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moonlightsmasquerade · 2 months

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[SUBMANDELAPHOBIA SWAP AU ESSAY]

Evelin Miller and Adam Murray in Submandelaphobia Swap are… messed up, to say the least. They are both two young adults who are very important to the whole plot going on, even though they don't want to be. And how one affects the other which in turn affects the plot, even though it's unintentional and they are apart most of the time, was entertaining to think about.

Let's "dive deeper" into it ;) -Part 1: The People- Let's start with Evie, the girl severely traumatized by recent events, but if you really think about it, saying that she was already traumatized before even joining the BPS is not going too far. Her earliest childhood memory is losing her parents, she grew up in foster care (which we all know half of the time is hell on earth for children) , and she also grew up in a flooded town where people go missing a lot and there are reports of water monsters.

And may I remind you that that's the stuff from even before she joined BPS, so yeah, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Eve was a traumatized child, because in the end trauma is described as an overwheling amount of stress that the brain is unable to process in a healthy way, and I'm sure all of this fear growing up made way for constant anxiety and stress.

As a result, Evelin is a timid, soft-spoken, and most of the time agreeable girl, because growing up she never had an adult figure that actually placed any real hope or belief in her, none of her foster parents expected her to achieve anything, so Evie has just developed the way of thinking that if she's not worth the validation, she can at least be worth the company, but the way she does this is by basically letting people walk over her almost, because she's too scared that by expressing her own opinions she will drive people away, and with her obviously suffering from abandonment syndrome, that's the last thing she wants.

Her abandonment issues also explain why she emotionally latches onto other people so quickly: they show her kindness and love when she hasn't even done anything, and they do that out of the goodness of their hearts, and they tell her that she doesn't need to "earn" their affection, that they will be there for her whenever she needs it, and that kind of support is what Evie desires the most and what she most dreads losing. With Adam, I'll get into his specific situation later, but keep in mind he also has childhood issues. He's an extroverted, shifting between optimistic and realistic, and overall friendly young man. Though he almost always wears black, he could be described as having a "sunny disposition", and has some friends, unlike Evie who rarely even cracks a smile and has seemingly no friends other than Sarah and Jonah.

What exactly drew them together is never really stated, and to be honest it's probably not even that important anyway, because the important detail is that they are polar opposites who managed to form a connection. Evie is mentally sensitive and prone to anxiety attacks and relapses of her depression, but Adam had a way with words, seemingly always knowing how to help lift Evie's spirits. No matter the situation he always seemed to be capable of handling it and help her, and that was how Evie grew comfortable enough to vent to Adam about pretty much everything that had been going on in her life.

But that ended up being something that Adam couldn't handle, it was just far too much for him, and he starts to think that maybe there's something deeper going on with his girlfriend, and his trust in her starts to decline, with the climax coming when he breaks things off with her, because he thinks it's for the best if they spend some time away from each other.

That's when things start going south, because Sarah steps in as Evie's closest friend and accuses Adam of wanting to further Evie's misery, even though there's no proof to her accusations, and that angers Adam because he feels Rah is invading his and Eve's privacy to then say he's a bad person, and he gets defensive, leading to his friendhsip with Sarah to deteriorate, because he knows he is not a bad person. Though it also ties with another event in his past, but I'll get into that later, it's gonna be worth it.

And now I will go into his childhood issues that I mentioned earlier. And just be aware that from here he will turn into the new protagonist of this essay because… because yes. Adam barely remembers his family being happy together, since his parents divorced and his dad left town when he was only four. Obviously the responsability for his upbringing fell on Lynn, but the factor of her being stuck on an abusive job contract, which a child is understandably unable to comprehend, sometimes made it feel more like he was raising himself. He still relied on her for a big portion of his childhood, until there was an unfortunate series of coincidences that lead him to feel unwanted and abandoned, and his child brain ended up learning something: he couldn't rely on his own mother anymore, even though he was just a kid.

Adam truly felt that his mother no longer cared about him, a warped perception that she only cared about money, so he stopped trying to form a bond with her, besides, she was always either too busy or too tired to even talk to him anyway, it wouldn't be that big of a loss for her, right? Though she obviously didn't mean to, and was unware of the fact, Lynn created a home for Adam that didn't feel like "home", to him it became just the house he lived in, with no significant memories attached to it.

The Murrays were miserable, with Adam refusing to try to understand his mother's point of view, and Lynn always arriving home tired but also not wanting to disturb her son as his problems might not be her business; a vicious cycle of miscommunication that was only broken when Adam moved away to a house of his own.

