#this is a reader response analysis l

[bookcub]

love at first sight as a trope just will never make sense to me.

now on the one hand, this is personal to me as a demiromantic person and my personal experience from it is so far that comprehending the trope is far too much of a suspension of disbelief on my behalf.

on a narrative structure, it is lazy writing to me. it is the epitome of telling instead of showing. i want to understand why who characters are in love. i want to understand their relationship and their connections. the more love at first sight it depended on, the less opportunity to develop a romantic relationship. i love reading about romance but for me, there is no romance without build up and connections. i have very rarely found a story that makes use of the trope well for me.

[whiskeyghoul]

She blinded me with science || [Spencer Reid X Goth!reader]

A/N: self indulgent little fic here. I have been in a writing slump for a few weeks and needed to do something just a little self indulgent. So we have this which has been on my mind for ever. I love Abby Sciuto from NCIS and thought how fun it would be to see our little nerd fall in love with the alternative lab rat of the FBI. This is not proof read or anything so it might not be the absolute best but I just wanted to put something out here again.

WC: 1737

Tags: fluff, crush, first meeting, love at first sight possibly, multiple parts, opposites attract, self indulgent fic, reader is described as female, reader is alternative

Warnings: Mention of human remains.

Read part 2 here, read part 3 here

The music coming from the lab was muffled. Even through the closed door Spencer could hear the barely legible lyrics as he got closer and closer. As he reached the door and knocked there seemed to be no answer. Certain his knocking wouldn’t be heard over the noise that he now recognized as Siouxsie and the banshees. He opened the door. As soon as the barrier between him and the music was lifted it sounded so clear. It was turned up to 11 and he wondered how anyone could even focus with music that loud.

That was until he saw you, swaying along to the music, the white coat exaggerated the movements. Swishing from side to side as you reach for a pasteur pipette while bobbing your head along to the music. You seemed absorbed in the music, focussed on your work leaning over the bench and carefully dripping a clear substance on a piece of paper while still perfectly on beat with the music. Spencer cleared his throat loudly, hoping to make himself known before he interrupted you in whatever you seemed to be doing. Though it didn’t quite reach the decibel level to alert you. “L/N” he called out your last name but once again no response. So he took a few steps closer. Once Spencer was close enough he reached out and softly tapped your shoulder. You jumped in response, whirling around in shock with the pipette in your hands raised like a weapon. Like somehow you would be able to defend yourself with the lab instrument. A yelp falling from your lips. 

“Oh my god! Can’t you knock!” You accused, eyes wide as you placed your free hand on the top of your chest, taking a deep breath. “I did. I also tried to clear my throat to not scare you.” Spencer retorted, his voice raised a little louder so you could hear him over the music. You twirled around, placing the pipette in the holder. “I’m Doctor Reid, from the BAU.” He continued loudly. You turned, holding your left hand up to shush him. Your right fishing the remote from your coat pocket. It gave Spencer some time to look you over. 

Your lab coat was about the only light thing you wore. The outfit underneath was black on black on black. A band tee with illegible writing that peeked over a corset, layered with a ripped fishnet top underneath. The abundance of necklaces of all different lengths, cascading down your neck like silver waterfalls. Ripped jeans he wasn’t quite sure were safe for the lab environment, but the skin of your thigh caught his attention. Something inside of him stirring. He fidgeted with his hands in front of his body.

“So… you were saying?” You spoke. Spencer’s eyes snapped back to your face. You looked up at him with big eyes, a small smile accompanying them. The music was turned down now giving him room to think. Though your eyes still made it difficult to really focus. “Oh, I am Doctor Reid, from the BAU.”  He answered after swallowing for a moment. “Ah! You are here for the clothing analysis, right? Penelope mentioned one of the team would come pick it up. Normally it's her or Derek, though I think Derek has complained about hearing loss.” You whirled around while rambling on, pony tail waving behind as you turned, bounding over to a table with scattered papers. Spencer followed close behind, not focussing on the words rather just the tone of your voice, a slight intrigue towards you. He didn’t even know your first name, yet somehow your mannerisms, your unconventional style, it made him want to know more. “Right.” He said, realizing he hadn’t technically answered your questions. 

Spencer looked over your shoulder as you picked up a stack of papers neatly stapled together. He thought he might be a bit too close as he could smell the subtle perfume wafting off of you. Though he also strangely enjoyed it. It was sweet but not overly so. A hint of cherry that was fitting in his eyes. The color of the fruit matching that of your lipstick. As you looked over the paper and began to talk again, “So, the substance that was on the clothes seems to be turpentine. Commonly used in oil painting. The vapors can already cause irritation to the eyes, skin, and airways if exposed to them for longer periods of time.” you rambled off the words as you read them. “There were some other things found on the clothes that coincide with the oil painting. Different pigments and paint residue.” You turned, eyes still on the paper nearly bumping into Spencer as he had been standing so close. When you looked up at him surprised he could feel a tightening in his chest. “Oops, sorry.” You apologized, a small smile on your lips.

You apologized to him while he was the one in your way. “Oh it was my fault. Shouldn’t have stood so close. Sorry.” He muttered. The words falling from his lips unceremoniously. He felt like half of his intelligence had up and left his brain as he talked to you. Not really knowing what to say at that moment. His hands fidgeted at his sides again. His left hand playing with the hem of his cardigan sleeve. He cursed himself internally for being reduced to a stumbling mess in front of you. You kept standing there though. Clearly you had turned around to go somewhere and Spencer had been in your way. Yet he was nailed in place and so, it seemed to him, were you. “Did you know they used to make oil paints with human remains?” You spoke excitedly. Like you had been waiting to tell someone, anyone, that little fact. He knew that. He knew that for a long time yet seeing you, tell him a fact with such delight, made him want to lie. “Now I do.” He answered, his smile matching yours.

“It was called mummy brown. They ground up mummies, both human and animal, and put it in the paint.” You continued. Your voice trailing off slightly after the word animal. You held up the stack of papers to him. “Everything you need is in there. If you need me to clarify something just give me a call. Or stop by whenever you want.” Spencer nods after your sentence. Taking the papers from you his hand touched yours ever so slightly. His brain short circuited for a moment before the neurons started firing accordingly again. “I eh- I don’t have your number.” he stumbled over the words.

As if you realized that in that moment you took a step aside and walked past him. Walking over to a desk and rummaging through a drawer. Spencer walked a bit closer to your desk. No longer being nailed in place by some unspeakable force. You pulled out a thin sharpie, and Spencer raised a brow ever so slightly at that. You walked back over, holding out your hand to grasp his. Spencer placed his hand in yours. His mouth felt incredibly dry for a moment. His tongue was uncomfortable in his mouth. His heartbeat raced faster. Nothing like he had ever really felt before. You could have done it on the papers, or maybe even a sticky note. Yet you decided that his hand would be the perfect place to write down your number. He thought about it for a moment, your hand was soft and warm. You twisted his hand, writing down your phone number along with your name. Once you finished you let go off his hand. Spencer looked at the black numbers, committing them to memory, and your name. God your name would be bouncing around his head for days. “Y/N.” He said, testing the name. It felt right.

“That’s me, you better put that in your phone. These markers are not nearly as permanent on skin. It’s the oils.” You went on, capping the marker as you spoke. “I will. Thank you.” Spencer said and smiled. He stayed standing in place for another moment. Trying to commit you to memory just in case his eidetic memory failed him. He realized he was staring a little and cleared his throat. “I eh… I have to go.” pointing his thumb to the door. You giggled a little, a sound that made Spencer’s cheek heat up a little. “Right, pretty boy, head on out. I need to get back to work too.” You smiled casually. Spencer’s face was only heating up more. He swallowed. The nickname the others used for him sounded so much better when it came from you. He turned around to hide his ever heating face from your sight, walking over to the door quickly. Once in the opening he quickly looked back, giving an awkward wave that you returned with a smile. 

When Spencer entered the bullpen his face had calmed down a little. Not feeling nearly as hot as before. He was able to think clearly again, but when he looked at your number and name on his hand he felt giddy inside. Reaching his desk he sat down, placing the analysis file on his desk. “That took you long enough, pretty boy.” Derek called out from his desk, humor in his voice. The nickname had no effect when he said it. “Sorry, the lab tech… she was explaining some things to me.” Spencer quickly lied. “Alright, can I get the file?” Derek had his hand already out. Spencer gave him the file and Derek’s brows raised at the number scribbled on his hand. “You got her number?” He smirked. Spencer pulled his hand back covering the numbers and your name with his other hand. “If something needed more clearing up.” He retorted. Derek merely chuckled at his awkwardness, “She’s friends with Garcia, you wouldn’t have needed her phone number.” He added with a smirk. Spencer felt his face heat up a little again, embarrassed. He knew that. He knew that he had known that. But in that moment he couldn’t think.

He looked back at his hand. Your name on his skin. A little flutter in his chest kicked up when he did. Derek cleared his throat, making Spencer look up again. Derek pointed at him with his pen, before opening his mouth. “You better call her soon.”

[willieverseetheland]

like you mean it (pt. 1)

Dexter Morgan x fem!reader

Summary: You haven't felt very appreciated by your (serial killer) boyfriend recently, so he shows you how much he really cares.

WARNINGS: 18+, angst, implied smut, language

Pt. 2

From the moment that you met Dexter, you knew he wasn't like everyone else. He can be a little socially inept at times, as well as insensitive. However, at the same time, he's incredibly loving, charming, and funny. You love him and all his quirks. Compared to the men you’ve been with in the past, he’s a saint. He's respectful, kind, and you actually feel safe with him.

But at the end of the day, he’s still a man.

He has a hard time seeing things from your perspective, which can cause a lot of arguments, that are almost always one-sided. You try not to nag but it's hard feeling like the only one putting in effort. He often forgets the things that you tell him. You figure he doesn't find importance in the same things that you do. Lately you've been feeling a little neglected. Monday you asked him to come over for dinner, but he said he was busy. Wednesday you asked him to go lunch with you on his lunch break, he said he was busy yet again. You had a movie date planned for Friday; he bailed last minute because he was...busy.

You always get excited thinking he’s going to say yes, planning cute outfits, spending time on your makeup and hair, all for him to say no. You end up sitting on your couch in front of the tv, with a pint of ice cream instead.

Finally you convinced him to come over tonight. You would love for it to be a relaxing and romantic night, but you know you need to have a talk with him. You hate having these talks because it can feel like talking to a brick wall at times. You know he means well; he just doesn't see it the same way or doesn't even mean to make these mistakes in the first place. But it is hurting you, and you're tired of feeling like your boyfriend doesn't want you.

Of course, he won't be here until late. He has to "take care of a few things first". You knew blood-spatter analysis was a complicated job, but you didn't think it would require this much overtime...

Even though you're slightly mad at him, you don't want him to starve so you make dinner for the two of you. As you're setting the table you hear your apartment door unlock.

In walks Dexter, with his adorable face and dorky smile. You may be irritated but you can't help but smile at the sight of him.

"I made dinner, would you like a beer?" you ask

"Sure" he says with a soft smile

He comes over to give you a kiss on the forehead. You make a half-ass smile in response. When you don't kiss him back or even look at him, he can tell something is wrong.

"What did I do?" he frowns

You immediately sigh

"Dexter, I...I just feel like you don't care. About me, about us."

"What? That's not true at all, why do you think that?" He exclaims

"You've been so distant recently. Gone all the time, always bailing on our dates, always busy, you hardly call or text! I just wish you would put in a little more effort, that's all." You can feel tears begin to form; you didn't realize you were this upset about it.

"Y/n, you know I'm busy with this case, they just really need me right now." He's looking at you, looking through you. You can't read any emotion or remorse on his face. This only makes you want to cry more.

"It feels like I don't mean anything to you! I feel like you don't want me anymore." You can feel your face getting hot and your chest tightening. "Fuck, do not cry right now" you think.

You bring your hands to your face, rubbing your eyes in an attempt to ward off the tears.

"What do you mean? Of course you matter to me; I've just been busy." he has a look of confusion, like he can't understand why you would feel this way. He's here now, isn't that all that matters?

"Well, it just doesn't feel like you mean that."

"Well I do, you're my girlfriend, of course I want you." he sighs

"Then prove it! Show me that you mean it." You look into his eyes, you think you finally see it, regret, remorse, guilt.

He brings his hand up to your cheek, he finally sees how upset you are. You sink into his touch, stepping closer to him.

"How? Change? How do you want me to show you that I want you? That I care?" He's looking into your eyes, brows furrowed.

Even with all the hurt and anger, all you want to do in this moment is kiss him. Feel his body against yours. Not only has it been long since you've had any quality time or even a deep conversation, but you also haven't had sex in weeks. You feel guilty for thinking that in this moment, but you just want to feel close to him, connected.

You place your hand over his

"Stay the night. Be with me... Fuck me, like you mean it. Like you want me, like you care."

SURPRISE BITCHESSSS! I told y'all I was on my writing GRIND. If you want a part 2 lmk! Someone return the favor and write Dex fics for me please and ty <3

[aangell333]

hi<333 can i do like a fluff and smut request for aaron hotchner? a virgin//very innocent reader (18+, ofc) who’s maybe spencer’s sister or something, and she meets aaron and he knows she has a crush on him? super flirty banter and lots of touching until it drives the reader crazy, but she won’t admit that it makes her horny? eventually aaron, who’s always so blunt, asks if she’s horny at that moment, and they have a talk about her wants and needs? maybe daddy issues! reader? obv eventual full smut

idk i’m a sucker for daddy! aaron taken innocent readers virginity

thank u <333

how you managed to land a job at the bau, the behavioural analysis unit, at the f-b-fucking-i is beyond you. you’d answered an ad, filled out a form, did a quick interview and boom. you’d been appointed to a team.

granted, it was only as an assistant, most likely running the team’s coffees, but still. that’s running coffees for the fbi. how many people can say they do that for a living?

you walked in on your first day a bundle of nerves. you’d chosen your cutest-but-still-work-appropriate outfit and genuinely tried to walk in with your head held high. but the whispers and mutters that followed you through the bullpen left you more nervous than you’d started. willing yourself not to run, you sped up your pace slightly and trotted up the stairs that lead you to your new boss’s office.

you knocked on the door quickly, trying to soothe your racing heart.

