#abusive spouses

[marlowe1-blog]

Job Chapter 22

Eliphaz the Temanite gets nasty

A few years ago, I was writing a story where religious fanatics participate in a genocide and before they start, they spend the night talking about Eliphaz the Temanite. At the time, I was unfamiliar with this guy. He was just one of those Bible characters that pops up in trivia questions. In the story, he was a worldbuilding tool. The story takes place in the future where not only is there a group that practices three way marriages in regards to the trinity, but there's a currently obscure Bible character who becomes as famous as King David or Jesus. At least for these awful people.

In retrospect, I'm even more happy to have included that detail (hell, maybe I'll sell the story one of these days) because Eliphaz is nasty. His first message to Job was the ever shitty "Everything happens for a reason" followed by a tone deaf "the wicked will suffer, just you wait" and now because Job has annoyed him, he outright tells Job that he's wicked.

So here's how it starts. "Can a man be of use to God, A wise man benefit Him?" (JPS). Other translations read that second line as a wise man benefiting himself. Either way, this is a very strange way to start the argument. Eliphaz is saying that God doesn't care either way if you are righteous. Give money to the orphans. Apologize to your aunt for that thing you did. See a stranger's gofundme and just give them money even though you don't like them? Good for you. God doesn't get much out of it, but good for you.

So it seems like Eliphaz is saying that Job shouldn't be so concerned with his righteous deeds, but if he really wants to think of himself as righteous, he can fuck off because Job also exacted pledges, calls in debt, refuses to give food to the hungry, etc.

Eliphaz doesn't know if he's telling the truth, but going by the average behavior, sure he probably is telling the truth. I mean who gives money to every homeless person who asks for it? Do you grow your own food? Eliphaz is working off Good Place rules where every infraction (intentional or unintentional) is a point taken away and another reason to end up in the Bad Place (only there's really no after life in this book. All the afterlife stuff comes when Xianity co-opts it).

"A flood of waters covers you" (11) which seems like a reference to the Flood. Certainly several of the commentators saw it in this way. Which brings us to God being lofty and the insinuation that Job saying that God seemed to be ignoring everyone meant that he didn't think that God was paying attention.

God's away. God's away. God's away on business.

So part 2 of this harangue seems like a departure from "surely you did something wrong, and I know that you aren't feeding all the widows that ask for bread" and gets right into the God is lofty and runs the world in a just way. Just look at the older wicked generations. They didn't believe that God had anything to do with them (deists! We got some deists in this book) and look what happened. They didn't appreciate anything and boom, they got consumed with fire.

So Eliphaz has reference the Flood and Sodom. Damn, Eliphaz, it's like you know this book enough to be making references.

Part three is the sermon. Yeah, I know. You're a wicked sinner. God is big and powerful and smashes the wicked sinners. But part three is the "be close to him and wholehearted and good things will come" These are all just promises of how things will be great when Job "returns" to Shaddai. Job should disregard silver and ophir gold and only regard God as treasure.

Then you will pay your vows, and feel the light of God and everything will be brilliant. Isn't that nice? Even Job will be cleansed of his guilt.

Seriously, Eliphaz the Temanite sounds like the worst kind of Christian (or Muslim or Jew, but you see a lot more of this chatter in Christianity) with the GUILT GUILT GUILT you must have done something wrong all pushed on the person. And only by accepting this GUILT will you be able to see how God is AMAZING and how you'll be totally happy.

This kind of thinking has fucked up so many people. Hell, I even got hung up on this bullshit in my 20s after breaking up with a long term girlfriend and finally getting serious about becoming Jewish only ending up in a community that was very concerned with conformity and self-righteousness and wearing the uniform. I was suddenly ashamed of everything that I had ever done in my life.

Not the usual shame and guilt that I had as a child trying to negotiate Mom's moods and her neediness and the fact that she put everything on me at a young age to where I was trying to take care of her long before I could take care of myself (and convincing myself that love should be painful to be worthwhile. I was so stupid) but that certainly prepared me for the rightwing Orthodox Judaism I was trying to go along with.

But this isn't just a religious thing. One of the scariest chapters in Mao's biography is when he had all of his followers "confess their sins" repeatedly and also inform on their fellow Communists. After months of this treatment, lively intelligent idealists became brainwashed foot soldiers, unwilling to think anything that might be "counterrevolutionary" and that's only an extreme example of one type of thinking. I worry more about tankies than i do about fascists, only because I'm leftwing and even a socialist when I don't see what other Socialists are saying about Jews, religious Jews or Zionists.

