#but don't try and find some morality justification as to WHY he's 'bad'

[thefloatingstone]

"Garrus is bad because he was a cop"

Garrus is proof of ACAB because he fucking LEFT because he couldn't handle the red tape and corruption any more.

[tallerthantale]

I finally got around to doing a close reading of transcripts of the Tortoise episodes, and I am very glad that I did.

My view remains that I find all the allegations both very credible and very damning. The updates to my views are that I feel more positively (though not entirely positively) about Tortoise, and that there is a probable very bad actor in all of this that isn't getting nearly enough attention. (Not Amanda Palmer. Or well, yes Amanda Palmer, but she isn't who I'm talking about.)

Tortoise first.

I'd been seeing a lot of comments claiming that Tortoise was anti BDSM. I don't know what the people in the podcast have as their personal views, but they made a point multiple times to clarify that BDSM does not operate like what Neil Gaimen was alleged to have done, and the condemnation they had for the alleged actions was not a condemnation of consensual BDSM. As someone who has been very involved in BDSM community for decades, I am fully in agreement with everything the hosts have said. The line people got most hung up on was a guest expert snarking about degradation ever being consensual. It is ambiguous in context what definition of "degradation" he is using, but it seemed to me he was referring to processes of establishing coercive control, and not referring to degrading roleplay in a mutually invested, healthily negotiated kink scenario. My remaining critique on the host / guests perspective is that the language around abuse and coercive control used by the hosts and guests often presumes all abusers are male and all victims are female. It doesn't diminish the value of the rest of what they are doing, but I think it is worth being critical of as a side note.

The other big point of concern with Tortoise, which I got major bad vibes off of from day one, was the manner in which they talk about their "understanding of Neil Gaimen's position." That sets off my internal red flags because it immediately prompts the follow up questions, "How did you acquire that understanding?" "Who told you that?" "Why aren't you quoting and / or citing them?" I had been speculating that they were from his side of the communications provided by the people coming forward, or comments from lawyers that weren't being properly attributed. Council of Geeks had a great "Cite Your Sources!" whiteboard moment I would generally agree with.

However.

It turns out there is actually a good reason for the citation fuckery. I think a lot of people missed it, so I'm going to try to explain it. When the hosts are referencing communications provided by those coming forward, they say so. When they are referencing comments by lawyers, they say so. The issue is, the bulk of the time, their understanding is coming from piles of direct emails with Gaimen that are OFF THE RECORD. Journalists have to take that seriously to get to keep doing journalism. They are professionally obligated to NOT cite or quote him when he is off the record. Normally in such a situation journalists wouldn't do this squiggly 'our understanding of their views' thing, they would leave it out entirely to be on the safe side of their professional obligations. Sprinkled through the podcasts are comments about the moral importance of hearing from both sides, the great public interest need to hear from both sides. This is a very snarky justification for the game they are playing of vague-posting the gist of his off the record statements without ever putting the exact statement on the record.

A lot of their snark surrounding that, and some other bits, leave the very distinct impression that Gaimen and his lawyers have threatened legal action against Tortoise several times already. Honestly I hope that they do file legal action, as that would open Gaimen up to discovery. Discovery is a process by which Tortoise would be able to demand access to nearly all documents and / or electronic communications Gaimen has relating to the matter, and in doing so make them public. Discovery is far broader sweeping that what is admissible in court, because it has to be 'discovered' before the court can rule it admissible or not. But inadmissible thigs are still usually public record. A jury wouldn't see them, but we still can. Because of that, it is extremely unlikely that Gaimen will file a legal claim, but again, I truly hope that he does. Tortoise probably does too.

But there is another person deserving of investigation and discovery in all this.

The main focus of my current attention is from a bit in the first episode that jumped out at me. Like, it made my eyes bug out, jaw on the metaphorical floor, and I was shocked that I haven't seen it mentioned. But then I figured, people might just not have the context to know how big of a deal this is. So I'm going to talk about it.

According to Scarlett's account, after she came forward to Amanda, Neil asked her to take a call with a therapist that both he and Amanda see. It seemed like his financial assistance offer to her may have hinged on the call being part of the deal. At first read, it looks like Gaimen strongarming Scarlett to tell his therapist he didn't assault anyone. She does the call, and there is a message from the guy that seems designed to plant the suggestion in Scarlett that her friends are manipulating her into perceiving a consensual relationship as a non consensual one.

To me, that is a five alarm fire. Everything happening in there should not be happening, ever. A person who provides individual therapy should not provide it to both partners in a relationship. A person who provides relationship therapy should not be providing individual therapy to people in the relationship. (They should do one-on-one sessions with each in the context of the relationship therapy but that is different.) A therapist should not be framing things the way they are described in that message, or interacting that way towards someone who is not a client, particularly if they have a conflict with someone who is. Therapists are very aware of the potential for clients to coerce others into saying things that fit the client's narrative, and should not be encouraging them to try. And all that is before we even get to the part where he seems to have been tasked specifically to gasslight Scarlett into mistrusting herself and blaming her friends. By Scarlett's paper trailed account, this person should be facing very serious repercussions and investigation. According to Tortoise, he has not responded to any of their attempts to get in touch with him, and he has a phone that is set up to not accept voicemail.

The name of this alleged professional is stated in the podcast, so I looked him up. He is most widely known as an author. His first professional descriptor for himself is as an executive leadership mentor. That more or less translates to person who gives expensive pep talks to rich people. He is also a minister, and a 'consultant.' He does call himself a therapist, but he has no degrees, background, or training in psychology. His degree is from divinity school. He does not list any professional qualifications or certifications in mental health, he does not list any memberships in any mental health organizations. He did co-found an organization that appears to have put on motivational seminars for a variety of organizations. His 'client list' was last updated in 2012. His website has features that are only accessible by those who are 'fully committed.' He is based out of Arizona, USA.

Searching for his name + therapist will get you to a podcast episode with Amanda Palmer, where she had him on as a guest, described him as a therapist, her therapist, and her and Neil's relationship therapist, and promoted his books. It was recorded in 2019, and it is utterly vapid and out of touch from the both of them. Searching his name + therapist will not get you any information on his work as a therapist, because he is not a therapist.

He can't get stripped of his status as a mental health practitioner, because he isn't one. Tortoise states that he has protected confidentiality to Neil and Amanda. If he does have protected confidentiality, he has it solely through his status as a minister, not as a mental health professional because again, he isn't one. As a minister, he may have greater client privilege than an actual mental health professional, who would be required to break privilege if they have reason to believe their client is a danger to themselves or others. Religious client privilege is very strongly protected in most of the US even if the client is explicitly planning to commit specific acts of violence. This might be the main selling point to people who choose to work with ministers who pretend to be therapists rather than actual therapists.

Scarlett doesn't have confidentiality much less privilege by any avenue, his communication with her did not form a professional relationship despite the ways his message seemed to blur those lines, which would have left him free to pass on whatever she said to Neil and Amanda. That would also open the door for him to corroborate what Scarlett told him to the media, but my impression is that if he can be contacted, he will cite a duty to his real client, Neil Gaimen, to avoid saying anything. This is one of many reasons why real therapists do not take clients who have potential conflicts of interest with their other clients. I can't tell from the content of either podcast to what extent he may have materially represented himself to be an actual mental health professional to his clients, but if he has done so he absolutely should be liable if not culpable for that.

I would like to see this man investigated to hell and back, but I don't know if anyone in the media is going to bother. For anyone who needs to hear it, do not go to therapy with someone who isn't a licensed mental health professional. Do not have the same individual therapist as your romantic partner(s). If you are setting up couples therapy, it needs to be with someone who has never met either of you before, and you make first contact with them as a unit.

Obligatory this is all personal opinion disclaimer. The internal states of public figures cannot be determined or scientifically evaluated by their public statements / appearances / works / ect... I am not the behaviour panel, nor do I endorse that kind of thing. But under certain circumstances I am willing to put out some personal opinions about what certain actions, if they happened, would seem to suggest.

