#WOMEN DO NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT

[booksandmore]

every time i hear someone say camilla was the only charter they liked i lose my mind BECAUSE THATS NOT CAMILLA THAT WHO RICHARD WISHED SHE WAS WE NEVER!! KNEW!! CAMILLA!!

[quotidianish]

Mom-mercs! Ma, mama, maw, and mum.

[exaltior-a]

idk how exactly to word this exactly but in the same vein that homestuck fans demonize jane they put roxy on this pedestal of being the perfect angel. except roxy is.. just as much of an asshole as the rest of the alpha kids? obviously her alcoholism effects her in her earlier depictions but like. she still pushes her friends boundaries. she sents that virus to jane that blows up her computer. she constantly hits on dirk despite acknowledging his sexuality and his lack of interest, telling janes secrets to jake with minimal pushing. i love roxy, dont get me wrong, but ignoring her flaws and acting like shes incapable of acting selfish, mean or hurting her friends (JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE ALPHAS DO) is stupid. you dont like roxy if you only like the idea of her as a flawless person.

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[horse-head-farms]

day 2: Royalty/Knight @mcyt-yuri-week

False, a knight famous for her ability to slay magical beings, was sent by her king to defeat the greatest threat of all - the fae. Here, she enters the faerie realm and is greeted by none other than the queen herself, waiting upon her forest throne.

Having grown up on tales of the fae and their evil trickery, False is surprised by how beautiful and kind the queen is, but isn’t going to let down her guard yet.

Queen Stress is rather impressed by this mortal who not only managed to find her way into the faerie realm, but is also brave (and foolish) enough to try and fight her! She has no intention of hurting False, and instead wants to teach her the mischievous ways of the fairies, get her to lighten up a bit and all that. And, well, if she tries to court the handsome knight along the way, who can blame her?

[runawaymun]

Can you do gender fluid bi flags thranduil?

Here he is!!! Back on my indigenous Sindar agenda hehe :D Thank you SO much for this request, I always love drawing him especially for Pride because I get to design the most fabulous outfits. I used the bi flag colors mostly in the crown, and the genderfluid flag colors in his outfit.

I finished this one on stream so if you'd like to watch me color and render it, here it is.

Pride Request Guidelines

[anachronistic-falsehood]

the phenomenon of taking guy characters and turning them into women in mcyt and mcyt-adjacent fandoms due to a shortage/lack of well-written and engaging female characters needs to be studied i think. this isnt a gripe with transfem hcs i love transfem hcs but im just wondering. why go out of ur way to take a male character and slap she/her pronouns on him when you could instead read or watch something with good prevalent female characters that are very well written already? like. there's a fucking Pattern with the characters ppl hc as transfem. its always the kind and loving level-headed voices of reason that get the transfem beam. why do you think the soft and kind male character who's meek and mild and folds easily under pressure is the one who's a woman. why is that. huh. why. answer quick.

[taradactyls]

"Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; ... For Marianne, however, in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss, he always retained that decided regard which interested him in every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in woman; and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon."

I'm normally too focused on 'well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions' to really think about how this sort of thing would affect Marianne, but I mean, it's quite creepy, right??

Imagine you're living your life, happy with your husband, healed and flourishing, and every now and then you find out your HORRID ex is insulting other young women (and they must be young, if they're a 'rising beauty') by invoking your name. Like leave her alone, Willoughby!! You hurt her enough. She was 17 (to your 25) when she was in love with you, she's grown up, seen you for who you really are, and moved on. There's something incredibly selfish about even after treating Marianne so horribly, he refuses to stop associating her name with his own. I wonder how many people would know of Marianne PURELY because Willoughby casually mentions (many times) a young lady has no resemblance to her.

No one wants their worst ex to keep haunting the edges of their life.

