Kisapmata

[inkskinned]

you get used to it, but it's tiring, because they need you to understand your own life as a series of goalposts. what college are you going to, what's your major going to be, whatcha gonna do with that, oh where will you settle down, when can i expect grandkids.

for the longest time my goals have been so blurry that they track into each other, their undefined edges slipping quietly back into the soft night. today i want to be a writer; tomorrow i will want to be a doctor, later i will wish i took that law school free ride. how the fuck do people just know what they want to do with their life?

where do you want to be in five years? i want to be alive; which is a huge step for me. ten years ago i would have said i want to be asleep and meant i hope that i'm dead by then.

but i want a yellow kitchen and a stand mixer. i want a garden and a fruit tree (cherry, if i can make that happen) and a big yard for my dogs to play in. i want to come home and read poetry out loud to someone and have them close their eyes to listen. i want a summer watergun fight. i want to make snowmen. i want to be the house to go to for halloween. i want my life to settle around me in a softness, for it to lay down gently. if i am very, very, very lucky, i want to travel; finally go someplace overseas.

of course i don't know what i want to be doing professionally. what i actually want to be doing is curling up beside my dog, settling in to read. i want to be making myself a cup of good coffee.

i can't answer the other questions. whenever people asked me what do you want to be when you grow up, i used to say i hope i'm happy.

i hope i'm still kind, five years from now. i hope i never get jaded and mean. i hope i have stayed in therapy. what do you picture yourself doing? when will you actually be an adult about this? why are you so afraid of being ambitious?

am i not ambitious? the other day i rearranged my furniture which doesn't quite fit into my apartment. i watered my plants. i'm going to try to propagate a cherry seed. my five year goal is to spend more time laughing. to lie down in a patch of sunwarm moss. to relax for a minute. to close my eyes and think oh thank god. this is why i stayed. this is finally it.

[maroonracoon]

YES

[timelybees]

wow

[weenarman-deactivated20140827]

WOAH

[thankyoucorndog-deactivated2015]

This is brilliant and lovely and strange and scary and funny and fantastic.

[cy-lindric]

Sainte Esconde des Mystères, une confidence pour une prière

Sainte Esconde des Secrets, montre moi ce qui est caché

My comic La Langue des Vipères was released this week in bookstores in France, Belgium and Switzerland !

This beautiful trailer was created by my friends at Potto Collective : @lholmesharfang , Luc Armanet, @noctambuleur , @estellito , @nomnomsandwich , @shliten, Matthieu Chavane and Fanou Lefebvre

[thecollectibles]

Environment Exploration: Monochrome by sathish kumar

[thecollectibles]

Crab in a Cage by 秋刀鱼

[julia--blake]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/opinion/ukraine-war-cold.html

Jenya Polosina (@polosunya) and Anna Ivanenko live and work in Kyiv. They co-founded Seri/graph Studio.

Originally posted by polosunya on Instagram

[inkskinned]

in between all of it, your stupid human heart. no matter where you stash it, you always find that same ache, this desire for some feeling that is beautiful, an unwinnable and unkillable goal. and where can music fit in a life, right now? people are dying. fascism is the rule of order. the cdc is a farce, the epa is dead in the water, america is a fucking shithole.

but the shower you took today was nice. the birds are coming back. someone has started a little conga line of tiny snowmen near your local bus stop; each one a little sillier than the last. without any evidence, you strongly believe they're left there by adults - something about the shape and size of the abdomen and thorax.

people are dying, still. you donate. you protest. another name in the files and still no action taken, the dow is up. a toddler is taken to a concentration camp and is "lost". your paycheck barely covers rent, groceries are obscene, your boss warns you of potential layoffs.

but your neighbor helped you shovel snow, made you a hot cocoa. you and your friends randomly decide to have a taco dinner right now because why not; you're all stone cold sober and shaking ass at 10PM on a worknight. you meet a girl and she shows you her music, her hands shaking. when you have the honor of making her laugh hard enough her blue eyes water; something about the liquification of joy spills into your palm and coats your veins in marigolds.

laundry has to be done. tax season is somehow here (but, like, fuck 'em). every day something happens that makes your breath suck out of your body in a single sharp smack, and you still need to meal plan. AI is stealing water to make advertisements for items you don't even want. you still have to stop to get gas. someone you really respected is shown to have secretly been a predator. you still need to remember to pick up pet food.

and, too; the little poet of your heart. untended to but somehow still alive in the dark: the little poet notices the new leaf on your plant, wants you to dance in the grocery aisle. the little poet covets a new book by your favorite author, wants you to make cookies, scoops the perfect round top of your peanut butter. the little poet puts down little hands over the forever-wound of you; and the little poet says: it is worth it, being here and having this. even if for just a little longer.

