Kira

i am trying | Studyblr (ish) | I also reblog content relevant to whatever I'm currently working on | (i hope i actually keep this up lol) | kira is: in freshman year of uni!!!!! double major in psych and english!!!! | any pronouns

[kiraistrying]

Week filled with rage and joy and lub-dub-lub-dub and wakeness that should have been sleep.

Knowing that you are in the place you need to be is a surprisingly dull ache.

Being in and out of loves with people makes your chest feel like the skin of a parachute. You are falling all the same

[mydonkeyfeet]

[kiraistrying]

Today, you have been stuck between a the high mountain you have dreamed of climbing and the deep valley you must conquer before it swallows you. You have been here yesterday, and perhaps the day before. You have spent the time frozen, gazing upwards at an endless sky.

How much joy, how much pain awaits you either which way? How quickly will the air wisp out of your lungs, or press into your scalp, imposing, imposing. The sun beats downwards, no answer.

You have come this far by continuous falling, and even that has exhausted you. You have been here, in the middle, for a number of sunrises already. The chasm cracks closer.

Wander along the forward trail. Not the upward one - the circular one. It takes you nowhere but to the places you have already been. You find along the way pieces of yourself long forgotten. A sticker packet and an aged children's book. An idle invention, a broken promise. You return at sunset and feel the day beginning. You cannot promise yourself upwards, but you promise yourself a tomorrow away from this stillness.

Slowly and gently you will see it all through.

[incohorace]

what studying literature feels like

[gardenvarietyhuman]

💥🙌👏

[ineffablebookgirl]

Well shit, Henry Jenkins, out here in 1997 dropping truth bombs

[addressmysol]

Oh hey I need this for a research paper I'm writing, thank you!

[angstbotfic]

i mean he had been out here since 1988 dropping such bombs:

"'fandom' is a vehicle of marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, etc.) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations; it is a way of appropriating media texts and rereading them in a way that serves different interests, a way of transforming mass culture into a popular culture"

Jenkins, Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5, no. 2 (1988): 85–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691.  

there are even some earlier works in fan studies but that’s what i have ready to hand. 

[neil-gaiman]

Henry's been amazing for a long time.

[animentality]

[fox-moblin]

Wouldn’t leave my mind sorry

[silverspleen]

Every time I see that G--gle phone photoshop commercial my heart is filled with infinite sadness, like, yeah it's cool you can have a good family photo, it's cool you can do that, but god, there is something to be said for the honesty of a family photo where you're blinking, or crying, or have ugly wrinkles.

What is too unsightly for you? Would you swipe-click-replace out the image of my cousin crying on our Florida trip family reunion photo? Would you remove the plastic snake I have clenched in my grip, which I still have to this day? Would you scoff at the wrinkles around our eyes and the strands of hair on our faces as we squint into the wind, the day before the massive storm? Would I remember it if I didn't have these reminders, if the picture was perfect and clean, all children in a row with perfect gleaming white tombstone tooth smiles? No tears. No plastic snake.

Everyone is beautiful and no one looks genuine.

[counttwinkula]

hey did you know that uhh

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming

[counttwinkula]

oh shit i didn't expect this to actually get notes lmao

these are all direct quotes from jeffrey jerome cohen's "monster culture (seven theses)" (full pdf linked) i highly encourage you to read it yourself!

that said, while i think cohen's writing is evocative, it can be a little dense, so while i'm here, here's my capsule summary (you can also hear me talk about this in the first episode of my podcast) (listen to @ghostswerepeopletoo)

i. the monster's body is a cultural body - The monster is a work of fiction to be analyzed through tools of literary and sociological theory.

ii. the monster always escapes - As long as the cultural fear from which the monster stems persists, the monster will reappear in retellings, reimaginings, and sequels.

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis - Monsters defy binaries and challenge easy comprehension or categorization.

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference - The monster represents the Other.

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible - Tales of the monster exist to discourage unacceptable or taboo behaviors.

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire - Subjects can vicariously participate in the disruption of the social order through the monster.

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming - Within the monster we find information about the self.

