#there's no power imbalance for them

[lavenoon]

What if all of them were senior agents?

Sun n Moon get transferred to Robin's location and these three star agents really just butt heads. None of them are good at socializing, they're all hard asses (not on purpose), and now they're rivals and ONCE AGAIN butting heads jkasfdhldf

-G

I'm going to make things even harder for them, and say the transfer happened because the higher ups ran out of agents to pair them with when push comes to shove, and decided to take the gamble of putting them and Robin together directly. Also not neighbors in this one then! They'd be all kind of distant anyway, and that's not really compelling.

No, in this one they get close because they all butt heads as you say <3 Robin hears about the transfer, and is informed they'll work with the newbies (not rookies, mind you - but bad enough still), and is thus aware of both Dusk and Dawn.

Let's say this is canon adjacent and they meet Dusk first. Maybe an official introduction in Agent River's office (oh, she is so happy about this development /s), like she's the bathroom door between two grouchy, territorial cats. They size each other up, but act polite enough while their supervisor is watching. Once they're out though?

All but outright hissing and scratching. Passive aggressive little comments about “keeping up” and “don’t slow me down”, little jabs about each other’s codenames (the moon man and little bird make it early in this timeline). Both are somewhat impressed surprised when the other does keep up. 

They find a begrudging balance where they respect each other but don’t quite get along, both still stuck in that “no one really gets me” emo mindset they acquired over the years. When Robin first witnesses Dusk telling a hostile “Nighty night” before knocking them out, they snort - and he hears. But with how immediately he withdraws from their dynamic, snapping at them even when the fight is over, they start feeling bad. 

Robin decides to swallow their pride - because they’re the one who hurt his. After the mission, they hold out a little gadget to him, like an olive branch. 

“... What do you think I need lip balm for?” 

“Open it, idiot.” 

He does, warily, and out comes a little equipped pin cushion plus an extra compartment for more elaborate lock picking tools. He blinks. 

“I have a document scanner here, too.” 

By all means, it looks like a normal pen. 

“And a few spy coins, too.” 

Some resemble actual money, others are goofy festival tickets made of hard plastic, or coins to slot into shopping carts.

Dusk looks at them, processing the fact that they carry tons of unnecessary gadgets, and all of them are the type you’d see in cheesy spy movies. 

“It’s good to have fun with this. Not enough agents do. Maybe the ‘go to sleep’ thing is a little too on the nose for my taste, but I hardly have any room to talk.” 

He hands the pin cushion back wordlessly, but after another moment his grin widens as he squints. Innocently leans down to their eye level, immediately setting off the snark alarm bells in Robin’s head. 

“So, how many spy movies did you have to watch to get inspiration for these?” 

Turns out, banter comes easy.

“Sorry I’m not as simple as you and didn’t look in the mirror for the most brilliant idea to strike me.” 

“You thought it’s funny.” 

“It's ridiculous.” 

“Made you laugh.” 

“I’ll push you off the roof.” 

“Have to catch me first. Last to reach HQ is a rotten egg - not a good look for you.” 

After that first official race, they get along better and better - still snarky, still full of banter, but they enjoy pushing each other because they trust the other to have their back. Other agents aren’t quite sure if they hate or love each other, but that just goes to show that their dynamic is special to them, and that the others just really didn’t get them <3

Dawn and Robin don't fare much better in the beginning. Robin, while a star agent, rarely does the undercover missions, and it grates that Dawn is better at it. They adapt quickly, but it's enough for him to notice.

"Out of your element, it seems."

"I usually have better things to do than babysit, yes."

Well, and Dawn doesn't like that either. These two mastered the death glares hidden behind polite smiles, and any time they're forced to hold onto each other for whatever reason, their hands may tighten just a liiittle more than would be technically necessary!

It's only when one time Robin is there to witness one of his more dramatic acts during an "interrogation" (i.e. they have someone isolated and cornered, though the target isn't quite aware of the danger yet), him just smoothly trapping a target in a conversation and carefully baiting them to reveal all the information they need, only to end with a "Why, thank you for your cooperation. It's most appreciated." and just enough time for the poor sod to realize what they've done, and then a knockout-

Robin watches, first positively surprised, then impressed, and then just...

They start wheezing. Dawn turns to them, disgruntled, and is about to snap at them the same way he snapped at anyone else who insulted/ made fun of his methods, but then they just talk through their laughter.

"They just - pfft. They just fell for that, hook line and sinker!" More laughter. "'Thank you for your cooperation' indeed, don't think it'll be continued, but that's nothing HQ can't fix."

