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multimetaverse · 3 years

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HSMTMTS 2x12 Review

Second Chances was a lacklustre finale for an uneven season. Let’s dig in!

Earlier this week I re-watched S1 in preparation for the S2 finale and the contrast between the two seasons is jarring. In almost every way S2 has been worse and after seeing this finale I’m less optimistic that Tim will be able to fix the long list of things that have gone wrong. Tim has said in some of his interviews today that pretty much all of S2 was written before the pandemic and that they didn’t have to do as much re-writing as people might think due to the stringent safety measures Disney put in place. Of course, that removes an excuse for the bad writing we’ve seen so much of this season as according to Tim what we saw of S2 is largely what he envisioned minus big crowds and background dancers.

Across his many interviews today, the one consistent point is that Tim does not have any real plans for future seasons; things like Ricky’s endgame he hasn’t decided on and he can’t even guarantee the summer season the finale sets up due to the weather in Salt Lake. I do think a S3 is an almost certainty given the show’s popularity but I’ll take Tim at his word that he truly doesn’t know if they’ll be renewed since it seems to be a new Disney tradition to wait until seasons are done airing before making a renewal decision (the same thing happened for the popular and well received Mighty Ducks: Game Changers which got a silent renewal only after all of S1 aired). That being said as poor of a season finale as Second Chances is it is also a terrible potential series finale. In large part it goes back to his lack of planning, he wants to keep all options open but in doing so Tim is crippling the show’s ability to deliver any pay offs or tie up loose ends.

The one mostly well done plot line this season was Portwell which got a happy ending tonight as they canoned. The only good thing about the big brother angst was that it was so insane that it had to be addressed and sure enough it was and Gina got her first kiss with a guy she really liked. If Tim is to be believed the reason we didn’t get an on screen Portwell kiss was not because of their age difference or covid concerns but because he felt that everyone’s first kiss was different so he wanted it off screen so viewers could fill in the blanks themselves. Tim’s line of reasoning is profoundly stupid. Imagine if they had Jamie show up and he and Gina talked off screen and Tim tried to claim that because everyone has a different relationship with their own siblings that he wanted the audience to fill in the blanks as to how their conversation went!

Still we saw great character development on Gina and EJ’s part as both really grew from the people they were in S1. As Tim noted, EJ bringing Gina back in 1x10 was kind of the set up for this story line. The only thing missing was a brief Portwell scene sometime in eps 2x01-2x04 to set them up. The consistent development they got from 2x05-2x12 is unlike any other ship on the show; only Rini exceeds their development.

Unfortunately I don’t think that will last in S3 because Tim will always favour Ricky over EJ and if he wants to do Rina he’ll dispose of Portwell before doing so. I was surprised that they never bothered to have Ricky and Gina have a conversation about Gina’s S1 confession. It was a huge mistake to have Gina pine over Ricky for half the season and it was no surprise that Gina’s story line got instantly better once she stopped interacting with Ricky. Tim has made clear in interviews that he’s still interested in the possibility of Rina which makes his poor writing of them even more bizarre. What conclusions are the audience supposed to draw from the Rina story line this season? That Ricky never cared that much about Gina? That it’s totally fine for the show if they don’t interact for 6 eps in a row? That Gina has moved on? I’ve said before that a wiser man than Tim would recognize that doing both Portwell and Rina will do tremendous damage to the show and he should pick one and not do the other. Of course he’s not that smart but it is wild how he’s accidentally written their story line to make for a perfect end to Rina.

Second Chances was great and is the only part of the finale that would have been well suited to being part of a potential series finale.

The Rini closure was a sad inverse of their S1 opening night confession. They’ve fallen so far from being the it couple of the series and I fear Tim doesn’t actually know what to do with them now. He really needs to decide if he’s tearing down that treehouse for real.

The less said about the Valentine’s chocolates the better but at least Gina and Nini are cool again and Nini can explore her budding music career with Jamie’s help. Tim repeatedly said in interviews that the scripts about Nini’s music career were all written before Driver’s License came out and I think he understands that the audience is just going to see the show as copying from Olivia’s life.

