Poll Day - Should Stories Be a Forum For Personal Crusades?

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

I missed the last Thursday of the month, but with Easter goings on and Easter Eggs on mfuwss we'll just take today as a make-up day.
So here's the question, for both writer and reader as usual.
[Poll #1905733][Poll #1905733]

Comments

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

I honestly fall somewhere between 1 and 2 on the spectrum. I try to be aware of what my stories are saying, and I try to make them work within a worldview I find to be good or truthful when possible--this can mean anything from avoiding stereotypes to fully exploring the consequences of a character's own worldview. I think that's just part of the fabric of a story. However, I've definitely used issues I know or care about to drive the plot or flavor of a story, like when I made hipster!Illya soapbox about the evils of Nestle corporate strategy to show some of what his character was like. Yeah, I hoped people would look up Nestle boycotts on their own, but the important thing about that was to make sure the reader could peg Illya as a specific type of hipster.

I'm pretty on the fence about soapbox stories. I like reading stories that address a thorny issue in a realistic way or that prompt me to explore something further on my own, but there are a lot of stories in newer fandoms where authors seem to be using the story as a 101 class to whatever pet issue they feel like talking about, and it's all very OOC and there's no real story there. That, I don't like.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

I think a POV that is thoughtfully presented without demanding agreement has its place in a well written story. I think we could all agree with more than one question in this poll, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Ultimately these polls are to spur us into thinking a little longer on the subject matter. I"m glad you voiced your response.

[threecee.livejournal.com]

I really fall somewhere between 2 and 4 on the first question. I don't try to promote any specific issues in my fiction, but certainly my values and worldview color them. My heroes may have flaws, but they will never do something that is reprehensible to me, because they are the "good guys" and so by definition share my values.

I don't mind stories that explore different values in a way that still maintains reasonable characterization and has a logical place in the story.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

Making sense is a good thing, and staying true to the characters as we understand them. I think it's a little weird when the guys are off doing something that seems completely incongruous to what we've seen of them in the series.
I agree that our idea of a good guy must be a guide.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

I agree with Threecee, i sort of fall in between the cracks on the choices, and none of them really fit me per se. As an after thought, the ones I ticked off weren't right either.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

Its okay to not be exactly one or the other. We all fit in there somewhere, somehow. Next week we all write expository essays :D

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

I said I have no causes though I do have strong opinions, which I probably unintentionally express when I write, but I always loathed set doctrines, ideologies and systems; so, no causes for me. And I can't stand preaching and sanctimonious "holier than you" speeches disguised as fictions. I have become specifically allergic to anything you could label as PC.

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

I must add something: in another fandom I keep insisting the fictions would use the, specially well suited background of the show, to deal with serious questions of the social, political, moral or philosophical kind, rather than being limited to "how the two partners would eventually be brought to the same bed" (which bores me to death). maybe you think there is a contradiction between those two successive statements? Well, there are none.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

I don't see how putting two men into bed is a social, political, moral or philosophical statement. It's purely gratuitous from my POV, especially when it's contrived and not believable. There needs to be an understanding about what is purely for personal satisfaction and what is truly a statement about current issues.
Then again, when it comes to MFU I'm very opinionated.

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't understand your objection: I was precisely stating that, though hating the waging of ideological agendas in fictions, I was looking for some serious reflections rather than "getting the boys into the same bed" being the only aim of the story. (I like slash but not an exclusive sex interest in even the slash labelled stories). I wanted to distinguish the PC "attitude" from a genuine effort at thinking and describing real social or moral issues with honesty and subtlety.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

OH, well it sounded as though you were bored with putting men in bed together in that fandom. In any event, in most stories that subject matter isn't about anything socio/political so that still stands as a statement on my part. Otherwise... we're back to each of us looking for something different perhaps.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer this because I wasn't evne sure how. MFU stories are generally set in the 1960s. I was a teenager then and though I've always identified as a liberal democrat, other than Vietnam, I didn't have any real causes in that period.

I do have philosophical positions however, and they pretty much match the series. That is, Thrush is about self-centered power [Ayn Rand could have probably belonged] while UNCLE is about world peace and diversity and liberal democratic and socialist institutions cooperating together.

And Illya is definitely a Soviet and not evil.

Also, April is probably early equal opportunity advancement but that's not because I'm feminist.

I don't want to see Solo or Kuryakin racist or more sexist than one might expect in that period, and their heroism, to me, pretty much calls for compassion and an open mind.

Other from that, I don't know how many soapboxes one might drag in.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

It's not so much checking a box here as thinking about how we view things. The ensuing conversations are what make it interesting. I don't think we can ever limit how we view things to a simple one or two answers in a poll, but they do get the ball rolling.