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♡ Birds and Stars ♡
A place to nurture my dreams


(Photograph by Sarah Liu.)

Welcome to Birds and Stars! This place will always be changing, for as long as I can work on it. Here you'll find my art as well as collections of comforting and nostalgic things that make me feel happy and at peace. ♥ We are freely hosted on neocities, part of the Mental Heal Circle, and also affiliated with The Princess Chateau.
You may call me Lala, although my real name is Lamees (lam as in lamb, ees as in fleece)! You can read about me here. I'd love it if you'd sign my Guestbook when you're done! ♥
My brother gifted me the cute little sheep that wander along the bottom of this page! Here is his website. ♥ More credits down here!

I drew this Iris, would you like to adopt her?The Princess CodeI drew this Lillie and Snowy, would you like to adopt them?

Navigation:
[Healing: Calm Down+Cheer Up+Kafka and the Doll+Islamic Healing & Protection+Life & Faith+Solace for Softness
Personal: About Me+'Eid Memories
Fandom: Best Wishes! Appreciation+Princely Prodigy+Pretty Panels+Shoujo Wardrobes+Shoujo Bedrooms+Manga Recommendations+Anime Recommendations+Magic Pencil+Title Cards
Art & Fun: Art Gallery+Pixel Art (Adoptables!)+Toybox+Dollroom
Website: Old Updates+Guestbook+Links]

Updates:

16, August, 2024 I am so glad so many enjoy their visit and leave such sweet messages in the guestbook, even as my updates have slowed, given I have no regular access to a computer! But, I have a very sweet, old animation based on a children's book to share, so added it to the Calm Down page.
4, April, 2024 I added a game to the Play section of the Cheer Up page, it should be fun and nostalgic for everyone who grew up with Kid Pix! It's based on the original 1989 public domain version of Kid Pix. ^^ This has been an interesting year, both my birthdays coincided in the same month! The lunar calendar shifts every year based on when the crescent is seen, so usually, my Gregorian (solar) calendar birthday and Hijri (lunar) calendar birthday are far apart, but both Ramadan and March coincided in the same month this year, similarly to when I was born! ^^ I'm now 32 in both calendars. ♥ Thank you as always for the lovely guestbook comments and I hope Anteaterina continues to enjoy Princess Tutu. ♡ 15, February, 2024 I found a webpage collecting a lot of those lovely Orisinal: Morning Sunshine games, so if you want sweet and simple games with soft background music to calm down to, many of these are lovely choices. I'll be adding it to the Calm Down page. ^^ I had already previously included it on my Cheer Up page, but it's quite good at both! I've updated Cheer Up with this link too. A reminder that arab.org has the same free click-to-donate (using ad revenue, so the sponsors paying for the advertising space will cover the cost of donations... the Palestine one donates to the UNRWA, which many countries have cut funding to, so any bit helps in getting food, medicine, schooling, and other necessities to people!) mechanism as sites like freerice.com (although the World Food Programme's freerice website gamifies it and makes it more educational, originally with word definitions, but you can now choose different subjects to quiz yourself on, while providing rice to people in need. ^^)
1, February, 2024 I updated my About Me yesterday and I'm adding some new Links today. I get a lot of really sweet messages in my guestbook, I can't answer them all (I tend to forget passwords, oh, dear...), but I want you to know they all make me feel so happy, reassure me that this website's something worthwhile and that it helps people, and hearing from another victim/survivor today made me tear up. I hope the future is kinder to you and that you have more good and happy moments ahead of you.
31, January, 2024 I can't believe I hadn't updated since last year! I've updated the Cheer Up page, both Read and Play sections. Read about the patients of a stuffed animal hospital and dive into the world of KiSS dolls, either with a sense of nostalgia or as a fresh new (old) experience. ^^
22, December, 2023 I added a very fun and short game to the Play section of the Cheer Up page. ^^ It's a very funny and sweet mystery game with lovely Lolita fashion-inspired character designs and a mystery crossed with comedy of manners.
21, October, 2023 [CW war, genocide / ethnic cleansing, this is a heavy subject...] I've added a link to Decolonize Palestine (an excellently researched and well-sourced website dedicated to combating the many media lies and well-funded Israeli propaganda lies about Palestine), because I still see so many people confused by such an obvious case of genocide and occupation, and how not only has Israel been ethnically cleansing, bulldozing (or forcing families to destroy their own homes so they don't pay for the Israeli bulldozing of their homes) homes, or stealing land through an unfair court system to give them to settlers as what happened to the Sub Laban family... the "two-state solution" was never a goal (as we can see from them continuously expanding far beyond what was internationally agreed upon...), only a means to an end... it's less obvious when you follow the western media, which changes its story (sometimes in real time, like the New York Times changing headlines three separate times to avoid offending Israel even though Israel proudly took credit for the bombing of the Baptist Hospital initially before trying to claim it's a mysterious blast perhaps caused by a gas leak or a failed Hamas rocket [CW fire, legs of corpses, war imagery], with the usual lie that Hamas is hiding there... was Hamas also hiding in the home of the brain surgeon and his thirty relatives you bombed? Was Hamas hiding in an ambulance with the paramedics you killed? Was blockading all of Gaza, cutting civilians off from food, water, electricity [so leading to a social media blackout, so they can be killed without further testimonies online]) frequently and the many journalists who've lost their jobs because any criticism of Israel is tarred as "anti-semitic" (even though there are Jewish people opposing this, like Jewish Voice for Peace, and many individuals!)... there is even racism towards Jewish people of African descent, which Israel non-consensually sterilized (an article on The Guardian on this subject)...

