#trauma dentata

[lesbianladyeboshi]

The Alex Wesker from Resident Evil Resistance, I wish there was more official art of this Evil Power Lesbian 🪻

[pussyandpastries]

i feel like the idea of the vagina dentata has so much potential for a good horror movie but Teeth was not that movie. Like maybe if a movie had a female protagonist who was just an absolute sadist? idk but i feel like there’s potential

[agendergorgon]

Alien Vs Predator Vs Gender TW for SA discussed as it relates to stupid sci fi franchises that we've been stuck with since the 80s.

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Alien Vs Predator is a weird crossover/comparison to me because Alien is about cyclical stories of abuse and predation and control where corporations and governments and a monster with a penis for a head (and a second, smaller penis for a tongue (and a third, larger penis for a tail for when they really need to penetrate someone in front of horrified onlookers)) conspire to control the bodies of women and Predator is a series of films that ask you if you're a bad enough dude to beat up a big sassy lad in fishnets and a skirt with a vagina dentata for a mouth.

In Predator a big guy killed your mates for fun and now he's here to have an epic 1v1 with you bro because you got 1 hit in on him after he soloed everybody else. Whatever horror there is is from some sort of sexless macho man slasher with something to prove having to face a big sassy lad who is better at the masculine criteria of being an untouchable 80s action hero.

In Prometheus a lady has something slipped in her drink and later finds out she was impregnated against her will. Alien (franchise) is a very different kind of fear of a big strong dude stalking you and your friends.

No Predator is worried about the psychosexual or SA themes of the Xenomorph, they think its cool and they want to kill it and look cool killing it. In Predator (2018) a big cool predator kills a bunch of dudes and then a bigger predator comes and kills him. Predator (franchise) is to me the male fear of a bigger stronger dude. In AVP (2004) a lady has to step up and become the protagonist of a Predator film, by tag teaming a bunch of Aliens with the help of a The Predator. There are nods to the sexual violence of the Alien films, like a lady comparing the to a condom ("I'd rather have one and not need it then need it and not have one.") who then needs said gun to avoid having her face hugged. But the action hero lead ends up feeling like another action dude in the same vain as (in descending order of macho cred and strangely also ascending order of film recency) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny Glover, Adrian Brody or whoever that dude in Predator (2018) that my brain kept telling me looked like Matt Damon was, just also happening to be a woman, vs Prey being a film that actually makes something of the added friction of being a woman in a Predator film. In AVPR (2007) our lead lad is a pizza boy who watches everyone around him die and has to rise to the circumstances like an Alien film protagonist... but doesn't face any of the same sexual violence. This dude gets bullied, fuck it, make the bullies call him faggot all movie, give him some horrific shower room trauma, there are ways to make this boy go through an Alien story. Holy shit, put a trans lad in an Alien film and the psychosexual horror of the facehugger/chestburster etc ratchets even further as far as the properties of this thing robbing you of control of your body, without resorting to whatever the fuck the writers were thinking with the maternity ward scene (don't google it if you don't know). I think a lot of Alien and Predator stuff is dragged down by the Predator's inclusion, forced to multiply the Aliens so more can get killed at every opportunity and give humans and Predators alike a chance to prove they're really cool. I think Predator and Alien are both about being afraid of a big dude, but the Predator is a big dude that makes you feel inadequate, unable to match up, and ends in the idea that you're cool, you win, you beat him. A Predator protagonist wins. They retire. They don't get another film. An Alien protagonist survives, and thinks she might be safe, and then wakes to find she's in another film, and that she gets to lose everything. She gets to be cut up and taken apart by a man who views her as his property or plaything. I grew up with these films, one's I was shown when I was way too young for it and laughed at gore and glowing green blood going everywhere. I read comics and played games and allsorts and I never thought enough about it until I was going through the wrong puberty and wishing I could look like Ripley and be anything other than the wankers in any Predator film without knowing any words to describe that feeling other than faggot. I worked stuff out and when my family stuffed me back in the closet so they didn't have to have awkward conversations with family friends I watched Alien Resurrection because that stupid film informs half my dress sense. I bitch to friends constantly that I wish I could find fishnets as thick as the ones in Predator so mine won't keep snapping all the time. I think about these films more than I think I do, and in the stupidest ways, and I know I'm going to see them until the end of time because franchises never die. But one of these series is about trying to survive as a woman, and the other is about trying to prove you're not a faggot, and I already made my choice there.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Chapter 27 of ACOWAR is a goddamn masterclass in Rhys fucking up, but the most absolutely unhinged, uncalled for, and uncool moment of his entire attempt to get Mor to be cool with him invalidating her trauma and the betrayal of him *springing goddamn Eris Vanserra on her in the Hewn City* is this one:

This exceeds the bounds of usefulness and leaps like a fucking traumatized gazelle into trauma Olympics. And alpha male Rhys over here is like, "I have the biggest, hardest trauma dick you have ever fucking seen, and I will stick in BACK IN THE VAGINA DENTATA if I have to in order to protect you all."

In case the sarcasm above didn't make it abundantly clear, this is peak toxic masculinity. It's also inherently invalidating Mor's trauma and her desire to not be further traumatized for the good of the group, which is also a SUPER TOXIC GROUP DYNAMIC. There's taking one for the team and then there's "Why can't you just be cool already and let us hurt you more?" There's also "I would take unlimited hits for all of you and I can't believe you're being so ungrateful and unwilling to do the same," which...FOR FUCKS SAKE RHYSAND, SEE A THERAPIST.

Mor might have worded her example a little poorly, but she is genuinely asking for Rhys to take a second, empathize, and acknowledge her feelings. And if he'd taken a second and DONE THAT, instead of going off on her for not being willing to take trauma points she didn't consent to or get warned about in advance, they might have been able to come to "I did a shitty thing and I'd feel awful too, but here's why I did it and I'm sorry" instead of insensitive, reactionary bullshit that damaged that relationship further because Rhys refused to admit that he was wrong.

And I'm not letting his ass off the hook just because Amren shamed it into apologizing. "I'm sorry" doesn't cut it here. This reflects expectations that are clearly not shared by the group--and shouldn't be, because again, TAKING ALL THE BULLETS IS A BAD EXPECTATION--and the mismatched expectations need to be addressed. Also, Mor needs some goddamn support right now. So does Rhys, if I'm being fair and generous (I do not want to be, because he was a dick about it). This needs to be addressed in more depth than Amren shaming Rhys into apologizing right before he then drops the "Oh hey, I also hid crucial info from you too" speech that has Azriel and Cassian getting ready to evacuate the house.

The kicker here? This did not need to devolve into trauma Olympics. Rhys has more than enough experience to understand that he made a dick move and handled it badly, and the fact that he went full-on reactionary when called on it? Like, this was starting to read like a Feyre/Tamlin scene. Rhys has the experience and knowledge to FUCKING KNOW BETTER. The fact that it got to this point is on him and he needs to step back and reassess. He's not going to, but he needs to, and I am falling off the Feysand train HARD here.

[inktog]

I reread Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone (I couldn't find the British version) for the first time in like fifteen years. Legitimately entertaining sometimes, especially the Hagrid bits.

