donutsweeper

Whelp, got swallowed by Battleship as usual. The teams have been hilariously/horribly poorly determined/set up this year with one steamrolling away, clearing boards usually 24-48 (or more) ahead of anyone else, two teams pretty much neck and neck and then the last team days behind them. When team placements were announced I assumed the front-running team would lead due to who was on it (the majority were on the team that blitzed through most of the game last year) but had no idea it'd be this bad or uneven. Oh well. By focusing on only my team's chats and trying to write the best/most interesting things I can write I am still mostly enjoying myself.

It's fruit themed this year and my team is Grape and each team has its own emoji of the yellow blob blorbo thing hugging the team's fruit and the grape team got very silly and after a poll named ours glorbo and tons of people were drawing it so I decided to immortalized it in crochet even if I couldn't put it in the collection so behold .... Glorbo the Glorbnificent! (Glorbo + a rough pattern for making it)

Since my last post the h/c exchange authors were revealed. I wrote:

Embers Seeking Flame. Untamed fic, 4,208 words. Summary: Lan Sizhui did not often find himself reminiscing on the past. It was what it was. Or was it? (LSZ&WWX fic, rated G)

Reaching That Inevitable Horizon. The First Shot fic, 1162 words. Summary: No matter how much Zheng Bei wishes it wasn't the case, there is only one way this can, and ever could, end. (JXH/ZB, spoilers for drama's end, T rated, see warnings)

It's interesting, because I usually write in past tense but every so often a fic just *needs* to be in the present tense to get a better feel for the tension and action. Reaching That Inevitable Horizon would have read and felt very differently if it hadn't been in present (as would my long Under the Skin fic, Gently Toward a New Bright Morn). The immediacy and sense of pace required them to be present tense.

Oh! And once h/c revealed I passed the 500 work mark on AO3! (yes, I could have passed that ages ago if I'd actually put all my drabbles up there from pre-ao3 days or if I combined my EAD birthday sock with donutsweeper's stuff but whatever, still, 500!)

Have a bunch of recthething recs! (MDZS/Untamed fic and tumblr art for DMBJ, Great Mouse Detective, Old Guard, SPN, Under the Skin, and WoH)

MDZS/Untamed fic rec:
- A Change of State by Toshokanin (36k, squidgeworld fic, not AO3)
Summary Snippet: senior citizen LQR whose nephews have gone off to college and jobs, leaving him alone in the house where he raised them. (delightful story where LQR wanders into the bookstore where WWX works and discovers BL manga (which happens to be volume 1 of the story of Hanguang-jun and Yiling-laozu) and the friendship that grows between the two while they read/discuss the books)

tumblr art recs:

DMBJ/Lost Tomb
- 🕶️🌸 (Gorgeous Heihua- Hei Xiazi/Xiao Hua- art)

The Great Mouse Detective
- Mouse Detective Again (Some adorable doodles)
- a domestic Toby moment (Very cute Toby, Dawson and Basil moment)

The Old Guard
- Quick ipad sketch while watching old guard2 (spoiler free sketch of Andy)

Supernatural
- my favorite part was doing the book (Dean in 'Faith', gorgeous)

Under the Skin
- Craft time an Under the Skin dangling paper dolls tutorial with template you can DL and print out to make (these are darling!)

Word of Honor
- For your consideration. Princess Bride/Word of Honor AU (perfect and utterly hilarious comic)

I have managed to go through all of the links I'd saved to Pocket. It was honestly interesting to work my way backwards through fannish interests (the big ones like Sherlock, MCU, SPN, Merlin, NCIS, SGA, Mag7, and DW/TW but also random ones I dipped into like Sleepy Hollow, SouthLAnd, Haven and so many more) via fics and anon meme comments saved, different research rabbit holes, and general hobby interests. Out of the 1.5-2k links I've kept a little over 300 or so (many articles/fics were read but didn't need to be kept and probably at least half the links were dead). About half those kept were genealogy links-I used to be massively interested in that but mostly researched backwards as much as possible (quite far for a few ancestors including some of hub's to late 1600s/early 1700s Sweden on his dad's side and his mom's to 1500/1600 France->Quebec; many of mine I can't trace before they arrive in the US 1900ish but there's a few I've traced back to late 1700s/early 1800s in the Pale of Jewish Settlement) - generally I've lost the shine of the whole search process but I kept the links just in case. The other half is pretty random, but includes a good dozen or two things I'll be adding to various of my useful links posts so keep an eye out for that.

The Hurt/Comfort Exchange announced due to unclaimed pinch hits (there were still two unclaimed last time I checked) that there will be a delay in opening so instead of going live tomorrow, it'll be July 4th. Kind of bummed about that.

