#toxic workplace polycule

[cowpokezuko]

Worst Toxic Workplace Polycule

Been watching a lot of House MD and Torchwood and I would like to pose a question to the good people of tumblr.

Which toxic workplace polycule is worse?

please rb for a larger sample size.

[my-roooom]

Not pictured: Mihawk out of frame like 👁️👁️🍷

[call-me-scott]

My big vision for paperlizardhat (and one of the reasons why I love the ship so much) is everybody is unreasonable fucked up. Specifically demencia and flug.

Because everyone would assume the terrible one in that relationship is black hat, the incarnation of evil. But nope, it’s definitely his sociopath subordinates. Here’s why:

Flug likes to pretends he’s the normal one, but I’ve read the books (aka pages of obsessing over Black Hat like a favorite test subject). He would and had dissect all his coworkers. I don’t doubt for a second that he thinks “exploring each other’s bodies” is when he’s elbows deep in his partner’s rib cage playing with the viscera.

And don’t get me even started with demencia. She canonically backs black hat into corners, and will eat him if given the opportunity. She dreams of nice romantic afternoon in the bathtub death rolling him like the rabid crocodile she is. She has zero chill and wishes to cannibalize Black Hat like a vulture to roadkill.

BlackHat’s affinity to the toxic workplace knows no bounds, but he would legit be fighting for his life in this polycule. And I think that’s very funny.

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

You ever think about the crazy workplace polycule Cauldron has going on?

Harbinger and Jack Slash broke up but it wasn't a messy break up, they are still close they just don't go on dates to do crime anymore. Then Harbinger joined Cauldron and he and Legend have like, a thing going on on the down-low, but they don't wanna define it.

Then he meets Citrine and marries her but she has a thing going on with Contessa, who gets introduced to Number Man and they also start to hit it off. Meanwhile Alexandria and Contessa are long-term wives, and then Contessa is in a very toxic yuri relationship with Doctor Mother.

Then you have William Manton who created the Siberian and asked everyone if his fursona was any good. Everyone collectively goes "this is the absolute worst fursona I've ever seen" and then vote him out of the Cauldroncule, so he goes to Jack Slash and they have projection sex with the Siberian.

Meanwhile, Accord and Eidolon REALLY WANNA GET IN ON THE POLYCULE and they are SO FUCKING MAD that NOBODY LIKES THEM so they just cry in a corner on timeout. They don't even date each other they are just losers malding and seething that everyone else is having a grand old time.

[dw-humps-n-snarkives]

My two cents at the Johnto discourse since "complexity" is at play here:

1. The audio has explicitly called back on the imagery of mirrors representing the fact that the events that took place in this particular audio is an alternate timeline. Everything in this audio did not happen in TV Torchwood's canon.

(Although, I'm one of the people that don't believe in canon when it comes to the Whoniverse, but we're speaking in narratives here. You can argue that TV John is still capable of doing such things considering what transpired in the episodes involving him, but there's still a particular part of his character that we tend to overlook which I will be picking up at #5).

2. You are ALLOWED to be uncomfortable with the contents of this audio as you can with many other forms of media and many types of fandom. This audio was an experimental approach to Torchwood as a whole, John is Jack's narrative foil and his character is supposed to show that "this is what would happen if Captain Jack Harkness never attempted to be the better person in any chance he gets."

Jack is not a good person, but he's not inherently evil either. John is definitely not a good person, you could say he's Jack's evil counterpart, but you can still see a sense of humanity in John's character especially when you see him interact with Jack.

(See: The latter portion of TDOCJ when Jack realized that John went back to him because he wanted to stop the universe from collapsing, the entirety of Peach Blossom Heights in The Sins of Captain John, and smidges of dialogue between the two where John's behavior can be easily labelled as "a crazy and clingy ex.")

3. Ianto wasn't the only one who suffered in John's reign in the audio (I know that sounds horrible since I'm putting him aside but bear with me here, he'll have the whole portion after this).

Gwen was coerced to have sex with John and it immediately moves to the part of the timeline where John deliberately killed Gwen, John killing Rhys when he was (understandably) upset with not being informed that his girlfriend died, Tosh was literally treated as a disposable, and you could barely get anything from Owen since he was only mentioned once.

