People with Borderline Personalities tend to project their own emotional needs onto other people.
And then feel incredibly betrayed when the people near to them fail to behave accordingly.
It’s actually, now I come to think about it, very similar to a royal character on a playing card —
It’s not Narcissism exactly, in fact it can be understood perhaps better as being the functional opposite of Narcissism.
The Narcissist looks to see echoes and reverberations of themselves in both their surroundings and derive value, meaning and significance from the degree of resonance that they find;
A Borderline Personality however, projects the fulfillment of their own lack and need onto other people, and then chases around after them (in every sense), hoping to obtain some tiny meaningful morsel as a treat, which they can overinflate into a banquet of human connection - all of it totally (or largely) illusory and inauthentic in some completely subjective and non-self aware distortion of reality.
This is going to be about That.
Then again, maybe I am just projecting.
Rupert Pupkin:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Rupert Pupkin.
I was born in Clifton, New Jersey... which was not at that time a federal offence.
Is there anyone here from Clifton?
Oh, good. We can all relax now.
I'd like to begin by saying... my parents were too poor to afford me a childhood.
But the fact is that... no one is allowed to be too poor in Clifton.
Once you fall below a certain level... they exile you to Passaic.
My parents did put the first two down payments on my childhood.
Don't get me wrong, but they did also return me to the hospital as defective.
But, like everyone else I grew up in large part thanks to my mother.
If she were only here today... I'd say,
"Hey, ma, what are you doing here? You've been dead for nine years!"
But seriously, you should've seen my mother. She was wonderful.
Blonde, beautiful, intelligent, alcoholic.
We used to drink milk together after school.
Mine was homogenized. Hers was loaded.
Once they picked her up for speeding.
They clocked her doing 55.
All right, but in our garage?
And when they tested her...
they found out that her alcohol had 2% blood.
Ah, but we used to joke together, mom and me...
until the tears would stroll down her face...
and she would throw up!
Yeah, and who would clean it up? Not dad.
He was too busy down at O'Grady's... throwing up on his own.
Yeah. In fact, until I was 13 I thought throwing up was a sign of maturity.
While the other kids were off in the woods sneaking cigarettes... I was hiding behind the house with my fingers down my throat.
The only problem was I never got anywhere... until one day my father caught me.
Just as he was giving me a final kick in the stomach for luck... I managed to heave all over his new shoes!
"That's it", I thought. "I've made it. I'm finally a man!"
But as it turned out, I was wrong.
That was the only attention my father ever gave me.
Yeah, he was usually too busy out in the park playing ball with my sister Rose.
But today, I must say thanks to those many hours of practice my sister Rose has grown into a fine man.
Me, I wasn't especially interested in athletics.
The only exercise I ever got was when the other kids picked on me.
Yeah, they used to beat me up once a week... usually Tuesday.
And after a while the school worked it into the curriculum.
And if you knocked me out, you got extra credit.
There was this one kid, poor kid... he was afraid of me.
I used to tell him...
"Hit me, hit me. What's the matter with you?
Don't you want to graduate?"
Hey, I was the youngest kid in the history of the school to graduate in traction.
But, you know, my only real interest right from the beginning, was show business.
Even as a young man, I began at the very top collecting autographs.
Now, a lot of you are probably wondering... why Jerry isn't with us tonight.
Well, I'll tell you. The fact is he's tied up. I'm the one who tied him.
Well, I know you think I'm joking... but, believe me, that's the only way...
I could break into show business... by hijacking Jerry Langford.
Right now, Jerry is strapped to a chair... somewhere in the middle of the city.
Go ahead, laugh.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
But the fact is, I'm here.
Now, tomorrow you'll know I wasn't kidding...
and you'll think I was crazy.
But, look, I figure it this way.
Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You know, Sweets, I like what I've heard about you,
especially the name.
‘Harley Quinzelle.’
Rework it a bit, and you get ‘Harley Quinn.’
Like the clown character Harlequin.
I know.
I've heard it before.
It's a name that puts a smile on my face.
It makes me feel there's someone here I can relate to.
Someone who might like to hear my secrets.
It took me nearly three months to set up a session.
I studied all his tricks and gimmicks, and felt I was ready for anything.
You know, my father used to beat me up pretty badly.
Anything except that.
Every time I got out of line:
Oh, sometimes I'd be just sitting there, doing nothing.
Pops tended to favor the grape, you see.
There was only one time I ever saw Dad really happy.
He took me to the circus when I was 7.
Oh, I still remember clowns running around, dropping their pants.
My old man laughed so hard, I thought he'd bust a gut.
So the next night, I ran out to meet him with his Sunday pants around my ankles.
