#short stories with moral

[theriverbeyond]

important fact to ME is that on the Sixth House, canonically the Niereds' (the sex troops) final exam was memorizing erotic poetry. the Sixth House own prime directive is making sure all their citizens are as attractive and fuckable and erotically capable as possible at all times. and they're institutionally encouraged to be nerds. and when Palamedes was bored in the River bubble and only had one terrible book to read, he spent 8 months writing fix-it fanfiction on the walls.

what i'm saying is that birthday cake erotica would have been GOOD.

[thisisadonaldduckblognow]

all the rise boys get done dirty on characterization by fandom in different ways i think. (not ALL the time every fanwork etc etc these are just like, trends i tend to notice?) every fandom suffers from losing character nuance.

- leo i’ve talked about plenty on this blog, how some of his canon traits (genuine belief in his skill and cockiness, capacity for joy, his manipulativeness whether for good or ill) seem to get watered down or wiped off the board and supplemented with generic sad boy. his struggles with purpose and identity and not wanting to fail somehow morph into “he hates and completely holds no value for himself”

- donnie’s canon personality gets blurred out and largely replaced with whatever list of Neurodivergent Traits. and i think there’s such a fine line to walk between exploring a character that’s been word of god confirmed as on the spectrum and overwriting what’s canonically there. it’s a hard needle to thread. it also feels like a lot of his canon emotiveness gets left off the table for some reason. bc he does have his moments of flat/deadpan delivery, but a lot of the time he’s honestly very emotive. he has the passion of a theatre kid and the vindictiveness of... also a theatre kid. and the mind of a scientist.

- raph loses so much of his rowdy teen boy energy it’s kind of wild? like interpretations sand off that he’s also impulsive and can be reckless and dumb and LOVES fighting and roughhousing and isn’t the most eloquent person. suddenly there’s this pitch perfect soft boy big bro who would never hurt a fly and always says the exact right supportive thing and singlehandedly raised his 3 brothers (which simultaneously sands off all the nuance of splinter’s issues emotionally connecting with his sons and how that affected all of them). and like i LOVE raph, he’s so full of love and care and anxiety, he clearly has learned to put a lot of work into being aware of his strength and size. but there’s a difference you know?

- mikey is like. where raph gets overparentified by fanon, mikey gets over “family therapist”-ed IMO. the impulsiveness, the goofiness, the powerful emotions including a VERY powerful temper, the flat-out dumb teen boy choices... they get ignored. suddenly there’s this only very sweet and earnest boy who has read a hundred psychology books and runs group family therapy weekly or something. he is crying in his room bc leo and raph are arguing about something. which is so. he IS very sweet and can be very earnest and is full of love! he HAS come in with his opinions and unsolicited advice a couple of times and life coached for the greater good. but there’s a difference between what he does in canon and the role he gets in fanon.

[scarletdreamers]

There ultimately is one question that bothers many when it comes to Will: Is Will Graham actually a bad person? (because no one knows what exactly swims around in the hot darkness of his mind, but I tried to sum it up anyway)

The thing about Will is that yes, he is certainly not a ‘good’ person. At least not after Hannibal started messing with his head, though I’m convinced Will never was in the first place. However, not only Will’s character, but pretty much the whole show is about the thin and multi-shaded line of good and bad. Moral and immoral. It’s exactly that blurry line that makes Will such an interesting protagonist. He is not the bad guy, neither is he the hero in his own story. He tried to play the roles of both (FBI agent vs killer), managed to fool even himself for a while, but Will knows very well who he is and what he was doing.

It’s an ancient question, isn’t it? What is good and what is bad? Are those two defined by societal norms and standards? Are they based on culture, religion, or is morality something personal? Something only you can decide for yourself? 

I’m going to include Hannibal here for a second, because when it comes to Hannibal, the last one of those options applies. The thing with Hannibal is that he has his own philosophies, his own ideals and morals. Hannibal constantly rivals God, claiming that he himself can’t be called evil because God does the same things and isn’t considered ‘’bad’’. Hannibal has his own borders and limits very straight. He can recognise plain cruelty, but the thing with Hannibal is that he is a very stylised manifestation of sin.

