fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2760 ]

[ SECRET POST #2760 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2760 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[The Penny Dreadfuls]

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[True Blood, Game of Thrones]

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[Tamora Pierce]

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[Free!]

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[Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift]

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[Masterchef]

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[Game of Thrones]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 017 secrets from Secret Submission Post #394.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1? (if this is one, let me know what) - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Bit of a rant, and going off the X-Men secret from yesterday, but I'm really tired of this issue.

Not that people try to make metaphors, intentional or not, into fictional issues in the first place, but that people DEFEND them with all the might of those actual issues, and act as offended if you don't agree as if you're really arguing against their real life applied minorities.

The example that springs to mind is, in Dragon Age fandom, elves and the mage/templar conflict. I have seen some serious nutjobs act like elves are like actual, real minorities and if you don't play as an elf (or dwarf!) you are a racist shitbag, or if you agree with the Circle you are literally agreeing with enslaving Africans again.

Anything like this in your fandom?

Lol yeah. Obviously I support genocide and colonialism because I like a character who perpetuated genocide and is from a race that colonized and subjugated other races.

Aw mannn. I'm guessing this is a Londo thing? It sucks that some people don't get that you can appreciate a good character without condoning their actions.

Luckily those people aren't really "in" the fandom as far as I can tell. Or, they at least stay out of the way of the people who want to have fun, for the most part.

This is one of the reasons I stopped listening to WTNV. The vitriol some people spewed if you
A) Drew/Headcanoned Cecil as white
B) Did not obsess over Carlos/Cecil or think it was the greatest thing in the history of ever

It may have changed since I listened to the show, so this may not be accurate anymore.

Hey, you can totally enjoy the show without engaging with the fandom one little bit, though.

Eh, they started getting more multiple episode plots which I really didn't enjoy. And the really creepy factor seems to have disappeared ('A Story About You' is still the only episode I can listen to more than once). That could be because I have found some actual horror podcasts to listen to, though.

I figure I'll listen to it again eventually. If for no other reason than running out of other podcasts to listen to.

Oooh, can you link some of those horror podcasts?

The NoSleep Podcast is by far my favorite. http://www.thenosleeppodcast.com/
First two seasons are completely free. Seasons 3-4 have free short episodes (2-3 stories) and you can buy a $20 pass for the full season (4+ episodes plus bonus episodes). I bought seasons passes for both seasons because I fucking LOVE this podcast. Some stories are meh, but some I still get chills down my spine when I listen to (even after repeat listenings).

Pseudopod http://pseudopod.org/ One of the longest horror/science fiction podcasts. This does make it a bit challenging to listen to. Their feed only has 35 podcasts up at a time (they have almost 400 stories) but you can get them all for free on the site.

Tales to Terrify http://talestoterrify.com/ This is a new one for me. Still not sure how I like it.

If you play elves and are not an elf, you are appropriating!

In MLP, I see it from the opposite direction: folks who make some really awful black jokes, but think it's okay because they're not saying "black," they're saying "zebra." (Or frequently they're saying the N-word, but they switch the N out for a Z like that makes a difference.)

o_O

I guess the huge back and forth arguments I see about Skyrim. That if your character joins the Stormcloaks, you are racist. If you think they are right in any way, you are racist. It has really all become noise for me because... well it happens so often. While I haven't done the Civil War questline yet, so I can't get the full context, from what I hear the whole thing was designed to be a grey area, with both sides having right and wrong aspects. So it would be a hard decision. And probably people missing a point or two on both sides.

And I'd really want a study on if there was a correlation between actual racism in real life and choosing the stormcloaks rather than the imperials.

Edited 2014-07-25 01:32 (UTC)

Lol I'm replaying Skyrim now and trying to decide which side to choose. But I can definitely appreciate the nuances of the, err, political situation more than I did the first time. These are real life arguments that still exist in the world, without the magic and dragons and stuff. Xenophobia and nationalism against oppression (perceived or otherwise).

Honestly though, I don't think the Imperials are that much better. The elves are pretty much racist against men, at least the high elves who think they're so much better. Banning worship of Talos (even if Skyrim's obsession with Talos was obviously more politically and culturally motivated than anything), and they were the ones who tried to execute you at the beginning of the game... Plus it always bugged me that they had no female guards on the Imperial side, so I started to headcanon them as more sexist than the Nords.

