It Matters More Than I Can Say

Lisa • Pan • studying English and French literature + politics • LOST 🏝 • Star Trek, Sherlock, Hannibal,.. • Memes • Snooker 🎱 Ask me anything, I love questions

[straightboyfriend]

if you can’t eat hairy pussy ur a coward & that’s on u

[sinnistro-deactivated20220427]

[itmattersmorethanicansay]

*Weird noises in my house at 3.30am*

Me: ..must be the cat

The cat: im literally sleeping on your legs right now

Me: oh no

[logicheartsoul]

Deforest Kelley + Papers THE SILENT SERVICE

[itmattersmorethanicansay]

Disney are the popular kids, Pixar are the regular ones and Dreamworks are the weirdos

[misgenderisms-deactivated202010]

imma say it. “kung fu panda” did more for body positivity and saying that  you can be fat and still be healthy and liked than ANYTHING any beauty companies trying to get your money.

[misgenderisms-deactivated202010]

kfp also respects women more than any beauty company too.

[silver-tongues-blog]

also it had a positive relationship between an adopted child and his stepfather even after he found out he was adopted

[the10ne1yweird0]

Hey yknow how Viper was born without fangs, but instead of being rendered helpless as her family thought she’d be, she instead used her other skills to become the best warrior in her clan?

And how Tigress had severe, destructive anger issues when she was younger, but instead of being painted as a “problem child” she was instead taught her how to channel her emotions into something constructive?

And how Crane trained extra hard to impress a girl, and was by all rights the hero of his own story, but he still didn’t get her in the end? And how the girl isn’t shamed for it?

It’s almost as if you get more mileage out of treating your characters (and the people they resemble) with compassion than you do just shamelessly stamping them with your own misconceptions and hang ups.

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

I’m honestly kind of shocked how well-written this cartoon about Jack Black as a panda ended up being, but kudos to KFP!

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today

[themself]

this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them

[westenra]

this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?

[lunaescribe]

You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist. 

When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective. 

No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream. 

A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’ 

You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions. 

I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior. 

I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are. 

[kevindaydayiseveryday]

Ok I get what y’all are saying but uh: classic literature is boring. And if you like classic literature, good on you, but not everyone likes the writing style and sometimes books with dark themes are too much for people. The only classic literature I’ve ever liked was Lord of the Flies and Frankenstein. Both dark in their own ways, but like you said a lot of people these days like good characters that they can see themselves in and maybe you shouldn’t call people dumb just because they like to look for stories like that. Everyone’s different and everyone’s allowed to like their own types of books. So maybe stop being so narcissistic and calling yourself better because you understood every complex theme in classical books. There are themes in books and stories of today, but not everyone likes to find them. Analyzing books is something that very few people actually enjoy doing, like math!

[mini-wrants]

Ok, but you understand that being able to figure out what an author is trying to tell you and make you feel is important, right? Especially when we live in a world where ‘news’ is available at everyone’s fingertips, 24/7?

And you know that by the time you’re reading these classics, school is about preparing you for success in the bigger world and not just about having fun, right?

Nothing OP said was about being narcissistic. It’s about the importance of actual learning, having the skills to navigate the world and make educated decisions. And that is what school is ultimately for. It’s about educating you, not entertaining you.

[kevindaydayiseveryday]

But every book has a story and a meaning behind it. Do you really think that it’s necessary to understand a book written centuries ago when the world has changed so much? Sure a lot of the themes are about humans being assholes, but you could look at just about any piece of media and see that. Not to mention the fact that basing the idea of intelligence on understanding old books is a bit classist and stupid. I think they’re being narcissistic by deciding that understanding those books is the only way you’re smart and because they understand those books they’re smart. And how would reading a book that ends in an orgy going to help me in the real world? Most people end up getting dead end office jobs, and anyone with a cool job probably won’t need these books either. I’m an English major, but I’m able to recognize that most people aren’t and most people won’t be using the things taught in high school.

