#even freud would hurl

[thegetdownrebooter]

this was a crazy ass episode from start to finish

tom finally admitting to being a goldigger (as a tom hater, i won)

tomshiv biting each other at a party (unhinged)

lukas mattson making a holocaust joke on twitter

gerri almost getting fired, again! (roman please die)

karl being a cunt again (slay!)

electra king roman reenacting his fantasies with ai logan (expected but still disgusting)

kendall having a nervous breakdown on stage ( dundee +too much birthday again)

greg being an asshole ( i'm uncomfortable with one of the few black characters getting yelled at by cousin greg)

roman being an asshole to that joy chick (she should've have stabbed him)

tom "apologizing" for fucking shiv up (tom please kill yourself i beg)

kendall water motive shit again

kendall "making up" numbers ( insane)

all of them being assholes to people that work for them

kendall clearly being manic and everybody egging him on

kendall using clips from logan in his presentation ( i gasped)

most importantly it being confirmed that atn backing mencken makes them look like white supremacists. (and the rest of the world isn't here for it)

[spookyshipperfics]

These Dreams

Find it: a03 / Fandom: The X-Files / Rating: Mature

Part of the Do You Like Scary Movies? series

What is it About? While unwinding at a bar, things get a little bit awkward, a little bit silly, and A LOT flirty when Mulder asks Scully about her dreams.

Read it: “Nightmare on Elm Street makes a good point,” Mulder remarked as his hand dove into the bowl of nuts that had probably been sitting on the bar all week. “Dream demons aren’t talked about enough.”

He tossed a handful of peanuts in his mouth, watching Scully’s eyebrow arch. “Dream demons?”

“Yeah,” he responded before chasing the nuts with a swig of beer. “You know, like Freddy Krueger.”

“I don’t know, Mulder. I think dream demons have been talked about quite enough. How many movies have they made now? Six?”

“Seven,” he corrected a little too quickly.

He could tell Scully was biting back a smirk, concealing it behind a sip of beer. God, she made him work for everything. His theories. His opinions. Even the little smiles he managed to provoke. He couldn’t get enough of those. It’s why he hurled one-liners and puns at her like a professional baseball player—just to see her lips curve and her eyes sparkle.

He flagged down the bartender and ordered them another round of beers, their third of the night. Two was normally their limit. It was enough to relax without the boundaries getting too blurry—or maybe anymore blurry was the better way to put it. He was already sitting too close to her, their knees brushing with each swivel of their stools. And he’d already tucked a strand of hair behind her ear for no other reason than because she let him.

The bartender returned, setting their drinks down with a clink. His first sip traveled directly to his head; his second officially had him buzzed. After a moment, he turned to her. “Do you dream, Scully?”

“Everyone dreams, just not everyone can recall their dreams,” she said. “It’s pretty interesting, actually. Some people dream entirely in third-person, others in first-person. There are other people who only dream in black and white. While his ethics were certainly questionable, Freud theorized…”

He was trying to pay attention. He really was. But she was on a Scully tangent. The type that turned her blue eyes sharp and laser focused. Her cheeks were flushed from the beer or maybe from her annoyance with him. Either way, she looked beautiful, and he couldn’t help but zero in on her lips. They seemed so perfect, so pillowy, he wanted to—”

“Mulder, are you even listening to me?”

Her voice cut through the thickening fog of desire like a knife. Fuck. She’d busted him. “Of course I am,” he responded anyway.

#

He wasn’t listening, Scully realized.

His gaze had been cloudy, unfocused. Even now, he could barely hold her stare.

Why were they even at this bar? They’d justified getting drinks as a celebration for wrapping a difficult case. They seemed to do that a lot lately. It made it easier to ignore the fact it was a Friday night. That it could be a date—or something like it—if they were normal people. If they weren’t perched on stools still in their work clothes with FBI badges hidden in their suit jackets and a metal chip buried in her neck.

His eyes shifted to her lips again, jumpstarting her heart. The third beer may have been a mistake. In fact, she was sure of it, so she stubbornly pushed onward like it was the best idea they’d ever had.

“What did I say then?” she challenged.

That seemed to get his attention. His eyes snapped to hers. “Weren’t you rambling on about how much you love the Nightmare on Elm Street movies… all seven of them.”

The smirk he cast would have made her knees wobble if she wasn’t already sitting. “Shut up, Mulder.”

“You never answered my question, Scully,” he said. “Do you dream?”

“I do.”

“What do you dream about?”

“I don’t know. I don’t keep a dream journal.” Heat began to creep into her cheeks. She prayed Mulder wouldn’t notice, and if he did, hopefully, he’d attribute it to the alcohol. She took a pull of her beer just in case.

“Do you ever dream about me?”

She nearly spit out her drink. Images of Dream Mulder swirled through her mind. How many times had she conjured fantasies of his lips against hers? How many times had his hands slipped beneath the elastic of her pants only for her to jolt awake sweaty and swollen with want?

“Of course I do,” she began, hoping the tremor in her voice didn’t sound quite as dramatic to him as it did to her. “You’re my partner, which makes you an important part of my life. It’s only logical that you’d pop up in my dreams once in a while.” Or almost every night, she thought.

His lips quirked into a smile. “What do we do in these dreams of yours, Agent Scully?”

“I don’t know, Mulder. We do… stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah, like hunt monsters or file paperwork or… I don’t know. You’re putting me on the spot here.”

“File paperwork,” he chuckled. His attention turned to the bottle cradled in his hands, and for one hopeful moment, she thought he’d lost interest in their conversation. That she’d managed to wiggle her way out of revealing that she thought of him as anything other than platonic. But it wasn’t like Mulder to let a topic go, and his eyes found hers again.

“Do you ever have dirty dreams?”

Read the Rest: a03

Tagging: @today-in-fic

[bluerevs-a]

                  the  way  she  hurled  monstrosities  so  effortlessly,  without  even  a  pinch  of  a  brow,  would  never  cease  to  amaze  him.  the  words  cut  so  precisely,  with  a  sort  of  refined  practice,  that  the  blood-pumping  adrenaline  of  just  looking  at  her,  holding  her  attention  in  this  way,  delayed  their  screaming  ache.  he  should  be  used  to  this,  but  both  of  them  know  that  this  is  different  from  all  her  other  verbal  assaults.  this  one  is  dog-eared.  even  in  all  her  mocking,  she  was  right  .  he  exerts  such  a  concerted  effort  to  keep  his  face  even,  passive,  that  he  forgets  the  rest.  his  chest  heaves,  the  room  suddenly  entirely  too  full.  her  pointed  question  is  the  finisher,  and  he  feels  his  anger  spike  at  the  pride  that  blooms  across  her  features.  it  blurs  his  instincts  when  he  finally  shakes  his  head,  voice  unfamiliar  to  even  himself,  "  real  astute  observations  here,  neo-goth  freud.  thank  you,  seriously,  but  to  answer  your  question  .  .  .  god,  i  don’t  know.  "  looks  to  the  ceiling,  feigning  deep  thought,  "  although  you’ve  really  re-invented  the  wheel  as  the  ‘emotionally  unavailable  girl  in  doc  martens’ ,  i  just  don’t  think  i  need  you  to  feed  my  ego.  i  mean,  i  can  get  that  from  a  lot  of  places.  "  intentionally  boastful  when  he  meets  her  gaze  once  more,  demeanor  entirely  provoking  as  he  slowly  pulls  the  red  solo  out  of  her  hand,  "  i  think  it  might  be  the  way  this  was  empty  about  three  sips  ago  that  gets  me,  ”  shoots  a  flickered  glance  inside  the  drained  cup  as  he  steps  closer,  removing  any  barrier  between  them.  from  any  outsider's  perspective,  the  moment  looked  entirely  too  intimate,  but  in  reality,  he  was  incensed.  "  but,  at  the  end  of  the  day,  i  think  it’s  the  holdout.  you’ve  been  waiting  for  me  to  treat  you  like  shit  so  all  that  anger  in  your  tiny  body  has  a  place  to  go  .  .  .  but  i  don’t  .  so  you  give  up,  and  you  call  me.  and  no  matter  how  fucked  up  you  are,  there’s  a  moment,  right  before  you  before  you  crawl  on  my  lap    –    a  look  of  complete  relinquishment.    .  .  .      that’s   when  you  hold  my  hand  and  tell  me  just  how  fucking  special  i  am,  marley.  ”

         doesn’t  know  how  she  might  ever  rid  herself  of  the  sudden  iciness  that  swallows  her  heart  every  time  he’s  close  to  her.  every  time  she  finds  herself  enthralled  by  the  thought  of  something  more  with  him,  something  different  than  whatever  this  was,  she  freezes  entirely.  it’s  in  her  now,  arctic  wind  whipping  around  in  her  chest,  obvious  by  the  chill  in  her  gaze  as  she  looks  at  him.  “  no,  ”  she  shrugs,  glancing  at  the  other  across  the  room,  too,  as  she  takes  another  sip  from  her  cup.  “  but  he’s  not  the  only  one,  apparently.  ”  and  it’s  intended  to  hurt,  to  leave  a  mark  or  a  bruise.  one  that  he  might  remember,  the  next  time  he  thinks  about  her,  tells  her  he  really  fucking  likes  her.  it’s  never  worked  before,  but  if  he  wasn’t  going  to  stop  trying,  then  neither  would  she.  doesn’t  know  why  she  wants  to  crush  him  so  badly,  to  have  him  running  away  from  her,  screaming,  as  if  she  was  some  otherworldly,  bloody  creature  from  a  bad  horror  film.  her  efforts  appear  to  be  working,  though,  noticing  the  sudden  rigidity  in  his  tone,  the  frustration  riddled  in  the  words,  across  his  features.  she  seizes  it,  just  as  she  harnesses  that  frigidity  circulating  inside  her  for  one  final  blow.  “  you  want  what  every  other  guy  here  wants,  nolan,  ”  she  sighs,  now  appearing  more  bored  than  anything  else,  as  if  she’s  given  this  speech  a  hundred  times  before.  hopes  it  doesn’t  notice  how  her  her  voice  shakes  slightly,  however,  as  she  looks  at  him.  “  you  want  me  to  hold  your  hand,  and  tell  you  you’re  special,  and  different,  that  i  think  you’re  amazing  and  that  i  like  you  so  much,  that  i’d  do  anything  for  you,  whatever  you  want,  ”  it’s  spoken  mockingly,  as  if  she  couldn’t  think  of  anything  worse  to  do,  to  be.  it  all  required  vulnerability,  something  she  couldn’t  quite  seem  to  master.  “  and  that’s  not  me.  i’m  not  going  to  do  any  of  that  shit—  so  why  do  you  still  want  me,  hm  ?  are  you  really  that  desperate,  or  are  you  just  an  idiot  ?  ” 

[kalypsichor]

five’s a crowd [ beatles x reader ] part seven

summary: You’re not jealous of the fact that girls on Tinder love George, you’re not. John may or may not be sexually attracted to metaphors. Paul may or may not have a professor kink. Ringo is just vibin’ like always. Gigi Hadid terrorizes your dreams. Oh, and y’all finally get the McLennon sandwhich you asked for.

warnings: 2k words of the usual bullshit, some english major bashing, actually it’s just john bashing ( sorry @spaceyantique​ ), i love english majors, and miscommunication babey!

masterlist and parts one | two | three | four | five | six

i’m writing this draft at 3 am. it’s a new low for me. oh, and the poem mentioned in geo’s tinder is lyrics from ‘for you blue’

“Well, it is a flattering picture.”

