#media literacy

[biggesthomuradefender]

kinda long homura rant/analysis !!

“homura doesn’t care about anybody but madoka !!!!”

literally homura:

originally tried to save all of the girls before she eventually gave up bc it was literally impossible,

literally ran like hell to get sayaka’s soul gem back after madoka chucked it off the bridge and even closely inspected it w such care to make sure it wasn’t damaged at all,

admitted that she has hurt people (most likely the magica quartet, aka all of her friends, bc who else?) and feels immense guilt abt it and wishes she could erase it all (she literally says that hurting mami hurt HER),

can’t bare to kill mami (she looks so conflicted and sad when pointing the gun at her) and can’t even look at her when she shoots her in the leg bc she rly doesn’t want to hurt her,

subconsciously created a desired reality that she brought all of her friends (even kyosuke and hitomi, implying that she even cares for them as well) into where alive, happy, and together (ppl seem to forget that homura’s labyrinth was literally what she’s wanted deep down before it started to fall apart as she realized it was fake; sayaka literally points out how a witch who just wants to keep everyone happy and out of harm can’t be that bad, and kyuubey points out how homura would have most likely preferred to stay in this fake, happy world instead of realizing the horrible truth),

apologizes to kyoko for “getting her involved in this” after she realizes that she herself is the witch, aka most likely apologizing for wasting kyoko’s time when she asked her to go to kazamino city w her and for calling her,

rewrote reality in order to bring sayaka and bebe back to life and give everyone the happy life they always desired and deserved (she is literally willing to proclaim herself as “evil” and “the devil” and be unhappy if it means that madoka and everyone else gets to be happy and alive, safe from all the pain and the incubators who are still trying to prey on them and all magical girls)

… but she only cares abt madoka?

[pebblul]

Recently I’ve been going back through BSD to do some analysis and I was thinking about Atsushi as the tiger, and what the tiger symbolizes.

I think the tiger is a good allegory for Atsushi’s views on himself as a person. And hear me out:

At the start of the story, Atsushi fears the tiger, but he also seems to hold some spite towards it due to it being the cause of him getting kicked out of the orphanage.

But then we learn that Atsushi is the tiger, and Atsushi himself feels terrible about it. There is suddenly no separation between himself and the tiger in his mind. They are one and the same, and he is just as responsible for everything as the tiger is. He hates the tiger, he doesn’t trust it, and he doesn’t understand it.

And he is the tiger.

It’s kinda common knowledge that Atsushi hates himself, nor does he trust himself, and that is reflected in the fact that the tiger is shown to be an uncontrollable, bloodthirsty creature. It does nothing good for anyone; just as Atsushi thinks he himself does nothing good or useful for anyone.

I’d also like to mention the fact that during chapter/episode one (1), when Atsushi is revealed as the tiger, Dazai is the one to stop it with his ability, and I think that’s an excellent little nod to how it is through Dazai (and by extension the rest of the ADA) that Atsushi is able to begin to trust himself more, and have more value in himself as a person.

Of course later on, Atsushi does make peace with the tiger, and it’s such a powerful moment because it’s not just Atsushi reconciling with the tiger, it’s Atsushi reconciling with himself as well. And I think it shows his growth as a character just fantastically.

I’m open to hearing the thoughts of others as well of course :]

[luniviravosshipper]

You know what? I know that The Dragon Prince has a lot of flaws, (trust me, I complain a lot about them myself,) but it is genuinely so annoying to see people complain about the supposed lack of nuance and underlying messages in the show when they deliberately try to ignore them. People will literally take things completely at face value and only examine the details in this series on a surface level and then say dumb shit like “thEy MaKE eVErYthIng OUt tO Be BlaCk aNd wHiTE”. Like, of course it’s going to seem that way to you when you’re going out of your way to only try to see everything in the series as being black and white.

As much as I believe that many of the criticisms and critiques TDP receives are absolutely valid, the amount of discourse in this fandom over the same recycled rhetoric used against TDP is astonishingly ridiculous. Like, we should have already gone over this a thousand times. I don’t know how you guys are still so set in your misguided views of this show after 6 to 7 years and 6 seasons. I’m nearly 100% convinced that you guys are just purposely trying to misinterpret the themes of this series to fit your own narrative of how this series has apparently misrepresented the ideas that you personally wish it could portray. Even if those ideas aren’t actually good or make sense for the real focus points and intended takeaways. (Ahem. I’m looking at you guys on the TDP subreddit who somehow use the fact that TDP has trouble depicting the implied historical prejudice the elves have shown towards the humans and how unjust that is as a justification for how dark magic is actually “good” and totally “valid” for the humans to use against the elves in retaliation.)

I’m sorry that this might seem rather harsh. Again, I think a lot of the complaints that have been made already have plenty of value and reasoning behind them. But it is still frustrating to see just so many of the same complaints being made over and over again and not having anyone question their own takes and how there’s a chance that they might be inherently biased.

[destinygoldenstar]

”A writer putting a bad thing in their story makes them a bad person because they endorse that bad thing by putting it in there.”

FALSE.

Unless the writer explicitly states that their intention with their story is to endorse this bad thing. Other than that, writers do not have the same moral code as in the stories they write, nor do they apply their own fictional writing to real life. Especially if the bad thing they put in their story is painted in a negative light by the story. (Ex: Consequences, Arcs, Themes, Context, Subtext, Literal Text, Only The Obvious Bad Guys Doing These Bad Things, The Story Intended To Be Morally Grey To Begin With)

You as a writer are allowed to put things in your fictional story that are morally wrong, without being seen as a bad person.

