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#lucius is an abusive father
teledild0nix · 9 months
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It’s so strange to me when people say Draco was definitely not abused by his parents in canon. It strikes me as a very limited definition of abuse. Draco was spoiled and pampered and babied by his family. That doesn’t preclude the possibility of his having been abused (he certainly doesn’t have a secure attachment with Lucius and we barely see him interact with Narcissa).
Is inviting a mass murderer to live in your home with your teenage son a healthy, uplifting parenting choice, for instance? Is Draco free to live his life in accordance with what makes him happy, or is there the possibility of being cut off and rejected and denied if he does something his parents don’t like? Has he perhaps been living with this possibility for his entire life, since before he can even remember? If Draco wanted to marry a muggleborn or a man or remain childless or unmarried, would he be free to do so without being disowned like his mother’s sister?
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ldrfanatic · 9 days
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two worlds collided
theodore nott x fem!malfoy!ravenclaw!reader
a.n. this is quickly becoming a theo obsession blog BUT I am open to requests for others
love theo in this piece.
to be added to my theo nott taglist just comment on one of my theo nott posts :)
synopsis - you're draco's sister but you're a ravenclaw. your father shunned you because he thought that voldemort wouldn't want you but when Nott sr is trying to find theodore a bride your father takes this as the perfect opportunity. over time you grow to genuinely care for one another.
warning - cursing, lucius malfoy is a prick, hitting, borderline verbal abuse, arranged marriage
accompanying song - never tear us apart (bishop briggs)
nav slytherin boys
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"Father is asking for you."
Shock washed over you and you wondered if you submerged yourself into your cloud-like bed if Lucius would just forget about it. After carefully weighing your options, it seemed rather unlikely. You threw your navy covers to the side and shuffled awkwardly to the main dining hall where your mother, father, and older brother Draco were waiting.
Your eyes fell onto a rather scary looking man and another handsome figure who you recognized as Theodore Nott, one of Draco's friends.
"Daughter." The warm velvet tones of Narcissa Malfoy filled the air. After you'd been sorted into Ravenclaw, Draco and Lucius had shunned you. Narcissa had been the only person in the entire family still kind to you. Well, she and your estranged aunt Andromeda who you'd been secretly exchanging letters since third year.
"Now that the Dark Lord has gained strength, it is imperative that we maintain close connections within the Sacred 28." Lucius approached you, looking rather unhinged, and placed a large hand on your shoulder. There was a malicious look in his eyes that made the entire interaction all the more unnerving. "Once the Dark Lord begins his plans, he'll need people he can trust to continue the most important of magical bloodlines."
Your father took you by the shoulders and moved you to stand in front of Theodore and the mystery man at his side.
"This is Theodore Nott Sr. and his son, who I presume you know from school."
Nott Sr. glanced to the side at Theodore who snapped out of a sort of trance. He brought your hand up to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on it.
"Y/n."
You smiled but didn't say anything, waiting in silence for your father to elaborate. He and Nott Sr. had clearly formed some sort of plan. "You and his son are to be married."
"What?!" Your body whipped around of its own accord and you felt rage explode over your body. "You haven't spoken to me in years and suddenly you expect me to marry this man without even asking me if I wish to be married to him or anyone for that matter?!"
Lucius' hand came down suddenly. A loud 'whack' resounded in the room as the back of his palm made contact with your cheek. "You ungrateful little brat." He straightened his cloak and took what you supposed was meant to be a calming breath. "Draco noticed the way that you stared at the Nott boy in school. You ought to be more appreciative that I didn't choose that awful Pucey boy although he was more than willing."
Though you couldn't see, Theodore's nose turned up in disgust at the mention of Adrian Pucey. He'd taken a liking to you, completely undeterred by the elder Malfoy's numerous threats to stay away from his younger sister. Draco might've been appalled that you'd been sorted into Ravenclaw, but that didn't mean that he was gonna let that slimey tosser terrorize you.
Your gaze stayed on the floor for a few moments before you turned back around, muttering a small apology to Theodore and his father. Overall, Theo was quite handsome and you had stared at him more than a few times. He really was quite handsome.
Nott Sr. studied you for a few moments then turned to Theodore expectantly. "Why don't the two of you take a stroll and become acquainted while Lucius and I finish up the particulars." It was phrased like a question, but in truth he wasn't asking. The air was silent as you walked out of the room the brunette boy following diligently.
The cool air nipped at your exposed skin as the heavy oak door slammed shut behind you. It was always cold and dark in the area surrounding Malfoy Manor.
"I'm sorry Theodore."
"Theo."
You stared at Theodore like a fish out of water waiting for words of any intelligence to come to you. Finally, you stuttered out an ignorant 'Huh?'.
"Call me Theo."
Your heart beat loudly in you ears for a few moments. "Oh-kay," Theo began to mosey into the Manor gardens with you hot on his heels. He was quite tall and due to the length of his legs, every one step he took was nearly three of yours. "So Theo. I am sorry you got dragged into this."
"That's alright fiancée." Theo teased you with a smile that could make any girl weak in the knees. For a moment you felt as though you could almost forget that the both of you were being forced into this.
"Still. I know your reputation. I only ask that you keep your conquests separate from our entanglement."
An indescribable akin to hurt flashed in the eyes of the boy before you. As well as something you didn't quite recognize.
"My reputation?" You spluttered at him for a few moments once again making a fool of yourself in front of Theodore Nott.
"Theo I didn't mean to--"
"Whatever." He turned away from you and stalked angrily back towards the Manor, calling over his shoulder. "And it's Theodore."
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The rest of the break passed by pretty miserably, as expected. You and Theodore had gone on a few dates, as demanded by both your father and Nott Sr. since the pair of you were courting now, but they were long and excruciating with little to no conversation.
Despite a summer that seemed as though it would never end, September finally arrived.
You were boarding the train with Theodore and Draco as your parents watched on. They'd been keeping an extra close eye on the pair of you. In all honesty, you and Theodore hadn't grown any closer in your courtship than you'd been as distant acquaintances the year prior. If anything, the walk in the garden at the start of your relationship had forced you further apart.
And though you'd pretended you didn't care, seeing Theodore with other girls was never something you'd enjoyed. Now, knowing that he'd be your husband sooner rather than later, the thought of Theo running around with some daft blonde Slytherin made your heart sink to your stomach.
Yet, as the year progressed, you and the rest of Hogwarts were unexpectedly surprised by Theo. Before you knew it, the first snowfall graced Hogwarts in November, and Theodore hadn't had any flings with any girls. He was even turning down girls that had been brave enough to approach him and make the first move.
Without your parents to keep the two of you tightly bound, you and Theodore hadn't spoken since the train in.
Through all of this, you hadn't expected to become close friends with Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl in Theo and Draco's year. But she'd walked up to you during breakfast one morning and the two of you really hit it off.
Hence why currently, you were sat on Pansy's bed while she worked on her charms homework. And she was putting her absolute all into trying to convince you to ask Theo to Hogsmeade.
"C'mon Y/n! It might be fun."
"If by fun you mean he'll humiliate me in front of the entire student body." You mumbled under your breath. You tried to tune her out so as to focus on the book you were currently attempting to read, but she was determined.
"According to Blaise Theo's been talking about you when Draco isn't around to glare at him for it."
"Look Pans, I know you're in love with the bloke but have you considered that Blaise may be confused? Or simply taking the mickey?" Pansy shot you an unimpressed look. "Theo and I haven't spoken since September. In any case, if he's turning down long legged red heads who are all but stripping in front of him, what makes you think he'd want to go out with me?"
"Because he's already agreed to speak with you in the Slytherin Common Room tonight."
"What?!"
Pansy ignored your protests and damn near dragged you down to the common room with an iron grip on your wrist. When you got there, Theo was spread out on one of the expensive leather couches with a cigarette in between his lips. Yet as he noticed you approaching, he immediately dropped it and put it out with a stomp on the stone floors.
"Y/n."
The sonorous tones of Theo's voice bounced off each wall of the common room and seemed to warm you from the inside out. His voice was so inviting that you almost believed you could actually do this.
There is, however, one thing to know about Theodore Nott. No matter how inviting or pleasant Theo's aura is, you'd made a promise to yourself not to look him in the eyes. You knew that if you made the unfortunate mistake to look Theodore Nott in his malachite eyes, you'd lose all ability to think, speak, even breathe properly.
It wasn't until you saw his shoes enter your line of sight that you knew that he'd approached you at all. Worse, when his large hand found purchase under your chin and lifted your gaze to meet his, you knew that you were well and truly fucked.
In that most regrettable moment, you realized how much you'd fallen in love with Theodore. During shared hushed dates and the rare moments of laughter. Theodore Nott had completely enraptured you. And you realized much too late to do anything about it.
So now here you stood. Lost in the beautiful blues and greens of your fiancée's eyes. You were completely, 100% at Theodore Nott's mercy. And likely not for the last time in your life, you felt the urge to give into him. He was a sin that you'd willingly drown in.
"Bellisima," Theo's voice thickened as he spoke. You couldn't understand what he was saying nor could you place the language. But in all honesty, you hadn't known that he even spoke any other languages. His tongue wrapped effortlessly around each syllable and his voice deepened even more than usual, if possible. "I asked you a question."
"Huh?"
"You've been avoiding me." He stepped closer and your heartbeat spiked. "Why?"
Why had you been ignoring Theo again? How could you, or anyone for that matter, ever dream of not giving this devastatingly handsome man everything he desired and more? Oh yeah. Your wretched father.
"You've already been roped into entrapment with me and then forced to hang out with me all summer. I didn't want to cause anymore turmoil to your peace than I already have."
Theo's lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. Once again you'd gone and offended the poor boy.
