#Gaslighting reference

[dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night]

Eden part nine

TW: Stockholm Syndrome, desire to self harm, misplaced guilt, implied depression, referenced physical abuse, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, referenced Christianity, referenced damnation, pet whumpee, creepy/intimate whumper, referenced sadistic whumper

Ezra woke up cozy in Christopher's arms. He snuggled closer, enjoying the feeling of being gently crushed.

"Good morning sir," Ezra murmured.

"Good morning," Christopher answered. "How did you sleep?"

"Well." Ezra yawned. "But I'm so worried about Jay sir." Ezra realized his mistake far too late. "I'm sorry sir. I mean my friend. I know I'm not allowed to-"

"Ezra," Christopher gently interupted. "You're allowed to call them whatever you want. I'm very glad that you were caring enough to name them. I won't tell Colt."

"Thank you sir."

"I know why you're concerned. But there simply isn't anything to be done."

"Well, why not? I mean, I don't think Jay deserves that. Do you sir?"

"It isn't a matter of what Jay deserves." Christopher nuzzled his face into the back of Ezra's neck. "If it weren't Jay, it would be someone else. And if Colt didn't have captives to take his sadistic streak out on, it would be me, and his lovers I pretend not to know about. Believe me, this is better."

"Doesn't that worry you sir? That you're engaged to someone who might hurt you? That sounds awful."

"He won't, as I told you. He has other ways of dealing with those sorts of feelings."

"Do you actually love him sir?"

Please say no. God, please say no. Ezra wanted it to be just him and Christopher.

It was selfish, sure. But so was everything about their relationship. If Colt was dead and Jay was free, then Ezra and Christopher would have nothing to worry about.

And while Ezra was fully aware that Christopher was twice his age and viewed him as only a pet, he could help but hope for a broken engagement.

Christopher sighed. "Yes, I do. I know he isn't much, but I'm not either. We're both unlovable, all things considered. So we care for each other."

"I love you sir," Ezra said. "You're not unlovable. You're the best person I've ever met. You deserve the world."

"Thank you for saying that. But this is different."

Ezra sat up, and Christopher followed. Ezra stared up at Christopher for a moment, taking in his melancholy expression, before crawling onto his lap.

Ruthlessly digging up his nerve took Ezra more time than he thought strictly necessary.

All he had to do was say it. The worst that could happen is Christopher not returning his feelings. He never got angry.

"I love you sir," Ezra managed. "I know, I know, it's awful of me. You're engaged and I guess you're happy. But I can't help it."

Christopher petted Ezra's hair. "Oh my dear Ezra."

"I'm sorry." Ezra hastily wiped a tear from his eye. "But I had to say it."

"I want you to tell me about your thoughts and emotions," Christopher said soothingly. "I know your feelings better than you do, and I can help you through them."

"Yes sir."

"You are emotionally attached to me because I'm the only person to ever show you true kindness. You aren't in love with me. You're just confused."

"I-" Ezra sniffled. "But I thought...I do love you sir."

"And I love you. Just not like that."

"Oh."

"You believe me, don't you?"

"Yes sir. Of course I do. I'm...just confused."

With great difficulty, Ezra convinced himself it was true. He was only twenty-three and had never been in a long term relationship. What did he know?

Before Christopher, no one ever really cared about him. So easily had love and romance become interwoven.

"Come on." Christopher stood and offered Ezra his hand. "Let's have a good day."

They walked hand in hand to the kitchen, where the table was already set.

"I made blini," Christopher said. "I hope you like it."

Ezra sat down and tried to cut apart the stack of thin pancakes with his fork.

"Not like that," Christopher said with a laugh. "Here, let me show you."

He slathered butter on the top pancake, or blini rather, rolled it into a cylinder, stabbed the middle with a fork, then took a bite of one end.

Ezra mimicked him, getting his fingers sticky with butter. The blini was wonderfully warm, and tasted much better than Ezra's usual box mix pancakes.

"This is amazing," he said. "Thank you sir."

