#i'm not sure i've ever talked about this beef i have with erha before
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fatalism-and-villainy · 2 years ago
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@veliseraptor:
sort of writing a fic about vegas's relationship with his own sadism but basically: I think for him they do feel mutually exclusive, at this point in time? like, what he says about "I used to think I was a freak" to Pete after they have sex...it feels to me like this is very much something where he's like "there is the badwrong sex and there is the good sex and if I'm going to be a good boyfriend then I can't be mean."
basically I think there's a lot of...figuring out that has to be done around the idea of sadism in particular, emotional and physical, as something that's actually fine within the context of a relationship and not just, you know, a thing for torture dungeons.
I think your reading is psychologically realistic, and I get where you're coming from. And I do genuinely enjoy the fact that they're both ashamed of it. But.... hmmm. I've been trying to come up with words to explain why I find this genuinely frustrating as writing.
I think for one thing, the "I used to think I was a freak" dialogue just makes the above feel inconsistent to me, as a sentiment? Like, sure, I'd believe that he thought there was something fundamentally wrong with him for enjoying tying up and torturing guys (maybe not always actual prisoners, but probably sex workers, like with Kinn) while conducting himself gleefully and shamelessly on the outside. In context, I can only take his following up that line with "...until now" to mean that what made the difference was finding someone else who was into it, and wanted it as much as he did? So to me it doesn't really make sense for him to backpedal the way he does here, and treat it like something to be disavowed. I would understand if it were coming directly from Pete's "I'm a person, with feelings!" outburst (and Vegas' seeming accompanying realization that he actually cares about/is in love with Pete), but the scene by the pool does seem to make it pretty clear that Pete does embrace that dynamic when it's on his own terms, and that it's a major aspect of his love for Vegas?
But frankly, a lot of their interactions (and the character interactions on this show in general) felt a bit randomized to me. So... idk, I think typing this up has reinforced for me that the writing just isn't very consistent, and is lacking in logical through-lines for the development of characters' perspectives. Because so many of their feelings and motivations seemed to flip-flop rapidly for me.
But I guess more broadly - and this is what I was thinking of when I huffily posted the screenshots - I find it frustrating when media like this presents a kink dynamic as part of the development of a romance, and frames it as a major factor in the allure of the relationship, but then has that element of the characters' dynamic just taper off or be pushed to the side as not relevant to a future romantic commitment? I had the same frustration with Erha, actually. It leaves a lot of space for fanfiction authors and whatnot to fill in, but it leaves the work itself feeling frustratingly incomplete, because there's this big gaping hole in the story re: the characters' dynamic. Like, both stories lean heavily into the fanservice-y qualities of what they're doing, so I'm not claiming these stories are espousing some kind of 50 Shades of Gray style moralism wrt framing kink as something bad that needs to be excised from a healthy relationship. But I do get the sense that they approach kink as primarily just a form of titillation for the audience, rather than something that had actual psychological consequences for the future of the relationship. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.
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Oh come ON they're not mutually exclusive
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