#I dont feel abused

[bruciemilf]

"Oh har har Gotham is terrible to Joker and that's why he acts the way he does," Gotham worships a hot topic furry with the mental stability of a soggy cracker and thinks a 10 year old vigilante is perfectly normal

[zannolin]

tbt moment....we can post @dsmp-tarot pieces now so here ya go. i ended up designing V of Cups (Eret's Museum) and VI of Cups (c!Crime) for it last year :]

[madame-mongoose]

you aren’t safe btw. you WILL look at these again

its 2am. my back hurts. my leg is alseep. im sweating fucking bullets. and my mind is screaming. this is worse than bees. this is like. fucking rabid dogs ripping and tearing at my brain flesh. im beinf torn apart inside. screaming. inside my head. this is so fucked up. this is so fucked up of you. im going to look at these all night. im going to make these doodles my personality. i loev yourt art so much this is killing me. car accidebt

[mortysmith]

In theory i like the idea that rick is growing and developing as a person. In practice it ends up falling short though, because no one balances him out. rick is getting better while no one else is getting worse, and it causes the whole thing to end up feeling a bit stale. The biggest draw, at least for me, has always been rick and morty's shitty dynamic, but it barely exists anymore because rick has been so watered down.

The ideal solution is literally just to make morty into a bigger asshole. Essentially flipping the main characters' personalities would offer a wide variety of conflict into the show, and would also help keep it "fresh".

Instead it feels the writers are pretending that they can't possibly do anything with morty's character, that they have to keep him the same anxious idiot he was in season one. I've said this before, but it's incredibly frustrating to watch the show have no problem with expanding rick's character while struggling with keeping morty's heavily stagnated characterization consistent. Where rick has space to develop between multiple seasons, morty is constantly forced into one of two boxes (smart/stupid) depending on the episode.

[kairospy]

Every time I go into a fic and they have Ronan as this domineering cool & collected guy, I burst out laughing I’m sorry

[tequiilasunriise]

I love when the toxic yuri is absolutely DOOMED by the narrative and they’re so in love they’re going through a divorce they are seeing each other in full for the first time they’re each other’s first (and last) love they’re gay and kissing and gay they’re still signing those divorce papers and yeah these is all happening at the same time

[salemontrial]

Why the FUCK didn't Sasha apologize to Quinni.

[variksel]

taking a DEEP BREATH yeah but have you considered that taylor broke the cycle in the exact way than his friends did, through love, and his character development might have been more subtle yeah but it was still extremely there and taylors ending was SUCH a good addition to the message at the core of season 2 because it says "hey your parents fucked up and YOU DONT HAVE TO FORGIVE THEM"

taylors character development was realizing that his dad FUCKED UP massively. and maybe he had justified reasons for it, even. just like the other dads, he had reasons for why he did what he did. but that doesnt erase the fact that it was fucked up, and that nicky hurt taylor, and that the damage is irreversible. and taylor doesnt have to forgive that, he doesnt have to put up with it.

i think its so good and important that linc and norm for example forgave their dads and love them at the end of all of s2. they chose their fucked up dads and they broke the cycle of fucking up, but its equally as important that taylor did that too by choosing to NOT forgive his dad. and at the end of the day he broke it by choosing love, by seeing who his dad really is and choosing to love his mom who was always there for him instead of the deadbeat with good intentions

"this is as good as it gets." and for taylor, that wasnt good enough

[transbeeduo]

learning some like. Horrifying c!tommy takes by scrolling through a friendsm blog i think people need to be more normal about abuse to be honest!!! what the fuck!!!

[nonranghaes]

heads up! mentions of a past abusive relationship (for reader). this should really go on wooahaes but i'm too lazy to format it rn and i need sleep so take this ig??? i might repost over there some other time....

there's things that are unfair about having a boyfriend like vernon. you think one of them is how pretty he can look when he's sleeping.

of course, he's still human. he ends up with messy hair, and sometimes he drools, and there's about a thousand other things you can list off about him when he sleeps... but he's still your boyfriend. and thus, every little 'flaw' he has is something you consider pretty on him. he would (and will, when he's in a sappy enough mood) say the exact same about you, to be fair. he shifts a little in his sleep, stretching and reaching for you.

you still remember overhearing him talk to his mom the morning after you slept in the same bed as him for the first time. it'd literally only been sleeping, but you heard him quietly say 'they trust me a lot,' to her while on the phone. he'd been unpacking breakfast. when she asked about it, he merely said "they fell asleep next to me. they've never done that before. i think... i think they trust me," in that pensive way, like he's thinking more than he's actually saying.

