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lacedspine · 4 hours

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I am sorry but I need to say a couple of things about Brad Bakshi, even though I haven't finished season 3 yet. I am not attacking anyone's characterization, let your headcanons and interpretations thrive, but I want to share my take because sometimes it's like I watched a different show.

I either find takes that are "Brad is a lovey-dovey tsundere" or "Brad is a fuckboy, no attachment, he doesn't do feelings". And man, I do not agree with either. It's something in the middle for me.

First of all, Brad is way more caring than some people give him credit for and I will prove it.

He may be an asshole, but he is completely self-aware of it. Poppy, Ian, even David think they're good people, even whan they do or say very questionable things, Brad knows he is being a bastard. He never hides it, never tries to put up an "holier than thou" act, never tries to make people believe he is a good guy. He doesn't try hiding that is an asshole because deliberately acts like one. He wants to be seen as an asshole. He goes out of his fucking way to prove it.

Turning himself in at the end of season 2? "Oh, but it gave him street credi-" it's pretty convenient he wanted street credit when going to jail could also be beneficial to Jo. Otherwise he could have straight up done inside trading himself way before Jo put herslef in trouble.

The whole animal thing? The fact that he was a mouse? Let's pretend for a moment he actually filled it randomly, he happened to get mouse by mistake. Why do you care so much people do not associate you to a mouse? If you're an unforgiving asshole, it will show even if a random test (that people will probably soon forget about) gave you mouse. Look, let's say I make Donald Trump fill out this test and he comes out as a mouse. I will not stop thinking he is a piece of shit! If the test was so meaningless he filled it out randomly (or so he says), why does he care so much about Jo's opinion on it?

Brad is a performative asshole. He does his job in the less nice way possible, but he never sabotages others just because. He tries with that whole buscuit thing, but that's the most damage he causes to someone and it's thrashing a piece of biscuit and give an evil speech that just hans there. Rest of the show? He always ends up helping out people, if not out of kindness, out of understanding every cog needs to fuction properly for the whole Mythic Quest machine to work. He doesn't go out of his way to damage other people, the worst he does? Mean comments. It's performative. It's all performative.

And you know how I know that? Breaking Brad. The Kate story tells us one thing: Brad is a naturally caring person. Kate was a pig. Not a dog, not a cat, not a turtle, not even a fish, animals we are used to consider as pets. Kate was a pig, an animal considered dirty, ugly, ungraceful (fat, but I will not talk about Brad's ED here), the word "pig" is even used as an insult, plus the pig is famously known as the animal you can kill and not waste a single part of it.

A pig is the perfect animal to impart a lesson of cruelty. You don't feel sorry for a pig. And what does Brad do, with this wretched creature? He names her. Zack doesn't, Zack tells us he was on board with killing the pig, it's Brad who can't do it. Zack doesn't care and Brad cares too much, even when he knew Kate's fate was doomed from the start. Right there, you have a character who, despite being taught to be cruel, can't help but care.

"Oh, but this happened when Brad was a kid, he hardened as he grew up" okay, then how do you explain him begging Zack? The thing is, I do believe Brad wanted to get more out of Mythic Quest and was angry bis brother tried to destroy it, I am not saying "Brad is caring because he doesn't want to lose his job", that's fairly normal. The point is, Zack asks him to beg for it, and Brad does. I have seen characters in more desperate situations refuse to plea, but Brad does it. With less resistence than I would have imagined. Instead of being like "I would never beg you, I will not submit myself to this humiliation, I'll find another job", he grovels. He puts his pride second for a company which he will leave the moment his friend Jo (and if I say colleague instead of friend it's even crazier!) is in danger.

Quickly compare it to David asking a whole company to walk out when he gets fired.

Brad is a performative asshole. He didn't have it in him, he taught himself to act and speak like an asshole, and he learned the part well, but his heart is not in it. If you watch Succession, it's like Kendall, he is not a killer. He can pretend to be killer, but he is not.

So now it seems like I said people who view Brad a repressed lovey-dovey tsundere are right, but just wait, i haven't finished yet.

The thing about teaching yourself to be someone else is that first, some habits stick, second, what doesn't stick, you try harder to make it so.

What I mean is, precisely because Brad is a caring person, he tries very hard not to seem like it. It means that if someone shows him kindness, Brad will refuse to accept it twice as hard, because he is fighting towards a natural instinct to show kindness in return.

