lion boy @judemurdock - Tumblr Blog

hey there demons, it’s me, ya boy, back at it again with another character.

rip, anyway this is jude, he’s very angsty and he hates everyone, i love him so much.

TRIGGERS BELOW: rape, heavy transphobia, murder. read at your own discretion

Ten Easy Steps to Creating a Monster

Step One: You’re born into a body that feels wrong and a name that doesn’t fit right. Sierra Murdock, they tell you it is, until you have no way not to respond to it, to feel that unease in your chest, like something is off but you can’t place exactly what it is. You go to church with your parents every week, and listen to the parents of people in your youth group talk about the dirty gays and the transgenders that will certainly go to hell. You aren’t meant to have overheard that, and your parents don’t know how to react when you ask them, at the age of six, “who are transgenders?” You are innocent, Sierra, with wide eyes and curly hair, and a soul too young to be tainted. When it’s explained to you, everything makes sense, and you understand. You understand why your skin feels awkward and you always feel like crying. It’s nothing that can be helped, when you’re not sure that you can verbalize it or even if you want to. So you continue being Sierra for several years, feeling all sorts of anger at the people in your church so you leave it, and your faith, behind. With it go all of your friends, some of whom have adopted their parents belief that you’re going to hell, just because of who you are. The ones that don’t believe that are told by their parents they’re not allowed to play with you, like being not trans is contagious and they could catch the disease next.

Step Two: Before you hit puberty, you come out to your parents, hands shaking and throat closing up on you. Your mind is racing as it imagines every possible outcome, kicking you out of the house, calling you a tranny, threatening to kill you, disowning you, or worst of all, ignoring what you say. Telling you it’s just a phase and eventually you’ll grow out of this, so stop being stupid and get out of my sight. The worst doesn’t come to fruition, thankfully, but while your father embraces you as you sob and shake and try not to break down any more than you already are, your mother distances herself from her family, from you. One week later, her bags are packed and she hasn't looked at you once since you came out, though she says, forlornly like you’re doing it to hurt her, “You will always be my daughter and that bond we have … if you ever want it back, just drop the silly attitude, Sierra.” Her words cut and sting and make you nauseous but you hold your head high as she goes and try not to cry.

Step Three: At thirteen years old, you start hormone blockers, preventing your body from developing any more female than it already has. It’s a bit late to be starting them, honestly, but money is tight since your mom left and you just hope that while it’s late, it isn’t too late. Your hair is cut short and your name isn’t Sierra anymore, it’s Marcus, but people don’t call you that. They call you tranny and dyke and all sorts of names that attest to just how cruel children can be. Prejudice isn’t born, it’s taught and the few friends you have that call you Marcus aren’t enough to offset the ones who still think of you as Sierra. It’s flat out hatred they have for you and you know that it doesn’t get any easier. Not for a long time and you won’t make it to a long time if it keeps up like this. Eventually, you’ll snap and like an exploding star, you’ll destroy everything around you.

Step Four: The names persist. They want you to cry at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. They want to see you hurt and struggle because it’s proof that you aren’t a boy, because the people who push you down in the hallways are boys, who pull your pants down in front of the urinal and demand you pee standing up are boys, the teachers who conveniently don’t see anything are boys, and you, Sierra, you’re not a boy. You’re just a little girl trying to get attention. Your skin is littered with cuts from being slammed into lockers and bruises from being stuck with a team of boys who hate you in gym class which must be fair because you’re the one who wanted to be treated like a boy. And boys get pushed down in flag football, even though there’s clearly a no tackling rule, the gym teacher was watching another group play.

Step Five: The final straw comes on your sixteenth birthday, when you’re now Samuel. When your not so friendly group of flag football buddies corner you in the locker room and your shirt is pulled up, revealing your binder. They say that you’re just a little bitch and you can’t be allowed to go out into the real world like this, so really, you should be thanking them. They’re helping you. One goes to watch the front door to the locker room, another goes to watch the back, leaving just you and the ringleader, Sierra/Samuel, and no one is coming to help you. Unless you figure out a way out of this, the skin that already doesn’t fit right will be even worse, even more unbearable. When his hands reach for your jeans, you lose all sense of time and you don’t remember what happens next. You just know that he’s only the floor in front of you, bloody and bruised and beaten to a pulp. There’s a teacher in the room, and another, followed by the vice principal and the principal and a cop. They see you, curled up in the corner of a bay of lockers, shaking, crying and with your assailant’s blood on your hands. You’re taken out in handcuffs, stuffed into the back of a police car, and your dad leaves work to go to the police station. Your birthday present, your first dose of testosterone, is forgotten on the kitchen table.

Step Six: The parents of your abuser want you in jail for the rest of your life, they scream at you, call you a murder, yet it’s still a name you prefer to the slurs their son hurled at you. They can’t believe their son would do that and even if he did, trans lives are worth less than normal lives. He was going to go to a good college, play football, and maybe go pro. And because of you, he never will. People stand outside the court where you are due to stand trial and shout at you, say you’re going to hell, and a small, sarcastic part of you appreciates the almost bookends like way it echoes your life ten years ago. The boys who stood guard testify after being told that they would be accessories to rape and you are set free because you acted in self-defense. It wasn’t premeditated and there was nowhere you could have retreated to. It’s justifiable homicide and you truly are the victim here.

Step Seven: Your father doesn’t quite meet your eyes in the aftermath of it all, flinches a little when you let it slip just how jaded and bitter you’ve become. It’s a huge blowout that day, with you shouting at him for letting it escalate to that point. He’d seen the bruises, listened to you cry every day after school, and yet, nothing was solved. Each day you went back to the hell hole they dared to call an institution of learning, each day you came home just a little more broken and depressed, each night you went home and barricaded yourself in your room. Now, to be fair, whenever your father would ask if you were okay, you’d snap and scream and tell him to get the fuck out of your room and he isn’t a mind reader so how was he supposed to know that you meant I’m not okay. I’m sad and scared and I need you. Please don’t leave me. It’s all your fault that he never put the effort into being there for you and it’s because you rebuffed him at every turn. You did this to yourself.

Step Eight: Out, damned spot! Out, I say! You are Lady Macbeth and the blood on your hands doesn’t let you sleep. The few friends you had either hate you or are afraid of you or have simply just drifted away but regardless, your phone doesn’t ring anymore. During the nights, you pick up your guitar or you wander the streets aimlessly, trying to come up with something to make the buzzing in your head quiet, to drown out the little voice that says you’re a murderer and what you did is unforgivable in gin or rum, or whatever you can get your hands on. It used to call you Sierra, say that you’re a girl or something equally hurtful but you were able to ignore that because that you knew wasn’t true. Murderer, on the other hand? Hurtful, yes. Accurate? Hell yes. One of those nights, wandering the city awash in the neon lights, people attempt to bash you, but this time, you don’t let anyone hurt you. You know better now, know that they’re going to judge you anyway and this time, you won’t take it lying down because maybe they’ll leave you alone after. You fight for all you’re worth, put all of your pain and misery into beating the people who would beat you given the chance. When you look in the mirror after returning home, with a black eye and a swollen lip, instead of feeling upset, you feel proud and that is the moment you refuse to let anyone try to hurt you ever again.

Step Nine: Some people you meet through your more illicit hobbies clue you into an underground fighting ring and when you step into the club for the first time, you feel alive, skin tingling and blood pumping. You want that to be you, to be in the ring, fighting to hurt someone while they’re looking to hurt you except there’s no malice behind it. This is all about the money, not because you’re trans or because you’re a killer. You lie about your age, tell them that you’re eighteen because you need this and truthfully, for the first time, you’ve allowed yourself to want something that isn’t necessary to your survival. You rise through the ranks quickly and they introduce you as Jude “The Unbreakable” Murdock. The name sends a rush of adrenaline through your veins every time and you’re unable to resist the smirk you get when you hear it because you know that it’s true. You kind of love it.

Step Ten: Unbeknownst to you, someone from the Sanctum observes all of your fights and places their bets on you every time. You proceed to win every round you enter, because you’re small but you’re fast and quick on your feet, used to being on the lookout for people about to hurt you at any moment. You use your opponent’s size against them, striking hard and fast before you’re gone again. On your eighteenth birthday, that someone approaches you and offers you the one thing that you’ve been saving up for. They offer to pay for you to transition, in exchange for selling your soul. Without so much as thinking about it, you sign on the dotted line, shake their hand and within the next few months, you’re a changed person. It happens so fast it’s basically a whirlwind, but the how it happens doesn’t matter to you as much as it happening. It takes a few months to fully recover from surgery, but once you’re fully healed, it’s back into the ring you go, this time with more confidence. During your fights, you’re quick-witted, fast on your toes, and constantly analyzing. Outside of them, you’re jaded and angry still, but it’s the best defense you have, the best way to keep people at bay. People are a weakness, they only bring pain, and you’re not about to let anyone close enough to hurt you again. They may call you a monster now but you’re only Frankenstein’s Monster, Jude, and everyone who hurt you or stood by? They’re Frankenstein. Go destroy those who made you.

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