Adam has felt wronged by his mother for years, having never understood the reason why he wasn't loved, but it's his friendships with Dave and Jonah, which he has kept since he was 14, that taught him that there's nothing wrong with him, that he's not a bad person. That's why Sarah's accusation makes him so angry: she's making him feel terrible for no reason, because she has no business in what happens between him and Evelin, and Adam feels a sense of deja vu, making him remember how his mother didn't love him for no reason, she just didn't.

And knowing him, he *would* want to have closure with Evie about their break-up, because he's an understanding person, and all he asked was some time apart. Adam tries to be rational and supportive, because it was something that he wasn't given for most of his younger years, and now he wants to be able to give that to other people, the problem is that Sarah is jumping to conclusions and making everything difficult.

Thus it's no wonder that Evie resorted to calling Adam on the phone to try and arrange a meet-up to finally get some closure, because she was afraid Sarah would get angry if she went to his house, because she doesn't want to lose one of her friends. The unfortunate problem was that Adam was sick that week, so it ended up not being him who picked up the phone, and as we all know that led things to spiral downwards even faster.

And having mentioned that, let's talk about the third most important figure in Adam's life, who has been by his side much much longer than the other two. -Part 2: The Father-

We all knew there'd have to be a separate part to talk about Six and Adam's dynamic, there's no point in denying it.

Six has been in Adam's life since not long after his real father left, almost like he's a replacement for Jude, though a very twisted replacement at that. When he's hiding his mildly psychopathic cult fanatic personality from people, he's normally quiet and not exactly normal, which earns him a reputation in town for being "weird", but that never drove Adam away.

In some sense, Six is almost like the opposite of Lynn when it comes to their dynamic with Adam: while Lynn is often busy, being constantly tired and rarely starts conversation with her son; Six is available to speak even when he's working, never seems to be in a bad mood, and sometimes does ask about or talks about things that somewhat interest Adam, like myths for example.

It's no wonder that Adam as a kid got so easily attached to Six: he's like the parent he wishes his mother was. Adam has a hurt inner child, specifically an abandonment wound, due to his mother's unitentional emotional neglect of him, and people who suffer from that kind of mental wound tend to seek out and form emotional attachments quickly to try and fill the void left by their experiences. Of course Adam had friends at school, but to spend time with someone he overtime began to look up to as a father figure was far more special, because it granted him the validation he so desperately craved.

But as we all are aware, Six is not a good person and is actively exploiting this boy's emotional attachment to him for personal benefit, in this case to make the mission easier. It's actually not that surprising that of all people, Adam clung onto Six the most. Someone with a hurt inner child by abandonment tend to fail in forming healthy relationships, as they often attract emotionally unavailable or toxic people, and their fear of isolation makes them clingy to anyone they have a seemingly positive relationship with. It's an emotionally codependent friendship that Adam isn't aware he has formed, but Six is and takes advantage of it.

In a sense, Six is able to manipulate Adam even without doing anything, because in some way Adam is still mentally a child: he's naive and gullible, but above all he's stubborn. Surely Adam has heard of how kidnappers and abusers often use kindness to trick their victims, but he refuses to think that Six is a bad person and thinking of harming him, so he never considers the possibility that his friendship with the fisherman could put him in danger.

So, crazy cultist fisherman actively taking advantage of this mess of a child, we all know that, but what does Six think of Adam as a person?

"Let me tell you, old fuck, Adam is not as weak as you think!" "I know that. He's actually much stronger than he realizes." -Part 3: Strength?-

Six thinks Adam is "strong", but why that word exactly? There are a lot of other adjectives that he could use to describe the kid, like "special" or "valuable", but why does he say "strong" specifically? As far as we've seen to this point, Six has every motive to call Adam weak rather than strong, so why?

Well for that we need to ask a much different question:

What happened to Amanda? -- Amanda was declared missing in 2003, with the police only having found her school bag in the beach shores, but no one really knows what became of her. But unbeknownst to everyone else, Adam was actually there with her the night she went missing.

It's implied that they only met because Amanda was a friend of one of Jonah's many other friends, and that their relationship only started because of "freshman year pressure" to find a partner. While Adam might have wanted to give it a genuine try for the sake of experiencing something new, Amanda was only ever doing it to shut everyone up, and didn't take the "romantic" part of "romantic relationship" seriously, often not entertaining his conversations if she even bothered to show up to anything he had planned, because she was "too busy with school".

Adam felt with Amanda the same way he felt with his mother: pushed aside for reasons he didn't understand, so after months of a miserable barely glued together relationship, Adam demands at school that they have a serious conversation, though we don't know if it was actually just to talk or if it was to break up with her.

It didn't exactly go well, because Alt!Ruth recounts to Ruth, though not mentioning their names, that Amanda went ankle deep into the ocean as a provocation, before blaming Adam for her unhappiness, and how that was what made him snap.

