what actual lgbt writers mean by an lgbt character’s plot not revolving around their sexuality or gender: their sexuality or gender is still actively there and an unquestionable part of their life that can’t be pulled away for writing convenience, but they have other shit going on in their lives unrelated or only marginally related to their gender or sexuality
what straight writers mean by an lgbt character’s plot not revolving around their sexuality or gender: i said this male character kissed a boy once and then never talked about it again and i’m a revolutionary
I’m in a google chat hangout with some other editor/writer types and there’s one guy in there just furiously jacking off to the importance of suffering in narrative and I’m one more “I just think it adds depth to our humanity” away from mailing him that 50 gallon drum of lubricant on amazon because jesus god my dude give it a rest.
This just got linked in the chat, and it’s totally gone over his head. He’s now talking about how comedians are some of the most depressed people ever and that’s why creative people are so depressed because we see humanity for what it is and I swear to god if he was wanking any harder to his own genius he’d be on fire.
I just tried to very patiently tell him that maybe his view was a little skewed toward pessimism and not an actual reflection of reality and he just told me not everything in the real world is safe spaces, sunshine and rainbows and if I’d ever known suffering I’d understand that.
It shouldn’t be possible to feel 5 other people separated by several thousand miles worth of distance pull back from their screens and brace for impact and yet.
”Thank you, for making an assumption about my character based on my refusal to agree with your belief that suffering is the pinnacle of human experience. I’ll be sure to keep your good opinion in mind literally never.
As for “if I’d known suffering” I’m not going to get into a personal pissing contest with you, but I will point out that there are two cancer survivors in this chat, and someone who lost a loved one recently, and would thank you kindly to refrain from further invalidating their concept of pain and strength with every single comment you make. You literally told one of them they hadn’t gone through enough in life to understand your perspective of the world, presumably based on that time a girl said no to you and how it reflected the overall narrative arc of your life wherein no one seems to realize the true genius of your mediocre shallow depths.
And if you think that was rude and I hurt your feelings I’d tell you I’m sorry but if you think about it, I’m really just helping you reach the highest form of human experience according to you. You’re welcome.
I’d also like to thoroughly refute your idea that our capacity for pain is our defining trait as a species, and instead politely argue that the true narrative intent behind exploring suffering is to point out our inherent capacity to survive it. More than that, to recover from it.
War is hell, people commit atrocities and death is inevitable and yet we hope.
Hope is a survival instinct. It is one of the purest, most human things
we will ever experience and it’s fundamentally rooted in our DNA. We
hope the dawn will come, we hope the branch will hold our weight, we hope the tiger will not eat us,
we hope the rain will come and water our crops, we hope tomorrow there
will be work so we might feed our families, we hope, we hope, we hope.
There will always be those who run toward danger, not to face their own morality, but to spare others from theirs. But it’s the people waiting on the other side to offer care and compassion who piece the world back together again.
We take pictures of sunsets and blue skies and make up stories about gold at the end of rainbows and if you don’t think creating art is a means of creating safe spaces with which to experience the full gamut of human experience and emotion through healthy and safe means, then myfriend, we have a lot more to talk about than I currently have the patience for. But I’m willing to try if you are.
Secondly, your portrayal of grief in your narrative is not “the most accurately human” as you put it when C____ suggested it felt a little wooden. Which leads me to believe you really have no idea what the emotion feels like beyond a shallow passing acquaintance with the inconvenience of someone experiencing it. Otherwise you’d know people don’t only cry at funerals, but they also laugh. They tell jokes, they comfort each other through the darkness because that’s what we as a species have always done. We look into the dark never ending night of reality and hear the wolves howling at the mortality of the cosmos and we light fires and tell stories about the coming of the dawn and just generally stick together and hope tomorrow will be better.