[mini-wrants]

YES I DO THINK THAT

If you’re an English Major, then you of all people should understand that extremely important things are hidden in difficult to understand language, oftentimes on purpose!

If you want a kid to understand their rights when they’re being arrested by a police officer as an adult, they need to be able to hear a cop giving them their Miranda Rights and then understand what to do next.

If you want your student to be able to look at a credit report and not immediately panic and throw the whole thing away, then you need to teach them how to look at a page of extremely difficult information and language and then figure out how to get information off of it!

If you want your student to be able understand the difficult langue of propositions when they’re in a voting booth as an adult, then they need practice! And that practice comes from school! Have you ever read the legal-ese of the constitution, or modern laws? They’re kind of hard to understand, even though they’re written in modern English. But you need to understand them if you want to become an adult that can actually participate in society and make something of yourself.

The fact that the book is old is meaningless! Irrelevant! What is important is that it had big, important messages that you have to work hard to find. There are thousands of classic books written in other countries and laguanges. If your problem with ‘the classics’ is who wrote them, then you’ve failed to fully understand what ‘the classics’ are.

Learning doesn’t happen when everything is easy.

Learning is a struggle, but it’s a guided struggle that teaches you how to get through struggles in the future on your own.

[kevindaydayiseveryday]

Those are all different things that aren’t taught in books and aren’t really taught in school. If school wants me to know my Miranda rights or propositions, that’s shit that they’ll teach me in social studies/history classes, not English. And I do understand that it’s important to be able to figure out what different media’s ares trying to convey to us, but I think that reading classics isn’t going to help us pics through what a news article is saying. They’re two very different types of writing with different ideas. And I don’t think that the problem with classics is who wrote them, hell I don’t have a problem with the classics, I have a problem with op and you declaring that understanding classics is the only way you can be considered smart! When it comes down to it, any type of media could be used as a way to understand themes and symbols. Books and movies written recently have those things in them and just as well be analyzed with classic literature. Reason why I don’t like classic literature is because it’s wordy and boring.

[mini-wrants]

That’s the whole point though.

If you were taught how to read classic literature but didn’t learn some basic critical thinking skills in the process, then either the school failed you, or you didn’t pay attention.

If you can’t figure out how classic works like A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Candide by Voltaire, The Social Contract by Rousseau, the text of the Constitution, the text of Declaration of Independence, abolitionist speeches by Frederick Douglass - if you can’t pull some similar themes and meaning and see how they all fit together in some way, then I can’t help you.

And it’s not about being ‘considered smart’ at all, it’s about developing critical reading and thinking skills.

The act of trying to understand a work that’s hard at first to understand is important. Getting practice at reading something that is hard to understand and then pulling meaning from it, is important.

It is important to read something that’s written in language harder than a 4th grade reading level or a comic book sometimes, because the documents you read in real life will be difficult as well, and you need to practice understanding them, even if they’re not exactly the same.

If I practice shooting a basketball every day for 100 days, then throwing a baseball will come a little easier to me, even if I’ve never thrown a baseball before, because my arms are just a little bit stronger.

[kevindaydayiseveryday]

But it’s not the only way to learn critical thinking and it’s not the only way to learn how to interpret media. And it certainly doesn’t always help teach people how to think through things. You learn through multiple experiences, not just practicing through with one thing. And classical media isn’t the only hard to understand works out there. Sitting down and reading reading through a book about history is probably the best way to learn critical thinking when you think about it. Because there you have to be able piece together every event that lead to something major happening, and you have to learn about what lead to the other even that lead to the major event. Math also helps you think outside the box. Every math class, my professor talks about how he finds math to be the biggest form of philosophy and thinking and I don’t always understand what he means by that, but that’s because I don’t learn best from math, but he’s able to make math seem like a complex story in its own right that needs critical thinking and understanding multiple pieces at play. And you can’t keep acting like understanding classic literature is the only way to understand complex ideas because everyone’s brain works different, and historical pieces like the constitution are written completely different then classic literature. The themes are different and the purposes are completely different. Everyone I’ve ever known has skimmed or used spark notes or guess work to go through classic literature, and that includes a dude who’s studying abroad with a full scholarship, along with one of my best friends who’s studying in one of the best schools in the state. Or my dad, who just passed high school, wasn’t in any honor classes and had only read like 2 classics in his life, but I’m able to still hold good conversations with him, and he understands news and has the most open mind out of any adult adult that I know. Reading classical literature doesn’t determine how good you are at understanding news and other types of media.

