping to manage a few treats, we'll see, the writing brain has not been braining.

Generally speaking, there's not much going on here, but I wanted to post my recthething recs while the exchanges they were from are still anon (because I am lazy and don't want to have to look them all up and recode things rather than C&Ping them) so here are two weeks of recs, from ficinabox (assorted things) and doodle4doodle (art):

Some recs from ficinabox, creators anon until Dec 20th:

Casablanca
- Victor Lazlo: A Retrospective (excerpt). Summary: ...no review of the life of Victor Laszlo would be complete without mention of his long-time collaborator (some say long-time lover) Richard “Rick” Blaine, well known for his brief stint as founder and owner of “Rick’s Americain” café and casino in Casablanca. [excerpts of a magazine article] (neat papercraft/magazine article/in universe magazine article combined work)

DCU
- kiss and fly (absolutely adorable Superman/Batman animation)
- Alfred Pennyworth: Amigurumi!. Summary: It's Alfred Pennyworth - As an amigurumi weeble-wobble. (really cute crocheted Alfred)
- we can get a little reckless. Summary: Diana and a beautiful evening. (beautiful colorwork on this art)
- Not Fit To Print. Summary: When Dick leaves Gotham on bad terms with Bruce, he takes an internship at the Daily Planet in an attempt to move on. Instead, he submits a series of unpublishable articles—each one stranger and more personal than the last. Gargoyle surveillance. Emotional furniture. The weather patterns of Bruce Wayne’s guilt. These are the short excerpts, quotes, and fragments from the stories that never made it to print. (Hilarious snippets with great commentary on each by Lois, Perry and Clark. 4k)
- Continuity Error (And Other Family Traditions). Summary: When a curse summons the ghosts of Dick’s younger selves, his family comes face to face with the boy, the partner, the leader, and the survivor they each thought they knew. (great weaving together of different glimpses of Dick and interactions with his favorite people, 6k)

Discworld
- Minder of the Keys [ART - pottery]. Summary: Sybil Ramkin's smallest dragon likes to keep watch over her trinkets. (amazingly detailed pottery dragon guarding a trinket dish)

Original Work
- [Art] Excerpts from 'Field Guide to Woodgeists' (Interlibrary Loan). Summary: Forest Spirit via pottery and a field guide that definitely, totally, actually exists. (brilliant ceramic woodgeist and its 'write up' in a field guide.
- [Art] Leaf Friends. Summary: Pottery leaf friends in autumn colors (lovely collection of ceramic leaves)
- [Art] Fig. 8. Megafauna of the Southern Hemisphere. Summary: Excerpt from A.Y. Oaks, Megafauna & Environmental Anthropology (3d ed. 9673). (really fascinatingly done scientific illustration)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Love, Love Love. Summary: It all went wrong. (Yungmeng Brothers vid, right in the feels)
- price of postage. Summary Snippet: Wei Changze sends one letter to his old friend Jiang Fengmian, and inadvertently changes the course of the future - all out of love for his wife... Or, an epistolary fic, comprising of letters sent across the Jianghu over the course of several years, starting with a letter to an old friend. (love when stories are told creatively like this, 6.6k, locked to archive)

Some art recs from doodle4doodle (works anon until Dec 19th):

Original Work:
- forest friends. Summary: A couple of small critters I encounter on nature walks: a wood frog and a white-lipped snail. (a neat looking frog and snail)
- houseproud. Summary: I'd be proud too, with a nice house like that one! (very impressive box turtle)
- snow bunting. Summary: A small subarctic friend. (gorgeous bird, amazing work on the feathers)
- Owl Moon. Summary: A great horned owl. A waxing gibbous moon. (beautiful owl and moon)
- [Art] Looking for this? (An adorable rat familiar in a wizard hat)
- Fancy Little Men. Summary: Three penguins midway through molting their baby feathers. (so cute!)
- frogs on leaf (four cute, colorful frogs on a leaf)

Stargate Atlantis
- [Art] Not Himself. Summary: John: Last night, Ronon clubbed me in the head. Ronon: By accident. Sort of. John: I was cut. I went to the Infirmary...and by the time I got there it was completely healed. (gorgeous use of color and negative space in this one)

Star Wars (Original Trilogy)
- Leia (an adorable doodle)

Had a hilarious exchange in one of my discords recently where someone commented something to the effect of "Oh man it's 37 out now" and, after checking my weather I responded with "Oh wow, here too" but then after thinking about it for a half sec quickly added "But I think you're complaining about 37c being too hot while I'm thrilled since it had been -19f here a few days ago and 37f is a lovely change!" (It was, but the weather's supposed to drop again and a massive snow storm is supposed to blow through YUCK but still, the internationalism of fandom will always be a wonder to me)

Hope everyone's having a good Hanukkah/holiday season and staying warm/cool!

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crochet and recs and more

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 01:00:37 GMT

Not a lot to post about but I want to make one before I forget again or get even more snowed under (I've shoveled every day since Wed and twice a few of those days; I am so so sore and so so tired) BUT I finished my newest crochet project (a blanket made from the last of my Black Friday 2023 sale yarn) it's huge, give or take 50"x68":

I was good and didn't buy much more yarn this Black Friday, only a single deal's worth that'll be a blanket for son at some point. I need to make many, many rugs before then because two separate sets of sheets ripped and now my 'to-be-rugged' storage drawer is overflowing. Luckily they ripped right before Black Friday so I was able to replace them with new sets on some very good sales. (Black Friday sales are so weird and you have to be so careful to futz around to get the best deal. Oddly, sometimes that means buying *more* and paying less. In one store I was ordering from the total was $72 and with shipping and tax it would have been $89 but because of deals- free shipping and $25 off if you ordered $100 of stuff- once I added a $28 item the total was $83 after taxes. So weird but worth spending the time futzing about) I also did some Small Business Saturday shopping to support small places and got some neat stuff (a hefty, hard carved spoon for one, I can't wait to use it)

Have two weeks of recthething recs (tumblr art from Dracula, MDZS, ACD Sherlock Holmes, and X-Files and assorted AO3 things from BtVS/Angel, MDZS and Under the Skin)

Dracula
- Howdy y'all, I'm Quincey Morris and this is my friend Jonathan Harker, welcome to our unboxing video (hilarious)

MDZS/The Untamed
- sun and moon themed set of portraits (gorgeous WWX and LWJ sketches)

Sherlock Holmes - ACD
- Forever, if you are amenable (wonderful expressions and colors on this)

X-Files
- a tiny space scully I drew before bed (love Scully's smile in this)

AO3 things:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel: The Series
[FANART] The Crochet Buffyverse! by girlpire
Summary: This post is for my crochet versions of the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series. I'll be doing a bunch of them, so I'll add chapters as I make new dolls. Chapter 1: Illyria (and her pet), 2004; Chapter 2: punk!Spike, 1977; Chapter 3: wizard!Giles, 2000; Chapter 4: Randy Giles, 2001; Chapter 5: Life of the Party Lorne, 2003. (all are utterly amazingly done, there's also links to see each of the amigurumi dolls on tumblr)

MDZS/The Untamed
On Little Cat Feet by deliciousblizzardshark (29k, locked to archive)
Summary Snippet: Wei Wuxian accidentally turns into a cat. Lan Qiren unknowingly adopts him. (LWJ's POV of this is absolutely hilarious as his very proper, always hated pets and mess etc uncle adopts a cat)

Under the Skin
UTS Advent Calendar 2025 by michinarty
Summary: Christmas is coming so let's wait for it with a fanart a day! This is just a collection of small ideas and the advent calendar was a good excuse to turn them into little doodles. So enjoy the fluff (new chapter/work added daily, also being posted to tumblr via this tag, absolutely adorable)

Hope all of you are doing well! :)

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Holiday Love Meme

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:31:57 GMT

It's that time of year again!

