Boomchickawowwow

This was extremely well-done gothic horror, and it didn’t even need to have any icky bro banging to tell a good story. It had so many classic elements. The overwhelming sense of dread, ghosts, family secrets, murder,, creepy and complicit house staff, and a large family estate (Paradise) that could be considered a character, but also served as an allegory for decline/decay beneath the pristine veneer of an admired, prominent family. Even with the violence, there was a very subdued tone to the early chapters that really made me feel youngTheodore’s terror and isolation after the loss of his mother. I also wonder if Cedric was really a half brother or just a replacement son chosen when Theo got too old for the dad to comfortably abuse and manipulate.

Paradise was hell for children. Full stop. The scenes between the brothers showed how deeply damaged they both were by forced participation in their father’s perversions. They weren’t buried in shallow graves like the kids who were ‘chosen,’ but their innocence was definitely killed off in every way short of death.

Theodore grew into a very restrained adult, devoid of emotion, desperate for freedom and atonement. Cedric grew into a very outwardly charming but violent man, twisted in a different way than their father, but still very twisted. Both brothers were mentally stuck in their childhoods. Cedric was making the kinds of decisions that a child who had been groomed into perversion and violence would make. In his mind he was Theodore’s protector but, like their father, Cedric’s obsession led him to want physical dominance and control of Theodore. He saw no boundary between brotherly love and sexual desire. Theodore’s guilt took the shape of ghosts that haunted him in the house. His mother’s ghost seemed to be acting as his conscience when he knew he had no power of his own outside of what was granted by his father. So, the mother’s ghost (his mind) could only haunt him with the choices he wasn’t allowed to make. He could only be free away from Paradise. The men in the family were all killers. Only Theodore seemed remorseful. But I kind of wonder if that’s because he saw the ghosts and had constant reminders of his own actions.

Super sick shit. Very well done. Dark as hell. In the end, neither of the brothers could escape the darkness within them, so they chose to lean into it. Theodore was eventually broken by it, while Cedric was happy to have him mentally broken, as long as he was at his side—exactly the way the father treated both sons. The fact that Cedric was planning to get married and likely have a family of his own was disturbing. He obviously chose a woman who wouldn’t ask any questions. Like, girl. In the middle of the night, whole house sleeping, you get up looking for your man, & we KNOW you heard them smashing before you knocked on the door! And she didn’t get too far away before they started up again! I dunno. Maybe that deranged dick go crazy.

Very haunting work.

Also Gabriel is the angel of ‘announcement’ so maybe that letter symbolized Theodore’s last attempt to get the truth out there if it wasn’t written to an actual person he knew in the church. I think the real ghost of Paradise was the culmination of the father’s evil deeds that haunted his children.

This is a…rough read—and I’m not even someone who gets overly emotionally invested in characters. None of the esper’s have ANY redeeming qualities (other than the fine azz cat dude, but he’s also trash so it’s a waste) and watching the MC suffer and struggle (when they know the thing he wants most is never gonna happen) is quite literally unbearable. We’re supposed to believe the horrors of Almuten are worse than the horrors of these f**ked up humans??!! I can understand that all the S-Class Espers have layers and layers of CPTSD from things they’ve seen and done, while also likely having psych profiles that rival the worst serial killers ever. But I find it hard to fathom that torturing the MC benefits them in any way. It’s like they do it because they can, and that’s the full extent of it. All they know how to do is perpetuate the same level of violence they’re supposedly trying to keep from taking over the world. I give the writer credit for making this a full-on hellscape of a story. The only thing that would make this more sadistic is if it was also an omegaverse and the MC was an omega with alpha expers.