#consequentialities

[fag4dykestobin]

any time i see *steve has a problem he doesn't tell robin about because it would be awkward/she wouldn't understand/whatever* in fics i'm like. BZZZZZT! WRONG! wrong answer! from the top, you can do better! if steve had a problem robin would drop everything to help him. if steve's house exploded she wouldn't be like Ahhhh shit i'm homeless now what do i do. no. she would go to robin. and tell her. "My house exploded :(" and robin would be like "don't even fucking worry about it babe (platonic) my bedroom has room for two. i'll sneak you food, you'll be like my little pet groundhog that i'm keeping in a plastic tote" "your what? did you have a pet groundhog?" "i entertained fantasies of it when i was five. don't distract me" and there. problem solved. they'd go about like that for every problem they have because they're cool and semi-functional like that

[cripplepunkbarbarian]

Zac thinking during Sophomore Year that the “best future” for Gorgug would be him becoming a teacher, specifically a multiclass advisor. Seeing his current struggle to be accepted if not just understood by his teachers, family, and peers. Single-handedly cracking the code to maintaining spell casting through rage despite being told by people who may or may not have believed they were just looking out for him that his multiclass choice was inherently ‘inefficient’ and working against him rather than with him.

Ally thinking during Sophomore Year that the “best future” for Kristen would be her becoming a spiritual guide or counselor. Seeing her ongoing struggle with her own faith and general place in life. The brief glimpses of acceptance and kindness shown to her by Yolanda. That little bit of security being stripped and replaced by dredged up trauma and total lack of understanding coming from Bobby Dawn and the church of Sol.

Laying down on the ground and crying about it.

[sleepsucks]

[i-have-dots-in-my-brain]

Astarion: *shaking Gale awake at 3am*

Astarion: Time is ever marching forward and your mortal days are running out. Every second that goes by is a second lost.

Gale: …should I be worried?

Astarion: time is an fucking illusion, Darling, the only thing truly real is death.

Gale: go back to bed.

Astarion: what truly comes after death?

Gale: …I’m not emotionally or mentally stable enough for this, go ask Withers.

[shadystranger]

the scene of sam single-handedly playing corrupt lawyer for dean and absolving him of everything wrong he did was CRAZY the man legit gaslighted everyone in the room including himself

[metaben]

also the so-called "full release" (it wasn't, but hey) of BG3 has been out for a year and they're still making alterations to the story/character narratives as if that shit isn't stuff they should have been more than certain of already. incompetent ass devs fr

[saltywinteradult]

This is what people need to understand: Rhaenicent isn't for Alicent stans, it exists for Rhaenyra fans only.

They would never have Rhaenyra grovel at Alicent's feet.

They would never have Rhaenyra agree to make Aegon II her heir instead of Jace.

They would never have Rhaenyra forgive Aemond for Luke's death.

They would never have Rhaenyra abandon her children and people.

It's the reason I could never like Rhaenicent, from Day 1 it was made abundantly clear that this ship existed solely to prop up Rhaenyra.

I think you are entirely correct, anon​ - but only about canon Rhaenicent.

Of course the hack HotD writers were never going to disrespect Nyra Sue like they disrespected Alicent. And most Rhaenicent shippers are Rhaenyra stans who are fine with that. It’s perfectly fine if that’s a dealbreaker to you - but allow me to elaborate on why it isn’t to me.

Wanting a pairing to get together in canon is not the only way to ship. I am a tragedy enjoyer first and a human being second; the appeal of Rhaenicent to me lies in Rhaenicent as a tragic lost love that never could be, because they were doomed by the narrative to become enemies. (Or as a hilarious ”broke up and made it everyone’s problem” dynamic when I’m in a facetious mood. Gay sex would probably make this situation worse but they should try anyway etc etc) Most of the many, many, many times I've stated this opinion, I've seen at least a couple of people agreeing with me. While we are in the minority among Rhaenicent shippers, we do exist. So it should go without saying that I hate, hate, HAAATE what the show did with Rhaenicent in season 2.

However, while the show writers are unfortunately beholden to their stupid, stupid version of the canon story, fans aren't! There's nothing stopping anyone from writing what the HotD writers should've written - Alicent and Rhaenyra pining away for each other, going to war and hating every minute of it, yet unable to do anything but hurt each other over and over because they were forced to become enemies. Or writing a fic where Rhaenyra grovels at Alicent’s feet. Or writing any of the countless canon divergent scenarios where Rhaenicent could’ve happened without butchering either character.

So yes, anon, canon Rhaenicent unfortunately exists only to prop​ up Rhaenyra. I am with the haters on that one. But fanon Rhaenicent is ours to do with as we wish.

