A Regular Day At The Citadel

This.

Games like Animal Crossing that give you a reason to play every day are great for coping with anxiety/depression because yeah life is terrifying but that bush you planted today? It’s gonna be slightly bigger tomorrow and that at least is something to look forward to

god i love being part of the internet’s most monetarily worthless user base. i love going to bed knowing that at least one social media site isn’t making shit off my presence.

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 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…

In case anyone was wondering what the insides of these guys looked like. Found a pair while thrifting and liked their vintage looking face sculpts.

The eye plate screws into the white tube which slides into the black tube. The top of the head was sewn onto the removable textured plastic on the eye plate. The face didn't want to come off after being unscrewed from the black tube and I suspect its glued on.

Might try to remove the eye paint with acetone and cotton balls.

楽しいお茶会マーマレードちゃん。

my new boy and girl bodies <3

Rewatching chunks of Kingsglaive, I think the main language of Galahd might be Thai. The lettering of the surrounding shops at the Galahdian style restaurant mostly use Thai script (also English and Japanese).

Bonus restaurant that uses the Latin name for a type of passionflower found in the southern US.

If someone asks me what Kingdom Hearts 3 is about, I’m just going to show them this

Me in history class: Wow, humanity has been through some fascinating times!  I wonder if I’ll ever live through major historical events!

Me now: NO NO NO NO NO I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE

hey psa to my fellow fat ppl: a few tips + tutorials for upsizing clothing that’s too small, that way if you’ve grown out of certain stuff and can’t afford new things, you can make it fit you– this has helped me a lot in the past 

my tips:

cutting off just the neckline of a shirt/dress can help SO much

cutting slits on the sides of tight shirts helps relieve tightness + you can add an accent fabric, lace, or fishnet material under there for an extra design element (or safety pin it back together for a really cool punk look!)

you can do that same thing with sleeves but i recommend doing it underneath (either on the seem if it has one or to the seem that connects it to the shirt) 

adding false pleats to skirts/dresses by cutting them up the sides and in the front and adding an accent fabric works really well with tightness around the legs

 you can do a lot of these side-cut things to pants but if you do, it’s a good idea to add elastic to the waist band! 

tutorials:

4 ways to upsize shirts

how to refit/re-elastic a waistband for a better fit

more upsizing shirts!

making a lace insert dress (could be substituted for other things like mesh/fishnet)

increasing the waist band on jeans

how to enlargen shorts

expanding a dress (from the bottom)

expanding a dress (from the bust)