Immediately, you opened your mouth to apologize, but he cut you off.
"D'you know for a Ravenclaw, you really can be rather thick sometimes?"
You felt your jaw drop in shock. The small grin he currently sported on his face let you know that he'd obviously been teasing. And for the umpteenth time since knowing him, Theo stole your breath with his stupid mesmerizing smile.
Yet, through all of that, he was right. You genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Theo finally seemed to get the hint that he was going to have to spell this out for you.
"I know you probably don't know this about me, but I never do anything that I don't want to. No matter who's asking."
You continued to stare at him blankly. Had he hit his head during the last quidditch match?
Theo ran a hand stressfully through his hair. He grabbed your wrist and led you back to the couches where you settled comfortably in the seat next to him, careful to maintain a respectful distance. "Merlin, Y/n. Turns out you Malfoy's are all slow."
"No offense." He added on quickly when he saw the look on your face. "That's not the point. Y/n I never would have agreed to this engagement with you if I didn't actually want to. I know that you did not get a say in the matter so if you truly wish to live our lives separately, I will respect your choice." Theo gently pulled your hand until it was safely tucked in between both of his larger ones.
"But whatever your decision, know that I am yours. I have wanted nothing more in the past few months than to be by your side. And every moment I spend without you is inexplicable torture for my soul."
"Theo."
He shook his head and cradled you face between his palms.
"No. My mother had a saying. Lascia che la vita accada. It means 'let life happen'. She believed that the only way to truly know if something is meant for you is to let life make it happen on its own. So take a few days. I'll meet you Saturday morning in the Great Hall. But know that if you agree to be mine, Tesoro, you'll be mine for eternity."
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To say that staying away from Theo in the days following was easy would be a complete and total lie. When you told Pansy about the conversation the pair of you had (or lack thereof really) she'd all but exploded.
Finally, Saturday morning rolled around. You'd genuinely thought about all your options and you'd come to a decision. The only issue with Theo's plan is that Saturday was the infamous Gryffindor v Slytherin Quidditch match. The Great Hall was bustling in seas of only red or green. You were sporting a dark green jumper, a show of obvious support for the Slytherin team.
Those of your house that favored Gryffindor looked on at you with disdain as you stood from your bench and began making your way to the Slytherin table in search of Theo. He was one of Slytherin's chasers so trying to find him during such a hectic morning proved difficult.
As you walked up and down the table, a familiar figure appeared in front of you.
"Ahh Malfoy. I've been looking for you. I was wonderin' if you'd wear my jersey."
Before you had time to respond or even acknowledge the situation at all, Adrian Pucey had shoved his green and silver practice jersey into your arms. It was an incredibly common practice for girlfriends and boyfriends of Quidditch players to wear their partner's jerseys to their games for good luck.
The hall fell silent as the sound of glass breaking reverberated through the air. You looked to the source of the noise. Theo had stood so abruptly from his seat next to Blaise and Lorenzo that his entire breakfast went flying and ended up on the floor.
He was staring at you with clear ache in his eyes. Suddenly, he swung himself over the bench and stormed out of the room.
You threw Adrian's awful smelling jersey back at his face and ran frantically after Theo.
"Theo!" He ignored you and continued walking briskly even as you approached quickly on his heels. "Theodore please. Just let me explain."
"You don't owe me an explanation, dolcezza ragazza. You've made your choice."
"You've got it all wrong. That's not my decision. I don't want that." You cried out as tears brimmed your eyes. The thought of losing Theo because of Adrian Pucey was mournful.
"Hey, hey. Calma tesoro. Breathe." Theo's hands one again found their way to your face. He gently thumbed the tears from your face. "Don't get yourself all worked up. I'll always listen to you."
"Adrian he just sort of threw his disgusting jumper at me. I don't want him. I only want you. I'm yours, Theodore Nott, completely and without hesitation."
The grin on Theo's face was nothing short of heart-stopping.
"Does that mean you'll wear my jersey at the game today?"
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4.17.24
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theromcommotel · 10 months
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HARRY POTTER HCS !!
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FIRST “I LOVE YOU” !!
prompt: harry potter characters and their first “i love you”s in relationships
characters included: harry potter, ron weasley, hermione granger, draco malfoy, ginny weasley, seamus finnigan, fred weasley, george weasley
warnings: you and seamus smoking in seamus’ part, swearing, physical abuse in george’s part
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harry j. potter…
who said it: harry
when: 5th year
“cmon… just a little bit more..” harry cooed patiently, hands placed on your hips. “forget it, harry. i don’t think i’ll ever get it right.” you sighed, wanting to throw your wand down on the ground.
dumbledore’s army had just begun merely a few sessions ago, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get your patronous just right.
maybe it was because you upset professor dolores umbridge today and pushed her far beyond her limits (not even on purpose, for that matter). or maybe it’s because colin creevey was stuck way too far up your arsehole whenever you would do something wrong when it came to today’s D.A session.
“well, maybe i can give you a happy memory to think about.” harry suggested. “how on earth do you plan to do that?” you questioned, wary of what he may do.
“maybe…like this.”
and with that, harry began to scan your lips with his, feeling for all the fine details that no one else would get to see but himself.
harry felt you smile against his own lips before pulling away, with a lopsided grin smearing his cheeks.
“i love you.” harry smiled, sounding as if he’s been waiting a century to say those words to you.
“i love you too.”
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ron b. weasley…
who said it: him
when: 3rd year
“oh no!! oh no no no..!!” the ginger boy roared as he was being dragged by the foot by the black-furred dog (unbeknownst to him, which was sirius black), “i can’t die yet!! i haven’t told (y/n) how much i love her yet!!”
“you bloody moron, she’s right here!!” the shorter bushy haired girl replied, slightly jealous it was her best friends name and not her own.
“i love you, (y/n)! if i die, i promise my ghost will haunt you!!” ron shouted before being dragged away out of sight.
“i love you too!” you yelped, hoping he could still hear you.
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hermione j. granger…
who said it: you
when: 7th year
“i know this isn’t much… but i wanted to be able to do something for you for our anniversary.” hermione said, rubbing her neck in pure embarrassment.
you, hermione, harry, and ron were on a hunt to look for all of voldemort’s horcurxes, and because of that, you all were staying in a rubbish tent in the woods.
the tent was empty for the most part, other than the small radio player that had muggle romance music on it.
“harry and ron are out of our hair…well for now anyway. i told them to go look for anything that could be useful, i just wanted to have a nice 3 months you.”
“you kicked them out for me?” you asked, disbelief leaving your throat.
“well yes — and i know it’s not much but-” the brunette would’ve continued if you didn’t interrupt her, and she gives a slight pout because of it.
“but it is much, it is something ‘mione! it is because i love you.”
“i- uhm. repeat yourself, please?”
“i love you, hermione.”
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draco l. malfoy…
who said it: him
when: 6th year
“isn’t that right, ms. (y/n)?” the barely human wizard, voldemort, said, looking at you from the other side of table.
you gulped quietly, your shoulders stiffening. “yes, sir.” you murmured, glancing at the platinum blonde boy next to you before averting your gaze.
you and draco grew up together - as your mothers were very close in their teenage years, your fathers, not so much. but they got along okay.
when draco first became part of the death eaters, his mother decided it’d be easiest to have you there, to make it a little less hard on him.
“excuse me for a moment.” draco mumbled, somewhat abruptly, as lucius and the lord were in the middle of a conversation. draco stood up within the blink of an eye, and sped walked out of the room.
“would you be a dear and check on him for me, honey?” narcissa leaned over and whispered in your ear, as you were seated between draco and his mother.
you gave a small half-smile with a nod, as you politely excused yourself, afraid of what voldemort could do if you had done it in a way of which he didn’t like.
you went around the halls of malfoy manor, the walls of which most of your childhood memories took place, as sad as that is.
you saw a crack in the door of draco’s room, and you opened the door a tad more
draco said there, looking down at his folded hands, not saying anything.
“are you okay?” you asked, even though you already knew the answer.
“those meetings…get to me, sometimes.” the blonde mumbled, his voice cracking slightly.
“me too..” you answered, rubbing your hand up and down his back, as you sat next to him.
“thank you, for always being here. i’ve spent my whole life with you, i never want to let you go.” draco said, giving a small smile.
“i won’t ever leave you behind, okay?”
“this is exactly why i fell in love with you all those years ago.”
“wait…what?” you denied, your voice quiet.
“you heard me, i love you (y/n).”
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ginevera m. weasley…
who said it: her
when: 5th year (well 4th year for her)
“hey (y/n)!” a familiar, high, squeaky voice called out to you, sounding a bit distant.
“oh, hi, ginny.” you half smiled, looking down at the younger girl.
“i need to talk to you, now.” ginny asked — well demanded, but she meant to ask.
you’ve known ginny long enough at this point to know sometimes, when she wants to ask a question, it can accidentally turn into a demand. especially, when she’s nervous.
“okay, no problem.” you reported, knowing exactly what she was going to say.
she grabs your wrist with a firm grip — but not firm enough for your to be hurt. and walks you down to a more empty side of the hogwarts express.
“i love you. and quite frankly, i hate it when you spend more time with my brothers and less time with me because it’s not fair, i fancy you!” the smaller ginger insisted, with a small stomp of her foot to show she meant what she said.
“i love you too, don’t worry, gin.” you spoke, as you tucked a string of hair behind her ear, that was before in the middle of her face.
she gave a lopsided grin before happily skipping off and giving a sing-songy goodbye.
