Should I post the canon sexualities and romantic inclinations of the characters in Phoenix-born · 3:52pm Jul 7th, 2021
I've been vacillating about this a lot. On the one hand, it feels kinda spoilery. On the other, with the current atmosphere of "that character is/isn't 'x orientation' because I interpret how the author wrote them as being despite their authorial intent" that's going on in literature/movies/video-games/TV/etc, I kinda want an open, clear record of "here's my intent with my characters." This mostly got kicked off by the whole thing with Winter Soldier / Falcon and Sam & Frodo from Lord of the Rings that's been going on.
So, what do you think. Should I make a clear, defined blog about the character's orientations (hidden by spoiler tags for people who don't want things spoiled)? I ask because I'm not sure if there's going to be much in the way of their sexuality and romantic orientations shown directly in the story for some time, if at all for most of them.
Edit (July 8th): So far, the consensus has been that I should just leave it be and let it be revealed in story. Thank you everyone for your feedback.
Maybe down the line?
I think it's maybe a bit too early for such a revelation. Especially considering Sunset isn't even an adult yet. Perhaps wait until she's old enough for such things to be something she'd be interested in.
I personally don't think it's particularly important, people's interpretations of the casts sexual orientation varies greatly and doesn't really cause an uproar(shipping wars notwithstanding). Seeing as your story is very clearly an AU I see even less need for justification.
That said, if you do feel like you want/need to I think it would be best to wait until it actually becomes relevant to the story itself.
I don't think that's really necessery at the moment. Our main heroines are also too young to care about romence.
A blog about how certain groups view same sex relationships (+bi and so on) might be interesting and provide some insight to the culture.
I think it’s best to wait until further in the timeline of your universe where such things matter, though in my personal opinion I am a ferm believer in sunlight.
I'm going to agree with the "it's awfully early for that kind of thing" crowd. If you want to establish matters for those who are currently adults, sure, but Sunset herself has enough to worry about right now.
It's your story, but I agree with most everyone else. It's too soon for that .
I think the people assigning various sexualities to characters do not care about authorial intent or indeed canon anyway, so it wouldn't really accomplish anything. I saw a recent example where a director explicitly stated his intent behind certain characters, and these people simply ignored him, saying that their interpretation mattered more. So I'd say to not post it. Let the readers discover more details about the characters at a rate that you as the author feel is best.
It's amusing to me how everyone so far seems to be in the camp of "too early/never" and I would say I agree with that.
Not until its necessary, itd be better to let it happen and show over the stories progression
Shippers gotta ship
I came for a story about sunset shimmer and twilight restoring the Balance of harmony in a Alt universe written by a great author let the shippers keep guessing then thy have to keep tuning in keep up the great work.
The story, (which is fantastic) should come first, but I'm not opposed to it being behind a cut in a blog post. Characters should be defined by their actions not who they are crushing on.
I recommend no. Unless this is a topic that you want to talk about, I dont think expounding on the sexual preferences of these characters is helpful. After all, unless I'm mistaken, this is not a story that revolves around bedroom antics.
You can if you really want however I don't think it's "currently" relevant to the story as a whole. Besides, as the story moves along all that stuff will eventually be revealed if it becomes necessary.
I don't really care until/unless it has a direct impact on the story.
Far too soon. I think it would make more sense for ‘character sheets’ much later on in story when we have much more information about each character.
Personally, I say focus on the story first, leave the romance till much later or never. Also, don’t worry about what some random person thinks about who your characters should love, or what their orientation should be. It’s your story, you make the rules, if certain people don’t like that, well tuff.
5551208 5551122 5551096 5551095 5551093 5551093 5551071 5551065 5551043 5551029 5551020 5550999 5550996 5550984 5550977 5550965 5550963 5551318
Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the input. Looks like the universal consensus is that it's not something I should do at this point, which works for me. Maybe in the future I'll come back to the topic, when it's appropriate for the story. But till then, I'll let it rest.
5551321
Yeah worry about it once Sunny is older.
A bit late, but I'd say no, as you can always post it if it becomes too much of an issue in the comments.
Winter Soldier and Falcon? O.o I mean, I'm not done with it yet, they've got chemistry maybe, but they definitely don't strike me as secretly being in love beneath the layers of sarcasm and thinly-veiled resentment.
5551350
Well, that's the thing. They aren't. But there have been so many people demanding that they become a couple that Anthony Mackie, the actor who plays Falcon, said something during an interview to the effect of "No, they're not a couple. They're just two brothers in arms and very good friends who have each other's backs." (Here's the USA Today article about it and the heat he's been taking for what he said) And for that, he's been getting roasted by the "fans."
5551375
oof :B
5551473
Pretty much.
Wayy too early. Also spoilers. If it ends up being relevant, I wanna be surprised. :)
5551493
👍
5551507
<3 thank you for your work
I would say don't. My reasoning is twofold:
1. If the "intended" sexualities seem unnatural to the audience for those characters, making it 100% clear through a list like that would be breaking immersion unnecessarily.
