[ SECRET POST #6349 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6349 ⌋

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


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[Justice League]



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07. [WARNING for discussion of weight loss/potentially EDs]




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08. [WARNING for discussion of underage ships/pedophilia]























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #907.
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]

02. https://i.imgur.com/Fdbf8JN.png

[(Anonymous)]

So... Start with The Colour of Magic, and The Light Fantastic, then Sourcery, then Eric, then Interesting Times, then The Last Continent, and finally, The Last Hero. There ya go, soon to be Rincewind fan.

[(Anonymous)]

YEAH

This is the one time I've ever seen someone ACTUALLY recommend starting with tCoM, but under the circumstances you are correct.

[(Anonymous)]

slightly off topic but I'm sick of the "cowards are hilarious" trope. Hanna Barbera LOVES LOVES LOVES this and it's not funny. The only people to make this funny are the Monty Python guys and that was because Sir Robin was a knight and knights are supposed to be brave.

[(Anonymous)]

Let me tell you about a fella called Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM. Coward through and through, just he's got to keep pretending he isn't or someone might shoot him.

[(Anonymous)]

What's he from?

[(Anonymous)]

Warhammer 40K.

[(Anonymous)]

Ciaphas Cain RULES and Jurgen is the true hero.

Seconded.

[(Anonymous)]

What? In this economy? Good hunting, I guess.

[(Anonymous)]

/offers you One Piece and 1000+ chapters of Usopp's unending arc about living with his cowardice

[(Anonymous)]

I think Buggy might actually fit the bill better? Usopp has his badass moments when he's forced into them.

[meadowphoenix]

i agree with the comment above about rincewind, but imo the problem you're going to have is that the state of cowardice is meant to be moral, and is to some extent an interaction with social responsibility even if the actual definition is more broad. if someone is a coward by the terms of the environment of the media...it's actually a lot of work to make that person a good person, because being a coward is a character judgment in of itself. the implication is that the person refuses to risk anything. someone who helps and supports until it risks anything is going to be normal sure, but not admirable in the way that "good person" usually supports.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a really good point.

Personally I would love if we had more media in which male characters specifically were depicted as being far more inhibited by fear. Give me male good-guy characters who are "chicken"! Not just "Oh no, the villains are going to harm a beautiful, defenseless woman I care about; I feel noble, manly fear for her well-being!" No. Give me men who are scared for themselves.

I haven't finished watching Fallout yet, but I really liked the moment early on where one of the male characters admits to his sister that he's not going with her on a probable suicide mission to look for their dad, because he's "not brave enough." That was great. We very rarely get to actually see genuine fear (the kind that undermines resolve and intention) from important male characters who aren't villains, jokes, or afterthoughts, and I wish we got to see it more.

But I do think there's a distinction between a character showing fear, even to a point where they freeze or flee, and a character who lacks the inner strength to risk anything, period. Personally, it's only the latter type of character I would consider a coward. The former type of character may see themselves as a coward, and/or be perceived by others as a coward, but I wouldn't call them a coward. They're just a person reacting to fear in a very natural, human way.

[meadowphoenix]

yeah i think you and i have the same understanding of coward, but OP's must be more broad.

and i would love it if more dudes were afraid and avoidant in more dramatic scenarios.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I think a lot of people would call someone who panics and runs from conflict a coward. Even if they aren't thinking about risk. Or so afraid they aren't thinking at all. Or even if they're literally, physically paralyzed with anxiety about something or around people, especially in a time or circumstance where things like anxiety disorders aren't known about.

We could argue the meaning of "true cowardice" and "true bravery" all day, but when you look at what gets people called cowards, it's mostly about behavior - fled from a battle, ran away to avoid making a decision, hid to avoid talking to someone - and not what they were thinking at the time.

Personally, I think it's difficult to talk about a lot of fear responses in terms of what people are "willing" to risk, because that requires being able to sit and logically think things through and decide upon a course of action after weighing benefits and drawbacks, and you can't do that if you're like, a panicked teenage conscript in WWI fleeing a battlefield who is 100% not thinking at the time about whether it's moral or worth the risk to abandon his mates - no time to think, just fucking bombs, run! Then having to deal with the fallout and survivor's guilt of that, and realizing that none of it was particularly conscious, and he'd probably do it again if it came to it.

I mean, I'd read a story about that.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this. There's nothing morally admirable about a coward who remains a coward and never actually steps up to do anything even when all of the chips are down. I don't see how you can paint a character like that in any sort of positive light and honestly, I wouldn't want to read about a character like that either.

[(Anonymous)]

Scooby Doo and Shaggy, for the win!

[(Anonymous)]

see, I told you HB loves this trope....

DA

[(Anonymous)]

You take Hanna Barbera too seriously. I hate the "cowards are always secretly badass" cliche, and I dropped a movie because the only character who was terrified about the current situation (and rightfully so) was portrayed as an annoying burden bringing down everyone else, but that was because it was a serious movie where things got taken seriously. I can't imagine being offended by freaking Scooby Doo.

Re: DA

[(Anonymous)]

da but those two things aren't mutually exclusive? You can have a character who is absolutely terrified about the situation but still manages to pull it together enough to do something when needed even while still being terrified.

Re: DA

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not offended by it. I just think it's not funny.

[feotakahari]

There’s this book series called The Damned that’s honestly kinda garbage, but it has this one group of aliens called the Wais who faint just thinking about violence. The only good character is a Wais military historian who hands out barf bags before her lectures. When she’s caught on an actual battlefield, she predicts she’ll faint and asks to be shoved out of the way before someone steps on her.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. Is the Wals' reaction considered a physiological one like how some terrestrial prey animals freeze?

[feotakahari]

It’s not really explained much, but it’s mentioned that excessive stress can give them brain bleeding.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, the character arcs for characters with a functioning sense of self preservation have gotten pretty predictable. And the thing is, people have those reactions (and for the most part, do not magically overcome them) because on an organism level, it prevents a lot of needless death. Most fights between animals stop happening when they have a clear sense of who would win, and that often gets worked out before anyone actually attacks or before anyone gets seriously hurt. It looks like cowardice if you apply human moralizing to it, but if you don't ... it just looks like having enough common sense not to fuck yourself over.