#analytical term papers

[macchiatogf]

my first draft of my capstone is a week overdue so i’m trying the ole sleep deprivation method (i.e. no sleep til it’s done) but now it’s 3am i’ve faffed my way into getting one more page done and the harsh reality that this paper is truly not going to write itself is setting in. what the fuck gives

#ik the real issue is ‘no more gas in the tank’ which is just #the natural result of cranking out 5-10 page papers every other week to sometimes several times a week for the last month #all research based btw hence the misery #like. i could slaughter an analytical essay give me an argumentative prompt and i’ll hash that out in an hour #but please for the love of god stop asking me to produce. i have no more thoughts. my zotero is pleading for mercy #if i can stave off burning out for just one more month i’ll make it but Holy Fuck Lmao #gnashing my teeth tearing my hair etc etc let me OUTTT let me outtttttt 😭😭😭😭 #i can’t keep living like this!!! please no more long term projects i can’t take it anymore

[sefinaa]

❝𝐏𝐀𝐂: 𝐈 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫, 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐰.❞

What do you need to hear?

Subliminal channel | Masterlist

Tips | Paid Readings

Not a tarot card reading, only based on my intuition.

18+ readings

Divider

Pile 1

You must understand that the reason why everything isn’t going your way isn’t due to the fact you’re not a good person. It is not about your good deeds, or your bad deeds. It is not about who you harm inadvertently, this stems from you as a person. What are you looking for or in your case, whom are you looking for? Are you looking for something that satisfies you for the time being or for the longer term? Ask yourself this. Are you deserving of good luck? Am I deserving of the best?

If you think to yourself that every small detail of your life isn’t going well then you stimulate your mindset in the wrong light. Small simple bad things are normal for us all. One paper cut, a fight occurring, a friendship ending, these things are much smaller than you know.

A paper cut, you were careless and you lack patience.

A fight occurring teaches you patience, resilience, and knowledge. You learn from their behavior, are they a hot headed, calm, how do they react? It heightens your sense, awareness and analytical skills.

A friendship ending is a lesson for us all, it makes us grow as a person and it teaches us how to make ourselves the priority because friendships always end no matter, positive or not. Happy memories are the things one can hold on but to reminisce about the past makes us a prisoner. Do you want to be a prisoner? Does that sound ideal to you? If so, why?

So to ask once more, who are you looking for?

Think about this for a bit and speak to yourself about it until you realize you already know the answer.

The answer is within you.

Pile 2

When you see fire near you, you instantly run or perhaps freeze due to fear, and yet here we stand in the midst of it excited by it. Why is that? Why do you think you seek the adventure of danger? Do you think it plays the factor of being the person you desire or perhaps you’re hiding away once more under a facade of dread and hatred?

Do you believe that the burning flame within you is seeking to go upward or downwards? Do you believe that the same burning flame is you or perhaps it's merely the people around you, your environment?

Why all these questions? What is this reading, you may ask, the truth is, your mind is rather clustered of useless thoughts surrounding you like a snowstorm where you cannot escape, only to shelter oneself. Learn to let go of the thoughts that do not benefit you, and take in the ones that makes you happy. Let go of your worries to whom you believe or what you believe in, and let them take those worries away. Come back anew and make yourself whole once more. Your life is in your hands, not them, not the community nor your family, simply just you and you alone. Obstacles surely are a pain, are they not? But then again, obstacles make us whole so, will you be the person who stops midway through the obstacle or will you go forth with it and leap over it, perhaps even swim around it? The choice is yours and it lies within your grasp. You choose.

Pile 3

When you see the moon hiding the sun, you find it to be mesmerizing. The moon shines its beauty for us so we can enjoy the stars, perhaps to stargaze, maybe to feel like ourselves, who knows. But then again it’s just a normal cycle, a factual tradition, I suppose. But then we look at society and how it teaches us that our flaws are significant and that we must be perfect like Barbie and Ken. But then again, one cannot achieve such perfection, it’s simply impossible. Right?

Why do you believe that you must be perfect at everything? You must achieve everything and that if you do not, you’re unworthy? Not good enough and such. What are you gaining from that? Would you preferably say that to a child, let alone your child? No.

Would you find an infant, barely born and tell them, “you’re doing this wrong. What is wrong with you?! You cannot do anything right!” No. So why do you do it to yourself?

If I were to yell at you right now, how would you react? Would you reciprocate it? Would you let it bury inside and create resentment towards me? Maybe you might slap me as well. Or I suppose, you will laugh it off like it’s nothing, or maybe it truly isn’t anything because you became numb to it because you justified it.

Even so, it’s not justified to act so harsh on yourself, high expectations won’t lead you anywhere, well, I suppose it would leave you in a dump. That doesn’t sound enjoyable, does it? No.

Maybe next time, let’s try being easier on ourselves and show gratitude to oneself for achieving a small accomplishment and giving ourselves a reward. Shouldn’t be hard if you actually care for yourself, now would it? You tell me. Decide it for yourself.

Pile 4

When I think of your pile, I see a child, presumably someone who looks pale, but isn’t. I see an image of someone wearing nothing, but not in a perverted fashion. I see them staring into my eyes with such sadness, such hatred in their heart and eyes. So much anger, and yet there is a “help me” feeling of the way they are gazing into my eyes.

What I’m saying is, those reading this pile feels .. a sense of emptiness and apathy. This pile gave me anxiety for 3 hours straight and I ruined my nails by biting them (which I never do), I wish I was exaggerating, but I am not. Your pile is very rocky, lots of anxiety and frustration, and so much resentment. I can feel my heart beating so incredibly fast, I feel suffocated, I feel like I am drowning, but it’s not the same as you expect someone to drown. I feel as I am dying and that is what you feel right now.

I hear depression, anxiety, BPD, and “I’m going to kill you.” Everyone here feels so much anger, it’s going to explode on the next person. Sometimes you feel like no one understands you and they treat you as a joke, at times you feel as if you aren’t important enough to be apart of your social group, even your family as well. At times, you want to.. jump off a cliff but the thought scares you very much, not because you're a coward, but because you have this small shred of hope that you may have a better life, and you will.

I see a hill, someone's child is holding a book or perhaps a diary, they are holding it tightly, close to their heart. Despite if you don’t read or write journals/diaries, something you have within you is what you hold very close to you and you must cherish that. Keep it close, I’m not speaking of your negativity (some of you, stop it), I’m speaking of the thing you want so badly but you believe it is impossible to achieve and yet it is not. How could it be impossible? You found the right pile for you, so what is the issue of you believing it will come to you even when you do nothing? Anything is possible, that’s very obvious, understand this. If you put your mindset on something, in this case, what you want, you think of it or perhaps daydream about it, then it’s yours. That’s all.

Here is what you must hear.

When a shooting star shoots across the night sky, we all become hypnotized by it due to it being such a rarity, correct? We stargaze because stars are so mesmerizing, so enchanting. When you think of what you desire, that lost hope, you become hypnotized about it, don’t you? If shooting stars are possible, then how dare you say what you desire, that shred of hope isn’t possible?

Getting lost in a world of possibilities is such an exciting experience, isn’t it? But when you realize it’s not real, it hurts even more. Perhaps using that small shred of happiness can amplify what you want. Ever think of that? So just daydream or think of the things you want, even if it’s a “silly” daydream about being a knight saving a princess in a castle with dragons and such, and then think of what you want for a split second even and go back to that “silly” daydream. You’ll manifest what you want without even realizing.

My intuition is telling me is that you can get what you desire if you change your approach in life. If you can do that, then that small shred of hope in your life can bypass the hopelessness that you feel as of this moment. It will twist your mind and make it assume that what you want is so incredibly easy to reach and achieve.

#tarotblr #tarot reading #tarot readings #pick a pile #pac #pick a card reading #detailed pac #tarot #divination #pick an image #pick a photo #tarot pick a pile #free tarot #love tarot reading #love tarot #free tarot reading love #future spouse pick a card reading #future spouse pac reading #future spouse #tarot spouse #spiritual #pick a picture #pick a card #channeling #channeled message #pap #spirituality #channel messages #pile 1 #pile 2

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Being watched sucks. Of all the parenting mistakes I've made, none haunt me more than the times my daughter caught me watching her while she was learning to do something, discovered she was being observed in a vulnerable moment, and abandoned her attempt:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

It's hard to be your authentic self while you're under surveillance. For that reason alone, the rise and rise of the surveillance industry – an unholy public-private partnership between cops, spooks, and ad-tech scum – is a plague on humanity and a scourge on the Earth:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

But beyond the psychic damage surveillance metes out, there are immediate, concrete ways in which surveillance brings us to harm. Ad-tech follows us into abortion clinics and then sells the info to the cops back home in the forced birth states run by Handmaid's Tale LARPers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/29/no-i-in-uter-us/#egged-on

And even if you have the good fortune to live in a state whose motto isn't "There's no 'I" in uter-US," ad-tech also lets anti-abortion propagandists trick you into visiting fake "clinics" who defraud you into giving birth by running out the clock on terminating your pregnancy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

The commercial surveillance industry fuels SWATting, where sociopaths who don't like your internet opinions or are steamed because you beat them at Call of Duty trick the cops into thinking that there's an "active shooter" at your house, provoking the kind of American policing autoimmune reaction that can get you killed:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/14/us/swatting-sentence-casey-viner/index.html

There's just a lot of ways that compiling deep, nonconsensual, population-scale surveillance dossiers can bring safety and financial harm to the unwilling subjects of our experiment in digital spying. The wave of "business email compromises" (the infosec term for impersonating your boss to you and tricking you into cleaning out the company bank accounts)? They start with spear phishing, a phishing attack that uses personal information – bought from commercial sources or ganked from leaks – to craft a virtual Big Store con:

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/business-email-compromise

It's not just spear-phishers. There are plenty of financial predators who run petty grifts – stock swindles, identity theft, and other petty cons. These scams depend on commercial surveillance, both to target victims (e.g. buying Facebook ads targeting people struggling with medical debt and worried about losing their homes) and to run the con itself (by getting the information needed to pull of a successful identity theft).

In "Consumer Surveillance and Financial Fraud," a new National Bureau of Academic Research paper, a trio of business-school profs – Bo Bian (UBC), Michaela Pagel (WUSTL) and Huan Tang (Wharton) quantify the commercial surveillance industry's relationship to finance crimes:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31692

The authors take advantage of a time-series of ZIP-code-accurate fraud complaint data from the Consumer Finance Protection Board, supplemented by complaints from the FTC, along with Apple's rollout of App Tracking Transparency, a change to app-based tracking on Apple mobile devices that turned of third-party commercial surveillance unless users explicitly opted into being spied on. More than 96% of Apple users blocked spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

In other words, they were able to see, neighborhood by neighborhood, what happened to financial fraud when users were able to block commercial surveillance.

What happened is, fraud plunged. Deprived of the raw material for committing fraud, criminals were substantially hampered in their ability to steal from internet users.

While this is something that security professionals have understood for years, this study puts some empirical spine into the large corpus of qualitative accounts of the surveillance-to-fraud pipeline.

As the authors note in their conclusion, this analysis is timely. Google has just rolled out a new surveillance system, the deceptively named "Privacy Sandbox," that every Chrome user is being opted in to unless they find and untick three separate preference tickboxes. You should find and untick these boxes:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should

Google has spun, lied and bullied Privacy Sandbox into existence; whenever this program draws enough fire, they rename it (it used to be called FLoC). But as the Apple example showed, no one wants to be spied on – that's why Google makes you find and untick three boxes to opt out of this new form of surveillance.

There is no consensual basis for mass commercial surveillance. The story that "people don't mind ads so long as they're relevant" is a lie. But even if it was true, it wouldn't be enough, because beyond the harms to being our authentic selves that come from the knowledge that we're being observed, surveillance data is a crucial ingredient for all kinds of crime, harassment, and deception.

We can't rely on companies to spy on us responsibly. Apple may have blocked third-party app spying, but they effect nonconsensual, continuous surveillance of every Apple mobile device user, and lie about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

That's why we should ban commercial surveillance. We should outlaw surveillance advertising. Period:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising

Contrary to the claims of surveillance profiteers, this wouldn't reduce the income to ad-supported news and other media – it would increase their revenues, by letting them place ads without relying on the surveillance troves assembled by the Google/Meta ad-tech duopoly, who take the majority of ad-revenue:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

We're 30 years into the commercial surveillance pandemic and Congress still hasn't passed a federal privacy law with a private right of action. But other agencies aren't waiting for Congress. The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Divsision have proposed new merger guidelines that allow regulators to consider privacy harms when companies merge:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FTC-2023-0043-1569

Think here of how Google devoured Fitbit and claimed massive troves of extremely personal data, much of which was collected because employers required workers to wear biometric trackers to get the best deal on health care:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/google-fitbit-merger-would-cement-googles-data-empire

Companies can't be trusted to collect, retain or use our personal data wisely. The right "balance" here is to simply ban that collection, without an explicit opt-in. The way this should work is that companies can't collect private data unless users hunt down and untick three "don't spy on me" boxes. After all, that's the standard that Google has set.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/29/ban-surveillance-ads/#sucker-funnel

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #commercial surveillance #surveillance #surveillance advertising #ad-tech #behavioral advertising #ads #privacy #fraud #targeting #ad targeting #scams #scholarship #nber #merger guidelines #ftc #doj

[spdrvyn]

7 days until valentines

as compensation for my lack of posts, here's a short blurb of miguel with an autistic reader! i'm projecting really hard though

Miguel didn't know where the transition from his to 'our' workspace had begun. It was the little things, you'd leave a small cup with pens in it at his desk without bothering to pick it up after you leave his office. Eventually, that cup became a real pencil holder now you had journals, notebooks, and basically everything that wasn't work related neatly cornered into one part of his desk home with the scattered papers and unfinished gadgets Miguel has.