And just while I’ve got your begrudging attention: the dark brooding loner hero protagonist you’re so in love with because you believe it in some way represents your superiority above others, is nothing more than the male equivalent of the “I’m not like other girls” trope. Discuss.”
so if there’s one single trope i’m always down to fight it’s the animal bride (folklore motif 402??) which a lot of you are probably familiar with as the selkie – the fisherman either falls in love, steals her skin to trap her on land/gain power over her, or they fall in love and THEN he steals her skin to keep her from leaving, and either way she spends a lot of time gazing sadly out to sea and then she or her child finds the skin and never returns again. and that’s awful on a whole lot of levels – it’s not love, it’s control.
BUT. but the thing is. you how selkies/seal women was a pretty common variation of this? another really popular one was swans.
i just want you to think about that for a moment. swans. like…I get it, they’re pretty, graceful birds, certainly it’s easy to imagine them magically becoming pretty graceful ladies? but have you ever fought a swan. swans are awful. swans are the devil’s geese. imagine seeing a pretty magic lady and being absolutely enchanted by her, and stealing her magic feather cloak, and then you go up and say ‘hey i’m in love with you, let me make you my queen, it will be great, we’ll be so happy’ and she just looks at you for a moment and…
you know i was going to say maybe she just shouts for her sisters and suddenly you’rerealizing you’ve made a terrible terrible mistake bc you’re surrounded by big fucking birds who are all hissing. but honestly if this swan lady is as aggressively down to brawl as any other generally unhappy swan, then she’d straight up fuck you up on her own. she’d just deck you roundhouse, honestly. you don’t fuck with swans. why does this trope exist
okay but consider this: a woman walks to the park every day and feeds the swans and watches them paddle gracefully around the lake, sighing to see how beautifully they swim.
finally one day, a swan comes up to her and says ‘why don’t you come and swim with us? you always sigh so wistfully to see us on the water, and you would be most welcome to join our company, for you have always been a true friend to our kind’
and the woman says, ‘i can’t swim’
and the swan says, ‘we’ll teach you’
and the woman says, ‘literally i can’t swim, my husband stole my sealskin and should i venture into deep water i would surely drown’
and the swan says ‘your husband fucking WHAT’
the next morning the woman’s front yard looks like this.
and neither the woman nor her husband are ever heard from again, though for very different reasons.
*wades cautiously into the wank-infested waters of Fan Discourse, pulls out megaphone*
AS FANFIC IS PRODUCED FOR FREE, IT’S KIND OF SHITTY TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ITS LITERARY QUALITY OR THE FREQUENCY OF UPDATES. THESE ARE COMMERCIAL EXPECTATIONS THAT CAN’T BE FAIRLY APPLIED TO WORKS CREATED AT AND FOR NO COST.
THAT BEING SAID:
AS FANFIC IS PUBLISHED FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION, IT’S KIND OF DISINGENUOUS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT READERS HAVING CRITICAL REACTIONS TO THE CONTENT. CRITICISM IS A LITERARY REACTION THAT CAN’T BE FAIRLY DENIED ON THE BASIS OF WHETHER OR NOT THE WORK COST MONEY.
THAT BEING SAID:
REGARDLESS OF WHETHER A WORK IS COMMERCIAL OR FANNISH, GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEND HATE OR CRITICISM DIRECTLY TO THE AUTHOR IS A DICK MOVE. YOU CAN DISCUSS THE CONTENT, MERITS AND/OR FAILINGS OF A GIVEN WORK WITHOUT THE NEED TO MAKE THEM AWARE OF YOUR FEELINGS. EVEN WHEN A WORK IS CREATED COMMERCIALLY, CREATORS ARE NOT BEHOLDEN TO THE PREFERENCES OF INDIVIDUAL FANS, NOT LEAST OF ALL BECAUSE THIS IS A PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE STANDARD FOR ANYONE TO MEET. SOME WRITERS ARE HAPPY TO BE MADE AWARE OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IN WHATEVER FORM, BUT MANY EXPRESS A PREFERENCE NOT TO SEE ANY, OR PREFER TO DO SO ONLY AT CERTAIN TIMES. IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, ASK FIRST. THIS IS BASIC COURTESY, BOTH PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY.
