The Battle of Flowers by Robert Anning Bell (English, 1863–1933) 

lesbian thoughts → lesbian thoughts ↓ ↑ lesbian thoughts ← lesbian thoughts 

i think ultimately you do really have to kill that part of your brain that vividly imagines how you would redo parts of your life.

Major human pastimes:

Joy Sullivan, from "Long Division", Instructions for Traveling West

As an ao3 author, I can't overstate the impact of comments, but I feel like we don't talk about bookmark notes enough. Comments are usually addressed directly to the author, but most bookmark notes are either what the reader wants to remind themselves or what they want to tell other readers. And I think that can be so insightful and also hilarious. Here's a few of my favorites:

Bookmark note people deserve more recognition. You guys are amazing!

"waa women dont get it" I have experienced everything you've experienced 10x worse and 10 years earlier. Men have killed themselves over things that would at best mildly annoy me. You are weak, dysgenic, and a lower tier of species. We're not even in the same genus. That's why you fuck dead lizards.

is anyone else disgusted by the enormity of their desire or is it just me & richard siken

I know this is going to make me sound pretensions but I have to get it off my chest. I feel an unimaginable rage when someone posts a photo and is like "this picture looks like a renaissance painting lol" when the photo clearly has the lighting, colors and composition of a baroque or romantic painting. There are differences in these styles and those differences are important and labeling every "classical" looking painting as renaissance is annoying and upsetting to me. And anytime I come across one of those posts I have to put down my phone and go take a walk because they make me so mad

In case you're curious here's what I mean.

Renaissance(distinct lines, stability and the individual man):

Baroque (bold, chaotic, dramatic):

Romantic(romanticize the simple hard working life):

Do you see the difference?

this post has re-wired my brain in the best way

we used to curse whole bloodlines for less than this

I came across a xiaohongshu post that showed pictures of an abandoned traditional village in a mountainous region of China with very little surrounding greenery that had the captions: “so sad how traditional villages like these are empty and abandoned”

But the top comment was: “I am so happy for the villagers who finally made it out of the mountains and into new homes in prosperous cities. It often takes multiple generations of hard work to get the entire family out. Every family in this village achieved this. What you are looking at is the evidence of their success!”

And the second highest liked comment was: “You can tell this area has poor agricultural resources. The ancestors of the villagers were likely forced to settle here because more powerful villages have occupied the attractive fertile lands. Who knows how long they had been trapped here? I’m glad they finally made it out!”

Another comment with high likes: “My grandparents’ village was like this. Poor air quality from burning coal in poorly ventilated buildings. Bitterly cold in the winter. Dry and hot in the summer. Short growing seasons. And there was always a shortage of water. My parents got factory jobs in the city and after working and saving for years, they finally got all of us out.”

And it occurred to me how when we romanticize old fashioned villages and mourn the loss of the type of community they provided, we sometimes downplay and overlook the extraordinary liberation and agency that industrialization brought and brings to people who in previous generations had no option but to remain where they were born for most of their lives.

did I not love them best? I who birthed, who nursed, who killed them?

"Nephilim" by Emile Corsi, 1889 🪽

I think if a man pays for a prostitute, he should legally be considered non-human and therefore okay to hunt and kill idk population control and whatnot