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I don't watch OLTL but reading your comments for the past hour I would say that I get it. But the passion and the outrage that this has sparked could be seen as brilliant. Before you eviscerate me - let me say i know that a woman who was raped by a man and then having consentual sex with him is disgusting and completely out of the vortex of reality (though it's happened 2 times on soaps as far as I can remmeber (Luke&Laura of course and Holly and Roger on GL).

However, (gulp) the passion and the heat that this storyline is creating is very engrossing. The fact that the issue of the magazine hasn't even hit stands yet and there's already 4 pages of comments tells me that the nerve that its hit is tremendous and powerful and that may compell people to watch more and it may get buzz just to see how they're going to dig themselves out of this seemingly bottomless hole of a s/l.

Let's face it - soaps need something controversial other than a gay kiss now and then. And there's no safety net with this sort of a s/l either. You may not even be able to sit through the scenes without feeling disgust and anger, you may even say you won't watch. But i have a sneaking suspicion that most of you will.

And personally I'd like to think that RC has filled in all the principals on this arc and the ensuing fallout. Could there maybe - just possibly be an ounce of a chance that RC has thought of a mind-blowing twist? Hate to say it yall - but your posts have actually made me want to tune in! No, i'm not a sicko, but to see a DANGEROUS, POTENTIALLY SHOW-THREATENING s/l air isn't something that happens on daytime. they usually play it too safe. I'll take a unsafe, icky s/l over a boring old "Who Killed _________" plot.

A poster said they will never be able to forgive RC for this s/l no matter what he writes afterwards. From what I've read about RC he's no fool and his career could be on the line. Nobody likes to say it but we can't turn our eyes away from a trainwreck - and this is one collision that I might have to see. The whole thing could turn out to be just as horrible as you all imagine...or it could not.

The only thing that I can say is that this s/l is something soapfans will talk about for years and for that alone it deserves to be seen.

(Cashton slowly backs out the door and hides under his binky in terror!)

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There's such a thing as creating buzz, but it's quite another to start to drive away long term fans. That's no way to run a show. Soaps should be all about trying to KEEP the viewers they have and trying to get NEW viewers to watch and to KEEP those viewers too

LMAO I love it!!!!!!!

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I don't think anyone here will eviscerate you, but I'd be really careful on some other boards. I totally get what you're saying. They're definitely not playing it safe. They're really spreading their creative wings here, figuratively speaking, and I guess they'll either soar, or they'll crash and burn. Remains to be seen.

Refresher Carlivati quote

On the one hand, I admire the risk. It's ballsey to say the least. On the other? I resent the assault on my senses.

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What makes it even sicker is the fact that Marty has amnesia, and Todd is using that amnesia to his advantage, and now having sex with Marty while she isn't in her right mind and and doesn't have ALL(about the rape, her having a son out there, etc...) of the facts in order to have the option to say no.

IMO this is just another way to rape her, oh heck Carlavati has been having Todd mind rape her for months, why does this surprise me

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Let's not forget that Carlivati said that Marty learns the truth about Todd and his lies. There's going to be a payoff here. As Carlivati's last remaining cheerleader, I would like to remind everyone that his payoffs are HUGE - look at the Viki/Marcie hostage crisis, the BE takeover, the 1968 story (come on - you know you loved it) and the punch heard 'round the world at Adriana's wedding. Feel free to argue with me, that's not the point here; the point is that Carlivati is setting up a cataclysmic climax to this story that will make it all worth it.

Please refrain from the flame-throwers and tomatoes.

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Aww you guys are cool. Thanks for at least listening to my point. I agree that the outcome could be disatrous. i would hate it if if my favorite soap did something so awful that I couldn't watch it anymore. Oh wait - it did (yo Springfield, WTF?) So I completely get that fans would scream and shout bloody murder at the prospect of seeing the show ruined.

Which just makes the gamble all the more interesting for OLTL, eh? I compare it to the the entire country tuning in to see VP nominee and hockey mom Sarah Palin have her debate with Biden. Anything....and I mean friggin ANYTHING could have happened! Same. Exact. Thing.