We don't really know what "snap" means for this situation, but Alt!Ruth also makes a mention of the word "strenght" when recounting this, but again, what is it that makes them say that Adam is strong?

Well, consider the following:

*Both Evelin and Adam are destructive forces when anger is involved*

When they are relatively calm they are normal people, who empathize and are able to help others with their own lives, but when they loose themselves to anger, upon until now, we've only seen them *destroy* other people's lives, quite literally. And these two have many things in common, so is it possible that we can somewhat apply what happened in Evie's case to figure out the outcome of Adam and Amanda's argument?

Well, Evie looses her temper after Sarah's comment about her parents, which causes her to punch Rah but then out of guilt for what she just did, Evie dives deep into the ocean to let Sarah recover, and that leads her to find out that she's been a Deep One all this time, giving Preacher the chance to attack and kill Rah.

In Adam's case, his relationship with Amanda basically forced him to live through an accelerated repetition of the worst parts of his childhood, and when he tries to change the situation he gets blamed for it, so it's definitely possible that him "snapping" could have involved physical violence. But I think it was also something on the psychological level, because if Adam has a way with words that allows him to lift people up, he can just as well bring them down.

Maybe him "snapping" was him pointing out the reality that Amanda doesn't want to admit: that she was a terrible person to him, because no one wants to admit that they're in the wrong, but it's after she likely counter-arguments that he completely looses it and lunges forward to attack.

If Adam actually drowned Amanda or simply facilitated it happening, we don't know, but we do know that Adam nearly drowned himself. Amanda's school bag had a chain on it, which got stuck on Adam's ankle after whatever happened to her, and the weight of the bag started sinking him. (Let's ignore how that can be compared to a prisoner's leg iron.)

But how did Adam survive then? Even if he did manage to get the chain off of his ankle, it still would have taken him some time, as he was under the pressure of the water, just enough time for him to start asphyxiating. As weird as it may seem, the answer is actually the Deep Ones. If by this time they already saw Adam as someone useful, or maybe having been this whole incident that made them take an interest, then they could have made an exception and saved Adam from drowning.

Though take note that Adam doesn't know it was the fishes, and thinks it was Six who found him (who was most likely warned by Gabriel), because it was the fisherman who helped him start breathing again, since people who nearly drown need help to get the water off of their lungs, and such a near-death experience also causes blurry thinking and vision, so it would have been easy for Adam to get the immediate details wrong. It was after this that the Deep Ones most likely told Six what had happened, as I think Adam would still have been in a state of too much shock to tell him, and that would be why both the fishes and Six call Murray "strong" : it was the Deep Ones who said it first, and Six agreeing calls him that too.

Now, besides Six taking Adam more seriously in some way, rather than seeing him as just some random kid, there's two other things to take note that start happening after this incident: one, Adam starts calling Six 'dad', and two, Adam doesn't remember half of the incident.

You may be asking yourself "what do you mean Adam doesn't remember?", and to answer that we will have to go into the psychology of trauma. There's a term known as dissociative amnesia, which in informal terms is basically when the brain blocks out memories of certain experiences in order to protect the rest of the mind. It's why many people who have been through traumatic events are unable to recall most memories of the trauma itself.

And knowing you have provoqued your own partner's death and nearly died yourself must, without a doubt, be an extremely traumatic memory, so it's not hard to see why Adam's brain locked it up. All that he remembers is that he and Amanda had an argument on the beach, something happpened and now she has been missing for years.

The other point is that Adam might not remember half of what happened, but he knows he was in some kind of danger and that is what Six helped him with, and he must have felt especially safe on that moment, so his dependency on Six only increased, and that would be why Adam starts calling him 'dad'. Though it's just as a joke on Adam's part, trying to laugh off the danger he was in, to Six it's just another thing he can use to manipulate Murray with. Yet again, their dynamic is extremely toxic.

Okay, the Deep Ones and Six call Adam 'strong' because he killed his girlfriend, unleashing the destructive potential inside him, but if they are aware that he can't remember having done that, how will they use him?

This is where his connection with Evelin becomes so much more than just a failed romantic relationship. -Part 4: Bond or Bound?-

What the Deep Ones want from both Adam and Evelin envolves their memory: they want Evelin to remember that she's one of them, and they want Adam to remember that night where he killed Amanda, so that the two of them realize that these paths, a monster and a worshipper, are their "fates". It's a messed up way of thinking: if Evie is a monster basically created to kill, Adam murdered someone at some point and is already connected to the Deep Ones through Six, plus the fact that they were 'soulmates' for a time, then it all must mean that they are bound to unleash each other's destructive potential.