You have to agree with Ringo. The two of you are perched on the couch, peeking over George’s shoulder at the Tinder profile. John and Paul are sharing the armchair, snickering at something. Probably another scheme. Bastards…

The photo is the one John had snapped a few days ago of George in the kitchen. He’s got this brilliant smile on his face, just having taken his first warm shower in weeks, and he’s gloriously naked from the belly button up. It’s a little blurry, but it captures George’s happiness—though you privately think that no picture could ever really do the boy justice. Take that, stupid Tinder girls.

“‘George.’” Ringo reads the bio out loud. “‘Twenty-one. Majoring in horticultural science, looking for a girl to put the ‘ho’ into it.’ This is terrible,” he says rather gleefully. George turns around and gives his friend a betrayed look.

“You missed the best bit. ‘I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you. You looked at me, that’s all you had to do.’ What’s that?”

George goes stock still. Slowly, his head turns to John and you swear you can hear it creak like a door hinge.

“You.” The word shakes from his throat with a quiet rage. “You looked through mY DIARY???”

“YOU HAVE A DIARY?” Ringo screeches. Paul has the common sense to look a little frightened, but his boyfriend, who borrows a brain cell from Paul from time to time, does not.

“You write beautiful poetry, George,” John croons, and you have to physically hold George down to keep him from tackling the dumbass. Paul, getting flashbacks to the Shower Debacle, shudders.

You, on the other hand, are trying to wrap your head around the bio. Poetry? About who? That didn’t sound like it was about just anybody. Lucky girl, your mind hisses. Or boy. You immediately try recalling every single time George has brought up a classmate. Your brain sputters a bit and spits out an answer to one of the questions you’d skipped on your first midterm yesterday. Except now it’s fucking useless, isn’t it????

Ringo speaks, bringing you out of your downward spiral into insanity. “Hey, the app says you’ve got a match.”

Frowning, George taps on the notification. “But I haven’t even looked at anyone’s profile.”

“I did you a favor and swiped right a couple o’ times,” John says. George groans—no, the sound does not turn you on a little—and hangs his head forward. By ‘a couple,’ John must’ve meant a couple hundred, because George’s phone is blowing up. The only thing keeping George from hurtling the phone right into John’s smarmy little meerkat grin so hard that he shits pieces of it out for weeks is your hand on him. The warmth of it is radiating out from his shoulder to his chest and sweeping down to his toes. When you take your hand away a few seconds later, thinking it had overstayed its welcome, George has to try very hard not to sigh.

“This one is cute,” Ringo comments. The notification had read ‘Maureen Super Likes You!’ and the phone screen is now showing a pretty brunette, around your age, smiling up at George.

“Yeah, well, I’m not interested.”

He didn’t say she wasn’t cute.

“Wait, wait!” John scrambles out of his armchair, nearly pushing Paul off in the process. George’s thumb pauses where it’s hovering over the ‘delete’ button for the app. “Come on, Geo. You haven’t gone out in years. Like, since high school. Since… since…”

“Pattie,” Ringo says. You and Ringo hadn’t known the other three in high school, but, as always, he was good with names.

Pattie? George has never mentioned a Pattie...

“Yeah, Pattie!” John lights up. You wish people would stop saying her name. “Pattie Boyd. Man, she was a catch… I still remember her blonde hair. And those long legs. She looked like, uh… who’s that model?”

“Bridget Bardot.” Ringo, again.

Paul is mirroring the sour look on your face, though he obviously has a better reason for it.

“No, who the fuck is that? I meant Gigi Hadid. Isn’t that why you dated her?”

“She did not/” George protests. “And no, John, unlike some people, I care about more than just looks.”

At this point, Paul looks as though he’s about to cry. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m more than looks, aren’t I?”

“I didn’t mean you, obviously.” But George’s words are lost under John, who leaps back into the armchair and coos at his boyfriend.

“Macca, you know I love you for more than your looks. You’ve got that big old brain, and you’re the best artist in this whole school… it’s just a bonus you’re so pretty too.”

Paul seems satisfied by this. Stupid fucking English major. John could get anything his way with just a few words.

“John’s right, y’know.” You and Ringo mouth ‘y’know’ at each other and erupt into giggles. “You’ve got to put yourself out there more. You’re in your third year of uni and you haven’t even dated a single person. There’s only one more year before you’re out in the real world! And the sea will be much, much bigger then.”

George scowls, unimpressed by Paul’s little speech. ��People aren’t fish, Paul. And I’m vegetarian, so I don’t condone catching them.”

“It’s a metaphor!” Paul cries, throwing his hands in the air. John nods and makes eyes at him as if metaphors were the sexiest thing in the world. He’s probably into that. English majors.

“You tell ‘em, babe.”

The doorbell rings, banishing any homicidal thoughts from your mind.

“That’ll be the takeout,” you say. George flies so quickly to the door, desperate to get out of the situation, that you feel a little gust of wind. You hear him say something to the delivery person and then he’s coming back into the living room, take out boxes in tow and a big smile on his face. Nothing makes the boy happier than food. And maybe leggy blondes that look like Gigi Hadid, your brain suggests, and you sigh.

For a good ten minutes, the conversation is put on hold. You’re all broke college students, after all, and getting Chinese is like a luxury.

“What’d you get?” you ask through a mouthful of food, looking over George’s shoulder. He’s sat back down on the floor in front of the couch again and he lifts the box up so you can see it.

“Veggies with fried noodles. You?”

“Same.”

“Twinsies,” George says solemnly, and you high five over it.

Unbeknownst to the two of you, John and Paul share an eyeroll.

“I got shrimp fried rice if anyone cares,” Ringo pipes up from next to you. You bump your shoulder into his.

“Of course I care, Ritchie. Wanna trade a shrimp for my broccoli?”

He nods and you both chopstick over the terms of the trade. George’s grin drops a little. John and Paul roll their eyes even harder.

After a while, having devoured their food like it’s the Last Supper, you’ e all pulled out your phones. You scroll through Instagram and send a funny post to the flat’s group chat, and everyone laughs simultaneously. Everyone except George, who… has opened Tinder again. Christ, how does he have so many matches?

Well, why wouldn’t he? He’s cute… and funny… and gives the best advice when you’re down…

And you’ll be sharing all that with some other girl if you don’t do something about it.

“Why do these girls keep asking about my teeth?”

You scoff, trying to ignore the pit in your stomach. George’s sexy vampire teeth are yours and yours alone to appreciate, thankyouverymuch. “Probably have oral fixations, the lot of them.”

John does a whole body shudder and you all turn to stare at him. “Don’t fucking talk to me about Freud. That Psych course tore my GPA into shreds.”

“Right, like you care about your grades so much.” You lean back against the couch. “What was so bad about that class, anyway? I enjoyed it.”

“Professor Pang fucked me.”

“WHAT—”

“Fucked me over! Jesus, I dunno why my mouth just had a seizure there.” John cradles Paul’s face in his hands, trying to smooth away the frown on his face. “Paul, you know I didn’t mean it.”

“That’s a Freudian slip, that is,” you comment, sticking your tongue out when John turns to glare at you. Ringo starts humming Hot For Teacher under his breath. John leans over and smacks him.

“The only teacher I’ve got the hots for is you,” John says, turning back to Paul, and you and George make gagging noises. “Professor McCartney…”

“Professor?” Paul’s Pout (yes, with a capital P) turns into a grin. “I like the sound of that.”

“I think I’ve been bad… shall I serve detention for you?”

“Okay, just go!” You point towards their bedroom. “Please leave the immediate vicinity right fucking now.”

“I’m gonna hurl,” George says. The two horny bastards giggle and scurry off in the direction of your finger, door slamming behind them.

You go to bed that night with a belly full of noodles and a brain full of thoughts that keep you turning and tossing in bed. And when you finally do fall asleep, you dream about Gigi Hadid, cackling as she chases you around with George’s stupid little towel.

***

Your second exam the next day goes miserably.

Okay, maybe you’re being dramatic. It wasn’t that bad—you’d done a fair bit of studying that weekend, invigorated to overcome the Coffee Incident. Still, you couldn’t stop thinking about George the whole time, and him swiping through Tinder, and whoever the hell that Pattie girl is.

Okay, stop it. You can’t hate her for dating the boy you like. Us women have to support each other, the rational part of your brain tells you.

You grumble all the way back to the flat, fighting with the reasonable part of you. Eventually, you give in. Rational You is right. Hating on a chick you don’t know is what makes up eighty percent of Hollywood’s bullshit romcoms. Yes, you are going to be a good person and take the high route.

That all goes away when you open the door.

John and Paul are standing in the kitchen, whispering furiously to each other. You only catch the tail end of what they’re saying—

“-didn’t think he was actually going to do it!”

—before John sees you in the doorway and smacks Paul on the shoulder.

“Heyyy there,” John says. You immediately know something is wrong. You walk shut the door behind you and eye Paul’s smile warily.

“What are you two doing?”

“Erm, we were making a sandwich for you.” Paul gestures exaggeratedly at the plate on the counter, which John holds up at shoves in your direction.

“Yeah, we knew you’d need a little pick me up after the test.”

You look around the flat carefully. It’s awfully quiet. Ringo’s at his twelve o’clock lecture, but you should be able to hear…

“Where’s George?”

This slaps the smile right off of their faces and neither of the boys can put it back on quickly enough for you to not notice.

“He’s doing yoga,” Paul says at the same time John blurts out,

“He went to visit his mum!”

Paul glares at John and you feel something twist in your gut. “Yes, you see...” Paul looks frantically to the ceiling. God won’t help you out of this one. “George went to pick up his mum… and they’re at yoga together!”

You walk into the kitchen, crossing your arms. “Louise lives in Liverpool,” you say slowly.

“Yup,” John says.

“And the yoga studio is ten minutes away from our flat.”

“Yuuup.”

You can’t believe he’s still keeping this up. “And the drive from here to Liverpool is four hours. And George doesn’t have a car.”

“Yuuuuuuuuu—”

“Oh, I can’t take it anymore,” Paul cries, ignoring John’s frantic shushing. “George went on a date with that Maureen girl from Tinder. He’s at the coffee shop now.”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

You must’ve said this out loud, because Paul gives you a sympathetic look. After a long moment of silence, John once again offers you the plate.

“Sandwich?” he asks, trying for a smile that comes across more as a grimace.

You take the sandwich and throw it right into the trash, plate and all.

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Theoretical Knowledge

“Remember kids,” you say sitting on the desk, feet folded as you cradle a cup of coffee, “A theory is JUST a framework for understanding. So. As we discuss Marxist, Feminist, and Queer Theories, no. I am not telling you that you HAVE to use only those theories and you HAVE to see the world that way. So please. Please keep the tweetstorms to a minimum in class. Just remember. If you don’t understand the theories, you can’t argue against them effectively.”

You smile and set your coffee cup down. “That said, Tuesday, we’ll be starting with Feminist Theory. Please read the chapter before class and come prepared to engage in our preliminary discussion.”

College kids, mostly freshmen start to trickle out, gathering their things and clustering up a few at a time. You alternately loved and hated teaching lower-level courses. The amount of handholding that they needed to be housebroken for their upper-level courses got a little more astounding every semester but... Still. There was something lovely about helping them build a solid foundation for the rest of their careers. 

