Star Wars and Other Fantasy

Brain dump for my fandoms. Mostly books, mostly fantasy, no promises.

[herpsandbirds]

The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas could lose 715 acres to SpaceX under a federal land exchange proposal.

Congress created this wildlife refuge in 1979 to protect its diverse wildlife, including rare species like ocelots, aplomado falcons, and migratory birds such as piping plovers, red knots, green jays and Altamira orioles. The refuge protects some of the best habitat in the United States for the endangered ocelot and is one of the last remaining expanses of public lands in south Texas. SpaceX’s rocket launch activities have already been impacting nearby habitat and destroying shorebird nests, and wildlife can’t afford this lopsided deal.

The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to stop this harmful land giveaway, and we need your support.

Give Now to Save the Wild

Join the fight to protect wildlife and wild places with a gift to the Center for Biological Diversity.

[texas55]

What land are they exchanging? Some of that land is tidal marsh and not much lives there except birds.

Here's the exchange deal.

Potential Land Exchange in South Texas | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service https://share.google/WViqsFjU8ABRrHYKD

[starwarsbookwyrm]

“not much lives there except birds”

My dude, what exactly do you think they are conserving?

[morhath]

I hate when king arthur has all these fussy little steps in the instructions and you're like "no way do these fussy little steps matter" but you try it and they do. they matter so much.

[bookaddict7342]

I thought you meant Camelot quests and I was like "that's fair, 'never pick a four leaf clover on the last Wednesday of the month' IS a fussy little step that shouldn't matter" but then I was like "wait isn't that also a flour company"

[morhath]

nooo I am not a beleaguered knight of the round table I am making elaborate focaccia 😭

[imaginesapphics]

If they ever get around to it I hope they cast Shakira as Luffy’s mom

[starwarsbookwyrm]

[timetravellers-art]

I finished this gorgeous piece

Pattern by @8pxl and can be found here

Visit the post for more.

[headspace-hotel]

There is a lot of information out there about weaving, crocheting and knitting, but relatively little about spinning.

Which is a shame, since spinning is really where the "resource provided by the earth" tangibly becomes "object with a use."

Aspects of spinning, such as the amount of twist and the length of the fibers, are impactful upon the thread or yarn created, but lots of fiber crafters don't get to directly play with those variables...

It is so strange how textile production is so utterly dominated by very few fibers, when so many are possible. Industry keeps coming up with new ways to transform bamboo or something into fibers, which is all well and good, but we have yet to run out of easily usable natural fibers that have worked for thousands of years.

Dogbane—Apocyonum cannabinum—was called "Indian hemp" because it was used by Native Americans for ropes, cords and textiles. It's incredibly strong, soft, and easy to collect large amounts of it. But hardly anybody uses it.

[bookwyrmbran]

As far as yarn construction (twist, fiber staple, ply, draw, etc) goes, may I recommend the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs (Sarah Anderson) and Yarnitecture (Jillian Moreno)? @dirtypuzzle mentioned SpinOff and Fibershed in the comments and those are great magazines and ways to find local groups as well. I've read some great articles on prepping and spinning flax, hemp, cotton, and silk on there in addition to the more popular fleece/fur/hair fibers.

For those especially I can't over-recommend the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook or the Field Guide to Fleece (Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.) An awful lot of excellent fiber breeds and species are now unknown, under-used, and in danger of going extinct; Shave 'Em to Save 'Em and the Livestock Conservancy in general are good resources for finding local people working with those. There's a chiengora (dog wool) group on Ravelry that's great, too, and lots of easily searchable info on raising silkworms at home and spinning from hankies.

There really is a dearth of information easily available on most plant fibers, I too would love to see more of it for like... almost everything, really. At a guess, most potentials get ignored at an institutional level because they're a pain to grow and process in bulk, which in turn means there's little if any data on how they stand up to modern washing and drying and detergents. Bast fibers tend to be a pain to prep as an interested individual (and often smelly!) and can be hard on the hands while spinning, especially those with extra long fibers. Even so a lot of people would spin old/new/ignored plants if they didn't have to process raw plant into spinnable fiber. I suspect that and not knowing which plants might be good options are the biggest obstacles to at least hobbyist experimentation.

[dirtypuzzle]

Here's a blog post where someone attempts to process and spin milkweed stalks. Keep in mind, milkweed stalks produce a bast fiber whereas milkweed fluff can also be spun but makes a brittle yarn by itself and is often mixed with wool or cotton, though I would assume you could process the stalks and then spin the floss into the fiber from the stalks. Spin Off talks about it here. Milkweed also sustains monarch butterflies, which have been having a rough time. You might have some skin reactions when handling milkweed though, so keep an eye.

