#moralless

[stil-lindigo]

(via The Intercept)

The motion has already passed the House and now stands before the Senate.

The 4-day-ceasefire signifies not the easing of violence but the calm before the storm. The powers that be show no intent on stopping this genocide and instead want it to go on for another two more months.

Already, the Israeli military have killed more children in under 2 months in Gaza than have been killed in all other major conflict zones in the world COMBINED over the last year.

You always have to believe in Palestinian liberation, because the colonialist world is intent on making you give up. Never ever stop fighting for a free Palestine.

[a-neru-neru]

i want her to be so unhinged.

[baconcolacan]

Shoe has got to be the most under appreciated bg character. Okay first off, forget that it killed Laurel for a sec. You know what? Fuck Tord, what if Shoe was Red Leader?? He’s got the murderous vibe, it probably got that title from curb stomping people so much they got covered in blood. LIKE ONE SHOT KILLS?? WITH A SOFT SOLE?? LETHAL.

She’s right there. I’m just sayin.

[xiaoluclair]

.

[geekysteven]

[Image description Tweet from Oritart "Star Trek is so woke now that if they remade deep space 9 the captain would be black, the first officer would be a woman, they'd have two trans people, and they'd paint a hardworking businessman as a greedy moralless capitalist"] Source

[the-present-is-a-gift-au]

Chapter 9: In Which the Future Trio are Paid a Visit

Twig knocked on the front door of the Future Trio’s home with the world weighing on her shoulders. Celebi was the one to answer. “Twig, dear, it’s been too long! I couldn’t believe—”

She cut off abruptly when she caught sight of the shadowy figure looming over Twig’s shoulder. Curiously, her expression wasn’t one of terror or fury like Dusknoir and Grovyle wore when they peered through the doorway as well. She regarded Darkrai with a look of… disorientation, almost. Like she was suddenly seeing double and trying to discern what exactly she was staring at. It stirred up some old memory from meeting Celebi in the Dark Future after Team Venture’s brush with death, but she didn’t have time to dwell on the memory when Grovyle was readying an attack and Dusknoir was following shortly behind him.

She gestured to her plus-one. “This is Darkrai. Or Ark. Whichever name you want to use. I met him at Mount Travail. He lost his memories just like I did, so I've been helping him out since we met. Be nice to him. He's sensitive.”

Darkrai regarded her with a look of quiet curiosity, but said nothing. Grovyle and Dusknoir warily dismissed their forming attacks, and Celebi continued to squint at Twig and Darkrai.

"Darkrai, these are the guys I was telling you about— Celebi, and Grovyle, and Dusknoir." She indicated each one as she named them, then put on a strained smile. "Is dinner ready? I'm starved." 

The food was great, as it always was, but the meal itself was the most awkward thing Twig had ever gone through, and Grovyle staring at her worriedly the whole time didn't make it any easier. Darkrai made regular attempts at polite conversation, but Dusknoir and Grovyle only ever responded in the most minimalistic ways one could imagine. Celebi meanwhile, despite her insistence before now that if she ever saw Darkrai again she would kill him on sight, was enthusiastically chatting with the same person who had sent her entire timeline into ruin, and she was doing so with a cordialness Twig hadn’t foreseen. 

 When the moon was high overhead, Grovyle indicated a room for Darkrai to sleep in and a separate one for Twig. When it was Kip and her visiting, it was always one room that they stayed in together. She guessed Grovyle saw her exhaustion and decided to remedy it however he could. Bless him. Even with her distance from Darkrai, though, Twig’s nightmares persisted. She woke up countless times clutching her arm and whimpering in pain. She was a mess come morning.

Grovyle was up, being the fellow early riser that he was, and watching the sunrise in the grasses on the edge of the Future Trio’s property. Twig sat down heavily beside him and flopped onto her back in the grass. 

"What happened, Twig?" Asked Grovyle. 

"It's what I said. Found him while I was delving at Mount Travail. He was shocked that I knew who he was because he had amnesia, and I brought him home. He's been my roommate since then."

"You need to kick him out. At minimum."

"Why?"

