I Just Want to Make Babies, Lol
I Just Want to Make Babies, Lol
Oh god. The pregnancy fanfic. Here’s how it goes. A and B are not in a relationship, they are not friends, they either barely know each other or have some stormy history. Drunk party, one night stand, two weeks later, whammo, B is pregnant. 9 months in approximately 9 bitingly cliché, butt-numbingly inaccurate chapters where character development is seemingly thrown to the way side to be replaced by sap and temper tantrums, and near the end of it (sometime after character B complains a lot about being blimp sized and character A teases them, but is secretly ‘amazed by the creation of a new life,’) they fight, they mutually confess, and the story ends right after they learn if it’s a boy or a girl, name the baby after someone dead (can’t decide if you want a girl or boy? Twins! Want B to be extra pregnant and adorable? Sextuplets! Bonus points if they get referred to as a litter), and declare their eternal love for one another. Make it stop!
Okay, firstly, most of my experience is with mpreg. I read slash. I don’t really read het. I don’t have a problem with it- god no- I just prefer reading mansex. I was originally totally squicked by the idea, rather than the stories themselves, but someone recommended Dark Humor by Jellymeat over on fanfiction.net, and I was like, damn, this is pretty good. Then, after reading Closer by rainjoyswriting, I read her Mpreg-Verse That Was Never Meant To Be, and I was like, okay, this is really good, too. But then I stuck my toes into the water elsewhere, and I was immediately shocked by the shear amount of bad. I don’t have a problem with the improbability of buttsex leading to manbaby. I really, really don’t. I have a problem with all the misinformation, childish treatment of sexuality and parenthood, and clichés. Oh man, the clichés.
Let’s start from the top.
Chapter 1: A and B’s random sexcapade. They are usually virgins. Varying degrees of gratuitous sex occur, despite the fact that they are apparently so completely wasted that they have no control over their actions. In the worst cases, as they scream each other’s names in climax, B feels something in his/her body change… hm, what could this be? More importantly, why is it always necessary for all of these fics to start like this? In any case, the sex is irresponsible, it’s usually completely out of character, and it isn’t conducive to the buildup of the rest of the story. I mean, sure this happens in real life sometimes, but it doesn’t result in the doubtless approaching happily even after ending. Not exactly the best material for sunshine and roses, vanilla perfect parents. They wake up in the morning utterly baffled. “Did I? With you? Oh, how embarrassing,” at which point they slink off in opposite directions. B is feeling queezy. Was it all that alcohol, or could it be…?
Chapter 2: B discovers his/her pregnancy. They’ve been throwing up for weeks, oh my! Doesn’t that sound like…? But no, it couldn’t be. B goes to the doctor. Congratulations, you’re pregnant. Never mind the more likely hormone imbalance due to tumor or cancer, never mind parasitic twin or mutant organ growth. Never mind the fact that the vagina is designed to collect sperm and impregnate an egg, and it still has a fairly small batting average of successful impregnation (when people are trying to have a kid, they can really be trying for months, even years). Apparently, B has a 10 for 10 fertility rate. Still, it would probably take weeks for specialists to proclaim a man pregnant. I have honestly read a badfic where B was pregnant, and the doctors had no way to tell because he didn’t have a period which would stop. Are you kidding me? Women had other ways to tell even a long time ago. B is startled. “Might this have had to do with that mad scientist who I let operate on me months ago? I guess I’ll never know.” There’s usually no strong emotion about the night of conception, either, except embarrassment, although occasionally B blushes as they remember how good at sex A was.
Chapter 3: Telling the father and keeping the baby. B decides instantly, without any debate, that he/she wants to keep the baby. No real explanation is given for this choice. Then, there is the instant love. “Oh,” gushes B, “There is a BEAUTIFUL NEW BABY growing inside me and it’s a MYRICAL and an expression of the GREAT MYSTERY OF LIFE.” There is never any of the fear and feeling of violation and anxiety that usually accompany an unplanned pregnancy, except maybe a, “Gee, it sure is weird to be pregnant, especially because I’m a man.” Okay. So B is happy about being pregnant. This might be in character if they came from a large family, or feel isolated, or have wanted to start a family for a long time, or fear the wrath of God. Let’s clarify something: being pregnant doesn’t make you want to be pregnant. For some reason, even after B falls in love with foetus, someone feels the need to suggest an abortion. B spits on the idea and is disgusted, and a few paragraphs are usually devoted to bashing abortion and whoever had the gall to suggest it. “Poor baby hasn’t done anything to anyone.” I don’t care if you’re pro life. Hey, if you don’t want to have an abortion, don’t have one. I’ll be happy for you. But there’s a difference between keeping the baby because you want it and keeping the baby because you are against abortion, mkay? A discovers, or is told about the baby. He is instantly insistent on helping as much as possible, even as B pushes him away. “No,” says B. “Because we’re not in a relationship, we obviously can’t work this out like fellows. Why were we even at the same party, anyways? For some reason, I can’t compromise to allow you to, say, drive me to hospital appointments and visit baby on weekends after he or she is born, despite the fact that I told you it was yours.”
