[ SECRET POST #2678 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2678 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 069 secrets from Secret Submission Post #383.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - still not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/eQEFBuw.jpg

[forgottenjester]

You know, I agree with you. That whole point. Makes sense. I get it. I'm the same. La-di-da. However, your S!B makes me feel like you have no idea why people make fun of those things. At all. You are far, far too literal with them. Which... makes me laugh and slightly curious about you.

[(Anonymous)]

What if it's a character who is devout in an in-universe religion?

[fleshisyummy]

I'm fine with it in AUs, but, yeah, it kind of weirds me out when religion isn't a big part of canon.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. I really don't care for being preached at, fanfic should not be a vehicle for an author's evangelizing. I once read a really bad Bewitched fanfic where Darrin got "true religion" to have revenge on Endora and marriage-rape Samantha. It was icky. Come to that, original fic oughtn't to be either, whether it is Rand, Hubbard, or Card keep it to yourself.

[loracarol]

I'm a Christian and I agree with this secret (save for Priest/angel au's where it makes sense in context).

[elaminator]

I don't get it either, but then again I rarely see it. Is there a particular fandom where this happens often?

[dinogrrl]

Yeah, same. Religion is kinda a major thing, both in terms of character- and world-building. Not taking the time to get it write is, as someone else said, laziness.

[(Anonymous)]

So is it only making them Christian that you have an issue is or just making a non-religious person religious or changing their canon religions?

Also, just because somebody prays to "God", it doesn't necessarily mean the Judeo-Christian God.

[(Anonymous)]

Christianity would surely look out of place in fantasy world, however I've never encountered such thing.
I have trouble getting religion into my Les Mis fanfic. I know I should write about characters' doubts on gayness and forgiveness in this contest, as both Valjean and Javert are religious, but can't get into this mindset and put it into words. I'm no G.K. Chesterton. Sorry for rambling.

[feotakahari]

I swear I have seen people try to bring Christianity to MLP, a setting with two literal god empresses who are definitely not Aslan types. (Okay, princesses, but the principle's the same.) I've heard that one fic actually pulls this off by bringing in a human missionary and contrasting his values with those of the locals, but if you try to integrate Christianity directly into the setting, you're ignoring a lot of what's already been established about ponies' traditions and rituals.

[(Anonymous)]

I wrote one fic with religion in it, out of well over one hundred fics, and a decade later I still encounter people who won't read any of my fics because of that one. I didn't even convert any major characters, I just let a minor character make some progressive Christian statements in conversations with her love interest. So while it seems like you could explore anything in fanfic without too much risk, religion is the line it'll cost you to cross.

[sachiko_san]

This doesn't deal with fanfic, but I heard that Vic Micnogna said that Ed from FMA was religious despite the evidence to the contrary. I dunno how true it is, I read it in a thread on /cgl/.

[diet_poison]

In principle I agree, though I've never actually seen this. hmm.

I WOULD be irritated by this if I had ever actually seen it happen once in my life

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously, is this a thing, like, anywhere? In my experience of SF fic, if people in fics with those settings do pray, they always pray to an appropriate canon-compliant deity. Sometimes even a made-up or fanon-appropriated one, just to make their fic and its characters/setting more "exotic." So sorry, but I don't know where this irritation is coming from. Is there one fandom where this actually does happen a lot?

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you, especially canons involving different universes or different planets, or where Christianity doesn't play any part at all in canon.

I also don't like Christianity being default in other cultures. This comes up in anime fic a lot - characters saying "Oh my god" or celebrating Christian holidays in a Christian manner (Christmas especially, it's mostly a dating holiday in Japan and wouldn't even have been a thing 100+ years ago there). I can tolerate "Oh my god!" as it is less religious than a common expletive to people now and there isn't much that can easily replace it in dialogue, but a typical Japanese family having Santa and a tree and presents and a manger scene sticks out like a sore thumb.

I'm a a Christian

[(Anonymous)]

But I totally see where you're coming from. I remember reading a fanfiction where one character started reciting the entire 'Hail Mary' out of nowhere (especially because they were not hinted at being religious at all in canon)

Why is it when a character who has no canon-religious affiliation is always Christian? (or occasionally Jewish) Can't people even try to mix it up a bit?

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. Even something like a fantasy world celebrating christmas just jerks me out of the story.

[silvereriena]

I'm going to be honest, I have never or very rarely seen this happen in any of my fandoms. Is it prevalent somewhere or is it just a random fic here or there?

