#this is how i perceive their dynamic

[drieddpetals]

jesper: *in the bathroom getting ready in front of the mirror*

inej: *walks in and starts flexing in the mirror* "i'm literally so buff—"

jesper: "OH MY GOD WHERE DID YOU COME FROM"

inej: *unaffected, still flexing* "look how jacked i am"

jesper: *still recovering* "...😦"

[thyhauntedmansion]

The Brides immediate objective after everyone got separated: 

[kaiiscottage]

saw that Labru drawing on twitter and immediately thought of them

[dykedvonte]

I just realized some people are confused about events in the alluded to past in Mouthwashing, particularly about how long the crew has been working together.

The only person who is truly new is Daisuke and it’s why his dynamic with the crew and role in the story is very unique and somewhat distant. Curly didn’t just get Jimmy this job on the Tulpar, he got him the job with the Pony Express. He’s been his copilot for probably a couple of years but still not as long as they’ve been friends. None of them are new with the freight industry, Anya and Swansea especially have been doing this for years, together.

Jimmy is the newest on the regular crew, maybe just a few assignments, but it’s not his first time working with them. I think it’s just something important because this isn’t just one bad mistake that snowballed with giving Jimmy the job. None of them thought Jimmy would do anything, no matter how off-put by him they could’ve been, since he hadn’t done a thing since being there. Generally unpleasantness isn’t a crime and he’d be aware of that.

It was a festering thing and a sort of forced trust they had to give him that he knowingly took advantage of. He was the black sheep and still a wolf under the wool. He expected when he lashed out, that he had been there long enough for it to be looked over completely. Got too comfortable in the space he inserted into and did a lot of damage with his claws when he felt he was going to get shaken out.

[lokh]

also i think if roleswap laios and canon laios met theyd immediately start fighting.

[proxythe]

mamas boy? ? ?? aka i dont pay attention to any of the official lore they drop n i make up my own

[meteortrails]

Every Day I think about the tension between okarun and jiji after momo almost gets got by the evil eye. like there are so many scenes immediately following that where nothing is even said or really indicated but the vibe shift between them is PALPABLE. and it’s so interesting to me bc we as the reader know that from okarun’s side this is in large part bc he’s beating himself up about how he needs to be stronger to be a better guard dog, but none of this ever really gets made clear to jiji so he just sees his crush hurt at his hands and one of his best friends gone distant in the aftermath. and the added dimension of the momo of it all really fascinates me bc like, it also ends up kind of being this moment where it becomes sort of obvious that momo will almost always come first for okarun in a lot of ways. like you can just feel how in these moments jiji feels like an outsider looking in at the two of them, and how that hurts him.

[circusbythesea]

shiraishi's nightmare

[sauronism]

armand would rather throw that old man into the trash can, than calling daniel "maitre". he would NEVER fucking do that.

[lale-txt]

˚₊·͟͟͞͞➳❥ older Miya sister who is the calm between two storms. who picks her brothers up from preschool because their mother is working double shifts at the hospital and their father fucked off shortly after the twins were born. who is there when they loose their baby teeth and puts rainbow bandaids on their bruised knees. who wakes up in the morning finding the two of them curled up next to her after another nightmare. who teaches them how to ride a bike and tie their shoes. who gets asked the "who is your favorite brother?" question a dozen times a day and ends every argument by peppering their chubby little cheeks with kisses till they forget what they argued about to begin with. who never has a hand free when they go outside because they insist on holding hers. who can tell from the sound of nee-san alone what kind of mood they're in. who always finds the right words as they grow older and their sorrows grow bigger, too. who is riddled with guilt and anxiety when she moves out to go after her dream, feeling like she's leaving them behind. who knows it was all worth it once she sees them chasing their own dreams, too. who now has to tip her head back when she wants to look them in the eyes and who still gets asked who her favorite brother is; and the answer is always both. i love you both so, so much.

[yourcrumblingsaikiisnotmyproblem]

Kaeya, drunk: You're like the hot girl that everyone wants.

Diluc, also kinda drunk: I'm the hot girl?

Kaeya: You're the hottest girl

Diluc: I'm the hot girl

Venti, always drunk: Yes you are.

[queezleish]

Procrastinated from cleaning to analyze mitski songs and realized how hannigram coded her music is and ended up with this playlist

[pynkhues]

The problem is that Claudia isn't a mirror, she's a child, then a woman, and when she is reflecting them, I do think Louis tends to see Lestat in her and not himself.

(Same Anon you were answering) Yes! Complete agreement on Louis looking for a mirror of himself in Claudia and not seeing many of the ways she takes after him. Personally I think he’s also resisting seeing her more Lestat-ish sides until he’s forced to face them. Part of the problem is that he’s only looking for the more savory parts of himself in her, not the ones he’s less than keen to admitting to and I think that’s tied to…the social and moral acceptability of loving Claudia. It’s not the best way of putting it but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while but I’m still struggling to express: how important I think it is to Louis that Claudia is someone that he can and should love unconditionally and without the shame and baggage of loving Lestat, both as his child and as an innocent -or as much an innocent as a vampire can be.

(x)

Yeah, I totally agree.

To add to your point about Louis and unconditional love, this might sound like a bit of a stretch, but bear with me, haha, but I think it kind of ties into this throughline of Louis placing an enormous amount of responsibility on himself to be the primary resource/provider/carer for those he loves, and as a part of that, being in denial of their needs when they need things he doesn't want to acknowledge, or has no skills or resources to meet?