"You're very welcome. I can't believe I've waited this long to make this for you. It's one one my favorites."

Ezra continued eating, but the knowledge of Jay being starved ruined his typical contentedness.

"Try the persimmon," Christopher said, pushing a bowl of sliced orange fruit to Ezra.

He found them to be similar to apricots, but not as tasty. "Thank you sir."

Ezra realized that, for the first time since moving in with Christopher, he was emotionally crashing.

He had grown used to the emotional highs which came along with constant affection and adoration. Now that something had come along to disrupt his perfect life, he didn't know how his handle himself.

A crushing sense of guilt made a home in a carved out piece of his chest, nestled between his lungs.

He wanted to cut himself. To drag a blade across his wrist and watch the blood pour from his delicate veins. Or, better yet, tear the entire artery asunder and bleed out within minutes.

As Christopher cleared the empty dishes, Ezra rested his forearms on the table and laid his head on them, willing himself not to cry.

Christopher walked back over and rubbed a small circle on Ezra's back.

"I'm sorry. I should have realized how this would affect you. But Jay is coming back next week. We can give them a good night. And, knowing Colt, Jay will probably stay for longer than we have planned."

"Yes sir. I just wish they didn't have to go back at all."

"Would you like to take your mind off of things? I can continue reading to you. The Divine Comedy or, if that is too heavy, something else entirely."

"Inferno sounds nice," Ezra decided. "We were on chapter ten, right?"

"I believe that is correct."

Ezra followed Christopher to the livingroom and cuddled up with him, watching as he opened a large leather-bound book. It was older than either of them, and the pages were thoroughly bent and battered.

"Chapter ten," Christopher read aloud. "Now by a secret pathway we proceed, Between the walls, that hem the region round, And the tormented souls: my master first, I close behind his steps. 'Virtue supreme!' I thus began; 'who through these ample orbs In circuit lead’st me, even as thou will’st, Speak thou, and satisfy my wish. May those, Who lie within these sepulchres, be seen? Already all the lids are rais’d, and none O’er them keeps watch.'"

Ezra closed his eyes and listened to Christopher enthusiastically read.

He pictured Dante and Virgil bickering with one another over the damned souls, and the grotesque environment Dante had so willfully described.

Yet, as he allowed himself to be fully immersed in the classical poem, he could not escape the perception of Hell smelling of lavender.

Taglist: @devourerofcheesecake @elim-flower @thedarkmongoose @whumpsday @whump-by-robin @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @annablogsposts @whumpshaped @seetheothersideofparadise @knittedeyebrowsandcardigans @whatwasmyprevioususername @boonasaurusrex @suspicious-whumping-egg @heavenly-whumper @melancholy-in-the-morning

#Whump #Eden #Whumpblr #Pet whumpee #Creepy/intimate whumper #Emotional whump #Self harm reference #Gaslighting whump #Gaslighting reference #Intimate whumper #Stockholm syndrome #Stockholm syndrome whump #Abraham original: Hot off the press

[doctorsiren]

I think it’s funny how, before I knew about Edgeworth’s note, I would see art on Tumblr that I felt like was trying to convince me that Miles was dead. I knew he wasn’t. I knew he didn’t die because I had seen Edgeworth’s Chief Prosecutor sprite on his wiki page. However, I started feeling like Tumblr was trying to gaslight me into believing he was dead because there would be art of Phoenix or Franziska just crying over Miles being gone, and y’know what? Good on Tumblr for giving me a bit of the Phoenix Wright Experience (TM) in believing this man wasn’t alive anymore.

#doctorsiren #ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #franziska von karma #prosecutor miles edgeworth chooses death #not art #siren speaks #ace attorney spoilers #just in case lmao #I want to emphasize the fact that I had a duality of thoughts in my head where I KNEW he doesn’t die and yet I also started to believe #they uhh hey maybe I missed something and he DOES die?? #wild stuff #and then I learned about Edgeworth’s note and it didn’t even click with me that #the art I had been seeing that was trying to gaslight me (/j) was in reference to that note #it wasn’t until months later that it just randomly dawned on me that the art was about the year after the note HJIDHJIEHKJ #anywaaaays

[404sketches]

Second post! I would like to do DS9 stuff, but first I gotta simplify and stylise the cast members so I don't have to spend god knows how long painting them fully. Here, I've done that with Kira and Sisko. More to come.

