#but i was very angry

[june-sunsets]

"Greece sort of owns the Parthenon Marbles"

Sort of? SORT OF?

On July 5th 2024, yet another discussion about the Parthenon Marbles took place, at the British Museum. I never expect much anymore when it comes to this subject. Every time there's some kind of update on this ongoing debate, somehow my frustration reaches a new level. Because for every sensible debater, there will always be someone like 'classicist' Mary Beard.

According to Mary Beard, Greece only 'sort of' owns the Parthenon Marbles. "These are objects which are international, they belong to humanity, not to one particular bit of it", she said on July 5th.

Obviously I resent the entitlement in those words, the audacity to undermine the ethnic value of another country's heritage. The Marbles are international, you say? They don't belong to "one particular bit" of humanity? But if it hadn't been for that "one particular bit" of humanity, there wouldn't have been any Marbles to speak of. As a Greek person, I find it downright insulting of her, a British person, to say the Marbles don't belong to the "one particular bit" of humanity that birthed them.

How about we have a little laugh? Mary Beard said that the Parthenon Marbles are like a "child in a messy divorce case".

That's a wild simile. And by 'wild' I mean 'stupid'.

I'm calling it stupid because 'child of a divorce case' makes it sound like the Greeks and the Britons built the Parthenon together.

I know, of course, that Beard didn't make this simile out of stupidity. By comparing this debate to a child custody battle, she's insinuating the Marbles belong to the UK as much as they do to Greece, and that this is merely a matter of compromise. She knows exactly what she's doing, as a trustee of the British Museum.

On Twitter, she will 'educate' the public about what the Marbles should be called, in what feels like an attempt to justify naming the Marbles after the man who looted them. Whether you refer to the marbles removed from the Parthenon exclusively, or the 'less famous' stolen treasures, one thing is for certain; Elgin was a thief, and no amount of quirky 'pedantry' by Mary Beard is going to change that.

Lord Elgin was responsible for literally ripping pieces off of an ancient building, ignoring its cultural significance to Greek people. Make no mistake; he didn't find the Marbles on the ground, deserted and unappreciated by the Greeks. He RIPPED THEM OFF. Violently.

However, Mary autocorrect-to-the-rescue Beard will come to his defense, and tell you that when Elgin coveted the Marbles, the Parthenon was already in "a very sorry state". She went as far as to claim that "there is doubt at all he saved his sculpture from worse damage". All this is in a BBC archived piece written by Beard in 2011, in which she supposedly looks at both sides of the argument, yet it still felt one-sided when I read it.

So...he saved the Marbles from damage...by violently ripping them off the edifice? Gotcha.

We need to remember, everyone; the goal here is to make the BM Trustees and Elgin's ghost feel good about themselves.

"I want to see those marbles shared I think realistically, more generously with Greece", she said, on July 5th.

I wonder how Mary Beard would feel if one day a random person broke into her house and told her; "I planned to keep this place for myself, but you know what? Let's share it! I want to be generous to you."

Does she think she sounds like the bigger person? Does she think the British Museum is doing Greece a favor by entertaining the idea of sharing the Greek Marbles? How progressive!

How hypocritical.

She continued "I would like to see again the Parthenon marbles being ambassadors for a particular sort of Hellenic classical culture in which both Greece and the United Kingdom, and many other countries in the world, share; they can do their job not just in Athens or London- what about Beijing?"

What about Beijing, Mary? You reeeaaally don't want the Marbles to return to Greece, do you? If you could, I have a feeling you would personally deliver the Marbles to Mars. After all, the Marbles can interplanetary.

I jump back and forth to her 2011 piece, where she asks; "Who owns great works of art? Do monuments such as the Parthenon belong to the whole world?" and "Are they the possession of those who live in the place where they were first made? Or are they the possession of everyone? The likelyhood is that we will be debating these issues for many years to come." Well, quite frankly, if we keep debating this for many years to come, it will due to the BM Trustees' own denial of reality. The questions Beard asks are easy to answer. Too easy, in fact.

