🪽birdwrongs

Hi Again!

2025-07-25T13:06:00+00:00

Wow! Hi! It's been a bit. I got a little ambitious about how I was going to update the site and then didn't for a while. Anyway I deferred some of the stuff I wanted to do because I wanted to post more updates and also update the resources page since a lot of people are looking at that right now. (Hi!)

Also in the meantime my wife and I had a baby so I've just been kind of busy. Obviously that takes up a lot of my time, but babies are really cute it turns out, so I can't complain.

Last month I also was a consultant on a couple projects for Toxic Yuri VN Jam</a>: Forever Yours</a> and Zombie Puke</a>! They're both really charming games with absolutely incredible work done all around, so please check them out if they look interesting to you!

Also, I made a sub-site for my narrative games</a> and also I already have one for TTRPGS</a> so take a look there, but the games page also has some of my fav recs. My narrative games site is also going to have reviews, though!

I'll also be posting (soon?) a page about hosting your own content and potential monetization issues due to current circumstances on Steam and Itch.io. Hopefully. Unless I get too caught up on editing and research. Send help.

They're lying to you about transgender women and girls in sports

2025-03-19T20:55:18+00:00

That's the long and short of it and this is a good analysis breaking down all of it.

Turkey City Lexicon

2025-03-16T15:46:43+00:00

List of terms to describe common writing patterns (mostly bad) in SFF.

what i'm playing

2025-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Infinity Nikki (Phone, Live Service)</li>
Arknights (Phone, Live Service)</li>
ef: the first tale (PC, Visual Novel)</li>
Misericorde (Visual Novel)</li>
~~Of the Devil (Visual Novel)</del> up to date (ch 1 finished)</li>~~
Balatro (I live in hell forever)</li> </ul>

finished books

2025-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Confronting Antisemitism on the Left: Arguments for Socialists, Daniel Randall</li>
To Heal a Fractured World, Rabbi Johnathan Sacks</li>
When the Angels Left the Old Country, Sacha Lamb</li>
On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg</li>
People Love Dead Jews, Dara Horn</li>
The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto, Daniel Boyarin / finished 3/13 (meh)</li>
Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America, Talia Lavin / finished 2/16 (very good)</li> </ul>

reading

2025-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Boogiepop and Others, Kouhei Kadono</li>
Roadside Picnic, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky</li> </ul>

what i'm watching

2025-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Severance (Apple TV)</li>
Squid Game (Netflix) (Theoretically) (It's so scary. Aaaa)</li>
BanG Dream! Ave Mujica: The Die is Cast</li>
Kimi to Idol Precure</li>
Go! Princess Precure (Rewatch)</li>
Mobile Suit Gundam</li> </ul>

A Year in Treblinka by Yankel Wiernik

2025-02-27T02:31:03+00:00

A survivor of the Treblinka concentration camp recounts his horrifying experiences.

PostSpark

2025-02-26T21:23:01+00:00

Tool to make your screenshots fancy.

Devi McCallion - I WANT THINGS TO BE BEAUTIFUL

2025-02-26T21:20:16+00:00

It's a banger.

The Tiny Table Index

2025-02-26T21:04:14+00:00

Index of 1-2 player tabletop roleplaying games.

Creator Economy Platform Costs

2025-02-26T21:03:01+00:00

Calculator from newsletter tool Buttondown comparing prices for different similar creator economy tools based on audience size and membership rates.

The Genesis of Christian Nationalism

2025-02-26T21:01:30+00:00

In-depth look at the rise of American Christian nationalism and how we got to where we are today.

CAPTCHA: 819 million hours of wasted human time and billions of dollars in Google profits

2025-02-26T20:55:22+00:00

Where CAPTCHA came from and how Google has made it a tool for generating profit and mostly nothing else.

Unfucking Windows for Fun and Profit

2025-02-26T14:37:19+00:00

Primer on how to make the Windows experience less garbage.

CSS Inliner

2025-02-26T13:50:10+00:00

Tool that inlines your CSS styles into HTML for when you're committing CSS crimes on platforms that allow it. Or doing HTML emails, I guess.

Barriers to Writing

2025-02-26T13:43:19+00:00

Free class by author Mary Robinette Kowal on how to work through what's keeping you from writing.

