#and the whole psychology of this man with his deep seeded trauma

[doublel27]

No, you don’t like Owen Strand right now (and you’re not supposed to)

Or my meta on why I think the show is purposefully running Owen into the ground and out of our hearts, and that it’s coming for a big pay off. 

CW: 9/11, Minor Character Death, Cancer, and other just general 911 problems. 

A lot of people cite the issues with Owen Strand as a growing problem on 9-1-1 Lone Star. And if you listen, most people say it starts in Season Two, where Owen leaves funny and quirky and takes a straight run at insufferable. I’m of the mind that this is part of a larger arc we’re going to see come to a head later in season three. And if I’m wrong, I will publicly admit it and eat my hat. But until then…

Season Two starts off in an interesting place for Owen. TK has recovered from his gunshot wound, Owen’s cancer is heading into remission and he just needs surgery to remove what’s left of the tumor, Owen is sleeping with his ex-wife who he strongly suggests to Judd in season one is the “One Who Got Away,” and things are looking great for the 126. However, the first scene, the first big speech and moment at the start of the season for Owen is about forgotten heroes—the military, the first responders to 9/11, being left behind by the system. Owen’s anger in that opening sequence is real and righteous. The cancer Owen is diagnosed with in the pilot is real, it does affect the first responders who survived 9/11, and they sued the city because their insurance didn’t pay for it. He’s standing alone in front of the VA hospital and opens with this speech “Mr. Vasquez, this is Captain Owen Strand Austin FD. I wanna say how sorry I am for your loss.  No one should ever have to feel what you’re feeling. I understand you wanna blame the government for what happened to your daughter. For denying her sacrifice. I know how painful that feels. [...] You see, on 9/11, it was the one day this country swore it would never forget. And it did. Those of us who were there that day, we don’t have that luxury. We don’t get to forget. And I know too many people who survived that day, only to die years later, forgotten. Ignored. Because their problems were too expensive. Too inconvenient. So yeah, I understand your rage.” The moment ends with the gun of the tank stopping inches from his face and he responds to Grace with “Still standing.” 

Season two opens with Owen acknowledging his rage but that he’s still standing. It’s one of the few times he even touches on his feelings.

Things get blown to hell (literally) in 2x02 when Tim Rosewater, the sweet and sarcastic paramedic, gets hit with a flaming chunk of lava three feet from Owen’s face, and there’s nothing Owen can do. The promise he made to the 126 at the opening of the series: everyone gets a fair shake, no one gets left behind, and everyone who clocks in at the beginning of a shift clocks out is broken here, as it inevitably would be. When he goes home to Gwyn, he sits in the ashes of the volcanic eruption, jokes about what’s the worst that can happen—he gets cancer again, and is reminded of the ash on 9/11, although muses that this time it’s prettier and I don’t know if it’s because he’s further away from that moment, or his losses are smaller or he’s actually sort of letting Gwyn comfort him. Gwyn suggests that she’s glad he’s okay in the wake of Tim’s death and Owen responds “Oh, I was always going to be okay. You don’t need to worry about me. I’m invincible, evidently.” He recounts that being diagnosed with cancer was the universe finally evening the score, but surviving it…he doesn’t know what to do with. 

  2x03 opens with Owen not sleeping, dreaming of Tim’s death and of Tim haunting him. We see him take a reckless turn in the wake of Tim’s death, but it doesn’t bother us because it’s to go get Judd, Marjan, Paul, Eddie and the kid. But we watch him unspool the longer he and Hen are in the mineshaft. He’s hallucinating Tim and it’s getting deep into his invulnerability psychology, into the voices of the people who died on 9/11 from Tim’s mouth. The 14 men who didn’t make it home but Owen did. Owen tells Hen the whole thing, the anger he feels that they let him leave that building alive without them. The guilt he feels over forcing TK into following his footsteps, over the failure of his marriage (singular). When Hen suggests they’re going to die, Owen quips, “You’re only trying to cheer me up.” (If you need to know more about the house Owen’s is modeled on, BlueInk3 detailed it here.) Owen once again escapes certain death due to the 126 and 118 stealing the truck and driving into a wildfire. Owen wakes to TK and Judd and the rest of his team staring at him and they carry him out. Owen wakes again to Tommy, who was so concerned by the conversation with Owen she came up to where they were fighting, and in the end another miracle has contained the fire. Owen’s takeaway is that it’s okay, he’s invincible and it’s the only logical explanation for how they walked out. Hen corrects him, that the actions of two teams, particularly TK and Buck deciding to steal an engine, explain what happened and they didn’t walk, they were carried. Owen doesn’t buy it. And we can see that based on his actions further on. 

Then, in 2x04 “Friends with Benefits,” that storyline seems to disappear, because Gwyn pushes for a label and it turns out, she’s miraculously pregnant and Owen heads into a three episode arc of “I’m going to be a dad (again).” He pulls himself (mostly) together after ping-ponging between professing that divorced together not-together is the best thing and proposing to Gwyn by recreating their wedding suite set up. (Gwyn says no.) But with the advent of the baby, Owen makes a commitment to Gwyn, choosing to get the surgery he’s been avoiding. He throws himself wholeheartedly into this second chance. We have already learned that Gwyn and Owen’s relationship fell apart in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11 because Owen chose the 252 over Gwyn and TK. Here he is, with another tragedy that brought all of those feelings and memories back up, but Owen has a chance to fix it. Here’s Gwyn, warm and alive and they’re not miserable, and there’s another baby. A baby he doesn’t have to leave. He can fix this. He can have his do-over. 

Until he can’t. Gwyn figures out in 2x07 that it might not be his baby, due to timing, and Owen is fixated on the Kintsugi bowl, all the more beautiful for it’s cracks. And when it comes down to it, when it comes down to the moment she’s emailed the paternity test, he asks her to delete it. Owen doesn’t care. He wants her to delete it. Because for him it’s not about whether or not this baby is biologically his. It’s about what the whole system of their reunion represents. It’s that he’s had a better time with Gwyn in the last year than they did their entire marriage. It’s a chance to fix something he broke, to come home to someone instead of run away. It’s a chance to have a more beautiful life because of the cracks that he repaired. Gwyn checks the email and Owen says he still doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter, because again, it’s more than whose baby it is. It’s this miraculous do-over for Owen to get things right. But Gwyn doesn’t believe him. And she leaves him, again. The spiral that was put on hold with the news of the baby quickly starts up again with the advent of 2x08. “Bad Call” is a fan favorite episode for a lot of reasons. It gives Carlos, as a character, backstory and depth, introducing us to his father and continuing the path to detective Carlos that began in season 1 with Michelle and Iris. It weaves together all of the calls into one beautiful storyline. Tommy, Nancy and TK get a solid feature as the paramedic team. Paul, Marjan, Judd and Mateo get a beautiful save in the building. But it’s also the start of Owen’s unraveling. He’s doing alright-ish at the top of the episode, but he and Gwyn haven’t told TK about the break up. They haven’t told anyone. Owen is, literally, still living in a world where no one knows his world is unraveling. And then TK shows up at work frosty and Gwyn calls to tell him that she told TK, that she had to, and she’s worried about him shutting down. We then get to the call with the explosives, where Owen has to call everyone out of the building, and the 126, being the one 126 (and Owen’s proteges) stay in the building to find the kid, and Owen goes back up after them—because he’s working on keeping that impossible promise to bring everyone home. The episode continues with Carlos showing up to Owen’s because TK hasn’t come home and he’s worried. Gwyn jumps straight to relapse, but Owen stays cool. Owen stays collected. He calls the station and discovers that no one has had contact with Tommy’s team for hours. Owen starts with his invincibility/god complex by starting his own investigation here with Carlos, a currently suspended cop, along for the ride. Now, this is all easily justifiable to the audience. We love the paramedic team. Owen and Carlos love TK. Of course they’d be going off to find him. But there are channels this probably should have gone through that were not Owen and Carlos out on their own mission. Owen is supportive of Carlos, and is helpful. He supports Carlos in calling his dad to solve the investigation his dad’s been working on. They find Tommy, Nancy and TK. Owen is the first one through the door of the Sun and Salt. Owen picks up the gun that TK had kicked away moments earlier and shoots Tommy’s assailant after she had jabbed him with a heavy dose of drugs and Carlos rushes in to pick up TK. Now, the only quibble most people had with this looking back is that Owen is the one who shot Tommy’s assailant. But Carlos was relieved of his gun and badge earlier in the episode and asked not to leave town by his father. Owen got to the gun on the ground first and did what had to be done, but the thing is, why is Owen the first through the door? It’s this hero/god complex/invincibility business that makes him sure he can enter that building first. It’s also the fact that he would like to die, especially in the line of saving someone. That drives him to pick up the gun and shooting it off. And, let’s be honest, it’s not the first time Owen comes in at the tail end of someone else’s legwork to appear the hero. But that’s all part of the game.

2x09 doesn’t feature Owen that much, and that’s because “Saving Grace” is really a Judd Begins story. The 126 as we know it doesn’t feature until the halfway point, the show bouncing between Judd and Grace’s car accident and Judd’s life since 1995. When we do see Owen, he greets Judd, but can’t look at him as Judd cuts a piece of lasagna for Grace, and the framing of that shot is a choice. He supports Judd, being the first to hug him. He listens as two on-duty cops tell Carlos they’re here to interview a drunk guy who definitely ran into a convenience store and might have run a couple off the road, and Owen watches Judd and specifically asks if he’s good. Judd is not good. Eventually, Judd spirals into the man’s room and is ready to kill him over Grace’s injuries, when Owen and Grace’s daddy show up to get him, and it’s Owen who speaks to Judd first, calling him off, and Owen who eventually touches him to ground him and get him to back off. And again, Owen is Judd’s friend. They’re more peers—Owen, Tommy and Judd—than with the other members of the 126 (who I affectionately call the kids’ table). But he’s still chasing down other people’s problems. Judd credits Grace’s awakening with saving the man in the bed’s life, but the last shot of the scene is Owen looking back at the man who might have almost killed Judd and Grace, alive. Our last glimpse of Owen is when Judd comes out to tell everyone that Grace is going to be okay. He’s concerned for Judd, but when the news that Grace is pregnant comes out, Owen claps, a little awkwardly, and then heads in for the hug, insisting that the whole team come congratulate Judd. But the juxtaposition of Judd becoming a father and Grace living, as Owen is losing Gwyn to New York and the baby isn’t his…well, that’s something. 

2x10-2x12 is a whole Owen spiraling out arc that gives us, as an audience, a true look at the mess that Owen is becoming. TK moves out of Owen’s house and in with Carlos. Owen tries to spend the whole day moving them and is looking for new jobs to do around the place, and TK has to both tell Owen that they’ve got it and take the time to check on his father. He wants to make sure his father will be okay with him moving out. Owen blows it off, putting on his usual smile and dipping out. Later, TK invites Owen over for dinner with Carlos and Owen insists that he’s busy, but we see him just playing solitaire. He finds Mateo, currently homeless because Mateo’s roommates have been awful idiots, and takes home a surrogate son/friend. On their 24 hours off Mateo, who just wants to sleep, is badgered into staying up all night with his beloved Captain, drinking an entire bottle of very expensive tequila. And when he raises a question about tequila hours Owen points out that he can now “Because there’s no cancer treatments, no one in recovery and no one who is pregnant in the house.” YIKES

The yikes continue to roll in 2x10 as Owen breaks down with Mateo while very drunk, and spills that he’s canceled his cancer surgery. He’s sad, he’s distraught, and when Mateo comes to work the next day he sounds the alarm with his coworkers. He’s worried about Owen. Owen’s clearly depressed. Owen walks in, his smiling chirpy self, and everyone looks at Mateo like maybe he’s crazy. But the audience watched him fall apart with Mateo. We know Mateo didn’t imagine it. Well, it comes out that he DID indeed cancel his cancer surgery and TK shows up at Owen’s house the next day PISSED with an intervention. Owen is glib throughout the whole experience, putting everyone else on the spot, and the team pushes back. TK in particular pushes at his father. He has known something is off, but Owen blows off every concern. He skewers Mateo for telling the rest of the team, suggesting that Mateo��who remains the most conscientious of all of the members of the 126—cannot be trusted. In the end though, Owen cannot deny that he canceled his surgery, even if he uses everybody else in the room as an excuse of why he hasn’t rescheduled. TK ends up leaving, suggesting his dad is going to do whatever he wants, and the rest of the 126 follows. 

The thing that shifts Owen to schedule his surgery is a false alarm with Buttercup. Owen thinks Buttercup’s cancer is back and calls TK and Carlos to let them know something is wrong. His family shows up, and Owen promises to schedule the surgery because of Buttercup’s illness. It turns out that Buttercup just ate Gwyn’s sloth tea infuser, but Owen goes through with the surgery anyway. It takes nearly losing someone that Owen loves to get him to take care of himself. This will come around again.

