Tumblr might have eaten my ask; if this is a repeat, just delete it. I was wondering how someone reconciles the belief that “fiction isn’t reality”/”dark topics are ok in fiction because it’s not real” with actually being kin? Because I have been holding this belief that dark things are ok in fiction for reasons like this, but I’m fictionkin and I don’t know what to think anymore.

Oof, anon, this is a tough subject.

On the one hand, I personally have a lot of trouble watching/reading upsetting/dark fiction that doesn’t have a happy ending, because I’m constantly thinking ‘that happened somewhere!’. Its difficult to disengage my empathy and I get upset and often end up establishing soulbonds because I’m so concerned about the characters.

On the other hand, its important to remember that writing something doesn’t create it, or make it happen. Reading about (or even writing about) bad/dark things happening in fiction doesn’t make them more real. Everything that could possibly happen is already happening/has already happened. Someone writing about bad things happening isn’t a bad person, or someone who wants bad things to happen. 

There are lots of good reasons to write dark fiction. Human beings and other sentient entities have dark feelings and urges and its important to be able to discuss and work those out in fiction. Its also important to be able to create and write characters that do horrible things and aren’t meant to be empathized with. (But its also okay to write dark characters who ARE meant to be empathized with. People are not good or evil, we all exist on a spectrum).

When I’m upset by dark fiction, I like to remind myself that that’s just ONE way that things happened. In a thousand other universes things turned out just fine, and the characters are happy and safe.