#and all victims of abuse

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

None of our hands are clean

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[iwasbored777]

Barbie movie never said "we need to stop men" it said "we need to stop toxic masculinity" and if that made you feel called out I got some news for you

[tomurakii]

I feel like I'm going insane.

Why does Gale's "good ending" if you don't date him imply that he gets back with Mystra.

Why does the grown ass woman who intentionally isolated 17-year-old Wyll and trapped him in a relationship get to hang out in your camp (and potentially sleep with you).

Why do the writers (head writer and literally Wyll's personal character writer included!) have so little respect and tact when talking about their characters' traumas only when they are male and their abuser is female.

Nobody would find it funny if the Christmas animatic had Astarion blush at a picture of Cazador. Nobody would think it was "a good resolution" if Karlach saved and then dated Gortash at the end of the game.

And the characters aren't treated well outside of their relationships either, the writers love to laugh when people call Wyll boring or Gale annoying. I dunno what's worse: all the extra in-game dialogue calling Gale pathetic, or the fact that Wyll barely has any additional dialogue at all. With the additional factors of Wyll being the only Black companion and Gale being the only one with a disability that is somewhat "inconvenient" to the player (because God forbid a person need help), it just comes across as implicit bias from the writers themselves. To create these representations and then shit on them for traits that not only may be relatable to your audience, but traits that you gave them.

When Neil accepted the award for best performance he told people who relate to Astarion that "you are not alone." It's a beautiful sentiment, but paired with writers fetishising Wyll's abuse and saying Gale's best ending is the one where he kills himself, it comes across as though for POC, the chronically ill/disabled, or male victims of women, the statement does not apply.

[anetherealpoetess]

Neil Gaiman, let’s be realistic. A 21-year-old working in the home of a man four decades her senior cannot truly give meaningful consent to any type of sexual encounter, let alone within mere hours of meeting him. Even though you are denying it was not consensual, the fact you have conceded the sexual encounter did happen at all is a full confession. You are, by your own admission, a predator.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

I think you might have been a father to me, once.

You used to be more than just another man who hurt me in my life.

Reference pic!

[arriettyspin]

I don't know why Chad Charming being adopted is considered to be implausible by some. Cinderella, an orphan, choosing to adopt her firstborn to save him from a childhood like her own is the most in-character thing ever.

[biblicalhorror]

Thinking about how Pete used to be a priest and Kevin's (unnamed) mom was a nun. The fact that Pete was clearly stripped of his title. And we don't hear anything about Kevin's mother beyond the fact that she's dead. Thinking about how Diane says that she thinks of Pete as her "creepy uncle" and hates him. Thinking about how Kevin being born was likely a huge scandal for Pete and his mother and led to him being kicked out of the church. Thinking about how Pete doesn't seem to have any remorse at all for the potential abuse of power that occurred which led to Kevin's conception. Thinking about how Pete was the one most likely to make jokes objectifying women with Kevin. Thinking about how Kevin was likely raised believing he was some sort of miracle or chosen one, destined for great things solely because acknowledgment of the shame surrounding the circumstances of his birth would require Pete admitting fault. Thinking about how normalized it must have been in his childhood to see women being talked down to, objectified, sexualized and made into nothing more than plot devices to powerful men. Thinking about the sense of entitlement he must have had baked into him, and the deep fear hiding underneath all of it that one day everyone is going to realize he's his father's biggest skeleton in the closet. Thinking about this show having one of the most nuanced and complex portrayals of the cycle of abuse and patriarchal violence that I've ever seen!!!

[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.

