- Joined
- Mar 30, 2021
- Location
- a beautiful gutter
This is not a kink, and I've noticed people doing it in this thread but I'm not criticising as it's a personal choice but when I see other people saying it I'm reminded how often I default to it despite my desire, and efforts to do otherwise and that's when people talk about playing, 'against,' another person or character. It has taken some time, and effort to be mindful of this and instead say things like, 'alongside,' which I prefer, but it's so easy to slip.
I've played enough leading ladies to come to dislike this a great deal as well. Something that often comes up in games with this theme which I find very galling is when one character wants to degrade the other for being compliant and doing what they want in a sexual context. I could accept reactions like that in a very dark game if it were being done in a self-aware way that was intended to be demeaning and manipulative, coming from a character who is meant to be read as an awful person. Otherwise it really rubs me the wrong way.
In that instance I suspect a lot of the people who want these games would not be interested anymore. I might be though. Heck I used to have a plot idea which was about a character trying to help another character who was extremely repressed. Maybe I should whip it into shape and post it up.
I get a huge kick out of general corruption or redemption stories personally, but what gets to me in this context is that changes in a characters point of view, philosophy, etc., are so often achieved in the same way, and seldom with any deliberate action. Personally I want characters to argue about ethics and philosophy, and I don't see why a woman can't change a man for the worse (and by some mechanism other than him wanting to bang her) or vice-versa, and I think both characters should be changed by the end. It shouldn't just be one character as this immovable pillar and the other being bent around them.
Funny I'm writing a story now where the leading man has a hopeless infatuation with an older woman, and when he actually gets a chance to really spend time with her he finds she is a very different person to what he had assumed, and she becomes the protagonist.
Shiva the Cat said:The first is corruption in a sexual sense.
I've played enough leading ladies to come to dislike this a great deal as well. Something that often comes up in games with this theme which I find very galling is when one character wants to degrade the other for being compliant and doing what they want in a sexual context. I could accept reactions like that in a very dark game if it were being done in a self-aware way that was intended to be demeaning and manipulative, coming from a character who is meant to be read as an awful person. Otherwise it really rubs me the wrong way.
Shiva the Cat said:But I'd be a lot more open to the idea of corruption if it was painted almost as a positive thing; for example, helping someone repressed embrace and celebrate their sexuality, maybe with some orgies or partner-swapping to help them figure out what they like?
In that instance I suspect a lot of the people who want these games would not be interested anymore. I might be though. Heck I used to have a plot idea which was about a character trying to help another character who was extremely repressed. Maybe I should whip it into shape and post it up.
Shiva the Cat said:Or conversely if I'm in a particularly dark mood, maybe the negative aspects of corruption don't revolve around the victim becoming obsessed with sex (newsflash: no one's dick is that good), but the fact that they have a mental/emotional attachment to a person that makes them do horrible/illegal/immoral things outside of a sexual context.
I get a huge kick out of general corruption or redemption stories personally, but what gets to me in this context is that changes in a characters point of view, philosophy, etc., are so often achieved in the same way, and seldom with any deliberate action. Personally I want characters to argue about ethics and philosophy, and I don't see why a woman can't change a man for the worse (and by some mechanism other than him wanting to bang her) or vice-versa, and I think both characters should be changed by the end. It shouldn't just be one character as this immovable pillar and the other being bent around them.
Shiva the Cat said:I hate that older female characters are almost never allowed to be people, only sex objects.
Funny I'm writing a story now where the leading man has a hopeless infatuation with an older woman, and when he actually gets a chance to really spend time with her he finds she is a very different person to what he had assumed, and she becomes the protagonist.