time between two moments @cosmos-made-conscious - Tumblr Blog

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[Image ID:

Kupu rere kē

My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth.

I have been thinking about this advice.

The publishing convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home.

I have been thinking about this advice.

Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: Every potential reader is reassured that although obviously you’re expected to understand the rest of the text, it’s fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics.

I have been thinking about this advice.

Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged – but after a while I could see she had a point: When the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place.

I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it.

Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in Aotearoa and which do not.]

[Image ID: Under that, there is a Futurama gif of Professor Farnsworth saying into the phone “To shreds, you say?”]

#words

donjuaninhell

I swear, some of you people somehow manage to possess all of the three most unfortunate character traits someone can have: a) kinda stupid, b) obnoxiously contrarian, c) deeply annoying.

tockthewatchdog

stuff you say when you don’t give a fuck about women quite frankly

cardassiangoodreads

Hence the not-uncommon adage that the washing machine did even more for women's liberation than the birth control pill

theswisscheeserag

You gotta be really publicly passionate about things if you want your friends to text you. Bc people will forget to text you because they’re human. But if you’re really openly the friend who loves identifying ants your friends will think of you when they see ants. And they’ll text you “what ant is this [blurry photo]”. And then they’ll ask you how you’ve been and we should get coffee sometime. But if they don’t know what you love they’ll never know what you like

theswisscheeserag

And then when the ant convention is in town they’ll be like dude… we should go to the ant convention. But they would never think to go if they didn’t know u loved ants

theswisscheeserag

And sometimes you need to ask them to go to the ant convention. But you Will not get anywhere hiding your passions

prokopetz

I've seen visual novels unexpectedly swerve into famously beginner-hostile genres like top-down shoot-'em-ups, and I've seen precision puzzle platformers swerve into visual novels, but I've never seen a visual novel swerve into a precision puzzle platformer, which feels like a conspicuous omission. Like, you thought you were going to do some light reading, maybe see some titty? Fuck you – do this Kaizo Mario thing or no titties for you.

tentacle-therapissed

Matilda is a crazy book cause it starts out like ‘this little girl was super smart and loved to read :) and sometimes she used her smarts to play pranks on her shitty family :)’ and you’re like ‘wow good for her!! i hope her life gets easier once she starts going to school’ and then she starts going to school and develops telekinetic superpowers via emotional dysregulation that she subsequently uses to psychologically torment her principal into confessing that she murdered her brother-in-law and made it look like a suicide in order to seize control of her niece’s trust fund. And then Matilda’s entire family has to flee the country because it turns out her dad has been stealing cars and they’re all being hunted by the FBI

#books

matsuba-illustration

#Mira Alder #pictures

starlitmyre

"what if they fucked" WRONG. what if they ruined each other's lives irreparably. what if there was nothing left but a smoldering heap. what if everything that brought them together twisted and corroded and ripped them apart. and then they fucked.

#ideas

projectiondepartment

new poem by me just dropped in amok issue 1 which i don't think will be sold internationally so i have decided to post it here in full. yay!

#words

escuerzoresucitado

hightide-error

the poster that this incredible illustration is based on is extremely striking. but while searching for it, I also found earlier posters for conveying this message along with a corresponding one for summer, and I fucking love them. absolutely lovely graphic design work. (both are from 1924, artist is Austin Cooper)

the one I was looking for originally also has a summer variant. (artist is Frederick Charles Herrick: 'it is warmer below' is from 1927, 'it is cooler below' is 1926)

#pictures

viyojo

"Hello, my name is-"

My piece for @spectrumobligatozine.

stellar-revolution

JON JUST DROPPED THIS OUT OF NOWHERE??????????????????????????????????????????????

two swords

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

#later