Everything that catches my eye

Other useful AI Removal/Detection links

How to spot AI Hallucinations like a Reference Librarian (originally on Substack)

bats aren't rabies machines, less than 1% of bats are recorded to have rabies (and consider that a sick and dying bat is more likely to be caught and tested), in most areas of the world you are more at risk from a dog or a deer. If you find a weak bat still be sensible and don't touch it bare handed, use gloves or a towel, there are other diseases that we can exchange with bats, and a distressed bat might bite. even if you don't get an infection, it's still best to avoid that

right now a lot of bats are still raising pups, and young bats on their first time alone often get confused or disoriented and enter buildings without being able to find their way back out. most regions will have bat rescue phone lines that will help out, and often the bat just needs water + food. As always, keep your cats indoors, they don't need to hunt to survive so they just kill wildlife for enrichment

Her transmigration and reincarnation skills, her ruthlessness and brain, are all used to ensure her “brother” Gong Che gets to be the next emperor and her “brother” Gong Jue has power, money and comfortable life. She makes explosives, builds canals and murders assassins. That is very much my speed.

The other thing I love is that usually when someone transmigrates back into their younger self, they spend the bulk of their time avenging their wrongs from past life possibly with a side of protecting the people who were good to her in past life. Which is understandable but always makes me wonder why they are reliving things all over again (and the issue of “will they even do the same thing again when everything around them changes?” plus the paradox of “is person x even culpable when they haven’t committed those sins yet” which none of the het romances I’ve read with this theme address. One of the reasons I love 2ha is because it deals with this head on.) Gong Yi Mo...does not.

She doesn’t have many people who treated her amazingly in past life who she wants to protect (except that foreign prince and she does take care of him but it’s not a big focus) but even more importantly, in most stories the narrative would be her taking down Gong Che and Gong Jue aka the two men who wronged her most in past life - GC married her and used her brain and power for the throne and then had her killed and GJ is the one who carried out the murder.

And when she first wakes up as a child, she is not exactly charitable towards either BUT - she is almost unique in this type of novel in going “they are literally children as of this moment, I am a grown woman even if in a body of a child, what the hell would I be doing taking kids down?” And not just that, she has the ability to evaluate and be just and look at the situation the way it is. For example, she sees child (I think he’s 8? Can’t remember any more) Gong Jue abused and she’s appalled because whatever he grew up into, he’s a small child now and she’s not copacetic with child abuse! And so she protects and saves him because that’s the right thing to do.

And the thing is, fine, Gong Jue is our male lead, so I could see a novel going with “she tamed the psycho” narrative (though even within it, her understanding of why he killed her in past life - he had no relationship with her, was ordered to do so by woman he worshipped for being kind to him - is pretty unique for a web novel heroine - she understands that everyone has their own stories and their own perspectives and their own truths).

But they do the same thing with Gong Che!!!! The husband who betrayed her in past life! Compare him and his arc and his relationship with Yimo to something like Rebirth of the Malicious Empress and Shen Miao’s relationship with her erstwhile husband. The set up in past life is fairly the same - heroine chased the man who had no interest in her, married him and helped him to the throne, he resented her, fell for someone else, and had her offed.

BUT!!! The ex of Shen Miao is a villain while Gong Che is probably my favorite character in the novel. He’s smart, ambitious, drawn to Yi Mo, interested in justice, and very very human. He’s not saintly (no royal prince is) but he’s definitely a better human being than Gong Jue, much as I love that Chinese version of Cesare Borgia. And I was blown away by how Yi Mo became genuine friends with him in this life because she sees his good points and because she’s clear headed enough to understand that the blame for past life ending is as much on her as it was on him. She’s a genuine good sister to him and loves him that way and wants to help him be the emperor because he will be a good one and this is freaking unique. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Malicious Empress but I find this novel’s take super refreshing.)