[yepthatsacowalright]

I just really love how, despite having premises that are confining and controlling, Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher both give their characters so much agency over their lives. Monsignor Pruitt brings the Angel to Crockett and Roderick & Madeline make the deal with Verna, thus dooming their respective narratives pretty early on, yet everyone is still capable, in their own ways, to make choices that profoundly affect what happens. Becoming a vampire doesn't automatically turn you into a guiltless, blood-thristy killer. Being an Usher doesn't automatically turn you into a greedy, selfish asshole. You are not forever bound to be the younger version of yourself who fucked up. You are not exempt from fucking up just because you have "good" or "right" intentions for making the choices you did. Making a terrible, thoughtless mistake does not automatically render you unlovable, or incapable of making better choices in the future. You are forgivable, and no one is obligated to forgive you. There is no choice that will magically fix it all, but does that mean the individual choices made don't matter? Is dying full of resentment, hatred, and fear not different from dying knowing that you loved and were loved in return? Everyone has a choice. Even when you feel doomed by the narrative you did not chose to be in. Harm, or heal. Change your mind, or double down. Perpetuate the cycle, or reject it. And even if a choice you make only manages to bring a fleeting moment of peace, or help one person go on to live a life you couldn't, as Riley said, it's enough. It won't be forever, but for tonight it is. For tonight, it is everything.

[fisherrprince]

squenix is like lalala little treat for the kh likers a little mobile game for funsies the kh fans will enjoy this little chocolate chip I’m giving them while they wait for kh4 it’s a small deal at best and everyone in the very small room that is khux enjoyers is foaming at the mouth ready to lord of the flies squenix headquarters about it and they have no idea

[pippastrelle]

Ashton 'betrayed' the group and they died. Laudna 'betrayed' the group and she hurt one of them.

See, that's the more forgivable crime.

Because the Bell's Hells consider themselves expendable, but they will not be left behind.

[horsemeatluvr23]

whenever joel sees pink blossom flowers, he collects them, dries them and keeps them tucked away in a little box, he doesn't know why exactly he seems to love the colour pink, it's almost like he's forgotten something or someone important linked with that colour

oh this one Hurts.........

[sailorspica]

happy birthday, hitch dreyse! ✿ { may 10 }

[apollos-boyfriend]

i want to become a popular streamer but not because i want to build a community or make a name for myself or even for attention. i want to become a popular streamer because i think it’d be fucking hilarious if i was just paid to lie to people. every subgoal unlocks a new piece of my personal history that is wildly inaccurate, impossible, or just straight-up contradictory to past reveals. i hold weekly qnas and absolutely everything out of my mouth is total bullshit. i refuse to ever break character. my streaming career ends with an hour-long reading of an “apology letter” that explains i was nothing but a harvard experiment and to forward any and all complaints towards HR

[clove-pinks]

I am going to get a bad grade in tumblr—something which is definitely possible to achieve, when you are too tired to make good posts.

[t4tails]

ive been playing jokers carnival in arkham city for fucking hours trying to get all three medals but i cant even complain about it because i doubt many of you have actually played the arkham games for yourself and an even smaller portion of those who have probably didnt play the combat challenges and an even SMALLER portion didnt play specifically the dlc ones that are currently committing psychological terror on my mental well-being

[dxxtruction]

I do wish there was a bit more good faith discussion to talk about the phenomenology of IWTV vampires as vampires and how being a vampire does affect one's conscious understanding of their own world. It's a drastic point of view shift from being human.

Things such as:

Their baseline for the violence needed to survive starts at drinking blood to live, and most beneficially by killing humans. Which they also once were. It can really only go up from there.

Not getting blood in the beneficial way can be likened to an eating disorder based on being hung up on the morality of your own survival.

Escalation to inhuman levels of violence is something that's comprehensible to think of, since it's possible to do to someone else, or yourself, and to some minds it's hardly of any consequence or difference.

Question of what to do with one's immortality when stuck in this necessitation for violence. Occupying all that time. Confronting vampiric existentialism. Doing what one can to not be driven mad or disparaging by it.

In living forever all such violence risks becoming inconsequential to the conscious mind in how you outlive all of its importance. If not because of death taking it, then because time will simply weather it away. For the same reasons most things can end up carrying very little significance. Making one increasingly apathetic or nihilistic.

Because of above, enacting laws with consequence, even of death, naturally leads to some not really caring about them. Making them more useful as a means of power, threat, or as a way of committing suicide, than as something morally binding. If used in moral ways at all.

Those who survive the longest have to necessarily take on being okay with a level of violence that is incomprehensible to human scales. Necessitating that often the most violent, or accepting of violence, tend to become those who withstand the test of time.

Those fitting into this category extends fairly naturally towards walks of those accepting of or that act out other forms of immorality, dehumanization, and antisocial behaviors.

Your community is small and made up of violent killers. Developing paranoia or hostility towards violent killers is self preservation. You are also a violent killer, and take any hostility towards your person as an offense or threat. Without some kind of love, compassion, or trust in the mix, your community would quickly destroy itself.