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See Zendallfan, I have to respectfully disagree with you here. The only thing that makes this even remotely tolerable, or even slightly interesting, for me is that Marty doesn't remember. That is the whole point. This isn't the same person that Todd raped. If you can concede that who we are to a degree is the culmination of a lifetime of experiences, then obliterating a life altering experience fundamentally changes who we are. Furthermore, this isn't the same Todd either (and I am not just talking about the recast). If Todd were the same violent, sadistic person who led the gang rape, even brain damaged Marty wouldn't fall in love with him. Part of me thinks Marty may not remember the rape and she will just be told that Todd was this guy who led the gang rape. That will not jive with who she KNOWS him to be, and when she's "told" about the rape it will be something that on some level happened to someone she has no emotional connection to. How she weighs the information she is told, vs. what she knows is the story.

Yes, Marty is brain damaged, but not being in her "right mind" is not the same as diminished intellectual capacity on the scale of IQ or in such a way that she can't give consent. Marty is an adult, with adult reasoning capability. There's no reason to claim that she can't have consensual sex like any other adult on the show. She has no clear memory of her past with John McBain either, but none of us would be offended if he were her caretaker, she became attracted to him and she acted on that attraction. It's purely because it's Todd she's attracted to and she's making a decision based on incomplete information that this story is so disturbing, and the missing piece is far more disturbing to us (the viewers) than it is to her at the moment. We the viewers aren't really disturbed FOR Marty, we're disturbed for ourselves, because we're the ones who remember that experience.

There are many other factors that IMO make this a complex psycho drama. But it's still a story that I don't think should be told on this show, with these characters. And it certainly shouldn't have been told in this way. For some, there is no way they could have ever written this story that would have made a romance between Todd and Marty acceptable. I think they probably could have found a way to make it work for some viewers if they'd backed away from their short term 13 week storyline mentality and taken a long term perspective. It would've/should've taken years to get there, but I think it could have potentially been done if they'd had the patience to take a different tack. If they'd shown Todd genuinely falling in love with Marty but having the decency to prevent any physical intimacy between them because of their past, and making the sacrifice of loving her enough that he told her the truth and restored her to her family. Giving up Marty and doing the honorable thing would have been Todd's redemption, and the proof that he was truly changed. Then as Marty is trying to regain her life and restore her relationships with John and Cole, she continues to long for Todd and he for her . . .

No guts. No glory. Eh?

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I agree, Rhinohide, and I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer horror of the Spring Fling rape - how animalistic it was. You could probably give Sami on Days amnesia and have her sleep with EJ (forgetting for a sec that DH had them sleep together a few months ago), or Emily Stewart having amnesia and sleeping with a guy who looks like Diego on ATWT - but Marty's rape on OLTL was SO brutal (and God, as I type those words, I realize the Pandora's Box I'm opening... rape is rape, and I know it's always brutal, and I'm not trying to say one is "easier" or "worse" to deal with than another... so please don't jump down my throat for saying this)... but so much was made on OLTL for years about Todd's ambivalence towards the rape. He wasn't a husband whose wife avoided sex with him from the moemnt they got married (Jack/Kayla on Days) or a husband who was trying to prove to his wife that they still had a chance together and she shouldn't leave him (Jake/Marley on AW). Todd was just A MONSTER, with little driving him except "I think that Marty Saybrooke is a bitch". There was little explanation given as to his motivation back when it happened (they did try and explain it in his back story once Roger took off as an actor on the show) - and no motivation was needed. He was just evil.

I think you could probably find a way to make this story work on another show, with another couple, in the hands of the right writer.

But you're right - not this show, and NOT with Todd and Marty.

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For me personally, it's not so much the brutality and violence of the rape itself, although that is certainly a factor, because you're right there is no justification for any rape and in each of the stories you mention the reality of the rape is equally horrifying. But the rape was an "event". As awful as it was, the actual rape was one episode. It's the subsequent however many years of stories that were told for these two characters where the rape was the cornerstone and the primary driving motivation for their behavior and not just in their interactions with one another, but in their relationships with almost everyone on the canvas. That raped defined these characters in a way I don't believe any rape story has defined two characters on any other soap. There is simply no way to balance that magnitude of history in four or five months with a simple plot device like amnesia. The viewers would have to have amnesia.

Not at all IMO. I am not sure I even understand the question. Are you asking would they even have attempted to go there if RH was still in the role?

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Well I think it's safe to say that if RH were still in the role it would not have made the story any less offensive. However, as far as I can tell, having TSJ portraying Todd hasn't minimized how repugnant the story is to most long term viewers either. Only people who are new to the show were really prepared or relishing the prospect that they might take it this far. Even long term viewers who were supportive in the beginning made it very clear that they did so with reservations and a conviction that they would never take this story to a place where it could be remotely be described as a romance. Surprise!

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