#valid statement

[sixohsixoheightfourtwo]

#sorry but if we'd had shows like this in my day we'd have disintegrated instantly (via @justlikeeddie)

I just want to know you. You know me.

MATT BOMER & JONATHAN BAILEY as HAWK & TIM Fellow Travelers S01E01 “You're Wonderful” (all episodes)

[hollowingearth]

not to be the friend who's too woke but I genuinely feel that the only reason the fandom has such a visceral reaction to people calling Vi and Cait's situation domestic violence is because Vi is butch. yes, DV is more than just physical harm, it involves repeating patterns of abuse, all of which can be found in their relationship. Cait is Vi's only access to safety and food, she's isolated, she has to constantly prove her loyalty to Cait and renounce any ounce of lingering feelings she has towards the only family she has left, she's left in constant state of anxiety because of it.

[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.

[aq2003]

i think it is very silly to react to dropout's response like "why were people mad, you know the cast and crew are pro palestine" yeah exactly and if they weren't i don't think attempting to push a petition/boycott to them about this would do anything. the result of them acknowledging this was a net good. twenty thousand dollars

[cloud-hymn]

I truly do not care if people hate a character I love so long as they hate them for the right reasons

[ryllen]

[lesbianstanleypines]

As one of the biggest Stan fans, I think a lot of Anti-Ford people don't realize that Ford was also homeless for 30 years of his life. 30 years hoping from dimension to dimension, he'd given up on being able to go home very quickly. Ford was ready to die without ever seeing his home ever again just to fix his mistake.

So yeah, it's understandable he tells Stan to leave. We have to remember he didn't know the full extent of Stans drifter days and the hardships Stan faced while homeless as well. All Ford knew was the house he'd given up on ever returning to was made into a fake tourist trap, making a mockery of his research

He spent so long without a home, he has every right to want his home back.

[shadelorde]

Ace community can we please for the love of god stop calling sex-favorable or sex-neutral aces “exceptions.”

I’ve seen one too many angry shipping discourse posts where yall are complaining about your ace blorbo being headcanoned to have sex by some people because of “exceptions.”

We are not exceptions. We are just as much a part of the ace community as you are. We are allowed to talk about our experiences and we are allowed to also project our experiences onto fictional characters as much as you are, and the fact you assume it’s just allo people talking about these “exceptions” is a part of the problem.

[torchickentacos]

i will always shout praises of bi4bi but given recent discourse I feel the need to say that I love bi4het too! I just love bisexuality in general in its many forms, and anyone who only likes it when it's 'queer enough' for them is biphobic. Bisexuals should be able to bring their LaMe CiShEt BoYfRiEnD to pride without being made to feel like spectators and outsiders to their own event.

[realbeefman]

dr daddy issues famously wanting to fuck his dadboss house. and of course everybody is familiar with allison "i can fix him" cameron. but can we please please talk about little ms "took over my old boss's boss's job (being the one he'll lust and pant after like a slobbering dog)" mr king of repressed homoerotic tension eric foreman's Deal. what was going through that man's mind when he tried to fulfill the same role his former boss's girlfriend played. NONE of the og fellows are beating the "in love with house" allegations unfortunately

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

everyone STOP going insane. you should be going to BED

[scootkiddo]

I absolutely love pedro’s line delivery of “you have no idea what loss is.”

it’s a line that’s always stuck with me just because of how joel made a blanket attempt to invalidate ellie as that was how he would shield himself from relatability and shedding sympathy. but it’s also the cadence, the tone of his voice that has me bouncing off the walls. I remember when this was the only footage of joel from the show we had and people were quick to say “ugh he doesn’t say it with the same emotion.” but that’s the point! he’s consciously restraining himself from showing obvious emotion. just mere seconds ago he was visibly vulnerable with ellie. and then there was the sarah name drop. and his whole face shifted. the wall was back up. he rebuilt the barriers like The Contractor™️ he is and reacquired this deadpan demeanor because he couldn’t allow his vulnerability to seep through. the topic of his daughter was too sensitive. it adds such a specific weight to the line, by making it almost “robotic.” because in his mind he had to be. regression was a survival instinct. knowing just how delicate joel in the show is reinforces the notion that countering vulnerability through fabricated numbness is his go to. what a brilliant take from pedro

[beelzeebug]

I love it when a creature pretends to be human but gets it very wrong because I too am a creature that's pretending to be human and getting it very wrong

[zvaigzdelasas]

How to tell me you didn't even look at my blog for 3 seconds without saying it

[aq2003]

my personal hot take of the day is that you cannot fully appreciate ten if you don't also appreciate martha and the dynamic they have

[anghraine]

One of the more peculiar things about my current academic existence is that it's like—

me (to my best friend): It feels kind of strange that I've always had so many ties to people who are much more literary than me. There are all these people I know who keep ending up at "I discovered True Art and now I'm too good for Star Wars" and I'm just thinking, "damn, couldn't be me."

best friend: ...you have a PhD in literature.

me: True, but not their kind of literature!

best friend: It's still a PhD in literature. Do these people have that?

me: Well, hmm, maybe not, technically. But I've never been all that interested in major experiments with form and style—doing that stuff myself or reading the kind of literature that focuses on pushing those boundaries. I've always cared more about popular literature that prioritizes immersion and world building and just getting people to care a lot about characters and plot and such, not the really prestigious stuff.

best friend: You literally teach Shakespeare.

me: Well, I decided not to study the things I love most so they didn't get tainted by academia. And anyway, I still focused on popular literature from my eras. The seventeenth-century stuff I was writing about made a lot of the late Victorians very angry because they thought it was crude and cravenly appealing to unrefined common tastes instead of True Art. The novel in Austen's lifetime was even more of a low-prestige popular form at the time, especially the female-dominated genres, which were most of them, and she took care to identify herself as a woman.

best friend: I know you did get into academia through Tolkien and then didn't study anything close to that.

me: I couldn't let them ruin him for me! And besides, I know that Shakespeare and Austen are about as prestigious as it gets now, but for me they've still got that pop culture media energy, you know? Though sometimes when people make sweeping pronouncements about artistry and literature that don't make sense for anything in English published before 1700, I have to fight the temptation to be ... that person.

best friend, laughing: You mean pulling a well akshually? At least you have the credentials. You could even do it like "well actually, *obnoxious cough* as someone with a PhD in this subject..." now. You spent years earning this! Tell a few people Well Actually as a treat and then go watch Star Wars.