Where did I say "less bad?" And where I dismiss rape in any way? Nowhere.
I'm saying that one doesn't trump the trauma of the other.
When people provide examples of situations that Bruce has experienced, it seems to be to offer "proof" that Jen has no room to complain, that Bruce's trauma is valid whereas Jen's really isn't. That is a common scenario when dealing with sexual harassment. Unless it rises to the level of actual rape, there's a dismissive attitude that it's something the victim should just "get over" or they should "know how to handle it."
Last edited by Prof. Warren; 06-30-2019 at 05:33 AM.
I'm saying that trying to get into a greater than/less than discussion about sexual assault and harassment is wrong.
Instead of accepting that this is a story about one woman's point of view about harassment, a lot of men (and let's face it, it's all men) want to immediately play a trump card and point to things that have happened to Bruce as if it will automatically invalidate Jen's experiences if they can prove he's gone through worse. They don't want to hear what a woman has to say, which is something that is seen in real life all the time. Her suffering is fake, her experience is not really traumatic, and it's something that she should know how to deal with.
When someone speaks about their experience with sexual assault or harassment, the reaction should never be to be to respond by telling that person about people who have had it much worse. That would be an incredibly wrong thing to do. And yet that's definitely the reaction some readers are having with this issue.
Who's to say who's understanding it "correctly?"
Also, who's "we?"
Just because a bunch of fans don't like the direction a writer is taking a character doesn't mean that they're right about anything.
Or wrong, for that matter.
It means they have an opinion.
Aaron has obviously read Jen's previous stories and felt there was an aspect to her character that could be explored and addressed.
Some fans will like it, some won't.
"The Marvel EIC Chair has a certain curse that goes along with it: it tends to drive people insane, and ultimately, out of the business altogether. It is the notorious last stop for many staffers, as once you've sat in The Big Chair, your pariah status is usually locked in." Christopher Priest
Not a single person here pointed to Bruce's experiences as a way to negate Jen's, if someone did point them out to me so i can call them out, also YOU were the one specifically asking for examples of Banner/Hulk experiencing rape and such things.
This is why i hate this whole nonsense, this is why Aaron is such a shitty writer. Jen and Bruce would never compare their bad experiences to one another, they wouldn't turn it into some kind of a sick competition, they would know that each has had different experiences being the Hulk and that's it. They would find comfort and solidarity into one another not beat themselves over the head on who got groped as an Avenger more, this whole thing is so stupid.
And it's no surprise that it comes from the same man that had Red She Hulk and Hulk have sex in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET for 2 hours, solely because Betty wanted to get back at Bruce and was hoping he was watching her have sex with Hulk so he would feel jealous... like 12 year old horny boys wouldn't come up with nonsense this stupid.
And finally i am still appalled at your overall reaction. YOU wanted to turn this into a competition btw, you wanted to show that Jen experience worse crap and were so sure of it you asked others to show you examples of Bruce/Hulk being raped and whatnot and when you actually got it, something you didn't actually expect to see, suddenly you are singing a different tune. Now it's NOT about dismissing each others bad experiences, it doesn't matter who got raped or not, what's important is that Jen gets groped all the time and cat called, according to Aaron.
On the contrary, it seems like a lot of fans want to stick to a surface level view of Jen. She's happy and fun-loving and everyone knows it. Aaron is saying it's not as simple as that.
But she isn't. She is saying that even though it may look like her life as a Hulk has always been a breeze that it really hasn't and that there's been negative aspects to it that she hasn't openly discussed. She tells Bruce about the everyday indignities towards women that men never really consider. Telling Bruce that being a "big scary monster didn't seem so bad to me sometimes" isn't a dismissal of what he's gone through. It's just a way of saying that just as he said sometimes he's envious of her that she's felt the same way towards him sometimes.
She refers to Bruce as an "immortal horror-show" so she clearly understands that he's got his own sh*t to deal with and isn't looking to trade places.
Again, she never says anything about them being "equivalent." That is only what a lot of defensive dudes are reading into it.
Context is king.
X-23's most basic surface level characteristic that any idiot should grasp: Stoicism.
I don't demand that her every minor appearance be a nuance in-depth examination of her character, but is it to much to ask she be written in Archetype?! This is storytelling 101! If you want people to stay invested in a character, you need to, at the bare minimum, write them such a way that they can plausibly be believed to be the same character!
When people bring up examples of worse things happening to Bruce, that is explicitly a way of dismissing Jen's issues.
They didn't turn it into a "sick competition." They talked about their mutual experiences. And in the end, they were fine. It's not like they have a lot of other Hulks to talk to.
It's fans who are trying to play it as a competition by saying that Jen is not understanding how bad Bruce has it. But she does. She only wanted Bruce to understand that being the "sexy Hulk" was not the picnic that everyone assumes it to be.
I never wanted to show that Jen "experienced worse crap." I just find it ridiculous that the response to this is to try and find examples of Bruce having his own sexual trauma.
We could go through the specific examples of Bruce's experiences and discuss how they differ from what Jen's talking about but what would be the point?
Last edited by Prof. Warren; 06-30-2019 at 06:15 AM.
Context is king.
X-23's most basic surface level characteristic that any idiot should grasp: Stoicism.
I don't demand that her every minor appearance be a nuance in-depth examination of her character, but is it to much to ask she be written in Archetype?! This is storytelling 101! If you want people to stay invested in a character, you need to, at the bare minimum, write them such a way that they can plausibly be believed to be the same character!