[ SECRET POST #2642 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2642 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Homestuck]


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03. http://i.imgur.com/BVCZgbY.gif
[moving gif]


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04.
[Michelle Lee]


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05.
[Ping Pong the Animation]


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06.


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07.


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08.


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09.


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10.


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11.


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12.
[Lord of the Rings]


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13.


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14. [SPOILERS for Pandora Hearts]



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15. [WARNING for sexual/emotional abuse]
















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #377.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[rubbertea]

what people want to see in canon (in general, more well characterized female characters & less romance) isn't the same as what they want to see in fic (in general self-indulgent romance involving people whom they're attracted to, which, considering fandom is mostly straight women, are more likely to be men).

[sarillia]

Why don't I ever hear straight men saying that they prefer to read about women because they're straight men but I always hear straight women saying that this is why they prefer to read about men?

[rubbertea]

i don't know? but we do hear about straight men watching female on female porn, so they do like to watch women getting it on, just like a lot of women like reading about men getting it on

[sarillia]

Yeah but straight women will often bring up that they're straight women as a justification for why they watch male-domninated things other than gay porn and I haven't seen straight men do the same thing. Not that it needs justification but the things people come up with when they feel pressured into it don't really make sense to me.

[rubbertea]

oh. well i don't really have an explanation for that. it doesn't make sense to me either. why would that even be relevant?

[sarillia]

Your comment reminded me:

in general self-indulgent romance involving people whom they're attracted to, which, considering fandom is mostly straight women, are more likely to be men

idk maybe normal people wouldn't have been reminded of this argument but my brain tends to do stuff like this

[rubbertea]

oh, right. i'm sorry, i just wasn't able to follow your reasoning (i can be very obtuse sometimes).

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps, in general, men and women like different things?

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Because society is still not totally fair and women still have to make excuses for liking things.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh, more like society says that men are the only ones with stories worth telling and all those women are just stupidly nodding and grinning and saying, "Yes, please continue marginalizing me because men r teh pretty."

[fleshisyummy]

Okay, but a lot of slash fics aren't smut, and, from what I've seen, the most popular ones tend to be very long and occasionally plotty romances and not PWP. Of all the straight guys I know in fandom, I think I might know like one who prefers femslash over het. Straight guys who read fic tend to be more invested in het.

You can definitely make the argument that guys aren't going to be more into femslash simply because the media prioritizes male-male relationships over female-female ones, so guys just aren't going to be interested in femslash when the relationships aren't really developed in canon.

However, I think some of it has to do with sexism (from both sides) where female characters simply aren't seen as worthwhile as male characters.

[rubbertea]

i can definitely see this side of the argument. it's true that female characters practically need to shit pure awesomeness or something for fandom to even register their existence, and that can be very tiring.
but yeah, the argument that female characters aren't given enough importance by canon to begin with is a very valid and important one.
this is basically a chicken or egg problem. does fandom ignore female characters because they're badly written or are female characters badly written because the audience doesn't seem to give a shit anyway?

[fleshisyummy]

Yeah, exactly. Also, I think a lot of showrunners know it's "safer" to have a male protagonist over a female one. Its been proven time and time again that women will watch things with male protagonists, yet they seem to fear that men will shy away from female protagonists.

I don't think fandom will ever care about female characters as much as male characters, but I think better representation and more female protagonists and focus on female-female relationships like we've seen in recent years will help to minimize that gap a bit more.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, women greatly outnumber men in fandom, so the chances of hearing that from a guy as opposed to a girl are fairly slim - and, away from fandom, it's actually pretty common for guys to watch girl on girl porn*.

Plus, I suspect there's an element of "everyone should be able to relate to a male character [particularly a white one], but only women are expected to be able to relate to a female character playing into it as well.

*You also have to remember that, as a general rule, women tend to be less visual than men, so written smut is more likely to get their rocks off than it is your average guy.

[(Anonymous)]

Possibly because when women are talking about 'what they prefer to read about' in the context of fandom, they're usually talking about what sort of smut they want to read? And so it's more equivalent to what sort of porn men are watching than to what sort of books they're reading? And most straight men do watch more porn featuring women than featuring men?

That's my theory.

[(Anonymous)]

In the male side of anime fandom I've seen this sentiment expressed a lot. That because they are straight men, they aren't interested in male-heavy shows. They will even refuse to watch a show if it has no female characters, or not enough of them.
So yeah, I've seen it before.