#but he did it anyway and that does make him culpable for what happened to them

[navree]

"it's always hating on rhaegar for rhaenys and aegon's deaths never tywin" because rhaegar was their father and had a responsibility towards them that tywin did not, stay in school

[harukamitsuki]

I need Bakugou stans to realise that it's not that I hate him as a person. It's that I hate him as a character.

A lot of my favourite characters are unrepentant assholes, or assholes who are set to or have already been redeemed. Vegeta from DBZ, Ouma Kokichi from DGR: V3, Dio from JoJo, Laxus from Fairy Tail, Greed from FMA: B, Bill from Gravity Falls, and the list that goes on.

If a character is a terrible person, that's fine by me. But if the author tries and fails to redeem them, yet still acts as though they are suddenly this amazing person, that's when I have an issue with it.

Bakugou was originally written to be a minor antagonist, and that would have been fine, if Horikoshi didn't suddenly go "I drew him crying so imma fix him".

Redemption is such a complex yet simple thing to do. So when you try to do it and fail spectacularly, um, yeah, I do not enjoy that character or your writing.

That is my main issue with Bakugou. I do not think he deserved any redemption, not because he's a bad person, but because there is nothing to convince me that he could change.

He gets one scene where he goes, "boohoo I lost and everyone is stronger than me" then cries, and that's supposed to be enough for him to become a better person? That is nowhere near enough.

There was no moment that made me believe he genuinely regretted and took accountability for the abuse he put Izuku through in middle school.

"He changed!" That's not my issue. I don't care that he's changed. I care that I don't believe in it. If there was a plausible reason as to why he changed, then I would be fine with it. Maybe I'd even enjoy him!

The fact that he's changed doesn't mean shit if it's not believable.

"That was in middle school!" Okay. This one pisses me off the most. That was a year pre-canon? Oh, wow, I guess that's completely fine! It's not as if characters are the way they are based on their past. Oh, Itachi killed the Uchiha clan before canon! Okay, maybe comparing a massacre to bullying is a bit unfair. Still, just because it happened a year ago, it doesn't mean it never happened. It doesn't mean that he's changed considerably.

"Izuku doesn't have any lasting damage and forgave him!" And? Just because your friend forgives their bully, it doesn't mean you have to forgive them. And, again, I do not believe Bakugou's apology was good in anyway. He was trash-talking Izuku, blaming All Might for Izuku's behaviour, and didn't accept any culpability for what he did to him. He didn't tell anyone else what he did to Izuku. Also, if Izuku really didn't have any lasting damage from the bullying, then why did Bakugou's apology make him calm down? If he didn't care about the bullying, then why is he so relieved by the apology? BECAUSE HE WAS AFFECTED.

"Bakugou was being abused!" ... NO HE WASN'T!! Mitsuki is not abusive. Yes, she hit him round the back of his head. After he threatened her. Anyone with Asian parents can tell you that her hit does not hurt. Not only is it somewhat normal in Asian families, but it also doesn't hurt. We have no evidence that she is abusive. Horikoshi knows how to set up abusive families, as seen with the Todorokis. This not that. Either way, even if she was, being abused doesn't mean it's okay to abuse others. You can hurt without hurting others.

"It's the school and teacher's fault!" No, it's not. Part of the fault lies with them enabling him, but Bakugou is already fifteen when the series starts. His mother clearly doesn't agree with his attitude. The school is only partially to blame. Bakugou should have learned by himself what is right and what is not. In fact, he clearly does know considering he doesn't want any of that stuff on his records in case U.A. rejects him.

Again. I don't care if he's a terrible person. I care that he's a terrible character.

So the next time someone says that I'm stuck in Season One, take a moment and think about what you're saying. Bad people in fiction are entertaining. Bad characters are not.

[angelsdean]

I mean. I do agree with Cas and Sam being held more culpable. But I think the reason people point to Dean being abusive with the Jack stuff is that he is a child? Cas' child? I mean, you can talk about the general prejudice against non-humans in spn being the bigger factor in that but

i said this in a reply to this post (replied from my main) but i don't think it's fair to compare dean's reaction to jack with our later perceptions of jack and his role as their child (and cas's child). like, we as the audience can look back with all we know and how their dynamic develops and we now see jack as The Child and cas as his father and dean as stepdad / second parent, and sam as another guardian figure. but from dean's limited perspective at the time of widower's arc, all he knew about jack was that he was a Very Powerful Being with pretty unpredictable powers too (jack still didn't know how to control them and was prone to outbursts). he also knows jack is the son of lucifer, a fact which they still weren't sure what that would mean for jack, if he inherited some of lucifer's temperament or "badness." to us, obviously that isn't the case, but to them within the narrative it's a valid concern. lastly, he knows that jack formed a bond with cas and dean believes that jack manipulated cas through that bond and ultimately got cas killed. that's all dean really knows for certain. so imo his initial fear and wariness is justified. those feelings, couples with his grief, then manifest in anger. dean goes on the defensive against jack because he sees jack as a threat and jack, at the time, is still an outsider to their family dynamic. dean's always going to be motivated to protect "his own" first, and that means sam and cas and mary (etc etc). and in the context of widowers arc, esp at the verrrry start, he's just lost two of the most important people in his life and he sees jack as the cause for those circumstances and jack is also an unknown and a threat. he is not yet Cas's son. even when jack says so, dean has no reason yet to trust that claim. even still, despite his general wariness and fear of jack, dean doesn't turn him away. dean compromises and says they'll keep an eye on him and deal with him if he turns out to be bad. then cas comes back and he starts to see that bond between them and then jack becomes family and the dynamic and feelings change. (though again, dean will revert to that fear + wariness when jack becomes soulless, unpredictable, and dangerous)

but anyway, initially, dean's reactions to a strange new powerful being are not totally irrational. yes WE see jack as an innocent child and cas's son, especially now looking back, but for the characters in the narrative, their perspectives are limited to what's actually happening and what information they are actively receiving. at the start, dean doesn't know what exactly jack is capable of and they don't have anything to stop him IF they needed to, IF he did turn out to be bad, so i don't think it's wrong for him to be fearful and wary at first. and yea, maybe he shouldn't have shouted or placed blame for cas's death on jack, but that anger was part of his immense grief, and grief can and often does make people act irrationally, senseless, or imperfectly.

[angie-j-kay]

Okay, here are my takes from Barbenheimer, and the messages the movies seem to be pushing:

Spoilers under the cut.

Oppenheimer:

If you're autistic, have anxiety, or are generally sensitive to loud scary noises, be warned that this might set you off. This was very much a horror movie, disguised as a historical thing. Also, Christopher Nolan music is Christopher Nolany. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

The great horror wasn't that the people involved were monsters, it was that they were just people. ANYONE handed enough fear and desperation risks becoming this. Yes, even you.

If the monster feels really, really bad about it after, is he still a monster? (Answer: YES, but you still paid to see this movie so now you're culpable too.)

A discussion of how responsible scientists are for what the powerful and cruel do with their inventions.

Ian Malcolm in the first Jurassic Park movie was right. "You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop and think if you should!"

Hey, it's that actor I had such a crush on when I was 14 and wow, he got old, and OH SHIT I'M OLD TOO... It doesn't matter which actor I'm talking about, MOST of them were that actor to someone or other.

Florence Pugh has nice tits, and Robert Downey Jr. should play more villains. Also, David Krumholz is slowly turning into Alfred Molina.

Spoiler alert: BOOM.

Men suck.

Barbie: This one's gonna get me SO MUCH HATE, because y'all love Barbie, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

They told me it was an empowering movie for women and girls to watch. I went through the whole thing, and was rather insulted by this claim. Yeah, the idea of "women can be whatever we want" was repeated over and over, but the actual movie showed very little of that. Only the DOLLS got to be what they wanted, not the "Real Women."

Barbie not having a vagina is played for laughs, and the first thing that happens when she becomes a Real Woman (Yes, this is a plot point.) is... going to the gynecologist, with her new vagina and uterus. The Mattel board meeting actually had a man ask "I'm a man with no power, does that make me a woman?" How Tumblr hasn't caught the transphobia there is beyond me.

Ha ha, pregnant Midge! Loved that!

Feminism is important, because the patriarchy hurts... Ken. And the other Kens. Look, I get that this plot point was aimed SOLELY at the men who were watching this movie, trying to force them to imagine the role reversal and see how awful it is, but it doesn't change the fact that the main plot point of a supposedly feminist movie was clearly targeted at men. Like... come on.

Why is Will Ferrel here? You could have replaced him with a broken lamp in the corner and the movie would have been just fine.

I can't think of a single time that Barbie invited Ken's company. He pursued her, and she tolerated him because that was just sort of her role and she felt she had to. He respected none of her boundaries, just constantly tried to push past them. Then when he went full incel to the point of violence (Yes, I count brainwashing and enslavement as violence and you should too.) and she defeated him, he threw a screaming, public, self-hatred tantrum until SHE was apologising to HIM and consoling HIM, just a few minutes of screen time after a rant about how unfair it is that women are held responsible for men's bad behavior.

Ruth - "I can't let you become a real woman without you understanding what that means." Ruth - shows a montage of babies and motherhood, with some random crap tacked on the end in hopes that we won't notice that.

Being vocally angry about the patriarchy, racism, and enforced femininity is for dumb, angry teenagers with daddy issues who don't know anything about anything, and growing up into REAL feminism involves pink dresses.

The Velveteen Rabbit walked so that Weird Barbie could somersault while doing the splits.

I did cry when Barbie saw the old woman for the first time and called her beautiful. That was nice.

The boy bands of the early 2000s are finally explained.

The only way out of the patriarchy is by women talking to each other and working together, then... men saying they're sorry and totally promising never to do that again. Because that always works.

