#I mean it's understandable. her trauma made her distrustful cold and vindictive

[cry-ptidd]

Who does Laura dislike?

Anyone that isn't Integra, Walter, Seras or Alucard (<- opinion varies depending on the day).

Though, the people she dislikes the most are Maxwell, Anderson, and the Valentine brothers (+ Zorin) for fucking up her mansion.

Here's a helpful chart made by the goat @kats-magic-bag on the tumble, sketch by the other goat Vanerchest

[glowwormsmith]

I wanna know ALL the angst questions for Iris, my latest fascination, because I’m always a slut for Eden’s Gate ocs and her playlist is full of BOPS seriously you have excellent taste in music 👌💕

asdfds thank you!!💗 I’m glad you like the playlist for her, I worked hard on it. It’s half sad, soft girl who loves her flower girlfriend, half horror movie villain lol. I also really like talking about Iris, since she’s an unrepentant follower of Faith and Joseph and I can make a complex villain. Let’s get into the angst.

oc angst questions here for reference!

(cw for child abuse/domestic abuse/mental illness/sexual trauma mentions/self-harm/suicidal thoughts and idealization below the cut. Let me know if you need anything else tagged.) 

💙 If Iris were dying near Faith or Joseph, her final words would be nothing but gratitude and love for saving her, accepting her into their family and giving her purpose. With Faith, she would tell her she was the only person she ever loved and promises she’ll wait for her in the afterlife, even if she doesn’t truly believe in such deep down. If she is dying in the presence of her enemies, she will curse their names and go down like a bitch: taunting and spitting poison at them, defiant to the end. 

In my story, Iris survives the Collapse and the events of “New Dawn;” she’ll most likely die of natural causes down the road, which the Deputy and Iris’s other victims find unfair.

💧 The worst physical pain she was in was when her father brutalized and locked her up in the basement for three days when she was fourteen because she was hanging out with a girl after-school and they came across her giving the girl a kiss; she doesn’t remember much about her past that was rife with abuse, but this moment has stuck in her mind due to the fact that this was the first instance of severe abuse and when she became a prisoner within her own family.

The worst pain she was in mentally was when Faith died. She had mainly healed from her past thanks to being with Faith and the Project; even when the Project was under siege by the Resistance, it was fine because she had Faith. When she came across Faith’s body in the river, Iris had a complete mental shutdown, simply holding Faith’s body in her arms and sitting on the river bank, talking to her as if she were alive. Only Joseph was able to pull Iris away from Faith and Iris needed time alone/with Joseph to process her grief.

🔷 While Iris does not regret leaving her dysfunctional and abusive family, she notes that it was a great leap of faith that culminated in more abuse while on the road; the only reason she never tried to go back was because she could not bear to be locked up again under the grip of her cruel and sadistic father, uncaring and cold older sister, and an awful uncle, aunt and cousins who helped in the abuse.

She was abandoned by her birth mother when she was ten, who had been her only source of comfort. Her mother’s abandonment gave Iris both a feeling of low self-worth but also a desire to be as brave as that woman to leave her prison one day, even if it was into an unknown and uncaring world.

🔵 Her home life was never pleasant and it grew worse when her mother ran off when Iris was ten. She became a captive within her own family at fourteen and she developed severe depression, anxiety, severe anger problems, suicidal idealization, and even sadistic tendencies as a result. She was able to escape after killing her sister in a fit of rage, though it didn’t get better as Iris became homeless and was further exploited on the road.

It is all a blur to her and she prefers it that way, with only a few key memories standing out in her mind. She had to overcome a lot of sexual trauma to show physical affection for Joseph and Faith, and even then they are the only two she allows to touch her. She has an inherent distrust of law enforcement (her aunt was a detective that helped to keep any suspicious people away) and has developed a fear of men, dogs, sex-repulsed, sharp objects, confined spaces and loud voices. She also wonders, in her moments of self-reflection, if she would have been a better person without her dysfunctional family, or if she was always this cruel and vindictive.

