[ SECRET POST #3051 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3051 ⌋

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

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09. http://i.imgur.com/PRt3TMa.jpg
[linked for nsfw (graphic illustrated porn and maybe gore? I can't tell)]
















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 029 secrets from Secret Submission Post #436.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - 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]

02. http://i.imgur.com/BVptQxP.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed. I never hated her because she was a woman or for "getting in the way of 1x2", I hated her because she was obnoxious and falling in love with someone who says they are going to kill you is not a trait that I can connect with.

Granted, she did grow in the series and all. But nothing that really made me like her.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's a combination tbh.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, this.

She was pretty annoying (though I started to have more sympathy for her upon rewatch), but a fair bit of the bashing had no connection to her canon self whatsoever. Keep in mind, I'm pretty sure a sizable portion of the fandom never actually saw the series before writing fic/etc.

[iceyred]

Damn. This is a reminder of some truly vintage wank. That being said, there are no lies in this secret. Relena was awful.

[(Anonymous)]

Mmm, dat 90s wank.

but the real question is, who tops? Heero or Duo?

[(Anonymous)]

Most people I know who revisit the series come to the opposite conclusion. They hated her when they watched it the first time, but rewatching it they thought she was a good character and admitted their hate probably came from sexism and shipping.

I watched it with one of those people for the first time on their revisit and liked her fine. Nothing about the writing is stellar, honestly, but she's not written worse than anyone else.

[(Anonymous)]

Lol not OP but I've never heard anyone come to that conclusion. Everyone I know hated her when we watched it in the 90s/2000s, and hated her again when rewatching it. For the first half of the series in particular I honestly can't even see how it's possible to like her, she seems deliberately written to be as annoying as possible.

But for what it's worth, Heero bores me, too. And I like Duo and his girlfriend (?) together just fine. Actually I think I like every single other female character, but Relena is seriously horrible (though I grant she does grow (somewhat) over the course of the series).

[revieloutionne]

But every character in GW is written terribly

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously, this.

[otakugal15]

Treize? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

He master minded EVERYTHING. From start to finish.

That man was a fucking genius.

[(Anonymous)]

Noooooo Quatre was great! His insanity phase, and maturing into the "leader" - awesome. Most character development out of them all.

[(Anonymous)]

see i don't buy that because badly written male characters are loved and adored all the time.

[nanslice]

Haha wow, I just mentioned hosting a Gundam Wing rewatch.

I hated Relena and it was definitely because she ~got in the way~ of Duo and Heero. In my defense, I was like 14 when I watched this show. XD

[(Anonymous)]

Oh man, a GW secret. I mean, I love the characters and show, but nobody was well written in it.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that GW celebrated its 20th anniversary this past April.

[nightscale]

I remember quite liking her but I don't think there were any characters I didn't like tbh.

[(Anonymous)]

Except a lot of it was sexism if we're talking about early 00s Gundam Wing fandom. It was downright nasty in those days.

[otakugal15]

Eh, she's not that badly written, though most of her development happens half way through the series and into Endless Waltz. The rest of the ladies have a bit more character development before she does.

Though I hated her cause she was all over Heero back in the day. >_>

[(Anonymous)]

*grabs popcorn*

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't watch GW until the mid 2000s as a twentysomething, disliked 1x2 with the passion of a thousand burning mobile suits and still thought Relena was one of the most cringeworthy female characters I've ever seen.

[rhadamantys]

To be fair every character in GW is awful, also 1x2 is the most overrated couple ever.

[dahli]

Well yes? No? Maybe? A lil bit of both? I'm not familiar with the fandom, but I do remember in my side of things the other ladies where very well liked except for her. She came off as whiny which I can understand since she was a spoiled brat, but even I didn't buy her supposed "character development". Funny enough, I had this conversation with a friend that it didn't matter how much we hated her, she was right in wanting peace. But yeah, she was a pretty awful character. I also feel that way about Heero, though. Everyone was infinitely much more interesting than those two.

Transcript

[(Anonymous)]

Image: Relena

Text: Revisiting this series after more than 10 years…

I honestly think most of the hate for her came from her being a terribly written character, not sexism.

[(Anonymous)]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. A lot of the problem with Relena's treatment in fandom came from how Gundam Wing was consumed as media.

This was a time period where the episodes weren't available right away anywhere other than on TV. You relied upon watching something once, which with a show like Wing... it was hard to absorb everything on one go through. Especially when you consider that most of the people watching it and producing fic and art for it were pretty young (I was around 12 when it first started airing on Toonami).

So you had rough impressions of characterizations and a plotline that sometimes felt like it was a snake eating it's own tail. We relied pretty heavily on official art and scans and comments made by creators. There were two main creators on the team and they fought bitterly over characterization and favored pairings so we got a lot of conflicting information at the primary source level.

Take that and consider that Relena is one of the few characters that, at least at first, is actually characterized as a teenager... she comes off as whiny and bratty and entitled early in the series when the Gundam kids (who are the same age) do not. By the time she's growing as a person, the fandom had already pegged her and weren't interested in changing (especially the 1x2 and 1x5 corners, who were mostly comprised of kids who were VERY invested in these pairings because they were some of their first and strongest OTPs).

Lastly, most of the participants in this fandom, at least in the circles I frequented, were all teenagers and mostly young teenagers. That means that nothing was gray, it was BLACK AND WHITE. Relena couldn't just be a problematic character, SHE WAS THE ANTICHRIST! Duo wasn't just flawed, HE WAS THE WORST THING TO EVER EXIST ON THE PLANET. No one was characterized well in those old fics, but honestly I think Trowa and Quatre suffered almost worse than Relena and Duo did. Quatre is not a fragile snowflake and Trowa is not a Heero clone, and that trope continues on today. (I delve occasionally in the newer fic, so sue me.)

In closing, Wing really suffered mostly from being one of Baby's First Animes. It had a lot of flaws, sure, but it's an enjoyable show and I find the characters interesting in ways I didn't really pick up on as a kid. And judging by the fandom, I wasn't the only one who kinda missed the point there.

[(Anonymous)]

If the meme would have been a thing back in the day, I guess I would have been 13x5 masterrace and laughed at all that wank.