#applied semiotics

[leapfrogstrategyconsulting]

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[dykesynthezoid]

Not to go full Kristevan semiotics but intentionally showing the flatline on Daniel’s laptop recording… cut in between the peaks and valleys, red…. one day you’re at a traffic light… green light… horns honking, you don’t move… horns honking, you don’t move… it’s about the boundary of start/stop, it’s about the repetition, it’s about intermittence… an empty space between spikes… one sentence clause, then another, up against each other, up-down, repeating, constructing boundary out of juxtaposition… red, green… it’s about what happens when the symbolic boundaries get broken… and what is a greater transgression of signified boundaries than a corpse. Death in the flesh. The realized abject. Horns honking, you don’t move. He never says, you’re dead. But we know. Green means go. You don’t go. The symbol has no meaning in the face of death. Boundaries broken. Meanings broken. All that careful construction simply crumbles.

Intermittence as a language of boundaries and therefore a language of inferred meaning but also a language of horror and yet, still, a language of the erotic. “It is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic; the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance.” The erotic as a sort of liminal space, the flash between boundaries. The abject, and horror, as things that transgress those boundaries. The sublime, ashamed jouissance where these things overlap. The thrill.

One sentence clause, then another. Boundary by juxtaposition. Two symbols standing next to each other. Peaks and valleys. You, me. Me, you. The boundaries give meaning. I construct myself against you. But what happens when the boundaries between you and me no longer exist? What happens when I am you and you are me and our blood is one body?

Horror. A thrill. Death. Erotic where we overlap. No subjects remain. There is only an undefinable not-thing. An abject. This is monstrousness.

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

I think it’s funny when people roll their eyes about all the time Sanderson spends on clothes and fashion, as if it’s not an integral part of the world building and character development. I did my undergrad thesis on fashion semiotics in Mistborn (primarily using Roland Barthes) and there’s a direct correlation between how Vin is dressing and where she’s at on the hero’s journey, but in a way that doesn’t feel obvious at first. So it’s interesting to read Yumi and see how Sanderson is utilizing the language of fashion to explore these worlds and characters. The changing room scene with Akane is more than just a cute romcom scene, it’s about the process of discovery. Which is obvious but I can’t help harkening back to Barthes, who co-opts De Saussure’s thoughts on language for the use of fashion.

De Saussure identifies two aspects of language and communication: langue and parole. Langue is the rules of a particular language (subject verb order, for example) and parole is how an individual uses those rules to express themselves. Barthes applies this idea to fashion. We’re given these arbitrary rules of fashion (even as simple as “one must be dressed in public”) and from there we learn to work within the parameters of those rules to outwardly express ourselves. There’s a difference between your favorite pair of jeans and the pair of slacks you wear to work; there’s a difference between the dress you wear to a job interview and the dress you wear on a date where you’re trying to fuck.

The changing room scene is Yumi shotgunning the concepts of langue and parole all at once. She is learning new rules (you can have your shoulders bare) while learning how to express herself within the parameters of those rules (you can wear a dress with bare shoulders and still cover your shoulders with another garment). It’s cute and sweet but also important. She’s learning not just how to express herself but also that she’s allowed to. There’s nothing frivolous about how Sanderson uses and describes fashion. It’s a direct outgrowth of the journeys he sends his characters on.

[beameized]

my bi cyno agenda and Collei's beef with Haitham (before he becomes her tutor and whatever grievances are laid to rest)

Also my Collei HCs:

Collei is that Cyno, Kaveh and Nari were quite excited to get her into their darshan after she finished her basics. Except she didn't really want to go there because they are fields of research that the Doctor often employed in his experiments. She feels her skin crawl just thinking about it and she's not sure if in-depth study would be empowering or triggering. And frankly, Collei didn't want to risk it.

She got the idea of going for Haravatat from Faruzan who taught her basic letters. She said semiotics was quite a flexible field of study, in that it encompasses other fields. And Collei liked that sense of security so she opted to apply for Haravatat.

