fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #705 ]

[ SECRET POST #705 ]

⌈ Secret Post #705 ⌋

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

101.

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102.

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[Elf]

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[Naria: Caspian/Susan]

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[Hellsing]

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[Snoop Dogg, Sensual Seduction music video]

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[Weiss Kreuz]

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[NCIS]

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[Eternal Sonata]

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[Fullmetal Alchemist]

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[Spirited Away]

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[Prince of Persia]

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[Eureka]

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[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]

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[Harry Potter]

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[Special A]

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[Labyrinth]

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[Making Fiends]

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[Bust a Groove]

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[Hetalia]

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[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Gurren Gakuenhen]

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[MSNBC, Morning Joe: Joe Scarborough/Mika Brzezinski]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 165 secrets from Secret Submission Post #101.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - doing it wrong ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I can't speak for other "straw-feminist fangirls" (way to hurt your own arguement, by the way), but the major problem I see with Twilight isn't that Bella Swan wants to marry early and have 1987506 babies, but that her vampire boyfriend is obsessive, controlling, and abusive...and Meyer presents this as being TOTES OKAY.

Women can be housewives if they want. We can agree on that point. But hopefully, we can also agree that unhealthy relationships shouldn't be glamorized.

No, we can't. I don't think that there is any kind of relationship that is not okay to write about, and every time I hear the word "X is being glamourised" from people who promote these arguments, it always means "X isn't punished hard enough". Welcome to the glory days of the Comics Code Authority, only we're doing it for your mental health, not your morals.

I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT sign on to this kind of censorship.

Also, what glamour? Edward is weird, moody, socially awkward and pretty. Bella doesn't like it when he's controlling, although sometimes he has good reason to be and she will go along with it at that point. (The whole "people you can't possibly fight yourself are after you" argument is, I'm afraid, rather compelling.) Edward is freaky, but he doesn't make her feel bad about herself. I've been in the kind of relationship this book's detractors think it's presenting, and I would run a country mile to get away from it, but that's not what I see in this book.

I kind of love you and your responses. :D THANK YOU FOR REPRESENTING THE SANE TWILIGHT FANS.

:D :D :D :D :D

I'm especially frustrated that fangirl squee is taken as serious commentary on what you want in your life. OK, putting Tom Sturridge on your tits is NUTS, but if a girl says "OMG I LOVE EDWARD SOOO MUCH I'D SO LEAVE MY BF TO MARRY HIM" does that really mean any more than "OMG I love Brad Pitt soooo much, I'd leave my boyfriend and marry him"? Of course not. Because Brad Pitt is a celebrity that you will never meet and Edward is neither human nor real.

"I want a relationship just like Edward and Bella", why do people take this literally? I'm sure the people who say that don't actually want a controlling boyfriend any more than they want trackers and the Volturi coming after them to try and kill them dead!

Though, personally, I love Carlisle :) but then, I'm older than most of the people who want Edward.

I didn't expect to like these books but I read them because my best friend loved them, and I really do love them. They're not War and Peace. But neither is Harry Potter.

(And actually, I think Ron and Hermione are waaay scarier than Bella and Edward.)

Oh, I totally agree with everything you said. Just because I read something, doesn't mean that's how I want my life to work out. I'm one of those people who reads, you know, for ENTERTAINMENT and ENJOYMENT, not because I want to find a manual on how my life should be lived. lol And yeah, I mean, Twilight isn't fantastically written or the be-all, end-all, but damn it, I found it HIGHLY entertaining. And I know there are some scary-ass fans out there, but that doesn't mean that WE ALL ARE. And no, not everyone who reads these and actually enjoys them is fucked in the head. I'm happily married, and I wouldn't want my husband to start acting like Edward. That doesn't mean I can't ENJOY THE FUCKING STORY, though, you know?

Oh, and I also love Carlisle. :D I'm quite a bit older than most of the Edward fans, myself. Though I will say that Rob Pattinson looked GLORIOUS in the movie. ;)

(And actually, I think Ron and Hermione are waaay scarier than Bella and Edward.)

I'm not a Ron/Hermione fan either, but WHY is this scarier than Bella/Edward?

Because Ron isn't glamorous, sexy or rich. God, get with the program, anonymous.

I love Ron and still haven't quite forgiven Hermione for attacking him with birds, but I don't think that's what she's thinking about.

