#black and white morality is easy ok. but tma has really helped me on the moral nuance side yk?

[go-to-the-mirror]

god i hate when the moral nuance podcast has moral nuance, smh

Anyway! Happy magiversary, first of all, I'm drawing some stuff for it :3, and secondly welcome to my ramble for episode 155. There were some words that were good, and some that was rambles. Enjoy.

@a-mag-a-day

BASIRA Hmm. London’s what, 600 square miles? ARCHIVIST 607. BASIRA (Sighs) Whatever.

I like to think that he just knew that without the Ceaseless Watcher. Know it all prick <3.

ARCHIVIST So I guess we’ll want to look out for a pair of homeless serial killers now. I’ll add it to the list.

I love him your honour <3. Like at a certain point you're going to start not taking All Of The Attempted Murders so seriously, and Jon Jarchivist Sims has hit that point about seven times already. He is going through it.

BASIRA I’m trying to convince her to go after them. To, uh… Hunt them. ARCHIVIST Why? BASIRA Because I’m not going to lose her. ARCHIVIST She goes hunting again, you might anyway. BASIRA And if she doesn’t, she might die. ARCHIVIST Something you’re fine with in certain other cases, and something she’s made peace with.

THANK YOU, JON. Bloody hypocrite. Murder's fine, but nightmares? Oh, that's not allowed. And yeah, Jon fucked up, and he hurt a lot of people, but Christ, so did Daisy, and they had the same bloody agency in it. Daisy killed people - people who didn't deserve to die, she's culpable in that, and Basira's not admitting it because it makes her culpable for enabling Daisy. Which she is, she knew Daisy killed people, only saved Jon because he was her friend, said that she should have let Daisy kill people.

ARCHIVIST (Sigh) Statement of Tova McHugh regarding their string of near-death experiences. Original statement given December 3rd, 2002. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

(deadpan) Diversity win. The person who killed a bunch of people to extend their life canonically uses they/them pronouns.

And that’s not money from some trust fund. I mean sure my parents loaned me the money to start, but I built my business up from the ground, and we now provide jobs for almost 700 people.

(stares directly into the camera)

I'm not even going to comment on that. "not money from some trust fund" "my parents loaned me the money to start"

Ok, Tova, ok.

Sorry, I’m just… aware of how this story makes me look and I don’t want you to think I’m some selfish monster grinding people up just to extend my own ghoulish life. I’m trying to do good.

I can see the parallels and I do not like it.

If we shove my feelings towards Jon to the side for one moment, I can see the similarities between him and Tova, and how he would see himself in Tova. No matter how I try to spin it, Jon has been hurting people. He's been forcing innocent people - and even if they weren't innocent, it's still fucked - to relieve the worst moments of their life, not only once, but every night, with a new and spooky observer. That's horrifying, that's horrible.

Sure, it's not killing people, and he recognised that what he was doing was wrong, so it's not really on the same level as Tova, I feel, but still, I can understand why he'd see himself in Tova, and I can understand what I think we're meant to see in this.

It's one thing to hear a statement from a victim - an important part in realising that Jon has fucked up, but it's quite another to hear one from someone like him, justifying their awful actions under the guise of doing good. Maybe they (sing.) are doing good, maybe he is, but that does not erase all the people they've (pl.) hurt to get there.

I had to live, I couldn’t die, not then. We were on the verge of closing a deal that would provide fresh water to impoverished communities in a dozen developing countries. Without me, it would fall through.

Mate, killing is not the bloody answer. Sure, they might be doing good in the world, but they don't deserve to live more than anyone, they're killing people - actual living people. That's wrong. Sure, you're allowed to kill to protect your own life, but... it's wrong. They're not doing anything to hurt them, it's wrong. I just think it's wrong.

An old woman, frail and shivering, staring out of the ducks over the water, empty bread bag by her side. If only I could have explained it to her, I’m sure she would have understood. She might even have agreed. But I couldn’t talk to her, and I needed to live.

She needed to live. She deserved to live, everyone deserves to live, and it's wrong to make that choice for someone who you don't even know. It's understandable, what Tova did, but it's their responsibility to not value their life above everyone else's so much that they actually kill someone. That's wrong.

"I needed to live." The old woman was just a person and by saying your ("useful") life is better than someone else's ("useless") life is... bad. It's really bad. Like, uh, yeah content warning for

I thought I’d solved it. If anything else like that happened, I knew what I needed to do.

So, she was going to do it again. Good lord.

This time I sought out a homeless man. Young and strong, though his life was clearly over as he tried to destroy himself through drinking. I followed him into an alley, and his liver gave out, just at the moment the EpiPen was pushed into my leg.

Ah, that homeless initiative, huh. But, of course, their (sing.) life is worth more. /s

God, they (sing.) suck as a person, like what the hell. That's awful, that's horrible.

I do find myself hating them, quite a bit. Good lord.

I made a decision. One I am deeply ashamed of, but I honestly thought it was for the best. I couldn’t keep living like that in the shadow of death, of what I had to do to keep going. One sacrifice, I thought. Just one, from someone with their entire life ahead of them. I took a newborn.

I don't even know what to say. How the fuck are they able to lie to themself so much as to think that killing - what is it now - four people - is good? Is going to "help the world as a whole," god damn them. God damn them.

