#he deserves to get killed

[marypsue]

Keep seeing that post where OP starts like 'Thinking about...grieving the undead' and then adds on about like. Real life situations where people have not died but have left your life and you would have reason to grieve them.

All respect, that's an important concept, but that is not what I am thinking about when I read 'grieving the undead'.

[stil-lindigo]

when people reblog donation posts and say "donate what you can", I really feel like people aren't actually internalising it. not all of us can afford to donate $50, $100, more than that. but i know for a fact that there are thousands of us that can spare $2 or $5, and that all adds up.

it hurts so much to sit here and feel the limits of our own ability. we're not millionaires. we can't instantly fund these escape attempts. but these are bids for life, by people who never asked for the hellfire being rained upon them by sadistic colonialists, greedy for oil and land. they committed no crime other than being born in palestine. and of course it's unfair, to have to shoulder the weight of people's lives when we're all struggling to get by as it is. but our governments relentlessly fail us, they fail to scrape at the bottom of their cold dead hearts for their last dregs of humanity. it is so, so unfair, but it is up to the common man to save each other.

please. look at this spreadsheet. find a fund that resonates with you. and DONATE WHAT YOU CAN.

[quesadilla-day]

wen ning my beloved... 💘

[my-heart-of-heart]

So normal about Jon being like I don’t remember what you looked like but the man who let you die is going to suffer for what he did to you. If only Sasha coulda seen that.

So normal about Jon being like you died hating me and wanting me dead but I’m still gonna make sure this man knows I’m ending him in your name. Sure wish Tim coulda seen that.

So normal about the fact that everyone believed Jon was losing his humanity but no one got to see the ways his love and compassion for the people he lost or who hurt him drove him to that final moment.

So normal about the fact that even after everything Jonah’s done to Jon, the only person he never thinks to get justice for is himself.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Gregory easily could of defeated Chica like this

(Based of @/CenoCrocodile post)

[runawayfuture]

I think it's funny that Gale, Wyll, Shadowheart, and Astarion all have these moments where they're like "ok, I need to confess something that I've been hiding from you... I'm actually a horrible person because (I'm a ticking time bomb/I made a pact with a devil/I worship a goddess widely regarded as evil/I'm a vampire)" and Karlach is like "uh btw, before you start being too nice to me, the devil who made me into a living weapon might track me down and try to kidnap me back after I escaped from her" and they're all like "so I understand if you don't want to travel with me anymore, I'll pack my little bag and go... wait, I can stay? You mean it? Oh my god thank you, I'll be good just give me a chance to prove myself, I can't believe you're still letting me travel with you" and half of them just expect you to kill them on the spot once they tell you what's going on

... meanwhile Lae'zel has been up-front about all her crazy stuff from the moment you met and she thinks you're either insane or the stupidest creature alive if you don't want her to tag along. what a queen

[reineydraws]

kyojuro corruption arc

[srapsodia]

Maaaaan, that was close...

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[tubbytarchia]

I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

[catsharky]

The Joker comic I talked about is finally here!

I can't lie, I was pretty disappointed with how the reunion with Joker went in ME2. Out of all the characters, his should have been the most emotionally impactful (he saw Shepard die!!) yet all we got was "Sup?" as though Joker wouldn't have spent the 2 years dealing with insane survivor's guilt. Well to that I say pthhbt. My Shepard would have been beside herself seeing him again for the first time, so he's getting hugged whether he likes it or not.

Also while this is technically part of my ongoing Shakarian comic, please feel free to interpret this as romantic as well as platonic.

Part 1 • Previous Part • Interim Comic 2

[tossawary]

Trying to judge Kakashi for his teaching fuck-ups is hard because everything keeps getting skewed by everything that is wrong with this man and also everything around him. He ends up being graded on the triple wonky curves of: 1) "You know, I'm not sure that you specifically could have done much better." (Child soldier as a preschooler, isolated genius prodigy fast-tracked out of childhood, violently orphaned twice, war veteran, late teenage years and nearly half his life spent in black ops, he's only like 26 years old, etc...)

2) "I'm not sure that the average Konoha ninja could have really done much better in Kakashi's shoes." (Inconsistent prior Academy training for students, little to no apparent teacher training or solid child development resources for genin team teachers, inconsistent oversight from neglectful superiors, promotion exams where it's apparently normal-ish for participants to be either killed or permanently injured, etc...)

3) "I don't think anyone could have handled this situation well, honestly. It was fucked up before Kakashi showed up." (Sasuke.) (Also Naruto if his personality had been slightly different, after 12 years of neglect and shunning. What the fuck.)