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seamus d. finnigan…
who said it: him
when: 4th year
the yule ball of the 1994 school year was slowly coming to a close, but you were unable to find where your date had ran off to, one moment he was with his best friend, dean thomas — and now you have no bloody clue where he is.
there was only one placed you hadn’t looked yet — the astronomy tower.
you begin your walk up the tower of many staircases and you hear some intense coughing the higher and higher you reach.
before your eyes, you see your boyfriend — or date, or technically boy friend, as the relationship between the two of you is a bit complicated, with a cigarette between his fingers.
“hey seamus.” you say, as you sit down next to him, leaning into his touch.
“hi doll.” he says, grinning as he puts an arm around your waist.
“can i smoke with you?”
“absolutely not, angel!” seamus gasps, shocked, putting a dramatized hand to his chest, his mouth open a gap.
“huh? why not?” you asked, now just confused.
“because! i love you! i’m not letting a gorgeous goddess inhale that shit!” seamus replied, now tossing his cigarette away into the distance.
“you love me?”
“with every inch my body stands.”
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fred g. weasley…
who said it: him
when: 5th year (3rd book/movie)
“i don’t know how you could even do this, i don’t know what half of this is supposed to to mean..” your ginger boyfriend said, cuddled up into your side, as the two of you studied for the following potions exams.
“well, to make it’s quite simple, it’s just seeing it on paper is the hard part.” you said, nudging him slightly, to make sure he wouldn’t fall asleep again.
“oh, how so?” he asked.
“well actually you take the-”
and before you could get any further, your boyfriend pecked you on the lips.
“sorry, at first i was interested and then i just didn’t care anymore.” fred said with a chuckle.
“fred gideon weasley!!”
“i’m sorry, i love you, does that make it better?”
“i… yes.”
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george g. weasley…
who said it: him
when: 7th year (5th book/movie)
i mustn’t make mistakes any longer.
i mustn’t make mistakes any longer.
i mustn’t make mistakes any longer.
i mustn’t make mistakes any longer.
i mustn’t make mistakes any longer.
the words on your arm continued to ring in your ear, like the tangy feeling on your tongue after eating spicy foods.
none of this would’ve happened if you didn’t snap at the new d.a.d.a teacher - dolores umbridge.
the torturous (literally), cruel woman put you through so much pain in one detention.
don’t get me wrong, you’ve gotten detention once in 2nd year, but this could never compare.
the words on your arm were the ones that made you cry terrifying sobs as you had to continue to write and write and write - thanks to your low physical pain tolerance and somewhat sensitive heart, you just couldn’t bare it.
sprinkles of raindrops began to form in your eyes, they ground onto the table you were sitting at, as you tried to rub your eyes before anyone happened to notice.
“hey, love, are you okay?” george weasley - your boyfriend asked, scurrying over to you.
your arm was angled in the correcting lighting and point of view to where the taller ginger could see your scars perfectly.
“blimey!” your boyfriend shouted, pointing, before madam prince gave him a stern shooshing.
“what happened?”
you clung onto him immediately, sobbing quietly,
“hey love — it’s okay, i love you, i’m here and i always will be.”
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starlithumanity · 6 months
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I'm having a fascinating time rewatching Our Flag Means Death with the knowledge that Ed sees Izzy as a "safe" mentor/family figure ("safe" because Izzy is Ed's subordinate aboard the ship, which creates a more balanced power dynamic) upon whom Ed projects his many unresolved daddy issues. That stated interpretation from David Jenkins does work, even in season one!
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Most of the fandom conceptualized season one Izzy as a power-hungry subordinate to Ed and a "co-parent" to the crew (paralleled with the Stede/Mary marriage) who has an understated masochist lust for the Blackbeard legend. All of that is true too, because Ed and Izzy's relationship is incredibly complex and fucked-up. I know from personal experience that this kind of layered toxic relationship is completely possible, though it might seem contradictory on the surface.
In season one, Ed considering Izzy as a mentor/family explains more why Ed let his first mate be so insulting to and controlling of him and still kept wanting Izzy to stay beside him. It adds more meaning to how Ed veers super hard into the violent Blackbeard role after feeling cornered and threatened by Izzy at the end of the season. (This also has further weight for those of us with family members who have disapproved quite loudly of our queer relationships.)
There is a strong parallel that I noticed previously between young Ed's reaction to his father abusing his mother and season one Ed's reaction to Izzy dueling Stede. Stede is linked to Ed's mother through the red silk and through the fact that Stede and Ed's mother--and Lucius--are the only people we see treating Ed with compassion/softness in season one. It thus makes sense for Izzy to be mirroring Ed's father.
Then there's another parallel in how Ed responded to Izzy mentioning Stede in a mocking way ("pining for his boyfriend") by choking Izzy, like how Ed had once responded to his father threatening his mother by strangling his father. In this moment, Izzy touched Ed's face with an intimate kind of familiarity and said, "There he is." Ed clearly found this unnerving, which some people read as sexually harassment, but it makes just as much sense for it to be his daddy issues getting triggered.
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(GIF Sources: captain-flint and divineandmajesticinone)
I think part of why this dynamic was unclear in season one is because the writers wanted us to see that, even though Izzy is a mentor figure who taught Ed certain skills, Ed is a grown man who is fully competent on his own. He had likely started building the Blackbeard legend by the time Izzy met him, he has a clever mind that's constantly coming up with new plans, and when Izzy himself was left as captain, Izzy proved to not have the necessary charisma and compassion to lead the crew. Ed is the star power; Izzy is the manager, so to speak.
However, Izzy overestimates his importance and often talks about himself like he's a martyr to the Blackbeard legend, working so hard to keep both Ed and the crew in line. He claims that he's been "clean[ing] up [Ed's] messes... my whole life," which feels like a very parental complaint to me.
Ed fuels this martyr complex some in season two by physically harming Izzy, but notably, Ed doesn't threaten this kind of harm to the rest of the crew (though he isn't very careful with them either) until he's in the suicidal spiral of driving the ship into a storm. Before that, Ed threatens Izzy specifically, both because Izzy threatened him and Stede in season one and because Ed's trying, in his own fucked-up way, to prove to Izzy that he's following Izzy's guidance and "being Blackbeard." The toe-cutting also has some metaphorical weight: Izzy demanded that Ed "cut off" the gentler pieces of himself to be Blackbeard, so Ed starts cutting off literal pieces of Izzy in return. When it becomes clear that this isn't satisfying Izzy either, that's when Ed really goes off the deep end. ("I loved you the best I could," but I never could be enough to fit your expectations.)
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(GIF Source: livelovecaliforniadreams)
Meanwhile, we see Izzy starting to question things specifically in response to Ed saying that Izzy could be replaced as first mate. Izzy thought his place, as a mentor/family and self-professed "martyr", was more secure than that, and it challenges his whole identity.
Throughout season two, the mentor/family dynamic is further emphasized via the parallel between Izzy/Ed/Stede and Auntie/Zheng Yi Sao/Oluwande. Others have discussed this more, but there's so much meaning in the similar ways these characters carry themselves, in the tension of Auntie disapproving of Zheng Yi Sao's feelings for "soft" Oluwande, and in the way Oluwande finally teaches Auntie to soften herself some for Zheng Yi Sao.
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Additionally, in episode five of season two, we see Stede turning to Izzy for mentorship, proclaiming that Ed himself had recommended Izzy as someone who "made him into the captain he is today." People have questioned that as being a false manipulation from Stede, but I think there's a good chance that it was true! (Ed probably said this to Stede sometime during season one, when the two of them got to know each other so well.) "Taught him everything he knows" is definitely a flattering exaggeration, but hey.
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Throughout this and other episodes, we see Izzy continuing to take on a mentor-like role with Stede and the crew (and eventually Ed) as he tries to recenter himself after the darkness of the first three episodes. It's clear that Izzy is most comfortable playing the gruff and politically incorrect old fighter who offers guidance, but now he's letting himself branch out more and connect to the crew in new gentler ways. He even metaphorically "gives his blessing" to Ed and Stede's first time having sex by providing the musical accompaniment, which is the perfect amount of weird for this show, haha.
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Izzy's transformative arc in season two also involves a steady pattern of reversals, corrected new versions of his treatment of Ed in season one, as Izzy start coming to terms with the harm he did to Ed. Other people have discussed this in more detail, but I think the pace of this change is realistic to what you would see in such a situation. Ed's responses to this, too, are consistent with him seeing Izzy as a mentor/family.
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I should further note that Izzy and Benjamin Hornigold (another abusive father figure from Ed's past) are two characters mirrored by the fact that they call Ed "Eddie" in season two. I can imagine that being the nickname Ed used when he was younger, before growing out of it. Izzy seems to start feeling the echo of that memory of younger Ed when Ed comes to him scared, asking for Izzy to "fix [his] mess" by shooting Ed like Ed "dreamed" about.
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Right before Izzy's death, there's a scene where Ed is triggered super hard in his daddy issues by the fisherman "Pop-Pop." I think the writers wanted to remind us of the parental trauma Ed has been through before giving us some catharsis through Izzy's deathbed confession and apology. In that moment, Izzy takes full accountability for what he did, while Ed cries and says, "You're my only family." Izzy redirects him in a final bit of mentorly guidance, telling Ed that the crew is there to be his family if Ed will let himself be loved, truly, in the way Ed has often rejected and distanced himself from being loved.
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Now, I do think Izzy's death was the right choice for this show. I like that DJenkins went with the classic mentor death trope, and he did a similar thing with Buttons, the other old-timer first mate! I agree likewise with those who have discussed Izzy's loss as being a necessary step for the narrative to move forward both from Ed's darker self/parental trauma and from the older age of piracy that Izzy represents. Izzy was always meant to be a dark reflection of and a narrative support/conflict for Ed, and this is the natural culmination of that. His complicated legacy will continue to be something Ed has to reckon with, however, although Ed is trying to compartmentalize that right now.
