#morality discussion

[vulpeskorsak]

Day 7 of Whumptober 2022: Shaking Hands

Day 7 of Whumptober 2022!

No. 7 THE WAY YOU SHAKE AND SHIVER

Shaking Hands | Seizures | Silent Panic Attack

Timeline-wise my current shorts go: Day 2 -> Day 5 ->Day 1 -> Day 4 -> Day 3 -> Day 7 -> Day 6

Victor is my human fleshsmith inventor (KibblesTasty Homebrew class) from a long-running DnD adventure. Ludwig Richter is a tiefling and a former gravedigger turned archeologist who wields a rifle and a battle shovel named Charon that I play in a TTRPG.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42221958 (AO3 link)

Shaking Hands

“Ludwig?”

Victor has noticed his colleague has been quieter and less focused than usual tonight. They got ambushed by a band of forest bandits a few hours ago, so he is worried that Ludwig has suffered a bad blow to the head or there is a wound he has not disclosed for an odd reason.

Victor enters his room with the question and his medical kit in hand. Their archeological party has practically taken over the entire tavern and most of the team are on the ground floor celebrating the last “free” day before their dig begins, so it is relatively quiet up here. Hopefully, Ludwig will not hesitate to talk with less people around.

Ludwig lifts his head up from a book he is reading under the oil lamp light. He is sitting on his bed cross-legged in his nightgown. His thin pointed tail is carefully curled next to him. Thankfully, there are no visible injuries.

Victor does see something even more worrying though. Ludwig’s hands are shaking so badly that he cannot possibly be able to actually read the tome. He also looks paler than usual.

“What is it, Doctor?” The team leader asks steeling himself before the intruding man. “I hope nothing is wrong?”

“Same question to you, “Sir”.” Victor flicks his tongue out mischievously. “It did not escape my prying gaze that you are clearly not feeling good.”

He steps into the room, closes and locks the door without waiting for permission. He drops the kit off at the empty desk. It seems that Ludwig has not done any work tonight like he usually would before the start of a new operation.

The tiefling studies him quietly as he approaches, then sighs dropping his book on the bed-side table and swings his legs off the bed, his hooves hitting the floor with a distinct thud.

“I’m beginning to doubt that if I fire you some day, you’re actually going to stop working for me.”

“You are stuck with me.” Victor confirms with a brilliant smile. “Until the day one of us dies. Maybe longer.”

“Why…” Ludwig rubs his temples but does not complain when his colleague sits down next to him.

“So… How about we get straight to the issue, my dear expedition leader? We can’t have you keep sulking tomorrow.”

“That’s… fair.”

Ludwig stops talking and after a few seconds Victor shakes his head and turns a quarter way around towards him, putting his right leg on the bed and putting a hand on his back. He can see his hands are now shaking even more.

“Are you hurt in any way? Any odd pains? You don’t look like you have a fever.”

“I am alright… It is nothing… physical.” Ludwig finally says and looks up at him. His golden irises framed by the black “whites” of the eyes are always a treat to stare into from this close. But Victor needs to stay focused.

“Then it is mental?”

“Unfortunately…” His long pointed ears twitch down a couple times as he tries to find the words. “Victor, you are always so nonchalant about it, but how many people have you killed?”

“Oof. Are you a detective in disguise? Cause I’m not answering that without a lawyer.” Victor laughs awkwardly hoping to reduce the tension but that does not work at all.

“Victor. I’m serious… It’s just… maybe you can tell be how to deal with that? I’ve never… killed any sentient being before that… thug on the road.”

“Really?” Victor is genuinely surprised. They have fought side by side quiet a few times by now but he never paid attention to Ludwig’s finishing moves. And both of them witnessed quite a few deaths together. “Huh. Didn’t realize that. And so? It is affecting you?”

“Yes… I did not expect to get this… upset about this myself but apparently, I am affected. Can’t stop thinking about it. Any advice?”

