Your Aunt Sanj

Nerdy, queer, not quitting today

[lovdecay]

Baldur's Gate 3: the most anti-religion game ever✨️

[sanjerina]

And the one half-decent god in the game quit his job and had to come back as an office temp after the yahoos that he hired to replace him fucked everything up.

And now they’re trying to fuck it up again, and Jergal’s just chilling in your camp making minimum wage, still trying to clean up his own mess.

[noah-wyles]

all i want for 2026 is that gigantic rancid AI bubble to finally burst in such a catastrophic way that the consequences will be so good and i'll never have to see another AI generated image ever again

[fluoritegalaxy]

Like to charge, reblog to cast.

[maxiemartmanager]

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[gay-jewish-bucky]

this was submitted as a one sentence horror story, but it feels like it could be an old jewish joke, like the one about the two rabbis proving g-d doesn't exist or the saying 'people plan, g-d laughs'

[sal-absinthii-deactivated202311]

This is a thousand times better as a dry Jewish joke than it is as a fake-deep edgelord ‘horror’ story

[18kgold]

Even more, it sounds like the beginning -- the set-up -- of the joke. Can’t you hear Carl Reiner opening a bit with this line, or Shalom Aleichem using it to kick off a story?

[captain-acab]

Well I'm not quite an old Jewish man just yet, but let me give it a shot...

Losing confidence in Himself, G-d became an atheist. He decided to go down to Earth, to walk among humans and see how they found meaning.

He wandered the world until he came to a town, where he happened upon a pastor. "Come to our church this Sunday!" said the pastor. But G-d shook his head. "I don't believe in G-d anymore," he told the pastor sullenly. "And besides, I really shouldn't be working weekends." . . .

He continued wandering, and as night fell, he realized he had no money for a hotel. Walking down the darkening sidewalk, he passed many shivering folk, some young and thin, others old and worn and grizzle-bearded, looking not unlike himself. Just as the rain began to fall, he happened upon a priest. The priest looked him up and down, and said, "You look cold, my son. We're hosting a men's shelter at the church tonight; you can sleep there, and come to Mass tomorrow." This time G-d agreed. He slept well and was warm, and in the morning sat for Mass. They blessed him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but he felt beside himself and decided to leave.

By this time G-d was quite hungry. He stopped by a deli, but still had no money, so all he could do was watch the fresh steaming bagels be made. On a bench outside the deli, a man was eating a bagel with lox. As he finished eating, G-d noticed there were still some scraps of food on the waxpaper. Unable to help himself, he asked if he could have the scraps, before the man threw it away. "Please sir, I'm so hungry. I'd just like that crumb of bagel there, and that little shred of lox. I think I could make a bisl of fish last quite a while." The man shook his head. "I cannot in good conscience give you my trash," he said, "But come inside, I'll get you your own bagel. I'd offer to get you coffee—but that's trash too."

So the man bought G-d some breakfast and sat with him on the bench. "Thank you so much," said G-d. "How can I ever repay you?" But the man just shrugged and said, "I'm a rabbi. Buying bagels I don't get to eat is part of the job description."

G-d thanked the rabbi again, and ate in silence. "Rabbi, can I ask you a question? I feel I haven't been on this Earth too long, but already I've seen much misery. How do you do it? How do you still believe in G-d?"

The rabbi pondered this. "I believe in joyful things. I believe in kindness, and people choosing to help each other. And isn't that a kind of godliness?" (G-d suspected there was a bit more to godliness than that, but he let it slide.) The rabbi continued: "I've prayed to G-d every day for the last 30 years, and I will every day til I die. And if He answers my prayers, all the better! But tell me, my new friend, what's your name?" G-d hesitated and said, "It's a little hard to pronounce..." The rabbi chuckled and said, "No matter. Say, it won't be anything like Shabbos dinner, but my wife is baking a delightful fig pie today, and I'd like to have you over for dinner to enjoy it." G-d nodded. "I do like figs..."

That evening, G-d sat for dinner with the rabbi, the rabbi's wife, and their four children. The meal was delicious, the rabbi's family was incredibly welcoming. Their conversation was friendly but never prying, and the children laughed and played with each other. Several times, the youngest child tugged on G-d's sleeve for his attention before her father motioned for her to go play with her siblings. G-d began to see what the rabbi had meant about the joyfulness of life.

At the end of the night, G-d stood up to leave, and felt renewed. The rabbi said, "My friend, don't leave us so soon!" And G-d replied, "I will always be with you, for I am the Lord Your G-d." And they understood it to be true.

He had done this sort of thing a few times before and generally knew how it went. As expected, the rabbi and his family fell to their knees, weeping with joy and awe. He did not expect the youngest child to walk right up and tug G-d's sleeve again. He smiled graciously down at her, and she looked up with the wonderful bright eyes of a child who understands nothing but the urge to play. In a high voice, she said, "Knock knock!" G-d couldn't help but laugh. "Who's there?" He replied cheerfully.

Suddenly from across the room, the rabbi swore loudly and rudely. Dismayed, G-d asked, "What troubles you?" He saw the rabbi was trembling, half in rage and half in embarrassment. "I'm sorry Lord! Thank you for this, thank you so much for gracing us with your light, Baruch Atah and so on, it's just..." The rabbi swore again. "Thirty years of daily prayer, Lord, and a KNOCK-KNOCK JOKE is what you'll answer?"

