#but like they rubbed me the wrong way

[raeathnos]

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[roughentumble]

DC supervillain of the week who traps the justice league(in their league disguises) in a reality tv show like love island. it airs on tv and everything like they use supervillain powers to forcefully broadcast "love island: justice league edition" while the supers have to try and figure out how to escape. during a personal squabble wondy steps up and says "everyone calm down, we're all a team, we each have our strengths and weaknesses, we need to work together to solve this" and then it cuts to her talking head segment and she says "im not a fan of green lantern."

[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.

[kirkwallguy]

extremely funny coming from writers whose characters return and play major roles in more than one game. yeah sorry guys we couldnt do anything interesting with the game because we had to protect our fans from the conflict we would write if we did <3

[luxurystark-jackson]

sam being constantly treated like a child even when he’s an adult and dean being constantly treated like an adult even while he was a child

and then dean who’s always treated like he’s too dumb to know anything and sam being treated like he can never be wrong about any of the lore

[smoozie]

A reminder that whatever happened with Iskall has affected people in a way we don't know, and the hermits decision to keep things private may be at request of possible victims. We are not owed information.

[thepriceofsurvival]

I’m sorry but the codependency between Cat, Laila and Jeremy is so odd to me. Like the fact that Jeremy told Cat and Laila about Jean being assaulted at Evermore during his freshman year without his say-so?

And Jeremy was so wrong for getting Kevin to confess something that could cost him his life and then not telling him Cat and Laila was in the room? Like WHY. Why are you incapable of keeping a single secret to the point you betray people’s trust like that. Jeremy I love you but what the fuck.

[uncanny-tranny]

"The only person who can save you is yourself, don't rely on anybody else!"

Actually, what has saved me is books and my favourite video game and my cats and my friends who I've shared late nights and too-early mornings with and the dew-covered grass I walked on on the way to a competition bus in ninth grade band and the sunburn that kept me out of school for days the month prior.

I understand the viewpoint of how you are ultimately the person who can save you, but don't discount that you aren't an island. You aren't meant to be your sole savior. Let others save you, too. You are worth the care and love the universe has for you.

[dreadfuldevotee]

I'd like to discuss the elephant in the room. Why did we get zero Loumand sex scenes? We got hints and implications, but season 1 was pretty explicit. Do we think that that's a creative choice or something else is happening?

I'm glad I ended up ruminating on this for about a week because episode 7 & 8 really solidified my opinion on it.

I do wanna start by saying that it's very clear to me that there was supposed to be more explicit scenes between them. There has been some thoughts tossed around that censorship happened with the 9 pm timeslot (as opposed to the 10 pm timeslot of S1). I believed this hearing Assad and Jacob talk about the BDSM dynamic between Louis and Armand, but what really sold me on this was Production Designer Mara LePere-Schloop talking about the bedroom set and more specifically about their beautifully carved custom headboard. (If you're a production nerd like me or just want to know more about the design philosophy of IWTV I recommend giving the entire thing a listen!).

I think there are several reasons I think as to why they decided to leave any more explicit scenes on the cutting room floor but above them all is: you cannot separate Armand's sexuality from his abuse. I am really against pulling a "well if you read the books" card but reading just the first couple chapters of "The Vampire Armand" makes me understand so much about not only Armand as a character, but the care being taken to his adaptation. It's clear to me that alongside Rolin & Co.'s commitment to not watering him down to a one-dimensional villain they are also trying to not fall into Anne Rice's tendency to romanticize his trauma.

Sex and sexuality is not the same pillar of Louis and Armand's relationship it was in Louis and Lestat's and so I don't believe their story suffers from the lack of on-screen sex. But I also firmly believe that maybe we don't need to be slutting out the character who we literally just watched talk about how he doesn't remember his life before being sex trafficked. And even when he was "freed" he was still being repeatedly assaulted at the hands of, and under the eye Marius de Romanus. Like it is extremely important to remember that Armand's craving for dominion in his relationships is a manifestation of trauma that deserves the same level of care and depth given to every other trauma portrayed in this show.