You pause to answer a few questions. Careful to help them find the correct information. People for the next class were queuing up just beyond your periphery and you direct the stragglers to you office hours. You can feel the grumpy glare of Barnes, the mathematics professor and you cringe internally. You were willing to bet that you were going to have a shitty email waiting on you this evening. Some tripe about respecting other people’s time. Like it was your fault they’d shoehorned your 100 level classes into the Mathematics building. It was all the way across campus and there wasn’t decent coffee to be found anywhere on any floor. It was a miserable utilitarian clusterfuck of a building. Still. On some level it was super fun to get under his skin. The grump ass.

But, you were a good girl. You ignored his impatient harrumphs and tried not to glare at him when he slammed his stuff down and startled you. You erased the board carefully and quietly gathered your things as he sent an attendance sheet around the room, starting his droning on about Proofs or whatever the fuck. You even smiled, just a little when you caught his eye.

Numbers left you cold. 

They reminded you of sitting on the floor in the hallway. Flecks of mica winking mockingly at you as you try to finish the times table drill through the tremors in your hands and the tears that are threatening to spill. 

They reminded you of desperation. Frantically searching couch cushions for change. Just 80 cents so that you could at least get some fries at lunch. You’’re sick. Too sick to go to school but you can’t miss Algebra and there’s no food in the house. 

Numbers are an immutable fact. You can’t change them. No amount of new information will change that 2+2 is 4. Or change the fact that when you run the numbers, you come up wanting. So you try, very hard not to think about how irritating Barnes is. How you hate the aloofness in his face and how badly you’d like to see him smile to see if it made his eyes look less... Less frozen. 

As you strode across campus, anxious to get out of the cutting wind and stinging snow, back to your warm office and good coffee. Back on what felt like Terra Firma where you could discuss Russian Literature, and Freud’s Bullshit, and witchcraft, and stupid tv. Things you understood. Things you’d studied just for the sake of knowing. Things that had lead you here. You pushed the thoughts of Professor James Barnes out of your mind. He was as he was, and with any luck, it would only be for a semester that your existence would cause him any more irritation. Still. As you unlocked your door and settled behind your desk... There had to be something to be done about him. Something to chill him out just a little bit. You were just considering texting your usual gang of miscreants and rogue academics. You weren’t sure if it was for a war council or just for a drink. But you were saved having to figure it out when a familiar red head hurled herself dramatically across your desk.

“Please. I’m dying. Tinder sucks. Can we please. Please. Pretty fucking please go out. I miss out,” she says.

“Tasha,” you laugh, petting her hair absently, not looking up from your email, but pausing long enough to pat her hair, “You’re the one that said we couldn’t go out anymore.”

“And I was wrong. So. Very Wrong.”

“Well I’m not opposed but you know that if we don’t invite the boys they’ll be sad.”

“Tap room?”

“Sounds great,” you say absently, glaring at the missive that had just popped up.

Natasha arranged herself in a more dignified position in you guest chair and helped herself to a coffee and a snack, “Your face is making a face,” she frowns. 

“It’s just my best Buddy over in the Mathematics department,” you sigh rolling your eyes.

“Barnes right?” she says taking a sip of coffee.

You nod and turn the screen so she can read it.

You watch her eyes scan the monitor and watch the frown lines materialize, “What the fuck. Like dude. It’s just flavored coffee.”

“Right?”

“Control freak.”

“For fucking real. Like. Ew.”

You roll your eyes and she picks up her phone, “Maybe one of the Boys will know something.”

“Maybe,” you shrug, refusing to respond with apologies. 

________

“Bucky!” Steve said leaning on the door frame, “Come on. We’re going out.”

“No thank you,” Bucky said snorting, “I really don’t want to have to carry your drunk ass home. Or listen to you spout Poli-sci bullshit to try and get girls.”

“Well the girls we’re going with are gonna be completely unavailable and uninterested. We’re gonna hit the tap room and watch the game.” Steve frowned at his friend who kept glancing at his laptop like he was waiting on something. 

“What did you do, Bucky?” he asked folding his arms.

“Nothing,” he huffed.

“Well if you scowl at your computer any harder it’s gonna burst into flames.”

“I’m just waiting on an email,” he said feeling uncomfortable under Steve’s scrutiny. Squirming slightly in his chair. 

“Who are you picking a fight with now?” Steve scolded.

“I’m not.”

“James.”

“I don’t know what she teaches. Some social science thing. But she leaves the lecture hall a mess and reeking of flavored coffee.”

Steve rolled his eyes, “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” he snapped.

“Missing Yelena and taking it out on some random girl that’s just slightly messy.”

“I’m not.” he said petulantly, “It’s unprofessional to take up my time.”

Steve restrained an eyeroll with effort, “C’mon, ya grumpy fuck. You like Nat fine. And Sam is coming. You can’t just rot in your house and forget how to live forever.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah yeah,” Steve said dismissively, “Pick you up at 7.” And he was gone before Bucky had a chance to formulate a reply.

The truth was complicated. Bucky knew exactly what you taught. The Anthropology of Religion. Folklore. Witchcraft. He’d read everything you had ever written. He followed your Twitter. He just. He didn’t understand you. You had a mind suited for numbers. Logical. Straight forward. Applying science and advocating for greater understanding with reckless abandon. 

But all you studied was... Stories. None of it was real. it was smoke and shadows. Illusions. He could only assume you were the same way. An illusion. You were pretty enough. Funny. But there had to be something... broken inside you. Something that you were hiding. Something to be wary of. He just didn’t know how to explain that to Steve. 

Numbers he understood. They were what they were regardless. If there was a mistake, he made it. There was no one else to blame with numbers. They sang to him like nothing else did. They spoke to him and whispered secrets. 

They made him think of being warm in bed with a book of number puzzles and a cup of hot chocolate on a snow day. The joy of solving a problem he’d been teasing at for days. It was happiness in its purest form. Accomplishment. Order from chaos.

You were chaos to which he saw no order. He couldn’t find a pattern to you. A nimbus of coffee and lost trains of thought. Bucky did not understand you and as he stared at his laptop, waiting for a reply, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. 

He decidedly didn’t want to. And he couldn’t wait for the semester to be over.

Tags: @lancsnerd @blameitonthecauseway @thorfanficwriter @stevieang @etherealwaifgoddess

[seprofcorp]

▶ The Doors - When the Music's Over ( I RE-POSTED THIS TERRIFIC ANALYSIS FROM " BenS/b-rod, 7moths ago"}}: "Ew, he wants to what?" Well first of all, you've got to understand where Morrison was coming from. A little background information is certainly required for the uninitiated. Jim wanted first and foremost to be a filmmaker and a dramatist (and poet) before he ever wanted to be in rock n roll. He went on to graduate from UCLA (unlike the deplorable Oliver Stone movie where a full ONE THIRD of the thing is FICTION - ie, never happened, like certain scenes, and the very crass way Kilmer portrayed him was ludicrous - but that's another topic). In the film department there, he learned  many things about cinema and drama in general that he transposed into his music. He even had acting lessons according to Paul Ferrara. Anyway, I think the main work that influenced Jim on "The End" was Artaud's "Theatre & Its Double," which I reread recently and it made a lot more sense to me why Jim went in that theatrical direction. When I reread it, pieces fell into place that I'd never realized before. Artaud goes through his theories and in one instance, he even mentions "Oedipus Rex" itself by name (which, for those who don't know is an ancient Greek play that Freud psychologically postulated as universal, Oedipus for boys and Elektra for girls - deep in the unconscious). On a side note, Artaud also had a major influence on the Living Theatre, which Jim saw every show he could of, with their confrontational approach to theatre, which was right before Miami, and is what got Jim in trouble down there for allegedly exposing himself, with it fresh in his mind. Anyway, I believe its drama. Jim didn't get into personal confessional lyrics until LA Woman with things like "Hyacinth House" or "Cars Hiss By My Window." "The End" does start out about a break up with his girl prior to Pamela but then obviously goes in another direction when they would improvise to fill their slot at London Fog. But Artaud's work, I think, is key to understanding where Jim was coming from and the theatricality of some of his lyrics. And as Ray said about the Lizard King to Ben Fong-Torres - "That Lizard King thing - that's out of "Celebration Of The Lizard" and he's acting a part; its a theatre piece. Its a drama of which a guy is leading a small band of people...out into the desert and at the end of the whole piece he says "I am the Lizard King, I can do anything" and people are going "Oh, he's the Lizard King, he's the self-proclaimed Lizard King." You bastards, man! He's ACTING! ITS A ROLE, you know? Marlon Brando is not Stanley Kowalski, Jim Morrison is not the Lizard King, but they ground him down [for it]."Could the same be said for "The End?" You fuckin bet.Here's Jim speaking in late 1970 (also to Ben Fong-Torres) - "Are you still considering yourself the Lizard King?" "What I was trying to say with that, and that was years ago, and even then it was kind of ironic. I meant it ironically, and it wasn't meant to be - " and Pam cuts him off saying "That whole thing was done tongue-in-cheek" and Jim says, "Well, half tongue-in-cheek" and Pam continues, "and everybody thought it was like so serious." Jim: "Well, its an easy thing to pick up on." Its interesting to note that his production company with, I think, Paul Ferrara and Babe Hill, joking called themselves the Media Manipulators."Well, its an easy thing to pick up on" is the operative phrase - memorability, standing out, and this, I think, is key to understanding "The End" and other things. In the same interview with Fong-Torres, he also talks about how at newspapers there's someone who is there to write only the headlines of an article, that it has to be a catch phrase. Maybe its hard for literal-minded people to understand, but Jim says "THE killer" and then proceeds to take a face, an ancient drama mask that actors would wear on stage. He doesn't say "I" until he's set up the scene and in that role.  "The key to throwing the audience into a magical trance is to know where in advance the pressure points must be affected...But theatre poetry has long become unaccustomed to this invaluable skill...To make language convey what it does not normally convey. That is to use it in a new exceptional and unusual way, to give it its full, physical shock potential...and restore their shattering power...The thought it aims at, the states of mind it attempts to create, the mystical discoveries it offers...It all seems like an exorcism to make our devils FLOW...strange signs, matching some dark prodigious reality we have repressed...ready to hurl itself into chaos in a kind of magical state where feelings have become so sensitive they are suitable for visitation by the mind...We must not ask ourselves whether it can define thought but whether it makes us think [and feel], and leads the mind to assume deeply effective attitudes...Just as in former times, the masses today are thirsting for mystery" (Artaud) (And there are more quotes equally as good in his work).I'm not saying he was consciously thinking of Artaud's theories when he went up onstage that night at the Whiskey, but it certainly came out of him then - the culmination of many things going on in the background of his consciousness and trying to push the envelope as an artist. As a fellow INFP explorer (mine and Jim's personality type), I think I can understand Jim more than most in that respect. Its "drama of the highest order" said Jack Holzman

[radical-my-dudes]

Hi. Detransitioned lesbian lurker here with radfem leanings. I've thought about femininity and whether it's innate or not, and then those studies where female monkey younglings would choose to play with 'feminine' toys when given a chance. I'd love to hear your take on that. (If it's innate, clearly there are exceptions.)

