Fifty Shades of Fail: Chapter Ten
Jul. 25th, 2012 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astra_auroraI am so fucking sick right now. I have, however, been reenergised by my best friend reading all my previous chapters and loving them, so on that note, it's time for Chapter Ten. Warning- there is discussions of child rape in this chapter.
Grey suddenly goes from 'Oh no, my mother's here!" to "Let's go meet her!~" I have to admit, this just proves how little editing there was. See, in case you didn't know, Fifty Shades started out as Twilight fan fiction. I've read it- apart from the names, there really isn't much of a difference. In fanfic, chapters often end with a cliffhanger to keep people hooked. While last chapter's ending was terrible, it does indeed count as a cliffhanger. The fact that it wasn't edited/revised, given that there's no need for a cliffhanger when you have all the chapters, is just another example of the ways this book fails.
Grey unties Ana, who freaks out because she doesn't have any clean clothes. Grey offers her some of his clothes and then... ugh.
"I will expect you in that room in five minutes, otherwise I'll come and drag you out of her myself in whatever you're wearing."
Grey... fuck you. You may or may not be in a sub/dom relationship with her, but it doesn't give you the right to force her to go anywhere. You're an arsehole.
Perhaps meeting her will help put a little part of the jigsaw in place. Might help me understand why Christian is the way he is...
You really want to meet the woman who probably had a big hand in turning your lover into what you describe as Bluebeard? Christ, you're the POVC equivalent of the dumbarse guard who goes 'Let's go down that corridor after our fellow guards vanished down there!"
Grey's mother is Dr Grace Trevelyan-Grey, and of course, she's beautiful. Ana dies a little inside after comparing them. Her shallowness infuriates me- there's more to life than looks, and your worth has nothing to do with how attractive you are! You just think that being gorgeous is everything, don't you?
Grace (at work she's 'Dr Trevelyan' and 'Mrs Grey' is her mother-in-law) proves, in about a paragraph, to be one of the nicest characters in the book, mainly because she doesn't do anything bitchy. She asks Ana a few polite questions about uni, and then Ana gets a phone call- but it's from Jose, not Kate. He says he wants to apologise and then immediately throws himself into Jealous Bastard mode. Ana doesn't tell him to fuck off, she just lets him go on like the douche he is. Seriously, the Nostalgia Critic would call him a douche, that's how douchey he's being.
Anyway, she gets back. Grace was going to have lunch with Christian, but he's occupied, so they put it off. She leaves, and then Taylor appears and tells him that there's a problem with the Darfur shipment. Grey gets angry and starts snapping at everyone, leading Ana to wonder what his problem is when the problem was just fucking stated. Seriously?
Grey gives her the contract, tells her to do some research and they'll talk about it next weekend. OK: She should not have to do all the research. It is probably a very good idea for her to do some research, but he should be telling her most if not all of the stuff she needs to know. Not to mention... she doesn't know where to look or what to look for. How will she be able to find the information she needs?
Ana doesn't have a computer. What. I refuse to believe that. She's not in any way financially-challenged, she should own a damn computer. She's not a Luddite or someone who just has no use for one, she somehow doesn't own one. OK, she mentions having access to Kate's computer, but they're both uni students- surely they'd both need their own? I could buy it if she used computers in the library and mentioned going there a lot, but she doesn't- she acts like getting to a computer is this major issue. Christ.
She mentions that she needs to make a phone call. Grey instantly assumes that she wants to call Jose and flips out, warning her 'I don't like to share'. He had no reason to think she was calling Jose. She could have been calling anyone. Grey is so freaking paranoid and obsessive that he instantly assumes that she's going to cheat on him despite a lack of evidence. Ana, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM. Seriously, Grey is showing all the signs of a guy who might one day kill or beat his partner.
I want to call after him, but his sudden aloofness has left me paralysed. What happened to the generous, relaxed, smiling man who was making love to me not half an hour ago?
In the words of Nash... GET THE FUCK OUT! I mean it. Get the fuck out. He's paranoid and jealous, he's controlling and abusive, he's got mood whiplashes worse than an actual whiplash... get the fuck out before you end up dead. This is not Bluebeard territory, this is fucking Joker territory, and you are no Harley Quinn. Hell, you're Gwen Stacy at best.
