thetectecman

[localcryptideli]

.

[chirpsythismorning]

Can we talk about how Jonathan might've been able to clock Mike simply because of what happened with him and Nancy in season two?

This will be a long post, so you might want to strap in or save it for later.

In Will and Mike's case, it would obviously be much different from Jonathan and Nancy's situation, given that you know, they're gay. But we still have Jonathan arguably going through a similar experience as Will, while Mike is going through a similar experience as Nancy.

In s2, we see Nancy confront Jonathan about how she waited for him before getting back with Steve, which is a revelation to him. Then they're at Murray's and she's struggling to say she loves Steve, after a handful of moments between them that felt like she might return Jonathan’s feelings. And you can clearly see it in his eyes, listening to Murray imply that they have feelings for each other, with him looking back and forth sort of in awe of what's happening, like he's starting to question if she might actually like him back.

Will doesn't have that same affordance as Jonathan to really hope, at least not anymore. Which is why these relationships in s2 and s4 end differently for these two brothers.

Based on all the signs he was seeing that Nancy felt the same, Jonathan decided to take the plunge to admit to Nancy how he felt, and at that same moment Nancy had the courage to show how she felt. In Will and Mike's case, Will wasn't ready to take the plunge to admit to Mike how he felt, at the same moment Mike didn't have the courage to show how he felt.

What's so painfully hilarious to me about all of this though, is that Jonathan arguably starts the season in the same shoes as most of the audience, where from his perspective, it's becoming obvious to him now that Will like's Mike, but that Mike does not feel the same way.

First at Rink-O-Mania, Mike appears a little uncomfortable upon hugging Will. Then as the happy couple continues on their adventure into Rink-O-Mania, he watches Will lagging behind moping. And then unfortunately he's out of commission for the rest of the evening...

But once he's sober and back to being an attentive brother the following morning, we see him watching them at breakfast, with Mike barely sparing Will a glance, all while Will is blatantly staring, almost like he's waiting for Mike to look back, only for Mike to get up and walk away.

All of these instances gotta be SCREAMING unrequited gay love to Jonathan. He's already gotten signs for years that Will is gay, these are now just the signs that are instilling his suspicions that Will has feelings for Mike. He could have easily interpreted their relationship in the early seasons as young best friends, with Will seeming to have a crush on Mike, and with them growing up and that potentially including Will's straight friend distancing himself from him because he doesn't feel the same. It's not the most unexpected thing in the world considering.

But then there's a shift.

Suddenly he's creeping up on them talking in his room. And we know he was listening in on the conversation because he brings up Owens when he sits down. As he's eavesdropping, he's probably thinking something innocent like Aww they're making up! And like, hey! Even if Mike doesn't feel the same, which is okay and entirely expected honestly, at least he still cares about Will enough to make things right after acting so out of character. Still, I'm not gonna lie, that sounded a lot like flirting to me--

Then he's knocking on Will's door like 30 minutes or less later only to find Mike and Will back on their bullshit. Mike suddenly isn't going out of his way to ignore or put Will on the back burner. In fact, he's on his bed and they're talking, again! The door is even closed this time, which is interesting. This has gotta be a good sign in Jon's eyes. Nothing to worry about! Right? Right...?

But then suddenly this shift continues, going in a direction he probably didn't expect.

I mean, this is literally an identical jancy parallel we have here with byler on the hood of the car, with Jonathan right there to witness it. Despite him maybe only now subconsciously picking up on the similarities between Will and Mike to him and Nancy here, he's at least taking note (I mean he's even got his gay map out and everything).

It isn't until the van scene happens, that I think Jonathan starts to genuinely consider his suspicions, which is that Mike might actually like Will back.

EVERY time we get a shot of Jonathan looking back at Will and Mike in the van, followed by a shot of his POV from the rearview mirror, we're faced with Mike looking at Will while Will is looking away.

