[ SECRET POST #4132 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4132 ⌋

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

01.



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02.
[Jay and Silent Bob]


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03.
[Louisa May Alcott, An Old Fashioned Girl]


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04.
[The Maze Runner, Thomas/Minho]


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05.


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06.
[First Wave (Scifi Channel)]


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07. [SPOILERS for Black Panther]



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08. [WARNING for sexual abuse]

[The Fall Part 2: Unbound]









Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #591.
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

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/wF8vtR4.png
[Louisa May Alcott, An Old Fashioned Girl]

[philstar22]

Haven't read this book. But are romantic feelings always rational? I don't think someone's attraction to or obsession with someone has to make sense.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a difference between irrational attraction and falling in love with someone who was kind of a shit to you as a kid, and then wasn't even around. I mean...they're not even there to fixate irrationally upon.

[(Anonymous)]

As a kid, I was okay with pretty much any/all of what Alcott wrote. As an adult, I'm not sold on any of her romantic relationships, up to and including Rose/Mac. (As an adult, I'm also oddly bitter about the scene in which dressing fashionably is demonized; hey, guess what, knowing how to dress to be attractive is a useful skill to have, Ms. Alcott, and you can take that condescending attitude toward female beauty and choke on it.)

...I think I'm trying to say I agree, haha.

[(Anonymous)]

Alcott did have really weird hang ups about the fashion of the time. She wasn't entirely wrong to point out that it wasn't practical, but that isn't what bothers me - it's that she attacks it from a "female vanity" point of view that feels kind of over the top. That goes double for the weird scene with Rose and the earrings.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT - I think it was more of a "Ladies, quit pressuring each other to injure yourselves to keep up with the latest fashion" thing. The Rational Dress Movement was mostly focused on tight-lacing and high heels. But, I imagine if you're already upset with society's expectations that girls and women have to physically modify the shapes of their bodies to be successful at femininity, the fashion of punching holes in one's head from which to hang decorations would be one more straw on the camel's back.

[(Anonymous)]

It's sort of that, yes. That's why I said I thought Alcott wasn't wrong. Tight lacing and impractically tight clothing is neither comfortable nor practical. The earring scene, though... you can't really argue that it's injurious to one's health, if done properly and kept clean. The objections Alcott has are that she feels they're silly and vain, and Rose is shamed and ridiculed for choosing to have them done.

“What! what! what!” cried the boys in a chorus, dropping their shovels and knives to gather round Rose, for a guilty clutching at her ears betrayed her, and with a feeble cry of “Ariadne made me!” she hid her head among the pillows like an absurd little ostrich.

“Now she'll go prancing round with bird cages and baskets and carts and pigs, for all I know, in her ears, as the other girls do, and won't she look like a goose?” asked one tormentor, tweaking a curl that strayed out from the cushions.

“I didn't think she'd be so silly,” said Mac, in a tone of disappointment that told Rose she had sunk in the esteem of her wise cousin.

“That Blish girl is a nuisance, and ought not to be allowed to come here with her nonsensical notions,” said the Prince, feeling a strong desire to shake that young person as an angry dog might shake a mischievous kitten.

“How do you like it, uncle?” asked Archie, who, being the head of a family himself, believed in preserving discipline at all costs.

“I am very much surprised; but I see she is a girl, after all, and must have her vanities like all the rest of them,” answered Dr. Alec, with a sigh, as if he had expected to find Rose a sort of angel, above all earthly temptations.

“What shall you do about it, sir?” inquired Geordie, wondering what punishment would be inflicted on a feminine culprit.

“As she is fond of ornaments, perhaps we had better give her a nose-ring also. I have one somewhere that a Fiji belle once wore; I'll look it up,” and, leaving Pokey to Jamie's care, Dr. Alec rose as if to carry out his suggestion in earnest.

“Good! good! We'll do it right away! Here's a gimlet, so you hold her, boys, while I get her dear little nose all ready,” cried Charlie, whisking away the pillow as the other boys danced about the sofa in true Fiji style.

It was a dreadful moment, for Rose could not run away she could only grasp her precious nose with one hand and extend the other, crying distractedly,

“O uncle, save me, save me!”

Of course he saved her; and when she was securely barricaded by his strong arm, she confessed her folly in such humiliation of spirit, that the lads, after a good laugh at her, decided to forgive her and lay all the blame on the tempter, Ariadne. Even Dr. Alec relented so far as to propose two gold rings for the ears instead of one copper one for the nose; a proceeding which proved that if Rose had all the weakness of her sex for jewellery, he had all the inconsistency of his in giving a pretty penitent exactly what she wanted, spite of his better judgment.


Alcott's attitude about earrings comes off as fairly sexist by modern standards. It isn't Rose choosing to wear a piece of jewelry because she thinks it's pretty, it's Rose giving into the inherent weakness of her sex.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, it's sexist to assume that Rose's feminine weakness led to her decision to get her ears pierced. It's also sexist to tell women that they have to bore holes in their heads and hang baubles from them in order to be fashionable and pretty. Alcott's brand of sexism has fallen out of favor, but the sexist attitude she was responding to is still prevalent today.

[(Anonymous)]

Iirc she had to dumb-down her writing (and characters) a lot because her dad was very conservative and moralistic. The core messages are still there but I agree, it feels a little... Not-so-great.
She wrote some stuff under the alias A. M. Barnard, which I find vastly better written.

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

Love very rarely make sense. That being said I probably am not a fan of Louisa's romances either-- I am a much bigger fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery's romances, I find them much more interesting. Though I do love Alcott's books a lot-- especially in 8 Cousins where Rose stays with her eclectic uncle and he lets her dig around in all sorts of Hidden trunks and treasures

Man, that seemed like the most fun ever! I wish that was a thing now

[(Anonymous)]

The Blue Castle is one of my favorite L.M. Montgomery books. :) I really hated the romance in the Emily of New Moon series, though.

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

I think that my favorite was Anne and Gilbert, but I think that the side romances in the Emily series were my favorite-- Ilsa/Perry all the way.

Teddy and Emily just didn't work for me.

I loved Lucy Maud Montgomery short stories where love was found after fourty years, like a couple courted, then something happened, an argument to drive them away. They went their own way and life went on, then they met again and it was love all over again.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read any of these and don't know anything about any of these romances. Yet what you describe weirdly resonates...

This is something I would never admit to in real life. I am a grown woman. In fact, pretty much anyone who knows me will tell you I am a strong independent woman who don't need no man. But there's this dude I first flirted with three years ago. We ran into each other again two years ago and went on a date. A single date. Half a year ago, we saw each other again, he had a girlfriend then. Three months ago, we randomly talked again - his relationship had ended. I haven't heard from him since, and I haven't contacted him. I cannot get him out of my head. My heart aches just thinking about it now.

I would never, ever tell anyone about any of this in real life. (The last time I told anyone about him was when we ran into each other half a year ago, and I pretended to be happy that he was in a relationship.)