#otnesse

Some years ago I had a very unpleasant experience with a religious right wing nut. It started when I saw his post which compared the mermaid from H.C. Andersen's original story with Disney's Ariel. He claimed that despite many criticizing Ariel for being "a selfish brat who got away with everything" he claims that the original mermaid frm H.C. Andersen's story fits the description far more in his opinion.

He argues that because Ariel was manipulated by Ursula and her minions to make the deal, as well as suffering from an unaccepting father she is far more sympathetic while the original mermaid was not influenced by outside factors, but was "only" suffering from an existencial crisis of learning that the only way for a mermaid to gain an afterlife is to get a human to fall in love with her.

He says that Ariel did make up for her actions by "making up her mess" by help take down Ursula while the original mermaid left her family grieving, and even might have caused her grandmother to die of heartbreak.

Finally, the OP claims that the original mermaid got her goal of being able to earn a soul, something he thinks is undeserved because of the grief she put her family through, and because she supposedly committed suicide by jumping off a boat that would in his eyes "automatically damn her to hell" (in his conservative christian viewpoint).

His opinions do upset me because they seem really skewered. It feels stupid to care so much about someones opinion on fiction, but they do bother me a lot, and still do now, especially his take that the OG mermaid "forced her sisters to get Chemotherapy" because in Andersen's story, the mermaid's sisters try to save her by exchanging their hair for a knife to the Sea-Witch. This is utterly bizarre.

To deal with my distress I've turned to creating and sharing my fictional stories, and I've created a character in response to the right-wing nut, designed specifically to piss him off.

She's a fan character for the game "Vampire Therapist".

Background: Vampire Therapist is a visual novel where you play as Sam Walls, a vampire who became a therapist to help other vampires process their emotional baggage and deal with their mental distortions.

It was not only funny and imaginative but provided me with a perfect vessel to process my emotional baggage and indulge my historical nerd side at once.

So onto my character: she was born during the late Roman empire to parents who were early Christians. She was a rebellious teenager who found her home life to be dull and restrictive, and defied her parent's authority by attending pagan festivals, and it was during one particularly wild celebration where she met her "Bloodfather", an ancient vampire who acted as the leader of a mystery cult in the guise of the god Dionysos, and they became lovers.

Her parents became worried and after finding out about their daughter's lover the father tried to kill him, but was mercilessly slaughtered in turn.

Since then she has continued her hedonistic lifestyle with little care in the world. Deep inside she does feel some guilt for indirectly causing her parent's death, yet it bothers her little, or at least she doesn't let it show.

Her quirk is a compulsive need to rebel against authority and shock conservative religious communities. She has given herself the nickname "Blasphemia".

Here’s the thing. Kojima has shoved his political views into characters since Metal Gear Solid. I love Naomi but when she starts going on a random tangent about how bad nukes are it’s inappropriate and grinding.

I love Cecile. She’s a super fun character and her interactions with the other characters are great. Naturally she’s affected by Kojima’s left leaning philosophies like so many other characters. I tend to ignore these parts like I do with all the bad stuff in the series. There is something to complain about with everyone in Peace Walker (except for maybe Kaz and Amanda). Strangelove molested a woman she thought was 16. Ignoring that and most of the stuff with The Boss Strangelove is a great character.

It’s a sad fact that most of Kojima’s Metal Gear games are littered with his political views, even when it’s entirely inappropriate. I ignore a lot of that. I’m okay with characters having viewpoints I don’t agree with. It’s when the character shouldn’t have that kind of viewpoint that it annoys me. Like Naomi and the nukes when she’s a geneticist with no stake in the debate unlike Nastasha who’s parents died in Chernobyl. 

You have to remember that Cecile is a fictional character. She’s allowed to have wrong opinions. She can say something that’s factually wrong and still be a good character. It’s her own viewpoint. She’s a young French woman who spends her time imitating birds. I’m not going to freak out when she says something I don’t agree with.