#not as much as he blames himself

[phoenixkaptain]

“Obi-Wan woke up and he was neither A.) on fire or B.) overcome with back pain, and he knew something was up.”

Or: Obi-Wan gets plopped back down in the past and everybody notices except for Anakin.

Ft sadness, crying, and Anakin being a bit on the slower side. So, like, it’s pretty close to canon-

[eve-was-framed]

a very important lesson I was taught by my parents is that if I’m around an angry man and he’s threatening to kill himself then that is between him and the lord and my only response to that situation should be to get the fuck out of there and call 911. do not ever take the murder-suicide statistics lightly

[akkivee]

they've been potentially changing a lot with the shadow manga, but since maria's final words to shadow were how she loves him and amy's conversation with shadow in the joypolis collab was about how he is loved, i like to think sonic team is still hinting at amy's ability to touch his heart lol

[grandwretch]

i so badly want one of those fic examinations of steve's relationship with joyce and hopper but solely through eddie's pov like hear me out

steve and eddie chat a lot in the upside down (and later in the hospital, when they learn hop is alive). steve has taken charge of filling eddie in on the rest of their of-age crew without the kids butting in. he never mentions his own parents, but he talks about the rest of the party's a lot, especially joyce and hopper. eddie knows what it's like to desperately want someone to be your parent and trying to hide it from his own childhood, when he would try to be cool about wayne dropping him off at his dad's house. steve obviously adores joyce and hopper, thinks the world of them and legitimately looks up to them.

eddie isn't sure what he expects from a cop who came back to life and the world's most determined housewife, but he's excited to meet them as someone steve loves.

cue eddie's horror when he realizes that neither of them really feel much for steve rather than annoyance and vague distrust. that joyce trusts will with eddie, an accused murderer, in a heartbeat and still hesitates to leave him with steve. that hopper brushes off every ounce of steve's hero worship and joy.

he tries to broach the topic with steve, gently, and is heartbroken when steve genuinely has no idea what he's talking about. and not because he's oblivious, but because steve thinks that's what he deserves. he thinks that's the parental love that someone who was an asshole in high school needs, because that's what would make him a good person. he needs people to call him out constantly, obviously, because why else would they keep doing it? why would nancy? at least they're here. at least they're not ignoring him. at least they're not forcing him into a box. they just want him to be better.

like, this is the man who thanked a girl for calling him bullshit and telling him she never loved him. he doesn't Know that's not how you're supposed to handle things. no one ever taught him that.

and now eddie's gotta figure out how he can teach steve how to be loved the right way without outing himself and his huge crush on his love-starved dork of a friend.

[abyssal-ilk]

since i'm talking about bull today, i think its a bit of a mistep to say bull turning against the inquisitor in trespasser is an act of revenge for the death of the chargers. this isn't a result of the inquisitor betraying bull or hurting him. it is a result of the inquisitor reaffirming iron bull's place within the qun. it isn't something that the inquisitor "deserves" for killing a group of beloved soldiers. it is simply the consequence of choosing a political allegiance- the qun- and enforcing the idea that a small part can and should be sacraficed for the greater whole. the chargers can be sacrificed for the inquisiton, the inquisitor (and dorian, and vivienne, and sera, and anyone else bull befriended) can be sacrificed for the qun.

[meagancandraw]

You ever think about how neither of them got to say goodbye?

[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.

[crystallizsch]

the besties are judging you for your taste in men

[carouselunique]

They had a bit of a chance encounter on a day where Blueblood was dealing with something that was very difficult and was so caught up in his emotions he didn’t even care that he was in the garden getting grass stans on his coat and Ditzy, with her natural impulse to cheer ponies up, didn’t even notice or care that she was flying into the palace gardens when she saw someone sat in the rain.

At first he was definitely going to call the castle guards to come apprehend this strange filly with the odd eyes who was intruding when this was the last moment he’d want to entertain any desperate debutantes, however she surprised him by not fawning or anything, not even caring about his status, just putting one of her fluffy wings up and asking if he needed somepony to lend an ear.

“Don’t let my eyes fool you, my ears work just fine!”