Re: 145

cleverthylacine - 2008-12-11 23:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 145

qasr-e-shirin.livejournal.com - 2008-12-12 02:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 145

vivalanaomi.livejournal.com - 2008-12-12 02:30 (UTC) - Expand

no, because Ron belittles everything Hermione cares about, like her SPEW and her studying and her intellect and all that.

Re: 145

qasr-e-shirin.livejournal.com - 2008-12-12 03:50 (UTC) - Expand

Edward is an asshole sometimes, but it's always out of concern for Bella's safety and he ALWAYS explains himself when asked to do so, unless it's an immediate emergency. He does not do any of the following things:

* belittle Bella's academic and intellectual interests (like Ron does Hermione's)--in fact he encourages her to complete her education, it's Bella who doesn't want to;

* belittle the causes Bella cares about or the changes she'd like to see in their world;

* tell Bella she's a shrew or that her complaints/wishes/interests that are different from his are unreasonable.

Imnsho, Ron's much more emotionally abusive. Edward is so paranoid about dating someone who's incredibly breakable from his POV that it comes off as a desire to control her when actually he doesn't want to control her, he just wants her to be safe. Ron...kind of hates Hermione's political activism, intellectual interests, organisational skills...he is always bitching at her, and he uses another girl to get at her. And the fact that Hermione is just as mean to him doesn't make the relationship BETTER. They're horrible to each other.

YMMV, a lot of people like the Weasleys; to me they're exactly like the O'Keefes in "Wrinkle In Time" except that Rowling likes them and wants us all to love them too.

You are so right.

I mean, when I took my girlfriend's engine out of her car so she couldn't see her friend, it wasn't creepy. I only did it because I LOVE HER.

Why can't women just wake up and realize that illegal acts of vandalism and theft aimed at controlling their movements and socializing are the new bouquet of red roses?

Geez!

Are you serious? Have you even READ the last HP book? He turns around, grows up, and supports her beliefs!

Read this, and then tell me Ron is more abusive - http://pamgutz.livejournal.com/6499.html

Re: 145

azurite - 2008-12-14 23:40 (UTC) - Expand

It's fine to write about any kind of relationship, but it's the way said relationships are perceived (in this case, Bella and Edward's). It scares me that so many girls are willing to overlook Edwards scarier aspects because he and Bella are "in love".

That scares me too, but I don't think you can blame it on the books. Edward is weird, socially awkward, hard to get along with, and Bella doesn't like it quite a bit of the time. She accepts it because a) she's obsessively in love with Edward; b) she's rather damaged herself, having had to be the parent of her parents since she was quite young; c) there are actually good reasons and extenuating circumstances for some of Edward's actions (non-human abilities--his own and also the scary people who are after Bella) and d) when she goes against Edward's better judgement of what she can handle in his world, quite often she ends up getting hurt. If teenagers are reading this and deciding that Edward is a true romantic hero and Bella doesn't mind things that she argues about and complains about all the time, I'm going to say that this probably is a symptom of a larger problem endemic in our culture that Stephenie Meyer did not create and cannot control. Personally, the one I would date is not Edward, it's Carlisle. Bella is a first-person narrator, so of course she's going to explain things the way she sees them, but I think it's a mistake to assume that this is a textbook for how to have any kind of relationship.

And realistically? I think many of the girls who say "OMG EDWARD IS SO ROMANTIC" wouldn't actually put up with this behaviour in real life when faced with it. But Twilight is a vampire fantasy. I don't think girls who read pioneer romances want to go and live in the 1890s, but they fantasise about it. It frustrates me that people who say that they are feminists are often the people who give other girls and women the least amount of credit for having any common sense at all about stuff like this. I mean, I consider "OMG EDWARD IS SOOO ROMANTIC, I WANNA BOYFRIEND JUST LIKE HIM, I'd leave my husband/bf/SO in a heartbeat," to be the exact same kind of thing as when I say "OMG Rahm Emanuel is soooo hot, I'd hit that with the force of a thousand suns," when actually, I absolutely wouldn't (we're the same religion, we're both serious about it, and I'd be sooo disappointed if he cheated on his wife, even though I like to read slash about him). I think people frequently mistake fannish squee for something that it isn't.

I see what you're saying, but I've heard too many young girls at my mother's school go all mushy about the pairing without mentioning its faults for me to be entirely comfortable with it.

So...when you squee and get mushy about a fictional character or a fictional relationship, do you normally preface that with a discussion of the flaws inherent in said character or relationship and its inappropriateness for the real world, or do you just squee?

And if you just squee, why shouldn't they?