“come in.” a deep voice called you, commanding and loud. you cracked the door open and stood awkwardly at the threshold. your eyes widened as you took in the scene.

the man that sat before you was nothing you’d ever seen before. it was as if he’d been crafted from the purest marble sent by the gods, chiselled away at by the most experienced and meticulous hands. he was incredible, deep, black eyes that matched the neat hair on his head, the quirk of his questioning eyebrow as you gawked at him.

“m-mr- detective hotchner. I’m y/n y/l/n, your new assistant?” you squeaked out, trying not to cringe at how shaky and scared you sounded. his face cleared, like ripples calming on a pond, leaving it smooth and glassy. like a pond who’s lips you wanted to capture on yours and-

“ah, of course! come on in and take a seat,” he rose from his desk and held his hand out with a soft smile.

your feet moved of their own accord, moving you closer to the beautiful man as you placed your hand in his. his other hand came up to clasp yours as they shook, yours disappearing beneath his. once he released your hand, you both sat down at the same time. the guest chair situated at his desk was slightly uncomfortable and you tried not to squirm in the plastic.

“would you like a tea? coffee?” he asked you, closing the manila folder on his desk and tucking it away.

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” you joked with an airy laugh and you tried to fight the swoon that threatened you at the sound of his own chuckle.

“don’t worry about that just yet. let’s get you acquainted before we start rushing you off your feet,” he said with a quick smile.

the two of you then started discussing your boundaries. what you were willing to do, what you’re a little more less experienced in doing. he assured you multiple times that you would be kept well away from any unsubs, no matter who requested what of you.

“I don’t want you in any danger, y/n. it is my responsibility to keep you safe.” he’d said in a serious tone, making himself clear to you.

a week later, you found yourself in an nypd precinct, listening to the detectives spitball theories. you were perched on a spinny desk stool offered by mr hotchner - having not yet got past addressing him as his formal name, no matter how many times he insisted you call him hotch - as he perched on the desk behind you. his hands gripped the edges of the desk, knuckles ever so gently brushing your back each time you squirmed in your seat.

“…targeting women much like this young lady here,” you flushed as the captain of the precinct gestured a hand towards you. he chuckled and winked at mr hotchner above you. “better keep your assistant safe, detective hotchner.”

he went on to give more details of the case to his team, but you couldn’t listen. your breath was caught in your chest and anxiety curled itself into your chest.

“hey, hey, it’s ok.” mr hotchner mumbled from above you, leaning down slightly towards your ear. you felt his knuckles gently skimming up and down your back. the action calmed you slightly and you leaned into his touch. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

the words made you swoon… and strangely… made your core clench? a frown briefly furrowed your brow and you wondered what caused such a reaction down there. you had rarely felt anything down there apart from pain during your period, and you hadn’t felt such a… tingly feeling since your teenage years.

the captain dismissed his team and he and the rest of the bau came over to you and mr hotchner. their appearance made him sit back up and move his hand back to gripping the edge of the desk.

“so, what’s the move, hotch?” derek asked, folding his arms and adjusting his stance.

mr hotchner hummed and frowned, bringing a hand up to his mouth. you gently rolled your chair to the side a little so that you weren’t in the way, not liking how the attention on him made you feel out of place. mr hotchner began reeling off his plan, giving jobs out to the members of his team. his tone was commanding and firm, leaving no room for argument as the team started their investigation for the case.

“..and, y/n, could you collect some menus from restaurants in the area for us all to look over so we can decide on a place for dinner?” he asked you, his voice significantly softer and kinder with a gentle hand on your shoulder. you nodded and gathered your things, heading over to the briefing room where the team had set up.

throughout the day, you couldn’t shake that ache and tingle in your core. you lay back on the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling above you with your hands folded on your stomach. your core was throbbing by now, begging for… you didn’t know what for. but it throbbed. and ached.

you’d never… done anything down there. never touched it or had it touched. back in high school, your friends would always tell you about their sex lives and who they were sleeping with. but you were always too… shy. too nervous to do any of that. so you stuck to yourself, no matter how people teased you for being a virgin. and you had always had that in the back of your mind whenever anyone had tried to initiate anything with you. how inexperienced you were. how you didn’t know what you were doing. so you’d stop it all entirely. and that’s how you ended up here, 26 and not once touched.

maybe mr hotchner wouldn’t mind… you found yourself thinking. you often found yourself thinking of what mr hotchner thought of you. if he liked you at all. you were pretty sure he did, he was very nice to you and gentler with you than he was with everyone else. he was almost like a father to the group…

he was more of a father than your own was. your father came and went from your home as he pleased, leaving you to care for your sick mother yourself. and when he was home… it wasn’t very pretty. you cringed at the amount of times you had to pick your own bedroom lock after he’d left again so that you could tend to your mother. you were scared of your father, knowing he could find you whenever he wanted to find you. the thought made you sick to your stomach.

you huffed and shifted onto your side, pushing the duvet off of you. your eyes drifted to the digital clock you’d brought with you, 12:46. not great considering you had to be up at 6am the next day. but sleep seemed like a foreign mystery to you at that time, so you decided a cold shower would help shake this unusual feeling from your core. so that’s what you did, kicking the duvet away and padding over to the en-suite.

you sat in the briefing room of the precinct slightly dazed the next day. you’d slept in by accident, and the sound of derek banging on your door was what woke you up. at 6:57am.

mr hotchner sat beside you as he watched the captain at the front of the room, describing his theories. your tired gaze was fixed on the pot of pens in the middle of the table as you zoned everything out. the strange tingly feeling was back in your core, poking at your entrance. it had started when you were making coffees for everyone and mr hotchner had leaned over you from behind to grab you the pot of sugar you couldn’t reach, his hand placed gently on your waist. the interaction had left you breathless and… throbbing. you squirmed in your seat and pressed your thighs together, praying it would go away.

you screwed your eyes tight shut and opened them again, your eyes flitting to the movement you saw in the corner of them. mr hotchner had his hands folded on the table, wringing them together. his knuckles and fingers flexed, the veins in the back of his hands popping. his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing his pale forearms and the large vein that struck out there. you blinked your eyes hard again, not understanding why this only increased the ache in your core and made your hole clench up tight.

your attention was drawn back to the room as everybody began rising from the table, heading to do their tasks for the day. you followed, grabbing leftover books and folders. a hand encircled your upper arm and you came face to face with jj giving you a soft smile. the door clicked behind derek, leaving you and jj alone in the room.

you liked jj. she was a lovely girl. the two of you had quickly become close and she was the first one - besides mr hotchner - to ask you to run an errand that wasn’t coffee. the two of you often gossiped with penelope garcia and sometimes elle greenaway too, the girls more of them than not sharing their ‘sex-capades’ as penelope likes to call it. jj was one of the first to really trust you.

“hey, sit down for me,” she said, sitting in the seat beside you and retracting her hand. you sat down too, following her actions mutely. “you ok? you’ve been a little… out of it. hotch asked me to talk to you.”

you cringed a little at that, not liking how mr hotchner had acknowledged your not-all-there-ness.

“I-I’m fine. I just… dunno. things have been a bit… different lately.” you said, folding your legs and pressing your hands together.

“different?”

“yeah. I just… you know you were telling me about that guy you met. the one who… slept over at your house.” jj chuckled a little at your euphemism but nodded.

“yes, I remember. why, has a guy slept over at your house recently?” excitement gleamed in her eye a little but you quickly shook your head.

“nono! no… but… you remember you said you felt… achey down there? the good achey.” you said and jj slowly nodded.

“well… i’ve just been… feeling that. and… I don’t know what to do about it.” you mumbled. “and… I don’t wanna… touch myself-“ your voice dropped to a whisper and you cleared your throat “-but… it needs to stop.”

jj chuckled a little.

“okaaay, well. do you know what caused it?”

you hesitated before nodding quickly but stayed mute.

“do you… wanna tell me?”

you shook your head quickly.

“right. well. whatever or whoever has turned you on-“ you cringed “-is most likely what will help to get rid of it. and yes, y/n, that means sex.” she chuckled fondly at the way you cringed again. she stood up, placed a hand on your shoulder and kissed your temple lightly. “you’ll be fine, y/n/n. I believe in you.”

and with that, she left the briefing room.

for the rest of the week, the tingle mostly stayed with you. on the jet back to quantico, you sat at the very back, thighs pressed firmly together and head fuzzy. your eyes stared straight ahead but were unseeing and your plush lips were parted but soundless.

your eyes flickered over to the movement in the corner of your eye, catching mr hotchner as he stepped out of the bathroom while shaking his hands to rid them of the lingering water droplets. his eyes met yours and he sent you a quick, fond wink with a smile. you swooned internally at his large presence, wanting nothing but for the older man to swoop you up and-

you stopped yourself and looked away before your thoughts could become any more explicit.

your eyes widened as you realised mr hotchner was walking towards you. he wore a kind smile as he took the seat beside you and placed a hand on your forearm. he gently unclasped your hands as you anxiously wrung them together and moved the one nearest to him to the armrest that separated his and your seats, his large fingers softly encircling your wrist.

“hey, did jj talk to you?” he asked you, voice politely low to keep your conversation private. you could only dumbly nod your head, eyes lost in his. “good, good. is everything ok?”

you actually swooned slightly this time at his protectiveness but managed to force your voice out of your throat.

“u-uh- yeah. I’m fine just… bit of a strange week,” you were glad mr hotchner took your words the way he did, assuming you meant ‘strange’ in regards to this being your first case.

“I agree,” he chuckled. “and an awful unsub to be your first, please understand that not everyone in the world is like that.”

you giggled in response.

“do you need me to grab you anything, sir?” you asked him, wondering why he was taking an interest in your well-being; no older male had ever done that for you. his brow furrowed.

“no, no, I was checking if you’re ok. the health of my team is important to me. you’re important to me, y/n.” his face was full of sincerity as he spoke and his eyes twinkled. your own eyes, on the other hand, threatened to fill with tears as a ball settled in your chest. your throat was suddenly raw and your head ached.

“oh…” was all you could force out.

“y/n, are you ok?” you nodded quickly and bolted to the bathroom, stumbling down the aisle of the jet.

in the toilet, you could feel your breath shortening rapidly. he cared about you. no man had ever said such words to you, and if they had, it was never to your face. but for some reason, you panties felt… sticky. and that familiar ache settled in your core. you tried to muffle your whine of desperation as the feeling returned, desperately trying to figure out just why you were feeling distraught and… turned on, as jj had called it.

once the jet landed, you grabbed your bag from the overhead locker and hurried inside of the bau building to dump everything at your desk. you sat in your desk chair and took a big sigh. mr hotchner had asked you to stay a while in case the team needed anything, so you did just that.

you checked the time on the big clock opposite your desk. 5:34pm. nice, not too late. mr hotchner said the team didn’t take long to debrief after a case, unless fbi time and civilian time worked differently.

which you assumed it did, because the team didn’t leave the briefing room until 6:15. you had pages and pages of notes that mr hotchner had asked you to take.

your distress had passed now, but that ache was refusing to leave. you sat back at your desk and huffed, pressing your thighs together in an attempt to shift the tension elsewhere.

from the desk near yours, derek shot you a quirked brow.

“you ok there, sweet girl?” he asked and you couldn’t help but flush at the nickname.

“I told you not to call me that.” was all you could mumble as you dumped your notepad in your drawer. derek grinned and pushed his chair over, leaning his beefy forearms on the desk.

“why? cuz it makes you all flustered?” he teased. you sat back in your chair and huffed.

“normally, it’s a compliment. but I’m not really in the mood for compliments right now.” you sighed, pushing a bouncy ball penelope had given you around your desk. you gently flicked it to him and he stopped it with his fingers before flicking it back. the two of you played the little game of rolling the ball between each other as you talked.

“why? cuz you all frustrated?” he smirked and you frowned, still not lifting your eyes to his.

“I’m not frustrated, I’m just… flat.” you said and he chuckled.

“no, no, I mean… sexually frustrated.” you blushed a deeper red at his words and sat up straight in your chair.

“I-I am not! shush!” you scooped the ball up in your fingers and bounced it against his forehead. he flinched slightly and chuckled with a grin.

“come on, the whole bau can see you got it bad for hotch. we’re behavioural analysts. and, if it helps, he’s got it bad for you too.” he winked at you and bounced the ball across the desk to you.

“no he doesn’t.” you grumbled as you swung your chair side-to-side slightly. derek chuckled again and rolled his eyes.

“whatever you say, sweet girl,” he grinned, winking again before he rolled his chair back to his desk. you frowned, easily seeing that he didn’t believe you.

eventually, people began drifting home. penelope was the first to leave, humming a tune and loudly calling goodbye as she went. then it was jj, and then derek. gideon left soon after, quickly followed by elle, leaving you and spencer in the bullpen.

mr hotchner was tucked away in his office working on some paperwork. he had come down a few times while the team were dispersing to refill his mug and grab a snack. his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his tie loosened. his forearms were on display, that one vein running down making your head foggy.

at one point, as the temperature in the bullpen dropped as the night went on, he had noticed your shivering and draped his blazer around you. he had stood over you with a fond smile as he helped you slip your arms into the blazer. your cheeks had flushed red and you were unable to tear your eyes from his. once he’d walked off, spencer had thrown you a look before quickly looking back to his folder.

the action had once again settled an ache in your core, your entrance clenching tight as his scent invaded your senses. you fought every urge tugging at your nerves to bring the blazer up to your nose and inhale.

“night, y/n,” spencer said with a quick open-handed wave before he clutched his satchel to his stomach and left.

“see ya later, spencer,” you smiled at him as he walked away. the elevator dinged, indicating his descent, leaving you and mr hotchner alone in the building.

you glanced over your shoulder to his office. the blinds were drawn and soft light spilled from beneath the crack of his door. you sighed, fiddling with the hem of his blazer. you sighed and turned back to your computer screen, looking at the game of solitaire you were playing to distract yourself from your throbbing and wet core. you glanced at the clock on the bottom of your screen, 9:54pm. damn… a few minutes later, mr hotchner’s door opened and his footsteps descended the stairs.

“spencer went home?” he asked. you hummed in response, tearing your eyes away from the cards automatically flitting up to their correct spaces and giving him a smile. mr hotchner smiled as he saw your screen. “nice game.”

“thanks, beat my record.” you suddenly blushed. “sorry, I shouldn’t be playing games on company time.”

