monsters [17/17]
anonymous
May 1 2010, 18:38:10 UTC
13.
“Sit down, you prat.” Arthur scowled at him, his entire countenance natural. Alfred lingered at the doorway for a while longer before he sat down across the table, where the guards stood around the room.
“It’s not like you to be able to read the atmosphere for once,” Arthur continued, sipping at his tea. He looked better, but it was still horrible, the mangling of his face full of fading bruises, the cast of his arm, the slight tremble where he was unable to control his fingers. But he smiled at Alfred almost curiously, as if he didn’t understand why Alfred wasn’t talking.
“I’m sorry,” Alfred said. “I understand if you never want to see me again-“
“Don’t be stupid.” Arthur sipped his tea again, breathing in the dark liquid with almost relief. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”
“Because-“ Alfred swallowed.
“Your face is stupid? You’re stupid? Those are good answers, but I don’t care.” Arthur shrugged, winced, and sipped his tea. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the meeting, and I hope you bring all your papers.”
“… Yeah.” Alfred stared down at his hands, and he was surprised when Arthur stood up, the chair scraping lightly against the floor.
Arthur leaned over with deranged eyes and a shit-eating grin, and as Alfred’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the table, he whispered into his ear with light feathery breathes, “I forgive you.”
And then he was hobbling out, and the door slammed behind him, and Alfred couldn’t stop trembling and shivering and shuddering because he was scared and terrified.
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
May 20 2010, 19:46:32 UTC
It...it is so, I don't know I don't even know whether Alfred loves Arthur But...god, I cannot even write coherent comment here.... Just great...so great
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
May 20 2010, 22:10:25 UTC
This...this made me feel sad, scared, tired, everything Arthur felt up to the point he passed out. It's so well written every emotion comes across.
What I love most is Matthew. Dear God Matthew. Arthur, Arthur, he realised it, didn't he? It's the more quiet ones who notice more. And Francis and his ways of showing concerns, showing that he cares - visiting Arthur even though he'd been warned not to, the message in the answering machine, and being the first to hold America, knowing the strength of that boy.
Still, I love Matthew the most, because he's right, he's so so right.
It's not Alfred nations and readers should look into, it's Arthur. He's the one who's all sorts of wrong & twisted. And the ending made it so, so stark.
'deranged eyes and a shit-eating grin', the same things Alfred first entered the meeting/conference room with. The loop. Cyclical. That forgiveness is not a happy end, and Alfred has every right to be scared because he'd broken Arthur for sure, not somewhere physical, but somewhere deep inside, too deep.
And that...that scene where little Alfred tells Arthur he loves him is not a respite, it's the seal of doom. Because Arthur has it all backwards - in his mind, the string of accidents, the abuse, they are all dreams, and what's real is him and little America in that golden field. Arthur has confirmed and acknowledged his 'secret', sealing his resolution to receive, receive, receive, if anything ever comes again from Alfred. Sometimes, I feel that he wasn't stopping things out of fear, but also because Arthur feels any Alfred is better than lack of Alfred. It's hinted in the way you write of his thoughts on the loneliness in his house.
'everything's going back to normal'. But what's normal? have all those violence become normal to Arthur?
(I actually thank you for the last three words, that 'scared and terrified'. If you didn't write it, I wouldn't have gotten the loop. Well, may be I would, but not as strongly)
I hope I am reading the messages you wish to convey right, authoranon. The title is so apt 'monsters' - there are more than one. I don't think the deranged eyes hints that they will reverse roles completely, though role-switching has happened: Alfred saying it's his fault, Alfred being scared and terrified, and Arthur being guileless, 'as if he didn't understand why Alfred wasn't talking'. How cyclical do you want this to be, authoranon? Will Arthur sink deeper to his masochism or will he be the abuser later?
It's too heartbreaking. I cried almost all the way through. And I may have an idea of who you are, authoranon. I crave for a final happy ending (Alfred loving Arthur and taking care of him) instead of an open-ended path to a cyclical never-ending loop of role-reversing misery or relapse and continuation of abuse till Arthur finally dies, nevertheless, I am...deeply moved by this.
P.S. please reply to my theories? I love it when I get what authors are trying to convey :)
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
June 1 2010, 18:11:53 UTC
I just discovered this jem somewhat belatedly and I must say I'm fascinated.
First off I have to annoy you with some fangirling: Your fic is AWESOME!! Do you know me? Can you read my mind? You wrote everything what I love and how I love it. I love angst, I love superstrength!possessive!America and I've never found a fic which could combine my other two secret kinks: victim!England and insane!England and you just DID it I'll love you forever [insert "never ending string of fangirl squealing" here]
I fell in love with your writing. Every sentence and every word seemed to have meaning and had a heavy impact on me. I love your use of repetition. I cannot even say what exactly about your writing style made the atmosphere of your fic perfect but it did and that means you are an awesome writer! Reading your fic chilled me to the bone. (and I love it~) Thanks for writing this! Keep it up!
