#part of media literacy**

[atomicradiogirl]

when chani asks “and who will our next oppressors be?” and it immediately cuts to paul like that answers the question and it’s in the first 3 minutes of dune part 1. paul is not the savior nor the hero. he is their downfall.

[musicalgifs]

*reference to this video, not my actual opinion

[shorthaltsjester]

there are literally no standouts in downfall because everyone sat down at that table and said hey you wanna see something cool and proceeded to Become their characters but idk if it’s because they’re beside each other and that aids the dynamic or just because it’s the delicious similarities and insurmountable distance between the god of death and the god of (in various ways) life but ayden and emhira’s interactions were so chewy and delicious. i’ll be thinking of their exchange fairly early on after ayden cast lesser restoration on that old man and emhira not cruelly but just simply stating “you cannot heal everything.” and ayden’s equally simple reply “we can always try.” emhira seeing the family trist has built and wondering at the presence of children, “surprised there is laughter in such a horrible place” and i know she’s speaking of hawk’s hill but i wonder if she is also speaking of exandria itself in some ways. the delicious space between in and out of character that only really happens in improv stories where as brennan is narrating and says “in this dark room” and nick interrupts and adds “it is not dark.” brennan’s incisive point in the cooldown that while the love that ayden and trist have for mortals and for exandria is warm and the kind of love someone would likely Want from gods, there is something maybe more honest or whole about emhira who says . actually these mortals are little shits that will kill you not because they fear you but because they hate you. whose very existence should be (and still often fails to be) a reminder that the gods can be usurped by mortals. the insight nick shared in the cooldown that ayden does not forget emhira’s origins but in a way dismisses them, that the god of death is a different beast. ayden wanting to find. way to save the people of aeor, insisting that the prime deities Win if they can find a way to do so. emhira reminding everyone that death is inevitable (and she does not add anything to clarify that she intends such a statement to only exist for mortals) as she argues for them to work to take down aeor and the people in it. the fact that the god with the most present connection to mortality is also the one given the most explicit clarification that she Is the god we know as SILAHA calls her the matron, brennan’s narration clarifies purvon is her champion, taliesin as asha asks for clarification on the recognition of emhira as a god and prompting the familiar spectre of a woman in a white mask.

i want to be very clear that when i say there are no standouts i Mean it because i’ve been awed and endeared and intrigued by every single character choice everyone made and as always brennan’s narration is so incredibly well suited for the mission impossible greek tragedy vibes that comes with this story and i’m so fucking delighted by the fact that laura, ashley, and taliesin are playing gods that their characters have known quite well in the past. i’m incredibly excited by what we’ve already gotten to see from abubakar, nashir, and nick and cannot imagine what other greatness is to come. i’m psyched to see the relationship between asha and the law bearer and am delighted that (perhaps for now perhaps for the whole arc) it is being seen through the lens of “my wife promised me a visit with apples and all i got was a rock ice emissary”. i also have many incoherent thoughts about the fact that, of the players who appeared as the same character in the opening and the story, taliesin’s ash and asha are the ones whose name remains the most unchanged.

i’m obsessed with the fact that this creature sent as a stand in by the god of law and duty believes his primary gift is love. while there is a certain mourning and sadness to every god we see, that SILAHA has a certain playful whimsy and jofyful curiosity about the world. that the only one of them who has been mortal before stops to steal an imp necklace from the neck of a drunk on the train (and that moment between brennan’s narration that this man will be dead by morning but, with death standing invisible in front of him, he is incapable of seeing it coming, and then laura as emhira breathing in deeply and brennan having that spark a coughing fit. they are Story Telling). asha seeing the erased image of a god, of a family member and saying “there’s a hole in all of us.” brennan narrating “this is a place where they tried to kill a story. it’s a very frightened thing to do.” (and god. the motif of fear. especially given the very present fear felt by the gods in current day exandria. they’re doing insane things in the critical role 3 part departure).

trist reminding ayden “he never tells the truth��� and asha contesting “he only tells the truth, it’s just rotting.” emhira and asha both as perhaps the less Good™ much more neutral but doing so in such different ways, asha as bitter and hungry while emhira seems uncomfortable but there’s a familiarity and a certainty in her discomfort with mortality (the law bearer would also be included here but the emissary seems much more like trist and ayden (for now) than emhira or asha). something as insignificant as trist and her husband speaking to their children and affirming that little lies are okay while trist has lead a significant part of her life likely dishonest about who she is. the fact that there’s a certain childlike quality to the emissary who they’re all charged with ensuring makes it to the end of things even if they cannot. the fact that nahal (unclear which god they were, and i’m assuming it’s the first god of death but regardless still an absolutely compelling development in a short amount of time) in those opening moments is horrified by the concept of away which is unfamiliar to them only to soon after look upon their family and say. maybe away was better. Especially if those were words spoken by the god who would one day be replaced. these three episodes are going to haunt me and i’m excited to meet the ghosts.

[nat20dyke]

some dimension 20 fans behave as if they would get mad at looney toons for their lack of nuance in depicting animal cruelty

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'm sure it won't be the last time. I AM SICK AND BLOODY TIRED OF THESE MFS, HALF OF WHO DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT CURSED CHILD, BITCHING AND MOANING ABOUT AN ANGSTY TEEN DARING TO BE AN ANGSTY TEEN, I WILL FIGHT THE LOT OF YOU

(this is gonna be a bit long and probably incoherent so sit down and fucking listen to me 🔫 stick with me because I'm not just complaining about albus haters)

eVERYBODY wants cOoMmpllEeXx relatable HUMAN characters - and then SHIT themselves when the flaws a CHILD has isn't just 🥺 uwu im socially awkward and traumatised 🥺. that's why scorpius doesn't get this fuckass treatment, because his terrible human flaw is that he's a bit shit at conversation and gets sad about his dead mum (generalised understatement, but this post isnt about him. dont come for me i love him 🫶🏻)

god forbid albus, who feels unloved and unwanted (with valid evidence for a teenager), albus who feels completely out of place and outcast from his entire famously-close-knit family, ablus who is well known by the world by default via Harry and hates the attention and high expectations, albus who then gets targeted and bullied by his peers because he's not as perfect and brilliant as his father, albus who is then isolated from his one friend because Harry is making irrational ptsd fueled decisions, albus who tells Harry completely sincerely that he knows he's unlikeable but he'll try and change himself and be more like his siblings because he genuinely believes that's what Harry and everyone else whos had the misfortune of meeting him wants, albus who spends the entire play trying to prove himself and fix things via idiotic childish decisions BECAUSE HES A WHOLE UNSTABLE CHILD

god forbid that CHILD doesn't react like a patient, supported, well adjusted, level headed adult. god forbid he reacts outwardly. god forbid he reacts at all, my bad. clearly he should just sniffle a bit as if he doesn't feel suffocated and helpless by everything in his life, because obviously hes just a spoiled brat who doesn't know what real suffering is. god forbid he complains or feels anything negatively, or doesn't quite grasp that other people are struggling too because he is too busy trying so hard to deal with himself and his declining mental health the best he can with basically no support or understanding. god forbid he isn't completely perfect.

you all sound like some fucking boomer telling teenagers they don't know what real struggling is, they aren't mentally ill, they dont have any problems because they have a roof over their head, they should all go to war kids are too soft these days 😫😖😱 fUCKING‼️SHUT UP‼️

he does things wrong but he knows he does and he does everything he can to fix it! and he is fourteen!!! do none of you remember what being fourteen is like 😭😭 I swear half of you have got to be basically fourteen yourselves cmon man

cause I'm seeing this fucking pattern a lot recently. not just for albus, not just in this fandom, everywhere. ‼️ no one can fucking handle flawed characters anymore ‼️ the only thing any character is allowed to have wrong with them is trauma apparently, otherwise they have to be perfect, and I'm getting sick of it. characters and stories are meant to reflect real life, they're meant to help shape our world view, why are you expecting everyone to be fucking perfect??? what happened to nuance? what happened to understanding character development? you are all acting like characters and people are so black and white. either they're perfect or they're insufferable and evil. I won't lie, the most common victims i've noticed of this are women. but the flawed women are typically demonised, whereas the men are typically turned into uwu baby boys who actually aren't capable of doing anything wrong and then fanon goes nuts making them into ittle wittle victims. and I'm so fucking sick of all of it, I hate this. (obviously this is not a strict rule. Albus Potter, and also Albus Dumbledore now I mention it, are demonised beyond belief)

BRING BACK FLAWS AND BRING BACK NOT COMPLETELY WRITING OFF A CHARACTER BECAUSE THEY DARE TO BE HUMAN

I AM FED UP, ALBUS POTTER GET BEHIND ME

[moraymiso]

whoever it was who asked “what’s a BSD opinion you’ll defend with your life” here’s another for ya!

atsushi IS the main character and he is a GOOD main character. istg i see so many people saying “he’s basically a side character with how little impact he has! the story would hardly change without him in it!” like uh?? are we watching the same show??

i swear most people who agree with this sentiment must fr be blind to 99% of the character development happening in this series. not only have they been alluding to the Book plot being majorly related to atsushi for ages if u just use ur damn eyes, but atsushi has affected nearly everyone around him in some way or another. bsd definitely has more than one MC, but atsushi is also definitely one of them, if not the highest of them 😭

saying the series wouldn’t change without him is almost laughable, even if you only see him as an avenue for the development of other characters. he is a perfect mc, argue with the WALL!!

[rofax]

Thinking about Army of the Doomstar again and how right before they play Aortic Desecration, Nathan is all, "What if this is the wrong song? 😧😨 "

Babygirl the first words are "we are all going to die", what the fuck made you think this was the RIGHT song???

[warpedpuppeteer]

Please watch

https://x.com/bucksdaylight/status/1800876967061008885?s=46

Okay this damn video. A couple of things.

It's canon that Buck baked cookies for Christopher's class?? Buck has gotten Chris ready for school. Buck has cooked meals for both Eddie and Chris multiple times. Buck has helped Chris with his homework. Buck takes Chris out all the time. Buck has given him life advice. We don't see Henren or Athena and Michael doing those things daily either does that mean they're not the parents? 🧍🏽

I don't know why they think Chris calling Buck 'dad' would in any way or form take away the importance of Eddie being his biological dad. This person seems to think someone can only have one dad in their lives. Step-parents exist? Queer parents?? Foster parents?? They're not any less because they're not your biological father? Some biological fathers don't even deserve to be a father.

They also seem to think you're only a parent if you both do the exact same things for a kid, which is not true at all. Parents have different roles they play and different sets of responsibilities. One parent will be more into the emotional aspect and the other might handle day-to-day things. One parent might have a career that doesn't allow them to spend as much time with their kids as the other. Yeah, some parents might share all the same responsibilities but mostly they don't! This is so common in ANY family. You're not less of a parent if you don't make breakfast for your kid to school lol.

When you tell someone "there's nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you", in this world, that is beyond any fun uncle territory. That is a co-parent.

Chris ran to Buck first when he was mad at his own dad. Chris most likely has Buck's address memorized because he called Uber. Chris didn't want to talk to Eddie but was willing to talk to Buck.

I'm convinced people like these watch a completely different show than the rest of us because Buck's involvement in the Diaz family is NOT just as a fun uncle. The Will itself is the biggest proof (despite their clown ass dismissing it). You don't name the 'fun uncle' as a legal guardian. You will choose someone who you know will step into the role of a parent for your child; someone who will take over all of your responsibilities as a parent in case something happens to you. If you wanna' see what a fun uncle looks like then look at Chim with Denny. Look at Buck with Jee-Yun. That's fun uncle.

