June Something - Day 13

[kate]

Day 13: Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.

I have had to give up on one of the things that used to annoy me because I NOW DO IT AND CANNOT HELP IT. Homophones. Just. I used to be SUCH a hardass about there/their/they're and now I find WORK EMAILS where I got it wrong, and there are three replies in and my mistake is saved for posterity and I want to murder things.

Other than that, not much? Mpreg squicks me. I don't like pregnancy fics anyway, and mpreg is just like, but no, why. NOT FOR ME. I don't love A/B/O but it's not as strong as a squick. I just don't like it because I feel like the whole concept of secondary gender is bizarre and also generally done nonsensically, and there's so many worldbuilding things that would need to be thought through that it's like. UGH. SO MUCH WORK. And it's never done because basically most folks who like A/B/O just want knotting porn and I'm just… not interested in that.

Music can be a squick. Music is so rarely done correctly that I honestly just flinch when I see even trusted authors try to write a classical music AU. I've tried to offer my services but the only time I tried, basically I shredded the entire premise of the person's fic because professional symphonies don't work like that and just. UGH. I can't handle it. The Scheherezhad Job episode of LEVERAGE makes me cringe. I cannot stand it.

Similarly, medical things can be annoying, but they're not squick level. I can get past them if it's just a small mistake (like when House, M.D. listed a bunch of blood tests and put a fucking FECAL test in there), but when the whole premise is medical and clearly the person doesn't know anything about hospitals/med school/medical profession that will drive me batty.

Comments

[flo_nelja]

Oh, it makes me want to read some "how to write music correctly" basic list.

[kate]

Hahahahaha I wouldn't mind reading that too; I'm not even sure what I would put on it. It's... difficult to boil your experiences down to a "do/do not" list. I imagine this is true of any expertise or lived experience? But may also just be my way of experiencing it.

[silverflight8]

Oh I'm with you on pregnancy. I just hate it generally in fiction, and also the inevitable terrible kid writing that follows. Argh. No thanks. I wouldn't call it a squick for me though, just complete disinterest.

[silverflight8]

OMG my personal thing about music is that 99% of the time the depictions in fiction are so twee. And I think I have a low tolerance for that. And I find it really hard to read when I can't stop rolling my eyes :P

[kate]

Yeh, there's definitely some twee fics, but more often I find that people have very odd misconceptions about what conservatory or professional musicians/their schedules/their lives are like. The best ones I've read are ones where they're just treated like normal people who have schedules and stuff and childcare responsibilities and just have to live their lives like anyone else, and then the music is barely more than a background flavor. I can deal with that WAAAAAY better than a lovingly described solo concerto told from the pianist's POV or something, just. Please do not.

[kate]

Yeah, it's... I don't love pregnancy ever but mpreg is just... worse for me, for some reason? And there are so many fics that want to lovingly describe it, and I'm like. Nope, nope, nooooooooope I specifically was never going to go there myself, I do not want to experience this even in fic. I don't mind kidfic, but I don't love newborn baby fic; it's often written with the same kind of loving detail and again I go.... not for me.

[squidgiepdx]

I never considered music as a squick, but then again I didn't play all that much in school, and only then in band. I haven't picked up a clarinet in years, but I could probably still play "Pomp and Circumstance" by heart based on how many times I had to play it.

But medical issues, yes. I've worked in healthcare/healthcare IT since I was 16 years old, and I often scream at the TV/monitor when I'm watching a scene and they do something stupid like put the IV drip chamber at the vein just off the needle. It's like really? Are you THAT stupid? Have you never seen another movie or TV show that showed a drip chamber hanging off the IV bag?!?!?!

[kate]

I mean, anything can be a squick, I guess. Music is one of those things that I seem to be unable to avoid clicking on, even though 95% of the time it is super disappointing. So I guess it's not even a squick? But it will make me back out at the first sign of wrongness.

Those medical issues are the ones that like, annoy the crap out of me, but I can force myself to ignore them, if I enjoy something else about the show/fic/whatever. Can't do that with music, though.

[jesse_the_k]

I was with you constantly fixing homophones Back When and I'm with you now when I reread a comment I made and it's positively incoherent with homophones and missing verbs and ....

I know who to blame: the internet! Until 1995 I read 95% edited writing. Now it's 20%.

[kate]

For me, I honestly just think it's getting old/stressed. I'm not concentrating direly on every email I send or comment I make, not like I could when I was younger. Often I'm flipping through three other programs, looking up some information or answering a question in a chat window and I just... don't have the ability to eagle eye every word anymore.

I don't mind internet intentional misspellings and stuff, and I guess I don't really get annoyed by it anymore because it's come up in a few arenas now that the requirement for specific grammar is very classist and probably racist, and I go... hm. I think I agree at this point, though I would have a hard time articulating why.

Though now that I think about it - so much more of my communication is text-based. So that's just an increase in spontaneous (non-edited) text, so... yeah. That's definitely a factor here too.