[aingeal98]

We all know why people have designated Damian the bitey and stabby Robin and Jason the violent one. (To my knowledge Damian has never bitten anyone it's literally just the racism) but what amuses me is that Steph, despite her short tenure as Robin, actually threw her hat in the ring for most ferocious. Like miss sunshine and waffles in fanon is the only Robin I can think of that quite literally just started biting her enemies as a last resort.

And unlike Jason who's Robin run was mostly him being pretty similar temper wise to his predecessor with the one exception of the rapist he may or may not have let fall to his death, Steph started day one of working with the bats literally attempting to murder her father.

And as Robin? Yeah fuck that "if we kill we're no better than them bullshit." If she's up against a serial killer she's going to use EVERY advantage to not die, including potentially lethal moves.

And honestly I think it rules. I know they were trying to show her as a less good Robin than perfect Tim but honestly they just made her more interesting because she's not actually wrong for fighting to save herself even if it means her attacker could die lmao. Let Steph have her anger and violence, she deserves it.

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

Warden: You've never killed an innocent?

Zevran: Now there's an interesting word, "innocent." How many men do you know who can claim to be truly innocent?

Zevran: But if you're talking generalities, such as children and relatives and bystanders and such… never on purpose, but it happens.

Zevran: It's unfortunate, but death comes to us all. If not me, then some wasting disease. Or a fall down the stairs. Or at the hands of a darkspawn. It's all relative in the end.

Zevran: "Death happens," as we like to say. And when I get paid for it, death happens more often.

-

Zevran: In Antiva, being a Crow gets you respect. It gets you wealth. It gets you women… and men, or whatever it is you might fancy.

Zevran: But that does mean doing what is expected of you, always. And it means being expendable. It's a cage, if a gilded cage. Pretty. But confining.

-

Davrin: Lucanis, how do you decide when one of your targets deserves to die?

Lucanis: Usually when the client pays up front.

Davrin: I'm serious. Do you just kill anyone?

Lucanis: No. There has to be merit.

Davrin: "Merit?" Who decides that?

Lucanis: The Talon of the house.

Davrin: And then you just carry out the order?

Lucanis: It's my job.

Davrin: Must be tough to sleep at night.

-

Lucanis: You kill for a living, too, Davrin. How do you sleep at night?

Davrin: Like a baby. The things I hunt are pure evil. Monsters. There are no shades of grey with darkspawn. But you...

Lucanis: Provide a service.

Davrin: What if your target doesn't deserve to die?

Lucanis: Who does? Good, bad, everyone dies eventually. We just speed things up.

-

Emmrich: Do you have any say in your... targets?

Lucanis: You want to know if my victims deserved it.

Emmrich: Forgive me, I shouldn't have asked.

Lucanis: Everyone wonders.

Lucanis: I've never killed an innocent, by my count.

Lucanis: I cannot say if yours would agree.

-

Emmrich: Lucanis, do the implications of your work never trouble you?

Lucanis: Everyone on this team has killed before. I'm hardly unique.

Emmrich: Yes, of course. But in your case, it's a profession, rather than an act of necessity.

Lucanis: I'm not sure the Venatori or the Antaam see the distinction as you do.

-

Emmrich: I find it extremely interesting, Lucanis, that you consider the point of view of your enemies in battle.

Lucanis: I have to. It's much more difficult to find and kill them, otherwise.

Emmrich: Exactly! A utilitarian attitude towards death, and yet you extend empathy to your victims.

Lucanis: Not that much empathy.

Emmrich: Enough to wonder how the Venatori and Antaam view your actions.

Lucanis: Death comes to everyone, in time. I get paid to deliver it. Like a letter not everyone wants to read.

-

I think about this a lot. I'm always... surprised when I see the talk that they're supposedly trying to make Lucanis into the perfect "cinnamon roll" in Veilguard, because his sweet personality doesn't "match" his profession and background. Like, no? That's a very surface level of looking at it, I think.

Zevran is like this, too. He is an incredibly chill guy, and when you romance him, he is also very sweet and vulnerable, despite being an assassin. They're not that different in that department. They were both trained to be assassins since they were children. They're both traumatized in various ways. But neither of them acts like a bloodthirsty, evil freak. But they both also take pride in the job they do (or did), and how well they can do it, and have no intention of stopping. And yet they both express surprising empathy. (Zevran argues against annulling the Circle! Quite extensively!) And they make pretty much the exact same arguments about being killers for hire, as shown above.

Death is a natural part of life. Sometimes it just comes sooner, because we're there to deliver it. There's (almost) no such thing as an innocent person, so my victims aren't innocent people. Therefore, I've never killed an innocent in my entire life, as far as I know. (At least not intentionally.)