#i like how evil sisko ended up looking #gaslight gatekeep girlboss energy #oops didn't really reference anything for kira's phaser or the stuff she's standing on #just sketched up some random vaguely scifi shapes #ds9 #star trek ds9 #deep space nine #ds9 fanart #kira nerys #ds9 kira #benjamin sisko #captain sisko #ds9 sisko #uss defiant #digital art #digital drawing #404 sketches #404 ds9posting

[artiststarme]

After the Upside Down, Steve decided to thank Eddie for staying alive. He had to stay in the hospital for weeks to recover from the bat bites and blood loss but he’d done it. Then he had to spend a few weeks in County Jail until Dustin and Hopper were able to brainstorm and come up with a way to clear his name. So Steve figured he deserved something nice after going through all of that.

But when he presented him with tickets to the Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica concert scheduled for July in Evansville, Eddie burst into tears.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry! Did I get the tickets to the wrong band? Don’t worry about it, I’ll try to sell them. You don’t need to cry!” Steve was horrifyingly embarrassed. Great, he was trying to do something to make Eddie feel better and instead he made him cry. Nice going, Steve.

He certainly didn’t expect Eddie to pull him in by his shirt collar to plant a kiss on his lips. His eyes stared at Eddie’s closed lids until he pulled away. Did… did Eddie just kiss him?

“What- um, what was that for, Eds?”

“I love you, Harrington,” Eddie’s voice wavered slightly with nerves but his eyes met Steve’s dead-on.

“Oh, thanks. I-uh, I love you too. We should probably go on a date first though.”

Eddie chuckled at him softly. “Of course, I’m taking you to the concert. You’re gonna love it, Big Boy.”

And like always, Eddie was right. He did love the concert and he loved watching Eddie having fun. Most of all though, he loved loving Eddie which he did from that day forward.

#Steve loves Ozzy Osbourne (but he doesn’t know if he likes the music or if it’s because Eddie made that reference in the Upside Down) #Eddie might see himself as a coward but he also has very poor impulse control and tends to jump right into things #They didn’t tell anyone they were going to the concert either #they kinda just disappeared one day and popped up again three days later to gaslight the Party #stranger things #steddie #short fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #fanfic

[spookyprime]

More Gotham by gaslight please- fluff preferred

Trains :))

#doodles #Gotham by gaslight #Jason Todd #Bruce Wayne #Tim drake #dick Grayson #I used a public domain image published in harpers magazine from 1885 as the reference for the car

[villruu]

Fake amnesia with Alex and Jay?

send me a reverse trope and MH characters & I'll write something for it

At first struggled w this one (couldn't decide between who was the fake amnesiac) and then this came to mind and i may do another oneshot about this lmao?

⸻

Alex woke up, for once, not wanting to die.

It was a novel feeling, to be honest. Waking up without having that deep dread rooted inside him, eating him from the inside out, without feeling like he was being observed, like he was about to become prey. Waking up and just feeling… nice.

He could hear the sound of someone in his kitchen, the sound of pots being moved and the old fridge being opened and closed and opened and closed. And, while usually, that would be enough to make him grab the gun he hid underneath his pillow, today, it just merely made him snort fondly and get up, pausing to even yawn and stretch.

How could he be worried, when he knew exactly who was inside his house? He had been the one to invite him yesterday.

The mere memory of yesterday was enough to make Alex smile, feeling giddy and happy in a way he hadn’t felt in ages.

This was the perfect opportunity, the perfect chance to at least make sure nothing bad happened, to at least keep one person alive. He just had to make sure the other didn’t find his computer or where he had been staying, and it would be okay. With no clues, the other would have no other option but to leave.

