#imagine socialism i mean

[mosquitinho]

imagine 😵‍💫 not having to worry abt getting a job. Like just having the security of knowing you'll get another job when your contract ends at your current gig / u get fired / u quit. not only that but also having the security of knowing you'll always have a livable wage no matter what your job is and no matter what circumstances prevent u from working be them temporary or life long. not only that but also also imagine working somewhere where everyone is directly and collectively involved w the ways the company functions and shares its profits equally i.e. no one owns it besides the ppl who make it work i.e. the workers . like imagine living in a society focused on helping everyone live well instead of one focused on making us compete for the bare minimum we need to survive for no fucking reason

[corvids-corner]

💙 some quick priest!kurt photo edits - the references 💙

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 1: Dread on Arrival

(Part 2)

[knifearo]

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

[blondeaxolotl]

A man's best friend

is also a cheetah's life-time companion

[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.

[sysig]

Chewtoy (Patreon)

[stump-not-found]

Sorry if this has already been answered, but does Ford celebrate his birthday? I know its pretty hard to keep track of time when its ... nonlinear in the multiverse but I feel like Bill would know. And to ford every once and a while Bill demands his attention and he comes back to the pyramid to the wildest (worst) surprise party. The cake is human skin, candles are those really long wisdom teeth. Ford hates it.

i'll call out that a main plot point of chapter 4 is the fact bill gets ford presents on his b-day so yah its a regular thing, but they celebrate the day after his b-day

first birthday together bill probably does the skin cake thing but ford just rolls his eyes and sighs . bill almost fucking shoots himself after that response

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[covertblizzard]

jaykyle au where they're theatre kids in the same school but they're not the actors jason's the scriptwriter/director and kyle is the prop manager (i don't know the official terms sorry) and they'd probably do an amazing job on the backstage setting if they could stop arguing for 5 whole seconds about their artistic visions and ideas and how "this would obviously work better this way"

[petrichara]

They say an event starts at 18:30 but they don’t arrive at this time, they arrive after. You become the early bird for doing what they say to do. You learn that this punctuality is not typical, and try, just once, to follow the observed social convention. On the dot, you arrive ten minutes after the listed start time: 18:40. Except this is the one occurrence in history that everyone arrived on time. You are not entering in an appropriate window of time, you are now late and everyone is looking at you.

[childrensrightsrehumanrights]

If you aren't prepared to have a disabled child you aren't prepared to have a child. If you would be greatly disappointed by having a child with certain traits, gender, ability, appearance, you are not ready to have a child.

A child is an individual you are ready to guide and care for, for the rest of your life. A child is not a customisable accessory.

Most people will become disabled in their lifetime.

Your child can be born able bodied and then be diagnosed with autism. Your child can have chronic pain from a back injury playing sports as a teenager.

And if you have an ableist or otherwise oppressive mindset, your child could have a trauma disorder or mental illness.

Your child is not a character you're customising to be how you want them to be. They are a human being you are building a parent-child relationship with. This is a person separate from you, even if you created them.

And if you are not willing to accept any child of your own as they are, you are not ready to be a parent.

Your children deserve acceptance and unconditional love, you can't add on conditions.

[lavendorii]

First summer

[twstjam]

I am once again back at it with the random fic prompts

Fic where Yuu is Briar Valley's Most Wanted and though they ARE a criminal they were actually framed for this particular crime and their friends (the first years gang) all know this and help them hide. Even Sebek helps them (this causes Major drama later on ofc) and Yuu hides in some old ruins until their friends find proof of their innocence.

In the meantime there's this weird guy with horns who keeps showing up around the ruins. He doesn't know who Yuu is though, so they let him stick around and he keeps them company when he visits.

Some of their conversations, when not talking about gargoyles, go something like this:

"Hi Tsunotarou! Has that criminal that's at large in your country finally been caught?" "Good evening. Hm. I'm afraid not. How about you? May you return home yet?"

They both somehow do not put the pieces together.

(Alternate scenario: Fic where Yuu is Briar Valley's Most Wanted because their mysterious bestie Tsunotarou who lurks around old ruins and is actually the crown prince of fae fell in love with them. The wrong people found out about this and put a bounty on Yuu's head to have some sort of leg up on the briar fae royalty, but Malleus, in all his genius, said "I'll do you one better." and put an EVEN BIGGER bounty on Yuu's head so that he can have them instead and now it's a race on who can get Yuu first avdjdhdj. Meanwhile Yuu is just confused on why everyone wants them dead (they do not know Malleus is secretly their bestie Tsunotarou who's in love with them. All that they know is that the Briar Heir wants them hunted down for no apparent reason))

[cats-obsessions]

There’s been a lot of discussion around Gortash in particular showing no devotion for Bane beyond that which furthers his own interests, and Bane doing very little to help him. While that’s a very Banite thing to do, offering your Bhaalspawn babe true equality is not. There’s so many beautiful theories out there, but I offer my own: the goal of the Absolute was never to glorify Bane or Bhaal.

We know Durge and Gortash have a long history, spanning back before Gortash was even the chosen of Bane. They started out as essentially, two people robbing shit together- ancestral torture racks and all. In letters, we find both of them had proposed plans that involve each other. I like to think they got very attached before deciding to rule the world. But what would come of serving their gods? Durge would kill the world, Gortash would have to rule alone. In the end, failure or victory, their lives and souls would go separate ways, and one of them would have to fail, earning eternal torture.

But Enver doesn’t offer Durge servitude to Bhaal or mass murder or even Banes plan when they show up tadpoled to Wyrms Rock. He offers godhood- through the absolute, sure, but such an act would certainly deserve ascension. They could become actual gods. Maybe to him, that was the plan all along. Achieving true godhood together would be the only way to ensure their souls would be safe and together. Forever.

I like to think somewhere along the way he saw how doomed they were, how few options Durge has for personal autonomy, and he put his mind to finding a way. Maybe the implications of their plan weren’t fully discussed, or maybe promises of godhood were only whispered in private. Maybe Durge won’t admit the reality, but maybe part of them hopes for it.