You also make home at his desk, efficiency was one of your strengths, but your productivity reached maximum capacity whenever you were with him. No words were spoken while the two of you worked, Miguel greatly appreciated it.

Not that he'd mind a little bit of small talk, but he enjoyed silence without feeling like the loneliness was clawing at his insides.

Though normally you (almost inhumanely) finished your work way earlier than he did, but you didn't leave. No, you didn't.

This habit of maintaining his presence while you're off doing something kept even when you were pursuing your own personal interests, Miguel would catch you on your laptop chatting to your friends whenever he had to check something on one of his monitors.

Other times, you'd have headphones on. Listening to music or catching up on one of your shows, your reactions are as muddled as they can be to not disturb. But one moment, he'll look away with you completely deadpan then look back to see your jaw widely agape and pupils blown wide from devastation.

Tonight was no different, if anything more convenient for you because a new episode of this unnamed media just dropped. Admittedly, your expressions and small noises entertained him as he worked. You did try to be discreet, but that super hearing of his could pick up on your small gasps and 'aww's on opposite sides of a workspace.

His concentration is broken when you practically slam your laptop shut, packing your earbuds into their case with an audible snap. You hop off of your place and solemnly walk over to where Miguel is standing, he quirks a brow at you.

Uncharacteristically, you slump your head against his shoulder with the biggest frown he's ever seen you in. "They're not getting back together, Miguel."

"Oh?" maybe feeding into your theatrics wasn't a smart decisions, but analytics dulled in comparison to whatever was going on inside your head. "Who?" he continued to interrogate.

"My only reason for light and happiness, my true inspiration for spreading love and joy across every corner of the multiverse." Miguel rolls his eyes. "Do not give me sass right now, I am so upset."

He genuinely can't tell if you're joking or not, perhaps a mix of both. "I don't get how I'm supposed to sympathize with this ex-couple when I don't even know the title of their story?"

"It's a cartoon. You'll laugh."

"Cartoon or animated?"

You quirk your eyebrow this time. "Huh?"

"I'm asking you, cartoon or animated? There's a difference, animated features aren't always classified as cartoons. Cartoon is more of a term for animated medias directed towards children. Aren't you the one more adept at this topic?"

He looks at you with an almost-smirk. It's teasing at his lips, full and plump. There are many sensations that you hold resentment for, but one you've always wanted experience is Miguel's lips against yours. The ultimate sensory triumph, all you've been waiting for.

God, you want to kiss him.

"Yeah, I- uh, animated. I mean, animated."

"Tell me about it when I'm not trying to keep the world from ending, please?" he grumbles, and you raise your head off of his shoulder. Damn right you'll tell him about it, and probably kiss him after too.

#projecting soo hard #yes i want to be an animation student #spiderman: across the spiderverse #spiderverse #across the spiderverse #atsv #spiderman #miguel o'hara #miguel o’hara #spiderman 2099 #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara fluff #autistic reader #fluff #romance

[french-toast-enjoyer]

Venom essay baybey!!!!

as promised, here's my essay on symbrock as a dynamic! thank you to my contributors @symbiotic-slime

@bridoesotherjunk

@x-jean

@cannibalhellhound

@funkycave

@eddiebrockx

@bloodyaliens and @shiningstardan for helping me gather resources and testimony! the paper is a bit amateur but i hope it's an okay read! please let me know if I forgot to tag you!

Symbrock– or, A Complex Love Affair Between Parasite and Host   

23 April, 2024

Abstract

An investigation into “Symbrock,” or the bizarre emotional relationship between Eddie Brock– a struggling journalist and Spider-Man villain– and Venom– the parasitic alien symbiote that lives in Eddie’s body. Herein will discuss the themes, appeal, and complicated nature of the dynamic. This is a dissertation, this is an analytical dissection, but above all, this is a love story.

Keywords: Symbrock. portmanteau of “symbiote” and “Brock.”

In the fall of 2018, Venom had his individual film debut to millions of Spider-Man fans and  casual movie-goers. The movie was critically panned. Fans of Spider-Man and critics of pop culture media united to declare that they hated the "buddy cop" direction that writers Kelly Marcel and Ruben Fliesher  had taken the character of Venom. Many believed that Marcel (most known for screen adapting Fifty Shades of Grey) wasted the film's grizzly horror potential exploring the getting-together of Eddie and Venom. The majority had spoken, the movie had failed. So why was the fandom exploding? Within days, there were threads, blog posts, and video essays, all delving into a new obsession with this chummy characterization of Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote. Intrigued by it, turned on by it, and desperate for more content of it, this mysterious fan base began to go through nearly forty years of lore for more of the duo they loved. What they found changed the perception of Venom as a character. Venom historians, fans, and even comic writers declared that Eddie Brock and the symbiote were in love. But the question remains, why these two? What was the evidence, what was the response, and why did this relationship appeal to the queer audience it'd captured? In short, why had Venom become a queer icon?

Symbrock– or, A Complex Love Affair Between Parasite and Host   

When “I” became “We”

There is groundwork to lay in regards to proving the nature of this dynamic, and it begins with understanding what binds the two physically and spiritually, requiring readers to go back to the beginning. 

While originally brought together by a mutual hatred of Spider-Man (read, The Amazing Spider-Man #300, 1988) the earliest example of a deeper bond between Brock and Venom comes to us in Venom: The Hunger (1996). Within the comic itself, Eddie Brock and Venom’s dynamic is threatened by the symbiote’s cannibalistic desires, which Eddie can not cope with. 

   If we blur our eyes and look at The Hunger, we see a story about Eddie coming to terms with the inherent violence and needs of Venom. Specifically, he sees how the symbiote needs a chemical compound called phenethylamine to survive– a fact that often leads him to eat human brains to get his fix. A trait that disturbs Brock so much that it drives the symbiote away, leaving the man without powers. In a straightforward manner, the story follows Eddie's journey to accept this hunger in order to remain bonded to Venom. In the final pages of the comic, Eddie brings the symbiote a vial of phenethylamine, as well as promises to share his own. The two reunite to create something stronger once again. From a distance, it's an exploration into what binds the two physically, but it’s not a fair one. Upon closer inspection, The Hunger is much more than a story of compromise. 

The deep eroticism of Venom, to most, begins with the very chemical that the symbiote subsists on. For the purposes of Eddie and Venom's connection, it's important to know that phenethylamine is chemically similar to phenylethylamine– commonly referred to as “the love hormone.” According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), when concentrated, the compound has similar effects on the brain to amphetamines. Broadly, it is considered a “feel-good” chemical, and is associated with sensations of intense euphoria and gratification due to its releases of dopamine. (read: NIH). Including a chemical associated with love, sex, and even chocolate is obviously an intentional decision on the writer's part. There are thousands of compounds that comic creators had to choose from. Fear hormones, rage hormones, all things that could've related more to the brutal nature of Venom as a villain.

But the writer, Len Kaminski, chose love. And so was born Venom’s obsession with the chemical, leading him to chase it in all its forms, from human brains and nerve endings– to, as seen in the last panels of The Hunger, a heart-shaped box of chocolates, which the symbiote says is a great source of phenethylamine. There it is, a scientific explanation of why Venom feeds on love. But even with this justification of the phenomenon, Kaminski refuses to pull punches, refuses to make this platonic.

All I Ever Want Is Just A Little Love

Kaminski’s reading of Brock is far beyond romantic, and it bleeds into how writers would interpret the character even decades later (most notably, Mike Costa’s Venom run from 2016-2019). In the first volume of Hunger, Kaminski writes a heartbreaking scene in which, after eating a man’s brain, Eddie shows a deep remorse that drives Venom to separate from their bond. This was mentioned above, but what was not mentioned was how the symbiote left Brock; naked and trembling in a back alley, begging “the other” not to abandon him. The man is left in a state of temporary psychosis without Venom, his brain leached of all phenethylamine. After a stint in a tortuous sanitarium, he chases the symbiote down and reunites with it, claiming proudly “It’s not human, but it’s given me things no girlfriend ever could,” and declaring that he finally has enough love to sustain the titular hunger. 

This wouldn’t be the last time Eddie would be written as captivated by his love for Venom, but it would go on to influence later iterations of the character, from the aforementioned Costa run to directorial notes of the films that’d launched the character into infamy.

In Venom #150, Mike Costa compared the bond between Brock and Venom to marriage. The interaction is a chilling one, taking place within the church where the two originally bonded, and where Eddie angsts about the nature of their relationship. He confesses, in vague terms, to a priest, that he loves his “other,” but that he’s been driven to do things he never would have done before. When the father implies that the dynamic isn’t healthy, we see a violent, possessive side of Venom. The symbiote overtakes Eddie’s body and nearly kills the priest– an action he later repents for the very same priest. He vows to try to be better in the name of devotion to his other. This marks a shift in Venom’s character and a complex arc into a more open and honest relationship between the two. And, as stated previously, this interpretation would grow to be popular with an audience of queer people, but the question remains as to why. 

All Guts and Heart. There's an air of nuanced relatability to Venom as a unit. On online forums, users within the fandom each have unique reasons for loving the ship. Some enjoy that both characters are relatable outcasts, some are enthralled with the trope of “idiots in love” present in their dynamic, and some are just plain attracted to Venom. 

But for a more devoted sect of the fan base, the intrigue lay in the intense physical proximity between symbiote and host. The potential for intimacy that comes with literally sharing a mind and body is intense. Venom, according to both the comics and films, sees every thought, compulsion, desire, and regret Eddie has, and Brock can do just the same to Venom. 

One example of this is an excerpt from Marvel Comics Presents #5 (2019), which recently became circulated for its dark, provocative, and tense language. In the comic, Venom is handling the man with their tendrils while speaking in his mind. “We can feel every dirty curve of Eddie's intentions. All that lust entangled with terror.” and later, “We enjoy the taste of Eddie's heartbeat. Strong, solid, sweet … Should we make it go faster?” To which Eddie responds, “Watch the teeth.”

Fans were stunned by the sensuality of these panels; particularly on Tumblr, a popular blogging website. One fan claimed to have even seen a phallic shape in the dreamscape of flesh and teeth that the scene was set in. Many more declared the scene was a sex act.

It seems almost like an intentional callback to the “It's not human,” line. As though the writers are willing to explore the dynamic in a romantic and psychological context, and fans love getting to see this dimension of the characters– even when the subject matter is dark. 

As with any piece of media, fan interaction is integral to the longevity and survival of a fan base, so it'd be an obvious point to investigate opinions of Venom within the fandom. 

Fan testimonials. When asked why the ship appealed to them, popular Symbrock blogger @symbiotic-slime responded, “I guess I would describe it as the intimacy of being known? Having your self laid bare and someone else seeing and knowing everything about you and still choosing to stay is very romantic in my opinion.” 

Regarding personal relation to the individuals: “It's partially because of being the weird neurodivergent queer kid. People think they're weird, their relationship is wrong, or something like that. Kinda hits a little too close to home.” says user @cannibalhellhound. The community in general seems to relate deeply to the outcast nature of Eddie and Venom, a point that comes through as well in discussions of the characters’ presentation and gender, as well as their “loser” status. Symbiotic-slime described a sense of connection to the devil-may-care attitude the symbiote takes with their pronouns and appearance, and user @just-anti-heros-things states succinctly, “Together they make a whole idiot who can fight battles and save the world. Or just fuck around and find out.”

 A handful of aspec (asexual spectrum) fans even described connecting with the alien nature of their relationship, with user @bridoesotherjunk saying quote, “They’re not putting on a performance to please anyone- they’re just… them. And they love each other for it! That’s what I want for myself,” and @shiningstardan comparing the relationship to their own experiences with attraction towards other people. 

No matter the sentiment, most fans agree that despite being outlandish and extraterrestrial, Venom and Eddie have a character more grounded than many an idealized hero in the Marvel universe. From holding hands in a movie theater to raising a child together, the two are never alone, and fans crave that proximity. 

Discussion

While not a  universally beloved franchise on its own, Venom has achieved cult status among a number of internet users for its raw, vulnerable, and often camp portrayal of a complicated relationship between two flawed characters. It's a fanbase that breeds creativity, exploration, and catharsis through the fantasy of a love foretold in stars. A place to make art, write fanfiction, and bond with other outcasts.

References

Kaminski, L., Halsted, T., Koblish, S., Lopez, K., & Smith, T. (1996). Venom, the hunger (Vol. 1–4). Published by Marvel Comics. 

Lee, S., Ditko, S., Yanchus, A., Rosen, S., Simek, A., & Lord, P. (1988). Marvel masterworks presents the amazing spider-man: Reprinting the amazing spider-man, nos. 11-20. Marvel Comics. 

Ryan, M. (2021, September 27). Andy Serkis on eddie and Venom’s “Love affair” in the new Venom sequel. UPROXX. https://uproxx.com/movies/andy-serkis-venom-let-there-be-carnage-eddie-venom-love-affair/ 

U.S. National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). Phenethylamine. National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Compound Database. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Phenethylamine 

Pak, G., Nocenti, A., Waid, M., Lapham, D., Lapham, M., Aydin, A., James Monroe Iglehart, Kibblesmith, D., Percy, B., Claremont, C., Williams, L., Seeley, T., Brisson, E., North, R., Pierson, D., Sacks, E., & Emily Ryan Lerner. (2020). Tales Through The Marvel Universe. Marvel Entertainment.

#symbrock #venom #french toast rambles #my writing #veddie #writeblr #eddie brock #sincerely hope you enjoy!

[pandemic-info]

Long-Term Long Covid - by Eric Topol

Unfortunately, what was seen at 6 months largely continues out to 2 years. 