Fibershed did a spotlight on dogbane, nettle, and milkweed in comparison to hemp and flax. They talk specifically about Native American techniques and current cultivation of all three, particularly dogbane, and ways to spin yarn and make rope. They aren't super in-depth about processing the fibers, but it seems like it's because they have more tutorials/guides on other pages. Bast fibers all have a similar retting->drying->scutching->hackling->spinning (you also have to ripple flax at the beginning) process, generally speaking.

Of course, flax is a really accessible plant fiber to spin yourself! You can plant it yourself, buy unprocessed flax (locally or online), or buy processed but unspun flax. If you're interested in the whole process, this book is the flax bible: Linen: From Flax Seed to Woven Cloth by Linda Heinrich. There are a lot of youtubers who go through it all, too.

If you're interested in kudzu, then may I suggest Oigawa Kudzu-fu Studio! They're located in Japan, but they have helpfully created an English website, too, where they go over making kudzu-fu (Japanese name for the cloth from kudzu). And if you ever find yourself going to Japan, you can take a class from them.

On Oigawa Studio's info page, they also mention that they work with ramie (plant in the nettle family), linden tree (basswood), and wisteria, so do with that what you will. I assume a lot of those resources are in Japanese.

Finally, hemp. Laws around if and how you can plant hemp, even for personal non-THC uses, vary wildly from state to state and country to country, so do your research. I'm not super familiar with it, and in my state I literally can't grow any of it at all without applying for a permit, so it's not really worth it for me.

[wanderingjunkdrawer]

To the previously mentioned sources I would add Abbey Franquemonty's

Respect the Spindle. Anyone looking for the how's & why's of hand spinning will find answers there. Interest in hand spinning has seen a steady growth in the past 15 yrs since this book's release.

We live in an era where there is a wide availability in tools, raw materials, and instructions. Before 2005 the spinner-wannabe was hard pressed to find the tools & fiber to even become a spinner much less explore the nuisance of rare fibers.

[marcchurch]

[radishnt]

which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?

[mothman-misato]

y- you were putting it in cold water?????

[boimgfrog]

Radish. Answer the question radish.

[radishnt]

yeah??? i thought for like. 5 years that ppl just put it in hot water 2 speed up the tea-ification process didn’t realize there was an actual reason

[boimgfrog]

You dont have the patience to microwave water for 3 minutes???

[catsnraincoats]

[ID: Tags reading “u think i have the patience to boil water wtf ?????” /End ID]

why are you. putting it in the microwave to boil it

[boimgfrog]

Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove

[catsnraincoats]

Its takes less than a minute

[boimgfrog]

Bestie is ur stovetop powered by the fucking sun

[catsnraincoats]

How long does it take you to boil a cup of water on the stove

[boimgfrog]

Like seven minutes

[catsnraincoats]

Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat n it boils in like two minutes… less than that is u use a saucepan…

[boimgfrog]

Crying you’re putting the whole mug on the stove ???? On medium heat???? Ur stove is enchanted

[pidoop]

Every single person in this post is a fucking lunatic

[silverjirachi]

Yet another post that reads like four shakespeare characters who come out in the middle of the play to talk about something completely unrelated for comic relief

[wizardlyghost]

(Enter RADISHN’T, MOTHMAN MISATO, BOIMG FROG and CATS'N RAINCOATS, stage left. They are having a HEATED DISCUSSION.)

RADISHN’T: Prithee, which one of you had planned to tell

Of diff'rent flavours gained by simple act

Of brewing tea with water hot, not cold?

MOTHMAN: Egad! you poured the water cold? Wherefore?!

FROG: An answer from you, Radish, I must beg.

RADISHN’T: Indeed I did, dear friends - why does this shock?

Without the guide of others I assumed

That heat was merely added for the sake

Of expediting this solution’s brewing!

Half a decade I have spent, or more,

Not questioning this worldview I had made.

In fact, I am myself a bit surprised

That you might think that I, your dearest friend,

Might have a patience of sufficient stock

To wait until a pot of water boils.

FROG: Three minutes overtaxes patience so?

The microwave will beep when it is done!

CATS'N: My friend, this answer vexes me the more!

Can it be true that thou dost boil by nuke?!

FROG: Are you in turn, my friend, so shocked to know

That I have not the patience, like our Root,

To boil upon the stove our favour’d drink?

