#real talk about fiction

[pandorasboxoftreasures]

A lot of you guys have no idea... Really. You don’t. The accuracy is chilling. (TW Child Abuse/Homicidal Thoughts/Violence/Mental Illness/Depression)

People that think they know me: “You’re so nice and kind and have a strong sense of justice and fairness and wouldn’t hurt a fly. How could you possibly identify with that awful, angry, violent alien monster?”

Me: *Explains the time a year after leaving school I found myself sat opposite on a bus from the kid that two years prior stabbed me in the ear with a pencil and worse, then had the whole class that watched and laughed defending him saying he did nothing when I fought back, even though he permanently scarred my right eardrum and damaged my hearing, then used my reason for having to leave class early that day (my dad had a hospital appointment) and forced me to be kept behind by the teacher and punished for fighting, even though I was literally trembling with shock and pain and barely able to speak through my PTSD episode to ask to have my ear checked but being ignored.*

*Makes this exact face remembering imagining following him off and the permanent damage I was going to do to him if he gave me any additional reason or opening to and looked down at him like that the whole time leaving him squirming in his seat, terrified, unable to make eye contact while also saying to him with the exact same tone and pitch as in that shot and said the following word for word because that moment was burned into my brain with how much I look back on it years later scared with what I'm^ capable of doing to someone and how close I was to doing it*  

“Hello, Michael... That’s you, aye? Yeah... That’s you. Like my new look...”

“... or am I too legal?”

____________________________________________

^ Yes, present tense. Because those wounds can only be managed since they don’t fully heal. I find myself getting very close once in a while to that violent 17 year old looking for relief from my grief and pain of what he and others like him did to the bright, friendly, happy, excited child with a promising future that walked into that school building and never came home. 

The fact that they could figuratively kill that kid like that, drive the husk left behind to almost literally finish off the job and then walk away and live happy little lives with relationships and children and careers and good reputations and family support and nothing coming back to bite them ever while my world and future had completely crumbled and imploded boils in my veins to this day.

Over three dozen therapy sessions have helped with management. Hobbies provide an outlet. My career path is in the one that ultimately saved me where all others failed. Video games. The places where I could safely trigger catharsis.

But I still need to keep checking myself so I don’t become that scared and wracked with despair thrashing for someone vaguely related to the people that pushed me into the water to pull down and stop myself from drowning empty shell of a former being again.

Seeing it on screen that night I impulsively bought the tickets for seat M10 in Screen 12, hit me like two couch-sized arrows to the chest. 

I didn’t think I would ever see it happen and be so accurate with something I didn’t make. I was making it. But it looks like I got beat to the punch.

And how haunting, but also how great it is to see. Someone in the pipeline between the firing of neurons and the firing of pixels empathised enough to make it realistic in the face of the convenience of a simple villain.

It may make him more scary because of how raw he is and people like me knowing what he’s capable of with that knowledge and experience of being there (especially after the end of Way Of Water where he’s in an even lower state), but it’s real.

I’m scared for Ritch as much as I’m scared for what he will do to others.

I wasn’t just being like “Oh, no, Lo’ak/Kiri! Don’t hurt Lo’ak/Kiri!”. I was at the other end of the gun/knife going “Don’t do it, man. It’s not gonna make it better. Crossing that line is a lot harder to come back from. Don’t do that to yourself just to get back at him. You’re a snake coiling yourself around a saw. YOU’RE BETTER THAN THIS!”

It’s the same with Neytiri grabbing Spider, too.

I think I need to drop this video down here before I consider this post done for now. I’ve still got a lot more to say, but that’s probably better saved for later.

But last word on it? Yeah. He better get a redemption arc... AND LIVE!

Because Christ knows there’s not enough characters like that in media for how many people are battling those demons IRL.

The more there are, the more conversations the real people can start.

Trust me, you don’t wanna keep sending the message that the only way to heal, repent and move forward after these kinds of thoughts and actions is to die.