She was incredibly disarming and while he didn’t reveal everything about why he was upset, he found himself talking about his feelings to her. And she made such cheerful remarks, and was very comforting. In the end, he felt better and she came to check on him the next day, even sharing a blueberry muffin with him. He remarked that he’d never seen her around before, and that he wouldn’t mind terribly seeing her more often.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[guardian-angle22]

911: Lone Star | TK & Jonah

[opheliasam]

god he (dean) used to be so different my chest hurts

[arthur-lesters-right-arm]

sorry

[wilsonsmcgillsweatshirt]

I will never recover from the knowledge that thymoma generally has a very high survival rate, and in most cases that it becomes fatal, the patient has unknowingly lived with the cancer for years. There's a chance that Wilson was sick for half the series and didn't even know it.

[jemmo]

seriously I don’t think any show has captured the pain of being a bystander more than miseinen. like i just can’t stop thinking about everything he’s told in this episode and everything he sees and how powerless he is to do anything about it. when you say bystander, you think of people that chose to do nothing, who just stand on the sidelines and watch but don’t get involved. and maybe that’s how minase started out, but this show proves over and over again that it’s not a choice anymore. given the choice and ability, minase would stand up and do something. he’s not the person anymore stood outside hirukawa’s house with the emergency number dialed but ultimately doesn’t do it. bc he cares too much now, and when you care, you want to help. but the world is so rigid in what they expect of him and hirukawa that there is no way to help.

i keep thinking about what the teacher said at the start of the ep. this doesn’t concern you. it’s already settled. don’t make your parents worry. when minase says he’s telling the truth, he’s told to focus on what’s important- and so the truth isn’t important here, neither is what hirukawa thinks or minase thinks. it’s what someone has already decided they are, and they are just too busy or just don’t care enough to go to the effort to see whether that decision is right. it doesn’t affect them whether hirukawa is the awful person they think he is or misunderstood, to them he’s just a part of the job they want to deal with and move on. even though no other adults are as present as hirukawa’s dad or minase’s mom, the show still has these small moments that show us that there is no other option for them to get help bc no one at school cares either. i said before they live in a world of ignorance where they’re unable to ignore, and so they deal with it all instead of being able to find help. and it feels equally horrible when you consider that unlike a parent, who yes should feel some responsibility or obligation but ultimately there’s nothing holding them to that, teachers are employed and paid to care, they should help these kids as much as they teach them, so to see them chose ignorance too is just as hurtful.

and back to minase, this episode showed us perfectly how much it can hurt when you know you can’t do anything. he can’t comfort hirukawa no matter how much he wants to if hirukawa won’t let him, he can’t change his mind and how he thinks of himself bc hirukawa’s trauma traps him in that mindset. he can’t stay by hirukawa’s side and support him if hirukawa sends him anyway, he can’t fight against what someone who’s hurting wants, all he can do is listen, bc no one ever listens to what hirukawa wants, so he will, even if it hurts him, even if he knows that it’ll hurt hirukawa too. minase is done with being a bystander but even here he is forced to be one, bc the truth doesn’t get through to hirukawa just like it didn’t get through to that teacher. what’s right, which would be to stay with hirukawa and help him, doesn’t matter just like it didn’t matter to that teacher, all he can do is listen and do as they say when people tell him to walk away, that he can’t do anything. and that’s why this show is excellent, bc it makes me feel the pain of knowing but being powerless just as much as I do the pain of actually experiencing these things.

[megamindsupremacy]

Drifting Stars headcanon where Mabel and Ford use the "we're father/daughter" story so often to avoid suspicion that Mabel calls him "Dad" instead of "Grunkle Ford" now.

Ford has a reasonable amount of emotions about this and does not nearly cry the first time Mabel calls him "Dad" outside of lying to people.

[wynandcore]

Okay lemme go crazy for a sec

Season 2, episode 9: Guilt

When Tron’s simulation machine malfunctions while he’s attached to it, Beck has no choice but to manually figure out what’s wrong, getting transported into Tron’s system. Time for a trip down memory lane.

As Beck travels through Tron’s system, things start to freak out, as it slowly starts trying to fit Beck into these simulations so as not to disrupt or alter them. This leads to him being put in some weird positions.

When Beck finally gets to the dream simulation that led the machine to malfunction, he finds a horrifying sight.

If Tron doesn’t stop, he’ll end up not just hurting his subconscious.