Original character meme for Laura
Doing this ginormous OC mehm.
And first up is my most popular OC of all time: Laura Erika Barring.
1. What is one word to shut them up?
Probably something ritualistic in a Daddy/daughter kind of sense from Torsten. Like how whenever she calls him "Torsten" instead of "Daddy" in private, you know it's serious. I haven't thought of a *single* word or name, but it could also be anything that reminded her of her acting a little too much like *normal* people. Like when Torsten says "nagging, Laura," she hates herself because she doesn't want to be at all like a housewife, more like the carefree mistress.
2. What is the thing they feel the most guilty about?
Those moments of normalcy, really. It's astonishing how well she has eroded from herself all sense of ordinary morality, in that she isn't at all ashamed of any of the evil bitch stuff she does. Perhaps, conversely, it's in those moments in which she feels she *hasn't* been able to "kill her heart" that she feels guiltiest.
3. What is the worst pain they've ever experienced?
Probably the aftermaths of those times she got seriously abused by the true villains of the pieces. And the stomach flu she got from that public toilet episode. And whatever the damage she sustained in their final orgies, back when they were on their way back to Sweden and Torsten had to give her some of his last morphine shots.
4. Describe their worst nightmare.
A world without Daddy.
5. List 3 fears; one "surface level" fear, one "repressed" fear, and one "deep dark" fear.
Blerg; can't really be bothered to classify that, as it all boils down to threats to her and Torsten's continued existence as-is. Plus, Laura is astonishingly good at psychology, so she is really well aware of her fears anyway. So there's no repression or unconscious fear to her, I don't think; she's analysed herself already and has taken those fears out into the open and faced them with brutal honesty. So there's none of this division between acknowledged fears/repressed fears/deep dark fears; she knows herself and is honest about it. I guess I wrote her as being like myself in that regard; I find it much harder to write the kinds of people who are in denial, or somehow blinkered, or dishonest to themselves. I have never operated that way and have always been aware (far too aware at times) of my own shit, my own biases, my psychological pathways and mechanisms, and other people's. (And it shocks me the way most people don't really recognise their own biases and flaws and what they are in denial about, really. Knowing what a terrible cunt you are *is* crushingly depressing at times, but knowledge of it also helps you do something about it. Even if in Laura's and Torsten's cases, they turn *their* terriblecuntness into a religion of sorts, which isn't really the healthiest way of going about it.)
6. What is something that never fails to make them feel sick?
Prudishness, false morality, anything that suffocates what she and Torsten see as the life energy/libido/the will. They have a very 1930s idea of it, of course. Both morality and psychology.
7. What feature (physical or otherwise) do they hate most about themselves?
I think she used to hate the way she looked so *nice.* And she dreamt of looking more glamorous. But when she embarked on a life of ruthless fuckery with Torsten, she soon realised what an asset the clean-cut, ordinary little girl thing was when it came to manipulating people. I love, love, love how well all this stuff I find about Bonita--she being held up as *the* ideal teenaged girl of the time, used as a 100% propaganda tool to hammer clean morals into teenagers' heads--really works with that. Because Laura would be like that on the surface, giving tips to girls in magazines on how it was *their* fault if they got into trouble with guys (!), but IRL, she would *actually* be the like the fucked-up cases Bunny played in her films. I like turning that around because I find that propaganda, that outright bullying and slut-shaming girls into hysterical repression and self-control, so obnoxious. Fuck you and your "sleeping with boys before marriage even if they're going to war to get killed ruins the country's morale and also if you get raped you can only blame yourself for being such a slut" bullshit, Bunny. Your evil twin goes around getting multiple orgasms with multiple men. And women. With her prettyful transvestite princess Daddy.
8. Do they have anything that triggers them?
Some things, mostly ones to do with Smythe and Segert. She probs had nightmares of Smythe's mauve gloves and jaunty hat (think Claude as Hollenius again) until the end of her life. Segert's cologne kind of triggered her with Stefan. But she was not meant to enjoy Stefan; that entire chapter was a car crash of her seeking revenge at any cost. Honestly, by the time I was finished writing The Fall of Angels, I was squicked by the sight of poor old Melvyn Douglas himself. Having read his autobiography, I have a great deal of respect for him as a hardcore liberal human being, though. So I feel sorry for how squicky he comes across as Segert to modern, educated women today--even if he was meant to be a hero. But in 1941, goodness meant repression and the complete erasure of a woman's spirit and individuality in order to make her an effective housewife. I have done nothing more than exposed that in my writing, taking it to its worst possible--but chillingly logical--conclusion. The surgery he performs on Anna's face and her psyche in the film were ironically the exact same thing the Nazis were doing to the little frauleins of Germany at the time, making them effective little cogs in the Fatherland's machine. (And Torsten the villain, supposedly representing Nazism with his megalomania and the heavy-handed hints in the dialogue, didn't really manage to represent anything more than the sexual licence and occultism and delirious, Dionysian drunkenness of Weimar Berlin, to be honest. Yeah, let's give that attic speech to the greatest bisexual/Gothic Romantic icon of the entire era... sorry, Segert; the lady viewers will end up wanting to immanentise Babylon with this guy instead. Skål, Satan!)
