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Unpopular opinions we have on fiction

"Let's go! open up, it's time for Unpop!"
Alright, time for my mandatory Unpopular Opinions Post. Let's get this over with.
"You're late. You know the deal. You can Omelaspost for a Funny, or you can make an interesting post for an Insightful."
Here in Unpopular Opinions Poster Civilisation, no one chooses to make interesting posts. It's better to make the one joke everyone knows for the Funny, rather than risk your entire life for just one Insightful rating.
"Tomorrow you better not be late, or I'll have you posting for Informative reactions as punishment."
"Yes sir, sorry, I won't be late next time."

Down here, us Omelasposters only get one Rating a day. One Funny rating is just enough to get your post:reaction ratio to the next day. But that's the life of Unpopular Opinions Poster Civilisation. If you wanna survive, you have to Unpopular Opinions Post. Every Omelasposter has the same goal, and that's to make it to the top thread, where all the Brothers Karamazovposters live. Except, most Brothers Karamazovposters are born on the top thread. If you're an Omelasposter, there's only one way up, and that is through the Temple of Unpopular Opinions. The Temple of Unpopular Opinions is the only structure on SV that combines the bottom thread to the top thread. To make it up, you have to post an impossibly hard Unpopular Opinion Reply that no Omelasposter has ever completed. And that's assuming you even get the chance to post the reply in the thread. The inside of the Temple is protected by a barrier and the only way an Omelasposter gets past the barrier is if they've earned a gilded post. I've never even tried getting a gilded post before, but if I'm going to rank up to a Brothers Karamazovposter one day, I'm gonna have to.
 
hghwolf said:
I'll be real mate, if your value system allows slavery to be morally neutral or even positive then you have lost the plot even in terms of relative morality.
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It's not that I am positive about slavery, it's that I see no reason why I should care about other people's problems. I'm barely able to support myself working day and night, so why should I waste my energy on problems that doesn't concern me personally?

Selfish perhaps, but that's what I believe.
 
freeaim said:
It's not that I am positive about slavery, it's that I see no reason why I should care about other people's problems. I'm barely able to support myself working day and night, so why should I waste my energy on problems that doesn't concern me personally?

Selfish perhaps, but that's what I believe.
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Then don't? You've already said that you have plenty of experience lurking.
 
freeaim said:
It's not that I am positive about slavery, it's that I see no reason why I should care about other people's problems. I'm barely able to support myself working day and night, so why should I waste my energy on problems that doesn't concern me personally?

Selfish perhaps, but that's what I believe.
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Then why are you choosing to care to be bothered by people complaining about positive portrayals of slavery?
 
Because I feel irked and judged on liking such things, and wanted to say something about it.

That, and I am genuinely curious about your reasons to be self-righteous about morality in fiction. To me, fiction is meant to entertain, nothing else matters.

And Touche, I see your point now, it feels good to vent about stuff, so I withdraw my previous complaints on hate and care.
 
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freeaim said:
Because I feel irked and judged on liking such things, and wanted to say something about it.

That, and I am genuinely curious about your reasons to be self-righteous about morality in fiction. To me, fiction is meant to entertain, nothing else matters.
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That fiction is fiction or entertainment does not mean it is apolitical in its messaging.
 
MrCogmor said:
That fiction is fiction or entertainment does not mean it is apolitical in its messaging.
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And I don't care about the messaging, especially if I am being guilted shamed for liking something.

Proof? Read Uncle Tom's Cabin in a cafe, then a tourist starts approaches me, bitching about how it has racist messages. Self-righteous assholes.
 
freeaim said:
Because I feel irked and judged on liking such things, and wanted to say something about it.

That, and I am genuinely curious about your reasons to be self-righteous about morality in fiction. To me, fiction is meant to entertain, nothing else matters.
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Fiction can become less entertaining if it contains stuff that bothers us. I'm sure there's some topics that bother you and would reduce your enjoyment of a story, right?

If you root for a protagonist, and then he performs evil acts, that changes your relationship with the character and the way you think about them. Most people think slavery is evil, which reduces their willingness to root for the character, which reduces their enjoyment and instead makes them feel annoyed they got invested in a story only for that investment to feel squandered.

Maybe Mark Twain will have some authority here that I don't: "The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible."

I'm sure none of this is really news to you, so I'm trying to dial in on what aspects if any you disagree with.
 
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ok so theres clearly... something going on here that i am not qualified to have any statement on but i need to get this out of me.
MC of DDLC is demonized far to much, best case hes autistic, worst case is hes a broom on a stand monika thought was hot.
 
Ralson said:
If you root for a protagonist, and then he performs evil acts, that changes your relationship with the character and the way you think about them. Most people think slavery is evil, which reduces their willingness to root for the character, which reduces their enjoyment and instead makes them feel annoyed they got invested in a story only for that investment to feel squandered.
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True, but my complaint is how some have the urge to shame people just because someone else likes reading stuff they deem 'problematic', and lecturing them as if they are the only one that is right. Ergo, my Uncle Tom's Cabin example above, which happens yesterday so my annoyance is fresh.
 
my two cents on this is that my enjoyment of slavery anime is depentent on how close it is to chattle slavery.
this is most likely becuase of my white american sensiblities, though. magical petplay? sure, sounds sweet. american style chattle slavery but with catgirls? no. bad. im leaving.
edit: to cover my bases this doesnt mean we shouldnt look into problematic media and work to like, you know, learn stuff about the experiences of historicly enslaved groups to maybe make our erotica not fall into tropes like that?
 
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your allowed to like those things and also aknowlage there problematic, those things arent mutually exclusive.
 
