#And the sensing of secrecy

[snapeaddict]

Snapetober Day 3 - Path

Inspired by @sneverussape's headcanons

"You go down that way, ya walk for 20 minutes and then there's the factory right to your left. My pals' boys usually wait for us there. We come out at 5. I can show you the machines."

The tall man turned his gaze to the child by his side, waiting for an answer. As usual, the boy was lost in a world of his own; fucking nothing could be done to make him swap out of it for good. He shook his shoulder brutally.

"Oi, kid! You listening to me?"

Fearful black eyes met his, the very same as Eileen's.

"Yes, da'", Severus replied in a small voice, the kind his father found vaguely enraging for no justifiable reason.

Did he have to sound so girlish, so weak? Why couldn't he be like the other boys? He was already a laughing stock as it was. Too much brain like his mum, but unwilling to put his hands in the dirt, unlike her.

Sure, the kid did well in school. But he also came home all bruised. One look at him and you knew he was the one to beat up – he looked just like these poor lads on the battlefield, barely 18, crying for their mums in the midst of bombs everywhere.

Not one of them had made it.

The other boys, they came to try their hand at the machines, they went to the pub with their fathers, or to boxing matches. Severus read. He hated sports and never said a word at Church. He didn’t want to put his tongue in the glass of liquor like the other kids. If he came home dirty, it was only because he had been on the hunt for some animal by the river, or piking bloody weeds he stoked up by the side of the house. Might as well have come home with flower bouquets.

Tobias knew nothing about books, or animals, or plants.

Severus had nothing to say, to him at least. And Eileen, he could tell, secretly liked it. That he was different. Tobias hated her for that. She enabled him. When she looked at the boy, there was pride. Where did it come from? Why did she come alive all of a sudden?

He couldn’t make her happy, but Severus could, that was what.

In front of him and the boy, the path divided itself in two. The right side led deeper into Cokeworth, it was all black and dirty because the guys from the mine used it to come home – Tobias had been fired only six months ago. Disorderly conduct, they had said. More like they needed to cut their expenses. He didn’t like the dark and the loud noises anyway.

The left side of the path wasn’t used much. It crossed the river to the nicer part of town, there were mulberries and wildflowers growing over it. It crossed the bridge and led straight to a nice playground for the nice kids up there. Their parents would rather they play elsewhere, Tobias had heard. Nasty kids attending the only school in town was already an issue: no need for their spick and span offspring to mingle with them after school hours.

“You go home now”, he told his son abruptly. “I need to get to work. You can come by at 5 if you want.”

-

The bell rang at last. The guys put down their stuff and went outside to stretch. Their boys had been waiting there for some time already, playing football.

Tobias looked around, but saw no Severus. He had cleaned his machine thoroughly to show him. He watched as John’s kid sat on his father’s knees, dirty nails clinging to his father’s shirt. Severus never got near him like that. But that was good, wasn’t it? A boy like this didn’t need more coddling. Good spankings made for strong boys.

It looked nice, though.

He needed a drink.

-

He stumbled home and asked Eileen where the boy was.

“He’s not here”, she told him. “He left a bit before 5.”

He cursed under his breath and cracked another beer open.

-

He watched, leaning unsteadily against a tree, as Severus sat down in the grass behind a bush, at a safe distance from the playground. There were two girls there, a blond one and a redhead. The boy was looking at them with a sort of fascination that infuriated him.

Let him play with girls and lick the boots of the better off, Tobias thought confusedly. He'll learn soon enough that this won't make the world any kinder to him.

He turned on his heel, and never again cleaned his working surface at the factory.

#Trying something different #On the tragedy of father and son being strangers #And the sensing of secrecy #pro snape #severus snape #snapetober #snapetober 2023 #tobias snape #eileen snape #snapedom #severus snape fanfiction

[kairenn-n]

He wanted it comfortable I wanted that pain

(x)

#okay LISTEN bear with me #ignoring like the whole song these lines have been HAUNTING me #pain as in destiny. pain as in changing tradition. pain as in bearing years of secrecy and sacrifice for him #am i making any sense #merlin #merthur

[fayesdiary]

reverse unpopular opinion for....aw heck, go ahead with Rhea for this one as well

This might as well be a part 2 to the previous Rhea ask so :D

I find Rhea to be so compelling for several reasons, one of the biggest being the inherent contradiction that she is very much capable of caring, loving and trusting others, sometimes with some insane gestures when you realize their meaning behind them (ie. Saving Jeralt's life by giving him her blood thus risking outing herself because of it, letting Catherine keep Thunderbrand despite the fact it's the one Relic she could safely recover- implicitly trusting her with one of her family's remains without any obligation to do so, risk angering a noble house to give Cyril a better life and treating him like her son in all but name)... And yet she cannot, for the life of her, bring herself to be honest with them.

