#the evil dead of course….

[arthursfuckinghat]

Arthur Morgan is the kind of man to save you from harm only to look at you with his sorrow-ridden eyes and tell you how much of a bad man he is when you thank him

[kwillow]

will theo ever be happy

Maybe in another life.

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[dunsbar]

the magnus archives is a podcast about the horrors of having a job

[itsnobodysproblem]

Most Sherlock Holmes adaptations I've seen tend to place their Final Problem towards the mid point of the series (or even a bit earlier) - it's also in my opinion the best way of going about it, so you have time enough for the characters to adjust after the reunion but they know each other well enough for the events of Fina to be devastating.

Sherlock & Co is done with 20 of the adventures. How many are there? Fifty-something? Almost sixty? Let's say we'll be entering mid-point territory after the 25th story.

So let's pretend for a moment that we have 5 more stories until The Final Problem. Ok.

Estimating an adventure at 3 episodes each, that would mean little over 3 months - maybe 3 and a half? Starting, of course, from the end of Sign of Four, which will be somewhere in December.

So let's say 3, maybe 4 months into 2025. That would be, what? Late march, early april?

Early april?

John having to tell the listeners that Sherlock is dead, in early april?

Quick calendar searck reveals what I was praying it would - the 1st of april will be on a Tuesday next year.

So what I'm saying

What I'm saying is Sherlock &Co has the opportunity to do the funniest fucking thing

[worstloki]

My issue with Thor not ‘realizing’ why Loki was acting off in Avengers 1 isn’t that Thor didn’t recognise Loki was acting unlike himself—Thor did note that—or that Thor didn’t figure out what was wrong—he did try asking—it’s more along the lines of Thor giving up, and that he accepted Loki was bad now within two days while knowing something was off when Thor himself behaved just as bad for much longer before without any specific compromising event.

[myersesque]

every time i see someone hate danny from evil dead rise w a fiery passion just bc he's some dumbass teenager who accidentally summoned demons i wonder if the person posting it has seen the original series - not in a mean gatekeepy way, but in a "however dumb danny is, i promise you ash is ten times dumber" way.

the entire opening conflict of ash vs evil dead is that ash accidentally brought the deadites back Again bc he got stoned and read from the necronomicon ex mortis Again despite knowing exactly what would happen. if you hate danny for accidentally dooming his family, you'll absolutely DESPISE ash for dooming the entire world several times over and then almost deciding not to save it. i love the guy, but he's a fucking moron. a little infuriating dumbassery is part of the evil dead charm, it simply wouldn't be the same without it

[bisexualgoth]

"omg Evil Dead Rise gave us a charcter who's a transgender moron! finally!" ummm ash williams is right there and he's been moronizing transgenderism since 1981. know your he/theystory.

[miiiwu]

.

[babybinko]

Was looking through old sketches and found these. I decided to clean them up a bit. Army of Darkness Yuri who fucking cares anymore.

[phereinnike]

D&d vampiric lore and Astarion.

I see a lot of people commenting on Astarion's good & bad ending (this is your chance to run from a spoiler) and if they're truly in-character or canon or make narrative sense.

And while there is a lot to say about his personal narrative and the motif of the cycle of abuse, the influence those around us have on us, not being able to see kindness as an option if it's never been shown to you, etc... One of the things I've seen very few people mention is that because of the setting, he really never stood a chance.

Vampires in dungeons and dragons aren't like those in other media. They're not twillight vampires or even anne rice vampires. It is well established in the lore and it has been for years, that true vampires in d&d aren't fully autonomous people with their own nuanced moral codes. Vampires in d&d are completely obsessed with power, paranoid and greedy, to the point that it erases who they were in their mortal life. They are fully evil and fully corrupt. No matter what they were like in life. You could be the goodest aligned person on Faerun, a true hero and defender of the powerless. And if you got turned into a true vampire, that goodness would still completely cease to exist.

That is not to say that vampires don't have personalities. Obviously they are all unique and have their own tastes, personalities and agendas. They retain knowledge and attachment to what was important to them in life (be it people, goals, places, etc.) but those bonds are as corrupt as they are. They don't get to keep the same feelings and ideas they had in life.

We can't argue about what makes narrative sense for a character without taking into account the setting he exists in. And because of the very setting we play in, there was never any possibility of Astarion becoming a true vampire (ascendant through the ritual or a regular one), turning the player into a true vampire as well and living happily ever after, be it in a good campaign or in an evil one. The setting just doesn't allow for it, because the moment he becomes a true vampire, the Astarion we know is truly dead and gone.

[wheelercore]

Been working on my nana wheeler is fake thesis *screaming and crying can be heard far off in the distance*

[bhaalspawnshitposting]

Ketheric Thorm is one of my all-time favorite villains in any piece of media. I just can't hate him. I've loved so hard, and had death take those loved ones from me, and I know the feeling of being willing to do anything to bring her back.

There's a Fall Out Boy quote I really love that I think sums up Ketheric's character so well,

"For you, I'd burn this city down just to show you the lights"

He is utterly devoted, not to his gods, but to his daughter. Selune didn't protect them, Shar couldn't make him forget them, but Myrkul promised Isobel back. And to Ketheric, that was enough. Damn his morals, damn the lives of everyone else in this plane and the next. For his daughter, any price is worth it.

And for an evil man, I can't think of a more noble cause.

[thekhoei]

my interpretation of beatles and the concept of universe: while paul and geo is the sun and the moon, john to me is an astronaut who is floating in the universe. he feels the apocalypse of his life has come near, yet he doesn't care that much. he only wants to explore the emptiness of a rich of so many void. he is lonely, but at the same time he feels the warm of that loneliness in that vast field of stars and he suddenly doesnt feel alone anymore. while starr is literally named starr, he should be a star right? but to me he is the ocean. the last piece of the band who gets along the same line with the other, like how similar is the sea to the universe. we all know the universe is so infinite and mysterious. while whenever thinking of going to the beach, to the seaside, swimming in the ocean, we only think about fun. like how starr is potrayed as the band's clown and all. but the sea also have its depth and enigmatic charisma, and human also yearn to learn about the darkness inside that big void like how they want to touch the moon. starr is that little starfish who dreams to belong to the sky, and at the end he is. john wants to be the sun, but he is just a nowhere man. paul desires to follow the sun, he is the fool on the hill yearning to be one. "the quiet beatles" the shining moon with soulful notions. and the fresh wave in a summer day and night, the one and only star (no pun intended lmao 😔)

[deconstructivesurgery]

managed to somehow not horrifically fail a round of dead by daylight playing as wesker and immediately hit the poor fucking ada wong whom i did not realize was trying to befriend me until i had already beat her upside the head in a blind rage in post-game chat with the goddamn "another bsaa operative down, i'm wesking out"

only to realize then in my blind panicked stupor (playing killer in dead by daylight makes me feel like i'm going into cardiac arrest) that i'm an actual mo-ron and

a) ada wong Lied about being a bsaa operative and i somehow managed to forget that like key fucking plot point somehow even though i knew that

b) every other player was a console player who couldn't possibly have responded to me.

[fridayvelvet]

Joowon and Dongsik parallels that hurt