#real vs fiction

[fallen-g0dz]

Who is worse?

[swagsmeister]

the best ships have names that sound like a disease (Scollace)

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Just to minimize my chances of being genuinely misunderstood OR deliberately misinterpreted, and crucified for something I don't think, How Dare You Say We Piss on the Poor website etc...I'm gonna say this right up top. I absolutely understand why people don't like Thessaly as a character, if anyone does completely unironically stan her as some kind of feminist hero who Did Nothing Wrong uwu, I personally see it as a bit of a red flag. I don't like terfs real or fictional. In a vacuum, I could even completely sympathize and agree with the people who want her cut.

HOWEVER.

It's really something to me to see people clamoring for her to be cut, because she carries and expressed an ugly indefensible prejudice (transphobia) in words towards (1) person. Meanwhile Hob fucking Gadling enacted one of the most violent forms of antiblack racism I can even think of against thousands no, millions of people, the ripple effects of which still affect billions more today. Just a little light idk, profiting off the fucking slave trade and had to be told by someone else that it was bad...and he's a fan favorite.

People are saying Thessally being Dream's love interest reflects badly on him or is somehow endorsement by the narrative (?!?!?!?!?!? Didn't she (SPOILER ALERT AS IF IT MATTERS BY NOW) help participate in his extended assisted suicide? She's not painted as a great person to me just another character what are y'all SMOKING whatever fine. It's fine this is fine.) But shipping Dream with Mr. Former Slaver is not only not verboten or frowned on widely in the fandom but its THEE most popular pairing by far. So...why the difference?

Like where are the same fans who are saying Thessaly shouldn't just be more clearly shown to be wrong, she shouldn't even be in the show at all when it comes to Hobert's crimes??? Yes, transphobia is indefensible. Isn't racism?

And I hear the cries of "it's fiction!!!" Already rallying (if anyone who needs to hear this even sees it lol) to which I say:

HORSESHIT. I KNOW you don't, deep down, really agree because if you did, why get upset about Thessaly being included??? Why does what she said to one person matter if it's Just Fiction You Guyze. Fictional characters are allowed to do bad things and fiction isn't reality sweaty....except when you only apply that standard to fictional racists you like and simp for, but fictional transphobes you don't are SO HARMFUL they shouldn't even be portrayed in fiction.

Like. Give me a big fat BREAK. This looks like bullshit, no? I'm sorry, but I'd love for someone to try and give any other explanation besides one personally offended you or hit home for you, and the other doesn't.

And if that bothers you or you feel like it says something negative about you...idk what you want me to say??? You can't control how other people perceive you and that's how people outside this majority-of-the-fandom bubble see it. You don't need to respond, I just wish and genuinely hope this gives you a moment to think about why fans who ARE bothered by both (and not just paying lip service to being bothered by the one but railing against the other) are so frustrated with people saying everyone is welcome but in practice only bending over backwards for the comfort and emotions of themselves, and people they can easily relate to.

You don't have to like Thessaly (I don't. I find her an interesting antagonist, I don't stan her. And frankly that's not the point of her character) but you'll pardon me for feeling more than a bit cynical and side eying people's motivations for what seems a...pretty obvious double standard, on what fictional crimes related to real world issues matter to y'all, and which clearly don't. Either actually bring the same energy to the table for fictional people who committed atrocities, even if against a group you're not part of and thus don't feel the need to empathize with, or just carry on, but accept that you don't have the SLIGHTEST room to talk about cutting characters who do immoral things. And you also need to accept that you look like a hypocrite when you do.

[proshippy-fox]

can people PLEASE stop saying proshippers have to be supportive of radqueers..... yeah I like weird fiction and yeah I think people who claim to be "transmexican" or "transkorean" are being disrespectful. those aren't linked to each other.

[vegaseatsass]

Hello! I was contemplating this for myself, and grew curious about how it pans out for the rest of DFF fandom. (You can take "support" to mean whatever you want, this poll is really about vibes.)

[kathani-bridgerton]

[chaosbungone]

I always liked to think if I was a fucked up TMA avatar I’d be something cool like the Buried or Flesh, but the reality is my nosy autistic ass is the weirdo who’s watching your every move without blinking unknowingly serving the Eye or the weirdo who’s London Fog tea’s steam seems to follow them around like a mist and never talks to anybody cuz they’re Lonely as fuck.

