Wasted Time And Paper

The therapeutic writings of a 20odd year old (and some reblogging for inspiration)

[shadesfalcon]

J. R. R. Tolkien: no, my books aren't about the war I experienced. It's just a story

J. R. R. Tolkien's works: you cannot go home, war ends entire bloodlines, you are mourning the death of your brother alone, you dug into the earth and permanently scored the land, you cannot explain what you have been through, you cannot go home, "that wound will never fully heal. He will carry it the rest of his life", leaving the women behind does not save them, the young die first, you cannot go home, the parent will bury their child, you have lost the wives and you will never connect with them again, "how shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?", you are not the same, you cannot go home, you can never go home, your father will only side with those he sees as worthy bloodlines and you cannot change his mind, it is more meaningful Not to kill, sometimes your sacrifice accomplishes nothing, you cannot go home

[thinkinginquenya]

What he actually said was(paraphrasing): "I had no hidden messages in mind when I wrote the book, people are bad at guessing what an author's intentions are, and to those people who keep telling me the story is about the horrors of WWII: I fought in WWI, dummies."

Actual quotes from the foreword of LotR that I was paraphrasing:

"As for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none."

"The crucial chapter, ‘The Shadow of the Past’, is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted."

"The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron."

"An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous."

"One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."

[argentumcor]

Tolkien's works were hitting popularity when it was becoming widespread to see fictional stories as metaphor. We live in that now, to the point where if there's any kind of racial tension in your fictional universe people assume the groups involved are a stand in for one real-world group or another.

His experiences inform a lot of his writing, as they do for all writers, and his themes are truths about life he learned. But the Ring is not a metaphor, though it can be likened to some things. The animosity between the elves and the dwarves is not a metaphor, though it is a lesson on getting over the past to unite for the good while still holding onto the good things about your own culture. The nearest thing to a metaphor might be the Scouring of the Shire, but I think it's more a reflection on the way the shadow can touch even places and people you think are safe.

Heaven help us in genre fiction, no one argues Flannery O'Connor's continuously writing metaphors about having lupus. Fantasy and sci-fi stories are not necessarily- in fact, are rarely- metaphors, but even non-readers and non-academics are addicted to understanding them as such and it brings everything down.

[thinkinginquenya]

My understanding of Tolkien's writings on fiction is that he's fine with people seeing his works as metaphorical, as long as it is understood that *you* are bringing the metaphor to the table, and he has simply given you the tools to make a metaphor applicable to your own concerns.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

[meanwhilepoetry]

My mother taught me that the longer you keep that howl trapped inside your body, the more wolf you become, but she never showed me how to let the howl out. Womanhood is also this: a violence louder on the inside than it is on the outside. Smiling when truly all you are doing is baring your teeth.

Nikita Gill, This Wild Violence Visits Again

[fayriequeene]

[goatsandgangsters]

an interesting linguistics find! so I'm reading this text from 1908 and it keeps referencing "hp" in the context of "not being at full hp" "applying your full hp to a task" etc

and I'm like....... okay that is a perfectly normal way to describe energy and reads totally clear to me, but I KNOW you don't mean hit points/health points which is the first place my brain goes, so what are YOU using hp to mean

and it's not explained in-text, which means it was common enough to not warrant explanation to the 1908 audience, so gotta look elsewhere

horsepower. turns out it's horsepower.

and I'm absolutely FASCINATED that a commonly used initialism from 1908 now stands for something different AND YET the contextual meaning is still the same to a 21st-century reader

I could hand this guy my nintendo switch and he'd be like, ah yes I understand, this ''''pokemon'''' loses horsepower throughout the fight

language is amazing

[whatagrump]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[enigmaticexplorer]

“If you want to break up dialogue to insert an action"—she gesticulated wildly to emphasize her point—"then you use em dashes around the action.”

“You can also break up dialogue by placing the em dash inside the quotation mark, but—” She took a moment to catch her breath. “—you must treat the action like a sentence. It must be capitalized with an end punctation.”

“When humans speak, we often get sidetracked (and share information that may not be all that pertinent, a secret, or something we probably shouldn’t be talking about). Use parenthesis in your dialogue when you want to demonstrate this.”

***

“If you’re writing a long monologue, then it likely needs to be broken into multiple paragraphs. Because one long paragraph of dialogue that takes up an entire page or multiple pages is very hard on the eyes.