The first few chapters are extremely Roald Dahl. The Dursleys don't just abuse Harry, they're also stupid and fat and boring and ugly and.

Hermione is the most obvious Marcy analogue, valuing school for its own sake. And if she's Wit, then Ron is Strength and Harry is Heart. I thought it might be the other way around (Harry Strength as the unwitting heir to Voldemort, Ron Heart due to idk good vibes), but consider Ron's giant chess trial, which involves bodily self-sacrifice, versus Harry's mirror trial, which tests purity of intent. And speaking of the mirror, Ron's innermost desire is to accumulate status, while Harry wants to connect with his family.

I wonder whether Marcy's butterfly-with-teeth reflection is a subtle Mirror of Erised reference. Harry, too, is startled into terror when he first sees the mirror, despite the fact that it shows him something he wants. ("He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself from screaming.") And I'm tickled by the inscription "I show not your face" since the butterfly is literally obscuring Marcy's face. The implication being that the butterfly-signified transformation (puberty? death? medical transition?) is desirable to Marcy even if it looks scary at first glance. Of course, the moral lesson of Erised, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live," applies more straightforwardly to Marcy's simulated fantasyland in 317.

If you substitute Snitch for snatch then Harry's first Quidditch game is very funny. His broom malfunctions so he uses his mouth instead. Cue uproarious applause. The defective-phallus imagery continues in Flitwick's trial, in which Harry identifies the correct key by the fact that it's been bent out of shape through previous use.

Devil's Snare has tentacle rape vibes. It's a leap of faith through the trapdoor; Harry is well aware that he might die. (Should they fight or embrace the fall.) He survives, and lets the others know it's safe to jump—into the tentacles. Only Hermione recognizes the danger; she laments that she has no wood to fight it, but duh, of course, she has a wand. (Magic gives you transsexualism.)

Diegetically, the plant is weak to fire. Within Marcy's personal symbology, plants are an odd-one-out baby symbol, mismatched with the other, transhumanist baby symbols, while fire signifies sexual trauma. Plants and fire directly at odds in 314a (which isn't a Marcy episode but does concern sexual violence). I don't know what to make of all this, except that the name "Devil's Snare" is more weak evidence of religious undertones to Marcy's trauma.

Harry's whole cannot-be-touched-by-evil-hands-because-of-his-mother's-love deal might map onto Marcy's recurring vagina dentata imagery.

Dumbledore's opposition to immortality keeps with his being Death in the tale of three brothers. It also occurs to me that Nicolas Flamel's age is one less than 666—as if he chooses to die before the Devil can lay a numerological claim on his soul.

You know who else has an utterly mundane evil in their headpiece whispering threats and promises of power?

[iandeleonwrites]

Trauma Dentata: A Brief History of the Tooth in the Popular Imagination

Since the mid twentieth century, North American children have likely been brought up with some rudimentary understanding of maturity and commerce vis-à-vis the shedding and growing of our teeth. We leave them under a sleeping pillow in the night for some unseen benefactor, a so-called fairy who gladly takes away our cast-off molars for a sawbuck or gold coins if we’re lucky. Thus, teeth become intimately linked in the collective unconscious with the physical and emotional development of our young bodies, not to mention the mystical realm of dreams and nightmares, economic pressures, and sexual fantasy.

Freud’s landmark case study of Little Hans draws upon many of these same connections in detailing a young boy’s struggle to understand sexual difference in light of an increasingly complex worldview conflating the mysterious nature of female reproductive organs with a crippling fear of well-endowed horses and their monstrous teeth. But how should we begin to step back and trace such powerful associations between our enamel-covered food grinders and evolving notions of sexuality, sexual maturity – where do we start?

Sobek, a crocodilian deity of ancient Egypt, might have been one of the first to concretise this understanding between vast rows of sharp, regenerative teeth and ideas of fertility, sexual prowess. To date, scientific research on the self-rejuvenating skeletal system of animals like sharks, gators, and crocodiles, continues to centre around its application toward the restoration of youth and vitality in humans. Powdered potions purporting to contain the remains of crocodile teeth, for example, have been marketed for years as aphrodisiacal elixirs within spiritual contexts.

It is no surprise then that amongst poachers, acquisition of the large, teeth-like tusks of elephants and sharp horns of the rhinoceros is a lucrative business, transforming these amputated appendages into highly sought-after totems of phallocentric pride and conquer-lust.

As early as 700 BCE, Monetaria moneta – a species of marine mollusc commonly known as the money cowrie – was used throughout China, India’s Malabar coast, and Africa as a means of trade. The smooth, egg-shaped shells typically feature a narrow, slit-like opening with toothed edges. Later, similar cowrie, along with elk’s teeth and assorted Dentalium – the genus containing toothy, tusk-shaped marine coastal shells – found their way amongst the indigenous peoples of North America’s Great Plains, forming part of a rich textile history that saw the embellishment of formal garments with such fashionable items, for which “the number of teeth symbolised the prowess of the husband-provider” and denoted “a family of means.”1

In the English language, a thing with sufficient teeth is a thing endowed with the necessary power and authority to see its will carried properly out. High-profile entertainment contracts have teeth, as do robust laws and amendments. Civic ordinances, federal arrest warrants, and court-appointed injunctions – all of these have teeth.

To be long in the tooth is to be considered old beyond one’s useful years. The phrase derives from the sobering fact of a horse’s physiology betraying its age through the mouth. To look a gift horse in the mouth, is thus to verify a horse’s viability through the close inspection of its teeth. Some length, of course, is desirable, implying a young, virile horse at peak levels of performance, but too much length raises cause for concern, and would no doubt spoil the success of any deal or trade.

In a gross pantomime of such practices, kidnapped Africans throughout the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were reported to have had their teeth inspected by would-be proprietors searching for signs of malnourishment and disease. A deeper look at this grim custom might go beyond its obvious reading as an oral-sadistic exercise in power, highlighting an implicit aspect: the outsized, neurotic fascination and trepidation projected onto the male Africans and the long tooth of their sex – historical site of pain and suffering at the hands of domineering whites.

But notions of masculinity being what they are – an ill-fitting confluence of prejudice, objectification, and subjugation – these insular whites elected over time to get their hands dirty less and less. The clear and present danger of the black phallus had become so taboo as to not even allow for mishandling. Genital torture was eventually outsourced to northern spheres of broader influence, namely academia and medical research institutions. There, at the turn of the century, the racist pseudoscience of eugenics allowed the tired lynch mobs of America to trade in their rusty banana knives in favour of a cleaner, silent program of genocide through forced sterilisation.

Thus the public castration of Black Americans now joined the symbolic order, becoming more insidious and covert, forcing the locus of traumatic violence to likewise make the migratory journey north, into the realm of the oral, where the perceived threat could take on a diminished capacity, becoming more bite-sized and digestible. In American History X, Derek (Edward Norton), a white supremacist, performs the heinous curb stomping of a black youth caught burglarising his truck. This extrajudicial suburban execution involves the placing of the prostrate victim’s teeth around the edge of a curb and, well, you can probably guess the rest. From here, it is no stretch at all to connect a death via obstruction of the orally-accessed windpipe, such as with the late Eric Garner.

