What are your H/D squicks?

[lomonaaeren]

I'm talking about squicks specific to Harry/Draco fic here (like a certain type of characterization), rather than to squicks that could apply across the board (like bad grammar or spelling).



1) Reading a fic in which the author portrays "bottom" as meaning "weak." Just ugh. So the minute Harry and Draco get into bed, even if the one bottoming has been strong, argumentative, complex, and equal to the other up until that point, now he must start crying and being scared of penetration and doing whatever the one topping tells him to do even if he's uncomfortable with it? I know there's a power dynamics to sexual relationships, but stripping it down to power and only power bores and disgustes me. In extreme cases where the one on the bottom is also very feminized, I think there's more than a hint of misogyny. Women can never be powerful unless they're the ones penetrating men? The penis is almighty? Please.

I don't mind stories where, say, Draco finds more pleasure in bottoming, or where Harry or Draco has a psychological quirk that inclines them to one or the other. Even there, though, I want it to fit in with previously established characterization. If Harry and Draco are perfect equals out of the bedroom and then suddenly have a D/s relationship inside it with no prior hint of that, simply because the author assumes the bottom is less powerful and under the control of the top, I'm clicking the back button.

2) This one is more nebulous. I can't really call it "one flawed character, one perfect character" because I've seen stories where both Harry and Draco were flawed that still hit this squick for me. Maybe I'll call it "one character hopelessly mistaken, the other always right." In any case, what happens is that the author sets one character on a pedestal and makes the other one into a hopeless mess as he chases the idolized one, dragging him relentlessly through past mistakes, making him apologize for the most minor things, cursing him with awkwardness at tasks he can do perfectly well, and treating mistakes as deadly and unforgivable until he's groveled and pleaded. It seems to happen more often that Draco is the perfect one, and Harry is the one who has to do something to "deserve" him, but I suspect that's not true and it's simply that I've run into more stories that do it; I've seen it the other way around, too, and it squicks me just as hard. Now, in canon they've both made mistakes, but saying that Harry must apologize and grovel and never be good enough for the author's perfect, beautiful, snarky, witty Draco because he used Sectumsempra on him, while it's just fine that Draco almost killed Harry's best friend (if you want to limit it to events in the same book), strikes me as deeply silly. The excuse I've seen offered is "Well, Draco didn't mean to kill Ron, he was trying to kill Dumbledore!" And Harry didn't know what that spell did; it's not like he lingered down the corridor rubbing his hands together, cackling gleefully, and imagining Draco all over blood. If you're going to focus heavily on the canon mistakes that will keep Harry and Draco from an easy relationship with each other, why in the world is it limited to one side?

I suspect that, in the end, this squick is largely the same as the other for me: I want to see Harry and Draco have an equal relationship, and the author weakening one or idolizing one prevents that from happening.



What are your H/D squicks?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

There's not much that completely turns me off, but one that I see quite often is this- Harry and Draco get together somehow, and suddenly everyone and their mother turn against them. Ron turns into a homophobic jerk (with the rest of the Wesleys and Hermoine following his example), Draco is disowned by his parents, Harry is shunned by society, etc etc, all for the sake of having the story be primarily Harry/Draco. Notice, I don't have a particular problem with one or several of these happening, if it makes sense within the context of the story (though I can't imagine the entire Wesley troupe shunning Harry if the author wants to keep even remotely canon). It's when it happens so that the author doesn't have to include the other characters that it drives me nuts. You can easily isolate the characters, or concentrate solely on their relationship, without committing mass character assassination on everyone else.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

My feelings on this are complex. I can see the tendency to deal with conflict (and there would be a lot of conflict in Harry dating someone who has prejudices against the Weasleys and Hermione). I would rather see those dealt with than for the author to say that no one reacted negatively to Draco at all. But as you say, it can go wrong so easily. And it's very easy to go for the OOC melodramatic behavior of shouting and hexing rather than silent treatment, tearful arguments, or rifts that get repaired, which we actually see happening in canon.