“that’s quite alright.” mr hotchner said with a smile, leaning on the edge of your desk and folding his arms. “you don’t have any tasks to do.”

you would’ve nodded, if you weren’t too distracted by the sight of his arms almost right in front of your face. you shifted in your seat as your core throbbed with heat and your mouth suddenly filled with saliva.

“y/n?…” the sound of mr hotchner’s deep voice calling you back to reality snapped you from your trance.

“I-I’m sorry- I- I was distracted-“ “y/n, are you horny right now?”

your mind blanked. you stared at his face with a surprised expression, your brows raised and lips parted. you couldn’t think, only embarrassment coiling in your chest.

“I-…” you trailed off, not finding the words to answer your boss’s such blunt question. your core ached again, however, and you could feel wetness gush into your panties. his fingertips gently grasped your jaw and he leaned down to you a little.

“I asked you a question, y/n,” he commanded with a slight smirk, clearly enjoying the power imbalance between the two of you. you swallowed and tried to fight the feeling of your eyes glazing over. “are. you. horny?”

“I am.” your voice came out in a whisper.

“what was that? I’m gonna need you to speak up, sweetheart.”

“I am. I-I’m horny, sir,” mr hotchner’s smirk grew at your words and his fingers caressed your jaw.

“good girl! using her big girl words.” you lapped up the praise tumbling from his lips and subconsciously shuffled closer. he chuckled at this. “so eager. you want your big boss to help you?”

“please…” your hand came up to hold his wrist as he squished your cheeks in one big hand and gently tilted your head up a little further. he hummed in faux sympathy before chuckling.

“come to my office. i’m going to sit down and you’re going to lock the door and close the blinds.” his hand moved to cup your cheek before he went to sit behind his desk.

you scrambled to fulfill his order, hurrying quickly after him. you stood at the door, fingers fumbling around the lock before darting to pull at the blinds. the warmth between your legs was now hot and poking at your untouched hole.

“sit.” mr hotchner ordered, gesturing to the seat before his desk. you did so, pressing yourself into the plush cushions. “now. let’s talk about what you’re comfortable with before we start. what kind of things are you into?”

your mind blanked.

how did you know what you were into if you’ve never done anything?…

HERE YOU GO SORRY ITS SO LATE!!!

PART TWO WILL BE LINKED HERE 🩷🩷

[cheeekycharchar]

"Shame and guilt have followed humanity since Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden."

Good Omens; a story of an Angel that can't accept love because of shame and a Demon that can't accept forgiveness because of guilt.

"It'd be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one."

An in-depth analysis of an Angel suffering from shame and a Demon wracked with guilt.

Let's dive deeper below the cut!

[Now I'm going to lay down a lot of facts, definitions and minimal psychological babble and I want you, as the reader, to view this through your GO nerd glasses. Also, I want to express that I am not a therapist or religious in any way- this was all done as academic research for the fandom's sake cause I can't shut my brain up. I tried to organize it the best I could. ..sorry it's so long but I swear it's worth the read through! ;)]

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• Shame is the painful emotion you have when you perceive that you are not good enough in some way. Entirely self imposed and only known to you, shame can be an unpleasant self-conscious feeling often associated with negative self-evaluation. When shame is chronic, it makes you believe that you are fundamentally flawed, defective, dishonorable, immoral, or improper.

• Guilt is a negative feeling of worry or unhappiness that you get because you have done something wrong. It's a moral emotion that occurs when a person believes or realizes- accurately or not- that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for it. When guilt is chronic, it can be a toxic emotion that could cause a person to take on unjust responsibility if things around them go wrong. They are quick to accept that everything is their fault even though it isn't.

While guilt is about wrong actions, shame is about being wrong as a person.

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In academic psychology, shame is associated with avoiding failure and its consequences while guilt is connected with forgiving and improving one's self, along with making amends.

Guilt and Shame are often confused for each other but there’s a big difference between the two. Guilt can help you understand how your actions impact others, but shame is an inward-facing emotion that reflects how you feel about yourself. (And I do realize that Aziraphale may, at times, feel guilt and Crowley can also feel a sense of shame. But the main motivation behind majority of their characterizations and actions throughout the series are both coming from these two different feelings.)

Guilt can help you move forward while shame keeps you stuck in the past. [such as the "We could have been.. us." and "You go too fast for me." scenes] And the only way to rid themselves of these negative emotions is through recovery with unconditional love and forgiveness.

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• How Aziraphale represents the concept of shame •

Shame tricks you into believing that you aren't good. That you are worthless. Not that you've done something bad, but that you are bad. Ever since Aziraphale gave away his flaming sword, he started to question himself. But it wasn't until he outright lies to his fellow Angel's about the true fate of Job's children that he truly believes he has fallen- that he violated God's word and lied (again). He believes there must be something truly wrong with who he is as an Angel. He's a flawed creation of God and he feels a dreaded sense of deep shame from this.

Feelings of shame can also present itself in different types such as, Chronic Shame (negative emotions all the time that you aren't good enough), Performance Shame (feeling as though you are inferior compared to others) and Shame from Unrequited Love (this is a feeling of not being good enough for another person T^T).

Shame is a harmful, negative emotion that when internalized enough can result in an overly harsh evaluation of oneself.

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Next, let's take a closer look at what defines shame and how it operates through Aziraphale:

• Being Defensive is a way to avoid taking responsibility for our behavior.

"I don't need you." "And the feeling is mutual!"

• Perfectionism is the unrealistic desire to be perfect and is often a defense against shame. If we’re perfect, no one can criticize us; no one can shame us. We keep up a front that looks good to the world. We may spend a lot of time attending to our dress and looks.

"I do have standards."

• Apologizing constantly. Shame can prompt us to be overly apologetic and compliant.

"I did the 'I was wrong' dance in…"

• Procrastination can occur from a deep hidden shame. If we consider pursuing something and it doesn’t turn out well, we might be paralyzed by that feeling. If we never try, then we don’t have to face possible failure and subsequent shame.

"You go too fast for me, Crowley.."

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Next are the four category behaviors resulting from shame:

• The Hot Response These are things you do when you feel ashamed and defensive, such as lashing out in anger or attacking the other person to deflect attention from yourself.

"I don't even like you!" [always resorts to being defensive in any argument]

• Behaviors to Cope With or Conceal the Shame These behaviors include doing things to make yourself feel small, trying to avoid being the center of attention, or not sharing your thoughts or feelings. Concealing yourself is a method of self-protection.

[always awkward and can't speak openly around other Angels]

• Safety Behaviors to Avoid Shame or Being Discovered This category of shame behaviors might be things like apologizing, crying, or avoiding conflict. People who have a tendency toward being emotional or avoiding conflict may be more likely to engage in safety behaviors.

"Why? What's wrong? I mean.. if there is something wrong.."

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The Impact of Feeling Shame:

• Makes you feel like you are flawed or there is something wrong with you

"I'm like you now. A demon. I'm a fallen angel.." • Can lead to social withdrawal

[spends most of his time in the bookshop alone] • May cause you to become defensive and shame others in return "I'm an angel! And you're a demon!" • May cause you to inflate your ego to hide the belief that you don’t have value

"Well, I am a great deal holier than thou. That's the whole point." • May leave you feeling empty, lonely, or worn out

"But I thought you said it wasn't [lonely]?" • May lead to lowered self-esteem

"I'm.. soft." • May make it harder for you to trust other people

"Obviously, you're lying. You're a demon. That's what you do." • May lead to perfectionism or overachievement to try and counteract your feelings of shame

"If I can just reach the right people and resolve all of this-" "That's not going to happen! How could somebody as clever as you be so stupid!?" • May cause you to engage in people pleasing

"Doing good again, Angel? "Oh, hardly counts. Purely for selfish reasons." • May cause you to avoid talking because you are afraid to say the wrong thing

[trying to explain to Metatron in S1 without revealing too much] • May cause compulsive or excessive behaviors like overworking, excessive cleaning, or having too high of standards in general

[non stop research all day and night to look for the antichrist by himself]

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• How Crowley represents the concept of guilt •

Guilt is what you feel after committing a specified or perceived offence/crime/bad action.  It's typically attached to a feeling you experience when you do something wrong on purpose or accidentally and can regret that action. Guilt can be morally ambiguous.

"Well, maybe there is something to be said for.. shades of grey?" "..Shades of dark grey."

Signs of guilt are unique but these are the most common (again there are many but these I thought related to Crowley the best):

• Low self-esteem

*sighs* "Don't bother..."

• Excessive attempts at reparation [Crowley always trying to secretly help humanity when he can]

• Being unable to meet someone’s gaze

[Covering his eyes not only hides his snake eyes but also his guilty feelings]

• Anxiety "We are fucked!" [and we all know TV!Crowley is 100% more anxiety ridden than Book!Crowley is lol]

• Trouble sleeping [Sleeps too long (100 year nap from book). Or can't get comfortable sleeping (from S1 deleted scene)]

• Depressed mood

"What's even the point.. everything seems.. pointless.."

• Avoidance of people, places, or events linked to the cause of guilt "I'm not going to be joining their team and neither should you!" [doesn't want to return to Heaven or Hell and is "on his own side" to avoid them further] • Shifts in energy levels [can be giddy/jumpy one second to morose/moody the next, etc]

• Emotional outbursts

"I'm just so angry!"

• Appetite changes

[took up drinking alcohol even though its unnatural to]

• Making amends [spends every moment since Eden trying to secretly do good despite the hellish consequences]

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Defense mechanisms against feeling guilty can become an overriding aspect of one's personality. (These are also related to trauma response.)

• Displacement is a defensive tool that may take the form of blaming the victim or taking your feelings out on others.

"You know what you've done. You've disappointed me."

• Projection is sharing the unacceptable feelings/qualities onto others, thereby being less alone with it.

"But that sounds.." "Lonely?"

• Self-harm may be used as an alternative to compensating from one's past transgression. Not just physical self-harm but not allowing yourself to enjoy opportunities or benefits as a result of uncompensated guilty feelings.

[always holding himself back for 6k years from saying what he truly feels and won't allow himself to be with Aziraphale the way he really wants]

• Repression is subconsciously blocking or forgetting harmful/traumatic memories. "Right.. looking at where the furniture isn't.." [doesn't remember his time in Heaven in detail- whether from trauma response or just had his memory wiped]

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Behavioral responses to guilt can be associated with the moral of their character. Feelings of guilt can prompt virtuous behavior.

"You shouldn't test them to destruction.."

People who feel guilty may be more likely to: • Exercise restraint [holds his true feelings back for Aziraphale for centuries]

• Avoid self-indulgence [only really has his car and plants in the end]

• Exhibit less prejudice [is more open and accepting of other's sins - such as helping during the Scottish bodysnatching scenes]

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Guilt can prompt reparatory behaviors (actions to make amends) to help alleviate these negative emotions. People tend to engage in these reparatory behaviors toward the persons they wronged. Some religions theorize that forgiveness of sin (even those committed by accident or ignorance) is exclusively through repentance.

Crowley, being the wily serpent that tempted Eve to eat the forbidden apple of knowledge and subsequently getting her and Adam kicked out of paradise on Earth- and thusly creating the first sin of humanity. Right away, Crowley feels guilt from this.

After all, he was just told to stir up some trouble and had no idea the consequences of his first temptation on the future generations of human existence. Ignorantly doing something considered wrong and getting exiled.. this mistake would forever haunt him. He knows the pain and trauma from unwittingly doing something insignificant and being punished severely for it (such as asking questions or eating an apple) yet he accidentally made the first of God's new creatures "fall" in their own way from Eden. It's because of this guilt that Crowley spends the next 6000 years secretly rebelling against Hell to help humanity in any way he can to redeem himself.

-------=======-------

That's why their first conversation (post Fall from Heaven) on the wall of Eden was SO important to their relationship with each other and themselves.

"Oh, I do hope I didn't do the wrong thing." "It'd be funny if we both got it wrong. If I did the good thing and you did the bad one." "No. No! It wouldn't be funny at all!"

I think the reason Crowley always seems to be one step ahead of Aziraphale (in more ways than one) is because, in a sense, guilt is easier to resolve from than shame.

If you acknowledge your mistake and the person chooses to take the steps to improve and change for the better, then they can recover from those negative feelings. They can work through the guilt by repairing the transgression or learning from it.

Whereas shame can only intensify inwardly and be harder to face because your mind is telling you that you are the bad thing, that you are the mistake. This makes it harder to overcome. And the only way to truly recover from shame is unconditional love and forgiveness- for yourself.

-------=======-------

“Instead of your shame, you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land, they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs.” (Isaiah 61:7)

And in S2.. we can see they both hold regret for their actions at the end of episode 6. If you look at every choice, ever misstep, every argument and their occasional confusion in understanding one another, you can see how Aziraphale was written with shame as a main part of his personality and Crowley written with guilt.

Two feelings that are often confused for one another but differ slightly in their own ways. The motivation behind every word they utter and every action they make throughout the series is built on the foundation of these two fundamentally negative and often traumatizing feelings.

There is a possibility to recover from shame and guilt and I have a feeling that S3's plot line will be all about recovery.

And that's what the concept of that Second Coming storyline might be all about. The New Testament says, "In Jesus Christ, God took upon Himself the sins of the world and died on the cross to pay mankind's debt" (Rom 6:23). "Those who repent and accept Christ's sacrifice for their sins, will be redeemed by God and thus not guilty before Him. They will be granted eternal life which will take effect after the Second Coming of Christ" (1 Thess 4:13–18).

A second chance. Forgiveness and Recovery from Sin.

And what is the story of Adam and Eve if not about humanity's Original Sin?

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Remember, after all is said and done, the antidote for shame is love, and guilt is cured through forgiveness.

Two things a certain Angel and Demon struggle with accepting from each other but are more than willing to give to one another.

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[…There! I made myself sad again, lol. Thank you for reading this far! Sorry it was crazy long but I really enjoyed putting this all together into semi-comprehensible words (though stupid tumblr made me delete a bunch of pictures I had as examples…). Also, on a final side note- if you are ever experiencing overwhelming shame or guilt in anyway (which can result in depression or worse if not dealt with) please make sure you reach out to someone or seek professional help in some way. Take care, everyone! ^-^]

[wndaswife]

teacher! wanda eating out reader on her desk and nat walks in 😵‍💫

wanda maximoff & fem!reader

tags: smut, semi-public sex (maybe?), spanking, cunnilingus, fingering, manipulation, mommy kink, dom!wanda maximoff, sub!reader. MINORS DNI.

word count: 860

“Professor?” you asked quietly as you approached Wanda’s desk at the front of the lecture hall. There were still a few other students who were leaving, so Wanda’s eyes met with you only briefly before she looked back down to her laptop.

