#why does that seem to be such a big ask

[teacupchimera]

.

[valyrfia]

exactly if I wanted best friends I would be into piarles which is probably the charles ship i'm least interested in even tho pierre is very obviously the driver charles is closest to in real life

I'm simply not compelled by Piarles, but I've never been compelled by friends to lovers type ships because that's not what I enjoy. I think Piarles makes for an excellent friends to lovers, as does Maxiel but considering my taste in ships outside of F1 is all Rhaenicent, Drarry, Stevetony–Lestappen was going to be a no brainer for me. If I thought their dynamic was just 'best friends', I wouldn't enjoy it. Simple as.

[fighting-these-demons]

Divorce Saga Domon - A Haunted Honk Prequel

Hello Internet Stranger looking up G Gundam on Tumblr dot com!

This is an idea for a fic set in an Alternate Universe involving Queer Non-Canon Relationships between the characters of the series.

If you are not looking for this content please scroll on.

If you ARE looking for this content - and you're ok with reading my and other's Headcanons for this Alternate Universe I've haphazardly spun up -

Then go ahead and feel free to:

Check The Tags Of This Post For The Pairings

and click the Read More below!

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Ended up outlining a completely different fic as a Segway for an explanation instead of making progress on the Royal Flush Haunted Honk AU's Clown Motel Fic like I wanted to but uh....

For y'all's review for the AU: A Prequel Outline - Divorce Saga Domon

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Hey real quick - I'm thinking of maybe changing the timeline to 2 years post canon as opposed to 3 years and change post canon.

The reason being: I had a thought that this scene could either be part if the fic or if it's getting to big then it could be a stand alone tie-in prequel fic as part of this AU but - like

Immediately Post Divorce Domon Needs Space and runs off. As one does. And he runs to Earth because he just wants to Get Lost for a while.

He has Argo smuggle him out to avoid detection.

Argo has Andrew help stow Domon in a storage hanger of a Neo Canadian supply ship that's returning to the US - they have trade often enough and share agricultural resources - which leads to Domon ending up in New York when he hits Earthside pavement.

He's privately worked on his English the last couple of months and after being dropped in New York with a different hairstyle, outfit, and accent he's unrecognizable. 

He considers making his way west to get some solitude in the wilderness, but something about that initial plan feels off now that he's on the ground.

Chibodee is also Earthside for a special series of prize fights aimed at raising charitable appeal for the US in the eyes of Neo Americans.

Domon decides to hit up Chibodee for a fight on a day between matches hoping it'll clear his head and give him the clarity to decide on a course of action. What ends up happening is an unexpected heart to heart via blows and a breakdown.

Domon is happy for Rain and Kyoji, and he knows it's not true; but he feels like he lost a piece of himself when his relationship with Rain fell apart.

Domon's instinct is to run after that but Chibodee knows this city and Domon doesn't hide out for long before Chibodee drags him back to his place to stay and just "Chill out and breathe. You don't have to be anyone but yourself here. You can take as long as you need to find out what everything changing means for you." Friends and teammates stick together.

So Domon spends a few weeks with Chibodee sparring and hanging out in New York. Chibodee does a frankly awesome job at containing his feelings because he's focusing on Domons feelings and being a good friend first and foremost. Whatever he's feeling can wait until after Domon is done going though it.

There's a bit of a twinge in Domon's heart as he leaves that he can't really place.

After he returns to Neo Japan and gets settled back into life with his family, The Dreams start.

They're mainly set in New York. Small things first like noticing Chibodee's smile and his eyes. Then sparring sessions that begin to turn lurid.

He thought these kinds of dreams would stop after he was married.... he doesn't know what to do about this.

I just figure it gives more clarity and sense of time for the journey from Comphet Marriage Dissolution to Feelings to Confession. Idk.

But I got stuck on a bit and then had this thought and needed to get it down before I lost it and it was so long it made sense to make it its own post as opposed to several replies.

The Maize and Clown Motel will probably still be 3 years and change post canon for clarification.

@thedragonchilde @amplexadversary @youreaclownnow

[fumifooms]

You’re the resident chilchuck expert, so I was wondering about it there’s any canon evidence that he did smoke or drink alcohol when the kids were younger. I always thought it was something he picked up due to the strain of long jobs, when the kids were already older, but you seem to think differently and I was wondering if there was anything in canon that made you think that way!

