The Ever-Manifesting Brainrot

Lyda : the poker chip witch

projecting my period cramps onto macbeth (my bfs limbus oc)

Plague Doctor claims to want to help people but turns them into it's minions when it turns into WhiteNight, Army in Black claims to want to protect people but turns black and breaches when it absorbs too much negativity from their hearts, and agents develop a cult-like worship of Blue Star because they believe in a sort-of afterlife if they jump into it. These three, whether actively or unintentionally, seem to exploit the faith and trust of the employees, their desire to be helped or to be literally anywhere other than where they are now.

Ayin...definetly did do some horrible things and hurt a lot of people, from close friends to strangers. He could be a textbook definition of the word "ruthless" - but he's not "heartless", the fact that he built his own hell just to torment himself into understanding his mistakes and making amends testifies to the collosal guilt and regret he felt.

Some people look at what he did in order to achieve his goal of finishing the Tree of Light and say "he had good intentions". Well, helping achieve a dead friend's dream is a very kind thing to do, and Carmen herself had good intentions too, but Ayin never loved humanity half as much as she did - he's not doing this to help people, he's doing it just because of her. So the idea of good intentions but bad methods kind of falls apart too. Ultimately, neither Ayin nor Carmen or their actions are good or evil.

We're shown and told time and again that the City is a stagnant dystopia where things rarely change, and almost never change for the better. In contrast to this sort of world, Carmen is a selfless, kind, and forward-thinking person, and that's why so many people, including Ayin, flock to and obsess over her. I think, in Ayin's mind, letting her dream die with her or with the destruction of the lab would be giving up on that potential for change that she represented - as if both her life and her death counted for nothing in the end. That's why he gets so intense about completing the project, because he feels he has to make it all worth something, and that impetus only gets stronger and stronger as the bodies of friends and strangers pile up. To him, giving up and stopping at any point would render all the sacrifices, especially Carmen's, worthless, and that's unthinkable. (he's also a textbook example of "sunk cost fallacy")

The real ones go "this guy is so fucked up, i love him, he sucks" like with any complex character that does fucked up shit.