udoka

unwavering belief in self

[inkskinned]

NOT to be romantic but yeah my friends are the treasure i found along the way. fuck it, sure, friendship is magic; i've sat down at a table and felt at home and i don't even know what a "home" is. half of them are necromancers anyway. they found me half-dead and they put their hands to my inert body and moved my limbs and said it's okay. it sucks. but we'll both get up again.

[digitalw0rld]

altoid wallet for jo’s bday

[aafsstd]

[digitalw0rld]

cdmx / gua / rio

[ethan---ng]

André 3000 & Kelis photographed by David Lachapelle for The Face Magazine (2004)

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[nat-20s]

You can replace [ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY] with [SCROLLING] but watch out. This sucks bad 👍

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[peaceinthestorm]

Theo Meier (1908-1982, Swiss) ~ Jettli with a Vase of Orchids, n/d

[Source: Christie’s]

[inkskinned]

"this website uses cookies" fucking why. i wish we hadn't named it that, so cheap and unthreatening. a cookie can be anything from a single data point to actively tracking your usage throughout websites. and if you try to research it, you overwhelmingly get (ad-placed) cheery and chipper responses that "cookies are useful data tools that help websites to help you!"

one article suggests cookies allow for "more personalized websites." i do not want them to know how to personalize their website for me. what they really mean is "make this website better for advertisers." they are not going to turn the website a nice shade of my favorite color. they are going to put ads up they think i like. so it's not for me.

okay sure. it makes shopping easier! okay, great. spend money more! happy advertiser. but then why the fuck when you google how long cooked chicken good for are they skimming your data. why when you google can my dog eat tomatoes are they skimming your data. why does mixing bleach and vinegar bad? require someone skimming your data.

so now you slog through AI responses because sometimes the AI tells you no worries! cooked chicken can never go bad and all dogs go to heaven. something about this feels like being 13 before google was really-a-thing when you had to be kind of clever about how you used Ask Jeeves. what is even the point anymore. half of these sites are not written with human hands anymore. we are creating an infinite digital graveyard in order to give advertisers more space, more billboards.

you have to find the first reputable-looking site in a list of GORP.COM/HEALTH. and when you click the first thing it says is can i skim your data? and meanwhile yes bleach and vinegar bad, you've made chlorine gas.

and meanwhile! yes! the infinite digital graveyard. the internet turned into a true highway: devoid of life. endless paved monotony. the exit sign blinking - this website uses cookies.

[vegieburger]

Iman by Mario Testino for V Magazine, Jan/Feb 2003

[raezrblde-deactivated20250419]

Lola Flash, “Clit Club Series,” 1989

[nepofledgling]

an old drunk man told me to enjoy my life and have fun because I’m only 24 and I have so many years and so much life ahead of me and then he went “and you know what? in ten years when you’re 34 you’ll still be young and have your whole life ahead of you” and it was really comforting to me

[hamletthedane]

[x]

[guccishoeshoppin]

[greelin]

how the hell do people work full time AND work out. and also eat. i feel like a dvd player

[fatimamononoke]

I did it out of love. You don’t owe me anything.