What Ianto went through is undoubtably SA. The way John toyed with Ianto is completely unacceptable and it should not be glorified, romanticized, or repeated in any way, shape, or form. That being said, as a fellow polycule Ianto, Jack, and John enjoyer, this audio is definitely NOT the sole reason why people ship Johnto, or conjure ship content involving John.

I'd like to refer you to this post involving Ianto's many horrible non-consensual happenings in his relationships throughout every Torchwood timeline out there (with Ianto ALWAYS being the victim). John and Ianto's relationship in this audio is also the potential outcome of "if Jack and Ianto's relationship were to be more toxic and unethical in the workplace" (and their relationship in TV Torchwood was hardly on equal grounding, too).

A VERY IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL NOTE:

I'm not stating that Jack and Ianto's relationship should be seen in a negative light, pointing out the flaws and toxic traits of a relationship doesn't make their love for each other and entire relationship any less valid. Their relationship is complicated and that's normal, I'm only pointing out the power imbalance in Jack and Ianto's relationship when viewing it in a workplace setting (being Torchwood).

Said power imbalance doesn't mean I'm ignoring the choice of both Jack and Ianto to start and keep the relationship going as they are both consenting adults, whatever problems that may cause between and outside them will follow (it's just unfortunate that in Ianto's story, he always gets involved in fucked up arrangements in his relationships because of Torchwood, whether platonic, familial, or romantic).

4. Creating ships and pairs that could potentially be toxic for either or both parties is not a new concept. If done right, liking complicated ships and pairs only means you find the dynamic, the narrative, and/or the reaction between each persons interesting, it could even be used as a study for people who are interested in making a story because stories cannot exist without conflict. This also means you don't actively support the good or bad things about a ship or a narrative, that's the point of having an audience in the first place: members of fandoms are meant to criticize the source, whether it's in a positive or negative way, because people find a way to make something new out of it in the most creative way possible. That's what fandom is.

5. Captain John Hart as a character was never meant to be taken too seriously in the first place. His behavior in The Sins of Captain John proves as such, and using him at TDOCJ was a perfect way of presenting the exaggerated "what-if" situation as he perfectly thrives in parodies and he thrives in the purest form of pettiness and unfiltered, somewhat childishly edgy entertainment. No doubt, he's a murderous, selfish asshole, but liking a villain character doesn't reflect your character as the viewer and consumer of the character's content (See: The Master).

Remember that this is Torchwood, the show where everyone is capable of doing the most unethical and immoral thing to get to their objective, and Captain John Hart and Ianto Jones are not exempted from such influence.

Most importantly, always handle discourse in a civilized manner. Coming after people while making a point will become futile as there will be no discussion made when someone gets hurt.

You're allowed to critcize the content, but don't judge the people who enjoy it. Appreciating a supposedly problematic ship does not reflect on their overall humanity.

[oodlyenough]

with the apollo justice ports around the corner I finally made a concerted effort to finish AAI. there was a period where i thought i'd play both investigations games AND tgaa before now. lol. lmao even

fandom wasn't kidding that last case can long

miscellaneous spoilers and overall thoughts on AAI1. also it's very long

let's get some good stuff up top to start:

it was pretty funny

the pixel sprites were soooo cute, and most of the character art was nice in general

i liked seeing more of edgeworth and franziska together. this was 80% of the reason i played the game to begin with. stupid little details like the fact that she does, actually, still call him "miles" occasionally were nice to have, and i liked a lot of their bratty sibling interactions

callisto yew was the best lmao i loved her

kay's cute. i gotta disagree with the common fanon that she's literally edgeworth's daughter, on account of it's been two days and someone else has raised her to near adulthood, but being a teenager who shows up sometimes to bother him is a very funny thing for her to be, anyway

the yatagarsu actually being a toxic polycule was funny as shit lmao i love it. and kay at the end saying she wants to find 3 fellow teenage beauties to do it with her fhkldhglkhlfg yes girl end up on reddit queer housing discourse i believe in u babe

i didn't like lang all that much to begin with but once we got to the shih-na reveal i was all in, lmfaoooo. i joked "i hope he eats a poison necklace for her" and five minutes later he was taking a bullet. amazing. in all seriousness their relationship felt like much of what i enjoyed about dahlia and phoenix minus the stuff i felt was stupid. let's hear it for toxic workplace romances. edgey comes out of 3-5 like "well that was a lot" and then meets some new spiky weirdo to have homoerotic rivalry with only to discover that guy is also insane about some evil woman

cammy and ms teneiro were also great. lot of funny women in some of these cases. i like that.

