#the writing and execution is so artificial that they couldn't even make it believable for a second

[randomnameless]

To continue the woobified view of the Elites and my comparison of them to the Black Eagles :

Same for me regarding the BE, especially because they also literally fought Edelgard's troops in WC when you choose their house, and even if you don't, they definitely still would know that Edelgard dus nasty shits in WC.

The idea that media literacy is dead is quite fitting, because the idea that even rotten persons have loved ones/that having loved ones doesn't mean you're not rotten is a known thing, yet the Eagles and elites get a pass solely because "they genuinely believe in the cause" and "they love and care for each other"

Probably Fraldarius was as devoted to Nemesis as Ingrid to Dimitri, Lamine very well may have been as sassy as Dorothea, perhaps Goneril was as brave and endearing as Caspar, or Maurice was as loyal to his clan's interests as Petra to Brigid's happiness (through a strong bond to the Empire) but like the BE, they are butchers, who relished in the destruction of everything those against them hold dear, lap dogs and rabid curs of someone they definitely know have crushed innocents and scorn the very idea of peace except under their domination.

The only meaningful difference between Edelgard-following BE and the elites is that we can know more about the BE and we are forced to dislike cutting them down even as they refuse to let northern Fódlan alone.

Honestly I need a fanfiction where the BE are called out for that bullshit.

Yep!

That's the tone deaf feeling I got from Nopes, the Deers are hunting someone bcs their leader wants her dead for no reason, but Raph only comments on how hungry he is.

Uh, sure Raph, you're not the most thoughtful character in there, but come on? Some commentary or exposition on what you're doing? Hello KT? Can we have characters be challenged or even react to the events of screen instead of wondering what's for dinner/teatime?

No??

I wouldn't say it's an issue of media litteracy being dead, but more something in the lines of people being more and more "all or nothing" nowadays, without any nuance and conflating liking a character with the idea/image that might project on you : if I like ASOIAF's Cersei, I don't think everything she does is "justified", but modern fandom, I feel like some people would categorize you as a "good" or "bad" person based on the characters you like, and it's just... not what fandom is or was supposed to be imo, I'm here to nerd and gush about favourite characters, not write litteral essays about the Geneva Convention.

Corollary is what, imo, made the Fodlan fandom hell : some people really take "criticism" against a character personally - sure the way FE16 was written invites projection, but at the end of the day, making a Berning Fire Joke is, just, making a joke about a bunch of pixels, nothing more.

Back to the BEs, they can have a sense of camaraderie and genuinely support each other... as they tear apart "people because Supreme Leader told me to" and fight side by side with Bob the Carpented who was turned into Waldi the demonic beast.

Ferdie can skewer Flayn on her father's lance because she is "a creature that has plagued humanity for ages" even if they reached a C support before shit hit the fan - and still protect Mercedes and Bernie from their abusing Fathers. Does that make him a great guy? A nuanced guy?

I think the trope is called "even evil people have loved ones" or something like that?

I don't think so, but he is no random one note villain sycophant either - now, what is the more annoying with the Fodlan games is how this dichotomy is never called upon : everything is just a giant blob or Hresvelg Grey ("morally grey" but only applied to Supreme Leader) where no one really is angry at her, and all the "sacrifices" she's making are off-screen while the characters on-screen always moan about her "ReFoRmS" and "IdEaLs" without talking about the cost bar some milquetoast "but war bad". And no one, in the game, will ever throw this hypocrisy to their face - Gallant Ferdinand will dream about the Opera as he wipes off the blood of a young woman who just wanted to return to the only home she had.

Yay.

FWIW, some mutuals and I have nothing but pure lols about Doro's line in the non-CF routes being "we killed Ferdie professor :'(" because, hey, why should I care more about Ferdie than about random loldier 55 ? Rhea? Felix? Claude? Ignatz?

Maybe the Elites were really friends and became """"nice""" persons with time, to their families and loved ones ?

Does this magically erase what they did before? Will that "good" they did erase all the "wrongs" they have previously done? Will theyr forever escape the consequences of their actions?

In a game that depicts Flamey as a terrorist for 11 chapters only to drop that plot point by the window to moan, again, about her "IdEaLs", "consequences" are maybe something you can eat as a snack, or throw in a trashcan.