I started out in the online fanfiction/roleplaying world in Harry Potter and I was in my late 30s (2001-2002), and I ended up in a lot of conversations with people who turned out to be 14-17 years old. In the beginning, I frequently could not tell who was 16 and who was 35.

Later I detected a pattern: many 16 year olds were much more incisive in discussing a character's flaws than the 35 year olds (Snape's "wives" were not 15...), who were often in the rough spots of parenting/marriage/elder care and wanted silly romantic fluff, as opposed to teens, who liked angst. But if I had come into the conversation saying, "I'm 35, and you're 15, and this is not a good role model, and you do know this is not the kind of guy you should really date," it would have shut the conversation down AT ONCE. But I thought Snape and Draco were cool too, so we squeed, and then later, in the stories and deeper conversations, it became pretty clear that the teenagers were often clearer on the fault lines than the adults indulging in escapism who had enough RL to deal with offline. I tended to write fic with an equal balance of angst and emotional realism to romantic fluff, so I drew people from both age groups.

Your mother is the teacher of these girls. She's an authority figure and even if they like her, they're not going to have the conversations with her that they have with each other. You're her daughter, and presumably tell her what you hear. You are not going to hear what they really think deep down, and you certainly aren't going to hear it if you approach them as an older Person Who Knows What's Best For You.

Of course they go all mushy about the pairing. Of course they leave it at that. You're not someone they want to have this conversation with, and you won't be as long as you start out critical and authoritative.

Not to mention, there are a lot of people who don't want to analyse their squee material, and when did that stop being okay? As long as you're doing OK where it counts in real life, I see no reason to be concerned about you (OK not you personally, but you know what I mean) because you think Edward is hotter than Jacob or Draco is hotter than Ron. If you're not doing OK in real life, as a friend, I'm going to address that, not your shipping preferences.

(Actually, Draco is much nicer to Pansy than Ron is to Hermione, but Ron/Hermione are one of Those Couples--they freak me out way more than Edward and Bella, since when Edward is an asshole he usually has a good explanation for it later and he doesn't actually try to make Bella feel horrible about herself like real abusive bfs do.)

Re: 145

qasr-e-shirin.livejournal.com - 2008-12-12 03:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 145

teoka.livejournal.com - 2008-12-12 15:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 145

(Anonymous) - 2008-12-13 22:01 (UTC) - Expand

I think you should MWPP the Twilight characters into

lightning_war. They'll fit right in!

I wish I could copy/paste this a million times. Thank you for saying what I haven't been able to explain!!

I applaud your HEROIC STAND AGAINST CCA CENSORSHIP by commenting on a fucking lj community that is completely unrelated to the CCA or censorship.

Shine on, you crazy diamond!

(P.S. If you'd censor your own posts that'd be awesome, TIA!)

Have you read the books? Your facts seem a bit skewed, so I'll clear a few things up. I don't mean this in an offensive manner, just want to put some perspective into this.

Initially, Bella would have probably agreed with you that teen marriage is a mistake and usually done out of naivety. However, this is a romance fantasy novel. Bella and Edward are depicted to be soulmates, and when you read the books...marriage seems to be the only real logical next step. Especially when she's planning (at that point) to become immortal anyway.

Having 1987506 babies is probably the last thing Bella wants to do, believe me.

As far as Edward's obsession goes...you really have to go back and see the impact that Bella had on him. He's been alive for decades, having no real affection or even remote attraction for anyone. And to find that the girl that he FINALLY is attracted to is human!? "Obsession" is one way of describing it, but it's more like him trying to figure her out. "Who the hell IS this girl and why does she have this effect on me?" It's sappy yes, but kind of part of their dynamic.

His controlling nature takes place for a small section of ONE of the books. Bella doesn't take that shit anyway. She rebels, and he slowly figures out that he doesn't want to be that guy anyway. How massively that's blown up is beyond me.

Edward Cullen is most definitely not abusive. In fact, quite the opposite.

Their relationship is obviously unrealistic in many elements, and even Bella has a hard time believing it sometimes. But I would never describe them as unhealthy. They're fictional characters for gods sake. It's supposed to be fantastic and imaginative...but if people were to model their own relationships after it, I don't think anyone is of risk.

Of course they haven't read the books. :)

It'll be okay. They'll find something else to hate soon.

i hate your grandstanding, twilight!warrior comments

does that count :3

Have YOU read the books? I have, cover to cover, word for word, and I didn't miss the abusiveness. Then again, I went into the series skeptically, not thinking "This is gonna be the best fantasy romance series EVAR!!! eleventyone1!!11!!"

