[ SECRET POST #5661 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5661 ⌋

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


01.



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02.
[SIX, a musical about the wives of Henry VIII]


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03.
[Supernatural]


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04.
[Agatha Christie]


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05. [repeat]



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06.
[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]


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07.



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08.









Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #810.
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/qOqaBVx.png

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think this a transphobic take, fwiw.

I don't think Elliot Page should have to play female roles if he doesn't want to, obviously. But clearly keeping the actor was prioritized more by the showrunners than keeping the story coherent, and I lose faith that they have a good grasp on any future events or seasons if they're showing their priorities are like this.

Plus, the simplest solution would've been to get a new female actor to play the character without changing the character instead of changing the fictional world to reflect changes in the real world. Real world changes in theory shouldn't impact anything in a story - even actors literally dying can be replaced with new ones and have a story or character go on. Wouldn't be the first or last franchise to swap actors, and "we specifically wanted a female-presenting actor for this role, and Elliot Page is a male actor that is not female-presenting" would have both respected Page's gender identity and the established character.

Not that trans characters are a bad thing but not when it's like this. I'd feel the same about a character who has shown zero signs of wanting to be a mother or having a partner for example, suddenly having a baby because the actress is pregnant.

Classic case of "handled poorly with the best of intentions"

[(Anonymous)]

>>Plus, the simplest solution would've been to get a new female actor to play the character without changing the character instead of changing the fictional world to reflect changes in the real world. <<

What? Changes in the real world like actors becoming pregnant have an impact on their series characters all the time. Why should this be any different? And why should they spend a lot of time on it when they have complicated story lines to pursue?

[(Anonymous)]

Plus, the simplest solution would've been to get a new female actor to play the character without changing the character instead of changing the fictional world to reflect changes in the real world.

if the objection to changing the character is that it's bad to make changes for Doylist reasons without Watsonian justifications, would that not also apply to recasting in this way

[tabaqui]

Elliot Page told the producer that they didn't have to transition on the show, they *could*, but they trusted the producer vis a vis - telling the story.

[(Anonymous)]

>"we specifically wanted a female-presenting actor for this role, and Elliot Page is a male actor that is not female-presenting"

Maybe they don't care because the character's gender has zero impact on anything. They've changed a ton of stuff from the original comics.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't find it particularly unbelievable.

Vanya dressed in an extremely neutral-to-masculine fashion for the first couple of series and its not exactly unknown at all for a somebody to realise they're trans when they end up in a same-sex relationship.

It didn't strike me as being mishandled or particularly weird outside of the in-world timeframe, anyway. It was a few days for Victor, but obviously a few years for us.

[(Anonymous)]

I also don't think it's a transphobic take.

I think something can be done incredibly well on a Doylistic level while being done terribly on a Watsonian level, and I definitely feel that way about this. I applaud TPTB for handling Elliot's transition and celebrating it on-screen, and watching as an appreciator of the actor and his work I found it incredibly satisfying... but at the same time, watching from a solely-invested-in-fiction perspective, it's the opposite, unsatisfying and shallow.

Like you said, a lot of fandom lack nuance in their perspective, but I think this one calls for it: it's both, and it's okay to prioritise your Watsonian disappointment over Doylist satisfaction.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, the season also opened with a dance-off and ended with a beloved character very nearly being a villain (if not passing that line; YMMV). Plus, in the whole grand scheme, I never felt like the character of "Vanya" was essentially gendered anyway, so the Watsonian side didn't weight very heavily on me, I suppose. There was more going on.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought they were all okay with it because they’re used to so many random, unbelievable stuff happening that Viktor coming out as trans was pretty normal in comparison and Viktor always seemed like a gender-neutral person. Plus there were other things to worry about. I can’t believe no one deadnamed him though, even on accident.

[(Anonymous)]

As a general statement of principle across the board, I think that making a change in an ongoing creative property for Doylist reasons while offering no Watsonian explanation for that change is totally fine and not in any way a problem

[tabaqui]

As someone who doesn't know 'Doylist' and 'Watsonian' from a hole in the ground...it didn't bother me a bit. I didn't feel it was any weirder than someone who could see ghosts or have tentacles coming out of their stomach.

And I think sure, it was a little wish-fulfilling to have his family immediately be perfectly okay/never deadname/etc., but I'm here for that, too, in a show where someone can live on the moon for four years.

[(Anonymous)]

Expecting the viewer to be familiar with the Doyalist rationale for such a major change in character...

To be fair, I'm not sure who wouldn't be familiar with the out-of-universe reason for Vanya's transition at this point. Elliot's transition has been all over the media (and I'm not even plugged into the fandom on Twitter).

