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fanfictilltheend · 7 months ago

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❤️‍🔥Violent Heart Part 1: ♪All I've ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you ♫ (or the VERY DARK Stepdad!Mechanic!Covict!Joel x Afab!you one)❤️‍🔥

A/n: It's here!!!!!! 18+ Only. This took me 7 freaking months so you mofos better like, reblog, and comment. This is both my most and least personal fic I've ever written and it is dark and relies heavily on plot (no smut until part 2 but i swear it's worth the backstory!!!!) READ ALL OF THE TAGS DO NOT COME FOR ME UNLESS YOU DID THIS FR FR. This ones for my dark joel fangirlies(guys and NBies) and the daddy issues fam ily ❤️‍🔥 (also not me naming my fic in part after hallelujah by leonard cohen but there is a reason!!!!!!!!!!)

Summary: The story starts with Part 1 where afab!Y/N is a child and Joel is her new stepdad and this story explores their relationship. Themes of abusive family, domestic violence, child abuse, daddy issues, physical violence, murder, stepcest (kinda b/c he is divorced from her mom technically but she grew up with him as her stepdad), infidelity, age gap, and more are explored throughout the fic. PLEASE READ SPECIFIC TAGS (part 2 tags will be added with the release of part 2). Part 2 picks up with Y/N at age 20 and how her relationship with Joel has changed and gets steamier. NOTHING SEXUAL OCCURS BETWEEN Y/N and JOEL until Y/N is 20!!!!!!! Also check out this playlist of music that's in the fic!!!!

Tags (PLEASE READ): Afab!you, stepdad!joel, mechanic!joel, convict!joel, no apocalypse au, Mentions of sex (little detail), mentions of male masturbation, infidelity, domestic abuse/violence, sibling abuse/violence (no one ever talks about sibling abuse but it’s very real), physical child abuse, neglect, allusions to past domestic violence, cursing, brief mention of pedophilia and kidnapping (David), allusions to committing future pedophilia (David), threats, cancer mention, Sarah death discussion, Tommy death mention, murder, prison, mentions of god and religion, fights, general violence, alcohol consumption, using music lyrics to move the plot, daddy issues, use of y/n

Word Count: ~15k

PART 2 (coming soon)

Ao3 Link

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

Joel Miller is not a good man, that he knows like the backs of his calloused hands.

He knows loss too, feels it burrowed in the hollow cavity of his chest. Sees it in the face of every little girl he meets.

The memories sting.

He knows pain, deep in the depths of his character, down to the fundamentals of what makes him something that resembles a human being. The belts, the bigger hands, the harsh words, and then the grief. The recent Bring back my babygirl! The ancient ¡Basta, Papí, por favor, no Tommy, no Mamá! ¡Por favor no esta noche! The indignity of begging, always reduced to begging to a cruel man, an indifferent doctor, a cruel universe.

He knows hard work, how to work with his hands. He knows the grit and grease of labor. Sees the cogs turning in the engines he fixes, relates to them. Feels like he knows them intimately because he is one too, chugging along day after endless day. But no one dares fix Joel Miller.

Until…

Her name is Erica and she’d like her front bumper replaced, please. She has long eyelashes and a soothing voice. And she has money too, at least more than he, who is almost broke from the cost of Sarah’s medical bills. She comes with baggage, Joel can tell from looking into her eyes, but then again so does he. And he hasn’t been laid in god knows how long.

She takes him on a date and he lets her. She reveals she has two kids, but Joel doesn’t care. They fuck at her place while the kids are at school and she wants it soft, like her hands, and that’s how Joel gives it to her.

A week later, Joel has moved in, which is good because his rent was due and he couldn’t pay it. He still hasn’t met the children.

***

It’s Joel’s day off and he’s sitting on the couch in his new home. His back hurts, but that’s nothing new. He’s got an excellent view of their nice, big backyard with a wooden fence. The kind of home he would have liked to have given Sarah. He sighs. Technically, nothing is wrong.

Then he sees it. It takes him a second to realize what is going on. It’s a whirlwind. He sees the back gate open and two tumbling forms fall over the threshold onto the manicured grass. One form is bigger, a boy of about twelve or thirteen beating the shit out of a much smaller form, fists flying. The other form is a little girl, no more than eight, defending herself like her life depends on it. Perhaps it does with the way he’s going at her.

This must be the son, Aiden, and the daughter, Y/N.

He’s a good boy, really, but he has anger issues sometimes. He’s been through a lot. That’s what Erica said, but Joel does not see a good boy. He sees a bully. A disproportionately violent one at that. Nothing that tiny girl could have possibly done could warrant the brutality he sees before him.

Anger is something else Joel knows intimately, and that is what he greets when he runs outside to end the fray.

“Stop that!” he roars, pulling Aiden off of Y/N.

“Who the fuck are you!?” the boy screams, fury and hatred radiating off of his entire being.

He continues thrashing and punching at nothing as Joel restrains him.

“I’m gonna kill her!” he screams, his eyes bulging.

“What the hell happened?” Joel growls, still holding onto the livid boy–verging on young man.

“She ripped up my paper!” he bellows. “For no fucking reason! I worked hard on it!”

“It was a lie,” she says with so much conviction Joel almost flinches.

He looks down at the little girl, her nose bleeding, her right eye turning purple. She has tears streaked down her face, but she is not crying. Her shirt is ripped. The first thing he thinks of when he sees her is Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah, how could he not think of her? But this little girl is different, has a different look in her eye. This look is much harder and feels like she’s lived a thousand lifetimes. He thanks god Sarah never looked that way, but somehow he wants to hear about everything this little girl has experienced. Something twangs in Joel’s chest that he has not felt in what feels like an eternity.

“It was not a lie, you stupid bitch whore!” Aiden shouts angrily, still fighting back against Joel’s unrelenting grip. “Take that back!”

“No, you take it back! Dad is not a hero. You could’ve picked anyone to write about and you choose him? After everything he’s done?” she screams herself.

The sound of her voice is powerful but desperate. Joel feels himself needing to know more and bury himself deep inside her experiences.

“SHUT UP!” Aiden yells, finally ceasing his movements.

A tear falls from his cheek.

“If I let you go, will you stop whooping your sister?” Joel snaps firmly.

“Get away from me, you stupid cuck!” Aiden curses, turning his energy to Joel. “Who the hell are you to me? Fuck you! I’m out of here!”

He wriggles out of Joel’s grasp and Joel lets him go and Aiden storms back out the rear gate, slamming it behind him.

“You alright?” he asks Y/N.

Joel crawls over on his knees, still upright, closer to her.

“Had worse,” she shrugs, running a hand through her messed-up hair.

She wipes the tears and blood from her cheeks.

Joel shudders to imagine what she means.

“He always like that?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “So you Mom’s new boyfriend?”

“Something like that,” he nods back. ”’M Joel. Joel Miller.”

“I’m Y/N,” she says a bit mournfully. “Here,” she continues suddenly, reaching out a small hand to his cheek. She wipes blood (hers) gently off his stubbly face. “Didn’t mean to get ya dirty.”

Joel is nothing short of touched. He wasn’t even aware he could still have such a feeling. His cheeks go rosy pink. His heart pulses. He stares at her delicate hands and notices a long, thin scar on her left middle finger.

“‘S no trouble, sweetheart,” he hears himself reassuring her. ��Let’s get you cleaned up. Could even mend your shirt if ya want. Know how to sew and all.”

He reaches out a large hand, but she flinches at the sudden movement. A dull ache wells up in Joel’s chest.

“Not gonna hurt you, honey. Swear it.”

He wants with every fiber of his being for her to believe him, for it to be true.

She takes his hand.

***

That evening Erica is still not home, working late Joel supposes. It is nine o’clock when Aiden slinks back into the house.

Joel stops him from making his way up the stairs. He is more than familiar with the art of creeping.

“Think you oughta apologize to your sister,” he says as gently as possible. Maybe he can impart some manners onto this unruly child now that he’s calmed down some. “You beat her real bad. You’re much bigger than her.”

“I’d do it again,” Aiden hisses, his eyes cold. “It makes me feel better.”

And then, to Joel, the answer is simple. What do you do with a bully who won’t repent? Fight him back. Show him who’s boss, who’s bigger.

He grabs Aiden by the arm in a flash of anger and drags him up the stairs. The boy screams and flails, but that doesn’t deter Joel. He brings him to the room he assumes is his, the walls covered in sports posters and memorabilia.

“Take off your shirt,” he growls, a familiar fury pounding inside his chest.

When Aiden protests, Joel does it for him, ripping the kid’s shirt nearly in half. Rage floods through Joel’s veins and he can’t exactly place why, but the feeling is very real and bouldering through him at an alarming speed. He knows this feeling, feels strangely at home there.

He undoes his belt and brings the leather end down on Aiden’s back, not the buckle like his father used to do. Joel does have some decency buried deep in his chest. And then he loses himself to the unyielding anger.

“You get ten,” he snarls. “Don’t you lay a hand on your sister again. Is that understood? Now you answer to me.”

No response except for a scream.

“I said , do you understand?” Joel roars, bringing down the belt.

Rage consumes him like a drug. He barely registers what he’s doing. The belt goes down again and again. And somehow, through the screaming and the pain, and the intoxicating feeling of being completely in control for once, Joel’s line of vision wanders to the bedroom door. In all the excitement, it was left ajar and out in the hallway, sitting on her knees is Y/N. Joel immediately expects fear, despair, revulsion. When Tommy would watch him take a beating his face would betray the most acute sense of hopelessness and terror and the waterworks would begin. But Y/N just stares at him unflinchingly, at what he’s doing. She doesn’t cry, she simply sees. Too much for a child, and yet, she watches. She does not intervene, doesn’t even try to. And for the tiniest moment, her and Joel’s eyes connect, and he feels a sense of calm, of comprehension, of recognition in that uncannily knowing gaze. Her irises sparkle and Joel feels…something that he cannot entirely articulate. Seen? Accepted? Understood? Joel knows logically what he is doing is an ugly, vile thing — he has never claimed to be a good man. Practical maybe, but never good. And yet, Y/N sees it — sees him — and she doesn’t look away. She cocks her head slightly, and images of Tommy grimacing in revulsion and fear as Joel mercilessly beat up their childhood neighborhood bullies to the point of unconsciousness pop into his mind, of the haunting look in his brother’s eyes. Even Sarah could not stomach his violent heart when she witnessed him beat up some pervert with a camera that had looked at her funny at the mall. Even though it was for her — to keep her safe. She had stared at him in disgust and pity. She had not seen him then at all.

But now, looking at Y/N, for the briefest moment, Joel can swear he sees something resembling a smile flicker over her serious face. And though it goes as quickly as it comes, he feels the familiar sensation gnawing at the bottom of his stomach: primal and untameable, soft and vulnerable, but fierce and loud at the same time. He feels an inexorable, inescapable sense of care and devotion to this child. But most of all, because she sees him, truly sees him, and does not turn away in disgust, Joel Miller feels the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love deep in his chest. For the first time since Sarah died on that hospital bed, weak and unwell from the chemo he could not afford, he feels alive .

***

Things fall into a tentative routine. Every morning, Joel wakes up in bed beside Erica. They fuck the night before more often than not, but always in that same slow way that doesn’t do much for Joel. It’s enough to get off, sure, she isn’t an unattractive woman, but he’s mostly there for the meal ticket and roof over his head. He goes to work at the auto-body repair shop, Erica goes to her job at her law firm. The kids ride the bus to school. He gets home in the evenings before Erica and spends time coexisting with the children. Usually, he kicks back on the sofa, rubbing his sore back, and watches television, minding his own business. Aiden mostly avoids him, doing god knows what in his room. He bullies his sister cruelly and Joel punishes him when he sees fit. Erica knows what he does to Aiden and either doesn’t care or approves. He never lays a hand on Y/N though. She warms up to him slowly, cautiously. Most evenings she sits on the far end of the couch and Joel on the other, but as she gets used to him and sees that he’s not a threat, at least to her, she scoots closer.

The children’s father is no longer in their lives from what Joel can tell, which is perfectly fine with him. When Joel’s heart does not feel full of lead, he plays the guitar. Y/N sits and watches him. She is a quiet child, but unrelentingly brave. When Joel lets the TV blare, he rarely cares to pay much attention these days, she stays and watches with him, no matter what is on and never complains or asks to change the channel. Blockbuster zombie apocalypse movie? She watches. News special on America’s most dangerous serial killers? She watches. Documentary on venomous snakes? She watches. Should Joel be letting her watch this crap? Who the fuck knows? He isn’t her father. And plus, he won’t admit this to anyone, hardly even himself, but he likes having some company. It makes everything feel…less. And he likes that she doesn’t try to make him speak. Sometimes there are no words and he thinks Y/N understands this. Unlike Erica who yaps every second of the day. But Joel stays polite and plays along. He has to.

But he will not lie, Aiden gets on his very last nerve. There is something that Joel cannot quite place that makes him feel like he has known this boy his whole life even though they are as familiar as perfect strangers. All siblings fight and rough-house. That is normal. Hell, he and Tommy used to fight rough and tumble all the time. But the way Aiden bullies Y/N is something else entirely. And most times, it is unprovoked. And he is so much bigger than she is, growing bigger by the day.

Joel’s beatings have not stopped Aiden’s anger and sadistic attitudes, but they do make sure that he takes some kind of physical consequence for his crimes. It makes Joel feel better and he thinks it makes Y/N feel better too. And some days he gets so fucking mad at Aiden that he thinks not even god could stop his wrath even if the boy turned into Mother Theresa herself! Okay, maybe that’s extreme, but another part of Joel thinks maybe it’s not. The truth is, though he is loathe to admit it, some days, he is not in control of his anger. Some days he punches so hard, his knuckles bleed and he has to stop for a second to come back to himself. Others he goes so roughly on Aiden that he causes the kid to become bloody and he feels ashamed of what he’s done. But there are other days, very dark days, where he wishes he could do it over and over again. He convinces himself he’s doing it for Y/N and not some other sinister ulterior motive he does not care to dwell on…

One night, a few months into Joel’s new living arrangements, he walks through the upstairs hallway to his and Erica’s bedroom, passing the closed door to the bathroom that the kids share. He has done this what feels like a thousand times before and doesn’t think anything of it until he stops and realizes he hears Y/N singing.

♪“ Someday, my pain / Someday, my pain will mark / You…”♫ she sings softly.

He can barely hear it over the crash of the water from her shower, but her voice is beautiful. It pulls at Joel’s shrunken heart, deep inside his long-dead chest. Her voice has an eerie quality to it too, almost haunting. He’s not sure of what song it is, but he finds himself wanting to know. Eventually, she stops, and Joel goes to bed, but her voice echoes in his mind for hours as he lies awake in the dark.

The next day, Joel is sitting on the couch when the kids get home from school. Y/N joins him on the other side of the sofa as usual. They watch reruns of some unfunny family sitcom.

“Heard you singing last night,” he finally grunts unceremoniously.

Y/N goes very still.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

Joel looks over at her. He realizes she looks terrified.

“Ain’t no problem with it,” he tries to explain, confused. “Thought you sounded nice is all.”

“You tryna trick me?” she stammers, tears collecting in her shimmering eyes.

“What? Trick you? What you crying for, honey? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Joel is genuinely flabbergasted.

Tears trickle down her cheeks. What has he done this time? he wonders. But he is concerned more than anything. Hell, he hasn’t seen her cry like this since the day they met. Not even last week when Aiden slammed her head into the metal oven in the kitchen (luckily it was off or Joel would have really killed him that time).

She sniffles, looking conflicted, then collects herself as best she can manage.

“M-my dad didn’t like when I would sing. ‘Specially if he was in a depo…I forget the word…deponition? Deposition? When he was on the phone for work, I mean. If I was being too loud. Or too shrill. He didn’t like that one bit. He’d get mad…” she trails off.

“The way Aiden gets mad?” Joel asks very slowly, not truly wanting to know the answer.

“Yeah,” she nods after a while. “Except he’s a lot bigger. And stronger. He…he broke my arm once. But it was on accident I think. He got me ice cream after.”

Anger, red and hot, pulses through Joel’s veins. What hadn’t this child endured at the hands of angry men?

“What did your mother do?” he bites out, almost unnaturally calm from trying to control himself.

“Well, most of the time he’d kinda like hit her around, I guess? But the time he broke my arm was the time she made him leave for good and they got a divorce and all. Aiden says it’s my fault he won’t come around anymore. He was so mad. He loves Dad so much. I don’t understand it though because even though Dad likes him a lot more than me, Dad would still be so mean to him sometimes. Mom says I don’t even know all of it...Promise I won’t bother you with singing though, okay?”

“Sweetheart,” Joel says as softly as his blinding rage will permit. Somehow, when he’s with Y/N, he finds he can control himself better. “I’ll never get mad at you for singing. Or being too loud. Or anything. Never gonna put my hands on you. I’m sorry if what I do to Aiden scares you or made you think that I would ever do such a thing to you.”

“It doesn’t scare me,” she shakes her head. “When you get rough with Aiden, you do it because he did really bad, to protect me. It’s like with you there’s rules that make sense. Aiden chooses to be mean and violent so you choose it back to him. With my dad, it was different. It was like I could breathe wrong and I’d get in trouble. Get in trouble for things I couldn’t control or help. Sometimes I did bad, I know I did, but I also know there were other times where I wasn’t hurting anyone and he’d still hurt me so badly. My dad never got mad at Aiden for hurting me though. He thought it was funny, I think. Sometimes he’d kinda like sick him on me. Kinda how you could a dog.”

Joel doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know the right words. He figures he can only show her with his actions who he is and she will just have to learn to trust him. If her father ever enters the house though, he will wring his neck. That’s for certain. Thank God he doesn’t come around for his sake, Joel’s, and the family’s.

“I was just thinking,” Joel finally says. “If ya want, I could learn how to play that song you were singing on my guitar and maybe you could sing it for me sometime?”

“M-maybe we could sing it together?” Y/N asks tentatively, her eyes wide. “Singing in front of other people is kinda scary.”

“I haven’t sung in a while,” Joel sighs. “Might be rusty.”

“That’s okay,” she grins hopefully.

Joel wants to take a photo of that rare sight and keep it close for as long as he lives, torn in his pocket or snug in his wallet, he doesn’t care.

“Joel?” she asks a little cautiously, breaking him from his thoughts. “Can I ask you something?”

“‘Course, kiddo,” he says as gently as he knows how.

“Who’s Sarah?”

His heart stops. His blood runs cold.

“What? How did you–”

“You were talking. In your sleep yesterday,” she says, shrinking away a little and Joel feels sorry for scaring her again. “When we were watching Dexter . Well, you fell asleep right before. You were snoring and all, but you were also talking and mumbling that name. You sounded sad and scared.”

Joel should definitely not have allowed her to watch that! But that is hardly the point right now.

His heart squeezes so tight it burns. What was there to say about Sarah – the entire reason his life had had any purpose? His perfect babygirl? The light of his life?

He could lie. So easily too and Y/N would never know. He could say nothing at all. Hasn’t even told Erica about her yet. Hardly ever speaks to anyone about her these days.

And yet…

“She was my daughter,” he hears himself say softly. “She…got sick. Died of leukemia a while back. She was twelve.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the wallet he was just thinking about. Inside is a tiny school photo of Sarah – the last one she ever took. It’s faded a little, but she’s still smiling so big she could block out the sun. He shows it to Y/N.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” she says and she really does look sorry.

Not the way his co-workers and customers say it – almost as a reflex – to fill the void in the conversation. Her eyes are shimmering.

“Nothin’ to do about it now,” he shrugs, running his thumb over the photo paper, softened with age. “But she was so damn special. My whole world.”

He has learned to repress the tears, not to show weakness, that is not hard. Not anymore. But the anger that broils up inside him – the injustice of it all – how he was unable to help her. Unable to save her. He feels almost like a child again, powerless in an unforgiving, unrelenting world. He wants to fight back!

He is so angry he begins to shake and his hands clench into fists.

He wants to flip over the fucking coffee table – fling it across the room! He wants to punch in the glass of the flickering TV screen until his fist is broken! He wants to–He wants–

He just wants his babygirl back…

A sob, small and foreign rises in his throat, but he pushes it down.

He thinks Y/N knows though. Can see the vulnerability in his eyes.

She reaches out a small hand and touches his fist, pushes it down gently into the soft fabric of the couch so he’ll stop shaking. It doesn’t entirely work, but he thinks he appreciates the effort.

“I don’t know if this is the right thing to say,” she begins a bit skittishly, still not entirely trusting the hulking, raging man above her. “But I think I would have liked to have been her friend.”