I think people have gotten too comfortable calling IWTV a romance when it has always been Gothic Horror. Romance and sex are pivotal to the story but I have found the demands for sex scenes this season a bit absurd and also? unfounded? Loustat share more kisses on screen but there are two sex scenes and both are very plot relevant. I truly figured we were all in agreement that the eroticism of this show is found in the various displays of power, and the dynamics it creates and not the actual clapping of ass-cheeks...which also wasn't happening in S1 either. S2 does not suffer because of the lack of sex-scenes, but the likelihood if it suffering trying to make one work is

[jingledbells]

every time someone uses fiddlestan to demonize ford an angel trips and falls and fucking dies

[bethanydelleman]

The parenting phrase I hate the most is "You get what you get and you don't get upset." I don't say it to my kids, I explained to them why it was awful when I heard one of them say it. Yes, if someone gives you something, say thank you and accept it gracefully. But if you are given less than your peers for no reason? If you get less than you need? You get upset. You demand justice.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but this particular saying sounds like propaganda to preemptively kill unions demanding fair wages.

[svartalfhild]

Unsurprisingly, people are already being fucking weird about Mizu's gender.

Headcanons are all well and good, but maybe we shouldn't be so eager to apply modern Western gender politics and terms to a character whose identity is so tied to the time, place, and circumstances in which she exists.

Please remember that Mizu was forced to present as male for her own safety and agency. Please remember that allowing others to see her as a man and call her he/him is not a choice; it's protection; it's a means to an end. Until we see Mizu talk about her gender in further detail, that's all the context we have.

Don't project what you want to see onto her and then treat it as fact.

[handweavers]

i really can't stand when something happens in the global south and people come on here writing posts like "was anyone gonna tell me such and such happened? well STRAP IN buckos cause something CRAZY just went down in asialand hold onto your seats cause this is a wild ride!! while you were halfway through watching a movie these people were up to all this stuff!! well that happened!! mic drop you can go back to blogging now"

[dirtytransmasc]

atwow hot take:

if jake had said his "son for a son" shit out loud and spider had heard him, he would have been so beyond pissed, he would be seeing red.

spider loved his little siblings so much, neteyam included, even after they grew apart. he loved them like they were his own blood and protected them like they were too (we see a lot more of them together in the comics, where spider is the big brother without a doubt). neteyam's death most certainly rocked him hard, even if he hasn't really been able to show it (how could he? he's already going through all the shit with his dad and the RDA and their nonsense, he can't grieve around neytiri, he's just so tired after it all. he doesn't have the room or the energy to grieve yet)

so if jake had the audacity to say that to/around spider not even a few hours after he watched his little brother get shot after coming to save him, after he stared at the bullet hole in his back, after he watched him take his last breaths, after he watched the light leave his eyes, after he watched his little brother die for him; if he said that while his little brother's body lay in a pool of his own blood not even ten feet away, not even cold yet, blood still clinging to his chest, the scent of it still filling the air: he would have lost his shit.

because the disrespect for his brother is wild.

jake was an active player in spider's neglect and abuse for the last 16 years, he let it happen, he helped it happen. he tried to send spider with the humans, tried to take him away from his siblings, from the forests, from eywa to live with his foster family that didn't love him (not to mention Nash was an asswipe of epic proportions) and the RDA of all people. he had referred to spider as a stray animal since he was little. he was the reason spiders life was hell.

and after all that, years and years of putting him in shit positions and allowing him to suffer the fate of being forever unloved and uncared for (by an adult authority figure, cause I love the kids, but they don't make up for the gap left by a parent), this is what it took for jake to care about him? his little brother had to die in front of him first? he had to be traded out to fill the space of a corpse, to fill in the gap left by his little brother's death?

in canon, spider was in deep in shock with nothing to break him from it, he wasn't in the place to really think about any of it, and I'm sure we're gonna see this anger in the coming movies, but if jake had said it out loud, that would have been enough to snap spider right out of it, and he would have given jake a piece of his mind, I just know it.

[halfratsalready]

So no story mode? *throws phone and jumps on skateboard, breaking it*

[dangeroustaintedflawed]

ppl complain about other girls postin about ed’s n gore like this isn’t tumblr.com