sarajayechan
2011-06-04 02:32 am UTC (link)

First one links to a locked entry. Or deleted. Either way it aint there. :(

Also, with the way they're blabbering on about how OH NOES ORIHIME IS GETTING TOO MUCH ATTENTION, I have a bad feeling they're going to try to stick her up on the Wesley page at TVTropes. Of course if they do, I'll delete that mess on the quick. :P

And abandonreality is awesome for telling it like it is. Debbie, stop trying to delude yourself, your precious little comm is chock full of Orihime hate because you and your pals are the next incarnations of Lynn Johnston when it comes to who YOU want her to hook up with.

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ladyofviolets
2011-06-04 02:38 am UTC (link)

It was actually misstyped, but now it's fixed. :)

That already happened, though! She was listed there thanks to some butthurt fan calling her Mary Sue because "she was there all the time" and "had godmode powers". She's a part of Ichigo's nakama, OF COURSE she'll be there often. :P

And yeah, they're incredibly in denial. Reminds me of the time they got called out on their Orihime bashing by F!S, but they kept denying it and blaming other people of having grudges against them... yet they learn nothing.

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sarajayechan
2011-06-04 02:44 am UTC (link)

*skims the link* All I'm seeing is BAW BAW BAWWWWWWWWW

Oh, really? Well, hopefully someone deleted it and the person who put it there god told. I'm getting quite sick of the whole Mary Sue label myself, especially when people use it to whine about characters they don't like.

Seriously. I wonder when they're just going to finally implode in on themselves and leave the internet in a tantrum. I can so see that at least happening with Debbiechan.

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	hadesphoenix 2011-06-05 11:45 pm UTC (link)
	I'm getting quite sick of the whole Mary Sue label myself, especially when people use it to whine about characters they don't like. I think it's gotten to the point where it doesn't have much meaning anymore. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

uldihaa
2011-06-07 06:22 pm UTC (link)

THIS.

I've found that Mary Sue seems to have come to mean one of the following:

1.) Character the reader dislikes.

2.) Character the reader envies.

3.) Character that is better than the reader in anything, except in easily identifiably shallow ways.

At this point, a Mary Sue can be any character that has more than two positive traits i.e. beauty, intelligence, wealth, skill/talent etc.

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simplefaith
2011-06-07 08:37 pm UTC (link)

I'm getting quite sick of the whole Mary Sue label myself, especially when people use it to whine about female characters they don't like.

Fixed that for you. ;P
Because seriously, it seems like anytime a female character is disliked, she gets called a Mary Sue. Non-combabtant, but still liked by people? Mary Sue! Can kick major ass? Mary Sue! Has a relationship with the male lead/popular male in fandom? Well, you see where I'm going with this.

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	cyndra_falin 2011-06-04 03:14 am UTC (link)
	Wesley? As in Wesley Crusher from TNG? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cmdr_zoom 2011-06-04 03:21 am UTC (link)
	Yes. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sarajayechan 2011-06-04 03:57 am UTC (link)
	Oh, and that whole "omg she acts like a 5 year old, AUTISTIC!!!" crap? I won't pretend to know everything about autism but I'm quite sure they're full of shit! (Reply to this)

pantyless_angel
2011-06-04 04:13 am UTC (link)

"Taking into account the amount of traumas she faced it's no wonder she has developmental deficits - but, even though it's cute, I really wonder how old Orihime is. At times she acts like a 5 years old...I'd love for her to grow, to grow stronger and mature. It's kinda frustrating to see her acting like this, but that might be because I'd love her to progress in another way - neglecting the fact that it's her personality to act childishly at times."

Wow... This reminds me of all the people who complain about Sora from Kingdom Hearts, because no matter what gets thrown at him he pulls himself together and keeps going instead becoming a pile of angst goo.

People in real life react to things differently, even traumatic things. Angst does not equal maturity really! Why do people keep thinking that?

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	crysiana 2011-06-04 04:40 am UTC (link)
	Of course, KH is the fandom where three out of the main four female characters are accused of being Mary Sues. (I love KH, but oh god the fandom sometimes.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rosehiptea 2011-06-04 05:47 am UTC (link)
	Wait, they complain about him because he doesn't angst? Not in the fandom but... huh? I personally can take a heck of a lot of angst (to each their own, etc.) but it's not that hard to find in fiction. Especially if you include fanfic. (Reply to this)(Parent)

platedlizard
2011-06-04 09:59 am UTC (link)

RAGE

She acts 'childish' (wat. she was like that before) because that's her personality. Oh, and she's, like, 15/16. You know, still kinda a kid in some ways? Orihime can be mature when she needs to be, but for FSM's sake, why does she have to angst her whole life? That's depressing, and also kinda boring in a character. Ichigo and Orihime have a lot more in common with each other than Ichigo and Rukia (let's not forget that Rukia is 150 years old, she may look and act like a teenager, but she's not really)

Damn. I fucking ship Ichigo and Rukia and I (mostly) dislike Orihime too, but those fanthings at bleachness inspire nothing but rage.