(i do, you told him later. trust you. i think i love you, too. and it'd been what made him say that he loves you for the first time--something he didn't expect to hear back without that 'i think' to protect yourself. you said it to him a few weeks later, and he teared up--although he'll always deny it when you bring it up now.)

"you're staring again." he pulls you out of your thoughts with ease, and his eyes meet yours in the low light. "what's wrong?"

you saw today's date. some birthdays never leave you, and that's true of the person who hurt you. the person you only told vernon about a few months ago in full, although he knew of the person's existence before then. you remember what that person said to you, too. that you didn't need anyone else aside from them...

"nothing," you say, and it's a half-lie. it'll bother you a little more, but you don't want to have this talk now. not when you're already starting to drift off, safe in his presence. vernon's good at protecting you from ugly feelings that settle into your bones like an unwanted guest. "we'll talk later, honey."

he gives you a uncertain look. "you only call me honey when you're upset."

(it's a mutual thing: he calls you either by your name or a casual dude any other time, and baby and babe and love of my life whenever he's trying to avoid a topic temporarily. the two of you communicate: vernon's good at making you feel safe in that, too.)

"right," you say. "we'll talk in the morning... homie."

it earns a crackling snort from him, and he smiles that cute gummy smile as he hides his face for a moment. "ah, really... god, you're such a dork sometimes, i swear."

"a dork who landed you," you always remind him. yet when his eyes meet yours a moment later, you feel something warm in your chest that washes away that ugly feeling all too easily. you reach out, holding his face. "i think... i won."

"you won?"

"you love me," you say. "my friends love me... i'm loved," you say quietly, and the feeling still feels a little foreign. you are loved, you repeat mentally for a moment: because they see you as you, not the broken mess you feel you are. "so i won."

vernon gets it soon enough, and he nods. "you won," he says quietly. "i'm glad you're here... homie."

you crack up, too, and he quietly laughs at his own little moment with you. his laugh and his smile always make you giggle, too, and he pulls you in to kiss you happily.

"i love you," he mumbles against your lips, "i love you, i love you, i love you--" and he keeps planting kisses against against and around your lips to punctuate every repeat of the phrase, before he draws back, satisfied after being struck with the need to be overly sappy. "alright?"

gone is that bitter feeling that once flashed through your veins and settled into your bones. all you feel now is love, soft and sweet, as you're so openly reminded that you're not alone. that the two of you shoulder these problems together. you won, you think, because you are alive and being loved and learning to love wholeheartedly again.

"yeah," you settle in to sleep, planning to keep to your promise of talking come morning. "i love you, too, you big sap."

[keepingmyoptionsfluid]

The idea that Tommy, a closeted gay man who was desperately trying to fit in in a hyper macho and discriminatory environment, isn't allowed to have any growth from when he was over compensating and was a dick to Chim really pisses me off. He literally had canonical growth to the point he was going for drinks with Chim and Hen in Bobby Begins Again and they got him a fancy leaving cake.

Why isn't he allowed to grow and be better? Because he's white? Because he "gets in the way of buddie"? Because no one is allowed to say and change at all over a decade?

Like this is a queer fandom and I'd bet a lot of money that a ton of people in this fandom said and did things they weren't proud of when they were younger, especially before they came out so they could try and hide it.

I know this is quite a young fandom too but like, it was literally only a decade ago when "gay" was an insult at school and doing anything that could be get you accused of being gay was fucking social suicide. You guys have no idea how lucky you are that people at least get called out for that shit now cause they didn't when I was a kid. I would have done almost anything to just be ignored, let alone accepted, rather than being openly bisexual.