... [New paper at] Nature Medicine addresses what happened 2 years later to nearly 140,000 people who had Covid, compared with almost 6 million people non-infected controls.

... in the non-hospitalized group a substantial proportion— about 30%— of the 80 sequelae, including GI and neurologic, remained significantly elevated. 

... I’d like to point out the data analyzed in this study was enormous, as I tried to capture with one of the supplemental tables below, representative of many others. The authors took on many advanced analytic approaches with weighting, conditional modeling, and sensitivity analyses that I’m not going to review here.

... While this is the first comprehensive and systematic study of Covid at 2 years, it unfortunately is within a highly skewed population. The demographics of nearly 90% men, with a mean age 61 years, is far different than the prototypic person with Long Covid who is more apt to be female and age 30-39 years. Furthermore, to get 2 year follow-up it meant studying a population who had Covid early in the pandemic, before vaccines or the marked evolution of the virus with new variants, including Delta, which was more virulent that the ancestral or Alpha strains that preceded it. So please keep this in mind—the results are important but they may well not be representative of the real world, broader population, of Covid and Long Covid. That’s already a major hole in our knowledge base since there is no other report yet to systematically address a more representative population.

...

Summary

At two years after Covid, there’s a persistent and considerable burden of symptoms and multi-system organ involvement in an important subgroup of people. It’s also unpredictable who will be afflicted with protracted symptoms and new medical diagnoses. While there still is no validated treatment (the Big Miss, as recently reviewed), Long Covid marches on, not just over time for most of those already suffering, but also among newly infected or re-infected individuals — like we are seeing now with increase in cases in the United States and many other countries. The main emphasis here, beyond the enduring and very concerning symptoms and organ dysfunction, is that we are still in the dark. It will take many years to fully know the sequelae of Covid, be it from unforeseen, delayed adverse outcomes like what occurred many years after influenza or polio, or the secondary outcomes of organ systems that are clearly affected, or via promotion of autoimmune conditions or pro-inflammatory pathways, potentially exacerbating risk of atherosclerosis. We’re going to need many more years of careful follow-up to fully understand the ways and extent Covid has hurt us. Meanwhile, beyond the known strategies for prevention of infection, we must consider finding effective ways to treat people who suffer from Long Covid as an urgent and foremost priority.

#long covid #research #data #eric topol #covid #summer 2023 #Ziyad Al-Aly #VA study #nature medicine #sequelae

[emotionalcadaver]

Part 12: Bloodied & Broken

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC

Summary: Tommy continues to wait with bated breathe to see if Lucy will actually wake up.

Word Count: 3,170

Notes: Warnings for depictions of injuries and hospitals.

Masterlists: Main • Series • Fic

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Chapter 3: Trinkets

Tommy watched Esme move about the hospital room warily, bag slung over one shoulder and skirts swishing around her ankles. Adjusting the papers she’d handed him the moment she walked in, he crossed one leg over the other, balancing them against his knee.

Esme touched a fingertip to a leaf from the bouquet Ada had dropped by, now settled in a vase on Lucy’s bedside table. She picked up the stuffed bear where it was propped up against the vase, and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Cute.”

“It’s from Ada,” he said, before she could get any ideas. Esme’s eyes sparkled a little with amusement as she set the bear back down. 

“I brought some things,” she reached into her bag, and pulled out a black madonna. “I know neither you or her really believe,” she looped the twine that held the pendant around the vase. “But I do.”  

Tommy hummed, watching her movements analytically. He was more on his guard this time. Not allowing himself to make the mistake of relaxing like he had with Ada. 

“And I brought some other things too. That might help. For luck and healing,” she started to dig deeper into her bag, carefully setting down little trinkets onto the table. Tommy fiddled with the edges of the papers while he watched her. It was a nice thought. And couldn’t hurt. 

It had been a couple days since Lucy had come out of surgery, and she still hadn’t woken up yet. They could use all the luck they could get.   

Clearing his throat awkwardly, he looked down at his lap. “Thank you, Esme.”

She shot him a sage look. “My brains would likely be splattered across the betting shop wall if it weren’t for her,” she set the last little trinket down with a clink. “I owe her a debt.”

“Still. I know she’d appreciate it.”

Adjusting the strap on her shoulder, she nodded slowly. Her eyes flitted around the room, pausing on the cot set up beside Lucy’s bed. Where he’d been sleeping for the past couple of nights. 

Well, ‘sleeping’ was perhaps a generous term. He only dozed for fleeting moments at a time, constantly jerking awake at the slightest sounds coming from the hallway outside the room, or to check to make sure Lucy was okay. The nurses, after realizing that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, had briefed him on the signs to keep an eye out for regarding infection or brain bleeding. That way he could call for them if he noticed anything. 

Eager to change the subject, he coughed into his fist, pulling a pen from his pocket to make marks and scribble his signature on the papers she’d brought. “How are things at the shop?”

“Fine. John and Arthur fixed the door. Put these big, fancy new locks on it. No one should be able to bust in like that again.”

“Good.”

He could feel Esme’s eyes boring into the side of his head while he finished marking up the papers she’d handed him.

“Polly wants to know if you have any idea when you will be back yet.”

His teeth grinded together at the mention of his aunt.

“I don’t think she’s trying to be presumptuous. She genuinely is just wondering. Some of the men get a little weird, you know. When they have to take orders from a woman.”

“I’m sure Polly can handle them.”

“Of course she can. She just wants to know for how long.”

“Yeah, well,” he sighed, scribbling the last signature and gathering the papers back up into a neat pile to hand to her. “I don’t know yet.”

Esme tucked the papers back into her bag, then looked at him, head angled a little to the side. Then she looked back over at Lucy. Taking a step forward, she gently rested her fingertips on Lucy’s forehead, murmuring something in Romani, too quietly under her breath for Tommy to hear. After a moment, she stepped back. 

“It’s nice for you to stay with her like this.”

Tommy shrugged awkwardly. “I promised I wouldn’t leave her,” he blinked, a little surprised at the admittance. Esme hummed.

“The others don’t always see things so clearly. I think Ada is starting to piece things together a little more, but she’s so busy with Freddie and Karl she’s not here enough to really see…”

Tommy shot her a sharp look. “See what?”

Esme did not balk at the challenge in his voice. Reaching out, she took his hand, opening his palm, and tracing her fingertips along the line of the scar covering it. 

“I noticed that yours and hers matched the first day we met,” she said softly, dropping his hand and lifting her own, fingers splayed so he could plainly see the scar on her own palm. “Just like me and John’s do.”

“Esme…” he warned, but she still didn’t back down.

“Don’t treat me as an idiot, Thomas. I know what a blood bond means.”

He closed his mouth, jaw working as he processed Esme’s words. “Have you told anyone?”

She snorted. “Of course not. But they���re not blind, Thomas. There’s no way Polly hasn’t noticed the matching scars on both of your palms.”

“I know.”

“John thinks you’re just fucking her. Arthur is oblivious. Ada is finally starting to put things together. Polly…Polly is still in denial a little, I think.”

“Denial?”

At his sharp gaze, her eyes just sparkled with mirth and sage wisdom. “She’s still clinging to a scrap of hope that Lucy doesn’t really mean all that much to you.”

“Is it really that terrible that I’ve actually managed to find someone who makes me happy?”

“For her? Yes, I think it would be. It threatens her position in the family. It means that there’s another woman in your life that you listen to even more than her.” 

“Fucking hell…”

“If it makes you feel any better, I think that Lucy saving our asses might’ve softened Polly just a tiny fraction in regards to her.”

Tommy shot her an unconvinced look. Esme cocked her head, dark, wise eyes assessing him uncannily. 

“You’re angry with her.”

“What was your first hint?” he asked sarcastically, leaning back in his chair with a huff. He looked back at Lucy, still sleeping. There was little more color to her cheeks, and her breaths seemed stronger. Not as shallow. “She could have at least sent some fucking flowers or something.”

“I don’t think it’s malicious. She’s just too proud for her own good, sometimes. All you Shelbys are. I see it in John too, on occasion. Maybe she just figures that the best thing she can do for you both is focus on running things so you don’t have to worry about anything regarding the business and can just focus on Lucy…”

Tommy shook his head. “I know how Polly feels about Lucy, Esme. Just like I know that once Polly’s made up her mind about someone, you’d sooner be more likely to convince a mountain to move than to get her to change her mind. She’d sooner knowingly drink poison than purposefully do something nice for her.”

“I think you’re being a little pessimistic.”

“I suppose we’ll see, eh?” 

Esme shrugged. “I ought to be getting back. John took the kids out to the fair, but they’ll be home for supper soon.”

“Right,” he rubbed his hands together, fingertips unconsciously tracing the bump of the scar on his palm, where the blade had sunk into his flesh and cut deep, before he and Lucy entwined their fingers together, wounds pressed tight to each other, blood pouring and running through one another’s veins. 

An unbreakable, sacred bond. Forever keeping them entangled. 

God, what was he going to do if she never woke up?

“Thank you for coming by,” he said, hoping that she didn’t notice the way his voice ever so slightly broke.

“Course,” Esme’s shoes clicked as she made her way towards the door. 

“Esme?” he called before she could pull it open. She turned back to him. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“No.”   

He nodded, looking back to Lucy, still unmoving. Still sleeping. 

“We haven’t always seen eye to eye, you and me,” Esme said after a moment of watching him from the door. “I doubt that will change. But I’ve watched you with her,” she jerked her head towards Lucy. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve always been good to her. She’s lucky to have you watching over her.”

Tommy cleared his throat awkwardly, half tempted to remind her that if it weren’t for him, Lucy probably wouldn’t be laying in a hospital bed in the first place. But instead he said nothing, eyes remaining focused on his little red head where she laid, listening to the sounds of Esme’s shoes clicking as she stepped out the door, and made her way down the hall. 

∗ ∗ ∗

Her first coherent thought, when she woke up, was that it felt like she’d been hit by a bus.

It was like her head had been stuffed full of cotton, swimming and spinning a little. 

Sometimes, she thought that she heard voices. An angry woman, half shouting. A soothing Welsh lilt. But mostly, she just heard Tommy. Deep and gentle. Twinged with slight pleading. She struggled to hold onto it, to let the sound of him draw her back to wakefulness. But everytime, before she could fully make it there, she was dragged back down into sleep. 

But today she was able to hold on long enough to make it to full consciousness. Though it was not Tommy’s voice that helped to draw her back, but the steady, encompassing warmth around her right hand. She grabbed onto the sensation of it; how it soaked into her skin and heated her chilled fingers and the gentle, tender pet of a thumb swiping across her knuckles. 

Soon, she was able to sense enough to know that she was lying on her back, the smell of disinfectant and medicine lodged in her nose and blankets pulled up to her chest. 

Slowly, more and more of her mind started to rise from hibernation. 

And then, she felt the pain. 

It started at the back of her head, and ached throughout her entire body in a steady, distinct throbbing. There was a dullness to it, and her head still felt clouded and sluggish, likely not just a side-effect of sleep. She must be on some sort of drugs. Something bulky and a little scratchy was plastered to the back of her head. A bandage, maybe? 

Furrowing her brows in an attempt to recall what had happened hurt. And while she was awake, she had not yet opened her eyes. It felt as though her eyelids were weighed down with bricks. 

She remembered…she remembered…the betting shop floor. Blood. Pain. Fear. Convinced that she was going to die. Begging them not to leave her. And being left alone anyway. The ear-ringing crack of a gun going off. 

Oh, right. Gunshot wound to the head. She remembered now.

Something flexed around her hand, and it took her a moment to realize that something–someone–was firmly stroking their thumb along the scar on her palm. The one left from the blood bond she’d created with Tommy. 

With an Herculean effort, she peeled her eyes open, and almost immediately slammed them closed again, the bright lights from both the ceiling and the window irritating her eyes and causing pinpricks of pain to shoot through her already aching head. A little whine left her lips. 

The figure, who must have been sitting beside her based on the way they were clutching her hand, went stiff, shooting forward with their fingers tightening around hers. 

“Lucy?”

Tommy. Of course it was Tommy. She doubted that there was anyone else who would care enough to have sat at her bedside for who even knows how long, waiting to see if she ever woke up.  

Don’t leave me.

Never.

She half wanted to cry at the memory of him holding her on the betting shop floor, keeping pressure on her wound and murmuring reassuring promises that she was going to be okay; that he wouldn’t leave her alone. 

There had been endless agony in his eyes when the doctors and nurses practically had to wrench him away from her in the waiting room. By that point, she’d been fading in and out of consciousness consistently, verging more on passed out than actually awake, but she’d still seen the look of sheer helpless pain on his face when they started to wheel her away from him and into a surgical suite. 

Fighting down the exhaustion and agony trying to coax her back to sleep, she forced her eyes open again. 

She was greeted with Tommy’s face hovering over hers. His eyes–bloodshot and wide–bore her. There were very dark, swollen circles under them, and his hair was ruffled and sticking up in a few places, as if he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly. A light shadow of stubble was beginning to sprout up along his jaw. His clothes were rumpled and wrinkled in several places.  

When she tried to angle herself towards him a little, it was to find that she was impeded by a brace keeping her from turning her head.  

So instead she settled for raising her hand to cup his cheek, brows creasing as she took in just how haggard and exhausted he looked. How long had she been out? How long had he just been sitting here, waiting with little more than a sliver of hope that she would find her way back to him?

His lips parted with a choked off sound as he took in her staring back at him, and at the press of her hand against his cheek, she saw his throat convulse as he swallowed, actually looking to be close to tears.

“Tommy, are you alright?” her voice was but a weak whisper. Definitely hadn’t been used for at least a couple of days, then. 

