#their media literacy is nonexistent

[childeapologist]

S1 of The Boys: All about how superheroes are corporate selling points and not really heroes. Deeply critical of capitalism.

S2 of The Boys: The new antagonist of this season was a literal 100+ year old Nazi supe who'd rebranded herself into a neonazi and unironically talked about white genocide. Deeply critical of corporate "wokeness" and how it's used as a selling point, not to actually be inclusive.

S3 of The Boys: Centers around Soldier Boy. In the final moments where there's a chance to suppress evil captain america and put him back in a coma, the line from our black main character is "You arent a superhero, you're just another racist pos we can't get rid of" Pretty straightforward I'd say.

AND YET ALL OF THESE CLUELESS CONSERVATIVES GOT TO SEASON 4 WITHOUT REALIZING THEY ARE THE JOKE???? I mean unironically. A lot of these people weren't just playing along knowing Homelander is supposed to be the asshole and not caring. These people unironically thought they show was on their side bc they thought it was making fun of "both sides." Which it was but not in the way they thought. They think the woke mockery was just "woke bad" when it was "corporate woke bad"

[unserenedreaming]

Ah yes, a nine year old girl is psychotic for hitting someone who just threatened to kill her friend and was just as at fault for it, even though Joffrey then threatened her as well.

And of course, Sansa is so very alone and scared...As opposed to Arya who was hiding in the woods for three days, terrified and (rightly) convinced that she could be punished severely or even killed (see AFFC Jaime IV) depending on who found her. But she wasn't alone or scared guys! Ser Illyn Payne (who literally just looked at her) is wayyyyy scarier and more powerful than Jaime or the other Lannister guards.

I can't believe people are still calling Arya psychotic because she was not careful enough with the attacker. 😑

[cryptidkreates]

take a shot for every time people dont understand that neil was sacrificing himself and not just threat blind when he ignored the unknown number. youd get alchohol poisoning i swear

this boy knows something dangerous when he sees it, at this time he just simply didnt think he deserved to stay. he didnt think he deserved to be safe. more importantly he didnt wsnt to get the foxes involved to keep them safe

him not telling anyone was a form of self harm and i will not be convinced neil josten paranoid ass bitch didnt see this coming from 5 million miles away. he even said he knew from the get go the carrie incident wasnt riko and just accepted his fate

[dailypurpled]

DAILY PURPLED DAY 140 - I can no longer take it anymore I thought I could hold in my anger at the live action movie but I could not oh god it’s so bad

[bardicjustice]

Why is TikTok just full of the most surface level analyses of media and people commenting "oh I didn't catch that this makes so much sense!"

[othercrossee]

Kinda insane some of y'all defend people who deserve to die with such. Passion

[the-far-bright-center]

PSA: Lucas doesn’t mean the word 'pathetic' in a derogatory way, he is saying that Anakin/Vader is figure of immense pathos and that we, the audience, are supposed to feel sorrow and pity for him. Please stop misinterpreting this post!!!

Ultimately, he’s just a pathetic guy who’s had a very sad life.

George Lucas on Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (from George Lucas and the Cult of Darth Vader, Rolling Stone, 2 June 2005)

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

It’s amazing how a good 8 out of 10 of the posts about current events that come across my dashboard now got me like this:

[problemnyatic]

dunmeshi post moment but it drives me up a goddamn WALL how people are so loud and upfront about their fav's flaws and shortcomings and how it makes them interesting, and then drop the notion like a stone the moment it comes to how others treat laios.

Like there's all this discussion about how the characters will respond in interesting ways to different situations because they're rich, multifaceted people with different strengths and flaws, but somehow everyone's behavior toward and in response to laios is just taken at face value as "probably reasonable."

No!!! No it fucking isn't!!! He isn't a "menace" and he isn't stupid and he isn't unreasonable, he's autistic, plaintext blatantly autistic and a solid half if not more of the situations he "blunders" into would have been resolved if not prevented if not nonexistent if the people around him had shown any respect for his intelligence and willingness to adapt to new information.

