#but this behavior will have consequences

[hongthoven]

Okay but why does he look like he's already pussy drunk and so desperate for a feast?

I cannot do this anymore.

[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.

[fate-of-the-envious]

The Judoflip in HOO

Do you know what always bewildered me? The judoflip scene in HOO. Not only did Annabeth unexpectedly slam Percy (her boyfriend, not an enemy) on the hard ground with her knees pressed to his chest and her arm to his throat as she threated him to never leave her, but also Percy was slammed to the ground ON HIS BACK WHERE HIS MORTAL SPOT ONCE WAS!!! Annabeth didn't know that he didn't have the curse anymore. That could have easily killed him! One misplaced rock could have hit the small of his back, and he would be DEAD!

Not only was this an abusive and concerning reaction to slam Percy on the ground, but it really shows how much Percy's fatal flaw being loyalty can not see how this is WRONG because he laughed! You don't hit your partner if they're being stupid; you don't elbow them in the ribs if they can't guess what you're thinking; you don't kick them in the shins to shut up. AND YOU DON'T JUDOFLIP YOUR PARTNER FOR BEING KIDNAPPED!!!

This isn't a romantic or healthy relationship. It's toxic and unhealthy codependent where Percy will give and give, and Annabeth will take and take until Percy has nothing left.

[moot-ramsey]

I just think he's neat!

[a-dragons-journal]

Okay, I'm not being nice about this one: are you guys seriously putting "callouts" in my inbox for misunderstanding/misusing terminology now? Is that what we're doing? What makes you think this is a productive or appropriate way of handling this?

Sit the fuck down and think about your actions for a minute, genuinely. What do you think is going to come of this? What happens when you make a "callout" for someone? They get ostracized at best and harassed and sent death threats and suicide bait at worst. How the actual fuck does that help with a problem of them possibly knowingly misrepresenting but probably literally just misunderstanding a word??? What is your goal here???? You know what actually helps with this problem? Spreading correct information via unrelated posts, or maybe, I don't know, talking to the person, politely, and explaining where they seem to have misunderstood something. And if they're truly insistent on being willfully ignorant, then just, leave them alone. Misusing a word is not a crime worthy of being hurt, harassed, or socially ostracized over. Callouts are almost never worth the damage they do to the person being called out, and it is only when someone is an active danger to other people on a community level.

Go take a fucking walk. Make a post about the correct definitions of words that isn't @/ing and preferably isn't even vaguing someone. Eat a fruit and maybe you'll feel better. Good gods. Sorry I'm being mean about this one, but I don't play around with callouts and other things that get people harassed to the point of suicide.

[qoldenskies]

I was reading back through caged lungs and I realized just how many times Donnie got hit in the head during the last fight and how hard, no wonder Leo is concerned about brain damage.

Also, when Donnie goes to see April at the end of chapter 2, is he just dissociating really hard or is that an actual physical symptom from the…everything really!

not to mention the oxygen deprivation with raph throttling him! the last fight is so visceral and nasty and it was the final nail in the coffin when it came to donnie's issues physically and mentally, because although he would have been terrified of them regardless i dont think it wouldve been "inconsolable screaming heap at the sound of raph's voice" like it was in the early bit of CW.

and id mark that as dissociation personally. the second he registered as being in relative safety he kind of shut down because he wasn't able to process it, which had kind of been a running coping mechanism through the last month or so of CL. MIND YOU: IT IS NOT HELPED ALONG BY THE BRAIN FOG CAUSED BY HIS TIME IN ISOLATION, its a nasty concoction of problems. and also yeah physical exhaustion definitely doesnt help! he ran all the way to april's apartment while actively starving, after all.

although itll get better after [REDACTED PLOT THREAD] is handled, i think dissociation is gonna be something donnie will be dealing with for years, because spending four days in a quiet, enclosed dark space has some extremely messed up consequences for your brain and body. it was also in general something he used to cope under the abuse, so i could see him having issues with it when he's not in his right mind (sick or sleep-deprived, for example), i could see him regressing back to that old mindset when something like that happens. his perception of reality is permanently a little fucked :(

[perenlop]

havent seen this take in a while thankfully but it popped up in my head and i wanna post this anyways. i think everyone who talks about how siffrin “got off too easy” at the end of isat and his friends should have abandoned him should go read warrior cats if they want an example of a character using their trauma as their god-given jailbreak card to treat their family and peers (a good amount of whom who were completely innocent) like dogshit, and who faces zero consequences from the narrative for it (and in fact bends over to blame their peers). like read all the shit jayfeather does while the narrative sobs over how tragic but awesome and quirky he is and then look me in the eye and tell me siffrin’s ending was poorly written.

[bonefall]

Now I'm sitting and looking at the Willow Tail trend stirring up around here that I've apparently triggered by being a troublesome snitch

Feels like throwing a tiny fish in a dusky scary pool to watch a magnificent legendary monster emerging to swallow it

I am satisfied, Willow Tail deserves better than she got

It always seemed odd how they just made her up to be the bad guy seemingly out of nowhere

no worries, you'll never find that take, it was a local not-English-speaking social media

It's me, the DOTC mosasaur, lunging up out of my tank to devour all the bad takes that come from weirdo Clear Sky stans lmao

I LIKE the bunny bones plot. I think it was cool to let Willow Tail be doing something kind of sneaky, holding a grudge from the last book. I enjoy the way she still have love and concern for Moth Flight, while also having beef with Red Claw. Dynamics like this are interesting and what I want more of in these books.

But the writers treat it like a woman lying is the most evil sin they've ever heard of. So they let Clear Sky carve her face like a pumpkin, killing her slowly in a stomach turning way, all while their precious writer's pets keep all of their power and never have to confront the fact that THEY ESCALATED IT. AT EVERY TURN.

The woman who lied pays for it with a slow, agonizing death, while men who murder and abuse don't even have to squeak out a "sorry."

I'm deadass, Clear Sky is forced to make peace and he says, "It was a dumb fight." Like, oh ok? A dumb fight? Did it fall out of the sky, asshole? Or did you make a hostage out of a leader's daughter and only doctor because you blamed HER for killing that son you let die?

Awful. Justice for Willow Tail. The punishment for lying should not be DEATH BY EYE GOUGING.

[camzverse]

Nooo cam u dont want to analyze the psychology behind mikes actions in the bite of 83 even though scott didnt put anywhere near your amount of thought into it noo dont do that. freak

[melancholic-pigeon]

Okay this is the *actual* last comment, for real, but I just found out Spider is now smearing me as a convert and accusing me of being involved with drama I was not involved with because he mistakenly attributed my apologies for his public temper tantrum as being about something unrelated.

THIS IS A FALSE ACCUSATION and I do not appreciate having yet another bit of fake malicious intent falsely ascribed to my actions and* attributing a completely unrelated attack to me.

Also, it's very sad and disappointing whenever a Jew gets mad at a convert because something else is going on in the Jew's life and the convert happens to be in the splash zone and the Jew falls over backwards to smear the convert and invalidate her faith.

Just....the childish aggression is making me so, so sad and disappointed, from someone I used to think very highly of, who is now lying about me and publicly smearing me with false accusations based on a conflict he started because he misinterpreted something I said and I went out of my way to give him the benefit of the doubt when trying to clear up the mistake HE MADE that led him to decide bullying and attacking me for three fucking days was appropriate and okay and that I'm the bad guy for saying it's wildly unprofessional to behave like this in public to a former customer face.

Sorry, but facts, reality, linear time and the truth of what I actually said and did are on my side here, and I will not stand for being smeared and attacked and shat all over because I had the gall to try to kindly resolve his uncalled for, unjustified temper tantrum.

