[ SECRET POST #5654 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5654 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #809.
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]

04. https://i.imgur.com/q2ngcvd.png

[(Anonymous)]

lmao what???

[hey_hey_hey]

Trump would totally be woobified if he was fictional.

[(Anonymous)]

Only if he was played by Tom Hiddleston or Ben Barnes.

[(Anonymous)]

He kind of was by his supporters though, which is something I will forever find boggling.

[tabaqui]

And he WAS fictional, who would care?

[(Anonymous)]

"The only way we can fight them".

By... deciding not to woobify some generic pretty angsty villain dude from some MCU superhero movie?

This is the only conceivable way you can think of to fight IRL Bad People?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, my sweet summer child...

[(Anonymous)]

Fictional villains don't map 1:1 with real-life villains though

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno, I think supervillains are really boring when they're just pure evil. Plus in real life, you can't really fight a supervillain the way you would in a movie.

[(Anonymous)]

Idk. In real life things aren't that simple. I feel like having black and white villains in media is soothing almost. But 'learning to fight them?' You aren't going to find many people who are entirely bad. Unfortunately, the entire human race is capable of doing bad things - ranging from the mildly shitty to being involved in atrocities. You only need the right motivation and lever. Humans - the divine meeting the infernal.

[tabaqui]

*raises hand*
I, for one, can tell fictional villains from real ones, thankyouverymuch.

[philstar22]

Fictional characters are not real. Woobifying villains, while OOC, is not the same as liking real-life evil people.

Also, being interested in villains and exploring the complexities of their characters is not even the same thing as woobifying them. Pointing out their strengths, exploring their backstory, does not mean you are saying they aren't really villains. It just means that good characters of all stripes have complexities, and it is fun for some to explore that when it comes to villains.

[(Anonymous)]

Yo, in case you hadn't heard, fiction and reality are two different things. Most sane people know that.

Like, how many people you think are out there woobifying Kylo Ren who are also like "you know that Putin guy's really not so bad." Do you really think there's overlap there?

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, on one hand I don't like it when fandom woobifies the local genocidal maniac, saying that because a hot guy had a strict dad he should be given a spot on the good guys' team if he does a half-assed apology.

On the other hand, real life people,,, aren't that straightforward. You aren't going to find the key to fighting oppression by watching some superheroes punch a dude into the ground. The villains in (most) media - there are exceptions, of course - are heightened to a ridiculous degree. And I've actually become really impatient with hero narratives, especially superheroes, in the last five years or so - yeah, it's nice to think that one exceptional person with a couple of trusty sidekicks can fix everything, but that's not real life. Real life is boring. It's drudge work, and even for the lucky few who can do more than the bare minimum still spend most of their time on drudge work. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the drudge work pays off, but that can take years or decades of just,,, doing the same thing over and over. It isn't fun, and it mostly isn't inspiring.

So the idea of putting a kind of morality on how people interact with these forms of media is,,, idk, kinda weird to me. Most media that's the kind of thing to attract a fandom isn't realistic or morally complex enough to map in any way onto real life except in the most abstract. It's all fantasy, so having the fantasy of the villain actually being a woobie who just needs love and acceptance to be a total good guy doesn't seem that much different than the fantasy of the good guys defeating the bad guys in some fun, exciting, climactic way.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, that's not how it works.

[(Anonymous)]

Nope, disagree on so many levels. It's important to remember that real-life villains are people, not monsters from outer space, because otherwise we lose sight of how villains are made. And we forget to keep tabs on our own latent villain tendencies, because just about everybody has those. Villains in real life don't think they're villains, they identify with the heroes because they believe they are justified.

Also, how the hell do superhero movies teach us how to fight real villains? Antifa doesn't have any Infinity Stones that I'm aware of.

[(Anonymous)]

The heroes in the shows I watch tend to fight supervillains with magical wands and the power of love. Not sure how that's supposed to work in real life.

[(Anonymous)]

Bullshit. Real life villains are people. Shitty, disgusting people, but still people. And it's very important to be aware of that because if not, it's very easy to just ignore the fact that any person has the potential to become a villain.

The reason people are so disturbed by watching those videos of Hitler chilling with his homies on a nice vacation in the mountains is because this absolute monster appears human and that's not something that sits well with a lot of folks. But it's the truth and it's imperative to remember it.

And yes, I'll just ignore the part where you equate fictional with real life villains. Because that's just dumb.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been able to get my family out of the Star Wars universe, I'll send you some credits to help you get out too.

What?

[(Anonymous)]

Why on Earth would you think more people would be willing to take on a fight with a monster than a person?

And I think when people start calling other people who do horrible things monsters, it absolves them of any sort of responsibility for action for prevention. Are there ways to prevent people from becoming radicalized or indoctrinated into a violent mindset? Yes. Are there ways to prevent people from getting access to weapons? Yes. Are there ways to prevent people from buying into prejudice? Yes.

But if you say someone is a monster, it feels like you are saying nothing could stop them from wanting to do those horrible things and I just don't think anyone's personality or choices are that predetermined.

[(Anonymous)]

To me this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, the media--including fiction--does have the ability to influence how people think about certain topics and issues. So I don’t agree with the hardline stance that fiction has zero bearing or influence on reality.

However, whatever influence on reality fiction may have is almost always extremely indirect and incremental. Whereas attempting to police how people engage with fiction is overtly and directly toxic on a sociopolitical level.

On a seperate note, if I were to make an argument that the fiction we consume correlates to our perception of reality in any way, I would be much more inclined to draw a line of connection between the current sociopolitical climate and our tendency to identify our own “side” as, first of all, part of a hostile binary, and second of all, the righteous Good Guys who deserve to win. Therefore, if anything, I would argue that stories which overtly value empathy, sensitivity, and consideration, while deprioritizing and/or deconstructing concepts of righteousness, power, moral binaries, and galvanized conflict escalation are the most likely to benefit the sociopolitical climate at the moment.

But like I said, it's a complicated issue. The TLDR is that criticizing popular tropes in mainstream media is not going to be the charge with which significant sociopolitical progress is made, but censorship can always be a charge with which significant sociopolitical progress is lost.

[(Anonymous)]

Good bait, but next time you should make it yourself, I think seeing it in the secret-making thread detracted from the shock value!

[(Anonymous)]

That wouldn't do shit for real life... but actually, I want to see something in fiction that takes into the account the now-prevalent audience expectation that a villain will be redeemed. We serve the hottest, saddest baddie, only instead of a redemption arc we show how someone like that uses their appeal to manipulate those around them for their own gain.

Mostly I just want to see how many fans still bite the woobie bait regardless of what the narrative is telling them.

[(Anonymous)]

Your first mistake was conflating fiction with reality. People want interesting and complex characters who are not just shallow cartoon villain.

Also... learn to fight them in real life? lmao. I think you'll find real life villains even more complex than fictional ones. Things are rarely black and white and you cannot defeat "real" supervillains by being really good and moral.

Better abandon this childish world view before you end up even more disappointed.