Eliphaz the Temanite is a shithead. He's a fucking evil bastard who is trying to make Job feel like shit before telling Job that there is hope. That's the brainwashing way. It goes easier if the people coming to the cult are already messed up and insecure, but whatever self-worth they might have must be destroyed before they can be "built up" into whatever their abusers want them to be.

Of course, abused spouses experience this on a smaller scale. And one of the things that domestic violence centers hear is "I don't really think I need your services because they aren't that bad..." but then tell about the relationship in a way that let's everyone but them know that they really are that bad.

One criticism of Christianity is that a God who is so angry at people that he sends them to eternal damnation UNLESS they believe exactly the same way that he wants them to believe is an abusive husband. That's not entirely true, but I'm sure it's true enough to hurt (just like when I told a friend that Wiccans are just white people who saw Dances with Wolves one too many times).

But as far as Eliphaz the Temanite is concerned, God really is that kind of abusive prick. Eliphaz truly is taking his last shot at destroying Job's faith in himself and his perspective and sense of self-worth in order to make him completely dependent on God, particularly the God that Eliphaz envisions.

Thankfully Job tells Eliphaz to fuck off again. And happily, Eliphaz really does fuck off. This is Eliphaz's last speech in the book. At least that's what Wikipedia told me.

[p4nishers]

crowley saying "if any harm comes to aziraphale because of this i will–" to gabriel is SO fucking special to me bc he was so clearly afraid of gabriel after the trial like just look at his reaction when he first sees him and him saying he spent a WHOLE NIGHT worrying that gabriel's gonna smite him like he's actually terrified and still after ALL THAT he still threatens gabriel and i just think threatening someone like THAT is actually so vulnerable bc he's making it abundantly clear that he cares for aziraphale and wants him safe and that aziraphale is HIS to protect and he WILL protect him no matter fucking what and i just i can't deal with how outright and upfront crowley was this season not only with aziraphale but with other people ABOUT aziraphale too like he was really not fucking around this season and he needed everyone to know aziraphale is his and made gabriel almost JUMP OUT OF A WINDOW for wanting to hurt aziraphale and the vulnerability of it all is making me go NUTS

[yorkshirereaper]

I got Neloth in castles just to make him an absolute DOG he has not slept with the same person twice. Bonus even while banging he’s just thinking about his research what a legend

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober 31 - Asking For Help

title: for him it was not an important failure

fandom: limited life smp

cw: discussion of child/spouse abuse, murder

this is another part of my bad boys gang au, continuing days 6, 14, and 22!

~

“Hey, could I—”

“Jimmy!” Joel cheers, sliding Jimmy his half-drunk beer. “Have a drink! You’re old enough to drink, right?”

Jimmy rolls his eyes. “Right. That one never gets old.”

Grian snorts. “Just like you.”

“Dude, shut up!”

“Come on, sit down, sit down,” Joel waves. Jimmy takes a look around at the rest of the busy bar, then slides into their booth, folding his hands in front of him.

“I’ve got—”

Grian raises a hand, flags down a waiter who just happens to be passing by. “Yeah, could you get him something light? It’s his birthday, first time drinking—”

“Bro,” Jimmy growls, leveling his strongest glare at Grian. Joel almost chokes on his beer (which he had promptly taken back once Jimmy sat down).

“Oh, no, I think you made the kid mad,” Joel can’t help but rib. Jimmy turns his glare on Joel, which does nothing to intimidate him, but does make him laugh a little harder.

“I didn’t come here to get bullied,” huffs Jimmy. “I—I have a job, and I wanted to ask your help for it.”

A job? Why would Jimmy have a job?

Grian’s the one who usually brings back the jobs for their little team, as he’s technically in charge of them. Jimmy’s never just showed up with a job ready to go.

It’s unheard of. It’s weird.

Grian is just as confused as Joel, apparently, because he only frowns for a moment before holding out his hand.

“Yeah, right. Show me.”

Jimmy pulls a plain white envelope out of the inside pocket of his jean jacket, passes it over to Grian. “I asked for a job,” he says, and Joel can’t help but notice that his voice has taken on an oddly nervous tone, lowered to not be heard over the sounds of the bar. “They said I could pick a team. Will you?”

Grian opens the envelope, his eyes scanning the paper. After a moment, he passes it to Joel.

It looks like a run-of-the-mill intimidation job. Some guy who owes the Bad Boys a considerable amount of money, has already missed more than one payment. Joel doesn’t recognize the name, so it’s probably a local politician or some corrupt businessman.

