Victorian aesthetes and decadents, Age of Sail, miscellaneous fandom, pop culture, and current events. Writer of stuff, Asian-American, pedant, she/her. 1 spouse 1 kid 2 cats.
Ok this is a mess and probably not a good likeness of either, BUT hear me out: Book accurate Sherlock with Dev Patel as Holmes and Riz Ahmed as Watson? Please?? I’ve convinced myself that I need this. Patel’s Sherlock would 10/10 shake a baby’s hand (among other actual canon Holmes shenanigans). Besides, Riz already has that long-suffering “what have you done now, Holmes” look.
Partially inspired by this photo post of the boyz at the Oscars.
@ thedrawingduke on twitter + Instagram + Facebook + Etsy
i love cutthroat kitchen but bingewatching makes it really stand out how often alton brown refers to himself as ‘daddy’ and makes contestants wear spreader bars
We met Alton Brown at a show he did here - we paid the extra cash to meet him and get a blurry cellphone pic with him and have him sign a picture. He noticed my (male) companion’s pocket watch, and proceeded to order him to take it out of his pocket. It wasn’t obnoxious, it was in a Dom tone that brooked no argument. So he complied. When he found out it wasn’t wound, and so not working, he was deeply disappointed, and told him to do better next time.
If this guy isn’t a Dom, I’ll eat that spreader bar.
fandom etiquette as a whole died when people who didn’t grow up on fandoms became stans during lockdown, yes, but why am i seeing people openly mocking fics on twitter. why am i seeing screenshots of fics with captions like “bro what is this 😭.” why am i seeing people mock fic writers for not knowing how sports or theater or college or any other organization operates in the real world.
“college is absolutely nothing like this” “why are we writing four people on the team scoring a hat trick in one game” “so tech work is nothing like this, hope that helps!”
if you don’t like a fic, and if you can’t suspend your belief enough to enjoy a fic that exaggerates or ignores real-world orgs, you don’t have to read it. you don’t have to screenshot it and put it on blast for twitter. you don’t have to post a link to it in the replies. the back button is literally there on your phone. it’s not giving baby’s first fandom anymore, it’s giving entitled asshole and it isn’t as cute as you think it is.
This was not my best year, tbh. There's a massive falloff in stats from 2024. Lots of reasons for it, none worth going into here, but which can mostly be described as "depression". I also feel like I've kind of maxed out on my Terror obsession and am taking a bit of a break (but have not given up things nautical and fascinating altogether, as I'm now 8 books in to a circumnavigation of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series; it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that Stephen is my guy).
That said, I do think I made a decent showing with my last Terror fic, "Cura te ipsum", a bit of comforting domestic fluff, and I'm actually quite happy with "In another time", my Yuletide fic. It helped that I knew I was writing for a friend (hi @nutterzoi!) and I'm genuinely very pleased with the poem at the center of the story (and super grateful to my friend Blackletter for supplying the Greek translation).
Anyway, here's to a better and more creative 2026. Tagging @ladysarai and @nutterzoi; no obligation of course, and anyone who wants to play along should absolutely do so.
writing historical fic set in real places is so scary. what if someone who knows more about Philadelphia's timeline to move from gas to electric streetlamps reads my fanfiction and laughs at me
My favouritest sport fact ever is that in 1990s 2 cardiac surgeons watched an f1 race to save the lives of countless kids. The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) kept losing the lives of patients after successful heart surgeries. Specifically the 10-15 minutes after a bonefide clinically successful surgery patients would die:
And so the two surgeons filmed a handover after heart surgery and sent it to the Ferrari pitcrew who were told to critique and improve handover process
And from this:
we got this:
The error rate during patien handovers dropped from 30% to 10% with the F1 informed protocol.
I literally love this fact so much because being an pitcrew member is such a thankless job because theyre underpaid and overworked mechanics and they literally saved lives in this instance.
Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital turned to Formula 1 for answers. By studying Ferrari’s pit-stop teamwork, they redesigned how patien
I love this!
And it that it wasn't a one and done.
The doctors went to the race tracks to watch the car changes and the pit crews went to the hospitals and watched a live transfer and offered suggestions and they kept working with them to improve.
After there was a successful improvement of the most vital metrics of a handover of a patient from surgery to ICU, the pit crews also worked with other hospitals for other procedures and it's now a whole thing of trying to apply the specialized, streamlined and speedy teamwork and nonverbal coordination of pit crews to other high-risk fields.
This is a perfect example of how two very different fields of knowledge meeting can make a huge leap forward in progress.
Are you from the 16th century? Are you a whaler? Are you a Basque whaler? Yeah, me neither. But would you like to look like one?
Saw this post. Thought, I want that hat. Made it. Wrote the pattern. Bon appetit.