[prokopetz]

A large part of housecat vocalisation toward humans isn’t goal-directed communication, but rather, affiliative signaling: a simple call-and-response protocol which establishes that the participants are part of the same social unit. Amongst themselves, most housecat affiliative signaling is non-vocal, but humans aren’t really physiologically equipped to respond to such signalling in a feline fashion, and cats, well, they’re adaptable.

Which is to say that when your cat yells, and you yell back, so the cat yells again, and so forth, what you’re really saying to each other is “hiiiiii~”.

[semiramis-audron]

[eldritchsandwich]

This is why it is important to meow at loved ones.

[alex51324]

A largish percentage of human vocalizations are this, too!  When your human co-worker says “Workin’ hard or hardly workin’?” or comments on atmospheric conditions or other readily-observable features of your surroundings, or generally statements that seemingly convey no useful or novel information whatsoever, the true purpose of these vocalizations is to develop and/or maintain the social unit of the workplace!   In effect, they are saying, “We are experiencing this situation together.  We often experience situations together.  Let’s be allies!”

Some humans will even make vocalizations of this kind to complete strangers, such as when waiting in a line or using public transportation.  This behavior is especially common in situation that may involve some form of inconvenience or frustration, such as waiting in a long line or experiencing a delay.  In these contexts, the vocalizations communicate, “We are both experiencing the same unpleasant situation; let’s not make it worse by being aggressive to one another.”  

[allthingslinguistic]

There is a linguistic word for this and it’s called phatic expressions! Here’s what Wikipedia says about them:

In linguistics, a phatic expression (English: /ˈfætɪk/, FAT-ik) is a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships. In other words, phatic expressions have mostly socio-pragmatic rather than denotational functions. They can be observed in everyday conversational exchanges,[1] as in, for instance, exchanges of social pleasantries that do not seek or offer information of intrinsic value but rather signal willingness to observe conventional local expectations for politeness.[2] Phatic communion at first appears to break Grice’s conversational maxims, because it denotationally appears to give information that is unnecessary, untrue, or irrelevant. However, phatic communion plays an important role in language and has important connotational meanings that do not break these maxims[6] and needs to be understood as an important part of language in its role in establishing, maintaining, and managing bonds of sociality between participants,[7] as well as creating feelings of solidarity and familiarity, and putting participants at ease.[8] Many expressions generally considered to be phatic (see below) may be a genuine request for information in certain contexts. For example, in British English, “How are you?” is a phatic expression used when greeting someone one knows, especially when a participant wants to initiate conversation. However, it can be asked sincerely, and this must be inferred from context, such as when a friend gives bad news, or tone, such falling intonation to show it as a genuine question (as is with w/h-word questions), or speaking more quietly. Authenticity of the question can also be emphasised by the addition of the word “feeling” (“How are you feeling?”).

Also here is a @lingthusiasm episode about phatic expressions for way more examples and a description of how phrases can go from literal to phatic to (sometimes) literal again (“Dear X” in salutations is a good example of this!).

[stargirldotcom]

- on mothers

lady bird/ @death-born-aphrodite/ everything, everywhere, all at once/ rupi kaur/ unknown/ maia baia/ your best american girl- mitski/ lady bird/ unknown/ @inkskinned

[words-and-coffee]

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

[ID: A poem titled: Kupu rere kē. [in italics] 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 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 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 -[end italics]- Aotearoa -[italics]- and which do not.

Next image is the futurama meme: to shreds you say…]

(Image ID by @bisexualshakespeare)

[thehappysmiler]

[thehappysmiler]

favorites

[moonshinemagpie]

There are little romance subplots all around me irl and I don't have the time to turn any of them into novels

Today I went to my favorite Italian restaurant and was seated at the table nearest the kitchen. We noticed a change to the menu. The list of pastas had been replaced by just "pasta of the day." We asked what the pasta of the day was. The waiter told us it was a mystery. So we ordered it, and when it came it was pasta with eggs and bacon, and I was so surprised and delighted by this unexpected whimsy that I started to clap. And then I noticed the chef watching me from the doorway and smiling. He had clearly come out wanting to see what people's reactions would be.