When Alex entered the kitchen, he couldn’t help the amused snort upon seeing Jay startled and fumble with something at his appearance, probably a pan or a mug knowing how clumsy Jay was.

“You slept okay?” He asked, leaning against the counter.

“Oh! Uh, yeah,” Jay nodded nervously, turning around to pour himself some coffee, “Thanks, by the way, for letting me stay. I, uh, I didn’t know where I would have gone.”

“Of course you could stay,” Alex said, grabbing a mug to pour himself coffee too, “Didn’t have any luck with your phone?”

“Uh, no, not really,” Jay mumbled, fidgeting with the shirt Alex had loaned him, frowning nervously at his shoes.

“Damn, that’s a shame dude,” Alex commented mildly, like he hadn’t been the one to crack open the phone and carefully pry away parts of the hardware so it wouldn’t work, “Was the chip okay, at least?”

“I don’t, I don’t think so,” Jay grimaced, clutching tightly his mug, “I, um, I have no idea why. Maybe I broke it, um, broke it before you found me?”

“Probably,” Alex said, satisfied as a smug cat internally, “Guess you’ll have to get a new one.”

“I, um, I guess so.” Jay frowned even more.

He looked pale under the white light of his kitchen, eyes sunken and bruised with eyebags.

But, Alex thought to himself, if he were in Jay’s situation he doubts he would have been any better.

…Actually, when it had been him, it hadn’t been any better, to be honest. Alex shuddered as he remembered how it had been almost a year ago, waking up one day without a single idea as to what had happened, to where he was, where was Am—

Alex shook his head, and tried to focus on Jay, who now looked at him with some strange expression.

“Any idea what you will do?” He asked, taking a sip of his coffee, “Since you, um, don’t remember the last…?”

“Four years,” Jay reminded him quietly, fidgeting, looking unnerved, “And, um, I don’t know? I thought maybe, um, walking around and trying to find clues? As to why, um, why am I here?”

Hm. 

No, that would be far too… dangerous. The probabilities of Jay remembering something would be too high. No. That wouldn’t do.

“Maybe you should try contacting your family?” Alex suggested gently, carefully laying a hand on Jay’s shoulder, “Maybe they have an idea as to what you’ve been up to.”

“I… Uhm. I hadn’t, uh, I hadn’t thought of, of that,” Jay stuttered, looking uncomfortable, “I…”

“From what I remember you used to call your parents every weekend back in college,” Alex said, “They probably have an idea. I doubt you have changed much since then.”

“I…um, I’ll think about it,” Jay promised him, avoiding his eyes.

Good. 

The sooner he got Jay out of here, the better for everyone. 

If Jay left, then Tim would forget as well. And everything would be just fine.

And if not… Well, it would be easier to catch Jay off guard if he didn’t remember the last time they had seen each other.

Alex left the kitchen, and did not notice the knowing and weary look Jay pinned on his retreating back.

#marble hornets #alex kralie #Jay Merrick #mh alex kralie #mh jay merrick #vrill fics #for reference this is set post S2 but in an au where Jay forgot to update the twitter account for almost two months #THEY ARE PLAYING 5D CHESS AGAINST EACH OTHER #Jay pretending to be oblivious to gain more info on alex VS alex who gaslights and manipulates jay so he doesnt have to kill him #FIGHT #obsessed w the idea of jay pretending to be amnesiac and then getting himself trapped in a psychological horror movie LMAO #also the idea of jay getting guilty bc alex is so happy that he forgor???? iconic to me

[flashliiqhts]

Some fanart for @eternalduos 's fic, "Instructions for Stealing Stars"! The 20s-Era fashion is just really fun to draw

#a six of crows/1920s/gatekeep-gaslight-girlboss trio fanfic pretty much checks all the boxes of genres I like #also thank you very much for all the clothes descriptions! #i got to dig through old advertisements for these #traffic life smp #scott smajor #zombie cleo #pearlescent moon #life series #my art #also if i got any styles wrong please let me know- most of my references were from the late 20s

