After Hours At the Library

Samantha, 30s, Library Knight, Miranda Mels' Fem

[lelif]

on being yourself

@ brainsoupp_ on twitter// @stmichaelthearchangel// @ cybermrcury on twitter// @throughmy-eyez // @ shellerina on twitter// @caesarsaladinn// @ nelsoncj4 on twitter // @ heimberg_a on twitter// make your own kind of music by cass elliot// @ soledadfrancis on twitter// ? // @ sourcenectar on twitter// @superorganism

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[whitachi]

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

[araceil]

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

[lisbonsteresa]

summer thunderstorms are one of the most romantic things in the world, actually

[deluxeyellowflower]

"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up. All of it, the literal and the fanciful." — James Baldwin, James Baldwin Collected Essays Library Of America (1998)

[decompose1]

people are soooo mean to the color yellow and it hurts my heart like u mean the color of the sun!?!? daffodils and buttercups and dandelions!? canary feathers and fresh butter and the warm glow of light and the trees in autumn???? for shame. joyless.

[dreadwedge]

As a transsexual woman 👩 who has had multiple experiences ‼️ I have found 🔎 that the biggest block of cheese 🧀 is usually the one ☝️ that has the largest size 📈

[dreadwedge]

mature content

[stardustemotions-deactivated202]

One day you think: I want to die. And then you think, very quietly, actually I want a coffee. I want a nap. A sandwich. A book. And I want to die turns day by day into I want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friends, I want to sit in the sun. I want a cleaner room, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else, I want to live.

[luxiomahariel]

thank you women with deep voices for being perfect

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Prehistoric Flute from Germany, c.40,000 BCE: this is one of the oldest musical instruments ever discovered, and it was carved from the wing-bone of a griffon vulture

This flute was discovered during excavations at the Hohle Fels cave in southwestern Germany, where several other flutes dating back to about 41,000-35,000 BCE have also been unearthed. They are the oldest undisputed musical instruments ever discovered.

As this article describes:

With five finger holes and a V-shaped mouthpiece, the almost complete bird-bone flute—made from the naturally hollow wing bone of a griffon vulture—is just 0.3 inch (8 millimeters) wide and was originally about 13 inches (34 centimeters) long.

The sophistication of the flute's design suggests that it was part of a much older musical tradition:

... although these are currently the earliest flutes known, it is reasonable to expect that even earlier examples were produced within and outside the region: the instruments from Hohle Fels are too "evolved" in terms of design and manufacture to represent the first flutes.

The makers and players of the Aurignacian flutes were thus not novices, but had considerable musical knowledge and experience that may have resulted from some form of trans-generational communication.

Moreover, the earliest musical instruments, such as drums and rattles, were probably made of perishable materials — perhaps wood and hide — that are not routinely preserved in the archaeological record.

Even so, these flutes from southwestern Germany are of immense importance, as they document a mature musical tradition that was firmly in place thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

In fact, the development of music may be as old as humanity itself:

During their migration from Africa into Europe as early as 40,000 years ago, our ancestors were already making music. The artifacts discovered in the Hohle Fels Cave, dating back some 40,000 years, reveal that this capacity existed in our common ancestors even then, and quite likely long before.

In this rare glimpse into the unfolding of culture itself, we can see that the evolutionary roots of music go deep into our human story. So deep, that many scientists now believe that music played a crucial role in the development of the human mind.

Sources & More Info:

National Geographic: Bone Flute is World's Oldest Musical Instrument, Study Says

PubMed: The Earliest Known Musical Tradition

The New York Times: Oldest Musical Instruments are Even Older than First Thought

Kassa Flutes: Toneholes and Tradition: How a 40,000 Year Old Flute Leveled the Playing Field

Nature: New Flutes Document the Earliest Musical Tradition in Southwestern Germany

Fine Music Sydney: The Hohle Fels Flute: Unveiling the Earliest Known Musical Instrument

[bimtimtom]

Ged calling a sparrowhawk

[ltwilliammowett]

The Phoenicia, built in 2007–2008, is a modern replica of a 600 BC Phoenician merchant ship.

Inspired by ancient shipwreck discoveries near Marseille, the vessel was constructed using traditional methods to recreate the maritime achievements of the Phoenicians—master seafarers who once transported gold from Africa, tin from Britain, and linen from Egypt across the ancient world.

[positivelyqueer]

You've gotta have good biodiversity in your reasons for not killing yourself. Rotate them out like crops when the yield gets low and the soil poor. We're mixing our metaphors. Whatever helps it stick.

You like warm blankets. You like the sound of birdsong. You have a pet that needs taking care of. You have someone to outlive. You have a loved one. You think death would be boring. It's coming for you anyway. Death is patient. When was the last time you had cake? Your favourite musician is going on tour. Or maybe just a halfway decent band at your local bar. You've never seen an elephant. Isn't it amazing that the sky is blue? Aging is a gift not afforded to most. Don't let the bastard grind you down. You can't mend any suffering in the world with your death. You want to see if you can grow herbs on your windowsill. Killing yourself seems like so much effort. What does tiramisu taste like? You're trying to be curious. You're angry and spiteful. What you want more than to die is to rest. This sandwich is so good you don't want to die. Not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody, anybody who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. A stranger on the internet is holding their hand out and asking.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Cis women of ttrpg world? Loved the one with trans women, but gods did it make me realize I know very few cis ones.