He lets TK come to the hospital, but promises that he’ll be fine. He rolls his eyes at the puzzle TK gives him. TK knows that he needs to be busy, and Owen tries to keep busy. We get a montage of Owen doing all kinds of ridiculous things, but he learns how to download a police scanner app from Billy, and like two sides of the same coin during their medical leaves, Billy and Owen listen to various dispatch calls to keep their adrenaline running. Owen listens to the scanner like it’s a podcast. He’s still out and about with his scanner podcast, when he stumbles upon a fire. Owen, like a moth to a flame, throws himself at the fire. He watches the man who set it run away, and tries to help. When the 126 shows up, they make him get out of there, but Owen is already hooked. He’s convinced it’s arson, and tries to talk to the deputy chief about it. But when he’s blown off, Owen goes off on his own to try and figure it out. He buys a bunch of things to try and prove it was arson, which is not a smart look, but then Owen’s not thinking about that.

He’s so focused on solving a problem, Owen isn’t thinking about what things look like, or how they’ll be taken. This is a continuing problem with Owen. He leaps without looking. It doesn’t matter, not really, because Owen is invincible, untouchable, in his own mind. This theory of why he’s alive, that he cannot be taken, or that if he does enough he’ll finally be deemed a hero enough to die, leads Owen into these situations. And it also leads us into being entirely irritated in the process.

He gets to the point where he’s so focused chasing the arsonist that he delays going to TK and Carlos’s house to investigate and ends up needing to get dragged out by Billy. He then hatches a plan with Gabriel Reyes to catch the arsonist, one that leaves both of their sons in the dark and opens a rift between them. The plan culminates in arson fires set in both the 126 and in TK and Carlos’s home. Owen figures it out in the nick of time, both times, warning the 126 with minutes to spare. With Carlos and TK’s house, Owen gets there with Judd and Tommy and Billy to help save them. 

Once again, things fall apart around Owen, but Owen remains relatively unscathed. He wasn’t at the 126 when it blew up. He gets TK and Carlos out of their house and he’s got some minor burns.

You would think this would lead Owen to take a break, but in the next episode, Tommy Vega ends up in a hostage situation in the wake of her husband’s death. Owen, not knowing what has happened, but learning Tommy is in the middle of a disaster, throws himself in the middle of it. He’s running around, calling people, bothering the SWAT team and eventually sweet talking his way inside to get to Tommy. Owen is legit inserting himself into something that isn’t his business and is potentially incredibly dangerous. Again, we have a man who believes that he’s invulnerable, who is waiting for the universe to deem him fit to die, and so it’s a win/win. Either he makes it out alive or dies a hero.

We move into the dust storm, and while Billy and everyone else stays inside, Owen runs out into the middle of the storm. Despite it being a mistake, there are more people that are going to need his help. When Owen walks out into the storm, visibility is incredibly low. There’s a chance he’s going to get lost or end up dead. But he’s Owen, and he’s either going to be deemed heroic enough to die, or he’s going to live. And unsurprisingly, he lives. His former team all think he’s responsible for the mass-triage happening outside, but it’s really Mateo who has done all of that work. This isn’t the first time Owen’s won the credit for things, even if he hasn’t done them. But he gets through without incident. The team decides to go clean up the 126 on their own. While there, Billy shows up, letting Owen know that he’s taken the Deputy Chief job that Owen has turned down. Billy lets Owen know he’s pulling the plug on the 126, and Owen punches Billy in the face. 

This leads to the spiral that we find Owen in at the start of Season 3. Owen has tried to solve a problem and lost—it’s not a typical thing for Owen, and he bolts in the face of losing. He ends up in a cabin out in Hill Country making twigspresso and genuinely pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist. He hasn’t shaved. He doesn’t respond to the team. Marjan comes up there ready to bully him back down into Austin and he refuses. During this storyline, Owen ends up involving himself in a drug cartel that is smuggling people into the country and using them to move drugs as well. Owen makes several blunders in getting involved in this situation. When it comes down to it, Owen nearly gets everyone killed. If it wasn’t for Marjan, Owen would have died right alongside everyone else. But she explodes the dirty deputy’s cruiser and she saves the day. Owen seems to get the credit, but it’s really Marjan being there that allows those people to live. Marjan tries to get him to see reason, but beyond getting Owen down into Austin, he refuses. He shaves, Tommy comes to get him and it turns out TK is in the ICU and dying. Like with Buttercup, having someone he loves in grave danger spurs Owen to take action he was avoiding. Owen throws himself into getting the 126 back up and running because he takes TK’s current predicament as a punishment for giving up in the first place. As an audience, this seems ridiculous. But again, Owen has a bit of a god-complex. The world is hurting him because he made a poor choice. TK is giving up because Owen gave up first. So he has to go. He refuses to stay.

Now, the rest of the team (aside from Tommy) reads as very confused in this scene. Marjan actively suggests that Owen not go, which is contrary to her desires up to that point, but let’s be honest, TK’s not doing so hot. Paul looks concerned and Carlos looks very doubtful but it’s hard to tell where any of his emotions are at this point. The fandom, though, definitely took it as Carlos being done. Tommy goes, because she long ago accepted that Owen is both an immovable object and an unstoppable force. They track Billy and that leads them to finding out Grace is gone. Owen throws himself into solving problems, because there’s nothing he can do for TK. Also, an Owen who gives up, an Owen who isn’t trying hard enough, is an Owen who doesn’t deserve the miracle of his son living. In Owen’s flawed logic, TK will not be okay as long as Owen is failing. He hugs Carlos, passing on the caring of TK to TK’s ex-boyfriend, and leaves. 

Throughout 3.04, we watch Owen do what Owen does best, knuckle down, pretend things are not as bad as they seem, and shove his emotions away. Tommy tries to apologize, but Owen offers her comfort. Truth is, Owen doesn’t fall apart until Grace is giving birth, presumably because he’s very much reminded of his son’s birth; the same son who is potentially dying at that moment. Owen escapes the bus and falls to his knees in the snow, because the reality is talking to Billy, saving Grace, none of that will actually make a difference. And I think deep down, Owen knows that. 

In the end, TK lives, and I’m sure Owen can add this as another one of his miracles that came because he, Owen Strand, did the right thing. It’s not. We as an audience know what happened, because again, like with Mateo, we were shown the reality that it was Carlos pouring his heart out to TK and TK’s ‘Coma Carol’ with his mental projection of his mom which convinces TK to fight for the life he wants. 

The 126 gets saved as well after Owen brings his apology letter to Billy, (but really thanks to Marjan for her fighting this whole time and Paul for convincing Lindsay’s parents that the gift he needs isn’t a maserati but Marj’s Go Fund Me funded) and Owen is able to rebuild his house, again. It’s the third time he’s rebuilt a supposedly dead firehouse, although this time he hadn’t lost the people, just the space. 

There’s a party, with Gwyn and Jonah coming to surprise TK and the whole house dancing and celebrating. Everyone except Owen. Owen retreats up to his office where he can look down on the party, separate and above them. He sets the bit of iron from the second tower of the World Trade Center on his desk. Owen Strand may have survived to live another day; he may have put his house back in order, but he is still trapped back in 9/11. 

By 3.05, the 126 is up and running and Owen is banging any woman that walks, especially ones significantly younger than him. Mateo calls him on it, pointing out that he doesn’t know these girls' names, that he’s not coping with anything that’s happened. The intervention gets brought up, as well as Gwyn and Jonah. Owen pushes this off and gets Mateo to help him with online dating. His first date off of his fancy dating sight goes wildly awry and while Owen is waiting for his and his date’s cars to be brought up by the valet, he spots a car there's an Amber alert on, so he steals his date’s car to chase it. There’s no reason for Owen to do this. This is indeed theft. He calls in the Amber alert car to dispatch and dispatch tells him to stand down and not do anything with the woman in the car, to wait. At this point, Owen is racing through the streets. The way it’s filmed, very shaky and wild, it’s almost certain he’s going to get himself and his carnapped-date killed. Owen ends up deciding to ignore dispatch entirely, but to pull the kidnapper over and confront her. There’s a lot of ways that this could have gone wrong and is foolish. But Owen Strand, the invulnerable hero, doesn’t think about these things. We’ve seen it before, and we see it here. 

Once again, he gets incredibly lucky and manages to keep the woman from stabbing him before Carlos and Detective Washington and other members of APD show up. Owen appears to be the hero here, but the audience has watched Carlos build this case, pouring all his spare time into finding out what happened to little Katie. Many audience members were once again angry that Owen seemed to get the save for something he didn’t do. But that’s part of the point. Owen is throwing himself into things he doesn’t know, into situations he has nothing to do with, and when things don’t go to shit, it adds to the evidence that he’s here to save as many people as possible, to be a hero, before he dies a hero.

The next two episodes see a slightly more toned-down Owen, but not really. He’s mentioned as feeling closer to season one Owen, but he’s still tossing himself into disaster at every opportunity. 

In 3.06, we learn that Owen is an alien conspiracy theorist, but considering that Owen has taken in every health fad that has ever crossed the internet and is pretty sure that he’s been deemed invincible by the universe, this isn’t a surprise. He and Judd end up finding a massive radiation poisoning incident, and throw themselves into an investigation while they are off-duty. Considering Owen has just recovered from cancer caused by carcinogens, this is a bad plan. 

 In 3.07, Carlos tries to warn Owen about Sergeant O’Brien, but Owen being Owen, takes it as a challenge. Now O’Brien is an asshole, but Owen doesn’t help the situation. Owen deliberately antagonizes him, and it leads to a bit of a battle that Owen decides how to handle. TK tries to warn him off as well, reminding him of the anger management classes that he took after he hit Billy. They end up on the softball field, which seems harmless, but Owen is out quoting The Art of War and planting people on his team to be ringers. Unsurprisingly, the game ends in a brawl, because even when TK tries to warn him off, Owen cannot hold his temper. He’s been warned off this particular fight multiple times, by multiple people, but it still ended up here. Owen’s redemption in this episode comes when Sergeant O’Brien is caught in a fire and Owen saves him. Once again, Owen comes through with a save due to heroics, and yes, this time it’s because he was doing his job and not throwing himself at someone else’s problem, but it still adds fuel to the narrative of how things work in Owen’s head.

The problem is Owen keeps upping the ante, but calms down a little when things are going well—Gwyn and the baby in season two or as we see in 3.05-3.07 a slightly less unhinged Owen in every episode since the reunion of the 126 in season three. But the longer it goes on, the less reasonable Owen's choices have become. What was justifiable as a father’s love and concern in 2x08 has quickly become an obnoxious pattern. But as we’ve seen, it’s been going on consistently since 2x08. That's EVERY EPISODE for 14 episodes. No wonder we're all like "What the fuck dude?" And now, at the end of 3x07, we’ve hit a thing Owen cannot fix and cannot solve. Gwyn is dead. Gwyneth Morgan, the one who got away, the woman he loves, the gold-standard of women, is gone for good this time. The only times he’s done anything to turn anything around have been either when he thought he had a second chance with Gwyn, or in her absence, when he thought Buttercup or TK was dying. Now he will be confronted with an actual death, and of the one person he tried to rebuild things with. 

In the preview, he says that TK’s mom died, but we know it’s more than that. On top of that, he’s going to be involved in a plane disaster. As a survivor of 9/11, as a first responder who was on the scene early, especially as his firehouse was probably in Midtown, a plane disaster is going to bring things up. It’s going to bring a lot of things up. It has to, considering the mass fears around flying that cropped up across all of the US over planes after 9/11.

This combination should get Owen to the point of TRUE rock-bottom, which we haven’t seen yet. As these themes keep circling, I have faith that the writers are planning on bringing Owen to an actual reckoning and recovery, where he deals with at least some of his trauma and begins to heal. Now, I know there’s a lot of concern out there that Lone Star doesn’t know what they’re doing with Owen here, but I think they do. They’ve carried some solid through lines for their characters through multiple seasons. Detective Carlos Reyes was signaled early in Season One as he supported Michelle in her investigation into Iris’s disappearance. We’ve followed Mateo’s struggles to stand up for himself, to the point where he has a voice now from season one through three. There’s more. The show has set Owen up as an unreliable narrator by showing what happens in reality vs. what Owen says/thinks. They have had multiple characters, including one from a sister show, confront Owen about his beliefs about himself, and Owen stubbornly doubles down. Owen may be over twenty years out from 9/11, but it’s never ever really left him. He carries that day with him in his bones, from the promises he makes to his team that he cannot keep, to his belief the only real heroes that day didn’t make it out alive, to his need to constantly make up for the fact that everyone sees a hero when he’s in fact a man who’s failed many times. I cannot imagine they’re giving us this particular set up without coming through with the payoff. They’ve made Owen unlikeable, inconvenient, arrogant and really a continued spiraling problem. And I think it’s on purpose.

