#media literacy in this fandom is dead

[goosters06]

HEY II fandom can y'all stop comparing Silvers inner flame to "evil" alters from a system, it's really fuckin weird.

The only character in II with DID/OSDD canonically is Paper. Yinyang are two souls in one body, and Silvers inner flame is not an "evil" alter, hell, he was barely evil. His inner flame is more likely his own subconscious acting without thinking, and the reason he'd refer to himself I'm 3rd person was to show that he wasn't in full control of his actions. Inner flame was switching between first and third person anyway.

Regardless, saying Inner flame, or even Yinyang, have 'evil alters' when they don't even have DID/OSDD canonically is. Very fuckin weird, especially since I'm seeing mostly singlets make this comparison.

[aangarchy]

Ok now we're just taking the piss right? Right?

Once again this sort of thinking is removing a fundamental character arc that makes this story what it is. A big part of Aang's journey, especially in season 1, but tbh it does return in later seasons too, is accepting that he is the Avatar, and that he's the only one who can end this war. During the whole first season he is in complete denial about who he is and what he's supposed to do, which is why in most of this season there's no sense of urgency, and then once Aang gets faced with a very real, very close deadline he panics. This makes it even more brutal when in season 3, after accepting this responsibility, he gets faced with the reality of failure. He runs away again, this time not because he doesn't want responsibility, but because he knows how heavy his responsibility is and he doesn't want to burden anyone else with it. Removing the first aspect, aka running away and denying responsibility, it in turn also removes the heavy emotion from his later arc.

It keeps surprising me that people who claim to be such fans of the original seem to completely miss the point of most of this story? Like how could you look at Sokka learning about women's rights, Aang learning to accept responsibility, and Katara's motherly warmth which happened because how young she was when she had to step into a motherly role, and think "well we should remove that." You're taking out all of character development and going purely off of plot (which isn't gonna be nearly as good without the character development!)

Atla is probably one of the most analyzed and picked apart story, has one of the most long running loyal fanbases, people are STILL making thinkpieces about this show, and you manage to still misunderstand so much???

[anniflamma]

So I’ve received a couple of anonymous messages telling me that they were really disappointed in me for liking Elian's Antinous fanart. Instead of answering them individually, I’m just going to make an angry rant post instead. Most of if probably won't make sense anyway.

This post have talk about SA, and homophobia. Be aware. I don’t ship genuinely Telemachus and Antinous, if that’s what you’re wondering. I didn’t even consider the possibility that ship could even exist. At the end of the day, I don't care about that ship.

And do you want me to explain that I know SA is bad? Or that I’m aware Telemachus/Antinous is a toxic ship? Do you think I’m dumb and don’t know that? You don't have to explain to me either, I know that SA is bad, I have experienced it, you don't have to explain to me, trust me I know.

I like Elian's art because it’s really beautiful. Her work is a huge inspiration and encouragement for me when making animatics. But do I REALLY have to spell out, word for word, that I know Antinous is an antagonist and tries to do bad things? Does it mean every time someone draws Antinous and I like it, I have to explain that I like the drawing because it’s well done, not because I support Antinous’ intent toward Penelope and wants to kill Telemachus?

I mean, I’ve seen tons of thirsty comments like, "I hate how Zeus treats women, but your design is really hot" or "Even if Poseidon SA Demeter, this Poseidon I'd go down on all fours for!"

I have seen some stuff….

I guess I could just imitate something like that????

But I know it’s a joke and I know its a fantasy that someone is expressing. Its not real, its fictional. I know all those thirsty ppl who simp over Poseidon, Zeus, or even Antinous aren’t supporting hatred and violence toward women. And yes, I am expecting that you should already know this too. Because if we gonna assume the worst of ppl… Then everyone who likes Greek myth/Epic the musical are pro SA. "Do you like Crice from Epic the musical? That means that you support her actions, you support SA!" "Oh you like Odysseus?! He killed a baby and all of his female slaves cuz they got SA by the suitors! You support infanticide, slavery and SA!" Do you hear how dumb that sounds? To be honest, I wouldn’t be that surprised if there are some who think like this. I mean, this discussion wouldn’t even be a thing, right.

And if you don’t know, I literally make thirst art of Poseidon (and that includes Zeus and Hermes), and you don’t see it as a bad thing??? It’s Poseidon… Do you know what he has done to women in the myths?!