[mini-wrants]

You know what?

You’re an English Major. You’re in college.

How about you take this whole thread and show it to one of your literature professors and get their opinion, and then come back here and tell us what they said.

[kevindaydayiseveryday]

Haifjwnepwjfnd how about you recognize that critical thinking doesn’t come from just reading classical literature and admit that you’re out of ideas

[mini-wrants]

No no no!

I never said reading classical literature was the end all, be all.

I said it was an important piece of an education that’s useful in preparing kids how to be adults, how to understand the world around them, and how to change that world. Even if it’s boring sometimes, or difficult.

You seem quite certain that ‘boring’ books do not have a place in schools, and that reading old, hard to decipher literature is useless. Worse, that asking kids in school to read classic literature is classist and stupid.

But I’m not the professional, and you’re not the professional. So the next step is to turn to a professional! You are an English Major, so I’m sure you’re taking literature classes right now. What is one email to professor? It’s not hard to send an email and get an opinion.

I’ll even lose some questions for you!

“Hey prof!

I have a couple of questions.

Why do “classics” get taught in high school or college? What’s the point in reading a book that’s hard to understand? Do you think that’s actually something that’s necessary anymore?

In your professional opinion, would reading “the classics” make a person less likely to spread misinformation? Why or why not?

Thanks!”

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

this thread is a superfund site but the poster i’m reblogging from is braver than any US marine

[itmattersmorethanicansay]

I also am an English (and French) Major, but let me tell you that in my college we all agree with mini-wrants (at least everyone i know + myself, and also my friends that study Law).

[basketballamerican-deactivated2]

[smitethestate]

If there’s anything worth living for, it’s kittens trying to imitate their moms.

[itmattersmorethanicansay]

Google didn't wish me a happy birthday this year

The letters of the logo are as every other day

I guess that is what it is to be an adult

[jurisffiction]

unimaginably cruel

[moon-monolith]

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: NEED WATER

[a-book-of-creatures]

Honestly the biggest disappointment I had researching ABC was that medieval authors did not, in fact, see the creatures they were describing and were trying their best to describe them with their limited knowledge while going “what the fuck… what the fuck…”

[a-book-of-creatures]

Instead all those creatures you know came about from transcription and translation errors from copying Greco-Roman sources (who themselves got them from travelers’ tales from Persia and India - rhino -> unicorn, tiger -> manticore, python -> dragon, and so on).

[downinmybeastheart]

So unicorns are real

[a-book-of-creatures]

behold… a unicorn

[gallusrostromegalus]

I always thought animals in medieval manuscripts looked like the result of having to draw say. A Tree Kangaroo, but your only source for what it looked like was your friend who heard it from a fellow who knows a man who swears he saw one once, whilst very drunk and lost, and I am SO PLEASED  to find out this is, in fact, the case.

[glamourweaver]

Questing Beast

- Neck of a snake

- body of a leopard

- haunches of a lion

- feet off a hart (deer)

So is it

Or….

[weaselle]

don’t forget that some of the legendary creatures they were describing were from other people’s mythos which were passed down in the oral tradition for gods know how long. You know what existed in Eurasia right around the time we were domesticating wolves into dogs?

these beasties. For a long time, science had them down as going extinct 200 thousand years ago, but then we found some bones from 36 thousand years ago. Which, y’know, is quite a difference. Since you can bet that any skeleton we find is not literally the last one of its kind to live, many creatures have date ranges unknowably far outside the evidence.

In South Asia there were cultures that described a man-beast/troll forrest giant  who’s knuckles dragged the ground, and everybody from the west was sure it was superstitious mumbo jumbo, but you know what used to live there?