I've been saying for a while now, the allegations paint a very strong and compelling picture of Gaimen knowing what he was doing and engaging in deliberate strategy even if he can make pocket experiences for himself where he gets to believe that the relationships were real. I think the evidence pointing towards Gaimen having a long running pseudo 'therapist' he is comfortable sending his accusers to talk to, who then encourages the accuser to think their friends are controlling them, speaks to how deeply this approach to life can saturate a person's existence. When I say 14 represents a lifestyle choice, these are the kinds of things I'm talking about. Someone who fucked up and made a few grievous errors, and did soul searching, and is trying to do better doesn't send their victims to their on call professional gassligter with religious privilege who they outsource to. This looks like 'life revolves around finding ways to control and silence people' level shit.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

The Caleb and Golden Guard Ghost or Illusion in For the Future is interpreted differently by fans and haters of Belos those who think he pure evil thought it was their ghosts haunting him for his sins while those who like him thought it was repressed guilt this has done nothing to help Belos’s reputation in the fandom and unless your chronically online those were illusions and to top it all off it was never mention again and Papa Titan dismissed him and some fans take his words as true. I think the Crew being vague on Belos Past and how sympathetic he is, is the main downfall of the show writing and one of the reason why Belos fans get bullied

I feel like that's just a problem with Belos in general; casual fans and those who dislike see him as simply evil and nothing more. But fans who were invested in the potential of his character and story obviously saw something more and the show was just vague enough to make convincing arguments that there was more to him.

It is extremely frustrating to have canonical facts such as the Wittebanes only becoming witch hunters to fit in, which has huge implications for their story and the themes of the show, only for that to never be mentioned again and for Masha to undercut their own story about how "little bro was jealous of big bro."

It feels like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, by hinting at more subtle characterization only to ignore all that and have Belos act as their Generic Bad Guy Who Represents Societal Evils.

I don't think that the writing of Belos is the main downfall of the show, I think it's just a symptom of it. The show struggles with characterization by having characters not experience actual development but switching to a different character type. Eda goes from infamous criminal to Mama Eda but she doesn't spend enough quality time with Luz to justify the change. Lilith goes from intimidating head of the Emperor's Coven to history nerd who becomes besties with the resident joke character (let's also not forget how the show largely brushed aside the fallout of Eda's curse and Lilith having to share it just to atone). Hunter spends a few episodes as the Golden Guard and then he's Sad Boy Who is Abused. I've said before that the season 1 version (or first appearance in Hunter's case) of these characters are at their most interesting and unique but by the end, they're reduced to just generically nice people.

The villains, for better or worse, don't suffer this switch. They're exactly what they're presented as despite a few tantalizing details that would suggest otherwise. The end result is a bunch of characters who act as the plot requires them too, not because of actual character growth or dynamics.

On a separate note, I don't think Belos fans are bullied because his writing is sloppy. Even if he was more explicitly sympathetic, people would still find an excuse to harass fans. I think bullies just want to make people feel bad for engaging with media in a way that is different from theirs and no amount of "justification" can excuse that. People like villains, get over it. The kind of media and characters people enjoy usually has nothing to do with their morality. But how you treat real people certainly does.

[darkfictionjude]

My third time trying to send it, Oh My God, I apologise if you receive like... three asks. Me being dum-dum with smartphone. Apologise for my poor English, too. Hello, Jude!

I want to thank you for your fantastic WWC-if. I deeply enjoyed it, because it has a very interesting plot, very well written atmosphere/vibe, but your characters? Oh man, your characters are the most delicious part of your work (-s even). I find them so different, so unique, so deep and really well-written, because I feel them; sometimes hate them too, but for a good reason, that they make me go “ah shit I strongly disagree with you, but FINE”. Love them all, eat them all, too.

Moreover, I’ll be patiently waiting for your new works to be continued, really excited about them. I must admit, so far I’m captivated by Dante, because he’s such a monster (affectionate). I know, that he’s morally bad, does terrible things that contradict with our very normal and modern views, but you know what? It’s good! I love psychos (scientifically)! As a fellow creator I can see the appeal of that kind of romance — destructive and wild. I’ll go for Dante-romance just to witness his love burn and cause damage. I want to have options for Luce to hurt Dante back, make him mad, but, you know, in a very passionate way or something like that. When I see characters barking at each other and then make out, I feel happy, because it's interesting, even if one of them can kill you (whatever, I swear, I don't care, have my green light to make Luce suffer). I don’t expect (and don’t want to, to be honest) Dante suddenly to change ‚for the better‘ or set aside his views, background and other things, that make him, well, him, because of a magical power of LOVE. In fact, I hope I'll see this exact love bringing the worst in him, showing what he can (and probably will) do for Luce or to them. You know, distorted views of love and affection are the best yet rarest among the ifs. Authors are mostly scared to create a deranged character and show their love in an ugly way. However, few people and I surely crave it. I don't want to cry on your shoulder, but I'm really tired of 'toxic romance' to turn suddenly very sweet and nice, showing only some scenes of jealousy and possessiveness, and that's it, sadly. So... thank you for not making him another 'good bad guy', I guess (so far?)? Seriously, you're doing God's (Devil's, maybe) work here.

Long Story Short, thank you so much for your works, I wish you the best, a lot of luck and Inspiration. I like you as a person and as a dark writer! I will watch you making your progress from the shadows of the deepest lake on Earth. You have my support, Jude.

So many times I’ve gotten apologizes from people saying they don’t speak English as a first language and yet they’re so eloquent in their messages 💀

Yeah I’ve never been a fan of fiction that has the love interest do a 180 because they’re in love. So does that mean they’ll become the same person the minute the love interest leaves them? Then that’s not true change and it’s not real character development. It’s one thing for a person to show you how to view things differently but it’s not genuine if you’re doing it to please them. I don’t think I’ll ever do a fix-it romance

I do get why some creators are hesitant to create romances like these because you’ll likely be subject to backlash from people saying you’re promoting abusive relationships or what-have-you but depiction is not endorsement nor romanticization or justification. That idea seems lost on people sometimes. I won’t justify my characters bad actions as right I will simply explain why from their point of view they believe things they do to be ok and not because they want to fuck the MCs over (although sometimes that’s exactly what they want to do)

I love how my characters frustrate you! And thank you lake underground nonnie ☺️

[mdhwrites]

By far the stupidest take I've ever seen on Amphibia was someone saying that it's ending 'sided with the bad guys' by having Earth and Amphibia separated and having the Calamity Trio drift apart.

Their logic? Aldrich's line to Andrias: 'Don't you think it's time you said goodbye to those childhood friends of yours, son?' According to them, the trio accepting their separation from Amphibia and drifting apart was an agreement with Aldrich's beliefs. When I watched the show myself, I was flabbergasted by how badly this viewer had missed the point.

What Aldrich was saying to Andrias was that he should cast aside friendship entirely, because according to him, a king with the Core by his side has no need for friends, and friendship 'doesn't last.' There is no conceivable way The Hardest Thing 'agrees' with any of that. At no point during the finale is separation portrayed as the end of any friendship. Rather, an affirmation that nothing, be it distance or time, can undo the bonds we share with each other. So even if Aldrich is kinda right that friendships can't always stay the same, he's still wrong because friendship does last, whether friends remain by each other's sides or not.

I understand if peeps don't like the ending (everyone's entitled to their own opinion), but to say it 'sides with the bad guys' just because the main characters don't stay physically together comes off as completely ignoring the whole point. How do you think people misinterpret these things so wildly? Is it just out of a refusal to accept a bittersweet ending? Or do you think some viewers hold on too tightly to their ideas of how a certain story 'should' be, rather than looking at it for what it is?

So much like the "Because we saw Aldritch, we HAD to see Sasha and Marcy's parents" take (which I personally would call stupider than this), this is a take someone gets to to justify their feelings. Because your analysis is simply correct. That none of the trio, or their families, reject all connections, let alone friendship, like Aldritch wanted. They keep each other in their minds, likely found new connections and even came back to one another because they never let those bonds go. If the show sided with the villains, Anne would not be a herpetologist. PERIOD. She would not want any reminder of her friends, let alone smile fondly at a small pink frog that reminds her of one.

But let's actually talk about why stuff like this sort of argument has been on the rise. I even am victim to it because my brain will try to logic into why I like or dislike a certain thing. I literally did an entire blog about how I don't like free to play games anymore, have never liked Gacha games, and yet am probably on Honkai Star Rail's wild ride until it does something to genuinely piss me off. That blog was about me trying to explain why I felt but in the end admitting there was no reason. And you know what? That's fine. We don't always need reasons for why we like or dislike something.