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	full_metal_ox 2011-06-08 01:30 am UTC (link)
	She acts 'childish' (wat. she was like that before) because that's her personality. Oh, and she's, like, 15/16. You know, still kinda a kid in some ways? And the Japanese tendency to find childlike qualities in young women absolutely adorable could also have a lot to do with it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	hadesphoenix 2011-06-05 05:02 am UTC (link)
	Saix: Show me how much you care. Sora: drops to his knees and begs My mother: Oh my god, is Sora going to blow him? Me: drops controller In all seriousness, though, Sora had his moments, especially in KH2. For the rest of it, there was Riku. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lilychan 2011-06-06 09:12 am UTC (link)
	People complain about Sora being like that? Brian cannot process that! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	pantyless_angel 2011-06-06 05:41 pm UTC (link)
	Apparent it's one of the reasons why Sora is not a proper hero, and Roxas is so much more cool than him or something. I haven't finished Days yet, but it started after KH2 where we didn't see much of Roxas there to begin with. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	chikane 2011-06-04 09:16 am UTC (link)
	Orihime hate? Orihime HATE? You want Orihime hate go to where people are calling for her death or saying she's useless and should be written out of Bleach. Odd, both was done by bleachness members in bleachness. Funny, debbiechan, funny. Not fooling anyone, though. still waiting for Bleach canon yuri or canon yaoi to actually give a damn about the canon (Reply to this)

dottiness
2011-06-04 12:18 pm UTC (link)

Ugh "I only like female characters who can fight because they're more feminist" is the fandom trend that makes me the angriest.

Newsflash: character strength is not (and should not be) inherently tied in to physical strength. Some of the strongest ladies in fiction are the ones that don't fight, because they have strong personalities and exhibit strength in other ways. And some of the weakest are the ones who can fight because there's an attitude of "well, if the girl can fight, it means she's a strong character no matter what."

I am so so tired of that stupid attitude. It's not feminist to like characters that fight better. It might be your personal opinion, but don't pretend it's progressive.

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	dottiness 2011-06-04 12:19 pm UTC (link)
	* This is leaving out all the armchair psychology which is also ridiculous, the feminist remark was just the failure icing on the stupidity cake. (Reply to this)(Parent)

chikane
2011-06-04 02:26 pm UTC (link)

No, actually feminist would be to want characters of all kinds, not just female characters who are weaker in combat than male ones. Will probably another decade for people to get that, though.

And yes, that means mostly getting more female characters who can fight, for a change. We sure got plenty of ones who can't (or who the writing pretends can, but who SOMEHOW still always end up being damsels for the male hero to save/protect, often from themselves, since of course women can't be trusted with power in such stories). Some more variety won't hurt.

Such a variety exists for male characters, by the way. It sure seems to work well there. I have yet to see a good reason to forbid having variety of that kind for female characters.

It's especially blatant in Bleach, where most male heroes win battles on their own, with their power, while most female characters tend to lose on their own, even against mooks, and need guys to save them. Orihime's actually the rare exceptions there, actually having won an important battle on her own. That makes her nearly unique in her canon.

Wanting female characters that don't constantly need guys to take care of their mess isn't bad, and I personally am tired of the attitude that it somehow is.

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dottiness
2011-06-04 02:39 pm UTC (link)

I don't have a problem with girls who fight. I really don't! It's just that the most common defense for not liking any female character in a fandom tends to be "well I don't like how people write female characters because they're always weak/well she doesn't fight/well ..." when the same traits are often forgiven or overlooked in male characters. Scheming women are manipulative bitches, scheming men are clever dreamboats; soft, gentle men are dreamers and idealists while soft, dreaming women are passive wimpy princesses.

The problem does lie in that both of those archetypes tend to be assigned to villainous and heroic women more often than to men, and more often than other archetypes are assigned to women, but there are a lot of strong women who never have to fight physically to be badasses. I just get tired of people treating it like a checkbox on a "strong character creation" worksheet.

It's definitely necessary to have the girls be less damsel-y in a shounen series like Bleach. And there does definitely need to be more variety in female characters! It's just that a lot of people put up this pseudo-feminist "well, I only like female characters who can fight because it's more feminist." Even in fiction where physical prowess isn't important, it comes back to that the girls need to fight.* It could be political/intrigue-based historical fiction with the best female character ever and people in fandom will still scoff because she doesn't pull a sword out and start owning people.