So following the rules of this verse, given how Supreme Leader never receives flak for her Flamey stunts, why should the Elites receive any for what they did? Look, Maurice calls Daphnel his friend, surely he is not that bad of a man? Well yeah, he might have seduced women and planted a lot of wild oats here'n'there, but he cares about his friends!

Jeritza likes ice creams and cats! Surely it's more important to paint him as a cat lover than to deal with all the consequences of his stunt as the Death Knight, kidnapping and implied rekting young woman while he was in GM, under Flamey's orders, right?

Calling it now, after eviscerating Seteth's older brother, Goneril might have melted in front of one of Rhea's kittens, and adopted the cat asap. Surely that makes Goneril a "good" character right? And forget the entire "genocided a bunch of hippies living isolated in their village" stuff?

I don't have fanfics recs where the BEs are called hypocrites, but I confess I don't read a lot of fanfics in the FE16 fandom because of all of the aforementioned issues.

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC Review: King of Wrath by Ana Huang

3.25/5. (Re)-releases 4/25/2023.

For when you're vibing with... Modern arranged marriage, billionaire romance, a very cosmopolitan international feel (complete with jetsetting), and some groveling.

Vivian Lau hails from new money, and her father will do anything to break their family into the upper echelons of society--including arrange her marriage to billionaire Dante Russo. Though Vivian is willing to make the best of it, Dante is hostile from the start. So why did he agree to the marriage in the first place? As the two grow closer, the answer may be something Vivian never expected...

So, mixed feelings on this one. I like Ana's writing style, and I certainly like the way she writes sex, as well as this very opulent and interesting world she's created. But I had some issues on the execution.

Quick Takes:

--I really enjoyed the differentiation between new money and old money, the emphasis on elitism, and the sense of business intermingled with personal. Often, in these billionaire romances, it doesn't feel like the billionaires really live in a weird world. Here, it definitely read as something exclusive and inaccessible, yet at the same time something Vivian was very used to because her parents had been super wealthy since she was a child. I liked, so much, that Vivian didn't hesitate to use Dante's black card, didn't wring her hands over dropping $250K on a couple pieces of jewelry like heroines in billionaire romances often do. Basically, I liked that she was rich, too.

--In general, I appreciated the idea of an Italian billionaire who didn't have mafia connections and came from old money. Did that necessarily ring super true to me (real world aside, because this is a fantasy world)? I don't know. I will say that after reading a series in which I could tell the author put a lot of work into making the heroes feel Italian, Dante didn't super read that way to me. He was very American, but threw in some "mia caras" and in many ways I think it might've been better to just committing to him being fully Americanized, or perhaps delving more into the idea that he has lost connection with his heritage.

--I really enjoyed Dante's family backstory and the family drama (Vivian's included) in general. It felt very real, and it was hurtful and traumatic without being over the top.

--The pacing of this book was a double-edged sword for me. It takes place over an extended period of time... Yet somehow, I really didn't feel that, and in some ways I think it would've been better if they'd fallen in love over a (perhaps unrealistically) compressed period of time. Dante would leave to do business for a month; Vivian and Dante's relationship would skip forward a month. We would know that time passed and the relationship naturally grew, but something about it just felt kind of rushed and artificial to me. I felt like I missed the part where they became ridiculously into each other, or where they fell in love, even though I did believe in their chemistry.

--This felt like it was supposed to be enemies to lovers, but Vivian didn't give me anything on that front. I liked her, and she wasn't a doormat; but she wasn't lashing out at Dante, either. She wasn't really spoiled, she wasn't mean, she was just very mature. It made me feel like Dante really wasn't at her level at all, and it also made me feel like... I don't know. It was just hard to connect with her.

--The Big Secret is something you as the reader know from the jump. Vivian does not. It is obviously a big deal when this gets revealed, but I couldn't help but think... she probably should've... guessed? It was something along those lines? Maybe I'm just being cunty, but it felt a bit obvious? And for that matter, her reaction felt a bit over the top. It added to the main issue I had with the book, which is that I liked the way it was presented in terms of writing, but it felt very paint by numbers. Every beat could be predicted, both in terms of plot and emotion.