“Why would they give you a job?” Grian asks.

“I—I asked for one. I want to—”

“You want to rise in the ranks, huh?” Grian says. “Leave your old pals behind for greener pastures?”

“No, I—”

“Joel?”

There’s something not quite right about this. Jimmy has never mentioned wanting to lead out a job before—why would he go out of his way to ask for one?

But a job is a job, Joel supposes. They get paid by the job, and he likes to get paid as much as possible. It looks pretty easy, in and out, get the money and give a warning.

“Sure,” he shrugs. “Sounds fun!”

“With Tim leading, it’ll be a trainwreck. . . .”

“Hey!”

“That’s half the point, see? I want to see the train explode in slow motion.”

Grian snorts. “And somebody has to drag your bodies out of the wreckage, I guess.”

Jimmy opens his mouth to argue further, but he’s cut off by several waiters approaching, a cocktail and a cupcake in hand. “We heard that someone here is a birthday boy?” one of them encourages, holding the cupcake out to the table.

Jimmy’s face goes redder than a tomato in one second flat. “Grian, I will kill you,” he moans.

“That’s him!” Joel points to Jimmy delightedly. “Old enough to drink as of ten-thirty this morning!”

The waiters break into a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’, despite Jimmy’s repeated mutterings of “I’m literally twenty-two!”

Joel just laughs and downs the rest of his beer.

-

The mark, a man named Ed Fowler, lives in a townhouse in a quiet part of the city, a moderately nice car in the assigned street parking spot and a recycling bin out on the curb. Joel pokes his head into it as they sneak past, under cover of the late night—empty. The guy must’ve forgot to drag it up yesterday.

Breaking into the house is easy, even with the security system advertised on the sign outside the main window. Ed had left his kitchen window cracked, and Joel boosts Grian up and through it, then crawls in himself, aided by Jimmy below. Once he’s crawled his way over the sink (full of dirty dishes, geez, can this man not clean up after himself?), he turns around and takes Jimmy’s hands, heaving him through.

Grian’s already going through the cupboards by the time Joel pulls Jimmy all the way through, eventually finding and withdrawing a box of Cheerios.

“No good cereal,” he grumbles.

“Do you even eat dinner before these kinds of jobs anymore?” Joel asks, leaning up against a counter—much of the counter space is taken up by a microwave and a couple of empty beer cans. There’s a tied-off, bulging trash bag near his feet, and judging by the sound it makes when Joel kicks it, it’s full of more beer cans.

Grian opens the fridge. “Nope. Oh, gross, his milk is expired. Maybe he’s got chicken nuggets.”

“I’m gonna check the living room,” Jimmy mumbles, and with barely a sound, he slips out of the kitchen.

Grian glances at Joel, and Joel finds a reflection of his own feelings in his face—confusion, concern, suspicion.

“Jimmy’s being weird,” Joel says. Grian nods.

“Super weird. Do you think it’s just . . . y’know, leading a job?”

Jimmy had been the one to scout out the house, had presented a plan. Sure, it had been the usual plan for how Grian ran these kinds of jobs, but being in charge is a lot of pressure. It probably didn’t help that Joel and Grian had both been teasing him all day about it.

“What time have you got?” Joel asks, instead of responding. Grian checks his watch.

“About two in the morning. Just jitters, you think?”

Jimmy doesn’t go quiet when he gets jittery, though. He over-talks, laughs too much, hollers out his nerves. He’s so loud when he’s got jitters.

But this is a new situation. Maybe this is just a new kind of Jimmy Jitters that they haven’t seen before.

“Yeah, probably,” says Joel, though it feels not-quite-right. “Does he have any chicken nuggets?”

“Chicken strips, actually. And a handful of frozen dinners—you wanna pop this in the microwave?”

Grian tosses him a freezer meal. Joel raises an eyebrow as he examines the package. “Really? Spaghetti and meatballs?”

“You underestimate my love for pasta.”

“Yeah, but the salisbury steak ones are way better.”

“He doesn’t have any of those, he has that one and some ham and potato ones. Clearly, I chose the best option offered.”

They aren’t trying to be quiet. They’re honestly being pretty loud, and Grian turned on the kitchen light before Joel even got in, so they’re about as inconspicuous as a pack of drunk teenagers trying to sneak in. Joel only adds to it when he rummages through the silverware drawer for a knife to cut slits in the top of the frozen dinner’s plastic film, then tosses it in the microwave with a slam of the door.

It isn’t a stealth mission.

It’s intimidation.

