#jimmy doesn't know what to think

[dykedvonte]

I don't think any of the post crash Curly conversations have anything Curly would actually say after this point in time. They are not Curly nor his current sentiments

Not even the "I want to go home." Curly can't say what he wants or not. It's all Jimmy's perception of what Curly's desires were and are and Jimmy's himself. It's Jimmy entering the same but warped stagnating headspace Curly was stuck in at the beginning of the game.

An oppressive bright space with all the dead ends and burnouts you could foresee paired with a dark empty void of things that spark but are never quite as bright?

[soup-is-here]

I think we should've started throwing rocks at Jimmy when he got mad at Anya for getting nauseous while giving Curly his meds as if his ass didn't know she was pregnant

[sanasanakun]

People try too hard to make Curly an active participant in Jimmy's abuse. Isn't the whole point that he's passive in everything Jimmy does? Abuse occurs because he actively doesn't do anything? Not to call someone out or be mean, but I saw a post saying Anya's ID being in Curly's locker at the beginning shows that he intended to prevent Anya from filing an HR report and I disagree. I get where that interpretation is coming from, but I think it's a little uncharitable. I don't like being too kind to Curly because he's like...a morally mid dude at best lol But if we're going by the HR report interpretation, I would say it's more likely he requested Anya's ID in order to file an HR report on her behalf. After all, the only way to contact Pony (that we see) is in the cockpit, he's the Captain, and Pony Express sucks bad so I wouldn't put it past them to only allow the Captain to use the communication device thing. As we see before, Curly is the only one able to use tools around the ship that you would think other employees could use (ex. Swansea should be able to use the axe if he's the repair guy. Idk why they'd need an ax but that falls under manual labor which Swansea is designated for as the mechanic/fixer dude. But it has to go through Curly). I never got the vibe that Curly moved to actively protect Jimmy. He just lets things happen without say a word; Jimmy walks all over him, and by extension, the whole crew. I get why people would think that because he gives the whole "Hey Jimmy, we can get through this together, bud" spiel right before the crash. This part interests me a lot because there's so many ways to interpret Curly's intentions there. My interpretation is that Curly is on autopilot mode. The responses seem so stilted in comparison to Jimmy's. Like it's the kind of thing Curly's said before again and again and again when Jimmy's gotten in trouble. However, as others previously pointed out, I don't think Curly ever dealt with Jimmy doing something this irredeemable. He doesn't know how to respond, so he just goes for the default "You've gotten through tough situations before. Work through it one step at a time." Like the response is lame af lol I think he was in shock; he was scared (and just so I can say it one more time: he's super lame).

Anyway, this is way longer than I intended and I've said things a billion people have already stated. But uhhh tldr the whole point of Curly's character is he's passive; he never acts. He just watches. Making him an active participant in the abuse by taking actions to cover for Jimmy (like preventing Anya from filing an HR report) defeats the purpose of his character. He's a bystander.

[momentomori24]

For as much of a raging, misogynistic monster Jimmy is, especially towards Anya-- sexually harassing her, treating her with no respect, constantly belittling her and her work and worth, being generally extremely inconsiderate, ect-- I never really got the impression that he hated her, surprisingly. He absolutely resents her for the pregnancy he forced on her and envisions it as a monster out to hunt him down, sure, but he still included her in this delusional fantasy of a happy birthday celebration. In his mind, she's shown as encouraging and adoring, referring to him as their Captain Jimmy, showering him that recognition and reverence he always wanted. It's interesting, because given how he acts towards her, you'd think she'd be more silent and out of the way-- or better yet, not included at all considering how hard he tried to block her from his mind in comparison to Daisuke, Curly and even Swansea during the guilt sequences. But she is included, and not at all in a negative light.

To me it doesn't really seem he hates Anya personally as much as he hates everything she means for him. For as little respect as he has for her, he seems fine around her in general. He doesn't really seem to mind her when she fawns over him, when she exists in their group as an active member, because I imagine those traits about her wouldn't be present here if he did. He doesn't really mind thinking about Anya, her being on his mind at all-- until he has to confront what he had done to her, the consequences of his actions, the way her pregnancy would negatively affect him and how he should feel guilty and owe her an apology more than everyone else. Then all of sudden she's physically nowhere to be seen, the memory of her banished to the darkest corners of his fractured mind-- suppressed and buried, where he'll never have to think about her again.