[c1trvswurld]

STOP babying and objectifying Daisuke

STOP making anya a perpetual forever doting victim

STOP making swansea this hotheaded gaurd dog

STOP babying and objectifying and being ableist to curly and removing autonomy

STOP ignoring the complex themes of jimmys character just to mischaracterize and to dunk on your idea of him and, therefore, ignoring the themes of the story

Stop ignoring the complexities of their characters please and thank you

[kelin-is-writing]

I just can’t do this anymore guys… This is too much…

[jzargo]

Never has "you praise a male character for the same traits you hate a female character for" been more true than with how fans react to Astarion vs Minthara

[azelmaandeponine]

Gotta love how the Gravity Falls fandom still has no media literacy and is putting out the worst """character analysis""" videos known to man.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

but also like. guys you don’t need to leave the minecraft youtube community bc one person is bad to clarify. like. shelby is a minecraft youtuber. a lot of her friends are minecraft youtubers. those friends are supportive and as far as we know all believe her. the vast majority of minecraft youtubers are like. fine. this shit is something that Happens because Abusers are Manipulative, going to another hobby will Not shield you from anything and you’re not immoral for liking something bad people also liked. which is. one of the biggest video games ever. like in this situation no one was knowingly harbouring an abuser and it seems everyone was supportive. this is just a case of some people being shit, not anything to do with mcyt. hell, the guy hasn’t been on minecraft in like a year lmao.

i fully understand why the content might be uncomfortable to you guys now but like, please don’t self flagellate and cut yourself off from an entire genre of media because of one guy again. i saw that happen after the dream stuff and a lot of people ended up losing important things because they made rash decisions and felt like they Had to leave. but please. take one deep fucking breath. this has happened before. this has happened so much before, and in ways far worse than this. because abusers, unfortunately, exist. you should not feel guilty for being manipulated by a manipulative abuser, don’t blame yourself. do what you have to, but please, please keep in mind that the majority of minecraft youtube is fine. it is fine to continue engaging with it. it’s fine to be manipulated by an abuser and it’s not your fault. please don’t make rash decisions and end up losing things you care deeply about and being unable to get them back. distance yourself all you want, but please be careful to not do so out of emotional self harm from the guilt. that’s something this fandom encourages far too much- even outside of this- and it’s unhealthy and anyone expecting it of you is cruel.

[furiousgoldfish]

abuser voice: It is not evil to yell at you, berate you for the smallest things, scream and insult you, imply that everything would be better if you didn't exist, lie to you, control you, violate you, manipulate you, or assault you. Those are normal and good things to do. They reflect nothing about me.

You, however, being upset at those things done to you? Iredeemable. Abominable. Horrific. Cruel and accusatory. Worst thing anyone could ever do. You should rot in shame forever for it.

[lomlompurim]

Saying that shen jiu's abuse of luo binghe is "not necessarily evil" because abusing others can be a "cry for help" is surely a take....a very awful take. Yes he needed therapy, A LOT of therapy. But HE didn't want help, by that point he was committed to keep being miserable and make others suffer too, he wanted lbh to die, how the heck is that a cry for help?

He was a very traumatized adult in a position of power continuing the cycle of abuse, very aware of what he was doing, and who should have never been in charge of children

[pynkhues]

There's something to the picture that all this season and the release of the first three seasons' scripts have painted of Logan and Caroline's divorce not as one of maternal abandonment, but one of maternal dislocation and suffocating abuse that's ruining me right now.

The way Caroline tried to take her children and flee in the dead of the night to Morocco, the way Logan took meetings with every worth-its-salt law firm in the city to cut off Caroline's access to them, wielding the legal system like an axe to an umbilical cord, the way Caroline's one recourse was to try and keep their position in the company, to keep them with something even if she gave it away later as they rejected her in adulthood. The way she stayed for their adolescence in New York even as Logan froze her out, the way she had to bargain for Christmas even in their adulthood, the way she sat in the pews with the rest of the women Logan loved and hurt and discarded while her children cried, with no tools or ability to comfort them, the way she sat as her son wrote her out of her own motherhood as he gave their father sole credit in creating them, stood opposite her daughter as she told her she wouldn't see it, i'm just gonna do it the family way like it was on Caroline and not their father, that she never got to see them.

Something about the way it feels like Logan trained them how to bark at her scent, to make sure she stayed away from the door.