But on social media, there HAS to be a reason.

(Real quick interjection for those who don't want to hear me talk about how I think social media has changed analysis: The more purely analytical issue that leads to points like this one and the one about Aldritch is that they are not asking a question. They instead have a desired point to make and work backwards from there. You are more likely to ignore evidence that doesn't support your argument like this though or purposefully misread or misrepresent situations so as to be able to use it as justification for the point you want to make. It is a conclusion that must then find a hypothesis, not a hypothesis that then derives a conclusion. Anyways, if you want the potential why for that sort of conjecture being on the rise, *gestures below*)

I blame Twitter for this MUCH more than Tumblr actually. I know there is moralizing on Tumblr but there's a reason why it's the TWITTER villain of the day that you hear about and why that term was popularized with the platform. There is a need for superiority on that platform that I don't feel like I've seen anywhere else. Not to be popular, that's different, but to be superior. To be objectively correct and the most morally correct. Outrage is not a shame to see on Twitter for many people because it doesn't mean bad news but instead the block party it celebrates every hour on the hour.

And so fandoms are stuck in kind of a hellscape where they can no longer go "This is neat!" Instead, they need to be prepared for assholes like whoever came up with this take originally going "Okay, but I don't think it's neat and I have a reason and you don't so your opinion is invalid!" So they start coming up with reasons why their show is so great! Then they get rebuttals and it quickly becomes an argument until one finds a vector that can't be refuted. This is where bringing in the real world so heavily into fandoms came from I think. It was no longer neat parallels but ways to justify their love towards haters. Ways to make it so continuing to disagree made you a morally bad person so now you have to shut up.

As a note: All of this is why I never mind if someone has blocked me without the two of us interacting. I criticize the thing they love? They don't want to see that? Good for them. PLEASE block me if you're not interested in my words. I am not here to burn entire fandoms to the ground or make you hate the thing you like. It's why I try to make my blogs useful to people from a learning perspective, not just "This thing sucks!" even if I will admit that there are plenty of times that I fail because sometimes I just need to get something off my chest.

It is not healthy for fandoms though to be stuck in this corner. To have to prove why your thing is literally the best thing on the planet. You should just be allowed to celebrate what you love and be happy for it for making you so happy.

HOWEVER, the flip side of this is that if there is a decision you disagree with... The work is no longer perfect. But you loved it so dearly so what cardinal sin did it commit? A lot of Amphibia's fandom were hurt by the bittersweet ending because they had grown so connected the characters and didn't want to let them go, even if that's part of the point of the ending. It couldn't just be something painful though. It wasn't a juicy pain like angst was after all, it was just a bitter pill to swallow. A reminder of what reality can be like sometimes. So it's time to find an answer to prove why this invalidates the ending and they're justified with saying their version, the one that makes them happy, is the correct version.

Same thing happened with Andrias/Aldritch. The fandom wanted to see the parents and grew more and more spiteful about not getting what they wanted and so concocted an argument that moralized and talked about equality so as to make them 'right'. They didn't actually think about what it was asking because it wasn't them starting with a question and ending with a goal. It was them justifying that goal ANY. MEANS. NECESSARY.

And that's just going to lead to bad analysis made in bad faith. At least, that's my theory for how we get into stuff like this.

======+++++======

Quick TOH note because... Me: This whole thing is actually probably why while it's easy to say that TOH feels like a work crafted entirely by what Tumblr thinks makes a story good, I think it's firmly a story that could only have been conceived of during the Twitter era. There's just almost too much blunt moral grandstanding about current social topics, rather than actual morality, and proving itself as better than other works for me to think otherwise.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past.

I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead.

If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[exuberantocean]

I absolutely don't understand how so many Doctor Who fans on this site obsessively squabble over the NuWho showrunners, particularly in the way they seem to feel the need to manufacture moral justification for it.

I mean, yes, it's absolutely going to be that some people aren't going to like how specific show runners run the show. I, myself, have one of the three that I really just don't like as a showrunner. That's natural.

But it seems like these people are feel the need to justify their subjective tastes with moral superiority and I'm just...wtf?

Doctor Who (new and old, but lets focus on new for this post), is one of the most progressive shows on TV, and certainly the longest running. (RIP Sense8, we lost you way too soon). It's representation isn't always 100% perfect, but it's pretty darn good, especially when you compare it to other options. And more importantly, there's a clear good faith effort to get it right.

But I also think there's a bad faith effort in a lot of these fans to scower the show looking for "evidence" on why the show runner they don't like is some sort of bad evil person who did horrific things to their show. For example, in 2005 Rose Tyler says "You're so gay" in one episode and I've seen this used as evidence of homophobia in RTD's run. Which...wow. What one character says and thinks doesn't equal the message of the show and completely ignores the storyline where Rose later meets Jack, is taken back by his omnisexuality, but then learns to just accept it as no big deal. Yeah, she was meant to be homophobic and then get over it.

I also see people tear apart the (female, always female) companions as proof of sexism, misogyny, etc. And...I'm sorry. While there's always room for improvement, Doctor Who tends to have women with more agency and active roles than most shows out there. Need I remind you that while Clara became immortal, stole a Tardis, and took off with her immortal girlfriend to have lesbian adventures in space, Supernatural was fridged Charlie Bradbury in a bathtub and the world's most stupid, contrived way? I'm not saying there's no room for improvement or critiquing, but Jesus those two things are not the same and it's aggravating how often people feel like they need to find "proof" of something evil and dark in a showrunner's soul within the next to justify their subjective tastes.

It's okay to just not like something. You're allowed to do that. It's okay not to like a showrunner's style. Look. I don't care for Chris Chibnall as a showrunner. Didn't like Broadchurch. I have a hard time with 13's run because of it too (despite LOVING Jodi's portrayal). I tend to like Chibnall's ideas, but I have a hard time warming up to his execution. And that's okay. I'm sure Chibnall's not like some evil anti-feminist puppy-eater. This doesn't even mean he's bad showrunner, as clearly he's got a lot of people who do like his work as he's quite successful, (and I do like some of his one off episodes). Just, as a showrunner, he's just not my cup of tea. That's okay. Nor is there any point in trying to make anyone hate Chibnall's run. You loved his run? I'm genuinely happy for you. It's hard enough to find things to love and be happy about in life sometimes, why in the world would I want to take that from you.

[alovelyburn]

why exactly do you think griffith isn't a problematic character? i'm very interested.

The phrasing of this ask leads me to believe it's not being sent in good faith, but I'm ignoring that and answering anyway.

So, I mean, the easy answer is "because he's a fictional character whose actions or behavior have zero real world impact."

The longer answer is, if you're referring to the colloquial definition of problematic which involves actions or attitudes that are in some way indicative of harmful beliefs, prejudices etc, then there's literally no evidence that he has any of those things. You might be able to make a case for slight sexism based on him telling Casca that sleeping next to Guts is a woman's duty, but other than that he's infamously egalitarian in every area - he accepts anyone regardless of ethnicity, gender, background, etc.

This even carries through to NeoGriffith, who is literally inventing public education, creating pathways to citizenship for refugees, requiring Apostles to behave civilly and stop attacking/killing people, and actively chipping at class distinctions, which he always did, which is why conservative nobles hated him so much.

What people mean when they say Griffith is problematic is generally that they're mad at him about the Eclipse and specifically because Femto raped Casca, and often that they've made up all kinds of negative headcanon about the way he was as a human because of Femto's actions during the Eclipse. But I don't care about anyone's Griffith Was A Sociopath headcanon or whatever, I care about what's in the actual series.

You could argue that FEMTO is problematic (he doesn't quite fit my understanding of what problematic means, but I'm not going to act like he isn't a whole entire asshole) but FEMTO isn't GRIFFITH, he's Griffith's soul shot through with the energies of hell, and with his emotions blunted, his humanity removed, and his moral limitations lifted.

