Your daily rambling (and then some)

[sholio]

This is a sort of essay-ish, ramble-ish thing that I've been dinking around with for a while, following a couple of private discussions with some different people about mpreg and my reactions to it. I finally decided to post it, with the caveat that this is, obviously, just a personal ramble -- I wouldn't even necessarily call it a rant, per se, because it's not all that ranty, but it's certainly chock-full of my personal biases, as you can clearly see from the cut tag. So don't enter expecting anything else. Also, I seem to be giving derry667 a run for her money in the long-winded department this time...

This is NOT meant to bash any particular writers or anyone's personal tastes. It's just something that I've been thinking about.


Let me be honest. Mpreg completely, totally and utterly creeps me out. On my personal scale of squickiness, I think it's somewhere just shy of coprophagia (and that just made me wonder if there are fanfics out there catering to a coprophagic fetish ... probably...).

I'd never really put that much thought into why, though. I mean, why that particular fetish, when others don't really bother me all that much, at least not that specifically? The topic of mpreg had come up recently in private conversations with several different people, and this has gotten me to thinking about why it's such a total creepfest for me.

I think it's not so much mpreg specifically, I mean the existence of it, that gives me that unpleasant stomach-twist, so much as the way that it's usually written. (And I'm speaking here largely from my exposure to it in other fandoms -- it seemed to be HUGE in Sentinel fandom, for example. I haven't really seen all that much of it in SGA ... a few stories, but not the prevalence that it has in some fandoms.) Most of the mpreg that I've seen was basically an excuse for the author to put the character through the most physically and emotionally degrading situations that she could come up with. I'd almost go so far as to say that it's a universal of the genre (given, obviously, that I haven't seen very much of the genre due to the squicking). Mpreg seems to be a nonstop meander through a vast garden of HUMILIATION and PAIN, including intimate bodily details that, frankly, I have ZERO desire to become acquainted with even in my closest friends, let alone fictional characters.

I think it'd be equally squicky to me if it were an in-depth account of the pregnancy of a female character; it's just that people don't really do that much. However, the idea of going through a gazillion chapters detailing Elizabeth carrying John's love child, complete with intimate details of her varicose veins and hemorrhoids ... I'm sorry. No. Not going there. And I can't figure out why so many people seem to WANT to go there.

Not that you can't do a pregnancy in fanfic, assuming that it's plausible and has some sort of plot reason for being there. For example, I haven't read much Firefly fic so I don't know if people do this very much, but I could see some really interesting character-exploration possibilities in the idea of writing a pregnant Zoe, especially in dealing with reconciling her warrior persona with the idea of being a mother (particularly a single mother). I'm not particularly interested in reading a long wallow in the details of Zoe's morning sickness, but pregnancy as a way of revealing a facet of Zoe's character that would otherwise go unexplored -- that is interesting to me. And being that Zoe does, or did, have a regular sexual relationship in canon, it's plausible that she might actually become pregnant and decide to keep the baby. Plausibility is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome in my ability to accept pregnancy in characters on most of the shows I read fic for, not that I believe the characters are celibate, but just because their lives are usually so difficult and dangerous. Obviously with mpreg you've got that vast medical-unreality barrier to overcome, which is a huge strike against it to begin with for me -- considering how very picky I am about details of accuracy and plausibility in fic. But even if you can come up with a way to do it, there are a lot of other implausibilities that are going to be very hard to write around. A pregancy for any of the SGA characters, for example, would totally take them out of Atlantis. There is just no WAY -- realistically -- that they wouldn't be knocked out of commission as active participants for at least a few months and most likely forever. Their lives are just too active and dangerous. A pregnancy is going to result in a one-way ticket to Earth. The only characters who might realistically get pregnant and stay on Atlantis would be the non-Earth people: Teyla or (since we're discussing mpreg, obviously) Ronon. But even with them, an unexpected pregnancy is so obviously detrimental to the work they do that I honestly can't, realistically, see either of them keeping it. In fact there was a really interesting Teyla short fic that I read awhile back that dealt with exactly that idea, in which she has to make a choice along those lines. It was very gripping, emotional and good. It's not that you can't write a compelling fanfic story that deals with pregnancy. It's just that most people don't seem to do so ... because I gather that it's more about wish fulfilment than anything else.

And that wish-fulfilment thing is probably why mpreg is so much more prevalent in fic than female pregnancy, especially in its tendency to wallow in all the gory and unmentionable details. Once again I'm generalizing here to a genre that I haven't really read all that much of, but it seems to me that a big part of it is the appeal, to some women, of stripping power from a male character. It may not be overtly intended by the writer, but that's what I've come away with from the mpreg that I've read or skimmed: that the theme is to take a male character and forcibly bring them low -- strip away both their physical strength and their emotional defenses. In that regard, it has a lot in common with both torture fics and rape fics. There's a similar feeling to those, to me at least. It's kind of a female power fantasy. And again, I'm not saying that it's being done on purpose, necessarily, but that really is the strongest impression that I've gotten from mpreg. It's written by women as a way of inflicting what we live with (the fear of unwanted pregnancy and the potentially nasty consequences) on the "other", the male of the species.

But it doesn't work for me on that level because it just hits too close to home. As a fertile female of childbearing age, this could potentially be me, and as a result, one of the reasons why I've gotten all squirmy when reading mpreg in the past is because it's all too easy to put myself in the pregnant character's place. I project myself into the characters when I read anyway -- don't most people? And when a character is going through something that I plausibly might go through (and something that at least half the women I know have gone through) it really takes away pretty much all of the fun. It's kind of similar to how, despite my strong h/c leanings as a fan, I'm not overly fond of stories that dwell on ALL the gory details of the characters' injuries, especially when it's reasonably close to something I've experienced in real life.

Which brings me to that SG-1 fic I mentioned earlier. Ha! Bet you thought I'd never get here, didn't you?

I've occasionally alluded, here and there, to an SG-1 story I read a number of years ago that made me stop reading SG-1 fic permanently. I've been thinking about it lately, because even though that particular story wasn't mpreg, I think that a lot of the same things that make mpreg (at least as it's generally presented in fanfic) so personally squicky to me were also true of this story.