You don't have to be romantically involved to be a co-parent but the fact that they're saying even if they date he won't ever be Chris' dad?? Reeks of homophobia and hetero normative bs if you ask me.

Also I hope the last episode was a slap to their face because 'fun uncles' don't get that involved in family matters. Eddie's parents didn't even ask why Buck was there 🤷🏽

They can say whatever they want but it doesn't negate canon. Buck is co-parenting with Eddie. Buck will never be the dad that is Eddie because that belongs to Eddie, true. But he can be another dad to Chris and it doesn't make him any less of a parent for that.

[whorebughaze]

[aetsiv]

every time i see someone mischaracterize matthias as a dumb, blonde, malewife with no personality except being nina's (dead) boyfriend i want to fistfight god and cause the mass extinction of humanity

[greenfinchwriter]

The same loud,toxic,ignorant show-only fandom minority fraction complaining about new fans coming to the fandom from Netflix,and doing their usual bully and gatekeep routine,is amusing to me.

It's not the Netflix folks that are the issue, it's them.

First they invaded TVC fandom spaces,and now they are once again the aggressors (against windmills).

Oh you're afraid some people won't be respectful, or interact with show and fandom correctly? I'm sorry but that part of the show-only fandom doesn't get to whine and fuss about other people's possible/imagined lack of media literacy and fandom etiquette when they are the epitome of both.

The VC fandom was never idyllic,no fandom is, but for the most part everyone was fairly tolerant, and mostly lived by the cardinal rules of fandom: Ship and let ship, don't like don't read, and so forth. It was nice, having a minimum amount of fandom purity culture, and a high media literacy rate. Again, to be clear there are severe anti,and negativity issues in the TVC fandom on its own without toxic show only elements coming in recently. But that is a different post for a different time. And those toxic TVC internal people certainly don't mind being validated by those equally toxic newcomers who agree with them. Imho they would usually be the people to gatekeep anyone from the source material but their takes being validated, and parrotted supersedes even that.

Internal antis have been around for a long time but they have never dominated fanspaces as they do now. Worse though, external antis posing as internal ones who are using popular media for their own agendas are given a stronger voice under the guise of "social justice", and people go along with it because it's en vogue,and they are afraid of being stamped as "not ideologically pure enough".

To be clear it's not the entire show only fandom by far but unfortunately a significant vocal part of it has been incredibly rude and toxic towards the original TVC fandom, and the books themselves.

And the ongoing disrespect for the source material is as infuriating as it is heartbreaking.

The source material is just fine when it can, somehow,be twisted,cherrypicked or esoterically "interpreted" to support or "give credence to" some sort of projecting,nonsense headcanon people decided is real canon especially when it pertains to Marius,Armand, and Lestat. Or to try to "predict" what will happen in the show in future seasons. But apart from that? Nope. Even when those show only "fans" deign to pick up the books, they are incapable of separating the version of the show they made up in their heads and read them the same way they read the classics - with 21st century Twitter approved faux social activism glasses,and disdain because, shocker, the genre and books isn't for them,and not exactly the sanitized fantasy they had in their heads.

Only reading the Devil's Minion chapter, cherrypicked passages on social media,and the game of telephone of "what some person's cousin's step-mutual on Twitter or on here claimed happens", isn't the same as having read,loved,and analyzed the novels for up to *decades*.

The Vampire Chronicles,and its fandom deserves better than that.

The TVC fandom aren't the ones who monopolize characters they don't (want to) understand. That part of the show fandom spams tags that aren't theirs - including but not limited to posting anti rhetoric in character tags.