Ludwig shifts uncomfortably. He has not seen Victor’s face ever express anything like akin to remorse, unless it is for a joke, so he would not be surprised if he was unfamiliar with the concept. But maybe he has unique insight in that regard.

“I mean, if it is accidental, I do feel… bad.” Victor answers as if reading his thoughts. “But usually, if I kill somebody, I’m doing it for a reason, right? And there are all sorts of reasons. Self-defense. Mercy. Long-term self-defense. Defense of a close friend or a lover… and other more complex reasons sometimes. And if I kill for a reason, why would I feel bad? That’s something I had to do. Otherwise simply would not have done it. I’m not going to be mad if I try to harm somebody and they harm or kill me in return. That’s fair. I started this shit. If you’re a bandit, you know what you’re doing. Or at least you should. You should expect that people will protect themselves against you. Some might show mercy and let you go if they win. Others won’t. So. Why feel bad? You didn’t murder an innocent granny in her sleep. You shot a man who pointer his crossbow at you first.”

Ludwig listens to him rant and nods along. It all makes sense to him. It roughly summarizes his own thoughts on the subject. It does not bring instant relief but it feels good to be reaffirmed on a matter such as this.

He takes his round glasses off and bends over Victor’s lap to set them on his bed-side table. His hands are still shaking. He should probably get some sleep. Hopefully, a good night’s rest will help him clear his head.

“To be fair, I don’t always understand why people feel the way they do, including on the subject of death and killing. So my “advice” is not that great.” Victor admits before catching Ludwig’s trembling hands on his way back up.  The tiefling’s tail instantly coils around the closer wrist in order to yank it off his hands. “From what I know of you, it will likely not take you too long to stop worrying about it on your own. But I can help you if you need me to. I have noticed a while ago that people often enjoy physical contact when they are distressed.”

“Do you?” Ludwig hesitates and does not proceed with the intension.

“I am a person.” Victor laughs. “Do you want me to stay for the night? Cuddle or something? Make sure you don’t run yourself into a fever with all the stress?”

Ludwig chuckles. This is ridiculous. He would never agree to this normally but hey, maybe, it will actually help somehow.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but I would like that.”

[knifearo]

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

[yearnerspermit]

I’ll be honest the way some people talk about this show makes it sound less like they’re interested in the messy nature of people failing and remorse and guilt and atonement and redemption and regret and the capacity to change and the inability to undo what’s been done and unforgivable actions and maybe forgivable people and how you face all of it and continue to live and endure. and more like they want to be sitting in that jury, determining who’s guilty or not guilty, deciding a sentence, and walking away satisfied in the result being final

[nellasbookplanet]

I've been thinking about Mollymauk, as I'm periodically wont to do, and the fandom discussion about him as a moral compass. Because the interesting thing here is, Molly wasn’t a very moral character. He was an unrepentant scammer. He had no respect for interpersonal boundaries and would deliberately push and break them. Generally, he was an asshole. As far as actually having a strong moral stance I would say Fjord was the standout of early m9, and to some extent Beau.

But here’s the thing: almost all of early m9 thought of themselves as horrible people. Fjord had been bullied so bad growing up that he still dealt with self-hate from it, and now suffered from survivor's guilt to boot. Caleb had killed his own parents. Beau, while she hated her dad, also had internalized self-hate and on some level thought she’d been such a shitty daughter she deserved his treatment. Nott was stuck in a body she considered monstrous. Yasha had survivor's guilt and knew she’d done bad things in her blank spots. Even when they did good, they didn’t think of themselves as good. Most of them were suspicious and asocial and faced the world with the same kind of distrust they expected to be (and were experienced in being) met with. (Jester was an exception, an agent of neither good nor bad but of amoral chaos)

But Molly was different. He was outspoken about loving life and people. He wanted to spread joy, even to people he didnt know or had even met: he slipped coin into people's pockets, hid a silver in a tree just so some stranger would one day be happy to find it. He openly cared for the party early on; was one of the first to step in and help Caleb when he went catatonic in battle. Above all, Molly had rules: where everyone else would agonize over what was the right or wrong or smart thing to do, Molly loudly proclaimed we don't leave people behind, and we leave every place better than we found it.