That’s all the noise it takes for Joel to hear creaking coming from the staircase, the door leading to it situated between the kitchen and the living room. He leans back against the counter, making sure he looks carefully unbothered. Grian keeps rummaging through the freezer, making occasional noises of disapproval.

“This salmon has got to be centuries old, it’s covered in ice,” Grian says. He chucks it in the nearby trash can, heavy enough that it drags the trashbag down with it into the can.

“Get out of my house.” Joel looks up. Grian doesn’t.

The man standing at the bottom of the staircase must be Ed Fowler, and he isn’t exactly what Joel expected. Judging by the food and beer cans, he’d expected a portly, greasy guy, the kind of guy who spent hours in front of the TV without eating a single vegetable.

Ed Fowler is fairly fit, his grey nightshirt showing some pectoral definition, his arms muscular. He’s a big guy, definitely taller than Joel, and his light-brown hair is speckled with grey, cropped short enough to almost be militant.

And maybe it is militant, given the steely look in his eyes and the gun in his hands.

“G! Three makes company!” Joel says, and Grian makes brief eye contact with him, his sight of Ed blocked by the freezer door.

Three makes company—their code for whether or not someone has a gun. They haven’t used that one in a while, not since Jimmy joined them. Now they usually say something like our friend is here, but for some reason Joel had jumped to the old one.

Ed doesn’t move, his gun trained on Joel.

“Ed Fowler,” Joel says. The microwave beeps beside him. He ignores it, though Ed’s eyes flick toward it. “How long has it been since you washed dishes?”

Ed’s chuckle is humorless. “Too long. What do you boys want?”

Grian grimaces. “Look, I know Joel’s not that tall, but we’re fully adult men,” he says, closing the freezer. He still doesn’t look at Ed, instead walking back toward the silverware drawer, holding a frosted-over carton of ice cream. “Got any clean spoons?”

“Right. I suppose I should say Bad Boys,” Ed says. “Why are you here?”

Grian shrugs nonchalantly. “Oh, you know. We get a job, we do it. I think the question is for you, Ed—why would the Bad Boys be at your house at two in the morning?”

Ed looks genuinely confused, though he hides it well with a small smirk. “I’m guessing it isn’t a booty call,” he jokes, and Joel almost laughs.

This guy is pretty cool, actually. The kind of guy that Joel would grab a drink with, probably. Well, maybe. Depends on his profession—his build kind of looks like a cop, and that’s a red flag from the get-go.

Where’s Jimmy? He was only going to check the living room, it can’t have taken too much time.

Last time Jimmy went missing during a house visit like this, it wasn’t pretty.

The microwave beeps again. Another minute that he hasn’t appeared.

“You’ve missed some payments,” Grian says, his tone still casual. He manages to find a spoon, but the ice cream is so frozen solid that it won’t even dig in. He chips away at it, finally turns to face Ed. “The boss sent us to collect.”

“I haven’t owed the Bad Boys anything in years.”

Joel shrugs. “Not according to our records. Nothing we can do about it, so you might as well fork something over.” Now that Grian has eyes on Ed, he turns to the microwave, popping it open. The freezer meal looks more unappetizing than it did earlier, but he pulls it out anyway.

“That’s stupid,” Ed spits. “I don’t have any debts!”

“Yes, you do.”

Joel looks up.

There’s a gun just in sight, pointed straight at Ed’s temple, and Jimmy takes a step into the light, eyes trained on Ed.

Ed’s eyes glance to the side. His face turns red quicker than Joel’s ever seen, cheeks suddenly ruddy with anger.

“James,” he says, and despite the clear rage in his face, his voice is calm. “Put the gun down.”

James? Does this man know Jimmy?

If he does, then Jimmy never should have accepted this job. It’s an unspoken rule in the Bad Boys that you don’t do jobs that involve people from your personal life, and Jimmy knows that well enough.

Jimmy doesn’t move. His hand is steady. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I think this is when you put the gun down.”

Ed’s fingers tighten around the grip of his gun. “What, and leave myself defenseless?”

Jimmy laughs—short, sharp, ugly. “Yep. Drop it. Kick it over to Grian.”

Joel glances at Grian—he’s gone still, the ice cream forgotten on the counter. He’s staring, staring at Jimmy, worry creasing his brow.

This isn’t right. Something about this isn’t right at all—maybe it’s the cold tone of Jimmy’s voice, usually so lively; maybe it’s the whitening of his knuckles around the grip of his gun.

After a long, long moment, Ed slowly drops into a crouch, carefully setting his gun on the ground. He pushes it to Grian, the gun skittering across the tile floor of the kitchen. Grian catches it under his foot, but makes no move to pick it up.