There can't be any more even worse takes by the Netflix folks than there already are thanks to that part of the show only fandom. We've already hit rock bottom there,so deep breaths, it will be just fine. At worst a large chunk of them won't get the show and don't know or respect the books either - they are just alike! No need to be afraid of a mirror. At best some folks coming from there will genuinely love and engage with the show in fun, and intellectual ways. Maybe we'll even get some more "book lovers who don't despise the show and enjoy it for what it is", or people who enjoy and understand the show enough to seek out the books,and read them without prejudice, or for pure desire of fandom cred.

So frankly,their performative sulking is pretty damn funny.

I will take them seriously as soon as they start showing respect to,and understanding of the source material, or admit that they don't have a clue,and either are willing to learn,or leave because they can finally admit that the genre, and stories just aren't for them. Or as soon as they can learn the cardinal fandom rules,and be respectful of and to the old guard TVC fandom.

If someone wants to only enjoy the show,perfectly fine, but then don't talk about the books at all, and treat the characters as original characters that only happen to share names with the book characters but are entirely separate.

Have to keep insisting that:

- Marius is a one-note cartoon villain pedo and rapist,and every breath he takes is an affront to the G-ds,and he's solely to blame for aaaallll of Armand's trauma,and every ill in the world since before the dawn of man, and every time the wifi messes up and Armand can't play Minecraft

- Lestat is somehow are devious master of puppets and also a sadistic abuser with zero other qualities

- Armand is an pure,innocent,sad uwu babe in arms who has ever only been a poor,perfect victim seeking love and is so very swowwy for all of the bad things he did,and totally traumatized by them.

- Devil's Minion is a wholesome,quirky,pure love story,and all the "bad" parts are Marius's,Lestat's, Louis's,and Daniel's faults somehow.

And so forth.

Then,hell, give them their own names, here let me help you:

Fake Marius is now Maurizio

Fake Lestat is Jean-Paul

Fake Louis is Jerry

Fake Armand is Alain

Fake Daniel is Doug

You're welcome.

In short: Don't be afraid of the Netflix crowd. The worst takes are already alive and thriving, and no one has perished (except the sane parts of the tvc and show fandoms,of course). Only the show and that particular faction of its fans via their takes can make it worse, and it doesn't matter how or where they watch from.

Being a decades long,obsessive book fan,and someone who does love the show for what it is, I'm already disillusioned.

People have already come in and shit on some of my most beloved characters from the books - Marius,Lestat,and yes Armand,because those specific show only Armand apologists don't actually love or understand the real,canon,book Armand. Or, frankly,the one in the show either. They love a sanitized,infantilized simulacrum of him they created in their heads, and now furiously try to make that canon.

[scruncheduppaper]

not to fandom meta tweet twice in one night but i hope hakita releases treachery soon because SOME of you guys have lost sight on gabriel’s character almost completely like this is unreal. like i think you guys just completely forgot what made him appealing in the first place and just started making shit up on your own

i guess this is more of a symptom of fandom drought more than anything LMFAO… technically we havent gotten any new information or lore about gabriel since act 2 was released and that was years ago so i guess i shouldnt be surprised

anyways dont forget that gabriel killed the entire council with his own bare hands and cut the head off one of them as proof for the Entire Angel Population to see. and conversely the fact that he was regarded as one of the most popular and well beloved angels due to his radiant personality beforehand, his kindness towards the ferrymen, his genuine blind belief in justice and devotion to god

gabriel is the story protagonist of ultrakill

[chocolix76]

Solar saying "why did you do this?" has me feeling ill. I will be rotating this in my mind forever, hope this helps

[edenhasfeelings]

The Death of Media Literacy, Religion, Misogyny, and Cognitive Dissonance

Spoilers for Dune Part 1 and 2 and the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I'll admit, I have not read the Dune books yet, but I am a huge fan of the Dune movies. Not only did Denis Villeneuve just make two incredible, epic movies with a lot of nuance, gorgeous visuals, and an incredible score by Hans Zimmer, but the story itself is really compelling for a lot of reasons. My mother had tried to get me into Dune when I was younger, but at the time it wasn't my thing. I really liked Part 1, but Part 2 was something else entirely. I was gripping my seat the whole time, genuinely enthralled by everything happening. But I came out of the theatre with one definite conclusion: Paul Atredies is not a hero. I shared my thoughts in the car, and while my boyfriend agreed with me and my father had no opinion, my mother adamantly refused. She read the first book in college, and loved the 1984 version of the film (watching that, in my opinion, was like slow cooking your eyeballs over a campfire, but it was cool for the time period I guess). She was insistent he was the hero, and then tried to say that they changed the story to make him seem more like a villain, but he wasn't in the first book.

