robbing graves
I think I have such a strong reaction because whenever I see those things, I look at what I love to write, what seems most interestnig and honest to me, and I look at what a lot of these people seem to want, and it feels like they're saying that stories like the ones I love shouldn't exist, that my stories don't have value because I'm angry,
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I think this happens a lot. Like the only characters worth telling stories about are the ones who do things for THE RIGHT REASONS.
Totally, and I think this is one of the downsides of superhero fiction. Because of the Comics Code and Christianity, people tend to be VERY much about stories where good people triumph and bad people are punished.
And it's tricky, because I'm not totally opposed to good triumphing. What I do have a problem with is the idea that those characters' roles aren't liquid. The "skip church one day and you're fucked" mentality doesn't work for me, but a lot of people are pushing it right now on my tumblr dash and it makes me so irrationally angry I can't engage nicely.
Also (and I'm speculating a bit, based on previous conversations) I bet a lot of the problems people have with the narratives that you like is that it gets all tied up in 'i'm really sick of grimdark stories about dudes?'
I think there's a lot of overlap. I like antiheroes a lot, or villains, or at least heroes who exist outside of society in some way.
And like, I was thinking about my reply to this, and I had an epiphany: and like, I do like stories that happen to be grim and dark, but honestly, a lot of what I like can be summed up by 'characters with shitty coping mechanisms'.
Like, honestly? There are things in life that can do terrible things to a person. Not everyone reacts to trauma in a way that's "good". Sometimes abuse makes someone mean. Sometimes being hated (or hating yourself) makes someone hateful towards others. Not everyone who's depressed suffers quietly. And someone can participate in the "but that doesn't EXcuse ThEIR ActIONS!?!?!?!?!?!? Are YOU SAyInG MURDER is OKAY????????" circle jerk as much as they want, because no, of course it doesn't, but I don't care, because that's not the conversation we're trying to have. Call the spade a spade, but don't stop there and say it doesn't need to be talked about anymore.
The stakes of that approach are that, say, someone who learns to lie to survive internalizes that they must be a fundamentally bad person because they had that response and not a more acceptable one, and that blocks recovery. The point is that it's unhealthy and that it ends up causing more hurt. Imbalances highlight imbalances in society, and I think identifying those is important. I like stories where we are culpable in the creation of our own monsters. That doesn't mean they're not monsters, but acknowledging where it comes from, and maybe even that there's a way out, is really important. And I'm not seeing that.
I really identify with characters who don't respond to trauma well. I think writers definitely need to hold characters accountable for their actions in the way that seems most true to them, and I think that having a variety of characters with different moral compasses is really important, but I think it's very risky to act like reasons don't matter. I think taking away someone's past also takes away their path forward, and that's what really bugs me and that's the thing that I most like to examine.
tl;dr: I've struggled to have a healthy relationship with my feelings and my experiences, and I still struggle with it, so what I really have a hard time with is conflating "healthy" with "inherent goodness". Because some people are sick. Sometimes without being aware of it or even embracing it because they don't know anything else and they're afraid they won't be themselves anymore if they let go of it, and I think that deserves examination.
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And it's tricky, because I'm not totally opposed to good triumphing. What I do have a problem with is the idea that those characters' roles aren't liquid. The "skip church one day and you're fucked" mentality doesn't work for me, but a lot of people are pushing it right now on my tumblr dash and it makes me so irrationally angry I can't engage nicely.
This is actually one (of the) horrible, fatal flaws of SHIELD as a tv show. It's so invested in presenting SHIELD-the-organization as The Good Guys that it is asking the audience to willingly ignore shady things the main characters do AND warping antagonist character into caricatures of EVIL PEOPLE to justify why "our heroes" are good and the audience should be rooting for them.
so what I really have a hard time with is conflating "healthy" with "inherent goodness"
agreed, agreed, agreed.
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