Me, watching the fandom discussing how much Julian has suffered (true af, boy deserves to rest) more than anyone else, while forgetting Mark's existence.
Like, my man got tortured physically, mentally and emotionally. They whipped him so bad he has marks. They starved him. They told him his family was dead. Ofc he's messed up in the head. And what does he become in the narrative and the fandom? The incompetent comic relief.
And one thing bugs me to no end, not as a narrative device, but because of its reception.
"He tightened his hands on Mark and adjusted his heart to bear the new burden."
No it doesn't mean that Mark is useless, that he's a burden on his brother. It's what Julian finds himself thinking involuntarily at his most exhausted stage. It's also what shows that Julian cannot fathom not being responsible. The second he realises Mark is weaker than he expected, he immediately relegates him from 'older brother' to 'must protect'. And he thinks of it not in a 'we'll help him' way, but a 'I will have to take care of him too', in a very permanent sense as if the brother he knew is forever lost.
Then there's all the scenes where Mark is funny. All the characters have funny one liners, witty stuff and jokes, but Mark's are at his own expense. When the others do it, it's framed simply as funny or witty, when he does, it's always in the way of being alien, weird, and generally someone who needs to be tamed and resocialized.
Kit calls him weird at a point. Julian immediately defends Ty when he thinks Kit was talking about him. But he doesn't bother doing the same thing for Mark. He recognises that Ty is different for things outside his control, he understands autism vaguely without the words. Kit understands that even better. But the same grace is not extended to Mark, because God forbid the PTSD mess up his brain. He's weird because he's not at the same level he should ideally have been, although he saw his father turned, got kidnapped, got beaten up day and night, starved, told his family was all dead, plus God knows what. Sure, let's make fun of him for apologising to inanimate things and releasing freshwater fish in the ocean, never mind that even in the stage he's in, he's trying to be something he wished he had had.
I love that he's going back to his original personality in BIB. A win for me and the 4 other people who like him.
bestie get off anonymous and into my dms because i agree 100% you really said all that there is to be said