And for the first time since Sarah died, Joel sobs .

Y/N pops up from the couch and Joel’s heart cries out louder in his chest for her to come back, don’t leave me too as he tries to suck the tears back in. It doesn’t work though and liquid gushes down his cheeks. He doesn’t think he can take the rejection, the loss of her. But thankfully, she returns just as quickly as she went with a handful of tissues stuffed into her small fist.

“Here, Joel,” she offers. “Here. Don’t cry.”

Joel does cry though. He’s ashamed he’s broken down in front of this literal child, and he doesn’t let out much noise, but he doesn’t take the tissues either. He can’t.

She’s so sweet though, or maybe it’s because she is truly afraid of him now, of his wrath, he’ll never really know, but she frowns and reaches out a little hand, the one with the scar on the middle finger, and tries to wipe up the tears.

The paper of the tissue tickles his cheeks.

“Shouldn’t havta…” he tries.

“Didn’t mean to make you…” she answers.

A pause.

“You didn’t, honey. That was all me,” he assures her finally.

She lets out a sigh of relief and soaks up the last of the salt water from his face, brushes the tissue gently against his nose. It tickles, causes him to snort. He smirks a little.

She smiles back shyly, she can’t help it, he can tell.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully after a few moments of silence, sighing deeply. “I reckon she would’ve wanted to be your friend too…”

***

A few months roll by. Things are virtually the same except Y/N seems more comfortable around him now. Maybe it’s because she saw his weakness up close and personal, his Achilles heel —— knows how to coax it out of him now if she has to. Or maybe it’s because she truly trusts him. Whatever the case, she sits closer to him on the couch now, still giving him a respectful foot of distance though of course.

Once in a blue moon, she sings for him and he tries to keep up with the lilting sound of her high voice. She says she likes his low, deep voice just fine, it’s just she still gets nervous singing in front of other people so it’s still a rare occasion. His favorite is when she sings solo and he gets to strum along for her and really listen. Sometimes her voice cracks in a very specific way that some might find to be a flaw, but Joel would never.

Aiden makes fun of them and calls them the ‘Von Trapp Family Singers.’ Are they a family? Joel wonders.

One day after work, Joel goes to the library to find some sheet music for a song Y/N likes. She treasures the photo-copied paper like a gift as Joel deciphers the notes he can actually read for her. She color-codes each one carefully in magic marker so she can remember the differences between them.

The next day, Aiden burns it up with a lighter he has acquired from God knows where. Joel confiscates it – the last thing he needs is this particular child setting fires – and It doesn’t end well for Aiden. He limps for damn near a week. But some days, when Aiden is calm, he joins Y/N and Joel in front of the TV if a sports game is on. He doesn’t sit on the couch though, just the floor. He doesn’t say much to them but does get invested in the good and bad plays of each game, gets sore if his team is losing. On one particularly good day, when the Rangers hit a grand slam, and Joel was actually paying attention, he and Aiden actually high-five.

Things are going…well? Is that the right word? It is a foreign concept for Joel. For Christmas, he gets Y/N guitar, Aiden a book on boxing so maybe he will redirect his anger into somewhere productive, and Erica a spa-day kit for 20% off that he saw at CVS (he never claimed to know what women want). Aiden is neutral, surprised, he thinks, that Joel even got him a present. Erica is actually appreciative and returns the favor with some new socks and underwear.

“A practical gift for a practical man,” she says, kissing him on the forehead.

Joel supposes he appreciates the gesture.

Y/N, though, is thrilled.

“Thank you, Joel! Got you something too,” she says excitedly, bouncing up and down in her red and white pajamas.

“That’s not necessary,” Joel chides, leaning over to pick up the wrapping paper that was strewn across the living room floor.

But secretly he is curious. He didn’t think she even had any money of her own…

Aiden opens the cover of the boxing book with disinterest, eyeing the new guitar distastefully.

Y/N jumps up, leaves the room, and returns with a small plastic baggie in her hands. Inside are little, different bits of colored plastic clumsily and haphazardly cut into tiny, sharp-looking, badge-shaped pieces. One he recognizes is from the top of a yogurt container he put into the recycling the other day, another one from the top of a Gatorade bottle.

“Here ya go!”

She shoves the plastic bag into his large hands enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” Joel responds, still unsure what he was given.

It reminds him of when Sarah was young and would come home with some sort of abstract macaroni painting from kindergarten and he would nod and smile knowingly when she explained that of course it was Two dinosaurs getting married, Dad. Duh!

“You could try one on my new guitar,” she offers, a little disappointed when he doesn’t have more of a reaction. “You said you lost most of yours…”

Joel immediately feels guilty and then it clicks. She tried to make him guitar picks! His heart clenches with emotion he can not quite identify.

He pulls a little orange one out of the bag and accidentally nicks the edge of his finger. Because of the way it was cut, no doubt with uncoordinated child’s hands and a pair of scissors, the edges are much too sharp to serve as an actual guitar pick without damaging guitar strings or apparently Joel’s finger. Dumb kid. But he’s beyond honored anyone would take the time to do such a thoughtful thing for him.

He hisses softly and sucks the blood off his finger.

“Oops,” she says, horrified. “Shoot. Sorry, I–”

“‘S no trouble,” he interjects dismissively. “Love ‘em. Was my fault anyway. I’mma be honest with you though, sweetheart; don’t think the guitar strings can handle these babies.”

“Oh,” she says softly, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Oh, yeah, okay...”

She deflates, looking down at the carpet.

Joel selfishly lets her be sad for a beat before swooping back in to be the one to save the day.

“But here’s what I’ll do…”

She looks back up at him with an intoxicating kind of hope in her eyes.

He takes his wallet out of his back pocket and slips the orange pick into the photo slot next to the picture of Sarah. He returns the wallet back into his pants.

Y/N positively beams. Brighter than the sun, even, Joel thinks.

Aiden yawns purposefully loudly and rolls his eyes. Erica looks touched and maybe even a little proud of her choice in men. But Joel didn’t do it for them. The only reaction in the world he cares about is hers.

Y/N is still grinning, bouncing on the balls of her feet again. But then she does something new: she leans in and hugs him, wrapping her little arms around his waist, burying her face in his flannel shirt, pressing against his tummy.

The world stops for Joel.

At first, he just hangs there limply, awkwardly. Literally forgets what one is supposed to do in such a situation, but then instinct kicks in and he wraps his arms around her too and squeezes ever so slightly. It’s a more cautious hug than Sarah would have given him – she would have squeezed him half to death – but Y/N is still holding him. Someone small and warm is holding onto him for the first time in what feels like an eternity. And just like that his past is rhyming with his present and it is the most beautiful sound Joel Miller has ever heard.

Joel Miller is not a good man, no, but maybe, just maybe, he thinks he could be one for Y/N.

***

Joel tries to be good. He does. His first order of business is stop beating on Aiden – especially in front of Y/N. No amount of violence towards the kid seems to do any good anyway – he still hurts her. And Joel is sick of bandaging her up and wiping the blood from her cheeks; something has to change. Not that he wouldn’t do it a thousand times if he had to. He’d do anything for the girl, that he is sure of. And the truth is, Aiden is close to getting big enough to really fight back. And Joel knows if Aiden really lays a hand on him, he’s not sure he will be able to control himself enough to not inflict permanent damage. And he doesn’t want that. Truly.

So at first, Joel thinks about having Erica send him away to a wilderness camp for troubled children or some such program he sees mentioned on reruns of Dr. Phil. She has the money to do it too. But she won’t send him away. She refuses, loves him too much. Protecting Y/N seems as far down on her list of priorities as ever. She is useless at disciplining him, always has been, so it is up to Joel to find another solution. So the next thing he tries is to set the boy up in boxing classes. This is risky since it might just teach him new ways to hurt Y/N, but at least it will be a place to direct his anger.

It works for a while, to his and Y/N’s immense relief, but that leaves Joel nowhere to take out his anger. He tries to ignore it at first and shove it down, but it starts to come out in little ways. At work, he barks at a customer who locks his keys in the car he’s trying to fix. At home, he shouts at Erica for missing Y/N’s school play. The rage leaks out of him, pours off his entire being. He tries jerking off more to increasingly violent porno magazines to calm himself down since Erica is sure not satisfying him. It doesn’t do enough though, not really. Finally, he tries boxing at the local gym himself, but it is not enough either. Boxing has rules. The first sorry sucker he gets in the ring with, he beats to the point of unconsciousness. Two men have to pull him off to get him to stop. They kick him out immediately.

So Joel tries going to the bar after work with the guys from the shop and drinking a little to take the edge off. That actually helps somewhat. He’s careful about it, never comes home drunk, never drinks in front of Erica or the kids. But what helps the most are the bar fights. He’s careful about that too. Only fights the assholes, which there are many of. Switches up the bars he goes to. But some motherfucker slaps a girl's ass without permission? Joel’s on him in seconds, watching like a predator from the shadows. Some dude throws a drink in the bartender’s face? Joel clobbers him half to death. And sometimes? People in the bar applaud him, even cheer him on. It’s probably because they’re intoxicated, but that’s how he justifies it to himself like he’s some kind of goddamn vigilante. Deep down he knows he is something much, much uglier. But at least he’s not doing it to Aiden, a child. And more importantly, at least it is away from Y/N.

***

One day, Y/N falls sick. It starts out as what seems like a cold with a nasty cough. Kids are little germ factories, Joel knows that. He tells himself it is nothing to worry about – that all kids get sick sometimes. The first few days she lies on the couch like a zombie, coughing incessantly into her elbow and sleeping a lot. She snores ever so slightly which he finds charming. Joel stays home from work with her because Erica has to be in court and they watch lots of nature documentaries and daytime talk shows.

Then the coughing gets worse and Joel’s brain stops functioning properly and he has trouble explaining why. He feels more on edge, more agitated. Erica takes Y/N to the doctor and comes back with a diagnosis: walking pneumonia. Nothing too serious, lots of kids get it. She is prescribed antibiotics and is supposed to drink lots of fluids and wait it out. But when Erica tells Joel the news of what the doctor told her he is holding a glass of water and it shatters in his large hand, cutting the skin of his middle finger.

“Fuck!” he yells.

And he cannot articulate precisely why, but he feels good that there is a justified reason to yell.

Erica wipes his hand and cleans the glass up.

“Gotta go to court again today, honey,” she says like everything is fine and normal. “Can you look after her today? Call in sick? She’s in bed. Going through it.”

Joel nods and she is gone like this whole thing is nothing. Like her precious, living breathing child is not suffering in the room above his head.

He climbs the stairs and enters Y/N’s room. He doesn’t often spend much time there. The walls are painted pink and differently shaped dolls and stuffed animals line the white vanity across from her canopied bed. He does not think he has ever seen Y/N play with any of those specific toys, come to think of it, or express any interest in the color pink (no doubt Erica’s secret passion for interior design rearing its ugly head). He vows silently, one day, to paint the walls any color she wants.

But there she is, sprawled out in her bed coughing a nasty cough. Something shifts inside Joel at the sound. She looks unwell and weak and so small.

“Hey, honey,” he says softly, almost robotically.

Something is not right. He sits on the edge of her bed, feels her burning forehead. He takes her temperature gently with the thermometer that goes in her ear. He feels that weird sensation like he’s been here before even though he has hardly ever entered her bedroom. One hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit it reads when it beeps. Joel swallows a lump in his throat that he didn’t realize was there.

She coughs pathetically. She looks out of it, her eyes far away. Joel’s heart throbs painfully.

Y/N is mumbling something incoherent now. Joel leans a little closer so he can decipher the words.

He makes out something like: No, Dad. Don’t. Stop, please. Please, not tonight.

Joel stops breathing.

She must be delirious from the fever.

And then she’s crying. Quietly, but crying all the less. And this time, unlike every time he has seen her tears before, she sobs. Actually makes noise, her chest wracked with it.

Then she coughs so hard she starts to wheeze and it hits Joel so ferociously he practically loses his grip on reality.

When Sarah was sick she had leukemia, a blood cancer. And cancer requires treatment. Expensive treatment. But of course, Joel hadn’t cared. He would have sold every item he owned to save his child, would have traveled to the ends of the earth if he had to, done literally any and everything in his power to protect her. So he paid for most of her chemotherapy with high hopes. Desperate hopes, but high ones. It had been her best shot at getting better according to the doctors. And the thing about chemo is, the side effects can literally be deadly. Joel is not a man of science, but the doctor explained that those drugs kill the bad cells that make up the cancer, but also the good ones. It fucks with your immune system, weakens you. Makes you lose your hair, vomit, and or be so weak you can barely walk. All that happened to Sarah. Joel felt like a traitor taking her to those treatments. Logically, he knew they were necessary, but he always felt like he was the one doing those awful things to her. It eviscerated him, left him raw and empty, and helpless like a child.

But in the end, it was the pneumonia that killed her. Her body couldn’t fight it off. She’d died in a hospital bed, Joel at her side, holding her hand, unable to do a single damned thing except scream .

Y/N coughs again, simultaneously pulling him from his thoughts and throwing him back into them. His heart is pounding in his chest to Do something! But there is nothing to be done, nothing he can do! Why can’t he ever seem to protect her?

She looks up just then, notices him for the first time since he entered the room, still crying feebly.

“He hurt me,” she whispers up at him, her eyes glazed over and glistening with tears. She reaches out for a handful of his dark blue work shirt and pulls it tightly to her. “He hurt me. And I couldn’t–I c-couldn’t…”

And then he is holding her, not quite sure how, but he is holding her trembling body to his chest and he will not let her go. Not for the world, not for anyone. He will not lose this child. He wraps his arms around her, holds tight. He will keep her safe, no matter the cost.

“It’s okay, babygirl,” he whispers. “I got you.”

***

Joel and Erica get married that spring. They agree on a private ceremony in front of a judge with only Y/N and Aiden in attendance. When Aiden hears the news, he throws a fit, He breaks dishes and punches a hole in the TV set which sets Joel’s teeth on edge. But Y/N is overjoyed. In the end, he and Joel adorn what Joel considers monkey suits and Erica wears a beautiful white dress that accentuates her figure. Y/N wears a frilly pink dress and carries a basket of pink roses. Joel never thought he’d be a married man and yet here he is. He imagines Sarah in attendance too and his heart aches. This is his life now.

He refuses to wear a ring.

***

Time passes. Long stretches of time where things feel–dare he think it–normal.

Aiden doesn’t beat Y/N, but begins to get into fights at school. Joel saves his violence for the bar scene which he begins frequenting more often.

Erica starts working later, gets promoted in her job. Fucks Joel less and less, not that he cares very much.

Joel goes to back-to-school nights and family cookouts. He teaches Y/N to play the guitar and how to fix car motors. In both these activities, she is no natural, but she tries her best and listens well. She smiles more than he’s ever seen. He drives her to sleepovers and Aiden to boxing practice. He paints her bedroom walls orange.

Things feel stable.

Two Christmases pass.

And then things take a downturn.

***

One evening, Joel returns home from work later than usual. When he arrives home in his truck, he notices an expensive sports car in the driveway. Erica has affluent friends, sure, but he’s never seen this particular car before. Something about that doesn’t sit right with him.

He opens the front door with a creak and Erica intercepts him before he can make it to the dining room table for dinner. She presses a hand to his forearm bulking with muscle.

“Don’t freak out,” she whispers urgently.

Joel stops and hears the sounds of people eating dinner and a man’s raspy voice speaking.

“Freak out about what?”

He makes his way past her to the dining room. He sees a man he does not immediately recognize sitting at the head of the table, Y/N is flanking one side of the table next to him and Aiden the other. He is conventionally handsome and wearing an expensive pinstripe suit. When he looks up, he smirks at Joel. Joel thinks he looks kind of like Aiden if you were to squint. And then he understands who he is.

“The fuck are you doing in my house?” he growls, lunging forward.

“ Your house?” the man smirks again, unflinching.

He looks Joel over, examining his mechanic’s uniform, the grease stain on Joel’s cheek.

Erica grabs Joel. She pulls him back out into the hallway.

“Tell him he’s not welcome here,” Joel snarls, trying to get a look at the man over Erica’s shoulder.

She pushes him backward gently. Instantly, he is worried for Y/N, for all intents and purposes alone in there with the man who abused her and this entire goddamn family for that matter. He catches a glance at her and she looks terrified . Aiden, conversely, Joel sees, looks like he just won the lottery, staring up at his dad in adoration. Joel doesn’t think he has ever seen him look so happy.

“This is important to them,” Erica snaps quietly. “That’s their father. He has a right–”

“Get him out of here or I’ll kill him,” Joel says deadly quietly. “He what? Doesn’t show up for over three years and you think that–”

“I know that he has a right to speak to them. I am their mother and they need a sense of closure. Aiden needs this. So you will sit down at that table and have an amicable dinner or so help me God, Joel.”

Erica never speaks to him like this. He is shocked.

“Fine,” he snarls after a while, his chest heaving.

He can hardly think straight while Y/N is in there alone with that excuse for a man. Better he be close to protect her instead of thrown out of the house.

He walks back in with Erica, who sits next to Y/N, leaving Joel nowhere to go but next to Aiden.

“I’m Derek,” the children’s father says, leaning over the food Erica has prepared to shake Joel’s hand.

Joel doesn’t take it.

“And you must be Joe? The new husband.”

“Joel,” he replies shortly.

He looks over at Y/N who is trying to be brave, he can tell, but deep in her eyes, looks petrified.

They eat dinner in tense silence until Derek breaks it and begins bragging about his golf club record, the latest client he’s been representing, his new girlfriend, Sylvia.

“See, she’s helping me become a better man,” Derek insists with a forkful of steak. “I know I haven’t always been…the greatest of fathers or partners, but she really convinced me coming here would be a good thing. That it would be healing. You guys will meet someday, I’m sure.”

Joel leans forward toward Derek, reeling at the idea that this man could possibly be back in the picture of his family’s life, but Erica reaches under the table and squeezes his knee in a death grip and Joel holds himself back.

Aiden hangs on his father’s every word. Erica looks somewhat intrigued after she lets go of her husband’s leg. Y/N screams silently at Joel, who tries his best to communicate without words that he will keep her safe.

“And I know I’ve missed quite a bit,” Derek continues. “Which is why I brought these. Sylvia’s idea, really.”

He reaches down toward his feet and pulls out a fancy golden gift bag and takes out two presents. He hands one to Aiden and the other one to Y/N. Aiden rips his open excitedly. Inside is a hunting knife with a red handle.

Great, Joel thinks.

Y/N doesn’t move though, stopped like a deer in the headlights.

“Open it, girl,” Derek sneers.

She looks over at Joel.

“Go on, baby,” he says softly, heat pumping through his blood.

She unwraps the pink wrapping paper and finds a Barbie doll in a clear plastic box. Joel has never seen her play with dolls at all come to think of it.

“Isn’t that thoughtful?” Erica smiles cautiously.

“Thanks, Dad,” Aiden says enthusiastically. “Can’t wait to show the guys at ROTC.”

“Good for you, son,” Derek grins. “Serving our country is the highest of honors.”

Joel suddenly tries not to think about Tommy blasted to bits halfway across the world in Afghanistan, his body in such bad condition all that he got left of his baby brother was a finger and two bent dog tags.

Aiden beams.

“Well,” Derek barks, eyeing Y/N distastefully. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he taunts.

Joel sees where Aiden gets it from. This arrogant, bullying behavior. He shifts in his seat, ready to strike if necessary.

“Thanks,” she says very quietly.

Derek grins in a kind of satisfaction that makes Joel want to go over there and punch his daylights out. He almost does too until Erica kicks his shin beneath the table and he controls himself.

Y/N frowns. She looks over at Joel, then back at her father. Something ripples across her face, but it goes so quickly Joel cannot assign any meaning to it. But she looks ever so less scared somehow, more angry almost, but not quite.

And then after about ten minutes of somewhat peaceful eating and Derek making Aiden and Erica laugh with stupid anecdotes from his court cases while Joel and Y/N exchange looks, it happens.

Y/N’s hand reaches forward and knocks against her glass of coke. It goes flying over in Derek’s direction and drenches him in the sticky liquid, staining his suit.

“Sorry, Dad!” she squeaks immediately. “Oh my god, I–”

“You little slut!” he roars in response, almost like a reflex, backhanding Y/N across the face with lightning speed and accuracy. “Do you know how much this fucking suit cost!?”

The force of the blow is so strong it knocks Y/N from her chair onto the ground.

Before a coherent thought can even go through Joel’s head he is on the other man, slamming him up against the wall behind him by the throat.