I'm not saying I love the chef or that the chef loves me. I am saying that is a seed with which to grow a romance that I don't have time to write.

[moonshinemagpie]

Romance seedling of the day:

Tonight I went to a party and a woman asked me my name.

"Anna," I said.

"This confirms my theory," she said loudly, to the entire room. People stopped to listen. "ALL Anna's are drop dead gorgeous!"

I felt v flattered. I asked for her name.

She flashed me a grin. "Anna."

Irl, do I love her and does she love me? No. But this is the seed of another romance book I don't have the time to write.

[moonshinemagpie]

I was miserable. At a parade! All of my friends were drunk and misbehaving and smelled of rancid tequila. I felt alone and about a million years old. The sun was glaring daggers into my eyeballs.

And then! At this parade! A very large beautiful man I didn't know! Saw me squinting! Said, "I'm can block the sun for you" and stepped in front of me. My sun-blindness cleared into a vision of his gentle smile.

He was a mathematics professor! Very sober, soft-spoken, kind. Did not insult my drunk friends but also stood carefully apart from them. The perfect balance.

Do I love him? No. But he's a romantic hero in a book somewhere in the multiverse.

[moonshinemagpie]

#these are very good example of what just looking and watching can add to your writing#i do this - not always for romance purposes but i just PAY ATTENTION to the people around me#because ordinary people are interesting and everyone has their own story#and they can inspire you in ways you'd never come up with yourself

Yes! This was a post about getting into the writing mindset.

I wasn't trying to share special memories or make a statement about the goodness of humanity (totally fine if that's what you got from this!). But this is a tool any writer could add to their toolbox: finding tidbits from life not merely through neutral observation but by observing the world through the lens of your own writing philosophy.

I write romance books. The romance genre at its best gives every kind of person the opportunity to be the hero of their own story. For me, observing the world through my writing philosophy means acknowledging the heroism intrinsic in us all. Thinking: What if this person were the romantic hero? Why would someone fall in love with them? For folks writing different kinds of stories, the approach may differ, but it'll still be creatively generative.

[leehama]

A tiny journal-ish gif-comic from a few tweets I made last night!  I believed this kind of stuff until I was 14 or so, which is pretty old in retrospect…

There used to be more but I accidentally saved over it :/

[leehama]

I did manage to recover one other page, though!

[leehama]

(the end!)

[trinandtonic-deactivated2022102]

this is my favorite thing that I have ever seen in my entire life

[rosemarywaterwitch]

Oh I Love this

[petermorwood]

That’s what having an imagination is all about. That’s why some people don’t like other people who have one.

[annoyed-almond-milk-deactivated]

I love this

[albertserra]

Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism: Algeria’s European Minority; appendix by Charles Geromini

[howdoyoulanguage]

大草原不可避 : Keyboard smashing in Japanese

I explained how keyboard smashing in English expresses laughing really hard and she taught me the Japanese equivalent in return!!

As some of you might know, in Japanese, “w”  from the word “to laugh” 笑う 「わらう」 is basically like “lol” in Japanese so when there’s a bunch of “w”’s together it looks like this wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww 

and it looks like a bunch of grass so one slang word to show something is funny is 草 「くさ」 which is the word/kanji for grass so you don’t have to type out a bunch of w’s.

So the step up from 草 is 大草原　「だいそうげん」 which means prairie since there’s a lot more grass.

And if something leaves you laughing so much that you can’t hold it back you could say 大草原不可避　「だいそうげんふかひ」 which basically means “inevitable prairie”. 

The “inevitable part”, 不可避　「ふかひ」 in this phrase means laughter is inevitable and you can’t help but laugh.

[notajerusalemcricket-deactivate]

Absolutely not a new observation but i love that the toki pona word for animal, "soweli," is written like this

fuck man that sure is

[lovecore]

i showed this post to my boyfriend last time i saw it (because hes a linguistics nerd in general and a toki pona nerd in specific) and i am delighted to inform everyone that all the words for various types of animals are little fuckin dudes

[kiraistrying]

crying this is beautiful