#and this is just TWO examples
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Ok we seriously need to see more sugishita love he's literally the funniest character 😭😭😭
#and this is just TWO examples#girl i full on barked out a laugh when he slapped sakuras hand#i was like omg parallels are abt to skyrocket AND THEN HE JUST 😭😭😭#still a parallel btw and one of my favourites#just from sugishitas perspective this time#and its just so fucking funny to me bc sakuras like 'i dont need to slap his hand away ir anything i just have to shake it right?'#AND SUGISHITAS JUST 💀💀💀#it's beautiful and i love it#wind breaker#sakura haruka#kyotaro sugishita#satoru nii#also ik shes not in this but we also need more tsubaki love pls#ik she's gonna be manga only for a while so itll take longer but still </33#i keep saying im gonna post abt things but im gonna post abt tsubaki for sure
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So there is this thing that the two Villeneuve Dune movies do together that I cannot stop thinking about, where they will present something (often, a weapon) in a context the first time around where it looks a certain way (often, very sexy and cool). And then they will present it again in a way that doesn't exactly negate your reading of the original context but makes you recoil in horror from the new context.
Paul and Jessica using the Voice to escape from their Harkonnen captors? Very sexy and cool. Look at them working together, mother and son, a couple of space witch badasses.
Jessica using the Voice on Chani to force her to participate in reviving Paul after he drinks the Water of Life? Horrifying. Saying you will be part of this myth that has been created to serve political ends that have nothing to do with your liberation, and if you don't do it voluntarily to save the person you love then I will make you do it.
Chani and Paul working together to take down the ornithopter gunship using those little shoulder-fired rockets? Very sexy and cool, we love guerrilla warfare against an occupying army. (I'm not being facetious here, this sequence is extremely satisfying to watch.)
The much later image of Paul silhouetted against the blast from the missiles from his family's private nuclear arsenal blowing up the shield wall? Nightmarish.
The way the climactic battle to retake the palace at Arrakeen extends into the night so that it begins to look very very much like the initial Harkonnen attack on the same place? I'm sure this is intentional; the whole third act is about taking a giant sledgehammer to the idea that the Atreides are the better or more civilized imperialists.
Perhaps my favorite example of this is the Atreides signet ring. When Paul first puts it on in the first movie, it's a symbol of him accepting that Leto is dead. It's a melancholy moment, but it's also a sign of Paul accepting the responsibility of his birthright as the new Duke.
Early in the second movie, when he is trying to be equal to the Fremen, he takes the ring off. And you just know that when he decides to put it back on again, that will be the sign that everything's about to go to shit. And when it happens it's a very similar moment--it is Paul accepting his birthright, just a different kind. But the accompanying feeling is oh no.
#there are enough examples of this that it seems like a pattern that was given thought#it's just such an effective way of conveying the sense of oh god not like this#dune#dune spoilers#dune part 2#dune part two#dune 2024
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Part four of old GF sketches
The twin thing, Stan and Ford edition
#fanart#gravity falls#stanley pines#stanford pines#i saw a lot of posts pushing the big/little sibling titles on these two when I was drawing this#i won't say it's irrelevant to their characters#(though it comes up way less with Dipper and Mabel)#but as someone with a twin and other siblings very close in age#I've only used 'big/little' instead of 'older/younger' as a joke#other families definitely care more than us#so my opinion is that Ford cares very much about being the 'older' sibling that sets the example and has a respectable title#and Stan has never thought about Ford in these terms in his life#being in their late fifties/sixties just makes it worse for him
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I do recommend going to small museums as they always have the coolest and weirdest shit
#example one: RNLI Poole Lifeboat museum has a 1939 lifeboat that helped in the Dunkirk evacuation and has the history from 1882 to 2021#example two: Milton Keynes museum that has rooms that recreate victorian life and has a full museums on development of telephones#I just love museams
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You know what? You know what I think?
I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.
The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.
I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.
But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.
We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.
That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.
I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.
Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.
I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.
#im feverish feeling (not a real fever just malaise that i have no other way to describe) from the IBS (which can affect you like that#)#and i don't actually want to do ANYTHING#i would have to even living with others but it would be easier#at the very least i wouldn't have had to clean the microwave earlier which is hard because my arms are like the size of a meerkat's#and i can only reach the back with my fingertips#where is my BF in all this?#WORKING FULL TIME WITH BACK PAIN#yes i AM going to want him to have to do as little as possible when he comes home#he's neurodivergent too and struggles with the same shit#it's all a mess#we are doing way better i didn't realize how deep a drain three very sick cats were#but there's still only two of us#if you are disabled physically OR MENTALLY you should at least get in-home household help once a week or so#there's places that do that but the limitations are usually severe and always rule me out#because im not single im not an elder im not a veteran and im not physically disabled#if we have to ration that sort of thing i can see how on the whole it is more caring to allocate those resources to for example elders#but the fact that i celebrate what help there is doesn't mean i don't get mad that more people can't access it#is2g if i was functional enough snd physically sound enough i would start a charity that did intervention cleaning for people like us#who have fallen behind and can't catch up but can MAINTAIN#and who helped people clean for a few months during and after an illness pregnancy trauma major loss etc. so they could stay on their feet
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Jimmy only commits his worse moments when he’s alone with each individual character.