I mean, the movie wasn't terrible. It just wasn't made for feminists. It was made to get men angry enough to go see the movie so they'd have something to make angry podcasts about, in hopes that a few of them would start to think about what garbage they're spewing. Also, to sell toys, Hummers and Birkenstocks.

Also, I'm not sure this was Greta Gerwig's fault. This whole thing reeks of studio meddling.

OH, and men suck.

[illuminopseudonymous]

From Calliope on Cohost

Folks in the thread know this obviously, but as a comment, yeah, this is basically the point of the book. Though, I'd say it's not Gnosticism as much as just, you know, the monotheist God. There's a reason the book begins by quoting Paradise Lost.

Less glibly, there are a lot of different ways to read Victor's guilt -- and in fact this is why I roll my eyes at the people who make fun of "well Frankenstein is the doctor's name." It is important, for a few reasons. The first is that the Creature doesn't have a name. Like, that's important. Second, it's the Creature -- the book itself never calls him a monster, very carefully avoiding loaded words for him. He has the chance to interrogate his creator and find that creator lacking.

You see similar vibes in Moby-Dick; like the first few passages where Ishmael says God is a poor craftsman because his creation -- the human body -- fails so often.

Anyway, reading Victor's guilt. I taught Frankenstein for several years, and I usually did three different broad readings. There are obviously more.

The first was religious, as above: Victor is a God, a creator of life. I wish I'd known more about Agrippa at the time, because now that I do I'd like to be able to teach more on how it's Agrippa that inspires Victor, and how it's as much alchemy as necromancy that he performs. But in general, it's Paradise Lost, a poem the Romantics loved very much: Lucifer and Adam both crying out that they did not ask to be born, nor to be saddled with unreachable responsibilities.

The second reading is feminist: Victor is a parent, and the Creature his child, except Victor is the only parent, which means he must be read as feminine -- and the book codes him in this way often. This is important because now we can read the book as a portrait of post-partum depression: Victor is sick and senseless after the Creature's birth, and is freaked out by the sight of his creation in a way similar to how many people who give birth can feel ambivalent feelings towards their new child as the depression sets in. We have these terms now, and they didn't then, but Mary Shelley may have had the experience for herself, and given the statistics, she probably knew someone who did.

This reading is even more complex because while Victor is still guilty, he's understandable: he's sick, hallucinating, half-starved; when he reacts to the Creature and accidentally pushes it away, he doesn't know what he's doing, really. However, after that one moment we can sympathize with, we see Victor close up shop and go home as though nothing happened -- as though he isn't now responsible for a life. And, of course, he's alone. There's no support structure to help him, so in that way, the world around Victor is equally culpable (which we see as it fails to aid the Creature in similar ways).

The final reading is queer: if Victor is coded as feminine at times, given the book's date of composition, that means we can read him as queer, not necessarily (or not singly) as a stand-in for women (1818 gender binaries, not only women have babies, so on). This is a very strong contender, because Victor is 100% in love with his best dude friend, Henry Clerval.

You know all the sorta kidding but not really readings of the second Downey Sherlock Holmes, that say Holmes and Watson are going on honeymoon and Holmes literally throws the woman out the window to take her place? Yeah, so Victor does that.

He's been "in love with" Elizabeth, a young woman his family took in, since he was a child. I mean, they were the same age, she wasn't a young woman when he was a child. Anyway, they're engaged, and he's been putting the wedding off to, first, make the Creature, and second, to recover. But when the time comes, he declares it's time to get married, takes a deep breath, and... travels Europe with Henry (who, I should note, took care of Victor when he was convalescing). This reads very easily as a man who thinks he "ought" to be straight but who isn't, who in all the good faith he can muster keeps trying to marry a woman he genuinely does love -- just not like that.

This becomes important to the Creature's story in two ways. First, Victor tells Walton that he chose each body part of the Creature with care, and that each part was perfect, beautiful and perfect. The Creature asks for a wife, so they can go off together away from humans and start a family. This means, and I don't want to put to fine a point on it, that the Creature can fuck, which means Victor carefully and lovingly chose a penis to put on the Creature, one he felt was beautiful and perfect.

Secondly, let's loop back to the Creature's request: a wife. Victor agrees, actually, and there's a grimly comical note where he travels Europe with Henry while carrying around a suitcase full of body parts he's taken from graveyards, which somehow never rot. He builds the lady Creature, she's finished, but in the mysterious process he uses to vivify her, to give her life, he stops, and in an excess of disgust he tears the body limb from limb and swears he'll never do it.

I don't want to expand this already-long post further with references, but Kristeva's theory of abjectness is important here, that feeling of having drunk rotten milk, that the horror is both external and internal. Victor's visceral disgust can't be adequately explained by his rational statements -- which mostly boil down to his belief the Creature is evil and that allowing him to propagate would end humanity. We can't believe that because those thoughts do not cause that disgust. That level of bodily hatred emerges from somewhere else.

This drifts us even further from Victor as the villain, because, now, we can hardly blame Victor for being closeted and irrational when confronted with the things that disgust him that he believes he must accept. But, always, underpinning everything, is the simple fact that Victor made a life and then abandoned it.

The thing is that there's not really any villain in Frankenstein. Victor is as much a victim as the Creature, but -- and this is important -- Victor has the agency that the Creature lacks, because he, Victor, is responsible for both the Creature's very existence and his own abject status. Remember he was basically forcing himself into marrying a woman he grew up with; he felt like he was marrying his sister.

And always remember, too, that this story is filtered, several times: Victor is recounting it all to Walton, a jackass leading an expedition to the North Pole who got his ship stuck almost immediately, and who is very likely going to die. The book is actually Walton's letters to his sister. Walton and Victor both mention feeling a sense of kinship, one to the other -- and unlike, say, finding the Northwest Passage or circumnavigating the globe, there's not a lot of conceivable use to going to the North Pole. Especially as Walton isn't a scientist, he's just a rich goober. He wants to be the first there so he can say he's the first there.

We're supposed to roll our eyes at Walton, see him get closer to Victor, and realize these two are fools. And then, hopefully, we remember that Walton dragged an entire ship's crew out into this ice to die, just as Victor ruined his own life, Elizabeth's life, and the Creature's.

In sympathizing more with Victor, we actually come to dislike him more. He is no longer a villain but a fool, doing things because he can, and failing entirely to think of the consequences.

And that's why, to me at least, it's important to differentiate the book's dark mirror held up to Christianity from what we know of Gnosticism: the demiurgos is often cast as a villain, but with there being no discernible reason for existence itself, the buck must be passed further on. According to the book, God, the monotheistic One, itself, is a fool leading innocent people, Creatures and sailors, into a lonely death in a field of ice.

I don't actually think Shelley believed that, at least not when she first wrote the book. She may very well have indulged in those thoughts later, as her husband and children all died one by one, and the 1837 edition of Frankenstein is notable for how the revisions make things more dire, more depressing, and more inevitable. The 1818 edition hinges more on accident, offering the possibility of better outcomes. But the book itself, as a gothic novel, unsettles exactly insofar as it questions one of the core beliefs of cultural monotheism: God is good, and God made the world, and the world is therefore good. Perhaps it's neither good nor bad, but a Creature made in a moment with no thought for anything beyond wondering whether it's possible.

[sonneillonv]

you can tell your dem representative(s) why you didnt vote for them via email or phone call... no psychic powers needed

Yeah but you can't do that with Joe Biden. He's one dude. 2020 had record voter turnout and 80 million people still didn't vote. If he did nothing but read or listen to each of those people explain in no more than 6 seconds why they didn't vote for him, if he didn't eat, sleep, play minecraft, or keel over dead, it would take him more than 15 years to get through all of it.

The US Census does a voting report after every election for precisely the purpose of figuring out why people didn't vote. So you and your 80 million other "Don't care"s can pass your opinions along to them. And you can hope that your specific reason is popular enough to make it into a report. And you can hope that report mentions real numbers, as opposed to 2020's report of "Oh, 4.3% of registered voters didn't vote due to COVID" because that kind of phrasing minimizes impact. And you can hope the democratic party pays attention to that report in 2024.

But let's just say they do. Let's say that at that point, having gotten the Census results, they'll tell their shiny new candidate, "Lots of people hated Biden's policy on Gaza so be sure to side with Palestine this time!"

Their candidate is going to go "LOL what? Palestine is gone. Israel burned it to the ground and massacred its people with the help of US weapons and the 'security consulting firms" Trump generously provided to prop up Netanyahu's failing regime. Also he told the UN to go suck a dick and told Israel, quote, "Kill 'em all, no survivors!" Now the only 'Palestinians' are in diaspora and the entire strip's been razed, annexed, and rebuilt to sell to foreigners (mostly Americans) as time shares. How am I supposed to have an opinion on a nation that doesn't exist anymore?"

And the party will go "LOL IDK, we're just telling you what the polls say! loveyoubye!"

But what will actually happen is that the party leaders will look at the number of people who didn't vote due to Biden's policy on Palestine (assuming the Census bothers to track that specific concern and assuming people bother to respond to the Census) and go "LOL there is no more Palestine, so we can just toss that issue in the trash, but hey, Republicans are turning out in record numbers, I wonder what we'd need to do to get some of their votes?"

And then they'll shift right.

because they only care about people who vote.

You and your protest non-vote are a non-entity. Nobody in power cares, and nobody cares why. You're just helpfully making it easier to ignore you, which is what they wanted to do anyway.

Also it doesn't actually remove your culpability in the result, so there's that. You aren't pure and perfect and guilt-free if you abstain. You knew you had a two-party, first-past-the-post system. You knew what the choices were. You knew that the objectively worse choice had a rabid fanbase, a callous disregard for democracy, freedom, and basically anything leftist, and a "hell yeah kill 'em all" attitude toward Palestinians. Unless you live under a rock, you're aware of all these things. You were given a shovel and a pile of dirt and you made a choice not to shore up the dike. You stood there and watched while the rest of us worked because you figured "Hey, country's already pretty flooded. Who cares if a tsunami is coming?"