I've made two more rugs out of prepped strips I'd made a few weeks back:

a big, give or take 37" by 27" rusty batik(ish) one and

a smaller, 27.5" by 17" ish blue/green plaid and grey one, out of the rest of the strips left over from the rug I posted about 2 weeks ago and a pair of old grey flannel sleep pants

I'm pretty much out of places I can put rugs here, but I still have lots of prepped strips and whatnot. Not sure what I'll do about that.

Here's two week's worth of tumblr art recs at recthething (due South, DMBJ, Doctor Who, Guardian, MDZD/Untamed and Merlin):

due South
- Let’s pretend the Rays are in the basement of an all girls school again okay (hilarious would-be reaction of the Rays responding to Fraser, and his action, in the ep he was posing as Ms Fraser)

DMBJ
- The coolest guy ever (absolutely incredible art of Reboot's version of Hei Xiazi)
- Zhang Qiling doodle (amazing take on UN's Xiao Yulang's Xiaoge photoshoot)

Doctor Who
- Two (absolutely darling)

Guardian
- Something dramatic for Weilan (this is incredible and so tender)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Modern mdzs series: 1) Wei Ying, 2) Lan Zhan, 3) Wen Ning, 4) Wen Qing, and 5) Jiang Cheng. (Love the whole series, especially Lan Zhan and Wen Ning's looks)
- sometimes I think about older Mianmian meeting Jin Ling and I just. have to take a moment (a comic/bit of animation with a little meta/thoughts about Mianmian and Jin Ling, hits you in the feels)

Merlin
- Treating myself with some soft Merthur (tender, beautiful kisses)
- my first offering to the merlin fandom, good god i'm so obsessed. look at what i've done to my boy. (amazing use of color and lighting in this)
- (tw suggestive) Lap dance (yes, good, thank you)

As a head's up there's a new round of bots hitting AO3 and posting comments claiming works failed some kind of AI test. The one I got read "Claude showed 69% on analysis. Already posted it to the Discord blacklist. There’s a massive difference between using AI for brainstorming and straight-up uploading what the bot spits out. Readers deserve better." They're usually left by guests so if you get one just hit the 'report spam' button and ignore/delete it. (Hilariously, the comment was left on a work written for an children's lit exchange in 2013 so very very much not able to have been made by AI and it's the only work in its fandom so I've no idea how they even found it to bother with their spam).

In more *ugh* news last year Duolingo fired a lot of its translators to pivot to AI and now Duolingo's CEO has announced Duolingo will be replacing ALL contract workers with AI and elsewhere announced a whole slew of new languages the app will be offering that have all been created (solely or mostly) via AI. None are English->other language so I haven't checked any out but there's been numerous posts/comments/reports of how... not great they are to put it politely. Ever since Duo got rid of the tree I've been collecting tumblr and reddit posts with suggestions for other apps/sites, I'm really busy right now but hope to throw together a post compiling the info within a few weeks.

There was recently a flash exchange focused on lemmings and other small rodents and I went a little nuts crocheting for it. I wound up making 4 creatures- 2 generic animals (mouse and capybara), Shanklin the Stab Possum from Gravity Falls (along with a crocheted knife for it), and The Death of Rats from Discworld (the scythe was so annoying to try to do OMG) and posting 9 works (reusing the mouse and capybara and a previously made guinea pig along with some little items I freehand crocheted for the prompts like a tiny mug of coffee, a shrink ray, a pair of wings, two flower crowns, etc. (Many, many other things were tried but failed. So many.) Everything's on donutsweeper (rather than my EAD birthday bash sock that most of the crochet is on) but here's a few of them:

(I really need to get better at taking pictures of my crochet. So much detail gets lost and sometimes the angle is just weird no matter what I try. SIGH)

And, last but not least, recthething recs! (One MDZS/Untamed Pacific Rim fusion fic and tumblr art for that plus Dracula, Looney Tunes, Merlin, Sherlock Holmes and SPN)

by the grace of the fire and the flames by ShippersList (56k, locked to archive)
Summary: Three years after the Sunshot Campaign (and two years after Wei Ying shut himself and the Wen remnants into the Burial Mounds), something rips open in the bottom of the sea and unimaginable horrors crawl out. The cultivation world unites once more in the face of a common enemy. Lan Wangji knows from the start that without Wei Ying, there is no hope of survival. (neat Pacific Rim AU)

Dracula
- I miss Dracula so heres a silly drawing of it as a muppet movie XD (absolutely delightful)

Looney Tunes
- If the Bugs Bunny show ever gets another revival, I advocate for Yosemite Sam to heckle at the hosts periodically (hilarious comic)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Lan Wangji, do you want revenge? (amazing Yiling Laozu LWJ)
- Ahh... the Burial Mounds (hilarious multi-panel comic)

Merlin
- First date ideas (these are so sweet)

Sherlock Holmes
- Lesson (love the way the pipe smoke blends into the background in this Granada!Holmes sketch)

Supernatural
- Carry On (gorgeous Dean fanart)</details)

Today the friending meme over at snowflake_challenge was posted and it made me realize I hadn't actually done any of the challenges this year. The past two years I'd bounced off of a few and skipped others since they weren't pertinent, but I was kind of surprised to realize the month had come and gone and there hadn't been a single challenge I really was interested in or hadn't done numerous times before. Sigh. Oh well.