“Joel, don’t you dare!” Erica yells, but it is too late.

Joel sees red and can’t exactly recall what he does next, but it goes something like this:

He squeezes around Derek’s throat and bangs his head backward against the wall a few times. The other man tries to get a punch in, but Joel ducks and kicks him in the balls. Derek crumples to the ground and Joel gives his chest another hard kick. He whines pathetically.

Aiden gets up then, but Erica uses all of her strength to pull him back before he can get involved in the mix. He resists, shouts something that Joel cannot make out, but Erica manages to keep him from the two men with a great amount of effort and struggle.

Derek is on the floor now and Joel is straddling him, landing punch after ruthless punch down onto his head. His nose begins to bleed, but Joel keeps punching.

“HOW DARE YOU?” he roars down at the trembling, gushing man on the floor.

There is so much blood splurting all over his face, dripping down onto his expensive stained suit, and the floor that Derek almost stops looking like Derek. Joel sees Aiden’s face in his features. And then there is so much blood that it could be anyone’s face screaming back at him for mercy. It could be those creepy, asshole men at the bar. It could be the much bigger kid who always used to beat up Tommy every day in the schoolyard. It could be that damned head doctor who let his babygirl die. It could even be his no-good, bastard, alcoholic papá .

He turns his head ever so slightly while still delivering punches. Erica has Aiden in a bear hug. She is screaming for Joel to stop. Aiden is bellowing something that sounds like, You bastard, I’ll kill you! Get off of him! I’ll kill you! And then Joel sees Y/N still on the floor from where she was knocked. Her face is still turned in the same direction it was slapped into, but she is not crying or screaming. Her eyes are dancing.

They connect with Joel’s.

He knows he is supposed to be a good man for her, but she doesn’t seem to mind his deviant behavior. He stops then, though, because otherwise he thinks he will kill the man and he doesn’t want Y/N to experience that. He steals a glance at her again and she looks ever so slightly disappointed, but her wide-eyed expression tells Joel that Christmas has come early this year. She sends him a look of gratitude and Joel thinks that maybe he did act like a good man for her after all in the case of this vile, pathetic person who is supposed to be her father.

Finally, Joel stands up. He walks over and reaches out a bloody hand to Y/N and pulls her gently from the ground. Even after she’s standing upright she doesn’t let go of him.

Derek gets up after a while, wiping his sleeve over his face to try to tame the excess blood. Joel thinks that maybe he broke the man’s nose. He feels not a shred of remorse. The other man spits on the ground at Joel’s feet and leaves without saying goodbye to his ex-wife or children, slamming the front door behind him.

Erica is not pleased with Joel’s behavior. Aiden is shouting and screaming. He breaks a plate by throwing it onto the floor with a loud crash. Joel leans over and grabs the knife his father gave him and sticks it in his front pocket so Aiden doesn’t feel tempted to use it. Y/N’s small hand is still in his.

When Aiden is coherent enough to listen to instructions and all screamed out, Erica sends the children upstairs to bed.

Joel tries to walk Y/N up to bed to tuck her in, but Erica stops him.

“ Not you,” she growls at Joel.

She is livid in a way Joel has never seen before. For a moment, he seriously wonders if this is the end of their relationship.

The kids scamper upstairs and Erica yells at Joel for ages.

At a certain point, he stops listening. He doesn’t try to argue back. Doesn’t care to. He is actually calm now, though his chest is still heaving from the exertion, more calm than he’s been in ages. He knows that she will never understand why he had to do what he did to Derek. She lives in another reality where his violence is not acceptable if she has to bear witness to it. She doesn’t care about Y/N the way she is supposed to. Never has. Doesn’t know or see her. Not the way Joel does. Has too big a soft spot for Aiden. Tolerated Joel’s violence toward him though like a coward. Maybe deep down she knew he needed some kind of discipline? But when Joel lays a hand on her scumbag of an ex-husband that’s what’s too far? When he hurt her own daughter? When Joel himself was responsible for hurting her own precious son? Where was her outrage then?

But he voices none of this. Pushes it down. He cannot lose her. Not this house, not the kids, not the financial security. Never Y/N.

Erica banishes him to the couch for the first time in their relationship. Joel doesn’t mind.

Hours later, late into the night, he hears soft footsteps walking down the stairs. He rolls over on the sofa to see who is approaching. He wonders if it is Erica there to apologize because he knows her well enough to know by now that she will forgive him eventually. She will forgive anything it seems. But it is not Erica at all.

“Joel?” a little voice asks quietly. “You up?”

“Yeah, baby,” he replies. “You okay? I’m so sorry he pulled that shit on you.”

Y/N shrugs.

“Sorry I…I didn’t stop it before it happened,” he admits like a secret.

She shrugs again.

“‘M sorry she made you sleep on the couch and all,” she replies.

“‘S no trouble. I don’t mind.”

“But it’s my fault you got in trouble in the first place.”

“Y/N, you ain’t done nothing wrong,” Joel tells her seriously.

It’s hard to see her in the dark, but he thinks she’s grimacing guiltily.

“I just wanted to say…” she begins hesitantly. “Thanks for like sticking up for me and all that. You…you’re the only one who does.”

Joel hides a smile from his babygirl. Something inside him likes being that person for her, he cannot lie to himself. Likes being the one she can count on.

“You were like some MMA fighter,” she continues. “But then all the blood was like in The Shining .”

One day, not long ago, Joel had fallen asleep on the couch when The Shining came on and Y/N had watched the entire thing out of her own free will. That movie had frightened the shit out of him as a kid!

“I’m sorry if I scared you, sweetheart.”

“You didn’t,” Y/N replies matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t scared of what you did for a second…I know that’s messed up, but I kinda wanted you to…”

She trails off.

Joel understands.

“I kinda, please don’t get mad, but I sorta knocked the cup over on purpose,” she admits.

Joel’s eyebrows go way up on his forehead in surprise.

“It’s just,” she babbles quickly in self-defense. “Mom and Aiden were like giggling and hanging onto every dumb thing he said and it scared me. I thought they might let him keep coming around and start liking him again. And I also knew he hadn’t changed too. I could tell on account of how he was looking at me in that same mean way he always did. And I also knew you’d save me like you always do and you had this angry look in your eyes. I knew what you would do. I could feel it in my gut…”

“You little shit!” Joel smirks.

He has to give her credit where credit was due – that was incredibly shrewd. Dangerous, but oh so clever. She played everyone in that room like a fiddle. Joel is honestly kind of proud.

“You mad?” she asks tentatively, biting her bottom lip.

“Nah,” Joel grins. “At you? Never. You shouldn’t have had to let him hurt you to get him away from you, but you protected yourself and that’s the most important thing. If I had to do it over, I would.”

Y/N smiles.

She’s a fucked up little girl, but Joel is a fucked up man, and they both live in a fucked up world.

“Got your back,” he grunts. “Remember that. Now scurry along back to bed and get some rest.”

“G’night, Joel.”

***

Time passes.

Erica forgives Joel of course and Derek never comes around again.

Y/N and Aiden grow bigger.

They go on camping trips and Joel teaches Y/N and Aiden how to fish. Never thought he would see the day where Aiden was willingly listening to his instructions, but the day comes anyway. Of course, the boy’s favorite part is cutting up the bloody fish guts like Joel’s used to be as a child. Y/N likes the part where you wait for the fish to bite. She sits next to Joel on the grassy river bank, the sun shining down on the lazy lake they are camping by, and smiles softly to herself.

Another two Christmases pass.

All the while, Joel is visiting the bar more and not necessarily to drink. His violent streak is getting worse somehow. He thinks, though he’s no goddamn shrink, that it might have something to do with the fact that he and Erica are not having any sex. Their relationship is still amicable and she is still sweet to him, and he tries his best to be to her too, but in the bedroom is mostly crickets. Joel jerks off, of course he does, but his fist is no substitute for a warm body.

Joel causes such a scene at the bar he frequents the most, that the cops have to be called. He ditches the place before he can get arrested, but he’s getting worried about his behavior. Something must change.

So then come the women. They practically throw themselves at him. Never has he thought he was that attractive until women literally offer themselves up to him on a silver platter after saving them from some drunken creep. Joel had always declined until now. But Joel is only a man. He fucks them rough and dirty (with their permission of course – Joel is not a good man, and a lot of things, but he isn’t a fucking rapist) in the bathroom stalls, in the alleyways. In the moment it feels good and helps him let off some steam, but after he feels guilty. And it doesn’t satisfy him much more than with Erica if he really thinks about it. One thing that Erica has over these women who let him act out his violent self is the look of devotion in her eyes. That’s always the thing that gets Joel to cum in the end when he does get to fuck her.

He would leave her, she isn’t that special to him if he’s honest, but she offers him a twofold sense of stability he has never known in his life. The first fold is the financial stability that has evaded him all of his days. The second is the feeling of family . Something so mundane and normal. And despite her flaws, she treats him so well – better than Sarah’s mother ever did. And most importantly, he doesn’t think he could leave Y/N. Not now. Not when she looks at him like he is the universe. Not even Aiden whom Joel has (begrudgingly) begun to see the traces of himself in.

***

This particular muggy, summer day begins normally. Joel goes to work, fixes a Chevy Impala’s fluid tank. And then he walks in with an old, beat-up Honda Accord.

His name is David, and Joel has heard of him through murmurings and bar stories and whispers at community barbeques. He’s a notorious neighborhood legend, whose house kids cross the street to avoid. He is the boogeyman at the end of the cul-de-sac.

The story is, though through the many versions Joel has heard some of the details get muddled, that he kidnapped and raped a twelve-year-old girl (that part all versions agree on). Some say he was supposed to have ten years in prison, others say twenty, but whatever the number he got out in one for “good behavior.” In jail, he supposedly devoted his life to God and became a preacher.

Joel doesn’t want to help him, but his boss hisses at him that money is money and he’s going to serve the man whether Joel likes it or not.

There’s something wrong with the exhaust pipe, so Joel bends down and takes a look at it. He opens the trunk and sees a box of Bibles next to a plastic bag of zip ties. His blood runs cold.

“The fuck is this shit doing in your car?” he growls, referring to the zip ties.

“The Bible is the word of God, Mr. Miller,” David replies, eyeing Joel’s nametag. “Would you like one? I’m always trying to spread The Good Word.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” he spits, looking over to make sure his boss is not watching.

“If you must know, though it’s none of your business, those zip ties are for my garden to help hold up my plants. They are remarkably useful,” David smiles sickeningly politely.

And that’s when Joel loses it just a little.

He picks up the ties and pockets them.

“Listen here, you pedophile piece of shit,” he snarls. “If I hear about you stepping one goddamned pinky-toe out of line–”

“Hey, Joel!” A little voice calls.

The breath is knocked from Joel’s lungs.

Y/N bounds up to them holding a brown paper bag out of nowhere.

“You forgot your lunch! Mom dropped me off so you could have it. It’s tuna though. I hate hate tuna. But you’ll eat anything so I hope it’s good for you at least,” she babbles.

“Baby,” Joel says very quietly, his heart thrumming in his ribcage. “Right now’s not a great time. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll catch up with you later?”

Then she notices David. By the fact that she doesn’t immediately leave, Joel determines she has no clue who he is.

“Hello, young lady,” David smiles, eyeing Joel knowingly. “I’m Pastor David.”

“Uh, hi,” she says.

Joel thinks he might actually kill him.

“Would you like something to take home with you?” he asks.

Y/N blinks in confusion as Joel steps in front of her.

“She’ll be going now, won’t you Y/N?” Joel suggests dangerously.

“Here,” David says before she can respond.

He hands her a black-covered bible.

Y/N takes it, looks at the cover, and laughs. Joel and David both look down at her in surprise.

“No offense, ‘Pastor David,”’ she smirks. “But I don’t believe in that shit. Here, you can have it back,” she offers.

He takes back the book somewhat defeatedly. And Joel grins internally.

“Bye, Joel,” she tells him, still smirking.

She side-hugs him quickly and returns to Erica’s car.

“How dare you even look at her–” Joel booms at the sad, pathetic excuse for a man once she is out of earshot.

His hands are clenched into fists and they are shaking. Every part of him is on fire.

“I think I’ll be going now,” David interjects lightly. “I can see my business isn’t welcome here. You have a beautiful daughter, Mr. Miller. Quite a mouth on her. Shame if something were to happen to her…Oh, the things someone like me could make her believe…”

Joel reaches back his fist to punch, to pummel, to kill, but suddenly, another hand grabs his and holds it in place. Joel’s boss has materialized behind him and is holding him back. Good thing too. It’s probably the only thing that saves Joel’s career and David’s life.

David winks and drives away as the boss begins to reprimand Joel who is still shaking and fuming.

All he knows is this: If anyone touches his babygirl he will not hesitate to put them six feet under, no matter the cost to himself. He will not hesitate to get blood on his calloused hands. He will not hesitate to kill. And this time? His baby will not sustain a single scratch . He will not wait for her to get hurt before he acts.

***

Joel wants nothing more than to go home and spend time with his babygirl and wife and even his step-son if he will allow, but there is blood popping and oozing and broiling and churning under his skin like billowing, bubbling lava. If he doesn’t do something about it soon he will explode worse than a volcanic eruption so he heads to the seediest bar he can think of. He makes his way inside and sits right up at the bar, already occupied by a few people. He orders a drink (his usual: whiskey on the rocks) and waits for the impending opportunity for violence he is sure is lying in wait.

He cannot believe the shit that came out of ‘Pastor-fucking-David’s’ sick, perverted mouth and that he almost lost his job over it. He lets that thought charge him up into a rage, his fists clenched so tightly they are beginning to ache in the joints. He cannot believe that disgusting little fucker had the audacity to say that horrible scummy bullshit in his presence when he would do anything to protect that innocent child. He takes a drink of his whiskey and knocks it back in one gulp. He would do anything , ‘Lord’ only knows. He snickers to himself sinisterly.

And while he’s on the topic, fuck God! When had He ever done a single damn good thing for Joel his entire miserable life except maybe to give him Sarah and then take her away like she was nothing and not the entire light of the universe wrapped into a small, vulnerable person? Joel doesn’t know much about the bible, truth be told, but he remembers a few things from his Sunday school days. He remembers that people are created in the image of God and the stories he remembers most are from the Old Testament which heavily featured a God of absolute rage. Maybe that is the way he is god-like, built of anger and revenge and wrath and the sick, pathetic hunger for power that lurks inside most people.

But he also remembers Jesus being meek and mild. Joel never understood that desire until he had Sarah and then Y/N in his care. If Joel could snap his fingers and make himself some fundamentally kind and caring man he would, but he can’t. Joel Miller is not a good man. He tried to be for Y/N, he truly did, but look at everything he’s done in the time he’s known her: he used Erica to get financial stability and roof over his head, he’s cheated on her numerous times, he beat Aiden, a child, and everyday the weight of that guilt grows greater as he begins to truly understand how wrong that was, and he beat his babygirl’s pathetic excuse for a father (but still her father) in front of her. He also beat people in bar fights and that time at the gym. And the thing is: is he even a little bit sorry about any of it – except for maybe what he did to Aiden? No, not even a little. And he’d do all of it again if it could mean getting to spend time with his babygirl, Y/N, again. His babygirl who FUCKING DAVID tried to threaten!

And the problem is: who knows what that fucker is capable of? The police and the judicial system let him out after one year which can only be described as a colossal moral failure and a massive miscarriage of justice. It wouldn’t take much for David to really figure out where they lived and grab Y/N and throw her in his trunk like he did that poor other little girl. Maybe that’s paranoid, but Joel knows better than most that when a man wants to do a dark thing he will find a way to do it. Joel does not want to live his life constantly looking over his shoulder as some horrendous pedophile lives freely.

And then he turns his head to look down at the rest of the fairly busy bar and he sees him . None other than David himself, drinking a beer. Joel cannot believe his luck. It is like all of the light in heaven has aligned to give him such a gift. A part of him is screaming to not engage because Joel is sure he could kill him for what he said about Y/N. But the rest of him is already standing up and grabbing David by the shoulder and–

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the fuck out of here now ,” he snarls. “Almost lost my job because of you, you sick fuck. You’re lucky I give you a warning and don’t wring your neck on the fucking spot.”

David turns around, Joel’s fingers digging into his shoulder.

“Proverbs 24:1 and 2,” he quotes calmly. “‘Do not envy wicked men or desire their company; for their hearts devise violence, and their lips declare trouble.’”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means perhaps I will be leaving. I don’t care to spend my time with wicked men such as yourself. And I have many preparations to make for what is to come. How is your daughter doing since we last met?”

Joel’s heart runs cold.

“Get my baby’s name out of your goddamned mouth .”

“Hope we run into each other soon,” David grins as he gets off the barstool and dislodges himself from Joel’s grip. “There is a lot I could teach her.”

He turns to leave. Disgusting coward, Joel thinks. He could let the man go. But then what? Live in fear of him? Let his precious Y/N live in fear of him? Joel is tired of living in fear, of resigning to a cruel man in a cruel world, and he will never do that or let Y/N do that ever again.

And then David leans in so close that Joel can smell the alcohol on his breath and the sweat on his skin.

“Can’t stop thinking about her pretty little hands around my–”

Joel doesn’t let him finish. In that moment he knows what will transpire. He picked this seedy-ass bar for a reason: so that no one will bother to stop him.

He lands the first punch with ease, doesn’t even feel the pain till minutes later. The force of the blow to David’s head is so strong he slams down into the ground. It is so violent that David’s eyelid starts to bleed and the skin around the impact spot becomes puffy and dark.

David shouts for help, but no one in this place gives a fuck and even if they did everybody knows who he is and what he did so they don’t give a shit two times over.

Joel continues the assault. Punch after punch reigns down on the other man as blood begins to coat his features. David tries to get a punch or two into Joel’s stomach, but Joel straddles each of his biceps and holds him down so he can continue hitting. The longer Joel hits, the better he feels. This time is different. This time he does not see the features of every man he’s ever hated in the face of his victim. This time he sees only David’s disgusting smirk in his mind’s eye. This time he only thinks about how he is saving Y/N from a lifetime of fear and cruelty. This time Joel will not let his adversary get a strike in first. This time he will be the one to stop the fate of impending devastation that lies in the palms of David’s shaking and broken hands. This time he can save her .

When Joel is done with his hands, he is panting heavily. He moves on to his feet, kicking the man’s gut sadistically, his trembling hands, his face. Crunch , goes David’s skull. And then he is not moving or breathing.

Joel stops.

A lick of fear trails against the inside of his stomach, but the rage, always the rage warms his stomach like a rush of flames.

So he keeps going. He bends back down and squeezes the man’s throat just to make sure. It’s good he did too because David’s bloodshot, viens-having-burst eyes snap open and David makes a pathetic little squealing noise and Joel squeezes harder, rougher, with more conviction.

In the end, it takes longer than he thought it would.

Joel only stops when he hears sirens blaring in the distance. He looks up for the first time since the assault started and sees all of the patrons staring at him in revulsion and fear. The bartender actually has the phone in her hand. Joel guesses she was the one to finally call the cops. He guesses he was so sadistic and violent that even this shitty place had seen enough. He thinks to run, briefly, but where would he run to? Everything he has ever wanted in life is now going to be closed off to him. But he saved Y/N and that makes everything worth it. It has to have been worth it.

Joel puts two scarred, calloused fingers to David’s pulse point, as blood (his and David’s) drips down from his knuckle onto the wooden floor and feels nothing.

When the cops handcuff him and take him away, he doesn’t resist. He comes quietly. He cannot ever really be a good man for Y/N, he understands that now, but at least now she and he may know some peace of mind after what he’s done.

***

The time leading up to the trial is a blur.

Erica pays for an excellent lawyer, but divorces him on the spot. It seems there are some things even she will not forgive, and apparently murder is one of them. She allows the children to see him one last time in cold, sterile police interrogation room. A court-appointed child advocate social worker must be present. They allow him to have his handcuffs taken off for the first time since he was arrested. The kids are told he accidentally killed someone in a bar fight and for legal reasons he leans into the “accidental” part.

Aiden comes in first. He knew who David was and tells Joel he did the right thing. Joel is surprised. He reaches out a limp hand, dirt caked under his fingernails, and shakes Joel’s for the first time since they’ve known each other and they part ways on good terms.

“You’re not my dad,” Aiden tells him quietly. “But you always put up a good fight to be there.”

And he leaves.

Joel is more touched than he wants to believe.

Y/N’s visit is much more difficult.

“How could you!?” she screams, standing by the door the second she sees him as he sits at the interrogation table, his chair turned toward her.

