on survival

a collaboration with @kismeteors

There is something so holy about the way you touch my hands. My skin becomes consecrated with the trailing whisper of your breath on it.

Lover, lover, lover, keeper of my heart, guardian of my soul. You are the religion I keep reverting to, the idol that demands my worship in abandon of any god I knew before.

You are my maker and my destroyer. I cannot remember a time before I met you nor can I imagine a future without you.

Your strong fingers trail rivulets into the valley of my breasts, chest heaving, lungs screaming in ecstasy. I think I can spend an eternity in the palm of your hands, in the constellations adorning the pupils of your eyes. I think I see the universe within them.

Oh, sweet lover boy, with arms of steel and a ribcage of hard kevlar, I am not afraid of the blackness of your heart. I am not afraid of the scars on your skin, Aphrodite’s own punishment for surpassing her beauty. Copper skin that glows in the sun, Apollo’s greedy hands yearning to touch, to feel, to caress it. Ebony curls, the soft gasp that escapes your parted lips when I run my calloused fingers through them. The temple at your throat, the sharp collarbones that reach like the cliffs of Moher across your chest: the objects of my adoration, that cup all my desire within their folds.

My skin burns with the heat of a thousand suns when you worship it so. My hair, a tangled mess of knots and silk; my cheeks, a sun-drunk ruddy red; my neck, singing at the graze of your teeth. Through all of this, you love me- this small, terrified, terribly mortal girl drunk on the taste of your lips.

I can scarcely believe you think about me, and I almost do not trust that you love me. But you are so warm to me, like the sunlight in the city I call home. You draw out my dreamy sighs with such ease, cradling my sternum in your gentle embrace. The crooked dimple by your cheek makes me want to make you laugh every few minutes: I feel like the funniest person in the universe when your eyes crinkle like that. I swell and I bloom and I soar under your touch. Yet somehow, even through all this frenzy, you make my rabid heart go still.

Love me, love me, love me for eternity, sweet boy. Worship my chest and my stomach and my parted thighs with your holy hands. I am not ready to lose the home I found between your shoulder blades- I will live the rest of my life wanting for you. I will live the rest of my life thanking whatever celestial being that brought me into your arms.

Look at me,

chest heaving,

fingers splayed open:

a collaboration with @kismeteors

(My thoughts on the finale, the series, Johan’s character; and why I think it fits so well)

Before watching the last episode I thought “oh it’s the finale they’re only gonna wrap things up and tie some loose ends” but it’s done beautifully.

I know that everyone says that monster is a show about humans and their inner monster and how society creates monsters, and I agree.

But when they show you that, it’s not a way to excuse people of their bad actions, it’s to show that even in their “villainous” acts, they’re still pretty much human, you never think “oh this is something that couldn’t happen in real life”.

Eva, Roberto, Rosso, Bonaparta and so many more, they’re so different from each other, but at the core they’re still painted in the same way. They’ve done despicable acts, some more than others, but in the end they’re just people who made their choices based on their beliefs.

As I said, all human.

All presented as human except for Johan.

While the writer tries and succeeds to humanize all the other characters, giving them many layers, he dehumanizes Johan from the very early episodes. Not only he attaches to him a very “supernatural” evil presence;

«you mustn’t look at him doctor, you’ll die» / «we were hired by a monster» (in the very early episodes)

«he said that he shot something with seven heads and many horns» (in the penultimate episode).

But also the way Johan is shown doing terrible things, is very “simplified”. In his scenes they don’t really dwell a lot on the why he does what he does. Sure, they give you enough insight to keep you interested in the character and to not make him bland. It’s the viewer that with the very few lines and appearances that he has, tries to decipher his personality and his motivations. And yeah, one of the reasons for the lack of his physical presence is to add to the sense of dread that fills the viewer when he really appears. However, during the journey that Tenma has, even if Johan is not physically there, his presence is. We feel it in the tales that fall from people’s mouths and the dead bodies that Tenma encounters and the hundreds of people he corrupted. And while Tenma meets these people the show always gives a glimpse of their humanity; but with Johan it’s the opposite, it seems that every tale about him it’s evil and eviler.

You keep asking yourself why? Why? Why?

Does this kid really feel nothing?

Is it because what happened at the orphanage? But in its destruction we see him smiling, delighted by the events that unfold in front of him. Why does he keep killing the people that show him the good in humanity, the people that treat him and his sister well? What kind of kid (that is already capable of orchestrating human feelings) kills people that helped him and tells his sister to shoot him in the head, with the calm of someone that’s asking the most trivial thing?

The most beautiful thing about Johan is the complete juxtaposition of his character. Yeah he doesn’t have any morals or ethicality, whether it is to accomplish something or just to mess with the psyche of a child,

(«you can’t kill a human being!» — tenma

«why not?» —johan)

but at the same time he feels emotions. He feels sadness, he feels rage, gratification, fear, guilt

(«I wonder if I had forgiven him from the beginning what would have happened» — Nina

«Johan are you crying for me?» — Karl

«While he was seeing the drawings of us as happy kids, he was crying just like me.» — Nina

«the thing I’m most afraid of is...forgetting Anna» — Johan

«Did she try to save me or did she confuse me for my sister?» — Johan)

For the whole series, Tenma’s ideology and Johan’s are (as we all know) in contrast. I won’t make a long post about Johan’s nihilistic view of the world, because there are already tons of them. But I’d like to say this: in one episode there is a scene that involves two characters that are neither Johan or Tenma; but it sums up Johan’s character very well. This guy says something along these lines to Lunge:

«you won’t believe that Tenma is not guilty, because all your life you have been an investigator that’s never been wrong, not once, and besides that you have nothing; no hobbies or family. If you’re wrong about this case, then you won’t know who you really are, and that would break you.»