Something fascinating I noticed about Rhea is that she ironically seems to prefer people who are blunt with her, because look at the people she's closest to - Seteth spends all of Part 1 openly questioning her, Flayn is constantly on the verge of accidentally outing herself, Cyril is so direct and honest he sometimes accidentally comes off as rude (Shamir too even if she's not as close to Rhea) and Catherine wears her heart on her sleeve.

Heck, all of them are either not that religious or outright non-believers, which ironically I believe helps reassure Rhea they love her because of who she is as a person and not because she's the archbishop, especially given how much she implies to find the position incredibly alienating.

And isn't that just so fascinating? That she is more than capable than loving others and caring for them risking her own personal safety, she appreciates people being honest with her.... But cannot, will not be entirely honest with them in turn.

Because make no mistake, that right there is Rhea's true fatal flaw: her compulsive need to keep everything a secret.

From the big but understandable stuff that would get her and her family scrapped for parts if it became public to downright pointless shit to hide like not liking hot drinks, and it's the one trait that screws her over the most, between being the reason Jeralt left (since she didn't tell him ANYTHING about what happened with Byleth so he assumed the worst and fled) and the thing preventing her from making connections as deep as she actually wants (like even just telling her loved ones how much they mean to her), as well as getting the support she actually needs. And because she feels she has to bear everything on her shoulders, she crumbles under the weight because no matter how hard she tries, she will never be good enough.

In that sense the role of archbishop is a sort of mask to her. It's definitely a part of her, but also something she has sort of burrowed into like a safety net preventing her from being true to herself. Because that'd mean making herself vulnerable, in more ways than one. To say nothing about putting her surviving family and remnants of her dead kin to jeopardy.

If she were to open up she'd be... More lively, I think. Definitely sillier if Heroes is any indication, and arguably more willing to take a direct approach in helping people. And definitely more loved and happier.

And perhaps, one day she'd realize she doesn't need to bring her mom back to fix Fódlan. She's not doing it alone anymore, after all.

#ask replies #loregoddess #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe16 #fe16 spoilers #rhea #my rambles #is this coherent in any way? definitely not #i just love rhea as a deconstruction of the mikoto archetype #she wants to be like mikoto and lumera so bad but she can never measure up to them #and instead of seeking the help of others to compensate she tries to bring her goddess mom back #she's a foil to alear in that sense. i love them so much for different reasons #and i think they'd be great friends #like rhea's whole secrecy complex is definitely a product of her trauma #and i love it. i wanna put her in a test chamber and see how she functions #anyway again sorry for pretty much dumping words at random😅

[iidsch]

Evrart is a very intriguing character to me because on one hand he couldn't be shadier - he acts like a salesman trying to get you into his pyramid scheme, he's going to fund his syndicate through drug trafficking and he wants to start a war that will get many of his men killed - but on the other it makes you wonder... what if his plans work out and improve Martinaise. He asks you to open some guy's door and at first it seems suspicious but when you find out it belongs to Gary the Cryptofascist you don't feel as bad about it. The construction of the youth center is going to drive people away but at the same time it is a youth center in an incredibly impoverished area that has been forgotten by the Coalition. And even though he is the union leader, most if not all of the union members you see are fine with his behavior, willing to die for his ideas and proposals. Not to mention that, unlike Joyce and Wild Pines, the union is a force of good so it will always be preferable to support it than to defend a powerful capitalist company like Wild Pines. But, despite all that, he comes off as such a corrupt character, especially when compared to Joyce - who is so pleasant, cooperative and agreeable - that it makes you doubt and wonder if you're doing the right thing by siding with him.

#m #disco elysium #the hardie boys also make the situation difficult to read because they lie to you about the murder and are super hostile to Harry and Kim #which makes sense because the police are bad and all that but all the secrecy and lies definitely make them seem suspicious #and joyce is the complete opposite of evrart - a charming character but also (draw a cross) A LIBERAL! #it's also interesting that there are multiple representants of the union but there's only one for Wild Pines #so in the union you meet an array of characters - some of which are suspicious - while Wild Pines has one rep and she's great #i dont count the mercenaries as part of wild pines since by the start of the story they've gone rogue and don't follow its orders anymore

[separatist-apologist]

idk if you said this before or not but do you have the same feeling about Bryce for Aelin too? I haven't read TOG yet but I've heard they're both so much alike specially in cc3.