More Women in TTRPGs.

Hello friend!

For folks who are curious, I did a bit of a deep dive into the many and wondrous ways trans women have influenced the tabletop roleplaying scene a year or so ago.

This one was something that I needed a minute to think about, because there are a lot of folks in the ttrpg world who probably either look like cis women or identified as cis women at one point, but have since then come out as nonbinary or trans-masc. (It turns out being allowed to play with gender in a safe space makes it easier to change it. Who knew?)

There are some designers who, if you had asked me just two or three years ago, might have made it onto this list. So I should probably put in a caveat for this list - all of the designers that I'm listing here identify, to my knowledge, as women. That may change!

Jeeyon Shim.

Shim is a California-based designer who recieved the Diana Jones Emerging Designer award in 2021 for Field Guide To Memory, a connected path game she designed alongside Shing Yin Kor. She describes her games as eclectic and transformative, endeavoring to create connections between those who play them and the world around them. I recommend checking out her game Have I Been Good?, a two-player letter-writing larp between a human and a dog. It is a meaningful day-long ritual in which you embody the feelings of a creature who sees you as an immortal.

You can also check out Shim's latest game, The Longest Rest on Indiegogo. It's a fantasy-horror game about trying to escape a hungry tavern that is bigger on the inside.

Pam Punzalan

Pam Punzalan is a Filipina-Canadian designer based in Ontario. She's contributed to an impressive list of works both inside and outside of D&D, but the games that have her name front and centre include Navathem's End, a PbtA game about trying to stop the apocalypse, as well as The Dagger Isles, a supplement for Blades in the Dark that focuses on a new setting in the Blades universe, drawing from southeastern cultures.

For more of Pam's personal work, as well as a list of the pieces they have contributed to, check out their Itch.io page.

Alex Roberts

Alex Roberts is the genius behind Star Crossed, the game about really, really wanting to when you really, really can't. It's a hack of Dread but takes the horror game and turns it on its head by using a block tower instead! Alex has also designed For the Queen, the game about escorting a queen on a voyage where she will inevitably be attacked. You'll pull prompt cards that flesh out your relationship with her as you play, until you decide whether or not to defend her in the end.

Alex describes her play as one that focuses on care, connection, psychological death and mechanical elegance. While the two games I've listed are the most popular, you might also want to check out her patreon to learn about what else she's cooking up!

Meguey Baker.

One half of Lumpley Games, Meguey Baker is the mother of Apocalypse World, the game that started the entire Powered by the Apocalypse movement. I'm personally drawn to their game Under Hollow Hills, which comes from the same house of design, but focuses on the circus as a whole, rather than the arcs of individual characters.

You can check out Lumpley Games on Itch.io for their entire library of work. You can also check out the Kickstarter version of PsiRun Second Edition, which Meguey is crowdfunding soon!

Meghan Cross

Meghan is a queer, neurodivergent creator based in New England, and creates GM-less & solo ttrpgs, as well as features on various podcasts, including Protean City Comics and Party of One. She's half of the brains behind HUNT(er/ed0, a duet game about hunting a monster and being hunted. Will you kill your opponent or flee? It's a great game for tense interactions and heightened drama.

Meghan is also the creator of Sanctuary & Sentinel, a solo game in which you play as a guardian of a sacred place. I'm also a big fan of Meghan's games Weeds in the Waste and Project Benthos, both of which can be found on her Itch.io page.

Storybrewers

Vee & Hayley are the duet behind the publishing company Storybrewers, who brought to us game such as Good Society, inspired by the stories of Jane Austen, and Fight With Spirit, a game that pulls from various sports anime. The games written by Storybrewers feel like they pull deeply from the passion for the genres in which they write, and the website describes their style as "games with narrative heart."

Cassi Mothwin.

Cassi Mothwin is the author of Carved by the Garden, a solo folk horror game about someone's last days in the haunted woods, as well as Tangled Blessings, a solo/duet game about the culmination of four years' of schooling at a magical academy.

If you like horror, Cassi is your gal. She does a great job of weaving beauty into the macabre, evoking horror not just in her games, but also in works such as The Wassailing of Claus Manor, and Triangle Agency.

Now for some rapid-fire additions:

Audrey Stolze, also known as LadyTabletop, host of Alone at the Table, freelance ttrpg contributor, and designer of various small games, which can be found here.

Amanda / imatrex co-creates Sprigs and Kindling, a free Carved from Brindlewood anthology with works from various writers, as well as RUIN, an anthology of TROPHY one-shots.

shawk games is a GM & underrated game designer, whose top games in my opinion are Beanie Brigade, Cryptid Conductor and Christ Heist. Seriously, Check Out Her Shit.

gothHoblin, also known as Emma Grier, is a New Zealand designer currently based in the UK; who has many beautiful games, but the one I'm most attached to his her Caltrop Core game Space Taxi.

