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Ce fut dans un chaud crépuscule (Two Women Kissing in Nature) (1903)

(vibrating intensely with barely repressed excitement) yeah sure that sounds like something i could do

FIRST PRIZE GOES TO:

(from a french book of hours, c. 1400s)

sad mandolin-playing cat with its vulva out. i love this cat so much. i have a picture of it on my wall and one time i thought about it while i was high and it made me laugh so hard that i nearly threw up. sad mandolin-playing cat with its vulva out is my favourite medieval animal; there is no contest, nothing comes close.

SECOND PRIZE:

(from the gorleston psalter, east anglia, angland, c. 1310-24)

i'm a really big fan of weapon-wielding rabbits in medieval art. it was hard to pick just one, but i eventually chose this guy: a gleeful rabbit getting ready to whang the king's head off with a big axe (king's expression suggests forlorn resignation).

drolleries of murderous rabbits crop up a lot in 13th and 14th-century manuscripts - sometimes jousting, sometimes overseeing executions, sometimes riding into battle on the backs of other animals - and it's generally thought to be a form of carnivalesque comic subversion, upending the stereotype of the rabbit as a meek, docile prey animal. there's a fun article about rabbits in medieval art here, if you want to see some more examples.

THIRD PRIZE:

from Der naturen bloeme, the netherlands, c. 1350)

i think this is supposed to be a mussell, but God, just look at him. he's perfect. ideal body, peak performance, no notes.

as for the remaining 7:

4. crows holding a Very Important Meeting

5. old (mer)man yaoi. well actually i don't know what's going on here but it seems intimate

6. forg

7. distressed lion receiving a manicure

8. a brave attempt at an elephant

9. happy little bat :3

10. the oldest cat you have ever seen

Like, on Earth, for every hyper-imperialistic culture, there are 200 that just… aren’t.

What if they value other things? What if they see no reason to go probing and conquering?

We can assume that space aliens are “like us” without assuming that they’re like white British people specifically, can’t we?

And why assume that humans of the far future will be like humans of today? Why assume that we will become a space-faring colonial force, eager to leave our home and manifest-destiny our way across the Milky Way?

As humans, all cultures have the same mental and physical capabilities. Any culture on earth could have hypothetically produced hyper-realistic Greek-like sculptures or Renaissance-like paintings.