Now that you mention it I guess it’s true there’s no evidence he did. Smoking we literally only know he does at all because of one post-canon panel where he has a pipe, so no, maybe this stick-looking thing in the panel below too though, I’m not familiar with medieval blunts eh. We’ve only gotten one panel of him and his daughters interacting when he was younger so that’s not too insightful on that end, and every time we see him young and freckled it’s in a job context so again not really where we’d expect him to be drinking. The earliest proof (/heavy implication since we don’t see inside his cup I guess) is 3 years before canon when Laios hired him, where he’s at a bar, classily placed in front of all the bottles ✨

Yes alcohol is almost certainly a way through which he copes especially with stress, so if we go with the theory he started around when work got stressful, well… Chilchuck started working as a dungeon diver ~10 years ago so when he was ~19, making Mei, Fler and Puck ~6 and ~4 respectively, so from that draw the ‘stressful enough to start drinking’ line wherever. We don’t know what he did before that with any certainty, and it could be he did odd jobs, lived off mostly mutual aid and community work, or just focused on only raising the girls. Half-foots tend to be poor and I see a lot of that in Chilchuck specifically so I don’t think he could have afforded to not have some paying work though.

Alright, so then why do I think he did drink when the girls were younger?

I give a more complete rundown of the info we do have on his alcoholism & his family with panels and references + all the speculation I make from it here. But the most targeted and objective answer I can give is:

Of course there’s just very very little we know of Chilchuck’s life with his family, and I think that’s by design too. I think the details being up in the air is to allow more nuance of the topic, like, will trying to reconcile go well, is their relationship salvageable? We don’t know, because we don’t know. So the message of giving hope a chance even if it’s a long shot, that things could truly go either way, is more relevant, impactful and meta in that way. How long was he usually away for work travels into dungeons here and there? How did he act with them? All we can really do is "it’s likely that", it’s a game of which way we think it’s more implied. There’s no right and wrong answer, it’s all Marcille-like larping the events out.

My main reason for thinking he did is that his father died from overdrinking and Chilchuck is very aware of that. He mentions his death casually in the extra about their stance in alcohol and in his Adventurer’s Bible profile, etc. He acts towards the alcohol presumably the same way his father did: with abandon, uncaring for the health effects, probably happily too considering Chil says "dying doing something you love is a good way to go". Very nonchalant. So you see what I’m saying here right, wether he started early or late, his view of alcoholism is very influenced by what he saw of his father growing up, it’s something he’s always been aware of and saw in a mostly positive light, something that was inherited you could say. It’s something that was normalized to him from a young age. Regardless or where it goes from there I do think this part is pretty inarguable. If he views it positively and we know that in the present alcohol is his favorite food that he loveees, why would he have held out on it? Personally that all makes me think he started drinking very young, especially since I don’t think they limited alcohol to age as much as modern standards (and I mean, teen drinking is obviously still a thing). And here you could argue, maybe his father only started being more alcoholic later when Chilchuck moved out, or something! And to that there’s nothing I can say except I think that’s a strained theory, and that Chil might even have largely cut contact with his family after moving out (since he and siblings are listed as almost strangers and he doesn’t seem to have much emotional attachment to his parents, but also we know he rents out his place to "a relative"), but it’s true we have no evidence. "I’ve picked up the same unhealthy substance abuse as my father haha! No big deal right haha" repeated several times to me just reeks of intergenerational trauma, & the alcoholism gene as they call it. Like effortless sliding into drinking as if it’s second nature, it’s natural after all, it’s normal after all, it just makes sense, it makes you feel good and that’s what matters.

BUT from my interpretation then we have a whole other layer: Alcohol is of course not all bad always. I think he’s always liked alcohol and drank it on occasion and it brought him joy etc etc, but I think here the implication in the question is, how much effect did his drinking have on the family relations and how early? And that isn’t so much about when him drinking started but when the alcoholism started. Addiction is defined by a habitual need, that has negative effects from filling that need (physical, psychological, social, etc) and negative effects from withdrawal. If Chilchuck drinks to cope and he can’t not cope without it, that’s addiction, if it affects his relationships, if it’s a need he has, it’s addiction. Addiction can be very insidious or look very casual, and how much people around the person are affected by it is case by case. Cheerful drunks can be sooo annoying and uncomfortable though let me tell you. Drunks are drunks. And this sounds harsh, but even if people around them don’t mind drunks it’ll still have some effects here and there, living with one can be such a challenge, ily drunks good luck with everything much like Chilchuck you deserve good things 🫡　

