[ SECRET POST #2841 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2841 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 039 secrets from Secret Submission Post #406.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/q24hfq3.png

[(Anonymous)]

I think pretty much every woman feels that way.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, no.

[kallanda_lee]

Sadly, this secret just points out how many women in fiction ARE defined by their status as love interest - frankly, if that's ALL they are, they're badly written characters and I can't blame you for not relating to them.

[(Anonymous)]

How about bashing the writers.

[(Anonymous)]

I used to feel this way about female characters for a long time, to be bluntly honest. I couldn't relate to most of them, because, well... they were presented solely as love interests and/or springboards for manpain and whatnot.

I eventually found a bunch of great women in some of my favorite stories/games... and even if they are love interests to someone, they have enough traits/personality/development to stand out on their own outside of the relationship. But I'm not gonna deny that it's very hard sometimes to find them, especially in the majority of Western-produced media.

[ibbity]

This is a major issue for me too. I have a bf, but I never had a single date till almost 2 years ago (I was 25 when we got together) and so I just got used to the idea of women like me being complete persons whose selves did not hinge on being The Love Interest and nothing else, at least nothing else to any kind of serious degree. It keeps me from enjoying a lot of media I would otherwise be down with because if the only female character is just there for the boobs or the romance, that's very unpleasant. It not only makes me unable to relate to HER, it makes me unable to relate to the OTHER characters because it jars me out of the "people are people and I can identify with them as people" mindset as the narrative is telling me that "all women" (by means of the sole female representation) are just there for the boobs or the romance and therefore I can't immerse myself with the male characters because I feel like that's how they would see me too.

In summary

[(Anonymous)]

Holy wall of text for a secret that amounts to "people think I hate female characters, but really I just hate love interests." And really s there a reason you can't just say that to the people who are so grossly misinterpreting your ire?

[(Anonymous)]

I know there is still a problem of flat female characters just being an "award" for the male protagonist.

That said, I feel people are too harsh on female characters. They're held to a much higher standard than male characters. A male characters can be the flattest flat character who ever flatted and still get fans. A female character must have not just depth, but the right kind of depth, or she's useless.

Also, just because you can't relate to a character does not mean you have to bash them.

[(Anonymous)]

I find this really odd, OP. Do you have trouble relating to all characters who fall outside your personal experiences? I mean, I didn't have any romances when I was 10, but I could relate to the idea. I've never been a sailor, but I enjoyed Mutiny on the Bounty and even related to the characters. I don't get why "romance" is such a special case to you.

(Putting aside the fact that maybe these are just poorly-written characters and that's where your true issue lies).

[(Anonymous)]

So, what are your thoughts on Peter Parker? Can't relate because you've never had a relative die? Or because you've never been caught in a web of conspiracy about your parents' deaths?

[silvereriena]

There definitely are female characters who seem almost thrown into a movie last minute to give the male lead a romantic interest. I say movies because that's the medium where I think I started to notice it first. I feel bad for actresses who probably got into this line of work because they're passionate about acting, but then they're given roles that don't have much going for them. That being said, there are female characters out there who are simultaneously in a romantic plot and have other interests driving them. You should start a rec thread in the GC, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

I hate characters that are just love interests because I find them boring, but I don't get at all why not relating to a character makes you hate them.

I can think of many characters I can't relate, yet I like them/find them interesting so...

[(Anonymous)]

I'm incredibly picky about love angles in media. Most relationships just don't work for me at all. While I tend to get less pissed at the characters than I do at the relationship itself, I understand feeling annoyed about it. But then, I'm also always getting huffy about people yelling "Why can't they just be friends??" about the ships I DO like. Ha.

[(Anonymous)]

Understand so much of where you are coming from op. Fed up with people saying it's all in my head and nooooo women aren't written that way...be a good lil girl and don't object.

OP here with Question

[(Anonymous)]

This is something that's bugging me a bit with the replies here: WHY do people seem so concerned about protecting female characters as though they have feelings? I just don't get it. I've written many a diatribe against Tony Stark for example (Wish Fulfillment ahoy!) and I've NEVER had anyone suggest that I should pick on the writers rather than the character. I've had people argue voraciously, to be sure, about WHY he's a good character. But I've never had people flat out tell me to redirect my ire or to stop with the "faux feminism" crap (which I haven't heard here, in fairness, but I've heard on forums and Tumblr and such).

I just don't understand why people seem to want me to be considerate (I guess) towards female characters. They're not real. It always seemed to me that the polite thing to do was to focus specifically on the WORK rather than the fans or the creators.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm really wondering how it is that you're not asexual or aromantic if you've never had any of those feelings and can't relate at all to them.

[(Anonymous)]

I get not relating to them, but I don't get how that translates into disliking them.

[(Anonymous)]

Just because you don't relate doesn't mean you need to bash.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't help but feel that this is just another excuse to dismiss female characters.

"Oh, they're the love interest? PASS! They obviously can't be worth anything as a character."

For one thing, characters don't have to a love interest to be flat. For another thing, being a love interest does not automatically equal being flat. For a third thing, there are a lot of things that I've never experienced, but that doesn't mean I can't relate to the character experiencing them. Fourth (and final), even if I can't relate, I don't bash - what's the point?

[lunabee34]

Why is the female character the love interest and not the male character?

I'm trying really hard to think of any female characters in the copious amounts of TV I watch who do nothing but sleep with their boyfriend and shine his shoes.

[(Anonymous)]

I totally agree with you on the alienating thing. I also haven't experienced much in terms of romantic love or relationship things go. Moreover, I actually identify with female characters who are professional and similarly unromantic (think like EVE from WALL-E). And I came to the realization that seeing characters I relate to a bit fall in love with the main character towards the end of the movie (despite being shown to NOT be attracted to them earlier on) with no explanation other than (1) the main character loves them, and (2) the main character is now either successful or has cool gadgets or has demonstrated how strong his love is for her -- that is incredibly alienating. I want to see things from her perspective: how and why does she fall in love with him (and no, I can't see myself falling in love with someone for the reasons I listed), what is she looking for, what does he bring to the table for her? Where is her agency in this decision? It kind of scares me when I can't answer those questions.

It made me realize that, if it's the female main character I relate to, media has done a really poor job of showing me how to fall in love; it really is only good at showing me how to suddenly be in love in response to the male main character deserving it. It's so creepy.

Anyway, I mostly just rant about the work as a whole or authors in general, but I can see how getting that feeling of alienation can turn you off an otherwise promising female character. Some love interests just get so short-changed by their movie that they literally bring the quality down.

[(Anonymous)]

even though I'm a guy I feel you OP. everyone I know irl thinks I'm anti-relationship or hate romance because I don't care about movies/shows/etc where that's the primary focus, or the primary focus for my friends. I just really can't bring myself to even pretend-care about heterosexual romance, and almost every gay romance story ends in someone dying or some kind of after school lesson, no thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been in relationships and still can't stand to see generic love interest women in hollywood flicks or whatnot. You know they exist purely to be someone's love interest. Yeah maybe they'll get one or two fight scenes, but their main drama or whatever is gonna be about their love with the main dude.

I can't help feel this is what happened with Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy. Believe me, I LOVE women in sci-fi, but I feel like she didn't even need to be an alien with the amount of boring character development she got. Like, going by the movie alone, there's nothing memorable about her except she was a love interest.

[(Anonymous)]

so what are your slash otps?