Realising I fumbled earlier by failing to verbally distinguish between "justifiable as an action in of itself" and "justifiable to the character" ruh roh
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@themoistplinth
Realising I fumbled earlier by failing to verbally distinguish between "justifiable as an action in of itself" and "justifiable to the character" ruh roh

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There's an awful trend in reading that's this CinemaSins kind of rejection of abstract concepts and suspension of disbelief, that makes people say it's bad writing when authors use descriptions that aren't immediately one to one with physical reality.
Like it's bad when a "tattoo is undulating" (as opposed to... "drawn in a wave like pattern on the skin"?), or when hair is "wet wheat from a late Summer field" (as opposed to "sort of brownish light yellow that dries lighter, but is not actual wheat stalks growing on someone's head but kind of reminiscent of the color and texture"?), or when when ice cream tastes like midnight at the fair" (as opposed to "ice cream flavour bringing back memories of undefined ice cream flavours that are individually popular but always tied to a memory of late evening at the fair ground and probably smelling vaguely like popcorn and sugar"?).
Please. We have to get back to understanding abstract descriptions that evoke feelings and memories and mental images or things we haven't experienced yet. This hyper utilitarian way of reading and judging text is killing fiction. it's robbing you of experiencing things you haven't actually personally experienced.
Whenever I replay fallout new Vegas I can’t stop thinking about how the game starts with you being shot in the head and that’s a big deal but then you spend the rest of the game getting shot by enemies, sometimes including in the head, and you just walk it off no prablem
Whenever I replay fallout new Vegas I can’t stop thinking about how the game starts with you being shot in the head and that’s a big deal but then you spend the rest of the game getting shot by enemies, sometimes including in the head, and you just walk it off no prablem
#I must once again clown on my alt-right former coworker who thought Caesar was a neat guy#him: Benny should learn to double tap B)#me: but he did. he did do that. he shot the courier twice.#him: no he didn't.#me: 'two to the skull and one gets up.' it is explicitly stated multiple times in the game and in OWB that the courier took two bullets.#him: I only heard one gunshot in the intro#me: .......... [deep breath] that is because the intro is from the courier's point of view. and they just got shot in the head#him:#me: they lost consciousness Steven. The courier lost consciousness after the first bullet.#him: ...#me: you only heard the first gunshot. because the Courier only heard the first gunshot. Doc Mitchell even says 'them bullets' plural.#him: ......................... 🤔
tags via @couriers-mile

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Big day for weird little towns
if you see me being queerbaited do not try and save me. i’m exactly where i want to be
i don’t need to say it
don’t say anything. just reblog this if you’re thinking of exactly that thing when you see this picture
dont store a knife with the point facing down, it damages the blade. no, dont do that either. when you store it with the point facing up you might accidentally hurt yourself when you try to grab it. dont store a knife at all actually. your blade must never leave your hand, always ready, ruthless and waiting. you know deep down that ever since you learned the stench of blood you will never be able to cast it aside. or just get a sheath for it i guess.
if I think about amy in 6b for too long I go absolutely insane
like what do you mean her child was stolen from her and never found? what do you mean she had to force herself to be content with the knowledge that her child would eventually be okay and was with her her whole life but she never got to knowingly care for or raise her? what do you mean she spent 30 years alone, fighting for her life and reckoning with all the ways the doctor blew up her life, but then the doctor saved her and all that never actually happened? what do you mean she had to reckon with all that AGAIN the next episode, and the doctor feels so guilty he drops her back into regular life without warning? what do you mean she acknowledges his failings but still sees being left behind as a betrayal of their friendship while he sees it as a kindness? what do you mean that during all this she is privately dealing with the knowledge that he is walking to his death, and is now doing it without her? what do you mean she finds out that he's really alive and has to wait two more years before he comes back for her AGAIN? what do you mean that during their time apart she finds out she can't have any more children and instead of grieving for what SHE'S lost, she grieves for the life she can't give rory? what do you MEAN she lets rory go in the same way eleven let her go because she feels as though he deserves better than staying with someone who is (in her mind) robbing him of the life he "should" have? what do you mean she decides she's better off alone????

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obviously rape and murder are never justifiable, that should always go without saying.
that said, writing exercise.
take your favourite morally-nuanced blorbo and consider-what situations or trauma could they go through that could make them think that those actions are justifiable?
related to other posts i'm currently making or chatting on, faith lehane is such a good character because they make her do some truly evil things, manage to redeem her and almost make some form of penance for every act
but they fuck up with one of her evil acts and i know it's because 90s and joss whedon but i'm still fucking mad
faith tries to rape xander. when xander goes to faith with good intention of hearing her side of things, offering her comfort and helping her do good she tries to hold him down and rape him.
faith rapes riley. faith convinces riley that she is buffy, has sex with him under false pretenses and never apologises for it. buffy gives her shit for it but it's never treated as rape, it's "you slept with him"
faith regrets her murder and violence and trying to destroy the world and her redemption arc is one of the best executed on television but i think even just a throwaway line about the fact that she is mournful for that would go a long way, instead of just leaving both events to be forgotten as soon as they're over.