[quirklessidiot]

Title: blood son [oneshot; filthy rich sequel]  Pairing: millionare!sakusa kiyoomi x y/n [filthy capitalist au ft. kageyama tobio as your son] Genre: major angst ahead, thriller, yandere!au-ish

Synopsis: A full circle of madness finally comes to an end.

Warnings: sexual themes, rape, yandere behaviorisms (just some obsessive and disturbing stuff), very dark themes, anxiety, trauma, depression, eating disorder, unwanted pregnancy/children (y/n hates her kid here), suicide,  gaslighting, and Y/N’s decent to madness

Notes: happy 800 due to a lot of uh people asking for a short sequel, here it is...for better understanding, please read filthy rich skskksks anyways onto the story…i cant write smut for shit sIKE also fuck men and women like this, if you see them chok’em and chunk’em in the basin.  yes tobio is ur bby boy here idk kageyama and sakusa have the same energy i just couldnt resist i swear sksks

Filthy rich // series masterlist

A moan escapes your lips when you feel the hot liquid fill your hole, your expression is tantalizing and completely erotic. Something that he can’t seem to stop looking at, your body that was now a canvas of his marks, was a reminder that no one could have you. 

You're oblivious to it all, the things he did. The things he wanted to do to you, the dark thoughts, you were like a small rabbit in the den of a large wolf. Completely trusting, completely dumb and he’s taking advantage of it.

He stuffs and fills you up with his seed so that you’ll never leave him. 

He wants to breed you.

Your belly swelling with his children.

It was definitely a dream come true.

Your eyes snap back to reality as the bus stops in front of the new town, you had moved towns earlier since the town started to become a tourist destination. The idea of staying there would be too risky despite having the alias of Kageyama Miwa. You were still in hiding and you feared to even open the news despite it being eight years since you ran away.

“Okaasan, are we going to go down now?” a small voice asks.

You turn to find his son staring right at you, it had been a cruel reminder for him to look a lot like his father. You knew that he didn’t have any part in this, he was a victim just like you but you couldn’t help but be distant and not-so affectionate.

This was his kid.

His blood.

You couldn’t help but shrivel away.

“...Okaasan will just take her duffel bag on the overhead, just wait right behind me.” You say quietly. Tobio was a good boy, he was quiet and obedient. If the circumstances had been different, you’d adore him but every time you looked at him, all you saw was his wretched father and the unnamed things he did in the name of ‘love’.

To be honest, you didn’t know what else Sakusa did aside from trying to get you pregnant and holding you back from leaving. 

You didn’t even want to try to find out. If he was willing to go through such lengths to have you stay, it was more than enough reason to run away. You held onto your child’s hands as you made your way to your new home, it was smaller than the last one but this was alright.

It was clean and livable.

Tobio stays at the side, out of your way as you begin to fix up the house. The young boy isn’t social for his age towards his peers and you should be worried yet you can’t bring yourself to be, “Okaasan’s going to go to the grocery store, would you like anything?” you ask.

“Milk.”

“Alright, just stay here okay?”

He meekly nods as you awkwardly pat his head and  tie your roughly chopped hair in a tight ponytail, over the course of eight years, time has not been kind to you. You had grown unhealthily thin, probably lost some hair due to stress, and the bags underneath your eyes due to the lack of good sleep was evident.

You tell yourself that he isn’t looking for you now.

That he probably found a new plaything but you couldn’t help but look behind your shoulder every time. You didn’t even expect to get this far away, last you heard whilst you were at the station towards the last town eight years ago, you were being searched up and down by the police all over Tokyo.

You really thought you’d be found out and you feared for the worse but the farther you went, the less news reports you saw.

They probably thought you had died.

Which was good on your part that time because you’d rather be dead in a ditch than be caught up with a man like him again.

“...-Kusa Kiyoomi is expected to marry the daughter of Akiko Corp soon…”

You tense up at the mention of the very familiar name as you pass by the appliance store, shakily you turn to the tv screen to find a video of Sakusa Kiyoomi with a woman who had the same hair color as yours. Everything around you is muted now as his cold gaze fills the tv screen, your heart is thumping quick. 

He isn’t here.

He isn’t here.

“...It’s quite the love story of the century, don’t you think? After the disappearance of Kiyoomi’s beloved eight years ago, he met her a few years back and he seems to be doing well.” The tv anchor smiles on the screen as she talks to her co-host but inside you were shaking, what did happen to your missing person report? Curiosity starts to gnaw your insides as you head to the internet café before going to the grocery store.

You didn’t have the guts to look then but after seeing that report, you pull up on the secluded part of the internet café and search up your case. Your mouth dries up, the search was still on-going much to your surprise. There was even a website dedicated to it, “...Y/N L/N might be suffering from hysteria and psychological problems, please contact us immediately when you see her.”

Your eyes narrowed at the report as you shakily cup your mouth and choke back a laugh, that bastard really had the audacity to diagnose you with that when he was the one sick to the head.

Once again, the bile on your throat starts to pile up.

It still wasn’t safe.

You’d probably live your whole life on the run.

On the run with his son that scarily resembled him, how fucking cruel.

Sakusa Kiyoomi’s eyes glaze over the small town in discontent, apparently his bride-to-be wanted to get married here and who was he to refuse? All he wanted to do was get this over with so her father can shut up.

“Kiyoomi-san.” a small dainty voice calls out, he turns to his side to find (h/c) staring right at him. Akiko Hideyo is the daughter of one of the most powerful businessmen in Tokyo, he met her at a function a few years ago.

The very first time he saw her was from behind, it was a rather scary resemblance that he had to stop himself from approaching her by calling your name yet when he started to talk to her and hear her dainty voice, he realizes that she’s not even like you at all.

She was gentle and dainty like a deer.

Albeit his little bunny was gentle when they got together sometimes, he always recalled how you were filled with spunk. How you weren’t even afraid to put him in his place and how you were all over the place but seem to look beautiful whilst doing so.

He always recalled wanting to control you yet you never seem to succumb to it.

It had been eleven years since you first met, eight years since you had disappeared without a single trace and Sakusa is stuck with some third-rate look alike for relief. Every time they fucked, it was always from behind. Hideyo thinks it’s just his preference but in reality, it was because her back had such strong resemblance to you and he’d imagine every time that it was you.

He misses the roughness, the high, the erotica. 

The only things you could provide.

It was never enough, it was only you, you, and you.

“...Have you decided what flavor you wanted? Komori-san mentioned that you liked vanilla.” his fiancé meekly says.

Hideyo was boring.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s just doing this because he has never seen someone closely resembling you, “Anything would be fine.” He replied in a clipped tone. As the car comes to a halt for a moment because of a large truck backing from a driveway, his attention shifted towards a young boy bouncing a volleyball against the pavement outside his window. There are scratches on his knee cap yet the boy had a blank look on his face, he was sort of reminded of himself when he was younger.

As he was about to look away, he sees a woman approach the young boy and bends down to his level to check the scratches.

The woman’s small figure isn’t even the least bit familiar yet his attention can’t seem to go away. He watches her tuck the strand of stray hair and he finally gets a good look and it feels like the world stops turning at how the woman scarily resembles you. Albeit the figure was smaller and the hair was another color and unevenly chopped short.

It was no mistake.

“Y/N.” He mumbles yet as he’s about to open the door, the car starts to move. Kiyoomi’s fist tightens as he uncharacteristically yells at the driver to stop the car, Hideyo jumps on the seat and before she could say anything else, the business mongrel is out of the car, running to where you stood.

Yet just like a ghost, you were gone and so was the little boy who had oddly resembled him.

These days you had even a harder time sleeping. Maybe it was because there was a little leak on the ceiling, or better yet, maybe it was because the heater wasn’t working, or maybe it was because you were at a new place which made it harder to adjust.

You sat at the side with your expense book on hand, your gaze on his son who was peacefully asleep. Tobio was growing older soon and he needed to settle down at one place for high school and college. A part of yourself ventured deep and dark in your mind, the thought of leaving him at an orphanage seemed better now.

He had a fake last name anyways, the bastard wouldn’t be able to find him. 

You’d be doing this boy a favor since you never saw him as your kid and he’d be away from his very messy world.

Your thoughts are immediately disrupted when you hear a brief knock on the door. This made you tense up, it was late, Why would there be a need for visitors? Your son is quick to be awoken by the second knock and you immediately press your hand on his mouth and while your other finger is on your lips to signal him to keep quiet.

Another knock.

Tobio looks worried, it wasn’t his first time to see an episode from you but this time, something feels different. You're shaking more and you look like you’re about to pass out any moment. “Stay quiet.” you mouth as you crawl towards the door and press your ear on it to confirm who was on the other side, too afraid to even take a peak on the window.

Silence.

The only sound that could be heard was your thumping heart, Tobio had voluntarily placed a hand on his mouth to keep himself quiet.

Another knock.

You shut your eyes tight, praying to whatever god out there for this person to leave.

“...I don’t think anyone lives here.” You hear someone say on the other side, the voice sounded so familiar but you just couldn’t pinpoint who it was, this wasn’t Sakusa for sure,  “Are you sure that the information was right?”

Silence again.

“Hm.” The person hummed, knocking again, “Well, this place seems like a dead end. The landlady said that she’s not familiar with the tenants here so we could be wrong…”

The voice started to decrease and you feel yourself slowly starting to breathe easier. Tobio slowly put down his hand and there you saw it, the fear on his eyes. You breathe in and out, calming yourself, this place isn't safe anymore, “Tobio, take your bags. We’re leaving.” you only say.

You don’t even hesitate to leave despite it being the middle of the night.

Tobio is right in front of you as you go down your small apartment and you think everything is well, you really do yet luck didn’t seem to be on your side that night.

“...Y/N?”

A dreadfully familiar voice calls out, didn’t they leave? Why? why was he here?

“O-Okaasan.” Tobio mumbles, grabbing your hand and hiding behind you.

Your head hurts, you wanted to just be selfish and leave Tobio here with this man, his father, the wretched, vile creature who had betrayed you. You wanted to run.

You didn’t feel safe.

Sakusa Kiyoomi didn’t make you feel safe.

“Y/N…” He repeats, slowly approaching you, “It’s me, bunny.”

Oh, how you hated that pet name. It sounded like you were his plaything, like you could never escape from his set-up. Before you could say anything else, he invades your personal space once again and envelopes you in a very,very tight hug.

“I’ve missed you so, so much.” He whispers on your ear and your shivering, not from pleasure but from fear, “Shh, it’s alright. I found you. It must’ve been hard to be alone out here.”

Get away.

Get away.

“Get the fuck away from me.” You yell, pushing him off of you as you stagger away from him. Tobio remains behind you, completely shaking.

“Now, Y/N-” he tries to shush you, “We should go home now, you’ve spent so much time away from me but I understand, you were probably just scared to tell me you were pregnant, right?” 

He cups the right side of your face and places a chaste kiss on your temple, tears are threatening to spill as you realize that this was all over. You couldn’t escape now, this lunatic wouldn’t let you have at it.

The soft and plush bed is completely foreign to your back, Kiyoomi had you separated from Tobio because apparently you were still too ‘unstable’. It made you mentally scoff, between the both of you, he was the unstable one.

You wondered if they started to feed the small boy lies about you, Kiyoomi definitely milked it out to the press for sure. When he had found you, not only were your friends and family in a frenzy, the media was having a field day too. He had broken off the engagement and he used your ‘mental illness’ card on them and it worked.

Another story was weaved on papers, a love that transcended through time.

You let out a low sardonic laugh.

Mental Illness, you wondered if this could be a ploy for a suicide. After all, you’d rather be face first on the pavement than stay here with a son about to be fed on lies and a crazy bastard who sleeps next to you at night.

You stare out your window, the curtains were drawn as you looked at the free birds.

How envious.

“Y/N?” Kiyoomi comes in, a food tray in hand, “It’s time for dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Y/N it’s been two days, all you ate was an apple-”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Y/N, our son-”

“He was never my son.” You harshly snapback, your voice sharp, “He’s yours through and through, a fucking incarnate of you and a curse. He’s not mine. He never will be.”

You suddenly feel the presence of the small boy behind the door and there stands his boy, staring right at your eyes yet you feel nothing for him. You never felt anything for him. The moment they placed him on your arms to nurse, there was no joy nor light.

All he brought was a painful reminder.

Kiyoomi places the tray to the side and closes the door behind him, Tobio’s blank gaze still on you, “...Those aren’t words a child is supposed to hear, Y/N. Especially ours…” he inches closer and you clench your fist tightly and he places his hand on your neck and lightly holds it. 