❄️ She regrets having to turn to prostitution, thievery and even murder while she was homeless. While she knows it wasn’t her fault that her family treated her awfully, she feels shame and disgust over what she had to do on the road, to the point where she wonders if she should have just died instead of kept going. Faith and Joseph have to continuously remind her that no, she’s not “dirty” or “bad” for having to survive and that if she chose to die, then they would never have gotten the chance to know her. While it makes her feel better to hear this from the two people she loves, the negative intrusive thoughts refuse to go away, so she copes by projecting onto others, becoming a bully and tormentor herself.

💦 She tended to self-harm before Eden’s Gate and she still tends to do it at her lowest of lows or if no one’s around. She also has the urge to be a huge asshole to others, as a way to get her pent-up frustration and bitterness and negative emotions out. This unfortunate habit is supported by EG because, even though Joseph wants to save as many people as possible, he allows his followers to fight the Resistance and she takes the opportunity to be cruel to “sinners.” 

She has become somewhat reliant on the Bliss, since being in the Bliss makes all the bad thoughts go away.

🌊 Iris is a pretty mean-spirited and petty person, but she can hide it well to put up a sympathetic and sincere front. When she’s hit her low, she drops the facade and goes hard; pray you aren’t on the receiving end of her anger or if you’re dealing with her during an episode.

If she becomes triggered or has a panic attack, she’ll dissociate and find a quiet place out in the woods to curl up and wait to settle her mind. She’ll look to Joseph or Faith for comfort and reassurance she is fine, that they won’t leave her or let anyone harm her.

☄️ She does, though it has gotten better due to healing from Joseph and Faith. She only opens up to these two, though she has enough emotional intelligence (probably due to healing from them) to understand that they are the only two she can even genuinely love at this point.  She is complex: on first glance, you’d think she wasn’t affected by her past at all, but more time and learning about her history that her experience has shaped Iris into her current personality and behaviors, even if she suppresses much of her memory.  By the time of “New Dawn,” she has completely forgotten her past and only knows Eden’s Gate; the only trace memory of her past life is that “monsters made me a monster.”

🔹 She has scars on her arms and thighs from both self-harm and the abuse from her family. Her family were more careful not to leave evidence of the abuse, so most of the scars from them are mental. She hates looking at the scars because she sees them as her weakness and impurity, so she covers them up when she can.  Iris has gotten so good at burying her past that most of the Resistance or even regular EG members simply believe she is an asshole or monster, without realizing that her past has made her this way.

To quote Daenerys Targaryen, “If I look back, I am lost.” Iris refuses to dwell on the past, purely seeing them as monsters she had to face before she found her true family, her true father who loves and protects her, and her true love of her life.  By refusing to give thought to her birth family and life on the road, she both allows herself to bury the abuse and let the trauma and hurt manifest itself in her personality, relationships with others, and behavior.  It’s both good and bad, and just like the Seed family, she really needs proper counseling but will never truly get it so she copes in different, sometimes even unhealthy, ways.

📘 Theme: Meet-Cute (have an angsty drabble with a happy/hopeful ending lol)

I want to die.  I don’t want to, but I do. It hurts too much to keep going, but I’m too scared to end it.

It was funny how Iris realized the folly of her desire to both live and not live, how beautiful it would be to lie down in the field of white bell-shaped flowers, close her eyes and stop breathing, rotting back into the soil and letting her bones become home to the flowers and weeds and worms. 

Before she was taken out of school, her English class had read Hamlet and she had been idealizing Ophelia since, a beautiful death, and she had looked at any river she passed with a longing to enter it and not come out. But then she remembered her mother, the ghost of a woman whose only true strength came in her running away into the unknown, and any attempt to end her life was half-hearted and abandoned, with the next thought turning to how she would get her next meal, with only three dollars in her pocket.