People who call him problematic also usually mean that they're judging his actions from a modern western perspective when he's a medieval-to-renaissance era fantasy character created by a Japanese man in the 80s, so I find the application of a 2023 American moral paradigm sort of pointless. Particularly because people generally only apply the paradigm to Griffith specifically, because they're mad at him and not at, say, Guts despite Guts being a mass murderer by any modern standard.

The most honest answer is, all of the above but also I just don't find any utility in passing moral judgement on manga characters to begin with.

That doesn't mean I can't discuss his actions, their implications, their justification or lack thereof - is it okay to kill people who are trying to kill you, do the ends justify the means, how much death is acceptable in the creation of a nice place to live, etc etc. I like discussing these things. But I'm not going to discuss them from a place of judging whether those actions are problematic or even whether they're good or bad; I find that boring and reductive. One of the reasons I love Berserk to begin with is that it rejects these paradigms, so I'm not trying to impose them after the fact.

[cosmicjoke]

Not to keep going on about this, but one thing I think is pretty obvious in AoT is that no side is framed as the good or bad side. The entire point of the story is to show the tragedy of war and persecution, and where it leads. It isn't a question of who's good or bad, right or wrong, it's an examination of the tragedy of anyone ever having to be put in a position of fighting back in the first place. I even made a post specifically about this not long ago, here:https://www.tumblr.com/cosmicjoke/743927719421673472/one-tactic-that-some-eren-fan-once-tried-to-argue?source=share .

So despite what some are trying to say about mine and others statements regarding Levi's goodness as being a justification of Levi's actions because he's on the side of Paradis, what we're actually doing is justifying his actions because, in the context of any, given scene in which he commits acts of violence, they ARE justifiable. His life or the lives of others are being threatened, therefore, it's justifiable for him to act in defense of himself and others. It's got nothing to do with who's ideologically good or bad, who's right or wrong, or who's on what side. It's a matter of practicality. If someone is threatening you or others, you're justified in using lethal force to stop them. That's why police officers and regular citizens are allowed to shoot people who pose a threat to them and others and they won't be prosecuted under the law for doing so. Whether Levi was from Paradis or Marley, if all things were the same in terms of circumstance when he's shown killing, we would continue to call his actions justifiable because it's got to do with his specific situation, not with who's side he's on.

It's about individual assessment of a person's actions and the situation that person finds themselves in. Levi's killing has nothing to do with ideology or philosophical belief. It has to do with the practical question of survival. If I don't kill this person, they're going to kill me or someone else. It's a tragedy, but it's also a reality. That's why I've said again and again that killing is always a tragedy, but it's not always wrong. Of course it's tragic that anyone has to die, but sometimes they DO have to die in order for others to live. That's an inescapable reality that has nothing to do with "sides" of a conflict or ideological belief.

Some people want to extrapolate that statement out to what eventually happens in the story with Eren and the Rumbling, but Eren's admission that he enacted the Rumbling to realize his own, selfish idea of freedom, and not to save anyone, completely undercuts that argument. Eren didn't try to genocide the whole world because he thought it was necessary to save the lives of anyone, or for any philosophical belief in the greater good, he did it because he wanted to.

The Rumbling, therefore, didn't happen because Eren was taught the philosophy of kill or be killed. It happened because Marley persecuted the Eldian's to such an extreme extent, that it created a faction of extremist nationalists, which eventually lead to a complete madman like Eren coming into a power he never should have had. The story doesn't condemn killing in and of itself, or the concept of self-defense. It doesn't try to persuade us of the rightness or wrongness of those things on the basis of moral grounds. I think AoT itself demonstrates beautifully overall, and particularly with Levi during the Uprising arc, with Jean and Mikasa's judgmental condemnation of his actions being thrown back in their faces when soon after they're placed in the same position of having to kill in order to survive and protect one another, that we shouldn't judge anyone without first understanding the context and circumstances behind their actions. To not judge or condemn anyone until you have a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding their behavior. AoT shows us over and over again how important context is, and again, it trusts the reader to use that context to make fair assessments about who's right and who's wrong in any, given scenario.

You can't just generalize everyone's actions as right or wrong based on the action itself. The circumstances surrounding it, and the person's attitude and intent in taking any, given action, are necessary to acknowledge and examine in making an accurate assessment in that regard.

So rather than AoT condemning the use of violence or violence in itself, what it actually condemns is, ironically enough, generalized and assumptive perceptions of who and what is good or bad, right or wrong, because it's those things which lead to persecution, oppression, atrocities and war, which in turn leads to untold destruction. It's an anti-war story, and an anti-prejudice story. It doesn't try to moralize to anyone about the evil's of killing or violence. It in fact acknowledges those things as a part of the natural order, as a part of the human condition. Even in showing the horrific outcome of persecution, it never frames any, individual characters actions or person as definitively right or wrong. It lets the reader come to their own conclusions on that front. It trusts the reader/viewer to be able to tell the difference between unjustified murder vs justifiable self-defense, all while acknowledging the tragedy inherent to the need for self-defense at all.

Eren didn't enact the Rumbling because he was taught it was justifiable to kill in self-defense or defense of others, which is what I think some people are trying to imply. That Eren being taught that is what lead to him wiping out 80% of the planet's population, and so that's supposed to be a condemnation of the act of killing in self-defense. But it's not. If the story wanted to send that message, it never would have made such a strong point of emphasizing the real reason Eren did what he did, which, like I said before, wasn't self-defense or defense of others, but because he wanted to see the world as it was in Armin's books. Eren knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew it wasn't justified. It had nothing to do with fighting back, something he admits both to himself and others. And so it wasn't Eren learning from Levi's example, or anyone else' example, that lead him down that road. It was just his own nature, and it was Marley's persecution and oppression and warmongering that created a scenario in which someone with Eren's nature obtained the power to do what he already always wanted to from the start .

Basically, the story is telling us that if you don't want to be killed, you shouldn't give anyone a reason to kill you. Don't persecute people, don't oppress people, don't threaten people, don't seek out revenge on people for something someone else did, don't punish people for something they didn't do, don't engage in generational guilt or blame, don't make assumptions about people, don't condemn anyone until you understand the context of their actions, etc, etc... If the story condemns anything, it's that, because it's those sorts of choices which lead to the circumstances that end in war and mass violence. The story shows us what happens when you put someone in a corner and leave them no choice but to fight back. Rather than being critical of violence alone, what it's actually critical of is creating the circumstances in which violence becomes a necessity at all.

[cinnamonest]

Of course, you have the Soft Boy™ types that are generally good-willed and would try to help -- namely, Thoma, Chongyun, Bennett, Venti, and Kazuha. Theirs is fairly short and simple, they all try to help in some way, although Thoma, Bennett and Chongyun tend to use words whereas Venti and Kazuha are more inclined to quiet actions and gestures. It's also worth noting that Kazuha and Venti fall somewhere in a slight middle ground where, while they certainly try to improve your self-esteem, it's not impossible that they might also find themselves utilizing it.

For Venti, he's pretty aware of it, and makes an active choice to do so under some justification he can come up with to rationalize it to himself, while Kazuha does it more subconsciously. In his mind, he would never do such a thing as manipulate your self-loathing! And he's right, he would never... not on purpose, at least. Doing so without really thinking about it, though, means he doesn't have to necessarily ever have to acknowledge his actions, so he can convince himself that whatever he said or did had some other explanation.

On another note, amusingly, while not really as deadset on helping, some of the "socially inept and incredibly dense" types of boys (Cyno, Diluc, Xiao) would try to make you feel better, they just don't really know how or what to say... this ultimately results in making it infinitely worse by basically insulting you, telling you your self-perception is wrong and that you're incredibly stupid to feel that way, then proceeding to not understand why this upsets you, or why him seemingly irritated about it frightens you. But hey, at least he tried.

The ones who will outright manipulate you into being low-confidence to minimize risk of you leaving them without a shred of shame, however, falls to the predictable ones: Ayato, Kaeya, and Childe. All three are absolutely not above it morally, and see it as a useful way of sort of keeping your behavior in line. The approaches are a bit different though, it can be generally summarized by a basic strategy:

Childe's is very direct. This man will outright attack your insecurity at the root and very blatantly address it -- aw, is it because you think you (*insert whatever flaw*)? Bastard has no shame and no hesitation, he finds your reactions cute, even if you get mad or tearful. His method is to basically neg you about it, but insist he likes that thing or doesn't mind it. He's generally fairly indiscriminate when it comes to traits or habits and doesn't really feel the need to change anything, so it's very unlikely he has any intention of actually stripping you of the behavior or trait at the root of the insecurity. In fact, he's not lying when he says he likes it or doesn't mind... Your reactions are just funny. Besides, he also keeps reminding you of it anyway, because hey, even if he doesn't want you to change it, making sure to keep you paranoid and insecure about it will ensure you don't go running off with someone else.

Kaeya and Ayato, however, have it more indirect. Kaeya's strategy specifically is very backhanded. This man has mastered the art of the backhanded compliment, presenting words in such a way that it makes you feel bad, picks at an insecurity, but at the same time you can't be mad because it's worded in such a way that you feel it wasn't intentional on his end. Ayato's method of manipulation is the least aggressive, and the most indirect. He has a way of making you think about insecurities without ever bringing it up. He just places things and guides conversation in such a way that he knows that what he says will make you think about that thing, that it will be the natural train of thought you'll have, all without ever actually touching the subject or coming close enough to the matter that you might suspect it being intentional.

[the-missann]

Recently, I've seen a lot of debate about what makes a good villain and I just wanted to add my two cents so we can pay for this chip bag together.

Bad guys, villains, antags, whatever you call them are very interesting individuals. It doesn't even have to be a person, it can simply be an ideal that makes something negative for your main characters.

In this specific case, I was seeing a lot of people dislike the villain with the sympathetic background. I totally see where this is coming from so here's my take.

Most people don't feel like they can create a bad person without giving them a moral justification for what they're doing. I would assume this comes from the fact that most people irl don't do bad things for no reason.

Revenge

Sorrow

Rage

Are usually the things people in the backstories of villains.

Tell me you haven't heard one of these before:

I was married before this, but they took them away from me, now I have nothing to live for and nothing to care about.

When I was younger, everyone used to make fun of me, bully me into submission, and do whatever they wanted. Now that I'm stronger, I'll do to them what they did to me.

I swore revenge to those who crossed me. No one believed I could do anything, and now my goals are right in front of me.

These are normal human emotions taken to 11 and are stereotypical reasons why antags do what they do. They're not bad as everyone has love for the sympathetic villain or the misunderstood bad guy, but reasonably it's been over used to hell and any attempt to make the opposite is a one-dimensional mess.

Here's the thing though. The mindless villains who are evil for the sake if being evil are confusing to most people.

People try and come up with a backstory when there isn't one for a villain who just wants to smash some heads. Creators are almost forced to make a backstory because "there has to be something.

When, in reality, they're just a bad person.

A good way to avoid all of these cliches is to use real human emotions to your advantage. I happen to like true crime and have seen a lot of people who are worse than the scum in the drain of your toilet, but yet finding out they just "took pleasure" in their crimes is much better than them saying they're the way they are because of bullying, abuse, or trauma. Which is often used as an excuse rather than an actual reason.

Not to say these can't be valid reasons for someone's behavior, but sometimes people are just evil. Not every killer had an abusive dad or a vicious mom. Sometimes their life can be the most normal sitcom thing ever and they still turn out to be a rotten apple.

Now, in order to end this, I say we need to see more if every kind of villain. The sympathetic one, the mindlessly evil, the tactical bad guy, the power hungry one that everyone loves, and the one who everyone loves to hate.

Here's some "advice" about writing/creating a non sympathetic villain though. Don't think you have to make a reason, but if you want to give them a reason make it more related to their personality and not their upbringing.

For example, a villain I know nothing about seems to have the plot that he doesn't like the group he's apart of; so, people took that as the creators making him sympathetic. Most likely though, he probably just doesn't like the way in which those around him act. How foolish they act with the power they have. He wants the same thing they do, but not in the way they choose to go about getting it. This seems to just be the way he is regardless of if he was a bad or good guy. (I'll see if I'm even a little bit close when I finally see the game for myself).

This guy who I didn't even know existed until about an hour ago is what spawned this post. So use this as you will and thanks for reading~

[mandy4ever69420]

hey love tell me do u have an opinion about roberta, monicas S1 girlfriend, and the way she wanted to take liam away with the justification that the gallaghers were not raising him properly by erasing his blackness and community and origin and all that?

i do :) i think her argument captures something very Real and Infuriating in when people will make good points to try to explain around something really awful. like, with her specifically i am inclined to be forgiving of because well. if i'm not then i really don't like what it says about hiring a very beautiful Black butch woman for that role. but i really do Sincerely think she was just very caught up in the romance of shit and was very misinformed by monica and how very charmed she was by her. holds up b/c when they find her later to ask shes like "oh my god, why was i hanging around this woman, please fuck off i'm so embarrassed"

^^ there are a couple things that shameless does really well in contexts like these. the "that's a good point but it doesn't make your end goal moral" feeling of sympathy and being infuriated goes with the "someone finally apologized and really meant it but it was for the wrong thing or the wrong part of what they did which means they don't understand the problem at all but it's nice they're trying" thing you also see sometimes

but yeah. she has a point about liam being separated from his culture. that doesn't mean you can just, rip a little baby away from his family who loves him. that's pretty much just nothing but trauma right there. liam also explicitly talks about this later about his isolation and how really his family even though they ARE biologically related simply Cannot understand his position. also in a "bad day when i approve of frank" move frank does introduce liam to some nice relatives who are able to offer him something he was missing.

carl also is the most vocally concerned about Black issues & tries the hardest. because he was so little when we learned that frank is liam's biological father so he just went "huh. guess im Black" & presumably rolled with that without commenting on it for a good long while. which. is not how that works if you still experience white privilege & have parents who experience white privilege but oh my god genetics is so dumb racial categories are so made up and cruel. of course it gets weird. & you see where that goes wrong where carl thinks he can use the n word. even well intended and probably as the person who's put most thought into what randomly happening to be Black in a mostly white family means for liam he's Very liable to make it weird

& the gallaghers ARE biologically related but i want to mention that a lot of adoptions of kids of color by white parents go very, very abusive. which um. is not the case entirely here because most of his family is good to him to the best of their abilities. and it's not adoption. but still most of these characters (i think especially fiona @_@) have some weirdass racialized affectionate nicknames for him. though yeah frank is up there w the nicknames. he's just being an asshole on purpose though. so that's slightly different. & i know like calling kids 'monkey' is kind of just a thing people do but jesus christ. you do need to think about this when you are a white caretaker of a nonwhite child. Why is this not the only tv show i've seen fail to think of very specifically that with a white woman caring for a mixed child side note. you guysssss please for the love of god

anyway there are some real world dangers that white families are not really equipped to prepare little nonwhite kids for. & just on the feeling of being subject to racism that maybe his family could sympathize with but they dont have the tools to deal with or give him advice on. there are people who try and im sure do a very good job but the gallagher family has So much going on and most of them Are very selfish. for understandable reasons. it's fine. but it means they don't do a lot of looking into liam's perspective and just assume "that's probably fine"

anyway the best way in this sort of situation is just expanded social circles. liam Should connections in his life that he can rely on and feel close to. is it too predictable from me to get into the "nuclear families are limiting and enable abuse" thing here. i feel like i'm always on that. well i stand by it. kids need bigger communities of people to rely on to be safe and understood it's really just not possible to get everything you need from only 2 parents or only your biological family. particularly in liam's case though, you can't be forcibly separating him from loved ones, you can't just ask him to do all the work himself (which is what they did in canon)

& you can't just assume 1 Black friend in the community will be idk a spokesperson or something. a friend is not a family member unless you let her be And she wants to be & it's very unfair to ask V to be like wise or cultured enough to offer liam a complete connection to his culture. she's just one person with her own insecurities and shit going on. who tbh already wasn't super stoked about being asked to take care of other people's kids when she DID love them. imo it was a slightly racist maneuver for fiona to tell the kids to put (kev and) v near the top of their emergency contacts as like caretakers without even asking. and she DOES know them & they DO care about these kids

[brotherslayer]

I think the thing about what makes the cha siyeon and iklies thing worse is that where cha siyeon is from slavery and underage relationships are illegal and morally worng. Like one could make the excuse that for the people in the game world, slavery and courting 17 year olds isn't that bad cause they aren't illegal and not morally frowned upon by society which would still be a really terrible excuse but like...