THAT BEING SAID:
SOME INTERACTIVE ONLINE SPACES – SUCH AS AO3, GOODREADS AND TUMBLR – ARE FAIRLY USED AND INHABITED BY BOTH CREATORS AND READERS. AS THESE SITES ENCOURAGE READER RESPONSES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT VIA COMMENTS, REVIEWS AND REBLOGS AS A BASIC FUNCTION, IT’S GROSSLY UNREALISTIC FOR CREATORS POSTING IN THESE SPACES TO EXPECT TO ENCOUNTER ZERO CRITICISM EVER. SOMEONE EXPRESSING ABUSE OR UNWANTED COMMENTARY DIRECTLY TO A CREATORIS NOT THE SAME AS READER/READER ENGAGEMENT TAKING PLACE WHERE THE CREATOR CAN SEE IT. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY AS TO WHERE THAT LINE EVENTUALLY BLURS, BUT THE POINT IS THAT IT DOES BLUR AS A MATTER OF COURSE, AND THAT THIS IS A FEATURE RATHER THAN A BUG – ONE THAT WE ALL HAVE TO LEARN TO NAVIGATE.
THAT BEING SAID:
THE FACT THAT SOMEONE HAS WRITTEN SOMETHING THAT YOU FIND QUESTIONABLE, IMMORAL OR OTHERWISE AWFUL DOESN’T MEAN THE CREATOR SHOULD LOSE THE RIGHT TO CREATE MORE THINGS, OR THAT SUCH WORKS OUGHT TO BE ILLEGAL. YOU ARE WITHIN YOUR RIGHTS TO OFFER UP CRITICISM OF THE WORK ITSELF, THE TROPES IT EMPLOYS AND THE CONTEXT OF THEIR USAGE, BUT THE PROBLEM WITH ADVOCATING FOR THE TOTAL BAN OF PARTICULAR TYPES OF CONTENT IS THAT FICTION IS INHERENTLY LIMINAL. GIVEN THAT DEPICTION DOES NOT EQUAL ENDORSEMENT AND THE FACT THAT THE IMPACT OF A NARRATIVE IS ULTIMATELY DETERMINED BY THE INDIVIDUAL READER, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BAN ALL STORIES WHICH USE “IMMORAL” DEVICES UNCRITICALLY WITHOUT SIMULTANEOUSLY BANNING STORIES WHICH EXAMINE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THEM IN DIFFERENT WAYS, AND THAT’S BEFORE YOU TRY TO GET A ROOMFUL OF PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, CULTURES AND BACKGROUNDS TO AGREE ON WHAT “IMMORAL” MEANS IN FICTIONAL CONTEXTS IN THE FIRST PLACE, WHICH DEFINITION IS NEVER GOING TO OVERLAP PERFECTLY WITH WHAT “IMMORAL” MEANS TO THE SAME PEOPLE IRL.