Agatha Cheng is the co-creator and co-host of Asians Represent, a podcast that talks about Asian Representation in the gaming scene, as well as the writer & game designer of Deadly Society, a murder mystery supplement for Good Society. She's also the co-creator for the game Hearts of Wulin.

Plotbunny Games is a Germany-based publisher and design shop run by Andrea Rick, also known as Curious Cat on Itch. She publishes German version of other games, but she also writes her own!

Navi Drake is one half of A Couple of Drakes, a design duo who made bestellers like Hedge, A Court of Blades and Dead Belt.

Becky Annison, of Black Armada Games is half of the creative team and the primary author of Bite Marks, a game of werewolf dynamics, and Wreck this Deck, a solo card game about demon summoning.

@pidj is an Australian game designer and creator of The Station, a gm-less world-building game centred around a train station, as well as my personal favourite, The Sun's Ransom, a game about doomed vampires saving a dying sun.

Me! MintRabbit! I'm a cis woman - or at least I was the last time I checked! You can check out my stuff here.

Anyways, that's just a short list! I hope you find some great games through these designers!

If you like what I do and want to leave a tip, you can check out my Ko-Fi! Tips are always appreciated. <3

[sabrinahawthorne]

This post rubs me the wrong way, and I feel the possibly unwise need to communicate why.

content warning: a cis woman doing her best to point out and articulate an intersection of misogyny that doesn't apply to her. I'm also in the middle of a bout of insomnia so we're running with a pretty precarious scaffolding of coherency. We're riding by the seat of the pants here.

Why do you not feel represented by trans women?

I want to be blunt about this. Trans women are women. Right? It's a mantra we've been repeating for years now. Trans women are Women. That's the operative word in the terminology; Trans exists as a modifying adjective to inform the listener regarding relevant details of the women in question.

So let me rephrase the question. Why is it that, upon seeing a popular post celebrating how many of this industry's most influential figures are women, you felt the need to specify, and seek out only women who lack a single, specific demographic quality? Is there possibly some reason that you feel you cannot relate to trans women? Be represented by them?

I fear my tone is coming across as passive aggressive. I'm not trying for it to be. These questions are rhetorical, but I do mean them sincerely. Why do you feel the need to seek out female figures who aren't trans? What about cis female figures in this industry feel more relatable, or less represented to you?

More than half of the most important and respected RPG authors of the last 15 years are all women. I think it's really, really really fucking important that cisgender women ask ourselves why we feel uncomfortable that all of those are trans. Why we have trouble feeling like that's a win for us.

Because it is.

End note: I'm muting this post. I've said my piece, and in my opinion the body of the post already addresses the counterarguments that I think are most likely to crop up. I'm also not the person you should be taking as an authority on transfeminism in the first place.

[abdalsalam2000]

Hello everyone, today is April 16, 2026, it's my birthday.

[abdalsalam2000]

I turned 18 today, and today marks the beginning of my 19th year in the Gaza Strip. Since my birth, I have witnessed seven devastating and deadly wars, filled with fear, death, and hunger. Today, as I write this post, I am in the Gaza Strip, where the war of extermination continues. For three years now, we have been completely besieged, starved, displaced, and killed with internationally prohibited weapons, subjected to starvation and denied food.

[abdalsalam2000]

From the day I was born until today, I have never left the besieged Gaza Strip because of the blockade imposed on us by the Zionists. Today, for the past three years, no one has been allowed to leave the Gaza Strip, and food, supplies, and water are severely restricted. We are suffering greatly. The Zionists have robbed me of all my ambitions and dreams since the day I was born.

[abdalsalam2000]

I hope this year will be different and that I can achieve at least some of my dreams. But until that time comes, I desperately need your help. We are in dire need of your support and assistance. Please make this day different and help me share this post and donate.

[bovineblogger]

happy birthday nader! wishing you happiness, and safety. you have one of the biggest hearts of anyone ive ever met, and im so proud of you for being so incredibly strong. you deserve the absolute world!

please, please, please if you can donate to his fundraiser in any capacity, do so.

[victusinveritas]

[naughtypiggy]

Scientists uncovered the nutrients bees were missing — Colonies surged 15-fold

Scientists have developed a breakthrough “superfood” for honeybees by engineering yeast to produce the essential nutrients normally found in

TLDR- Modern agriculture pollen is low in nutrients, and there aren’t enough wildflowers. Science has to develop vitamins to supplement the diets of agricultural bees. So plant some wildflowers for the wild bees near you.

[dykeselfcest]

I fear a lot of people learned to take good care of library books as children and instead of internalizing "leave shared community items as you found them as much as possible, because other people will use them too" they internalized "printing and binding a book imbues it with sacred energy and if you dog-ear a mass-market paperback you're desecrating the entire concept of written language"

[elbiotipo]

Just got off a whole day on a bus to check the world's most beautiful pictures of the Moon and Trump threatening genocide upon a whole civilization

[elbiotipo]

oh carlitos we're really on it now