#I have some thoughts about how Squadron X and Impactor's hissyfits over Prowl and Springer going against his will configure into this

[honestlyvan]

I'm in the mood for beloved horrible men doing horrible things and I've been thinking, could you elaborate on what you said about how Impactor is not someone who would rape for pleasure but he WOULD as a means of control?

Everyone point and laught at Barbie for having the bad taste to like my favourite character.

I'M SURPRISED THAT IT'S NOT A MORE POPULAR READ TBH. Like why does this fandom want this fuck to have such things as A Good Time and Ability To Enjoy Himself. Impactor is so shameless, so cruel, and he doesn't even have the temerity to enjoy himself, he's not even a sadist, he's just a joyless causer of misery and a plague on the lives of everyone he meets.

I think for me what it comes down to is that rape is about power, ultimately. Sexually violent characters who I could see doing it for the pleasure are ultimately also doing it because they're reveling in the power to extract that pleasure from someone else. But Impactor is just so joyless and miserable when he isn't riding an adrenaline high... that's just not him, to me. It doesn't parse, I don't think he really cares that he has power and authority to wield over other people. He treats the Wreckers with the same instrumentality he treats himself with.

So sexual violence would be no different as a tool of violence than, say, kicking someone's shit in. It's just as violent and painful as a beating, and just as humiliating and violating as torture. It would be a very useful tool to be able to pull out to threaten people with just for those qualities, and I think that's where utility for Impactor would be. Because the other aspect of it is the intimacy -- but that's not a game Impactor is willing to play, just based on the fact that he regularly gets mad at his friends for knowing how he feels.

Impactor might not be a literal walking corpse in IDW'05 but in spirit, I think that's what he is. It's all ash, to him, there's nothing worth selfishly chasing or trying to possess or achieve that could really mean anything. Nothing short of literally fighting for his life does it for him, so the usual narratives about other people existing to please him creating entitlement just don't make sense to me.

The point where someone can no longer threaten his life is, I think, the point he loses all reason to interact with them, unless having power over that person will somehow bring him closer to a new fight with someone who could actually kill him. The point of fear tactics is to find the people whose fight-or-flight is biased towards fight, and to be hated. But I don't think any kind of dominance over any specific individual just does anything for Impactor, because almost nothing does anything for him, anymore.