New Resources

2025-02-23T11:38:00+00:00

Hi! Just wanted to put in a little update about some stuff I added to the site. I've added a bunch of stuff to the resources</a> page, and also put the resources in two columns so the page isn't like 800 miles long, for starters.

I also spun up a little project I'm calling Café Reader</a>, which allows you to view posts from a curated list of status.cafe users. There's still a few bugs I'm ironing out, but it is largely functional! I'll probably also work in some improvements and optimizations in the coming days (it is absolutely not optimized for a huge number of follows rn, for example).

Additionally, I wrote a little primer</a> on CSS Grid, and added the words</a> section, for written things that aren't site updates—more like mini-essays.

On a Serious Note: A Long Post

2025-02-11T17:20:00+00:00

I got into a discussion on my Neocities feed earlier today and the other person involved noted that Neocities comment feeds are like, the worst place to have a discussion, which is fair, and besides, I have my own website where I can write whatever I want.

I am not frequently personal on this website; it's more about my personal projects and web development resources than anything else. First and foremost, though, trans people are welcome here.

I'm a cis lesbian, but I've had the privilege to be friends with a number of trans people—men, women, nonbinary, and along a broader spectrum of experience. The arguments I see characterizing transness as a problem generally fall into the following categories:

Why can't you just be a gender-nonconforming person of the sex you were born as?</li>
Isn't transness just based on stereotypes about men and women?</li>

Could it just be a fetish for dressing up in a way that feels transgressive?</li> </ol>
Honestly, to all of this, I'd say—first of all, I start to wonder if people holding these opinions have a lot of experience with trans people, or gender-nonconforming people in general, and particularly if they have that experience offline. It's really easy to lose sight of actual people when dealing in online theoreticals, and honestly, people are so much more chill and normal offline. If you've been to a Pride event, you've probably been around all kinds of people with weird genders minding their own business and you didn't even notice.
(It's possible my experience is a little different since I'm in my thirties and most of the people I know are, well, also in their thirties, incredibly tired, and are just trying to live their lives on this bitch of an earth. They look up to artists and writers and revolutionaries, although mostly they want to have jobs and food to eat and to make sure that everyone has the freedom to present themselves to the world free of restrictive gender roles. All of them are kind people; many of them have been subject to a lot of mistreatment their whole lives that have made them careful and considerate in how they treat others, often to a fault.)
I think about gender a lot like that one scene in Mona Lisa Smile—the main character art professor gives all her students at Wellesley a paint-by-numbers kit to work on to make a point about how they're choosing lives of conformity by being there for a "Mrs" degree. (That is, the old slang for attending college only until you find a husband.) But at the end of the year, as she's been dismissed from her position, they all show her their work—and they're all wildly different pieces of art in different styles while still adhering to the paint-by-numbers lines.
So if I may stretch this metaphor, gender is a bit like picking your canvas material, but you can do whatever you like with your materials and style. The person I was discussing with contends, in somewhat less polite words, that a bunth trans woman is "just a man," but I think that misses something essential, since I think they'd also agree that how one dresses doesn't dictate your gender. Does dressing that way make a butch cis lesbian a man? I think most people would agree that it certainly doesn't, so why would that be true of a trans lesbian?
Ultimately, all the trans people I know think a lot about the role of gender in society and how to make those roles more equitable. They're all keenly aware of how restrictive gender rules do no one any favors, and furthermore, keenly aware of how much danger they put themselves in by placing themselves outside the acceptable boxes given by society—and that danger is largely violence at the hands of cis men. As a lesbian and a person of color, I personally find kinship in this because both my sexuality and my ethnicity place me outside of the "expected" experience of white heterosexual womanhood. I know not everyone shares my particular opinion, here, but I think there's a lot of wonderful solidarity to be found. Lesbians are used to being considered "predatory" toward straight women and to be thought of as "lesser" or "failed" women without even transing our genders; I think the parallels are obvious.
In the current political climate—around the world, and especially in my home country of the United States—to resist the imposition of that expected norm is, in my opinion, essential. The political right wants to dictate the experience of gender to a real paint-by-numbers experience, where there is only one acceptable way to live, and everyone else either needs to conform or is consigned to disposability. I don't want to concede an inch to any philosophy that determines my destiny based on what body I was or wasn't born with.
The fact of the matter is that the rate of regret on gender-affirming surgery is less than the rate of regret on things like necessary amputations and hip replacements. That's a low number. It's been agreed on for decades what the medical and humane standard of care should be—and just because it's under attack now doesn't mean the science has changed. These treatments are safe and well-established and consistent with improved standard of living. Gender can involve a lot of things, and it need not be fully (or at all!) medical! But I have a strong personal belief in bodily autonomy—the right to choose your haircut, to get tattoos, to get an abortion whether necessary or not, and to, yes, make modifications to your body toward how you want to present yourself to the world.
This is my last word on the matter (probably). As it is said in the Pirkei Avot, "If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self [only], what am I? And if not now, when?" I cannot be only for myself; none of us can. We must all be for each other. So call your local politicians and go out and volunteer in your community, okay?
ETA: Follow-up</a> responding to an anon's questions, noted here for archival reasons.

