I saw a deer rotting away on the side of the road, ribcage gaping open, sternum shattered, sagging leathery skin shedding coarse hair as decomposition sets in. Eyes and entrails long since pecked out by crows and vultures, the doe lay blind and empty, her cranium chewed open and cleaned out by reverent coyotes. Crawling with maggots and worms, she writhes.
Wildflowers bloomed tall around her, cushioning her corpse in a bed of milkweed and aster, wild lily and strawberry bursting through her drying skin and out through the cavernous hole in her body. Wasps and horseflies drink the nectar flavoured by her body, dripping sweet onto her ribcage.
A violent death unto peaceful sleep, bones crushed like brittle eggshell by steel alloy, whiplash and internal hemorrhaging as she stumbles forward and collapses into the cold ditch by the asphalt, gasping and twitching as her lungs filled with blood, shards of her ribcage puncturing her lungs, struggling to take a full breath as spots grew larger in her vision. Twin headlights barreled on, uninterrupted and uncaring as she lay dying in the ditch, the taillights of the departing vehicle bathing her in red light as it leaves. There are no other cars in the road.
Scavengers bowed their heads to her memory as they filled their stomachs with her body, gorging themselves on cold offal, worshipful as they licked congealed blood off the ground. A necessary sacrifice to the good of the many; her agony sustains them. They don’t know anything else. She sleeps, quiet and alone, in the ditch by the road, as she decomposes. Her eyes, plucked from their sockets by hungry birds to be fed to their hungry chicks, no longer saw; she slept in peaceful darkness.
I wondered what she dreamed about. I wondered if she could still see, in her mind’s eye, the life she dreamed of. I wondered if all she could see anymore was the wriggling of maggots in her skull.
I wondered if the deer on the side of the road left behind a herd, maybe a fawn, waiting patiently, nestled in tall grasses, for its mother to return. I wondered if it, too, had fallen prey to the great metal maw of a passing vehicle as it, hungry and cold, searched for its mother. I hoped not, but I know better; deer don’t often practice crèches.
I felt kinship with her, in a way, a deer left for dead next to the country highway, carved out empty and left gaping. I saw myself in her in the way she died alone, ignored, rotting from the inside out as cars passed by, the way she was vulnerable, defenseless; she had no way to defend herself against her fate. The scales were tipped against her, the battle lost as soon as she took her first step onto cracked asphalt, doomed beyond her own comprehension and her killer’s capacity to care. She had no antlers to defend herself. She didn’t stand a chance.
A faceless figure in a nondescript truck, anonymous in the atrocity of death, with no witnesses and no guilt for what they had done. Perhaps I’d already passed them on the street. Perhaps I’d already wished them a good morning. Perhaps I’d done the same with others.
It was almost comforting, in a way, to see such a visceral and grotesque representation of myself, flayed open snd hollowed out and left to rot. It reminded me there were others like me, even if they were roadkilled deer. In the aftermath of catastrophe, I, too, lay broken and gasping, immobile as I watched the world pass me by, no one stopping to notice my agony. I supposed it wasn’t quite as obvious as that of a deer, trembling and bleeding from the mouth, branded hot in the shape of a car’s front grill. It was confusing, still. It certainly felt more than obvious.
I dreamed of coyote teeth tearing me apart, pulling out my organs as I watched, passive, of vultures picking at my skin, grunting in veneration as they ate me to the bone. I dreamed of crows eating the scraps left behind, pecking at my face and mouth, pulling out my eyes and tongue, rendering me blind and mute. I didn’t mind; I hardly had use for them anyways. I dreamed of dandelion blooms crowding my airways, airborne seeds filling my lungs until I choked, and growing from my body again.
I dreamed of love, of prostration and black birds bowed in supplication, owing me their lives, surviving at the price of mine. I dreamed of love, of sickly sweet devotion, like the smell of decay. I dreamed of love, of poisonous butterflies drinking down the nectar of my body’s wildflowers, of dangerous beauty. In my dream, I watched the jays snap up those sweet butterflies, bright wings crunching and shredding within the predator’s beak, only for the eaten nymph to reappear as its bitter poison burns the jay’s oesophagus, vomiting up the offensive prey. The butterfly is not saved. The butterfly is still dead, half-digested and broken in a small puddle of the bird’s mucous, but the jay learns; the butterfly’s death prevents others.
I dreamed of love, like the coyote and the badger that found my corpse one night, forty million years of evolution between the two, but perfect teamwork nonetheless. The two arrived together and left together after they’d had their fill of my lungs and heart. I wished them well on their journey and waited for the next scavenger to find me.