Like, how do you even do that? Egotistical piece of shit. Believing their life is of so much more value than the people they kill to keep on living.

It was a baby born to poverty, one whose life I thought would bring it pain, and I believed it would be the last I would ever need to do.

Oh, right, classism.

Also like, their language. "One whose life I thought would bring it pain," that's eugenics. That is literally eugenics.

Eventually I realized it had nothing to do with age or health. It was about connection. About joy. The more friends, family, loved ones the person has, the further out the terror of sudden death spreads from me. The longer it keeps me alive.

Fear soup, the fear of death is mixed in with a lot of other things. The Dark, the fear of that oblivion, absence of light, or warmth, of life. The Desolation, in this case, the fear of losing someone to the cruel hands of death or whatever. This is also a desolation statement. Nice hill to die on.

I’m 40 now, and I have taken the life of beloved mothers, respected professionals, pillars of the community. But I have done so much good with my life, I’ve reached further helped more people than they ever could have.

FUCK THEM. I don't even know what to say to that.

I’m not saying how I live is right, or good, but it is the position I have been put in, and a decision I have to make. I never wanted to weigh up the value of a life, to set it on the scales against my own, but that’s a choice that I am forced into. And it is one I will continue to make.

They suck as a person and I want to throw them with a rock.

What is the value of a life? Is it something that can be quantified, put down as numbers, good deeds, bad? And when your life your existence is at the cost of doing harm, what then? I’ve - (laughs) I’ve saved the world, the whole world. Does that give me the right to take what I need to survive?

Great question! I don't know. I don't have an answer? Maybe? No? It's not a definitive yes, I mean... No. No. That's not an option. He's gonna have to die, that's... the only good option, that's not a good option, that's the only option that isn't hurting people that could have been relatively uninvolved.

I don't think anyone should make that decision for you, but you have a responsibility as a person to not kill people for your own gain, that's important.

The needs of the many is greater than the needs of the few only can really work when you're not saving yourself under the guise of helping more people.

If I'm going to be consistent, I'm going to say that no. Jon should stick to old statements, and let himself die when he dies, because he doesn't deserve the trauma of other people. But... I like him a lot, okay.

This relisten is really making me pull away from being a Jon apologist, hate it for that. /hj

I find myself hating her, her callous self-deception. But am I so different? Daisy’s chosen to resist in her own way, knowing full well it might take her life in the end, Melanie too. I respect them for it, but I - I don’t know if I can follow their path. I suppose I have a way out now. One that wouldn’t even kill me, at least, I hope not. And yet here I am still. Am I a coward? I just… what if they need me? What if.

I DONT KNOW STOP PUTTING THESE COMPLEX SITUTIONS WIHT COMPLEX ANSWERS ON ME IM JUST A SILLY LITTLE GUY WHO'S STILL TRYING TO UNLEARN BLACK AND WHITE MORALITY

What would I do? Hell if I know! Probably the same as what Jon did, I'd hurt people, hate myself, hurt people, hate myself in a cycle, and I'm not sure at this moment if I'd do it, if I'd blind myself and possibly die, or not and live as something I hate? I mean, like, it's not even an impossible situation. Maybe he is a coward, maybe I'd be too. But... I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I just don't know.

This is a situation where for most of the time the way out was dying. This is a situation where there is a way out that'll leave Jon vulnerable, both cause I don't think being newly blind is great for general survivability when things are literally out to get you and because he won't be an avatar anymore, he won't have those abilities that while he hates make him less helpless. Of fucking course he told Gerry he liked that he could compel people, it's some of the only control he's had in this whole situation. This is a situation where the two ways out are death, and maybe death, definitely helpless against the many many things that want him dead.

That's a difficult decision.

MELANIE Thanks for telling me, by the way. It didn’t look like it was easy for you.

WHAT IF I WANTED A JON AND MELANIE FRIENDSHIP? WHAT IF?

MELANIE You won’t need to. I’ve - I’ve made a few arrangements, and… (shaky breath) it’s going to be okay. Honestly. I think it is. I - I can’t be a part of this anymore and if this is the price, then I think I’m okay to pay it.

I'm so happy for her <3

MELANIE (Inhale) It’s - it’s the rest of you I’m worried about. ARCHIVIST We’ll be fine. Always have been. MELANIE (Scoffs lightly) Not always.

THEY COULD HAVE BEEN FRIEND, IN ANOTHER LIFE, IN ANOTHER WORLD, BUT IT'S NOT THAT LIFE AND IT'S NOT THAT WORLD, READ "MAYBE THIS IS IT" BY MMMMPH PLEASE

alexa play sense, sensibility by ajj

what if i wanted them to be ok, what if i wanted it to be okay, what then?

jonny why

ARCHIVIST We’ll miss you. MELANIE (Wryly) Wish I could say the same. ARCHIVIST (Quietly) Yeah.

:(

MELANIE (Deep breath) No. I’ve got this. But if you, um… If you could… In five minutes, I would appreciate it if you could call me an ambulance.

LIKE ITS SO COOL LIKE OK LIKE SHE'S ACTUALLY DOING IT, SHE'S GETTING OUT. she's getting out.

I'm happy for her. I just wish she could get out forever, you know? Live all happy like with her girlfriend, not live through the apocolypse.

Well done Melanie, well done.

Well, um, yeah. That's it really. Shambles.