Everyone around him is constantly infantalizing him and acting like there's no reasoning with him, opting to straight up use force over just telling him what the expectations are in a situation he's liable to misnavigate, and it's unnecessary! Yeah he gets a little blinded by excitement about monsters, but it's more common for others to project their own discomfort onto him than for his interest to actually be leading somewhere genuinely bad, and when people actually take the time to explain to him that a situation needs more focus, he listens! Every time!

I'm not going to say he's done nothing wrong, he's as flawed as anyone else in the cast. But I routinely see folks mischaracterizing him as exactly the bumbling idiot the story is screaming that he isn't, and I can't help but see this thermonuclear media literacy moment as a massive fucking tell of folks' ableism.

So in case you needed it in plain english: Autistic men aren't inherently more dangerous or unreasonable than neurotypical folks. In fact, they're far more likely to be victims of violence. Y'all're just ableist as hell.

[thats-ill-eagle]

HELLUVA BOSS DEVIATING FROM ITS ORIGINAL PREMISE FUNDAMENTALLY DESTROYED THE SHOW

So, it has already been discussed many times in HB critical community that HB deviated from its premise after S1 and that anyone with an once of media literacy can tell that you can't describe it in any way other than horrible writing.

Now, I'm going to ask you this for a second - imagine that you haven't seen S1, the pilot or read the premise of Helluva Boss anywhere. Imagine that you watch all (available) episodes of S2 and are asked to write a premise about it on some movie review website. How would you briefly describe what happens in S2?

Oh, you can't or are having major trouble doing it? Don't worry, you are not media illiterate, my friend. That is the case because IT'S LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL WHAT HELLUVA BOSS IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT ANYMORE.

There are many flaws that your writing could possess - inconsistent characterization, too fast/slow pacing and so on. However, they do not automatically derail your work. It is very much possible to recognize those faults, learn from them and do better in the future.

But the premise of your work is its literal BONES. You build up the plot and characters based on it. You just can't expect your show to be good, if you tear out its basis. Of course the pacing, character development and how plot points are wrapped up in HB is horrible - how can anything function without the very thing that holds it all together?

And I MEAN that the premise of HB completely disappears, not shifts or changes. Like, seriously, what the hell is HB supposed to be about now?

Stolitz?

Their interactions indicate zero meaningful development and are tediously spaced out to the point that it's hard to care about their relationship. It is made even worse by the fact that Stolas, just like in S1, still keeps pressuring Blitzo, despite him being clearly uncomfortable.

Blitzo making amends with people he hurt?

Even ignoring S1's nonexistent buildup of this plotline (Blitzo looking at photos on his phone doesn't count, since it's literally the ONLY moment that barely suggests it), there's no buildup in S2 either, when it comes to both Barbie and Fizz. It is certainly not helped by the fact that Barbie just vanishes after Unhappy Campers and Blitzo and Fizz's beef is resolved in a single episode.

Any other plotlines of S2, like Fizz's job, Crimson, Striker, or Stolas and Stella's separation are just too small or insignificant to be considered part of the supposed premise, INCLUDING the assassination business, which arguably takes up the least amount of time of aspects of the show listed.

It's no surprise that Helluva Boss is slowly crumbling. At this point, it's just a paralysed zombie who completely forgot what it once was. And it's damn sad to watch, because the show comforted me during some dark times and, despite Viv being an awful person, I truly hoped for HB to be great.

[azelmaandeponine]

Hi thanks for answering my question! I tried to explain to my friend that even though they had a strained relationship, Ford still loved and missed Stan. And well, their answer was... I'll leave the message they sent me:

"What strained relationship? Ford cut Stan out of his life the day Filbrick kicked him out of the house. Their relationship ended that day, as Ford cut ties with his brother. It's like you end a friendship with someone but still call this person your friend. It doesn't make any sense. Also, it was only when Ford needed Stanley’s help that he was willing to contact him. For some reason Ford believed that a person he had cut all ties with should come running to him when he called them like a dog. Like, it was Stan's obligation to help him over ten years after their ties had been cut."

I honestly give up, I'm going to stop talking to them about Gravity Falls so I don't have to stress myself out.