Someone finally lends Brad a helping hand? For the exact reason he feels like he wants to take it, he'll turn it down. It's not that he is not touched by that care, it's that he can't afford to show it. That's the whole point of the performative assholery, repressing his natural responses.

I see a lot of someone pays Brad a compliment and he blushes because he doesn't know how to take it, but to me is like no! He doesn't blush! The whole point of fighting his own instincts is that he doesn't show his feelings. It's not that he doesn't know what kindness is so he reacts to it like a caveman would react to a computer, he knows exactly what kindness, care and affection are and he deliberately avoids them.

To me Brad doesn't do feelings because he doesn't want to. Brad fights his natural instincts because they're very strong (so he is lovey-dovey on the inside), but, at the same time, that fight implies a lot of trained resistance to his nature (Brad doesn't want to do feelings).

Being an asshole doesn't come natural to Brad and that's why it's so difficult for him to act kind: because being an asshole is not a random trait of his personality he may be willing to change, it's a carefully crafted mask he doesn't want to get rid of.

It's the difference between explaining something to someone who doesn't understand it and someome who doesn't want to understand it.

And one last thing (because you kidded yourself if you thought this wasn't about Braddavid).

I get that, especially at first, especially to keep that mask on, even if Brad had feelings for David he would take a long time before admitting it and I can see him reluctant to put a label to the relationship, because that would be admitting that he cares.

But let me take you back to Brad begging his brother to leave Mythic Quest alone. The moment he senses David might slip up from his fingers (for whataver reason: David might have found somebody else more emotionally available, is growing tired/sad of Brad's emotional distance, etc.) Brad is Back On. Brad is putting the effort to verbalize his feelings, is putting a name on the relationship and, one day, he'd even be willing to put a ring on it. He is "Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it" coded and you can argue you with the wall.

(Plus, I feel like, exactly like his performative assholery mainly comes from mean comments, he may not be very affectionate when it comes to words of affirmation, but by his behaviour you can tell he cares. He is all about quality time, acts of service and gifts he diguises as not gifts. He tries to be subtle, but he can't help revealing in someway he cares about people).

If Brad could beg his brother, one the people he hates the most in the world, to let him have Mythic Quest for a while more, he could surely find the courage to tell the person he loves that he loves them. "But his pride-" he flushed his pride down the toilet when it became an obstacle to him. He came back to his old company as a janitor, which sadly many people do not considered to be a valuable job, especially since he used to be the Head of Monetization before. He had none of that "oh my God, this job is not well paid or respected enough for my previous standards" crap. He is way less prideful than a lot of people think. Getting where he wants to go, obtaining what he wants to gain is way more important to him than his pride.

Last note, this man in possessive. And I don't necessarily mean in a toxic, abusive way, but you can't deny that he is. He wants to own people, he probably rarely calls in favours from them because he gets high on how long he can own them. The "Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it" comes back into the play, this man is jealous. Again, of course this was about Braddavid, shame on you if you didn't catch it, but I have seen too many "David is too affectionate, Brad is aloof and cool" and I don't buy it.

Brad may not be into PDA, and he may not show it with words, but when he is in a committed relationship he is committed. He may say it's casual, but this is just like Kate. No matter how many times he tells himself he won't get attached to a person and that every relationship ends, at the end of the day, if he truly cares about that person, he won't be able to kill the relationship like it was nothing and go on with his life. I cannot imagine him breaking up with someone because "oh no, I am getting too involved", that's the whole point, he cannot do that, or he'd be a killer, he would have been able to kill Kate and let go of Mythic Quest and let Jo end up in jail. Even if he did break up with this person, it wouldn't come natural to him and he would an absolute wreck, haunted by the memory of this person like he is haunted by the memory of Kate.

It's the duality here! Brad's all about the duality, nature and (self) nurture fighting one against the other. And I have mainly found stuff in which this duality is not shown.

If you made it to this point, thank you for indulging me in overanalysing this character, have a wonderful day.

P.S. I forgot to mention, Brad totally watches those animal predators video for desensitization. Because he couldn't kill Kate so he teaches himself to be insensitive to animal cruelty. The kid who couldn't harm his pig is not watching animal on animal violence for kicks and giggles.

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