That makes you culpable. Also a coward. But like, hey, see where it takes you!

(Hint: It's worse than here.)

[wbwoqlqxoxxms]

Yishun Revengers Episode 13 "HAIL GOD EMPEROR LEE"

"Wait, did my keyboard just pofma autocorrect me?"

-yes yes yes all hail gahmen all hail pap pls don't shoot me spf pls don't shoot me spf pls don't shoot me

“Oh, right. One more thing. You yapped on and on about what this plan is, how you’re trying to pull it off and why we should join your noble cause…but this plan does require the actual Culpable to work, right?” Mendax asked.

“Yes, do not fret yourself, I have already obtained relevant information of his whereabouts,” Skorpius stood up and dusted himself off of all the dirt that had gotten onto him, replying in an elegant manner as he regained his previous dignified demeanour.

“So where is this Culpable you speak of?” Ming snapped impatiently, demanding to know the location of the seed of terror, whatever devious plan he was concocting in his wayward head with which the Culpable had to with.

“In…an apartment in Yishun. Block 349, Yishun Avenue 11. 07-249.” Skorpius muttered inaudibly, lowering his voice when it came to the coordinates of the crew’s target.

“Block 349…Yishun Avenue 11…Um…” Stefen spoke up first upon realising something was up with those numbers. “Wait, you said those…Culpables…brought about terror and destruction wherever they went…causing weird stuff wherever they go…”

Skorpius affirmed Stefen’s biggest worry (or question considering this would be the scoop of his life) with a nod of his head. “Aren’t you making a documentary on the strange happenings of Yishun? This is the biggest insider info you could possibly put on screen,”

“Wait, wait, wait, no, no, I’m definitely not doing this for the tremendous fame and fortune this would bring…I…I…am doing this…uh…” Stefen bit his life and smiled nervously. “I am doing this because I want to find out what the hell that dude did to me!” *points at currently startled Ming*

“Hey, wait, that’s right, you said you attacked us in the first place because you wanted to find Demongazer’s blood to ‘devise a cure’, right? Can you not do that instead of the whole troublesome purification process instead?” Esse snapped his fingers with that “Aha, got you there, didn't I” vibes, smirking ever-so-slightly to himself.

“If he could, he would do it, Pillar, do you really think he wants to do this?” Little Whitey covered his beak with his wing as if mocking the incompetent, unable-to-catch-up brain of Esse's.

“Oi, oi, don't go too far, ah!” Sunda rushed to defend his brother and the name of the Pillars, pointing and glaring aggressively at the unfazed Little Whitey.

“But yeah, that does bring the question…was he developing a medicine of sorts to purify the Culpable? He already said it was impossible on its own, hence the whole ‘we needs three divine warriors sent from the heavens above blah blah blah’ thing. Why…?” Laju narrowed her eyes and shot the almost well-groomed Skorpius a glance.

“...”

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Ok, I'll be honest with you. The medicine wasn't meant to purify the Culpable-that's, as you said I mentioned, impossible. The medicine was meant to study one of the major abilities of Demongazers-transferrence or concentration of consciousness to a minor part of the body.” Skorpius halted his self-grooming for a while as he prepared for another long explanation.

“Transferrence…of…consciousness?? We can do that, Ming?” Stefen stood shocked for a brief moment, then turned to Ming like a child who wanted to ask his mother a burning question he had.

Ming did not answer, although his eyes presumably lit up-now full of life and energy. As if he had seen (or heard) something exciting or intriguing enough to perk his interest.

“Yes, it's true, although this skill can only be practised after an intense amount of training, and usually only activates in a case of emergency where your life is in danger,” Skorpius continued anyway, ignoring Ming's silence on the question.

“Transferrence of consciousness…so? Great, you want to develop a medicine that helps someone transfer their consciousness. How does that link to the current topic about Culpables we're discussing right now?” Sicarius brandished her knife again, this time possibly just for show considering she's already let Skorpius in the club as one of them.

“...”

“Talk.” Pertama stared down fiercely at Skorpius, mimicking the action of a pistol firing with his fingers. Wait, how's that supposed to be intimidating again? Meh, must be something Codeine taught him...

“The…the medicine's…supposed to…well…it’s…actually meant for..me…to consume…” Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Skorpius, who used to be either full of words or complete silence has actually stuttered in his speech! What a historical moment worthy of recognition!

“!!” Little Whitey yelped out a cry, then almost immediately stuffed both his wings into his mouth as if to indicate something he really shouldn’t have said.

“Little…Whitey?” Luna whispered as literally everyone in the room turned their craniums slowly to stare at the bird that apparently had an epiphany about something they didn’t but needed to know,

“Um, nothing, I just…swallowed a giant bug..wait, no, ew, I..uh…oh..I realised now that whatever excuse I make will sound suspicious as hell but I am definitively unable to tell you what it is, so just please trust me on this one for now I’ll tell you once the plan is over oh wait you’d probably already know anyway uh.”

“That doesn’t sound convincing…”

Skorpius let out a soft chuckle but made sure only the bird could hear, to which he glared at him as sternly as a bird could.

“Superpowered human?” Skorpius immediately shifted the group’s attention temporarily to Sano instead. “You’ve been quite quiet this whole journey,”

Sano slowly opened his sad eyes. No, really, eyes tinged with a hint of sadness. The apologetic, regretful, mournful eyes that spoke a thousand and one more words than any explanation from him himself could ever hope to.

“I trust you.” He finally let the words escape his mouth after a few seconds of solitude in his own world. “I don’t want any harm to come to him either,”

‘Neither do I,” Skorpius affirmed. “Although I must admit this is the first time I’ve seen a mortal forge such a strong tie to a Culpable,”

“I’m just an empathetic human, that’s all. I don’t want any innocent beings to suffer, just like you,”

“...” Skorpius lowered his head slightly in Sano’s direction and remained voiceless for a fleeting instant in time, letting the two of them clear the racing thoughts in their head.

The group noticed this and stayed quiet too. Particularly Luna-who, as we all know well enough to be able to stay silent for the entire day if she wanted to, and Little Whitey, who wasn’t all that bad in keeping the tranquility considering all the drama he stirred up earlier.

In fact, he even appeared quite apologetic for that-the same sadness that was once written in Sano’s eyes had jumped ship to Little Whitey’s. One could even feel sorry for him as he sadly stared down at Skorpius. One would even think he’s feeling sorry for Skorpius instead.

Wait, someone didn’t die recently or something, right? Skorpius isn’t choosing now to mourn them, right? Then why have such a random moment of silence? DOES HE HAVE SOME OTHER AGENDA??

“Alright.” He looked up and held his head high again after the moment of silence he started for no reason.

“Are we ready to head out?”

[greydaysandstarrynights]

I am increasingly convinced that the folks behind the Descendants books/guides etc., never actually saw HOND, they just needed a villain name that worked alliteratively with things that started with F/were French in nature—and maybe Dr. Facilier didn’t exist yet, because he would make so much more sense, in both instances.

I can buy the multiple jobs angle but, not this. Unless they are paying him protection money.  Frollo is a hypocrite buy unless he’s just gone off the rails entirely, his hypocrisy wasn’t really obvious unless he trusted someone. He rants about the Roma—and committing genofide—to Phoebus, not the archdeacon, because, one assumes, Frollo thinks Phoebus, being a soldier, being captain of the guard, etc., will share his views on people Frollo considers criminals and practically subhuman. A soldier would be used to the kind of dehumanizing necessary to fight and kill other people regularly, snd a person responsible for keeping the peace would, presumably, have a pretty dim view of criminals.

The archdeacon, in contrast, gets the Frollo everyone else sees—the stern judge who is strict, unyielding, cold, and without mercy, but not someone you’d expect to go on rants about annihilating an entire group of people. The archdeacon thinks Frollo has enough of a conscience that, while he’s fine with causing accidental deaths, he wouldn’t be fine with deliberate unwarranted homicide. Even when Frollo is about to murder Quasi, he justifies it by saying, “this child is an unholy demon; I’m sending it back to hell where it belongs.” He says that, probably in part because that’s his real view of the Roma coming out, but also because most folks in the Middle Ages did not have the rosiest view of people with disabilities, let alone someone with the very obvious and disfiguring conditions Quasi had. And even with THAT, the archdeacon still thinks Frollo will soften if he has a baby to raise, because nobody would harm a baby! People would, and do, and probably did in the medieval period too but that brings me to my next point.

The archdeacon is almost painfully naive when it comes to Frollo, but that just strengthens my argument that Frollo did not let his hypocritical views be seen, and if they were, he tried to convince the other person that he was still in the right. The archdeacon also seems…..really naive about a lot having to do with Frollo, tbh, like he ( the archdeacon) strikes me as someone who only intervenes when the situation is glaringly obvious. Otherwise, he seems to just passively assume that there’s nothing he can do/Frollo must have his reasons.

He clearly knows Quasi is living in the bell tower and just….doesn’t do anything??? As far as we see anyway. Now maybe he does and we don’t see it, but I think it’s far more likely that Frollo has him convinced—even through the debacle that was the Feast of Fools—which maybe he didn’t see— that Quasi is fine up there. So, either he has no ability to judge human character at all, (or healthy living environments for children) or Frollo has him thinking that he treats the boy fine, or, since he’s raising him, it’s none of the archdeacon’s business, any evidence to the contrary is easily explained away or, he’s fed the archdeacon the same line he has Quasi re.“the world is cruel…it’s I alone whom you can trust in this whole city,” and they both bought it. I think that’s probably what happened.