DoobleDeeDooble said:
Personally, I like stories that delve into slavery and other limitations on agency and imbalanced power dynamics as a source of drama and conflict, so slavery isekai works are just sorta chaff to me. They almost never seriously explore the concept or play it for drama, it's just the setup for mega-devoted-to-protagonist types. They taunt me with the idea of how you could have an interesting story here, if it was just tweaked a bit. I want to follow someone who gets forcibly enlisted in some world-saving heroic cause without any meaningful choice, whose owner is trying to be benevolent except for the whole keeping them a slave and forcing-into-violent-service thing. Nice person, good cause (saving the world!), an expectation that this is for the best and they should be okay with it... But they aren't; the lack of control, the fact they're in a terrible situation they didn't ask for, the fact they're treated as a possession, all making it so clearly wrong. That would be interesting! Alas, it's not to be.
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Ironically, Isekai sometimes does this from the summoned hero perspective. (Yes, Naofumi is the one angsting about being forced into life and death battles and complains basically being a slave to his actual slaves.)

It's got a couple of problems, since all the main plot stuff is cool progression power fantasy stuff and it's basically a Cinderella style transformation where someone at the bottom of society gets turned into the ultimate warrior by an isekiaed master whose going to return home after the world is saved, leaving them said slave protagonist both free and one of the most powerful people in the world due to their sheer power. And end of the world stakes make it harder, since everyone involved is just as compelled to act as the enslaved protagonist is due to also not wanting to die.

Doing it without making the master character stupid sounds like a real challenge.
 
The simplest reason I care about stuff like right and wrong is basic immersion. My reactions to a work going "this is good" and "this is bad" or "this is something to feel happy about" or ""you should feel shit about this" is going be affected by my ideas of what are good or bad, what makes me feel positive or negative. My feelings to stuff will be affected by, well, my feelings. That's just part of writing and fiction, that creators will be making stuff with that in mind, that basic reaction to stuff. If a work goes "Here is kitten and puppy killer", the average reaction is going to be "So, that's an asshole" and that kind of good/bad emotional reaction can be relied on. If a work goes "....and he's good and put upon by the people who unjustly hate kitten and puppy killing", my automatic reaction is going to be "Huh? The fuck? Is this a comedy?". Because, well, my reactions to various things are shaped by my thoughts and opinions on those things. To move it away from morality, a work going "this rotten meal sure looks appetising" or "this ugly outfit looks cool", I'd also go "No" and have my immersion hurt, and I'd be annoyed at the work trying to go "Don't believe your lying eyes, it's actually good".
 
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ApocalypticFish said:
Kamen Rider Amazons (season 1) might be the only show I've watched in recent memory that feels like it actually used its 13 episodes of runtime competently. (Or maybe a better way to put it is that it feels like it uses its runtime in a way that makes it feel like an actually complete story.)
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Good god, that show went downhill hard and fast after Season 1.
 
Fourthmatchflame said:
your allowed to like those things and also aknowlage there problematic, those things arent mutually exclusive.
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True, but some people think that only evil people like problematic things. I dunno, perhaps they should widen their perspective, and not everyone shares their views on what is 'problematic'.

Pidl said:
Before you came into this thread, nobody knew you liked such things.
It's only afterwards that people are judging you, so congratulations, you played yourself?
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People who judge me for what I like, trying to analyze my morality just for what I read to relax, deserve none of my respect, so who cares.
 
freeaim said:
True, but my complaint is how some have the urge to shame people just because someone else likes reading stuff they deem 'problematic', and lecturing them as if they are the only one that is right. Ergo, my Uncle Tom's Cabin example above, which happens yesterday so my annoyance is fresh.
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I don't know how your conversation went, but I think a good comeback would be "it's a pretty famous anti-slavery book."

Kingcrusader said:
I would say most people know that slavery is evil, not think.
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I thought you walked away from Omelas.
 
freeaim said:
Brother, good people are not the type to have revenge fantasies.
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I am not sure about that. Many people have intrusive thoughts about revenge against people they think have wronged them. It is just that for most people those fantasies stay as fantasies and usually don't linger forever rent free in their head.
Fourthmatchflame said:
ok so theres clearly... something going on here that i am not qualified to have any statement on but i need to get this out of me.
MC of DDLC is demonized far to much, best case hes autistic, worst case is hes a broom on a stand monika thought was hot.
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Isn't the entire point that the MC is us the players? Might as well be a remote controlled robot.
Fourthmatchflame said:
have any of us.
also to add to the omelas memery and to add a truely SICK tumblr discourse reffrence: what if the omelas kids last dying wish is to say the n-word? what then?
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The Omelas kid must be kept alive so this is a very worrying development.
 
freeaim said:
That, and I am genuinely curious about your reasons to be self-righteous about morality in fiction. To me, fiction is meant to entertain, nothing else matters.
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freeaim said:
And I don't care about the messaging, especially if I am being guilted shamed for liking something.

Proof? Read Uncle Tom's Cabin in a cafe, then a tourist starts approaches me, bitching about how it has racist messages. Self-righteous assholes.
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Hold up. You just read fiction as entertainment to unwind, and you don't like moral messaging, and you were reading Uncle Tom's Cabin?

So... what did you think of the book? Just kinda thought it was a good yarn?
 
This thread is, effectively, the "What are your opinions/judgements on my fiction opinions?" thread, by basic thread and forum design. Hence why a point noted about it is that the unpopular opinions often aren't that unpopular, if at all so, opinions that won't get fire really directed at them. It's definitely not a good place to post in if you think judging opinions on your fiction opinions suck.
 
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