When Ed straightens, he keeps his hands up and open, so that everyone can see that there’s nothing. “All right,” he says, voice once again even. “How much do I owe?”

“Twenty-thousand,” Joel says quickly. “That’s the first payment. Seventy-thousand, total.”

“Right. Well, I want it made clear that I don’t owe anything, but I’ll cut a check for fifteen-thousand now if you can arrange a meeting with one of your bosses. I want to get this cleared up.”

That sounds good to Joel, honestly—this situation isn’t right at all with the way Jimmy’s acting, he suddenly wants to get out of here—so he casts a look toward Grian, waiting for him to accept the deal.

Grian doesn’t say a word. He looks toward Jimmy.

Oh, no.

Jimmy’s leading this mission.

Can’t Grian take over? Doesn’t he see that Jimmy is clearly acting on some personal grudge and thereby compromised?

Jimmy doesn’t look at either of them. “I don’t think that’ll cut it,” he says, and Joel’s heart sinks. That isn’t the right choice to make; he’s letting his emotions get in the way of this job. He should accept it and let them get out. “I think you know that.”

Ed growls. “Look, I can get the money. I just want to talk to your boss.”

“I don’t want the money, though,” Jimmy says softly. “I know you don’t owe anything.”

“James—”

“Jimmy—” Grian says, reaching forward—

“I want you to talk to me like a grown man,” Ed says. “Can you behave long enough to do that?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jimmy says, as if he didn’t hear either of them speak, voice still so eerily soft. “You see?”

Ed’s adam’s apple bobs. “If you do it like that, you’re nothing but a coward. Sit down and talk.”

“I’ll do it as a coward. I don’t care how disappointed you are in me. Not anymore.”

Joel swallows. They need to get Jimmy out of here before he does something he regrets—yeah, all of them have killed before, but not like this. Not as whatever—whatever revenge this is.

“Grian,” he whispers. “Tell him to stand down.”

Grian doesn’t say anything.

“James,” Ed says, and now his voice trembles, cracks in his cool facade beginning to spiderweb out. His eyes dart back and forth between Grian in front of him and Jimmy to his left, his mouth a thin line. “James, put the gun down and let’s talk about it. I’m not ready to die today.”

That’s the wrong thing to say.

Joel sees it in Jimmy’s face, the way his features darken, the way his eyes harden. “Was she ready to die?” he asks.

“I—”

“Was she ready to die? The doctor said the hemorrhage was caused by recent head trauma.” Jimmy digs the gun into Ed’s forehead; the man blanches. “Which concussion do you think caused it? How many times did you slam her head against the wall over the years?”

“I didn’t kill—”

“Was I ready to die?” Jimmy asks, and his voice is shaking now, as well. “How old was I, fifteen? A kid that you left bleeding out on your bedroom floor. Do you know that I thought of her? I was dying, and all I wondered was if she felt the same way. Alone. Terrified. Sick.”

“Yet you survived,” Ed spits. “James, I didn’t kill your mother.”

“Keep telling yourself that. It won’t save you, in the end.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

When Jimmy was only eighteen, Joel had become fairly certain that Jimmy was experiencing some level of abuse at home. He and Grian had started slipping extra bonuses into Jimmy’s money (he remembers how excited the kid had been, showing them that he was getting paid more than he expected), and when Jimmy had announced to them that he was going to be able to afford an apartment, they celebrated with him. They bought him a tiny cactus as a housewarming gift and never mentioned their involvement in his pay raise.

After he got the apartment, Jimmy finally started to mellow out. He started laughing more, blaming himself less for mistakes, getting control of the anger that burned within him.

He had stopped showing up after every weekend with new bruises.

If Joel’s right, this man is his father.

Now that he’s made that connection, he can see the resemblance. Jimmy’s hair is just a couple shades lighter than Ed’s, his nose the same sharp angle. Ed’s eyes are the exact same hazel as Jimmy’s, and if there were a few more lights on, Joel expects he would find the same light freckles on Ed’s cheeks that Jimmy has.

He—he thought this man was cool mere moments ago. He almost laughed at his joke.

This is a man who abused Jimmy, and—apparently—almost killed him.

Joel feels sick, and it isn’t from the the smell of the microwave dinner.

“You don’t want to kill me,” Ed says. It might be a threat, it might be a beg. Jimmy laughs again, still that horrible, ugly laugh that’s so unlike Jimmy.

“I’ve wanted to kill you since I was fourteen,” he says. “Lizzie’s the only thing that kept me from shooting you in your sleep.”