Tommy let out a quiet sound that was half laugh, half sob, at her question. His face turned against her palm to kiss her hands, big fingers curling around hers as he kissed her fingers, the back of her hands, and her palms over and over again.   

“I’m supposed to be the one asking you that, love,” he murmured, giving her hands a few more pecks.

“Mm,” she just hummed, eyes closing for a moment, not opening again until she felt him brushing a few tendrils of hair off her forehead.

“Lucy?”

“‘M still here,” she mumbled, opening her eyes again to find him looking her over concernedly. 

“How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”

“Hm…” she considered. “Head hurts a little, but I’m guessing that’s to be expected. Mostly just tired. And achy.”

“I can get the doctor–”

“No,” she squeezed his hand. “Not yet. Just stay a minute.”

He didn’t argue with her, settling back down where he’d half risen from his seat. He was staring at her like he was afraid she might disappear.

“How long was I out for?”

“Only a few days,” his finger trailed up and down her arm, not entirely making eye contact with her as he uttered the next bit. “We weren’t entirely sure if you would ever wake up.”

It hurt to let out the little snort she emitted from her nose, but it was worth it to see him relax a little at the sound of her amusement. “It’s gonna have to take worse than a bullet to the head to get rid of me.”

Tommy shot her a small, fond smile, reaching out to brush the back of his hand down her cheek. “I’m so glad you’re awake. I missed you.”

“You said I was only asleep for a couple days.”

He just shook his head. “Too long.”

She smiled to herself, and tugged the hand still holding hers to her lips, so she could press a kiss to it. “Thank you for staying with me.”

“I made you a promise,” he shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “And, besides, I wouldn’t have been able to focus on much of anything else if I knew you were laying here all alone.”

Sweetheart, she thought to him affectionately, smile growing as he dropped his head a little bashfully. 

But the thought of work made it quickly fade, replaced instead by silent dread. She felt…fine, all things considered. Outside of just some general cloudiness and sluggishness in her thoughts, she wasn’t having any trouble thinking, or remembering things, now that she was more awake. And she could talk. She seemed able to move alright, general weakness aside, and the experimental little wiggle she did of her toes proved to be a success. 

But just because she didn’t currently feel any specific adverse effects from her injury, didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be any. She’d been shot in the fucking head. She’d touched her own brain with her fingertips. People didn’t just walk away from that, did they?

She closed her eyes again, bracing herself. “Tell me how bad it is. Really.”

“Not so bad. Recovery will probably be long. But they don’t expect you to have any long term complications. The bullet impacted your skull, but only the outermost layer of your brain. They didn’t see any significant damage to it,” he cleared his throat. “The doctor can give you more specific details on all of this.”

“Mm,” she hummed, absorbing the information. She was lucky, then. Incredibly so.

But a long recovery meant she would be out of commission for a while. And if she wasn’t able to do her job for a significant while…

She bit her lip, and tried to push the thought away, Tommy’s hand cupping her cheek distracting her a little.

“You’re really feeling alright?” he asked, big blue eyes wide with concern. 

“Mhm, I’m sure. Just tired,” she shifted slightly in the bed. “The brace is a little uncomfortable.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to wear it for very long.”

“Oh, good.”

Tommy stroked her hair back, leaning forward from his seat to press a gentle, slow kiss to her lips. Lucy’s eyes fluttered closed at the sensation, his mouth warm and soft as a pillow against hers. He retreated enough to also kiss her forehead before settling back into his chair. 

“I love you so much.”

“I love you too. I’m sorry that I made you worry.”

“Don’t–don’t apologize. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She gave his hand a little squeeze. He kissed her again, then stood.

“I’ll go tell the doctor you’re awake, now.”

“Okay,” she watched him go to the door, teeth worrying a little at her lower lip as she resigned herself to what was likely to be a long and painful recovery. 

Meanwhile a thought, one she knew to be irrational and silly, scratched insistently on the insides of her mind.  

Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a comment, reblog, or like. I always appreciate feedback and love getting the opportunity to interact with you and hear your thoughts!

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Masterlists: Main • Series • Fic

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #peaky blinders #lucy winters #lucy winters x tommy shelby #my ocs #my fanfiction #love me where i'm most ruined #laur writes

[gothhabiba]

Ever since the beginning of popular literacy there always has been and there presumably always will be anxiety about people reading the “wrong” things in the “wrong” way (in the “wrong” physical formats at the “wrong” times in the “wrong” places...), and this anxiety historically concerns itself most with women (they're uncritically reading Gothic and sentimental novels and it’s going to destroy their ability to perceive reality!! they’re reading by candlelight in bed and it’s going to get them sexually excited!!!) and the newly literate lower classes (they're reading penny dreadfuls and trashy romances and magazines and other trite immoral drek printed on flimsy paper of terrible quality and it's turning their heads away from their work!!!).

What interests me about this phenomenon in a fandom context is that it makes perfect sense for fannish behaviour to be derided in similar ways—given that fans (at least since the inception of modern fandom culture and fanfiction with Star Trek, and arguably earlier with the Janeites) are widely stereotyped as inadequately analytically and rhetorically sophisticated and unable to read in the “right” ways, and also inappropriately feminine, inadequately “grown up,” and inadequate to the tasks of everyday (masculine) life because of their emotional attachment to and identification with a fictional text (i.e. “nerd who still lives in his parents’ basement and can’t get girls”).

This is why the history of Jane Austen studies is in effect a recovery mission of Austen’s legacy on the part of the professional literati from the “Janeite” fans—mostly men but widely referred to with explicitly feminising language. And this masculinising mission impacts the dominant readings of Austen’s works to this day. And of course “Austen fandom” nowadays is broadly composed of women and broadly written about in feminine terms, so Austen studies (of a particular conservative strand) have to shore up their right to produce and safeguard “correct” readings against the rabble who just want to take a vacation to the place where Colin Firth jumped into the lake (read: who are illicitly getting sexually titillated by what should be high literature—so an "inappropriate" sexual response to fiction is again connected to "bad" reading practices, femininity, and immaturity).

And while early Star Trek convention fandom was primarily male, these men were stereotyped as immature, emasculated, overly obsessed with fantasy and incapable of distinguishing it from real life. And the fanfiction and zine cultures that arose around Star Trek were primarily female in composition. The Kirk/Spock zine scene, in particular, was overwhelmingly female, and again consisted of women being "inappropriately" sexually titillated by the fiction which they watched and the fanart they produced, distributed and consumed (as opposed to being "appropriately" sexually aroused by appropriate sex "in real life," which for a woman of course consists of erotic submission to a man... I wonder who benefits from this idea).

So there was anxiety surrounding how these fans were “reading” and interpreting the Star Trek, anxiety surrounding how and what they were writing, and anxiety surrounding how fans were reading what other fans produced. “Bad” reading practices produce “bad” writing which produces “bad” reading practices. There's a direct line from this kind of attitude to the derision that fandom-based erotic, reading, and writing behaviours come in for today (people who create and consume fan art are "freaks," "immature," not "adults," not "normal," not "well-adjusted," not having sex in "real life" which btw is bad).

I don’t necessarily want to lose the ability to criticise anyone’s interpretation of anything or to call any show or book or writing “bad,” to be clear. But it seems to me that a lot of animus against “bad” reading practices, insofar as it is centred around misunderstandings of what fandom reading practices actually are, owes a lot of its vigour to this ideological genealogy.

#fanfiction #fandom #Jane Austen #Star Trek #misogyny

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

You Can Get High On The First Kiss

Summary: Spencer Reid's perfectly perfect first date

Word Count: 3407

CW: Kissing, implied sex

Pairing: Spencer x Female Reader (I can't help myself so this is another librarian!reader)

Note: This is for @reidsbookclub 's 1 year anniversary. Grecy is so amazing. I'm very lucky to call you a friend <3. And on another note, I realized that this has 2 perspectives. That was an accident so let’s just ignore that and know that it’s reader pov and then Spencer pov. Also if you know what song the title is referencing you win a gold starv

The fifth time she threw yet another shirt on the floor was the moment she acknowledged that her dislike of every sweater or blouse in her closet stemmed from her nervousness. All she could think about as she searched for the perfect outfit, was how cute her date was. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Analytical Mathematics course he was a teaching assistant for reserved the computer labs. It was part of her responsibility as the librarian to have the professor’s printouts ready and other research materials for the students. 

Professor Norton, a man who, in all senses of the word, had at least one foot in the grave, let Spencer pretty much run the course on his own. Y/N, who admits she’s pretty biased, would wager a hefty amount of money on Spencer being the best TA the university had to offer. Despite his shy exterior, Y/N found him quite funny in an understated, demure sort of way. And the fact that he has ridiculously sharp cheekbones and sweet brown eyes just made it easier to fall for him. 

As she selects a deep mauve cardigan and a simple gray blouse, Y/N remembers how sweetly Spencer approached her. It was a Wednesday, not a day she normally saw him in the library. He stood by the circulation desk, waiting patiently as she helped a couple of freshmen find the history section of the library for the term papers. He smiled, but it was a twisted smile that made him look uncomfortable. 

“Having a good day?” he asked, a clear attempt to make conversation. Eager to see where this led, she gave into his question. 

“Well, I helped Professor Patel in the English department set up a new syllabus and a history professor needed to order new textbooks for the spring semester. Now I’m about to send out emails for finds. Just a normal day, that totally got better all of the sudden. Not sure how, though,” Y/N said, attempting, despite her own nerves, to flirt. 

Spencer blushed. It was either a good thing or a terrible thing. Either he enjoyed the flirting and was just too nervous to reciprocate. Or he hated it and his physical response showed just how much he hated it. 

“Mine got better too,” 

Maybe he did like it. Maybe? 

Y/N smiled, continuing to collect the books from the return bin. Spencer watched,  looking like he was here to say something more than to see how her day was going. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Spencer said, fidgeting with his oversized button up. It was a dusty tan with plastic buttons. He paired it with a gray cardigan that was also two or three sizes too big for him.

“There’s this cafe that I go to. It’s near my apartment. I was wondering if you’d like to go. Go with me that is. I mean you don’t have to go with me. There’s no rule about that. You can go by yourself, obviously. You don’t need me to tell you that, of course. But I like you–no! Well, not no. But I’d like to take you. With me. To the cafe, I mean,” 

Breathless, Spencer must have bitten his lips during his long winded ramble because they were colored a reddish pink. It was utterly distracting. And, Y/N thought, would be a problem if he continued to have that blush coupled with his swollen lips. 

“Uhh,” Y/N stammered, her heart thumping in her chest as the moments flew by. “As a date?” 

“If that’s okay,” 

She remembered having to contain herself. It was difficult, when she had been crushing on the TA that visited her in the library for an entire semester now. Y/N needed to maintain some semblance of control in the face of what she’d consider her wildest dreams. 

“A date with you sounds like a dream,” she said, cringing because she totally went overboard with that. 

The very thought of it still gave her butterflies. Spencer was just too cute, with his funny if you think about it jokes, amazing book recommendations, and ability to always compliment her homemade desserts. If dreams could come true, it would be him, in a heartbeat. 

But Y/N doesn’t want to get ahead of herself. Standing in front of the full length mirror with Chester, her brown tabby lounging on her bed, she told herself to keep her head. Spencer’s dreamy and cute and charming. And after years and years of loving people from afar without the thrill of reciprocation, she found herself getting more and more okay without romantic prospects. Yet, she yearned for someone. She deeply desired another person to spend Friday nights cuddling on the couch reading books to each other. All she wanted was another person to come home to and to be the person someone comes home to. 

And maybe, just maybe that someone could be Spencer. 

*** 

Spencer Reid was, to put it mildly, terrified. From the moment he went into the library that fateful Wednesday to even now, his palms were sweaty with anxiety. He paced back and forth the small hallway that led up to the front door. Y/N emailed him last night, telling him thanks for the book recommendation and that she’d be at his place at 7 pm for their date. The little coffee shop was only two blocks, a perfect walking distance for a mild night in October. 

He continued to pace, thinking horrifyingly embarrassing possibilities of what could happen on this date. His entire life, Spencer found himself thinking about this night. He didn’t always dream that it would be with Y/N, even if he had been dreaming of it with her for the last couple of weeks. No, Spencer, for as long as he could remember, dreamt of his first date. Maybe it was all the romantic poems he heard in his mother’s lectures when he was young or maybe it was the secret stash of bodice rippers that made him yearn for a person to share his life with. Whatever it was, Spencer dreamt of this day. He dreamt of the day that someone would whisk him off his feet. Spencer, admittedly, understood that his dreams, birthed through 14th century poetry and 1970s softcore erotica, were a little fantastical. But then again, he liked a little fantastical one in a while. 

He changed his sweater, torn between the brown one with olive green stripes and his dark when one with mustard yellow stripes. Deciding on the red one before he changed his mind, Spencer pulled it over his head. He looked in the mirror, neither displeased or pleased with how he looked. Spencer found it easier to be ambivalent to his appearance. This way, he wasn’t set up for disappointment when people who caught his eye didn’t show the same attraction in return. 

He let Junie, his ancient gray cat, use his discarded sweater as a bed, despite her having a cat tree and three cat beds (and his bed) to sleep on. Of course, Junie wanted to sleep on the sweater that smelt like Spencer, she was a sweet cat. He crouched down, sitting criss-cross as he scratched her ears. 

“Wish me good luck, Junie-Bug,” Spencer whispered to his cat. She purred and Spencer decided to take that as an answer in his favor. 

The bell rang, alerting Spencer that his fate, whether he liked it or not, was her. Summoning his courage, Spencer answered the door. 

“I know I’m probably early, so I’m sorry. I already waited in my car down the street for like fifteen minutes. Oh crap! You aren’t supposed to know that. God, I’m ruining this, aren’t I?” 