[fictionadventurer]

It sounds like Joe and Ken focused on telling stories, stories that being stories focused on the world and characters they knew. While Pete's were more focused on delivering a message with story flavored wrapping.

This is very much the case, but the difference seems to go even deeper than that, to a fundamental difference in worldviews that affect how they approach story.

Episodes written by Joe Fallon and Ken Scarborough respect children as people. Children have been shaped by their experiences and have unique personalities. Children are curious and have brains--they are driven to explore new things and can draw conclusions from what they see and do. Children are already people who deserve respect, and like all of us, they're growing into different people as they learn new things and have more experiences. The child characters can thus be the drivers of their own stories and come to learn lessons for themselves. The child audience can relate to those characters, be drawn into the story, and learn what it's trying to teach without having every detail explicitly spelled out.

Episodes written by Peter Hirsch seem to approach children as people-in-training. They might have one or two personality traits, but instead of coming from and interacting with other elements of their background, they're just pasted on, like a sticker you can put on your Generic Child Prototype. These blank-slate children need to have knowledge poured into them so they can become Properly Educated Adults. So in his episodes, these child characters will go through their story with a question, and the adults--the real people--will tell them the information in great detail so these characters--and the watching audience--can go off into the world knowing what the writer has decided they need to know.

In Joe and Ken's episodes, flaws are funny, and can create funny conflicts that will teach the children better ways to approach problems. In Pete's episodes, flaws are horrible things that need to be pointed out, labeled, and sanded away, so these children can grow up into the perfect model of what a Good Adult should be. The first approach is engaging, and celebrates diversity of personality in a community, while the other becomes bland in the interests of shaping all the members of a community into the desired mold.

Comparing the two approaches provides a shockingly thorough lesson in how one should and should not approach writing and education. Story and character and message are all intertwined. Trying to force the message onto the story and characters makes for something bland and generic and unrealistic. Letting the characters shape the story and letting the story bring out the message makes for something much more unique, organic, engaging, and real. And yes, maybe I've come to this conclusion by spending far too much time thinking way too deeply about a bunch of shows for elementary-aged chlidren, but that doesn't mean it's not fascinating to see how, even within the same show, an writer's personality and approach to the audience can make such a vast difference in the quality of a story.

[imperfectpompom]

The BEST thing I have learnt about liking MXTX novels so far is that you can totally hype them up to a job interviewer and make yourself sound MAD smart.

"Oh yeah, and in my free time I read translated versions of Chinese novels about high fantasy settings. My favourite one is the story of the main character's redemption who gets shunned for supporting a group of people who are in a concentration camp because one of their ancestors was a recent war lord who decimated the whole country, and is framed for murdering his sister and brother-in-law."

Alternatively, "I've also read another series by the same author about a crown Prince who became a God and his last believer."

Literally every fucker I've played this game with was SO impressed.

[voidchillz]

My thoughts on pro shippers (Important Post)

TW: mild swearing

I thought I’d make a post on this just to clarify my opinion so people can unfollow or block to their leisure, this is not a post inviting negative people into my comments or asks. This is also not a post advocating real world abuse, illegal activity, or inappropriate behaviour.

I won’t say I’ve had perfect opinions that everyone should listen to my entire life, because that’s blatantly not true, people change. And I obviously wish people on the internet were not as vindictive and cruel. For starters, during my first years in the undertale fandom, I of course had strong opinions encouraged by others to hate frans, and fontcest, and any denomination of pro ships. But that has clearly changed over time.

I’d like to make it clear there is a line as to which I enjoy problematic ships. I do not like non-consensual, I do not like underage, I do not like incest, I do not like abusive relationships, whether that is in fiction or reality. And I refuse to skirt lines and insist ‘oh I only like the design not the character’, or ‘oh I hate the creator I just enjoy the concept’, or make up some other bullshit excuse to fail to convince people that I deserve to be alive. Because ✨miraculously✨, what fictional characters and ships you enjoy DOES NOT REFLECT WHAT KIND OF PERSON YOU ARE.

It’s in the same vein as, if Person A likes the most depraved physical painful filthy fetishes, if at the same time they are a genuinely kind Human being that helps where they can and respects others without condition, it does not fucking matter✨💕 Person B is allowed to disagree and not have the same interests as Person A, but Person B does not then get to decide whether or not Person A deserves respect. Just the same way that Person A should not try to force Person B into liking what they like.

