So I just saw an absolute GALAXY brain take from an anti recently (and I paraphrase, because the screenshot has the blogname and i canât edit on my crappy phone)
And said take was: âIt makes me uncomfortable when people write/make character angst of X character I identify with, like what are you even thinking about when a REAL PERSON tells you they have trauma?â
And...If you feel THAT strongly about fictional characters, if you canât differentiate an emotional response for them from an emotional response for a real person - you MAY want to try stepping back? If youâre so deeply invested in the âwellbeingâ of a make-believe person that seeing other people NOT feel the same way towards them is upsetting to you, then maybe youâre a little too emotionally caught up in fandom?
Fandom is *going* to disappoint sometimes. Everyone has different opinions and most people arenât going to change their minds over some stranger complaining to them on the internet. But ASSUMING people arenât capable of basic compassion to other human beings *Just* because they sometimes like to play with puppets is. Wow. Are you really that self-centered.
Characters are puppets. Theyâre dolls. I can do whatever I want to them, because theyâre play-pretend caricatures. I donât care about them like I care about a living, breathing person. Theyâre fun to play with. Theyâre make-believe. Theyâre not real, and they donât have feelings or bodies to be hurt. But real people? Those deserve respect, compassion, or at least civility, if you canât bring yourself to muster up the first two. You donât treat a person like a toy. You donât treat a real person like a puppet.
This is not a difficult distinction to make. If a building is burning, and I can only save one person - I save the fucking HUMAN. Not the dolly I can easily replace, not the beloved toy. One is a person, and the other is pretend.
This concept doesnât change just because Iâm suddenly creating a fic or fanart or original storyline or etc. I still am constantly making that distinction. Iâm ALWAYS making that distinction in fandom, because I value actual human beings above ANY make-believe character.
(Wow, so difficult to conceptualize, right?)















