[ SECRET POST #5476 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5476 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #784.
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]

05. https://i.imgur.com/8NsTeo0.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, I get what you say but it very much does happen to male side characters as well. Basically, as long as the characters are not the two main romantic leads, everyone is just there to further the plot for them.

[meadowphoenix]

I think OP is talking about the limited breadth of female characters, rather than the existence of disposable characters, so what "doesn't happen" is that limitation of type.

[(Anonymous)]

Possibly, but even so, the types for male characters are just as limited. There's just generally more of them than female side characters.

[meadowphoenix]

This is relying on the idea of quantity to minimize problems with quality, which doesn't explain the differences in quality OP sees, isn't necessarily the logical consequence of quantity on quality, and ironically proves the point about quality, because practically the more characters a creator has that the audience must distinguish, the more there is pressure to narratively distinguish them, which improves quality on the whole.

[(Anonymous)]

This.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you, OP. I've gotten into cdramas more during the pandemic and the lack of decent female characters is a little sad. So many toxic tropes...

[(Anonymous)]

It's the internalized misogyny, babyyyyyyy! It's way more common in yaoi and danmei stories. I suppose the english-speaking fandom culture of "you don't have to bash female characters just because you want to see male characters bone" isn't that much of a thing there, to my detriment.

At a certain point I feel like it's just the author being a shitty writer. If I see some characters being written well, but others (women) being written as one dimensional sneering villains, and Actually Satan, then I think I think the author is showing their weaknesses for relying on those sort of tropes. Additionally I don't feel that their own romantic lead characters are spared from being written in other annoying ways too (e.g. bad uke tropes, feminization, etc.).

It may be deep and complicated for people who can overlook such yaoi cliches, but for me I've always seen it as the author being quite shallow in just rushing things and making the cast villainous and predictable, just for the sake of bumrushing towards 'look at how virtuous and pious my OCs are! They will now fuck!' Like you, the author, could've spent some time writing characters with more emotional depth than that, but nope, all women are evil, that's the conflict you want to go with since other people have already written 'solutions' to that plot conflict and it's easy pablum. It's okay for porn, but it's not deep.

I'm not angry at people who enjoy these stories because I'm glad they're showing in interest in Ancient China, which is something that I like a lot. But I will say that the writers of danmei still have flaws, and it feels like I'm reading so-so at best fanfic rather than something that's as classical literature as the way people are treating it.

I still appreciate danmei becoming a major powerhouse even in the face of the political pressures in where it's made. However, I don't respect the writing cliches, and internalized misogyny itself.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry but all the "bad" yaoi tropes are the reason why I like it so much. As a LGBTQ and a kinky person, I like reading about characters that have the same sexual preferences as me without the whole BDSM 101 that you find in western media as soon as power exchange comes up. I know danmei is far from being perfect but I find it incredibly hot and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

Plus that way I'm sure there will be no switching involved, which is the thing that always turns me off.

[(Anonymous)]

DA Hey, if you're enjoying yourself, have fun!

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

By all means, enjoy what you enjoy! I have my gripes, and I'm validating what OP is saying, but like I'm also not knocking people for enjoying the stories. Please don't let me yuck your yum.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes you are. Accusing everyone who writes danmei of either internalized misogyny and/or being a shitty writer is judgey as fuck.

[(Anonymous)]

How do I say I don't like something and express my feelings why, without pissing off the fans of said something? How do I say that I've seen some stories just do the "and then I owned that bad guy (woman in this case), and me and my boyfriend kissed right in front of her, and the crowd applauded" plot resolution, and thought it was kinda cliche?

Going with what the secret is saying, some things just don't land with me. I have heard through the grapevine about good things about stories that I don't have the patience to read all the way through. A person is not a bad person for enjoying things that I don't like, and a writer* isn't either (you could probably point out examples where this isn't literally true, but why). But no, some tropes (pure evil woman) are instant turn-offs for me that will make me push the backbutton and enjoy the others authors who are writing the same sort of m/m stories, but without that trope in particular.

