#morality deconstruction

[trappedinafantasy37]

Your chest is heavy with breath as the battle rages all around you. You take your mace and bash through every enemy that dares get in your way. They stand to threaten everything that is important to you. You cannot let them succeed, you cannot let them get away with it, you cannot let a single one of them live for they are wrong. They are a stain, a plague that needs to be eradicated.

You push further into their sanctuary, destroying anyone and anything that you can find. You do not hold back and you show no restraint and no mercy. You laugh at their measly and pathetic attempts to fight back. They stand no chance against you and your might. Do they not recognize how much better you are than them? They fail to see what such abhorrent trash they are, and you are here to make a demonstration.

It took a lot of energy and there were a few close calls. But all those who would have stood against you lie cold on the ground. You take a deep breath, appreciating the sweet and metallic smell of blood. You won, they did not. You walk around, inspecting the corpses, looting all you can find for the spoils are now yours to take.

You wander into an isolated corner to a body whose arm leans over a ledge. This corpse piques your curiosity as it is a fish out of water. It doesn't belong up here. How did this one get wrapped up in something so vile? But, then again, maybe that's just her base instincts as murder and carnage are all that drow are known for. And look at her now. Dead, cold and alone, left to be remembered by no one. Her hand reaches down over the ledge to a home she can never return to. You loot her corpse of everything, being sure to leave her naked and bare so you can belittle and humiliate her even in death. Because that's what good and honorable people do! It's what she deserves anyway. Someone as evil, and vile, and horrible as her doesn't deserve respect, not even in death.

Her blood, along with who knows how many goblins, soak through the skin of your hands and drips off your mace. Gore, bone, and brain matter decorate the metal plate of your armor and tangle in your hair. Corpse after corpse is left in your wake. The decorative stone of the temple once held sacred now runs with the river of blood you spilled.

How many lie dead thanks to you and your allies? You have killed far more in this goblin camp than that drow ever would have if she found the grove. Goblins, bugbears, ogres, a drow, a hobgoblin, a few lost humans, and even children, all dead by your order. And they all deserved it a thousand fold because they are all wrong, and evil, and your world has no place for them. It does not matter if they ever actually would have been a threat to the grove. No, their mere existence in proximity to good people is threat enough. And you are a good person and you only do good things. And that is exactly what you did by killing them all.

You return home to celebrate and inform the tieflings of the good news. You talk, you laugh, you dance, you sing, you drink, you fuck. You did a good thing today. A heroic thing. You committed a massacre, a genocide. But that's acceptable because you are a good person and you only do good things. They would have otherwise done it to you. But, they are wrong as they did not have a good reason, at least not one that you could find. You did, and thus this massacre, and only your massacre, is justified.

And you continue on your journey. You learn more about this Absolute and the nature of these 'True Souls'. You think back to the fight at that goblin camp and the three True Souls you killed. They were just brainwashed, forced against their will to commit horrendous atrocities. Atrocities that you might have been forced to do yourself had you not been so lucky. You shake your head, removing all semblance of doubt and sympathy. The reality does not change a thing. They were an active threat and they deserved to die and be denied chance at redemption. As far as you are concerned, drow and goblins are just born evil and should be killed on sight. None of them deserved to live. You had to punish them for what they might do, rather than what they actually do. True Soul or not, that drow would have been a threat to you and anyone who breathes. Even if you knew before hand the full scope of her situation, you would have made the same choice because she is evil, and you are not because you only make the good choices.

You slaughter and kill your way to Baldur's Gate, leaving behind bloody footprints with every step you take. You have paved a path of corpses in the name of this crusade. You have killed, lied, stolen, manipulated, cheated, and exploited all to claim your victory and force your principles onto the world because you are good and the only one who is correct and knows what's best, and thus your actions are good. You intend well. You want to save the world and help people. You want to snuff out all evil. And sometimes being good means killing.

But, in the end, you always end up doing all the same things that the bad guys would do, making all the same actions that lead to the same outcome. And that outcome often is death and carnage. The only thing that separates you from them is your intentions and your perception of those intentions. And all those who disagree will die by your hand because your morality will not be questioned, as those who question you must be evil because you are good.