The difficulties of navigating life with a mouthful of missing teeth were not lost on legendary silent film director Tod Browning, whose weird tales belied a lifelong interest in the obscure and the abject. Back in Hollywood’s early days, Browning found himself cast in the role of imprudent driver in a real-life narrative involving the fatal collision of his own speeding car and a service vehicle loaded with iron rails. Shot through with formidable arrows, like a steely version of Saint Sebastian, the beleaguered automobile delivered a tragic closing monologue in the form of untimely death for one and a host of grievous injuries to the others. Browning survived the cinematic ordeal with a shattered leg and the complete loss of his forward-facing teeth, necessitating a lengthy, albeit productive convalescence away from the industry.

During the 1927-1931 transition into talkies, Browning lent a trained eye (and newly mustachioed post-op countenance) to stories of Trauma Dentata, defined here for the first time as scenarios evincing the locus of psychological trauma within representations of teeth, or teeth-like apparatus.

His now lost masterpiece London After Midnight and the classic Dracula foreground a crepuscular phantasmagoria of razor-toothed wraiths whose centers of violent gravity, their power, emanate from the stylized gothic cathedrals of their oral cavities. Browning, a sometime alcoholic, was reported to have removed his painful and taboo dentures on at least one solemn occasion when, during a public altercation, he hurled the blasted things like a terrifying new species of porcelain bat, yelling at the offending party: “Here, why don’t you go and biteyourself!”

While consumers of vast quantities of blood, the nosferatu, pale, undead beings with unnaturally cold skin, technically have no blood actually circulating through their veins. This lack of blood flowing to their extremities renders the male vampire impotent by definition, relegating his entire erotic nature – like the black male of the repressive white imaginary – to the area of the mouth, a hell of pearly gates punctuated by a powerful set of retracting beast-fangs hidden beneath the gum line. As the Vets say: “If you ain’t got it in the hips, you better have it in the lips.”2

Marcel (Pierre Clémenti) in Belle de Jour is a man who certainly has it in the lips. The handsome gangster, oozing with silver screen sexuality, enters the film’s quaint brothel with a triumphant black trench coat, moppish head of hair, and glossy, patent leather short-boots. He can definitely get it. With director Buñuel’s staging and Clémenti’s deft characterisation, the ease of Marcel’s masculine station is complicated through his use of a walking stick – classic symbol of infirmity, impotence – and a mouth full of surgical-grade chrome dentures standing in for a missing row of teeth knocked out in a recent street fight.

But despite the presence of these traditional signifiers of the castrated man, Clémenti is able to weaponise Marcel’s shortcomings, making of them instead surprisingly queer and alluring fetish objects, prefiguring the rise of customisable luxury cosmetic grillz popularised by African American Hip-Hop artists.

Early on in the quarantine of 2020, Netflix’s documentary phenomenon Tiger King roared across our timelines, introducing viewers to a bevy of beguiling subjects, including John Finlay, who became an unwitting internet meme in the wake of the show’s meteoric rise in popularity. As the erstwhile, salt-of-the-earth ex-husband of titular King Joe Exotic, Finlay bared his innocent, interrupted smile for the judgy eyes of the movie cameras.

The result of persistent drug use, Finlay’s remaining, candlepin-like teeth were the source of much merriment. That is, until the movie cameras caught up with him again. In the years since recording the documentary footage, Finlay had bought himself a brand new set of teeth, lifting a sort of collective fog for audiences who suddenly found the man uncompromisingly attractive, making him the internet’s latest celebrity boyfriend and providing a tidy dramatic arc for the rookie heartthrob’s well-earned fifteen minutes of fame. John Finlay went from being a zero to hero, not in the space of a few months, but in the close distance between two canines and a handful of premolars.

But can we have too much teeth? For this writer, who was born with no less than six now-extracted wisdom teeth, the consequences of being full in the tooth are all too familiar. Mind the gap as we continue to probe the dental politics of lack and excess.

At the dawn of the new millennium, blossoming actor Christian Bale found himself ready for the next stage of his professional life. A new, potentially career-defining opportunity was waiting for him. All he had to do was get rid of his ginormous teeth.

Upon the release of American Psycho, Bale admitted to having had to make the somewhat difficult decision of having his teeth fixed for the iconic part. In order to better fill the role of literal American psychopath Patrick Bateman, Bale’s supposedly “vampiric” incisors and “feminising” gap between his top teeth would have to go.3 Although rebuffed by statistical facts, humans draw comfort from imagining our criminals as somehow monstrously different from the rest of us. To convincingly play the narcissistic, insecure Wall Street man-child butchering sex workers amidst a Reaganomic fugue state in 1980s Manhattan, Bale would have to conform to popular conventions and make of his teeth an uncanny valley.

His noticeably reduced tooth-line certainly adds to his menacing portrayal as the bloodthirsty Bateman, a Valentino-suited power broker with a raging, ambiguous sexuality to go with that eerily short smile and cabbinalistic ideations. The many insecurities and violent appetites swirling within Bateman are mirrored in the boundless accumulation of wealth and personal prestige found in our society.

Perhaps the most surreal and telling manifestation of this despotic worldview has its cinematic apex during a fatal three-way that ends with a naked (save for pristine Nikes) Bateman chasing a young woman through the quiet halls of his indifferent apartment building, the locus of his dento-phallo power momentarily shifted back below the waist, where a designer chainsaw discreetly covers up his exposed penis. An edenic Adam for the slasher age.

Women too experience anxieties of excess and lack in regards to dental appearance. In Gap-Toothed Women, the “feminising” gap occurring between the upper front teeth is explored in relation to the Western male gaze, and its historically negative appraisal of women taking up too much space, even if it’s in their own goddamn mouths. Women with these pronounced gaps in their teeth have had to fight, literally tooth and nail, for their right to appear on billboards, in television commercials, and across the covers of magazines, flouting prevailing standards of beauty.

Because if there’s one thing humans struggle with it’s the abject, the in-between. That thing that is neither one, nor the other, ambiguous. What was true for Finlay and Bale is also true for women. They’ve got to go in one direction or the other: either the gap is filled, patched and smoothed over like a section of drywall, or the pillars that define the offending gap are dissolved altogether, crumbling like columns upon the temple floor.

In the popular imagination of the heterosexual male, there exists a fear of women’s reproductive power that renders the vagina a site for potential trauma dentata, making the oral cavity an attractive substitute, despite the literal presence of dentata. Here, the male engaged in oral sex subsumes the threat of phallic violence as long as his experience reproduces a conception of the mouth as a toothless spectacle. Locker room talk has indeed ventured into the erotic possibilities of bedding senior women, in the hopes that their removable dentures allow for a more enjoyable, friction-less fellating experience. It is no wonder that the intended chastity belt of orthodontic braces creates such consternation for the adventurous adolescent male.

The mouth of women has been a critical battleground for the dominant patriarchal order since time immemorial. From those parted lips, jettisoned upon flashing tongues, such secrets might be revealed, injustices given voice to, as might disturb the whole delicate balance of the carnivalesque male power structure. Here, as in the cinema, silence was golden.