9. What is their greatest physical weakness?
Generally having the body of a woman. Especially when she's moving in the very male worlds of finance and debauchery (when, in the latter, she tries to be there as one seeking pleasure rather than just being a pleasure object herself). I am generally horrified at how much pain women must constantly have been in in the pre-antibiotic era, when even your very first fuck could give you lifelong cystitis. And then there were all the rampant STDs and other pelvic inflammations. They would have made pleasurable sex even harder to attain for a woman, considering how hard it is to come with a partner even with a healthy body, FFS. Plus, STDs are much more devastating and disabling for women than they are for men because of the amount of complex organs and systems inside the body that they start to ravage. Of course, having your dick covered in lesions isn't pleasant, but there's still a huge difference between an inflammation *outside* the body than inside of it--unless it spreads inside your body into the urethra and bladder and prostate, which was way rarer, it's not going to put you in a wheelchair. But when it goes inside, which is the default for vaginas, obvs, it gets much more dangerous and debilitating and exhausting--whereas I've read repeated instances of guys in that period just shrugging off yet another "pox" and treating it with creams until it goes away (but you can't go and put cream on something that's already scarring up your tubes and rendering you infertile, besides giving you daily, disabling pain from chronic inflammation). So in the pre-AIDS era, with the exception of syph, women were so seriously fucked over by STDs and in such serious pain I have no idea how they survived even having normal sex. Even if you were a nice housewife with a faithful husband (in an era where it was normal for all men to use brothels and condoms were extremely rare, only used if the guy was absolutely hysterical about pregnancy or getting syph), sex would have meant constant stabbing, hammering pain. So forget about her being bothered by the shape of her nose when she had bigger things to worry about! How in the hell she survived three years of promiscuity with a female body in WWII is the greatest fucking fantasy element in the books.
10. What is their greatest mental weakness?
Probably impulsivity under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Torsten can be impulsive and irresponsible even without any chemical assistance, but I think that since Laura has to be the smart one, the manager in that relationship (especially where finances are concerned), she is under much greater pressure to really party hardy in order to compensate. In that she has so much responsibility that when she relaxes and has fun, she *really* lets go to the point where it even gets dangerous. Heavy duties, heavy amusements. I think that results in the classic syndrome of the alcoholic/sexually submissive boss who gets shitfaced after work and/or needs a hard thrashing from a dominatrix after a long day. So, yeah. On the surface, since it's a teenager we're talking about here, you'd think it was her inexperience that was her biggest problem. But she is not as naive as you'd think--like Torsten implied in Cupio Dissolvi, she had always been perverse on the inside even when she was still physically a virgin, and that's what turned him on rather than her naivete. Many teenagers are indeed naive and over-eager and operate under this sense of "FINALLY! I am no longer a child; just watch me! Give me that thing!" But I think the sense of novelty and hunger her youth adds comes out in a negative way mostly thanks to *her surroundings.* There's a) her job and status as a fucking businesswoman millionaire, the head of an industry empire, b) the social pressures of being the part of an aristocracy and all the other psychosocial control shit women had to deal with in that era, c) Torsten offering her *everything,* something most women/girls of her age/almost anyone except a rich white guy could have, in the way of amusements. Oh, and d) there is a fucking war on and they could die any moment now.
11. Do they have any vices?
AAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAAAHHAHAHA! HA HA HA HA!
Ha.
12. Have they ever done something illegal? What was it?
AAAAHHHAHAHAHA--etc.
13. Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?
All of them. Really. I focus on Lust the most, of course, but they would be mortified if they felt they were not exercising each one to the fullest.
14. Are they prone to outbursts (of violence, extreme emotion... etc... )?
Yes. Comes with the territory. Plus the instability brought on by drugs and alcohol. Apart from the morphine Torsten becomes hooked on towards the end, they come across as being into uppers rather than downers, IMHO, and that means more erratic behaviour. And being a teenager, and female (meaning constantly being slapped in the face by sexism or hormones) brings its own share of volatility.
15. Who do they hate the most?
Segert. Closely followed by Smythe. But Segert is worse, because of all that he represents, and the fact that the world is, monstrously, on his side. He does not only represent repression and the suffocations of sexuality, queerness, women, all kinds of othernesses, but he also represents all these things as *institutionalised,* sanctified by a deeply fucked-up society. He castrates men for having homosexual feelings, lobotomises black women who have had the misfortune of bearing illegitimate children to their white abuser bosses, and he puts teenaged white girls into drug-induced comas to cure their "nymphomania." Charming fellow.
16. Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?
She tries deliberately to not let anyone make her feel like that. She does wish she was as badass as the actresses she admires on the movie screen, however.
17. What sound always gives them a headache?
Torsten playing Chopin on the grand piano at three in the fucking morning.
18. Is there a certain flavor that disgusts them?
AAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHA--
...yeah. We're talking about a girl who loves Daddy's caramel. OTOH, she *was* disgusted by the taste of an unshaven, musty pussy on Anita, who had been ignoring/neglecting her genitals and her sexuality. I know I said Anita was inspired by Anaïs, but only the few repressive aspects of her when she was younger--she kept telling herself she wasn't really that turned on by women for real because every time she'd gone down on a woman, she hated having to do it and/or disliked the taste. Which sounds suspicious to me, for various reasons. But then again, see above re: the constant inflammations and the fact that few people shaved then and how hard it is to wash your bits in countries with no bidets or bidet showers. So that means a clean, smooth, delicious pussy would indeed have been a rare exception. Which is another one of those fridge logic historical things that you only realise in hindsight. How unpleasant it must've been to generally go down on people in an age when everyone had STDs and sexual hygiene was poor. Another reason to prefer medieval Persia, really; washing and shaving the genitals is a religious duty in Islam.