2. A lot of people are really sick of this whole "pronoun/gender identity" game and want a break from it. A story can have characters who are alternative in that sense without feeling like it's beating the reader over the head with politics, but focusing on it to that extent, even if kept to supplemental materials, would ruin that.
5551375 That's just stupid. It's like the concept of a Bromance is slowly being beaten to death by those that want to push their ideals onto others.
Either it will come up in the story, in which case we'll learn about it then, or it won't, in which case we don't need to know.
5551611
Trust me, I'm right there with you.
That and an article on Polygon that goes through numerous different "logical" contortions trying to justify that Sam and Frodo in Lord of the Rings were meant to be a homosexual couple, rather an officer and his batman, was what set this whole thing off. (If you want to read the article in question, use the Internet Archive version so that you don't give Polygon the add revenue for the clicks.)
And, to be clear, I don't have a problem with any sort of relationship between consenting adults. What I have a problem with is people being assholes or revisionists when their head-canon doesn't meet up with reality. Even when I ship characters in non-canon relationships, I acknowledge that's just me having fun with the characters. Not "I ship this, so it must be true."
regretfully, this is a very clear case of whats known as 'the death of the author', an interesting phenomenon where the intents or other facts regarding them dont really matter all that much in the view of the reader. they will interpret any work as they wish, the author be damned. this actually came up in the MLP FiM season 7 episode 'Fame and Misfortune'...
5551704
interestingly enough 'death of the author' has an equal and oposite concept 'word of god' this is the idea that when it comes to what is and isn't cannon the word of the author trumps all other sources
also death of the author more sticks to things that can be interpreted, things that are not clear or obvious, such as the message or asop a story is trying to tel, when it comes to pure facts such as the sexuality of a charicter, word of god trumps death of the author, however if the author intentionly leaves a point vauge, then that is carte blanch to think what you want, its one of the things mlp in general did right by leaving ALOT of the worlds lore and especialy the facts about the background charicters up for interpretation...if they hadnt, half the stories we have wouldnt exist
as a general rule its best to wait to compile any factoid lists and information dumps till after the story is completly finished, as there is a chance, slim but there, that you may change your mind about how a particular charicter should be
lets say for example you say a particular charicter is gay now, and at some point on down the line introduce a charicter only to realize you just made a charicter that is a PERFECT match for them but for one problem....there the oposite gender to said gay charicter
Yeah, I'll be honest, my friend, I wouldn't worry about making a big deal about it in some authorial post at this point with the story. The main focus of the story is still prepubescent, and has a lot of other stuff going on in her life--romance is not likely to come up yet, and it would feel really jarring and out of place, even as a blog, to have a bunch of authorial "character notes" thrown up right now. Besides, I'm a big believer in feeding the readers what they need to know a little at a time in more subtle ways. Its more fun to watch them have a Eureka moment later on and go back looking for the clues. :P
5552181
i can say flat out that 'word of God' doesnt mean nearly as much as one might think when it comes to writing of any kind. years ago, when the first LotR film came out, there was a short lived series of what was called 'The Very Secret Diaries'...largely meant as a joke, the Diaries followed the perspectives of various characters in the films, but with the undercurrent theme of EVERY character being very much homosexual...one of the recurring jokes was in regards to Sam's relationship with Frodo, and anyone who might disrupt that relationship. literally, 'Sam will kill him if he tries anything...'
5552222 5552181
I'm going to chime in here with where I come in on the matter: in either WoG or DotA, what ultimately matters is what is present in the text, what the author intent was at the time, and what is the cultural context of the story at the time it was written. For context, I'm a scientist, and one of the hardest laws of science is "observe, test and draw conclusions based on what you found." What you don't do is "come in with a conclusion, and then distort, trim and re-write the observations to fit that conclusion."
How that plays out in a WoG vs. DotA argument is all a matter of perspective and the intent of the person interpreting the work. Are you coming in with a preconception and hammering the square peg into a round hole to fit your personal narrative to justify it, or are you reading/watching/playing a work and drawing conclusions from what you see as you see. The latter is interpretation of the work, the former is denying the author.
To go back to the whole Sam & Frodo thing, and specifically the article on Polygon. My problem with it isn't that the author of the article is saying "here's why I think they could be interpreted as a couple based on my reading." They're saying "they are a couple, and that's what Tolkien meant them to be, and I'm going to cherry pick things from both within the work and without to support my headcanon as the story's canon." One is interpreting a work through a personal lens, the other is saying that the reader definitively know what the author wanted them to be based on the reader's desires. Guess which one I don't care for?
5552184
True. One of my favorite examples of that is Willow and Tarra from Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. When they introduced Tarra, they just meant her to be a foil to Willow. But, as they interacted, Joss and the crew realized "Hey, they have great chemistry. Lets roll with this and see where it goes."
5552201
Honestly, that's what I'd prefer. And since that's the general consensus I'm getting, it's what I'm going to go with.