[ SECRET POST #5392 ]

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⌈ Secret Post #5392 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 34 secrets from Secret Submission Post #772.
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

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General comments:

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Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a huge fan of immortal/human romances, and I have a particular soft spot for vampire romances. It's just a trope I enjoy. At the same time, part of me just Doesn't Get It from the immortal's POV. Example: I know Twilight/Vampire Diaires/etc are made for teen girls, so teen girls are the protagonists. But it just makes no sense why someone that old would be interested in dating a teenager (especially since sex isn't on the table a lot of the time, so you can't even say it's a dirty old man thing). Even if we age the protagonist up to, say, 30, why on Earth would a 100+ person find them interesting? Anybody got book recs where this is done really well, or just thoughts about doing it well?

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

I mean I can buy it, just because most people are boring to others. As in, of all the people you've ever met in your life, how many have you fallen in love with, and even if you were 100+ years old, would that number be in the double digits even? If I were 1000 years old it's not like I'd have had hundreds of long term relationships because most people just aren't that interesting. Finding someone you like a lot is not easy or anything.

That being said, for this to work, the love interest in question then has to be shown to actually be interesting or somehow a good fit for the immortal in a way other people are not. And most authors settle with "but they were super specially hot" and it falls flat, especially because they tend to be like random teenagers. Frankly I could see vampires falling for older people more than younger, because there'd be more personality and life experience to have in common. So it's not so much "why would a 100+ year old go for a 30 year old," but rather "why is *this* 30 year old a good match when others aren't?" and it's up to the authors to show how, except they usually fail

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

Tbh I'm reading a series right now where one of the side characters is a vampire who was 16 when she was turned. She's 1400 years old now, but she's developmentally still 16 because her body literally never and can never finish developing. So she's eternally 16 with all that implies re poor judgment/impulsive actions/misjudging consequences/doing stupid shit. I love it. I love that she's 16 eternally and not just in looks. Some of the older vampires (those who were turned when they were adults) act in loco parentis because, yeah, she still needs parents. She's always going to need parents.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

If the way that you think that immortality would affect human existence is that immortals would be uninterested in younger people, then it seems like they would also probably be bored by the perspectives of a 60 year old or an 80 year old, as well as a 16 year old or a 30 year old. After all, if you're 600 years old, the difference between a 25 year old and a 75 year old is going to be pretty immaterial. So if that's how you think immortality would play out, then the only "realistic" outcome would be that the immortal would be alienated and bored and uninterested in the lives of every mortal human being. And you can write those stories. But that angle closes off a lot of stories. There's only certain kinds of narratives you can have when that's your starting point, and it's very detached from most common genres.

So being mortal humans ourselves, we like to imagine that immortals would see the world in a comparable way to the way that we see it, and would form emotional attachments with mortals. And that also allows us to tell stories that are familiar and satisfying in human terms, instead of stories based on horror or cognitive estrangement. The problem is fundamentally that there's nothing we can really use to judge or understand the experience of being an immortal human. It's totally outside of human understanding, by definition. And I think this is a common theme between a lot of different speculative tropes - there's no guide in human experience that tells us what these situations would be like, and so we fall back on things that are familiar from our own experience even though they're unrealistic because they're familiar and because they allow us to tell stories that are related to our experiences and make sense in human terms. It's the same thing in superhero comics, for example.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

The only vampire/human romance I really enjoyed was Robin McKinley's Sunshine, partially because while the human and vampire protagonists are into each other, the vampire is still really alien and creepy, just less so than their mutual enemies that trap them both together.

And when they get distracted from not dying/being destroyed by enemy vampires by their attraction to each other, the vampire has to put the brakes on and say it's a bad idea because they need to focus on survival.

