[ SECRET POST #3216 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3216 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
(The Blacklist)


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03.
[The Sum Of Us/Russell Crowe]


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04.
[Dan and Phil]


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05.
[Tokyo Ghoul:re]


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06.
[dick grayson]


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07.
[Scandinavia and the World]


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08.
[Doctor Who]


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09.
[One Piece]


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10.
[Lost Dimension]


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11.
[Sleepy Hollow]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 075 secrets from Secret Submission Post #460.
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

[(Anonymous)]

It's probably one of those. I can't remember which comment I was thinking of this morning.

But anyway: If you really want to "challenge people's prejudices", that's what the "write your own characters" option is for. The idea that "it has to be an established character because they're well-known" just reads as "we need to use the name of someone famous to take advantage of their star power" more than anything else - and going along that line of reasoning, the hypothetical decision to make the character come out as LGBT+ focuses more on using them as a tool to further someone's political opinion than on what suits the character's personality and background.

If you're turning characters gay just for the sake of having more gay people in media, that's tokenizing in the sense that it's acting to fill an imaginary quota. If you're doing it just to "shake people up", and not because it complements the character and improves the story, you're using the character as a mouthpiece to convey your views in a very direct sense, and that's what feels exploitative to me - that, say, "gayness" or "transness" or "aceness" are being valued not for the depth they bring to narrative and character, but for what they contribute to someone's idea of a Message Everyone Needs to Hear.

It's the difference between a regular narrative and an author tract - intent. I'm agender. I'm aro (or gray-aro, damned if I can figure that one out). I don't know about you, but if someone picks me out for something "because we need more people who aren't cis or het here", that to me feels like being used - as if someone's trying to define me by my (lack of) gender or my orientation. Doubly so if it's more like "Hey, we're going to parade your existence around because we know it's going to make the cishets mad" - which is basically exactly what a lot of people are saying here. If it were me up there and not some character (and of course, none of these are our own characters), I'd feel exactly like a puppet on strings, and that bothers me. Is that so hard to imagine?

I mean, if it is first and foremost about enriching the narrative and expanding the character's dimensions in an interesting way, go right ahead. If it just happens to do us "non-mainstream" folks a favor, well and good. Just as long as gender/orientation isn't being made the character's defining trait.

I'm still going to maintain that my intent wasn't to *introduce* politicizing material. I already said I have no issue with the OP. I only responded to it because it leaves a sour taste in my mouth, in a "right things for the wrong reasons" sort of way.

As for reading into characters - I suppose if one way or another is actually clearly implied, reading them as that is probably valid (well, in my case, assuming I notice - I'm notoriously blind to romantic/sexual subtext). But if it doesn't come up (or just has a very weak presence at best) in the narrative, then they're undefined. Still, when it comes to "making a character xyz orientation", I hugely prefer having actual grounds to support it, not just throwing in a complete 180 degrees for some reason or other.

I'll admit, though. I still don't quite understand where you're coming from (or anyone else, for that matter) regarding the whole idea of using characters (particularly established ones) to send this or that message, or in this case changing said characters for that purpose explicitly. Mostly because this is one of the first times I've run into someone who disagreed without immediately turning things into a flamewar. So, well, I am curious.