You aren’t scared of him anymore, the nicest thing this guy could do was kill you, really.

“Maybe we should have a girl this time, hm?” his hand trails upwards to softly caress the side of your face.

You’re immediately frozen by his sudden choice of words, no, no-

“Maybe you’ll learn to love Tobio even more when you’re pregnant with another of mine-” before he could finish what he was about to say, you raise a hand and slap him right at his face, it must’ve been hard since it left a mark, “Ah, Y/N. I didn’t know you still liked it rough-”

“D-Don’t, I-I can’t get pregnant.” You're shaking this time as you try to come up with a lie, “I-I can’t…”

“Oh?” He tilts his head, “Why not?”

“I’ll die.” You lied, “When I had Tobio I almost died, my body couldn’t handle it. T-The doctor had said that if I were to have another, I’d die…”

The lie didn’t save you that moment, really. He has become an expert at detecting your lies so instead of a reply, he harshly places his lips on yours and despite protests, he just pins you down.

He’s harsh on you that night, spilling and stuffing you with his cum, whispering that you’ll have it all and that you’d be his everything but all you could do was let a small hiccup escape your lips as you tried to hold back your cries.

‘Someone, anyone, please.’ you pleaded internally.

You don’t see Tobio until a week later, the boy has grown a tad bit chubbier and is adorned with expensive clothes. Sakusa, on the other hand, has been force-feeding you to the point where you threw up right after meals (secretly, of course) 

You sit down at the couch as your son blinks at you, “...I’m sorry.” He breaks the silence and you shut your eyes tight as you recalled the harsh words he heard last week.

“I’m sorry too, Tobio.” you could only reply because genuinely, you did feel like you went too far this time. He didn’t choose to be born, a part of you should’ve saved him the misery and left him at the orphanage that time, “Do you hate me?” you ask.

“No.”

“You should.” You say quietly, “You should hate your otosan too.”

Tobio remains quiet at your words.

“When you grow older, don’t end up like him. don’t end up like us. forget us when you have the chance.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Good and If you ever get the chance to leave, promise me that you get out and don’t look back.”

Tobio may have been eight years old that time but he knows fear when he sees it and he knows promises aren’t meant to be broken. He remembers those words well because it was the last long conversation he has with you. 

The month of December rolls by and it’s cold, you’ve given up fighting back at this point. Your glassy eyes are directed to the window, not even wanting to look down at your bulging stomach. Kiyoomi doesn’t even need to tell you twice to not leave the house, you decide upon yourself to just stay at your room on bed the whole time.

You wonder, just how high is it from up here? Would it hurt?

“Y/N?” a dreadful voice calls out.

“Hm.” 

“You haven’t gone out of our room in two months. You haven’t even seen Tobio.” Sakusa points out, you were like a obedient doll now. So lifeless, so still, you wished he’d discard you already.

“I might say something again, I don’t want to bother.” You replied truthfully, gaze still avoiding his.

The raven-haired man starts to caress your plump face, you had grown chubbier since the beginning of your pregnancy, he couldn’t be anymore happier to finally be there for you.

This was perfect.

You were finally his.

You weren’t letting go.

“...Don’t you ever regret it?” You finally ask, turning to him, your blank eyes staring at his rather deranged ones, the eyes that you once loved was now just a reminder of your resentful life.

“Which one?” He asks, inching in closer to kiss your neck, your collarbone. You let out a meek sigh as you shut your eyes and internally prayed for this to be over quickly as he removes your ribbon that held your flimsy nightgown together.

“You killed people.” You uttered, “Took my life away, don’t you regret it?”

“Why would I?”

Right, how could a monster like him have such empathy? You feel his cold fingers brush against your folds, trying to stimulate it.

Everything except your body screamed no but you were just too powerless now. You wondered, how could you even end this all? Was jumping out the window the only solution now?

“...Right...” You let out a soft painful moan as he dips his finger inside. You’re under the idea that despite this happening countless of times, you’re body would be numb to it all yet each time it happens, it pains you even more,  “You even had to kill your ex-fiancé’s father for us to get married.”

You had come to realize just how deep his obsession was, the man was willing to kill to anyone who got in the way of your ‘love’. You remembered finding out about your ex-chief one night, about how he had chopped off his fingers and left him to bleed dry in the alleyway for the rats to feast on.

You remembered when a news came up that his supposedly future-father-in-law had died in a violent explosion during breakfast time and how he was nonchalant about it.

“...It’s all for you, Y/N.” He implores as he kissed your thighs and continue to stimulate your now wet folds, “All for you, Tobio, and my new little girl.”

“You’re sick.”

“Mhm. You smell good, I should continue using the soap from awhile ago when I clean you, right?” he hummed, ignoring what you had just said as he dipped his head in and take a kitten lick on your sex. You let out a small cry as your body betrayed you.

Your prayers for today are unheard yet again.

“...Y/N, you barely come out of your room these days.” Komori exclaimed, it turns out the visitor from last time who knocked on your door was him and as much as you wanted to knock his teeth out, you decide not to because you don’t see the point in doing violence these days.

“I’m tired.”

“Yeah, pregnancy does take a toll on your body.” He nods in agreement, it seemed like this was a casual thing for him, like you just weren’t repeatedly rape or mentally abused by his cousin, “Tobio certainly takes after his father, don’t you think?”

Your blood runs cold at the mention of the little boy, you had small hope for him either ways so you didn’t exactly cared for him anymore.

“I suppose so.” 

“You’ve gotten boring these days, Y/N.” Komori plainly pointed out, “It’s a wonder how my cousin gets to stick around ya. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Komori’s eyes narrowed at your hollowed response, you were so ungrateful. Here his cousin was, treating you with such delicateness and with all the attention that the other women wanted but you looked anything but happy about it.

If this was Hideko, she’d be elated.

But no, he had to be stuck with an ungrateful pompous bitch like you.

“How high up are we, Komori-san?” you suddenly ask.

He blinks at the rather weird question, “Fifty floors.”

“Hm.” You hummed, “That certainly is high.”

Komori would regret answering that question very soon though.

When the winter dawned upon a new year and you finally snap, you decide to answer your own prayers and opt to salvage yourself from this madness and cruelty once and for all.

Sakusa Tobio is nine years old when you, his mother, six months pregnant, jumped out the bedroom window from a fifty-foot story building two months into the new year. Your face is flat on the pavement and completely unrecognizable, the last conversation you both had replays on his head like a broken record through the years and only when he’s old enough that he realizes that he was no one’s son. 

His okaasan didn’t loved him nor did he want to be associated with his father for all he did was bring pain and disgust.

The boy is eighteen, fresh out of the academy, right in front of his baby sister’s and your mausoleum. He makes it a habit to visit you both a day before your death anniversary,  not wanting to be in the same room as his father yet this year he makes an exception.

Recently, he had turned over some evidence and his own testimony about what his father had been doing. Everything, from illegal works to the people he killed to your tragic end. It’s enough to file a case and have him set to jail for life, even his fancy lawyers couldn’t defend him. 

His lips sting because his Uncle Komori had punched him in the face and called him an ungrateful bastard like you but it was alright.

It was all over.

He plans to change his name back to Kageyama Tobio (the haux name you had given him when you were on the run) right after all the fiasco, it’s a kind name and the first name you had given him, he likes to think that this was also a gift from you that time, a new beginning straying away from you and his father's cruel ties. He had also felt that it was too unkind for him to use your last name despite his grandparents' persistence (he was after all, conceived through forceful means).

And although he wanted to hate you for those words you said that time when he was eight. He couldn’t really bring himself to after hearing what you had to go through, you were a victim. He couldn’t dare imagine what his father did to you during the last few months leading to your death.

Yet, right now. It was finished.

You could rest now.

“I did it, Y/N-san.” He mumbles as he bows down. As he got older, he has also foregone the idea of calling you by the name you loathed and shriveled away from, “I got out and I didn’t look back. Thank you for everything.”

Kageyama Tobio never visits you right after again, as promised.

[cinebration]

The Darkest Shine (Dan Torrance x Reader) [Part 6]

I’M TAKING SOME CREATIVE LIBERTIES WITH THE STEPHEN KING UNIVERSE. PLEASE BE KIND.

The gif is of Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black because even though the movie wasn’t great, he looked FINE.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14  | Part 15 | Part 16 | Epilogue

Tagged: @blackeasteagle​

Warnings: none

Gif source: jonathanmorgensterns

You left Dan’s apartment when the realization he was alive had sunk in deep enough for his racing mind and tripping heart to settle. Scribbling down your number, you told him to call at any time if he felt something change in his condition or if he simply needed to talk.

“Are you staying here in town?” he asked. There was the unmistakable note of urgency in his voice.

“For the night, at least.”

“Is there…someone waiting for you back home?” He struggled through the question without quite meeting your eyes.

“No.”

Home was the desert of Southern California in a house not much more than a shack, where the fastest way to a neighbor was on a dirt bike that you had let go to seed long ago. Where you were hidden and exposed to the creature of night that stalked you in shadows. Where the flat expanse around you meant you could see him coming.

You lived in the desert because at high noon, there were no shadows, and you could breathe in dusty air for some relief.

Alone in the desert, should you fall, as you knew you would, no one would have to hear your screams.

“Would you consider staying a while?” Dan asked.

There was something in his face you couldn’t identify, a look that made your heart hurt, though you couldn’t say why.

“Maybe. But for now, I’ll leave you alone.”

He offered to walk you downstairs to your car. Waving him away, you insisted you would be fine. You left before he could stop you.

The moment your feet hit the sidewalk, the hair on your neck rose, a psychic finger dragging down your spine.

“Hello, darling.”

The smooth, susurrus voice didn’t scrape the inside of your skull, instead tickling your physical ear drums.

Heart thundering in your chest, you turned. Lounging against a birch tree lining the street, the man dressed in all black, his hair unnaturally obsidian, surveyed you with eyes shining bright in the waning moon’s light. A light chuckle escaped him.

“I love it when I have that effect on you,” he purred. Pushing himself off the tree, he sauntered over, teeth bared in a smile.

Forcing yourself to hold your ground, you met his gaze. “What do you want?”

“Stupid question, darling. You already know the answer.”

The sound of metal twisting on impact, spilled gasoline assaulting your nose, pain through your chest, flared up in your sense memory.

The man in black stopped before you, dragged a long finger across your jawline. You flinched away from the unpleasant chill that knifed through you.

“Seems my experiments on you have borne fruit,” he cooed, “and what a forbidden one it has.”

Dan’s voice called out your name in his mind. Are you alright?

You glanced up as surreptitiously as you could. Dan stood at his window, peering down at you.

“Oh, pretty boy can’t see me,” the man in black whispered into your ear.

I’m fine, you lied to Dan. You strode over to your car mechanically, the man in black matching your strides easily.

“I do love to go for a drive,” he said. “I like it best when I have a driver.”

Your hand froze on the door handle. “I don’t want another crash.” The words oozed out of your mouth, thicker than molasses.

“Neither do I. I had something different planned for this time. Get in the car.”

Glancing back up at Dan, you slipped into the front seat, the man in back settling behind you in the back. You could just see him in the rear view mirror. His gaze fixated on Dan’s figure in the window, a finger tapping his chin thoughtfully.

You couldn’t drive away fast enough.

~~

The man in black went by many names. The one you knew him as was Walter, a common name for an uncommon man, if he was even that. In your mind, he was always the man in black, the dark not-angel that had dogged you your whole life. The fear and hatred he instilled in you by his very presence could be tasted on your tongue, bitter and vile.

It took all your concentration not to gag in the car. Between the panic and the taste in your mouth, you were struggling.

Walter guided you out of the sleepy New Hampshire town and over the state line into Maine. You drove for three hours until he had you pull off the road and into deep woods.

The headlights illuminated a shallow grave in which a simple pinewood box lay. Your heart leapt into your throat.

“Out, darling,” he ordered.

“I’ll stay dead this time.”

“I don’t think so. Come on, time’s a-wasting.”

You sat rooted to the seat, the horror of what was to come numbing you. It wouldn’t be a simple shot to the chest or fatal blow to the skull with the shovel. The man in black liked trauma, especially the psychological kind.

“That’s messed up,” Crow Daddy muttered, letting out a low whistle.

Before you could respond, the driver’s door opened. The man in black leaned down to look into the car.

“Crow Daddy, is it?” He smiled humorlessly. “Fuck off.”

Crow Daddy disappeared.

“Come on, darling.”

Dragging yourself out of the car, you followed Walter over to the grave. He gestured you into the box.

Looking down at the coffin, you wished your Shine was stronger, different. Capable of ending this man’s twisted games on you. If you tried to run, he would only make the dying worse, and his voice inside your skull would hold more sway over you.

You climbed into the box. Only after he placed the lid over you did you begin to tremble.