Spencer, never truly understood when people say they are stunned into silence. But standing there with Y/N in his doorframe, he completely understood the meaning. Y/N, to put it simply, looked beautiful. 

“You look…”

“A mess, I know,” she laughed, a twinkling chuckle that forced a shy grin on Spencer’s face that instantly flooded into confusion, “I had no clue what to wear to a coffee shop date? So I wore this, but I’m still not sure if it was the right choice,” 

The right choice? Spencer thought silently to himself. It didn’t matter what she wore, he didn’t care about that stuff. It didn’t matter in the slightest because she was already the most beautiful person in the world to him. 

“That stuff,” Spencer started, unsure how to word this. Girls in movies and soap operas he watches are often insecure about their looks. It would be strange for Y/N to be insecure with her looks, considering how stunning she looked to Spencer, “Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care what you wear, you could wear a chicken feed sack dress for all I care. You’re perfect how you are,” he said, wondering if he came off too strong. He supposed that it was okay if he did come off strong, because at least he was being truthful. 

“You’re pretty perfect yourself, Spencer Reid.” 

Spencer felt his cheeks heat at her compliment. It wasn’t everyday that Spencer found himself getting compliments from pretty girls. And it certainly wasn’t everyday that pretty girls were calling him perfect. He attempted to play it cool, even if he knew he was just making a fool of himself. 

“I thought we could walk.” Spencer suggested, grabbing his keys from the rack. “It’s a nice night and it’s not too far away.” 

“Sounds perfect,” Y/N said. She stuck her hand out, signaling for Spencer to take it. He did, even if it nearly caused his heart to burst out of his chest. 

There was that little word again. Perfect. He was perfect. She was perfect. This night was perfect. 

– 

“Coffee beans are basically seeds. They are pits in this cherry-like berry. You know you can actually eat the berries? They’re a little tart, but anyway the only reason we call them beans is because the end result resembles legumes.” Spencer said, continuing to swirl his small stick in his extra large coffee with cinnamon. 

“I did not know that, hmm. That’s interesting, Spencer. I wonder if you could fermement the coffee berries? It would be interesting to say the least,” Y/N conversed. She gripped her iced latte, holding it so tightly it was like she was worried it would escape. 

“Sorry,” Spencer apologized, “I’m not really a good dater. I just. I am so well aware that it’s glaringly obvious this is my first date,” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, totally killed the mood.” Spencer lemented. Dramatically, he put his forehead in his hand. Sitting there, in the silence, Spencer felt a warm hand creep up on his wrist. He looked up, his eyes meeting Y/N’s in the dimly lit coffee shop. 

“Not at all.” Y/N said. She shook her head, a slight smile popping out of the corner of her mouth. “You’re too charming and handsome for your own good. Plus,” she gestures to her latte and the cases and cases of books that surround them, “Coffee and books are quite literally the way to my heart. And, who cares if this is your first date? That’s actually better for me because it means I get you all to myself.” 

Spencer, sputtering and flustered, made himself busy with his free hand. He sipped his coffee, perfectly sweet with a hint of spice from the cinnamon. As he sipped, Spencer’s attention was drawn to their joined hands. It seemed so….perfect. Their hands perfectly linked together with their fingers weaved in between. 

“Coffee and books are the way to my heart too,” Spencer commented, offering a timid smile. It was easier than he thought, but his heart still thumped frantically in his chest, “Would you like to check some out? I figured you’d have a couple recommendations being a librarian and all,” 

“Well,” Y/N started, standing up but still holding Spencer’s hand, “I’m a research librarian, but I do read like 200 books a year so I’m sure I can muster up a recommendation or two,” 

“I read 500,” Spencer said. His eyes were sheepish, but his lips curved up in a playful smile. 

“Really? That’s so impressive?” 

Spencer shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. He wasn’t quite used to people being impressed at his hefty reading load. Most people were either sympathetic or concerned because to most people reading 500 books a year must mean you’re rather lonely. But, Spencer supposed, Y/N wasn’t most people. 

“I-I can recommend some,” Spencer says. He let Y/N take his and lead him to the stacks of books, with the hope of this turning more and more perfect than it already was. 

– 

Spencer, sitting on the couch with Y/N’s body pressed into his, was acutely aware of how fast his heart was beating. He, again, was also acutely aware that it’s the first time someone so stunning has entered his personal space like this. His heart, figuratively his on his sleeve, but Spencer swore that it’s bound to leap out of his chest. Y/N’s head rested on his shoulder and her eyes were fixed on glowing television ahead. Spencer, despite having picked the television program, couldn't give even the most rudimentary of summaries. In fact, Spencer was pretty sure he couldn’t name the main character, even if this is his favorite show. 

“Does your impression of me deteriorate if I tell you that I’ve never watched an episode of Dr. Who?” she asked. Y/N’s voice vibrated against Spencer’s upper arm. He wanted to fold himself into her, to let his thumping heart steady with the smooth sound of her voice. Spencer, unable to find words, somehow found the courage to move his arm behind Y/N’s back, effectively pulling her in closer. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Y/N said, a smirk, unseen, but evident in the playfulness of her voice. 

“Well if you told me you like Star Wars better than Star Trek,” Spencer joked. He silently counted how many beats his heart had made during their exchange. Y/N’s hand, which laid carefully against her lap, moved it to link her fingers in with Spencer’s. It was like a massive dose of adrenaline that flooded his entire system, bringing him, somehow, solace and energy in the single wave. 

“Hmm, well what if I’ve never seen either. Not really a sci-fi person,” 

“Then we’ll just have to go on another date,” Spencer said, surprising himself with his guts, “You know Star Trek is actually not scientifically inaccurate. More improbable, but given the decade in which it was originally conceived in, it’s pretty astounding,” 

“Another date it is then,” Y/N smiled, scooting in closer to Spencer. Suddenly, he’s grateful for the bone-chilling winter. He wore layers of button-down shirts and cardigans, a protective which acts as a protective barrier between their bodies. Spencer could hardly imagine how fast his heart would be beating if there were less clothes (or even no clothes) between them. 

“At a risk of sounding pathetic, Spencer,” Y/N started, the shake in his voice making Spencer realize that he just might be falling in love with her, “I really like you. I really do. You’re the kindest, most gentle man I’ve ever met. You’re just..” 

Y/N stopped, clearly at a loss for words when it comes to him. Spencer’s heart, already on the verge of stopping, realistically may not be able to take more compliments. 

“I envy everyone who has had the privilege to be loved by you" Spencer whispered, terrified to have someone this close, let alone someone as magnetic and perfectly perfect for him. 

But, she just about incinerated his highest expectations when she leaned in close, her head eclipsing the low, yellow light. Her lips were soft and warm. He wanted to melt into the kiss, let himself find peace in the way her hand rests against his elbow, gently coaxing him out of his shell. Spencer felt that familiar ache in his heart build, it’s a combination of adrenaline and serotonin and all those wonderfully potent drugs brains make when they’re happy.

“Perfect” Y/N said. Her lips still brushed against his lips. It was like she didn’t want to break the kiss yet and the very thought of that sends shockwaves down Spencer’s spine. He smiled, deciding that he too doesn’t want the kiss to end. Spencer brought his hands to the back of her head, pulling her in closer than she’s ever been. 

Their knees touched. 

He caressed her face with a single finger, afraid that if he touches her too rough, too fast, too much she’ll disappear into whatever magical place she came from. 

She bit his lip gently. Perhaps she’s the opposite. Maybe she needed to feel him whimper underneath her for her to realize it’s real. Her breath is hot against his skin, drawing him in. She smelled like coffee and vanilla. It was heavenly. It was magical. It was perfect. 

Spencer, brazen, threaded his fingers together behind her head. He drew her in close, desperately chasing the one thing he’s been craving for ages. He had it now. He had it now and he wasn’t going to let it go now. 

“God, you don’t kiss like it’s your first date.” Y/N cursed into Spencer’s lips. Emboldened by her teasing, Spencer pulled her in close, guiding her to sit on his lap. Thrilled, Spencer’s mind was ready to short circuit. He never felt this electric before. It was like he was wonderstruck. His blush burned into his skin and his hands shook as he ran them up and down Y/N’s back. Her lips felt like puddy against his, warm and soft. She groaned into his mouth, just as eager as Spencer was to have someone close to her body. 

In a flash, Spencer felt something soft against his leg. It wasn’t Y/N, who’s attention was squarely on kissing Spencer. It was Junie. 

“Junie!” Spencer shouted. He immediately regretted it. Even Spencer, with one date and one half of a makeout session under his belt, knew that calling another “woman’s” name out while with someone was the worst thing he could do. “Oh, shit. No, not that. It’s not that. It’s Junie. The cat. My cat,” Spencer explained, attempting to save himself. 

Y/N looked to her left and was greeted by the bright green eyes of an all gray cat. Spencer, mouth hanging open and half terrified, realized that Y/N wasn’t weirded out or hurt by the incident. Somehow, she found it rather hilarious. Laughing, Y/N was still perched in Spencer’s lap. She placed her hands against his shoulders, clearly finding humor in his cat interrupting their date. 

“And who might this be?” Y/N asked. She held her hand out, letting Junie sniff her. The gray cat, although old and particular in the people she likes, took an immediate liking to Y/N. 

“June. But she’s ridiculously stubborn and will only answer to Junie-Bug.” Spencer said. He picked June up, handing her to Y/N, who climbed off his lap, “She’s like my best friend.” Spencer admitted. 

“Spencer,” Y/N said. She said his name like an exclamation and immediately, Spencer knew it was a sound he could hear for a very long time, “That is the sweetest thing in the world. I have a cat too. His name is Chester. He’s my best friend too,” 

“I’d love to meet Chester, and maybe Junie-Bug can get a friend too,” Spencer said. He placed June on the couch next to them. She curled up on the couch, already comfortable near Y/N. 

“Well, I’m hoping you’re more than a friend to me,” Y/N teased. She nudged Spencer’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. 

Spencer, finally finding himself his footing, grabbed Y/N’s hand and gently kissed Junie on the forehead. 

“Sorry, Buggy. I think I’m going to have to lock the door for a little bit,” he faux apologized, smiling and winking brazenly at Y/N, who happily let Spencer lead her to his bedroom. 

“Only if she can come in later,” Y/N said. “She’s just too cute to not snuggle,” 

@reidslovely @reidsbookclub @spencerreidat3am @fightingdragonswithreid @hotchandspencearedilfs f@sadgirlml @spencerslibrary @foxy-eva @paperbackprettyboy @reidselle @alexxavicry y @justlivinginadaydream @reidsmilf @mrs-dr-reid @spencerreidsmommy @reidslibrarybook @sleepyspencer @goldentournesol

#spencer reid #spencer reid x female reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fluff

[libbee]

Manifestation: whether it works or not; my experience. Bonus: Law of Attraction.

Manifestation is a popular word on internet. Many communities and people discuss it. Many books like the secret, power of positive thinking, power of your subconscious mind mention it. I'm trying to understand the psychology behind it. "Manifestation" sounds like a magical thing where you wish for something and that thing happens. A lot of people share how they wished for simple things like favourite food, favourite phone to bigger things like dream house, dream job, good health and it comes to them. Just like that. Must be cool living that kind of life!!

However manifestation doesn't really work for me. I tried manifesting admission into dream college/getting such marks and rank in exam which didnt work out for me. I did it by writing on paper and leaving at altar, script writing etc.

I spent countless hours daydreaming how my life will be, how I will succeed and marry etc but it didnt work out again. It is embarrassing recalling how silly my daydreams were.

I started noticing that I am delusional and misguided. I have fallen into wishful thinking and narcissism. By narcissism, I dream of grandiose success, power, status, image. I have a case of inflation in terms of analytical psychology and beneath that I have a lot of self doubt, insecurities and inferiority complex. Not only did manifestation not work for me, but also I slipped into maladaptive thinking patterns and unrealistic expectations from life.

There is a fine line between intuition and delusion. Often thoughts and feelings seem like intuitive predictions of future but turn out to be more wishful delusion. A lot of hunches dont come true. Though I am not saying that clairvoyance and intuitive abilities are not real; they are, but you have to be very careful of identifying what is intuition and what is mere dream.

However, what did work for me was "work". I did a lot of journaling to identify my faulty behaviour, thoughts, identity, reactions, expectations and the things I learned from my environment unconsciously. Then I did journaling to identify how they were wrong and what was their effect on my life. And then I learned to do self improvement by reading stoicism, existentialism and spirituality. It was no manifestation! It was pure work. Mental work, physical work and emotional work! No magic pill.

Similarly, for my career, I had to work, study, learn from trial and error. Same for my hobbies and others. I have Venus in 8th house+Scorpio ascendant+sun and mercury in 7th house; the only exception is: I sometimes feel like I can predict my future husband. I saw some visions of him + a lot of synchronicities happened around me + I just know I'm going to marry him. But this is not manifestation either. This is again "work". I worked to get the husband I wanted. I read, learned things, changed my personality; there was work involved. No magic.

Finally, i concur with Law of attraction. It is the most obvious thing whether you are spiritual or not. If you have worked hard to study, to change your personality, to change your looks, obviously you will attract equally worthy results too. But I also know a lot of people who work very hard but still miss out by few marks or some other factors in life.

Despite astrology, life is very unpredictable. Astrology is only 50% of the picture. Rest 50% of life is still uncertain, unpredictable and unknown. And astrology mostly works in hindsight to connect the dots. This leaves us with few options but to focus on learning life skills like decision making, discipline, work ethic, pareto principle, logical thinking, journaling, etc to live life.

Magical thinking/manifestation/wishing/daydreaming did not work for me. If it does work for you, congrats!