You stand atop a mountain of corpses, happy and proud of your deeds because you did the right thing. The smell of rot and decay spirals around you as you stand amongst the dead, erecting yourself as a pillar of honor and integrity. There is a growing list of names that have been permanently removed from the world by your hand, amongst them is a genocidal lunatic, a lunatic who never would have killed as many people as you have.

You are a good person. A hero. And yet, your hands are just as bloody as all those you killed, those you claim to be evil.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

re: sympathetic ganondorf vs evil for evil’s sake ganondorf, i think this is misrepresenting and underselling what’s actually offputting to people

“i’m evil because i’m evil” or “i’m evil because demise is evil” and the associated lust for power simply for its own sake has always been lame and low effort. there’s a reason it’s “shit tier” on the classic “villain motive tiers” thing

“i’m evil but there’s enough nuance to make the player at least somewhat sympathetic to me even if i’m still ultimately a bad guy” is a good thing that people like? i’ve never personally interacted with a zelda player who thinks windwaker ganondorf ruined the character or anything - he’s generally regarded as the gold standard of villain writing both in and out of zelda. this is roughly “high tier” on the tier chart

“actually TWIST i’m not evil at all, it’s the good guys who were evil all along, i’ve done nothing wrong and i’m completely justified in my righteous quest against the status quo, you’re the real secret true villain for being complicit in preserving it” is technically regarded as “elder god tier” on the motive tier chart but i would personally label it as “oscar bait tier”. these things *can* be compelling in conversation with the existing landscape, but often it comes across as a deliberate effort to subvert the audience’s expectations for the sake of being unpredictable (or worse, for the sake of proving you’re the smartest one in the room). in separate works where this conversation/critique is the entire point (eg. Watchmen or The Boys), that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and the audience sets their expectations accordingly. in an established, long-running franchise, however, this almost always reads as dripping with contempt for the audience, like walking into a room and going “you morons like this shit? let me, a person much smarter than you, explain what it’s Actually about, because you’re an idiot if you’ve been a fan of this series before now”

on top of that, in the context of a series like zelda, this type of story feels myopic and disrespectful to the future of the series. “welp i burned down the 20+ years of lore behind this character so i could do a deconstruction, good luck using them in any capacity in the future, sounds like a you problem”

all this is to say, i think it’s a bit disingenuous/strawman-y to suggest that people put off by this want ganondorf to have 0 depth at all. there’s a lot of room for different kinds of depth, it’s just that the trend of the last decade has been for “depth” to mean “condescending deconstruction”

Hey!

Thanks for taking the time to write this ask, I think it warrants an interesting conversation. To me, there's like, a lot of things about what you're saying, and tbh I do see where you're coming from --in part.

First thing first... No yeah unfortunately some people Are hostile to even WW Ganondorf. It's been a rising trend in the fandom since TotK was released --people being very against the concept of any additional complexity to the character, either not getting it or considering anything he says pure manipulation that doesn't even warrant a conversation, literally making fun of people who were intrigued by this and wanting more out of this particular thread. This position not only absolutely exists within the fandom --less so on tumblr, I'll agree there-- but it's not even hard to stumble upon as a pretty regular opinion that gets tossed around. I had some interesting asks thrown my way, let's say. The idea that Ganondorf is a remotely interesting character that deserves more thought than what he gets is very much Extremely not the norm, and the very fact that you, as a fan, likes him as a guy is perceived as weird and missing the point by a lot of people. Like a lot a lot of people.

So I'll just... I guess I haven't clarified my position in a while, so I will reclarify my position on our favorite evil dude: I do like him perfectly fine as a villain, I do not want him to be "redeemed" by the narrative, I think he works fantastically as an ongoing threat, I think they could make him even scarier and more offputting and that would be super fun and thrilling... and I also think he already is complex. Like, inherently. Everything Nintendo has been putting into him since his first appearance is complicated --even their attempts at flattening him back in TotK do not fully work because they can't scrub him of the extremely loaded ideas they injected into him from the get-go. Nobody forced Nintendo to do a Mega Orientalism when inventing him, nobody made them write the NPCs to have this super weird antagonistic relationship to the gerudos in OoT, nobody made them have all this lore of the one man born every hundred years, raised by twin witches --and then nobody made them press on that tension point in Wind Waker explicitely, and then, in a more subtle fashion, in TP too. Nobody forced their hand when it came to having the strange "round ear" situation, suggesting (confirmed even, in additional canon) gerudos are born unblessed. The fact of the matter is: everything to make the relationship between Hyrule and the gerudos complicated has been there since 1998. There's no need for a Switcharoo to prove that anyone is smarter than the audience: everything messy has always been baked within the worldbuilding itself. It's in the cartridges already!!

