people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”
i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today
this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them
this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?
You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist.
When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective.
No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream.
A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’
You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions.
I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior.
I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are.
In short: critical thinking is NOT the same as being critical of something, and enjoying a character or a story does NOT mean you condone or love them.
whoever is writing the minecraft lore rn needs a raise. bcuz some of the lore- and even just the theories- r so good and it gets. NO recognition
minecraft: “yeah souls have power and they can suck light out of things and there’s sand in literal hell that have the screaming dead in them and when combined make a literal demon that rots everything living in sight and in the deep dark there’s plants that can detect movement and hisses when broken and there’s a warden that protects the caves and can kill you in one hit and it has souls in his chest and it makes a heartbeat sound and all the lights around it flicker off if its near”
us af: “oh okay”
don’t forget the giant fossilised remains of god knows what that used to be and also the implications of the fact that villagers turned into zombies look different to the normal ones wandering around that just so happen to look like you. also the endermen speaking thing.
yeah! you can clearly hear them say “what’s up” or “hello” when your not bothering them.
and then theres the destroyed bastions and the desert temples and the jungle temples and the ruined portals . what is up with this world we inhabit
“Lightning has transformative powers, gold has regenerative properties so strong it can save you from death, ghasts are trapped in Hell, piglins built the bastions and the zombification virus nearly wiped them out, the ancient peoples created some kind of apocalypse so fucked up it almost wiped out all life and basically severed the link between dimensions, and also none of this is real, the universe is just a story we’re telling about ourselves because we’re all stories and stardust and not ready to perceive the true nature of existence yet.”
I’ve come to make an announcement: Shadow the Hedgehog’s a bitch-ass motherfucker, he pissed on my fucking wife! That’s right, he took his hedgehog-fuckin’ quilly dick out and he pissed on my fucking wife, and he said his dick was “this big,” and I said “that’s disgusting,” so I’m making a callout post on my Twitter.com: Shadow the Hedgehog, you’ve got a small dick, It’s the size of this walnut except WAY smaller. And guess what? Here’s what my dong looks like! That’s right, baby, tall points, no quills, no pillows — look at that, it looks like two balls and a bong! He fucked my wife, so guess what, I’m gonna fuck the Earth! That’s right, this is what you get: my SUPER LASER PISS!!Except I’m not gonna piss on the Earth, I’m gonna go higher!! I’m pissing ON THE MOON! How do you like that, Obama?! I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT!! You have twenty-three hours before the piss drrrrroplllllllets hit the fucking Earth! Now get outta my fucking sight, before I piss on you too!
Happy one year anniversary to the video that gave us this improvised gem.
Happy 2nd anniversary to Eggman pissing on the moon
Happy 3rd anniversary to Eggman pissing on the moon
no but for real . Gangnam style call me maybe riptide we are young . lana releases her first album and changed pop forever . Frank ocean releases his first album . 1D premieres . grimes releases genesis . and the movies. don’t even get me started. the first avengers movie the last twilight movie hunger games the hobbit les mis. like them or hate them they were cultural phenomenons. minecraft was at its peak before it was deemed cringe and before the minecraft renaissance. 2012 was one of the last good years of youtube too . and everyone was rlly into moustaches for whatever reason
honestly my favorite thing about hardison is that he has no real tragic backstory, he’s just like “i am very smart and therefore i should be allowed to do crime” and he’s entirely correct
i love everyone reblogging this going “yeah! soft boy!” in the tags bc that’s my other favorite thing about hardison (i have many) and that’s that he’s never particularly treated as morally grey bc he is constantly so kind and loving and good and also he enjoys some crime
parker: i have severe psychological trauma and i steal things to cope bc i don’t know how to relate to people
eliott: i have a tragic history being entangled in the mafia and even now i could kill the most dangerous fighters without firing a gun
hardison: if money is fake, why not for me and my grandma who i love? :)
