#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.

[briannysey]

Im 2k words into a new project and I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew

[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.

[buriedpentacles]

Umwelt

I've been reading 'An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us' by Ed Yong - and he introduced a really interesting word/concept that I hadn't really read about in any of my other ethology studies:

Umwelt /ʊmvɛlt/ noun 1. (in ethology) the world as it is experienced by a particular organism. "the worlds they perceive, their Umwelten, are all different"

As written in An Immense World:

"Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal can only tap into a small fraction of reality's fullness. Each is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. There is a wonderful word for this sensory bubble—Umwelt. It was defined and popularized by the Baltic-German zoologist Jakob von Uexküll in 1909. Umwelt comes from the German word for "environment," but Uexküll didn't use it simply to refer to an animal's surroundings. Instead, an Umwelt is specifically the part of those surroundings that an animal can sense and experience—its perceptual world... a multitude of creatures could be standing in the same physical space and have completely different Umwelten."

Obviously I've understood this concept previously, but now there's a nice, neat little word to explain it. It is fascinating for me to consider the different senses and experiences of other animals; all the things I cannot see, or hear, or feel. I am infinitely curious about the ocean's secret melodies, and the colours hidden among the wildflowers, and the strange sensation of a magnetic compass in your brain.

Umwelt goes beyond this: it isn't just "snakes can see heat and birds ultraviolet", Umwelt is also the semiotic world of an individual, it includes everything that is meaningful for the organism. Its flexible - it changes as you experience new things, shifting to adapt around you. In this model, the mind and the world are inseparable, because the mind is what interprets the world. Beyond this, your Umwelt is not just you passively experiencing the world, it's taking in the stimuli and building the world around you - we create our perception, and thus our reality.

Our umwelten is wildly different from a dog's or jellyfish's (different - not better, worst, more or less), we cannot comprehend what they may experience because we are bound by our Umwelten. There are things that we KNOW (or assume) are outside of our Umwelten (like ultraviolet or magnetic fields) but we cannot truly experience them. We may be able to understand them, but we will only be translating these other senses into something we can handle.

Then, I thought of how it might apply to my spirituality and to my magic.

Our Umwelt, our bubble of perception, includes how we perceive magic, and spirits or divinity (insert your preferred terminology), and we are bound by that. No matter whether we "see" or "hear" or just "sense" the magic, our understanding is always constrained by what we can perceive. (This fits neatly into my belief system, where Magic and the Universe appear to us in certain ways so that we can understand them, not because that is how they truly are.)

We each have our own bubble of perception, both for our physical and magical sense. But so must dogs, and jellyfish, and trees and mushrooms and the wind. Spirits and gods have their Umwelten too, though I'm sure they're far beyond my comprehension.

I'm not sure exactly where to take this post, as there's so many wild thoughts going through my mind about this!! But, I wanted to share and discuss the concept! Though I'm not certain how and to what level I will, I do want to integrate this concept into my practice, even if simply by recognising that I cannot understand everything, I am bound by my perception, I am bound by the way my brain builds my world around me.

Please comment, message, whatever - I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this!

[tahthetrickster]

nobody ever notices when you apply semiotics to your league of legends smut fanfiction so i had to do my own explication of some of my favorite parts of it

[3liza]

how are we doing shadow root these days. are we off-scalp bleaching and then shadowing over the virgin hair and combing down to blend, or are we bleaching to scalp and then applying the shadow root to the hot roots. this question is semiotically paywalled

[jgthirlwell]

Nanette Carter applied many of her works directly to the wall to great effect in Simply Semiotics at Berry Campbell

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[haootia]

alright. here's the thing about sexualizing a stop sign. it's going to be about context, not the physical representation of the stop sign. you can't just draw a picture of a stop sign and confer sexiness upon it by pasting on anime blush and sweat droplets. you are not Sexualizing The Stop Sign. you're just applying signifiers of "sexyness" to the stop sign without really interacting with it. they're on different layers, you know , like you are not integrating the sexiness into the parts of the stop sign. which is fair, because that's a difficult task -- a stop sign doesn't have a lot of well-defined "parts" to begin with. right now without looking it up name all the parts of a stop sign. uhhhh. well there's the sign part, and the post. the post maybe has a base if it's mounted on concrete. there's some bolts somewhere holding it all together, assumedly. unless you are a real SignFreak, its very hard to find these things inherently sexy. a stop sign is a very functional and regular object.

(speaking of the SignFreaks, aka people who are literally sexually attracted to stop signs as they are with no additional semiotic garnishes, the kind of person who can look at a wikimedia commons image of a stop sign and get turned on: in this case the stop sign does not need to be sexualized. its already sexy. we're talking about things the artist can do to elicit sexualization for an audience who does not normally find stop signs sexual.)

a stop sign is also simple and nonresponsive. contemporary objectum culture is dominated (ha ha) by computers, which are about the most responsive, interactible, reciprocal objects you can think of. a computer has several loci of interaction, it's very tactile, and the aesthetic variety of computers means they can be different and unique. a picture of a computer is enough to elicit sexuality because you can imagine interacting with it, and that interaction can be intimate -- basic usage of a computer is already very "hands-on", and plenty of people have some experience with maintenance or repairs that involve putting your whole hand inside the computer and fiddling with stuff. which is basically sex. not a wild leap there.

but a stop sign is a distant, boring, non-unique thing. it's more like landscaping than an "object." an inert prop. a stop sign has no moving parts, no analogs for limbs or eyes or organs, even the construction of the word "STOP" resists pareidolia.

(except in arabic. i can see this as a face.)

it's difficult to think of how you could even interact with one intimately. the only hands-on-interaction a stop sign gets is being installed, which we can imagine is not a particularly romantic or dramatic event. besides that, you can look at stop signs, which is their primary function, and you can also lean on them or tie something to them or any other functions you can do with any post on earth. more interestingly, you can crash a car into a stop sign; you can steal a stop sign, if you're a bastard little troublemaker. but the stop sign is not going to do anything back to you. it's just going to stand there.

so the mission is making "just standing there" sexy.

a stop sign is as a stop sign does. a stop sign is standing in the same place forever, saying the same thing forever, and the only interesting thing that can happen to it is getting damaged. there's a clear inflection point there -- a sequence of images of a stop sign getting progressively more damaged is a pretty obvious narrative. it elicits pathos. do you want to make the stop sign more damaged, or do you want to fix it? do you want it to hurt? this is not immediately sexual, you're not putting the stop sign into a sex-analogous situation or anthropomorphizing it to have indicators of sexual arousal, but it's a power dynamic. there is are active and passive roles (the entity damaging the stop sign, the stop sign itself) you can imagine taking.

the stop sign is still relegated to a symbolic role, and most people are probably going to take it as metaphorical and not be literally sexually attracted to the stop sign. but a contextualized, conditional, nuanced sexiness is still a lot better than just putting ahegao faces on shit.

[v-v-v-venus]

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:

[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.