The wildcats just deciding to drop out of the Menkies was a lame cop out. Tim has said he always meant for that to happen though they were originally going to compete at the Menkies then drop out (presumably that’s where we would have heard Lily singing Home). Somebody should have mentioned the $50 000 prize money which the East High theatre department could surely use after Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara burned it down (remember that story line that had no consequences?). And that NYU scholarship could have been life changing for one of them and yet no one even brought it up once this season.

I did like the twist that it was EJ and his dad who got Mazzara into Caltech. He’d be a fool not to take it but I’m glad he confessed to Miss Jenn. She’s had a really rough season and I hope she redeems herself in S3.

Howie was acting so weird tonight and last ep that I have a hard time believing he was really so awed by Kourtney’s talent rather than feeling guilty for helping to steal the harness. The harness is another useless plot device; there are no consequences for Lily stealing it, she’s not caught, East High pulls off another version of the transformation off screen, and then East High withdraws from the Menkies anyways. Doubtless the harness will eventually come up to serve Rily angst.

At least Lily was straightforward, I’ll give her that. She has such an odd way of speaking, almost child like. As awful as it is there is potential for a forbidden/secret romance story line with Rily. It really does not speak well to Ricky’s character that he’s so easily fallen for Lily’s act when he has no reason to trust her and she never apologized for making fun of Big Red during the auditions or making Ashlyn feel insecure during the dance off.

The one way in which S2 was drastically better to S1 was in regards to the Seblos story line. Clearly Joe being bumped up to regular made a big difference. We got the first same-sex kiss between two boys and the first love song sung by one boy to another in Disney history and that is a legacy to be proud of. Of course, there was still some Disney censorship such as Carlos and Seblos being unable to use the word gay in the same ep that focused on Carlos singing In a Heartbeat to Seb.

S1 of HSMTMTS had a clear direction, the wildcats would have to try and come together to stage High School Musical and Ricky and Nini would have to decide if they still had a future together while Gina and EJ had to work on being better versions of themselves. It was simple sure but it worked very well. There was a lot of heart but also a lot of humor and the show never took itself too seriously. What has S2 had? Beauty and the Beast was hardly the main focus of the cast or the writers and the central couple that S1 was built around is now broken up either for a long time or for good. There was a lot less of the meta moments that jokes that made S1 such a hit, for far too many eps this season the show took itself way too seriously. Hell even the lighting this season was darker than in S1.

Olivia Rodrigo’s team had complained in a recent article that Olivia wouldn’t be able to potentially tour until fall 2022 due to her contractual commitments which is a sign that they think a S3 is very likely though I wonder how late S3 filming would have to start to keep her occupied until late 2022. There’s no confirmation of this but I thought it might be worth keeping an eye on; a post on r/hsmtmts by someone who claims to have a source working on production says that the plan is for S3 to be a summer theatre camp possibly with Camp Rock renditions and the plan for S4 is to jump 6 months ahead to the final semester of senior year and end with Ricky, Nini, Big Red, and Kourtney graduating from East High. They also say that part of the delay in the S3 announcement is a conflict between Tim and Disney executives. Tim wants to move production to LA and film on sets as it’s easier and cheaper while the Disney execs still want some on location shooting in Salt Lake. Again this is all unconfirmed but if it pans out it will represent a major shift in the series.

Regardless if Tim wants the show to remain successful he needs start planning out what he wants to happen. He should not assume he’s getting more than 4 seasons. If the series gets a S3 but then is suddenly cancelled then how would he want all the main story lines to wrap up? And if they make it to S4 where does he see it ending? The graduation of the current juniors is a logical series ending point but if Tim wants to do something different he needs to start thinking of that now. I can’t say I’m excited anymore for S3 but I do really hope that Tim and his writers can turn things around and that will only happen if they recognize what they did wrong and learn from their mistakes.