"Hi, Dad. Look at me."
I took a big pratfall and tore the crotch clean out of his pants.
And then he broke my nose.
But, hey, that's the downside of Comedy.
You're always taking shots from folks who just don't get The Joke.
Like My Dad.
Or Batman.
Harley :
Yeah, yeah, I can tell you're less than thrilled.
You know, for what it's worth, I actually enjoyed some of our romps.
But there comes a time when a gal wants more.
And now all this gal wants is to settle down with her loving sweetheart.
The Batman :
You and the Joker?
Harley :
Right-a-roony.
HA-HA! HA-HA! HA-HA!
Harley :
I've never seen you laugh before.
I don't think I like it.
Cut it out.
You're giving me the creeps.
The Batman :
You little fool.
The Joker doesn't love anything except himself.
Wake up, Harlene.
He had you pegged for hired help the minute you walked into Arkham.
Harley :
That's not — No.
No! He told me things, secret things, he never told anyone.
The Batman :
Was it his line about the abusive father?
Or the one about the runaway mom?
He's gained a lot of sympathy with that one.
Harley :
Stop it! You're making me confused!
The Batman :
What was it he told that one parole officer?
Oh, yes.
"There was only one time I ever saw Dad really happy.
He took me to the ice show when I was 7."
Harley :
Circus.
He said it was The Circus.
The Batman :
He's got a million of them, Harley.
Harley :
You're wrong.
My Pudding does love me! He does!
You're The Problem.
And now you're gonna die and make everything right.
“Noh-Varr’s power was expressed not in the service of the status quo but as insurrection and anarchy. More frightening than his destructive capabilities were his beliefs.
We imagined our hero’s creed as a strange, unthinkable, untranslatable mix of seeming opposites, described in the text as “Zen Fascism.” We’d all seen what ray guns and flying saucers could do, but what if the alien had a belief system so seductive, so powerful and ultimately corrosive that it could destroy our own social structures? In a move that seems prescient, Jones and I had him attack Manhattan, burning the words FUCK YOU into the street grid, big enough to be read from space.
The third issue introduced Hexus the Living Corporation, an alien entity that arrived on our planet in the form of a mysterious logo. Hexus would root itself in a small office space somewhere and start spawning recruitment flyers —“DO YOU SINCERELY WANT TO GET RICH?”— to attract employees, who would then be swiftly assimilated into its workforce. Hexus traded up to bigger and bigger headquarters as it proceeded through its lifecycle. It was a naturally occurring “wild” corporate intelligence, a superpredator that began to gobble up the market territory of our own synthetic corporations, like Fox and AOL, on its way to devouring our planet’s entire resources before sending out its spores in the form of spaceships carrying Hexus flyers. In the end, Noh-Varr defeated the creature by leaking its secrets to its competitors, who then tore the pretender apart on the international stock exchange.
With her beloved Noh-Varr banged up in an inescapable superpenitentiary, which he’d vowed with a smile to transform into the “CAPITAL CITY OF THE NEW KREE EMPIRE,” Oubliette was pictured in the bombed ruins of Disneyland with Donald Duck lying facedown behind her, while the voice of Horus echoed loud and clear:
“THIS IS THE END OF THE WAY THAT WAS. COSMIC JIHAD HAS BEGUN. YOU ASKED FOR THIS.”
A horrified President Bill Clinton stroked his chin, perhaps suspecting he wasn’t long for office:
“… IT WAS THE WAY SHE KEPT SHOOTING THE POOR DUCK GUY IN THE BACK LIKE THAT. I DON’T BELIEVE I’LL EVER FORGET THAT IMAGE.”
And in hindsight, Marvel Boy, like The Authority, seems almost to be a transmission from a very different world that was waiting for us all across the millennial barricade.”
"Well, a Director is just someone who has a fetish about making The World the way he wants it - Sort of Narcissistic."
That's you....?
"All Directors....
They're vaugely like Emperors."
- George Lucas
Always Two There are,
No More, No Less —
A Master and an Apprentice.
— The Rule of Two
"Curious. I have brought The Sith to their ultimate victory. Through study, I will soon learn how to defeat death. While I may choose apprentices, I will never choose a successor."
— Darth Sidious, marginalia in The Book of The Sith, in the section titled "Selecting an Apprentice"
"The Sith Order is now a lineage....
It must not end with you!
I will not allow my new Sith Order to expire because you were unworthy or too protective to bequeath your power.
Know this : Your apprentice will kill you.
If this fact frightens you, then the Sith Order has already suffered a fatal infection.
Or do you believe that you will live forever?
You are not wrong to covet the secret, for I have sought to prolong my own life.
