> You can't even display an image in a terminal without a non-standard terminal like Kitty or iTerm.

Sixels are supported by many terminals[0] (several of the terminals mentioned that do not support them are based on GNOME VTE for which support is in the works and, based on the bug tracker comments, it seems to be almost done).

This includes xterm which is probably the most "standard terminal" on X11 you can get.

[0] https://www.arewesixelyet.com/