Hello. In this highly-experimental blog post, I want part of what I write, to a certain degree, to be about YOU. Don\u2019t get me wrong, though, this is still my blog, and I don\u2019t want you to get too comfortable. I just want to get to know you a bit more. Well, not really. I want YOU to get to know you a bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all know ourselves to some degree. But much of the time, we don\u2019t really know very many facts\u2014just nebulous feelings of taken-for-granted truths. Unless we question ourselves and our attributes, we tend to just go along in auto-pilot through much of our lives. So to start out this post, I\u2019m throwing myself in the middle of the road so that you\u2019ll be forced to slam the brakes, cease the cruise control, shout unrepeatable cuss words at me, and take a look under your hood at that scrap heap engine of yours that you call a brain. (Just kidding, of course! …Unless I\u2019m not.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a blog about stories. Every post will be in some way related to a movie, book, TV show, videogame, comic, or some other sub-creation that I think is worth writing about. More often than not, it will be about one of those things that I myself have written. This blog will be one of the many ways I honor the stories I like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About now, you\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cwhen will it get to the part about ME?!\u201d Well, I\u2019m about to start the transition into the part that will introduce that part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I once met a young man with unforgivable parents. He wasn\u2019t doing well in school, due to an inability to focus on homework. He mentioned to me that he did not like reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can understand finding history books and things like that a bit boring sometimes,\u201d I said, \u201cbut are there any books you like? How about fiction\u2014anything?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he just said something that amounted to, \u201cHere\u2019s the thing. When I was little and misbehaved, my parents made me read as punishment. I hate it that much. Now, getting thorough five pages of anything without falling asleep is like a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unforgivable. The point of this story is not so that you can harshly judge this boy or his parents, but it\u2019s to get a sense of different outlooks on experiencing stories. Hopefully you do not share this particular view, because 1) all my blog posts will be about stories and the experience thereof, and 2) I tend to ramble sometimes, and there will be plenty of reading to do here. Don\u2019t fall asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See? Now we can get to the part about YOU! Do you like stories? What is your favorite? That might not matter though, because this blog will mostly be covering MY favorites! But it\u2019s just good to know your own favorite going in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the most important question is this: what do you do to honor the stories that you like? Say you call yourself a fan of Sailor Moon. Is it enough for you to just watch the show? Or do you feel the need for more? Has it become a permanent part of your life? Has it become something that you identify yourself with? That there\u2019s taking your fandom to the next level. Perhaps you are so filled with love for Sailor Moon that you want to act like her. Or dress like her (I.E. cosplay, for those of you who haven\u2019t figured that out yet). Perhaps that isn\u2019t enough; perhaps you want to display this strong feeling in public\u2026 in your Sailor Moon outfit. And even if you are a fat, hairy, 40-year old man beneath that skimpy schoolgirl outfit, your feelings of fandom can spurn you to overcome any feelings of hesitation or reserve you\u2019d have about donning that garb in public. (And yes, this is something that really happened, though it may have been done \u201cironically,\u201d or something.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The driving force behind being a fan is a powerful thing, and with the invention of this new-fangled so-called \u201cinter-net\u201d, fans can unite extremely easily, and become all the more powerful. I spoke of cosplaying (to a small extent) before, and the internet acts as much larger \u201cpublic\u201d with which to share your fan-driven actions, be it cosplay or something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is my aim to not so much prove but state that there are good ways to honor that which you are a fan of, and bad ways to honor it. Certain fanatic actions are completely acceptable. Some are disgusting and terrible\u2014and the fan in question is being counterproductive: working to dishonor the source material instead of honoring it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am, at this point, referring to slash-fic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I do NOT want to get into a huge debate about the morality or lack of morality of homosexuality or homosexual-driven actions (although that would probably make the hits on this here newly-formed blog skyrocket\u2026). I just would like to state my opinion on how I find slash-fics to be dishonorable to their source-material. Homosexuality aside, these are representations of already established and knowable characters that are FALSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The creators of Star Trek (to be VERY specific, the original series) did not intend to write something about the sexual tension between two (or more) space-exploring men, but some fans would have you believe that they did. This conflict grew so great in fact that Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor who portrays Star Trek\u2019s Captain Jean Luc Picard, issued a public statement denouncing Star Trek slash-fic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writing of slash-fic is going against the will of the author. It is stealing, corrupting their artwork\u2014their creation\u2014and turning it into something it is not. Some people would contest my claim, saying that slash-fic doesn\u2019t do any harm; it\u2019s just a bit of fun. But I would contest THAT claim, in the next paragraph!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around the time I was getting used to meeting more people on the internet (via deviantArt mostly), I was looking for more animes to get into. I love anime. My favorite movie is Princess Mononoke, which I saw at a young age, and which opened my eyes to the possibility of cartoons, as well as live-action, having the potential to be serious and strikingly moving (but all this is getting off topic, and would be better suited to a different blog post). Simultaneously, Fullmetal Alchemist (the original animated series) was just becoming extremely popular. Everywhere I\u2019d look I\u2019d see people talking, writing, and drawing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When this happens to such an extent to someone who is not in on the fandom, it repels them. They feel alienated, and completely sick and tired of anything to do with it (people who are not Homestuck fans but have friends who are should know what I\u2019m talking about). I couldn\u2019t stand Fullmetal Alchemist anymore, even though I had not seen a second of it! But then I went on vacation to a place with very limited internet access, and was able to get a breath of fresh, fullmetalic-free air. Upon regaining internet access, instead of throwing myself back to the fandom wolves, I said, \u201cForget what they say, I\u2019m just going to watch the show myself.\u201d (which might have been what they wanted me to do anyway? I don\u2019t know).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thoroughly enjoyed the Fullmetal Alchemist anime. I recommend it to anyone, though maybe not small kids who would be freaked out by it. I know it would have freaked me out if I\u2019d seen it when I was a kid. But my point is this: my encounter with the fandom of FMA turned me off of it for so long, I might have missed out on the good that watching that series brought into my life entirely. An example of THAT happening is\u2026 Naruto! So disgusted and annoyed with the works of the fanbase of Naruto was I, that I wanted to have nothing to do with the show or manga for years! And now that those feelings have cooled off, I find myself trying to make a living in the real world, and having very little time to get myself started on a series that has 220+ episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other flip side of this yin-yang emblazoned medallion, there\u2019s my experience with a very encaptivating and well-crafted anime series called Attack on Titan. Around the time it first came out, I heard a few good things about it from a few people I trust, and leapt right into watching it without doing any research of looking up reviews, summaries, or fan-works (this also made me avoid any and all spoilers. If you stick with this blog, you will learn just how much I hate spoilers). It was a blind leap of faith, for sure, but I was consciously thinking of what happened with me and Fullmetal Alchemist; I did not want a repeat of that. Luckily, I enjoyed AoT immensely, and recommend it to anyone! \u2026Well, anyone over even a higher age than my FMA recommendation. It is a very serious story line, extremely profound, well-developed characters and themes, very dark and heavy setting and atmosphere\u2026 and as such, I am petrified of any and all fan-works of AoT (even though I myself have drawn some fan-art). I would take any misrepresentation or disrespect of the characters or situation in AoT EXTREMELY badly, and I would probably be inspired to write an entire blog post about how bad of a person whoever made the improper AoT fan-work is. I am basically avoiding all AoT fan-work, even the good ones, until this blows over (I also avoid spoilers this way, in such cases as the original manga is slightly ahead of the show. Spoilers = the devil\u2019s work).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Basically, fan\u2019s slash-fics and jokes-in-poor-taste work to paint an inaccurate picture of the story and characters involved, which results in the messing up of what audience said story attracts or repels. Although I am for people expressing themselves through the act of creative writing, I stand against slash-fics in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, but in this way I wouldn’t hold anything against a Broke Back Mountain slash-fic, because that wouldn\u2019t cause a break in character (unless you\u2019re writing about two characters in that who AREN\u2019T gay). And the movie itself is basically aiming to accomplish what slash-fic\u2019s goal is anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To conclude, you, realize what a powerful thing the creation of stories is. I am a creative writer, and I know the work that goes into making a story. Much of this work never shows up on the printed page, and people who have never tried writing often miss understanding the whole process. Never take on the process of representing a character in your story that you do not know well enough to portray accurate to what that character truly is at their core. Sometimes to get that intimate knowledge of a character, you yourself have to create, nurture, and care for the character, and hand-raise them all through their story-arc, allowing them to go through their natural character-development process with you guiding the way. To grasp at that deep knowledge of a character without it being your own is more difficult than some may think, and it takes a well-trained mind\u2014not just a hormone-filled teenager with a character crush, a blank word document, and an internet to unleash their non-peer-reviewed creation upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Check out my most recent book: The Eternal Spring<\/em>. Now available on Amazon<\/a>, Barnes & Noble<\/a>, and Westbow Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello. In this highly-experimental blog post, I want part of what I write, to a certain degree, to be about YOU. Don\u2019t get me wrong, though, this is still my blog, and I don\u2019t want you to get too comfortable. I just want to get to know you a bit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phillipmacarthur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}