Character Moralities!!!!!!

[mywife]

It was brought up in a plurk, and I thought it was entirely fascinating. We have such a wide range of characters in Imeeji and moralities can run wild around in these parts. There are some big obvious aspects for every character, but there are probably tiny aspects that we don't get to see everyday. I want to know all.

You can include whatever, things like what is considered good, what kind of people they find abhorrent, what kind of acts are actually the worst (it might not even be murder OHOHO!), how DO they feel about murder, ARE THEY THE LAW OR ARE THEY WILLING TO FOLLOW THE LAW, whats your dnd alignment, some other things I cannot think of but tldr I love to see people ramble, and I think it's easier to do that on dw than on plurk

I am selfish, let me read your thoughts. Ok plz ty.

(ooc: ill post a heart meme soon too since ppl were asking for it, maybe next weekend?!)

Comments

[crossmyheartandhope]

Hurricane

In canon, Hurricane is a good boy who has been set up by a sketchy authority, along with some other kids, to be fed into the meatgrinder for the sake of the greater good. He is mostly aware of this, though as his canon goes on, he discovers that the authority is much sketchier than bargained for and attempts to nope out/do good by exposing that, hey, the authority of law in this case is actually not great.

He wants to help people! He is actually very easy to order around! He seems like he should be a good little soldier. But neither of these things are his primary motivators. Mostly, he prioritizes his important people over what the law and authority says is right or wrong. He gets into his canon situation to support his mother, because she needs him, and when the situation compromises Nemesis' safety, he defects and sides with her instead. People > ideals > actual law

Overall, he is more pulled by big concepts and the general feeling of what's right than what the law says is proper. He's pretty firmly Chaotic Good. Smaller rules are to be ignored in favor of finding something fun. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, but if you can get away without getting caught, you don't need forgiveness, either.

In Imeeji, Hurricane started out with a strong intrinsic sense of right and wrong, which he mostly still retains, though it has been somewhat battered. This isn't okay, and I'm not going to do this, and we're not going to do this in games. He is a character for whom what is fair is very important, and he will balk hard at things that go against that.

He started out extremely idealistic and full of purpose, and that has definitely taken a hit. He REALLY believed that people in Imeeji could come together and agree on a base set of standards that they would abide by to make life easier for everyone. "We are literally being tortured and killed for funsies. Why on earth would anyone NOT want to make that less messy when we possibly can?"

HSS tried to organize people early on to get some kind of understanding or arrangement set up, and people planted their heels and dragged their feet over small details, and the first try ended in a giant argument and not much getting done. Round two was not much better.

Then betrayal house happened, and every single priority took a back seat for him, for a long time, to just not falling the heck apart.

When he finally got it together enough again, he talked to Hiryuu a little about something potentially more democratic, because a lot of the kickback early on was, "You're not the boss of me, you can't tell me what to do!!!" even though that was never really the point. So he gave it one more try and asked around for suggestions, so that everyone could get their ideas in on the ground floor and maybe circumvent some of the hangups that had stalled them last time. He got told, in no uncertain terms, that it was a dumb idea, and he was dumb for trying it, and Hurricane takes criticism to heart hard. His takeaway: guess this was a dumb idea, and I am dumb, and maybe I should stop having ideas.

Add to this his Hunger Games experience, where two characters he thought of as friends teamed up to kill his most important person after instigating the fight. Add to this also the fact that he killed Nya to keep it from happening again. Add to this also that Phoenix told him off afterward, for not doing better and resolving the incident without violence. Add to this the background of him being steamrolled in games for important choices fairly regularly and also games that are ostensibly about choice but do not in fact offer much choice in what they're allowed to do.

All of that adds up to: he is tired. Real, real tired. He guesses there's just murder now? And that's the way it's going to be. No one seems to care, and no one seems to want to do anything about it, and he's just... tired. He will still intervene if and when he can, but he always seems to find out too late to do anything. He literally became a zombie to try and keep people safe, and he can't even do that.

He wants to do better, and be better, but also he knows if given a do-over of the Hunger Games he would probably, honestly, do exactly the same thing.

===

Thorn

In canon, Thorn is mmmmostly a good guy who has had life be such a dick to him that for a long time he stops believing that other people can be decent. The law is useless, because if the law doesn't help people living their lives, what good is it? It has no teeth. The only way to take care of yourself is to put on a show and make people take one look and go, "Huh, maybe that one is more trouble than he's worth." A lot of his surface abrasiveness and don't-fuck-with-me styling is performative. He's like a snake whose colors broadcast poison, and that's by design.

He is weirdly rigid about following certain laws, not out of respect to authority, but out of pride. Fuck that, he doesn't need to steal; that's almost like charity. He's going to play by the rules and win anyway, and no one's going to stop him.

He has certain impulses toward good that he will flat-out deny if asked, and downplay when he can. He has a weak spot a mile wide for people who can't protect themselves and will step in for someone in a heartbeat. He's a mage in canon, and has compromised his combat strength for the sake of healing magic, just because sometimes people need that.

In general, his morality is kind of a mess. Authority is shitty, and yet he is in his world's equivalent of the military for a while. Law enforcement is dumb, but he loves detective stories and murder mysteries. People are the fucking worst - but not that one, that one can't do anything, what the fuck are you thinking, go find cover you absolute dumbass.

In Imeeji... Thorn actually mellowed out a lot at first. He had a team and a home, and by and large people were not awful. The society seemed lawless, but who needs laws anyway? There were some murders, but for a place that promotes torture games, it seemed pretty mild.

The Hunger Games changed his mind in a big way.

Without rehashing an old write-up, which got very long, it shunted him right back into his early canon view: people are bad, and even people who seem innocuous can be fucking awful. People will gang up on you and fuck you over while you're down. There's no sense of right and wrong; no one else cares what's fair.

So, he's right back to that mindset from early on: the only way to take care of yourself is to put on a show and make people take one look and go, "Huh, maybe that one is more trouble than he's worth." He didn't kill Yasuragi for revenge. He killed Yasuragi (tried to beat the shit out of him, actually; the killing was an accident) to make sure he's never stuck like he was in Hunger Games again, helpless and at someone else's mercy.

In Thorn's mind, since no one's going to back him up, and people feel free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, the only way to prevent it is to make the consequence high enough that no one's going to touch him again. If he gets a rep, even better. Now people who aren't Yasuragi also know he's not fucking around.

In general, his morality is pretty black and white. If he feels you're in the wrong, you are wrong, period. He will fight you about it if he cares, and sometimes he cares. He first got into it with Yasu over what he perceived as a dick move pulled against a complete stranger, which led to that stranger unnecessarily getting killed.

Laws are worthless; authority can go fuck itself. But if you're a dick, he will be a dick right back. If you hurt him or kill him, there will be consequences. And if you touch his people, you'd better believe you'll get what's coming to you.