Ok so with the dad thing and the "ok well maybe he’s always drunk casually but it grew worse with time around when he started working as a dungeon diver" precision made, the other bit of info we have that can inform this is that Chilchuck is on a harsh diet and that alcohol is a hunger suppressant. We know Chilchuck "used to be fine not eating for two days", that literally on screen to quench his hunger so it doesn’t keep him awake he goes to drink water, drinking is his instinct to hunger. Again alcohol is a hunger suppressant and if you want info on that the internet has a lot of research and anecdotes about it. He diets to be light enough to not trigger traps, so it’s something he’d have started after dungeon diving most likely. Between the stress and the diet, yes it’s extremely likely he started going harder on alcohol after he started working in dungeons. There’s arguments on wether two days without eating is less bad for half-foots than humans, but apart from smaller portions there’s nothing that indicates half-foots should get less than 3 meals a day. They need less food but that’s because their bodies are smaller: the need is proportional to the body, not smaller than others’ races, the % of need is similar even if the kg amount of food isn’t. There’s also a popular headcanon with support basis that half-foots run hot and have a faster heartrate and whatnot, and that points towards a faster metabolism rather than a slower one: a bigger need for eating rather than a smaller one. He has the same bmi, 18, as Mickbell, but perhaps because Chil is much taller he’s less intensely visibly underweight with ribs showing than Mick during the bath extra, it’s most apparent when he becomes tallman.

Alcohol is something so important and omnipresent in his character that I have trouble believing it’s something that was part of only a small fraction of his life. It’s his immediate go-to, his no-brainer solution to a good time, I’ve sort of always assumed especially after looking at his family that it’s something he discovered decently young. Like he just acts like someone who’s always had alcohol to fall back on and started young idk. Alcohol is one of his 5 keywords. Alcoholism is very ingrained into his world view and life, his "it doesn’t matter" stance his ‘work hard play hard’ mentality his idea that the world is harsh so you get relief where you can, so it just makes sense to me that it’s always been in his life, if not actively then at least looming.

So yes, in summary, my take: Alcohol was always something he wholly enjoyed to an unwise level, but it could have been considered casual until he started working into dungeons and his need for it on a regular basis intensified. Alcohol has always had positive association to him as far as we see, so when it started being a problem he didn’t see it as such. To quote him, "I drink anytime I get the opportunity to". Why always? Approval of father’s alcoholism. Why alcoholism at all? Diet + stress & coping mechanism & emotional stunting + relationship issues, and she decided she had enough after they went out for drinks.

Conclusion

Chilchuck having drunk from a young age makes sense to me and it’s the strongest narrative angle I see on the table, but that’s objectively a me opinion, yes! There’s no evidence, moreso there’s canon basis and supporting info, but it’s all very left up to interpretation. I’ve made my own interpretations of things from the scraps we see, like everyone else making Chilwife and daughters content. Wether you have a stance on the topic or prefer to leave it vague in your takes, it’ll be a matter of what you think makes most sense, or what you’d rather believe I suppose (which is literally fine)

There’s a lot of subjectivity in even just setting up causal links like you probably noticed during this and I was careful with my word choices, because we’re just extrapolating from what we see and unless Kui states it explicitly from a reliable mouth all we can do is have informed opinions on most things. This particular interpretation is influenced by other details I’ve come to form about my interpretation of Chilchuck too, the more psychological and emotional sides of him and the timeline and how his marriage even happened, unplanned pregnancy imo. Like I hope you see what I mean, this wasn’t supposed to be a speculation post just a quick simple answer but there’s sort of just no other and concise but complete way with the subjectivity nuance to put "maybe it could be yes because of this but maybe it could be no because of this" haha

Edit: Wait the phrasing on this… Interesting. "In recent years"— This does imply that if not just his alcohol consumption increasing then the diversity and quality of it did, so either he indeed did start drinking more (not necessarily meaning he didn’t drink before) assumedly because of his wife leaving, or he started drinking other/more different kinds of alcohol maybe due to the union he formed + his experience gave him greater salary than he had previously (and no wife and family to provide money for), a mix of both perhaps.

