Onlycarrion - Only The

i hate that “cosmetic surgery isn’t self-care it’s the result of an advertising campaign to sell you on surgical misogyny.” because yes, it’s factually correct, but it also doesn’t interrogate the entire conceit of ‘self-care.’ the wellness industry disproportionately targets women (men are obviously affected too, but i do not remember tiktok having a ‘clean boy aesthetic’ that involved all the thirst trap guys going out and getting identical athleisure sets). ‘real’ self-care, if such a thing even exists, is mostly about executive function and not product. being your own tradwife. taking a bath, making a tasty dinner, meditating, medicating, exercising. and even then, it’s done in the service of the grind. take a bath so you don’t feel as stressed about work, so you can go to work tomorrow without mailing pipe bombs to the ceo. get enough sleep, so you don’t have a meltdown during your lunch break. get some salad in you so you don’t develop a nutrient deficiency and go to the hospital and stop working. or, if you do your work from home and it’s unpaid domestic labor: eat greens so your husband doesn’t leave you because he’s found another younger, hotter wife. lose weight so you can safely birth more kids. the ritualistic elements also are placebos– if you do it you must be doing it for a reason and it must be working.

all of self-care as we know it is in the service of capitalism. even the things that DO work (eating healthy foods, exercising, sleeping enough) to improve mental/physical health and aren’t on their surface things you buy end up serving the patriarchy. you get rewarded for being the ideal capitalist subject. especially if you’re a woman.

so i’m going to be a bit satan-like and argue that yes, plastic surgery IS self-care. but self-care is NOT empowering. nothing we do as individuals is. for women, it’s business expenses all the way down. as i’ve said before, it’s not the ‘choice feminism’ of the libs and it’s not the ‘radical feminism’ of radfems. it’s something both more nihilistic and more coherent than either.

flaye. oil painting

basically, i think the general rule of thumb is: if someone REALLY wants the blood that’s inside of your body, and they’re like… a vampire, or a dracula, or some sort of mansquito, then that’s probably okay. a dracula and a mansquito are made for removing things like blood and swords from inside your body. that’s basically fine.

if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out. 

unfortunately this will not deter a really big frog, because a really big frog is full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and it would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible.

Seeing an upsetting post by an ex friend and watching a Disco Elysium skill check screen pop up on my HUD.

azealia banks fujoing out on twitter rn

An “initiation well,” used in magical rites, which was excavated at the Quinta da Regaleira estate in Sintra, Portugal.  

Michaela Stark by Raga Munecas

- 2024

Terra Keck aka Her Lovely Face (American, b. 1991, based Brooklyn, NY, USA) - In Another Universe, Eraser Drawing, 2024, Graphite, Colored Pencil, Watercolor, Acrylic Paint on BFK on Panel

🌵 Curtis’s botanical magazine. London ; New York [etc.]: Academic Press [etc.].

i always thought these shots from daises 1966 were absolutely beautiful so i made an short edit of them a few years back to one of my favorite songs at the time.