Media Round Up: Short things For Low Focus Times
Oct. 6th, 2025 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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A Familiar StrangerβThis mini drama is about a woman who is forced to swap faces with another woman and take her place in an arranged marriage. Thereβs some tense moments in here but most of the focus is on the romance, which is pretty cute.
Content Notes
pregnancy, suicideThe West Wind Is StrongβMini drama about a woman who pretends to be a princess to marry the ruler of the steppe nomads and learn about why her father died. As with many Chinese dramas about steppe nomads its pretty racist.The last couple of episodes are choppy and rushed and kinda confusing
Content Notes
racism, sex where both people are drunkThe Reign of Feng YiβAnother mini drama! This has a similar premise to Dominion and Devotion: a woman raised from birth as a man becomes a puppet ruler and fights for power. But its much more light-hearted. This was cute and fun! (Content note: attempted rape)
Wow the World ep 5-18β This travel reality show was also a good fit for my current state of mind, it's cute and fun and not a lot of plot to follow. I ended up watching so much of this that I have to wait for more episodes to be available on youtube. I especially liked the bits where the cast cooked together.
Mu Guiying Takes Command ep 12-32β This was a soothing show that I was watching when I didnβt have lot of a brain, because even though it's not very good I enjoyed the various badass women. But it took a turn! Upsetting things happened and I stopped finding it soothing. So this is on infinite hold.
Content Notes
pregnancy/ abortion
emotional support spinning
Oct. 6th, 2025 05:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I think of this as Pumpkin Spice yarn! It'll be going to
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The current emotional support spinning WIP is cotton, widely regarded as hard mode for treadle wheel spinning. It only took six months of dedicated practice to skill up...

Shout-out to Mohairandmore [Etsy], which sells superlatively prepared fiber; the combed top for ramie and cotton are exquisite. They're also in Texas, so also semi-local to me, although I think most of their non-mohair fiber (they raise angora goats) is from other suppliers. I've got to budget for some of their merino blends at some point because I bet they're amazing to spin.
I wanted to learn to spin cotton because
(a) It's less wildly expensive than mulberry, eri, muga silk (my faves). You can get 4 oz. cotton fiber for ~$6 USD (not including shipping or tax). Silk fiber (unless it's "sari silk" loom waste) usually costs three times as much if not more.
(b) I'm in the US South. This is about as local as you get for fiber production! There's a little silk fiber production in the USA but not a lot of it, and again, whatever the source of the fiber, it's an inherently spendier fiber.
I went all-in on spinning because
(a) It's weirdly difficult to doomscroll on the internet while spinning. :p It's much better for my mental health; that alone would make it worthwhile.
(b) For my own use, I'm personally most interested in thread for needle lace, embroidery, cross stitch, hand-sewing, weaving. But I don't do any of those things very fast so I don't need very much for myself, and I'm narrowly interested in cotton or ramie or silk. I don't knit or crochet, but I have friends who do, and who can make use of yarns spun from Those Other Fibers! (I have functionally zero use for wool ever.) So anything I spin for my own learning/pleasure can go to a good home.
(c) I have wrecked ankle tendons (medical), and treadling on a spinning wheel is surprisingly good sneak physical therapy.
(d) I have neuropathy in my hands and feet, prognosis unknown. I don't want to wait five or ten years to pursue physical crafts further. My favorite thing is working with my hands (obviously, this isn't especially visible online). I regret I was never able to take a shop class because my high school didn't offer one. I don't know that I'm going to have sufficient use of my hands/feet in five to ten years (assuming the world hasn't imploded, a big assumption). So I might as well get some enjoyment out of hand/physical crafts now.
How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive
Oct. 6th, 2025 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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It's good to back up your work, even if you already post it in full on Dreamwidth or other sites. Right now is a very precarious time for the internet, with many platforms closing, severely misbehaving, or adding restrictions that make them less attractive. Also, some sites have become inaccessible for people, so multiple platforms broaden your potential audience.
Monthlyish pet pics - 2 of 3 - The amphibians and reptile!
Oct. 5th, 2025 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This time we have:
Berry Mad!
In her most fashionable hat!
(You can see right in front of her that she has started to dig the water out of her pond to make mud for herself. Previously, she would push her dirt into the pond to make mud, but apparently this year, she has decided she likes this way better.)
Four more pictures of Berry Mad:
Sittin' in her plant.
Not the clearest, but 'tis the time of year where she starts to burrow.
Toad? What toad? I don't see a toad.
Buried in her self-made mud. But then I dumped crickets in, and she immediately sat up, haha.
Guava Splash!
So small it makes me want to cry.
Three more pictures of Guava Splash:
(This picture is from Alex. Showing off the other side of the tiniest frog.)
So small.
