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scripttorture · 5 years

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Torture in Fiction: The Umbrella Academy: Episode 1-6

I tried to start this saying I was only going to review episode 2 which has a prominent torture scene. Several hours later I am… significantly closer to the end of the series. So I thought I may as well include what I’ve watched.

The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix original series based on an independent comic book. With great acting, excellent music and a cast of deeply flawed characters it was (I understand) quite a hit.

I’m enjoying it a lot more then I thought I would. It’s violent but it’s also ridiculous in a way few stories but superhero comics tend to commit to. There’s a 60 year old man stuck in the body of a thirteen year old after travelling to an apocalyptic future and being in a thirty year relationship with a mannequin. And I just- I love comics.

This series feels very much like a superhero comic book on screen. With all the good and the bad that goes with that concept.

But I’m not here to tell you what I think of the superhero genre and it’s relationship with violence. I’m rating the depiction and use of torture, not the series itself. I’m trying to take into account realism (regardless of fantasy or sci fi elements), presence of any apologist arguments, stereotypes and the narrative treatment of victims and torturers.

Umbrella Academy is the story about a group of very damaged people with super powers. Adopted as babies (born in extraordinary circumstances) by a millionaire ‘adventurer’ six of the Hargreeve children were raised to be superheroes. The seventh, apparently without powers, was isolated in a world of talking chimps, robots and extraordinary abilities.

The story starts with Reginald Hargreeve’s death and the five surviving children (including one who’d been living on the moon, apparently for years) meet for the funeral. In the course of this ‘Five’, teleports back from the future.

While the story overall focuses on the way an emotionally abusive and neglectful upbringing effects all of the major characters I’m going to be focusing on the clear instances of torture in and solitary confinement in some of the episodes.

Both Luther and Five are subjected to extreme solitary confinement. Luther is isolated on the moon for four years, Five is isolated as the last person alive for several decades.

Five stops up in a donut shop late at night and sits next to a tow truck driver. They have a brief conversation and the driver leaves. An armed gang then attacks Five. He kills them and two more people (Cha-Cha and Hzael) are sent after him, apparently by the same organisation.

Believing they’re looking for a man in his 50s they go after the tow driver. They torture him and while they eventually believe that he isn’t Five, they continue to torture him to get information on Five. The driver tells them everything that happened the night before.

Later Cha-Cha and Hazel mount a raid on the Hargreeves estate looking for Five. They don’t find him but they manage to capture his brother Klaus.

Klaus is an addict (what he takes is not explicitly defined) and talks to dead people. The two are linked throughout the story with the heavy implication that Klaus avoids sobriety in order to escape his powers.

Klaus is tied to a chair for about a day and a half. He’s beaten, strangled and ‘waterboarded’. (Cha-Cha calls it waterboarding but didn’t actually carry it out properly. I’ve assumed that was for the safety of the actors).

Klaus escapes and shows no mobility problems after being cut off the chair. He then spends several months in 1968 (as you do). On his return his mental health problems seem to be no worse then they were before he was tortured.

I’m giving it 0/10

The Good

The actual forms of torture shown in The Umbrella Academy are reasonably realistic. They’re not always accurate to the time period or place, but when time travel is involved I’m willing to let that slide. The electrical torture shown, with a battery and bulldog clips, could be taken directly from Alleg’s accounts of his experience at the hands of French troops in Algeria. The stress positions and strangulation are shown realistically. And while the waterboarding isn’t shown realistically I think it was done this way to protect the actor and allow him to breathe.

The Bad

I’ve covered solitary confinement before. The estimated safe period for most people is about a week. While both Luther and Five has a strong sense of purpose during their confinement (and this seems to be a protective factor) that wouldn’t help a lot when they’re confined for such an unrealistically long period. At four years Luther should be a complete mental and physical wreck. At several decades including puberty, Five shouldn’t be able to interact normally with people and should be more obviously mentally ill then Klaus. Both of them are shown without symptoms and this downplays the damage of torture that’s routinely depicted as harmless.

Umbrella Academy shows torture ‘working’ with victims giving up accurate information if only you know how to hurt them. This isn’t true. Torture can’t result in accurate information. This kind of misinformation encourages torture in real life.

Klaus’ response to torture is to thank his torturers for inflicted pain with the strong implication that he’s enjoying being tortured. It’s implied that he’s turned on by pain so ‘can’t’ be traumatised or hurt by torture. This is ridiculous and insulting to both the BDSM community and torture survivors. BDSM practitioners don’t stop feeling pain and they aren’t immune to trauma. There is a world of difference between a consensual and non-consensual encounter. Personally I think this kind of portrayal is akin to suggesting that victims can’t be raped because they’ve previous enjoyed sex. It’s unacceptable.

Klaus is held in a stress position for at least a day. This is a survivable time frame but on release he should have significant mobility issues and should have needed help escaping. Instead he’s perfectly capable of making his way out with a heavy time-travel device. He can walk and move his arms freely. This completely ignores that the way he was held is torturous.

Neither Cha-Cha nor Hazel show any of the mental health problems typical of torturers. They’re portrayed as competent and able to investigate effectively, even though they torture. Torturers are not good investigators and torture consistently undermines effective investigation. Realistically a character can be one or the other, not both.

Cha-Cha and Hazel are also depicted as good fighters and generally skilled. In reality torture produces a deskilling effect in torturers, they get worse at what they do.

Cha-Cha and Hazel are shown as obedient to their superiors, only targetting people who have information or are ordered as targets. This isn’t how torturers operate. They disobey orders, ignore superiors and target a wide array of people who usually have nothing to do with anything the torturers are supposed to investigate.

No one in the series so far has shown any long standing mental health problems as a result of torture or isolation.

No one has shown any memory problems as a result of torture or isolation.

The end result is that the series suggests torture doesn’t have any long term effects at all.

Overall

I think this series really highlights something I’ve been saying a lot on the blog: It’s very easy to find realistic depictions of how torture is carried out and it’s very hard to find realistic depictions of the effect it has on people.

These episodes, and I suspect (from what I’ve seen) the series more generally handles torture terribly. It’s unrealistic and it’s parroting a lot of tropes that either excuse torture or belittle survivors.

That didn’t get in the way of me enjoying the series outside of these scenes. There are a lot of great characters and character moments.

But none of that excuses this senseless repetition of torture apologia.

For a series that works so hard to highlight the effect of childhood emotional abuse it downplays the effects of physical abuse at every turn.

It uses torture as a short cut in the plot. It portrays torturers as smart and restrained badasses.

It basically does virtually everything I advise writers not to do.

And this comes about simply by repeating the same old genre tropes without bothering to look up the subjects involved.

There are other ways to have your bad guys find out the information they need to know. There are other ways to establish them as terrible people.

There are realistic ways to show people resisting torture, which don’t diminish the pain they suffered.

I think what I want to stress most of all is that this apologia is unnecessary. It doesn’t add anything to the story. The fun stuff, the super heroics, the ridiculous time travel escapades and carefully choreographed fight scenes can all happen without apologia as the background noise.

For once- I’m not really mad. I’m disappointed. That these tropes creep into genre after genre, put down roots and keep coming back up. The mainstay of this story wouldn’t be any different if they took out torture or even used it in a more realistic way.

Five’s isolation in an apocalyptic wasteland doesn’t last. He’s picked up by an agency of time travellers and offered a job. This could have happened more quickly, especially since the time he spends alone and the time he spends with the agency are both poorly defined.

Luther’s trip to the moon functions to build a wall between him and his siblings. And again, that could have happened in a much shorter time frame.

Cha-Cha and Hazel could have just interviewed the tow truck driver for their information. They’re shown conducting successful interviews later.

Klaus’ resistance could have been framed as natural and there are several points in his dialogue already that could have supported that. The story could have used the fact that Klaus genuinely does not know where Five is.

In the end The Umbrella Academy’s use of torture is a waste of narrative space. None of these torture scenes are essential to the plot and every single one of them is handled badly.

It’s an example of a narrative that wasn’t prepared to commit to showing the consequences of torture.

We can all do better.

Edit: I forgot the full title. Oops.

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#tw torture #tw rape #torture in fiction #the umbrella academy #torture apologia #solitary confinement #mental illness #superheroes #writing victims #writing torturers #torture and memory #stress positions #electrical torture

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vethyourhalflingmother · 5 years

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Elaina, Syldor, and their Twins: I Ramble About Character and Relationship Headcanons Like I’m Writing A Fucking Academic Essay

***SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN ONE OF CRITICAL ROLE***

**THIS POST IS VERY LONG. NO, I DON’T KNOW WHAT CONCISE MEANS**

PART ONE: WHAT WE KNOW

As viewers, we do not know much about the details of the relationship between Vax and Vex’s parents, Elaina and Syldor, and we actually don’t know that much about the twins’ relationships with each of their parents (although there are some key moments that give us certain hints). Therefore, most of this is based on my own headcanons and impressions, which I will attempt to explain, but this is the disclaimer that ultimately this is my own interpretation and everyone is entitled to see view it all how they want to see it.

Now, that said, I am going to start by going over what we know.

