#consequences of abuse

[furiousgoldfish]

Which ones of these arbitrary trauma-induced rules do you follow?

No spending money, ever. what if you need it later and your life depends on it.

Assume that all strangers are 3 seconds close to becoming hostile. fawn to keep them friendly.

No delegating tasks. no telling other people to do things you could potentially do yourself. what if they mess up.

Assume that everyone will consider you a burden if you do 1 single mistake that inconveniences them. do all that is possible to not make that mistake.

Do not admit when things are going wrong. wait until theres no other option but to ask for help, and even then consider not doing that.

Always act like you're okay. not doing so might make you seem 'not normal' and 'accused of being crazy and unstable'.

Do anything for friends, even if it sounds weird, dodgy, illegal. you want to prove that you're fun and easy going and helpful and useful and extremely cool with anything.

Never let it show if you're suspicious of someone. never say out loud that you think their intentions are bad. that might set them off.

If hurt, hide and isolate. Do not let anyone see you hurt.

Do not ask help for problems you feel are your own responsibility to solve. Even if you don't see yourself solving them successfully. If you can't do it, assume nobody can help you.

Help others to try and build positive relationships. Don't accept help so you don't end up relying on them for anything.

Do not start things that involve help or participation from other people. People are not reliable.

Assume that institutions, government, police, social services, and any kind of groups of people are all considering you a nuisance, and would attack you on sight, in every single situation. Never rely on them or assume they would do anything else.

No arguing, confronting, or standing up for yourself unless the situation is absolutely unsurvivable otherwise. Lay low until doing otherwise is seriously damaging your mental health and ability to live.

Give up on hopeful social encounters before they disappoint you. If you have to interact with people, assume the worst is about to happen.

No allowing yourself to idealize, or dream of positive future with people. It's a trap and your expectations need to be either extremely realistic or low.

Assume that fancy and expensive things don't exist for you. Despise them and get away from them.

No comparing yourself and your life to how other people live. It causes depression and despair. Other people's lives and standards of living are none of your business.

Do not showcase any skill or brag about any achievement. Jealous people can destroy you for satisfaction.

Assume people think the worst of you and don't consider changing their mind. Just try to keep out of their way.

Do not display anger. You don't want to be called insane or get arrested. You don't know what people could potentially blame you for if you're openly angry. But other angry people are dangerous and you need to get away from them.

If you follow more than half of these, you have a trauma-induced problem. These are not normal or healthy. These are not developed in a healthy environment. These are extremely self-protective, isolating, ruled by terror of the world and the people living in it. If you follow these, something bad has been done to you.

[crow-quet]

*You tell a joke about two kids who played in a muddy flower garden.

*...

*You tell a joke about a kid who slept in the soil.

[carryoncastiel]

Karlach and Wyll have great banter in general but sometimes you see something like this and you're like...now hold on a minute

[ilynpilled]

it frankly pisses me off that what is essentially “rapists and abusers should be depicted as monstrous caricatures because humanizing them is inappropriate” is considered a very moral and enlightened position to have on art by so many people. a rapist can feel pain, have moments of vulnerability, be amiable and charming, express remorse and compassion at times, be a victim themselves, and so on in real life. they are even capable of doing good things. they can have different sides to them and have individuals in their lives that they are kind to or have a decent relationship with. they will be a human being, and that fact encompasses a lot. conflating that with the claim that they are entitled to and deserve forgiveness or absolution is an issue. nurturing a mindset that believes they need to be one note and uncomplicated to be a correct and tasteful depiction of a rapist inadvertently falls in line with the logic of “how could they have possibly raped you? they are so normal and kind to me. they did all these good things here and there.” ok that doesn’t change that they are a rapist.

[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.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

killer should be given a gun. specifically so he can grab someone by the throat or hair and force the barrel in someone’s mouth and threaten to make a pretty brain splatter on the wall. (bonus points if he does to Chara when they step out of line in timelines where they’re still partners after killer takes the reset)

[batcavescolony]

Tim Drakes relationship with his parents is like Phineus and Ferb's relationship with their parents. they love their kid(s) and if they knew what they were doing without their knowledge they would be pissed. they just don't think their kid is capable of building massive machines/being Robin. it makes sense who in their right mind would go 'hey maybe my teenager is building elaborate contraptions without my knowledge' or 'maybe my teenager is actually Robin and I haven't noticed'.

[vivika-ka]

Some instances that I feel show how some messages in MHA are detrimental, especially on how victims react to their abuser, can be gauged by responses that tend to be highly prevalent in the fandom.

(Definitely not every fan, but a great majority).

Endeavor is a great example. Whenever you post criticizing his approach to atonement (and ultimately criticizing Horikoshi’s writing), you get BOMBARDED by people either belittling you for not liking his character or essentially forcing you to like his character by frantically writing “at least he tried” arguments.

If I have the CHOICE whether to forgive his character or not, especially given he goes through an atonement arc and not a redemption arc, why is any form of criticism about his abusive behavior and essentially his abuse of power practically ignored by the story unacceptable?