I very much hope to see, in season three (🤞🏻), how Ed continues to process his past, especially now that he's trying for a domestic life that will likely lead into marriage. Marriage, from what I've seen, often acts as a staging ground for whatever parental trauma you had growing up, because you look to your parental figures as an example of how to do "adult" things. This is going to be a huge conflict for both Ed and Stede, who has his own personal negative marriage experience. I suspect Izzy will continue to represent this problem in some form or another.
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actualhumantrashcan · 7 months
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I can understand a silly workplace comedy about pirates not being everyone’s jam but I really can’t understand the amount of queer people I see hating on ofmd.
like for one thing most of the debates turn into gatekeeping queerness (which I think has a lot more to do with the ages of the main couples than actual concerns about authentic representation but that’s another post) and the rest are just hateful because it doesn’t directly name or label it’s queer characters but like why do we need that at this point?? listen I love heartstopper with all my heart but it is exhausting to watch them explain queer identities sometimes (even though I do think it’s super useful for younger audiences I’m just not the target demographic!) and ofmd is an explicit, violent, adult show that doesn’t NEED to explain it’s character’s identities.
queer people past their 30’s are usually very well aware of their queerness and have had (hopefully) plenty of time to go through the arc of discovering that. so why would we need to see Stede or Lucius or Ed going through turmoil because they’re attracted to men when they have already come to terms with that at this point in their lives?? i for one find it so fucking refreshing to watch a show where the characters being queer is not their main arc, they just ARE queer and life is still happening to and around them. maybe that’s just the millennial gay in me talking, but it gets emotionally exhaustive to watch show after show where the queer character’s arc is overcoming homophobia. yes obviously homophobia still exists and yes obviously if ofmd was trying to be historically accurate these characters would be living in a very dangerous time to be queer but it isn’t trying to be accurate!! it’s trying to be fun and diverse and kind!!
and also, they aren’t pretending homophobia doesn’t exist!! it’s just addressed in a different way. Stede was emotionally abused by his father for his entire life for being “soft” and then was chased down by his homophobic childhood bullies, one of which explicitly told him that he “defiled” the great pirate Blackbeard by simply falling in love with the man behind that name. Meanwhile Ed was forced into the world of piracy at a young age and developed the entire persona of Blackbeard (who fits the toxic, violent masculine stereotype of the time) to hide the fact that he’s actually an incredibly sensitive and deeply queer man! and is told multiple times by male figures in his life that sex with other men is fine but it is absolutely unacceptable to be in love with a man. both of their arcs contain homophobic rhetoric that is still present in society today, but its never presented as a problem that they have to wrestle with. they don’t have to come to terms with what it means to love each other, they just have to overcome some trials that go along with the complicated lives they both lead as a pirate and former aristocrat. the homophobia in ofmd is woven into the backstory of each and every character, it shapes them into the people they are at the beginning of the show when all of their walls are up and they are performing the “pirate” roles they are supposed to play. and then we get to see them grow and realize that they are in a safe space, part of a community not just on the ship itself but in the life of piracy (which in the show is pretty much explicitly an allegory for queer lifestyles.)
anyway, I could rant about this all day but just truly why do we have to tear people down for enjoying something? why do we have to find reasons to hate something so obviously created with sensitivity to it’s queer audience and with so much queer joy? if historically inaccurate gay pirates going on silly adventures and falling in love are not your thing, fine! but perhaps just let people enjoy things and find your own things to enjoy.
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waspredteeth · 30 days
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You know what I've realized these past several months on Tumblr and just...years of consuming content?
It's pretty rare for the fandom to acknowledge Gotham as a city. A real, living city with people in it. Like, sure we always get cutesy posts about Batman or the others from outside perspectives or fics that include interesting ocs (I love u if you do that btw).
But what I mean isn't that. What I mean is: does anyone think of Gotham and its citizens as actual people? Because I've sure seen kind of the opposite.
I see constant arguments or heavily biased (mostly misinformed) posts regarding what Bruce does and how the Batman helps the city. That his riches would get lost in corruption and no one can save the city unless there's violence. You could try and make the argument, sure. But we've seen time and time again in comics that Bruce uses his money to the benefit of the city. We've seen in comics that he employs people who are disadvantaged and gives them opportunities. People know Bruce Wayne gives jobs and treats his employees well. He donates heavily to charities, creates his own organizations, funds Leslie Thompkin's clinic, and consistently updates the safety of his own buildings. People (at least post-Crisis) would know that Bruce Wayne did everything he could to save Gotham after the Cataclysm earthquake/No Man's Land - that he went up against Congress. Of course, not everyone would like Batman. Not everyone would trust the Wayne name. They'd see a stranger who prowls nightly and may or may not rescue you. They'd see the privilege of an old rich name who gets to exert his influence over the city. If you go to him for help, you go to him with the fear, and anticipation of rejection or with the knowledge that he will be safe.
I've also seen the (imo) ridiculous notion that Crime Alley citizens would trust the Red Hood. Maybe some would now, after the reboots and actual comic book evidence that he's doing something. But I cannot fathom living in a city with such heavy crimes occurring and then trusting what is essentially a cop. People don't know the Red Hood. They don't know Jason Todd. They would only know: 1. he has tried and succeeded various times to take over organized crime and drug routes 2. he can and will kill if he sees it fit. In some people's eyes, he would be a cop with even less judicial oversight. In some families, he would be the killer of their breadwinner, of their fathers or family members or lovers. A man with a gun. Eyes without a face. If you go to him for help, you go to him for blood.
This doesn't even begin to lay out the insane amount of vigilantes who live/operate in Gotham. The Batman is not the only figure. The Red Hood is not the only figure. If you boil down Gotham to only the conflict between these two characters, you miss the nuances and varied opinions of the city by miles. If you boil down Gotham to just Batman-affiliates, you miss even more.
For every person who doesn't trust Batman, there's someone who'd prefer Huntress. For every child who lives in fear but can't trust an adult, there's Robin or Batgirl. For an abused woman, there's other women out there who help: Catwoman or Black Canary or Holly Robinson. There's people who'd never trust a vigilante but want safety, they'd have Leslie Thompkins (who operates in Crime Alley) or Lucius Fox who could give them a job.
Not to mention, Batman is very obviously white. There would be some people who would rightfully mistrust white men, and would prefer figures like Orpheus or Onyx or Batwing or the Signal or Huntress (post-N52). There's the Creeper, who would be terrifying but some might prefer the monster over the man. There's Ragman, an explicitly Jewish vigilante who was literally called the Tatterdemalion of the Oppressed and trusted by the poor and homeless. There's Batwoman, Mother Panic, Spoiler, Nightwing, Red Robin, Azrael, Bluebird, the enigmatic idea of the Oracle, Anarky, Ghostmaker, Gotham Girl/Boy, Catman, Alan Scott-Green Lantern, Wildcat.
Hell, maybe someone who lives in Gotham would just straight up trust Superman or the Flash or Wonder Woman more than anyone else. Maybe they'd never once trust someone acting for a perceived view of justice and would just trust an employer like Two-Face or the Riddler or any mobster.
I'm stressing my point here: when you write anyone who lives in Gotham City, keep in mind that they don't know they live in a comic book world. Secret identities are foreign to them, they only know the base actions of each vigilante. Each person's opinion will heavily vary. Every experience colors their view of the city and vigilantes as a whole. Just, idk, widen your horizons and consider about what someone living in a place like Gotham would really think.
To that end, read the comics!!! Research actual cities!!! Take in experiences and history!!! It's all interesting and just adds so much more.
You want one comic that shows Bruce helping Gotham and the various views of Gothamites, read Gotham Knights #32, published in 2002 and titled "24/7." Read it online illegally if you have to!!
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iamadequate1 · 2 months
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The canyon is Big Mad right now that Gypsy dares to make "Con's" WJW appearance "50% a filler episode."
You can find similar chirps around this that if Con praises Gypsy at all, it's an Oscar winning performance; that Con is the third biggest player in the whole thing and he shouldn't be disrespected; that they can't believe that people were paid to write S2; that people who aren't happy with scene cuts is reinforcing the canyon claims of Bad Writing; that Lucius should've married Izzy; and on and on it goes. I thought I had already blocked the most vocal of these people, but I guess not.
Look... if you thought that the antagonist who spent years abusing one of the romantic leads and tried to kill the other romantic lead on multiple occasions was going to skip off into the sunset with a cute romance instead of being dead, that's a You Problem, not a Writing Problem.
If you cannot comprehend that Ed thought of Izzy only as a toxic father figure and never a romantic or sexual interest, that's a You Problem.
If you thought Lucius was going to abandon his cute, canon romance for an abusive POS he never showed interest in besides disdain, that's a You Problem.
If you thought the paper thin antagonist who was missing for half of S1 was "third most important" over Lucius, Jim, or even other side characters like Jackie and now (especially with the spinoff rumors!) Zheng, that's a You Problem.
If you invented storylines around Izzy's queer arc, his disability arc, his suicidal arc, etc, and you can't accept that none of those arcs actually happened in canon, that's a You Problem.
If you're still shaking in rage at people associated with the show or fans of the *actual* show (not your shitty HCs) still after over four months of being unable to find mute and block functionality, that's a You Problem.
If you don't see a problem with the canyon's harassment of Nathan during his WJW and the canyon driving people to instantly have well founded concerns about the canyon's upcoming behavior during Gypsy and David's WJWs, that's a You Problem.
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bemusedlybespectacled · 4 months
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Minor tangent but I have seen a specific criticism of OFMD multiple times that's along the lines of "the problem was the first three episodes being too dark and gritty instead of being our fluffy kind gay show."
And I strongly disagree with that criticism.