Earth rained down onto the wood.

[puppyluver256]

Smile For Me, the cycle of abuse, and breaking the cycle

(warning: mentions of child abuse, general violence, and death)

Okay so y’all know how much I love this game. A good portion of my love for SFM comes from the all the different ways you can interact with the characters, and in particular the various ways you can go about making them happy. You can let Dallas believe that Mirphy feels the same way for him and allow him to create for his “muse”, or you can let him down gently and lead him to realize he can and should paint for himself. You can kiss pretty much everyone in the Habitat to show how much you love them all!

You can also punch nearly everybody. And cheering up Tim Tam in particular requires this.

You can cheer up Randy by getting someone to open his pickle jar, or you can bash his skull in with it until it shatters and spills all over him. You can return the duck to its owner, or burn it in the fire. So many instances of potential kindness and potential cruelty are swayed by just one little thing, and oftentimes putting forth kindness takes significantly more effort than being cruel.

It’s no accident that acquiring the punching glove is required to begin the ending sequence, regardless of what ending you’re going for, yet the kiss that is required for the two preferable endings isn’t inherently necessary to do so. I honestly do believe that one of the central themes of Smile For Me is abuse and the supposed perpetual cycle it can fall into, as well as whether you’re going to allow the cycle to continue or try to break the cycle.

Think for a minute. You can’t initiate the ending sequence without both cheering up Kamal and getting the required items to unlock the door to Habit’s office from Wallus, and while cheering up Wallus and getting his photo ID only require a quarter and the flashy camera, retrieving a toothbrush to cheer up Kamal requires having the punching glove to find the “secret stash”. What do you punch? Habit’s face, of course. Or rather a poster of his likeness right next to a “no punching” sign, hinting in a reverse psychology manner what you need to do there. And if you only do the bare minimum to finish the game, that’s the only course of action available to you in the final confrontation. You punch Habit straight into the pipes of his own harmful creation. The easiest route is one of cruelty, one of perpetuating violence, and ends with the presumed death (I only say “presumed” because even though the evidence seems pretty strong that this route kills Habit there’s no body to be found later, and idk if that’s just the no-graphic-violence-in-the-moment nature of the game or what) of an already long traumatized man who went a little too far in his initially altruistic goals.

But to get the kiss, something that is integral to either the neutral ending itself or to facilitate the thing you need for the good ending, you have to do more. You open the terrace art gallery and flip through the slides, and by the time you find Jerafina’s glasses you’ve probably gotten curious to see what’s up with the rest of this little slideshow.

And of course you see Him. And in the remaining slides you realize what he’s done, and what that little boy was subjected to, most likely over and over again for years before he could finally be free. But of course, if you take the time to find and read the diary entries you’ll know that he was never truly free, that Boris could never get out from under the shadow of his horrible parents and their expectations that he had no obligation to fulfill but felt he had no other choice.

And learning this is just what likely happens along the way to receiving the kiss. Sure you can end things with just a kiss, and therefore get the neutral ending where Habit’s still alive, but it’s unfulfilling. Getting what’s needed for the best ending, ie. growing the tooth lily, requires so much more effort put into it. If you don’t take a slightly easier route of looking up a walkthrough, you need to both cheer up the people who have diary entries (all of whom iirc aren’t required to cheer up for story progression) and receive one from playing the carnival games (also optional). You need to cheer up Jerafina to get the kiss, and convince Jimothan to give you a drink by using Wallus’s photo-less ID. You do need to be a little cruel and help Millie “bean that clown with a golf ball” to even get the seed in the first place, but if you’re like me you can choose to do that before fully cheering Ronbo and then make up for facilitating a child’s rude actions by giving him a reminder of a lost love. And while I don’t remember whether or not this is the case, because I cheered up everyone in my playthrough and all playthroughs I’d watched prior and since have done the same, I’m fairly certain that you also need to cheer up everyone in the Habitat to obtain the best ending.

Reading the diary entries tells you not just how to grow the flower, but gives you glimpses into Habit’s whole story. The trauma he suffered at the hands of his own parents, who were supposed to love and care for him and instead treated him like scum. The bullying he received from his peers because of his broken teeth. The stress of being funneled into a life he never wanted and not even getting a single bit of gratitude for helping people the only way it’d been acceptable for him to do. And how it all broke him. How it led him to try another approach, one that seemed like a hopeful glimmer on the surface, but would inevitably lead to, at best, him pushing away the man closest to him and frightening another employee to the point where he sealed himself in the walls. And if you don’t put in the work to make things right, a lot worse can happen.

It’s easy, in terms of effort put into gameplay, to punch Habit out the window. To continue the violence. A kiss may stop the violence for a while, and require a little more effort, but it’s just a pause. There’s nothing definite, it’s unfulfilling. But if you put in the hard work, you really make a genuine effort, you can grow a beautiful flower of peace and hope. You may not have started the abuse, but it’s your choice to continue the cycle or break it.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I feel that the requirement to perform a brief act of indirect cruelty (helping Millie harm Ronbo in order to get the flower seed) may be symbolic of how Habit himself became a touch cruel in his attempts to bring happiness to the world. And when you reunite him with his lily, he realizes the scope of his own actions and how far off the deep end he’s gone. But someone had faith that he could be better than how he’d been treated. Someone looked at his life and felt that he deserved better. And depending on whether or not you paired the lily with the kiss (I didn’t, only because I forgot to get another kiss after growing the lily AAAAAAAA), you can show him that he’s still worthy of love in spite of everything he’s done.

[be-ca-lm]

pls ignore just gotta get thoughts out of my brain

tw rape and sexual assault ok so i think it started very young when i couldn’t understand why the hell boys and men seemed more important to god and that god was always presented male - i was very young, like elementary aged when i reasoned: he made us in his own image, in order to create female he has to BE equally female, he has to have female image. i was told no no that is wrong and bad and heresy.

then i ALWAYS chafed at the idea of women being helpmeets to men, created as servants to them, their sole reason for existing being in service to better, stronger, smarter males (who cause all the problems like wtf) and that doesn’t seem right or just. the garden was perfect the world god created was perfect so why create anything as lesser than? do you hate women? but men came first - then woman to help, woman as decoration, as slave, as child bearer, as comforter, as mother, as scapegoat. woman as weaker. she fell for temptation in the garden, where was adam? See? Women are stupid, need protecting, incapable of rational thought, logic, reason. look how gullible. look how dangerous to be left unsupervised. all of humanity condemned to fiery torment because of woman. no responsibility of man. hate woman, blame woman, hurt woman, you have every justification to do so. she is trapped, hobbled, shackled, tied to you for her protection, existence, safety. she is prize, she is bounty, she is spoils of war. daughters are property. a woman who does not produce children is worthless, sons are currency for power, social capital, strength. daughters serve you. woman is there as punching bag, as masturbatory relief, as house slave, as decoration, worthless but worth stealing, dirty but rapeable, stupid but cunning, pure but deceptive, ruined but redeemable through birthing. a portal, a tool, woman as commodity, woman as vehicle of corruption and vehicle of salvation, simultaneously and never, all at once and at the same time, wretched and woman. not equal to, but a compliment. a complement. you are no equal to god’s masterpiece, the man. do not kid yourself.

god’s grand plan! look at his design. how perfect. how freeing. how it was meant to be. he created woman who would ruin it, but he is not to blame, it is his creation’s fault, but not the man who he likes better, no not his fault. she is saved through childbirth? she is worthy as ALWAYS depending on her proximity to a MAN to a husband father brother rapist captor buyer slaver son stoner judge jury executioner savior.

so why? why condemn me to this torturous existence, why give me the capacity to KNOW that I am intended to be Less Than, that I am the Weaker Vessel, that I am Not A Man but give me no comfort in that, no recourse, no ability to appeal this existence. Make me a man! I could do so much more for you! I could do your pillaging and raping, I could do your genocide, I could carry out your orders, sacrifice my children, I could spread your Gospel and praise your name, I could earn my place in your heaven by your side because you commanded that I Love You, I could invade your earth, slaughter your animals, impregnate your weaker washy women and fulfill your great commission, i could be the mulitiplier, the glorifier, the pastor preacher whitewasher brainwasher tombfiller father soldier conqueror profiteer leader ruler dictator sin hater. PICK ME CHOOSE ME all I wanted was to be LOVED by you to be told WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT am i not enough for you and since i so clearly am not, why did you create me this way. 

find peace in your role. you have purpose. then why does that not feel natural as young as five years old? at 10? at 14? at 18? at 27? at 33? jesus knows your sorrows he knows you- JESUS CANNOT RELATE TO ME. he was born a man. he was not asked to make himself small. he submitted to dying. no one asked me if i wanted to volunteer. could i come back a man? I do not want to be a man. I want to be a woman in an existence where that is not automatically a Bad Thing, automatically a disadvantage. I am born guilty of the fall of humanity on my shoulders and told my shoulders can never be strong enough to carry that weight. a man will save me. be submissive. men are leaders, you are not naturally a leader. 

men are logical. they can compartmentalize. women are emotional. they cannot compartmentalize, they are ruled by their emotions. men are waffles. women are spaghetti. men are from mars. women are from venus. pop psychology will explain why men are Better. they are better at math, geometry, women cannot visualize things in their brains like that. women are not good engineers. women are soft and kind and nurturing. THIS IS WHAT WAS TOLD TO MY FACE AS A CHILD. i nodded. ok this must be so, i do not see it, it is not true for me, it is not true of any of the women i know, but my dad is saying this IT MUST BE TRUE. how does he know how my brain is wired? 

an escape. i learned about biblical singleness. i do not have to marry, i do not have to trade one household bondage for another, one male protector for a new one. i have an option? I can be single, nay, a single MISSIONARY. i can escape america, the bible belt, i can really and truly help people. i can share my burdens with them so i do not have to carry them alone. it will please god. it will make up for my being born a useless woman. if i do not marry, i do not have to submit to a man. i can be free. i can find some type of comfort in this lifetime.

somewhere along the way, i put aside my ever-growing frustrations toward the treatment of women and the hypocrisy. husbands lead the wife, they are the Head of the Household. I never saw that enacted. Pastor’s wives planned events, spoke at bible studies, sat on committees - it was limited to women only events, yes, but they led? they spoke? they taught and preached and sang and witnessed? the cognitive dissonance was too much. they budgeted, they shopped, they wore clothes i wasn’t allowed to, they were showy. but not allowed to speak in church, not allowed to preach, to pastor, to shepherd. they could mentor. Oh! Perfect. call it a different name and then you can do it. You’re not a pastor, a mentor. Not a preacher, a Bible teacher. The pastor husbands walked around domineering their families and making all the decisions? No - their families would have imploded. They preached submission but in function they were a team. everyone’s parents were. so i guess we can get away with it, and that makes it ok. label it differently and suddenly the bible has nothing to say on that particular matter. they are playing theological gymnastics, but if they can, i can too. i can sleep at night now, i do not have to be angry at god. i can ignore it.

A thought. I believe it grew in the garden of my own mind, but it’s possible a wayward seed blew in from elsewhere but I don’t remember. I was all-in, I silenced my doubts, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, I said yes I believe this, yes I am a dirty sinner, yes I do not deserve grace or mercy or forgiveness, yes I believe that god can give me that anyway in return for my life, my love, my thoughts, my actions, my deeds, my affiliations, my comfort, my pride, my complete and total surrender of my Self, my personality, my person, my autonomy, my desires, my entire existence. I was fervent. I learned the most, I delved in deep, it was theology, soteriology, epistemology, apologetics, baptisms and trinities and divine mysteries. i knew nothing of secular science, i learned nothing of sex. I knew dead men - Calvin, Luther, Arminius, Aquinas, Origen, Augustine, Spurgeon, Bonhoeffer, Wycliff, Niemoller, Lewis, Piper, Paul, James, I knew creeds, doctrines, catechisms, doxology, councils, heresies. 

And I thought. I am all in. I accept all this. I evoke the proper response in myself when I learn these things. If I were born in any other time, any other place, into any other religion - I would accept those things just as eagerly and honestly. Would I not? How could I not? I earned the praise of adults, the admiration of youth group peers, I could exercise my intellect in a way not too offensive for a female to do, because it was always good to learn the bible, right? I was special, smart, serious. A student of the bible, i committed HUNDREDS of verses to memory, i competed in competitions that tested my knowledge of scripture against my peers, I was dominant. It nagged at me. I would have been the best anything, the best Muslim, the best Mormon, the best Hindu, the best Orthodox Jew (especially Orthodox Jew - there are so many RULES and ways to do it BETTER), I was completely lost in the swirl of religiosity that was my life. I did Christian ballet, Christian theater, watched Christian entertainment, listened to Christian music, went to Christian summer camp, had Christian friends, was in a Christian home school group, read Christian books, did Christian mission trips, and eventually chose to go to a Christian college. Not to brag, to sound so insanely arrogant - any religion would be happy to have me. I would give your cult a great name. I’ve got the resume and CV to join any believing army, just give me my marching orders. I swallowed my Self in the belly of the whale of god. My whole life and personality were these things and activities.

then - purity culture hit. and it brought back all the female trauma. the trauma of existing as a woman who THINKS in the subculture of christianity insanity.