The particular story in question -- I can't remember the title or author, and it was maybe 6 or 7 years ago that I read it. It was, of course, a Daniel-whumper (aren't they all?) and in this particular case, he had cancer, which was naturally an excuse for chapter after grueling chapter of the aforementioned PAIN and HUMILIATION.

In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure why I read the whole thing; there was kind of a train-wreck fascination to it. And I'm also not 100% sure why it had quite as severe a psychological effect as it did -- I mean, to the extent that I not only quit reading SG-1 fic for good (I haven't had a desire to pick up another ever since) but quit reading fanfic in general for a little while, and even kinda lost interest in h/c. In some ways it did have a lot to do with timing, because I was just starting to lose my fannishness for SG-1; it would be another couple of years before I quit watching the show regularly (and that's probably a whole other essay, although it had as much to do with just being insanely busy in my personal life as it did with the show itself), but that initial bloom of extreme fannishness was starting to fade. During my intensely fannish period, I'd read a LOT of SG-1 fic (I actually read, or at least skimmed for interest, the entire contents of Heliopolis) and was just generally getting tired of it. It wasn't as if I was massively fannish and then I read this story and suddenly wanted nothing to do with SG-1 fandom -- it wasn't THAT bad. It was just the nail in the coffin of a declining fannish obsession. But it was a pretty damn big nail.

Anyway, when I think about fanfics that squicked me, this one usually tops the list ... I mean, aside from the really wacked-out ideas like Chip'n'Dale slash that I've run across in the course of surfing; there is some VERY strange fanfic out there. But this one had a special effect on me, and now that I'm back in Stargate fandom (if not SG-1) I've put some thought into why that might have been. I've certainly run across any number of SGA stories that gave me a case of the creeping squickies, and they didn't turn me off the way this story did. On the other hand, I didn't generally go ahead and read them, either ...

Eventually I came up with the following three reasons for why this story weirded me out so badly.

1- I just don't want that level of intimacy with a fictional character. All fiction is voyeuristic by its nature, of course, but this made me feel like a dirty voyeur. I felt like I was peeking into aspects of the characters' lives that shouldn't be seen, that I don't WANT to see.

2- Cancer is real. It's something that people go through in real life, something I or someone I love may have to deal with at some point. I think that single thing, more than anything else, goes a long way towards explaining the reason why this particular story hit me with such specific squickiness ... and then I got to thinking that maybe the same is true of mpreg, too. And non-con, and pretty much ALL of my big squicks. They're real. If this had been something wholly fictional (Daniel dealing with, say, the severe physical side effects of a botched Goa'uld implantation, or the side effects of some Ancient device) it still would have gotten to me on points #1 and 3, but I don't think it would have hit me with that particular, visceral, stomach-twisting disgust that it did.

There is no reason whatsoever why you can't deal with real, life-changing situations in a fanfic. I just think that it takes an extra level of effort from the author in order to write it in a way that is plausible, tasteful and above all has some sort of fictional point to it other than just to plumb the depths of pain and humiliation. I think this is why iamrighthere's The Known World doesn't trip my non-con squick with its treatment of rape. The forced sex in that story isn't dragged in front of the camera for all the world to stare at. It's tasteful, plausible, and the emotional fallout is dealt with in a way that gives depth to the character. Page after page of rape described in loving and lurid detail -- that's my squick, not the mere existence of such a thing in fanfic at all.

So it's not the fact that this story dealt with cancer at all, it was the way that it was dealt with, and ultimately used as a paper-thin excuse to drag the character through the depths of pain and humiliation and horror, in the process painting chemotherapy as something that it's amazing anyone survives at all. (Which is the general impression that one gets of pregnancy, from most of the mpreg that I've seen.)

3- As well as impressing upon me the voyeuristic elements of fiction in general, and fanfic in specific, this story really hit me upside the head with the wish-fulfilment aspect to it, the "because the author says so" aspect. There was really no area of h/c that was not thoroughly plumbed in this story, loosely held together by vestiges of a plot, and it left me not only feeling like my emotions had gone ten rounds with Tyson, but wondering what the point of it all had been. This ultimately ended up turning me off of not only SG-1 fic, but h/c in general for a while. Because the fanfic writer can really do ANYTHING with the characters, and if you can do anything, then what's the point of doing any of it? I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, but I can, after all, put the characters in any conceivable situation in fantasies in my head. The fanfic writer can MAKE the characters do anything "because she said so". If she doesn't give them a compelling and plausible framework in which to do those things -- a believable plot that's not just an excuse for h/c -- then there is no reason not to stick with the stories in my head, where I can manipulate all the details to get them just-so.

That, #3, was the primary reason -- at first -- why I stopped reading SG-1 fic, and fanfic in general for a while. At the time, it was the only reason I was really aware of, the "if you can do anything, what's the point to it all?" element. It wasn't until later that I started really analyzing my somewhat extreme reaction to the story -- why THAT story, and not another? -- and came up with points #1 and 2 ... and not until now that I really made the connection to the other major squicks that I have, such as fictional pregnancy and non-con.

Still, keeping on topic (sort of), mpreg does strike me in a lot of ways as the h/c equivalent of PWP. Rather than being a way of (tastefully) exploring an uncommonly seen emotional aspect to a character, it's just an excuse to rake them over the coals. And that's something that I don't have a whole lot of patience for in fic. I'm well aware this is a personal reading bias -- and don't get me wrong, I'm also aware how wonderful it is that in SGA fic I have the luxury of picking and choosing between different sorts of h/c! I've spent a number of years in anime fandoms, where h/c is rare and I pretty much had to take what I can get. In SGA, I've finally got the luxury of being a connoisseur, and what I'm realizing is that h/c for its own sake simply sets off the same "why the heck am I bothering with this when I can get it from my own fantasies?" reaction as the SG-1 story described above. Like I said up there, it needs to be held together in a framework of plot and plausibility for me to get much out of it. It can't just be PWP. I can supply myself with PWP h/c just fine in my own fantasies -- on boring car drives, in bed at night as I fall asleep. There's no real incentive, then, to get it from other people. I need something more, something I can't get from my fantasies: unpredictability, unusual ideas, a compelling plot that takes the characters to places where I haven't taken them myself.

