#but again I am a pacifist

[elbiotipo]

Perhaps it's the pacifist in me but even if I had to kill someone in 100% justified and ambiguous self-defense there was no other choice, I would be haunted forever by it. I would not desire to kill another person in almost any circumstances. Much less about a fucking TV. Yes, I would most probably grab a stick and kick someone's ass if they tried to harm me or steal from me. I wouldn't even CONCIEVE of killing them.

[akemiiya]

are you really a flowey fan if you can type u in your browser's search bar and the first thing that shows up isn't undertale.com/alarmclock/flowey

[rebornofstars]

nobody fucking touch me rn i went to see tf one in the cinema and im shaking. they actually made a good transformers movie. what the fuck

[rotationalsymmetry]

Gonna write a bit of ATLA meta about Uncle Iroh.

Since I saw a post that rubbed me the wrong way, but in the opposite of the way posts about Iroh usually rub me the wrong way, so I'll need a bit of a lead up to explain why both approaches are wrong. Spoilers ahead.

When people look back on a story, they tend to compress it in their minds, as though everything happened all at once. People have a static image of Camelot that includes both Merlin and Lancelot, even though they were never both at Camelot at the same time.

And I think when people look back at Avatar: The Last Airbender, they look at it knowing that Zuko joins the Gaang in the end, and knowing that, they forget how Zuko looks and what Zuko does at the start of the story. Because Zuko is a pretty unambiguous classic cartoon villain at the start of the story.

He's substantially more powerful than the protagonists (look at how easily he bats Sokka out of the way.) His goals are in direct opposition to the protagonists' goals, and if he is successful it will be disastrous to both them and the world. And like most cartoon villains, he's personally a dick: he's constantly angry/impatient, he lashes out, his introduction isn't quite like Azula's where she tells the ship's captain that she expects him to be more afraid of her than the tides, but he does treat the lives of his crew as disposable in an early episode, when there's a storm. (He gets better at the end of the episode, call that foreshadowing.) He's even got a scar on his face, in the long tradition of physically disfigured villains.

And once you've watched the whole show once, sure, it's hard to see him that way. And you can point to some signs that he was going to come around -- he didn't kill anyone (that we know of), when Aang let himself be captured in exchange for Zuko leaving the village alone, he did leave it alone, rather than backing out on his promise once he could. But so what? Plenty of unrepentant villains have a sense of honor and will keep their word, makes for interesting stories.

The point I'm trying to make is: there is only so much one show can do, only so much story they can get in to one story. And in that finite amount of story, they spent a TON of time showing the audience that no matter how much of a villain someone looks to be at first, that villain is still a person.

And they also spend a lot of time showing other people are people. Random Earth Kingdom civilians like Haru. Random Earth Kingdom guerilla fighters like Jet. When we get to the Northern Water Tribe, we find a bunch of people who are just people: old men who are set in their misogynistic ways but maybe can be coaxed into changing, young men who are kind of jerks (but who still don't deserve to die at the hands of an invasive force), young women torn between their own desires and their sense of duty, people people people. And when we get flashbacks to the Air Nomads, they're people: some more serious, some more fun and flighty, just people. And when we get to the Fire Nation, they're just people.

So let's look at the rest of the Fire Nation royal family. Azula's a sympathetic villain: she's scary, she's dangerous, she does appalling things, we see her suffering and the show gives us enough information about her and her family's dynamics, the way their father played them off against each other, to see why she did what she did. Azula ends the story in a situation similar to the one where Zuko is at the start: Zuko starts having lost everything and nearly everyone who ever mattered to him; Azula ends having lost everything and everyone. And we don't see that with Ozai, all we get of a potentially softer side of Ozai is a picture of him as a small child, but it's a short story and there's only so much time and it's not really about Ozai, and surely we can infer that there is something like Azula's story in his, something going on where to him his actions made sense.

Something going on where if you had Ozai's life, his background, his circumstances, his worldview, maybe you would act the same.

What I mean is, Zuko did not become a person because he stopped being a villain. His personhood was there when he was a villain, and was still there when he joined the heroes. And Azula's personhood and her villainhood can coexist. And Ozai's villainhood and personhood, with a little extrapolation, can coexist.

