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dykedvonte · 7 days ago

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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.

#i also think it is because mouthwashing is first and foremost a game about rape culture and the patriarchy especially in work spaces #regarding women and centering conversation around Curly a man rubs people wrong because it does overshadow that commentary #but it still mixes other topics into its initial theming and message on how abuse conditions you to accept certain things that are harmful #and how getting used to a culture/enviornment does not mean you are happy healthy or most importantly safe in it. I personally like to #explore those aspects where it mixes all the themes so we can discuss the ways you have to watch out for things because there is a differen #in the idea Curly enabled Jimmy just because they were bros and because he was an example of another man afraid to step out from what #is a still oppressive system that does try to punish those who act against it even if they fall in the category of those who would benefit #from it as Jimmy and PE 100% represent that sort of misogynistic system where men that would be “good” are altered until they follow line #in a way both on the personal and professional level as PE is the corporate lock out and Jimmy represents the social and its just the issue #that the discussion of it sounds like “in defense of men” when I am more so trying to discuss how it is much deeper than men being scared t #upset other men but complacency is rewarded by not becoming another person subjugated hence as all the moments Curly does try to do #something we can tie it back to how Jimmy reacts and a possible penality from PE where we now need to address the ways to combat those #two concepts so we dont get cases like Curly or Daisuke or Swansea where male avoidance of the issue is considered neutral or even good.#i think most of this boils down the perfect victim mentality to where if someone who underwent or is being abused is not a perfect example #or accpetible type than their abuse can not be considered a valid or substantial reason for effects on their behavior compounded with the #fact that Anya's abuse at the hands of Jimmy is a systematic issue that Curly is a part of even if unwillingly and was more physically #violating and topical cause sometimes i have to remind myself that all media is still critiqued through the lens of the culture it came out #in cause i do think about what if this game came out inlike 2014 like the conversations would be sooooooo different could you imagine it?#but back the before statement Curly isn't perfect but I feel like boiling it down if hes a good person or man is not the point of the game #but more so good people can still be part of the problem and the idea of condemning a person for one act creates a false sense of #rightouesness and justice that does not aid the victim and in fact aids the abusers in escaping blame for their mulitple behaviors as we se #how the men on the ship tend to blame Jimmy for just one act against them including himself while there is a plethora of things Anya is #concerned about with Jimmy #and its not that Curly just made one mistake with Jimmy but more so we consider his actions more damning because he didn't stop Jimmy #instead of focusing on the fact Jimmy did what he did regardless of Curly and the consequence because we already know he's bad n maladjuste #which is problem in the conversation where the individuals are blamed but the system and perputrator are overlooked in a sense of acceptiab #complacency as we know how they are and the lack of tangibility to personally affect them on a larger scale like I should just make a post #on like cutting out the face when it comes it confronting systems of oppression rather than tag talking but just ask me to clarify if #you want that like im jus trying to say we avoid talking about Jimmy and PE so much cause it is obvious what they do wrong that we make #the initial and inherent problem out to be one aspect someone in this case Curly does and the the constraints they use to force actions

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gingermintpepper · 3 months ago

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In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

