Soooooo, remember when I said I thought Brick from TEF was an abusive brother? Okay, let's talk about it!
It all starts because of the way the boys were raised. There's a very well-defined hierarchy. Brick gives the orders, Butch and Boomer obey, and if they don't obey, there are consequences. Simple.
...Not so simple.
In Brick's mind, Discipline comes through violence. Respect comes through fear. And, for Boomers and Butch, that's normal.
This became quite obvious at the beginning of the fanfic. I don't remember if it was in chapter one or two, but it was at the end of one of them. Brick gets completely furious with Butch and beats him up with unnecessary violence. And he only "stopped" because Boomer said there was an audience. When they got home, he continued the violence. And Boomer was left like this: 😐.
And when Buttercup questioned Butch about it, his response was: "I deserved it" (????). Because in their system, this is perfectly normal. So much so that Brick takes chemical X from Butch to teach him a lesson, since his wounds wouldn't heal so quickly otherwise.
When Boomer refused to break up with Bubbles, Brick went after him. To threaten.
This is the definition of an abusive person.
But we can't reduce him to just that. Because there IS a moral compass in his head. He created a boundary, which proves that he does love his brothers, but he has a... strange perception of right and wrong.
We find this out at the end of chapter 12, after Butch's near-death experience. Through this excerpt here:
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“He never really listens to you, anyway. He always has it coming, doesn't he? You always need to whip him into shape. Teach him a lesson.”
Roughing him up is not the same as attempting to disembowel him, Brick thought, but Him's words troubled him nonetheless.
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See? There IS a limit. He swears to God he's doing it for discipline. He can hurt Butch, but he can't kill Butch. It's weird, but it just proves my point that he does it to discipline his brothers. So much so that the main victim is always Butch, all the time. This not only appears in the fanfic, but is literally mentioned by Boomer in the last chapter. He's just not that afraid of Brick because the victim is usually Butch, since Butch "needs more discipline".
Besides, there's that issue in TEF that appeared in some chapter (which I also don't remember which one), through Blossom's thoughts. She can't find Brick's violence against Butch normal or acceptable, but she herself has realized that Butch has ABSOLUTELY NO limits. He had done something to her, and only stopped after receiving a good beating.
I really like to cite Butch's near-death experience because Brick becomes visibly worried. Visibly guilty.
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“A... concussion.” It sounded like a pitiful excuse to be in the hospital, considering the guy he was saying it to had been all but torn apart.
“You okay?” Brick couldn't tell from Butch's tone whether he was asking out of genuine concern or challenging Brick's injury to top his.
“Me? How about you?”
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Like??????? 💔💔 Why the fuck is nobody talking about this scene?
But that doesn't negate his violent behavior. I mean, I think it was in the very next chapter that he went after Buttercup when she was on the defensive. When she assumed that he had hurt Butch. 💀💔
He is not a literal ABUSER. But he's kind of heading that way 💔 Because he has abusive behaviors.
For the boys, it was normalized. Butch and Boomer accept being disciplined, and Brick continues to faithfully believe that this is what discipline is. But they also seem to realize that, to outsiders, this is not normal. But it's as if, socially, they are aware that this is unusual. But emotionally, it's what works and what has always worked for them.
So much so that, when Butch is being beaten up, Boomer doesn't stop Brick saying, "Dude, that's wrong!" No. He says, "There's an audience and everything." (???).
The relationship between the Jojos has always intrigued me a lot in this fanfic, a lot indeed. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Does anyone have any comments?? ✨