And Iroh. The Dragon of the West, the general of the great siege of Ba Sing Se. He's one person. He doesn't need to be split, either you ignore the harm he did or you decide that the harm he did means he must suffer for it, must be punished for it. He can be a person, and a person who did harm, and a person who did harm for reasons that made sense to him at the time, this is all one thing, it is all there in the story, not all of it is there for Iroh because it is not Iroh's story, but if you look at Zuko's story and Azula's and Chit Sang (guy at the boiling rock they tried to escape with) and Jet and Jeong Jeong and Hama and Yon Rha and Hei Bai, and how things went down with Aang in the Avatar Day episode (ie the town that wanted to punish him for a very old murder that the Avatar did, and they were in the wrong for that even though the Avatar did kill the person they said the Avatar killed) and what happened in The Great Divide (ie that ultimately it didn't matter who was at fault) it's all there in other parts of the story, you can extrapolate.

Iroh doesn't need to be punished, not by anyone else and not by himself in the form of feeling agonized over the harm he caused (much as I love angst in fiction.) Nobody needs to be punished; suffering is bad, causing more suffering does not make other people's suffering less. And he doesn't need to be innocent and pure to not deserve punishment. He's not innocent. He did a lot of harm. We can infer that he caused that harm for reasons that made sense to him at the time, whether they make sense to him in retrospect or not and whether he actually did have better options under the circumstances, which he may well not have. We're all people. We're all people. We're all people.

Like it or not, agree with it or not, ATLA is about forgiveness, about not seeking revenge, about not increasing the amount of suffering in the world by taking an eye for an eye. The story did not punish Zuko for having started on the wrong side, even though he started out as a stereotypical cartoon villain and he would have caused unspeakable devastation to the world if he'd succeeded at his initial goal. And it would not punish Iroh for what he did. And anyone looking for either a way to completely exonerate Iroh -- pretend he has never done anything harmful in his life -- or to criticize the show for not having him punished for his wrongdoing, has completely missed the central theme of the show.

Which is not separate from any imperialism/colonialism is bad messaging you want to draw from it. The show is not claiming colonialism is bad because it sides specifically with the Water Tribe or with everyone-but-the-Fire-Nation. It's against colonialism because...colonialism is bad...for people. Who have inherent value, whose lives have inherent value, whose lives do not stop having inherent value when they harm other people. It's one message.

[wakinguponsaturday]

I'm gonna be a hater for a moment and say that I wish they hadn't made it so a "good" PC could recruit Minthara by knocking her out. Having recruited her on my "evil" playthrough, she's one of the best written characters in the game (when her dialogues actually trigger) and her VA's performance is fantastic. I'm not alone in having said the evil route is pretty bare bones relative to the good choices, and Minthara was one of the few things it had going for it. And I do want more people to experience that!

But you can do that by just. Thinking up an evil PC. Dark Urge is already pretty well set up for this if you're not great at conceptualizing original characters. The evil route is again already gutted, and this just makes the gameplay even more unbalanced. Your actions should have consequences - hence why raiding the grove has Karlach and Wyll leave your party. That's great, I love that moral fortitude on their part! And similarly, siding against Minthara locked you out of having her as a companion.

I know fully that this does not matter, and that other people are approaching the game differently. Hell, I'll probably knock Minthara out to recruit her on my next playthrough because I've adored having her around. (Though how I'll manage to gain approval with her as a goody two shoes, I don't know. The worldviews are pretty diametrically opposed.) But I think that it was a reasonable and well thought out decision to keep Minthara locked to that one choice at the onset. It didn't need to change. And playing as a morally grey or evil character, in a game whose moral greyness was already sparse, suffers more for it.

[hussyknee]

Fuck books. I want a gun.