That’s why johan kills people and wants Tenma to kill him.

If someone tries to give him a name he kills them, (he believes that his mother never gave him a name.) if someone is kind to him he kills them, (he has a nihilist view of the world), if someone tries to separate him from Anna, his other half, he kills them. («it’s just me and Anna in this whole world»)

Him being wrong would break him, and that’s why we see that desperate expression on his face when in the penultimate episode he almost begs Tenma to shoot him; because if what he believed all life is true (and to him it’s the truth because people kept demonstrating that he was right) “that not all lives are created equal”, then Tenma had to shoot him. Johan had no doubt in his mind, it was logical to him: even the most benevolent man, put in the right situation, can kill a person.

Tenma doesn’t shoot. He doesn’t kill him. Chance comes in play, and that’s something that even Johan couldn’t predict.

The finale gives you an answer to your “but WHY does he think the way he thinks!” question and as a viewer I find that very satisfying.

In the last episode we find ourself in a metaphorical mexican standoff of ideologies.

«Humans are equal only in death» Johan’s ideology, because if that wasn’t true, then why was his mother capable of making a choice between her two twins. Her children, that should be equal in the eyes of a mother. But when forced to make a decision, she choses one over the other, and what messes Johan up even more is that he doesn’t know if his mother choosing him was her choice or a mistake; but there certainly was an “unwanted child”. (as he puts it)

On the other side there is Tenma, that made one choice many years before, thinking it was a difficult, but fair one. A child over a privileged adult. The child that he saved though, was a monster, and he brought it back to life unknowingly of that fact. It caused the death of so many people. If Tenma had a time machine, would he save the kid again? Or would he just let him die?

There’s no need for a time machine, because the choice presents itself to him one more time. This time he knows the true nature of the person that he has to save. And he saves him. It’s hard, but he does it not only because it’s the right thing to do according to his ideology, but if he didn’t, he’d only prove Johan that he was right. It’d be like he had shot him himself.

That’s why he goes to Johan to prove him wrong once more, when he tells him that he does have a name, that his mother did give him a name.

Is it enough to convince Johan?

(Will he unlearn the hatred that humans are capable of, like Dieter? Will he accept that he has a name, like Nina did with hers? Does he, like Lunge, discover that the simple things in life do matter and are a part of why we live? Does he forget about what he was before, because like Eva says «we only remember the good things; because otherwise humans wouldn’t be able to keep on living»? Does he “turn human” again, discovering the peace that Grimmer found in his death?)

We don’t know.

We only know that the nameless monster isn’t there anymore.

It’s like he never existed in the first place.

and if you record that person, you are being twice the asshole in that situation. recording someone takes away their agency. do you really think someone you just humiliated on camera is going to have both the bravery and presence of mind to calmly ask you to please delete the video if it makes them uncomfortable? and do you think the people who pull these kinds of pranks would be like - oh sorry, sure, let me delete it, no problem.

"pulling a prank" is like. supposed to be funny for both sides. when you put people in unsafe situations and then laugh at them/judge them for their response.... like. that's not funny. that's abusive behavior. you are training them to accept their dehumanization. it's controlling and ugly. please fucking have any form of empathy.

if you don't actually care if they feel safe/comfortable, you're not being funny. you're being mean. labelling something "a joke" in hindsight does not undo the damage. it just gaslights the other person into thinking their reaction was invalid. you broke someone's trust and personal boundaries for clout. they deserve to be upset about it.

I want you to tell me that I am not alone. When I sleep, at 3 in the morning after talking to you, I dream of your warmth next to me. Of waking up to your morning hubbub and watching you get ready for work. Hair in ponytail, tugging on a blouse. This domesticity, this comfortable affection. I never wanted it before I met you, and now it is all I long for. A few years ago, I would have been horrified at how very consumed I have become with this small fantasy. This simple, little, unattainable dream.

I rarely ever have nightmares after talking to you. You have a way of quelling the darkness that wounds me.

If I could bring myself to, I would scream at you. See me now, I would say. Please. See me, arm outstretched, waiting for you to grab on. I would like to believe you would, chasing after the departing train like the love interest from a bollywood movie, shouting your sweet nothings from across the pathway. But I cannot scream at you, with your doe eyes gazing into my soul like that. And this isnt a bollywood movie. If i offered you my hand from the door of a moving train, if i begged you, just this once, to lace your fingers through mine, you would give me your photo smile and wave goodbye from the platform instead. You would stand there, quietly, the corners of your eyes crinkling so slightly. You would wait, and watch, as the world carried me far away.

So I scream in my own subtle ways for you, in the whispered compliments at 3:47 a.m.; in my affectionate insults and too-eager text messages. Praying that you notice, and also that you don't. Praying that someday, you will look at me like you look at her; all adoration and intoxication and love. Praying that this heart, this pulsing, stupid heart, wont cause the end of us, of this.