An anonymous user wrote
on February 25th, 2008 at 05:56 pm |
I'm with the person above who was disturbed by the safe word issue. I can see your reasoning for why it happened, and the whole fic was very well written, but it jerked me right out of the story and I found it difficult to enjoy the rest.
For me it wasn't just the fact that John ignored the safeword, but also the way Rodney reacted afterwards. Realising that John wants Rodney to be safe is one thing, but what John does here is a rather spectacular betrayal of the trust Rodney has placed in him. To me personally that is the bigger issue, and the fact that Rodney validates what John did with his acceptance (kissing the knife, assuring John of his trust etc) feels like it goes beyond BDSM and starts skirting the edges of abuse, where the abused partner is so dominated they accept their treatment as something they deserve or something they can't change.
It's weird but I wouldn't really have a problem with reading this scenario if the dominant partner wasn't portrayed in such a... sympathetic light, you know? I mean, I read far more disturbing stuff than this on a regular basis, but this fic struck a chord somehow. It leaves the characters with an interesting set of problems, and a sequel dealing with them would be fascinating.
Hope that made sense and wasn't too boring, feel free to ignore if it was :) It's definately the sign of good writing when it makes you think, even if you didn't actually enjoy the story.
Fitz
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