30 Days of Actually Posting

[extrapenguin]

8. Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.

Well, a squick is by definition something that makes you go "ew", so ... I, uh, disagree with the posing of this question! It is, however, something that I do think about semi-regularly, as I participate in fanwork exchanges and part of that is figuring out what are the things that I Do Not Want in my gifts. (On a side note, it ammuses me immensely that the whole term for DNWs comes from Backstroke of the West, the bad back-translation of Chinese subs for Revenge of the Sith into English. Do Not Want is the big NOOO Vader gives after waking up in the suit.) So I'm going to just navelgaze about my DNW list.

My current set of DNWs is:

• Setting change AUs (eg: Hogwarts AU, Coffee Shop AU)
• Christianity, mentions of "sinning".
• Humiliation, especially public.
• Unrequested incest, including foster/adopted relationships.
• Stories about motherhood.
• Unrequested het between humans or humanoid creatures. (Dolphins are fine, spiders are fine, people having parents is fine, the fabric of society being canonical and het-enabling is fine.)
• Requested characters being presented as/rendered utterly helpless; the "damsel in distress" trope; woobiefication.
• Stories about mourning unwelcome changes to/realizations about the body, with "body" defined broadly, (ex: acquiring a disability, infertility, weight gain) and the associated grief/angst.
• Stories about mourning a dead person.
• Requested characters dying.
• Stories where the characters have never loved or could never love anyone but each other, incl. soulmates, demisexuality, single-target sexuality, etc.

This is a mix of things that I never want to see again (e.g. Christianity), squicks (e.g. the mourning changes to the body one), stuff that will make me feel bad (e.g. mourning dead people), and stuff where the likelihood of squicking me is so immensely greater than the reward from threading the needle that people should just Not (e.g. soulmates). Most exchange fandom's people's DNW lists are some mix of the above.

This isn't the complete list of things that squick me – merely the ones I really really hate or judge likely someone would in good faith try to give me. There are several sex kinks that I dislike, for instance, but I seriously doubt anyone's going to write me scat, say. (If they do, I'm just going to add that to my DNWs next time.) Also a lot of the things that squick me are less tropes and more nebulous things, like ... well, it has taken me a lot of introspection and figuring things out to get some of those DNWs into a shape that covered at least most of the squick and made sense to people who were not me, like Stories about mourning unwelcome changes to/realizations about the body, with "body" defined broadly, (ex: acquiring a disability, infertility, weight gain) and the associated grief/angst.

There's also the question of DNW exceptions – after some rather hilarious meme doom-mongering about "DNW unrequested relationships" I've added the caveats to my het DNW, since I just don't like het and don't want anything that is or should be tagged as F/M on AO3. I guess I could add that walk-on extras for casefic can also be in a heterosexual (un)happily ever after, but lbr, I'd rather the whole universe be gay. Though not to the extent that the author needs to spend 2k establishing that children come from vats or something. (...maybe this is the actual reason I like Anakin Skywalker, lol. The product of asexual reproduction!)

Anyway, that's the tl;dr for the day! Maybe it inspired you to rephrase a DNW better, maybe you have had a good laugh at my neuroses, but as long as you had fun, it's okay.

(list of questions)

Comments

[trobadora]

On a side note, it ammuses me immensely that the whole term for DNWs comes from Backstroke of the West

Right? I love that. :D

This isn't the complete list of things that squick me – merely the ones I really really hate or judge likely someone would in good faith try to give me.

That's how I do mine as well - I don't DNW things I feel wouldn't be given unrequested in good faith anyway.

Also a lot of the things that squick me are less tropes and more nebulous things, like ... well, it has taken me a lot of introspection and figuring things out to get some of those DNWs into a shape that covered at least most of the squick and made sense to people who were not me

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean! By this point I feel I've got the general one mostly nailed down, but I'm still working on the ones that gut-punch me in a particular fannish context, because sometimes it isn't the thing itself, it's the thing in the context of that particular character's circumstances. Every new fandom can bring new ones to the table! /o\

after some rather hilarious meme doom-mongering about "DNW unrequested relationships" I've added the caveats to my het DNW

Heh. I put "unrequested relationships for requested characters", because I really don't want to DNW background ships in most cases, or make writers avoid background characters with their own lives. (I know some people prefer a really tight focus on only the requested ship, but I like it better when there's a whole world around them, even if we don't see much of it.)

[extrapenguin]

I've got the general one mostly nailed down, but I'm still working on the ones that gut-punch me in a particular fannish context, because sometimes it isn't the thing itself, it's the thing in the context of that particular character's circumstances.
I don't really have these, I think? Or the combo of likes + prompts + DNWs means people don't write me stuff that would be okay except for the character's circumstances. Hm.

I know some people prefer a really tight focus on only the requested ship, but I like it better when there's a whole world around them, even if we don't see much of it.
Me too – though if I'm requesting A/B shipfic, I prefer secondary relationships to be stuff like A & C rather than background het. I'm also okay with a bunch of rarepairs, so if someone writes slash or femslash A/Q to my solo A request, I'm not going to be that unhappy. Generally I establish the direction for what sorts of stuff I like with my likes and prompts. I have considered DNWing the whole "really tight focus on only the requested ship, no-one else exists" thing, but it's not been a problem yet.