Chapter 3-5: A and B move in together. There isn’t a very good explanation for this, except that B is helplessly pregnant and A is B’s only support system. First of all, this is a general romance cliché I have a problem with. Having no friends or family outside of your significant other really isn’t healthy, particularly in the budding stages of the relationship. This tends to leave an opening for heavy codependency. But hey, codependency will be the entire basis for the relationship in this fic. By which I mean, B depending on A. There are a few chapters narrated by A, being amazed that it’s his child being to swell B’s stomach, being amazed in general, watching B consume food and sleep and generally be adorable. Somewhere near the end of this, A will kiss B, B will be confused in some degree of anger or tearfulness, and they will fight about nothing in particular. “It’s my kid in there!” “I don’t care! Get out of my house!” “No, I won’t leave you like this. You’re pregnant and therefore feminine and unable to look after yourself. Besides, I have about a zillion more possessive adjectives to use on that baby before you pop it out.”
I’ll take this opportunity to segue into “whose baby is it anyways?” B has been raped/artificially impregnated/ kind of a slut at some point in the near past, right before having sex with A, and it’s possible the baby -gasp- belongs to someone else. This causes much angst and B realizes he/she wants the baby to belong to A (ignoring the fact that the baby is just as much B’s as either of theirs, more so, because B is taking responsibility for he or she). In the end, it always turns out it’s A’s bun, after all. Happily ever after. I have to wonder, though, what if it wasn’t? This never gets discussed. Everyone just hopes it’s the right father, despite that fact that it’s B’s kid either way.
Chapter 6-8: A and B make up. They don’t discuss their feelings for each other like adults, but a lot of awkwardness and flirting reminiscent of prepubescents occurs. Somewhere around month five, B feels a kick. “Oh my goodness, this is suddenly so real!” A magical moment occurs where A feels B’s bump. They talk or narrate some more about how much they love the unborn baby, although somehow never discuss what will happen when it’s actually born. Doctors appointments, new clothes (over-sized sweaters? Night gowns? Peculiarly invasive medical procedures?), and long scenes where B describes his or her nausea and or cravings abound. In essence, the character development is completely thrown to the way side to make more room for completely inaccurate assertions on what it’s like to be pregnant.
Chapter 9: A and B profess their love for each other. There isn’t really a build-up of relationship development, as a collapse of any canon aspects of the characters, or personality traits in general, into rubble. Let’s get something straight: being pregnant is not very conducive to budding romance. “But… but it worked in Juno!” Cry the badfic authors. Okay, I’ll concede that, even if Juno was kind of delightful nonsense. In Juno, they did have a relationship, they were close friends and on and off sort of dating each other. The only thing that really happened during Juno’s pregnancy was that they worked out some issues and grew up a bit. Not enough to raise the kid, but enough to fall in love. I don’t want to talk about that movie, though. The fact that it happened once in Hollywood doesn’t make it plausible in real life. So unless it’s really, really well done, I’m not buying it. He’s a word of advice: if they’re falling in love because of the pregnancy, you’re doing it wrong. There needs to be more to the story than just a growing embryo- something that would suggest there relationship might last post-birth. After the confession, A and B consult a doctor and then have pregnancy sex. It is tender, full of euphemisms, kissing away of happy tears, and feeling of the bump. Essentially: (pile of steaming poop) awful.
Chapter 10: The baby is born. B cries and screams and A holds his or her hand. In mpreg, maybe there’s a c-section, maybe a birth canal tears itself into existence, maybe B craps the baby. Gender is decided. Names are awarded. The baby is almost always named after someone dead, probably because the author doesn’t want to offend anybody by making up a new name. Happy tears. Every coos over how beautiful baby is, with mommy’s eyes and daddy’s hair, or possibly the vice versa.
And that’s it. No parenthood. No discussion of what’s going to happen to the baby. And the baby is always perfect, too. The kid is never born with cerebral palsy or some common genetic disorder or mutation, forget mental retardation. When B pops out a whole litter none of them ever die. Because good people don’t have ‘damaged’ children. Because obviously that wouldn’t be a happy ending.