Little updates

2025-02-11T12:31:00+00:00

Hi! It's been a bit. I just tidied up a few things (and uh, re-added the members page for the yuri clique oops) (join the yuri clique!!</a>) and figured I'd post about what's been going on.
I post a lot on bluesky now at veryroundbird.house</a> among other things although I'm definitely still here. Also, I forgot to mention I published a short visual novel called Signal Strength</a> for Yuri Game Jam 2024</a> and Videotome Jam</a> that I'm pretty proud of. (You can also find it on my narrative games itch.io page</a>.) If you play it, let me know! I'd love feedback.
I am still very underemployed and submitting applications, so if you know a place that needs a web developer, let me know, ha ha.
Also, I added a Listography</a> section for all my little lists of what I'm up to!

craft projects

2025-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Baby Sweater - Need to weave in ends</li>
~~Wallum Overall Crochet Dress</del>~~ Done!</a></li>
Lesbian Scarf</li>
Lesbian Hat</li>
Lesbian Haramaki</li>
Cat Blanket</li> </ul>

movies watched

2025-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

The Vourdalak (2/2/25)</li>
Mulholland Drive (1/29/25)</li>
Oddity (1/5/25)</li>
What You Wish For (11/17/24)</li>
The Substance (11/3/24)</li>
The Babadook (10/17/24)</li> </ul>
("why are almost all of these horror movies" it's because i have a friend who does biweekly horror movie night. i have seen way more horror movies than any other kind of movie at this point)

projects

2025-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Toxic Sword Lesbians: the Thousand Cousins (RPG Supplement)</li>
~~Signal Strength (Visual Novel)</del>~~ Complete!</a></li>
Thousand Cousins (RPG) Beta</a></li>
Inverse Memoriam (Visual Novel/Twine Game)</li>
Bedlam (Narrat/Adventure Game)</li>
Witchlands (Visual Novel)</li>
Miracle Shooting Star Night Watch (Webnovel)</li>
Not Even Into Another Eternity (Fanfic) [WIP]</li>
~~Toxic Sword Lesbians (RPG Supplement)</del>~~ Complete!</a></li> </ul>

Carly Smallbird

2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Hope is the longing for something not yet realized, or fully out of reach—and yet, the persistence to move toward it. That's kind of like pining.

manyface

2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

the lizard is a girl who loves the sun (also a girl). the red rock is a girl too. they all love each other and give each other warmth and happiness.

shydeer

2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

the tension between rain and sunshine on during a sunshower.....

Krish

2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Mala

2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

lolitas tying each other’s waist ties too, is yuri?

sketch

2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

The New Layout!

2024-10-01T18:06:00+00:00

Okay! We did it!
I wanted to put together a new version of the layout just to appease my enjoyment of a variety of aesthetics, and also to make the site easier to maintain. Previously, this was being run off my own deranged static site compilation workflow involving nunjucks-to-html; now nearly everything is markdown files running off of Zola</a>, which is a very lightweight static site engine written in Rust.
It took me a little bit to figure out (involving deconstructing and reconstructing some of the available themes) but it turns out the macro setup is really nice? I'd recommend taking a look if you're in the market for a static site generator. (I've also heard good things about Lume</a> recently, although I haven't gotten the chance to try it out yet.)