"Do I need to say it? Look at you. You're worse off than I've ever seen you since we reunited, maybe even worse than when we first met. You're putting yourself in danger to be kind to this moralless, untrustworthy—"

"I'm not doing this to be kind to him. I'm doing this to make sure he stays in line. I can't risk taking my eyes off the guy and having him remember how much he enjoyed world domination, Grovyle. It's— It’s bread and circuses for the Legend who almost took over the world. Keep him distracted and complacent. That sort of thing, you know?"

Grovyle didn't look like he believed her. 

"Besides, who knows. Maybe some wacky shenanigans will happen and he and I will become best friends. It happened with you and Dusknoir, didn’t it?”

He bristled. “That isn’t the same, Twig,” he said lowly. “Dusknoir changed of his own volition. It wasn’t like this, where Darkrai is a disaster waiting to happen. Besides that— you’re not well.”

“I’m doing great,” she bit out.

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” 

Twig didn’t grace that with a response.

“Twig, I’m worried. Just tell me the truth. Are you okay?”

She tossed an arm over her eyes and grumbled an indistinct answer, and didn’t react further to his nagging.

***

Hours after the rest of the household had started their days, Celebi finally rose from bed, with Darkrai following shortly. They chatted quietly in the kitchen, discussing interdimensional auras, temporal entropy, and other topics that made no sense to a non-Legend. Twig watched them for a moment before turning to Dusknoir as he read, seated on the floor of the main room, and steeled herself. 

He looked up when she approached, impassive expression flickering with worry. 

"I need to ask you something," she said. Then after a few nervous heartbeats quietly added, "Privately." 

He set his book aside and followed her out into the forest along the property's edge. Grovyle stood up from where he was knelt in the garden as they walked out. She waved off his look of concern with a dismissive motion. I'm fine. Don't worry about it. He was, yet again, visibly unconvinced, but didn't follow after them. 

Dusknoir folded his arms behind his back when Twig came to a stop, finally satisfied that no one would be in view or earshot of the conversation she was dreading having, and calmly asked her, "What is your question?" 

She opened and closed her mouth several times, put up a hand or started a gesture in order to begin only to falter halfway through the motion, and finally just sagged, shoulders drooping and head bowed, with a groan. "I guess it's less of a ‘question’ sort of thing and more of a ‘me running my mouth off and you telling me if I'm crazy’ sort of thing." 

"Alright." He settled onto the forest floor, and the effort to get closer to her eye level was appreciated, especially when he motioned to a branch on a nearby tree that was closer to his own. "Run your mouth off, then, so I can assess your craziness. Keep in mind that you're not going to be told you're totally sane, though. I know you enough to say a description like that would be madness in itself." 

The joke fell utterly flat in the face of her anxiety. But it was nice of him to try and ease the tension, at least. She clambered up and sat down on the branch, putting her face level with his brow, and wrung her hands. She had recited everything she wanted to say so many times in her head on the way here, and now all of it seemed inadequate and pointless. 

"Breathe. Then start at the beginning," Dusknoir lightly instructed, jolting her from her thoughts. "Rip the bandage off quick."

Alright. Inhale slowly, exhale slowly. Stop agonizing and start talking. “My aunt would hurt me when I was a human. Like, hit me and stuff. A lot.” She wasn't looking at his face when she said it, but she could see him go stiff and still in the corner of her vision. “It was something that she'd do because I back-talked or acted up, and if it was really bad, she'd get out a lighter and— uh— b-but I forgot about anything happening when I became a charmander. It came back a while after you— uh—” She swerved hard around what she was about to say, pivoting her choice of words. “— after Kip and I came to the Dark Future, in little bits and pieces over time. I didn't tell anybody for ages, because it's dumb and embarrassing, and I wasn't going to, but… Well, Darkrai can visit people's nightmares, right? So he figured it out. He didn't say anything, and it was…" She paused. "Okay, he did say some things, but only in ways I understood. Nobody else picked up on it. But it freaked me out, and— well— yeah. 