THAT BEING SAID:
THE FACT THAT FANFIC IS FREQUENTLY WRITTEN IN THE SPIRIT OF NARRATIVE COUNTERCULTURE DOESN’T STOP IT FROM CONTRIBUTING TO THE SPREAD OF TOXIC TROPES OR STEREOTYPES THAT ARE ALSO PRESENT IN MAINSTREAM CULTURE AND/OR COMMERCIAL MEDIA. DEPICTION IS NOT ENDORSEMENT, BUT IT IS PERPETUATION, AND THE FACT THAT SOMETHING WAS WRITTEN FOR FREE DOES NOT MAGICALLY BALANCE ITS POTENTIAL NEGATIVE IMPACT AT EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE LEVEL. WRITING FIC IS OFTEN DESCRIBED AS A HOBBY, BUT AS IT IS LARGELY A SHARED ACTIVITY UNDERTAKEN WITHIN A DEDICATED COMMUNITY, IT IS A PUBLIC HOBBY, AND CAN THEREFORE POTENTIALLY IMPACT MORE PEOPLE THAN JUST THE INDIVIDUAL WRITER. KNITTING IS ALSO A HOBBY IN WHICH INDIVIDUALS CAN INVEST A GREAT DEAL OF TIME AND FEELING – AND, INDEED, MONEY – BUT IF SOMEONE IN YOUR KNITTING CIRCLE STARTED BRINGING IN SWEATERS THEY’D MADE EMBLAZONED WITH RACIST SLOGANS, THE IMPACT OF THIS ACT ON OTHER GROUP MEMBERS WOULD NOT BE AMELIORATED BY THE REMINDER THAT ‘IT’S A HOBBY’. IF THIS IS A VIABLE DEFENCE, IT IS A DEFENCE THAT CAN BE USED EQUALLY BY THOSE WHO WANT TO ACT WITHOUT CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS IN THEIR COMMUNITY AND THOSE WHO WISH TO ENJOY THAT COMMUNITY WITHOUT FEAR OF BEING PERSONALLY DISPARAGED, AND IS THEREFORE LESS A DEFENCE IN EITHER CASE THAN A STATEMENT OF FACT WITH NO ACTUAL BEARING ON HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
IN CONCLUSION:
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOOD MANNERS, PERSONAL POLITICS AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS A COMPLEX ONE. IN THE WHOLE OF HUMAN HISTORY, NOBODY HAS YET SOLVED IT TO THE PERFECT SATISFACTION OF ANYONE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES, AND WHILE THAT DOESN’T MEAN THERE ISN’T A BETTER SOLUTION TO BE HAD IN THE FUTURE, I GUARANTEE THAT NEITHER CREATIVE ISOLATIONISM NOR BLANKET CENSORSHIP WILL GET US THERE, BECAUSE THE ONE THING BOTH THOSE POSITIONS SHARE IS FEAR OF CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH A PERSON WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU, WHICH IS THE ONE THING YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED IN ORDER TO PROGRESS A DISCUSSION PAST WHATEVER STALLED YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE.
*flings megaphone into the distance, dons portable sharkcage, wades irritably back to dry land*
concept: space pirates who sound exactly like regular pirates, except replace all references to “the sea” with “the void”
“aye, the void is a harsh mistress,” the captain said, gazing out the window of her ship into the vast starry expanse. “she’ll take more than she gives, in the end. but those who are called to life in the void don’t know any other way.”
I don’t think I’ll ever be over the blood donation scene in Fury Road. The way Furiosa’s dying, and she uses her last moments of consciousness to tell Max “get them home.” That she, ferocious warrior, imperator, stolen child, is, in her last moments of life, so loved, and so full of love and the selfless need to protect these women and get them home. The way Max’s hands are huge, rough and dirty – hands that have snapped necks and fired guns – but they are so gentle when he cradles her. The way he mutters “I’m so sorry, sorry” every time he has to hurt her to make it better. That he’s barely spoken all film but now he’s feverishly muttering to her, “there you go, okay” and stringing together as many syllables as he can muster because the silence is just unbearable. That his body has been abused and exploited and drained of blood without his consent so many times, but now at last he’s free, he has a choice and he chooses to giveher his blood. The way his name – his identity – was the last thing he could call his own, but as he holds her in his arms and waits for his blood to run into her and fill her with life again, as he finally fixes what’s broken, he goes, here, you can have it, Max. My name is Max. That’s my name. And it’s yours.
Because before he met her, he was a man reduced to a single instinct: survive. He was a muzzled animal, a raging feral, and treated as such. But then he got caught up in their escape and she gave him the tools to free himself. She asks him “what’s your name? What do I call you?” She treated him like a human being and in protecting and loving Furiosa and these abused women without asking for anything in return, he recovers his humanity, so of course, here, it’s yours, my name is Max, it’s the last thing I have and it belongs to you.