Until next season Wildcats

#HSMTMTS #Portwell #Rini #Gina Porter #EJ Caswell #Ricky Bowen #Nini Salazar-Roberts #Kourtney Greene #lily #HSMTMTS Reviews

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nehawriter16 · 3 years

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2020 / 24

There are only 2 things I can do on an airplane – dose up on sleeping meds and pass out, or order one too many cappuccinos, keep my exhausted brain awake, and will it to talk to paper. The flight from JFK was in the afternoon and in the chaos of leaving for the airport early in the morning, I forgot to pack my pills.

Two cappuccinos in, my hands were shaking and begging to be typing out the Mrs. Maisel speed monologue that constantly runs in my head. Even though there is a month left in this year, I decided to do my annual New Years Eve post. Over the last 3 days, I’ve been drilling it down to go from gibberish to slightly readable.

Here it is.

Like the rest of the world, in January, I was blissfully unaware of the shitstorm that would follow. I got into several colleges on the East Coast for a Master’s in Finance degree. Every day, I would race down the stairs with my laptop and show my parents: another admit, another scholarship! On the surface, I was making pro and con lists for each one. Deep down, my heart had already picked Fordham in New York. It was New York. Nothing else would cut it.

The day after I turned 24 in January, I also met my (now ex) boyfriend on the internet. Completely by accident, he saw my profile because a mutual friend followed my writing. Two days later, she texted me and said he would like to talk to me. Did I want to talk to some boy studying in Paris? I was single and bored and already had my year laid out for me, so why wouldn’t I?

It moved quickly. Three months later, we had been speaking every day and were exclusive. We had not hung out in person. It was stupid, but I had never come across anybody who liked me as much as he did. In every relationship I had been in before this, I always knew I was more emotionally involved. I fell in love with his devotion to me – he would stay home (who stays home in Paris!) and choose to spend virtual time with me over going to clubs with his friends. I watched myself become the epicenter of his life and thought – this is how much I’ve always wanted to mean to somebody.

In March when the pandemic hit and India shut down, my father sent a car to pick me up from my internship in Bombay, where I had moved two weeks ago. I didn’t pack so much as my toothbrush – the driver brought me home and I had no idea that it would be months before I’d get to leave again.

Morales stayed high in the beginning – we thought it would end in 21 days, then 2 months, then 5. It has taken over the whole year now, and despite us gridlocking it into “2020,” we all know the first half of 2021 will also be filled with masks and sanitizers and not hugging your friends. I wonder if I will ever settle into somebody’s arms without cringing again.

March melted into April, that melted into one long drawl until suddenly it was August and college was beginning the following week. I found myself refreshing the US consulate’s website absent mindedly one afternoon, and all appointments that had been suspended suddenly showed you a tiny little bar that read “reschedule.” I screamed and clicked.

I had thought I would be spending the year stuck at home, awake and attending classes at odd hours. While my classmates went to happy hours in dive bars in Manhattan, I would be in my bedroom, still chained to my parents’ curfews and ultimatums. But then suddenly, I was standing before a US immigration officer in Bombay, and he was telling me I had been granted my student visa.

All that was left to do was book a flight to New York, and break the news to my boyfriend, who was on his way to my abandoned apartment at this very moment for our first date, 7 months after we first began speaking. He had come home in March when France went into lockdown, and it was starting to feel like a throuple with long distance, the third and very present member in our relationship.

I packed up the belongings I had left there, and we sat across from each other on the double bed. I kissed him first. There were roadblocks, and our personalities and views clashed on so many important things, but I loved him. Two days later, I said: I have to leave for New York in 3 weeks. He didn’t take it well.

In September, I landed at JFK. When the wheels of the plane made contact with the runway, I was smiling behind a mask I’d had on for 16 hours. On the Air Train to Manhattan, I felt a sense of happiness wash over me and toyed with the possibility that maybe I wouldn’t mind if it was just me in this city. I would be okay alone.

I found an apartment, a roommate, signed a lease in a beautiful building in Hell’s Kitchen, walking distance from college. I met lots of people from my class and instantly picked out the ones I wanted to become good friends with. I dove straight into academics and extra curriculars at college – after 5 months of nothing happening, life was suddenly exciting again.

