#but coming out of the yakuza and into dedsec is just /

[0xa00001]

james is big on the idea of choice. I use the words "has to" in reference to his decision to start up his cell of dedsec, but the fact is it was always a choice. “has to” is passive; it implies nothing could be done to prevent the outcome of the situation. but choosing is taking deliberate action, owning your decision and whatever consequences that follow. ownership of his choices is how james maintains his independence in a life pathetically devoid of it for so long, and it's also why james cannot be forced to do a single goddamn thing he doesn't want to— because james refuses to be held accountable for actions he did not choose to take. if his plan goes wrong, that's fine; that's his plan. he'll own the mistake and the disaster that results. 

as a result, he has very little patience for people who are quick to blame others, or quick to say I had no choice. because in james' mind, there is always a choice. the choice might be hard, it may be dangerous, but the choice is still there and needs to be made. choosing to not act is still an act of choosing in and upon itself, and james sees inaction in the face of evil as tantamount to evil itself.

(there's wiggle room there, of course; some people are well and truly fucked over by others. james would never blame a victim of abuse for being unable to leave, for instance, so it's a little more gray than he likes to think. but the abuser? they absolutely choose to be like that, and james will choose to destroy them.)

this emphasis accountability carries over into members of dedsec and, more importantly, dedsec's targets. because those people have made the decision to value their goals over other people, and they choose to hurt people to accomplish those goals. and that's just it: they choose to hurt people, and dedsec loves nothing more than stripping power from people who knowingly abuse it. they could have used it to help, but they did this instead.

the words emblazoned on their digital epitaph are this: you did this to you.

so when james says I had to start dedsec, that's not entirely what he means. because james park always has and always will play a game of calculated risks, weighing lives, assets, and information against the complications and benefits of any move he makes. james is contingencies stacked on contingencies, a plan for pretty much every outcome— because he can't predict everything, try as he might— with costs carefully considered. decisions are made deliberately, and improvising when plan goes to shit is something he struggles with for a long time. in those early years in the yakuza james bluffs, acts like he has his shit together just long enough to catch himself and get back on track, but nothing will ever frustrate him more than being in a situation he didn't anticipate. that heavy emphasis on accountability comes back to bite him: because if james believes by necessity he chooses everything that happens to him, then when he's put in a situation he doesn't like, that must have also been his choice. he missed something. he didn't account for something. a refusal to let others control his life means he thinks everything bad that happens is also his own doing, even if it's not. because of course it's never that cut and dry.

and so dedsec too is a calculated risk. but this one scares him— scares him more than any do or die plan ever has, scares him more than staring down the barrel of a gun, because it's not the cold math of assets and income. this math is moral, this is the math of doing the right thing, and how is he supposed to weigh the systems he's surrounded himself with to protect him and the people he's grown to trust against the idea of making real, true change in the world? people who he knows by definition will become targets of the thing he's leaving them behind to create? people he knows have more power than him, and he’s unsure if he could beat if it came down to it?

it scares him because he cares now, and cares enough that the thought of death is no longer an impediment. scares him too because isn't he one of those monsters he's now seeking out to destroy? for the first time he feels unworthy and, worse, he feels unworthy of a goal he himself chose to try and accomplish.

and it's not that james doesn't think it'll work. he wouldn't do it if that wasn't the case. but it's that he realizes the severity of what he's giving up, how the plan he's going for is idealistically naive at best and downright suicidal at worst— and how he feels, despite the fact that he knows this will kill him, that he's going to do it regardless.

well, it's better than dying for someone else's profit, anyway.

james believes the world can be a better place. look at what he operates under for years, the power struggles, the ruthlessness of the yakuza. he sat quietly for years while he burned from the inside out about how little these people care beyond their own status and profit— how even james didn't care, for a while, beyond control and security— and will step over countless others to attain them. from the very beginning the thought this is wrong grew under james' skin, fed by rage and impotence, until it became a tumour so large ignoring it was a greater task than doing something about it.

and maybe that's what was truly terrifying about it to him— the fact that, for the first time in his life, james felt like he had to do something. and that thing he had to do was throw away literally everything he had ever known and chase the idea of good.

it may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it's mine.