salarta

I want to say a few words about the way I approach arguments and complaints I have, especially concerning fiction and fictional characters in video games and comics.

I don’t enjoy being an asshole in the cases where I act like one. I can be harsh and judgmental, and I’ll very often feel absolutely terrible about it later. I’ll start to think about other ways I could have approached the situation, that maybe I could’ve been nicer or better about it.

But then I remember that being harsh is necessary. I’ve tried being soft when I’ve had serious grievances, and it did nothing. Nobody listens to softness. You can say “Please, listen to me, I loved this thing and these are the reasons why, please understand how much this means to me,” and it won’t change anything. That’s just another letter they throw in the trash and merrily forget about. Softness changes nothing.

Here’s how being harsh is different. For a very select few, being harsh will lead the person that needs to hear it to actually listen for once by immediately breaking past their ego and catching their attention. This is the most ideal situation, and I really wish all of them turned out this way. It saves a lot of damage and hurt feelings, and in my personal case, I can apologize for my harshness and feel much better. But for the majority of people, it leads to a strong desire to “punish” the person or people being harsh.

On the surface, this appears counter-productive. If you want to achieve your goals, then someone going out of their way to do the exact opposite technically pushes your goals further away. You appear to have done more damage to your cause than you would have done if you said nothing.

I say “appear” because you have to look beyond the immediate, short-term situation. If you have a good, legitimate cause, then the average outside person will see that. They’ll see you speak strongly and harshly only because you care so much, and you’re wounded so deeply. But the man with a giant ego won’t see that. What he’ll think he sees is an enemy, because he’s incapable of peering past the harshness to see the pain.

Then, he’ll make mistakes. Many of them. Those mistakes will pile up. Eventually, they’ll become too overwhelming, and he’ll have to make a choice between compassion or ruin.

And that’s when you’ll see the real measure of a man. That’s the critical turning point. Either he learns the lesson he needs to learn and tries to be a better, more considerate person, or he decides to be meaner, crueler, and ultimately does himself in.

I’ve done this a few times already, with my voice just one small whisper in a sea of discontent in each case. So far, two companies brought themselves to the brink of ruin, presidents resigning and risking bankruptcy after acting too hateful or dismissive toward their most supportive fans, before they realized they needed to actually listen to their fans and began doing so. Those companies still have problems, and a lot of bad perception on them, but they’re getting better. It applies to people too, but I won’t cite those cases.

I think this is the only time I am ever going to say all of this publicly. Normally, I keep this to myself because revealing too much can hurt the effort toward positive change. Tonight, I get a feeling this is a rare case where putting this out publicly might have a chance to do some good.

peppermonster:

arodaryldixon:

here’s to the kids that use fictional characters as a way of coping. here’s to the kids that stay up late crying to their favourite characters. here’s to the kids that imagine their favourite character by their side when they’re experiencing bad anxiety in public. here’s to the kids that need works of fiction to keep on surviving.

People who say “it’s just a comic book” to me or anyone need to get stuffed.

And here, aro doesn’t understand.

Fictional characters are inspiring. They mean a lot to people because they can connect with that character on some level that really touches them. That’s the whole reason why a lot of people obsess over characters being “relatable” lately, as misguided and personalized as some of those efforts are.

We’re talking about idealized forms here. There’s a reason people cry when a fictional dog dies, and it’s not just because “I have an affection for vaguely dog-shaped things.” The story draws you in, builds an attachment, and works with that attachment. From there, the writer is trusted not to violate that attachment in cruel and insensitive ways. Violating that attachment in such ways isn’t just a change of a fictional character, it’s a direct assault on a person’s thoughts and emotions.

Anyone that does not understand that has no business talking down about people that do. You wouldn’t go up to a person with depression and say “there are starving kids in impoverished countries that have it worse than you, so stop being a whiny loser.”

peppermonster:

*blows kisses* not gonna miss you.

Hmm. I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I think any sensible person knows you don’t mean it literally when you say such things. It’s a figure of speech, merely an expression of how upset you are and nothing more, and most people do that.

On the other hand, that kind of language is really charged right now because of The Interview and threats made surrounding that film, with the spectre of the Aurora shootings getting revisited in peoples’ minds.

There’s other things I could say about eye-roll-worthy elements of what that anon said (“you should be glad he’s in Avengers at all,” seriously), but I can understand why the theater part could be too touchy for a lot of people right now.