[ SECRET POST #2121 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2121 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Darths and Droids]


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03.
[Captain America & Iron Man]


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04.
[The Walking Dead]


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05.
[Divergent]


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06.
[SPN RPF]


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07.
[Sanctuary]


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08.
[Person of Interest]


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09.
[Last Exile]


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10.
[Hugo Weaving / Sam Neill]


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11.
[Type-Moon]


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12.
[Spec Ops: The Line]


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13.
[Quantum Leap]


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14.
[Tom Hiddleston]


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15.
[Labyrinth]


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16.
[Trent & Mariqueen Reznor, How to Destroy Angels]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #303.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

15. http://i.imgur.com/tPPUV.jpg
[Labyrinth]

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't that the point, though, that she's a naive young girl and all?

[(Anonymous)]

It depends. The movie!Sarah is most definitely a virgin. If she's aged up...yeah, she probably wouldn't be.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh. Dude, virgin to non-virgin ≠ power differential. Despite what romance novels may tell you, not having had sex before does not somehow magically make you unable to resist the advances of someone who has, nor does it make you somehow unaware or oblivious to being seduced.

[(Anonymous)]

I can imagine at least one way you mean this: that it isn't that you think Sarah should have been boffing her way through middle school or anything, you just have a squick for having her virginity spelled out explicitly. If that's the case, I can understand.

[insanenoodlyguy]

JARED, SAID SARAH, I HAVE A CONFESSION.

YES MY LOVE? SAID JARED.

I KINDA EXPERIMENTED WITH THIS ONE KID FROM THEATER CLUB IN MIDDLESCHOOL AND I AM NOT A VIRGIN.

JARED PULLED TWO CRYSTAL BALLS OUT. HE SMASHED THE FIRST ONE IN FRONT OF SARAHS FACE. SUDDENLY, SHE WAS HAVING A SWEET BEACH PARTY! THEY WERE DANCE MAGICING TO ROCK LOBSTER AND ANTYHING.

WAIT, SHE REALIZED. IT'S AN ILLUSION AGAIN.

SHE SNAPPED OUT OF IT. SHE WAS STRAPPED DOWN TO A TABLE AND JARED HAD CLEARLY JUST SHOVED THE OTHER BALL UP HER WOMAN LABYRINTH.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUCKER SAID SARAH

JARED CLAPPED HIS HANDS AND THE BALL DISSAPEARED. SARAH, HE SAID, YOU ARE A VIRGIN AGAIN.

OH SHIT NO NO NO NO. SARAH CRIED, BECAUSE NOW THE ILLUSION CASTING TELEPORTING MAGICAL GOBLIN KING HAD FAR, FAR TOO MUCH POWER IN THIS RELATIONSHIP.

SHE LEFT HIM FOR HOGGLE. WHEN SHE HUMPED THAT LUMPY NOSE, SHE COULD FEEL THE POWER OF VODOO. MMMM

[(Anonymous)]

If the fic takes place some time around or during movie!verse, given the type of film it is as well as Sarah's age, I think I'd be more surprised to read that she isn't a virgin.

And also, I can't see how her not being a virgin would do anything to change the power differential between them.

[oroburos69]

I don't really see how being a virgin would change anything. I mean, maybe you're talking about something tangentially related, such as the fact that a woman is a virgin s often used as plot shorthand that she's going to be submissive, but it doesn't have to be that way.

[greenvelvetcake]

Are you implying that, as the virgin, Sarah would have even more power over Jareth? Because I'm pretty sure she wrecked his shit at the end. "You have no power over me" and all that jazz.

[(Anonymous)]

So wait

how would her fooling around at the age of 12 or something with an equally clueless virgin of the same age have made her any wiser to the wiles of this demon god?

[(Anonymous)]

I may be the only person to read that and think "Hmm a story where Sarah is Mrs Experience and Jareth is all... untouched woobie"

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, it's pretty much canon, if the fic is set anywhere during or near the movie: "I assumed you'd tell me if you had a date. I'd like it if you had a date; you should have dates at your age!"

[otakugal15]

I think OP probably means aged up fic. And I can sorta see why that would be a problem cause he COULD use that to his advantage if he's, I guess, evil or dark enough? Use it as a way to humiliate her, maybe? I'm not sure if I'm just grasping at straws or not. >_>

I get why it's problematic seeing virginity as some form of weakness, but I don't exactly think OP meant it that way. I hope so anyway.

[streetcake]

Dude, she's a nerd who LARPs in her spare time, she's totally a virgin.

Joking aside, I could understand if the fic specified that she had never been in a relationship before, because then her naivety would be a factor into the whole power dynamics thing. But being a virgin doesn't necessarily mean you're naive. Heck, I don't think having sex necessarily means you couldn't still be naive and manipulated.

[visp]

Just chiming in on the Virgin=/ less power. On the contrary, people who wait until they're a bit older often feel far more in control their first time, what with them being older, more mature, have observed a bit more about relationships, etc.

Considering that Sarah doesn't date, and is 15 at the time, I find it unlikely that she would have been more "empowered" by any sexual experience she would have had before the movie. However, if the fic's aging her up and the author's a crappy writer that's playing the "secretly pined after him the whole time and never had a life" cliche, then sure, I see your point.