(Yes, I know I just mixed continuities.. sorry.)
Anyway, they leave, and Ana gets thoughtful.
No doubt he thinks I've succumbed to Mr Grey's dubious sexual habits. Not yet, just his exceptional sexual habits, or perhaps sex is like that for everyone. I frown at the thought. I have no comparison- and I can't ask Kate. That's something I am going to have to address with Christian. It's perfectly natural that I should talk to someone- and I can't talk to him if he's open one minute and standoffish the next.
YES. YES, YOU NEED TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT TALKING TO HIM. Stand up for yourself, for God's sake. Or just get out of there.
"Stop biting your lip, or I will fuck you in the elevator, and I don't care who gets in with us."
YOU FUCKER. You just deliberately phrased that in a way that states clearly that you don't care what she thinks, you'll fuck her. Do you even understand what 'no' means?
He grudgingly agrees to let Ana talk to Kate as long as Elliot doesn't find out. And then... this happens.
"The sooner I have your submission the better, and we can stop all this."
"Stop all what?"
"You defying me."
I'm going to... hang on.
OK, having just thrown the book across the room, I now feel I can address this.
YOU FUCKING BASTARD.
Being his sub does not take away Ana's right to protest. It does not mean that she can't tell him no. If Grey had a clue what he was doing, he would never say shit like this. She's not even defying him! She's asking his permission, for fuck's sake!
He drives her home in an Audi. I don't know much about the model named, but there is more than one kind of car.
Grey likes Bruce Springsteen. I fucking hate him. (I've always hated Springsteen.)
Grey stops for lunch despite her protests and orders wine despite her wanting a Diet Coke. Fuck Grey, seriously. He mentions that his mother likes her and always thought he was gay. Oh, lovely. Think for a second: the only reason she likes Ana is because she proves that Grey's not gay. Not because she thought Ana seemed nice. Not because Ana proves that Grey does do things besides work. No, it's because she proves that he's not gay (completely ignoring the possibility of bisexuality). Fuck homophobia.
(Also, just to reinforce the Bluebeard thing, remember that Grey had fifteen subs before Ana. We never find out any more.)
Anyway, Grace always thought Grey was gay because she never saw him with a girl. So what? Is there a problem with being gay? Is that what you're saying, James? Come on. Tell me there is so I can tell you how much of a stupid bastard you are. Bitch.
Grey admits that he's been having a lot of firsts- first time screwing someone in his bed, first time having vanilla sex, first time etc etc. Ana asks about the vanilla thing, and Grey reveals...
Hang on. Anyone triggered by rape, please turn off now.
Grey reveals that he was raped by one of his mother's friends when he was fifteen.
Oh, except that he wasn't raped, he was, and I quote, 'seduced'.
FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING BOOK AND EVERYTHING IT REPRESENTS.
The age of consent in Washington is 16. A 15 year old boy can't be seduced by a woman old enough to be his mother. He is raped by her. FULL STOP.
They both treat it like he admitted to having an abusive girlfriend decades ago- an anecdote, nothing to be worried about. He says he was her sub for six years (no, he was her victim for six years) and he didn't date anyone at college.
"I didn't want to. She was all I wanted, needed. Besides, she'd have beaten the shit out of me." He smiles fondly at the memory.
This is horrible. I wouldn't object if he realised how screwed up it was and had got over it. I'm objecting because he's SMILING FONDLY at the knowledge that his rapist would have beaten him for dating someone.
Oh, fuck me this is terrible. And no, it's not an excuse for how fucked up Grey is (it's a cause, but it's not a get out of jail free card). This does make him a woobie, but not a sympathetic one.
Not only does his mother not know, he's still good friends with his rapist. And Ana is only stunned by the revelation that he was once a sub, not that he's a fucking rape victim. Because God knows there's no such thing as a switch. And whether you're a dom or a sub is such an integral part of your personality and blah blah ARGH.
Ana asks him if their relationship will be him ordering her around. Yes. And, he says, she'll enjoy it. She doubts that... which is why she needs to GO. GET THE FUCK OUT.
