My Favorite Davids, Ranked

A man and woman wearing Mongolian (蒙古族) attire for a douyin trend. Ethnic Mongolians are one of 56 official ethnic groups in China.

i have a weird appreciation for Baroque artists, in particular Francois Boucher and Peter Paul Rubens, for depicting the human body in lush detail at a time that predates the standards for bodies to be thin and airbrushed with no wrinkles or cellulite

it’s just really interesting to me

so many the things women are taught to hate about their bodies—pudgy bellies, fat rolls, double chins, and cellulite—used to be ideals of beauty shown in depictions of goddesses

Rabies is an incredibly lethal virus that kills more than 50,000 people globally each year. About 99% of those people who die from rabies were infected by the bite of a dog. This doesn’t mean that dogs are evil, or that they are disgusting, or that they should be eradicated from the planet to prevent the risk of disease transmission to humans. It does mean that we should do everything in our power to promote vaccination efforts, study disease transmission on a local and global scale, and find ways to prevent infected dogs from encountering and biting humans.

Okay, now are you ready to hear my biggest personal biology hot take?

This is pretty much how I feel about ticks carrying Borrelia burgdorferi (the bacteria that causes Lyme disease) and other arthropod disease vectors. Yes, these animals cause unbelievable suffering to humans by inadvertently transmitting disease, but that doesn’t mean they should be portrayed as evil or exterminated entirely from the environment. Ecologists have been speaking for years on how critical these species are within their established trophic webs, and how their removal could have devastating effects to many other organisms including humans. You can still be scared of or grossed out by these animals (very normal response to a potentially dangerous disease vector), but it’s important to understand that the best way for scientists to minimize the risk of these animals is NOT just eliminating them from the environment. No animal is evil or immoral for the ecological niche it fills, and encouraging a more nuanced understanding of these animals can arm us with better ways to minimize their negative impact to humans.

Quick drawing of Inanna in a warlike mood for pride, because with the flood of political attacks agains trans people across the world, it is closer to how I'm feeling than anything along the lines of "Happy Pride Month"

“Šta će mi život bez tebe dragi, kad drugu ljubav ne želim da imam. - O majko moja koliko ga volim, samo je on u srcu mom.”

Plemić i njegova tajna Ljubav ⚜️GAY BOSNIAKS⚜️

in love with these fragmented portions of a Sumerian lullaby

As Above, So Below by Daniele Valeriani.

Jeweled medici dagger, ca. 1840