It’s implied he corners Anya in her room. He brutalizes Curly when everyone else is busy under the guise of medicine. He convinces Daisuke to go into the vent when Swansea can’t stop him. He kills Swansea after everyone is dead. It really highlights the type of violence he commits. He is a coward, he won’t take his chance if there is a possibility of active conflict, yet, he jumps on the opportunity to do so when there’s no risk. Not just when there’s no one to stop him but when he knows there’s no one to witness it. To judge and directly call out his faults.
No one outside himself to really see him as the monster he would never admit he is.
#like with all the eye and sight imagery Jimmy operates in blind spots#like there is the obvious question of how no one heard the first two examples I used as Curly was struggling and crying out but maybe it was#too muffled same way the door couldn’t lock but it muffled what was happening in the room with Anya#it’s just a thing I noticed as we never see Jimmy hurt others until the end where they stop obscuring it or dancing around it#he may interpret his actions differently but we see what he’s actually done and I think it’s important to remember he got away with so much#if it because no one saw and no one wanted to see like the story is about taking responsibility and being aware on so many fronts#it fades to black when he hurts Curly and only when there’s no one too look away do we see his actual violence#mouthwashing#mouthwashing game#jimmy mouthwashing#like he’s so scary cause he knows what he’s doing and does it horrifyingly well
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Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.
Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.
There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)
People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" about the guy formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)
On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.
Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:
A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and something the show wants you to view as positive or aspirational.
An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession (even though this is a very deliberate theme that's stated several times)
A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.
A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original.
Just generally very little consideration and engagement with the themes, intent, etc. of the shows
This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.
I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I'm disappointed that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.
This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.
* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows. ** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans. *** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews
#and yeah i think the hbomberguy video is kind of bad#I can pull up examples but a lot of what he's saying is very rooted in this sort of critique#maybe most egregiously he sometimes just explains something very poorly or outright incorrectly to make it seem worse or more nonsensical#ex. saying a scene in doctor who 'steals a huge chunk of the plot' when it's less than 30 seconds long#saying two characters randomly start hanging out again while not mentioning the episode entirely dedicated to this#or the way her decision to keep hanging out with him is the emotional turning point of the entire season#etc etc etc.
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not romantic or platonic but a secret third thing (bonded pair)
#I think more character dynamics should be described as bonded pairs#are two characters very attached to each other in a way that's hard to define? bonded pair.#are two characters rarely seen in a scene without each other? bonded pair#do two characters get anxious when separated? bonded pair#I don't mean this in a weird way I mean it in the way cats will be bonded when at a shelter together or something#this can apply to so many characters I think#regardless of whether they're romantic or platonic or whatever#most necrocav duos in tlt for example#and too many duos in fma to count#like obviously knowing me im thinking about greedling#but also the elric brothers or mustang and hawkeye#but also. many of the side characters.#doing my massive spreadsheet (almost done btw!) has shown to me that jerso and zampano are almost always in the same scene#that's a bonded pair babey#brosh and ross too. to me.#anyway. someone once left the tags ''bonded pair do not separate'' on a greedling post of mine and i haven't stop thinking about it#that's just how I conceptualize their dynamic now#two cats that have to be adopted together or else they'll start destroying furniture
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The bizly character formula is thus: First of all a past that they drag around with them like stones on their feet, a burden that is so impactful on them that it's also an intrinsic part of them, inseparable from who they are. second of all abandonment issues, or familial issues. then you make them at least a bit of an asshole, if not outright morally....questionable. AND you gotta throw in at least a little bit of soul crushing guilt over something or other at some point. generally they are also greasy little pathetic bastards who always end up being at least a little bit queer. I am right.
