What are your H/D squicks?
Jun. 4th, 2008 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenI'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?
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?
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Date: 2008-06-09 06:15 pm (UTC)I can't stand fics where Draco suddenly has nothing to do with his old friends, or where all the other Slytherins are completely evil and threatening his life. On a related note, I don't understand why people feel the need to make Draco all chummy with Blaise, and ignore the existence of Crabbe and Goyle (well, the former existence of Crabbe). I realise Crabbe and Goyle aren't particularly smart, or perhaps more importantly in the eyes of certain authors, pretty, but all indications from canon point to them being more important to Draco than Blaise. Obviously, what happened in DH changes things, but there are plenty of ways to play it, while remaining true to the fact that the relationship existed and mattered before.
Another one is post-DH fics in which Lucius is still being written as powerful, abusive, Dark-Lord's-Right-Hand-Man, etc. I don't doubt he's still a bastard, or that he was probably a shitty father, whether he loves his son or not, but it is clear that he loves his son, that he wasn't particularly important to the Dark Lord (what with being in disgrace and all), and that he can be pretty pathetic. If he's going to be the villain of a story, more needs to be done to establish why.
I will never understand mpreg, and I hate feminized Harry (and also feminized Draco, though I have a little more tolerance for him), wedding fics, and eloquent Harry. Pet names often bother me, unless they are appropriate, and in character. I like pet names used the way they are in the webcomic Friendly Hostility, where Fox calls Collin "baby" (complete with a leer) and Collin calls Fox "fucktard".
One last one that bugs me is cool, calm, confidant, suave Draco. He may be putting forward that front, but to me it's ridiculously out of character, particularly when he's also the dangerous powerful top. I like to see Draco with some vulnerability. Not victim!Draco, but more prickly and defensive, to the point of being downright vicious depending on the circumstances. I'm sure that someone else considers that wildly ooc.