It’s an extraordinarily beautiful scene visually too, and I honestly think it might be the most profound declaration of love that’s ever occurred in an action film.
just not the twig white cis emo boy with basic girl couples
what we NEED:
ones that aren’t toxic
the ones that ARE toxic be taken as toxic and not romanized and actually dealt with maturely and shows that those relationships are not healthy
overweight girl of color with most popular boy in school
trans girl with the football player
trans boy of color with girl football player
just break the basic white stick cis girl and the basic white stick cis boy normative!!!
^THIS!!! Like, cool. I’ll take some more m/f couples, but they need to be diverse!!!!!!! I want trans guys and gals, I want people of color, I want healthy relationships!! People need to see themselves represented, and that includes all of those people who are in m/f relationships, but aren’t the “white cis guy and white cis girl” that are the current mold. Please and thank you.
Agreed on everything.
Also more m+f and m+m and f+f friends that don’t end up in romance and have a healthy friendship, please.
Healthy friendship is all the reason I got back into Elementary (I’m mid s04 right now and please, don’t spoil me for anything).
It’s about the only show I can think off the top of my head where you have a m/f friendship between two adults who do their best to be good friends as well as trying to do their best to be as emotionally healthy as they can be, and help each other along the way.
It’s honestly amazing and I am all over that. I wish we could see more healthy relationships in media in general.
My kinds of ships are the ships where the men know their women are powerful forces of nature and that they could fuck up entire armies in a matter of seconds and THEY EMBRACE IT AND TAKE PRIDE IN IT???! “Oh… It’s not me you should be worried about… It’s my WIFE.“ *smirks* YAAASSSSSSSSSS GIVE ME MORE.
I wasn’t planning to see this movie anyway because the trailer looked skeevy, but now that I know the whole plot I just want to kill it with fire oh my god
Holy shit that is SUPER-GROSS AND VIOLATING and every single woman should read this article, and then vehemently refuse to see this movie with anyone for any reason. In fact, this would be the first time in my life that I feel like I want to walk past lines of people getting ready to buy tickets and scream the plot of the movie at the top of my lungs. I want to spoil random strangers on the street. I want every woman who has a boyfriend or husband who wants to see this movie to explain, in detail, why she not only won’t see it, but if the guy goes to see it without her anyway, she will be GONE OUT OF HIS LIFE when he gets back. with the kids, if they have any.
(That may be a slight exaggeration. But only slight.)
That was actually worse than I expected. What the FUCK.
Seriously the plot is grooooosssssssss and who the fuck thought this was a good idea
I am firmly convinced the people who do the marketing should be the ones with final approval on scripts because they’ve contorted themselves with such skill that Gumby would be jealous to make this movie look like it’s ANYTHING BUT what it really is.
Like I just want one of these people to slap a script down in front of a director and go “this is a steaming pile of shit and you absolutely cannot afford the budget that I’ll need to make this look good.”
@thebibliosphere@copperbadge Please warn people. Ugh, what is this, Captain Kirk would sit this dude down for a talk and then throw him in the freaking brig, 1967 was better than this, eww.
Oh sweet merciful gods no. Ew, no, no one go see this movie.
I was not going to watch it in the theatres anyway, but now I’ll avoid it completely.
I have to wonder if the actors thought they were signing on for a psychological thriller and then had it turned around and said “No, we’re making a non-BDSMy version of 50 Shades!” At which point they were fucked, because if you break a contract in Hollywood, your career is done–especially if you’re a woman.
(If you think it can’t happen, Indy 4 was originally going to be an entirely different movie, and that’s what Harrison Ford signed on for…until Lucas came in, saw the script, threw it in the garbage, and wrote a new script that Ford was then stuck with because contract.)
Steel Phoenix Studios 