I'm going to pass this link onto you in the hopes that you'll read it thoroughly. I'm not saying you MUST agree with it in whole or in part, but at least give it a chance, and then re-read the "Twilight" series and examine those parts that you probably just skimmed over or forgot about in your last read-through.

Read what's out of "Midnight Sun," while you're at it, too.

EDWARD IS ABUSIVE. EDWARD IS CONTROLLING. EDWARD IS OBSESSIVE. His relationship with Bella (and vice-versa) is NOT HEALTHY. We all recognize that it's fiction, it's fantasy, it's YA romance, but that doesn't mean it is/should be immune to literary criticism. For the audience that is targeted towards (and the audience that is reading the series), it presents a VERY dangerous relationship model, and YES, they WOULD be at risk if people expected or created such a relationship.

Firstly, I just want to point out that my comment was directed toward an ignorant commenter that had no clue what they were talking about. They were making blatantly ridiculous comments that were really doing your side no help.

I'm getting the feeling that you might think I'm another squealing Twilight fan girl, when in reality, I too went into the series skeptically. I certainly did not believe it was going to be "the best fantasy romance series EVAR!!" either, and still don't.

I read the entire entry you gave me, and was pleasantly surprised to find some logical arguments. I can definitely understand and even respect a lot of what it had to say. I wouldn't consider myself a raging Bella/Edward shipper and even found myself creeped out by Edward from time to time when I read the series. Edward is a douche bag for a majority of the early novels, but I also believe he does a lot of improving throughout their relationship. Granted, he was pretty much a dictator in their relationship in the beginning. But he later realizes he was flawed in his controlling ways, and allows Bella to visit Jacob whenever she pleases. I think after that, and especially after their marriage, that whole part of him kind of withers.

Twilight is free to be whacked at by literary criticism, you're right. However, getting steamed, rowdy and "LET ME YELL WITH CAPS" is pretty pointless. The Twilighters who worship Edward are only doing so because they 1) will become attached to any attractive boy, regardless of character flaws, and/or 2) need some fantastical fantasy in their lives in order to function. If not Edward, they will find it somewhere else.

If anyone is really taking relationship advice from fantasy books, they need to realize that relationships like Edward and Bella do not exist. (And when I say that, I don't mean "abusive and controlling" relationships don't exist) Human/vampire relationships don't exist. There are no relationships where the boy has am emotional, physical AND blood thirst attraction to the girl. It's entertainment and should not be a bible on how to live. That's just silly. It is not Twilight, nor is it author that should be criticized, it's the eagerness of readers to immediately embrace fiction as real.

Thank you for responding politely and coherently. I appreciate it, and apologize if I came off rudely at all.

To be honest, I don't think that Edward allowing Bella to visit Jacob whenever she pleases is the penultimate form of relaxing his "dictator" ways. It's like he's got her on a leash and he's given her a bit of slack-- she's still on a leash.

Plus, if he does "improve" after they're married, it's probably BECAUSE they're married. He's got her "for eternity" now. Bella couldn't get away from him if she wanted to-- she's got the responsibility of her child (her own personal reasons for wanting to be a better parent than she sees her own parents as being a primary reason), but even if that weren't a factor, Edward and the other vampires would likely come after her. Edward himself points it out -she can't escape from him (not even as a vampire herself). She'd end up living like the recluse vampire-- what's his name, Alistair? He wasn't exactly described with glowing praise in BD, so I doubt his lifestyle of hiding from hte Volturi and the rest of vampire-dom is something Bella -wanting to "live" free and on her own- is something she'd aspire to. But it'd likely be her only choice, given the people she's surrounded herself with.

You are right that the sort of fangirls who are squeeing over Edward would have found that same sort of obsessive devotion in another character somewhere, but that doesn't make it any better (their behavior or Edward's character and "excusing" it).

As for your last comment, I think that's the crux of what a lot of people are trying to argue about the nature of the series and what it presents. The kind of people reading it AND squeeing over it, scratching their necks to make them bleed, wishing their boyfriends were [like] Edward, etc.-- those are the sort of people who, even if they register that vampires don't exist, won't register the rest of it. AT ALL. And they'll get stuck in a relationship that they've idealized and that "Twilight" and Stephenie Meyer have glamorized if they believe in those ideals to a fault. So yes, the readers are still very much at fault, but it's not like the series or the author are blameless. Without them, there'd be no issue at all here.

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