And that's interesting and fun about them! It's beautifully deranged. Lucanis completes an assassination mission, slitting somebody's throat or what have you, and then goes on his cosy coffee break, satisfied with a job well done.

The fact that they both say that they've never, in their opinion, assassinated "an innocent", so it's all good, doesn't automatically make it true and doesn't mean it's not complicated, however. Not every line of dialogue can be taken at face value. As video game players, we're rather desensitized to this, but hearing this should normally be at least a little alarming. For a regular person, at least. And it is for the people in the game! Like Emmrich and Davrin. Davrin has several banters with Lucanis about it. Like, who decides when somebody deserves to die and which contract's going to get carried out? Well, the "CEO" of "the company," of course! What could ever go wrong that way? Emmrich tries to coax Lucanis into saying that he does feel something about the whole thing, because he really wants it to be true. While Lucanis is very matter of fact about it. He knows what the Crows are, and that's it. He doesn't glamorize or demonize it.

So, it definitely isn't that "Veilguard says that Lucanis has never done anything wrong ever in his life," just like Origins doesn't do it with Zevran. Both the men's attitude towards killing is warped in an interesting way, completely in line with their background and upbringing. It shows when Lucanis argues with Davrin about them both being killers, because it completely escapes him (or maybe he ignores it for the sake of the argument) how the killing he does (contracts where the targets tend to be people) and the killing Davrin (a monster hunter, a darkspawn slayer) does is of different kind entirely. His logic is flawed at that point. But to him, it boils down to the fact that "it's just a job," and "killing is killing," and "death is death" regardless of form, and that rightfully baffles Davrin to no end. If anything, it shows how the Antivan Crows are taught to hand wave the issue, because the arguments Lucanis and Zevran both present are too similar to be anything else.

Of course, Lucanis, unlike Zevran, as the grandson of the First Talon and her favourite, might have had some extra privileges and wiggle space in comparison, which might have allowed him to bend the rules sometimes, give him space to show more compassion and act more heroically, because people are complex and there are many layers to what each person might consider right and wrong (e.g. killing is okay in various circumstances, and slavers in particular can get fucked - hell, we do it in video games all the time), but still. The fact that his grandmother wanted to tap a new market, so she made Lucanis specialize for hunting mages, which ultimately led to him killing a lot of Venatori and blood mages, makes it cleaner, which is nice, but then again, we hardly know the full extent of all his work. Moreover, when you ask Zevran to tell you stories about his jobs, you don't get much dirt out of him, either. He talks about some of the goofiest ones he's had. One of his targets that he (unsuccessfully) participated in taking out, a royal that got his position through plotting and murder, he also describes as somebody so immoral he basically deserved it. Also very clean. (Compare both these guys with somebody like Blackwall who truly committed a despicable act of murder for money that we do know of. And this single crime sounds so much more upsetting than anything either Lucanis or Zevran describe. None of the things Zevran says is as awful, besides the murder of his lover, which is framed like it wasn't really his fault, because he was misled.)

It's also worth noting that Zevran talks about how he was the best the Crows had before he left and how it brought him respect, wealth, women, men, or "whatever it is you might fancy." All in all, it comes with benefits. By his own admission, he was well off. But of course that came with a catch, as well. The "gilded cage" Zevran talks about. But that's not what made him leave. It was the plotting, backstabbing, and ever present distrust in the end, which led to the biggest mistake he'd ever made. Much like him, Lucanis also mentions that he had a comfortable life before getting captured, in the same quest where he also talks about how he didn't actually have full control of his life. ("Even before I was captured, my life was not really my own. So much had been determined for me.") The gilded cage comes up yet again. And it was plotting and backstabbing that made him lose a year of his life in the underwater prison.

My point is: Lucanis and Zevran are both assassins, because that's what they've always been, they were trained to be assassins since they were kids, they have a very pragmatic approach to death and killing, which they were most likely taught or perhaps were forced to develop, and they both take pride in how good they are at their job, and express no intention of ever stopping. And yet they both show that they have a good heart in various other ways, turn out to be friendly and incredibly loyal, and even very sweet as lovers. Because people can be complex, and so can be fictional characters. Yes, they're very different men, with different problems and personalities, yet also not that different.

You can't think that Lucanis is "too good" without also thinking that Zevran is "too good." You can't have this problem with Veilguard unless you also have it with Origins, is what I'm saying. And I think this may also apply to some of the other Crows we meet in Veilguard.

[artbyfinnbrown]

Tier List of how good Re:Zero characters are at killing Subaru

[deliciousnecks]

I have been searching for love for so very long, and it was right here the whole time. Right under my nose. In front of my nose.