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

[melonbutterfly.livejournal.com]

1) EXACTLY. I couldn't have put it better. It's shallow, stupid and boring. Yeah, everyone has a different taste, but I don't think it's "taste" when Draco suddenly goes all whiny and weak, needing Harry to protect him from everyone and everything. That's tasteless, I think.
I can't stand one-sidedness. Where one is the stronger/more intelligent/better looking/whatever one, while the other needs the one to change him before they get into a relationship. Which leads me to makeovers. I've read countless of stories where Harry suddenly "goes cool", having some revelation that wearing Dudley's old clothes isn't too fashionable, and changes his whole wardrobe into black/generally dark colours and leather, more often than not also getting a tattoo/piercing and growing his hair simply because the author thinks that's sexy.
What? The canon Harry wasn't good enough? Authors are almighty and might shape the characters until they are perfect? I don't like Harry's paranoia concering Snape. I don't like Draco being a coward. But that's how they are. People aren't supposed to be perfect.
Or the same but in a different setting: Draco and Harry get together, and the very first thing Draco does is take Harry shopping. What, Harry was good enough to start a relationship with, but now that it's established, he needs to be enhanced? Please.
Sure, Harry's clothing is horrible. Nobody would like it (well, those of the HipHop fraction). But the concept of Harry having to be dragged off by a bunch of Slytherins who buy him a whole new wardrobe of designer clothes before he "can be seen with a Malfoy"... I don't want to read that. I want to read something where Draco likes Harry the way he is. He can dislike his clothing, alright. But it's still Harry's own decision what he wears. I dislike the whole concept of starting a relationship with someone under the condition that that someone needs to be improved. That's not what real love should be about.
I don't want to read about perfect people. I want to read about a perfect relationship, but that doesn't mean I don't want them to fight. Fighting is necessary. A "perfect" relationship isn't a flawless one, I think. It's when they can fight and rage and hate each other, when they can dislike certain aspects of each other, but still stay together, because they love each other. (Now it's official! I'm a sap.)

I ranted a bit, sorry!
Now I try to be short and to the point: I dislike "I love him since the day we first met but he'll never love me back - oh he does love me too! Yay!", "'Why do you hate me so much Draco?!' - 'Oh that's because of the day on the train in first year. You didn't want to be my friend.' - 'I'm so sorry. I changed my mind. Let's have a meaningful relationship.' - 'Ok.'", and I can't stand the Dursleys suddenly going evil. Even if Vernon suddenly went berserk and started to hit Harry, Harry wouldn't just let it happen, thinking "They'll take my wand if I do anything". He'd go "Fuck you!" and hex him, if only with a Petrificus Totalus, get his things and get out of there. Or worse; Vernon rapes Harry. Big no-go for me.
Those aren't things that make me turn away from a story (to be honest, barely anything does if it's not too out of character and illogical/badly written), but if it isn't written extraordinary well, so at least everything afterwards makes sense, I'll most likely stop sometime, because I'm just not into it.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

One of the bad aspects of HP fandom is that it's a very incestuous (in the "everybody influences everybody" way) community, so a lot of people do seem to write whiny bottom Draco not necessarily because they think it's a good idea, but because everyone else is doing it, and that's what gets read.

The makeover stories do puzzle me, especially the ones where Harry changes his name and the color of his hair and eyes permanently (and especially when the author starts referring to him by the new name. Alex and Salazar seem to be popular choices). If authors were attracted to the original Harry/Draco pairing, why alter Harry that much? Personality quirks are much more a matter of taste, and I can see why, for example, an author might want to explore Harry changing mightily as a result of PTSD, or Draco ten years after Hogwarts, when he's managed to redeem himself in his own mind and established a bunch of new connections with people who don't care about what he did during the war. But when the most basic things about the characters change, those things that are usually the same from story to story and are one of the basic signs that you're reading HP fanfiction, I can't really divine the author's purpose and thus can't connect to the story.

I really don't think Harry and Draco could have a calm relationship. They don't have to be fighting at every second, but it would still be volatile.

[melonbutterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have no problem with bottom!Draco (Ravenna C. Tan writes great stories that I love to read), and I have no problem with D/s and clear set roles. Within reason. As long as that doesn't involved changing the character of Draco (and Harry) completely. But more often than not, it does.

Exactly. Okay, if he changes himself to hide from Voldemort (I recently read a story that was very good, and that started with a makeover, involved crazypunching!Vernon and name and face (including eyecolour, but that was not permanent) changing, and everything was reasonable. I didn't like some of the reasons, but it wasn't like "suddenly a fairy popped up and made Harry look better because I think he's unseaxy") - I accept the most abstract things, if, in that universe, they aren't abstract. (And all those Severitus fanfics became a great deal less abstract too after book 7 came out.)

I agree. I mean, lovey-dovey, pink clouds is normal when you're in love - for the first two weeks. And it doesn't mean you lose your common sense completely. (only a little ;)

[yazzigazzi.livejournal.com]

hey, i don't mean to interrupt but i totally agree on everyting you've said. do you by any chance have a H/D reclist?
i'd be delighted to read that if you have one... i think we really have similar taste:)