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reenkaPossible sign I've Officially Been Around Fandom Too Long: "what do you -mean- siblingcest is squicky?" (*facepalm*)
Though I actually find some of it squickier than the rest. I think it's more okay when it starts when the siblings are children and they're just naturally & mutually deeply fucked up (together), and less okay if it starts when they're in late adolescence or adults for some reason, 'cause that sort of means the power-balance is oddly tilted. Possibly this is why the brothercest on 'Supernatural' doesn't quite work for me.
But yeah, it sort of bothers me how few things bother me to the point where I don't even think about them anymore. I think I've become complacent.
Like, there's actually a book, 'Geek Love', what with the mutilated freak-show family, which is just horrific and insane-sounding to the point where I -know- I'd be disturbed for days if I read it, so I don't. Or there's stuff I actually find sexually deviant like 'Razor Wire Pubic Hair'. I guess I have a mutilation squick, but it's just... adding S&M and cross-gender modification stuff in there makes it a more potent cocktail somehow.
Anyway, what I mean to say is, I'm not shocked or disgusted and disturbed by ideas anymore, if I ever was-- the way to disturb me would have to be through the use and the actual darkness in the permutation of those ideas.
There are some things I just don't want to think about, because they seriously affect how I perceive human beings and the world at large-- and actually, I think those sorts of books are worth reading because of that, because they can shake you up and make you rethink your assumptions & beliefs.
I don't think I've ever seen a fanfic do that no matter what it's premise, though fact remains I don't read Death Eater-centric fics as a rule-- and Amanuensis' 'And Just Plain Wrong' comes pretty close. Mostly, I think we generally like the characters we write about too much to make them horrific or monstrous, but the truth is I've avoided reading fics where my favorite characters were... not so much -hurt- as made to betray themselves in any way. It's a subtle thing, but that's why I have such distaste for any fic where Harry loses his sense of dignity or is psychologically 'beaten'-- I mean, that's also horrific, but it's a very specific kind of horror because it's a hell entirely contained in that one character's pov, and it's not generally addressed in the sort of story it would be in.
I guess I want to make a distinction between how I'm 'horrified' by Death Eaters raping Harry in new and inventive ways till he cracks and loses a large part of himself, and how I'm horrified by something that's also horrific but 'bearable' like Ron getting his mind taken over by the same evil Death Eaters and betraying Harry in a slow and painful manner. Both things create tension and possibly disgust, but in one case the 'fall' of the character is intentional and limited (that is, Ron is quite definitely not there anymore), whereas in the other case the character -is-, in fact, being perverted at the core. In horror, I feel like there's always that line between acceptable and unacceptable levels of degradation, at least for me, and it's not so much that I can't cross them as I need the story I read to -acknowledge- them and match my perception of, basically, how bad it is.
And in most non-horror original fiction, the characters seem too -distant- somehow, like... whatever's happening does so at a remove from me and the sorts of things -I- would consider doing. Even if I empathize with a character, they're just generally not shocking or vibrant enough to break through-- to reach out through the page and grab me by the neck and scream their filthy thoughts at me. There's always that remove.
I imagine good horror or true perversion in fiction would be something like those moments in 'Alias' where the tension is so high I find I just can't watch. Like, I don't look away when it's yet another insane circumstance with sky-high tension, all that superspy stuff that's like high fantasy to me, all bombs and helicopters and kickboxing-- but when Sydney has to sneak into the house of someone she knows, someone she works with-- when she's deceiving someone with whom there are -real- consequences for her personally rather than life-or-death ones for the world at large-- that's when I cringe. That's when I'm tense and frightened, glued to the screen and easily startled.
In that sense, whatever disturbs you on the most personal and intense level is really good storytelling because it's getting that reaction from you to start with. I mean, ideally a good story would make you rethink things, string you up and put you at the edge of your seat-- but a good -reader- would -want- to in the first place.
Though I actually find some of it squickier than the rest. I think it's more okay when it starts when the siblings are children and they're just naturally & mutually deeply fucked up (together), and less okay if it starts when they're in late adolescence or adults for some reason, 'cause that sort of means the power-balance is oddly tilted. Possibly this is why the brothercest on 'Supernatural' doesn't quite work for me.
But yeah, it sort of bothers me how few things bother me to the point where I don't even think about them anymore. I think I've become complacent.