Dawn is… also positively surprised. He deflates a little, looking at them as if he hadn’t seen them before, and a bit of apprehension leaves him. 

The first time they have a runner and Robin catches them quickly, while obviously being just as efficient and with that touch of flair he likes? That’s when he locks on, and decides a rivalry isn’t actually too bad. Especially given that he’s no stranger to the trope of rivals, and does enjoy the way he can make Robin fumble and stutter when he gets them by surprise. 

So he leans into the flirting. And Robin, after a short fluster/ adjustment period, flirts back. 

They’re horrible from then on. The kind of romantic tension that’s tangible, you could cut through it even. They say anything to each other and anyone listening in just groans and either thinks or outright yells “Just kiss already!” 

They don’t, because they’re still idiots <3

The boys talk about Robin to each other, and there’s a surprising lack of teasing - but they do get a somewhat parallel improvement thanks to the stories they share with each other, and then they unofficially already form a team of three without being specifically assigned as such. 

They get along well enough in their own weird little ways. When a few months in Dusk admits they’re looking for a place to stay, they’re still very aware of the secret identity rule, and Robin doesn’t outright offer - in fact, they joke “Just don’t move in at my place, that’d be awkward.” Dusk easily plays along with a “Ew, wouldn’t think of it” that earns him a laugh and a punch to the arm. 

But they’re also comfortable enough with each other that when Dawn shows up at Y/N’s doorstep, looking like a deer in the headlights, they don’t freak out - Y/N laughs, full out wheezing. Dawn - Sun, as he introduced himself in his email, just grumbles about places with high ceilings being a rarity, especially at such affordable prices - and then slyly adds “but of course your place would be a steal, little thief.” 

Y/N tries very hard to stop laughing, managing with a strange little grimace. So they invite him in - and when HQ never says anything about that change in address, they don’t see any reason to poke the bear. Maybe there won’t be a little birdhouse in the backyard - but they’re all comfortable, and happy, and have all the time in the world to go from there <3

[kagoutiss]

din’s champion

[originalartblog]

alternate version because a certain purple crow saw things in the original version

Empty and bitter BEAST skk to crush your soul! Neither of them is having a good time.

[lambmotifz]

the reason why sam and dean’s unhealthy dynamic doesn’t need to be fixed is because they both (unconsciously) crave power imbalance but for completely different reasons

dean didn’t have much power when he was younger since john took his control away from him. which is why he seeks power/control via hunting, violence and his relationship with sam. dean’s repressed sadistic tendencies, his love for hunting, his enjoyment of torturing & killing souls in hell come from his repressed need to be in control

and sam, as jared said, wants to restrain his physical power. not only because he doesn’t feel comfortable in his body, being too big and intimidating on the outside but feeling smaller and craving safety on the inside. but also because of his guilt and wanting to prove to himself, and to dean, that he’s good. that dean can trust him. it makes him seek comfort in being punished, in being restrained and feeling smaller than he is, but dean is the only person who can give him what he needs because dean is also the only person sam trusts and submits to. as twisted as it may be, but dean’s control over him is the only thing that gives him a feeling of safety he’s always craved

they complement each other in this fucked up way, that’s why their dynamic cannot exist without a certain amount of power imbalance

[aronarchy]

Why we don’t like it when children hit us back

To all the children who have ever been told to “respect” someone that hated them.

March 21, 2023

Even those of us that are disturbed by the thought of how widespread corporal punishment still is in all ranks of society are uncomfortable at the idea of a child defending themself using violence against their oppressors and abusers. A child who hits back proves that the adults “were right all along,” that their violence was justified. Even as they would cheer an adult victim for defending themself fiercely.

Even those “child rights advocates” imagine the right child victim as one who takes it without ever stopping to love “its” owners. Tear-stained and afraid, the child is too innocent to be hit in a guilt-free manner. No one likes to imagine the Brat as Victim—the child who does, according to adultist logic, deserve being hit, because they follow their desires, because they walk the world with their head high, because they talk back, because they are loud, because they are unapologetically here, and resistant to being cast in the role of guest of a world that is just not made for them.

If we are against corporal punishment, the brat is our gotcha, the proof that it is actually not that much of an injustice. The brat unsettles us, so much that the “bad seed” is a stock character in horror, a genre that is much permeated by the adult gaze (defined as “the way children are viewed, represented and portrayed by adults; and finally society’s conception of children and the way this is perpetuated within institutions, and inherent in all interactions with children”), where the adult fear for the subversion of the structures that keep children under control is very much represented.

