Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2011-10-19 07:33 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2011-10-19 07:33 pm
[ SECRET POST #1751 ]
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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02.
[Skins Gen 2]
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03.
[Resident Evil]
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04.
[Wiglaf and Mordred]
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05.
[Natsume Yuujinchou]
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06.
[Stargate Atlantis]
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07.
[Magic by the Lake]
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08.
[Downton Abbey]
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09.
[Discworld]
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10.
[EverymanHYBRID]
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11.
[Talent Finland]
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12.
[Team NChick]
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13.
[Devil May Cry]
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14.
[Gunnerkrigg Court]
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15.
[Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol]
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16.
[Babe Pig in the City/Dark City/Tekkon Kinkreet]
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17.
[Boardwalk Empire]
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18.
[Boy Meets World]
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19.
[Sanctuary]
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20.
[Final Fantasy VII]
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21.
[HP]
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22.
[Nick Frost, Simon Pegg]
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23.
[Girly and Gunnerkrigg Court]
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24.
[V for Vendetta]
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25.
[Tintin]
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26.
[Sons of Anarchy]
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27.
[Beauty and the Beast]
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28.
[Del Barrio's "Curiah City"]
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29.
[Atsushi Kousaka]
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30.
[Portal]
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31.
[An Education]
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32.
[HP]
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33.
[Serenity Rose]
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34.
[Terry Jones]
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35.
[Sanctuary]
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36.
[Mirage of Blaze]
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37.
[AKB48]
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38.
[Silent Hill]
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39.
[Brendan Fraser]
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40.
[Pokemon]
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41.
[Stephen Merchant]
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42.
[Downton Abbey]
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43.
[Pleasantville]
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[Galaxy Quest]
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[Final Fantasy VII]
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46.
[Nanoha Strikers]
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47.
[Foo Fighters]
Notes:
If your secret contains the name or logo of the series or is addressed like "Dear Fandom X, I think Y about you" there's no need to mark down the fandom again in the post. (Kinda figured this was a given, but…)
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 110 secrets from Secret Submission Post #250.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - hit/ship/spiration ], [ 1 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.
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Also Tom's been an ass about Annie/Kat shippers in the past. It's his comic and if he wants to write a story about Annie and Kat as friends and nothing more, there's nothing wrong with that, but seriously, not everybody who ships it is a creepy pedo. Not to mention mocking some of the people who wanted to ask about queer issues in the comic and stuff. Kind of a dick move.
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(Anonymous) 2011-10-20 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)I suspect he has brushed the worst sectors of fandom and found things NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN BY SANE MINDS. And the poor guy has never been the same.
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I didn't know about Tom being an ass to Kat/Annie shippers, but tbh he's always been kind of awkward and he's an ass about a lot of things, so. I see that as less him singling queers out and more him being a dick.
I honestly think that you're being way too hard on Tom and GC. It's disturbing the amount of backlash he's already getting, just from this chapter's heavy implications that Kat is gay. Fortunately I missed the comments on the day Gamma and Zimmy were confirmed a couple. Regardless, I think it's kind of ridiculous to throw a fit every time a queer couple isn't given THE EXACT SAME SCREENTIME ALL THE TIME WHETHER IT IS RELEVANT OR NOT every time a het couple is developed. And honestly, it's true that people judge media with queer characters more harshly, and I'd rather Tom take his time introducing queer relationships and avoid severe backlash than just spring it out and lose fanbase and marketing opportunities. You don't have to throw the gay at people to get them used to queerness in media.
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~Duk
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Saying that you love someone is a lot different than saying that you're in love with someone. I tell my best friend that I love him. I'd tell other people that I love my best friend. It's the kind of thing that can be read as queer, but has a "safe" hetero explanation, you know? And I hate that sort of thing.
Did I forget to mention that Tom isn't only an ass about the shippers, he's also an ass about people wanting to talk about queer representation? It's one thing to say "I'm not going to spoil for future plotlines, but I get that you want to see people like you and there are some queer characters in this." It's another thing to say "All these people talking about 'heteronormativity' are just entitled." People demanding their ship happen are one thing, and people wondering if there are people like them in the story (and if those characters' relationships are going to be equally valued) are another thing, and there is sometimes overlap but they are still very different things.
Um, I'm not throwing a fit. I am calmly working on a drawing and having a delicious cigarette. What did I do that sounded like I was having a fit? I'm long-winded, yeah, but that's just how I roll. Also I don't have a problem with some het couples getting more screentime than some queer couples. I have a problem with all the het couples getting to be explicitly "together", while the one queer couple is stuck in the twilight zone of "Super Best Friends?". I also have a problem with the one queer couple only getting confirmed in the context of a hetero situation (a boy likes one of them, and a girl brings up that they're together because she's sort of attracted to that boy.) And please tell me you're queer too, because a straight person telling a queer person what is and isn't homophobic/heteronormative is sorta messed up.
And I don't really care if Tom gets backlash (what implication Kat is gay? All I got there was that Kat was afraid of losing her friendship with Annie since Annie was becoming interested in romance. I'll go back and reread it, but this is another subtext zone/ safe straight explanation thing.). Tom is very most likely straight. Gay people get backlash every day just for being who we are. Am I supposed to care more about a straight person who gets some shit for not completely hating us? If he was actually being a decent ally and pushing for equal treatment, I'd care. I cared a lot when it happened to Dan Rickmers. But if someone tries to please both sides, and ends up pleasing nobody, why should that matter to me?
Having openly gay characters, even main characters, that don't get stuck in subtextland, is not "throwing the gay at people." And the reactions of straight people are not the only reactions that matter.
1/2
I'm very emotionally invested in GC; I've been following it for a couple years now, and it was the first webcomic I actually started actively reading. I guess this is a situation where I'm so starved for anything that even acknowledges we exist that just the scene where Paz thought Kat was hitting on her, indicating that such rubbish even is a thing in this world, made me deliriously happy, just because at least it said gays exist. Then the chapter proceeded to make Zimmy and Gamma canon, something I'd been suspicious about and hoping for for a long while, and then imply that Kat's a little gayer than she thinks. [On that note, it's not the shot of Annie that set off the alarms, but the random glance at Paz, followed by disgruntled Kat that gave many, many people "questioning sexuality" vibes. I might think I was crazy for seeing it, but it came so strongly to me, and the fact that dozens of other people picked up on it too makes me more convicted that it was the intended implication, because otherwise why was the shot of Paz there? I do understand what you're saying about the 'safe' zone, though, because even reading the comments I saw people reacting really emotionally to think up interpretations that didn't involve anyone being gay, even some saying that Kat was "disgusted" because Paz thought she was gay.] Basically, even that small amount of gay has filled me with joy, and I can't explain how much it means to me to even be acknowledged. So while I do understand certain complaints, I think it's more advisable to actually give Tom more time to go somewhere with the new gay he's adding instead of immediately criticizing it.
I do agree that it's unfortunate that people will expect girls' relationships to be platonic unless it is absolutely shoved in their face that they are not. I don't really notice as much because my Gay Goggles have been permanently fused to my eyes.
Could you provide me with links or something to Tom being negative toward questions about queer representation? I don't disbelieve you, because I love Tom but he has little patience and really is a dickhole, but I'd like to see actual examples of the questions asked and his responses to them.
I also have a problem with the one queer couple only getting confirmed in the context of a hetero situation
To be fair, I think you're selling this scene a little short. It was less about straight romance and more about Annie deliberately manipulating Jack, who was just kind of going through the motions, with intent to get back at him for doing something she disliked.
I wasn't trying to say that you specifically were throwing a fit; just that the lgbtqia community often is hypercritical about what little portrayal of queer characters we get, which I strongly feel is counterintuitive because it makes people more nervous about writing gay characters than they already would be. Even for a queer person, it's hard to write a queer character in a way that won't offend someone. Tom has barely even started introducing gay into his comic for serious, and he's already getting critique over it, without even giving him a few chapters to see where he goes with it, and that's something I find problematic.
2/2
The best example I can give is a webcomic that I followed religiously, Freakangels. I don't know if you've read it, but it recently ended, and [spoilers, seriously] after no couple confirmation other than the couple who was together when the series started, the end-game couples were revealed a few chapters before the series completed. First it was a het couple, who had a few panels of onscreen kissing [most of which were fanservice], and then that spurs confirmation of the gay couple; specifically, one says to the other, "If you think I'm kissing you in front of this shower of bastards you're fucking insane." Now, unsurprisingly, they were not given an onscreen kiss, but while I was disappointed, I felt it was IC for them; both of them are canonly hermits who only spend time with each other, and Karl [who said that] is notoriously surly. They were in a large group of people at the time, and there was no opportunity for them to be alone just to snog enough to please the fanbase. We were given a few panels of them making heart-melting googly eyes at each other, and then a later page that showed one holding the other [for further spoilerous reasons].
But my concern reading the end-game couples was that the writers were going to face criticism for not having Kirk and Karl kiss onscreen, despite the fact that it was IC for them not to want to be publicly intimate, whereas the het couple was comprised of a girl who has no fucks to give, and a guy who is so sexually starved that it'd be OOC of him not to accept kisses. Now you could go a step back and blame the author for writing surly gay characters who would give them an IC reason to not show onscreen intimacy, and that might be a fair argument, but I honestly think the gay community should be devoting more energy to supporting and encouraging artists who try to include gay into their works [without completely losing their franchise] instead of immediately leaping to criticize every time someone doesn't acknowledge queers to our exact specifications. I will admit, however, that it's a lot harder to rationalize a non-gay reason for a man directly referencing kissing another man, followed by them staring lovingly at each other, than it would be to un-gay the current subtext in Gunnerkrigg, as I mentioned in my first comment.
Would I love to see blatantly open queers in more media? Fuck yes, that's completely a given, but I guess I'm just a firm believer in trying to catch hummingbirds with sugarwater instead of piss. [The fly analogy doesn't work because for one, who'd want to catch flies? and two, flies actually went to the vinegar when this theory was tested.] Straight opinions aren't the only ones that matter, but it is true that straight people have most of the power, so queers might not even get to have an opinion if straights decide the queer in the book is too offensive and refuse to publish, buy, or advertise the work.
Also, I am sorry if this reply is not particularly coherent. We both wrote a lot and it is late, so my order might not be the clearest and I might have missed a few of your points. I want to clarify that I am enjoying discussing this, even if I sounded a bit surly myself in previous comments. You make very good points.
tw some talk of suicide, sorry (1/something)
I'm also kind of at the point where I'm sick of reading about straight people and only straight people. I don't mind stories with no romance that I have to queer on my own, but I'm sick of feeling like it's not even possible for the two girls to fall in love because it's not that kind of story. I'd rather just get into stuff with important canon gay characters, but it feels like a choice between stuff with some subtext, stuff with some tokens, and Gay Movies that are all about coming out of the closet. And I'm a fantasy/sci-fi/horror kind of girl, so the Gay Movies are not as much of an option as I'd like them to be.
Recently (and I'm sorry if you figure out what I'm talking about and groan, F!S is probably sick of hearing about this kerfuffle) a show that I loved had an episode with some very loud queer subtext. Probably intentional subtext, too, since at least one or two of the writers are on board for the queer ship in question. I've got Gay Goggles too, and I love both the characters and their dynamic, so I was really excited, and then there was some semi-official material where the ship was treated just like a straight one would. Equality! I've seen the slashers get their nod, and I've seen stuff where pretty much the only possible ships were queer, but I've never seen the people making a show treat queer ships and straight ships the same. So this was, like. The best thing ever.
And then said semi-official material got pulled, because the higher-ups didn't want people to possibly think there could be any canon gay.