At first Joel thinks she means how could he killl another human being. Y/N didn’t seem to know who David was after all. But that’s not what she is mad about.

“How could you leave me!?” she shouts, tears in her eyes. “You’re going to be taken away from me! Mom is leaving you because of this and that means you aren’t like my dad anymore. You’re going to forget all about me and never get to see me again because you killed some dumb man who tried to give me a bible?”

“He was not a good man,” is all Joel can say.

He can’t be the one to tell her more, hasn’t told anyone how David had threatened her. Not even his lawyer. He doesn’t want to scare her, doesn’t want to admit to anyone he let those words even get to leave that shit stain’s mouth.

“I don’t care!” she shouts again. “I want you!”

And then she bursts into tears and runs into his chest and Joel holds her against his orange jumpsuit and starts to feel tears trickling down his own cheeks.

“Never gonna forget about you,” he nearly scolds her into hair. “How could you ever think that, baby? You’re my babygirl. I’ll get out one day and come right back to you, understand?”

“But Mom–”

“You’ll be grown by the time I get out and won’t have to worry about what she says. But I’ll tell you this: you might feel different about me by the time your grown up and however you feel I want you to know I’ll respect that. But I ain’t gonna forget about you. Not ever.”

“Your time is up,” the court-appointed social worker states.

“No!” Y/N shouts, burying herself deeper into Joel’s embrace. “NO! I’m not leaving! I won’t leave you!”

Joel hugs her back tightly, crying into the top of her head as she sobs softly into his chest.

In the end, the social worker has to pull her away as she screams.

“I love you, Y/N!” he calls to her as the social worker drags her from him. “Never gonna forget you, babygirl. Remember that.”

All Joel can hear back is a broken wail.

***

Erica attends the trial; the kids are forbidden. Joel’s defense claims it was a drunken accident and goes for manslaughter. Because he killed a known child molester he has no trouble while he waits in jail. He is even considered a hero by some. No one tries to fuck with him and that’s how Joel would prefer it since if he gets into too many fights it will just add to his sentence and he must get out and get back to his babygirl if she’ll still have him. His lawyer tells him not to mention the threats that David made toward Y/N because it will look like more of a reason that Joel would have had to intentionally kill him as opposed to accidentally like the manslaughter plea would have the court believe. Joel listens. He does exactly what he’s told because this lawyer is good and he needs to get out someday for christ sake.

In the end, he gets ten years and his lawyer tells him he could get eight for good behavior.

Eight years, if Joel can manage it.

They take him away to prison in handcuffs. Erica sobs. It is the last time he sees her.

***

Joel always wondered if his temper would land him in prison. Now that he’s here things go surpringly well. He gets a reputation for being the murderer of a child molestor and people respect him, listen to him when he bothers to speak. He keeps things in order and people start to refer to him as the “pod boss.” He also reads a lot in his cell, tries to help people with their cases and appeals if he can. And if someone steps out of line, Joel is more than happy to put them in their place so long as he can avoid attention from the guards, who he actually mostly gets along with to their faces, but behind their backs beats people to a pulp. No one ever dares to snitch on him and he is considered on the right track to get out for good behavior early.

Time passes — painfully long stretches of time.

He has a lot of time to think, to read. He reads every book in the prison library over the time he is incarcerated. He reads parenting books, self-help books, books on trauma, books on abuse, books on anger management, books on meditation, books on spirituality (nothing sticks in that regard though, he is still furious like God, but less so these days). Somehow his anger has started to simmer down a notch.

But he worries his babygirl will forget about him, or worse grow to hate him. He’s not sure he’ll survive that.

Luckily, or he might have withered away and died, somehow Y/N convinces Erica to let her write him a letter once a month and have one call with him on Christmas.

Christmases quickly become his favorite day of the year.

Y/N writes him religiously. She talks about how angry she is at him, how she misses him, how she finally fixed the motor on Joel’s old pickup truck, how some boy gave her a love letter on Valentine’s Day, how she thinks of him every day.

Joel never tells her what David said about her, lets her believe he is just some violent, drunken idiot. He writes back how much he misses her, how he read a new book this week, how prison food is shit, how he’d probably greet that boy with a shotgun if he thinks he’s getting anywhere with his babygirl, how his whole heart beats for her.

She’s allowed to send him one photo a year, her most current school photo, and Joel hangs them on the wall of his cell so he can see her beaming at him at his highest and lowest moments along with the tiny picture of Sarah he managed to save from his wallet.

Aiden even sends him a card each Father’s Day. It never has anything written in it except for whatever stupid pun or text the card came with, but Joel reads between the lines with that one. Each one seems to whisper to him louder and louder, I love you and I forgive you. Joel writes him back, “Thanks, kiddo. -Joel” He hope that conveys the thousands of sorrys he wants to scream from the rooftops and say straight to the boy’s face. He will someday when he gets out. He makes himself promise. He hears from Y/N when Aiden joins the marines.

When Joel gets to actually hear Y/N’s voice on the old prison phone it’s like the most beautiful sound he has ever heard except for maybe Sarah’s voice. She babbles away about her life and what’s she’s up to and he hangs on every word like gospel. He barely gets a word in, but prefers it that way. Wishes he could hear her singing. Once, when she’s sixteen, and sounds so woefully grown up it hurts Joel’s entire heart, she hums a little absentmindedly and he can’t get the sweet sound out of his head. Her love for him never seems to waver and that is a blessing that Joel will never forget, the only thing he would thank this cruel God for. And of course, his love for her never wavers either. She is the only beacon of light for him in this dark and mundane existence. She is his everything.

***

When Y/N is eighteen and no longer under her mother’s control, she comes to visit him in person. This is the first time they have seen each other in six years. Despite their loving correspondence, Joel is nervous to see her for the first time since her childhood. He worries about how awkward it might be.

When he sees her walking into the dinky little family meeting room, his entire mode of existence changes.

She looks so beautiful, so grown-up. Sure she had always been a cute little kid, Joel always thought that, but now she is a woman. Tears come to Joel’s eyes. When her eyes connect with his, he feels so seen .

He tries to get a word out, but before he can she is running to him, into his arms and Joel has never felt something so perfect in his entire life. He knows he has never felt a love like this before. Not even with Sarah…something about this is different somehow? Joel is not too in touch with his feelings, but he’s trying to be more attentive to them these days with nothing left to do but read about such topics as “emotional regulation” and “mindfulness.” He’ll come back to this thought later though…

Y/N begins to babble into his ear, something about missing him and not wanting it to be awkward, but this is the furthest from awkward Joel has ever felt.

Joel has never been a man of many words so all he can think to say is,

“Missed you, babygirl.”

She grins at that, brighter than all the suns of all the planets in the universe (Joel has been reading about those too) and he laughs for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

She laughs too, wipes tears from her eyes, and says,

“Missed you too, Joel. More than you know.”

Joel thinks that can’t possibly be true for that is all he has known for the last six years and possibly his entire life: missing her.

She comes once a month, drives an hour just to see him, and she tells him about college and later her very own shitty apartment. Her mother has thrown herself into her work and Aiden is serving his second tour. She makes good grades and has a stable boyfriend that treats her well, she swears. Joel couldn’t be happier for her, except the boyfriend business does make him want to crush that little fucker’s head in for some reason.

***

The last time Y/N comes to visit before his release (eight years to the day for good behavior) (she is 20 damn years old already!) something feels different to Joel. When he hugs her to greet her, he’s suddenly very aware of her body, the curves of it, her softness. Her hair smells so good, he doesn’t want to let go of her and then to his intense dismay and shock he feels himself getting a little excited down south. Immediately, he lets go of her, feeling like a pervert, praying she didn’t and doesn’t notice. He doesn’t see any obvious signs from her and the two sit down (Joel rather quickly) at the flimsy, nailed-down table and they talk of Joel’s impending release. All the while, Joel is trying to stay calm. He convinces himself it was just an accident and that he hadn’t been around any women in what felt like an eternity and that’s what led him to get worked up. But when Y/N leaves to go home he feels a kind of dull longing in the bottom of his gut. A different kind of longing then what he had felt for a younger Y/N. Joel tells himself not to repress for the first goddamn time in his life and let himself feel. And he does. He feels butterflies and yearning and need, a great big need inside himself. And then he knows what else he feels: the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love and beneath that, primal, base, and self-loathing: desire .

In his solo cell (that he has acquired because he is the pod boss and respected) he jerks off to those thoughts, touches himself to those feelings. When he cums unusually hard, he feels an overwhelming amount of shame. Of this, Joel knows, he will never ever tell another soul. Joel also knows he will not hurt his babygirl any more than he already has, intentionally or not, not ever. But then again, being a good, upstanding man has never really quite been in his arsenal, has it?

Tags (LMK if you wanna be tagged!): @toxicanonymity @motelprincess444 @epicrainbowsheep @anama-cara @sheepdogchick3

@denileisariver @lochnymph @mewantpeepaw @fandomdaydreamer @r3dheadedwitch

PLEASE COMMENT LIKE REBLOG IM BEGGING IM PLEADING IM CRYING

PART 2

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

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marvel-starwarsfangirl · 1 month ago

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Natlan Archon Quest 5.1 Thoughts and Theories

Compared to the last archon quest, this was a major step up for me in all aspects. There was a sense of grandness to it all, especially with the music and animation. Also, I'm so weak for Capitano you guys. His voice 😍🥵 alright I'll stop. But my Capitano agenda is far from over.

Spoilers below

Boy oh boy did I enjoy seeing everyone rally together to fight the Abyss. And the Abyss I felt was a pretty legitimate threat. (side note: i'm glad they didn't make us wait for the next patch to see the actual battle). The map was consumed by Abyssal power, reminding me of that one Enkanomiya event. And people died. You'd get to sites with people and everyone would be gone. It was lowkey chilling and Genshin really has stepped up in terms of how dark it wants the story to be. Chasca's sister, Chuychu, didn't make it. Their final words to each other were really heartfelt and it was sad to watch them say goodbye.

On a much lighter note, the cutscenes of Mavuika and the six heroes using their powers was soooo freaking cool, especially with the music. Side note, I'm glad they didn't shove the Traveler in as the final hero since this wasn't their fight technically. I loved seeing Mavuika use all her abilities and create that giant starburst thing in the sky to fight the Abyss. It gave me major Endgame vibes ngl. I was having a blast. This quest also made me really love Mavuika. She cares so deeply about her people and home that she'd sacrifice herself to save it all. It's a heavy price, but she's willing to pay it. Aside from Mavuika's selfless nature, she also looked epic when she fought the Abyss in the sky.

The new characters in general I really enjoyed, especially Ororon. I do like his design and I love how his voice tone changes from serious to almost childish when talking to Citlali. And his lore is really fascinating since he has an incomplete soul. Citlali gives me major Faruzan energy, but she has a beautiful design and she's pretty relatable imo with her awkwardness. I liked her a lot. Xilonen had a lot of charisma imo. Although I haven't figured out how to use her on the field during her playable segments.

And Capitano. My gosh did this man become very interesting. Not only is he Khaenri'ahn, but apparently his face is rotting from living for so long AND he knows Dain. He's a lot more tragic than I initially expected, having lost everything and everyone to the cataclysm. And out of all the Harbingers, alongside Childe (maybe Arlecchino with the HoH), he's definitely one of the more altruistic ones. His methods were extreme, but at the end of the day, he wanted to save Natlan, having lost so much already. Capitano was willing to put aside his own pride with his plan and listen to Mavuika's, helping her and the others defend their home. He even gave her all his soldiers to have for reinforcements. He's not driven by evil the way Dottore is or is vengeful to a destructive degree like Scaramouche. He's honorable and driven by the pain of his past. Vengeance too probably, but he didn't wipe Natlan clean to save it.

The lore was also fascinating. To talk to the Lord of the Night was really cool and I loved getting to know more about Teyvat as a whole. Btw, the "sky is fake" claim is finally proven true.

Overall, I was very satisfied with this Archon quest and could honestly watch a whole show on Natlan trying to fend off the Abyss. It reminds me of the Long Night but significantly better executed on almost all fronts (music still slapped).

Going forward, I definitely think we will see Mavuika die but either it won't be in the typical way or she will return in another form like Furina. Given how she's playable, Hoyo will find the loophole. But yeah, Mavuika will have to pay a heavy price. And it appears Capitano will as well. He still has his "final foe" to face and Ronova apparently sent him on his journey. Of course, the price for messing with death your own life, which Mavuika will have to pay. It seems like whatever Capitano is asking of the Lord of Night also will either lead to his own demise or some sort of demise. Either way, both characters are going to be facing a heavy price. I'm really excited to see the final face off with the Abyss and what will become of both Capitano and Mavuika.

The sky being fake caught my eye specifically because the edges of the hole and the void are reminiscent of the power used by the unknown god in the beginning of the game. Could the unknown god reside out in that void? Did she have a hand in creating Teyvat? Is Teyvat even a "real" world or is it something else entirely? So many questions. I look forward to getting answers and I love the small detail of the hole being covered by smoke. it would cause mass hysteria if one moment, you were fighting for your very home and then another bombshell about the sky being fake is thrown at you.

My only major nitpick is that the Natlan archon quest is almost beat for beat Fontaine's with some exceptions of course.

You got:

big existential, life threatening event that has been steadily building up for years and years

a Fatui harbinger who offers aid because they got their own stakes in this (said Harbinger is also Khaenri'ahn)

the archon has to die because they used powers that are kinda taboo

there are minor incidents prior to the actual existential event

said event has been known about by the archon for hundreds of years and preparations have been made

the day is saved by the archon (or dragon) flying up into the sky and using their awesome power to save everyone

supporting characters die protecting others (Silver and Melus you were the real ones)

The archon quest is still fantastic, but the overall formula was very similar. (it was also weird to not hear Kinich or Kachina but I get the reason).

Anyways, what did you guys think and are you excited for the next chapter???

#genshin impact #natlan #the rainbow destined to burn #5.1 spoilers #mavuika #capitano #the traveler #ororon #citlali #xilonen #guys teyvat's sky IS fake

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fastcardotmp3 · 1 year ago

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cw: substance abuse, addiction, stobin drugging-related PTSD I'm home sick and found this fully written in my drafts? from march?? apparently?

Steve and Robin, who make jokes about that time we did LSD like it's a funny anecdote to the point where no one knows the actual context of the situation.

(Dustin and Erica would know, if Steve and Robin weren't still self aware enough to decidedly not make jokes about it where those two can hear)

(But still.)

Steve and Robin, who only trust a drink if it comes from the other, who trade off sober duties even if someone else is already designated driver because it's not the same as making sure one of them always has their wits about them.

Steve and Robin who, in the very immediate aftermath of Starcourt, develop two drastically different relationships with substances-- Robin who is detrimentally afraid of the glass of wine her parents sometimes offer her on special occasions versus Steve who can and will try everything available to him just to prove again and again that it was never going to kill him even if he felt like he was dying at the time.

They self destruct in equal but opposite ways for the rest of that first summer before the looking out for each other starts, before the coping via humor starts, before the decision to just call it LSD Steve because if I have to try and process that it was something that I can't read and learn about on top of everything else--

It's not like it ever leaves them though, this way that this specific trauma has fucked them up.

(It's not like Dustin and Erica don't notice, no matter how hard their friends try to hide it.)

It's not like there's anything they can do about it when Steve relapses and goes on a bender that has him losing a whole day of time and waking up to Robin checking his heart rate or when Robin thinks she's in a good enough headspace to do shots with their friends and ends up on the floor of another dirty bathroom with Steve holding her hair back, less from the booze and more from all the hyperventilating, the tears that won't stop until long after she's sober.

(It's not like people don't notice when Robin's jokes about their little LSD trip get pointed on nights Steve's had a bit too much, or how Steve cuts her off from making those jokes at all on nights her hands can't steady around a plastic cup; it's not like they could hide anything from people like this, who hunt monsters and solve mysteries and swallow horrors like the smoothest of whiskeys.)

(It's not like Dustin hasn't gone to Eddie when he gets worried, even if he never spills the whole story. It's not like Erica hasn't asked Nancy unsubtle questions about how to help people with dependency issues. It's not like Eddie and Nancy haven't spoken their own concerns into the quiet dark of night over crackling phone lines where no one else can hear.)

There are nights like this and they happen like clockwork, nights in the little house in Indy for which only two of them are technically on the lease but four and then six and sometimes a whole gaggle of high schoolers still pass through like transients every weekend.

There are nights like this, when the youngest of their ranks aren't around and the booze flows freely and they're out on the porch watching the sun set late with the lift and pull of summertime, when a conversation goes sour with a comment that betrays something that has yet to be spoken aloud.

Steve and Robin.

Steve and Robin who have clearly been through something the rest of them aren't privy to; Steve and Robin who mention it offhandedly without any proper details; Steve and Robin who are hurting right there in front of them and how are they supposed to help how are any of them supposed to--

"Okay, that's it--"

"Nance..."

It's Eddie's warning tone but it's also Jonathan giving her that look from where he's perched on the porch rail and it's also the sudden tension in Robin's brow and confusion in Argyle's and something painfully close to resignation in Steve's.

But this is Nancy Wheeler. It's a miracle she's let them go on like this for as long as she already has.

"No, I'm over the secrets," she shakes her head once, definitive, and levels her gaze on those twin hearts curled together on the porch swing. "You two are going to tell us what happened to you-- who hurt you-- and we're going to fucking fix it."

Steve and Robin, who lean impossibly closer into each other's space.

Steve and Robin, looking ready to bolt.

Steve and Robin, who don't look hopeful for any sort of fixing.

But it's not like it was going to stay unspoken forever.

#dot post #tw: substance abuse #tw: addiction #steve harrington #robin buckley #platonic stobin #stobin #the way i forgot I wrote this and then gave steve that plotline in WR i have one braincell and it's missing half the time #anyways I'm stuck in bed because my body hates me have this <3

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monkey-network · 5 months ago

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The Beauty of 12 Angry Men

I remembered in 6th grade lit reading Franz Kafka's The Trial, a story about everything judicial being set in stone for someone completely out of the loop. The bureaucracy behind Josef K.'s fate is never given a cause, no method helps him, and after a year he's at the mercy of a situation nobody said would be fair to him. It was a striking story to me, and lead me into recognizing Sidney Lumet and Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men as a similar yet antithetical story. The film keeps everything in the dark except for the titular jurors trying to piece the case together for a boy expected to get the death penalty. The matter though, is that the defendant's fate was clear from the start and the journey is about getting to that thread's end. What follows is one of the most well written, performed, and staged movies I watched in my entire life and I just wanted to finally talk about it. So, let's talk.

Setting the Stage

It takes three minutes almost exactly for the title to appear. You get the mission statement from the judge, a good scan of the main characters, and a single moment of the defendant's face, basically the only time you ever get to see said defendant for the whole movie. After that, we the audience are locked in the deliberation room where the film starts to shine after the credits role.

For the longest time watching movies, I was so used to big colorful settings, the characters going places even if it's just another place to talk, where it's a gamble if you can memorize those places. Oppenheimer last year became the widely regarded movie that consisted of next to nothing but conferencing in rooms. Even in older movies, things were never shot in the same spot for long. This film was the first instance where they stripped everything and worked with bare bones staging. All it is are the men in that one room. No flashbacks, no cuts to anything beyond the group speaking. The only other places you get are the adjacent men's restroom and the courthouse steps at the film's very end, scenes of which add to less than 4 minutes. And you would think it gets boring, but 'focus' is the keyword behind everything. The fact there's next to no music adds to it having an actually engaging script that doesn't manipulate or go to unnecessary places to get the point across.

12 Angry Men is what I'd call a "dynamic stage play" where you could imagine yourself seeing this in a live theater, but it wouldn't have worked as well without the secret main character that is the camera. This film knows how to prevent things from getting too static; the cinematography is... well-paced in laments terms. Again, in that one room, you're engaged in where it's focused, how it moves with the characters, when it cuts especially when it closes in on the jurors at their most serious. From a technical perspective, it's immersive at its simplest. No juror feels left out even when out of frame and nothing distracts you from the brilliant acting everyone brings to the literal table. After seeing this, I felt like this was the kind of movie I'd want to make. One that can work with so little but feel as tightly coordinated as any other similar to this. Then again, I wouldn't have concerned about this movie on technicalities alone. Let's get to the story.

The Stakes of Uncertainty

The trial is a first degree murder charge where if unanimously found guilty, the defendant would be sentenced to the electric chair. Everything surrounding this film hinges on the one person who votes not guilty, juror 8. Number Eight makes it clear that his vote is not about bias, there's never a hint at him or anyone having a relation to the defendant outside the case. His vote is the biggest gamble dependent of everyone retracing their steps of the details surrounding the trial, and what I love most about this is the fairness.