I’m not saying that people should be ashamed of what makes them uncomfortable because they’re insulting other people. This is not a post trying to coerce others into liking proships. You have complete freedom to disagree with others and avoid certain parts of your respective fandoms, just like I am by avoiding underage, non-con, or abuse. What I’m saying is that it is childish and ignorant to be outright threatening and disrespectful to people online for liking something you don’t.

There is no excuse for being a dick.

Now of course, if these people are actually harming others in real life, for example grooming or manipulating or any other form of abuse, by all means, tear their metaphorical testicles off and do whatever you can to ban their accounts and keep people safe from them. Because that is who they are as a person, harmful and dangerous to those around them.

Regarding children/minors/under 18s on the internet

Kids are being exposed to the internet way earlier than they probably should, likely because all the people that first started being exposed to it were already teenagers when it was invented. Keep in mind it was made public in the early 90s, meaning every adult using it now since the early days is in their thirties or twenties at the youngest, others currently growing into it.

There is not a single person on this planet who hasn’t experimented or tried to find communities to help them find safe places to learn about sexuality or adult concepts before they were 18. The reason 18+ accounts ask that minors do not interact is for a multitude of reasons, one being that if they are seen interacting with someone younger than them, even if it was an innocent interaction or someone in their late teens, they are liable to a heavy accusation of grooming. Another being they could likely be uncomfortable knowing minors see their content and feel like they have to censor themselves for this. Another is that it is very frustrating to try to block every single minor they see on their platform if they are an account with a high following. The point is, the internet has very easily accessible fucked up shit, and it is your own and your own responsibility only to avoid it.

Stop dehumanising kids. Stop dehumanising people you don’t know.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[depizan]

I was trying to find something to recommend to the book club I'm in. We've got a lot of fantasy scheduled for the next year and a half and I thought something in the (very broad) sci-fi umbrella would be nice for variety.

Unfortunately, a lot of the sci-fi (well, really, space adventure) books that I've liked over the years are things I read long enough ago that they may not have aged well at all or things that the library only has maybe one of (or none of)...or both. So I started looking for something new (to me). I mean, new books are always good anyway.

After scouring book lists and recommendations for a bit, I realized that what I was really wanting to find--the exact collection of tone and plot and kind of characters and all that--was the kind of thing I'd write.

Only I gave up on ever being a published author because no one writes things like that. Or at least no one publishes them.

Damn it.

[girl4music]

I love Willow as a character because of what she represents and teaches about the human condition and because she shows what humans result to on a bad day or when in desperation to do something but if I knew somebody like her in real life I really could not stand being around her. Just the severe lack of emotional maturity and intelligence she has and her insistence to Will things her way all the time and completely ignore or disregard people’s consent and not take into consideration their views or feelings as if she’s the only one in the room that even matters.

I couldn’t be friends with somebody like that. I really couldn’t. I couldn’t tolerate the blatant disrespect. I’d be constantly fighting with her. Telling her that how she’s behaving is selfish or arrogant or childish and could potentially risk or endanger hers or other’s well-being or both. That it’s not worth what it does for her.

She’s a fascinating character in a fictional sense.

But knowing a character like that in reality…

Different story for me. Absolutely.

And it’s a good thing she is fictional because I wouldn’t have the authority to tell anybody any of this. But I know for fact it would slip out when I’m moody and because I’m just a take-no-shit kind of person. I might be quiet and stoic in real life but I’m not carefree and lenient like Oz and Tara are. The reason why I can say Willow is my favourite character in the Buffyverse is because I primarily look at her objectively. She’s an object. A vehicle for learning. And that’s what matters most to me in art/entertainment.

As odd as it may seem to say, - I feel like I could get along with somebody like Xander more than Willow and I know the whole fanbase would take me to task for that and be completely confused by it because the majority of the fanbase think of Xander as the worst.

But nah, not for me. Xander uses his worst traits to become his best self. It’s always opposite for Willow. She uses what she does best to be the fucking worst and it’s not until she’s actually at her worst does she come to realize this and does a 180. But even then…

Nah, knowing a “Willow Rosenberg” in real life would not be a long relationship for me. I just know it.

But I think it’s very interesting how we can love characters that we don’t particularly think much of as a person in art/entertainment but can love as a character. Or maybe it’s just me that’s like that.

I mean fiction is fiction and reality is reality.

I analyze the fuck out of this character. Mostly negatively. But nevertheless - enough to realize that she most definitely is my favourite character. There are characters I don’t ever talk about at all and that’s because I don’t think much of them as a character but probably would like them a lot as a person in real life.