“That was before he lost his memories. But he figured it out again after that, and it's been messing with my head, even though he hasn't talked about it since he found out. Like, he hasn't mentioned anything. Not a peep. He's not exactly who he was before the whole amnesia thing, so he might not ever say anything, but I can't stop thinking about how he might. It's not a zero percent chance. It's just so stupid, because even if his memories did come back he probably wouldn't talk, but I'm stuck thinking about what if he does, and I… yeah."

Silence.

"So. Um. How crazy am I on a scale of one to ten?" She joked, turning to the man next to her and immediately regretting her attempt at humor.

Dusknoir had his eye behind a hand, arm crossed over his stomach, effectively hiding his face as he hunched in on himself. 

"… Sorry for unloading on you," she murmured. "It's dumb. I shouldn't have said anything." 

"Your… When you…" He tersely muttered a prayer and lowered his hand, looking up at her. "I— Thank you for telling me. I'm honored you trusted me enough to tell me. You did the right thing in telling me—"

"You can drop the script Magnezone gave you, man. I'm not a kid." 

"—And you didn't deserve any of the mistreatment you received."

Something in her bristled at that. "I did, actually. But it's in the past. Or Future, or whatever," she hissed under her breath. She crossed her arms, looking down and away. "Forget I said anything, it was messed up for me to bother you with this junk." 

"What did you say?"

"To forget about—"

"Before that."

"I said I deserved it and that it's done with, so whatever." She narrowed her eyes, glancing at him from the corners of her vision. He looked disgusted. "Yeah, look, I know it'd take some messed up stuff to deserve that sort of thing, but I was messed up. It's not on her. You don't have to worry about it." 

“How on earth could a child deserve to be treated so repulsively?”

“I did a lot of awful things on top of being a legendary brat most days. Don't worry about it.”

“Twig. Answer me. What could you have done to deserve… You mentioned a lighter, those devices humans used to start fires? Arceus, how could you deserve such a thing being used on you?” 

Her response came out small, timid. “I hurt a lot of people.”

“We all do. That doesn't mean any of us deserve to be abused by our kin.” 

“No, like— I physically hurt them. Humans lived in bunkers when I grew up, and I'm the only one left from mine. And that's because of me. It's because of me an entire bunker is dead. It's my fault that hundreds of people are dead and gone, because I was a crybaby who couldn't handle getting batted around a bit here and there.” She cast him a weary, angry glance. “I'm pretty sure killing an entire community of men, women, and children counts as something that would make me deserve that kind of thing.”

His brow furrowed. “How could you manage to—?”

“By leaving my bunker. There was a fire, and the doors locked themselves behind me. No one else could get out, and they all burned or suffocated to death. Not a pretty way to go, you can guess, so I definitely had some preemptive karma going on with my aunt.” 

There was a pause. “Preemptive,” Dusknoir echoed. “Am I right when I say, then, that you suffered for years before the supposed justification for your pain took place?”

Twig didn't respond. 

“How did this fire start?”

“It just did,” she said too fast for it to be the truth. Dusknoir saw through it and asked again. “Look, I don't want to talk about— ugh. My aunt started it. I blabbed about her hurting me worse than normal to one of my teachers, and she was going to be arrested because it was real bad apparently—” Dusknoir made a choked sound beside her, but she pointedly ignored it— “So she started a fire to try and use it as cover for her to get out of trouble with. Probably. I dunno. Never got to ask her. I ran when I heard she was being detained because she always said that if something like that happened… Well, I didn't want to see if she was bluffing with what she told me. I ran, I left my bunker, and because of that these big bolts that lock the exit doors activated and trapped everyone inside behind me. It's my fault they all died in there.”

Dusknoir was silent for a long time. “How old were you upon coming to the surface?" He asked with a heavily fettered anger to his words. 

"That doesn't matter. What happened is what happened, and it's done." 

"Humor me." 

She gritted her teeth. "I was six." 

He took in a sharp breath and let it out in a low hiss. "You were a child young enough to not have even lived through ten winters. You fled because you were intimidated and abused by a wretch of a woman, and the mechanisms of your home failed. You can't be expected to hold the blame for a tragedy in which so many passed in an unfortunate way—"

"You can just say I cooked them, man. It's fine. And believe me, I'm not some poor little survivor or whatever you're thinking of me as. I was the worst kid anyone ever met. People hated me.”

