[ SECRET POST #4913 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4913 ⌋

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


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07.
[Eternal Love, aka "Three Lives Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms"]


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08.
[Rupert Graves as Lestrade]



















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 09 secrets from Secret Submission Post #703.
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]

01. https://i.imgur.com/pnqBNjM.png

[(Anonymous)]

I think if anyone has to destroy one character to sell their pairing, it probably isn't that good a pairing to begin with. Or the person just isn't a very good writer.

(This isn't to say they can't write the pairing they want, but a good writer would come up with a better storyline without making one character look like an asshole. Or they could come up with believable reasons as to why a character would be an asshole, and not just plot-wants-it-so-fuck-you. And so on.)

[(Anonymous)]

I get your point but you know what? The assholes get chosen because that tends to be more interesting. I like when characters have dramatic and challenging relationships because I don't have that or want that in my real life.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this!

I love this drama in fiction, would hate to have to tame an asshole irl.

[(Anonymous)]

I disagree

[philstar22]

It really depends on the character and the pairing. Take Once Upon a Time. Hook was not more interesting than Neil. Neil was an extremely interesting character who they could have done so much more with and who had a ton more chemistry with Emma. Then again, "interesting" is fairly subjective.

There's "dramatic and challenging" though, and there's "this is an awful person who is awful to his or her partner." At least some of the characters and relationships that this secret could refer to would be on that extreme where the asshole is such an awful person who treats everyone so awfully that it is a wonder how the writers can possibly root for them.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not a big fan of Hook (Graham forever tbh), but Neil? Neil bored me to TEARS and I felt zero chemistry between him an Emma. (Tbf that might have been an actor, cause I really loved the idea of Emma with grown up Bae in season 1)

[(Anonymous)]

I only started shipping Neal with Emma when it became clear the writers were gonna pair her with Hook, and only started shipping Emma with Regina when Neal died. Now I’m in rare OT3 Neal/Emma/Regina hell.

[philstar22]

I never could get into Emma/Regina myself. I kind of shipped Hook/Regina as a in-the-past villain hook-up thing at one point, but I quickly started hating Hook. I did play around with Emma/Regina for a while, but when Robin showed up I just really loved him with Regina and that became my favorite Once ship. Still bitter about them killing him off rather than Hook.

[(Anonymous)]

Same same same

Gimme dysfunction, always. I don't want the heroine to have a nice, healthy relationship. I want to see her have all the explosive, messy, hot, antagonistic passion with the asshole that would be ill-advised IRL.

[(Anonymous)]

So. Much. This.

[(Anonymous)]

No the assholes get chosen because of the trope that "'good girls' alway fall for bad boys". It's pathetically overdone at this point, pretty much the same extent as the "damsel in distress" stereotype.
The assholes are never interesting because they always end up being the same kind of idiot-bitch who just wants the girl to submit to them, (in most cases) before they realize the power of love, and then immediately strips themselves down of all their "Bad Boy" tropes and essentially becomes the nice guy that the heroine should had skipped the useless drama just to be with in the first place- Or, if not, it just keeps them and their entire relationship at problematic at best, and down right unhealthy at worst... Yay?

I don't think OP's talking about fanfiction here, probably, but the point remains the same.

[(Anonymous)]

Missing the point. Nobody's arguing that badly written assholes aren't badly written. We're talking about well written assholes here.

nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

"dramatic and challenging relationships" doesn't necessarily mean the asshole is well-written, though. It just means they're part of what the original commenter considers a dramatic and challenging relationship.

What if the heroine is an asshole, too?

[(Anonymous)]

Because sometimes they really are.

Re: What if the heroine is an asshole, too?

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP, but then they absolutely belong with the asshole. No doubt about it.

[philstar22]

I agree. Looking at you Once Upon a Time. I don't even like Emma, but Hook was a shit character, a shit person whose "redemption" was half-assed, and didn't even have chemistry with Emma.

[(Anonymous)]

So many stories seem to have no idea how assholish different characters actually are

[philstar22]

This. And also there is a range of asshole and different types of asshole. And there are redemption arcs that work and those that don't. You can have an antihero sort of character who is rough around the edges but has a good heart. Not my personal cup of tea, but if done right it is at least understandable why someone would pick them as a partner.

And you can take a character that starts off closer to the bad end of the range and works there way up and earns it. But earns it is key with redemption arcs, and many writers don't seem to get this. They want to rush to the finish, which is what happened with Hook. Or they want to have it both ways, which happened with Rumple where he kept going from good to bad to good and back to bad again until I stopped being willing to accept redemption for him.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this completely!

[meadowphoenix]

I agree when its really obvious who the assholes are, but sometimes you have two assholes, or the heroine is also an asshole and then I just hope some good character development comes of it. It usually doesn't, but I hope.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

This one caught my eye because I'm writing a love triangle where the heroine has to choose between a manipulative asshole and an abusive asshole.

Oops.

Clearly I don't know how to write a decent guy. Good thing I prefer my fictional characters and their relationships fucked up and dysfunctional. XD

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't say this is how it always happens - I can think of several off the top of my head where it doesn't. My bigger pet peeve is that one has to be a jerk at all. It's a cop-out when the "nice guy" wins then. Let it be an actually difficult choice that the character in the middle has to make. That is far more interesting and dramatic. Mostly I am tired of love triangles of any kind, though.