When New York lit up every night, it felt like anything was possible. I started eating better and walking a lot. My hair grew out from the bad haircut I’d gotten the year before. Coffee was no longer just coffee, it was finding a new café and walking through Central Park. Drinks were not just drinks, they were about accidentally stumbling onto a secret bar in the East Village, finding favorite spots in the neighborhood, letting a cute waiter recommend a cocktail to me even though I was perfectly capable of picking one myself.

The boyfriend and I were fighting more than usual. I was getting tired of it. We had discussed a life together, but it was slowly and surely becoming clear to me that I would resent myself for making big compromises for a person who still had a lot of growing up left to do. As New York got cold, I did too – without trying. When one particular argument got really bad, I asked for a break from the relationship. He didn’t like it.

A week later, I woke up to a girl sending me screenshots on Instagram of her conversation with him (pre me asking for a break) on a dating app, and without getting into details, I will tell you it was not a conversation anybody with a girlfriend should have been having. I should have been broken in half on the inside, but now I could finally say, without feeling guilty – this relationship was not working, nobody was happy, and you were so unhappy you thought talking to other women was okay. I spent all of one day drinking with a friend in Central Park and sobbing myself to sleep.

But mostly, what hit me after the initial shock had died down was a tsunami of relief. I felt lighter, freer. I try not to think too hard about the trauma that comes from finding out that the person you think is so devoted to you, and definitely loves you more than you love them (or so you think) is being unfaithful, because it hurts a part of me that is already very bruised from all the things that have happened to me before. So I don’t.

But it was New York. I was young and smart and there was a wine shop down the block that sold $14 bottles of Moscato. I didn’t need much else to know I would be okay. At 20, I would have jumped right back into going on dates every other night to distract myself from what had happened, then never called any of those men back. At 24, this emotional speed bump resulted in a lot of quiet introspection in my bedroom. I spent a lot of time alone, on the phone with friends, and walking around the city. I had learnt to like my own company enough to not fill a suddenly empty void with anybody else’s, even though there have been several tempting offers in this past month, and sometimes, I have succumbed to them, but mostly I am very strict with who deserves my company.

It was nice to spend that second month in New York by myself. I owed absolutely nobody a single minute of my time. No one asked me questions, or called me and expected me to share my day unless I wanted to, and once I had worked hard and cleared out the things from my to do list for the day, time stretched out before me and I had the autonomy to decide the smallest thing down to who to meet, what to eat, how much to sleep.

I didn’t let my academics and ambition suffer – no matter what happens, I never do and I never will. The grades stay up – it’s built into my system. I am back home now and just 2 days in, I find myself wishing I hadn’t left New York. I was starting to build a life I liked there, and the only price I had to pay for it was a 4 pm sunset. It would have been slightly lonely, but I like the time I spend by myself. I worked hard to become like that.

This month, I will see my friends here at home. I’ve missed them. I can’t believe I grew up in this city and I already feel so alienated from it just from 60 days of living away. Is that how badly I wanted to leave?

I might be dramatic and fly back on my 25th birthday, so that I can say, “I was on a flight,” and ignore the slowly expanding bubble of dread that comes with turning that old. I like the ambiguity of airports and I’m the sort of inherently sad person who would love to be alone and unreachable on my birthday.

I acknowledge that my problems this year have been so small in the face of those of us who have lost family members, contracted the virus, had to give up internships or had jobs taken from us, been torn away from family, or had to make it through this alone.

I feel almost guilty that good things have happened to me in a year that has predominantly been bad for almost everyone else. I feel apologetic, even though from 2017 to 2019, I was treated like life’s sick joke so I should deserve these good things that I worked hard for.

I definitely feel myself growing up, though. Emotionally I find I have a clearer idea of what I want from relationships and friendships, and I don’t second guess cutting off anybody who doesn’t serve that purpose or messes with my mental peace. I still have days when self-doubt comes over for a cup of tea, leaves me weak in the knees, but most days are free of it. I am also moving out of that chameleon phase where I mirrored what I thought a room full of new people would want from me, and I am unapologetically myself, irrespective of who’s watching.