Wanda responded chastely, “What can I help you with, Miss Y/L/N?”

The cold tone she took when there were other people around you made chills run up your spine. Wanda never spoke to you like that when it was just the two of you, and even if only trying to pretend the two of you had a typical teacher-student relationship to the public, it still made you nervous when she spoke to you so sternly.

She was always sure to make it up to you. You knew it pained her just as much to speak with you in the way she had to around others as much as it did you.

“I have a few questions about the Shakespeare analysis paper,” you said, making up a reason on the spot. You saw a glint of amusement tugging at the corner of Wanda’s lips.

She raised her eyes from her laptop and her eyebrows quirked upwards curiously. “Is that so?” she replied. You nod. Wanda’s eyes flickered back to the now empty lecture hall behind you. In one swift movement, Wanda stood from her seat and took hold of your collar, pulling you against her.

Your mouth was crushed against hers bruisingly and you yelped out. But Wanda put a hand to the back of your neck, disallowing you from pulling away. A hand was spanked harshly against the side of your thigh and Wanda chuckled darkly.

“Gods, you and these jeans,” Wanda groaned against your lips. “Your ass looks beautiful in them, sweetheart. Come here.” She took hold of your hand and pulled you to her desk, moving her papers and laptop to the side.

Rather harshly, Wanda threw you forward against her desk and pain shot up your hips. A hand met with your back and she shoved you forward so your chest laid flat against her desk. With arms wrapped around your hips, Wanda unzipped your pants and pulled your jeans down to your ankles. She gasped at the sight she found.

“You sat through my lecture… not wearing any panties?” Wanda asked, looking over your shoulder to your girlish smile.

You wiggled your ass against Wanda’s hips in response.

She spanked your ass and with two hands, thrusted herself against you. “You naughty girl. You know just how to make mommy happy.” Wanda leaned down to press a kiss to your lower back. She got down on her knees and you arched your back. Her hands were placed on your ass and her thumbs parted your pussy’s sticky folds. “You’re so pretty, baby.”

Wanda kissed your pussy then ran her tongue through your cunt, moaning at your flavour. You put your head in your arms when your cheeks flushed a deep pink. Wanda’s nose teased your hole as the tip of her tongue flicked at your swollen nub.

You bucked your cunt down onto Wanda’s face and her hand slipped down to draw tight circles against your pussy. After coating her digits in your juices, she slid them into your hole, her lips parted in awe as she watched the way you took her fingers. When your folds met her knuckles, Wanda ran her tongue through your pussy again on either side of her fingers before her lips wrapped around your clit.

Her fingers sped up and she varied between running a flat tongue up your clit and sucking on it as she worked you towards your orgasm.

“So full, feels so good… Mommy, I-I’m close…” you blabbered out pathetically.

Just then, the doors to the lecture hall squeaked open and footsteps traveled into the room before you could pull Wanda up and dress yourself in time.

“Professor Maximoff?” Natasha called for Wanda. Dozens of weights dropped in your stomach and you scrambled to stand up, which only elicited your girlfriend’s attention. Natasha caught you half-naked with your professor as Wanda’s face was positioned beside your ass.

You felt like a deer in headlights as the Russian’s widened eyes flickered between the two of you in obvious discomfort and panic at what she saw. Before you could call for her and beg for her silence on what she had just seen, she quickly backed out of the lecture hall and out of sight.

“W-Wanda, what are we going to do?!” you panicked and turned to look down at your professor.

Her hands found your thighs and she pushed your ass back against the edge of her desk. “Don’t worry. I know Miss Romanoff has a bit of a crush. I see how she looks at you. Who do you think they’ll believe? One of the university’s tenured professors or a first-year? I’ll deal with it, angel.” She parted your thighs and lowered herself back down to her knees.

“I’ll deal with it soon,” she told you. She grinned playfully and ran her tongue through your folds again. “Just let me finish here, malyshka.”

[pennyblossom-meta]

I just wanted to say that I love your fanfic Ideas in April, I even read the side story, it’s amazing I cannot wait for more

Hello kind reader! I was very much blown away by your message and comments on the DN analysis posts! Thank you so much for reading and engaging, it means the world to me <3

The next chapter for The Ides of April (TIoA) should be posted in the next couple of weeks, if everything goes well. Work and my tendonitis sometimes make it difficult to write.

I'm also happy to announce that Shi, Ku (4, 9) is also getting its next (and last chapter) sometime after TIoA chp:3 gets released.

As a personal thank you, here's a draft for the next chapter of TIoA that I posted on Tumblr a while ago.

And here's a snippet (but still a draft! some things might yet change) for the next chapter of Shi, Ku that's currently being written:

(...) While Anna is looking up at the ceiling and musing about the best ways to make a strategic exit, — she opens the button on her left sleeve just so, making enough room between herself and the edge of the table so she can whip out her wand and bolt somewhere to Apparate, should it be necessary — the door swings open with a groan that sends a shiver down her spine.  She glances at the thin box the police officer is carrying; whats-its-name is on the tip of her tongue, she has a bigger one of its kind at the apartment, a better one without a doubt that she brought from Britain. Perhaps this NPA is underfunded and this was the best they could scrape off the bottom of the barrel in such a short time.  With fingers interlocked on her lap, she observes how the device is placed in the middle of the table, at an angle of about 45º. Once open, the panel inside is dark but shiny. She cocks her head to the side, confused. “Hm, sir?” Anna follows the officer with her eyes as he sits further down on the side of the table. Within sight of the device. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”  Just as the officer opens his mouth to reply, the entire screen goes white. Anna jumps in her seat, eyes wide as saucers when a black calligraphy ‘L’ appears with a flash, overpowering the display. She stares at it with her mouth slightly ajar and clutches her bag closer to her middle, hearing the newspaper inside crinkle and rustle in the quiet room. “Greetings, Miss Green. Officer Moji tells us you’ve important information to share about the Kira case.” Right down to business, just like Naomi mentioned. “You’re a letter,” Anna states outright, pointing her index finger at the screen. She touches it right in the middle, a baffled frown scrunching up her nose while the police officer regards her warily from his seat, like she’s insane. “And your voice sounds like it’s been put through a meat grinder. She never told me you’d be talking to me through a letter in a machine.” “And who is ‘she’?”  “Naomi Misora,” she tells the giant ‘L’ floating on the screen, giving the blinking green light at the top of the monitor a brief glance. “We’ve been trying to find a suitable way to contact you since early February, but we couldn't risk doing this without a plan." The silence that follows is tense; it drags on, perhaps longer than Anna can perceive as she fiddles with the hem of her sleeve, fingernails grazing the threads on softly embroidered chrysanthemum. She can feel the police officer’s eyes on her and wonders if he’s assessing just how high a threat she might be. Anna takes a deep breath. “Look, I think I’d better start by telling you this: something rather nasty happened to Naomi on New Year’s day that caused her irreversible damage. If I’m not with her every day at 4:44 in the morning and the afternoon she will die of a heart attack.” “What event was this?” came the immediate response.  “I — I don’t know. At first we thought it was some kind of curse, or that she had come into possession of an item that was hexed, but the situation took so many twists and turns it became unrecognisable  — even by our standards. You see, I found Naomi going into the train station when I was shopping for clothes in Ginza that day; I noticed there was something wrong because she seemed unfocused; strangely so.” There’s silence, so Anna proceeds. (...)

Thank you once again, hope you have a wonderful week!

[cissyenthusiast010155]

Cards on the Table Ch 1: Awkward Coffee Dates ~Alex Blake nee. Miller xFem Reader

Alex Blake something... A professor colleague where she lectures, things get personal turn sexual?  No strings attached trope, kinda thing. Will be a mini series... Also, I meddled with the canon plot. Alex is separated from her husband. 

Link to Part 2

Mommy...Master List                Prompt-List

Warnings: fluff, bit of angst, build up to implied sex, the amazing Alex Blake

950 words

Enjoy (;

You had seen Professor Blake in the halls a few times. She was a lingustics professor at the same university you lectured at as well. Every time she crossed your path, you found your curiousity and interest peaking in her. So, you decided that on your off period, you would go watch one of her lectures. You made it, cutting it a few minutes late, and you took a seat in the back.

The entire time, you couldn’t even focus on what she was saying. You just saw her. Her lips as she spoke. Her hands as she wrote. Her stride. Her sultry tone. At one point you caught yourself in these thoughts, and decided that you just needed to talk with her instead of just fantasizing in the back of her lecture.

After the lecture, you made your way to her office. You knocked and heard a “Come in” and so you did. “Professor L/N! I saw you today in my lecture, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Alex kindly remarked. 

“Y/N.” You corrected her, “And I was just curious about your lectures, I had only seen you around campus” you said with a slight tint of blush spread across your face. 

“Ah I see well Y/N” she said while enunciating your name, “I’m Alex. So if you were so curious about me and my lectures, what did you learn?” she tauntingly played.

You gulped and smiled trying to collect yourself and say what you had been meaning to say. “Not much actually. My mind was on other things...” you almost sheepishly said.

She quickly quipped back, “What type of things?”

Your breath shortened at that as you tried to answer her the truth, “I... Would you perhaps like to go out for lunch sometime?”

A flash of surprise washed over Alex’s face, but it was quickly replaced with pleasantry. “Sure, Y/N. I’d love that.”

Your face lit up with joy and an insane amount of blush, “What about today at 2? There’s a cafe across the campus library.”

She chuckled, “Sounds good, Y/N.” God, her saying your name... “Cool. See you then.” was all you said before rushing out her office like a giddy teenager. 

You bounced your leg at the cafe table and looked at your watch for like the third time in the past five minutes: 2:55. Maybe she had forgotten? But seconds later, Alex Blake walked through the cafe doors in her usual elegance. She came over to you and placed her things down. You took a deep breath. 

“Hi.” you managed. 

“Well hello there.” was her elegant as always response.

You began to question your purpose and goal of this meet up... What is she says no? What if she’s disgusted? Alex interrupted your thoughts, 

“So, you teach behavioral psychology, right?” 

“Yes, I do.” you replied. Your answers were short. Too short. God Dammit, just tell her and then ask her. 

“Um... Yeah, I do.” you expanded as she politely listened, “I’ve always liked the understanding and analysis of people, so teaching behavioral psychology is right up my alley.” As you elaborated, your body became less tense and you felt more and more comfortable. 

“I know what you mean.” Alex responded, “I have something very similar with linguistics. I like understanding the words people have used and currently use and what that means about a person.”

Your mind veered off track and couldn’t stop itself here, “What do my words tell you about me?” Alex kindly chuckled, “Well... I can tell your nervous, less than before though. I can also see that there’s something your trying to tell me, but you keep cutting yourself off from saying it.”

You sat there, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. What the actual fuck. She was that good?! 

“What about me?” she smirked at your reaction, and yet again interrupted your thoughts, “What does my behavior tell you about myself?”.

This was your chance. Tell her. Tell her what you see in her every time you cross paths. 

“Um... Well... You’re...” you tried to tell her, but your words were muddling in your brain. 

“Hey, take a breath. What’s up?” Alex gently soothed. Boy, she has no idea what’s about to come. 

“Ok well...” you took a deep breath, “I can tell you have pent up sexual tension. Um... It’s in the way you walk and talk and such... Your lacking sexual pleasure. Or at least, that’s the most logical and probable answer that I could come up with...” you hesitantly stated, looking up to see her reaction.

Alex sat there just stunned by what you had just said. “I’m impressed.” she eventually said, “That is oddly accurate...”

You blushed again slightly. “I guess I was right too.” she chuckled, and you laughed a bit as well. Yea, she definitely had been. 

Then there was just silence. For quite a while.

Until Alex piped up, “Ever since my seperation... I have been quite alone, so yes, I guess I have been lacking sex and pleasure. I’m not ready for a full on relationship and I’m not a one night stand person...” she vulnerably chuckled.

You looked into her sad, honest eyes. “I wonder whether we could help each other out...?” you nervously again, remembering to take another deep breath before continuing, “Maybe we could be there for each other, even just once, on a purely sexual level, nothing else? Not a one night stand but more of helping a friend or colleague in need?”

Butterflies filled your stomach by your words and Alex’s contemplation face. 

“All right.” she simply said. 

“Oh. Ohhhh, ok. Well um...” you stumbled over your words, “Would Friday at 4 work for you?” 

“Sure.” Alex smiled in comfort, “Text me the address?” 

“I will.”

To be continued ~ Chapter 2!!

[downthetubes]

“Round the Election Poll”, cartoon by LG Illingworth, for Punch, 1945.

Post World War Two, the first British election in ten years was set for 5th July 1945, but the results were delayed until the 26th, to allow counting overseas ballots, largely from service personnel. Illingworth represented the contending sides as maypole dancers, all running in different directions.

Easly recognisable are Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Lord Beaverbrook (owner of the Daily Express, whose headline warning that a Labour victory would amount to the 'Gestapo in Britain', adapted from a passage in a radio election speech by Churchill on 4th June proved a huge mistake and completely misjudged the public mood), Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Aneurin "Nye" Bevan.

The 1945 United Kingdom general election, called by then Prime Minister Winston Churchill, took place on 5th July 1945. The governing Conservative Party sought to maintain their position within parliament, but faced challenges from public opinion about the future of the United Kingdom in the post-war period. Churchill lost the election to the Labour Party in a landslide, making Clement Attlee the new Prime Minister.

Leslie Gilbert Illingworth (2 September 1902 – 20 December 1979) was a Welsh political cartoonist best known for his work for the Daily Mail and as chief cartoonist for Punch. His first work was published in the satirical magazine Punch in 1927.

The University of Kent - British Cartoon: Archive notes Illingworth also produced work for the Ministry of Defence, and on Bernard Partridge’s death in 1945 he replaced him as Second Cartoonist on Punch, working alongside Ernest Shepard. In 1949 Illingworth became Cartoonist on Punch, alternating with Norman Mansbridge. In 1948 Illingworth became a member of the Punch Table, but considered himself uneducated, and was very shy at the weekly lunches, where the subject of the cartoon was decided. When Malcom Muggeridge was editor of Punch from 1953 to 1957, Illingworth would sit at the Punch table between him and John Betjeman. “They were very kind to me”, he recalled: “I was conscious that I was a monumental bore, so I used to concentrate on the claret and keep as quiet as a cabbage.”