As Jonathan is hearing Will confirm his suspicions about his feelings for Mike, he's simultaneously witnessing Mike not looking at Will with disgust, but something more akin to reverence. All of those moments in the van that we witnessed, including all the ways Mike looked at Will and everything that was said, Jonathan was right there.

And what's even more insane about this scene, is that it circles back to Jonathan as a character himself.

I remember when people were talking about how odd it was that we never saw Jonathan with a camera in s4. After 3 seasons in a row of making his passion for photography a big part of his identity, that part of him was apparently absent entirely this time around... But was it really?

This is the same guy that said, "Sometimes, people don't really say what they're really thinking. But you capture the right moment, it says more."

Jonathan might not have had his camera in s4, but this was without a doubt one of those moments where he captured something more.

Something that I also think get's highly overlooked about this scene, especially when it comes to Jonathan looking back at them, being followed by a shot of Mike staring at Will, is that he could see both of their reactions the whole time, from beginning to end. Will nor the audience had the affordance of knowing because Will was facing the other way at the end, while we on the other-hand were blurred from even having the chance, despite Mike literally being in the frame. But not Jonathan. He even lets us see what he sees, a few times, but not at the very end, which would have been nice after they didn't let us see Mike's reaction seconds before this.

Let's just stop right there for a second though and circle back to what I consider to be the first time Jonathan really picked up on Will's feelings for Mike, which was at the end of s3, in a sequence that is a little too relevant to the van scene if you ask me, given that they are almost direct parallels.

While these parallels are pretty spot on visually, they are also near spot on narratively when it comes to the evolution each of these characters are experiencing.

For Will in the first scene, it's sadness that he's moving away from his friends in Hawkins and also feeling like he's losing Mike, after what looks like him and El making up, which makes him scared he'll distance himself again. For Jonathan, it's sympathy for his brother who appears to have some very deep feelings for his friend, feelings he can't quite grasp yet but soon enough will.

For Will in the second scene, it's heartbreak that he has to accept that Mike will never feel the same, knowing that supporting his relationship with El (encouraging it honestly) will likely turn out just as it did last time, with him losing Mike all over again, for the last time. For Jonathan it's sympathy for his brother who has now confirmed his suspicions that the feelings he has for Mike are more than just that of a friend.

Given that this parallel reinforces the same feelings Will and Jonathan had in s3 to now, why would this not also reinforce those same feelings that Mike had in s3 to now?

In the first scene, Mike was visibly distraught, with dialogue from Hopper in the background applying a little too perfectly with what he was feeling in that moment, which was scared. He’s apparently back together with El now, despite them doing just fine as friends for the last 3 months, as well as him and Will just having finally gone back to them being on good terms again. But now, it’s like he’s right back where he started at the beginning of s3, feeling obligated to be the perfect boyfriend to El, and as a result, having no choice in his eyes but to distance himself from Will. Mike then walks into his house looking like a zombie, almost emotionless stepping into his mother's embrace.

Now, I say almost emotionless because it looks like Mike was trying to hold back showing how he truly felt in this moment. He's not crying like he did in s1 when he lost Will that first time. Time has passed and things have changed (he doesn't want things to change). And he's trying his best to keep it together. But the in-focus close-ups make it clear that he is definitely not okay.

What's so impactful about these parallels is that it presents the inner struggle both of these characters are having, both queer and experiencing doubts, but in different ways and for different reasons.

Will is the one who covers it all up with lies, hiding the tears in his eyes, because boys don't cry.

Mike is the one who has never cried to them, just to his soul (RUN AWAY! TURN AWAY! RUN AWAY! TURN AWAY! RUN AWAY!!!).

If you actually try to get a gage on Mike's in-focus emotions in that first scene vs. his out-of-focus emotions in that second scene, well they're not that far off from each other.

We go from Mike smiling vibrantly at Will, to him now slowly turning away to look back down at the painting, with whatever the hell emotion this is...

It's near impossible to catch because of how out-of-focus it is, but looking a lot closer, it honestly appears like Mike is feeling something akin to sadness that he's trying to mask. For a moment it even looks like he turns his head to wince emotionally, only to correct himself.