Btw, lest you think this book is high literature, it’s not - it’s the perfect combo of concepts I love inside a deliciously trashy package. I mean, if you love fakecest, this is like a feast. Because while Yi Mo and the reader know she is not the emperor’s daughter and thus not half sister to either Gong Che or Gong Jue, the guys do not and both have to deal that they have fallen and fallen hard, for their sister. Gong Che is horrified and tries to suppress it while Gong Jue goes “I need enough power so nobody will be able to complain when I hook up with her.” Heh.

Meanwhile, Yi Mo treats them as an older and younger brother respectively while wondering why Gong Jue especially is clingy, like the MC in one of the danmeis who can’t puzzle out why the stallion protagonist is now princess carrying them everywhere instead.

last year i shared my top 10 (ish) cdramas in celebration of watching almost nothing but costume dramas since i discovered them. i’m still watching mostly cdramas, but there have been some updates to my top 10 (ish) mostly thanks to the stellar dramas of 2025 that captured my heart and mind.

10. lost you forever - i actually have moved this up the ranks of my personal drama hierarchy because i will randomly find myself staring out a window thinking about scenes from it. especially if the scene has anything to do with xiang liu. i am who i am, okay? 9. moonlit reunion - i love everything about this drama. you think you're getting a fun little hidden identity fantasy romp and suddenly you're pondering the nature of belonging, duty, and love. it navigates its serious moments but includes delightful little touches that make a fantastical world feel real and relatable somehow. and the chemistry between xu kai and tian xi wei is so hot i'm shocked this post hasn't caught on fire just from mentioning it. 8. the ingenious one - just an all around great drama. the plot, the acting, the nuances in the writing and the things it has to say about the cost of vengeance. plus one of my favorite murder girls! 7. the story of minglan - duh it's on this list. every character gets to be layered and interesting, even the ones you hate. and while it took a while to get to the romancey part of it, it somehow had me screaming and hollering about every tiny crumb i was fed of it. it's universally beloved for a reason and i am no exception. 6. under the moonlight - people might be shocked that i rank this above minglan, and i admit that it's not the complex masterpiece that minglan is. but the strength of this extremely underrated drama is its characters, especially that it has so many characters i initially hated and then fell completely, totally in love with. plus it's a rare drama that doesn't center on court politics and focuses on working class people. i wish more people would go through the trouble of finding a way to watch it. 5. love in between - my babies!!!! yes, that's still what i think when i think about this drama. it's beautifully filmed and is full of angst. i made shitty gifs of it because i love it so much. and it has so many ships to get obsessed with without being a strictly romance-centric drama. will people please stop sleeping on this? 4. the untamed - do you ever think about how wild it is that such a sketchily made drama is so beloved to so many people? because objectively this thing is held together with five dollars and some scotch tape. and yet it's great. 3. the blossoming love - my most controversial opinion is that this is the best xianxia ever made. okay technically i haven't actually seen all the xianxias ever but i just don't see how they can surpass this one. it's perfect in every way except that they can't go full send on the throuple. i'm still in awe that the time travel stuff didn't break my brain like it usually does. 2. fated hearts - obviously. have you been on my blog before? perfect it is not but it is perfect to me. when i'm having a bad day i put it on. when i'm having a good day i put it on. when i'm having a neutral day i put it on. i can't make myself get tired of them. 1. joy of life - the one, the only. what brain space isn't taken up by fated hearts is because joy of life was there first. i unabashedly adore every character, even the villains. i try to get people who have never watched a cdrama in their life to give it a try. i can't express my love for this drama in just a few words. it's simply the best.

1 note: I quit being a sheriff

10 notes: I start a rebellion

100 notes: I start a new dynasty

1,000 notes: I start the first golden age of China

Oh and guess what else you can't say you can't say? **** [Nipples]. had to type that myself. penis is ok but **** [clitoris] isn't, and all my attempts to say "clit" were Misunderstood, which may just be my speech but at this point I am not willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Vagina is OK too but every time I say it there is a moment when an * shows up on screen first before the full word does. this doesn't happen when I say the word penis.