I bring up the archdeacon because no sane person who knew of Frollo’s actual views on the Roma would entrust him with a literal Romani infant— though, I’m pretty sure Quasi isn’t, but that’s another discussion—let alone an infant with all the disabilities Quasi has. Clearly, the archdeacon assumes Frollo is probably not the warmest of people, but not likely to do Quasi serious physical/psychological harm. Now obviously he does, at least the former is pretty implied and the latter is glaringly obvious, so, either the archdeacon knows this and doesn’t care—which would make him culpable, and I don’t think he does— or, he has no idea either that it’s happening at all, or—keeping in mind cultural differences on proper child raising between the medieval period and now—he doesn’t realize the extent of it, because Frollo isn’t telling him how he really views Quasi, and Quasi I’m sure isn’t either.

Which brings us to this travesty. You cannot convince me that someone like Frollo, even having went to literal hell and being brought brought back, would suddenly decide all his views are wrong and everything the Romani stood for/did etc. was fine, actually, and what’s more, he should embrace it too. You also cannot convince me that the man who duel led a figure depicted like the historical concept of the actual devil would condone fortune telling, or if he did, that he would be so obvious with his hypocrisy as it put his name on the business.

If he truly had changed, we would see evidence of him being a changed person. He’d repent. He’d be a decent human being. Heck, he might be invited off the aisle as an example of what good it does for people. Instead what we get is bits and pieces like this that are inconsistent but seem to indicate he hasn’t improved much. The guy literally duels a villain who looks like Satan. You can’t tell me he’s changed that much.

There is no way that Frollo would be ok with this, or with this being associated with him. What the heck. Now, his younger brother that’s in the book but not the film? Yeah. Jehan would do this in a heartbeat, not least because he lived to exasperate his brother. Or, the fortune tellers themselves do it for the same reason—to get under Frollo’s skin. But Frollo himself? No. Nope, you cannot convince me, I don’t care what it’s called.

At this point, I’m about to wish Disney would retcon Frollo being there at all, or find someone who understands him/ the film/the time period he’s from enough to be consistent because this? This feels like someone thought, lol, Frollo and fortune tellers, and just went with it, with no care about how utterly, patently, absurd it is as a concept. Yo, Disney. How about you hire a medievalist to help you itch the characters you’re struggling with. That brings me to another thing about the Isle that irks me. If all the films throughout Disney canon somehow exist at the same time in one universe, how does that work? How do we have multiple medieval films existing with the 1800s-1920s- beyond? And why, if that’s the case, does the Isle somehow look like 80s-90s grunge? Like??? You have a huge repository of time somehow existing all at once and yet these impoverished kids all look like early 2000s scenesters. My brain hurts. I get it’s for children but tbh, the villains they included are so dark, and the kids’ reactions to them so….yikes in terms of reflections of real world dynamics euth abusive parents thst, idk. I think if they hadn’t been trying to shoehorn conceits that would really work better for teen and up audiences into a franchise aimed at tweens and younger, the entire execution would’ve been much better.

-Uma’s Wicked Book for Villain Kids

Frollo’s Fortune Teller? Really? Frollo’s Fortune Teller? The same man who made a career out of hunting down “fortune tellers and palm readers”???

[lavendertales]

Careless whispers—Javier Peña x f!reader

Chapter 11 of the Unholy series

summary: after a shocking confession from last night, Javier decides it's time to tell you the truth about your father.

word count: 3.3k

gif: @bestintheparsec​ 

series masterlist | AO3 

Javier did his morning routine in the most bizarre environment thus far: your apartment.

He drank his coffee, had some breakfast—one that didn’t taste like shoes, at that—and listened to the radio whilst saying nothing to you. He kept eyeing you, and you suspected that he was checking to see if you were okay, but that he was probably too spooked to say another word to you.

You feared that might last for a while, so you decided to stir the conversation into the desired direction.

“I get that you don’t wanna talk about last night,” you begin with an ache in your throat and heart alike, “but you should know I do appreciate the sentiment.”

Javier’s eyes never leave your figure; they search, admire and yearn all at once, without a hint of the monstrous culpability raging inside of him.

“And actually, I wanted to tell you—“

“Yesterday was… shit,” Javier intervenes, and it feels like you haven’t heard him speak in days. “A major hit and miss. And afterwards…”

“Stop it.”

He sees the serious look on your face, and it kills him to acknowledge the secret he’s been purposely withholding from you. He realizes that you might never look at him again after he tells you.

Because he promised himself last night that no matter how today goes or what happens, he will tell you by the end of it.

You deserve to know the truth, regardless of how it might make him feel.

“Stop what?” he asks.

“Stop pretending to be this jackass of an agent who doesn’t give a shit. You do. And so do I. And… I do give a shit about you too.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He feels himself growing weaker in front of your sweet words. But he wills himself to be honest with you.

“You shouldn’t,” he retorts.

“What?”

“I’m not worth it. But you—you’re worth everything. You’re an incredible woman, and you deserve someone equally incredible next to you. Not some filthy man whore unable to commit or give an actual damn.”

You frown, unable to process where is all that coming from or why did he randomly decide to push you away.

“You don’t get to decide who’s good for me and who isn’t,” you tell him somewhat upset. “It’s my decision.”

“I’m not making that decision for you. All I’m saying is, you deserve so much better than what I could possibly offer you.”

“Javier—“

This is too much. He simply cannot handle you calling out to him like that, your voice slightly shaky and calling out to you in a serene way; and he especially cannot handle you saying his first name. It’s the weakest he’s ever felt, and though he hates it with every fiber of his being, he knows he has to do what’s right for you.

And right now, he is the opposite of that.

“I know something that you should know too,” he starts. “I wanted to tell you yesterday, but—“

His voice dies down, and you understand it more than ever.

“Yeah,” you say, your own voice distant. “So, what is it? What did you want to tell me?”

It can’t be the same thing he told you last night. You decide to let that go for the time being. Javier clearly wasn’t ready to say those words, and pretending it didn’t happen, in this case, might be the best thing for him.

Perhaps it’s not the best to do this now, but Javier has enough heart to know that he’d already let enough time pass by and being unfair towards you.

“I know why you’re here, in Colombia.”

Stunned, you can only look at him with curiosity and a little anger, too. You can’t help it; it’s the default setting when it comes to the man before you.

“How do you know that?” you ask.

“Murphy let it slip. Don’t blame him, he means well.”

“I know he does. It’s you I’m starting to doubt.”

Fair enough, Javier thinks. “Anyway, he mentioned your father’s name and that you think he was killed by one of Escobar’s men. So I did a little digging and I—I found him. I know what happened to him.”

Shock takes over you as you process Javier’s words. Mouth ajar, you can only look at him and beg for a merciful conclusion.

Though looking at his face, you quickly realize there is nothing of the sort that is about to be unveiled.

“And?” you as, voice small, yet dripping with anger.

“His file was in the evidence room. I can show it to you. It’s in my desk drawer.”

“His file was in the evidence room?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve looked there dozens of times and I couldn’t find anything remotely related to my dad.”

Javier gulps, more uncomfortable than ever before.

“It was stuffed in a box filled with—“

When he hesitates to continue, you shake your head, awaiting. “With what?”

“Escobar’s acolytes who were killed by… the DEA.”

Your limbs go cold, and you feel like your whole world is turning upside down.  You stand up, hands frozen mid-air as you rummage his words.

“I’m sorry, it sounds like you’re telling me that my father worked for Pablo Escobar, and that one of the good guys killed him. That one of us killed him.”

Javier hesitates, tasting bile in his mouth upon seeing your whole body language shift.

It’s almost done. You’ll show her, and then it’ll all be over.

She’ll hate me for good after that, but it’s the right thing to do.

“That is what I’m telling you,” Javier mutters in a guttural, shook voice.

“My father worked for Pablo Escobar. He was a drug dealer. That’s what you’re telling me?”

“It’s all in the case file. I can show you.”

“Oh, please do! I am begging you to show me the file which claims my father was a narco traficante and that basically my whole life was a lie!”

With a swift nod, Javier stands up as well, going to put his clothes on. There’s no backing out now; whatever retraction he wishes he could do, there is none left. He can only go forward.

Once you’re both fully dressed, you don’t say another word to Javier, and neither does he. He drives with his heart in his throat, his mind a pure mess. He steals the occasional glance at you in the passenger’s seat, biting on his tongue to not say something consoling to you. He figures you won’t accept it anyway.

“If this is some ruse, some tactic for the sake of competition, I swear to God I’ll strangle you, Peña,” you mutter between clenched teeth.

He immediately notices you switched back to your usual form of addressing him, and he realizes, in a much too fleeting moment, that he’s sad about it.

“What the—it’s not, okay? Why would I tell you those things about your father for the sake of some rivalry? That’s… over. It’s done for.”

You frown, glancing at him yourself. “What do you mean?”

“I told you. You won.”

“Won what? In case you haven’t noticed, the Blackie ordeal was a mess. He’s dead. Carrillo’s dead.”

“You still win. Everything.”

Javier does see the frustrated and confused look on your face, and the realization that comes after all that. However, you don’t inquire anything more, and he’s more than thankful for that. But gratitude slides off the list of sentiments he should be feeling right now, being swiftly replaced by guilt and pain.

He hasn’t even told you the worst part about your father’s case. The one detail that will soil everything that has happened so far—though unholy through its mere execution—and subsequently ruin everything for good.

It’s in this moment that he sees it all crystal clear. The rivalry you and he had going on it was a brave façade, now demolished by your lustful actions and his unexpected confession. Deep down, Javier is perfectly aware of the ruse you both kept going, as well as the reason behind it. Admitting that to you was never on the table for him, and now, even less so.

You won’t believe him anyway.

Javier parks in front of the embassy, beginning to feel downright sick. This shouldn’t be any different than breaking the news to some poor civilian, except it is in every single way.