I am also not sorry that I left a side note in the tags that it was also unacceptable for HIM to drag his daughter into a stupid internet slapfight based on his own reading comprehension failure. Because it was and is unacceptable, and she needs to hear that message from someone.

End of story. Keep digging that hole as long as you like, Spider. It's not helping your case and is continuing to make you look progressively worse and more unreasonable, and the only person you have to blame is yourself.

*revised for clarity

[dykedvonte]

What I did wonder in regards to Curly and his relationship with Jimmy and the reasons they're friends and he's so set on helping Jimmy is if Curly doesn't have a troubled background of his own. Either because he was like Jimmy and cleaned up his act or maybe his family was a mess (like how people with abusive parents are  more likely to end up with abusive partners). His comment on how people aren't slaves to their past felt like he was also talking from personal experiences and that's why he couldn't bring himself to give up on Jimmy. It's speculation but would make more sense to me than some other theories idk

My personal headcanon was that Curly had older parents who died when was relatively young (natural causes considering the world they likely live in) and he was kinda hung up on it and aimless in life. Jimmy latched onto that vulnerability and sorta fed off of/molded Curly into the person he likes throughout the years. It was really based on Curly needing a sedimentary figure in his life and Jimmy needed a something to feed off of, it wasn't always like this but it quickly became that dynamic. The major issue is Curly doesn't realize that he's not holding on to Jimmy but Jimmy is clinging to him.

I think they met young but not incredibly young. Teen years to young adulthood. A song that I think would encapsulate their relationship and how they worked is Ryan and Dave. I think Curly did get into regular teenage trouble; smoking, trespassing, mild vandalism, etc... But he stopped, grew out of it in a normal time frame while Jimmy just escalated. It's one of those cases where Jimmy never admitted how bad some of the trouble he was recover from was or how frequent. Curly helped because he just thought it was minor hiccups in Jimmy's road to progress, not everyone's journey is linear.

I think the idea that Curly had to be as bad as Jimmy or of a similar mindset at one time gets rid of the aspect that some people are just friends with people like Jimmy. Good men are friends with men like Jimmy. It's not always because they were just a like but because they can't perceive their worst actions for what they are, most men like Jimmy aren't just forthcoming with bad shit they did. They warp it to sound like the victim which we know Jimmy does a lot with Curly. It's not an excuse to why he didn't look deeper or think harder about it, but individuals like that sow giving them the benefit of the doubt into the very foundation of their relationships.

It's toxic and parasitic and the host should realize better, but that little bug will do anything to make sure they don't. Even to their own detriment.

[arttsuka]

I can't take it anymore

[arundolyn]

ohhhh my fucking god nobody needs to like know any of this medical tmi but it is literally 11 pm and if im kept up one minute longer when i just laid down trying to go to sleep by my mother YELLING REPEATEDLY that she needs to pee. im going to actually go insane. she got a catheter in. Yesterday. it is working. she won't listen to anyone when they tell her that this is the case. help me jesus. im sure if a nurse comes to check on her tomorrow they'll probably get the same response. my brain will simply explode

[wellnoe]

every time i talk about one of jean's less positive attributes, especially in regards to her relationship w scott, i feel a need to clarify that i say it with love bc i know there are people on here who hate her and specifically think she is awful to scott. but honestly jean's worst trait is the way she bends over backward to excuse or defend him. she's the original scott summers apologist and ykw i wish she wasn't.

[juniorfor2]

It’s funny how many people loved it when Alicent Hightower was made a “victim” in the show, because it validated all their hatred for the Targaryens - specifically Rhaenyra/‘immodest’ women - but immediately turned on hotd when they realized just what type of victim she was.

[perenlop]

"oughhh you can't like carmine, she's abusive, she says 'its not like i hit him' in one scene so she's toxic and bad and you shouldn't portray her in a sympathetic light!!!" speaking as someone who genuinely has a toxic relationship with his older brother... shut up lmao