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#he's super loyal
lord-squiggletits · 3 months
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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...
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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.
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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?
#squiggposting#pharma apologism#i'm sure the doylist reason for the writing is just that pharma was a designated villain#so since he's a villain and 'crazy' it's fine for everyone even the good guys to treat him like complete trash#i just think from a watsonian perspective taking a sympathetic approach is way more interesting and logically consistent#what i mean is like. from a meta perspective one of the best ways to show that a character is super evil and not worth saving#is when even the good guy heroes. the ones who are supposed to be kind and compassionate and wise. see him as dirt#and this is also kind of a necessity in most plots bc TF is the kind of series that just needs action villains and long-term antagonists#so not every villain is written or has a plot to be made redeemable. and pharma is one of these bc he's not important or a legacy character#so from a doylist (meta) perspective you could read the autobots' disregard of pharma as a sign of#'this guy is not meant to have your sympathy as a reader. pay no attention to him'#but from a watsonian (in universe) perspective it paints a miserable picture of pharma being utterly forsaken by the ppl he served alongsid#and like yeah i'm super autistic about pharma so of course i view him with sympathy but like#the idea of being a loyal and good person for years only to be subjected to a Torment Nexus of#being blackmailed into breaking all of the oaths you held sacred. under threat of you and all your comrades dying horrible torturous deaths#then when your comrades find out about it they focus solely on the 'harvesting organs' and not on the 'blackmail' part#and then you get literally left for dead by your comrades and best friend hating your guts#and then you get rescued by a guy who uses you as a test subject for his evil machine#this is a fucking nightmare scenario like pharma could hardly be suffering more if the author TRIED to make him suffer#and for me it's like. the evil pharma did can't be decontextualized to what drove him to that. as well as the question of like#how easily ppl can write someone off as evil and turn a blind eye to (or even find satisfaction in) their suffering bc theyre evil#and either brought it on themselves or it's just karma paying a visit#like. i feel like if pharma WERE a shitty doctor and a terrible person his whole life then the delphi situation would feel like karma#but the way it's written and the lore retroactively put in makes it feel more pharma getting thrown in a torture carousel#and THEN becoming evil. but then being treated as if he was always evil or was some sort of bad apple#bc like i'm not opposed to LOLing when a villain gets a karmic torture/death related to the wrongs they committed#but in pharma's case it feels less like karma and more like endless torture + being abandoned by ppl who should have been more loyal
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tennessoui · 29 days
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this has been done i know this has been done im sure this has been done but currently obsessed with the brainworm of captain of the king's guard obi-wan kenobi and prince anakin in some fantasy medieval star wars setting of some sort where it's just game of thrones-y enough that when the royal family is overthrown, it's violent and bloody and obi-wan knows that anakin will absolutely be killed in the revolution so he takes him and he runs back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant that he left years and years ago, when he was just a boy himself.
and anakin is absolutely furious for multiple reasons--mostly he thinks they should have stayed and fought! that they fled like cowards from his homeland is a shame that he can hardly bear. so he's angry at obi-wan for basically kidnapping him and forcing him away from his kingdom when she needed him, and he's angry at the jedi order for accepting them into their ranks but only if they agree to pretend to be Jedi while they're at the Temple. and he's angry at the jedi council because obi-wan had to beg to be given aid and his proud captain of the guards should never have to beg for anything, and yet here he is, begging for help for anakin's sake!
anakin is probably like. nine, obi-wan is twenty-five, and they stay at the temple basically incognito for ten years with anakin 'training to be a padawan' (because he's so strong in the Force that obi-wan points out that it may be a good idea to give him all the lessons in anger management and force control even though he isn't really a padawan in case any of the material sinks in) and obi-wan as a worker in the temple hangar bay.
then the clone wars break out and obi-wan instinctively wants to join the fight with the jedi because he owes them a great debt. not only did they raise him until he was fifteen, but they took him in---took anakin in when they needed them
but anakin has never had any loyalty to the jedi. he is loyal to his planet, which he will return to one day. and he is loyal to his family and to obi-wan, for saving him. but obi-wan should be loyal to him and him alone. only to the crown. only to anakin.
what im getting at is like. a scene where nineteen year old anakin demands obi-wan swear fealty to him as the king of his planet on the eve of the clone wars because he needs obi-wan to know that he's his. his captain. his guard. kneeling and ring kissing is involved.
obi-wan swearing fealty and then probably fucking anakin and then probably leaving during the night to fight in the clone wars without waking anakin is also involved.
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bioticbooty · 3 months
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not to be dramatic but i would die for kaidan alenko
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factual-fantasy · 3 months
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Heya Factual! Congrats on the 23,000! Yet another well deserved milestone earned by your hard work and dedication! Really sorry about the cold- we always seem to get sick at the worst of times! Definitely don't do anything crazy till you're 100%, but thanks for making that really cute celebration piece- you can really tell how much the factual Fam cares about you from their worried expressions...and then there's Gerald, who refuses to let his happy demeanor waver for a second! Though then again, he is still quite young- he might not even understand the concept of getting sick yet!