this game could have attempted to sell me on some het romance for edgeworth -- it wouldn't have worked, but i wouldn't have exactly been surprised if it had tried, yknow -- but anyway instead it had miscellaneous women flirt with him while he was consistently baffled and/or oblivious and/or revolted. don't worry mr edgeworth i saw your magenta suit

i think broadly that covers the stuff I liked. which leads me to ... stuff I did not:

this game was... rough, imo. after i finished the trilogy this summer i was excited to play this, in particular because one of my few but key complaints with aa3-5 was that franziska and edgeworth just kind of disappeared and i was hoping this would give more exploration and closure to their characters.

that... did not happen. i felt like i was waiting for it to hit a point and get good for pretty much the entire game; it'd be like "well at least franziska is here soon" "well i want to meet kay" "well there's the baby franziska case" "well it's the finale surely it'll be fun!" and mostly none of that really materialized. largely i found it disappointing and anticlimactic.

i don't think i learned anything new about the existing characters -- edgeworth just kind of seemed to be reiterating lessons we already learned in the trilogy, and i felt they negated a lot of franziska's trilogy development and/or flanderized her a lot. the new characters are ok -- i LOVED yew/shih-na lmfao, and I like Kay, and I eventually came to like Lang once I saw him be unhinged about shih-na. but overall i felt the character work was weaker than I was expecting, and without the investment I have from the trilogy I doubt I'd have finished the game. the bratworth + baby franziska case was my fave of the game, because it was fun to see them together in that period of their lives, but even then I don't think how edgeworth was written makes any real sense with aa1 -- i think trilogy bratworth would take the easy conviction against gumshoe and be done with it. that was like. pretty core to the first three games.

I didn't find anything particularly emotional. I WAS interested in Callisto and her dead sister as compared to Kay and her dead father but, never mind, that was a lie. They tried to convince me KG8 was personal to everyone, but it didn't really feel like it for anyone but Kay -- who I like but met two cases ago, and whose connection to even Edgeworth is tenuous. Like they make it pretty clear Franziska is haunted by that case but ... why? Because she regards it as a semi failure I guess...? Like sure, I guess, but ... that's kind of remote. Compare to the trilogy finale stakes of defendant Edgeworth, Maya kidnapped, Phoenix falling off a bridge + Maya missing... the big threat here was that some guy we just recently met might go on to murder other people we've never met in foreign countries. Objectively yes that's bad, but it's not exactly emotionally gripping, imo.

I feel like the nature of the games and its place in the broader AA universe meant the stakes were off. edgeworth and his allies get accused of murder every five minutes in this game, but none of it ever feels real, because by "accused" they mean the police ask a few questions. in AA terms, this is nothing. there's no detention center or arrest or the threat of a 3 day trial and inexplicable death penalty. i've been saying for ages that i would love to see defendant franziska, everyone else got a turn!!, etc -- and technically this last case gave it to me except, well, she was one of about a dozen people accused over the span of the world's longest case, there's no real threat there, and frankly where's the fun in franziska being accused of murder if not for her to grudgingly accept phoenix as her representation. AAI's determination that everything happen pre-trial means that mostly none of it felt very serious; no one even gets arrested. maybe in a vacuum the threat of arrest would feel like enough, but in a series where you have Maya as Murder Charges Georg it just felt like nothing was really on the line -- what's the worst that happens, they get arrested and they hire phoenix? lol. don't threaten me with a good time!

this post is a million words long so I'll stop there. in conclusion, the worst ace attorney game I have played so far. fortunately(?) for AAI and unfortunately for me, i have not yet played dual destinies or spirit of justice, so stay tuned to see if it gets dethroned, lmfao.

i will, probably, eventually give AAI2 a try, if only to better understand everyone's fanfiction, but my hopes are pretty low.

