.

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

still not over this.

[kidzbopdeathgrips]

college administrators when they find out that the japanese sad gay book guy is also the japanese violent nationalism killing himself to restore the emperor guy

[usa-fag-nation]

there's a history of this

(from San Francisco's Rainbow Honor Walk)

[bpdzai]

[stripedroseandsketchpads]

The way the first photo literally has him in the fascist paramilitary uniform and seems to have been taken during his coup attempt

It's not remotely obscure either, per the New Statesman:

His weirdly flaccid coup attempt in 1970 that culminated in his suicide by hara-kiri (and decapitation by members of his ultra-nationalist private militia) has been romanticised by reactionary freaks for years, who proselytise his ideas on neo-Nazi web forums such as Stormfront. His work once even made it onto a list of “Must-Read WN [White Nationalist] Books”

Also, Yukio Mishima's Death Cult is an analysis of the way in which his aesthetic obsessions literally played a major role in both his attempted fascist coup and his suicide which I found really interesting.

[blueiscoool]

A Roman Mosaic Depicting a Red Mullet Fish 1st century CE The State Historical Museum in Moscow.

[bunjywunjy]

What the heck is a Falanouc and why does it look like that?

okay so I saw the search summary art first and was like "interesting style choice"

However,

looks like their faces are shaped like that because they shove them into the dirt all day hunting for worms. american robin type of animal.

<art src Lilya Butenko>

[markscherz]

Mongoose* with face for slorp

*not actually a mongoose because Madagascar has its own brand of everything. This is a euplerid, like the fossa.

[mangled-by-disuse]

There's such a big gulf between the American tradition of "honouring our brave troops" and the British tradition of "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" and I think it's almost a microcosm of where the cultural incomprehension between the USA and UK lies?

because it really feels like a difference of...

On the one hand: personal valour, open celebration, the illusion of choice. Viewing soldiers and veterans as heroes of the people, making a big show of appreciation, and highlighting militarism as a big, bombastic show of personal and social might.

On the other hand: the tradition over here feels much more like it frames the military as something you do because you must. It's your duty. It's good because it's a sacrifice. It doesn't do to be too loud about it (on a personal level) or expect Special Treatment. at the end of the day, it's sold primarily (in my experience) as Just A Job, Innit.

Like, my recollection of the army recruitment we were bombarded with at school when we were 15-16 (and which led a LOT of people at my school to join up at 16 instead of going to sixth form) wasn't that it was heavy on glory and honour and heroism. It's heavy on the solid wage, the progress opportunities, the chance to travel and learn vocational skills, and the team-building. The military adverts that are plastered all over our cities and TV and film screens aren't about the nobility of war or how cool it is to win a fight: they're about "born in [place] but made in the royal navy", having good teammates, and doing an interesting job like engineering or logistics.

It's not about the military itself being cool or good. It's a double prong of "this is an interesting job with good benefits" and "this will make you a better person". The benefit of the job isn't the glory, it's the work itself. It is a good and noble thing to fly drones for your country. What do you want, a parade?

[mangled-by-disuse]

Thinking about this further: I think the core difference is that the British military have, especially historically, been seen more as pathetic than heroic figures.

Not as in weak or worthy of scorn. But the Redcoat, the Tommy, the Jack Tar - they're all shown, certainly outside of direct recruitment, as traffic figures doing their best under impossible circumstances. Even at the height of Imperial jingoism, look at the stories chosen: The Charge of the Light Brigade, Gunga Din, Nelson's death. These are stories of men who put on a brave face and a stiff upper lip, but they're not winning. They're not heroes. They're tragedies.

And that only works as propaganda in a cultural milieu that fundamentally values "bearing up well under terrible strain" over "heroic victory without breaking a sweat".

The British like being tragic. Culturally, we love an underdog, and we want to be the underdog. And the reward for a job well done is that you don't have to do that job again, not that you get celebrated for it. We have a cultural belief in the nobility of poverty and suffering, and militarism is one of the ways it really shows.

Tommy or Jack (or whoever the Air Force equivalent is - Bertie?) are assumed to be poor, uneducated, and not necessarily fundamentally good people, hammered into a better shape by the struggles of military life. But they are also still not (culturally) assumed to be good people. I don't think we really believe in good people in this country. They're just blokes doing their duty.

Whereas what I see of US militarism is much more "every soldier is a hero". And that's starting to bleed into British culture, but I think it's an invading idea. The Empire didn't view their soldiers as heroic individuals, they viewed them as "enough trained men who will hold the line long enough to win"

(officers get to be heroes sometimes. But even then, usually when they die.)

[mangled-by-disuse]

when was someone going to tell me that my phone changed "tragic" to "traffic"?