And on that note, at least till you're better, I definitely won't send any unnecessarily exhausting Asks like last time ( thanks for answering that so thoroughly though- that was really cool! ) and just keep it simple- and my ask today is regarding the simplest Mario enemy, the goomba!
You've mentioned them in the past as beings created by Kamek- How does he do it? How long has he been doing it? Are the goombas sentient, or just savage constructs? How many are there, in ratio to the Koopas? Did the bros have to fight through a bunch of them on their way to the castle? And do any of their variants exist, such as the micro goombas, para goombas, or giant goombas? We require the Goomba Lore!
Thank you! :DD I'm doing my best to take it easy.. I've spent most of my days recently either sleeping, sitting, or playing Pokemon Scarlet XDD that's relaxing right? Yes, I believe so-
As for Gerald, he isn't ignorant to my condition- he's actually meant to be surprisingly emotionally aware. :0 He's smiling though all this because he wants the others to be happy. And if he's calm and smiling, maybe we'll smile too.. 🥺
I was intending to draw a comic that goes into Gerald's character a bit more... But I just haven't been well enough recently to take on a project like that.. :((
And don't worry about "exhausting asks", I encourage them! :D I could really use some lengthy asks as a form of distraction to be honest.. 🥹💔
Speaking of asks, about your Goomba questions..
Well, starting with Kamek actually- I have intentions to make him a few hundred years old. Being the most powerful magikoopa there ever was supposedly.. and he's been associated with the royal Koopa family for generations.. though this idea is in canon limbo, because I'm having trouble figuring how exactly he's managed to live so long. Considering how magic works in my au.. his lengthy life span shouldn't be possible..
None the less, even though I haven't gotten that idea to fit yet- I love it so much that most of the au kinda branches off from it- <XDDD so with that established, Kamek brings Goombas to "life" using magic of course!
I was thinking that the ability animate dead/inanimate things is a very complex magic that took Kamek years to learn. And he was only finally able to master it in the last 100 years or so.
Now for the Goombas, they are not sentient for sure. They are just these little.. zombie like.. machines. They start as poisonous mushrooms and when they are "brought to life", they gain this desire and need move and attack anything that doesn't appear to be a Koopa.
As for the Koopa to Goomba ratio.. I'd say they make up 1.5/10 of the kingdoms population. They are very disposable and "easy" to make.. but they are relatively fragile creatures and take a while to grow.. plus the Goombas don't live very long. Since they uproot themselves upon being "Goomba-fied", they eventually wilt and die.. :/ so that number doesn't ever go over 1.5.
I'm sure Mario and Luigi had to squash some on the way to save Peach the first time. But it was only after her rescue that one landed a bite on Luigi..
As for their variants, the micro and Giant Goombas surly exist! Though king Goomba might not because the original brown mushrooms probably don't grow that big-
As for para-goombas.. hmm.. I know there won't be any Goombas with wings going around. But perhaps there could be a Goomba that can release airborne spores.. or at the very least can attack from afar.. that could get them the title of para-goomba! :0
I think I covered everything, I hope at least-
Thank you for the ask and interest in my au! :DDD it was a nice read and took my mind off of all my ailments for a short time 🥹💖
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zu-is-here · 1 year
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Deceived child
Thank you @fructik-shu for inviting to join the chain! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)♪ (Your babies and manosaldibujo's Caleb are ow wow (//∇//))
It would be unfair to deprive many others of the opportunity to try out this interesting challenge, so mb the tag "like a villain" would work for everyone? (*゚∀゚*) I would love to see more bad guysss ☆
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pianokantzart · 5 months
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Also why still murder luigi when bowser thought he blew up mario tho
Because 1. Luigi was defiant (in his own Luigi-ish way) and– in a similar vein– 2. He showed himself to be completely dedicated to the man "stealing" Princess Peach.
When Luigi first lies under interrogation, Bowser responds with "Ah, tough one I see!" like it was incredibly rare for anyone in Lu's position to resist him so boldly.
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At the same time, Bowser is fairly certain that Luigi will cave at the slightest bit of pain, but he holds his ground, and that is when Bowser begins losing his temper.
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When Luigi finally gives in, he only does so while saying that Mario is "the best guy in the world" in a flood of tears, and with this exchange...
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... he placed himself firmly on Bowser's kill list with one of the best accidental roasts of all time.
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unexpectedstormy · 9 months
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Attention Everyone
I love Linked Universe Sky. That is all.
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morninkim · 22 days
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What is UP we're back with more TF: Reconstruction!
Check out the Triple-Changer cadets who joined the squad a couple Earth weeks before Rod and Arcee did!
Hot Rod admires and loves working with Blurr, but thinks Springer is a little too "cool guy jock" for her taste - meanwhile Blurr and Springer themselves have been best pals since joining up with Ultra Magnus.
