036. the mother we share

[scorpiod1]

December 18th: What draws you to incest ships for streussal

ahahahahahahahahahahaha

streussal, why do you do this to me

I honestly don't know how to explain this but I am going to TRY to explain.

Comments

[scorpiod1]

I'M GLAD YOU FOUNDED INTERESTING TBH. I was worried I was going to alienate people and get side-eyed.

I've always found stories where the incest is downplayed so... cringeworthy, and wrong, like watered-down Lifetime movies with no substance. It doesn't make sense to me to write them that way. I can't get into stories like that because there's a layer of fakeness to it and I can't suspend my disbelief.

ugh yes full agreement. When incest is downplayed, it adds an element of unreality that completely throws me out of the story, and the characters. I find myself blinking at the screen and wondering WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE (though hilariously, I think Lifetime made Flowers in the Attic and Petels in the Wind make two incest films that embraced and RAN with the incest to it's ridiculous trashbin conclusion, it cracked me up)

It actually sometimes squicks me out even when I ship it, like the times I've written Spencer/Melissa from PLL, I have to stay in Spencer's head because when I think about it from Melissa's pov, it's like... I have a little sister and gross.

Sometimes I have ships that squick me even as I'm writing them or thinking about them so I feel you. I don't really know anything about Spencer/Melissa except I think, judging from tumblr, their relationship is COMPLICATED AND INTENSE but I can see how it'd be shippy but also squicky, given she's an adult and Specter is a teenager.

I AM JUST ALL :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD because I am the one who brought Jeremy/Elena. I wanna write more of them but my brain is consumed by another fandom atm (also writer's block)

Plus it makes me wonder if these fans are the kind of people who also think biological parents = only real parents and adoptive parents = not real ones. It seems to go together for me and it's just beyond me how people can think like that

Lol I mean, if I am being charitable, I honestly think most people who get all finnicky about genes and the differences between cousincest and incest (or adopted incest--I've heard the same arguments thrown at adopted siblings who were nonetheless raised together as children) is just because most people just don't want to deal with those issues while shipping something, so they downplay it for their own comfort, and just enjoy the elements they like--rather than actually believing adopted family isn't truly family. That being said, I have seen some "well he's not her REAL brother" comments thrown at adopted siblings so like I just wanna shake some people.

I want it to feel halfway healthy within the bubble of the characters involved. Like one of them COULD walk out if they needed to. So I guess I do want more normalcy than you do, on a level.

Oh no I totally understand you? I'm an angst whore so I dig that stuff, and I can see a lot of incest ships working out long term (like, Cersei/Jaime were a thing preseries before they got split apart so that was clearly a long period of time) but I don't think you don't so much as want to downplay the incest, as you don't want to condemn the characters to incest ever after (which can be a sad thing really), while still embracing with the fucked up elements of it? I get it, because I have several incest ships that could be a sex thing that the characters could move on from (Jeremy/Elena is one of those; I can see them being a long term thing under certain circumstances, but I can also see them boxing their shit away and moving on to other people) and like, if fanfic is your happy place, I totally get not wanting to deal with terrible angst the canon does enough really.

I REMEMBER YOUR MARY MARGARET/EMMA THING. ugh that is totally a painful situation because it is incest BUT THEY'RE THE SAME AGE AND JUST MET. I wasn't into it but I can see why the set up was so femmeslashy (living together!!! Giving each other live advice!). I kinda feel, even though I wasn't into the ship, like genes wouldn't matter in those circumstances because there's no real familial relationship, which is really where incest hits me in my gut and was absent from their interactions.