Squicks, kinks & meh

[salinea]

Happy birthday aubrem!



Finally I'm doing this meme with 4 months or so lateness.

First a disclaimer : this is about my fictional tastes. Fiction =/= reality. Neither squicks nor kinks are any peculiarly rational tastes. If you take offence to that you can go bugger yourself.


Pairings

I tend to have one or a few big OTPs in any fandom, but I also love many secondary pairings and crack pairings. I don't mind at all breaking OTPs, threesomes and triangles.

Currently my main pairings in HP are Snape/Lupin, Sirius/Snape, Sirius/Regulus, as well as many, many others (Percy/anyone, Harry/Draco, all Snape slash pairings, Tonks/Charlie, Snape/Narcissa, Bellatrix/Narcissa, Bellatrix/Andromeda, Ginny/Pansy, Tom/Ginny, Snape/Bellatrix, Narcissa/Lily, Lucius/Arthur, Lucius/Narcissa, most Sirius pairings, etc.)
Some of my main current pairings in other fandoms I'm still reading are Gerald Tarrant/Damien Vryce, Touga/Saionji, Akio/Anthy, Akio/Utena/Anthy, Kozue/Anyone, Crowley/Aziraphale, Seishirou/Subaru, Richard St Vier/Alex Campion, Bartimaeus/Nathaniel, Yuuko/Clow, Touya/Yukito(Yue), Ivan/Byerly...)

I can, however, be squicked by pairings. Mainly Severus/Lily and Sirius/Remus... though I can be convinced for the later in the hands of a good writer I like already.


Squicks

• I'm not a generally very squicky person. When I first joined fandoms I kept clicking on story with horrid warnings expecting to be squicked... and I never was. Nowadays I sorta consider myself unsquickable. I still haven't read vomit or squat fic, who knows?



• When I do get squicked it's from extremely innocuous G-rated stories. Like that Severus/Minerva story were Severus is being forcefed icecreams and he likes it OMG! I call it my "characters are being forced to do something for their own good and they recognize it" squick. Most people with good common sense would also agree that it's a sensible thing to being forced to, but it still squicks the hell out of me, though.



• Character bashing is another thing I strongly dislike, while not really a squick. Any character, whether I like them or not. Flat cardboard villains annoy the hell out of me. Making characters stupid or evil or ridiculous just because they're in the way/annoy the writer? Makes me go arrrgh.



• I don't dislike non con stories, however a non con PWP where the non con is there purely for the sake of being sexy without any exploration of characterization or plot? That's squicky.



• Humiliation : Schadenfreude makes me extremely ill at ease. I will often identify with horrid jerks character just because they get ridiculed and I have to sympathize. (Like Theon, or Kharisma from S*P, or even Saionji though he's more complex...) Humiliation in a sexual context can however be sexy with the right tone and context ^^

Kinks

• Antagonistic pairings
: Okay, I'm all about the hate/love pairings, you know that. Het, slash or femslash, G-rated or porn, if it's got an intense passionate hatred relationship I'm sure to love it. I've made subsets for this one :


1. The Bickering Couple (aka Beatrice & Benedict style) : this one is such a classic it's become a cliché referenced by the Evil Overlord list. Nevertheless it's a good cliché. Wit, snark, sarcasm and a delight of insulting dialogues makes it rock. Only works when the writer is witty enough to make it amusing though.



2. Mindfuck : that's one of my bulletproof one. People messing with each others' mind (or only one person messing with someone else's mind). The lies, the manipulation, the subtleties, the cleverness, the dub con, the sheer plottiness of it. And just the "I'm sexing you with my brain" part.



3. Beauty & the Beast (aka the Redemption story) : okay, so I'm a sucker, this is such a well worn cliché you can see through it. But I still love a good redemption story. Okay, I need twists in it, the kinds GRRM or CS Friedman write. Okay, I also need it for love not to be enough, not all by itself, and I also like when it doesn't work. Okay, I also love the exact reverse : the Corruptive story. When love leads someone to evil, this is very very very precious and tasty (mm Seishirou/Subaru).



4. Hatesex : rivalry and loathing expressed with (consensual or dub con) sex. I adore it. Well written it can be one of the sexiest, dirtiest, sweetest thing ever. Mmmm Snack.



5. Starcrossed lovers (aka Romeo & Juliette style) : if ill done I can loathe this one, but if well done it's a very good one. What I hate is when the obstacle purely comes from the outside. I love conflicted character, especially when they have to deal with conflicted loyalties, when whatever they pick they have to sacrifice something important to them. It shouldn't be easy.



• BDSM, especially D/s though I dig the others as well, are one of my favourite kink in fanfic. It's so good to deal with issues of control, power play, self control, trust, shame... Delicious.



• Frottage : I love some of the simplest forms of sex, frottage and handjobs and stuff. I think it's part of the discovery aspect and part of the loss of control aspect. And the just goody sex, nothing complicated and scary like anal sex.
  
  
• Up Against a Wall : I'm not a very big fan of outdoor/public sex in general, but a fic with the dirty, gritty appeal of a back alley quickie can be mightily hot.



• Dub con : while a difficult category to define (I define it as a fic where the reader - and possibly the characters - don't really know whether or not there was consent) I really adore this. I often seem to be writing it too.



• Hurt/Comfort : I'm hesitating to list this there because it doesn't always work for me. But still the intimacy brought about by hurting (physical or emotional) can really pull me in.



• Die or Fuck scenario and Fuck to Save the World scenario : such as the infamous Snupin cliché of being imprisoned in the same place and Snape has to fuck with Remus because a werewolf doesn't kill a "mate". Flimsy pretext, but it almost always works for me.



• Eros/Thanatos : the kind of story that mixes desire and death, especially a story where one of the lover kills the other? One of my bullet proof kink. That counts also for death fics (gen or het/slash) as well as for things like breath play, blood play, knife play. Morbid stories and non graphic necrophilia fics amuse me a great deal too.



• Obsession : nothing I truly love in a fic like one that really makes you feel how much a character is obsessed by another, when they capture that feeling of longing, especially if it's self-censored. Works especially well in cases of one sided love (or simply unspoken love).



• Genderfuck : I put it there because it's something I do love, but it's also rare when I like it in the context of fanfiction. My favourite Gender fuck are in Science Fiction novels, I'm particularly fond of asexued, bisexued/trisexued or metamorphs who can change genders. Some fanfics which deal with the issues of genderfuck and transexuality I really love, but it requires a deft hand.



• Masturbation : masturbation fics can be very good and there shall be more of it. Let it be said.



• Darkfics, angst & black humour : I'm a big fan of any story with a good dark edge. I don't only like sad stories. I love both bittersweet endings and unhappy endings. But yeah I really like when there's at least a little bit of pain, cynicism, cruelty or angst involved.



• Fairy Tales & Mythologies : Bullet proof kink there, and one of my favourite thing to write as well.



• Awkward sex : and imperfectness in general can really gets to me. First, it feels more real, two it can allow to deal with issues better that fairy book love story can. Because love shouldn't be easy (I've said this before, haven't I?)



• Tragicomedies : I adore story that mixes a measure of angst with humour, especially if the humour is dry, grim & sarcastic. I find there's few things that punches my buttons and make me cry like a swift beats of funny, sad, funny, sad. That's one of the reason I love busaikko's writing so much.



• Some of my kinks are characters based, and I could probably spend hours listing my favourite character types : the manipulative ruthless caring bastards, the character who appears very mild and sweet and is extremely competent and dangerous, the strong and bitchy female warrior, the brattish and clever girl who beats odds with her quick thinking, the crazy cruel ethereal girl, the brash arrogant flamboyant bastard, the wryly self-depreciative intelligent character etc. etc. Good, complex characterization is my biggest kink. I love archetypes, I do. I also love twists, role reversal and nuances.

Meh

Err everything else?

Lemme see : cross-dressing (MtF, I actually adore FtM cross-dressing, rare as it is in fanfics), bestiality, rimming, mpreg, most romance & fluff stories, love at first sight and soul mates (err maybe I should list this one in squicks, really), non con in general, public sex, exhibitionism and voyeurism, threesome, swinging, adultery, role play, golden shower, incest unless I happen to specifically like the pairing (i don't like a lot of incestuous pairings, really!), food smut... and most other odd kinks you can think of. Mostly I don't care one way or the others about them, if they're in a good fic I'll probably like them, but in an otherwise lacklustre fic, I'll just be bored.

(I can't believe I created a filter just to post this meme >_>;)

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I like it that you are more squicked by someone being force-fed ice cream than you are by scat!

Also love the way you've named "corruptive" and "redemptive" stories--those are a guilty pleasure of mine that I wouldn't have known how to name.

Very smart of you to filter this post.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

The main reason I filtered this post is that I've got one of my ex in my flist, it would be too embarrassing for him to see that!

I have weird squicks! But I've never read scat so I don't know if it would squick me XD

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

OMG, did some evil person try to force feed you ice cream? No wonder he's an ex. There are some things that are acceptable in fiction that never would be in real life.

The only scat I've read was in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. it was not erotic, but it was disturbing and it has stayed with me for a long time!

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

LOL no, not at all. He was a very nice guy. It just didn't work out sexually because I'm a sexually messed up girl.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

But you have your head on straight about literature--and ice cream.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Which is definitly the most important!

[bronze-ribbons.livejournal.com]

When I do get squicked it's from extremely innocuous G-rated stories.

Yes, yes, yes. If there's a unequal power dynamic that's being presented as normal and healthy in the story, I get a mental cramp I can't shake. (Partly because I see too much of that crap in real life, and partly because I overreact personally when someone tries to cajole-bully me into "having fun" or taking better care of myself.)

Something else your list made me think of: I've wondering if I should start using the word "cringe" instead of "squick," going forward. Because there's quite a few fandom tropes that don't gross me out, exactly (so the word "squick" doesn't feel quite right) but they don't send me anywhere happy when I read them...

*am getting mega-picky and uber-cantankerous in my old age*

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Cringe is a very good term! Squick's so strong, that's why I never get squicked, I just strongly dislike some stuff ^^

If there's a unequal power dynamic that's being presented as normal and healthy in the story
There were some people, I think it might have chaeche or melusinahp who had made up a word for this.... Something Dissonance? Do you remember? It tackled the subject of something that's squicky not because the subject was dark and disturbing but because that dark and disturbing content is displays in a cute way as if it was healthy and all right!

Cajole-bully, heh, yeah, that annoys me too!

Anyway, I didn't mean it was always something of that sort, my squick isn't that pertinent. Like, recently, it was a story by busaikko that squicked me. So there's some definite overreaction from my part there.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for remembering my birthday. : )

[flo-nelja.livejournal.com]

Well, I went here just randomly, and there are really a lot of things that I love and that you love too, in kinks and so.
Can I friend you ?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Sure! I'd love to!

♥ at your icon.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

Very interesting post. I like seeing how our tastes merge and don't merge, and that's a great list. Kinda makes me want to do the meme myself.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

You should do it! It's a fun meme to do :) I'm also curious to see where our taste merge or don't.