Wow. Again, no media literacy, but also I think they need a reality check because that's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

It's obvious Ford still cared about Stan. He kept the picture of them as kids with him, and he referenced Stan a lot in the Journal, meaning he missed him.

He also called Stan the "someone he could trust" which are not words you use about people you don't care about.

You literally have to ignore like all of canon to come to the conclusion your friend did. They are engaging with a version of Gravity Falls that only exists in their head.

I've already been over the fact that it would have been very difficult for Ford to get in touch with Stan due to the time period. However, Ford had every right to remain angry with Stan, and Stan did not try reaching out, either (remember, he hung up before saying anything when he tried calling). It takes to two to communicate.

Stan and Ford's relationship is that of family, not between friends. And that does change things. Like I have a cousin I was close with when I was younger, but now I hardly talk to. That doesn't mean my relationship with her is nonexistent.

Also Ford is not wrong for asking Stan for help in regards to Ford's situation with Bill (Ford's abuser), holy shit. Stan was not obligated to come, but Ford asked because he had no one left he could trust but Stan, and again, Ford was being tortured and severely abused by Bill and Ford deserved help.

Asking your estranged twin brother for help--especially when you're in a horrifically abusive situation--is not treating him like he's "obligated" to come help you or "treating him like a dog" or whatever.

I think your friend just hates autistic-coded abuse victims.

[horizon-verizon]

Hate to use this phrase but media literacy it’s truly dead. People saying Rhaenyra doesn’t care about losing Daemon when Emma delivered Rhaenyra’ sadness over this possibility in a heart wrenching way…

She spent 6 years married to him and had 3 children in those years, to say she didn’t have romantic feelings for him and wasn’t happy with him it’s just deny the obvious. And clearly one of those feelings in succumb into a vulnerable and intimate position with Misarya, the only person who’s saying to her exactly what she needed and wanted to hear, she’s feels she’s losing everyone and Mysaria brings her a feeling that she’s still believed and capable. Rhaenyra sharing that moment with Mysaria doesn’t exclude her conflicted feelings with Daemon, she can love him and resent him at the same time. Right before kissing Misarya, she literally tells her that she and Daemon are “two halves of a whole.”

Wow, I just got off talking about this...

Huh...I didn't watch the episode, but my hunches are shared? Noice.

I think that the disconnect is that Rhaenyra also says she never trusted him, not "truly". Without the Dragonstone-family scenes I have said should have been included and expanded in S1, we can only rely on the picture of happiness and teamwork we got in episodes 7 & 8. And no, even episode 10 has some serious faults with how Rhaenyra calls it "Daemon's war", as if she wasn't the one who enlists him and marries him with the words (paraphrasing) "I cannot stand against the greens alone", knowing exactly what sort of dude this was. Which included knowing he still would always support her, not his own nonexistent ambitions for the throne. There is a diff b/t one's ambitions to become king, and one's willingness to be largely obedient to one's orders or anticipate their desires well, as what I think the writers were trying to convey in that argument but failed utterly and made it more about Daemon wanting the throne for himself. None of this "those who don't want the power are the best leaders" crap...and no, Viserys did not have any points about Daemon's loyalties, the man cut open his own wife and he decided he should question Daemon's loyalties?! Ha! When have we started validating Viserys' stupidity?!

So, to some in the audience, it is jarring for Rhaenyra to doubt him or feel miserable by his actions even under the context of a war breaking out and her doubt of getting support from those outside of Dragonstone. Which still doesn't make sense bc Aemond should rather be feared and reviled for his kinslaying, but apparently Jaehaerys' death is the only death that matters and suddenly Westerosi lords care for "compassionate" payback over oaths of loyalty. It appeared as if Rhaenyra forgave Daemon for the brothel thing, and yes completely bc the show didn't give us anything to think otherwise--again, they might have if only the show had shown us life at Dragonstone before the war. The writers play a game of tug of war with the point of their scenes and pass them off as "complex" when they are just piss-poorly written as a chain of scenes linking a story/particular arcs together.

Anyway, yeah, that's the disconnect, most likely. To set up other things, the show contradicts itself even though the scene by itself is conveying a very clear plotline AND can be connected to another moment from another episode. I don't really blame people who think this way at all.