Like, Season 1 already had its dark and gritty moments. It was never 100% fluffy. Everything Ed does at the end of 1x10 (throwing Lucius overboard, cutting off Izzy's toe, marooning the crew, and kidnapping Jim and Frenchie) is the most obvious example, but there are others: Stede's experiences as a child, Ed's abusive father, Jim's family's murder. All of them are shown to still be affected years later in a way that impacts how they interact with other people, which is why it's emotionally satisfying when they find love despite it.
Addressing the events of the S1 finale in the first couple of episodes of S2 was vital. It solidifies just how devastated Ed is and how that devastation has affected everyone else, both negatively and positively, for a given value of "positive" (the Kraken crew is clearly closer as a result of their shared trauma). The scenes showing how being part of Stede's crew changed them for the better (talking to and hugging Izzy, Jim telling Fang the wooden boy story with the voices, etc.) were absolutely necessary and arguably the strongest parts of the show, and I don't think we would have had that if the stakes weren't so high. "Ed is a bit mopey sometimes, but it's not that bad!" just doesn't have the same oomph.
Had they pulled a Last Jedi and started 2x01 by throwing away all that build up from 1x10 and making a joke about it, it would have been a poorer show. The times when darker things were treated as a joke (Lucius' experience after being thrown overboard), flat-out ignored (Stede's fairly obvious anxiety disorder), or blown past because of time constraints (Ed getting voted off the ship and then reinstated as part of the crew within a day) were when the show was weakest.
The problem, of course, is that once you've acknowledged that impact, you need to keep acknowledging it. It needs to continue having an impact. And you can't do that if you don't have the time to explore it because you need to skip ahead to the part where everything's fine now.
I'm not saying that they needed to fully shift gears and stop being a comedy entirely. I think S1 threaded the needle pretty well in terms of balancing the conflict with humor. Like, Ed has a breakdown in the bathtub over murdering his father and what a horrible person he is and his plan to kill Stede, and none of that is a joke; the joke is when Stede checks to make sure Ed isn't going to kill him. The sad stuff can be taken seriously and we can still have humor to break the tension! We can do it! We have the technology!
But you can't have a serious thing happen for the sake of growth and then hand wave it away later when it's inconvenient. And you definitely can't introduce ways to break that tension (surprise, Stede is alive because he used This One Weird Trick!) and then not use it when it's inconvenient (surprise, Izzy is alive because he– oh, wait, no, he's dying for realsies).
The issue wasn't the show having dark and gritty bits at all. The issue was the lack of time for those dark and gritty bits to do their fucking job: being a catalyst for personal and relationship growth in a way that actually matters to and affects the story.
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chuplayswithfire · 8 months
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Edward Teach and his relationship to violence and power and the cycle of abuse is so fascinating, because Ed grew up in a household where he was intensely, constantly vulnerable, where he and his mother were at the whim of his incredibly abusive father, and so he escapes by committing the most understandable and well justified murder in the entire show, and it traumatizes him -
Not just because it was murder
Not just because it was his dad
But because he was able to plan it out and make it happen at all. Killing his dad is this moment of terrifying strength and courage at the heart of him and it's the birthplace of the Edward that does what needs to be done to survive, no matter the emotional consequences. Ed thinks he is a bad person specifically because as a child he killed own father so he and his mother could survive, and then had to keep committing acts of violence to survive long into adulthood.
I don't think Ed worries about becoming his father. I think he sees himself as someone much worse - because he was able to kill that man, to plan out and complete his murder, even though that was his dad.
The show never once treats Ed's anger in the show as unreasonable or problematic - his flashes of temper throughout the show are always in very understandable moments and they're played for drama (french captain), furthering the romance (wanting to shoot the rich people party vs stede offering to handle it), or comedy (snake snack/punching izzy in ep 9).
Even Kraken is deliberately not particularly shown to be an expression of Ed's anger, which is hot, but that deliberate ruthless problem solving spirit that comes after the anger passes and the knowledge of exactly what to do washes over him; following his father to the dock and strangling him; skin him, and fang? use the snail fork; toe scene and sitting exactly at Izzy's bed side for it and telling him what will happen if he threatens him again. Even marooning the crew is not an act committed with anger, but a muted sorrow.
Piracy is a culture of abuse, mistrust, and backstabbery, this is established in episode one, further emphasized in episode 8 with both Spanish Jackie and Calico Jack and the tales of Hornigold, and demonstrated yet further with Captain Hands in episode 9.
Ed escaped the abuse at home, but found his place in the world in the abusive professional and interpersonal relationships of piracy, which is one reason he's so drawn to Stede - because he's doing it differently, he's trying to build a form of piracy that doesn't rely on the traditional forms of abuse that manage piracy - and because his people positive management style works, as demonstrated throughout the length of the show. Not everything Stede does works out or is ideal, but his people positive management style is.
When Stede leaves and breaks Ed's heart, and Ed starts to recover from that heartbreak only for Izzy to kick him back down with another threat to his life and for him to hear the crew calling for another song and wonder if it's mockery instead of friendship -
Yeah, Ed turns back to the familiar culture of abuse, mistrust, and backstabbery that piracy has. Shoving Lucius, the one most likely to see through him, overboard. Using Izzy's preferred language, violence, to get him to back the fuck off and fall in line. Violence against Jim and threats against violence against Frenchie, to get them to comply. Abandoning over half the crew.
Ed tried something new and at the end he feels like it fucked him over, made him weak, and vulnerable again, and he reacted exactly as his childhood self did - by creating and executing a plan to remove the threat and position himself out of harm.
That's what Ed's journey is likely to be about, in season 2, by my estimation - understanding what he actually wants in and from life, and having to recognize that he 1) deserves that life 2) can't get it by retreating of self-destruction and abuse that he's grown familiar with. Not a fear of being like his father (he's really not imo, and I could go on about how throwing a knife past your subordinate who has betrayed you and threatened to kill you is vastly different from throwing plates at your cowering wife because you're mad about dinner are not the same, but I'd hope it's unnecessary), or anger issues in general, but recognizing that his retreat from his authentic self into the mask of Blackbeard we see at the end was wrong and doomed to fail.
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veeagainsttheday · 6 months
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Ed, Killing, and the Kraken in Our Flag Means Death S1 and S2
This meta contains a whole heckuva a lot of spoilers for Our Flag Means Death seasons 1 and 2. Thanks to @petrichorca who gave it a read through and left some helpful comments!
When we first get to know Ed in s1e4, the episode concludes with him telling his first mate, Izzy Hands, about his plans to murder Stede Bonnet and steal his identity so Ed can retire from piracy. Ed and Izzy discuss the plan in a casual manner, like this act isn't shocking or deviant from previous conversations and schemes Ed and Izzy have had before. This is consistent with how other characters, especially Black Pete, have described Blackbeard in previous episodes (‘when Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child…’). While Black Pete is (probably) lying, Buttons was with him until the flip. 
As the song ‘The Empty Boat’ by Caetano Veloso plays, Izzy tells Ed, 'You've still got it' and Ed says, 'I know,' turning away to face the empty deck. Only the audience witnesses his true facial expression - the Blackbeard mask falling, a kind of dead-eyed exhaustion (echoed by the lyrics of the song) taking its place. 
In s1e5, we see Ed threaten violence against the French captain, but he doesn't actually hurt the man himself. We also see him act as if he's about to go kill the French partygoers before Stede steps in and 'handles it'. At this point I think we the audience would, if asked, have said that Ed seems to have a casual attitude towards killing that you would expect from 'the legendary Blackbeard'. He's scary ('next one goes through your fucking eyeball') and almost cartoonishly violent ('skin him. And use the snail fork'). So we the audience maybe make some assumptions about where the show stands on violent killing - not only that Blackbeard is familiar with it, but that it's a commonplace act for him.
Then we come to a pivotal moment. In s1e6, Izzy pushes back on Ed for not killing Stede, there’s the conversation about doggy heaven, and Ed promises Izzy that he’ll be the one to do the killing. We see Ed hyping himself up (‘You’re a killer bro. So kill.’) and then holding his knife while standing next to Stede behind the curtain in the captain’s cabin. They’re interrupted by Lucius cutting off his finger. Ed doesn’t go through with it; the moment passes as Stede exits the curtain to announce the entrance of the Kraken. 
At this point, I as an audience member fully believed that Ed couldn’t kill Stede because of his feelings for him. I wasn’t yet sure what those feelings were, but I knew that Ed had a deep affection for Stede, and for a moment I believed that was all that was holding him back. Then, of course, we see Ed have a PTSD/panic attack trigger from the Kraken fuckery that sends him into Stede’s bathtub, hiding underneath Stede’s robe, where he and Stede have what I believe is the most intimate moment of the entire first season (a reading supported by s2e3). Ed tells Stede, ‘The Kraken didn’t kill my dad. I did.’ We are shown the flashbacks to the way Ed’s father abused him and his mother, and the Kraken story he told on deck earlier is shown again with the figure of the beast in the water replaced by himself, as a young teen, on the dock. 
Then Ed tells Stede, ‘If I’m being honest, I haven’t killed another man since.’ Stede tries to comfort him by reminding him how much he loves a good maim, but Ed is still preoccupied with how the fact that he killed his abusive father as a child means that he’s not a good person, and that this is why he doesn’t have any friends, aka, isn’t loveable. Stede tells him, ‘I’m your friend,’ in essence, To me, you are loveable, and Ed reacts by saying, ‘No,’ and banging his head against the tub.