Perspective on it is what could change, though --because, except in Wind Waker, we never get even a hint of a sense that we should think, as an audience, that Hyrule's super weird relationship to the gerudos is maybe questionable. Worth thinking about at least. Which, given the optics, is wild to me that to bring this particular can of worms up is still very largely considered crazy talk within the fandom (that, or the Sheikah situation across the series, also insane in many ways). And yes, it would perhaps lead to themes that are a bit heavier than what Zelda has been overtly dealing with (though, again, Majora's Mask exists --and I do find a lot of unpacked ideas in the Wild Era, like the very unquestionned gerudo bridal pipeline, very uhhh unfortunate already if I'm being honest --even moreso because it is unquestioned). But Zelda, when well handled narratively, can do wonderful things with evocative subtext, open doors never fully crossed, a lynchian pressure on what should feel offputting. We don't even need a sad monologue about it. It doesn't even need to be handled explicitely. But I think the pressure point is just better when understood and incorporated in some form, instead of being denied so hard the world itself start to feel incomplete and unlived.

I do want to say... I get what you mean with the whole "oscar bait" thing. There has been, historically and in recent years, a tendency to be driven by an external, almost panicked sense of morality rather than by the internal drive of a story, its internal thematic logic. I also do think it can feel very corporate, very "Disney looking back at its own movies and scrubbing off everything Buzzfeed deemed problematic in 2014 while making everything glossy and lifeless and awful" and it's not that great!!! and tbh I can't say I would trust Nintendo to handle any appreciation for the fact that the story of an eternal golden kingdom cheering on beating the evil outsiders who want to corrupt everything good and pure and blonde about that perfect inherently good place, is like, extremely not neutral. It absolutely is a delicate thread to weave, and I agree that putting a definitive end to Hyrule is probably not the smartest IP move to do. But, Hyrule doesn't have to be condemned as Bad, it can be merely complicated. And ongoing, regardless. To keep on with the Disney parallel: The Lion King would feel weird if we started to peel off the internal politics of the hyenas, it's just not the right place for it, when everything about this story revolves around the Righteousness of the Divine Right to Rule. But if the Lion King was an ongoing series that had been looping on itself for a while... wouldn't it make sense to figure out how to achieve majesty by studying other angles too, eventually? Is it that strange to suggest the exercise is like, possible? That it can be handled with artistry and soul?

I feel like... Yes, to acknowledge Ganondorf's humanity --not even to coddle it, just to acknowledge it-- implies taking in everything that makes him who he is, and that might rattle some foundational ideas about why this ancestral fight is even happening in the first place. I also do not think it means that he must be Good now. He can still punch a child and cackle maniacally, he can still be unredeemable --he can still destroy himself and others out of the most unconstructive spite ever, and we can still see the purpose in defeating him while basking in the "yea....." left in his wake (Wind Waker did that!!! Wind Waker did that and then we had more Zelda games!! crazy how that happened). This is hardly undoable. It does take some narrative skill, and some commitment to taking a bit of a risk, but Ganondorf is genuinely unmanageable as a character if you insist on your refusal to acknowledge his foundations --and I think it's partially why TotK's story is such a mess. He sells a TON, but you can't have him breathe slightly too loud without risking the entire world falling apart. They did try in TotK, so very hard, and to me they still failed--as insane as he behaves, Hyrule still doesn't come out of this looking good or particularly justified, because the very central core of Ganondorf's character is to be subjugated, and then rebelling in a destructive and brutally selfish, uncompromising manner that ends up robbing him of humanity --and the discomfort of that premise will therefore always haunt the conversation. Nintendo dug themselves into that mess. I feel like a lot of the Ganondorf fans I know merely... point at that. At the mess. And I feel like the longer the games avoid this mess, the more coats of spinach green they slather ontop of his skin, and the more nonsensical characterization they pile up, and the more Ganondorf will become a parody of who he once was, and what made him compelling to begin with.

