So here we go again, readers: a discussion about how it is to be discussed as if you don’t exist, by a bunch of people who spend most of their days screaming about how if you DID exist, they’d be your VERY BEST FRIEND and support and defend you and... yeah, no.
But this take is a little different; only because even though it’s written because I’m living this every day — last night was emotionally devastating and I went to sleep at dawn still crying a little — I think that a lot of the “fans” need to read this too, even if they persist on denying our reality. (I’ve actually been thinking about this since Friday morning, so maybe it’s time.)
I think a lot of the difference in why people don’t want to believe in us is for the same reason people argue over interpretations to begin with: and it all comes down to the difference between static and dynamic.
To them, a “character” — even if they don’t think it’s true, even if they acknowledge change and growth — is static. Between episodes and installments and books or whatever your “origin story” happens to be, we are static to them: nothing changes, and they spend most of the time thinking/writing/drawing/discussing what could happen, what might happen, what should happen.
So many people rehash the pain of certain events over and over because for them, the bittersweet emotional rollercoaster is the experience. “Imagine what would happen if...!” “Try not to think about...!” These are the prompts of which fanfiction is made. To them, it’s a story made up of emotional beats; because — of course — that’s what good storytelling is about. Classically, anyway. The hero’s journey. The rise and then the fall, the fall and then the triumph. The great myths.
But the trouble with “fictionkin” — at least, those of us who live actual lives every day, not just people who decide to claim the label for writing or goofing or a thousand other things I’ve seen — is that rather than static characters, we are(like everyone else! Surprise!) dynamic people.
I keep thinking of the line that a fandom canon author used in an interview, quoting from Hamilton: “Winning was easy, young man; governing is harder.” People want to see the big, dramatic moments: the reunions. The battles. The major decisions with forever consequences. The losses and the triumphs. The forgiveness. Because they can project themselves onto those things. But the problem with being a real person is this: not everything is a dramatic story moment with a sweeping epic soundtrack.
And it’s this life that often causes people to discredit us, to say “Well, the REAL XYZ wouldn’t do that, because (insert my projective reason here)!” And guys, let me tell you: that hurts. It hurts a LOT. It shouldn’t — who are most of these strangers to me? — but it does. It’s a big part of the reason it’s so difficult to be involved in any “fandom” that touches on people we have: because everybody already thinks they know us, even when they’ve only seen a small part of that larger whole. And they use that supposed knowledge to judge us, and to judge our reality.
But it doesn’t work that way, guys.
Because the parts that you don’t see are the places where a life is. That big dramatic reunion that you hoped for for so long? It may look good on screen or on TV, but it’s what happens after that really matters. And I’m not even talking about the things you think make good fanfiction: I’m talking about the pain, the effort, the work it takes to move forward.
So you reunite with an estranged family member or friend. But you’ve hated each other for a decade, or you’ve both done unforgivable things. How do you come back from that?
In fits and starts. In angry shouting, in mumbled rejections. In five steps back for every two steps forward. In learning the people you are, all over again. In finding, every day, all day, where the broken places are and, not to get too purple with the metaphor but it isn’t untrue, cutting yourself on those edges, mostly when you don’t mean to. Forgiving someone does not negate or obliterate the crimes they’ve committed, either literal or figurative, compassion does not mean excusing hurting others, and those things still need to be dealt with.
It’s conversations in the pitch dark and awkward meals and broken doors and ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE HARDER TO PROJECT INTO BECAUSE THEY DEPEND ENTIRELY ON THE PERSONALITY OF THE PERSON INVOLVED. Mary G from Y fandom may think she knows how Y and Z would react to any given situation, but she doesn’t because she hasn’t lived their life.
And everything in it — not just the dramatic moments, but every single word, every bad dream, things most people would find utterly insignificant but were e building blocks in this life — everything, contributes to every reaction and every interaction that this person has, which in turn affect others’ reactions which in turn affects Person Y again. People who were abused. People who were manipulated. People who were wrong. People who failed.
All of these people have to deal with consequences, and this is one of the ten thousand reasons that anyone claiming “fictionkin” are wish-fulfillers or people who’d ever choose this are five hundred times as nuts as we could ever be.
Because it’s not dressing up and playing hero, playing pretend. It’s talking about things that are yanked out syllable by syllable, over weeks. It’s about people lying about where they got their scars and then telling the truth, one by one; or throwing it out as an accusation that hurts everyone involved. It’s hearing yourself defend your abuser and knowing even from your tone of voice that neither you nor the person you’re telling believe you. It’s not knowing who you are, and getting angry when one set of people are telling you you’re X and another are claiming you’re Y and you don’t feel like either, although there are times you embrace both personas fully, one at a time, and then promptly feel like a fraud. It’s the clothes you wear and the way you hunch over and the way people learn your body language.
It’s about crying in the night, and trying to keep it to yourself so the other person doesn’t wake up; you’ve been taught to make no sound, so it’s easier than it should be. It’s about the rare smiles feeling like they’re completely out of character for you, so you hide them. It’s about friendship vs. morals vs. loyalty and what the “right thing” is, and who is really worth losing. It’s about forgiving each other, knowing you who’d want at your back. It’s bad movies and pizza in Brooklyn, waking up(yes, physically. Like all of these examples) in a hotel and being shocked to death that yes, you are together, that this is really happening, and finding a relationship amongst shared grief. (I mixed up all my people’s lives, there, in that last bit; so don’t try to guess based on that.)
And none of these things are exciting. None of them are dramatic. And most of them would never see the light of day on a screen. But these are the difference between a character and a real person. We are dynamic. And dynamic is lonely, and frightening, and difficult especially in situations with (http://meta-multiverse.blogspot.com/2018/04/spoilers-for-my-life-next-installment.html ) “unfinished canon”; because to the storytellers themselves, their “characters” are static between takes. Everyone is frozen until the camera rolls or the cursor moves, which is, unfortunately, not how living works.
I wish so much of the time that it was easier to have a friend than a legion of fans; because this small stuff, this awful stuff — and the joyous stuff too; in January I would have loved to scream something amazing from the rooftops, but who would believe me? It becomes very isolating — is where we need the support.
We can handle the monumental drama on our own.
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