Further Reading:

• “Churchill in Punch” by Gary L. Stiles, published by Unicorn in 2022 (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

Punch featured Winston Churchill in more than 600 cartoons between 1899 to 1988. Some were laudatory, some were critical, and others, like the man himself, usually humorous.

Churchill in Punch catalogues all the cartoons and provides a context of the events and people being satirised and places them in historical perspective.

Early on, Punch often made Churchill into a caricature of himself, promoting exaggerated images of his physical characteristics such as his forward leaning gait, his prominent jutting jaw, his cigar, and his hands on hips when speaking. His hobbies were frequently caricatured such as his love of polo, painting, writing skills and brick-laying.

Publisher Unicorn describes this book as “not just for fans of Churchill, but for anyone interested in history, British life over the past 120 years, media and their response to government and politicians, cartoon aficionados and general society. It is an easy and fun read for the casual reader but also the academic who wants more depth through the appendices and an analysis of major world events through the eye of Punch.”

• University of Kent - British Cartoon: Archive Leslie Gilbert Illingworth Archive

[berniesrevolution]

CATALYST JOURNAL

W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 is one of the greatest modern studies of revolution and counterrevolution. While it deserves its place alongside the classics, it is also an extraordinary example of a materialist and class analysis of race under capitalism. In recent years, the latter aspect of the book has been obscured and even denied. This essay seeks to restore Du Bois’s great work to its rightful place on both counts.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s magnum opus, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880, published in 1935, is one of the greatest scholarly studies of revolution and counterrevolution.1 It deserves a place on one’s bookshelf next to other modern classics, including Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution, C. L. R. James’s The Black Jacobins, Georges Lefebvre’s The Coming of the French Revolution, and Karl Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Scholars of revolutions, unfortunately, have not usually considered the US Civil War to be one of the great social revolutions of the modern era, akin to the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. Many readers, in fact, view Du Bois’s book much more narrowly, as a response to white-supremacist histories of the Reconstruction era (1865–76) and, more particularly, a defense of the role of African American politicians — and the black voters who elected them — in the Southern state governments of that time. Du Bois does present such a defense, but Black Reconstruction offers much, much more than this.

Black Reconstruction is not only a towering work of history but also a work firmly embedded in the Marxist tradition. Du Bois reinterprets the Civil War as a social and political revolution “from below” — a workers’ revolution — that brought about the overthrow of both slavery and the Confederate state, thereby opening a door to interracial democracy in the South. The book then reinterprets the subsequent overthrow of this democracy as a class-based counterrevolution that destroyed the possibility of freedom for half the Southern working class and imposed a “dictatorship of capital” that brought about “an exploitation of labor unparalleled in modern times.”2

But why should one read Black Reconstruction in the twenty-first century? In short, because Du Bois is writing about issues that remain of tremendous political importance, including the nature of racial oppression and the racism of white workers. Unlike most contemporary analysts of race, moreover, Du Bois approaches these issues from the perspective of political economy. He rejects an approach to racial oppression that starts with prejudice, discrimination, or culture, trying instead to dig beneath these and understand how they are rooted in the material interests of different classes. Instead of insisting on the separation of race from class, as so many liberals do, Du Bois insists on their intimate connection.3

Black Reconstruction is rightly famous for stressing the collective agency of enslaved people in winning their own freedom and for its impassioned rebuttal of racist historiography. What has been less emphasized is the way in which Du Bois very explicitly rejects analyses of the Civil War and Reconstruction that emphasize race and racism as the primary drivers of historical events. Racism certainly played a hugely important role in that era, Du Bois argues, but it was a product of — and usually disguised — another, more powerful force: capitalism. More specifically, Du Bois argues in Black Reconstruction that two characteristic features of capitalism — capitalists’ competition for labor and workers’ competition for jobs — are the root cause of conflicts that seem to be driven by racism.

This perspective on Du Bois’s masterpiece runs counter to some influential interpretations of his work. Not surprisingly, there is resistance in some quarters to stating plainly that Black Reconstruction is a work of Marxism. Many people who come to Black Reconstruction for the first time are not expecting to read a Marxist text. They have most likely read Du Bois’s earlier collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, which precedes his turn to Marxism by three decades.4 While a number of authors do recognize Du Bois’s Marxism,5 many others deny that Black Reconstruction or his subsequent writings are Marxist. In 1983, for example, Cedric Robinson described Du Bois as a “sympathetic critic of Marxism.”6 Gerald Horne’s 1986 book examines in great detail Du Bois’s involvement in leftist (mainly Communist) causes after World War II, but he never offers an opinion as to whether Du Bois was a Marxist.7 And Manning Marable’s book on Du Bois, published just a few months later, portrays him as a “radical democrat” — although Marable later suggested that Du Bois might usefully be viewed as part of the “Western Marxist” tradition.8

More recently, a group of “Du Boisian” sociologists recognizes that Du Bois integrates some elements of Marxist thinking into his worldview. But according to these writers, not only is Du Bois not a Marxist but his ideas clearly transcend Marx’s. Marx gave theoretical primacy to class, they say, whereas Du Bois grasped the “intersectionality” of class and race, emphasizing their connections while giving theoretical primacy, by implication, to neither.9 According to these writers, this theoretical move allowed Du Bois, unlike Marx and his followers, they claim, to understand colonialism, the ways in which race “fractures” class consciousness, and racial oppression generally.10

In this essay, I argue that these “Du Boisians” and others who deny Du Bois’s Marxism are wrong. Du Bois actually does give theoretical primacy to capitalism. In both Black Reconstruction and his subsequent writings, Du Bois repeatedly emphasizes how racial oppression is a product of capitalism. Time and again, furthermore, Du Bois takes issue with what we would today call “race reductionism,” that is, attempts to explain historical events primarily in terms of race. His rejection of race reductionism only deepened in the years after Black Reconstruction’s publication.

After 1935, in short, “Du Boisianism” is Marxism. Du Bois’s failure lay not in the fact that he embraced a Marxist orientation but that he came to uncritically support Soviet authoritarianism. This was perhaps the greatest tragedy, in my view, of Du Bois’s long life. But the main point of this essay is to show that, despite all efforts to ignore or deny his Marxism, Black Reconstruction stands as a brilliant work of class analysis.

BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA

Du Bois’s turn toward Marxism occurred rather late in his life, shortly before the publication of Black Reconstruction. His trip to the Soviet Union in 1926, months before Joseph Stalin’s consolidation of power, certainly pushed him in this direction. “Never before in life,” writes his biographer David Levering Lewis, “had he been as stirred as he would be by two months in Russia.”11 Du Bois traveled more than two thousand miles across the Soviet Union, “finding everywhere … signs of a new egalitarian social order that until then he had only dreamt might be possible.”12 “I may be partially deceived and half-informed,” Du Bois wrote at the time. “But if what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my ears in Russia is Bolshevism, I am a Bolshevik.”13 (Du Bois would visit the Soviet Union again in 1936, 1949, and 1958.)

Du Bois later wrote that his trip to the Soviet Union led him to question “our American Negro belief that the right to vote would give us work and decent wage,” or would abolish illiteracy or “decrease our sickness and crime.”14 Only a revolution, by implication, could attain these ends. Du Bois also now believed that “letting a few of our capitalists share with whites in the exploitation of our masses, would never be a solution of our problem.”15 Black liberation was impossible, in sum, so long as the United States remained a capitalist society, and “black capitalism” was a dead end.

Du Bois had been broadly familiar with Marxist ideas since his graduate student days at Harvard and in Berlin. But it was not until 1933, in the midst of the greatest crisis of capitalism in world history, that Du Bois began conscientiously to study Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. He was then sixty-five years old. As Lewis writes, Du Bois fell hard for Marxist analysis:

Like so many intellectuals in the thirties who broadcast Marxism as a verifiable science of society, the Atlanta professor was mesmerized by dialectical materialism. Calling Marx the “greatest figure in the science of modern industry,” Du Bois seemed to rediscover with the avidity of a gifted graduate student the thinker who Frank Taussing, his Harvard economics professor, had smugly ignored. Marx made history make sense — or more sense, Du Bois came to believe, than all other analytical systems.16

Du Bois was prodded to master Marxist theory by the rise of a group of so-called Young Turks within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the civil rights organization he helped found. These young scholar-activists, including Abram Harris, Ralph Bunche, and E. Franklin Frazier (all members or soon-to-be members of the Howard University faculty) “were attempting to shift the Negro intelligentsia’s focus on race to an analysis of the economics of class.”17 All were convinced that a powerful interracial labor movement was necessary to smash racial oppression, and they were critical of the NAACP for its lack of an economic program. Members of this group would offer advice to Du Bois about which texts were essential for him to read. Harris’s book, The Black Worker: The Negro and the Labor Movement, coauthored with Sterling Spero, proved particularly influential; it was no coincidence that Du Bois titled the first chapter of Black Reconstruction “The Black Worker.”18 (I discuss the precise significance of this below.)

(Continue Reading)

[applesanddragons]

Tower of Joy, A Study in Symbolic Interpretation - Ch. 0-4

Chapter 0 - Introduction

In this essay, I'm going to teach the principles of symbolic interpretation and apply them to the Tower of Joy mystery to find out much of what happened in the fateful battle at the Tower of Joy between Ned Stark's seven men and the three Kingsguard. Most of the analysis will revolve around the chapter AFFC 20 Brienne IV, where Brienne of Tarth faces off against three villains at a ruined castle called the Whispers on Crackclaw Point.

As I travel along my personal A Song of Ice and Fire journey I carry with me a collection of questions, many of them very old. They're questions like "Who is Azor Ahai?", "Who is the Valonqar?", "What happened at the Tower of Joy?", and "Who is Jon Snow's mother?". There are many more than that.

As anybody likely to be reading this probably knows already, these are some of A Song of Ice and Fire's capital-M Mysteries. They're usually issues that were introduced early in the series and remain mysterious late in the series. They're questions that practically every reader wants to know the answer to, except those who think they already know it. They're usually questions that are asked by characters in the story, themselves. Even when they're not, they're usually questions that were introduced in a way that leaves little doubt that George R. R. Martin (GRRM) intended to spark up a mystery when he wrote the parts of the story that provoked them. They're questions for which countless words have been written by countless people in online discussions, debates, analyses, theories, blogs, forums, boards, and articles, constituting a discussion history that reaches as far back as almost three decades to the year 1996, when George R. R. Martin published A Game of Thrones (AGOT).

Accompanying these Big capital-M Mysteries is a category of mysteries I call central mysteries. A central mystery is a mystery that is part of a cluster of mysteries that all seem to orbit the same characters, times, and places such as Ned Stark, Robert's Rebellion, and the Tourney at Harrenhal. Some central mysteries are "What happened between Rhaegar and Lyanna?", "Who was the Knight of the Laughing Tree?", and "Why did Ashara Dayne throw herself from the top of her castle?" Not all Big Mysteries are central mysteries, but they are all "top level mysteries" or "top level questions."

A top level question is the biggest question that you're trying to answer in any given inquiry. It's a question that, when you try to answer it, it has the greatest tendency to break down into the greatest number and variety of smaller questions. For instance, the question "Who is Jon Snow's mother?" breaks down into "Who is Wylla?", "Who is the fisherman's daughter?", "Where was Jon Snow born?", "How old is Jon Snow?", "How tall is Jon Snow?", and many more. Each of these smaller questions is a significant question in its own right, to which much time, research and thought can be devoted before any conclusion likely to inform its parent question — "Who is Jon Snow's mother?" — can be drawn.

A top level question is also a question that the general audience is actually asking, where "asking" means applying themselves to it. For instance, the general audience is no longer asking "Who is Jon Snow's mother?" because the general audience believes they know the right answer to that question — Lyanna Stark. Nevertheless, it's fair to say the general audience continues to apply themselves to that question despite knowing the right answer, because a significant enough portion of the audience continues objecting to that answer and those objections draw responses. For whatever reason, knowing the right answer (R+L=J, to be clear), explaining it many times, pinning it to the top of the boards and repeating it has not stopped the disagreements.

On one hand, everybody will never agree on anything. No matter what it is, there will always be people who 'don't get it' no matter how well it's explained. There will always be people who just want to be different even if that means ignoring reason. There were bound to be loose ends in GRRM's ending to the mystery because it's fiction and with fiction the cracks always get bigger the closer you look at it.

On the other hand, the right answer to the mystery should be expected to make everything make sense in a way that everybody can agree upon. The extent to which GRRM is a good writer is proportionate to the degree of certainty we should have that the right answer to the mystery will cause everybody to agree that it's the right answer. And since everybody obviously does not agree even after the answer has been explained and elaborated over a long period of time, we should assume R+L=J is the wrong answer.

Whatever side of that dichotomy you find yourself on, that should give you an idea of what I mean when I use the phrases "Big Mystery", "central mystery", and "top level mystery/question".

Contents

Chapter 0 - Introduction Chapter 1 - The Tower of Joy Chapter 2 - What is Symbolic Interpretation? Chapter 3 - Did Ned Stark Wield Ice At The Tower Of Joy? Chapter 4 - Establishing Our First Symbols Chapter 5 - Ser Galladon of Morne Chapter 6 - The Fight and Fighters Chapter 7 - He Would Have Killed Me But For Howland Reed Chapter 8 - Nimble Dick Crabb Chapter 9 - The Fight and Fighters II Chapter 10 - The Magic Swords

Chapter 1 - The Tower of Joy

There is a pattern of events that can be found repeated in ASOIAF, and whatever it means, it seems to be connected to the core mysteries of the series. I suspect it *is* the core mystery of the series. These echoes may be a purely literary device, a use of paralleling to bring together shared ideas. It may be something rather more. A ritual that people stumble upon, more or less accidentally, more or less knowingly. Or it may be one of these events created magical ripples in the river of time, making the event replay as echoes before and after. Or perhaps it's a story desperate to be told, leaking out into the narratives of many characters and shaping their stories to its own. Perhaps it's a mixture of these. Each time we see these events echoed, some of the details are shared, and some changed. It's as if the story is struggling to be completed, the ritual never quite being fulfilled. Amidst the personal struggles of the characters we read about is a greater struggle they are fighting unaware, a fate that tugs their puppet strings and makes them dance to the song of ice and fire. It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. —Thoughts of Theon Greyjoy, ADWD, A Ghost in Winterfell —Excerpt from The Puppets of Ice and Fire by Kingmonkey, Aug. 2015

The Tower of Joy is indisputably a Big Mystery, a central mystery, and a top-level mystery/question all at once. It’s a top-level question because if the answer to the question “What’s the answer to the mystery of the Tower of Joy?” could be summed up in one statement, that statement would necessarily contain the answer to all of the sub-mysteries that the question breaks down into. It’s a central mystery because it happened in or near Robert’s Rebellion and Ned Stark was there. And it’s a Big Mystery because it’s a question the audience is actually asking, is constantly engaged with, is meant by GRRM to be a mystery, and has been awaiting a defintive resolution since AGOT. So, while Tower of Joy is the name of a real place in the story, it's also a phrase that refers to a bunch of mysteries that relate to any and everything that happened at, near, or related to the Tower of Joy at the end of Robert's Rebellion. Among this bunch of mysteries resides every question we might have about or related to the Tower of Joy.