Partition as a concept was entirely rejected by the Yishuv, and any acceptance in public was tactical in order for the newly created Jewish state to gather its strength before expanding.
While addressing the Zionist Executive, Ben Gurion, leader of the Yishuv and Israel’s first Prime Minister, reemphasized that any acceptance of partition would be temporary:
“After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”
This was not a one-time occurrence, and neither was it only espoused by Ben Gurion. Internal debates and letters illustrate this time and time again. Even in letters to his family, Ben Gurion wrote that “A Jewish state is not the end but the beginning” detailing that settling the rest of Palestine depended on creating an “elite army”. As a matter of fact, he was quite explicit:
“I don’t regard a state in part of Palestine as the final aim of Zionism, but as a mean toward that aim.”

Sources for those quotes: Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities by Simha Flapan (which quotes Ben Gurion's own war diary) and Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky.
Here's a quick video breaking it down if you're new and confused by the whole Palestine issue, too, but it's much shorter and more brief than reading in detail, mmind!

I have also added a few new additions to the Toybox. You have to scroll down a bit to find the carousel horses, I thought they'd fit in best with the other pastel toys, don't they look much happier with the other carousel horse? ^^ I added an odd little adoptable to to my Pixel Art.
4, October, 2023 I added a lot of new art to the Gallery, starting fresh with a new page too. Lots of Bashou and Buson, this time around, since I've been roleplaying them again. ^^ I also added a link to a lovely website to View in Calm Down. It was the 13th anniversary of Best Wishes!, last month, by the way!
22, August, 2023 I added a new website to Links. It's a very cute personal site! Lucille's site, ribbonpuffie.
13, July, 2023 I added a new link to the Odds and Ends section of the Dollroom. I found a lovely website about the Friendship Doll exchange between the United States and Japan beginning in 1927. ^^ It has been a very long time since my last update, hasn't it?
7, May, 2023 I added a new entry to the Shoujo Bedrooms, something new to read in Solace for Softness, and a comic to read in Calm Down.
28, February, 2023 I didn't mention it when I did it, but over the past three days, I've added a link to the Cheer Up page and added some graphics to the Life & Faith page. Today, I'm updating my About (as I now actually own a Lolita dress and petticoat, at long last! ^^), as well as adding some more cute old web graphics here and there.
11, February, 2023 I added another entry to the Dolls in Media section of the Dollroom, this time from GOSICK. I would also like to take a moment to ask everyone who is able to please donate directly to volunteers working on the ground in Syria and Turkey. These are certified NGOs and the only help NW (free zone) Syria has, because Assad's regime blocks aid from reaching them. Don't donate to the government, but donate to the White Helmets (most rescue videos you see on social media comes from the White Helmets!) and MolhamTeam. The rescue efforts have now ended and moved into recovery efforts (chances of finding survivors are now very, very low, but miracles can happen)... keep the victims and survivors in your prayers and supplications. Thank you! ♥
4, February, 2023 I'm sorry I've been away so long, I've finally joined the ranks of the working adults half-way through last year, after all, but I kept true to my promise not to lose my sense of wonder! Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional. That said, I've achieved long-time dreams and bought Sylvanian Families dolls with my own salary. ♥ You'll find pictures of them in the Photographs section of the Dollroom, which also has a cute old web graphic added to it (source sadly unknown, as its one of those old graphics archived on glitter-graphics.com), if you do know who made it, feel free to tell me, via the guest book or other means. o/ Let's see, I've also added some new cuties to the Toybox... and some art to the Art Gallery! ^^ I finally made that Lolita Bedrooms section I've been meaning to for a while. Shoujo Bedrooms also has a new addition, this time from the original Maple Town anime series.
16, November, 2022 I made lots of little updates today! Remember how the Shoujo Wardrobes page only had an annoying little "to be added" for the longest time under Princess Luna from Osamu Tezuka's Angel's Hill? You have to scroll really far down for it. I finally added her different outfits today. ^^ Note that it's image heavy. I also added a new panel to Pretty Panels and to Shoujo Bedrooms. The latest bedroom added belongs to Sanako, the main character of the latest addition to Manga Recommendations.
19, October, 2022 I also updated my About Me yesterday, I forgot to mention that! I had the date wrong too, so I fixed that. I also noticed you can't actually click the Princess Code's button up there, so I fixed it, the link to the archived page of the Princess Portal should work now. There's a lot that's still saved there, so I invite you to explore!
18, October, 2022 I updated the Dolls in Media page with even more dolls from Rozen Maiden's second season, as I continue to watch... thank you for the lovely comments in the guestbook, also! It's always so fun and encouraging to read them. Finding out about Marginalia Search was also amazing, just what the increasingly corporate and depersonalized internet needs. ♥ It also helped me realize having my Navigation before my website's introduction made for a very confusing search result, so, hopefully this is better organized. ^^