Consider the scold’s bridle, an archaic instrument of wearable torture used as a form of punishment and public humiliation against women deemed “riotous” or “troublesome” in their speech, gossipy in their manner, or simply, common old “rude nags” and “scolds”. The muzzling iron framework of the bridle pinned the woman’s tongue against her upper palate, preventing her from speaking, and resulting in a variety of unpleasant side effects, including fatigue of the mouth and excessive production of saliva. In other words, a self-lubricating wet dream scenario for the vagina phobic’s oral-displacement, an ovipositing face-fucker of Alien imaginaries.

To wash down the above image, let’s re-focus our discussion toward the realm of popular serial killers and their fictional counterparts. For Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, a well documented history of trauma dentata factored heavily in their apprehension and later convictions. Bundy had a mouthful of poorly aligned teeth and a proclivity for biting. Ramirez (The Night Stalker) was the stuff of oral nightmares. After a lifetime of neglected hygiene and excessive sugar intake, glimpses of Ramirez’s rotted, foul-smelling teeth became his calling card. Both used their abnormal dental situations to great effect in their predations, but lest we forget, there is no on-to-one ratio between bad teeth and sociopathy.

While a bruised self-image may have contributed to their growing sense of alienation and emotional decay, it is unlikely that any amount of corrective dental surgery early on would have prevented them from committing their crimes. This is correlation versus causation. It is the popular imaginary at work again, telling us what to look for, what to believe. So let’s look at an example of an individual punking the profile, nearly out-witting the G-men.

Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon and its cinematic adaptations feature a wholly compelling serial killer archetype that rivals the sophisticated charisma of series heavy, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Here, a brutal antagonist with unexceptional teeth takes up the mantle of trauma dentata to reclaim the oral cavity as a site of vengeance, enacting a kind of denticular détournement against a previous source of trauma.  

Francis Dolarhyde, dubbed “The Tooth Fairy” by the press, is mischaracterised by the feds as an “impotent homosexual” on the strength of his faggy crime scene signatures, which include strange, Bundy-like bite marks, the smashing of mirrors, and the mutilation of eyes. Harris is obviously poking fun at the often simplistic psychoanalytic associations found in popular police procedurals and their pat profiles of criminals more sketchily drawn than Dolarhyde or Lecter.

We learn later that Tooth Fairy’s peculiarities actually have their roots in childhood abuse suffered at the hands of a browbeating grandmother, a mould of whose teeth Dolarhyde re-appropriates in order to create the grizzly bite marks left on his victims. Personal prejudice and a misapprehension of history or language can often lead to poorly drawn conclusions carrying disastrous results. The persistent, colonial hold-over teaching us about the bad teeth of our astonishingly loyal allies across the North Sea may attribute its longevity to such failings.4

Luckily, language is a mutable thing, and whilst one voice may be easy enough to silence, a whole group of the disenfranchised, working in concert, can be as thunderous and unwavering as a Lacanian typhoon.

In Les Dents du singe (Monkey’s Teeth), some patients of a French mental health clinic work in collaboration to create the scenario for an animated film. The resulting short, with virtually no mediation from the creators, involves a ruthless dentist who steals the teeth of the poor and, reverse Robin Hood, gives them to the rich. Until a magical monkey magician exacts revenge on the people’s behalf.

Freudian cinephile Mary Wild has analysed the film through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis, describing each stolen tooth as representative of “a distinct signifier that, in a sequence alongside other teeth/signifiers, forms the symbolic order (i.e., language).” The dentist represents the superego, the father figure, who profits from the pilfering of impoverished teeth, in essence robbing the patients of their language, their identity, and their access to it, plunging the patients into “loneliness, isolation, and suffering”.

At the critical moment of extraction, the dozing filmic patient imagines his teeth personified – as himself, his friends or family members, maybe fellow patients – sitting around a table, one by one being plucked into obscurity by an indifferent, omnipresent hand of fate. Later, the void left by a missing tooth takes on an apocalyptic dimension, resembling a barren wasteland littered with corpses. For the psychotic real-world patient, transgressor of boundaries and language, the deceptively simple silent libretto becomes a scathing critique of their own place in the world, “ostracis[ed] from normal society and alienat[ed] from himself”, the toothless, animated figures become “half person[s]”, depleted of their lifeforce (castrated), pursued by law enforcement, and folded into the brutal machinery of everyday life. In essence, chewed up and spat back out, only to endure the whole thing again in some novel way.

When the magic monkey returns the stolen teeth into the patient’s mouth, there has occurred a “reclaiming/reorganization of banned/repressed signifiers in the psychotic imaginary”, culminating in a successful and healthy return to society that points to a happy way forward, a passageway to speech and identity forged through a brazen bypassing of the despotic oral cavity. Universal cinematic language as a revolutionary detour on the road to trauma dentata.

For more examples of TRAUMA DENTATA on the screen check out:

Straw Dogs, 1971

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974

Jaws, 1975

Marathon Man, 1976

Vampire’s Kiss, 1989

Sleepy Hollow, 1999

Teeth, 2007

Hannibal (S2E9 “Shiizakana”), 2014

Possessor, 2020

**this essay was originally published on Screen Queens

[radicalmedusa]

any recs on writing about women who kill👀👀👀 asking for me

oh you have absolutely come to the right place. i've been working on a list of rage & revenge media for ages

Caligula, Lingua Ignota / music album but very much about feminine revenge; I'm obsessed with everything she's ever written & esp her interviews in which she talks about her intentions/creative process with her art, and with this album in particular - she recently released a new work on Bandcamp, spoken word over original film to process religious trauma

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn / no list like this is complete without this one

Nemesis, Cat Bruno / recently began reading this one and I like it so far. The writing has some mistakes in it but I actually kind of like that; it has a sort of charming vibe to it somehow. I like the voice and tone as well. Not sure how it will end but I'm vibing so far with it. It's about a woman who discovers her husband is cheating on her and concocts a plan to kill him and possibly also develops an obsession/attachment to the Greek goddess Nemesis? I haven't reached that part yet but I'm pretty excited to

The Harpy, Megan Hunter / MC's husband cheats or something (I honestly forget, I read this book several months ago) and they come up with an agreement that she's allowed to hurt him three times to get even. It's peppered with snapshots of her fascination throughout her life with harpies and the ending was literally insane. Still processing it.

Goddess of Filth, V. Castro / just finished this one and I loved it. It's about a group of female friends who play with an Ouija board or something and one of them ends up possessed by an ancient female goddess who wants them to tell her story. Involves a murder and justice at the end. Probably (definitely) my favorite take on a possession story

They Never Learn, Layne Fargo / haven't read this yet but it's next on my list. Summary is an English professor hunts down the worst men on her campus every year and kills him. Goodreads summary says she 'charms the woman in charge' of the investigation into the murders which I'm really hoping means they fall in love

And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges, Amber Sparks / also haven't read yet but the title is promising and I read an interview w the author and it does seem like it should have plenty of revenge. high hopes for this one

Salt Slow, Julia Armfield / my favorite short story collection. If you like Carmen Maria Machado, you'll like this.

