#(except my lead was) – @izzyizumi on Tumblr

My ideal wish-fulfillment story as a kid was a fantastical portal fantasy where the protagonist actually gets to stay at the end. Sometimes real life sucks and kids NEED to believe that you can escape forever, y'know? The "you're always fated to go home in the end" thing is NOT a hopeful narrative for a lot of people. It's not inherently bad, of course, and it suits plenty of stories, but it's not the only way to tell a portal fantasy.

Sometimes a better narrative is, "you can stay with the people who have taken you in and given you a better life. You don't have to go back just because of some arbitrary concept of 'home.'"

I'm working on a portal fantasy now and I cannot FATHOM making my portal-jumper character go "home" at the end. The portal found him for a reason, and my concept of the portal is entirely grounded in, "sometimes people just need to get away from something awful." My portal isn't the type of portal that teaches a lesson, my portal is the type of portal that gets people away from awful circumstances and brings them where they need to be. The core question in my WiP is less, "is he going home at the end?" and more "how does he save his new home so it doesn't fall apart and force him to go back to a bad place?"

renthony

Taking my homeless runaway transmasc character and crafting a "you always have to go home in the end" narrative just seems like a bad philosophy, you feel me? He's not going "home" in the end, because "home" was a parking garage with lackluster security that he's sleeping in instead of going back to abusive parents.

I'm not sending him back to that; that's not a good story! That's not fun OR heartwarming! That's just sad! So he gets to stay in the cool magic world with all the other cool magic trans people, god damn it!!!

#fandom things #fiction #writing #fantasy genre #the heros journey #same #this #(Kind Of?)#(i think a variety of endings w these tropes are good)#(but)#(I cant deny i bounced this idea back and forth)#(when writing my own fantasy Advs inspired NaNo)#(except my lead was)#genderfluid relatable #(still)#(this actually happens in 2020 reboot of my fandom)#(they change it so lead Stays)#(im still not sure what to think)#(i like it when charas can bounce between worlds at least)#(but i also think they should be given the choice)#(another side lead here is canon Adopted and i cant ever)#(see him willing leaving his Family behind permanently)#(but temporarily only to make sure the protag is)#(def ok and can be contacted by him somehow?)#(well lets just say hes done that canonically already at least)#(still hopin reboot sequel here csn establish them meeting again)#(but Not forcing them away from their partners again)#(and letting Them make the choice on how long they wanna stay)#(this is also why fanwars abt the endings of each series here)#(Annoy The Hell Out Of Me to a point i refuse to debate abt them anymore)