Im going to ramble here and I will bring up stories from greek myth that have SA in it. So be aware.

One example is the story of Caeneus. When Caeneus was a woman, his parents left him to take care of the house while they were out running errands. Poseidon took that as an opportunity to break into the house and sexually assault him. This is probably the only myth where Poseidon actually feels bad after what he did, so he grants Caeneus a wish. Aww, how sweet~~~ /sarcasm.

Do I need to give an example of Zeus? We all know what Zeus does. But hey, I’ve made Poseidon/Hermes ship art. And guess what? There’s a story where Hermes breaks a woman’s leg so she can’t run away from him, and then he sexually assaults her. Isn’t that cute~~! /sarcasm

Heck, I can even go on with my biblical ships. David/Jonathan—David, a serial assaulter and murderer, and Jonathan, a mass murderer. But do I support their actions? No, I do not support mass murder, and its really dumb that I have to spell it out for you.

Daniel/Darius is even questionable too! It's literally a king and his servant, and that power imbalance is so big I don’t know what to tell you! Do I have to spell it out that I know that, in real life, king/servant relationships aren’t cute at all?!

All of these characters that I’ve listed have done or represent horrible things. And I have to tell you that I don't support their actions?! Really? You really can't think outside the box?

But do you see what I’m trying to tell you? We can simp over other ancient mythological figures but Antinous is the red line that we can never cross??? It’s hypocritical and immature, that’s what it is.

Right now, ppl loves the Ody seduces Zeus art I made. And that "ship" is well really questionable too! But nobody have called me a witch and tries to burn me at the stake yet. 😐

And the thing is, I can separate these fictional characters from the real world. I can also separate the fictional material from other fictional interpretations. Exemple, I like The Song of Achilles, in it, they are the same age, but I am also aware that in the Iliad, Achilles is 16 and Patroclus is 26. But do I automatically assume that Madeline Miller likes teens? No! Do I assume that everyone who likes The Song Of Achilles like that shit? No!

But we still can have a disscussion about it without making it into a witch trial.

As long as we can separate different fictional materials, then everything is fine. It only becomes a problem if a person can’t separate them. Then we have a problem. I can acknowledge that my depiction of King David from the bible is not the same as from the original story and that he is horrible person towards women. If I couldn't acknowledge that, then its bad! The same goes for Antinous if someone makes an AU or headcanon about him. If someone want so make AUs about Antinous, my first thoughts isnt "Oh they like to SA ppl!". At the end of the day, this is just a group from tiktok who didn’t like a toxic ship and decided to bully an artist while acting like they have superior morals.

And I get this type of shit from christians when I make my queer bible interpitations, both from those that don't like the queer stuff but also those that points out that David and Jonathan were horrible ppl.

So I rarely answer comments like this because they usually end up spewing beliefs filled with homophobia and Islamophobia. Heck rasism sometimes, apparently, Christians don’t know that the Bible takes place in the Middle East, and they are angry at me for drawing them looking like Arabs! I just delete their comments before they gets there. Making queer biblical animatics on TikTok that go viral on the Christian side is not fun at all guys....

And hate to say it but tiktok Epic fans sound really similar. You are acting like you’re on a pedestal, holier than thou. Its just a different font.

+ I haven’t forgotten all those homophobic comments I got on my David/Jonathan animatic that I posted right after my Ruthlessness animatic. Epic fans were saying they didn’t want “that gay shit” and wanted to see more Epic stuff. Hate to break it to you all, but the Epic fandom isn’t that innocent.

[audreyii-fic]

Side note:

In 2014 I spent a lot of time defending purity-culture fandom behavior on Tumblr. "They're young," I said, "and they have the sort of platform we" (millennials) "didn't. We would have posted the same black-and-white things at 15. No need to call them out and embarrass them; as they get more exposed to the world, they'll see the grayscale. It'll sort itself out."

Whoo, was I wrong. I massively misread the dangers in the self-selective ideological isolation of social media. I also did not foresee the effect of transitioning from webboards and Livejournal (where you were expected to define, develop, and defend your media interpretations in nested essay conversations) into streetcorner shouting platforms where conversation is impossible, let alone position refinement.