Cha Siyeon is from a country, a world where slavery is the most inhumane crime and the legal age is 18 so she knows these things and yet she hasn't shown any disgust towards the actions of others or herself, only a mild sort of self centred disdain. There is a manhwa that I've read, can't remember the name, where the main leads get sent back in time and the guy feels like a criminal when he tries to date the girl he used to date at the time, when he was 17, the female lead kinda forced him to do so in order not to change the past so much. But I don't think cha siyeon ever felt disgusted with her actions not did she feel gross.

And the escapism and power fantasy that some manhwas have to offer have a lot of unexamined biases in them that make them into colonialist, pro slavery pieces of work.

And another thing that felt really unnecessary for me was the comonnars having no last name. Like why? Was it really necessary? And there isn't any resolution for that down the lane.

As far as I know the age of consent in Korea is 20. That means Iklies was 3 years below. I just wanted to mention this because the age of consent being 18 in some western countries shouldn't be treated as universal to the rest of the world especially when the beginning of the story was set in South Korea, Asia. Some readers might be arguing that Iklies being 17-18 by the end of the story makes him "technically" legal.

Cha Siyeon's lack of morals is strange. If I were let's say transported to a world where cannibalism was legal and the only way out was to kill and eat another human being I would not suddenly stop feeling horrified at the idea. She doesn't react viscerally to the things the game tells her to do - doesn't feel physically ill or disgusted. Her only comment on Iklies age was that she isn't usually into older guys but he would have to do. That's it. Her problem was that Iklies wasn't her type. An average modern day person accepting slavery and statuatory rape so easily is not realistic. To me it makes it harder to empathize with her as her behaviour is so far removed from reality and her inner world doesn't really reflect that of a modern day woman. The author could have shown the struggles of a moral person being forced to carry out immoral acts by a sadistic gaming system and how they would desperately fight against it, seek out an alternative, find a middle ground or finally fold and try to do something good afterwards in an attempt to clear their conscience. Instead the author created a character lacking a certain set of morals unless it's convenient for the narrative.

The way Cha Siyeon shows empathy is not consistent. She's willing to do terrible things in order to escape the game but sometimes for narrative reasons, as if a switch is turned, she feels bad. For example when she is rejecting gifts and friendly gestures that could improve her chances to get out of the game earlier with the justification that these things should have belonged to og Penelope. It feels ooc to me that she would do without valuables when this rejection won't benefit anyone not even the girl that has died. Also what makes her so sure that og Penelope won't return to her body and have a Happy Ending once Cha Siyeon has won and returned to her own world? Even more a reason to accept every gift with a smile. Romancing og Penelope's murderer is much worse than receiving a gift from one of her abusers anyway. But Cha Siyeon has to act rude and abrasive towards LI's that aren't Callisto in order to make her romance with Callisto work.

She is also a huge hypocrite I find. She likes empathy in theory but is unwilling to put it into actions. Mourning the owner of her body is easy and effortless because she's already dead. She never knew her personally and could project herself onto og Penelope's suffering with the illusion that she cares when in reality she is just self-pitying. She thinks she feels empathy for og Penelope but upon meeting another abused teenager (Iklies) she just becomes another source of trauma in his life. Like the duke she brings someone home with a specific purpose. Like the duke she neglects that person and is genuinely surpised when the staff abuses them. Like the duke the only apology she gives are gifts and expects money would fix everything. Another example of her hypocricy is when she is going on a date with Vinter which turns out to be a charity project where Vinter is giving food to orphan children. If I remember correctly Cha Siyeon acts angry when Vinter draws her attention to some children who were waiting in line that have already gotten their share of bread. Cha Siyeon was in no place to judge the way he distributed the food bought with his money when she accompanied him purely out of self-interest and otherwise would have eaten cake comfortably in the Eckart mansion while the kids would have starved if not for Vinter. Her worrying about not being dressed for the occasion only makes her more unsympathic.

Surnames were introduced in the 11th century but I doubt the author did their homework or cared at all. It would make sense for the Eorkan Empire to have surnames as they incorporated occupied territories, the population grew and people would need more names to distinguish among themselves. Volume 1 states that Penelope didn't even have a last name which implies that there must be some commoners that do have surnames but the story never bothered to elaborate on the reason why some commoners have surnames and she doesn't. Personally I don't have such an issue with it since we don't meet many commoner characters of importance. It's at the bottom of the list of things I would criticize about the manhwa.

I have more issues with this:

Slavery is treated as a just punishment. Another villain joins the oppressed population so we, the readers won't feel compassion towards them. No voice is given to the innocent ones that have truly suffered working themselves to death in the Duke's diamond mines (which now belong to the protagonist) or were torn apart by the wild beasts in the fighting pits. Incidentally I don't find it believable as punishment. I have never heard of nobles being demoted to slavery. Historically even the method with which nobles were executed was different from the way commoners were executed in order to preserve their dignity. Some say that slavery is a fate even worse than death. I feel as if this was deliberately done to manipulate the impression of the readers and make them side with the slavers by making the only known slaves criminals that were originally belonging to the aristocracy. It was very low of the author to do this.

[ramshacklefey]

Putting another MHA essay out into the ether because I think a lot of people don't get or appreciate the character arc that Endeavor is having.

Firstly, I just wanna say that while I find it ironic, I get why people have a harder time seeing beyond Enji's past crimes than they do the League members'. Most of us have never encountered someone who is an unapologetic murderer, but many of us have met an abusive parent/spouse, or know someone who has one. That makes it a lot more personal and therefore more alarming to us. Still, if we want to be even remotely rational about this, we should acknowledge that abusing your family is less morally bad than murdering people, regardless of your justifications for either one.

But I'm not here to talk about justifications. There isn't any way to justify Enji's past actions. We know that as readers, and importantly, he knows that as a character. He never tries to justify himself, shrug off blame, or ask his family to forgive him. I honestly don't even know if he thinks forgiveness is possible.

Possibly the most important distinction to make in trying to understand Enji's character is the difference between self-pity and remorse. It's a subtle difference, but vitally important both for understanding his character and for understanding other people in real life.

Self-pity is about performative self-flagellation with the goal of getting others to sympathize with you. Someone mired in feeling sorry for themself is focused on how badly off they are and expressing that emotion in big or small ways. When someone is being self-pitying, others tend to feel pressured to reassure them. You see this when someone's apology comes along with a heaping helping of them talking about how bad and awful they are, often to an extent that's completely out of proportion to whatever they did wrong.

On the other hand, remorse is recognizing what you did wrong and feeling bad about it. There's a big overlap here. Realizing that you've done something awful to other people is generally a big blow to your self-esteem. You might feel rotten and start doubting your self-worth and all your other principles. The difference is that someone who is remorseful doesn't express it by doing or saying things that are aimed at getting others to sympathize with their plight. Acting on remorse involves looking at what you can do to repair the harm you've caused, regardless of whether that is going to lead other people to forgive you. Someone who is genuinely remorseful accepts the anger and hurt of others and doesn't respond by trying to one-up them with how bad they feel about what they did.

The reason this is so important is that Enji isn't filled with self-pity, he's filled with remorse. He recognizes what he's done and how bad it is, and he wants to help his family heal from his abuse. He doesn't want anyone to make him feel better about what he did, and he doesn't ever express this in a way that makes others feel obligated to do so. He accepts the fact that his family are going to respond to him in their own way and their own time. Even if, on some level, he hopes they might forgive him eventually, he's made peace with the fact that they may not and respects that.

And he isn't perfect at it! He's working to be a better person, but he doesn't just turn on a dime. His first thought is that he can change things by just changing the way he acts. If he treats them well enough, perhaps that will be enough to heal the hurt he's caused. Maybe the fact that Fuyumi was the most ready to move forward helped him think that this was the right option. What he realizes though is that this isn't enough.