In the same 2011 piece, Beard ponders the meaning of Cultural Property, of ownership. She points out how everyone can appreciate the works of Shakespeare and Mozart, and how things get sticky when it comes to the global appreciation of a tangible work of art such as the Marbles. The answer to this conundrum is obvious, if one looks at the matter objectively; the Greek Marbles belong in Greece, in the museum close to the Parthenon from which they were wrongfully torn from, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion if Elgin and his entourage hadn't taken them as souvenirs. The truth is that there is no real need for a debate, the BM trustees just keep dancing around the topic. They will harp on the complexity of this so-called debate because they don't like the idea of letting the Marbles return to Greece.

There's this childish insistence in the British Museum's reasoning, to keep associating the Parthenon Marbles with the UK much more than with Greece. I feel this stems from something that can be traced back to Elgin and his own avarice; a strange need to latch on to a part of a culture that was never theirs to begin with.

The insistence to connect the Marbles to the UK is the undertone to the 'child in a divorce case' comparison. It's what ultimately makes Beard's argument fall apart, and brings the hypocrisy to light. She said the Marbles don't belong to Greece, they belong to humanity. They're international, she said. And I ask; where was that sentiment before Greece called the British Museum out? Before we asked for the return of the Marbles? Before Melina Mercouri, Greek Minister of Culture, started fighting for them? If this matter had never been raised, would you ever care about your British Museum becoming "the world's greatest lending library", Mary?

What Mary Beard wants you to hear is; Why should Greece have the Marbles, when the whole world should have them?

What Mary Beard actually means is; If the UK can't keep them, then no one can.

Especially not Greece. The BM Trustees are adamant about that.

Which brings us back to the ridiculous "child in a messy divorce case" phrasing. A simile that doesn't apply in this situation and makes no sense, unless Beard imagined the BM as the delusional party who has convinced themselves this child is theirs even though there's no relation between them. But that would be too much self-awareness to expect from this academic.

You wanna compare the Parthenon Marbles to a child, Mary? Okay, but it's not a child 'in a messy divorce case'. This is a child that was abducted from its own home. It's a hostage situation, Mary. The British Museum is keeping a child hostage.

Greece wants her child back.

And as for cultural 'ambassadors', the British are free to send their own, instead of playing around with OUR cultural heritage.

[maeamian]

If you saw me agreeing with being annoyed about wasted helium in a fictional context and were like "I bet she has some more helium based anger in her life" good news LAPD fucked up a raid on a medical facility they thought was a pot farm and flat out ruined thousands of gallons of the stuff.

[emerald-hills2]

you guys didnt now how much i love when sonic do this

[egophiliac]

in regards to the latest main story update:

did twst finally find a question ("who would DJ?") where the funniest answer ISN'T Leona? or does he still beat out our beloved teapot tyrant? these are the real questions🤔

oh this is a STRONG contender, that's for sure! though after much deliberation, I think despite Riddle having the initial surprise factor, Leona still very slightly ekes out a win just because he would have to have been forced into it for whatever reason and he would NOT appreciate it. just picture how extremely sulky he'd be as he spins those hot tunes. it's so good.

I do acknowledge that this is a close debate and, perhaps, a contentious ruling! and to complicate matters further, should it please the court, I offer a third option:

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

[riddlemearose]

I think we as the LU fandom need to stop the whole "Sky gets mad at Wild for the Master Sword breaking in TOTK" and start going "Sky is going to throw hands with TOTK Ganondorf no matter what laws of magic he has to break to do so".

Bc let's be real here, if Sky ever found out that Ganondorf tried to kill Wild and literally destroyed Fi while attempting to do so bc she was protecting Wild the best she could, he really would just go and kill Ganondorf himself.

He would manifest himself into Tears of the Kingdom in any way he possibly could (as a ghost, via possession, literally forming a physical body out of pure spite and rage, fistfighting the Shadow to open a portal) and he would jump into the Hyrule Castle rift and murder Ganondorf single-handedly.

