★ I go by Key (both English and Spanish pronunciations welcome). I'm a medical student from South America. For my pals into typing, I'm an INTP 6w5. Struggling Christian. Manejo tanto inglés como español, siéntete libre de usar cualquiera.
✰ My favorite media and main fandom is the MOTHER series, especially the first game (Please talk to me about Lloyd MOTHER 1). However, I do talk about AUs, OCs and original fiction as well, so be prepared for self-indulgent hurt/comfort I'm too self-conscious to bring up anywhere else.
★ I plan on keeping this blog's content a harsher PG-13 on average, but do keep in mind that heavier themes beyond that scope, which will be tagged, may eventually pop up.
✰ My interests include: Science, psychiatry and psychology, history and geography, late 9Os and early 2000s, internet/fandom culture, movies, the ins and outs of media ratings and angsty fiction about found family, redemption arcs and Messianic archetypes.
★ My favorite music genres are pop-punk, alt-metal, post-grunge, post-hardcore, math rock and midwest emo.
✰ No DNI beyond basic criteria (and if you engage in US defaultism /hj. You're welcome, but you're getting chewed out if you pull that here lol). Zero-tolerance policy for bullying.
Also, if you make an habit of speaking on geopolitical/human topics you don't understand over those who lived through it, especially if you do it in a condescending manner completely devoid of empathy, I'd appreciate you kept it to a minimum here too.
★ School keeps me busy and my spoons fluctuate heavily, so don't expect me to post very often. I'm autistic (duh), sorry in advance if I misinterpret you!
✰ My commissions are open. 2/5 slots taken as of 01/07/26.
I go back to med school tomorrow which means i won't be able to draw/write as much, and before that i wanted to tackle something that had been bothering me and i don't want to put off until spring break---the TITLE.
From the start, Hand In Unlovable Hand has explicitly been a placeholder title (the second one, in fact—originally, it was "Stockholm Syndrome, the movie" :P), taken from a song that admittedly doesn't fit the tone of the story, as a whole, very well. As it often is with placeholders of all kinds, the longer they stay in place, the harder they stick. (I would know.)
HIUH as a title is about a year old—the story itself being around two—and I want to discharge it before I'm not really able to, especially considering I'm posting about it online. After a long deliberation (aka, going through the character playlists twice), I'm tentatively going with As I Take The Fall from Run Kid Run's "Rescue Me". Love At The Core as an album fits the story pretty good (what with the Christian symbolism, themes of trust and stuff), and several other strong contenders were lyrics from "Captives Come Home" (which I like a bit better than Rescue Me), "My Sweet Escape" or from songs out of Relient K's album Mmhmm—which also fits for the same reasons. One of these may or not get title privileges if AITTF doesn't stick.
Ansel Hawthorne, the sweet but socially awkward thirteen-year-old son of HWTCH's CEO and a Senator, is abducted for ransom on his way back from school. Fifteen-year-old Felix who generally acts as a warden for the poor unfortunate bastards who have the displeasure to end up in his boss's basement, is now assigned to keep the new hostage in line and initially doesn't relish the knowledge that he's been put on babysitting duty for a brat. Ansel, on his part, is scared out of his mind, trying to remain calm and see the purpose in the ordeal.
Since the kidnapper holds back on immediately sending the note, the two have to spend more time together, time during which they begin to know each —or as much as each one will reveal. Turns out none has actual, trusted friends, and for better or worse the last person they imagined fits the bill of genuinely caring as people. Obviously, their diametrically different backgrounds, Fel's denial about being dispensable and Ansel's lack of understanding on conditioning set them up for a few bumps. However, several weeks in, they trust each other with their lives AND their thoughts.
In the meantime, Fel's boss isn't too happy as the boy starts talking back to him and going behind his back. Fel is rough, coarse, vulgar and disrespectful, but in the end always obeys. Without realizing, Fel's loyalty is shifting, if not dwindling, and making him become more and more reckless if it means making his new friend comfortable.
The group is taking his sweet time to return Ansel, however, and both of them notice. Fel is nervous and antsy, and Ansel grows gradually calmer. Secretly, he's started to put two and two together and make peace with the possibility that no one is planning on his release, hoping Fel will too.
His guesses end up being right when the boss tells Fel they have the money, but the authorities are too close, the Hawthorne boy knows much and giving him back at that point would be at risk. Of course, the grown ahh guy is a coward and what's better to have his dirty work double as a loyalty test.
