seperis | in which i randomly attack a well-loved trope

This is, surprisingly, non-HP related. No, *really*. This is A Moment of Random Fanfic Bitching.

Okay.

I totally am behind the rentboy-kink thing. I do. Seriously. I'm not a huge fan of it (my only attempt at it went to the most depressing places *ever*) but I do get it. It's kink. It's hot (so I've heard. Not my thing, but I've read some I enjoyed that didn't verge on character assassination).

But God.

This is just--kind of a rule I wish I could set up. For fic that is not supposed to be kink. Because kink-fic is a different animal.

Unless your character canonically has no other possible skills up to and including the ability to use a spatula at McDonalds, maybe most of them *might* choose to not sell their asses (or other sexually-charged body parts) for money. I know, crazy thoughts.

But really--suddenly Random Character X is fired/wife dies/sister dies/mother dies/Dark Lord dies/Lionel dies/world ends/au-where-everyone-is-a-prostitute*/head-injury-so-terrible-they-lose-their-minds and boom, they are offering up asses like it's Christmas and someone gave them a hit of ecstacy to surpass all hits of ecstacy. It's *bizarre*.

*

shusu has permanent exception to this rule because she's doing things with her rentboy au that I've never seen done before and also because, to me, she set up a universe where I could see John Sheppard doing this and still be John Sheppard. Also, no humiliation moments that seem so rife in other fic. Also, Jesus, hot.

But other than that--okay, admittedly, I don't get the attraction. Since it's not my kink, I can't go to that mental place very well or easily--frankly,

shusu tricked me. I'm fairly certain this is one of the things I Just Don't Get because to me, I cannot imagine anyone taking it up willingly. Totally a me-thing. And it's a me-thing that is totally scraping my nerves raw when I see it, because it always seems to be paired with a fairly high level of humiliation like this is some sort of punishment for the character in question for whatever the author doesn't like about them in canon. Not always, and probably not even most of the time, but it does feel like it sometimes.

Right. Done here.

This has been A Moment of Random Fanfic Bitchery. Please return to your porn writing, plz.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm just thinking of a few "rent-boy" fics I've read and some of them do work for me because they start with the premise that the "boy" is underage and on his own for various reasons, and usually in hiding -from authorities-family-etc. . I remember reading (or seeing in documentaries-movies) that a lot of young people who end up hooking get into it because they are runaways; don't have work permits/aren't old enough to get legal jobs; or get hooked on something and will do whatever they can to get the kind of money that being hooked requires {other than being hooked on fandom which is MUCH cheaper than it was before the internet :) }.

It's when grown men who have done other kind of work and lose their job and jump into being a hooker that i have trouble believing it.

Then there are exceptions to this - one of the best is a PROS au -"NIGHT MOVES" by Courtney Gray- where Bodie had chosen the profession and becomes quite wealthy with it - but this might not count as RENTBOY fic because Bodie is very in control with it- choosing who and what he will do.

Just peeking out of lurkdom - back i go.

in which i randomly attack a well-loved trope

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