01 - Spacewalk

2024-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

02 - Forgotten Garden

2024-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

so some stuff happened

2024-09-30T14:54:00+00:00

once again i disappear and reappear randomly. sorry. also, hello to anyone who found me from cohost! friends of eggbug, it is nice to see you on the small web.
i'm working on some site updates and a new layout (exciting!) so watch this space! also I released a roleplaying game supplement for thirsty sword lesbians called toxic sword lesbians that people seem to like? also a weird little zine and an Arknights RPG.
otherwise i'm keeping busy with a lot of plates spinning since i'm still between jobs (hmu if you need a web developer at carly@carly.website) so kind of resisting the nervous urge to pull my hair out. we stay silly

Guestbook

2024-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

</div>

Layouts

2024-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

whoops! i was busy + some projects

2024-07-13T14:20:00+00:00

hi! life's been a lot but i wanted to show off a couple things i've been working on.
ask again later</a> - a revamp of a site I helped put together for a live-action roleplaying game I ran close to a decade ago. now it's hosted on neocities with a static site generator and looks a little more modern! i'm still fiddling with some presentational stuff but the content's in there.
getting by in chicago</a> - extremely plain list of resources for poverty living in the chicago area, which i put together after pulling a bunch of info for a friend.
hopefully more soon! maybe i'll slam together a few more premade layouts sometime soon...?

new layout + stamps + photo diary update

2024-04-24T14:43:00+00:00

Added another layout to the layouts page—eventually I want to set up some filtering mechanisms but for now there's like two so that would be overkill. I also added some homemade stamps to a sub-page under resources (it's all vtubers. i'm sorry slash you're welcome) and added another photo to the photo diary (chag pesach sameach)

the tiramisu of affliction

2024-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

a beautiful clear day and a beautiful still view of Lake Michigan

2024-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

more tutorials!

2024-04-12T03:46:00+00:00

I've had some links for tutorials on the resources</a> page for a bit, but now all of them have content instead of just one! Learn my secrets! Make your website cooler! Nothing too hard or fancy, and all extremely doable on neocities.

yuri clique + layouts

2024-04-09T01:02:00+00:00

some little additions—added my little yuri web clique</a> and also put in a section for stuff i've joined, and then also I started a layouts section that you can get to via resources</a> or via its own page</a>. hoping to add more in the near future, plus i have some ideas about putting together a modular layout generator. I might also release a version of the javascript that runs the clique since it's pretty simple and doesn't require any server-side scripting.

total eclipse 2024: the corona of the sun

2024-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

peaceful river vista in Indiana

2024-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

early april updates

2024-04-02T15:25:00+00:00

wow! adding things to the site!
on the resources page i wrote up the tutorial for how i made the audio player here + also added a whole list of links to other pages with useful resources for retroweb/yesterweb stuff. although i will say it's nice to live in The Future(tm) where yeah we can do websites like this but also have access to modern templating engines and utilities so I don't have to be painstakingly copypasting headers and footers everywhere.
if you want to see my uh. my very normal shell script for compiling this site and uploading it—

anyway i'm hoping to fill out the rest of the tutorials i've got slated early this week! my next week after is busy but after that maybe... freeware layouts. it's been like 84 years since i made them...

Hello world!

2024-03-31T23:21:00+00:00

oh g-d people are looking at my site hjelp
hi! i'm carly smallbird and this is my new little website that i'm setting up. i was really missing just. making websites more or less by hand (...ish. i'm using a combo of nunjucks-to-html and shell scripting to do some templating and file pre-processing, but, you know) and the community on neocities seems really great and reminds me of when i was 14 and painstakingly making like 15 geocities sites with anime girls on them
i do this for a living, technically, so it's funny that this is well more ambitious than, like, my professional website. my professional website doesn't have an audio player or anything like this, ha ha

caught drinking out of the watering can...

2024-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

theoretically, that floor cushion's mine. in practice, it's hers.

2024-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

berry cheesecake hamantaschen for the holiday

2024-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

experiments in yakisoba-pan, just like in my animes

2024-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

experiencing peak coziness

2024-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

a surprise snow for the beginning of spring

2024-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

signs of spring: my rhubarb returning!

2024-03-19T00:00:00+00:00