[ SECRET POST #6975 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6975 ⌋

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


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[Hazbin Hotel]



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[Star Wars Special: C-3PO (2016)]























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 25 secrets from Secret Submission Post #996.
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://cdn.imgchest.com/files/2293ade4a98b.png

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

I witnessed some kerfluffle recently where an artist announced an added bonus for a patreon smut BL fancomic. The issue was that the top/bottom dynamic (for this single bonus, mind, not the entire comic) was the opposite of what the comic was originally tagged as (so B/A instead of the tagged A/B). And several people completely LOST THEIR SHIT about it. And while I can understand that if it's on Patreon and you pay for it, it's not an ideal situation but damn, it's a BONUS chapter. You'll live.

And some comments went all "it's not just about who tops but the character dynamic/characterisation is suuuper different for A/B than B/A" and seriously? If the characterisation changes so drastically based on who takes it up the ass, that sounds like you REALLY need to examine some weird underlying prejudices you might be having.

[(Anonymous)]

Nope. The characterization can be different.

This isn't real life, where it would be absolutely absurd to say that I can tell someone's bedroom habits just by meeting them. Fiction, if it's any good, has to abide by certain rules of narrative structure, continuous thematic elements, and characterization that we get to delve in deeper than any actual person we will ever meet. All of those things means that we do get insight into what their character is/will be like in the bedroom and if it doesn't flow with the narrative and the thematic elements, it's bad characterization.

[feotakahari]

As a writer, “rules of narrative structure” are invited to kiss my ass. A story runs on its own internal logic, and just because a particular logic has proven reliable for many stories doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do things. After all, it’s pretty unusual story logic for the hero to have a personality like mine, and I like to see myself in heroes once in a while.

(The proven role for my personality is “the guy in a comedy who bad things keep happening to.”)

[(Anonymous)]

Tell me you don't understand the difference between narrative structure and characterization without saying you don't understand the difference between narrative structure and characterization.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, cut it out. If you aren't capable of having an actual discussion with people, then go find some toys to play with, as that's far more in line with your maturity level.

[(Anonymous)]

I completely disagree. Fiction, if it's any good, will capture the complexities of being human, including the fact that people behave differently in different settings and contexts, and may at times do contradictory things. Good writing establishes personality traits, predilections, and dynamics that remain consistent even when characters have those divergent behaviors -- including in the bedroom.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

and it's really not that deep. using literary terms and insisting that you're somehow devaluing the very heart of characterization by writing "...and likes to take it up the ass" versus " and likes to top" is laughable. A good writer can make bedroom preferences work regardless of the character's personality, sometimes even in spite of them.

it's fine to have pairing prefs! just don't dress it up like you're god's gift to literature if you do it one way and a travesty to the very soul of art if you do it the other. just fucking admit you have preferences.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that outside-the-bedroom characterization and sexual roles HAVE to be written in a way that feels like it correlates or "agrees" or whatever, but I very much agree that, in fiction, it is 100% fine and not weird at all to enjoy or even prefer characterization and sexual roles that are written in a way where one feels (to the writer and/or readers) like it informs the other, or where it feels like there's some kind of coherence between the two.

Obviously topping and bottoming don't have inherent values unto themselves, and can be written in any way that suits the writer. But that means any way that suits the writer, including ways that cater to the kinds of binary dom!top and sub!bottom depictions that some people want to insist are problematic.

[(Anonymous)]

CAN be. Does not HAVE to be. To assume it will be based solely on who tops and bottoms is still absurd if you don't know how a specific writer portrays them. With art, all you need is a visual preference, though.

[(Anonymous)]

This all may be true of this particular unnamed ship, don't know what it is, can't say

Broadly implying every ship's characters and dynamics should or would remain exactly the same if flipflopped, or else you're some sort of bigot (?), is going too far in the other direction though. Characters, just like real people, can have explicitly stated preferences and aversions and interests and these ARE character traits

Of course that doesn't mean the character is incapable of physically doing something else, but the dynamic of someone doing something they're into, and doing something they're not into is very much not the same dynamic. Unless their preferences have magically changed

[(Anonymous)]

Real people also experiment and try things out with their partners, though, and doing so doesn't totally change the dynamic between them. Also, the sexual preferences of real people can and do evolve over time. Not every like and dislike is set in stone.

[(Anonymous)]

Some do, some don't. It's as wrong to say all do as all don't.

[(Anonymous)]

And how it contradicts character just mixing it up in a bedroom?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't understand what you said there.

[(Anonymous)]

+10000000

[(Anonymous)]

Im not saying it should stay the absolute same at all times. But if who tops and who bottoms DRASTICALLY changes the characterisation to the point it becomes unreadable to you then yes, there likely are some biases, either with you or in the fandom that changes the characters based on their sex dynamics. And I never used the term bigotry, that's all on you.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT - I honestly don't know what fandom(s) you're in where characterization doesn't noticeably change in accordance with top/bottom roles a lot of the time. I'm not saying it's a good thing (or a bad thing for that matter); I'm just saying it's been extremely common in the vast majority of slash fandoms I've been in over the past twenty-plus years. Not necessarily always a drastic change in characterization, mind you, but at the very least a noticeable one. Like, I would estimate that nineteen times out of twenty, I can guess who the bottom is in a particular fic based purely on how the characters and their dynamic are written, before anything sexual happens at all.

Not that these people complaining about top/bottom configuration in their bonus content weren't being silly. I agree that they were. It was bonus content. But I do agree with them that most of the time, for better or worse, top/bottom roles do make a difference in how the characters and the pairing's dynamic is written.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean yeah, it does but not always so drastically that they might just as well be different characters depending on who tops. It's basically another factor in general OOCness where the canon characterisation is changed to fit the fanfic author's needs instead of the writing and dynamics being fitted to the existing characterisation. Only with top/bottom discourse, there are potentially additional biases at work (like feminising the bottom).

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I never once mentioned anything being unreadable to me, I was talking about the many ships, especially in BL, in which characters canonically state preferences about that sort of thing. To have them suddenly swap preferences apropos of nothing does change dynamics and changes character traits. Saying 'swapping the roles of any two characters changes nothing' is as broadly wrong as saying 'swapping the roles of any two characters changes everything'; neither of these statements are overall true, because it's on a per character per ship basis.

No ship was named, so all I can comment on is the broad generalization that was made.

[(Anonymous)]

That was a general "you", mainly aimed at the people mentioned in the secret (who throw tantrums about top/bottom roles drastically changing the character to an unbearable degree) but I see the misunderstanding and apologise for putting this in a way that could be easily misunderstood. The fancomic in question is a BL fancomic/doujinshi to a non-BL canon. Again, sorry for the confusion.

[(Anonymous)]

at BEST you get a lot of people who think top/bottom and dom/sub are interchangeable... and at worst, people who treat top/bottom as male/female. What my preferences are, how strong they are, and whether I think they align with kink at all depends on the ship, but across many fandoms, I do see a lot of weird attitudes about it.

[(Anonymous)]

One of the people who insisted this changes the characterisation added "because I like A as the puppy dom and B is my wife" so... yeah. (Granted, likely tongue in cheek to a degree but there IS some feminization going on. B is also popular as a cuntboy when he bottoms in this fandom. Go figure.)