Hello! I wrote out a long ass response to this and then accidentally deleted it and I do not have the will to rewrite all of it, so long story short: no, I do not believe femininity is inate. From my own experience growing up, and watching my (significantly) younger siblings grow up, and the way they were steered toward certain behaviours and traits, I’ve seen no inate femininity. Also, to imply such a thing would go against all of psychology, and anyone who says differently a) slept through every single psychology class they have ever taken b) never actually took a psychology class and just thinks they know everything or c) is being intentionally dishonest because even his royal idiocy, embarrassment to the entire goddamn field, Dr. Sigmund motherfucking (literally) Freud didn’t think gender roles were inate.

source: I’m literally a psychology major and anyone who wants to fight me on this can get ready to have my giant brick of a behavioural psychology textbook hurled at their head

As to the monkey study, I think I found what you’re talking about and not gonna lie, that study doesn’t mean shit to me. The article itself says “Wallen cautions against over-interpreting the results. The plush and wheeled categories served as proxies for feminine and masculine, but other toy characteristics, such as size or colour, might explain the male’s behaviour, he says. Or the male monkeys might seek out more physically active toys, he says.” I really don’t think plush v wheeled is even a remotely accurate representative of feminine v masculine. I’ve seen many masculine plush toys and if you don’t think parents are pushing wheeled Cinderella carriages on their daughters you are wrong. Honestly I don’t like the premise of the experiment at all. Monkeys don’t have the same associations with the toys that humans do, and therefore you could never acurately represent feminine v masculine because they’re made up, arbitrary categories that the monkeys don’t understand. Here’s the study if anyone else would like to read it

Im not saying there are absolutely no differences between males and females, and that it’s all socialised, but I think those inherent differences are much much smaller than society wants you to think they are. Hormones like testosterone may make males generally more agressive than females, but it doesn’t make them fucking barbarians.

[mik3sb]

Father

“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.”

SIGMUND FREUD (1856–1939)”

I continuously ask myself this question. It seems in current times, a lot of characteristics that one might attribute to an overly testosterone filled man, have been shunned. I don't even have to write these things. Think of it and you will think of one. Some believe this to be a good thing. But what it does is leave a void. If I think about my father, I did not want him to protect me with hugs and kisses. If I had a problem, I would much rather have him go right up to the problem and take care of it. Tree blocking the road? Father goes out and chops it up and hurls it out of the way. Boom. But, modern man? Father goes down another street. Father pays 3 other guys to chop it up while he chill out in his air conditioned car. Father calls 911 or 311 and goes to 7/11. The problem is, if no one else can, then he is in quite the predicament. Father, who never lifted anything heavier than himself. Father who would run out of breath the moment he touched the tree. Father who would get a splinter and cry like a baby himself.

A father must train his mind and body to be strong so that he can protect. He can have others take care of the problem...if he chooses. Or he can choose to do it himself. Makes no difference to him...because he is prepared either way.

[geneshaven]

Dreaming Away

I woke up last night sobbing after having a dream about my wife. This is what came out of me after my tears went away; raw and unedited. It might not make much sense to all of you, but it does to me and I felt a strong yearning to share it.

 “I didn’t want to regret not kissing you.”

“Let’s talk about this when we’re off the island…”

Then Oliver was gone and Felicity was running for her life. An inferno chased her and she spent all of her strength keeping away from the flames. A hot wind pushed her like a touch of death. Explosions tormented her mind with fear, but she kept running. The thought of dying, of  leaving this life without the benison of Oliver’s touch, on her body, in her mind and to her soul---it kept her ahead of the conflagration that was hunting for her vulnerable flesh.

She somehow reached Lian Yu’s rocky shoreline and Felicity left her feet, sailing out over the water; it was lit by the flames behind her, streaks of red and orange light illuminating the waves like evil smiles. Felicity plunged beneath the surface and the fire passed over her in tides of near death. She let herself sink deeper into the cool depths…

 …Oliver was running toward a final confrontation, toward atonement for putting his son’s life in danger. He could easily be sprinting to his own death. But he had learned over the  years that sacrifice can be a necessary thing, that death is the final purging of guilt and remorse and pain. He also knew he did not want to die, not this time. He felt traces of that when Felicity kissed him, and also as he held her before starting his run toward saving William. It gave him the courage to face his inner demons, to realize that life is more about creating beauty and less about devastation and darkness. Felicity had told him that he had sacrificed his soul for the city, for the team, and for her. It was the truth, one Oliver could now accept with grace and humility.

Now, he would do it again for William. He would run into the agony of death one more time. But this time, he will not lose all hope or feel unworthy of salvation. Felicity’s uncertainty that they would not survive Chase’s madness may be valid---but Oliver felt no hesitation in giving his life, not because he deserved to die for his sins, but because love would be the last thing he felt before the final darkness claimed him.

Up ahead, he saw Chase’s boat pulling away from the shore and Oliver hurled himself onboard. It was a leap of faith and his heart beat true for the first time in his life…

  “Oliver…”

“Felicity…”

They called one another in stereophonic synchronicity. Lying side by side in Oliver’s bed at his apartment, they also seemed to breathe in tandem; Felicity took a breath and Oliver let it out.

“I just had the most vivid dream,” Felicity told him.

“Yeah? Me too,” Oliver replied.

Felicity rolled into him and wrapped her arms around the thickness of his chest. “Tell me,” she asked him.

Oliver shook his head. “No…you first.”

Felicity snuggled in closer to him. “I was running away from the fire…and I was thinking I was going to die. Then I thought about you, about us, and I…the thought of you made me want to live.”

Oliver kissed the top of her head and nodded.

“Now you…” Felicity prompted him.

“Well,” Oliver began. “I was running to save my son and I thought about…I thought about sacrifice and my soul.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Oliver mused. “Felicity, do you think when you dream, that you are dreaming the truth?”

“Well, I’m no Sigmund Freud, but I think dreams might be a subconscious manifestation of it. I felt strength in my dream, and it was because…well, it was because I loved you enough to want to survive.”

“Wow,” Oliver breathed. “That’s pretty deep. But you might be right. Maybe they’re also about salvation too.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what I felt as I was running,” Oliver pondered. “The thought of William…and of you, being safe; it gave me the courage to give my life to make sure that happened.  I wasn’t thinking as a hero, and I definitely wasn’t being controlled by darkness or pain. I felt…well, I felt human.”

Felicity squeezed him tight. “Oliver, now that was deep. I’m astonished that you can make such a  leap of logic.”

“Why?”

“Well, because in our dreams we can be whoever or whatever we want to be. Even if those dreams are dark sometimes; it’s real life that defines us.”

Oliver nodded in agreement. “Felicity, I love you. If I don’t say that enough to you---I’m sorry.”

“Oliver, telling me about your dreams is more intimate than telling me you love me.”

He let go of her and seemed to settle deeper into the blankets.

“Oliver, what are you doing?”

“I’m going back to sleep. I want to dream some more about you.”

“Oliver, I love you too…”

@louiseblue1 @hope-for-olicity @it-was-a-red-heeler @almondblossomme @lovelycssefan @dmichellewrites @tdgal1 @flowerandsunshine @casydee @scu11y22 @memcjo @olicityloveolicity

[francisbacondaily-blog]

The art historian John Richardson has disclosed new details of his friend Bacon's tempestuous relationship with Lacy in an article arguing that the painter's creative impulses were rooted in sexual pain and humiliation. . “Unfortunately, drink released a fiendish, sadistic streak in Lacy that bordered on the psychopathic. In a state of alcoholic dementia, he hurled Bacon through a plate glass window. His face was so damaged that his right eye had to be sewn back into place. Bacon loved Lacy even more. For weeks he would not forgive Lucian Freud for remonstrating with his torturer. Mercifully, Lacy moved to Tangier." . ‘Self Portrait with Injured Eye’, 1972. Oil on canvas. https://www.instagram.com/p/Blf8IYhHdUkZFH5eW6e3bkKu_qWIJ8fE1UVrSE0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ywgqwbskrn21

[shinyunchu-blog]

Female Sexuality in Otome Games

Otaku, a Japanese slang term for obsessive fans of Japanese culture, and especially anime, manga, or Japanese video games. Although the term originally had negative connotations associated with it, the word has evolved to a famous Japanese subculture that is recognized worldwide. Otome games, or "maiden games" are an important element in the otaku community. Otome games are story driven video games that revolve around building romantic relationships between the female main character that the player assumes the role of, and the several male characters featured in the game. Additionally, there are several different endings depending on who the player decides to romance, and the actions that the player takes in the game will almost always result in affecting the overall ending of the game, granting the player "good" or "bad" endings.

Otome games are targeted at the female market, and generally take the form of visual novels, life simulation, and dating simulation games. An example of one such game is “Amnesia; Memories”, an otome visual novel style game published and developed by Idea Factory International. Amnesia follows the story of a nameless girl who loses her memories while colliding with an otherworldly being called Orion, and must interact with the characters in the game to regain her memories. The player assumes the role of the girl and must travel to different worlds to interact with the different men. Being the first major otome title to release on both PS Vita and Steam, Amnesia has grown to be an exceedingly popular name for the otome fanbase. With ratings as high as 95% approval on Steam, it has become “the face of otome games”.

However, the game has also raised some concerns from the feminist community as it generalizes and normalizes heteronormative ideals for females such as submissiveness and feminine masochism. To unpack the logic behind otome games, one must turn to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis refers to the study of the unconscious mind affecting the conscious, and Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis will help resolve the heteronormative logic behind otome games.

One such heteronormative function of the game comes from a reversal of what Freud describes as “fetishistic scopophilia”. Typically attributed to the female body, fetishistic scopophilia objectifies the subject in question as nothing more than something to be looked at. In Amnesia, the objectification goes the other way, and the men are objectified, but rather than taking agency away from the males as traditional fetishistic scopophilia maintains, it has a reverse effect in taking away agency from the female character. Because otome games almost always have bad ends in which you fail to romance the male characters, people playing the game may resort to giving in, or submitting to what they feel the male character would rather hear. Furthermore, the game also presents overtones of phallocentrism, and mirror stage. The prevalence and success of Amnesia, and otome games overall is evidence of the effect of a global village connected through the internet, and Amnesia being a representative of otome games is a tangible representation of Freud’s interpretations of female sexuality perpetuated through the ever-increasing gap between ourselves and the rest of society.

Before elaborating on the logic behind otome games, we must establish a few psychoanalytic terms and principles. The center of psychoanalysis is the idea of phallocentrism, which is a belief that is centered on the phallus and the superiority of the male sex; an ideology derived from the castration complex. The castration complex theory maintains that every child regardless of gender has the same type of relationship with their mother at the moment of birth. As the infant grows up and get to the phallic phase, they learn to recognize the male sexual organ. Girls’ exposure to boys’ penises imposes on them the reality of the sexes’ anatomical differences and leaves them not with the fear of castration, but with the conviction that they were castrated. This in turn imparts on them the idea that males are superior. To rebel against this situation, girls develop penis envy, which leads to anger towards their mother for not giving them a penis. The girls would “abandon their mother as a love object and replace her with their father. This switch in sexual objects comes about owing mainly to their mother's’ failure to give them a penis. They turn then to their fathers hoping to receive a penis from them or to receive its symbolic equivalent—a child” (Hartke, 2006, p.898). To achieve the goal of having a child, a woman needs a man. According to castration complex theory, in order to gain attention and love by the man, they will be submissive, since men not only have what they lack, but unconsciously come to believe that men are superior.  In similar ways, otome games require that you do everything to compete for the attention of men. In the game, receiving negative feedbacks leads to a “bad end”, in contrast, receiving approval of male figures leads to a “good end”. The implication that the player is loved by the male figure aligns with penis envy. (Freud, 1964, p.158-163)

The heroine of “Amnesia: Memories” is hyper-passive, helpless, and oblivious. Feminist gamers online even describe her as “a robot programmed for serving men”. The player learns at the beginning of the game that the heroine’s memories have disappeared along with any traces of her personality. Orion, the fairy that causes her to lose her memories, serves as the heroine’s personality and conscience. Most of the action of the heroine is facilitated by his ideas, including decisions ranging from taking interest in a man to things like when to go to bed, and the heroine is obedient to every decision Orion makes. Although he is not a character that the player can build a romantic relationship with, he is certainly a man hurling commands at her, and the game dialogue is constructed in a way that the player can’t even refuse. It is possible to see Orion as a positive character that is just helping the oblivious heroine, but the only way to happiness according to him, is for the heroine is build a romantic relationship with a male figure instead of pursuing a hobby or career path. This is a clear illustration of the idea of phallocentrism where Orion is considered superior to the heroine, and the heroine obeys to whatever he suggests. Not to mention that Amnesia strongly suggests that the only way to fulfill a woman’s life is to find a partner. Furthermore, there is no explanation as to why doing any of these actions will help the player get her memories back.

