Poor Ray...
Aug. 9th, 2014 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serendipity8791Spoiler warning: This is from Volume 2, Issue 18 of IDW's Ghostbusters Ongoing comic. I know someone on my dwircle who hasn't yet read it, but reads the series. It's just one panel, and there isn't much text, but yeah, just in case.
Trigger warning: This scene in the comic is a bit rapey (female perpetrator on male victim), but also, arachnophobia, like WOAH! Erik Burnham brought out the creepy in this issue.
So, in this issue and the one before, Ray's mind is getting hijacked by a Sumerian deity, repeatedly. At first, said deity is only talking about defeating his/her/its sister, but eventually gets pretty aggressive, and turns into a former foe, the Spider Witch, from Ghostbusters: The Video Game, who catches Ray in her web.
So, Ray's on his back, looking excessively vulnerable (the look in his eyes when he shifts from anger to fear is awful), while the Spider Witch is saying vaguely threatening things to him, until this panel happens and he's being covered with her spawn, who are even crawling up various orifices.
So yeah, Ray is getting mind raped, with undertones of literal rape (his body language, the fact that she's looming over him, and talking about fulfilling her purpose), and it's icky, but there is so much fic fodder in that. Not dub-con or non-con fic, nothing like that, but more like the consequences of having gone through something like that, nightmares, anxiety, and so on. (Ghostbusters: Legion kind of comes to mind here, he's so disillusioned and depressed in that, for non-traumatic reasons, but still, very OOC for Dr. Stantz.) I mean, even Ray, with all his sunny, curious, bouncy disposition, would probably carry that with him for at least awhile.
He does end up vomiting over the side of the boat when he snaps back to reality, and, even though he gets seasick in the IDW continuity, he hadn't been on the way to where they were going, so it makes one wonder if he isn't ill also because of what just happened to him in his mind.
Trigger warning: This scene in the comic is a bit rapey (female perpetrator on male victim), but also, arachnophobia, like WOAH! Erik Burnham brought out the creepy in this issue.
So, in this issue and the one before, Ray's mind is getting hijacked by a Sumerian deity, repeatedly. At first, said deity is only talking about defeating his/her/its sister, but eventually gets pretty aggressive, and turns into a former foe, the Spider Witch, from Ghostbusters: The Video Game, who catches Ray in her web.
So, Ray's on his back, looking excessively vulnerable (the look in his eyes when he shifts from anger to fear is awful), while the Spider Witch is saying vaguely threatening things to him, until this panel happens and he's being covered with her spawn, who are even crawling up various orifices.
So yeah, Ray is getting mind raped, with undertones of literal rape (his body language, the fact that she's looming over him, and talking about fulfilling her purpose), and it's icky, but there is so much fic fodder in that. Not dub-con or non-con fic, nothing like that, but more like the consequences of having gone through something like that, nightmares, anxiety, and so on. (Ghostbusters: Legion kind of comes to mind here, he's so disillusioned and depressed in that, for non-traumatic reasons, but still, very OOC for Dr. Stantz.) I mean, even Ray, with all his sunny, curious, bouncy disposition, would probably carry that with him for at least awhile.
He does end up vomiting over the side of the boat when he snaps back to reality, and, even though he gets seasick in the IDW continuity, he hadn't been on the way to where they were going, so it makes one wonder if he isn't ill also because of what just happened to him in his mind.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 02:27 am (UTC)But the fact that it's happening to a male character, including the literal slant of the undertones, which breaks the cliché of women always being the victims, is decent storytelling, in my book.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:04 am (UTC)I'm not sure how intentional the actual rape undertones are, the spiders crawling up his nose mouth and ear (you sort of see a little red leg sticking out of the ear that is visible in the screen grab above) could qualify as an "And I Must Scream" and/or "Body Horror" tropes, but coupled with the mind rape and the undertones... it's just, wow. In a creepy way.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-16 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-16 09:24 pm (UTC)I don't remember that episode, much. I only watched it once, and she does turn into a giant insect too, in that (hello Body Horror trope, I am looking at you). I know that in most incarnations of the Ghostbusters, the boys and Janine tend to be relatively blasé about anything traumatic, although, sometimes there are moments where obviously, someone has developed issues over something, even if said issues are often mild or something they can get over with relative ease. With the exception of Egon and the Boogeyman, in RGB, being that he's still terrified of him as a fully grown man.