Like, there's actually a book, 'Geek Love', what with the mutilated freak-show family, which is just horrific and insane-sounding to the point where I -know- I'd be disturbed for days if I read it, so I don't. Or there's stuff I actually find sexually deviant like 'Razor Wire Pubic Hair'. I guess I have a mutilation squick, but it's just... adding S&M and cross-gender modification stuff in there makes it a more potent cocktail somehow.
Anyway, what I mean to say is, I'm not shocked or disgusted and disturbed by ideas anymore, if I ever was-- the way to disturb me would have to be through the use and the actual darkness in the permutation of those ideas.
There are some things I just don't want to think about, because they seriously affect how I perceive human beings and the world at large-- and actually, I think those sorts of books are worth reading because of that, because they can shake you up and make you rethink your assumptions & beliefs.
I don't think I've ever seen a fanfic do that no matter what it's premise, though fact remains I don't read Death Eater-centric fics as a rule-- and Amanuensis' 'And Just Plain Wrong' comes pretty close. Mostly, I think we generally like the characters we write about too much to make them horrific or monstrous, but the truth is I've avoided reading fics where my favorite characters were... not so much -hurt- as made to betray themselves in any way. It's a subtle thing, but that's why I have such distaste for any fic where Harry loses his sense of dignity or is psychologically 'beaten'-- I mean, that's also horrific, but it's a very specific kind of horror because it's a hell entirely contained in that one character's pov, and it's not generally addressed in the sort of story it would be in.
I guess I want to make a distinction between how I'm 'horrified' by Death Eaters raping Harry in new and inventive ways till he cracks and loses a large part of himself, and how I'm horrified by something that's also horrific but 'bearable' like Ron getting his mind taken over by the same evil Death Eaters and betraying Harry in a slow and painful manner. Both things create tension and possibly disgust, but in one case the 'fall' of the character is intentional and limited (that is, Ron is quite definitely not there anymore), whereas in the other case the character -is-, in fact, being perverted at the core. In horror, I feel like there's always that line between acceptable and unacceptable levels of degradation, at least for me, and it's not so much that I can't cross them as I need the story I read to -acknowledge- them and match my perception of, basically, how bad it is.
And in most non-horror original fiction, the characters seem too -distant- somehow, like... whatever's happening does so at a remove from me and the sorts of things -I- would consider doing. Even if I empathize with a character, they're just generally not shocking or vibrant enough to break through-- to reach out through the page and grab me by the neck and scream their filthy thoughts at me. There's always that remove.
I imagine good horror or true perversion in fiction would be something like those moments in 'Alias' where the tension is so high I find I just can't watch. Like, I don't look away when it's yet another insane circumstance with sky-high tension, all that superspy stuff that's like high fantasy to me, all bombs and helicopters and kickboxing-- but when Sydney has to sneak into the house of someone she knows, someone she works with-- when she's deceiving someone with whom there are -real- consequences for her personally rather than life-or-death ones for the world at large-- that's when I cringe. That's when I'm tense and frightened, glued to the screen and easily startled.
In that sense, whatever disturbs you on the most personal and intense level is really good storytelling because it's getting that reaction from you to start with. I mean, ideally a good story would make you rethink things, string you up and put you at the edge of your seat-- but a good -reader- would -want- to in the first place.
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Date: 2006-05-28 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-29 04:18 am (UTC)What I meant about fandom stopping that is basically because if you write slash, especially a popular pairing, you wind up having at least -someone- say 'ewwwww, boys together! how sick are you!' and eventually either you quit or become immune to the whole idea to the point where it's just weird and confusing when people act shocked & disgusted at slash or whatever common fannish thing-- and incest pairings aren't quite as common as slash, but they're pretty damn common (like, Regulus/Sirius or Ron/Ginny... I actually wrote R/G twice and got more comments than for any H/D ever, and most of those comments were basically 'ew how could you'-- but I actually could never get my head around F/G near as well). Anyway, if you stay around fandom long enough, it just seems to me your morals degenerate :> At least that's usually the case ^^;; But the whole issue of squick... no matter how degenerate, -some- things will always squicky, I guess.
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Date: 2006-05-29 09:26 pm (UTC)Frankly, I would only read incest if I was very bored and the chances of a non-incest, goodfic coming up were slim. It wouldn't be my first choice of scenario at all, but for Supernatural, it is by default. It's the automatic assumption of incest that maybe bothers me. I dno.
Actually, I've never got a OMG EW SLASH reply. I do think it's good that there's a whole subset of people who don't react like that, but once you open the door to one acceptance, you open the door to 'em all.