PATTERN ↓
From 1530 until the early 1600s, Basque whalers annually crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Canada. During the ice-free months of June to January, scores of workers established a semi-permanent station dedicated to processing the harvest on the shore of the Strait of Belle Isle, a narrow channel on the whales' migratory route between Newfoundland and the mainland of Labrador.
In the winter of 1577, the sea ice set early, trapping ships. Unable to return to their homeland in northern Spain and southern France with a full hold of processed whale oil, many were forced to stay in Labrador, where they died of exposure and scurvy.
In the 1970s, the site was rediscovered. More than 62 graves and the remains of 140 whalers were found in the cemetery. Some of the graves contained textile fragments.
(Piecework Magazine, Jan/Feb 2014)
NOTES I am still a beginner knitter. I started this hat without a plan, I just looked at the pictures and tried to make something that looked kind of similar. Used a ball of mystery yarn from my nan. And it turned out great! And then I blocked it. And it was too big (the guy who never knits swatches finally got bit in the arse, who would've thought). My tension is okay-ish but on the tighter side, so if your head is bigger than mine, you'll be grand. Also, I've never written a pattern before, so I hope it makes some sense.
YOU WILL NEED
≈ 80g of DK weight yarn
A set of 4mm (US 6) double-pointed needless
Darning needle
A piece of cardboard (or something else to wrap the yarn around to make a tassel)
Scissors
SIZE ↕ 31cm (12”) (without the tassel) and ↔ 25cm (9.5”) (my head is 55cm (21.5”), and it fits quite well, but it could stretch a bit more and still look good)
DIRECTIONS
SEED STITCH STRIPES
Cast on 84 stitches and join in the round
Work in seed stitch for 11 rounds (round 1: *K1, P1*; staring with round 2 you just P the knits and K the purls)
Purl 1 round
Knit 8 rounds
Purl 1 round
Work in seed stitch for 7 rounds
Purl 1 round
Continue in stocking stitch (*K*) until the hat measures 11-12cm (4.5”) from cast on edge
CROWN DECREASES AND PURL STRIPES
(It's a lot, I know. But I like the look of these better than the usual crown decreases, they're a bit less visible)
Dec#1: K5, *K2tog, K10* × 6, K2tog, K5 [77]
Knit 4 rounds
Dec #2: K5, *K2tog, K9* × 6, K2tog, K4 [70]
Knit 3 rounds
Dec #3: K4, *K2tog, K8* × 6, K2tog, K4 [63]
Knit 3 rounds
Dec #4: K4, *K2tog, K7* × 6, K2tog, K3 [56]
Purl 1 round
Knit 1 round
Dec #5: K3, *K2tog, K6* × 6, K2tog, K3 [49]
Knit 1 round
Dec #6: K3, *K2tog, K5* × 6, K2tog, K2 [42]
Purl 1 round
THE CONE (idk what to call it)
Knit 2 rounds
Work 5 rounds of *K1tbl, P1* rib (you don't have to twist the knits if you can make the 1×1 rib look neat. I can't, so…)
Continue in stocking stitch for 7-8cm (3”) (or more, depending on how floppy you want your hat to be)
Dec #1: K3, *K2tog, K5* × 5, K2tog, K2 [36]
Knit 3 rounds
Dec #2: K2, *K2tog, K4* × 5, K2tog, K2 [30]
Knit 2 rounds
Dec #3: K3, *K2tog, K3* × 5, K2tog, K1 [24]
Knit 2 rounds
Dec #4: K1, *K2tog, K2* × 5, K2tog, K1 [18]
Knit 1 round
Dec #5: *K2tog* [9]
Cut yarn and thread it through the remaining 9 stitches, pull tightly (I usually do it twice), secure on the wrong side
TASSEL
Make a tassel (I used a paint brush case instead of a piece of cardboard and wrapped yarn around it 45 times)
Attach it to the hat
FINISHING
Weave in all ends
Block the hat
CONGRATULATIONS
You can go whaling reread Moby-Dick and rewatch The North Water in style!
Whenever I see a really off-the-wall take about the beatles I remember this adorable post from an older fan about how they used to play "Beatles" at recess but they were too young to really know who the beatles were so they just played house with British accents and I assume that's what a lot of people on this website are doing as well
NO ONE is too young to know who the beatles were. its important to tell your children about the beatles as soon as they can understand language. My father told me when i turned two that the beatles were four men who sang and played music. over the years he added more details like girls loved the beatles and how some of them died. there is no excuse.
Did you ever just feel so lucky for knowing someone you met online? Like.. I was one click away from not following you. I was one second away from never even knowing of your existence.I would never have been this happy!!!...
