Controversial Doll Stories?

If its a part of your doll, i dont see a problem as long as its not graphic. If its graphic it MAY be considered inappropriate. This actually applies to some of my dolls, I have a couple thats in MSD SD range that is also an anthro doll and a human doll (she can in no way be mistaken for a child tho XD she's just short); and i have a doll who happens to be possessed by a demon. As far as size difference goes, i grew up with a girl who didnt get any taller than my 5 year old is (about 4 foot 5ish) and she dated a guy who was nearly 7 feet tall. I think that Nazi's and world history (including tragedies) are pretty great backstory stuff for dolls, i mean, its all true events, its a part of OUR lives, why shouldnt it be part of the dolls? Religous dolls i doubt i'll truely understand ever, but i understand that people want stuff like that, one of my dolls is a witch, but then she's also modeled after a girl i knew in real life who was a witch (she died 6 years ago and the doll is actually helping me get over it). Heaven and Hell are only places, if you wanna use them, go right ahead. As far as politics goes .-. somehow with the subject i'm suddenly tempted to design a whole line of dolls that look like historic politicians XD i mean, how cool would an abe lincoln doll be? or a DOLL civil war reenactment? My demon possessed girl has both a human and demonic look (no claws or anything, but i AM making her horns :3).

Like you said, its hard not to offend at least one person with a community this large, if you want to NOT offend anyone, stick to tinies, they're usually too adorable to get offended over =p otherwise, just keep your opinions on other people's dolls to YOURSELF, just cause you dont like it doesnt mean it doesnt help a part of the owner or someone else's life. (for example, my boyfriend doesnt particularly like Jessica, my Luts Dew hybrid doll.... but he knows that I never got to say goodbye to the girl she's modeled after and knows that when i am ready to do so, i will let the doll go(most likely by giving it to her parents) he keeps a sense of humor about it and as long as i dont bring her over to his house, he leaves it alone). My demonic girl isnt Satanic in the least, her story is part of the Pandora's box myth and some of the concept of her was pulled from a book series and twisted to suit my needs.

So lets just accept each other as we are and not be sticks in the mud, we have the rest of the world to do that for us

 

I have a gay male doll. I made this character up like almost a decade ago. I know a lot of people don't think highly of that type of character but I don't really care because in the end all that matters is that I like him. I shouldn't have to feel the need to defend my OC. I know in my heart that I have developed his character deeply. He is not just a "gay doll". He has a lot to his personality that makes him a very interesting and likable character.

 

Just because you make up a story for your dolls does not mean you are obligated to share it with the world. People are free to imagine what they like. I'm not sure that subjects that have the potential to offend minorities really count as controversial. Then again language is pretty fluid so I guess you can interpret that word how you like.

Maybe if you have a story that has some of those elements you could vague it up a bit around people who might get in a hissy fit about it. Like instead of saying "Oh well Hans is a Nazi" you could say "Hans is a WW2 era soldier from Germany" (no offense if your name happens to be Hans)

 

I guess the most 'controversial' story any of my dolls have is there's a young couple with a 4 year age difference... but it's a healthy relationship and that's not even that weird. Also I guess some people might find my gay doll couple to be offensive, but I honestly don't care about those kind of people! I don't care about offending bigots of any sort. But still, maybe in public (outside of doll meets) I won't just go around telling everyone who asks about my dolls that those two are a couple, unless they specifically ask about it. It's just... not relevant. That's how it is with all 'controversial' doll stories, if you're unsure if people will reacts badly to it and it doesn't come up, there's no need to mention it. If someone asks, don't lie just because they might get offended, but if they seem uncomfortable, don't go into too much detail is all. Your doll is yours to pour any story into, so it doesn't matter what other people think about it in the end.

 

apparently controversial doll stories are attention seeking. [what? Did I really read that on the first page? I mean, everyones entitled to an opinion, but what?]


Anyway

I have a lot of gay characters. A lot of straight ones. Ones with kids, ones without. Ones that are good parents, others that are not so great parents. I have ones that came from good homes, and others that came from abusive homes. I have goody two shoes, and bad boys. Good girls and naughty girls. But really, what matters is how much YOU love your doll. I wouldn't approve of every story, but that's not what matters. What matters is that you love your doll. I love reading doll stories, but I can't say I approve of every story I read about. Some things offend me, and some things are a trigger for me. But really, as long as it's giving you pleasure that's all that matters.

 

I'm quite easily offended by some things and not others - for example, if somebody had a 70cm/45cm pairing but both characters acted like and were clearly meant to be adults then I'd have no problem with it (actually both my MSDs and SDs are meant to be adults, though I don't have any cross size romantic or sexual pairings). Things being out of proportion is an aesthetic judgement rather than a moral or social one. I would, however, have a problem if the smaller doll was meant to be a child, or acted and looked so much like a child that it was clear the age of the character was raised only to avoid arguments.

In the same way I don't have a problem with vampire dolls, as to me it's just an impossible fantasy element used for literary purposes, but I would be offended to see say ritualistic killings or the likes because that's a real thing that happens and hurts people. I think if people are going to post something widely accepted as controversial where they or the main demographic of a forum are from they should put a warning in the title so those that don't want to see it don't have too unwittingly look.

