Sexualized Saturdays: Twilight’s Vampires and Children

It’s been a while since Breaking Dawn came out, and by this point in time, I think most of you are probably already well aware of what happened in it. However, for the whole two or three of you who don’t know—spoilers!—Edward and Bella have a child. I briefly talked about this a few years ago, and looking back, I disagree with my assessment of Bella’s character in regards to her pregnancy.

I thought Bella was selfish for wanting to keep the child—mostly because Bella always gets whatever Bella wants—but I don’t think that’s true. This pregnancy is something that will kill her, and her desire to have the child at the expense of her own life is a selfless act that I, as a pro-lifer, cannot even be sure I would have gone through with.

However, my disdain over the whole situation remains the same. Twilight should never have been able to bring up the subject of abortion, mostly because Bella’s pregnancy shouldn’t ever have happened.

Sexualized Saturdays: Girl-Bashing in Yaoi Fics

Disclaimer: Hello, Ace here! Tsunderin and I wrote this post about fanfiction a while back, and for our content we like to pull quotes to help strengthen the arguments we make. Previously, we named both the authors and the fanfics in question that we used for the sake of honesty. We wholeheartedly believe that when something is published, it is subject to criticism. However, it should be noted that fanfiction writers are often young, and that fanfiction is done solely for fun. Critiquing a fanfic is not the same as critiquing a published novel. As such, I left out links in order to discourage our readers from going to those people’s pages—not because we believe ourselves exempt from criticism or backlash or that we don’t want the original authors to know what we say about them, but because we want to discourage any form of harassment against those authors.

Recently, we had a reader go to the site of one our our example authors and leave them a review. We are sure that this person was well intentioned, but this ended up being an upsetting experience for the original author and an eye-opening experience for us. The names of authors and fanfic titles have now been removed from this post as a result and we send our deepest apologies to the original authors.

This blog currently has over 3000 entries on it, and I am certain that we have other posts I’ve forgotten about that also give negative critiques on fanfiction work. We absolutely discourage everyone from going to pages of individual fan authors. Critiquing can be harsh, and having a negative review on top of finding out your years-old fic was used as an example for internalized misogyny on another website can easily feel like an attack. For now, this post is remaining up, although it is possible it might be removed in the near future. We apologize to everyone we have hurt with our insensitive words and will try to do better in the future.

MadameAce: I love fanfiction. Don’t you? Fanfiction has created a wonderful community where people can share their interpretations of a story. Share how they perceive the characters. Offer new insights into the narrative. Represent sexualities that don’t otherwise get represented. Fanfiction is a realm where people who are otherwise oppressed can come out freely through pre-written characters. There are very few places more sexually liberated than fanfiction. Fanfiction is wonderful.

Unless of course, you’re a female character in a typical yaoi or slash story.

Web Crush Wednesdays: BAMF Girls Club

It’s Web Crush Wednesdays again and its time to crush on all your favorite BAMF Girls.

I love Comediva and I have talked about them before when I crushed on Geek Therapy, but Comediva has done it again by giving us the BAMF Girl Club. Imagine all of your favorite badass female characters living together as roommates! BAMF Girl Club brings together Hermione, Katniss, Lisbeth, Buffy, Michonne, and …Bella… all in one house. Watch them try and get along!

If parodies like this are the only good thing we’ll get out of reality TV I think it’s worth it.

Watch the video, then like and subscribe to my latest Web Crush!

Trailer Tuesdays: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Um, no. Just… just, no. Of all the things they could put into a teaser, they chose this. Some of you may remember my trailer review for part one, but that at least tried to make the movie seem epic, despite the bland nothingness that is Twilight. This trailer seems to be shooting for mysterious or, dare I say, magical.

I should mention that there’s nothing mysterious or magical in the Twilight universe. Werewolves and sparkly vampires excluded, but even then there’s no mystery because there’s no subtlety, and reading the books never felt like a magical experience.

So maybe this trailer is only trying to be suspenseful?

Yeah, I’m moving on to the next point now.

First of all, no, Bella didn’t spend the first eighteen years of her life as an ordinary girl. Ordinary girls don’t having four boys falling over her when she moves to a new school, and in the Twilight universe, ordinary girls do not smell super sweet to vampires, like they have flowers in their blood. She would also probably produce some form of thought too, so Edward could read her mind.

I also love the message: that she couldn’t “shine” without becoming a vampire, and that humans are the lesser creatures.

But the biggest problem is that nothing’s happening. The part one trailer at least showed us the antagonists. Nothing is at stake here, except for maybe that deer at the end, who may or may not end up being the most compelling character of the entire movie. I’d actually have to watch it to find out.