fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5926 ]

[ SECRET POST #5926 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5926 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

[A Heist/A Date/In Space with Markiplier and Who Killed Markiplier]

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

[Dear Monster]

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

[Beanytuesday]

__________________________________________________

10.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #848.
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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

10. https://i.imgur.com/CL2y2oc.png

No comment on the secret itself, but I really want some Lucky Charms right now.

Same.

Ditto.

*bows head in prayer on top of my keyboard* I know what you're getting at but also let's be fair to the other side, there aren't any writers expecting you in particular to care about anything concerning their work. Because they don't care about or even know you. Let writers write what they want to write and do the legwork of finding books that do happen to appeal to you. Amen.

You must have read a totally different secret because this isn’t just about books.
And OP is valid in calling out a bad trope that fuels RL issues that include, but aren’t limited to, sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and general entitled assholery.

Excuse me. Substitute 'books' for 'all media'.
Also that's an additional problem there that you just brought up - fearing the use of tropes that might lead to RL issues. A writer is not inherently responsible for how an audience may or may not interpret their work. An audience is responsible for their own reactions, Steven King's novel 'Rage' for historical example.

SA
That said, yes, of course there are of course some writers that are assholes and what they write about may very well suck. (As I'm sure some clever commenters will throw back at me. Which, hey, fair.)

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-03-28 23:07 (UTC) - Expand

Tired worn out tropes that the secret is pointing out they’re tired of consuming. And good luck avoiding the trope because movies and tv studios and all the big publishers have flooded the market with media featuring it. Like what you like, but it’s ok for OP to be sick of it and they’re not alone because this is a constant discussion in fandom spaces.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-03-28 23:10 (UTC) - Expand

never write like this again.

And +1 on above anon, way to completely misread the secret entirely.

there aren't any writers expecting you in particular to care about anything concerning their work.
come on. come on. people absolutely care in general or in toto in place of the specific, to the point where it amounts to the same thing. and frankly, given the way author-audience interactions have developed, I wouldn't even say it's always in general anymore and I think specifically seeking out audience interpretations to comment on like some authors do makes "well they weren't thinking about y/n" irrelevant.

Assholery is definitely not a substitute for charm, but for some people it can have its own appeal within a fictional context.

The Absolute Nightmare is a character trope I am a total sucker for, and most of the time those characters are assholes, or at least they start out as assholes, to one extent or another. The question for me is, 1. What else are they besides an asshole, 2. Why are they like that?, and most importantly, 3. Is the narrative critical of the character's assholery, or does it mostly glorify the character at the expense of everyone around them?

A lot of asshole characters I enjoyed ten or fifteen years ago would bug the heck out of me now, because at the time I was far more okay with seeing asshole characters who were largely validated by the narrative. These days I still love them, but only if the narrative itself takes a much more nuanced approach to the character.

What was that one Dresden Files quote? “Everyone likes a smartass as long as they’re snarking at someone else,” or something like that. Can’t say I see the appeal myself.

Agreed, it's been done to death, and there are only a few characters whose writing justifies it appropriately (House comes to mind)

I can enjoy fictional assholes but the narrative absolutely has to treat them as the dick they are and not truss up their shittery as some kind of 'mature ideal' as if it's somehow difficult to be an asswipe irl and that being kind is naive and stupid, or ignore that they're an asshole in the first place. I don't need them to get better or grow depending on the story, sometimes a dick who swans in to snark at someone/something is 100% what I'm after. It's a careful balancing act though because it's absolutely the kind of character-type that can be awful from the get go or wear out their welcome very quickly.

I got fed-up of Sherlock(from Sherlock, lol) because of this as he would treat the people around him like shit and yet still have friends??? Like after a certain point: no, those people will just leave, yet they never did because they were just props in his story and ugh. I got so fed-up at the constant validation of his narcissism.

Yeah, Sherlock was maybe the worst for this, IMO. I genuinely liked some of the material from the first two seasons, but the parts I found interesting were obviously not the parts the writers intended people to find interesting, because they basically neglected every single aspect of the early episodes I would've been interested in seeing them explore further, while doubling down HARD on all the parts of the early episodes I thought were the weakest and worst. :/

Case in point: they wanted the ~drama~ and ~spectacle~ of Sherlock being a mess, but they didn't actually want to acknowledge the character's fairly immense failings and flaws in a way that would necessitate taking any sort of responsibility for them, or genuinely grappling with them outside of select OMGSODRAMATIC scenes.

Yes, this. A fictional asshole who is part of a bigger story can be great. A fictional asshole who is meant to be cool and the lead character is just annoying. Sherlock BBC is a great example of this done badly. House MD is one where they sometimes got the balance right and sometimes fucked it up entirely. Tony Stark they started well in his solo movies where there was deliberate room for character growth but didn't do so well in the ensemble movies.

for fictional assholes who are absolutely treated as the dicks that they are (and if you don't mind some dark/offensive subjects that come with assholes being assholes) i recommend it's always sunny in philadelphia. the assholes get treated like assholes and at the same time they can also be unexpectedly sympathetic in some scenes.

I like characters who get away with saying the kinds of things I might be thinking but would never dare say.

I guess it depends. I really liked House, because a lot of the stuff he said was true, even if rather nastily put. I mostly liked Tony Stark, though some people seem to view him as 'more' of an asshole than I really think he was....

Sherlock was the kind of asshole that dies alone, because really.
...trying to think of more asshole characters, and my mind is going blank....somebody needs to make a list.

Yeah, I mostly second this. I mean, I DO suspect that if I were to rewatch House now, there would be moments where I was just like, "Yikes." I think his whole deal wouldn't play nearly as well in 2023 as it did at the time. But back then, yeah, the first couple of seasons definitely worked for me, at least.

I also very much agree about Tony Stark. Pre-Afghanistan Tony was DEFINITELY an asshole and then some. But post-Afghanistan...ehh. I personally would not describe him as an asshole. I would describe him as a complex character with flaws. I would say he was irreverent, deliberately flip, iconoclastic, and at times insensitive. He also had PTSD and spent one movie rapidly deteriorating towards death, and he could dip into asshole territory when he was in a period of intense crisis like that. But one the whole? Nah, I wouldn't describe him as an asshole.

And yeah, the only way Sherlock's character is compelling to me is if he's actively on a badly-needed character growth arc (like he tends to be in fanfic). Canon Sherlock lost all appeal to me when it quickly became apparent that the writers were total fanboys who thought he was just the coolest.

Yeah, sadly House (and ER, omg, ER) and some other shows have aged pretty badly, though in the main there is still some really good stuff there.

ALL OF THIS for Tony, holy crap. The man gets to be snarky when he's literally dying and thinks he has no cure.

Sherlock. *sigh*
It had so much potential......

hmm, I think the problem is that a great deal of people do actually find assholeness charming, in ways that are not necessarily romantic or sexual.

like if we accept that you can be saying or doing something useful and correct and still be an asshole in the saying or doing, then you have to understand that charm is often a function of delightful action v. expected action, and so if the expected action is to follow some social rule, and that rule is stupid (to you), but the asshole breaks it by being an asshole, that can often come across as more fun than harmful because it feels delightful in the transgressing.

I think we have been overloaded with asshole protagonists of various stripes, not all doing the above, so it's just very annoying in a lot of cases lmao.

in ways that are not necessarily romantic or sexual

Oh, you would be surprised. Especially the co-dependent type.

They said 'not necessarily.' That doesn't exclude there being a romantic/sexual component; it simply acknowledges that the phenomenon is not innately romantic/sexual. It extends beyond romantic/sexual appeal, and can exist in the absence of romantic/sexual appeal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only