Vax and Vex’s history summaries, which appeared at the beginning of early Critical Role episodes, give us the most information about their parents.

Vax’s says,

“Along with twin sister Vex'ahlia, Vax was born by a chance encounter between elven royalty and human peasantry. Raised by their mother in their early years, the twins were eventually sent off to their father in the elven capital of Syngorn. But their cool reception among the elves there never warmed, and their time in the capital didn't last. The siblings stole away one autumn night and set out on the open road.” (source)

and Vex’s tells the same story,

“Born of a human mother and an elven father—who only later in life took an interest in their existence—, Vex'ahlia and her twin brother Vax'ildan quickly realized the only people they could truly rely on in this world were each other.

It was at the age of ten when the two were taken from their mother, and brought to live in Syngorn, the isolated elven city for which their father was an ambassador. He quietly took them in, but always kept an icy distance, and after too many years of disdainful looks, the pair decided to leave his indifference behind, and set out on their own.” (source)

However, this isn’t the entire story. (Most of my source for the following information comes from Heredity and Hats, and I recommend watching the twins’ entire conversation with their father, their step-mother (Devana), and their sister (Velora), from roughly here until here).

Firstly, we learn the Syldor Vessar, the twins’ father isn’t exactly royalty; he’s an ambassador with substantial rank and privilege, but not as much as an actual royal, which is implied when he tells them that he can only get them one meeting with Syngorn’s leader, the High Warden - he’s probably more like a nobleman, which I’ll go into more about later. This also explains why he was out of such a closed off city in the first place.

Secondly, it is unclear how involved Syldor and Elaina’s relationship was, probably because the twins themselves don’t know. There’s some implication that it was a brief fling or a one-night stand, from the language “a chance encounter” and how Vex crudely describes her and her brother’s conception as Syldor “fuck[ing] some random woman in a city [he] passed through.”

Thirdly, it is also unclear how Syldor came to take care of the twins. At times (like in Vax’s summary, and in some of Vex’s mentions of her mother), it is suggested that Elaina sent the twins to Syldor, whereas in the twins’ conversation with Syldor in Heredity and Hats, it is suggested that he took the twins from her (Vax’s line about leaving them to be with their mother when she died strongly suggests this).

Fourthly, we know that Elaina was a peasant seamstress from Byroden who was killed when Thordak the Cinder King destroyed the town (when the twins were roughly 12 years old, probably before they ran away from Syldor - one of the artbooks supposedly puts the twins at 13 or 14 when they left Syngorn, but since I don’t have a copy myself, I’m not sure). This tells us quite a bit; both Vex and Vax’s summaries mention the racial difference between their parents, and in Heredity and Hats, Syldor brings up his people’s bigotry against humans and half-elves and how his life is easier when the twins aren’t part of it. Vax’s also mentions their class differences. And because Elaina is dead, we don’t see her until Vax dies himself - where we get one line of her saying that she’s proud of him.

PART TWO: BASIC ASSUMPTIONS ON WHICH MORE COMPLEX INTERPRETATIONS ARE BUILT

Now that those facts are on the table, what do they mean for my interpretation and subsequent headcanons? In order to get into that, we have to start with my more basic assumptions based on the above information.

To start at the beginning, Vex is likely right when she says Syldor was passing through Byroden and had a quick fling with Elaina. He probably didn’t know that he got her pregnant. It’s altogether possible that he stopped in this little town for one night on his way to do some ambassadorial duties and didn’t think twice about it until he passed through again and heard a rumor about some half-elf children, and I headcanon that’s what happen. (That said, they could’ve had a short fling as well, though I doubt there was any love. Syldor clearly looks down on humans, and Elaina’s class likely doubled that bigotry.)

As for a timeline about when the Syldor first heard he may have bastard children and when he decided to interfere, I don’t have a specific one, but I feel like he probably spent a long time debating about it - and how it would affect his personal and professional life. As mentioned above, Vax’s summary implies that Syldor is royalty, but his status is more complicated than that. It does have special privileges, and I know because in Syngorn is childbaring is very regulated (as described in Matt Mercer’s Tal’Dorei Campaign Guide, children have to be approved by the government before conception, and unapproved children, even full-blooded elves, are sent to live outside the city). As an ambassador Syldor probably gets special passes on certain things, like leaving the city in general, and bringing back illegal wines and children to Syngorn and claiming they’re gifts that just can’t be turned down from the city’s allies.

Ultimately, he either fell prey to his own arrogance about the importance of his bloodline or he felt guilty. I’m inclined to believe it’s a mixture of both emotions, though probably more guilt, since Syldor expresses that he cares about the twins in some capacity - just not nearly as much as children deserve from their father.

Now, for Elaina, at this point, I have a considerably less clear picture of her than I do Syldor, just due to lack of information. However, I’ve seen a few interpretations that don’t particularly do it for me, such as her being lovelorn and entirely passive. I don’t tend to like that because 1) her children are both very active in their own destinies, including their romantic lives, and 2) that’s a pretty stereotypical position for her to be in, especially given that Syldor has a lot of a status over her. But when I was developing Elaina, I had to sift through some deeper stuff before I started deciding what she would be, as a character in my head, rather than just what she wasn’t.

Which brings me to a more complex question that ended up being fundamental to my personal interpretation of Syldor and Elaina, both together and as individuals: did Elaina send the twins with Syldor or did Syldor take the twins from Elaina?

PART THREE: ADDRESSING THE NUANCE

So. I already said that Liam contradicts himself on this wording. The real world explanation for that is likely that he wasn’t thinking about the difference, or that the twins’ backstory became clearer once they played more, which are both incredibly valid possibilities. But I am an English major, and if you’ve followed my blog for awhile, you know I like to pick on little details for fun. And this little detail has some interesting implications.

The difference between Elaina sending the twins with Syldor and Syldor taking them is a matter of both Elaina’s personal choice and Syldor’s use of force. But’s not so simple as she definitely gave them of her own will or Syldor definitely made her - and this isn’t just due to lack of information, it’s also because I get the impression that the twins themselves view the situation differently.

I don’t have sources on hand, but I got the feeling that Vex felt more like Elaina gave them over to Syldor too willingly, whereas Vax’s frustration with the situation was only directed at Syldor (perhaps because he holds his mother in high esteem, or maybe because he really does believe she did what she could to try & keep them/was forced to give them up against her will). Perhaps at a later date, I will write something else going into the twins’ perspectives on their parents and general heritage, but since that’s a whole other can of worms, I’m going to leave it there for now.

The point is, my understanding was that the twins were not unified in their thoughts of moving from mom to dad, and what I took from that was, well it was probably a very nuanced situation.

Elaina obviously cared for her children. There’s evidence. As mentioned above, Vax would’ve rather died with her than live in Syngorn. They went back to try and find her after they ran away. The Raven Queen used her to ease Vax’s passing. But that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t give them up to Syldor. She was a peasant. The twins imply that they were poor growing up - this, combined with their time on their own after Syngorn, seem to be why Vex is as concerned with money as she is. If Syldor said, “I could give them a life where money wasn’t a worry,” I would think she’d take it under consideration.

I don’t think she would be eager to send her children into the unknown with a man she barely knows, especially not one that also looks down his nose at her, though. Perhaps if she were desperate, but there’s no indication that the twins were starving, and they did have a house and clothes (as Vax dramatically recalls at one point when he thinks he’s dying), and Elaina did have a job as a seamstress. Obviously, I can’t say for certain that she wasn’t completely desperate, but my impression is that she wasn’t.

The other factor is how willing she is to just let things happen to her. If she was quite passive, then perhaps she would hand them over simply due to her lack of ability to stand up for herself. But very early into this, I started formulating an Elaina that was very headstrong and fierce and took control of her own destiny. This, to me, felt true to the part of her we know most about: her children. And ultimately, it’s the kind of thing that turns a flat character into one with more substance - it’s not an easy decision for her.

So that is the Elaina who sees the merit of Syldor’s suggestion, but also the Elaina who wants to refuse it. Why doesn’t she? Because Syldor is a man (elf? you know what I mean) with power, something I’m sure she’d known from the moment she met him. It isn’t as if men like Syldor hide that shit. Do I think he outright threatened to beat her down if she didn’t hand over the twins? No, not at all. But an implication of how... traumatic it would be for the twins if he stopped asking nicely could work well enough coupled with promises of good futures for them. Or it might not even be that overt; maybe he could’ve just demand a decision from her without giving her time to think, or time to talk to the twins about what they want. And so now not only is it not easy, but maybe it’s not even entirely her own. There’s another layer to her and the situation.

Therefore, in my mind, when Elaina watches the twins leave, she roiling with all sorts of emotions - anger, loss, apprehension, anxiety, maybe even a small bud of hope - but most immediately, regret. My version of Elaina, more than anything, curses herself over her decision to let the twins go, until the moment her house catches fire.

PART FOUR: SYLDOR, A CHARACTER SUMMARY

Syldor Vessar is an asshole. He was probably an asshole to Elaina, though I doubt they talked much. He’s a bad father. He brought the twins into an environment he knew would be hostile to them and then neglected them. Then he tried to hide behind the excuse of “well, I did all I could.” However, I see a lot of asshole fathers portrayed in fiction that remind me of cartoon villains with black and white perspectives and iron fists. But Syldor’s a different brand. Because Syldor says that he cares and that he’s proud of the twins. He gives them access to the High Warden. He admits to some of his wrong doings. And on some level, that stuff is probably true and genuine. I think he believes he did all he could. He knows he wasn’t the best father, but clearly he didn’t see himself as bad enough to not have another child. He probably assumes he can do better by Velora. And maybe he can, with a full-blooded elf, with a daughter he actually considers his own. But maybe not. To me, it looks like Syldor’s love is extremely conditional. From what Vax and Vex imply, the conditions are how pointy your ears are, how much money you have in your pocket, and how well you can conform.

PART FIVE: ELAINA, A CHARACTER SUMMARY

I’ve said most of this already, but Elaina is my tragedy that really tried to resist being a tragedy. As far as her life prior to Syldor, I like to think she was doing her best to enjoy life in order to balance all the damn work she had to do. I like to think she was popular in Byroden, and that she had lots of acquaintances but few really close friends. I like to think she had one night a week where she went to the tavern and got piss drunk. I like to think that she spat at the men who told her to smile. I like to think that he needlework was some of the best in the region, which is a small prize, but one of her to be proud of. I like to think that she slept with more than just Syldor.

And I like to think that she kept all that fervor when she had the twins, but that she repurposed it a little to better suit them. I like to think she made up wild stories and told them to the twins every night. I like to think she wasn’t a great cook, but that her meals still had that something special that only mothers can add. I like to think she instilled the sense of goodness in the twins that follows what is right, not what is the law. And I like to think that she sparked something in them that led them to be champions of literal gods. That she was more than just a footnote to encourage their vengeance against a dragon they were going to kill anyway and more than just a random woman Syldor fucking Vessar fucked.

Because to me, it feels like she did mean much more than can be said, at least to her children.

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nyxshadowhawk · 5 years

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Goth Tags

I know this is a YouTube thing, but I wanted to do these two lists, so I’m going to do them.

Ways in Which I’m Stereotypically Goth:

I’ve got the romantigoth aesthetic down. I love spooky, pretty things! I love gargoyles and ravens and black roses and moons and weird occult stuff and dark forests... I’ve got three Joseph Vargo posters in my dorm room, and I’ve run out of space to put resin statues in my bedroom. I wear lots of long, flowy black clothes and the occasional Goth Princess gown. I’ve also got an entire box (made of black wood with pentagrams carved in the top) full of silver and pewter jewelry, and Black Phoenix perfumes.

I really love spooky interior design and architecture. I loved Voltaire’s Gothic Homemaking and I drooled over Haunt Furniture. My dream home would probably be a Victorian-style, Addams-like mansion in the middle of nowhere (for when I become a world-famous writer...). I also REALLY love castles and old buildings, especially with gothic architecture and gargoyles. I really liked seeing old castles and churches in Scotland. Medieval Europe is 10/10 my aesthetic.

I’ve always really liked bats. When I was a kid (around six), my favorite episode of The Magic School Bus (for whatever reason) was “Going Batty.” That set off a bat obsession! Reading Stellaluna in seventh grade just reinforced it. I used to pretend to be one and wrap myself up in my blankets like wings. Bats are cute! I recently got back into them! There’s an adorable little plush one hanging above my bed. “So dark of wing and keen of craft, of all night flyers the master’s a bat.” (Actually, the master of night flyers is totally Prince Astor of Umbragard.)

I like horror stories and gothic literature. Back when creepypasta was big, I’d casually read collections of horror stories on Quotev. Now, I really love Nox Arcana’s “Tales from the Dark Tower,” Poe stories, Grimm’s fairy tales, and the like. I actually have a pretty strong stomach. I also genuinely love gothic lit. The Picture of Dorian Gray is my favorite. I didn’t make it through Frankenstein, though, it was too sad.

I’m introverted and a night owl. I wouldn’t say I have a “stereotypical” Goth personality, because I’ve been trying to be more optimistic and happy, and I’ve attempted to make friends, but one of the reasons I like Raven from Teen Titans is because I tend to be the isolated girl in dark clothes who’d rather be left alone. I’m not exactly stoic-- I’m an emotional wreck, but once you get me talking about a topic I’m interested in, I’m all moonlight and fireflies. I’m also a “tortured artist,” and I come alive at night. I stay up until at least 2 AM most nights. I ate breakfast at one today.

I have a black cat named Edgar. I did not name him! He was given that name at the shelter. All the kittens in his litter were named after gothic writers, because they were all black! (His brother was “H.P.” after Lovecraft.) I was thrilled when my parents said we were getting him, and equally thrilled when they decided to keep his name. He’s such a sweet cat, and I love him.

I like vampires, but I have a complicated relationship with them. You’d think I’d be the kind of girl who’d be obsessed with vampires in middle school, especially if I loved the Vampire Friz episode of The Magic School Bus! But no. I wasn’t into vampires because they killed people and that was disturbing. (That’s why I independently created psychic vampires.) However, since getting into Castlevania last Halloween, I’ve started to really warm up to vampires. I dressed as Lestat last Halloween, read Carpe Jugulum, have been consuming more vampire media than before... I’m still not obsessed, but I like them now. Still would hate to be one, though. SHADOWS FOR THE WIN!

I LOVE Halloween! I was devastated the two years it was canceled (freak snowstorm and Hurricane Sandy. Oh, by the way, my reaction to the current hurricane was, “He put his soul in a hurricane, now?!). I really miss trick-or-treating. I convinced my parents to throw an annual Halloween party, which gave me an excuse to get even more decorations for my room, and they pretty much can’t host it without me. Everyone shares my aesthetic during Halloween season!

I’m really into witchy and occult stuff. The more cryptic and spooky, the better. I was Wiccan-ish for a while, I don’t think I am anymore, but I’m still exploring my spirituality (through books like Nocturnal Witchcraft and Shadow Magick Compendium) with guidance from Hecate and Dionysus.

Whether my music taste is truly “Goth” or not, it is certainly very spooky. Nox Arcana all the way! I really go in for the church organ and glockenspiel and chiming bells and melancholy piano and strings and harpsichords and minor keys. Listening to spooky music makes me happy. I have a whole list of creepy waltzes. Neoclassical is my thing. I also like Adrian von Zeigler, Peter Gundry, Two Steps From Hell, and fantasy music in general.

Un-Goth Confessions:

I don’t like gothic rock. Some would say this means I’m not Goth, and it felt alienating for a while. Siouxsie and Bauhaus just aren’t really my thing. I don’t really like industrial and darkwave, either. The closest I get to traditional Goth music is Voltaire (I love the songs of his that I listen to, but I only listen to a handful), and a few songs by Dead Can Dance. I’m much more into Nox Arcana.

I don’t look stereotypically Goth. I joke that I look like Aurora and dress like Maleficent, because it’s true. My cheeks are permanently rosy and not easy to cover with white makeup (I don’t wear makeup often, anyway.) I have big blue eyes and wavy, golden hair (that I’m not going to dye). I don’t have any piercings— when my sister went for her second piercing, she encouraged me to get my ears pierced, but I broke down crying because I’m afraid of pain. I’m an adult!

I still like horsies and unicorns and other cutesy things from my childhood. I was really into Gen 3 of My Little Pony. I still have some fairy and ballerina stuff, even if I don’t display it. My bedroom is still lavender (and always will be). I definitely wasn’t spooky in childhood, and I’ve still got a non-spooky side. (It was kind of a big deal when I dressed as a rainbow unicorn fairy when I was seven, and then a dark sorceress when I was eight.) I danced in my company’s adapted kiddie production of the Nutcracker until I graduated. I’ve got fluffy stuffed unicorns right next to my Spiral Bat Cat.

I HATE DIY. I don’t trust it! I don’t want to ruin my clothes with fabric paint or rip holes in things or in any way risk it turning out poorly. My style is tough to DIY anyway, but yeah.

I’m not really into the macabre. I only got into skeletons because of Undertale, and I don’t like, for lack of a better phrase, “the death aesthetic.” Blood, body horror art, the zombie look... I don’t really like anything morbid or sad. I’m iffy on graveyards and coffins.

I don’t like most horror films. I like spooky movies, like Coraline, but not horror movies. Although I like horror stories, I don’t like horror films, less because of the horror and more because they tend to end badly. I don’t like “everybody dies” stories, especially if it’s one where sympathetic people get killed off one by one, or slasher flicks that rely on jumpscares. Old-school gothic horror could work, though. I also like psychological thrillers like The Sixth Sense and Black Swan. Is Interview With the Vampire a horror movie? (I probably underestimate how strong my stomach is. Aladdin used to scare me. Look at me now!)

I still wear a lot of color. About half my wardrobe is black, which is still a lot, but not as much as most Goths. I’ve still got a lot of purple, and other colors.

I’m not a huge fan of Tim Burton. The only film of his that I really love was Corpse Bride. Beetlejuice wasn’t my style and didn’t contain enough of Lydia, Sweeney Todd was a bit too dark and gory (although I did like that one), Dark Shadows wasn’t as good as I was hoping, Alice in Wonderland was cool aesthetically but not a very good film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a dumpster fire... and The Nightmare Before Christmas doesn’t count because he didn’t direct it (and though I like it, I wasn’t blown away by it, either). My reaction overall? “Meh.”

I still contain a childish exuberance. I squealed and bounced up and down when the new Nox Arcana album was released. I will probably do the same before and/or after watching Season 3 of Castlevania, and when Grimoire of Souls is released. This is how I know that Goth stuff is part of my true personality.

There’s a lot of Goth clothes that I don’t wear, in addition to not dying my hair, not wearing makeup, and not having piercings. I’d wear black heeled boots like Dracula’s, but not platform shoes. I don’t like fishnets. I hate ripped clothing. Not a fan of hoodies. I also will not wear leather clothing. And spiked collars? No no no. I’m pretty much strictly a Romantigoth. Maybe that doesn’t make me less Goth. But it makes me less stereotypical, especially when so much of the Goth stuff online is geared toward that end of the subculture.

And I don’t know if this makes me more Goth or less Goth, but I have one outfit from Hot Topic. And an epic “House of Belmont” t-shirt.

Okay, that was interesting.

“I’M SO GOTH, I LITERALLY DARKEN A DOORWAY!”

#goth #goth stuff #goth tag #stuff about me #facts about me #goth confessions

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theonetruenorth · 7 years

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Yours is the light

This fic reads a little bit differently. It doesn’t have a lot of dialogue and some parts of it may seem packed with information. That’s because it started as an ‘extended headcanon post’ sort of thing and then got away from me (and by now this shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me).

It’s my take on the ‘alpha/beta/omega’ universe. But I decided to give it a twist and take some of the A/B/O stereotypes and turn them on their collective heads.

In other words, this is actually as different from the A/B/O trope as I could make it and still get away with calling is an A/B/O fic.

Beta-read by RomanceShipper

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: yours is the darkness of my soul’s return you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars

― E.E. Cummings

The first time Alec questioned his status was when he was ten years old.

Up until that point, he never even had a reason to think about secondary genders and what the consequences of being an alpha, beta, or omega were. He was just a kid. He had no use for the adult stuff when there were so many other more important and interesting things to learn, things like runes and archery and the history of Nephilim.

Then the whole debacle with Preston happened. He thought that everyone would be happy with him for adapting, and finally finding a way to beat the boy at kendo practice, despite Preston being nearly two years older than him. He listened to his mother’s advice and went against his training. Preston’s nose cracked under his shinai as a result.

Preston himself didn’t react badly - other than being embarrassed that the younger kid, whom he used to beat regularly, suddenly managed to kick his ass instead - but oh, Preston’s mother went ballistic. Alec remembered how she shouted at Maryse. She insisted that Alec should be put in his place like ‘the filthy little omega he reeked of’ and that he should be punished for insubordination and hurting her alpha son.

Alec also remembered how Maryse growled at the other woman. There was some vicious exchange of words that he couldn’t hear before Preston’s mother all but ran from the training room with the metaphorical tail between her legs.

Later that evening, when Alec was done cleaning all the weapons in the Institute, as a part of his punishment for going against Hodge’s training (a job he didn’t really mind that much), he asked Maryse about what Preston’s mother had said. Maryse sat him down on his bed and explained to him how the secondary genders worked. She told him about alphas and their dominant personalities. About betas and their hard work and neutrality that helped to keep society balanced.

And she told him about omegas. How they were incredibly rare, especially among boys. How they could carry children if they wanted and how every alpha would be lucky to have them as a partner. She told him that omegas were smart and had sharp, tactical minds, and were born leaders. She told him that nearly every great figure in the history of mankind was a confirmed omega. Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte, to name a few.

Alec didn’t understand why Preston’s mother was so upset with him and in turn, Maryse explained pheromones. How Alec already smelled slightly of omega and that he would probably present soon. Preston’s mother was the type of person who was envious of the gifts that omegas were blessed with.

“There will be people in your life who will treat you like you’re worth less than them, just because of your status,” she told him. “But there will be just as many people who will cherish you for what you are.”

Maryse told Alec, again and again, that what he did with his life was his choice and his alone. He didn’t have to put up with anyone who didn’t respect him if he didn’t want to. The world would be his for the taking. As long as he was dutiful to the Clave and the nephilim’s sacred mission, he could be anyone he wanted to be. The Head of the Institute. The Inquisitor. The Consul. No one would be able to stop him if he truly wished to become a great leader.

Alec could still remember the genuinely proud look in Maryse’s eyes when he presented as an omega a little over a year later.

The life of an omega wasn’t any different than the life of an alpha or a beta.

Ever since presenting, Alec was prescribed heat-blocking shots, just like the alphas. Since he presented so early, he wasn’t allowed to go through a heat until he was fourteen. Only then did the doctor’s at the Institute switch him over to the regular blockers that lasted about six months, allowing a heat to happen twice a year to keep his body healthy.

Heats were a nuisance for Alec. He had to isolate himself from all alphas - except for his parents - and Izzy, who was a beta. Alec always spent his heats away in their house in Alicante for two long, uncomfortable days during which his temperature spiked and he felt like his entire body was itching. Thankfully, as long as there were no alphas around to trigger him further, that was pretty much it. There were no inconvenient erections, no rush of hormones that made him impossibly horny (no more than was normal for a teenager, anyway), and no spontaneous leaking; that particular thought left him mortified. No, all of those things would happen only with a compatible alpha, and Alec had never shared a heat with anyone.

He even had to stay away from Jace, who presented as an alpha just a year after him. He couldn’t risk it. Jace was his brother in every way but blood, but apparently it was the blood that made the difference. His feelings for Jace made everything worse since he was sure that his parabatai would trigger his heat so fast it would make his head spin.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that out of all three secondary genders, it was the alphas who were the strongest, the most aggressive, the most territorial. It was well-known.

It was also completely wrong.

Because of the rarity of omegas, people believed that they were either submissive or neutral, like betas. Not many people were educated on how dangerous a threatened omega could be. Those that were educated?

Their knowledge often came from a personal experience.

The group of boys who cornered Alec in an isolated part of the Institute had the brilliant idea of putting the resident omega on his knees, to see if he would ‘get wet for them like the bitch that he was’. There were five of them. Alec had just hit a growth spurt not so long ago, but he was still only sixteen and they were all older and bigger than him. He didn’t have any weapons on him and was severely outnumbered.

Alec didn’t know he would need weapons in his own home. He had not experienced this kind of behavior before, this kind of degradation and aggression, aimed at him just because of his status as an omega. Polite disinterest was the worst thing that ever happened, not that he minded. It was better than the curious, interested looks he had been receiving for the past couple of months. Izzy had joked about it. She told Alec that it was because he was turning from an ‘awkward turtle into a beautiful swan’, whatever the hell that meant. Alec always rolled his eyes at her, but maybe even that joke had some truth to it. Was that why he was getting harassed now?

It didn’t matter.

The corner of Alec’s lip twitched in an imitation of a smirk, all sharp teeth and disdain. He was not going to give them what they wanted.

When other shadowhunters came running moments later, alarmed by the sounds of fighting, Alec had a broken rib and a black eye, but the five guys were on the ground either unconscious or moaning in pain, all of them looking far worse than Alec. One of them was missing half of his right ear. When Maryse arrived at the scene, Alec greeted her with a red-tinted grin. The blood running down his lips and chin was not his own.

Calming an omega down from a feral episode was not easy, but Maryse was the only alpha Alec yielded to. She coaxed him out of the corner, where he stood to ensure no one attacked his vulnerable back. She led him to the infirmary, where she held an ice pack to his ribs and drew a fresh iratze on his skin.

“I’m so incredibly proud of you, my sweet boy,” Maryse whispered into his hair as he hid his face in the crook of her neck, taking shallow breaths and fighting against the pain that came as the adrenaline rush ebbed away. The red haze of the anger-fight-survive instincts that clouded his mind was receding, chased away by his mother’s tender words and the familiar scent of her perfume. “I’m so proud of how well you fought and how you protected yourself.”

Alec never saw those boys again. He was sure Maryse put the fear of the Angel in them and made them transfer away from New York as soon as they could walk again.

As a general rule, Alec tended to be wary whenever an alpha warlock showed even a little bit of interest in him.

It was a given fact that warlocks were infertile, but what many didn’t realize is that it wasn’t completely true. It wasn’t common, but a male alpha warlock could father a child with an omega female or male, but only of different species, like a Seelie or a werewolf.

Or a Nephilim.

Alec wasn’t aware of this fact until he ran point on a mission to capture and arrest Iris Rouse, a notorious dark magic user. She managed to flee before they got to her, but she escaped in a hurry, leaving her experiments behind.

Her hideout was a thing of nightmares.

Rooms were filled with brainwashed omegas - Seelies, wolves, and even mundanes - some of them in late stages of pregnancy. The entire building reeked of dark magic, misery, and pain. As soon as Alec entered those blasted rooms, he knew that none of the omegas were there of their own free will.

At first, Alec didn’t understand how it was possible. Omegas who went through extreme trauma - physical or emotional - couldn’t conceive. Fertility during heats required a deep emotional bond between partners, and that sure as hell couldn’t happen in that horrific breeding house.

Later, much later, Izzy came to him with lab results. Through the combination of magic, potions, and drugs Iris managed to brainwash her victims into a state similar to heat and even imitated a bond between mated pairs, making sure that the omega’s body didn’t fight the unwanted pregnancy.

She had been kidnapping omegas for months. She had been renting them out like broodmares to alpha warlocks and demons, to create more warlocks. She had done all of this under his nose, in his city. Alec made a promise to himself, and to the rescued omegas and their unborn children, that he would find Iris Rouse and make her pay.

When Clary Fray entered their lives - along with her beta friend, Simon - she brought chaos with her to an extent that he really did not appreciate. She refused to play by the rules. She did whatever the hell she wanted and somehow seemed to pull everyone into her quest to find her mother.

Jace became enamored with her almost immediately, which only added insult to injury. Clary was an alpha, just like Jace, but that didn’t mean much. These days it didn’t matter what your secondary gender was, you could date whoever you wanted. Heck, even his parents were an alpha pair, which wasn’t something that would have happened forty or fifty years ago.

Clary didn’t know how to act around omegas. Alec very much enjoyed putting her in her place after the first time she tried to order and intimidate him, under the utterly foolish impression that he would yield to her.

Alec had never yielded to anyone but his mother in his entire life. Even the Clave officials have never seen a submission from him, only polite manners and professionalism that he used with everyone.

But then...then Clary led them to Magnus Bane.

All the silly romance movies Izzy had made him watch could not have prepared him for the lightning that struck when he saw Magnus clearly for the first time, after fighting those Circle members together.

He felt numb and buzzed with restless energy at the same time, as if he had an electric current pulsing underneath his skin. The apartment smelled of battle and blood and magic, but beneath that Alec could detect other, subtler scents. Something wild and primal that he couldn’t describe. It smelled like the air after a thunderstorm, like ozone and wet dirt. Like cedar and rosemary and woodsmoke, all wrapped up in one alluring package.

“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” Magnus said to him, and Alec forgot how to breathe. He could only stare at the most gorgeous man - an alpha - he had seen in his life. He barely managed to choke out his own name. He was torn between the desperate need to stay, to keep the warlock in his sight, and the need to run away and hide in the embarrassed of his own incoherent mumbling.

But of course, everything went to shit quickly when he screwed up during the summoning of the memory demon. Magnus tried to comfort him afterward, saying that he had nothing to be ashamed of. His voice was low and it sent a shiver down Alec’s spine. He could still remember the jolt of energy that jumped between their hands as they’d touched for the first time, just moments before. Alec could still feel it buzzing underneath his skin, like a phantom caress of invisible fingers. From the look Magnus was giving him, Alec was sure the alpha felt it too.

He agreed to go out on a date.

Alec still didn’t know what possessed him to say yes. Maybe it was the way Magnus trembled in his arms while Alec held him up and shared his strength as he healed Luke. Maybe it was the vulnerable look Magnus gave him afterward. Or maybe it was the fact that Magnus had seen him as an equal, someone worthy of asking for help.

Alec didn’t understand it. Never in his life had he felt this kind of attraction to anyone, ever. It was like some stupid, primal part of him woke up and reared its head every time Magnus appeared in his sights. Like the part that made him an omega suddenly longed for an alpha like it never did before.

He didn’t like it.

He wasn’t ashamed of being an omega, no matter how some people resented him for his secondary gender. But he didn’t like to feel as if he was missing something. He didn’t like to feel incomplete without an alpha to fill that empty space inside of him.

And yet, whenever he was near Magnus or heard his voice, his heart resonated with such intense longing that it made his breath catch.

So Alec did the only thing he knew he could do. He talked to his mother.

He didn’t tell her that it was a warlock who caused such a strong reaction in him. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what his mother thought of Downworlders. He told her about the conflicting feelings, about the sudden yearning he couldn’t explain. He wasn’t afraid of telling her that the alpha who made him feel that way was a man. Thankfully, the gender of your mate wasn’t an issue when you were an omega capable of carrying children either way.

“Oh, Alec,” Maryse sighed as she raised her hand and touched his cheek gently as they sat together on the couch in her office, “it sounds to me like you found your mate.”

And wasn’t that a terrifying prospect.

“Just like that? I don’t even know him. I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with him?”

Which wasn’t entirely true, Alec knew. There was no such thing as fated pairs, even though the romance flicks liked to overuse the trope. Each person had many possibilities of mates they could meet at any point in their lives. Furthermore, all relationships required work and patience, not just fate. Finding a possible mate did not mean that Alec had to tie himself to them indefinitely. People fall in and out of love all the time, and mating did not have to mean life-long commitment. Mating bonds could be broken and forged anew with different people at any given time.

“You’re not supposed to do anything but find out if he’s your match,” Maryse told him fiercely. “No one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do. This is your life, Alec, and only you can decide what makes you happy.”

And so he did.

They went on dates.

Alec was apprehensive at first. Magnus was an alpha warlock, and that always lit up a warning light in him due to the Iris Rouse case, which was still open. What could Magnus - beautiful, powerful Magnus - want with a plain, boring shadowhunter like himself? The fact that he was an omega had to play some important part in all of this. The fact that he could carry children for a warlock had to mean something.

And yet, during the dates they went on he couldn’t help but find himself falling more and more for Magnus. The alpha was a perfect gentleman, not pushing him any further than he was comfortable with, and always careful of not invading Alec’s personal space.

“I lived in times where an omega was considered property of an alpha,” Magnus told him one evening, “and I think it was one of the darkest parts of history. If I ever start acting like a caveman, feel free to shoot me full of arrows.”

It was a little over a month of dating - that no one except for Izzy and Jace knew about - that he kissed Magnus for the first time.

They were saying goodbye after a date night, which started at a Greek restaurant and ended with drinks at Magnus’ place. Magnus was just about to open a portal that would take Alec back to the Institute when Alec gently grasped his elbow, backed Magnus against a wall and kissed him. It was not fast and sudden. No, he had given Magnus enough time to stop him, but the warlock merely tilted his head up into the kiss.

It was Alec’s first kiss. It started out a little hesitantly, a little clumsily, and very much without finesse, but what he lacked in experience he made up in enthusiasm. His body was crowding Magnus’ against the wall, which the alpha didn’t mind much, at first. Then he pulled Alec close by circling his waist, bit gently at Alec’s lower lip and took over the kiss, dominating it completely and utterly. Alec all but melted against him and the empty, burning void inside of him started aching a little less.

Alec chose to spend his next heat in Alicante once more, not ready to share a heat with Magnus when they still had not even seen each other naked. It was rougher than usual, if only because his mind kept circling back to Magnus over and over again, making him more aroused than he was comfortable with. He was insanely grateful that heats spent in isolation lasted only two days.

He hoped that by the time his next heat came, in another six months, he would be ready to share it with Magnus.

“A warlock, Alec? Really?!”

His mother’s voice was loud and somewhat shrill, the disbelief ringing clear across every word. It grated on his nerves, made his hackles rise and buzz underneath his skin like an itch he could not scratch.

Lately, everything he did was met with some kind of disapproval, but he didn’t have time for this. Hodge had betrayed them. Jace was missing and still in Valentine’s grasp. And, while his parents played politics in Idris, trying to smooth things out with the Clave, Alec had been desperately trying to get his parabatai back.

Then, of course, things had to get worse. Maryse came back to New York two days prior and someone had already reported to her that Alec and Magnus had been dating for months. How they found out, Alec had no idea. Although, it was bound to be revealed sooner or later, especially since Alec did not intend to let Magnus go anytime soon.

“You know how alpha warlocks are,” Maryse hissed, venom dripping from her words, “they only want one thing from omegas like you! You can give them something they otherwise can’t have and I can’t believe you would fall for Bane’s deception. You’re going to drag the Lightwood name through the mud for him?”

“There isn’t a lot of good reputation to our name left, Mother, and that is your fault, not mine,” Alec spat out, trying to keep his anger reigned in, feeling it rise inside of him, wave after dangerous wave. “I don’t have the time for this. Jace is still gone, Aldertree is making our work more difficult than it should be, and I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

“I didn’t raise you to be some warlocks whore!” Maryse grabbed his shoulder when he turned around to leave and that was it, the fragile control he had over his own emotions snapped at the sound of her authoritative tone.

“ENOUGH!” Alec growled at her as he spun around and grabbed her by the wrist, yanking the offending hand away from his shoulder. She took an instinctive step back and, through the red haze of fury, Alec noticed how her eyes went wide, how a brief expression of fear flashed through her face. It brought him grim sense of satisfaction, knowing she didn’t expect his outburst. Alec wasn’t prone to anger often and never, ever, had he turned that anger on her.

Not until now.