It might be very well true that the Brat has something unnatural and sinister about them in this world, as they are at constant war with everything that has ever been created, since everything that has been created has been built with the purpose of subjugating them. This is why it feels unnatural to watch a child hitting back instead of cowering. We feel like it’s not right. We feel like history is staring back at us, and all the horror we felt at any rebel and wayward child who has ever lived, we are feeling right now for that reject of the construct of “childhood innocence.” The child who hits back is at such clash with our construction of childhood because we defined violence in all of its forms as the province of the adult, especially the adult in authority.

The adult has an explicit sanction by the state to do violence to the child, while the child has both a social and legal prohibition to even think of defending themself with their fists. Legislation such as “parent-child tort immunity” makes this clear. The adult’s designed place is as the one who hits, and has a right and even an encouragement to do so, the one who acts, as the person. The child’s designed place is as the one who gets hit, and has an obligation to accept that, as the one who suffers acts, as the object. When a child forcibly breaks out of their place, they are reversing the supposed “natural order” in a radical way.

This is why, for the youth liberationist, there should be nothing more beautiful to witness that the child who snaps. We have an unique horror for parricide, and a terrible indifference at the 450 children murdered every year by their parents in just the USA, without even mentioning all the indirect suicides caused by parental abuse. As a Psychology Today article about so-called “parricide” puts it:

Unlike adults who kill their parents, teenagers become parricide offenders when conditions in the home are intolerable but their alternatives are limited. Unlike adults, kids cannot simply leave. The law has made it a crime for young people to run away. Juveniles who commit parricide usually do consider running away, but many do not know any place where they can seek refuge. Those who do run are generally picked up and returned home, or go back on their own: Surviving on the streets is hardly a realistic alternative for youths with meager financial resources, limited education, and few skills.

By far, the severely abused child is the most frequently encountered type of offender. According to Paul Mones, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in defending adolescent parricide offenders, more than 90 percent have been abused by their parents. In-depth portraits of such youths have frequently shown that they killed because they could no longer tolerate conditions at home. These children were psychologically abused by one or both parents and often suffered physical, sexual, and verbal abuse as well—and witnessed it given to others in the household. They did not typically have histories of severe mental illness or of serious and extensive delinquent behavior. They were not criminally sophisticated. For them, the killings represented an act of desperation—the only way out of a family situation they could no longer endure.

- Heide, Why Kids Kill Parents, 1992.

Despite these being the most frequent conditions of “parricide,” it still brings unique disgust to think about it for most people. The sympathy extended to murdering parents is never extended even to the most desperate child, who chose to kill to not be killed. They chose to stop enduring silently, and that was their greatest crime; that is the crime of the child who hits back. Hell, children aren’t even supposed to talk back. They are not supposed to be anything but grateful for the miserable pieces of space that adults carve out in a world hostile to children for them to live following adult rules. It isn’t rare for children to notice the adult monopoly on violence and force when they interact with figures like teachers, and the way they use words like “respect.” In fact, this social dynamic has been noticed quite often:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

(https://soycrates.tumblr.com/post/115633137923/stimmyabby-sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean)

But it has received almost no condemnation in the public eye. No voices have raised to contrast the adult monopoly on violence towards child bodies and child minds. No voices have raised to praise the child who hits back. Because they do deserve praise. Because the child who sets their foot down and says this belongs to me, even when it’s something like their own body that they are claiming, is committing one of the most serious crimes against adult society, who wants them dispossessed.

Sources:

“The Adult Gaze: a tool of control and oppression,” https://livingwithoutschool.com/2021/07/29/the-adult-gaze-a-tool-of-control-and-oppression

“Filicide,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide

[soaked-ghost]

ink's backstory (part 2/2)

[barvin0k]

hello hai

escano content for fans of f@cked up pairings 🤌 enjoy

[lunamond]

The disproportionate hate show!Criston gets is so bizarre. No argument I’ve seen his haters make sofar has made any sense to me.

He is outside of Mysaria the only siginficant lowborn character we meet. He rises up from the son of a steward of a minor house to the position of King‘s Guard thanks to Rhaenyra, who then pressures him into having sex with her, sth that could get him executed. Afterwards she not just rejects his proposal, but laughs in his face.

And when as a result of this experience Criston is shown to be emotional distraught and bitter, people call him an incel? (I assume that they refer to his ideology and not his actual status as a celibate, because not being celibate is literally what started this mess)

It really rubs me the wrong way, when people remove all context from this situation. A lower class person getting a well-off position from a person with authority, who they then end up having sex with is ALWAYS a relationship with a power imbalance (Obviously there are irl relationships like this, who work out and manage to be relatively healthy, but that doesn‘t remove the imbalance of power and the increased likelyhood of abuse).

