#power differentials

[liskantope]

In the replies, I wrote:

Now I feel we're on the same page and think you made a really really good point in there particularly about "living intentionally". But I also kind of feel like you've backed off the absolutist-sounding thesis from your earlier post, in engaging with the thrust of some common rebuttal. Which I appreciate, because my main complaint is that a ton of people in this subculture are simply refusing to do this kind of engagement with the underlying assumption.

(To clarify: the "original post" I referred to was this one in which "such-and-such list of behaviors are considered abusive between adults; therefore they should be considered abusive when done to children" is pretty much explicitly the whole argument of the post. At the time I was first responding to it -- in fact maybe even when I wrote the above reply, I don't remember -- I hadn't even seen the unrebloggable post that apparently started up the whole discussion.)

@max1461 replied:

I don't think my claims were ever absolutist, I believe you read that into them but if you go back to them you will notice that they don't contradict or even apparently contradict anything I've said here

I think I did intend "absolutist-sounding" to mean "implying something absolutist", but this was still a bit of a sloppy way to write. In replies I tend to be terse and err on the side of sloppiness, which is why I'm doing a proper reblog now rather than continuing a back-and-forth in the replies.

But again, in the post I was referring to, you very strongly implied if not outright stated that to your view, any behavior X that's considered abusive between adults is therefore automatically a form of abuse when done to children (and someone else may hold a different view, but then they are making an "ad hoc exception" and should admit it, while you are not). The perhaps slightly milder implication there is that if X is wrong to do to another adult, it's wrong to do as a child. (And the typical assumption behind that, which you may or may not have held but I don't think I was wrong to find quite plausible though not certain that you held, is that this is because children are equivalent to adults in terms of natural "day-to-day-type" rights.) All of these are statements that I find rather absolutist.

Then in the OP to this reblog, you seemed to back down from this enough to suggest that sometimes Behavior X (e.g. setting and enforcing a regular bedtime) which is unacceptable between adults is okay towards children, and then made the excellent point that we have to be super careful to do this "with intention" (understanding that it is okay in this situation because of Y or Z about the child's level of development and that things will change as the child further develops), otherwise we'll slip into a default habit that may affect our power dynamic with the child/adolescent/youth/adult much later. I may have misunderstood one or another part of this, but I hope it's somewhat understandable why this seemed to me like a contradiction to an earlier "if Behavior X is wrong towards an adult, it's automatically wrong towards a child" implied assumption.

I apologize if I really did misinterpret you somewhere along the line. I do think (as you and others have noted) there's an issue in this discussion with myself and others partially lumping you in with a typical Tumblr style of moral crusader / "everyone who does any kind of abuse is an evil monster" rhetoric, and I'll try to be more careful about not doing that.

Also consider this: when you get used to behaving in a particular way, it is hard to shift gears. I know this about myself. We grow up doing one thing and just keep doing it. This is a reason for extending people, as I've mentioned before, a significant amount of grace for wrongdoing that is culturally normalized. It takes time, effort, and information to live intentionally, to really choose how you will behave, and we all have limited access to time, effort, and information.

But one consequence of this is that someone who is a controlling parent when their kids are kids will often continue to be controlling when their kids are grown. And even if you defend a straightforwardly different standard of abuse when it comes to child-adult relationships than when it comes to adult-adult relationships, by normalizing certain kinds of controlling behaviors on the part of parents you are also, I suspect, increasing the risk of controlling relationships between a parent and their adult or young adult children.

You can caricature the child liberation stuff as like, "they want to abolish bedtime". I don't think it's abusive if a parent like, sets a bedtime for their 3 year old or whatever. You know, young kids need regular sleeping routines and so on. But if you're not thinking intentionally about parenting, and about the moral imperative to respect your children's autonomy, then bedtime for your 3 year old becomes a bedtime for your 10 year old becomes a curfew for your 17 year old, etc. etc. Because as a parent you have all the power, and so you are the one who must decide to stop, you are the one who must actively decide to relinquish control when the proper age is reached. And people hate relinquishing control.

I contend that many of the most normalized forms of child abuse occur when behaviors that are appropriate for a young child, who truly needs a more active and involved caretaker, are thoughtlessly extended (or indeed extended out of anxiety) to older ages when a young person has started need and to express their need for autonomy.

[playfully-sadistic]

One thing about being a sadistic dom is that you'll never hear me say "Oh, baby, don't cry" to a sub, but you will see me grab myself through my pants and grin at you, if you start crying in front of me.