So yeah, I think Tommy is allowed to fucking change as a person because Bobby, Chim and Hen came into his life and allowed him to stop repressing. Stop being such fucking assholes. You aren't any better than him, and frankly the way some of you behave makes the way Tommy acted when he was first in the show look like a fucking saint. Touch some grass.

[daffythefox]

i feel like people say "abuse is always intentional and a choice" because it helps them believe that they haven't and will never abuse someone so long as they believe abuse is wrong.

Do you think every abuser woke up and thought "today I will abuse someone on purpose"? Probably some of them, but not all. Some abusers genuinely think that abuse is just how relationships work. Sometimes kids abuse other kids before they grow up and realize what they did was fucked.

If you decide that abuse means "person intentionally abusing another", what about people who were abused by people who weren't intentionally abusing them? Is that not real abuse?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be angry at your abuser. I think you should be angry at whoever you want to be angry at. But I think looking back at your actions and checking "was what I did okay? how did my actions impact the people I love?" is very important, especially for people with NPD, where having issues understanding how your actions impact others is a symptom.

Having NPD makes forming and maintaining healthy relationships way harder. I would know. It's also way harder to control emotional outbursts while you're having one (and emotional permanence issues mean once you stop having one, it's hard to imagine what it felt like).

Introspection about why you did the things you did, if/how you hurt someone you care about, trying to make it up to them, and minimizing the chances that it will happen again, are very important. In "npd abuse" spaces, this introspection is usually shut down by "well, if you think you might be a narcissist, you're not one". But I think this introspection can be very helpful, so long as the introspection doesn't begin and end with guilt/shame.

[99999dmg]

smoking is bad for you guys

[ofthehands]

Reading Chain Saw Confidential RN and there's a line about the swing in the family's yard being made with railroad ties because "He [Bubba] was a big kid, so he needed a big swing" and for some reason that got to me. Like the Sawyers are obviously fucked up and cruel even to each other, and maybe I'm reading too much into it, or whatever, but like. ... Bubba was loved. At some point, at some time, someone in that house loved him. He was a big kid, and he needed a big swing, and someone made one for him. Simple as.

[shattered-pieces]

Anyone who has seen how russia treats its prisoners isn't shocked at the treatment of the terror attack suspects. It's is a common pattern: torture someone then film their "confession". Similar things are done to Russian political prisoners, foreign nationals, Ukrainian prisoners of war, Ukrainian civilians..... with other variations, sometimes not filmed, sometimes even worse torture, sometimes sexual violence...

[kaladinkholins]

BRB thinking thoughts about Taigen's character, the TaiMizu ship, and a big chunk of fandom's perceptions regarding both those things.

(Inspired by @farintonorth's post related to this topic that just got my brain going brrrrr)

OK so let me just... start off by saying that I think that reducing stories to their tropes is seriously detrimental to the way some people are interacting with fiction, and while that honestly warrants its own post about the subject, I wanna talk specifically about how this affects the way some people in the fandom talk about Taigen and TaiMizu.

Because yeah, tropes are useful shorthand to refer to certain dynamics or archetypes etc, and they are indeed the building blocks to any story. But in a well-written story, characters and their relationships, actions, and motivations, are much more complex than just tropes. Because in a story that has characters who are more than just cardboard cutouts, their behaviours, backgrounds, motivations and all of that, are inseparable from the context of the overall story they exist in.

So like, sure, you can say Mizu and Taigen have an enemies-to-lovers or rivals-to-lovers dynamic. I also use those terms because it's easier. But I also think this is where things start to get a bit twisted, especially from an intertextual sense. Because "enemies-to-lovers" is also commonly used to refer to other ships in other media, whereby it tends to be rooted in an imbalanced power dynamic, such as oppressor-oppressed and bully-victim.

And while that's a whole can of worms that I won't be getting into because it can quickly derail into a whole separate sort of fandom discourse, I'd just like to make it clear that Mizu and Taigen, in particular, do not have an imbalanced power dynamic. They are not bully-victim or oppressor-oppressed. The only understandable reason why someone might actually think their relationship is imbalanced is if

A) they only watched the first episode, or

B) they cannot grasp the slightest bit of nuance in a character, or

C) they're being obtuse on purpose simply because the Mizu/Taigen relationship, or Taigen's character in general, just doesn't suit their tastes.