Ten years later, and not only did the 2014 15-year-olds not grow, 2024 teens are trapped in/have embraced a spiral of extremism that 2014 fandom sowed. Because no one has to look at, and certainly not discuss, anyone else's perspective, fandom discourse has become a rotted, stagnating field of strawmen. Media literacy is dead and this is how you wind up with people posting -- in total sincerity -- that liking a fictional romance between a short adult and a tall adult is endorsing pedophilia.

What a fucking mess.

[1800naveen]

Why is this fandom more illiterate than Feyre? At least Feyre learned to read when she was like 20, a little late to learn but she can read now.

Meanwhile most of this fandom are adults and make up whole ass fantasies because they can't read the damn lines. They'll take a line and crank the delusion up when they want to bitch. Where is media literacy nowadays? And these bitches immature as fuck like you're grown, act like it.

I'm only 16 years old and I act more of an adult than some people over here. There are little children in the world who act smarter than these guys.

"Haha Tamlin aka Tampon!" Comparing a guy to a feminine product? Put your big girl pants on and grow the fuck up. You're not in middle school anymore, babes. Besides, Tamlin covered in blood would be hot🤗.

"OMG, shadow daddy!" You are a GROWN woman, act like it. You have a husband and you compare him to your favorite male book crushes, he better divorce your ass and leave you alone to your FICTIONAL men. I doubt Rhysand would even like his female fans. He would act like you're a woman from Illyria or Hewn City, ignore you and not give a damn.

"It's a canon event to fall in love with Tamlin or Chaol"! First, shut the fuck up. Second, there are many people who have read these series and left still loving Tamlin or Chaol. Call me an anomaly I guess.

"You're not supposed to like this character!" Nah, imma do my own thing.

Most of these women will take a character and create this false perception of them and will throw a hissy fit when you don't agree with them.

[inluvwcaitvi]

"We need more complex female villains" you guys can't even handle Ambessa Medarda" - y'all can't handle Mel Medarda either, tbh. If you think the Caitlyn haters are wild, the Mel haters are worse. You can smell the misogynoir coming off them in the way she's discussed.

(Let's not forget the hatred she got for........*shuffles notes* being an adult woman who consensually slept with an adult man who the fandom has decided belongs to another man.)

THISSSSSS DUDE. i don’t even care for mel that much, but ppl in this fandom are literally just fucking straight up racist and misogynistic and it’s fucking disgusting and pathetic. 💀

and don’t even get me started on the jayvik shippers and how fucking annoying they are. jayvik isn’t even fucking CANON or IMPLIED (at least not to me??? like, is jayce not w an entire woman who he’s deeply infatuated with???) and some of those shippers act like mel’s some kind of evil, twisted temptress who is trying to lure jayce away from viktor, as if jayce isn’t responsible for his own fucking actions.

like, yes, mel manipulated him. but jayce is still a grown ass man who can think for himself, and it wasn’t like she was the only one who did that to him, either (literally the entire council wanted to manipulate and use him as well, that’s what they do). this isn’t to justify anything, but my point is that she seems to largely be the one getting ANY kind of flack for manipulating jayce.

hell, even viktor has had moments of not being the best of friend towards jayce (and vice-versa).

[ahoyimlosingmymind]

just fyi the whole MIT fight between Demetri and Hawk isn't actually about MIT <3

[greenfinchwriter]

Tempted to add an extra tag of "Armand de Romanus" to any post including Armand just to enjoy witnessing certain people clutching their pearls so hard they could fit right in at a 50s Utah potluck.

I'm a petty person,what can I say.

[modernvintage]

Absolutely hate hate hate the way fandom works these days.

People have always overstepped, but the internet/social media make it so damn easy.

Cause I just watched the most bitchin’ press tour I’ve ever seen for a show with actual diversity of just about every variety with two phenomenal actors in the lead roles who worked their asses off for the past six months+ have all of the magic stripped away because people no longer know how to separate the art from the artists, the show from the promo, the fiction vs. the reality.

Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton served us for six months. They did their jobs and then some. They hand-crafted the pitch and delivered it on a silver platter, and you’re gonna turn your nose up at it now?! This was the best fan service I *ever* remember seeing!

They deserve better than this.

smh.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

people hate teenage girls so much that i can literally say "teruhashi is conceited, fake, judgemental, and manipulative, but she has incentive to change and is only that way because of how shes been treated her whole life" and theyll still go "wow are you justifying the horrible things she thinks? youre acting like shes a perfect, hurt little angel who did nothing wrong"

PLEASE READ !!! GENUINELY BEGGING YOU TO LEARN TO READ !!!