Cyno asked Alhaitham's help here and he did enjoy helping out those who were earnest in their studies so Alhaitham's readily agreed. (Also he's gay for Cyno but yeah even if he was, he wouldn't agree if Collei was a difficult student... or would he?)

But anyway, I think Collei would struggle telling Nari the most because he did teach her quite a bit. And his expectations were the highest. But also he understands what Collei struggles with the most. And reassures her that her decision wouldn't change a thing and they'd always be academic brothers and sisters (Cyno too). There's hug and tears.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

I've asked myself many times over the course of three years about how would I react to information that comes to contradict a specific image I have about people. And the answer would differ, more or less, depending on a myriad of factors, such as my mental wellbeing, my attitude toward the fandom, the group, the members, etc. The truth is, I only knew how I would respond the moment it happens and I was pleasantly surprised in a way. I see it as a sign that I'm doing better or at least I'm on the path of doing better.

These are things that I didn't want to allow to come to surface in the way I used to handle the BTM blog. Perhaps because the point was to create a platform in which I could offer the rational, researched perspective which I considered to be the correct one. I'm not retracting any of that. I still believe that it is possible to offer a more complex perspective if I can back it up with knowledge from various fields, but it was also one of my defense mechanisms.

Without expanding on the personal reasons, it has become very easy for me to separate my rational and emotional side. So much, that even when I should be staying in the moment and let my emotions take space, I can't really do it, I need to come up with a rational explanation so it can make sense. I then applied this to BTS as well. I couldn't just say I like this group when someone would ask, I would have to tell them about all the studies I read and how my fascination is mostly intelectual, when in truth it was both. I used to talk about jikook only in the context of analysis, be it GCF through semiotics or various types of interpretations when it came to their performances or fandom reception in terms of their dynamics. It had to be in the context of rational fascination and curiosity because I was merely trying to justify myself on why I care that much about two strangers that I look at on my phone. Again, my intellectual curiosity is real, but that has always been only one side if the coin, but it was one that I pushed.

It's about shame actually. I can't actually accept that I have such an interest. It doesn't fit with the idea I have of myself. And sometimes I don't like it because it makes me question my intellect, my critical thinking. How can I be so good academically and at the same time I fear that I've fallen into a fandom trap? I'm smart, right? Right?

I'm sure a lot of people have dealt with or ar going through this process of cognitive dissonance. How does one deal with the mere idea that something they believe in based on their understanding of the world, their ability of decoding (not in a conspiracy sense, but in a Saussurean way) can turn out to be wrong? We see something that resembles a specific behavior that we are surrounded with our entire lives, sometimes we ourselves engage with, but we've identified it wrong on others? Of course, it's through the visual medium, one that is edited. It's a puzzle with large chunks missing, but we're getting a general idea of it. But we can be wrong. So how do we deal with that? Well, I don't have a correct answer.

Me in 2020/2021 would have been more affected because my mental health was not good. I was functionally depressed and I clinged so much onto BTS, Jikook and the small community that I found myself in at that time, that I would have felt a lot more torn than I am now.

A couple of years later and having to actually go through a situation in which my understanding of people's relationship might not be accurate, I realized I'm fine. And I think it's because it made me really register just now that I finally learned how to have fun with it. It took me three years. By having fun, I mean genuinely being able to simply enjoy the little things. I'm still on the path of not being ashamed for liking kpop or spending time talking about the dynamic/relationship of two people.

What prompted this post was reading what is currently being written in the jikook tag. Yes, I had this big introductory chunk that perhaps people won't bother reading, but I'm doing it for myself. If I can't be honest while writing stuff into the void for strangers to read, then what is the point?

I get frustrated very easily. I like debates and contradictory points of view, but not always. And that's because I like to be right. Almost all the time. So when I see something that I believe it lacks logic or I find it absurd, then my fingers are itching. I don't comment or DM people, I can control myself. I'd rather get out of the app and do something else.

What I want to say is I was surprised at how much fanfiction is being written. More that usual. Shipping contains a big deal of fanfiction by its nature. Gestures and events taking place at different times are interpreted and having information added that fills the gaps. People do that because they have to make sense of what they see.