Fel accepts the order, not without overwhelming guilt. But he's done many things he regrets, and never backed up from them, right? For better or worse, and to his surprise, Ansel doesn't seem to be too shocked, and accepts the facts scarily easily, citing his submission to God's plan and caring for Fel too much to make his job harder as his reasons. Ansel's angry, though— angry at the knowledge that the night will haunt his friend for a long time, all because of an adult too cowardly to shoot him himself.
Fel tries. He really tries. They go through the obligatory angsty "it's not your fault + breakdown" conversation and say their goodbyes, but no matter what, he can't bring himself to harm the one good person he knows. In an impulse, he decides to help Ansel escape and make his way back to the city— what happens to him be damned. Thus, they set out in the middle of the night, hoping to be out of the group's reach before they notice Fel's betrayal.
After many days of stumbling, Fel successfully makes it to Ansel's city, and is now presented with a fork.
1. He drops Ansel in some sidewalk, where someone will recognize him and help him back to safety. Pros: he can disappear and avoid being connected to the kidnapping. Cons: If they took Ansel from the streets easily, who's to say someone else could? Fel is too protective to just assume he'll be okay. Plus, having to look over his shoulder for either the law or the group he stabbed in the back.
2. He takes Ansel directly to the Hawthorne-Sinclair estate. Pros: he'll know for sure the other boy will be reunited with his parents, safely at home. Cons: with how much of a disaster the last month has probably been for them, chances are security has increased and he'll be caught on the spot, not to mention a potential media scandal.
3. He takes Ansel to a police station, where they'll contact the Hawthorne-Sinclairs. Pros: there's no way these guys who've probably been looking for Ansel for so long won't call his parents, especially with how important they are. Plus, if discreet, he can avoid putting Ansel through a journalist storm. Cons: there is also no way he will walk through that door with previously-missing Ansel Hawthorne and no one will put the pieces together. He knows he must be in some blurry security camera, no matter how careful he is in the job...
Obviously, because I'm a sucker for unrealistic drama, Fel decides on the latter course of action. Ansel, while unsure, sees the choice as the attempt of making things right it is and they say their goodbyes —as painful as the last time, even though no one's getting shot anymore.
For better or worse, everything goes as Fel predicted it. Except for two things: them finding his gun (which he'd kept in case someone tried something with Ansel during their escape), and more distressingly, Ansel dropping all pretense of polite dignity and blowing up in hysterical anger at the thought that they'd take his friend, his protector, the one who did more than the whole PD ever did for him, away.
Several weeks go since they last see each other after that. Fel awaits the outcome of his situation, even though the outlook isn't too optimistic. His half-decent public lawyer and social workers have informed him that, with the amount of things he's confessed to and his sixteenth birthday barely weeks away, the State might push to move his case to adult court, which puts the two worst-case scenarios on the table. Maybe too late, he's realized Ansel was right —his group threw him under the bus. He has given away everything he can think of on it, hoping that if nothing else, they'll catch the scumbags someday.
Maybe worse than all, is the emptiness he feels at losing the one good thing in his life. He's content with knowing Ansel is probably okay, but that doesn't mean he can't feel like his heart has been ripped off his chest.
He gets an unexpected visit from the Hawthorne-Sinclairs. Henry Hawthorne is every bit Ansel's father: same face, same friendly, approachable personality, same tendency to pity too much —maybe a bit less naive. Senator Meredith Sinclair, on the other hand, acts more like Fel would expect from the parents of a victim.
(Fel and Ansel's mother might not stand each other but the one thing they have in common is 1. The belief that Ansel is naive beyond help and 2. An almost violent protectiveness over him lol)
The couple, having heard Ansel's account of the events transpired since his disappearance, feel indebted and want to help —Henry more genuinely, Mer moreso out of duty and Ansel's request— so they offer to pay for a fully trained, Harvard-level legal team to work on the case and hopefully keep it in juvenile court, in exchange that he allows the Hawthorne-Sinclairs to foster him until his eighteenth birthday in the event of a release.
Fled IG because everyone's 'geopolitical expertise' (on countries they probably couldn't point out on a map) pissed me off and for safety reasons I can't reply to ragebait-level misinformation. Tumblr is probably as bad or worse but hey what do you do.