EDIT: Also, I just read the discussion and I'm surprised to hear some people react badly to gay dolls. Gay people don't hurt anyone by just being homosexual. What the figgery?

 

In some cases they are, but then it's VERY obvious.
If your character is a gay-fallen angel-albino-nazi from outerspace who plays in a japanese band and likes to bang little children and animals, swears a lot, takes drugs and you have to rub it constantly into peoples face to make them feel uncomfortable it's definitely not a "coincidence" your character is the way it is.
You made him like that because you wanted to piss off people and/or because you want to be a special little snowflake with the most "unique" character.
That's usually something you see in younger people, they like to see what's possible, like to be controversial etc. and don't care about potential risks and that they even might hurt people. And some just want to be special.

It's the same with people that put absolutely NO research into the topics they represent with their stories/characters...they just wanted to include it because it's "cool", "special", "unique" and that's visible when you see that they have NO clue what they are talking about.
If all your characters are raped gay teenagers and you always squee how cute that is, it's pretty clear you just wanted to add that for the absolutely wrong reasons.

While we are at it:

That belongs to the above mentioned group of characters.
People don't dislike homosexual dolls just because they are homosexual, they dislike homosexual dolls when (and only then) these dolls paint a completely wrong picture of homosexuals.
When it's clear the person has no clue what they are talking about but uses the sexuality of others as somekind of fetish, full with harmful stereotypes.
When someone has a group full of homosexual crossdressing uke boys who like to be raped all the time it's clearly not because they want to respectfully include a minority into their group.
People don't dislike the homosexual part but the "crossdressing uke boy who likes to be raped" part.
I can understand when people dislike these dolls, especially when they are homosexual themselves, but not when people dislike homosexual characters because "Well, duh, he's gay".

However, regarding the actual topic:
I actually like it when people have controversial stories, if everything is sunshine and rainbows it's boring.
You also need characters that are assholes and not always political correct, because that's realistic. We have assholes in real life too.
However, IF someone decides to add such topics as rascism, rape, religion etc. or to make a character that is X, they need to make their homework and show that they know what they are talking about.
Don't throw in these topics when you just want to shock people or have something special, in the end it hurts and offends people and you just make an idiot out of yourself.

I have two characters for example that were soldiers in Germany during the WWII and thus could be seen as Ex-Nazis.
This is barely mentioned and also never shown (they live in a time that is many, many years after the happenings of WWII), they don't have obvious uniforms or any signs that show that they were soldiers at that time.
If I wouldn't tell people nobody would even assume they have this "dark part" in their past.
However, I'm German myself and know what I'm talking about, due many years in school (WWII is a HUGE topic in German schools) and personal research I know how to handle this topic.
I used them partly to handle this historical burden and because I think it's fascinating to see how soldiers were affected by this.
War is a horrible topic, but from a psychological point it's interesting to see what happens to a soldier after the war, something that gets too often ignored.
I'm also a fan of realistic settings (not much of a fantasy fan) and our world is a cruel one, having only nice and political correct characters is thus out of question.
I never made this part of their background stood out, it's only a footnote but one that explains a lot about their behaviour (one of them has heavy PTSD for example), because it's not important and I'm not interested in shocking people with it.
I also have a catholic priest and I'm not catholic, before making this character I did my best to research everything about priesthood and talked to actual catholics.

In the beginning I worried a lot about what people might think about this, but in the end I realized that a) there will always someone be offended by what you do, no matter what you do and b) as long as I do my research and try to handle this topic as respectful as possible I don't need to be ashamed.
There also a lot of topics I wouldn't even touch with a ten-foot-pole because I know I lack the knowledge and experience to properly handle and use them, so I just don't include them in my stories.
I don't want to hurt someones feelings because of my ignorance or lack of knowledge.


The chess world is by the way one FULL with rascism.
Which is, well, pretty obvious since the whole story is about some eternal war between the black and white chess pieces...why the war? Because for some reason each side thinks they are better than the other.
They are actually pretty the same, the only difference is the color of their skin and clothes.
However, a lot of the adult characters are rascist idiots, one is a known rapist, another is a "men hunter" who kills out of fun etc.; they are all pretty ugly actually, character-wise.
End of the story is how all these characters get punished for their behaviour, and in the end there will be peace and only the ones that realize that a color is not important and know how to act like decent human beings are the ones to survive.
I like all my characters, even the assholes, but each of them gets what they deserve in the end.
Is it controversial?
Yes, absolutely.
But it needs to be, there is no light without dark, and for something to stood out as good you need the bad to exist too.
It's just important to show that indeed the character who acts like an asshole is a bad one, you should not glorify what he does.
Can he be partly good?
Of course, but in the end it should still be clear that bad behaviour gets punished.

 

Ah, I see. I think I misunderstood, but this definitely makes sense. Thank you for clarifying ^^;

 

Good point. Whatever you come up with might be considered controversial by someone somewhere. You just can't get away from it. It's reality.

 

Well I definitely have controversy in my writing but only from the perspective of how much the reader "wants to imagine." You can describe the same picture to a dozen people and they will imagine something different. I like scenarios that are thought provoking and in some way challenge auto pilot thinking. If I can figure out the story in the first paragraph it holds no interest for me. That said, I think writing about edgy topics takes some finesse especially if the intention of the writer is to illicit introspection/thought/constructive discussion rather than pure shock value which is much easier to do.