#the voice is like therapy

[inkskinned]

what is with men being mad any time a woman raises her voice where did that even come from. someone posted a video of a small electrical explosion, and the top comment was of course the woman screams. the second comment is women try not to scream challenge, level impossible. i had to go back and watch the video again. there is, somewhat fainty, a little gasp emitted off-camera, more of a yelp than a scream. it is mostly lost in the crack of the explosion. afterwards, you hear her voice, shaken, say, are you okay?

i am helping one of my friends train her voice pitch lower, because she wants to be taken seriously at work. she and i do each other's nails and talk about gender roles; and how - due to our appearance - neither of us have ever been able to be "hysterical" in public. we both appear young and sweet and feminine. she is cisgender, and cannot use her natural voice in her profession because people keep saying she appears to be "vapid". we both try to figure out if our purposeful voice lowering is technically sexist. is it promoting something when you are a victim to it?

a storm almost sends a pole through a car window. in the dashcam, you can hear the woman passenger say her partner's name twice, crying out in alarm. she sounds terrified. in the comments, she is lambasted for her lack of calm. how is that even fucking helping?

in high school, i taught myself to have a lower voice. i had been recorded when i was genuinely (and righteously) upset; and i hated how my voice sounded on the phone speakers when it was played back. i was defending my mom, and my voice cracked with emotion. it meant i was no longer winning the argument: i was just shrieking about it.

girls meet each other after a long summer and let out a little joyful scream. this usually stops around 12-14, because people will not tolerate this display of affection (as it has the effect of being passingly annoying). something about the fact that little girls can't ever even be annoying. we are trained to examine each part of our lives (even joy) for anything that could make us upsetting and disgusting. they act like teenage girls are breaking into houses and shrieking you awake at 3 in the morning. speaking as a public school educator: trust me, it's not that bad, you can just roll your eyes and move on. it does not compare to the ways boys end up being annoying: slurs in graffiti, purposefully mocking your body, following you after you said no. you know, just boy things.

there's another video of a man who is not allowed to yell in the house, so he snaps his fingers when he's excited about soccer. the comments are full of angry men, talking about how their brother is unfairly caged. let him express himself and this is terrible to do to someone. eventually the couple has to address it in a second video: they are married with a newborn baby. he was trying not to wake the infant up. there is no comment on the fact women are not allowed to yell indoors. or the fact that it could have been really alarming or triggering for his wife. sometimes i wonder if straight men even like women, if they even enjoy being in relationships with them.

for the longest time, i hated roller coasters because it always felt inappropriate and uncomfortable for me to scream. one of my friends called me on it, said it was unusual i'm so unwilling. i had to go to my therapist about it. i don't like to scream because i was not raised in a safe situation, and raising my voice would have brought unsafe attention towards me. even when i am supposed to scream, it feels shameful, guilty. i was not treated kindly, so i lack a basic form of self-protection. this is not a natural response. it is not good that in a situation of high adrenaline - i shut up about it.

something very bad is happening, i think. in between all the beauty standards and the stuff i've already discussed - this one feels new and cruel in a way i can't quite express. yes, it's scary and silencing. but there's something about how direct it is - that so many men agree with the sentiment that women should never yell, even in an emergency - it feels different.

is the word shriek gendered automatically? how about shrill or screech? in self defense class, one of the first things they tell you is to yell, as loud and as shrilly as you can. they say it will feel rude. most women will not do this. you need to practice overcoming the social pressure and just scream.

most women do not cry out, even when it's bad. we do not report it. we walk faster. we do not make a scene. what would be the point of doing anything else? no matter what we do, we don't get taken seriously. it is a joke to them. an instagram caption punchline. we have to present ourselves as silent, beautiful, captivating - "valuable."

a woman is outside watching her kids when someone throws a firecracker at them. she screams and runs towards her children. in the comments, grown men flock together in the thousands: god. women are so annoying.

