fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3804 ]

[ SECRET POST #3804 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3804 ⌋

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

01.

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02.

[Twin Peaks]

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03.

[Chris Pratt]

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04.

[Banlieue 13/District B13]

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05.

[American Gods]

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06.

[Stephen Fry]

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07.

[Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 47 secrets from Secret Submission Post #545.
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.

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

Yeah, seriously. Being a member of a minority, even one that's experienced historical and/or current oppression, doesn't endow anyone with a get-out-of-jail-free card regarding behaving like a decent fucking human being.

If this is Never Satisfied, then yeah, I had the exact same reaction. Being gay doesn't excuse terrible behavior, especially the behavior shown in the webcomic. Youth I kind of get as the character has room to grow, but it is still no excuse. Especially if the character has support in friends and family to NOT be a dickhead.

The author really needs to not comment on it, it's natural for readers to dislike your characters for a variety of reasons.

And I agree that being gay is NOT an excuse. Gay people can be bullies, gay people can be horrible people, being part of an oppressed group is not a get out of jail free card.

Yup, authors should not be telling people who to like or not like.

I agree with OP as well. I would also add that both of these things together seem to suggest a really immature writer, which makes it hard to trust them to tell a good satisfying story. I hope they learn better.

Yeah I understand if you love a character you created and it even kind of makes you sad to hear people hate them, but the instant you have even one fan of your work you need to learn to hold back on your opinions and let people take in the story how they will.

It's also like... the author should expect this to some degree when you have a character who is a bully. Don't expect all your readers to be able to look past that because for some people it's going to be a deal breaker.

This. If a writer is so in love with their own character that they can't accept that some of their readers don't like them, that's a warning sign that the narrative is also going to take the side of the character no matter what they do, and that's what's called? A Mary Sue/Gary Stu.

Is this Dumbing of Age? 'Cause that's how I've been feeling about Ruth in this most recent arc.

Although I suppose it's not, because the author isn't defending her having been a horrible bully, that's been all the people in the comments calling for Rachel's head because Rachel called Ruth out on being a violent, abusive, bully.

Edited 2017-06-03 22:23 (UTC)

I don't think it is. Also, IMO it was the way Rachel called Ruth out that bugged me. Mostly because she stated openly that redemption is a lie as if it were fact, which didn't just hurt Ruth but is also clearly getting to Amber as well.

I wouldn't be as bothered by Rachel calling out Ruth by itself if it weren't for the collateral damage of doing it openly in public not caring who else heard her anti-self betterment spiel.

Yeah, that's my view of it, too. Rachel has a right to be angry with Ruth for the way she treated everyone, but to explode at her in that way right after she got out of the hospital for her suicidal depression was over the line. She doesn't know about Amber's issues, so although her words clearly hurt her too, I can't be too mad about that 'cause again, Rachel had no idea about that. She DOES know that Mary is a rancid bongo from hell who's partially responsible for Ruth's mental health decline and was openly gloating about it, so saying all that in front of her was pretty shitty, too.

Fair point, but most of the commenters weren't concerned with the other people Rachel's words were hurting, they were basically saying "how dare she tell Ruth that she's an abusive bully?! Doesn't she realize Ruth just got out of the hospital?!" as though Ruth didn't have being told that she's a piece of shit coming.

Yeah, that would bother me too.

Man, that's really gross, and I say this as a queer woman.

This kinda reminds me of the radfems I've known. They have this mindset that women, by and large, can do no wrong, ignoring or downplaying instances of female abusers and rapists. Yet they're perfectly fine stereotyping men as predators. I've seen so many instances of people who didn't think something was abuse, or took a long time to realize it, simply because it was done by a woman. When someone says not to be angry about bullying if it's done by a gay person, it makes the victims of that bullying feel like they'll be bigots if they call out their abusers. That is majorly fucked up.

It's also in bad taste for a writer to tell the audience how to feel about their characters. Making them likeable or unlikeable is the author's job when they write. Annotations aren't necessary if they're doing it right.

As a fellow queer woman and a feminist, there are so many times that I just want to tell radfems "get off my side, you're making all of us look like irrational assholes."

What was the context in them 'ignoring or downplaying instances of female abusers and rapists'?

Were they talking about, say domestic violence and someone said 'But women can be violent too!'? Because I find that's common- whenever a feminist (not even a radfem one) wants to talk about issues of violence against women. Someone says something like that because they want to misdirect the conversation and (ironically) make it 'but what about the menz?????')

Or were they defending a known female abuser? In which case, yeah, that's really not cool. No one should be subject to abuse, whether it be by men or women.

No, not all men are predators. Obviously. But I always think back to a famous quote.

"Men are afraid women are going to laugh at them. Women are afraid men are going to kill them."

Many varying instances.

I used to be friends with a radfem who blatantly talked about coercing and bullying women into sex, but when I called her out on how rapey that was, her and all her radfem friends jumped on me like I was the asshole.

I've seen women and men realize that they were abused by women after denying for a long time because, culturally, women aren't considered domestic abusers.