Eight doesn't know if the boy's not guilty, he never forces anybody to side with him, but recognizes that the defendant's life is a serious matter and shouldn't be as open shut as everyone else makes it in the beginning. The film shows within reason that the trial wasn't as clean cut as it seemed. And I know the movie isn't judicially accurate and everything's circumstantial, assumptive, and so on. If there's any real issue the film has for me is that they never indict Eight for sneaking in the switchblade even though that scene is still a goddamn show stealer.

Henry Fonda excellently portrayed a man who knew how to play the cards right

Then again, the increased flimsiness of the trial made with the uncertainty of the outcome is the point. We never get the sentencing after the men leave that room, it's all about Eight showing the others that the boy's life deserved more deliberation than the others were willing to give him. Hell, it discusses that trials like this can and have existed where measures of the outcome are made beyond the defendant's control. Breaking through the easy decision every other juror had was more valuable, and Juror 8 did that responsibly while never trying to be above anyone. That in turn is what makes this ensemble cast nearly flawless.

The Angry Men

Before ever seeing it, I've seen a couple jokes of this movie's premise of how it was nothing but said 12 men who sure were angry. Having now seen it myself, it's amazing how much we get to know about the jurors yet only two are ever given names. You'd think the film would give them simple archetypes and gimmicks, but even if you disregarded the acting chops everyone brings, the writing was able to balance who they each are relative to the case and each other. You can memorize which juror is which yet that never makes them just a number on the table.

To me, the best part about this film is how the group is able to collectively debate about the trial with individual motives and understandings. Jurors Eight and Three are the focal characters, they're the most opposing, but I don't consider them the main characters. A Youtube video I watched explores this better than I ever could, but everyone is in this together, regardless of how present they are in the movie and you notice this in their behavior. The character writing made with the simple staging does so much while explaining so little.

Juror Four, who reveals himself to be a stock broker, is the most clinical about the details. He does his best in retracing the trial as factual as possible, discussing the evidence in a way not even Eight is able to fight. What makes him crack though is when it came to jurors Eight, Five, and Nine bringing up certain conditions of the defendant and witnesses that he didn't care to notice. Juror Nine is the opposite, concerning about the witnesses' conditions and probable influences which helped reveal factual doubts in their testimonies.

Juror Seven from the getgo is made the most detached of the group. By the way he's dressed, constantly checking the time, while capable of paying attention Seven is the most dismissive of the case for the simple reason of just wanting to leave for baseball. This is where he comes into conflict with jurors Two and Eleven especially. Eleven is expressively respectful toward the judicial due process, mentioning himself being an immigrant, which makes him eventually fed up with Seven's disinterest. He's not somebody who changed his vote easily nor adds a lot to the debate himself, but recognizes Eight's efforts of a fair discussion and naturally confronts Seven about his constant snide attitude towards the case.

One of the film's strongest moments, where the build up was genuine even if you felt it was unexpected

Everyone makes sense with is established about them in the beginning and I could go on about the little things. Juror Nine, being the first to switch his vote, is the only one who meets with Eight outside in the film's end. You can tell by Juror Twelve fiddling with his glasses and concerned of having the info laid out sequentially is the most flippant about his vote. Juror Five being more likely to change his vote out of sympathy, having grown up and is more knowledgeable of the slums given that's the defendant's home. Nothing about this movie or ensemble is complicated, but the through-line behind everyone's choices in this gets to be more complex than realized. Everything about this is encapsulated in my favorite scene of the whole movie.

Pulling It All Back

Juror Ten is the most openly bigoted of the ensemble. From the start he is racially motivated in his vote, but that's not expressed until a little later. Of that point, he's certain of himself like juror Three about the vote being clear while scoffing at Eight's opposition. When the cracks of the case start to show, Ten's arrogance starts to show and his words become charged. He becomes the most hostile toward everyone and especially gets a rise out of Juror Five when talking about "these people". Everything comes to ahead when the vote is 9 to 3 for not guilty. Ten finally has his outburst, his racial rant unspecified but striking all the checkmarks of a man that stuck in his ways. Then it happens.

Everyone put up with his remarks up to that point, but here they finally step away and we get the most striking moment of a man finally alone with his thoughts. After Juror Four tells him off, Ten goes to the corner desk and basically shuts down for the remainder of the movie. This was the film's strongest payoff in every sense. It wouldn't have worked without the buildup just as much as the civility that came with everyone involved. Nobody had to throw a punch or challenge his beliefs, you never know if this changed Ten as a person, all that matters was that Ten knew he exasperated any goodwill from the jury and finally checked out the conversation. 12 Angry Men knew how to make the characters see their errors naturally, never feeling like they played up the drama for everyone to get their moment.

Conclusion

To me, I'm reminded of when in 6th grade, my literature teacher would have these Socratic seminars discussing the books we'd read. You could say it was the most involved I was in that class. This film knew how to capture that feeling, how towrite a roundtable where the stakes are high from the start but doesn't make it sanctimonious. Again, Juror Eight doesn't force or manipulate the others to see things his way. They try to convince him initially, adding up to a tangled but mutual engagement and it always feels like you're with them in the moment. You feel Eight's uncertainty is as sincere as his conviction, the same going for everyone else involved. The fact they're all sitting in sequential, helping you naturally follow who is who, is the cherry on top.

Before watching this, I didn't presume much beyond a simple courtroom drama which I enjoy ever since Ace Attorney. What followed after was just being more than impressed by how concise and thoughtful this was made. No second felt wasted, no detail felt trivial, ALL THIS and not even mentioning it being like a "bottle episode". Believe me, this post is long enough fanboying about a film from the 50s. It earned being the most ergonomic and engaging movies I've ever seen. If this essay wasn't enough, I recommend it at least once in your life as it's free to watch. What else is there to say?

It's the Best

#12 Angry Men #movies #films #cinema #film analysis #cinema analysis #movie analysis #analysis #reviews #Good Stuff #long post

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ryuichirou · 3 months ago

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AzuIde Marriage AU replies

A couple of replies related to the comic we posted yesterday + a reply for a pretty old ask from back when we posted the comic on Ko-Fi! Since the comic is finally edited properly and posted here, I can actually write a proper reply.

Thank you for your patience, and thanks to everyone for your interest!

Anonymous asked:

Can I just say how much I adore your design for adult azul? It just hits all the marks, the round glasses with chain? Yes! White suit? Yes! Hairstyle? fucking yes!

Thank you so much, Anon!!

Round glasses work super well with Azul’s face, he looks like even more of a villain somehow lol So I love making him wear those. And I am such a sucker for horrible people wearing white suits (it’s like a trauma from my Yami no Matsuei days). I am very happy you like this design for Azul!

In-universe though, I think Azul is very careful with what he wears and how he accessorses himself, so every one of his decisions is very intentional.

Anonymous asked:

Is Azul still going to be mad at Idia when they get home? Will he dole out punishment?

Partially replied here, as well as gave some more explanation about what actually happened (there isn’t much though because the story is very vague), and I’ll repost that explanation just in case! <3

Here is what I can say for certain: after being separated from Idia for quite a long time, Azul is going to kind of take care of him, as in “it’s okay, you’ve suffered enough” kind of way; but Idia is smart enough to know that this is just Azul trying to make Idia rely on him again, so he could shut the cage door and trap him once and for all. Azul is also very good at victimblaming, manipulating and gaslighting + has will-power that Idia doesn’t always have, so even if Idia knows that Azul’s kindness isn’t genuine (Azul never forgets those who betray him), he is powerless to change anything at this point. He just wants him and Ortho to be safe, and Ortho wants it too. So even though Ortho technically could blast Azul and the Tweels’ asses, Azul is perfectly aware of this risk, so he uses a different approach on Ortho. After all, Ortho is a smart boy + he and Azul have the same goal: they want Idia to be happy, right? It’s easier to do it while working together instead of fighting!

Anyways, Azul scary and powerful, and at this point in the story he has a lot of useful connections including STYX and probably even Idia’s parents. A lot more strings to manipulate the events in a way that would portray him as a forgiving and loving saint, but still ensure that Idia never leaves him again.

And after this position is secured, then he might start punishing Idia. But in a way that is very subtle to everyone around them, but painfully obvious for Idia.

So a TL;DR answer would be: yes, Azul is still mad, but he won’t punish him right away. He’ll act like a sweet and caring husband for a while (Idia won’t buy that bs), and when he gets tired of that act, he’ll start punishing Idia in a sneaky way.

As for what kind of punishment it would be…

Anonymous asked:

I remember the general punishments Azul would dish out to Idia from the original dark headcanons post but in a recent post, you said that when Azul punishes Idia in this case it would be in a way that no one would notice. Do you have any headcanons about these punishments? 😀

(Once again, sorry for the wait, Anon!)

I do have some thoughts! But when it comes to these kinds of scenario, it’s a bit difficult to come up with headcanons because I feel like no matter what I come up with, Azul would’ve came up with something more cunning, more sinister, more subtle and more cruel. So take whatever I’m about to write and keep in mind that it could be x3 times worse lol Azul is very bad when he feels rejected.

Azul would control the entire narrative of what has happened between them. He would play his cards in a way that would make everyone believe that Idia left him seemingly out of nowhere, and that this is just Idia causing trouble due to being bad at interacting with people. He will even manage to fool S.T.Y.X. people and their ex-classmates into thinking that yeah, Azul is notoriously pretty sleazy and cunning, but he seems to be genuinely in love with Idia: ever since that accident he’s been all over him, protecting him, taking care of him, even skipping work (!!!) to be with him. “Maybe even Azul has a heart, who would’ve thought”, “I guess it really was Idia’s mess-up…”, “He is such a good husband, Idia needs to appreciate him more”…

At the same time, Azul would defend Idia in front of all these people whenever someone would even hint at Idia hurting Azul’s feelings. He would insist that Idia is completely forgiven, and that it would be incredibly petty to worry about this little thing when he almost lost him. Azul might even say that the Universe has given them a second chance, and that this time Azul will make everything right just so Idia doesn’t feel the need to run from him anymore. What an angel you are, Azul Ashengrotto! Idia would feel like he is losing his mind hearing these conversations. It would be overwhelming and so horribly isolating, he’d feel like he can’t talk to anyone about anything anymore. His social anxiety would actually become way worse.

And yet, Azul would force him to come out more often. Together, of course. He would walk with him (Idia wouldn’t be able to walk properly by himself for a couple of months during his recovery), bring him to events (“You are probably very bored and lonely, let’s visit our friends at [company name], shall we?”). Not only it would make Idia see a huge swarm of people discussing his every move, he would constantly feel eyes on him because Azul would become more clingy in public. He would constantly hold his hand and kiss it, kiss his face and lips, bring him closer while hugging his shoulders, etc. PDA was never Azul’s style, but now it feels like he is showcasing their love to everyone and cementing their status as a hopeful young couple that is together against all odds. This would make all the social pressure on Idia absolutely unbearable. It feels like a walk of shame…

It’s not like the situation at home would be any better, mind you. Azul being sweet with Idia would make him feel even more anxious because it’s one thing to act all nice in front of people to save face, but when they’re all alone, it feels like Azul is preparing something, something big and horrible, and Idia would feel this anticipation so vividly every second around him. Azul would just smile and say that Idia is being paranoid and overly suspicious of him, and that it’s actually very hurtful. Azul would barely hide his smile because he hasn’t done anything yet, and Idia already looks like a caged animal with fear in his eyes. He wants him to marinate in this fear more, even if it breaks his psyche completely.

Azul would start gaslighting Idia into thinking that his health is declining, both mental and physical. He would act very protective and caring, he’ll even manage to make Idia believe that he is genuinely scared for his well-being at some point. The amount of unnecessary potions and drugs he would make Idia consume both sneakily and openly is insane. He might even do that toxic husband thing and pay a therapist to make them tell him everything Idia was talking about to them during the session… if he managed to make Ortho make Idia go to the therapist, that is (no way he’d manage to make Idia go himself).

He would guilt-trip Idia a lot. Even though Idia doesn’t love him, Azul would still manage to make him feel bad for leaving Azul like this. Even if Idia knows that Azul is playing games with him, he would feel guilty all the time, but this isn’t even the worst thing. What is much worse is that sometimes Azul just sighs and goes “I didn’t want it to bring this up because I know how bad it is for you, but…” and drops the bomb about Idia putting Ortho in danger again. Blaming Idia for harming Ortho (intentionally being vague, knowing that it would reopen old wounds) is another thing that Azul would never usually do, but right now he’s spiteful, angry and genuinely wants to hurt Idia as much as he can. Even if Idia doesn’t care about Azul and wants to run away again, would it really be the best move for Ortho? He barely survived the accident, after all.

Idia isn’t the only person Azul would guilt-trip. He would also guilt-trip Ortho who feels very responsible for everything that’s happened to Idia. He would’ve easily sensed that Azul is lying, but it seems that even a machine could be messed with if the most important person in its life is hurt. Like I mentioned in another reply, Azul would make Ortho feel like they want the same thing and should work together. Of course Ortho would feel like he is betraying Idia in a way, but he would still cooperate because of his guilt + feeling that giving Azul full access to everything that Idia does online would make Idia more safe and happier somehow.

#replies #headcanons #azuide #azuidi #azuide marriage au #our aus

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writegoblin · 1 year ago

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I have been severely craving my boy. No no, not Michael. Boseph uwu

Look at him. Unf.

Anyways.

Bo Sinclair Headcanons!

SFW

- You ended up in Ambrose because your car alignment decided it had enough of these off road shenanigans.

- Your reasons for being out that way, for story purposes, are running from your old life. All your old family and friends are shitty so you an conveniently disappear bc smthn smthn deus ex machina

- HOW you find out about your car alignment is another story. Let's just say, tumbling in a car is much more painful than it looks. What's worse is landing in a roadkill pit. Yeah boy. You know what time it is B)

- Lester almost shit himself when you came from over the highway. He thought you were dead and was going to call Vincent when you punched out the front seat. That's hot. Alright stranger, you're coming with me!

- He tries to clean you up and get your name. Takes you back to his place because he doesn't want to catch the twins off guard. But the day you spend there is lovely.

- You get the Ambrose and immediately shits off. Long story short, you become something of a live in maid. They can't kill you because it would be a lot of hassle on their end (another deus ex. You're related to a cop or something idk), and they COULD turn this situation around. Get use out of you.

- Bo likes how witty you are. You don't like to be bossed around which is clearly why you ran away from home (what are you, 10?)

- At first he's very callous to you and makes no effort to understand you. As far as he's concerned, you're another spoiled out of towner, just impeding on he and his brother's strange get rich scheme (more on that later. I'll explain in end notes.)

- What's worse is you're argumentative. Whenever he asks you to do something (read: yells at you), you always gotta talk back. You say funny stuff sometimes but it's annoying mostly. Vincent enjoys it much more than he does.

- You make nice with Vinny first. When you aren't forced to do chores, he lets you help him with the wax. Bo sees this and eventually realizes that while you are certainly mouthy, you are human with like hobbies and shit.

- He's a chef he's a gourmand

- He cooks for he and Vincent because Vincent, due to some brain damage, has a weird palette. So anything he makes either has way too much seasoning, or it tastes like cardboard. Bo on the other hand, grew up running around the streets of Baton Rogue with his friends after school. He KNOWS how to cook good.

- He's also good at first aid. The actual surgery and medical stuff is Vincent's wheelhouse but once you broke your arm trying to fix some shutters he told you to fix. He felt bad so he very gingerly fixed your arm. It healed really nicely but you'll never forget the way those blue eyes of his were so warm when he looked at you, touching the bend in your forearm and his voice, gentle as the day you first met went, "does it hurt?"

- Yeah but you looking at me like that bout to get me pregnant hurts worse sir

- As a boyfriend he's only jealous/protective around tourists. But as a dude in a town with a population of technically 3.5 if you count Lester's visits, he gets it. He does not mind his twin ogling you. He does not mind sharing EVENTUALLY. At first, he's very apprehensive.

- Bo's love language is physical touch. Even nonsexual touch is nice. He likes laying his head in your lap while yall watch TV and you rake your nails through his scalp gently.

- When he gets night terrors he likes to hold onto you in the dark like hope. He puts his face in your chest and he's almost like a little kid for a second. You have no choice but to coddle aw noooo aw man can't believe I have this hot sexy guy in my lap crying ohbhughghh

- If you're pear shaped? He loves your hips. Man, woman, ethereal creature, it don't matter. He was born an ass man he'll die an ass man.

- If you like star gazing, he'll listen to you rattle off about constellations. He likes listening to people ramble about unique special interests because it gives him a little taste of variety in his quiet life.

NSFW

- big. Thick. Cut.

- leftward pitch and he loves doing mating presses.

- much more inclined to rough sex (obviously)

- I do know he likely and unfortunately assaulted those ladies on the wall but in my HCs I like to think it was CNC instead. What stops him from doing the same here is you're too loud and mouthy, so the attraction is initially not there.

- As you soften up because of Vin though, and start opening up and smiling and being cute, he can't help but let his mind roam sometimes.

- Loves fantasizing you in different little costumes to dress up in. A visitor once visited and she was a cam girl! In your size! So lucky!

- please were garter belts this man will not be normal

- Loves intercurral. To punish you if he catches you masturbating, he'll fuck your thighs until he cuts, leaving you all hot and bothered.

- The basement does not come into equation until after the first time. And the first time is more of a gentle, romantic moment of vulnerability.

- Your first time was during a thunderstorm and you were telling him about your past and how so many people hurt you. Abused you. He felt so connected to you. You always held back your anger and he let you express it by throwing stuff and by the end of it you were a sobbing and screaming and laughing mess and he was standing in the debris and he saw himself and he reached out and kissed you in an attempt to ammend himself.

- When he made love to you that night, he decided your ass is never moving out sorry lol

- Exhibitionist. Likes to take you to Baton Rogue for little dates and fucks you in alleys and parks. The most exciting was a drive in theater he took you to where you gave him head. He fucked you in the wooded area outside after.

- PRIESTKINKPRIESTKINK

- Hahaha okay but what if you confessed and he fucked u in the confessional would that be crazy or what

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have a few HOW headcanons actually!

- the boys do the whole house of Wax thing in an attempt to get rich. Bo decided "oh I guess I could be mayor but hm no money here" and he rubbed two cells together and was like "WHAT IF WE MADE AN ATTRACTION THAT WAS THE BESTEST."

- tricked Vin into it cause "they're carrying Mom's legacy :(((( she'd love this trust me we're gonna expand the house into a town it'll be great."

- Lester's there cause he loves his brother's and is also admittedly a bit crazy himself. He's definitely tied a few people up and intimidated people, but that's not his usual job. He's too baby.

- Canonically, where Ambrose is located, it would be a roughly 30 min drive (or 2 hours I forgor lol) to Baton Rogue! So fun fact. They're Baton boys uwu

- I think even though Bo is a good cook, gumbo is Lester's wheelhouse cause he's just got that swagger to him. Like if I met Lester and he was like "do u want me to make you gumbo" I'd say yes, no hesitation.

#bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair #slasher fics #slasher headcanons #slasher x reader

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liquidorcard · 1 month ago

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Only tangentially related but your Harley Quinn post made me so glad that whenever I watch any Batman media, it's with my friend who can point out and explain all the references and Easter eggs. He's really excited for the next RPat Batman movie because of the amount of things set up/teased in the first one (I also really appreciate the first film because of the focus on Batman as a detective, rather than the action).

Also only tangentially related, but every day, I'm a little more grateful that The Venture Bros. is a show about a sad old man and his beautiful and horrible boys. There's nothing there to appeal to Lily, I don't have to worry about her half paying attention and giving the worst takes imaginable about my favorite show.

The 2022 Batman movie is my favorite live action theatrical release yet.

I try to not imply that there's one TRUE Batman interpretation since one of the things I adore about Superheros is that, like Greek myths, they've become so ubiquitous they become excellent means to explore concepts and ideas through many different lenses. A sort of conceptual shorthand, if you will.

"The big three" DC heros have been sort of softly canonized in the comics for a while as representing hope (Superman), truth (Wonder Woman), and justice (Batman.) Out of all three of those, justice is the one with the most baggage to it BY FAR.