[freckleslikestars]

(some of) my favourite lines from The X Files 5.12 Bad Blood

[boneheadboner]

Sleep substitutes

[triglycercule]

mtt therapy moment except dust keeps taking breaks to talk to phantom papyrus and horror just wants this to hurry up so it can get to his turn because he couldn't give two shits about dust and killer's trauma and killer physically cannot discuss his issues and just starts zoning out while crying for some reason during it

and i'm the therapist listening to all of this writing down notes fervently because ITS CANON MATERIAL CANON I NEED TO GET THE CANON MATERIAL

[silusvesuius]

[ghost-inthe-hall]

He's perfect

[vaguely-concerned]

walking through lucanis' mind prison. the tam lin of it all

[garpen]

YALLER

Yaller...

"Yaller need therapy once he's done with you."

I'm sorry. I have nothing to say for myself 😔

Yaller= yall will = you all will

I'm not even country or anything this is just gen how I speak. I try spelling out what comes through my head but sometimes I forget and just like spell/sound out what words sound like to me lol

A more accurate spelling would have been "Y'all'll" ? (ew the apostrophes make it look ugly) but the way I say it out loud sounds more like "yaller"

You all should be thankful you can't hear the way I speak it's honestly an atrocity

[shigarakins]

i remember when the bodysnatching happened and how hardly anyone else in the fandom (or what i saw of the fandom) seemed to find it as horrifying as i did. then the same thing happened again with the mind invasion. and yes the fact that the mind invasion happened at all and not even the story gave much of a fuck about the fact that it did is still one of biggest gripes with the finale

[anguishmacgyver]

–Daniel. Damn it! –I’m dead anyway. Just get outta here. –I am not leaving you here, Daniel! –Get out of here! We’re just going to blow up with the other ship anyway. What difference does it make! Go! Just go... I’ll stay and watch your back.

[marc--chilton]

(mgv) for a not-so-insignificant portion of his life, house was terrified of being suggestible to the alpha voice as john wasn't afraid to supplement his punishments with them so house would be physically incapable of not complying.

the first time wilson used the voice on house in a fit of frustration after house's incessant needling regarding wilson's obvious lack of life fulfillment ("you're not happy, you're just married."), house was genuinely afraid. he avoided him for days. wilson, mortified by his own loss of control and desperate to apologize, did Not let this be what killed their friendship, effectively (accidentally) sabotaging his own marriage to bonnie by prioritizing his relationship with house over his relationship with her. again.

[bitchfitch]

I've been seeing a new shrink for like. a month ish now. ok. and the thing about this new round of talk therapy is that I've been in and out of therapy for uhhhh 13? years at this point. More than half my life. so I know Exactly what is wrong with my skull and what to do to mitigate it, but in order to stay on my meds I have to keep going to talk therapy.

And this combined with the ADHD/autism thing of 'if I'm not interested in a topic there is not a power in heaven or hell that will make me stay on it instead of switching to a topic I do like', has been a challenge for my new shrink.

She will be trying to like, help me emotionally cope with the cruelty of the American healthcare system, and I'll be "Yeah I'm forced to stay in poverty to maintain access to healthcare but big whoop, cant do anything about it and I'm at peace with it, Anyways So there's this character called Miquella Elden Ring and I think people didn't really understand his vibes until the dlc- yeah no this has nothing to do with that I'm just thinking miqy thoughts"

[utilitycaster]

I must admit I do find it kind of weird when people are like "hopefully Bells Hells will talk about their feelings as a group this time" like even the prior two campaigns, where the parties had, in my opinion at least, much stronger bonds and regular communication, it was pretty rare to have a single big "having it out" group conversation as opposed to a number of side conversations, and on the occasions when they did have a large conversation as an entire group a lot of people whined that it wasn't good because it wasn't a corporate ice-breaker and/or grade school style "go around the circle and say something nice about someone else". Like there is not going to be a fix for discourse because some people are wicked stupid, is the problem, so don't let that bother you, and conflict resolution takes sustained time and many forms and it's more interesting if it lasts a while anyway so stop being so fucking scared of it because it will make your taste in fiction dull at the very minimum.

[anris-resurrection]

I Head canon that if. IF. Bill were a twink, and not an amorphous eldritch horror, he would be a creepy old man.

