#defense ships

[fairsweetlonging]

imagine if after the transmigration shen qingqiu became a combination of shen yuan and shen jiu, not in a "second person living in my head" kind of way, but a "this house is haunted and carries the echoes of the dead" kind of way; imagine shen yuan having nightmares about a house, a fire, a faceless boy behind a door he can't remember; imagine him having flashes of emotions he doesn't understand, rage at a name he doesn't recognize, helplessness when yue qingyuan apologizes for something he won't mention, nausea when ning yingying says the name "a-luo"; imagine parts of his own self have changed too, how he now likes bows in his hair, pretty flowers and flowing robes, but can no longer stand a stranger's touch, a man's touch, yet he longs for the brothels, but never sexually, only fondly, like there's something there he misses. there are many empty spaces in his heart where he feels something is missing

[andr0nap]

pirate au stuff i never did anything with but i still really like the designs

[duckwnoeyes]

Willow Rosenberg is the type of girl to mock Orpheus for turning around. Bc how hard is it to walk straight and not look behind you? If Willow was Orpheus, she’d easily march out of the underworld w Eurydice, bc she is better than the myths. She’d never even entertain the idea of doing something silly, like looking behind her, not even to check if Eurydice wants to come back. Because Willow is better, and stronger, and she’ll drag her best friend back to life without so much as a backward glance, without digging up her body. Because Willow doesn’t understand what it means to love someone enough to turn around. To turn and face them is weakness, and she cannot be loved while she is weak.

[showsandstuff]

I think I know what stopped me from indulging Jayvik in season 1, and it's that I got the feeling that Jayce didn't do enough for Viktor. He showed he cared for him and he got Heimerdinger fired so that they could use the Hexcore since it might just save Viktors life, but most of the time we saw Jayce, he was busy doing politics while Viktor was tirelessly working on looking for a cure for himself. It felt weird to not see Jayce, who had proven that he cared for Viktor, do exactly that as well.

Then there was also the moment with the blockade on the bridge, where Jayces words (though he apologized immediately) caused Viktor to lie to him about Singed not having been able to help, despite him previously believing that Jayce would understand.

But season 2 has proven that I (and probably also Viktor) have completely underestimated how much Jayce loves him. He saw him injured in the rubble, carried him and ran to the lab. Then he broke his promise to Viktor to destroy the Hexcore because there might be a chance of it saving him and then when Viktor came out different, all Jayce cared about was the fact that Viktor was alive.

Viktor was right, Jayce understood. He understood even more so than Viktor himself. Because his life might just be more important to Jayce than it is to Viktor.

[re-colligere]

Thought about how Indigo and Roz would interact in this au, so here's some sillies! I think they'd be buddies faster than Verte would consider them both as her buddies. so you know.

[oddishblossom]

Mao says he likes me. Does he really? Knowing him, he might only feel sorry for me…

—TASOGARE OUT OF FOCUS (黄昏アウトフォーカス) (2024) - S1 EP2

[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.

[thevoidstaredback]

Hey! So, it's been a while, but I finally remembered to come back to this! But, it's not gonna go the way you'd think.

If Danny had it his way, he'd be at his Aunt Alicia's house for the summer instead of New Jersey. This place is gloomy, grimy, and soaked through with so much crime that it's a Problem(TM). Like, seriously? New Jersey hasn't allowed the death penalty since he was seven, but can't they make, like, one exception? Get rid of The Joker and half of Gotham's problems are solved.

Unfortunately, he's only here as a guest, so he can't really do anything. Which, for the record, is a shit rule. Call a goose and goose, and that's exactly what Gotham City, New Jersey is.

It isn't all that bad, he supposes. Sure, the pollution blocks out the entire sky at all times, the buildings that aren't condemned are only feeding the rich while stealing from the poor, an entire twenty-four block are has been given up on by mostly everyone, the local vigilantes won't kill the recurring problems like the cockroaches they are- There was a good point to all this.

Oh! He has family here. That's it. That's the only silver lining, and it's bronze.

But, hey, it can't be that bad. From what he understands, his half-brother and company don't actually live in Gotham. Bristol, according to Talia is technically outside of Gotham City Limits, but is still considered as part of the city. Makes sense, aside from the fact that there's no bridge between Bristol and Gotham. Weird design, but he's not rich so he's not really inclined to care or understand.

Half brother, right.

Danny doesn't like Damian much, but that's because he's a clone...of Damian. Danny's a clone of Damian, not the other way around. Ra's makes that very clear

The only reason Talia wants him with Damian is because she's upset with Bruce Wayne. What is it with divorced parents and putting their kids on the middle of their fights? Or maybe that's just Talia?

Anyway.

Gotham, New Jersey is a dismal place. Danny's not germophobic by any means, he can't really afford to be, but even he's having a hard time being in the city.

It was so much easier hiding out with the Fentons.

Well, 'hiding' is a subjective term. Ra's and Talia knew where he was, so did Deathstroke, probably, but that was it.