But the thing about Molly’s rules was, they were largely a cover. While the rest of the m9 thought they were bad even as they did good, Molly thought of himself as good even as he did bad. He scammed people, but made it a good and memorable experience, therefore thinking he gave more than he took. He charmed Nott and Fjord without consent, and when confronted would claim it was to help them. Out of the group, Beau saw through this, not because she was a better person but because she was a cynic. She saw that he caused harm, just as she did, and was personally affronted that he still thought of himself as good and tried to leave people happy, whereas she deliberately left every place worse than she found it.

I see Molly as a moral compass of the group not because he was actually any more moral than them, but because they made him their template. He was joy and brightness and he died trying to save them because it was the right thing to do, and they all chose to honor him by emulating his rules more than Molly himself ever did, because to them it was more than just a cover, backed up by genuine moral thought and discussion rather than small gestures. He taught them that it was possible to be kind of a shit person and still be good, to still love yourself and others. The idealized Molly they created never existed, and finally died for good when they resurrected him in the end and were met with a stranger, who they welcomed with the same love and care they would've expected Molly to show them.

[lgbttruther]

inside jokes

[mirrorgrets]

grabbing you by the collar. hey. hey. you're an orv fan right? you like found family-isms and insane dynamics right? hey you should read return of the mount hua sect. aren't you a reader? don't you want to be like kim dokja or something? come on you want to read this soooo badly. i'm biting you as i say all of this btw.

[koifishanonymous]

ok ok ik i just made a post like this one but you can really tell which atsv fans are new to shipping or tiktok users because liking a ship with a character whose age is DISPUTED does not make you proship. that's literally not how it works, and in general there is more nuance to shipping discourse than pro/antishippers will have you think.

furthermore shipping characters who are ''just'' friends is the very BASIS of fandom shipping. it doesnt have to make sense, because fan content is not trying to be on par, superior or plausible in canon. shipping characters who are besties is good actually. and i say this as a loveless aromantic person who doesnt understand romance, like at all.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

This rendering of readerly empathy outlined here seems to describe how fiction is received today. If something horrible acts upon a character, the reader can sometimes feel as though the author is punishing some innocent little doll baby with whom the reader has overidentified. The character has become a de facto stand-in for the reader, so the character carries this burden of readerly expectation. Thus, for a character to feel real, we shave down the contours of their lives and their interiority until they match what readers know of their own flow of thoughts and life events. I believe that this accounts for what feels to me like a decline in character in contemporary fiction.

— Brandon Taylor, "False Light: Moral Worldbuilding and the Virtues of Evil"

[fellthemarvelous]

Holy forking shirtballs

I'm choosing violence today. I started this on Twitter, but I'm going to finish my thoughts here like I always do.

But what really blows my mind the most is the way that people look at Aziraphale's "choice" at the end, as if he had one to fucking begin with.

I'm sorry, but Aziraphale knows how messed up Heaven is. He told The Metatron, more than once, that he did not want to go back to Heaven! We can debate what each of us means by "choice" all night because my "choice" and your "choice" might be two different concepts. He could have been strong armed by The Metatron or he could have looked at where things were headed and realized he had no choice but to intervene himself.

You need to ask yourself what Aziraphale has a moral imperative to do.

What do we owe to each other?

Seriously, if you have not watched The Good Place, I recommend you go and watch it, because it absolutely shaped how I've viewed Good Omens 2 since its release.

My levels of frustration with the bad faith mischaracterizations of Aziraphale are off the charts. If you are blaming him for everything, implying that he should have to grovel and that Crowley has a right to hurt him back, you have missed the point of Good Omens entirely.

I defend Aziraphale, but I don't think one of them is more right or wrong than the other. They're equals. They're a group of the two of them, acting and reacting to each other throughout history. They're Alpha Centauri.

I cannot even begin to explain how fucking devastated I felt when Crowley said these words, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. What he said took a lot of courage because he's finally admitting something they've both been too scared to publicly define for 6,000 years. Crowley has had to spend so long with a rough outer shell because he fell and had to hide all of his softness.

The look on his face was one of pure joy when he created that nebula, but I think the fact that he got to share that moment with Aziraphale is what has always stuck with him.

So yeah, seeing Crowley with a broken heart at the end of "Every Day" was sad for me as well.

My brain still lives here!!

But Neil has said that Good Omens 3 is not quiet, gentle, or romantic. I imagine it's going to be more like the the first season in which they are not central to the plot. GO2 will help us make sense of how they ended up where they are when we see the bigger picture with all the other major players involved with GO3.

Aziraphale was still a soldier and accidentally got himself discorporated in his own magic circle in season one. He had a platoon waiting on him to start Armageddon, and he deserted them to go save the world with Crowley instead. Aziraphale is a deserter. I need everyone to remember that. He yeeted himself out of Heaven and sought out Crowley before even locating a body just to warn him about what was happening so they could try to save the world together.

I can't help but think of 1941 and that magician who had been arrested for being a deserter.

Aziraphale disobeyed orders. That took courage but it branded him as a traitor against Heaven. They tried to destroy him for it the same way Hell tried to destroy Crowley for his part in stopping the war.

Aziraphale and Job are the only characters we have seen interacting with God directly. Aziraphale has spoken to God before and he is determined to do so again.

Aziraphale knows Heaven is flawed, but he also knows it's supposed to be good. He wants it to be good. He does not like the way the system works and he wants to make a difference. (And I'm pretty sure he's also determined to talk to God without being intercepted by The Metatron.)

Since when is that a bad thing? I don't get it. And I've had this discussion before.

If you need to change the system by burning the old one to the ground, it's still change, and we don't know what Aziraphale has planned.

It seems to me that people just want to see Aziraphale fail because it would punish him for returning to Heaven instead of running off with Crowley.

Some of y'all take everything Aziraphale says or does and twist those things into malicious anti-Crowley actions because you think the only reason Aziraphale exists is to make Crowley happy, and if he isn't thinking only about Crowley then he's doing something wrong.

Aziraphale does not exist as a plot device to further Crowley's character. They come as a pair. They've been learning from each other for 6,000 years. Crowley challenges Aziraphale just as much as Aziraphale challenges him.

You can be mad at Aziraphale all you want, but villainizing him is gross. Defending Crowley does not mean you have to tear down and mischaracterize Aziraphale anymore than defending Aziraphale means you have to tear down Crowley (but I don't see that happen on nearly the same level it happens to Aziraphale). Stop painting Aziraphale as an abusive partner, for fuck sake.

Aziraphale knows there are flaws in the system. He wants to make a difference, and since he has seen that Gabriel can change, then maybe the whole system can. He has to at least try, and if he can succeed then maybe he and Crowley can stop hiding and finally be together without having to look over their shoulders all the time.

Why is that a bad thing? He's just as protective of Crowley as Crowley is of him!

But don't forget that Aziraphale's wing was covering Adam and Eve too. As much as a wants to protect Crowley, he has a moral imperative to keep humanity safe as well.

He sent Adam and Eve into the unknown with a flaming sword so they could protect themselves.

As much as he wants to be with Crowley, there are 8 billion people on Earth heading toward the Second Coming and Judgment Day. They'll work together to fight alongside humanity in the end. Aziraphale should not have to humiliate himself just to earn Crowley's forgiveness. That's a rancid notion.

The Resurrectionist was a whole ass moral dilemma for Aziraphale, which is why I brought up The Good Place earlier, but that's a post for a different time.