[fedoraspooky]

I haven’t been here long. What irritating changes have been made?

Credit where it's due, some changes have been good, like polls and stuff! But the big recent changes thus far that I would classify as irritating are:

- The UI change. This one may be less irritating for newcomers because it's basically the same layout as twitter and instagram, but for a lot of folks who've been here a long time, it feels cramped and like a loss of identity for the site. For many, the appeal of tumblr is that it ISN'T an algorithm hell like twitter or insta. Also, there's the annoyance of having to relearn where everything is, because it all got moved around.

- The users being lab rats for various tests the devs wanna pull out of nowhere without consenting to beta testing new site features- like the one that took away user icons on the dash for like half the site. They finally put them back after getting enough feedback that said NO, but users were so used to their feedback being disregarded that they were half expecting the change to be pushed through anyway.

- The Netflix tie-in advertising being pushed even to people who had PAID tumblr for a no-ads experience. Complete with them somehow thinking it would be a good idea to put an unescapable-by-scrolling spooky clown on peoples' dashboards that u had to use ublock to get rid of. While I'm not scared of clowns and often find them quite charming, it sucks that staff didn't take coulrophobia being a common fear into account.

- A wave of fully sfw trans posts being wrongfully marked Mature and staff doing little to nothing about it. Not sure if this is still ongoing, but it destroyed a lot of trust and good will. (LGBT+ users have been having to fight a constant war against censorship ever since the adult content ban on tumblr, so yeah... Nevar 4get the list of banned search words that would bring back no results, like 'girl')

- The site gradually moving away from customization. Tumblr is a BLOGGING site. But it seems to have lost sight of that fact, because most new users don't even know you can fully customize your blogs with css and stuff (an option that is now off by default for new accounts!), because of the in-dash viewer giving you only how blogs look on mobile, which is a lot more uniform. There, it's more like every other site- you get a banner and icon. Oh, but you can change colors and fonts from a drop-down list too, that's cool I guess. Though they recently took away custom color schemes on Message windows, just another little bit of personalization taken away.

- TUMBLR. LIVE. Basically tumblr teamed up with a skeevy dating app partner to allow for livestreams- but not the cool kinda livestreams like on twitch where you can draw or play games, no- to a site full of people who value anonymity, they decided to push phone cam only livestreams. Not only that but by agreeing to the terms, you're giving out tons of personal data including your location to said skeevy dating app partner and all of THEIR third-party ad partners. Needless to say, most people didn't wanna use it, so instead of users it's flooded by p*rn bots (which is ANOTHER issue we've been dealing with for a long time and have been getting an even bigger influx of FROM tumblr live) and scammers. And thus, since tumblr likes to put a carousel of current streams on people's dashes, you often get softcore p*rn thumbnails from the bot streams with no way to avoid it except for toggling off tumblr live entirely.

- Oh wait. That's right. You CAN'T toggle it off. Because you can only snooze it for a while until BAM, you're jumpscared by a carousel of ladies licking your screen again! But hey, at least they made the snooze 30 days instead of the 7 it used to be, right? Yeah, except for the fact that you can't get rid of the tumblr live button itself on the app anymore, and now it's front and center with a NEW notification tag on it, overlapping your dash and cramming useful stuff like the search button out of the way.

NOW- A lot of this stuff CAN be at least mostly fixed on desktop by installing ublock and xkit and tampermonkey + dashboard unfucker... But that's a lot of stuff just to make the site usable, you know?

[teddybeartoji]

can't tell whether i'm getting fucked by my non-existent period or i've just fallen into a Ditch face first

[b-blushes]

they should invent a clothes that's appropriate for the dress code and fits well and is at my house and doesn't cost one million pounds

[mishy-mashy]

Given the way BNHA genetics work, where the kids look the most similar to their mothers, Shinomori might have been Bruce's nephew

Y'know, I didn't think about that, but yeah- a lot of characters look like their moms (Midoriya, Bakugo, Uraraka, Jiro, Koda, etc)

I actually think they might've been cousins. Subscribing to the idea of [most kids take after their mothers], maybe they're cousins through their mothers?

