The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl

(Disclaimer : This review contains spoilers and should be read after watching the movie.)

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, I just watched The Danish Girl, a movie made by Tom Hooper, featuring Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, the very first transgender woman to get surgery.

This is, basically, a movie about her, discovering her transgender identity, while she had been married with her wife for six years. There is, obviously, all the stigma (since we're in the 1920s here) about transgender people, who were called "crazy", "psychotic", "homosexuals" (basically, they thought that they would do it because they wanted to have gay sex while "pretenting" to be "the opposite gender", I guess ?), and when you're not called like this by actual, professional doctors, you get called names in the streets, with slurs like "f*g" or stuff like those terms.

We also have a little grasp (and I'm very sorry if I get that aspect wrong ! I am not trans and therefore I don't have any experience on the matter, nor I claim to have, because this isn't my experience and my opinion should be weighed and judged accordingly !) on body dysphoria, Lili being basically repulsed by her own body, saying it's "not her body", and wanting to be "a real woman" and have children, when really, she was a real woman, no matter her sex, and the ignorance and blatant transphobia made it even worse.

This is, basically, showing all the negative aspects of having a transphobic society, and I believe that even today, things like this haven't changed very much. Trans rights are far behind gay rights and I read somewhere (sorry, I don't remember where), they are approximately 30 years behind.

Even with equal rights, I believe that equality won't be reached until mentalities are changed in order to have everyone portrayed, everywhere in society, as equal and normal as anyone else. I really appreciated, in this movie, the heartwarming process of Lili's wife, Greta, slowly accepting that her "husband" is no more, and that she loved a woman all along. Until the very end and her wife's transition, followed by her, sadly, demise, she stayed supportive, and kept drawing her even after her death, showing her love and respect for Lily and who she really was.

The fact that this woman is revered in the trans community shows the fights, not only for equal rights, but also, just to be seen as normal. It reminds me (well, it's different, but it's somehow related because queerphobia and ignorance) about how, even in France (a country in which gay marriage is legal), some people, my age, still believe that being gay is a mental disease, that it should be treated in a mental hospital, and that it's "unnatural" to be gay, which made me feel extremely sh*tty and terrified afterwards, for the rest of the day (This is actually true !!! It was a guy talking to me about gay marriage during our English class about how he was against gay marriage. I tried to convince him but the only argument he had on his side was "ew gays are gross they are unnatural and mentally deranged and disgusting". A lost cause, really !!!).

And most of the time, people are being hateful not because they are assh*les who want to be queerphobic. It's just ignorance, and people need to be educated on that from a very young age, since not only it would make LGBTQ+ kids safer,valuated and understood, finding themselves and loving themselves for who they really are, but also for cis-straight kids to understand them and see them as they truly are, with no judgment whatsoever.

Anyways, a great movie, very dramatic but it shows the process of discovering your true self, coming out, and the reaction afterwards. Sadly, besides the fact that being gay or transgender isn't officially a "mental disorder" anymore, the reactions, as of today, wouldn't be much different.

And that f*cking breaks my heart.

Okay, that's it for today ! I really hope you enjoyed this post and I'll see you very soon with a new one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

The Gay Fetish

The Gay Fetish

(Disclaimer : this is a reaction to Dan Howell bashing #stormpilot, for more information about that please read the post linked right here : http://theuncannymary.tumblr.com/post/138205254297/whats-the-stormpilot-thing-pls-i-need-to-know)

Hi everybody, Mary here.

It seems a little bit pointless, when you think about it, to call our celebrities on their bad behaviour ?

But I still do it, because justice needs to be served. There are things I can't let pass and this is one of those. Let me explain.

So, we have #randomstraightdude over there, he's called Dan, he is totally uneducated about the LGBTQ+ community.

(Note : I was blatantly ignorant myself until last year so there's hope for improvement. He definitely needs to educate himself or some sh*t, because he should realise the impact of his words and the wide audience listening to it.)

Anyways, he just reduced #stormpilot to sex, sex, sex, nothing but sex. He said that our hopes of it ever getting "canon" were "desperate". He called us "dirty sinners" and reduced what could be the most brilliant representation of queer POC to "porking each other".

Basically, he shat on all of us queer people, on people of colour, on queer people of colour, and everyone who ships #stormpilot because they want to see it happen.

So, I'll tell what's going to happen if #stormpilot becomes canon (which I actually hope to be) :

1) New Star Wars fans, the younger generation, will grow up with Rey, Poe and Finn. They will realise the representation of their own skin, of black & Latino people, of a badass woman who gives no f*cks. I grew up with Han, Leia and Luke ; a "scoundrel" who turned selfless for love, a badass woman who gave no f*cks, and another guy who overcame his own fears to become brave while still being kind and generous. And the next generation will be growing up with a rebel black StormTrooper, a Latino pilot and a badass woman will improve the mentalities and give them hope of accepting themselves in a, sadly still racist and misognystic, world.

2) This would actually be bold from Disney to feature an interracial gay couple in a big blockbuster... but when you think about it, recent movies about LGBTQ+ people are Carol, About Ray and The Danish Girl (the two latter I still have to watch). Having people buying LGBTQ+ stories show the demand on the market, which is the only thing big Hollywodian productions care about. The money, the sales, the come-back via merchandise and derived products.

These last six months have shown people going to movies featuring LGBTQ+ people, showing there are tons of opportunities for queer people (especially those of colour) to be represented. And they could actually pull out more money and be successful, while educating people and opening their minds to how normal being queer actually is. They didn't want to sell Rey in the beginning because they thought selling "girls toys" wouldn't matter ? It did. Everyone got so mad that they had to produce. Which means, when we ask for it, we get it. We just have to be more vocal about it and ask for representation and accurate portrayal of queer people in the media.

3) It would show that queer people aren't inherently sexual (because kids are watching lolol). Even if they were, what's the matter ? Queer people don't owe you anything. But reducing queer people to sex, not exploring the depths of their struggles to find themselves, to accept themselves, to find the right person, to love and be loved, their romance, their little "days in the life", their cute moments, their shared affection, their weddings, their families, their jobs, their personalities, their hobbies, their hopes, their wishes, their dreams, their expectations, their fears, their problems, their anxieties, all of what makes a human, well... human, it's like scrapping these people up just for a comic punchline, a hot gay sex scene, a quirk, a personality trait, something of lesser importance.

What I'm trying to say here is, we never sexualise or fetishise queer couples. And while I admit that I tend to fetishise my own queer ships, I have the clarity to know why.

You know why we fetishise queer people ? Why we ship people in gay couples even if they don't drop a single hint of being queer ?

BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ENOUGH REPRESENTATION IN THE MEDIA FFS !!! AND WHENEVER THERE IS, IT'S EXTREMELY BAD !!! AND INHERENTLY SEXUAL !!! WHY DO I NEED TO TELL THIS IN CAP LOCKS ??? WHY DOESN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND ???

And there it is. The reason for which "the gay fetish" still exists. Because in a world where mentalities would have changed so much that everyone, regardless of sexuality, romance or gender, would be considered equal and normal by their straight-cis peers, we wouldn't have to make such a fuss about it and create opportunities wherever we see a little hint of gay.

We wouldn't have to make up things, to create things that aren't canon because the creators don't want to, because they believe "it won't sell", or because they are queerphobic af.

We wouldn't have to justify something like #stormpilot because everyone would think it's normal.

You, my dear Dan, wouldn't have to say such nasty things in front of thousands, if not millions, to see.

I wouldn't have to tell you what's wrong with your bullsh*t.

We wouldn't be talking about this right now.

Anyways, I'll end it there and I'll see you all soon with another post.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

The X-Files Revival #2

The X-Files Revival #2

Hi everybody, Mary here !

So, yeah ! We got spoiled with a second episode of the long-awaited revival of The X-Files, and I'm still very happy to see my favourite characters coming back on screen !

So, without any further ado, let's get started, shall we ?

The Founder's Mutation

First of all, now we have more information about the plan from the goverment.

(Which doesn't surprise me AT ALL, I mean, the women being pregnant for hybrids and resulting in failures hidden by the Secret Services ? Sounds like something I've heard before, haven't you ?)

We have very young women, like Sveta, being abducted and then they have babies and then the babies are taken away. The only difference now is, they have superpowers, like ultrasounds or telekinesis... and they are ready to use them.

Which then causes the forced suicide of a scientist and Mulder screaming in pain for this.

In the end, the guy who did this evades with his sister and runs away with her.

But this isn't the most important thing here.

The most important thing here is, how Mulder and Scully would have educated William, their son, what they think about his alien identity. For Scully, she thinks about a scared William, asking her what's happening when his alien identity re-surfaces. For Mulder, it's William, being abducted, just like his sister.

Their biggest fears are now packed together ; Scully, with her maternal instinct, hopes that her son is "more than just an experiment", and Mulder, who has to love with the abduction, and then death, of his own sister, fears the same thing happening to his son.

We finally start seeing the actual effects of them giving their own child, their love child, the only thing they love more than each other (by the way, f*ck you Chris Carter for breaking them up, I now officially DEMAND a make-up scene followed by a sex scene before the end of this mini-series), and them wishing they could have had a normal life with their child.

Without all the goverment, the aliens... in the end, they just wanted a normal life.

Like us all.

Anyways, I'm going to leave it there, and I'll see you very soon with something new (probably the next episode next week, I'm so busy right now help !!!).

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

The X-Files Revival #1

The X-Files Revival #1

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, YEEPEE !!! The X-Files are back ! Isn't everyone happy to see this magnificent TV show coming back after 14 years with no new episodes ?

Because I am.

Anyways, without any further ado, let's get started with the review of the first episode out of six !!! Let's go back... to The X-Files !!!

My Struggle

First of all, I'm SUPER-DUPER glad to see the original opening and ending credits coming. It shows that the show is still the same.

Secondly, I'm super happy to see our favourite characters coming back. But if there's something g that I hate very deeply, is that they seem to be changing the entire plot to make sure that there'll be something new to watch.

Like, I was pretty sure that the truth from the end of season nine (2002) was THE truth ? Like, aliens colonising the Earth, helps by villain men, and hat was it. I thought the revival would be about the actual invasion and William's story, although they'll talk about it as well.

Tod and Sveta were good additions, and added more mystery, and the connection to William (I'm pretty sure we'll see him soon). And the conspiracy of men is also a great idea.

But at the same time, there won't be any aliens ??? If I understood correctly, these villain men have the technology to breed hybrids and use alien stuff (which concludes the paragraph : Scully being abducted and remembering men in Season 5), and then rule the world. But are they doing it for the aliens who came by in 1947 in Roswell, afraid we would "ruin ourselves" with the nuclear weapon ?

I mean, if I were the aliens, I'd let humans destroy each other. But since they need the women to have their babies and can't have their babies without them, they have to protect their surrogates, right ?

And then rule the world with their Black Oil while letting the villain men get away with the antidote ?

So the original season nine truth is the same as the revival ? Nothing has changed ?

Everything that was supposed to be new and original has already been told to us in the nine previous seasons ?

Who does Chris Carter thinks he is ?

I'm very very very extremely confused. Please someone help me because I watched the episode with ten trillion assholes around me making the most noise possible at my business school.

Anyways, I'm leaving this for now. I'll see you tomorrow with the next review of the second episode (wow, they're REALLY spoiling us for this 14-year-old wait !!!!!).

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Our Common Nature #9 : Gender Roles

Our Common Nature #9 : Gender Roles

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the very last post in my Our Common Nature series, with a little talk (very brief though) about gender roles.

First of all, I'd like to talk about how harmful gender roles are, for all genders. Not only they enforce certain stereotypes on children from the youngest age, but it also ensures that the same children don't go beyond the little boxes made by their education, upbringing and society in order to make everything and everyone look and sound exactly the same.

Girls have to like pink, princesses, house chores, and princesses.
Boys have to like blue, trucks, outside activities, and superheroes.

There's not enough representation in the media for badass girl superheroes.
Boys obviously can't play with female characters, even from action movies.
Those action movies display males more than females.

Stereotypes go with personality stereotypes.
Girls have to be pretty, gentle, nurturing and submissive.
Boys have to be handsome, destroying everything, not nurturing and dominant.
Girls can't curse, boys can't cry.

Stereotypes are harming all genders. When I'm talking about feminism, I'm not only talking about all the missed opportunities and sexism towards women. I'm also talking about hyper-masculinity, fathers getting less opportunities to gain custody of their children when filing a divorce, them being left out many times of parenthood with less parental leave.

When I'm talking about feminism, I'm not a misandrist. I don't hate men. I actually hate women who think their gender is better than men, because it's not true. All genders should be raised equally and considered as equals.

The only reason for which it's called feminism and not egalitarianism, is that feminine traits are the ones that people (from ALL GENDERS) are bashed for. Masculine is the dominant and feminine, the submissive.

It's time to understand that everything is equal no matter what.

So, this concludes my Our Common Nature series ! As usual, please tell me if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies and I'll see you soon with something different !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Our Common Nature #8 : Rhinocéros

Our Common Nature #8 : Rhinocéros

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the eight post in my Our Common Nature series, with the analysis of a play by Eugène Ionesco in 1959, Rhinocéros.

Basically, this is "the theatre of the absurd" ; represented by other authors like Samuel Beckett, it shows the absurdity of our own existences and the meaning of our lives.

In this play, a rhinoceros appears and frightens the inhabitants. The only problem is, slowly across the play, other people will turn into rhinoceroses and follow the group.

It has been analysed as a parody of dictatorships : in the beginning, everyone is afraid of this, because rhinoceroses aren't supposed to exist in this village, and people want to protect their pets against what they look at as the invador.

After a while, people get sadly used to this feature and become more and more acceptant towards the rhinoceroses. In the end, they realise that all these animals have one trait, which is wilderness. Since people, no matter their background or education, is unsatisfied if their general existence, they all turn into rhinoceroses.

No matter the reason, people choose to follow the group that becomes bigger and bigger everyday no matter what ; the Logician, full of knowledge and education, follows because it seems "natural" ; Jean does it because of conformism, Daisy because she finds them "handsome", the Director because "he can't abandon the ship with his employees", his wife follows because she can't leave him like that, and so on and so on.

In the end, Bérenger, the guy that was a socially deviant person and who was mocked by the rest of the village for thinking about "how werid it is to see humans turn into beasts like that" and for seeing things as they are, ends up being the only remaining human on stage, refusing to surrender to the beasts, and when you think about it, it's what we would have known in their shoes, right ?

But think about it this way : the characters don't have as much information as us audience. Just like people who lived under a dictatorship didn't know how harmful their dictators were. People.p, when they see a dictatorship, first see it as a horrible thing, and then get used to it, until the little minority of people following the dictatorship becomes the majority, crushing the resistants under the weight of the majority.

It's the same for trends, really ; and people don't seem to see it... until it's too late.

 

Alright, this is it for now ! As usual, please tell me if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies and I'll see you very soon with the next (and last !) episode of this series.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Our Common Nature #7 : Asch's experiment

Our Common Nature #7 : Asch's Experiment

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the seventh post in my Our Common Nature series, with another experiment that prove how much humans are just a bunch of white sheeps ready to follow whatever trend is presented in front of them in order to be accepted by society.

Asch's experiment was an experiment led by Solomon Asch in 1951, in order to see how people conformed themselves to the majority. People were placed in a group and asked to compare a straight line to three others, and among those three, to find the one matching the very first one.

This was supposed to be a vision test already tested on others who didn't have any problem to answer correctly.

What was measured was the naive candidate who was answering one before last ; at the beginning, everyone would answer correctly and the naive candidate would do so as well. But then, all the candidates would answer incorrectly. What was even more absurd is that sometimes, the difference between the line they answered (the wrong one) would be extremely visible (more than five centimeters), and still, for one-third of the people, they decided to follow the majority and give a wrong answer. They would even support their wrong answer when asked to do so.

At the end of the experiment, when asked why they failed so badly, they just "blamed their bad eyesight", rather than the conformism they were the victim of.

When given someone to give the right answer with them, they'd also give the right answer. When this person would leave, they would also go back to the majority with their previous supporter.

Basically, in time of doubt and when confronted to others who don't have the same opinion as you... the best answer, for one third of the people, was to conform to their wrong opinion, I  order not to be judged or rejected by their peers.

Trends usually work like this : give an authority or power a rule, and everyone will follow it. Instead of questioning why people are doing things, it's easier to follow the masses and never be seen.

Even anti-conformism is a form of conformism : people and companies also use this technique to sell to people with the appeal of "being different", "being unique", and "go against society". Even anti-conformists have their own rules, in the end : they are against everything that is conformist, and support everything that society disapproves.

What I think of all this ? Just build your own life. Do not follow like a sheep, but try to question trends ; do not try to go against the norms at every cost, but try to understand trends. There are things you like and others you don't ; some of them are trends and others aren't. Just be yourself, even if that sentence is the cheesiest sentence ever, alright ?

Alright, that's it for now, I really hope that you liked this post, please tell me if there are any mistake or inaccuracies as usual and I'll see me you very soon without next post in this series.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Our Common Nature #6 : As seen in the movie... #3

Our Common Nature #6

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here is the third movie we'll be analysing in this Our Common Nature series, an American movie made in 2010 by Paul Scheuring, featuring Adrian Brody and Forest Whitaker. Without further ado, let's get started, shall we ?

As seen in the movie... The Experiment

If you thought that power couldn't corrupt a man and create horrible things, then you should definitely watch is movie.

This movie is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment that was made by Philip Zimbardo at the Stanford University between 14-20 of August, 1971.

This experiment was trying to find out whether giving powers to some people and force others to be submissive was actually effective.

24 people were tested for this experiment, all men from the middle class. They were supposed to be the most reliable people and have the least problematic behaviour.

In the end, guards (even if initially prohibited from using physical force on the prisoners) had been briefed the day before to use menacing techniques, intimidation, threats, and any kind of behaviour in order to make the prisoners... well, feel like prisoners. They were asked to treat them like sh*t and not as humans, and refer to them with their number tags and not their names. They were even given a guard costume, a wood baton to ensure their supposed "authority" and sunglasses to prevent eye-contact. Basically, they were the bad guys, acting like heartless robots.

The prisoners, on the other hand, were given white simple clothes, a number tag and a chain on their wrists, to make it even clearer that they were not treated like humans and more like pieces of sh*t. Basically dehumanised and reduces to nothingness, and their status was supposed to show their vulnerability and weaknesses, and the fact that they were "lesser human beings" than the guards themselves.

What happened was the following : multiple rebellions, prisoners going crazy (one of them had to be escorted because of madness), the guards repressing said rebellions and using physical force to ensure that their "authority" is respected... Instead of lasting for two weeks, it only lasted six days, with Zimbardo closing it himself.

Although there were multiple controversies in this experiment (Zimbardo having the double role of chief of the prison and also the experimentator, him not closing the case earlier despite the desperate situation, him getting too involved in the experiment to see the damage), what's the most important is the feedback people were asked at the end of the experiment.

While many guards were upset of seeing the experiment ending, they still believed that what they were doing was right, and that their "authority" was legitimised by the roleplay established by Zimbardo in the beginning.

The prisoners suffered from a very big trauma and feelings of being dehumanised, treated like nothing and hopelessness. Seeing authority as unfair, they tried to support each other and stay collective, until the bitter end.

The movie is a more graphic depiction of the experiment made for the sensationalism and Hollywood gaining money, but it's a very interesting move nevertheless.

As we can see, power DOES corrupt individuals to the core, until the point where they impose their perception of reality on others. All the movies that were saying "power is the root of all evil" are right. Well, maybe it's not the only factor, but it's very interesting to see how power shapes us as human beings to put against "the rest" instead of with them.

Anyways, that's it for now ! As usual, please tell me if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies, and I'll see you very soon with the next post in this series !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Our Common Nature #5 : As seen in the movie... #2

Our Common Nature #5

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the second movie we'll be analysing in this Our Common Nature series, will be a German movie called Die Welle (literally, The Wave) made by Dennis Gansel in 2005. Without further ado, let's get started, shall we ?

As seen in the movie... Die Welle

Ever thought that a dictator like Hitler could never come back to power and that nazism had taught a good lesson of not following blindly the orders of a mad man who could convince us to do so ?

Apparently we still need to learn our lesson.

Die Welle (The Wave) is a movie produced by Dennis Gansel in 2008, based on the real life experiment done by the History teacher Ron Jones with his junior students in the Cubberly high school in Palo Alto during the first week of April 1967.

While talking about how Germans followed Hitler from his beginnings in politics until his fall and his death, he talked about how people followed him because they weren't aware of being manipulated by the dictator. And when one of his students jokingly said that such a horrible dictator couldn't come back in power because we were supposed to have learnt our lesson and not repeat the errors of the past.

