#trolley tracks

[retropopcult]

Hollywood Boulevard, December 1952 

[iowacitypast]

Alumni banner near Engineering Building, The University of Iowa, 1920s

Creator: Kent, Frederick W.

https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/islandora/object/ui%3Aictcs_3660

[lizardsfromspace]

*looking at a thought experiment meant to have no purely good answers* Stand aside, sheeple, 'cause I'm about to win this one!

[1lifeinspired]

The “Bica” Funicular - Lisbon, Portugal 

By bahutofotografia

[tswwwit]

[About the ask where you said that dipper blurted out "I'm pregnant" To bill and his immediate response is panic]

Does this mean that bill has impregnated someone??? Or the other way around??

Bill's never sired or sprouted any offspring, and has no intention of doing so!

Dipper was pulling a prank, and it worked very well - because Bill's been around the block enough to not dismiss the supposedly 'impossible'.

[littlebigmouse]

The utter tragedy that is Gwen Stacy.

Like all spider people, she has to figure it out by herself. An endless slew of villains and only one teenage girl against them. An endless slew of villains and one of them turns out to be her best friend.

Peter Parker was bullied until he couldn't take it any more, and decided to fight back. She must not have noticed him cracking, breaking. He knew her secret the entire time, was there for her the entire time, and she didn't even realize his true identity until he was already burried under scaffolding and rubble.

"I just wanted to be special, like you." She's a wanted criminal now. She's always alone. She's hiding increasingly bigger and bigger parts of herself from her father, who loves and supports her and tells her he's going to lock her up as a means to comfort her.

And then he tries to. And she takes the mask off and he keeps trying. Gwen Stacy held at gun point by the last and only loved one she has in the world.

A freak accident happens and she winds up in a place where a Spiderperson has it all figured out and is a well respected member of their community. A place where her best friend is alive and well and special right up until she sees his corpse plastered on news reports all over a foreign city. And there are other Spider people. Other Peter Parkers, all haunting her with never-ending "What could have beens". Gwen isn't alone any more until she is, two days later and with no means to ever see the one tentative friend she may have made, ever again.

A year passed and he might have just moved on from her, anyway.

Gwen Stacy meets a Spiderwoman who is cool and capable and doesn't let love drag her down, but she still gained happiness, somewhere out there. Jessica Drew is a flicker of hope for Gwen that there might be happiness waiting for her, for a Spiderperson that isn't Peter Parker.

Except of course, Jess seems to barely tolerate her. The rescue, safety, is conditional. If Gwen falters, if Gwen isn't good enough, if Gwen slips up even once, she will prove herself a liability, will be send back into isolation, a hopeless situation, home. Will disappoint a person she's trying so hard to impress and connect with.

Spider society is still haunted by the countless ghosts of her best friend. Because every Peter Parker became a hero except hers. Every Peter Parker is fundamentally a good person who wants to save people, every Spiderperson is a good person who wants to save people, except her Peter and this Gwen, who has his blood on her hands. Notice how Gwen and Peter B barely talk, never have a real emotional conversation with each other. They treat each other as equals, and they do care about each other, but they can't shake off the ghosts haunting each other's faces.

Gwen tells Miles "in every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spiderman." People don't soften their blows for Gwen. How did she find out about all the dead Gwen Stacys? She spend several months dimension hopping on missions, did she witness a Peter Parker fail to save his best friend? Is that a "canon event" for Peter Parker? For Spiderman?

Maybe Gwen and Peter can't coexist in the same universe without one of them dying tragically young. Maybe Gwen was never supposed to be Spiderwoman, stole the spot from Peter Parker, robbed him of his life, and her universe hates her for it now. One more anomaly for Miguel to catch later, once he finds out.

Maybe Gwen is the one who got away, she one Gwen who's supposed to have got it good, who made it, will live to see 30. The one Gwen to survive and she's alone, unloved, teetering on the edge. The Gwen that is special and thus shares her fate with all the spider people - will either watch her father die or watch him lock her up or even shoot her on sight. Which is worse? Miles asks Gwen whether that's it, and she just says "Yeah". She gets to chose between the rock and the hard place. Maybe she doesn't have a choice. Gwen Stacy either dies or watches everyone else die. Does it matter, which is written into the fabric of the universe and which is a fluke?

Gwen tries to play by the rules, can't risk messing up again for Jess, can't risk losing Miles, can't risk losing one more friend. One more friend because she can't help but get attached to people, can't help but fall in love with a Spiderman, like all the other doomed Gwens in other universes. But Miles is so fundamentally good he's burried under scaffolding and rubble, curled around a little kid he's saved. Gwen almost watches her best friend die a second time, willing to watch a few civilians die instead. She's been on the other side of that equation and the regret is tearing her apart, the other way around must be better, right?

Would Gwen do it again, knowing who was hidden beneath the scales? Would she sacrifice his bully, her classmates? A little kid and a police captain? Her police captain?

The tragedy of the classic trolley problem is that someone always dies anyway, no matter whether you pull the lever.

