[ SECRET POST #2824 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2824 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[John Oliver]


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04.


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05. [ns]


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06.


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07.


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08.


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09.


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10. [SPOILERS for Ghost Trick]



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11. [SPOILERS for Kick Ass 2]



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12. [SPOILERS for Haven]



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13. [SPOILERS for Spec Ops: The Line]



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14. [WARNING for rape]



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15. [WARNING for rape]



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16. [WARNING for rape]



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17. [WARNING for rape]



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18. [WARNING for self-harm]

[Kill la Kill]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #403.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[silverr]

So ... they're equating erasing a memory from Tara's mind with rape?

[(Anonymous)]

to be fair, i remember people accusing willow of mind rape when the season was airing. this is nothing new.

[dancing_clown]

"Other people were worse" is not a "context" that has any bearing on whether Willow raped Tara.

[fauxkaren]

What does that have to do with Willow's actions?

[mekkio]

That's what they are doing? I know season six was horrid but I was racking my brains trying to come up with some way Willow could be portrayed as a rapist. Now I know and the answer is silly.

[(Anonymous)]

Whenever Tara was mad at Willow, Willow would hit her with an amnesia spell to make her not mad and then have sex. It's fair to say that if she hadn't given Tara the magical roofie, then Tara would not have willingly had sex with Willow on several occasions. That does kinda make it rape. Tara was not able to give full and informed consent, and had her lack of consent actively erased by Willow.

[(Anonymous)]

Manipulating someone's memory to hold on to them is pretty damn skeevy. Add sex to that equation and the rape allegations aren't that hard to fathom.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this.

I'm not one of the ones screaming "Willow's a rapist", but even if you don't think this was non-con, surely it counts as dub-con.

[(Anonymous)]

Forgive me because its been a long time since I've seen the entirety of that season but didn't Willow memory tweak Tara on more then one occasion? One time in which it was after a fight so they wouldn't have to continue to fight? That would be taking away Tara's autonomy so I could see where the thought process of considering it an issue of rape since it's an imbalance of power.

It's been ages though so I could be remembering fic plots instead of actual canon; if so ignore all this.

[silverr]

true ... she did the Lethe's Bramble one just to erase the memory of their one fight about her using magic too much, and then in the "Tabala Rasa" ep she tried a stronger memory spell that affected everyone.

I mean, I do get that there's consent issues and manipulation here, and certainly violation of trust, but ... it just doesn't feel on the same level as Warren's mind control of Katrina, or Spike's "I know you love me."

[arcadiaego]

I certainly wouldn't deny what Warren or Spike did was worse, but the OP is saying that anyone who considers it rape is suffering from internalised misogyny and sullying a wonderful character when actually Willow was just plain awful to Tara in Season 6, regardless of her intentions.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, those were legitimate rapes. Willow just conned Tara into having sex by deception and tampering with her mind to make sure she didn't remember not consenting. Totally different.

[(Anonymous)]

It is literally the same level of warren.
Fucking with a person's mind so they will do what you want.
Willow left Tara with more freedom between controlling her.

[(Anonymous)]

See, I disagree on Spike's. Because that scene always felt to me like two people who had been in an extremely kinky relationship that pushed the boundaries and him continuing to push those boundaries until he realized that she really wasn't consenting. He freaks out as soon as he realizes it. So while I can see why most people see that scene as a clear rape attempt, I've never interpreted it that way. Of course, Buffy wasn't consenting, so it makes sense that she didn't want to be with him again even in season 7. But I think that their complicated relationship was a definite factor in what happened.

Willow and Tara, on the other hand, I feel like it is sort of the equivalent of marital rape. Just because you are in a relationship doesn't mean that the need for consent goes away. Spike didn't understand completely that Buffy wasn't consenting. Willow completely took away Tara's ability to freely consent. That is more clearly rape to me.

[arcadiaego]

Willow wiped Tara's memory in All the Way after a row about Willow using magic, so the love song Tara sings in Once More with Feeling and the sex scene are all after she's been enchanted. Then Willow tries to erase the entire row in the next episode and accidentally wipes everyone's memories temporarily. This is after Tara has specifically said that she feels violated and there will be 'nothing left of her'.

I don't know whether any of these entirely impossible things qualify as rape, but it's hardly delusional to argue they do.

[(Anonymous)]

Don't forget the fact the previous season Tara had her brain turned to mush after Glory probed it to get information on the scoobies. So she has plenty of personal reason to not want her own girlfriend casting spells on her that affect her mind and her memory, beyond the normal moral, ethical, violation of person stuff, and be worried that there'd be 'nothing left of her'.

[arcadiaego]

I assume it's more that they then had sex when Tara would not have consented otherwise than wiping her mind specifically. Although given what had already happened to Tara that alone was a pretty horrific thing to do.

[replicantangel]

I think that because Tara couldn't remember the fight and then slept with Willow, Willow had raped her physically because Tara never would have slept with her if she did remember the fight.

I've always kind of side-eyed that logic, because those people are assuming couples never get into fights and still want to have sex (or have make up sex). What Willow did was super skeevy, but mostly because Willow was using magic to wipe the board clean instead of going through what normal couples do - talk about it, stress, maybe yell more, then make up. Because while they were fighting about some pretty major things, it's clear that Tara and Willow still were together and loved each other. It's only when Tara finds out about the memory spell that she decides that - despite loving Willow - she has to leave.

EDIT: I'm talking about the first time. Tabula Rasa erased everyone's memory, and I don't think Willow and Tara slept together then? My memory is not great.

[sarillia]

I don't think it's about assuming couples never get into fights and still want to have sex. The point is that we don't know if Tara would have still wanted to have sex or not. Willow took that informed choice away from her.

[replicantangel]

Well, we don't know anything of what would have happened from the fight onwards because of the spell is all I'm trying to say. I'm just hesitant to call it rape when we don't know what the normal flow of their relationship would have been, including Tara's choices. I would definitely call it abusive though.

Maybe I'm just splitting hairs though. Fair enough.

[silverr]

As I recall it was after the events of Tabula Rasa that Tara moved out -- after the events of OMWF she'd given Wilow a chance to prove she could go without doing magic for - I think it was a week? Willow didn't even last that long.

[replicantangel]

Yeah, that's when she moved out. I don't think there was any sex in Tabula Rasa. A lot of my hesitance over calling it rape is from Tara's own reaction at the beginning of that episode - it's the magic abuse and memory spell she's angry about, not the sex. Of course, the writers might just not have wanted to deal with the issue of consent there.

It's definitely a story about addiction, and like all addiction, it's not just the addict that's the victim.

[(Anonymous)]

That is just the magical version of dropping a roofie though. If you roofie someone and have sex with them while they are missing a chunk of their memory. That's rape. If you magically delete a chunk of someone's memory, specifically a chunk which contains a very definite lack of consent so that they feel all cute again, that's rape too. You know what isn't rape, full and informed consent. Having a fight, then having consensual anger sex, not rape. Having a fight, then making up and having sex, not rape. having a fight and then roofie-ing away the memory of the fight and having sex, rape. It is not that hard.

[replicantangel]

Roofies are not just an amnesiac drug but also a sedative and hypnotic - the victim is physically unable to resist. (Sorry if you knew that, but a lot of people don't. I like when people have all the information.) So I'm not 100% on board with the analogy.

But I do see your point. Like I said above, I might be splitting hairs. And I am going off of Tara's reaction too, as she never accuses Willow of rape - being a fictional character, we have only what's written for her dialog/actions as evidence of what she's thinking. But I can recognize that the writing is probably flawed, so I concede the point.