[ SECRET POST #5558 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5558 ⌋

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


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03. https://i.imgur.com/2dbj7Jd.png
[OP warned for nsfw; two people engaging in oral sex (Bridgerton)]


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04. [SPOILERS for Rise of Skywalker maybe? I don't actually know this fandom]




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05. [WARNING for discussion of sexual harassment]




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06. [WARNING for discussion of abuse]






















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #795.
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]

06. [WARNING for discussion of abuse]
https://i.imgur.com/DYcbnK1.png

[(Anonymous)]

Seeing the stepmother as abusive, let alone OTT abusive, is a total failure to comprehend anything about the movie's messages. Other characters repeatedly tell Sarah flat out that she's being ridiculous to think her life is unfair, and they're right.

[(Anonymous)]

Back in the day, this fandom had a wide age range and I figured some of the younger fans were viewing it from Sarah's POV... not quite unreliable narrator because she wasn't narrating the story, but similar? I could understand sympathizing with her rather me vs. meanie butt parents outlook if you're a kid, but the older I got the more I realized that no, Sarah was totally being an unreasonable brat. I appreciate her emotional development over the course of the film more as an adult now.

[(Anonymous)]

+1, I think a lot of the writers into this were in fact teenagers intensely identifying with Sarah. Which is great, as long as they're not saying this was canon.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, the worst you could say about her is that she was a little uninvolved. Given how Sarah responds to even mild involvement though, who can blame her.

I think the official manga-sequel upped her to full on emotionally neglectful of both Sarah and Toby, which I feel does miss the point.

[sabotabby]

Yep, agreed.

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who comes from a blended family it's very, very common for kids to just...fucking hate the guts of the step-parent/step-siblings regardless of what they do or who they are. These are people that are usually somewhat strangers and are seen by the kid as taking the place of other family members and add on to that the turbulence of teenage years and...yeah. In these situations it's totally common for most if not all of the animosity to be coming from the kid (I know in my case that was totally it.)

I hate it when people misconstrue that as the step-parent/step-siblings as being the ones causing the problems when it's just the kid pushing back against changes they have complicated, strange feelings about that often times they're never taught how to properly deal with or express. And even sometimes when they are and are given proper time to acclimate to the changes it can still just...be hard. Blended families are hard!

[meadowphoenix]

This secret is reminding me of all the reddit AITA posters who immediately tell OP they're being parentified because their parents make them drive their younger siblings places.

[mishey22]

Oh, yeah.

"My parents asked me to pick up my sibling from school one time because they won't be home from work yet and I told them to leap off a cliff. AITA?"

Answers: They're parentfying you, Boo! SO NTA

[meadowphoenix]

lololol yeah so many of them are just like this.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't see how this is a bad thing? If people were claiming the stepmother was abusive in the movie, they're wrong, absolutely. But it's fanfic.

[(Anonymous)]

Some people don't care for poor characterization. /shrug

[(Anonymous)]

Those people should stick to the canon materials then and avoid fanfic.

[(Anonymous)]

Fanfiction doesn't automatically have to equal crappy characterization. Hoping for good writing in fanfic isn't unreasonable or even weird.

[(Anonymous)]

Or, novel idea I know, fanfic can quit having crappy characterisation.

[(Anonymous)]

But...she's not really a character, she's a construct. You could interpret her actions (refusing to let the dog inside out of the rain, not asking/paying Sarah to babysit, taking Sarah's possessions and giving them to Tobey) any way you wish.

And in Return to Labyrinth, she is abusive to Tobey, so I don't see it as a stretch that she'd abuse a hostile teenager she doesn't share blood with.

[(Anonymous)]

Most people don’t consider Return to Labyrinth canon though. I don’t hate it, but I don’t consider it a necessarily canon sequel either.

I do agree with both you and other anons. I agree with the other anons that the stepmother isn’t downright evil, or even a little evil. And Sarah’s extremely hostile attitude towards her, and desire to view herself as the poor abused heroine by acting like her stepmother is evil is the main problem in their relationship. So people writing fic where she’s an actual abusive villain to Sarah is overly simplistic and unrealistic. There’s no nuance there.

Especially because being evil and monstrous is different than being abusive. The concepts intersect of course, especially in fiction. But being evil is a pretty simple concept without a lot of variation or different types of evil, besides outward personality, which only affects what type of character they are and what tropes they fall into. The added personality doesn’t really affect the evil though, because evil is a pretty static concept. But abuse has many different variations and levels, and a seemingly endless amount of ways to portray the abusive qualities. And character traits, personality and backstory actually affect it a lot. It can be broad or specific. And unlike evil, it’s far more realistic, and evokes a lot more personal feelings and potential triggers from the audience. So portraying the stepmother as evil basically cheapens the character, because it’s not real or based on anything, and feels like making the same mistakes as Sarah in imagining life and people as fairytales and fictional tropes. One of the reasons she evokes so much strong feelings in younger viewers and viewers who have gone through similar situations is that her behavior feels like a real type of dismissiveness that can border on emotional abuse and neglect. Even if it’s accidental, and she’s trying her best with a difficult teenage stepdaughter who hates her guts and a baby. So since she evokes so many feelings in people based on more realistic storytelling, making her just an evil monster is actually a downgrade. Not just for her as a character and construct, but in the case of the fic writers and the potential they have to do something more substantial. Not that evil characters are bad, but this feels like the wrong fandom to make everything and everyone so black and white. That kinda defeats the purpose of the some of the overall messages and narratives. Even in the case of the Goblin King, there’s nuance to make him more than just evil, especially because the movie gets the concept of The Fair Folk and their inhuman way of thinking pretty well. I know he’s not the best comparison to the stepmother, considering he’s more of a fleshed out central character than her, but hopefully you get what I mean.

But I also agree with you that some of the stepmother’s actions, the ones you pointed out especially, aren’t great. And easily lend themselves to rubbing younger viewers the wrong way. Even adults who have been in similar situations with step-parents might also hate her pretty easily, even if they might also know that she’s not outright evil. Like I said, her dismissiveness to Sarah could easily feel like the start of emotional abuse and neglect when viewed through a certain lens. Even if that’s almost certainly not what the writers and directors of the actual movie intended, which is understood by people looking at it from another perspective like a lot of the people in this secret thread. But clearly, the creator of Return to Labyrinth saw it from a similar perspective to the ones who saw the stepmother as potentially abusive. But again, it’s canonicity is frequently debated amongst Labyrinth fans.

It’s all very complicated.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh I've always figured that when it came to fan fiction and going over board with something like an evil parent - that its some kind of vent fix for catharsis or something like that.

[(Anonymous)]

That’s a good point!