And to top it all off, as if he wasn't contentious and complicated enough to handle already, they leaned into the internet turning him into a sex symbol for some fucking reason??? Yeah I genuinely have no idea how Nintendo will manage this dude moving forward, because to me, he is, at best, an endless source of (very lucrative) headaches, and at worst a ticking time bomb. I'm not sure how long they can get away with that TotKification strategy, is what I mean.

(Also: I tried to not overdwell on all the incredibly complicated conversation re: race and orientalism, but it's borderline impossible to have this conversation without acknowledging that I have never seen a major pop culture villain receive more pushback against "woobification" than him, and I don't think it's a complete coincidence let's say :) )

[0alix0]

they shtupid :3

[stuck-in-jelly]

Obsessed with how Claudia and Soren view magic.

Claudia views magic as something amazing and special, even dark magic despite having to ‘harvest’ from living creatures in order to use it. Because in the end how could something that helps her friends and family be bad? How could something that saved an entire kingdom from starvation be evil?

Soren meanwhile doesn’t care about dark magic vs primal magic. In his eyes Dark magic can be used for immense good just as much as Primal magic can be used for horrific evils. At the end of the day all magic has ever done is divide people and cause years of suffering.

But they are both such hypocrites (affectionate).

Claudia views dark magic as a gift, something to take pride in having. But when she is finally broken down she reflects back she feels disgusted at herself for viewing living creatures as parts. Then when pushed into a dangerous situation she cried out “Don’t make me! Don’t make me do dark magic!”

Soren believes the world would be better without magic at all. Yet he turned to it, he looked his father in his eyes and said “You have your other way! Dark magic.” Not caring that Viren explained the original spell was a primal spell and the new spell would require a terrible sacrifice.

[raayllum]

accidentally found s7 discourse and forgot how often fandoms act like "this plot beat didn't Happen to fruition" is the same as "this character didn't make a Choice"

[apostateoverrubies]

Did anyone else think of Moral Orel when this Sin of Empathy crap started?

Because this deadass sounds like something Clay would say. Hell, I'm pretty sure he did say something along those lines in the episode where we're introduced to Stephanie.

[ghostzzy]

i don't know if this is a universal phenomenon or if this is just specific to me and my issues. but. let me know.

i have a lot of Conditions. Afflictions. Disorders, if you will. and i did not know this about myself until adulthood. i had symptoms, of course, but most of them were subtle enough or strange enough that it went under the radar, undiagnosed.

and for me, that was like trying to live in a house where half the rooms are dark; no windows, no lights. some of the dark rooms are important -- hallways, bathrooms -- so you get rly good at just carefully shuffling through them in the dark so you don't stub your toe. you can function in this house -- it's inconvenient, but you function. sometimes you trip and hurt yourself, and when you do, everyone is just like 'god, why don't you just turn on the lightswitch or open the window, it's sooo much easier to live in a house if you have the lights on,' and it's like, yeah, it would be easier, but i don't have a lightswitch. i don't have a window.

so you make do in the dark.

and there are some dark rooms you can just avoid entirely. there are bedroom doors you haven't opened in years, because there's no point -- there's nothing in there you need, and you can't see in there anyway, and every time you tried to go in, you stepped on nail, or bumped your head really hard on a shelf, or there's creepy skittering in the back corners, and it's just.. not worth it.

but then you learn about your Conditions. Afflictions. Disorders. you learn they have names, and other people experience the same things you do. and there are even tools that can make your life easier!

and that's like being handed a flashlight. you've got a way to navigate without hurting yourself, now. you can walk around without tripping on shit! thank god!

but then you have a choice. because you've got the tools now, right. you've got the flashlight. you can go check out those bedrooms you never opened. maybe there's stuff in there that could help -- maybe there's lamps! that'd be so helpful! lamps are even better than a flashlight!

but like. you don't have to explore the rooms. you can be content with your flashlight, and the improved ease with which you can navigate your other dark rooms. but god, there's a weird smell coming from one of the bedrooms. and it's unpleasant every time you walk by it. and eventually curiosity or concern gets the best of you.

so you take your flashlight and you go in the room. and there's lamps in there, which is great!!