#ginger rambles #ginger chats about greek myths #greek mythology #It's Zeus Apologist day actually #For the record Jason is my personal favourite of these guys #The argonauts are extremely underrated for literally no reason #And Jason's wit and sheer ability to adapt along with his piousness are traits that are so far away from what usually gets highlighted #with the typical Greek warrior-hero that I've just never stopped being captivated by him #Conversely I still do not understand what people see in Achilles #I respect him and his legacy I respect the importance of his tale and his cultural importance I promise I do #However I personally can't stand the guy LMAO #How do you get warned twice TWICE both by your mother and by Athena herself that going after Apollo's children is a bad idea #And still have the audacity to be mad and surprised when Apollo is gunning for Specifically You during the war you're bringing to His City #That You Specifically and Exclusively had a choice in avoiding #ACHILLES COULD'VE JUST SAID NO #I know that's not the point however so many other members of the Greek camp were simply casualties of Fate in every conceivable way man #Achilles looked at every terrible choice he could possibly make said “Well I'm gonna die anyway 🤷🏽” and proceeded to make the choice #so hard that he angered god #That's y'all's man right there #I left out Perseus because truthfully I don't actually know much about him #I haven't studied him even a fraction as much as I've studied some of the other big culture heroes and none of this is cited so i don't wan #to talk about stuff I don't know 100%#Anyway justice for Zeus fr #Gimme something give me literally anything other than the nonsense we usually get for him #This goes for Hera too btw #Both the king and queen of the skies are done TERRIBLY by wider greek myth audiences and it's genuinely disheartening to see #If y'all could make excuses for Achilles to forgive his flaws y'all can do it for them #They have a lot more to sympathise with I'll tell you that #(that is a completely biased statement; you are completely free and encouraged to enjoy whichever figures spark joy)#zeus

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alwayshappyhoursomewhere · 1 year ago

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Grand Prix Final 2023 | Shoma Uno with coach Stéphane Lambiel after the free skate

#figure skating #shoma uno #stephane lambiel #grand prix final 2023 #gpf 2023 #nothing i could possibly say would do justice to these photos #presented without comment #i'll be outside screaming into the night #and feeling things

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koetjingwarrd · 2 years ago

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You're my baby, say it to me...

#gundam witch from mercury #gwitch #wfm #sulemio #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #i bet on losing dogs as per gwitch current story progression aka ep17 do you see my vision...#i have particular mixed feelings on ep 17 most of which i feel that the story is done a bit sloppy i think it started around ep 16 or 15 #i really need to get this out so i could study damn it !!#first of all with miorine with the one who's losing a lot by being complicit with prospera's quiet zero significantly trapping herself furt #er in the cycle of revenge and also losing the friends she has come to cherish and also... at the same time knowing hal truths of what real #ly happened prospera true plan. vanadis. aerial and suletta true nature. earth as a spacian battleground. and the whole lot #i feel like she's rushing thru her birthday to eject sul asap from prosperas plan and now whats done is done i feel like she underestimate #what conviction on how suletta values what family means to her. prospera lines where she wonders whether sul will give aerial up #easily is giving vibes that its possible for suletta to take drastic measures to get her family back. miorine grows up on a world that #is defined by strict rules but suletta does not... that is after she's starting to get over her heartbreak i think...#whats interesting about gwitch is that although it considered utena as one of its base material it mixes said materials with how gundam sto #ryline works while simultaneously keeping up with today's themes. so honestly... when this happened today im a bit pissed #another thing that even though on a surface level suletta plays the role of utena with miorine as anthy they are also anthy and utena #respectively. suletta and utena with their kind hearted and naive self with a sense of justice left behind the insidious plot of the school #anthy and miorine titled the bride who adored their respective partner up to the point of deception and betrayal for their own good #SULETTA AND ANTHY GOD THE WITCh. red motifs. i find it funny they both have siblings okay this is messed up. the character shrouded in myst #ery. SCREAMS AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS THE CHICK WHO IS YET TO HATCHH !!!! RAHHH #insert utena student council theme somewhere around here #and lastly utena and miorine. the “princess”that is ready to take on a world that is threatening her loved one. both are only child god no.#this is my personal feelings but i will find it heartbreaking that despite everthing suletta will runs to miorine no matter how much she #push her away... but i also want and find it interesting where despite loving and believing in her suletta will slowly will ALSO despise #her for letting them drift apart kind of like anthy and utena on the akio apocalypse arc....... do i want this to happen...? do i....? >yes #regardless augh what a heartwrenching lovely episode despite me knowing it will happen at some point during the show #im like the surprised pikachu meme with tears in my eyes

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iknowwhereyousleepatnight · 3 months ago

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confinement arc where L tortures light with more hands-on methods......