And yet, their students were proved wrong.

The experiment was to replicate a little "dictatorship" in the classroom. A one-week experiment that started with all students wearing a white shirt. Then, some rules were added to "increase the discipline in the class", such as always raising your hand to answer a question, and standing up when you're asked to do so. A salute was even added, a wave. This "new third Reich" was called "The Third Wave".

What was supposed to be "just a one-week experiment" degenerated quite quickly. Right from the third day, people from the Wave started bullying students that weren't in the movement, that was now spreading in other classes, in the entire high-school even. During a water-polo match, people even went to physical fights and everything was out of the teacher's control.

In the end, he had to pretend to rally all the students "for a meeting to rule over the town" (how crazy !!!) to have them listen to him, and stopped the experiment, as the principal of the school told him how bad the situation was.

The question is : how did the students follow the teacher so blindly ?

First of all, it's just like the Germans during the Third Reich : they weren't aware of the power of the teacher, just like the Germans weren't aware of the power of Hitler.

Secondly, it's because they thought that the values proposed by the teacher were "valid" because of his authority, just,like the Germans didn't realise the same thing about Hitler.

Third thing : peer pressure. When the teacher imposed the white shirts on the first day, one student didn't want to follow the rule (I believe it was a girl who was wearing a pink shirt). She told the teacher that she didn't want to follow the movement, and in return, just like Hitler would have probably said, he said "well, you just should follow the rest of the class, or you'll end up being hated by them".

On the next day, she was wearing the white shirt.

The fact that the teacher was scaringly accurate as a fictional Hitler, can only prove that it could be "anyone" in this position. Anyone could be a dictator if they had the charisma and the values necessary to be followed by the masses. We are clinging onto authority as a mean of putting the responsibility of crimes in someone else's shoulders.

Isn't that the scariest thing, in the end ? How we were white sheeps following supposed "values" when, really, we are just accepting the unacceptable under the pretext that it's the authority ?

We'd rather live in the comfort of having others ruling our lives rather than questioning said authority to make sure that it's fair for both sides.

I don't know about you, but this movie (and the book I've also read) changed my entire life and perception of the situation.

Anyways, I'll stop it right here, as usual, please tell me if I've done any mistakes or inaccuracies in this post, and I'll see you very soon with the next post in this series.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Our Common Nature #4 : As seen in the movie... #1

Our Common Nature #4

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the fourth post in the Our Common Nature series, and after having introduced a couple of elementary notions, it's time to actually see the impacts of the theories on reality. So, what about comparing these theories to their applications in movies ?

(I heavily advise you to watch those movies before reading these posts, as they will be filled with spoilers. Beware, then, if you are willing to read those.)

Anyways, here's the first movie we will be discussing about !

As seen in the movie... I, as in Icarus

So, the movie I, as in Icarus, is a French movie made in 1979, by Henri Verneuil, featuring Yves Montand as the leading role of Henri Volney.

The story involves a fictional country, however looking like the United States (with the dollar as a currency, the buildings, etc...). In the beginning, the president Marc Jarry, freshly re-elected, is killed by a headshot while going around in a car (in a JFK-esque way, which also the movie as a conspirationist theory of his assassination).

An investigation is then opened in order to see what caused the murder. One year later, the investigation, opened by the "High Commander of Justice" (sorry if that doesn't translate the concept quite well), Frédéric Heiniger, declares one single shooter, Karl-Erich Daslow. This man, shown as a madman, is accused of the murder, and since he's dead, he can't defend himself.

However, Henri Volney, a "High Attorney", doesn't agree with this accusation. Since the laws (very conveniently) say that if a member of the High Council doesn't agree with its decision, it can re-open the case on their own, Volney starts working and tries to find the truth.

Eventually, he finds out a secret tie between the Secret Services, killed witnesses (eight out of nine, the remaining one being a man called Franck Bellony), and how people don't want him to talk about the truth.

How the government is corrupted, trying to place a dictator in a foreign country and how Marc Jarry was killed by another man called Carlos de Palma, and the symbolic ending with Volney being killed as his ex-wife is explaining to him the Icarus myth (too close to the truth = the sun, you die !!!) isn't the point we'll be discussing today. The point is the psychological experiment introduced in this movie.

Stanley Milgram's experiment is an experiment that shows how blindly people follow orders when given such by an authority they legitimised. Two people are presented in a lab by a scientist, with a simulation on how "punishments can improve, or not, the quality of leaning".

They choose a piece of paper between two, one being the teacher and the other one being the pupil. The pupil then sits on an electric chair and has to learn 30 associations of words and adjectives in one minute. Then, the teacher asks the adjective associated with one of the words. If the pupil answers wrong, the teacher administrates an electric shock. The more mistakes the pupil gets, the higher the shock will be. Starting from 15 volts, it can go up to 450 volts, and ultimately, cause extreme pain for the pupil, if not death.

Crazy isn't it ?

Don't worry. This experiment is fake anyways ! Actually, one of the supposed people is an actor working with the scientist. The two papers are marked "teacher" and the actor is supposed to pretend they got pupil all the time. The electric chair doesn't work. What is  analysed here isn't whether the pupil gets the answers right when electrocuted, but how far will the teacher go to follow the authority of the scientist.

Basically, it's a "how far will you torture for me because I'm the authority" test.

Whether in this movie or in reality, the absurdity is clear : you'd NEVER hit someone who hasn't done anything wrong, right ? You'd never electrocute an innocent person.

WRONG.

When first conducted between 1960 and 1963, 62,5% of the teachers went to the maximum level of 450 volts. When asked to explain their behaviour, the only responses were about how they didn't want to hurt anyone in the first place, but the authority and the fact that they were exempt of any responsibility for what they were doing.

Daslow, in the movie, just answered that it was because of the authority that he went up to 405 volts. The, he stopped, but he said that authority is authority and he'd listen to anyone who would have a legitimate authority.

Hence the false shooting made by him. He just listened to the authority, after all.

Don't you think how crazy it is that we can basically torture, or even kill a man, just because we've been given he order to do so ?

Further information can be found in the French documentary called Le Jeu de la Mort (2010). It's a little but different from the original Milgram experiment, but it's still relevant. In this version of the experiment, we are wondering if we could kill in television and stil get away with it. The candidates were introduced with a game called La Zone Xtrême, where the pupil would learn 30 associations of words and adjectives. Unlike the original experiment, the pupil had he choice between four possible answers. The teacher is on a set with a public, and would have the control panel that had been revamped for the occasion. It was introduced as the experiment of a game where, if you went until the end, the teacher would earn 100,000 euros and the pupil 900,000 euros, because of the risks taken. Even if the money was fictitious and the candidates, given nothing but money for the transportation, 81% of the candidates went until the end.

81%. That's WAY too much for people who claim they wouldn't hurt anyone.

Pressure of money (even fictitious ?), the power of the media (15% of the candidates saying that television would never let them hurt anyone for real), the power of the audience that is a supposed "additional" authority to the show host ?

Can we kill on television and get away with it ?

What are the limits of authority ? What can it make us do ? Apparently, anything. And they'd still get away with it.

Okay, that's it for now ! As usual, please correct my eventual mistakes and inaccuracies and I'll see you very soon with the next post !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Our Common Nature #3 : Freud 101

Our Common Nature #3 : Freud 101

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the third post in the "Our Common Nature" series, and this time, I will briefly talk about Freud's lost important theories and why they are being actually debunked nowadays.

Although Freud is probably one of the most well-known psychatrists ever, his theories have been recently found as outdated and very simplistic. Nevertheless, I will explain his theories to avoid all this clichés that really piss me off sometimes.

First of all, his Oepdipian theory is a little bit more complex than the "you just want to f*ck your mother". It is linked to his theory on sexuality and the differences between "a girl" (by that understand a cisgender girl) and "a boy" (by that understand a cisgender boy). For a boy, according to him, having a penis meant that he was afraid of his father, who also has a penis, and that a competition is settled between them, for the mother's love, and the boy was afraid of getting his penis cut by his dad, because his dad may think that he wants to take his position in the mother's bed. For girls, the scenario is different and is called more frequently the Electra's complex. A girl doesn't have a penis, and thus, feels inferior to men who have one. She feels devaluated, she misses the penis, and sees her mother as a rival for the father's attention (since she wants his penis, hahaha). This theory is deeply heteronormative and cisnormative, in the sense that queer people, well, do exist. Myth debunked.

He also linked hysteria to these repressed memories of early sexual abuse and these Oedipian theory, by linking the subconscious of his patients to their dreams, which are linked to this forgotten abuse. His methods, actually, were very dangerous and included drugs such as cocaine, and that's what caused his "seduction theory".

All of Freud's works are very related, so the next point is linked to the previous one. In his analysis of the human psyché, he put three parts of the human's mind : the Ego (the rational person who's controlling evertything), the Id (the impulses, aka the devil on your shoulder), and the Super-Ego (the angel on your shoulder, which is supposed to regulate the stuff and protect the Ego from the Id).

In young children, that are not yet socialised, only the Id and the Ego work. Until the age of five, children have no inhibition and roam freely, unaware of the pressure to conform to social norms. But then, the kids are taught stuff, and the Super-Ego appears. Now that there are two contradicting forces trying to control the Ego, the person can listen to one at a time. But since this is all subconscious, we never really realise it anyways. This is a very simplified and individualistic manner of seeing things, but it's pretty easy to understand, at the very least.

He also presents dreams as "fulfilled wishes", which shows latent it secondary content (the real meaning of the dream) in the forms of words and images. It is only thanks to an analysis that the first meaning can be found again. It's also related to the Freudian slip, which is when someone says something instead of another, only to realise that they were trying to convey a subconscious message through these misplaced words.

Freud didn't only talk about the unconscious and sex, though : in 1930, for example, he wrote Civilisation and Its Discontents, which shows the decrease in religious thinking and how it will change society forever. Since religion was, according to him, a way for individuals to cope,with the feeling of infinity and the moral life, it was a sort,if protection against all the negativity in the world, and gave reassurance to those in need. Basically, it was a way to cope against our mortal life, the brutality of nature, and the displeasure of living in society.

In return, since the individuals are only looking for pleasure, they seek in science and technology the miracle that could just grant them a little bit more happiness. But as they seek for happiness, they also must sacrifice some of that happiness, such as control, beauty, hygiene, order, and the more intellectual functions. He then talks more in detail about life and death, but I won't add anything else.

He tales about many more subjects such as cerebral palsy, so it's a little bit reductive to only talk about Freud as "the guy who said that you wanted to have sex with your mother"...

Anyways. That's it for now, I will see you very soon with the next post in the series ! Please tel me if I've made any mistakes or inaccuracies, as usual !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Our Common Nature #2 : Psychology 101

Our Common Nature #2 : Psychology 101

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the second post in the "Our Common Nature" series, with this time, a little post about an introduction on psychology.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I am no professional on this subject, so I will only talk about one point on psychology that seems very important to me. And of course, it is the very valuable debate on nature vs nurture.

Altough this debate has been left recently, arguing that nature and nurture are very linked and now impossible to differenciate, it is very important to see what caused this debate, because in the end, why have nature and nurture been disposed as opposites in the first place ? We could talk about Rousseau's "good savages" versus the "abomination" that is the civilised man, and other topics.

I believe that this debate, started by John Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), is trying to explain human behaviour from genes, environment and personal preferences. Are twins linked more than others in term of motivations, personality and actions ?

Which of our actions can come from nature (primal insticts such as survival, self-protection and empathy) or nurture (such as socialising & cooperating with others ) ?

It has been shown that nowadays, nature and nurture are linked way too much to be opposites, and that this debate is now fruitless. However, it is very important, in my opinion, to hear from this debate to understand the basics of psychology, as this debate isn't innocent and lasted for decades to try and understand the nature (biology) and the nurture (sociability) of individuals in society.

This debate was maybe more valuable in the past to express the impact of society and modernism on indivuals, but it isn't valid anymore, except for observation.

When analyzing human behaviour, it is nature AND nurture, not nature vs nurture, as they are deeply correlated in humans.

Anyways, that's it for now ! As usual, please correct me for eventual mistakes and I'll see you very soon with the next post !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Our Common Nature #1 : Sociology 101

Our Common Nature #1 : Sociology 101

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the beginning of my very pretentious and intellectual series of posts called "Our Common Nature", talking about various features of the human behaviour and how it relates, in the end, to our lives in general and our inter-personal relationships.

(That's it, I already feel like I've lost half of my readership just by being this pretentious.)

But I'm going to do it anyways, because I love trying to understand other human beings (now it sounds like I'm an alien) and since I've taken a few lessons in philosophy for two years in uni (+1 in high-school), I just wanted to pass down the little amount of knowledge and researches done online that gave me this very tormented and twisted perception of life.

I will start this series of nine posts with a few posts on very simple basics of sociology, psychology and philosophy, and the very first one will be about sociology.

First of all, there are two very dominant schools in sociology, and that's what I will be talking about. The very first one is the holist school, led by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) in France. To summarise their opinion on the interaction between society and individuals, the major works that need to be understood are Durkheim's novel Les Règles De La Méthode Sociologique (1895) and Le Suicide (1897). In order to be a good sociologist, society must be seen as an external factor, and analysed as a matter of facts. Suicide is then explained by various reasons such as gender, level of income and location of habitation (city or countryside). Although personal elements are not omitted from these works, society is seen as a sort of "cloak" that ends up determining the individual's behaviour. We could parallel this with Orwell's 1984, but that work appeared much later. Pierre Bourdieu, influenced by Durkheim's works, continued on the determinist part of sociology, explaining the reproduction of social casts which also reproduces inequalities and little to no change in social classes, and even coined the term "habitus" : a way that individuals use the knowledge of society and which influences their personal behaviour in daily activies. Bourdieu's theories even went until the point where people could be classified according to the types of capital (economic, cultural, symbolic, and so on) and put in categories, which could even be linked with specific activities such as playing the piano, the tennis, drinking beer instead of wine, playing football, and so on. Although this seems to be a little bit cliché, this has been proven to be true very often, especially when studying the French population. He also criticised the "symbolic violence" which is linked to their perceived power according to their social status, and that can lead to feelings of inferiority and insignificance linked to the interiorisation of the social classes and their hierarchy.