Last year I remember wishing for something stupid, like “I wish there was somebody to kiss on New Years Eve,” because I’ve never had anybody to smack lips with when it’s midnight. This year, I don’t care. I’ll kiss myself in the mirror, for all I care. I love her. She’s my homie.

It’s been a weird year. I know who I was in 2019, and I remember wondering if I was proud of her. Things were still in purgatory then. But I steered my life and brought it back on track. This year, I am proud of myself without doubting it.

There’s no measuring scale for personal growth, but if there was, I feel at least a couple of inches taller in 2020.

#personal 2020 writing

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heartlandhq · 6 years

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❝ i am trying to write a poem in which i am neither a monster nor a martyr. ❞

INFORMATION,

full name ⋯ Mateo Álvarez / Matthew Beckett age ⋯ 19 years old pronouns ⋯ He/Him/His origin ⋯ St. Edward, Nebraska affiliation ⋯ None position ⋯ Independent

SURVIVABILITY,

advantages ⋯ athletic & resourceful disadvantages ⋯ reclusive & erratic preferred weapon ⋯ crossbow & machete

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warning ⋯ alcoholism, domestic abuse, child abuse, murder, suicide, death

BEFORE DECEMBER 25th, 2017,

mateo thinks even his family must have been happy once upon a time. dante and marlene álvarez were young when they had mateo –– barely in their twenties, the pair made a handsome couple, and along with little mateo, they made a picture-perfect family.

but as little mateo grew, so did his father’s love for alcohol. wine at dinner with friends, turned to beer in the afternoon with the guys, to any bottle closest to hand at any time in the day. there must have been a time when his father had been gentle, loving, kind, but mateo only knew a stern man, cruel and quick to anger.

dante hit his wife often, over the smallest of disagreements, and if mateo tried to stand up for his mother, the belt was turned on him. it’s okay, marlene would say as she tucked mateo in, your father is only doing what’s best for me. his mother’s words always left a bad taste in his mouth, and even at a tender six years of age, mateo was more worried than reassured.

despite the insidious going-ons in the house, dante and marlene álvarez could do no wrong in the eyes of their small town. everyone was deeply religious, and the álvarez family would show up to church in their sunday best, marlene’s bruises hidden underneath layers of make up and dante’s anger lurking just beneath the surface of his easy smile, unseen to all except those who knew to look for it. and it seemed that mateo was the only one who saw his father for the monster he actually was, but he was a good boy, and when his mother told him to let it go and just smile, that was exactly what he did.

it all came to head when mateo was nine. his parents were fighting in the kitchen, and for the longest time, mateo could only watch, frozen in fear. oh my god, he’s going to kill her, he had thought. when dante picked up the knife, mateo knew he had to do something. he moved without even thinking about it, and then suddenly his father was in a crumpled heap on their kitchen tiles, and mateo stood over him with his baseball bat in his hands.

blood was pooling at his feet, and mateo didn’t need to check his father’s pulse to know that he was dead; the unnatural way that dante’s skull had caved in said it all. when he finally tore his gaze from his father’s dead body, he found his mother, staring at him in horror. mama, he called, dropping the bat and ignoring the way the blood splashed onto his bare feet. the sound of his voice was enough to pull marlene from her shock. the devil, she screamed, you are the devil.

and then mateo could only watch as his mother picked up the knife from where it had fallen from dante’s grasp as he fell, the scream seizing in his throat as marlene stabbed herself, over and over and over again. and then there was one. marlene’s blood mixed with dante’s at mateo’s feet, and even as the woman stilled, the anguish on her face lingered. someone must have called the police, because soon he felt himself being scooped up into a pair of strong arms and led away.

it’s okay, the man whispered to him repeatedly, it’s going to be okay. the man’s words would finally register with him much later, but in that moment, all he could hear were his mother’s last words, the terror in her eyes as she looked at him. his mother had a husband who routinely beat her, but she was never afraid of him. no, marlene álvarez died in fear of her own son.

