snurtle

[snurtle]

Some 2025 news that doesn’t suck because news always sucks these days:

Some articles found by @reasonsforhope

$300 million in federal funding for Indigenous-led conservation in the Northwest Territories arrives

Portugal introduces paid menstrual leave for endometriosis and adenomyosis

Healthy, sustainable climate 'is a human right', rules UN court

Indigenous Amazonians win landmark ruling against mercury pollution in Colombia

Saint Lucia High Court Decriminalizes Same-Sex Conduct

Ciara Becomes Citizen Of Benin Under New Law For Slave Trade Descendants

Tennessee to become first state in South to protect access to IVF, birth control

All major Las Vegas Strip casinos are now unionized in historic labor victory

Ghana passes Affirmative Action Bill after decades of advocacy

‘Long Overdue’ Lead Ammunition Ban Announced in the UK to Save Thousands of Birds

Yellowstone aspen showing signs of recovery following 1995 reintroduction of wolves to park

Chess Lover Introduces Game to Malawi’s Prisons, Schools and Street Kids

Dutch Cities Are Building These Tiny Staircases to Help Cats Exit Their Canals

Arab women in maritime finalize strategy to advance gender equality

Endangered ‘Blue Dragon’ of the Caymans Roars Back from the Brink as Population Climbs Above 1,000

A Tiny Gecko Species Once Thought Extinct Just Made a Comeback in the Galápagos

Iran’s Asiatic Cheetah Population Rises to 20, Says Department of Environment + Video

Wattled Crane no longer Critically Endangered in South Africa

Gov. Jared Polis signs bill protecting gender-affirming care coverage in Colorado

Judge Upholds Birthright Citizenship in Landmark Ruling Backed by Letitia James

Wisconsin bear with plastic jar on their head has been freed, is safe

Spain offers 17 weeks of paid parental leave to new parents

Thailand ranks first globally for gender equality in women's education

[snurtle]

grumbles. OKAY. FINE. I'll call my reps/ senators.

I'll be a huge BITCH about it, but i'll do it. GRUMBLES.

[snurtle]

“Men and women from every race; warriors and mages, barbarians and kings… the Grey Wardens sacrificed everything to stem the tide of darkness… and prevailed.”

Made a little DAO tribute to pay homage to my favourite game ✨

[snurtle]

Overtime Mode activated!

Since we were on the knife edge between making it or not, Kickstarter have graciously extended our campaign by a week to make sure we get across the line.

Now we have a few extra days, we're sure we can get there! Especially with some of the news we have to share later this week. Stay tuned... 🌻

[snurtle]

violence and death and dying and blood and guts and gore and violence and viscera and fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you

[snurtle]

Beneath a fragile mask of humanity, the vampires in Drăculești are... something else altogether.

Steal a glance at a side of Dracula he's afraid to show you.

And if you happen to prefer him like this, rest assured: you can let him know.

[snurtle]

🌸🍃New CSP brushes up in my shop!🍃🌸

A sequel to the Rough Summer set— 25 brushes made from real flowers, leaves, mushrooms etc. dipped in ink.

Like most of my brushes these are crunchy, sharp, and fully opaque to fit into bold art styles, with plenty of optional blending and colour variance. Have a look if you're inclined to expand your collection!

As usual, my full library of brushes can also be accessed through my patreon at any tier.

[snurtle]

[snurtle]

Wait, do people know about the Before I Play wiki?

I have used this for..... at this point easily over 6 years. It's a wiki where there will be low-spoiler/non-spoiler hints about just stuff you would want to know before playing a game.

It's always stuff like.... "Vitality in this game is useless, put your points in everything else first" or "Don't leave the second hub town until you buy X item, it'll become unobtainable."

Lemme pick an example almost everyone will know. From the Animal Crossing New Horizons page, the first tip is:

Nearly everything on the island is movable later, including all buildings and even cliffs and rivers. The main things that are fixed are the stuff on the border of the island (river mouths, beaches, rocks/peninsulae, the dock and the airport) and the resident services plaza, so picking your island layout should be based around that primarily.

That's stellar advice, tbh, given what you'll know about the game 30 hours in instead of 30 minutes.

Not every game is covered obviously and not every piece of advice is good, it's all subjective, BUT..... I look up almost every game I play for the first time, just to keep stuff in mind. The SMT4 page had top tier advice imo.

[snurtle]

Fairydoll chapter 2: A Guard's Duty

See Earwig at work, and meet her hot friends! But also...why cant she stop thinking about the mysterious fairy she met the night before....