[worstloki]

there is a difference between being born to a throne, maliciously vying for a throne, stealing a throne, and having a throne thrust upon you when you are already in the midst of an identity crisis. And I fear Loki's place in the line of succession has people unable to differentiate between any of these

[siffrin-gimmick-blog-number-37]

imagine if sif was having a period during the loops and didnt notice until after act 6

daily 16.5: me and my stupid blinding looney tunes gender be like

[olessan]

[svenghouly]

Jod wanted to "save" the planet as equitably as possible with science. Now wants to root out the ancestors of the trillionaires that escaped his clutches 10,000 years ago and destroy them. Already destroyed literally everything in the process.

BOE wants to stop Jod in his tracks from continuing to enact his destructive planet killing agenda, liberate the currently oppressed worlds, seek ancestral revenge by killing him which could possibly destroy the whole universe in the process.

Are they really so dissimilar or am I misinterpreting this.

[duerede]

You can argue that Gale is the kinkiest, or that Astarion is the kinkiest, but in reality Gale is tantra sex kinky and Astarion is BDSM kinky and their tastes in fact overlap nowhere.

[daeneryseastar]

so i don’t understand what is *so* hard to get about the idea that rhaenyra being crowned as queen *peacefully* would’ve at least introduced the baby-step process that women can inherit the iron throne, even if it doesn’t automatically lead to absolute primogeniture and prompt benefits being established for -all- women.

book-wise we have one (ONLY one) inkling of how rhaenyra feels about the succession, and it’s that she doesn’t wish to alienate any more allies than she already had:

show-wise we have a vague and contradictory line of jace and baela’s sons inheriting the iron throne followed by luke and rhaena’s children inheriting the driftwood throne, which just seems like an inconsistency in the writer’s room, but why is that *such* an issue for those that support aegon’s claim to begin with? rhaenyra only has sons (biologically) at this point, so we really don’t know whether or not she would’ve named a daughter as her heir over a son, but this thought process derives from real history. eventually female heirs were allowed in certain circumstances but male children were *always* preferred (until recently). this still doesn’t change what her reign would’ve entailed had there not been war. rhaenyra is allowed to fight for the right her father granted onto her when she was 8 years old, aegon was not entitled to it simply because he was born with a penis and his mother raised him to believe that made him special.

jeyne arryn, one of her staunchest allies, point blank states what will happen to women heirs and ladies in their own right if the greens are allowed to repudiate the succession, because it’s something she -personally- had gone through:

“in this world of men, we women must band together,” the green council states that they cannot rely on the eyrie for support due to is presently being ruled by a WOMAN. they knew what this would mean for women moving forward.

if we were to look into the history of english monarchs the first (official) queen regnant of england was mary i, who ruled for five years, and didn’t make any changes to the rules of succession during her reign (any that involved gender, any battles she faced mostly had to do with religion). she was followed by her sister elizabeth i, who ruled for 45 years, and made no changes to the rules of succession. both of whom ascended as queen because there were no male relatives alive at the time, but each obviously proved that women were just as capable of men ruling, releasing at least some of the stigma surrounding that subject during their time alive. it wasn’t even until recently, during the reign of elizabeth ii (in 2013, specifically), that absolute primogeniture was enacted into law, ending the system of male-preference cognitive primogeniture. mary became queen in october of 1553, so it took 460 years for this change to occur.

rhaenyra is based off empress matilda, daughter of henry i, who would’ve been the first queen regnant of england had she not been challenged and deposed by her cousin, stephen of blois, in a war known as the anarchy; with it ultimately ending when a peace treaty was signed by both stephen and matilda, with her son henry ii named as stephen’s successor upon his death (which happened a year later). this war began in 1135, which was 878 years before the succession was formally changed and 418 years before england would actually see a queen on the throne. this is just to put it into perspective how one queen is not going to immediately enact change for the betterment of all women whilst attempting to rule an age-old abhorrent system, but saying that they had no bearing on succession laws and gender equality moving forward is wild.

not only did rhaenyra only reign for six months, she was in the middle of a civil war that had resulted in the deaths of four of her children (as far as she knew) at that point. among that the treasury had been depleted and sent to green loyalists, so she was taking over a country with virtually no money at hand. her reign was damned from the start, and her near broken mental state led her to make some bad decisions. from the beginning of her heir ship she was looked down upon for being a woman; her stepmother spread vile rumors about her virginity when was in her early teens, her sworn shield groomed and took advantage of her, her siblings were raised to hate her and view her as a threat to THEIR birthright and lives, her father was nigh on useless in protecting her against any of this due to his pacifist and pushover nature. she was usurped because she was a woman, and ultimately killed because she was a woman. denying the tragedy of her life is refusing to understand the deeper components of the story being told.