The End
-Head Desk-
Oh god. The pregnancy fanfic. Here’s how it goes. A and B are not in a relationship, they are not friends, they either barely know each other or have some stormy history. Drunk party, one night stand, two weeks later, whammo, B is pregnant. 9 months in approximately 9 bitingly cliché, butt-numbingly inaccurate chapters where character development is seemingly thrown to the way side to be replaced by sap and temper tantrums, and near the end of it (sometime after character B complains a lot about being blimp sized and character A teases them, but is secretly ‘amazed by the creation of a new life,’) they fight, they mutually confess, and the story ends right after they learn if it’s a boy or a girl, name the baby after someone dead (can’t decide if you want a girl or boy? Twins! Want B to be extra pregnant and adorable? Sextuplets! Bonus points if they get referred to as a litter), and declare their eternal love for one another. Make it stop!
Okay, firstly, most of my experience is with mpreg. I read slash. I don’t really read het. I don’t have a problem with it- god no- I just prefer reading mansex. I was originally totally squicked by the idea, rather than the stories themselves, but someone recommended Dark Humor by Jellymeat over on fanfiction.net, and I was like, damn, this is pretty good. Then, after reading Closer by rainjoyswriting, I read her Mpreg-Verse That Was Never Meant To Be, and I was like, okay, this is really good, too. But then I stuck my toes into the water elsewhere, and I was immediately shocked by the shear amount of bad. I don’t have a problem with the improbability of buttsex leading to manbaby. I really, really don’t. I have a problem with all the misinformation, childish treatment of sexuality and parenthood, and clichés. Oh man, the clichés.
Let’s start from the top.
Chapter 1: A and B’s random sexcapade. They are usually virgins. Varying degrees of gratuitous sex occur, despite the fact that they are apparently so completely wasted that they have no control over their actions. In the worst cases, as they scream each other’s names in climax, B feels something in his/her body change… hm, what could this be? More importantly, why is it always necessary for all of these fics to start like this? In any case, the sex is irresponsible, it’s usually completely out of character, and it isn’t conducive to the buildup of the rest of the story. I mean, sure this happens in real life sometimes, but it doesn’t result in the doubtless approaching happily even after ending. Not exactly the best material for sunshine and roses, vanilla perfect parents. They wake up in the morning utterly baffled. “Did I? With you? Oh, how embarrassing,” at which point they slink off in opposite directions. B is feeling queezy. Was it all that alcohol, or could it be…?
Chapter 2: B discovers his/her pregnancy. They’ve been throwing up for weeks, oh my! Doesn’t that sound like…? But no, it couldn’t be. B goes to the doctor. Congratulations, you’re pregnant. Never mind the more likely hormone imbalance due to tumor or cancer, never mind parasitic twin or mutant organ growth. Never mind the fact that the vagina is designed to collect sperm and impregnate an egg, and it still has a fairly small batting average of successful impregnation (when people are trying to have a kid, they can really be trying for months, even years). Apparently, B has a 10 for 10 fertility rate. Still, it would probably take weeks for specialists to proclaim a man pregnant. I have honestly read a badfic where B was pregnant, and the doctors had no way to tell because he didn’t have a period which would stop. Are you kidding me? Women had other ways to tell even a long time ago. B is startled. “Might this have had to do with that mad scientist who I let operate on me months ago? I guess I’ll never know.” There’s usually no strong emotion about the night of conception, either, except embarrassment, although occasionally B blushes as they remember how good at sex A was.
Chapter 3: Telling the father and keeping the baby. B decides instantly, without any debate, that he/she wants to keep the baby. No real explanation is given for this choice. Then, there is the instant love. “Oh,” gushes B, “There is a BEAUTIFUL NEW BABY growing inside me and it’s a MYRICAL and an expression of the GREAT MYSTERY OF LIFE.” There is never any of the fear and feeling of violation and anxiety that usually accompany an unplanned pregnancy, except maybe a, “Gee, it sure is weird to be pregnant, especially because I’m a man.” Okay. So B is happy about being pregnant. This might be in character if they came from a large family, or feel isolated, or have wanted to start a family for a long time, or fear the wrath of God. Let’s clarify something: being pregnant doesn’t make you want to be pregnant. For some reason, even after B falls in love with foetus, someone feels the need to suggest an abortion. B spits on the idea and is disgusted, and a few paragraphs are usually devoted to bashing abortion and whoever had the gall to suggest it. “Poor baby hasn’t done anything to anyone.” I don’t care if you’re pro life. Hey, if you don’t want to have an abortion, don’t have one. I’ll be happy for you. But there’s a difference between keeping the baby because you want it and keeping the baby because you are against abortion, mkay? A discovers, or is told about the baby. He is instantly insistent on helping as much as possible, even as B pushes him away. “No,” says B. “Because we’re not in a relationship, we obviously can’t work this out like fellows. Why were we even at the same party, anyways? For some reason, I can’t compromise to allow you to, say, drive me to hospital appointments and visit baby on weekends after he or she is born, despite the fact that I told you it was yours.”