#what if he chained him up and beat him and waterboarded him and broke his fingers and called him a pretty little murderer? what then?#would light give up his memories right away? would he give them up and suffer without knowing the truth thinking this is all unjust #and an abuse of power against an innocent? would it corrupt his view of L? would he even be willing to work with him afterwards? would #he do so just because he felt threatened? or maybe he'd keep his memories as long as he could because he'd be stronger knowing the #truth. maybe he'd keep them until he doesnt know if he could take it anymore and might end up confessing. maybe he'd keep them #so he could still have ryuk with him through as much as possible or maybe he'd give them up because ryuk is just another cruel #spectator. uncaring to his suffering #and would L torture light himself? would he make another person do it? would he allow the task force to bear witness? would anyone tell #soichiro? or would L do it himself in the middle of the night when nobody is there to stop him? maybe nobody would know at all. maybe #L would creep down to light's room and wake him up and try to get him to confess any way he could before the task force comes in the #morning. he might be careful not to leave marks so nobody knew. or maybe he'd not care. just make excuses. he's L why would #they question if he had anything to do with light''s head bleeding from when he fell out of bed in the middle of the night. or when he #had bruises from tripping when nobody was around. he's the great detective L. he's justice. he'd never hurt anyone......#anyway i think L should've tortured him more. dragged him out of his bed and waterboarded him in the bathroom. beat him while nobody #was around and choked him until he passed out because he wouldn't confess to being kira etc #and would misa get the same treatment too or would L not care to break her as much as he would light?#*sighs dreamily* there's just so much potential in torture....#no i am not working on the torture prompt for kinktober rn why do u ask.........

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sskk-manifesto · 11 hours ago

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Next time we should just skip over ep 3 and do a chapters 84-87 reread

#Mmmmmmhhhh.#Well. If anything you can always tell when there's a ss/kk episode by the fact that it takes me two hours to watch it lol #What can I say. I'm a compulsive screencap taker #Mmmmmmhhh... I was right it wasn't as bad as I remembered it. Still moderately bad but not all bad.#It's just. I can feel the animators did their best.#I suppose it's just a difficult episode to animate within a short time frame since it's a specifically action packed one.#And the lack of time really shows. Like there *are* some detailed animated passages here and there. But then there's also these long static #shots that stretch on forever that are just... Idk. A little saddening to see I guess? Like the animators really ran out of time for them #There's also a big component of... I just can't vibe with the newfound artstyle. Like it looks soooo much worse than s1 in my opinion #Which you know‚ is only subjective! But eh... The distance between s2ep11 and this feels abyssal.#Everyone looks so ugly oftentimes. Like even in curated shots‚ they're just very rough and ungraceful.#Which like?? How could you look at Harukawa's art and come up with //that//??????? But it's whatever #And the pacing is so so off 😭😭😭 God please to death with 11 episodes long seasons give us filler episodes back. Please!!!!#The pacing is atrocious and it has not even to do with the animation. Even greatly animated episodes suffer from it.#Mmmmhh... I don't particularly like Fukuchi's vacting... He doesn't sound tired enough. Nor as pitiful as much as he should tbh #Among the three I feel like only Uemura really nails the job. I'm so sorry Onoken but I feel like even Akutagawa needs to sound vulnerable–#once in a while‚ you know? Although‚ if he's only going with how Bones depicts him‚ then I get why he would act him out like that 😭😭😭#There were so many reused shots too... The ones from the end of s2ep11... The s3ep12 kokko zessou one... Ss/kk running in the corridors...#Overall. Not as bad as I remembered it. But at the same time I get why I was so distraught because they really wasted the best four–#chapters of the manga just like that.#The “is his life that precious to you” moment was terrible 😭😭😭 Head in hands fr #Oh well. I babble a lot but it was okay. Like at least it wasn't season 3 kind of bad. And definitely wasn't t/pn s2 kind of bad LOL #I just hope ss/kk will be made justice in the future (╥﹏╥)#Especially since their new scenes (current manga events) are possibly going to be adapted in the first episodes of the new season.#If Bones pulls another s5ep3 on them you're going to see me on the news #Then again I have hope the arc finale will be adapted in a movie... Who knows...#Most of all I hope they change art style direction again D:#random rambles #Whaaaa it's so late already!!!#Edit: Oh also to not forget I've made like. One hundred posts. Maybe it's time to unfollow me now if you haven't already D:

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kimbapisnotsushi · 1 year ago

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you seem to have a good read on HQ and your takes are great, so i have a question...and if you'd rather not go there, please ignore this! but i see oikawa get called "arrogant" quite often and i'm curious, would you say he is? what is it that makes people think that? imo he has a plenty of flaws, but i truly don't think arrogance is one of them. self-centered, sure, but not arrogant i think. i'm open to being wrong, i'm just legit so confused by that particular criticism, it makes me doubting my reading comprehension. i feel like that one post that's like "free my man, he didn't do that. he did a lot of other stuff tho" LOL. if you do answer this, then thanks for your time!

oh, dear anon. this is a very very big question and i'm honored you think i am capable of providing an answer that does it justice!! i don't consider myself an oikawa expert by far, but i'll do my best because he's still very beloved to me, and i hope whatever i say helps!

(but also - maybe take what i say with a grain of salt LMAO)

anyways, to get the main point out of the way: i completely agree that oikawa isn't arrogant! i actually haven't seen any commentary about that myself (bless!!!), so i can't say for sure why some people might think that, but my guess is that they think his pridefulness = arrogance — they think that the confidence he has in himself and seijoh contributes nothing to their actual power and is utterly meaningless if they don't win, especially in the face of ushijima. which, like, come on. what kind of captain would he be if he wasn't confident in himself and his teammates? is he supposed to tell them that they're going to lose??? is he supposed to discourage their hard work and effort???

or maybe it's because oikawa acts like he's all that, but doesn't have anything to show for it. who does he think he is? what does he think his pride is worth? what right does he have to go around making grand declarations when he has nothing to his name?

(which isn't entirely true, either, but we'll get into that, promise.)

now, do i think that he can, occasionally, be flippant, shallow, and/or petty? yeah, sure. he's got one hell of a personality about it. even iwaizumi says as much. oikawa is great at being a little shit. it's one of my favorite things about him!

but is oikawa genuinely arrogant, or self-centered? well . . . i don't think so.

see, here's the thing about oikawa: he knows he's good, but he doesn't think he's good enough. i think it'd be easiest to really explain what that meant if we broke this down into two separate parts, so let's give it a go, shall we?

(buckle up, friends, because it's about to get LONG. also: TIMESKIP SPOILERS!! and there's a tldr at the start of the tags because. WOW.)

so, first things first: if people are calling oikawa arrogant, then i'm like 99% sure that they don't actually know what the word "arrogant" means.

"arrogant" is used to describe someone full of themselves. it's used to describe someone conceited and pompous. it's used to describe someone so assured of and invested in their self-importance that they don't care for other people, and if it seems like they do, then it's usually wildly off the mark and still serves to inflate their own egos.

oikawa has never once been like that. he's been pretty much the exact opposite, in fact.

and yeah, sure, by his third year of high school, he knows he's good at volleyball, and that's fine! it's perfectly all right to claim you're good at something if you have the skills/experience to back it up. confidence is healthy as long as it isn't in overabundance, and we actually see a lot of this throughout the series!