Because of above vampires enter to greater degrees unfulfilling, pragmatic, or socially contractual relations with others they may dislike, or be indifferent to, and often might resolve interpersonal issues with fake shows of affection or remorse.

If you do happen to find a real relationship, the violence you enact out in order to survive can't ever enter into that relationship, without it becoming abusive. But the lines between those two can blur easily when you consider again how nurtured one has to be into violence to begin with.

Survival instincts look different based on their background for survival. And surviving as a vampire takes on different concerns for safety and endurance. How you survived being human is how you'd think to survive as a vampire, and those who had very little to survive through would lack a level of survival skills necessary to take on this kind of life.

Once you've seen a bunch of how this life is going to be you tend to take on a level of 'this is just how things are'. Since they can't place themselves in time, they can't place themselves properly in a forward progression. Those who last tend to develop a superiority on how to last through this the right way, or make judgments on who will or should be allowed to.

To make a vampire at all you have to actually decide on this last statement that there is anyone deserving of this life, and that it's a life one deserves.

You are stuck always in the bodily age of when you died. General feelings of stuckness are encompassing, as you're bound by your immortality, and often can only survive through those who are in it with you. Anyone and anything you knew in mortal life will be gone one day, and what you're left with are only those of your own kind.

In having such a substantially focused relationship to violence. One has to always make a hyper-conscious effort not to be violent, for the wrong reasons. Or just simply have a good conscience about such things. (some combination of the two)

One's life and culture as a human bleeds into who they are as a vampire. Even in rejecting humanity completely, they carry those ideas and understandings around with them. Including prejudices, ideologies, and sensibilities. Vampires lack a distinctly separate culture from that of humans, and instead live alongside it at perpetual outsiders. Only loosely being effected by it, and able to choose removing oneself entirely if they're white, or otherwise not subject to prejudice based on appearance. Vampiric alienation and loneliness is perhaps fairly common, and at a certain point this outside position lends indifference about the human condition and whats happening in the world.

Due to this, certain cultural shifts might take far longer to ever reach vampires, than it would in our naturally generative, and transformative human society.

Due to this as well though certain human hold ups about things such as homosexuality aren't very present in vampires.

The more vampiric you are the more it puts you into the throes of violence, while falling back into your humanity puts you at face with the qualms of your own morality.

Vampires have to find some way of justifying this existence has true worth to it despite such violence, and what it's done to their life, or simply abandon all sense of such morality, or care. Otherwise this fact of violence, and reminders of it, drive them to the flames or otherwise an all consuming resentment of all this.

The only ways you can die is suicide and being killed.

In trying to bring greater meaning to your violence you end up making a spectacle about it. Which fosters a manner of self importance, and egotism, about being violent. Or equally making it into a performance or ritualism.

BDSM is arguably a great way to contend with the fact you are violent, or can be subject to violence, in a controlled and consensual setting. It can be almost therapeutic, like taking power back from all the violence you can't control.

These sorts of things are interesting to think on when you don't have someone else making it apologia for abuse and egregious acts of violence. Because while they are violent by nature, they don't lack a consciousness about it. They have minds which can actively choose not to be violent, choose different paths to violence, etc. They're able to make decisions, and regret those decisions. And also, just like anyone in community with others, or in respect to themselves, have good reason not to be. They may possess inhuman abilities and understandings, but they don't possess inhuman feelings and are capable of being physically, emotionally, and mentally harmed or harmful.

And actually, given the fact they can take this to vampiric scales, is by scale, worse, not somehow made diminished by fact one can come easily to a conscious idea nothing has any real consequences when confronting one's own immortality. This inconsequentialness is a lacking and false understanding of immortality anyway.

Immortality can equally be about a constant uplifting of the present and future into something better, confronting their own impact on the world and those in it to generate some new way of living as a vampire, as opposed to stagnation, or depravity into cycles, and pits, of unnecessary and avoidable violence. Or just inevitable boredom.

A lot of those within this vampiric culture, don't necessarily foster well a society dedicated toward being as non-violent as possible. (I account for all forms of necessary violence, like self defense, as being non-violent.) Some might even find such an idea they could move in the direction of non-violence to be self hating. But the very fact they can be non-violent, choose that, and separate that for compassion, and love, and righteousness means their consequences and morality do end up mattering necessarily. If there's choice in that there's a way to effect things. An upstanding vampire, who's not just surviving through this, would have to dedicate themselves to consequences and morality as a good in itself, I'd think, to do right by others and themselves. To not give in to evil/violence as their only true condition. And somehow synthesize that information with how they can never be moral by a humanist standard, but those such standards are by nature more moral than their own. They can't fall into vampiric exceptionalism, but do have to accept the fact of themselves as vampires has special other conditions to it.