✨ holiday love meme 2025 ✨
my thread here

Everyone go throw your names in the hat so you can get some holiday love too! :)

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Email suggestions? (and recs and things)

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 22:12:43 GMT

While I will probably never be able to divest myself from google completely, I'm thinking of trying to start shifting some things off google (and also juno, I have an ancient juno email acct I really need to move away from) so I turn to my brilliant friends to ask what you all use. I had heard tons of good things about proton (both its mail and docs) but just read it is possibly wishy-washy on AI so am not as sure about it. I've also heard good things about thunderbird and one or two places suggested tuta.

Anyone use one of these or have opinions? Are there others I have missed? (GMX used to be suggested but I haven't seen it mentioned recently?) Besides google's well, everything, I am sick and tired of having to turn off its AI "features" every few weeks/months every time they push a new update/product. I loathe all things AI it is just an annoying scourge that is *everywhere*.

I mostly want just reliable email that can be accessed via a browser webpage without having to download anything. If I can also access it on my phone via an app or browser there, great, but that is less important. Free is ideal, although I guess I'll consider a one time purchase if it's not too bad and is for a well established, reliable company. I do like googledocs and plan on moving away from that eventually but for now just starting to establish a new email would be a good step.

Livejournal is down today when I use firefox but if I try in another browser it seems to load (I have Edge on this laptop but only because it came installed and I used it to DL firefox, I haven't signed into anything on it). I even tried turning off uBlockOrigin and it still wouldn't work on firefox. I wonder if firefox tweaked its settings or something, one of the things that kicked off my new email client search was juno being weird on firefox. SIGH. I did check and my firefox is up to date. (The 'is it down right now' sites seem mixed on if LJ is down for everyone or not so I guess there is an actual issue. I barely use LJ anymore but still, twas my fannish home for a bit, I hope it doesn't go down for good)

I managed to find things to post to recthething the past two weeks (behold! tumblr art for Batman, DMBJ/Lost Tomb, MDZS/Untamed, Sherlock, SPN, Superman, and X-Men):

Batman
- Yapping on a random rooftop until sunrise. (really great Dick and Tim art)

DMBJ/Lost Tomb:
- "Next time, can we not come to such a cold place?" (gorgeous artist interpretation of the finale scene in Mystery of The Abyss, the Heihua Russia adventure tease)
- Clair-Obscur also on AO3 here Summary: Summary: Xie Yuchen is kidnapped. Hei Xiazi comes to the rescue... As his lift. (wonderful, and wonderfully detailed, B&W wordless Heihua comic)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Happy radish family! (adorable WWX, WN and a-Yuan during the burial mounds settlement days)

Sherlock
- Bleak (sherlock in the rain, love it)

Superman
- Sunshine Boy (this is one of my favorite Clark fanarts I have ever seen)

X-Men
- Halloween at the x mansion but it’s just everyone wearing starfleet uniforms. Charles does Not think it’s funny. (absolutely hilarious but the bonus is just *chef's kiss*)

I've been seeing articles and comments about both a White Collar and Stargate reboot possibly happening. The White Collar one seems like it's mostly rumor and hopeful folks rehashing comments made a few years ago (or, there's nothing specific behind the chatter at least) but Amazon/MGM has actually greenlit a Stargate project with a showrunner who had been involved with SGA so that might be something. (I am not entirely sure stargate can work in today's world/climate considering the military push and 'ancient aliens' conspiracy theories but still, I loved SG1/SGA back in the day so I guess I am cautiously optimistic?)

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Bread, Babble and Recs

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 03:03:06 GMT

Let's see, what's happened since my last post. Yuletide assignments went out and I'm on take two of mine, hopefully this one will work. My current craft project is a crochet blanket that should use up all of the rest of the yarn I bought via an excellent deal during 2023's Black Friday sale (I'm currently just about half way through so I should finish just in time to buy new yarn assuming there's decent sales for this year's as well, 2024's was meh but I still do have a chunk of yarn from that.)

Had some "excitement" two weeks ago when we had the annual maintenance on our boiler and they discovered an issue and we had to turn it off immediately and then replace it. That was a fun week and $24k unexpected expense.

Last year (nearly exactly, Nov 18th apparently) a small crack developed on the old igloo playmate cooler I bought for lunches when lifeguarding sometime between 1987-1990. Son kept using it but last week he dropped it and the whole handle cracked so he's finally retiring it. I can't quite recall what I paid for it (I want to say $20) but whatever it was, it was money well spent.

I made hobo bread the other day. I love this recipe (which I posted here years ago, so incredible simple, such delicious bread:

Here's two weeks of recthething recs (tumblr art for DMBJ, FMA, IwaV (TV), MCU (DD+Spidey), MDZS and SPN and trickortreatex collection art recs for Addams Family, Guardian and Original Work)

DMBJ/Lost Tomb:
- Pierce (perfect rendition of Xiazi spearing the fish in the Mystery of the Abyss opener)
- Ragged (Xiazi/Xiao Hua covered in slime but lost in each other's eyes. Perfect)

Fullmetal Alchemist
- the house on the hill (love so many things showing Ed and his childhood home here)

Interview with a Vampire (TV)
- Armand drawing (amazing)

Marvel (Daredevil and Spiderman multiverses):
- Do you think other Spideys and DDs in other universes are also good friends? (amazing 30 second animation)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Ah yes me and my ~~rival crush zhiji~~ Wei Ying (wonderful sketch of them immediately post-Xuanwu of Slaughter)
- Mn. Mn! (adorable qin lesson between LWJ and a-yuan)

Supernatural:
- Castiel (Love the bloodied, sleeves rolled up with wings out look here)

trickortreatex collection recs, creators anon until Nov 7th:

The Addams Family:
- It Takes Two... Summary: "Oh, Tish....that's French." (gorgeous art of Gomez and Morticia)

Guardian:
- The Ghost and the Snake Summary: They are tiny and cute and (not very) spooky. (really cute art of Wang Zheng and Zhu Hong)

Original Work:
- Dog in a fog (wonderfully ominous art of British folklore's Black Dog)
- Prima Donna Summary: A little orangutan’s dreams come true (adorable art)
- [Art] If You Dare Summary: Go ahead, knock. (delightfully creepy comic)
- Witch and Company Summary: Witch cat and their mouse familiar (really cool papercraftish art)
- Long Night Detective? Summary: "I do so hate to drop in after hours but there's just one last thing-" (absolutely amazing Fairy Prince/Noir Detective art)
- Joyride (hilarious art with a mouse familiar who really isn't enjoying the ride on their cat witch's broom)

(I know I've said this a few times already this year but sadly I do suspect I'll be breaking my 4+ year steak of weekly reccing soon, it'd been getting harder and harder to find things to rec.)

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Yuletide, Podfic, and Recs

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:37:52 GMT

Only a few more days to signup for yuletide! They close 9pm UTC 24 October (time converter thingy) The post with all the info is here, there's some differences this year including a trial run of allowing DNMs (do not matches) as well as upping requests from 6 to 8.

Not surprisingly, neither of those changes have effected me. In my previous yuletides I only signed up with the maximum number of requests a few times, I am way way way more likely to do the minimum (8 vs 3 according to past letters) with a handful of 4 requests and a single 5. I also tend to repeat requests a lot (having asked for only 30 different fandoms in total) although I've never repeated a signup exactly, since I haven't re-requested anything that I've received (perfectly valid thing for people to do that, I have even filled certain people's requests numerous times, I just haven't ever done it).

This year I've asked for four fandoms (All Souls (TV), Vampire Gastelbrau (2011), 看見愛 | See Your Love (TV), and 雪迷宫 | The First Shot (TV)) and my letter went up about a week ago. I will probably continue to tweak my offers until shortly before they close because I always do that and never can leave them alone. (Although the requests are kept hidden during signups, the signup summary is available and updates every hour or so).