Having OFA for 18 years and dying at 40 means Shinomori received it when he was 22. Shinomori being 22 years old seems close to how old Bruce actually could've been when he was alive himself.

Shinomori being Bruce's nephew is a cute idea though. I still think they'd be close in age, but Hikage can call Bruce "Uncle" to mess with him

Hikage: Uncle-

Bruce: Please don't make me feel old.

An adult that's a few years younger than you, calling you uncle. So like. Bruce could've been the babysitter / older cousin / uncle to weirdo Shinomori and he's just so used to babysitting that it automatically translates over to patiently dealing with Kudo and being protective over him (+ anyone in his care)

(Bruce gave OFA away before he went to go fight, so he really was protecting what was put in his care [Yoichi + Kudo] so they didn't disappear with him. Even if it was just a responsibility and basically their last organ that happened to manifest consciousnesses)

Bruce has Kudo. Shinomori has Banjo. Both are shorter, more risk-taking people that lead the way, but need someone level-headed by their side because they might charge in otherwise.

If they're related, that means Bruce probably also ages well too. And it means Bruce also might have a baby face like Shinomori-

(They look alike. They're also very so cute)

[life-winners-liveblog]

Hey Winners + Tim, we actually have the ability to communicate with the losers void. It’s a lot like communicating with Martyn tho.

*this is also a note to Martyn*

[Also SL! Jimmy, you excited to be reunited with SL! Martyn soon? Also, as a Wolf animatronic I’m kind of like a Big Dog. Could I be an honorary one?]

****

[cringelordofchaos]

"I'm just saying that your kid's got some problems-" don't. you. ever say that about craig again. sharon. or the chainsaw is coming for you

[meownotgood]

ok now u got me thinking. aki coming back as the Cold devil. or the Winter devil. or the Snow Storm devil. and he looks the same as he did when he was human but his irises are like a powder blue and there’s always snow in his hair and his lashes. and contrast that with falling in love with you again who he thinks of as so warm and kind and loving….. thawing him….. much to think about - 🍊

the same year the gun devil was eliminated, japan experienced a particularly hard winter season — perhaps that's why he was reborn as the snow devil. when he first opened his eyes, he was met with a dark and cloudy sky, he could hear the lull of the ocean, his ears were still ringing from the hum of a chainsaw and the only thing he can remember is his first name, and particularly not his last.

public safety is quick to follow through on the reports of a humanoid-looking devil wandering the outskirts of hokkaido, leaving a trail of frozen water and dead trees in his path. upon capturing him, since he seemed to not pose much of a threat, he's escorted to the headquarters in tokyo rather than slain.

once the devil gets there, he's apathetic, quiet. doesn't speak unless spoken to. his skin is pale, his lips are chapped, his eyes are a pretty shade of blue and his eyelashes are pure white. he'd pass as a human if it wasn't for the twist of icicles sticking out from his head like horns, covering his hair and his shoulders in tiny droplets of snow, or for the intricate marks on his skin, faint tattoos in the shape of snowflakes.

he looks familiar. like someone who's face was in the obituaries a while ago.

in the mail, you get an unexpected letter from public safety. it includes train tickets, and it's telling you to come to tokyo on urgent business. the minute you've arrived, some devil hunters explain the situation: you need to have a look at this devil — the snow storm devil — and tell them everything you might know about it.

of course, you've never heard of such a thing before. you don't know anything about devils, how are you supposed to give them any valuable information? but when the hunters unlock the cell for you, when you take a step inside and they tell you, don't worry, just keep your distance and you won't get hurt right as they flick the lights on, you realize exactly why you were called here.

it's him.

it's aki, this devil looks exactly like aki, his hair is long and dark and messy, he's got the same face as aki and the same voice as aki when he opens his mouth to ask who you are. he doesn't get to finish his sentence and tell you how damn familiar you look to him because you're already running over, reaching out to touch him even though the devil hunters are yelling at you from the other side of the door, telling you it's too dangerous.

and his skin is cold, he's freezing. you grip his hands, you wrap your arms around him and hug him and it's aki.

aki isn't sure why, but right then, he feels like crying. he's felt nothing but coldness since he came to this place, but you feel so, so warm. his heart twists in his chest, he hugs you back even though he doesn't really know why. he could kill you, he could press his palm to your back and watch you freeze until you're nothing but dust and ice. but he doesn't.

he holds you close, he breathes frost-filled air into the nape of your neck. his body shakes, you mutter into his ear that you've missed him. you pull away, and there's a look in his eyes that's familiar, it's one you've always known.

and yet, when you nervously ask him if he knows who you are, if he remembers you, aki answers honestly, and it's the most the devil has ever spoken: "I don't. But I feel like I should. I'm sorry."