The Sex Stuff:

The sex in this was... very good. Probably my favorite thing about the book, if I'm being real. At first, it began a bit typically, with that well-known ramp-up. (But I did really like that these two just started having sex and not talking about it at all; fully having these encounters and being like "WELP".) Gradually, however, it got a bit kinkier, and I... wasn't mad at that. There is a scene in a moving vehicle... that is so good.

Overall, I can't say that I loved King of Wrath, but I did like parts of it quite a bit, and I do want to read more of Ana Huang. I feel like she could have gone further with this one, but she's clearly a talented writer. I'll probably read the next book in the series, and check out other books of hers. This novel is a re-release, and I see a great response to it, so clearly, this works for many! And that's great.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Bloom Books for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[colbyflask]

what i am doing here

listen - or actually read because you most likely aren't listening to this. if you are listening to this, why are you using text to speech?? or am I reading this out loud in the future? is there an AI out there mimicking my voice, impersonating my likeness to make an insane amount of profit? does this mean I finally got to blow up (not in the exploding sense), and act like I don't know anybody?

this little project is more like an exercise - I've been wanting to write for a long time. but not serious writing (at least not yet) - the last time I wrote something was exactly a year ago and that was a research paper for my last grade in undergrad (I got an A, like it matters). The process was terrible. Like most of my assignments, I held off for as long as I could and panic wrote in the hours leading up to the deadline. I missed those deadlines, asked for extensions, and used the pure fury of that panic to drive the assignment to completion. I pulled all-nighters, consuming terrible coffee which made me feel worse than it tasted. I couldn't feel my legs, and my head would be pounding. I ached for sleep, but my academic writing process forbid it. While my writing usually got me the grade I wanted, I wasn't satisfied with the product I produced. I always felt like I could've done more, that my arguments were weak, like I didn't know enough to put words on the page. Despite the fact that I formulated the words after hours of research and calculated planning, it wasn't enough. I felt as if I could've been doing so much more, but I just couldn't execute it. There was no joy in the process of seeking knowledge and repurposing what I'd learned, and I began to care less and less about the topics at hand. And when most of your assignments are related your interests in your chosen specialty, let's just say the process of writing becomes even more grueling. the vicious cycle continued, and I only managed to escape by removing myself from that academic environment. I won't lie to you - I want to go back someday, but I can't do it the way I did before. I really don't think I'll make it out - so I guess this project/idea is way for me rebuild before I go back. Maybe something else will come out of it, or maybe everything will be exactly the same. I can't really say .

Writing is something that I used to enjoy - crafting little non-sensical stories that were the result of either weird dreams I had or ideas that came to me after reading a book that I loved. I never got into that whole fan fiction thing (I didn't have time and I was absolutely the type that didn't want to read something if it didn't come from the "original creator." I like to think that I've grown out of that mindset a bit, but I have yet to really read any kind of fan-fiction). I've wanted to practice writing for a while, going beyond the artificial research papers or timed assignments. I don't think I've written anything fun since the fourth grade (unless you count my dumbass tweets), and I've really lacked that kind of inspiration. I wouldn't even know where to start - what even is a writing process??? Here's what I do know - I use WAYYY too many hyphens (I had a professor call me out on it once). I enjoy using them. I like to think of my writing as listening to someone's thoughts, and the hyphens are another way to convey a pause. I also know that me and writing have had a rough relationship over the past few years, which is heartbreaking because I feel like I had the potential to be a phenomenal writer. That likely sounds egotistical, and you know what? It is. If I don't say it, who will? If I don't believe that I have the potential, why should anyone else? So there it is. I want to write, and I want to be good at it. That's why I'm here. But I can't improve my writing if I don't practice, so that's why I'm here. I'm going to write about what I want to write about, and I want to share what's going on in my brain. I want to do it on my own terms. Will people read this? Again - I can't really say. If you are reading this (because I wrote a lot - sorry), thank you. My goals here are to make this an interesting experience - I want it to be entertaining, but also insightful. I don't want you to feel like you just wasted five minutes reading gibberish. I hope you (and me) will stick along for the ride.

