#just rubs me the wrong way

[oifaaa]

honestly pit madness is just an insult to jason and his motives at this point. he can be a hurt teen desperately acting out for his father's attention and love and still do awful things. that's part of what makes his complicated relationship with bruce so fun- they still love each other but their philosophies are so irreconcilably different that they should NEVER make up! bruce will never kill the joker because then he'll stop being bruce and jason will never stop needing his dad to kill him because that's the way he needs to be loved

and pit madness...... that takes away all of jason's calculated motivations. in a way it's a form of absolution because it wasn't REALLY jason who beat up robin to get to bruce. it wasn't REALLY jason who dressed up as dick and killed in his suit. it wasn't REALLY jason who spiraled and then killed all those kids and prisoners-

Jason and Bruce really have your basic toxic parent child relationship but turned up to 11 parental and child relationships are already so uniquly weird before you add on all the vigilantee self sacrificing dying nonsense and then some people will turn around and go "Jason's out of his mind there's no way he'd do this without pit madness" which I'm happy for you sounds like you and your parents have a nice relationship me on the other hand I get it Jason I too would do that and I wouldn't even have to die first

[baseballmomlesbiandad]

I do like the friend group in we are I just really hate how they're handling the q and toey set up, this was my worst nightmare growing up when my friends would scheme to get me and a boy alone

[silentfudge]

sorry guys but mahou shoujo site is kinda ass

[musky-marten]

i saw someone on blusky saying it's not breeding if you dont have a pussy. because obviously only people with pussies can get pregnant. as if this isnt Play Pretend where we make things up.

[cheeseandcake-from-ao3]

[flyingfurrets]

not a fan of my health insurance emailing me a monthly digest newsletter

[roughentumble]

DC supervillain of the week who traps the justice league(in their league disguises) in a reality tv show like love island. it airs on tv and everything like they use supervillain powers to forcefully broadcast "love island: justice league edition" while the supers have to try and figure out how to escape. during a personal squabble wondy steps up and says "everyone calm down, we're all a team, we each have our strengths and weaknesses, we need to work together to solve this" and then it cuts to her talking head segment and she says "im not a fan of green lantern."

[spookyboywhump]

The thing that I feel like people need to understand about whump is that it’s inevitable that some people are gonna be into it sexually and it’s inevitable that for some people it’s also a kink and it’s inevitable that some people fantasize about whump scenarios. And that’s fine. There ain’t nothing wrong with that, if that makes you uncomfortable you don’t have to interact with those people, there is a block button for a reason.

But just because it makes you uncomfortable don’t mean it’s wrong or bad. You can’t come to a community for weirdos, that runs on art and writing made by weirdos, and then get all upset when hey! There’s weirdos around here! The person who writes whump because they think it’s hot ain’t more weird than the person who writes whump because it helps them vent, and that person ain’t any weirder than the person who writes whump just because they think it’s neat. By the standards of most people outside the whump community, we’re ALL weird for enjoying it at all, so there’s no sense in getting all high and mighty because you believe you enjoy whump in the most pure and moral way possible, unlike those “degenerates” so to say. And honestly, if you aren’t mature enough to understand the simple fact that just because someone likes something in fiction, or just because someone likes to fantasize about something, that absolutely does not mean they want it in real life, then you probably aren’t mature enough to be having these discussions about whump/kink and whether it’s “okay” or not if someone gets off to it anyway.

[sting-raes]

I wish people didn't list "they still live with their parents" as a reason not to like the younger love interests in stardew valley.

Like. It's a small town, where do you want them to move into? Surely they can't all bunk with the farmer. Rent would be even higher in the city and the only one who seems to express a want to live there is Sebastian. Even then, it's more out of a desire to escape his dismal family life than to actually leave Pelican Town.

Where would they even get the money? Abigail's taking online college classes, Sam's already working part time at Jojamart, Sebastian's the only one out of the ASS trio with a semblance of a conventional "day job" but freelance doesn't pay consistently.

Pierre, Shane and Harvey all talk about barely scraping by, and they all work full time. Shane doesn't even have his own place to live in.

It's also worth mentioning that whether or not you live alone shouldn't be a measure of your maturity. Where I'm from it's the norm for many adults to still live with their families, so I never thought it strange that they'd be living with their parents.

If you don't like any member of the ASS trio because they act immature, that's another thing and at that point it's just down to personal preference. But I really don't like it when people cite their living situation as part of the reason.

[oifaaa]

So I got in the mood to read some merlin fanfic as one does and I choose one that I thought sounded interesting only in the first chapter the author made the... particular choice of implying the servant Arthur bullies in the first episode was being bullied bc he was a shitty servant heavily suggesting that Arthur was in the right for bullying the servant so anyway I don't think I've ever dropped a fic so fast in my life

[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.

[helpimstuckposting]

Broke: it’s desires, not fears

Woke: it’s both, there’s more entities than TMA

Bespoke: there were never multiple entities to begin with and the reason all of the entities needed to come together to start the apocalypse is because there’s only One Entity that the avatars can’t agree on how to worship correctly

[kirkwallguy]

extremely funny coming from writers whose characters return and play major roles in more than one game. yeah sorry guys we couldnt do anything interesting with the game because we had to protect our fans from the conflict we would write if we did <3

[thepriceofsurvival]

I’m sorry but the codependency between Cat, Laila and Jeremy is so odd to me. Like the fact that Jeremy told Cat and Laila about Jean being assaulted at Evermore during his freshman year without his say-so?

And Jeremy was so wrong for getting Kevin to confess something that could cost him his life and then not telling him Cat and Laila was in the room? Like WHY. Why are you incapable of keeping a single secret to the point you betray people’s trust like that. Jeremy I love you but what the fuck.

[uncanny-tranny]

"The only person who can save you is yourself, don't rely on anybody else!"

Actually, what has saved me is books and my favourite video game and my cats and my friends who I've shared late nights and too-early mornings with and the dew-covered grass I walked on on the way to a competition bus in ninth grade band and the sunburn that kept me out of school for days the month prior.

I understand the viewpoint of how you are ultimately the person who can save you, but don't discount that you aren't an island. You aren't meant to be your sole savior. Let others save you, too. You are worth the care and love the universe has for you.

[lipshits-continuous]

Potentially a hot take but the whole point of mathematics, especially pure mathematics is to be pedantic. We want to be sure what we're doing makes logical sense.

Sure you have experiments to back up your flimsy mathematical arguements but we care about details because that's what maths is.