I understand why people love the Nolan movies-- but I don't. I don't for a lot of reasons. Yes Heath Ledger's performance was incredible, given all the more weight considering what happened to him soon after-- but a trilogy is more than just one legendary performance. More than Nolan's obvious technical skill with the craft of film making. I take issue with a lot of things with the film, but one of the major ones ideologically is how fundamentally uninterested the films are at challenging the idea of justice. It takes it as a given that Batman (as a representation of justice) is good, that justice corrects the fundamental issues it tries to, and you shouldn't question it. You shouldn't look at it too close. More so in the Dark Knight Returns than the other two, but. Christopher Nolan is very much a romantic in his film making-- and if that's your jam, cool. It's not mine.

Tim Burton wasn't overly critical of Batman as a symbol of justice either, but his films operate more on a kind of fable-ish logic and it doesn't bother me nearly as much. He's a more stylistic filmmaker who likes to tell simple stories through mood and atmosphere. I like that about them, but I'd prefer something more psychologically engaging.

The Batman was the first theatrical love action release I felt really took the time to tease out what it really MEANS to be the symbol of justice. It's why Batman's rouges' gallery is so full of more complex, psychologically challenging enemies. It's why so many Batman stories have him sitting and lamenting the choices he's made. Why he's the darkest superhero archetype. There should be something . . . Disturbing about him. Like, you're unsure if he's really a hero at all sometimes. That possibility that this is all a big cope should be this miasma that flavors all his actions. To me, that's the good shit.

Also, I'm fucking ADORING The Peguin show. Hilarious Lorch was bitching about writers drawing from "the same four comics" with Batman when I think this is the first time we've seen even a loose adaptation of The Long Halloween, outside of the video games taking some mild inspiration from it. It's not really the sort of content you could put in a kid's show outside of a wink and a nod.

Not to be horny on main, but Cristin Milioti is CAUSING ME SOME FEELINGS as Sophia Falcone.

(Oh yeah I suppose Gotham kinda sort of did Long Halloween too. So much insane shit happened in that show I completely forgot about it.)

#liquid orcard #eldrich lily #batman #batfam #dcu #dc comics #dc universe #lily orchard #lily orchard critical #anti lily orchard #lily peet #lorch posting #lily orchard stuff #youtube #the batman #the penguin #sophia falcone #gotham

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artist-issues · 5 months ago

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Could you rank the album Blurryface and explain your rankings, please? Thanks and have a blessed day!

my brain

yay

Listen readers, if you like my posts about Disney movies & classic books & Old Hollywood or whatever, or if we’ve ever crawled into a story together and deepened our perspective on that story in one of my posts, but you’ve never cared about twenty one pilots, just trust me and read a little bit of this post. I want to show you something so good.

This is my favorite question in a long time. But you have the key to the obsession-corner of my brain, and you let yourself in, so this is a BIG rambling post, and you brought this upon yourself, and I’m very glad

Okay! I’m going to rank it concept-wise. As in, I’m going to rank it based on how in-depth and well-thought-out and excellently-communicated the ideas in the songs’ lyrics are. Because I don’t know anything about music—so any part of the rankings that are affected by something musical are that way because of personal preference, not because I know what I’m talking about. I recommend taking it slow, every one could be its own post because I suck at being succinct. 🙄

14. Lane Boy

I’m not going to defend myself, something had to go last, and everybody knows I’d rather listen to Lane Boy than any non-twenty-one-pilots song, and I think it blows any secular non-twenty-one-pilots song out of the water. So there. But it’s last on the list just because I think the concepts in the song don’t have as much brain-dissecting meat, and eternal value, as the other songs on the album. Other songs are about how we compartmentalize our issues, or they’re about mankind’s messed up state, or they’re about the dichotomy of fear and love.

And then this song is basically just about how twenty one pilots goes where they want to, musically, and doesn’t bow to the music industry or the patterns of what’s popular. But they’re tempted to. And that makes perfect sense, because on an album where he’s fighting his insecurities, being insecure about what “The Audience” thinks of you fits on the list.

I think the best part of the song is the lyric “don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that’s flawless.” From what I observe about Tyler Joseph, he actually does care whether or not a song, or a performance, is as good as it can possibly be. That’s super clear. But what’s also clear is that he believes in singing about something real, especially real flaws he has, so that other people can relate and use the information. So I don’t think he’s saying “don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that has no technical issues and couldn’t be any better.” I think he’s saying, “don’t trust a person who claims to be perfect, or their vague meaningless songs that don’t reveal their flaws.” (You know, when we gonna stop with it / lyrics that mean nothing, we were gifted with thought-type stuff.)

Which is still pretty deep, in a song that on the surface is saying “I know the music industry and genre-fans have expectations but I do what I want.”

Side note: I love the aesthetics of the music video and the “tempted by control, controlled by temptation” voiceover they used to do for the concerts with this song. The whole idea that Fame and Success have to be in hazmat suits, with gas masks on, is awesome. I don’t care if the concept is “Fame and Success can’t even deal with us, and all the insecurity we talk about in our songs,” or “Fame and Success are always interacting with songs that are rotting, dead, already on their way out of relevance.” It works either way. It’s cool either way.

But let’s just be real. It stabs me in the heart every time he sings the line, “if it wasn’t for this music I don’t know how I would’ve fought this.”

Like. Really? You don’t? If it wasn’t for music, you don’t know how you would’ve fought the dark thoughts? There’s nothing else you can think of, nothing else that specifically works against dark thoughts, that you might want to clue people in on? In a song that’s about not making decisions motivated by remaining popular, you’re going to point them to your own music as the only weapon you know of which works?

When you set yourself up to tell them that Jesus Christ is the hope that lasts eternally, not just moment-to-moment? When you could’ve said that you know a an everlasting Light in times of darkness? No?

So this one gets skipped more often than the others, and I know for a fact it’s because even subconsciously I don’t want to hear that line. I hope I’m wrong about it. I bet I am. I don’t think he meant all that. I think he was looking for a way to conclude that “I know about pain and darkness and that’s what should be in songs” thought, in a way that rhymed and sounded good. But still.

12. Tear in My Heart

(note: the list got out of order here because tumblr’s post editor is the worst and I couldn’t fix it. but Tear in My heart is ranked one higher than Stressed Out, that’s all you need to know.)

I like it when Tyler Joseph picks a concept that’s simple and then reminds everybody how true it is by talking about it like he does with Tear in My Heart. “Love hurts.” That’s a simple concept. “Yeah okay we know.” But in this song I listen to it and I want to be like “No, do you get it, love, giving all of who you are, even the messed up parts, to somebody and letting them do whatever they want with that, hurts. Not just because you’re afraid they’ll reject you—but because you’re afraid they won’t reject you, you’re afraid they’ll stay, which is harder and demands more of you, and you’re afraid they’ll see you, and change you.” Yes, change. For the better.

That’s the point of the music video. He’s looking around at everybody but he can’t see them clearly, everything warps around when he tries to meet their eyes. But not with his wife (then fiancée, I guess.) They see each other clearly. And then she beats the Blurryface out of him. Because that’s what real love does. It doesn’t ignore your flaws or accept your flaws. It sacrifices to help you grow out of your flaws. And that hurts! That’s uncomfortable! That’s Eustace getting un-dragoned in The Chronicles of Narnia.

But it’s also the best thing for the loved one. And! He introduces the whole idea with “sometimes you gotta bleed to know / that you’re alive and have a soul.” When you’re just in your comfort zone, even if it’s a bad place, you go numb. It’s scary to propose to somebody, or show them who you really are, or tell them how you really feel, but the good that comes with it is exhilarating.

And he uses the words, “she’s the tear in my heart,” which, if you dissect that: the medical term is SCAD, and the result of a tear in the heart are basically anywhere from irregular heartbeat (heart skipping a beat. aww. they’re in love and stuff.) to heart attack, (she has the power to bring him to a jarring halt) to slowed heartbeat. (She can also calm him down.) Even a more zoomed-out idea of the lyric, where you just picture what happens when you cut a tear in a heart, is a great metaphor in this context: blood gets out. It was safe and nobody knew what he was feeling. Now what’s inside his heart is finally visible. Because of her.

One more, one more! “She’s a butcher with a smile.” I love that he said ‘butcher.’ A butcher’s whole job is to follow a plan, and neatly organize, arrange, sort, the meat. From what I understand, a butcher typically follows the muscle routes that are already there. It’s not mad hacking and wanton destruction; it’s thought out. There’s a purpose. There’s even usually a plan, a map they’re following. He could’ve said “she’s a cutthroat,’” or “killer” or even “cutter.” But when there was nothing on the page, he chose to put “butcher, carver.” Purposeful cuts.

And he keeps it on-theme, with the album. Because like I said, the whole album of Blurryface is about insecurity—but it’s about fighting insecurity, and the number-one weapon he uses is putting that insecurity on display. Shining a spotlight on it. Because when you’re insecure about something you try to cover that up. You try to compensate for it, direct attention away from whatever you can;t control. Letting everyone see the thing you’re insecure about is hard and you feel exposed, but that action is actually the reverse of insecurity. Doing so with his wife is the best.

13. Stressed Out

This one is this far down because it’s about wishing for the comfort of simple, nostalgic things when in reality you’re freaked out about the future and the present. And that’s a really relatable concept, for a song, and it’s not super deep. We all do it. But it’s still on-theme, which is what makes the song feel deeper.

I like to get lost in the past because it’s what I know. (And the opposite of shat I know/what I can control is? Insecurity.)

If I have to choose between a difficult adventure in the present, or a painful memory to over-analyze, I’m always going to reach for the painful memory even though it’s a sucky headspace, and nothing new and helpful is likely to come of it. Why? Because I know what happens in that reel in my head. I feel control over it just by knowing what happens. But I don’t feel that control when I spin myself out imaging what could happen, and all the things I can’t control, in the present or the future.

Yeah, I’d rather go back and wax nostalgic for the days I played outside with my siblings, or the houses we used to live in, then think about how rent is due in a couple of weeks or how I might never get to have the career everybody expects me to have. So it’s very relatable.

The thing I don’t like about this one is that it doesn’t have that hopeful note in it that I like in twenty one pilots. It kind of goes, “yeah, wish we could turn back time, but everyone tells us to quit dreaming and make money, and it sucks.” And…that’s it. In the song, itself, there’s no hopeful conclusion. Versus in Tear in My Heart, at least he’s feeling like he has a soul and he’s “higher” than he’s ever been, and the butcher is smiling. At least in Fairly Local, there’s, “I’m not evil to the core / what I shouldn’t do I will fight.” But not in Stressed Out. Stressed Out leaves you dissatisfied, and maybe that’s the point.

11. We Don’t Believe What’s On TV

I love the progression of the ideas in this song (because it does come right after Polarize;) he’s actually taken a hard step. He’s not just standing at a crossroads between decisions, being insecure and never moving. The lyrics are “I need to know that when I fail, you’ll still be here.” He can’t fail if he’s not trying. So I like that the song has such a happy beat, and it’s the first one on the record (unless you count Heavydirtysoul) where he’s not just thinking about being insecure or what to do—he’s committing to doing something.

And then I find the song super relatable. The thing about having a dream is that when you chase it you risk a lot. You risk money, you risk time. You risk your emotions, obviously. So anyone close to you is going to notice you’re chasing after something. It’ll become part of your identity. Like me, proclaiming that I was going to work for Disney for years. If you fail, what do you say to all the people who knew you were shooting for that goal? How will they see you? As a quitter? As a failure? Are they going to feel sorry for you? Maybe it’ll be hard to talk about the things you used to talk about—and then they don’t know what else to make small-talk about. Not only your big direction in life is gone, but now something as comfortable as talking with friends is suddenly affected. And from there it’s easy to go, “wait, who am I without that dream I was going after?”

So the lines “what if my dream does not happen? / would I just change what I’ve told my friends? / don’t wanna know who I would be / when I wake up from a dreamer’s sleep” are spot-on. And they uncover the unattractive side of having a dream: the side where you fail and lose and feel like you don’t know who you are without it, so maybe you cover it up by “changing” the dream, or acting like you never really wanted that anyway, or act like you’ve found something new, to cover the loss.

But I also love the fact that the song is about how superficial things aren’t really what matter—your “dream” isn’t who you are. And the people who really love you and care about you know that, so when the dream goes away, they’ll stick around. Just like how Tyler says he doesn’t care about what’s superficial about them: “I don’t care what’s in your hair, I just want to know what’s on your mind.”

Fun fact: when I bring twenty one pilots up for any reason my father responds with “yeah-yeah-yeah” by default.

10. Ride

Ride is only higher than WDBWOTV because of the rapping verses. And not because it’s the one twenty one pilots song my father allows me to play when I’m in the car with him.

This feels a little repetitive, but I like Ride because it’s what twenty one pilots is about. They’re all about thinking carefully about what’s going on in your head and then making a decision to live for something. (I wish they’d come out and say that “something” is God, but whatever.) Ride is all about that. Living rather than dying is hard, especially when it means living, not coming up with meaningless extreme scenarios where you can imagine dying for someone, or staying happy all the time, or conquering your foes. It just means taking your time, and as life rides along, being careful to live for something day by day. Then again, it is a song that’s still just about thinking about what to do, instead of doing it.

9. The Judge

I think this is one of the clearest allusions to the Gospel Tyler Joseph ever makes, and I love the way he makes it. First off, that by saying he can’t tell if the song is about himself or the devil, he’s acknowledging that he, on a sinful level, is just as worthy of condemnation as the Devil.

That’s why he says, “found my way, right time, wrong place, as I pled my case.” You plead your case, in front of THE Judge, when you’re dead. So it’s the right time—everybody has a date on the calendar when they’re going to die, they just don’t know what it is yet. But it’s the wrong place—he’s in front of God, and he doesn’t deserve to be, any more than the Devil. But that’s why he’s pleading his case by freely admitting his soul matches Hell, not Heaven, so all that’s left is to beg that The Judge be merciful.

I like the mood of the second verse, where it feels like he starts describing what’s going on ‘three lights are lit but the fourth one’s out / I can tell cuz it’s a big darker than the last night’s bout,” etc., but then when he gets to “but I’m not good with directions” he speeds his flow up and sounds like he’s getting panicky. He’s giving excuses for why he’s lost—well why? Because he’s bad at directions. Listening to what he’s told to do, and then following through. And then just admitting that one flaw as an explanation for why he’s lost leads to admitting other flaws, at random, like he can’t stop himself: “I’m a pro at imperfections and I’m best friends with my doubt.”

I personally think, because of the context, that the three lights which are lit, but the fourth one that is out, are representative of Tyler not being clear about his faith. I think it’s an allusion to Peter, denying Christ 3 times (like Tyler already alluded to in Ode to Sleep.) But in Ode to Sleep, Tyler follows up the line about 4-denials with “metaphorically I’m a whore.” My take is, he’s only a whore metaphorically—because in Christ, he’s a new creation. But he keeps talking like he isn’t, worrying over his relationship with God and whether or not he’s really saved. Maybe because he struggles with doubting God keeps His promises, maybe because he struggles with doubting God is real, maybe both.

And after all, what was Peter doing when he denied Christ? He was denying specifically that he knew Christ. That he was in a relationship with Him, that he followed Christ. Peter was basically saying over and over, “I’m not a disciple of Christ. I’m not! I don’t know him!” to the people who ask. But it wasn’t true. Peter was Christ’s disciple; Christ chose him, and that’s what made the denial so hurtful.

So I think the lights going out, one by one, and he can tell that a season of that doubt is coming on, are his cue to leave. Get out of there, that place where darkness is creeping up, and go somewhere sunnier. But he can’t get there, because he’s not good at directions, and then he kind of spirals and goes back into the chorus realizing he never had any right to be “Christ’s disciple” in the first place, that’s true, and his only hope is the mercy of The Judge. Which is great, not something to despair over. Because The Judge is merciful.

But the cool part is there’s still an element of “insecurities” in there, distracting him from what would ultimately be a good place. It’s good to realize you’ve got nothing, and to realize that if you could wriggle out of God’s embrace, you would do it every time. Because then you realize all over again that He is merciful and He loves you, and you’re secure because it’s all based on His strength. So that particular cycle is good—when it ends with that realization. But instead, he’s getting hung up, not on “what will God think of me when He realizes (even though He knew it all along) that I’m unworthy?” but on “what will everyone outside my house think of me when they realize I’m unworthy?”

And when that happens, when you’re focused not on what God thinks of you, but on what others think of you, because of your insecurities, you can satisfy yourself, not with God’s love, but with pulling the wool over other people’s eyes. Maybe the people outside your house see the real, unworthy you—but you can cover that up. You can fool them. You can compensate for those insecurities, front, be fake. God always sees you clearly, but the people around you can be fooled into thinking you’re an okay person, and you have your act together. So his insecurities, Blurryface, is hijacking the cycle that would’ve led him to rely on The Judge and making him chase after the opinion of his peers, instead.

Instead of focusing on who God is, which is the hope in everything, Blurryface gets him to focus on who he is—whether that leads him to a revel or despair, doesn’t matter, as long as he’s not focusing on who God is.

I love this song.

8. Hometown

”My shadow tilts its head at me

Spirits in the dark are waiting

I will let the wind go quietly,

I will let the wind go quietly.” <- Those are some of my favorite lyrics ever. Ever ever. Why would a shadow tilt its head at you? Because it’s creepy interesting imagery, yeah, but also, because it’s puzzled. But it’s your shadow. So you’re looking at it like you’re puzzled, too, because shadows don’t move independently; either the light source is moving, or you are.

So the character Blurryface is puzzled because he’s trying to figure Tyler Joseph out—like Tyler is trying to figure him out—and/or because the light is on the move. What light is mentioned in this song? The sun. Which, in all their other songs, is representative of God or the kingdom of God.

Either way, all the insecurities and flaws and doubt that Blurryface embodies doesn’t understand God, or actions made in faith. So he’s puzzled in this song; because this song is about the songwriter begging God to do for him what he can’t do.

I don’t care. That’s what the song’s about. Tyler Joseph does his clever triple-meaning thing, so you can say that the song is about how people back home in Columbus, Ohio don’t really get twenty one pilots’ deep lore and metaphors, and that’s what the song is about—how people back home still don’t know who they are because they’re least famous among people who know them best—but that doesn’t cover the lyrics about “take me home and show me the sun/Son,” or “bring the fire, my bones will make it grow.” And a faith-based interpretation of the lyrics does.

(I mean, obviously, people can sing the song to themselves and assign whatever meaning they want. That’s fine. That’s how using words works. But I’m saying that what the songwriter meant can be understood by the lyrics he chose in the song—and if it can’t, then he didn’t want to be understood or was bad and making himself clear, and that’s just bad communication/useless artwork. But neither of those explanations are descriptive of Tyler Joseph.)

The first verse is what the songwriter wants to have happen—the place he’s from is dark, it’s without the Sun/Son, he wants to go Home, and he can’t do it without dying to himself, and only God can pull that off.

But the second verse is a call to action, for everyone listening, not just a plea for himself out of what he’s feeling. And that action really does have something to do with the temporal “hometown.” You can grow up hearing about God, one way or another, but eventually, you encounter darkness on your own. You realize you’re messed up, whether anyone else sees it or not. And that’s when you can either be insecure and give up, or you can look for salvation. But at that point, you have to look for salvation in something outside “tradition” and just “what the people around you believe.” You have to find out if any of that is rooted in truth, and then choose to believe it yourself. Whether anyone else, including the people who helped make you who you are, from your hometown, agrees or disagrees.

In Christianese we say “make your faith your own.” Even if you grow up in church there comes a time when you have to decide if that’s what you believe, whether your parents drop the faith or not. But it’s not just a church thing. It’s a universal, worldview thing. Even if you grow up in an atheistic community you have to decide, at some point, if you believe that, as an individual. Be introspective and decide what you believe, what you’re going to live for—the message of the band.

And of course, the language he uses is so overtly Biblical! It’s from Joshua 24. And the context of that passage is, God has finally given the Israelites rest from all their enemies, and Joshua, the faithful one who has led them in their homeland, is telling them that it’s decision time. If they choose to serve God, it’ll cost them everything. They can’t serve God and the pagan, materialistic idols their fathers fell to. It’s one or the other. He knows it’s a huge ask, and an impossible ask, actually, because God is Holy. God has to give you the grace to follow Him (same conclusion Tyler sometimes gets to in The Judge.) Here’s the verse, enough of my yammering:

“If it is evil in your sight to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”

Then later, after the Israelites say that’s what they want to do, they want to serve Yahweh, he repeats,

“So now, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst, and incline your hearts to Yahweh, the God of Israel.”

And this whole passage is really interesting, because Joshua is telling them to do this in the same place, geographically, that Jacob, their ancestor, hundreds of years before, had commanded his own family to bury false idols in the ground and turn to Yahweh. So when he says “put away,” it’s in reference to that moment; their earliest forefathers had a pattern of chasing after the beliefs and false hopes of the world, and then needing to bury those and follow God instead.