#astrology observations #astrology #astro observations #astro community #shadow self #astroblr #occult #8th house #aquarius #taurus #sagittarius #capricorn #virgo #pisces #scorpio woman #moon #manifesation #manifesting #law of abundance #law of attraction

[three--rings]

Hi sorry to bother you! I had a post saved from you about labyrinth to read after I watched the movie (https://www.tumblr.com/three--rings/700812627733037056/glamdamnit-my-sister-asked-if-the-events-of-the) and in your addition you mentioned a college paper on it? I was wondering if you'd be willing to share that. Totally fine if not but thought I'd give it a shot cause I'd probably read a terms of service if it was written by you

Aww, that's very sweet. I don't think I still have that paper.

Or rather, if I do, it's on a 3.5" floppy somewhere in a closet, because I am old. I know I had a disk with all my papers on it. But, for obvious reasons, that's not much help now.

The paper was for a class I took my last semester on cult film and we had to write a paper on our personal Cult Film and our relationship with it, and Labyrinth was mine. So it was mostly personal rather than analytical.

#asks #suibianworks

[comradekatara]

i was watching an interview with alex and ariel hirsch, and besides just being really sweet and delightful, it got me thinking about how these kinds of sibling dynamics are typically positioned in media, contrasting the relationship of dipper & mabel with that of katara & sokka, a connection that is not unfamiliar to me. i really enjoy the fact that these sibling dynamics are incredibly similar on paper, and yet are framed by their respective narratives in complete opposite ways.

both dipper and sokka represent the cynical, paranoid, analytical, mathematically-minded, neurotic, suspicious, strategic puzzle solvers who are deeply loyal to their sisters, would do and/or give up anything for them, who are extremely brave and heroic when the moment calls for it despite their constant cynicism and paranoia, who want to act and be considered adults by those around them, and who struggle with their perception of their own masculinity, intelligence, and heroism.

both katara and mabel represent the idealistic, adventurous, fearless, naive, sometimes selfish, sometimes selfless, optimistic, fun-loving, nurturing, compassionate beacons of light and hope who want to enjoy their childhoods for as long as possible, who develop a crush on every new cute boy they meet but would never demean themselves or their own autonomy (too much) for the sake of a man, who actively want to be a force for good in the world and are willing to fight to make that happen.

but the key difference in these dynamics is that dipper is the protagonist of gravity falls, whereas katara is the protagonist of avatar.

there are plenty of episodes of gf wherein mabel's flaws, insecurities, mistakes, and general moments for positive character growth are explored, but gravity falls is fundamentally about dipper's journey of self-actualization, even if mabel's anxieties about approaching adulthood do help to catalyze the climax of the narrative. as alex hirsch has stated himself, he identifies with dipper (and the fact that he intentionally imbued a lot of his sister into mabel makes this fact even more overt), so dipper is the one who learns the lessons in most episodes; he is the one with the flawed point of view that needs to be adjusted, whereas mabel's positivity and general loveliness is just there to complement dipper's insecurities. of course, this positioning isn't always the case – mabel is an extremely dynamic character in her own right, who has plenty of opportunities for growth, but she is often presented as an active force for good (albeit chaotic good). mabel and dipper are twins, and they do share an equal narrative weight, but it's also clear that mabel plays second fiddle to dipper thematically, even if her role as co-protagonist is integral. dipper is the one who does the opening and closing narration in the pilot and finale. dipper is literally based on the creator of the show himself.

conversely, katara is indisputably the protagonist of atla, and despite having a similar amount of screentime, sokka plays a supporting role. aang, katara, and zuko represent the narrative scaffolding of the show, with their arcs all complementing one another and coming together to construct the narrative itself. sokka's role is typically to support these characters, to the play the straight man or the everyman to their romantic heroes (episodes in the final season, such as "sokka's master" in katara's case, "the day of black sun" in aang's case, or "the boiling rock" in zuko's case, do reverse this dynamic by having the protagonists become supporters of sokka's heroic journey, but the typical dynamic nonetheless largely sees sokka in the supporting role, both in terms of narrative structure and in terms of his personal identity and relationships with other characters). while sokka is given episodes in which his internal growth is an A or B plot in the narrative, the majority of the series focuses on katara's growth primarily, showing her making similar mistakes and/or facing similar obstacles over and over again and reacting to and learning from them in new ways.

as one would expect from a protagonist, katara gets more screentime dedicated to her growth, getting three seasons to react to and explore her own internal struggles, as opposed to sokka, who grows and adapts to new information and challenges remarkably quickly, and only ever externalizes his feelings for the sake of helping someone else (often katara) heal. this isn't to say that sokka is underwritten, but rather that their respective roles in the narrative inform their characters: sokka's baggage perfectly explains why he internalizes his feelings (but now's not the time to go in-depth on that), and his adaptability, creativity, and intelligence allow for him to synthesize new information at a uniquely impressive speed. meanwhile, katara's arc is central to the show, so her internal struggles are necessarily woven more explicitly throughout the narrative. like dipper, she is the narrator, she is the thematic heart of the show. she learns from her mistakes, and then she repeats them anyway. she doesn't listen to sokka, even (especially) when he's right, because if she did, there would be no show!

mabel and dipper do argue about who's the sidekick (they are both each other's sidekick), and have a far more equal relationship than sokka and katara, which makes sense considering that they are twins, whereas katara is not only younger than sokka, but also inherently Special in a way that sokka is not. meanwhile, sokka knows and would willingly admit that he is the sidekick; in fact it is his entire identity. but what makes dipper & katara the protagonists of their respective shows is not their inherent specialness, but the fact that their characters are central to conveying the themes of their shows, which could not be more different from each other in content. even if these central dynamics feel similar, they are represented entirely differently due to the nature of the universes in which they exist and the messages the writers intend to convey, and well. i just find that fascinating.

ultimately, if mabel & sokka seem less flawed and yet far less appreciated than dipper & katara by the narrative (i would also say by fans, but audiences hate teenage girls who act like human beings as a rule, so...) it's because they are, intentionally so. sokka & dipper and katara & mabel may be far more similar in terms of personality, but sokka & mabel ultimately occupy a similar narrative role in relation to the narrators katara & dipper, as the ever-present siblings our heroes would be nowhere without.

#idk man im just watching gravity falls interviews on youtube #and i was gonna write like one little paragraph about this #and then i ended up..... uh #writing more. #synthesis #analysis #katara #sokka #katara&sokka #sokka and mabel have always felt like the narrative underdogs to me iykwim #like i love katara and dipper so much #but i feel like sokka and mabel both deserve a single shining spotlight on an empty stage so they can sing 'my way' #but maybe thats because i will always identify more with the sidekick no matter what #i am just a sidekick coded person! and i embrace my truth <3 amen

[konoha--files]

Four Pillars Of New Konohagakure

Shikamaru Nara

Man with 200 IQ aka Smartest person in whole Shinobi world

Advisor of Hokage and chief of staff at Hokage Office

One of only two members Rookie 9 to become Jonin after war.

Crucial part of Allied Shinobi

It's said that the Shinobi Alliance worked due to Shikamaru of Konohagakure (Source: Shikamaru Hiden)

Fun Fact: Before getting married Shikamaru used to send letters to Temari instead of emails as he didn't found the medium trustworthy.(Source:Gaara Hiden)🥰

When Gaara found out about Shikamaru and Temari's relationship he started reading Icha Icha Paradise so he could understand why he didn't saw this coming like Kankuro .(Source:Gaara Hiden)

Sakura Haruno/Sakura Uchiha

Strongest Kunoichi of her generation and one of the Three Strongest Shinobi alive.

Best Medic Ninja in Five Great Shinobi Nations and Head of Medical Department of Konohagakure.

One of only two members Rookie 9 to become Jonin after war.

Started mental health clinics for war orphaned children in Konoha and Other Shinobi Nations (Inspiration being Mirai, Naruto, Sasuke and Sai so other kids could get the mental and emotional support her friends weren't able to). (Source: Sakura Hiden)

Gaara acknowledges her as a Shinobi of his class in terms of power and has acknowledged her as an example of Shinobi who's very powerful despite not being a part of any ninja clan. (source: Gaara Hiden)

Fun Fact: She not only surpassed tsunade in in fighting and medical skills but also kinda in gambling (i.e. cards) she has a genius level memory that she can memorize all the moments of cards to the point that she knows all of your cards and thus win, lose or draw it's all in her hands, all thanks to her analytical skills that rivals Sharingan - implied by Sasuke in Chunin arc and Boruto-Tip: Never play cards with Sakura cuz it's bound to be an unfair game😅. ( Source: Sasuke Retsuden)

Sasuke Uchiha

One of the two Strongest Shinobi Alive, The one with the Sharingan and Rinnegan. Only Shinobi equal to Naruto.

Known as Shadow Hokage, one who protects Konoha from outside through the shadows.

Former Avenger.

Sacrificed normal peaceful life i.e. living with his wife Sakura and beloved daughter Sarada to protect Shinobi world from threat that might be greater than Kaguya, as he was only one who could do this mission (due to his visual prowess) which led him to staying away from his family for years. (Source: Naruto Gaiden)

Likes to blend science of nature in his jutsus for example: creating barrier of pure water i.e. pure H2O so it doesn't conduct electricity like normal water and creating ice using water nature and wind nature together. (Source: Sasuke Shinden: the star pupil)

Fun Fact: Sasuke was probably the last person of his generation to read Icha Icha Paradise considering even Gaara was 12 years ahead of him in this case.(Source:Naruto Shinden: Parent and Child day)(On that day Sasuke found out that Karma exists-any smart person can guess what I'm trying to say)😅

Just like Naruto he is still a Genin even though he'smore powerful than any Kage, Except Naruto.

Naruto Uzumaki

One of the two Strongest Shinobi Alive, the one of the last two jinchuriki and also the strongest one.

The Seventh Hokage aka Nanadaime.

Man because of whom the formation of Shinobi Alliance was possible in first place.

Has to do the mountains of paper work, sometimes he overworks himself leading him not being able to spend much time with his family(Hinata, Boruto and Himawari), all for the well being and development of village that he considers as a family to him.

Most unpredictable Shinobi in history of Shinobi world.

Before becoming a Hokage he used to train next generation ninjas of academy occasionally during his Hokage training.(source:The Last movie and Sakura Hiden)

Fun Fact: He is only Hokage to be directly promoted from Genin to Hokage. (but considering the fact that he is more powerful than any other kage, Jonin and chunin so participating in Chunin exam at that point would be pointless)😀

Note: 1)Most of the points mentioned above are after war, source being Canon Novels and Manga.

2) Before anyone asks why Kakashi Sensei isn't on list it's because I consider him as very foundation of this four pillars, the work they are doing at this point was possible due to Kakashi aka Rokudaime's support and guidance.

#naruto #naruto uzumaki #sasuke uchiha #sakura uchiha #shikamaru nara #team 7 #sasusaku #naruhina #shikatema #hokage #shadow hokage #Adivisor of Hokage #Medic Ninja #Head of Medical Department #Four Pillars Of New Konohagakure #Icha Icha Paradise #Make out Paradise #konoha #Gaara Hiden #sakura hiden #naruto gaiden #sasuke retsuden #sakura haruno #haruno sakura #pro sakura uchiha #pro sakura haruno #pro sasuke #pro naruto uzumaki

[marshmallowprotection]

Hi! I see that since you mentioned match ups are open people have eagerly hopped in. I honestly don't blame them since you're so good at it. It's really fun reading everyone's match ups so I wanted to give it a go too! I wanted to avoid mentioning or comparing characters to avoid influencing the results but like simplifying a person's personality is hard so I'm just gonna roll with it, lol.

In terms of personality, I'm an introvert but that doesn't mean I'm shy. I can be (I have, like, 3 different anxiety diagnosis) but usually I'm generally low energy and relaxed. Very deadpan. So much so much so that people tend to laugh even when I'm being serious. I'm a Taurus and I find the description very much fitting. I take pride in being pragmatic, grounded, down to earth. I like taking care of people in a more realistic way (and just in general). In spite of seeming calm or blunt I'm actually really sensitive and emotional (although I'll never show others my vulnerability). I always try to consider the other person's feelings which is why I'm often called kind and considerate. A good listener. I'm quiet so that comes with the territory lol. I generally don't like to talk about myself and will only say something if asked/spoken to first. In simple terms I'd say I'm a weird mix of Jumin(practical, decisive, analytical) and V(emotional, sentimental, self sacrificing). I always end up getting the most hearts from them when I respond honestly especially Jumin haha. One last thing for me is that along with my millions of anxiety disorders(including paranoia so I heavily relate to Rika and Saeyoung) I also have ADHD(I guess *also* like Saeyoung lolol). As I'm sure you can tell by now I don't have the one that makes me bounce off the wall. I believe the one I have is called inattentive and it makes me a total space cadet. But I was very imaginative and creative so I think it was good trade off? I'm pretty sure my mom thought child me was a plant because I was so quiet and still. Never cried that much and was an "easy" child except when she had to coax me to do things. Then I was stubborn lolol. Definitely a Taurus haha.

For work and study, ever since I could hold a crayon I've been drawing and art has always been my focus. In public school I'd pick the all the art classes and I'd even take outside classes during summers off and when I grew out of that I'd do self study with books and online tutorials. I do illustration and graphic design and my major in college was visual communication design (which is a wordier way to say graphic design). I got my associates but sadly had to drop while doing my bachelor's (would love to get a master's and study art forever but it's just a dream for now). Currently, I work as a bakery clerk part time until I can get a better job but I like it. I like seeing people's faces light up saying "SO PRETTYYY~" when they see our cakes. I do a little bit of everything so bread bagging, baking, set up, orders, cake decorating. It's very well rounded job where I'm breaking a sweat and feel like I'm earning my dollar while also having creative input. I like giving the customers advice for their get togethers and parties. It's nice. I'd like to one day have my own brand and put myself out there as an artist but for now this is fine enough.