[(Anonymous)]

Why would a character deciding to live as a man be any weirder than anything else on the show? Of course the siblings roll with it. One brother can talk to ghosts, one has been spliced with gorilla DNA, they time travel, almost destroyed the world. That is literally the most normal reveal on the show.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh hey, I was going to make a very similar secret myself, but now I don't have to.

I completely agree with this secret.

Personally, I found the way it was handled not just abrupt but also very unsubtle. It definitely felt like a Teachable Moment to me, which is always something that rubs me the wrong way in fiction, no matter how vehemently I agree with the values being espoused.

It’s not that I wanted any of the siblings to refuse to accept Victor or be deliberately transphobic or anything like that, but it felt like they were all being very pointedly written as Exemplary Allies, and IMO they are WAY too messy as people and as siblings to be Exemplary Allies to one of their own about basically anything ever, and I just don’t think this specific development would’ve been an exception.

I just felt like it was both abrupt and also very unnuanced and obviously prescriptive.

I get that some people will be glad it was so prescriptive, and won’t care whether it fit seamlessly into the narrative, because positive trans rep is important. But I hate feeling pandered to, and I hate teachable moments in fiction, so personally I wish they’d handled it a bit better.

Notably, I still have three episodes left to go in S3, so if anything occurs in the next three episodes that counters what I'm saying here, then my bad. I was waiting until I was done S3 to post my secret on this, but since OP beat me to it with a similar secret, I'm just gonna comment here and scrap my secret.

[(Anonymous)]

i've never watched this but i'm a trans guy named viktor and now i'm worried people are going to think it's because of the show D:

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, it's the same as a show dealing with an actor's pregnancy, or the COVID restrictions of the last few years meaning different schedules and scene blocking, or availability problems with an actor. Some shows deal with it well, some shows don't, I think this was one of the smoother ways to deal with a major off-screen change.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, tbh. And I feel the same way when actors leave a role for whatever reason and the show writers come up with some ridiculously dramatic way to have the character exit the show instead of just having them take a new job in a different city or something mundane. I don't like any sort of behind-the-scenes change like that having a major effect on the narrative because to me it just feels contrived and jarring. I would much rather that things that happen behind the scenes stay separated from the story.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's transphobic take. But frankly I don't really agree with it. I think that Viktor's plot was cute. It's a bit weird considering time frame, but this show have too much nonsense going on so whatever.
On the other hand, I couldn't finish the season AGAIN because characters were too annoying. Especially SPOILERS
Allison being straight up villain.

[(Anonymous)]

I think this sort of gets at what I was feeling when I heard about it. But for me it's less that it comes out of nowhere and more that it feels somewhat banal, or at least more real-world, than if Vanya had body-swapped or been replaced with an alternate timeline person or any of the other weird shit that goes on in the show.

Granted I haven't seen seasons two or three yet so I don't feel like I can have much of an opinion on how they did it, but when I heard about it my response was "that's... ordinary."

[(Anonymous)]

I feel sorry for Page, because I can't help but see someone who has been hijacked by a cult. Damn Hollywood. :(

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think this is personally a transphobic take but I also don't think it's a super out of left field transition either.

Season 1 Vanya was very... obviously uncomfortable in her skin. Obviously this can be chalked up to being ostracized from her family for NOT being special, but in retrospect with season 3 it can also just be Viktor being uncomfortable as Vanya but not knowing fully why.

Even in Season 2 Vanya seemed uncomfortable with herself except when she was with Sissy. Cissy?

Also season 1 and 2 had very masc presentation even when he was still presenting as Vanya, like... sure they could have continued to make Elliot play Vanya but... imo it definitely doesn't come across as abrupt or 'holy shit where did this come from'?

[(Anonymous)]

I wholeheartedly agree, and as soon as I heard about Elliot transitioning I started praying they'd have a time slip-up and have Vanya accidentally come back in her younger body like Five. Tbh, compared to the rest of the cast, I never considered Elliot a particularly revelatory actor. He was obviously cast for name recognition, and while he has been serviceable in the role, there was never anything that another half-way competent lesser-known actress could have done.

And I wish more people would be willing to point out that the UA was always way unbalanced in the genders, and the only thing that made it better was that Vanya was above and beyond the most powerful character. (And Allison seriously should have been #6, I don't know how she was considered third from the bottom in terms of power potential.) We haven't crossed some feminist bridge where the issue is gone, we still need representation of strong female characters. Lila kind of helped, but without the Handler or Cha-Cha now and the female Sparrows (Sloane included) being criminally underdeveloped, we're left with a sausage-fest beyond all reason.

[(Anonymous)]

Vanya is the diminutive for Ivan, a very male name, so it could be argued they were foreshadowing it from the beginning.

(I know that's impossible but still)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have any strong opinions on how the storyline handled his transition, but to be honest, I think Page has been hot trash in this role from day one and I was secretly hoping for a recast.