“And who told you that?”

Twig gritted her teeth, silent. 

"Even if you were an unpleasant child— which I honestly doubt— the blame for any escalation would not have been on your shoulders whatsoever. You were a child." 

That stung somewhere deep in the back of her mind. "Thanks for trying to reassure me, but you're wrong. I was awful and I deserved every lick of pain I got.”

Dusknoir glared at her. "Whether or not you deserved anything doesn't matter. No one should lay a hand on you, regardless of whatever they might think you've earned. Would you say Azurill or Marill would deserve the treatment you received, were they in your place?” Her stomach seized at just the thought, and he continued. “No. You wouldn't. Because you know, even if you deny it, that what was done to you was wrong. What you deserved was safety and care, not to be made the victim of such cruel, unfair retribution.” 

"Nice speech, still wrong. Bye." She hopped down from the branch and got three steps toward the house before Dusknoir caught her by the scruff and brought her level with his narrow glare. "Dude, what gives?!" She spat, clawing at his fingers. 

"What gives is you're refusing to accept your complete innocence and acknowledge the perpetrator's sole responsibility for what was done. You were an innocent bystander; a child."

"I don't count!"

"You do."

"No, I don't!"

"Why do you believe that?"

"I told you— I killed my entire bunker!"

"And did that matter?"

“Put me down, you lousy piece of—"

"Did that matter?"

She paused, claws stilling in their furious assault on the hand holding her aloft, brows furrowing as she held his unyielding, though not unkind, gaze— the question sinking in. "… What?"

"Did you really kill them?" Arceus, he sounded so tired. “Did you kill them, or did you survive them?”

Silence. 

“Anyone else could have been the first to flee. Anyone else could have gone through the exit before you. And then it would be them in your place, cursing themself for having lived where others died. You didn't will the mechanisms to fail, nor did you sabotage them. All you did was have the misfortune of surviving alone.”

She slowly lowered her claws from his fingers, curling her hands in to her chest. When she finally looked away from him without any rebuttal to spit, it felt like she'd been skinned alive— like her outer layers were all peeled away until there was nothing left but a dripping, bloody wound where she once stood. 

Silence. 

"… Put me down," she repeated. 

He did so, and settled onto the ground beside her. 

There was quiet for a long moment as they sat. Twig drew her knees up to her chest, hugged them close, and hunched her shoulders in as she stared at the ground by her feet. 

Dusknoir spoke in a steady tone— firm but understanding as he brought their conversation back to Twig's initial concern. "Don't blame yourself for what was done to you by your kin. Don't blame yourself for fearing the ability to tell someone yourself being removed from you. But most of all, do not blame yourself for surviving. You were spared. Others were not. You surely feel disoriented and disgusted by that fact. But there is nothing to be done about the past but to continue living." 

Those last words echoed in her skull. It hit her that he was speaking from experience, and a number of things clicked into place. 

(He had mentioned there being other servants of Primal Dialga. Yet by the time they had entered the Dark Future, only he and the sableye enjoyed such a rank. She'd seen scars on him that didn't fade, a hallmark of a wound dealt by a Legend.

(It wasn't the same as her upbringing. Nothing would be. But if she thought about it, “As you wish, my lord” sounded dangerously close to “I'll go get the lighter, Auntie.”)

“You were a child,” he repeated, and his words felt like antiseptic on an open wound. 

A few strangled tears slipped from her, and she managed to hold back most of her pitiful, weepy noises. But when she continued to sniffle and shake, Dusknoir set a kind hand over her shoulder— or over her entire upper arm, rather, with his size— and Twig, deciding that he could be a part of the Don't lose a hand when you touch Twig club, let all the years of swallowing back the need to scream and sob finally excise themselves.