[sampilled]

😒😒😒😒 i understand all of the bitter samgirls...

[ace-and-ranty]

I gained some weight over the pandemic. As a result, I lost most of my wardrobe. Being a Body Positive Girlie(TM), I thought, Well, that's fine, I will save some money and do a big shopping trip and redo my wardrobe!

I just came back from the first attempted shopping trip and I couldn't find one plus-size tank top I liked.

Knowing the issue is the fashion industry, and not my body, isn't helping much right now

[syl-stormblessed]

if adolin isn’t either the champion for dalinar or the champion for odium i might scream

[jentlemahae]

-

[shallowrambles]

I actually think the Benny in Dean's Werther Project hallucination was truer than Dean's idealized recollection/memory of him.

And deep down, even though he rejected it for self-preservation, Dean knew it. That's why his anxiety manifested the way it did in the first place. TLDR: It's alllll about Andrea.

A lot of this is redundant, but here ya go.

Benny was acquiescing of the execution of corrupt loved ones. Blood Brothers is a crucial Benny episode. It's illuminating...and unflattering.

Reality check? Benny was mostly okay with "a sacred executioner (Dean)" doing the painful dirty work so he didn't have to. Benny might also be particularly sympathetic to monster-suicide, as that's what he chose for himself.

Benny directly showed us in-canon that he was resolved to kill even his most beloved "corrupt family members"--like Andrea Kormos. She was quickly deemed too far-gone and corrupt, nevermind that their conversation was too short, too condescending, and too aggressive on Benny's part to explore meaningful change and solutions.

So yeah.

I think the real Benny might be totally game for Dean killing himself so his loved ones didn't have to. Especially if Dean himself posed a risk of doing harm/attacking said loved ones, as Andrea Kormos did when she attacked Benny.

That was the "real" Benny all along. And that hurts.

///

Benny didn't try to convince Andrea. He instantly judged her, offering no validation of the emotional struggle with addiction or alternative way forward.

Benny believes in sparing loved ones the task of killing their corrupted loved ones. He was part of practicing it with regards to Andrea. See below:

ANDREA takes his hand, but stays where she is. ANDREA: Where, Benny? BENNY: What are you talking about? Anywhere. [ANDREA looks down.] You're not leaving here, are you? And you never were.

So, yeah. Okay. He's clocking her intentions here, but he's also doing a lot of heavy lifting assuming her thoughts, ascribing the most uncharitable mode to her motivations. (Using an always-and-never statement to boot.)

It comes off so condescending. It's an accusatory mode of communication.

He jumps straight to the vibe of, "you never wanted to leave here, you're corrupted!" whereas her "Where, Benny?" speaks more of desperation and fear. (It reads to me more like: "How, Benny? Why should I fight what I am, Benny? I can't do this, Benny. Can't fight this. It's too hard.")

But he...doesn't seem interested in helping her rediscover herself. He doesn't validate her feelings or illuminate a path to redemption using his own past sins to help pave the way.

He doesn't even talk about another way forward. (Nevermind that he himself did some pretty awful crimes on the high seas for decades before "redeeming" himself. (Rules for thee, but grace for me?)

ANDREA: We have everything we need right here. The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted. BENNY: What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind. I wanted to put your memory to rest. ANDREA: But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here. BENNY: What I loved – it ain't here anymore. It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become.

I just want to emphasize how this conversation is barely a conversation. It's an attack on Andrea before a real conversation can even begin to take place.

The mere act of being afraid of leaving, of having Stockholm Syndrome and losing her "father," of feeling connected to the Easy Mode of vampiric hunting is met with an over-the-top attack on her character.

(You're not you. You're corrupt. You've become like me, because of me, and I don't want you anymore. You're dead to me if you're like me. You can't be redeemed...even though *I* was.)

It's a flagrant dehumanization.

///

What could he have said? Is this a tonal argument?