When it comes to hobbies I feel like it's on the nose cause I like to be creative and have my hands moving. The obvious is drawing (both digitally and traditionally. Love using soft chalk pastels) and baking but I also like more crafty hobbies like crocheting and scrapbooking. I'm a big stationary nerd and I love collecting paper, notebooks, stickers/washi taped, pens/pencils, ect. Been into watching bookbinding vids. I also have the more typical hobby of listening to music, reading (big book nerd put me in a book store I'll leave with a tall stack), big gamer nerd.

Some other miscellaneous info about me is my favorite color is green 💚. I generally like deep earthy, natural colors but I also like gentle pastels like pink and lavender. I'm a big dog person and I dislike cats. I'm actually afraid of them and they cause me a lot of anxiety. I would never cause trouble for them and I hope they are homed to people that genuinely adore them. I just don't jive with them. I can and have taken care of them in a pinch. I wouldn't let my personal stuff cause them harm. I definitely understand and relate to dogs more. I want to grow old with a bunch of pups to take care of lol. I don't want kids so cute puppers will do. I have hazel eyes and rusty red hair. When I was younger my hair was much brighter yellow orange compared to Saeyoung but as I got older it turned into a deeper, darker rust red. I also have freckles all over. My favorite shape is stars! I love astrology and magic and whimsy (again such a contrast from how I present lolol ⭐)

Im more prone to forgiving and moving on and I found Saeran's AE really relatable. It brought up a lot of topics that were really important to me that I feel a lot of people overlook in stories about healing from abusive parents. I really can't hold onto my anger for very long and generally prefer to look at people for what they are and either work with them or move on. I don't like letting others take my time and energy which is why I'm "nice", or at least normal, to even people i don't like. I feel like being petty and angry all the time is draining. It's just my style of healing. On the contrary I find anger and yelling very triggering for me even from friends who I know won't hurt me or are speaking on my behalf. The antagonististic energy is just very uncomfortable. I prefer a gentle touch I can trust. Everyone is capable of getting angry, it's healthy and normal, but I prefer someone who's first instinct isn't to jump to anger but understanding. Makes me feel safe.

That's about everything I can think of. I don't normally think about myself so it's hard to write haha. Hopefully that all made sense. Thanks for taking the time if you see this. 😊

I match you with...

Jihyun!

Hear me out, I know this might sound odd, but you seem to fall into the same realm as his heart.

Don't take this to mean that you're self-destructive, it's actually that you're passionate and that this passion is what inspires you to be who you are. Even though it may not be a lucrative career to survive as an artist, you find a way to make it work, and in doing so, you don't sacrifice what helps you feel like you have artistic liberty. Not a lot of people have that opportunity, and it would be interesting to be close to Jihyun, wouldn’t it? He didn't give up on his dream of painting, he simply found something else to fill the void in his chest because his father made him believe he would never be able to make it. 

Seeing you be your most authentic self is a challenge to everything he's ever told himself. You're the kind of person who challenges him, because while you are similar, you are inherently different, as well. It's not a bad thing, it's something he welcomes, and he can't help but want more. 

He's not the kind of person who's going to jump to anger when something goes wrong. You don't have to be afraid of being in a conversation with him, especially not with the two of you are upset, because he has a level enough head to know that you need to take some time to breathe, and do whatever you need to do before you come back to the conversation. Nothing ever feels like it's going to explode when you're with him. It feels like you can overcome any challenge that comes your way. 

#mod kait #ask #matchup #saltheartgal

[aboutanancientenquiry]

"BMCR 2009.10.48

Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran: Cross-Cultural Encounters. 1st International Conference (Athens, 11-13 November 2006)

Seyed Mohammad Reza Darbandi, Antigoni Zournatzi, Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran: Cross-Cultural Encounters. 1st International Conference (Athens, 11-13 November 2006). Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation; Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO; Cultural Center of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2008. xxix, 377. ISBN 9789609309554. €60.00 (pb).

Review by

Margaret C. Miller, University of Sydney. [email protected]

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

The volume commemorates a landmark occasion, when the national research centres of Iran and Greece collaborated in a multi-national interdisciplinary conference on the history of exchange between Iran and Greece. Its nearly 400 pages reflect a strong sense of its symbolic importance. Papers span the Achaemenid through the Mediaeval periods and address the theme of exchange from the perspective of many disciplines — history, art, religion, philosophy, literature, archaeology. The book thus brings together material that can be obscure outside the circle of specialists, and in a manner that is generally accessible; the wide range of topics and periods included is a strength. Excellent illustrations often in colour enhance the archaeological contributions, as does inclusion of hitherto unpublished material.

The volume commences with a brief section on what might be called Greek textual evidence (Tracy, Petropoulou, Tsanstanoglou), followed by papers on interaction in Sasanian through mediaeval Persia (Azarnoush, Alinia, Venetis, Fowden), four papers discussing Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian history (Weiskopf, Ivantchik, Tuplin, Aperghis), aspects of the archaeology of Persepolis and Pasargadae (Stronach, Talebian, Root, Palagia), and ends with essays on the receptivity to Achaemenid culture in the material culture of the western empire and fringes: Cyprus, Turkey, Greece (Zournatzi, Lintz, Summerer, Paspalas, Ignatiadou, Sideris, Triantafyllidis), followed by a paper on traces of Greek material culture in the archaeology of (Seleucid) Iran (Rahbar). The wealth of vehicles, contexts and levels of exchange attested through the ages is both eye-opening and exciting. While there is unfortunately little attempt at globalizing synthesis or theoretical modelling, the analytical methods and collections of data in the individual contributions will aid future work in the area.

Stephen Tracy starts the volume with a synchronic analysis of the ways in which first Aeschylus, then Homer, play upon the prejudices of their audience against ” barbaroi” and then show the human quality of the enemy. In Persai, the Athenians are anonymous in contrast with the delineated personalities of the Persian royal family; in the Iliad, Achilles is “not very likeable” but learns humanity from the sorrow of Priam. Both poets focus on common humanity that transcends short-term hostilities.

Angeliki Petropoulou offers a detailed analysis of Herodotus’ account of the death of Masistios and subsequent mourning (Hdt. 9.20-25.1). Herodotus played up the heroic quality of Masistios’ death, stressing his beauty and height, qualities appreciated by both Greeks and Persians. The fact that Masistios seems to have gained the position of cavalry commander in the year before his death, coupled with the likelihood that his Nisaian horse with its golden bridle was a royal gift, suggests he had been promoted and rewarded for bravery.

Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou discusses the Derveni papyrus’ mention of magoi (column VI.1-14). Though the papyrus dates 340-320, the text was composed late fifth century BC, making the apparently Iranian content especially important. Both the ritual described and the explanation for it cohere with elements known from later Persian sources as features of early Iranian religious thought. While the precise vehicles of transmission of such knowledge to the papyrus are unknowable, the papyrus is the first certain documentation of the borrowing of Iranian ideas in Greek (philosophical) thought.

On the Iranian side exchange of religious ideas is documented by Massoud Azarnoush in the iconography of a fourth-century AD Sasanian manor-house he excavated at Hajiabad 1979.1 Moulded stucco in the form of divine figures included dressed and naked females identified with Anahita. The very broad shoulders of the Hellenistically dressed Anahita fit an Iranian aesthetic; the closest parallel for the slender naked females is found not in the cognate Ishtar type but in the Aphrodite Pudica type. Reliefs of naked boys, of uncertain relationship with Anahita, have attributes of fertility cult in the (Dionysian?) bunches of grapes they hold and in the ?ivy elements of their headdress.

Sara Alinia offers a brief but fascinating account of the development of state-sponsored religion hand-in-hand with state-sponsored persecution of religious elements that were deemed to be affiliated with another state: the Christian Late Roman Empire and the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire. She documents the rise of religion as a tool of inter-state diplomacy and vehicle for inter-state rivalry; religion was but one facet of the political antagonism between the two.

Evangelos Venetis studies the cross-fertilization between Hellenistic and Byzantine Greek romance and Iranian pre-Islamic and Islamic romantic narrative. Persian elements are found in Hellenistic romance; Hellenistic themes contribute to Persian epics. The fragmentary nature of texts ranging 2nd -11th/14th c. AD and the lack of intermediary texts are serious impediments which may yet be overcome. The Alexander Romance, known in Iran from a Sasanian translation, contributed to the form and detail of the Shahname, as well as to other Persian epics.

Garth Fowden outlines the complex history of the creation, translation, wide circulation and impact of the pseudo-Aristotelian texts on religious thought. Aristotle’s works were translated into Syriac in the 6th c. and in the mid 8th c. into Arabic. Arab philosophers, attracted to the idea of Aristotle as counsellor of kings, updated him. Owing to his remoteness in time, “Aristotle” offended neither Muslim nor Christian. The Letters of Alexander, Secret of Secrets and al-Kindi’s sequel of Metaphysics, the Theology of Aristotle, contributed significantly to the philosophical underpinnings of both Muslim and Christian theology; the last remains an important text in teaching at Qom.

Michael N. Weiskopf argues that Herodotos’ account of the Persian treatment of Ionia after the Ionian revolt constitutes “imperial nostalgia” — the popular memory of how good things were under a past regime, in the context of a new regime. Herodotos 6.42-43, stressing the administrative efficiency and fairness of Artaphernes’ arrangements, allows a reading of Mardonios’ alleged imposition of democratic constitutions (so dissonant with the subsequent reported governing of Ionian states) as imperial nostalgia, to be contrasted with the inconsistent and unfair treatment of the Ionians by the Athenians of Herodotos’ own day.

Askold I. Ivantchik publishes two Greek inscriptions from Hellenistic Tanais in the Bosporos (and reedits a third). Evidently private thiasos inscriptions, they confirm that the city was already in 2nd or 1st century BC officially divided into two social (presumably ethnic) groups: the Hellenes and the Tanaitai, presumably Sarmatians, on whose land the city was founded in the late 3rd century BC. A thiasos for the river god Tanais includes members with both Greek and Iranian names, showing that private religious thiasoi were an important vehicle for breaking down social barriers between the two populations of the city.

Two papers offer contrasting interpretations of the evidence for Seleucid retention of Achaemenid institutions. That there were parallels between structures of the different periods is uncontested; the question is whether the parallels signify a deliberate programme of Seleucid self-presentation as the “heirs of the Achaemenids.” Christopher R. Tuplin argues that acquisition of the empire involved adoption of the Achaemenid mantle in some contexts and maintenance of those structures that worked, but that the balance of evidence suggests no conscious policy of continuation, and considerable de facto alteration of attitude and form. He suggests that the evidence of continuity of financial (taxation) structures — a major part of Aperghis’ argument — is ambiguous, at best. The treatment and divisions of territory, most notably the “shift of centre of gravity” from Persis to Babylonia, argue more for disruption than continuity.

G. G. Aperghis gives the case for a deliberate Seleucid policy of continuation of many Achaemenid administrative practices. He points to the retention of the satrapy as basis of administrative organization; use of land-grants (albeit to cities rather than individuals); continuing royal support of temples; maintenance of the Royal Road system (n.b. two Greek milestones, one illustrated in this volume by Rahbar); the retention of two separate offices relating to financial oversight. He suggests that the double sealing of transactions in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets metamorphosed into the double monogram on Seleucid coinage. Further field work in Iran, like that outlined by Rahbar (see below), will settle such contested matters as whether the many foundations of Alexander had any local impact. At present, Tuplin offers the more persuasive case.

David Stronach, excavator of Pasargadae, gives his considered opinion on the complex nexus of issues relating to the date of Cyrus’ constructions at Pasargadae. Touching upon the East Greek and Lydian contribution to early Achaemenid monumental architecture in stone and orthogonal design principles, Cyrus’ conquest chronology and the Nabonidus Chronicle, Darius’ creation of Old Persian cuneiform, the elements of the Tomb of Cyrus, and new evidence confirming the garden design, he argues that the chronology of the constructions at Pasargadae indirectly confirms the date of the conquest of Lydia around 545.

Mohammad Hassan Talebian offers a diachronic analysis of Persepolis and Pasargadae, starting with a survey of the Iranian and Lydian elements in their construction. Modern interventions include the ill-informed and damaging activities of Herzfeld and Schmidt at Persepolis in the 1930s, the stripping away of the mediaeval Islamic development of the Tomb of Cyrus, and the damage to the ancient city of Persepolis in preparation for the 2500-anniversary celebrations in 1971. Recent surveys in the region compensate to some degree. Talebian urges the importance of attention to all periods of the past rather than a privileged few.

Margaret Cool Root continues her thought-experiment in exploring how a fifth-century Athenian male might have viewed Persepolis.2 Sculptural traits such as the emphasis on the clothed body and nature of interaction between individuals would have seemed to the hypothetical Athenian to embody a profoundly effeminate culture. Yet Root’s study of the Persepolis Fortification Tablet sealings, their flashes of humour and playfulness in their utilisation on the tablets, reveals a world in which oral communication — idle chit-chat — perhaps bridged the cultural divide. She concludes that a visiting Greek might well have learned how to read the imagery like an Iranian.

Olga Palagia argues that the most famous Greek artefact found at Persepolis, the marble statue of “Penelope”, was not booty but a diplomatic gift from the people of Thasos: its Thasian marble provides a workshop provenance. The “Polygnotan” character, seen also in the Thasian marble “Boston Throne,” possibly from the same workshop, suits the prestige of the gift: Thasos’ great artist, the painter Polygnotos, is also attested as a bronze sculptor. A putative second Penelope in Thasos, taken to Rome in the imperial period with the “Boston Throne,” would have served as model for the Roman sculptural versions.