I didn't have the headspace to finish putting together my usual short stories in the yuletide tagset list but thankfully embraidery was willing to pick up the job and posted the list, with links when possible, here over on the yuletide community comm.

In exciting news, an old fic of mine Appeasement Fed (a The Yellow Wallpaper & The Residence at Whitminster crossover) from Yuletide 2020 was recently podficced. You can listen to the amazing job wilfriede0815 did for it here.

And before I forget, here's two (I think?) weeks of recthething recs (one mdzs/untamed fic and tumblr art for Doctor Who, FMA/FMA:B, Merlin and SPN):

The Third Bow by Ashura (20k, locked to archive)
Summary: Finally Wei Ying drops onto the edge of the bed and blurts, ‘Lan Zhan, are we married?’
Lan Wangji’s hands freeze in place, the soft cloth slipping from between his fingers. Whatever he imagined Wei Ying was gathering the courage to say, this is a question he absolutely would not have predicted. He looks up, blindsided, to see Wei Ying shifting uncomfortably, fingers twisting in the folds of his robe. ‘We — what?’
Or: Wei Wuxian has feelings. So does Lan Wangji. They figure it out. (aka WWX and LWJ get a clue :) a part of the 2025 MDZS Reverse Big Bang)

Tumblr art:
Doctor Who
- 3rd doctor, UNIT and Master (love their expressions, particularly Jo's)

Fullmetal Alchemist (all Oct 3rd related art)
- Don’t forget. (animation of the watch with flames reflected on it)
- Don't forget 3. oct. 11 (gorgeous Ed and Al)
- Don’t forget! (amazing painting of the watch and fire)
- don’t forget (so many layers to this one, I love the juxtaposition between Ed's determined look and Al's wistful one)

Merlin
- i'll keep the king, i'll keep him safe from the dark things that wait (amazing Merlin and kilgharrah art)

Supernatural
- Untitled (Dean sleeping in the Impala, clutching Cas' coat. Oh my heart)

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2025 Yuletide Letter

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 02:26:30 GMT

( All Souls (TV), Vampire Gastelbrau (2011), 看見愛 | See Your Love (TV),雪迷宫 | The First Shot (TV) )

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babble and recs

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 04:12:11 GMT

I haven't had a ton of free time lately but have been trying to get started on my yuletide letter. Other than All Souls (which will be my 7th time requesting) all my requests will be new which is exciting! New fandoms! Except that means coming up with the prompts from scratch which is not easy. Usually I am repeating 2 or 3 fandoms so I can reuse and reword things.

Also, I'm kicking myself because I totally forgot to take pictures of my most recent craft project- I had been working on a rug (back to knotted kind, from a set of old blue sheets) and my parents asked for it but they'd need it before they headed out of state (they snowbird every year now) so I rushed to finish it before we headed to their house for break-the-fast after Yom Kippur and finished with a half hour to spare and documenting it totally slipped my mind. Oh well. They loved it which is the important thing.

I don't know if anyone's followed the SciShow vs the knitting community controversy but...

cut for length

For those unaware about a month ago on SciShow Hank Green did a video called "Physicists Don't Understand Why Knitting Works" that was... well, not great (and the info provided didn't match the clickbaity title at all). There was some true science presented in it, including some recent studies that were quite interesting, but it was presented in a way that, well, kind of implied actual crafters didn't know or even think about much about the hows or whys it's done the way it's done and if that's not enough it did so in a kind of pat-on-the-head dismissiveness of women's work kind of way. It also was just riddled with errors (from mistaking nalbinding for knitting, to not seeming to realize the difference between woven garments and knitted ones, to even misspelling the word 'stitch' numerous times, etc etc)

There were some great videos posted in response to it though, Kristine Vike did a great Scientist and Knitter reacts to SciShow's knitting video and JillianEve started a new channel, Evie Unraveling, to do her own I Remade the SciShow Knitting Video (with accurate SCIENCE) (there are numerous other good reaction vids, these were the two by people I followed already).

Previously, SciShow pinned a not very good correction/we hear you had issues with out content comment to the vid in response to backlash but I noticed a few days ago that SciShow actually pulled their vid and put up an apology youtube community comment which was pretty decent. Long story short (too late) I thought the whole controversy was interesting and that some of you might find it so as well. (As a note, I've still unsubscribed, I'd noticed a few errors/bad takes/odd ways they'd presented things in previous videos but hadn't really known enough about most subjects to question their ability to teach me things but I learned long ago that if I'd been following someone to learn from what they present and they do a topic I know something about and notice issues with what they present then it means it's likely there's been plenty of things I hadn't noticed so I can't rely on them anymore.)

And last but not least, here's 2 weeks of recthething recs! (MDZS/Untamed fic and Batman, Clue, Doctor Who, MDZS, Merlin, and Supernatural tumblr art):

The fic:
the cat distribution system by ScarlettStorm (38k)
Summary Snippet: Wei Wuxian gets a cat, and then a boyfriend, both of which are a surprise. (great fic with great art from the 2025 MDZS Reverse Big Bang, also 2 podfics have been done of this fic, linked in the endnotes)

the tumblr art:

Batman/DCU
- Nightwing written in Nightwing (very cool effect)

Clue (the movie)
- “Okay, Chief, take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife.” (excellent art of the cast)

Doctor Who (Classic)
- Delgado!Master doodle (love this)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Dadji and his pride and joy (Adorable LWJ and a-yuan and bunnies)

Merlin
- Tenderness (perfect title for this terribly tender Merther moment)

Supernatural
- Dean Winchester <333 (excellent rendition)

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Rug of a different sort and recs

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 02:48:26 GMT

So many, many years after we probably should have we finally went out and bought a new bed to replace the 20 yr old futon (do not be me, that was *far* too long to keep that cheap thing) and when taking apart the bedframe I found an old braided rug I'd stored between the board and the slats in an attempt to flatten it *ages* ago.

And when I say ages, I mean ages. As I vaguely remembered posting about it, I search through my livejournal and found a mention of pulling out the rug to work on (while watching an episode of due South, good taste past!me) in a post from December 2007 (2007!! who knows when I actually started it) and included a picture of the rug then:

The rug I pulled out only had two more color rounds completed so wasn't all that much further along but was left with a long section of braid unattached and needing new strips sewn on. I never quite mastered the technique of sewing on the new strips properly so that the seam didn't show and always found lacing the braid to the rug was frustrating, fiddly and hard to do for any length of time without hurting my back so it's not surprising I just gave up at some point. Tension was always a perpetual problem so I must have shoved the rug there in an attempt to flatten it. (Something that mostly, but not completely, succeeded). Deciding to just figure out some way to finish it (unfortunately, that's a part I had never really mastered either) I eventually finagled something and TADA:

(Do I need another rug? No. Do I have a place for the rug? Also no. Am I also in the process of making a knotted rug that I took a break from to finish this guy off? Yes. Do I have a place for that rug? Bwhahaha, no.)

Anyway... Just a few more days left for Yuletide nominations! We get 5 slots, it's so exciting! (I really need to make an actual decision on my last slot, I've been waffling for ages about it)

And, last but not least, recthething tumblr art recs (whoops, I've been forgetting to crosspost these here, sorry!)

Batman
- images that came to me in a vision. i just needed to see him in a nice cottage kitchen. (this vision of Batman made me laugh)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- buffy summers more like buffy snork mimimi <3333

Guardian
- boop the snoot (Adorable cat!da qing booping Zhao Yunlan)

Merlin
- [Dragonlord merlin - 2]: Magic returning slowly. (subtle but sweet)

MDZS/The Untamed
- His love language is being a menace (WWX has the best expression on his face when teasing LWJ)
- I have drawn many, many pictures of Jiujiu Holding A-Ling! Yet somehow, not enough. So I present to you all: Another One (adorable grumpy jin ling!)
- Emotional support hug (aww sweet)

Supernatural
- lazarus rising as a paperback (there's a whole series of these linked on the post and all are amazing)

Under the Skin
- Not sure if they should drink this… (Late night Shen Yi/Du Cheng and a very judgy but adorable cat)
- Cat Cuddles "Because everyone need a little sweetness in september I decided to make a fluffy little animation of DuCheng being adopted by the 2 cats of the house" (absolutely adorable)

Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah, L'Shana Tova everyone! May your new year be sweet!

