clear as a crisp spring morning

While most fans cite Harvest Moon DS Cute as the first time same-sex relationships were ever referenced in the series, there's an event in Harvest Moon GBC 2 that allows you to confess your feelings to Mary, the town librarian, and it plays out the same regardless of your character's gender.

After becoming friends with Mary, one day she'll stop by your home in the morning and ask you to meet her in the mountains. She asks the player to write a message to leave in a time capsule, which the two of you will dig back up in 3 years. There's a few different options for your message, but one of them is "I love Mary!!"

You can watch both halves of the event in these two videos by Vezzyli:

If, for some reason you can't watch the videos, here's her response to reading the message:

and People Don’t Talk About It Enough

Sometimes I wish people understood what it actually feels like to live with AUDHD the combination of Autism and ADHD. It’s not quirky, it’s not “cute,” and it’s definitely not just being distracted or socially awkward. It’s a daily battle inside your own mind, and most of the world never sees the internal exhaustion behind it.

Living with AUDHD means having a brain that can’t decide whether it wants absolute structure or total chaos. One moment you’re overstimulated to the point of shutting down, and the next moment you’re stuck in a spiral of hyperactivity and racing thoughts. You crave routine but get bored of it. You want to focus but your brain refuses to cooperate. You want calm, but everything feels too loud, too bright, too fast.

People see the outside the forgetfulness, the fidgeting, the sensitivity, the intense interests and they assume it’s manageable. But they don’t see the burnout that hits without warning. They don’t feel the sensory overload that makes small things feel unbearable. They don’t experience the guilt of wanting to do things but being unable to start, or the frustration of trying your absolute best while still being labeled “lazy,” “dramatic,” or “unmotivated.”

And the worst part is the loneliness. Because AUDHD often makes you feel “too much” for everyone. Too sensitive, too emotional, too intense, too overwhelmed. So you learn to mask. You pretend you’re fine. You try to act “normal,” even when your brain is screaming.

But here’s the truth: AUDHD is not a character flaw. It’s not a choice. It’s a reality that deserves understanding, compassion, and awareness. People who live with it are fighting battles every single day and doing it quietly.

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

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

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

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

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??

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 🙏

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!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

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

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

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.

And how she's now used those gloves for over thirty winters and each time she puts them on, she gets to pet her beloved dog's fur even though Ginger is long gone. And how even though her bones have long since been swallowed by the earth, Ginger is still protecting her owner from the cold.