“So conclude the previous dialogue paragraph without a quotation mark, and start the next dialogue paragraph with a quotation mark. This shows the reader that the same person is still speaking, without the need for additional action or dialogue tags.”

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

be gentle and patient with

a) who you were

b) who you are now

c) who you are becoming

[periodicallypurple]

Thought this might help others who struggle when writing. I know I get in my head too much.

[packratimp]

#and I think because you are developing like 19 different skills simultaneously#but the ones that you're better at feel smooth and easy and therefore not noticeable#but the places where the pen drags metaphorically feel more significant#so it's like oof ouch the struggle (doesn't notice the 100 hundred things that would be very hard without practice & experience & skill)

(via @karliahs)

[happyk44]

[Text ID: I don't know who needs to hear this, but writing is hard because you care about it and you want it to be good, not because you're bad at it. /end ID]

[tide-locked]

i feel like people forget that sometimes characters in fic are written like that because it's a reflection of real life.

people have sex without setting boundaries. people have unprotected sex without talking about their sexual histories or producing recent sti tests. people play with kink without discussing it ahead of time or establishing a safeword. they have anal without 'enough' prep or lube—they may even prefer it like that.

and none of this is really a fantasy. it's all pretty normal. you can feel that it's inappropriately normalised, and you'd probably be right! but it is normalised: one study found that 58% of female undergraduate students on the campus studied had been choked during sex. 20% of those students said that they'd never been asked if it was ok; another 30% said they'd only sometimes been asked if they consented. fully half! (non-paywalled journal article on choking during sex here, including these numbers.) despite a rise in stis of all sorts, condom use is declining. (pdf link to the full text of this study about declining condom use in the us; aidsmap article about an australian study with similar results.)

even when people do talk about things—sex or anything else—they communicate imperfectly. 'yeah, but don't go too far' is consenting and setting a boundary, and also relying that the person you're talking to has the same metric for 'too far' that you do. for some people, 'the trash needs to go out' is a neutral, factual observation; for others, it's a request that the person they're speaking to take out the trash.

even when people understand each other perfectly, people react unpredictably to things sometimes! we behave irrationally! people laugh uncontrollably at funerals, or get angry at the straw that broke their back rather than the enormous load they were already carrying. they get scared and lash out at people trying to help them. when hurt, most people do not instinctively reach for therapy-approved grounding exercises and 'i feel' statements.

pretty much any bad choice that characters could conceivably make is a choice that people make in real life, on purpose, all the time. people do things that can have catastrophic, life-changing effects because it felt like a good idea at the time, or they're leaning into the vibe, or they just didn't think about it all that much, or an infinite number of other reasons.

fiction isn't intended as a guide on the best, safest, and most responsible ways to live your life, and fanfic isn't any different. it's not a narrative flaw to let characters do things that are messy or harmful or downright stupid—it's a reflection of what people are actually like, and not something that authors should feel they have to apologise for.

[tide-locked]

i am obsessed, in the most derogatory way possible, with the people in the notes who are reading this post and then saying, well, those stats you're pointing at are why you have to make it clear in fiction that they've had a conversation about Consent And Safety. if you don't tell people to use condoms, if you don't tell people that it's not ok to choke someone without prior consent, if you don't tell people that they have to do these things Correctly, you're part of the problem.

so i will say it again: fiction is a reflection of life, but it is not real life. fiction does not have to set a good example. fiction does not have to be safe, sane, or consensual.

fiction isn't intended as a guide on the best, safest, and most responsible way to live your life. if you read it looking for that, you are the problem.

[finally-figured-it-out]

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two

[finally-figured-it-out]

There once was a man from Verdun

[genteelblackhole42]

There once was a man from the sticks Whose limericks stopped at line six. They were fine till line five Then they took quite a dive — But the problem is easy to fix If you just ignore the last line, it doesn't even follow the rhyme scheme oh god I've really lost control of this thing I'm so sorry...

[shredsandpatches]

There once was a man

From Cork who got limericks

And haiku confused.

[ruckuscauser]

There once was a man from the sticks

Who liked to compose limericks

But he failed at the sport

Because he wrote them too short

[rat-girl-big-tits]

@limerickshere

[fremedon]

There once was a fellow named Dan, Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He replied, "Yes, I know-- It's because I try to squeeze as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can."