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Yuletide! And Resource Posts!

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 04:21:50 GMT

Earlier today I *finally* finished checking all the links on my research/useful links posts, adding all the new links and reorganizing them. Both the Hollywood/History/Clothing/etc post and the Randomness one had gotten too big so I removed somethings from the history one and separated the randomness one into two posts with the history things (old books, magazines, radio theater etc) fitting into one. There's now close to 2250 links between all the posts. *phew* The masterpost is here or everything can also be found via my useful links tag.

And also, excitedly, Yuletide nominations have opened!! Go forth and nominate! (I'll be nominating that cute animated short, Vampire Gastelbrau, and also The First Shot (Gu Yiran, Zheng Bei and Jiang Xiaohai), See Your Love (Jiang Shaopeng, Yang Zixiang) and All Souls (Mitchell Grace, Glory, and Worldbuilding) definitely but am still waffling on my last slot. But we are allowed 4 characters per fandom so if anyone wants someone added to First Shot or See Your Love just give me a shout.

What's everyone else nominating?

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Blanket! And Yuletide!

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 18:44:51 GMT

The Yuletide fandom promo post is up. I promoed a cute little animated short I found recently and am planning on nominating and requesting, Vampire Gastelbrau. Here's the promo I did:

Title: Vampire Gastelbrau (2011)

Media: Animated short film
Approx length: 3 minutes
Where to find it: On youtube here or vimeo here
What is it, in summary?: An animated short where Vampire Gastelbrau helps Gerta and Gabi with their chores in order to earn back his vampire fang.
What do you love about it?: It's just such a sweet little story with cute animation and lovely music.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: The further adventures of Gerta, Gabi and Gastelbrau.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: No, but it's less than 3 minutes long.
Content warnings: none, despite it being about a vampire no warnings apply

The Yuletide evidence post has also been posted. If your eligible fandom (this post explains eligibility) is closely related to an ineligible one (i.e. all DMBJ fandoms since the novels are too big, NIF2 or the NIF novel since the drama has gotten too big, etc) you'll want to make a comment in the evidence post (if you've given evidence in previous years you can just link to your previous comment but ideally you should still comment on the current post). I've been doing yuletide a billion (aka 17) years, if you have questions/want help determining eligibility or how to post evidence just give me a shout, I'll be happy to help.

I also finally finished the chevron lace blanket I'd be working on for daughter:

It's 42” by 75-78” (valley vs point) and I misjudged the yarn yardage so she overbought and I have 2 skeins left with no idea what I'll do with them. Ooops. Oh well.

Aaaand now I need a new craft project. Maybe a rug. Or another blanket? Or both? (Do I need another rug or blanket? Nope. Do I have a place to put either? Also nope. Will that stop me from making them? Of course not.)

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Resource Posts, Yuletide and Recs

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 19:42:40 GMT

I've spent the last three or so weeks going through and updating the resources links posts and I'm not done, it's still an ongoing progress. I had over 150 links to add and I also like to go through and check for dead/changed links every 1-2 years (which I last did spring 2024 and now takes *forever* since 2k+ links). I'll also (probably) be splitting the randomness post into two posts and moving some things from the Hollywood/history post over to one of those posts but that's all still in the planning stages while I still slowly make my way through the other posts.

It always amazes me how many links die every time I do this. Sometimes it's just a web address switch and I'm able to find the new one and I do try to back stuff up at the wayback machine when I add links to my resource posts but they're not always things or sites that can be backed up so finding dead links there is a crapshoot. (It's still a wonderful resource though, more than 160 links *had* been backed up and are now accessible via it). That old adage about 'once something is on the internet it's there forever' is just not true. Some stuff will be there forever, but others? *poof*

As always, if anyone uses the resource posts and finds the layout confusing, has suggestions to make it better, has links (or even general topics) they should be added, etc etc just give me a shout, either here or on the specific post or any of my posts in general honestly. I'd like them to be as useful and informative as they can be.

It's almost Yuletide time! The schedule has been posted and for the first time in a few years there's been some changes (mostly a 12 hour shift backwards with assignment deadline not being 9pm UTC on Wednesday 17 December instead of 9am on the 18th and reveals being 9pm UTC on Wednesday 24 December instead of 9am on the 25th.) They've changed before and will change again, they mods need to do what work best for them and they've given us plenty of time to adjust to the change.

Another interesting change is as an experiment for this year only we'll be given 5 nomination slots instead of 4 (although with still only 4 slots per fandom) and the ability to have up to 8 requests rather than the previous max of 6. I usually only request 3 or 4 so that doesn't really affect me but more nom slots is definitely nice. :)

And, whoops. here's a month or so of recthething recs (tons of tumblr art recs and some MDZS/Untamed fic/podfic recs):

Tumblr art:
Batman/DCU:
- The whole world at her fingertips. (love this take on Barbara as Oracle)
- AU: what if Dick became the vessel for Nightwing of Krypton? (wow, incredible idea and art)

DMBJ/The Lost Tomb:
- Heihua (Xiazi 'helping' Xiao Hua with his opera makeup, excellent)
- the apple trend ft. heihua... (delightfully sensuous)

Doctor Who:
- Sandwich break (Jamie and Two!!! Lovely)

The Losers
- How to Properly Care For Your Domesticated ~~Housecat~~ Cougar (this is just so soft and gorgeous)

MDZS/The Untamed:
- we will always get through the bad times (gorgeous mirror set of paintings)

Merlin
- I just needed to draw them again (gorgeous Merthur wih magic art)
- devotion (this is *incredible*)
- dressing up your boyfriend as a silly lil jester (absolutely nailed their expressions in this one)
- Being rough with Merlin is Arthur’s love language guys trust me (love their expressions!)

The Princess Bride
- This is true love. You think this happens every day? (gorgeous, almost movie poster style look at most of the cast)

Star Trek
- I finished the quilt I’m gifting to my daughter (Absolutely amazing TOS Enterprise in space quilt)

Supernatural:
- as a spn fan i’m legally obliged to draw this (Dean at his snarky, beaten-up best)
- I love old men retired yaoi (a wonderful look of what the future might have been for dean and cas)
- diner (Sam and Dean in a diner, spot on)

MDZS/Untamed fic/podfic:
Target Acquired (A Family) by relenafanel (11.7k, locked to archive)
Summary: Wei Wuxian has been on his own for months. It’s easier to pull off surprise assassinations against the sect that destroyed the Jiangs if most people think he’s dead. He doesn’t expect Lan Wangji to join with his own vendetta against the Wen. And he certainly doesn’t expect to acquire A-Yuan in the middle of a job. (assassin AU that's also sort of fluffy and adorable)

fic and its podfic
the guqin player next door by marquisguyun (1k)
Summary: Lan Qiren meets someone who is far older than he looks. (mortal/reincarnated LQR and immortal LWJ); podfic (by sisi_rambles, length - 6:33)

comments

Randomness: Part Two

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:41:22 GMT

The former "Utterly and Completely Random Remaining Links" post has been expanded and split into two parts for easier searching since it got so big. Generally speaking, the division is as follows:

The first part (found at the original link here) now has all the links about the world itself and things to do in it, broken down into the following groupings: survival, moving about (maps, travel and vehicles), information on the sun/moon/stars, various calendars and conversions between them, communicating with others (accents, pronunciation and languages), plants and animals and various databases about them, and various places on the web to find things to read and listen to.