[aliceslantern]

Beyond This Existence: Counterpoint, chapter 14

Summary:  After being recompleted, Ienzo vows to do everything in his power to atone for the atrocities he committed in the past. But this life hasn't been easy, and he's plagued with memories and nightmares. When Demyx suddenly reappears, the two discover that they have more in common than they thought, though the secrets in their past might tear them apart. Zemyx (Demyx/Ienzo), post kh3

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Denial was always the quickest and easiest way to ease cognitive dissonance. “...I’m afraid I don’t understand whatever it is you’re implying,” Ienzo said.

“It’s mine,” Demyx said. The pain cut his voice in two. He sat completely rigid, his eyes empty and haunted.

Ienzo took a deep breath. A shaky anxiety bloomed in his chest. Demyx’s lack of memories--recognizing the phrase “Daybreak Town”--it wasn’t poetic language. It was a place. Xehanort had understood time travel more than the rest of them. Could he possibly have--? “No, it can’t be. That means that somehow you’d have to be hundreds of years old. Surely you would have recognized it before now. No. I’m sure whatever connection you feel to this musician is just that.” He waved his hand dismissively.

“I wasn’t fully human before.” He hissed the words. He breathed harshly. He touched the score, hand trembling. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and pressed his hands over his ears.

Ienzo was numb with panic, the revelations throwing him badly. It was not possible. How could it be? And yet. This was exactly the sort of thing Xehanort would do to get a move in edgewise, to pull from the past to subvert the present. Even though he was dead, playing with innocent lives had a cost--

Demyx cried out. It was an agonized, all-too-human sound. Ienzo reached for him and shook him, but he was deep in some kind of trance and would not rouse. He took out his gummiphone and made the call.

“Even.” His own voice was ragged and utterly unlike his normal measured diction. “Even, I need help.”

“Whatever is the matter?”

“It’s Demyx--” He could not verbalize what was going on. Their connection had grown so deep, so quickly, that seeing him in so much pain was nearly incapacitating.

“Is he hurt?”

“Not physically.”

“I think I understand,” Even said. “I’m on my way.”

Demyx was whimpering, small involuntary noises. It was possible he was seeing his own memories, and the psychological and physiological impacts of that were no doubt extreme. Ienzo pulled at his wrist and found it was rather limp. He took Demyx’s pulse. High. Frightened, and impossible to maintain. If they didn’t stabilize him his heart could give out.  

Even threw open the door. “What is it? What’s happened?” He was breathless.

“I’m not really sure--he--this score… he insisted it was his, and then he went into this weird trance, and I think he’s remembering something . Even, I don’t know.”

Even crouched down next to Demyx, checked his vitals. “He’s clearly in pain, and cannot maintain a heart rate that high for very long.” He pulled a syringe and a vial out of his pocket. He stuck Demyx in the arm. Demyx started to relax as the sedation took hold. Ienzo eased him down so his head was resting in his lap. Even continued to monitor his pulse. His expression was wistful--but not at all surprised.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” Ienzo asked.

Even did not respond right away. He looked to the score, still on the piano bench. “It was not my secret to share.”

“Even,” Ienzo said a little more sharply.

“Xehanort had more than one trump card up his sleeve.” He sighed. “Didn’t you find it strange how we all arrived in groups? Us apprentices with Lea and Isa, and then the four neophytes. There was some degree of time between each arrival, but not nearly enough to justify what were were told. If we were to believe it, that humanoid Nobodies were rare, shouldn’t it have taken a lot longer to find the original thirteen?” He brushed his hair out of his face. “I’m not sure how exactly, but Xehanort pulled four Keyblade wielders from the age of fairy tales and made them Nobodies. Obfuscated their memories too, from the looks of things. I have no idea why it is he did this. But Xemnas told them at some point before the war, and Demyx asked me to investigate. I’m guessing this connection between you two only furthered his progress to humanity, and that when presented with a trigger, the memories came back.”

Ienzo looked down to Demyx, who was deep in the grips of artificial sleep. “So it’s true then.”

Even nodded. “...Yes. It’s true. I’ve studied his DNA myself. You positively would not believe it, Ienzo--”

Cold, anxious sweat gathered under his arms. “And you didn’t think it prudent to ever mention this to me?”

Even’s eyes softened. “Would it have changed your mind?”

“...No.”

“Precisely. I assure you he hasn’t experienced that passage of time.”

“...He said he’d remembered something from his past. I did not think it was this . So that means he’s really a--” Ienzo thought of Demyx’s deep distaste for fighting or violence. In this new context, it made sense. The horrors of war could have planted that seed deep into his subconscious.

“Yes.” Even smiled, aware of the irony. “I worked so hard to make replicas who could wield Keyblades, and we had four wielders right under our noses.”

“But will he be all right?”

“Hard to say. All of those memories, some doubtless very gruesome and traumatic, his heart just healing… we must be patient.”

They brought Demyx back to his room. Even started an IV, gave him more medication. Ienzo couldn’t help, only watch. Once this was all through, Even led him to the kitchen and made him some tea. Cool tears which were oddly emotionless slid down his face. Even handed Ienzo a clean handkerchief.

“It is… a lot to process,” Even said. “But we’ve seen Roxas and Xion in spells like these and they both came out on the other side. Have faith.”

“Why is healing so dangerous?” Ienzo asked.

“It’s only as dangerous as we delude ourselves,” Even said finally. “Unfortunately, the spell he was under was a strong one.”

“Do you think he’ll be different?” His voice was a whisper.

Even considered this. “Perhaps,” he said. “But no different than you yourself are. But the boy loves you, Ienzo. You can tell by the way he looks at you. I don’t think that will change.”

Ienzo looked down at his hands. “Is it typical, to feel this amount of shock?”

Even touched Ienzo’s forehead. “Like many such reactions, it’s a stress response.”

“It is so… strange.” He did not meet Even’s gaze and instead traced the woodgrain of the table with his eyes. “With all that’s happened in the past month or so, I find myself wondering if it is good to allow such vulnerability.”

“I admit the situations have been… extreme.” Even flinched. “But we’ve spent long enough closing our hearts and minds off to others, don’t you think?”

“You’re one to talk,” he retorted. “You’ve been holed up in your lab all day every day, barely speaking to anyone. You seem to be the most hesitant of us all to accept humanity. Atonement aside.”

“I don’t deny it.” Even sighed. “But I have not spent my time experimenting.”

“What are you doing, then?” Ienzo asked dryly.

“Writing. Reflecting, mostly. Things always were the most tangible to me when they were on paper. If I can record my thoughts as data, perhaps I can make sense of them.”

“Is it working?”

“Heavens, no,” Even said. “But if I do not tread these tides of emotion, then I am more foolish than I thought.”

“What is it you feel?”

Even frowned. “Mostly--remorse--” He admitted. He shook his head. “As scientists, one of our duties is upholding a moral code. Needless to say, we broke it. Xehanort was manipulative, yes, but while you were a child, I was an educated man who should have known better. I did know better. But I figured the gains I made would offset the costs. They have not. And now I want to use my skills for the greater good.”

“Do you think the replicas could have anything to do with that?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Ienzo waited for him to elaborate, but he did not. “I must apologize to you, Ienzo.”

It took Ienzo’s dazed mind a moment to process whatever for. “Even--”

“We can blame Ansem’s utter lack of paternal instinct all we want, but ultimately it is my fault that this all happened to you.” For the first time, Ienzo noticed glints of gray in Even’s blonde hair--gray borne of age and stress, not from his time as a vessel. “I should have understood Xehanort’s machinations and taken you out of that mess, but I was selfishly nearsighted. Things are always clearer in retrospect. Are they not? You deserved a normal childhood, a normal adolescence, and got anything but. And years of fear and trauma on top of it.”

Ienzo sighed. Despite the real truths in what Even said, Ienzo did not find any bitterness or resentment within himself. “I forgive you,” he said.

“You’re a kind young man,” Even said. He smiled sadly. “I will try to make this up to you.” He stood. “I’m off to do some reading. There might be a better way for me to help Demyx after all.” He squeezed Ienzo’s shoulder.

Ienzo went to bed.

His mind felt oddly devoid of thought and for a long time he watched the light change on the ceiling. He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he became aware of, it was the middle of the night and he was dreadfully cold. He burrowed under the covers.

It’s time to make sense of things, Ienzo.

Really this was something like heartache and he was struck by just how unfair the whole situation was. Xehanort was dead and he was still tormenting them both, jerking them back and forth on his omniscient puppet strings. Ienzo had lost his childhood; Demyx had lost all his memories. Xehanort had manipulated both of them, molding them like clay, while they remained none the wiser.

Ienzo sat up. He was livid. More aptly, really pissed off. What was the result of all this manipulation? And why did it feel so meaningless? If it weren’t for Xehanort--

If it weren’t for Xehanort…

Ienzo’s anger cooled as quickly as it had come, hardening into a sour pit in his stomach. So much suffering. There had to be something else he could do, and not just for Sora. What about the others who had been lost, killed or worse by their experiments?

He stood up, put on shoes, and started walking.

In a sort of haze, he passed by the usual lab and over to the door to the containment cells. Nobody had come down here in a long time; least of all himself. The air down here was even colder--he could see his breath--and the crystal sconces didn’t penetrate the gloom. This was dangerous. He was weaponless, powerless, and in distress; no doubt bait for Heartless. Ienzo remembered the keycode for the door. He reached towards the keypad. It was so much lower than it had once been. It was a simple number--all he had to do was punch it in.

He could not catch his breath. The air smelled faintly smoky, a precursor to the darkness no doubt contained within. He sank weakly to his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m truly…”

“Ienzo? What on earth are you doing down here?”

Ansem’s voice startled him. The flashlight he carried cast peculiar shadows across his face. “I could say the same,” he said. He forced himself to his feet.

Ansem had a tablet computer tucked under his arm. “Data recovery,” he said. “I had to wait for the download to complete.”

“Data,” Ienzo said numbly.

“I suppose you’re wondering what I want with it.” This basement was so deathly silent that Ienzo could hear his own breathing. “Come. I’ll share my story if you share yours.”

Ienzo followed after Ansem, icy curiosity replacing his previous rage. Ansem took him down hallway after hallway, some of which were familiar, some of which were not. Ienzo knew a lot of this castle was unexplored, and had a lot of secrets that even they did not know about. Its weight seemed particularly heavy.

They did not return to Ansem’s quarters. Instead, these infinite hallways trailed out into, of all things, a large greenhouse.

Many of the plants that had been in these pots and planters had long since withered and died. The crystal walls were dingy with years of dirt, scratched and eroded from the weather. Power cords snaked from a hole in the chipped marble floor to a small console computer. Floodlights and a space heater made the room brighter than it would be otherwise.

Ansem cleared papers off of a folding chair and gestured for Ienzo to sit. He turned up the space heater.

“A strange workspace,” Ienzo commented. “Stranger still, your decision to hide.”

Ansem plugged in the tablet and began uploading the files. There was more silence, weird and flexible. “Why were you in the basement?”

Ienzo blinked. He felt an odd shiver of distrust, and it sat poorly in his throat. “Xehanort’s parade of suffering is still rippling through this castle,” he said. “Demyx and Luxord, Elrena and Lauriam--they’re Keyblade wielders. He pulled them from the age of fairy tales, hid their memories, and tried to use them as vessels.”

Ansem shook his head.

“Xemnas told the four of them during the war. Demyx had Even parse his DNA, and sure enough, it’s true.” He spoke rather numbly. “There was a sheaf of papers in one of your bookcases. It was a musical score from that time. I don’t know if you knew about it, or if it just ended up there, but it turns out Demyx wrote it. Now that he’s human… well. His memories are all coming back.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the chair. “And seeing him experiencing that--”

“It’s always harrowing to see a loved one in pain,” Ansem interrupted.

Ienzo felt a flush of frustration. Why were they all feeling the need to comment on their relationship all of a sudden? “Yes. I got to thinking about the legacy of suffering Xehanort had inflicted on us. I started to wonder if there might be a way to help the people we hurt find peace.”

“I am not so sure about that. There are no bodies, Ienzo. And I’ve no idea if whatever lurks down there has existed since the experiments, or if it’s drawn from a greater pool of darkness.”

“Then why were you recovering the data, if you’re not sure it can be of use?”