if women aren’t even able to hold offices of high power how is anything supposed to change for those in even worse circumstances? women didn’t gain semi equal rights by being silent and subservient to the men around them, they gained them by fighting back against the status quo; by marching, lobbying their politicians, lecturing those willing and unwilling to listen to their plight, causing civil disobedience, etc. we shouldn’t condemn those that do not have the will nor the ability to participate in these events, but refusing to understand their opposites and overtly criticizing how imperfect they are or blaming them for their suffering is not the way to go.

once again, rhaenyra is not a feminist, but she should be seen as a proto-feminist figure by us, the audience, for her will to stake her claim as the first woman to sit the iron throne. her usurpation and subsequent murder leads to the death of all dragons, a catastrophic consequence considering her parallels to the amethyst empress and the dire stakes at hand in regard to the second long night.

[quirinah]

they are having an argument over whether P=NP

[mythalism]

.

[leifyposting]

Rosaria is not usually this transparent.

She isn’t Barbara, who wears her heart on her sleeve, or Jean, who does not count lying among her many talents. She isn’t even Kaeya, whose intricate masks and careful dissembling only hold up as long as the wind doesn’t blow too hard.

Rosaria is impassive, unreadable, barely even there. She’s spent enough years learning how to let people’s eyes slide right off her. It turns out that you can wear fishnets and claw rings and people will still let themselves ignore you if you give them the right excuse.

But she has been drinking, tonight — not quite to the edge of tipsy, but close, right on the line where the lights are warmer and the wine is sweeter and the chatter of the bar patrons tips from grating to almost melodic.

And so maybe she lets her eyes linger, just a little, on the broad back and flaming hair of tonight’s bartender. 

No one would blame her if they caught the way her gaze flits over to him and away, one stolen glance every couple of minutes. Diluc cuts a dashing figure in his bartender’s uniform: all straight lines and stark contrasts, his red hair bright against the white of his vest. He carries himself with a quiet composure born of physical power and a bank vault full of cash. Half the people in this tavern have been ogling him all evening; she’s still not sure if he’s truly oblivious or willfully blind. 

As she watches, he slides a drink over to the Traveler at the end of the bar, waving away the offer of payment. He wipes down the counter with a practiced hand before tossing the cloth over his shoulder once more. Then he turns back, and Rosaria doesn’t look away quite quick enough to stop their gazes from catching and holding. 

Diluc’s gaze burns like the embers of a campfire, low and controlled, but with the promise of destruction unleashed. For a long second, he watches her watching him. 

Then he smiles. 

It’s a different smile from the confident one he gives her in the middle of the night when they’re on a manhunt, or the rueful shouldn’t-have-let-my-guard-down grin he sports when he’s taken an injury he should have been able to dodge. 

This smile is small, meant just for her: the corner of his mouth quirks up, boyish and almost shy, and for a moment Rosaria catches a glimpse of the young man who’d brought Mondstadt to its knees. 

He’s so godsdamned pretty it makes her throat tight. Despite her better judgement, Rosaria finds herself smiling back. 

She suppresses her smile as soon as she registers it — but Kaeya has always been too perceptive for his own good. 

“Playing with fire there, Rosaria,” he murmurs once Diluc turns away. He leans an elbow on the bar counter and fixes her with an unreadable smile. 

“What do you mean?” she asks evenly, taking a swig of her wine.

Kaeya looks unimpressed by her attempt at deflection. “Falling in love with him is a bad idea.”

“I’m not in love with him,” Rosaria says. She realizes too late that this too is a confession. She ought to have asked who he meant; she’s shown her hand too early.

“Sure,” Kaeya says, serious for once. “But you’re getting there.”

“Am not.”

He shakes his head at her. “I wouldn’t get too close, if I were you. He burns everything he touches.”

Kaeya was her first real friend in Mondstadt. She knows what Diluc did — in broad strokes, if not in detail. It definitely makes her a bad friend that she likes him anyway. 

Kaeya’s lone visible eye tracks Diluc’s movement as he weaves his way through the bar, clearing tables. “The thing is, he doesn’t mean to,” he says, his voice low and almost affectionate. “He tries so hard, you know? He’d try, if you asked him to.”

“I’m not asking him shit. There’s nothing going on between us.”

“He just always ends up destroying things anyways,” he continues as if she hadn’t spoken, his fingers tracing lines of frost on the condensation of his glass, his eye still fixed on the back of Diluc’s head. “It tears him apart, but good intentions don’t restore what’s been broken.”