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
June 10 2010, 18:49:05 UTC
I am speechless. i seriously do not know what to say. This fic is amazing. It's everything that I wanted and more. Just... goddamn. Thank you for this, author!anon.
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
April 30 2011, 20:36:03 UTC
Wow, what a wonderful piece of writing. I loved it so much, I almost wrote an essay about it -- but to save you the bombastic nature of my writing, I think I'll simply address what especially touched me in a more casual manner.
I am a personal victim of not physical, but emotional abuse from two relationships and I can vouch that this story expresses a victim's psychological state entirely. I urge those who see Arthur as the "twisted" one to reconsider --
A story of individual defeat and unintentional manipulation, Monsters is a study of the psychological condition of a victim. It not only describes a victim of emotional and physical abuse from a loved one but a victim in all relationships; the haunting psychosomatic devolution of the protagonist mirrors the spiralling relationship between himself and his lover. Monsters explores the tragedy of interpersonal decay and the utter destruction of human capability and trust. There is no victim in the story; there are two men, prey to the mental instability that makes them mortal.
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
April 30 2011, 20:36:51 UTC
Alfred F. Jones is the composite of overwhelming responsibility and a technological reinvention of war. As the anthropomorphic representation of the United States of America, Jones’ experience through the 20th and 21st Centuries can be defined through one word: paranoia. No better place can the reader examine American paranoia and conformism developing than through the early years of the Cold War. With post-war peace-seeking on the rise, a second Red Scare, and McCarthy interrogating questionably innocent dissenters, America developed a culture of the Salem Witch Trials towards communism. The ideological struggle took a dark turn quickly; what started as a protection for democracy festered into the direct promotion of dictatorships in the Middle East and Caribbean. One example is the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo, who massacred 300,000 dissenters during his rule. Anticommunist regimes in America prosecuted homosexuals, feminists, and other nonconformists of the 1950s. The Rosenburgs, a wealthy Jewish couple, were executed on what was later admitted as fabricated evidence. They were two of many. However, the Cold War was only the breeding ground of American paranoia and xenophobia, though it had been birthed through the racist immigration laws following a boom of foreigners during the Gilded Age, and again through the first Red Scare during the 1920s. Even isolationism, the foreign policy of America before the Second World War, displays a fear of involving America in the affairs of other nations. Through the growing manic in the Cold War, this tentative fear cultivated into paranoia and intolerance. The space and arms races, beginning with Sputnik and the development of the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, exploded with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and treaties banning the testing of atmospheric nuclear weapons. Now, take these intolerant movements of the mid-20th Century and mutate them to fit the personification of their country; Alfred F. Jones is a relatively simple man with straightforward fears. The encroaching communist ideology, first into Western Europe through the war-torn Eastern Bloc, and then into the Caribbean through the Cuban Revolution, seemed a personal attack. Domestic radicals such as McCarthy exposed countless ‘communists.’ He lives in fear, knowing that nuclear war could kill him in his sleep, dead, vaporised before morning, those remaining suffering from the nuclear backlash of a mushroom cloud blossoming over New York City, Atlanta, Dallas, St Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Food sources poisoned by biological weapons, water contaminated, genes mutated, isolated on the edge of the world as the sun fades behind darkening, toxic clouds. Communist Russia is obscure, distant, and ominous. Communism threatens to overthrow ‘democratic’ dictators as poverty and misery abounds. This is a man torn with strife and fear, nearly twitching as the 21th Century opens with the hope of peace and openness. Nevertheless, the attack on September 11th, 2001, was no true shock. America had been involved with wars in the Middle East since the 1970s. Anti-Muslim sentiment grew astronomically. It was the first attack on American home soil since Pearl Harbour and the first attack on the mainland since the War of 1812. Isolated as he was, America was not alone in neither the Western Hemisphere nor the world. As readers, we cannot excuse his actions, but we cannot make him an antagonist. He is a victim of his own mind, turning thoughts and ‘what-ifs’ over and over again until he reeks of fear and suspicion. As generations pass and the Cold War memories turned to legend, and the September 11th memories become manifesto, America’s people begin to forget the posters against communism, Big Brother, and the trials on the television. Jones, however, is a composite of his history and his people; while we see the new generation, forgetful of their predecessors past, there is that remaining tone beneath the surface of a horrifying history. He is tainted, not cruel, not a victim, but disturbed.
