#spent a bit editing this screenshot look at the blood i'm kicking my feet and twirling my hair <3

[mattodore]

Did Matthias do anything illegal in his life? What I mean is morally unacceptable behavior that hurts people. If so, why did he do that?

I mean, has he killed someone? Has he beat someone up? How many times has he done it or has it only been occasionally? Do people find him rude? Should people be afraid of him?

I’ve said this about Matthias before, but he’s someone who’s had violent thoughts and urges ever since he was a child. I do think there’s a possible genetic factor at play there, but I also believe that the way he grew up left something chasmic in its wake, this gouge in his chest that he’s been clawing at ever since. Matthias was severely neglected as a child and his development was… slanted, for lack of a better word. There’s something warped in his head, you know? He’s a product of his upbringing.

To give you a picture of Matthias’s childhood, I want to make it clear that he never had any toys. His nursery was nothing more than a crib in a room. No bright colored walls, no alphabet blocks, no pop-up books. He didn’t play, or… not like most children, at least—not how you’d normally picture a child playing. His childhood was spent alone despite the sheer number of staff on the grounds of the estate. If Matthias reached for a hand or wanted comfort from a nanny or another member of the staff, he’d be pushed away. There was no emotional or physical warmth in the Evanoff household and a harsh line had been drawn between Matthias and everyone around him, including his parents, who he saw no more than a handful of times when he was young. What little socialization Matthias had was… well, it was nothing more than giving orders to attendants or having discussions with his tutors about the subjects he was studying. The staff were forbidden from interacting with Matthias more than was strictly necessary and the effect that had on him can’t be understated.

You can see, then, these early building blocks for cruelty being laid out. As a precocious child whose only real social connection with others was formed through analysis and study, it only made sense that Matthias found himself reaching for the books in his father’s library whenever he could, and through that those very same blocks began to stack. Play for Matthias was deconstructing humanity through history, through fiction, parsing through dense text in the ever-present child’s curiosity: but why? And Matthias’s father was an excessively cruel and frighteningly violent man, so his taste in literature certainly reflected that. This is also what I mean when I say there’s a genetic factor at play with some of Matthias’s impulses. Some of it’s inherited. In a way, he gets this from his mother’s side, too, although she’s a different kind of violent… a hands-off kind. I mean, that violence is how Matthias wound up being tortured for three years while trapped in a “therapeutic” reform school. It’s just as cruel, but it pretends to be righteous. So there’s this snapping violence and this opportunistic kind.

I’m saying all of this because I think it gives context to how much control Matthias exhibits over himself and his violent urges now as an adult. Sure, when he was younger he would react, he’d deride and break and hurt, but he doesn’t do that anymore. It’s not that he feels guilt over the impulses he has—there’s no shame there at all, really. To him, it’s just in his nature to get these flashes, these sudden images of brutality. They’ve been there all his life, you know? It’s normal to him. The only reason he doesn’t act on them is because he had impulse control beaten into him at the reform school and because he’s learned that the social contract is something that he can use to his advantage to get whatever it is he wants. He charms and obfuscates now. In that same vein, it’s not often that people find him to be rude, because he keeps his disdainful and unsavory thoughts to himself. You’d have to be someone who’s incredibly perceptive in order to see through Matthias… which just so happens to be Theo to a T.

So what I mean by this is that now when Matthias does actually act on these thoughts, these urges that dig at his brain, there’s normally a catalyst to them—this trigger that sends fire all through the synapses in his body. Matthias is incredibly loyal to Imani and Theo and he’s someone who’s very protective of them. Throughout his early teen years, back when he and Imani went to the same boarding school, he was constantly shielding Imani from the brunt of the corporal punishment that came with the turf. At that age he was volatile and would even hit back at times, but he knew that would land him in solitude and separated from Imani for days on end, which he just couldn’t have—not if he wanted to make sure nobody hurt her. He learned restraint for Imani’s sake then, but it wasn’t until he was trapped in the reform school that that restraint was fully drilled into him as a result of psychological torture and abuse.

