remember you must die

Anddd art with toxic dudes

snapping and pointing (not utilized enough imo) particularly in the presence of others to humiliate whumpee

“What did I just say?”

“…Are you done?”

whumpers that mock whumpees like school bully kind of whumpers that are clearly just insecure assholes that want to take it out on others but god are they good at making you feel like shit

really any manhandling but recently been loving subtle manhandling like pushing whumpee by the nape of the neck or tightly squeezing a shoulder, wrist, or arm

also such a cliche trope but dragging someone back by the ankle in a brawl or just in general UGH THATS THE GOOD SHIT

slapping. just randomly or after whumpee says something that doesn’t seem to really deserve that kind of punishment and it catches them off guard. also love repeated slapping until whumpee caves that gets me EVERY TIME

a calm smug whumper snapping and just beating the shit out of whumpee the anger that was swirling under the surface finally coming out and it’s fucking terrifying

two whumpees are captive but one of them has been with whumper before and is an entirely different person than the other whumpee has ever seen them. they’re meek and scared rather than strong and confident

bonus points if whumpee 1 is an older sibling/mentor role to whumpee 2

“Listen to me. Look at me.” (Especially if they then force either of these.)

“Watch your language”

“It’s in your best interest to obey”

“Be quiet”

“You will not talk to me that way”

“I can make it worse for you if you resist”

“We can do this all day”

“Screaming won’t change anything”

“Stay still and take it”

“Your compliance will make what happens next much easier”

“Do exactly what I fucking say”

But a lot of people don't realize that exact fact. Although I love them both, Morty shouldn't BE treated as an equal to Rick. Not BECAUSE Morty is some horrible person who's morally worse than Rick (Everyone knows he's a better person than Rick morally) but because he's a CHILD.

An adult treating a child as one of their adult friends is emotional parentification. It refers to when a parent (Rick is his grandfather, but let's be honest, he's probably the closest thing Morty has to a father, he has Jerry but he doesn't do much) treats their child more like an adult friend, enmeshment is another word for it. it's not malicious usually, but it is still inappropriate breach of boundaries, which might be how it go it's name.

And yeah, just LOOKING at how Rick treats Morty, one thing lots of people bring up is that Rick treats Morty like a best friend instead of a grandson. And in some ways, YES that's wholesome and can lead to funny moments. But he also takes Morty on dangerous adventures, makes him do violent things that no 14 year old should do, or overshares with him.

And more importantly, Morty shouldn't BE his best friend because Morty is a CHILD. He should get a CHANCE to live a normal life and be able to deal with and sort out his own trauma. It's MAINLY emotional, with Morty SOMETIMES being the only one Rick is really vulnearable, like the whole thing where Morty was the only one Rick told about pissmaster instead of, y'know, Dr. Wong? That's kinda what she's there for? But there is physical parentification happening sometimes, like when you have to remind or get an adult to do basic self-care, with Morty reminding Rick to take showers or getting food for him.

If this is gonna be a long one with a title, I might as well add a title picture!

This one was dark. It puts the toxic elements of Rick and Morty's relationship on blast without putting a neat bow on it and making everyone happy. I mean, sure, Rick and Morty get that obligatory segment where they switch roles and Morty becomes the one without empathy. It's Freaky Friday. That helped, right?

Well, Rick and Morty know each other so well that one Freaky Friday scenario is more symbolic than anything else. I mean, just look at how the episode ends: Rick calls himself a piece of shit, and tells Morty that he shouldn't even try empathizing with him. Then he portals in some Pokemon cards for Morty. You could view this as heartwarming, but really it's just Rick taking a bunch of shortcuts to avoid connecting with Morty, who clearly wanted the experience of going to the store with his grandfather.

(By the way, this is such a relatable, normal parent-child conflict for the episode. There are probably a LOT of people in the audience who got yelled at for exactly this, or something similar. Maybe wanting a ride to get a video game.)

I made the mistake of initially thinking the Freaky Friday scenario was the lesson of the episode, but thinking about that ending made me realize that the episode was more about Rick's (current) limits as a grandparent, and how they affect Morty. Rick is trying to get better with therapy, but at the end of the day, like in Rick Days, Seven Nights, he just can't seem to escape his own dysfunction. And even worse, neither can Morty, who is a child. Who has taken up too much responsibility, at times to literally take care of Rick. Morty's development as a kid is screwed.

Rick's rant at the beginning of the episode is pretty typical for the earlier half of the show, back when he "scientifically proved" that Morty is useless several times - but it is the first time we see it without the comedic filter, as just verbal abuse. And since Rick needs Morty to do something for him before he can cool off and stop being an asshole, giving him a Sympathid is his BS way of "making it up to" Morty. The Sympathids, to be clear, are gaslighting. It's asking Morty to use his empathy to make up for Rick's negligence.

And in a sequence straight out of the death crystal episode, we can see Morty extend the logic of Rick's bullshit to the rest of his life. It doesn't work. It didn't help the teacher on the stairs, because empathy can't solve money problems. Morty literally tried to empathize with an explosion. And if you wouldn't empathize with an explosion, do you really want to empathize with Rick?

This is a variation of something the writers have been trying to tell the fandom since the beginning of the show, spelled out explicitly: "Rick is a piece of shit, you might not want to empathize with him." I mean, I think you can empathize with any human to some extent, but it makes sense that there's a hard limit with Rick.

And the interesting thing is, this may just be the complement to the problem the show had at the beginning of the series. People were idolizing Rick for being this badass supergenius without realizing how broken the man is. This episode looks at it the other way to remind us: "Also, no matter how much you empathize with his pain, you can't fix him."

(The best of this post and its reblogs, but with links that work)

Here is a website where you can scroll down to all the different levels of the ocean 

Here is a website where you can see the future of the universe

Here is a website where you can press a ‘make everything okay’ button, over and over, until things really are okay

Here is a website that you can read if you feel like a burden

Here is a website where you can look at strobe illusions (TW strobe/flashing)

Here is a website where you can cut stuff up (TW blood/sh)

Here and here are websites where you can play with sand

Here is a website where you can draw with macaroni and other fun foods

Here is a website where you can paint someone’s nails

Here is a website where you can grow a garden with emojis

Here is a website with hundreds of videos of people hugging you (rightfully dubbed ‘the nicest place on the internet’ because it really is, y’all, it made me cry)

Here is a website that will take you to other useless websites

Here is a website where you can make a tiny cat play bongo drums (and other instruments!)

Here is a website to help give you gentle reminders <3

Here is a website where you can grow a tiny farm

Here is a website where you can take a bunch of scientific personality tests

Here is a website of calm rain noise

(This is especially good when paired with really extreme abuse/whump that's jarring compared to their otherwise 'normal' lifestyle)