And what's worse: Grey keeps acting like he'll make her like it. This book is saying that all women want to be subs, and they can be pressured into it. Grey is like 'Oh, that disinterest in my kink? It'll go away." Fucking hell.
Ana asks what happened to the fifteen subs. Grey says that it boiled down to incompatibility.
And one day she will find the bodies in a special room.
Anyway, they finally get out, they go back to her place and Kate jumps up and down at the chance to interrogate Ana.
Ana and Kate talk about sex. Kate admits that her first time was horrible (but in a 'drunk teenagers being stupid' way, not a rape way) and Ana's inner goddess gets all smug that her first time was perfect. Ana admits that she's worried about the future because they're so different, and Kate tells her that she's being an idiot.
Oh, and she decides to Google the penalties for breaching an NDA. If you'd read the damn thing first...
Ana asks Kate to tell her about Elliot. Kate can only squeal and be incoherent, so the book doesn't have to give him a personality. There's a little girl talk about sex, and then Ana finds that she has a couple of letters offering her interviews for intern places at publishing houses.
Kate, of course, already has an internship set up at The Seattle Times. Her father knows someone who knows someone.
Oh, for the love of... Look, I'm not objecting to a father helping his daughter. I am objecting to someone who's portrayed as a hard, tenacious worker being shown as someone who rests on her laurels while money and connections do the job for her.
Ana gets a call from Jose. He starts out begging forgiveness and then switches to petty bullshit. He clearly can't accept that she likes someone else and I don't see why she puts up with him. Ana suggests meeting him for coffee.
She and Kate have a nice evening in. Ana wonders about their almost-relationship, thinking of all the things apart from sex, like the helicopter ride, the piano playing and the breakfast. Except that nothing she says happened- she wasn't particularly delighted at the chopper ride, he was a dick at breakfast and the piano-playing was more like a Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
And then we get this:
A young man deprived of his adolescence, sexually abused by some evil Mrs Robinson figure...
So, when an older woman ensnares a young, naive boy into a BDSM relationship, then she's obviously evil, jaded and horrible. When an older man ensnares a young, naive girl into a BDSM relationship, he's tormented, sexy and brooding.
Fuck you, book. Fuck you to hell and back.
Ana goes to her room, opens the contract and the chapter ends.
That was Chapter Ten. Oh, fuck me.
Grey suddenly goes from 'Oh no, my mother's here!" to "Let's go meet her!~" I have to admit, this just proves how little editing there was. See, in case you didn't know, Fifty Shades started out as Twilight fan fiction. I've read it- apart from the names, there really isn't much of a difference. In fanfic, chapters often end with a cliffhanger to keep people hooked. While last chapter's ending was terrible, it does indeed count as a cliffhanger. The fact that it wasn't edited/revised, given that there's no need for a cliffhanger when you have all the chapters, is just another example of the ways this book fails.
Grey unties Ana, who freaks out because she doesn't have any clean clothes. Grey offers her some of his clothes and then... ugh.
"I will expect you in that room in five minutes, otherwise I'll come and drag you out of her myself in whatever you're wearing."
Grey... fuck you. You may or may not be in a sub/dom relationship with her, but it doesn't give you the right to force her to go anywhere. You're an arsehole.
Perhaps meeting her will help put a little part of the jigsaw in place. Might help me understand why Christian is the way he is...
You really want to meet the woman who probably had a big hand in turning your lover into what you describe as Bluebeard? Christ, you're the POVC equivalent of the dumbarse guard who goes 'Let's go down that corridor after our fellow guards vanished down there!"
Grey's mother is Dr Grace Trevelyan-Grey, and of course, she's beautiful. Ana dies a little inside after comparing them. Her shallowness infuriates me- there's more to life than looks, and your worth has nothing to do with how attractive you are! You just think that being gorgeous is everything, don't you?
Grace (at work she's 'Dr Trevelyan' and 'Mrs Grey' is her mother-in-law) proves, in about a paragraph, to be one of the nicest characters in the book, mainly because she doesn't do anything bitchy. She asks Ana a few polite questions about uni, and then Ana gets a phone call- but it's from Jose, not Kate. He says he wants to apologise and then immediately throws himself into Jealous Bastard mode. Ana doesn't tell him to fuck off, she just lets him go on like the douche he is. Seriously, the Nostalgia Critic would call him a douche, that's how douchey he's being.