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[rosetterer]

if you are mad that bucktommy is getting more attention than henren, you should be fucking furious that a non-canon mlm ship has been getting more attention than henren for YEARS

[deaddovedarlin]

I can't stand people who say they are a freak, but only the sanitized version of a freak.

C'mon. Ship something that you wouldn't condone in real life, try a kink- fictionally or otherwise- that you might not normally like, look over a darkfic or whump fic with a character you particularly dislike- or like, draw something that puts shame in your cheeks, identity with or as an animal, identity with an xenogender or mogai, make up your own gender! Try something a little freak-ish <3

[turtleblogatlast]

Thinking about how Leo says he uses his jokes to cope and y’know, thinking harder on it I think it may very well be because of what else uses one-liners and puns and that type of humor.

Specifically, 80’s action movies and campy sci-fi. Even more specifically, the protagonists of these.

So I can imagine why, exactly, Leo leans toward this brand of humor. It’s directly linked to things he loves! But even more than that is why I think it’s used as a coping mechanism.

In these genres, these quips tend to be said by the winner - or, if not a winner, then someone who will stay alive. So there’s a confidence behind them, an assurance, almost, that even if things go wrong, things aren’t ever too serious. There’s no bad endings here! It’s all good fun, even if the stakes seem high.

Leo canonically has been known to steer his brothers away from the more brutal villains and toward more fun, lighthearted activities and not-so-dangerous criminals. So for Leo, these jokes definitely make things less heavy, make the situations they find themselves in less intense.

It’s kinda not just coping, but also can be seen as a form of escapism. A safety blanket. A way for Leo to defuse the tension of knowing just how dangerous their lives are and replace that with a levity which implies that things will be okay.

Unfortunately, levity alone does not alter reality.

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

honestly thank GOODNESS Niko has an interest in explicit manga because if she didn't you just KNOW that a certain percentage of the fandom would have infantilised her SO much for being a bubbly and sweet East Asian girl due to odd stereotypes

[kyngsnake]

Over the years the Fallout fandom definitely has slowly crept further into a “moral high ground over suspension of disbelief” space. I see a lot of people discussing their opinions of Fallout through the lens of their own personal morals that they’d apply to their own life, which is… Strange to me. I feel like dystopian media especially is not the sort of thing you should be judging by your own real life standards. Most things in Fallout are extreme. Most of the factions do extreme things. A lot of the things people do in Fallout would be considered inhumane, cruel or uncanny by modern standards. Because it’s a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

This isn’t me saying “everyone in Fallout is evil, stop expecting otherwise,” because I don’t believe that to be the case. Even good-willed people in Fallout do shit that would be considered extreme by modern standards. I just see a lot of people shying away from discussing the “grittier” aspects of the franchise because it might for whatever reason imply you condone those things in real life.

[paradamaxima]

CoD fandom stop being ableist towards Frank Woods challenge (impossible)

Not only do I see posts from people whining about how basically “Woods is useless now” but I even saw someone draw him without his wheelchair and standing upright

If you can’t draw wheelchairs, either learn to do it or don’t draw the character at all; wheelchairs aren’t even hard to draw in the first place either, you’re just ableist and lazy

Love how notable it is that everyone’s now treating Woods like a useless burden when what happened to him wasn’t even his fault and also… that’s completely untrue because disabled people are still able to do plenty of shit (not to mention, that sentiment is as ableist as you can get because it stinks of eugenics)

Reminds me of how real life veterans are treated after not only physical injuries that result in them becoming physically disabled but also mental trauma that result in them becoming mentally disabled/ill; if you don’t view real life veterans as useless burdens, why would you view Woods as one?

[mxfrodo]

y'all for fucking real. don't fucking write slave fics or x reader fics of aventurine's slavery??? are you guys out of your goddamn minds???