Fuyumi might be ready to move forward, but Shoto and Natsuo aren't, and Rei will never be able to be around him and feel safe. His most important realization is that the only thing he can do is to remove himself from the picture. This isn't some grand gesture, it's a simple act brought on by the realization that as long as he's around, things aren't going to get better for everyone else. So he buys them a new home. He offers financial support with no strings attached (an important thing in a culture where divorce is considered very differently from the way we think of it in the US). He gives them a place free from the terrible memories that fill the house they used to live in, a place where they can heal and grow and learn to be happy together.

A lot of people point to the moment when he froze during the fight with the line villain as a moment of self-pity. He tells Natsu afterward that the reason he froze was the realization that, "If I saved you, you might never forgive me." I think a lot of people read that and hear, "I hesitated to save you because I couldn't deal with the idea of you living without ever forgiving me." And if that's how you interpret that line, I totally get where you're coming from.

I have a different read on it though, and I think it's worth considering. There are a few different layers to it. First, on the uppermost reading of the situation, I think it wasn't "If I saved you, you'd never forgive me for all the things I did in the past," but "If I saved you, you'd never forgive me for being the one who saved you. You could never forgive me for putting you in a situation where you felt like you owed me that much." That's a devastating thought to have, but on top of that there's a kind of horror to realizing that you're having that thought when the other person is currently in danger. That's a staggering realization. Personally, I don't think that a moment of completely freezing is surprising in that situation, even if it was the worst possible thing to do.

The other thing that seems to bother a lot of people is that Enji says, "I never meant to neglect you children," which, yeah that's a weird thing to say. As Natsu points out, what Enji meant to do doesn't matter because neglecting them is exactly what he did. Honestly, I don't know exactly what to make of this line, but my personal interpretation of it is that he was making a ham-fisted attempt to tell Natsuo that he never hated them. His neglect wasn't born of malice.

(I have a whole other essay I'd like to write eventually about why I think he made the choices he did about Touya and the other kids and Shoto. Short version is that he had... attempted good intentions but his head was too far up his own ass to see that he was making the wrong choices at every turn.)

I don't think that Enji's past is the kind of thing that's forgivable. And I don't think it's justifiable in any respect. What I do think is that, given everything we've seen him do since the fight with the Nomu in Kyushu, or maybe even since his conversation with All Might, he's been making actual strides in the direction of becoming a better person. Even though recognizing and accepting responsibility for his past actions is incredibly painful, and even though he comes to see that he's never going to get the happy ending he might wish for, he's turned his focus to the needs of other people. He realizes that what he actually needs to do is save his family from himself, and he's doing everything he knows how to make that a reality. His realization that he needs to be better didn't lead him to immediately become a superb person, but that's never how it works. Becoming a better person is painful. It involves a lot of backsliding. But the first and hardest step is really accepting that you were wrong, and you were wrong because all your assumptions about yourself and the world were wrong.

[dalamusrex]

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people?

Are they religious?

Mm, not particularly. He did hear the voice of Mara at one point when he was going through a really rough time, so it's difficult for him to outright deny that Aedra exist like he used to. He has read books on the teachings of Mara in an attempt to better himself, not only to be a better partner but to be kinder to himself, as well.

He has prayed to Mara during the darkest times in his relationships. He has no idea whether or not it did any good, nor does he particularly want to know. His free will is extremely important to him, and if that is proven to be tampered with, even occasionally, by Aedra and Daedra, then he would be less than pleased.

If someone was to ask him which of the Aedra and Daedra he feels attached to, he would say Mara if only because She was the one who offered consolation when he felt hopeless, and also his boyfriend is an Agent of Mara, after all. But religious religious? Not really.

What do they think of religion?

Largely neutral. Not really his thing, but doesn't think it shouldn't exist, either.

Like most things, it can be taken to dangerous or ridiculous extremes. Wars have been and battles still are fought over religions and who has the right to worship what.

Doesn't necessarily mean religion is bad, just that people are very fallible and occasionally desperate--for help, safety, love, control over their own lives, or over that of others'.

What do they think of religious people?

Some people, like Heimskr, are annoying. Some people, like Maramal, are trying to be helpful and generally kind.

Some people use religion as excuses and justifications for their cruel actions. These people infuriate him. Barring extreme circumstances like mind control, enthrallment, or influential enchanted Daedric artifacts, these people have full control over their actions but outsource the blame onto intangible beings. Dalamus is no stranger to cursing the gods for any rotten luck, but will not use an Aedra or Daedra as a scapegoat for blame, either. (Instead, he finds other ways to mitigate blame).

Some people use religion as a crutch to make all their decisions for them, regardless of their own actual health or happiness. These people are a bit exasperating to be around, because to Dalamus it feels as though they have sacrificed their free will, and refuse to reclaim it even if they admit to feeling trapped. Dalamus prizes his free will highly and cannot fathom why someone would allow another, real or imaginary, to dictate their lives.

Most people, he has found, use religion as a source personal comfort and occasional guidance, rather than a rule book or excuse to harm others. They offer their teachings to others if they think it will help, but don't push. These are people he is fine with. People he can get on the same level on, and who don't mind a bit of skepticism or doubt.

Having a boyfriend who is religious has helped him come a long way in being more sympathetic and patient towards people who think differently than he does. He would never try to steer Sinbadaen away from Mara, even if sometimes the "rules" don't always make sense to Dalamus.

What do they think of non religious people?

Generally, no better or worse than religious people. People are people are people, in the end. They're ruled by internal forces (morals/ethics), or external forces (religion), but usually some mixture of the two.

Anyone determined to do evil will have an excuse, whether it's religion or not. And people don't need religion to be kind, either.

But the non religious at least have motivations that seem.. less complicated to Dalamus, usually.

[shinxeysartgallery]

Since the og murder drones has themes about like friendship and being yourself and redemption and stuff, does that carry into your au? Like do you have certain themes in mind?

Of course! There are a lot of themes of the value and importance of friendships and/or finding a healthy support system and redemption for several characters!

J4D3 is kinda the main character and his whole thing is basically about how he finds the strength to do what he does and not let himself fall victim to hatred because of the people he surrounds himself with (his support system).

Several antagonist/morally grey characters get some form of a redemption (not all of them though). There's various bits there, from realizing they were mistaken and having the courage to admit it and make things right, admitting they were bad and their actions were wrong after realizing how their actions affected others, and even understanding that intention is everything. You might think you've gone too far to ever be redeemable, but as long as you have the desire and motivation to get out of that and actually try making an effort to change and get better, you have a chance.

There's a few other themes, too. I'll put this section beneath a cut since it ended up being longer than I planned. lol

Grace gets a bit that's basically about learning to love herself and all her flaws. She was at a point where she seriously believed she was unlovable (romantically or otherwise) due to her flaws. Darla obviously loves her, but Grace just chalked it up to a sisterly obligation. "Oh, you're only saying that because you're my sister." It was Toby that helped her understand that she was worth a lot more than she viewed herself to be and that there were people out there who would love her for who she is, flaws and all. (And she helped him go through a redemption arc. He was a Category 3, where he believed he'd gone too far and there was no point in trying to fix it anymore.)

My personal favorite is the dynamic between Lana and Ruby, who are intended to be parallels of sorts to one another. Both of them experienced trauma and/or a heavy loss that manifested into hatred, which was then channeled into revenge. It's a huge anti-revenge thing and a show of breaking the cycle of hate. Their hatred was over somewhat of a misunderstanding, which brought more harm than good during their revenge plots, but those two are so self-absorbed by their hate and blinded their pride of thinking they're in the right that they don't even realize it. After Cyn sent the Disassembly Drones to massacre the inhabitants of Earth, Lana experienced the loss of her husband and son at their hands. Her grief manifested into hatred of drones, and in an act of revenge, she began taking out her frustrations by abusing the lab drones. However, what she doesn't understand is that the drones were not acting of their own volition, they were under Cyn's control at the time. Cyn herself was also under direct control of the Solver entity and was not completely acting of her own free will either. The drones were just as much of a victim as the humans they were forced to kill. Lana has the misconception that it was a 100% willing endeavor and the drones intended to harm the humans, which is her justification for her actions. However, her abuse of the lab drones is what manifested Ruby's hatred. While she doesn't hate humans as a whole, she does hate the scientists and anyone affiliated with JCJenson because of Lana. That was channeled into a revenge plot to kill all of the scientists and company affiliates in order to free the drones and stop the abuse and mistreatment. However, that of course is also not the right choice here. While not all of the scientists or affiliates are aware of the abuse or okay with it, Ruby doesn't see it that way - a guilt by association type of mentality. While Ruby is aware that Lana lost her family, she doesn't know that drones are the ones that killed them, and likewise, doesn't understand why Lana is doing what she does or where the abuse stems from. (Not that it's okay.) Ruby's hatred of JCJenson causes her to antagonize Lana, which results in Lana getting pissed off and abusing the drones harder to get back at her. ...Which just pisses Ruby off and makes her antagonize harder- It's a vicious cycle those two are feeding into that's hurting everyone around them. Neither of them fully grasp why the other is doing what they're doing, but refuse to acknowledge or understand it because they're so self-absorbed and selfishly believe that only THEIR opinion is right and everyone else is totally wrong. And because they're so blinded by their pride, they don't even notice that all they're doing is hurting themselves and everyone else. They're doing more harm than good and their actions are actively feeding the cycle they want to stop.

It's kinda a cautionary tale of "hey man, stop the cycle of hate, abuse, and revenge, because look what happened to Lana and Ruby when they didn't!".

Another thing is how everyone processes trauma differently, but not all ways of processing it are acceptable. Look at the lab drones, for example. Topaz, Mindy, Roulette, Ian, and Ruby - all of them experienced the same types of horrors, but they all responded to them differently.

Mindy didn't hold it against anyone, despite the fact that she literally died because of the drones' maltreatment. She's just happy that her friends are okay. Topaz's trauma caused him to be more reclusive and untrusting of others. And because of how often those he was close to died, he became afraid of starting any kind of meaningful relationship with others over fear that they'd just be ripped away from him. Roulette didn't care much, now that he had the power to basically do whatever he pleased. He took on an "every man for himself" attitude and became a master manipulator for his own gain. He stopped caring about others' feelings or about the consequences of his actions as long as he got what he wanted. They were all just going to die later by some means anyway, so why bother caring? Ian began hating humans as a whole due to his trauma, though instead of wanting to hunt them all down, he just wanted to be left alone. Ruby developed a hatred for JCJenson and its affiliates specifically due to her trauma, which manifested into a strong desire to kill or otherwise bring harm to them to get back at them for what they've done (or her perceived slights against drones, in the case of those not directly involved).

Mindy coped the healthiest, while Ruby and Roulette coped the unhealthiest. It kinda shows that experiences (and reactions to them) are not universal, but they don't excuse unacceptable behavior, either. For example, it's understandable WHY Ruby would choose to kill the scientists, but it doesn't make it OKAY that she does so. Her method of coping is EXTREMELY unhealthy and unacceptable.

There's some other more minor/subtle ones in there, but this post is long enough as-is and I don't want to completely spoil EVERYTHING. lmao (I already spoiled a lot with this analysis thingy.)

[lex1nat0r]

The burning skull of judgement turns its hollow gaze on: The Maleficent Seven by Cameron Johnston.

I mentioned a while ago I was planning to read The Maleficent Seven in the context of judging the prequel short story on whether it counts as grimdark to me. This is mostly me closing the loop on that.

Here's the short version: The Maleficent Seven is overall a fun read that I got through pretty quickly, but it's not grimdark.

The long version has some spoilers. Also, er, one mention of extreme testicular violence. I'll let you know when that's coming up.

I may be being unfair here. I'm not even sure The Maleficent Seven is going for grimdark. The term 'grimdark' is missing from the 'File Under' section on the back of the book (the full list being "Heroes or Horrors? | Flames and Faith | Blood and Guts | Hell Demons"). My one justification for judging these criteria is that the prequel short story appeared in a publication called Grimdark Magazine. Perhaps I have been blinded by the basilisk called Genre.

I don't classify The Maleficent Seven as grimdark, and it took me a while to suss out why. A lot of the issue is this: I never got the feeling that either Black Herran or Maeven weren't in control. There was always the feeling that they both had big magical whatsis waiting in the wings that would, to some extent, solve the issue of the massive army descending on the town. Maeven gets something of a pass on this, since it's clear from the jump that she's plotting some kind of betrayal and is somewhat working against the other characters, but a lot of the time it felt like I was waiting around to see what Black Herran had up her sleeve. And both plans basically go off without a hitch. If everything is going according to the protagonists' plans, it's not grimdark. Gandalf felt more doomed at Minas Tirith than the maleficent seven do at Tarnbrooke, if that makes sense.

This is potentially an issue of genre. It's a fantasy story, and several of the characters are acknowledged from the start to be extremely powerful magicians, in a book where the magic system is not well-defined. This isn't really a problem for me per se - I'm not smart enough to be able to guess beforehand what twists an author is going to pull off when they explain their magic system in excruciating detail. But it causes a problem when trying to class a book as grimdark: when there are powerful magic-users and the limits on their magic aren't well-defined, I get the sense that the book is just going through the motions until it's the right time for magic to solve everything. (To go back to the previous comparison - there are no defined limits on Gandalf's magic (I have not read the Silmarillion), but he doesn't use magic frivolously or anywhere near as frequently as Black Herran or Maeven. You get the sense that Gandalf's magic is generally too subtle to solve a big obvious problem like an army right away.)

So, The Maleficent Seven isn't grimdark. But it is good.

I have more bad to say than good about the book in general, but that's because the book is just generally a fun read that I can't really pick apart. The two things I want to really shout out are Hive and the naval battle. Hive especially, I think more fantasy novels need some fantastical element that's barely explained like a city of giant ants. The book does do something interesting with the "gods are powered by belief" conceit that I usually find tiresome outside of Discworld novels. And the way Black Herran's plan is finally revealed (in the second of two epilogues) is a good payoff.

(This is the part where I talk about testicular violence.)

The book almost deserves commendation for not including any sexual violence, but then I remembered the scene where Lorimer Felle tears out a guy's testicle and feeds it to him as part of an interrogation, so not quite. Still, I imagine that sexual assault is something a lesser author would lean on more in a ham-handed attempt to get across that these are morally-ambiguous characters in a dark story. I'm glad The Maleficent Seven doesn't do that.

(I am hopefully done talking about testicles for now.)

A lot of my remaining issues with the book are about the characters themselves. I've already kind of gone over Black Herran and Maeven, where we know they both have ultimate plans but we're never told the details of those plans. They're kind of mirrors of each other, both with plans and both doing this for family. That's neat.

Tiarnach and Verena are great, no notes. Tiarnach in particular I think is the best character in the book. We get great insights into the turmoil caused by him being a failed war god and I always enjoyed his POV sections. If only the other characters had been as fleshed out as Tiarnach.

At the bottom of the pile is Jerak Hyden, the alchemist. The best thing about him is how he's built up as someone all the other characters would rather kill, and once he comes on board I understand why. He's annoying. Worse, he's boring. A stock "evil mad scientist" who views everyone else as an imbecile and only cares for his advancement of "science". No greater motivation, no interesting wrinkle, just something I've seen before. His POV sections were the closest the book came to being a chore to read.

Amogg Hadakk is an orc, and unfortunately the book indulges in "noble savage"/"martial race" tropes with orcish culture. Nothing really commendable there. The way orc children ("grubbs") don't have a gender until they get bigger and choose one is neat, but it steps on the landmine labelled "strict gender binary in humanoids". Needs work.

The last of our seven is Lormier Felle, who spends most of the time being an invincible vampire. And he really feels invincible, at one point he explicitly says that the conventional vampire weaknesses (e.g. stake through the heart) don't work on him. He gets seasick and has sunlight sensitivity, I guess. Boring. There's some lip service paid to him being a noble that genuinely cares about his people, but it never really comes up in a meaningful way and we never actually see him interact with any of his people with the exception of his manservant. No insight into how he actually treats his peasants or how much he actually cares about being a good and just ruler. He still has to eat people, does he prey on the peasants in his lands or hunt outside his borders? (Does he deliberately cultivate a criminal class so he has a ready "acceptable" food supply available? Now there's an idea.) So Lorimer never really escapes being anything but 'invincible vampire'.

Maybe it sounds like I'm being harsh on The Maleficent Seven, but despite having complaints about five of the seven characters it's mostly a fun read. Solid dark fantasy.