[ SECRET POST #2559 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2559 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #366.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[intrigueing]

I was going to agree, but on second thoughts...this mostly only happens in crappy, childish het fic whereas it very often crops up in otherwise "good" (i.e. technically talented) slashfic. When infuriating shit pops up in mature-looking, polished prose, it's way more difficult to recognize it as a bad story early on and ignore it and forget it. These kind of fics, you might be 2,000 words in before you realize how repulsive and immature the ideas and messages are.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen it in really polished het too, though. There was one particular fic I remember really strongly, where it took me six chapters of an incredibly well-crafted AU to realise just how much the creepy ownership vibe was starting to really worry me. Not even a D/S or A/B/O AU, it was sort of a cross between Pretty Woman and Coffee Shop.

I will say, I do tend to find it more in fandoms with het megaships or fandom OTPs, so it could be more that large pairs tend to draw more worrying tropes and id-fic? A lot of fandoms have a slash pair as their megaship, and in my experience the really well polished but really worrying het fics also tend to be for megaship fandoms.

Or professional fic, but that's a whole other ballgame.

[intrigueing]

Hmm...maybe it happens more in non-canon-shipping, period? Like, as a "defense" against canon, for insecure shippers who aren't content to just ship? Or ships with active rival ships?

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

... A lot of the more creepy tropes do seem to be the result of trying to get the couple together faster, or manufacturing situations that facilitate their getting together, so that could be a factor, yes. On the other hand, I've seen it without any shipping wars in range, too.

Depends. I mean, the fic I mentioned was for a canon het ship with no major competition, either canon or fanon (though it did have a bad case of constant-drama-meaning-no-happy-endings). I think it was borrowing more off several more poisonous variants on het romance in professional fic, actually? You know, the 'strong complicated man' being 'chivalrous' and 'forceful' with the shy, inexperienced beauty, sort of thing? Which can be done well, but by chapter six I was realising that this was heading in a very creepy ownership sort of direction, and nobody seemed to have a problem with that.

Some problematic tropes have more of an origin in professional fiction, I think.

[fingalsanteater]

I actually enjoy creepy ownership tropes, in particular, if the author acknowledges they know the characters are flawed in that way. There's one WIP I was reading that started developing some really awful abusive themes, but in the comments the author responded to the criticism by saying that it was intentional. As long as the author is knowingly writing these flaws, I'm okay with it.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I'm usually not, though I'll read most things if they're well handled. And I admit that I only made it a few chapters beyond the point where it started to bother me, because it wasn't changing or even being acknowledged. It's possible that things got better later on, and I just didn't stick it out long enough.

However, the fic was advertised as 'romantic/comedic', which ... doesn't incline me to trust to the awareness of the author? It was genuinely well crafted and the writing was really good, which makes the description/summary really odd unless they actually did think that this development was genuinely romantic as opposed to creepy. (I'm hoping they meant it under the 'romantic' part of the description, bad as that is, because putting it under the 'comedic' part would just be ...).