I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:
Fictional characters are objects.
They are not people. You cannot “objectify” them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot “disrespect” them, because they are not real.
I know this has good intentions, so I will just add the “how you treat them, even as objects of fiction, can speak about your own character, be careful out there”
Your addition is actually completely antithetical to my message. It is literally the opposite of what I am conveying.
Stop telling people to encourage the cop inside their head.
How you treat fictional characters, given they are entirely objects of fiction, does NOT necessarily speak to your own character, and you do not need to be “careful”.
It is not dangerous to imagine dark things happening to fictional characters. It does not mean you are secretly a bad person. It does not mean you unconsciously want to hurt people in real life. It is not a “slippery slope” to doing bad things to people in real life. You cannot damage your brain or turn yourself into a bad person by consuming “dark” fanfic.
I can write tentacle noncon of my favorite character all day long and be a fierce anti-sexual assault advocate in real life because what I do in my head is not the same thing as what I do in real life.
These tags were too perfect to not include
One thing that might help clarify it: in any fiction, no matter how dark, every real person involved is consenting.
The author and the audience are both choosing to be there and can revoke their consent at any point by putting the book down. The characters are not real, they are not being asked to make a choice because they have no ability to choose, but you do and you can leave at any time, for any reason. In most cases you as the author or audience also have context that tells you things will turn out alright in the end, or a reason to think they shouldn’t for this character. All the real people involved can expect a satisfying ending, and are not at any point being kept captive in a situation that will harm them.
Your ability to choose what fiction you take part in is a powerful thing, and you’re not doing yourself any favours by believing that doesn’t matter. If you don’t like it, sincerely, you don’t have to be there. Others who do like it are making their own choices, and those choices are separate from what they want to do in real life.
I will never get over the fucking gall of the second person in this chain, coming in and saying something so… utterly tone-deaf. To like a terrifying extent. Not only in general, but on THAT post.
With the juicy little ‘I know this has good intentions’ too, WOW. Passive aggressive holier-than-thou… and then their message is 'I will judge you for how you play with your building blocks’ jesus christ
What do they even mean by 'careful’…? Is that a threat?
hi, second person here - I’ll admit, not my best take (in fact, I leave it up because I learned a lot from the responses lol).
'passive aggressive holier-than-thou’ hurts but yeah.. I truly thought I was super clever for thinking about the framing of characters while still agreeing that they cannot be objectified. This was also wrong - you can frame your characters and their interactions however you want and this does not say anything about your character.
putting this not as a response but as clarification and possibly entertainment to prev if they haven’t blocked me
I’m reblogging this version because I feel it’s important to know that @nope-the-weeb grew from this. It’s important to remember that someone’s bad takes are not their entire being. People grow.