In this celebratory delusion, she's allowed to exist. In the guilt sequences, she is not. Her absence has nothing to do with her and everything to do with him.

[magician-under-the-m00nlight]

aptx!kaito au in which Shinichi doesn't know aptx exists and feels insane that his leading theory is "a six year old is the mastermind behind Kaitou Kid"

[drawthething]

They would soooooo bitch about each other's handwritings

Happy Valentine's y'all ❤

[insomnya777]

do you guys know that youtube dating show called the button. because i was watching it with my friend the other day bc we were bored and we were like this seems funny and i somehow got a boat boys fic idea based off of it. so if i make a fic about the button dating show will people underdtand or is it too niche

[the-vampire-squid-from-hell]

its always wild to me when I go into the mouthwashing tag and someone is like "the game isn't about [x] its about [y]" because like...it can be about multiple things. Like you do understand that right? Like well written pieces of media are often exploring and can be about multiple themes??

[ananke-xiii]

The “body without organs” of Mary Winchester (and… Jimmy Novak).

When I started to pull the resurrection thread in the narrative of Supernatural I identified Castiel’s team-work resurrection in S13 and Mary’s impossible resurrection in S14 as my two main reference points from where I could develop this whole fantasy of mine. My initial idea in a nutshell was the following: Chuck, at certain point, decided that he didn’t want Cas back. He also decided that he didn’t want Mary back. So I asked myself why, of course. There are two characters behind Cas and Mary’s resurrections and these are Jack and Amara. So I thought it was cool to assume that Jack and Amara were what really went wrong in Chuck’s story. Since the show ends with a dethroned Chuck and with the union of Jack and Amara as the new “top dog” in town, it seems like it isn’t just a cool assumption but it’s possibly also correct (correct, again, in my fantasy, because we never saw Amara in the finale so this is just my mind grasping for meaning that makes sense to me).

What I didn’t expect to find while I was resurrecting the narrative threads of this dead show is that, ultimately, Mary Winchester is basically a Jimmy Novak minus Castiel. I’ll explain what I mean by this in a minute but I first want to say that I didn’t expect such a triangulation was going to come up. I already was aware of the connection between the theme of birth/motherhood/death and Castiel but I was surprised to find Jimmy Novak there, too.

Before going on I have to declare a little bit of defeat (for now). I believe that my mind can do any kind of cerebral somersaults but I’m a bit at loss (for now) about the reason why Jimmy Novak was resurrected after Raphael killed Castiel. Jimmy-as-soul doesn’t come back when Lucifer kills Castiel and I can’t come up with, let’s say, “diegetic” reasons to explain it. Is it because Raphael was less powerful than Lucifer? Mmmh. Is it just God’s will? Double mmmh. These reasons don’t satisfy me and I can’t help but see the cogs of the wheel turning behind the scenes, aka the same thing that happened to Final Ruby:

RUBY: Proof. This body is one-hundred percent socially conscious. I recycle. Al Gore would be proud. […] You didn’t want me to take a body with someone in it, and I made sure that the spirit was gone. Apartment was empty. You happy?

Just like Ruby, who allegedly seems on Sam’s side in S4 and therefore “good”, couldn’t be a demon possessing an innocent (since they wanted Sam and Ruby to make out hard… the implications would've been… unpleasant), Castiel, too, couldn't keep sharing his vessel with his rightful owner (Off-topic: further proof that Ruby and Castiel are two different sides of the same character). This is all to say that the show was very aware of the implications of their favourite metaphors and had to come up with creative ways to get around the “law” that they themselves had created.

In other words, Jimmy Novak’s “empty apartment” was a necessary sacrifice to keep Castiel-as-character around (well, apparently, much like Chuck, some showrunners didn’t exactly want Castiel-as-character around but let’s stash this as further proof for the “Chuck is the writers” theory).

Jimmy’s body goes Through.A.Lot. from S4 to S13 where it ends up on a pyre with Kelly Kline’s corpse (!!! The things I have to say about this!!!). From S5 onwards, however, Jimmy’s not “in there” anymore so we can all breathe out because at least this poor man/character wasn’t actually “in there” to suffer and be testimony to all the sufferings. But his body and his new tenant did.