“You once told me that no one has the right to tell me how to live my life,” Alec hissed, his tone low and husky, and with a hint of steel underneath his words. “That no one can tell me how to achieve my own happiness, or who I should tie myself to, as long as it was my choice. Well, this is my choice and you don’t get to have a say in it. I will not allow you to talk about Magnus that way. Not now, not ever. If he’s a mistake - which I highly doubt - he will be my mistake. You don’t have the right to interfere. You are my mother, but you’re not my alpha. Not anymore. Do I make myself clear?”

Alec watched her process this, her face turning more pale. When she didn’t reply, he squeezed her wrist a little more. She was probably going to have bruises. Alec would feel guilty about them later, but at this very point he could not bring himself to care.

“I said, is that clear?”

“Yes,” she finally said and he released her, but to her credit she didn’t move away, didn’t step back away from him. “Oh, Alec…”

She reached out to him, both hands raising to his face and he resisted the urge to flinch. He wasn’t sure what she was playing at, but he wasn’t about to yield to her. He wasn’t lying when he said she was not his alpha anymore. There was only one he would yield to now, and that was not his mother.

Maryse cradled his face between her hands, gently and cautiously, her eyes softening a little as she took in the hardened expression on his face. The narrowed eyes shining with suspicion, and anger boiling inside of him, ready to burn her. He was still and unmoving and towering over her, ready to snap at any further provocation. Alec was half-feral and in protective mode. And an angered or threatened omega was dangerous.

But he was still her son, and she was the one responsible for putting him in this state.

“Magnus is the one you told me about,” Maryse said, sudden understanding in her voice. She was running her thumbs soothingly down Alec’s sharp cheekbones, hoping that the familiar gesture would help calm him down. “Easy now, easy. I didn’t mean to make you so angry.” Her soft whispers eased some of the tension from Alec’s shoulders, just like they always did when she brought him down from the adrenaline rush that triggered feral episodes. “I’m so sorry, my sweet boy. I didn’t understand. I know now that he’s your mate.”

Alec closed his eyes and shivered, thinking about Magnus. His loving eyes and soothing scent and reverent touch. He had never put a label on their relationship, but his mother was not wrong. The intense, painful longing he felt whenever they were apart, the elation that filled him to the brim whenever he was near the older man, when he could breathe in his scent, touch his warm skin. It all sounded like an incomplete bond.

And Magnus...

Magnus was his mate.

Alec turned his head to nuzzle deeper into the pillow and desperately tried to forget about the disaster of an evening they’d just had. Max’s party had been a failure due to the spell that was cast over all of them. Because of Alec’s overwhelming guilt over Jocelyn's death, elevated by the spell, he’d nearly thrown himself over Magnus’ balcony. He didn’t do it, but it was close. The only thing that stopped him, seconds before it was too late, was the faint, barely-there scent he caught in Magnus’ apartment.

The memory of it was stuck in his head. His mind snapped out of the spell’s hold as soon as he caught trace of it. It was a scent he could never forget. A bizarre mix of tulips, ginger root, and dust. He would forever associate this scent with the stench of terror and pain and suffering.

He ran through the apartment trying to locate the source. His frantic behavior must have been enough to alarm the others. Magnus tried to get his attention, to calm him down, but it wasn’t working. Alec seemed to be focused only on his task, hell-bent on finding the threat and eliminating it.

How dare she? How could she come into this apartment, into their territory, and hide away like a coward? Just the faintest trace of her scent was enough to make Alec’s hackles rise and his skin crawl. This time she was not going to get away from him.

He found her in Magnus’ bedroom, disguised in the form of a cat. Alec rushed at her, but she shifted into human form just in time to cast a spell that pushed him back.

Iris Rouse.

What happened afterward, Alec wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember most of it. He’d been immobilized with magic for half of the fight and then blinded with rage for the rest of it. He knew that Magnus fought Iris and trapped her in his own spell. He knew that Jace had to hold Alec down to keep him away from tearing into Iris with his bare hands. He would have. He would have choked the life out of her there on the spot if he only had a chance. But now she was in Idris, awaiting the Clave’s judgment.

And he was here, in Magnus’ bed hiding his face in a soft pillow, trying to muffle the world around him. He wasn’t running high on adrenaline anymore, but his body hadn’t gotten the memo. Every muscle in his body was tense and he was ready to fight, even though his brain already knew there was nothing more to be done.

He didn’t flinch when he felt the bed dip next to him. Then Magnus was there, lying down next to Alec, his arm coming around Alec’s shoulders to hold him close.

“She’s gone, Alec. You can rest now.”

Alec made a wounded, angry sound and abandoned his pillow, choosing to hide his face away in the crook of Magnus’ neck instead. The warlock’s scent there was strong, easing his mind a little, filling his lungs as he took in shaky breaths.

“The things she did to those omegas,” Alec rasped out, trying desperately not to think back to the horrors of Iris’ experiments and failing. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Iris’ victims. He couldn’t stop his mind from going in circles and wondering what stroke of luck had spared him from the same fate, from being bound and broken and violated in a way you couldn’t ever recover from, not really. As a male omega, he would have been an attractive target for Iris, if she only knew of his existence. “I could have killed her. I will kill her if I ever see her again.”

“She’s going to pay for what she’s done,” Magnus whispered as he ran his fingers through Alec’s black hair in an attempt to calm him down. Alec’s scent filled the air between them. It was sour, unhappy, and that put Magnus on edge as well. “And you are the one who figured out she was here in the first place. You caught an intruder in my lair.” Magnus paused for a moment. “In our lair. You did good, love.”

Their lair. That sounded… nice. A space that they could share as one territory, theirs to protect. To nest in. It was something that usually only happened between mated pairs and Alec couldn’t help the warm, happy feeling that bloomed deep in his chest.

They took their relationship to the next level not long after that since Alec didn’t want his first time to happen in the middle of his heat. He didn’t want the rush of hormones and haze of lust to cloud the experience.

And oh, it was definitely an experience. Alec grew up thinking he would always be alone since he never showed interest in any alpha, but this? This was something else. Magnus worshipped his body, taught him the wonders of shared intimacy that were just on the razor edge of being overwhelming.

Alec let himself fall, knowing that Magnus would be there to catch him.

“Your mother and I always had a complicated relationship.”

Alec snorted in disbelief, not lifting his eye from the tablet in his hand as he scanned over the latest report from the previous night’s patrol. The group had not encountered anything out of the ordinary, which gave Alec hope that things might finally be leveling out, even just a little bit. Valentine was in custody and most of his followers were scattered. The Clave had acknowledged his leadership in the battle, thankfully disregarding Alec's rebellion against Aldertree.

Everything led up to this moment. Discovering Izzy’s addiction. Taking back control of the Institute. The battle. Confronting Valentine and his shadowhunters. And now the Clave had named him Head of the Institute. This was what he had been aiming for ever since he was a child.

“It’s not complicated.” Alec put down the tablet after signing off on the report, sending it to be archived. He finally looked up at his father, sitting on one of the sofas in his office. His office. It still blew his mind. “You cheated on her.”

“I made a mistake,” Robert said, looking down for a moment before shifting his gaze to Alec once more. “I never meant to hurt you, any of you. But I fell in love. You of all people should know what that’s like.”

“Magnus isn’t an affair!” Alec growled, slamming an open palm down on the desk, the sudden loud thump making Robert twitch in response. “I won’t allow you to disrespect him. He is my mate. And mom was yours. Until you decided to throw it all away.”

They were silent for a minute. Alec closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to control his feelings. Ever since realizing what Magnus meant to him, his emotions were all over the place. Logically, he knew it was a period of adjustment that he needed to get through. The fierce protectiveness over his mate would ease away in time, but until then he was ready to go to war for Magnus, even against his own father.

“I can understand falling for someone else,” Alec finally said. “People fall in and out of love all the time. That’s just how life is. You don’t have to stay with your mate for the rest of your days.” He looked at his father and saw the tiniest flicker of hope in his eyes, a hope for reconciliation.

He was about to crush that hope, hard, and didn’t feel any remorse.

“But going behind Mom’s back, continuing your affair? That’s what I can’t forgive. You should have ended things with Mom before you started seeing someone else. But now you’re not being truthful to either of them. You’re just another alpha being led around by his knot.”

“Alec!” Robert’s expression turned angry and he stood up from his seat, his entire body one tense line. “I won’t allow you to talk to me like that!”

“Why?” Alec asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because I am an omega? So is your mistress, remember?”

“Because you’re my son! You will show me some respect.”

“Respect is earned, Dad.” Alec hissed, narrowing his eyes. He remained seated behind his desk, anger churning inside of him freely, but it was the icy-cold kind of fury that washed over him with a false sense of tranquility. He did not need to shout or get angry to get his point across. “It’s also as easily lost, and you lost all respect I had for you when you chose to hurt your family. Mom was your mate for over twenty years - she deserved more than being cheated on and made into the new hot gossip of Idris.”

“Alec, you don’t have the right to--”

“I have every right,” Alec interrupted him, his voice low and dangerous. Robert’s eyes widened when he realized that he was stepping on thin ice now. “Out of the two of you, it was Mom who was my alpha. It was never you. She was my alpha and you broke her heart.”

Alec had hurt people for less.