Chapter 3-5: A and B move in together. There isn’t a very good explanation for this, except that B is helplessly pregnant and A is B’s only support system. First of all, this is a general romance cliché I have a problem with. Having no friends or family outside of your significant other really isn’t healthy, particularly in the budding stages of the relationship. This tends to leave an opening for heavy codependency. But hey, codependency will be the entire basis for the relationship in this fic. By which I mean, B depending on A. There are a few chapters narrated by A, being amazed that it’s his child being to swell B’s stomach, being amazed in general, watching B consume food and sleep and generally be adorable. Somewhere near the end of this, A will kiss B, B will be confused in some degree of anger or tearfulness, and they will fight about nothing in particular. “It’s my kid in there!” “I don’t care! Get out of my house!” “No, I won’t leave you like this. You’re pregnant and therefore feminine and unable to look after yourself. Besides, I have about a zillion more possessive adjectives to use on that baby before you pop it out.”
I’ll take this opportunity to segue into “whose baby is it anyways?” B has been raped/artificially impregnated/ kind of a slut at some point in the near past, right before having sex with A, and it’s possible the baby -gasp- belongs to someone else. This causes much angst and B realizes he/she wants the baby to belong to A (ignoring the fact that the baby is just as much B’s as either of theirs, more so, because B is taking responsibility for he or she). In the end, it always turns out it’s A’s bun, after all. Happily ever after. I have to wonder, though, what if it wasn’t? This never gets discussed. Everyone just hopes it’s the right father, despite that fact that it’s B’s kid either way.
Chapter 6-8: A and B make up. They don’t discuss their feelings for each other like adults, but a lot of awkwardness and flirting reminiscent of prepubescents occurs. Somewhere around month five, B feels a kick. “Oh my goodness, this is suddenly so real!” A magical moment occurs where A feels B’s bump. They talk or narrate some more about how much they love the unborn baby, although somehow never discuss what will happen when it’s actually born. Doctors appointments, new clothes (over-sized sweaters? Night gowns? Peculiarly invasive medical procedures?), and long scenes where B describes his or her nausea and or cravings abound. In essence, the character development is completely thrown to the way side to make more room for completely inaccurate assertions on what it’s like to be pregnant.
Chapter 9: A and B profess their love for each other. There isn’t really a build-up of relationship development, as a collapse of any canon aspects of the characters, or personality traits in general, into rubble. Let’s get something straight: being pregnant is not very conducive to budding romance. “But… but it worked in Juno!” Cry the badfic authors. Okay, I’ll concede that, even if Juno was kind of delightful nonsense. In Juno, they did have a relationship, they were close friends and on and off sort of dating each other. The only thing that really happened during Juno’s pregnancy was that they worked out some issues and grew up a bit. Not enough to raise the kid, but enough to fall in love. I don’t want to talk about that movie, though. The fact that it happened once in Hollywood doesn’t make it plausible in real life. So unless it’s really, really well done, I’m not buying it. He’s a word of advice: if they’re falling in love because of the pregnancy, you’re doing it wrong. There needs to be more to the story than just a growing embryo- something that would suggest there relationship might last post-birth. After the confession, A and B consult a doctor and then have pregnancy sex. It is tender, full of euphemisms, kissing away of happy tears, and feeling of the bump. Essentially: (pile of steaming poop) awful.
Chapter 10: The baby is born. B cries and screams and A holds his or her hand. In mpreg, maybe there’s a c-section, maybe a birth canal tears itself into existence, maybe B craps the baby. Gender is decided. Names are awarded. The baby is almost always named after someone dead, probably because the author doesn’t want to offend anybody by making up a new name. Happy tears. Every coos over how beautiful baby is, with mommy’s eyes and daddy’s hair, or possibly the vice versa.
And that’s it. No parenthood. No discussion of what’s going to happen to the baby. And the baby is always perfect, too. The kid is never born with cerebral palsy or some common genetic disorder or mutation, forget mental retardation. When B pops out a whole litter none of them ever die. Because good people don’t have ‘damaged’ children. Because obviously that wouldn’t be a happy ending.
The End
-Head Desk-