I've seen abusive behavior ignored or laughed about because it was done by a woman.

Pretty much all discussion of abuse, domestic violence in particular, is biased towards men beating women. And abuse caused by women is considered fringe or not as bad.

The last radfem friend I had ended up becoming a TERF. The final straw with our friendship was when she posted some bullshit about the reason why there's been a statistical increase in violence by women in recent years, isn't because people are becoming more educated about things like gender and abuse and therefore more willing to call out behavior that would have otherwise been overlooked, but because of all the transwomen coming out nowadays. Cause men are just inherently violent and women could NEVER do anything wrong.

It's bizarre, it's almost like they think women are too weak and docile and helpless to be abusive.

Anyway, my brain has been fucked for a few days now so I can't think of any other examples.

NAYRT
It pisses me off as well when they go the "If WOMEN ruled the world, everything would be a peaceful, charming wonderland without injustice, violence or corruption" and... seriously? Marine Le Pen, Margaret Thatcher and a whole lot of other female politicians would like to differ, I think.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-06-04 22:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-06-04 22:40 (UTC) - Expand

... Actually, what you're doing here is not all that different from what those radfems are doing. This faux-innocent "Oh but did they ~really~ do this or are you just one of those dumb people who argue strawmen radfems" is actually one of their favourite tactics.

Plus you're actually doing exactly what you're criticising - you take something someone said about abuse ("ignoring or downplaying instances of female abusers and rapists") and make it all about TEH WOMENZ who are totally more abused than men ever could be.

(And that quote also plays into the popular radfem tactic of "tell all women they are weak, pathetic little victims who should be paranoid about men 24/7 becvause that's totally feminist!".)

I remember rolling my eyes at that keychain/brass knuckles thing that was popular among feminists for awhile. Like it's so dangerous going outside into the big scary world, you have to constantly have a death grip on your keychain with the keys pointing out between your fingers so you can be ready to maim someone at any moment. I hate that fear-mongering crap.

I've never had a car in my life, I always walk and take public transit. I've lived in DC, Brooklyn, Oakland, and other cities, and RARELY have I felt the need to have protection ready. I think all this blogging about men being the enemy just terrifies women, makes them feel like perpetual victims who might be raped at any moment.

Now I'm not saying people shouldn't carry protection or learn self defense, my issue is more to do with HOW this message is being delivered to women. It never looks empowering, it always looks...frankly pathetic. Like, hey, pity this poor little woman, or even more annoying, this poor little woman has teeth now! All those big scary men out there will regret picking on her! What the hell kind of message is that?

When you log onto tumblr and all you see are people saying dumb shit like the skittles analogy, and turning half the world's population into a threat, it gets to you after awhile, makes you afraid. When you live in a state of perpetual fear, you're less likely to live an empowered life. If anything, this constant fear-mongering and finger-pointing in the current feminist movement is just holding women back. But it gets perpetuated because there are perks to it, you get pity and attention and extra assistance with things.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2017-06-04 22:48 (UTC) - Expand

That kind of author's note is always annoying, but I find it even more annoying that every character (apart from 100% EVIL VILLAIN) has to be ~good and ~pure or have a good excuse, or the author catches a ton of abuse from the audience. It's damaging to the storytelling and character growth and the people who scream about this kind of stuff are going to catch the author out somehow anyway, as soon as they decide the author is a bad person. Usually over shipping crap.

OP: Oh no, I totally agree. I love having characters who are grey or just outright horrible people and I hate when an audience says 'this character is bad so the author is also bad'. But the thing is in this case, nobody was telling off the author for writing a bully. They were just saying "wow, i hope this bully gets their comeuppance i want to slap her" which is like... Normal reactions?

It actually sounds like potential for a really interesting character arc, in that flawed characters can be so much fun to dig into, storywise. Of course, the writer has to acknowledge it as a flaw to start with.

We all make mistakes but that does not mean people will account potential eventual progress and betterment of ours when we are busy kicking their puppy. Yeah, I was a bully along with a friend - we had this awesome toxic friendship and dragged others into mind games. We were little arseholes who couldn't care less. I am gay, she is not (not that I know otherwise as in the end we made the smart decision to part ways) - our actions were same and to others it would not make a difference.

Someone said that authors are protective of characters which is fair but also culls natural response. Unfortunately first literary example that comes to mind is Snape (2 am, forgive me!) - he is a fairly interesting character but a bully and to kids in his classes it would not make a change if he had his heart broken, had horrid parents or could have been gay (if he was that is). Discounting Harry :| .

while i would generally agree with this, in context with the actual webcomic (ns) i understand why the author is saying something -- the character in question isn't just being berated, there are actually fairly graphic comments about killing/harming this character being sent to the author? to me the author was saying more 'hey maybe consider what sending death threats to a queer character of color sounds like' rather than 'don't criticize a queer character of color' at least imo.

"Don't be mean to her" is very different from "don't dislike her" IMO.

Female characters especially when they're heavily disliked get commentary about how they should "get raped" and "be murdered" and other awful shit which, uh. Has a very, very different tone when they're a queer PoC.

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