He looks back at her. For a moment she thinks she sees wildfire flames licking at the deep blue of his visible eye, before they resolve into the gentle glow of the lamps that light the Angel’s Share. “I know you’re not going to listen to me,” he says, and smiles mirthlessly. “You can make your own decisions, of course. But be careful, alright? I’d hate to see you hurt in the course of protecting Mondstadt.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Rosaria knows it as soon as it leaves his lips. 

Because no matter how bad Diluc is, Rosaria is worse. Kaeya has forgotten that frost burns too. 

Diluc is a fine, upstanding citizen, the uncrowned king of Mondstadt. Rosaria is a scrappy orphan at the mercy of the Church. Diluc has a bent for justice and a mission to take care of the weak. Rosaria only knows revenge.

Kaeya forgets — or ignores, because he is a good friend, and he cares for her in his own way — that Rosaria deserves nothing but destruction and pain. Everything she has received from Mondstadt has been at the cost of its citizens. She owes a debt she can never repay; if she takes some injury in the course of protecting this country, it will simply be what she deserves. 

She lays a hand on Kaeya’s arm and watches him jolt. “Getting burned is part of the job.”

“Of protecting Mondstadt?” He sounds skeptical. “The nation has never asked that of you.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Someone’s gotta do it. Don’t act like you haven’t sacrificed for Mondstadt too.”

“Oh, I won’t pretend I haven’t,” he says lightly. “But I’m a hedonist, you know — I’ll always pick pleasure over pain.”

She laughs, opting not to call him on this obvious lie. “I guess that makes me a masochist, because I don’t care if I get hurt.” 

“I care,” he mutters, then sighs. “Look, you’re a grown-up. If you want to flirt with the sun, I won’t stop you. I just reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ when your wax wings go up in smoke.”

“I’ll be careful,” Rosaria promises. 

(Across the tavern, Diluc laughs at something Venti says, low and rolling and resonant. The eyes of half of Mondstadt follow the sound, and Rosaria has never been one to go with the crowd, but in this and this only—)

Kaeya rolls his eyes, shrugging her hand off his arm. “No, you won’t.”

“No,” she agrees, and grins. “I won’t.”

[the--firevenus]

That one world quest with cassadee where we try to help her realize that her idolization of merlin maybe not for who he is as a person, but rather what merlin represent.. Which is magic itself....

Anyways, take that concept and put it to when young mirael when she was still merlin student. In a sense, her adoration for merlin appear the same to cassadee idolization for merlin, and once merlin had said to young mirael; "are you sure you're adoring me for who I am or are you adoring merlin?" and for the longest time mirael was so sure what she likes about her mentor IS for who that person really is, not the title he carries, not what he represent as a whole. Merlin was mirael dearest and she so sure of that, so sure she looked for her mentor for 20 years...

Then she meet her dearest again, except... He's different. no longer the same person she remembers (and he doesn't remembers her)

So once again came in the question... Is it merlin she adore, or her dearest "mentor"?

[zetsubobu]

So what if I combined two mystery/angsty supernatural shows

So I handed lizzy a death note, let's see what she will do with it!

I honestly don't think she would use it unless it is to protect her loved ones and then after that it's mostly just her paranoid over getting potentially caught. Though I think it would lead to some good scenarios!

[longagoitwastuesday]

I keep thinking that this Gojo is just like Sukuna. I truly don't see much of a difference between them beyond the human/curse point of view

[daily-sloop-john-b]

I know we all love to say "fuck mystra" this and/or Gale's Folly (subtitled: How Could You Be Such A Callous Idiot)—but really, Gale and Mystra are primarily REALLY BAD at communicating. The whole issue started when Mystra a) couldn't provide a satisfying answer to Gale's desire for more, b) Gale decided that instead of being vulnerable and working through it, he'd do a Secret Project(TM), c) Gale didn't bother telling Mystra what said project was, and/or she only vaguely warned him off it. And then Gale rolled a nat 1 on his arcana check, and then a second nat 1 for insight b/c the DM was attempting to take mercy on him and was staring at Gale and the book, worrying 4d6 under the table while not breaking eye contact and saying, very slowly, "...are you sure?"

[not-poignant]

Thank you for writing Palmarosa! You write Astarion’s trauma so beautifully and I’m so excited to read more. For you, what is the most fun to write about for Palmarosa?

Hi anon!

I enjoy the interplay between Astarion and Raphael the most, but I have to be careful with it. Too much where Astarion and Raphael are getting along, and the tension fades and Raphael becomes just like... 'cute soft devil man' lol, and too little isn't good either.

But mostly I just enjoy writing them talking or spending time together, whether that's tense or fraught or calm or painful or terrifying or fun. Getting them both in a room together and forcing them to interact makes me happy :D