The next important point happens in s1e8, when Jack invites himself to breakfast and regales Stede (very deliberately, as he’s trying to push Stede and Ed apart) with the tale of Ed setting a ship alight and killing many people. (Also note - the show’s first mention of Hornigold! ‘He treated us like dogs! Worse than dogs!’ and ‘Ground us down into nothing!’) While Jack emphasises the horror and brutality of what Ed did, Ed’s demeanour completely changes - ‘No, Stede doesn’t want to hear about that.’ Jack obviously doesn’t listen to Ed; Stede’s face passes from horrified listening to Jack to squinting at Ed like, ‘Is this - true?’ Ed looks thoroughly guilty as the story continues and Stede asks him, clearly doing his best to preserve Ed’s secret in front of Jack, ‘I thought you’d, uh, given up the killing?’ Ed surges forward in his seat and, not making eye contact with Stede, says, ‘Yeah, well, technically the fire killed those guys. Not me.’ The camera then cuts to Jack looking at Stede with a bit of an incredulous expression as if he’s both gauging Stede’s reaction to the entire thing and thinking, ‘Wow BB’s in deep here if he’s making up some weird story about not being the one who lit that fire.’  
I don’t think the show intends for us to believe that Ed was consciously lying to Stede in the bathtub scene in s1e6. Instead, we see the complex way that Ed - who is shown to be both brilliant and possessed of an internal monologue that just cannot shut up - has constructed mental barriers to protect himself from the trauma of killing while still achieving the highest possible status in a very violent profession and existing in a world marred by colonial violence perpetrated specifically against people like him. 
S1e9 shows Ed continuing to posture to everyone but Stede as Blackbeard, seasoned killer (for example, telling Chauncey that he barely remembers killing Nigel because he’s ‘a real “life is cheap” kinda guy’). At the Academy and briefly after, in the beginning of s1e10, Ed seems set to have given up killing and violence for real, but Izzy’s threats in the cabin in s1e10 send Ed reeling back to the Kraken persona he assumed when he killed his dad. The season concludes with him pushing Lucius off the ship and Krakening up to sail, rob, and raise hell forever - but the final shot shows Ed crying alone in his cabin, his Kraken makeup streaking down his face. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of my favourite scenes from a character perspective. Imagine if the season had ended with Ed fully transformed into the Kraken, rather than clearly miserable and heartbroken under his mask? 
Season 2 begins with Ed trying to set a record for most consecutive raids, working his crew to death under brutal and traumatic conditions. His list of crimes on his wanted poster certainly suggests a lot of violence and killing, yet the show is careful to show us Ed himself only seeming to kill one person - firing a gun into a man’s back during a raid - and if you look closely, you’ll see that the man was already dying with a dagger through his body. It feels vital to me that the only direct ‘killing’ action we see Ed taking is shooting a man who we presume he can justify as having been already on his way to death. 
In s2e1 and s2e2, Ed can’t kill Izzy, though he does try desperately to get Frenchie to do it for him. He can’t even kill himself, trying to get Izzy to do it instead. When he thinks Izzy has committed suicide with the gun he gave him, he says, ‘I loved you, best I could,’ as if any love Ed could give would by its nature not be good enough. 
Ed wakes in s2e3 in the care of his old captain, Hornigold; of course, he’s really in the gravy basket and Hornigold is serving as a Jacob Marley-esque psychopomp. They key to Ed realising that he’s really [Buttons voice] ‘down in the old gravy basket’ is the conversation that concludes his attempts to be Jeff the Innkeeper. Hornigold tells Ed that he’s not good with people - after all, he did strangle his father. Ed reacts first with disbelief then cold fury, saying he never told anyone that; Hornigold reminds him that he told one person and Ed flashes back to telling Stede in the bathtub in s1e6; then Hornigold reminds him that the one person he told left him, and we see Ed crying under his Kraken makeup at the end of s1e10. Later, when Ed (finally, even Calico Jack would have had it sooner) realises that Hornigold represents himself, he says that he’s unloveable. Here’s the crux of it - he believes that he is fundamentally unloveable because he killed his father, because he is the Kraken, the monstrous beast capable of lethal violence. That’s why Stede left, his brain is telling him even as he’s dying. 
Then Stede actually proves him wrong by returning, saving him from death, and telling him that he ‘love[s] everything about [him]’ in rapid succession. Whether or not Ed fully accepts this information, we do see him very quickly, yes, melt back into Stede’s arms. Which brings us to s2e6, and Stede’s killing of Ned Low. 
Quick digression into killing and Stede: Stede accidentally kills a man in s1e1, is haunted by his ghost in s1e2. He’s so haunted by dead Nigel that he spends a lot of s1e2 asking first Oluwande and Jim for advice on being a ‘mur-der-er’, and then asking Black Pete how his former employer, Blackbeard (!!!) handled killing. (How Pete says, ‘When Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child-’ lives in my head at all times, Matt Maher with the line deliveries of all time.) Finally in s1e2, during his court-mandated therapy with the tribal elder, Stede admits that he doesn’t feel bad about killing Nigel - he was a horrible person even when he was a child! Stede's guilt is coming from somewhere else. We see this again in s1e9, when Stede says it is time for him to face the consequences for what he’s done - it might seem like he means for killing Nigel, since that’s why he’s about to face the firing squad, but we know that Stede’s guilt is about abandoning his family (the people he’s hurt!). Similarly, when Stede kills Ned in s2e6, he seems to get over it very quickly. Ned is clearly a bad guy, and although the act of killing him was traumatic for Stede (much like the act of killing Nigel), Stede presumably reconciles it by knowing that he was protecting Ed and his crew (and avenging Calypso’s birthday). Stede as a character is shown to have a tremendous amount of natural resilience. We later see him immolate a guy and dispatch a number of British soldiers without hesitation. Stede is also one of the two main protagonists of the show, and his attitude towards killing seems to reflect the attitude of the show itself - killing colonisers and torturers to protect your loved ones is ok, actually. 
(Side note but I found this idea about how zero tolerance policies actually hurt victims very informative on the topic of why it's ok that Stede killed his childhood bully; I got that link from this very interesting post where several people are in conversation about how Ed is not Izzy's abuser.)
Back to Ed in s2e6. He asks Stede not to kill Ned; when Stede does anyway, Ed is visibly saddened and ignores Izzy telling him to give Stede a moment; instead he goes immediately to check in on Stede in his cabin. He knocks on the door and in that soft voice that he only ever uses with Stede, he starts to say, ‘Hey. You okay? Look, I was a wreck after my first kill as well.’ Then he pauses, before rambling, ‘I mean, well, it was my dad, so there's that,’ which feels like a little moment of self-reflection. Like. Yeah. Ed. Baby. You might be super fucked up about the act of killing because the first guy you killed was your dad, when you were a literal child! Also, Ed has never been to (as far as we know) court-mandated tribal elder therapy, so of course his decision to kill his father fucked Ed up for decades! Also as a very clever friend pointed out, we don’t know anything about what the consequences of that were for Ed - how did his mother react, is that why he ran away to sea, etc.
There's another important thing here that the audience knows, but that Ed has never told Stede (or, we have to assume, anyone) which is that the catalyst for Ed becoming the Kraken to kill his father was abuse. The audience is shown through his panic-attack-induced flashback that Ed's father physically and verbally abused his mother and presumably him too. All Ed has ever said to Stede or anyone about it, as far as we know, was his joke to the crew during scary story hour that his dad was a dick. Stede can probably infer roughly why Ed killed his dad, but he doesn't know the details, and he loves everything about Ed anyway, and now Ed knows that Stede does too. 
So Ed and Stede have sex, and as many metas have pointed out (like this one!), it's so meaningful that Ed feels safe enough to give up his Blackbeard/Kraken identity the very next morning. He attempts to get Stede to see that it might be nice to not be pirates anymore due to the high chance of death but Stede manages to completely misread it and laughs it off. (To be fair to Stede, they're both horrible at communicating and Ed is not saying what he wants in any direct manner.) Ed proceeds to have his big beautiful brain start to spiral out of control as Jackie points out how popular Stede is becoming as a pirate; Ed panics, tells Stede he doesn’t even know who he is, and leaves to become a fisherman before he can get left (again!). 
As Ed rows away from his failed career as a fisherman in s2e8, his boss Pop-Pop (who he has managed to recreate a fucked up father-son dynamic with that like so many things in his show is played for laughs but has pretty dark undertones) yells after him, 'If you were ever good at anything, go and do that, you bum.' Ed rows back into the port of the Republic of Pirates and sees the destruction Prince Ricky has wrought upon the pirate community. Ed's first thought is, Stede, and then he imagines Stede calling for help before straight up murdering two British soldiers. He remembers Pop-Pop's words and says, 'Have it your way,' before diving into the sea, retrieving his leather, putting it on underwater, and emerging from the waves fully dressed. It's fantastically hot and the exact level of drama I expect from this man. The Kraken musical cue is playing as it happens. 
We now see Ed murdering British soldiers in the coolest ways possible, demonstrating his skill at fighting in hand to hand combat. One way to read him taking Pop-Pop's advice is that this is what he's good at - killing and violence. 
But you know what Ed’s even better at? Protecting the people he loves. His mother, himself, and Stede. Each time Ed becomes the Kraken, he fulfils that. He protects his mother from his father, himself from Izzy after being warned that ‘[Edward] better watch his fucking step’, and Stede from the invading colonisers who want to destroy their freedom. But something has changed the third time he does it - this time, he can tell Stede that he loves him and he doesn't mean it as a tainted thing, but something that he knows Stede will treasure. He's both loveable and capable of loving. He always has been, of course, but now he knows it. The Kraken, the part of him that is capable of killing, was always a defence mechanism for Ed, but the third time he understands it and himself enough to know that it doesn’t make him a monster. 
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celluloidbroomcloset · 4 months
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I want to talk about Ed's "I loved you, best I could" and Lucius's "maybe the time he spent with you is the best it's ever going to get for him."