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
April 30 2011, 20:37:19 UTC
Conversely, Arthur Kirkland is as much historical fact as his companion is, and equally as human. He has lived to see himself grow from a semi-insignificant damp island off the coast of Continental Europe, to a glorified Empire, vast and sprawling, to fall again, nearly pointless in modern life. He has seen war and war and war again; it is not surprising that the author of Monsters decides to make his secret so potent to his character. From inter-kingdom battles of Anglo-Saxon England to the Hundred Years’ War to the Crimean War and the Great War, even to the War in Afghanistan, Kirkland is a warrior. The definition of the term transforms over time, but it is still the same; there is an essence to Kirkland’s being that is ultimately chivalrous and violent, like the knights of his legends. It is understandable then, that Kirkland is so guarded. Jones betrayed him in the past, fought him afterwards, and has never been particularly keen on helping him. British propaganda roped the American population into sympathy during both World Wars. However, the beauty of Monsters is not its study or expression of history, but its evaluation of human nature and mortality. The author approaches the characters as humans, not as countries, and invests in them characteristics of mortals. Jones, as noted above, does not change with his generations, holding on to the horrors of his past and letting them grow, silent, in his brain. Similarly, Kirkland has made enemies of nearly every nation on the planet; his friends are few. As Jones begins to abuse him, Kirkland recedes into himself, the beaten warrior of his mind as a country wanting to protect himself. However, the romantic of his heart will not allow him to stand against Jones, despite the beating. He will not ask for help. He will not deny him. The perversion of Jones’ situation is contagious and contaminates Kirkland, not through irregular disability or conscious will, but through natural, human flaw. They are old, having seen more war and devastation than any man to live. Kirkland, even more so than Jones. He is, in a postmodern world, useless, a token of a lost society and grandeur. He no longer dominates world politics or economics; England, as a nation, asked America to transfer the international currency of the pound for the dollar after its economic annihilation during World War Two. Kirkland is not weak, nor perverted; he is old and tired, observing his world corrode into a posthumous swamp of industrial decay, poverty, and unhealthy depression. He is, though immortal and an anthropomorphism of his nation, human. His secret, his love of Jones, destroys him as it crushes him under Jones’ psychotic paranoia. Eventually, his loss of the secret consumes him; as Jones changes, he is lost in a phantom existence. There is nothing left for Kirkland, even the obsessive security Jones bestowed upon him.
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
April 30 2011, 20:38:05 UTC
Ultimately, Kirkland and Jones are both victims and both antagonists. They contribute equally to their own destruction and the destruction of their partner. Jones’ recovery displays the world’s attitude toward the abusive relationship; while he is labelled ‘disturbed,’ Kirkland is left unattended to further develop his Stockholm Syndrome and love into a subtle hysteria. Neither approach is sound. The traditional role of victim and oppressor is not applicable to modern psychiatric patients, and it is especially invalid in the case of these unique individuals. They are human in soul and heart yet experience something so different from our lives, it is impossible for us to truly comprehend it. We can only take pieces of their tragic suffering and wonder what it is to understand the ultimate failure of humanity and its eternal suffering. I leave you with the final section of T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men, a metaphysical poem that’s nature is to be misunderstood.
Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long
Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is Life is For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
Perhaps these tragic nations exist in that Shadow. However, as mortals in both soul and body, we will never truly know.
Re: monsters [17/17]
anonymous
September 6 2011, 19:56:34 UTC
The anon who wrote about Arthur being 'twisted' above, dropping by after months.
You expressed it a lot better than I did. I don't believe Arthur is fundamentally 'twisted'. Like you've written, he's old, seen too much, made too many enemies, tired...all you've written.
I've enjoyed reading your essay :)
Wishing we can read more gems like this in the fandom!
“Sit down, you prat.” Arthur scowled at him, his entire countenance natural. Alfred lingered at the doorway for a while longer before he sat down across the table, where the guards stood around the room.
“It’s not like you to be able to read the atmosphere for once,” Arthur continued, sipping at his tea. He looked better, but it was still horrible, the mangling of his face full of fading bruises, the cast of his arm, the slight tremble where he was unable to control his fingers. But he smiled at Alfred almost curiously, as if he didn’t understand why Alfred wasn’t talking.
“I’m sorry,” Alfred said. “I understand if you never want to see me again-“
“Don’t be stupid.” Arthur sipped his tea again, breathing in the dark liquid with almost relief. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”
“Because-“ Alfred swallowed.
“Your face is stupid? You’re stupid? Those are good answers, but I don’t care.” Arthur shrugged, winced, and sipped his tea. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the meeting, and I hope you bring all your papers.”
“… Yeah.” Alfred stared down at his hands, and he was surprised when Arthur stood up, the chair scraping lightly against the floor.
Arthur leaned over with deranged eyes and a shit-eating grin, and as Alfred’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the table, he whispered into his ear with light feathery breathes, “I forgive you.”