[kideaternomnom]

I feel like Power from CSM’s writing is pretty underrated, or at least not as acknowledged as other characters. She’s mainly liked just for being “haha hyper waifu hot girl” when no. There’s way more to her. She has great development such as her learning to love Nyako, her trauma from the Darkness Devil, the role she played in Denji’s arc, her learning to love and make a friend, etc. Plus, she literally defied MAKIMA, the scariest CSM character, due to how much she loved Denji as a friend. And you’re telling me she’s just some pretty hyper waifu?

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

Aegon: rapist, enjoys watching his children fight violently to the death, murders innocent people.

HotD Fandom: Poor Aegon, he has an awful mother 🥺.

Alicent: Child bride at 14, rape victim, pimp father, deadbeat husband, forced to have 4 children.

HotD Fandom: Alicent is the root cause of all our problems. This woman is pure evil and the worst mother to ever exist. Shame!

[talknerdytome18]

Another day, another fucking Pip x Max fic on the ao3 tag 🤮

Atp I've just grown accustomed to the fact that people are gonna ship that freak with Pip and can't do anything about it because those shippers get highly defensive over that nasty ship. I'm just saying but if you need to go to extreme lengths to defend shipping Pip with a rapist, then maybe the ship is just awful 🤷‍♀️ (because it literally is. Fuck Max Hastings).

[pythagoras180]

I noticed that people seem to have straight up invented a narrative that Adrien never got to celebrate his birthday or got real gifts.

Oops I guess? Did they really hear "my father got me the same lame pen three years in a row" and decide that means "I never got a real gift"? That's an entirely invented narrative, and I'm sick of hearing it.

[confusedgayscreeching]

Hi! It’s been a while lol- I’m gonna try to get back to posting semi-regularly but I make no promises! I am currently feeling very frustrated about the arguments about Stolitz I’m seeing verywhere and I need to rant so here we are!

Okay so one thing I think a lot of people trip up with in analyzing this relationship is comparing them in the way of “who is worse.” To me that’s weird and not a realistic or productive way to talk about out this. They both suck in their own ways and it makes more sense to analyze how they effect each other and themselves rather than arguing over something so subjective, especially since even if we were able to come to a conclusion as a fandom about who is worse (which again is not possible to do objectively) it wouldn’t do anything or move the conversation forward at all.

Blame shifting and villainizing characters because you relate to one more or understand one more might make you feel good but it doesn’t actually contribute to the conversation. They both do fucked up things at different points and they both suck sometimes, but to me it makes more sense and is more interesting to look at how they both effect each other and their psychology, especially because trying to assign morality to any actions in a show like this is redundant and misses the point- looking at it from an outside lens and saying “x is bad so they are bad” doesn’t mean anything within the context of the show or the relationship and it never has.

I know a lot of us love these characters and/or relate heavily to them but starting arguments online because someone suggests your poor little meow meow possibly isn’t perfect is genuinely just dumb and doesn’t move the conversation forward at all, nor does it help us resolve or continue the conversation in a satisfying way.

This show and these characters are fucked up. They’re meant to be fucked up. They do awful things that can’t be justified and that’s just the point. When you make it a competition it doesn’t do anything for anyone and all you end up doing is invalidating other people’s feelings and opinions whether you mean to or not.

We all need to try to be more neutral and just acknowledge why each character might feel a certain way without feeling the need to justify that feeling or make them a martyr. Just like with people in real life a character’s emotions are just their emotions, they don’t need to be justified or have an arguable reason for feeling that way, feelings are valid no matter what, and what matters is how they handle those feelings.

Idk about anyone else but one of the reasons I fell in love with Hazbin hotel and helliva boss is because they’re all awful and irredeemable but they’re still sentient beings who are written in a way that shows they still deserve empathy and love, the show isn’t trying to force these characters to justify their existence by being good and that’s beautiful because the idea that human decency is conditional is far too prevalent.

Idk this will probably seem preachy and long winded but it just feels silly and disingenuous to try to talk about right/wrong with these characters or this show in general, especially considering that it ignores the more emotional inner reasons for why these characters act the way they do, which is so much more interesting to explore.

[inluvwcaitvi]

“awwww, silco loved her 🥺🥺 he accepted and validated her in a way vi never did or could 🥺🥺”

you’re part of the reason why media literacy and common sense are dying out.