Anyway. This song is awesome because it’s about him coming to, in Christianese: “the end of himself.” The lyrics say that nothing about a human being knows the secret to redeeming souls. Only God knows that; only God can do that. So in an album that’s all about interviewing yourself, fighting the worst parts of you, trying to figure out how to beat Blurryface, Hometown says, “aaaand you can’t. You can’t do it. But God can. You don’t have the secret, you don’t have the playbook. But God does.”

7. Goner

This song is higher than Hometown because I like that when he does something slower and more complex, lyrically, without the same speedy metaphors, it’s just a straight-up war cry.

It is kind of a complicated song, though. I think. Because I can’t decide what exactly he was aiming for. Sometimes I listen to it and I think it’s about the songwriter fighting Blurryface, refusing to give up, and parts of the song could be sung by the hero, while others are answered by the villain, during that fight.

But sometimes I listen to it and I think he’s declaring that the fight is already over, (after all, it’s at the end of the album) but he knows it’s a cycle and he might get dragged back into the doubt that starts it all over again. “I’m a goner.”

Or, sometimes, I listen to it and I think it’s just a recap of everything the album teaches: 1) I’m messed up 2) but I’m not a hopeless case 3) but I’m tempted to hide the messed-up part 4) the only way to fix the messed-up part is to admit it, get it out where everyone can see it 5) but even then I can’t fix it, and they’ll all see I’m unworthy 6) Remembering unconditional love and grace fixes it.

Being “known” is the opposite of what the Blurryface character should want. Because again, insecurity is all about avoiding the things that make you afraid, make you feel out-of-control, and putting up a front like you’re fine. You make decisions based on what you want people to see, out of a desire for control. That’s why he’s called “Blurryface.” You don’t get to see his face. You don’t get to know the real him, because the real him’s messed up, and he can’t let anyone see that.

I think the one interpretation I vaguely settle on when I hear the song is that, if all you ever focus on is how to control everything and pretend you’re not messed-up—if all you ever put on is that “blurry face” mask—pretty soon you convince yourself, along with everybody else, that that’s who you are. You start to forget the real you. You can’t see your own flaws anymore—but hiding them is still puppetting everything you do, so ironically, they’re in control. Luckily, the people you’ve opened up to (if you ever have) and God, remind you of who you really are. So that humbles you, and saves you, from just being totally fake.

One thing about the actual lyrics. The fact that he says “the ghost of you is close to me” supports all of those above interpretations. Could be the Holy Spirit (you know, “Holy Ghost”) being closest to the singer when he’s “inside out,” being vulnerable, seeing himself for what he really is and admitting it. Could be the character, Blurryface, who’s been defeated but maybe Tyler forgets that, and feels “haunted” by insecurities that should already be harmless if he’d just remember what killed them.

I see some people saying that what he means is, Blurryface is so intertwined as a part of himself that he doesn’t know what would be left of him if all his insecurities died. I think that’s super bleak. But I can see why it would be that. If it is, it doesn’t bode well for Tyler or anyone who agrees. If you’re already at the point where your weaknesses and insecurities are something you identify with, something you think belongs in you, instead of a foreign contaminant that your soul’s antibodies need to purge, then…you’re really forgetting the Gospel. That’s not who you are anymore. It’s as much a part of you as a set of dirty clothes that you took off when you were 4; even if you’re cramming them back on, that doesn’t make them part of who you are.

I also frequently see people saying, “he’s not just asking for God’s help, he’s asking for anybody’s help! He says ‘somebody’ catch my breath!” Right. But then he says, “I wanna be known by you.” And in Kitchen Sink, it’s clear Tyler Joseph doesn’t believe anybody can know him, fully. Also, Anathema. Also, on this album, Not Today, and Message Man. There are too many lyrics where he explains that he doesn’t think anybody can know him—except God, who, in The Judge, and in other twenty one pilots songs, is depicted as the only one who can see all the way down to the bedrock of who Tyler Joseph is. And who all of us are. Hidden insecurities pulling the strings and all. So when he calls for help, he might be willing to accept anybody, but only God is going to be able to deliver, in the very end. (Friends and his wife can help, but in the end.)

Personally I believe the songwriter knows that. Based on the evidence in everything he writes. I don’t know for sure, though.

Anyway. I love that he ended the album with this song. Specifically, it’s not until the very last note that everything is resolved, and sounds like there’s some kind of peace, some kind of vanquishing of Blurryface. Like the fight is definitely taking everything to win. But Blurryface does lose; there is hope; that’s what I like about twenty one pilots.

It’s that Halloween-style “using darkness to show how weak darkness can be.”

6. Not Today

The concepts I’m talking about liking are getting repetitive, but that’s because he comes at the same topic (battling insecurities) from different angles, dropping into the same cycle at different points. But it’s still the same topic, same cycle.

Anyway! I love Not Today because of how awesome the lyrics are in the chorus, in response to the lyrics in the verses.

He keeps the metaphor of a house in there, but those first lyrics: “I just feel I’m better off, staying in the same room I was born in,” have this lie. The room you’re born in could mean you’ve never grown, never taken any chance, you’ve literally never moved from where you started. Especially because he gives a reason for it; he’s seen the world outside, and he doesn’t see what he can do to impact it for the better. <- That part is why I don’t think those lyrics mean “it would be better if I were never born.” Even though the same basic idea, that he thinks he has nothing to offer, is in both interpretations.

But because of that melodic (is that the right word) pause between “I don’t know why” and “I just feel I,” in the opening line, I think you can miss the meaning of the full thought. He’s admitting he feels this way, but he’s not accepting it, necessarily. Because the whole song is a strike back at “Blurryface.” He admits how he feels, but the fact that he starts with “I don’t know why I feel this way” is a clue that he’s examining the feeling, instead of trusting and accepting it as fact. It’s true that he feels that way. But he’s not making it his home. He didn’t even pick the words, “staying in the same home I was born in.” Or unlike in The Judge, he doesn’t use a possessive objective. He doesn’t say “my room I was born in,” not just because it would sound weird, but also because he’s in a headspace where he’s not accepting these feelings at “face” value.

So I love that opening.

Then, in the first chorus, he’s basically talking about how those dark thoughts, those insecurities, aren’t just in his head anymore. They’re out in the open. Where everyone else can see them—yikes, maybe—but he’s focusing on the fact that they’re out where he can see them. Insecurity wants to hide and fake. Getting it out in the open is step 1 in the right direction. Now the lies, the insecurity, can’t get to him the way it used to when he kept it in his mind as if it were something worth entertaining or identifying with.

Then I like that he takes a break in the second chorus to be like, “pay attention to what I’m doing, the sound of the music is happy but the words are not.”

Because he’s feeling like there’s no use in trying—bad thing. But he’s not giving in to that feeling, he’s examining it for weaknesses—good thing. Happening at the same time. Like the happy sounds, but down words, of the song.

Which just makes you feel like you’re watching a battle. Which one is going to win? The good or the bad? Right now they’re both in the picture—what’s going to be the killing blow that knocks one out of the picture?

Then he goes back into the chorus, but this time I think the words have a different meaning, even though they’re the same: he took that aside to address the audience and explain what’s going on. So the lines in the second chorus, “you aren’t seeing my side,” seem like he’s still talking to us, telling the listeners that they haven’t been understanding what’s going on in his head as he fights his insecurities, but now he’s showing them, which is what they needed to wait for: you can’t know what someone’s going through or how they need help till they choose to let you see.

Then there’s the bridge about him fighting someone for testing him. Which I think people mostly take to mean “I’LL KILL YOU BLURRYFACE.” But I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.

I mean it’s fine. That could be why. But I think it kind of misses the fact that a dude who insists, “just because I play the piano doesn’t mean I am not willing to take you down,” is insecure. That’s an insecure thing to say. He thinks people are going to see him as weak. And he just throws out “because I play the piano” as like, an example of what he thinks people are judging him about. And he’ll fight them. But then immediately he’s like “I’m sorry.” And it’s funny, I love that whole lyric, my family always joins in on that part because it’s fun to sing.

But the point, I think, is so smart—he’s back to saying something insecure. He has an outburst about how others see him. Then he says “sorry.” But it’s even an insecure, embarrassed-sounding apology. So this verse transitions out of talking to the listener about what he’s insecure about, into, while he’s at it, worrying about what they think of him—and whoops, that was a Blurryface moment, wasn’t it? He was supposed to be fighting that. He was supposed to be examining it. He just slipped into it again, suddenly, and the mood of the song is an involuntary explosion, like he couldn’t help it. So then the next chorus, the changed one, is more of a confession of being messed-up, all over again. “I’m, I’m out of my mind / I’m not seeing things right / I waste all this time trying to run from you, but I’m, I’m out of my mind.” It’s “I’m out of my mind” in the traditional sense—he’s crazy, as in, he doesn’t see reality, even when he’s looking at himself. And you could take that “I waste all this time trying to run from you” as him trying to run and hide his messed-up self from others—which is a waste, because it’s born of insecurity—or you could take it as him running from God. Of course. Both work, for this moment in the song.

But. I think the chorus is the best part. It sounds like two recordings of Tyler Joseph’s voice is singing this part, so I can see why people think it’s a duel between him and the character Blurryface: he’s singing, “not today, let me rip open the windows—now I dare you to make yourself heard.” If he voices his insecurity, the people who love him will come help. But maybe the character Blurryface is singing that right back to him; “not today, let me rip open the windows—now I dare you to make yourself heard.” As if taunting him with the idea that people who hear the real Tyler Joseph may not accept him; if he’s exposed, he shouldn’t draw any attention to himself.

But for all that effort I put into verbalizing how I’ve seen the take that the chorus is Tyler Joseph and Blurryface fighting each other, I don’t 100% agree with it. Because it doesn’t make sense, based on the well-established idea that Blurryface is insecurity—and insecurity would never do this: “tore the curtains down, windows open now make a sound.”

The whole rest of the album takes the tack that turning yourself inside-out, showing people the real, messed-up you, being open, is exactly what the character Blurryface wouldn’t want. He’d never be saying anything so clear as what’s in the chorus.

I mean. Time out. Not to get too geeky in this already-absurdly-long post. But everything about the character was against that. He’s blurry. You can’t see the real him, his face. He doesn’t even like that he has a name, or has been distinguished from Tyler Joseph in any way. In all those cryptic videos from what I can remember of social media before the album came out, you never saw him, even though he was the one supposedly recording. And the videos made no clear sense, I feel like I remember one being just, like, a dark shot of the woods at night and like breathing or something. In the in-character Twitter posts, he can’t spell—he can’t even type anything that he has to say clearly, because clarity itself is a kind of commitment in communication, it tells people something about you one way or another, and Blurryface doesn’t want anyone to be able to hold him to anything he says.

So no, I don’t think he’s got any part in the chorus. I could be wrong. But I don’t think I am. I think it’s someone from the outside, who knows the fight going on inside Tyler Joseph with Blurryface, breaking in. Ripping the curtains off the rod. Kicking the windows open, letting the light in. Telling him to get it out there in the open. Or, daring the Blurryface character to say his lies out in the open. And I think it’s God. Because again, we already established, nobody else can see inside of Tyler Joseph, in his entirety, except God. But if it is, then Tyler isn’t just getting scooped out of the fight by God’s rescuing hand. He’s joined in the fight, and then told to keep fighting—and tell other people about it. “Heard your voice, ‘there’s no choice’ / tore the curtains down, windows open, now make a noise.”

This song would be higher up if it hit me in the emotions as much as Doubt does. That’s how good it is. It’s the big fight scene, but the character Blurryface loses once the house is torn open.

5. Polarize

GGGGR this is taking too long. But I love all of these songs so much, even if Blurryface isn’t my favorite album, I can’t just say succinct things about it.

There’s this interview I watched with Tyler Joseph way back when I was fresh into high school. I don’t remember the exact timeline, or whether or not this album was out already. But he basically talks through Romans 9 without saying so. He tries to explain to the interviewer that he shouldn’t be “messed up.” That that’s not just him being hard on himself, and oh, we’re all imperfect people. He tries to explain that there’s something broken in everyone, that we want to be better than we’re actually capable of being, and that points to the fact that we were designed to be different, and something went wrong. He tries to really organically explain that, but if I remember correctly the interviewer comes back with like another platitude, and I think the subject gets changed. (If I can find it again in the bowels of the Internet from 2013 or whatever it was I’ll post it. It’s what gripped my teenage brain about this band. And about trying to phrase the Gospel that I’d always heard in a way that made sense to people who have never heard.)

But this song is that. It’s him, trying to explain that he’s noticed the polar opposites of his nature. And he’s trying to decide which parts are which, and why, and where the division starts and ends. The problem is, the only One who can help him divide those clearly is God—and surprise surprise, Tyler Joseph’s trust in God is split, too.

This one is ranked so highly because of that. Because instead of just stopping at “I want to do the right thing, but I can’t, so let’s sort that out, and You help me,” he goes even deeper. “Wait, how do I even depend on You to help me when I can’t even decide if you’re there or not?” It’s Semi-Automatic all over again. It takes a different kind of deep thinking to admit that you can’t even ask for help with absolute certainty.

Polarize might get its own separate post.

4. Fairly Local

Fairly Local is this high on the list partly because of the music video and I’m not ashamed.

It’s the introduction to the character of Blurryface, and look at how he can’t make sustained eye contact. I love that.

I also love that the microphone in the music video is a light bulb. Because it’s the words of the song that are illuminating what’s going on in the songwriter’s head.

The duality is just a preview of Polarize, in the lyrics, but I love his vocalizations. Maybe you expected me to say more higher up on the list, but this is too long already, and the more I like it the more I want to make a separate post, if I ever let my obsession out of the locked-door part of my brain on tumblr again. (look now I’m using twenty one pilots imagery, what have you done?)

3. Doubt

This one is this high because he says “even when I doubt you, I’m no good without You.” And he’s talking about God. I might elaborate on that in a different post. I know how this song feels. Getting lost in trying to trace the paths you’ve already gone down in your brain, until even thinking about God isn’t a lifeline as much as it is a maze, because you’re thinking too much about your part in it, and you’re just left reaching out for Him blindly because you can’t see which direction He’s in anymore, in your own brain. And you need something from the outside to reach in and dig you out of yourself, because there’s nothing trustworthy in here anymore. I know how that feels. This song is Addict With a Pen’s sister.

2. Message Man

This one gets its own post for sure. But the lyrics are better than any other song aside from Heavydirtysoul on this album, I think.

1. Heavydirtysoul

This one is top of the list because 1) I don’t think it can take second place to any song musically on this album, and 2) the lyrics sum up the band. I’ll make a post of its own about this one, too.

Is that disappointing? That I went all the way to the top and didn’t give you a thought-out reason for the number one? Well, now you feel some of the insanity I experience when I listen to this band. “What do you mean, you’re stopping there? You took my hand and led me this far and now I have to stumble around in the dark and figure out the rest myself?”

😈

I really may come back and edit it. I’ll tag you if I do. Or just follow the “my favorite band” tag. Hey, thank you so much for this ask! I know I look way too hyper-fixated, but truthfully, they just came out with the new album. And you have to understand, the people around me can’t stand me saying two words about them, because I’ve talked too much about them. So you’ve become my outlet.

If you made it this far I want to hear your opinions, too! I’d do this for every album, but hopefully you learned not to open this can of worms 😂 because then I never stop talking

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twistedtummies2 · 1 month ago

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Top 15 Vampires (Who AREN'T Dracula)

Something a lot of people seem to misconstrue about me is that I am a massive fan of vampires and vampire fiction. This really isn’t the case: what I AM is a massive fan of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” specifically. I am fascinated by seeing different interpretations of that particular novel, and especially its title character. When it comes to vampire fiction as a whole, I am much less well-versed and interested. SPOILER ALERT: you won’t be seeing TV franchises like “True Blood,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Dark Shadows,” or “What We Do in the Shadows” here, for the simple fact that I have never seen any of them and really don’t have any intention of seeing them. This applies to a lot of other television programs, works of literature, films, and video games: vampires, by default, do not automatically equal my vested interest. HOWEVER…this does not mean I have NO interest in vampires, as a concept. Long before Bram Stoker’s seminal work was published and reached its heights of popularity, the idea of the vampire - an undead creature who rises from the grave to drain the blood of the living - was a fantasy and myth spanning not only many centuries, but many different cultures. Just about every nation, region, and spiritual belief under the setting Sun has had some variation of the vampire legend, and written stories of vampiric characters and events date back much, much further back than Stoker’s time. What “Dracula” really did was bring the concept into the popular consciousness, especially through its renditions onstage and in motion pictures, in a way no written or orally transferred piece of work had done before. That popularity has really only continued to grow over the decades. Being such a widespread idea, and one with increasing fascination for many people over time, it’s only natural that while I may favor Dracula and his exploits beyond all the rest, I have still seen SOME pieces of vampire fiction not necessarily related to the Count of Transylvania. So, I decided it was time to give all of them some attention. Now, I should point out that I won’t be counting characters I already talked about on my Top 31 Favorite Dracula list: even if they aren’t technically Dracula himself, such as with The Count from “Sesame Street,” or Count Chocula, it just seems like cheating to include them here since…well…I already brought them up, and it was in relation to Dracula! With that said, some Dracula-inspired characters WILL be present on this list that did NOT get discussed in the past, because Dracula-inspired does not equal Dracula himself. Also, I will be including characters who are dhampirs - half-vampire, half-human - or might be considered “unconventional vampires,” so to speak. If they have all the hallmarks I’m looking for, they can be eligible. Oh, and if you’re a fan of “Twilight”...firstly, you probably shouldn’t be reading this, and secondly, you’re going to be massively disappointed. :P Now that we’ve established those points…let’s waste no more time. Prepare some garlic and, if you don’t have any crucifixes handy, consider buying a couple: these are My Top 15 Favorite Vampires…Who AREN’T Count Dracula.

15. NOS-4-A2, from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.

Starting off with an unconventional sort of vampire. NOS-4-A2 is Dracula parody character, created by the evil Emperor Zurg. He is a robotic “energy vampire” who detests the taste of blood, instead feeding off electrical energy. This, of course, still makes him a very dangerous threat, especially in a sci-fi styled universe with so many electronic gadgets and gizmos laying around, and with more robots roaming the galaxy than you can shake a stick at. Ultimately breaking away from his creator’s influence, NOS-4-A2 continued to bedevil the heroes of Star Command throughout the show’s run, and was arguably the scariest major villain of the whole show. This is especially fascinating since he was played by Craig Ferguson, of all people; not the most obvious casting to play a vampire of any kind, I’d say.

14. Demetri Maximoff, from Darkstalkers.

These games were inspired by the Universal Monsters of yore, with characters based on figures of fright like the Wolfman, the Frankenstein Monster, and the Mummy, just to name a few. Demetri is effectively the Dracula surrogate of the franchise…but, since he ISN’T actually Dracula, and I have not mentioned him before, I think he can count here. (Plus, in the…very, VERY bad cartoon series loosely based on the games, Dracula is actually present as a character and is Demetri’s uncle, so…there’s that, too, I guess.) Demetri is an extremely vain and power-hungry vampire warlord, who believes himself to be superior to not only all humans, but perhaps all other forms of life. This led to him arrogantly challenging the demon Belial to a duel in a time long past. Demetri lost, and thus was banished to the mortal realm, where he now seeks to find a way to regain his former glory. His greatest rival is the succubus, Morrigan, daughter of Belial. Demetri isn’t particularly complex, but he IS a very entertainingly dark and powerful character. At the same time, there are some humorous aspects to Maximoff’s personality: one of his special moves, “Midnight Bliss,” literally causes him to turn the male characters he fights into comical female forms, because Demetri really, REALLY prefers the blood of women to that of men. Also, how many other vampires will stop in the middle of a fight to spray themselves with cologne?

13. Lady Dimitrescu, from Resident Evil Village.

I could be entirely wrong about this, but I got the feeling that “Village”- much like the Darkstalkers franchise - was Resident Evil’s throwback to the classic Universal Monsters. When the villains include an elegant vampire, a werewolf, a mad scientist, and a mutant fish person, and the setting is a creepy little town with a dark castle? You’ll forgive me if I see certain parallels. Regardless of any influences, I think it’s fair to say that Lady Dimitrescu, a.k.a. “The Tall Lady,” stands on her own two (very long) legs quite well. While all of the villains in the game are different shades of awesome, Lady D. is by far the most popular. She is the first major antagonist the players encounter in this action/horror combination, as we are forced to try and escape from her Gothic castle while facing not only her, but also her equally wicked daughters. Dimitrescu isn’t a typical vampire, but rather the result of scientific mutation, which has transformed her into a vampire-like creature with a humanoid veneer. Still, she’s no more unconventional than NOS-4-A2, I’d say (or a bunch of other characters still to come), so I don’t see any reason she can’t count.