Okay, and having said that, I'll add the caveat that I reserve the right to be inconsistent and jump on an h/c PWP wholeheartedly if it happens to coincide perfectly with my specific h/c fetishes. *grin* I can't say I wouldn't. I just can't think of too many cases where I have.

Hmm. This has ended up being more ramble, less point. My whole objective with writing the above was mainly to work out, to my own satisfaction, in my own mind, why I react to mpreg the way that I do ... something more insightful than just "Ew, it's icky!" I'm posting it here not to dump on anyone's personal preferences, but mainly as a way of explaining my own. (And hey, I just wrote over 3000 words of ramblings about fandom, so it seems like a shame not to post it SOMEWHERE!)

Comments

[tipper-green.livejournal.com]

Hee! This was fun to read. I admit, I've never thought it through this throroughly, but I understand completely where you're coming from. I have a very similar list of things I don't like, and I'd add permament physical changes to that, like dismemberment(Ugh, that last is just such an ugly word, isn't it?). For me, it's because of the way those things will *end* a character. It changes them just as completely and as utterly as, well, chopping off a limb. I don't need a reset button at the end of the story, but I need to feel like things will be "okay". I like development, but not radical change. If that makes sense.

And in that light, that fic I told you about a while back? Never, ever, ever read it. Trust me.

[sholio]

Never, ever, ever read it. Trust me.

Don't worry ... from what you said, and after certain unpleasant experiences in Sentinel fandom, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot barge pole ...

Ditto to what you said about permanent changes to the characters. I *will* say that I've really enjoyed some AUs that took the characters to places they wouldn't normally be able to go (and didn't necessarily put them back afterwards), but generally my enjoyment of fic is predicated upon the knowledge that the story will fit into canon somewhere. Radically changing a character not only takes them out of canon, but me out of the story. I at least want to *know*. I do enjoy a deathfic on occasion, but I want to know what I'm getting myself into. And I'm not adverse to the author finding a semi-plausible way to "fix" the characters in order to put them back to something approximating their original condition ... but even if it's kind of far-fetched, I do expect the author to do a bit of work to convince me that it *would* work. (That one story that I pointed you to awhile back would be a prime example of one where the "reset button" just pissed me off rather than fixing things.)

There have definitely been some h/c's that I've read which made me go "ummm..." at the end because the characters were put through things that they couldn't plausibly recover from and go back to their regular duties. Actually, I've sort of done it myself ... I'm working on a story right now where John's got a broken leg, and having experienced that myself, I know that broken limbs not only take a long time to heal, but never really heal as they were before. In all likelihood, in reality I would've ended his career by breaking his leg. But it's fanfic, so I'm just closing my eyes, going "la la la la la la" and pretending that he can heal up eventually and go back to active duty. They're on Atlantis, right? They must have cool Ancient healing technology, right? Yeah, that's the ticket...

[derry667.livejournal.com]

They must have cool Ancient healing technology, right? Yeah, that's the ticket...

Cool alien healing technology covers a myriad of sins. Truly.

LOL!

[blade-girl.livejournal.com]

Nice analysis of your reactions, and naturally, I couldn't agree more with your thoughts about "The pain, the pain, dear GOD, the pain!

It's not the subject matter so much as the wallowing in it that completely turns me off a lot of h/c fics. Have a point - a valid point recognizable to people who don't live in your head - to the suffering, or else just... keep it on your own hard drive, dammit.

[sholio]

The pain, the pain, dear GOD, the pain!

LOL! Yeah, I guess we've talked about that elsewhere, haven't we? And I wouldn't even say that there's any reason why people shouldn't post that sort of thing, because there *is* obviously an audience for it and the browser's "back" button is a perfectly valid method of access control. I mean, good God, I write hurt/comfort fan fiction for crapsakes; I'm the last person who should be dictating to other people what their fetishes ought to be!

Having said THAT ... I'm quite with you on the wallowing.

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

mpreg? SENTINEL mpreg?

O_o

That hurts my brain. Then again, though TS was the one show where even Rosy!GenGlasses me could see the slash subtext, I never got into TS slash, even though I seriously considered writing my last TS story as slash.

While I will confess to reading the occasional mpreg IF the science fiction twist is good enough, I'm not a fan of the sub-genre or its fellow, gender benders. Very few people get those right either. I hadn't thought of it in terms of power and putting the male character through what a woman goes through, but you've got an interesting point. I'll echo blade_girl's comment about the "Ze pain, ze PAIN!" wallowing aspects of it, too. I just can't get past the "turning guys into women" aspects of the fic. Thank you, I like my men to be men.

I have my own personal squicks, mostly revolving around rape and torture fics, and the "ohsobroken!Woobie!" fics that go places I wouldn't take my worst enemy, let alone a character I loved. There was one author in TS fandom who was famous for her h/c stories--and they were excellently written stories. I just couldn't read them because she seemed to revel in what were to me gratuitous details when it came to the torture she put her characters through--and she was always, always putting poor Blair into the most horrific situations. Yuck. I get this on the news at night; why do I want it in my fic?

iamrighthere and I discussed this quite a bit (though not in relation to mpreg) when she was writing "The Known World", and even "Monsters." We've both probably erred on the side of too much caution to avoid this trap in our own fics. She did a beautiful job with it in TKW. I know I really struggled with it in several of my stories in a couple of different fandoms. There are ways to gracefully cover these subjects without subjecting the character to unnecessary anguish.

Uhm...there was a fic under discussion a while back; the author there had written an SG1 fic that did to Jack (and my enjoyment of SG1 fic) what you're talking about here. She so totally degraded Jack and then let the team find him and just...gah. To be fair, she tried to deal with the fallout of those events, but I'd lost any interest in the story at that point. While I love a good whumping or h/c fic, I really am not into that level of degradation and torture.