My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite / obsessed. It's about two sisters, one of whom kills and the other helps her dispose of the bodies. Pretty heterosexual but I love the killer sister and I'm obsessed with stories of sisterhood like this

The Power, Naomi Alderman / all women suddenly have an electricity-like power and society begins its sudden descent into matriarchy, love this one and read it whenever I need some good old female rage

Queen of Teeth, Hailey Piper / haven't read it yet but it's about a girl with vagina dentata so I'm really hoping it fits here. Can't wait until I can pick up a copy.

and, of course, The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas. cannot finish this list without mentioning THE female rage text

[semanti]

“Doing this project as a solo artist, in the last couple of years I had a different demon with me for all my shows and videos, and that was created because I felt like any man that was around me was an actual demon. So why don’t I make that real? He represents all the men in my life. It was cool and fun, but then I realised I’m manifesting and perpetuating having shitty men and toxic people in my life by having this demon. Even if I’m not experiencing that abuse anymore, I’m still swimming in it. I talk about this a lot. When you’re reactionary you’re still a slave to what has repressed you. When you act reactionary. When you go, ‘Yeah, well you know what, fuck you!” It’s more about just being responsible for myself and my well-being. (...) When you make it pretentious and arty, you lose the direct message. I have such a direct message. I don’t consider myself a rapper, but I have things I need to say very clearly, so that’s why it’s coming out in this style. I need it to be in your fucking face because we are tiptoeing around it. Even the word ‘rape’ is trigger word, we should be careful about using that. I’m like, yeah but my whole life has been that and a lot of people I know too have experienced that, so I’m not going to be repressed by not saying my fucking truth and experience.”

- Dana Dentata from “"I’m proud of myself for surviving": how Dana Dentata overcame trauma to find empowerment”

[recommendedlisten]

Video: Dana Dentata - “pantychrist”

Hyperpop fiends, nü-metal resurrectionists, goths, and rap hype beasts, plan to collide in the pit at some point later this year when Dana Dentata releases her debut full-length album pantychrist, making her the first woman solo artist to do so on venerable heavy label Roadrunner Records in the process. We’ve already been formally introduced to the rap-metal menace’s in-your-face grapple against patriarchal demons on the early single “DO U LIKE ME NOW?”. The album’s latest preview, its title track, is another statement of purpose, boasting production by 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady. As one of the multi-genre’s most fascinating stylemakers, Brady’s hand maximalizes a buzzsaw beat behind Dentata’s trauma exorcism, and in turn, pierces her bars deeper into your skin. Paired with its blasphemy-baiting gory music video directed by Kathleen Dycaico, channeling the “pantychrist” is Dana Dentata unleashing her unholy spirit in its fully realized form.

Dana Dentata’s “pantychrist” single is available now on Roadrunner Records.

[amagpie]

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate season 3 (aka the best season) in this trying time, which gave us:

Julia taking ownership of her body and learning to heal from her trauma

Margo rocking the fuck out of every single eye-patch look

Quentin having the quest to give his life purpose and help him deal with his depression

Eliot and Margo shenanigans

“A Life in a Day” and “Six Short Stories About Magic”

Vagina dentata

Alice the torture artist

the keys giving the entire season a coherent structure and climax

[babylon-crashing]

I gave myself a tarot reading using my much loved Barbara Walker deck. Here’s what I think about these cards (which feel frighteningly accurate, haha):

CARD 1: THE PRESENT

King of Wands: Valraven. “Under a crown of shamrocks (one of the symbols of the Holy Trinity) the king listens to his messenger, the black bird of magic speech.” Masculine fire energy that is at peace with the mysteries of the Triple Goddess through the use of ceremonial “castration” in an attempt to mimic menstrual blood. According to Walker, in a Chukchi variant, the Great God Raven acquired feminine secrets by pulverizing his own penis and feeding it to the Cosmic Mother, Miti. Thus the Raven King is credited with a lustful, energetic, active nature without any of the tropes of toxic masculinity … or at least that is the goal.

CARD 2: THE CHALLENGE

The Papess. “The female spiritual authority sits between her temple pillars, Alpha and Omega, with an open book on her lap. The Keys of the Kingdom lie before her; a veil hangs behind.” The Magician in the Rider-Wait deck. In Gnostic faith the Papess embodies Enlightenment and provides absent sky-god with “I-deas” (literally, female spirits) and ability to act. Much like Shakti, the Papess is linked with the moon, which was once thought to give women their life-producing “wise blood.” Only through (re)search, teaching and revelations are we able to enter the temple of Wisdom that runs through our bodies.

CARD 3: THE PAST

Six of Cups: Childhood. “Naked and vulnerable, a child returns to the awesome Great Mother. Hidden memories of childhood impelled the ancients to visualize their divine ancestors as giants, which is how every child sees adults. Therefore the primal Great Mother was a giantess, a mountain, or a pyramidal tombwomb, in humanity’s legendary Golden Age, when law was based on maternal blood bonds.” Such a psychic return means touching upon deep memories, confronting old traumas and pain. How we deal with lost love, both amorem venereum and familia, speaks to how we deal with our spiritual condition since, at a very basic level, the soul is love. My parents, who freely admit that perhaps one of the reasons I was learning disabled was due to Shaken Baby Syndrome, arrive tomorrow for a week-long visit. The past has never been safe.

CARD 4: THE FUTURE

Ten of Swords: Ruin. “The divine hero-martyr dies bound to his pillar on a bleak seacoast, attended by the black-clad priestess and her bird of doom.” In Walker's version of the card, Cúchulainn (whose name means Culann's Hound), is a Celtic god and antihero, a child born from a holy virgin, sentenced to his ceremonial death by Macha (alternative names for Morgan and Mab, the Queen of the Dead). Misfortune, desolation, martyrdom and pain are Cúchulainn's rewards for failing to recognize the Triple Goddess' divinity.

CARD 5: ABOVE

Princess of Wands: Atargatis. “Floating between sun and moon, the Sea goddess represents both giving and taking, her traditional breast-offering pose countered by the dangerous, devouring vagina dentata. Like other forms of the Middle Eastern Goddess. Atargatis/ Astarte/ Anahit/ Ishtar stood for both nurture and destruction.” Her card symbolizes overwhelming power, a dangerous obsession, represented by the trickster spider. Though hazardous and often leading to chaos and ruin, her path also brings reward in the aftermath to the ones who follow her.

CARD 6: BELOW

Four of Cups: Decline. “On the night of the seventh veil, a king sits apprehensively watching the sacred Dance of Seven Veils as performed by the high priestess Salome (Salom, Peace) in Jerusalem (the House of Salom).” In ancient cyclic philosophies, each period of fulfillment was followed by a period of decline. The Goddess suffers the death of her mortal lover and follows him into the the land of the dead to claim him back. As in Oscar Wilde's play, Salome removes one of her magic veils at each of the underworld’s seven gates. In Walker's card the fourth cup has been overturned, symbolizing oncoming of old age, fading away into the shadows, disenchantment; all the possible negativity one might find at the end of one's life's cycle.