#pleaseeee ask me for examples if you want them.#also keep in mind that im referring pretty much just to JRWI here--i wasnt thinking ab the scu at all while writing this#also ive only seen:#jrwi riptide#jrwi bitb#jrwi apotheosis#jrwi the suckening#and those last two i havent finished yet#blood in the bayou#the suckening#bitb#jrwi#chip jrwi#jrwi thanatos#timothy rand#shilo bathory#shilo bathroy#shilo jrwi#chip bastard#bizly#bizlychannel#i speak
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#its been a rly weird (not in a bad way just different-weird hh) feeling/exp being behind on da stuff lately and not having been able to#follow it all or post about it all in totality or minute detail like usual (and for so long too)#but its been so worth it sjdkjfkfj#and the reason is. the other thing (i dont talk about it much here) that is my special interest is nature- especially plants and birds#and for ~three years or so now i have had this Dream of seeing a specific rare bird species in the wild#it can only be found in one region/habitat in one country in the world#i have tried to spot it before on previous attempts but wasn't able to find it#so tldr i've been on this Bird quest on the other side of the world#and this time.. i DID find it ouughh (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥`) and not only one example but they had a friend with them too!! TWO birbs#and AAAA im so happy i cant even begin to explain/express.. its a dream come true for me fr (。•́︿•̀。)#mj and the world#feels
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every time i say tumblr staff (and tumblr itself let's be real) made social media worse by never punishing harassment, allowing people to get comfortable pushing cancel and callout culture so they could harass and dehumanize anyone (especially minorities) they want without ever having to worry about consequences, an attitude they brought with them to other websites like tiktok and twitter after the 2018 porn ban....
This is what I'm talking about. tumblr staff doesn't give a shit if you're stalked and harassed, but if you're a trans woman posting selfies? instant ban.
tumblr staff has NEVER done anything to protect its users, but now they're actively participating in doing the harm.
#jem blogs#tumblr#staff#transphobia#social media#and if all that shit isn't annoying enough i now have to constantly hear about how tumblr Is The Only Good Website Now™#like no the FUCK it's not#tumblr's been harassing people for fucking ages and now staff is *openly* jumping in on it too#stop trying to revisionize tumblr into your perfect uwu website and acknowledge the bullshit going on right now#and no i'm not saying tumblr invented callout culture obviously the act of digging up dirt on someone to punish them is nothing new#i just say that on the internet? i have pretty good reason to belive tumblr's been doing that longer and more actively than other websites#john green and xkit guy being two of the oldest examples of people being accused of being predators/pedos with no evidence#and having to leave the website to protect themselves
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Daniel Ricciardo talks about fame and attention after Drive to Survive
#DADDY LONG DICK JUST LANDED BACK IN LA#good day to remind the bitches that dts wouldn’t have existed without him. a good percentage of f1blr is here literally bc of him#he changed people's actual life trajectories#for example these two fuckers were d list actors before watching dts and bc of DANIEL they are now career podcasters#THINK TWICE.#daniel ricciardo#f1#*#podcast#**
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I'm listening to a lot of Maintenance Phase (bc I love it) and this comes up sometimes, so I'll just be sat here thinking about how common it is for little kids to grow up watching their moms and other women in their life jump from diet to diet. Just as ambient background noise in your childhood, the adults around you obsess over calories aloud, express guilt over eating enjoyable food, frame exercise as a form of punishment for eating, and so on.
#how crazy is that...#and no your mom or your aunt or sisters or whoever surely aren't thinking about this as modeling a type of behavior#but that's what happens#also particularly crazy for people I talk to where you're in the age group that also had The Biggest Loser airing on tv at the time LMAO#lots of stuff happening at once there huh. crazy#sergle.txt#also yes I am gendering this SPECIFICALLY not because EDs/weight stigma/eating disorders DON'T stretch across all genders#but because it WAS specifically almost always women doing this because the diet and weight loss industries specifically target women#and because we can all think of examples in our families or in those of our friends and ppl close to us#where one or all of the women will be taking part in this behavior and IN THE BACKGROUND. the men in the house usually aren't.#and that a lot of the time this isn't enforced on them either. or the mom will be cutting calories and the dad will be visibly making fun.#sometimes families with one or two people doing this diet shit will cause it to be The Whole House Goes On A Diet#but more often than not it's a splintered effort or just one person.
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POLYSHIP WEEK 2024
→ Day 4: promises “I made a promise, too; I promised to keep the pair of you alive. If Moghedien shows up, she’ll go after you two. Now, here.” [Mat] pushed the medallion at her again. Elayne reached up to pull his hat off and slip the cord over his head. She actually tucked the foxhead into his shirt and patted it before handing him his hat. [...] “You wear it. After all, you can hardly keep your promise if Moghedien kills you.”
#wotedit#wot#wot book spoilers#the wheel of time#rand al'thor#mat cauthon#elayne trakand#aviendha#avimatrandlayne#mine#polyshipweek24#this would've been easier if i'd waited another season or two to have footage of them interacting with each other lmao#but i could not pass up the 'promises' prompt!!!!! promises are the bedrock of polyeroticism on which avimatrandlayne is built!!#and it's the best example of Mat Is So Weirdly Tied Up With This Polycule Just Let Him Join For The Love Of God#there's also something very funny in rand mat aviendha all solemnly shaking hands and agreeing to die and kill for elayne if need be#and meanwhile elayne is just happily prancing along having a grand old time#i love them
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Like Me
#you want to watch Teen Beach Movie sooooo bad#its such a queer movie for technically being about two straight couples#this song being a great example of it#and also just every song#romellura#teen beach voltron#voltart
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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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