I've been percolating on this a bit during my very-slow-rewatch of the series, but I really do think we see the foundation of that in the pilot where Louis' not only obviously taken on the entire financial burden of the de Pointe du Lac family, but is simultaneously trying to oversee (with Florence) Grace getting married, and the care of Paul. I talk about it a bit in my Grace post, but I think Louis shutting down Grace when she brings up the prospect of seeking help is a really telling character moment.

Not only is it indicative of his shifting role in her life between brother and father, and his paternalistic tendencies generally, but I think it also reflects his denial of the idea that caring for Paul is something he can't handle himself. It's coming from a genuine place of love, but the reality is also that none of them are equipped to help Paul in the way that he needs it, and Louis will downplay that because he doesn't want it to be true.

What Louis wants is to be everything to everyone all of the time, and I think there is a part of him that resents them for it. I mean, he basically literally says that to Claudia's face - he does see her as a burden, and that frustrates him, but at the same time, he wants that. He wants burdens, he wants people to need him, and when they need something he can't give them, well, he resents them for that too.

I think we see it a lot with Louis when it comes to Claudia, but I think we see it with Lestat and a bit with Armand too. He wants to be the person they need most, and what that looks like changes based on the person and relationship dynamic. Like I'd say it manifests very differently for Loius The Father vs Louis The Husband, but I do also think it's there with all of them, and when it's a need he can't meet whether that be growing up, or romantic love, or mental health, or healing a trauma, he denies it until he's forced to face it, and then he usually resents them for it.

I think his love for Claudia is in a lot of ways a really intense version of that specifically because she is his daughter, and the idea that he can't provide what she needs or be all the love that she needs or truly protect her is elevated by the nature of that specific dynamic. It's all fed by paternal guilt and parental ownership and the idea that by the simple fact of being his daughter, she's both his reflection and his responsibility no matter how old she gets, or how much she wants to change their roles.

[aliusfrater]

theoretically, people experience self-dehumanization not only when they perceive themselves as less human but also when they believe that others attribute less human traits to them. [...] if mechanistic dehumanization represents such a lack of relatedness perception, it would understandably be apparent in self-perception. [...] these effects suggest that powerless individuals are considered to lack maturity, rationality, responsibility, self-control, and trustworthiness, which are generally considered predominant uniquely human traits. [...] in short, the mechanical state affords powerless individuals the psychological benefits of avoiding self-awareness and self-will. [...] this is congruent with the theory that denial of uniquely human traits plays an important role in power... our work supports the notion that the powerless perceive themselves through the eyes’ of the powerful similarly to how observers perceive them.

winqi yang et al

[dykedvonte]

I keep seeing fanarts of ppl's OC's being on the ship, so do you think that if there was 6st crewmember (specifically, another woman) Anya would've been more safe? Like, someone to actually call Jimmy's begaviour out, someone Anya might wanna trust? Is there a possibility something might have changed (even if a little) or it would not have mattered at all?

-💀

I feel like the game would make it part of the commentary on where she would believe and help Anya but still be sort of dismissive? Like the whole “don’t waste time crying and being scared keep going and move on, don’t let him win”. It’s supposed to be positive and reinforcing but sometimes it does more damage in those times of mourning and grief, it feels patronizing, like you don’t understand what you’re going through but they do. Even if they did call out his behavior it’s still on Curly to act and while another voice would help, it’s still 4 against 2 on guys that don’t get it until they have to vs women who always have to.

I don’t mind mouthwashing OCs but I do get a bit bored as they tend to be borderline saviors or like Jimmy aligned. They are either more complicit than Curly or just Jimmy haters for no reason, outside of what the creators know about what he did to Anya. I am never irked by OCs but in a story like mouthwashing you really need to think about what your character adds to the commentary, especially if they are there during the crash. It’s nice to have like characters on Anya’s side more whole heartedly and interesting to see characters who placate Jimmy but sometimes it’s one note.

I can’t and don’t want to police peoples OCs it’s never my intention when I comment on trends I notice, but I do feel like the way people make their OCs interact with these two characters and especially Curly, really show a grave misunderstanding of the narrative and these characters as people vs roles in the story. Still, I know people just make up characters for fun and that’s fine. Great even, but I guys I’m focusing more on OCs that are supposed to have those serious dynamics. My favs tend to be pretty-Tulpar or post-Tulpar au OCs.

The inevitably of the crash is on Jimmy. He did that not because he wasn’t stopped but because all his means to kill Anya were taken. The gun, the axe. Even if Curly did strip him of his co-pilot privileges and try to keep him contained there’s only so many people. An extra body helps but they have jobs they have to do, he’s the only one steering the whole ship and Jimmy would likely have an out: food, bathroom, etc. He’s not new and if he couldn’t crash the ship directly, who’s to say he wouldn’t sabotage something else? A clunker like the Tulpar wouldn’t take much. An extra person helps but it’s just another thing that prolongs what a person like Jimmy is willing to do to shirk responsibility.

It’s more than just needing someone to stand up to him and think that’s what is missing when it comes to inserting a character into the mouthwashing setting.

[pussyhoundspock]

i think my least favorite thing about fanfiction is when people will like write in a way that's like 'actually during this event it was really MY favorite character who was the MOST victim and here's all the secret reasons no one knew and weren't included in the narrative' and it's like well one it's just not really in line with the intended read of the scene like media literacy wise but also it's just the far more boring interpretation of the show and characters. like everything my favorite character has ever done is actually fine because of x y z traumas never shown or known and every other character is worse -- it's both rewriting a show to make what is clearly their fav come off better but no one else/everyone else comes off worse or it's the weird secretly-most-victimized approach and again both are just well morally fine just to me at least the most boring interpretation of the characters. i think with favs you should be able to CLAP AND CHEER when they make bad and toxic choices and no i dont just mean the ones that are 'putting themselves in situations to be even MORE the victim'.