Entertainment

Vanity Fair: Social Media Mayhem.

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So, I’ve become more Social Media Savvy the past few months, nothing too big, but I use the YouTube comment section, I held off for a long time on leaving comments, I thought it was a waste of time and potentially dangerous.

(Which it can be, but if you’re smart, hopefully you’ll know better.)

Now that I’ve become more active, I have experienced what it’s like to get like…and finally, a few dislikes.

And so the trap opens.

Honestly, when I found out I had dislikes my first reaction was a mix of two things:
“Darn” and “Yay!”

I mean, you know you’re eliciting emotions when you get negative feedback. Whether the message was “this is bad” or “this is mediocre” I’m not sure, they didn’t say, but it’s a message nonetheless.

Of course I prefer likes, but negative feedback is still engagement.

I also have experienced a couple of those infamous comment threads that usually turn into heated blasting of each other’s opinions.

In all fairness, I consider some outrage justified, I just think commenting it is a waste of time. Commenters, unless they are asking a genuine question, are never there to get a new opinion, they are there to validate their own. It’s as simple as that.

I’m hesitant to judge them for this since I too like it when people agree with my comment, plus, some fans use comments for what can actually be very funny jokes, clever observations, and the exchanging of appreciation for the hosts creativity. I’ve laughed out loud at some of the witty banter, and it’s not like being typed out on a screen makes it automatically less clever. People used to write comically in letters, it was just more one sided then since you had to wait so long for a response. I like dialogue, so the humor of comment exchange works for me.

I think it’s only fair to admit that not all praise from strangers is invalid. It’s true, no one on YouTube can really know the person they are praising (unless they do know them in real life) and if they are truly good, but the content can be judged just fine by proxy. And though some fans really don’t know good from bad, plenty of them are well informed on the subject and may even be experts in some ways. So their opinion has weight.

In some cases when it’s completely subjective, all well thought out opinions may have equal weight.

In my opinion, that’s the proper use for a comment section, and kind of what it was designed for. Feedback, and so people could share their love of something that maybe no one else in their life likes.

My prime example would be music videos and speakers that no one else in my life save my sisters and maybe a few friends who I don’t get to talk to much  is interested in, online I can see a whole community of people who are into it and have their own opinions. Which can be infuriating, but interesting all the same.

I still remember how shocked I was when I discovered Frozen via YouTube and found out thousands and millions of people shared my passion. It seems like it would’ve been hard for me to miss, but as someone who rarely left my house at the time and had almost no friends, I didn’t have a clue about fandoms and that no matter how weird and obscure the stuff you like is, there are usually a few hundred people who also like it out there.

It’s part of the often noted phenomenon that the internet is erasing the lines between people as far as sharing interests goes.

When it comes to humanity, we’ll argue about literally anything. And social media won’t change that, thought I won’t say it necessarily made it worse, it just made it easier to do without backlash.

But what about when we aren’t arguing. With all the likes and dislikes, is it true we base our self esteem on this stuff?

I’ve heard this a lot, but I don’t credit it as fully true.

Yes, getting negative feedback on one comment, video, or blog post 😉 is temporarily discouraging.

But when does it cause anyone a real loss of sleep? Does it stop them from commenting again? From putting out their next post?

Rarely, maybe the odd insecure person will be that affected, but most will “shake it off, shake it off” with time.

Hate comments are perhaps more of a problem, but the rest, isn’t it just vanity?

We like to feel liked, even if it’s only for the tiniest part of our lives. For me, my fan girl is a big part of my personality, but a small part of my character overall. It only influences my morality and my more serious life in small ways.

This is both the blessing and the curse of social media, even when it’s used for harmless things. It sets up this image of  person that shows only one side of them, and people have to interpret them through that.

This is something that always happens in friend groups. People have a niche, or they have several. Those who only have one tend to be seen as lacking diversity. And often that is all they are known by.

People in drama often know each other only as dramatic, people into history know each other by that, the internet only made this so that it didn’t have to be face to face.

I don’t think that is a problem. The only problem is when it’s substituted for the better thing: more well rounded relationships.

When we hate on people in the niche for disagreeing with us about stuff that in the end, will just be a few years of our life at most, we need to remember that social media is, in the end, a vanity fair.