They like to make relationship timelines. They speculate on first kisses and first sexual experiences. That's their imagination. None of us has any way of knowing. The element of fiction is heighted when people feel like they are losing control of the narrative. When they are unsure of what they are seeing. Which is what usually happens in the shipping community on a yearly basis. Anons flooding the bloggers' inboxes because they need confirmation or they didn't get any ship content in a month or two which means something is wrong.

There's this understanding that the shipper/supporter is delusional while the one who stops shipping is the rational one. From what I've observed throughout time and mostly now, that is a false distinction. The so-called rational fan makes use of fiction just as the shipper. The difference is in purpose. One talks about why the supposed romantic relationship is real and the other tries to refute that. But both categories seem to need fiction in order to build their arguments. That is because none of them have access to someone's private life and relationship, so the gaps need to be filled with speculation. There is no right or wrong version here, despite how much the idea is being pushed. And me writing about this won't make a difference. It's simply how the fandom works. The one who position themselves on the side of anti-delulu will always be seen as the less crazy one. The similarities will fade for the collective consciousness of the fandom.

I think it's difficult for a lot of people, regardless on which side they find themselves on, to accept that the option of simply not knowing is enough as well. Or knowing, but without getting anal about it. But it's hard and they write posts after posts, anons are sending asks over asks because there has to be a firm answer. Only a few allow themselves to be in between lines.

I'll bring back something that I always used to say. Shipping and involvement in the fandom is a lot more about us and less about the people we're talking about. It's about fullfiling some needs, of needing a community, of focusing on the idea of love. Those things can still be done in a way that still makes the experience enjoyable. But not everyone can and I'm not blaming it.

There's a way to just like how people behave with each other and imagine things without adding so much weight to it. Regardless of the true nature. It's our imagination, there's no need for a moral inquisition to tell anyone how to think or that they should stop thinking a certain way. Touching some grass is a cliche and an expression I ended up hating, but I do believe that being connected to discourse on a daily basis can really alter our sense of reality and what we consider to be real issues. We really should pay more attention to that and take some distance if necessary.

[marudeinusa]

clari would you be so kind as to say a few things about the diagrams at the bottom of your about.. i understand a few of them but others not so much.. either way thank you ^^;;

Of course!!!! ^_^ ♡ im glad they caught your interest

These two have to do with the figure of the narrator. The one on the left sorts types of story narrators into categories based on their level of story engagement and awareness. You can read more about this if you look up Genette's opus and Rimmon-Kenan's writing on narrative levels! The diagram on the right serves to bring forward a difference between the author and the fictive narrator, as well as between the fictive reader addressed by the fictive narrator and the actual irl reader. You can clearly see which persons, as well as which literary devices constitute the storyworld, and which exist outside of it.

On the left is a Greimas semiotic square. It is a diagram used in semiotics (scientific study of signs) to analyze concepts considered to be opposite (such as life and death, feminine and masculine...) on the picture to the right is an already analyzed feminine/masculine square that reveals four new concepts derived from the relationships between the original two. You can analyze pretty much any story, interaction, rule or construct that holds any cultural meaning in this manner

Next are two narrative schemas, diagrams used to analyze any kind of story-like action either fictional or real. This schema is older, developed by a dramaturg named Sauriau and intended specifically for study of theatre plots driven by conflict, but I belong to those who still swear by it and apply it to non-dramatic texts as well rather than newer models. Sauriau assigns six "foces of dramaturgy" to various forces acting within the story. These are usually characters, but can also be abstract concepts such as love, jealousy etc. The main forces that constitute every single action and facet of a drama are: Lion (desire), Mars (opposition), Sun (the desired good), Earth (the desired recipient), Balance (arbiter of the situation) & Moon (help/aid). In a simple story this model could be applied as such:

Lion: the Prince (he wants to marry Cinderella so he is looking for he

Mars: the evil stepmother (who doesn't want Cinderella to marry)

Sun: Cinderella

Earth: both Cinderella and the Prince, for they would both benefit from marriage

Balance: retribution/truth <- Balance is very rarely a person, so you can be rather volatile in choosing it. If evil characters come to suffer by chance as the goodies win, it'll usually be something like this

