One of my recent posts got a few comments about media literacy being dead and Neil being an unreliable narrator so I want to clear some things up.
Firstly, media literacy isn't dead becuase it cannot die. Also, I am not a big fan of fear mongering. Humans have always sought to understand and communicate with each other about the things we create. It is a skill that can be taught and should be practiced. There is no one right way to do it. And, while I think the education system fails so many of us (something something to make us easier to control something something), I also think that there are tons of resources to help us learn without the need for an official "teacher". So, instead of pessimistically saying is it "dead" (especially on someone's textual analysis post, like... are you saying I prove it's dead becuase I don't have media literacy? are you agreeing with me and therefore proving yourself wrong? do I not count for some reason? i don't think I get it), engage in discourse about media that you love. And I mean actual discourse, not just fighting on social media about whether or not everyone should "like" your favorite character. Ask yourself "what is the effect of this rhetorical device in the text?" "is the text trying to make me like or not like this character? is it working, why or why not," (do not ask "why did the author do this?" because that is not relevant nor are you a mind reader). Take free online Literature classes from colleges that help you learn how to analyze. Invite others to do it with you. Join or start a book club. Engage in various types of media, not just YA, fantasy, fiction, etc. Consider kindly rebutting or offering a counter point to other people's interpretations, bringing actual textual evidence to back up your points. Use Google Scholar to access free scholarly articles to see academic prospectives on various medias that are not just from social media or blogs. Your local library may even have subscriptions to paid sights like JSTOR or collections of essays that would let you access articles that are otherwise behind a paywall. All of these things can help improve your own media literacy and, in turn, will help improve the media literacy of the people around you.
Secondly, the point of my other post was NOT that Neil is an unreliable narrator. I've seen a lot of people make this claim so I wanted to chime in. Unreliable narrators are marked by a few characteristics, some of which are exaggeration, detachment from reality, naivety, and deception of the reader. I don't believe Neil falls into any of these categories. I would be open to arguments that claim he does, but it would be hard to sway me because I can't find any textual evidence to support it. This is an important distinction to me because the larger claim I make in that post is that ALL narration, 1st person, 3rd person, omniscient, limited, etc is biased- all of it. It is CRUCIAL as readers to identify a narrators biases and consider the text through that lens. If you aren't practicing doing that (or only doing it when the narrator is "unreliable") you can easily fall into the trap of saying "well Neil says Kevin is a coward so he is", which is obviously an issue in the grand scheme of textual analysis. However, you can also easily fall into the trap of saying "Neil is an unreliable narrator because he is wrong about things/lies to people/has trauma so you can't trust him". I believe that Neil tells us as the reader the truth in his narration almost 100% of the time, Neil just lies to the other characters 24/7. So, as readers we should take what he says in his internal monologue at face value but question the motives behind his dialogue with other characters.
Anyway, that was a long winded, probably boring monologue about critical textual analysis. I devote maybe 16 out of my 18 waking hours to thinking about this, so thanks for hanging in there to read it all. I just care so deeply that we as a culture continue to grow these skills without shaming those who haven't had the same opportunities to learn how to do it or making the act of learning how to feel hopeless or doomed.
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I'm writing again to bring attention to the GFM campaign of @salahahmed90 (Salah) and @salahmanarfamily (Manar), the parents of two young children in Gaza.
Here's an updated Salah posted last night, after he and his family were displaced for the sixth time:
Please help us, we are being subjected to genocide in Gaza. Hours ago, a house was bombed next to the place where we are and escaped death miraculously. Help us get out of Gaza in order to preserve our children.
Though Salah and Manar started out with the hopes of rebuilding, they've now made the difficult choice to begin saving up for an evacuation. Their campaign, however, is still very low on funds, and its been stagnating completely for the last few days, leaving them with barely enough for their immediate survival.
-> GFM link
The campaign has been verified by @/90-ghost.
If you can, please consider donating. Even a small contribution can make a big difference for the family.
Currently: €3,650 / €70,000
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✨ The Mercy of Magpies 《喜鵲之恩》 ✨
3...2...1... takeoff! 🚀 @ash-and-starlight & @ranilla-bean here to launch our project for @zukkabigbang2024 🐦⬛🐦⬛
Rating: M
Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender
Pairing: Sokka/Zuko
Chapters: 1/15
Beta: @faux-fires
Tags: Alternate Universe - Space, Space Opera, Depictions of Violence, Minor Character Death, Dilf Zukka, War, Han solarpunk, loosely inspired by Red Cliff (dir. John Woo), Decolonisation, Ghosts, the narrative is haunted, Getting Together, Slow Burn, eventual sexual content (i prommy), BBL Ozzy, thematically relevant magpies, interplanetary old man yaoi saves the galaxy
Summary:
In the XXXth span of the galactic war against the Phoenix King, the Avatar, Master of the Four Elements, summoned his trusted advisor to his side…
Avatar Aang, prosecutor of the long war against the Fire Nation, tasks General Sokka with the recruitment of a secret friend hidden on his old home planet Emptiness II, razed a century ago. There, Sokka finds an impossible community, where peoples from all quadrants of the galaxy have taken root—headed by the Phoenix King’s own son Zuko. As he comes to trust them, Sokka becomes invested in the community. But war is barrelling towards them, and he must harness the spark between himself and Zuko to save Emptiness II… and the rest of the galaxy.
check out the rest of the chapter 1 art here!
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sometimes spite is a powerful motivator and today its motivating me to crochet
long story short I saw a cool bag on pinterest while I was looking for crochet patterns but there was no fucking pattern but one of my friends found a pattern for a similar but not quite bag so I watched an hour long video, transcribed it into text, and am now gonna make a wholeass backpack just because Sunflower Vibe
Wish me luck I guess
Also this is the bag
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this guy (me) got off their antidepressants officially baby. they were prescribed to me by a doctor at the ER I went to for stomach problems early this year because they said I 'look a bit sad' and knew I had sleeping issues. started taking them and was not informed of side effects or what would happen if i went off them cold turkey - which i did a month later!
i had the worst month of my life after that, having the worst pain ever, cluster headache, shakiness, etc, and i thought i was going crazy until i researched the reasons for this myself, and begged the doctors to help me of course lmao (thrice).
since then i have been tapering my medication for 5 to 6 months now and got to the point three days ago where the next step was to get off them entirely. and believe it or not, the withdrawal symptoms, while still awful, are not as bad as they were at the beginning of the year so yipee!
idk i just wanted to share this because i am 1. struggling and 2. proud of myself nonetheless and have my fingers crossed most of these pains will clear within a week or so!
the worst thing is that (and this is just a ramble) that this medication was misprescribed to me. i had anxiety yes, but this was not something they (the docter) asked about or i think cared for? like i said, i went there because i had a stomach virus and left with medication for something completely different because they apparently believed my vibe was too sad. this should have never happened if they didn't rush to prescribe me something to keep them out of their hair. huff. sigh even.
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