Curate, connect, and discover
Brain Itch - Blog Posts
Pangaea was wasted on the dinosaurs. Imagine the railway network.
Desert Silhouettes - Sistani & Baluchestan
It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point.
And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again.
And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil.
“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”
So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.
On the Suffolk Coast (1885) by Willard Metcalf
Sumerian Veteran: *has severe PTSD but doesn't know it because the term won't be invented for another 5000 years* I fight the same battle in my dreams every night and my relationship with my family has fallen apart.
Sumerian Healer: *saw hundreds of veterans with the exact same affliction before* You're cursed by desert demons.
The Sea (c. 1865) - Gustave Courbet
Four of Swords. Art by Jesse Lonergan, from The Unveiled Tarot.
Josef Mandl (Czech, 1874–1933) and Jaroslav Panuška (Czech, 1872–1958)
Pikmin transporting unusual stuff (part 1)
If my boss emailed me in space while paying HIS debt saying my wife's cooking is mid as hell, I'd just crash the ship and kill myself
▸Games Played in 2024
Katana Zero (2019) dev. Askiisoft
Beautiful
This sky orb is not an edit, it’s the clearest picture of VENUS ! The Venus planet (infrared) looks like a chaotic dawn or sunset sky. Images: July 2024, Japanese Akatsuki space probe (for real, not from Naruto: Akatsuki means “DAWN”).
Leonid Pasternak (Ukrainian, 1862–1945) - The Torments of Creative Work
15 YEARS OF HALO 3: ODST • September 22nd 2009
Prepare to drop.
The Road to War, especially in modern times, is one of tragedy instead of triumph. There is no glory in the effort, only horrific waste, atrocity, and suffering. The lives lost, the destroyed futures and potentials of what could be, these are the melancholy thoughts that weigh on people like Theodon when he rides to war with the rest of Rohan. I’ve heard it said that one of Tolkien’s favorite passage was the one of The Witch King of Angmar entering Minas Tirith. The moment of hopelessness and overwhelming despair gives way to the coming of the dawn; no matter how dark the night or how evil the storm, the darkness will be undone, but it will not be cast away solely by inaction or submission to its will, you need to stand against the storm, to ride out and face it, so that the sun will shine for another day perhaps even if you may not live to see it.
“And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn. And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing.
Rohan had come at last.” (Link)
Should you ever ride to war, take heart if it is in service of a cause or a people that only wish to be free or live in peace. The world we share today is smarter, healthier, and more connected than ever because the decrease in war, sickness, and ignorance. I’m not sure if that fight will ever be done and if we will see the end to war, but it our duty to do what we can to preserve and expand the work of those that came before us for the betterment of mankind, and face down and roll back those who would for their own reasons rather see the hard won progress of the last century undone. Hope always for peace, save war as the last resort, but be ready to fight to protect the things you cherish most in order to ensure their survival to the future.
I feel like people miss the point of the "war is bad" message
What it's supposed to mean is that war is terrible, it's destructive, it ruins lives, it leaves scars, and you should only partake in it when there are no other options, because even if you win, even if you survive, you will not be the same, which is why the phrase used to be more commonly known as "war is hell"
But "war is bad" seems to have been construed by people in fandom into "any fighting is bad, if you fight you're morally terrible and impure, you should not fight at all, no matter what", this is annoying in fandom, as it often misses the point fiction is trying to make, but what's worrisome is when people apply this to real life, as I have seen people do regarding russia's invasion of Ukraine
And that's almost never the point of "War is Bad" works
Works like Lord of the Rings, Avatar The Last Airbender, Transformers, The Clone Wars, Halo (especially Reach), etc all have themes on how horrible war is, but they categorically do not say it is wrong to fight, what they say is usually along the lines of "war is terrible, and what makes it so terrible is that we have no choice but to fight, it would be ideal if we didn't have to fight at all, but we must fight, because not fighting is not an option, because not fighting, not opposing tyranny, conquest, and evil only allows those things to exist unimpeded"
Rene Magritte, The Survivor
Rainy day in Kyoto
It’s always Sunday in Philadelphia, Christophe Jacrot
Under a full moon in Antarctica
danielkordan