[differenteagletragedy]

tell me why i've been obsessed with watching rumba, samba, and waltz competition videos lately... it's surely not because of Mr. Baxter Ward, is it.. 😳

it's just. imagining him and MC dancing samba specifically is making me heady ahahahdhahvddh. it's so fucking touchy i'm gonna lose my mind.

sorry if i don't make sense, my baxter brainrot is starting to kick again. 😭😭😭

I will tell you why, it's because you're very wise! It's so fun to watch ballroom dancing and think of little mister man Baxter! I think samba is one he doesn't know super well? You can learn togetherrrr!

The more sensual ballroom dances, like tango too, imagine!

I'm going to also take an opportunity to tell a little story here if that's ok. In college, I took an intro to ballroom dancing class. It happened one day a week at like 8 pm, and this little old man was the instructor. He ALWAYS wore suits, he spoke like a razzle dazzle gentleman, and he was just so into the dancing. He wasn't a professor or anything, he was just some guy but they let him teach the little one credit class. So maybe that was Retired Baxter.

[jubilantmedusa]

It has been one year and two days since I posted my first ATLA fanfic, Lightning (Awaken to the Light). I’m sentimental so just for fun, a “behind the scenes” if you will:

It took me a surprisingly long time to decide that the SWT weapon of choice would be a war harpoon, but it’s a fun detail (for all of one line).

I wanted Aang to have a prayer from the airbender (because what is fanfic for if we don’t use it to improve world building), and I figured it should come from a Buddhist saying. Most of what I was seeing didn’t quite work, because they were meant to be mediations and started with I statements. Eventually I found this saying and created a variation of it for Aang’s chant. I was not expecting that detail to be so hard to find!

Toph is always fun to write. This story largely takes place on a wooden ship, which makes her more blind than normal. Which was a useful narrative device because she had to make people tell her (and the audience) verbally what was happening.

That said I apparently forgot Toph was blind in the last section and reference her playing Pai Sho with Sokka. Negative points there. Though if the board was carved from stone she could probably do it.

I almost forgot to include Suki. Sorry Suki. She ended up being the character to administer CPR, a role formerly held by Nameless Watertriberman. I’m almost glad I forgot her in the first draft, because inserting her in that role made the story much better.

Prior to this story I hadn’t written fanfic in longer than a decade. We’ll see how long it lasts. I certainly have an idea list longer than I could ever realistically get to. For now, it’s fun to be writing things I actually finish. Even if it’s just small hurt/comfort fics. Cheers.

—

The sky was so perfectly blue above them. So beautiful.

Like it had been on the prairie with Aang.

Like it had been by the mountains with Uncle, when Uncle’d taught him how.

Zuko knew what he had to do. What only he could do.

He raised his arms.

There is energy all around us. The energy is both yin and yang. Positive energy and negative energy…

Zuko positioned his hands at his center, extending two fingers on each into an even point. He moved his arms in a circle, arching one over his head and the other below his belly. As he moved he could feel energy around him beginning to divide.

He circled his arms a second time, a third. Yin and yang sparked in a circle before him, crackling under his blue-tinged fingertips. He circled his arms a fourth time, a fifth, gathering more and more.

The energy wants to restore balance…

On the water before them, there were five ships.

And in a moment the positive and negative energy come crashing back together, you provide release and guidance, creating lightning.

His friends needed him now.

Remember, once you separate the energy, you do not command it. You are simply its humble guide.

He wouldn’t fail them.

Lightning (Awaken to the Light) by JubilantMedusa

[messyhairdiaz]

Kinda funny if any of the people voting Eddie Munson on the Eddie poll are whining about the cop show winning because 911 has the same amount of cop main characters as Stranger Things

[herequeerexitentialfear]

i think its interesting how around the time i was coming to terms with my disability my ocs relationship with trauma switched from 'im deeply hurt but love me enough and i can be good' to 'take me as i am, accept that i love how i do, or leave me alone, your idea of fixing me will just break me further'

the idea that someone can get better through love and care is a good one, but i find the idea stifling personally now. love and care wont fix me, people accepting me as i am will help me much more.

if fact, people loving and accepting me as i am, gives me the reassurance that i can try and recover in my own way, at my own pace, instead of making my recovery the focus of my life, as the only way i can be loved and accepted.

love me as i am, not who i can become.