but, it also turns out there's been a leak going in there for 15 years. and the floor is totally rotted.

so now there's this fucking leak! and because you know there's a leak, you start to notice the water damage in the adjacent rooms. you've never even thought to look so closely before, but in the corners, goddamn, there's water stains.

so then you have to find a contracting crew. and hire them. and pay them. and they have to tear the floors out of multiple rooms because it's unsafe. and they have to tear down half the walls in the house because they're full of mold. so they do. they pull out the floor. and they knock down the walls. and not only that, but they track dirt through rooms that were spotless before; they get dust fucking everywhere. and it's so loud. and it's taking days. and weeks. and eventually you can't even stay in the house anymore -- you have to go stay in a motel while they finish the construction.

and now the whole house is a fucking mess! and fat lot of good the lamps do when you can't even live in the house to use them! and you hate this fucking leak and you wish you never found it because now your house isn't even functional anymore and you feel like shit. it's fucking with your life.

the leak wasn't even bothering you before. it was hidden away in a room you never used. now it's your entire savings account and your whole fucking month.

and maybe it never would've even caused a real structural issue! maybe the foundation would've held for another 30 years. and wouldn't that've been easier? if you'd never taken your stupid flashlight into that stupid room and uncovered all the fucking problems that were hiding in there? you didn't even need the lamps. you could've just kept using your flashlight.

but the flashlight batteries would've eventually run out.

and then you'd be back in the dark. stumbling again.

and if you'd never been given the flashlight, if you'd never been brave enough to check the room -- you'd still be breathing the mold. unknowingly. for the rest of your life.

[smile-files]

thinking about henry ledore from this strange meta lens is fascinating. a long ramble follows...

henry's function in the story is to be 1. hated and 2. undeserving of it. he is given the noblest possible motives, ones only deemed as such because they are so self-effacing and self-dehumanizing. the accusations of harming others contrast so starkly against the truth because that truth is the willingness to constantly harm himself, a harm which he - and the game, in an implicit way - deems blameless. his actions are incredibly damaging, but he is declared a good person in the end because we realize those actions damage him and nobody else. he is the servant granted kindness. whether intentionally or not, the story doesn't treat him as inherently deserving of that kindness: the story treats it as mercy he needs to repay. and he does. he abandons his own life for it. and his repayment is what makes him a good person. we hate him because we think he's selfish. we hate him because we think he took what he was given and stole everything else. we hate him because we spend most of the game being deprived of practically any humanizing quality he possesses. any such quality we are given tells of his selflessness. his humbleness. his diligence. his anxiety. anything that proves him unselfish is to some extent a result of his dichotomizing refusal to be selfish. he himself thinks it is mercy to be repaid. the justification for his entire existence over the past 18 years is that brief moment from his childhood. it is a toy. it is a gift. it isn't something he was going to have implicitly, but because it was given to him, he now has the opportunity to make himself a martyr by killing himself to prove himself worthy of it, by making himself a biblical job. we learn this at the last possible moment. we have to hate him until it's nearly too late so his suffering can reach its peak and make him all the more noble for enduring it. the game hides his heart as much as he does. he is made to be the perfect suspect. "the butler did it." his quiet obedience in adolescence, his inhumanness, is precisely what makes him seem suspicious: how could anybody not chafe at such servitude? surely he harbors hatred and greed which, even if they are righteous, would fester into something disproportionately violent. his "goodness" is impossible, and, as it is coupled with a secretive personality, he comes off from the start as potentially vengeful and dangerous. his merit comes from doing the impossible. for being as "good" as his actions would suggest, for being loyal to his master in a way nobody could possibly be. he is so laudable only because he should be evil. he is so laudable only because we had to be proven wrong for hating him. and, through personality and presentation, he can barely push back against the vitriol he receives during the game: he has to be bad at defending himself, so the weight of suspicion is all the heavier, so we pity him all the more for having suffered it. we then must cry, if only we'd known! he exists to let himself be broken, to receive apologies that he will rescind. by setting him up as the perfect villain, the game makes him the perfect victim.

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

Why is my mom asking if I've read Worm?

[deconstructing-klance]

The Hypocrisy of the Klance & Plance Age Differences

I'm a Plance shipper. I think Lance and Pidge are perfect together. I'll get into that a different day, though.