Ansem looked briefly to the screen. “I had thought such knowledge should be destroyed,” he muttered. “I had gone down there with every intent to rip apart the console if that’s what it took. But then I realized. The lessons we’ve learned since those experiments can be a cautionary tale. People should know what we did. If we’re careful, we can help everyone else learn from our mistakes so that it won’t happen again.”

“I want to see it.”

“What was that?”

“The rest of the data. I would like to see it.” Ienzo could feel the idea blooming within him. It was a reckless, exhilarating feeling. If he was right about this, he could help everyone.

“Of course you may--once it’s all downloaded.”

Ienzo nodded. Even the volumes he’d read those weeks ago had only been part of their records. Soon it would be time to dive deeper. But for now, he had another task.

----

Before he went further, he checked in on Demyx.

He was asleep. He breathed a little too deeply and evenly, his form immobile. Ienzo wasn’t sure if Even was still dosing him, or if this stillness came from the memories recovering from a more subconscious place. These things were so hard to tell. Ienzo kissed him on the forehead and left.

Even, too, was asleep when Ienzo found him on the cot in his lab. Of course he was; it was still rather late at night. Ienzo wondered if he were a tad manic. He should go lay down himself, wait until a reasonable time to ask for this favor. He turned to leave.

Even had always been a notoriously light sleeper. “Who’s there?” he snapped, grabbing a scalpel from the table beside him. “Oh… Ienzo? Is something wrong? Is it Demyx?”

“No, he’s still stable--it’s fine. It can wait until morning.”

Even scowled. “Clearly not, if you felt the need to come to me at this godforsaken hour.” His expression softened. “Whatever is the matter?”

“Do you think it’s possible to regain our powers?”

Even considered this. He rubbed sleep out of his eyes. “Why on earth would you want that?”

“Illusion let me see memories. If I can gain control over it, maybe I can help purge the darkness in the basement and help whoever’s stuck down there find peace.” He bit his lip. “Demyx is likely to be shaken up. Perhaps I can help him too. If I can make order of his memories, perhaps he will wake up without too much damage to his heart.”

Even thought a long moment. “Have you even tried casting a spell?”

“Once,” Ienzo said. “It… did not go well. I had a terrible migraine. I was wondering if you might have some sort of medicine that might let me work through the pain.”

Even shook his head. He stood and crossed over to a bookshelf near the cot. He pulled out one of the volumes and started riffling. “You see… the thing is… such elemental power comes from the will, typically as a manifestation of some psychological trait or another. Hence why, in the absence of a heart, we were able to use it as Nobodies. But now that you are human… you’ve no need for such defense mechanism. Your being is whole. Trying to invoke it could be disastrous. The entropy of it alone would, in the best possible scenario, induce sleep.”

“Sleep?”

“Sleep akin to death,” Even said darkly. “They must lie so closely together. And you must hope you find the strength, fast enough, to save your life before you’re claimed by the other side. Ienzo.” His gaze was tense, frightened. “Would the risk be worth it? Is there not another way you can atone?”

“What about the reward?” Ienzo asked.

“Ienzo--”

“Please, Even. I’ll be careful.”

He crosses over to a cabinet and opened it. Bottles and bottles of pills lined the walls. Even considered several before he picked up one. “Take halfof one of these,” he said sternly. “You’ll feel no pain. But should your nose start bleeding, drop everything instantly and rest.”

“Is that a side effect?”

“No. But that’ll be entropy wreaking havoc on your body.” Even pressed the bottle into his hand. “Let me watch over you.”

Ienzo traced the ridged cap. “I think this is something I have to do on my own.” He’d be going to a very painful place.

Even scoffed. “You children always think you know what’s best. Fine. But if you do not text me within three hours I will hunt you down.”

“Very well. Thank you, Even. This means a lot to me.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He smiled tiredly.

[albion-93]

RWBY Analysis: Who is the Main Antagonist of Volume 6?

Disclaimer: Contains intense RWBY theorising and speculation inspired by Volume 6 Chapter 9 that is subject to being made redundant should the rest of the Volume go along like nothing as follows in this post.

RWBY has an interesting history when it comes its villains and antagonists. From Volumes 1 to 3 we saw a succession of rogues who fit the bill, each nastier than the last, from the likes of Roman Torchwick to Adam Taurus, Cinder Fall, and finally Salem. When it came to these four especially, and their criminal cohorts, the terms villain and antagonist went hand in hand. And with good reason, they were in active or indirect opposition to our protagonists’ actions, and their intentions and deeds ranged from petty theft to Machiavellian manipulation, terrorism and mass murder. Roman was a solid rival and foe to Ruby Rose, while Cinder served her role as main villain and antagonist well in Volumes 1 to 3, with Salem’s overarching series antagonist role revealed as a cliffhanger.

With Volumes 4 and 5, there were certainly plenty of villains but the role of main antagonist became somewhat complicated. As Team RWBY split up, most of them faced their own antagonist to overcome in various stages. In Vol 4 Weiss had her abusive father, Jacques Schnee; Blake had the White Fang operatives in Menagerie; Yang’s was at first psychological - the trauma of losing her arm and regaining her resolve to fight - and the second came in the form of her estranged survivalist mother Raven Branwen. Lastly is Ruby, who is sadly the most lacking in this department. Apart from her battles against the Grimm alongside Jaune, Nora and Ren, nothing came close to Roman or a potential enmity with Cinder, alas.

Now that RWBY is back together, things have changed. Cinder is now a month behind everyone else and unable to confront anyone. Salem is moving her minions into place in Atlas but doesn’t pose a direct threat to the heroes, though we will probably see Hazel, Tyrian and Watts out in the open at some point. Emerald is experiencing a crisis of allegiance, while Mercury seems to have chosen his side. Finally, Adam Taurus is as yet unaccounted for with no White Fang support to be found. 

You could argue that we’ve had the threat of personal demons and some excellent opposing interplay within the group, such as Ruby dealing with Qrow’s alcoholism and despair, Weiss’s reluctance to return to Atlas, Blake and Yang keeping a lid on their issues, and everyone falling into despair and anger at learning of Salem’s immortality. As effective as these are, there hasn’t been a single villainous character directly or indirectly circumventing the heroes’ actions. Odd.

So, I ask again, who is the main antagonist of Volume 6?

My personal take might shock many if you.

Since the start of Volume 6, this character’s words, choices and unfortunate past mistakes has led to more problems for the heroes than anything caused by Adam, Cinder or Salem. He’s nominally on the side of good but has failed in upholding his mission and his stagnation and secrecy has become a source of fear, discord, disunity and despair, more so than any servant of Salem. I am referring to Professor Ozpin.

Now let me be absolutely clear about this: Ozpin is NOT a villain.

Ozpin does not crave death, destruction, domination or the suffering of humanity. In the past, he was a kind and wise mentor to Ruby at Beacon, and a fair leader. He is ultimately someone who wants to put an end to Salem’s evil and somehow lift the curse, maybe once he believed he would be the one to finally do it. But now, he he’s a liability to Team RWBY, the remains of Team JNPR and of course his most recent incarnation, Oscar Pine.

If he had elected to tell the heroes that the Lamp attracts Grimm before boarding the Argus Express, and most vitally trust them, they might have avoided separation and being stranded. His constant omission of the truth, while claiming that it was for the greater good, is the same mentality that contributed to the Fall of Beacon. The more his pessimism, bitterness and double standard thinking emerged, the more the group’s distrust grew, culminating in Oscar briefly regaining control and revealing the Jinn in the Lamp. He was even prepared to use force to stop Ruby from asking Jinn what he was hiding. Overcome with despair and shame, he retreated deep into Oscar’s mind. They were left there to endure the Brunswick Farms horrors because of him.

I don’t blame him for retreating as he did, especially given the secrets regarding Salem. But when they finally reached Argus and the truth was revealed to Team JNR, he didn’t even re-emerge to come to Oscar’s defence from Jaune’s anger, and let him take the brunt of it. Again, there was no malice on Ozpin’s part, but in not intervening he allowed the rift between Oscar and the others to widen. In an older post, I said that if I were Oscar I would have taken my chances with the cold weather and Grimm rather than stay with people mad at me for another man’s mistakes. That came true in Dead End. So how is it he went from this...

To this?

The thing that struck me in the recent episode Lost was the reveal that Oscar had seemingly been waiting for the group at the Cotta-Arc house sporting new,  princely clothes and having cooked dinner for everyone. I do not think for a moment that that’s the real Oscar who welcomed the gang back. Absolutely nothing about what we saw in the previous episode, being threatened, isolated and emotionally dumped on naturally leads into him being relaxed, willing to reaffirm his mission to help RWBY, accepting his fate, easily forgiving Jaune and cooking dinner for everyone. Why would he do any of this? 

Looking at his body language and choice of words, he seems too calm, confident and controlled to be Oscar. His new combat outfit lines up with the green motif shared in other past Ozma incarnations, even with the red flourishes and leather fittings. Also, take a read of this dialogue, and instead of Oscar pretend it’s Ozpin saying this to the group:

Many have said that this sounds an awful lot like someone with a terminal illness would say, and that this could be a sign of the Merge happeninng. But why is the story acting like Oscar is the one who will fade away, when Jinn showed the different approaches Ozma had to coexisting with his hosts? 

Personally, I think it’s Ozpin imitating Oscar. He seemed surprised when he found out the group were looking for him, so how could Oscar not know why they were looking for him? For Ozpin, it’s a perfect cover since the group still doesn’t trust him but are are happy to see the boy safe. Asserting his desire to help extends a proverbial peace offering, while keeping the nature of the possession ambiguious. Also, isn’t cooking dinner for someone (or indeed twelve people) a pretty good way of making amends? 

But hang on, how could Ozpin still be an antagonist if he’s promising to help the heroes and wants to bury the grudges between them? He’s not telling the truth and remaining entrenched in the same mindset that has weakened their efforts in the past. Also, if Oscar is being locked inside his own head and being used for deception this is certainly a moral breach.

I think Oscar would have succeeded in running away or done something much worse if Oz didn’t forcibly intervene. Such a move would be very in keeping with Ozpin’s pattern of actions; the idea of committing a little evil in the name of the greater good, i.e. to return Oscar safely  to the group he had to forcibly take over. Also, the omission of vital truths and maintaining an amiable facade in the belief that everyone is happier for not knowing the full story. There’s even escalating a dangerous solution whilst potentially alienating or endangering others and removing the option of choice, just like in Volume 3.

It would be a cruel twist of irony if Jaune’s angry rant at Oscar in the house actually became a self fulfilling prophecy; “How do we know it’s really him?! What if we’ve been talking to that liar this whole time?!” By denying Oscar’s individuality when he was at his most vulnerable, he sowed the seeds for Oz to return and deceive the heroes into thinking Oscar returned of his own free will.

Now, imagine if all this crazy theory-crafting proved correct and the truth came out, Ozpin would have to contend with the wrath of RWBY and JNR, for duplicity, manipulation and subduing another’s will. And yet, unless something changes within him or his soul and Oscar’s battle for survival, there is nothing anyone can do. A once good mentor turned antagonist, with no villainous intent or goal, who cannot be challenged, driven away, imprisoned or killed without hurting his innocent host. Now that is a terrifying foe...

Aside Note: If it IS Oscar talking and this is something that he has decided himself, we didn’t see the process of making that decision for himself and go through classic character development or spiritual guidance to reach that point and signal his newfound commitment to the mission. This isn’t just a plot hole, this is an easy fix, and completely antithetical to good storytelling. After eight episodes where there were no easy fixes in the plot, why is this suddenly allowed? Maybe a character short could retcon character growth into place, but I have serious doubts.

The one point I will give is the look shared between Ruby and Ozcar when she complimented his new attire. That seemed like a genuine Oscar moment and expression, and I could buy that he chose red to earn Ruby’s attention. But I’m still suspicious.

Thank you to all who’ve read this long analysis post. I’m sure the next episode has a very different idea from what I’m proposing, maybe a much less dark outcome, but this was a very interesting train of thought to indulge.

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars: Master and Apprentice- Review

There are few Star Wars writers that have the sort of following that Claudia Gray has built in just a couple years. Any new release by the writer of Lost Stars, Bloodline, and Leia: Princess of Alderaan would be sure to be met with excitement and anticipation, but a novel following the early days of one of the most iconic duos of the prequel trilogy looked to be something special. Luckily, Master and Apprentice meets those expectations and then some.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi appear to be a mismatched pair. While Obi-Wan follows the Jedi Code and protocol to the letter, Qui-Gon’s behavior is infamously iconoclastic. Fascinated with ancient Jedi mystics and their prophecies and more than willing to bend methodology to fit the situation at hands, Qui-Gon has frequently butted heads with the Jedi Council. Despite their differences, both master and apprentice are eager to learn from one another, but their partnership may just be destined for failure. When the Council makes a surprise move and offers Qui-Gon a seat among their members, a solution appears to offer itself. Qui-Gon may finally have the chance to speak to other Jedi on the matters he sees as important and Obi-Wan may be reassigned to a more appropriate master. However, a surprise mission with connections to Qui-Gon’s past forces the two Jedi into the roles of student and teacher once more and may offer hard lessons for both men.