19. Do they consider themselves ugly?
Not really. I think that she actually has a slightly exaggerated idea of her own beauty. But history has shown us over and over again how personality goes a *long* way--and she has great skills when it comes to charming people and luring them in with suggestion. Imagine just how terrifying (and hot) Torsten's skills would be in the hands of an intelligent, pretty young girl, and then you have Laura Erika Barring.
20. Do they consider themselves unloveable?
I don't think she has that many typical teenager complexes, the way most memes do. She has a large ego and knows she's worth more than the miserable life she's lived in the country house up until her fifteenth birthday. And she knows she deserves being adored and loved.
21. What is something that causes them great anxiety?
Anything that gets in the way of her and Torsten squeezing as much pleasure out of life as possible. In a way, you could define their lives as being in pursuit of pleasure first and foremost. It's what they've dedicated themselves to--living fully in every moment.
22. Do they have any mental illnesses?
I'm sure you could slap several personality disorder diagnoses onto her. Mostly of the narcissistic/megalomaniac variety. I don't think she or Torsten are *fully* sociopathic, though. They *are* capable of empathy, but it's just that they only care about each other, really.
23. Have they ever been assaulted/abused/raped?
If you've read the novels, you will have seen where and when. But the bizarre thing about it is that the love she and Torsten share would be abusive in any other context, except that she has always been *such* an intelligent child and *so* into it that he's the best thing that could've happened to her, really. So this story is actually a pretty complex example of how, when put into context, ravishment and rape are absolutely not the same thing. The fact that she has always enjoyed what Torsten does to her overrides everything else; what Smythe and Segert do to her is just pure horror through and through. Smythe and Segert were so horrible I had to even drug her/put her in a trance during both to cushion the horror of it somehow.
24. Do they fear the possibility of being assaulted/abused/raped?
Duh?
25. Have they ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust?
Yes. But thankfully, rarely. I don't think she ever fully trusted anyone, though. If she's grown up with the tyranny of someone like that Kristiansdotter bitch, she will have learned early that adults/people are illogical and unfair and selfish fucks.
26. Have they ever been seriously injured?
I already answered that.
27. How many times have they been in the hospital?
I seem to recall only the episode at the beginning of The Fall of Angels. I reckon she's actually super-healthy, to be able to stand all the stuff she goes through. Actually, later on, I realised I had made her a bit *too* healthy, maybe, considering Torsten describes Lars-Erik as "rather frail" in the film. And he has those constant sinus infections and has to have the ultraviolet treatments and everything. IDK, maybe those were just temporary.
28. Is there a certain type of person that disgusts them?
I feel like I've answered this one already, too. Again, it's the prudes and the people who lie to themselves and who repress themselves and who are just stupid in general. She has a grudging affection even for complete bastards if they are really aware of what they're doing, understand what dicks they're being, and do it anyway. She also hates American culture with a passion, especially in Los Angeles, where people are so obsessed with shallow and unintellectual things and where nearly everyone they meet is provincial. At least in Europe, if you were vain and obsessed with appearances, you could still be cultured underneath. She is *very* much the snobbish, cultured European aristocrat, even if she didn't even finish school properly (but she read huge amounts of books).
29. Does what they cannot see scare them?
Sometimes, I expect she's been really freaked out by the occult practices Torsten's included her in. But I also think she must've creeped the fuck out of him sometimes, if she's ended up channeling some ancient demoness from beyond the veil. I can really see her falling into a trance and starting to speak in a voice that doesn't seem like her own, in a language that doesn't sound like her ordinary way of speaking, of some ancient and arcane and mystical things. But she's also very brave and determined, and probably takes the occult work more seriously than Torsten himself whenever she can be bothered to take part in his practices. I feel like she could be a really accomplished ritual magician, but that she's more concerned with the world around her rather than the spiritual world. Fuck the Kabbalah when she has stocks to analyse, because someone's got to pay for the luxury holiday they're about to have in Paris.
30. Have they ever been bullied?
Probably a little bit at school, but in no way that would've left permanent scars. She was a loner, but in a formidable sort of way where the other kids didn't dare fuck with her all that much. The fact that her grandfather was the richest man in the province would also have something to do with it. I just don't think she socialised that much at school. Note that in the movie, of course, Anna is supposed to be Lars-Erik's governess--but in Devilry, I put her in an ordinary school just to show how miserable she would be there. But it was also a way of getting her more involved with the world outside rather than just being *completely* cooped up in the old manor house at Forssa.
31. Do they have self-confidence or self-image issues?
Only very minor ones, very early on. Torsten only needs a few nudges to help her really blossom into the HBIC she is. But as we saw from the beginning of the story, she was already bossing her seamstress around because she knew what kind of dress she'd look good in, stuff like that. So she already had a good self-esteem and had already started to experiment with makeup, on constructing herself into the Laura she wanted to be.
32. Do they have a bad relationship with their parents?
Her parents died when she was too young to remember it. Her relationship with her Daddy, on the other hand, is as symbiotic as can be.
33. Have they ever been in a relationship that didn't work out so well?
Well, if you count someone like Birgitte as that... so I guess Birgitte.
34. Have they ever self harmed?
Only by drinking too much and taking too many drugs when Torsten went to jail. Which was the stupidest thing she ever did, considering she woke up in Segert's asylum as a result.
35. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?
I think she'd only change Torsten. Into being physically and mentally a bit healthier, so they could live longer. They really are the one human being split into two parts, so his health is also hers.
36. Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?
It's actually a complex question, this. Because in a way, you could say that her entire life is Romantic: in that it's a life lived *through* intense emotions and experiences and feelings, and *on the terms of* those intense emotions/experiences/feelings. But she and Torsten channel them in a very conscious manner, especially once they meet each other, so you can't say that their libido/life force/drive thing plays them as much as they play *it.* Sometimes the emotions do take over, of course, and Torsten in particular is really bad about letting his desires override his common sense (he's such a reckless wastrel fuck), and she is too fucking tired of always having to act as his child-minder. So sometimes, when she wants to let go, too, they both crash and crash hard because there's nobody to catch them.
37. Have they ever had their freedom taken away?
Yep. The isolation at Forssa was nothing in comparison to the nightmare that was the Frith Institute.
38. Have they ever been imprisoned?
Frith Institute, prison, same difference.
39. Have they ever been accused of something they didn't do?
I'm sure Segert invented all kinds of things on her diagnosis sheet, all kinds of delusions he thought she had, just to have more excuses to keep her locked up. Like saying she'd regressed when he just wanted to try some new serum on her and just wanted to fuck her some more, or to show her off to his colleagues as the triumph of his art.
40. Do they often blame themselves for other people's problems?
I think that sometimes, she might suffer from that cliched female thing where she feels responsible for her man's actions if he's done something stupid. That maybe she's failed to keep as tight a rein on him as she could. But considering what a shitshow Torsten is to begin with, I don't think she could ever fully blame herself for having made him the way he is. He's always been like that, and most of the time, she's actually made him better in that she's finally given his madness a purpose. So when he has this project called Laura, My Daughter, he actually uses his energies for something positive and actually develops a genuine care and empathy towards another person when acting as her father, no matter how twisted and fucked-up it is. I can't really see her developing complexes about having somehow failed him, though. If she's ever thought she's been a bad daughter/other half to him, in brief moments of self-pitying emo madness, she can't have thought so for a long time.
41. Do they get sick often?
Like I said, she's actually *unrealistically* healthy, considering both the original Lars-Erik's frailty and her dissolute lifestyle.
42. Are they comfortable with where they are in life?
Depends when we're asking this question. Despite a few slumps, and all the awful messes they got into, I do feel she was truly, genuinely happy with Torsten. And even when they had to say goodbye to the world and give away all their money and all their possessions, even that was a kind of delirious freedom, an experience of bliss in letting go.
43. Do they wish that they could change their pasts?
Didn't this meme already ask this? I was thinking about whether Laura would have wanted a different life in which Torsten would *always* have been there. But come to think of it, I think she's also intelligent enough to realise that she needed to grow up the way she did to become the Laura she was, and likewise, Torsten also needed to go through those wilderness years of his in order to be ready for their life together. They needed to grow into the persons they were on her fifteenth birthday; they even needed that gap of three years betwen the pier scene and this birthday to leave in this longing that could become almost obsessional in its intensity. She needed to long for her beloved Uncle Torsten, needed to develop him into this mythical character who represented freedom and the greater world outside. If she'd just seen what a wastrel he was and had become pissed off with him, disappointed in him by seeing too much of him and his flaws on a regular basis, he would never have become this loveable figure in her mind. And he, likewise, needed to get these hints of her being more than just a toy to play with, more than just a fortune to grab, in order to inspire all kinds of romantic dreams of really debauching her (even if she really *did* surprise him with the way she responded with such eagerness and desire--he'd only thought his fantasies of her were just dirty daydreams, ones that had no chance of becoming reality). I think they both have a deep faith in Fate, too, so they would have been religiously, fanatically convinced of how everything just slotted together perfectly on that day and how it could never have worked otherwise.
44. What's one thing they wish they could do more often, but can't?
I think they just miss Europe terribly after they have to leave it. Especially the erotic atmosphere of Paris, the open displays of affection that you couldn't see people doing in the States. Once again, Anaïs's unexpurgated diaries were a great resource for this kind of thing--other people's memoirs from that era don't focus nearly as much on people's love lives, sensuality, whether or not people are at ease with their bodies, the subtle differences in the way people dress in different countries, all kinds of little things like that. So they want to "do" Europe and breathe in all the things you can get there that you can't get in the States.
45. What is the emotion they most commonly experience?
Wild passion, hunger, devouring; dissolution in the fire of that passion.
46. Have they ever contemplated suicide?
I doubt either of them would've committed suicide had everything gone well and had terminal illness not happened. Once it became clear Torsten was going to die in horrible pain and that Laura was going to be left in the world without him, unable to ever again live the way she'd lived with him (=fully), there wasn't really any point in her going on living. She was always meant to burn high and bright and go out in a blaze of glory, not fade in a whimper.
47. Have they ever gone so far as to attempt suicide?
They succeeded.
48. Is there anyone that they would willingly kill?
HAHAHAHA. Several people.
49. If [name] was put into ______ situation, they'd rather die than live to see it through.
Of course, I'm immediately thinking of Torsten's terminal illness now. So, yeah. She'd rather die than live in a world where she couldn't be herself and live fully.
50. Create your own!
Um... ok. What kind of bad habits has she got, sex-wise?
I'd say that she probably worries too much. But then again, her neurosis is great for Torsten, because it gives more for him to spank out of her. If she wasn't such a perfect sub, he wouldn't be such a perfect dom. So he feels so much better and so triumphant when he finally manages to whip all of that out of her and to make her come like fireworks.
