Upon the Gaze (Ghostface X Reader 18+)

Author's Note 2

Hi everyone. Hope you all had a good Valentine's day/Singles day. My writing has been slowing down a bit due to me entering midterms for college. I'm not sure when the next chapter will be coming out, but I at least wanted to write one of those "chapter information pages."
So if you're at all interested, please stick around.

One of my first favorite chapters to have written was Dogs in the Beartrap woods. I wrote this chapter with the intention of sprinkling a lot of subtle meaning between the two characters. The woods symbolically represented the idea of Ghostface and the main characters relationship. It can at times seem beautiful and full of life, and other times feel foreboding, mysterious, and even somewhat scary.
The main character has gone through a lot in life, and alone at that. She trusts very few people, and struggles to open up. She's anxiety ridden and shy, but also intelligent. Ghostface seems to bring the best out of her but she often has to remind herself that Ghostface himself is not a stable person.
Writing about the scene between the black dog and the doe was meant to be symbolic of the dangers that came with getting involved and attached to a killer. Ghostface has a tight grasp on the main character, and she's growing aware of that, but she also doesn't want to run from this. The red tags on the beartraps were meant to symbolize the "red flags" one might pick up on in a relationship when it begins.
As time goes on, and Ghostface continues to live and interact with the main character, their bond grows. She's growing more confident, standing up for herself, her anxiety demons begin to subside a little, but they are slowly being replaced by something else. Again, there are points where she's reminded that Ghostface is infact a serial killer. When she peeks into his personal belongings and gets caught cycling through photographs of his victims, Ghostface is sent into a self defence-like rage. He keeps a calm demeanor, but it's apparent he's not happy about her findings.
I wrote Ghostface as a character who does truly start to grow compassion and care for the main character, but he's still quietly defensive and knows that if information gets out, his comfortable life will slip out of his hands. He wants to build a trust between them, but trust and love between a killer and a mundane person is a dangerous game, and he knows that. In any other situation he would have no issue ridding a person who is a potential threat to his "career" as he refers to it in one of the early chapters. Originally he doesn't want to remain too involved with the main character, but his interest and curiosity in her continues to bring him back. He feels as though theres no rush, no enjoyment, no point in killing somebody who already wants to die. He's intrigued in her lack of wanting to live, and recognizes her underlying misanthropy for the world, relating to it. As she continues to draw him in, he develops not only an interest but an infatuation as well.
Meanwhile the main character, though also infatuated in return with Ghostface at this point, questions whether he really cares for her. Whether that be between him being a killer, and her, having studied killers behaviors, knowing they play an excellent poker face with individuals, or whether it be her fear of lacking, and not being enough, due to her passed traumas between her family and personal relationships.
The character Calvin is introduced to represent the discomfort and dangers that men bring to the main character's life. Though she doesn't seem to question why she isn't bothered by Ghostface. Perhaps because he's not exactly an average man. When Ghostface refers to her as a beautiful young women, she finds it endearing, but when Calvin refers to her as "a pretty young thing," she's made uncomfortable and wants to retract from the conversation.
New characters enter the story as the main character develops and is forced to find more questions pertaining to the idea and understanding of love. Jarret, a young, attractive boy starts working at the library, and takes interest in her almost immediately. As she continues her normal life while living with Ghostface, she starts to become more confident, and with that her true nature and personality bleed through her outward anxious, shy demeanor, drawing more people in. She's mostly unaware of these changes and is confused by the new attention she's receiving. She grows annoyed, mainly assuming Jarret is just there to mess with her. The main character trusts the belief that "men are only after one thing," and therefore does not take most romantic gestures or showings of subtle interest as serious, but rather an attempt to gain something they want from her.
As the story stands currently, there's still a lot I want to write about, involving all the current characters.
My format of writing is less to do with planning and more with writing as I go. As ideas pop up into my head, I just go off it, and piece it together into the story as I write. I try my best to keep everything coherent, and making sense.

Once again, I wanted to give another big thank you to everyone who has read this story and sent me wonderful messages, left comments, and voted on this story.
I originally began writing this story to keep myself entertained throughout the quarantine, and did not expect it to blow up the way it has. So thank you all so much! ♡