The second part (this one) contains all the search sites (scientific and general non-google places); places to find articles, books, and more; library, museum and cultural collections; recipe, food and drink sites; random place related sites; building and homes info and terms; people and their shapes and sizes; things to consider regarding sex and writing sex scenes; "writers' guides to..." type links; lots of artists resources; and, last but not least, uncategorized random links.

Places to Search for Info Other Than Google (with a scientific(ish)/scholarly focus)
WolframAlpha- the site's goal is "Making the world’s knowledge computable" and there is tons of stuff there to poke about and find on all sorts of subjects. (Like the random city generator below, WolframAlpha can be used to generate numerous things like random occupations for a character or historical eras to set a story, etc)
Sci-Hub - a website with over 67 million academic papers and articles available for direct download, bypassing publisher paywalls by allowing access through educational institution proxies. (It's sometimes forced to change domains so if link doesn't work google "sci hub" for a working link, also due to a lawsuit it has stopped uploading new articles, Anna’s Archive now offers a search of SCIdb with access to 95+ million scientific papers, see below for link)
Cornell University's arXiv.org - open access to 1.5 million Physics, Mathematics, CompSci, Econ, Stats and more papers
Open Access Publications from the University of California - hundreds of thousands of ebooks and scholarly articles free to peruse
Yale Law School's Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy (documenting from BCE-21st Century, wayback machine link)
refseek - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
worldcat - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
bioline.br - a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
BioOne Digital Library "Explore more than 580 journals and eBooks in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences."
repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
science.gov - an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
base-search.net - one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.
JSTOR a digital library with more 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines, currently allows access to 100 articles a month with free registration. Post with info on the best way to search jstor, including some videos demonstrating it
Higher Intellect / preterhuman.net - a server hosting a searchable database of over 750,000 text files on a variety of subjects
Our World in Data "To make progress against the pressing problems the world faces, we need to be informed by the best research and data. Our World in Data makes this knowledge accessible and understandable, to empower those working to build a better world." (thousands of charts on hundreds of topics)

General Search Engines Besides Google:
duckduckgo "search without being tracked" (now has AI which can be turned off in settings or just use No Ai Duckduckgo to avoid it completely)
Startpage "The world's most private search engine."
MillionShort a search engine that removes the most popular sites from its results (now appears to require a paid account to use)
search.marginalia a "search engine calculates a score that aggressively favors text-heavy websites, and punishes those that have too many modern web design features." (updated version, or use old site)
I search from simulate using Google Search from a different location or device (choose from a list of countries, languages and devices)
Mojeek.com "Mojeek’s web search results are 100% independent. They come from our crawler (MojeekBot) and index of the web, and are ordered using our own ranking algorithms."
Wiby "The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet" (its focus is personal webpages rather than commercial ones so its results aren't very robust. It goes have a 'surprise me' button though to take you to a random webpage)
Qwant "The search engine that doesn't know anything about you"
&udm=14 - AI-free Google search aka the"disenshittification Konami code" for Google (an article about it)

TinEye Reverse image search alternative

Places to Find Articles, Books and More: (general sites, see the randomness part 1 post for links to numerous-particularly vintage-specific newspaper, magazine, radio, short story compilations, etc collections)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Art Books and other publications, 1k+ available as free PDFs and 700+ available to read online
Cornell University's entire library is open access and available over on archive.org
Sidestone Press "Open Science is central to our publishing philosophy: we believe that scientific information should be freely available to all. Through our own digital e-book library we guarantee that scientific information published through Sidestone Press is immediately freely available around the world." (a Dutch academic publisher)
OpenAccessButton - If a scholarly paper is paywalled, this website/browser extension can search for an open access version. If there isn't an open access version already available online, Open Access Button will request the article from the article's authors. (now retired, see blog entry for alternatives)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories) is "the world’s largest collection of full text open access research papers."
Unpaywall - an extension which automatically detects when you’re looking at a paywalled journal article and will connect you to a legally available open access version if one is available.
Paywalled sites can sometimes be accessed by entering the url at archive.ph or archive.is or try Remove Paywall.

CC Search - Search over 300 million images and other openly licensed and public domain works (eventually will have 1.4 billion CC licensed and public domain works in all media types including open texts and audio, sources are museums, APIs, science organizations and more)

r/freeEBOOKS/'s wiki Resources and links for free audiobooks and ebooks (both fiction and nonfiction)
WeLib - the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. "Explore the profound depths of 43 million books and 98 million articles."
Anna’s Archive "The largest truly open library in human history. We mirror Sci-Hub and LibGen. We scrape and open-source Z-Lib, OpenLib, and more." (sometimes forced to change domains so if link doesn't work check Shadow Libraries (see below) for the current one)
Library Genesis (sometimes forced to change domains so if link doesn't work check wikipedia or Shadow Libraries (see below) for current ones)
Shadow Libraries "Shadow libraries, sometimes called pirate libraries, consist of texts aggregated outside the legal framework of copyright" (collection of links to various sites)
r/Piracy's megathread wiki
r/FreeMediaHeckYeah's megathread wiki (all information also available off reddit at FreeMediaHeckYeah (FMHY): The Largest Collection of Free Stuff on the Internet, see the beginners guide/FAQ for more information)

Libraries, Museums, Cultural Institutions with Online Collections/Online Museums:
The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Museum Resources, E-Learning, and Online Collections - a huge, huge list of links to dozens of museums offering virtual guides, portals to their collections, online exhibits as well as various e-learning options (some general, some gears towards kids) and digital libraries, archives and online collections. (compiled in 2020)
Arte.tv documentaries, films, shows and more; offerings available in 6 different languages but varies depending on location
Open Culture - "The best free cultural and educational media around the web" (thousands of free courses, audio books, ebooks, movies, language lessons and more)
Open access image libraries – a handy list - "a list of museums and other archives that provide unrestricted downloads of high-resolution images."
The Smithsonian Institution's open access online platform (data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, etc to peruse and DL as desired)
Google Art and Culture's database of museum collections (searchable numerous ways, including via map)
DigitaltMuseum The objective of DigitaltMuseum is that museums’ collections should be made available to anybody who is interested, regardless of time or place.
Europeana "Discover Europe’s digital cultural heritage. Search, save and share art, books, films and music from thousands of cultural institutions.
The Digital Library of the Middle East "a vital resource for scholars, students, and the general public interested in the rich history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa"

Vintage Calculators Web Museum
The Living Image Vintage Camera Museum (including examples what cameras were available by decade and more)
The Early Television Foundation and Museum "The Early Television Foundation is dedicated to the preservation of the technology from the early days of television. Our mission is to preserve and make available to the public the history of early television, from the mechanical systems of the 1920s through the introduction of color television in the 1950s"
The Rewind Museum "Museum of early consumer electronics and 1st achievements"

Cooking, Recipes, Food and Drink Sites:
Recipes by Ingredients - "Enter Ingredients, Get Recipe. Find recipes based on ingredients that you have on hand."
My Fridge Food (check off which ingredients you have, it will find recipes for you. Also has general tips. Available as an app as well)
Big Oven "BigOven wants to help you waste less, and eat more. Choose up to 3 ingredients and our library of 1,000,000+ recipes will tell you what you can make."
Chef D's The College Student Cookbook "Chef D is an acronym for Cheap, Healthy, Easy,Fast, and Delicious. The recipes in this book were chosen because they meet most of these criteria" (40+ page PDF cookbook, wayback machine link)
'Good and Cheap: Eating Well on $4 a Day' Leanne Brown's award winning cookbook for people with very tight budgets, particularly those on SNAP/Food Stamps benefits. In English or Spanish, available with website signup or as a wayback machine pdf.
From Scratch (wayback machine pdf)
Cooking on a Bootstrap budget recipe site, searchable in numerous different ways
Budget Bytes "Good food doesn't have to be complicated or expensive"(budget friendly recipe site)
The Sad Bastard Cookbook "A completely free cookbook for the zero spoons crowd."

