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Fics, squicks and issues
Sep. 21st, 2006 05:50 pmI've been thinking about squicks lately. To give you a little context, I fell head-over-heels for a pure indulgence of an SGA BDSM story (Coming Home by... someone), and then got to chapter nine and... it hit *this* close to a squick. I read another few chapters (the ones I had already printed out) and now I'm dithering about reading the rest.
I strongly doubt that the story would make me feel like that again, but I feel wary and unsettled about reading the rest.
The issue I had (and which sounds very silly when it comes in the middle of a BDSM romance) was of personal freedom. Since Monday, I've been thinking about it and trying to clarify matters -- for myself if no one else.
In a situation where Character A and Character B are both being stubborn about how they believe the relationship should progress (the terms of it, the impact on their lives), I believe in compromise, in discussion, in arguments. I get completely creeped out when...
What actually happened was that A was determined, and B gave in. That's the simple telling. The thing that creeps me is that B didn't agree with it, didn't change his mind so much as crack under the pressure to do it A's way.
The last story that creeped me out this much -- that hit me with an emotionally horrified reaction -- was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seperis's Handful of Dust. It still *has* that reaction, because I get all tense and intense about when I discuss it, and this is now 4-5 years since I read it. Handful of Dust remains the only story where I honestly, deeply, desperately willed Lex to *commit suicide* rather than give in. (The brilliance of the story is that Lex's characterisation is so strong, so complete, that you *know* that the "choice" to give in was the only choice that his personality would allow him to make. If you can't beat them, join them and use your power to improve the world: that's very much the Lex from canon and it's clearly the Lex in the story. All this left me quite conflicted because Lex didn't mind giving in, didn't mind being compelled to change his world-view and accept someone else's judgement in place of his own, but *I* did. It bothered me far more than it possibly could have bothered the character, and the character would never have commited suicide, but *I* would have felt comforted by that act. It's a catch-22: I enjoy reading fanfic because of good characterisation, so I can't then insist that characters act *against* that characterisation because it suits my comfort zones.)
Nonetheless, I'm losing my point. ( Looking for my point... )
Mind you, maybe the author of Coming Home meant it in a different way as well. Maybe *I* didn't pick up on subtleties or read the script in a very different way than intended. Which leads me to my next question: has anything I've written squicked you?
I'm seriously curious about this. I'm wondering if I've run roughshod over other people's sensitive mental spaces, made them cringe in horror, without meaning to. (If you comment and say that Dan/Isaac, Dan/Charlie or Jeremy/JJ squicked you... well, I can only apologise. I can understand why.) It's not as if I could do anything about it -- if it didn't feel wrong to me as I wrote it, I doubt I'd notice if I did it again -- but I'm curious.
Were you in the middle of reading Like Sailing and Home Runs and something made you grit your teeth, even though you liked the rest of the story? Or was there another fic that just rubbed you the wrong way?
*wonders*
I strongly doubt that the story would make me feel like that again, but I feel wary and unsettled about reading the rest.
The issue I had (and which sounds very silly when it comes in the middle of a BDSM romance) was of personal freedom. Since Monday, I've been thinking about it and trying to clarify matters -- for myself if no one else.
In a situation where Character A and Character B are both being stubborn about how they believe the relationship should progress (the terms of it, the impact on their lives), I believe in compromise, in discussion, in arguments. I get completely creeped out when...
What actually happened was that A was determined, and B gave in. That's the simple telling. The thing that creeps me is that B didn't agree with it, didn't change his mind so much as crack under the pressure to do it A's way.
The last story that creeped me out this much -- that hit me with an emotionally horrified reaction -- was
seperis's Handful of Dust. It still *has* that reaction, because I get all tense and intense about when I discuss it, and this is now 4-5 years since I read it. Handful of Dust remains the only story where I honestly, deeply, desperately willed Lex to *commit suicide* rather than give in. (The brilliance of the story is that Lex's characterisation is so strong, so complete, that you *know* that the "choice" to give in was the only choice that his personality would allow him to make. If you can't beat them, join them and use your power to improve the world: that's very much the Lex from canon and it's clearly the Lex in the story. All this left me quite conflicted because Lex didn't mind giving in, didn't mind being compelled to change his world-view and accept someone else's judgement in place of his own, but *I* did. It bothered me far more than it possibly could have bothered the character, and the character would never have commited suicide, but *I* would have felt comforted by that act. It's a catch-22: I enjoy reading fanfic because of good characterisation, so I can't then insist that characters act *against* that characterisation because it suits my comfort zones.)Nonetheless, I'm losing my point. ( Looking for my point... )
Mind you, maybe the author of Coming Home meant it in a different way as well. Maybe *I* didn't pick up on subtleties or read the script in a very different way than intended. Which leads me to my next question: has anything I've written squicked you?
I'm seriously curious about this. I'm wondering if I've run roughshod over other people's sensitive mental spaces, made them cringe in horror, without meaning to. (If you comment and say that Dan/Isaac, Dan/Charlie or Jeremy/JJ squicked you... well, I can only apologise. I can understand why.) It's not as if I could do anything about it -- if it didn't feel wrong to me as I wrote it, I doubt I'd notice if I did it again -- but I'm curious.
Were you in the middle of reading Like Sailing and Home Runs and something made you grit your teeth, even though you liked the rest of the story? Or was there another fic that just rubbed you the wrong way?
*wonders*