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We see how clearly Ed fears he's unlovable, but there's another facet that is just as important to how he responds and the way in which he tries to push people, including Stede, away: the fear that he's unable to love someone else in a way that doesn't hurt them.
From what we know of Ed's past, we see that he's not had many real, nontoxic friendships—"pirates don't have friends"—and though he considers Calico Jack and Annie and Mary friends of a certain type, the damage they do each other as a matter of course means that he's never been safe with them. Izzy may be one of the first people in Ed's adult life to even try to say that he loves him—and even that is qualified: "I...have love for you." That love is tainted and toxic, by piracy itself, and by the abuse that Izzy has tried to claim as love. None of the people in Ed's pirate life prior to the Revenge have been able to unequivocally say that they love him, and I think we can infer that he's not been able to say that he loves them. The closest he manages what he says to Izzy, after Izzy is supposedly dead: "I loved you, best I could."
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And it's this line that indicates, more than anything, that Ed may believe at this point (his lowest point, where he is already dedicated to killing himself) that he's actually incapable of loving someone properly. He has indeed experienced real friendship and love, not just with Stede but with the crew. It seems clear that he thinks he's done something, or been something, to make Stede leave him, and he's trying very hard to make the crew hate and fear him enough to kill him. His other friends that we've met—Jack and Izzy—are dead (or he thinks they are). He's truly isolated, and it seems he believes that that isolation is entirely because of who he is, not just being unlovable, but being a "bad person" unable to love someone else.
We see this at work already in Season 1, in Ed's inability to do anything to stop Izzy from harming Stede. Stede is related to Ed's mother, the other person in Ed's life whom he loved without toxicity. Ed's murder of his father was to protect his mother and himself, but it ultimately (it's implied) leads to him running away to become a pirate. Having had a person who loved him, he fled to avoid his violence poisoning her further. The duel between Stede and Izzy repeats the process, but Ed is unable, here, to stop the abusive father from harming the person Ed truly loves and who has shown him genuine love. Ed's love for Stede brings Stede into danger and nearly gets him killed.
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The second time, Ed brings Calico Jack onto Stede's ship. Ed's reason for leaving the Revenge with Jack is his fear that Stede will eventually see him for what he is, and reject him: "This is who I am, Stede. Can you see me now? You were always going to realize what I am." This comes after Jack has killed Karl and harmed other people in Stede's crew. The undercurrent is that Ed himself has brought violence on the people that he loves, purely by his association with Jack. Again, Ed's love for others is not just a weakness in the eyes of Jack and other pirates, but a danger to the very people he wants to protect.
Which is why Stede's rejection of Lucius's statement—that the time Ed has already spent with Stede is the best it will ever be for him—and his continued hope and expression of love for Ed is so important, not just to Stede's characterization, but to Ed's. Because it isn't just that Stede loves Ed, but Stede's conviction that Ed loves Stede. Stede firmly believes that Ed is capable of love, that the love they experienced wasn't a whim or something that could easily be discarded ("a love like ours doesn't vanish in an instant"), and that Stede himself is not going to accept the idea that Ed's love for him in Season 1 is the best it's going to get. He knows that Ed is capable of love, and that Ed's love is not poisonous or dangerous.
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Season 2 isn't just about Ed learning that he's loved, but also about him learning that he is indeed capable of love. He tries to help heal the damage that he has done, not just as Kraken, but as Blackbeard. He tries to give the crew joy, what there is within his power, and to express his love for them through turning "poison into positivity." He learns to love Stede better by becoming a better man himself. Most of all, though, he begins to understand that he is not poisonous but has been poisoned, and he has to let the poison bleed out.
I have more to say about how this works in Season 2, but that's enough for now.
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Side note: I do think this is another narrative reason why Izzy has to die. He is one of the last connections to the poisonous past, a major player in Ed's inability to recognize his own capacity for love, and a stumbling block to Ed being able to both accept Stede and the crew's love, and to understanding that his love is not the cause of violence.
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ggwendolyn · 5 months
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Go ahead and cry, little boy
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Pairing: Draco L. Malfoy x reader
Word Count: 0.6k (613)
Warnings: Angst, just pure angst, daddy issues (I mean it's Lucius fucking Malfoy, who wouldn't have daddy issues with him as a father). Maybe a little fluff at the end.
Notes: It may be kind of 'hurtful' to anyone with daddy issues, so if you're too sensitive about it this is definitely not for you.
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DRACO was your beautiful, handsome boyfriend. You two had been together for like, at least two years, and you knew him as the palm of your hand. He was such a sweet boy... well, he was a twit sometimes, but you knew it was just because of his father strict demands.
That's what led you two where you were — Your arms wrapped around his shoulders while he hugged your waist tightly, sobbing on your chest as he gripped your white shirt now stained with his tears.
“Shh, it's alright baby. It's not your fault.” You mumbled into his blonde roots, your hands softly rubbing up and down his back. He shook his head at your words, sniffing.
“Oh but it is.” He hiccuped, sobs interrupting his words and making it impossible for you to understand what he said after.
“Honey, you know I can't hear you if you cry.” He sighed once your words got into his ears, lifting up his chin to rest his head on your shoulder. “Calm down, 'mkay?”
“It's just.. It is my fault, okay? I shouldn't have listened to him, I shouldn't do what my father tells me to, but I do. And it's my fault.” He murmured, hiding his face in the crook of your neck and inhaling your scent deeply, exhaling softly through his lips.
“Dray, it's not your fault. You do what he demands because you don't want to disappoint him.” You pulled away, making him look at you as you cupped his cheek, your thumb grazing his cheekbone. “He is an abusive parent, he manipulates you, he's just a gormless wanker. You deserve love, Draco. You deserve love from a lot of people who don't give it to you.”
His eyes became glassy again, tears streamed down his cheeks, but you wiped them away and kissed his forehead.
“And I mean it. You do deserve love.” You interrupted him once you saw he was going to refuse to accept your words. “You just act like a tosser with some people because your father only taught you to judge people and be a gannet. You don't know how to open to others, you don't know how to express your emotions. And that's not your fault, it's your father's.”
“But-” Before Draco could continue, you shushed his lips with a kiss, not a passionate kiss, no, a soft, sweet kiss. His eyes fluttering close as your lips met together, his body melting into yours as you caressed his cheeks softly while you parted away from the kiss, starting to pepper kisses all along his face.
“I love you.” You said, hugging him and wrapping your arms around his neck as he snuggled into the blankets, burying his face in your chest and blowing out a sigh.
“I love you too... thank you.” Draco murmured against your shirt, his eyes puffed closing as he tried to calm down and forget about what happened with his father. “I've got to go in a few minutes.” He mumbled.
“Don't worry, I'll talk to the guys and tell them you were sick. You don't have to go to Quidditch practice if you don't want to.” Your lips curved into a small smirk as your nails scratched his scalp, trying to produce comfort.
“Would you? That would be enjoyable...” Draco asked and looked at you, his eyes now dry but reddish and puffy.
“Mhm. I'll take care of everything, love.” You nodded, your hand that wasn't caressing his roots slid down to rub circles on his back.
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© ggwendolyn 2023
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juniperpyre · 3 months
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i think my key issue with the sanitization of death eater characters is that it feels like people do not see their stories as tragic or empathize with the characters until we have a hc that's like "actually they were morally good the whole time!"
regulus black and severus snape are tragic characters and child soldiers no matter what side they were "really" on. even barty crouch jr, who may not have been groomed into being a death eater, is tragic when you spend a second to consider his relationship with his father. there are plenty of death eaters who we know are taking after their fathers in joining the cult. lucius malfoy, who was a prefect when the marauders enter hogwarts, most likely spread the death eater ideology, since the ideology is just a more extreme version/logical endpoint of what already existed in the wizarding world.
to me, these ideas are not headcanons, because they are heavily implied by the text. when jkr mentions malfoy in the deathly hallows that is not for no reason.
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mallfoy's acceptance of snape and position of power are both highlighted in this sentence. we can infer that snape felt a sense of community for the first time in Slytherin. with malfoy as a prefect we can infer that the culture of Slytherin house lifted up bigots and those with an important family name.
this is a culture that breeds more bigotry. we know that Dumbledore did not step in to stop this cultural development in the 90s, after already seeing what it could do!!! so we can infer that he did not in the 70s. so a bunch of children were left alone in an echo chamber of hate. of course some of them became fanatics!!!
this doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable. but we cannot expect children to overcome cultural and political hegemony all alone. like.... that's just not how the world works. and it's tragic that children are fodder for fascist's wars, especially when the fact that the children were abused or neglected makes them more vulnerable to be fodder.
regulus and severus weren't treated as people, their humanity was denied by the fascist they served, bc that's how fascism works. exploring their characters as they are in canon, with full humanity, without needing to change their stories to see that humanity, is much more interesting to me. it is much more in the spirit of redemption and restoration.
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ayashitetsuko · 6 months
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I’m thinking of all the instances my favourite characters are dead on screen, and why Izzy Hands’s bothered me so much. For example, I saw Egon Spengler died on Ghostbusters Afterlife, and while it made me sad, it did not cause me pain. There was certainly no disappointment at the creators.
The difference lies in the existence of closure and mission fulfilment for these characters.
Egon died in a battle. We saw him being chased by the hounds, struggling with technical issues, before he calmly accepted his fate. Before that, he had spent a lifetime catching ghosts, and he never stopped. He worked for the cause until the very end, until he no longer able to. And the mission was carried on by his grandchild and former colleagues.
When I saw him died, there was this feeling of, ah, he lived a full life. He completed his journey. I am proud of him.
His death was handled in a respectful manner by the creator; one that gives audiences a sense of finality in his arc.