Aziraphale has his own motivations and they're just as important as Crowley's, and they don't have to be chalked up to Aziraphale being the bad guy. Weird, I know, but shades of grey.

"To the world."

[l-wandering-etranger]

oh and another take that I feel the mxtx- specifically mdzs fandom needs to hear is that none and i mean none of the characters have any set morality. this applies to their mindset, actions, feelings- the entire point is that you see where all the characters come from and recognise their actions. none of them are completely 100% good or bad. the point of the entire novel isn't to see and judge their actions. it's to see where they come from, what mindset requires those terrible or honourable actions. is it okay to call out a character on their actions? yes. but please for the love of mo xiang tong xiu remember what caused those actions and whether your call out is necessary instead of making posts like "character A was just trying his best and character B came and ruined everything that's why I hate character C". no. almost all the characters are shitty to some extent albeit in different categories. recognise that and you will appreciate mdzs even more.

[patheticlogic]

yan wushi's betrayal is necessary, his cruelty is the point!!! much like the audience, shen qiao believes that there's kindness in yan wushi, and with time spent together, it will eventually show, no matter how small. that although they walk different paths, shen qiao's is the ultimate truth.

shen qiao's character flaw is not his kindness. it's his ignorance. and he doesn't truly accept (we, the audience, don't truly understand) this until yan wushi betrays him.

[chaoticallyfluffy]

Ok consider:

A new hero emerges and the Justice League watches him for a while who make sure he’s not a threat. They see this giant clumsy man who moves like he’s not used to his body, smiles goofily every time he saves someone, and is clearly inexperienced with his powers and they’re all just like. Ah. This is a child.

Except they don’t think he’s a ten year old or however old Billy is at the time, no no. Clearly this hero came into existence shortly before his first appearance, just a few months ago. They don’t know how or why but It’s not the weirdest thing they’ve seen so it’s pretty easy to believe.

But they can’t just leave this toddler with the powers of a god to stumble around and potentially hurt someone by accident, nor go down the wrong path and become a villain. So of course they decide to ‘subtly’ guide him without alerting him to the fact they’re onto him.

They introduce themselves but instead of inviting him to the league they pop by every once in a while to ‘subtly’ teach him about responsibility and power, but also about love and humanity. They try to teach him to enjoy life and that he doesn’t have to act like an adult around them, instead encouraging him to enjoy his childhood even if it’s not an ordinary one.

(Too bad the Justice League suck at subtlety.)

Billy is certain they somehow found out he’s a kid before they even met him, probably because of Batman’s freaky know-it-all powers, but he isn’t very worried as they seem nice and don’t treat him like he’s dumb or fragile. They respect him as a hero despite his age so he lets himself act like a kid around them after a while.

When he gets comfortable enough to detransform Billy thinks that’s his identity reveal. The league thinks that he magicked himself a body that’s more of a representation of his true self and fits his developmental age better, possibly as a way to blend in with humans and experience what it’s like to be a normal child. Good for him!

Basically Billy gets a bunch of super powered parents and the Justice League get a newborn man that they think they’re raising from scratch lol

[kyngsnake]

Over the years the Fallout fandom definitely has slowly crept further into a “moral high ground over suspension of disbelief” space. I see a lot of people discussing their opinions of Fallout through the lens of their own personal morals that they’d apply to their own life, which is… Strange to me. I feel like dystopian media especially is not the sort of thing you should be judging by your own real life standards. Most things in Fallout are extreme. Most of the factions do extreme things. A lot of the things people do in Fallout would be considered inhumane, cruel or uncanny by modern standards. Because it’s a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

This isn’t me saying “everyone in Fallout is evil, stop expecting otherwise,” because I don’t believe that to be the case. Even good-willed people in Fallout do shit that would be considered extreme by modern standards. I just see a lot of people shying away from discussing the “grittier” aspects of the franchise because it might for whatever reason imply you condone those things in real life.