[ex_mek82]

Honestly, as someone who *is* religious, I agree with you to an extent. Especially if it's for a series that doesn't take place in our reality (i.e. a science fiction series in some far off galaxy).

At the very least, an author should research if a fictional setting they're writing fan fic for (or a race within a series, if they're writing for fantasy or sci-fi) has some kind of religious analogue (doesn't matter if it's to one of the Abrahamic religions or Eastern ones) if they're going to have religious themes within a fan fic. Like the Maker in 'Dragon Age', Athame/'the Goddess' for some asari in 'Mass Effect', or even the Force in 'Star Wars'. (idek what Tolkien used in his Middle-Earth stories, but regardless of him being Catholic, he still used made up stuff for his stories) Using the Abrahamic style wholecloth is kinda lazy, imho. =T

But that's just my two cents.

[(Anonymous)]

I've only seen it two or three times in the 10+ years I've been reading the stuff, but yeah. I backspace out of it five minutes ago.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm marginally Christian, used to be more of a "devout" type, and I hate this to. To my shame, I must say that I actually *wrote a fic like this once*... like 15 years ago that I still leave up on the Interent as one of my "Here, you go, MSTK-ers, have fun." I was told at the time that it was actually good by people who hated such fics because I'd developed the characters right or something, but I still consider it an old shame. It was also in a fandom that didn't have any canon gods (or at least, they hadn't been revealed yet. I think there are some now).

But, yeah... I'm mostly into a few specific Nintendo fandoms. Whenever I see Link or Zelda from The Legend of Zelda even say something meaningless like "Oh, God" or "Goddammit" I get a little annoyed because I think they should be saying "Oh, by Nayru!" or "Dindammit!" (Or what I put into one of my own stories "WHAT IN DIN'S KNICKERS IS THAT?!" ) It's so much more fun to use the canon pantheon in fantasy fandoms. I did *once, recently* introduce Christianity into a Zelda fic, but it was in the context of "The early games have crosses in them because Nintendo was originally going to make a version of magical Christianity into Hyrule's religion until they developed something different and dammit, I want to EXPLAIN THIS in an in-universe way." Link asked a priest about the "magical symbol" (cross) on some of the knights' shields and did NOT have a conversion experience. In fact, he's given a whole history by the priest of Hyrule's native goddess-worshippers and the newcomers being really crappy to each other until Ganon's last appearance, which drove them together to fight a common devil.

So, I do think there is a way to incorporate a real world religion into a fandom *if* there is an opening, but again, you have to remain in-character and true to the world. Don't treat it as a chance to convert your audience, treat it as *worldbuilding.*

That said, when authors try to force atheism where it doesn't belong, I hate that, too. I'm sure I've seen it a few times. The only specific example that I remember clearing was this one "Touched by an Angel" hatefic I read out of curiosity in which the author avatar/Mary Sue and a magical character from Oz convinced the main trio of angels from the show that there was no God and that they were the stupid worthless creations of a stupid worthless woman who should have never existed. It was *painful.* PAINFUL. I'm not even sure if it counts as a "real" fanfic because it was an obvious hatefic. Tracing the fic back to the author's profile... that was painful to read, too (especially since s/he listed one of hir favorite book series as "The Chronicles of Narnia" after having a huge rant about how all theists needed to die).

When in doubt, look to canon and to what the canon characters worship. Stay true to that even if you don't like what they worship.

[(Anonymous)]

How is it any worse than people writing characters as gay or trans when they're clearly straight and cis in canon? Personally I wish people of all ideologies would keep their ideology to themselves and focus more on the characters as they are in their respective canon.

I agree, but with all religions

[scrubber]

How can a character be Jewish if Judaism doesn't exist in that world?

I also feel the same way about Japanese characters interacting with religion in a casual Western-type of way, even if (obviously) it's not a fantasy world. Like exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" C'mon people, think outside your bubble JUST a little.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't like people shoving their ideologies in fic, no matter what they are. Religion included. I think religious fic can be done well if it's not obvious proselytizing and if it makes sense, but I've seen too much that's just clumsy and bad writing.

I think canon creators being vague about characters' religion just leads to people pasting things onto them, though - there's a character I've headcanoned as Jewish, which makes sense given his name, family, some of his behavior, and where he lives. He has a moment in the series where he thinks he's about to die horribly, and he thinks "oh Jesus." So, am I pasting this Jewish identity onto him? Cultural contamination? Is he an agnostic who doesn't care whose name he uses? Is he a Christian? In the end it doesn't matter, since his religion isn't important to the story, but if I'm writing a fic about the guy I might want to know these things.