***

To say she got worried looks upon returning to the house was an understatement. She knew it must have been clear in her face that she was crying, and Dusknoir’s clawed-up hand certainly didn’t help ease any concerns. Darkrai’s subtle worry was the most unnerving, though she knew Grovyle’s blatant fretting meant she was in for a discussion she didn’t want to have. Dusknoir set a hand on his shoulder as he made to approach when she started for the guest room— murmured something about allowing her time to collect herself— and Twig didn’t linger long enough to react to Grovyle’s heart-wrenching expression of concern. She locked the door and let herself collapse onto the bed, boneless and hollowed-out from her tears. 

It was as if something had been ripped out of her as she wept at Dusknoir’s side. She felt like she’d had a tangled, knotted mass extracted from deep within her ribs. It wasn’t a bad sort of feeling, but it was definitely different than the constant lump in her throat she was used to. It was strange. Certainly not unpleasant, but not exactly good either. 

She didn’t sleep that night, only stared at the wall in a numb daze. It wasn’t a bad night. But it wasn’t exactly a good one, either. 

Grovyle was up when she rose the next morning. She murmured a greeting and poured herself a cup of whatever was heating in a kettle on the stovetop. It was a lukewarm magost berry tea, and the lack of steeping made it distinctly unpalatable. She drank it regardless. 

He watched her drink for a moment. She avoided eye contact.

“Twig,” he finally said, “you’re being reckless.” 

She did not need another ‘Let’s unearth all of Twig’s shortcomings and bring them up for review’ session so soon. She took another swig of the tea and looked away from Grovyle entirely.

“What if Darkrai’s memories return? What do you do then? You’re living with him. Who’s to say that he won’t recall his past and decide to kill you in your sleep?”

“That won’t happen,” she muttered.

“How can you say that so confidently? It’s a possibility! You don’t know for certain that it won’t happen—”

“The Darkrai I knew isn’t ever coming back, Grovyle! He’s gone. So I'd better get used to it already. I don’t need you driving in the fears that things will change when they never will! Darkrai is gone, he’s dead. So I should start acting like it, and you should too!” With those last words, she rounded on him, teeth bared and the flame at the end of her tail bright in the dim room.

She had never seen Grovyle look so defeated.

“I…” She swallowed hard. Why was he staring at her like that? Why was he—

Oh. 

Darkrai wasn’t the only person who had lost their memories. He wasn’t the only one who had changed beyond recognition. He wasn’t the only one who people had to relearn how to act around when they used to know him well.

“I’m sorry,” she forced out. “I didn’t mean it like— I didn’t—” She gritted her teeth for a moment longer, then stormed out with another stammered apology. 

Arceus, she felt awful. And she knew Grovyle felt even worse.

Good job, idiot.

***

Twig didn’t say goodbye when she left the next morning. She’d already done enough damage— it’s not like she needed to rub into Grovyle’s face that she was too stupid to know how to fix the damage she’d done to him and what friendship had been recovered between them. Darkrai was up and about in the main room already when she got up to leave, long enough before sunrise that even Grovyle hadn't risen for the day. She didn’t tell him they were leaving. Darkrai understood without her saying so— just rose up silently and followed behind her as she locked the front door after them with the spare key she’d been gifted.

At some point on the homeward trek, Darkrai spoke. “I don’t mean to seem as though I doubt you, but I still find it necessary to clarify how exactly we knew each other before my memories were lost.”

Twig found herself picking up the pace out of an instinctual need to flee— she had to purposefully slow her strides. “I already said you were a do-gooder type, man. You traveled all around, and my exploration team partner and I traveled too. We were bound to bump into each other at some point, and we got to know you a bit whenever we did.”

A pause. “This doesn’t explain why you and your companions are all so wary of me.”

“What?”

“Surely you noticed how Grovyle and Dusknoir reacted upon witnessing my arrival? They were ready to strike me down— or at the very least give their greatest effort in doing so.”

She chewed at the inside of her cheek. “That’s just them— they’re weird and nervous about new people. I’m not scared of you, Darkrai. Trust me.”

He didn’t respond further. She could only hope that he didn’t notice the waver in her voice at her final words as they traveled through snowdrifts and frost to Verdant Village.

[dangermousie]

And that is why I hate Cousin. He’s a moralless user, the ends justifies the means type, but hypocritical about it even to himself. God. I hate that awful slimy fucker. If he made no bones about his monstrosity, I’d have some respect for him but as is...

Vamp Boy, who has made no bones about being a monster and who does not owe FL his life unlike this scumbag, has taken better care of her and done more for her than this supposedly gentle and righteous gentleman. BARF!

The actor is great and would love to see him in more stuff. The character is as fascinating as he is repulsive.

[ilikeyoshi]

i HHHAAAAAAATE the emphasis ppl put on "empathy" as a sign of Good Personness, because that's not what empathy IS. empathy is your body's ability to feel what you PERCEIVE others to be feeling. it's not even ACCURATE.

ALL empathy does is causes your body to experience emotions and feelings based on your perception of others' emotions and feelings. it makes you sad when others ARE, or ARE PERCEIVED to be sad. great example: i get sad about my friends' minecraft pets getting lost or dying, EVEN WHEN MY FRIENDS DONT MIND THAT MUCH. because I PERCEIVE that to be something that would make someone sad, so i GET SAD. THATS IT.

empathy DOES NOT make me compassionate. if anything, empathy makes compassion HARDER for me. when my empathy makes me feel something intense, sometimes i then get angry or upset about Having Feelings Foisted On Me, and i sometimes incorrectly blame my friends for HAVING FEELINGS or GOING THROUGH SOMETHING DIFFICULT. it is selfish, misguided, and DIRECTLY NEGATIVELY IMPACTS MY ABILITY TO BE COMPASSIONATE, SYMPATHETIC AND SUPPORTIVE. it is a NIGHTMARE to navigate.

conversely!!! my LOW EMPATHY FRIENDS don't have this problem! compassion is A CHOICE TO BE KIND. sympathy is A CHOICE TO UNDERSTAND. these things are not impacted by empathy AT ALL. hyperempathy is like autoimmune diseases to me; it is an OVERACTIVE BODILY RESPONSE, just to other emotions (and perceived emotions) instead of threatening cells (and perceived threats).

probably, a balanced amount of empathy (and DEFINITELY low empathy) does not produce the problems i mentioned. but it does not MAKE you kind. it does not MAKE you understand. it just makes your body feel shit, often INACCURATELY!!!!! THAT'S IT!!!!!!!!!

feelings and emotions have NOTHING to do with morality. burn this idea out of your mind, because it is incorrect and believing it is making your life harder. what happens when you feel something bad? what happens when your feelings want your friends to shut up, or go away, or get over it? what happens when your feelings make you mad at someone for hurting? what happens when your feelings make you hate someone for existing?

feelings are natural, they happen to everyone regardless of empathy, and they are MORALLESS. it is your ACTIONS that determine your morality. it is your DECISIONS that determine your morality.

all that shit i just asked are feelings ive had, usually as a DIRECT result of hyperempathy. and in a world that totes empathy as A Sign Of A Good Person, it's taken A LOT of work to realize i'm not EVIL for feeling things. just because my FEELINGS want my friends to shut up doesnt mean I want them to; feelings are extremely vague and nonspecific. usually "wanting friends to shut up" is an incorrect interpretation, and what my feelings REALLY want is a break from the conversation. maybe i'm too overwhelmed to continue dealing with heavy emotions, which is much more likely to happen to me BECAUSE of empathy. and the longer i try to do it anyway, the more likely i am to really hurt myself AND my friendship. because when we give in and listen to our emotions uncritically, bad things can happen. "taking the ACTION of telling my friends to shut up" can happen. and you know what got me in that situation? empathy.

when you conflate empathy with compassion and sympathy, you are making an incorrect, HARMFUL statement that hurts people with low AND HIGH empathy. you are wrong. you need to kill this idea in yourself, for your sake and everyone else's. your feelings do not make you a good or bad person. what you DO with, or in spite of those feelings DOES.

[medicinenew]

@lustofegypt

"Yeah, I need my guts ruined by you."

"Guts? Ruined?" An eyebrow raised on the face of the moralless hero out of curiosity.