And call me crazy, but these shots also low-key parallel each other. Mike looking down trying to keep his emotions in check and failing miserably, only to look up and meet eyes with someone whose witnessing it.

With each shot before this of Jonathan observing Mike looking at Will, with him showing all the emotions Will never got to see and everything else in between, I wonder what Jon saw this time? Probably another thing he didn't expect.

Can you just try to imagine the silence in this van, accompanied by Will's muffled sobs, and then try to imagine Mike turning to look down at the painting, only to sneak a glance, and then go right back to looking at the painting, IN SILENCE, and then try to tell me how the assumption that Mike didn’t notice Will crying makes any sense, like realistically?

Yeah me and Jonathan are confused too.

Right now, Jonathan's probably wondering why Mike was acting a little fruity and repressed during the painting reveal. And that although he may have a penchant for being able to 'capture the right moment', Mike is sticking with his story (despite all the stalling and doubt). He is 100% straight!

And so maybe this is where Jonathan tries to accept what is being presented to him as the truth, despite the contradictions in front of him. It's likely that despite the way Mike looks at Will and acts around him, in ways he would have assumed coming from Nancy in s2 would've been evidence that she felt the same, it probably doesn't apply to Mike.

Maybe Jonathan's ready to accept that it's a lot more likely Will is experiencing unrequited love as a gay kid growing up in a small town, the most predictable experience a gay kid could go through, and in contrast Mike just feels too bad to let Will down easy.

Or who knows, maybe Mike could still be a little bit gay too...

But it doesn't matter anyways. Mike seems to be adamant about this and so there's really nothing else Jonathan can he do besides tell his brother he'll be there for him no matter what. And so he does just that.

But then Mike just has to surprise him one last time.

For those that don't know, the line Mike gives here in his monologue was in part pulled from Will's monologue in the van. Most don't know this because this line didn't make the final cut for the van scene, but in the official script the writers posted, what we find is an almost a direct parallel.

Which makes the reaction shots of Will and Jonathan directly after Mike says this all the more epic.

From Will's end he was probably hearing Mike say this and just thinking 'Damn. Well, that's what you get for using your feelings to inspire Mike to profess his love to El.'

But from Jonathan's end, I don't think his outside POV of these events overlapping was nearly as naive as his brothers understanding of the events. Because why the fuck would Mike need to use Will's feelings to inspire him to profess his love to El in the first place? Is this what Mike has been struggling with? Really? Why before every moment Mike takes action in this scene, is Will's hand literally pushing him into it? Why is Mike being so dramatic about saying I love you, stuttering and rambling about her being a superhero, not saying nearly as meaningful of things as what Will said in the van?

And then it hits him.

Mike is reminding him a little too much of another Wheeler right now...

Nancy Wheeler, who was afraid of what would happen if she accepted herself for who she really was, leading her to retreat back to the safety of Steve. Because Nancy liked Steve, but she didn't love Steve.

And now here is Mike Wheeler, who has went from being incredibly distant with Will after reuniting with El, something that is very unlike the Mike he knew in previous seasons, to something more himself again after they make up, with him looking at Will with adoration after hearing his words in the van, only to turn away and look heartbroken. Mike who is now struggling to simply tell El he loves her with Will right behind him literally yelling at him to do it.

And now it's like all those little moments are starting to add up to Jonathan.

Suddenly all those signs he picked up on from Will when he was younger are now blending in with moments Will shared with Mike. It was Mike who jumped in after him and his mom's speech to Will in the shed in s2, with tears in his eyes recalling the day that they met (without being asked, let alone pushed to). And it's Mike who is now looking like he's at war with himself as he attempts to give encouragement to El, just like he did with Will in s2, but this time he needs someone to push him to do it, and that person just so happens to be Will. After just finding out about Will's feelings and also while assuming El wants him to love her that way still, Mike is stuck.

I don't think it's takes a genius to consider Jonathan is capable of realizing how fucked they all are in this situation.