This picture is from just yesterday. Tiny frog is looking a little chubby!
(Which is actually a relief... I was worried about getting something so small to eat enough to stay healthy.)
And mom and Taylor's garter snake, who has been named Ripley!
(Ripley, because she looks "ripple-y" when she moves, but also because Alien is great.)
She's so cute. She likes her little plant.
Just one more of Ripley:
I love her and her cute little face.
latest spinning
Oct. 5th, 2025 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Two-ply ramie handspun. I still have to BOIL it with soda ash to set the twist, but this will be going to
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September 18: Bright Nights at Four Mile Historic Park (Part 1)
Oct. 4th, 2025 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Four Mile Historic Park is a historic farm in Denver (which was once a stagecoach stop, which is where the Four Mile name comes from, I believe.) They're typically closed on my days off, so we never end up going, but they had a booth at Pride, and we picked up a flyer for the upcoming lantern festival.
It was lovely!
The entrance. (Though I took this picture on the way out; it was still slightly light in the sky when we got there.)
Should have gone back over once it was fully dark, but I do love the peacocks. (The sign about this particular display talks about them representing love. They are, of course, both male, haha. And have a giant rainbow heart. Love my pride peacocks.)
I really loved this fae creature on their throne. <3
Twelve more pictures:
I was, of course, very taken with the jackalopes.
Fun fantasy deer... seaweed? creature.
Some charming little mushrooms.
It's probably zero real surprise, but the rainbow butterfly lights "room" was probably one of my favorite spots.
A kitsune!
Armadillo!
There were a bunch of interactive displays. This one has a crank at the front, and turning it moves the machinery to move the segments of the dragon's body up and down.
The dragon's face.
Some were like this, intended to be photo frames. Very pretty!
Birds and lotus flowers.
I really liked the bluebirds and bluejays in the tree.
And one final jackalope!
I'm splitting the pictures from the lantern festival into a few different posts, since otherwise it'll be very, very long.
More Soothing YouTube Videos
Oct. 4th, 2025 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
No embeds this time, just links.
Everyone is calm and competent and cooperative
calamitykim1 is a 20-something woman who loves driving big rigs and fixing machinery and narrates as she goes, but autocraptions. In September 2025, she drives a tractor trailer through small-town Britain, carrying a piece of metal so large it requires a police escortβher typical length is 30 minutes. Moving traffic, but no flashing lights.
Ocean Creatures
exploreoceans features both livestreams and highlight reels. Super soothing is the 2025 Highlights of Pacific Walruses Hauling Out on a Beachβno narration or music, just surf on the beach and moaning walruses for 25 minutes. Itβs part of the explore.org network, which I discovered via their delightful Fat Bear Week contest.
Admire Our Planet from Space
I love astronauticastβs 3-5 minute timelapse compilations from the International Space Station. Theyβre compiled by ISAA, the Italian Space and Astronautics Association. They travel at a steady rate over various parts of our globe, with a handy reference diagram in the upper left corner. Witness hundreds of thunderstorms from the west coast of Mexico all the way to Portugal. Admire auroras and airflows above North America. I shouldnβt have been surprised that deserts are readily visible because so few clouds. No wordsβpleasant classical-ish music.
FastCAT for Bella!
Oct. 3rd, 2025 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
(Bella's silly face from a few days ago.)
Today, Alex took Bella to another FastCAT! (I so wish that they were ever held on days that I have off, but they almost never are.)
She did well! Apparently on the first run she slowed down midway because she was distracted by the mid-field judge, ha.
I still hope for her to someday break 10 seconds, but the 10-12 second timeframe seems to be about her "normal."
She has another next Friday, so we'll see how that one goes, too.
Book Tour Starting Next Week
Oct. 3rd, 2025 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
There's more info at that link, but here's a brief list of the tour stops and dates:
- Mon. Oct. 6 at 7:30pm: Brookline Booksmith with Holly Black, offsite at Arts at the Armory (Brookline, MA)
- Tues. Oct. 7 at 7pm: Politics & Prose (Union Market location) moderated by Leigha McReynolds (Washington DC)
- Wed. Oct. 8 at 7pm: The Strand, with Meg Elison (NYC, NY)
- Fri. Oct. 10 at 6pm: Letβs Play Books, with Chuck Wendig, offsite at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA)
- Tues. Oct. 14 at 7pm, Third Place Books (Seattle, WA)
- Wed. Oct. 15 at 7pm, Iron Dog Books, with Nalo Hopkinson offsite at Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
- Thurs. Oct. 16 at 7pm, Powell's (Cedar Hill location) with Jenn Reese (Beaverton, OR)
- Mon. Oct. 20 at 7pm: Bookpeople, with Ehigbor Okosun (Austin, TX)
- Tue. Oct. 21 at 6:30pm: Murder by the Book (Houston, TX)
- Thurs. Oct. 23 at 6pm: Nowhere Bookshop (San Antonio, TX)
- Saturday Nov. 8-9 Texas Book Festival, Austin TX
- Sat. Nov. 15 at 2pm: Hyperbole Bookstore, offsite at Ringer Library (College Station, TX)
on "book club" scams targeting authors and f*cked incentives
Oct. 3rd, 2025 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm sad that people are stuck in positions so desperate that they fall for this. I hope people get warned about this. I've gotten a couple of these and gotten asked about one that involved a scammer that cited that I was working with them (I was not, lol).