Something I've wanted to do for a while is write about the music I like. Like musical reviews. I have absolutely no qualifications - I just want to write about what I enjoy (or not enjoy), and I want to share that with the world. I spend a lot of my time listening to music, but it'll usually be the same thing on rotation until I feel comfortable to move on to something new. So I think that's where I'll start - writing about the music that I like and why I like it. I don't know how long it'll take me - I haven't decided if it'll be polished and proofread, or a jumbled mess (like this one). I haven't decided if it'll be one big post, or a conglomerate. And you know what? that's okay. I don't need to plan everything out. I just need to put something on the page (...or, text post in this case). So that's where we'll start - vivi vibing to vibrations (thx sofia for the name)

that's all I have for now. I'm not the most well-versed in this website, but I feel like I know enough to get me going. the rest will come. and on that note of rest, I need some.

'-V

may 5. 2023

[autisticburnham]

Rejoined

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Magic babe!

Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?

Where's that post about the person who wanted to see how long they could hold an egg in their mouth and just immediately bit into it?

"Painfully shy, introverted, a slight lack of confidence, just the kind of person who'd like to dazzle the world with his magical abilities" why do I get the feeling Julian was into magic when he was young?

I love that Benjamin warns Jadzia in advance. "Hey, bestie ❤. I know you're a love sick fool. Be fucking careful"

Y'know, in my fic for the Still Rejoined Zine (centering on Ezri's reaction to Lenara coming back to the station to try to use artificial wormholes to help Voyager), Kira has a very similar meeting with Ezri. If you're interested, you can find all the information for the zine @rejoinedzine

"I've never let my past lives interfere with my job before and I'm not going to start now." Ma'am, you were willing to be executed for Curzon

Wife!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

The way they look at each other!!!!!!!

I really want to know if the rest of the cast remembers their experiences during the zhian'tara

How long did Nilani live/how old was Curzon when he was joined?

Kira said gay rights!!!! Lesbian!

Considering the reasons Trill join in the first place, I understand why reassociation is a taboo, but why is it not brought up with the friendship with Benjamin? Or literally everything about Ezri?

Also, condemning the symbiont to death seems extremely fucking harsh. Half point of joining is to give the symbionts experiences they couldn't get in their pools, but if they experience something society doesn't like, they fucking die?

Kira clearly likes Lenara a lot. They would have been great friends

I have Questions about Luther Sloan's decisions

I suppose we could throw ourselves at each other; confess our undying love for each other and complete disregard for Trill society... just kidding... unless?

The way they look at each other!!!!!!!!

Dax is so nervous!!!!!!! She's so lovestruck!!!!!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

The way they look at each other!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah! I'm gonna cry!

In case you're wondering why I'm only including a screencap of Julian and not Jadzia and Lenara, it's bc every fucking frame of Jadzia and Lenara makes me lose my mind and I can't upload 90% of the episode

She said Julian please help me be gay

Again, I really want to know if Julian retains any of Torias' memories from the zhian'tara. Does he feel like he's getting cucked on this date?

I want to write a fic where Ezri finds the earrings in Jadzia's belongings

Also, I just straight up want those earrings. They're really not my taste but they're gay and star trek related? Want

Does Dax even have her ears pierced or is she just gay enough that she wants these earrings anyway?

Not to sound like a Vulcan, but HANDS!

AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

The brother said U gay, bitch?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course Curzon was homophobic

I mean doctors of other species know about Trill. Julian was able to join Dax with Vorad and then back with Jadzia. They could totally form a separatist colony

Can you believe that "one shot from every episode of ds9" video used this forcefield walking scene and not this kiss?

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Jadzia said bitch I don't care if you're homophobic, I'm gonna become your sister in law no matter what

Hands!!!!!

Not to undermine Lenara, but it's not exactly the first artificial wormhole in history, Dax. You're forgetting the one you discovered

I know we don't know anything about Jadzia's sister, but I bet she wouldn't be space homophobic

Her voice!!!!!!!

Lenara's voice!!!!!!!!!

Hands....

The gonna fucking scream

Didn't the script have Jadzia holding the earrings as Lenara gets on the transport?

