#bad conscience

[acmeoop]

YEEEOUCH! “The Sweepstakes Ticket” (1960)

[athousandgateaux]

"The consumers are the workers and employees, the farmers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them. As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities."

--Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, pg. 133-134

[comradewisdom]

Insidious that sin is, for the flaws one will doubtless know of themselves, that the very concept begs 'flaw' to surrender itself in hospice as terminal anchor 'gifted' by God. Whereas for guilt itself, there is no permeant place for it in good conscience; utility, only to be aware when one has erred, and there visible to overcome.

Winston

[iamadarshbadri]

A Note on The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

The first time I encountered a philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche, I was made aware of the pitiful life he had led: the love interest that never really took off, a desirous quest into the abyss, the solitary search for meaning in life, and a decade long entrapment in mental facilities, only to end with a sad death in 1900 CE. Unlike many of our lives, whose meaning ceases to exist after our…

[dogboywilson]

need to haunt my exes the way rose tyler haunts the doctor

[fantasysoupbowl]

should be doing my final and am SO ill but i have been captivated by my favorite ✨rowdy✨

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[tsuutarr]

Tsuu! What kind of Yandere would you be?

I'm delusional as is so probably the delusional kind of yandere?

Like I'd probably be the yandere to make tons and tons of stories and art of my Darling. Maybe I'd stalk them a little via social media too, before giving up bc I'm social media illiterate lmao.

I do think I have some obsessive tendencies so? So I'd be kind of a clingy and devoted yandere lol

That said, I think I have way too much anxiety to be a yandere. Doing illegal stuff scares me so I wouldn't be able to kidnap or murder anyone (also my conscience would NOT let me do anything immoral haha). I also am super lazy + stupid so??? I would just be the worst kind of yandere out there lmao

Like my Darling would probably look at me and be like, "Do you even love me?!" and the answer is "Yes! Of course!" but I'm just so, so lazy and so, so anxious. Sorry, Darling :(

[notmoreflippingelves]

Actually going insane over the implications of Jason asking Dick to be the Robin to his Batman in Battle for the Cowl.

Like I initially took it at the purely surface-level of Jason wanting a partner in the general sense. Which made sense, it's a huge responsibility and a lonely one so an assistant/sidekick/partner seems a no-brainer if you can get one.

But then I really thought about it, because Jason is not asking Dick to be his partner in the general sense; he's not even asking Dick to be his Nightwing. He's asking Dick to be his Robin.

And they both know exactly what Jason means: "Be the light to my darkness. Be the smile to my scowl. Be the hope to my fear. "

He's saying "Be 'Robin'; be the embodiment of Love and Justice and Goodness. Be the exceptional person that you have always been. Be the slightly-less exceptional person that I was when I wore your colors. Be the person that I was in the process of becoming and might have been (or might still be), if only Joker hadn't clipped my wings."

He's saying "I am prepared to become vengeance, become the Night. And I will go further than Bruce ever dared to, because it is what is needed. I will be the necessary evil. But you don't have to be. If Batman is Gotham's curse, Robin has always been its blessing. I will be the brutal punishment to our world, and I am asking you to be its incandescent gift."

He's saying, "Be for me, what we were for Him. Be my anchor, my comfort, my hope. Remind me what it's all for, why it's all worth it. And remind yourself as well."

He's saying "Be 'Robin' again--for both of our sakes."

[ironmaidenhead]

but daddy i love him

[jambalaya-enthusiast]

jimmy raping you while tears stream down his eyes and he's repeating the words 'sorry....oh my god I'm so sorry, you feel so fucking good..I'm so sorry'.

[athousandgateaux]

It is reactive forces that express themselves in opposition, the will to nothingness that expresses itself in the labour of the negative. The dialectic is the natural ideology of ressentiment and bad conscience. It is thought in the perspective of nihilism and from the standpoint of reactive forces. It is a fundamentally Christian way of thinking, from one end to the other; powerless to create new ways of thinking and feeling. The death of God is a grand, noisy, dialectical event; but an event which happens in the din of reactive forces and the fumes of nihilism.

--Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, pg. 159

[neonhellscape]

random necrontyr doodles. obyron deserves better so he lives with trazyn orikan and sannet now fyi

[elfcollector]

I feel ill. All the fools and villains who ever fell for my ploys, they're — they're here!

[realpokemon]

Im sorry someone managed to catch a hydreigon and then RELEASED IT for a MEME?

so like which evil team is gonna claim this one

[letitbehurt]

Love a Caretaker who is technically awful, and about to do something undeniably illegal or amoral, but comes across an injured Whumpee instead.

Maybe Whumpee’s just run from a fight they couldn’t win and they’re bleeding out, hardly able to stand up on their own, and Caretaker is a lot of things but they’re not a monster, they won’t just leave Whumpee there to die. But they will be complaining about how heavy Whumpee is all the way to the hospital.