Gilded Age Garbage Fire

probably not a vampire [she/her, lesbian]

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

today I found out my mother doesn’t know what dandelions are and now I’m wondering what other strange secrets she’s been quietly harboring

[krystal-prisms]

Where do you live that you don’t have dandelions?

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

we have dandelions EVERYWHERE, they are basically our State Weed, it is absolutely impossible that my mom has never interacted with a dandelion before, this requires further investigation

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

So after extensive interrogation I have an update:

my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.

the truth is actually weirder

she’s aware dandelions look like this

she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions

she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?

she answered, with complete confidence: Daffodils.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

gosh I enjoy this website

[authoratmidnight]

For comparison, this is a daffodil

[quietlygrousing]

See, folks in the southern US will tell you up and down those are buttercups, actually.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i don’t think so? i’m southern and buttercups are what we call these things (much tinier)

[maejacrezz007]

Wait I thought those bigger cup ones were Easter Lillies???

[fractiousrvt]

This is an Easter Lily. It is an actual lily and therefore deadly to cats.

[blood-trip-god2]

They’re marigolds and I know a bitch when I see one!

[delphinidin4]

This is a marigold:

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

….we need to start taking the phrase “go touch grass” more literally. go outside and examine a flower i beg u

[msbarrows]

I hope I'm online when it happens. I want to see a sudden flood of crab rave memes right after refreshing my dash, and in the middle of it all, the Castiel news meme. That's how I want to learn of it; not through anything solemn or serious, but via overwhelming silly celebration.

[headspace-hotel]

I am learning to imagine the future:

My sycamore tree began life in the gravel at the edge of a parking lot. If trees can feel pain, that is a painful, unlucky death. I carefully dug it up and put it in a pot I made out of a disposable cup.

Hello small one. This world may be cruel, but I will not be.

I decided to take care of it, not expecting it to survive, and when my sycamore tree unfurled one tiny leaf and then another, it chiseled a tiny foothold in my terrified brain, the kind of brain that doesn't remember a world before the atomic bomb and before 9/11.

I googled the lifespans of trees. My neurons had to stretch and expand to accommodate what I learned: My sycamore tree may live five hundred years. It's hard to think something so big. In twenty years, my baby sycamore tree will be three stories tall, and the home of many creatures. In five years, my sycamore tree will be taller than I am. In one year, it will be summer.

There's this concept called sense of foreshortened future where people who have lived through trauma can't conceptualize a future for themselves because deep down they don't expect to survive, When I look forward, all I see is fire and death, melting ice and burning sky. We were raised Evangelical. All we see is Judgment Day, except there is no heaven.

But now there is a tiny gap in the wall, a crack in the door of my cell

and on the other side, I see a tree

There is, in the future, a great old sycamore tree, full of clean winds and the stir of a thousand wings. A hundred years from now. Fifty years from now. There will be forests in that world. There will be a world.

It takes courage, but we have to imagine it.

Most tree species can live in excess of three or four hundred years. I think I'm learning something. I think there are ancient voices saying hello small one, touch the dirt and the leaves, for now you are part of something that cannot die

in 2030 I will be thirty years old and the world will not have ended and there will still be hummingbirds, and we will have photos of the stars more beautiful than we can now imagine.

I planted an Eastern Redcedar; they may live nine hundred years. There will be nine hundred years. The people in that time will remember us. Maybe we will meet the aliens (hi aliens!).

I will blow out the candles on many birthday cakes in a world where there are wolves in dark forests far from home. I am learning to imagine the future. I learned recently that elk were reintroduced to the Appalachian Mountains after over a hundred years of extirpation, and that they are expanding their range.

That tiny crack I can see through now opens a tiny bit more:

Maybe elk will pass through my hometown, maybe there will be a forest where the pasture is on the high hill that I can see from my home

say it, say it, say it: ten years, thirty years, a hundred years from now

I am learning to imagine the future. There is a crack in the wall of this prison, of this machine, of this darkness, and through it, I see a tree.

[headspace-hotel]

[headspace-hotel]

[headspace-hotel]

today

[vykodlak]

of course, the best part of any character's corruption arc is their cool new outfit

[grrlpet-deactivated20260120]

aaaaa omg a coworker just came to my desk like "oh, you changed your name? me too, look!--" and pointed out her badge and then her ringless hand and gleefully announced, "divorce!!" and we exchanged congratulations and fist bumped djdnsnjs best interaction of my entire transition

[noahbaumbachmaritalstatus]

STATUS: DIVORCED (POSITIVE)

[girlfleeshouse]

The house protects the governess. The attic bedroom rejoices.

[secondlina]

No transphobes allowed, only transborbs.

Check out my stuff!