"Why did the characters name it the Tower of Joy?"

"Why did GRRM name it the Tower of Joy?"

"Why did Rhaegar have three men there?"

"Why did Ned bring seven men there?"

"What was the disagreement between the groups?"

"Why didn't they try more to talk out their disagreement before fighting?"

"Why did Rhaegar rape Lyanna?"

"Did Rhaegar rape Lyanna?"

"Why did Ned destroy the tower?"

"Why did Ned return Arthur's sword Dawn to House Dayne?"

"Why did Ned bring Howland Reed?"

"What did Howland Reed do at the Tower of Joy?"

"How exactly did the fight play out?"

Well, you get the idea. The phrase "Tower of Joy" means all of these questions and more to the audience. We want to know many or all of the answers to these questions before the story is all said and done. If the story delivers much less than that, it will be disappointing to most readers. In this series of essays, we're going to find most of the answer to the last question — "How exactly did the fight play out?".

As Kingmonkey so eloquently described all those years ago, there is indeed a pattern of events repeated in ASOIAF that's connected to the core mysteries of the series — that is the core mystery of the series, in truth. The echoes are more than a literary device, though they're that, too. Tower of Joy is a ritual of GRRM. As Kingmonkey suspects, it's a ritual that GRRM is inviting us to partake in by showing it to us over and over again like a game of Monkey See, Monkey Do. The ritual is symbolic interpretation, and in this series I'm going to formalize my methods for doing symbolic interpretation so that anybody can use them.

The Tower of Joy ritual is indeed creating ripples in the river of time, making the event replay as echoes before and after. Although these ripples are not strictly magical, careful measurement of them will tell us all about the raindrops from which they originated, and those revelations will feel to us like a storytelling kind of magic. The Tower of Joy is indeed a story desperate to be told, leaking out into the narratives of many characters and shaping their stories to its own. Each time we see the Tower of Joy echoed, some of the details are shared, and some changed. The story is struggling not to be completed (for the Tower of Joy story is already completed) but rather, it's struggling to be seen by us for the first time. The mystery of the Tower of Joy is the fate that tugs the characters' puppet strings to and fro, dictating the struggles they face in the way that the theme always must, to the tune of The Song of Ice and Fire.

Chapter 2 - What Is Symbolic Interpretation?

Symbolic interpretation is the process of defining symbols and applying them to the story to predict the story.

Why to predict? Why not to understand?

Because as long as it is certain that you are not controlling a thing, the ability to predict the thing's behavior is the ultimate proof of understanding of it. In this case, the thing is the story.

You mean predict the story's future?

Yes, but to predict its present and past, too. Since we don't have access to the story's future to test our symbols against it, we must test our symbols against past and present parts of the story. This will work just fine because predicting things we didn't notice or don't remember is usually identical to predicting the story's future. The common property between "things we didn't notice", "things we don't remember", and "things that haven't happened yet" is "things we don't know." Since ASOIAF is long and full of details, most of its contents fall into the category of things we didn't notice or don't remember, no matter how many times we've read it.

For instance, what did Tyrion Lannister eat for dinner with Jeor Mormont at Castle Black? What animal was lurking in the shadows on the painted door across the street from the Seven Swords inn in Duskendale? You don't remember, but the answers are crab and boar. If a symbol that you defined from otherwise arbitrary details that you extracted elsewhere in the story were to imply the answer crab or boar in one of those scenes, that would prove a great amount of credibility of your symbol. How much credibility would it prove? An amount proportionate to the amount of alternative viable answers.

Inasmuch as a symbol can imply accurate predictions about the story's past and present, we can safely assume it can imply accurate predictions about the story's future. In this way, we're able to build powerful symbols for growing our understanding of the story, using only the parts of the story that are already available to us.

What Is A Symbol?

A symbol is a representative relationship between two things. To say A is symbolic of B is to say A can represent B and B can represent A. In math, this is simply the property of substitution. If A is equal to B, then wherever there is an A it can be substituted with B, and wherever there is a B it can be substituted with A, without rendering the equation false.

Letters are symbols, they represent sounds you can make with your mouth. Words are symbols, they represent meanings to your mind. Stories are symbols, they represent real people in real life.

As with the usefulness of a variable in math, the usefulness of a symbol in a story is specific to the context in which it was defined. It is not appropriate to apply A=B to question 2 on a math test just because A=B was established in question 1. Question 1 and 2 are different contexts. Likewise, it is not appropriate to apply Meteor=Sword anywhere in the story we please just because it was established in one place. To remind myself of this, I describe symbols with the approximately equals sign (≈) rather than the equals sign. IE. Meteor≈Sword.

Now that we have some fundamentals of symbolic interpretation, let's put them to work.

Chapter 3 - Did Ned Stark Wield Ice at the Tower of Joy?

Did Ned Stark wield Ice in the battle at the Tower of Joy? This was the question that prompted me to write this series of essays. I wanted to find out the answer for myself, and by the time I found the answer I realized that I had written a comprehensive explanation and demonstration of how I find answers like this. Before then, I couldn't really describe how I was doing it. I only knew how to do it, that it was logically sound, and that I had done it many times before with great success.

The question about Ice sounds like the whimsical sort of question any fantasy nerd who's sufficiently obsessed with swords, magic, and fights would think to ask. After all, Ned Stark is a cool guy, Ice is a cool sword, and the Tower of Joy is a hot fight. My shallow fixation on heroes fighting with swords is no less for it, but in truth the thing that prompted my question was that, after reading Kingmonkey's essay, I detected while re-reading the chapter AFFC 20 Brienne IV that Brienne's sword Oathkeeper and Ser Galladon's sword the Just Maid were referring to Ned's sword Ice.

It's an interesting enough question from a tactical standpoint. Would Ned prefer to use Ice over a regular sword? Valyrian steel over castle-forged steel? Ice is a greatsword, so it would be slower and more cumbersome to use than a regular sword would be. On the other hand, Valyrian steel is unbreakable, and so is Arthur Dayne's sword Dawn. Would Ned really run the risk of having his sword broken against Dawn by not using Ice?

Also, how would Ned's companions feel about him neglecting to use Ice? Would they have wanted him to use it, knowing that Arthur Dayne has Dawn? Or would they have considered the bulk of a greatsword — a greatsword that's used exclusively for beheadings — too much of a disadvantage? Fighting on the same team as Ned, their fates are tightly linked with his.

Then again, Valyrian steel has a lighter weight than all other steel. While it's true that Ice is big and heavy being a greatsword, maybe Ned could've fought with it anyway because it isn't quite as heavy as a greatsword made of regular steel. Perhaps Ice is about the same weight as a bastard sword, which can be adequately wielded and swung in one strong hand.

As fun as it is to speculate fantasy fight scenarios, the answers are relegated to the category of speculation without the help of symbolic interpretation.

Chapter 4 - Establishing Our First Symbols

Kingmonkey proposes many events that seem like they might be mirroring the Tower of Joy and consequently showing us clues about what all really happened there, why, and how it relates to the other mysteries at the center of ASOIAF such as Jon Snow's parentage, Ashara Dayne's suicide, Lyanna's kidnapping, what Howland Reed did to save Ned's life, and so on. I refer to this cluster of mysteries as ASOIAF's central mysteries, because they are all so tightly knitted together narratively, temporally, politically and more. It's a feature of ASOIAF's mysteriousness that suggests to me that this great number of wide-reaching mysteries can and will be correlated in the end by a small amount of surprising information.

By the rule of good mystery writing, that information must be seeded throughout the story before it comes to the foreground, in order not to feel cheap and contrived. If the Tower of Joy marks the center of ASOIAF's core mystery, then mirrors of the Tower of Joy (TOJ) are great places for the author to intimate clues about it with a light touch.

Let's begin with the Tower of Joy mirror that may be happening at the ruined castle of House Crabb called the Whispers, on Crackclaw Point.

The Whispers fight happens in chapter 20 of AFFC from the point-of-view of Brienne. The group consists of Brienne, her squire Podrick Payne, and their guide Nimble Dick Crabb. Brienne is on a mission to find Catelyn's daughters Sansa and Arya. There's tension between Brienne and Dick because Brienne doesn't trust Dick, and Dick's behavior and personality are not helping in that regard. Here are some TOJ parallels offered by Kingmonkey.

The Tower of Crabbs Brienne of Tarth's journeys through the riverlands on a quest to rescue a Stark maiden has hints of Eddard Stark's quest to rescue a Stark Maiden. In AFfC ch.20, Brienne has a showdown at a tower long fallen, The Whispers. At the Whispers Brienne fights Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon. These three can be seen as a twisted low-rent version of the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy. Pyg is a rather less majestic beast than the "old bull" Ser Gerold Hightower. Timeon is a Dornishman like Ser Arthur Dayne, but about as far from Dayne's chivalric nature as you can get. Shagwell is a psychotic Jester always making dark jokes, while just about the only thing we know about Ser Oswell Whent is that he was known for "his black humour". As at the Tower of Joy, there's a parley before the fight, but while the Three Kingsguard made it clear they would not flee across the narrow sea, that's exactly what the three bloody mummers are trying to do. Brienne has only two men with her when she meets the three, Podrick and Nimble Dick. However, this is another hidden seven. Ser Creighton Longbough, Ser Illifer the Penniless, Ser Shadrich of the Shady Glen and Ser Hyle Hunt had all been her companions too, but she left them behind. Brienne set out on her journey with a shield bearing the arms of Lothstan, the same Harrenhal bat that was on Whent's helm and coat of arms at the Tower of Joy. However by the time she arrives at the tower long fallen, she's had her sheild repainted with Duncan the Tall's coat of arms, including a falling star like Dayne's. She's directed to find a sheild painter by a tavern called the Seven Swords, named for seven Kingsguards.

As you can see, many details of the situation seem to echo details in the TOJ situation. Too many for all of them to be a coincidence. To summarize them:

Brienne is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that's guarded by three people.

Ned is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that's guarded by three people.

This mirror can establish many symbols:

Brienne is symbolic of Ned

Sansa or Arya is symbolic of Lyanna

The Whispers is symbolic of the Tower of Joy

Pyg, Shagwell, and Timeon are symbolic of Gerold Hightower, Oswell Whent, and Arthur Dayne

We can't be sure which symbols are going to be useful for helping us understand the Tower of Joy, but we should list them in order from most to least obvious because that should double as a list for most to least certain.

When applying a symbol we should also keep in mind the principle that unifies the symbol and force ourselves to define it in specific terms. For example, Brienne is symbolic of Ned through the principle 'Leader of the rescue party of a Stark girl who fights at a building that's guarded by three people and wins.'

We should also force ourselves to update the principle whenever we apply the symbol, to make sure the principle is intact and to whittle away the parts that don't survive the application. For example, Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon can be symbolic of Gerold, Oswell and Arthur at a group level, because both groups are 'Three men who fight a Ned symbol at the building where the Ned symbol came to rescue a Stark girl.'

But the symbols might also work at the individual level. When we look for commonalities between the individuals that seem too specific to be coincidence, we find that Timeon and Arthur have Dornish in common, Shagwell and Oswell have "well" and dark humor in common, and Pyg and Gerold have a farm animal nickname in common — pig and bull. Since these symbols work at the individual level, that gives us a green light to begin trying to assume that things that happened to one of these individuals in the Whispers fight may have also happened to his TOJ counterpart.

That leaves us with a lot of guesswork, like does Pyg's sword being broken mean that Gerold's sword was broken? Maybe not, but compared to boundless speculation it's a smaller search space with a higher chance of success, and the search is actually doable. The space can be exhausted in ten minutes or less. What we're looking for is a possibility that directly or indirectly answers a question we have about the TOJ. Since Gerold's sword being broken doesn't seem to answer one of those questions, that's good enough reason to discard the possibility and move on to the next one.

