[ SECRET POST #2992 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2992 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Grand Theft Auto 5]


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03.
[Zipang]


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04.
[Ricky Gervais]


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05.
[Tokyo Babylon/X1999]


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06.
[Dexter]


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07.
[The Mentalist]


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08.
[The Truth - Terry Pratchett]


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09.
[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]


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10.
[Douglas Adams]


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11.
[Black Books]


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12.
[Lucky Star]


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13.
[Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey]


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14.
[Ga-In, Brown Eyed Girls]


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15.
[Oz the Great and Powerful]


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16.
[Colin Baker]


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17.
[9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors]


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18.
[Yatterman Night]


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19.
[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]


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20.
[Blake's 7]


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21.
[Game Grumps]


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22.
[Alexis Denisof]







Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 170 secrets from Secret Submission Post #428.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Moral dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

Have anything you're torn about, either currently or retrospectively? It can be petty things, it can be big things. Maybe someone will give you an advice!

I'll post mine in reply.

can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[mekkio]

Like I am writing a vampire story. I want it to be bloody and scary but I feel like I am restricting myself because I don't want people to go, "Holy hell, what is wrong with this author?" while reading it. Because I want it to have one foot in reality too. Like this is what it would be like if vampires were real. This is how they would live searching for blood. How desperate they would be and what they would do in that desperation.

Can you do that? Write a horror story that is too out there? Have you ever questioned the sanity of an author?

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, if Nabokov got away with writing Lolita...

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[raspberryrain]

I've seen some pretty dark horror, yeah. I think you can find a publisher.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[flipthefrog.livejournal.com]

I think as long as you acknowledge that the reasonable reaction to whatever action your vampires take would be to go "dude that's fucked up," you'd be in the clear. The only time I've ever side-eyed an author was when they were presenting a clearly dysfunctional relationship as not only normal but not even worth commenting about--I started wondering what the hell happened to make them think that was how a familial relationship should go.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[dreemyweird]

Not exactly, but I think the issue with too much blood and gore is that the reader ceases to care after a while. I think a prime example of a book series that fell into this trap is Paul Cornell's "London Falling". I love dark urban fantasy, but so many awful things kept happening to the protagonists that I no longer gave a damn by the end of the second book. I've lost all emotional investment I might've had.

Don't try to top yourself. Don't write awful things for the sake of writing awful things. Write them because they make sense plot-wise, and then you'll be OK. Most classic horror is inherently a little OTT, after all.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[sarillia]

I am fine with that sort of thing as a reader but I occasionally worry about the same thing as a writer.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's a concern in theory, but practically, it's just so difficult to actually push things to that point that I wouldn't worry about it.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[(Anonymous)]

Don't restrict yourself. Let yourself go. You can always edit it later, but you'll write far better if you go with what feels truthful.

I've written some things that I look back at and question my own sanity tbh

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[feotakahari]

Most of the time, I don't think the content you find in a story is a problem. The problem comes with how that's presented. If your vampires do something horrible, and it's believable that they'd do that, but you write about it tastefully, you'll probably be okay. If you go on for pages about how horrible but oddly spellbinding it is . . .

I probably don't even need to mention this, but I also dropped Thomas Disch because it seemed like he was having horrible things happen just because he wanted them to happen, without any concern for logic or character consistency.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[(Anonymous)]

So far none of that sounds too "out there". Guillermo del Toro co-wrote a vampire series where vampires are monsters who spray liquid ammonia shit, so... yeah, don't think you need to worry.

Re: can you write a horror story that is too out there....?

[(Anonymous)]

(anon from above, hit post too soon)

I think what matters is that you write a good story. The reason why going full out on blood and gore can backfire isn't always because people are freaked out by blood and gore but because too much usually means other aspects of the work suffer. So all you're left with is the audience who doesn't care about characters or plot, they just want blood splatters and ickiness... and frankly, those people are probably more likely to see a movie than read a book about it.

If the writing is compelling enough, that's all that matters.

Have I been emotionally manipulative?

[(Anonymous)]

Long story short, I'm in some RL trouble and I kind of talked about it with a couple of friends*. As a result, one friend is all worried and apparently wants to help me by giving me stuff (not money).

*I wasn't complaining, I just stated a fact, but in such matters there isn't, I find, much difference :/

Thing is, 1) I physically have a considerable sum of money, 2) most of my struggles are entirely self-inflicted and are a result of me living in a state of terror re:my family's future (though with good reason), and 3) I'm definitely not destitute and am in no immediate danger of becoming homeless/starving/failing my uni degree.

I'm feeling bad about the whole situation. They know about all of the above, but I still keep suspecting that I misled them in some way and that I might've behaved like the worst kind of attention seeker. It's not like I DIDN'T get some thrill out of their sympathy. Thing is, I have no idea if that was just me being in need of consolation or if I wanted sympathy for its own sake D: Now I hate myself a little.

Re: Have I been emotionally manipulative?

[sarillia]

There's nothing wrong with wanting some sympathy. You weren't trying to get anything out of them, you just needed a bit of emotional support which they were happy to offer and I'm sure you would offer the same for them.

Obviously there is a point where this stuff can become emotional manipulation but I wish everyone would stop making people feel guilty for needing some support now and then.

Re: Have I been emotionally manipulative?

[dethtoll]

If you're actually concerned you may have manipulated someone into giving you stuff, I don't think you actually manipulated anyone, because most manipulators don't actually feel bad about the shit they do or that there's anything wrong with it. Everyone complains about their life a little, and your friend is actually being a friend and trying to help. Tell them "thank you but I'll be okay."

Re: Have I been emotionally manipulative?

[cushlamochree]

I don't think that you did anything emotionally manipulative.

To the extent that you were emotionally manipulative, it's only in the sense that you made friends and they worry about you and care about you. And that's not a bad thing! It's okay to have friends who worry about you and it's okay to be comforted by their sympathy and consolation.

Re: Moral dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

I have a REALLY hard time looking at people in history and thinking they're bad for doing terrible things (such as racism, sexism, slavery) because I don't really think they ever really had much of a choice not to be and that I wouldn't be here if they hadn't.

Like, I've seen tumblr posts talking about how the United States and industrialized Europe and modern medicine was built on slavery and exploitation of non-whites and I'm never sure how to feel.

Should I feel bad about it?

Because honestly...without modern medicine...I would never have existed (given some of the conditions my immediate family members lived through).

And then I ask myself, would I go back in time and prevent slavery and all these horrible things from happening if it set the world back technologically? And the answer is no.

Part of the issue, for me, is that stuff like slavery STILL goes on today. Like chocolate manufacturers that utilize child slave labor. And everyone in first world countries who buys those products (and with how big those corporations like Nestle are, it's a HUGE fraction) -- basically every race, religion, sex, gender is contributing to it.

For the simple reason that they want chocolate.

And I just can't help but think: how can I judge the people of the past when these things still go on today and I have so much more? I mean, it's not like I'm donating/selling all the things I don't need (like video games and personal computers) to try donate that money to give oppressed people a better life.

It just feels hugely hypocritical to me.

Re: Moral dilemmas

[dreemyweird]

Generally, I agree with the sentiment. I tend to find some of the harsh judgements people pass on historical figures pretty bizarre.

However,

not judging people=!=not wishing a bad thing they did never happened;

wishing a bad thing they did never happened=!=wishing the good consequences of this bad thing disappeared. You're putting yourself into the sort of mental model of the whole situation that presents you with strange and contrived alternatives. It's not like time travel is real, and even if it were, we'd still have to resolve the time loop paradox in some way, which would render your conclusions ("I wouldn't go back in time and prevent slavery") logically meaningless.

While we're at that, why are you assuming that without slavery, good medicine would not exist at all??

Re: Moral dilemmas

[diet_poison]

I don't usually vilify individuals who were doing what everyone else was doing...it's hard to take that kind of thing out of context. Of course, if you were championing it, that would be a different story.

In general, though, I don't really judge individuals so much (I never knew them) but cultural trends in history. A lot of events had some really good and really bad things come out of them. Slavery is a particularly difficult one - the US as we know it would be so radically different and many of the people I care about wouldn't even be here if not for the slave trade. But I can never condone it. I simply recognize that a horrible thing happened to have some long-term consequences that, if not necessarily better than any alternative, can still be appreciated for what they are. tl;dr: sometimes good things come out of the ruins of bad things.

Re: Moral dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like me. I think about this all the time.

But the thing is, I'm mostly defensive about not villifying people for being products of their time, and when people do it I get so mad that I can't say to them "Okay, now tell me about the things people in a future society that's closer to utopia will be condemning you for."

Re: Moral dilemmas

[otakugal15]

I agree. But also agree with the sentiment that wishing the bad stuff didn't happen.

I mean, I wish the Holocaust didn't happen, but....we learned a lot medically from some of what the Nazis did in their experiments...

:/

Re: Moral dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

Really thinking of deleting a friend I never talk to anymore from FB. On one hand, we were friends for a really long time before we drifted. On the other hand, we have nothing to do wth each other anymore. We don't even comment on each other's posts.

It's just... she lives on the other side of the country, so barring some weird twist of fate, once I remove her, that's kind of it. And it's hard for me to let go of someone who I used to love like a sister in such a permanent way, even if we haven't really been close for a few years now.

Re: Moral dilemmas

[ibbity]

I've been reading archaeology books lately and it's beginning to bother me that I can't really figure out where one would (or should) draw the line that separates grave-robbing/tomb desecration from valuable and important scientific/historical study. Porque no los dos and all that and there's definitely plenty of times when you only have the former but is there ever really a case where it's all the latter? Tough to contemplate, especially since there are SO. MANY. cases where it's almost the only (or just simply the only) means we have of learning anything about the people who lived in X time and place.

Re: Moral dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

This isn't remotely grounded in reality, but sometimes I wonder if I went back in time, if I could yell at the girl who made my junior in HS absolute hell, or if being an adult now, it would be weird.

I mean, I wouldn't physically hurt her, but I think I'd lose my shit on her. Of course, I look pretty much the same so I could also give my past self even more problems to deal with...

Is it better to avoid bringing drama to a drama-free community?

[feotakahari]

I post on a writing site that's almost completely devoid of drama and wank. The fundamentalist Christians only cause trouble when someone intentionally provokes them, the preachy feminist who liked to needle them quit because not enough people were paying attention to her, and even the creepy fetishist is starting to wise up after a few mod warnings. The last person left who still creates drama is me.

Because a lot of my stories hit on issues of gender and sexuality, I naturally have questions about how that should be written. When I ask these questions, there's a chance of creating angry flamewars that go on for pages, although that's not my intent and doesn't always happen. I like having a peaceful site that rarely does flamewars, and I'm sure a lot of other posters do, too. When is it better to avoid starting topics and asking for opinions?