I'm nearly halfway through the blanket I'm working on, unfortunately I hadn't noticed that taking a break from it to do the EAD and Threshold amigurumi resulted in me using a much tighter stitch for a bit but oh well, I noticed now and loosened up the stitch. There's a chunk of rows where it's a lot less wide and tighter but it's just a throw that's going to live on the back of the couch and not be a present or sold or anything so meh, oh well.

As an FYI, if you've been thinking maybe you've been getting less kudos lately than usual, it's not your work, it's AO3. Kudos emails for numerous accounts were simply not sent out several times this month (including today and yesterday, seven days in all, particularly if you usually get yours from 6-9am EST). Apparently they're looking into it, but it's not a quick fix.

I listen to/watch a lot of history, linguistic/language and various other learn-about-something type podcasts and youtube channels and I'm finding that more and more often the research they seem to be doing is more of the briefest glace-at-wikipedia-if-that type than any real work at finding any details out themselves. It's frustrating. (Most recently on my instant-drop list was an english language lovers focused one that had an entire episode about Shakespeare and how many words and phrases he invented. Which, no. First recorded use of? Meh, maybe even if most actually aren't (including one he gave that even the OED mentioned was from Old English), but invented? Definitely not. Not only has the idea he did been disproven over and over by now, it's also beyond illogical, his plays had to be understood by the people who watched them. SIGH)

There *are* still a bunch that provide sources and show and explain their research, thankfully, but it's just frustrating how rare it's becoming. Currently, my favorite (actually well researched) language-oriented one is the idioms podcast Bunny Trails (which is on most podcast platforms but also puts their podcasts up on youtube) and the history one is the welsh history youtube channel Cambrian Chronicles which, among other things, has done some really interesting dives into incorrect wikipedia articles, trying to figure out why wikipedia claims what it does.

Have two weeks of recthething recs (one Mdzs/Untamed fic and tumblr art for DMBJ, Guardian, MDZS/Untamed, Merlin, ST:Voy, and Under the Skin):

Junior Detectives! (The Case of Mo Xuanyu) by CheekyBrunette (64k)
Summary Snippet: The one where Wei Wuxian uses the pseudonym "Mo Xuanyu" for reasons yet to be revealed, and the junior detectives solve a case each chapter while investigating their chemistry teacher. (cute YA detective book vibes in this recently finished fic)

Tumblr art recs:
DMBJ/Lost Tomb:
- Happy new year from hei xiazi and his snake friend (wonderful snake, wonderful way to celebrate the Lunar New Year)
Guardian:
- Dark Guardian (dark yet beautiful art of Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei as the Black Robed Envoy and Da Qing)
- who did this? | it’s not mine part one and part two (Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan through the years, wonderfully done)
MDZS/The Untamed:
- would you like a Wen Ning in these trying times? (ridiculously cute wen ning)
Merlin
- Merthur Modern AU (gorgeous)
Star Trek Voyager:
- Star Trek Threshold (adorable art done in Lower Decks Style for this silly holiday)
Under the Skin:
- let the light in (cute Shen Yi, Du Cheng and Xiaoxuan the cat art)

I finished my Yuletide assignment but I don't think any significant amount of treats are happening this year. I had been hoping that my output would turn around and while I didn't expect to be anywhere near my most productive years, I was hoping to match what I managed the last two years but it doesn't look like that will happen. To an extent it's due to my shifting away from watching much western tv - a lot of years there used to be some show (or even two) I'd picked up and watched during the writing period and could then fill some treats that way but I also just haven't been writing much in general lately so who knows. I know there's more to Yuletide than just writing treats, I just have to convince my brain that.

In the least shocking news to people who read my dreamwidth ever, I've been crocheting and baking a bunch. (And tis very annoying I can't just post discord pics of everything here anymore, uploading images to dreamwidth is too annoying to do for everything). Baking over the last month or so has included pumpkin bread with cinnamon streusel, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, oatmeal raisin muffins, carrot bread, peanut butter swirl brownies, cream cheese chocolate chip cookies, chocolate crumble cake, mixed chip cookies (various combos of white chocolate, peanut butter chip and chocolate chips as well as each separately), peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and probably more?