✧Read Namesake✧ ✧Read Crow Time✧ ✧Store✧ ✧Patreon✧

[loth-caatgirl]

[mbmbimbo]

i know everyone loves baby seals, but sometimes i really am blown away by their whimsy. they took a teddy bear and made it a mermaid. i feel very wonderful knowing we live on the same planet as puppy mermaid teddies

[bonivers]

i haven’t stopped thinking about this tweet for days

[mindhost]

Dutch longsword fencer Tosca Beuming

Photographed by Martin Philippo and Andress Kools

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[knitmeapony]

[ Video description: @ez Band, dressed in black outfits with cool embroidery, plaid, and cowboy hats, plays a Norteño cover of The Black Parade. The lyrics are partially translated into Spanish:

When I was a young boy / my father took me into the city / to see a Norteño band

Dijo, mijo cuando crezcas / serás el salvador delos malditos / eso y más puedes ser

Dijo, los vencerás a los demonios / y los que no creían / los planes que tienen

Because one day I'll leave you / a phantom to lead you in the summer / to join the black parade

Seguiremos, seguiremos / y aunque tú ya no estés conmigo / tu memoria will carry on

We'll carry on / and in my heart I can't contain it / the anthem won't explain it

A world that sends you reeling....]

[gothiccharmschool]

If I don't ever reblog this, someone please come check to see if I'm stuck in my coffin.

[marzipanandminutiae]

so, some years ago I had a friend. we met online through a mutual fandom, and we hit it off immediately. we started talking daily, doing voice and video calls, Rotating the Characters together, etc. normal friend things. I reached out to her a lot because I enjoyed talking to her, as one does with friends. sometimes she couldn't talk and that was fine, of course

but then the monosyllabic replies started. she stopped reaching out to me first. she left my messages on read for a day, then longer, usually without explanation

"okay," I told myself. "don't overreact. you used to overreact to these things and it was not fair to the other people involved. it hurt them. people have lives. people get busy. take her at her word, or lack thereof. self-soothe. trust that she still wants you in her life, because she hasn't told you otherwise. if you're really wondering, just ask directly."

I tried to wait and trust and self-soothe. it got worse. I asked

she had been trying to ghost me

she said I was "too needy" because I messaged her every day. she said she wanted out of the friendship and not to contact her again

I wonder, sometimes, when it gets bad again and I feel like I'm being crushed by invisibility and choking on oh god they all hate me nobody wants me around it's true it's all true I'm horrible and needy and they'll all leave they're trying to leave right now if I never messaged first again they'd never contact me

if she ever realized how much worse she made me. not by not staying my friend; nobody HAS to be my friend. but by doing it the way she did

[stjohnstarling]

Yes, okay, I’ve been poisoning your daily cup of tea, but don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed it. Every day becoming a little weaker, a little more helpless, more susceptible, turning pale and waifish and trembling - but suddenly I’m the bad guy!

[gothiccharmschool]

I'll forgive you if you give me a fainting couch.

[allonsybadwolf]

"crochet can't be made by machines" went from being a cool fun fact to being a call to action of "so if you see mass manufactured crochet in Target, that was made by a person and they were underpaid and you should boycott it" which is true, it was made by a person, but EVERY item of clothing you own (that you did not purchase from a company using ethical labor) was made by a person being underpaid (at *best*.)

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Higher awareness of fast fashion, and the true human labor and abuse behind it, is GREAT, but let's not pretend that the crochet hat in target is THE problem. Every article of clothing in target is the problem. "All clothes are made by people" is the jumping off point here into understanding this issue it's not just crochet it's the whole thing ahhhhHHHHHHHHHH

[enerdsout]

[marzipanandminutiae]

If you've ever seen images of sweatshops in the early 20th century, in New York or the UK or other developed countries

Guess what

Your clothing is still made in a place that looks like that. The only thing that's different is the tech level of the sewing machines and the race of the workers 

[playwrongs]

Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding tasteful and expensive servingware within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty years more. Within, dishes continued glossy, napkins creased neatly, knives were straight, and forks were sensibly laid to the right of the plate; silence lay steadily against the rattan and linen of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone, except when it was throwing a garden party.

[maxknightley]

"it would be so good if it was good" will haunt you but "it's extremely good, except for the one or two parts which are so bad it's genuinely kind of insulting" will straight up drive you insane

[maxknightley]

one has you making posts like "okay but if the author UNDERSTOOD the POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of the story they were telling, and leaned into it, it would actually be a really interesting exploration of..."

the other has you pacing your bedroom at one in the morning going "why. why would you ever in a million years do it like that. genuinely what possible thought process was involved. was the writer possessed by a fucking ghost or something."

[maxknightley]

(lying in bed texting my friend) Here's my fifth dissertation in a row on how If I Had Been There I could have been the greatest script doctor of our age and fixed all the prablems. get ready for a sixth one the instant I wake up btw