[homoquartz]

i’ve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.

[piratedgender]

[themisally]

[dk-thrive]

‘Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; (…) to have none. Not to be tied. To be free & kindly with myself, (…) Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read …

— Virginia Woolf, from "The Diary from Virginia Woolf, Volume Four: 1931-1935" from an entry on January 2, 1931 (Mariner Books, 1983) (via Wait - What? and @Ina de Bree)

[firstfullmoon]

happy holidays! do you have any poems about the new year/end of the year? xx

happy holidays may the end of this year bring you relief and 2026 be everything you wish for 🤍

“Advent” by Heather Christle

“i am running into a new year” by Lucille Clifton

“Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye

“Prayer for the New Year” by Rhiannon McGavin

“Resolution #1,003” by June Jordan

“For the New Year, 1981” by Denise Levertov

“On Exiting Universitätsspital Zürich, New Year’s Eve 2015” by Charif Shanahan

“Rain, New Year’s Eve” by Maggie Smith

“New Year’s Eve At The Santa Fe Hotel, Fresno, California” by Larry Levis

“New Year’s Day” by Audre Lorde

“For Janet, at the New Year” by Ellen Bass

“New Year” by Kate Baer

“New Year’s Day” by Kim Addonizio

[silvertriangles]

Willie Cole, partial view of the Beauties series, 2012. Intaglio prints from flattened ironing boards.

Jennifer L. Roberts on Cole's work, in Contact: Art and the Pull of Print

[tomorrowillbeyou]

Does anyone older than me want to have kind of a weird problematic thing going on

[tomorrowillbeyou]

for the love of god

[forthegothicheroine]

Behold: Calvin's dad's villain origin story

[sleepymccoy]

[kimiko24]

Roman Coins ft Dogs

[nchntd]

In the club

[vacuously-true]

I think I’m literally never gonna be sick of this masterpiece. I think watching it on a loop for eight hours could fix me. Dancing’s what clears my soul. Dancing’s what makes me whole.

[fairycosmos]

my 5 year plan? find the energy to use my human body to participate in the world in some form or fashion

[satanfemme]

you've gotta be kind to yourself no matter what

[satanfemme]

this is twice as true in the winter

[satanfemme]

the world isn't ending and you don't need to kill yourself it's literally december. it's december. and you need to be nice to yourself.

[firstfullmoon]

Oliver Baez Bendorf, “Everything All at Once”

[sunhatred-deactivated20220531]

Do you guys remember how kidnap fantasies were popular on wattpad because young girls and queer teens were both made to feel shame at the thought of their own sexualities, so the fantasy of being kidnapped totally against their will was a way for them to engage with a romantic or sexual fantasy without feeling morally in the wrong for doing so? Added bonus that the fantasy involved being whisked away from repressive environments like home or school, right?

Finding out that Bram Stoker was in a sexless marriage and that scholars believe that he very likely was closeted gay puts the entire book into perspective as to WHY it reads EXACTLY like a self insert wattpad Dracula kidnap fic:

“I TOTALLY love my wife and would never do anything that an upstanding Good Straight Working Man wouldn’t do but oh nooo, big strong man with broad back and strong enough arms to carry me back to bed like a princess trapped me and claimed me as his, completely against my will 👉👈 But he protects me against the bad evil sexual women (who I assure you, I am TOTALLY sexually attracted to, as any straight man with a choice would be) but trust me, I do NOT want ANY of this. What’s that? The Count is not capable of feeling love? Would be a shame if I had the special ability to change tha-”

[ardatli]

This is also the fantasy behind all those old bodice-ripper romances that people today like to mock or call problematic, by the way.

“Oh, my next forty years are going to consist of nothing but washing dishes and keeping house and bearing children for the disdainful man I married right out of high school because my parents said college was for men and I had no other obvious life path open to me? What if a pirate captain thought I was worth stealing away from it all? [what if I ran away but no-one could blame me for leaving]?”

[unclothed-i-shall-return]

#I read an article a long time ago about a woman who was raised in an incredibly repressive conservative christian community#where all that mattered was purity and virginity etc #She talked about how for a long time rape fantasies were the only way she could derive any pleasure from sex #because she couldn’t feel safe exploring the idea of wanting sex #it wasn’t really ABOUT rape or eroticizing assault or whatever #it was about creating a scenario where she was free from the shame associated with wanting #i think this is true of a lot of icky-seeming stuff in romance and erotica #it’s an imaginary scenario where nothing you don’t really want actually happens #but you can’t be blamed or feel guilty for it #you didn’t do anything wrong#anyway that article changed my perspective a lot #i think there’s also something to be said for people who have felt ugly and undesirable their whole lives #enjoying fictional scenarios where a hot alpha werewolf or whatever is so attracted to them he ‘cant help himself’ or whatever #because it can also be really shameful to want to be desired #when you feel like youre ugly and gross ( @headspace-hotel )

[robertfagden]

duuude is that a losing dog? *gets out my wallet*

[flowersfromunderground]

Be yourself so ppl looking for u can find u

[ri5k]

[sisyphusshrugged]

[hyrude]

invariably when i read or watch something and my thought is "i expected this to push the envelope a lot more, this touted itself as being weird but it could have gone further. it also over-explained an already obvious metaphor which comes across as self-conscious and mistrusting of your audience," i'll look at the reviews and half of them will be like "this was so weird im scared WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT!!!!!! i didn't know things like this were out there... i don't know who to talk about this with. this shouldn't be allowed to happen"

[petshopbutch]

submissive in the way a livestock guardian dog is submissive to the sheep it kills wolves for

[petshopbutch]

love how much attention this post is getting i knew the gay people in my phone would understand me. btw here's the picture that inspired me to make this post in the first place:

[silvertriangles]

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida