#I genuinely thought I was gonna fail the literacy part

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

me mucks up a numeracy assessment: I AM CAPABLE OF CHANGE AND OF GROWTH.

also me: WE ARE NOT DEFINED BY OUR PAST, JUST BECAUSE I SCREWED UP NOW BUT IMMIENDNENTLY LEARNED FROM MY MISTAKES DOESN'T MEAN I SHOULD BE DEFINED BY MY PAST SELF. WE ARE ALL CAPABLE OF CHANGE AND GROWTHHHHH

[zephyrusswinds]

RANT on Lionpeach; Analysis on the pairing.

** PLEASE read the full thing before coming up with an opinion, thank you **

The irony of how Azure gaslit and manipulated himself- and eventually most others- into being that he was the Hero and having the lmk FANDOM believe him is... genuinely hysterical.

The continual narrative that either Macaque or Wukong were somehow horrible within their respective pairings entirely undermines the fact that AZURE started the brotherhood, and AZURE actively sought out Wukong for the sole purpose of using him to finish his own grudges against Heaven.

I'm gonna say this right now, lionpeach is an objectively toxic ship so riddled with abuse and exaltation that I cannot reasonably understand it.

The following quote is about to summarize literally everything I'm about to say;

"The hero and the warrior"- Season 2, Ep 7

Many people in the fandom recognize the theme of a Hero and a Warrior throughout the show, the show itself even brings it up a lot in the following seasons. Now, the shadowplay is used as a thematic tool for Macaque's rage and anger towards Wukong- it's focused on Macaque believing that he'd been forgotten and his disassociation from who Wukong actually is as a person.

What does this have to do with Azure?

Well, Season 4, Ep 8

"I knew here, was a WARRIOR with MY ideals"

The warrior is lower than the hero; as well as how Macaque chooses to keep his morals ambiguous.

But the Hero is meant to be as obviously "good" as possible, what does Azure call Wukong? The warrior.

That leaves Azure as the Hero of this story.

To quote Macaque, "Everyone thinks they're the Hero of their own story. Azure's always been good at convincing people that he's the good guy, he's even fooled himself." (Part one of the Season 4 Special.)

In the original shadowplay, Macaque portrays him and Wukong's relationship as something very close and personal, only severed by Wukong being, quote "handed everything".

Azure was handed everything.

A position in Heaven.

A brotherhood.

A warrior.

I, personally, am very fond of the jokes of that one frame of Wukong being in the center of Azure's eye (around the same time of the season 4 quote, mentioned above). The whole, "HE WANTS HIM AND HE WANTS HIM BAD" thing is quite funny. So, do not interperate this as hate towards these kinds of ships.

But regardless, Azure immediately turns on Wukong when he can't take down the Jade-fucking-Emperor. I mentioned Exaltation earlier.

Exaltation has two different definitions (technically 3) as a noun; to put it succinctly, it either means great joy or the act of elevating something or someone higher than it actually is.

He held Wukong- exalted him- to a position that he was unfit for.

Perhaps I'll make another post breaking down how Wukong is very obviously mentally and emotionally unstable, but in the meantime, Azure, very subtly encourages this.

Wukong is very dillusional, it's born from his fear of mortality. And if Azure, who the entire brotherhood (aside from Macaque, of course) looks up to him for guidance, what would it imply if the suicidaly-impulsive monkey is encouraged to almost get himself killed?

Also, friendly reminder that Azure has never been stated to visit Wukong when he was trapped under that mountain. Only Macaque did. While I have my own thoughts about this scene and Macaque's emotional immaturity when dealing with Wukong's psychological instability, I wouldn't think it's crazy to think that Azure seriously didn't care about Wukong at that moment beyond "he failed and betrayed me,".

This is not to say that Azure never cared about him; however, I'm willing to argue that Azure physically couldn't view him beyond his wildly bias and false perception of Wukong.

There are more points to be made here; I'll see if making a part two is worth it.

Tldr; Lionpeach is just.. not a good ship and the lmk fandom has begun pissing me off with the lack of both nuance and media literacy shown within character analysises of these two.

I'm off to go eat some lovely pomegranates with strawberry yogurt and some honey, feel free to either agree with me, disagree with me or call me a creative slur! Goodbye my lovelies <3!