[paulgadzikowski]

On Tumblr did lasses and lads Their way with fail poetry had. You're having your fun But you're fooling no one - It takes skill to do something this bad.

[luthienne]

Wendell Berry, New Collected Poems; "Words"

[natalieironside]

If you're a writer you're supposed to write a lot of bullshit. It's part of the gig. You have to write a lot of absolute garbage in order to get to the good bits. Every once in a while you'll be like "Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted all that time writing bullshit," but that's dumb. That's exactly the same as an Olympic runner being like "Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted all that time running all those practice laps"

[echo-temporis]

[Text ID:

Torture Method

You taught me that the mind finds its own instruments. Blunt tools for honest flesh.

A meticulous dismantling of expectation— The promise of water for days and then, only dust. An empty glass.

The understanding that the sharpest pain is often the one you inflict upon yourself, with memory; what-ifs; the endless rehearsal of moments you can't unlive.

The greater pain is the knowing that something does survive— the thought that the very essence of you, that vulnerable bird, might not die but simply learn to sing a different, more somber tune in a more claustrophobic cage.]

~ @nosebleedclub poetry prompt: torture method ~

[frofc]

I have no time

for men of lies

who hide behind

their old school ties

Dictating fate

with stroke of pen

the live or die

of greater men

[havingapoemwithyou]

the city by C. P. Cavafy

[hopepunk-humanity]

hello! have some recs!

first - i’ve been thinking about buddhist statuary a lot lately. specifically, the depiction of non-human beings like asura ( sort of like demons? ) and naga ( serpents, though iirc in indonesia they’re considered dragons ).

i’m not sure what the interpretation is in other countries, but i know where i come from ( thailand ), naga are said to be unable to be ordained or reach enlightenment due to being animals. and yet, they still appear everywhere in art and monastic architecture, since they’re seen as guardians, unable to attain enlightenment but still helping those on their path towards it. and you get stories of naga helping people out, doing good deeds. the buddha himself was a naga, in one of his many past lives detailed in the jataka tales.

and every time i see any of that, it makes me think. choosing to do good, you know, despite the naysayers and the derision, despite your end result seeming out of reach. in the context of today’s world- you might not get a nobel peace prize or end climate change or whatever, but you’re still contributing. and who knows, maybe you will end up getting there someday. or maybe it’s not even about achieving any goals, it’s just about being able to do something for someone.

second - “fra tempeste funeste quest’ alma,” from g.f. handel’s rodelinda, regina de’ langobardi ( there’s a good version of it here ). 

it’s specifically about how one of the main characters still has hope because the other main character still loves him, but i feel like that applies to a more general context as well, yknow? there’s someone out there who loves you, so hang in there. 

also the character who sings this aria, unulfo, is this optimistic little guy. underneath all the political drama of the opera is a very much human story of love and sacrifice, and this guy plays a big part in setting things right, bringing everyone back together. thinking of him genuinely helped me through a tough period in my life. very hopepunk.

i apologise for this being so long ( and possibly unintelligible in some places- english isn’t my first language ;-; ) but i hope ( heh ) this helps.

Hopepunk rec

[deadmomjokes]

It recently came up in conversation with my toddler that some birds can talk, and this has caused her great concern.

See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”

So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.

“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”

We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.

I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.

I keep thinking about that post that’s like “The first person to hear a parrot talk was probably Not Okay.” Because that’s exactly what happened. She had never been introduced to the concept, and her entire worldview got SHOOK.

[philosophicalparadox]

Part of why Ravens are considered Spooky Bad Things We Associate With The Faeries is because they can and do mimic human speech - but much, much better than a parrot. With a parrot, you can tell something is off about the sound. You can tell it doesn’t belong to a human. Ravens don’t sound like that, no, cause they’re overacheivers. (And passerines). They sound EXACTLY like the voice of whoever they are mimicking.

But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.

However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.

Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.

And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.

I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.

So yeah. Parrots arent the only ones.

[summer-fruits-and-cream]

WHAT

[roseofithaca]

Was anyone gonna tell me that ravens can talk or was I meant to read about it on a tumblr post?!

[ironedorchid]

Talking Ravens has been a trope in fantasy for so long that people forgot that it is based in fact.