In Ecclesiastes, the preacher says “vanity, vanity, all is vanity” meaning, everything is empty, meaningless, in of itself, except for God. The preacher notes that man’s days are short and full of chasing thins that do not matter. That we are vanity, unless by some wisdom, we chase the things of God. God’s work, he says, cannot have anything taken away or added to it, it is forever, and God does it this way so that men may fear before Him. (Eccl 3)

When I am on social media, and part of my eternal bank account. I have always believed that God cares about all aspects of my life, and that means anything cab e used by Him to grow me. How I handle hate in the internet world included. I can practice biblical principles in every are of my life.

And I can follow them in choosing what I will be a fan of, and it strengthens m convictions.

But I have to guard against what would weaken them too, because the problem with vanity, is that we all can be vain. We all can fall for appearances, smoke and mirror,s what glitters but is not gold.

I look for the gold, I try not to be blinded by glitter.

In the end, it’s just fuel for my fire, helping me to stay passionate.

Until next time–Natasha.

What I learned from Fan Fiction–2

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So, I googled images for writing fan fiction after my last post, and it turns out I’m like the 50th person to write on this subject, but chances are most people still haven’t read about it, since I never have…logically…

I may check out some other people’s perspectives later, but there’s nothing wrong with continuing with mine, that is why people read this…man I love blogs.

Anyway, picking up from part one, I talked about why fan fiction is written, and what it taught me functionally about writing characters and romance.

I think one of the reasons it works is because writers of fan fiction are imitating, and you learn by intimating. The quality of the source materiel is a huge part of whether or not this imitating it making you a good writer. Bad shows have fan fictions, and they typically suck. It’s hard to make it better than it already was if there was nothing praiseworthy to begin with.

But, starting from the assumption that what I like is already worthwhile😉, I’d like to get more into how and why I write fan fiction.

A part of me does wonder if it’s unhealthy and obsessive. Many people think it is and will mock fan fic-ers mercilessly. I don’t typically talk about it. Once I mentioned it to some other fans of a show I like, and one guy’s response was just “no.”

With that encouragement, I keep it to myself.

But I honestly believe fan fiction is awesome. It’s so much fun, and it helps you understand why you likes something, and why it’s good, and what it’s flaws are.

But fan fiction is always primarily about the characters. People write it to get more of their favorite. Often a character who is dead will be alive, one who left the show is still there, one who is good will be evil (I never do that, but I will make typically steadily good characters have a crisis), one who is evil will turn good (guilty as charged), and a lonely character may get paired with another. An interesting outcome of fan fictions, (and a staple of most of them), is the emergence of what is known as OCs, or Original Characters. And they are hated by a lot of people who read fan fiction out of curiosity. An OC is almost always a self insert character. Born out of the writer’s desire to experience the story for themselves.

And I do have OCs, not every OC is self insert, it typically is, but some writers come up with many of them just because they enjoy character design and creation; my sister does this, she has little interest in writing a story, she just comes up with a look and a background.

I did something more unique with my OCs, I actually repeat them. I reference my previous fan fictions each time I write a new one. I have a whole part of the story that’s original, which explains how each is connected. It’s actually a very interesting idea that I think is worth exploring, involving dimension travel and the like, but for now I’m sticking to how it helps me write.

By having repeating OCs, especially my main one, I double the learning experience of writing. When you have to make your character fit in with this other world, you have to ask what makes it different form yours, what makes it similar, how would the characters react to anew person? What can your ideas add to the story? Can they add anything?

Often the shipping fan fics do not add anything to the story, and that goes for their OCs. So they mostly just write however they want and ignore how characters act.

But leaving that aside, others have to think about it. Many people don’t care if it’s true to story because it’s “just fan fiction” but my sisters have made me stick to the story’s tempo, it’s heart, and it’s tone. They don’t think a fan fiction is any good if it cannot work within the show or movie. because if there was nothing good about it, why would you care? And if it’s good, don’t change the good.

Change the bad.

So yes, I “fix” thinks in my fan fictions. Healing the story is actually considered to be a huge part of critical writing and reading, it teaches us what we like, what we don’t, what we value, what we don’t, etc.

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Before you assume that makes us spoiled brats who have to have things our way, let me ask you, do you complain about your life?