Rick Berman's name popping up at the end makes me rabid

I'm so fucking gay. 10/10

[famous-aces]

Henry David Thoreau

Who: Henry David Thoreau

What: Author, Philosopher, Abolitionist, Activist, Naturalist, Critic, Surveyor, Yogi, Historian...ah, Jeez, what wasn't he?

Where: American (active largely in the US)

When: July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862

(Image description: a photo of Henry David Thoreau from 1861, it is obviously in black and white but has faded to sepia. He is a white man in a jacket and what appears to be a scarf or cravat. He has a long, tired face, circles around his eyes. He has a thick beard and mustache and slightly messy hair, his hair is dark but graying.  End ID)

You have probably heard this name even if you don't know why. He is best known  for his memoirs, essays, and his role in the founding of the Transcendentalist movement. His progressive philosophy remains relevant to this day. His influence has lasted well over a century and he served as inspiration for the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Hemingway, Tolstoy, Shaw, Gandhi, among dozens of other names of equal note.

Thoreau was a Transcendentalist through and through, meaning he believed in the inherent goodness of humanity and nature in conjunction with science, and the power of the individual. His writing is generally practical, thoughtful, detailed, and observant, and he wrote extensively on a number of subjects. Perhaps most notably on environmentalism (he is one of the inspirations for and a precursor to the 20th century environmentalist movement), nature, ethics, simple living, direct action, civil disobedience, abolition, tax resistance, anarchy, among countless other topics.  

Thoreau's most famous and popular works include Walden, which is the published version of of the diary Thoreau kept over his two year social experiment at Walden Pond (written beginning in 1845, published in 1854), "Civil Disobedience,"  which helped both Gandhi and Dr. King form their philosophies, and states that in an unjust society the just must rebel, (it was originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government or Civil Disobedience", 1849), "Walking" an instruction manual on how Thoreau thought, observed, and wrote (1862), "Slavery in Massachusetts", a speech given at a rally to protest the re-enslavement of escapee/fugitive slave Anthony Burns (1854) and Excursions, collection of essays, published posthumously in 1863 with biographical introduction by fellow author and Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He also wrote on John Brown and his execution ("A Plea for Captain John Brown" [1859], Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown [1859], and The Last Days of John Brown [1860]).

(Image description: a replica of Thoreau's cabin in Walden. It is a very small wooded. Cabin in a clearing, one room at most, brown/gray in color. It has a white multi-paned window and a brick chimney in the back. The whole cabin is not much taller than its door. Behind it is a shed or outhouse.  They are surrounded by trees. Touching one of the closest trees is a brown metal statue of a man walking, presumably Thoreau. End ID)

Probable Orientation: Gay ace or possibly aroace with a desire for a male QPP.

I am very confident in Thoreau's asexuality, if a little shakier on his romantic orientation. As far as anyone knows (and his life has been repeatedly and heavily scrutinized since the 19th century) Thoreau never had a romantic or sexual partner. He was a public figure with a wide circle of friends, someone would have known at some point during his life and if somehow a partner escaped notice the historians who dedicated their lives to studying his life specifically would have uncovered them. Thoreau wrote on male/male relationships, some more platonic, some queerplatonic, some vagulely romantic, none sexual.

Thoreau, like Elizabeth I, is one cishets hold onto, turning away from the idea he could be anything but heterosexual regardless of the evidence to the contrary.  Like Andy Warhol he is one exclusionists refuse to acknowledge was ace, although they have even less of an argument here. Many aphobic fans of Thoreau are terrified by the idea that maybe, just maybe, the thing Thoreau loved most was nature. Some outrageous arguments from either side include: one historian claimed a poem Thoreau wrote for a man was actually meant for that guy's sister, some say he was being hip in writing about Achilles, some say he was too repressed to have sex, especially since he was gay. One blogger got heated in his admantness that Thoreau wasn't ace but was "a human being with feelings and needs." Nice aphobia there, dude.

But here is the thing about any of those arguments: Thoreau broke every other rule in his culture. He was not afraid to be different, and separated himself from society.  He was all about the individual breaking away from society and its traditions and going with your human nature. Thoreau did what he believed to be right.