Crochetwise there's that oven mitt I mentioned last post and then I used all the cotton scraps from the various mitts/potholders to make a kitchen scrubby. I also made a worry wyrm/fidget dragon and am 90% done with current blanket. The black friday yarn sales were meh, but decent enough I could get more cotton and the yarn I need for the next blanket I have planned. (Non-crochet crafting-wise I also have enough bread bags I need to at least start another rug to use them up.) Pictures!:

worry wyrm and oven mitt

and

Under the Skin S2 drops on the 10th. I *loved* s1. (Here's the review I wrote up of it.) It was tightly written and well acted and actually inspired me to write something outside of an exchange for it. So far the promos for S2 look good but still, I'm nervous. More than once I gotten new content in a canon that not only did not improve upon the existing material but also dashed my love and interest in it. *Sigh* fingers crossed.

Anyway, moving on. Randomness from around the world I found interesting:
Notorious skyjacker "Dan Cooper" aka D.B. Cooper might have finally been identified (according to this Popular Science article anyway, there has been nothing officially reported that I can find.)

Ethiopian wolves have been observed foraging for nectar and acting as pollinators for red hot poker flowers (scientific paper, Science.org article about it)

Video on how an accessible no-tape wrapping hack for the upcoming (or any) holiday season (mp4 link from tumblr)

And, last but not least ficinabox art recs (creators still anon, somehow I mucked up a few of the links when posting to the comm but I think they're all fixed now - fandoms are DC comics, Doctor Who, Dungeon Meshi, Dream SMP, Firefly, Hamlet, Original Work, SVSS, Star Trek: Lower Decks and X-files)

DC
- Flying (Coloring Page) Summary: KonJay coloring page (great expressions on both Jason and Kon-el in this)
- Cass (stunning)
- Nightwing and Haley Crochet Doll Patterns Summary: Crochet Nightwing and Haley (Bitewing) dolls and patterns to make them. (adorable crochet plus patterns! How cute!)

Doctor Who
- [Art] Hold On (Two and Jamie, adorable)
- [Art] My Best Enemy (Three and Delgado!Master, the look on the Master's face here is priceless)

ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon
- haircare is very important Summary: Falin is excited to volunteer and help Marcille with her hair when Chilchuck is not around. For Marcille, it feels different when Falin does it. (lovely and sweet)

Dream SMP
- Pig Techno and Crowza On An Adventure Summary: Pictures of pig Techno and Crow Philza in crochet form. (Honestly, I don't know this fandom but saw it was crochet so had to click and it's adorable)

Firefly
- [art] From the Sketchbook of Simon Tam (three sketches, I really love the one of River)

Hamlet
- Hamlet Coloring Pages (Ophelia and Horatio coloring pages, very cool)
- Hamlet Costume Designs Summary: Costume designs for characters from Hamlet. (Hamlet and Ophelia, nicely detailed)

Original Work
- better kept in secret (absolutely gorgeous pirate captain/navy captain nemesis art)
- Be Nice To Your Printer! Summary: A poster tacked to the office noteboard regarding printers (hilarious!)
- [Art] Tiny Witch With a Tiny Familiar Summary: An autumn witch clad in autumn leaves. (leaf art (leaves + art?), stunning)

人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
- Shen Yuan and the merman (lovely AU)

Star Trek: Lower Decks
- Boldly Go! Summary: A propaganda poster put together by an overworked Starfleet Comms Officer who didn't check what her model's quote translated to before she pushed the Cetacean's recruitment posters live. (this made me laugh)

X-Files
- From Above Summary: Digital Art based on the episode Revelations (really amazing imagery)

20ish hours left to signup for yuletide! They close at 9pm UTC on the 18th (which is 4pm CDT). There's currently 1070 signups, there's been quite the jump in numbers over the last day or two, I assume it'll be 1200-1300 by the time signups close. (Humourously, it jumped from 1058 signup in the time it took me to write and post this.)

I cleaned out the junk drawer the other day. Here have a sign of how old I am (probably/possibly understandable only by fellow americans but...)



Many of you are probably already aware, but the internet archive was taken down by a ddos attack last week. They've managed to get the wayback machine back up, but it's currently read only. The rest of the archive is currently still down but they've posted they hope to get everything back up soon.

Political news has been quite the shitshow here in the US of late (well, *more* of a shitshow of late) but it made me smile to see that Jimmy Carter's been able to fulfill his dream of voting in the current election (early voting in Georgia began yesterday), two weeks after celebrating his 100th birthday. I met him once, ages ago when he came to my college for an event and he was so kind and down-to-earth, it's nice to see him be able to accomplish what he's said was his final wish.

