#also thanks for the rec I need to explore Indian cinema more I'm getting sucked into too many netflix kdramas

[gashousegables]

Hi! I was wondering for a long time now, but do you, as a Writer, should be in sync with your writing and real life values and views? Or it can contradict?

For example, if we talk about real life, MY personal life, I am all for healthy romantic relationship (although I, as multi-linguistic person, kinda yuck about this word. Very generalized for me. But I digress,) and all, but as a writer? I LOVE ambiguous characters, I love “You are my reason for existence” type of love, I love bloodsuckers or killers who find their redemption. Or people with toxic patterns who grow to be better people. Like, all this dark staff, you know? For example, there is this one woman, Maya Mehrotra, from an Indian thriller, who was super obsessive due to her traumatic life, and she was manipulative and a killer no less, and still I cried when she killed herself, because she lost everything, and I still remember her. What Im asking your opinion of, is, do your moral values as a person have to align with your “morals” as a media consumer/a writer? Or is it ok when they dont? Do you ever have had this dilemma as a writer?

FIRST of all - thank you for calling me a writer! <3333

Second of all, I don't know how to answer this question fully ... in my own opinion, I think fiction is fiction is fiction is fiction, yknow? You can write about almost whatever you want, morally. In fact, write about really fucked up stuff! A lot of literary sickos got branded for heresy so you can enjoy a little immoral bullshittery. I'm right there with you on the obsessive love part - it is almost a given that you can be ENTERTAINED by things you wouldn't necessarily WANT in reality - that's exactly why fiction exists babyyyyy

It's a lack of nuance that has people acting like you ARE what you write, and if you don't condemn explicitly every wrong or grey area of your characters it's pRoBlEmAtIc

There are always personal lines that you won't cross for yourself - I couldn't read Flowers in the Attic or Lolita or much of V. C Andrews because I have my own problems with sexual violence and CSA. So I also wouldn't write about it. But that doesn't mean that those novels aren't important. BUT it also means that CP doesn't exist in a special 'it's ART' bubble either. Nuance nuance nuance I'm 3 years into a Sociology degree gimme another three and I'll write you a thesis LMAO.

But there are moral lines I definitely think are a lot more important - like I'll never read Eleanor and Park because I hate racial fetishism ... but I still read Twilight, didn't I.

Ultimately, free will means you get to create and enjoy whatever art you please. Just means it doesn't exist in a vacuum and some puritans are gonna hate on you.

To me, my fiction isn't self-reflection (and if it is that never getting posted anywhere). Fiction is for telling stories - any stories you want!