[itswhattheycallyou]

man i remember when this first came out and it freaked everyone out including us. and then its like. normal. lol

its crazy bc this scene made it so that Kris T ( @kristalpepsi ) have a f'd up backstory that got transferred to me when i split and then when Ch2 came out its like. ok Deltarune is horriffic but not THAT horrific. yet

[orcelito]

ok i am actually so very angry and there's literally nothing i can do to fix it. life keeps going on. she might even be happy. and fuck dude, i'll make sure im happy too, i was a fully developed person before she was in my life and i'll continue to be one without her. but God Damn, the fact that she can just do something so blatantly awful and unfair to me and then run off without any actual repercussions is just so fucking rankling to me.

like perhaps she feels guilty. she said she did when it was all going down. but it was just something she "needed to do". so obviously she didn't feel guilty enough or she wouldnt have done it like that lmaoooo

i really did deserve to have a good solid yell at her. but unfortunately, by the time i did see her in person i just wanted her out of my fucking life. so. no yelling was done, unfortunately.

[kitsunabi]

Ah yes. I call BS.

[iamdeltas]

I apologize for being a huge butthurt SU fan on main today.

It will happen again. Probably whenever another story driven cartoon's finale occurs and people use that to bash SU too.

Honestly the only thing making that a "probably" is that I can't think of any current story driven cartoons right now.

[kingdingsfan]

starting to become crazy on the whiteboard

totally not making fake interactions with other people (myself)

[talkorsomething]

For someone who likes (most of? I dont remember anymore..) ddt and has general questionable taste in music, you would think i would ALSO like lavon volski but somehow i do Not. I found i think like three of his more recent albums that i can listen to but the earlier ones just ... do not gel with me. Which is unfortunate! I want to like All The Music! But i suppose some things just weren't meant to be...

[sl33py-g4m3r]

introspection go brrrrr

Just up kind of late watching youtube and once again something flitters through my mind. "how did I get this way? why am I a pacifist?"

more below the cut as I do ramble and don't want to subject all who don't want to read it to my ramblings about pacifism and how I became (or found out i was) one.

Because I've had that idea in my head for a while that violence in any sense is wrong...

Ever since I was a kid (idk how old I was when it started) mom and dad argued... it was loud, it was terrifying, it led to nothing.... It taught me to run and hide from things like that. That anger and violence solves nothing and just destroys.

I didn't know what a pacifist was or that it was even a thing at all; I just didn't like the loud violence of the domestic kind. that violence of any sort was unjustified....

or perhaps I'm misremembering it's been so long..... my first experience with another pacifist in media was Tikal the Echidna from Sonic Adventure Director's Cut for the GameCube. teenage me became obsessed with Tikal; and as I'd embarrassed myself on here before, in this very manner, wrote down all of her voice lines and read them in school whenever I'd had a spare minute.

don't ask why... I don't know either....

I looked into pacifism and philosophy of it and became intrigued; agreeing with much of it's points. I adopted the ideology soon after. or perhaps was already living it, as I didn't like arguing or violence before that...

My second was Rurouni Kenshin many many years later. but that was after my pacifism had been cemented.

though absolute pacifism might be impossible, I still consider any violence unjust, even in cases of self defense...

my vegetarianism or veganism stems from this view. my "want to save the environment" mindset stems from this view. I don't like to kill ants or bugs if I don't have to.

the less harm done to everything, the better in my opinion.

So.... was it domestic violence in my youth? was it influences from a video game character?

I would assume so. given the fighting continued long into adulthood from my parents, to my younger sibling and mother constantly fighting, with me just in the middle panicking and having anxiety go unchecked for years.

unrelated maybe but it makes me wonder whether there are other games (besides undertale of course) that you can play a pacifist role and still have fun; that aren't puzzle games, visual novels, dancing games, or farming sims.

but maybe in trying to find games that pacifism plays a large part in, perhaps I'm taking it too far? disliking violence even in a fictional context.....

I do have a tendency of doing that.

or perhaps I could also be a pacifist from the way I acted as a teenager. acting in such a way that I deeply regret. breaking a couple things in anger on 2 separate occasions. just like my father had so many times....

I deeply regretted that and swore to myself that I'd never intentionally break anything again, all be it subconsciously perhaps.

Late night post and of course I do indeed ramble on, unfortunately.

[officialbruciewayne]

ooc. Yess- adding with some thoughts, and hopefully not derailing OP's wonderful post!