And first up is my most popular OC of all time: Laura Erika Barring.
1. What is one word to shut them up?
Probably something ritualistic in a Daddy/daughter kind of sense from Torsten. Like how whenever she calls him "Torsten" instead of "Daddy" in private, you know it's serious. I haven't thought of a *single* word or name, but it could also be anything that reminded her of her acting a little too much like *normal* people. Like when Torsten says "nagging, Laura," she hates herself because she doesn't want to be at all like a housewife, more like the carefree mistress.
2. What is the thing they feel the most guilty about?
Those moments of normalcy, really. It's astonishing how well she has eroded from herself all sense of ordinary morality, in that she isn't at all ashamed of any of the evil bitch stuff she does. Perhaps, conversely, it's in those moments in which she feels she *hasn't* been able to "kill her heart" that she feels guiltiest.
3. What is the worst pain they've ever experienced?
Probably the aftermaths of those times she got seriously abused by the true villains of the pieces. And the stomach flu she got from that public toilet episode. And whatever the damage she sustained in their final orgies, back when they were on their way back to Sweden and Torsten had to give her some of his last morphine shots.
4. Describe their worst nightmare.
A world without Daddy.
5. List 3 fears; one "surface level" fear, one "repressed" fear, and one "deep dark" fear.
Blerg; can't really be bothered to classify that, as it all boils down to threats to her and Torsten's continued existence as-is. Plus, Laura is astonishingly good at psychology, so she is really well aware of her fears anyway. So there's no repression or unconscious fear to her, I don't think; she's analysed herself already and has taken those fears out into the open and faced them with brutal honesty. So there's none of this division between acknowledged fears/repressed fears/deep dark fears; she knows herself and is honest about it. I guess I wrote her as being like myself in that regard; I find it much harder to write the kinds of people who are in denial, or somehow blinkered, or dishonest to themselves. I have never operated that way and have always been aware (far too aware at times) of my own shit, my own biases, my psychological pathways and mechanisms, and other people's. (And it shocks me the way most people don't really recognise their own biases and flaws and what they are in denial about, really. Knowing what a terrible cunt you are *is* crushingly depressing at times, but knowledge of it also helps you do something about it. Even if in Laura's and Torsten's cases, they turn *their* terriblecuntness into a religion of sorts, which isn't really the healthiest way of going about it.)
6. What is something that never fails to make them feel sick?
Prudishness, false morality, anything that suffocates what she and Torsten see as the life energy/libido/the will. They have a very 1930s idea of it, of course. Both morality and psychology.
7. What feature (physical or otherwise) do they hate most about themselves?
I think she used to hate the way she looked so *nice.* And she dreamt of looking more glamorous. But when she embarked on a life of ruthless fuckery with Torsten, she soon realised what an asset the clean-cut, ordinary little girl thing was when it came to manipulating people. I love, love, love how well all this stuff I find about Bonita--she being held up as *the* ideal teenaged girl of the time, used as a 100% propaganda tool to hammer clean morals into teenagers' heads--really works with that. Because Laura would be like that on the surface, giving tips to girls in magazines on how it was *their* fault if they got into trouble with guys (!), but IRL, she would *actually* be the like the fucked-up cases Bunny played in her films. I like turning that around because I find that propaganda, that outright bullying and slut-shaming girls into hysterical repression and self-control, so obnoxious. Fuck you and your "sleeping with boys before marriage even if they're going to war to get killed ruins the country's morale and also if you get raped you can only blame yourself for being such a slut" bullshit, Bunny. Your evil twin goes around getting multiple orgasms with multiple men. And women. With her prettyful transvestite princess Daddy.
8. Do they have anything that triggers them?
Some things, mostly ones to do with Smythe and Segert. She probs had nightmares of Smythe's mauve gloves and jaunty hat (think Claude as Hollenius again) until the end of her life. Segert's cologne kind of triggered her with Stefan. But she was not meant to enjoy Stefan; that entire chapter was a car crash of her seeking revenge at any cost. Honestly, by the time I was finished writing The Fall of Angels, I was squicked by the sight of poor old Melvyn Douglas himself. Having read his autobiography, I have a great deal of respect for him as a hardcore liberal human being, though. So I feel sorry for how squicky he comes across as Segert to modern, educated women today--even if he was meant to be a hero. But in 1941, goodness meant repression and the complete erasure of a woman's spirit and individuality in order to make her an effective housewife. I have done nothing more than exposed that in my writing, taking it to its worst possible--but chillingly logical--conclusion. The surgery he performs on Anna's face and her psyche in the film were ironically the exact same thing the Nazis were doing to the little frauleins of Germany at the time, making them effective little cogs in the Fatherland's machine. (And Torsten the villain, supposedly representing Nazism with his megalomania and the heavy-handed hints in the dialogue, didn't really manage to represent anything more than the sexual licence and occultism and delirious, Dionysian drunkenness of Weimar Berlin, to be honest. Yeah, let's give that attic speech to the greatest bisexual/Gothic Romantic icon of the entire era... sorry, Segert; the lady viewers will end up wanting to immanentise Babylon with this guy instead. Skål, Satan!)
