[ SECRET POST #2033 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2033 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Mortal Kombat]


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04.


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05.
[The Young and the Restless]


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06.


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07.
[Firefly, Joss Whedon; Sherlock BBC, Steven Moffat]


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08. http://i.imgur.com/Je2qV.png
[not really porny but implied underage sexual stuff; photomanip; snape/hermione]


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12.


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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]












13. [SPOILER WARNING for Pokemon Black/White]



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14. [SPOILER WARNING for Kurau: Phantom Memory]



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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]













15. [WARNING for rape]



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16. [WARNING for suicide]



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17. [WARNING for incest]

[Kono Naka ni Hikari, Imouto ga Iru!]


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18. [WARNING for animal death/abuse?]

[Eden Lake]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #290.
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]

07. http://i47.tinypic.com/2e2k07p.png
[Firefly, Joss Whedon; Sherlock BBC, Steven Moffat]

[deadtree]

hmmm... that is a very interesting idea.

[fauxkaren]

The issue that I have with Irene in Sherlock was not that she was a sex worker, but it was that her story was changed from someone who was running the show the whole time to someone who needed Moriarty's help and who, in the end, needed to be saved by Sherlock.

[(Anonymous)]

Except Moffat didn't create Irene Adler. He took a character who, in the source material, was the only woman who had Holmes's respect for completely intellectual reasons and turned her into a character who could only be powerful in the one realm that Holmes wasn't. Then Moffat showed that her apparent sexual power was also worth shit, as she ends in up in a burka at the end, about to be punished for her slutty ways when Holmes rides to the rescue. He turned her from a character who had her own love interest to one who was so wowed by Holmes that despite being a lesbian, she just couldn't resist him. And of course she's working for Moriarty too, because sexual women can't be anything but villainous.

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't matter who created whom (in this case it's "wrote", actually). Just face the facts.

[ariakas]

As per the posters above, Adler wasn't an original character. I don't know about you, but I find it genuinely shocking when a female character from the Victorian era is portrayed as more empowered than her 21st century version. o_O

[(Anonymous)]

Why can't they BOTH be sexist?

[(Anonymous)]

lol uh no. try again.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe, but I'm more inclined to think "no."

false equivalency?

[(Anonymous)]

But those characters and their motivations and portrayals were totally different. I mean the only things they had in common were being female sex workers.

And it's not like Joss is never called on his sexism - people call it out when they see it, it's just that he manages to write awesome women that tend to balance it out whereas Moffat sucks most of the time.

[mekkio]

Look, the main reason why people call Moffat's version Irene misogynist is because how she was changed from the story. How the hell do you go from an adventuress to a dominatrix?

Even worse, when she first introduces herself to Sherlock, she is naked. I know, Moffat wrote it so Sherlock would be baffled by a lack of clues. But here's the thing. There was still clues. The way she wore her hair. How her nails were done. What scent she wore. How she held herself. Sherlock had determined these clues on other people, why not Irene? Because she was naked?

Come on.

Sherlock has seen dead bodies. He has not been flabbergasted by other people's sexuality. (He deduced that the two detectives were sleeping together.) That's was just so out of character for Sherlock that the only reason to have Irene naked was to have Irene naked.

In the story, Irene comes out on top. She has outwitted Sherlock and has her happy ending. In the show, she is about to be executed and Sherlock MUST save her. She, again, unlike story Irene, can not save herself.

I know there is more, but, seriously, Moffat's Irene was indeed sexist.

[(Anonymous)]

As others have said, Moffat's Adler was an incredibly sexist portrayal. He took a character who was an independent woman, who wasn't a villain but was just trying to get on with her life, who had her own love interest outside the story, who was incredibly intelligent and who beat Sherlock Holmes and earned the title of "The Woman" for being the only woman thus far in his life to have done so... and turned her into a dominatrix whose title of "The Woman" was purely sexual (and thus it went from Sherlock's calling her by it to be respectful to Sherlock's calling her by it to be disrespectful), who was a villain but not a smart enough one not to need a man to tell her what to do and how to be a good enough villain, who doesn't beat Sherlock Holmes, who despite being a lesbian falls in love with Sherlock Holmes, who needs saving by Sherlock Holmes, and so on.

Inara's portrayal had some issues, but she was presented as a competent, confident woman, a protagonist of the story with her own life, her own thoughts, her own priorities, and so on. She sometimes saved the main male protagonist's ass. She was often instrumental in bringing off plans. She didn't let men tell her what to do or boss her around. She was a three-dimensional character who was just as complex as everyone else on the show.

Moffat wouldn't be able to write Inara. He's a sexist jerk, and I know without seeing him try that any version of Inara he wrote would be a pale substitute for Whedon's original. And while Whedon is far from perfect or incredibly feminist, I feel his version of Irene Adler would have been a more complex, more independent character with less sexism in her portrayal.

I mean, you know, Whedon isn't perfect, but at least he tries. Moffat is just sexist through and through, and it shows transparently in everything he writes.

[republicanism]

wuteva i think they are both fierce

i can see the argument for irene's storyline being sexist but i still loved the episode. and let's be real, she was not even in ACD's original story that much--barely long enough to develop a personality for moffat to supposedly ruin.

[truxillogical]

I think the problem with this comparison is that Inara wasn't the only woman in the show. You had three others, four total in a cast of nine. And they were all different kinds of women, with different approaches to their sexuality (Kaylee--casual, Zoe--monogamous, River--...nonexistent?). So Inara being a concubine was just one more kind of character.

Irene is the primary significant female character in the Sherlock mythos. She is The Woman. And her sexual nature is given equal importance to her intelligence.

That said...I thought she was a pretty cool character. And honestly, given the original character, it wasn't a completely off characterization either. But there was something a little awkward about it.

[(Anonymous)]

Joss Whedon isn't innocent imo
it isn't only Irene Adler that indicates Steven Moffat's sexism (eg River Song and many others)

[(Anonymous)]

Um, I know that there are a number of "Joss is God" types still out there, but I've also seen a lot of meta that has some issues with Inara--and "Dollhouse" was nothing if not controversial in that regard. Joss's depiction of prostitution. People may be more likely to give Whedon the benefit of the doubt than Moffat, but apart from the extreme cultists (who exist for both writers) I don't think he automatically gets a free pass from fandom, either.

[(Anonymous)]

Neither is perfect, but Inara was one type of woman among many that Joss has written - not just on "Firefly", but his other shows as well. Buffy is not Willow is not Cordelia is not Fred.

Moffatt just writes the same woman over and over again. It's gloriously ironic that Irene's canonical nickname is "The Woman" because that neatly sums up all of Moff's most famous female characters: Reinette, Amy, River, Irene. Am I the only one who's noticed they're all the same person?

[writerserenyty]

I think it's mostly because of Steven Moffat's previous track record of sexism compared to Joss Whedon's previous track record of feminism. I can't talk about Sherlock because I don't follow it, but I haven't been impressed with Moffat in Doctor Who.

[(Anonymous)]

THANK YOU, OP. Finally a voice of fucking reason. I'm glad someone else out there feels the same way I do.

[(Anonymous)]

It's been said before, but it's not because Irene was a sex worked. Hell, I was quite interested in the idea of a lesbian dominatrix Irene Adler. It's because she was supposed to be the woman who beat Sherlock, and we were initially led to believe that that was going to be the case...

Until no. She was then the women who was being manipulated by Moriarty, and was reduced to begging Sherlock for help at the end, and all because her womanly feelings for Sherlock got to her and made her weak. Then, to add insult to injury, we had Sherlock save her again (damsel in distress syndrome, anyone?) right at the end of the episode!

[(Anonymous)]

Four for you, Glenn Coco.

Containing some spoilers...

[kallanda_lee]

Honestly, I thought Irene was a great, strong female character.

I'd even say that Moffat even managed to grasp the whole idea of mental power plays on a high level (and how people actually thrive on that).

But he went wrong with her somewhere along the line, and I have 3 very real issues with her story.

(SPOILERS)

- the whole "sherlocked" think with the phone? Seriously. A woman like that would not stoop to something so silly.
- the fact she was apparently a lesbian but went hoo-ha over Sherlock. Yes, obviously, human sexuality is fluid but then that fact should have been given more screen time/exposition and not be tossed in there as a side thought.
- that she ends up being the damsel in distress having to be rescued.

So I'd give Moffats good points for trying to paint the character, but bad points for finishing touches and falling into old tropes at the end.

That being said - I still think Irene is a strong character.

[(Anonymous)]

My question is, Why are Irene and Moriarty even connected? Why do they know each other? For what reason? How? Will this ever come up in the story again? What was that ending? What made her choose to hide out there? How did she even get herself into trouble? Why is the only way she can be manipulative is through sex?
UGH UGH UGH WHY DO YOU JUST GO ALL DEUS EX MACHINA ON US AND CLAIM IT TO BE GENIUS?

[ecoerrante]

I...really don't care about Joss Whedon or Moffat, but...there *is* a pretty major difference there for me - namely the facts that Irene was changed from being what she was [namely, the woman who managed to outsmart Sherlock] to being Moriarty's pawn, and the whole 'lesbian who fell in love with Sherlock' hit a little too close to the 'All lesbians secretly want dick' myth for my comfort.

Inara, on the other hand, didn't have those issues.