I have a genuine question I want to ask but I worry I can't phrase it without sounding completely unhinged
Why is fictional murder more acceptable than fictional sexual assault? Murder in fiction is so common I would guaranter every single peraon has an edgy oc who has killed someone. A character can murder someone in cold blood - can murder many people in cold blood - but if a writer realllyyyy wants to get the point across that this is a Bad Person, the method they always use to make the character cross the line from Lovable (if bloody) Scamp to Completely Irredeemable is to have that character rape someone. Im sure there's something at play psychologically but I can't pinpoint what.
Common answer (that I agree with) is that in real life, there are justifiable reasons to kill someone, whereas rape or SA can never be justified. However, I wonder about characters who are presented by the narrative as unjust murderers.
Using Vulpes Inculta as an example - iirc, he is never explicitly stated as a sex slaver or a rapist, but given the context of thr Legion it is reasonable to assume that he may be one. In criticisms of his character, his potential sex slavery is brought up before his murders, even when his murders are probably the most memorable part about his character. Or Anakin Skywalker - child murderer, still beloved by many parts of fandom and considered redeemed by others. Child murder is can never be justly framed in real life, and yet Anakin gets a pass.
Even unjust killers are seen as less morally stained than rapists. If you stack the sins on a scale, murder vs rape are weighted differently in terms of how the character is perceived by the audience. Is it because people are better at separating fiction from reality in terms of murder, but sexual assault is too uncomfortable, even visceral, to read or watch?
Hi! Rape survivor here. Uuuuh yes the fuck you can. You can in fact recover in this life. The one you're in right now.
i think this is a start on the 'why' of it but not the why itself. it think it's because if you have a character who is raped, the narrative either ignores the trauma of what they went through (bad writing) or you have to then see the character grow and heal and deal with that trauma, which takes time and requires emphasis.
the murder is done. character is dead. their loved ones will mourn and grieve and the story can move on with a neat fullstop for the dead character.
this is coupled with societal hangups about sex being the most important, unique and sacred part of the human experience (no such thing) and misconceptions that you can't get over rape (speaking from experience, you can) it's used as shorthand for being irredeemable, because how could you imagine crossing that line?
i guess there's something to be said for the fact that fictional murder is often a means to an end-anakin is wiping out the jedi to consolidate power, the courier kills fiends and jackals to survive in the mojave, what reason would these characters have for rape?
if vulpes slaughters and enslaves it's in service of the ever expanding power of the legion and maintaining dominance and safety in the post-apocalypse. if vulpes rapes someone what practical purpose is there to that? it isn't for food or for shelter or for survival, it's for cruel and private pleasure. we can all imagine a situation where we're the aggressors killing to survive that we could justify it to ourselves, we can't imagine a situation where we're the aggressors raping to survive that we could justify to ourselves outside of a Vulcan ponfarr.
but no i think the real reason is "sex sacred and tarnishing that is evil" and keeping the traumatised character around in a narrative in a way murder doesn't.
I do kind of disagree with the premise that Vulpes Inculta's systematic murder of an entire town of people because they were 'dissolute profligates' or his most memorable quote that got paired with his face on a collector's edition playing card being 'Pile body upon body' is something we can handwave as 'yeah the player can justify that in their mind, he's shoring up the power and dominance of the Legion and protecting his own safety in the post-apocalypse, I could see myself doing that in his shoes'
I think most people who are interested in Vulpes Inculta for whatever reason do in fact consider him to be an evil, cold-blooded murderer who does it for fun and because he enjoys it. Because he is. He is that. And admittedly, with full respect to OP here, I think he's probably not the best example of the issue of "people can call a casual serial murderer their Blorbo but any character who commits sexual violence is a monster" because I think most people also agree that he probably is a rapist, even the people who like him.
Like, most F!Courier/Vulpes Inculta fic I've ever seen is at minimum a dubcon story, and very often a "the courier gets enslaved by the Legion and forced to become Vulpes's broodwife that he rapes for fun and to secure his legacy or w/e" story. Because that's... something you can kind of take for granted about any man in the Legion unless the author goes out of their way to specify otherwise.
So in that particular case, the subtext that he's most likely a rapist in addition to being a bloodthirsty murderer with a position of authority is probably like. The main draw of the dude for the people who are into him. I don't usually see people who like Vulpes try to argue why he would be an exception to the "the Legion commit rape as a matter of course" rule.
And back to the point of the post itself instead of zeroing in on Vulpes: I can agree that there are probably people out there who are only thinking about it in terms of 'some murder is justifiable either because it was good or because you can understand why the character would be driven to do it/can see yourself doing the same in their shoes', I don't think that that's even a majority.