I hoped the deer on the side of the road found the same peace in death as I had. I hoped she found her closure in the scavengers who worshipped her. I hoped the faceless figure in that nondescript truck faced their retribution and I hoped the faceless figure in my hazy memories faced the Old Testament judgement I so wished.
As I accepted the deer into myself, let the shape of her rotting body brand itself on my mind (reminiscent, almost, of the brand of a car’s front grill on her flank), I felt her dreams assimilate with my own. I felt, suddenly, the desire to walk along country highways in the dark, the desire to know what waits on the other side of the road, the desperation so strong that I couldn’t stand to wait for the rumbling beast to pass. I felt the awe of staring into blinding light, larger than me and near incomprehensible. I understood why deer stopped in the middle of the road. I’m sure anyone else would, too. The first contact of the car’s front grill to her (my) body felt something like love, like the embrace of the only one who could stand to have me.
I thought about the crows that picked off the smaller pieces of flesh missed by the larger scavengers. I thought about the sweet adoration between two black birds as they passed my eyeball to their mate, the pure devotion between them as they preened one another, beaks coated in congealed blood. Their love is a living thing, a separate entity, powerful and writhing. It occupies the crows entirely, not unlike parasitism. Their chicks will grow from my scavenged flesh, insatiable, fledging for the first time above my drying skeleton. To fly had always been a dream of mine, and now it is actualized by those young black birds, fulfilled as they hop unsteadily from branch to branch, their parents watching over them protectively. How lucky I am to witness this. How lucky I am to learn, firsthand, the depth of that love, the endlessness of life, how it begins again, and again, and again.
Reminds me a bit of “Une charogne” by Baudelaire. Beautifully written :)
being compared to beaudelaire is so incredible tysm 😭
I know this is my own post, but every single time this comes across my dash I am delighted. Every single time, I re-watch the video and laugh, and then scroll down and laugh more. What a truly excellent reblog chain.
learning to ride a bike has me very aware of how weirdly flexible the human motor control system is. like…when you move your body, you dont express a will to move your hand in such and such a position or whatever, you just express a will to catch the ball or whatever the specific task is, and your body does it (or fails to). and sure, this makes sense, it would be overwhelming managing your body all the time. but the thing is, after an honestly pretty small amount of practice, controlling a vehicle works the same way! you dont express “press the pedal down slightly harder” you just express “go faster”, you dont express “turn the handle bar slightly” you just express “turn, at this particular angle”. i guess this happens with computers too to an extent, although you interact with a higher variety of interfaces, so you usually dont get any more elaborate than “click that point” or “type those letters” in terms of innately thought actions. although keyboard commands can enter your direct-thought actions, where you dont think “type ctrl-z” you just think “undo” and it is (un)done. idk, you can imagine an organism with less flexibility to “merge” psychologically with its tools, which always thinks of the tool-actions it performs in terms of the body-actions which cause those tool-actions, rather than the tool-acts directly.
I know this is my own post, but every single time this comes across my dash I am delighted. Every single time, I re-watch the video and laugh, and then scroll down and laugh more. What a truly excellent reblog chain.
listen to me. listen. your actual job in life, and it sucks that your 5th grader teacher didnt explain this adequately enough, is to ask for help when you need it and to accept charity when it would take a weight from your shoulders. Otherwise you end up like Sisyphus- or even worse, Walter White
i mean this in the best way possible, i believe if you were a salad you'd just be a kilogram of lettuce leaves and 1 paper thin cucumber slice hidden somewhere in the middle
This machine allows anyone to work for minimum wage for as long as they like. Turning the crank on the side releases one penny every 4.97 seconds, for a total of $7.25 per hour. This corresponds to minimum wage for a person in New York. This piece is brilliant on multiple levels, particularly as social commentary. Without a doubt, most people who started operating the machine for fun would quickly grow disheartened and stop when realizing just how little they’re earning by turning this mindless crank. A person would then conceivably realize that this is what nearly two million people in the United States do every day…at much harder jobs than turning a crank. This turns the piece into a simple, yet effective argument for raising the minimum wage.
god damn
Ten years. Ten years I’ve been seeing this wonderful art piece, and STILL our minimum wage REMAINS at 7.25/hour.
Meanwhile, the cost of living has easily tripled.
And minimum wage wasn’t enough to cover it even before.
This machine allows anyone to work for minimum wage for as long as they like. Turning the crank on the side releases one penny every 4.97 seconds, for a total of $7.25 per hour. This corresponds to minimum wage for a person in New York. This piece is brilliant on multiple levels, particularly as social commentary. Without a doubt, most people who started operating the machine for fun would quickly grow disheartened and stop when realizing just how little they’re earning by turning this mindless crank. A person would then conceivably realize that this is what nearly two million people in the United States do every day…at much harder jobs than turning a crank. This turns the piece into a simple, yet effective argument for raising the minimum wage.
god damn
Ten years. Ten years I’ve been seeing this wonderful art piece, and STILL our minimum wage REMAINS at 7.25/hour.
