I hear you on not pre-judging a writer based on their past works, though I think we all do it. As a writer, I really do try to stretch myself -- write different characters than normal, write different sorts of scenarios than the the ones that I default to -- and I love seeing other writers do likewise. Actually, I had noticed that some of the stories you'd been writing lately were a little different from your usual fare. I enjoy that, really I do.
But slave/prison stories are ... well, I don't have too many plot-related deal-breakers in fiction, but they come about as close as I get. I don't usually enjoy prison/mental ward episodes of TV shows either, not because I'm philosophically opposed to them but because I have, for lack of a better word, a powerlessness squick. I don't cope well with seeing characters with whom I identify put in a position of powerlessness and degredation and humiliation -- because I identify with characters easily, seeing them struggle and struggle with no way out makes ME feel powerless and ill. That is the main reason why I quit watching LOST -- the way the characters are continually used, abused and made to feel powerless and small ... it's very hard for me to deal with on a psychological level.
This is not to say that I have never read prison/slave stories, or even that I would never write one. (There's actually an unfinished "John and Rodney in prison" story floating around on my hard drive -- it may remain forever unfinished, because it started approaching a level of h/c that I'm really not comfortable writing, so for now it languishes in the seventh circle of WIP hell.) There are even a couple of slave/prison/power-struggle stories that are among my favorites in the fandom.
But due to all of this, and knowing that the stories you write are often very intense and dark, I figured that "Castles" was likely to trip my squicks big-time. I was going to wait until it was finished, and then give it a try, because sometimes I can get through something like that more easily if I have the whole story to read at once. (Kodiak's "Autumn" story is an example of that, because while I thought it was just brilliant and I ended up loving it, I think I would probably have given up on it if it'd been individual chapters with a wait in between. As it was, I had to skim some parts because they were hitting my psychological-rape squick so bad. What really gets to me worse than torture is Stockholm Syndrome, brainwashing and things of that nature -- that's where LOST has really, well, lost me.)
But again, I know that these are just my particular set of biases; it says nothing about a particular story if it trips my squicks, and everything about me as a reader.
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Date: 2007-10-23 09:59 pm (UTC)From:But slave/prison stories are ... well, I don't have too many plot-related deal-breakers in fiction, but they come about as close as I get. I don't usually enjoy prison/mental ward episodes of TV shows either, not because I'm philosophically opposed to them but because I have, for lack of a better word, a powerlessness squick. I don't cope well with seeing characters with whom I identify put in a position of powerlessness and degredation and humiliation -- because I identify with characters easily, seeing them struggle and struggle with no way out makes ME feel powerless and ill. That is the main reason why I quit watching LOST -- the way the characters are continually used, abused and made to feel powerless and small ... it's very hard for me to deal with on a psychological level.
This is not to say that I have never read prison/slave stories, or even that I would never write one. (There's actually an unfinished "John and Rodney in prison" story floating around on my hard drive -- it may remain forever unfinished, because it started approaching a level of h/c that I'm really not comfortable writing, so for now it languishes in the seventh circle of WIP hell.) There are even a couple of slave/prison/power-struggle stories that are among my favorites in the fandom.
But due to all of this, and knowing that the stories you write are often very intense and dark, I figured that "Castles" was likely to trip my squicks big-time. I was going to wait until it was finished, and then give it a try, because sometimes I can get through something like that more easily if I have the whole story to read at once. (Kodiak's "Autumn" story is an example of that, because while I thought it was just brilliant and I ended up loving it, I think I would probably have given up on it if it'd been individual chapters with a wait in between. As it was, I had to skim some parts because they were hitting my psychological-rape squick so bad. What really gets to me worse than torture is Stockholm Syndrome, brainwashing and things of that nature -- that's where LOST has really, well, lost me.)
But again, I know that these are just my particular set of biases; it says nothing about a particular story if it trips my squicks, and everything about me as a reader.