Cocktail Flow - The Definitive Cocktail Encyclopaedia

JustTheRecipe site that will take the URL of any recipe blog or website and remove all the clutter and unnecessary information, showing only the relevant ingredients and instructions.
Cooking Recipes Units Conversion (converts with specific ingredient in mind)

Random Money Related Sites:
Historical Currency Conversions (US and British currencies, past and present)
Convert Currency Rates Easily daily updating world currency converter
Counterfeit money detection: know how - Provides the latest information about the major world currencies and methods for detection of counterfeits

Random Place Related Things:
Need a random destination to send characters to? Click here
Need it to be a city people will have actually heard of? Try here instead
Random Place Generator Generate random (real) places from around the world (can limit by country or continent if desired)
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names® Online searchable by place type as well so can look to find abandoned airfields, duchy, ferry terminals, natural pillars, ruins and so much more
WindowSwap - look out a random window somewhere in the world

OpenStreetMap.org open source map data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.
City-Data (US and Canadian cities' population, photos, median income, schools, crime rates, weather, etc)
Dollar Street "Imagine the world as a street ordered by income. Everyone lives somewhere on the street. The poorest lives to the left and the richest to the right. Everybody else live somewhere in between. Welcome to visit all homes on Dollar Street!" (photos of over 264 homes in 50 countries with information given as to their income and purchasing power parity (PPP) and converted the value into US dollars)

Ghost Town Gallery a "collection of more than 2000 pictures from 180 Ghost Towns, mining camps and historic places in the United States."
AbandonedPorn subreddit
abandonedography tumblr
Midwest Gothic tumblr
FYeahGhostTowns tumblr (no longer updated)
evilbuildingsblog (sinisterish rather than abandoned places/ghost towns, no longer updated)

Buildings and Homes, Information, Terms, and More
InspectAPedia - "Encyclopedia of Building & Environmental Construction, Diagnosis, Maintenance & Repair"
Common House Terms - terms for describing houses, porches, roof types etc
Words that describe buildings or rooms and parts of buildings (wayback machine link)
Glossary of House Building Terms
House Parts You Didn’t Know Had a Name
Getty Research Institute's Art & Architecture Thesaurus® Online

People, and all their shapes and sizes:
Free stock photos sites (general focus): pixabay or unsplash or pexels or morguefile or StockSnap or Burst.Shopify.
Free sock photos site (specific focus): Nappy whose mission is "to provide beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people to startups, brands, agencies, and everyone else."

Height Comparison Images (provide the height and sex for two figures to see how they compare or use this one to compare up to six figures)
hikaku sitatter - height comparison chart "compare the height difference of people and things when drawin
Photographic Height and Weight Chart (created via user provided photos)
3D Body Visualizer "Welcome to the website of 3D Body Visualizer, an online tool that allows you to see the shape of your body in 3D."
Your Personal Body Visualizer "Visualize your body shape with our male or female body visualizer based on height, weight, and other parameters.
Body Visualizer - create a visualization (male or female, 3d and can be moved for viewing from different angles) of a body based off measurements etc

My Body Gallery "What real women look like: Changing the way women see themselves one photograph at a time." (user submitted photos, searchable by height, weight, age, etc)

Names and Surnames searchable by popularity, timeframe, race and more (data provided by the US Census Bureau)
Time Magazine's tool "Find Out What Your Name Would Be if You Were Born Today" - uses data provided by the US Social Security Administration to chart the popularity of first names from the 1890s to today. Very useful for trying to find popular or unusual names in different times. Or go to the US SSA itself and check out popular names by birth year or how the popularity of a name has changed over time.

(see also numerous name lists from various eras posted in the generators and lists post)

Information and things to consider regarding sex and writing sex scenes (NSFW):
Gay Sex is All Wrong in Fanfic (what it says on the tin, wayback machine link) and a tumblr post's commentary on it.
Minotaur's Sex Tips for Slash Writers An internet classic since 1999
ficsex - run by a certified sex educator, has expanded to contain much more than just sex in fanfiction but there is a fic sex tag for easy searching (as well as a lube and many more, no longer updating)
Leviathan: The Bare Bones of Smut and how to write it (tumblr post)
Prompts & Pointers: Smut Guide (wayback machine link)
Smut Writing Resources (tumblr post collection)
Lascivity's Kink Guides (dozens of different ones including ones with resources)
MaxPrivate.net Sex Engineering website's articles (articles on training, enemas, anal, and more)
Writing lesbian sex in fanfic (wayback machine link)
How to Write a Sex Scene (also on AO3 here, locked to archive) by Resonant. Four tips for creating better sex scenes in erotic romance.
Gay Sex Positions Guide - "Learn gay sex positions through photographs, a visual Kama Sutra. Cum and enjoy! (NSFW 18+)" (categories include anal, oral, and group sex positions and sexual behaviors)
Brazen 2.0 - "sexual health and safer sex information for trans women and their partners" (PDF)
Primed - "A Sex Guide for Trans Men Into Men" (PDF)
Wheelchair Sex After Spinal Cord Injury
The Best Sexual Positions for People with Limited Mobility (wayback machine link)
12 Best Sex Positions for People Who Have Limited Mobility
A Guide to Returning to Sexual Activity Following Hip or Knee Replacement Surgery PDF, with diagram of positions surgeons recommend and don’t recommend following hip surgery
Sex After Joint Replacement UMass Memorial Health article
(see also links posted in Action/Sex scene descriptive words section of the words post)

Things a writers might need to know about/ "a writer's guide" type links:
Writer's Guide: Writing about Alcoholic Drinks and Cocktails Terminology, equipment, common drinks and more.

10 Things Writers Don’t Know About The Woods a lot of good things to consider if writing a scene that takes place in the woods.
Your Fictional Farm is Wrong - Or, How To Write Life on a Farm. part 2.
A writer's guide to hurricanes

Writing a Blind or Visually Impaired Character - "A Multi-Step Guide Written by a Visually Impaired Writer and Blogger" with numerous links for more information
"A Guide to Canes, Dogs, O&A" (O&A=Orientation and Mobility, written by a visually impaired writer/blogger)
Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters (huge resource post)
A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Fantasy Guide: Horses, Steeds and Mounts - terminology, colors, food, tack, etc (and some corrections to the original guide)
Your Noble Steed - horses, what you need to know (wayback machine link)
For Writers and Worldbuilders: On Horses
Saddles and Saddlebags
On Warhorses
Arpy's guide to horses "a little guide to help people out with some of the more technical stuff" (wayback machine link)
Horse Body Language for Writers
Horse Misconceptions in Fantasy Writing
Horse Terminology: Gaits and Anatomy
Horse Terminology: Tack and Riding
Matching Horses to Use, Climate, and Characters in Fiction

Archery Information for Writers (wayback machine link)
Archery information for writers that no one asked for but probably some of you need and I like talking about archery, so here it is.
Child Development - a guide to writing realistic small people
A Guide to Manual Transmission Cars for People Who Have Never Driven One
ghostflowerdreams has numerous advice, research and reference posts (check out their writing reference tag, advice tag, and writing research tag or their collection of writing advice posts) subjects range from historical eras, survival guides, weapons information, writing tips and much, much more although be aware many contain outdated or dead links.

Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help! (tumblr post with advice on writing blacksmiths, wayback machine link)
Tanner’s Guide to Writing Tanning
A guide to writing fics set in museums / with a museum worker character "insight and tips to writing museum-related fics"
A Guide to Working in a Flower Shop for People Who Want to Write Flower Shop AUs
Fic Set In LA: A DIY Guide "A resource created by two fans who live in the Los Angeles area, as a reference for fic writers. We cover a wide range of topics--climate, culture, DRIVING, etc. Feel free to ask questions in the comments!" (AO3 work)

Artist resources:
"good places to find art reference that are not full of AI trash" a dreamwidth post of resources curated by doodlemancy
Numerous reference posing posts for artists or for looking at to describe poses (SenshiStock recently changed their name to Adorkastock but most links appear to be the same)
AdorkaStock gallery for all Adorkastock's poses and photos
jademacalla Another person providing poses, these are mostly action/with weapons
jookpubstock which offers poses, some action, some not, with and without weapons and other props. They also have a tumblr
Freephotomuscle (google translate version of a Japanese stock photo pose site with lots of buff guys)
theposearchives "We are Hamish and Izzy, and we are The Pose Archives! We create awesome pose reference for artists!"
Posemaniacs - 3d poses for artists
Hero Forge (technically a platform that lets you design and order custom tabletop miniatures and statuettes but excellent for poses in general with or without armor and weapons and other typical tabletop miniature accessories)
PoseMyArt Can choose between various different model(s) and their pose, with or without props, lighting source and much more
Bodies in Motion "Bodies in Motion exists to inspire artists with beautifully crafted images of the human body in motion. Created by artist and educator Scott Eaton, it has grown into a library of 150,000+ images used by illustrators, graphic novelists, sculptors, painters, storyboard and character artists through to teams at Netflix Animation, Disney, and Industrial Light & Magic." (videos of people moving for action posing, 3D scans, expressions and more. Some free, some requires registration)
Reference Angle use "this tool to practice drawing heads at different angles" (see photos of head shots based on emotion, sex, age range, and a few other choosable attributes)

Creating Animated Cartoons with Character A Guide to Developing and Producing Your Own Series for TV, Web or Film (epub offered for free by author, Joe Murray)

So you want to learn pixel art? "Part 1 of ??? - The Basics!" (tumblr post, lots of resources for how to learn pixel art and what programs to use, also available as a google doc)
Common Workflows for Digital Painting one of many tutorials offered by the free sketching and painting program, Krita (others include pixel art, understanding layers, inking and more)
guide to art & art tutorials - Huge resource list and guide compiled for learning about art including suggestions on apps, tools, tutorials and more. (google doc)
A master post of Thomas Romain’s art tutorials (designing interiors digitally, techniques for drawing detailed buildings and streets and more)
Line of Action posing refs, community discussions from other artists, figure study, anatomy, and more.
Sketch Daily "Welcome to the SketchDaily reference doohickey." (search by pose, clothing options, body type, perspective, etc.)

sketchfab - a 3D viewer where you can rotate pre-made models to see them from any angle
Creazilla open-source graphic design resources for artists and designers (vectors, silhouettes, clipart and 3D models)
Figure Drawing Practice Tool - provides models (choice of clothed/nude, male/female, and different ages) for specific time intervals for practice sketching purposes
Setpose.com "Create free 3D reference models. Pick a preset pose, combine them with different props, or create your own"
Human Anatomy for Artist Unofficial Search Helper

Drawing East Asian Faces a guide
How to Draw Hands tutorial
Hands Tutorials For Those Who Hate Drawing Hands
Things to think about when drawing necks
Things to consider when drawing shoulders
Human Anatomy Fundamentals: Basic Body Proportions
Cartoon Fundamentals: How to Draw the Female Form
The NSFW Illustrator's Guide Volume I (of 6, follow links for more)
'pointers on drawing dingle dongles' (male anatomy)
Three tutorials on how to draw women's body parts: lady butts, boobs and waists
Wheelchair Drawing Tutorial by Goldfvsh (wayback machine link)
Manual Wheelchair Tutorial by fancyfade
Ezra and Levi's Guide to Drawing Manual Wheelchairs (tumblr post)
A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Blumineck's reference photos and gif of holding a bow at the ready while pirouetting (his tumblr and youtube channel are filled with various archery feats and demonstrations)

So you want to draw some archery- an archery guide in art
How to draw tack on horses - a guide
Wolves vs Dogs A tutorial for beginners
How to Draw Animals: Dogs and Wolves, and Their Anatomy
How to Draw a Wolf Step by Step
How to Draw Animals: Cats and Their Anatomy
Pouncing, a tutorial
Learn to Draw Birds with David Sibley (includes video tutorials)
Shrub Sparrow's Bird Tutorial

How to Draw a Stick Figure: a Complex Guide
How to draw water surfaces (tumblr post, excerpt from Jack Hamm’s Drawing Scenery)

My Color Space "Never waste hours finding the perfect color palate again!" (generates color palates based off your original color choice)

Where Do I Host My Webcomic? - part one: A webcomic website hosting masterpost and part two: A webcomic platform hosting masterpost

Uncategorized and Utterly Random Links:

How to tell if someone might be lying to you
Havocscope- A database of information for criminal underworld/blackmarket stuff taken from newspapers and police reports. (site went down August 2025, this wayback machine link has much of it backed up)

Dimensions- a "reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world."

Conversion Tables and Instant Measurement Conversion (modern and historical conversions for everything from distance to weight to shoe sizes to more)

The Quote Investigator "Exploring the Origins of Quotations" - great for checking to see if someone really said the thing or not.

Occupational Folklife Project at the US Library of Congress a collection of more than 1800 audio and audiovisual oral history interviews with workers in scores of trades, industries, crafts, and professions (huge range of professions from bookbinders to circus workers to park rangers to professional wrestlers)

Mirror The Video - fips YouTube videos horizontally (just replace "youtube.com" with "mirrorthevideo.com" in the URL, everything is flipped, including the video's progress bar)

Creepy Link - The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible.

Research and Resource Collected Links Masterpost

Last updated: all links checked 31 March 2026 and new ones added 2 April 2026

comments

Battle Battle Battleship (and Battlesheep)

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:46:04 GMT

I created 20 things, 19 fics and one art. Highlights of my participation in battleship this year are writing the first fic in the archive for Big River and the first english fic for The Embers on AO3, and my first time writing for those as well as for Barnum, the 'His wife has filled his house with chintz...' tumblr meme and See Your Love.

Something new this year was breaking down the 'creator's choice of fandom' into a bunch of subsections which helped me really feel like I was writing for specific request and I had a lot of fun with 'creator's choice of musical' (Barnum and Big River) and there were some people who tailored their various CCOF requests specifically for things like disabled character prompts (which I jumped on to write Covert Affairs and See Your Love). Another nice change for this year was the archive warnings (Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con and Underage Sex) were part of the prompt form so it was easy to see who'd opted into what so I'd know how to tailor things to people's requests better.

Big River - Miller/Hauptman
- Winding Your Way Summary: The river winds its way, unabated. (300 words, rated G, river pov ficlet for my favorite musical)

Barnum - Coleman/Stewart/Bramble
- Pulling the Wool Over the Prince of Humbug. Summary: There might be a sure-as-shooting sucker born a minute, but Charity was definitely born the minute in between. (444 words, rated G, I always loved how Charity canonically hoodwinked Barnum.) There's an amazing version of Barnum on youtube here, originally broadcast by the BBC in '86 starring Michael Crawford and has some delightful live recording flubs.

