#Critique sociale

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[lesparaversdemillina]

La condition pavillonnaire de Sophie Divry

Ce roman évoque une femme insatisfaite de sa vie confortable, ennuyeuse et répétitive.

[vagabondageautourdesoi]

Édouard Louis - Monique s'évade

Présentation du récit de Édouard Louis, Monique s'évade, une commande de sa mère pour rendre compte de sa libération et son évasion.

Avec ce leitmotiv “La honte est une mémoire”, Édouard Louis relève tous ses petits souvenirs de rendez-vous manqués, ces moments de gêne, de ses paroles prononcées, vite oubliées, qui décriait le quotidien de sa mère, même séparée de son père. Elle avait cru encore une fois qu’un homme pouvait la protéger ! Mais, un soir, elle appelle son fils… “Trois maris, trois poivrots”. Et au troisième,…

[weirdlookindog]

Stefan Eggeler (1894-1969) - "Louis XV"

illustration from Hanns Heinz Ewers' Die Herzen der Könige (1922), a tale about a painter that uses the hearts of the kings of France in his paintings.

[tinkerbitch69]

My favourite part of dot and bubble (besides ncuti’s performance in the last scene my god!!!) is that the episode kinda misleads you into thinking Lindy is so dismissive of the doctor and the disappearance of others because of the social media echo chamber she has isolated herself in. That she is scared to leave it and that she could be a better more empathetic person if given the chance to leave.

But then the final scene happens!

All of her actions, from putting Ricky in the firing line before her to lying about it to refusing the help of the doctor because of her thinly veiled racist beliefs, reveal that this refusal to acknowledge the reality around her to the point of putting people in danger and inevitably allowing the problem to become worse was a choice. She was not some innocent victim of media manipulation but had complete agency in her denial of the danger others were and just didn’t care about them.

The reveal is an important part of the episodes critique of social media echo chambers, I think. Their danger isn’t that they obscure information that challenges the users but that they allow people to choose not to be confronted with information that challenges their worldview or their behaviour. Which is an experience vital to developing critical thinking skills and being a compassionate, empathetic human being. But by removing the agency of people who choose not to break from their bubble, we also enable the insularity of these echo chambers!

God I love this episode so much <3_<3

[alwaysbewoke]

[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.

[teacookiesandpeace]

I thought twice before sending this because I thought it might be too gay

[martinblackwooddisliker]

it feels like there's been such a change recently in like general internet culture to just a lack of empathy and an increase in blatantly dismissing people, like the whole "womp womp" trend that, like, it was funny but like there's a limit ?? And the like "So sorry this happened to you! Can I use it for my oc lore? <3" copypasta on posts of people that were expressing genuine problems or traumas, also with how incredibly prevalent and normalised fatphobia and those sorts of jokes are in a way that feels so much more recent in online spaces?

Like people like to joke about 2020 and cancel culture and everything, and sure, like, it had its problems, but it also felt genuinely supportive and welcoming, and not so afraid to be genuine or nice or atleast polite and not openly rude to people??

[chamerionwrites]

Intellectually I understand where people are coming from, but personally I do THE biggest double take every time someone boils down conservative Christian ideology (and/or secularized cultural reflections thereof) to a kind of dour puritanism that proclaims happiness is sin/suffering is a moral good/everyone should be miserable all the time. Like I get it! I do. But also, institutionally, I have never met a group of more passionate worshippers and vicious defenders of their own comfort than evangelical Christians. There is a reason the common thread between my various weird triggers more or less boils down to "toxic positivity." There is a REASON my exvangelical tag is #walking away from omelas.

[theresascove]

is it fair for me to say that the hate on arcane right now hurts my heart?

like jinx and isha, arcane is literally my Isha… it’s my bb, I’ve personally not had issues with the show and to like see the media everywhere tear it apart and be so cruel—it hurts me

im just being so fr. I waited, like a lot of others, for so long for this and I beleive the animation, plot, and music are all fantastic….. :(

[vagabondageautourdesoi]

Florence Chataignier - Des gens

Un premier roman à paraître début mai

Comme il faut Des gens comme il faut, premier roman de Florence Chataignier, sont au cœur de cette histoire d’adultes qui souhaitaient, par-dessus tout, être comme les autres et vivre comme une famille parfaite. Seulement, il ne suffit pas de paraître pour être. À trop se forcer, on en devient fou et on peut rendre fou ceux qui vivent avec vous ! Lorsque la mort survient, il est alors temps de…

[weirdlookindog]

Heinrich Kley (1863-1945) - “Devil sniffing smoke from a factory chimney” & “Interruption of production”, 1909

[shyjusticewarrior]

I need people to understand that "you're not a good fan, stop reading" and "you're not a good fan, read this" are both condescending and discouraging.

[fairycosmos]

i do think the very broad generalisation of the term media consumption and the disdain people have for it is a bit laughable. "get a real hobby" is the guy teaching me guitar through youtube not helping me do exactly that. "go outside" if i read this book under a tree will the story suddenly become more meaningful

[alwaysbewoke]

true, and they know it. it’s by design.