Anyway, she gets back. Grace was going to have lunch with Christian, but he's occupied, so they put it off. She leaves, and then Taylor appears and tells him that there's a problem with the Darfur shipment. Grey gets angry and starts snapping at everyone, leading Ana to wonder what his problem is when the problem was just fucking stated. Seriously?
Grey gives her the contract, tells her to do some research and they'll talk about it next weekend. OK: She should not have to do all the research. It is probably a very good idea for her to do some research, but he should be telling her most if not all of the stuff she needs to know. Not to mention... she doesn't know where to look or what to look for. How will she be able to find the information she needs?
Ana doesn't have a computer. What. I refuse to believe that. She's not in any way financially-challenged, she should own a damn computer. She's not a Luddite or someone who just has no use for one, she somehow doesn't own one. OK, she mentions having access to Kate's computer, but they're both uni students- surely they'd both need their own? I could buy it if she used computers in the library and mentioned going there a lot, but she doesn't- she acts like getting to a computer is this major issue. Christ.
She mentions that she needs to make a phone call. Grey instantly assumes that she wants to call Jose and flips out, warning her 'I don't like to share'. He had no reason to think she was calling Jose. She could have been calling anyone. Grey is so freaking paranoid and obsessive that he instantly assumes that she's going to cheat on him despite a lack of evidence. Ana, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM. Seriously, Grey is showing all the signs of a guy who might one day kill or beat his partner.
I want to call after him, but his sudden aloofness has left me paralysed. What happened to the generous, relaxed, smiling man who was making love to me not half an hour ago?
In the words of Nash... GET THE FUCK OUT! I mean it. Get the fuck out. He's paranoid and jealous, he's controlling and abusive, he's got mood whiplashes worse than an actual whiplash... get the fuck out before you end up dead. This is not Bluebeard territory, this is fucking Joker territory, and you are no Harley Quinn. Hell, you're Gwen Stacy at best.
(Yes, I know I just mixed continuities.. sorry.)
Anyway, they leave, and Ana gets thoughtful.
No doubt he thinks I've succumbed to Mr Grey's dubious sexual habits. Not yet, just his exceptional sexual habits, or perhaps sex is like that for everyone. I frown at the thought. I have no comparison- and I can't ask Kate. That's something I am going to have to address with Christian. It's perfectly natural that I should talk to someone- and I can't talk to him if he's open one minute and standoffish the next.
YES. YES, YOU NEED TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT TALKING TO HIM. Stand up for yourself, for God's sake. Or just get out of there.
"Stop biting your lip, or I will fuck you in the elevator, and I don't care who gets in with us."
YOU FUCKER. You just deliberately phrased that in a way that states clearly that you don't care what she thinks, you'll fuck her. Do you even understand what 'no' means?
He grudgingly agrees to let Ana talk to Kate as long as Elliot doesn't find out. And then... this happens.
"The sooner I have your submission the better, and we can stop all this."
"Stop all what?"
"You defying me."
I'm going to... hang on.
OK, having just thrown the book across the room, I now feel I can address this.
YOU FUCKING BASTARD.
Being his sub does not take away Ana's right to protest. It does not mean that she can't tell him no. If Grey had a clue what he was doing, he would never say shit like this. She's not even defying him! She's asking his permission, for fuck's sake!
He drives her home in an Audi. I don't know much about the model named, but there is more than one kind of car.
Grey likes Bruce Springsteen. I fucking hate him. (I've always hated Springsteen.)
Grey stops for lunch despite her protests and orders wine despite her wanting a Diet Coke. Fuck Grey, seriously. He mentions that his mother likes her and always thought he was gay. Oh, lovely. Think for a second: the only reason she likes Ana is because she proves that Grey's not gay. Not because she thought Ana seemed nice. Not because Ana proves that Grey does do things besides work. No, it's because she proves that he's not gay (completely ignoring the possibility of bisexuality). Fuck homophobia.
(Also, just to reinforce the Bluebeard thing, remember that Grey had fifteen subs before Ana. We never find out any more.)