[verdantwyrm]

we’re gonna need another philosophy debate vs baby blocks meme for critical analysis bc i’m tired of seeing so many ppl go ‘it’s basic media literacy!!’ and make out mw as One Message Only and only their own opinion is valid. did you forget that multiple themes are layered and support each other. evidence of your interpretation with quotes and context. oppositional and counter arguments that make your own argument weaker. ppl like this would literally be laughed at in college and get a failing grade PLEASE be an adult about something that can have so many interpretations based on supporting evidence i’m tired

And then they go ahead and make the only message ever to not even be the right one. Part of the reason why I urge so much to constantly share my own thoughts and threads almost live as they're coming to my brain and instead of some, echo chamber discord server circlejerk is that I focus on helping people come to conclusions.

I help people realise stuff that they had never even considered before because I have the beautiful gift of being severely Autistic about every little detail. I boot up mouthwashing, go into noclip mode and spend like hours sifting through every single thing I can get my grubby little hands on, if not in game then the files which I hand ripped myself.

YouTubers and tiktok'ers love just regurgitating the same 3 opinions over and over and over again showing very little care for any of the real messages in the game and just parroting very shallow feministic rhetoric or something something psychoanalyzing Jimmy in all the Wrong Ways that's albeist and genuinely infuriating in every way.

People love pretending to be fake-woke about this game, thinking they've cracked the code to the whole thing by yelling "Curly is an abuser" at the top of their lungs on every tall building they can and getting mad when no one agrees with them.

[gossippool]

ur anora post 🔥🔥🔥

it was EXACTLY what I was thinking about the other day when I kept seeing the same discourse circulate over and over again. People love to complain about media being oversimplified nowadays, but when they watch an actual movie that forces them to understand subtext and read between the lines, they moan about it not being explorative enough and cry that it’s misogynistic so people will jump on the bandwagon and refuse to critically think because they’re scared to be accused of agreeing with misogyny.

like they genuinely talk like they’ve never seen a film before because it’s pretty common to not have exposition thrown in your face in well made movies? I watched Conclave recently and I could tell you even less about Ralph Fiennes’ character than I could about Ani, yet I haven’t seen one person say he ‘lacked interiority’. It was very clear in his performance just as it was in Mikey’s (it honestly just doesn’t sit right with me that the movies that have attracted the most discourse this year are the female led ones, whilst the male ones have Brat edits made and old man yaoi written about them…)

I’m pretty sure 1) it’s a 2024 favourite and people love to be contrarians 2) people hate Sean Baker and went into it already making up their minds that it was gonna be bad 3) the cast is full of unknowns (in Hollywood) and Mikey (who doesn’t have a huge fanbase) and so the hate is going unchecked and 4)it was marketed as a romcom when it’s clearly not that.

I honestly mostly despise that they’re hating on it in the name of feminism. It really rubs me the wrong way, especially when you see tweets like ‘only yt perverted men actually like this’ like they have some morally superiority over people who enjoyed it. And I wouldn’t be as frustrated about all of if it weren’t for the fact that 90% of the ‘critiques’ are literally just people disappointed it wasn’t what they wanted and acting like that’s a moral failing of the writing and performances. I fear media literacy really is dead and people think logging films on letterboxd suddenly makes you an expert in feminist theory in media.

Sorry for the rant but I’m just so glad to see people speaking sense!

no yeah and a huge part of it is that people are no longer challenging themselves past what they're interested in. she didn't say it outright but i have a friend who just doesn't like watching movies that... require critical thought?? 😭 like people are not actively seeking out new media, books, information etc. by themselves because everyone now is spoonfed or expects to be spoonfed. and this is not even just for interpretations of media but what you said about people hating sean baker because to them everything is black and white aka bad person = bad media, bad thing happens on screen = bad message--hence portrayal of the possible consequences of sex work on screen = misogyny???

(and ADJACENTLY. wow clearly i have a lot ot say about this topic but adjacently there is now this phenomenon /neg where someone will vaguely post about a celebrity being problematic and another person will comment "omg what did they do" and receive a completely biased/unnuanced summary of the situation which everyone will immediately accept?? like the number of "nooo i used to love them 😭😭"s i've seen over the years from this is batshit lmao and i have just as many times done my own research on what happened and realised it was really not that straightforward. and that's the problem right, people take everything they hear to be the truth. they don't pick up a book or show unless they've heard good reviews, and they're afraid to digest anything unpalatable)

and i could go on a whole other spiel on ai but the fact that we now have AI overviews for internet searches to further simplify what was already revolutionary in accessibility of information is fucking crazy to me!! and yeah ur so right the fact that there are now apps that make public everything you do people think increased consumption and the illusion of being an actual critic makes them smart

but like if people can't even see the nuances of a piece of entertainment god forbid they ever touch a news article or research paper 😂 misinformation and conspiracy theories etc. are literally a result of a lack of critical thought and also ego which should not go together but very much do nowadays. lmao