(no subject)

i think one of my unexpected favorite parts about writing IC (and the various strips as a whole) is showing all of the weird … ethical conundrums? …that can exist, and how the tiniest emotions can drastically change how people approach them?

for example - from who’s point of view is a dirty traitor, a traitor, if they’re militantly overthrowing a rotten leadership, but have to sacrifice their friends in there?  What if they’ve too, committed heinous crimes?  what happens if the audience is primed to like them beforehand?  Another - what the hell does consent mean when one (or both!) of the parties are bound?  bound permanently (and, in the ‘most ethical’ light, forced to live their lives without extending meaningful emotional connections)?  temporarily-but-power-dynamics-are-too-large-to-ignore? when they want the same thing?  Is survival worth it when you break yourself to make it happen?  when you break others (and they do or don’t regret it)?

the hell is ‘right and wrong’ in any of those situations?

ngl, realizing that i frikkin love that shit in my media - 100k, Jin-Roh, Eastern Promises, NGE, Repcomm, Hellsing - even if the plot is in wtfuckery land, give me good characters and a really dicey wiggy ethical question and i’ll go to the end of the world for it.   it’s probably the most pointed single reason that i’m even going through with this project at all, and nngh, frankly… i’m just. really tired of media that wants you to feel the fuzzy feels and steers clear of anything remotely controversial or hard-edged - it feels like there’s a lot more media (and media critique) handled with kid-gloves these days? (nothing inherently wrong with that either, mind!! please!  just … i personally never ever could nor will ever be able to be emotionally attached to that, it’s strange).

and idek

there’s an art form to … simply placing the morbid elephant-in-the-room-question on a platter, and letting people sample and wrestle with said ethics of it, and … i like it.  quite honestly i’d write stories just to experience that myself and it weirdly feels so good.