Ed latches onto that. “Elizabeth wouldn’t want you to—”

“Lizzie isn’t here right now. She’s sound asleep in the apartment that I saved up for for years to get us out. I got her away from you. I saved her.”

“I’m not the monster that you think I am, James.”

“What, so you’re normal?” Jimmy scoffs. His words come faster and faster, emotion driving each syllable. “Normal people don’t choke nine year old boys until they pass out. Normal people don’t—don’t put their cigarettes out on their kids’ backs. Normal people don’t hurt their kids, dad!”

“I—and what does that make you, now?” says Ed. “A gangster? How is that any better?”

“Anything’s better than a wife-beating cop,” Jimmy snarls, and for a moment, his hand shakes. The gun slips from Ed’s forehead briefly, scrapes down the side of his face, and Ed freezes.

“James—”

Jimmy reasserts his hold on the gun, one thumb running over the grip. “This is your gun,” he says, his voice soft again. It’s scary, how quickly he can go from one to the other. “E.J.F., your initials. You gave it to me. Remember?”

“James—” Ed says again, but Jimmy cuts him off.

“I want to make it hurt. I want to watch you bleed out. But I’m better than you.”

Silence.

A bit of ice drips off the ice cream carton.

Joel hardly dares to breathe.

“Please don’t kill me,” Ed whispers, the blood entirely drained from his face, leaving it pale as milk. “I don’t want to die.”

Jimmy’s face doesn’t change. “Neither did my mom.”

BANG.

-

For Jimmy, the job was surprisingly well-executed.

As it turned out, he had gone to TIES.

He had approached Etho of TIES six months earlier, presenting him with a fat file folder of evidence of Ed Fowler’s corruption. Ed Fowler, a high-ranking police officer, was known to take bribes from certain less-reputable gangs while borrowing money from those less likely to kill him, including TIES. In fact, he had borrowed sufficiently from TIES that Etho felt justified in sending someone to collect. He gave Jimmy the details and Jimmy forged the handwriting of a higher-up in the Bad Boys to write out the job. While in the living room of the townhouse that Joel now knew to be Jimmy’s childhood home, he had disabled any security systems or cameras that might incriminate them.

With Etho’s permission, as Jimmy claimed, they ransacked the place and made it look like TIES had destroyed it looking for money. Of course, they took any money and valuables they could find. Joel found a couple of very nice guns in the master bedroom—he wasn’t just going to let them go to waste.

(He looked at the floor, at the stained brown carpet, and shuddered.)

By the time they leave, it’s almost four. Nobody speaks, but that morning, for the first time, Jimmy pulls up GPS navigation to an apartment address on the other side of the city.

They walk into Jimmy’s apartment at around five in the morning, the pink-haired woman living there already awake. She and Jimmy make long eye contact, in which Jimmy kind of shrugs and blushes, and she frowns.

Then she smiles, and invites them all in, and introduces herself as Lizzie Fowler.

Joel pays more attention to Jimmy than he does to her, keeping an eye on his emotions, but Jimmy seems fine. A bit shaken (he’s barely spoken since he did it, face pale and blood spattered across his knuckles), but fine.

Lizzie and Jimmy go about preparing something to eat—and Grian raids their cereal, humming in satisfaction as he finds something sugary—and Joel just stands awkwardly in the center of the kitchen, not sure what to do.

Soon enough, the eggs and toast are done, and everyone retires to the living room.

“Thanks for the help,” Jimmy mumbles, once they all have some sort of breakfast item in hand, and Jimmy’s sitting between Grian and Joel on the cheap sofa, his head leaning on Grian’s shoulder. Lizzie’s on the floor in front of him, her back against the sofa, idly picking at Jimmy’s pant leg.

“I don’t think we did anything, Tim,” Grian tells him, idly running a hand through Jimmy’s hair. “Like, that was all you.”

“Not that.”

Jimmy’s at the most relaxed Joel���s ever seen him, his eyelids fluttering, his shoulders slumped. He yawns, leans further against Grian.

Joel wraps an arm around him, leans in as well.

Grian smiles at Joel when he catches his eye. Joel smiles back.

They can reprimand Jimmy later. They can tell him how foolish he was for getting other gangs involved in personal revenge, how terribly that situation could have ended. He’ll probably be getting suspended from jobs for a while, restricted to manning the front or janitorial duties.

That can wait, though.

The sparse living room grows lighter and lighter as the sun breaks over the horizon, gradually bathing them all in its warm yellow glow.