[stuckwith-harry]

i am handing in my b.a. thesis (on motherhood in gothic fiction) in a few short days and though i have been complaining about having to write it for six months straight, right now i am actually feeling bereft of future opportunities to write academic papers about my silly little interests. for instance right now i really want to research & write about dracula daily & genre & the impacts of the newsletter format on the narrative (the addition of a timeloop)

i think about format and the specifics of narration a lot when i'm writing my own little things and i loooove when the narration - not just the narrator, but the act of telling the story - is part of the narrative. love when the narration is diegetic! love an epistolary novel (like dracula!) for this reason. should read more of them

inventory by carmen maria machado (short story! read it immediately!) is a GREAT example of this. the format of the narration is so integral to the story. does more than elevate it imo, i would argue the story genuinely wouldn't work any other way

g*d. i'm gonna have to become a video essayist

[hallwyeoo]

Ellie’s memory of the golfing scene and what it tells us about her.

🚨spoilers for tlou2🚨

I think Ellie’s flashback to Joel’s death is very telling of how she internalized the event and the meaning she applied to his death. It’s also a good demonstration of her relationship to autonomy. Let’s break down the elements that were inconsistent with the actual event:

The stairs/hallway are much longer than they were. This suggests a sense of helplessness, an inability to get there fast enough. Joel is constantly out of reach.

There is blood on the floor outside of the door. Not entirely certain on this one but my hunch is that she blames herself for not seeing more obvious signs of violence/not knowing something was wrong sooner.

The door is locked, another roadblock in her path to Joel. She can’t access him, she can’t help, he needs her and she isn’t there.

Most importantly. Joel yells “Ellie, help me” (which he didn’t in the actual scene, he just screams. He doesn’t say a word in the actual scene)

Ellie hearing Joel scream for her help, calling for her while being horribly beaten, and her being repeatedly impeded on her way to him suggests that what she took away from his death is that she wasn’t enough. They always helped each other, always had each others backs, always got up. Ellie views his death as a failure. She was too slow, too weak, not smart enough to save him. She failed him when he needed her most. She is absolutely helpless to save him, just like she was helpless to save Riley, Tess, Sam, and Jessie (and Marlene, and humanity, and and and-).

Once again, Ellie makes a decision (staying with Riley, going to the fireflies, staying with Joel, being the cure, trying to forgive Joel) and once again her autonomy and ability to find closure is ripped from her.

This is the inciting incident of tlou pt2, this is the moment where Ellie’s whole world shatters the same way Joel’s did at the start of pt1. Ellie enters into the same cycle (which I like to call the “Joel cycle” because… yeah.) that he did, and throughout pt2 she stays in the “20 years later” phase of the cycle. She is changed, she has lost her light, lost what she fought for. She lost her chance to genuinely forgive Joel and rebuild their relationship. She is stuck in a gruelling and violent world that she has no anchor in, at least not anymore. His death is so sudden and so incredibly violent that it practically gave her (and me as well, tbh) whiplash. She’s in a state of total shock.

On another devastating note, this is one of the three times in tlou that we see Ellie beg (that I remember). The first is begging Joel to get up at the university of Eastern Colorado, the second is begging him to get up and for Abby to stop, and the third is begging Abby to not kill Dina because she’s pregnant. (Two times she begs Joel to get up, one time he doesn’t. Two times she begs Abby to spare her family and one time she does. What a beautifully haunting contrast)

To wrap up, every person creates an internal narrative, a story of their life that is crafted from their context and lived experiences. The meaning we derive from those experiences doesn’t always reflect the truth, and that can sometimes bite us in the ass majorly when we experience a traumatic event. We tend to want to find someone or something to assign blame to, some reason or rationale to why it happened. We tell stories. We write them in our minds about ourselves and what happens to us and what that says about us.

But Ellie is wrong. Joel’s death happened in response to a conscious and willing choice he made. It is in no way her fault, and there was absolutely no way for her to know or to stop what was happening. I think Ellie knows that much on an intellectual level, It just doesn’t change how devastated she is over the whole event. It can’t change the fact that she FEELS as though this was all her fault, that Joel did what he did to save her, that she could have saved him. That she should have.