[queerdiazs]

as an eddie girl who loves buddie and enjoys bucktommy, one of the best things to come out of the tommy and eddie hate is how many of you have exposed yourselves for being homophobic, misogynistic, racist, classist, elitist, and bigoted motherfuckers ✨🫧

[dukeofthomas]

I can't find it now but there's a post about suspension of disbelief and how it's broken when the story starts trying to excuse it. "character gets knocked unconscious for hours but there's no further issues from this" okay 👍 "and actually this makes perfect sense because of this and that" um no it doesn't why are you lying to me. like i am willing to ignore the holes and the discrepancies!! all you need to do is let me and not bring unnecessary attention to it!!!

and all that is my issue with the whole robin child soldier argument. like i am willing to ignore it i am willing to engage with the fantasy literally all you need to do is NOT try to convince me that Actually It's Fine Because They Want To Do It or whatever. like literally just shut up about it and i can engage with the fantasy!!

[astriiformes]

Some of this is an expansion of a thesis that I was prodding at in my speech and debate piece ten years ago in high school (which was an admittedly somewhat naïve exploration of the relationship between science fiction, optimism about the future, and scientific progress, though I stand by elements of it), but there really is something fascinating about the way Back to the Future, as a piece of science fiction media, engages with its own genre.

In the "better" timeline, George McFly, an avid sci-fi fan, goes on to become a science fiction writer. Doc Brown was inspired to become a scientist by the works of Jules Verne (and in the video game, has another Eureka moment when he sees the 1931 Frankenstein film for the first time); in the musical, he describes his time machine as "A car for the stars / Like Captain Kirk's." As a sickly girl, isolated from her peers, Clara Clayton fell in love with amateur astronomy and stories about traveling from the Earth to the Moon.

I'm just so enamored with the fact that, unlike some other media, Back to the Future loves being sci-fi so much. There's a consistent throughline in every piece of BttF media--even the newer ones--that science fiction is something good, and inspirational, that makes people feel less alone, and forges connections, and encourages people to learn and invent. And that throughline is absolutely in conversation with the fact that the 2015 segment of the second film presented a decidedly aspirational vision of the future, even though other contemporary portrayals on the new millennium were starting to skew bleaker and more cyberpunk. It would come across as a little self-aggrandizing if it didn't feel so genuine--and it also helps that some of the positive impacts shown are smaller, and more personal. George finds a fulfilling career. Doc and Clara fall in love. It's more like watching a work of fiction earnestly believe it has something to say than it is watching it be self-important.

"You can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it," "Your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one." Do you see. Do you see it.

[blitz0hno]

Y'all realize that if John is truly a new alter at least one has to have existed before him right? Even if the "third" alter (dubbed Midokoto) is no longer in the system/story, he WAS there.

Mikoto. Was never. A singlet.

Ever.

That's just not how DID works. Mikoto has to have had childhood trauma to have alters; you don't just split from stress in adulthood without ANY parts beforehand.

With this distinct difference in appearance, it's plenty reasonable to argue this guy could be John's predecessor (not John, but also NOT Mikoto).

So yeah it's plenty reasonable to think about the other alter and treat him as a factor in the story, whether or not he's around anymore. Bro is not like "an OC," he didn't come from nowhere. Systems cannot ever be singlets because their brain's development was disrupted; if John is truly new, someone else has to have previously existed alongside Mikoto.

Idk I trust that Yamanaka has thought this stuff out but this is just my opinion lol

[swirlingyouintomypoems]

I think some of you need to realize it’s literally a TV show and not that fucking deep<3

[thatswhatsushesaid]

so far my favourite unhinged response to my habitual observation of "it's weird that no one on this subreddit can make a single neutral-to-neutral-positive post about jiang cheng or jin guangyao without summoning the antagonist haters like bloody mary at a 90s kid's slumber party" is "you obviously don't know where you are. you don't understand reddit. no one owes anyone else GOOD VIBES ONLY. maybe we went overboard with these posts but we're just stating FACTS"

like. at least you admitted that you went overboard. we'll get to the rest later but, you know, baby steps.