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tatatatatara · 6 months
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Guys please vote for Tatara in this poll he is so sexy and handsome and cute and evil but in a funny cringefail way :( the Clowns like him Matsuri got his arm around him he's so desirable
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dollsuguru · 2 months
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bestie!sukuna my beloved <333 SUKIE ILYSM KING
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purpleshadow-star · 1 year
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Tbh, I really don't understand why Percy was so quick to turn on Nico in The Last Olympian. Like, Nico said multiple times that Hades just wanted to talk to Percy. He said that Hades wanted to see him before they tried the river, which means obviously Nico had no intentions of them staying with Hades for long. And he explicitly said that Hades just wanted to talk. I get being annoyed or even upset at being tricked into a surprise visit to Hades, but going as far as trying to attack Nico and calling him a traitor? As if Nico completely lied to him? As if Nico wasn't still (obviously) planning on helping him? Especially since Nico already seemed reluctant and guilty about his actions? I don't get that at all.
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Seriously, so unnecessary.
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And he was told, straight up, that Nico made Hades promise not to hurt him and that Nico genuinely wanted to help him.
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Percy isn't dumb! At this point, it should have been clear that Nico was tricked. Nico obviously didn't want Percy captured or hurt, yet Percy is still acting and thinking awfuly towards Nico, even when he literally shows up to help him escape.
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Honestly, I think Nico handled this much better than I would have. If I were Nico and Percy attacked me like that after it was clear that I was tricked, I would just threaten to leave Percy there. There is literally no other way to make it more clear that Nico didn't want to see Percy hurt. From the beginning, there was no doubt that Nico thought Percy would be safe, yet Percy still was acting like an irrational idiot and ignoring what everyone around him was telling him, for what? Just so he could feel justified in his anger towards Nico?
And then, after all that, he had the nerve to say that Nico owed him! After Nico broke him out and helped him become invincible!
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I get that Percy's fatal flaw is loyalty. It only takes one instance, one breech of that loyalty, for him to turn on people, but there was literally no instance where anyone could doubt that Nico wanted Percy safe. Literally, from the first moment it was revealed that Nico brought Percy to Hades in exchange for information about his past, it was clear that Nico thought Hades only wanted to talk to him. It was clear that Nico thought Percy wasn't in any danger. It was clear that Nico never wanted Percy to be hurt, imprisoned, or killed.
Sure, I'd get it if Percy was annoyed that Nico used him as a bargaining chip for information without warning him in advance, but Nico's loyalty to Percy was never in question, and Percy was literally told that several times by multiple people.
Percy just annoys me so much in this part. It annoyed me before, just based on memory, but I thought he was kind of justified in his mistrust of Nico since Nico did trick him. Now, after rereading it? No. Percy is definitely in the wrong here.
I don't ever want to hear another person say that Percy never treated Nico unfairly ever again. He totally overreacted to this situation. If Percy should have been mad at anyone, it should have been Hades (although Percy already had unjustifiable biases against Hades even before this, but that'll be another post). Hades is the one who tricked Nico into bringing him there, and he's the one who broke his promise. Hades is the one who locked him up. Nico went out of his way and defied his father in order to help Percy escape.
Is Nico right for tricking Percy to get more information about his past? No, of course not. Nico should have at least told Percy about what he planned to do. He might have been able to convince Percy to go along with it. But was Percy justified in his actions and thoughts towards Nico during and after this? Absolutely not.
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ink-the-artist · 1 year
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That rabbit comic is brilliant because it can apply to more than just to terfs and misogyny:
During WW2 there were Jewish people of privileged status who sided with the Nazis, hoping to be spared only to be turned on. Same with homosexuals, communists and any who thought surely they would be spared if they cooperated. They met the same fate as all the others if not worse.
There have been many times in which PoC became class traitors who helped pass legislation hoping it wouldn't affect them only to be hurt by the changes as well.
The list goes on and on, in which instead of standing in solidarity, some would try to selfishly try to save themselves by throwing their brethren to the wolves only to perish along with the rest.
Sadly the cycle continues because by the time the wolves are done eating, there are few if any that survive to pass on the story.
Oh for sure, I’ve heard of the gay Nazis before they are probably one of the most extreme examples of this I can think of. I believe they justified themselves by referencing how the Greeks, who were their ideal aryan civilization or whatever, were famously gay. Didn’t work for too long they were eventually killed by the other Nazis
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t-u-i-t-c · 1 year
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All Eyes On Me
↳ Ninja Sentai Kakuranger - Sasuke - NinjaRed
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bylertruther · 1 year
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kind of crazy how mike said in a moment of vulnerability and weakness that he wants to be needed and to be of use and good at something, and then a large chunk of the fandom just decided to validate all of his worst thoughts & fears and suddenly reduce him to a weak, incapable, mindless, unloved wastoid wimp that's everything his low self-esteem tells him he is and nothing like how the people in his life see him (or what the narrative itself has shown us since the very first episode). even crazier when the people that do that call themselves mike fans lol but i'm 😴😴😴
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biomic · 3 days
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oh gira i would love to have your optimism.
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divinemanicstate · 2 years
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"Well, you've come to the right place~"
this scene but re-imagined bcs it was lacking something
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