[(Anonymous)]

But he has no power over her...

[(Anonymous)]

I was a virgin who seduced my first-time partner. He wasn't a virgin. Guess nobody ever told him what to do with that whole power differential thing, and I just never listened when people said that whole intact hymen thing should leave me totally submissive and powerless during sexual activities.

[(Anonymous)]

On the one hand, I don't like pairings with massive power differentials. I generally avoid them.

On the other, I am not a virgin, and yet I would imagine that there would still be a power differential between me and a king with magical powers.

[brightblueink]

Not related to the secret but I literally just finished watching this movie for the first time ever. =Db so nice timing!

And honestly I'd be kind of surprised if she isn't a virgin? The way she's written (and particularly how her room looks) I don't get the idea that she's probably supposed to be younger than the actress looks in the movie...I'd put her at maybe 14, tops. (Of course because of that I can totally see being weirded out by reading a smutty shipfic with her and Jareth, since David Bowie does...not look young at all as Jareth.)

[velvet_mace]

Not really getting the virginity vs power bit. I mean, I suppose that would make her a little more tentative in bed, but it doesn't really have anything to do with naiveté. Just a matter of being picky and having other priorities that put dating and relationships on the back burner. It's not like having sex makes you worldly or wise or really anything besides experienced in bed.

[(Anonymous)]

If the story's using some of the tropes associated with virginity (the virgin being super passive, relying on the other partner to do everything, being nervous and scared about the sex, wanting to do it just out of love rather than actually wanting sex too, etc) then yeah, I agree.

Though... that's not always what being a virgin means to people, and that's not always how it's written in fic, either? For some people, never having had an iron in their fire means they're really excited and curious about it! They might not know the details of exactly what to do with another person's genitals, or how to get into position, but virgins can still be enthusiastic, and virgins can still initiate the boning. And I don't think there's that much of a power difference in a situation like that.

[tenlittlebullets]

IDK, if he is basically her power fantasy taking on a life of its own, the seduction/deflowerment tropes make sense as something she might consciously or unconsciously want him to act out. I can see how they'd be a bit creepy if played straight, though, especially if the author seems to have missed the memo about empowerment and Sarah ultimately being the one in control.

(And now the 2am plotbunnies are biting. Movie Sarah seems to be desperately in search of adversity to struggle against and is always going on about "it's not fair." I kind of almost want to see an older, sexually-anxious Sarah resurrecting Jareth to work through some issues re: responsibility, consent, purity, and that sneaky desire to be ravished and still be able to say "it's not my fault." Jareth kidnapping her and trying everything up to and including outright force to get her in bed with him, or something of the sort, culminating in a similar realization that she's the one in control of the fantasy here and she can make it end however she chooses if she owns her own desires. Including, perhaps, her desire to throw arousal under the bus and walk away instead of shagging a rapey figment of her imagination just because he makes her ladyboner tingle... awwww, but the movie threw in a "have your cake and eat it too" ending, so there would totally be an epilogue where she fucks him silly.)

[(Anonymous)]

I have nothing to add except OMG LABYRINTH SECRET! :D

[solidfoamsoul]

I find it kinda funny that your secret is number 15, since that's also Sarah's age...

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Pasting and expanding upon my reply to someone above:
Totally lost track of when this secret would be posted and finally just did a Google search to find it, what is it, from 3 weeks ago? Dammit. :(

In any event, for the record, yes, I did mean in aged-up fics. And the older-but-still-virgin Sarah I've encountered in fics does not seem to be in control, usually, or at least not in comparison to devious-blue/orange morality-sex god Jareth. The most in-control deliberative, er, 'deflowering' fic I've seen also had Jareth as this ridiculously nice, noble guy, for which I can see an argument be made (him following Sarah's expectations in the movie vs what he'd normally be like) but it basically just came off as really OOC. A number of other fics have Jareth all smug and possessive of getting to be first and only to get into Sarah's pants while also having had tons of partners himself, and that's...sleazy to me.

And no, I did not mean that virgins are inherently weaker or whatever (which is what I was trying to allude to with the "nothing against virginity" aside). But sex can complicate a relationship (and this one is already fraught with complications and, I still aver, power differences-- age, worldliness, powers and the know-how to deliberately use them) and while one's first sexual relationship isn't automatically The Most Significant Thing Ever, it's neither automatically The Least Significant Thing, either (and the impression of Sarah's character I got is that she'd be more to the former than the latter). It's the combination of "Jareth is Immortal, Highly Sexually Experienced, Has Strong Magic Powers, and Lacks a Human Sense of Basic Morality, Politeness, Etc" with "Sarah gets steamrolled by his sexy presence" that...eh.

Sarah's not going to magically get older than he is, she's unlikely to have stronger magic than he has and the experience of wielding it, and there's a tendency in the fic I've read to have her still be swayed by ~Fairy Tale Land~ instead of being able to bring in a grounded human perspective on why fulfilling your crush's fear by being frightening is NOT charming. (Tiffany Aching handled the Wintersmith better, imo.) So why, on top of all of that, not even give her that one small dimension of...added self-knowledge?