Next, we have the mirror stage. The mirror stage is a concept in psychoanalysis based on the belief that infants recognize themselves in a mirror or other symbolic contraption which induces apperception, the turning of oneself into an object that can be viewed by the child from outside themselves, at the age of about six months. However, the mirror stage not only is a phenomenon that occurs in the development of a child, it also illustrates the nature of the dual relationship. The dual relationship refers not only to the relation between the Ego and the body, which is always characterized by illusions of similarity and reciprocity but also to the relation between the Imaginary and the Real. According to philosopher Rose, “the dynamic of the mirror stage continues to structure subjectivity, and that they explain the importance of the visual to our sense of self” (2001, p.162).

In otome games, players usually immerse themselves in the game and see themselves as the heroine. Therefore the storyline, the visuals, the relationship with the characters, and even personality traits of the heroine all become meaningful and important to the player, as if it is the reality. Otome games achieve this by having the player name the heroine so the players can be more emotionally attached, or see themselves as the heroine. Because the players only have the knowledge that the heroine has about the diegesis, they can respond to the events through her perspective. This makes the players feel more in control while experiencing the consequences of their own choices. On the visual side, The players always view the world through the heroine’s eyes, rarely does the heroine’s face show up on the screen. An extreme example can be seen in the otome game Mystic Messenger, where the heroine’s eyes are never revealed in the graphics of the game. Since the eyes are considered the window to the soul, which is the core of a person, the game specifically hide the heroine’s eyes even in a frontal shot, to let the gamers better insert themselves into the game.

In Amnesia, the default angle of the dialogue images is eye-level, which suggests the players are talking with the characters themselves. Even the images for the “important events”, the physical interactions with the male characters, are angled as an over the shoulder shot. These qualities in the framing of the images provides cues for the player to recognize themselves as the heroine. The absence of personality in the heroine also balances out the power she gained through her gaze. Although the story is revealed through the heroine’s gaze, she is still seen as a passive and feminine character, which according to psychoanalysis, is more relatable for the game’s intended audience. The lack of personality, however, is also due in part to the fetishization of both the physical female and male forms.

Other than being a self-insert shell for players to immerse themselves in, the personality well that is the heroine of otome games is the result of fetishistic scopophilia, a term used to describe the objectification and fetishization of the visual and physical traits of something or someone. This term applies to both the male and female forms in Amnesia, and both serve to undermine female agency while normalizing passivity and submissiveness. To begin, the fetishization of the female body is extremely apparent in Amnesia, as the heroine is little more than a husk for the player’s own personality to be inserted into. When the heroine does show on screen, she is almost never in a position of action, or doing, but rather she is the one that something is being done to. In many of the eye-catch scenes throughout the game, it is often the male that the player is trying to romance being the one taking action.

Next, the aesthetic of the males in most otome games is designed to be attractive for female audiences. They all have striking features that separate them from other characters, well built, fit bodies, and drawn in a style similar to shoujo manga, a genre of Japanese comic book and graphic novel for girls. In Amnesia, an attractive drawing style is used to draw attention as well as a thoughtful colour composition. The colours used for each male characters are colours that are easy for human eyes to perceive, which means that not only females, the colour palette makes the game more attractive to human in general. A player’s first impression of the men in Amnesia has almost nothing to do with who they are, but what they look like. Furthermore, although much of the charm of otome games is in character interaction, much of it goes towards taking agency away from the player, and promoting submissive behaviour. Because there are possible bad ends for each of the story arcs possible in otome games, a vast majority of players will try to appease the character they are trying to romance instead of picking what they really want to say. This ends up as making the heroine follow all orders from her love interest, never argue, fight, and forgive him for everything including physical abuse. Furthermore, the game is structured in a way that the player can never really be who they actually are due to the limitations of the medium, so they are restricted to however the developer has decided the story must be told. Although the player can insert themselves into the story, they are never really making the decisions, and thus submitting and losing their agency. The submission of their agency leads to the final concept that this essay will discuss, feminine masochism.

Masochism, the craving of submission and enjoyment of punishment, is a complex aspect of psychoanalysis. There are three different types of masochism in the psychoanalysis theory - erotogenic, feminine, and moral. Erotogenic masochism is taking pleasure in pain, while moral masochism, or guilt, focus more on suffering rather than pain. Feminine masochism is the excitement derived from the subject’s own submission and infantilization. Freud suggests that “the concept of female masochism as divinely ordained by biology” (Greer, 1970, p.106). Man, as the superior presence, has a biological drive to dominate and subdue a woman, and “the obvious inverse assumption is that women lack this aggression and instead are passive recipients and have an inherent sexual masochism“ (Grimwade, 2011, p.167).

In Amnesia, there are clear demonstrations of feminine masochism. In the heart route, the character of interest named Shin acts very cold to the heroine and constantly calls her an idiot. He likes to tease her and he lies to her several times, and even kissing the heroine without her consent. Through some of the dialogue, the player can clearly see that Shin has the potential to physically harm the heroine. However, the heroine who has conveniently lost her memories still falls in love with Shin. 

In the diamond route, Toma, the character of interest, appears to be a very caring and loving character who has always supported the heroine since they were children. However, he goes mad after seeing himself failing to protect the heroine repeatedly, and his love and care turns into obsession. He lies to the heroine who has lost her memories, and manipulates her into believing they are dating when in fact they are not. He kidnaps her and forces her to stay at his place. Eventually, Orion tells the heroine that she should go home when Toma is not around, and this attempt escalates the abuse to another level. Toma drugs the heroine and brings her back to his house, where she then gets locked in a cage for being rebellious. Surprisingly, the heroine starts to develop feelings for Toma during the time she is imprisoned. However, as the epitome of obedience and passiveness, she doesn’t do anything about her feelings, until one day she finds a defect in the cage. She eventually breaks out the cage and run away, but gets injured on her way home. Without any explanation in the story, the heroine returns to the cage herself. The injuries drive Toma mad again and he tries to rape the heroine until she confesses her love for him. Without a doubt, the heroine is a perfect representation of a feminine masochist through her act of falling in love while being locked in the cage, returning to the cage even though she knows she will be abused for her attempt to escape. It is also plausible that the heroine escapes and returns again because she wants Toma to be more aggressive. Lastly, her act of confessing and dating a man who tried to rape her just a moment ago even more strongly suggests that she is a feminine masochist.

It would be callous and brash to generalize all women and girls to be submissive and passive, but when a game like Amnesia: Memories can cross cultural boundaries and spread itself all over the world, there must be some underlying reason why Amnesia is as successful as it is. In the ever-expanding world of the internet, has become easier than ever to communicate with one another without ever having to be anywhere near each other. It is because of this convenience that many people find it easy to talk with people online, but find it difficult to make a connection. Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Scinece and Technology said this in one of her TED talks:

“Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. And when we do, one of the things that can happen is that we sacrifice conversation for mere connection.”

In other words, many people substitute communicating and connecting with others with using technology and never having to deal with the complications of people being people. The inception of otome games is a result of people favouring limited text-based interaction over real-life interaction which is not in any way comparable. The result is a subculture of lonely men and women that have nowhere else to turn but games that do absolutely everything to make you feel wanted, but at the same time taking away your agency, and stripping your personality down to a barebones husk. Otome games, for what they are, are not a necessarily bad thing, and in fact are often read for their provocative and compelling storylines, but the underlying factor of the heteronormative overtones in otome games are a symptom of a larger issue. Perhaps it is time that we stopped trying to convince one another of who’s right and wrong by flinging strongly worded messages online, and instead, talk it out over coffee.

Image Archives: https://www.pinterest.com/iat206shinychu/

References

Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (1964). New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. New York: W.W. Norton.

Greer. G. (1970). The female eunuch. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Grimwade, R. (2011). Between the quills: Schopenhauer and Freud on sadism and masochism. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2010.00378.x

Hartke, R. (2016). The Oedipus complex: A confrontation at the central cross-roads of psychoanalysis. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. DOI: 10.1111/1745-8315.12561

Rose, G. (2001). Visual Methodologies. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Turkle, S. (2012). Connected, but alone? Retrieved Mar 5, 2017 from https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together/transcript?language=en#t-323169

[banterandwit]

A Narratological and Freudian psychoanalysis of The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been open to many interpretations and debate from the date of its publication; be it from a Marxist perspective, a structuralist perspective, or even through the looking glass of queer theory. All questioning James’ intentions and how they covertly effect the perception of the reader and their interpretation of the novella. In this essay, I will be looking at the story through firstly, a narratological perspective. This is to look at the story through its narrative structure- how the story is told instead of its contents and the implications of this. Also, looking at it from a psychoanalytical perspective; this entails using psychoanalysis (which is the study of the link between conscious and unconscious in the mind) and how it effects a piece of literature via inadvertent suggestions of hidden meanings unforeseen in the conscious mind. The Freudian version of psychoanalysis, often makes use of symbols and how they have sexual meanings behind them. This is key to unlocking James’ concealed ideas in the text. It is through these perspectives that I will be addressing how the author creates a layered story formed by three narrators in which the secondary narrator (as opposed to the primary or main)- i.e. Douglas, is also the main narrator in disguise. The essay will follow this idea and explain how the governess’ tale is in fact Douglas’ memories of his first sexual encounter and his ‘unconscious’ coming of age. The tale is recounted in first person. Yet, it is not initially from the perspective of the governess, who’s narrative involvement is a large part of the text, or even the narrator of her tale (Douglas). Instead it is told from the view of an ‘I’ who recalls an event close to Christmas a while before where supernatural stories were voiced to a small assembly for the first time from ‘long ago’. Douglas, who is in fact the narrator of the record is the secondary teller of the story which are the supposed memoires of ‘his sister’s governess’ who was troubled by ghostly entities. Hence forth the main narrator of James’ novel is supposedly ‘the governess.’ However, although originally it is seen that Douglas’ recount is from the governess’ manuscript, he does admit that it is in fact ‘made much later.’ This connotes that although the events that took place may have happened, they have been distorted from the absolute truth through time. It is from this that the basis of the argument being presented is made.  Alterations through time are highly likely. Stories are forgotten memories after all. In James’ novella the alterations are made by Douglas who tells the primary narrator and the gathering of the time that although he had the original record, it was in fact ‘his own.’ From this, it can be interpreted that Douglas is describing his perspective of what happened through the eyes of the governess; where the entities are his subconscious creating an output for his budding sexual feelings.       In addition to this, it can be seen in the text that the focalisation of the text is centred internally. This is to say that the audience is told from the perspective of how the governess is thinking and feeling. Or so it seems. Although the assumption of internal focalising is sound, we must look at who’s perspective it is from. From a basic point of view, to say that the text is by a woman would be sound. However, this is hardly the case. In my reading, it is rather evident that although it is plausible that it is by a woman, this is in fact a ploy by Douglas to hide his erotic fantasies for ‘his sister’s governess’ from when he was a child (coming towards the beginning of puberty) which he subconsciously writes in her viewpoint to throw off anyone listening as he has deemed it unwise to express these feelings so brazenly. In the opening chapter the governess speaks of a ‘faint and far…cry of a child’ which are essentially out of reach. This in fact is the ‘unconscious’ sexual idealisms, manifesting themselves in the young Douglas as he begins development towards sexual maturity. In this we see the true nature of the recollection. It is not a governess and the children in her care in danger from apparitions, instead it is the fixation and hyper sexualisation of a boy becoming a man.    

