[ SECRET POST #2096 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2096 ⌋

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

01.


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02.


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03.


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04. http://i.imgur.com/KENos.png
[True Blood; sort of porny, illustrated ... choking and spanking or something?]


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05.
[Koi Kaze; Freefall]


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06.
[Suits]


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07.
[A Song of Ice and Fire]


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08.


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09.


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10.


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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]











11. [SPOILERS for Doctor Who]



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12. [SPOILERS for A Song of Ice and Fire]



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13. [SPOILERS for the Stand]



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14. [SPOILERS for Teen Wolf]



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15. [SPOILERS for Shin Megami Tensei IV]



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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]













16. [WARNING for self-harm]

[bogglelovesyou@tumblr]


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17. [WARNING for attempted suicide and depression]

[The Walking Dead]


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18. [WARNING for suicide]















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #299.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

10. http://i.imgur.com/RNCpY.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I'm already kind of embarrassed by having posted this, since it's an unfair comparison--Twilight is much easier to credit with promoting abuse than Manson is with promoting indiscriminate violence. In my defense, what set me off was that people literally used the same sentences to condemn them (e.g. "Most teens won't [get into an abusive relationship/kill people] after [reading/listening] to this, but some of them will.")

[dethtoll]

Hi OP -- at least you recognized the inherent fallacy.

[saiika_von_maou]

Lol. No worries. Faulty analogy aside, I do think you made a fairly good point. People should take responsibility for their own actions and understand the real issues, rather than, as you said, finding a scapegoat.

[forgottenjester]

Oh, hey OP. I missed you for a second and for some reason thought you were just another anon.

Eh, it's okay. Everyone makes reaching statements sometimes. At least you did it here anonymously instead of in real life in front of people you were trying to impress or something. It's great that you recognize what's wrong with the statement.

I hope everything goes well for you.

[al28894]

Well, at least you recognize the fallacy of your point, even though it's partly valid.

[cleverthylacine]

Well, as a Twilight fan, I actually agreed with your secret!

Twilight is escapist reading, and Twilight fans want Bella's life the same way James Bond fans want James Bond's life, which is to say, they might say they want it but they're not really serious, and if you ask them if they really, truly, want to get shot at all the time and have all their girlfriends die horribly (or have a boyfriend who sneaks into the house and watches them sleep) they will say no.

But because most Twilight fans are girls, people freak the fuck out in ways that they would never freak out about James Bond or any of the dozens of other fantasy characters that primarily straight boys and men identify with who have terrible relationship and dating strategies (and horrifying personal and professional lives) that nobody should ever emulate.

The vast majority of people who read Twilight know it's a fantasy and don't actually plan their lives around it.

Besides, if we're going to ban books that mess up people's lives when taken too seriously, the vast majority of religious scriptures, not to mention everything ever written by Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein, go first. (Note: I'm not an atheist and I actually enjoy Rand and Heinlein, I just don't think they're a good basis for politics or economics, so please don't flame me in defence of them.)

[forgottenjester]

I don't feel like those two analogies are related. One is directly blaming someone for an event. Another is saying that the subject helps perpetuate unhealthy ideas that were already in existence before it was created.

One is an explicit cause. The other is one of many things adding to an overall problem.

I don't know. Am I wrong here?

[(Anonymous)]

There's also the fact that Manson was connected to the shootings because the media declared the shooters fans of 'violent music/video games' - and specifically focused on him, even though it was proved that the shooters weren't fans of his.

So the whole thing with Manson came from outside speculation, where as with Twilight it's all from what's actually in the material as well.

[(Anonymous)]

This!

Saying Twilight is a single example in an ongoing problem in our society is not the same as blaming a specific artist for a specific event.

[(Anonymous)]

From my understanding there's also a fairly big difference between the two situations? Namely, Twilight actually did portray an unhealthy relationship as desirable, where as Marilyn Manson was connected to the shootings by outside media - and it was even proven that the two shooters weren't fans?

