#I actually have media literacy

[propheticclown]

Crazy realization I had about Kankri Vantas

So most people who play Openbound usually skip his dialogue (which isn't entirely unfair because he loves to 6lah) and this is on top of some optional dialogue so I don't doubt most people skipping this. But something really interesting I noticed is when he's having this conversation with Latula

A LOT of people will most likely chalk this conversation up to Kankri being a misogynist, considering he lists all these traits and then goes "all while 6eing a girl, n9 less."

But if you take this conversation along with the context of Latula's conversation with Porrim.

We find out that Latula's whole "Gamer girl" thing is a facade to try and show that "girls can be cool too". But what does this have to do with Kankri?

Well, considering that Kankri is a Seer of Blood, then it's actually likely that Kankri knows about this facade of Latula and her insecurities involving her gender. Thus his "all while 6eing a girl, n9 less." is actually Kankri attempting to give Latula validation about her own gender struggles and that he does genuinely care about gender on Beforus (if he didn't, he really wouldn't bring up Latula being a girl), and only acts like he doesn't care because of his disdain for Porrim. Not to mention that he does canonically have flushed feelings for Latula and makes more or less weird observations about her, so him knowing her struggles involving image and gender wouldn't be too far of a stretch. I love observing the dynamics between the Dancestors and discovering new things about them. This is why I read EVERY PIECE OF DIALOGUE IN OPENBOUND!!!

[wishchip106]

you know sometimes i do actually forget cherik isn’t canon….

like they’re supposed to be friends here?? 😭😭 what

just two great friends!!! 😁🤩 they’re as close as brothers even!! nothing more!! 😊

[musicalgifs]

*reference to this video, not my actual opinion

[c1trvswurld]

STOP babying and objectifying Daisuke

STOP making anya a perpetual forever doting victim

STOP making swansea this hotheaded gaurd dog

STOP babying and objectifying and being ableist to curly and removing autonomy

STOP ignoring the complex themes of jimmys character just to mischaracterize and to dunk on your idea of him and, therefore, ignoring the themes of the story

Stop ignoring the complexities of their characters please and thank you

[arihi]

Feeling unsafe is not the same as being unsafe and people are unable to distinguish between the two - you always have a right to be safe, but you do not necessarily have the right to always feel safe. This is an underlying theme in a lot of issues, like judging others' kinks, queerness, race, media analysis, and more; what the real heart of the problem is is unfamiliarity, things that people do not know and thus shrink away from in fear or disgust or discomfort. It can be a basic instinct to approach change and unfamiliarity with caution, but it needs to be an intentional act to challenge that fear/world view. It is something that we owe to the people around us, and that we owe to ourselves.

[courtrecord]

honestly i hate how that “maybe the curtains are just blue” post has become shorthand for anti-intellectualism and shit bc as someone who has an utter passion for media analysis now, I WAS THAT PERSON IN HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS.

english class never taught me how to analyze stories, it taught me how to remember what things the teacher said were “symbolism” and how to take quizzes where we had to match a quote to the character who said it. i didn’t give a shit about any of it, bc literally why should i. it was bullshit.

there’s this idea online that people are forgetting or rejecting what they learned in english class when they’re bad at media analysis, and maybe that’s a little bit true, but i think the much bigger problem is they never learned it in the first place. cinemasins & “maybe the curtains are just blue” aren’t convincing people to abandon an intellectualism they already had, they’re filling a void.

when all you learn in high school is to write on the test “blue = depression”, why is it surprising that so many people don’t give a shit about the curtains.

[makiswirl]

can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest

like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!

[vvividlyy]

I don't know if anyone else saw this but earlier today this was on Marvel's official youtube channel!

Erik and Charles were def sitting there enjoying the fireplace before abandoning their beverages to go make out

who said that

Look. It's not ME making everything about Cherik- it's just in the source material!!!

[bossbabyofficial]

[sapphic-agent]

You hate MHA for the fandom, I hate MHA because the author introduced a ton of intricate, important concepts and themes only to brush them aside in the middle of the story for no reason.

We are not the same.

[horrorknife]

it’s so funny that anya and daisuke are always drawn together n ppl act like they’re close cuz thru the course of the game almost every time there’s any Group Discourse jimmy is the one who sides with anya against swansea and daisuke. anya and daisuke’s relationship is mostly nonexistent but we do see her and jimmy being mostly very cordial with each other. idk. i’ve been thinking abt it a lot cuz i’ve just been replaying and rewatching and trying to pin things down for myself. it’s a little disheartening tbh that all of these characters are constantly mischaracterized by the loudest people in the fandom cuz it’s creating this whole society of people who played a different mouthwashing than the one i did. and whats REALLY so fuckin funny abt all this is that more ppl are shipping jimcurly and apparently THAT’S where all of the “media literacy” problems are coming from. like, no, i understood all the beats of the game just fine and i love all of it. i just also wanna see two guys who suck for each other fuck about it

[ophanstears]

🍀

I know that Clover's gender is up to interpretation (the devs DID say so themselves) but I still feel weird when people make them exclusively male or female LOL Like it's TECHNICALLY fine??? but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

more in tags as usual because I am a yapper. i am so sorry for having strong opinions about gender and representation. i am usually more fun than this 🥲🥲🥲🥲

[doublel27]

Sometimes your wildly angry and hateful response to a piece of media has nothing to do with the actual piece of media and has everything to do with your own triggers.

Let me explain: sometimes a piece of media uses a common human failing. Something that happens all the time. To explore humanity within the confines of the story, as stories often do.

Sometimes, for you, that small human failing is the crux of the pain and anger you carry inside. Sometimes even the smallest and least harmful version of it, to quote RWRB, tears all the way down through the floor and into the sub-basements. Beyond where anyone would think that small human failing might go.

Because for you, it’s not what’s happening on screen but the painful things that have happened to you and you haven’t dealt with. You’ve locked them in a box or you’ve festered in them. Made it part of your personality to be against anyone or anything that carries this common human failing. Because the person that hurt you is, in your mind, a monster. You’ve divorced this action from humanity and you’ve made it that it’s only a thing that bad people or monsters do.

And the way the characters are treating this common human failing that happens every day is not how you want to handle it. Or is perhaps how you handled it and you wished you didn’t. And it makes you so incandescently angry.

When that happens, my loves, I want you to sit with it and ask yourself why you’re so incandescently angry or sad. Feel your feelings. Examine what it means when a character you love does something you equate with being monstrous. Or even more dangerous, when a character you love forgives something that you deem monstrous. Or if the failings of the characters remind you of yourself in some way. What is hiding underneath the anger and sadness? Is it shame? Is is loneliness? Is it worthlessness? Is it invalidation?

Because this is why the character who is genocidal mass murderer/serial killer is your poor little meow meow and the character with the every day failings is the worst character ever to exist. Because we look for the humanity in monsters, especially when we feel monstrous. But when a character is framed as human and shows a failing, we demonize them, because they remind us of our monsters who were also human. And I want you to think about it. Sometimes.

You have the choice at any time to stop engaging with a piece of media because it’s too painful or too raw or you’re not ready. But that doesn’t make that piece of media bad or evil (mostly there are some exceptions for the writings by the worst of humanity).

Take care of yourself. Please. 💜💜

[lgbtlunaverse]

mdzs twitter is a very funny place to be on cause someone will have "canon dynamics only" in their bio and proceed to have the worst take on canon you've ever seen

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'm sure it won't be the last time. I AM SICK AND BLOODY TIRED OF THESE MFS, HALF OF WHO DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT CURSED CHILD, BITCHING AND MOANING ABOUT AN ANGSTY TEEN DARING TO BE AN ANGSTY TEEN, I WILL FIGHT THE LOT OF YOU

(this is gonna be a bit long and probably incoherent so sit down and fucking listen to me 🔫 stick with me because I'm not just complaining about albus haters)

eVERYBODY wants cOoMmpllEeXx relatable HUMAN characters - and then SHIT themselves when the flaws a CHILD has isn't just 🥺 uwu im socially awkward and traumatised 🥺. that's why scorpius doesn't get this fuckass treatment, because his terrible human flaw is that he's a bit shit at conversation and gets sad about his dead mum (generalised understatement, but this post isnt about him. dont come for me i love him 🫶🏻)

god forbid albus, who feels unloved and unwanted (with valid evidence for a teenager), albus who feels completely out of place and outcast from his entire famously-close-knit family, ablus who is well known by the world by default via Harry and hates the attention and high expectations, albus who then gets targeted and bullied by his peers because he's not as perfect and brilliant as his father, albus who is then isolated from his one friend because Harry is making irrational ptsd fueled decisions, albus who tells Harry completely sincerely that he knows he's unlikeable but he'll try and change himself and be more like his siblings because he genuinely believes that's what Harry and everyone else whos had the misfortune of meeting him wants, albus who spends the entire play trying to prove himself and fix things via idiotic childish decisions BECAUSE HES A WHOLE UNSTABLE CHILD

god forbid that CHILD doesn't react like a patient, supported, well adjusted, level headed adult. god forbid he reacts outwardly. god forbid he reacts at all, my bad. clearly he should just sniffle a bit as if he doesn't feel suffocated and helpless by everything in his life, because obviously hes just a spoiled brat who doesn't know what real suffering is. god forbid he complains or feels anything negatively, or doesn't quite grasp that other people are struggling too because he is too busy trying so hard to deal with himself and his declining mental health the best he can with basically no support or understanding. god forbid he isn't completely perfect.