[ccaptain]

The fact that H:SR Kaeya tends to... I wouldn't say straight up avoids talking about things, but downplay how he feels about certaint things that have clearly affected him a lot, and it's detrimental for his mental health.

He hasn't told anyone about Mortis and Astrid in particular, or why he has a piece of epoxy-ed, bloody bread with him at all times, and the guilt it carries since Astrid was used as a pawn to lure him, and died suffering because of that. The fact that he watched it all unable to stop it doesn't kinda sorta help.

He becomes more animated (in the sense that he grows almost animalistically pissed) when there's even a small trace of the Monastery's headmaster that he can track down like a bloodhound. That Kaeya meant the bone-chilling "I'll kill you." he told the man, and will mean the carnage he wants to unleash on someone cruel and truly moralless enough to use someone to the bone for his cause.

He meant to caught Kaeya, but now he'll have to spend eternity making sure that his prey doesn't find him. And Kaeya has more than eternity in his hands.

[firemama]

Jafar's return was essential to the Aladdin story. Sure the movie sucked in the way it was made and let's not even talk about the animation quality but to fully scrap Jafar's return would be to get rid of a crucial part of the original Aladdin that ties in with the sequel. Jafar wasn't dead yet and it's just normal he would seek revenge after all. Plus, Jafar was the most favorite villain of all of the Aladdin villains (not even Mozenrath sufficed according to fandom surveys). You really gotta cut Jafar some slack.

i WILL cut Jafar some slack cause he *is*, you're right, a pretty terrifying disney villian all things considered.

But I really truly think he's only at his best as working from, y'know, inside the system. He's a scary bad guy because he's bribed, threatened, and manipulated his way into a very high seat of power; he's scary because he blackmails and gaslights and lies.

Jafar as a genie is uh, very specifically... less interesting? it loses the metaphor of corruption in the high ranks, and it's more about the "innately evil strong monster" kind of character, and he doesn't even function as a particularly good or interesting foil to Genie, the other member of the species? Like, if we WERE going to do a whole movie with a focus on Jafar Returns in 'my' version of re-written aladdin...

well, I think i would have focused a lot more on juxtaposing Jafar to Genie for starters. Jafar was a human that became a genie out of greed for power and it inevitably enslaved him to another's will (again, movie 1 is definitely good with jafar, because thats such a good metaphor for politics) so I would have a movie focus a lot less on the redemption of a magical talking bird (is Iago funny? yeah, but not enough to drive plot, sorry) and focus more on it maybe revealing more about Genies as a species, or about The Genie himself. was *he* human, or was he born a powerful being? What are the implications of that, was he ALWAYS enslaved or was he born with a semblance of freedom, and how must genie feel about having watched a man simply gain the same powers as him, become bound?

Idk. I think Jafar aught to be confined to the first movie, in my opinion, and in true kids movie fashion instead of being Killed by Laval, he aughta just be imprisoned in the lamp indefinitely in the Cave of Wonders. If I DID do a return-of-jafar movie, i think i would change from a triology to four movies, and i might put it as the very last fourth movie; return of The Big Bad style, and maybe do a little bit of exploring of Genie's backstory now that it's been revealed aladdin's father was a previous master of the genie. But im still not really convinced on how to do a good job of utilitizing Jafar as a villian, because he's *scary* as a moralless man, but not as a genie; he's merely Strong as a genie.

(Also, if we did the fourth movie thing with a Genie vs Jafar foil, I'd probably make there some point in which we find out The Genie had a name. as it stands in my triology, I think The Genie is the only genie until Jafar makes is fucked wish and that 'Genie' is his name. But if we were doing a Thing where we compare them, i think Genie should have been born/created/etc to different name and that 'The Genie' would have been a title he was given as, y'know, a legendary tool?)