We see Criston‘s reluctance when Rhaenyra makes her move. It does not matter if Criston was attracted to her or not. The simple fact that he is in a vunerable position makes him denying her a risk. It also does not matter that Rhaenyra had no malicious intentions, the simple fact that she ignores Criston‘s refusal and continues pressuring make this whole scene super uncomfortable. Her ignorance and naivety does not erase the impact of her actions.

Criston growing to hate her afterwards is perfectly justified.

As a man who grew up in Westerosi society, he inevitably holds misogynist beliefs, which is reflected in the insults he uses after this. But compared to the acts of every single character on this show, singling out his character is pretty ludicrous, when we have plenty of male (and female) characters who have done worse:

Like commiting SA (Viserys, Aegon), grooming young girls (Viserys again! I really hate this man, Daemon, Otto, Corlys and Rhaenys because telling your daughter she has to sleep with a grown man when she is 14 is pretty much the same thing Otto does to Alicent) and the only major crime Criston is guilty of sofar: murder (Daemon killed his wife and the servant in Driftmark, also he did large scale police violence which people love to forget about, Rhaenys killed potentially hundreds of smallfolk at the coronation)

Obviously, anybody is allowed to dislike whatever character they want, but a lot of people flatten Criston into just a misogynistic bitter incel who is just mad that Rhaenyra has sex, ignoring every bit of context we get for his behaviour.

This becomes escpecially weird, when those same people have no problem stanning Daemon, who calls his 1st wife a „bitch“, „uglier than sheep“ and then murders her, because he sees her as inferior as a none-valyrian. But Criston calling Rhaenyra, a person he feels personally wronged by, a „spoiled cunt“ is apparently a too far.

It is just really frustating when the character with the canonically lowest social standing gets afforded the least amount of nuance by the fandom (the writers are obvs not excempt from this criticism either).

[lwiann]

Bg3 is such a good game but i appreciate it more for giving me the type of villain romance that i love. Just unforgivably horrible people who found home in each other.

Most of the time, villain romances that I find, they are the misunderstood trope and I still eat it up, but it's just nice to explore terrible characters and how love, something so human, ruins them.

[coquelicoq]

we get a lot of really great stuff in system collapse about murderbot's relationships with ART and ratthi, which makes sense, because it spends almost the entire book with them. but i also love how even though mensah isn't there for most of the story, other people keep reminding mb of her:

chapter 2, page 25: “From ART’s personnel file, she [Karime] was older than Mensah and she didn’t look like an intrepid space explorer, either, even in the protective environmental suit.”

2, 27: “It took Karime three seconds to process the abrupt statement. (She was almost as good at not looking annoyed as Mensah was.) She kept her expression neutral and patient.”

2, 28: “In the underground colony room, Karime lifted her brows. ‘Another occupied site?’ I thought she was being careful not to show too much reaction. It was the way Mensah would have played it.”

4, 70: “Iris looked at me and I saw her hesitate, because her hesitation looked a lot like Dr. Mensah’s hesitation. And I realized I really didn’t want to go down there.”

5, 104: "Iris has that same thing as Dr. Mensah, the thing where she’s able to look and sound calm under circumstances where shit is possibly about to go down.”

it's spent so much time with her and it knows her so well and respects her so much that she's the model against which it compares all other humans. it thinks about her when they're not together. it's protective of her. it has such total faith in her competence. it (non-romantically) loves her and doesn't want to not see her again. idk man, it just gets to me! and they were teammates (oh my god they were teammates!!)

bonus:

I said, aloud, "You have to be kidding me." (ch. 2, p. 28)

seven pages later, in reaction to the same thing:

Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, "Oh, you have to be kidding me." Yeah.

twinsies 🥰

[arrnand]

i think there is a huge power imbalance between louis and armand that there wouldn’t be between daniel and armand, even though armand would still be more powerful than daniel. because, like, the thing is, with louis, armand is constantly masking his power and pretending to be almost powerless (until he shows up with big fits of power like at the dining room table and then he plays that power back down with the museum trip—which i don’t really fully think was a display of him trying to be the victim again because he didn’t HAVE to tell his story, i think he WAS asking louis who he is). like, if we look at the scene where they’re talking after louis kills the coven, there’s that beam of light separating them. there’s several options that could have been done: if louis did that because he wants to be safe from armand, then he doesn’t know armand doesn’t burn in the sunlight, which is something he’s purposefully hiding from him. louis has no power in that situation despite feeling like he does. if it’s something they did to stop louis from harming armand in some way, then it’s still a display of power. i wronged you, now sit in your cage. there is such unequal power between them because armand tries to make louis feel like he has the power, but he doesn’t.

but, where i feel that differs with daniel and armand, ESPECIALLY post-dubai, is that armand has no way to mask with daniel because daniel already knows exactly who he is. he’s manipulative and wild. he doesn’t know who he is. he’s a liar. he’s an actor. he has no home. he wants to have a home. he wants control but doesn’t want to be the leader. he’ll do anything to ensure he’s never left alone. there’s no way of hiding who he is because daniel already knows that. and he’ll love him anyway!! like, armand will still have wild amounts of power, but daniel KNOWS this and has a different power, which is something armand hasn’t experienced yet: seeing and understanding him.

[iaminsideyourwalls]

i don't even ship mediscout but ur art is so funny and cute that every time i see them i'm like :) (also "das fucking magazine bunny is ruining my life!" has been living rent-free in my head. it makes me laugh a lot.)

Thank you! I don’t ship it much either (Red Oktoberfest baybee) but it’s fun to play around with.

(I know Mediscout is kind of divisive—some people very strongly dislike it, which is 100% fine, I have ships i really don’t like, and some people love it—and I think that often comes down to how the dynamic is written. It’s not 2012. We’ve progressed past the need for portrayals of power imbalance with dubious consent or yandere behavior. I’m sick of it. We can go outside talk to our friends for a while and start to portray healthy, happy couples. Y’know, Scout’s nearing 30, Medic’s a sweet person to his loved ones, they’re perfectly capable of a fun relationship with emotional depth.)

Sorry for rambling!

[bottombaron]

honest to god guys you have no idea how fucking hilarious "that's his boss!" is

Paul Simms created, wrote, and produced NewsRadio, a (actually really great) sitcom in the 90s that only lasted a handful of seasons.

the most noteworthy thing about NewsRadio was that the big will-they-or-wont-they relationship of the show completely subverted the trope by having them 'hook up' immediately after the pilot and then had to deal with the relationship throughout the show with that sexual/romantic tension already fullfilled.

but that isn't the funniest part.

the two characters in this relationship were the newly appointed manager of the radio station and the long-suffering employee that he took the promotion from despite her being more qualified.

he was literally her boss.

[arcadekitten]

I apologize if this question sounds rude/disrespectful but why do you ship Stella x Lambchop? It seems like a sort of power imbalance between them, considering how Stella is a celestial being who can change things with magic, and Lambchop is just some guy in the village? (Once again, so sorry if this comes off as rude!!)

Corona is that you?

I think it's worth noting that while Stella acknowledges she is in a different position from everyone on her planet, part of stella+lambchop's dynamic is each of them trying to reach what equilibrium means in their eyes so that they are equals to one another. Lambchop would be so angry to hear you call him just some guy in the village...

[lbhslefttiddie]

actually since im talking about vague ideas i like but havent worked into a useable setting yet: i think, under very specific circumstances involving sy, lbh and sj could become a horrible and terrifying collaborative force. like i think it would be fun and also funny in a shen bros au dealio where sj and lbh are just constantly at each other's fucking throats because of their respective Deals and then the second sy lands himself in a sy-brand Situation they both react with such vicious like-minded fury one would think they had coordinated their actions. i think they could reach an Agreement of sorts if they were put in a position which showed them that they both prioritize sy's safety to the same insane degree. something so fun about having to confront that the person you'd so comfortably despised for so long has shown themself to be very human in the face of the suffering of someone you also love dearly. that there may be no one in the world outside yourself who you would be able to trust your loved one's care to except that bitch you cannot stand

[scarletlight-has-issues]

Okay so I've held onto this one for quite a while bc I was self-conscious ab my art style and how it doesn't look nearly as good as a ton of other prohibited wish artists on here but I think it's time to share it-

I had this idea in my head and I just needed to get it out sooo um.

Sorry for the pain

Also I was testing out how I draw maskless Scarab (which is partially inspired by the INCREDIBLE @time-woods's design for their Carma sorry for the @ I just wanted to credit you for the inspo- btw) so it's changed a bit since I drew this bc Ive gotten more used to drawing him-

I have a ton more art in my backlog I'm just,,, self-conscious lol. trying to get better-

PLEASE [tumblr] fix the quality when I post this bc it looks like ass in the editor as Im looking at it rn