Tbh I tried to reas TOG but everything I start it I dnf it after 8-10 chapters. And I started reading it once from Throne of Glass and 2 times from Assassin's Blade... and each time she pissed me off lol

I mean I heard she'll get better but apparently that's that's enough for my brain to continue it haha

Bryce is a bazillion times worse, I can explain why

Aelin, I think, makes sense in the context of her story even if she pisses me off. She's a traumatized refugee picked up by a criminal who grooms and abuses her in equal measure, which causes her to become secretive and a loner. She feels like she can't get close to people because they die or betray her, so she adopts this glib, arrogant personality to hide, I think, a lot of her insecurities.

She's also a teenager when we first meet her so a lot of her stupidity makes sense. Aelin makes mistakes and has room to grow, I think. I don't enjoy her secretive nature but I do think it made sense. Aelin is also intensely loyal and I did like that about her.

In contrast, book 3 Bryce has none of Aelins motivations but all of her arrogance. What did Bryce even want? To save her world...for what? She hated the fae, she didn't care about the humans, she was shitty to Hunt, to Sathia, to Ithan and Lidia... it very much felt like she was supposed to be this boss ass bitch that got shit done with immaculate nails but like. Aelin did it all better and with more humanity than Bryce could ever have hoped for and I believed Aelin when she wanted to save the world.

The first TOG book is hard to get through so I appreciate the dnf. SJM went wild with the exclamation points for sure. Of her heroines though, Aelin is miles better than Bryce

#did you ever think you'd see the day I was defending aelin?? #yet here I am #aelins secrecy and arrogance made sense at least

[angeltannis]

breaking the cycle of generations of my family who were taught to never tell “outsiders” anything about their personal lives by being autistic with no shame and sharing whatever with anyone

#most of the men in my family are or were alcoholics #and therefore abused their family physically emotionally etc #and they were always told ‘don’t tell your business to anyone’ #which included my mother #so I grew up with this weird sense of shame and secrecy around everything that alienated me extra bad from my peers #now that I’m older I’m like Why are we keeping this all secret? why should we suffer in silence? #I told our realtor that part of the reason we’re looking to move is to get away from my father bc he’s abusive #and my mom about died but afterward she was like ‘you know…it actually feels kinda good to have it out there #and to have people know so that they might be able to help’ #and it’s so true!! I’m not just gonna make excuses and keep all the shame inside #fuck that

[dyed-red]

Thinking about John with all the posts on the dash. Thinking about how he was such an emotionally cowardly person?

Like a brave mean tough son of a bitch who'd do what had to be done? Yes

A loving if deeply flawed father who'd face down hell and all he hates for his sons? Yes

But a coward in the face of his own shortcomings and shame? Yes

Like - let's lie to Sam his entire life and say it's to protect him when really I'm terrified of what it all might mean. Keep Sam from the burden of knowledge about how his mother died and what it all might mean, even if not knowing puts him in danger, even if it won't protect him at all, even if he's a goddamn target and needs to know -- and pretend it's protection instead of terror guiding that choice.

Because if you hide the truth long enough, then maybe just maybe you'll never to look at him and see a monster. Maybe you'll never have to look in his eyes and see the horror when he learns the truth. See the betrayal.

Because if you bury the truth deep enough maybe Sam and Dean will never learn that Mary sold them to this.

(Because John must have known, have learned at some point, we know the entries in his journal of the parents and families that Azazel visited, families that John interviewed. He knew, eventually. He was protecting her memory too, too cowardly to face that truth either.)

He does the same thing with Ellen. Never tells the boys who she is, that she's a friend, an ally, a person they can actually trust and rely on. He hides her existence from them because he blames himself for Bill's death, and ultimately he's just protecting himself from the shame. From his kids hearing that story, from having to reckon with it. He cuts Sam and Dean off from a genuine ally in his fear and in his selfishness.

(and if we allow that Kripke originally intended for Jo to be John's daughter, he cut his kids off from their actual family, their sister, so as to hide the evidence, the shame of what he did with Ellen when Bill was still around. Maybe even a little the shame of stepping out on the memory of Mary. And look where that gets Dean and Jo.)

Look at all the ways John's secrets come back to bite people, the very people he pretends he's protecting by lying to them. Lying doesn't keep people safe, it never keeps them safe. He knows what Mary's lies brought to their family.

He knows better, and yet. And yet. That's the lie he tells to himself.

It's selfish and self-serving, a child hiding the sheets after wetting the bed. It doesn't change the smell of piss.