Do you wish it was different?

Do you ever try to change people? (We all do it.)

Do you try to change circumstances?

Are you God? Are you all knowing? Did you bring yourself into this world? Can you control your life?

The answer to all four of those latter questions is no.

You aren’t really qualified to change your life, yet you still do, or you try, and sometimes you succeed.

That’s real. That’s has real consequence, you could screw it up royally.

But you still do it.

Now, if you, oh flawed, limited person, can do that with real life, are you really able to judge us for doing it with imaginary things? We can’t hurt anyone but ourselves by doing it. It’s fairly “safe” to mess up your fan fiction. You can try to change people, and never actually change anything except your own perspective.

And that’s why I write. I do it to get a better perspective.

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I have control in a story that I will never have in real life. It’s not a power trip thought, few things are as humbling as writing. It shows you how little you know. It forces you to limit yourself…and that actually helps you. Through writing fan fictions I’ve faced the fact that I can’t change people. I can learn from them, but in the end you have to believe people can change because they have the ability not because you can make them. You can try to help, but they have to be open.

See, I can change the events of a plot, and still change absolutely nothing. The problems remain. The only way I can solve them is to find the truth. And I turn to an outside source for that.

When I “fix” stories, I don’t do it by doing what I want solely to happen, what I want becomes merged with what I think would happen, and what I think is best for the characters. I don’t actually always enjoy what I write, but I do it to work out the issues.

Basically, fan fiction lets me do what my original stories don’t. It’s just like real life enough to present me with people’s real world problems, and then I ask: can this be helped? Is there an answer to this in my Faith?

So far, I have always found one. Fiction often mirrors biblical truths without knowing it does.

My own stories, I need to have the answer already, there’s not much time to learn it. Fan fictions let me explore until I find it, then I can take that into my next original story.

I know some people will never understand why fan fiction is helpful. But I don’t need them to, I know it is. That’s what matters, until next time–Natasha.

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What I learned from Fan Fiction–1.

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Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas. Hope it was a good one.

I have not been posting and I really have no excuse, other than a lack of ideas and the fact that I’ve been spending all my writing time on a thing called Fan fiction, or Fan fic, if you’re in the millennial and under abbreviated word crowd.

Then I thought: Why not just blog about that?

Fan Fiction: The only literature more mocked than trashy romance and cheesy sci-fi.

IF you could even call some of it literature.

IF you’re unfortunate enough to ever google your favorite show or movie and search for “images” you probably know the disturbing porny stuff that will pop up. ( I wonder if I can adjust my filter for that?) I’m just looking for some innocent wallpaper or something, and I get this? Ewww!

Anyway, that in a nutshell is why people hate fan fiction, or at least consider it a sort of guilty pleasure and find nothing in it that would have any real meaning.

And some fan–all–fan fiction is the fans making what they think should happen happen, irregardless of what the creators of the content actually intend. Which many people think is disrespectful.

If you approach it from the perspective that there is no right way to write, then those people are right, but as all of you know, I believe in absolutes and standards that are above personal opinion, so I will make the argument that there IS a RIGHT way to WRITE, and fan fiction is then somewhat justified.

SOME of it is.

People write fan fiction for one of three or maybe two, reasons. They either ship certain characters, often LGBT ones, and the creators refuse to make it cannon, so they write the story how they think it should happen, but it’s typically very sexual, disgustingly so; porny; and at about the level of a 13-14 year old’s fantasy romance. No substance, all attraction and vanity. And yes, that was once me too. I moved on. (Just to be clear, I’ve never written a story like that, I just read them. We all make mistakes.)

The other, and more interesting reason, is the fans think the writers are doing something wrong with a certain character or plot point, and they change it. These fan fictions can actually be quite fascinating from what  hear, and sometimes the creators even think so and take inspiration from them. Fans can be smart writers and amazingly creative.

Now, you may think, if the fans think it’s wrong, why watch it?

Well, to use some more pop culture internet lingo, fan fic-ers are rarely HATERS. Haters are actually the bane of fandoms (and trolls), and will complain about literally anything, even if it’s precisely the opposite of what they complained about before. For example, they want a character to get some emotional development, the writers agree and write it in (chances are they were going to do it anyway) and the fan sees it, grudgingly acknowledges it was what they asked for…and then complains that some of it wasn’t in line with what they thought would happen.