(*Bleach is definitely a series where physical prowess is important and from the little I've read I sure wish the ladies were less damsel-y, but my raving is more generalized.)

I guess what I'm saying is I've just seen a lot of general hatred of any female character, fighter or no, shrugged off with "well, it's because I'm feminist" when there's not actually any feminism there at all. I don't think you (or anyone here) have this, but there are a lot of people out there who do.

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	sarajayechan 2011-06-04 10:25 pm UTC (link)
	IAWTC x100. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rosehiptea 2011-06-04 10:45 pm UTC (link)
	I completely agree. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	chikane 2011-06-04 10:53 pm UTC (link)
	With this I agree 100% Sorry, the early post just read to me as the usual "No, women shouldn't do anything ever", probably cause I slogged through some rants of that nature yesterday considering RPGs. My reading fault due to misplaced anger. I apologize. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	agent_hyatt 2011-06-04 11:51 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah. Which is the better character, a woman who can fight but always needs a man to rescue her, or a woman who can't fight but who uses her other skills to get herself out of trouble and rescue others? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sir_hellsing 2011-06-07 06:33 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe they should replace that line with: "well, it's because I'm butthurt shipper". (Reply to this)(Parent)

sorchar
2011-06-05 04:19 am UTC (link)

I was annoyed by this a lot when the ST reboot came out. "OMG WHY DIDN'T THEY LET UHURA FIGHT THEY'RE SEXIST!" - especially in relation to the bar fight. No, princess. Uhura did not abstain from kicking Kirk's ass because she was too much of a lady; she abstained from kicking Kirk's ass because she knew that getting into a bar fight just because some guy was hitting on her would be a foolish thing to do. If she had been in actual danger it would have been different.

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beccastareyes
2011-06-06 03:09 am UTC (link)

I'm a bit disappointed they didn't give her a (more obvious) linguistic-badass moment akin to Chekov's mad dash to handle the transporters, or Scotty taking Spock Prime's notes and using it to beam Kirk and himself back to the Enterprise while it was traveling faster than light -- since, well, Chekov and Scotty and McCoy all got to be awesome at their professions. (While Kirk, Spock and Sulu got to kick ass.)

The Wiki reminds me that she was the one who found and translated the Klingon comm traffic that prompted Kirk to realize what trouble could be waiting for the fleet at Vulcan, but I wish more of a Big Deal was made about that, rather than her mentioning it to her roommate after the fact while Kirk is hiding in earshot. We're told she's a polyglot who, in addition to speaking Klingon, can also tell Vulcan from all three different dialects of Romulan, and is damn good at her job, but I would have liked to see it.

But, damn straight Uhura doesn't need to hit people or shoot a phaser to be a badass. Star Trek is full of frighteningly competent people who prove their competence by saving the day with technology (and technobabble)!

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amy_wolf
2011-06-05 10:53 am UTC (link)

I think some of it may be that thing where so many fans think it's not good enough for their favorite character to simply be their favorite, but they need to be shown as objectively the best somehow. A lot of people (myself included) like warrior woman characters and watching a woman kick some ass. For some people, dressing it up in pseudo-feminist claims provides a way to 'justify' their preference, as if it needs justification. (Actual feminism can be in favor of having female characters who are capable in a fight, but not deciding that every single female character who doesn't demonstrate impressive fighting skills judged a failure.)

Some of it, of course, is people happily jumping on anything that gives them a handy excuse to hate on female characters.

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	cmdr_zoom 2011-06-05 10:21 pm UTC (link)
	especially ones who are (a) boffing the hot mens and (b) aren't them, the reader/viewer. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lilychan 2011-06-06 09:15 am UTC (link)
	I don't know - I don't think I'd come out the same way after I ran away from my violent parents and seen my brother die (twice). :\ Also, you don't have to be a feminist to dislike a certain character, you know. I'm pretty sure it's okay to not like them because you don't like their character. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	agent_hyatt 2011-06-06 06:58 pm UTC (link)
	I'm pretty sure it's okay to not like them because you don't like their character. But that would be petty. You should have an objective reason to dislike a character, so you can feel superior to all the plebes who stupidly like the character. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sir_hellsing 2011-06-07 06:30 pm UTC (link)
	...I'm more sad these people seem to be into Madoka. NOOOO. They dare using QB icons while typing that. His image is being desecrated! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	sarajayechan 2011-06-09 11:01 pm UTC (link)
	Hey, if they're not above defiling Sesame Street to prove their point, who knows what they're capable of? (Reply to this)(Parent)