#Language Reflections

[mynihongolessons]

✨ New blog post! ✨ 5 things I wish I knew before starting Japanese—from mindset to motivation. Whether you're a beginner or starting over, these reflections are for you. 💛 #LearnJapanese #JapaneseForBeginners #SelfStudyTips #MyNihongoLessons #LanguageJourney

[terriblesolomons]

Ok but guys isn't it actually crazy how Eugene Roe's presence is literally defined by the ineffable silence of God....ep 6 has no narrative voice beyond the languageless vision of Roe's literal perspective....he brings with him silence in every episode he's in like the chaos after Jackson blows himself up stills completely when Doc runs in - they all go silent & frozen & breathless - when any man is wounded the very concept of words beyond orders fail...he talks about how Renee is blessed to calm the wounded she treats but it's evident that he brings with him something even graver than calm; it's unutterable, literally, it's a prayer, it's a response to the silence we meet (Roe meets) in his prayers (it's a reflection on the insane power we - they - have over our own - and their own - mortality - that silent and sometimes apparently godlike capacity to return (to the front lines) from the dead (that hell of lost brotherhood in the hospitals)?)

[notbecauseofvictories]

there are many indignities about being alive, but one of the very worst is when you're forced to treat your own brain like a small child screaming its lungs out in a public place for some undisclosed and indiscernible reason---but critically, your brain and the child both won't stop until you fix whatever it is, and your first 20 guesses will be wrong.

[bezsenn-osc]

[vermofftiss]

Hey just a reminder that murderbot thinks gender is human bullshit and uses it/its pronouns and if you use anything else for it you'd better correct that right now

[hahahafangirl]

the failure of language

so im getting around to write some suonirei fanfic and, inevitably, got to Backstory Speculations activities. and now i begin to think about suo (windbreaker in general) and the failure of language -- when people, regardless of how much they try or how eloquent they find themselves to be, will find points where they are unable to give words to what they are feelings or explain some difficult emotions or circumstances to themselves or another person.

think, sakura going "how am i supposed to treat you now?" after hearing out umemiya's childhood story-- what is he supposed to say? to act in general? language, spoken or behavioral, failed him. umemiya redirected sakura to language: he did not expect sakura to treat him any differently. come back to the language you understand, he says. and now we complicated "language" to means "a vehicle of interactions and expression", which is functionally what language is.

well i did say that this arise from thinking about suo, most notably, thinking about how windbreaker expresses speechlessness and stillness very frequently from suo's silence. think the focus on suo's eyes at any moment where language are yet adequate to say what is happening: suo and nirei's response to sakura's solitary during sickness; suo's anger (in KEEL and shishitoren) occurring wordlessly; and, most recently (which sorta sparked this line of thought), this page

note the wordlessness. a lot of time, wbk starts out the responses to these sincere and vulnerable moments with this wordlessness, where characters ponder and reflect on the statement, often evoking their own memories and experiences, thus empathizing with the vulnerability in question. it is a reflective and thoughtful way to begin the process of empathy in silence. it feels ritualistic, even, like meditation, to begin connecting with other by a silence that could be taken to be a single-minded, pure focus -- on what is being put on the stage to ponder. maybe this is not quite a failure of language, depending on how we see it, but rather, a moment outside of language priming for its arrival. it is not time for language to enter the scene yet.

but then language always come, sooner or later. as awkwardly or curtly or roughly, sakura and nirei speak sincere words that come from the bottom of their heart. language -- thus connection and empathy -- then propel the conversation. suo, notably (at least without me combing through the manga again) often does not enter this realm of language the way sakura and nirei do it. when he empathize sakura's feelings when he was sick, suo did it where sakura cannot hear. the only(?) time he responded genuinely (please bring up examples or counterexamples if you have it on hand) was when nirei was feelings insecure about his inability to fight and ask suo for help. but even then, the response of "your self-esteem is all over the place" is not quite the personal, genuine approach sakura or nirei has. its quite measured and reflective -- responding to nirei's statements rather than clearly interjecting something to the conversation. many of suo's vulnerabilities are deflected by falsehoods (harmless jokes, not malicious lies), distractions, etc, etc. language seemingly continues to fail him, or he continues to evade it.

i am in a habit of not stating my Backstory Speculations, because a lot of times i want to stick closer to the texts. whatever Speculations i have will most likely manifest as fanfiction (oh boy is that an ambitious media to do this in). but anyway, from popular hc of suo being potentially a "traitor" or somehow entangled in a major and antagonistic organization, his failure to relate this to his friends and thus him hiding his past can be taken as another failure of language. perhaps languages continuously fail him in his childhood-- hence it has yet to learn how to succeed.

p/s: i should also say that im enjoying using different concepts and ideas to speculate/think about and analyze the text (wbk) in a different way. this is basically what comparative literature and literary criticism is, i think (lol). sometimes i feel like this is just me dressing up good ole literary theme in a fancier language, but whatever works works lol. hopefully as i continue to think of the "inability to express your true emotions" and "inability to be vulnerable" more specifically (or broadly) as a failure of language, more interesting insights will come up. its less about what the texts is literally and consciously say, and more about how we can think about the text using -- and extract from the text via -- various frameworks.

yep, this is probably gonna be a more complete essay at some point. i even pulled out the usual rccl register for this!

[tila-bean]

*Pauses music*

How many words related to time would Elvhen have? If the ancient elves were immortal, would they have celebrated birthdays or anniversaries? Would they have had national or empire-wide holidays? Would they have kept count of the days, months or years? Would they have had a reason to? And if Elvhen didn't originate from the people who came from the First Born, if it came from the spirits of the Fade, did they keep track of time as well or was that something unique to mortals?

*closes the music app by accident*

NO, GO BACK!

[thirdity]

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis.

Umberto Eco, in The Screen Education Reader: Cinema, Television, Culture, by Manuel Alvarado

[mrsoulstice]

🙂‍↕️🙂‍↔️

[stargirl230]

Art summary 2024!

Was fighting for my life trying to fill in those last few months but I managed it without using too many wips or bday cards (rip september)

Huge ty to everyone who stuck around - pls know that I read all your kind tags and messages (often multiple times in disbelief) and that they always make my year <3

(no reposts!)

[fire-on-fuel]

somewhat overlooked point but it's always been interesting to me that vau's father's problem with him was the dissapointment/dishonor type just because you probably wouldn't guess. Vau generally reads blank but the fact that he's someone who thinks he's removed the problem by viscerally cutting out all the visible manifestations of it is. yeah great job. Day to day he operates with this crystal clear refusal to subject himself to others' opinions [heavily implied 'like before' here] but we see him instill a version of the same fear honed traits in his cadets and watch it bubble up in relation to jango and even more curiously himself. He's such a pile of completely at war with eachother hand picked pieces held together with tack welds. You're lying to yourself, walon

[fraisefille33]

Setting realistic goals for 2025 because I refuse to spend another year not doing anything because I made my goals too difficult to achieve in one year.

[voidcat]

..anyways

good night folks, wishing you all a good eid and weekend to come... take care ^^

[samtastic]

De Selby (part 1) / Butchered Tongue / To Someone From a Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe)

[yudzukii]

Touch

?'s are bridges

Over rivers of uncertainty

Where pulses encounter

Two hearts leaning towards

Two hearts forming chords

Lost and lonely soloists

play heartstrings monophonic

Desperate instrumentalists

snap the heartstrings in two

The name of this bridge is:

"tell me who are you?"

What's the sound of your heart?

[thirdity]

The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance.

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography