An object lesson
Nov. 27th, 2011 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opusculasedferaTwo fics, different authors, same fandom, same pairing. One unintentionally creepy, the other one with an acknowledged sketchy situation actually completely funny and charming.
In the first the author had two problems. The first is that, in any piece of fiction, when character A rejects the physical attentions of character B, it doesn't matter that we are in A's head and aware that they are only rejecting these attentions because they are not in possession of all the facts (the usual sort of thing: B is not involved with anyone else, although A thinks they are; B is actually interested, which A thinks they are not; etc.), B is still being creepy if they carry on because B quite obviously knows none of this and, from their point of view, the rejection could quite easily be for any reason at all. It doesn't matter if we know that B isn't usually a dick and has the best intentions, he's still being sketchy!
The second problem was that this was all a part of a bigger set of sketchy power dynamics coming from the fact that this was over the top h/c fic where A is basically an invalid and B is doing full-time caretaker duties, which is fine, if that's your thing, but which was handled really poorly. It wasn't the dynamic itself, it was the fact that A expressed discomfort with the dynamics as they stood throughout the whole fic, the scene above happened and ended in sex, and then the fic suddenly ended. It was uncomfortably obvious that the author genuinely believed that that was the romantic climax and that everything else was superfluous, which was jarring because I was really only still reading in the vague hope that the comfort would turn out to include a way to fix the power balance so that A was happier with it. It's not that sex wouldn't change the dynamic, but the author was just so not interested in going into exactly how and I was really not convinced that A would find this to be a suitable readjustment of the relationship instead of something that made it even more unequal.
In fic 2, on the other hand, A accidentally sex pollening B and then having sex with him while entirely sober himself (which could be super creepy and which the author actually warned for!) was legitimately endearing because first: A didn't do it on purpose, and second: they actually had a fucking conversation where A apologised and explained that he really didn't know that B wasn't just reciprocating affection, it was because of drugs, and B got to say that he was actually interested anyway, he just wouldn't have picked that moment to express it. So they had equivalent information when they were making their actual romantic decisions and it was obvious that it was the later conversation that was romantic for the author and counted as the proper beginning of the relationship.
These are two pretty typical tropes, sure, it was just really obvious because I read them one after the other and they were written for the same challenge and linked from the same page and I almost didn't read the one labelled dub-con because I'm not really into that, whereas it was the other that was actually horrifying. It wasn't even two people with different labelling practices, it was for one challenge with definite guidelines and an author who genuinely didn't see that she had written a super classic claustrophobic abuse situation. It probably didn't help that the first fic was just way less well-written and full of a type of h/c that isn't really my thing, but it was still just a million times skeevier (and, really, I just want people to never write the first scenario ever again because it never makes B look good.)
In the first the author had two problems. The first is that, in any piece of fiction, when character A rejects the physical attentions of character B, it doesn't matter that we are in A's head and aware that they are only rejecting these attentions because they are not in possession of all the facts (the usual sort of thing: B is not involved with anyone else, although A thinks they are; B is actually interested, which A thinks they are not; etc.), B is still being creepy if they carry on because B quite obviously knows none of this and, from their point of view, the rejection could quite easily be for any reason at all. It doesn't matter if we know that B isn't usually a dick and has the best intentions, he's still being sketchy!
The second problem was that this was all a part of a bigger set of sketchy power dynamics coming from the fact that this was over the top h/c fic where A is basically an invalid and B is doing full-time caretaker duties, which is fine, if that's your thing, but which was handled really poorly. It wasn't the dynamic itself, it was the fact that A expressed discomfort with the dynamics as they stood throughout the whole fic, the scene above happened and ended in sex, and then the fic suddenly ended. It was uncomfortably obvious that the author genuinely believed that that was the romantic climax and that everything else was superfluous, which was jarring because I was really only still reading in the vague hope that the comfort would turn out to include a way to fix the power balance so that A was happier with it. It's not that sex wouldn't change the dynamic, but the author was just so not interested in going into exactly how and I was really not convinced that A would find this to be a suitable readjustment of the relationship instead of something that made it even more unequal.
In fic 2, on the other hand, A accidentally sex pollening B and then having sex with him while entirely sober himself (which could be super creepy and which the author actually warned for!) was legitimately endearing because first: A didn't do it on purpose, and second: they actually had a fucking conversation where A apologised and explained that he really didn't know that B wasn't just reciprocating affection, it was because of drugs, and B got to say that he was actually interested anyway, he just wouldn't have picked that moment to express it. So they had equivalent information when they were making their actual romantic decisions and it was obvious that it was the later conversation that was romantic for the author and counted as the proper beginning of the relationship.
These are two pretty typical tropes, sure, it was just really obvious because I read them one after the other and they were written for the same challenge and linked from the same page and I almost didn't read the one labelled dub-con because I'm not really into that, whereas it was the other that was actually horrifying. It wasn't even two people with different labelling practices, it was for one challenge with definite guidelines and an author who genuinely didn't see that she had written a super classic claustrophobic abuse situation. It probably didn't help that the first fic was just way less well-written and full of a type of h/c that isn't really my thing, but it was still just a million times skeevier (and, really, I just want people to never write the first scenario ever again because it never makes B look good.)