Last but not least, here's two weeks' worth of recthething recs (all mdzs/untamed fic recs):

grimoire by WithLoweredVoices (95k)
Summary: ‘Alright, fine,’ huffs Wei Ying, blowing out his cheeks. He adjusts his grip on the smooth hilt of the sword, as cold as wet stone beneath his palm. ‘How do I give this back to you?’
‘I must trade with you something of equal worth,’ says the strange man.
‘Uh. Okay.’ Wei Ying rubs his forehead with his free hand. ‘How about your name? Your real name.’ In case he needs to file a police report or stalk this beautiful, scary man on google or something.
The man looks even more angry. He pulls his shoulders back and draws himself to his full height, which is rather impressive and forces Wei Ying to tip his chin up slightly.
‘My name is Lan Zhan,’ the man says. ( fascinating 'dark academia (but not) au')

King’s Shadow by Solmae (13k)
Summary: On the verge of a war with the powerful Wen Kingdom, the Lan Kingdom calls in an old debt and seeks a marriage alliance with the Jiang Kingdom. The Jiang Kingdom sends its prince in answer, but is he truly an olive branch of friendship, or a clever assassin in disguise? To uncover the truth and thwart a potential assassination attempt, Lan Wangji poses as his older brother to court the Jiang prince in Lan Xichen’s stead. However, in more ways than one, there may be more to the situation than meets the eye... (cute mistaken/hidden identity royal!au)

Gardens and Fields by Ashura (16.5k)
Summary: Lan Qiren quells him with his most forbidding glare. ‘This is a matter which requires delicacy, which is why I struggle to believe I am actually requesting Wei Wuxian’s assistance. But,’ he finishes wearily, ‘it also requires someone who can reliably identify the cultivation techniques. And preferably someone not directly connected to Gusu Lan. Which leaves but one viable option, however much I may dislike it.’ (nice post-canon fic that deals with some of the mess that would have been left behind after Su She's downfall)

In a follow up to my last post, I just saw that trobadora has posted the excellent news that the 'Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms' has been reinstated as a metatag and been decoupled from Sherlock (TV). Upon perusal, it looks like now it is the top tier tag and the majority of Holmesian fandoms (importantly, including Sherlock (TV)) are subtags of it. So now clicking on tag and excluding Sherlock (TV) will work to actually exclude the Sherlock fics and shows 17k works. It's not perfect because there seem to be a few Holmesian fandoms missing (for example, only the Sherlock Holmes (US TV 1954) fics that have been tagged with both that and the 'related fandoms' tag are showing up, for some reason that particular fandom doesn't seem to be included in the tag tree) but STILL. So happy they reversed this decision.

Here's the beginning of the official AO3 tumblr's post explains the walkback:

"Tag wrangling is, on the whole, a fluid process. It’s meant to be, because the way language is used and the way tags are used change over time. We’re the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, and that we do sometimes make mistakes despite our best intentions. This is why wrangling decisions are not set in stone and are reevaluated periodically as circumstances change or as new information becomes available.

In light of the impact that removing the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms metatag has had, we have put that metatag back in place."

I suspect support got inundated with complaints and I feel a little bad for them, but I'm just glad they listened to fandom on a whole about the subject and it looks like they'll be a little more cautious about changes like this from now on.

Anyway, moving on... It's almost yuletide! Nominations open Monday! The evidence post is already up. Time to think about what I'll be nominating! Thanks to some amazing luck, several of my recent repeating fandom requests were actually filled the last year or two so I need to come up with some new things. Decisions, decisions.

For no reason whatsoever I decided to crochet a little bunny

And here's this week's recthething recs (2 MDZS/Untamed fic recs):

Lan Sizhui and the Whispers of the Lost by Vulpeculate (30k)
Summary: One morning, late in the winter of Lan Sizhui’s final year as a junior high student, he woke up alone. - Lan Sizhui faces a mystery close to home when a sudden disappearance puts his life into disarray. The secrets of the past and present will challenge him as he seeks to find what has taken his father. Who is the eccentric, inexperienced librarian who has taken up staff at Gusu Junior High School? What mysterious light glows from the inner walls of the Cloud Recesses? What lurks in the woods beyond town? Will Lan Sizhui and his friends find out the truth before it's too late? (fun YA styled modern-with-cultivation mystery AU)

Sunshot in Charcoal by Serpex (<1k)
Summary: Wei Wuxian remembers his past life. No one else does. He thinks that it will always be like that. But for a moment, hope festers in his heart as a vivid scene is born from Lan Sizhui's canvas. But, he's learned not to rely on foolish hopes even if he wants to. (poignant and slightly sad modern AU)

Hope everyone's having a good September! The hot weather here finally broke, which is nice but now there's all the outside work that I'd been putting off to do which is less nice. Tis the way of things, I guess.