Izzy, on the other hand, did not get this.
The canon itself explicitly stated at the beginning of S2 that he was in an abusive relationship. He managed to get out of it; hurt and traumatised and disabled as a result. But then he found love in his community. He began to heal. We saw him bloom, standing proudly, learning to fight with his new prosthetic. He put on make up, sings. Most importantly, he opened himself up to people. Before this, life was all about Blackbeard. Then we saw him being physically close to Fang and Frenchie, flirty with Lucius. Being a trusted mentor for Stede. His new life had finally begun.
Then he died.
When so many questions remained. When so many potential are unexplored. Somehow the creator decided that Izzy had done his purpose as Ed’s father figure—a role that we had never seen in their relationship in the first place—and decided to kill him off.
Even the whole idea of “death is the only path available for older mentor figure” itself is questionable, if not offensive.
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okay but Wayne!sibling!Reader being a villain?? one day she steals Wayne Enterprises from Bruce when he gets too caught up in Batman stuffs hoping it would garner his attention but he happily signs off on it and it irritates her cause she just wants his attention she won’t admit it but she feels Bruce put her on the back burner in favour of Batman and that burner only got colder with every child he adopted so she becomes a straight up villain just to spend time with him. not doing anything super illegal that the company couldn’t shell out some money to fix but enough to garner his attention. and he has absolutely no idea it’s his baby sister beating his ass on a weekly basis. all the Bat Kids know though and are just grinning like madmen in the background.
I love the idea of Wayne!Sister!Reader taking up being a villain but she’s a baddie who does good. Like she steals from bigger more corporate businesses only to give to smaller and harder working businesses, especially local family owned ones. Or she goes after people and places that are pretty terrible themselves whether it be a testing facility that does its testing strictly on animals or an abusive parent/foster home/orphanage.
It would also be kind of funny if the Reader fully divulged themself into villainy only to just mildly inconvenience Batman/her brother. Like she doesn’t really mean to do good, it’s not their #1 intention, she just wants to put a damper in Bruce being Batman but instead they inadvertently do really good and beneficial things in the process. Like, oops she accidentally destroyed an entire apartment complex, luckily no one was harmed in the process but fortunately it was also not up to living standards to begin with and is now being completely rebuilt with everything being like and working how it should have from the start.
Bruce actually finds this new up and coming villain quite amusing and dare he say that he enjoys their interactions with each other. At first he wouldn’t be any the wiser to his new foe being his sister because of course that would be in no way, shape, or form a thought in his mind that his own beloved baby sister would be out causing ‘havoc’ on the city, on their home. Hell, he probably doesn’t even think his sister has any idea about him being Batman. He didn’t even think twice when they took Wayne Enterprises right from under him, he didn’t see it like that at all. I could even see Bruce being delusional unsuspecting enough to believe that the Reader was only taking up the company as to give him a break and allow him to do more of his own thing (i.e be able to protect the city and do his Batman responsibilities without much more to hold him back or take up his attention). So of course he wouldn’t think much about his own baby sister taking on the company from him, if anything he kinda thought it was cute. Especially seeing his precious baby sister taking on the role of CEO. He’d totally have Lucius take discreet photos or videos of the Reader being a girlboss in meetings and whatever business dealings, all just to see his sister be a strong businesswoman and run the company all on her own.
I also really love the idea that even though the Reader felt left out on the back burner she was still a prominent figure in the kids lives and adored them to no end. Of course she loved seeing her brother be as much of a father to the kids as he could be, putting much necessary time and attention into them that was taken away from her. Like, she didn’t resent them or anything like that for coming into the picture and ‘stealing’ her brother from her but instead helped be something the kids needed and could trust when they felt they couldn’t go to Bruce. But as much as she loves and cares for her nieces and nephew and vice verse that did that keep her from still feeling abandoned by Bruce.
I could definitely see after becoming Batman that Bruce and the Reader’s relationship changed. The Reader certainly felt the change, the two used to be inseparable and so close but now it felt like there was a void between them. At least that’s how the Reader felt. Bruce doesn’t think anything is any different, he hasn’t picked up on any change. When the Reader does try to spend time with him and he turns them down in favor of crime fighting or something else, he always promises to make it up but he never does, probably due to forgetting but the Reader remembers and it weighs them down each and every time he turns them away for something or someone else. She’s kept her hurt to herself but it only got worse until she decided to move out of the manor, away from the kids and away from Bruce. She didn’t even tell Bruce, she just up and left without breathing a word of it to him. Hell, she may not have told anyone except Alfred that she was moving out. Alfred was only told because the Reader didn’t want to worry him, out of everyone in the family he was the one she didn’t want to be concerned about her. I also don’t doubt that Alfred is very well aware of the Reader’s feelings of being unwanted or uncared for regarding Bruce and he’s tried to help the Reader in his own way to get Bruce to spend some kind of time with his sister only for him too to end up waved off or turned away.
I could also see the kids having started paying less attention to the Reader once they took up fighting crime with Bruce, especially the older ones who moved out and were doing their own thing now. It would only add to the Reader’s feeling of being abandoned and left behind leading them to just leaving the manor and everyone else altogether.
If things weren’t so serious and this whole thing wasn’t a detrimental way to try and save/rekindle the Reader and Bruce’s brother-sister relationship in itself own way, then I could see the kids finding some amusement in it. But they would all still be very worried about the Reader, sure Bruce as Batman isn’t going off on her like he does with his rogue gallery or other criminals but that doesn’t mean that the Reader still can’t end up hurt or in real peril. The kids would try their best to help the Reader in their own ways but I think eventually someone would just crack and tell Bruce that he’s been fighting his own sister this whole time and giving her reason for it too. Bruce needs some time to process it but then he puts thing together himself and it all makes sense. He feels awful knowing that his baby sister felt like this was the only way she could spend time with him or have more of an interaction with him then he’s given her outside of this. He honestly feels like complete shit and a terrible brother, especially when he’s reminded of a promise he made her when they were younger after their parents died about always being there for each other and that she could count on him over anyone else. And he’s gone and fucked it all up.
I can’t help but have the idea that Bruce was slowly pulling back from his sister because he caught on to his obsessive tendencies and he didn’t want to turn into something much darker when it came to his beloved baby sister. He wanted her to be able to exist and thrive in the world without him holding her back, but now that he knows his baby sister went to these lengths for his time and attention he feels justified in indulging in his yandere behavior. And leave it to the kids to follow suit, especially after finding out the Reader felt abandoned by them too.
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nightingale2004 · 1 month
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Severus Snape daughter headcanons
Slytherin all the way.
There was a debate with the sorting hat between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, but the hat landed on Slytherin
Severus taught her German and Russian
Has a pet cat
Was taught how to brew potions as a child
Skilled in occlumency and legilimens
Severus would've definitely taught her some fight moves he learned from Tobias to defend herself along with defense spells to protect herself if necessary (one of the rare good things Tobias did for Severus)
I feel his daughter would have a photographic memory
If his daughter was born before the war, then she would've met Regulus as a baby but didn't know a lot about him other than what Narcissa, Lucius, and her father told her (all good things)
Growing up, Severus didn't tell her a lot of his past, but every time she was in the Malfoy's care or Charity and Aurora's care, they would tell her all the embarrassing school stories of Severus (Severus would neither confirm or deny the stories) but they leave out the marauders of their stories (she knows about them, they always let it slip during their stories)
Educated in both the wizarding and muggle world
She definitely inherited the famous Severus glare and sharp tongue
Middle is Eileen, and Severus talks about his mother sometimes but not much
She would definitely be a bookworm
Similar to Severus, she would have an interest in potions and DADA
She and Draco would have definitely seen each other as siblings from their parents
I feel like she would be respectful and nice to house elves and would hate the abuse they face (she scolds her uncle Lucius about hurting Dobby every time she sees it)
Her and Hermione would have a school rivalry since they are both the smartest girls in their houses. But they respect each other and their intellect
If wolfstar had a child or children, then you can count on some bad blood between them (who knows... maybe an enemies to lovers)
Severus and McGonagall taught her how to dance (quite fabulously, if I may add 👌💃)
Sees Minerva as a grandmother figure (you can't tell me that McGonagall wouldn't lover her as her own)
If she had an Animagus form, it would be a cat or Raven
Her Patronus would be a bat or a cat
Has respect for the Weasley twins but will not hesitate to turn their pranks against them if it's aimed at her father, Draco, or herself
Likes Molly and Arthur but has notes on their parenting
She and Ron like playing wizard chess with each other (she beats him every time, and Ron always wants a rematch)
I feel like she would be a bit relatable to Stiles Stilinski (has ADHD, OCD, A LOT of sarcasm, and is stubborn. Wonder where she gets that from) "I mean no. Do you want to hear it in German? Nein". "I'm 140 pounds of pale skin and fragile bone, ok? Sarcasm and magic are my ONLY defense."
I feel like a lot of people would be afraid of her because she is Severus's daughter
She and Luna, I feel would get along because of her creative mind and unique way of seeing the world (she would also scare off Luna's bullies)
She makes her own spells, potions, and magical objects (mad scientist mode)
Not a big fan of quidditch but supports Draco
Brains of the operation
Hates Sirius on sight and is OK Remus.
She will not hesitate to hex or murder Sirius if he continues to insult her family (she is very difficult to restrain)
Feels like Harry's babysitter for always helping him survive on his adventures
She knows Remus when she was young due to his visits to her home to pick up his supply of wolfsbane from her father (so she knows he's a werewolf)
Often scold Draco if his insults go too far.
If her dad was a part of the death eaters and she was told, she would be shocked, upset, and angry but if he told her about the double agent part then she would be more worried for him
All I got so far. Enjoy my lovelies
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