(not to mention that this was where ushijima fell short. he was overflowing with confidence. he did not believe, for even a single second, that hinata shouyou and his meager, scrappy little flock of crows could beat him.

but oikawa? he knew. he knew what it looked like to make something bloom.)

the key to oikawa's confidence that made him better was that he could pinpoint others' strengths and weaknesses just as well as he could with his own. and (bear with me, please, i might get kind of boring here bc it's nothing that hasn't been said in the manga before) i don't mean it in the way we see the coaches or more analytical players do, as observations to be taken advantage of by everyone else; i mean that in the sense of how vital it is to his position as a setter. that was always the biggest difference between oikawa and kageyama: no matter how much more raw talent kageyama had, no matter how much better oikawa believed him to be, kageyama, especially in the beginning, struggled to do what oikawa could with a team. kageyama struggled to bring out the best in each player. and it wasn't because he didn't know how -- oikawa freely admitted that kageyama had the skill for it, that kageyama, once he got his shit together, could win against him -- it was because kageyama didn't have that same confidence in himself.

(not until much later, anyways. but that's another story, for another time.)

so, oikawa's confident. he knows he's good. he can bring out the best in each player. he's got a killer serve (and a killer smile!), a mind for tactics that borders on machievallianism, and cherishes the trust he is given like it's something precious. his coaches let him lead without leaning on them. his team has the utmost respect and admiration for him. he has a reputation. from karasuno to shiratorizawa to the whole of miyagi -- there is not a single character who knows oikawa tooru and would believe that he is, in any way, bad at volleyball.

but it's not enough. despite all of that, oikawa still doesn't think he's good enough. and that, friends, brings us to the second point.

oikawa tooru is nothing if not passionate.

so were the others, of course. kageyama kept going after his grandfather's death. hinata kept going while being a nobody from nowhere with no one to back him up. atsumu kept going while osamu didn't. it's not even about just those who went pro -- kenma, kuroo, noya, and everyone else found things that they were passionate about and kept going with it. the entire story revolves around loving what you do and trying to keep that love alive, and, sometimes, that can be really, really difficult when it seems like it doesn't love you back.

oikawa was so insecure over kageyama to the point where he nearly decked the poor kid. oikawa got crushed by ushijima-- who kept telling him that his team was not good enough, that his choices were not good enough, that there was nothing good enough to be proud of -- for years in a row. oikawa was taught that there would always be someone better than him no matter how skilled he was, but if he let that stop him then he didn't fucking belong on the court in the first place.

oikawa tooru is intimately acquainted with not being good enough, but he keeps trying to be. he keeps going. he tries to keep the love alive even if he's not loved back. he pushes and practices and takes a plane far from home to become even better. even if he doesn't have the skill, even if he doesn't have the talent, even if he doesn't have the love -- he still has his pride. and what does that mean, in the end? how far does that take him?

in the end, oikawa tooru walks across a world stage and sees people who believed in him on the other side and calls it a family reunion. in the end, he gets to play the volleyball that reminds him of why he loves it and how it gives him so much love back. in the end, his pride is unyielding and unbreakable, a product of the forge. he molded it with his own two hands. he will not let it falter so easily.

arrogance would not have taken oikawa tooru this far. i hope this has proven that he is anything but.

remember: instinct is something you polish. talent is something you make bloom. and never, ever let anyone else tell you what your pride is worth.

#tldr: oikawa 's confident in himself but (believing that there will always be someone more talented) is always striving to become better #ANYWAYS #i know this one's a bit different from the itachiyama post where i analyzed each panel but like #that was REALLY hard to do for this one since there were so many good ones i could use!!!#so i ended up just smashing 2-3 panels together that i thought were best representative of each point i wanted to talk about #and then just diving deep into the whole thing #if i had done it the first way we would have been here FOREVER #literally that's why it took so long i kept deleting and rewriting and going 'holy shit how the fuck do i write this'#'how can ANYTHING i possibly say do justice to oikawa tooru'#i hope i did a good job and i hope this helped anon!!!#i genuinely think this is the most insane thing i have ever written so thanks for that i guess #oikawa tooru #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu meta #sou says stuff

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