As much as Mike isn't ready for a sleuth of reasons, Will isn't ready either.

This provides a huge contrast between the bylers ², because while Jonathan and Nancy went through a similar experience to Will and Mike, them being ready to accept it and act on it didn't involve nearly as many factors and risks. Will and Mike also have the added barrier that is homophobia.

Will's internalized homophobia lies in part with assuming Mike could never feel the same based on some of the words he said in their last two fights, with parts being painfully reminiscent of the things his dad and bullies used to say about him. These are also words that contradict Mike's own words and actions from the previous seasons, things that did once give Will hope. The shame and guilt that comes with falling for your best friend, who you now know will never feel the same after being foolish enough to believe it not too long ago, and who might not even want to be your friend anymore upon finding out the truth, is understandable. He can't have hope like Jonathan can. It's just not the same.

Mike's internalized homophobia lies with assuming El wants him to love her, along with their relationship being expected and socially acceptable from everyone around him. Though unfortunately for her he feels abundantly more in love in the moments he shares with Will. Despite trying to make it work with El as hard as he could, because she's amazing and all any guy could hope for in a girlfriend, he can't ignore the fact that the feelings he has for these two people are different. The shame and guilt that comes with you, a boy, falling for your best friend, who is also a boy, and who is starting to show that he feels the same, all while you can't muster up the courage to break up with your girlfriend, nor can you muster up the courage to tell her that you love her, not when she's begging you, dying or even just simply at the end of a letter, is pretty understandable too. He can't have hope like Nancy can. It's just not the same.

Spoiler: They were not ready.

PS: I'm still not over the fact that they low-key confirmed these events elsewhere in the story...

[autisticrosewilson]

So do you guys actually think that Jason's entire story, relationship to the others, and philosophy amounts to him being a rebellious teen who wants his dad's attention? Like are you 100% serious? I thought you were joking about that but too many of you are saying it with your whole chest.

And what the fuck is this "Bruce antagonizing Jason is fanon!" Shit I've been seeing? You guys are aware that a parent can love their kid and still be a shit parent right? I know you guys don't want to fathom the thought that maybe your blorbo might also occasionally have to face responsibility for consistently endangering children but let's not start being delusional now.

Bruce does love his kids, that doesn't mean that he hasn't hurt them. And I'd also argue that for the most part he feels in the right for it, and he's said multiple times that he believes it's for their own good, so you can't even argue that he's sorry about it. It's okay for you guys to admit that your PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of the character wouldn't do that but don't sit here and pretend that it's not a facet of the source.

[trans-axolotl]

staying on testosterone is fucking impossible i need my brain to work with me here please

[poems-of-the-anentomologist]

suffocating 

I’m doing the dishes again

Staring into the water

At that boy

How can I call myself a girl when the face that stares back

Is just another random boy

You’d see playing on a subrban corner

My name isn’t my name

People don’t call me by my name

I’ve been cut off

From everyone

If I died tonight

Nobody would notice

Just another kid

Just another teen suicide

It’s better than the alternative

To suffocate in this form

Would be preferable

To living in a world where nobody sees me

It’s better than the alternative

[snixx]

post exam clarity is hitting me like a truck I feel sick

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

For someone who's autistic and poorly socialized, it's surprisingly not often something happens to me socially that I just do not fucking understand or feel like I would have to make wild assumptions to wrap my head around. Normally when I am confused it has slightly more to do with being on the asexual side of demi and not understanding that people flirt sometimes.

So truly baffling interactions with family are rare. Usually I understand what's going on socially from an objective standpoint, even if I can't groc why they are treating me that way and can't seem to realize the absurdity of it, etc...

But the scenario is as follows:

Background:

I have had more than one stalker by the age of 18. One of which is banned from multiple public places because his MO was to hang out in public placed you would be known to frequent, like a mall, catch someone alone and beat the ever-loving shit out of them, usually for being gay or trans. We are talking multiple 'peace bonds' against this person by the time he was 18-20 himself. He also has a habit of cornering younger women and pressuring them for sex when they are someplace isolated and around a general tendency to make threatening comments. He started dating me when I was 14 and in the years since I broke up with him and left town I have become increasingly openly gay and trans, and he has done a lot of asking about WHERE I went off to.