He’s quick to offer a slicing comment, to give a chilling smile, to go eerily still and intimidate with his stare alone, but now as an adult he doesn’t often get physical unless provoked. He keeps it in and he holds himself back, this taut tension in his jaw only there for a moment before the mask submerges him again and holds his head under water. It’s really only when Theo’s involved that Matthias just… God, he really just can’t help himself. The cracks widen and he gets physical. It’s vicious. He has all this strength now, this imagination that only ever comes alive when he’s thinking of this, and he’s had years of experience in actual brawls that were just horrible—he’s been ganged up on, hit with metal chairs, humiliated and jeered at while bleeding everywhere, ripped out of bed and kicked until his ribs broke… It's safe to say that he takes pain like it means nothing to him now. So he swallows the blood he tastes when a hit lands and just plows through like it’s the only thing he knows how to do, like it’s programmed in him. It’s animalistic. It’s vengeful. It’s rapturous.

Like I said, seeing harm come to the only people Matthias loves has a disastrous effect on his self-control. Imani’s in a better place now that she’s an adult, but Theo… well, Theo’s been hurt by a lot of people—his parents, faces at clubs, ghosts from his past… too many instances to even begin getting into each of them. And Matthias has to unravel red yarn before a board and string together all of these physical reactions Theo has around some people, has to tilt his head as he replays the tapes and rewinds through remarks Theo’s made that felt off even before Matthias knew there was something going on there. Theo doesn’t talk about his hurt, doesn’t talk about anything that could make him weak, that exposes the nasty underbelly of his private life, so it’s up to Matthias to pick up on what’s been left unspoken. The specifics may not be there, but it’s enough to see Theo flinch at the sound of his own name being called, to watch him freeze up when a hand raises too fast, to track Theo as he checks the locks once, twice, three times in a row before he moves away. Matthias notices it all and he’s an eye for an eye kind of man. He can’t even help himself there, has no restraint when it comes to Theo, so… he handles it.

The furthest Matthias has ever gone, the worst he’s ever injured somebody, was when he nearly killed someone from Theo’s old summer boarding school. Theo managed to stop him, but only by a hair’s breadth. Matthias could have gone to prison for that one, he easily could’ve, but… there were circumstances and, when it comes down to it, Matthias is obscenely wealthy. In the end, he got off scot-free from attempted murder while the other party was hospitalized. He handled the rest without physical violence, though he certainly wanted to finish what he started. But, at the end of the day, Theo comes first, always.

He’s certainly engaged in far more illegal and immoral activities (his little blackmail moment was a personal favorite of mine), but physically he’s never gone so far as murder (though he’s not opposed…) and while he’s definitely lost control and grievously injured some people, I’d say he’s only ever hospitalized a handful. He keeps himself in check… most of the time, at least. He honestly doesn’t fly off the handle for no reason. If you keep your hands to yourself and watch your mouth then you don’t have to be afraid of him in that way. Still, it’s better to just keep your distance. He has too much fun pulling strings.

#IT WAS THE WAY THE IMAGE WAS CROPPED THAT WAS MAKING IT NOT SHOW UP... LITERALLY WHATTTT? WHATEVER IT'S BEEN CROPPED NOW SO. POST. PLEASE. #river dipping #asks #anonymous #matthias evanoff #theodore doe #echthroi #oc extras #ts4 #cw child abuse mention #cw blood #spent a bit editing this screenshot look at the blood i'm kicking my feet and twirling my hair <3 #while editing this i listened to animal impulses by iamx on a loop it's one of matthias's latest additions to his playlist and woof #''no civilizing hides our animal impulses'' fits him so well. this and bring me back a dog... iamx understands matthias more than anyone #but okay. laying down on the floor forever after finally finishing writing all of this... #i kept deleting everything i would write and starting over like i was going through it with this one #i ended up deciding not to really get into it with the specifics irt the theo stuff #idk i'm conflicted abt it i don't really wanna say anything for sure until i finally make the decision and feel like i can talk abt it #with like... a full grasp of it all? but to that anon from a few months back who asked abt theo's pinterest board: that's who. #................................anyway hello <3 #i was gone for over a week and you may be thinking wow river you must be really far in that game you've been playing about gates #or maybe you thought i've been spending all my time trying to write this reply but ach nae......................... #i've just been reading obsessively like literally reading 24/7 doing almost nothing else #[ayo edebiri voice] i have No. Hobbies. Other Than This. #also my activity feed has been staring at me and i've been staring right back at it since i logged in to post this kjnkgjnh #i need to catch up on some things too i rlly do but you see the draw of reading another epub............ she's a strong temptress #hope you've all been well <3 my avpd is still fighting me but whatever i'm used to it kjngfkjnfh