Meanwhile, the cost of living has easily tripled.
And minimum wage wasn’t enough to cover it even before.
I know this is my own post, but every single time this comes across my dash I am delighted. Every single time, I re-watch the video and laugh, and then scroll down and laugh more. What a truly excellent reblog chain.
I’m sorry but if you lose your mind over a person having a genital joke in their url I think you are weak and won’t survive the winter. Penis and vaginas exist! Ooo so scary! It’s a body part! My url is a joke!! Woah!!
People with URLs like sharkgirldick are stronger than any pearl clutching transphobe
marine biology is so scary because it’s such a small field. i was giving a talk on cetaceans and afterward a woman approached me with her husband and she said, “you did very well. [husband’s name] actually pioneered the research and published the first paper on that. We were very impressed by you.”
Which is such a scientific interpretation/public education win I will cherish forever but also for the rest of my life any time I give a talk I will be haunted by the knowledge that the world’s leading expert who literally discovered/invented the topic might be in the room,
which is like, the opposite of what you’re supposed to do for stage fright. In fact I never used to experience stage fright but now I will.
There are limitations to the benefits of being a marine biologist
There is something about proudly proclaiming a show “tumblrista catnip” that makes me emotional.
Something about how for years tumblrinas were ridiculed by show creators.
Something about Supernatural having a meta episode set at a convention with all the weirdo fans that made the main characters uncomfortable. Something something about Becky and the message that fangirls are gross and obsessive.
Something about Sherlock and the way fans were portrayed as crazy obsessive nutjobs for trying to figure out how he faked his death.
Something about creators mocking fandoms, dismissing them as freaks. Something about queer people not being welcome to engage in their creations because “why do you have to make everything gay?”
Something about the malicious culture of queerbaiting throughout the 2000s/2010s, followed by Bury Your Gays tropes across the media landscape because hell, you should be grateful we even gave you queer characters to begin with - and everyone dies in our show! You ain’t special!
Something about Destiel questions being banned from conventions…
And then…
Something instead about Good Omens, and letting the story adapt naturally, embracing the fanbase and leaning into the fanservice.
Something about Our Flag Means Death, and the genuine outpouring of love and affection between cast, crew, and fandom that culminated in an explosion of fanworks that were never once mocked or deemed gross or wrong.
Something about Sandman, and staunchly digging in their heels on the queerness of it all, refusing to give in to the homophobes and instead avidly mocking THEM on social media rather than us.
Something about the writers hearing about fandoms favourite ships and excitedly stating that YES! We DID lean into that because it happened naturally and made sense.
Something about a firefighter coming out as bisexual after 7 seasons…
So yeah, something about a new high quality show made FOR US. By creators that love US. Respect US, and WANT our love.
Something about US FINALLY being a target audience for the best shows being made on TV now.
Tumblrista catnip. Creators saying “we made this for you. You are important. Your voices have been heard.”
It just… all got a bit overwhelming for a moment there.
looks like I need to be explicit again: terfs and transphobes are not welcome here. this is a truly madly deeply enthusiastically pro-trans and especially pro-transfem blog. my femininity has 1000x more in common with trans women than it will ever have with any vision of womanhood that depends on medicalisation, body fascism and despair, and my masculinity is informed by the warmth, kindness and vulnerability of all the best cis men I’ve had the fortune to know. there is nothing interesting about your martyrdom or your misery. get over it and, until you do, get off my posts.
all goofing aside I genuinely don’t understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene™ is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you’re willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I’m not even saying you can’t enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.
Isn’t Lady Gaga bisexual?
yes that is indeed why she’s on the list of famous women who like women
why have multiple people reblogged this with some horse-assed “um actually most of these people are bi or pan” did I fucking stutter I said they like girls. what is your point. I’m going to kill you.
POV: you make a good post and then encounter tumblr reading comprehension
btw to just clarify for anyone who sees this reblog of this post
op is basically saying something along the lines of “yea ik taylor swift is bi but like. why is she y'all’s only lgbtq+ pop icon when there are all these other lgbtq+ people in the pop scene???”
i might have worded this badly but hopefully i got the main point across
hi op here I certainly did not fucking say Taylor Swift is bi
Op is saying that liking Taylor for being QUEER or Lgbtqia+ is not a bad thing, but to also know she is not the only one.