As I’ve said before, after Cas’ resurrection in S13 I don’t know how but I do know that Cas gets back complete with Jimmy’s body and I personally like to think that Cas’ physical appearance from S13 is his own. It’s his “body”. He stole Jimmy’s looks but it’s not Jimmy’s body anymore. Cas’ body is… a replica (of Jimmy’s)… capable of holding… grace. In an unexpected turn of events, then, Jimmy’s body goes from awesome vessel coveted by all angels to a copy of itself. And this process actually frees poor Jimmy’s body from angelic tyranny (as if moving from vessel to copy can even be described as... freedom but anyway). How could this even be possible? Nothing comes from nothing, right?

Well, well, well! How lucky for me that Supernatural had established itself as a universe were “formless matter” was “just there, waiting to be born” and for God to pick and do what he pleases! So I finally come full-circle with my “Jack-as-hidden-threat” thesis: by waking Cas up in the Empty, Jack is creating his father who had gone back to being “formless matter”. In other words, Jack was already God in that he had the capacity to do the same things that God did. This is, by the way, the reason why the angels correctly identified him as the entity who could’ve been able to create more angels. Because, I think, he could have, just not in the same way as the angels imagined (in my fantasy Nick's storyline doesn't happen so please remove all of your memories about Nick waking Lucifer up in the Empty, that never happened on this blog).

In this way Jack, even with all the complex issues he has with power, actually grew up a bit from S13 to S14: in S13 he only started the re-creation of his father by waking him up in the Empty (Cas had to do a lot of work, too) while in S14 he actually managed to bring Mary back. It’s just that what he brought back was “a shell. A body, you know. That it was empty. Just a a replica. "Incapable of holding life."

Jack could have brought Mary back. As a matter of fact, in this fantasy of mine, I think Chuck had to intervene because he realized that Jack’s next step in his progress would’ve been the final one that would’ve allowed him the complete mastery over resurrection (and over souls...). Jack could’ve brought souls back without deals just like Amara could.

Now, I don’t know if Chuck can actually bring back souls or not. He apparently brought Jimmy back once. I thereofre don’t believe the “it’s complicated”  travesty he came up with in “Moriah” because it’s a fact that even basic demons, provided that there was a deal, could bring souls back so why not Chuck? It’s true, however, that, if it was Chuck who brought specifically Cas back before S13, then it would seem like he can manipulate grace rather than souls. It’s also true that when he got angry in “Moriah” he wasn’t able to resurrect the people in the cemetery who all came out zombie- and ghost-like. Following my fantasy I would say that Chuck can’t resurrect souls but I’ll have to think about this, for now I can’t really decide.

What’s important here, to me anyway, is that, at a certain point in the story (according to this fantasy of mine), both Mary and Jimmy are “just” bodies that aren’t even real bodies: they are empty copies, replicas unable to hold life (but able to hold grace). What’s even more “hilarious” is that Mary, who’s THE mother of the story, is first “absolved” of her “sin” of giving birth to Sam and Dean via the construction of a world where she never was a mother and then, the following season, she’s reduced to a copy of a body incapable of holding life (!!!) the creation of which was the reason why her whole family was damned. Jimmy, on the other hand, had to "do penance" because he had abondoned his family first, his angel second and accepted a life of torture to spare his own daughter the same life of pain. And he wasn't even successful! He's eventually reduced to a replica of a body that will never be capable of holding life again, only grace, the acceptance of which was his first "original sin".

What I'm trying to say is that Mary and Jimmy are repeatedly punished because they brought DEATH and destruction upon their respective families IN PERPETUITY. The more they try to protect their children, the more they seem to damn them. The punishment goes to the point where they can only be "free" once their souls are locked in heaven with their fictional spouses, their actual bodies are completely erased from earth and the threat of their reproduction is forever erased. We only get reproductions of them, copies to burn on pyres so that they would never, ever be able to hold and give LIFE again. The body is ABSENT.

Mary and Jimmy are reproductions (as in replicas) so that they could never again reproduce (as in procreate).

Supernatural is THE show about saturnine sterility if I’ve ever seen one. There can’t be life in this show. Everything must stay recycled, characters can resurrect but never give new birth and, if they do (Hello Kelly Kline Forever), they must die.die.die. Love is okay only if it's lived in the after-life in a prison/suburbia-like Heaven with little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky ("And your mom and dad… they got a place over yonder"). Love in the physical realm, on the other hand, well... you can't get that, AND you can't have physical sex. Touch is forbidden.