This is sometimes justified if the character is acting completely funky. Like how in the Avengers movies Captain America completely changes his emotional issues every movie. He has no consistency–except feeling out of place in the future. Which wears n me because they do nothing with it except make me feel sad.

Cap was one of my favorite characters, but I can’t keep liking him if he keeps changing every time, and it’s kind of sad.

However, most of the time, that’s not the case and the haters are whiny babies as far as the material is concerned.

That’s not where fan fiction comes from. Fans who write fiction love the show, usually more than any other fans do, and are committed enough to devote hours of their time to their fantasy. They watch every episode (or installment if its’ movies) they study every scene, and they usually have some decent reasons for their complaints. The ones who actually have complaints and don’t just ship characters. and by the way, fan fic-ers who write to fix the story usually feel disgusted or at least amused with the ones who just ship people, it’s so vapid.

Not that it’s wrong, as long as it’s not porny, but it’s…just shipping, unless it grows the characters, what purpose does it serve? (I’ve explained in previous posts how I think shipping is good when it helps the characters and thereby the fans, but bad when it’s just about attraction and hormones.)

As you can guess by now, I also write fan fiction.

I was hesitant to start doing it, my first fan fiction was about the Justice League, I wrote some for Frozen, Kim Possible, more Justice League, Ever After High, and now RWBY. (If you’ve followed me for years, you probably have read about each of those in turn.)

Now don’t worry, I have no intention of posting this stuff in public. It’s only interesting to me and my siblings because we agree about how things should happen. But I thought I’d like to talk about what I learned from doing it.

Because believe it or not, I learned a lot form writing this stuff.

When I write, I ask God to lead me. whether it’s something I want to publish, or something I never want to. Because to me it doesn’t matter. I write to teach myself as much as other people, so even if they never see it, I’m still learning.

And the first thing Fan fic has taught me is to be a better writer.

I originally was a very preachy, pedantic, fundamental Christian writer. And while there is a place for all three of those things, I write fiction. And only a few geniuses have very balanced a very preachy message with a very good story. Hans Christian Andersen, George MacDonald, John Bunyan, Louisa May Alcott, those are a few I know of.

My fiction was okay back then but it was sorely lacking in nuance. At first, when I wrote fan fiction, I treated it the same way. I paid little attention to emotional development, and I didn’t know how to make the characters true to form.

This showed in my own stories in how I often failed to flesh out the characters I made up. I liked the adventure, but my character’s motivation often didn’t make sense.

But as I got older and read back over these fan fics, I realized the problem, and my sisters pointed it out also since they are the only people usually interested in them, and they pushed me to the point of annoyance to learn how to write the characters better…so I did.

I studied them, and  I started to recognize cues like expression, body language, word choice, and their outlook on life, and I started to incorporate it.

It was clumsy at first, since it is extremely hard to write characters who talk differently then you, react differently, and think differently, ask any new writer. IF you read people’s earlier books, even famous authors, you’ll notice the same thing. But I tried and tried…and now more often than not, I nail it. I can tell how a character would react because I’ve become way better at assessing them.

This carries over into my writing. One of my favorite books I’ve written has six main characters, and I gave each of them their own quirks, speech patterns, sense of humor (or lack thereof) and body language, I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it and my sister laughed out loud at a lot of their exchanges. I don’t think I could have written it without months of practicing in fan fictions.

Fan fictions are training stories for me. It’s where I practice new styles, concepts, and types of characters before I attempt to create some of my own. I find out what I’m good at writing, what I struggle with, and I practice it.

Another example: Romance

writing good romance is essential to an author who’s going to have a diverse cast of characters in their story. It’s bound to happen, and it’s fun to read, but I was very shy of writing it. Fan fiction helped me push past that. Knowing it wouldn’t go public, and no one but me necessarily has to see it, gave me the freedom to practice.

Romance is till probably my weakest writing point, but it’s improved immensely over time because of fan fiction.

That’s all I can fit into this, but next time I want to talk about the even more important reason I think fan fiction is awesome and crucial to many people.

Until next time–Natasha.

The effect of LGBT and Darkness in fiction.

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Hello everyone! School is OVER! Yay…maybe now I can post more often.

