imagine you’re going on an adventure with the person you love most in the whole world. but every step you take to get closer to the end drains him and there’s nothing you can do to help, not really. you can’t take the weight off his shoulders. more than anything, you want to protect him, but even that becomes more difficult with each passing day. so instead you try to comfort him. you hold his hand through the day and him through the night. he wakes up in your arms and, for a moment, forgets everything else. also gollum is there

this is how they used to have sex back when everyone was smooth down there and when metaphors weighed more than truth or logic

cowboys be like "nah that feller is just a companion to keep the trail a bit less lonely & a lot less dangerous" & then ride funny in the saddle the next 2 days

cannot stop thinking about them...........

I’m sorry, but some of y’all really need to see this…

  ― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

[text ID: Is it possible that our parents never die, that every child inevitably conceals them in himself?]

use your barbels to search for food in murky water

Polar bears at an abandoned Soviet weather station on Kolyuchin Island, Dmitry Kokh

My wings may be different, but I'm still an angel.

What kinda pisses me off about that architecture in Africa Twitter thread is that it primarily focuses on European definitions of what “good” architecture is—permanent, typically stone based designed structures that fit a specific sort of aesthetic that can be deemed such. The Somalia section of it in specific is just Italian colonial architecture that has nothing to do with ethnic Somalis but instead an architecture style that was introduced by an imperial force that hardly considered them humans. As to how Somali tent making, which is traditionally very complicated, is not seen as a form of architecture worth talking about is beyond me. I mean even the Smithsonian has a replica of a Somali tent home:

How is this not architecture! It’s a dwelling! It has a planned structure and yes it’s mobile, and yes it can be taken apart when need be but it’s still architecture even if not in the traditional sense. It’s still a complex and designed structure, this isn’t just some random thing people do. And this tent could’ve been used for the majority of someone’s lifetime and yet have been all around the easternmost part of the Horn of Africa along with them. This specific type of dwelling in itself isn’t just Somali but it’s shared by pastoralists going into even Southeast Africa (primarily those speaking Khoe languages) so when we do this whole national architecture thing in Africa we’re both ignoring the various facets and diversity of architecture multiple different ethnic groups have but also the shared history of some constructions that span far beyond drawn up borders.

It’s like people only talk about Africa having anything noteworthy if it’s being used to counter Westerners with parameters of success and worth that they themselves imposed—and it’s done in the dumbest fashion possible.