CARD 7: HOPES AND FEARS

Six of Swords: Passage. “Six ghostly warriors cross the black river Styx to enter the underworld gate, guarded by its silent Goddess, the giant Sphinx.” In Walker's notes concerning this card she states that the Styx in the underworld was often seen as a river of blood leading to (and sometimes from) the Goddess’s womb. I remember reading Lloyd Alexander's Prydain-series as a child which featured the Black Cauldron of Welsh myth; a magic tool where the souls of the fallen were regenerated. As the boat nears the shore a figure on the riverbank can be seen holding up a torch, but it is impossible to determine whether the light is a form of greeting or warning. While it is tempting to interpret this card simply as positive forward movement, it can also indicate nervous unease, as passages through the dark tend to be when the future is unknowable and everything is at stake.

CARD 8: OUTCOME

The Moon. “Two dogs howl at a full moon ringed by nine drops of blood. A path leads between two pillars into darkness. A crab perches in the middle of a dark pool. Dogs traditionally guard the gate of death, which leads to the moon. It was once thought all souls went to the Moon-mother to be regenerated. Hence the blood drops: one for each menstrual 'hidden moon-blood' period.” This card ties together with the Papess' “wise blood,” which is directly connected to lunar influences. According to Walker the crab is a symbol of death for those who believed doomsday would arrive when the planets lined up in the constellation of Cancer, the Crab. For many the Moon card points to a crisis of faith, the Gnostic's dark night of the soul.

[popcultureoverdosed]

Youthful Dystopia of Narutaru

Narutaru was beneficial enough to have been made in an era where deconstruction series was gaining traction. If it were to made now, it'd probably be labeled as edgy without any mention of the actual quality of the story. Notably, the genre being deconstructing is the Mon( Digimon, pokemon, etc) genre. Unlike magical girl and mecha shows of today, Mon anime are still generally fluffy and childish so a darker take on the genre was definitely in order.

To give a little backdrop on the creator Mohiro Kitoh, he's pretty much a nihilist that rivals gen urubuchi in cruelty. His other works include a giant robot that steals the life force of children to destroy the multiverse and a psychic teen whom mass murders anyone who drives irresponsibly. He's that type of guy.

The main appeal of the story comes from the interactions between the children and their shadow dragons, rather than actual plot progression. Shadow dragons are mysterious creatures who bond to the characters with a psychic link, sharing their pain and inner thoughts. The names of the shadow dragons are often reflective of their user's psychology. For example, Norio's dragon is Vagina dentata representing his feminine appearance and inability to become intimate with the man he loves.

Our first real look into the world of Narutaru comes in the form of Tomonori Komori. The first few chapters spend time lolly gaging and establishing a vaguely foreboding mood, but, Komori establishes how this world operates. He a textbook level sociopath. A charming young boy who is revered by those in his neighborhood. All that charm is simply a facade he puts on to hide his true sinister views. He wants a Darwinistic world where all of the educated and well to do members of society are killed off, leaving the world in a survival of the fittest state. " Those who are weak and can't fend for themselves deserve to die," he says despite having a sick mother to take care of. He's ironically killed off by hoshimaru, one of the weaker dragons.

Komori is far from the only disturbed child in the series. The children have few qualms with murder and treat it casually. What sets this mon series from those of the same genre is that it treats its children character like actual humans. They aren't saints who only use their abilities for good. They're selfish and use these dragons to suit their own needs. It seems that being psychologically damaged is a requirement for having a dragon. Even upbeat Shiina has her hang-ups about her identity. This theory of trauma giving birth to shadow dragons is more or less confirmed with Hiroko.

She's a shy girl who's constant physical and emotional abuse from her bullies and parents allow her to awaken Oni. Her parents are representative of a common problem in Asian society. They only value their daughter for her academic status and chide her for being anything less than perfect. Her bullies torment her for being too smart and standing out during class. Both parties have opposite reasons for hating Hiroko, but, they both wish to strip away her individuality and turn her into a submissive slave of society. Awakening her shadow dragon allows Hiroko to finally get revenge on her tormentors, even if it means becoming a serial killer in the process.

The manga is definitely a character-driven tale that dwells deep into the psyche of highly disturbed children. You have Akira who has depression and suicidal tendencies, Aki Honda who raped a girl with a test tube and the girl in question who snaps and goes in a killing spree. You could say that all of this bleakness is a bit too much but honestly, it felt refreshing. Mon series are generally really cheesy with bland one-note characters and a story that only exists to sell merchandise. Narutaru breaks the mold and presents characters who are multi-faceted and lifelike. Contrary to popular belief, children aren't always innocent and they can be just as cruel as adults.

One major gripe I have with the manga is the art. Mohiro sure can write but his art isn't winning any awards, that's for sure. Character designs are bland and minimalist. I admit the military paraphernalia is drawn in extensive detail and the dragons have cool designs but that's about it. Other manga artists can do sketchy manga art perfectly but Mohiro isn't one of them.

I also wasn't too particularly fond of the second half of the manga. It drops elements of deconstruction and character drama to replace it with military affairs. I understand the writer is a military nut but having chapters littered with walls of text of JSDF members reacting to the shadow dragon was just so tedious. It would've been better if the plot focused solely on the children and how their actions affect their environment. The second half of the manga lost what made Narutaru so special. It started as a character study of how immature kids react to newfound power only for the story to get Monopolized by adults. some characters like Mamiko Kuri, Norio Koga, and sudo desperately needed more screentime and character development. Mamiko is the worst offender as she only exists to be overtly cryptic until the final volumes.

I highly recommend anyone curious to please read the manga. It's ultimately a story of children thrown into an adult world of violence with little room to grow up. It's a thought-provoking social commentary on the nature of humans and how far their cruelty can go. There's an anime adaptation that isn't as good but is still a fun watch. Even if it's unlikely I'd to see the anime get a remake with a bigger budget and completely adapt the manga. If it did get a remake, here's whom I'd want to work on it:

Studio Mappa/ Geno studio- They seem more willing than other studios to work on nontraditional anime. They also tend to have high production values, something the Narutaru anime desperately needed. Producer twin engine would probably need to be involved

Sadyuki Murai(scriptwriter)- His work on boogiepop Phantom and Juuni Taisen has shown he excels at character drama and psychological thrillers. His style would work perfectly with the narrative and maybe even give the side characters some much-needed development. Taku Kishimoto would be my second choice

Takahiro Kishida( Character designer)- He has a sketchy and rough art style that can perfectly encapsulate the feel of the manga. I'm sure he'd improve on the demure character designs and make them more dynamite.

Takahiro Omari( Director)- He directed Durarara and Baccano which tells me he knows how to work with an ensemble cast. He also directed Hell girl, which had heavy social commentary poised at Japanese society, something Kitoh would love.

Yugo Kanno(Composer)- This guy knows how to how to Composer dark and suspenseful tracks that can amplify the intensity of the manga.

Be sure to check out these two other blogs that went far more in-depth than I ever could.

https://hanagasaitayo.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/analysis-narutaru-mukuro-naru-hoshi-tama-taru-ko/

https://manymanytoes.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/narutaru-shadow-star/

[ao3feed-keithshiro]

teeth

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2vBiDkb

by cervine_salad

Trans Keith is finally seeking professional medical attention for his... little problem. That problem, which has plagued him ever since sexual maturity, happens to be a case of vagina dentata: a condition so rare it's considered folklore. Dr. Takashi Shirogane, OBGYN, is the first to diagnose and attempt to treat the anomaly. But as they grow closer, the lines between doctor and patient become blurred. And the Teeth can smell blood in the water.