CATS'N: It takes less than a minute!

FROG: On what plate?

Perhaps your dinner cooks atop the sun?

CATS'N: How long can take your stove to fill the task

Of boiling but a single cup alone?

FROG: In minutes?

CATS'N: Yes!

FROG: I counted seven, once.

CATS'N: Perhaps you ought to have your timepiece checked!

If on a middle heat you place the cup

You soon will have the scalding drink you crave.

Two minutes, in a mug upon the plate

Or even less, if you should have a pot.

FROG: You cause me tears - is this how thou dost live?

You place upon the iron stove a mug?

A mug, ceramic, filled with water cold?

How do these flames, though medium in height,

Not shatter like a glass this fragile thing?

Surely, then, your kitchen is bewitched

With magicks far beyond the mortal ken!

(The FOUR realise they have wandered into the THRONE ROOM. The ROYAL COURT watches with fascination.)

KING: Ev'ry single person in this group must be a fucking lunatic, it seems.

[elodieunderglass]

[samwwise]

lord of the rings really was lightning in a bottle. it shouldn’t have worked but by god it did. peter jackson, who had no filmmaking education and was mostly known for making low budget splatter movies, had no business going out and changing the movie industry like that but he did. return of the king showed up at the oscars and became one of the most awarded movies of all time. to this day it holds the record for the highest clean sweep. hollywood will keep trying to recreate that magic with bigger budgets and high profile actors and they will keep failing. i look at the state of these blockbusters where everything is smoothed over by soulless cgi and actors are acting opposite tennis balls and they will never hold a candle to the pure heart and soul and craft of the lord of the rings. every single person involved in that project loved being part of it and it fucking shows. i’m so thankful the stars aligned the way they did for these movies to happen like that.

[dovewithscales]

Lord of the Rings worked precisely because everyone loved the story and the work and each other. The Hobbits are actually still besties in real life, so the love between them on screen is real. Viggo Mortensen bought and kept the horse that saves Aragorn's life. This man broke more than one finger insisting on doing real sword fights with real (unsharpened) swords.

The only kinda janky CGI in the entire movie is in there because Orlando Bloom broke a rib trying to actually jump onto a running horse and they ran out of time for him to heal and try again.

Andy Serkis scrambled around in a stream in New Zealand in winter. rather than do anything on a green screen. Christopher Lee was Ian McKellan's real life hero. The way Gandalf felt about Saruman until his betrayal. Ian McKellan loved the source material so much he walked around with a copy of the books on set and made script changes to quote it more often. Peter Jackson became a director because he wanted to make Lord of the Rings. This was his childhood dream.

And most importantly, the production executives gave him a buttload of money and shut the fuck up and let him do anything he wanted with it. Which is their job. The most successful thing about Lord of the Rings is that the execs kept their mouths shut and didn't get in the way of art.

[starwarsbookwyrm]

Not to hijack this excellent post, but if you want a similar experience check out the live action One Piece. It shouldn’t have worked, live action anime adaptations are notoriously bad and One Piece is even more ridiculous and over the top, but they absolutely nailed it because of the entire team’s love of the original and complete commitment to the bit.

The tone is very different from LotR, but it’s 100% earnest and hopeful with a delightful ensemble cast that are every bit as iconic as the Fellowship.

[allyouneediswall]

[luminouslumity]

I remember watching the original video ages ago, so I'm glad to see there's an animation lol!

[puremode]

louise glück!!!!

[mammalianmammals]

Hello! Can I please get some Australian possums? Thankssss

I got exactly what you need... Have you seen this dude?

Honey Possum or Noolbenger (Tarsipes rostratus) feeding on nectar, looking for nectar... family Tarsipedidae, order Diprotodontia, found in SW Western Australia

One of the world's smallest marsupials, weighing only 7 - 16g.

photograph by Justin Cally (@justin_cally)

photograph by Adam Fry

photograph by Tim's Australian Nature Pics

[confundida25]

I wasnt prepare to love luffy that much. Like everyone is so pretty but dam you Iñaki Godoy and your pretty adorable face.

Because listen this is not about he been sexy or handsome no. He is ADORABLE, he is a baby, I want to squeassh his pretty chuby face and kill someone in his name, yes. That eldrich monster is going to be King of the pirate!!! He can do no wrong!!! I understeand the crazy now.

[inamindfarfaraway]

Shoutout to the maned wolf, which is technically neither wolf nor fox but has its own genus called Chrysocyon! Why -

why are your legs so long?