And this is the reason, I think, why Castiel must also, eventually, die. He’s too closely associated with the desire of creation. He wants to be god, he wants to feel human, he is woman, he is man, he wants to be mother, he wants to be father, he wants to hold grace, he wants to hold life, he wants to give, give, give, he wants to touch too much. Now I’m talking symbolically here (although I believe that, my fantasy or not, this holds true textually too) but there’s too much fertility, too much sex around Cas in a show that’s ultimately about sterility. So he must die.

This is why I’ve chosen the “body without organs” for Mary and Jimmy: it’s both an image of freedom (well, more or less since Heaven is a scam but okay) and an image of pain, of the cost, of the madness behind that freedom. They’re finally “free”, even COMPLETE (!!!) from the narrative once their bodies are utterly destroyed and what lives on is copy of what they used to be and never will be again.

The phrase “Body without organs” comes from “To Have Done With the Judgement of God” by Antonin Artaud:

[…]

They have found a new way to bring out god and to capture him in his microbic noxiousness. This is to nail him though the heart, in the place where men love him best, under the guise of unhealthy sexuality, in that sinister appearance of morbid cruelty that he adopts whenever he is pleased to tetanize and madden humanity as he is doing now. He utilizes the spirit of purity and of a consciousness that has remained candid like mine to asphyxiate it with all the false appearances that he spreads universally through space and this is why Artaud le Mômo can be taken for a person suffering from hallucinations. - What do you mean, Mr. Artaud? - I mean that I have found the way to put an end to this ape once and for all and that although nobody believes in god any more everybody believes more and more in man. So it is man whom we must now make up our minds to emasculate. - How's that? How's that? No matter how one takes you you are mad, ready for the straitjacket. - By placing him again, for the last time, on the autopsy table to remake his anatomy. I say, to remake his anatomy. Man is sick because he is badly constructed. We must make up our minds to strip him bare in order to scrape off that animalcule that itches him mortally, god, and with god his organs.   For you can tie me up if you wish, but there is nothing more useless than an organ. When you will have made him a body without organs, then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions and restored him to his true freedom. They you will teach him again to dance wrong side out as in the frenzy of dance halls and this wrong side out will be his real place.

[msnihilist]

I think trans!Timmy fans should have some fun with the fact that Wanda and Cosmo can canonically perform instant, perfect surgery.

[greeenchrysanthemums]

Hey! I love the gg rivals au, it has been rolling around in my brain for a while (<-that’s positive). I was wondering what the relationship other characters have with the ranchers / the role they have.

Thank you and have a nice rest of your day/night! :D

Hello!

Jimmy is friends with Scott and knew him when they were both children, as mentioned in this post. Despite his relationship with Scott, he doesn't really have much of a relationship with either Impulse or Gem. He's met both of them maybe once or twice in his whole life.

He had actually never met Grian until the year that he and Tango joined the resistance. He and Grian don't get along very well, mostly because Grian finds it funny to mess with him and Jimmy finds it frustrating/annoying. However, Jimmy also finds the teasing endearing in a way, and he would most likely miss it if it ever stopped. Not that he would ever admit this, though.

He and Tango supply Bigb with flour and other products for his bakery, so they are pretty good friends with him; which was actually how Grian got into contact with Bigb as well.

Tango used to be friends with Skizz and Impulse. He grew up in the capital with them and trained alongside Skizz to be a medic, but they have grown apart over the years; mostly as a result of Tango disagreeing with their choice to work in the royal army and a lack of any time to hang out with each other. He hasn't spoken to them in years, despite the opportunity to do so due to Scott's connection with them.

Tango has sensed that there was something rotten within Wintertide since he was young. A dark aura that surrounded the kingdom and the castle which only brought suffering. He fully disagreed with the war and the constant fighting and was never silent about his distaste for either. In fact, he was quite vocal about it to the point that he almost got himself in trouble several times. That was how Grian found him. He was causing a ruckus in the town square, having a very loud argument with a Wintertide solider.

Grian pulled him away from the fight and told him all about the resistance and about how well he would fit in. It was only natural that he jumped at the opportunity to help when Grian offered him a place in the resistance.

I have said in the past that the ranchers mostly only help out with supplying food and the occasional intel, but that's only really true for Jimmy, to be entirely honest. Jimmy is a bit clumsy and easily injured, so he voluntarily chooses to stay away from active fighting and missions as much as possible. For Tango it is a bit different.