“Alright. Lead the way,” you say in the driest tone.

Javier clears his throat, locks the car and starts walking. His every motion is robotic, merely controlled by muscle memory. All sounds are blocked, everything around him loses focus. His heavy footsteps are maneuvered by the sole purpose of breaking your heart, and each additional one kills him even further.

Once he reaches his desk, he stops, hand frozen on the drawer.

“Javi? Everything alright?” Steve asks, noticing his distressed posture.

Javier doesn’t reply. You inch closer, staring at him through a deep frown.

Let’s get this over with, he tells himself.

“Leave us a bit, will ya?” Javier asks Steve, and the latter complies albeit his curiosity.

Finally, Javier takes out the folder from his desk and hands it to you.

“Here’s proof,” he tells you. “Everything you need to know is in there.”

You fall prey to silence, eyes skimming through all the words laid down. Indeed, you cannot deny it: Javier spoke the truth. It’s right there in black and white. Your father, Michael, did work for Pablo Escobar, and died protecting him. He was shot down by DEA agents after being chased down and killing some of them himself.

Javier watches you closely, fear nearly crippling him in the process. But whatever he thought your reaction was going to be, you don’t deliver anything of the sort. Your face remains blank, unyielding and unforgiving.

“You signed this,” you remark, facing him again.

Then Javier sees it: the look in your eyes is a blend of pain and fury that he knows in an instant won’t just go away by engaging in the same activities you have thus far.

“Yes,” he replies with a grave tone.

“Which means you were the agent responsible for this case. You were on the scene when my father was killed.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

You throw the file on the desk, crossing your arms beneath your breasts and staring at him.

“I wanna hear it from you.”

Javier swallows harshly, suddenly nervous. Although he did figure you’ll want the full story, as it happened, actually requesting it still takes him by surprise.

“I want to hear what happened and why,” you say.

Unbeknownst to either one of you, Steve remains somewhere in the background, now joined by Sofia, watching you and Javier with a hawk’s eye.

Javier gulps, bracing himself. If he knows you—and he does—this is only the calm before the storm.

“The mission was two years ago. I was on the case, and I was out in the field with three other agents. We were expecting the raid at a local whorehouse to be a mess, but we didn’t think it’ll be that bad. When we got there, your father, Michael, was leading Escobar’s men against us. It was turning into a massacre. He was very brutal. He shot one of the agents in a heartbeat, without hesitation. We offered them a truce, asking them to turn themselves in and benefit from protection from Escobar, but you know how his men are. Blindly loyal, they’d rather die than allow us to get any information on their boss.

“What the hell happened to my father, Peña?” you grit your teeth.

“He didn’t give us any choice and killed the second agent, so I—I gave out the order to take him out. The other guy shot him at my order, and… I was the only one left alive after that day.”

He was on the scene when my father was killed.

He signed this.

He gave out the order.

My father is dead because of him.

It takes you a while to process the situation and acknowledging it as reality. You sit there, blankly staring at Javier and feeling whatever remnant of last night’s sentiments evaporate. When you look down at your hands, you feel them bloody again, tainted with hurt and betrayal.

When your eyes finally meet his, they’re filled with rampant hatred. For once, you do not care about breaking down in the middle of the office or even concealing your displeasure.

“You’ve been sitting on this information for the past… what, year? And through… all of the shit we’ve endured, through all of the shit we’ve done… you didn’t think to mention it? You thought the day after a man died in my arms is the ideal time?”

“I didn’t know it was him till a few weeks ago. And it was never the right time—“

“Of course it’s never the right time! We’re risking our fucking lives every day! Here’s a better thought, why not tell me last night, as Carrillo was being shot? Hm? Why not spoil the ending right then and there when his life was literally draining in my arms?”

Javier speaks your name, a begging whisper, but you don’t listen.

“You know, I thought, after all this time… I thought you’d have some decency towards me, if nothing more, to be honest with me.”

Your quarrel attracts Steve and Sofia’s attention, as well as others passing by the open space. But Javier doesn’t fight you, not this time. He’s well aware of the fact that he fucked up, and that you will never forgive him for this.

Who would?

You’re closer to his face now, but still angered enough. “All those times we were alone. All the moments, all the… how could you touch me when your hands were dirty of such a crime?”

“I didn’t know it was your father. I wouldn’t—“

“How could you touch me and – and do all of that while you knew this?! How could you tell me you—“

You stop, feeling a tear running down your cheek and incredibly harsh words about to roll down your tongue. You don’t care that half of the embassy is staring at you and Javier, nor that their suspecting minds are making their own scenarios at that very moment. You’re too disappointed and hurt to care about anything except the information that just turned your whole world around.

Javier’s sudden callout of your name brings you back to reality. He can’t help try to defend his decision. At the very least you should know things from his point of view.

“He was ruthless and vicious,” he dares tell you. “He dismembered people, he shot and mutilated them, all to protect Escobar. I wouldn’t have gave the order if I would’ve thought there was a chance of him surrendering peacefully. I wouldn’t have done this had I known…”

“That’s a lie. You and I both know the work comes first and you would’ve done whatever it took to save the others and get to Escobar.”

“We all do things we’re not proud of. I did what I had to do. It was never meant to hurt you. I didn’t even know he was—“

“Okay, you know what? I’m not necessarily religious, but believe me when I tell you this, I mean it. Go—to hell.”

You march out of the embassy, taking your father’s folder with you. For what, you don’t know. But it’s the last connection you have with your father, and you plan on hanging onto it.

Sofia runs up behind you, trying to catch up, while Javier remains in the middle of the office, staring at his shoes, emptied of all possible feelings.

“What the hell was that?” Steve finally dares approach Javier, but the latter fails to respond. “Javi. Hey! Jav.”

“It’s my fault.”

“What is?”

“It’s over. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just—get back to work.”

Still confused, Steve grabs hold of Javier’s wrist, keeping him in place. “What the hell is going on between you two?”

“It’s none of your business, so just drop it.”

“I’ve never seen you this fucked up over a woman, over anything, really. This clearly fucks you up badly, so whatever it is, you can’t deal with it by yourself.”

Javier breaks free from the restraint, licking his lips and staring around to ensure the safety of the conversation, free from others’ judgment.

“I figured out what happened to her father,” Javier mutters, ashamed of his own actions. “I told her… and she hates me.”

“Why would she hate—“

It doesn’t take long for Steve to put two and two together; he stares at Javier in dismay, shock reeling from his whole body.

“You?” he whispers.

“I didn’t shoot the bullet that killed the guy, but I might as well have. It was my order.”

“Javi… you can’t blame yourself for that.”

“How the fuck not?! It was me! The guys wouldn’t have shot him unless explicitly told so, and I told them so! I told them—to kill him. And because of it, she hates me. Really hates me.”

Steve pats him sympathetically on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah, well. It’s only my fault. But at least I told her and now it’s—over.”

The word remains imprinted on his mind like a tattoo, a painful reminder of what he’s done and how far gone he is.

“You’re fuckin’ her?” Steve asks out of the blue.

Javier snorts, a mocking sound to show his confusion and displeasure alike.

“Smooth,” he tells Steve. “But no. Not… anymore.”

“I’m guessing by the magnitude of the moment, it wasn’t just about that.”

“No.”

Nothing can conceal the disappointment in Javier’s voice, transparent even to Steve, who watches him with a certain devastation. He wishes he could do something for his friend, comfort him in some way, but knowing Javier, it’s unlikely he’ll want any help.

And now knowing you as well, Steve figures that neither of you will be the first to apologize or at least demand a better explanation.

“If you’re in love with her, you can’t just leave things like this,” Steve can’t help but let him know.

“Who said anything about love?”

The mocking sound coming out of Steve’s mouth laughs right in Javier’s face, making him feel like the biggest jerk on the planet. One might say the sound has its desired effect.

“Oh come on!” Steve smiles, still a tad surprised. “You can’t be fucking serious! You completely broke any protocol and rule just to make sure she was okay during the failed raid, not to mention the stares and the look in your eyes—you let Pablo Escobar get away just to be with her!”

“Who the hell made you the authority on this case?”

“I’m happily married, and I think I know what being in love looks like. Right about now, your face says it all, man.”

Javier feels a headache throbbing inside his head, overwhelming him to the fullest. He doesn’t even have it in him to deny his feelings or pretend otherwise. All he sees is your furious face, even after you are long gone from his viewpoint, and the precise moment whatever fondness you may have had for him turn into pure hatred and rage.

No bruise, gun recoil or fall ever hurt this badly. Javier finds himself wishing he’d never met you, only to be spared of the horrid feeling building up within himself. But he knows he’d regret not having you in his life at all.

I was right. I am royally fucked.

previous | next 

[eriexplosion]

I know I've posted about this before, but I have been going out of my tumblr bubble a little more to find discussion of this episode and honestly I am still surprised by the amount of argument over if Crosshair Deserves a redemption, in a show where not only is redemption a big thing but... most redeemed villains have done so much more than Crosshair has.

Like, the general implication is he got his chip out after Bracca - I've seen some theories that it's when we see him in the medbay after episode three, which is possible but his personality shift doesn't seem to happen until after Bracca, so I think it's a good assumption that everything before that is his chip. Leaving aside discussions of culpability in clones given that they are literally raised from infancy to follow orders and the effects of what an enhanced chip might do to the brain, this means that the things we see Crosshair do that is at least mostly of his own will are:

He shot Senator Taa with a nonfatal headshot which is apparently a thing he can do, though after his display in Solitary Clone I guess that's not surprising.

Lured in the batch to make his misguided attempt at selling the Empire with the worst sales pitch known to man. Killed his imperial squad in the process (this isn't really a bad thing but you know, including it as Some Murders He Did)

Decided to stay with the Empire, proceeded to sit on that platform for 32 days and then spend several months in his jammies waiting for medical clearance since the gap between seasons is much more than that single month judging from Omega's growth spurt.