you all sound like some fucking boomer telling teenagers they don't know what real struggling is, they aren't mentally ill, they dont have any problems because they have a roof over their head, they should all go to war kids are too soft these days 😫😖😱 fUCKING‼️SHUT UP‼️

he does things wrong but he knows he does and he does everything he can to fix it! and he is fourteen!!! do none of you remember what being fourteen is like 😭😭 I swear half of you have got to be basically fourteen yourselves cmon man

cause I'm seeing this fucking pattern a lot recently. not just for albus, not just in this fandom, everywhere. ‼️ no one can fucking handle flawed characters anymore ‼️ the only thing any character is allowed to have wrong with them is trauma apparently, otherwise they have to be perfect, and I'm getting sick of it. characters and stories are meant to reflect real life, they're meant to help shape our world view, why are you expecting everyone to be fucking perfect??? what happened to nuance? what happened to understanding character development? you are all acting like characters and people are so black and white. either they're perfect or they're insufferable and evil. I won't lie, the most common victims i've noticed of this are women. but the flawed women are typically demonised, whereas the men are typically turned into uwu baby boys who actually aren't capable of doing anything wrong and then fanon goes nuts making them into ittle wittle victims. and I'm so fucking sick of all of it, I hate this. (obviously this is not a strict rule. Albus Potter, and also Albus Dumbledore now I mention it, are demonised beyond belief)

BRING BACK FLAWS AND BRING BACK NOT COMPLETELY WRITING OFF A CHARACTER BECAUSE THEY DARE TO BE HUMAN

I AM FED UP, ALBUS POTTER GET BEHIND ME

[mynameisnotthepoint]

So yesterday, I binged Love in the big city. I had read the book, and as I am wont to do, i skimmed through to get back to the episodes and really sit down and watch them later (hopefully in small increments over the next two weeks).

I have been scrolling around on twitter since then (as one does, I am sick in bed with nothing to do but an assignment I don't have the brain power for right now) and really made me think.

First, I looked at international fans' reactions in English e.g. a gay guy I follow who parties a lot and talks openly about his sex life said it felt real, another guy kept complaining about Go Young's taste in men but also the people who watched it for the romance and only focused on that (and the sex scenes, which have racked up 100.000s of views). Some excitedly writing about how handsome the actors were, how they wanted to see a second season, a shame about this or that plot point (the "endgame" not being there). And as @lurkingshan said, it is NOT a romance drama or even a BL drama. This is a chronicle of one's man's life and his trauma, his relationships and his triumphs.

A lot of English-writing commentors praise the actors for their bravery. And that is always the debate, isn't it? Without them taking the role, this thing might not have been made. But the people behind it, who wrote, filmed, assisted, the writer who is a gay man himself, they all had such high stakes too, even higher (the author kept urging people on twitter to give the drama high views, one of the actors offered free hugs and an eating live stream if they managed to trend at no. 1). The drama is a depiction of a queer person's life as it could happen. Taking on this role, playing the part and then leaving it behind, is that as brave as people who live this life every day? Not to say that none of the actors in this production could be queer, bc some probably are.

One of the people i follow on twitter pointed out this feels like the drama shows queer sex, not sensationalised sex, just, that sex is a part of life so it is depicted in a series that is about life. With reading that, I began to wonder what queer koreans were saying about the series. Thanking the fact that google translate has not yet dropped their support of X, formerly twitter, I began by searching up Nam Yoon Su's name in Korean. A lot of people were calling him handsome, saying they cried about his performance. And then I stumbled upon several things:

1. The club scenes/music they used seems outdated to some Korean queers. They wrote that this feels more like a man in his 30s reminiscing his 20s than someone actually in their 20s, which, fair, the drama is told over the span of like 10 years I believe. Also the commentors thought the dancing was bad. But they said, even if some of it felt not true to gay life/the actors couldn't completely sell it as believable, that the drama was important and shouldn't be criticised too harshly.

2. They were having a linguistic debate about the usage of Korean gay slang (i think it was the word 기갈, but I could be wrong bc my Korean vocabulary is like 30 words) and that it has come into vogue with straight girls who go to gay bars, as Mi Ae does in the drama. In a way, it is a risk bringing a subculture that is/was quite closed to the mainstream (I think similar critiques have been made about drag race).

3. That the drama was not reaching its intended audience (queers) and was instead something for straight BL fans to screech over. It does feel kind of weird that something that veers more into raw territory (if you disregard the casting of Nam Yoon Su, who is super pretty and not at all like Young was described in the book), is treated the same as the stylised/trope-ified human experiences we see in some BLs (nothing wrong with those! Media is in its essence always a distillation of an experience),

I think that there is always a risk of depicting something that is close to the way actual individuals experience it and running into voyeuristic territory, on display for millions of people. Is it weird to want people to take this more seriously? To look at it in depth, treat the characters like humans that could actually be living out there and not Ken dolls you can mash together? Or is that too reductive of me, dictating what other people's experience with media should look like?

These are just my initial thoughts, I need to ruminate on them more, and I could be completely wrong about all of this.

I myself rarely go outside and have not had many queer IRL friends, which is why I am drawn to these series. To be honest, I don't even know the local queer slang bc I have been to the queer bar here once before it closed down due to internal disputes. Reading Love in the big city made me feel like i was hit with a sledgehammer, the series makes me want to go out and live again (once I am feeling up to it).