“Fiction affects reality!”
It does… but also it doesn’t, and certainly not on a one-to-one level. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a staunch conservative/proto-fascist former friend recommend to me Lois McMaster Bujold’s books; he was quite in love with the military sci-fi aspect, but not so much the liberal outlook that her stories are steeped in. The same former friend also recommended to me Seanan McGuire’s books, which are also decidedly more on the liberal edge of things.
I wouldn’t have had to kick a Trump supporter off of my Discord server who basically saw my alternate history fic and was enamored to the point of joining, but ignored all of the liberal and leftist mindset I have steeped into it.
Going bigger, Paul Ryan, who is a political sociopath and hypocrite on a scale that is mind-boggling, liked to say that Rage Against The Machine was his favorite band–while the band members basically said that he was the personification of the machine they are raging against.
And how many hardcore conservatives willfully misinterpret Star Trek’s messages of inclusiveness and “we can be better”? Or Star Wars’ pointed comments on fascism and authoritarians? Or the mindset encapsulated by this picture?
So, yes, fiction can affect people’s mindsets. But it’s not a mold into which a mind is pressed, stamped out and formed into identical models, as some people seem to think it is. No, it is sowing seeds into fertile or barren ground, with the possibility of it taking root or not. And even then, what takes root there depends on how nurturing the existing environment is, and further cultivation.
VIDEO GAME CHALLENGE: Video Games [2/7]
↳ CONTROL (2019)
collection of kiryu events over the years
might fuck around and read a 500 page physical published book in one sitting like it’s 2006 and I’m being bullied in middle school so I take refuge in the library and inhale books at a frightening speed that I have not been able to replicate since
I happen to be really smart and good at things.
As much as there is a part of you in me, there is a part of me in you.
Just wanted to remind you all that SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) is the best video of all time
My father picked me up from school one day and we played hooky and went to the beach. It was too cold to go in the water, so we sat on a blanket and ate pizza. When I got home, my sneakers were full of sand, and I dumped it on my bedroom floor. I didn’t know the difference. I was six. My mother screamed at me for the mess, but he wasn’t mad. He said that billions of years ago, the world shifting and the oceans moving brought that sand to that spot on the beach, and then I took it away. “Every day,” he said, “we change the world,” which is a nice thought until I think about how many days and lifetimes I would need to bring a shoe full of sand home until there is no beach, until it made a difference to anyone. Every day we change the world, but to change the world in a way that means anything- that takes more time than most people have. It never happens all at once. It’s slow. It’s methodical. It’s exhausting. We don’t all have the stomach for it.
– Mr. Robot 1x05, ‘eps1.4_3xpl0its.wmv’
Well, I am not the princess of social graces, but typically it goes something like, “Hi, this is Darlene”.