Learn what media literacy is.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Love when people read half of a sentence and then are like I KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!!!!

No.

No you don't.

Read the rest of the freaking sentence first.

Read the sentence before and after first.

Read the paragraph first.

Read the entire passage first.

Then, please, by all means, tell me your interpretation of that sentence.

[cubistemoji]

[fiannalover]

What's that bro? You began interacting with a media from a different country than yours and/or was made in time period different than the recent present day? Haha that's sick bro! Keep expanding your horizons bro! You're remembering to take into account that sociocultural norms, gender roles and genre expectations are different from what you are used to and meeting the story halfway, instead of forcibly superimposing your ideals into the story, right bro? Right? Right?

[rockpapercynic]

A.I. photos are flooding social media and contributing to an Internet where we can't believe what we see. Spotting A.I. 📷s is an important media literacy skill.

None of us have time to research every image we see. We just need people to notice BEFORE THEY LIKE OR SHARE that an image might be fake. If unsure, check it or don't share.

I've started drawing some comics explaining the basic of AI spot-checking and media literacy in the age of disinformation. Follow along here or on my Twitter.

[the-bar-sinister]

headcanon: "i have decided that this is true about the character, and it doesn't matter to me if the canon text supports my idea or not."

interpretation: "after considering elements present in the canon text, I have decided that this might be true about the character and here's why."

subtext: "I can show you strong evidence in the text and context of the work that this interpretation could be the actual authorial intent."

[lazaefair]

"Fiction is not a 1:1 reflection of reality" and "the U.S. military doesn't support and finance American action movies and video games for fun" are concepts that can and should coexist

[biggesthomuradefender]

me losing my mind after everything abt rebellion gets misinterpreted a million thousandth times 💀

so, here are a few misconceptions that i want to rant abt bc they aggravate me !! lol.

“the madoka that talked to homura in the flower field isn’t the real madoka/is only saying what homura wants to here !!”

it was literally confirmed MULTIPLE times that that was the real madoka, by multiple characters 😭 homura, bebe, sayaka, kyuubey, even madoka herself after she regains her memories… that isn’t even media literacy, the movie fucking TELLS you directly.

even one of the fucking creators, shinbo, confirmed that the words madoka spoke in the flower field was literally her true feelings.

also… no, that’s the last thing homura wanted to hear. why would she want to hear that she failed at her one reason to live, that her beloved wasn’t happy and was actually suffering all alone, and it was all her fault? that she lied to herself in an attempt to convince herself that madoka was rly okay? hello???

“madoka was happy/fine as a god”

no, no she wasn’t. she didn’t even WANT to be a god, she was just willing to be one bc she felt that her wish was more important than her life, her very existence and humanity (devil homura parallel…)

homura realized that she wasn’t happy, that’s a large reason as to why she did what she did at the very end of the movie.

“homura could have just gone w madoka to ‘heaven’ at the end”

no, no she couldn’t have. did you forget that the incubators were literally planning to use madoka and her powers in order to bring back the witch system again in order to turn ALL magical girls into witches?? when the girls freed homura from the incubator’s seal and madokami came to take homura’s soul gem away, madoka and all of the magical girls were still in DANGER bc kyuubey was still going to do it, and homura knew that.

“homura never accepted madoka being a god”

this has got to be one of the dumbest ones i’ve ever heard… homura quite literally DID except it, her resolve only started to deter when she learned that madoka wasn’t happy as a god, and then completely broke apart when she didn’t succeed in killing herself (over and over again, might i add) in her own soul gem before all the girls saved her.

[prokopetz]

Bryan Lee O'Malley remarking that he had Scott explicitly spell out that his relationship with Knives was inappropriate in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off because he feels like a lot of the comic's readers maybe didn't pick up on that is very funny not only because how do you not, but also because the original Scott Pilgrim comics are some of the most didactic media I've ever read outside of, like, medieval Christian allegories about the wages of sin. It's just constantly explaining to the reader exactly why Scott is a bad person, sometimes with little annotated diagrams. Genuinely, what's it gonna take for the twentysomething male audience not to idolise a loser?

[trans-pickles]

you don't need to write a dark deconstruction of Peter Pan where he's willing to kill people and his state of eternal childhood makes him morally ambiguous, JM Barrie already wrote one and it's called Peter Pan

[doomedyuri-69]

Seeing people say Alicent shows no signs of being queer and that her being a lesbian makes no sense is objective proof that media literacy is dying.

a straight woman would NOT caress her “mortal enemy /rival’s” hand like that while gazing longingly into her eyes 😭🙏

[alethianightsong]

"I miss when movies weren't political-"

ALIEN is about a megacorporation coercing some salvagers into transporting a dangerous creature without telling them what it is, all because the creature could be a great bioweapon for them. When a survivor of this failed transport mission wants reparations, they screw her over to avoid a scandal.

ROBOCOP is about another mega-corporation experimenting with a cop's body and declaring him their property, trying to reduce him to an obedient killing machine who can maintain the status quo for them.

JURASSIC PARK is about a rich billionaire going all out to make a dinosaur-themed amusement park, not caring about the real-world implications of resurrecting giant lizards. He also underpays ONE guy to maintain the entire park's security systems so predictably, that one guy betrays him at a crucial moment.

The best movies weave their politics with plot & character, so you can enjoy them as entertainment but can also notice the themes. Movies without themes wind up being all spectacle and no substance, just noise and color like Michael Bay's Transformers franchise. Yeah, they make money, but they'll be forgotten in 2 generations.