I am not unaware that him specifically asides, people can use recognizing me in shared public spaces as a way to target me without knowing my exact address, the the rule has been that anyone who knows me isn't allowed to tell anyone else even what city I live in. I take other precautions like not having myself or my home in photos that haven't had the metadata scrubbed, like using a vpn obsessively and not taking photos outside with potentially recognizable landmarks or landscapes, etc... But very generally the main rule everyone else has to follow is just not fucking allude to where I live or where I will be visiting ahead of time because someone who used to know me might figure it out and if he can figure out even what mall to wait at, he might hurt me, or someone else might use the same MO.

That fact that multiple other exs since have taken up some stalkery-ass behaviour is kind of just terrible icing on the issue. The fact that I voice strong opinions online and might become a somewhat noted author at some point if I get my way is kind of a side note, but also relevant.

The problem so far:

My sister has fucking habitually refused to stop mentioning where I live or where she assumes I live or where I will be visiting for the holidays. She makes allusions to it or mentions she will visit my mother and I at the same time when I actually lived close to her and etc...

Neither of them would take this threat seriously. The fact that my sister is a compulsive liar who will just invent information and insist on it to try to get her way should be beside the point, but instead it means my mother believed her account of what this guy is capable of or interested in more than my own, and -for whatever reason- despite trusting my judgement on most things when it's convenient to her, will not trust my judgement that my city of residence being public knowledge is actually dangerous to me.

My sister would not stop mentioning where I live, accurate or not, so the rule became not to tell her where I live. Period. So my mother started playing this game of letting her guess and assume where I had moved to and simply not correcting her when she got it right.

My sister also has a habit of being very verbally abusive to me and just yelling at me the entire time I am trying to have a conversation with her, so at some point I cut her off for a couple years, and then told her the rules were that she could talk to me on the condition she stop calling me names. And that she was not allowed to know where I lived.

During the time we weren't speaking my mother kept saying shit like "So what? I'm not ALLOWED to have both my *daughters* in my life >:(" and generally guilt-tripping me about not speaking to my sister, and still basically ignoring the rule about not telling her where I live.

And my sister may have eventually stopped even vaguely alluding to having contact with me, but mostly after she stopped having any contact with me.

The current problem:

My mother will start to agree with me that I am being reasonable and that she's plenty capable of doing what I am asking if she finds out I am going to move, and still refuse to move in with her, and right after I move until she gets my address again, and then she just cycles back to the same bullshit, including trying to talk me into living with her so I can take care of her all the time and so I have no choice about her or my sister knowing where I live. Always under the guise of saving costs.

So I find out my mother has been -in effect- continuously confirming for my sister where I live, no matter how many times I have reminded her that the general city is as important a secret as my exact address. She was all "Well obviously she knows you live in [redacted]!", when there's no way to know that without her losing a game of 21 questions or telling her, and when I got upset and tried to explain the FUCK AGAIN why it has to be the city too she cycled right back to "Oh get over it! >:(" and "can't you just live in isolation alone for ever and never make an opinion know online so no one has any reason to target you so that I can just keep doing what I want without you bitching!?!"

And I just... After the realization that she was always going to cycle back to this once she personally had gotten my address out of me, and that it was going to make it unsafe for me to live anywhere forever, most of all in the cities I loved the most, my second pick, my third and so on... I just... I finally just hung up on her.

And I got the expected slew of unacceptable texts, suicide threats, guilt tripping, emotional manipulation...