[pusheenthenerdcat]

hey captain-acab, this is the highest compliment i can bestow: it would not have surprised me had i found that story in a book of traditional fables in the shul library

[animatedamerican]

Look, someone has to be the first to make up any traditional Jewish story, why not @captain-acab? If we all keep telling it, then in a generation or two it'll be traditional.

[fricklefracklefloof]

a comic about tattoos

[hreog]

To those who suggested Victoria Goddard's nine worlds series after the goblin emperor and cemetaries of amalo trilogy: oh yes, this is exactly right. What a wonderful series. all set to enjoy a nice stretch of cozy fantasy.

[mawofthemagnetar]

What do you mean “chat” is now referring to ChatGPT and not twitch chat? What? What? What the fuck? No?

When I address chat I am speaking to a presumed Greek chorus of real human people shitposting on their lunch break, not a machine that devours lakes to covert electricity into slop.

[ilaeriawitch]

The thing with Heated Rivalry is, we’re going to see a flurry of attempts to recreate its magic. But that’s impossible. The strange alchemy of it. The right story at the right time. A rabid loyal existing fanbase. The perfect cast. The perfect showrunner. A rabid loyal *new* fanbase via naturally viral social media. In dozens of media exec offices right now they’re frantically scrambling to figure out what the market wants. Hockey? Sports? Gay? Romance? Rivalry? Butts? It’s all of these things. It’s none of these things. You cannot bottle the lightning.

[catbatart]

So back in 2005, I saved up my own money, dollar by dollar, scrimping and saving every nickel and quarter, to buy my very first "just for me" video game- Devil May Cry 3. It was the first game I ever finished by myself, on my own, never having watched anyone else play it before. It was tough, and SUPER frustrating at points, but I loved it. The whole thing was a very special experience for me and that game holds an important place in my heart,

A few years after finishing it, I was talking to a friend who had just played it. He was saying how he dumped all of his orbs (game currency) into upgrading his minimum health pool and how he wanted to start over with a different build.

I stared at him. "Wait, what?" He repeated- he dumped all his orbs into increasing his minimum HP and just tanked a bunch of stuff.

That was when I realized that you could upgrade your minimum health. I had not noticed that you could spend orbs to do that. I spent them on everything else OTHER than upgrading my health bar. I literally spent so so so frikkin long beating the game with MINIMUM. HP. I WOULD HAVE HAD SAVED SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY IF I HAD JUST FRIKKIN NOTICED THAT INCREASING MY MINIMUM HEALTH WAS EVEN AN OPTION. NO WONDER I HAD TO REDO THE SAME FIGHTS 20 TIMES. NO WONDER EVERYTHING WAS SO. DIFFICULT. I COMPLETELY just missed a crucial element to gameplay and specs and I basically played the game entirely incorrectly, exerting WAY more effort to get the same results as anyone who actually took time to examine the obvious upgrade options.

Anyway, that's what discovering that I have ADHD in my 30s has been like.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Oh shit. Sally Field kinda went off here. “The garment you knit for yourself as a child.” Might have to read her memoir now.

[Chris Dennis]

[existennialmemes]

They don't even give us bread & circuses anymore. All we get is ramen & doomscroll. They enshittified bread & circuses. Nothing is sacred.

[digitaldiscipline]

[notlayingroses]

Everything I read about recovering from burnout is like “it takes months or even years to fully recover” and it’s like okay…. I have a weekend before I gotta clock in on Monday

[puppygirllaika]

Could you personally navigate a cross-country road trip, door to door, without your electronics (phone/computer/tablet/etc)?

Yes

No

Voting ended onMay 29

[gentlewordsdaily]

Sometimes I think one of the quietest forms of grief is realizing how young you were when you started surviving instead of simply living.

You didn’t wake up one day and decide to become guarded or overly independent or emotionally careful. Little by little, your mind just learned what it needed to do to protect you. And because it kept you going, those habits stayed.

So now maybe you struggle to ask for comfort. Maybe you downplay your feelings automatically. Maybe you tell people “it’s fine” before they even get the chance to care. Maybe softness feels unfamiliar to you, even when you desperately want it.

And none of that makes you difficult. None of it makes you cold. None of it makes you unlovable.

It just means some part of you learned that being easy to carry was safer than having needs.

I think that’s why people sometimes mourn the person they could have been. Not out of self-hatred, but out of tenderness. Because they wonder who they might have become if life had allowed them to feel safe sooner. If they had spent less time bracing themselves for hurt and more time simply existing peacefully.

But I hope you know this:

The version of you that adapted to survive is not lesser than the version that never had to.

You are not ruined because life made you careful. You are not too damaged to become soft again. And you are not failing because healing takes time.

A person can spend years in survival mode and still slowly learn that they deserve gentleness.

They can still learn that rest is safe. That love does not always disappear. That needing people is not weakness. That being cared for does not have to be earned.

So please try not to look at yourself only through the lens of what survival changed in you.

Look at what it preserved too.

Your tenderness. Your hope. Your ability to keep going despite everything heavy you carried alone.

There is still softness in you. There is still a future version of you that feels lighter. And I think that person is worth staying alive for.

[depsidase]