He's hot headed and quick to get himself in trouble, so Grian doesn't really let him participate in most things, despite heavy protest from Tango (this will cause problems). However, if they need another person for whatever reason, or need intel from somewhere they wouldn't be able to get it otherwise without being suspicious (say, from a shopkeeper who would know and talk to Tango but not them) then Tango is their go to.

Jimmy is happy with this arrangement. Tango is not.

Scott and Tango have a bit of an odd relationship. Tango doesn't like him very much by virtue of him being a Wintertide knight, but he knows that Scott is an important person to Jimmy so he keeps his mouth shut whenever Scott comes around for Jim's sake. Scott knows Tango dislikes him, but he also tries his best to keep the peace. They mostly sit in an awkward, slightly hostile, silence around each other.

Tango used to not like Etho and was very suspicious of his intentions, but they very slowly grew close over the years and bonded over a hate for the Wintertide army and its corruption, as well as a love for creation. Tango invents as a hobby and occasionally helps Etho and Mumbo out in their workshop.

You have a wonderful day/night as well!!💚💚

[dykedvonte]

One of my mutuals opinions is the "bro code" thing, that Curly is one of those guys who wouldn't care about the victim because the perpetrator is his friend and I'm really banging my head on the wall like that other anon. I've only played through the game once but Curly's behaviour/reactions etc read completely different from the "bro code" thing and I have to wonder if my mutual and I even played the same game.. like the constant digs at him from Jimmy, his body language in his face reveal and so on like you mentioned in your post. While this game is a little different obviously, it kind of reminded of a point in Alice Madness Returns that makes it very clear that Alice's pain blinded her to the abuse of the other children and her failure to act earlier because of it. Curly is guilty of a similar inaction but it doesn't change the fact he was a victim of Jimmy too. I don't think I can look at it any other way because both of these games have really stuck with me.

I genuinely think it really is the idea that people want a simple easy to blame problem and the idea that the only relatable victims of abuse are those that "surpass" it or do a lot to help others. When it comes to victims, especially those that don't fit the typical demographics, who either accidently perpetuate it, enable it or aren't ideal in some way shape or form, people jump to ignore what they went through as it's easier than dealing with those conflicting sentiments.

The bro-code conversation in Mouthwashing stems from a concept I generally dislike that there had to be something about Curly that made him meet or keep being friends with someone like Jimmy. I think people genuinely underestimate how many like decent and good people just know an asshole or are friends with someone who is really bad outside of their view/established dynamics. The game makes it clear none of the inaction against Jimmy is because of a lack of care, it is a lack of understanding from the privaleged postions they have as men to not have to worry about what Anya does/went through and the type of extremes men like Jimmy will go through to cover it up. They are all too preoccupied in their own strifes.

Another thing I see being oversaturated the idea that you have to be a freak, misanthrope or have a disorder to do the thing Jimmy does. The game is an escalation, it's a spiral that I don't see people comment on that Jimmy was not likely having the mood swings and episodes of rage/frustration we were seeing in the game. This is after they all start experiencing the worst moments in their lives that he got THAT openly bad. Of course, this is just my interpretation but much like in real life, people that go to extremes like that usually live mundane lives. It's a pressure cooker affect to where the stress made them pop. It's self inflicted but still the case.

I really think people need to be more willing to acknowledge that not everything needs to be an extreme or in black and white or easy to understand. It doesn't need to be happy or have an answer or solution, especially in the cases where the abused sadly helps perpetuate what they experience. It's not he should've known better from experience or shouldn't he have known what could've happened because victims tend to not like to think in matters of the worst. Not to mention, especially in cases of abuse where it feels so personally directed that you don't expect to happen to someone else.

[dogearedheart]

okay, but writing this stanford fic is actually so much fun!

[windrunner]

i wish people weren't so... annoying about fiction. like i'm never calling myself any of those "baby's first media literacy discourse" terms from twitter but i do need people to know that i loveeeee fucked up horror. my middle name is literally from a horrific tragedy/thriller play

[euclydya]

i think curly has the right idea actually. i need to just start biting people.

[thekimspoblog]

You know, Kim lied to her own clients to manipulate them into taking plea deals.

That's a genuinely evil thing she did, and yet nobody talks about it.

God the neoliberalism of this fandom is cringe.