But the thing about your parents trying to use guilt and shame and emotional manipulation to control you since you were a literal toddler, is that the "grey rock" response isn't an act, It's genuine, it isn't just an automatic way to cope, or pretending not to care so they don't feel like their shitty behaviour is being rewarded, you genuinely stop caring, lose interest, and emotionally shut down about the issue. She flicked the switch in my brain where I go from hyper-empathy towards the well meaning, to absolutely no empathy at all for people who are intentionally trying to take advantage or cause harm, and I am not in control of that. So she can throw tantrums all she fucking wants and there is literally no going back. Sorry if you want to know why I am like this look at the people who fucked to make me and then screwed with my head for 16 years and called it parenting!

My sister in the meantime had started tentatively texting and calling me again after years of being allowed to but simply opting not to, probably out of fear she would fuck it up. And we were getting along! She wasn't being mean and we were good!

But the moment I cut off my mother and dropped to 2 texts a year for birthday and xmas, and any necessary legal shit for paperwork, my sister stops talking to me.

No response to happy birthday or merry x-mas [which I don't even celebrate but whatever]. Nothing. Dead air. One text where she tried to defend that mom never technically told her where I lived. And then silence.

And two things stand out to me:

I get the sense that this is about her feelings towards me because I specified multiple times this was nothing to do with her at this point, that the rules for her hadn't changed, and that now mom was just on new boundaries because she couldn't fucking be trusted to respect mine

I get the nagging sense that despite that mom guilt tripped the shit out of me for not talking to my sister, she is not, in fact, bitching at my sister to text me back. I get the sense that instead she is trying to commiserate with her about how unreasonable and cold-hearted I am, and perhaps even trying to convince her to cut me out to teach me some kind of lesson.

But these are wild guesses because my sister has not communicated fuck all to me except to simply stop talking/interacting. I actually have very little idea if any of my suspicions as to why actually hold any water.

This is not an AITA post because victims -or anyone- deserve to set boundaries about their personal information and have them fucking respected regardless of how rational you think they are being. I don't think it's unreasonable that if shutting up about my location is just not physically or mentally realistic for them that they shouldn't get to know where I have moved to. They don't get to demand to have that information and also demand to do whatever they want with it even if it makes me unsafe.

I am just genuinely a little lost as to why cutting my mom off means my sister has decided she doesn't want to speak to me, or if she thinks this somehow means I don't want to speak to her.

That's it though. That's the reason I don't speak to my sister either since my mom "fucked up", I didn't cut them both off as some kind of unit or packaged deal or something [lumping someone in thoughtlessly with my sister by association is their job]. She -again- stopped talking to me the moment there were new boundaries involved. And to be honest, I actually do not know why this time. It's as inscrutable to me as whatever the real reasons are my father never bothers talking to me.

Anyway if my mother actually wanted both her kids in her life she could have stopped perpetuating the reason for contention between us, she could have respected my boundaries herself and she could respect my fucking gender. She could have actually bothered to be on her best behaviour for my sake instead of only pretending to respect my boundaries when other people were watching, or if she figured I wouldn't KNOW [and therefor would have no idea I was in danger].

And if I the fuck find out she's been trying to pit my sister against me now [we did not need help struggling to get along bitch]...

[finexbright]

.

[winter-hoof]

My dad has finally been buried, by the way. I feel a little guilty for not being there & being with my family, and it's like was me falling last night & injuring both ankles a punishment for not going? lol. But for my mental health, I really really needed to avoid yet another death-related event and his demon wife. This weekend in Grand Rapids was such a fun relaxed good time, I really needed it and I feel a million times better omg

[zhongrin]

why does this eczema keep flaring up on different spots i don't understand i've changed all my soaps and used special lotions and even bought cotton-only clothes gods i can't deal with this 😭😭😭😭😭

[lifemod17]

okay wait, I just read a thing that suddenly reminded me of this one time a girl described my traits and characteristics as her "boyfriend" just so a sleazy guy would stop hitting on her

???

Spoiler alert: it worked btw!!! So if I die and I didn't accomplish anything major, I will rest easy knowing I saved a girl from a creepy dude.