I think I actually cried. Once it came out who did, he acted like it was just a totally acceptable thing to do and it didn't come from a history of queers getting swept under the rug. So I took off my internet bitch hat, and I wrote him a letter. It was about how I'd been suicidal as a teenager because of my sexuality, and how treating queerness as abnormal contributes to a culture where that happens, and even taking that one little step of treating fan shipping equally can encourage other creators to do the same or even more until actual open representation happens. Tumblr was really upset about this that night, and a lot of material related to the incident was getting reblogged, and my stupid letter got passed around a bit. And there were other people talking about it too, mostly other queer women, and the weird thing was, a lot of their stories had a lot in common. Girls who wanted to die, or harmed themselves, because they were starting to get that they liked other girls. Girls who watched Sailor Moon as a kid and remembered those two girls who were a couple, and how they were badass and awesome and queer, too, and how those two characters on that silly show gave them strength when they themselves came out of the closet.
And not one of these stories got a reply from the guy that pulled the video. Some questions about shipping and viewer interpretation did. But not one letter from a queer girl talking about the homophobia she faced, not one personal story about why we need representation. If you're not familiar with how Tumblr works, this guy would have been made aware of the replies to his statements, queer girls and all.
But you can have tons of queer girls writing these painfully honest stories, pouring their hearts out, talking about how homophobia hurt them so badly that they wanted to die. And if a straight guy in a position of power, even a tiny position of power, even just one small step above the queer girls... if he doesn't want to care, he doesn't have to.
And the guy who made the video that gave equal treatment to the queer ship? Lost his fucking job for it.
2/2 (let's have a long-winded tea party~)
Sorry for that giant block of rant. As for your points on Gunnerkrigg: Tom's unpleasantness was mostly through formspring. Most of it will require some digging, and since he shut down the formspring at one point, I'm not sure if most of it is still there. There's a fairly recent question, but I don't know if it counts since I'm the asker. (I guess I just wanted to see if he'd be decent about it this time.)
I do think Annie is attracted to Jack. She doesn't necessarily like him very much, but I think there is very much meant to be an attraction there, in that "ugh you are so terrible WHY DO I WANT TO MAKE OUT WITH YOUR FACE" kind of way. There's definitely more going on, and Annie doesn't seem too crushed over it, but I would say that it's absolutely a het plot. A one-sided het plot, an interesting het plot that I'd like to see more of... but still a het plot. And only making the queer couple canon when it's part of a het plot? Kinda problematic.
I know Tom has queer characters, and I know he's a fan of the femslash... but this feels a lot to me like "lesbians should be seen and not heard." I'm sorry.
As for FreakAngels: I've read some of it, and I liked what I read, and now that it's done I'm going to go back and probably read the rest of it. But, and correct me if I'm wrong... wasn't that the comic where one character (can't remember her name for the life of me, but she had the purple hair and was very pretty) was bi, poly, and a big fan of casual sex, and was seen more than once with a bed full of girls and guys she just fucked? That seems like a really weird choice to not allow a man kiss. I'm not going to go flame the writers or anything, and if it's a good story I'll still enjoy it... but meh. Just. Meh. If they're so hermity, why couldn't they have had a kiss in private at some point?
I don't think my specifications for gay characters are that exact. They are pretty much: no blatant stereotypes unless you've got some well-rounded queers hanging around too, out them directly instead of beating around the bush, don't give them less intimacy shown and less air time than ALL the straight pairs (as in: it's okay if main straight characters get more, but they should get about as much as straight characters with the same plot importance), and, obviously, don't tease the fans with Lesbians! or Yaoi! if the story is going to only have straight romance in it. I don't think that's too much.
And if that means most of the stuff I'm going to be enjoying will be indie and written by other queers? Cool with me. I know there's sometimes less quality control and that some people are using that as an excuse to exploit other queers for money, but seriously. Better than halfassed straight "allies" telling me it's okay for me to exist, really, but I need to wait around for them to be better people.
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~Duk