And did you know that some of the earliest white colonizers of the Americas heard accounts that there were natives still alive who had seen and hunted and eaten a great hairy beast, shaggy like the buffalo but much bigger, with a long thin nose like a snake and two giant fangs… so, like, mammoths, you know? but they were totally discounted because europeans of the time were like, elephants live in Africa and aren’t hairy, you can’t fool us, pranksters!

Anyway, the point is between the early writing game of telephone description thing talked about by OP, and the discounting of native cultural accuracy, I’m pretty sure most legendary creatures are in fact real animals one way or another 

[historyisntboring]

It can’t explain every single legendary creature, but yes, this is super important. Because History relies on written sources, it tends to sweep oral tradition under the rug, even if there’s a lot of interesting informations in it.

And it’s not just living animals that were badly described, or which descriptions got exaggerated over the course of centuries or through translation errors. Sometimes, people finding fossil bones of extinct animals might have also influenced some myths!

By now this is pretty well-known but it has been theorised that the Greek myth of the cyclops was started when people found Deinotherium skulls. Now you might say, uh, how is it possible to think a cousin of the elephant is a huge human dude with one eye?

Well-

- the big nasal opening kinda looks like an eye if you have no idea what kind of animal had this kind of skull (you can read more about this theory in this old National Geographic article if you like).

Here’s a less well-known one; the griffin is a mythological hybrid with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The earliest traces of this myth come from ancient Iranian and ancient Egyptian art, from more than 3000 BC. In Iranian mythology, it’s called شیردال‌ (shirdal, “lion eagle”). Now, it’s been the subject of some debate and it’s not confirmed, but there’s a theory that people might have seen some Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus fossils in Asia and might have interpreted it as “a lion with an eagle’s head”:

Check the “origin” part of the wikipedia page for “griffin” if you want to find more sources for this theory and for the arguments against it! Again, it’s just a theory, but I think it’s super cool.

[excessively-english-jd]

This is a pretty well accepted theory for why dragons (or animals we group as like dragons, eg wyverns and drakes) are seen in mythos almost worldwide - because people found dinosaur bones, looked at them, and went “oh fuck what’s that? some big…. lizardy thing?” and then created dragons.

[autisticexpression]

Also many deagon legends are simply exaggerations of well-known living reptiles like snakes and crocodilians.a

[injuries-in-dust]

It also explains why dragons can look so different in the myths of the various regions.

In asia, Dragons tend to look very long and snake like:

One of the most common dinosaurs that used to like in the asia region, so would have been the most common fossils found by people:

The Mamenchisaurus, this thing is just all neck and tail! You find just half a fossilised skeleton of this monster, you can easily end up thinking of a long snake-like beast.

South America also has legends snake-like dragons among some of its peoples:

What fossils from pre-historic south America could be found?

The Titanoboa, which can easily grow to be 40 feet long.

In North America there is the Piasa Bird

Which wikipedia tells me comes from “ the large Mississippian culture city of Cahokia,” it’s describes as

What fossils could have been found in that region:

Pterosaur, and Triceratops. Features of both sets of skeletons could have been merged into one legendary creature.

Then we get our European style dragon:

One of the most common fossils that could have been found was a Cetiosaurus 

which, despite being a herbivore, looked to have a mouth of sharp looking teeth, consistant with a dragons.

Dragons amongst the peoples of Africa are even more varied, but most revolve around some kind of giant snake-like creature. As a quick example, we’ll take Dan Ayido Hwedo commonly found in West African mythology.

Fossils in that area could have been included the Aegyptosaurus:

A quick google search tells me that most Sauropods: well known for being long necked and long tailed, are found in Africa.

If you found only a half complete skeleton of this thing; which is likely, because it’s rare to find a complete dinosaur skeleton, you could easily think of a giant snake monster.

[tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva]

[omghotmemes]

Every night there’s something going on

[captain-snark]

“who just knocked that glass off the table”

[itmattersmorethanicansay]

7am: WHO OPENED THE CURTAIN

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[nbgems-deactivated20151011]

one time my dad gave me a glass of milk and i meant to ask him “who’s milk is this” because i wasnt sure if it was for me or if i was supposed to give it to my brother but instead i just stared down at the milk and said “who’s this”

then my dad turned to me without missing a beat and said “that’s your new friend mr. milk.” and we stared at each other and then he asked me if i was high

to this day i still have not lived it down

[headspace-hotel]

narnia has actually way too many completely devastating concepts in it that are not explored At All

[headspace-hotel]

We talk a lot about how in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children live full adult lives as kings and queens of narnia before stumbling out of the wardrobe by accident and being children again after like 15+ years. But I’ve never seen the same level of analysis devoted to how in Prince Caspian they return to Narnia and discover that over 1,000 years have passed in Narnia since their last visit.

Imagine undergoing the grief of losing an entire life you lived in another world, being forced back into the body of a child and to grow up all over again without the ability to even talk about what happened in the decades you lost. Every person you knew and loved, vanished, leaving no indication they were ever real and no guide for how to move on.

But returning to that world where you were a King or Queen and discovering that centuries have passed without you and that the people you lost are not only dead, but mostly aren’t even remembered? That’s almost worse.

[theironclad]

Ok I’d like to mention something. The idea of them being full grown adults and then being thrust back into childhood with seemingly no change after a life changing and adult experience wasn’t expanded upon at the time because it was already understood. By the post-WW1 young adults all across Europe, the Lost Generation.

The Pevensie journey goes as such: They go to Narnia = First entering the war. They’re kids, bright eyed, they’re whisked away in what appears to be a fantastical adventure to a foreign land with little to no choice in the matter. Still, at first, they’re captivated by the idea of a grand adventure and new things to explore.

But very quickly they discover the danger of it all, there’s war, death, blood, violence. They’re forced very quickly to grow up and make adult decisions. Much sooner than they ever should have! But they do.

And then they become pretty comfortable actually. They grow into these new adult people, in this new reality. Any situation can be adapted to if enough time is given. They have a structure, friends, they have rank and respect.

And then *bang* back through the wardrobe. Adventure done. You’re kids again. Like nothing ever changed. This is what it was like returning from the trenches, a week ago you were gunning down Germans, now you’re bundled up in your PJs at home. Shouldn’t that be comforting? But you can’t sleep, you cants top thinking of all the things that used to occupy you in The Other Place. Now all that structure, the normality you had built, the rank, respect, the life dynamic. All thrown away. Your a kid again, go to school, learn about mundane things. How? How can you just go back? Just like that?

The Return to Narnia can be a couple of things. 1. The return to war in WW2. Its familiar, it’s the same place after all. But the people are different, the foes different, the dynamic very different. Your friends aren’t there. It’s not the same experience even though you’re effectively doing the same thing right? So why does it feel wrong?

2. The attempt to reconnect with that part of your life only to find it fundamentally changed and most of not all of your old war friends... they’re not around anymore.

3. I’ve seen it looked like a PTSD allegory. Always returning to the traumatic events. Idk about that one.

Anyway this wasn’t expanded upon because everyone just... understood already. C.S Lewis understood, Tolkien understood, every young boy in the UK, Germany, France, Russia, they all understood. They’re childhood was stolen from them, and they weren’t getting it back.

[akiragatr]

[seikkora-deactivated20230615]

[candyredterezii]

[salvadorbonaparte]

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books  that I try to update regularly 

[salvadorbonaparte]

**UPDATE**

I have restructured the folders to make them easier to use and managed to add almost all languages requested and then some

Please let me know any further suggestions

[salvadorbonaparte]

[zuzusexytiems]

THANK YOU????? SO MUCH??????? WHAT THE FUCK SHSGSKDHKXC

[sunwukxng]

@bigskydreaming this seems to be your kind of tea.

[anons620371-deactivated20220401]

You are doing the lord’s work

[syn0vial]

thank you so much! i’ve lost soooo much mandarin over the years and now i can try to get back on the horse again! :D