[navree]

someone needs to study the way that misogyny has been cycling in the past few years because why am i seeing the resurgence of "if you don't dress/act/perform/otherwise conform to stereotypical femininity you're actually nonbinary/a lesbian/a trans man who isn't out yet" bullshit

[moe-broey]

Enrichment 🍋

[spiriiitt]

Listening to Let Go by BTS while being sad about minecraft diaries is crazy bc actually fuck off

[fucksatan]

Thinking about a time I wrote a 7 paragraph long post analysing Walter and Skylar's relationship back in 2022 and somehow it got deleted and I was so devastated and I felt so silly and useless and I stopped posting altogether.

[lord-squiggletits]

Something else that makes me sympathetic to Pharma's situation is like. Idk if there's an actual term for this or if someone smarter and more academic wrote it about some real life context that actually matters.

But, so we've already established among Pharma stans that the circumstances at Delphi were blackmail/torture with no real way out that wouldn't involve Pharma being responsible for people getting killed (either killing patients for the deal or having everyone die bc he failed his end of the deal).

And I feel like while "he's still in the wrong because he killed people" is part of it, another sort of implicit part is the idea that Pharma should've been willing to take more personal risk, maybe even risk dying? I mean, Ratchet does ask "why didn't you just detonate it near the DJD" (to which Pharma responds that he did try to get Sonic and Boom to do it, but they refused) so like

Idk I feel like we do have this social notion of martyrs as a very romantic ideal, people you can praise for being so brave and strong and righteous that they ended their own lives for their cause, while you can also coo about how sad and tragic it is that dying is what it took for them to do the right thing. But at the same time I feel like in reality, having an expectation that people become martyrs is kind of a toxic social norm bc like. It's very easy to demand that others sacrifice their lives for some Ultimate Moral Good when you yourself aren't experiencing the same hardships as they are. And ultimately it is kind of fucked up to tell someone "the moral thing you should've done was risk your life/kill yourself" because asking someone to pay their life to do the right thing is no small request. And sure, the typical response would be to call them a "coward" for caring more about saving their own skin instead of doing the right thing... but again, death is a really scary thing and self-preservation is a really strong instinct, so it kind of feels like having this binary view of "you're either a Brave Hero who sacrifices your life for everyone else or a Dirty Coward who's too scared of dying to do what's right" is kind of fucked up?

I guess the best way to describe it is that if someone willingly gives up their life as a sacrifice to others, it can be a noble thing because it's a choice they made willingly, but if it becomes a Moral Standard that in order to be a Good Person you have to be unafraid of throwing your life away and if you aren't willing to die you're a Cowardly Bad Person, that's when it becomes toxic.

Idk, I guess how this ties back to Pharma is that he was never in a position where he expected to make these kinds of moral decisions/ultimatums. He's a doctor who doesn't even get into combat, his job is to heal and not to kill, he's behind the front lines in a hospital that's supposed to be a safe, neutral place for him to heal people. So in the face of suddenly having a "murder people on behalf of me, or I murder everyone you swore to protect" ultimatum thrust upon him, I understand why Pharma wasn't """"""""""brave enough"""""""""" to "do the right thing" (whatever that would've been in the case of Delphi). You could argue that maybe a frontliner soldier accepted the burden of possibly dying for their cause and they've become used to it as someone who lives that reality every single day, but I feel like for Pharma, who's a doctor and a protected non-combatant (from what we can tell), that sort of risking of his life/living with the fact his life could be snuffed out any day isn't something he would've been prepared for at all.

And for me personally, from an outsider's perspective, it strikes me as kind of unethical to go "oh well he should've just detonated the bomb himself even if it killed him" bc again, there's a difference between witnessing a moral conundrum as a bystander versus being the person living with it and being under time pressure where it's do-or-die. Just as part of my personal standards, I feel like death is such a huge consequence/burden of someone's actions (literally you are no longer alive, any potential you had left is cut short, you cease to exist on this plane) that it feels rather callous to go "Well you should've just been willing to die for your beliefs if you really cared that much!!!"