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butchvamp · 2 months ago

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we know EA interfered a lot with veilguard, i definitely do attribute the "sanitization" of the setting directly to EA's meddling, i even think to some extent taash's quest and the corporate representation feel of it all was influenced heavily by EA and not just weekes. and i think a lot of the companions being so shallow and their quests feeling half-baked is also mostly due to time constraints and rewrites/cut content-- the writers genuinely did do the best they could with what they had, and i feel for them and their frustrations. but. there are also just a lot of really bad decisions made elsewhere, too. like i said the racism has always been present in these games and it's always been a problem, it's literally baked into the worldbuilding, though i can definitely agree that some of it was potentially made worse specifically in veilguard due to constant rewrites and the loss of context and cohesion, but like... it was always there to begin with... and it's not "unfair" for players to point this out.

both things can be true-- EA absolutely fucked these people over, and we shouldn't be speculating conspiracy theory-type shit about the writers hating fans or whatever when we know. we know EA interfered, we know there were creative differences, we know they ruthlessly laid off a lot of the people that poured their blood, sweat, and tears into this game! EA is both stupid and actively malicious, they get no sympathy from me. veilguard absolutely is a casualty of the current state of the gaming industry. and i also think there were a lot of poor writing decisions made independently of that as well, that are fair to criticize and question. a lot of these problems are the same problems we've seen in every single DA game, and this consistency makes it clear this is not just an issue with corporate overreach.

but i really feel for everyone involved with making this game, this shit was clearly a very long and tiring fight, i can't even imagine the kind of constant corporate shitstorm they had to deal with for ten fucking years, and personally there is no NDA in the world that would keep me from talking shit. so these guys are stronger than me lol

#sorry i know these are just silly posts on tumblr dot edu but its important to me that people know im mostly being flippant #in some of my negative comments #like i dont think the writers are evil or whatever theyre just humans with biases that are very apparent in some of the things they write #and i also understand they got shafted big time and no one deserves the treatment they got #i could never be a narrative designer or writer in the gaming industry i would be so sickkkkkkkkkk #i follow this one author. the guy who wrote warm bodies. and he sent out a newsletter recently about how he was working on #a huge gaming project for a UK based company #and then the game got scrapped and they sealed all of his writing in a vault to just Never be released #oh i would be on the NEWS!!!!!! i couldn't do it. these people may be insufferable at times but they have my respect #for dealing with this shit. i could never #da posting

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dykedvonte · 3 months 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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afterthelambs · 9 months ago

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I'm not sure if I believe the "Wakaba Isshiki did unethical experiments" theory in the fandom, but I do think this is the biggest proof of it in-game:

Because how the hell would she know that?

The first explanation is that she did experiments by sending people into palaces and then testing what happens to them if the palace collapses. Which is messed up for obvious reasons.

The second explanation is that she did NOT test it, meaning she was just making shit up. Which is funny but also would make her a terrible scientist. This explanation is less believable because everything else about her research is too accurate.

There's also a theory that Wakaba did unethical experiments on Akechi specifically. I'm not sure I believe that, since the evidence for it is pretty shallow (like the featherman game scientist experimenting on grey pigeon). But this scene is once again the biggest argument you could make for that theory. The researcher in the image above refers to palaces by their correct term 'palaces', which they say was based on Wakaba's research. But that's only something you would know with firsthand experience of the metaverse. And the only person they know who could access the metaverse was Akechi (that we know of, but i dont think Shido would rely only on Akechi if there were other options).

So yeah this scene is very sus. It's most likely the writers didn't think too deep about the implications. There's no way they wanted Futaba's mom to be sketchy, right? But even if it's not intentional, the scenes and their implications still exist. So in conclusion those theories make sense, I get it, and I don't blame anyone for headcanoning them and having fun. And tbh anyone involved with cognitive psience was portrayed as some degree of unethical (maruki for example), maybe this is just on-brand

#i really wish the game explained what the cognitive psience research thing was like more #like WHO are those people following joker at the end of the game. and WHO are those men escorting akechi in the end credits #shuake always matching because theyre both being stalked by men in suits for some unexplained reason #also about that featherman game #we all know grey pigeon is supposed to be akechi #but personally i dont think the scientist in that game is wakaba. thematically it feels more like shido #but regardless the game implies some stuff that akechi went through #either he was experimented on by cognitive pscientists (if you take the game literally)#or it's supposed to be a metaphor for the grooming shido did to him. endangering his life and controlling him with promises and praise #uggghggh thats so awful. someone pls just let the boy be happy #my post #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #wakaba isshiki #futaba sakura #goro akechi #p5r wakaba #p5r futaba #p5r akechi #shido masayoshi #phantom thieves #p5r shido #p5r analysis #p5r meta #persona 5 meta #p5r #shuake #tagged shuake because i mentioned them in the tags even if the post itself isnt rlly about them

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