He did not call anyone in the original post lesbian bi or pan.
When he’s a 19 year old fascist and you’re a 24 year old democratically elected politician but he has a tiny braid so you’re helpless to his charming pear floating powers
star wars is unrealistic because in real life, grimes became a fascist too
“democratically elected politician” she’s a princess
Just been informed that “Queen” is an elected position on Naboo and I hate star wars
i just think Anakin is the sort of person to get really really into conspiracies— I’m talking 5am forty-eight hours deep into a ‘the moon landing was faked’ binge but because they’re in space it’s more like ‘Corellia is actually hollow and filled with a little-known species of Force-sensitive moles’ binge.
Which means what I really want is Anakin, age twenty two and on leave for the week, accidentally taking a deep dive into a political conspiracy forum and finding someone’s ‘Palpatine is actually a Sith Lord and going to take over the government’ theory and because it’s Anakin, you know his first reaction is going to be to write a hate comment, but the problem with writing a hate comment deconstructing someone’s argument is that you actually have to read the argument in-depth and, uh oh, the person actually makes some pretty good points.
‘It’s fine,’ Anakin thinks, ‘I’ll just go ask Obi-Wan to help me write this reply.” So you get Obi-Wan bent over a space laptop at three in the morning, reading a fringe theory and wishing fervently that Anakin would stop using him as a solution to all his problems. He reads the post— grudgingly, of course, because it’s three in the bloody morning and we are on leave, Anakin— gets to the end of it, and realizes that kneelover69420 made some very salient points.
Obi-Wan calls the council at three in the morning and has to defend a fringe theory from someone on an Internet in front of the most revered and venerable Jedi in the galaxy. It is quite possibly one of the worst moments of his life.
no, you’re totally right. Because Anakin’s life is ridiculous, okay. He was a slave on an outer rim planet for the first nine years of his life, and then within the span of a few days he: wins a podrace, gets freed, gets adopted, flies a starship and wins a battle, gets orphaned by his new adopted dad, and gets adopted again by his dead adopted dad’s other son. So of course his baseline for what counts as weird is totally off-base.
Obi-Wan, who was raised in the temple and knows what the Force can and can’t do and at least somewhat how the world works for normal people, can look at a conspiracy theory and go ‘this is clearly fake,’ but Anakin? Virgin birth Anakin? Will look at a theory proposing that all water on Coruscant is actually distilled apple juice and go ‘you know what? sure. midichlorians exist, and all water on Coruscant being distilled apple juice is actually less crazy than that, so it must be real.’
Damn now i really want a conspiracy theorist fic/au. In addition to no baseline for normalcy, he is canonically 0-60 ride-or-die in all of his decisions. Not to mention the whole antichrist thing where his beliefs literally can alter the fabric of reality. And half of a Jedi’s job is breaking up real conspiracies !
I think its canon that palps was suppressing info about the trade blockade so if little ani was trying to space google what happened, the earliest articles literally would have only been from fringe news outlets. Oh dear. the Jedi suppressed the fact that Qui-Gon was killed by a Sith not a random darksider. His first exposure to republic mainstream news is that they don’t know shit.
You know that on half their missions growing up Anakin would wander off and come back convinced by ramblings he overheard about the Duke secretly conspiring with their sworn enemies to steal everyones pets. And he would be at least 50% right30% of the time, so Obi-Wan has to hear him out. I just-
The ReTuRn of the SiTh probably made the rounds every so often for the last 500 years anytime a Jedi starts dressing suspiciously. Atlantis-classy conspiracy, you know. The sort of thing people with crazy hair talk about on the History Holo-Channel. So 15 year old Anakin bursts into Obi-Wan’s room and makes him spill hot tea allover himself and he can’t even get mad because Anakin’s hysterical-
“A garbageman saw the Sith from Naboo in the outer rim! He’s building robot legs and shouting about revenge!” *holds up blurry holo of a pile of trash*
Can you imagine??? Can you imagine? 5 years later. Not only does Obi-Wan have to deal with Maul coming back from the dead specifically to make him suffer personally, but Anakin would be insufferable.
I went to see Parasite completely blind besides being aware (unavoidably) that there was a hard tonal shift at some point. I saw the poster and stuff, but that was it
the entire time I was bracing myself for it to shift into some sort of alien parasite psychological horror movie, which seems really presumptuous, except I saw Bong Joon-ho’s The Host and that movie actually did have a giant monster in it, so I wasn’t putting it past him
god the class dynamics in this movie are so stressful already… keeping up this double life while still taking care of your family…… and if that’s not bad enough, they’re gonna have to deal with The Parasite when it shows up
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