If it helps, I get a similar read on it to what you get, or at least, I don't read it the way most other readers seem to. My brain is still screaming 'false choice' at the idea that anyone, especially Calliope, had a true choice here. If it comes down to actively, knowingly torture someone or else lose mental freedom, forever... That's not a choice. That's a one-way ticket to, at best, a pile of resentment, at worst life with a foreign body (Calliope nailed it in her description) mobile beneath your mental skin. It is, and please forgive me the crudeness here, torture or be raped. Either way, there is no way out. And if all that can be done in response is a cluck of the tongue and an acknowledgement that yes, it sucks...
The comparison has been made, before, between this unwanted bond and a teenage pregnancy. I don't view that as fair. There are, at least, some workable options when faced with an unexpected baby, especially in Terramagne. On the long-term and, if I dare phrase it this way, worse end of the spectrum, kids grow up. This bond... is an unwanted forever, a forced forever. It's a violation forever, mentally, and the choices are accept it or be evil. It's left *me* actively cursing my own ethics, and I'm just a reader.
You're right. Fiction is quite an inkblot test. This would break me, irretrievably.
Ysabet, for the record, I still <3 you. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to tap out of the Calliope thread altogether. This bond is a true Kobayashi Maru in the worst sense of the name, and you know why I have such a strong reaction to it. I <3 you, as I've said. I'm not bailing on you, no way. But this particular thread keeps whacking me in the hard-won boundaries, and it's too much.
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dancing_serpent
TW imagery
Date: 2019-05-14 03:34 am (UTC)The comparison has been made, before, between this unwanted bond and a teenage pregnancy. I don't view that as fair. There are, at least, some workable options when faced with an unexpected baby, especially in Terramagne. On the long-term and, if I dare phrase it this way, worse end of the spectrum, kids grow up. This bond... is an unwanted forever, a forced forever. It's a violation forever, mentally, and the choices are accept it or be evil. It's left *me* actively cursing my own ethics, and I'm just a reader.
You're right. Fiction is quite an inkblot test. This would break me, irretrievably.
Ysabet, for the record, I still <3 you. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to tap out of the Calliope thread altogether. This bond is a true Kobayashi Maru in the worst sense of the name, and you know why I have such a strong reaction to it. I <3 you, as I've said. I'm not bailing on you, no way. But this particular thread keeps whacking me in the hard-won boundaries, and it's too much.
Sorry,