[oneheadtoanother]

[professorwetware]

"The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklins electrical Rod, smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures and War"

-John Adams

[karis-the-fangirl]

Okay I was like ‘surely that is fake’ so I looked the quote up and not only is it legit, the next bit of the letter is “if this Letter should be preserved, and read an hundred Years hence the Reader will Say “the Envy of this J. A. could not bear to think of the Truth”! [“]He ventured to Scribble to Rush, as envious as himself, Blasphemy that he dared not Speak, when he lived. But Barkers at the sun and Moon are always Silly Curs.” But this my Friend, to be serious, is the Fate of all Ages and Nations. And there is no Resource in human nature for a Cure.”

[neenarchive]

maidens if you are going to flee dramatically from my castle in the middle of the night once i reveal my true nature to you please leave your candelabra on the little ledge by the portcullis we are running out of them

[neenarchive]

starting to think these maidens are stumbling in soaked through from the rain just to steal my beautiful gowns and homewear are any of you actually lost

[elektrashocktherapy]

At the checkout in Home Goods loading the belt with nothing but candelabras in all shapes & sizes while the cashier watches sympathetically and asks if it’s the maidens again

[myjetpack]

My latest books cartoon for The Guardian

[ragehangover]

wrt any discussion about shane as the 2C in ottawa — yes, there are many exceptional centres that play on the second line. leon draisaitl and evgeni malkin are two examples. yes, that allows versatility for the coach when playing lines. yes, playing on the second line is not reflective of draisaitl and malkin’s talents on the ice. however. draisaitl and malkin were drafted by the oilers and the penguins respectively. they both have an a. they are considered among the greatest players of all time for their teams. the difference between draisaitl + malkin vs shane is humiliation. they are not comparable to shane because shane is not playing 2C because his team happened to draft generational players connor mcdavid and sidney crosby. he is the 2C because he was outed and then publicly humiliated, and then ostracised and abandoned by his championship franchise. he is a gay japanese-canadian man whose accomplishments and successes are now being questioned. he has lost credibility and his professional reputation. he needs more support. he needs to prove himself. like. a more apt comparison would probably be linus ullmark— the starting goalie in actual ottawa who was publicly humiliated by his own captain on a podcast, took time out of the season for mental health reasons, and then completely outplayed the rest of his team in the playoffs. imagine ullmark endures that brady tkachuk induced nightmare and is then essentially kicked out to play backup for a goalie tandem in fucking. columbus ohio

[hgedits]

On the road to hell there was a railroad car...

[dragongirlsweetie]

the thing is that some of the most brazen and clear-cut cases of art theft—cases in which an artwork is actually, concretely taken from the creator—are not only not stopped by copyright law, but actively enabled by it (think tupac, disco elysium, record labels who own a cover of a song copyright striking works with the original, etc.)

[fictionyoubelieve]

The thing I’ve found is that, when you drill down into exactly what most people find unfair about these kinds of situations, it’s still about treating ideas as exclusive property; they just have different ideas about how it should work, which tend to line up with how they feel about other types of property. And that’s not remotely a settled question, politically, so it doesn’t help clear up the situation at all, or suggest solutions that a majority could agree on.

Like, the DE creators can still make DE stuff, they just can’t make money off of it—like any fanwork. So what was taken from them? Well, the right to make money off of their creative contributions, which they effectively sold to the company when they signed on to work as creatives.

It feels unfair that anyone can work on a creative enterprise like that for years, shape it in meaningful ways, and then have no rights to it as soon as they leave the company (willingly or no)—but is that categorically different than any other kind of hired labor? The construction workers don’t get to live in the homes they build. Many of the workers producing cocoa beans have never tasted chocolate.

This all isn’t to say that it’s wrong to point out the unfairness. Just worth considering which criticisms are actually about IP and which are about property and labor generally.

[jk-bees]

Crafty Minotaur

[kamibanani-archive]

i snorted so fucking hard omg

[feralkwe-deactivated20210912]

omg fuck me i snorted coffee

[ozempicofficial]

[artemisiasea]

[frostedmagnolias]

Combination

1920s

American

Kent State University Museum

[frostedmagnolias]

Dress

c. 1950

by Norman Norell

RISD Museum

[prokopetz]

"I hate how American media will just make up a European nation rather than do any research, so I'm going to get back at them by writing a story set in a fake American state" like, do you have the slightest idea how much American media is set in a geographically impossible fictional small town located in no particular state and characterised entirely by some guy from Los Angeles' collection of half-remembered stereotypes about the American Midwest? They've already got the "lazily inventing fictional parts of America" bit locked down.

No, if you want to play the Uno reverse card on American media, what you need to do isn't to make up a fake state: you specifically need to wilfully misrepresent southern California.

[liesmyth]

#ok but it's not the same....#making up a fake small town in your own country isn't the same#as just mashing together the traits of distinct nations with their own cultures... and making up a fake place#bc you can't be arsed to do research...#you see how it's not the same....? @moonrver

[memories-of-ancients]

Gold necklace with blue glass, Byzantine, early 7th century

from Dumbarton Oaks