It doesn’t matter now. Food, shelter, dying by my own hand. They’re found me. Iris had seen them when she wandered into that small town, putting up pictures of her at sixteen near a dive bar and speaking to the town’s preacher. She had frozen only briefly before he slunk back into the shadows of the forest line and kept wandering. They had been searching for her the whole time since she killed the Bitch and left the Cage; the Monsters that had the nerve to call her blood. She allowed a small, bitter chuckle that it took two years to cross her path; she always knew she was the smart one among them...And then a hysteric sob burst out as she fell to her knees, her tongue tasting iron as her lip broke. She would die easy by their hands; they probably wouldn’t even kill her as they dragged her back “home.”  The memories were coming back, no matter how she tried to push them down into the darkness: the Beast’s hands and voice and evil laughter, being dragged into the Dark Room again, feeling the pangs of hunger....Iris stopped her sobs, only letting the tears form but never cry.

No. She would not let herself be drawn back there. Not after escaping, not after putting herself through cruelty on the world just for the sake of freedom. Only she had the right to her body and mind and thoughts; no one, especially those Monsters, were going to take it away. Only she would be the decider of her fate.

Just as Iris was about to reach into her pocket to pull out the switchblade and steel herself to fight against her survival instinct, she heard singing. It was soft at first as Iris looked up and around the field of bell flowers.

“H-Hello?” she called out, voice hoarse. Perhaps I’m already dead. She then stood up and walked towards it, both curious and more of her survival instinct keeping her alive as long as possible.

The singing became clearer as Iris spotted a figure twirling in the field. It was a pretty sound, but there was no lyrics, just melodious humming and chiming.

The singing belonged to a beautiful young woman and Iris felt any unease at meeting a strange ease; she only had fear and mistrust of men, and this girl...was an angel. She was clad in a pure white dress, her dirty blonde hair hanging loosely to her shoulders and she was holding a flower as she danced without a care in the field. Even her bare feet looked untouched and mildly muddied, which only endeared Iris to this wood nymph.

She then took note of Iris, who was conscious of how dirty and plain she looked compared to the lovely girl’s pristine appearance, with matted red hair, grimy face, stench and tattered clothes she pulled from Goodwill and hardly replaced. Rather than look surprise or disgusted, the angelic girl smiled kindly.

“Hello, friend. Do you need help?”

“I...” Iris was unaccustomed to speaking to anyone in such a pleasant manner since her time on the road, let alone anyone asking her for help so kindly and without any secondary motivation. She blinked in confusion then looked behind her, afraid her family would suddenly appear with their horrid faces and harsh words to drag her away. She must have looked panicked when the girl’s brow furrowed in concern, though the sweet smile was still on her face.

Iris saw the girl open her hands towards her and she feared she would be touched so she drew back, but the girl kept her hands open, waiting for Iris to take them herself. Iris felt her hands fold together and began picking her skin with her nails, her eyes drawn towards the soft, clean hands. She had no right to touch them with her own dirty ones.

“I can take you to my home. We have warm food, showers and a place to rest. You seem to have been traveling for awhile. There’s no need to be afraid of me. My name is Faith; what’s your name?”

“...I-Iris. Umm...” God, she’s so pretty and kind. Like a real angel. Can someone like me be so lucky to be in her presence?

“That’s a beautiful name. Iris, would you like to come home with me?” Faith asked. “You’ll be safe there.”

Iris felt her mouth twist into a scowl. “Nowhere’s ever safe.” She cringed and thought that Faith would turn away from her now that she showed her ugliness, but Faith nodded and gave a quiet hum in agreement.

“I know all too well how unsafe this world and people can be. But there’s no where quite as safe as Eden’s Gate,” Faith said. “I know I’m a stranger to you, but all friends start as strangers, and if you come with me, you’ll finally feel the safest you’ll ever be.”

Iris looked to Faith and noticed her brown eyes, like a doe’s. All the barriers she put up with people melted away as she looked at the open, beautiful face, the soft lips curved in a smile. Iris gulped. Who knows how long the Monsters will be in this area for. “Alright. I’ll...I’ll take a leap of faith.”

Faith let out a chuckle at that, which sounded wonderful to Iris’s ears, and the girl took Faith’s hands into her own, was lead out of the field and into a new life.