9. What is their greatest physical weakness?
Generally having the body of a woman. Especially when she's moving in the very male worlds of finance and debauchery (when, in the latter, she tries to be there as one seeking pleasure rather than just being a pleasure object herself). I am generally horrified at how much pain women must constantly have been in in the pre-antibiotic era, when even your very first fuck could give you lifelong cystitis. And then there were all the rampant STDs and other pelvic inflammations. They would have made pleasurable sex even harder to attain for a woman, considering how hard it is to come with a partner even with a healthy body, FFS. Plus, STDs are much more devastating and disabling for women than they are for men because of the amount of complex organs and systems inside the body that they start to ravage. Of course, having your dick covered in lesions isn't pleasant, but there's still a huge difference between an inflammation *outside* the body than inside of it--unless it spreads inside your body into the urethra and bladder and prostate, which was way rarer, it's not going to put you in a wheelchair. But when it goes inside, which is the default for vaginas, obvs, it gets much more dangerous and debilitating and exhausting--whereas I've read repeated instances of guys in that period just shrugging off yet another "pox" and treating it with creams until it goes away (but you can't go and put cream on something that's already scarring up your tubes and rendering you infertile, besides giving you daily, disabling pain from chronic inflammation). So in the pre-AIDS era, with the exception of syph, women were so seriously fucked over by STDs and in such serious pain I have no idea how they survived even having normal sex. Even if you were a nice housewife with a faithful husband (in an era where it was normal for all men to use brothels and condoms were extremely rare, only used if the guy was absolutely hysterical about pregnancy or getting syph), sex would have meant constant stabbing, hammering pain. So forget about her being bothered by the shape of her nose when she had bigger things to worry about! How in the hell she survived three years of promiscuity with a female body in WWII is the greatest fucking fantasy element in the books.
10. What is their greatest mental weakness?
Probably impulsivity under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Torsten can be impulsive and irresponsible even without any chemical assistance, but I think that since Laura has to be the smart one, the manager in that relationship (especially where finances are concerned), she is under much greater pressure to really party hardy in order to compensate. In that she has so much responsibility that when she relaxes and has fun, she *really* lets go to the point where it even gets dangerous. Heavy duties, heavy amusements. I think that results in the classic syndrome of the alcoholic/sexually submissive boss who gets shitfaced after work and/or needs a hard thrashing from a dominatrix after a long day. So, yeah. On the surface, since it's a teenager we're talking about here, you'd think it was her inexperience that was her biggest problem. But she is not as naive as you'd think--like Torsten implied in Cupio Dissolvi, she had always been perverse on the inside even when she was still physically a virgin, and that's what turned him on rather than her naivete. Many teenagers are indeed naive and over-eager and operate under this sense of "FINALLY! I am no longer a child; just watch me! Give me that thing!" But I think the sense of novelty and hunger her youth adds comes out in a negative way mostly thanks to *her surroundings.* There's a) her job and status as a fucking businesswoman millionaire, the head of an industry empire, b) the social pressures of being the part of an aristocracy and all the other psychosocial control shit women had to deal with in that era, c) Torsten offering her *everything,* something most women/girls of her age/almost anyone except a rich white guy could have, in the way of amusements. Oh, and d) there is a fucking war on and they could die any moment now.
11. Do they have any vices?
AAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAAAHHAHAHA! HA HA HA HA!
Ha.
12. Have they ever done something illegal? What was it?
AAAAHHHAHAHAHA--etc.
13. Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?
All of them. Really. I focus on Lust the most, of course, but they would be mortified if they felt they were not exercising each one to the fullest.
14. Are they prone to outbursts (of violence, extreme emotion... etc... )?
Yes. Comes with the territory. Plus the instability brought on by drugs and alcohol. Apart from the morphine Torsten becomes hooked on towards the end, they come across as being into uppers rather than downers, IMHO, and that means more erratic behaviour. And being a teenager, and female (meaning constantly being slapped in the face by sexism or hormones) brings its own share of volatility.
15. Who do they hate the most?
Segert. Closely followed by Smythe. But Segert is worse, because of all that he represents, and the fact that the world is, monstrously, on his side. He does not only represent repression and the suffocations of sexuality, queerness, women, all kinds of othernesses, but he also represents all these things as *institutionalised,* sanctified by a deeply fucked-up society. He castrates men for having homosexual feelings, lobotomises black women who have had the misfortune of bearing illegitimate children to their white abuser bosses, and he puts teenaged white girls into drug-induced comas to cure their "nymphomania." Charming fellow.
16. Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?
She tries deliberately to not let anyone make her feel like that. She does wish she was as badass as the actresses she admires on the movie screen, however.
17. What sound always gives them a headache?
Torsten playing Chopin on the grand piano at three in the fucking morning.
18. Is there a certain flavor that disgusts them?
AAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHA--
...yeah. We're talking about a girl who loves Daddy's caramel. OTOH, she *was* disgusted by the taste of an unshaven, musty pussy on Anita, who had been ignoring/neglecting her genitals and her sexuality. I know I said Anita was inspired by Anaïs, but only the few repressive aspects of her when she was younger--she kept telling herself she wasn't really that turned on by women for real because every time she'd gone down on a woman, she hated having to do it and/or disliked the taste. Which sounds suspicious to me, for various reasons. But then again, see above re: the constant inflammations and the fact that few people shaved then and how hard it is to wash your bits in countries with no bidets or bidet showers. So that means a clean, smooth, delicious pussy would indeed have been a rare exception. Which is another one of those fridge logic historical things that you only realise in hindsight. How unpleasant it must've been to generally go down on people in an age when everyone had STDs and sexual hygiene was poor. Another reason to prefer medieval Persia, really; washing and shaving the genitals is a religious duty in Islam.