Moon: tbh that fat mouse did most of the work and the skinny mouse too

This is a more recent narrative schema called the actantial model, and it was developed by the same man as the semiotic square (Greimas). He sought to apply Souriau' model to a wider variety of situations not neccessarily driven by misunderstanding and desire in a way most plays are, applied a lot of semiotics and ended up with these terms which are, as you can tell, a lot less flowery and more down to earth than Souriaus. For Greimas, it's like this:

Lion/desire -> Subject

Sun/desired good -> Object

Moon/aid -> Helper

Earth/recipient -> Reciever

Mars/opposition -> Opponent

Instead of an arbiter, here we have a Sender. Their relationship is not 1:1, but they do sort of fill each other's empty space.

Many people today favor this model, but many think that life is a stage and we don't need to remove ourselves so far from Sauriau to analyze more down to earth actions

I forgot this one! It's one neccessary stage of a conflict analyzed using the model above (Sauriau's!)

This is a diagram that serves to illustrate the ideal flow of a group project or activity lol :)

[vivalabunbun]

Hiii Viva~

Hope, you'll take your time to read this. It's not a request of course. I was simply curious about something. To be honest, I've read all your fics and my goodness, they are mind blowing and always make overwhelm with emotions. Specially how you portray Al-Haitham. Every fic of his feels like a fic and a character study all at once.

You know, in your recent fic, I just noticed that you said Alhaitham is a man logic and rationality, which is true. But isn't he from the Haravatat Darshan or a department that has something to do with studying and deciphering various scripts? Like isn't he a linguist? I thought he was a man associated with the humanities stream or something like that if we put it into modern terms. So, the question here is—why portray him as a man of science? Sure, he's a genius and an intellectual person but can a person really be that apt at two different disciplines? For example, I'm a political Science Honours student and honestly....I hate subjects that has anything to do with maths or science in general. 🥲 Does that make sense?

I'm not saying, you can't portray him like that or anything but rather the intent of doing so. And honestly, I think, you yourself are a highly intelligent individual. The way you put tid bits of practical information into the plot of fics says a lot about you, the author as well. I admire that quality and probably would like to know how you do it so effortlessly?

I really hope that I did not come off as criticizing or a dumb person in general. I was just curious and wanted to know. Hope, you'll read this.

Btw, Happy Basant Panchami from India, Viva. Today, we worship the goddess of knowledge, wisdom and arts here. Fun fact, it's actually kinda officially forbidden to study today, you know.

Hope, I didn't rant much....sorry, in advance. 🥲🌹

Arunima~

Hello! this is an interesting ask 🤔

From my understanding, Haravatat focuses on semiotics, which also includes linguistics. Linguistics is a field of science, the scientific study of languages. Because empirical research is involved along with empirical evidence.

Perhaps you were thinking about literature, which is of the humanities and academia. Although of course, there are possible overlaps between linguistics and literature.

Al Haitham liked to read abstruse academic journals from a young age, so I'd like to think tidbits of information from those journals would naturally bury themselves in his thoughts.

His thoughts and ponderings resemble those who have been part of the sciences. Disagree, question, challenge.

Thus, why he's a nerd (affectionate).

But of course, this is all from my perspective, which is different from yours, which is different from the next person.

It's what makes character writing interesting because everyone will view everyone differently.

Thank you for your ask and Happy (belated?) Basant Panchami!

Your ask brought up an interesting thought, why can't people be apt at both humanities and science?

All throughout history humanities and science have helped the other progress. They are not opposites nor should they be. They progress thought, which in turn helps us better understand knowledge and the world around us.

Disagree, question, and challenge the paradigm is how the humanities and science have gotten where they are today, and how they will get to tomorrow.

I'm not an intelligent person, I'm just a curious person. I like reading a wide variety of things from fiction to academic essays, even mathematical theories in textbooks and notes from friends in premed. Because I'm curious about them.

Then I like applying them to what I create because I love creating. Little factoids here and there because I think it's interesting, learning about how things work so I can better draw the things I like.