Delving deeper still, it can be seen that Douglas is in fact embodied within the story as Miles. It is his recollections after all which are voiced by the governess. Initially this is evident via the body language of both characters. The external narrator notes that Douglas had his back to everyone ‘with his hands in his pockets.’ In comparison, the governess notes how Miles ‘had his hands in his little pockets with his back to me.’ Clearly if Douglas is in fact a teenage Miles as an adult, their body language would not differ according to Freud and his idea of puberty being the stage where everything becomes ‘normal’ for a person. As such body language and sexuality become set for Miles (or Douglas) in the period where the governess is narrating, and is why Douglas would have the same habits as young Miles. James’ subtle hinting at this suggests that Douglas’ subconscious is creating memories and scenarios and feeding it through the governess’ recount to reinforce his sexual fixation with her; since he doesn’t know clearly the governess’ feelings he invents a subliminal manifestation of himself in her recount through Miles. Then Douglas talks about how the governess saw in him a ‘glow of freshness’ and ‘positive fragrance of purity’ suggesting her desires towards him; in this way, the mutuality of sexual desire is cemented between the pair.     The climax of the story it is seen that supposedly Miles dies as ‘his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped’ in the arms of his beloved governess, likely from suffocation, as she shields him from the apparition of Peter Quint. Though, if this is interpreted from the point of view that Miles is indeed Douglas, then the apparent situation becomes quite different. Prior to the alleged death an encounter between the governess and Miles had resulted in her ‘moans of joy’ and his hard breathing. James’ uses many innuendoes and in this case, it suggests a sort of mutual sexual stimulation between the two. Moreover, when Miles is expelled it is due to him having done something ‘unspeakable.’ In James’ time the unspeakable would most likely infer to a sexual act; on Miles’ part this is self-gratification whist at boarding school. In the end before Miles’ heart stops, the governess speaks about Miles letting out a ‘cry of a creature hurled from an abyss’ and how she catches him in his supposed ‘fall’ as well as how she held him. The connotations from this suggests that Miles lets out a cry from an orgasm induced by the physical touch of the governess and his fall was a fall from innocence. Douglas therefore ends his account on the death of his own childhood and the birth of his Freudian norm as a postpubescent man.      

In summation, atypically The Turn of the Screw is looked at from the governess’ perspective due to how it is narrated, and for this reason it is overlooked that it is in fact a recollection of Douglas’ memories written in an unorthodox way. James’ writes the story in a first-person perspective with the focalisation being internalised rather than externalised in order to covertly assimilate Douglas’ subconscious erotica into a ghost story about a governess and the children in her care. As such Douglas’ manifest himself into the story as Miles and speaks of the adoration that the governess showered upon him throughout, ultimately leading to the death of innocence in her arms through the culmination of his sexual desires- which results in an orgasm. Ultimately the story, with its plethora of narrators, is in fact the subconscious coming of age story of a child into a man written in the Victorian era where crudeness was condemnable and hence presented in an unorthodox manner. In any other analytical perspective, the Douglas-Miles link may not be made. Nonetheless, the sexual connotations are evident through and through. Consequently, the analysis presented is sound and produces many answers other theories fail to look at.  

[theghostofabird]

Eleven Addresses to the Lord

BY JOHN BERRYMAN

1 Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake, inimitable contriver, endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon, thank you for such as it is my gift. I have made up a morning prayer to you containing with precision everything that most matters. ‘According to Thy will’ the thing begins. It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence. You have come to my rescue again & again in my impassable, sometimes despairing years. You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning. Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs: how can I ‘love’ you? I only as far as gratitude & awe confidently & absolutely go. I have no idea whether we live again. It doesn’t seem likely from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view but certainly all things are possible to you, and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter & to Paul as I believe I sit in this blue chair. Only that may have been a special case to establish their initiatory faith. Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement. May I stand until death forever at attention for any your least instruction or enlightenment. I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.               2 Holy, as I suppose I dare to call you without pretending to know anything about you but infinite capacity everywhere & always & in particular certain goodness to me. Yours is the crumpling, to my sister-in-law terrifying thunder, yours the candelabra buds sticky in Spring, Christ’s mercy, the gloomy wisdom of godless Freud: yours the lost souls in ill-attended wards, those agonized thro’ the world It this instant of time, all evil men, Belsen, Omaha Beach,— incomprehensible to man your ways. May be the Devil after all exists. ‘I don’t try to reconcile anything’ said the poet at eighty, ‘This is a damned strange world.’ Man is ruining the pleasant earth & man. What at last, my Lord, will you allow? Postpone till after my children's deaths your doom if it be thy ineffable, inevitable will. I say ‘Thy kingdom come’, it means nothing to me. Hast Thou prepared astonishments for man? One sudden Coming? Many so believe. So not, without knowing anything, do I.               3 Sole watchman of the flying stars, guard me against my flicker of impulse lust: teach me to see them as sisters & daughters. Sustain my grand endeavours: husbandship & crafting. Forsake me not when my wild hours come; grant me sleep nightly, grace soften my dreams; achieve in me patience till the thing be done, a careful view of my achievement come. Make me from time to time the gift of the shoulder. When all hurt nerves whine shut away the whiskey. Empty my heart toward Thee. Let me pace without fear the common path of death. Cross am I sometimes with my little daughter: fill her eyes with tears. Forgive me, Lord. Unite my various soul, sole watchman of the wide & single stars.               4 If I say Thy name, art Thou there? It may be so. Thou art not absent-minded, as I am. I am so much so I had to give up driving. You attend, I feel, to the matters of man. Across the ages certain blessings swarm, horrors accumulate, the best men fail: Socrates, Lincoln, Christ mysterious. Who can search Thee out? except Isaiah & Pascal, who saw. I dare not ask that vision, though a piece of it at last in crisis was vouchsafèd me. I altered then for good, to become yours. Caretaker! take care, for we run in straits. Daily, by night, we walk naked to storm, some threat of wholesale loss, to ruinous fear. Gift us with long cloaks & adrenalin. Who haunt the avenues of Angkor Wat recalling all that prayer, that glory dispersed, haunt me at the corner of Fifth & Hennepin. Shield & fresh fountain! Manifester! Even mine.               5 Holy, & holy. The damned are said to say ‘We never thought we would come into this place.’ I’m fairly clear, my Friend, there’s no such place ordained for inappropriate & evil man. Surely they fall dull, & forget. We too, the more or less just, I feel fall asleep dreamless forever while the worlds hurl out. Rest may be your ultimate gift. Rest or transfiguration! come & come whenever Thou wilt. My daughter & my son fend will without me, when my work is done in Your opinion. Strengthen my widow, let her dream on me thro’ tranquil hours less & down to less. Abrupt elsewhere her heart, I sharply hope. I leave her in wise Hands.               6 Under new management, Your Majesty: Thine. I have solo’d mine since childhood, since my father’s suicide when I was twelve blew out my most bright candle faith, and look at me. I served at Mass six dawns a week from five, adoring Father Boniface & you, memorizing the Latin he explained. Mostly we worked alone. One or two women. Then my poor father frantic. Confusions & afflictions followed my days. Wives left me. Bankrupt I closed my doors. You pierced the roof twice & again. Finally you opened my eyes. My double nature fused in that point of time three weeks ago day before yesterday. Now, brooding thro’ a history of the early Church, I identify with everybody, even the heresiarchs.               7 After a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean, Justin Martyr studied the words of the Saviour, finding them short, precise, terrible, & full of refreshment. I am tickled to learn this. Let one day desolate Sherry, fair, thin, tall, at 29 today her life the Sahara Desert, who has never once enjoyed a significant relation, so find His lightning words.               A Prayer for the Self Who am I worthless that You spent such pains and take may pains again? I do not understand; but I believe. Jonquils respond with wit to the teasing breeze. Induct me down my secrets. Stiffen this heart to stand their horrifying cries, O cushion the first the second shocks, will to a halt in mid-air there demons who would be at me. May fade before, sweet morning on sweet morning, I wake my dreams, my fan-mail go astray, and do me little goods I have not thought of, ingenious & beneficial Father. Ease in their passing my beloved friends, all others too I have cared for in a travelling life, anyone anywhere indeed. Lift up sober toward truth a scared self-estimate.               9 Surprise me on some ordinary day with a blessing gratuitous. Even I’ve done good beyond their expectations. What count we then upon Your bounty? Interminable: an old theologian asserts that even to say You exist is misleading. Uh-huh. I buy that Second-century fellow. I press his withered glorifying hand. You certainly do not as I exist, impersonating as well the meteorite & flaring in your sun your waterfall or blind in caves pallid fishes. Bear in mind me, Who have forgotten nothing, & Who continues. I may not foreknow & fail much to remember. You sustain imperial desuetudes, at the kerb a widow.               10 Fearful I peer upon the mountain path where once Your shadow passed, Limner of the clouds up their phantastic guesses. I am afraid, I never until now confessed. I fell back in love with you, Father, for two reasons: You were good to me, & a delicious author, rational & passionate. Come on me again, as twice you came to Azarias & Misael. President of the brethren, our mild assemblies inspire, & bother the priest not to be dull; keep us week-long in order; love my children, my mother far & ill, far brother, my spouse. Oil all my turbulence as at Thy dictation I sweat out my wayward works. Father Hopkins said the only true literary critic is Christ. Let me lie down exhausted, content with that.               11 Germanicus leapt upon the wild lion in Smyrna, wishing to pass quickly from a lawless life. The crowd shook the stadium. The proconsul marvelled. ‘Eighty & six years have I been his servant, and he has done me no harm. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’ Polycarp, John’s pupil, facing the fire. Make too me acceptable at the end of time in my degree, which then Thou wilt award. Cancer, senility, mania, I pray I may be ready with my witness. John Berryman, “Eleven Addresses to the Lord” from Love and Fame.Copyright © 1971 by John Berryman. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved. Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.Source: Love & Fame (1970)

[lavieenprose]

When the loss of romantic love no longer breaks your heart, life finds another way

Last week I heard from a friend who’s heartbroken. The details of her particular situation are incidental; it’s always the same story. As it happens, she’s much younger than I am, but I knew better than to tell her any of the perfectly true things — that she was a brilliant, beautiful young woman and would, without doubt, fall in love again, with someone more deserving of her, that this would pass, that she’d be happy again — that would’ve been of no use to her. I didn’t want to condescend to her as though she were some silly little girl head over heels with hormones, and also didn’t want to sound like some desiccated old person who’s forgotten what it’s like to be in love.

I myself am not unfamiliar with the etiology of heartbreak. Let’s not dwell on this: I’ve written about it at length elsewhere, and it’s frankly embarrassing. A typical scenario involved me curled up on the bathroom floor weeping piteously into a smelly old towel. (“Weeping into the towel” became verbal shorthand for the whole ordeal, one that I’m afraid got wearisomely familiar to my closest friends.) The particular strain of love my young friend was suffering — unrequited, or unavailable — is one of which I made rather a vocation for a couple of decades. In my own experience, a recurring attraction to people who are unavailable usually means you’re not ready to fall in love with someone who is. Some form of love that’s impeded or incomplete (illicit, unilateral, long-distance, epistolary) may be all you can take — or, more importantly, give — at that point in your life. It may be, despite your protestations, what you really want. My friend Margot likes to ask, of people in such situations: “If you weren’t thinking about [x person] all the time, what would you be thinking about instead?” — because the answer is usually what you’re trying to avoid by burying yourself alive in your romantic/sexual obsession.