In conclusion, if you think I'm being judgy, then you're being even more judgy as fuck than me.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I may not like a lot of dated yaoi/BL tropes(mainly the rapey stuff), but I so agree with switching being a turn-off. I get why others like it, of course. But I guess I’ll always be stuck in the “I want a clear top/bottom dynamic” zone for both my slash and femmeslash.

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of your comments is just baseless assumptions but this part "It's way more common in yaoi and danmei stories" is just laughably untrue. I have seen just as much up to far more vile misogyny/internalized misogyny in het stories (especially those with a female lead) where all the other female characters are just evil bitches to threaten the main romance. And let's not get started on the raging misogyny in het harem novels etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

I think you fundamentally disagree with my perspective in the same way that I think I'd fundamentally disagree with yours, and there's not much that I can do about it but shrug my shoulders. I've just never been a fan of seeing fic where female characters were "bashed," not even when I was a young teen getting into fandom, and I still associate it with a prepubescent "I'm not like other girls. Girls are icky!" attitude from fellow teen writers that still persists. Seeing women get written so evilly and/or stereotypically still isn't my favorite.

It's true now that I think of the western romance genre of published books that "I'm not like other girls"-style of internalized misogyny is still decently common. But one, it's not noticeable to me because I'm surrounded by other stories I read from writers on tumblr and ao3 who manage to write m/m romance stories without those sort of tropes at all. And two, even western stories that have those internalized misogyny tropes are more tolerable than how chinese danmei or korean donghua tend to go. Just so much melodramatics, and I'm not engaged enough in the sexy to put up with everything else.

If you like the danmei, sure go ahead! I just want to validate what OP is saying because I too am not super engaged with danmei due to the female character bashing being a distraction point.

(I'm not including in this discussion stories written by men that include actual misogyny in it because that's outside of the scope.)

[(Anonymous)]

Idk, I feel like your brand of "it's all internalized misogyny and I'm smart enough to dislike it unlike the people who enjoy this genre" is its own kind of "not like the other girls"

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

New anon here. For what it's worth, I agree with everything you said in this discussion and I'm not surprised at all by the negative reactions you got. All of their counter-arguments are just deflections and whataboutism ("het romance is just as bad!" - who said it wasn't?). I've seen it all before.

I enjoy m/m fiction too, even stuff that would be labelled as "toxic", but I can admit there are works with tropes that scream internalized misogyny. There's nothing wrong with pointing that out. It kind of baffles me how sensitive some fans are to any criticism of the danmei and BL genres.

[(Anonymous)]

This

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmmm. There's Ye Wangxi from 2ha? (With the caveat that the character has a complicated story regarding gender expression and thus, could be argued as genderfluid or trans or... whatever pleases a particular fan.)

She has a character arc of her very own, is widely considered Completely Admirable, has an effect on the main plot, survives the novel.

Honestly, most of the female characters in 2ha - sometimes they're villains, or grafting, or messy bitches - but they felt three-dimensional, with motivations that made sense to themselves. It's not bad that way, for a danmei. (To be fair, they don't always have a lot of screentime, I don't want to give you false expectations here. But for a danmei?)

[(Anonymous)]

2ha is also one of the examples where the male side characters consistently get the short end of the stick as well, so it kind of evens out.

[(Anonymous)]

there is so much death... o_0

[(Anonymous)]

Ye Wangxi is a terrible example of this, because she did absolutely nothing after she was revealed to be a woman. She essentially got nerfed to damsel in distress status. 2HA *specifically* is full of the stuff OP is talking about; *all* the women are either villainous, unlikable, or utterly useless, including Ye Wangxi.

[(Anonymous)]

I don’t personally read danmei, or watch their adaptations, although I’ve been wanting to. So take what I say with a grain of salt, especially because I don’t have any immediate examples to give you. But I feel like I’ve seen several female characters in danmei series being praised for being good characters in FS alone.

I’m not surprised that they may not be the majority, but I have seen some female characters that seem to be exceptions.