It’s a new beginning that isn’t for him. It’s for Jimmy and Lizzie, almost uncomfortable in their silence, but not quite leaving each other’s side. It’s for Jimmy, a release of the weight that he’s been carrying for years. It’s for Jimmy, able to seek out comfort at last.

Joel just has the privilege of witnessing it.

[saltydogsmut]

Well I’d say it’s not really that Andrew is a bad boyfriend but rather he just doesn’t care about Julia at all. He doesn’t have a ‘treat your girlfriend bad’ condition he has a ‘don’t care about anyone that’s not your sister’ condition. A lot of Andrew’s frustrations come from hiding his feelings for Ashley, so if he embraces those he’ll be more chill

[Tw abuse]

?????

I think getting in, staying in, and perpetuating a relationship with someone you don't care about romantically is bad boyfriend behaviour.

Lying about how much you care about them, lying about knowing who is doing things to scare them, and lying that it's not a big deal are all bad boyfriend behaviours.

Even when Julia minimises it, he can't admit it's Ashley, and gets aggro when she points out his behaviour towards her borders on inappropriate.

I get that the world is a depressing place where people get into relationships solely so they aren't single and don't actually care about who they're with, but just because it's a thing doesn't negate the fact that it sucks to do that to someone.

I get you mean that he wouldn't be a bad boyfriend to Ashley, but obviously I disagree.

Andrew is a bad boyfriend.

Onto his red flags is his immediate and open affection as manipulation, which we can see he does with Julia to get her to drop and forget about topics he doesn't like or want to talk about. He starts being like that with Ashley too in her route. More specifically when she's being contemplative or speaking about their past.

Andrew also doesn't want to take responsibility for any part he played in enabling Ashley's behaviour or his own minimisation and lies about her behaviour to Julia's face. Andrew clearly doesn't mind lying to his girlfriend, using her solely to deflect from rumours about him and his sister, and apparently feels no shame in doing this to her even after knowing nina was julia's best friend who he murdered. And even knowing how serious Ashley could be about killing someone, didn't take any action to encourage her to stay safe and away from Ashley. He took no responsibility for the break up, just like he tries to never take responsibility for his own part in choosing to kill for Ashley, or go along with her plans.

Andrew seems to have a problem with control, specifically limiting or restrictions on his urges and behaviours. Slamming the phone when with Julia as she's suggesting chilling it with Ashley, getting frosty when julia says he doesn't have to go see ashley whenever she says the word, specifically giving himself an out so that Ashley wouldn't be the only girl Andrew could spend time with, his insistence on smoking, his behaviour about money and food- making himself the sole arbiter of both- and placing himself as the final say in any plan Ashley comes up with, giving himself automatic veto powers. The ones with Ashley can be excused as typical family stuff, at least at first, but the decay route shows just how much of a cold shoulder and bad mood he'll get into when he can't control Ashley's behaviour of calling him Andy or thinks he doesn't have the upper hand in their relationship. He starts slamming things in order to control Julia's behaviour as well.

Speaking of the decay route, he'll just straight up misrepresent what people say in order to win an emotional argument. Julia doesn't think Andrew has ever done anything inappropriate with Ashley, but he puts those words in her mouth so she'll back down from the topic. He does the same with Ashley and says he never gets a choice with her plans, but he literally drove them over to their parent's house? And suggests a dumb plan he doesn't even want (turning themselves in) so he can blow up at Ashley and make her back off the topic of plans, because he doesn't have one.

Every bad behaviour he's shown towards Julia he's also shown towards Ashley. In fact he may have chosen Julia as a partner specifically because it would set off Ashley more and cause her discomfort. Or because she's was the only person weak willed enough to tolerate his weird behaviour with his sister, which even his own mother found suspicious.

Julia gets the brunt of it with less stressing behaviour because she's his girlfriend. We never see him do the same to his mother, friends, or father. Only people he has a romantic interest in, Julia and Ashley. Sure we have limited perspectives, but in my opinion, Andrew wants a doormat as a partner, but also wants someone to superficially put all the responsibility onto for his own bad behaviour. Because Julia cries he never escalates with her, but if she didn't and stood up for herself I think he would have put his hands around her throat too like he did to Ashley.

Oh. And he blames his outbursts in them being frustrating, rather than his own ability to manage his temper.

I am firmly in the camp that Andrew is bad news romantically, and his behaviour would only escalate as he tried to gain more control using love as a weapon. And if Ashley is to be believed, the end for all Andrew's failed romantic interests is death.

