Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. BlueSky: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Sirius and Lupin had given Harry a set of excellent books entitled Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts, which had superb, moving color illustrations of all the counterjinxes and hexes it described. Harry flicked through the first volume eagerly; he could see it was going to be highly useful in his plans for the D.A.
this comes from my very staunch headcanon that remus broke sirius out of grimmauld place at least once
You deranged prick. You’ve never loved anyone in your repulsive life.
I fucking love this. This is perfect.
Why? Because Kilgrave is a complete monster. Everyone knows it, including the narrative of the show. He is stated to be a rapist. Those who survive their encounters with him have PTSD. Some are wrecked beyond their ability to recover, physically or emotionally. He is a destroyer of lives…and the show demonstrates this by taking the toxic trope of the alpha male to its logical extreme.
Zebediah Kilgrave fits the mode of the alpha male amazingly well. He’s rich. He’s physically attractive. He has a Tragic Past in that he has been poor and unloved. Most of all, whatever he wants people to do, they do. They cannot help but obey. This is his defining characteristic. You want to do this, he tells people. You love Chinese food. You want to invite me in. You want to play your cello for me–or donate both kidneys. You want to commit murder. You want to kill your parents and smile.
And he stalks, emotionally abuses and rapes the heroine…while he frames his behavior as loving and romantic. It does not occur to him that taking away a person’s will and compelling them to eat what he wants, wear what he wants, move as he wants, and fuck as he wants are all violations. The last example is literal rape; the rest is psychological.
More often than not, the rich alpha male with the Tragic Past who falls for the seemingly ordinary person (who is, of course, actually extraordinary) will be treated as the romantic hero. Look at Hannibal. Look at the Fifty Shades series. What does it say when so many romances in books, movies and TV present controlling the other’s behavior, manipulating their thinking, and relentlessly pursuing someone who clearly wants either a break or to flee outright as protective, guiding and passionate? What does that do to the audience’s perception of what love is supposed to be like? How much toxic entitlement do those stories reinforce?
Aside from his mind control being literal instead of figurative,
Zebediah Kilgrave is not unusual. He is an example of a common type in fiction The only unusual thing about Kilgrave is that–for once–such toxic behavior is not normalized, and the narrative presents him as the destructive, damaging, manipulative monster that he is.
This is the first time that I can recall not only having the narrative agree with me that a person like Kilgrave is primordial slime, but also having it point out that the media reinforces the image of control, manipulation and emotional abuse as loving. Entitled assholes like Kilgrave are scum…but they are not operating in a vacuum.
SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE SHIPPING JESSICA JONES WITH HER FUCKING RAPIST
“if there were a cure for your disability, would you take it?”
I am hard of hearing but I felt it was important for me to strain to read lips and hear this as best I could so I could transcribe it. It is not perfect!
“Recently I have been having some disability related angst. A lot of times people ask me, ‘If there were a cure for your disability would you do it?’ It’s true that my disability is a burden to me sometimes, but not in the way that most people think. I think that people think I would want to be cured so I could walk or drive or things like that. But really the biggest problem surrounding disability for me is the social stigma. People only pay attention to people with disabilities if they can use them as inspiration, or cute little sidekicks to boost their ego, but as soon as they get bored they just kind of pass you to the side and move on. I wish that people wouldn’t patronize me, I wish that people would be attracted to me, or not act like they deserve special points for being attracted to me, I wish that they would take me seriously as an adult because I’m 24 years old and people still talk to me like I’m a small child [laughing]. It’s not so much that I want to be able-bodied but I would kill to just have ten minutes to not be perceived as disabled, just ten minutes! Because sometimes it really does wear you down and it is really upsetting. You can’t just pick and choose which parts of someone are salvageable and make a new person out of that, because that’s just not how life works! My disability has influenced every other aspect of my identity, so if you…if you reject my disability, you reject every other part of me. I feel like the issue at the crux of that whole question is, wouldn’t you rather exchange your disability if you could have a wholeness of your humanity instead?But I would counter that my disability IS my humanity. Just because someone is disabled, that doesn’t automatically mean that their quality of life must be inherently less than an able-bodied person’s. I have more strength and resource and experience in my pinky than most able bodied people do in their entire body! My body doesn’t need a cure, society’s attitudes do!”