Thanks for hanging in there, now, for the nitty gritty:

Let’s talk about storytelling again. In my mind the two biggest problems with modern storytelling, particularly fiction, are it’s obsession with darkness, and the homosexuality progressive push.

As controversial as the second one sounds, it’s not just about not liking homosexuality, it’s about what effect the subject has on a story. I’ll explain this one first.

Okay, so you’re cruising along, watching your favorite show or movie, and then boom! Someone on it is gay. It happens with book series too. There’s one book series I really liked, The Heroes of OLYMPUS (it was a phase) and up till book 4, it was pretty good, and then book 4 came along and a kid who’d been normal, even heterosexual up till that point, up and comes out…ugh…

But okay, fine, it’s something real people deal with right? I can’t say it’s wrong to put that in your story, right? However, the catch is, this character already had a lot of emotional issues, ones that desperately needed to be resolved; and guess how they all were resolved? He gets a lust interest at the end of the last book…and that’s it. He’s FINE. Abandonment issues? Grief? Antisocial behavior? Not a problem, not now that he’s embraced being gay…???

I wish I could say that was an isolated example, but it happens all the time. Whether it’s the producers, publishers, or public opinion, a writer feels pressured to be “progressive” so they pick whatever character they think can afford it, and sacrifice them on the altar of LGBT. And that is it, that is the last of their character development. Never mind if they were complex before that, and had a way more interesting emotional arc, it’s all gone. Guess what, it won’t even be talked about anymore. Not in the material, and not by the fans, all anyone cares about is they are LGBT. People worship that label, as if it’s the most important thing about the character, and somehow legitimizes the whole story. Never mind whether it was any good or not.

And can I just say, having an LGBT character does not automatically make your story good…Disney, and Hollywood.

AS I’ve shated before, I personally believe homosexuality is wrong, and unnatural, but even if I didn’t, this is still very bad storytelling. It’s on par with trashy romance novels where the climax of the story is the characters having sex. They rarely get much development or depth outside of that. And most people agree that that is trash, you read it recognizing that, if you read it at all, and you admit your motives are less than pure.

But with LGBT stuff, sex is somehow treated like an honor, even when it is moral-less. The characters often are not any more good than anyone else, and their sexuality shouldn’t earn them the title of brave just because it used to be looked down on. I’m sick of Hollywood waiting till something becomes popular and then riding the wave while marketing it as doing something daring, if it was a real risk, very few studios would do it. Unless we think they actually care about social justice.

The sad thing is, independent enterprises now feel, thanks to very shortsighted fans, that they must include these characters to do their part. It’s like how you can’t make anything without black characters now. It would probably be acceptable to make something without white characters, but you know…equality.

Anyone else get tired of this hypocrisy?

If homosexuals want to find someone who really cares about them, don’t turn to people who are using their lifestyle for a cash grab…just saying.

And speaking of cash grabs, what about obsession with darkness? Storytime:

For a year I was part of an online writers workshop for Christian teens, and I got to read some other people’s works, and I can tell you 8 out of 10 times, it was dystopian, or some kind of personal angst story. From Christians…they were all the same. They sounded like clones of each other.

Of course that is popular, and what kids read now. Today I watched the second Hunger Games movie for the first time ever…and I looked away at some moments. I still can’t bear to see some stuff played out in front of me. There are those who eat it up. And those who don’t care. I was just amazed anyone could come up with something that sadistic and twisted. For fiction.

Usually when I hear about stuff that terrible, it really happened, and you an put it down to people being sick enough not to feel it was wrong. But to put it up for moral consideration implies you know it was twisted…and what gives?

I have to ask the ever unpopular question, do we need stories like the Hunger Games? It has some social commentary, but by the second movie, the layer of belief that this could happen starts to war real thin. I know that historically, such things have happened, so we could get to that point again, but if you’re comparing to our society, we have many issues, but we’re not that far gone yet. You expect me to believe people would see this kind of torture, and cheer for it, if they cared about the people playing even in the slightest?…maybe. But we are not quite there yet.

And the question also is, are these violent movies pushing us toward that frame of mind? Even if they are  doing it to supposedly point out the problem, these ideas are left in people’s heads.

