#he makes them feel so safe

[darylssunshine]

daryl being the best uncle <3

[canisalbus]

✦ Come hell or high water ✦

[inkskinned]

she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let

and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment

and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.

and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment

and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?

to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.

and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.

you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Never gonna live that down.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[stealingyourbones]

Out of all of the people The Ghost King Phantom expected to relate to, it definitely wasn’t the scrawny red headed photographer of the Daily Planet. Jimmy Olsen has gotten so many temporary superpowers over his time being Superman’s friend. Hell, he once gained a 4th dimensional being’s reality warping abilities when he was given said dimensional being’s powers during a fight. Sure there’s a dozen or so heroes with the same amount of powers he has, but none as suddenly granted to them as a all powerful god that can relate to a teenager.

[justaz]

thinking about arthur who has crazy quick reflexes and is a relatively light sleeper who woke up to the sound of someone in his room and saw merlin crouched down messing with his keys before softly asking “whatre you doing?…before breakfast?”

[gascreates]

emotional support frog

who will absolutely eat your hand.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: trauma / ptsd / violence / brainwashing / ]

I’m not done talking about Raph and Leo yet because you know what kills me? How the beginning of the movie with Raph very angry at Leo to the point of lashing out at him is paralleled with how the end of the movie has the Krang very, very angry at Leo and beating him horrifically.

Both Raph and the Krang are so much bigger than Leo, both have been very angry with him, and both deem him responsible for ruining their respective missions.

To make matters worse, Raph’s body was used to hurt Leo. So it’d make sense for Leo to just…flinch, sometimes. To have his body reflectively brace for a blow that will not come because Raph would see this and just be horrified. Their fights, their roughhousing, their existing together all have a newfound and unwanted extra layer to them.

And Raph? Raph is traumatized enough having been brainwashed the way he was, turned into a monster in a way he always dreads in general. To be made into the antithesis of a hero and instead be a villain’s pawn, made to hurt his own family…poor kid, to say the least.

Can’t imagine what it must feel like, the first time post invasion that Raph gets mad at Leo and they fall into their old dynamic only for Leo to see the Krang and for Raph to feel like he is the Krang.

[somegrumpynerd]

I'm certain I've seen this said somewhere else already and I cannot for the life of me track it down but Dream's favourite colour being purple and Nightmare's being yellow

Everybody assumes Dream's is yellow because, well, he's dressed in it head to toe and his magic is yellow and his eyelights are yellow. It's just a bright happy colour, it must be his favourite! Only Blue and Ink know it's not, Ink because he takes note of how Dream favours purple any time he gets to pick something or joins in on an art project and Blue because he just asked.

Everybody assumes Nightmare doesn't have a favourite colour, that if you asked he'd say he was above that sort of thing or tell you something edgy like black because it's the colour of his soul. And it's kind of true, if you asked he would never admit to liking a colour, especially not one so cheery and bright. But the boys have definitely noted how he has paintings of sunrises in his offices and sunflowers planted outside.

[skunkes]

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

satoru is a puppydog who pretends to be a big bad wolf and suguru is a wolf pretending to be a domesticated dog, hiding his claws and the snap of his jaw (doctors come in and start pulling me away)

[toshidou]

don't mind me, i'll just be sat here crying into my hands about girl dad!simon "ghost" riley who would do absolutely anything for his daughters.

girl dad!simon who watches with a fond smile as his children fail to mask their giggles from underneath the sofa, their little legs sticking out very obviously from their "hiding place" but acting as though they're nowhere to be found.

girl dad!simon who lets them apply the black smudging around his eyes, praising them with how gentle they're being, and only huffing out a laugh when he feels his youngest smear charcoal fingerprints down his cheeks.

girl dad!simon who always has time to play with his girls, going along with whatever game their imaginative minds conjure with not a single complaint. over the years, you've walking in on simon as a horse, a robot, a fairy godmother (you will never get the imagine of simon with one of your elasticated waist dresses on out of your head, the material fighting for its life to stay in one piece as simon merely stares at you, silently pleading you to not take any photos), there is nothing he won't do to make them happy.

girl dad!simon who never once hesitates to scoop them into his arms at the first sign of tears, battled scared and inked hands holding his daughter so carefully, though she was made of porcelain, rough fingers gently swiping across ruddy cheeks, "you're okay, sweetpea, it's just a little scrape, yeah? my brave girl can handle a tiny scratch like that no problem, ain't that right?"

girl dad!simon who has a photo of you and your daughters tucked safely in his pocket at all times, all his favourite people on one small piece of paper he keeps safe over his heart whenever he has to leave, making sure it never leaves his mind that 'this is who he's fighting for, this is who he's working so hard to get back to'

girl dad!simon who try as he might, always tears up when he finally arrives back, and hears his little worlds sprinting at him as fast as their stubby legs can carry them, screeching cries of "daddy, daddy, daddy's home!" echoing through the walls of his home, arms wide as he crouches on the floor and feels their small but mighty weight crash into him, finally whole, finally complete, watery eyes meeting yours where you lean against the wall, similarly emotional.

"welcome home, si."

finally, home.

[imprisoned-marrionetta]

What in the toxic yaoi…..

[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.

[lighthouseas]

will holding mike's face when they kiss and mike holding will's neck when they kiss. that is all

[tenderjock]

the synonym of companion is: