[ SECRET POST #6188 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6188 ⌋

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


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03.
[9-1-1, Bobby/Athena]



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05.
[Pic is from XKCD]



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08. [SPOILERS for Sea of Stars]





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09. [WARNING for discussion of dub/non con, forced impregnation]

































Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #884.
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]

01. https://i.imgur.com/Wjim07I.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't that kind of a legitimate pondering when you have two fighty characters, though? Because sometimes I, a woman, wonder what would happen if Batman and Iron Man fought (when I'm not wondering how a romantic relationship between them would evolve)?

[(Anonymous)]

Batman is smart, he could just poison IM's glass.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Right, because Iron Man isn't smart. Oh, wait.

That's why it's a good match up, billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist with dead parents against, well, same. Though their traumas and issues stemming from them are somewhat different.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm also a woman and I love debating which of two characters from my canons would win in a fight. It's fun to try to imagine how their powers would work against each other/how well their skills would match up.

[feotakahari]

Honestly, I would prefer works that give attention to HOW the characters beat each other. What I usually get is works where the winning character is “mightier.”

[(Anonymous)]

I did it for genshin, ranking everybody for 1vs1, and I'm not a guy.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah... like, if you want to have a discussion about it, fine. But when that kind of mentality gets up into the writers room/director, you get that bullshit from BvS. "Martha" my ass.

[(Anonymous)]

I admit I'm impressed that you applied the "what you want out of fiction is what you want out of reality" argument to guys male fan behavior for once. It's usually reserved for girls liking toxic or "problematic" ships or characters and women reading books like 50 Shades of Grey.

[(Anonymous)]

They look the same, but it's actually the other way around. Don't see a lot of women in real life supporting pedos who then bring that mentality into fandom. Do see a whole lot of men treating conversations, especially with women, as if they were pvp and they have to "win". And those conversations include fandom.

[feotakahari]

Honestly, there’s one group I think might want in reality what they want in fiction. It’s the people who write about their favorite military stomping everyone else. Which I guess is “who would win,” but it’s a lot more specific than Samus vs. Master Chief, and more specific even than “two armies fight.”

[(Anonymous)]

Idk, I think competition is very normal. We see it in wildlife constantly and it’s a naturally occurring thing in humans from a very young age. Try to be faster than someone else doing a task, comparing things like height, age, abilities…that’s universal.
I can understand media focused on that doesn’t appeal to you but the rest of this sounds like a you problem.

[(Anonymous)]

adding to this that sports is a huge thing a lot of people partake in that's usually centered around competition. it's not something i'm personally interested in but lots of other people are into it.

[(Anonymous)]

Not universal. We are a social species, after all.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure what you mean? Competition is social.

[(Anonymous)]

Competition is pretty normal and doesn't necessarily preclude cooperation or empathy. Team-based competition, for example, is cooperative on its face, and can create intense bonds among teammates. Bonds can even be forged through one-on-one competition: when well-matched opponents face one another, they often come away feeling a kind of respect that can lead to friendship.

Consider, also, that people enjoy competition and find it valuable because it's a means of testing themselves and honing their skills. To win is to accomplish; to lose is to learn. Either way, you're getting direct feedback on the work you've put into something, and specific examples of how you may be able to do even better. Your opponent, in this case, isn't your enemy; they're your teacher. They are, to some extent, your confidant.

I watch a lot of hockey. I'm sure it's a similar story in other sports, but these players are getting traded on a fairly regular basis. They'll be skating for Team A one season; skating against Team A the next. Yes, they get chippy, and there are fights, and there are players that no one likes - but for the most part, they respect one another, and are friends with one another. If it's a Leafs-Bruins game, and a Bruins player gets seriously injured, then despite the rivalry, the Leafs players are gonna root for the injured player to safely get up and off the ice. The competition may be "zero-sum," in the sense that only one team can win the Cup, but it certainly doesn't mean it's 'The Lord of the Flies' out there.

Now, can competition get ugly and toxic? Absolutely! But that's not really about competition, per se. It's about, first of all, the psychology of the folks involved; and second, about whether serious in-group/out-group bias has been activated in those folks (your competitor can be part of your in-group, such as in the case of the above hockey players!). And if someone has in-group/out-group bias activated, then even if they're not competitive, their sense of empathy can completely tank. I've seen people who typically shy away from any hint of conflict express absolutely vicious opinions on what should happen to "bad" people.

On a final note, anon, remember the golden rule of fandom: what people want in fiction does not necessarily reflect what they want in reality. A man can want to see the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny in a movie, but be a total peacenik in real life. And a lot of the "who would win in a fight" conversations are ultimately just for shits and giggles. I'm a woman, and I have fond memories of the "So-and-So Vs. So-and-So" conversations we'd have to pass the time at the cafe where I worked during college. They were silly and over-the-top, and had nothing at all to do with anything any of us were doing in the real world.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem is that the real answer is: In A's book B would win the first round and then A would rally and defeat B.

That's the answer. That's ALWAYS the answer. I'm tired of pretending it's a math problem instead of a fanfic prompt.

[feotakahari]

Bah. Get your Doylism out of here. Watsonians only!

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, me and my friends were debating if Goku could win in a fight against Sailor Moon when we were twelve and we were all girls. I still have these sort of debates with my fandom friends

[(Anonymous)]

Huh, I kind of feel out of step with both the secret and the comments. Unlike commenters here, I do think this activity is way more common in guy-dominated fandom spaces than in women-dominated spaces. Not saying women never do it, but it's a lot easier to avoid it or go a long time without noticing it, whereas sometimes when I check in on Reddit, I'm just like "wat" at seeing a third of the threads being "who would win" "which special technique is more effective" "who's the best fighter" "how does this power level system actually work/scale up" etc.

(Kind of also makes me think of that aspect of dude porn too that is obsessed with specifying how many inches every character's dick is and what cup size every female character has. There's so much "here is a numerical aspect to [activity], and obviously maxing it out means being the best at [activity]!!" which I just... uh do not see in female-dominated fandom at all.)

But unlike OP, I just don't think it's that big of a deal. It's refreshing to me to see people doing fandom in a different way. I wouldn't want to hang out around those spaces regularly because I find the focus on those topics boring, but I don't feel uncomfortable or pessimistic about what this means for society. I AM concerned about people who are thoughtless about competition, domination, winning, etc. and have difficulty imagining that there's anything more to life, and who think that empathy, cooperation, sharing, non-domination, and vulnerability are terrible and bad, and such people do absolutely exist in male fandom spaces. But I would say that a lot of the guys who think about who would win and stuff are actually pretty normal and well-adjusted -- it's just a fun pastime for them.

Also, I think you are right that the big disparity in what men and women find interesting in fandom is kind of worrying and does suggest that men as a whole are socialized very differently than women, but I kind of already know that. Given what I already know about male and female socialization, the way it manifests in fandom is predictable, but the root issue worries me a lot more than the fandom behavior and I don't think engaging in the fandom behavior is necessarily a bad sign about the character of the person who engages in it. I'm worried about the trend but the behavior itself is harmless.

[meadowphoenix]

i just can't imagine thinking a) if something is common for 50% of people and has been since the beginning of time, 100% of people are fucked and b) thinking that moving from having only real people fight in reality to the death to a mix of real people (to the death only accidentally) and thought experiements on fictional characters isn't an improvement.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a lot of toxic stuff going on in male dominated fandoms, but the fun VS conversations aren't it.

They're not just dick measuring contests, often they're creative analyses of canon information applied in logical arguments in order to come to interesting conclusions. Just, you know, disguised a dick measuring contests.