And horror has an unfortunate effect on people, they try to inoculate themselves. That’s why people read and watch Horror, many of them are riddled with fears of their own, the fear they find in the stories they feel they are in control of, and they want to be inoculated to their horrors. To become unmoved by it. Because then they feel tougher. They can shrug and say “I’ve seen way scarier stuff…”

When I’m horrified, I also have a tenancy to try to find a way to think of it that makes it less terrible. But apathy, and indifference, they won’t drive away fear. Only love can cast out fear.

Beyond fear, hate, rage, PTSD, and jealously feature greatly in our fiction. Brokenness, revenge, justice that is not justice, it all plays in. People justify it in the name of that being the more realistic reaction. Not the RIGHT reaction, just the realistic, one, because producers and writers know, the real reaction could never be the right one! Who’d believe that?

Funny how with parables, proverbs, and fables, the conclusion always turns on doing the right thing or failing to do it. No one found those stories too unreal at the time they were told. In fact, I’d argue that Jesus’ parables can be all too real for comfort.

I am not hear to discourage people from writing stories, but I think we need to reach higher than this crap.

I know many people will defend it to the very end, and I’m not likely to unconvince them, which is kind of unhealthy in of itself. I have stories I believe firmly are good, but if someone argues, I’m not going to attack them for it, I’d probably drop the conversation.

The point is, do we want to write well? Do we want to write stories that can change people, that can give them hope, and that can represent the best of us, our hopes, our dreams, and do we want that to be more than darkness and cheap nods to a movement most writers aren’t even actively part of? Do we want this to be what we tell our audience we think humanity is made of? Is it all about our angst? Is it about sex? Or is there more to life than all that?

Can we write about higher things? Beautiful things? If you cannot write about those as well as the darkness, you’ve got no business writing. You have to have an answer if you intend to raise a rhetorical question.

That said, until next time–Natasha.

Ships: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly–2

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I talked about the bad and the ugly ships (see previous post), but what about good?

Glad you asked (and if you didn’t, stick around, I might surprise you.)

Okay, I’ve talked about fictional relationships before, if you’ve read my Justice League posts, about Batman and Wonder Woman, and Mr. Miracle and Barda.

I talked in those posts about how Scott and Barda have an extremely functional relationship, while Batman and Wonder Woman, on the JLU show, has a potentially good one, but kept getting in their own way, and how I thought we could learn from both.

I’m risking losing some of you here, but I will say that I think shipping characters can be a healthy use of time. It can be innocent at the very least, and women usually can’t help it, honestly. But even for men it might be  good tool for gauging where your own expectations for a relationship are.

I’m often confronted with what my own standards are when I find some fans shipping characters I either really like, or really hate the idea of being together. 

Abusive relationships and homosexual ones are at the top of my list of “NEVER EVER EVER” along with incest, obviously (eww.)

But what about the ones I like? Asking myself why I like it has proven very useful to me in deciding what makes a good relationship.

The nice thing about fiction ships is that you get so much variety. There could be many reasons it works, and they can be specific to the characters as much as real life is. You learn to broaden your view of a good relationship. With that in mind, I’d like to talk about some of my favorite kinds of ships. 

  1. I do love the pure, unadulterated, they just fall for each other upfront ship. It’s pretty rare now, and even mroe rarely is it intersting, but when it is, it’s really beautiful. In my mind it’s the most realistice kind of relationship. Most people marry someone they intitially liked and grew to love. A lack of tension can make a relationship boring, but when it’s well written and you see how well they suit each other, you wont’ find it so. Pure love is simple, but it’s never boring.
  2. I like the healing kinds of ships. Ones that are based around one character helping another through a very hard place in their life, and they develop those feelings along the way. The ship is cool because it feels earned, and you can definitively understand why the characters trust each other. This kind of relationship also happens in real life quite a bit.
  3. Perhaps the funniest ship I like is the one that starts off with them not liking each other. It’s overused in romantic comedies. But it’s not a bad idea functionally.  It provides more comedy then the other two, and often the most character growth out of the three. It involves very different people having to learn not just to understand, but to love and appreciate each other through their differences. Though how these relationships resolve is often unrealistic, the concept it not, because most married couples find  out that living together is that exact experience. Learning to love. In that way, the animosity-to-love ship is the most real of all.