The message was detrimental because people operate on the notion that for victims to be good people, they must forgive and even help their abusers. MHA presents people who choose not to forgive him as either a monster (Toya) or inconvenient (Natsuo). And if they are still unforgiving, they must admire the abuser for doing the bare minimum (taking responsibility; this is also about Natsuo).

Essentially, they are considered "imperfect victims" because they weren't merciful in their approach to their abuser.

The majority of the fandom tends to ignore the lack of actual consequences for Endeavor's actions because he vows to talk to Toya every day. Insisting that doing the bare minimum, which is recognizing his son's existence and suffering, became his "hell" is a wildly fucked up message, in my opinion.

It harps on the issue mentioned above that if a victim isn't receptive to forgiveness or doesn't act "demure," they are seen as an inconvenience—which is how the Todoroki family ultimately views Toya.

On a less critical note, I'll vent, so if you don't like this, just ignore it.

I'm so fucking tired of stories depicting imperfect victims as people who deserve death and torture. Plus, having to be on the brunt of so many people acting like you're morally fucked because you're not impressed with how a writer handled abuse. Horikoshi is not the first writer to try to atone a character who is an abuser (and he isn't the first to fail at that, either).

I'm not about to dick-ride every decision every author makes. Especially if the message convinces some audience members that victims are inherently broken if they can't bring themselves to forgive and/or admire someone who hurt them.

[edwardslostalchemy]

The last thing I thought I'd ever say was that AFO is right lmfao, but he really called out endeavor on this one. AFO is no better when it comes to using people, especially his 'successor', but I appreciate that he went for the jugular with this one. It really is the cruelest match up. Like it should have been endeavor facing Touya, not Shouto who had 0 fault in that situation whatsoever.

[furiousgoldfish]

We often can't help ourselves but to look at other people's experiences of abuse to see who has it worse, to put our own situation in some sort of context, to place ourselves in this big scale of how bad it was. We're used to comparing, because in abuse we are often compared to every fictional scenario of 'who has it worse', to make us shut up about our own situation, so if we have some real scenarios to compare ourselves to, we will. Even if we know it's bad to compare, that pain is pain, and all abuse is bad, we still wanna know where we are in this fictional scale of who had the most horrible abuse. The implication being, that only people who had it worst are allowed to complain about it and have symptoms.

And I think it's natural to a point, to want your experiences put into some sort of context, to be able to see how our experiences compare to others, and we're not necessarily doing it to make anyone else feel bad or shut anyone up. We don't believe in the hierarchy of 'who had it worse', we just want to know exactly where we are in the scale and to adjust our behaviour accordingly (we need to know our place in the hierarchy to know if we're allowed to complain and show symptoms.)

But the thing is, the consequences  and the symptoms won't necessarily reflect the hierarchy. The damage from the abuse will sometimes come from the intensity and the perceived amount of trauma in the situation, but it will also come from what the abuse communicated to us, and what it taught us. Because if we were exposed to abuse, any kind, it is likely we all got communicated the exact same thing to us: you're not worthy of acceptance and love. You're not inherently deserving of happiness and care. You've deserved to be hurt, it's normal and natural for others to hurt you. You're a burden on others. You're unlovable. You can only exist in specific conditions where you're being consistently punished for being who you are. You're weak. You're supposed to be handling everything better. You're incapable of living a normal life. You're too sensitive and too emotional. You're a failure and you won't ever be able to deserve anything.

Whether these messages are communicated via violence, neglect, shaming, guilt-tripping, manipulation, exploitation, the consequences are the same. A person feeling deep shame about who they are, feeling alienated from human society, scared of being seen for who they are, scared of trusting others, desperate for positive attention but either ashamed or completely oblivious to how to get it without inviting further abuse into their life. Most of us have these consequences in common, despite the intensity or duration of abuse; and it's equally devastating for all of us.

We're taught to look for differences and levels of intensity of abuse, but the reality is that the hierharchy and scale are not real in any tangible or comparable ways; we all have much more in common than we have different between us. We're all cut off from feeling loved or safe, we're all alienated and struggling to feel like a part of society, we're all betrayed by our loved ones, we're all insecure in our personal relationships and identity, we're all struggling to keep any kind of faith in humanity. The scale was inflicted on us in order to silence us from speaking up about it; it created this mythical person who had it so much worse and is allowed to complain, while we're not, because we didn't have it as bad. But all of us had something cut off form us, and all of us should say it. We don't need to alienate ourselves from each other based on variety of abuse because we can speak in unison about how it affected us.

There's nobody who's 'not being abused bad enough to be allowed to complain' because all abuse alienates us from ourselves and our humanity, and it's going to be more similar to what everyone else abused is going trough, than it is from being treated in a normal and humane way.

[ofswordsandpens]

"the Gabe and Sally dynamic in the show is abusive" and "the way they've portrayed Gabe in the show is distinctly different from his book counterpart and fans can criticize that" are two discussions that can coexist

[bitchthefuck1]

It's kind of funny that Kendall and Shiv are both equally delusional about their ability to charm people for business and somehow think they can do it even though they choke almost every single time, whereas it's like the one thing Roman is consistently good at despite being the "least legitimate" option.