No hate to my mom, it's been a long while since she read the first book, and me and her are going to actually read the whole series soon. From my understanding and the research I've done, Frank Herbert wrote Dune as a cautionary tale against white saviorism and a commentary about America stealing oil from Middle Eastern countries and their subsequent colonization. I've also heard it was meant to be a standalone originally, but because people were portraying Paul Atredies to be the hero so much, he then wrote Dune Messiah to further drive home the point he was originally trying to make. But even without the knowledge of the books, it was apparent to me that he was not meant to be a hero in the movies. Of course, it isn't spelled out for you, and Timothée Chalamet does have some really epic, badass moments. But one of the biggest clue that you can have to what's going on is Chani, and how she reacts. She loves Paul, and she supports him, but she doesn't support him becoming a religious figure that leads her people because she feels as though that level of fervent religion is dangerous and not right; she says that a born and raised Fremen should be the one to free their people. You also see a huge shift from how Paul acts in the first movie and the first part of the second movie to how he acts after he drinks the Water of Life. In the first movie and first part of the second, he refuses to fulfill any prophecy, and tells them that he is not the one they are looking for. He is only wanting one thing: to avenge his father and his house. He even gets into an argument with his mother, Jessica, and he tells her that the Bene Gesserit were the ones to perpetuate this prophecy for their own gain. He knows it isn't real, and that it isn't divine, and that he was raised by Jessica to fit the qualifications for this prophecy for her own gain and the gain of her order. He knows what will happen if he takes up the mantle of Lisan al-Gaib: holy war spreading across the galaxy in his name. But when he feels like he has no other choice but to drink the Water to rally the Fremen to fight the Harkonnens, things instantly change. He becomes arrogant and demanding and self-confident, completely uncaring of how Chani feels and becoming solely focused on becoming Emperor. The line "lead them to paradise" felt really, really gross upon delivery, partly due to Hans Zimmer's masterful score. It feels damning.

While looking like a white savior story at very simplistic face value, Dune: Part Two is in fact a critique of it, even without the addition of Dune Messiah. The other big thing that the movie critiques is religion, especially blind faith at the cost of your critical thinking skills, religious fanaticism and idolization, and how religion is taken advantage of by people in power or people who want to be in power. Now I've seen a lot of tone deaf critiques of Dune, and a lot of ignorant comments made, usually in regards to the racial and political elements of the story. I have also seen a lot of people who get it and were able to help me expand my reasoning for the feeling of wrongness I got from people thinking Paul is a hero. But nothing compares to the TikTok I saw today. Someone blended the audio of Timothée Chalamet's Wonka character introducing himself, with the scene after Paul drinks the Water and goes to rally the Fremen to fight for his cause. The first image in the slideshow was an image of Wonka with the caption "Being raised in a religious household and calling yourself 'a Christian'." The second slide shows Paul in the midst of his religious fanaticism in the movie, with the caption "After being born again and having your entire worldview change." Absolutely no hate to this creator if you know who I'm talking about, but this video quite honestly had me gagged, for lack of a better term. I was absolutely shocked at not just the usual lack of media literacy that revolves around this movie and so many others, but the fact that they were so far gone from the point of the movie and Paul's character entirely that they thought it was a good idea to post that online in reference to their own faith. Paul Atredies took advantage of a prophecy that he knew was engineered to control the Fremen to do exactly what the Harkonnens wanted to do, just in a different font. His intentions might have been good to start, but ultimately, because of Jessica and the Bene Gesserit (specifically the Reverend Mother, as she talks to him in his visions and pushes him forward), who he realizes he is being manipulated by, he ends up where he is: a religious idol who (Spoiler for Dune Messiah) leads 61 billion souls "to paradise" and causes irreparable damage to the galaxy.