[shadowsteed15]

the way you defend longlegs i can teeeeell you looooooooooooove defending creeps online like if a teen girl ended up crying bc an old man creeped her out you'd tell her to see it from his perspective your media literacy is NONEXISTENT

Woow duuude you forgot to mention I might looooooooove Satan, which I do, because he’s kinda cool, but there really is a difference in indulging your fantasies a little and what you really want for the world. I’m a very kind person actually and I do not defend any creeps online or in real life. As for Longlegs, there was nothing in the movie suggesting he’s a pervert, he worships Satan, and in real life, I wouldn’t actually want anyone to get sacrificed to anything in any way unless they really really really deserved it. 🙂 I am very sorry if you have an actual reason to be so needlessly upset.

[thefirstknife]

Yeah, this was absolutely a thing! It was actually really weird to me that the marketing was like that given that we KNEW that this isn't the last expansion. So like?? If we defeat the Witness in Lightfall... What about TFS? It just made no sense. People should definitely not trust all marketing so easily, or at least they should look at it with some reservation. But also it really shouldn't be on the players to parse through what part of marketing is real and what isn't.

Also in retrospect, it's actually so difficult to market Lightfall properly since it's essentially a story about us losing. Like, you can't just show people that we're gonna lose at the end and that the story is actually about grief and about us being thrown into more mysteries that will eventually show us just how little we know about the universe (which I think was the main "big reveal" from Lightfall: we're not even close to understanding the universe). Not only would marketing that way be spoilers, it's also just not an interesting thing to show as a trailer. So the trailers focused on the 80s action movie vibes and on showing the looming threat. And then the assumption was that we'd deal with it in a massive showdown.

Which again, weird. Since there's TFS after. I think also a lot of people were going into everything already convinced that there's a bigger badder evil behind the Witness that we're gonna learn about after we take the Witness down. Which would also be really weird. Not only that, but one inspiration that Bungie actually told us about for Lightfall was... The Empire Strikes back. A middle of the trilogy where the heroes lose in the end. You know. Like Lightfall.

"As we started getting towards Lightfall, we said, 'Hey, how can we keep the stakes high but change the mood for a release?'" Blackburn continued. "We looked at things like The Empire Strikes Back, that has a feeling of, oh, my gosh, [the heroes] lose, but the movie doesn't feel like they lose the whole time.

Note that they also cite a lot of other 80s and 90s movies (some modern ones too, like The Old Guard) for different aspects of the tone of the story that are more about the action, which is also something I think they nailed down perfectly. The campaign was full action all the time with a lot of stuff at stake; first Neomuna, then the whole system and then possibly everything depending on what the Witness' plans actually are. I can absolutely see how people misinterpreted this action-part of the marketing as something that would be the big blockbuster self-contained story with all the answers. Which once again, weird. Because TFS is the final expansion (btw I'm pretty sure not even TFS will answer everything because Bungie has already said that there's more Destiny coming after so).

One thing that was definitely a part of the marketing that ended up not even remotely happening was the scene of Nimbus using some sort of nanotech gun to shoot at a Pyramid ship. This gave me, and others, the impression that we will be actually fighting the Fleet directly and I was super excited to finally see a weapon have an effect against the Fleet! So far we've not seen anything capable of damaging them, although we know that they CAN be damaged. This scene in the reveal trailer was literally just in that trailer and never in the game. Really weird! Classic video game reveal trailers with fake footage that isn't actually in the game.

There's was definitely some mixed messages with marketing, as well as people's hype getting ahead of them (not helped by the hype perpetuated by the marketing), unclear expectations being set and also the issue of it being really hard to market Lightfall in a way that wouldn't be a spoiler or just a downer. The trailers kept referring to an ominous threat and showing us action building up to the final showdown, but people expected something that ultimately wasn't Lightfall's job or theme, but that marketing kept showing to people.