I think the post was trying to speak more about the very real and in my opinion, even more numerous contingent of people who absolutely love at least one character that is an utterly irredeemably murderer - no justification, no remorse, no cause, just a fucking serial killer who delights in murdering completely innocent people that he simply does not care about the lives and individual value of - but would be disgusted by a character who commits sexual assault. Off the top of my head: Alastor from Hazbin Hotel, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
There is a very real trend of people loving their blorbo BECAUSE it is an utterly remorseless, violent murderer with a trail of random victims who did nothing to 'deserve' violent murder either morally or against the blorbo personally, but they will 100% turn around and say "but EW he would never RAPE anybody, at least he's not a nasty RAPIST"
oh i can't express enough i do not think his systemic murder of a town that he also turns into spectacle and torture is something the average person could see themselves doing in an apocalypse, but it's very much something that's done with an intent that he communicates to the player at the scene of the crime. it's brutal and evil and unforgivable. i also think it's something the average fallout player would do at least once, most people have nuked megaton even if just to see what happens or finished a legion run for the achievement.
with the general post point though, i think it's definitely a mix of pearl-clutching because Sex and an inability/lack of desire to engage with the actual morality at play. characters that exist in a story to be killed off by Evil Character are just livestock, they're fulfilling their purpose of going through the meat grinder for the wider narrative. i don't think i can name a character existing in a narrative just to be raped, though admittedly i haven't gone seeking that out.
so there's the disconnect between fun cartoony evil that has killed loads of unnamed characters and maybe even a few named ones vs a character we are told or shown has raped someone, which is a more weighty action in a general narrative and so worse.
and not to strawman people not involved in this conversation, but i reckon there's a real chance that the people into evil characters but wouldn't like a character that has crossed the line of rape probably aren't actually interested in exploring what an irredeemably evil character is like, they're more concerned with having someone slot into the bitchy gay character trope on an Incorrect Quotes blog which is the least interesting way to engage with a character
sorry but demanding strong opening lines is forced idc idc. "you need to HOOK the reader with the first line otherwise they wont keep reading" idk as a normal person who is naturally curious, its the premise that gets me to consider reading a book. i dont fully form my opinion of a book until 1/3 of the way through at least. hello? yall dont like to read.
out of all of the amazing books that ive read, i remember exactly one (1) opening line, and it wasnt the opening line itself, it was the general vibe of the first page, and THAT was because id just finished a book that was bland as shit and i was happy to see prose again. and that book? ended up being mid as hell too LAKJSHKLDFJHASKLJF
okay you got a good hook. is the story good or are you just opening a performance with fireworks?
^ guy drowning in blood

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So why exactly was Victor even in Goodsprings? Victor himself says he's been there for ten or fifteen years, but even if we don't wanna take him at face value Trudy says he's been there at least since she moved in seven years prior. So Vic has, at the earliest, been bumming around a random town in the desert for close to a decade... But why? That makes his presence and House's intervention in the Courier's rescue even more of a lucky coincidence. So again I ask... why? Why is he there? Goodsprings, before this game, was hardly that well known of a place. Why would House decide to place a securitron there far outside of the effective range of his network? You can even see in game people find this strange. Trudy and Doc Mitchell both express some suspicion toward him; Trudy saying, "It acts friendly enough, but I don't trust that whole "cheerful cowboy" act. I find it all very creepy," and Mitchell saying, "He's real friendly, don't get me wrong. You just get the sense that that ain't the whole picture. Just a feeling." So even in game the fact that he's there in town is considered weird. There's two things to hint at Vic's origin, again in Trudy's dialogue and then in Easy Pete's. Trudy claims, "Some people have said its owner lived here, but no one knows who it was," and Easy Pete says, "...I think it's just a broken down relic with no place to be." These can of course both be true at the same time, but Trudy's line is interesting. The only person we can say is Victor's owner would be House, but he doesn't have any connection to Goodsprings at all. So even with all that Victor is still one big mystery to this day.
my theory is that it's spying on what was, until the events of the game, a major trade route adjacent town. before the deathclaws moved into the quarry travelers would come into the mojave in the south west and head north up through Primm and then go via Sloan to Vegas. Having Victor close to this to keep an eye, but not an active participant like he would be in Primm, let's House keep a low profile and not draw much attention. If any travelers pass through Goodsprings then they learn about the funny robot and dismiss it-afterall they just met a funny robot in Primm, maybe it's just a Mojave quirk.
not to mention if travelers are coming up via Primm Victor can head them off and meet them if House needs work done that he doesn't want the Three Families being aware of on The Strip, such as placing an order for 6 couriers.
but then Victor is randomly in Camp Golf way later so maybe he's just a tourist
normal guy playing wordle: "i really recommend ATONE and GUILT" for starting words