Due to Battleship plus real life chaos combining I haven't posted for a while. I did 16 works for Battleship (13 fics and 3 art, I did try recording podfic but couldn't manage to make it work to my satisfaction) and got some lovely gifts, including several podfics of old works, I will link to everything when I can include authors.

Battleship this year was... an experience. My team (Mermaids) was in last place throughout the entire thing and after officially losing, it came out that a lot of the points we'd gotten on 2 of the boards weren't truly earned (long story I do not have the energy to go into) which meant we probably should have been still finishing the third board when the winning team completed the fifth. It's not remotely the mods fault, but wow the teams were depressingly uneven this year and the whole thing really doubles down on short form or slow creators feeling like they can't contribute much (aka me and how I can fandom). I have no idea how people manage to write long in the first place but to write multiple 10k+ things a week? o.O

I haven't been baking (far too hot) but did do both a rug (using up several of the recently yarned tshirts) a quick crochet project (a draft dodger) and watched more of The Spirealm while making them. (And now am stuck because I don't have another project in the wings and just am awful at watching stuff without one, even thought I only have 2 episodes to go to finish it who knows how long that will take). Rug:

25” x 18” ish, made from 3 shirts all 25-30 yrs old

Also, so many recthething recs! Four weeks' worth! (MDZS/Untamed recs, lots of tumblr art, multifandomdoodle stuff and battleshipex recs):

Single Plank Bridge by skuzzybunny (art, locked to archive)
Summary: Illustration of Wei Wuxian being guided towards the Burial Mounds (perfect eerie burial mounds art)

Lotus Purr by ShippersList (1.4k, locked to archive)
Summary: Everyone knew Lotus Pier didn’t welcome dogs except for Young Master Jin’s spiritual dog Fairy. Cats, though? Cats were different. (Mostly because they couldn’t care less about welcomes or appropriate places.) (short but sweet)

tumblr art recs:
Discworld
- CATS… CATS ARE NICE (Death and cats. Lovely)

Lord of the Rings
- Aragorn (absolutely amazing art)

MDZS/The Untamed
- crochet jiang cheng (Very impressive crochet work! I crochet and don't think I could freehand something like this)
- “Between you and me, there is no need for ‘thank you’ and 'sorry’.“ (hilarious Wangxian comic)
- 夷陵老祖 Yiling Laozu [Donghua X CQL combination] (very eerie)

Merlin
- Have you ever wondered what your future wife was doing? - Husband - What? (hilarious comic)
- A kiss for his long lost lover (gorgeous)
- I was thinking about Merlin and dragons again… (this is so cute!)

Nosferatu
- nosferatu in gouache (delightfully creepy)

Sherlock Holmes
- “Nobody writes of Holmes and Watson without love.” (gorgeous portraits)
- Peter Cushing’s Sherlock is an underrated gem and is made out of irresistible charm, frenetic energy, and 100% pure sass. (love the style of these)

multifandomdoodle recs (authors have since been revealed but I had this already written out from my recthething rec so I'm just C&Ping without that info)

DCU
- [ART] Wonder Woman! Summary: A comic poster featuring Black (African-American) Wonder Woman. (great poster!)

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- Happy Chonk Summary: Themberchaud playing with a rock. (so cute! and canon knowledge unnecessary)

Original Work
- LOOK UPON MY BLORBOS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR Summary: About art-only exchanges... (this is hilarious!)
- Ptarmigan Griffin (cute bunny griffins, locked to archive)
- Nosy Summary:A guinea pig and a bunny meet. (simplistic but cute)

battleshipex recs - there is so many works, over 2k and I could have recced 5x the number I did, these are just a smattering of (mostly art) I liked, check out the whole collection for more art, fic, and podfics here:

DCU
- The Dark Dough (Rises), [podfic] The Dark Dough (Rises) and accompanying art, That Dough is Toast (Wherein Jason tries to revive his sourdough starter but things get out of hand - hilarious story, 1.5k, with great art and accompanying podfic)

MDZS/Untamed
- best of bad choices. Summary: portrait of wen qing <3 (gorgeous)

Original Work (split vaguely into groups of dragons, animals or monsters, and then mermaid art recs and then a fic):
- Shoulder Dragon Cafe. Summary: It's where you get some breakfast and hot chocolate and cuddle with the dragons after a hard adventure. (amazingly detailed and very cute)
- [Art] Fly-by. Summary: An ancient forest dragon and a young frost drake meet briefly in passing. (two incredible and very different dragons!)
- [Art] Companion Summary: A shoulder dragon is the best companion of all! (adorable)

- Horse Comics a series of three comics (simple and silly but cute)
- My Tower Is Next Door Neighbors With A Lonely Tentacle Monster Who Lives In A Volcano . Summary: Imagine being assigned to study the fearsome monster next door for your fire mage thesis but he's so shy! (sfw catboy wizard vs/ tentacle monster)
- A New Home [Art] Summary: Little cat finds a new home. (very cute comic)
- Edwardian Couple Summary: Two prim and proper hamsters trying to hold still for the camera. (utterly delightful!)
- So Fluffy Summary: cows got milk 'n hens got eggs 'n sheep got fluff instead of legs (two absolutely adorable fluffy sheep)
- [Art] Buffy the One-Headed Cerberus (adorable doggie art)
- Four Seasons Summary: A cat and a bunny's friendship through the seasons (four adorable sketches)
- Plantcupine Summary: A porcupine-lemongrass hybrid forages for food. (innovative and cute!)

- Just Don't Call Me Late For Dinner Summary: Spending all day in the mines means being greeted by very hungry animals when he makes it back home. (dumbo octopus miner mermaid feeding his manatee, delightful)
- The Little Magmaid [Art] Summary: Oh, today is a good day. Today, her favorite volcano is erupting again (beautifully drawn magma-volcano mermaid ala The Little Mermaid)
- mermaids... IN SPACE! (beautifully done astronaut and space mermaid)
- Underwater (NSFW mermaid art)
- [Art] Too Deep Summary: A hapless diver may have found more than he bargained for... (wonderful monochrome art with a creepy lamprey mermaid)

- an im-possum-ble mission (618 words, locked to archive) Summary Snippet: Trash day at the wildlife reserve is the best time to sneak into the raccoon's enclosure. The silly little beings are too caught up in making sure they get a peak at the dumpster before their precious trash is hauled away that they won't notice a small group of possums sneaking into their habitat. (an absolutely delightful fun fic)

In very exciting news Mousek podficced "Gone to the Mountain, See It Call to Thee" which was a ficlet I wrote last yuletide for the Hu Ge Eastern Airlines "Move Forward With Courage" Commercial. You can go give a listen to it here. (Of all my things to get podficced I have no idea why *this* one was chosen, but it's very exciting! and short at <2 minutes.)

Crafting-wise, I learned about a local group called Hats For the Homeless (one guess what its focus is) so I have decided to try crocheting a hat. I've never done one before. I might also start a new rug to experiment with using those plastic air pocket things that come in packages as the runner (after collapsing them, of course) and to use up all the supermarket plastic bags that have been living under my sink. (Do I need yet another rug, no, of course not but I also don't know if this will work so I guess that's okay.) Also debating what 'fun' sort of thing I can do. Oh wait, I also do have a plastic cordage rug in progress (making rope out of junk plastic like the wrappers papertowels 6pks come in and whatnot and then using that for the rug) so whoops, that'll be two rugs I don't need in the works.

Language learning-wise I haven't really liked Duolingo since it moved to the path format a year and a half ago and it keeps rejiggering its courses and I had been very close to quitting until I discovered a sort of trick that gives you a sort of old version of premium using Duolingo for Schools and I thought I'd pass on what it is and how to set it up in case anyone's in a similar place:

It's not everything premium offers now, not the tab with the exercises you need work on and you still pay gems for certain things, but you have endless mistakes with no worries about having to quit a lesson or pay if you make five mistakes. I had gotten to levels where I was never able to get through a lesson without paying gems to replace hearts and it was stressing me out so much so this works well for me.

To get the trick to work you might have to do it in a browser vs in the app (I'm not sure, I used a browser since that's how it was explained to me to get it) but what you do is you just click on the schools symbol and create a classroom. You don't need to do anything with the classroom once it's created or anything, just create it, close that window and then refresh on the original duolingo page to use it or open up the app. I think I also went into settings and turned off emails about classroom stuff but that was it. (You can also just join a classroom I think but creating one takes a second and is very easy.)

From then on you can use the app or the browser and you won't have to worry about running out of hearts ever again!

And, as always, here's this week's recthething recs (2 mdzs/untamed fics)

divine, divine by sunflowersfield (3k, locked to archive)
Summary Snippet: Lan Zhan accidentally adds assembly service to his furniture order and meets Wei Ying in the process. (short but sweet modern meet-cute)

The Lost Prince by hmmmmmmmm (40k)
Summary Snippet: After the fall of the Wei dynasty at the hands of the Wen, the emperor’s infant son is lost and presumed dead, along with the rest of the imperial family. Years pass and young Jiang Wuxian, with his two siblings Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng, leave Yiling to meet their destiny and search for the reason behind their father’s brutal murder, all while attempting to avoid enemies they didn’t know they had. (fascinating royalty AU with interesting world building and set up but as only the first of (a hopefully eventually continuing) series, it ends rather abruptly)

I didn't get to see the eclipse, it was supposed to be 78% of totality here but there was complete cloud cover all day. I did watch it via a NASA stream. Son, who works outside all day, did say that he noticed the temperature dropping and it getting darker as it reached peak here, but that the overall effect was just of an even deeper cloud cover and nothing atypical.