It is impossible to claim that Bruce Wayne's philanthropy and pacifism (not even kidding, Batman isn't tho) is not an intrinsic aspect of his character. The establishing of various charities, individual donation, social change and a commitment to disentangling his company from weapons manufacturing have been consistent in portrayals of Bruce for decades now.

I do think it would be fair to say that Brucie Wayne is less authentic facet of Bruce. Public persona, especially heavily scrutinized ones, can often be very deliberately crafted. That said, there's elements of playfulness, recklessness and straight up manipulation in the Brucie Wayne persona that are very true to B.

When I'm writing B I tend to see it as he thinks Batman is the more genuine self. At least when initially starting out on his mission.

Early Batman and Pre-Batman years speak to a lot of discarding of personal autonomy and self dehumanization (e.g: not pursuing his medical qualifications, ending multiple relationships for 'safety', honing his body into a 'tool' or even weapon).

His willingness to sacrifice his interests, personal life, health and life tells us how he prioritizes Batman over Bruce Wayne, and this suggests that Bruce Wayne is possibly less "real" to him. He's certainly not treating Bruce Wayne like a person.

This is further supported by instances where he states that 'Bruce Wayne' died with his parents, even with visuals of burying his childself. Holy Dissociation Batman!

I suspect that between Brucie Wayne being much more curated and B's own self-perception is where the misconception of Bruce Wayne as a mask arises.

However, I did say early Batman, because there did come a point where Bruce began to prioritize an aspect of self that cannot be fully disentangled from Bruce Wayne or Batman, and is an area where he even prioritizes Bruce Wayne over Batman in many ways.

Namely, the man started a family.

Even in the pre-Hays Code version, where the dynamic duo are much more Boston Marriage Holmes-Watson energy, there's still a definite air of kinship between Bruce and Dick, just as much as Batman and Robin. Post-Hays Code revisions that emphasized the much more parental dynamics, especially with Jason, there is explicit text that Bruce has become a father.

Not Batman. Not a sidekick. Bruce "Batman" Wayne. B.

This tends to coincide with the development of actual friendships where his multiple personae are explicitly known. Not to mention the Super Friends (read: Justice League)!

So I do think early B may view Bruce Wayne as at minimum less important than Batman, and at most unreliable narrator, as less real than Batman. He's wrong though, but jury's out on if he's willing to admit to it in under a decade.

Bruce Wayne and Batman are both the true him it’s just that he often prioritizes Batman and considers Batman to also be a valid an fully formed identity that he calls himself. He can say his name is Batman while under the influence of the lasso of truth or a truth spell because it is true. They are both facets of a fully formed multi faceted person. Batman is his real name. Bruce Wayne is also his real name. You cannot tell me that Bruce’s philanthropy and charity is not just as authentic to his person as Batman’s crime fighting and detective work are just because he plays up certain things while dealing in his public persona, that is something that most public facing people do to some degree.

Bruce Wayne is not the mask and neither is Batman. They are two sides of the same coin.

[the-one-and-only-elita]

One thing that I absolutely love about TFOne's writing is that it manages to avoid a lot of the heavier criticism I've seen regarding MegOp's hero/villain dynamic over the years (trust me, the mid-2010s TF discourse was crazy)

*Spoilers Below*

First of all, the narrative benefits so much from the main 4 cast members all being a part of the same exploited mining class. So many takes on MegOp have Orion being of a higher status (an archivist, a cop, etc) while Megatron is much lower down on the social latter (a miner, a gladiator, often in the context of being a slave).

I've seen many people be put off by this, because it feels as if Megs is being villianized for being rightfully angry at the system that deeply harmed and exploited him, while Orion/Optimus is praised for taking a more pacifistic stance despite him not suffering as much from or in some ways even benefiting from the system he claims to oppose. I don't find their dynamic to be as simple as that, and I do find these takes to be a bit reductive, but I do very much see where they are coming from.

I am definitely one of those people who's very frustrated with the way pacifism is hailed as the one true path of morality, and the inherent implication that taking any sort of revenge on the people who abused/exploited you makes you just as bad as them. Also, Marvel's particular brand of demonizing any form of radical political action, despite the system clearly being broken and corrupt, but being completely unwilling to offer any other alternatives to meaningfully change things for the better.