John loves his sons. He loved his wife. He might even have loved Ellen. Loves too, in his own ornery way, Pastor Jim, Bobby, Caleb. None of this diminishes that, nor that he wanted, desperately, to protect them.

But none of that love or hope or courage or intellect diminishes this either, that John is fearful, is cowardly with his shame, and he hides like a child rather than trust the ones he loves the most.

#hmmm how on earth to tag this #is it crit? #probably but i don't mean it negatively #its more of a #character study #the perennial problem of john winchester #John crit #i guess #but in no way anti #he's flawed it's what makes him a good character #his secrecy is his tragic flaw in a sense #it moves the play forward despite being unnecessary and destructive #so easy from the outside to amend #so impossible from the inside to overcome #it was always going to be this way #so I guess I'm saying John is a tragedy #and supernatural is the aftermath #this haunting is hereditary #this haunting is architectural

[k-she-rambles]

"my radio show got people killed" How???

An apology: to be totally above board I was exaggerating. The author doesn't outright say he knows people died, but he does bring it up as a possibility as in "What we did could have gotten people imprisoned or killed and it got people imprisoned for sure."

The How: So it turns out that if it's the 60's and 70's and you insist very loudly and with great credibility

that a pan-pacific Chinese church is a dangerous cult

not only does it ruin good people's reputations on THIS side of the pacific, it's very convenient for a moral purity obsessed political movement on the other side that thinks ALL non-state organizations are cults and is looking for excuses to eradicate them.

#look at me running my mouth with no sense #on a post about people running their mouths with no sense #anyway these people were branded cultists in the US for DECADES #and some people who grew up hearing 'local church is a cult' #still believe it #they're pretty darn orthodox #but in a greek flavored way rather than latin which explains some of it #i'm reading truth matters; life matters more by hank hanegraaf #(yeah him) #at this point i don't even know what the book is about #i was blindsided by the introduction/ 'we fucked up' manifesto #hanegraaf's organization lost credibility in recanting #and trying to repair the damage #(after decades! they didn't realize what they'd done until tha aughts) #because they'd so successfully gone after local church #that a lot of people thought CRI had gone off the deep end as a cult itself #which it could be #i'm reporting this from the author's perspective i know jack #remember: authority without accountability #zero tolerance of criticism #financial secrecy #demonization of non members or those who leave #unreasonable fears about the other and the outside #all can be warning signs about cults

[sunshinereddie]

rr

#this is late night overthinking delete later thoughts but #thinking about the fact that i’ll probably never be able to be in like a real actual queer relationship #like every time i remember that and then think a lil too hard about it #it makes me so sad to the point where my stomach hurts #like im lying in bed rn thinking about it and im getting actual real pains #and it just hurts so bad both physically and emotionally #because i know that i won’t be able to come out to my parents #like i try to tell myself that one day i’ll be able to tell them but as time goes on it just doesn’t seem realistic #and i just don’t know how i could be in a queer relationship under those circumstances #and ppl will say ‘just cut them off if theyre not supportive!!!!’ but for me and my situation that’s just not possible #‘do whatever you want to do who cares what they think!!!’ you don’t know anything ab my situation stop saying this #being in a queer relationship is something that for the longest time i tried to pretend that i didn’t want #and now that i’ve finally accepted who i am and what i want #i just feel like im back in that little hole of secrecy and shame bc i know that (at least for now) i still have to pretend #that im not queer #ahhhh #sigh idek if anything of this makes sense and is coherent #thinking about this makes me cry and makes my head hurt and my stomach hurt #but i just felt like i needed to let it out #because im not out to anyone irl so i have no one to talk to about this #anyways i should probably try and sleep before i fall too far down the rabbit hole #sigh

[happypeachsludgeflower]

…wAiT!!

Bruce Wayne went to Hogwarts!!!!!!!!

#cedric diggory was just his cover name while at school #no wonder he thinks all those magic users are sus #they don’t listen to the statute of secrecy like AT ALL #and the rules their magic follows?? makes no f*** sense #doesn’t follow the laws of magic at all AND BRUCE HATES IT #and his whole stint of being killed dead from moldy? yea he just came back. it’s a think that happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #the diggory’s are just his adoptive wizard family #he actually lives with Alfred in Gothem but visits the diggory’s cause they’re his aunt and uncle from #his moms side. his da’s a muggle. mum’s a witch. bit of a nasty shock for him when he found out. #batman #batman 2022 #bruce wayne #batman au #batman headcanon #cedric diggory #harry potter and the goblet of fire #goblet of fire #voldemort #wizarding world #justice league

[typinggently]

Imagine if the omegaverse thing saved AO3 and I could unlock my fics again. Wow.