[cizzle-freezy]

rules: tag 9 people (or so) you want to know better and/or catch up with, then answer the questions below! — I was tagged by @whitewyrmings !~

~Song~

The Mind Electric-- Specifically the Chonny Jash version.

Dear goodness has this song given me major earworms lately. Sure, the original is great! Amazing even. But this one tickles my brain in many ways. Not only is it satisfying to listen to, but my mind wanders to the "Bad End AU" plot thread for the Phantom Gang (Seph, Izulda, Angelo, Tempys, and Gelum... and technically Ignis?), and keeps associating the lyrics to different OCs. The feelings that the Phantom Gang has to come to terms with when they meet the worst versions of themselves.

~Ships~

I rarely indulge in fandom ships, because generally I can appreciate the chemistry people write between characters (as long as its not like... toxic or pedophilic or something)

Huntlow (Owl House... despite only watching the first 3 eps and I SHOULDN'T KNOW ABOUT THEM--)

Virgil x Richie (Static Shock)

And whatever the HECK is going on in Maya and the Three (the entire series I kept saying "is this a prophecy or a polycule?")

I do have some OC ships I am especially soft for, but that's so many to list, especially when considering friends and mutuals ;w; (looking at YOU, Greyscale)

~Books~

I haven't picked one up in a long time because I am DETERMINED to read the Amulet series before anything. I read the first book in middle school (so like, as of 2023, 10-12 years ago??), and it's been stuck in my brain since.

~Movies~

I rarely watch movies unless it's a Discord Watch Party Night, which I haven't done in a long time... The last movie that sticks out in my mind is Turning Red, which I found pretty enjoyable and brought me back to my old Flipnote Hatena days. Maybe it was the Sonic movies?? Which were also pretty fun. Just sadly, movies don't stick out like shows do.

~Cravings~

Well... I often crave meat and seafood more than anything these days. I'm diabetic, so ever since I've weaned myself off of excessive sweets, sugary foods like candy and soda haven't tasted the same, but at least chocolate is still pretty good depending on brand. I find that spicy sushi rolls such as crunchy rolls, spicy tuna/salmon/etc are safe bets despite the rice, because by now I've memorized the carb amount. Plus, the sushi guy at my workplace tends to make them special for us!

Outside of food, my brain is always craving drawing, writing lore, and RP. It likes being creatively stimulated, and I'm lucky my workplace is cool with me bringing my art supplies to keep myself entertained when I'm bored.

~Tags~

@jessebizarreart @juan-o-clocks @jorgedrawssomethings @hikaririnku-blog

sorry for the ping yall! but it might get yall more accustomed to tumblr lmaoo

[clints-unwashed-poncho]

Sometimes your workplace is just the most toxic polycule you’ve ever seen in your life

[cowpokezuko]

The thing about the House MD toxic workplace polycule is that it's actually more like two workplace polycules, one is dramatically more toxic than the other, who occasionally team up, then whatever Kutner, Taub, and Thirteen have going on.

[cowpokezuko]

Cooking up a Torchwood au for these toxic lesbians <3

My love for workplace polycules is well documented, so here's the ushiteniwaoi toxic workplace polycule ship chart.

[cowpokezuko]

Thanks for voting everyone!! House MD is officially the most toxic workplace polycule!! Congrats!!

Worst Toxic Workplace Polycule

Been watching a lot of House MD and Torchwood and I would like to pose a question to the good people of tumblr.

Which toxic workplace polycule is worse?

please rb for a larger sample size.

[arogueblogger]

how did torchwood not win they are THE toxic workplace polycule they are making strides every day in new toxic workplace polycule behaviors

Worst Toxic Workplace Polycule

Been watching a lot of House MD and Torchwood and I would like to pose a question to the good people of tumblr.

Which toxic workplace polycule is worse?

please rb for a larger sample size.