Killed Governor Tawni and I stick to my argument that this was timed to when Cody was being threatened with consequences, but it's the most clearly Awful thing he's done.

When left to his own devices he's a shit talking bitch. While considered rude, this is not illegal and others are willing to engage in 'talk shit get hit' with him over it.

In a show where the majority of redemptions go to people that have participated in genocides, torture, and so forth with fewconflicted emotions until their ultimate redemption arc, I just do not know why people are so quick to put him in the Irredeemable Box. (I've literally seen articles that did it as early as episode three where he was still considered unambiguously chipped but suddenly MIND CONTROL IS NO EXCUSE)

He has been clearly struggling with himself the entire show. Most of his actions sit in kind of a murky area because we don't know what's going on in his head because I don't think HE knows what's going on in his head and if he does he's not being honest about it anyway. Let the poor little meow meow breathe damn it.

[autisticandroids]

i contemplate 9x22 from cas' perspective Every Day now it's dean's turn. like i've said that dean Did That because he wants to isolate cas but i do think it's more complicated than that, these days.

because like. okay. zooming out. it's conventional wisdom to say the mark is nothing, right? like, the mark fizzles, mark dean isn't really different from normal dean and the effect it has on the show is mostly to make it boring and as an excuse to critique things that are already true. yes? but that's looking back on it with the full picture. like, that's totally true of s10. but s9 is way more interesting because in s9 mark of cain dean does genuinely seem to be... not himself. and the way the mark is treated is also more interesting. in s10, it's just like, an affliction, we're not interested in where it comes from or the specific way it got there. in s9, dean makes the choice to take on the mark. like, the thing about season nine is that it's like. a really bad time in dean's life. like the gadreel thing is like. @themauvesoul has said this somewhere but gadreel is the perfect deantransgression because it's really awful but also totally understandable. like dean should not have done it it's really horrendous but what the hell else was he gonna do, let sam die? like maybe he should have but he never could have. and so dean is in this hole, right? he knows what he did was bad. and so he just digs himself deeper. he gaslights sam because he can't face the consequences, and he wrecks his other relationships on purpose because he is so completely convinced that he's poison. he can't reckon with what he's done so he self-destructs. and taking the mark is part of that. and like, it's a classic dean self-centered self-destruction move, right? it doesn't matter who he hurts as long as he's hurting himself more. and that's what's happening with the mark in s9. like, at the end of 9x22 he attacks gadreel like a rabid animal in a way that makes very little sense, finally confirming that he's not himself. the deantransgression in s9 isn't what he does under the influence of the mark, it's taking the mark in the first place and allowing himself to fall under its influence. which is a lot more interesting than what happens in s10 which is both milquetoast ("here's some bad things dean did. pay no attention to the fact that he already does stuff like that all the time and it's considered fine") and stupidly non-culpable ("he did the bad stuff for magic reasons that aren't his fault"). like, the s9 mark stuff is way more interesting in terms of an exploration of dean's character flaws than what it becomes in s10.

anyway all that to say i genuinely do not think dean was himself in 9x22, like, i think we can give him a "diminished capacity/under supernatural influence" pass. because what's interesting is what he learns from 9x22.

okay so season nine is when dean learns that cas will accept you know. pretty much any treatment from him. like in general i tend to see dean kicking cas out of the bunker with nothing as wildly ooc, but it also can't be totally discounted because of it's impact not just on cas' characterization but on dean's. like because it was so out of character, it's one of the few bad things dean has done to cas that he fully sees as like. horrendous. and cas is just like. oh you like me again! thank you for accepting me back into you life! i love you dean. like dean is crushed by guilt and cas is just fine with it. so this brings dean to a new understanding of cas. like, cas will accept anything that dean does to him. which is horrific, but it's also soothing. because if dean is poison, if he is simply doomed to harm everyone around him (which is certainly what s9 dean believes), then isn't it nice to know that he can't drive cas away? like, yes, horribly guilt inducing. but also comforting.

and he doesn't think about that. because it's too horrible. but then later when he's under the influence of the mark. well. he doesn't feel so much guilt. he doesn't feel so much love, either. he becomes cruel and sadistic. he sees cas as a fun chew toy, and as pathetic for what he would let dean do to him. and he takes the horrible conclusion that dean has already come to and says: well, if he comes back every time i kick him, how hard can i kick him and have that still be true. that's maybe the biggest reason dean is acting like that in 9x22.

(there's another big reasons which is: it's a punishment, not for cas, but for sam. 9x22 starts off with sam trying to assert himself in their relationship a little, and this pisses mark!dean off. so mark!dean inflicts a double layered punishment on sam: first, on the obvious level, he is really nasty to cas in front of sam as a way of saying look at all these nasty mean things i can do and you can't stop me. but much more crucially it's about. well. mark!dean is extremely aware of the difference between sam and cas. he can kick cas as much as he want and cas will react by crawling back to him and trying to appease him more. sam won't, sam will object. and so dean at the end of the episode plays them against each other: he chastises sam, and then goes off to get all sweet with cas in front of sam. this is partly for cas' benefit, as a means of re-securing their relationship, but it's also a message to sam: look at what i just did to cas, and he's still good. he's still obedient. look at the rewards he reaps. you're in the doghouse, cas is the favorite now, because you keep being a little bitch about stuff. it's a demonstration of how dean thinks sam should act. he's rewarding cas for his behavior in front of sam to show sam that cas is the favorite now, and also that sam could have rewards too if only he let dean walk all over him.)

but anyway re: how cas will always come back: dean was tormenting cas in 9x22 for fun, because of the mark, and part of that was testing him. he was experimenting for intellectual amusement: how bad, and how obviously maliciously, can i hurt cas and he'll still come back. and what dean finds out is that there's practically no limit to it.

and like, well.

okay. after he loses the mark, well. here's the thing.

i'm sure dean feels really, really guilty about having performed that test. like, really, really guilty. he doesn't want cas' life wrecked, even if he isn't a fan of the other angels and stuff.

but like.

he can't unknow the results.

dean will always be aware after that of just how far he can push cas, how much the elastic stretches. he'll know, even if he doesn't want to, even if he feels bad about it. he'll know that whatever he does to cas, cas will always come back.

...which is why the divorce arc happens.

[crossdressingdeath]

chronurgy Yeah you're really nailing one of the big problems, especially when playing as durge - everyone is so happy to condemn gortash but it's clear that durge not only condoned but participated in all his crimes! There's no question or doubt from any of the companions about whether or not durge is complicit or whether they ought to be condemned as well. Obviously they don't remember what happened so it isn't clear that they can be held accountable for any of it But there isn't even any discussion about it. Durge is a serial killer and the architect of the master plan, just as culpable in the outcome as gortash, and it doesn't even really come up? Durge is our buddy now so we just aren't going to bring it up :) The same way we don't bring up astarion's victims or any of the people karlach might have hurt working for gortash. They get so close and then refuse to engage with the question.

It gives the strong sense that the party's desire to kill Gortash especially has very little to do with justice and everything to do with vengeance. Gortash doesn't deserve to die for his crimes or for trying to take over the world, he deserves to die for what he did to Karlach specifically. Maybe Ulder also. Durge hasn't done anything to the party, so they don't want them dead even though they're a serial killer who holds equal responsibility for the Absolute. Durge if anything has likely hurt significantly more people than Gortash (especially if you're playing a longer-lived race or subscribe to the theory that they're immortal and have been around since Bhaal's death), but none of those people are the party so they yell at Durge for two seconds and then all is well. Part of it is Larian refusing to engage with the moral complexity embedded in Durge's story (you're either an entirely new person or basically pure evil, never mind how in the other acts you can say very plainly that you're doing things like killing Isobel because you're scared and don't know what else to do), but it does make the party come across as awfully selfish that they aren't bothered about justice for Durge's victims or their friends', just some of the victims (y'know, the ones they're personally acquainted with) of the guy they don't like and needed to do something about anyway.

Actually thinking about it, if you romance Astarion (I don't know about the others) and get the act 2 Durge scene where you try to kill him, you can say that he should just kill you now after all you've done and his response is essentially "Oh please, I've killed way more people than you". Imagine if Durge in act 3 could respond to the party's insistence that Gortash has to die with "I've killed way more people than him, why do I get to live and he doesn't?"

Dame Aylin: Rise, you dog! Retribution has come, and her sword is my sword! Kyvir: Wait - Ketheric has surrendered. Dame Aylin: Ha! Ketheric Thorm would sooner die than lay down his rank cause. Isn't that right, General? Ketheric Thorm: I was a fool to hesitate. Power like mine cannot be hidden, cannot be cowed. But power like mine has a price. A price I am destined to pay. You have one last chance to bow. Once it's gone, I'll have no choice but to destroy you both. Do you hear?! BOW!

There's something in how you can almost, almost get through to Ketheric only for Aylin (a very real reminder of his past misdeeds) to come in to fight him and him to decide that hesitation was futile because he has to pay the price for his power that really gets me. It feels like there's something in there that's almost in conversation with the general themes of redemption and second chances that show up in most of the origin companions' stories; Ketheric has hurt a lot of people, so does that mean he doesn't deserve another chance? If he doesn't deserve a second chance, what makes the companions deserving? There's something so good in there that the game almost touches on but doesn't quite, because BG3 sets up this very fun theme of how the Chosen really aren't so different from the companions with the main difference being that the Chosen weren't lucky enough to have someone or something pull them out of their spiral before they hit rock bottom but never really seems to want to engage with it? That's most notable with Durge (you never get the chance to say "Hey, the only thing making me different from these people is that I don't remember what I did, why do I deserve a chance to be good and they don't" and that will bother me forever), but you can see it a bit here too.