It’s been over a decade since that last happened to me. I hesitate even to write those words, like a superstitious pitcher afraid to break a streak. My loves used to be operatic; my heartbreaks, Toscan; and my jealousy not just Othelloan but Medean — the kind where you send someone a poisoned dress, murder your own children, and drive off in a chariot drawn by dragons. But my last bout of insane jealousy and rage, which commandeered my brain like a parasite for the better part of a year and had to be extinguished with vipassana meditation, seems to have burned out the circuit in my head. Since then I’ve had whole relationships in which my partner and I saw each other only on weekends, I didn’t know or ask what she did during the week, and the question of whom else she might be sleeping with didn’t seem like any of my business.

Having had so many inconvenient, and frequently disastrous, crushes eventually affords you enough experience, enough of an emotional buffer, that you can learn to recognize them in the early stages and let them discreetly wither instead of cultivating them. If you’re lucky, eventually you get tired of your own pathology, exhausted by all the energy it takes to fall deliriously in love and get horribly heartbroken again and again. Like an addict driven into recovery, you get sick of the endless vacillation between euphoria and agony. In Seymour: An Introduction, Buddy Glass (Salinger’s alter ego) writes: “I can’t be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.” Ideally, you learn to love in less volatile, precarious ways.

Though even this explanation gives me too much credit: mostly it’s just a matter of deranging chemicals gradually ebbing from my brain. (I tell my girlfriend that I only became datable within the last five years. I think she thinks I’m joking.) But my young friend is still at an age when love really is the most important thing in life — evolutionarily speaking, finding a mate is the most important mission of youth, besides survival — so it’s only natural that she’s deep in the summer storms of endorphins. It’d be facile for me to give her my dumb adult reassurances now that I’m no longer susceptible to those debilitating bouts of infatuation and heartbreak. Equanimity is a virtue of age, not youth. Youth’s virtue is passion — even my students’ angst and ennui are more intensely felt than my own dull depression and boredom.

But I mostly refrained from giving wise older-person advice because I don’t believe there is some state of wisdom we slowly mature toward and eventually attain. (When would that even be — the moment when our personalities are complete and our understanding at its peak? Sometime, presumably, between infantile and senile incontinence.) The problems I had at age seven were no less serious than the ones I have now — they were more serious, in fact, since my current problems do not include any likelihood of being sat on and having my hair pulled. Every age has its own truths, particular to the needs of that phase of life: childhood truths and teenage truths, young-adult and middle-aged ones, and, if we live long enough to learn them, the unwelcome truths of old age. They tend to arrive in the form of retrospect: you really get good at being a kid around age 11 or 12, on the idyllic eve of destruction; you finally feel like you might be getting the hang of adulthood right around the time you’re diagnosed with something that’s not going to go away. An optimistic projection would be that, on our deathbeds, maybe we’ll finally have figured out what life was all about.

These truths also don’t seem to be transferable, at least not backward. When I was a college freshman, we would mock upperclassmen who didn’t go out and get black-out drunk every night — we were never gonna turn into boring old stay-at-home 22-year-olds! There would have been no way for those sagacious juniors to explain to us why they no longer wanted to get drunk nightly, anymore than parents can explain to the childless why all the forfeitures they’ve chosen are worth it. If you were to ask me whether it makes me sad that I haven’t been heartbroken in over a decade (but no one ever asks questions like that), I’d say it makes me a little sad that it doesn’t make me sad. It’d be like missing going out and chugging Jägermeister on a Tuesday. I just don’t want my head to feel like that, ever again.

The other night I was talking with a friend about how relieved we both were to have outgrown the hopeless crushes, doomed affairs, and obliterating heartbreaks of our younger years. We’re no longer capable of hurling ourselves as heedlessly into love as we did back then; we instinctively hedge our affections, the same way you learn, if you survive your teens, not to drive 120 miles an hour on twisty backroads with the headlights off. Later, over a second or maybe third round, we segued into more somber and mature problems: the unbearable sadness of watching the slow dissolution of our parents’ personalities — their forgetfulness, hallucinations, delusions. As an adult, you try to meet this with as much equanimity, compassion, and humor as you can, but some little-kid part of you is enraged at seeing them so diminished, and panicked at being abandoned. After a glum pause, my friend said: “Remember those heartbreaks we said we were lucky to have left behind…?” You could almost hear the whanh-wah-whaaahh — that trombone mock-lament at the end of the sitcom as our heroes realize that the joke, once again, is on them. Punchline being, life’s just one goddamn heartbreak after another.

It’s a truism, post-Freud, that heartbreak feels so eviscerating — regardless of which incidental jerk or wacko it happens to attach to — because it’s really an abreaction, a reenactment of much earlier, more primal losses we’ve forgotten: Oedipal triangles and abandonments, bad breakups with your first loves, whom you never really got over. But causality is only one-way in human perception: you could also interpret them not as repressed memories but premonitions; distant, preliminary shivers of the arctic desolation that awaits us at the other end of life.

Anyway, soon enough I’ll be weeping as I eat this essay, sneering through my tears back at past me, Mr. Smart Guy, who postured as wise and imagined himself past silly afflictions of youth like love and sorrow. I’m about to discover what heartbreak at 52 feels like. The details are incidental; it’s always the same story. This one feels a little like death: I’ve always known it was coming, intellectually; I just didn’t think it would be yet. Now it’s looming like a meteor or tsunami, too late to outrun. Hopefully it won’t be as crippling an experience as it was in my twenties (though the adolescent fear that No One Will Ever Love You Again has a new shadow of plausibility the older you get). Maybe it’ll be like the difference between Tosca or Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique — wrenching, histrionic — and something more like Beethoven’s Cavatina, or Mahler’s Ninth — an exquisite melancholy. Probably it’ll just suck. But I don’t really know, any more than I can know what it’s like to see people who aren’t there, or confuse dreams with memories, or forget your children’s names. But I guess we’ll find out.

[ecotone99]

[RF] A world beneath your own

Do you ever feel like you're missing out? Like everyone else knows something you don't?

Maybe you're walking down the street and you see two people laughing and time slows down as you pass them, and they look at you like you're a freak. Or maybe you're driving down to Aldi to get the weekly shop, and you glance out of your driver's window and see a young couple holding hands - a girl you might have fallen in love with. Or you spy a family through a living room window watching television, or at the dinner table joking and discussing.

And sometimes you find yourself in this strange, isolated world full of tall pine trees with their middles illuminated by cutting street lamps. And nothing feels real. And everything speaks the language of concealed danger, and the shadows claw through the sunlit days like demons waiting to be set free. Of anger. Of hatred. Of revenge.

That is the world I live in.

I never go on Reddit, or online to speak. I think it's all just a way of escaping. It's not real. It's all just a sick fantasy world; lost people running away from the dark and the cold outside, pretending the four walls they're currently confined to isn't a prison. Denying the fact that they're a wild animal caught in a trap.

If you get past the gloss and the glass and posters of people smiling and all the sparkly high heels, what you're left with is the mud and the soil. The concrete and the grey and the dog shit.

I make myself laugh.

The thing is, God is dead. Nietzsche said it, and now it's all true. There is no meaning. Nothing matters. It's all sex and money, and the rest is just a distraction. Even though, there are some of us who feel something else. That power matters. Dominance. Control. I am one of those select few.

You may have seen me walking around somewhere in the middle of the night once. You may see me buy a sandwich from Tesco on a Friday night, or on Tuesday getting something else to eat. Maybe I'll eat a pizza, or cook myself a lasagne. I'm a bad cook though.

Sometimes I make myself laugh.

It's difficult to snap yourself out of a delusion. We all have them. Sometimes it's hope: I will be happy one day. Someone will come. Someone will see me in pain. Someone will love me. Daddy will come home. Mummy won't drink anymore. And sometimes it's a cynical view to distract you from your will to power. Whatever it is, it is all a delusion, a distraction from raw reality; raw truth.

Raw truth isn't nice. It's actually pretty ugly. See what I did there?

People prefer to be comfortable, and I understand that, but as I say, some of us want something more. Some of us don't want to watch Netflix and go on Reddit and be distracted. Some of us want to seek the truth no matter what the cost. Even if it means death, and I admit, that is scary for anyone. Death is the unknown. The world beyond.

I knew a girl once in my secondary school who committed suicide. I was in love with her. We used to look at each other in the hallways and in class. I was obsessed, and I cried for weeks because I was too shy to talk to her. It was painful. Then I moved away and two years later I found out over Facebook that she had taken her own life - her hair mysteriously dyed an out-of-place orange. She hung herself using a belt and a door knob. I'm still uncertain how people do that. What was she thinking? Where did her mind go?

Sometimes I crack myself up.

Freud was clever. He wanted to seek the truth. That's why he invented his theories. The unconscious. That sneaky clandestine aspect of the brain. All the things we do in dreams. The jealousy and the huge monsters and the infinite corridors. The tornados and the massive tsunamis and the destruction and the chaos. The terrifying potential lies dormant behind the eyes of consciousness, festering away like rotten fruit, attracting flies, creating bad smells. Polluting the world.

It's a fucking strange world we live in today. Such a lonely world.

I told myself when I was 19 that I had to murder someone. A vision of me appeared beside my bed - a vision of the man I knew I could be; my self-actualised manifestation. He told me that I was weak. That I was succumbing to depression and nihilism. He told me what I needed to hear, but didn't want to acknowledge. I needed to kill someone in order to feel in control of my life again. And not just anyone.

The thing is, about murder, it's a lot less glamorous in real life. Murderers aren't particularly evil people or smart people or even sneaky people. Anyone can go out in the dead of night and stab a homeless person, or a prostitute, or shoot a jihad dead in the dusty plains with a rifle. They're easy targets. That's not how you achieve control and self-actualise.

Some of the most notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, they murdered out of a sexual fascination. It was also about power, but polluted with delinquency and sexual degeneracy. Not pure. Not righteous.

I don't necessarily have an interest in being righteous, but the idea of killing for sex or of killing an easy target doesn't excite me. I feel like killing for justice, for raw truth, for ultimate power over someone else too weak to seek the truth, that is the pinnacle of masculine achievement. That is how you reach the divine state of being. Some call it enlightenment. It's different for everyone.

The mind is like an onion, and reality is just an image of what you project based on the level you happen to be on. Once you've peeled away all the layers, all you're left with is black. You become blind. You lose all your senses except smell. You smell everything; the sweat, the shit, the snot, the rain, the lights, the darkness, the kitchen, the eyeballs, the skeletons.

People lose their personalities and become primates. They lose their faces. Their skin melts away along with their identities. They then become objects - physical manifestations of matter that interact with other bits of matter. Almost as if they could have been splurged out by some white matter gloop machine and painted by a Warhammer nerd. Porcelain dolls. Rag dolls.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and laugh at my handsome face as it contorts into something that manages to scare me.

Before I decided to kill someone, I used to steal, and vandalise buildings. I'd wake up at 2AM and instantly jump out of bed with my pre-assembled rucksack equipped with a spare set of clothes and big rocks. Then I'd take the pitch black footpath to the town and, with my hood down, hurl the rocks at WHSmiths, McDonald's, Wilko's. And then I'd leave a message to the police: "I am the Zodiac... You will decode this message if you wish to find me... If you do not post the details to your Facebook page, I will strike again... And do something different."