12. Father Abel Nightroad, from Trinity Blood.

Finally, a character who is decidedly NOT influenced by Dracula! There are a ton of vampire-themed anime out there, but I haven’t seen very many of them; again, I’m more into Dracula, specifically, than vampires as a whole. However, there are a few characters and shows on this list, and this guy is the first of them. “Trinity Blood” focuses on the adventures of Abel Nightroad, who is one of only two surviving members of a race known as a Crusnik (also spelled “Krusnik;” not sure which is the more generally accepted spelling): while vampires feed on human beings, a Crusnik is essentially a vampire that feeds on other vampires. Abel works for the Vatican (which, in the alternate reality of the series, has basically taken over the human world…read into that what you will), acting as a sort of ambassador, trying to keep peace between the nation of humans and the nation of vampires. Abel is a classic example of a character type I really love: I don’t know what the name for it is, but it’s a scenario where the character often appears to be silly and goofy and perhaps even a sweetheart, but underneath it all they are made of steel and can be VERY dangerous. Characters like Sans, The Doctor, Disney’s Clopin, Adrian Monk…the list goes on. Abel is one of those types: on the surface, at first glance, he’s a clumsy, sugar-addicted, perpetually-broke goofball who tries desperately to avoid all conflict. When the chips are down, however, he’s quick to remind those who cause trouble why he’s basically the alpha predator of this world’s food chain. It’s the classic “beware the fury of a patient man” concept: when the peaceful priest is also a vampire of vampires, the last thing you want to do is make him mad.

11. Taiga Nobori, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Saga, from Kamen Rider Kiva.

“Kamen Rider Kiva” is a Japanese superhero program - part of the long-running “Kamen Rider” franchise - themed around…you guessed it…Universal Monsters. The series focuses on the titular Kamen Rider Kiva (real name Wataru Kurenai), who uses his powers to hunt down shapeshifting, vampiric monsters referred to as “Fangires.” The Fangires are ruled by a chess-themed group of superiors known as the Checkmate Four. At the time of the series’ start, the current leader of the Checkmate Four is this character: Taiga Nobori, who becomes a rival of Wataru under the identity of Kamen Rider Saga. Taiga is a childhood friend of Wataru, who is ultimately revealed to secretly be his long lost sibling. Despite this, he at first plays an antagonistic role in the story; as the series goes on, he has to struggle with his relationship with Wataru, his love for Mio - a lady both of them love dearly - and his responsibility as the new King of the Fangires. Again, not by any means a conventional vampire (or dhampir), but a very fun character and more than worthy of placement on my personal list.

10. Bunnicula.

This little guy is almost undoubtedly the cutest life-sucking undead creature in history. Why? Well…he’s a bunny. A cute, adorable, fluffy, sweet little bunny with big red eyes and a little widow’s peak marking on his noggin. How can you NOT love this fuzzy little sweetheart? If I weren’t allergic to rabbits, I’d snuggle him to bits! Bunnicula is the mascot of the popular “Bunnicula” book series…however, in the original books, he’s not actually the main character. In fact, there are several short novels where Bunnicula never appears. He is, however, nevertheless, a prominent figure throughout the series. The books typically follow a certain formula: Chester the Cat and Harold the Dog encounter some spooky, creepy thing. Chester - an over-dramatic ham who never likes to admit his true feelings and isn’t as smart as he thinks he is - tries to solve the mystery in the most inept and hilarious way possible. Harold, who is much more practical and reasonable, basically acts as the straight man to hold back Chester’s crazy. Bunnicula is, at first, Chester’s arch-nemesis, as the cat believes the vampire bunny has plans for world domination…but in fact, Bunnicula is completely harmless. He doesn’t drink blood, but instead just drains vegetables of their juices, leaving shriveled, dried-up husks behind. It’s a bit creepy, sure, but he has no desire to hurt people or other animals. And, even though he may be centuries old, he’s still basically just a baby bunny; he’s way too young and sweethearted to even imagine world conquest. The books are highly popular - renowned for their messages of tolerance and looking-before-one-leaps - and have been the inspiration for multiple reimaginings and adaptations. Most of these versions give Bunnicula even more vampiric powers and heighten his role in things. Regardless, however, his basic personality remains the same: occasionally mischievous, but generally just a cuddly little bun-bun…who also happens to be an immortal vegetable-draining demon, but that’s just part of his charm.

9. Lestat de Lioncourt, from The Vampire Chronicles.

I don’t think I’m physically ALLOWED to talk about vampires (that are not Dracula) without acknowledging the work of Anne Rice. She is the author of “The Vampire Chronicles,” an EXTREMELY popular series that many consider to be second only to Dracula, in terms of influential literature. The books focus on the life and adventures of Lestat de Lioncourt: a centuries old vampire, living in 1980s America. Once the son of a nobleman, Lestat was transformed into a vampire by an ancient evil; in the modern day, he is now the head of a vampiric rock band. Rice is often credited with revitalizing interest in vampires as a concept, especially focusing on the sexual overtones of the idea, and the sympathetic qualities of a lonely, eternal life. This reputation is…somewhat dubious; as far as I can tell, these things were popular and noteworthy well before her first book was published. In my opinion, the REAL power of Rice’s work is due to two specific factors. First, the explicitness of the writing: her books are some of the raunchiest and most violently bloodthirsty vampire novels written up to that time. Through literature, she gets away with stuff that, up to that point, not even most films - in a genre that was growing increasingly brutal and randy - could get away with. Second, and I think this is where her reputation really shows its power…Lestat himself, and the way he’s treated. It’s not simply that Lestat is a sympathetic character, it’s that - unlike, as far as I can tell, ALL major, noteworthy vampires in fiction before him - he isn’t treated necessarily as a monster. He is not the antagonist, but instead the main character we follow and learn about, as well as learn from. While he is not necessarily a hero, he also isn’t the villain, and is not meant to be seen as such; he is simply a man who has lived a very long life. And like any man, ESPECIALLY one who has lived a long life, he has done many terrible things…but he has also done many good things. Ultimately, I personally find other vampires and vampire stories much more interesting than Rice’s work, but the influence she’s had cannot be ignored. Lestat is more than deserving of recognition in my Top 10.

8. Vamp, from Metal Gear Solid.

Of all the unconventional vampires on this countdown, Vamp is arguably the weirdest. Rather than a supernatural being, Vamp is what might be termed a “science vampire”: the result of biological experimentation, rather than anything magical or paranormal. Not only that, but despite looking like a vampire, having vampire-like abilities, being of stereotypically vampirish Romanian descent, and even having a literal taste for blood…Vamp’s name has NOTHING to do with him being a “vampire.” (Where does his name come from? Look it up, I find it to be absolutely stupid, so I’m not naming it here.) It’s as if the creators wanted to make a vampire character, yet for some baffling reason didn’t want to make him a “real” vampire. While this whole setup is utterly backwards, it does nothing to harm the actual character, thankfully. Vamp is one of the more well-known antagonists in the MGS series, despite only appearing properly in two games, and a personal favorite of mine (for obvious reasons). He is vicious, mysterious, has a slight flair for the dramatic, and generally is just really, REALLY cool. The most noteworthy thing about Vamp - aside from his superhuman strength and speed, and the fact that he’s REALLY hard to kill - is his skill with knives and daggers. Whether it’s wielding them at close quarters or flinging them about left and right, his abilities with blades make him a particularly frightening foe to take on, and his boss battles are among the more tricky in the titles he appears in. Kudos must also go to voice acting great Phil LaMarr, whose unsettling performance is a big part of the character’s appeal. Whether he’s a “true” vampire or not, Vamp is certainly vampire-themed, and therefore I say still more than counts for the top ten on my list.

7. Seras Victoria, from Hellsing Ultimate.

I specifically credit “Hellsing Ultimate” because I haven’t watched the original Hellsing anime, nor have I read the manga. With that said, “Hellsing Ultimate” is one of my favorite anime programs, as well as quite possibly the single most violent I’ve ever seen. While the main protagonist of the series is Count Dracula-I mean, Alucard (GREAT way to disguise your identity there, sir), I would argue it’s the apparent secondary protagonist of the series who has the most dynamic story arc. That character is everyone’s favorite “Police Girl,” Seras Victoria. At the start of the show, Seras is a young rookie cop whose squad is attacked by a horde of ghouls, controlled by a villainous vampire. Alucard is only able to save her life by transforming her into a vampire as well. The rest of the series has Seras trying to balance who she is with what she’s become: she not only has to discover how to handle her newfound vampiric powers, but also has to learn and accept what it really means to be a vampire. Some people seem to dismiss Seras as pithy comic relief - she is the most lighthearted character of the main cast - but I feel that’s an extremely unfair assessment: while I admit it took a little time for me to warm up to her, I now feel she’s one of the most interesting characters in the show, second only to Alucard. Seras is earnest and altruistic, at times almost childlike…but she is also more than capable of kicking butt, and is as mighty on the battlefield as virtually any of her comrades. It’s that wonderful dichotomy of her being a good, gentle person and a powerful, stalwart warrior that makes her so enjoyable. It’s rare you’ll find well-written, strong female characters who are able to be impressive physical threats while also still being generally good-hearted human beings, as well as very funny to watch. Seras is such a rarity, and earns all the praise she gets and more for it.

6. Carmilla.

If there is a single vampire that has been portrayed as often as Dracula…well, factually, there hasn’t been. But if there is one who comes close, it’s the Countess Karnstein: the titular character of the story “Carmilla” by J.S. LeFanu. Her story was, in fact, an influence on Bram Stoker when he created “Dracula.” The story is most well-known because it is heavily, HEAVILY implied that Carmilla is a lesbian: considering the tale was published in the 1870s, it’s kind of amazing that LeFanu got away with that. Of course, the REASON he got away with it is because he depicted the lesbian character as being a literal bloodthirsty monster, but Carmilla, in the book, is also something of a tragic figure. Her feelings for Laura - a young lady who befriends her, not realizing Carmilla wants to make her into her next victim (and probably has the hots for her) - are ultimately unreciprocated, but from Carmilla’s side at least, they seem to be genuine, or at least very passionate. Once she is slain, Laura doesn’t rejoice: she admits that she misses the person she considered a friend, and still has nightmares about the horrible truth itself. The character of Carmilla has appeared multiple times beyond the story, but sadly I haven’t seen many interpretations: Hammer Horror’s “Karnstein Trilogy” of films follow the book to a point, before veering off into wilder territory. In the “Castlevania” franchise, Carmilla is a recurring antagonist, usually serving as Dracula’s rival, follower, or both. She is referenced in “The Batman vs. Dracula” as Dracula’s former bride. In “Fate/Grand Order,” it’s revealed that Carmilla’s true identity is the infamous serial killer Elisabeth Bathory. None of these have ANYTHING to do with LeFanu’s story, but they are certainly intriguing. There are much more faithful versions out there, if you look, but I have not experienced them…yet. I was very tempted to name Carmilla in my Top 5, but ultimately I think there are just more characters, in general, I like more, so she just barely misses out. Sorry, ma’am.

5. Noe Archiviste, from The Case Study of Vanitas.

If there is a single vampire ALMOST as adorable as the aforementioned Bunnicula, I would argue it’s Noe: one of the main protagonists of the anime “The Case Study of Vanitas.” The show is based on the manga (which I still need to read) by Jun Mochizuki: the creator of my favorite manga (and what SHOULD have been my favorite anime), “Pandora Hearts.” While PH is a reimagining of the “Alice” stories by Lewis Carroll, “Case Study of Vanitas” is an homage to various works of dark period fiction. It contains various references - some more obvious than others - to literary works like “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” classic horror films like “Nosferatu,” and more. The plot is set in a steampunk universe where vampires and humans co-habitate more or less harmoniously. Many vampires in this world are infected with a mysterious curse, which turns them into violent monsters. Noe is a young vampire nobleman, who - while traveling to Paris - ends up becoming a bodyguard for the mysterious Vanitas: a self-proclaimed doctor who uses a magical book to “heal” cursed vampires. At first, the two start off on a very rocky relationship, but as time goes on, they eventually become friends. Noe is wonderful because of the dichotomy of his character: on the one hand, he’s absolutely precious. Seriously. He’s usually friendly, naive, at times a bit dim, tries hard to be polite, loves his pet cat, and is filled with a sense of spellbound wonder at the world around him, showing an excitable playfulness. He’s typically just the most loveable cinnamon bun of a vampire you could ever meet. On the flip side, however…he IS a vampire, and not only that, he’s a POWERFUL vampire. While he’s usually an absolute sweetheart, his patience is not limitless: if Noe is angered, or feels a need to defend himself, he can be TERRIFYING. I really love characters who have that kind of dual nature, and Noe is a great example of it: easily a fine pick for my top five.

4. David, from The Lost Boys (1987).

It’s hard to believe, given the bad rap he often gets nowadays for movies like “Batman & Robin,” that filmmaker Joel Schumacher was actually considered a highly respected and talented movie master. He, in fact, made a bunch of REALLY good movies in his time, and many would argue that this horror-comedy blend is his best. “The Lost Boys” is considered one of the most influential modern vampire stories, alongside the aforementioned works of Anne Rice, but in a different kind of way: the vampires in the Lost Boys are not elegant, glamorous figures, nor sympathetic immortals tortured by their own eternity. These are what I call “punk vampires”: the main villains are basically your standard biker gang of Goth hoodlums, who love wearing leather, smoking, drinking, causing general street mayhem, and swagger around with cocksure pride in their antics. They just also happen to be vampires, and have all the powers vampire have as a result: extended lifespans, eternal youth, flight, superhuman strength, and various other supernatural abilities. The allure of these vampires comes from their vivacity and fun; there’s a certain “wish fulfillment” aspect to the way the vampires are portrayed in “The Lost Boys,” as they represent all the things people sort of WISH they could do…but the cost of having so much power and access to so many thrills is very high. Nowhere is this better embodied than in the main antagonist, David, played by Kiefer Sutherland. David is a charismatic fellow with a commanding presence and charm. He is the quintessential “bad boy”: a sensual, attractive portrait of raw danger. He is also, however, a murderous psychopath, without a shred of compassion left in his soul. Whenever I think of vampires, David is one of the first characters I imagine, and more than worthy of a spot in my top five.

3. Genevieve Dieudonne, from the works of Kim Newman.

I say “the works of Kim Newman” because Genevieve was originally created as the heroine of a series of books by Newman called “Drachenfels.” These books are connected to the highly popular “Warhammer” franchise. I know basically nothing about either of these things. So, how is Diuedonne so high up in the ranks? Well, as it turns out, Newman also used the same character as one of the main protagonists of another series I really, REALLY love: “Anno Dracula.” For those who came in late, “Anno Dracula” is set in an alternate universe where Dracula succeeds in taking over England, ultimately turning a large number of the population of Europe into vampires. In many ways, I think the books succeed in doing something that I personally feel other vampire stories that are perhaps more acclaimed - such as the works of Anne Rice - didn’t quite manage for me: they completely humanize the vampires. Vampires in Anno Dracula aren’t treated as monsters inherently; they may drink blood, dislike sunlight, and have certain weaknesses, but at heart, they’re still basically just people. Some are good, some are bad; it really depends on what is in their heart of hearts. Other universes that have come since have taken this idea as well, but “Anno Dracula” is the first I’m aware of, and in my opinion still the best attempt at the idea. Genevieve herself stands as a testament to this philosophy: she is essentially the “Anti-Dracula.” She is even more ancient than the Count, and presumably just as powerful, if not moreso. However, while Dracula is a self-serving villain who seeks power and glory, Genevieve is a good person at heart, who simply tries to do what she feels is best for not only her fellow vampires, but for people as a whole. She has many of Dracula’s abilities and traits we would recognize - being very dramatic in her own way, very cunning, extremely well-educated, and also an experienced warrior - but she has gone in an extremely different direction as a person. I don’t know how the version in the Warhammer universe compares to Genevieve in “Anno Dracula,” but if she’s anything like the one there, it only cements how much she deserves place in my Top 3.

2. Blade & Morbius, from Marvel.

There are many vampires and vampire-like creatures and characters in the Marvel universe. Dracula himself, as I’ve said in the past, is among those ranks. However, aside from Dracula, two particular vampiric figures stand out amongst the crowd: Blade the Vampire Hunter, and Morbius the Living Vampire. Frank Blade - originally born “Eric Cross” - is a dhampir who has devoted his life to hunting down all the evil vampires of the world, along with many other monsters. His arch-enemies include his “father,” Deacon Frost, and - you guessed it - Count Dracula. He is a brilliant swordsman, marksman, knife-wielder, martial artist, and all-around badass. Michael Morbius, meanwhile, is a sort of “science vampire”: created not by being bitten by a supernatural fiend, but instead mutating as the result of a biochemistry experiment gone wrong. Driven by an insatiable need to consume blood, lest his physical condition - brought on by the experiment - worsen exponentially, Morbius flip-flops between being a sympathetic villain and an anti-hero in the Marvel universe. In the comics, the two have clashed several times; in fact, one particular battle between the pair led to Blade actually gaining some new abilities, as a result of the Living Vampire’s DNA mingling with his own. Outside of the comics, the two have been adapted and reimagined multiple times for other media (with mixed results), though the only time I know of where they MET in other media was the 1990s show “Spider-Man: The Animated Series,” where Blade and Spidey had to work together to stop a rampaging Morbius. Whether you love them together or separately, and whether you prefer the comics or other interpretations, they’re two of the first characters I think of when I think of vampires in general. They are probably the most iconic vampire characters in superhero fiction. That, if nothing else, definitely earns them a high place on my list.

1. Alucard, from Castlevania.

It is perhaps fitting that a list of my favorite vampire characters NOT including Dracula should finish with the Count’s son. Because that is what Adrian Farenheit Tepes - a.k.a. Alucard - is: the Son of Dracula. Alucard is one of the main protagonists of the Castlevania franchise, having appeared in virtually every reiteration of the franchise: from the classic games, to the “Lords of Shadow” reboot trilogy, to the recent animated streaming programs on Netflix. As the series has evolved and changed over the years, so too has Alucard, but the basics of the character have always remained the same. Alucard is the son of Dracula, and a human woman. When the Count is driven mad by the death of his wife, Alucard is forced to take up arms against his father, to stop the King of the Vampires from spreading death and destruction worldwide. Being a vampire himself (or, at least, half-vampire), Alucard is just as immortal as his father, and nearly as powerful, meaning that - better than any Belmont, or member of the Morris family, or other mortal monster slayer - he can keep a watchful eye on the dark lord and his minions. Alucard is my favorite character of the entire Castlevania franchise, and while every version is slightly different, the simple and yet classic conflict between father and son is a big part of the reason why: in each rendition, you realize each side cares about the other, but their philosophies make it difficult for them to co-exist. As a result, he is one of the most fascinating and yet tragic characters of the series, and is one of the first characters I think of when I think of Castlevania. I don’t know how many other people would place him so highly, but for me, it’s almost no contest placing Alucard as My Number One. If anybody can rival the Prince of Darkness best, it is him.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Strahd von Zarovich, from Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft.

Not hugely into D&D, hence why I can’t count him on the main list. ‘Nuff said.

Lothos & Amilyn, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992).

I said I couldn’t count the series, never said anything about the movie that inspired it. Played by Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens, respectively, these vampire villains are probably the funniest characters in the film. Reubens as Amilyn, in particular, gets one of the most hilarious death scenes in any motion picture, period.

The Sackville-Bagg Family, from The Little Vampire.

I’ve never read the book series, but I have a big soft spot for the 2000 film; loved it as a kid, still like it now.

Dio Brando, from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

I know basically nothing about Jojo, but I felt I had to include him here simply because people would kill me if I didn’t.

Kurt Barlow, from Salem’s Lot (1979).

I’ve never read the original Stephen King novel, but the 1979 miniseries adaptation is pretty much “Dracula in Modern New England.” Reggie Nalder’s Barlow has barely any screentime, but the impact of his actions and evil presence is enormous. Plus, REALLY cool Nosferatu-inspired costume and makeup for the win!

Vladimir, from League of Legends.

Vladimir technically isn’t a vampire, but a blood mage; however, considering he literally has a Nosferatu-inspired alternate look, I think I’m justified at least giving him an Honorable Mention.

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