Guilty Pleasures...No, it's not THAT kind of blog!

SO last week we talked about fandoms, this week we are going to talk about those ‘closet’ fandoms you may or may not have.

(you know you have them)

We’ve all been there. Right? Trying to justify our secret, guilty pleasures that other people find laughable and make us blush just a tinge.

We should all take a page from Tom's book. Actually we should all just take Tom...

Or I should take Tom....

Okay. Sorry. Where were we? Oh yeah, so for us mere mortals, most of us have something we feel a little defensive liking. If we admit to liking it at all.

For me it’s Twilight.

Shut up.

 I hardly think I am alone here. Actually I know I'm not alone. since according to Wikipedia Twilight has sold over a 100 million copies. 

And no, I am NOT talking about the movies—the movies were AWFUL. Totally and irrefutably CRAP.

Except the baseball scene in the first one, that was good. Mostly because of the Muse song, but you know, still decent.

But the books were good. I know I know, even Stephen King has dissed on Meyer, rather hard.

And again.

Ouch. 
It's like he just did the cha-cha-cha all over her rep.

But for once I have to disagree with my spiritual writing mentor. He’s wrong. Yes, I did just say that.

First, let’s define ‘good writing’ shall we?

You can wax poetic or go into long-winded dissertations all you want, but what it boils down to is good writing is nothing more or less than something that captures your heart.  

I read all the Twilight books in like a week. I’d say I was pretty captured. Yes, in hindsight, I realize Bella was a wimp and unremarkable and a lot of people find her more annoying than Scarlett O'Hara, but stop for one second.

Bella was supposed to be every girl, okay? The girls who don’t think they are special, but wish they were. She’s not a bad ass, a genius or a sex goddess----but let’s face it, who is? The appeal here is she is everyday; bland, normal, and yet, extraordinary things happened to her. Yes, she has that one power that is uncovered, but mostly Bella is just a girl caught in a fantasy. And it’s a damn good fantasy, so don’t knock it.

 Okay, enough of that. So are there any fandoms I'm snarky about?

Admittedly I am a bit catty to the FSOG(Fifty Shades of Grey) fandom, though you KNOW I am gonna watch the movie... 

(come on—JAMIE DORNAN?! I am so watching that movie.) 

But I did TRY to read the book, twice. Can’t deal. Sorry. It's not the BDSM, it's how absolutely...vanilla the book is about BDSM.

Also, I find a lot of FSOG fans, that is like the ONLY book they have read since high school. That is a bit alarming, sorry. You all do know FSOG was just fan fiction for Twilight in the beginning, yeah? Look it up. I’ll wait….

BTW, did you know Sue Hinton (author of the Outsiders) writes Supernatural fanfic?!

Not kidding. Check it. 

Famous Writers Who Write Fanfic 

So yeah, I do have my snippy moments. 

But I so TRY not to judge, why?

Because of crap like this.

I heard this guy say one time, 

If someone tells me they like Twilight I don’t need to hear any more, I can’t be friends with them. Ever.

Really?

How stupid is this? Crap like that makes me see red.

For me, Twilight is hardly the outer limits of my reading experience. 

Shakespeare is one of my fave writers. And I mean, REALLY one of my faves, not just the way some people say that to look artsy. I started reading the Bard when I was 10 years old. The Tempest is one of my fave stories ever and Much Ado About Nothing? Oh, don’t even get me started. 

I love Vanity Fair, Barbara Kingsolver, Jane Eyre, John Steinbeck, Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott, Frankenstein...(insert your literary author or book of choice here and I have probably read them).

Ostracizing someone based on one of their choices is stupid and really says more about you than the person you are deriding.

People mock Doctor Who fans, but we don’t give a damn, we just feel sorry for those people, because let’s face it, they’re idiots.

Minecraft, WOW, D&D and other gamer dominions, romance readers, erotica, sci-fi, you name it and most genres have and will continue to experience their share of mockery.

Trekkies (though, you all know you ARE a bit odd, right?), goth and emo folks, Tolkien nerds—of course this fandom now has achieved world domination, so if you diss us, we just do this;

(Except the ones that have actually read the Simirillion. You’re still weird. Really weird.)

Basically, if you can love it, someone can hate it. But if you are part of any fandom, I do hope you show a little tolerance for everyone’s else’s obseessions because after all

And we like it that way.