I'm bigger than my body / I'm colder than this home / I'm meaner than my demons / I'm bigger than these bones
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me" / I can't help this awful energy / Goddamn right, you should be scared of me / Who is in control?
- Halsey
Event Masterpost | Image Source
Summary: Karl Heisenberg struggles to remember who he truly is while transforming. I'm placing this somewhere in his past, before Ethan comes to the village. Maybe when he's in his early 20s. It's one of many fights he had with Mother Miranda.
CW: hurt/no-comfort, sensations of being beaten up in a mutated metal body, emotional repression, identity confusion, parent-child abuse kind of? (she's not really his mother but pretends to be so I'm tagging it)
It’s not that it hurts to transform. This is the way that his twisted body functions – it’s supposed to happen. It’s more complicated than pain. It’s that unsettling feeling, of the Cadau joining him with something that is not himself. Something enormous and abyssal that wants to swallow his mind and consume his body. The megamycete. It’s unsettling because he wants it, he craves it, he can’t stop. It corrupts even his desires until he can’t tell who he is.
It’s physical too. Something cold and unfeeling becoming a part of himself. The icy metal, a mere conductor coursing with dark energy. He can feel every scrap of aluminum, their internal filaments tingling like nerves. He’s bigger than his body. But never big enough. He needs more. More! He’s not safe yet. He’s not free yet. She still has him.
“Calm yourself, Heisenberg. You’re having a tantrum.”
“No! NO!!!! I will never let go of my hatred!!!” His voice vibrates through copper pipes pressed against his throat and steel shavings dancing like fireflies in the air, coming out magnified and strangled at the same time. This indignation is who he is, this is his last tie to his true self. He won’t accept the invasion that grips his every cell. NEVER. He will HATE.
Or is…or is that the Cadou? Is it his desire to lay down and be loved that is actually him? To please someone? A flash of a near-eradicated memory, hugging his mother’s calf as a toddler. His mother, his real mother, not Mother Miranda. The longing to please, to make her happy… Which part of him is real? Who is he?
NO! Miranda wants him to remember that!! Miranda wants him to fawn over her like that!!! He thrashes towards her, bringing down enormous metal fists – too late. She’s already gone again.
“I don’t appreciate been struck at by my son, Heisenberg. It seems you need a reminder that I am in charge of this household.”
Black wings, a storm of roots and talons. Dark branches engulf him, a briar twice the size of his own massive form. He can’t even see what’s happening.
She slams him into the ground and he shatters. The body mass of ten whole people is twisted and melted and pulverized and he can’t even feel it through the rage. He’s screaming so much. He’s screaming so he won’t cry. He’s strong. He’s brave. He’s better than her. Hold onto that. No pain. No wanting to be held. No longing for acceptance.
He’s laying on his back, the shell around him utterly broken and Miranda pouring rain over his fragile human form. But he still doesn’t let himself cry. Little does Miranda know how she’s courting her own downfall. He’ll get stronger. Even his real mother was useless. She was too weak to protect him. No one will ever protect him so he will have to protect himself. He doesn’t want a family, no. He doesn’t want to be there for anyone ever again.
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
Goddamn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?
i‘m bigger than my body / i‘m colder than this home / i‘m meaner than my demons / i‘m bigger than these bones / and all the kids cried out, “please stop, you’re scaring me” / i can’t help this awful energy / goddamn right, you should be scared of me / who is in control?
I sat alone, in bed 'til the morning
I'm crying, "They're coming for me"
And I tried to hold these secrets inside me
My mind's like a deadly disease
I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones
And all the kids cried out
"Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
Goddamn right, you should be scared of me
-
Who is in control?
I love the idea of Halsey’s “Control” for Lusamine and also, I discovered recently that in the manga (spoilers I guess) actively got rid of Mohn so he could try to win over Lusamine. In the games, it kinda felt like Lusamine was abusing Faba’s vanity to her advantage, to get him to do what she wanted in promise for more in return, and... Idk. I just like to imagine these two are BOTH crazy and wrong and think they have the leg up over each other at all times.