When looking at what I described above its pretty easy to see how a lot of versions of MegOp's hero/villain dynamic unfortunately fits into that trope. Bringing it back to TFOne, you can see how Op and Meg coming from the same political/social status subverts this. The existence of Elita and Bee only further illustrates that out of the 4 people of the mining class who were all deceived, exploited, and literally mutilated in the same way it is only D-16 that completely loses himself to his rage, even to the point where he loses compassion for his own companions and disregarding the safety of the other miners (when he decides to "tears everything down" and Elita exclaims he's going to "kill everyone").

What I think I love most about the characterization in TFOne is that Orion is the radical one. Not only that, but he is praised by Elita and by extension the narrative for it. He is constantly challenging authority, and is the first to have the suspicion that their society is structured in an unjust way.

Meanwhile D-16, to be frank, is kind of a bootlicker. He fully believed in the system and that Sentinal Prime, as someone with power, had the right to decided "what was best" for those who are weaker/lesser (I wish I had the specific quote from D-16 to support this, but the movie's still in theaters). It illustrate that D-16 already held certain fascistic ideals, and that he and Orion already have fundamentally opposing moral/political values, it simply hasn't been of any consequence yet. It shows that their eventual falling out was inevitable, even if they had decided to rebuild Cybertron together.

It should also be noted that D-16's feelings of anger and betrayal do not necessarily have anything to do with the unjust system itself, but that said unjust system was predicated on a lie. Hence his fixation on deception in the post-credits scene and him naming his faction the Decepticons. Meanwhile, when Orion learns the truth he's just sort of like "yeah, I always kinda knew something was up" because again, he understood on some level that their system was predicated on injustice.

Even D-16's obsession with Megatronus Prime, while initially an endearing aspect of his character, is also an indicator of the questionably large amount of value he puts on one's strength. It foreshadows the "might makes right" ideology that the decepticons follow, and is a key part of their ideological characterization across continuities.

Instead of the narrative we often see in Transformers media were Optimus is idolized by the narrative for being more moderate and Megatron is villiainized for being radical (or so people often claim), it is instead Optimus who is rewarded and praised by the narrative for being radical, and Megatron who is villainized and punished by the narrative for holding potentially fascistic values.

I do agree with some criticism I've seen that the whole thing with killing Sentinel and D-16's final turn into villainy felt a bit rushed and more than a little cliche, but I also understand it both had a limited runtime and that it is ultimately a family film meant to be accessible to children. More importantly though, I think the movie set the groundwork early on that, no matter how this final act played out, D-16 was always going to turn to darkness, and Orion would not have been able to stop him.

Its perfectly tragic, the way all MegOp should be, while also feeling really well thought out from a thematic standpoint. I love it.

[ririblogsss]

Damian and the strays

ok look we all know the de aged dani (Danny and Dan). But what if we have siblings/ triplets, and I mean what if we take them all the same age (15/16) and make them into the most powerful trio in school . I mean you have 3 good looking individuals all siblings and in the same way, they all excel in different things (Dan-world history, Dani/Ellie- science Sports, Danny physics), but they are all so easy going and charming plus they are all jacked af.

Like tell me if i'm wrong but they would be beloved maybe popular on the downlow until they do something only fentons would risk doing. For example, orchestrating that every monday at 12:30 am the fire alarms would start and lunch would be extended for an hour more. No one can prove it, but none of them have doubts either. The triplets have their own groups but they mainly hang out with each other if you see one the other 2 are close by. 

Anyways i'm thinking that one day they will actually see why the Fenton siblings are observed closely by the teacher and try to make sure they don't cause mayhem.  One guy, a chad of sorts, decided he wanted to pick a fight with Dante, the more violent of the siblings. Chad didn't even finish his first insult before he was slammed through the door by Danny, who was arguably the pacifist of the 3. But the student body kind of got it. The thing is no one expected Dani (preferred name Ellie) to freaking pummel the guy.

No one saw them at school again. 

It went on like this: the trio would move to one school.Would play pranks on the administration and have fun. Then someone would try something on one of them and the other 2 would pummel the person into the ground. The next day they would be gone never to return. They became an urban legend in some of the schools. 

Until they came to Gotham Academy when they tried their pranks a kid would come and stop them. It was getting on their nerves. All their freaking plans down the drain all because of a snobby brat that didn't know how to mind his own.  Eventually they start pranking the kid instead of the school as a revenge for ruining their fun. This leads to an all out prank war between all 4 of them (Dan backstabbed Danny and Ellie first they just followed the lead). 

Soon enough the 3 of them became friends with Damian (they learned his name 4 weeks after the prank war started). The school body was half convinced that Damian and the triplets were actually long lost siblings. I mean they all have black hair, anger issues and green bluish eyes. Damian knew for a fact that he wasn't related to the Fentons; a DNA test concluded this. But that didn't mean that Damian didn't perceive the triplets as family. 

Damian concludes that even if they aren't adopted into the family the Fentons belong. So that's why one day Damian brings Ellie, Danny and Dante to the family reunion. Where every relative and not so relative is there. Damian is showing them around, pointing at things around the house as a mini tour, and people are starting to notice that there are 3 new faces that they have never seen before. 

there are whispers like: ‘really?! AGAIN?!?’ or “WOW im gone for 5 days and he got 3 more”  and even  ‘Damn so black hair, teen and probably sad backstory is the type’

The triplets looked at eachother looked at Damian and smiled like starved piranhas that have just been served a pound of meat and are ready to devore. Damian reflects it with his own devilish smile.

 So all four of them start saying things out of context such as: 

“I'm so glad to be here now” 

“Yeah same we wouldn't have survived that hell of a chamber without you Dames”

“As long as we're no longer hunted for merely existing I don't mind staying for a while”

“Good things there weren't any actual bazookas that could have gone worse”

All four knew that out of context it seemed like the 3 siblings had been hunted and captured by some unknown person and Damian had rescued them and brought them home, but in reality they were just talking about the past paintball match they had earlier that morning. 

So Bruce wanted to know some more but the rhetorical bullet, and asked “Damian… who, who are these kids” Damian proceeded to scoff and say “Why our new family members, truly father, are you incompetent. This is a family reunion hence only family or perceived family is invited” Damian tried to channel his inner 10 year old self whilst trying not to laugh. Danny and Ellie were on the same boat except they made their faces look devastated with tears in their eyes and everything looked pitiful, but on the inside they were laughing their asses off. Dante feigned indifference but he had teary eyes, from trying to stop himself from hitting the floor laughing at the devastated faces around. 

Danny played his act up clearing his throat “we- we can leave if I mean we didn't know, yeah Dami said it was fine but we understand” he purposely made his voice crack to show how ‘hurt’ he was. 

Ellie made herself look small so she could seem self conscious and uncomfortable with the situation. 

Dante solidified them with the small sniffles he let out every few seconds. 

Damian was looking to the ground to avoid being read, because right now he was shaking from laughter, and it would be clear in his face but if he angled himself right (which he did) it looked like he was silently sobbing. Danny put his arm around his shoulder, also looking towards the ground, also shaking from laughter. Dante and Ellie joined in. From an outside perspective it looked like they were extremely upset not being able to be family. 

Bruce panicked seeing his younger child and 3 other kids the same age all begin to cry he just blurted out “NO no that not what i meant Damian I ment their names what are their names, and does Babs have to get involved so we can have documentation”

Damian cleared his tears and looked up at his father trying not to smirk “He is Dante, that one is Dani with an I but she prefers Ellie and that lanky one is Danny” Bruce nodded and went out the room to see if he could get started on the documents. 

Once Bruce was out of the room all 4 of them burst out laughing, falling into a pile some were heard wheezing, others having maniacal laughter. 

Once they finally stopped and looked at the rest of the family all four of them eerily said “he won't ever believe you” And everyone in the room shuddered. This quartet was going to bring wayyyy too much mischief into the family. 

(if you're wondering where jazz is. She's in college living her best life. I mean she is a highly independent person she thrives of off living alone with a clear schedule set)

—

Also i didn't put any specific names for the previous schools or the family members bc I thought it would be better for u guys to decide who witnessed the beginning of the end.