[ SECRET POST #2446 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2446 ⌋

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

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




















04. [WARNING for gore, blood, etc]

[How To Train Your Dragon]


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05. [WARNING for child abuse]



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06. [WARNING for rape]



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07. [WARNING for rape]



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08. [WARNING for torture]

[Fall Out Boy's "The Phoenix"]


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09. [WARNING for underage]

[pokemon conquest]


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #349.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. [WARNING for rape]
http://i.imgur.com/70f6ZAA.png

[kaijinscendre]

....who says this? Everyone I have seen always says the opposite. THOUGH, I do see many people who say that women characters who are not warriors are weak (this coming from Tumblr feminists, fyi). Example being TWD Lori (weak and annoying) vs Michonne (strong and badass).

[forgottenjester]

A few fuckbuckets. Very few. I know I once read a published author's rant about a male fan who came up during a Q&A and criticized her for not having any of her female characters raped because it was "unrealistic". To add insult to injury the woman wrote fantasy. That is, of course, if the story is true. If it's not then I have no examples of people saying this.

[ariakas]

Lori's characterization problems have nooooooothing to do with the fact that she's "not a warrior" o_O

[feotakahari]

I think there's a pretty big difference between "strong characters need to undergo trials" and "strong characters need to get raped!" Then again, this is certainly something plenty of authors need to learn. (And sometimes it's not even that stark, but is still annoying--I've seen way too many female protagonists, especially in Japanese fiction, who flinch away from dangerous situations long after their male companions have become accustomed to fighting, with the implication that this is to be expected of a female lead.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this. "Great strong male characters who never have a moment of weakness" are not great characters, they're boring Marty Stu's. Characters of either sex are not well-written if they easily triumph over all adversaries and there's never a moment of doubt that they'll succeed. But it's shameful that for female characters, that "moment of weakness" or "trial" keeps taking the form of rape.

[mekkio]

I can't think of a strong male character who hasn't been through some hardships. And if you are a superhero, forget it. Your childhood was a bucket of emotional and physical pain.

The only superhero I can think of that had a normal childhood was Clark Kent because the Kents were the idealized parents. But Clark did lose his entire planet. Though he was too small to understand.

[(Anonymous)]

And he turned out boring.

Teal deer. Teal deer everywhere.

[elephantinegrace]

I agree that there are an inordinate number of female characters who are overly emotional, baby-obsessed, and maternal to a stupid degree, but there are almost as many female characters written by self-righteous misogynists who can't see past their own ego who are utterly robotic, condescending, and rude. It's like female characters are defined by how well or not well they relate to other characters, and male characters are defined by how well they carry the plot along.

I do think the discrepancy between how many male characters in mainstream media are threatened with or undergo rape, but you're deluding yourself if you think that emotional torture as a plot point is exclusive to either sex. Peace and perfection does not a story make unless the peace and perfection are a cover for some deeper conflict. It takes some sort of problem to make a story.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem is when there's no horrible thing happeneding to them to test their physical or emotional strenght they are immediatly considered Mary Sues and "unrealistic". A woman who owns a company but isn't secretly suicidal and wishing she had a baby? This can't exist in real life! She has a boyfriend who loves her? Omg, can't exist! Men would never like a woman in power. She is sucessful? No way, she needs to have a horrible childhood trauma or else I can't feel good for her.

This complaint also tends to come from women ( feminists or not) more than from men.
I'm not trying to excuse this mindset, btw.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, when nothing ever happens to a character to test their strength, physical or emotional, they are Mary Sues. It's just that the trial of strength doesn't have to be horrible abuse or rape.

Secret 6 - Sexism in media, strong female characters (warning for sexual violence)

[transcriptanon]

warning for sexual violence

[Picture is a drawing of a woman? with hair reaching her chin. There is an arrow pointing to her head with the word "me" and then the word "Hi!" floating next to her.]

A lot of people talk about strong female characters and how often they go through emotional torture and that's how you're supposed to write strong, badass characters. But there are so many great strong male characters who don't get threatened with rape, emotionally tortured, or any of the things that strong female characters often go through.

Why can't a female character be strong, badass, and not have a moment of emotional weakness or be motherly in some way like some great male characters? It's just not fair that female characters have to be raped or tortured or break down crying or want to have a baby to be considered "strong" while male characters don't. I just want a few badass women who don't start sobbing, or get raped, or get all motherly about everything, but there are so few of them.

I know there are male action figures who go through that stuff, but not nearly as often, even adjusted for the huge difference in numbers of male and female action heroes.

Sorry for the text wall, here's a picture for you.

[forgottenjester]

Hmmm, this is a complicated issue. I think both genders have a lot of angst and that's fine. The only problem I find is how the genders are depicted differently when responding to that angst. Men are strengthened by overcoming their trials and women become damaged by them. This isn't always the case but it's something that's common enough for me to notice the pattern and to irritate me.

I feel like I'm missing something as I type all this.

[making_excuses]

Well if it makes you feel any better I was pretty sure I had some kind of point to make in this thread and I completely forgot about it, probably involving "no character is strong just because you say he or she is strong, you have to prove it". But I have no fucking idea where I was going with that or what kind of point I wanted to make...

Oh right I was also supposed to say: I agree with you! That is an annoying trend...

Here have the happiest gif. on earth for wasting your time:

[nightscale]

I totally get what you're saying because there is a pattern and I notice it too, but as you said the whole thing is complicated.

So about them strong male characters

[(Anonymous)]

I'd really like people to name all those strong male characters who never have moments of weakness or go through emotional torture. Apparently they're everywhere, but I can't think of a single one.

Re: So about them strong male characters

[xenomantid]

Do you think Super Mario qualifies?

[bored_bitch]

I don't really care about emotional trauma, because that's a common thing in all kinds of stories for both genders.

But the "STRONG WOMAN NEEDS TO SETTLE DOWN AN HAVE BABBIES BECAUSE LOL OVARIES" thing can get fucked sideways.
Not everything with a vagina melts at the cry of an infant.
More badass wimmens, content with the lifestyle they already have and continuing to keep on living it unhindered by reproductive obligations, please.

[ninety6tears]

There are always going to be the types of stories that make their main characters a little larger than life and able to practically shrug off very violent experiences, and there will always be the writers that still have their characters psychologically recovering from these events months if not years later. I only ask that every story implies that the experience can be the same for men and women.

[xenomantid]

If you're looking for female protagonists who proceed stoically toward their goals without ever being distracted by their emotions, then I'm afraid I can't help you. But if you're willing to concede that even a strong, bold character can struggle with emotional conflicts but still emerge victorious, then you might like Jirel of Joiry, whose stories are collected in Black God's Kiss by C.L. Moore. The worst that happens to her, sexually speaking, is that one of her enemies kisses her against her will and another tries to force her to marry him. In both cases, even though she suffers setbacks, she still conquers her foes. That's the major point of the character: she can be vulnerable, but she's ultimately indomitable.

[darkmanifest]

Yeah, all of this. It's not that I don't want to see female characters go through some intense shit - in fact, I love it - I'm just tired of rape and pregnancy always being at the top of the list. Male characters get seriously fucked up in non-sexual ways all the time and get to pull through it and become stronger, but the minute a character has a vagina, all of a sudden all possible trauma has to be related to it somehow, like women never get harmed by anything else.

Like, take Buffy - definitely not a perfect character, but I love the fact that the events created to wound her was stuff like being forced to kill someone she loved, losing her mother, being brought back from the dead, etc., and not being gang-raped by a bunch of demons for a week or whatever the hell others might have come up with to challenge her as a character. It'd be nice to see more of that, instead of that all-too-familiar feeling of rape-dread I get whenever a female character is in a bad situation.

[(Anonymous)]

Women who are strong without having gotten there through ongoing emotional torture and physical battering is so thin on the ground. I wish there were more of them. I agree with you OP.

I'm kinda ticked off

[chardmonster]

I'm kinda ticked off at the idea that being "maternal" or a mother is a negative trait, a sign of weakness. That you can't be badass and also a mom.

A lot of you must really not be proud of your moms.

[(Anonymous)]

This also infuriates me. Take Riddick, for example. The only female character, Dahl, spends most of the movie sitting stoically (or aggressively) through sexual harassment, sexism, and homophobia. It's boring, it's cliché, and it's insulting, frankly. You know what I don't want to see? The only female character (except the other one who was apparently raped multiple times and then shot in the back, but was only in the movie for about 2 minutes) spend most of the movie stewing in an ugly broth of sexual violence. Aside from the other things I mention, why make me, as a viewer, sit through that? In this case, it added nothing to the story. We also knew the rapey character was an asshole. Not only that, but what Riddick did, with the nipples comment (which was gross and out of place and just fucked up the tone of the whole scene) was make him look like a sexual predator. One of the things I really appreciated about the first movie was the Riddick got on with the business of working with (or subverting or betraying) Fry without getting all rapey with her. Sure, there's that one scene where he cuts a lock of hair without her knowledge, but that's more about setting up how he's a master of being inches away and still invisible.

It's not high art by any means, but I would have thoroughly enjoyed Riddick without the aforementioned bullshit. Now, I doubt I'll watch it again and I doubt I'll watch any additional movies. It's just kind of exhausting to see female character after female character in danger of sexual violence. On the other hand, I think it's kind of hilarious that in all of those dance movies, the male character doesn't want to dance anymore because it's something he did with his brother, who was murdered. It's just a lack of imagination and originality that just so happens to play out in a way that's actually really uncomfortable for a lot of women to watch - the sexual violence. I mean, look at the stats. A significant proportion of women have been raped or know someone who's been raped. I don't think any of us can say that our mother or girlfriend was killed by a demon who was grooming us to be a vessel.

[(Anonymous)]

And I hate women who consider being "motherly" a weakness or character flaw. Caring for others is a POSITIVE quality, whether you're male or female.