While yes, Taigen, along with his whole gang, had bullied Mizu when they were children, that dynamic does not exist between them whatsoever in adulthood. Whatever imbalanced bully-victim power dynamic that had once existed between them was decisively ripped apart the moment Mizu beat him in that duel in the dojo, and then completely obliterated by the end of the season.

Mizu is not a defenseless victim at Taigen's mercy. Mizu can beat Taigen's ass any time she wants (and she DOES, repeatedly in fact), and could even kill him if she felt like it. She taunts him openly and without fear ("I like your hair"; "I can beat you with any weapon you choose") and all he does is bark back, because that's pretty much all Taigen ever does. Time and time again, he yaps about how much he wants to kill her, but time and time again, his actions prove that all of it is just an empty threat. Because though his words say "I hate you", his actions demonstrate the complete opposite. He's shown how protective he is of Mizu, how unhesitatingly he sacrifices himself up for her, how loyal he is in enduring days-long torture to not give up information about her, how even when near-death and in pain, he's still willing to keep standing back up so he can fight by her side and help her win against her enemies.

And Mizu is not an idiot! She sees that too. She does not see him as a threat, an enemy, or even a bully. Especially not by the end of Episode 3, and definitely not by the end of the season. When she finds him in the dungeon in Episode 6, she smiles from relief, and doesn't think twice to take him with her. Mizu finds him, at best, an annoyance, or at worst, an infuriating hindrance on her quest for vengeance. Which is why, when Taigen is about to say, "It's a shame our duel's set for tomorrow; I have to kill you before you get your revenge," Mizu whacks him on the head without a second thought before he can even finish his sentence, and leaves him lying unconscious, face-down, in the snow.

And this further emphasises how he does not hold any power over her. There is no abusive power dynamic between them. She is more powerful than him, he knows this, and all he's ever done after they've met up again in adulthood is get his ass whooped by her, get mad about it and pester her and follow her around, get his ass whooped by her some more, and put his life on the line to protect her.

"OOoooOOoooH b-but he called her a demon at the end of Episode 7 and threatened to kill her again!!!" Oh my god. He called her that because he's calling her out on her selfishness to stay silent about her knowledge of Fowler's plans to attack Edo. Because to him, loyalty and honour as a samurai is more important than anything. So in his own brash-and-immature Taigen way, he felt betrayed that Mizu did not hold the same principles. That's why he got angry. He wasn't even that mad about letting Akemi get dragged off by the Tokunobu guards. It was about saving the Shogun and the Shogunate as a whole. That's why the first thing he does in Edo is not find Akemi, but try to warn the Shogun about Fowler's attack.

Look, I'm not defending his stupid ass, of course. Because calling her a demon especially after their cute little wrestling time was obviously rude and inappropriate, especially since words like "demon", "monster" and "Onryo" have had such a deep effect on Mizu throughout her life, and continue to contribute to her self-hatred. But like? That's the fun of realistic and flawed characters, and realistic and flawed relationships. They're not perfect, and it's why we as an audience root for them, wanting to see them work through their shit and find a way to prevail despite it all.

Also, him saying that was in the heat of the moment. He was angry, he felt like his initial belief of who Mizu was—a strong and loyal samurai, just like him—was shattered, and so he lashed out. Was it rude? Definitely. Was it immature of him? Yes, incredibly. But it's also very much in line with his character, because even though he's grown a lot over the course of the season, the show isn't over yet, so obviously his character arc is just beginning, as that is also the case for the other three main characters: Mizu is beginning to accept herself, Akemi is beginning to grow into her position of power, Ringo beginning to train under Master Eiji, while Taigen is beginning to simply be a better person.

On that note, when speaking of Taigen's immaturity, I think that's also one of the main things that people tend to gloss over when it comes to his character. Because when you boil everything down to its bare essentials, Taigen is, essentially, a boy. I've talked about this before, but to reiterate, Taigen very much behaves like an unhealed child. Even as an adult, he is insecure, prone to throwing tantrums, and is desperate to latch onto some material goal in hopes that it will make him feel better—initially he was chasing status/glory/greatness, and then when Mizu tells him that "Nothing comes from being a samurai but death," he immediately decides he wants to run away with Akemi in hopes that he will be happy.

