#i am. closing my askbox i don't want anyone arguing with me lmao 😭

[daz4i]

actually i wanna rant a little and unfortunately this will be difficult to do w/o naming the characters themselves and the context for this post. sorry

after 2.6 came out i saw ppl discuss his morality and talk abt how his whole "shoot bad guys" monologue is bad and how it feels like hoyo is trying to make him out to seem like a good guy when he does things that we would absolutely consider to be bad irl (like physically attacking or threatening people to get what he wants for example)

which. like. 1 he's fictional why are you judging him by irl standards. like you do you but this feels like a lot of energy being put into smth that's gonna keep happening forever and ever

2 that's kind of the point?? he's meant to be this archetype of a gruff cowboy who doesn't play by the rules, and these characters are often morally grey. hoyo ofc try to make him look good bc this is a gacha game and they need their characters to be likeable in order to sell, but like. this archetype has been enjoyed by many for nearly a century atp (if not more)

3 hsr is very comedic and he plays into that which is another reason why a lot of the bad shit he does is brushed off as a joke. i don't think it quite normalizes his behavior, i think the playerbase is mature enough to not glorify these actions if someone does them irl

speaking of jokes tho this brings me to the more recent trigger for this post and that's ratio

i'm a little 😐 abt how ppl try to paint him as morally pure and like he would never do anything bad to hurt someone in any way

WRONG! while he wouldn't put anyone *in danger*, he. like. very plainly hurts people. emotionally mostly but i assume grabbing someone and throwing them out of class or throwing (fake?) chalk at someone's head is gonna leave a bruise too. it's not anything big and it is very much presented as a joke (or even a positive thing in the first case) bc why make a big deal out of it. hsr isn't that sort of story

and a lot of ppl tend to focus on things like this^ to paint him as horrible too which is also missing the point and ignoring the good he does but that's whatever, everyone has the right to be wrong ♡

anyway he worked for years on an "anti planetary weapon". moving on

he works for the intelligentsia guild which, putting aside the fact that they're a faction of the ipc and he explicitly says himself that he works with the ipc too (in his conversation with sunday in 2.1. also like. his actual work in said patch), they're literally soooooo shady. 2.4 shows it well, with their. weird fucking mechas. idk if he took part in this project but i don't think he was oblivious to it either, he's not stupid, i assume he knows what the organization he belongs to does

(unknowable domain shows even more examples of how shady the guild is as well as the council of mundanites inside it - which ratio is also a part of - but the whole story revolves around a character who *isn't* as evil so like. nothing saying he can't be like her. and i assume he is bc he ultimately does have good goals. you just can't deny this connection tho)

and. this is in reference to a specific post i saw earlier today. abt how he would oppose dr primitive. which, ig? his atavistic research, probably, yeah. but he does bring primitive up during 1.6 and it's not in any negative sense, just agreeing with a thing he said once (it's just interesting that they chose this exact genius society member that was gonna turn out to be. well. bananas. sorry for the pun i will see myself out) so i think he can still appreciate his intellect

basically he's just more complex than "he is purely good and only seeks to help no matter what and only does what's good for everyone" or the way ppl look at his meanness as actual evil. i don't think he has evil inside him - as of what we know about him right now - but he's also not 100% morally pure mostly bc he is still a person and it's impossible to be both

also let me once again remind everyone that argenti's hair turned red from blood bc of how much he killed 👍 (also he forced velite to swear loyalty to idrila for him to save him which is. not great)

^these last 2 sections sound like i'm canceling them or smth lmao sorry. my point is, they're interesting and fun BECAUSE they're not just. morally pure or always good

and sometimes i will read a fic that shows them unable to do any wrong ever, in ratio's case always being careful with his words and taking extra steps to not hurt anyone and such. idk man i just think it's boring. he cares but he is not caring, imo, if that makes sense

hate when ppl sand down characters' morality 😔 why are you making them boring... they need to make mistakes or have flaws... for enrichment (both theirs and mine)