Read the prologue here: https://twitter.com/cervine_salad/status/1119106884709916672

Words: 1610, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron)

Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Trans Male Character, Trans Character, Trans Keith (Voltron), Modern Era, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Vaginal Sex, Sex Toys, Vagina Dentata, Vaginal, Dildos, Medical Procedures, Medical Kink, Medical Conditions, Cybersex, Loss of Limbs, Amputation, Trauma, Medical Trauma, Phone Sex, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Consensual Sex, Consensual Kink, Anal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Object Penetration, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, m - Freeform

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2vBiDkb

[figjelly]

The 2018 Rumination Spectacular

It’s a long post. It’s gonna be triggering. Blacklist “ash 2018″ and “long post.” Sorry mobile users. Here’s a picture. Use this as a warning that you should blacklist those tags NOW if you don’t wanna read:

For about a week, I’ve wondered how to start this post. How to finish it. What to put in the middle. It’s really a shame, being depressed and anxious and all sorts of other things but maintaining a high self-esteem. It’s not like I want to. My mind and my brain and my body refuse to let me just be. They constantly remind me I have to be center stage, the best, to be adored. Let’s be honest. I don’t have high self-esteem. I have an obsessive, insatiable desire for love because I was born to abusive people. I was raised by more abusive people. I’ve continued to place my trust and well-being in abusive people. And then, when things fall spectacularly apart, I blame myself. I blame my body. I blame my brain. I blame my mind. A lot has happened this year. A big thing: the realization that I desperately crave others to want me. I want to feel loved and valuable and interesting and just wanted. And, I guess, that’s what school gave me. I left my PhD program in May 2017 and it’s taken almost two years to realize I didn’t stay in school or move into higher education because I had a burning passion (okay, I mean, I do still have a passion for my work but it wasn’t the foundation). The American education system gave an abused child something slightly better than I had: praise and positive feedback for jumping hoops. My home life twenty years ago? There was no rhyme or reason to which behaviors would yield which result. School? College? Grad school? Let’s face it. I’m white. At the time I was identifying as straight and female. I was going into STEM. Perform well, earn As, be friendly. Rules rules rules. Two weeks ago, I finally told my therapist of almost five years how my first sexual experience was a doctor raping me. It’s really funny. Hilarious actually how it’s taken thirty-one years to feel like I am my own person. Because before the doctor, there’d been my step-father (”It isn’t really enough to do anything with,” the police had told me when I was sixteen at my then therapist’s office). There’d been the high school boyfriend (”My dad was in the marines. I inherited his anger management problems.”). But there was also my mom. My grandmother who isn’t my grandmother but she “adopted” my mom as her daughter. They met online on a forum for Forever Knight, a 90s Canadian supernatural romance crime show about a woman who has a vampire for a partner. It’s really hard, yanno, to be gentle with myself. Don’t be angry.

So, 2018 was a year of me working on this. I’m still working. I’m angry at everything nowadays. There’s no good resolution to it other than to sit with it. I don’t understand how people can say, “Let anger go,” like I intentionally hold onto it. This anger and pain and trauma is carved into my bones and it gets carried through like oxygen in my bloodstream. Whenever I think about this anger at myself, the regret and the hurt, the left side of my left arm hurts. It starts about the middle of my forearm and goes to my pinky. Asking when this started isn’t a useful question. I’m angry because I let myself be used and hurt by people. I’m angry because I ignored my own needs and wants. I’m angry because now I’m thirty-one and it feels like my life is over. I made a lot of decisions and they were all made for the benefit of others. “Be your own person,” only works when you’ve got a person who isn’t desperate for love. I’m angry because I feel like I’ve wasted my life worrying about other people. Yes, yes. I’m not old. Don’t bother telling me. You don’t pay my bills. You can tell me what I feel when you give me money--substantial amounts of it. In 2005, I gave my step-father $1500. I’ve been working at the local Dairy Queen for years, saving money religiously because I was desperate to get a car, drive, gain independence. My parents told me the insurance was too expensive. My step-dad was the only driver because my mom has MS. It would probably never happen, but just in case. I should save, just in case. I gave my step-father money because he said, “The van needs fixed. Without it, you know your mom can’t get to the hospital.” I can’t remember any night between the ages of 15-17 when the police of the EMTs weren’t at my house. All of my homework was usually left abandoned in red and blue lights. I’d get back to it at midnight. Nothing mattered to my teachers except that I made As. At this point, I don’t know where blame lies but it seems pretty solid that I get stuck with the anger. 2018 was the year I realized that I don’t know how to have friends, how to keep a job, how to think about a career. 2018 was the year I realized that I have to make peace with living in poverty again. I was doing so well. Grad school was the best my finances had ever been. Until December 2013. I tried to kill myself. It’s old news. I was in the hospital. They forgot about me and I ended up spending three more days than needed. PROTIP: don’t try killing yourself during the holidays. Everyone will just tell you the holidays are rough for everyone. And finals. Mid-December is the time for students to also feel the pressure. If you’re neither of these, good luck. I took out massive amounts of student loans to go back to school. To pay my hospital bills. I was so desperate to get back into school because it was the only place that made sense. 2018 was the year I decided to change my name, my gender. I’m learning how to live in my body. It’s taken thirty-one years, but I’ve come to the realization it was mine. For six years, I took meds that made me weigh over 200 lbs all for the benefit of the high school boyfriend. For five years I starved myself because I wanted everyone to see what a successful PhD student I was. My body has never been mine before. This is a new thing for me. 2018? It started off with hope. There was less hope for most of it. I think it’s ending with hope. I hope it is.

My mom refuses to stop calling me. Five years ago, I stopped answering her calls. I begged her to stop. I was polite. I was rude. I was angry. I was at peace. I’ve tried everything. Her contacting me isn’t about me, it’s about her. It’s about what she wants. in December of 2013, I tried to kill myself.

It’s so old news, my mom told my partner when he called her, “Oh. Well, let me know when everything’s okay.” In 2009 I was admitted into the hospital for exhaustion. I’d had a breakdown in college. I was told to try yoga. Meditation. I was told it was just test anxiety. All I’ve ever desperately wanted was to be the priority.