And it's a big step, acknowledging that he doesn't truly want greatness, but had always just assumed it was his only path to a good life. But it's clear he still hasn't really figured it out. Because if he did run off with Akemi to get married and live in the countryside, he still wouldn't be happy. Because he still doesn't know who he really is, or what it is he really wants. Marriage at this moment is the last thing he needs, and as he is now, he would be a pretty awful husband. A simple life would be good for him, but would he be good at a simple life, when he still has so much he needs to work through?

So anyway, what I'm getting at here, is that he's trying and he is learning and growing. So yeah, he is flawed, but honestly? So is Mizu. And the funny thing is that they're flawed in very similar ways.

Because Mizu is also an unhealed child. That's why she's so angry all the time. That's why she pushes people away. That's why she, just like Taigen, is so happy when given the chance to playfully wrestle in the forge, laughing and rolling around like children without shame or pretense.

Again, this shows there is no imbalance between them. They had grown up together as peers from the same town. And while Taigen had had the upper hand back then, because he'd had a gang of other kids with him, that is definitely not the case anymore. Today, they are equally flawed, equally strong, equally skilled swordsmen, and equally bull-headed.

However, yes, Mizu is definitely leagues more mature than Taigen. But she still holds a lot of childhood wounds that mirror Taigen's own. And we see this especially in relation to her mother. Similar to Taigen who had an abusive and alcoholic father, Mizu's Mama was an opium addict and had hit her, berated her, had shaved her head without her consent as a child, and as an adult, had constantly emotionally manipulated and guilt-tripped her. Mizu's love for her Mama was what had driven her to a path of vengeance in the very beginning. And when she'd found out Mama was still alive, she had wanted nothing more than her Mama's love, and it was this alone that pushed her to agree to the marriage with Mikio in the first place. And now, knowing from Fowler that her birth mother is someone else entirely, is what makes her agree to keep him alive and haul his ass to London to seek answers.

Thus, integral to Mizu's self-hatred is also Mizu's intense longing for love and family. Just like Taigen, whose pompousness comes from his insecurity about being the son of a poor fisherman, Mizu's goals are also shaped by who her parents are. Remember, her vengeance is not against just anyone who's corrupt or evil, but specifically against the men who she believes had assaulted her mother, the men she believes had made her a monster, the men she believes had abandoned her to die and continue to try to kill her. Her vengeance is against a father, on behalf of a mother. In The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride, Mizu is not merely the Ronin, the Bride, or the Onryo, but also the Child.

This is also why Ringo is so good, not only for Mizu, but for Taigen as well. Ringo is wise and caring and considerate, but above all, he is in tune with his inner child in ways that Mizu and Taigen are not. He is always earnest and positive, he sees the world with childlike wonder, but is not naive or blind to its ugliness. His whole life has been a battle. Ringo brings out the best in Mizu, consistently acting as her moral compass and conscience, and Mizu's choice to save Akemi in the final episode is only because she promised Ringo that she would. Because it's the right thing to do. Ringo inspires her to be a better person, and to think outside of her narrow-minded goal of revenge. At the same time, Ringo also brings out the best in Taigen. While at first Taigen had looked down on both Mizu and Ringo ("Half-limb to a half-wit"), by the end of the season, he's proud to have Ringo as a friend and ally, he listens to Ringo's advice ("What would Master do?"), and asserts to the fucking Shogun that Ringo is a worthy warrior to have by his side.

Okay, I've gone on a bit of a tangent here, but my main point is that Mizu and Taigen are incredibly similar. They are equals. They are both flawed, unhealed children who are chasing some impossible outlandish goal in hopes that it will fill the void in their hearts. They also both have a long way to go in terms of character development if they were to ever build a healthy romantic relationship (either with each other, or even with anyone else). So while I believe things will be rocky (because duh, it's a story, we all live for the drama, etc), I think with Ringo's help, they'll get there eventually.