And Wild would 100% be on board with this bc 1. now he has the best back-up he could possibly ask for; and 2. he knows that Sky murdering Ganondorf would be glorious to watch

[maria-ruta]

I love you Tabithaaaaaa

I hope she quits her jobs and reunites with her youtuber gf and live happily ever after, working as boring clerk or something if she survives lol

anyway, Scarlet Hollow is very cool game by @blacktabbygames

[voiice-of-the-soul]

It irritates me alot when people say that making medic more compassionate is ''missing the point of his character'' when he is literally shown to be in the comics.... did you miss the part where he showed concern for both sniper and miss pauling's well being in comic 5 and 6.

His actions are a combination of genuine attachment + clinical interest and these things do not cancel out one another. He is always pushing boundaries and going against the grain and i think this is what led to him losing his license in the first place. He felt stifled by the rules imposed on him.

He is shown to be extremely passionate so it makes sense that he would use his endless fascination with medicine as a way to show his affection. He loves his friends so he will find a way to make them borderline indestructible. Malpractice is his love language.

[arcticclimes]

Something something Fitzjames and Hodgson are two of the most dandy-ish characters in The Terror but they're also two of the most dangerous; they've both been to war, both do the greatest damage to Tuunbaq using the weaponry they were trained in by the navy (Hodgson with the cannon and Fitzjames with the congreves), and Hodgson is also the one to kill the Inuit family, directly connecting the violence of imperialism with the gentlemanly facade it likes to use.

[ferngle]

grumpy peebo

[technically-human]

Part two of the reverse verse is here! The reverse boys meet the original boys. They're not really getting along as well as I had hoped...

Again, this was a commission for @i-am-as-normal-as-you-are and they asked for angst/funny vibes... I think it's mostly just angst though. Oh, well...

Part one

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[wild-magic-oops]

take notes, Gale bby

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[fanaticalthings]

Jason being the easiest kid is super funny. Bruce looking at Jason and remembering Dick at 18: “we can work through this. He’ll come around if I don’t give up on.”

Bruce, watching over a freshly street-snatched Jason: Why is he so calm

Having Dick as the rambunctious, feral, and unhinged first child must've given him SO much whiplash once Jason entered the picture. Lil guy just vibed in his own world. Just reading books and doing schoolwork. Baby Jason hurt nobody.

Bruce will just be going over the ground rules of the manor, remembering all the chaos Dick brought upon the household.

Bruce: No swinging from the chandelier.

Jason: ?? I wasn't planning to?

Bruce: No murder.

Jason: What? That never even crossed my mind-

Bruce: And please, for the love of God, don't sneak out and try to beat up the nearest criminal on our block

Jason:

Jason: WHO is responsible for these rules being created??

Bruce will just come home from a long day of work. He's tired and just wants a nice, quiet evening, but he's subconsciously psyching himself up to prepare himself for the chaos he'll witness once he enters the manor

but then Jason's just quietly doing his own thing, maybe even helping Alfred with some chores, reading, or just lounging about in the manor. In general, just causing no trouble and Bruce just turns to Alfred, all worried like, "Is he sick? I don't think children are supposed to behave this way."

[cybertron-after-dark]

Average transformers g1 episode:

Megatron is attempting to black out the entire sky across a hundred mile radius and funnel all the sunlight into one, concentrated solar death ray to target a heavy duty solar panel he's having soundwave and the cassetticons build in order to convert it to energon. Then he plans to hit the autobot base with the death ray just for funsies. Starscream plans to push Megatron directly into the death ray, also just for funsies.

Optimus sends Wheeljack and Spike to deal with it, along with two bots you're pretty sure have not been in this show before this point, but you're kind of past asking how many of these fuckers were on the ark offscreen when it crashed. One of them has the worst fake Canadian accent you have ever heard, and the other's name sounds inexplicably dirty.

