Other het movies that push my buttons: White Palace, Once Around, Pretty Woman, Mumford, The Bodyguard, and Chances Are, the kinks in which revolve around disparate incomes and social class (White Palace, Pretty Woman, The Bodyguard), disparate ages (White Palace, Once Around), the caretaker kink again (The Bodyguard, Once Around), prostitution or the "kept woman" kink (Pretty Woman), and deep frickin' looniness (Mumford). Then there's Roxanne, which exemplifies what I'd call a "long-shot" kink, that is, where love between a princess and her fool grows despite all odds. A kink with many guises. Lust Over Pendle is a long-shot kink, because, I mean, *Neville*. Draco should *sneer* at him, but he doesn't, because the fool sometimes has what the price desperately wants and needs. That great story I just read, Montana, has a bit of the long-shot kink, and in fact I've seen hints of it in many NSync stories; Sentinel stories sometimes scratch around it, too. Xander is Spike's long shot, which is adorable. (And in fact Xander is Neville, and Spike Draco.) Spike might have been mistaken for Buffy's long shot, but...not quite. Because a long shot has to be essentially comical, even ridiculous in some way, and they never quite made Spike that, no matter how hard they tried. He had seductive power.
Diminished capacity = blindness (the most romantic of disabilities), regression to a childlike state (of trustful dependency, heartbreaking adoration, etc.), severe emotional brokenness (mm, tasty).
I've segued from het back to slash, I see. Just in time to rec Counting the Days by Dira Sudis, which just rocked my world off its axis today and sent it bouncing down a steep hill to land cracked and dazed at the base. If you want to talk kinks...Jesus. It makes my nerves shudder and my eyes glaze over just to think about it. Submission, fear, pain, trust--the many facets of emotional damage all rolled up and forced to yield to one master kink: caretaking in the guise of dominance.
Plus there's cuddling and fingernail-painting and nape-biting. Marking. Can it *get* any better than this? I am being superficial, because in truth the story is incredibly rich and complex, working through various shades of grief, and it's that kind of tapestry that makes kinks stand out like bright, brilliant threads. Also it gives great Dawn. I do admit that I'd expected a sharper and more erotic climax to the story--a big crashing thunderstorm of emotional catharsis. But it was still intense and deeply satisfying.
And so to circle back to the topic--clearly, when it comes down to it, kinks transcend everything. Sexual orientation, pairing. I mean, Angel/Spike is not my pairing of choice, but if it were, this is the kind of story that would make me fall and fall hard. The light brushstrokes that sketch out their background together--the training and the punishment, defiance and submission, unbelievable cruelty and survival--whoa.
Must go be quivery elsewhere now.