I mean, intellectually, I understand that it’s because you live in grasslands and have evolved to be able to see over the grass, but emotionally… why? Are they?? Like that??? Surely there was a way to make your body more cohesive and proportional-looking?

[horseonketamine]

i will never shut up about maned wolves

just look at it

look at this

one of the animals for sure

wretched beast

[whatacartouchebag]

If it’s neither wolf nor fox, then it’s cat software running on giraffe hardware.

[what-a-bastard]

I think y'all should know that the closest relative to the maned wolf is the bush dog which looks like this.

[wuekka]

I was not ready for corgi-bear.

[bunjywunjy]

you're definitely not ready for the maned wolf Front Angle then

[creatures-in-posts]

Confirmed creature post

[cliodevotus]

LOBO GUARÀ MY BELOVED

[kiseiakhun]

I started with succulents like everyone else but tbh orchids are rapidly becoming my plant blorbos. Everyone takes care of them wrong and it's not your FAULT because the care instructions that come with them are!! Incorrect!!! If you do what they say then your orchid will die!!!! If you give them the right environment they're SO easy. They're such easy plants to grow. They have been UNFAIRLY SLANDERED by a MISINFORMATION campaign. They don't deserve this.

[bebatzelbub]

I am also firmly on the orchid bus

Love these pretty babies. It's not their fault they're misunderstood.

[kiseiakhun]

I'm grabbing your shoulders and looking deeply and homoerotically into your eyes. Listen to me. Listen. It Is Not Your Fault. They sell orchids in these shitty little plastic pots and fill them with water and stick them in heavier ceramic pots without ANY drainage holes. And then the fucking care sheet tells you to water these TROPICAL PLANTS with ICE CUBES. Of course they're going to die.

Orchids are a special type of plant called an epiphyte. You know those little air plants that are all the rage now?

I'm talking these babies. You can do cool things with them like this:

And this:

(link to the Etsy shop btw. These look cool. Though honestly you can probably find some art miniatures and do this yourself without much effort)

They don't have roots, so you can do whatever you want with them. You can put them in a globe or put them on a statue or just leave them on a table, they don't care. They're super low maintenance and easy to keep alive. All you have to do is dunk them in water once a week.

That's an orchid. An orchid is an air plant. In the wild, they grow on trees. Their roots are designed to anchor them to trees, not to dig into the soil. They NEED air. The moment they get waterlogged, which they will in those shitty little pots that you buy them in, they're going to rot, and eventually the whole plant will die. They can't have ANY sitting water. None. They need pots with drainage holes that are elevated so air can reach them from the top and bottom. This is what I mean by elevated btw:

Put something at the bottom of the pot that creates an air gap between it and the surface. Make sure it has gaps so air can flow through. Put a plate at the bottom to catch water when you water your orchid, every 2 weeks or whenever you remember. I have solved all your orchid woes.

And don't water them with fucking ice cubes. I'm going to find whoever invented the ice cube advice and fight them with my fists. These are tropical plants. They don't know what ice is. They're not evolved to deal with below freezing temperatures. If you water them with ice cubes you're just going to give your orchid frostbite, and it will die. No ice cubes.

ALSO if your orchid is in a pot, make sure you use orchid bark, not soil, as its potting medium. Though, honestly, you don't even need a pot. Like:

Look at them, just chilling. THIS is how they grow in the wild:

I think that's a different species of orchid than the phalaenopsis orchid we grow in cultivation, but the point still stands. That ^ is their natural habitat.

You can see the roots are just hanging out in the open. This is why air is so important to them. Air is more important than water. I'm like ?? 90% sure orchids can absorb ambient water through the air, but I'm not 100% sure so don't quote me on that. I did forget to water my orchids for 2 months once and they were fine, so. 🤷‍♀️ As long as they have enough air flow, they're more like succulents in terms of care. You water when you remember to, and just forget about them the rest of the time.

[homunculus-argument]

"They ruined it by making it political!!" My brother in brainrot, fiction has always been political. Like from the very start. I am quite damn sure that the first work of fiction ever told was a fireside story of How Fictional Grug (who is not Grug of the clan) Got His Whole Ass Beat By His Clan (which is certainly not our clan) For Doing That Stupid Shit Again That Ruins The Whole Hunt Every Single Time (This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are made up by the author and any likeness to real people, living or dead, or actual events is totally coincidental. But seriously Grug do that again and we will fucking kill you).

[embroiderycrafts]

SO. MANY. FRENCH. KNOTS. by StephaniLowman