Hmmm...not much to do wiht mpreg, eh? Sorry. *sheepish* I think it was just the shock of seeing "mpreg" and "TS fic" together that really floored me and let the gates open for the logorrhea.

*slinks away*

[sholio]

*laughs* Sorry, I hope I didn't derail your whole day with that particular factoid! It was possibly just something to do with the particular area of Sentinel fandom in which I found myself back at that time, but I saw a lot of that. And being that it wasn't a science fiction setting, they mostly didn't even TRY to explain it ... which I guess is another reason why I came to see mpreg as an excuse for h/c more than anything else.

I will so often say that it's not necessarily WHAT you do, it's HOW you do it. "Known World" is a great example of a story that is absolutely full of stuff I normally find utterly squicky (suicide, rape, torture) but it's all done in such a way that I'm fascinated rather than squicked.

Admittedly mpreg does have a huge uphill road to climb in order to get me to buy it. But even with that, I wouldn't say it's impossible. Just that it would be really, really hard to sell me on such a story. But it could happen.


I just can't get past the "turning guys into women" aspects of the fic. Thank you, I like my men to be men.

YES. This is a really big thing with me, and I think that's part of why I wanted to analyze my reactions above, because I wanted to find out if my dissatisfaction (read: gigantic squicking) with mpreg is solely the result of taking a man and putting them into a woman's role. And I really don't think it is. I'm not at all bothered by gender-bending stuff if it's planned that way from the get-go -- I think that what bothers me is taking existing characters and trying to force them into a gender role that doesn't fit them. I think it would be equally disturbing to me to take Teyla and put her in a subservient-housewife role. It's just fundamentally WRONG for the character. And with SGA, most of the characters are such alpha males that I can't get into the idea of them being pushed into a female role. It's just utterly wrong for them.

Similarly ... there are quite a lot of h/c fics I've seen that "break" one of the characters, mentally I mean -- usually it's John, but sometimes Rodney as well. Basically they're taken and reduced to a catatonic or childlike state. And the trouble with that is ... so much of what I love about these characters is their strength and combativeness. Their very up-front maleness, if you will. Taking that away from them pulls the lynchpin out of the character; it takes away one of the things that draws me to them. Again, going back to the above, I wouldn't say I've never read or enjoyed a story that uses this idea. In fact there's a WIP I'm reading right now that uses that idea (thought it took me awhile to get past it) and another I can think of off the top of my head that was very, very good. But it's got a definite uphill road with me, and often, opening up a story and realizing that it's going to be one of those is enough to make me stop reading right there.

While I love a good whumping or h/c fic, I really am not into that level of degradation and torture.

I'm with you. I love h/c and characters pulling together to deal with the fallout from something or other. But degredation, humiliation, wallowing in the suffering ... no. It just makes me feel sick; there is no emotional draw for that at all. And my writer side is constantly asking, "Why is this here? Was that necessary? Did we need to be shown that?"

[atlantis-fan.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I love h/c and characters pulling together to deal with the fallout from something or other. But degredation, humiliation, wallowing in the suffering ... no. It just makes me feel sick; there is no emotional draw for that at all. And my writer side is constantly asking, "Why is this here? Was that necessary? Did we need to be shown that?"

That's pretty much exactly how I feel too!

[anniehow.livejournal.com]

Some interesting points you raise!

In regards of Mpreg, I only read the crack!fic versions, and sparingly at that. When it's played for laughts I might get behind it, but otherwise I'm stuck at the reaction I got the first time I stumbled upon one, and that's a cynical "you've got to be f***ing kidding me".

As you pointed out, degradation is also something that will make me activate the "back" button (hee! sorry, but I'm into anime as well and, mental image of "back button power. Activate!"), even when it's not gratutious. Just, no thanks.

My big, what-are-you-people-thinking-squeak is RPF (is that the correct acronym?). Whenever I come across one of those I have a little verbal rant with my screen, explaining in detail why "NO". One day I might even put it in writing, but for now I'm just content to steer clear of those, and basically ignore them (lalala, not listening).

I have to say also that I too like to read h/c where everything turn out All Right in the end. I suppose that's why "Tao of McKay" and "Echoes" were such squee!fests. We knew they weren't going to die. But every now and then I'll read a story where things end up not being fixed, and the characters have to move on, and away from what canon would have, and I have to confess that those stories (obviously, I'm talking about the well written ones) usually made the more lasting impression on me, and I still remember them years afterwards. In fact, the last entry on my LJ is a rec for an SGA kid!fic that is exactly like this. No easy solution, and life is too complicated and all that sort of things.

wheee, sorry for rambling that much!

ps I think I too encountered that Jack!fic you were talking about in the comments. I was so disappointed because I liked the author, but she began at such a low point of torture aftermath that I couldn't really see a way out, and I bailed. But that is also the beauty of fanfiction, the ability to pick and choose at your leisure (provided the fandom's large enought)

[sholio]

Oh, RPF, GOD yeah. That squicks me to no end. I think the absolute low that I've run across so far (and obviously I didn't read it, just stared in horror and fled) was real person incest (Olson twins, if you're wondering, which you probably weren't, but if I have to be scarred for life, then so do the rest of you). People are certainly entitled to fantasize about whatever weirdness floats their pontoons, but to put that kind of thing out there for all the world to see .. just ... God ... no.

mental image of "back button power. Activate!"

*laughs* A power we all exercise at will, I'm sure!

I have this sort of morbid desire to go ahead and keep reading -- in fact, I read all kinds of stuff that I *know* isn't to my taste, and I have a hard time figuring out why. Some sort of rampant bibiophilia, I guess, where once the words are on my screen, I just can't stop reading them! Naturally this means that I have only myself to blame for some of the stuff I read...

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

(jumps in)

Oh my gosh, yes, RPF is just-- just-- no. *shiver* I mean, whatever floats your shorts on fire and all that, but I can never help but putting myself in the actor's shoes, and what if you came across something like that written about yourself? The thought of that just stops me cold.