Antigoni Zournatzi offers the first of a series of regional studies documenting receptivity to Persian culture in the western empire and beyond, with a look at Cyprus. Earlier scholarship focused on siege mound and palace design; receptivity can be tracked in glyptic, toreutic, and sculpture. Western “Achaemenidizing” seals may be Cypriote; Persianizing statuettes may reflect local adoption of Persian dress (or Persian participation in local ritual). The treatment of beard curls on one late 6th century head may reflect Persian sculptural practice. Zournatzi suggests that Cypro-Persian bowls and jewellery were produced not for local consumption but to satisfy tribute requirements.

Yannick Lintz announces a project to compile a comprehensive corpus of Achaemenid objects in western Turkey, an essential step in any attempt to understand the period in the region.3 Particular challenges lie in matters of definition, both of “Achaemenid” and “west Anatolian” traits. The state of completion of the database is not clear; one is aware of a volume of excavated material in museums whose processing and publication was interrupted and can only wish her well in what promises to be a massive undertaking.

Lâtife Summerer continues her publication of the Persian-period Phrygian painted wooden tomb at Tatarli in western Turkey with discussion of the different cultural elements of its iconographic programme.4 The friezes of the north wall especially present Anatolian traditions; the east wall friezes of funerary procession and battle (between Persians and nomads) offer a mix of Persian and Anatolian. New Hittite evidence clinches as Anatolian the identification of the cart with curved top familiar in Anatolo-Persian art; it carries an effigy of the deceased. Alexander von Kienlin’s appendix expands the cultural mix presented by the tomb with his demonstration that its Lydian-style dromos was an original feature.

Stavros Paspalas raises questions about the vehicles and route of cultural exchange between the Persian Empire and Macedon through analysis of Achaemenid-looking lion-griffins on the façade of the later fourth century tomb at Aghios Athanasios. He identifies a pattern of specifically Macedonian patronage of Achaemenid imagery also in southern Greece in the fourth century in such items as the pebble mosaic from Sikyon and the Kamini stele from Athens. Enough survives to suggest independent local Macedonian receptivity to Persian ideas rather than a secondary derivation through southern Greece.

Despina Ignatiadou summarises succinctly the growing corpus of Achaemenidizing glass and metalware vessels in 6th-4th century BC Macedon. Three foreign plants lie behind the forms of lobe and petal-decoration on phialai, bowls, jugs, and beakers: the central Anatolian opium poppy, the Egyptian lotus (white and blue types) and the Iranian/Anatolian (bitter) almond. The common denominator is their medicinal and psychotropic qualities; Ignatiadou suggests that their appearance on vessels has semiotic value and that such drugs were used in religious and ritual contexts along with the vessels that carry their signatures, perhaps especially in the worship of the Great Mother.

Athanasios Sideris outlines the range of issues related to understanding the role of Achaemenid toreutic in documenting ancient cultural exchange: production ranges between court, regional, and extra-imperial workshops, not readily distinguishable. The inclusion of little-known material from Delphi and Dodona enriches his discussion of shape types. He works toward identification of local workshops, both within and without the empire, based especially on apparent local preferences in surface treatment. The geographical range of production is one area that will benefit from further international research collaboration.5

Pavlos Triantafyllidis focuses on the wealth of material from Rhodes, both sanctuary deposits and well-dated burials, that attests a history of imports from Iran and the Caucasus even before the Achaemenid period. Achaemenid-style glass vessels start in the late 6th century with an alabastron and petalled bowl, paralleled in the western empire, and carry on through the fourth century. An excavated fourth-century glass workshop created a series of “Rhodio-Achaemenid” products that dominated Rhodian glassware through the early third century. This microcosmic case study brilliantly exemplifies a much broader phenomenon.

Mehdi Rahbar outlines and illustrates archaeological material, some not previously published, that will be fundamental in future discussions of Seleucid Iran. The as of yet limited corpus includes: modulation of Greek forms perhaps to suit a local taste (Ionic capital from the temple of Laodicea, Nahavand, known from an 1843 inscription of Antiochus III; fragmentary marble sculpture of Marsyas?), amalgam of Iranian and Greek (milestone in Greek with Persepolitan profile), Greek import (Rhodian stamped amphora handle ΝΙΚΑΓΙΔΟΣ from Bisotun);6 and Iranian adoption of Greek decorative elements (vine leaves, grapes, and acanthus patterns, for which compare Azarnoush’s stucco).

The volume concludes with a brief overview of ancient Iranian-Greek relations and their modern interpretation by Shahrokh Razmjou.

The inclusion of the texts of the introductory and concluding addresses made on the occasion of the conference in particular allow the reader to comprehend its aims: hopes of exchange in the modern world through assessing exchange in the past. A number of the papers make it very clear that collaboration between specialists of “East” and “West” in both textual and archaeological research could yield great gains for all periods of history and modes of analysis. The conference and its publication, therefore, succeed at a variety of levels.

Editing such a volume must have been a real challenge and it is to the credit of authors and editors that throughout the whole volume, I found only a handful of minor infelicities and typographical errors, none of which obscure meaning.7

Contents: Stephen Tracy, “Europe and Asia: Aeschylus’ Persians and Homer’s Iliad” (1-8) Angeliki Petropoulou, “The Death of Masistios and the Mourning for his Loss” (9-30) Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou, “Magi in Athens in the Fifth Century BC?” (31-39) Massoud Azarnoush, “Hajiabad and the Dialogue of Civilizations” (41-52) Sara Alinia, “Zoroastrianism and Christianity in the Sasanian Empire (Fourth Century AD)” (53-58) Evangelos Venetis, “Greco-Persian Literary Interactions in Classical Persian Literature” (59-63) Garth Fowden, “Pseudo-Aristotelian Politics and Theology in Universal Islam” (65-81) Michael N. Weiskopf, “The System Artaphernes-Mardonius as an Example of Imperial Nostalgia” (83-91) Askold I. Ivantchik, “Greeks and Iranians in the Cimmerian Bosporus in the Second/First Century BC: New Epigraphic Data from Tanais” (93-107) Christopher Tuplin, “The Seleucids and Their Achaemenid Predecessors: A Persian Inheritance?” (109-136) G. G. Aperghis, “Managing an Empire—Teacher and Pupil” (137-147) David Stronach, “The Building Program of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae and the Date of the Fall of Sardis” (149-173) Mohammad Hassan Talebian, “Persia and Greece: The Role of Cultural Interactions in the Architecture of Persepolis-Pasargadae” (175-193) Margaret Cool Root, “Reading Persepolis in Greek—Part Two: Marriage Metaphors and Unmanly Virtues” (195-221) Olga Palagia, “The Marble of the Penelope from Persepolis and its Historical Implications” (223-237) Antigoni Zournatzi, “Cultural Interconnections in the Achaemenid West: A Few Reflections on the Testimony of the Cypriot Archaeological Record” (239-255) Yannick Lintz, “Greek, Anatolian, and Persian Iconography in Asia Minor : Material Sources, Method, and Perspectives” (257-263) Latife Summerer, “Imaging a Tomb Chamber : The Iconographic Program of the Tatarli Wall Paintings” (265-299) Stavros Paspalas, “The Achaemenid Lion-Griffin on a Macedonian Tomb Painting and on a Sicyonian Mosaic” (301-325) Despina Ignatiadou, “Psychotropic Plants on Achaemenid Style Vessels” (327-337) Athanasios Sideris, “Achaemenid Toreutics in the Greek Periphery” (339-353) Pavlos Triantafyllidis, “Achaemenid Influences on Rhodian Minor Arts and Crafts” (355-366) Mehdi Rahbar, “Historical Iranian and Greek Relations in Retrospect” (367-372) Shahrokh Razmjou, “Persia and Greece: A Forgotten History of Cultural Relations” (373-374)

Notes

1. The site is fully published in: M. Azarnoush, The Sasanian manor house at Hajiabad, Iran (Florence 1994).

2. The first appears as “Reading Persepolis in Greek: gifts of the Yauna,” in C. Tuplin, ed., Persian Responses: Political and Cultural Interaction with(in) the Achaemenid Empire (Swansea 2007) 163-203.

3. Deniz Kaptan is similarly compiling a corpus of Achaemenid seals and sealings in Turkish museums.

4. Other studies: “From Tatari to Munich. The recovery of a painted wooden tomb chamber in Phrygia”, in I. Delemen, ed., The Achaemenid Impact on Local Populations and Cultures (Istanbul 2007), 129-56; “Picturing Persian Victory: The Painted Battle Scene on the Munich Wood”, in A. Ivantchik and Vakhtang Licheli, edd., Achaemenid Culture and Local Traditions in Anatolia, Southern Caucasus and Iran: New Discoveries (Leiden/Boston 2007: Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 13), 3-30.

5. Considerable progress is being made, e.g., in Georgia: V. Licheli, “Oriental Innovations in Samtskhe (Southern Georgia) in the 1st Millennium BC,” and M. Yu. Treister, “The Toreutics of Colchis in the 5th-4th Centuries B.C. Local Traditions, Outside Influences, Innovations,” both Ivantchik / Licheli, edd., Achaemenid Culture and Local Traditions in Anatolia (previous note), 55-66 and 67-107.

6. For early 2nd c. date of this fabricant, see Christoph Börker and J. Burow, Die hellenistischen Amphorenstempel aus Pergamon: Der Pergamon-Komplex; Die Übrigen Stempel aus Pergamon (Berlin 1998), cat. no. 274-286; one example has a context of ca. 200 BC.

7. Except possibly the misprint on p. 357, line 8 up, where “second century” should presumably be “second quarter” (of the fourth century)."

#ancient greece #ancient iran #herodotus #ancient greek classics #achaemenids

[thiefbird]

H j t for the ask game :)

H: How would you describe your writing style?

Hm... I'm going to answer both ways this question can be read, I think!

So in terms of how I tackle writing, I'd say I'm both incredibly straight forwards, and incredibly chaotic. For the most part, when I'm writing fanfic or original works(and even to some extent non-creative writing like analytical/argumentative essays or research papers), I come up with the basic idea of What Will Happen, and then I start at the beginning and write each chapter, from beginning to end, without planning it. This is widely considered to be A Bad Idea, for good reasons. I'm currently trying to teach myself to at least plan out the scene by writing it as a weird first draft of a screen play, with general action cues and dialogue but no description, and it is going relatively well, so far, but we shall see if it sticks! [I also write all my fanfic by hand and then either use my reMarkable to convert it into text, or copy it over by hand because I am Not A Reasonable Person]

In terms of how my writing, like, sounds, on the other hand, I am told I have a really good skill at aping other authors' styles, so I think perhaps my writing style is Chameleon? I am a heavily masking sort of person, entirely subconsciously, and said mask adapts very quickly to what I'm around to the point that it only takes about half an hour, these days, of exposure to have an undetectably false British or Irish accent - not always even the accent I'm surrounded by, but a slightly posh central English accent, and a blend of a Dublin and Galways Irish accent, because Oxford&Coventry and Galway&Dublin are the places I've spent the most time - and this happens in my writing! Whatever I'm absorbing the most of at that time will reflect itself in my word choices, and the cadence and rhythm of my sentences.

J: What’s your favorite fanfic trope? Have you written it?

I think my favourite when it's done well is soulmate AUs, because there are so many concepts to play with in them: how does it effect the culture of the world you're writing in? What happens if you fall in love with someone who isn't your soulmate? What if you have multiple soulmates? What if you just straight up don't have a soulmate?

I haven't written soulmate AU yet, but I have an idea for one both for the Aubreyad, and a DA:Awakening into DA2 idea that I may explore at some point - the DA one next time my brain circles back to Thedas in terms of special interest du jour; the Aubreyad idea is sitting on the back burner until I either run out of ideas for So long lives this, or need to take a break from it.

Also, honorable shout-out to HMD/daemon AUs. Love those things so much. I love giving characters A Little Guy and thinking about how they as a person would sublimate part of their soul out of their body, what animal it would be, and how they would interact with it. I have a very slightly started Hannigram HMD AU(a True HDM AU taking place in Lyra's World, even, though in North America not Oxford ofc), and a partially thought out Aubreyad daemon AU(I don't know enough about the history of Lyra's world to write historical fiction within it).

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

Hmm... I wouldn't say I can't stand it, but the thing I'm least likely to read is probably modern/coffeeshop/highschool/uni AUs, unless there is a compelling plot point mentioned in the summary, or I am familiar with the author. I don't always enjoy when the main themes of the original are gone unless there is an equally present driving force. They definitely can be done well, and I've certainly read ones that I was doubtful of at first that I really enjoyed, but for the most part that would be what I'm most wary of.

However, I do like AUs like this where they keep the driving force and change the circumstances. Modern Thedas with magic? Amazing, 10/10, I want to know how Isabela would text so bad. Hannigram AU where Will did something not at all FBI related, but he and Hannibal meet anyways and Hannibal is still a cannibal? Divine - they always will meet because they are entangled like atoms; Hannibal will always be Hannibal, and he will always be drawn to Will.

I think this is harder to do when there are less fantastical elements to the story; I have a harder time imagining a coffeeshop AU I would enjoy for the Aubreyad, for example, just because there are no longer tall ships or Napoleon to beat - and there are, in fact, not many modern AUs for the Aubreyad; there are a good deal more for Temeraire, because there are fantastical elements to Temeraire (dragons) that can be transferred over.

Thank you for the questions, @papercranesong and I hope you enjoyed my essay xD

#thiefbird speaks #this is what happens when i no longer have depression. i write essays in response to tag games