#I mean truly I have been enjoying living in absolute secrecy #I feel like. if you’re just a guest you don’t really search out fics right? #so I always figured no one was going to miss my stuff #because guests just read the front page or something #so if they don’t see my stuff then it’s no harm done? #……does that make sense? #anyhow #that WOULD be very funny. maybe I should start publishing omegaverse #I write it a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever published some

[dbssh]

i guess a book is good when i only finished chapter 3 and i have that much to say about it. hm.

#i worry about this one falling into middle triology syndrome. nobody likes the second book in a trilogy. #although i guess locked tomb isnt a trilogy anymore huh because they announced book 4? and theres that one spinoff about palamedes that i #really would like to read. i liked palamedes and cam although idk if ill like them as standalone protagonists #pals goodheartedness and the general earnestness with which he seemed to act was interesting in the sense that he was playing off of #two very nihilistic; cagey; untrusting characters #and the idea of the sixth house representing truth contrasted well against the secrecy surrounding all things ninth #idk if id like him as much outside of that context. id like to try though. #honestly i hope tlt gets a million books and sells three morbillion copies i hope it gets more books than dune. #i hope there are more locked tomb books than discworld novels. more than brandon sanderson even. #even if theyre bad. i dont care honestly. #red.txt

[saviourkingslut]

Idk if GW is meant to be more distrustful than Houses Claude, honestly. Nevermind trusting Edelgard, which he does, he spills his biggest secret to Shez and Judith which even VW Claude doesn't tell anyone including Byleth. Pretty sure it's just badly written.

oh yeah i mean. you can come up with a million excuses and i think the end-all is that he's just badly written and pretty much acts like a whole other character entirely and also says and does things that like. contradict each other. forget abt him doing stuff throuses claude would never do, even as an out of character version of claude there's no coherence to what he does and his thought processes and decisions don't make a lot of sense from a logical standpoint either

#i guess the writers didn't want to keep up the secrecy schtick bc every player knows exactly who he is #probably thought it would get tedious to have him do the same theatre bit as during acadamy phase #him spilling all the beans in thropes makes no sense in-universe tho #asks #three hopes spoilers

[romijuli]

*stumbles in* okay so hear me out, Harutsumu,

Somebody put that in the request box last year and it’s been haunting me ever since

#….okay so #actually now that I think about it #Haruto/tasuku/Tsumugi is a thing offscreen in the Fic I Am Sworn To Secrecy On #it’s not actually relevant it’s more of a meta thing I swear to god it’ll make sense if/when I get that written #chel crowdsources rarepair week ideas

[thesearchforgreely]

DUDE i don't know if i posted on your wall but your den was an epic den earlier today!!! i remember walking through it and going "oooh i like this little shrine thingy outside" and then i saw your post here and i was like HEY I'VE BEEN THERE. it looks so good so far!!!

HUH??? Was it??? Maybe that's why I had so many people popping in today and then leaving. That's... an accomplishment! I wish I could've seen that! Taken a screenshot.

Well! Thank you :)! I am definitely going to add more! I have lots of plans, and I definitely wanna do more to the "yard" area/hang out spot near the fire.

The inside of the den is definitely going to be the LAST thing I work on. I have ideas of what I want it to be, but I'm unsure how I'll execute it. I gotta try to trade for some items I think... I haven't been into the trading side of stuff for ages now u_u

#asks #Ectophasm #this is...! a surprising turn of events. My account is new; I only traded some items over from my old account to start fresh. This feels #like such an achievement! #now you know my secret... my account name...! *gasp*! It is not hard. I just like the false sense of secrecy X)

[funeral]

The little girl’s sense of secrecy that developed at prepuberty only grows in importance. She closes herself up in fierce solitude: she refuses to reveal to those around her the hidden self that she considers to be her real self and that is in fact an imaginary character: she plays at being a dancer like Tolstoy’s Natasha, or a saint like Marie Leneru, or simply the singular wonder that is herself. There is still an enormous difference between this heroine and the objective face that her parents and friends recognize in her. She is also convinced that she is misunderstood: her relationship with herself becomes even more passionate: she becomes intoxicated with her isolation, feels different, superior, exceptional: she promises that the future will take revenge on the mediocrity of her present life. From this narrow and petty existence she escapes by dreams.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

#simone de beauvoir #the second sex #excerpts #quotes #p #girlhood