No one has to be a genius or a prodigy to be apt at both, just be open-minded and willing to look at both. There is also nothing wrong about only liking one or the other.

Let's just not pit them against each other because then it'll just be destructive.

Maybe many have forgotten the symbiotic relationship between humanities and sciences.

[cottagehorror-lesbians-stuff]

how the image of abel and cain was used to portray lee dong-sik and lee yu-yeon

a not so short draft of an essay

ricardo j. quinones

1- abel and cain

not everyone is familiar with biblical stories (and it's normal) so here is their story as you can find it in some versions of the genesis, further analyses will be cited as i go:

wikipedia, genesis 4:1-18

2- lee dong-sik and lee yu-yeon

. since they are twins, their link to one another is reinforced. where age and gender could semiotically separate them, the fact that they are twins means that they are half each other's whole person. it is of course not true when you apply it to a realistic dimension. but on a symbolic level, they are doubles and they do reflect each other.

. lee yu-yeon was chosen to be the conventionally successful one, leading a good christian life, to whom praise and opportunities were given due to her good temperament. arguably it was subjective.

. lee dong-sik was the 'hopeless' child, constantly compared to his alter-ego. but it does not always seem fair or justified.

. however, the twins did not apply society's judgement to one another. lee dong-sik did not resent lee yu-yeon for being well-considered. lee yu-yeon did not resent lee dong-sik for not being as successful and hard-working as her. they cared for each other, and did not let external factors tear them apart or create jealousy and dissensions between them. if they ever argued, i best believe it most likely had nothing to do with the values of society or of their religious community, but just brother-sister shenanigans.

3- lee dong-sik as cain and lee yu-yeon as abel

. lee yu-yeon and abel are symbolically the first murder victims, both in the bible and in the context of the show. lee yu-yeon starts the storyline.s that we are following, even though previous crimes had been committed. you can see my post on lee yu-yeon here, where i mention it separately. on top of this, ricardo j. quinones mentions abel as such:

and indeed lee yu-yeon is the missing piece in solving the crimes in manyang. she is also the christlike figure of innocence who receives the most compassion due to her integration in society's conventions.

. lee yu-yeon and abel are both favored by higher authorities, be it by god in the bible, or by adults, society, and religious community in beyond evil. both in the bible and in beyond evil, this preference proves to be arbitrary, difficult to substantially back up, and unfair. even perhaps not willed by the concerned protagonists. this preference is also the reason why their deaths become so pivotal in each story.

. lee dong-sik in parallel is not cain. but he is turned into cain by figures of authority. he is framed, and most importantly, rendered responsible for his sister's disappearance. if we refer to the wikipedia passage of the genesis i included, it is textually visible that both lee dong-sik and cain reject at first the responsibility for their sibling's disappearance. only, one is being honest, and the other deceptive. cain's story was the easiest narrative to apply to lee dong-sik: the jealous, treacherous brother who stole a precious life because of a wounded pride. and bodies were found in a field where lee dong-sik's guitar pick was once planted, echoing to the first crime in the bible, and its perpetrator.

. arguably, lee yu-yeon's disappearance and the accusations against lee dong-sik echo to the cain-abel story, as ricardo j. quinones puts it:

the twins' story marks the shift between what manyang could have been before the murders and what it became, a shift in its dynamic, the end of a way of life. paralleling the cain-abel story and lee dong-sik - lee yu-yeon's is also useful in the exploration of family dynamics, and how preferences between siblings can prove detrimental.

. since the unconscious of manyang perceives lee dong-sik as the bearer of cain's appearance, he receives equal punishment, although he is in fact innocent. he is cursed with being a wanderer. and with that: an untouchable wanderer, so that his punishment is even greater than just being an outcast. he is unpunishable for a crime he is believed to have committed, but he is forever judged poorly by his peers. he is not sent to prison, but he never reintegrates society per se.

ernesto livorni points out cain's condition as follows:

. we can also take quite literally the fact that god curses cain with never being able to cultivate the soil again. lee dong-sik is left to hope for lee yu-yeon fo twenty years, unable to find any traces of her wherever he is looking. and his endless quest takes a major part of his life away from him, forever. he is left living on nothing, always seeking what he cannot find.