[ladyluscinia]

Still rotating the woobification of Edward Teach a bit in my mind.

Putting this under a cut because I'm not actually trying to vague anybody specific, including OP of that post I responded to, but I do think this is very common in this fandom and liable to feel targeted toward a lot of people (especially as a wall of text).

Like, fundamentally, what happened on screen in 1x10 is Edward was hurting emotionally and he decided to try and murder 7 people about it and maim an 8th.

We can extensively break down what comprised "hurting emotionally," what other factors were in play, if edward shows signs of multiple personas or cptsd or mental illness, how vulnerable he was feeling, etc etc and some of the analysis can be really awesome, but he still tried to murder 7 people about it. If your conclusion starts trending toward how tragic it is for Edward that he did that, and how other people need to hurt him less as the way to "fix" it, then I think you are putting on major blinders toward Edward's culpability here... which is woobification.

The Izzy thing too. We can debate the severity of Izzy's actions and how affected Edward was by them, but they can be pretty damn severe and still objectively not warrant mutilation as punitive justice (or the really gross excuse of "he wanted it"). Because that's pretty universally a Bad Thing To Do. It was an outsized and extremely fucked up response, and if the writers were kinda fucked up and wanted you to excuse it anyway and think Edward was still a mostly good guy, then I don't see why they would pair it with trying to murder 7 other people. (Or not just make Izzy textually a lot worse. That's the kind of shit you put in text, not subtext.)

Edward is a very sympathetic protagonist, and he's in a very forgiving show where this is clearly not meant to be a Moral Event Horizon of any kind. He does have a lot of canon trauma and mental issues that make fans want to sympathize with and identify with him, but if focusing on how he chose to become the Kraken and hurt people seems too dismissive and insulting toward his emotional state and trauma, it's possible the issue is over-identification on their end, not the accusations of woobification on mine.

Now I'm thinking of someone who pointed out - and I cannot remember who or in what context for the life of me - they pointed out that if this is a reaction that is on the table for Edward, especially after he waits for several hours and puts thought into the decision, then Stede was in legit mortal danger if this was not blowing up before he got back. Whatever unaddressed baggage Edward is carrying around that leads to this level of violence doesn't just go away. It's a landmine, and someone was going to trip it eventually.

That, I think, is a major reason I'm so unconvinced by the idea Edward was on a track to healing at any point. Maybe, if Izzy had said nothing and his talent show had gone off without a hitch, he might have delayed the explosion, but any issues that lead to trying to murder 7 people after a few hours are going to crop up again. And soon. Stede was going to fuck up or get into a fight with him (or hell, just return from his abandonment and say the wrong thing in greeting) and someone was going to get really fucking hurt, and it wasn't going to be Edward.

The setup for S2 is also the setup for Edward's character arc, and for that to even be an arc Edward must be in need of character development. If he's already the guy that he'll be at the end of the show, and all this is just the result of outside harm that needs to be soothed away by his true love, then I reiterate from my previous post - that's Boring As Fuck. If you haven't identified a character flaw (or likely set of flaws) that is causing the Kraken turn and is in need of resolution, then maybe you ought to look for some. (And, no, "being traumatized" is not a responsible flaw. We don't treat trying to murder 7 people as a reasonable part of the slow process of healing.)

(I'm sighing dramatically a lot as I type this, if you want to retroactively add that to your mental read.)

I suppose, in conclusion, there's not much anyone can do about this trend, other than hope S2 is explicit about Edward's mindset in a way that steers people into more flaw-based analysis. And getting a canon resolution will let fans uninterested in rooting for morally dubious characters just jump to that point in canon and pretend none of the prior stuff happened (a slight improvement to pretending Edward isn't morally dubious right now because they like him).

But until then, there's going to keep being posts made openly about how Izzy is really the one responsible for Lucius being shoved overboard and the crew being marooned. And for every one of those, there will be dozens about how Edward was ready to heal and retire and the whole situation can be resolved with nothing but a love declaration from Stede, which makes Edward hurt less and therefore fixes everything.

And I'm going to keep being annoyed by them, I guess.

[logicalbookthief]

A lot of “you’s” and a lot of “he’s” in here. A lot of shifting the blame onto his child with the language he uses, both in the most recent flashbacks and in previous ones.

Obviously, there’s a reason Endeavor does this, whether consciously or not -- he’s distancing the blame from himself by placing that burden on Touya. 

If only Touya didn’t have a defective quirk, Touya could’ve “smashed the ugliness in [his] heart” and made his father’s dream come true. If only Touya wasn’t born with his mother’s constitution, Endeavor wouldn’t have had to create more kids to find a new successor. If only Touya understood that he had to stop using his quirk, even though he was created solely to become a hero, but since that can’t happen now he has to look elsewhere for meaning in his existence?

As reprehensible as it is, it makes sense that Endeavor does this to justify his own actions. My main issue is that with the framing and prioritizing of his viewpoint, it runs the risk of readers inferring that Touya is to blame.

To be fair, everything in the chapter aside from Endeavor’s words show that he’s wrong and at fault, so it only takes a minimum level of critical thinking skills to see this. A doctors advises him to stop recklessly engineering his children, since it’s taboo and potentially dangerous to the child, but he has Natsuo and Shouto in spite of this. Rei expresses her reservations, since Touya has already caught on to what he’s doing and it doesn’t seem like she’s enthused to have more children, either. He disregards her concern and pressures her into it, anyway.

And it doesn’t matter what he said to Touya or how caring it sounded when all of his actions directly contradict this. If he cared for Touya, why not spend his free time with him, even if they can’t train anymore? Because he spent time with Touya not to bond with him as a son, but to train him as his legacy. If he was concerned for Touya’s safety, why did he have 2 more children, knowing they could be born with the same detrimental quirks? Because it was never to protect Touya, it was to replace the child who was supposed to be his successor.

Everything Endeavor did as a father taught Touya that he was not good enough and thus he was not worthy of his father’s attention. His language places the burden of that on his son and that’s how he internalized it a as a child. Telling Touya to stop without providing the unconditional love he’s vying for is useless and shows a blatant lack of awareness for his child’s needs. Endeavor created an environment where he pays attention to his kids based on their ability to be a hero that could surpass All Might -- no amount of talk was going to convince Touya to cease his self-harming behavior unless Endeavor changed his behavior as a parent first.

Now compare the more recent flashbacks to the last one listed above, which is from Shouto’s perspective. There’s no denying the way Endeavor treats his children as objects for his own gain is wrong when he makes this remark about Touya while he’s literally beating down his five-year-old. And he does this for the same reason he abandoned his firstborn. The point of this scene is to show that Endeavor holds his ambition above all else — even his family.

And there’s no issue per se with giving nuance to his character. He should have regrets and he should be remorseful for what he’s done, but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s deserving of forgiveness or sympathy. 

The problem is when this “nuance” is prioritized above the not-so-subtle and far more important suffering that his victims endured, and are still enduring, particularly in the case of Dabi. And it shouldn’t be obscuring the unequivocal truth here, which is this: Touya’s self-harming tendencies and inability to regulate his emotions as a child doesn’t negate the fact that he was neglected to the point of self-harm and his father is as culpable in that as he would be if he had burned his son with his own flames. 

[pocketramblr]

You know what I like in X2 (and all of the original Xmen trilogy actually)? I like how they kept Magneto somewhat sympathetic and complex, but never let you forget that this guy is ultimately a villain who wants mutant supremacy, and is willing to murder all humans to do it. He was a sympathetic villain, but always a villain. I like that.

You've unlocked a ramble!

Ok so the thing about watching X2 and then XMA back to back is that both movies have "Capture Charles in order to use him to destroy humanity and leave only mutants" as a plot point, and both are handled soooo differently and really show the difference between Classic Magneto and Post MCU Magneto.

So in X2, Magneto has Mystique manipulate another mutant (Jason Stryker) who is already very much a victim of a father who had him lobotomized to use him as a weapon after he lashed out at his abusive parents and killed his mother. Mystique has Jason use his power to force Charles to target all humans on the planet with a mental blast that will kill them.

XMA, Apocolypse is the mastermind who kidnaps Charles and forces him to launch all nukes into the sky, disarming every country on earth before Apocolypse takes his body and plans to destroy the rest after. Magneto is one of his horsemen.

So, already, X2 Magneto is "worse" because he's actually doing this, not just working for someone who is. He's the one who didn't warn Charles right away that Stryker was going to kidnap him, and he's the one who didn't free Charles and Jason when he had the chance. Except... Literally five minutes before that, Stryker had used Jason and Charles to target every mutant on earth. They were very much seconds away from a total mutant genocide. Millions and millions dead, like that. The second time that Magneto, as the only one with a helmet to protect him from the psychic blast, would survive a genocide of his people. But this time, he'd be the only one left on the planet. In an attack that came from one person without government authorization. The only way Magneto can be absolutely sure that this never happens again is if he makes sure there aren't any humans left to do it.

Is if he kills billions.

And he does it, or tries to, but before he does he puts his hand on Charles and it's so obvious without him even speaking that he feels bad for doing this to his old friend. He doesn't want Charles to hurt! But his goals are a higher priority than Charles' mental well-being, and he knows he won't have any right to apologize once he's done because he won't regret the action, just the side effects. So he puts his hand on him, silently displaying so much emotion, and then says goodbye and leaves.