“Unless it’s official business, we have nothing more to talk about.” Alec picked up his previously discarded tablet and turned it on. “Not until you fix your own mess. Now, I have the Institute to run. I trust you can let yourself out.”

“Alec…” Robert’s voice was quiet and defeated now, but Alec wasn’t looking at him any more.

“You can go,” Alec said and sighed with relief when Robert left his office without a word.

“Are you nervous?”

Magnus’ breath washed over the heated skin of his forehead and Alec closed his eyes as he shivered, half in anticipation and half in fear.

“Yes,” he finally admitted, his voice shaky, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

Which wasn’t entirely true. Alec had academic knowledge of how heats should go, he wasn’t going into it blind. He knew that his heat would last from two to four days, during which his temperature would spike and, if a compatible alpha was near, he would experience a heightened state of arousal. Not enough to make his crazy with it (no matter how online porn liked to pretend that omegas in heat turned into knot-obsessed slaves that alphas could do anything with) but enough to make things very uncomfortable if he didn’t have sex. His pheromones would, in turn, trigger an alpha into a rut so that they could go through their heats together.

It all sounded very… clinical. Alec wasn’t sure how he felt about the aspects of his biology that only happened during heats. He wasn’t looking forward to experiencing the feeling of producing his own slick or having Magnus knot him - something he was pretty sure was going to hurt, at least at first.

He tried to approach it like a battle for which he could plan ahead. He scheduled himself a week off work, just in case this first heat went for longer than usual, which wasn’t uncommon. He left his siblings in charge and threatened them with bodily harm if they disturbed them for any reason, save for the apocalypse dropping on their heads or Raziel himself demanding his attention.

He also made sure his contraceptive shot was still active since he had no intention of having a child anytime soon. Alec had been wary of admitting this to Magnus, but the warlock only smiled, told Alec that it was his decision and he had all the time in the world to wait and see if he changed his mind one day.

So, all in all, Alec felt like he was ready.

Despite all this knowledge, despite all the facts he had researched and learned about, nothing could have prepared him for actually feeling the effects of the heat. The hot rush of pure want that filled him as they laid on the bed together touching and kissing, the need building up like an inferno, making Alec’s skin feel like it was on fire. The fabric of his clothes seemed like a branding iron, scalding and hurting, and he whined in the back of his throat at the uncomfortable feeling.

“You don’t need to be scared,” Magnus said, kissing Alec in between sentences. Pressing small, brief kisses over his lips, the bridge of his nose, his closed eyelids. “I’ll take care of you.”

“I know,” Alec panted, squirming a little until he could reach to strip off his shirt and then yanked Magnus’ own tunic off his body, relishing in the way cool air hit his overheated skin, “I trust you.”

That was what this was. For over a decade, he'd spent his heats alone, in isolation from the outside world. Now he had finally found someone who he trusted with his life, with his body. Someone who would stay with him when he was the most vulnerable.

“Magnus,” Alec whispered as the warlock shifted them around until Alec ended up on his back, Magnus nestled in between his legs. They were both hard. Alec shivered.

“How do you feel?” Magnus asked, pressing their foreheads together. One of his hands settled over Alec’s sternum, feeling his heart beating wildly inside of his chest like a bird caught in a cage.

“Hot,” Alec panted. “Too hot. Is it… is it always like this?”

“Yes, but it will get better. It’s just the first rush. It will ease soon.” Magnus kissed him again slowly, possessively, owning Alec’s mouth and Alec surrendered with the sweetest sigh.

“Can you feel it?” Alec asked after a moment, gripping onto Magnus’ hair with trembling fingers as the warlock mouthed at his neck, covering it in his marks. “The bond?”

Magnus made an affirmative noise and Alec closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling. The beginning of a bond thrumming between them. He had felt it for the last couple of months, but it would only be complete with a shared heat. Alec was more than ready to take the leap, to tie himself to this wonderful, brilliant man who turned out to be his shining star, his beacon towards which he had been gravitating his entire life.

Alec allowed himself to fall apart, trusting Magnus to put him back together. To gather all his broken pieces and make him whole again, until Alec felt brand new and loved and complete.

#malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters #alpha-beta-omega #the mortal instruments #tmi #malec headcanons #headcanons

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thotragnar0k · 6 years

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i’ve been occasionally vague in my tags recently (don’t know if anyone actually reads them when i do add them but anyway) and I figured i should probably explain myself.

this past month of august has been really hard for all the good things that have happened in it. i’ve been feeling really upset about my body, my eating habits and my lifestyle, and while i thought being at home wasn’t helping, i was wrong (for reasons that will be explained in this super long post - i am so sorry people who don’t care about me).

i’ve never been happy with my weight. friends of mine have probably noticed that i put myself down a lot - saying self-deprecating things like I’m ugly and one such thing today i’m nowhere near pretty enough to a) marry rich and b) have a sugar daddy (you don’t need context here) - and it’s a problem i am subconsciously trying to fix.

but as i was saying, my body and i have never been on good terms. i think that my curves are in all the wrong places, and i feel like i’m in that gross in-between where no clothes look good on me, and I don’t have the right proportions for my tall (5′7-5′8) body.

i celebrated my 20th birthday this year, twice technically. Once a few days before with my friends and another the weekend of with my family. Firstly the night out with my friends. Sidenote: I’m not a ‘night out’ kind of girl. I don’t really like to get hammered. I will, I just won’t drink so much that I’ll throw up - mostly because I’m lazy and down want to have to clean. But as we were all at home, I figured fuck it, lets go out-out. Sometimes you just need to go out and get drunk with some friends.

three things happened that night that made me hate myself. three things, I don’t think I’ve actually told my friends (both of which are on tumblr and may see this if i don’t mass reblog other things immediately after it), or if i have I’ve played it off.

the first thing: my choice of outfit. again body issues. and lack of night out clothing. i don’t own any jeans that actually sit on my waist. i have high waisted jeans but unfortunately they always slip down to my hips (under my muffin top). my friends looked gorgeous. i felt like i stood out, but in a really bad way. sure the dress i wore was nice, but it wasn’t anything like the outfits they were wearing; jeans and a fancy top.

the second thing: dancing on a bar in coyote ugly. i did it because, you only dance on a bar once and they were doing it. i can’t dance. i have zero rhythm in this body. dancing on a bar did nothing to help my self confidence. i felt like everybody was watching me and judging me and it made me want to disappear into my bed and never leave it again.

and the third thing, also happening in coyote ugly; riding a rodeo bull. sure i’d love to say that i was too drunk to care. but i wasn’t. i was tipsy sure, but not too drunk. the thing that made me hate myself during this section of the night out - i couldn’t even get on the bull. my thick ass thighs kept sticking to the seat of the bull and my weak arms couldn’t pull my fat ass up. Sure I got up eventually, but the embarrassment of not being able to get on a rodeo bull was enough to completely slam dunk my self esteem into a trash can and into a bottomless pit. so that was fantastic.

concerning the weekend with my family; i found myself crying in the bathroom silently before we went to cardiff because i wanted to dress up nice because we were going to a nice steakhouse, but my problems with my body just made me want to hide under a big baggy jumper.

and i did. i found my biggest, baggiest jumper and i hid in it, because I couldn’t stand to see my disgusting body in something vaguely form fitting. no one commented on it, no one cared, but i did. and to be honest, i think it ruined my birthday.

and thats so sad, that such a small insignificant thing could ruin a while day. but it did. and to me it didn’t feel like a small, insignificant thing. it felt like a huge weight on my shoulder, drowning me completely. it also impacted my relationship with my boyfriend. he noticed that i haven’t been texting him as much as i usually do (not that im crazy, i just like to know how his day is going) and when we were conversing I was barely responding and being quite distant. and i hate it that that’s a thing i do; isolating myself to deal with my problems. i’m better now. i talk to him as much as i used to do, if not slightly less because i have nothing to do at the moment and there’s no point texting him for a cuddle because i’m not anywhere near each other for that instant gratification.

there have been many a night this summer where i have depersonalised (link here for those who want to know more) because of these issues, and its so hard to pull myself out of that floaty feeling. I’m better at it now than I used to be, but it’s still so hard.

i’ve had so many things i need to do in preparation for third year of uni but these episodes of depersonalisation have really stood in the way of actually doing that. i’ve got photos of a mutual that i need to retouch and send back to her but i can’t pick up the energy to sit at my laptop and do that work because i feel disconnected to part of my body.

and knowing she’ll read this, she’ll say just send them over to me un-edited; but the nit-picky, perfectionist part of my brain refuses to let me do that. i can’t send them to you because these aren’t perfect. they aren’t right. i can’t send them because this stray hair is out of place or this photo isn’t quite correctly exposed and sure, it seems trivial but it isn’t to me.

i went to a convention this past weekend; asylum steampunk in lincoln. i was helping my mum sell her books, occasionally assisting a photographer and his team, and running around taking photos. it was an odd convention; i felt as though i’d both done a lot and nothing at the same time. usually i feel so tired after a multiple day convention that i need a four day nap to catch up. but i was actually okay.

