#under oath

[merrysithmas]

bashing my head against the wall bc i just remembered spock defended kirk on trial in Court Martial by comparing his character of righteousness, forthrightness, and goodness to an immutable law of nature to be trusted in such as the concept of gravity in physics 🫠

[littlematchagirllll]

[90s-2000s-barbie]

May 29, 2005

[freedomrobot]

Letter to Congress: Truth vs Deception 04-08-23

[skeilig]

“#kendall gwyneth paltrows some guy and goes to court” you act as if he hasnt gwyneth paltrowed some guy and got away with it 😭

that was the joke my friend

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

I'm getting the sense that the kinds of fics that you latch onto have Ladybug and Chat Noir dealing with complicated feelings, especially towards each other, where one or both of them end up hurting each other unintentionally (they'd never do so on purpose, not to any great degree, anyway), and both just caring about each other so, so much, while reconciling that with the hurt they're feeling as well.

well, ladynoir is my favorite ship 🥰 and ok i admit it, part of what makes me enjoy them so much is the pining.

[carolyn-sittingat-jesusfeet]

“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe #IVERMECTIN to treat #COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the #FDA said on Tuesday

https://www.westernjournal.com/fda-forced-walk-back-smug-anti-ivermectin-post-makes-huge-admission-drug/

[ivytea]

letter-keeper's oath

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[finngualart]

Gáttir allar áður gangi fram um skoðast skyli, um skyggnast skyli, því að óvíst er að vita hvar óvinir sitja á fleti fyrir.

At every door-way, ere one enters, one should spy round, one should pry round for uncertain is the witting that there be no foeman sitting, within, before one on the floor

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Another Trump sycophant jailed. 13 of Trump’s associates have been convicted to date.

[grantwilsonenjoyer]

so fucking funny to me that when i got to glenns trial arc i was like "hm idrc about nick and glenn that much hopefully that will change with this arc" . Hm. Well. You might regret that

[dootznbootz]

[camgirlkaminari]

i just caught up with the latest chapters and like. those dudes definitely made out right? like that's not even subtext? like horikoshi fully said one and two absolutely went hog wild upon each other like. in the text, right??????? I have other, more cool and normal thoughts, but what is really important to me right now is that. those dudes definitely canonically got nasty. right???????????????????

[textvoid]

Shape up lads, skipper's on deck.

[life-winners-liveblog]

*taps mic* Hello? Can you hear me? (Except Martyn lol imagine going from the best listener to someone who is deaf)

Hi I just got here and am being very entertained by you guys

Gri I would try to help you work through your trauma but all efforts have been futile so far so instead take this leather jacket and sunglasses (to match timmy!), a sun holographic picture, as well as these cookies 🍪 (<- those are cookies shortbread is a biscuit)

Scott, be careful try not to burn yourself out, take these paints and easels, (fake) coral jewellery, a star/night sky holographic picture, and some poppies

Pearl, I would give you something, but someone is very mean and won't let me, so I'm sending you some sunflowers, a puppy and some bones, a moon holographic picture, and a clock

*If possible, I yank on Martyn's hair* *a note then appears with the following writing* Martyn, I don’t even care about the fact that you betrayed your Scott, it made sense for you, was a good ending moment and he didn't even mind (was probably his favourite version of events that could have happened). No, I'm mad at you because of how apathetic you are. I'm sorry that you find it "easy" to move on, but others feeling emotions about their past is not weak. It's human. You are quite literally my second-least favourite person and the other person has the same illness as you but worse. You get a pufferfish, a (toy) axe, a cake, and a holographic picture that seems to change images. Sometimes it shows the sea, sometimes it shows trees, sometimes Mars, sometimes a meteor, sometimes a black hole (ooc: etc etc just all the different Martyn winner interpretations lol I'm not writing all of them)

Jim-jam! Nice to see you! You get poppies, a wooden doll, a frog and bucket, and a holographic picture of a canary

Scar! It's been a while since anyone has sent you anything buddy so you get 3 more llamas, 15 more camels, 19 more pandas and 81 more jellie cats. Oh and a holographic picture of cacti

DL!Scott you fucker you are my least favourite you apathetic son of a bitch. You get the poison effect

SL!Jimmy you get cake for being the in-between person, as well as a ghost plushie and a holographic picture of a doggo (if you look closely there's a canary)

To the rest of the losers, I'll give them some weighted blankets. One for everyone :)

-Saph <3

LimL!Jimmy: This is still not Judge Judy and Executioner... But thank you...

~~~~~~

Grian: ugh... I don't know how other me can confortably wear this all day.

LimL!Jimmy: Grian why are you dressed like me?!?! Do this mean you want to join the Bad Boys??

Grian: Uhhhhh... not really? The whispers -

LimL!Jimmy: Why not?!? You could be an honorary Bad Boy!!!

Grian: ... Fine, whatever.

LimL!Jimmy: Yeah yeah yeah!

~~~~~

Pearl: Ooooh nice! Let's see, how does this holographic thing work?

Scott: Oh they sent me one of those as well! I think... you do it like... this!

Pearl: Mansplaining moment.

Scott: What!?!? I was just... you asked...and I...

Pearl: Calm down Scott, it was just a joke... why are you so jittery.

Scott: ...Maybe the whispers are right, I do need to relax a little.

~~~~~

Martyn: Well screw you too I guess, that hurt... and I never said that feeling about the past is weak, what I find weak is letting said emotions submerge you completely like Grian does, now I have seen how he was, I saw his passion but when I look at him now I see none of that, he is not weak because he misses Scar, who cares about that, he is weak because he wallows in his own self pity and misery constantly... He couldn't have done anything differently and he can't go back to change anything so why does he insist on acting like a wet wipe.