One of the first Star Wars books series I ever read was Jude Watson’s (aka Judy Blundell) series of middle grade books, Jedi Apprentice, that followed the training of Obi-Wan Kenobi by Qui-Gon Jinn. While now part of the Legends continuity, Jedi Apprentice offered a better understanding of the relationship between teacher and student in The Phantom Menace and also offered tantalizing glimpses into the world of the Jedi Temple. For this reason there is a certain personal thrill to stepping into the reimagining of this pairing. Even as our understanding of both characters has changed and evolved since 1999 or 2002, a lot of the core details remain. Qui-Gon is still a rule breaking, kindhearted man with a penchant for prophecy and Obi-Wan is still an approval seeking, procedure abiding boy with a tendency to get ahead of himself.

From his stoic but commanding performance by Liam Neeson to his newly found significance in the larger mythology of the Force, Qui-Gon Jinn has slowly become one of the most essential characters in the Star Wars saga. That being said, his life story has still remained mostly a mystery. Even without the larger questions regarding his place in the Force we knew preciously little about this man with key connections to some of the major players in the franchise. While Claudia Gray does still leave some of the most significant details under wraps, she does offer a deep dive into how Qui-Gon thinks and to an Order in the last days of peacetime.

Gray’s writing has always been intensely personal and readable. Gray is a writer whose plotting almost always emphasizes character over plot and the most fascinating story beats are dependably driven by the psychology of her cast. While Gray may be over reliant on dialogue, which is a fault that she herself recognizes, it gives her novels, Master and Apprentice in particular, a flair for the cinematic and emotional. The result is that the novel moves along with an energy to it that carries you throughout an impressively extensive ensemble and twisting plot with apparent ease. Quite simply put, Master and Apprentice is a joy to read.

Thematically, Gray mines the title of this piece for all its worth. Like how the famous finale to Star Wars Rebels’ second season carried multiple meanings for different characters, Master and Apprentice takes that same approach to its cast. While the main focus of the novel is on Qui-Gon and his tutelage of Obi-Wan, Gray explores in a deeper way the meaning of this sort of educational relationship. The dynamic of teacher and pupil works itself into the narrative and Gray posits how a healthy version of one of these relationships can form and grow and what dangers may result from when they fail.

Master and Apprentice in particular explores these themes in the symbolic family tree that spins out of from Dooku. While glimpses into the Count turned Sith are brief and heavy on the foreshadowing, Gray proves more interested in the legacy he leaves behind. In the process, this leads to what is easily her most fascinating original creation in Rael Aveross. Essentially Qui-Gon’s Jedi big brother, Aveross is painted as an atypical Jedi with a complicated emotional and personal history. On a surface level, Aveross is a kind of swashbuckling, devil-may-care Jedi that challenges our perception of a famously rigid and stuffy Order, but his actions carry with them a pattern of self-destruction and trauma that Gray slowly seeds throughout the narrative. Aveross proves to be only a cog in the larger plot that Gray spins Master and Apprentice, but his arc and characterization, particularly in how he interacts with Qui-Gon, is the most intriguing and thematically illuminating.

In terms of its larger plot structure, Master and Apprentice unfolds as a mixture of political thriller and science-fiction mystery. Not unlike Attack of the Clones, the action centers around the attempted assassination of a young political figure on the eve of an important vote with galactic implications. It makes for a fun plot structure with different unfolding pieces, various agendas and factions, and unexpected swerves in direction. As a whole, it offers an interesting peak into a galaxy before it was plunged into the chaos of the next century or so and fans of classic Legends material will be pleased to see numerous hints and call backs to old lore. However, those familiar with Claudia Gray’s work may find themselves with a sense of déjà vu as the larger scheme at play in Master and Apprentice becomes apparent. Structurally, the whole thing displays more than a passing resemblance to the larger conspiracy in her rather stellar Leia novel, Bloodline. It never makes the book less of an enjoyable read, but it can’t help but feel familiar and unfortunately formulaic. Luckily, Gray’s snappy prose and strong sense of character prevents Master and Apprentice from feeling like a retread, particularly when its sense of theme is so strong and pervasive.

Overall, it’s a great time to be a prequel fan. Between this year’s stellar young adult novel Queen’s Shadow and Gray’s latest release, the controversial but now cult classic era of Star Wars is having a new boom in content. If it means we continue to get books of this quality, I am all on board.

Score: B+

[enterthezoid]

GET OUT! The Black Comedy

Sunday. Matinee. Jordan Peele’s Get Out receives %100 on Rotten Tomatoes. Call up the crew. My home girls slide thru. The downtown theater is sold out, Cherry creek has plenty of seats. No surprise there. Get Popcorn. Get Cozy. Get Scared. Get Out!

A whole can of black and white worms was opened up in Jordan Peele’s soon to be cult classic film Get Out. A psychological thriller that leaves one hinged horrifically balanced in what is suppose to be a suspension of reality but rather is an actual heightened extension of it. Don't worry I won't be spoiling much for you in this post, merely giving you my emotional reaction to such a ride...

We are thrown onto a cathartic balance beam bereft by a post traumatic state of reliving horrors from life on the silver screen. We make our way through the witty and blunt humor and cringe when we come to those perilous bridges constructed by race and ignorance that are all too familiar; but this is suppose to be funny right, ha ha haaaa. 

A black man in his early twenties, sporting a head wrap and army jacket sits in front of me and my peanut gallery of queens with his blonded white girl. I nudge my girlfriend and we both begin to crack up at what might be their last date.

Discomfort shifts back and forth in the seats as we merge into the muddy waters of Anywhere, America, a suburb that might host a mall with a theater like the one we are sitting in, as couples of all shades grasp and laugh, and are silent, we are methodically lowered into a 'sunken place' where all is happening to us and we can do nothing but watch.

The elegance or Jordan Peele’s writing allows us to pirouette through racism that wears the mask of success and our psychological ties to an oppressor. Our protagonist, Daniel Kaluuya, plays Chris Washington, A young African American photographer who reminds me of many friends who bridge race and class divides with the success of their skill; bringing them deeper into a culture that is far set from their own, and the certain types of women and men that lurk there. 

As Chris finds out when he goes on a weekend trip to see the parents of his fresh 5 month relationship with Rose Armitage, played by Allison Williams, who also starred in the show Girls. Balancing us yet again on this crux of black men and white women. 

This film get's out the unique fears one might feel growing up in this country as an African-American and thrown into a supposed integrated world that is far from it. The pitfalls and jabs that one feels when all alone and facing the unfiltered wave of ignorant ass supremacy.

I think now on the many laughs me and my friends have about what we feel to be far fetched fears but come to life in this film! For example the true notion that as a black man I still get uncomfortable around too many white folks, no matter the nation, age or class, especially when alcohol is involved, cuz’ we all know that when the liquor starts flowing they mouthes open and just say the darnedest things to you,

“Oh I love your hair can I touch?”

"Oh Bro what sports you play?”

“Mmmm I heard about black men, is it true what they say?”

"How is it being black?"

“Wow look at this one, your smile, your teeth are so white?”

“Wow you speak so well and would never have thought!”

or my favorite:

"Hey man is just a joke, it's funny right?"

And I'm sure some will say most of those sound like complements and genuine politeness of a person trying to empathize with another. No. It is prattle and mockingly insulting. It stems from a place that attempts to gloss over the cacophony of horrid screams from the bloody mud of this land 'tis of thee. It reeks of appropriation, and genocide. It's an unaccepting ignorance that still wants to devour its dark, mysterious, prey. 

You see, the old shrills of uncles and grandfathers speaking of dragging and lynchings from a brother who went a little too far into the white world always left my superstitious eye on the exit signs of any downtown bar, frat house, or suburban house party, that is flooded with white people. All should be taught such cautions as well, for accurate history in this country is hard to...get out.

The film gives great one liners, and double entendre that will bury themselves deep into our context as Americans in dealing with the racial divide, one in particular had me weak throughout the film for its undoubted usage to try and mask one's prejudice tendencies:

"I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could."  says the neurosurgeon father when first meeting his daughter’s black boyfriend. I've heard many well off, liberal, white men in power, use this as a way to diffuse a remarkably racist comment that preceded it or would come shortly after.

There is also a moment our protagonist must use 'cotton' in a way to try and overcome his captors. As well as a chokehold that is slowly counted out "1 mississippi, 2 mississppi..." Small relics, symbols, and adages that are doors into our poignant history. Perhaps my favorite of these is when another black man, played by Lakeith Stanfield, who also played in ATLANTA, is taken hostage by this strange town and explains what he feels about the black man's condition,

"In this county the black man has had a overall good time, and is born with great advantages, but hey I don't know much, I haven't wanted to leave the 'house' for quite some time." Oh how this rings of old Malcolm X speeches and uncle tom's cabin remakes, leaving a stark but humorous reminder of the house nigga who loves his master, and in fact wishes to be his master...

These little gems and many more bedazzle you in a film that uses the juxtaposition of imagery and satire to unravel the unspoken myths of American culture.

Perhaps what can't be glossed over is the true evil in the film appeared to some as a utter reflection of themselves. As I noticed in the young white girlfriend sitting in front of me who kept having to ask her black boyfriend what was so funny? Or embarrassingly apologizing since she had done some of those exact things. 

While with something like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or any other serial killer film the evil is an anomaly here it is the norm. This leaves the comments section of Get Out peppered by feelings of racism against Caucasians. Yet this is like every Hollywood film that portrays stereotypes of all other cultures in a menacing light. Not to mention as one home girl put it:

"So what about the micro aggression in suicide squad? The croc was clearly black watched bet ate Friday chicken wore velour suits with gold chain and listened to rap? I saw no white people complaining...Or when they make themselves the hero or savior of every film, last samurai, avatar, this Great Wall film that just came out; all under the guise the story won't be told/ watched if there isn't a white person in a lead role 🙄"

Oh how the kettle calls the pot! Well look, Here's an opinion of you outside of your own. good luck getting out of it!

A deep metaphor that runs through the core of this film is held in its appropriate title. Our protagonist must get out of a deep hole buried with in his subconscious, which is housed in the suburban outskirts, in a white picket fence mansion, in the heart of the white American dream. Can we escape our master's house, can we escape our master's women, can we escape our master's desires, can we escape our master? Must we escape from ourselves?

My palms were wet with sweat, gripping the theater chair arm rest as the film crescendos, and that feeling comes across you buried deep in your nerves from centuries of being hunted: Go! Go! Run! Get Out! As we have a hope that just maybe we will have a hero who runs off the psychological plantation into freedom! Away from the monstrous killer that was imbedded deep with in your own fears. Jordan Peele carried us to that deep seeded fear of the black man and white woman, that fear that underlies the belly of it all, of rape and murder and true horror.

Back into the woods and dark trees, where we hope our protagonist will not sink to that level that he is always portrayed, of beast, of burden, of object like they think he is, that he will not be caught, that he can find himself and get out alive with no regrets. And as the scene perches us all gripping each other, still, silent. Our protagonist becomes a hero under flashing lights.

To wash all of this down Jordan Peele naturally uses humor as the film’s saving grace. Unlike some race films like Birth of a Nation (the first one and the Nat Turner epic) Get Out doesn't leave one emotionally hateful and unstable, instead the ability to laugh at the portrayal of certain prejudices that we all have about each other allows us to experience the trauma with our serotonin popping; and with the aide of satire we can communicate why something is funny, and why something might be true.

It leaves us closer together rather than dividing us as I'm sure many will say. Embraced in a terror that lurks even here in the hazy February theater of a mall in Anywhere, America. 

This film get’s out the scariest nightmare, the one buried deep, the one you think is real. It get's out the stupidity of labels and walls that we put up because we are still ignorant of another's customs and stories and feelings. Well here we are, pressed tight together, from sea to shining sea, and from the repressed pits of a place, where we felt helpless, where we couldn't do anything, but sit there and watch TV, while our mothers and brothers, fathers and sisters, bled out in the streets and then were hung up like a deer's head in the den of your great grandfathers plantation mansion.

Here is a beautiful reflection of true horror, a real monster, dripped in gore, and fear, and honesty, as the deer’s head pierces your cornea and out oozes the greatest monster ever... a mirror. Can you get out of this image I present to you? Can you get out of your head? Can you get out of me?! But hey, it's only a joke, this is funny right?

Written by: Négré Micheaux 

for F!!!RE Magazine issue #1