[really-sleep-deprived-nerd]

@chrisrin 's gemcyt au has been living in my head rent free and I wanted to try and draw a fusion of the gaslight, gatekeep & girlboss trio (Cleo, Scott and Pearl)

#sleep deprived doodles #gemcyt #I was listening to World Burn from the mean girls musical while I drew them so #thats why I went so heavy in the gaslight part of the trio #I called them Sardonyx cause thats who I used as a reference #but honestly they could be fire opal or sunstone instead what with the pyrokinesis

[hellyeahsickaf]

I might have accidentally taken 80mg of Adderall instead of 40mg and I haven't figured out whether or not I did or if I'm just scaring myself bc yeah that much won't like, kill me but it's definitely too much

I took my meds as normal but my half asleep brain said "oops silly me I forgot my Adderall" and I take my 40 and I sit there for a minute like "shit did I just double my Adderall?" And yeah as I'm typing this I feel like I may have taken 80mg of Adderall it feels like my brain is hooked up to a car battery (don't ask me what this means) whoops

#the ppl close to me and I refer to this sort of behavior as “pulling a Scott” #I'm gaslighting myself into thinking this is a placebo effect i mean it could be right? #IN MY DEFENSE I'm crashing from yesterday and my brain isn't working right #and Adderall doesn't make it not foggy. sometimes a little less but mostly helps my focus and shit #i think i fucked up #brain fog #chronic illness #chronic pain #disability #actually disabled #cfs #chronic fаtiguе ѕуndrоmе #fibromyalgia #spoonie #me/cfs #cfs/me #actually adhd #adhd #swear on my life i did not mean to do this!

[c10v3r]

a majority of this is lightbrush how did this happen

#inanimate insanity #ii lightbulb #ii paintbrush #ii fan #ii test tube #lightbrush #fantube #do not look at the homestuck reference #do not even CONCEIVE IT #its not there #youre seeing things #r u ok. #cuz i sure dont see anything #/gaslighting #/SILLLY SILLYSILLYY #HEHDKDLP #i drew that bonk thing earlier in the year but #i hate art that is old. how dare you exist #HEGAHGRHA

[redstrewn]

Outplay

#plane boundary-pushing power-hungry blorbo is giving me the power to push my artistic boundaries #you are free to reference this image to draw your own MC #not to claim that my art is free of mistakes haha IM DOING MY BEST #leander #elisa #touchstarved game #redstrewn art #mansplain manipulate manwhore vs the superior gaslight gatekeep girlboss

[waywardsunlight]

Hunter v Belos

#the owl house #tw child abuse #tw violence #tw blood #tw scars #tw gaslighting #reference to it at least #toh #hunter noceda #emperor belos #hunter toh #belos toh

[gothimgem]

simple manah from drakengard 2 sketch

headcanon: i think she’d like promised land by skeletal family

#drakengard #drag on dragoon #drakengard 2 #manah #she gaslighted her way into nowe’s heart to be a girlboss who gatekeeps the watchers #the leaves i added are a reference to chapter 7

[darlingcloudie-9]