So, that said, how does seeing this in fiction really help me?

For the first kind of ship, I’d like to use the classic example of “The Princess Bride.” That’s not technically shipped, because there was never any doubt of it, but these kinds usually are established early on in the story anyway. In the movie/book Wesley and Buttercup fall in love, and stay in love. It’s pure, real, and powerful. But it’s opposed. What makes the story great is that at no point do either of them tear each other apart, split up over some stupid fight, or waver in their affections for each other. They know their own mind, and yet they still have to fight for what they want. (Wesley does anyway.)

The power int his is the very constancy. Love never fails.

I think Scott and Barda fit this example well too, but I already wrote about them so I won’t rehash it all here.

Often the healing ship can happen just through characters supporting each other, not always with a traumatic experience having to happened first. I think Jamie and Landon fro “A Walk to Remember” are a good example of this. Older films tend to have it more. People sharing each other’s burdens is a powerful thing.

For the last ship, I could name dozens of examples if I had an hour to think about it. But that won’t be necessary. My current favorite ship of the animosity sort is the Qrow and Winter ship from RWBY. I have a lot of other ones I like, and they are all different, which makes the description hard. I’ll stick to the one for now.

More than for the other two, you have to fundamentally understand both characters for this ship to really be good. I am not about watching people fight and then like each other without any really good reason for the change. (Sorry Quest for Camelot, I like you, but it was clumsy at best.)

I like this ship because both characters have certain traits in common. They care about their family, believe that people have to learn how to fight for themselves, and are loyal, perhaps too loyal at times.

They are also widely different. Qrow is open about his opinions and not one to care much for delicacy. He has a rough and tumble approach to family togetherness, and to telling the truth.

Winter by contrast tends to keep her opinions in reserve unless she feels superior to the person she’s talking to, she’s more willing to submit to authority, and though she’s not very gentle, her approach is more cool and severe than rough. It’s hard to imagine her ever playing a game with anyone.

They hate each other–ostensibly, but they aren’t so different in essentials as they think.

That’s why I like it. If two people share core values, then initial disliking of each other can be a good catalyst for growth. And not such a bad foundation for a relationship. The other kinds may be easier, and heartwarming, but in the end, most of us will have fights with our spouse, and have to be willing to change, or compromise. We’ll have to learn to be more humble in how we approach disagreement.

Again, many fictional couples could fit into this category.

 the cool thing is how diverse it can be. When you realize why people suit each other, it can give you a better understanding of love.

Love is not all hearts and roses, though that’s fine, but in the end love is about growing with someone. Any ship can give you that picture. And the more different they are, the clearer it becomes that love isn’t really about type. It’s not about a formula.

Whether people are alike, or different, they will still grow together, and that’s why it can work either way. Maybe it’s a bit of a reality check to us, not to think we know exactly what kind of person will suit us. In “Anne of the Island” L. M. Montgomery shows the foolishness of thinking you’re fancies are what would be best for you.

A little honesty: If you got exactly what you wanted, the chances are it would be bad for you because they person would let you get away with too much crap.

Unless you think that you don’t dream of them tolerating a lot more of your quirks then most self respecting people would…yeah, I know. Brutal. I’m working on not thinking that way myself, but I know marriage will stills hock me by showing  much of a fantasy that really is.

Jane Austen’s books are more realistic, people have faults,  but are they ones that you can grow with, or ones what will make you worse? That’s the real question.

Toxic relationships often are more about people being ill suited for each other’s faults then intentionally harming each other.

Anyway, that’s about all  I have for now, until next time–Natasha.

 

Ships: The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly–1

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Today I want to talk about the internet phenomenon known as SHIPS.

At least, if you watch YouTube.

So, for those of you who don’t know, ship is modern slang for “Thinking two characters on any given show/movie/ or book series, should be together in a romantic relationship, thought the rare person may use the term for friendships also.” (Personal definition.) It’s relationship  mayhem in some places

Usually shows are the worst for shipping. Too many diverse characters who may have a heartfelt moment or two per season, and it can get pretty annoying trying to figure out if the show actually intends for them to be together. Even harder when often show writers are swayed by fan reactions.

Shipping is the bane of some internet surfer’s existence online. And with good reason, I’m not against shipping, but there are huge problems with it.