Hannibal is religious, though there might not be a specific religion or deity he believes in and he worships no higher beings, he does believe in the ‘’rules’’ of certain religions. He is well aware that he crosses most of those. They hold no value for him. He makes his own rules, plays his own game. In his world, there is no ‘’good’’ or ‘’bad’’ when it comes to actual crimes against humanity. A bad person is for him someone very rude, someone who lacks respect and manners. He doesn’t consider himself a ‘’good’’ person. He is something entirely else. A way of perceiving life and his own morality that no one except from Will can truly understand. 

Hannibal, however, is to us a bad person. He is the ‘’ultimate bad guy’’, because the way he feels about Will doesn’t excuse the rest of his behaviour. Hannibal is a sadist, a narcissist, a manipulative and awful man. He kills and feels no remorse for most if not all of his victims. For him killing is an art, a pleasure, he delights in it. For him, that is not as ‘’bad’’ or evil as it is for us (society), though he knows he is alone in that world. 

For that same reason, Hannibal doesn’t consider Will a bad person. He considers Will his equal. He knows that the both of them are deemed ‘’bad’’ people to the public, but that doesn’t matter in his world. In Hannibal’s mind, it’s just him and Will against the rest of the world. They are neither good nor evil. They simply are.

So back to Will, who understands Hannibal’s view of morality, but doesn’t necessarily think the same. If we look at it the same way as we looked at Hannibal, in a societal and common sense, yes, Will is a bad person. Can a stereotypically ‘’good’’ person like killing, even if it’s bad men? The satisfaction in killing, even if it’s a bad person, isn’t a moral thing. Someone truly ‘’good’’ would always choose punishment over murder. Then there’s also the fact that Will didn’t blink twice when he and Hannibal ate human meat and that he consumed it, knowingly, without a single complaint.

Will had no issues using innocent people (Chilton, Freddie Lounds, etc) to achieve his own goals. He is as (if not more) manipulative as Hannibal and is sometimes cruel in ways that even shocks the Chesapeake Ripper. Will made absurd sacrifices to get what he wanted, did things no stereotypically ‘’good’’ man would ever think of doing. Then I’m not even talking about maybe the simplest and most ordinary example of how little he actually cares for most things, which is his sweet wife, Molly (her son Walter, too). 

However, Will did try to be good. He tried very hard. He wanted to be a good person, to save people. Will can care for others in ways Hannibal can’t. Hannibal has no moral compass, Will does. A broken one, but he does. Will wants to help people more often than he wants to hurt them (The conversation with Bedelia about crushing or saving a wounded bird is a perfect example of this. So are his needs to save dogs and Abigail.) The thing about Will is that he desired to be good. He worked for the FBI, saved many lives, because he understands pain and suffering like no other. He doesn’t wish such horrid things upon innocent people. 

During the show, Will's morality is completely tied to Hannibal, so much that Hannibal himself and the stag even serve as metaphors for his corruption, while at the same time, his morality has nothing to do with Hannibal. Will always had dark urges. He always knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, with the things he wanted and was capable of doing. Perhaps that’s why he joined the police and later the FBI. He suppressed the worst of him by focusing on the best of himself. By forcing himself to save people through a job, he couldn’t afford to misbehave and do things he knew were wrong. Will’s fantasies, dreams and understanding of killers throughout the show make it very clear that he struggled with his own morality, even before Hannibal.

Then came, of course, Hannibal. Who fueled those urges and gave them attention. Who didn’t create them, but cared for them. Allowed them to sprout and grow until Will got entangled in such a web of situations and feelings that he couldn’t suppress them anymore. Hannibal forced Will to deal with who he really is, he broke Will’s shield. His costume, the same way Will did with Hannibal’s person suit. Hannibal is a ‘bad’ influence on Will because he brings out what’s always been inside him, but was repressed for years because Will was aware that society would label him a monster or a freak if he acted on those feelings. Will felt alone and alienated his entire life, of course he tried everything to not fall into a complete pit of loneliness and darkness. 

That was until Hannibal came into his life and Will realised that there was someone who understood him, who loved him for who he really was, even (especially) his ‘darker’ side. Someone who was like him. Who understood how he felt and didn’t see him as an immoral person because of it. Will spent his whole life understanding others, but Hannibal was the first person to actually understand him in return. 

Hannibal thinks Will’s ‘worst’ side is the most beautiful version of him. Will himself is torn between what Hannibal (the one person who understands and cares for him) and society (his upbringing, religion, anyone he ever met, norms and values) think of him. He doesn’t know what to believe. He knows he’s a bad person, he doesn’t try to make himself believe he isn’t. As I said, Will still has a moral compass, he’s self conscious about the things he does.

However, there is a great possibility that Hannibal changed Will’s perception of himself. That he made Will see that there’s no need to think of himself as a bad person. Just as a person. A human with urges and desires. Who can decide for themselves whether their actions are good or bad. Law is far beneath them at this point. In the end, Will and Hannibal navigate their own morality through their perceptions of their own actions. They both have a dislike for labels. Good and bad, moral and immoral, those are all labels society has forced upon humanity. Cruelty and kindness are not. Will knows very well when he’s cruel and when he’s kind.

So my conclusion is, yes, Will Graham is stereotypically a self-conscious yet immoral person. At the ending of the series after everything has happened, at least. 

But, I think that, just like Will himself, it’s up to you to decide whether he’s truly good or bad. Some people have other reasons to believe someone is one of the two than others. Some believe that if a person can love, or if they feel guilt or know what they’re doing, they aren’t a bad person. Others don’t. I think that’s entirely up to you to decide. It’s just what you like to believe, because believe me, to Will the line is just as blurry as it is to us. He is as unpredictable to Hannibal as he is for the audience. Will is a mystery of a character, certainly when it comes to his morality. And I think that that is exactly what makes him so fascinating.

[luminous-orb]

doodle comic i made just before beating VLR. not to worry, I Know Now :)

[mohntilyet]

Wait is the middle picture from those three sketches that one scene from the wigmaker job?

yes! it's this specific passage where lucanis is just seething with rage and trying to keep a lid on it, and illario's a stablising, comforting presence. BROTHERS!!!!! <3 though i chose to draw his hand on his shoulder rather than his arm i guess. artistic liberty!

[aviscranio]

The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story (2024)

[tobyfoxmademeascaly]

Happy Lesbian Visibility Week to Alisaie Finalfantasy

[factsilike]

Really tired of constantly seeing posts declaring that everyone in MXTX novels is complicated and 'morally grey' and that's what makes her works wonderfully written, and that everyone else who doesn't see that is stupid, or is 'demonising' characters and bashing them for rightfully criticising their shitty, very much unjustified actions.

And ironically it seems so simplistic to just declare that, because yes her stories are wonderfully written and complex, but not for that reason. You're clearly not reading her works and only spouting what you think her stories say. There are many morally grey characters in morally complex stories out there, but MDZS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

NONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS (i.e protagonists and their male leads except for LBH maybe) ARE MORALLY GREY OR MORALLY COMPLEX.

THEY ARE ALL MORALLY RIGHTEOUS.

Just take a closer look at their actions compared to the actions of literally everyone else around them, it's not that hard to see.

Not to mention that MXTX herself literally says that WWX and LWJ are both morally ideal and that ahe hopes her readers can be like them, but people seem to have no respect for the word of authors in the name of their self projection onto the characters being contradicted nowadays 😒

(also saw someone dismissively say that HC may think that the world revolves around XL or whatever, but others don't and they're right??

First of all, did you even read the novel? HC made his judgement based on how others treated him versus how XL did when he was a CHILD. And how XL continues to treat others to this day. He is well within his rights to think the world of XL, especially since XL suffered more than every other person and still doesn't succumb to evil, despite having every right to do so, miles more than others. He all but regards XL as his moral compass, because he's proof that truly good people do exist in this world, and not ONE other person in the novel is shown to be as good as him.)

One of the reasons why I really don't like the Xianle Trio is this; neither FX nor MQ seem to regard XL as his own person with his own agency, who is capable of making his own decisions initially as HC does, and only near the end of the novel do they let up a bit when their asses had to be saved by XL multiple times. (especially considering what fools they made of themselves in that spiderweb cave lmao)

Both of them try to enforce XL ALL THE TIME ("Your Highness don't do this or don't do that or don't say this or don't go there or don't talk to him"), as if XL has not survived perfectly well on his own without them FOR 800 YEARS.

The difference between them and HC is clearly spelled out when FC asks HC about why he is not stopping XL, and HC replies that while he may not agree with some of XL's decisions, he would never force him to do what he thinks is correct, something both MQ and FX are CONSTANTLY shown to try to do.

Like please. Xianle Trio who? More like suffering XL and his pair of nuisances who think themselves to be his babysitters. And most of the time he's the one babysitting them.

Another thing that irks me is that their frequent arguments are often played off for laughs, but XL is truly a saint, because if my friends were constantly bickering over petty things all throughout our dangerous journey and giving me nothing but headaches, especially in survival situations, I'd given them the boot a long time ago.

[thekidyouforgot]

I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.

George Saunders, Love Letter

[oswaldthatendswald]

This is not a new observation, but I think One Piece handles Doflamingo's backstory-- how it continues to affect his behavior and choices, as well as how it fits into the overall story-- exceptionally well. The villain who is evil due to a tragic past is a very well-established trope, but it is increasingly done quite poorly. Attempts to flesh out a villain and garner sympathy for them can become misguided justifications for their actions or goals, muddying the themes and tone of a story. My point isn't that morally complex characters can't be interesting when done competently and purpose; it's that when the villain with a tragic past is meant to be evil but his past becomes a justification, the writers' intended dynamics of the story are damaged.

Doflamingo's story never has that problem. His backstory makes it perfectly clear why he does the things he does, but it never implies that he is right to do them. It is a reason, not an excuse. The reader gets the sense that Doflamingo is very much the product of his childhood: first the golden excess of a Celestial Dragon, then the abrupt fall from grace into hatred and pain. It's the perfect storm to set a person down the worst paths possible.

But I think the reader might also feel (or at least I did) that this wasn't a fate set in stone. Doflamingo could have unlearned the ideology of a Noble and perhaps that the harm done to him doesn't justify further harm-- except that the only guidance he ever got was worship by Trebol and the other Executives, who were the nail in the coffin for any redemption Doflamingo might have had. Their appearance only validated and affirmed the beliefs Doflamingo already held regarding his place in the world.

Instead of ham-handed sympathy bait, Doflamingo's backstory is a beautifully executed extension of the worldbuilding and themes already present in the story. It is another tragedy in a world of tragedies, another story where children are put through hell. But without the external guidance and support the heroes get, Doflamingo takes the other path, becoming another perpetrator of tragedies, and a reminder that our heroes are the people they are as much (or more) because of the love and mentorship they had than due to innate goodness. It's the road less traveled, but they still might have traveled it.

[gebo4482]

The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story

Dir: Jarelle Dampier Star: Brian Tyree Henry / Shameik Moore

[iwasbored777]

I want to say that it's unrealistic for Gwen and Miles to be so dramatic about love so young but when I remember what being their age and experiencing falling in love for the first time was like I say they're not being dramatic enough

[myimaginationplain]

Another thing about episode 8; I absolutely called Viktor being grateful to Singed for resurrecting him, & I'm glad that I did. I saw some people assuming that he'd be pissed off about it, but I think that's a misread of where Viktor is mentally atp. He's long past the point of wanting to die, & even longer past the point of being resigned to death; Viktor now has a goal, a mission all his own, & has all the spite in the world in his heart.

Singed has given him the necessary tools to see this mission through, just like he always has. That's just how their relationship is; Viktor rejects Singed's methods & ideologies, balks at then...but then he comes back around. Always. "I understand [it], now," Viktor said twice. Once in reference to keeping Rio in suspended animation, & again in response to Singed's disregard for humanity.

this is Singed & Viktor @ one another to me (especially on Singed's side of things) :

[strangelittlestories]

The necromancer, Bonaparte, stared at the horizon with bored black eyes. Beneath his gaze, the visitors bearing their flag of truce were ushered forwards by his skeletal honour guard.

“I will accept your surrender now.”

The commanding officer - not the original, but the surviving one - stepped towards the tyrant. She wore a Brigid’s Cross made of dirty reeds on her lapel. 

She could see the setting sun reflected in the necromancer’s obsidian gaze. Soon, the light would fade and dead would be at their strongest.

“I’m afraid I cannot offer you a surrender, Emperor of corpses. But I will beg for mercy, for you are the only soldier in your army with a heart to feel it.”

“My heart stopped beating long ago.”

“Yet I pray that enough feeling echoes in it still to grant clemency, despite your profanities.”

Then did the necromancer turn his gaze towards her. They were eyes that read fate and defied laws. She could have sworn she felt the air curdle, the ground buckle, and the light twist with its weight.

“Oh, your kings and queens are all so horrified by me and by what I do. They call it a crime against nature, a sin against god. Or *gods*.” He gestured to the cross on her uniform. “But if one has a war to fight - and if one believes in equal parts that war is *just* but also that no war *can* be just … is this not the most ethical, most correct thing? To fight the war in such a way that does not harm your subjects? Surely only a coward would let the disapproval of a few dozen gods sway them from saving a life?”

He paused as if to take a breath, but his chest did not move (he no longer needed air and considered it ill-disciplined to fall back into the habit of breathing). 

The officer paused too. His words felt heavy in her head. His dry voice scratching uncomfortably at her mental walls. But in his eyes, she still saw the last dying rays of sunlight…

“I suppose, tyrant of sunset, that were I in your shoes I *would* be tempted to keep harm and death from me and mine. But even if I could, I hope I would not do what you have done. For I would fear what other harm I was doing.”

“And what harm is that?”

“To put it simply, marshal of styx, those bodies that fight for you? They’re *not *yours*. You stole them. Dug up graveyards, cracked open tombs, emptied ossuaries.” She tutted and sunlight flared in her disapproval. “Maybe a few are honoured comrades, true believers, but most? They wouldn’t even know you to say good morning, yet alone to salute. Their spirits may be gone, but that doesn’t mean you get to make their dust dance.” 

“You defy me because you think my army is … theft?”

“That’s my line in the dirt. It may not be a good line. It may be a damned stupid line. I don’t know. But there it is - I know it, I feel it, it’s mine - like the bones that hold me upright.”

Bonaparte permitted himself a small sigh as a luxury.

“And after you die, those same bones will bow to me.”

[aviscranio]

The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story (2024)

[lord-squiggletits]

A tangent from the tags of my previous Pharma post (and I just thought about this so bear w/ me if it's hastily reasoned) is that the Autobots being generally sanctimonious is actually sort of a reason why I find a lot of IDW Optimus interpretations to miss the mark, specifically the accusations of calling him stuff like self-righteous, caring more about principles than people, etc. And I know that sounds really ironic, but out of every Autobot (and almost every character period), Optimus is one of the few people who has a very forgiving/humanistic perspective on life or at least has a political approach of "if we don't stop fucking fighting we're going to be at war forever and eventually just kill ourselves."

He very explicitly wanted a diplomatic end to the war and not a military victory/conquest. He extended multiple offers to Megatron personally to work together and end the war (Autocracy trilogy, which was pre/early war, and Chaos Theory, which was late/end war, so from this we can assume Optimus' stance was consistent the whole time). When ppl hated him so bad they rioted he removed himself from the planet rather than argue or fight to justify why his actions were the best he could do. Sandstorm starts murdering Decepticons and Optimus solves the murders and then throws Sandstorm in prison bc sparing one of his Autobots the consequences of his actions is less important to Optimus than keeping the peace and making sure anyone who threatens to ignite wartime hostilities is punished for it. There are multiple characters throughout the series that other people give up on as too far gone or too cowardly/evil/damaged to be worth helping where Optimus alone is the person who says "I think they can get better/they did bad things but they're still people" such as the Dynobots, Blurr, Prowl (despite how OP's patience with him hung by a thread by the end of it), Shockwave, and, yknow, fucking Megatron of all people.

And on top of that Optimus' internal thoughts most of the time revolve around feelings of guilt, responsibility, anger, hopelessness/barely hanging on to his ideals, and so on. Bro regularly has thoughts about how the entire Autobot-Decepticon war was his fault and is depressed to the point the thought of dying/martyring himself makes him feel relieved. So like. Idk guys I don't think those are the personality traits/actions of a self-righteous person who thinks he's correct about everything and everyone who opposes him or fails his moral standards is just evil or whatever.