4- some other thoughts

. now, that was the most obvious links that came to my mind. but the show in itself insists on deconstructing the cain narrative built around lee dong-sik. and to do so, as aforementioned, they portray the twins' relation as bulletproof to society's imposed rhetoric on their dynamics.

they loved each other, and supported each other. there was no jealousy, no resentment, no competition. love is the final answer provided by the writers of the show to end dissensions, or to cope with them within communities.

. in parallel, lee dong-sik was able to break away from his curse when he could expose the truth and find lee yu-yeon. he was also able to receive punishment for his misdeeds, and able to clear his name, to find a new sense of community.

. lee yu-yeon died in a field, yes, but her body was trapped in the wall of her house. this also breaks away from abel and cain's narrative: the evil was not her brother. it was something else. the town's people were wrong in assuming lee dong-sik could do something like this to his own sister. not being able to find her body for so long was lee dong-sik's curse and redemption. he both suffered from a lack of closure, and then gained a definite means to prove that he was innocent.

. i'd like to conclude my brief analysis with once again a quote from ricardo j. quinones, which i think sums up well the importance of how the cain-abel story was used in the context of beyond evil:

[leapfrogstrategyconsulting]

Revolutionise Marketing: Leapfrog Strategy Consulting - Your Experts in Marketing Semiotics

Leapfrog Strategy Consulting revolutionises marketing with its profound expertise in Marketing Semiotics. Our tailored solutions decode the cultural and symbolic meanings embedded in consumer behaviour, enabling brands to craft compelling marketing strategies. Gain a competitive edge in the market and amplify your brand's resonance with the power of Marketing Semiotics from Leapfrog Strategy Consulting.

[indigosfindings]

🔥

(Creepypasta)

this is less creepypasta specifically and more general (applies to, like, horror games, horror-adjacent Posts, etc) but like: im very tired of the way that "this place is not a place of honour, nothing of value is here," etc gets deployed in Online Horror. like, the whole point of that passage is that it's a semiotic exercise in how to communicate those sentiments nonverbally. writing out or dictating the whole spiel defeats the purpose of it! like, if youre leaving a warning message in english you wouldnt need to talk around it, you would just say "WARNING: NUCLEAR WASTE, DO NOT ENTER"

[essektheylyss]

What's dunamis, in your words? For the uninitiated

So, with apologies for watering down an already watered down scientific metaphor, there's an anecdote that comes up a lot if you read any sort of pop science books on quantum theory or physics, wherein a professor burns a sheet of paper and tells a class, "All of the information on the paper still exists in the ashes," because in theory, quantum information cannot be destroyed. This analogy is super metaphorical, generally referring to the idea that, for example, anything that gets pulled into a black hole is not in fact lost, it's just beyond our reach, with the understanding that "information" is a highly broad term applied to many, many things and in this realm of physics it has a very particular meaning that most people do not consider when they hear the word 'information,' but this isn't a semiotics lecture.

Anyway, as such, it gets completely misconstrued as the idea of quite literally being able to reconstruct whatever notes or ideas were recorded on that paper, which is not accurate in real world physics. Information as ideas and concepts are not recorded in subatomic particles, at least not in anyway we can access or reconstruct.

However... it could be true in an arcane system, if you wanted it to, cuz why not! And given dunamis's impact on probability, and pulling from alternate timelines and potential, as well as the fact that consecution suggests souls are held within a beacon and then put back into a newly-born body, I'm essentially of the mind that dunamis could take the place of those subatomic particles and, when manipulated in the arcane sense, can be used to essentially reconstruct conceptual information of the universe. (That's the very basic idea, anyway, and I'm just using this for fic fodder, but if you are interested in wading through a very introspective chunk of fic for more, it's mostly in here.)

Which is just slightly to the left (and essentially could be a next possible conjecture) of what Caleb described.