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Response to your reblog before I peace out.

The argument of the immorality of abortion is built on the assumption that life inherently has value. Lives do not have any inherent value, because they are the result of millions of years of naturally occurring processes. These natural processes do not have any inherent moral value; attempting to assign one would involve invoking some sort of "god" that exists beyond the material, observable, provable world we live in, rather than some logical, clear, and distinct notion such as the one attempted to be shown. For these reasons, abortion is morally neutral.

On that note, the morality and legality of abortion are thereby a human notion, with a logically valid -though not logically sound- argument in either direction. The argument presented says that "no human life should be purposefully ended by another human being. Because that's murder." In short, they believe that murder is necessarily and inherently immoral. That's all it is though, a belief: There is no wholly logical ground to stand on with regards to murder being universally bad in all scenarios, because of its' moral neutrality as I proved above. In other words, the morality and legality of aborting a fetus is wholly subjective.

"Do you actually have an issue with my argument that a fetus is a human being with the right to life, and ending their life is murder[?]"

Yes I do. A fetus is not survivable beyond the confines of the womb for quite some time; in fact, not until right before the fetus is due to become a baby and be born, that ever-reliable 8 month mark after insemination. As such, considering the fetus is unable to survive without constant connection to the pregnant person, it stands to reason that this is an extension of their body at this point, rather than a separate entity. If one intended to claim it still was at the stages before a fetus can survive independently, then consider this implication: Parasites rely on being attached to living beings in order to survive. This includes humans. Therefore, following the earlier claim that "a fetus is a human being with the right to life, and ending their life is murder," a parasite attached to a human is also a human being with the right to life, and ending their life is murder. Therefore, it is more reasonable to claim that for most of the pregnancy cycle, a fetus is not a separate entity from the pregnant person, and by extension, "ending its' life" is not murder.

"Babies are people, too, and have the same right to life as an adult."

This is true! Because babies are not fetuses.

Just thought you would want to read this, because anti-choice rhetoric can be very harmful in shutting down the agency of pregnant people and their ability to dictate their own lives. Knowing the direction that restrictions of this kind have gone in the past, those restrictions will not stop after the illegalization of abortion. Please consider who this harms and who this helps before spreading closed-minded rhetoric of that kind.

Either morality (God-given or otherwise, because there are many secular arguments against abortion) exists or it doesn't. There is a line in the sand or there is not. If you truly intend to argue that lives have no inherent value beyond what we assign them, then not only are the two of us operating in completely irreconcilable ethical frameworks, but yours collapses under its own weight; harm, agency, all these things mattering hinges on the idea that humans and (to a lesser extent) other forms of life have inherent worth, inherent dignity, that causing the former and undermining the latter are wrong in and of themselves.

If there is no objective standard on which to hang our arguments, then everything becomes subjective; all that matters is what we value on a social and individual level. And if that's the case, why would I ever bother to value the opinions of you, a stranger on the internet, over my own? It would be unfair and wrong of me not to consider other positions, to try to see things from another person's point of view, but why should I care about fairness or rightness?

Equating an embryo or fetus to a parasite is fallacious and incorrect. Ignoring that by the scientific definition parasites have to be a different species from the host, and that a pregnancy is a two-way street that also provides benefits for the mother, embryos and fetuses are simply living out the natural development cycle that literally every other human being on the planet has gone through. The biological principles at play in parasitism and human reproduction are fundamentally different.

I could keep going. I could match your arguments with my own about how anti-life rhetoric is a slippery slope to eugenics, about how I could just as easily twist your arguments around to make social parasites out of the elderly and disabled; but in this case it's pointless, because I can't even get you to sit down and agree upon simple principles like "human lives have value" and "murder is bad" or even "there is such a thing as objective morality."

[simplyender]

just some gifs of spot making his own solar (spotlar?) flares