Gwen has alltogehter pulled way too many levers.

[fickleartdump]

fictional character of all time

[cryptids-and-muses]

Vash’s answer to the trolley problem is “fuck you”

And then jumping in front of the trolley himself

[kineticallyanywhere]

thinkin about how long these kids spend of their teen yes just trying not to die

[prowerprojects]

"Every Shatterspace contains a shard: creates a distorted version of our reality"

"If we bring them back here, and connect them to this real one— then maybe there is a chance..."

(Sonic Prime is not a multiverse story, it's one universe that got destroyed/distorted)

"They're not your real friends"

"Nine and all the rest of them are real!"

Sonic, you do understand that if reality gets restored, and the Shatterverse stops existing (because it wouldn't be shattered anymore), so would the shatterspaces, and everyone who lives there: everything would just go back to the way it was before.

But if you consider them real, you only have two choices:

Bring the shards together and restore your reality, bringing back your friends in the process, but the people created by the shattering of the Prism would go back to being just parts of your friends and seize to exist separately?

Or leave it be, and lose your friends forever, but their counterparts would still exist as their own entities?

So what would it be, Sonic?

Who has more right to exist?

[retropopcult]

Toledo, Ohio, October 1905. "Post Office on St. Clair Street."

[shinelikethunder]

honestly the MOST horrifying thing about john winchester is the possibility that he really was just trying his best

[konfizry]

about last reblog. like. its funny bc i was just thinking the other day about how ToS kinda rewards you for killing zelos. (for someone like me who has anime dad brain rot anyway)

and like. listen. not to Back In My Day about it but we just accepted it. like, you want your kratos treat, ok fine it'll cost you one whole zelos. thats how we rolled back then. no one complained (ok no i think everyone complained actually)

and like, im just like. you know like i went kratos 90% of the time probably and like. every time the time came to kill zelos i would invariably like. fast forward through it like "let's just not acknowledge that, guys i think it really ruins the mood and i want this to be a good vibes type of experience thanks" . and ngl i think the game kinda forgets about zelos pretty quickly??? i might be remembering this wrong ertjkngrertyh it's so weird. i mean you know when someone dies, things are bound to become. kinda awkward? so like. not judging anyone so yea anyway we kill this mildly infuriating guy

and for what?

to more or less trade him for this other dude whom im pretty sure no one but colette can stand. like legit. WHO'S HAPPY ABOUT THIS??? (aside from me i mean). this guy ruined everyone's lives?????? things just keep getting more and more awkward around the breakfast table but i dont care we're all going on a trip to altamira together so we can pick up swimsuits ok have fun everyone except no one has fun because zelos died last week and kratos is standing right in the middle of the beach staring into nothingness still gripping his sword and no one dares talk to him.

what im saying is. i always got the impression that the game probably disapproved of my choice. im sure the characters hate me for this.

[fierrochase-falafel]

Uhhh I love TGCF, in this essay I will-

One of the best things about TGCF is the fact that every character, no matter how specific and unimaginable the scenario is, all feel so human because the emotions arisen by their scenarios are so irrevocably human. And TGCF is constantly doing this! The black water arc especially, Ling Wen's backstory, Jun Wu's backstory- and NONE of these have happened or will happen to any of us in this lifetime, realistically. I saw a meme with Shi Wudu's trolley problem (y'know how it works if you've read book 3, but if not maybe skip to the next paragraph) and-- that is literally what happened. It's funny how true that actually is. That scenario at its bare bones can be seen as an elaborate variation of the trolley problem (because he did choose to plan ever step, so admittedly it's more complicated and intentional than the regular trolley problem) and we see the effects of Shi Wudu switching the tracks to kill several people he didn't know to save someone he loved. We see Shi Wudu's solution to the trolley problem and the consequences that brings. Even though the whole fate-swapping thing isn't something we can do, there are so many variations of the trolley problem that CAN apply to us in the modern timeline and that's why it hits so close to home. It's the same principles, the same ethical and emotional dilemmas explored through lore, plot and characters in ways that are so detailed and fantastical that it's just way more fun to read/imagine than the same old trolley problem. It functions as a work of art entertaining us as well as making us confront the core of its dilemmas that are based in humanity itself.

(credit to some genius on the internet)

The same holds true for almost all the characters and mini-arcs, and ultimately for Xie Lian too across all 5 books. Even if you can't relate to Xie Lian's story, the specificity of what happens to him of course (the events of book 4 being a key example); the feelings he has and the significance of what he does means so much to us because it calls out similar feelings in us! To ascend is human, to fall is also human and Xie Lian is just like us- human. That's what draws us to him and the other characters, because there's something in everyone's story and experience that we GET as humans.

[rivilu]

Everyone's on about Miguel beefing with a 15 yo, which sure it's funny, but y'all are letting the Spot, "I now declare this child that MY INVENTION inflicted this anomalous occurrence on, my lifelong nemesis", the ULTIMATE beef haver, to go unchecked.