You might ask why I’d even bother writing about something so stupid. And my answer would be, shipping can be stupid, but it also tells you a lot about what people take seriously, what they look for in relationships, what’s on their mind 24/7, and what kind of standards they might have, particularly in their viewing pleasures.

You cant ell some people who watch porn are the ones leaving shipping comments.

Also, gay and lesbian ships have become unavoidable. Even when each character in question is confirmed to be straight, in a different relationship, and perfectly happy. Shipping is not rational for many people.

The problem is, we can all laugh when it’s a show (or roll our eyes) but unfortunately, people often are irrational in real life as they are online. Many people date with about as much discretion as they ship. So I think shipping may tell us plenty about what passes for romance nowadays.

Lewd humor and jokes and porny comments are hardly a new form of substituting for romantic love. IT’s as old as the hills. (Read any Shakespeare Romantic Comedy if you don’t believe me.) However, thanks to the internet, you can now find people like that mixed in evenly with people who are just genuinely having fun and enjoying the content. I’m starting to think some shippers just don’t enjoy anything till they sexualize it.

Aside from being gross, it often disrespects and minimizes the message a show may be trying to communicate. It often saddens and disgusts me to see a heartfelt scene between friendly characters, and to find it reduced to sexual subtext by fans. Fans, who quite frankly, couldn’t care less if they ruin the video for anyone else.

Now, the simplest solution is not to read the comments, but many people read comments to ask questions, and see some interesting feedback or innocent humor. Also to communicate with the channel host, which there may be some good reasons for. Yet they’ll see this other stuff too, and some of it is hard to forget.

I won’t give any examples here for that very reason, I’m sure you can fill in the blank form experience.

Some people just don’t give a rip whether you want  certain ideas in your mind or not, and they can be the most infuriating to encounter, that’s in real life too. It’s like how some people don’t care if you want them to cuss in front of you or your kids. An attitude of consideration for other people would, if adopted by everyone in the world, wipe cursing and inappropriate humor off the face of the earth.

Shipping can reveal the worst in humanity, and how shallow we can be. And how corrupt. It’s not all that uncommon to see people shipping siblings with each other…or people and animals…yeah….

I really don’t know what more to say on that, except that if this is becoming acceptable, even in fiction, what have we lost?

I really think as far the porn part of this goes, anyone using fictional characters for that is taking them way too seriously. And yet, not seriously enough.

If all someone’s honest art means to you is a sex object…why even watch it? And I have a hard time believing anyone who justifies that kind of attitude really treats real people with much more respect.

What you think, and what you imagine, it is not separated from your character. You are what you think, and what you dream, as much as if not more than you are what you do for a living and school.

One might wonder why I don’t talk about how unrealistic shipping can be, since fictional relationships are famously portrayed as better than real life. My answer would be: Not in this case.

In the case of YouTube shipping, no, it’s never better than real life when it’s what I’ve been talking of. In fact it’s much, much worse, than many people’s reality would be. I’ve seen people endorse a sadistic, abusive relationship…I guess they get a kind of pleasure out of it.

The problem worsens because the more of that you see, the more you find it enjoyable, and not horrifying. The whole trap of using art to change minds is in what it makes look appealing, even if the real life experience would not be so.

And guess what, it’s not usually the victims whose minds are influenced by this, it’s the perpetrators. It’s far easier to be deluded into thinking something is natural and pleasurable when you’r the one doing it to someone else, not when it’s done to you. Isn’t that just the way with human beings?

Stealing might look admirable until you get stolen from. Punching looks cool until you get punched.That’s not the worse of it either.

And I couldn’t close this article without saying something about the HATE wars.

I don’t take what people say to be online to be particularly serious. Good or bad, they know nothing about me. But some people do take it seriously, and others will still let out a lot of venom and aggression toward people that seems unhealthy at best…and out of control at worst. 

It’s pretty dumb to tear someone down over a fictional relationship. To have a “one true pairing” that you will not give up on, even after all’s been written and done. As much as I hate some ships, I don’t want to destroy the people who support them.

I find it odd that anyone takes it seriously enough to do so. However, I do really like some ships, And I even think they can be beneficial, for reasons I’ll expound upon in part 2

Until next post–Natasha.