But in the extreme, this leads to narcissism and a lack of focus on The Rule of Two.
To be a Sith Lord is to outthink your enemies and to plan for every eventuality.
A proper apprentice will ensure that The Sith endure, no matter what fate may come upon your head."
— The Book of The Sith
An interval of thirty years elapsed between the foundation of Lavinium and the colonisation of Alba Longa. Such had been the growth of the Latin power, mainly through the defeat of the Etruscans, that neither at the death of Aeneas, nor during the regency of Lavinia, nor during the immature years of the reign of Ascanius, did either Mezentius and the Etruscans or any other of their neighbours venture to attack them. When terms of peace were being arranged, the river Albula, now called the Tiber, had been fixed as the boundary between the Etruscans and the Latins.
Ascanius was succeeded by his son Silvius, who by some chance had been born in the forest. He became the father of Aeneas Silvius, who in his turn had a son, Latinus Silvius. He planted a number of colonies: the colonists were called Prisci Latini. The cognomen of Silvius was common to all the remaining kings of Alba, each of whom succeeded his father. Their names are Alba, Atys, Capys, Capetus, Tiberinus, who was drowned in crossing the Albula, and his name transferred to the river, which became henceforth the famous Tiber. Then came his son Agrippa, after him his son Romulus Silvius. He was struck by lightning and left the crown to his son Aventinus, whose shrine was on the hill which bears his name and is now a part of the city of Rome.
He was succeeded by Proca, who had two sons, Numitor and Amulius. To Numitor, the elder, he bequeathed the ancient throne of the Silvian house. Violence, however, proved stronger than either the father's will or the respect due to the brother's seniority; for Amulius expelled his brother and seized the crown. Adding crime to crime, he murdered his brother's sons and made the daughter, Rhea Silvia, a Vestal virgin; thus, under the presence of honouring her, depriving her of all hopes of issue.
But the Fates had, I believe, already decreed the origin of this Great City and the foundation of the mightiest empire under heaven. The Vestal was forcibly violated and gave birth to twins.
She named Mars as their father, either because she really believed it, or because the fault might appear less heinous if a deity were the cause of it. But neither gods nor men sheltered her or her babes from the king's cruelty; the priestess was thrown into prison, the boys were ordered to be thrown into the river. By a heaven-sent chance it happened that the Tiber was then overflowing its banks, and stretches of standing water prevented any approach to the main channel. Those who were carrying the children expected that this stagnant water would be sufficient to drown them, so under the impression that they were carrying out the king's orders they exposed the boys at the nearest point of the overflow, where the Ficus Ruminalis (said to have been formerly called Romularis) now stands. The locality was then a wild solitude.
The tradition goes on to say that after the floating cradle in which the boys had been exposed had been left by the retreating water on dry land, a thirsty she-wolf from the surrounding hills, attracted by the crying of the children, came to them, gave them her teats to suck and was so gentle towards them that the king's flock-master found her licking the boys with her tongue.
According to the story, his name was Faustulus. He took the children to his hut and gave them to his wife Larentia to bring up. Some writers think that Larentia, from her unchaste life, had got the nickname of "She-wolf" amongst the shepherds, and that this was the origin of the marvellous story. As soon as the boys, thus born and thus brought up, grew to be young men they did not neglect their pastoral duties, but their special delight was roaming through the woods on hunting expeditions.
As their strength and courage were thus developed, they used not only to lie in wait for fierce beasts of prey, but they even attacked brigands when loaded with plunder. They distributed what they took amongst the shepherds, with whom, surrounded by a continually increasing body of young men, they associated themselves in their serious undertakings and in their sports and pastimes.
Remus accordingly was handed over to Numitor for punishment. Faustulus had from the beginning suspected that it was royal offspring that he was bringing up —
— for he was aware that the boys had been exposed at the king's command and the time at which he had taken them away exactly corresponded with that of their exposure. He had, however, refused to divulge the matter prematurely, until either a fitting opportunity occurred or necessity demanded its disclosure. The necessity came first. Alarmed for the safety of Remus he revealed the state of the case to Romulus.
It so happened that Numitor also, who had Remus in his custody, on hearing that he and his brother were twins and comparing their ages and the character and bearing so unlike that of one in a servile condition, began to recall the memory of his grandchildren, and further inquiries brought him to the same conclusion as Faustulus; nothing was wanting to the recognition of Remus.
So the king Amulius was being enmeshed on all sides by hostile purposes.
Romulus shrunk from a direct attack with his body of shepherds, for he was no match for the king in open fight.
They were instructed to approach the palace by different routes and meet there at a given time, whilst from Numitor's house Remus lent his assistance with a second band he had collected. The attack succeeded and the king was killed.