And then he was hobbling out, and the door slammed behind him, and Alfred couldn’t stop trembling and shivering and shuddering because he was scared and terrified.
Reply
I don't even know whether Alfred loves Arthur
But...god, I cannot even write coherent comment here....
Just great...so great
Reply
What I love most is Matthew. Dear God Matthew. Arthur, Arthur, he realised it, didn't he? It's the more quiet ones who notice more. And Francis and his ways of showing concerns, showing that he cares - visiting Arthur even though he'd been warned not to, the message in the answering machine, and being the first to hold America, knowing the strength of that boy.
Still, I love Matthew the most, because he's right, he's so so right.
It's not Alfred nations and readers should look into, it's Arthur. He's the one who's all sorts of wrong & twisted. And the ending made it so, so stark.
'deranged eyes and a shit-eating grin', the same things Alfred first entered the meeting/conference room with. The loop. Cyclical. That forgiveness is not a happy end, and Alfred has every right to be scared because he'd broken Arthur for sure, not somewhere physical, but somewhere deep inside, too deep.
And that...that scene where little Alfred tells Arthur he loves him is not a respite, it's the seal of doom. Because Arthur has it all backwards - in his mind, the string of accidents, the abuse, they are all dreams, and what's real is him and little America in that golden field. Arthur has confirmed and acknowledged his 'secret', sealing his resolution to receive, receive, receive, if anything ever comes again from Alfred. Sometimes, I feel that he wasn't stopping things out of fear, but also because Arthur feels any Alfred is better than lack of Alfred. It's hinted in the way you write of his thoughts on the loneliness in his house.
'everything's going back to normal'. But what's normal? have all those violence become normal to Arthur?
(I actually thank you for the last three words, that 'scared and terrified'. If you didn't write it, I wouldn't have gotten the loop. Well, may be I would, but not as strongly)
I hope I am reading the messages you wish to convey right, authoranon. The title is so apt 'monsters' - there are more than one. I don't think the deranged eyes hints that they will reverse roles completely, though role-switching has happened: Alfred saying it's his fault, Alfred being scared and terrified, and Arthur being guileless, 'as if he didn't understand why Alfred wasn't talking'. How cyclical do you want this to be, authoranon? Will Arthur sink deeper to his masochism or will he be the abuser later?
It's too heartbreaking. I cried almost all the way through. And I may have an idea of who you are, authoranon. I crave for a final happy ending (Alfred loving Arthur and taking care of him) instead of an open-ended path to a cyclical never-ending loop of role-reversing misery or relapse and continuation of abuse till Arthur finally dies, nevertheless, I am...deeply moved by this.
P.S. please reply to my theories? I love it when I get what authors are trying to convey :)
Reply
I also had tears in my eyes, of how love can be such a boundless and 'careless' thing.
Wonderful fill anon. ; u ; <3
Reply
recaptcha: layovers leader
Errr I dun think that was what Alfred is aiming for. Or not.
Reply
First off I have to annoy you with some fangirling: Your fic is AWESOME!! Do you know me? Can you read my mind? You wrote everything what I love and how I love it. I love angst, I love superstrength!possessive!America and I've never found a fic which could combine my other two secret kinks: victim!England and insane!England and you just DID it
I'll love you forever [insert "never ending string of fangirl squealing" here]
I fell in love with your writing. Every sentence and every word seemed to have meaning and had a heavy impact on me. I love your use of repetition. I cannot even say what exactly about your writing style made the atmosphere of your fic perfect but it did and that means you are an awesome writer!
Reading your fic chilled me to the bone. (and I love it~)
Thanks for writing this! Keep it up!
I demand a sequel
Reply
i seriously do not know what to say. This fic is amazing. It's everything that I wanted and more. Just... goddamn.
Thank you for this, author!anon.
Reply
I am a personal victim of not physical, but emotional abuse from two relationships and I can vouch that this story expresses a victim's psychological state entirely. I urge those who see Arthur as the "twisted" one to reconsider --
A story of individual defeat and unintentional manipulation, Monsters is a study of the psychological condition of a victim. It not only describes a victim of emotional and physical abuse from a loved one but a victim in all relationships; the haunting psychosomatic devolution of the protagonist mirrors the spiralling relationship between himself and his lover. Monsters explores the tragedy of interpersonal decay and the utter destruction of human capability and trust. There is no victim in the story; there are two men, prey to the mental instability that makes them mortal.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Perhaps these tragic nations exist in that Shadow. However, as mortals in both soul and body, we will never truly know.
-- Oops. I wrote an essay.
Reply
You expressed it a lot better than I did. I don't believe Arthur is fundamentally 'twisted'. Like you've written, he's old, seen too much, made too many enemies, tired...all you've written.
I've enjoyed reading your essay :)
Wishing we can read more gems like this in the fandom!
Reply
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