To summarise, according to the holist sociologists, society has a power over individuals, who accept it and don't even feel the power since it's all they've known since they were brought up in society.

The second school is the individualist school, led by Max Weber (1864-1920) and Raymond Boudon (1934-2013). Unlike the first school, this school claims that individuals influence society by the sum of their actions, not the opposite. Weber was then an adamant defender of individual behaviour in  society, which leads to personal motivations changing society. He explained society's changes at the end of the 19th century with the growth of rationalisation and bureaucracy, in order to make everything clearer, and used ethics (Protestantism and capitalism) to explain the personal motivations of the entrepreneur. Personal actions can be explained by emotions or values. Boudon explains to a further extent the inequalities, especially in the school system, by the fact that even if more people can access to a longer education, if everyone can excess it and evolve, the higer positions are harder to reach, and to access a position similar to your parents', you need a bigger diploma to for these higher positions is now increasingly higher than for the previous generations. In return, individuals adjust their behaviour according to their parents, and only see their little achievements as something bigger than the previous generation, while inequalities are persistent. In the end, people subconsciously reproduce social inequalities this way, according to him. His methods of sociology, explained in L'inégalité Des Chances (1973), explains that individual actions given a social situation shape the results of the change in said social situation. But to explain sociology, according to him, everything can be explained through "medotologist individualism", or better explained, the individuals before society.

To summarise this part, the indivualist school explains sociology as an effect of individuals on society, not the opposite.

We can say that both schools are valid to explain sociology, and that society and indivualist are linked  not just in one way but both ways, and that people can feel more one side or the other according to personal convictions. I personally believe that society influences more individuels than the opposite, because of trends, clichés and other pre-concieved ideas that we can't seem to get rid of (homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and so on, anyone ?)... But anyone can have their opinion on the matter !

Anyways, I'll leave the discussion right there. I hope this cleared up your ideas (and please coreect me for any mistakes/inacurracies !) and I'll see you very soon with the next post !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!

Carol

Carol

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So,since I needed a little gay fix, I was looking for a good lesbian movie to watch.

It was only thanks to Tumblr and the "Harold, they're lesbians" meme that I heard of the movie entitled Carol, directed by Todd Haynes and featuring Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett.

So, I decided to watch it, by curiosity.

When I read the synopsis and saw that it involved (and what a cliché) a blonde woman, married to a man she doesn't love, having an affair to a brunette who's a little bit too stubborn for this world, I was a little bit put off. But still, I was little bit surprised by the actual movie, in a good way. I actually very much enjoyed it, in the end.

What I really appreciated in it, are a couple points that were a little bit refreshing, because you know, when you watch a lesbian movie (especially when made by men, but this was the adaptation of a book entitled The Price Of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith under the pseudonym Claire Morgan), is the absurd ton of clichés and the fact that most lesbian movies, when made by men, are made by the male gaze, for the male gaze. A sort of enhanced porn with a little bit of plot and angst, I suppose.

Which is the reason for which I was a little bit apprehensive before watching it, even I loved it, in the end.

If you love past the very first forty-five minutes of very awkward conversations between Thérèse, a cute brunette working in retail, and Carol, a rich woman who's about to divorce and who's trying to have the shared custody of her child with her ex-husband, and if you're patient enough to wait an hour and fifteen minutes until they have the first gay interaction (I know I didn't), then you can appreciate the angst of two women in the fifties who love each other despite the blatant sexism and the fact that being gay, during the fifties, is still seen as a mental illness that should be solved through a stay in a psychiatric ward.

You can also appreciate the naïveté of Thérèse, a young woman who doesn't know where she's going, but who finds love in the places where she wasn't necessarily looking for. You can appreciate her line about love being love, between two people, regardless of gender, because this is love, queer or not.

You can appreciate Carol, a woman who's trying to keep her daughter despite having a (I believe) previous affair with her best friends she's known since they were ten years old, and that she had to give up in order to keep her daughter with her, and her courage when she says that in the end, her ex-husband should have full custody of their child, granted that she has frequent and regular visits, and her bold statement that she loves Thérèse and that she will never give up on her like she did with Ally, and that she couldn't change her gay identity.

You can appreciate the fact that Thérèse didn't give up on Carol when she told her not to contact her, and that she took her time before going back to see her, and that in the end, she did because Carol had done everything for her. And that in the end, they'll be happy. Thérèse has her dream job, Carol will probably have one, but she has a very beautiful girlfriend, they have each other, and it changes from the stereotypical ending of lesbian movies.

Because, you know, the book was written in 1952, when it was the era of "lesbian pulp fiction", which meant stories before gay rights were even a thing, and it was usuall this kind of story, a married woman cheating on her husband with another one. A blonde and a brunette sinning in the middle of the night. No good endings allowed, it was either one of the women finding our how "wrong" she was (usually the married one) and going back to her hetero life, breaking up with her girlfriend of one night, or one of the women dying (generally the non-married one who has the cliché of having little to no family and/or friends, which means that no one would care about her anyways).

Well, maybe the movie was changed from the original book, or it was really a precursor for gay rights and an actual story about finding love and not giving a f*ck about patriarchy or heteronormativity.

A good watch then, if you appreciate very angsty and powerful, deep romance between two women.

Alright, this is it for today, and I'll see you soon with a new post, I hope.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Friends and depression

Friends And Depression

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's another thing that I wanted to talk about : in my business school, we got a lecture about well-being and depression (I don't remember how or when but it was surely in English and it was apt the lecture about sustainability and the non-economic factors of well-being).

It happened a few months ago, but this morning, since we talked about well-being and economic growth and non-economic factors of happiness, I was gently reminded about how having friends made you happier, and how friends could solve your depression, and how friends were everything you needed in life to succeed and be happy, and so on and so on.

I wanted to Google this to be sure, so I candidly typed "depression linked to friendship".

Obviously, I could only find posts linked to how Facebook makes everyone depressed because we compare ourselves to our supposed friends way too much and this social media was now only a race for more friends and more fame on the Internet, and I agree wit this fact : comparing yourself too much to others, focusing on your jealousy instead of your achievements, can make you sad, and in an extended period of time. depressed, maybe.

(I don't know, I never compare myself to anyone online or in real life. I know the drill and the negativity this brings in my life and I've decided to cut myself from it. and it makes me very happy to just express myself with no clichés or pretentions. Being myself, basically.)

But this isn't the lack of friendship that makes people depressed in the first place, like all these articles present the mental illness that is depression. It is because we are depressed that in the end, people don't understand us. They tell us to "get over it", they minimise our symptoms and the effects of depression in our daily lives, belittle and ridicule our own feelings, they tell us it's just a cry for attention or to attract their sympathy, and we're just fishing for pity from others.

The link between depression and loneliness should go this way, not the other way around. Depression causes loneliness, not the opposite. It's the general and social stigma around mental illnesses and the lack of information in the general media to sensibilise about mental illnesses that cause sufferers to be cut off from friends, family and loved ones, because they aren't heard or understood, while help from others and communication has been shown to be a good help for those having said mental illnesses, along with therapy and the good medication.

Because I'm tired of hearing the same people telling me "oh, you're depressed ? you should talk to people more often ! you should make friends around you ! this will help solve your depression !"... like can't you understand that I have NO ENERGY to socialise, on top of stress, anxiety, shyness and introversion ? Just let me do things at my own pace, God dammit !

Because I'm also tired of saying to everyone around me that I don't care about people around me when I obviously do, but I'm lying to hide my mental illness, because if people found out, God forbid what could happen to me.

Because I'm tired of hearing that I'm just "not trying hard enough", that I'm an ungrateful and lazy asshole, that I'm just anti-social, and that I'd rather live in a farm with goats.

(But when you think about it, I could just keep pet goats roaming freely and saving them from the rest of humanity and look at them all day while doing nothing. I'm pretty damn sure they haven't heard of the social stigma surrounding mental illnesses and that they'd lean a more friendly ear to my rambling than most humans on the whole planet.)

Sometimes, people need to know that this kind of mentality should change in order to see a better world, for everybody.

Anyways, gotta go. I really hope you enjoyed this post and I'll see you soon with a new one !

And as usual our last word : KIDNEYS !

About being grateful

About being grateful

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, since the holiday season has now ended, it's time for me to talk about something that I seriously do NOT understand.

I'm obviously talking about all the people who are selling their Christmas presents online to get rid of them, and then, they never tell the person who gave them said gift what happened, or if they are a little nasty b*tch, they'll straight up tell them  that their gift was utter sh*t and that they couldn't keep it with them.

And while I believe that if you want to avoid that kind of deception under the Christmas tree, they should ask for money they can spend, or a gift card for their favourite shop, or give them a couple ideas of things they might like, it also reminded me of something else.

That's right, kids : I'm gonna talk about gratitude.

Because you see, when someone gives you a gift, they believed that you'd like it. They may have thought about what you wear, what you listen, what you watch, basically, what you like, before buying you something. And even if they give you a very small present, the simple thought of them thinking about you and giving you a present is enough.

Last year, on Christmas 2014, at uni, we had Secret Santa (like in 2013). In 2013, I had the name of someone I didn't know, and I bought them food. They loved it. My Secret Santa gave me a pair of cozy warm slippers. I still wear them and I love them. Last year, I got my former roommate and I knew she liked scented candles, so that's what I bought her. She told me during the rest of the year about how much she loved those and she hadn't started using them to keep the scent as long as possible. And I was the cutest thing EVER. Like, she was thanking me a lot, and that little gesture of kindness made me so much happier and more confident while trying to talk to people in my class.

Our Secret Santa was about giving small presents to each other, even if we didn't know each other, and we wanted the gift to be the best for all of us. And right before the semester finals, it was very nice to have something nice to reminds us of home before the holidays.

That's why, when I see someone selling their gifts online, it breaks my heart. I would never do that, even with the silliest gifts I've received, like books I've never read (maybe I should read them, after all). Because the gift in itself isn't the most important thing, it is the meaning of it (in this example, my love for books).

I also hate very much those people who brag off all of their gifts in my face and who are spoiled little pieces of sh*t (that really needed to be said) who literally receive dozens of gifts each year. Like, I get it, you have loads of family and I don't. You have friends and I don't. Your parents love spoiling you and mine don't. But that doesn't mean that I'm not enjoying Christmas as much as you do.

And to those who complain about "not receiving enough this year" : BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE. My little brother and I only receive 50 euros each for Christmas by our mom. My biggest gift ever was my I-Pad Mini for my 18th birthday. Do I complain about not receiving as much as all the other kids around me ? No, because I know that these gifts have a meaning and a value that no one else will ever understand, and I know the sacrifices that others make in order for me to recieve such things as gifts. Heck, even 50 euros IS a lot of money for many people, more than you think !

(especially when you're handed 50 euros each by a friend of my mom and grandma who's already very old and living in poverty. like, she has nothing, and yet, she sacrifices the little money she can keep for us ? this is such an amazing thing, she didn't have to do this, and we keep telling her constantly that she should keep that money for herself and that we don't need it, and yet, she knows about how we don't have family or friends and she tries to make us as happy as possible. when you recieve the only savings of an old woman will you understand how prized your gifts should be.)

Anyways, I really hope you understand that when someone gives you a present, you should be thankful for it.

Alright, this is it for now, I really hope you enjoyed this little post and I'll see you very soon with a new one.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

A Countdown To Happiness

A Countdown To Happiness

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I was on YouTube (as I go there everyday, it isn't a big surprise, right ?), and I watched this video by Anna Akana, called "I Don't Deserve To Be Depressed", that really hit close to home.

(link is here if you want to watch it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8BzpU7Xfok)

Because I've been depressed since I was 14 years old. When I realised how depressed I was and how it affected my life, I was always telling myself excuses, excuses, excuses, tons of them.

I was telling myself : "Well, you're in high-school, it doesn't matter. You're just tired because you have to wake up at six every morning and you have to take the bus at seven and you finish at six in the evening and you arrive home at seven and no one is home anyways because everybody works and you end up with too much stress because of your exams !"

and then I was telling myself : "Well you're in a very stressful uni to have competitions to enter a business school it doesn't matter anyways because it'll be over soon ! I mean you have friends over there who stay all week and even during the week-end with you so it's okay if you're a little bit depressed you can talk to them at the very least !"

I felt like my life was a countdown to happiness.

A countdown to the end of the week, to the next holidays, to the end of the year. I was telling myself that at the end of the week, I'd be free. At the end of a school period, I'd be free. At the end of the year, I'd be free.

I always saw happiness at the end of something. Like, going out of high-school would make me happy. Going out of uni to go to my business school would make me happy. That the end of something, the end of an era, would magically cure my depression and all my problems.

I thought that going to a business school would cure my depression.

And now, I just feel ungrateful and sh*tty because I'm at my dream school. I don't have that much work to produce and I love all subjects I'm learning (except accounting, I'll never get around it smh), and my teachers are great, and I'm living in my little cozy appartment, alone, and I can do whatever the f*ck I want without feeling judged by anyone.

Heck, I can even eat whatever I want without being judged. (Maybe I should eat less soy products for that matter hahaha !!!)

I'm going very well, thank you. I'm on my way to my dream job and my dream life and everything is very good even if it's stressing me out sometimes.

And yet, I'm still depressed.