[katrinasis]

kirby kills gods this kirby is an eldritch being that etc etc etc, anyway let’s talk about the fact that planet robobot is very explicitly an anticolonial work about how capitalism is a moralless, tireless machine that best functions under exploitation and dehumanization for the sake of profit

[darkandlightsides]

Okay so most of my mutuals havent been here as long as Jain has so

Bethany had three main versions at the time. Classic, Parable and Moral-less. Classic being the standard every day bethantly, parable being a stockholm syndromed mother fucker whos narrator broke her legs and conditioned her into being his kid, and Moralless, renamed Molly, Who is a sadistic blood lusty emphasis on the lusty mother fucker. She experiments on people in a much less refined way to make people into robots who can live forever; By just forcing these people to possess robots when they die in general.

Bethany (molly) was possessed while trying to loot an abandoned freddy's locations for parts and stumbled across Henry Miller's tapes. She made a deal with him to help him finish his work from before his "death" and hed teach her everything he knew, since he was the one who started the research she was following in the first place.

She sucks but i love her

[sweet-chimera]

me who just loves evil au's in general like "hmm yes you shall become Bastard™"

// WE LIKE EVIL and moralless AUS

[dcwnthercbbithcle]

Thirty-five minutes; it had been thirty-five minutes since the Old Man had breached his containment. Though to all contained within the oppressive walls of the foundation, there must have been a strange numbness to the sight and the sounds. Another day, another breach, the doors all shut up like fort knox and the alarms blaring through the now emptied hallways rife with fear and dread.

Moments like these challenged the notion that the Site was a cold, emotionless creation of steel and plastic and the moralless pursuit of science. Indeed, beneath the pulsing red emergency lights, it seemed as though the building itself was almost alive. Lights flickered, directing fearful staff to safety, a sense of urgency present in the flashing battery-powered LEDs, the doors of each anomaly barred tight like a desperate mother's grasp over their children, hoping against hope that by holding each of them dearly that somehow its strength could keep them safe. The wailing of the alarms had the same intensity as though the building itself cried out in anguish from the loss of one of its precious imprisoned, or rather, in horror at the sights unfolding within its walls, a travesty inexpressible through anything but sheer emotion.

Thankfully, despite the display of emotion from the Site abuzz in panic, the bloodshed during this breach was minimal or even non-existent. It was a pointlessly hopeful thought, shared between staff in safe corners, playing games on their phone and awaiting the all-clear from MTF. Some even whispered that it might have been a malfunction. But, it was not as though there was not a crumb of truth to it. Not a head seemed out of place. The flickering camera feed showed no sign of the Old Man on the hunt through the halls, and things seemed still despite the anxiety hanging in the air, and for a moment, it seemed like the storm had broken.

The alarms overhead stalled, and silence reigned for a moment before the familiar chime of the Site intercom system buzzing to life took hold and spoke,

" SCP 8713-B SUCCESSFULLY TERMINATED. TERMINATION CAUSE: SCP 106,"

[girliefag]

my favorite rdr2 characters btw

tilly she's extremely special to me. she was their little sister and she grew up with the gang can you imagine how tragic it must have been for her to watch it tear itself apart? and she cared about Karen so much what happened to Karen please 😭 she grew up surrounded by violence but when the gun was in her hand she only asked to be set free. she got out she escaped the horrors but she kept the love she had for Mary Beth and the martsons

javier I will literally fight for my life for him. he was the most heartfelt guy in that camp he followed dutch out of real belief but he didn't want to turn against arthur and john too.

charles the entire game is about him btw. I've said this before but he's so incredibly special. All he's ever received is a bad hand but he remains good. And it's shown that it is hard for him to be good when they face the poachers but he does anyway!! he's the most in line with his morals out of everyone in this moralless world.

sadie I am free on Thursday if you would like to hang out on Thursday which is the day I am free <3 she said I'll forgive in hell the loss of her husband both frostened her to the world forever but warmed her to people who has similar fires raging in them.

hosea old girl </3

arthur I will literally throw up. they made him a weapon they made my boy a gun. Arthur took all the pain in his life and fossilized it and let himself become this weapon and only started to think he be someone good when he had to look back on where he was being fired. and he loved the whole time. he loved the gang so much. he lived and died.

abigail really just wanted a good life and she was so so loved by John it's devastating. shes rough and abrasive and she's had to fight for everything in her life why wouldn't she be? but shes so so gentle with rough hands and she holds everything tight