this is going to become a mini galladay manifesto but for me there is a certain balancing act in gallagher that i find really appealing--the push-and-pull of two people with too many things at stake who are so used (too used) to putting on an act, to being in control. two people trying to tear down the other's picture-perfect masks and in the process exposing unexpected glimpses of the 'real' them that they have otherwise buried. the violence they inflict on one another both through words and through actions in lieu of tenderness, with themselves as a collateral. the struggle for dominance and the blurring thereof--who is the one holding the leash? who is the one being undone?

the primary reason i dislike Sadistic Dom Daddy Top(tm) is that in many media featuring this trope, the character is paired with a woobified bottom, all teary-eyed softness and simpering platitudes. it's like watching someone punch a tofu, there is nothing i find enjoyable in that. it doesn't help that a lot of times the Sadistic Dom Daddy Top(tm) only seems to exist as a tool to make the audience coo over the whumped bottom. it's like that sexy lamp test wherein if you can take the female character out of a media, replace her with a sexy lamp, and the plot still works, then that female character isn't well-written enough to be relevant to the story. if i want the audience to coo over the bottom suffering at the hand of another, Mob Ojisans(tm) exist as a plot device lol

but anyway. while it's true that a lot of galladay fancreations are grittier and often feature D/s or humiliation elements--in most of them, the push-and-pull is still there. even on his knees sunday doesn't break.

we see this in canon too, in their dialogues the way sunday stood perfectly poised and gallagher lounged casually in that one cutscene of them together. they are both in their elements, two different but equally powerful forces. i love mindfuckery and powerplay, i love seeing characters come undone at the hand of another, i love barbed banters filled with doublespeak and thinly-veiled threats. i love unhealthy obsessions manifesting in mutual acts of cruelty. galladay has those elements in spades, and then some.

the way i see it is--gallagher and sunday are both liars playing their roles to perfection. it is only with each other that they can be true to themselves, if only to some small degree, if only by force. they inflict violence on one another expecting--desiring--a retaliation. i'd like to think that they both need that, these small moments of ugly honesty. they won't admit it out loud, won't be gentle about it, won't even be gentle to themselves, but in these moments they can allow their mask to slip and blame the other for it, and isn't that what love is about?