[parisntripfan.livejournal.com]

There are some very interesting points here. I too have real problems with Mpegs fics, partiulcarly ones that don't even seem to admit that is something very, very strange about a male giving birth.

I too have often had a problem with the h/c comfort fics that seem to wallow in the hurt. I get what they are trying to do - and sometimes I even agree with it - but there are many who take it way, way over the line.

I don't know if because the writers are trying to humiliate the characters though. I tend to think it is part because they have done a lot of research of the topic and want to show off just how much she has learned. Or they have been told "show don't tell" and have yet to realize that while that a good rule of thumb - sometimes you do say less with more.

In regards to "The Known World" one reason I love it is that it follows this idea. imrighthere never shows us what happened and doesn't even really tell us directly what happens to Teyla - but the implications are clear. Moreover, she (the author that is) is showing the effects and that while Teyla was not physically harmed - she is far from healed.

It could also be that the writer does want to get to the inner core of the person - and views h/c as the best way to do that. I will agree that writers are trying to break down a particular character's defenses - and while I don't have a problem with that in and of itself, I think that sometimes h/c almost makes it to easy. The really good writers know how to do that without the "wallowing," and even more importantly keeping the characters in character.

[sholio]

The really good writers know how to do that without the "wallowing," and even more importantly keeping the characters in character.

I think that's the key ...

The thing is, everyone's definition of "wallowing" is going to be different. Watching TV with my husband is a whole different experience from watching it by myself or with female friends -- his tolerance for emotional-type stuff is *way* lower than mine. On SGA, during some of the slower, more character-development type of stuff that I love, I can see him getting fidgety. So I'm aware that my idea of "wallowing" in fic is not going to be everybody's.

But for me, there really does need to be some sort of point to it. If the point is to deepen our understanding of the characters, to push and reveal a character, to give us interaction between two characters -- then that's great! I think that the point where I lose interest is when it seems like the only point is never-ending pain and angst and more pain. It doesn't really GO anywhere. And again, whether or not a story appears to be going anywhere *is* an individual thing. In fact, I had a recent discussion with somebody about one long WIP on ff.net -- I don't really want to bring specific authors and stories into the discussion, but I was completely loving the slow emotional stuff in the story, while the other person thought it was meandering and going nowhere. So I've been on the other side of the discussion, too.

Like you, I often *can* see where they're going, but it just seems like they never really get there. And I realize that this is a personal preference of mine as much as anything else.

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

One last comment: My total squick? Photomanips. I absolutely HATE them with a passion and nothing will cause me to hit my back button faster. Not just the slash ones, either. Just something about that idea that really, really pushes my buttons, maybe just getting too close to playign with the actor instead of the character? RPF is a Big Fat NO as well, though that's kind of a given for a lot of people.

[sholio]

I suppose it totally depends, for me, on the nature and the purpose of the manip. Slash ones push my creep-o-meter off the scale for exactly the reason you've said above: it runs way too close to playing with the actors instead of the characters. Photoshopping an actor's head onto a graphically naked body is a particularly huge squick of mine. But I've seen some funny manips that cracked me up, especially when they're specifically designed as part of a story. For example, there was one a little while back that had Sheppard holding a teddy bear -- and it was a support file for a multimedia-ish fanfic, something that Rodney had done to mess with him. That, I have no problem with. I guess for me it's a "I can't define what bothers me, but I know it when I see it" type of thing.

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

I guess i haven't seen many like the one you mention; for the most part what I've seen has been the slash ones. Though actually, there was a Ronon-as-Barbie manip floating around a while ago that was hysterical.

But I would agree with the non-slashy that there's a definite "I know it when I see it" vibe to them.

[sholio]

On the "more funny than creepy" side, there's also one of Ronon and Rodney on a romance novel cover (in your classic romance novel pose, complete with bare chest -- on Ronon -- and long dress -- on Rodney) floating around somewhere that sent me into hysterics. I think it sort of depends for me on if it's meant to be parody or if it's serious.

[leenys.livejournal.com]

I've read one mpreg that was interesting because the set up was unique, and the after effects were potentially disasterous. Almost read like a Lovecraft fic, more of a haunting sci-fi senario than anything. No overused angst, no descriptions, just a story that has a final sentence that clenches it. I'll have to see if I can find it...other than that? No interest in mpreg whatsoever. The few I've found were obviously written by women who haven't been pregnant. It's not THAT BAD. And even if it's bad, it's not THAT BAD, and for god sake's stop giving the preg guy female characteristics!

Photomanips are straaaaaaaange. I've seen a few that are good of the gen variety, but slashy ones, or even fantasy ones (there is a manip of a Shep-unicorn that turns my stomach, sorry) are just...ick.

Darkfics...I have to be in a certain mood to read them. There are days when that's all I look for, I want pages and pages of angst and rape and comfort. Those days, it's best not to talk to me. :)

kam :)

[sholio]

Ha! I've seen that Sheppard-unicorn picture, probably the one you're talking about. (There couldn't be two. At least, I hope not.)

It's not THAT BAD. And even if it's bad, it's not THAT BAD, and for god sake's stop giving the preg guy female characteristics!

Yes, yes, yes. THAT, I think, is the specific aspect of it that I'm reacting to so negatively. (Both of the things you mention here.) It's as if some writers take every horrible thing they've ever heard about pregnancy and dump it onto the hapless character, then glory in describing in all in loving detail. And then they have the guy acting hormonal and weepy and AAAAARGH.

The idea of doing a creepy Lovecraftian take on it -- that's pretty cool, actually! See, like I said in one of the comments above, I don't think it's impossible to do it in an acceptable way. It's just that it generally doesn't seem to be done that way -- at least not that I've seen anyhow. (And admittedly, having been burned by a few, I'm not overly eager to seek out others and see if I'm wrong...)

Darkfics...I have to be in a certain mood to read them. There are days when that's all I look for, I want pages and pages of angst and rape and comfort.

And see, different kinds of stories speak to different emotional needs. This is probably why it's good that even the sorts of stories I complain about above do exist. There will be times when you need something like that.

