[ SECRET POST #4814 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4814 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 18 secrets from Secret Submission Post #689.
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]

07. https://i.imgur.com/PaVLe9u.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty much this.

Boyslashers gonna boyslash, het shippers invest only as much time in the Obligatory Female Character as is absolutely necessary to give the dude his conflict and/or mushy feelings, and even femslashers seem to care more about recreating the exact same Ship Dynamic with whatever blonde/brunette actress duo happens to share screen-time than actually exploring either character.

So, yeah, I feel you. :(

[(Anonymous)]

Idk about the femslash thing I think shipped liking sort of standardized cookie cutter dynamics is a big thing for shipping across the board regardless of the character genders

[(Anonymous)]

honestly most m/m is just taking the same goddamn dynamic and slapping onto the Hot New dudes of the month, instead of actually taking the individual characters into account.

it's so boring.

[(Anonymous)]

I've come across more than a few female artists and writers whose works are total sausagefests and they just... either can't explain it, or they don't enjoy creating female characters plain and simple. Do what you like I guess, but it's sad how common it is.

[(Anonymous)]

... it's really not that hard to explain? I'm a straight woman, I'd much rather look at art of hot dudes than of women because I'm into dudes and find them attractive. It's as simple as that.

[tabaqui]

And, you know...that's all good. I make no excuses - I'll ship the guys before I'll ship the women. I actually prefer my women to be ship-less, for the most part.

I can explain why, but I get the feeling you might think it's 'just' an excuse.

[(Anonymous)]

For all women in general, or slash fans in particular? Because I'm not predominantly into m/m pairings and characters who are well written are important to me, period. Do you have any examples of female characters you think people are unfairly biased against?

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP but based on the fandom crossing my peripheral, I genuinely didn't know there were women in the Witcher, let alone several of them, until someone told me.

[(Anonymous)]

Shots fired, but I totally agree. The pattern just keeps repeating itself.

[(Anonymous)]

I love female characters, and I love media about women. But when it comes to shipping, I'm most likely to ship slash. And because 98% of my fannish engagement is through my OTPs, the vast majority of my fannish engagement is going to be focused on men.

But if one assumes because my fannish engagement is mainly focused on male characters, that means I don't like female characters, they would be very mistaken. I engage fannishly with only a small percentage of the media I consume. The other huge majority of the media I consume almost needs to have solid female characters in it, or I tend to get bored (with the occasional exception).

However, I don't really disagree with this secret. There do seem to be some fans who are either indifferent or hostile to almost all female characters. I generally just avoid those people.

[(Anonymous)]

IA with all of this

There are definitely some people who have a real bias, but most people just like what they like. And frankly as an almost exclusively femslash fan I'd rather just be allowed to just like what I like in peace and not try to have some broader point about it.

[(Anonymous)]

Who cares? People like what they like and shouldn't have to justify whether they like all women casts, all male casts, or both.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I think you're right. I've seen people claim they'd be more invested in female characters if they had more screen time, or more plot significance, or more nuance, or wherever else - and the *exact same* people watch a female-led property and immediately focus on the one or two pastiest dudes present and will tell you, hand on heart, that these just happen to be the most "interesting" characters, *completely* independent of their sex.

And if you'll believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

[(Anonymous)]

yup, it's not a secret sadly, female characters get a lot less love in general in fandom and while i'll give an individual the benefit of the doubt(certain ladies might hit an archetype that individual just doesn't like, it happens), en masse it's just... really not a coincidence that the most popular characters in almost any piece of media are guys, every single time.

sure with some pieces of media you can argue that because it's focused on a man, or pair of men, that the fanwork being largely about them makes sense. but this argument doesn't work for everything, and it falls flat when some random background/underdeveloped dude is more popular than a lead female.

despite being female-dominated fandom really doesn't actually seem to like women all that much, which is fucking boggling to me, but what can you do?

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly don't get this. Are people only allowed to enjoy some slash after they finished their helping of female characters content?

[(Anonymous)]

even though I do a lot of femslash fanworks, its definitely a different experience from m/m shipping.

With slash there's usually a lot more content to work with from the media they're from, in addition to having a more active fanbase. Whereas my experience with femslash is mostly doing a lot more creative writing and inserting a lot of my own ideas into the characters, simply because by comparison to the male characters of the fandoms I'm in they're pretty much blank characters I can get away with recreating when there's nothing from the canon to work with.
With that being said I can see why it can be discouraging with f/f. It's a lot more work by comparison to m/m shipping.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah. You're not reading much Shoot in POI fandom then. Times are changing, slowly, but they're changing. Well-written women beget well-written femslash.

[(Anonymous)]

And that's fine with me, as long as they don't also complain about the lack of female-centric mainstream content.

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely. In my current main fandom, my favorite character is a woman, and I'm shipping her with my second favorite character (a guy). I've had several people call me homophobic for shipping them (even though I'm bi and all the people saying that are straight) because most of the fandom is all about the guy in my ship and another guy.

[(Anonymous)]

You say that like it's a bad thing. I don't get what the problem is. Fandom is for fun, and they're enjoying fandom the way they want. Nothing is stopping you from enjoying what you like.

[(Anonymous)]

Every time this comes up, the "let people like what they like" commenters never manage to convince me that the bias is solely about preference, so I agree.

[(Anonymous)]

Like this is completely untrue. A lot of the time when female characters are disliked are because they're written by men who have no understanding that a female character can be something besides a sex object or a nag. Of course it's gotten better in recent years, but it's just a theme that's been around since forever.

[thewakokid]

That has been my experience of fandom too.

There are some female characters who get a pass, but mostly they tend to be the blank slate characters.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, I am a woman and female characters actually tend to be my favourite characters in a fandom, but I totally see where this is a thing. All my favourite female characters seem to be very divisive in the fandom, especially among female fans, whereas male characters seem to be less so.