I've recently added a few dozen more links to my research/reference posts and am slowly working on getting a bunch more added. I know some of the posts are getting kind messy and I keep trying to reorganize/reorder them so they make more sense but I'm beginning to wonder if it's a lost cause by now as I have 4x as many links as I did when I first compiled them and they will only continue to grow from here. I am also considering adding some random crafting links (stitch dictionaries, antique pattern archives, etc) but I don't know if they really match the (original) theme of links for helping with writing. Thoughts?

Here's a neat trick if you are using discord and want to post links to some other social media sites and have the pictures/videos embed so they can be seen/watched. (I'm putting these here because so I don't have to hunt them down because I never remember them):
for instagram - add a dd between the www. and instagram (i.e. https://www.ddinstagram.com/whatever)
for twitter - add a vx or fx between the www. and twitter (i.e. https://www.fx.twitter.com/whatever - these display the tweet slightly differently. Both will show videos but if the tweet is a collection of photos which you use can make a difference)// now for x add 'fixup' before the x
(tiktok used to work with the same vx method but the most recent discord update killed it. SIGH - eta actually it looks like this tiktok hack is working again!)

Here's two weeks of recthething recs, 2 MDZS/Untamed fics and a whole heap of tumblr art:

And you must keep your soul/ Like a secret in your throat by athena_crikey (49k)
Summary: Lan Zhan looks at him, his gaze assessing. Then, slowly, he drops his hand to his hip. He unbuckles his sword from where it’s hanging from a leather belt, and lifts it to place it on the kitchen counter just outside his easy reach. “I’m here to ask for your help. Not compel you. I believe Wen Chao, and perhaps others in his sect, have been somehow perverting cultivation with the influence of the supernatural. The undead, specifically.”

Wei Ying takes an entirely unnecessary breath. “My influence, you mean.” (great modern-with cultivation + vampire AU with interesting world building)

darker than it shows by MusicPlotter (4k)
Summary: Wei Ying is lounging in the middle of the market place when he sees a rogue cultivator being shouted at for an unknown reason. Naturally, he has to get involved. (this 2020 fic was supposed to be first in an AU series where eye color tells of your past and those with darker eye color are considered distrustful but while no other stories were written for it, it still works well as a stand alone)

Captain America
- Memories (gorgeous and angsty Bucky remembering a childhood carefree moment art)

DMBJ/Lost Tomb
- I think I deserve an irl pangzi hug, but I guess as I can’t get one wu xie will have to have one instead (you can feel this hug, it's so great)

Doctor Who
- i think about this bts photo a lot (really cute Ten and Donna based off a bts photo of David and Catherine)

Godzilla
- Godfatherzilla, King of the Mobsters (perfect, just perfect)

Leverage
- Where will Leverage Consulting & Associates show up next? "Ive never drawn anything for leverage before, but damn if this wasnt fun. i love this show with my whole heart" (amazing art of Sterling in front of a wall map with all sorts of clues and things pinned on it)

MASH
- Papercraft commission of Hawkeye and Klinger from M*A*S*H! (joyous and adorable)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Wangxian (gorgeous WWX/LWJ piece)

Merlin
- Good luck kiss (so tender and sweet)
- 'Clotpole' is a term of endearment (so cute!)

Muppets
- Muppet Princess Bride, con't Rizzo as a R.O.U.S. (a continuation of the Muppet retelling of the Princess Bride which I recced a few months ago)

Pacific Rim
- PACIFIC RIM PACIFIC RIM I LOVE PACIFIC RIM (adorable Mako and Raleigh art)

Peanuts and Columbo Crossover
- Can you draw Columbo and Snoopy like for science? (three adorable doodles)

Sherlock Holmes
- Sherlock Holmes comic "Doodles for THE ADVENTURE OF THE YELLOW FACE (a title which has NOT aged particularly well but is referring to a weird wax mask) - in which Holmes fails to both come up with the correct solution AND to make a confession to his friend." (flustery Holmes is adorable)

ST:DS9
- Excerpt from Jake Sisko’s documentary about deep space station living. (hilarious 13 second animation)

X-Files
- and they were coworkers (oh my god they were coworkers) (beautifully tender Scully and Mulder)

Anyway, hope everyone's doing good and able to enjoy their weekend!!