i learned a lot about myself at that convention. firstly, i oddly like talking to people and selling books. sure it’s hella tiring for just sitting behind a stall and occasionally selling a product. but chatting to people was actually really nice. my family tend to stick to ourselves. for welsh people (y’know that stereotype that welsh people never shut up) we don’t tend to socialise much, and networking is not our strongest asset.

the other thing i, well i guess i re-learned; photographing people at conventions for fun is actually fun. For the past three or four conventions i’ve been to - comic, gaming and steampunk - i’ve always been thinking about how i can use the photos as a series for university. but this time; i wasn’t thinking about that. i wasn’t caring if the background was any good, or if the lighting was perfect. i was just taking the photos. and it was so relaxing and fun. it wasn’t work.

for three of the four days we were at that convention, i got into the spirit and i dressed up for it. One of the outfits, that was sort of like a steampunk-y mechanic was a wide-full leg jumpsuit that my mum and i made together a few weeks before. i tracked half of my journey of that on twitter, (the bits i did, the cutting the fabric etc - my mum actually sewed the whole thing together- though i did give her a shoutout on twitter for all her hardwork). I actually really enjoyed wearing that outfit (mostly because the pockets were s o b i g), for the other two days i went slightly more piratey, wearing striped brown and black l=pants and a flowey striped white shirt one day and a light lace skirt and off the shoulder top on the other. that skirt, i don’t know why i don’t wear it more often (aside from the fact it doesn’t fit any outfits i have and i’ll look like an idiot wearing it anywhere other than a convention) because i think i look so good in it (baring in mind the lack of body positivity i have, this is a big deal).

the other thing that i’ve been doing this summer is i’ve been getting into make-up and even fashion i guess, trying to learn how to do that stuff (man it’s hard, why didn’t i start earlier). make-ups not so much of a problem in what i’m about to talk about, but watching fashion videos on youtube is rather annoying when you’re an average to slightly above average weight. I’ve not found (until today, the videos i’m watching right now as i write this) any youtubers that are fashion related that are anywhere near the shape/weight that i am. They’re either super skinny waifs who can fit into anything they want (and like that one i saw, saying that a size fourteen is a great size for oversized clothing - bitch please, stop) or plus size and self confident with those curves in the right places and much bigger than i can relate to. not that there’s a problem with either, there’s just not as much representation for the ‘average’ person. there probably is and i just haven’t found it (currently watching lucy wood) and i need to look better into it. i can guarantee that is definitely the case. but still i’d love youtube to recommend those youtubers to me please.

something that i did realise from the steampunk weekend was that i was so busy ‘working’ if you can call it that, that i forgot to eat the crap that i usually eat during the day, and i guess i forgot to drink water (which is not a good thing, drink water kids). but the main thing is not eating crap all day, paired with the amount of walking i did that weekend (almost 30,000 steps over four days) has actually made me lose half a stone since the last time i weighed myself at the end of july. (so i’m very pleased about this)

so sure, while third year is going to be so, so stressful, i’m making steps towards feeling better about myself and making sure i do 5-10 thousand steps a day and not eat as much crap as i usually do, but most importantly; learning to love myself and my body.

oh my god this post is so long. i’m so sorry anyone who reads all this.

tl,dr: the month of august has been depressing, body issues galore and i’m probably being ridiculous but i’m trying to get better.

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meowsaidmayaanime · 6 years

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Anime I've Dropped

Its just as important to talk about the anime I dropped as it is to talk about the anime I've watched through to the end. I will drop an anime for a variety of reasons, not necessarily because I don't like it. It's also good to have this list so I know what I need to finish watching.

-Nisekoi (November, ep 12)

Its not bad, and if I was younger I would probably watch it in its entirety. I just find myself getting more and more tired of the romance comedy where crazy ridiculous things are thrown in to progress the story and add 'complexity'. It is funny, but I don't like many of the female characters (and its a harem show) and I'm starting to doubt things will ever get resolved and that the main male will never get together with the only sensible real female character that I like. Maybe if I find out more about what direction it goes in I'll continue watching. But as it stands I spent the last 3 episodes skipping scenes to get to the stuff I actually care about. And when that happens on a show the first time yousee it, its a good indicator that you should stop watching.

-ON HOLD Mushishi (October, ep)

I actually really like this anime so far, but because its so intense and dark, its not something that I can binge as easily as the vaste majority of my other anime. You kind of have to be in the mood to watch it? Anyway, I intend to keep watching it but it wil be a few episodes every once in a while. I'll keep you updated on when I'm actually finished

-New Game (September, ep 3)

It's not bad, and in fact it something I normally would watch and enjoy. Right before watching these two episodes I completed Shirobako which is an amazing and realistic 'natural' anime about anime production. However this one so far, rather than being about what its like to work in the game industry, is a very moe anime about the characters alone. I feel as though the characters could be put in any other job, and it would not affect the anime at all. Some words and job titles would be changed, but not the 'meat' of the content. It's still cute, and I plan to pick it up again to see what ends up happening. Just, it wasn't a good one to start with right after watching an anime on the same topic but be so different, haha.

-Ben-To (July, ep 2)

Wow, this sure was... something. The premise was amusing, but through the first episode I kept finding myself asking when it would be over, and when something would actually happen. Immediately I realized this was going to fall into a harem trope, with types of characters I find off-putting. I didn't get far, so I can't say much else about it. I lost interest, real fast.

-Ann-Happy (June, ep 10)

This show is just moe upon moe. Its a slice of life following five incredibly unlucky girls as they attend high school. If fact they are so unlucky that the highschool has a designated "happiness class" for about 30 or so unlucky students, where in addition to taking regular classes, they take special classes in order to make the students less unlucky and be able to find happiness despite their luck. Its very cute, and I watched most of it, however I was mostly watching it with my friend, and since we are so behind on our anime we decided to finish all the spring simulcasts on our own so we can get started with a couple summer ones. It's not a bad anime, just too much moe, and no real plot.

-The Lost Village (June, ep 9)

The lost village starts off following a bus load of people who want to leave their current lives and start anew in a mysterious isolated village where no one from the modern society can find them. It's an interesting anime apart of the horror genre the first episode seemed really good, but it gets tiring quickly. Especially since every single episode after the first seems to end on incredibly enormous cliff hangers. Its hard to pin point why it was disappointing as the episodes went on, perhaps its because so much happens in every episode, or the majority of the characters are not very likable, or the fact that every single character has a hard/traumatizing back story, and there are 37 characters! Not to mention that they tend to gang up on each other, do crazy things and occasionally follow the mob mentality.

In the end I lost interest and stopped watching it, maybe I'll finish the episodes in the future? Probably not though. It just got very tiresome and I'm sick of the forced tension caused by the endless cliffhangers...

-Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro (June, ep 7?)

In reality I was only watching this because one of my friends liked it. I personally am not a friend, so she watched on her own rather than together with our other simulcasts. It's an interesting story, and has its moments. I can see why she likes it, it's pretty well done, just not my thing. I won't finish watching it.

-Joker Game (June, ep 8)

Its a well done series, but because I was watching it as a simulcast and because by episode 8, almost every episode worked as a stand alone. So because of that, I wasn't highly anticipating the next episode at the end of every week. I do intend to continue watching this. especially now that all the spring simulcasts I've been watching are over. Though it may be a while until I continue it again.

-And You Thought There Is Never A Girl Online (June, ep 6 or 7?)

Like Konosuba, this is another boob fest, but with significantly more fan service. I like the Ecchi anime's but not as big of a fan when it comes to fan service. Too many female characters surrounding one singular boy. I don't like the main female character either. So yeah. Not going to continue watching.

-Durarara (June, ep 5) *NO LONGER DROPPED, SEE ADDENDUM*

This show is actually kind of interesting. I do want to watch more of it, especially considering that it's relatively popular. I only dropped it because it wasn't as gripping as some other anime's that I was watching at the same time. So if fell off my radar because of it. It runs at a slower pace, and I wanted to know more about the main male character the anime opens up with. Maybe its also because they introduced too many characters with too little information on who they are that I lost a little interest. Any matter, I want to continue watching it and give it another try. I'm not not sure when... ADDENDUM (August): I came back to Durarara and I love it! I finished the first season and am watching the second season part 3 and oh man so much is going down. I talked about season one HERE.

-Konosuba: Gods Blessing on this wonderful world (May, ep 5)

I enjoyed watching the first few episodes, and I thought it was going to be a fun anime, but instead it turned into a HUGE boob fest. One male character surrounded by questionable female characters. Not to mention two of which were rather annoying. It just felt so tried and stereotypical. It was funny, and the main two characters have a fun dynamic. Honestly if there were more male characters and if the extra added female ones were more likable I would have continued watching it. But sadly, I'd have to say that I'm no longer interested and probably wont continue watching.

-Is the Order a Rabbit (May, ep 3)

It's not a bad anime by any means, Its just too much of a slice of life. There isn't any real plot, even withing the episodes and its slow paced. I tend to like slice of life, for example The Daily Lives of High School Boys is slice of life and has no plot either, but what makes it so enjoyable was that it was more so a comedy than a slice of life. This anime however seems to be only slice of life with no other genre... It's not bad, just not my type of anime. I probably won't be coming back to it.

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