Starscream tries to get Megatron to stand in the spot he told Skywarp and Ramjet to direct the death ray, but is interrupted when Rumble asks why Starscream stuck him with extra work (a task Megatron assigned specifically to Starscream). This vexes Megatron. The autobots show up and try to figure out what the point of the blacked out sky is while Starscream attempts to talk his way out of it. Then the death ray goes off two feet away from Megatron, which only pisses him off further.

The Canadian bot yells "AH BINARY-BEAVERS!!" because the death ray caught him off guard and completely gives away the bots' position. Soundwave immediately fires on them. Gratuitous robot violence ensues. Spike is generally useless and tries chucking rocks at Rumble. Megatron is too busy trying to almost-murder Starscream to bother with the autobots and just lets Soundwave handle it.

Probably-an-innuendo-name-bot is luckily a flier and takes the chance to see what's blocking the sun now that their cover's blown anyway. He gets up there and the seekers are sticking tinfoil on the clouds to make the tops reflective. The writers are really just hoping you don't think too hard about it.

Skywarp starts firing on dirty-name and calls him a nerd. Dirty-name takes evasive action. Skywarp runs out of ammo and starts just chucking tin foil at him. Dirty-name calls him dumb and says his processor is made of spare toaster parts. Then he crash lands and canada-bot asks if dirty-name's wings are spare toaster parts as well. Wheeljack yells that they'll all be spare toaster parts if they don't focus on the decepticons. The death ray goes off again and barely misses the autobots. Wheeljack corrects himself to Melted spare toaster parts.

Dirty-name gives Wheeljack the rundown on the tinfoil clouds so he can figure out a way to get rid of them while Canada-bot fights Soundwave and the cassettes in the background. Spike is kind of helping too sort of almost. Those rocks hes chucking sure are damaging. Ravage gets straight up drop kicked. It cuts back to Wheeljack whipping up a good old fashioned Device™️.

Starscream flies up past the tinfoil barrier while Megatron shoots at him. All the holes he's shooting in the blackout barrier are just making more, slightly shittier death rays and the main one is losing concentration. One of them hits Megatron right in the optic and he keels over with an over the top screech. Starscream descends, breaking another hole in the tinfoil to see a golden opportunity.

"MEGATRON HAS BEEN BLINDED!!! I, STARSCREAM AM NOW YOUR LEADER!!!"

Wheeljack finishes his Device™️: A grenade that makes tinfoil entirely invisible, thus rendering the whole weapon unusable. The writers are hungover, please do not think about it too hard. Pretty please. Dirty-name doesn't know if he can throw it into one of the holes in the barrier on his own since he can't fly in robot mode and he cant throw in altmode. Spike offers to get on his back and throw it in for him if he can get close enough. And he's just SO good at throwing things. The other two agree he's their best shot, they're so happy spike is around, couldn't do it without him.

Starscream is hovering in the air as he gives his Decepticon Leader Acceptance Speech he's prepared for this very occasion, golden light streaming in from the him-shaped hole in the barrier. Dirty-name and spike zip past him and spike makes the best goddamn throw of his life. Before starscream can properly question the Fucking Audacity of these autobots interrupting him while he's trying to have a moment, the invisible explosion goes off that the animators are just happy they don't have to put that much effort into drawing. Starscream gets knocked out of the air and crashes directly onto Megatron. This vexes Megatron.

Sky's normal again. Don't worry that there's still tinfoil there, don't even fuckin worry about it dude. Spike and Dirty-name touch back down. Round of applause for spike for throwing super good. Wheeljack comments that he's just happy it blew up the way it was supposed to. Cue uncomfortably long laughing. Megatron manages to roll starscream off him and calls for a retreat.

Back at the decepticon base, Megatron has an eyepatch and is skulking. Starscream yaps about how it makes him look like a proper tyrant, brooding and battle scarred, and, dare he say, darkly handsome? This vexes Megatron.