Tldr: we don't see him act like this to random people or other family members, only people he's in a "relationship" with. Run Ashley. RUN.

[geraskierfanficprompts]

Happy International Friendship Day to all the queercoded codependent friendships that end in misery (ESPECIALLY if someone tries to take it to a more romantic level)!!!

[chaoticdesertdweller]

"Alain Delon tried to pull me in some desultory situation. When I turned him down, he became very sullen and nasty and difficult. He was such a pompous ass, in any case and every time he said that ludicrous line “…your body is like a beautiful violin in a velvet case,” while unzipping my leather suit, I would crack up. It was dozens of takes before I could do it with a straight face"– Marianne Faithfull talking about The Girl On A Motorcycle (1968), in 1994.

[agnesandhilda]

so, do we think that kaiser has an accurate picture of the mother who he's never met and who he (presumably) primarily gets information about from his abusive father who has nursed a grudge against her for years, or do we think there's more to this story?

[pluralhottakes]

Systemhopping isn't real and I'm saying this as a VERY metaphysical system. Because the existential dread and abuse I felt from people claiming it was, or that they could "pop in and out" at any time, just turned into manipulative people trying to gaslight me about what my own system members were doing when they're not fronting/dormant. We're not "popping over to have a one night stand" with Mary Sue of the Blorbo System and the fact that your headmate is "suddenly pregnant" with my system member's "tulpa baby" is. Not! Real! You just created an introject fankid! And even if you did think it was possible, surely my own system members would remember suddenly teleporting into another brain to fuck someone. Maybe I'm not out of the front because I'm temporarily teleporting into the headworld of another person's brain though, Mary Sue of the Blorbo System. Maybe I'm not fronting because every time I do, you've dropped some Fucked Up New Lore about how you're trying to sexually abuse me into being your OC's baby daddy. I'm not some fucking doll you can just project your sexual fantasy roleplays onto. Fuck off.

.

[guzhufuren]

god i fucking hate cops and this fucker is such a perfectly executed example of them. any one of them will be smiling and sucking up to another cop, then 5 minutes later beat some random person up into confessing for a crime that the person hasn't even committed

[vizthedatum]

I don’t think using the term “narcissistic abuse” is ableist.

(addendum: if you are triggered by the usage of the term, please enforce a boundary for yourself to ignore posts like these (just like how I ignore posts that trigger me). I am not wishing harm on anyone. I am working on healing, moving on, and also forgiving people - but it does not change what happened.) Ableism is the blatant discrimination of those with disabilities - calling the abuse cycle by its term (there is no other term that accurately describes what I went through) is not ableist. Just like calling me autistic is not ableist. Just like calling out my previous codependency and people-pleasing that caused me to chronically lie to people is not ableist. The term is DESCRIPTIVE and it is indicative of a real thing that happens.

I know other people think that it is ableist.

I know people won’t believe me when I say it saved my life.

You know how no matter what you do or say, someone will find issue with it? Doesn’t matter how many degrees you have, the amount of medical validation you have received, the things you have witnessed, the insistence that I am not proposing harm to anyone (I am insisting on accountability though!), etc.

There are people who will not believe you or take it personally.

The lesson I have learned: I need to trust myself with the information I have right now. I can continue to learn more about people and the world, but I am not responsible for people thinking that my usage of a term is vilifying a whole community. I have faced this my entire life (telling white people about white supremacy and appropriation and then having them accuse me of vilifying all white people; countless other black-and-white examples).

So whatever.

Call me a monster.

After all my abuser probably calls me one.

[lurafita]

Twisting Fairy Tales

Today's edition: Cinderella

Featuring: Magnus in the role of the non-evil Stepmom Raphael and Simon in the roles of the non-evil Stepsiblings Clary in the role of Cinderella Alec in the role of the crown prince who is so much more interested in the stepfather of the weird girl who keeps talking to the ducks in the royal pond Jace, the crown prince's first knight who is very much interested in the weird girl and wishes she would step away from the creepy ducks And Izzy in the role of the younger sister of the crown prince who would really rather talk to the Bane brothers than the princes to foreign kingdoms that hher parents have lined up for her.

[allieinarden]

I think it’s fun how Marge is always asking “if you love me then why don’t you love my sisters?” while Homer is more “if you love me then why don’t you hate my dad?!”

[fandomfuntimem]

Me watching yet another of my favorite streamers/youtubers become/turn out to be an absolute shit head.

[only1lorrie]

[the-girl-with-too-many-ideas]

Does anyone else get the feeling that at their core, all of mxtx's works are about cycles of abuses.