It is completely heinous. Anybody who needs speech to text is immediately forced to comply with the rules set out by people in a position of power and then enforced by a machine — a machine that is a very powerful accessibility tool. Imagine trying to dictate a letter to a doctor or fill in an E consult with speech to text, only to have words of your anatomy censored as if they are taboo. there is already far too much stigma around genital physical health — and note that I could say genital but can't say **** [clitoris] — for it to be okay for these words to be censored.

And even if somebody just wants to swear In a message to their friends or write smut/**** [pornography], they should be able to. There is no justification for this feature. No reason for it to be default.

sleep apnea is more common in people who are fat.

society decided for some reason that this meant that being fat causes sleep apnea. its often difficult to get referrals for sleep apnea treatment if you are fat, because some PCPs will tell you try losing weight first.

turns out!! having untreated sleep apnea causes weight gain in a not-insignificant number of people. it also makes it fucking impossible for many people to lose weight.

my husband worked out the same amount before he got a cpap as he does now. there have been no major diet changes either. yet he has been losing weight -- and gaining muscle tone -- consistently since he started using a cpap in january.

also, his blood pressure -- which was high, which docs blamed on his weight/diet -- went down significantly within one month of starting cpap treatment, before his weight changed significantly.

ANYWAYS. this is getting long. two final thoughts.

- I Want To Strangle Medical Fatphobia With My Bare Fucking Hands

Also I love your account!!!

You have unlocked an unskippable cutscene

Books:

Fiction:

Elizabeth:

Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain

Legacy (Susan Kay)

The Tudors:

The Man on a Donkey (kind of. It DOES live in my brain rent free.)

The Concubine (Christopher Rae)

On ao3 Hollow Bones and Draw Your Swords

Non-fiction:

How To Be A Tudor

How To Behave Badly In Renaissance Britain both by Ruth Goodman

Tudor England

Henry VIII both by Lucy Wooding

Tudor Children by Nicholas Orme

New Worlds Lost Worlds by Susan Brigden

Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann

All Things Made New by Diarmaid Macculloch (make that anything by Macculloch)

The Age of Reformation by Alec Ryrie

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer- good, but read this one in conjunction with other historians like Kaufmann.

Thomas More by Joanne Paul. This one's more academic than the others. But it's very good for looking at Tudor politics and philosophy.

Movies:

Elizabeth (1998). Not accurate but more rewatchable than most Tudor dramas.

Lady Jane (1986). Inaccurate but moving.

Anonymous (2011). It's an AU. Not realistic in the slightest. But it moves me, and Elizabeth is such a force of nature that I end up loving her. She's closer to a Greek goddess than the real Elizabeth. Part Athena, part Aphrodite. She's tempestuous, impulsive, but never pathetic. She does whatever she damn well pleases and I find that compelling.

Bill (2015). It's fun.

Luther (1974). Not about the Tudors but one of their most important contemporaries.

TV:

Blackadder II. Not as good as the later series but still fun.

Elizabeth R. Essential viewing.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII. The most accurate Henry VIII. And refreshing in its interpretation of Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves.

The Shadow of the Tower. I haven't seen all of it. But episode 5 is pretty stand-alone and probably my favourite single piece of Tudor media. You can watch it here. Episode 7 is also a good standalone episode if u want an hour of wacky Tudor hijinks here

Episode 8 if you want early tudor explorers here

Not strictly Tudor, but Jane Howell's Shakespeare tetralogy (Henry VI 1-3, Richard III) is one of my favourite pieces of media... ever.

Study Plan for Today, January 3, 2026 Watch the above videos as energy allows. Taking breaks as needed. I might do one of the single stories from Little Fox Chinese (level 1). Apps: Memrise, Lingo Legend, Hello Chinese (working on both 1.0 and 2.0 course) Podcast: MaoMi Chinese (Just the first episode.)

The MaoMi Chinese Podcast - MaoMi Chinese C-Drama Immersion: You Are My Secret 私藏浪漫 (with English subtitles). I'm trying to see if I can spot any of what I am learning so far in the episodes. Only up to episode 5, I think.