Pixel art of Thumper from Disney's Bambi picking up and hugging a chick that's reaching out to him, then turning to pick up the other chick who's now reaching out to him, before turning back to the first...

30, August, 2022 I found, among my old files, an old Arabic hikam [wisdom/wise sayings] poem by Abul-'Atayiah that I had translated, almost entirely, into English. Some parts of it remained untranslated, so I finished them today, and adjusted parts of the older translation too! I am not a poet, so my wording does not flow as beautifully and the original Arabic is more concise, but I simply wanted to convey the same meanings and even wording, as much as possible. I feel proud of myself for figuring out a way to translate the sword part, though! A sword's tip is called a harf (letter) in Arabic, so I had to find another way to get the point across... read it on the Life & Faith page. That final bayt was always very important to me, beauty in adversity... 27, August, 2022 I updated the Shoujo Wardrobes page with... a non-shoujo anime character! Lillie from Pokemon, because she does have a very cute and elegant outfits, and her latest dress is just too sweet! I think making exceptions for similarly styled characters, even from other genres, once in a while isn't so bad. I've been having fun wandering through glitter-graphics.com lately, it's fun finding old graphics and incredible when you stumble across something you recognize from a decade or so ago! Thank you always for the lovely comments in the guest book, it encourages me to work on this website more when I can, even as life gets busier. ♥
23, August, 2022 I updated the Dolls in Media page of my Dollroom section with an antique doll (albeit a broken one) from Rozen Maiden. I'll definitely be updating with more as I continue to watch the show, as most of the main characters are sentient porcelain dolls and I don't doubt I'll see more detailed dolls later on. ^^ This is my first viewing of Rozen Maiden. I also updated the Toy Box recently, but didn't mention it here. The Calm Down page was also updated with a lovely art twitter under Visuals.
22, July, 2022 I updated both the Links with another art link, as well as a nice place to find vintage dolls and things online, and the Calm Down page's Visuals section with a pretty clip of deer. ^^

bunnies.

Older updates archived here.
The pretty wallpapers (background images) decorating this place mostly come from cherish.silk.to (now defunct), mooncat.official.jp, and foollovers.com... sometimes, there are bunnies hiding here and there, but they're very shy and tend to hide if you tap them! They come from Catch a Star. I try to link sources whenever they're known, but some of the very old web graphics come from defunct websites... I mention them if I know them in the alt tags or link to archived versions if they exist, otherwise, they're unfortunately unknown (especially if I found them somewhere like glitter-graphics.com) and lost to time! Do tell me if you recognize any.