I definitely feel like this mismatch of expectations and hatred should've subsided once it became abundantly clear that this wasn't what the story was gonna be about. Like, I get the initial disappointment if you expected something else, but that doesn't make the game we got bad. It just makes it different. I feel like a lot of people are just holding a grudge and pouting and are refusing to engage with what we actually got. But overall, I definitely see how this issue caused a lot of the initial dislike of Lightfall which then just continued indefinitely as people just don't want to engage with it anymore.

okay i meant to make this post forever ago but my personal opinion on why so many people were so dissatisfied with lightfalll (disclaimer: i am not one of these people, i love lightfall SO much), is that lightfall was kind of subjected to a really aggressive marketing campaign.

like, stick with me here, i feel like almost all the lightfall release content (the trailers especially) were so focused on battling the witness, how this battle has been centuries in the making and this is the Second Collapse Finally Finding Us, only for there to be,,, no real resolution. the end was left on such a severe cliffhanger, but not only that, there was NO battle with the witness. the witness didn't even seem to be having a hard time at all with what we WERE throwing at it.

and for narrative reasons *i* am obsessed with this ending; in terms of storytelling i adore practically every creative decision that was made in lightfall, but i think the reason that so many people were so upset about it is because lightfall had such intense marketing and was rooted in the implication that this was the End of Days, only for us to get almost no closure, and instead so many more questions.

(there's also something to be said, i think, about the fact that the people who ARE most upset about this are like, the youtube gamer dudebros who's content is very very often rooted in the aggressive, violence-and-warfare, pvp-centric, no-interest-in-lore approach to destiny, and that the people i've seen primarily ENJOYING the narrative decisions (or at least being understanding about it) are the artists and writers and loremasters of the fandom, but i'm not quite sure,,, how to expand on that point.)

[chaotic-theatrical-weaver]

sorry this is referring to an old post of yours but I loved your post on why Proctor in The Crucible isn’t the villain. so much of The Crucible is about good vs evil, being damned vs not and I believe that you as an audience are brought into the story when you decide for yourself who you persecute, who you condemn. Proctor’s character is so intertwined with his “good person” arc, or else what is that last act about (“I think I do see some shred of good in John Proctor”)? because that’s the point. it’s not just about good or evil as two binary things, it’s also about redemption. John definitely did really bad things but, as you said, you can condemn those things while understanding that it doesn’t define him. I don’t think Miller wrote the Crucible with the intention of defining people in boxes of good and bad or unchangeability

This is such a delightful ask to wake up to! Don’t apologize for it being about an old post—you have no idea how happy you’ve made me with it. You get it! You get it! I have little else to say other than let me give you sparkly gold stars for media literacy:

🌟🌟🌟

Okay, that “little else to say” part was not quite true. I might be rambling, but you have come past my drive-thru and the fact that you did suggests that you’d appreciate this, so let me reiterate something I’ve said in a reblog to that post (because Tumblr and your ask notified me only about your appreciation of the original): that last act hits so much harder when you interpret him through a BPD lens. His splitting is and always has been a lying distortion no matter what he’s done! (It’s right there. If you read my post, you’ll see that it’s right there in the text, but weirdly enough, it gets lost in most actual performances because it’s not a lens most of his actors are looking for—likely owing to the fact that the show predates the disorder’s codification. Some of his symptoms also manifest differently than we’d usually think of them because while anxiously-attached, he’s not in a time and place that affords him openness of expression there. All this to say that I am anxiously hoping for the day that my hypothetical ASL-integrated production becomes reality so that I can make this part of its canon—I’ve written about the symbolism in how main John and his signer relate to each other, and the six-part staging descriptions are readable elsewhere on my blog—but in the meantime, I will gladly settle for reading a currently-nonexistent AO3 fic that tags it or even simply expanding the Tumblr circle who supports it. RIP Coat Guy/Signer for Proctor, you would have loved DBT.)

Thank you so much, @counterculturecryer, and I hope you have a GREAT day! 🥰🥰🥰

[joekeerys]

casual viewers see aegon bored to tears at council meetings and say stuff like “do you not want this job?” as if aegon didn’t literally beg aemond to let him flee the city so he wouldn’t have to rule and have tears running down his face at his coronation. basic media literacy is nonexistent i’m afraid