The main gripe I hear from Klance shippers about how Plance is "creepy" and "doesn't work" is because there's a 3 year age difference between the two.

Alright then, let's look at ages.

The VLD timeline is convoluted at best. I literally spent about 3 hours one night trying to figure out the timeline and eventually came to one that I think works out pretty well. A HUGE shoutout goes to Greg Tyler who wrote several blog articles about this confusing conundrum.

The ages of the Paladins when they leave in the Blue Lion:

Keith - 18

Hunk - 17

***This is where I demonstrate someone can have their own head canon but still respect canon when it comes to official VLD issues. I personally believe his age is really 18. Hunk is listed as being 17 with his birthday is in January. Due to Hunk's looks, size, and maturity, I don't think the year they left in the Blue Lion he turned from 16 to 17. I think he turned from 17 to 18. So in the VLD fan stuff I create, Hunk is older than Lance, not younger. But we'll go with what the creators said and also because Hunk's age is 17 in the guidebook.***

Lance - 17

Pidge - 15

***Pidge's age has been disputed over the years, with some incorrectly saying she's 14. The guidebook states she is 15. I think some of the misinformation is spread so people can look down on the Plance shipping.***

To keep the mathing simple, let's assume Keith was born in the year 2300. Birthdays will be thus:

Again, the year is arbitrary to make mathing easier. I still can't figure out what year VLD takes place.

In S1 E1, there's a calendar on the wall in Keith's shack that has the number 2 on it. Assuming Keith kept up with his calendar, we know the Paladins left in the Blue Lion on the 2nd.

Picture courtesy of Violet the Howler

I go with Greg's timeline, because he's pretty much a Voltron scholar of all the different Voltron branches. Greg worked out that the Paladins left in May, which looks accurate from the scenery.

Note: I live in the desert, and yes, there is a difference between Spring and Fall. The sun light in S1 E1 looks much more like Spring light than Fall light.

So, the Paladins and Shiro left Earth in the Blue Lion on May 2nd, 2319.

Seasons 1-6 take place roughly throughout the rest of 2319 and I believe into 2320.

This is where things get complicated.

By December of 2319, these are the Paladins' ages:

Going along with the timeline, Keith does his two year age jump in the Quantum Abyss sometime in the first half of 2320.

So, the first half of 2320, the ages are:

And at the end of 2320, the ages are:

Take a good, long look at those ages for the second half of 2320.

Most people will be hung up on the fact that Lance is 19 and Pidge is 16. It's a 3 year age difference.

But what is Keith's age minus Lance's age? 22-19?

3 years.

Let's repeat that.

22-19 = 3.

Keith is 3 years older than Lance due to his two year jump in the Quantum Abyss.

Now before y'all come at me, finish reading the entire post.

Pidge and Lance are only 2 years apart for roughly 3.5 months, from April - July.

Lance and Keith are only 2 years apart for roughly 3 months, from July - October.

Thus, because of Keith's time jump, Lance and Keith are as far apart in age as Lance and Pidge.

Actually ... Pidge and Lance are technically closer in age by roughly two weeks.

"But 22 and 19 are better than 19 and 16 because 22 and 19 are adults!" I can just hear some of y'all screaming this at the computer.

Here's a fun little fact:

Just because someone is 18 and a legal adult does not necessarily mean it is okay for them to date another legal adult.

Someone at 19 can still be in a very predatory relationship with someone who is 22.

Klancers who are saying that their ship is more "moral" are just wrong.

It's not more moral. Either Klancers don't know how to math or they're willing to look the other way when it comes to what they want.

And before my words are twisted and taken out of context, I'm not saying Keith and Lance would have a predatory relationship. But the logic that their three year age gap is better than Lance and Pidge's because it's "more moral" doesn't hold any ground and is flawed.

Do Klancers honestly think a story with a 23 year old Pidge and 26 year old Lance is worse than a 23 year old Lance and 26 year old Keith?

Make it make sense.

If Pidge having a crush on Lance when she's 15 and he's 17 and then turns 18 is bad, then no one should have celebrity crushes - or just crushes in general. Ever. Until they're at least 21.