I seem to go to fanfic for comfort ... I want mine to be happy and hopeful. So the darker scenarios turn me off. But not everyone has the same needs from their 'fic ...

[leenys.livejournal.com]

I go there too, the happy and hopeful type. Like you said, it depends on the need. :)

[atlantis-fan.livejournal.com]

Was debating answering this or not but here it goes. I guess I missed all the Sentinel MPreg stories, while I was still in fandom - so I never got that overload of angst you talked about with MPreg... In Atlantis fandom I have actually read a couple MPreg stories that weren't as bad as you described. (No humilation or overdone pain). *shrug* guess that isn't a squick for me - on the other hand I don't go looking for them either.

Also like you I did end up reading one too many angst ridden SG1 stories (re: my old angst for the sake of angst rant) that stopped me from reading any more in that fandom. Which basically means I tend to avoid angst as much as possible - oh I still read h/c stories but if things seem like their going to be too extream with no ending in site I bail out pretty quickly.

[sholio]

In Atlantis fandom I have actually read a couple MPreg stories that weren't as bad as you described. (No humilation or overdone pain).

Well, it may just be that having seen some really awful ones burned me on the genre as a whole. My knee-jerk reaction is FLEE SCREAMING when I see one, due in part to having read some for Sentinel (and a couple for SG-1) that just sent me into stratospheric realms of horror, and also due in part to just having severe problems with the plausibility of the whole thing, for the reasons discussed above. (At least with science fiction, you *do* have at least vague sorts of explanations for how such a thing would be possible, which TS never even seemed to try to explain...)

But I didn't really mean to dump on anyone's preferences; this is all just pure IMHO ...

MPreg

[nottasha.livejournal.com]

Gotta say, I have never been able to make it through an MPreg story. Butt babies? What the hell? I don't get it.

I guess it's just the authors' way of turning our male characters further into females. They make them act like teenage girls already, might as well go all the way.

Re: MPreg

[sholio]

LOL!

I think the medical implausibility is part of what gets to me, because then my brain goes into contortions trying to figure out how this is possible and then it crawls away whimpering.

Also, I got bored this afternoon at work so I Googled "Mpreg" just to see what would come up. (I know, I know ...) This is how I discovered the existence of such fascinating sub-genres as "furry mpreg" (pregnant male human/animal hybrids) and quite a LOT of Snape mpreg. (I. Do. Not. Want. To. KNOW!)

Re: MPreg

[nottasha.livejournal.com]

I think I shall be very very very ill now

Re: MPreg

[sholio]

I Google so you don't have to. It's like throwing myself on a grenade.

By the way, WHAT is that icon? Or do I want to know?

Re: MPreg

[nottasha.livejournal.com]

I thank you for that... the throwing yourself on the grenade thing, but I haven't been well since you mentioned that Snape thing.

As for the icon... it's a tapeworm. Where is YOUR mind going? Stay out of the gutter!

[derry667.livejournal.com]

Also, I seem to be giving derry667 a run for her money in the long-winded department this time...

Excuse me??? Long-winded? ME??? I don't know how you could say that. Shocked and appalled, that's what I am.

Anyway, I don't have your deep visceral dislike of mpreg fic simply because I don't think I've ever read one. Never been sufficiently intrigued to try it. But did you see that episode of Enterprise where they sorta did a mpreg story with Trip? Had me ROTFL, I tell ya. Some of the Star Trek writers definitely poke fun at fanfic from time to time.

But do totally understand about fics that need to describe pain and humiliation going on and on and *ON* without respite (and for no good reason that I can gather).

There's a definite point with me where I find the hurt/angst becomes gratuitous and annoying. To be totally honest, there are some painful h/c marathons from authors whose work I generally like (a lot!) that take the characters' suffering beyond where I'm comfortable (no one here, just in case you're wondering). The deathfics that I've actually enjoyed I could probably count on the fingers of one hand (and I couldn't tell you any of the titles). Relentless (gratuitous) pain is a huge turn off for me - be it physical or psychological.

Having said that, I also understand the "unable to look away from a train wreck" thing. With me, the few times it's happened, it's usually a case of the fic being just *so* bizarre and badly written that I can scarcely believe it actually exists.

The example that sticks in my mind is from ages ago. I used to (and I think actually I still do) belong to a McKay-centred Yahoo list that had all types of fic and one that I started to read from morbid curiosity (can't remember if I was completely forewarned or not) was one that was apparently gonna turn out to be McShep slash - but started out with Rodney being raped on an away mission (think that happened off camera at least) and then breaking down from the psychological effects in the infirmary. This was mind boggling in many ways because y'see no one knew that Rodney had been raped and therefore he did not recieve appropiate counselling within the necessary time (I know how this sounds, bear with me). Consequently, Rodney decompensated when John was mean to him (yes, in this fic which was apparently going to become McShep slash, John is an abusive psycho bastard). Rodney's crisis involved screaming, crying, thrashing and complete loss of control of bodily functions - we are talking graphic descriptions of every kind incontinence. But then (this was the bit that I just stared at the screen not knowing whether to laugh or cry) Carson starts wringing his hands and saying that if he'd got Rodney the appropriate counselling "in time" then everything would have been all right. !!!???!?!?!? Yes, I know. What I don't know is why I think I read about three chapters of this stuff before I said "Stop! This is killing your brain!" And apparently a year or two down the track and it's still haunting me!

Ummm... long winded? Ranting? Me?

Where did my lunch hour go?

[sholio]

*laughs helplessly at your example*

There was an SGA badfic challenge that I ran across a little while back, and while some of them were just bad, some were ROTFLOL hilarious -- I remember there was one that had Rodney serenading Sheppard with "My Heart Will Go On" (or maybe it was the other way around) and another with Atlantis's AI stuck in Rodney's body and Rodney trapped in the Atlantis mainframe, and both of them competing for Sheppard's affections, with Rodney getting insanely jealous and doing things like causing blackouts and posting obscene messages to Atlantis's AI on all the computer screens in the city.

I don't have your deep visceral dislike of mpreg fic simply because I don't think I've ever read one.

