(no subject)

Reading posts from a fandom I’m not part of. X character is drawn to younger boys, to the point of stalking. He wants to protect and nurture them, but he also has intrusive thoughts about “corrupting” them or locking them away from the world. He’s scared of these thoughts and sometimes thinks it would be better to avoid people entirely.

Y fan came up with a possible backstory for X involving having been sexually abused. Y is reluctant to share this headcanon more widely, because talking about it would be seen as endorsing sexual abuse.

I feel like if fans haven’t rejected or condemned the original media for depicting X, they shouldn’t reject attempts to make sense of why X is like this.

Arknights and ethics

Kirsten Wright is what I like to call a bank account Utilitarian. She “deposits” good done in the world, and “withdraws” bad, and as long as the good outweighs the bad, she isn’t ethically bankrupt. Maybe she could do a little less bad if she cared more, but the bad is still hers to withdraw because the good covers it. (And sometimes she takes out a loan—“this will all be worth it in the end.”)

Arknights: Phantom summary

Because the best way I can think of to get a certain mutual into Arknights is to post about guys who’re profoundly mentally unwell.

Phantom was born in one of the last remaining towns in Calais-Blason, a former Gaulish territory devastated and left almost uninhabitable by the war with Victoria. A mysterious incident, described by Phantom as a flood and others as a plague, killed almost everyone in the town, and the few children who survived were adopted by the Crimson Troupe, a band of assassins disguised as performers. The Troupe kills for pay, but also for art, brainwashing and eventually killing their audiences in pursuit of the ultimate tragedy. They themselves may also die in the process, becoming one with their roles and acting out their endings. Sometimes they even give repeat performances, because their leader Tragodia can loop time upon itself again and again (and may be an actual god.)

Phantom was one of their star students, and one of the few Tragodia directly mentored. But he rebelled against killing the innocent, and instead killed most of the Troupe’s stars before fleeing. For unknown reasons, Tragodia didn’t loop time and allowed him to leave. Now Phantom kills only for the greater good, accepting the player character as his playwright and following the scripts they set out so that he doesn’t kill outside the script. He wears a special collar to modulate his voice so that it won’t cause death or madness in those who hear it, but he still rarely speaks and remains apart from others. He mostly interacts with the player character, his beloved cat Miss Christine, and the voice in his head that perpetually urges him towards violence. At the start of his story arc, the voice overpowers him, and he sets out for Calais-Blason . . .