Essentially, everyone he should be hiding from knows where he's been hiding, which means he's just been on some kind of twisted, extended vacation.

As far as Danny knew, Bruce Wayne had no idea he was coming. Damian knew because Talia had wanted him to pick Danny up from the airport. Weird because while Damian is technically older, Danny is still legally two years older.

Well, 'legally' is a stretch. He doesn't technically exist, outside of the LoA and Amity Park.

The point is that Damian is waiting for him at the end of the terminal, looking as much like an excited puppy as he can, with an older gentleman. Talia had given him nothing to work with, but Danny didn't really care who this guy was as long as he didn't try to make him do anything he didn't want to.

...living in the Midwest was doing wonders for his mental stability, but Ancients was it making him soft!

"'Danny', I presume?" the old man asked, his accent heavy.

Good, so Talia did give Damian his actual name. "Yep. You are?" He may not want to be here, but he still knows his manners. Even if he's only going to use the bare minimum of them. Malicious Compliance and all that.

"Alfred Pennyworth, the family butler." He didn't extend his hand to shake. Danny didn't mind. In fact, he actually preferred that.

Okay, so maybe he's a little bit haphephobic. Leave him alone!

"Danny," Damian greeted, a smile of excitement in his voice but not his face, "It's good to have you here. How did Mother convince you to come?"

"Bribery." Mostly.

Damian seemed to deflate a bit. "Father and the others don't know you're here."

"Do they even know about me at all?"

"No."

"Perfect! Then I can stay at a hotel-"

"For the entire summer?" Alfred raised his eyebrow, "I must insist that you stay at Wayne Manor while in Gotham. Master Bruce will most pleased to meet you."

"Why?" Danny scoffed, "I'm not his kid, nor do I want to be."

Damian slouched a little bit more. "Come, we must get back before the others send out a search party for us."

"Dramatic much?" Danny scoffed.

"Not at all," Alfred took both of Danny's bags before leading the way out to the car, "It' happened before in less time."

"I don't doubt it for a second. I'm calling Bruce a dramatic bitch."

Alfred smirked ever so slightly. "Quite right, Master Danny."

"Don't call me that."

"Alright then, what should I call you?"

"'Danny'. No honorifics, no add ons, no trying to fullname me, nothing else."

"And when you go out with the rest of the family?"

He scoffed again. "You really think they'd let me go out with them? I'm an assassin. In fact, the first thing I'll do the second I'm let out of the house is kill the clown bastard."

Damian rested his hand on Danny's arm. "They let me out with them and I tried to kill Drake. As long as you uphold a promise not to kill anyone, you'll be allowed to patrol with us."

They reached the car, Damian sat behind the driver while Danny sat behind the passenger. Alfred put the bags in the trunk. "So? What will you be called on patrol?"

Danny rolled his eyes, popping his headphones in and not looking away from the window. "Respawn."

Storyboard

[royalarchivist]

Ironmouse: I love it when you punch me.

Baghera: Yeah, you do? Oh, I'll keep going then. [Punches Mouse off the walkway]

Ironmouse: What a treat. What a treat to be punched by Baghera!

Baghera: You can crush me too, if you want.

Ironmouse: I WANNA CRUSH YOU! YEAH!!! ...If only I had the guts to crush such a beautiful person.

Baghera: One day you will. Oh yeah, please!

Phil: ...What am I hearing right now? 🤨🏳️‍🌈

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

-

Ironmouse: Baghera! :D

Baghera: Hiya! How are you?

Ironmouse: I love it when you punch me.

Baghera: Yeah, you do? Oh, I'll keep going then. [Punches Mouse off the walkway]

Phil: [Laughing in the background]

Ironmouse: Oh, thank you.

Baghera: Yeah, don't worry.

Ironmouse: What a treat. What a treat to be punched by Baghera!

Baghera: You can crush me too, if you want!

Phil: [Dying in the background] Wtf!

Ironmouse: I WANNA CRUSH YOU!

Baghera: YEAH! Do it!

Phil: Oh my god...

Ironmouse: YEAH!!! ...If only I had the guts to crush such a beautiful person!

Baghera: One day you will. Oh yeah, please!

Phil: ...What am I hearing right now?

Baghera: Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah.

Phil: [Cracks up]

[katstiel]

Decided to start watching Hawaii Five-0 because. Well, I was bored. And what the actual fuck? Why are these two men full on flirting with each other right there on my screen? I'm honestly not sure it's possible to interpret whatever they have going on in just the first episode as anything but sexual tension. I'm sure this'll only get more homoerotic as the show goes on.

Why do I keep doing this to myself.

[seagull9111]

percabeth best friend era meant everything to me you guys dont even get it

before they got together!!! when they were just friends, just working on surviving

[sonknuxadow]

little beasties ......

[soupinaboot]

Sometimes I forget that Stranger Things is like a sci-fi horror fantasy and not a romance drama

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile