half man incest is so good because they literally made it up

not to get weird with it but the daddy issues imagery throughout ep 4… this idea that in his books, niall missing his father as a provider, as a role model, isn’t authentic, but his missing ruben is. & with ruben, the implication being that his father molested him or at the very least abused him, being why ruben takes caring for the community center kids so seriously. always taking on this role of caretaker, of provider, & never getting it back… his need to punish niall for his betrayal manifesting as pushing the boundaries of their already incestuous dynamic, positioning himself not just as brother but as both of their fathers in the rape scene, inflicting what niall’s never could but ruben’s father did. & niall echoing this in his sexual life.. how he says he wants to be just like ruben, & performs that by asking twinks to call him daddy while he dispassionately fucks them. but at the end of it all he’s not ruben, he’s not their dads, he’s lying on the floor of a hospital asking ruben to make it all okay. & ruben does

I know ruben was pulling all the scrawniest niall ass looking bitches in prison while simultaneously never ever acknowledging that fact. but we dont have to talk about that.

"i'll make you fucking ugly" because niall is beautiful to ruben. not in a physical sense, or not just, he is beautiful—a beautiful soul, a pure person, a mind unsullied by what happened to him, he is untouched. or so he seems to ruben. he wanted so badly for him to lie and share his ugliness. he wanted so badly for him to sit next to him and shoulder the burden of a dirty conscience. and sure, niall isn't actually untouched, he's poisoned in ways that he will never be able to bleed out, but to ruben he was full of life and light and so he thought maybe it'd work both ways, maybe he could take some of that light, maybe it'd rub off. then niall denied him the possibility and cursed him to live with himself, alone. "i'll make you fucking ugly" because you couldn't make me beautiful. if we're both ugly, maybe we still have a chance.