btw i love when dubcon is used in fiction as a way to explore characters. i love when characters don’t understand how to “properly” ask for consent because they have never had their consent respected in their lives. i love when traumatized adult characters make potentially unwise choices about what to do with their bodies because they have the autonomy to do so. i love when characters make choices that i personally wouldn’t make, but i can totally understand how they got there. i love when characters have complex, fucked up, unhealthy dynamics, but still care about each other and want to do better. i love when writers trust audience members to read between the lines instead of spoon feeding them moral lessons. i love when characters are allowed to actually fuck up and have mistakes to learn from!
One of the first Tron/Ram stories I read (which helped cement my love for the pairing) was Kesomon’s “Energy,” which was… from well over a decade ago, a very different time for fanfic, and yet it had a dynamic that really really spoke to me on a level my mind somehow deeply needed at that moment, when I first found it just a couple years ago
(can only kind of theorize why. possibly related to some relationship stuff I’d just gotten out of, possibly other reasons my brain was in that particular headspace at the time. dont think it really matters why)
The characters have basically never been in a healthy situation in their lives. Or at least for a very long time. They’ve just escaped from prison together, where their time was mostly spent being forced to compete in gladiator fights. Even if you don’t consider the fact that they’re literally computer programs who HAVE to do what their Users say– healthy consent is so not a thing they’re used to having
And in this fic, at that moment, they try to do a little bondage play together. And Ram asks permission, very carefully wanting to make sure it’s okay. And he is deeply moved by Tron granting his trust for this (i nearly cried).
But like. he doesn’t specify exactly what he’s gonna do. and Tron is at least somewhat upset about what he does. but Tron does go along with it, and does manage to enjoy it up to a point, and then asks to stop. And Ram doesn’t totally wanna stop, and takes a while to stop, and even considers not stopping.
but ultimately he realizes how precious the trust is that he’s been given, and he respects Tron’s wishes and stops doing the thing Tron asked him to stop, and the scene comes to a happy, satisfying conclusion
And like. This touched me so deeply– because it was not like how a really healthy, really well-planned, consent-focused sexual encounter should go, ever. Like, if I was in a situation like that in real life, I could probably see the relationship ending over it. Real life rules don’t apply here exactly. but they do influence the feelings…
And yet. With those feelings in the background, it was still these two characters who care very deeply, really really trying to do something healthy with each other, despite having very very little real knowledge of how that should go. And understanding each other’s limitations as it happens, and learning from it.
And in that context, it rings true that this was a thing they ultimately both could be okay with each other about, and keep going on with life together, with their bond a little stronger after it.
Fiction can explore stuff like that, and worse stuff too– stuff that should not happen in Real Life, but that is cathartic and fascinating and important to imagine scenarios where it happens. to get your mind thinking about the implications of it, and how it’s worked through, and what comes next, depending on the characters and the circumstances.