The potential TOJ mirror that stands out the most to me in the Whispers scene is about a magic sword. As Brienne and the gang are approaching the Whispers, Brienne and Dick chat about their hometown heroes:

When he was not singing, Nimble Dick would talk, regaling them with tales of Crackclaw Point. Every gloomy valley had its lord, he said, the lot of them united only by their mistrust of outsiders. In their veins the blood of the First Men ran dark and strong. “The Andals tried t’ take Crackclaw, but we bled them in the valleys and drowned them in the bogs. Only what their sons couldn’t win with swords, their pretty daughters won with kisses. They married into the houses they couldn’t conquer, aye.” The Darklyn kings of Duskendale had tried to impose their rule on Crackclaw Point; the Mootons of Maidenpool had tried as well, and later the haughty Celtigars of Crab Isle. But the Crackclaws knew their bogs and forests as no outsider could, and if hard pressed would vanish into the caverns that honeycombed their hills. When not fighting would-be conquerors, they fought each other. Their blood feuds were as deep and dark as the bogs between their hills. From time to time some champion would bring peace to the Point, but it never lasted longer than his lifetime. Lord Lucifer Hardy, he was a great one, and the Brothers Brune as well. Old Crackbones even more so, but the Crabbs were the mightiest of all. Dick still refused to believe that Brienne had never heard of Ser Clarence Crabb and his exploits. “Why would I lie?” she asked him. “Every place has its local heroes. Where I come from, the singers sing of Ser Galladon of Morne, the Perfect Knight.” “Ser Gallawho of What?” He snorted. “Never heard o’ him. Why was he so bloody perfect?” “Ser Galladon was a champion of such valor that the Maiden herself lost her heart to him. She gave him an enchanted sword as a token of her love. The Just Maid, it was called. No common sword could check her, nor any shield withstand her kiss. Ser Galladon bore the Just Maid proudly, but only thrice did he unsheathe her. He would not use the Maid against a mortal man, for she was so potent as to make any fight unfair.” Crabb thought that was hilarious. “The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What’s the point o’ having some magic sword if you don’t bloody well use it?” “Honor,” she said. “The point is honor.” That only made him laugh the louder. “Ser Clarence Crabb would have wiped his hairy arse with your Perfect Knight, m’lady. If they’d ever have met, there’d be one more bloody head sitting on the shelf at the Whispers, you ask me. ‘I should have used the magic sword,’ it’d be saying to all the other heads. ‘I should have used the bloody sword.’” Brienne could not help but smile. “Perhaps,” she allowed, “but Ser Galladon was no fool. Against a foe eight feet tall mounted on an aurochs, he might well have unsheathed the Just Maid. He used her once to slay a dragon, they say.” Nimble Dick was unimpressed. “Crackbones fought a dragon too, but he didn’t need no magic sword. He just tied its neck in a knot, so every time it breathed fire it roasted its own arse.” “And what did Crackbones do when Aegon and his sisters came?” Brienne asked him. “He was dead. M’lady must know that.” Crabb gave her a sideways look. “Aegon sent his sister up to Crackclaw, that Visenya. The lords had heard o’ Harren’s end. Being no fools, they laid their swords at her feet. The queen took them as her own men, and said they’d owe no fealty to Maidenpool, Crab Isle, or Duskendale. Don’t stop them bloody Celtigars from sending men to t’ eastern shore to collect his taxes. If he sends enough, a few come back to him … elsewise, we bow only to our own lords, and the king. The true king, not Robert and his ilk.” He spat. “There was Crabbs and Brunes and Boggses with Prince Rhaegar on the Trident, and in the Kingsguard too. A Hardy, a Cave, a Pyne, and three Crabbs, Clement and Rupert and Clarence the Short. Six foot tall, he was, but short compared to the real Ser Clarence. We’re all good dragon men, up Crackclaw way.” (AFFC 20 Brienne IV)

Brienne's hero Ser Galladon of Morne seems more honorable than Dick's hero Clarence Crabb. Brienne says that Galladon would not even use his magic sword against mortals because it would be dishonorable. Brienne's fixation on honor seems to strengthen her mirroring of Ned, who was also very interested in honor. Too much so, many would say. It's hard to miss how Ned's critics are echoed in the voice of Nimble Dick Crabb, here.

This magic sword issue comes up again later in the chapter when, just before Brienne enters the Whispers, she remembers Dick's ridicule and sends Pod to retrieve Oathkeeper after all, her own magic sword.

During the fight, Pod throws a rock or two that helps Brienne win the fight, perhaps establishing Pod as a symbol of Howland Reed using the principle 'Little guy who's underestimated in the fight and who saves the Ned symbol by fighting in a dishonorable way at a key moment.'

The mirror seems like it might suggest that there was some drama about Ned's magic sword, Ice. Do you think that Ned wasn't going to use Ice at first? If his normal sword broke against Arthur, Ned's thoughts may very well have been the same as Dick's ridicule of Galladon: "I should have used the magic sword! I should have used the bloody sword!"

With symbolic interpretation, the interpreter needs to define the symbols in falsifiable terms as he goes, to make sure he's not changing the definition to suit his interpretation, but rather suiting his interpretation to a definition.

A symbol's definition will usually change along the way, because it's rare to get the words exactly right on the first try. So, there's an ironing-out process. But as long as a principle/definition can be stated and in falsifiable terms, the process of writing it is itself a sufficient test to establish a symbol. It proves that the two things in the symbol at least had enough in common that those commonalities could be arranged into specific words that have specific meanings. It also shows the people who you're presenting your interpretation to that you're committing to standards that are falsifiable, and shows them the exact words whose exact definitions constitute those standards. Words often have more than one meaning, so there's wiggle room in the interpretation, but at least one of the word's meanings should match with how you're interpreting it.

For instance, a skeptic of symbolic interpretation may criticize that the magic swords in the Whispers chapter could just as reasonable refer to Arthur Dayne's sword as to Ned Stark's sword. After all, Dawn is at least as much a magic sword as Ice is.

Indeed, Arthur Dayne being the one who should have used his magic sword may be the appropriate mirror with the Whispers fight. If so, then the Whispers≈TOJ symbol would need to be updated to reflect that. Far from invalidating symbolic interpretation, that observation highlights the importance of a tenant of symbolic interpretation that I call "marking the forks in the road." It is an ordinary part of the ironing-out process when defining a symbol.

Likewise, a skeptic of symbolic interpretation may criticize that there is not really a Stark girl at the Whispers. While that's true, the symbol I defined does not require there to actually be a Stark girl at the Whispers.

Brienne is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that's guarded by three people.

Ned is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that's guarded by three people.

That was not an accident on my part. I wrote it that way to account for the fact that, unlike the Tower of Joy, there is no Stark girl actually present at the Whispers. In this definition, the Stark girl comes in through the Ned symbol's motivation, not by being present. Both Ned and Brienne are there for the purpose of retrieving a Stark girl, regardless whether one is there or not. Similarly, the three men are not necessarily guarding a Stark girl, they are simply present at the building where the Ned symbol arrives, fights them and wins. These commonalities are enough to preserve the Whispers≈TOJ symbol in a powerful way.

The ways that the symbol unexpectedly contradicted my assumptions about how the symbol should work are good indicators about where to look and what possibilities I should consider in the TOJ scene. For example, based on this difference it is worth giving serious consideration to the possibility that Lyanna was not present at the Tower of Joy, after all. Not every difference between the two things in the symbol needs to indicate something we don't know about one or the other, but most if not everything we don't know about one situation or the other that there is to be learned from the symbolic relationship will be found in their differences rather than their similarities.

Next: Chapter 5 - Ser Galladon of Morne

applesanddragons

[giresearch]

L-Glutamine (Gln) Market Size, volume, Revenue, Trends Analysis Report 2024-2030

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L-Glutamine, short as Gln, is the most abundant amino acid in the body. It is responsible for transporting nitrogen into your muscles. Glutamine also plays a large role in metabolism, the functioning of your immune system, protein synthesis and energy restoration. According to our (Global Info Research) latest study, the global L-Glutamine (Gln) market size was valued at US$ 213 million in 2023 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 291 million by 2030 with a CAGR of 4.2% during review period. Global L-Glutamine core manufacturers include Ajinomoto, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Daesang, Meihua and Fufeng, etc. The top three manufacturers account for approximately 79% of the global share. The United States is the world's largest market, accounting for nearly 42% of the market. In terms of product type, nutraceutical grade occupies a dominant position, accounting for 72% of the market share. At the same time, in terms of application, sports nutrition is the largest application field, accounting for 42%. This report is a detailed and comprehensive analysis for global L-Glutamine (Gln) market. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are presented by manufacturers, by region & country, by Type and by Application. As the market is constantly changing, this report explores the competition, supply and demand trends, as well as key factors that contribute to its changing demands across many markets. Company profiles and product examples of selected competitors, along with market share estimates of some of the selected leaders for the year 2024, are provided.

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[monriatitans]

Ta-Da! List: Monday, May 27th

The image was made in Canva; check it out at the [referral] link here!

I share my “Ta-Da! List” every day so everyone gets a daily update and I have a reminder of what I’ve accomplished.

To learn more about “Ta-Da! Lists”, and other ADHD life hacks, check out @adhdjesse’s book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD.

Abbreviations

- MT: MonriaTitans - O&T: Opinions & Truth Blog - NRL: The Neverending Reading List - WGS: The Weekend Game Show - ASO: Artist Shout-Out - IG: Instagram - BMAC: Buy Me a Coffee - TDL: Ta-Da! List

Ta-Da! List

✧ May 26th: - chores and miscellaneous: started, then unloaded the dishwasher ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ throughout the day: - kept emails manageable - loaded the dishwasher - filled out today’s TDL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the mobile phone: - Hive: shared today’s ASO - IG/Threads/Hive: shared the NRL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the bedroom setup: - Movies: watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas” - O&T: shared yesterday’s and today’s TDL to various social media ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the office setup: - WGS: gave a human artist, Max Cimato, a shout-out on O&T, Tumblr, and other social media - O&T: rearranged links in the Site Menu; shared the NRL, “Third Generation R&D”, by Philip A. Roussel, Kamal N. Saad, & Tamara J. Erickson, on social media - Branding: in Canva, found a graphic to represent sharing an NRL for the TDLs - MT Carrd: added the link to Rumble and Bluesky to the “Icons Section” at the bottom - Gaming: played “Final Fantasy XIV” - YouTube: watched and/or listened to: 1. Tina Huang’s videos “Making My New Self Study Plan” and “How To Learn Things FAST” 2. Philosophy Tube’s videos “Beauty in Ugly Times”, “The Trouble with the Video Game Industry”, “Logic”, “HBO’s Chernobyl & Personal Responsibility”, “Witchcraft, Gender, & Marxism”, “YouTube: Art or Reality?”, “Transphobia: An Analysis”, “Data”, “Suic!de and Ment@l He@lth”, and “Men. Abuse. Trauma.” 3. Jim Sterling’s video “Blizzard Is Pathetic (The Jimquisition)” 4. ContraPoints’ videos “Autogynephilia” and “Incels” 5. The Book Leo’s video video “is tiktok ruining reading? & the desire to be ‘a reader’” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ chores and miscellaneous: - Food: had coffee and chocolate croissants for breakfast; had leftover pizza and family dinner for lunch; partner cooked CookingLight’s “Lazy Lasagna Soup” for dinner - Chores: dusted the apartment

—

Well, these are all the updates I had for today! Thank you for reading!

May every decision you make be *in the spirit of fairness* and may the rest of your day *NOT go to $#!7*!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[tsimanify]

This book is a treatise on cultural globalization and the global political economy. By introducing the transnational public domain in the study of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the book goes beyond existing theoretical frameworks involving both the `clash between civilizations' and the `time-worn division' of the world into North and South. It advances a new focus on the theoretical and empirical elements that canvass global cultural behaviours and reactionary attitudes to the expanding Chinese economic norms, cultures and values in different national contexts. Readers of political theory, global political economy, globalization, international relations, political sociology, cultural sociology, public policy and foreign policy analysis will find interest in the book. Whereas new nationalism couples with globalism, both concepts are rediscovered through various socio-economic contexts of BRI policy discourses, which produce conflicts, solidarities, new economic partnerships, and cooperation and resistance as types of contemporary nationalism. The new nationalism is approached as a dual-sided, relational, and dialectical phenomenon which readers will capture by paying particular attention to both the global and local scales of the social responses to the BRI. 

[zoewilkinson]

Reader Sources

Abramov, S. et al. (2022) ‘Analysis of Video Game Players’ Emotions and Team Performance: An Esports Tournament Case Study’, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 26(8), pp. 3597–3606. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/JBHI.2021.3119202.

In this article, the connection between emotions and the quality of the performances of Esports players is analysed. Looking at the player’s emotions, there is a direct connection shown between their mood and how well they play, as well as their decision making processes. By understanding this connection, games artists and developers can create a more immersive experience by using different objects and appearances to create a specific emotion, which will change the way the player engages with the game. This research shows the importance of considering what emotional impact you want your work to have, especially looking at competitive gaming and how the players will respond to the content.

Bazzini, D., Curtin, L., Joslin, S., Regan, S. and Martz, D. (2010), Do Animated Disney Characters Portray and Promote the Beauty–Goodness Stereotype?. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40: 2687-2709. https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00676.x

This study looks at how Disney plays into the stereotypical character portrayal that “beautiful equals good”. Disney often uses a character’s appearance to associate their personality to, which reinforces the conventional beauty standards modern media. This stereotype is damaging to younger audiences, who are unintentionally being taught that anything other than conventional beauty is bad or even evil, which will impact their attitude to their own or other’s appearances. These implications by Disney have also impacted different media types, especially female video game characters. Artists seem to follow this “rule” created by Disney when designing characters, which limits diversity and unrealistic body types being normalised in games. While challenging this stereotype in my own designs would make a statement, there is concern that the audience would be less receptive to certain character appearances in certain roles now because of how the market has been flooded.

BEHM-MORAWITZ, E. and TA, D. (2014) ‘Cultivating Virtual Stereotypes?: The Impact of Video Game Play on Racial/Ethnic Stereotypes’, Howard Journal of Communications, 25(1), pp. 1–15. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2013.835600.

Looking at how racial stereotypes are portrayed in games, this journal shows ways that racial biases are still sadly represented in game narratives, and the impact they have on different races and ethnicities. Games artists have an important role in creating narratives that are inclusive and diverse, positively representing all races and creating different character roles without the main focus of their personality being where they’re from. Some games artists don’t follow this, which has a real-world impact on how audiences visually stereotype people, influencing their attitudes and opinions on different ethnicities and races. I believe as a character artist I have a moral responsibility to accurately and positively portray all racial groups, knowing how the industry can have a huge impact on how people perceive things. Moving forward, I think games should be working towards being a more inclusive medium to all backgrounds.

Chess, S., Evans, N.J. and Baines, J.J. (2016) ‘What Does a Gamer Look Like? Video Games, Advertising, and Diversity’, Television & New Media, 18(1), pp. 37–57. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476416643765.

Understanding the way that the game’s industry audiences are changing and diversifying everyday is important to my work as a character artist, in order to create more inclusive and diverse characters that players can see themselves represented in. This article provides insight into how the demographic of gamers is changing and gives a new perspective on how to represent a wider variety of identities, as well as how to break away from old and outdated stereotypes of gamers. The authors argue that the games community is diversifying, and the need for more inclusive content and representation of different backgrounds needs to be acknowledged by the media. With this knowledge, I can create characters that the gaming community resonate with and relate to, as it provides an awareness of how the community is changing and how to make the industry an inclusive space for all identities.

Domsch, S. (2013) Storyplaying : Agency and Narrative in Video Games. Berlin/Boston, GERMANY: De Gruyter, Inc. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/herts/detail.action?docID=1000613.