Sort of wish that I hadn't...

I didn't realize that I had THAT much of a dislike of it, either. Certainly not enough to write 3000+ words on the subject. I mean, it's not like I sit around dwelling on how much I hate it or anything. I don't even *hate* it exactly; it just weirds me out, and I guess that for my own peace of mind, I needed to figure out WHY ... I needed something a little deeper than just "Pregnant man! Eww!" Because I really *don't* feel that way. At least, I don't think I do. The few times I've run across it in published SF, it certainly hasn't bothered me -- well, with the caveat that it does depend on how it's done. I just kinda needed to get to the roots of it.

To be totally honest, there are some painful h/c marathons from authors whose work I generally like (a lot!) that take the characters' suffering beyond where I'm comfortable

Yeah, and this is probably something that I should add as a caveat to all of my complaining on that subject: that just because a writer does this, doesn't mean I don't like their work! Actually there are quite a few authors whose work largely appeals to me but every so often will go too deep into the Pit of Despair for my tastes. There are even some stories I liked that I have to skip over parts of them because I just *don't* want to read that, but the comfort scenes are nice enough to make up for it. So while never-ending pain is kind of a pet peeve of mine *pets her peeve* ... it's not by any means a total fic-killer for me.

[derry667.livejournal.com]

a pet peeve of mine *pets her peeve*

Er... do you two wanna be alone? Just asking.

;-P

[sholio]

*laughs*

More squick! Big *BIG* squick time!

[derry667.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of my slashier friends showed me that Badfic! Challenge (or at least one badfic challenge). I don't think I read much of the actual fic, but the story titles and summaries totally cracked me up!

And since we're on now into a generalised squick discussion, I'm going to hijack your journal again to rant about the huge "meta-squick" I discovered today.

It seems that my last exercise in verbosity earned me a temporary small slice of Meta-Badgirl cred in Supernatural fandom. People have been replying and saying "here's the review/meta that I wrote". And I checked some out and y'know I didn't totally agree - didn't disagree enough to fight about it. And so, for the first time, I was tempted to dip my toes into mainstream SPN fandom, check out the scene, shoot the breeze with a few new chums...

If I ever get that notion in my head again, whack me up the head, would you?

Coz then one person sent me the link to a meta she'd written about her theory that John's quest for the Demon had gradually become less about avenging Mary and actually more about saving Sam (by killing the demon that threatened him) - y'know, in light of recent revelations. And I thought that was quite a cool notion. And I thought this person might actually be another SPN fan that I could discuss stuff with without being squicked. Coz she said she'd been a mother for 25 years - that means some of her kids are round about the same ages as the Winchester boys. Surely, she wouldn't...

So, have a brief exchange of comments in her LJ and she recs this other meta that "made her so happy". I was vaguely intrigued... and ended slap-bang in the middle of a "Dean is so Sammy's bitch" ramble with proclamations about how the meta-author's fics were exploring the Sam-Dean relationship - just in a dirty porny Wincesty way (BTW that's their strikethough, not mine), etc, etc, ETC!

AAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!! Brain soap! Brain soap! My fandom for some brain soap!

I mean it, if I ever think I might be comfortable in mainstream SPN fandom, kick me in the head! The Wincest is everywhere, cunningly hidden and ready to ambush you when you least expect it.

And Derry's number one fandom squick is the need to incestuously ship... anyone

Well, that and RFP. Derry's two biggest squicks are incest and RPF and the fanatical need to turn every relationship into a sexual one. Three! Derry's three biggest squicks... Okay, you get the idea.

So, that was the "highlight" of my day in fandom. You? ;-P

Re: More squick! Big *BIG* squick time!

[sholio]

the fanatical need to turn every relationship into a sexual one

I think this is the single big thing about fandom (nearly all fandom) that truly baffles me.

I mean, I can understand being obsessive about a show or movie or book or actor or character. I can understand fantasizing about them, spinning what-ifs about them.

It wouldn't be suprising to me if there were a few people out there who liked to spin sexual fantasies about characters who are canonically not involved with each other, or even those whose ability to form a relationship with each other was utterly precluded by canon (like, say, ALL straight male characters...).

If it was rare, it wouldn't raise my eyebrows at all. What puzzles me is how utterly, utterly endemic it is. It's just such a ... huge ... mega ... THING in fandom, in pretty much every fandom; I don't think there is a single fandom out there where the shippers and slashers don't actually DOMINATE. And yes, there are certainly fandoms where the pairing and breaking up of characters is a very big thing in the show itself, so it's not at all surprising that this would be reflected in the fandom and fic. But in those where it's NOT ... like SGA and SPN, which have ZERO canonical pairings (aside from side dalliances with guest stars) ... in a sane and sensible universe, you would expect that the fandoms for these shows would generally be dominated by people who more or less followed canon, wouldn't you?

But it's not! You can't turn around without tripping over ship and slash! And again, I don't mind the fact that it simply exists. I'm sort of bothered, though, by the utter hugeness of it considering that it has no basis in canon, and also by the fact that so many people on the sexual-pairing side of the fence absolutely refuse to accept that it DOESN'T have a basis in canon (and, in the case of SPN, that the whole idea of brothers having sex with each other is very fringe and, hell, more than just slightly deviant in the real world). By its very nature, slash in nearly all fandoms *is* AU. But it's so gigantic in the fandom that merely suggesting that it's AU is often enough to get your eye blackened in online discussions.

I will sometimes JOKE along slashy lines, because there *are* some shows (Sentinel comes to mind here) that lend themselves to that sort of joke. But I can tell that canon isn't implying anything of the sort. I'm baffled, then, to run across episode commentaries for SGA (lots of them) that talk about the UST between Sheppard and McKay as if it was canonical fact, when both of them are straight as a string by any reasonable reading of canon that I can see ...

