fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2460 ]

[ SECRET POST #2460 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2460 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

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

05. [SPOILERS for something but OP did not say what]

__________________________________________________

06. [SPOILERS for Dark Lord of Derkholm]

__________________________________________________

07. [SPOILERS for Catching Fire]

__________________________________________________

08. [SPOILERS for Breaking Bad]

__________________________________________________

09. [SPOILERS for A Touch of Cloth]

__________________________________________________

10. [SPOILERS for Epic]

__________________________________________________

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

11. [WARNING for suicide]

__________________________________________________

12. [WARNING for depression, suicide]

__________________________________________________

13. [WARNING for rape]

__________________________________________________

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #351.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 (warning for rape) - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

01. http://i.imgur.com/JVoQU89.png

Too bad DC thinks a message like that is stupid enough to be erased from reality.

/still bitter

What's all this about erasing her? All I see are complaints and a comment about masturbation.

I expect it's a reference to Oracle not existing in Nu52.

Babs severed spine magically got better. That isn't me complaining, that is how DC genuinely retconned her back into being Batgirl from Oracle. Magic happened to her spine and suddenly she went from a decade of being wheelchair bound to being ably to do cartwheels on top of a moving train.

Re: ...is confused

thezmage - 2013-09-28 00:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: ...is confused

bringreligiontothewamwams - 2013-09-28 00:51 (UTC) - Expand

It used to be "fridging" that a Strong Female Protagonist Protagonist got put in a wheelchair. Now everyone's angry that she's out of it.

I think it's what seemed to be a standard case of fridging got turned into something uncommonly awesome, since in most cases a heroine who went through what Barbara did would be sidelined from the fight as a civilian or a cheerleader. But instead, she became a more awesome hero than ever, out of Batman's shadow, and a great example of a disabled hero whose disability isn't a superpower itself, to boot.

And then they took that rare victory snatched from the jaws of defeat and threw it back into said jaws because...nobody knows why.

(no subject)

intrigueing - 2013-09-28 01:40 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 01:47 (UTC) - Expand

It was fridging to put her in, but that doesn't mean taking her out was a good thing. Once you put her in and leave her in and build up such spectacular character development and creativity and unique ideas due to the fact that she's in, taking her out years later is no longer an improvement on her character, it's a cheap handwave. Plenty of awesome stories have come about due to initial blunders and dumb moves that had to be worked around creatively.

The thing is, fridging is terrible as a pattern, not in and of itself. This instance of fridging just so happened, by a stroke of pure luck due to having particularly good writers at the exact right time, to be an incredibly good thing in the specific case of Barbara Gordon. It's still a trope to be avoided like the plague, because we've had way more than enough of it, but that doesn't mean every fictional development that comes about due to fridging (or any other dumb trope) is bad as a result.

(and lol, "fridge" no longer looks like a word to me now...:D)

It's still fridging, because Barbara Gordon's being shot was all about causing Batman and Commissioner Gordon pain. But later writers took the idea of her being wheelchair-bound and showed that what happened to her hadn't destroyed her, that she still had a role to play aside from Joker Victim # eleventy-billion. They took what happened to her and wrote stories about her, not about how what happened to her galvanized Batman to try and finally off the Joker. Fridging isn't just about hurting female characters. It's hurting female characters in order to promote character development in male characters, because nothing promotes character growth like yet another revenge quest by a brooding hero.

So magically poofing her disability away also took away all the years when Barbara Gordon was awesome despite not kicking ass in a skintight leotard. And a lot of people who saw someone who faced the same challenges they did still being awesome had that taken away, because what's the use of a female comic character if not to kick ass in a skin tight costume and be nostalgia fap-fodder?

mte Beat me to it *sigh*

I'm still bitter as fuck too! Oracle was my favorite superheroine, because she was a super-librarian.

MTE

Then they went a "fixed" her so she can go back to being a sex object for fanboys to jack it to.

/bitter cripple who looked up to this character :(

I still jacked off to her when she was Oracle. :(

Well of course they fixed her. Any one in her position would want to be fixed, and in the land of fictional characters, it was possible.

Uh, I'm the one in her position and I do not "need" to be "fixed". I'm fine the way I am and to say I'm less of a person than I could be just because I can't walk is disgustingly insulting. I live a full and happy life and they could have shown that rather than taking away something that made her unique in the world of DC.

But in the real world, it's not possible. Babs was someone who, when faced with the abrupt end of her life's calling due to disability, was able to have the determination and ingenuity to find a way to pursue it in a different fashion that worked around that disability. And while wish-fulfillment is great, wish-fulfillment that still allows the disability to exist is far more satisfying, especially when it's such a rarity in that genre. Like, for example, a lot of women have wish-fulfillment characters who are male, due in no small part to that fact that a male character doesn't have to deal with the stupid problems women do, and that's really pleasurable. But no woman wants to be told that they can only have wish-fulfillment characters who are male. By a similar token, wanting to be "fixed" is valid, but wanting to be awesome without being "fixed", or being told they need "fixing", is also valid, and far more comforting and inspiring.

Or even without the "relateable to people with disabilities" thing, it's just shoddy characterization. To draw a comparison, this wasn't the same as Batman recovering from getting his back broken. It was like Batman's parents coming back from the dead. Good for the character as a person, awful for the character as a character.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

Except IIRC Babs didn't want to get "fixed". Her stance was that until there was a publically available cure she would remain in the wheelchair. I don't know how they explained that away in the nu52, but originally Babs didn't want to take advantage of the magic and the super-tech she (or Batman) had access to because she was a superhero. And that made her even more awesome.

That never, ever stopped us. Ever.

She even got used as a cheap slut!

Edited 2013-09-28 00:44 (UTC)

Re: Ummmm not so much

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 01:39 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Ummmm not so much

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 15:52 (UTC) - Expand

Shame no more disabled people will be allowed to learn that lesson. Remember, as far as DC is concerned, only straight able-bodied women (with giant boobs) have any worth.

Don't forget thin. (Seriously, I can see them un-crippling Batgirl, because she had fans before she was Oracle, but was there ever a demand for a thin Waller?)

That's not even the problem

insanenoodlyguy - 2013-09-28 02:00 (UTC) - Expand

i am out of the loop on batverse comics but i just started arkham asylum 3 days ago and i love her

Yes, well, unfortunately men run the world and what they want instead of a strong intelligent determined woman is a stupid worhtless 'sexy' girl.

I wouldn't say Batgirl's a bad character now. Some of the time (from what little I've seen anyway) she's been pretty awesome. It's just that the context spoils any awesomeness she has now because of the underlying message and because they ruined Oracle (who is even awesomer AND very different from most heroines to boot) to create her. It's regression.

(no subject)

bringreligiontothewamwams - 2013-09-28 00:33 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 01:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

insanenoodlyguy - 2013-09-28 02:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 02:13 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

insanenoodlyguy - 2013-09-28 02:33 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

bringreligiontothewamwams - 2013-09-28 09:27 (UTC) - Expand

I heard some dudes at a comic shop talking about how she was "bangable" again. I went home and cried. I don't think they saw me... or my wheelchair*.

(*not that I want them to find ME "bangable", it's just the really shitty attitude that disabled people are incapable of being sexual... it's such a normal attitude and they had to, what, "fix" Barbara to bring in more readers? **sigh**)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only