I think part of this comes down to the fact that Shiv and Kendall both have very clear ideas of the versions of themselves they're trying to be and the images they're trying to project, and they're trying so hard to be seen that way that they end up coming off as a little desperate and off-putting. Meanwhile Roman "knows" that there's something wrong with him and he's worthless, so he doesn't get sucked into the trap of trying to force people to see his idea of himself and instead molds himself into whatever he thinks the other person wants from him because that's the only way he can compensate for "being him," which works very well in the short term but also means he's the least capable of maintaining any relationship for very long because he has no sense of self.

[mxtxfanatic]

The common thread tying together how mxtx treats all her well-rounded character across all her works is that a character's past is as real as their actions. That means that a character's tragic past is a key part of their character and should be considered while analyzing them. It also means that their actions are also their own and must be considered when analyzing them. One does not negate the other. The trauma that a character experiences in the narrative is not erased by their shitty actions, but those experiences also don't redeem their immoral behavior. Everyone must live with the consequences of their chosen actions, regardless of what drove them to make those choices. That is the lesson.

[grimalkinmessor]

Fucked up Mouthwashing fix-it AU where Jimmy is able to grapple with his homo/bisexuality properly but instead of this making him healthier or more normal it just causes him to noncon Curly instead of Anya. As a result he doesn't crash the ship and they all make it safely to their destination and Jimmy manipulates and guilts his way into living with Curly afterwards even as the rest of the crew goes their separate ways. Everyone is happy except Curly :)

[cdroloisms]

Cdream be like: You can't put yourself in the Prison anymore bc of the woke >:(/lh

That man is a mess like it's facinating how messy his vision of reality is for others and himself

it is fascinating fr, and does remind me of how we'd talk a little bit about how his perspective may betray what kind of environment this guy might've been in pre-dsmp. the stick-up-his-ass about rules and rule-following, the neuroticism about conflict, and the ease with which he jumps to punishment as being the appropriate response to people who cause problems (a perspective that, quite evidently, to a certain extent, does apply to himself, doesn't it?) all seems quite indicative of someone who lived in an environment where punishment being the natural consequence of stepping outside the lines was generally something that went unquestioned. of course, this is speculative, and it's not that a #tragicbackstory is necessary to explain what the fuck is up with c!Dream, and it's hardly about justifying the choice to abuse a teenager into behaving, lmao. but while exile served his goals and exile was a lot of petty, spiteful cruelty for petty, spiteful reasons, i do think there's something to be said about how clearly c!Dream hadn't expected c!Tommy to respond quite so severely to exile and how he thought he would be "fine" with potatoes in the prison and the language he used both about exile and his own early prison stay about shit like "getting better" through punishment. of course, punitive justice as a norm is kind of ingrained in our own society (just look at the rhetoric around deserving in this fandom, lmao, which speaks more than well enough for itself) and of course that reflects onto the dream smp as well, considering how many of the characters talk quite freely about the idea of punishment/deserving/what have you, but few characters are quite as obviously a stickler for rule-following as c!dream and exile and then prison are uhhh definitely on the more extreme end of things. anyway. just some food for thought

[deservedgrace]

cult jokes are a symptom of and contribute to the simultaneous sensationalizing of cults (cults are all dark cloaks and animal sacrifices and devil worship and group suicide and despicable/unhinged beliefs) and diminishing of cults ("uwu come join my CULT XD we're gonna make cookies and WORSHIP SATAN teehee"), but i'm realizing how they go so hand-in-hand with the mindset of "only ~stupid/evil/crazy/etc.~ people could possibly join a cult. if it were me i would simply not fall for cult propaganda."

the diminishing part means that people don't take you seriously if you say you're an ex cult member or talk about your experiences in a cult or believe you are a current victim of a cult, because cults are just silly little groups that have weird beliefs but are otherwise innocuous. the sensationalizing part means people will also not take you seriously because if it was Actually a cult cult, that does harm and has evil beliefs, you should've known better because any reasonable person would have seen through it. the other side of "only an [xyz] person joins a cult" is "i am not an [xyz] person so i will never join a cult or be victim to propaganda and other cult tactics." the other side of "if it were me i would simply not fall for propaganda" is "someone falling for propaganda is fully a choice and a personal failing on their part." and combined they make: if you were [xyz] enough to join a cult and fall for propaganda, that means you deserved it.

people who would never make jokes about any other kind of abuse but feel perfectly fine making cult jokes used to kind of baffle me, because why is joking about personal abuse a problem but large-scale/group abuse is fine? why is it suddenly funny when you're the one that wants to perpetuate the abuse? but if your belief around cults is: "your experience wasn't that bad [diminishing], and if it was that bad [sensationalizing] it was your own fault and personal failing [i would simply not fall for propaganda], which means you deserved what you went through [only stupid/evil/crazy/etc people join cults]" and you don't understand how cults or cult tactics work, cult survivors/victims probably feel like a fair target for jokes (they are not, to be clear).