Contrast X2 Magneto taking responsibility for what he did and committing to it while still being so very human to XMA Magneto. XMA Magneto isn't even the leader here, he's a sidekick Apocolypse recruited- after his coworkers reported on him for using his power to save one of their lives, getting his wife (yeah he... Has one now) and daughter (no not Anya, Wanda or Lorna, a new one) killed. And here, like in X2, this is obviously him reliving something that has happened before and wasn't supposed to happen again. But he doesn't get to kill the coworkers who betrayed him and his family. Apocolypse shows up and does that himself, after Magento's one request was to not stop him from killing them himself. Magneto does not get to do that action. He does not get the responsibility of those deaths. He does not have the responsibility of actively using Charles, that was Apocolypse. He still shouldn't have done it, of course, it was still wrong- but it's very different than the intention Original Magneto had. And while this Magneto is somewhat sympathetic, the dead family and all... He's not someone who was just facing eminent genocide. There have been ten years of peace, allegedly. Mystique mentions that it's not really peace and still needs improvement and she's right, but as a whole... There's very obviously no need for Mutants to do genocide in order to preserve themselves. Apocolypse is very obviously just doing what he wants for his own personal power. Magneto just ends up looking half like John Wick and half like a huge sucker for doing all of this.

Let's compare two other little thing in both movies- so in X2, there's this moment where Mystique and Magneto are snarking to each other about Rogue's hair and "loving what she did with it." What did she do with it? Nothing, she has a white streak because Magneto tried to use her in the last movie for his "greater good of mutants" and almost killed her.

Meanwhile, XMA Magneto almost killed Mystique last movie for his greater good plan, and in this movie he just... Eventually gets convinced that she's fighting for what she has left and maybe some of humanity is worth saving too. I don't think there's even any mention of what he did in the last film, or of there was it was so little I didn't realize and remember it.

X2 Magneto takes Pyro's lighter to coax him out, then assures him that his power isn't lame, that he's "a God among insects."

Because in the original trilogy, Magneto is the one who manipulates! He's the bastard! He's the bitter old man who has been hurt so bad and is so desperate to keep it from happening again that he'll bark and bite and do worse to stop it.

Meanwhile, Apocolypse gets to be the one to call mutants gods and goddesses in the new version, and Magneto is just an accessory. Still culpable, but not The Bastard, not the one allowed full responsibility, or full sympathy.

Anyway that's why the old Magneto is "worse" as far as being a villain goes, but is way more sympathetic and interesting than the new "softer" one.

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Day 106: Eyes

"Malfoy," a voice called as his hair was pushed out of his face and his chin was tilted slightly. "Malfoy," the voice repeated.

Draco was quite certain he must be hallucinating, there was no way that it was who it sounded like.

"Draco," that voice said again, "Wake up."

His eyes fluttered open and he groaned in pain as the light seared through his retinas and straight into his brain.

"Hey," Harry bloody Potter said.

He opened his mouth and spit out a bit of blood.

"Merlin," Potter said, "Do you think you can stand?"

"Yeah," he grunted. "Yes. I'm fine. Thank you for your assistance, Potter."

The other boy huffed a laugh, "Sure. Come on. Let me help you get to Madam Pomfrey."

He shook his head, "Don't let me keep you from your important life," Draco said as he stood up and reached out to steady himself on the wall.

"Draco," he said.

Looking through his swollen eye, he tried to glare at the other boy. "Harry." he parroted.

"You don't have to be so stubborn," he said with a laugh.

He took a step toward the infirmary and his knees buckled.

Potter caught him and put an arm around his waist. "Come on."

(Read more below the cut)

"What? No one else to save?" Draco asked through clenched teeth as he started to hobble off down the hallway using Potter as little as possible.

"Not at the moment, no," Potter quipped. "You want to tell me who did this to you?"

He let out a humorless chuckle, "It doesn't matter."

Potter hummed and caught Draco when he started to slip a bit. "I've got you," he murmured.

Draco tried not to let the words go to his head.

----------

After they'd reached the infirmary Potter tried again to get Draco to tell him what had happened but there was honestly no point.

Madam Pomfrey had shooed Potter out and then Draco had a few hours of peace and quiet while his wounds were healed. Fortunately he had a good book in his school bag, which Potter had carried up for him.

"Why don't you stay over night, love," Madam Pomfrey said and Draco looked up from his book. "You're not quite ready to go back yet and it's just about bed time anyway."

"Thank you," he replied, giving her a little smile before going back to his book.

Shortly thereafter, the door to the infirmary flew open and Draco's head snapped up. Normally an entry of that magnitude meant that something horrible had happened.

But it was just Potter, looking thunderous as he stormed over to Draco's bed.

"Madam Pomfrey's just gone to bed," he said as he closed his book and set it on his lap. "If you've come here to inflict more damage, perhaps you could wait until the morning for her sake."

That stopped the other man in his tracks. "I'm sorry. What?"

"Just, whatever it is that's made you look murderous, I'm sure it's warranted but I do think that Madam Pomfrey deserves a good rest, don't you?"

"I'm not," he shook his head, "I'm not here to hurt you."

"Oh."

Potter rubbed a hand over his face. "I found Smith."

"Ah," he replied.

"He said that you didn't even raise your wand to cast a shield charm to protect yourself," Potter said as though he was personally offended by this.

Draco shrugged.

"Why?" Potter asked. "Hermione thinks it's because the Ministry has told you what spells you can and can't cast, and if that's the case, I'll write a letter to Kingsley right now-"

"It's not because of the Ministry," he interrupted.

"Then why-" he started before pulling over a chair and plopping down next to Draco's bed, "Why do you keep letting this happen to you?"

"I don't see them," Draco replied, staring at his hands that were twisting together in his lap.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't see them," Potter replied.

He shook his head, "Why does it matter?"

"Draco," he said, "You can tell me-"

"There's nothing to tell," he snapped.

"Look, I know that the war was hard on all of us-"

"You have no idea what the war was like for people like me," he interrupted, trying to keep his breathing under control and his voice low.

"No, I suppose you're right," Potter replied and Draco couldn't help but look over at him. "Would you like to tell me?"

"No!" he exclaimed. "There is nothing to tell! Just like there's no reason for me to tell you who keeps cursing me. And there is no reason for me to tell you that I don't stop them because I deserve it!"

They both sat in stunned silence; Draco breathing heavily, his heart hammering away in his chest and Potter just stared at him.

Potter broke first, "You-"

"Don't," Draco said, shaking his head. "Circe, Potter, don't say it. Don't tell me that I don't deserve it because we both know that isn't true."

"Draco," he breathed and it was like he was shoving a jagged, rusty knife straight through his chest.

"Don't," he repeated, begging this time.

"Draco, listen to me."

He shook his head and to his mounting horror a tear spilled from his eyes.

"It wasn't your fault," Potter said.

"Don't," he begged, wrapping his arms around his stomach as though it could stop the way his entire body felt like it was unraveling. "People died-"

"Yes," Potter agreed. "People died on both sides. From your actions, from death eaters actions, from the Order's actions, from my actions; people died. You never actually killed anyone, though. You don't have it in you."

"Potter, I am culpable for-"

"You never killed anyone." Potter repeated. "You didn't want to hurt people, you didn't want to kill people, you just wanted to protect your mum."

"Don't." He shook his head, "You don't understand."

"I actually killed someone," the other boy replied.

"The Dark Lord doesn't coun-"

"When I was eleven," Potter started and Draco was so shocked by those words that he didn't even interrupt. "You remember all of the commotion at the end of the year or first year?"

He nodded slowly.

"I killed Professor Quirrell," he said. "Long story short, because of the blood magic protecting me, he couldn't touch me and it killed him."

"But that's not-"

"Second year, Tom Riddle was sucking Ginny's life force so that he could come back, I killed him. I stabbed the horocrux with a basilisk fang and I didn't even think about it," he continued.

"But-"

"Last year, Pettigrew died because he owed me a life debt and he tried to kill me."

"But-"

"I not only was responsible for Voldemort's death the first time and the second time, I was responsible for killing seven pieces of his soul."

"But it's not the same!" he finally managed to get in.

"Why?"

"Because you were on the right side of things and I wasn't!"

The other boy shook his head, "Yeah but it's not like you wanted to be on that side."

"When I was young-"

"Oh sure," he agreed, "you were a complete arse. But we wouldn't have won if you had turned me in, if you hadn't given me your wand, if you'd killed Dumbledore. It's not who you are any more."

"Still," Draco whispered. "I fixed that closet."

He nodded, "And I can't count the number of things that I've done to cause deaths. Godric, Draco," he shook his head, "I don't sleep well as it is, but I'd never sleep if I held myself responsible for all of the horrible things that happened because of my actions."

"Potter-"

"Look, it doesn't have to happen in a day, but you can't keep doing this, Draco. You can't keep letting people hurt you to atone for your perceived sins."

He let his head fall back against the pillows. As much as he would love to live in the delusions that Potter was offering he couldn't imagine that world actually existed.

"Be my friend."

"Excuse me?" he asked, looking over at the other boy.

"Be my friend," Potter said. "Please."

"Why?"

He sighed, "Because..." he trailed off.

"I'm not a broken thing for you to fix."

"No," he agreed easily. "I'm the broken thing."

Draco stared at him, "You make no sense to me."

Potter grinned like he'd complimented him.

"Will it shut you up if I say yes?" he grumbled.

"For now," he replied with a nod.

"Fine."

"Alright," Potter said, sitting back and making himself comfortable in the chair.

"What are you doing?"

He gave him a little grin, "Being a friend. You're stuck with me like glue now."

"That's a boyfriend not a friend, you're confused."

Potter shrugged and said through a yawn, "Boyfriend, then. That title is fine with me."

"What-?" he started.

But Potter leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead as though it was the most natural thing in the world and every word that Draco knew evaporated. "Good night, Draco Malfoy. Sleep well."

He was so stunned that he said nothing in reply and by the time he'd gotten his thoughts in any semblance of order Potter was fast asleep; his head resting on his hand as he snored.

Draco shook his head and decided that he would just have to wait until the morning to straighten all of this out.

For now, he decided that it might be alright to spend the next few hours with the tiny, fragile ball of joy unfurling in his chest.

--------------

Day 105: Cuddle | Day 107: Charge