Read it here

[snurtle]

Costumes from The Pacific Northwest Ballet's Sleeping Beauty,

Preston Singletary and Paul Tazewell

Luther DeMyer and @audreymalek as King and Queen Papillon. 📷: @angelasterlingphoto

[snurtle]

animated the "It's okay not to smile" scene from chapter 4

youtube link

[snurtle]

Toad Words

            Frogs fall out of my mouth when I talk. Toads, too.

            It used to be a problem.

            There was an incident when I was young and cross and fed up with parental expectations. My sister, who is the Good One, has gold fall from her lips, and since I could not be her, I had to go a different way.

            So I got frogs. It happens.

            “You’ll grow into it,” the fairy godmother said. “Some curses have cloth-of-gold linings.” She considered this, and her finger drifted to her lower lip, the way it did when she was forgetting things. “Mind you, some curses just grind you down and leave you broken. Some blessings do that too, though. Hmm. What was I saying?”

            I spent a lot of time not talking. I got a slate and wrote things down. It was hard at first, but I hated to drop the frogs in the middle of the road. They got hit by cars, or dried out, miles away from their damp little homes.

            Toads were easier. Toads are tough. After awhile, I learned to feel when a word was a toad and not a frog. I could roll the word around on my tongue and get the flavor before I spoke it. Toad words were drier. Desiccated is a toad word. So is crisp and crisis and obligation. So are elegant and matchstick.

            Frog words were a bit more varied. Murky. Purple. Swinging. Jazz.

I practiced in the field behind the house, speaking words over and over, sending small creatures hopping into the evening.  I learned to speak some words as either toads or frogs. It’s all in the delivery.

            Love is a frog word, if spoken earnestly, and a toad word if spoken sarcastically. Frogs are not good at sarcasm.

            Toads are masters of it.

            I learned one day that the amphibians are going extinct all over the world, that some of them are vanishing. You go to ponds that should be full of frogs and find them silent. There are a hundred things responsible—fungus and pesticides and acid rain.

            When I heard this, I cried “What!?” so loudly that an adult African bullfrog fell from my lips and I had to catch it. It weighed as much as a small cat. I took it to the pet store and spun them a lie in writing about my cousin going off to college and leaving the frog behind.

            I brooded about frogs for weeks after that, and then eventually, I decided to do something about it.

            I cannot fix the things that kill them. It would take an army of fairy godmothers, and mine retired long ago. Now she goes on long cruises and spreads her wings out across the deck chairs.

            But I can make more.

            I had to get a field guide at first. It was a long process. Say a word and catch it, check the field marks. Most words turn to bronze frogs if I am not paying attention.

            Poison arrow frogs make my lips go numb. I can only do a few of those a day. I go through a lot of chapstick.  

            It is a holding action I am fighting, nothing more. I go to vernal pools and whisper sonnets that turn into wood frogs. I say the words squeak and squill and spring peepers skitter away into the trees. They begin singing almost the moment they emerge.

            I read long legal documents to a growing audience of Fowler’s toads, who blink their goggling eyes up at me. (I wish I could do salamanders. I would read Clive Barker novels aloud and seed the streams with efts and hellbenders. I would fly to Mexico and read love poems in another language to restore the axolotl. Alas, it’s frogs and toads and nothing more. We make do.)

            The woods behind my house are full of singing. The neighbors either learn to love it or move away.

            My sister—the one who speaks gold and diamonds—funds my travels. She speaks less than I do, but for me and my amphibian friends, she will vomit rubies and sapphires. I am grateful.

            I am practicing reading modernist revolutionary poetry aloud. My accent is atrocious. Still, a day will come when the Panamanian golden frog will tumble from my lips, and I will catch it and hold it, and whatever word I spoke, I’ll say again and again, until I stand at the center of a sea of yellow skins, and make from my curse at last a cloth of gold.

Terri Windling posted recently about the old fairy tale of frogs falling from a girl’s lips, and I started thinking about what I’d do if that happened to me, and…well…

[snurtle]

my craziest take is you can be cis in a trans way if you feel like it. Like its literally no big deal. if you wanna be completely cisgender but still feel as if you're alienated from your agab then you can be cis in a trans way

[snurtle]

Wolfgang Mattheuer (German, 1927-2004), Verlorene Mitte, 1982. Oil on hardboard, 100 x 125 cm

[snurtle]

dwarves would be enthralled with midwestern casserole dishes

[snurtle]