[spiribia]

what’s sad is that the first person to fry an ant with a magnifying glass was probably just trying to look

[angelwalking]

(source) its so funny how actual Greek and Homeric scholars are talking about this movie vs the fact that people on tumblr are acting like Nolan personally dug up Homer's actual bones and pissed on them

[gaius-sempronius-grackle]

I actually really dislike this framing of the whole thing.

This kind of assessment creates a false dichotomy of the Smart Reaction of Scholars and the Stupid Reaction of Hoi Polloi, when there are plenty of classical scholars (hi) who also very much dislike what Nolan has done with this text. My thoughts on the film are more aligned with the people bewailing the Nobody episode. Now not all those people have the toolbox I have for criticizing the film, and certainly some of them are being a bit myopic and histrionic about XYZ pet peeve, but that doesn’t mean that they’re seeing problems that aren’t there. I’m one of Martin’s fellow classicists, and I seriously disliked what this film was doing as an adaptation. I’ve had conversations with several of my colleagues who’ve seen the film and had similar thoughts to me. So putting it this way is at best an oversimplification, at worst insufferably smug and elitist.

And frankly, I think in this the year of our lord 2026, we can raise the bar higher than “All publicity about Homer is good publicity.” For one, I think we should also ask whether engagement with Homer, or with any aspect of antiquity, is well thought out and well crafted, or at least has some interest in the original beyond the surface—which as I note in my review linked above, I don’t think this is. And trust me, I know that Classics is kinda desperate for engagement right now and some professors are probably trying not to piss in anyone’s cornflakes lest we lose potential students. But when guys like Christopher Nolan (not one of Martin’s fellow classicists, but one of his fellow old white men with cultural capital) just use antiquity to bemoan the broad decline of civilization, I think we should question that. The film’s political resonances are weird and, to my mind at least, parrot a lot of conservative rhetoric. Nolan’s changes to the text are key to that; they are not neutral and have narrative and political implications. Regardless of whether or not he meant it to come off that way, I think it’s worth talking about, especially given the ways that classical antiquity, as supposed paragon of ~Western Civilization~, is utilized on the political right.

[vicholas]

not really a fan of the amount of people here who now hear “war crime” and immediately think “fun meme term”

[vicholas]

A good part of the tumblr userbase understands that rape jokes are bad, they understand that using “rape” and “rapist” as “funny quirky meme words” is fucked up and bad.

But at the same time we’ve reached a weird paradigm where a lot of people who understand that consider “war crime” and “war criminal” to be Funny Quirky Meme Words without realizing that war crimes very much includes rape!! It very much includes rape of all kinds in all kinds of scales!

It includes doing the most heinous things against children, it includes a wide range of the most heinous things. Just read the definition of war crime.

Why is it that you think that rape jokes are unacceptable but war crimes jokes are funny and cute and harmless?

Isn’t it trivializing of actual war crimes the amount of people in this site who now have the immediate reaction on their brain to thing of “war crime” as Funny Meme like a Pavlovian response?

Is it too weird that I think that this is fucked up?

[vicholas]

Man.

[vicholas]

I just wanna say, when I originally wrote this post I remember wondering if maybe the reason why people have different reactions to rape jokes and war crimes jokes had to do with people being largely ignorant about what war crimes entail.

Now it has gotten increasingly clear to me that it has less to do with ignorance and everything to do with people not thinking of war crimes as something “real” the same way they think of rape. Rape is something that can happen to them, within their communities. War crimes on the other hand are something that happens to other people, to other countries, therefore they don’t even register it as “real”. People treat it as some sort of imaginary concept because the victims don’t even register as real to them.

[pitbolshevik]

people will make jokes all the time about how middle school bullies can somehow zero in on your insecurities and accurately pick them out (ie the "how do mean 14 year olds know which slurs to call you?" tweet). fucking john mulaney even has a bit about it. but the moment you suggest that closeted trans girls don't get treated like cis boys during childhood or that closeted trans boys don't experience cis "girlhood" you get told you're insane

[innerchildabortionclinic]

the way some people treat sex tourism as a joke about losers desperate for sex will never sit right with me

some of the most gruesome sex crimes cases you'll come across are the result of sex tourists, the level of dehumanization involved is not unlike that of a serial killer

[txttletale]

efforts towards a "positive vision of masculinity" or whatever are so funny because what these guys are trying to figure out is literally "what's a way of being a good person that's Not For Girls™"

[estrellasrojas]

“If we interrogate the promises of Land Back, we are brought back to an ancestral perspective that the land belongs to no-one but itself. Land Back then becomes a question of unmapping “legal" terrain, tearing down walls, and cutting through fences. It becomes an undoing of the forceful imposition of the capitalist idea of private property and the colonial/capitalist impulse to declare dominion or domination over Mother Earth and existence. To realize Land Back means to end the ways humans have profaned all of existence and imposed their will upon the land and reasserting that the land belongs to no one.”

—Klee Benally, “Profaned Existence,” No Spiritual Surrender (2023)

[sunburnt-brian]

[deirdreskye]

Dude frying my tendies at the raising cane's has the black nitrile gloves over the hairy forearms this is not good. Puppy's leaking. The situation in my Target boxer briefs is gonna go from Gushers to Go-Gurt real fast here. I'm so horny I deserve to have copper wire snaked through my teeth

[rednines]

If the backrooms post can get a movie then so can this

[nedlittle]

Wildfires in northern Ontario force First Nations to flee

Several wildfires are forcing members of a number of First Nations to flee their homes in northern Ontario.

“I had time to run home and pack a bag and get to the beach where the boats were waiting,” said a member of Namaygoosisagagun First Nation (Collins). “We literally had minutes to get on the boats and flee before it took our town. “Once we left my house finally after packing what I could in a pack sack, the fire was right behind our place. We had to run to the beach and once we got there, it was only moments before the fire had jumped over the (train) track and was coming for us.”

it has since been confirmed that namaygoosisagagun first nation has completely burnt to the ground. if you would like to help the community navigate an ongoing crisis, i urge you to donate to the anishinabek nation 7th generation, a registered charity seeking to improve the lives of first nations people. donations are going directly to members of namaygoosisagagun first nation.

if you're canadian, you can e-transfer [email protected]. if you're outside canada, they accept paypal as well. see more information HERE

[pansylair]

A great place to donate to First Nations groups impacted by the ongoing wildfires 👇

True North Aid provides practical humanitarian support to northern and remote Indigenous communities in Canada through community-led project

Also consider Mikinakoos' as they're extending support beyond their traditional service areas due to the scale of this emergency!

Donations for Namaygoosisagagun First Nation:

Individuals who support the goals and vision of AN7GC can make a donation. The ways to donate: call us, mail your donation, use Paypal or Ca

Donations for Whitesand First Nation:

[oaia]

it got pointed out to me recently that i seem to purposefully arrange my life to be on the edge of burnout constantly and well. its true. i delight in pushing myself to my limit for reasons i am constantly making up. even my teenage anorexia was more love of the game than body dysmorphia and my adult overacheiving is the exact same thing. And its not really fun or epic anymore...

[parkchanwoohoo]

[parkchanwoohoo]

I saw a post on a terf blog before I blocked it from someone being like "Ummm is anybody else really concerned about the rise of antisocial kinks like pissing" and it made me laugh so hard I almost did a little antisocial kink myself

[greelin]

fruitful endeavors…

[greelin]

[kaeynine]

[xanaxfarts]

Tile flooring at the Oceanário de Lisboa, an aquarium in Lisbon, Portugal