You may have seen me before. Me and you might have shuffled past each other on a crowded train once, or maybe I asked you where a specific item was in a supermarket three years ago, or maybe you taught me at school, or maybe I am the friend of a friend of a cousin that you've never heard of. And maybe you have some connection to me or my victim. Part of you wants to reach me and talk to me. Part of you is as lonely as I am.

When you drop a plate and it smashes on the floor, you feel defeated. But what if the plate drops you on the floor and feels defeated, and you smash into 50 ceramic chunks? What if my mind is broken? It's not. Sanity doesn't exist. That's just another lie people tell themselves as they flick through Twitter or post an ironic meme on Reddit.

I can pinpoint exactly at what age when I fell down the rabbit hole.

I was 17. My only parent, an alcoholic mother who abused me, neglected me and treated me like shit, decided to abandon me, so I left home, aged 16. And then at some point I stopped denying. Living on my own in supported accommodation with rats, literally and metaphorically. I stopped picking my nose and I started picking my brains. I started imagining my mother burning alive, her flesh reappearing only to disintegrate again as she screamed in agony.

I gazed upon the abyss; the singularity. Pure, unadulterated truth: pain in its most horrific form. Boundless anxiety and primal fear - loss - terror - horrific depression - burning rage - hypochondria. Then total despair. I wrapped myself up like a newborn baby in my duvet and weeped into the carpet floor for hours. I couldn't take it.

I had been mistreated. My childhood had been tainted with lies and lost opportunities. I would never recover.

I looked through Facebook and saw pictures of people laughing; knowing what I didn't the whole time. Knowing a sense of security and not doubting themselves and who they are. "Ha, fuck their stupid comfortable little identities." I was jealous, deep down, but there was no way back. Not anymore.

It was at this point a sense of odd peace descended on me; a moment I termed the Dawn of My Awakening. The eye of the storm. I thought back to everyone who had ever wronged me, made fun of me. It's not like I was bullied heavily in school, but after school, the people in the social housing, they were so horrible. They ripped me up. I was nothing from that point onward.

I thought I'd cried all the tears I could. I honestly thought I was a psychopath.

Sometimes I make myself laugh.

That is when I entered the next layer of the onion. Those people I walk past in the street - they are murderers. All the smiling people, and even the ones who don't - the inwardly serene people. It's subtle, you have to catch it. You see it in the ease of their actions, the minor flourishes of a hand or the lack of twitching lips. Stability. The foundations of which cannot be anything but the fulfilment of unconscious desires: the sex, money, power part of the brain that ticks and chimes like Big Ben. The private resounding in the brain. The reptilian.

The reptilian sentinels with their menacing diamond-shaped pupils and cold personalities that allow them to walk all over humans like me. The lizards with their slippery elongated tongues with lisps that lash out like cracking whips. The screaming children and the reversing cars that shield them in the sunshine halls of suburbia. I hate them all.

I hate the parks and the children and the houses and the cars and the volleyball players. I hate the computers and the iPhones and the sunglasses and the law degrees and the depressed parents who yell at their children outside community centres. I hate the warm days when it's so easy to pretend everything is going okay, and I hate the posters of the smiling people. I see behind their eyes the neglected skeletal figures of Hell. I hate the adverts about shampoo and sitcoms like Big Bang Theory. I hate the fashionistas and the pretentious Starbucks employees, and the fat girl who works as a cashier who is always laughing way too loud.

I hate it all.

Don't infect me with your la dee dah land of grown ups. Don't lecture me with maturity you've constructed out of your own neglected ambitions. Don't fist bump me the hand you used to masturbate to girls on Facebook, or neglect your responsibilities as a man with a video game controller. I don't care about you, or /this/.

In truth, I am a lonely animal who lives off of small pleasures, so if you see me, offer me a friendly smile. Maybe open a door for me. Don't be angry at me. It's not entirely my fault. The dice of fate were loaded. If you are kind, I won't harm your children. I won't hunt productive members of your society. I won't hurt the economy. You'll do this for me. Otherwise we're going to have a disagreement. Otherwise, I'll think about taking action. But for now, I'm dormant. And I will stay that way. For now.

I take my job as a clinical psychologist very seriously. The days of feeling self-conscious when I don my dark-brown trench coat are long since gone. The imposter syndrome fades into the background along with the rest of the distractions.

I care about my clients I deal with, which are mostly young men dealing with aggression and depression. I feel for them. I relate to their stories and their pain and their anger. I wish I had a magic wand to make it all better, but I don't, and so I have to deal with reality. I tell them as much truth as I can afford. I tell them they need to get off their backside and fend for themselves because nobody else is gonna do it for them in this cruel life.

These are the children of alcoholics, abandoned by their fathers, by their families, by society.

I zoom out and listen to the silence and gaze up at the full moon in February. I imagine the waves crash against the cliffs as they once did in my childhood. The feeling of salty freshness bashing against my ears. That is just enough to soothe my anguished soul until the next big thing knocks me down like a sack of potatoes. Like a smashed dinner plate.

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[craftcrit]

A Narratological and Freudian psychoanalysis of The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been open to many interpretations and debate from the date of its publication; be it from a Marxist perspective, a structuralist perspective, or even through the looking glass of queer theory. All questioning James’ intentions and how they covertly effect the perception of the reader and their interpretation of the novella. In this essay, I will be looking at the story through firstly, a narratological perspective. This is to look at the story through its narrative structure- how the story is told instead of its contents and the implications of this. Also, looking at it from a psychoanalytical perspective; this entails using psychoanalysis (which is the study of the link between conscious and unconscious in the mind) and how it effects a piece of literature via inadvertent suggestions of hidden meanings unforeseen in the conscious mind. The Freudian version of psychoanalysis, often makes use of symbols and how they have sexual meanings behind them. This is key to unlocking James’ concealed ideas in the text. It is through these perspectives that I will be addressing how the author creates a layered story formed by three narrators in which the secondary narrator (as opposed to the primary or main)- i.e. Douglas, is also the main narrator in disguise. The essay will follow this idea and explain how the governess’ tale is in fact Douglas’ memories of his first sexual encounter and his ‘unconscious’ coming of age. The tale is recounted in first person. Yet, it is not initially from the perspective of the governess, who’s narrative involvement is a large part of the text, or even the narrator of her tale (Douglas). Instead it is told from the view of an ‘I’ who recalls an event close to Christmas a while before where supernatural stories were voiced to a small assembly for the first time from ‘long ago’. Douglas, who is in fact the narrator of the record is the secondary teller of the story which are the supposed memoires of ‘his sister’s governess’ who was troubled by ghostly entities. Hence forth the main narrator of James’ novel is supposedly ‘the governess.’ However, although originally it is seen that Douglas’ recount is from the governess’ manuscript, he does admit that it is in fact ‘made much later.’ This connotes that although the events that took place may have happened, they have been distorted from the absolute truth through time. It is from this that the basis of the argument being presented is made.  Alterations through time are highly likely. Stories are forgotten memories after all. In James’ novella the alterations are made by Douglas who tells the primary narrator and the gathering of the time that although he had the original record, it was in fact ‘his own.’ From this, it can be interpreted that Douglas is describing his perspective of what happened through the eyes of the governess; where the entities are his subconscious creating an output for his budding sexual feelings.       In addition to this, it can be seen in the text that the focalisation of the text is centred internally. This is to say that the audience is told from the perspective of how the governess is thinking and feeling. Or so it seems. Although the assumption of internal focalising is sound, we must look at who’s perspective it is from. From a basic point of view, to say that the text is by a woman would be sound. However, this is hardly the case. In my reading, it is rather evident that although it is plausible that it is by a woman, this is in fact a ploy by Douglas to hide his erotic fantasies for ‘his sister’s governess’ from when he was a child (coming towards the beginning of puberty) which he subconsciously writes in her viewpoint to throw off anyone listening as he has deemed it unwise to express these feelings so brazenly. In the opening chapter the governess speaks of a ‘faint and far…cry of a child’ which are essentially out of reach. This in fact is the ‘unconscious’ sexual idealisms, manifesting themselves in the young Douglas as he begins development towards sexual maturity. In this we see the true nature of the recollection. It is not a governess and the children in her care in danger from apparitions, instead it is the fixation and hyper sexualisation of a boy becoming a man.    

Delving deeper still, it can be seen that Douglas is in fact embodied within the story as Miles. It is his recollections after all which are voiced by the governess. Initially this is evident via the body language of both characters. The external narrator notes that Douglas had his back to everyone ‘with his hands in his pockets.’ In comparison, the governess notes how Miles ‘had his hands in his little pockets with his back to me.’ Clearly if Douglas is in fact a teenage Miles as an adult, their body language would not differ according to Freud and his idea of puberty being the stage where everything becomes ‘normal’ for a person. As such body language and sexuality become set for Miles (or Douglas) in the period where the governess is narrating, and is why Douglas would have the same habits as young Miles. James’ subtle hinting at this suggests that Douglas’ subconscious is creating memories and scenarios and feeding it through the governess’ recount to reinforce his sexual fixation with her; since he doesn’t know clearly the governess’ feelings he invents a subliminal manifestation of himself in her recount through Miles. Then Douglas talks about how the governess saw in him a ‘glow of freshness’ and ‘positive fragrance of purity’ suggesting her desires towards him; in this way, the mutuality of sexual desire is cemented between the pair.     The climax of the story it is seen that supposedly Miles dies as ‘his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped’ in the arms of his beloved governess, likely from suffocation, as she shields him from the apparition of Peter Quint. Though, if this is interpreted from the point of view that Miles is indeed Douglas, then the apparent situation becomes quite different. Prior to the alleged death an encounter between the governess and Miles had resulted in her ‘moans of joy’ and his hard breathing. James’ uses many innuendoes and in this case, it suggests a sort of mutual sexual stimulation between the two. Moreover, when Miles is expelled it is due to him having done something ‘unspeakable.’ In James’ time the unspeakable would most likely infer to a sexual act; on Miles’ part this is self-gratification whist at boarding school. In the end before Miles’ heart stops, the governess speaks about Miles letting out a ‘cry of a creature hurled from an abyss’ and how she catches him in his supposed ‘fall’ as well as how she held him. The connotations from this suggests that Miles lets out a cry from an orgasm induced by the physical touch of the governess and his fall was a fall from innocence. Douglas therefore ends his account on the death of his own childhood and the birth of his Freudian norm as a postpubescent man.      

In summation, atypically The Turn of the Screw is looked at from the governess’ perspective due to how it is narrated, and for this reason it is overlooked that it is in fact a recollection of Douglas’ memories written in an unorthodox way. James’ writes the story in a first-person perspective with the focalisation being internalised rather than externalised in order to covertly assimilate Douglas’ subconscious erotica into a ghost story about a governess and the children in her care. As such Douglas’ manifest himself into the story as Miles and speaks of the adoration that the governess showered upon him throughout, ultimately leading to the death of innocence in her arms through the culmination of his sexual desires- which results in an orgasm. Ultimately the story, with its plethora of narrators, is in fact the subconscious coming of age story of a child into a man written in the Victorian era where crudeness was condemnable and hence presented in an unorthodox manner. In any other analytical perspective, the Douglas-Miles link may not be made. Nonetheless, the sexual connotations are evident through and through. Consequently, the analysis presented is sound and produces many answers other theories fail to look at.