a case of murder-suicide, the police determined. tragic, certainly, but not unheard of. the community was shaken. dante and marlene had been loved by all and had seemed happy, for all intents and purposes. they just couldn’t believe that they had been wrong about the young couple, and so they sought other explanations. the child is cursed, they decided, touched by the devil.

if mateo had thought that his father’s death meant the end of his nightmare, then he was wrong. it only got worse. the entire town seemed to be afraid of him, whispers following everywhere he went. even the nuns at the orphanage he was brought to seemed to cower in his presence, unable to meet his gaze. when the night terrors had him jolting out of bed at night, throat raw from all the screaming, no one came running. he tried to pray at first, his mother’s rosary clutched to his chest, but it seemed that even god himself had turned his back on mateo.

eventually, he stopped trying. his family, his community, his faith –– they had all abandoned him, and mateo learned the hard way that the only person he could truly count on was himself. he was surprised when he was told that he had a visitor, and then confused when he didn’t recognise the man who waited for him in the small chapel. but then the man spoke, and mateo remembered the only person who had held him ever since that night.

anthony beckett was the only man who had offered mateo any comfort in the wake of the tragedy, but mateo was angry still. it’s okay, anthony had said as he whisked mateo away from his parents’ bodies, but there was absolutely nothing about his life that was okay. and he was mad that anthony thought he could waltz back into mateo’s life after a year of radio silence like nothing was wrong, like he wasn’t as bad as the rest of them. and then he learned that anthony had disappeared to get a fostering licence, and even though the anger still simmered – a constant itch under his skin – anthony had offered him a way out of this hell and he was eager to take it.

they moved to omaha, nebraska, where mateo got a fresh start as matthew beckett. the first few years were hard, and mateo remained distant and closed off despite anthony’s best efforts. but anthony’s patience paid off, and over time he managed to gain mateo’s trust. he became the father that mateo never had, and when he noticed that sundays were the hardest for mateo, he started arranging his shifts at the police station so that he could have sunday mornings off. the pair would then spend their time at the park, playing a variety of sports.

things were looking up, but they weren’t always great. mateo still woke up screaming in the middle of the night, and on other nights the trauma would keep him from even falling asleep in the first place. but like he had been taught when young, his problems at home were carefully hidden away from the outside world. mateo matthew was a popular kid at school, got good grades and was captain of the lacrosse team. charming and easy-going, he seemed like an open book, and no one ever suspected that he might have anything to hide. his dark past remained a closely guarded secret.

AFTER DECEMBER 25th, 2017,

mateo got a lacrosse scholarship to the university of maryland, college park, where he decided to study criminology. although he seemed to have a gilded tongue with everyone else, simple words alone weren’t enough for him to express the extent of his gratitude towards anthony. he had decided to major in criminology with hopes of joining the police force one day, and when anthony found out, the pride in his eyes let mateo know that the man he had come to see as his father understood what mateo was trying to tell him.

he had been back in omaha for christmas break when all hell seemed to break loose. it started when their elderly neighbour wandered onto their front lawn, blood on her nightgown and around her mouth. anthony had always been something of a bleeding heart – the fact that he took mateo in was proof of that – and he was about to open the door to ask if she was alright. mateo knew better though. he knew anthony wouldn’t listen to him to leave it alone, so the moment his foster father stood up, mateo bounded up the stairs to grab the man’s shotgun. the elderly mrs smith made a lunge for anthony the moment their front door started to swing open, but she hadn’t counted on mateo shooting her right in the head from his bedroom window.

rattled, they went into lockdown mode. the downstairs windows were boarded up, and when anthony was asleep, mateo snuck into mrs smith’s house to steal all the non-perishable foods that she had before other looters arrived. they sat in front of the television, day after day, trying to make sense of what the hell was happening. there was something going on, but the nation’s leaders seemed more keen on false promises than the truth. mateo had a sneaking suspicion about the pandemic, but it seemed too far-fetched, too crazy to be uttered aloud. but then a local radio station mentioned the zombie apocalypse, and mateo knew that there was no running from the truth any longer.