[saiika_von_maou]

My main problem with Twilight was that the author herself thought she was writing out a pure, innocent relationship. The delusion on her part concerns me and can easily leak to impressionable people. I'm pretty sure Marilyn Manson knows how dark and disturbing his music is and what kind of negative message can be taken from it. He's putting out shock music and selling it as shock music. Stephenie Meyer is putting out a frankly disturbing relationship and selling it as true love.

Those are my thoughts.

[insanenoodlyguy]

This really.

[forgottenjester]

I agree with this.

Also, I've always wondered how she viewed her own work. I knew she had to see it as a positive but to see that confirmed is a bit... disheartening.

Do you know how she reacted to accusations of the relationship being abusive?

[darkmanifest]

Stephenie Meyer is putting out a frankly disturbing relationship and selling it as true love.

Actually, even if Meyer sold it as disturbing as it is, people would probably still buy it as true love, if fandom is any indication. Twilight is just a symptom of how popular culture already views romance.

[(Anonymous)]

eh. I think it's more insulting that everyone seems to be assuming girls can't see Twilight for the dub-con fantasy fodder that it is. If guys can read "their" sci-fi with unrealistically beautiful and available sexyladies and somehow realize This Is Not Reality (or really, watch porn and know the same thing), I really think we should be giving girls the benefit of the doubt.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this.

[(Anonymous)]

Except both of those have been blamed for certain behaviors in guys? [Along with Hollywood being blamed for the number of guys who go for much younger women, and are legitly surprised when said younger women aren't acting like their the best thing ever].

[(Anonymous)]

Thing is guys (especially teenage ones) aren't any better at realizing their fantasies are unrealistic. Of course this doesn't mean every guy, but there are plenty who have wrong expectations of sex because all they know is porn (which is why sex-ed is so important) or who have very unrealistic expectations of how many sexy ladies life should just be throwing at them.

[(Anonymous)]

We should, but the hype around "Edward" and how soooo many girls and women (and I'm sure lots of gay/bi boys/men)want him a or a guy like him shows that way too many people would easily fall into a abusive relationship. So it's not girls we need to protect from shit like that, it's people. I think a lot of people just assume girls/women are weak or dumb to be have told this and forget that it's not something only in females, but in this case the target if females. Males are just as dumb and can just as easily have the same happen to them. So, yes, i believe we need to protect all those teenage girls and tell them it's not a healthy relationship, just as we should tell boys, if they were the target in the story.

I hope it was clear what i meant, because english is not my first language.

[visp]

Well I definitely wouldn't say that Twilight is the cause of all abusive relationships and we all lived in love and harmony before that accursed manual of bitch-slapping came along. I would say, however, that Twilight has, in its primary relationship, some very unhealthy assertions. How much people have been affected by the book, I really couldn't say.

[(Anonymous)]

Twilight normalizes abusive relationships. (Though it's certainly not the only bit of popular media guilty of that.)

I doubt that Marilyn Manson normalizes anything.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think these can be compared. Nobody blames a specific abusive relationship or abusive relationships in general on Twilight. Blaming a specific horrible event on someone is something entirely different.

[sarnath]

All I blame it for is bad storytelling, horrible prose, and being deeply unfeminist. If people like it, sure, but don't try to tell me it's a good book. The popularity is both baffling and slightly worrying (don't people have any taste or insight?). Unless they're fifteen and it's their first romance novel, I suppose. If you're over thirty you really should know better.

Also, in some camps it seems people are implying that it shouldn't be criticised because it's for girls. Yeah, so we should be happy about bad literature, then?

[citrinesunset]

This isn't a perfect analogy(and you seem to be aware of that). Most importantly, I think, is the difference between blaming the media for someone's actions and blaming it for perpetuating negative attitudes. The latter is a fairer criticism, I think. That's also something you can apply to violence in the media.

I also think it's more productive to think about what the existing attitudes the media perpetuates. Twilight didn't invent abusive relationships or the "bad boy" trope, by any means. But it is using a trope that a lot of people feel stems from unhealthy relation ideals (and helps perpetuate them).

None of that means it's wrong to enjoy Twilight (or violent media). But it's interesting to think about where some tropes come from and why they endure for so long.