[ SECRET POST #2690 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2690 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[My Little Pony: Equestria Girls movie]


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03.
[Star Trek: The Next Generation/Reginald Barclay]


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04.
[Dark Souls]


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05.
[Call the Midwife]


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06.
[The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim]


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07.
[The Thing. Inception. EverymanHYBRID. Adventure Time]


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08.


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09.


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10.


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11.










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #384.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[silverr]

I have to say I'm still recoiling over that Marion Zimmer Bradley stuff that I found out about through a secret a month or so ago.

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[(Anonymous)]

what stuff

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[ibbity]

She apparently knowingly married a pedophile and looked the other way when he went about his business as long as he didn't touch her kids. Which, besides being horrible in itself, causes much bemusement to those of us who read the novel she wrote that basically had as one of its main plot points "Being sexually targeted and abused against your will by an older authority figure is horrible and no one should ever have to go through it." With really in-depth coverage of the kind of behavior and emotional turmoil that come with that kind of experience. So you'd think she, being obviously AWARE of this, would have, idk, not married a pedo or let him go about his business unimpeded in any way till he got arrested.

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[silverr]

I don't recall all the details, but it seems that her husband was a serial pedophile. And she knew it, and did nothing.

The thing that stuck with me was the bit from the trial testimony where she admitted that she'd told her husband, "I don't care what you do to other kids, as long as you leave our kids alone." ... (Just typing that sentence outrages me all over again.)

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, this. I don't think I could suddenly hate her books or whatever, but her name used to give me relatively happy feelings, and now I feel gross inside.

Still love the Avalon books though. argh.

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[silverr]

It's been a long time since I read the books, but yeah, the name previously had a positive association, and now ... it does not.

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[elialshadowpine]

I found it out many years ago when I was obsessed with her work (as a young teen); I spent a good long time collecting the various anthologies and books where she had essays because I was interested in the background info she gave. And then I found that out when looking around online. Heart: Broken.

At the same point, her work is a large part of why I am okay with who I am vs. having huge crises of faith around being queer and poly and pagan, etc, so... I try to separate the author from the work in my head, in order to re-read. But finding that out was a huge blow.

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[silverr]

That's completely understandable! I remember absorbing Bradley along with Butler, Russ, Le Guin, Tiptree, and a bunch of New Wave authors with similarly resonant results on my psyche.

It's odd it's that I find it so much easier to make that "the author is not the work" separation when the author is a reasonable/admirable human writing characters doing reprehensible things than vice versa?

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[elialshadowpine]

I don't find that odd at all. Speaking as an author myself*, I have written some truly reprehensible characters, but I make it very clear through the narrative that I don't condone these things. Sometimes it's an antagonist, sometimes it's an anti-heroine. I write very flawed characters, and sometimes they do fucked up things, but I don't slant the story towards approval, when it's something serious. I try to stay true to the story, and sometimes the story calls for things that are not okay (and I try to handle them respectfully).

And, I'd say a lot of writers are that way. Just because they write about things that are fucked up doesn't mean they think those things are okay. There are certainly some that do, but I wouldn't think of that as a majority (but then I may have too much faith in humanity; I'll probably change my mind about this once I read the news :P).

Bottom line, just writing about these things, nobody is getting hurt. I suppose you could argue that some people can be traumatized by reading something that hits on a personal trigger, but I view that as different, especially since NY published books do not come with trigger warnings (some small digital first presses do actually include content notes). That's not a case of someone deliberately trying to hurt someone else.

Whereas with the MZB case, her actions or lack thereof caused real harm to multiple children. I've read through the depositions available online, although I didn't finish reading the one from Lisa Waters, and she was aware of her husband's pedophilia and did nothing to protect children who were around. Even scarier to me, it was mentioned that they were at one point in the process of trying to adopt a child and were also foster parents, which is just scary to me. Something that was also obvious in the depositions was that she was recovering from a stroke and her memory was affected; if those were the things she did remember, how much else happened that she didn't? That scares me.

Finding out about all that.... just was devastating, because I really was quite obsessed and wanted to try to sell a story to her magazine. I loved Darkover and the Renunciates to the point I considered legally changing my name to the Renunciate style. I really liked the concept of the connection with the mother's name, especially given I was abused terribly by my dad. Mind, I was like thirteen or so, but to give an idea how obsessed I was. Then I found all that shit out, and, yeah.... (I do still plan to change my name, it just is a matter of having the spoons to deal with all the paperwork!)


* Regarding authorship -- I've been published, but my work isn't currently available. I had my rights reverted because the publisher I was working with marketed my urban fantasy with a foul-mouthed heroine, rough sex, and lots of violence in language more appropriate to an inspirational romance. Needless to say, sales sucked. I'm looking at self-publishing at this point, but between life and health issues, I've been having difficulty writing. :-\

Re: Things you were surprised to find out about an author

[silverr]

*nods* Very well put (I'm an author myself ... and also came from what I guess is now called a "toxic environment") -- and I think you're absolutely spot-on. As cathartic as writing horrible things happening to fictional characters may be, it isn't even in the same galaxy as horrible things happening to real people.

Aw, that's too bad about the misdirected marketing! I wish you luck with the self-published e-books.