[meirimerens]

the pathologic Kin is largely fictionalized with a created language that takes from multiple sources to be its own, a cosmogony & spirituality that does not correlate to the faiths (mostly Tengrist & Buddhist) practiced by the peoples it takes inspirations from, has customs, mores and roles invented for the purposes of the game, and even just a style of dress that does not resemble any of these peoples', but it is fascinating looking into specifically to me the sigils and see where they come from... watch this:

P2 Layers glyphs take from the mongolian script:

while the in-game words for Blood, Bones and Nerves are mongolian directly, it is interesting to note that their glyphs do not have a phonetic affiliation to the words (ex. the "Yas" layer of Bones having for glyph the equivalent of the letter F, the "Medrel" layer of Nerves having a glyph the equivalent of the letter È,...)

the leatherworks on the Kayura models', with their uses of angles and extending lines, remind me of the Phags Pa Script (used for Tibetan, Mongolian, Chineses, Uyghur language, and others)

some of the sigils also look either in part or fully inspired by Phags Pa script letters...

some look closer to the mongolian or vagindra (buryat) script

looking at the Herb Brides & their concept art, we can see bodypainting that looks like vertical buryat or mongolian script (oh hi (crossed out: Mark) Phags Pa script):

shaped and reshaped...

[miracles-and-butterflies]

If you:

You think Alma is a villain deserving of death

You think Pepa is a bad mother/sister

You think Julieta is a bad mother/sister

You think Isabela is a selfish, bad sister/cousin

You think Dolores is selfish, bad cousin

You think Luisa is a careless, bad sister

You think Mirabel is a selfish, bad sister/daughter/granddaughter/niece/cousin

You think Señora Pezmuerto is a whiny, animal abuser

Congratulations, you either misunderstood the entire movie or are projecting onto them.

Fuck the men who are considered angel-like saints or heroes, constantly forgiven or have their bad deeds brushed over, in this fandom and any other.

Justice for the women of Encanto.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think this topic is underdiscussed in the trans community, so I'd like to talk about it.

It's okay for trans people to mourn that some of us don't have the option to have children the way we'd like to. It is okay if a trans woman mourns that she is unable to become pregnant, for example, and there is no reason to shame her for how she feels. Equally, I think it can be inappropriate to tell us that there are other options besides "traditional" means of conception, like adoption. We know that there are other options, and that isn't the point.

I go back and forth on if I even want to be a father, and in both mindsets, I mourn that I don't have all the options I want to have children. It sucks. It really, really sucks. And it's hard to accept that this isn't my fault or my body's fault. That's the hardest part for me. But whether or not it's hard to accept, it isn't my fault - it isn't your fault, either, if you feel the same ways I do. Our bodies and our selves aren't the problem. We are not broken because we don't have all the options we'd like.

No matter how you feel about this topic, just know... you aren't a problem or a burden. No matter what your journey looks like, happiness and fulfillment can be found, eventually.

[onesnoopyaday]

Snoopy #35

5/11/2024

[radicalmommyxx]

Idk man…I’ve literally never heard of men shaving bc their leg hair is ‘itchy’ or the hairy feeling is ‘uncomfortable’. Somehow I doubt that it’s a feeling only affects females.

[sergle]

have you ever done the thing where you take a front-facing photo of yourself and made two different symmetrical versions of your face by splitting it down the middle and mirroring the half against itself. and they look like COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLEEE

[bonefall]

clear sky’s fridged women polycule when

This man's victims need more than a polycule, they need a domestic abuse shelter

[cogentranting]

The Hunger Games succeeds (and more so achieves sort of mythic effect) because it approaches dystopia through the timeless-- it (and Ballad) brings these universal ideas to a very personal lens and asks questions like "how do we begin to excuse evil in our lives" or "how do you hold on to goodness in the midst of oppression". And because it is so invested in the transcendent it lends itself to very powerful symbols, which give it that mythic feel.

Orwell's books (Animal Farm and 1984) both succeed through a very different approach to dystopia (Animal Farm isn't really a dystopia in the traditional sense but it has a lot of the elements). Orwell succeeds through real perceptive insight into the inner mechanisms of the subjects of his critiques. Orwell has vision that can cut deep into the way that things like propaganda or 'controlling the narrative' work and then, having dissected them, hold those tactics up for all to see.

And I think a lot of dystopias fall short because they get tangled up in the Idea of their story. The "what if" they've created. Either focused too much on the Issue-- too narrowly to be universal, too broadly to be revealing-- or too disconnected from anything genuine. And because they get stuck at that particular point they don't have much more to offer than "wouldn't this be bad?" And if you get a pretty good writer they can make that feel insightful but really it doesn't have much more to offer than whatever absurd YA book comes to mind first when you hear "bad dystopian novel".