hello, Archivist. here's a little story for you.
The earliest thought i can remember having, beyond your average, innate urges for food and water and affection, is that i am a monster.
it occurred with no moral quandary, for children are not inducted into such rules quite so early, but i knew this fact innately and intimately. a cuckoo in a sparrow nest. indeed, i failed nearly every test on moral science as a child, unable to grasp the maddeningly confusing rules. it never truly occured to me to consider if my existence was something to be punished for, not until i was made to realize it, unsurprisingly in a rather cruel, if unintentionally so, way.
i was 8 years old. it was a field trip, towards the end of the year. and my english teacher though usually cold and strict, felt light hearted enough to be joking around with her students. she addressed me. i must preface this with some context, i had never been overtly sadistic, never cruel without a reason. not then, anyway. my gaping lack of compassion did not drive me to cause pain, only to hollowness, alienation, and a deep-seated misanthropy. my teachers, on the rare pta meetings i bothered with, described me as quiet, intelligent and sweet, a better way to spell "this student doesnt cause trouble, isn't failing their classes and we don't know anything else about them". perhaps I should've seen it coming.
She asked me to smile. how innocuous. how harmless. she claimed that throughout the year she had yet to see me smile, nor converse with my peers. i waited for her to move onto another student, hoping that keeping quiet will let it blow over. but she waited, watching expectantly, and i realized she was serious. And, in that moment, i realized that i did not know how. I didn't have the necessary muscle memory, and suddenly, i couldn't remember ever smiling. that was just ridiculous, though. i was a child. children smile. of course, i had smiled before. it was impossible that i hadnt. but i didn't remember how. and she. was. still. watching.
I tried, i really did. i contorted my face to match what hers had been, moments ago. but she only looked horrified. and she was still watching. and they were all watching, all my classmates who were still there. and i was very, very afraid.
i do not remember exactly what her tone was. being marked by The Spiral was always an odd experience, disconcerting, and yet, i had never known anything else. hours and days had often flown by without my notice. I'd blink, and suddenly it was night, though i had last remembered it being morning. but this. this, i fear, i will always remember.
she told me that sometimes, faking it till it becomes reality is a very useful skill. she referenced some sort of study, that pretending to be happy, that lying to yourself about anything, can make it come true, an effect of the human mind's ability to internalize. interestingly, this philosophy would later become the basis of my power.
but at the time, it was hell. because she continued on. she told me, no, ordered me, to keep smiling. to hold that horrid grimace in place, all day, until it was time to go and then more. she would make sure I was doing it. she would be watching. she would enlist classmates too, to watch me, to make sure i was still smiling.
it is an interesting phenomena, that when faced with an authority figure's promise of approval, children will do anything to gain those sweet, sweet words, "well done", "good job", "good child". including, apparently, this. and they were very good children indeed. they watched me the entire day, for hours and hours and i did not dare eat or drink for it would mean not smiling, and the only thing worse than being Watched was being Hunted, and they would find any opportunity to prove that they were such good children. when it was time for school photographs, i could not hide as i usually did, and my terror and torment was preserved on photo paper. for i did not disobey. i was a very good, sweet child.
Eventually, the day ended. Eventually, i would be given the mercy of shedding that rictus grin. i would hide and cover every mirror i could find. i would blacken every face on every photograph and book with markers. i would burn every last journal i owned. i would lock myself up in the tiniest, darker cupboard i could find, to sooth my aching face and the all consuming, terrible phenomenon of being perceived.
you might ask, why i did not choose to overwrite The Spiral for The Lonely. Both would protect me from The Beholding, and one is far easier to both feed and endure. Perhaps even The Vast would suffice. but one little quandary remains. I want The Beholding to suffer, Archivist. I want the violating gaze turn to blinding pain, and for my antagonizers to feel exactly how it is to be restricted to a perspective. To be reduced to a subject. I want those transgressors of my privacy to pay with their sanity.
That is what I did when i built an arctic island with conviction and lies and maddening force, forcing my own truth onto the world, gaslight the laws of physics themselves. That is what i did when the last fledgeling Watcher dared to compel me. I told him that he had died, and he believed me, and his dead - not - dead body fell to the ground. His body was so convinced that he was dead it kickstarted its own decomposition. and now he smiles that same rictus grin i had been made to smile, years ago.
How's that for a statement? :)
(this is an oc i hope you like them! :))
I've been staring at this ask in my inbox for too long now.
I have no idea what the correct response is, and I fear you all have done the unthinkable and completely stumped Mr. Head-Archivist-of-The-Magnus-Institute with a statement. Either that, or I'm just really tired. Either way, applause.
I'm. Gonna ask Martin for some tea now. And unwind.