But anyway, obviously both sides have a point, and both sides have good guys and assholes. That's pretty well presented, there isn't really a right choice. Though it's kind of hard to go Stormcloak if you're playing a character who isn't a Nord, lol.

kind of off topic. But going Stormcloak doesn't make you racist. Lol'ing at the image of a real life person arguing that.

I think your response illustrates how it's not really clear cut better than I could, so I'd think that it's on topic enough (and the less sexist Stormcloaks headcanon makes sense to me. I have to admit I haven't really paid attention to the guards beyond "that's the thousandth time I heard that,", so I didn't notice the division. That can't be an accident.)

It's probably happened.

Yeah, the Imperials had a few higher ranking named female soldiers, like the woman who wants to behead you at the beginning of the game. But as far as "town soldiers", none. I tried to look up why, but there was nothing. I just actively noticed the female guards on the Stormcloak side because I was impressed that the game did include them there, and with the same armor (no sexy alternative) and everything.

I ended up downloading a mod that diversified the guards, added female Imperial guards and stuff.

Maybe, if the imperials are sexist, those women who manage to get past the perceptions are always so strong they are 'distinguished'... I really can't guess the implications of that.

It's a funny thing though, I heard once that in Imperials, the women and men have the smallest difference in their base stats, and it was taken as evidence that the they weren't as forced into different roles in Imperial culture...

The thing is tho that the Imperial Legion has more high-ranking female officers. ...Well, they have two. But Rikke is the right-hand woman of the man in charge. Stormcloaks have zilch.

I think that the scale is tipped towards the Imperials a bit more, because Ulfric is frankly not that smart, he's not that good a leader (he screwed over the Forsworn unnecessarily, too), his motives are questionable, and he is irremediably racist. Though extending that to you being racist if you side with the Stormcloaks is ridiculous.

It's kind of a moot point who you choose though. If the Dark Brotherhood questline is canon (and they generally all are), the Empire is screwed anyways.

That's true, I guess? I do remember a scarce few female officers from the Imperials, I can't remember any Stormcloaks off the top of my head. But the Stormcloaks seem less organized in general... and less intelligent, to be honest. Ulfric himself, I see where he is coming from, and it's hard to make a complete judgment but his haters definitely think his ego is bigger than his ideals.

It's not right that the worship of Talos was banned, even if it was a half-hearted political maneuver. And I understand a country wanting to be ruled by its own people (though I wouldn't extend that sentiment to the race of the Nords, but simply people who are of Skyrim). But they don't really seem to have a lot of gripes besides that. And even with the Empire, all the jarls are still pretty much Nords anyway, and so is the High King/Queen/whatever (iirc).

Haha oh yeah. Wutai in Final Fantasy VII comes to mind - though to be fair, Wutaians (?) were portrayed as East Asian (and Russian, because.) Definitely elves in Dragon Age, too, which is more funny because elves literally don't exist and are almost always white people with pointy ears. Agreeing with the Circle means you are a pro-slavery Confederate? I always liked the Circle in the first game because I could live out my Harry Potter fantasy, but in high fantasy world. I think magical boarding school is awesome, no matter how overplayed the concept is.

Literally the type of shit I get if I say I don't find the blood purity stuff in Harry Potter the same thing as the racism I experience as a black person in the US.

The Legend of Korra was convinced that the non-benders vs bender debate was a direct parallel to real-life privilege and oppression, forgetting that bending is an innate spiritual trait, not an arbitrary system, that most non-benders have been well-off economically and have been most of the royalty through most of the series, that non-benders were not in fact excluded from the city's council, and that the kingdoms and nations did not differentiate between benders and non-benders when counting their population.

It is to this date the most pointless debate in fandom I've seen, and the laziest form of fandom activism.

the Legend of Korra fandom***!

the show itself never made any pretenses at being a parallel to any rl social issue.

im fairly active in the bioware circle, namely mass effect & dragon age

and honestly ive never personally seen anybody go to those extremes, though i have seen people say that comparisons COULD be made and they get shit on for the implication bc most of the fandom isn't that ridiculous.

people are rabid over the mage-templar issue without the parallels, honestly. people send awfully hateful messages to others in the fandom depending on their opinion of anders, for instance.

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[ SECRET POST #2760 ]

Social Justice for fictional issues

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Fuck that

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