And I bent for other people. I broke myself and put myself back together in ways other people would find pleasing. I bend and I break and now my body hurts. Chronically. In 2016 I was in a car accident. My partner has told me most of this story. I remember almost nothing. I spent two months locked up in my house with a concussion. More debt. More weight gained. My partner tells me at one point the doctors kept poking and prodding my feet. He tells me that I wasn’t responding and that my legs weren’t moving. He was horrified that the accident had left me paraplegic. I don’t remember any of this. The doctors eventually told him it was just shock. My body overloaded with too much too fast. And not enough neuron action, I guess. Too much, not enough. I discovered yesterday that Jack Kerouac said something similar. I’ve never read anything by him. Must be a common human feeling. Everything is too much. Everything is not enough. 2018 is right now still and I’m still working on reshaping myself for myself and not for others. 1987 was right then and thirty days before it ended, I came at the last minute. I’ve spent my entire life trying to make sure I was early to make a good impression. Now, I arrive when I arrive. I live in the land of -ish. Work hasn’t yelled at me. Yet. 2018: I started drawing again. I started writing again. I am trying not to feel like I’m too old. I’m working. I’m trying. I’m doing. I’m poor. I feel like my college degree warrants me not that but que was que is. I obsessively think about contacting my mom. No matter the meds, I have to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 every time I lock the door to the comic book shop where I work. If I don’t, the door isn’t locked. I’ve never had wide hips but I’ve always had thick thighs. My butt has always been big. My culture rather I’d accept my fate as a woman, bend myself and break myself to be one. They don’t belong to me. My thighs eat anything that comes between them. I wish I was being literal. I wish my thighs had eaten other people’s hands and other body parts. Vagina dentata is too late for my tastes. I want my thighs to reflexively snap like a bear trap and break someone’s neck. But I have a hard enough time finding clothes I can live with. I’m wearing the pants of Theseus right now. I’m tired of sewing patches into the holes my thighs keep eating. 2018 and I’m wondering if I will ever stop hurting. But it’s 2018 and I know I’m a better me than I’ve ever been before. And right now, that’s enough.

[ao3feed-voltronlegendarydefender]

teeth

read it on the AO3 at teeth

by cervine_salad

Trans Keith is finally seeking professional medical attention for his... little problem. That problem, which has plagued him ever since sexual maturity, happens to be a case of vagina dentata: a condition so rare it's considered folklore. Dr. Takashi Shirogane, OBGYN, is the first to diagnose and attempt to treat the anomaly. But as they grow closer, the lines between doctor and patient become blurred. And the Teeth can smell blood in the water.

Read the prologue here: https://twitter.com/cervine_salad/status/1119106884709916672

Words: 1610, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron)

Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Trans Male Character, Trans Character, Trans Keith (Voltron), Modern Era, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Vaginal Sex, Sex Toys, Vagina Dentata, Vaginal, Dildos, Medical Procedures, Medical Kink, Medical Conditions, Cybersex, Loss of Limbs, Amputation, Trauma, Medical Trauma, Phone Sex, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Consensual Sex, Consensual Kink, Anal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Object Penetration, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, m - Freeform

read it on the AO3 at teeth

[mmmmalo]

FMA: Symbols of Desire

Rereading Fullmetal Alchemist recently, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story functions on a dream logic similar to Homestuck (or Berserk or Armageddon) -- the world and its events are shaped largely by the fears and desires of the protagonists, up to and including the actions of the Homunculi, who seem to serve as agents of the aforementioned fears/desires in much the same way that Homestuck’s imps and trolls manifest in response to emotional triggers. For example: Mustang talks about his wish to usurp King Bradley, and suddenly Gluttony is on the roof. Another point: one of Mustang’s subordinates seeks to acquire Dr Marco for questioning on the philosopher’s stone, but Envy steps in to claim the doctor while wearing the subordinate’s face -- wish granted, but the wish is revealed to work against you.

The symbols of desire are manifold: the eye (fixated upon the object of its wish), the mouth (it hungers), and the ouroboros (the eternal glutton and brand of the homunculi, desire incarnate). This is part of why Gluttony’s stomach has a huge eye in the middle of it,why the original homunculus looks like an eyeball in its flask, why the mouth and eyes dotting Pride’s shadowy form have an identical crescent moon shape -- all are interwoven with the central motif of the wish. Based on Pride, we might conclude that the moon itself becomes a fourth symbol of desire, especially since the eclipse turns into a giant eye in the sky as some sort of gesture toward the grand, terrible scope of Father’s wish. (Berserk did the same thing by having an eclipse coincide with Griffith’s big wish!)

Yet a fifth symbol here is the Gate of Truth itself, yet another mouth filled with grabbing hands and a great eye -- for Edward to trade his gate for Alphonse’s body becomes a very Buddhist gesture, as though this story about battling the twisted desires driving the world to ruin culminates in the renunciation of desire itself. 

Or at least that’s my present take -- there’s a great deal of symbolism in the story that still escapes me. For example, state alchemists seem to function as symbolic extensions of the Elric brothers, but in a way that differs somewhat from the homunculi. For example, when Ed loses his (mechanical) right arm, he is escorted to his repairs by the “Strong Arm Alchemist” Major Armstrong, who emphatically flexes his right arm throughout the chapter to assert that his entire character embodies the lost arm. Or again, consider how the false religion Ed topples in chapter 1 is specifically devoted to a /sun/ god, linking the burning star to patriarchal authority -- would Ed’s aggression towards the “Flame Alchemist” Mustang then be linked to a general pattern of aggression towards God/Sun/Father figures?

Which leads us to some weird loose speculation.

The Sun and Moon represent the Masculine and the Feminine, respectively -- this is implicit in some of the points above, but made explicit in chapter 105 in a flashback about Ed and Al pondering the creation of a “perfect being”. This in turn feminizes the various symbols of desire listed above -- or rather brings out some the yonic subtext. Gluttony’s rib-toothed bloody maw has hints of vagina dentata -- and the inside (an endless field of blood) has more in common with a womb that a stomach. The question becomes then, what is the purpose of all sexual imagery? To what end does the fantasy take place?

The specifics in this case still elude me, but the basic idea is that the Elric brothers’ united wish to bring back their dead mother disguised two distinct wishes: Al wishes to /be/ a mother I think, while Ed gets the more standard Oedipus complex.

Al hides a person in his iron belly, and when King Bradley kills them, Alphonse’s memories of trauma come flooding back to him. It’s not just the blood getting splashed on the sigil -- the event itself is a metaphor for miscarriage, as though the Wrath of Father God himself has interceded and said no, you are not allowed to have a child, know your place. The event nearly repeats itself later when Al hides May in his armor and Bradley gives him a good stab just in case -- but fortunately May was able to come to term that time?

There’s also a one-off gag where Al hides an Xingese alchemical circle of creation in his loincloth -- creation being the feminine complement to masculine destruction. (A paradigm established by Scar’s destruction/creation arms, which match up with Kimbley’s sun/moon arms in right/left alignment) So for Alphonse at least, the failed transmutation of his mother was experienced as a failed childbirth...?

Edward I’m less sure about, if only because the symbolism of arms confuses me. If Arakawa is actually using Freudian motifs, then the loss of leg/arm could function as symbolic castrations that are the archetypal punishment for boning the mother... buuuut unlike Alphonse, I was never able to find anything to support Ed’s case besides “aggression toward the Father”. Still, given Arakawa’s interest in combining western and eastern esoteric tradition (expressed via the overlay of transmutation circles), I think it would be interesting if she was proposing Buddhist enlightenment as a route to transcend the Oedipus complex.

(And as a final note, this would explain the disparities between Ed and Al’s punishments -- Ed wanted to be “in” the lost mother and thus lost a piece of himself, while Al wanted to “be” the lost mother and thus lost everything?)