this is my…… alter ego- ANITA MAXWYNN. ANITA MAXWYNN

#my art #My oc #Original character #oc drawing #uuuhhhh gaslight gatekeep girlboss #So sorry about the caption btw………… its past my curfew and im in a silly goofy mood :[ #So meet Darling!! My one of a kind mayhaps mascot of this tumblr blog!!!! Yippee!!!! #Dont let her soft and unalarming smile fool you; this girl is really a menace to the society!! #Funfact; Darling has a younger twin brother!! You’d never know though cause they don’t look too alike from eachother. #But they are still twins!! And he works in Retail!!! #Imagine this younger twin brother also has a cute petname as a name…………… like Honey or something #Or Sunshine. Or Angel!!!! #Ah. Decisions. Decisions #Darling is definitely the evil twin……… she would also lowkey walk with her brother whilst carrying a dozen wooden logs on her back and goin #“Maybe the A in Angel stands for-“ #“Amazing? Admirable? Awesome?? :]” #“…. No. Abomination.” #“…… Oh. You mean like that one giant snowman from that one Bubbleguppies episode?” #”… YOU STILL REMEMBER BUBBLEGUPPIES?!?!? AND THAT SNOWMAN??!?!?!?!?!?!” #And then they go on to discuss Bubbleguppies lore and how they miss it 💔 #Ah. But kidding kidding!! That’s if i choose Angel as the younger twin brother’s name <3 #Im sorry for the bad Demon Slayer/Kimetsu No Yaiba reference with the Tokito Twins also #But yeah!!! That’s my oc Darling!!!! #i hope you like her :]] #I think she’d have a Mareep if she were in Pokémon #Just a thought <3 #My sister called her a discount Yor from Spy X Family and omg #how could she say this and be totally right wtf :crying: #Anyways yeah!!!! Darling slays and joins the battle :heart: !!!! #Also no you aren’t going crazy the flower in the top left corner is one of the ibis x paint decals on that one picture icon thingy erremmm

[bombusbombus]

recoloured this old warmup to repost cause I had it on my mind.

If Clark is going to be in earth 19 (gotham by gaslight universe) (they're publishing more gbg and clark is going to be there), then listen to me listen to me, he needs to be a cowboy. Superman needs to be a cowboy in the big city. I am SOO serious about this. I am on my knees, DC, let me write for you, I would add so many themes about modern technology versus traditional knowledge and sprinkle in some anticolonialism PLEASE.

You could have a cute little Daily Planet that has to struggle against yellow journalism in a smoky little backroom & setting their own type, a la The Truth. You could have gentlemen's clubs. You could have a brutal war against unions in the streets and one lone titan of industry giving into their demands. You could have the exact same 3 batkids from the movie, there's literally nothing to improve on there. You could have Clark tear down a barbed wire fence with his bare hands, in a futile attempt to unravel colonialist ideas of private land ownership. Imagine the alien knows more about the earth, the real earth, than the knight in his city does. Imagine the American dream failing Clark, who has to go back east to the big city, failing Bruce, who lost his parents, failing everyone over and over until they decide to build something without it. In an era of rampant exploitation, what do real heroes look like?

Or you can make the justice league fight big steampunk robots ig I'm excited either way.

#all that to say ask me about the gotham by gaslight superbat friendship I've been thinking about for a LITERAL YEAR... #the original colouring on this was only the sort of ass you can achieve with a blue light filter at 2am #also I can hear you saying “why do your warmups usually look better than your final drawings Moose?” #(shh let me imagine I have a huge rapt audience) #well. I have aphantasia which makes it much harder to make things up than to draw from life #however my passion is cartooning. so I'm a little fucked #I also have a disability that sometimes makes me run a temperature when I overexert myself mentally #so drawing cartoons can make me run a literal fever #whereas drawing from life is more abt hand skill than brain skill so it doesn't fuck me up #but that's why I don't draw much anymore lol. Arranging people and items and background on a canvas is excruciating trial and error #but when you already have a pic the photographer has done some of that for you and you just need to collage preexisting images together #and once you have the elements of the picture then it's easy to retroactively construct a balanced tableau #tl:dr creativity is hard and makes CPU explode but editing is easy #that being said if a mutual wants me to draw an animal or something for them & gives me a reference I will drop everything to do it. dm me. #seriously I'm good w anything organic like plants or animals or horrible growths #hell if u do thumbnails I'll draw the full thing. I'll write w you. I fuckin love collaboration. #might be a bad writing partner though cause I'm neurotic as hell #. #I just remembered that Dan Garret was in earth 19 last time it was shown in a comic #no offense to all you dan-heads out there. but I think he should die. #cause I would be. obsessed. With 1890s Chicago cryptid Ted Kord #I think he should be 23 and terrible #the most steampunk guy around. Probably takes cocaine. Still a college student (gettin his fourth degree). Hasn't left his house in a month #not to mention futureboy Booster in his kevlar vest with his iphone named skeets