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.
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i’m deleting this later.
so bleach used to be one of my favorite shows / mangas and i still have love for it but it’s LARGELY unsatisfactory when it comes to ichigo’s heroes journey ,,? does that make sense? i’m not going to get too technical, but he starts as a kid who’s got issues bc he lost his mom ( tragically ) and he’s living life with this chip on his shoulder. bla bla bla inciting action , transformation & boom . . . we’re on our journey with our magical aid. the soul society arc was one of the best pieces of story i have seen from any mangaka to date and that’s just bc it’s so interesting to me. you have this outlier ( ichigo ) busting into a stagnant world and completely shaking it to its foundations BY SHEER LOVE AND WILLPOWER, and his friends follow him for the same reasons! they clash with this society, meet people, understand their motives more, their lives. they make FRIENDS and ENEMIES and uncover heinous secrets, cruelties and injustice and actually stand up and say ‘ yo wtf? ? ‘
throughout the arc we see major figureheads ‘change sides ‘ / change their minds and stand up too and it’s just really cool to see the ripple effect ichigo has on things, he’s a shaker and a mover. this arc ends with aizen’s betrayal revealed and his promise to return and destroy soul society and BAM we’re led into another amazing arc : hueco mundo. now if you pay attention THIS is a continuation where we see ichigo sort of confronting himself more but also denying himself in this arc ( he did a lot of soul searching in the first arc do not get me wrong homie jilted a 10+ year process in three days ) but in this arc we see how far he really goes for the ones he calls family ( i.e orihime getting nabbed + ichigo DYING & returning in that one fight , to him agreeing to split his soul to achieve final getsuga ) which just leads me to feel like after / during this arc we see ichigo really come alive meeting people who are like him? ikkaku? renji? ganju?? like it’s so. . . . idk ! seeing him continuing to fight for a society like their attack dog that ( albeit made some changes ! ) is still so stagnant ?? forever ? his whole arc after soul society + hueco mundo is him dealing with his depression which i actually enjoy bc at least it’s touching on ? his ptsd ? pain? loss of HALF HIS SOUL. i think this is such a powerful moment in his life? idk what i wanted done with him but then we hit the fullbring arc and it was so unsatisfactory to me bc ?? he regains his soul reaper powers ONLY because they needed him to defeat ginjo on their behalf. they didn’t pool their power into a zanpakuto BEFORE ??? it’s just,,, idk !
and anytime after that all ichigo does is fight for soul society, all side plot non canon movies , all filler eps , thousand year blood war? ichigo is not even 18 ?? and soul society once again asks him for his help, it’s just unsatisfactory to me! i miss the first arc and maybe the second one where we take more of a psychological look at ichigo , his motivations , his pains and how that makes him act around the people he loves. where do you take a character like that after he’s gotten his friend back? does he continue to change the society from the inside out? does he quit ? does he stay? that’s sort of the catch 22 with him, you CANT realistically say ichigo would give up his power and carry on as if nothing ever happened bc that’s not who he IS , he has a savior complex / survivors guilt + ptsd. he’s obsessed with making sure EVERYTHING is okay and safe because he’ll make it ok and safe but he won’t tell you whatever’s going on with him bc that’s just too much and he can handle it. i’m getting ahead of myself
tdlr; ichigo loses his mother who he loved more than anything -> ichigo pulls into himself and keeps friends who he can relate to close but not too close, not ever too close -> he meets rukia and undergoes massive change to save his family , he lets her in -> rejects the responsibility over everyone at first but then is convinced that he can’t half-ass the job , all souls need him -> his new friend who he sees himself in ( and someone who taught him the ropes ) gets kidnapped and imprisoned and sentenced to death for ‘ helping him ‘ / saving his life / doing her fucking job -> his friends who love him so much were empowered just by being around ichigo and train to help him -> they all go to get their new friend back and save them from a grim fate, fall into a world with so many personalities , backstories, motivations, rules , fuckery that they can’t help but make friends and garner allies -> he lets people in, he has motivation and a goal and a reason to push past boundaries and overcome the odds and blow people away -> he fails and gets back up and wins and fails again and carries on , who is he if he can’t save his friends even at the cost of his own well-being -> cue his friends ready to push it to the limit too bc they love him and he has to realize he can’t be self sacrificial and expect his friends to not do the same -> eventually they save rukia and bring attention to oddity of her DEATH SENTENCE -> ichigo achieves his goal but can’t help but feel anger as aizen reveals his betrayal and plan for the world at large , he lives in the world and takes it SO personally -> MORE growth for ichigo as he literally plows through enemies without really going through proper inner channels , but needs the power so he has quick meetings and sheer force of wills himself through situations -> eventually makes the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of others and his family / friends , splitting himself away from himself. he’s harshly cutting away the piece that has made him feel alive, useful , for the first time in a long long time. and his father encourages it. where does that leave him? where would that lead you? after everything ? all the adventures, adversaries, people you met? you must say goodbye bc this was never a choice for you? this was like breathing, you’d cut yourself into smaller pieces if it met you could fill the bellies of those you loved. ichigo’s arc makes me fucking crazy because it’s like a snake that eats itself, it’s never ending , and tite tried to end it? he tried to say that there ‘ is no zanpakuto spirit , you’re always fighting alone , it’s self acceptance and love that’s the answer. ‘ and he gets another power up and everything’s wrapped up ( it’s not , lots are missing / dead but hey kubo was sick so ) and ichigo married and had a kid , he could finally rest and give up reaping — like WHAT
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