Anyway, Grace always thought Grey was gay because she never saw him with a girl. So what? Is there a problem with being gay? Is that what you're saying, James? Come on. Tell me there is so I can tell you how much of a stupid bastard you are. Bitch.
Grey admits that he's been having a lot of firsts- first time screwing someone in his bed, first time having vanilla sex, first time etc etc. Ana asks about the vanilla thing, and Grey reveals...
Hang on. Anyone triggered by rape, please turn off now.
Grey reveals that he was raped by one of his mother's friends when he was fifteen.
Oh, except that he wasn't raped, he was, and I quote, 'seduced'.
FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING BOOK AND EVERYTHING IT REPRESENTS.
The age of consent in Washington is 16. A 15 year old boy can't be seduced by a woman old enough to be his mother. He is raped by her. FULL STOP.
They both treat it like he admitted to having an abusive girlfriend decades ago- an anecdote, nothing to be worried about. He says he was her sub for six years (no, he was her victim for six years) and he didn't date anyone at college.
"I didn't want to. She was all I wanted, needed. Besides, she'd have beaten the shit out of me." He smiles fondly at the memory.
This is horrible. I wouldn't object if he realised how screwed up it was and had got over it. I'm objecting because he's SMILING FONDLY at the knowledge that his rapist would have beaten him for dating someone.
Oh, fuck me this is terrible. And no, it's not an excuse for how fucked up Grey is (it's a cause, but it's not a get out of jail free card). This does make him a woobie, but not a sympathetic one.
Not only does his mother not know, he's still good friends with his rapist. And Ana is only stunned by the revelation that he was once a sub, not that he's a fucking rape victim. Because God knows there's no such thing as a switch. And whether you're a dom or a sub is such an integral part of your personality and blah blah ARGH.
Ana asks him if their relationship will be him ordering her around. Yes. And, he says, she'll enjoy it. She doubts that... which is why she needs to GO. GET THE FUCK OUT.
And what's worse: Grey keeps acting like he'll make her like it. This book is saying that all women want to be subs, and they can be pressured into it. Grey is like 'Oh, that disinterest in my kink? It'll go away." Fucking hell.
Ana asks what happened to the fifteen subs. Grey says that it boiled down to incompatibility.
And one day she will find the bodies in a special room.
Anyway, they finally get out, they go back to her place and Kate jumps up and down at the chance to interrogate Ana.
Ana and Kate talk about sex. Kate admits that her first time was horrible (but in a 'drunk teenagers being stupid' way, not a rape way) and Ana's inner goddess gets all smug that her first time was perfect. Ana admits that she's worried about the future because they're so different, and Kate tells her that she's being an idiot.
Oh, and she decides to Google the penalties for breaching an NDA. If you'd read the damn thing first...
Ana asks Kate to tell her about Elliot. Kate can only squeal and be incoherent, so the book doesn't have to give him a personality. There's a little girl talk about sex, and then Ana finds that she has a couple of letters offering her interviews for intern places at publishing houses.
Kate, of course, already has an internship set up at The Seattle Times. Her father knows someone who knows someone.
Oh, for the love of... Look, I'm not objecting to a father helping his daughter. I am objecting to someone who's portrayed as a hard, tenacious worker being shown as someone who rests on her laurels while money and connections do the job for her.
Ana gets a call from Jose. He starts out begging forgiveness and then switches to petty bullshit. He clearly can't accept that she likes someone else and I don't see why she puts up with him. Ana suggests meeting him for coffee.
She and Kate have a nice evening in. Ana wonders about their almost-relationship, thinking of all the things apart from sex, like the helicopter ride, the piano playing and the breakfast. Except that nothing she says happened- she wasn't particularly delighted at the chopper ride, he was a dick at breakfast and the piano-playing was more like a Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
And then we get this:
A young man deprived of his adolescence, sexually abused by some evil Mrs Robinson figure...
So, when an older woman ensnares a young, naive boy into a BDSM relationship, then she's obviously evil, jaded and horrible. When an older man ensnares a young, naive girl into a BDSM relationship, he's tormented, sexy and brooding.
Fuck you, book. Fuck you to hell and back.
Ana goes to her room, opens the contract and the chapter ends.
That was Chapter Ten. Oh, fuck me.