Charmed:
- The Same Stars, the Same Window, a Different World. Summary: Chris dies. And then he lives. (1,971 words, rated T- how many times has Chris' "death" in s6 and what happened next been written? Well, here's one more!)
- watching from the sidelines while being in the game Summary: Sometimes the contradictions were just too hard to bear. (662 words, rated G - Chris (pre his identity being revealed angst)

Covert Affairs:
- Coffee and Camaraderie. Summary: A bit of coffee and a lot of camaraderie makes the day a bit better. (400 words, rated G, just some nice Auggie and Annie banter)

DMBJ:
- A Flower, Not in the Hand nor in the Bush. Summary: As far as kidnappings went, Xie Yuchen rated this one two out of ten stars. (350 words, rated T, Heihua)
- A Touch of Frost in the Air Summary: It was a night like many others and a conversation they'd had before.(600 words, rated T, Heihua post-movie and Xiazi's eye issues)
- Paying for a Moment's Inattention. Summary: Everything had been going so well which was never a good sign. (1511 words, rated T, Heihua and a tomb raid that goes awry)
- An Inconvenience About to be Averted. Summary: It was only a slight hiccup to the evening's plans. (323 words, rated G, Pangzi just wants to make dinner for his boys)
- Oh for Those Lazy Days. Summary: Retirement suited Wang Pangzi. (300 words, rated M, lazy days (in bed) for the Iron Triangle)

余烬之上 | The Embers (TV)
- Toward the Dead, Into the Light. Summary: Whenever Liao Siyuan had needed his brother, Zhibai had always been there for him. Even Zhibai's death didn't stop that. (449 words, canonical character death, weird and trippy like the start of the show)

His wife has filled his house with chintz - jjbang8 (Photograph)
- Midweek Matinee. Summary: It's the tennis instructor this time. An excellent choice, if she does say so herself. (429 words, rated E, a combination of voyeurism and a twist on the just who is keeping it real here)

The Magnificent Seven (TV)
- The Invisible Enemy. Summary:There were some enemies that you couldn't win against. no matter how good a fighter you were. (700 words, rated T for Period-Typical Homophobia, Vin standing up for himself)

MDZS:
- fraught and frightful. Summary: An unexpected ambush, a surprising result. (1,460 words, rated M for violence - ambushing the Yiling Laozu, always a good idea)

Original Work:
- A Flame by Any Other Means Will Smoke as Sweetly. Summary: Just because Schmeckle couldn't make his own flame didn't mean he couldn't create it some other way. (513 words, rated G - a dragon and his bar mitzvah!)
- Baa Baa Battlesheep. Summary: Baa baa battlesheep, have you any battles? (art of the battleship I crocheted)

See Your Love (Taiwanese Drama)
- Music and Messes Summary: Jiang Shaoping, Yang Zixiang, and a moment in the kitchen. (320 words, rated G - just a sweet little Jiang Shaoping/Yang Zixiang moment)

Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
- The Miscalculation. Summary: As it turned out he hadn't taken everything into consideration. (800 words, rated G, Watson whump)

Stargate Atlantis
- Those Who Stayed. Summary: For some, their time on Atlantis was brief. But for others.... (350 words, rated G, major character death - newcomers to Atlantis and those who never leave)

The Untamed
- To Embrace the New. Summary: Long ago the Burial Mounds had been a verdant place. Now, nothing thrived within its wards. Or, at least, nothing had.... (400 words, rated T, Burial Mounds POV my beloved)

As gifts, I got one ficlet for Red Devil and Heroine Su, to touch softly by treescape. Summary: The Red Devil loves as she fights—merciless and unyielding to any who stand in her way.

and one adorable art (based off some battleship lore that was happening during the game: [art] Donut Teapot - Donut Time by embraideryart (embraidery).

and two podfics made of things I'd written (both <10min):
Charmed - Prue Diligence by buries. Summary: There was someone paging through the Book of Shadows, someone who piqued Prue's interest. (fic, originally written for 2024's Yuletide is here)
The Old Guard - Food of the Ages by wilfriede0815. Summary: If Nicky was going to try to bake baklava for Andy, he was make sure he did it right. (fic, originally written for 2020's Battleship is here)

and one other thing of mine was podficced for someone else (25min):
MCU- [Podfic] The Time With The... by sisi_rambles. Summary: The five times Steve and Bucky lied about what they faced during the War and the one time they told the truth. Aka the five times they trolled the Avengers and one truth that enabled them to get away with it. (Fic, originally an avengers kink meme fill, is on AO3 here)

Podficcers are amazing, all three were done just perfectly, and I loved my other two gifts as well.

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How is it August already?

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 16:38:20 GMT

I threw together some Battleship recs for the last two weeks' recthething community rec posts (mostly art but a little fic) and just remembered I should share it here too (creators will still be anon until Wednesday):

Art recs:
Carmilla
- Art: Your Sleep Demon (delightfully creepy)

DCU
- Art: Just a little more, Superman... A young Jason helps Clark to safety.(gorgeous, particularly the lighting)

Dracula
- Art: Midnight The scene after Dracula leaves Jonathan and Mina's room. (the emotions in this!)

Dredge (Video Game)
- [Art] Sunset Scene Summary: A small atmospheric piece.(absolutely beautiful, no canon knowledge needed digital art piece)

Moby Dick - Herman Melville
- [Art] The Ghost Hunter AU Summary: No-dialogue comic imagining if the events of the book were loosely adapted into a found footage horror piece centered on Ahab's quest to prove the existence of the spirit Moby-Dick. (so many details in this comic and so well done!)

Original Works
- [Art] She was a fairy This art was inspired by samiabenchaou_ on Instagram. She’s a hijabi fashion influencer. (beautiful)
- A Regency grape angel enjoying some tea with her pets (so sweet)
- Art: Madame Poire A woman wearing a pear-themed historical dress. (wonderfully detailed)
- The Fruit Heist Glorbo, Barry, and Pearry stealing fruits. (All of the teams' mascots and friends, so cute!)
- [art] Glorby Be (Manuscript art! Amazing)
- Battleship 2025: Paper Dolls (A series of paper dolls of Glorbo and others that can be cut out with clothing and whatnot to add, so neat!)
- [Art] The Tower Sumary: A mermaid is... happy to see the lighthouse keeper she's been watching. (beautiful, if slightly creepy charcoal/chalk/pastels on paper piece)
- [Art] Monster in 8B Summary: The shadows aren't cruel. (amazingly creepy)

fic recs:
Eureka/Stargate SG1 crossover
- Bugs in the System Summary: SG-1's visit to Eureka has some unexpected results. (Jack Carter and Sam Carter are cousins and amazing in this)

Leverage/DCU crossover
- They Meet Again Summary: At a charity gala, Bruce Wayne meets a beautiful woman he's run into many, many times before. (great Bruce voice and so many neat little details)

Star Trek Lower Decks
- Battlesheep Potemkin Summary: First officer's log, stardate, uh, computer, add the stardate in. The Cerritos is responding to a distress call from the USS Potemkin, an Excelsior-class starship that was exploring the Gra'pe-2025 system. Upon arrival, we found Potemkin adrift in orbit of the third planet, which is currently surrounded by an ion storm. There is no sign of the crew. However, the ship is filled with hundreds of strange mammalian life-forms. (hilarious)

The last team, Lemon, cleared their final board today and those works will go live tomorrow. I will be very interested in hearing from their team (and everyone else) when the feedback post is put up. I don't usually comment on those posts but I might this year, depending on what the mods say in the first place about how the game might change for next year (there was already mention in the discord that the tag count will drop back down to 400 from the 574 of this year which is such a relief). Without some mod changes (or at least issue acknowledgements) I'll have to think very hard about signing up again next year, which is a shame since I'm one of the very few who've done it every year but the things I love about it are starting to be outweighed but what I find stressful or outright dislike. Sigh.

Now that battleship's winding down hopefully I'll have time to tackle a few things on my to-watch and to-read lists. I would really like to get through the official Guardian translation before the Guardian-read-along finishes up but I am just not sure I'll manage it. (And then there's my poor MDL to-watch list. So long despite efforts earlier this year to work my way through it. Somehow, I keep adding to it. Too many good shows/movies out there I guess.) I also have to start thinking about Yuletide and what I'll want to nominate for it.

Crafting-wise I've been working on a blanket my daughter 'commissioned' from me (aka she bought the yarn). I'm about 3 skeins into the 7 I think it'll need for the length she wants. It's turning out nice, but will still take a while to finish. After that (or maybe during a break from that) I need to do another bread/bagel bag rug because my stack of bags is starting to get unwieldly. Not sure what I'll do with it/where I'll put it once I make it, but that's a future me problem. I also have a string bag I was designing that I ran out of crochet thread for that I need to get back to now that I've bought more. (Here's hoping my notes still make sense)

Anyway, hope all of you are doing well and August is being nice to you! :)

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