As someone who was raised Christian, I can tell you without a doubt that religion in general, but especially Christianity, can heavily damage your critical thinking skills and media literacy. When you look at everything from the lens of, "Ok but how does this piece of media validate my feelings and beliefs regardless of intention, subtext, or true meaning?" you end up falling into some really dangerous territory. Paul is not meant to be venerated in any way, shape, or form. He's a badass character and Timothée Chalamet did an excellent job portraying him, but you should not be comparing yourself to him, especially in the context of your religious journey. That is incredibly dangerous as you then shut your eyes to the true message of the story: white saviorism is bad, colonialism is bad, exploiting entire peoples for resources of any kind is bad, and spreading and using religion to control people is bad. Of course if you phrased bluntly any of these things to religious people they would (probably) agree that those are bad things. But when you put it into the context of film/literature/music/etc, and then you have no one spelling things out for you like you're used to people doing for you in your religion, and you've already tossed your critical thinking skills out the window in order to avoid doubting your faith, you end up supporting and turning a blind eye to the bad things that you would otherwise disagree with if it was made simple for you. Even if you have no ill intention, even though it was just a silly TikTok, the ease in which people delude themselves by refusing to look any deeper into media causes such mass amounts of complacency and allows history to repeat itself. It is repeating itself right now. When we learn about the Holocaust in school, everyone would say that if they were Germans living in Germany, they would have opposed the genocide of the Jewish, Romani, and queer people during WWII. But here we are, watching the genocide of the Palestinian people live on our phones, and yet people are still sitting in denial and complacency, and often using the Bible and religion as an excuse for why its' ok.

Steering away from the topic of religion, another clear example of media illiteracy recently was The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I both read the book and saw the movie (full book review posted on my book review blog @385bookreviews). While in the book you get Coriolanus' raw thoughts and it is made more obvious that he is not a good person even without the influence of Dr. Gaul, the movie still does a really good job of showing his decline into the person we see in The Hunger Games trilogy. And yet somehow, even with the context of the first three Hunger Games books (and the four movies), somehow people were still painting Coriolanus as the misunderstood good guy of the story. The latent misogyny that came out of so many people, especially women and girls who claim to be feminists, by saying Lucy Gray was manipulative and everything was her fault, was honestly appalling to watch. There is always room for personal interpretation of media, however that is widely different from purposefully ignoring canon information and editing the text to adhere to your own cognitive dissonance. This can once again come back to religion, as I believe people of every organized religion also practice this habit of picking and choosing whatever they want from their holy texts and then conveniently excusing the rest of it. Media illiteracy is shown in another way with the Hunger Games series fans as well. A lot of people can go to the movies or read the books and root for the rebelling protagonist and recognize perfectly the plot of the story: government bad, so good people rebel and fight for their freedom, and those are our heroes. And yet these same people will then turn around and ignore genocide because "the oppressed people attacked first, they should have stayed peaceful".

While not all media reflects real life, or is meant to be taken as seriously, The Hunger Games and Dune are definitely not two of those series. By ignoring the context and subtext and purely engaging with things as fiction, and then ignoring the real life applications and implications of the work, we are being purposefully and consensually blinded and allowing ourselves to become mindless cogs in a capitalist machine. We all need to learn to think for ourselves, now more than ever, and that starts with our media consumption.

[sherdnerd]

Obsessed with this comment trying to say Dune is stupid that accidentally describes Hamlet

[denkies]

Some of yall do not know the difference between "media that glorifies Bad Thing" and "media that portrays Bad Thing and the audience has to use critical thinking skills" and its actually concerning