Evie is still the catalyst and Adam is the prophet, because him killing Amanda in some way foreshadowed Sarah's fate, but I think Adam is also a catalyst on his own.

Think about it and it's almost like everything is connected: if Adam had never gotten together with Amanda, he would probably end being just Evie's ex, without such a major connection to the events, but since everything did happen he's relevant to the Deep Ones, and so when Evelin causes Sarah's death, they let her return to shore because they know Adam will be there, since they've been observing him for years and know he takes walks by the beach at night with some frequency. While Evie is a catalyst for the take-over plan, Adam is a catalyst for the cult who worshipped the Deep Ones to return, and they intended to use him as a way to facilitate Evelin remembering and accepting who she is, whether it was through Adam's fear or remaining love, by having him realize that the stories and myths and legends that Six used to tell him were real, and by consequence have Evie realize that too.

That would be when Six and Adam's friendship would come into relevance, because it was supposed to be after all that, that Six could convince Adam about recreating the cult, to worship the Deep Ones in exchange of protection, and especially for Murray, to see Evelin again.

It was a carefully and well-crafted plan that could have worked, had it not been for Evie refusing to let go of her humanity, and Adam having been walking with Dave the night of Sarah's death, not to mention Dave getting Ruth involved as well. With the plan having gone out the window, you may think Six's forced revelation of everything to Adam was a rushed last resort, but consider this: what if the forced revelation was an option all along?

The first plan was obviously the most appealing, not to mention much faster, but you can't have a plan A without a backup plan B for convenience. The forced revelation *was* that plan B, less appealing but just in case plan A didn't work. So, plan A didn't work and now plan B is in action, but what does it entail?

Well, we don't really know the full extent of just how much Evie is aware of Gabriel's plans, but I think Adam would be more important in case she refused to believe they were real, instead of her simply not knowing. In plan B, Adam isn't just any victim, he's a hostage, because any little step that's out of line that Evie takes, she's risking Six and the other Deep Ones taking advantage of Adam's already fragile condition and doing him even more harm.

This 'fragile condition' was, of course, induced by Six kidnapping and revealing everything to him before threatening to kill him if he told anyone, though, secretly he was always meant to breach this and end up telling Evelin. In plan A, Adam and Six's friendship was supposed to play a role and remain intact, but one of the reasons plan B is less appealing is because that "friendship" would need to be broken, for lack of a better term. If plan A was all about worshipping out of actual devotion, plan B would be all about worshipping out of fear.

Adam's mental health starts going downhill in pretty much a day because he realizes his entire life was basically a lie: that the person he saw as a parent figure was just using him all this time, that the feeling of genuine care was and never would be reciprocated, that he only survived that night with Amanda because water monsters beyond his understanding wanted to use him to hurt a girl he loved as well. Maybe Adam Murray was never his own person, just someone molded over the years to be what cruel entities want him to be. His whole sense of self is falling apart and he feels he can't trust anyone else with this, because he doesn't want to drive them away, or worse, drive them mad.

Though, that didn't stop him from temporarily moving out of his house and moving in with Ruth. He just tells her that someone threatened him under pain of death, which isn't a lie, but his real intentions were to avoid Six as much as possible. All of the revelation resulted extremely traumatic for him so, understandably, he doesn't want to come across the fisherman again so soon. Will Alt!Ruth let that be easy for him? Of course not, but for now be assured that he's safe from her forcing him to remember having killed Amanda, as Six didn't since he thought what he already did was enough damage, but then again, it's a threatening possibility of what she might do if Evelin continues to refuse joining the other Deep Ones.

So now Adam's literal life is in Ruth and Evie's hands, but who knows, maybe Adam will gain enough courage to stand up for himself again, or maybe the Deep Ones will use his despair and anger, his 'strength', and make him hurt someone again. We'll just have to see what comes next.

Thanks if you read all of this, it def took me quite the while. This was all 'Ace Anon''s boyfriend a.k.a me! :D

WHOOOOAAAA Okay this is insanely good, well worth the wait, you have a really good knack for character analysis!!!!! this is so so so cool. I love all of it, but part 1 and part 4 are just especially good like i said the character analysis, especially swap evie and adam, and also their whole thing is just great and everything coming together, seeing how all of the events fall into place, ALSO!!! explaining like... the thought process of some of the characters and why the villians do what they do and aaaah i wish i had more words THIS IS COOL!!!! :DDDD

#had to give myself a quick refresh on the swap haha #submandela swap #but fr this is really really neat just imagine me going YEAAAAAAAAAA bc im not as good as analysis as you guys but i love it #cw drowning #cw death #just in case!!!!

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