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

Really, tumblr offers one of the best examples of semiotics in action that I can think of on the internet. So much of the humor and interactions on this site revolve around the collective understanding of images to communicate. Semiotics comes down to signs and how we read them. We can apply this to language but so much of semiotic understanding is non-verbal, which is what makes tumblr kind of unique from this perspective. If I posted:

You’d understand it. While this meme has spread somewhat, it has a meaning on tumblr that we can easily divine.

Semiotics is (basically) the study of the communication of signs and symbols. In order for something to have meaning you must have a signifier (the method of communication), the signified (what is being communicated), which both work together to form the sign (the signal that something is being communicated).

If I posted an image of Castiel saying “I love you” in another ecosystem, some people might get it but most people wouldn’t. They don’t have the ability to understand that there is a sign there. But if I posted that same image on tumblr, your heart would stop a little bit because you’d expect some fucked up news to be delivered.

Same with “I like your shoelaces.” Said to a random person they’d have no idea what the fuck I was on about. Said to a tumblr user? They’d know. In this case the signifier is the phrase “I like your shoelaces” and the signified is “I know you’re on tumblr.” If you’re not on tumblr you don’t know the “correct” response.

The meme ecosystems of other websites certainly function in similar ways but what makes tumblr unique is our inability to let jokes fucking die. Memes and jokes become part of the linguistic ecosystem and become legitimate methods of communication.

This is what you mean when you say “we’re speaking in hieroglyphs.” You’re not necessarily wrong when you say that (hieroglyphs, like all written language, being a form of semiotic expression) but what you’re actually doing is reaching a kind of semiotic oneness with the larger tumblr culture that enables you to decipher and discern meaning where an outsider might not.

And that fucking rips so fucking hard.

[miraruinada]

"In my Logia, I argued that the dialectical movement shouldn't just be counted as three, but four. See, this chiasm is not just a semiotic square, but the formal structure by which the dialectical isn't simply the temporal sequence between A-B-C, or thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but the very process by which every thesis is a priori the manifestation of its own synthesis: both its resolution and incompleteness. The moment of chiasm is the process by which the dialectic is counted as four here. Not A-B-C, but A-B-X, which implicitly applies A-B-X-B-A. Of course, if you count those out in a formal sequence, you appear to have five and not four, and yet the X is the dialectical vanishing point by which we see in retrospect that every A was always already the mediation of an AB moment in its inverse."

"What?"

"Pay fucking attention! This is the most simple of my ontological framework and is the key insight in my metaphysics! When I argue ideal emerges as concrete qua concrete, I mean that the ideal is not a binary distinction from concrete. Ideal in its very incomplete form, concrete, emerges as ideal proper and vice versa. Concrete is therefore a constitutive entity by which ideal can be thought and made manifest. In other words, essence comes into being for itself precisely by that which appears to be its immanent point of impossibility, namely appearance. Hence the transition from appearance in itself to appearance for itself is the animorphotic kenosis, or parallax gap, where the very barrier, the vanishing point, between ideal and concrete comes to be seen as that which creates the necessity of both. So the gap between reality and transcendental reality is then made immanent to reality as such. So that which appears to bar us from true magic is itself the only formal structure or mechanism by which true magic emerges in the first place, as emptied out. Therefore, an emptying out that is thereby also a filling in is precisely this dialectical movement. Therefore, there is no metaphysical holy grail!"

"You're so fucking hot and tall that I don't even care that I don't get any of the insane shit you've just said, Granja💘!"

"This is the First King of Humanity that ushered in man as thinking animal?"

[aldieb]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Trigun Stampede (Anime 2023), Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Meryl Stryfe & Vash the Stampede Characters: Meryl Stryfe, Vash the Stampede (Trigun), Milly Thompson, Nicholas D. Wolfwood Additional Tags: Cats, Light Angst, Character Study Summary: Why is there at least one cat on No Man’s Land, and why does it follow our heroes around? Meryl investigates. (Too bad she’s never heard of nuclear semiotics.)

this is silly. and not silly. h/t to @denimdepression for providing rich substrate for the brainworms

[scullys]

this is probably too niche but if anyone knows semiotics specifically charles sanders peirce's and likes the x files i'd love to get some different points of view on how to apply those theories to the "bad blood" episode