In this book, Domsch looks at the connection between player engagement and the narrative, focusing on how the player choices change the overall storytelling experience in an interactive gameplay. By providing the player with control over certain elements of the story, it creates an interactive and more enjoyable experience, presenting the narrative of the game in a new way each time depending on the way they choose to play. This book gives game artists and developers a better knowledge on how visuals like environments and characters can enhance a narrative, and how to create an immersive experience by considering different paths the player could take in the narrative based on these visuals.

Jenkins, H. (2006) Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers : Exploring Participatory Culture. New York, UNITED STATES: New York University Press. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/herts/detail.action?docID=865571.

Participatory culture has a huge impact on the games industry. Jenkins looks at the way interactions between fans and developers or artists contribute to the development of projects, and how it creates a collaborative environment. This has an impact on the player engagement because the fans have a better connection to the game, and an opportunity to have their opinions listened to. Having this engagement between games artists and fans helps them have a better idea of player preferences and gives artists direct feedback for further refinement. Allowing artists to connect more personally to their audience can be very beneficial to their personal development as an artist, as well a improving the overall quality of the game or character design while targeting a certain audience.

MacCallum-Stewart, E. (2009) ‘“The street smarts of a cartoon princess”. New roles for women in games’, Digital Creativity, 20(4), pp. 225–237. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14626260903290299.

It’s nothing new to talk about the way women are represented (or misrepresented) in video games, but this article discusses the ways women’s roles in games are evolving, moving away from the “damsel in distress” stereotype and developing into much more empowering representations. MacCallum-Stewart looks at how women’s roles in gaming are transforming and puts an emphasis on the importance of creating diverse and strong female characters. This article is an important contribution to the discussion of gender inclusivity in the gaming industry and how we can create a more inclusive depiction of women, which is important to my work as a games artist because it challenges my thinking when designing female characters, expanding my art in an inclusive and empowering way.

Pallavicini, F., Pepe, A. and Minissi, M.E. (2019) ‘Gaming in Virtual Reality: What Changes in Terms of Usability, Emotional Response and Sense of Presence Compared to Non-Immersive Video Games?’, Simulation & Gaming, 50(2), pp. 136–159. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878119831420.

Virtual reality has had a huge impact on the games industry as a whole, especially in the last two decades as it has become more accessible to the target audiences. This article looks at how VR has changed the way we experience games, which in turn changes the emotional response to the game content as it creates a completely immersive and interactive experience. This level of immersion creates new challenges for games artists, requiring an increased attention to detail to create visually appealing environments. This article discusses the way artists create visuals to enhance the use of VR, and how it influences the aesthetic choices overall. Games artists have an important role in the way VR is incorporated and developed in the future to create a fully interactive and immersive experience, making these digital worlds feel real.

Salmond, M. (2021) ‘Video Game Level Design : How to Create Video Games With Emotion, Interaction, and Engagement’, in M. Salmond (ed.) Video Game Level Design : How to Create Video Games With Emotion, Interaction, and Engagement. 1st edn. London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. Available at: https://www.bloomsburyvisualarts.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781501380907.

In my opinion, the level design and environment of a game can have the biggest impact on the audience’s emotions and engagement to the content. This book looks at and explains how using specific obstacles, assets and narrative ideas can create a specific emotion in the players. The emotional connection to a game completely changes the player interaction and creates a more realistic reaction or response to the game content. Artists can use this to create environments that match the intended emotions, creating an immersive experience. Level designers have the skills to create a functional level that matches the narrative seamlessly, enhancing the overall emotional engagement. As a character artist, I can learn from this to create an emotional connection to my own characters, which will create an overall deeper connection to the game content they’re involved in.

Shaw, A. et al. (2019) ‘Counting Queerness in Games: Trends in LGBTQ Digital Game Representation, 1985-2005’, International journal of communication (Online), p. 1544+. Available at: https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/apps/doc/A592665059/AONE?u=uniherts&sid=summon&xid=5a7a1a4d.

This article analyses LGBTQ+ representation in video games over two decades, looking at trends and giving perspective on how the LGBTQ+ community have been represented previously. Looking specifically at 1985-2005, this article shows how inclusivity has changed and grown, as well as problems that are still appearing in modern media. It discusses the importance of accurate representation in games, which can be used as a reference for all areas of game development to consider ways to better represent the community in inclusive and accurate ways. Looking specifically at how the LGBTQ+ community has been represented historically, we can learn how to grow and move forward to create a more inclusive and diverse industry, creating characters and narrative ideas with more diversity and accuracy.

[angeliqueshelleyartist]

Reader

ADUKIA, A., et al. (2023). What We Teach About Race and Gender: Representation in Images and Text of Children’s Books. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 138(4), p.2225–2285. [Online]. Available at: https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1093/qje/qjad028 [Accessed: 8 December 2023].

Adukia et al. developed computational tools and integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse text and images converted into data using influential children’s books from the last century as a source material. This was done in order to better understand racial and gender inequalities that persist in society. Their results found that diverse representation was slowly improving, but there was still a large disparity between mainstream identities and underrepresented genders and ethnicities.

Children’s media reaches beyond books to other visual media such as games, films and television. Representation in children’s media can alter children’s perception and treatment of others and poor representation can enable prejudices to persist. Understanding this is vital for pre-production artists when considering the choices directly available to them when designing diverse and intersectional characters, as character roles have real world consequences through subconscious bias.

ARVA, E. L. (2008). Writing the Vanishing Real: Hyperreality and Magical Realism. Journal of Narrative Theory. 38(1), pp.60-85. [Online]. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41304877 [Accessed: 4 January 2024].

Writing the Vanishing Real compares key theories of realistic representation with magical realism’s fantastical ‘re-presentation’ of reality in simulating affect related to trauma. Magical realism is an ontological duality existing beyond the realistic and ‘faded’ components of media. Arva defines and argues for its validity in a post-modern world through using key theoretical frameworks on ‘reality’ to analyse text and visual imagery rich with magical realism, whose depictions enhance the affect of trauma that is otherwise difficult to narrate in realistic terms. 

Though an older text, magical realism is still applicable to my practice as Arva discusses key theories about the depiction of reality and magical realism in images, and the prominence of fictional text analysis directly relates to narrative tools. Narrative is a vital component of film and games, which often aims to engage the viewer emotionally and empathetically; fantastical or abstract portrayals can sometimes more realistically express psychological effects people experience, allowing for a more empathetic viewing experience.

GALL, D. et al. (2021). Embodiment in Virtual Reality Intensifies Emotional Responses to Virtual Stimuli. Frontiers in Psychology: Cognitive Science. 12(1). [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674179 [Accessed: 5 January 2024].

This article consists of a study by Gall et.al to determine the level of embodiment experienced through Virtual Reality (VR) and synchronous and asynchronous external stimulation. The participants experienced a far greater amount of virtual embodiment (measured by the sense of self-location, agency and body ownership), with synchronous stimulation, as well as experiencing heightened emotional responses while in the state of greater embodiment. The study results also hypothesise that a state of reduced embodiment could cause depersonalisation.

This study has massive implications for several sectors including the gaming industry. A version of character embodiment currently exists through the use of motion-capture controls enabling the player’s virtual hands to move synchronously with their own, however, once technology has advanced enough to implement said stimulation to a more accurate and greater degree, the immersiveness of VR will reach new heights. Concept art can prepare fair representations of diverse characters to utilise the emotional effect of current and future virtual embodiment states to reduce bias and intolerance.

HABERL, E. (2021). Lower Case Truth: Bridging Affect Theory and Arts-Based Education Research to Explore Color as Affect. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 20(1). [Online]. Available at: https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1177/1609406921998917 [Accessed: 9 January 2024].

Harberl uses arts-based, qualitative research methods coupled with feminist and existing affect theories around art and linguistics to analyse the presence of affect in education through a study of seventh grade pupils in the USA. Her research model was unique through the inclusion of vulnerable writing and an accompanying visual representation of the affective experience. Harbel used key feminist theory to encourage vulnerability and eliminate the hierarchy of power present in education. Harbel’s findings were surprising as the pupils chose to illustrate their affective experiences with colour and abstract forms.

While the study has a focus of affect and education, the key theories and findings around this work have a wide range of application. The emotive power of colour theory is already prominently in use in the media. Visual study results such as this one can help enrich existing practices for more affective and empathetic content. As a concept artist, colour theory is a key component for accurately conceptualising intended emotions and visual narratives.

LATIKKA, R. et al. (2023). AI as an Artist? A Two-Wave Survey Study on Attitudes Toward Using Artificial Intelligence in Art. Poetics. 101(0). [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2023.101839 [Accessed: 14 January 2024].

Latikka et al. conduct a longitudinal research survey on public perception of the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the arts. Their choice to use the theoretical SDT framework as research parameters was informed by other surveys on AI. While there were several categories included in the survey, a key result found a direct correlation between positive feelings toward AI and feelings of autonomy and relatedness of AI in participants' daily lives, but overall, less positively than in other sectors such as medicine. There were also participants that felt AI-produced art was “strange” and “cold”.

This extremely recent (published December 2023) study is timely when considering the rapid development of AI and its use in every sector. The games and films industries are already adopting the use of AI within their pipelines to meet the demand of media consumption. While there are ongoing debates on the ethicality of AI art, understanding the public reception of AI art is important when incorporating it into media products.

LOMAS, T. (2019). Positive Semiotics. Review of General Psychology. 23(3), pp.359 - 370. [Online]. Available at: https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1177/1089268019832 [Accessed: 4 December 2023].

Positive Semiotics aims to reharmonise the relationship between psychology and semiotics as both fields are necessary to understand the phenomenon of media manipulation. Positive Semiotics, influenced by Positive Psychology, is about the intersection of semiotics and well-being, and the study of the positive effects of sign-systems. Lomas creates an analytical formula using Pierce’s semiotic framework as well as the five criteria of Pawelski’s normative and non-normative desirability, a defined aspect of positivity, as a scaling sign-system. 

Lomas’ theory is important when considering the impact of semiotics in media, particularly when it intersects representation. As a media creator, being mindful of myth is vital, but creating a sign-system that can positively influence others is ideal. With that goal in mind, Lomas’s formula can help me be intentional when planning my work, although, as Lomas mentions, I need to be aware that normative (in a cultural context) and non-normative desirability is viewer subjective.

MASANET, M., VENTURA, R. & BALLESTE, E. (2022). Beyond the “Trans Fact”? Trans Representation in the Teen Series Euphoria: Complexity, Recognition, and Comfort. Social Inclusion. 10(2), p.143 – 155. [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v10i2.4926 [Accessed: 8 December 2023].

Fair representation of LGBTQ+ people in media can contribute to the creation of prejudice-reducing pedagogies. Masanet et al. analyse the representation of the character Jules, a transgender woman, in the series Euphoria to explore fairness in the show’s trans representation. They determined that Euphoria contained concepts of complexity, recognition and comfort which were a good start in leaving behind a stage of imperfect representation. The analysis was also able to highlight specific examples of overcoming simplistic and stigmatised portrayals. 

Understanding the power multi-layered representations can have in fighting rising discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community makes me, as a practitioner in the pre-productive stages of media, partly responsible for ensuring the nuances of good representation are sought after. Analyses such as this one can help me be aware of what constitutes good representation and avoid stigmatic pitfalls that can lead to stereotyping or greater harm.

RICO GARCIA, O.D. et al. (2022). 'Emotion-Driven Interactive Storytelling: Let Me Tell You How to Feel'. In: MARTINS, T., RODERIGUEZ-FERNANDEZ, N., REBELO, S.M. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design. EvoMUSART 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13221. Cham: Springer. pp 259–274 https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1007/978-3-031-03789-4_17

The user-interactivity that creates unique experiences in games has inspired more interactive storytelling in films. Rico Garcia et. al created a specialised electroencephalography (EEG) emotion-based recognition system to aid in delivering, through the computing abilities of  Artificial Intelligence, tailored content to enable the directors’ emotional intent of the film to pass onto the viewers in a seamless, interactive viewing experience. The directors gave predefined instructions to deliver and enhance sequences for their desired emotional outcomes through colour and contrast, and alternative performances by actors. 

The system developed by Rico Garcia et al. is an amazing start to a viscerally-tailored interactive experience. Ethical use of this system could reach end-users in both the games and films industries once the technology has been streamlined. In the immersive future of extended reality, being aware of current research and future technological developments can prime a concept artist for making full use of the breadth of their design work by creating templates to further the ends of ethical emotional delivery.

THIEL, F. J. & STEED, A. (2022). Developing an Accessibility Metric for VR Games Based on Motion Data Captured Under Game Conditions. Frontiers in Virtual Reality: Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour. 3(1). [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.909357 [Accessed: 5 January 2024].

Thiel and Steed develop a metric to measure the mobility required to interact with different Virtual Reality (VR) games. Once developed, the computational metric could streamline accessibility information systematically across game suppliers without human curation, supplying the relevant information to disabled consumers before purchase. The computational metric is informed by key research into five characteristics of movement: impulsiveness, energy, directness, jerkiness and expansiveness. Although a limited study for now, they test their metric in measuring participants' mobility in current VR games.

This study highlights key issues with accessibility in VR games. A metric is a wonderful start to informing patrons before they purchase, but hopefully accessibility can improve in the future with better alternative controls available in VR games. Concept artists can conceptualise interactive-based character movement and can work with UI artists and programmers to create adaptive experiences that do not feel secondary to more conventional VR gameplay. 

THON, J. N. (2019). ‘Transmedia Characters: Theory and Analysis’. Frontiers of Narrative Studies. Volume 5. (Issue 2). pp.169-175. [Online]. Available at: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/fns-2019-0012/html [Accessed: 27 October 2023].

Transmedia Characters: Theory and Analysis suggests ways to analyse and design characters that are individually depicted in multiple forms of media. Thon emphasises analysis on how characters are influenced by the conventions of their specific media and relationships through other media. The discussions on principles like minimal departure and transmedia character templates provides practical advice for retaining characteristics while being considerate of adjustments required by the aforementioned conventions.

Thon also somewhat offers assurance for artists through the principle of a limited degree of consumer charity which allows for differences in character representations due to media requirements. Thon retains a focus on transmedia characters over figures while clarifying both terms, an important consideration for character concept artists when negotiating client briefs to help them understand the degree of traits or elements being kept consistent. I found Thon’s theory of particular interest to me as a generalist concept artist, with a love for character design, to use as a guide for migrating transmedia characters.