I think setting it in a modernish world where magic and magical creatures exist out in the open helps it avoid some of the more annoying (to me, anyway) vampire/urban fantasy tropes.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of those romances just solve it the quick and easy way by having the explanation that the immortal's mind doesn't age, so if they look like a teenager then they still have a teenager's mind. It's not the most creative, but it solves the question of why they'd be interested in a real teenager. Because for all intents and purposes, they are one too. Just an immortal one.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

see, i don't follow that line of thought, this idea that if a human(-ish being) kept aging that they would exponentially get more mature, more knowledgable, more sophisticated - because they won't retain literally everything that has happened in those 100+ years. unless you go by the "frozen in time" angle, in which case the objection also doesn't apply

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

Sort of OT: does anyone like Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Yarbro? Is it good? I'm thinking of reading it.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

I would imagine that the young mortal's verve for life might be engaging for an immortal struggling with ennui and boredom. 'Everything becomes new when seen through their eyes!' sort of thing.

And. Some people just click.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

The thing with immortals and super long lived types, is the rest of us are basically pets to them. So don't let Omni-Man dogsit for you, is what I am saying here.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

I think one of the things I enjoy in romances like that is the trope being flipped. Immortal being believes seducing/killing/controlling this one human won't even be a challenge, only to get seduced themselves/outsmarted/their ass kicked/fall head over heels.

Re: Immortal romances

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have any recs, but I think the idea is interesting. A college student (lets say, all vampire stories should take place in college- no curfew) has grown up with technology the vampire finds foriegn. She's used to a world that moves too quickly to keep up with. She has that optimism and desire for self improvement that a stagnant, jaded, literal corpse could find enticing.

I mean, why does anyone like anyone? We're all mostly boring most if the time. And vampires would be extra boring: no recipes to share and all their stories involve people you don't know.

What favorite childhood movies did you rewatch

[(Anonymous)]

And hate?

Re: What favorite childhood movies did you rewatch

[(Anonymous)]

Ghostbusters. It hadn't really dawned on me when I was a kid that Venkman was such a creepy jerk.

Re: What favorite childhood movies did you rewatch

[(Anonymous)]

The Herbie movies. A whole lot of sexism and so, so much "abuse is funny when it's female on male". It's obviously a "time it was made" issue but still, ugh.

Re: What favorite childhood movies did you rewatch

[(Anonymous)]

I try not to revisit movies from my childhood. It is a always an invitation to surprise homophobia, transphobia, racism (so much brownface in old British movies!), sexism, or all of the above.

Re: What favorite childhood movies did you rewatch

[(Anonymous)]

Not a movie, but I remember really loving the short story Harrison Bergeron in high school. I recently reread the synopsis for it, and oh boy. I have some very significant issues with the message.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it was the ending that got to me most, with the father coming back into the room and finding the mother in tears because she's just watched them shoot her son on the TV, but she's already forgotten why she was crying. Yeah, that still totally gets me. Gah. But the rest of the story is very "Let's wildly demonize government regulation in a way that's so OTT it's basically just hyperbolic strawmanning."

Hey, you.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, you. Are you a police protection officer in charge of safeguarding a Tory politician? With them every waking second, stalwart defender of their life and executor of their policies? You are, great. Execute Order 66.
Thanks.

Re: Hey, you.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, my lord.

OCs in fanfiction

[(Anonymous)]

How do you feel about them?

Re: OCs in fanfiction

[(Anonymous)]

It's fine as long as they're interesting characters and not supremely annoying.

Why are there so many post-apocalypses

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I know why there are so many, but I still hate it. I don't want to read any post-apocalyptic or dystopian science fiction. I don't understand why people do. But it's so widespread and popular.

how to make friends as an adult?

[(Anonymous)]

God, how does one do it? I'm at a loss here, mates.

That 90s Show

[(Anonymous)]

Netflix is doing a spin-off of That 70s Show, titled That '90s Show, with Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp reprising their roles as Red and Kitty Forman, with their granddaughter, Leia Forman (Eric and Donna's daughter).

I do not appreciate this, mostly because it makes me feel ancient. Because the 90s don't feel as far from now as the 70s did then, but if they were doing a show set the same amount of time before the beginning of the show as That 70s Show, it wouldn't even be in the 90s (That 70s Show aired in 1998 and was set in 1976, so if the show airs in 2022, well).