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

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see what you mean. Yes. I think it would be a good idea if most fests had a rule that a request had to include plot prompts as well as kink prompts. I've had a terrible time writing kinks every time I've done it for exactly that reason, but didn't feel it was fair taking them out of the story when they'd been specifically requested.

I feel about most BDSM stories as I do about most prostitute stories: I might find it interesting/exciting if the authors showed how and why these characters ended up in these situations, but with the lack of detail, I simply can't believe in it. "Draco is a submissive...but why?" "Draco is a prostitute...but why?"

Don't worry about it sounding like a rant. I'm glad you provided more detail.

(By "rape as fluff" I mean those kinds of stories where one character rapes the other "because he loves him so much" and then it turns out the other character was secretly in love with him all along, so it's okay! Which...really doesn't fit with the way the raped character is usually shown to say "No" and "I don't want this." Not to mention all the ickiness that goes along with saying rape is okay if you do it passionately).

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Reverse order!

Not to mention all the ickiness that goes along with saying rape is okay if you do it passionately.

oh! Yes, yes and yes! Thankfully, lately I've rarely stumbled on such "gems" but that's when I usually rebel and write one of my two-page bunnies (which never get written) on how I'd have done it. :D

Hm, yes, one of the important details is to show how and why - that goes for most things, btw, especially mpreg (another of the lenghty rant-bunnies, which actually got written, but let's not go into that) and why Harry turns out to be gay, or why is Draco suddenly a Veela? (Btw, I loved One Year's Temptation because that story had every requirement and showed all the things I needed to see to believe it.) But believing it and being able to feel it are two different things - which I didn't know! Until recently. I thought, all would be right if I could believe how they could turn out that way, but apparently there are stories in which you believe everything and still, that part of the story just fails to become "real". Or perhaps I just can't stand excessive fluff. *shrugs*

Well, the basic rule of fests is that every request is optional, except squicks. I guess I've been lucky that I only got "I'd love to see this and that but it's okay if it isn't in there" type of prompts rather than specific requests. But I know I got fics written for me that didn't resemble any of my likes or prompts (okay, so I always make those optional) and I still liked them because the author managed to create something worth reading in her own style and inside her own boundaries. As I say, luck. I know there are always some very specific requests. (And I cheat and edit my dislikes so that I'd not get those before signing up. :P)

I think it would be a good idea if most fests had a rule that a request had to include plot prompts as well as kink prompts.

Again, all I can say is: yes.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I read a few stories I thought were consensual play scenarios and they, um, weren't. I understand the desire to skip warnings sometimes that could ruin a story twist, but I find spoilers better than suddenly reading a "rape is okay!" story.

For some reason, mpreg can't convince me no matter how well it's written, but that's more a personal thing. With prostitution and BDSM fic, I've read believable explanations, so I write a rant in my head about "Why isn't this story more like the others?" ;)

I wrote "A Year's Temptation" in part because I have a real weakness for Veela fics and then get continually disappointed by the way most of them follow the same pattern, so I wanted to write one I could believe in, with slow romance and resentment of the "sex or death" requirement. I'm glad it worked for you as well.

Until recently. I thought, all would be right if I could believe how they could turn out that way, but apparently there are stories in which you believe everything and still, that part of the story just fails to become "real". Or perhaps I just can't stand excessive fluff. *shrugs*

Either of those things could be true. Or maybe the author lost her own belief in it halfway through. I think that's likely to happen with long WiPs that suddenly receive hasty endings; the author is no longer comfortable with or believes in her initial impulse, so she winds things up to be rid of the story.

Unfortunately, my first fest prompt was all kinks, without anything else to go on. I added a lot of plot anyway, but I still wasn't very happy with the final result. The first fic I wrote for hds_beltane asked for kink first and foremost, but there were other prompts involved, so I wasn't so worried. Amusingly enough, one of the gift fics I received for that fest mentioned that my own plot-oriented prompt was way, way too broad (though I still liked the fic), so I guess one reason kinks endure is because some people like them for definite points to put in a story. I simply wish they weren't treated like a checklist so much or, to use your terms, an instruction manual.

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Heh, you know, I always write "I can't do PWP" and that warded me from all-kink prompts in the past. That, or writing "plot" among my kinks. *G* Although by now, fest mods would probably know that you're a plot-type of person, right?

As for mpreg, what can I say? I love it since I saw the part of X-files about the man with the Parasitic twin. :P So, yeah. I like the kind of mpreg that's slightly surreal and mysterious and just a bit horroristic. :)

the author is no longer comfortable with or believes in her initial impulse

You know, I've never thought of that!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I might adopt that tactic from you!

To be fair to the mods, there were two things on the list that they might have considered plot instead of kinks: mpreg and vampires. But I'd listed mpreg among my squicks, so vampires it was.

I don't think I've read horror-mpreg, only the schmoopy stuff (or stories that started out as horror and then became schmoop when the babies were born). There are times I've been tempted to write mpreg where the pregnant character is absolutely terrified and angry about his pregnancy and has to confront gender issues from the stupid people who immediately start to treat him differently, but even that probably would not be convincing.

I, um, speak from personal experience on the losing-interest part. ;) Thankfully, I've done only with original fiction.

