WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

[jkwleisemann]

The twist to this one: Part of what I'm curious with for this one is how various social stereotypes and ideas of power play into how your characters might react. So the same situation is going to be presented... but with several variants. I'm just curious as to how much difference there is in how people's characters react to each situation, so I'm not even going to glorify this bald-faced attempt to stretch the thread out with different scenario write-ups. Besides - it's almost bedtime, so I've gotta be quick. Sorry.

 

The Scenario: Your hero is approached in secret ID by the significant other of an acquaintance. Your hero knows this acquaintance pretty well (though whether it's in a good way or a bad way will vary depending on the Specifics). The Significant Other claims that they're being abused by the Acqaintance; they have hospital records detailing the physical damage, but it was always explained away in at least quasi-believable ways, so nothing ever came of it. They're scared (or too ashamed) to go to the authorities, so they've turned to your hero for help and advice on what to do.

 

Does your hero believe them?

 

And... What Would Your Character Do?

 

Now... The Specifics:

 

The different scenarios can be developed by taking the following descriptions and mixing them up.

 

The significant other is... either male or female. They are either acquainted to your character solely as Acquaintances Significant Other, as Friendly Non-Powered Individual, as a fellow member of your team (for the solos out there, a Friendly Powered Individual), or as a supervillain/enemy.

 

The acqaintance is... a member of the opposite (or, what the heck, the same, if it'd make a difference) sex, with similar connections to the character - Friendly Non-Powered Individual, Friendly Powered Individual, or Supervillain/Enemy.

 

Again, I'm hoping to see a few multiple takes for the same character... but we'll have to see. Do the Bonds of the Team give somebody the benefit of the doubt? Does being an enemy damn them from the moment Your Hero hears about this? And does gender (or orientation) play any role in it... if so, why?

 

Have fun, folks... and hope this isn't too gritty a subject to bring up, but given that we've had talks about heroes coerced into public sex with a megavillain before....

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

What a twist!

[jkwleisemann]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

Okay, so maybe I was a *little* off with the title... it was late, I'd had a long day, and wasn't up for thinking about it too hard.

 

Still, hopefully we can get some responses/conversation going on it....

 

And after all - as far as I know, it's one of the first WWYCD with the variables in there...?

 

rationalization>

[Metaphysician]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

I'd reply, except I can't make heads or tails of your scenario conditions.

[jkwleisemann]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

Okay... let's try and spell this out a bit more clearly (and make a note not to write these things right before bed again....)

 

The base scenario is pretty clear, I think (though, perhaps, I should clarify by stating that the aggressor denies the allegations. Can't necessarily be read into it.)

 

The *details* of the scenario vary from one setup to the next, in who the victim and who the aggressor is. Making it clearer, yet as short as I can….

 

Would it make any difference if the victim was male or female? If the alleged abuser was?

 

Would it make a difference if the victim or abuser was somebody the character didn't know very well, was a non-powered individual the hero knows, was a powered enemy (or, more accurately, a combat-worthy enemy, instead of a normal), or was an ally of the hero's?

 

In particular, would it make a difference if the victim was powered, and the alleged abuser wasn't? If the person making the accusations was somebody your hero routinely trusts with his/her life… or if it was somebody s/he'd normally be fighting with?

 

Would powerset matter (i.e., if one or the other was powered, and was a brick, while the other person wasn't?)

 

Does that make it any clearer? At least a *little* clearer than mud?

[Zed-F]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

Soulbarb might commiserate, depending on how charitable she's feeling toward the individual in question. Whether she does or not, though, she'll try to get as much detail as she can out of the alleged victim. Getting his or her side of the story nailed down up front will be important to figuring out whether that's actually what's happening here.

 

She would not take an accusation of that nature at face value, pretty much no matter who'd said it, and especially not if she was considering doing something about it. She's got the soul of a detective -- first thing she would do is check for corroborating evidence. In a world with supers, there's any number of ways in which there could be more to this situation than meets the eye. If she found evidence that someone was being mistreated (either the alleged victim or the alleged abuser) then she would act to get that person arrested (if the wronged party would be willing to press charges) or socially humiliated by exposing their conduct (if not.)

 

Sylph is much more trusting and compassionate. The first thing she would do is provide any physical healing that was necessary. Next she would probably want to get all parties involved together to talk things out and see where things are going wrong. While she has no training as a relationship counselor, and is as likely to screw up in that capacity as she is to do good, she's at least earnest and sincere in wanting to make sure everything turns out for the best, which might help.

 

In either case, gender, powerset, or anything else doesn't really enter into the picture. Soulbarb is too cautious about jumping to conclusions to allow herself to be prejudiced one way or another, whereas Sylph is too open and trusting to want to believe the worst of anyone until she witnesses the truth of it firsthand.

[Metaphysician]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

Part of the problem with this scenario, as I understand it, is that for alot of super teams, there is no member of the team for whom its even vaguely conceivable they'd engage in spousal abuse. Which means, whoever the accuser and whichever their gender, first thought is either "plant" or "mind control."

[Captain Xenon]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

doppleganger check. this should be one of the first things in the safety manual, for both abused and abuser. i agree first response in a supers setting 'is this for real?' does create a small detachment from reality.

 

a sneaky GM will distract the hero to location X, while a doppleganger goes to abuse the spouse.. or worse yet, seduce the hero into an affair, while the doppleganger does the abuse.

 

aside from that... first get them to therapy, and (if they will finaly report it) get them to the authorities to make a statement. then go sit down with the abuser, have a talk, and get THEM to therapy. keep an eye on things, as this will be when most villians attack.

 

the real challenge of this scenario, will be from media attention. i can imagine a tabloid headline 'Hero abuses gay lover'.

[jkwleisemann]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

Heck, the tabloids might go ahead and say that without justification.

 

At any rate... kinda the sort of thing I expected. Though would the "is this the real person" first response still apply if, say, it was Scorpia, Bulldozer, or Thunderbolt being accused? That was the sort of differences and such I was trying to aim for; on both sides of the relationship, rather than just on the vic's. If the average superhero is accused, folks might well suspect that Masquerade's up to something... but if your average supervillain is instead?

[Clonus]

Re: WWYCD - with a twist!: Imbalance of Power

 

All right.

 

Hellfire:

 

A Team Mate: Hellfire is suspicious. She'll suspect that a villain is trying to turn the team against each other. She'll gather the entire team together to try to figure out which villain and how, which will require the accused hero to go over exactly what happened on the occasions when the S.O. was injured.

 

An NPC Hero: Hellfire trusts her team. She doesn't trust outsiders that much. She'll recommend that the S.O. break up with the hero and offer to hide the S.O. Then once she's hidden the S.O., she'll make sure that the hero knows that Mary is involved her disappearance. If the hero gets violent with Mary to try to make her give up the S.O. she'll take that as complete confirmation, flame on and put him in a world of hurt.

 

A Villain: She'll take the S.O.'s story at face value, ask the S.O. where the villain is, and go pound him for being a villain.