Do you really think a 19 year old Lance would date a 16 year old? I don't think so. Where are your morals if you think Lance would do that? And, quite frankly, neither of them are ready to date at the end of the series (before we get the 5 year in the future photo). Lance is still mourning the loss of Allura and Pidge is focused on improving the Garrison.

Not to mention all of the trauma and therapy everyone needs to go through. They need time to process and work on themselves. But I can see a Pidge and Lance in their 20s connecting with each other. They're a perfect balance of each other.

But, again, that's another post for another day. Don't worry - it's coming.

Right now, though, I'm gonna go water some Plance - I mean, plants.

[mystxmomo]

Ilphaer with the trolley problem emoji please lmao 😭🙏🏻

🚆 TRAIN - what is their answer to the trolley problem?

She is 100% killing 5 random and innocent people to save the 1 person she actually loves. Dare I say. One of the core components of her story is that. One of the reasons she could not bring herself to stay in Eilistraee's church is, in fact that even at her kindest and most approachable, she has a layer of apathy that is: "I'm sorry, I really cannot bring myself to be assed about the wellfare of people that I don't know."

But just leaving this at that would be a little boring. So, to peel away some of the character. Most of this is a cultural/nurture thing. When she left lolth for the first time, she was hit with the cognitive dissonance of "Oh. I'm actually very lonely here and don't like seeing the people I like hurt," and I think it was easier for her to focus that attention on "People who have already done me a kindness" than it was "People as a whole."

And she struggles with this with Vhaeraun's church. His church does attract a lot of.... The type of personality that it does, and she is absolutely dragging her feet when it comes to working with them because she really doesn't like them. Like, she's doing it. But if she's already struggling to work with them, then she's extra struggling on the wider community elements.

Now. Worth saying, I don't think Ilphaer is someone who is going out of her WAY to cause harm. And I think she generally gives a layer of respect to people that the people around her do not. But she strikes me as someone who's both incredibly protective of the people she's put in her life, and who has never fully deconstructed how desensitized growing up in lolths church made her to violence and tragedy as a whole. It was always going to be easier to prioritize the lives of people she put in her own life then it was the people drow alienate and other. She looks at a corpse on a battlefield and if she doesn't know the person her response isn't grief, it's just apathy.

[lord-squiggletits]

Also I'm just gonna say that even if it were true that Rodimus was a """""true Prime"""" and Optimus wasn't, that isn't as much of an L for Optimus as people seemingly want it to be.

Like so you're telling me Optimus was never a chosen hero and the burden of the Matrix/leadership pained him morally, emotionally, and physically, yet he still survived 4 million years of war?

You're telling me he wasn't God's Designated Special Boy but he still tried his best to live up to that impossible ideal to the point of developing serious depression and suicidal ideation as a result of so much goddamn loneliness and self-doubt?

Optimus wasn't a "true Prime" and yet he still believed in ideals of reconciliation and ending the cycle of violence? He wasn't a true Prime but he still stayed on Cybertron trying to fix a broken, broken society while also trying to stop Earth from being invaded for a second time? He didn't even need to do that he could've just stayed in exile which he was originally supposed to do all along, and which he would've personally preferred?? You're telling me that Optimus wasn't Primus' Specialest Boy And Chosen Leader and yet he stepped into leadership anyways bc he perceived that there was injustice to be fixed??

Wow yeah I guess Optimus is just such an inferior leader, clearly his actual actions/moral character as person don't matter and his "worthiness" should be judged solely on whether the Magic Cybertronian 8 Ball liked him or not.

[creampuffqueen]

comment section on a post about shaving missed the point so hard it made me rant in my notes app for like 30 minutes. doubtful i’ll post the whole thing because it’s barely coherent but i do think i was spitting bars with the conclusion 😎

[amethyst-halo]

survivalist debate between branch viva clay and john dory while bruce floyd and poppy are off to the side sipping drinks and watching in mild horror and fascination

[artlyloser]

the 2000s kid urge to just rant to a camera about the things I'm currently obsessed with

[automatisma]

Fascinated by the fact that the ending of Watchmen operates on the exact kind of silly and naive political logic of fucking Code Geass and it got away with it too. I mean, Code Geass also got away with it but I feel there's more people now willing to admit it was a bit dogshit.