(no subject)

[esmenet]

Reading " 'her secret, defenseless self' – strong female characters", my own reaction to this trope:

Secretly defenseless outwardly strong ladies is not a new trope, and it is not a good one. MEMO: ladies are never secretly defenseless. their secret inner core is made of steel and adamant, not squishy stuff. There is no room to be secretly defenseless in a society that presumes you are without defenses from the beginning. When you strip away the tough outer shell, inside you find . . . more toughness. Women are made of ice and knives, women are not secretly sweet vulnerable flowers they are monsters. just like everyone.


(Example: Neon Genesis Evangelion's Asuka. Her tough facade is there to cover up a ton of problems, but when you get past it she will not cry on your shoulder, she will FUCK YOU UP because she is fucked up and she's angry you can see that. Real vulnerability is not something she accepts, and I think that goes for most people who act like that.)

--

Whenever I'm reading a dudeslash fic and some awful drama goes down, I always say to myself "This wouldn't happen if you were ladies!" and I've only recently worked out that I say this not because ladies are better or because ladies don't have drama, but rather because the people who write ladyslash fic are not the kind of people who put up with stupid drama when they could be writing about cool things instead.

What I mean to say here is that you never see the "lack of communication causes AWFUL LOVE TRIANGLE MISUNDERSTANDING" plot in ladyslash fic.

Comments

[terajk]

OMG your first real paragraph. I love it.

I think Azula is supposed to be one of these secretly defenseless outwardly strong ladies--I have Complicated Feelings about her arc. Disability as a thank you, the universe! helping hand to the protagonists is like, NO OMG NO. Also, a criticism that I didn't originally think of is that she's an example of the trope where a woman with power goes mad because she can't handle it. (I would argue that the actual crisis was because her power was taken away, but that trope is still in play.)

*ponders some moar*

Also, I really need to watch Evangelion. I have a feeling I would like Asuka--or love her, at least.

[esmenet]

Occasionally I am blinded by my own brilliance.

There are all sorts of problematic things the writers did with Azula, really. (I hadn't thought of the angle that her power was taken away! But it makes sense. She is no longer a trusted lieutenant who goes off and conquers cities, but a woman left to mind the house while Daddy Dearest goes out and burns countries to the ground. Actually Azula's story is very much one of her vs. sexism on all counts.) One of the things they did do right, though, was having her breakdown be violent rather than quiet sobbing into Zuko's shoulder or something.

I think Asuka is definitely one of those characters. I haven't seen the original series in years, and am still only halfway through the second Rebuild film, but oooh Asuka. I feel like I'm not well-equipped to deal with her, even now; I love her but it hurts.

[quadruplify]

There's not much I can really add to this, given that I can't speak from experience, so how about some questions that are (hopefully) related to everything you said here:

Whenever I'm reading a dudeslash fic and some awful drama goes down, I always say to myself "This wouldn't happen if you were ladies!" and I've only recently worked out that I say this not because ladies are better or because ladies don't have drama, but rather because the people who write ladyslash fic are not the kind of people who put up with stupid drama when they could be writing about cool things instead.

Could you better explain what this kind of drama looks like? It's so general that I'm having a hard time visualizing it, much less trying to think of plots you'd prefer where this doesn't happen. And could you please recommend any f/f fics (or m/m ones, if you've come across them) that lack the needless relationship drama you mentioned?

Also, something to ponder, I guess: Is it possible to show vulnerability in strong/"strong" female characters without it playing into problematic tropes like the one you described? If so, how? Or does portraying any vulnerability in female characters play into them on some level, no matter what?

Finally, I know this is OT, but thanks for introducing me to that blog. Specifically this and this. Obviously I don't agree with everything she says in either piece, but a lot of the issues she raises is good food for thought (the comments are definitely worth reading too), and some of the stuff she mentioned (esp. re: worldbuilding as useless trivia, cultural appropriation, near-mindless regurgitation of certain tropes and images/endless aping of Tolkien and the like, "geek" as personality instead of a hobby, etc.) point at some things that have always bothered me about fandom, and about the culture that surrounds media with sci-fi/fantasy elements as a whole. I'd be curious to know what you think of them, but I understand if you don't.