I can't sleep at night before midnight, and I have to wake up at six on some mornings (thank God on others I can wake up at like, eight) and I have to prepare my food and go to school. Showering is hard, eating is hard, I've put cooking to next week because I'm so lazy, going outside is hard. My favourite days are still the ones where I can stay in pyjamas all day and do nothing besides scrolling the Internet.

And now, I'm having another countdown to happiness : the one until which I leave my business school and start my real company and my dream job ! (or the closer one to go back home this summer to see my family, especially my little brother.)

And I feel like this is gonna stay like this forever ??? Like I'll keep putting my happiness on hold, I can't seem to go anywhere even if I know the path by now, and I'm afraid this situation will last until I die lonely without feeling loved even once outside of my family.

(Is it sad to say that my little brother, who's six years younger than me, is the only person I can call a friend, my only friend, my best friend, and so much more ? *cringes forever*)

I feel like I don't deserve to be helped anyways. I mean, people have it worse, I could be happy if I chose too, my mom doesn't understand and tells me to go outside and seek friendship among the people that I don't even like anyways, she tells me to visit the region a little bit before leaving because I won't be able to go there soon after and the place, I must admit, is truly beautiful...

And that's the reason I feel ungrateful and sh*tty for being "still depressed". Because no matter how hard I'm telling myself that I'm getting better and "recovering", I'm not.

Anyways. I'll just go and find some distraction. That solves depression, right ? *awkward laughter*

I'll see you soon with something new (my "Our Common Nature" should be here this month but idek if I'll have the courage to do it tbh) and goodbye !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Sherlock : The Abominable Bride

Sherlock : The Abominable Bride

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, since I'm finally feeling a little productive today, I just watched the seasonal special of Sherlock, The Abominable Bride, and I was quite... surprised.

I thought this would be an actual stand-alone, a special episode that isn't linked to the actual modern series, but if you wish to comprehend series 4 which will arrive next year (seriously why do I have to wait for so long ???), you should probably watch this episode as it's really important.

So, there is a parallel between Moriarty faking his death and a case that happened in the 19th century, and Sherlock just decides to over-dose to prove a point and make sure that Moriarty is actually dead.

I mean, if you shoot yourself right in the face, you're dead, you can't come back. And there comes the parallel ; first of all, we see similar characters in the Victorian era and in the modern one.

I especially appreciate the tiny dash/very big exposure of feminism that is included in this episode.

Molly Hooper who has to disguise as a man just to exercise her regular job as a doctor without being thrown out by the misogynistic, sexist men of this era.

Mary Morstan/Watson who is a suffragette and who probably led them to the sect of women playing the abominable bride to scare these men they seem to hate so much.

Lestrade who's a nice man in the modern era blatantly asking the same Mary if she's "for or against women's vote" when she says she's in a campaign for women's votes. I mean, who'd be against equal right, especially when you're on the less priviledge side of the balance ?

"Oh yeah, I'm a woman and I can't vote. But only men can vote ! So I'm gonna shoot myself in the foot and not ask for equal rights, I'm even going against them so the patriarchy and blatant sexism can keep ruling evrywhere, thanks for asking !"

Such a strong woman as Mary wouldn't say that in the entire world.

So, there's this parallel between the modern and Victorian eras, and they are linked to solve how Moriarty is back. In the end, Sherlock declares him dead, but just like the bride had friends and people to play her after her death, Moriarty has sbires who will keep playing him after his death, just to bother Sherlock Holmes until he dies.

(Or we'll have Moffat pulling a Doctor Who-esque rabbit trick and Moriarty will still be alive, I know yes what a shock you just have to watch Doctor Who to see how mad of a man he is...)

In more positive notes, there was lots and lots of gay in this episode, Victorian and fat Mycroft just playing with his own life while eating while modern Mycroft tries to hide his weight gain and to exercise to lose that gain made me laugh for ten straight minutes (even if I'm not), and  this episode was quite a good experience, in the end.

Anyways, good times that shorten the wait a little bit. But now we have to wait another year to see series 4 coming on our screens, so I'll be there for anyone who needs support. I'll see you soon with another post.

And as usual, our lasr word : KIDNEYS !

Doctor Who : The Husbands Of River Song

Doctor Who : The Husbands Of River Song

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, I'm so sorry I'm late for everything, but since I was on holidays with my family, I really wanted to treasure my time with them, so I had planned on having a social media break.

(That and having Animal Crossing : Happy Home Designer doesn't help. Seriously, this game is so repetitive and they should have a patch where we can do like, two full rooms, or even three, four, five, bigger rooms ! The best thing was definitely the public places and they should make more of those and I really hope they do. But despite that, it's very addictive and you just can't stop playing it once you've started it !!! So good recommendation if you're looking for a new game to play !!!)

But I'm back ! Isn't that a good thing, in the end ?

So, here's my little review about the 2015 Christmas Special from Doctor Who. In a few words, to say the least, I hadn't understood in the trailer why River Song doesn't recognise the Doctor. There's this little mystery : she didn't know about his new regeneration cycle, which means that probably, the Great Intelligence didn't know either. Only Clara knows.

(Does that mean that no one knows the Doctor anymore, or he's a different person to those who know about the new regeneration cycle ? What about the Sisterhood of Karn then ?)

Anyways, so that means we won't have Clara echoes in the future.

But in the end, the Doctor, after dropping ten trillion hints, sees River talking about his love for him. The thought of her being insecure and thinking that the Doctor doesn't love her back really broke my heart, as I was thinking about all the fans who don't pair the Eleventh Doctor and River because of their age difference. (I mean the actors, not the characters.)

But it seems that River just married this douchebag to kill him and steal a precious diamond in his head. She probably engaged that man to help her and they weren't serious. I mean, that banter when they were talking about all the other people they married besides each other was seriously gold.

So, the Doctor and River have one last adventure in space. As River herself said, her journal is nearly full, which means that in her timeline, we're just before The Silence In The Library where she dies. That's probably why the Doctor not only avoided her (in her timeline) to go on Durillian and have the last supper before she goes away, but also in his timeline, as we're hundreds of years after the Evelenth Doctor era in the Doctor's life.

This episode was kinda bitter-sweet, the last adventure, I definitely cried in the end where they have the last fancy dinner and they listen to the singing of the towers and they both know now that they won't see each other again. I mean, I'm not against it : the romantic relationship is quite here, and to the Whouffaldi shippers, I'd like to remind them that not every strong love is romantic. I do prefer Twelve and Clara as very best friends who loved each other, sure, but not in a romantic way.

Talking about Clara even though she isn't in this episode, just a little update about my feelings towards her : I'm still grieving her and I probably won't watch any episode with her soon, so the wound is still fresh. So, I will stop there, I think.

In the end, the episode was brilliant, full of River sass and she matches Twelve perfectly. It was nice to have a little happy episode (apart from the end), and he seems to get better over time. I really hope that he'll find someone else quite soon (and having a guy for once wouldn't be luxury, I believe).

Anyways, this it for this review, I don't have much more things to say besides the fact that I was happy to see River Song again. I'll see you soon with another review.

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !