True non-con on the other hand is generally something I only want to read in the context of h/c stories.
Oh yeah, I read several S/X stories in which Xander gets raped by his dad and in which Spike does the sexual healing thing, and yeah, those stories are not about the rape as such. Rape is simply used to break the character so the second character in the pairing can bring the victim back from the brink of destruction.
Yeah, that can work very well (although I never liked the far-fetched Xander's-dad-is-a-rapist scneario).
I don't ever want to have to understand [characters I adore] from that [rapist]perspective. See, that's what interests me, the thin line between fantasy and deed, between good and evil, between control and lack of restraint. Seeing a character snap. That's one thing I always liked about Xander, how he's ultimately a well-meaning, ordinary guy, with a set of decent morals, and all the right knee-jerk reactions to violence and rape and evil, yet he has such a huge blind spot that he can throw all these things overboard when it comes to people/beings he perceives to be outside society's rules. He has a dark, vigilantist streak, that's interesting to explore.
In an AU things are a bit more complicated because we give up the backstory that gives "meaning" to such acts of violence.
Tricky, tricky.
Anyway, thanks for replying. I find this discussion extremely fruitful.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 11:45 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, I read several S/X stories in which Xander gets raped by his dad and in which Spike does the sexual healing thing, and yeah, those stories are not about the rape as such. Rape is simply used to break the character so the second character in the pairing can bring the victim back from the brink of destruction.
Yeah, that can work very well (although I never liked the far-fetched Xander's-dad-is-a-rapist scneario).
I don't ever want to have to understand [characters I adore] from that [rapist]perspective.
See, that's what interests me, the thin line between fantasy and deed, between good and evil, between control and lack of restraint. Seeing a character snap. That's one thing I always liked about Xander, how he's ultimately a well-meaning, ordinary guy, with a set of decent morals, and all the right knee-jerk reactions to violence and rape and evil, yet he has such a huge blind spot that he can throw all these things overboard when it comes to people/beings he perceives to be outside society's rules. He has a dark, vigilantist streak, that's interesting to explore.
In an AU things are a bit more complicated because we give up the backstory that gives "meaning" to such acts of violence.
Tricky, tricky.
Anyway, thanks for replying. I find this discussion extremely fruitful.