Rabid Badger
And This is Why I Need Medication
Join date: 2009-06-11
 |  Subject: Re: MPREG: Why. Just why? Tue May 24, 2011 5:38 am | |
| | Lapin wrote: |
Children. Are. Hard.
And none of these people ever factor these parts in. It's part of what makes having a baby worth it. Having a tiny little creature that loves you and depends on you and knows nothing but you is indescribable. You do all these things for them, you consider crawling into bed and never coming out at some points, all because of your love for them.
These babies that happen in MPreg are often just plot points. They're not real babies. The parents never get frustrated or depressed. I just can't tolerate it.
This goes for straight couples in fic too. |
And that right there is why most pregnancy fanfics, MPREG or regular, don't work. The majority of them are written by young girls who've never had children of their own. Everything they know about the subject is what they've seen in TV and movies, and read in books; all of which are notoriously well-known for getting it all wrong. Maybe they've got a couple of younger siblings or a niece of nephew they've helped take care of, but that's not the same as carrying a child nine months and giving birth to it.
There are a lot of things you can do in fanfic without having ever actually experienced it. The majority of slash writers are women (though there's been an increase in the number of men involved since I got into writing it), and while they've never had gay sex with another man, if you do your homework and read up on the subject, you can write realistic sex scenes.
The problem, as you pointed out, is that the most pregnancy/MPREG stories aren't about the babies at all. The babies are just plot points. The parents (no matter what their sex) never react like parents do in real-life. The child is always perfect and never colicky or prone to crying just when you're getting ready to have sex. They're not like real babies-they're a child's view of babies as dolls that you can dress up and play with when you want to, and then when you get bored with them, you can go put them in the toy box and they'll wait there quietly till you decide to play with them again.
Anyone who's had kids of their own, or has friends who've got kids, knows that's not how it works. For the first year of a kids life, you're going to be doing nothing but feeding it, changing its diaper, bathing it, doing laundry, nursing it through colds and teething-and that's if you're lucky enough to be able to stay home with it. If you have to go back to work, you're going to be doing all that plus doing your job, PLUS trying to find some time in there for yourself and your SO.
And heaven help you if you have more than one at a time.  |
|
Owlish
Shitgobbling pissdrinker
Join date: 2010-03-06
Location: Not giving a hoot.
| | Subject: Re: MPREG: Why. Just why? Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:26 am | |
| I actually have read one (and only one) quite good Mpreg, long ago when I first got into fandom, and it's since been lost to the internets. The premise was actually believable, that it was a science experiment conducted by a company which wanted to market the technology, though if I remember correctly the ultimate goal was selling the babies and not male pregnancy directly...anyway, the story centered around the "wtf this is so unnatural" aspect, and the characters dealing with the emotional turmoil it caused. The author gave up on it before the birth though.
Most, all, other Mpreg fic I've seen is terribly angsty and ignores any kind of rational explanation for why men are suddenly defying the laws of nature. I've seen a few author's notes that say something like, "this is basically the real world except men have babies and it's totally normal!!1" and don't even try to explain it.
It's interesting that in my corner of fandom there's much more genderswapping going on than Mpreg, but no one ever writes men magically turning into women and then getting pregnant. It's always one or the other. Which leads me to think it's more about the idea of men having children, and not necessarily men doing something "feminine." I think it's just the act of producing children and all the drama it entails, however unrealistic. And if the characters you happen to be working with are male, well, problem solved. |
|