[thecollectibles]

“The 3rd Chamber…” by Victor Ferraz

[great-gatsby]

every reread kills me a little bit more

[great-gatsby]

reread and enjoy <3

[thecollectibles]

Wanderer by Chris Falkenberg

[devinellekurtz]

Ocean Spirits Prints from my 2025 print shop, open for orders now but closing in 6 days on 11/28

[feefal]

Copper evolution line! Your daily blend of educational and fictional art content

[thecollectibles]

Deities by Robbie Trevino

[andatsea]

Capacity.

--

Twitter / Bsky / Shop / INPRNT / Patreon

[thecollectibles]

Small Town by liang_sinan

[omghotmemes]

Show some respect, people.

[your-naked-magic-oh-dear-lord]

THANK YOU

[grandpanerd-world-deactivated20]

The story of Balto is interesting. He led a team of sled dogs across the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter with diphtheria antitoxins to stop an outbreak in Nenana Alaska. Diphtheria is a deadly infectious disease that could wipe out a third of a town’s population. It is mostly unknown to the public today because of vaccines. Balto’s body is preserved in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

[your-naked-magic-oh-dear-lord]

He’s a big hero of mine!

[pugcrumbs]

Let’s not forget Togo! Who, at 12 years old during the serum run, lead his team 200 miles through much more dangerous conditions during the first leg of the journey before Balto ran the last 55-mile stretch.

[space-buns]

Togo and Balto didn’t bust their asses for dying children for you to turn around and not vaccinate your damn kids

[amoreanonyname]

The actual story is fascinating.

The town of Nome, situated in Western Alaska, was a relative hub for even smaller communities in the region, but in winter was utterly cut off from… nearly everywhere. The harbour iced over in winter, there were no roads connecting it anywhere else, the nearest railroad line was nearly 700 miles (1000+ kilometres) away in Nenana. Air travel was still new at the time and planes couldn’t handle the inclement winter weather.

In 1924, the community had a single doctor and a few nurses who served approximately 10 000 people, including large Eskimo populations in the area (the town itself had a population of roughly 1000 people - bear in mind how few children lived in this community when you see the casualty counts). He had realized his diphtheria vaccine stock was expired and had ordered more from mainland USA months earlier. When it failed to arrive on the final ship of the season, he was a little concerned, but diphtheria was fairly rare, and he figured he’d just restock in the spring.

Of all the rotten luck, January 1925 was when a diphtheria outbreak hit the region.

There was a scramble, in the mainland USA as well as Alaska, to find a way to get the vaccine to this town in the middle of winter. There were attempts to fly a vaccine supply over, but the planes were grounded by storms. This was part of the United States in the 1920s. There was no way to get there.

Except by sled dogs, running the vaccine from that train station in Nenana, 674 miles away. Over 1000 kilometres away, in the dead of winter in Alaska, by 20 mushers (mostly native Athabaskans) and 150 sled dogs running in relay, switching off at tiny villages and rest stations along the way. It was bitterly cold. As in, -85°F (-60°C) at the coldest. There were blizzards, hurricane force winds, and at some points visibility was so poor the men couldn’t see their dogs in front of them.

No man or beast should have been out in that. You freeze in seconds if you’re not moving. Multiple dogs died from being run so hard in such cold weather. Mushers grappled with hypothermia and frostbite. One needed hot water poured over his frozen hands because he was frozen to his sled. Another’s face was black with frostbite. Some strapped themselves up and lead their packs when their lead dogs collapsed.

This relay team traveled 674 miles in 5.5 days. Togo and his owner, Leonhard Seppala, did by far the longest and most dangerous run, travelling over 260 miles (about 420 kilometres) including the initial travel to his pickup spot. Gunnar Kaasen and his lead dog, Balto, did the final 53 miles (85 kilometres) into Nome, where they were greeted as heroes.

Prior to the vaccine arriving in Nome, 5-7 children officially died of diphtheria, with dozens of confirmed cases who may well have died without treatment - but it’s suspected the surrounding Indigenous communities were much harder hit, with numbers impossible to confirm.

When you think that this happened less than 100 years ago, how desperate this community was for a vaccine, how much these mushers risked and lost to get it to this town as fast as they possibly could…

I wonder what they’d think of people today.

[ekjohnston]

(this is the Iditarod. this trek to deliver vaccines was so important, that we immortalized it the way we immortalized the marathon.)

[lyricwritesprose]

When humans think that something is important, they make a ceremony about it. When they know it’s very very important, sometimes that ceremony is a sort of reenactment. This person stood here. This animal ran here. These heroes did not give up.

The Iditarod is fucking brutal. The original run was so much worse. They did it alone. We do it every year to keep them company, almost, retroactively. Humans find ways to say, we’re all in this together, even when separated by space and time.

Which makes it all the more utterly vile that when people are told to vaccinate so that their neighbors’ kids or grandparents won’t die, for any number of people the reaction was, “Yeah, but they’re not me, though, so why should I give a fuck?” Do better, humanity.

[thecollectibles]

Cats painting studies by Paul Rabaud