not too long after that, the internet stopped working. then the tv, then the radio, then cell service died as well. this was something completely beyond them. mateo knew that they were out of their depth, and the survivor in him knew that it would be in their best interests to stay out of trouble and start hunkering down. but anthony was a noble man, protective of his people. he had gotten over his initial shock after almost being attacked by the zombified mrs smith, and now that the town had erupted into chaos, the hero in him would not let him simply hide away when there was pandemonium on the streets and people in need of protection.

if anthony was going to be out on the streets, then mateo wanted to be there as well. but anthony convinced him that at least one of them had to hold down the fort. as terrible as it was to admit, the undead weren’t the only things they had to worry about. people could be driven to do terrible things when they were afraid, and nobody in town was anything short of terrified. mateo agreed to stay behind on the condition that they would switch roles every day, and that anthony would be the one staying home the next day. they shook on it, and the next ten hours he spent sitting by his bedroom window with his shotgun were filled with nothing but dread and anxiety. it wasn’t until anthony was home safe that mateo could breathe easier.

they settled into a routine. there were camps that were starting to form around town, and they would take turn scouring the streets for survivors and escorting them to a community of their choice. mateo knew that given a choice, anthony would have joined one of those survivor camps. he never said anything about it, but mateo knew that the man was holding back because of him. it had taken mateo years to learn to trust anthony, and the man had saved him from a terrible childhood. even though for anthony’s sake he wished he could have been okay with the thought of joining a camp, it didn’t change the fact that the idea of putting his safety into other people’s hands made his skin crawl.

valentine’s day, his foster father came home, apology written all over his expression. mateo had reached out, pulled away the bandages on anthony’s shoulder to reveal a bite mark. there was no surprise, only horror and anguish. there were tears and apologies; anthony felt like he had let mateo down, he’d been so busy trying to protect everyone else even at the cost of his life that he hadn’t given much thought to what it might do to mateo to lose him. mateo wondered if this would not have happened had they joined a camp like he knew anthony wanted to.

anthony’s hand shook as he removed his glock from its holster, and then mateo’s hands were on his, steady as he took the gun away. you deserve heaven, was the only explanation mateo offered, the sadness in his eyes belying the nonchalance of his actions as he held the gun to his father’s head. so do you, anthony pointed out, but he seemed less scared now that his fate was in someone else’s hands –– and maybe it made him the worst of cowards, to put such a heavy responsibility on the boy he loved like his own flesh and blood, but he was only human.

mateo only shrugged, i killed my father once, i can do it again–– it was the first time in an entire decade that he’d said anything about that fateful night of his parents’ death, and despite the confession, anthony’s expression remained even and unafraid, as if he had known mateo’s hidden truth all along. it was all the absolution mateo needed, and then he pulled the trigger.

mateo functioned almost completely on auto-pilot after that, burying anthony in their backyard as dusk fell. there were no tears. once that was done, he grabbed a hiking backpack, methodically filling it with all the food, medical supplies, and weapons that he could carry. it was too dark to leave, so he settled in for the night. sleep refused to come, and when dawn broke, mateo had already doused the entire house in gasoline. he watched from the street as his home was swallowed by flames, taking a moment to mourn for all he had lost and then slipped away before the inferno attracted too many of the undead.

mateo maintained friendly relations with the survivors in the various camps, occasionally helping to transport supplies between them. he knew that he looked unassuming and used that to his advantage, convincing people that he wasn’t a threat. most people didn’t question how he managed to stay alive on his own if he really was as harmless as he tended to portray himself, and if they did, divulging the fact that his father had been a police officer tended to sate people’s curiosity. he watched as survivors regarded each other warily, cautious and untrusting even as they offered support. despite himself, mateo felt a sort of sick satisfaction at that. welcome to my life, he thought bitterly.

in the end, mateo was alone again.

CENSUS,

faceclaim ⋯ Froy Gutierrez played by ⋯ Honey

#froy gutierrez #rp #rpg #oc rp #horror rp #{ a. }#{ m. }#{ 10. }#{ independent. }#{ honey. }#{ mateo álvarez. }#domestic abuse tw #child abuse tw #suicide tw #murder tw

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