He had a following, many friends and aquaintences, almost certainly suitors, he spent a lot of time alone in the company of men he seemed to find attractive e.g. Tom Fowler (who was his sole companion and guide through Maine) and Alek Therien (who visited Thoreau alone at Walden). I firmly believe that his percieved "prudishness" was not artificial but came from a genuine disinterest and failure to even really understand sexual attraction (his journals imply as much, you will see). If he did sleep with any of these men Thoreau never documented it, not even in his own journals. But what he did articulate in letters is that society's refusal to discuss sex/physical relationships was proof of its problems. Sex was natural so dismissing it wasn't. 

His feelings about sex are contradictory, he thinks it must be natural but he also finds it repulsive and dirty. He makes note at one point of how beautiful pollination is (he is quoting and translating J. Biberg but agrees with the sentiment and indeed only uses the quote to prove his point on the beauty of sexless flowers), but he vilifies or dislikes human intercourse. Thoreau seems to like the idea of sex without the sex, he likes closeness more than intercourse. He wants to like sex but can't, the closest he gets is the desire for these things to be open.

Quotes:

Hang onto your hats. There are some long ones here, but Thoreau, like Chopin, is pretty overtly ace. Like he couldn't make it clear without waving an asexual pride flag, would be hard considering it was invented in what? 2010? And Thoreau had already been dead 148 chaste, chaste years.

"What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct...I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other’s presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man…I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other’s presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man…Nor do the farmers' wives lead lives consecrated to Friendship. I do not see the pair of farmer Friends of either sex prepared to stand against the world...Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies,--neighbors are kind enough for that,--but to do the like office to our spirits…[the ideal friendship] will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.”

-Henry David Thoreau, from his journal 1839. This entry on friendship the hope for something deeper than what most people call by that name, but still looking for friendship. He is looking for a partner, an emotional, spiritual, partner. This quote could be read as romantic or queerplatonic. You know which one I am leaning toward, queerplatonic, especially because he specifies these relationships as unique from marriage (which he equates in other texts with sex and maybe romance) also he was writing while on a trip with his brother, John, to whom he would later dedicate the publication after John's death in 1842. But it could easily also be a sexless romantic relationship, what he is looking for is not explicitly either.

The following are all from 1852 letters written by Thoreau to his friend and proofreader Harrison Blake. One of these letters was overtly written on the subject of "Chastity and Sensuality" and contains his complicated feelings on sexuality:

"What the essential difference between man and woman is, that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily answered."

(Note: self explanatory)

"If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It is the virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights...The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed..."

(Note: in the above quote he seems to believe that in marriage sex must eventually stop because there is something better. As if they have gotten the sex stuff out of the way.)

"Love and lust are as far asunder as a flower-garden is from a brothel.

(Note: this was part of his description for his disdain for human sex vs human love, his confusion about sex but love of human relationships. It is part of that desire for sex without sex thing I mentioned but harsher than his tone in a later letter.)

"'The organs of generation, which, in the animal kingdom, are for the most part concealed by nature, as if they were to be ashamed of, in the vegetable kingdom are ex posed to the eyes of all ; and, when the nuptials of plants are celebrated, it is wonderful what delight they afford to the beholder, refreshing...'"

(Note: this is Thoreau quoting and translating J. Biberg. Part of the same letter as the brothel line. In this letter he discusses how perturbed he is by sex and lust, but how it should be something beautiful. He celebrates pollination, while finding human sex distasteful, again sex without sex.)

"The intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is incredibly beautiful, too fair to be remembered. I have had thoughts about it, but they are among the most fleeting and irrecoverable in my experience."

(Note: Also self explanatory)

(Image description: the original title page of Walden. It has an illustration on it drawn by Thoreau's sister Sophia. Above the illustration it reads "Walden; or Life in the Woods by Henry D. Thoreau, Author of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers". Then is the illustration showing Thoreau's cabin, it looks very much like the modern replica if with a slightly different treeline.  There is a path leading from the cabin down to the bottom of the image directed at the words below. The text continues after the drawing "I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake the neighbors up. -Page 92. Boston, Ticknor and Fields. M DCCC LIV.". End ID)