I guess it could be if you squint, but he directly insulted her, denying her existence to her face. That's why she reacts with a desperate, "Benny, I'm right here."

She's not a memory. She's monstered.

He could start with acknowledging how hard it is to be a 'human-ethics-centered’ vampire. He could share his own struggles. Show some empathy, or at least some sympathy! At bare minimum, he could discuss a new way forward. ("Anywhere," isn't a discussion.) Instead, we get...zilch.

He's much too busy being horrified by the apparent corruption of The Perfect Woman.

He goes straight to the vibe of: "you're an irredeemable monster."

///

Is it worse to go too far...or not to try at all?

And here's where the Sam-Bobby-Dean triad of demon detox takes on a more positive light. Their methods may have been cruel and harsh. (Detox is an ugly, horrific, twisting, screaming-and-lying thing. Detox tells you that drug dependence is who you are. It tells you you like the disease. That you perhaps ARE the drug/disease).

But anyway, Bobby-Dean-Cas did not give up on "corrupted/addicted/overly righteous" Sam.

Likewise in season 10, the methods of Sam-Cas-Charlie were evil, but they did not give up on "corrupted/disinhibited/unfeeling" Dean. Although Sam and Cas started out being resolved to kill Dean, they realized they couldn't. Wouldn't. (In season 10, perhaps Sam is in his mind resolving not to trigger the abandonment Dean got so unhinged about in season 8.)

So I guess the question is, what's more evil? In SPN, is it worse to go too far...or to barely try at all? They're both bad, perhaps, but one is driven by hope, and the other by nihilism: "we're all damned."

Benny’s arc is rooted in nihilism from start (Andrea, revenge) to finish (torn apart in Purgatory, as he probably intended to go out).

///

I think Andrea's feelings were obviously hurt; she was insulted...and with very good reason.

I mean, it's no wonder she attacks him. She cries, "You think you're better than me now?" He says he thinks they're all damned, and that certainly enrages her.

She senses, perhaps correctly, that it's really just lip service.

His actions imply that he really does think he's better than her. He did crimes and got redeemed. She's not even gonna get that chance. Not really.

(She has the "chance," I suppose. Technically. Sorta. But he purposely agitates her with his nihilistic lamentation of man-woe, spending much of his time judging her, not trying to convince her.)

You see, even when he messes up, Benny still "gets to be" himself. Even if that's a corrupted vampiric self. He's still "Benny." Not Andrea. When Andrea is a struggling addict, a vampire, Andrea "just is a memory."

Andrea is immediately disallowed her own identity simply for voicing that it might be easier to stick to the vampiric ways of hunting to live. It's black-and-white, abruptly cruel judgement, even before Dean gives the killing blow.

///

Later in the season, via deleted scene, Benny completely falls off the wagon, insisting "Dean doesn't wanna know (about his feeding off innocents)."

Benny is a symbolic perfectionist here. (As Dean himself can be when it comes to hero-worship and people.) Benny wants to remain idealized, just like he wanted Andrea to remain idealized. They're eaten alive by the symbolic, cooing Empty: "Wouldn't you rather remain a fond memory than a constant, festering disappointment?"

Benny's okay with that. And in the end, Dean's okay with that, too. That's why both Amelia and Benny feel like mirages. If Benny is "away," Dean can fantasize that maybe Benny got to be “King of purgatory,” and most importantly, Benny gets to live in the idealized space Sam could never live up to: "brother who never let me down."

(Dean is struggling to cope with life in this season. I think his hero worship of people is something he tends to do to help combat the abandonment he feels is inevitable. And yes, as I've said before, I think this is because John was a hot-and-cold caretaker!)

The deleted scene implies that Dean could perhaps be content not knowing all the ways Benny fails to live up to the cartoon of Benny he's drawn in his head (as a means to cope with the disappointments of living). Benny was good because he was at arm's length, not close enough to wound, hurt, or disappoint. And as Benny's organ donor/blood donor/drug dealer, there's a comfortable dependance Dean can fall back on, giving him control and feeding into his specific brand of abandonment-neuroses.

Benny never clawed his way back the way other characters did, because the writers decided to strip away his complexity and cut out the meat of him. Give me the guy who fell off the wagon. Give me the guy in The Werther Project. That's the real Benny, and he's great. He's, to quote Amara, better than the false ideal. He's real and complicated.

