donutsweeper

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.

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!!

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! :)

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?)

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)

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)

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?

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)

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 thinks 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)
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.
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
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."
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:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Art Books and other publications, 1k+ available as free PDFs and 700+ available to read online
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. (being 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

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."
r/Piracy's megathread wiki
r/FreeMediaHeckYeah's megathread wiki

Libraries, Museums, Cultural Institutions with Online Collections
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.
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)
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"

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)
Photographic Height and Weight Chart (created via user provided photos)
Body Visualizers one and two - Creates 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)
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)
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)
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:
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

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)
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) and a Manual Wheelchair Tutorial by fancyfade
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)



Research and Resource Collected Links Masterpost

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! :)