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[lover-of-mine]

I just wanted to say that sometimes the word you're looking for is just ✨lying✨. You're allowed to be upset that someone just plain old lied to you. You don't have to call it gaslighting or manipulation or whatever the fuck, just call it lying and that's enough. It was a ✨lie✨. Not everyone is an evil genius playing mind games, sometimes they're an asshole lying to you.

[orville-peck]

Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome.

[malojasnake]

— To Raja Rao, by Czeslaw Milosz

[weltenwellen]

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

[weltenwellen]

Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies

[weltenwellen]

Ada Limón, “To Be Made Whole”, On Being with Krista Tippett

[weltenwellen]

Rebecca Solnit, Hope In The Dark

[weltenwellen]

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Paul Eluard, “Right in the Middle of the Month of August”, Selected Poems(trans. Gilbert Bowen) (x)

[weltenwellen]

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

[somecunttookmyurl]

i can tell i’m sleep deprived bc i just made myself cry about tutankhamun and i have, like, negative interest in the kid

[somecunttookmyurl]

have now made the rest of the discord cry about this little boy who had multi-coloured ducks sewn onto a tunic that he loved so much he wore it to a Very Important Event because he was EIGHT and have you SEEN my DUCKS

[somecunttookmyurl]

sorry no i’m not done i’m gonna make you all cry some more i’m bringing you down with me

there was once a little boy.

he is born disabled. his body hurts, and he can’t walk properly the way the other children do. he doesn’t understand why. he’s a little boy. but he plays with wooden boats and pulls toys on a string.

somebody makes him a tunic. they sew ducks onto it in red and green and yellow and blue. the bright colours of a child.

the little boy is eight years old, and he’s going to be king now. there’s a big ceremony about it. he doesn’t really fully understand what’s going on, because he’s eight, but he wears the tunic with the brightly coloured ducks for the occasion because he loves it. look at his ducks! aren’t they great?

he is a child. the adults around him manipulate and coax him to gain more power for themselves. he still plays with toys.

as a teenager, not yet an adult, he fathers children. they do not survive. he’s not even old enough to have full agency in his job and is still being manipulated, but he had babies and they died.

he does not make it to his twenties. at eighteen or nineteen years old he dies, and is buried. his babies, so tiny, are buried with him.

and so is his tunic with the little ducks that he loved so much he kept it long after it no longer fit.

there was once a little boy.

[somecunttookmyurl]

yeah i think that like. especially with historical figures in your mind people who were kings and queens or important nobles were adults. even if you know how old they were it doesn’t really click. it doesn’t seem real

but then you get something like a little tunic with brightly coloured ducks on it and it hits you like a fucking truck that this really was a little kid and no matter how far removed you are a little kid is still a little kid. their brains didn’t develop any quicker back then. he was just as developed/mature mentally as any 8 year old now. he had cartoonish animals on his clothes and he played with toy boats and probably terrorised the local cat population.

tutankhamun was a child and he didn’t make it to adulthood because he was unfortunate enough to be a very important child

his dad died when he was 8. he saw his own babies die when he was still just a boy himself.

but he had brightly coloured little ducks on his favourite shirt, and he kept it.

[somecunttookmyurl]

and he did not just keep the duckie shirt either

tutankhamun had a little pair of sandals with ducks on them. he had earrings decorated with ducks. he kept those, and other items of childhood clothing. some toys. keepsakes. things he loved, and treasured. he kept them all in a little wooden chest. the chest… was carved with ducks.

and that little duck chest, filled with things he kept from his childhood, was buried with him. maybe he was keeping them for the little babies who did not make it. maybe they just reminded him of good days and fun times.

but he was a little boy who thought ducks were just the best

[somecunttookmyurl]

WITH PLEASURE

(greyscale makes it hard but the duck head is on the right above the toe strap. always takes me a while to find it too)

[beggars-opera]

[libriamore]

Ok but this is how to teach history. This is how you get people to pay attention, to care. Find something small and make it personal, then zoom out to the wider context. History is best taught as a story, with people who lived their lives in ways that came together to create something remarkable that we still talk about today, but who were still just human at the end of the day. They kissed, argued, cried, and dreamed just like we do. And sometimes they really liked ducks.

[thememedaddy]

[reemillustrated]

[elbiotipo]

The world's sad and boring then die why love humans we always fail

Counterpoint: a sunset in space painted by Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space:

[runitails]

photo for comparison [from nasa]

[penandinkprincess]

not to minimize the material harm or forget that this is real life and involves real people, but where we're at culturally with trad wife influencers and mommy vlogging would make for a kick ass adaptation of the yellow wallpaper

[poem-and-prose]

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

hey, I was just at "things got better" island and everyone there is talking about how excited they are to meet you

[confessionsdiaz]

*through gritted teeth* the world is GOOD. people are kind. Humans are NOT inherently selfish. you will make it through this year. recovery is possible. people you don't know yet will love you. You are going to do things you can't even imagine right now. You are going to read a rlly good book. You are going to eat some rlly good food. You are going to experience joy again. Things can get better. Situations can change. You can choose to be kinder. The world can change for the better.

[poem-and-prose]

[gayeddies]

and all I can do is stand on the curb and say

[cranberrymoons]

doomers have got to be the most boring people on planet earth i swear to god you people are so BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!! just have FUN!!!!!!!!! pushes the force power of my mind out in one big scream until you are all obliterated.

[cranberrymoons]

on a slightly more serious note i think that the rise of doomers as something that even exists within fandom is the same impulse that makes people think it’s bad to do spec. it’s such an insane and stupid mindset to me, because they always have this holier than thou tone of “being realistic” and “managing expectations” and “having a balanced viewpoint” and “resisting the pull of the echo chamber” as if we are discussing geopolitics and not whether eddie diaz from 911 likes to suck cock. just have fun. the whole point is to have fun.

[letsbelonelytogetherr]

— natalie díaz, from “american arithmetic”, postcolonial love poem (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

[weltenwellen]

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

[feral-ballad]

Courtney Marie Andrews, from Old Monarch: Poems; “Against all odds”

[Text ID: “I am sorry. I love you. I cherish you. Our sweet memories are a museum in which I have a lifelong admission.”]