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

I wanted to sign up to the mpreg fest but then I thought it would be cruel to my recipient. :P And yes, I'm also guilty having left some WIPs behind. (Amazingly, I still believe that some day, I'll get back to that fandom, at least temporarily, and finish that fic, because I really liked it.) But I haven't experienced the losing-confidence in my fic's main topic - perhaps because neither was very risky to begin with.

And you're welcome to adapt any tactic. To be honest, I sometimes go through the sign up posts of fests I know I won't sign up because it's not my pairing or not my type of fest, and steal the likes and kinks that make me go oooh, but I haven't thought of them on my own. *snickers*

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I had a few fics recced to me from that fest, but I just...can't. There's no way I would respond to them fairly.

The losing-confidence part happened for me when I had a certain idea for a story and then, about halfway through, read a very harsh critique of that idea that made a good argument for it not working the way I thought it did. So I couldn't write the story without having the argument in the back of my mind.

I've been going back through fest prompts, too! Some of them make really interesting stories in my mind that weren't written for the fest, so I might write them someday.

[kestrelsparhawk.livejournal.com]

I'm boldly jumping into this conversation, just because it's so interesting and between two people I like to talk with! Ditto on much -- especially the fest problem. My first fic included men wearing women's underwear and vampires -- neither of which I especially care to read, but wouldn't count as squicks. It ended up crackish, mostly so I could meet the requirements, but I doubt it was sexually "hot" to the recipient or anyone else, what I did with it.

I'm sad to hear about your abandoned fic, L, because I like your writing and suspect I would have liked it. I might have done the same, though. Is it possible to write a logical response and liberate yourself from the feeling, then go back to the fic?

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Sexually "hot" is so subjective. It's one reason I worry about the fest prompts that are heavy on kink and light on plot. Of course the recipient is probably still going to say she liked it, it's the polite thing to do, but I'm a lot more worried about my ability to actually arouse someone, especially with kinks I don't share, than I am worried about my ability to engage them with a plot.

Unfortunately, at this point I don't think I'll be going back to that story. I'm working on other original stuff that has my full attention, and that story was abandoned...about a year and a half ago now, I think. I find I violently hate everything I wrote from about six months back and can't reread it.

[kestrelsparhawk.livejournal.com]

Yes. In fact just before I started reading f-list, I posted on a fic which I didn't like at all but which was reccd by several people recently. The dislike was because it started with a rape, and it particularly upset me because those who liked it and wrote it didn't see it as rape.

So after thinking about it a lot, I finally decided that sex fics are actually a different genre that I don't want to read, but which are held to a different set of criteria than the fics I want to read.

Would love your opinion someday...

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about sex fics as a distinct genre, but the idea makes so much sense that I wonder why I didn't. (Probably overexposure to the idea that "fanfiction is porn" and "slash is porn," which I don't agree with but which is so prevalent in fandom that arguments against it simply waste time).

For my reading, I tend to prefer genslash, where the sex scenes are cornerstones of a larger plot and the characters don't spend all their time in bed, and I do think the standards for that type of fic are very different. I wonder why kinky fic gets a pass? Because there's not much of it outside fandom, maybe, so the readers want to encourage the writers to keep writing it?

[kestrelsparhawk.livejournal.com]

Confession -- but buried far enough down probably you'll be the only reader of it. I have written "hot sex scenes" (or as hot as I could manage) in both my h/d stories BECAUSE they were fest fics and required sex. The first one, especially, I always felt was contrived (but then, I'd never written to others' requests before, so I was scrambling a lot to make it fun for her, and also not look like a terrible writer my first time out.) I'm working on a sequel for that, and there's no sex in it, just because it didn't fit, not because it's wrong.

The second one had a sex scene in the middle I considered part of the story, but not terribly vividly sexual -- not down to the "tab a and slot b" as the primary descriptor in the scene. The second was a present for someone, and I tried to make it "hot" for me as well. I like innuendos and emotional reactions... in other people's fics, I do love well-done first times, because they resolve UST in me. But if there's a lot of sex scenes in a story, I tend to skim or just skip them, because... well, it's pretty hard to read about other people's sex lives in an established relationship and find it either erotic or character developing!

Well, read my essay -- I'd never thought of sex fics as a distinct genre, being proud enough to have come up with the original genre division of literary/commercial/fan . But it makes total sense to me now, which to me is a mark that I could well be right! So your comment encourages me very much. (Someday I plan to publish all these as an academic publication, so comments may affect this -- it's on the way to being a good paper, I think.)

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. I've felt compelled to put sex in two of my fest fics, and while it sort of worked out in one of them (though I still wish I'd had more time to write and smooth out the story), I think the other would have been better without it.

I've bookmarked the essay; I should have time to read it tomorrow.

[lapislazuli67.livejournal.com]

There are times I've been tempted to write mpreg where the pregnant character is absolutely terrified and angry about his pregnancy and has to confront gender issues from the stupid people who immediately start to treat him differently

Barging in here...
Ohhhhh, do that, please! :-))
Do you know graylor's "Ice Shadows"? http://graylor.livejournal.com/39995.html#cutid1
I usually hate mpreg, I only read it because graylor warned that there's no fluff and so on. And now it is in my top 10 for all time. And will stay the only mpreg there except if you're going to write one of the kind you described... :-)

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that one, no. *bookmarks it*

I might write that story. I'd have to be in a very specific kind of mood, irritation combined with my ragey feminist instincts, and it would have to last long enough for me to write the fic, instead of going off to distract myself with good stories.