Like I said, I don't mind that it exists, and as you know, I do occasionally read slash in this fandom ... although honestly, I've very nearly stopped since Season 3 began, because the sibling vibe is SO strong that it's actually started tripping my incest squick -- and I actually just realized that I haven't read an SGA slash story in months, except for borderline ones like that one I rec'd to you, or the occasional "bored and curious" sort of clicking around on things. Huh. So I guess I don't really anymore, do I? But anyway, I don't mind the existence of it at all. I'm quite weirded out by the utter hugeness of it, though.

And don't get me started on RPF. Really. Best not to go there. :D

[tipper-green.livejournal.com]

ROFL! I remember that one! I couldn't finish it either! I think I laughed hysterically for a while before deciding I wasn't *that* desperate for fic! Man, am I so glad that so many more fic writers came into the fandom after year one...

[derry667.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that fic really was horrifically bad in every conceivable way!

*shudder*

[iamrighthere.livejournal.com]

Very cool discussion of mpreg and squicking in general.

Personally, mpreg? I was pregnant a couple of times and nothing turns me off to a fic more than pregnancy. I read fic to get away from the house and the kids and the bills and the stresses of life that bother me. Why read about anyone's pregnancy, let alone that of a man? (I've really got to find out what the attraction is. Seriously.)

However, that said...think of Teal'c. Think of other male characters in SG-1 and in other sci-fi shows who hold and nurture other creatures within their bodies. Strange to think about it, but guys thought up characters like Teal'c.

On squick, the Daniel story you mentioned sounds miserable. It is possible to write a character who is suffering from a terrible disease in such a way as to make their plight seem noble rather than pathetic. Writing illness and injury gives a writer the chance to be wildly evocative without necessarily being specific. Giving full doses of gory details might be medically accurate, but it is not very creative.

I recall an SG-1 fic from a couple of years back, in which Jack is wheeled into the infirmary with this and that and the other thing wrong with him. Well, zoom-zoom, next I'm being treated to a full-frontal description of a urinary catheterization! Jack was unconscious for this, but me, I was awake for the whole thing. Again, the writer was medically accurate, but I sat up and went WTF? Why am I reading this?

[sholio]

Hm, it did turn out to be more about squicking in general, didn't it? It's always interesting to me when I start out exploring one idea and end up actually learning things through the process. There are times when I can see how the ancient Greek philosophers might have spent 20 years analyzing a concept with their drinking buddies...

It is possible to write a character who is suffering from a terrible disease in such a way as to make their plight seem noble rather than pathetic. ... Giving full doses of gory details might be medically accurate, but it is not very creative.

Oh, indeed! In fact, this is quite an interesting point about writing: there is much talk of showing vs. telling, but there's also the matter of when it's better to neither show NOR tell, but let the reader read between the lines and figure something out for themselves. To my mind, you are striking a wonderful balance with this in your latest fic -- and I did have to mention you as my example of "doing it right", because it really *is* the first one that comes to mind. You are dealing with material that is potentially so incredibly squicky as most writers handle it -- rape, suicide, really severe character abuse -- and yet the subtle touch that you use makes it not only readable, but fascinating.

And a gigantic EWWW to the Jack story. Gah.

I tend to be much more comfortable erring on the side of "less is more" with the medical and injury stuff in my stories. "Running on Empty" was a great example of that, because Sheppard was basically dying of blood poisoning brought on by infection and gangrene, and I had NO desire to describe what that would look and smell like, so I'd just use a Rodney POV wherever possible and have Sheppard make him leave when he had to do something like change bandages. I realize that there are times when something needs to be shown ... but I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that showing everything is a mark of an unskilled writer, just as it is to show too little and leave the reader confused.

However, that said...think of Teal'c. Think of other male characters in SG-1 and in other sci-fi shows who hold and nurture other creatures within their bodies. Strange to think about it, but guys thought up characters like Teal'c.

Definitely a good point. And there actually *are* all kinds of vaguely pregnancy-like analogs in SF and horror -- most with rather BAD outcomes. Or gender variations like Le Guin's hermaphroditic society in "The Left Hand of Darkness." Actually thinking about Le Guin was one of the things that made me want to explore the topic in more detail, because I generally don't find the whole subject of genderswap and pregnancy variations at all squicky in SF -- depending, of course, as with everything else, on how it's handled -- which made me wonder what it is about it in fic that squicks me so badly. Obviously it has more to do with how it's written than with the idea itself. And also with doing it to existing characters who don't really fit those roles ... I was thinking about this today in terms of cross-dressing, because cross-dressing is not something that bothers me in the slightest (either fictional or in real life), but the idea of Sheppard or Rodney cross-dressing just makes me crack up laughing and then get a bit squicky at the idea of having it be done in a *serious* way. Because that's NOT who those characters are.

[anniehow.livejournal.com]

Your discussion reminded me of something I was discussing with a screen-writer aquaintance of mine. He told me that writers are much more sane (his words!) and adjusted than directors, and that to be a good director you need a special frame of mind that he really didn't want to have. Thinking about it now, I realize he was disturbed just by thinking about it. And, to the best of my knowledge, he's never worked with any weird or shady directors, in his opinion it's just how it is.

I suppose you could see it as the difference between writing fanfiction and playing with the characters, and doing manips or RPF and playing with the actors themselves.
It's one thing to write (for example)"John Doe escapes, half naked and nose bloodied, crawling through the mud as shots explode all above him" and be the person yelling at the actor "we're doing another one! this time take your shoes off, and really press your face in that mud! I want to see bubbles! I want to see blood trailing! And you, with the blanks! hit the ground around him, but closer this time! all right, action!"

[sholio]

LOL! You know what this makes me think of? We just recently watched "The Shining" and then the Twin Peaks movie right back-to-back, including the behind-the-scenes extras on the DVDs. So basically we saw Stanley Kubrick driving his actors completely insane, and then David Lynch driving his actors completely insane. And the cumulative effect of that was for me to just thank my lucky stars that I'm not an actor and for God's sake, never have to deal with people like Kubrick and Lynch.

*grin*

I'm sure there are directors who are quite lovely people. It's just interesting that you should post this RIGHT after we watched two backstage documentaries following directors who are basically crazy, manipulative assholes who have probably driven their actors to massive therapy.