That said, I'm almost positive I've seen accounts of similarly structured scams from a time before modern mass telecommunications, when now you can fake up a bunch of "people" to convince greedy/hopeful/desperate marks that they've stumbled on some Good Thing and the marks can't (easily) verify those "people." You can do this in print with ~testimonials, but not at scale and not in realtime in this manner.
I'm not saying AI isn't a problem; I'm saying that if people weren't forced to desperation (or straight-up greedy), the incentive structure that enables the AI deployment to be profitable (so to speak) with this target ~audience would not be as successful. Which is perhaps splitting hairs and is the point at which I expect to be flamed off my own DW.
Very simplified but: Anytime you create an incentive A, you create a secondary incentive A' for bad actors to exploit the system to access A.
Hilarious terribad example of this: I was contacted for a blurb/etc for what sounded like an extremely unoriginal sexploitation "trans woman" sci-fi book (you know, sexbot cyberpunk sleazy noir but with a trans angle). That's not all that surprising and it's theoretically possible the book exists and was written by some human, or it exists but was written by some LLM, whatever. That's not the incentive. (For that matter, I'm not in a position to criticize a sci-fi book artistically on sleaziness grounds, please! I have published books full of genocide, rape, incest and other objectionable material. I'm a trash panda aesthetically.)
No: what was interesting from a scammer vs. mark arms race evolution perspective was that this author claimed to be (approximately, I'm writing this from memory) a trans woman in ~South Asia who was inspired by having done ~sex work. This is a clever way to appeal both to "woke" crowds and A Certain Sleazy Crowd! For ~privacy/safety reasons she could not accept interview/live call requests. This was accompanied by a SUPER fake-looking (likely AI-generated or badly Photoshopped, take your pick) Hot Asian Chick headshot.
So yes, absolutely as a trans person I know that safety/privacy are hideously important. But once incentive A exists, someone has incentive A' to piggyback on A, which is what looked like was happening here. I just blocked the email address and moved on. At this point, I've set up my email to auto-delete any email that mentions "Goodreads" or "Amazon", unless they're on a SMALL whitelist, among other countermeasures. Life is too short and I have ramie to spin!
I said cynically to
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I assume this is also where the fake-looking-ness is partly to screen out people who are moderately suspicious/vigilant/smart enough to avoid weird, scammy emails and/or ask around for more information, and to screen for people who are sufficiently desperate, greedy, or naive (cf. shitty obvious "tells" in phishing scams). But I'm out of field so I could be wrong.
Regardless: it's not that legislative or technological protections aren't important or necessary or desirable, it's that the underlying human problem of the incentives vs. secondary incentives is inherently intractable. :(
NOTE: I'm screening comments from non-[access] and may be scarce/slow because I'm recovering from a health thing. Thanks.
Fancake Theme for October: Uncommon Settings
Oct. 3rd, 2025 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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This theme runs for the entire month. If you have any questions, just ask!
HLH_Shortcuts: A Highlander Fanfic Exchange
Oct. 3rd, 2025 07:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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When:
- Sign-up: October 1 to 11, 2025 at 11:59PM CDT on AO3
- Receive assignment: By October 14, 2025
- Default deadline: November 20, 2025
- Submissions: By December 15, 2025 on AO3
- Stories revealed: The first on December 20, 2025 (the winter solstice, Duncan's birthday) and the rest a few per day as long as they last, per tradition
How:
- This year's collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/hlhshortcuts2025
- Guides: HLH_Shortcuts AO3 Sign-Ups + HLH_Shortcuts AO3 Submissions + HLH_Shortcuts AO3 Defaults + Find a beta-reader / be a beta-reader
Yay, Highlander fun and friends! Come play with us...?
Follow Friday 10-3-25
Oct. 3rd, 2025 03:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".
All podfics are in + next steps
Oct. 3rd, 2025 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Thank you so much to all the podficcers, writers, and superstar pinch hitters who made this possible.
Our Rare Candies collection for this year will also be revealed along with the main collection, so if you’ve any generation two treats in you, that’s the place to post them.
Well done everyone! See you in just under a week π