19. Do they consider themselves ugly?
Not really. I think that she actually has a slightly exaggerated idea of her own beauty. But history has shown us over and over again how personality goes a *long* way--and she has great skills when it comes to charming people and luring them in with suggestion. Imagine just how terrifying (and hot) Torsten's skills would be in the hands of an intelligent, pretty young girl, and then you have Laura Erika Barring.
20. Do they consider themselves unloveable?
I don't think she has that many typical teenager complexes, the way most memes do. She has a large ego and knows she's worth more than the miserable life she's lived in the country house up until her fifteenth birthday. And she knows she deserves being adored and loved.
21. What is something that causes them great anxiety?
Anything that gets in the way of her and Torsten squeezing as much pleasure out of life as possible. In a way, you could define their lives as being in pursuit of pleasure first and foremost. It's what they've dedicated themselves to--living fully in every moment.
22. Do they have any mental illnesses?
I'm sure you could slap several personality disorder diagnoses onto her. Mostly of the narcissistic/megalomaniac variety. I don't think she or Torsten are *fully* sociopathic, though. They *are* capable of empathy, but it's just that they only care about each other, really.
23. Have they ever been assaulted/abused/raped?
If you've read the novels, you will have seen where and when. But the bizarre thing about it is that the love she and Torsten share would be abusive in any other context, except that she has always been *such* an intelligent child and *so* into it that he's the best thing that could've happened to her, really. So this story is actually a pretty complex example of how, when put into context, ravishment and rape are absolutely not the same thing. The fact that she has always enjoyed what Torsten does to her overrides everything else; what Smythe and Segert do to her is just pure horror through and through. Smythe and Segert were so horrible I had to even drug her/put her in a trance during both to cushion the horror of it somehow.
24. Do they fear the possibility of being assaulted/abused/raped?
Duh?
25. Have they ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust?
Yes. But thankfully, rarely. I don't think she ever fully trusted anyone, though. If she's grown up with the tyranny of someone like that Kristiansdotter bitch, she will have learned early that adults/people are illogical and unfair and selfish fucks.
26. Have they ever been seriously injured?
I already answered that.
27. How many times have they been in the hospital?
I seem to recall only the episode at the beginning of The Fall of Angels. I reckon she's actually super-healthy, to be able to stand all the stuff she goes through. Actually, later on, I realised I had made her a bit *too* healthy, maybe, considering Torsten describes Lars-Erik as "rather frail" in the film. And he has those constant sinus infections and has to have the ultraviolet treatments and everything. IDK, maybe those were just temporary.
28. Is there a certain type of person that disgusts them?
I feel like I've answered this one already, too. Again, it's the prudes and the people who lie to themselves and who repress themselves and who are just stupid in general. She has a grudging affection even for complete bastards if they are really aware of what they're doing, understand what dicks they're being, and do it anyway. She also hates American culture with a passion, especially in Los Angeles, where people are so obsessed with shallow and unintellectual things and where nearly everyone they meet is provincial. At least in Europe, if you were vain and obsessed with appearances, you could still be cultured underneath. She is *very* much the snobbish, cultured European aristocrat, even if she didn't even finish school properly (but she read huge amounts of books).
29. Does what they cannot see scare them?
Sometimes, I expect she's been really freaked out by the occult practices Torsten's included her in. But I also think she must've creeped the fuck out of him sometimes, if she's ended up channeling some ancient demoness from beyond the veil. I can really see her falling into a trance and starting to speak in a voice that doesn't seem like her own, in a language that doesn't sound like her ordinary way of speaking, of some ancient and arcane and mystical things. But she's also very brave and determined, and probably takes the occult work more seriously than Torsten himself whenever she can be bothered to take part in his practices. I feel like she could be a really accomplished ritual magician, but that she's more concerned with the world around her rather than the spiritual world. Fuck the Kabbalah when she has stocks to analyse, because someone's got to pay for the luxury holiday they're about to have in Paris.
30. Have they ever been bullied?
Probably a little bit at school, but in no way that would've left permanent scars. She was a loner, but in a formidable sort of way where the other kids didn't dare fuck with her all that much. The fact that her grandfather was the richest man in the province would also have something to do with it. I just don't think she socialised that much at school. Note that in the movie, of course, Anna is supposed to be Lars-Erik's governess--but in Devilry, I put her in an ordinary school just to show how miserable she would be there. But it was also a way of getting her more involved with the world outside rather than just being *completely* cooped up in the old manor house at Forssa.
31. Do they have self-confidence or self-image issues?
Only very minor ones, very early on. Torsten only needs a few nudges to help her really blossom into the HBIC she is. But as we saw from the beginning of the story, she was already bossing her seamstress around because she knew what kind of dress she'd look good in, stuff like that. So she already had a good self-esteem and had already started to experiment with makeup, on constructing herself into the Laura she wanted to be.
32. Do they have a bad relationship with their parents?
Her parents died when she was too young to remember it. Her relationship with her Daddy, on the other hand, is as symbiotic as can be.
33. Have they ever been in a relationship that didn't work out so well?
Well, if you count someone like Birgitte as that... so I guess Birgitte.
34. Have they ever self harmed?
Only by drinking too much and taking too many drugs when Torsten went to jail. Which was the stupidest thing she ever did, considering she woke up in Segert's asylum as a result.
35. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?
I think she'd only change Torsten. Into being physically and mentally a bit healthier, so they could live longer. They really are the one human being split into two parts, so his health is also hers.
36. Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?
It's actually a complex question, this. Because in a way, you could say that her entire life is Romantic: in that it's a life lived *through* intense emotions and experiences and feelings, and *on the terms of* those intense emotions/experiences/feelings. But she and Torsten channel them in a very conscious manner, especially once they meet each other, so you can't say that their libido/life force/drive thing plays them as much as they play *it.* Sometimes the emotions do take over, of course, and Torsten in particular is really bad about letting his desires override his common sense (he's such a reckless wastrel fuck), and she is too fucking tired of always having to act as his child-minder. So sometimes, when she wants to let go, too, they both crash and crash hard because there's nobody to catch them.
37. Have they ever had their freedom taken away?
Yep. The isolation at Forssa was nothing in comparison to the nightmare that was the Frith Institute.
38. Have they ever been imprisoned?
Frith Institute, prison, same difference.
39. Have they ever been accused of something they didn't do?
I'm sure Segert invented all kinds of things on her diagnosis sheet, all kinds of delusions he thought she had, just to have more excuses to keep her locked up. Like saying she'd regressed when he just wanted to try some new serum on her and just wanted to fuck her some more, or to show her off to his colleagues as the triumph of his art.
40. Do they often blame themselves for other people's problems?
I think that sometimes, she might suffer from that cliched female thing where she feels responsible for her man's actions if he's done something stupid. That maybe she's failed to keep as tight a rein on him as she could. But considering what a shitshow Torsten is to begin with, I don't think she could ever fully blame herself for having made him the way he is. He's always been like that, and most of the time, she's actually made him better in that she's finally given his madness a purpose. So when he has this project called Laura, My Daughter, he actually uses his energies for something positive and actually develops a genuine care and empathy towards another person when acting as her father, no matter how twisted and fucked-up it is. I can't really see her developing complexes about having somehow failed him, though. If she's ever thought she's been a bad daughter/other half to him, in brief moments of self-pitying emo madness, she can't have thought so for a long time.
41. Do they get sick often?
Like I said, she's actually *unrealistically* healthy, considering both the original Lars-Erik's frailty and her dissolute lifestyle.
42. Are they comfortable with where they are in life?
Depends when we're asking this question. Despite a few slumps, and all the awful messes they got into, I do feel she was truly, genuinely happy with Torsten. And even when they had to say goodbye to the world and give away all their money and all their possessions, even that was a kind of delirious freedom, an experience of bliss in letting go.
43. Do they wish that they could change their pasts?
Didn't this meme already ask this? I was thinking about whether Laura would have wanted a different life in which Torsten would *always* have been there. But come to think of it, I think she's also intelligent enough to realise that she needed to grow up the way she did to become the Laura she was, and likewise, Torsten also needed to go through those wilderness years of his in order to be ready for their life together. They needed to grow into the persons they were on her fifteenth birthday; they even needed that gap of three years betwen the pier scene and this birthday to leave in this longing that could become almost obsessional in its intensity. She needed to long for her beloved Uncle Torsten, needed to develop him into this mythical character who represented freedom and the greater world outside. If she'd just seen what a wastrel he was and had become pissed off with him, disappointed in him by seeing too much of him and his flaws on a regular basis, he would never have become this loveable figure in her mind. And he, likewise, needed to get these hints of her being more than just a toy to play with, more than just a fortune to grab, in order to inspire all kinds of romantic dreams of really debauching her (even if she really *did* surprise him with the way she responded with such eagerness and desire--he'd only thought his fantasies of her were just dirty daydreams, ones that had no chance of becoming reality). I think they both have a deep faith in Fate, too, so they would have been religiously, fanatically convinced of how everything just slotted together perfectly on that day and how it could never have worked otherwise.
44. What's one thing they wish they could do more often, but can't?
I think they just miss Europe terribly after they have to leave it. Especially the erotic atmosphere of Paris, the open displays of affection that you couldn't see people doing in the States. Once again, Anaïs's unexpurgated diaries were a great resource for this kind of thing--other people's memoirs from that era don't focus nearly as much on people's love lives, sensuality, whether or not people are at ease with their bodies, the subtle differences in the way people dress in different countries, all kinds of little things like that. So they want to "do" Europe and breathe in all the things you can get there that you can't get in the States.
45. What is the emotion they most commonly experience?
Wild passion, hunger, devouring; dissolution in the fire of that passion.
46. Have they ever contemplated suicide?
I doubt either of them would've committed suicide had everything gone well and had terminal illness not happened. Once it became clear Torsten was going to die in horrible pain and that Laura was going to be left in the world without him, unable to ever again live the way she'd lived with him (=fully), there wasn't really any point in her going on living. She was always meant to burn high and bright and go out in a blaze of glory, not fade in a whimper.
47. Have they ever gone so far as to attempt suicide?
They succeeded.
48. Is there anyone that they would willingly kill?
HAHAHAHA. Several people.
49. If [name] was put into ______ situation, they'd rather die than live to see it through.
Of course, I'm immediately thinking of Torsten's terminal illness now. So, yeah. She'd rather die than live in a world where she couldn't be herself and live fully.
50. Create your own!
Um... ok. What kind of bad habits has she got, sex-wise?
I'd say that she probably worries too much. But then again, her neurosis is great for Torsten, because it gives more for him to spank out of her. If she wasn't such a perfect sub, he wouldn't be such a perfect dom. So he feels so much better and so triumphant when he finally manages to whip all of that out of her and to make her come like fireworks.