//

As for Andrea's redemption, perhaps in Benny's mind, if Benny's not *immediately* enough on his own to change her behavior by *checks notes* coming at her with the least charitable assumption and denying her personhood, then she's a Lost Cause (TM). If Benny's not enough for her to change, as she was enough for Benny to change, then "no one/nothing is."

So, he goads her with harsh, black-and-white words. "It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become." I.e. I'm a monster reformed, but you're a monster that deserves to die before we even validate your pain or talk about the chance of recovery/healing. (You were ruined/corrupted by my father in our game of war. Ouch.)

She is hurt and ofc attacks, and the sacred executioner (Dean) strikes her down (so Benny doesn't have to).

It's also potentially a kind of family annihilation/self-nihilism. That in Benny's mind both he and Andrea deserve to die for being "damned." (Indeed, Benny will submit to his own murder with nary a complaint.) I think this latter one is perhaps more charitable, that Benny was always in a bad place--suicidal.

Again, Benny’s dependence on Dean as drug dealer was comfortable for Dean, allowing him to both keep Benny at arms’ length/not let him close enough to be de-idealized and hurt him the way his family and loved ones have, while at the same time being forever on the hook of blood donor/organ dependency (the symbol of the in 8x03 cooler). Benny’s life on the show was like Benny’s death: a figurative open door that you never intended to open. And Season 8 is all about surreal, idealized figments.

ANDREA: You think you're better than me now? BENNY: No. I think we're all damned. ANDREA snarls and her fangs descend. DEAN stabs her from behind and then cuts off her head. BENNY and DEAN look at each other before BENNY looks down at ANDREA’s body.

Anyway, that's why I wanted Andreas Kormos for Purgatory II. I still do.

I was also so partial Andrea's rage, disappointment, and confusion. I wanted to see Andrea versus Benny. At minimum, I wanted Andrea back as The Stockholm bookend to the Nihilism, even if Benny was ripped to pieces (as his nihilism would predict). Andrea still had a will to live, even if it was evil/vampiric, and that's far more interesting to me.

///

All in all, it would be completely in-character for the nihilistic Benny we got to know to be comfortable seeing Dean go the way of a corrupted Andrea. We didn't see Benny’s nihilistic worldview develop or shift in a meaningful way during the course of the show. Indeed, his nihilism actually became more severe the longer he drifted.

If "one friend" (Dean) abandoning him and some hunters tailing him is enough to get him to fall off the wagon, he had a very tenuous grasp on resilience indeed. We should all support one another and not seek to violently undermine (Hi, Sam), but at the same time we are not responsible for another person’s addictions.

Benny can be an off-key parallel like how Sam sometimes shifts the burden of his "wellness responsibility" to others? (The Benny-as-idealized-surreal-brother and Sam-as-real-imperfect brother hits hard. Benny’s addiction is excused and enabled as necessary; Sam’s is framed wholly as a choice, which...addiction is complicated. We're much less kind to family about it.)

All in all, I think it's foolish for Dean (and the audience) to think that Benny would treat Mark of Cain!Dean in any way meaningfully different than he treated Andrea Kormos.

Dean's hallucination in Purgatory was more in-keeping with what we saw out of the real Benny. The box knew that Benny was in fact the most likely of Dean's friends to argue for suicide, and it was probably uncomfortably right about that because Benny did not arc towards growth on any occasion. Dean's self-soothing narrative was the false one. Hopeful, maybe. But false.

Makes you wonder if the killing of Andrea was something that was subconsciously actually haunting Dean in a very real, gloriously complicated way. (The way I think Cas's taking of a human vessel subconsciously haunts in him 14x10 Nihilism).

I think Andrea haunts him especially in light of his own newly devolved disinhibition/loss of free will/corruption.

(The real Benny wouldn’t encourage a friend to die? We saw him do just that: tell someone they were too gone…and then watched Dean kill her so he didn’t have to.) Deep down, I think this is an example of Dean’s anxiety over the reality of what happened with Benny and Andrea. Charitably, he’s not seeing through an illusion so much as choosing to live for himself in this moment! Which is fine. We all need our fictions.

Disclaimer: I like Benny. I think all of this makes him crunchy and interesting. And it makes him make SO MUCH SENSE. He, like so many many characters in SPN...fell to nihilism. :(