[esmenet]

I have a hard time describing it, but mostly it seems to be based in failures of communication—the characters make assumptions, they don't talk, things get bad, and this is all meant to lead up to the point where the misunderstandings get ironed out all at once and they can ~be together~ but somehow it always rings false for me. Because those things that happened or didn't happen were not the real problem, what is the real problem are all the actual relationship problems that aren't being dealt with because everyone assumes that once the major misunderstanding is dealt with then everything is fine.

Control and Other Illusions is a favorite of mine cause terajk wrote it off one of my prompts, and it is gorgeous. Azula/Ty Lee, dealing very much with Azula's headspace after the finale. metisket is a good author to go to for lack of stupid drama, though she leans more towards the genfic side of things. If you're in Sherlock fandom, Other Things to do After Buying a Cat is a pretty great example of a relationship that just works. In Loco Parentis is actually the reason I started thinking about this; the author herself said The thing that is the funniest, though, is the way the plot turned into a kind of heavy-handed meta-thing where Hermione turns her back on the decadent, ornamental pleasures of m/m slash, and joins forces with SENSIBLE LESBIANS in order to BRING ABOUT SYSTEMATIC POLITICAL CHANGE [...] It is not like it is borne out by my real-life experience of men and lesbians, or anything: I don't know where it comes from, except possibly slash itself. So I think that's very interesting, especially because (and I don't know if I said this clearly enough in the actual post) it's not really that there's any big difference between f/f and m/m besides the kind of people who tend to write it; that is, there seems to be a much smaller pool of dedicated f/f writers than m/m ones, and they seem to have a lot of overlap with writers who are very interested in politics, oppression, etc.

As for m/m fics without stupid drama, the one I would like to recommend as a perfect example of Real Drama Not Stupid Drama is cacophonylights' A Change in the Weather. Even if you're not very familiar with Glee, I would definitely recommend it. There are a number of times I was very scared it would veer off into pointless drama, but it deals with things perfectly every time. Warning: Will give you FEELINGS.

I think it's not portraying vulnerability or weakness that's problematic, but rather the problem lies in portraying female strength as a facade to be taken down in the presence of Our Main Dude. Especially in the ladies' willingness to cry on men's shoulders; I personally loathe it when I'm upset and people try to 'help' me, and I think that goes double for someone who actively puts on a show of strength in public.

I feel like it's the flip-side of manpain in some ways, only instead of staring at people's actual pain through an outsider's tears the author is fetishizing a lady's weakness and pain through someone else staring at her tears.

After typing all that, I don't think I have the mental energy to write up a proper response to those articles—I may have to come back later—but I do want to say that I've never really understood the whole "At least they're reading!" thing. Yes, kids are engaging in text-based communication. How much more sophisticated than audio or moving images. How much better trashy novels are than the internet. (Also, since one of the commenters mentioned him: ahaha R. Scott Bakker. I enjoyed his books because he can do great phrasing sometimes but they are sexist racist trash no matter how hard he and his fanboys try to pretend it's ~literature. And Esmenet deserved better as a character than to be stuck in that world with those dudes, which is why I stole her name and pretend she burned those countries to the ground and went off to live in an alter-Buddhist convent somewhere far, far away.)

I was going to come back earlier but I think slowly

[terajk]

(I hadn't thought of the angle that her power was taken away! But it makes sense.)

fulselden thought of it first!

She is no longer a trusted lieutenant who goes off and conquers cities, but a woman left to mind the house while Daddy Dearest goes out and burns countries to the ground.

And *I* hadn't thought of the sexism angle, but YOU ARE RIGHT! *nods a lot*

One of the things they did do right, though, was having her breakdown be violent rather than quiet sobbing into Zuko's shoulder or something.

Yes! And also, the breakdown wasn't because of vague, secret defenselessness but because her understanding of people is so terrible. (As rydra_wong said to me long ago, "she's too socially inept to be a good sociopath." Because when Mai says "I love Zuko more than I fear you," it turns out that love, which Azula thought was a stupid weakness (see: using Sokka's love for Suki to manipulate him with how her "favorite prisoner" hoped he would come for her but he didn't) is a type of POWER. (My guess is that aiming for Katara in her Agni Kai w/ Zuko was Azula trying to use the power of love the only way she knew how, since "the people I thought I was controlling left and I am hurt; if this girl is *dead* then Zuko will be destroyed.")

So now I don't think Azula is a strong but secretly defenseless woman at all.