“Why’d you do it, Applejack?” Lemon Hearts asked as she looked over in the direction of where Tarnish and Flam were. The lemony yellow mare turned her head to look at Applejack, her face was stern, serious, and her eyes held an accusatory glare. “There was no need to beat him like that, Applejack, it just seems heartless.”
“She was keeping her word,” Big Mac replied, speaking for his sister as she puffed out in anger.
“Her word?” Lemon Hearts’ eyebrow arched as she turned to face Big Mac. “I don’t understand.”
“When Flam was tried, Mac and I was there.” An intense scowl formed on Applejack’s face and the green in her eyes seemed to darken a bit with her mood. “I done told Flam that if he ever got out somehow and brought harm to one single hair on Sumac’s head, that I was gonna beat him to within an inch of his life. So I did. I kept my word as an Apple.”
“Applejack…”—Lemon paused and took a moment to consider her next words— “Sumac got a bloody nose from magical strain.” For a moment, it seemed as though she might say more, but everything else came out as a sorrowful sigh.
“Oh.” Applejack swallowed, her jaw muscles clenched tight as she gritted her teeth, and the muscles in her neck stood out in sharp contrast as she looked over at Sumac, whose nose was bleeding once more as he bawled. “Well then, he hurt Sumac in other ways. I done stand by what I’ve did and I don’t feel bad about it.”
“Jackie—”
“Shuddup, Mac, now is not the time.”
“Fine, we’ll talk later.”
“That’ll do me fine, brother.”
“I ain’t got a problem with what you did, just with how you’re being right now.” Big Mac’s ears pitched forwards, his nostrils flared, and he looked at his sister with an intense, focused stare. When Applejack slumped over a bit, Big Mac looked off elsewhere, focusing on nothing but the empty sky.
“What sort of pony uses his own son as a hostage, anyhow?” Applejack asked of nopony in particular. “All these years later and I still can’t make a lick of sense of that. If I could just somehow wrap my head around that, I think I’d be a lot less angry. As it is, every time I think about it, it just burns me up inside. Makes me feel sick to my stomach.”
Ears sagging, Lemon Hearts shook her head. “I don’t know how to answer that, as I don’t understand it either.”
“All this mercy is more than Flam deserves,” Applejack spat and her green eyes looked venomous. “The ponies of Ponyville was ready to lynch him for everything he did. It was so awful that we had to send Sumac away so ponies could calm down, cool off, and try to forget what had happened. Because of what he did, Flam robbed me of my cousin… I love the little booger, even if I don’t understand him most of the time. Twilight had to put herself between an angry mob and the courthouse. Sometimes… sometimes I wish—”
“Jackie…”
“—that Twilight would have just let Flam get lynched right there on the spot.” Applejack’s eyes flooded with tears as she spoke. “Flam made Twilight break her word, she promised the ponies of Ponyville that Flam’s shadow would never darken this town again and that justice would be served. She put her own reputation on the line and it galls me that her promise got broken.”
“Keeping your word is important to you, I understand,” Lemon Hearts said to Applejack.
“I done broke my word once, and it’s a lesson I’ll never forget,” Applejack replied.
“I wasn’t here when Flam was put on trial.” Lemon Hearts reached out one hoof and placed it on Applejack’s side. “So I don’t understand everything that is going on. And I only know a little bit of the Sumac situation. I know there is a reason why he was sent out on the road with Trixie, but I don’t know all of the details.”
“We didn’t want him growing up in his father’s shadow, so we sent him away.” Big Mac let heave a wistful sigh. “He was in pretty awful shape, he’d been neglected pretty bad. By Belladonna’s own admission, she named him Sumac because he was an irritating annoyance. Life on the lam wasn’t good for Sumac at all.”
“Does Sumac know this?” Lemon Hearts asked in a raspy whisper.
“No.” Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “And he don’t need to know how his name came about either.” With a deep breath that she held for several long seconds, all of Applejack’s bluster vanished. “It scares me just how much like his father Sumac is. The same smooth talk, the intelligence, the bad temper, his absolute fearlessness when it comes down to certain things. He’s so much like his dad that it scares me sometimes, and it keeps me awake at night. I have nightmares that something somehow sets Sumac down the bramble-strewn path from which there is no return.”
“He’ll turn out better,” Lemon Hearts whispered to Applejack, trying to assuage the earthen mare’s fears.
“And what makes you so sure of that?” Applejack asked. “It seems to me that Flam was born bad, and Twilight just got done saying that his cutie mark made him an even worse pony.”
“Because, there are ponies who love him and keep him from going astray. I’m one of them. He is very, very dear to me, both him and his mother.” Lemon Hearts looked over at where Trixie and Sumac were with half-open eyes. “I’m not going to give him up without a fight and I refuse to believe that Sumac is a bad pony, like his father.”
“So, Lemon, you admit that Flam is a bad pony.”
“Why yes, I suppose I did.” Lemon Hearts’ disappointment at this admission manifested in a thin wrinkle just above her eyebrows and below her horn. Reaching up with her foreleg, she wiped at her eyes, sniffled a bit, and then looked at Sumac with a quivering smile. “I won’t let him turn out like his father. He’ll grow up to be good…”
“Flam, I don’t know if you remember, but you once sold me some alchemical laced salts,” Tarnish said to Flam in a soft, easy-going voice. “It set me on the path for good and I ended up meeting my wife because of it. Funny how things work out, eh?”
There was no response from Flam, who lay in the grass, panting, his breathing heavy, almost sobbing. With a gentle touch, Tarnish placed his hoof on Flam’s neck, trying to comfort the condemned pony. The gathered crowd seemed so very close and yet so very far away all at the same time.
“This isn’t going to be so bad, I’d say it’ll be a lot nicer than going back to prison. No more stale bread and water, or whatever they feed ponies in prison. No more violence, no more struggle, no more negativity… doesn’t that sound nice?”
Much to Tarnish’s surprise, there was a noticeable nod from Flam, who whimpered as he moved. Tarnish sat down in the grass, kicked out his legs a little, got comfortable, and let out a huff from his exertion. Being a tall pony, there was a lot of him to ease down to the ground. He was aware of the fact that Twilight was staring, but he ignored her.
“You’ll be able to see the sunshine, feel the rain, and watch the seasons roll on by, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?” Tarnish looked down and again, Flam nodded. Taking note that Flam’s lips were moving, Tarnish leaned his head down so that he might hear better if Flam spoke, but he wasn’t so sure that Flam could speak in his condition, as Sumac and Applejack had done quite a number to him.
“Flam, the Wardens are going to come and visit you,” Tarnish continued in a soft voice. “Turns out, they can see into the minds of ponies turned into trees. The Wardens tell me that my little collection of trees in the grove are happy sorts, free from need or worry.”
Lips quivering, Flam tried to lift his head but couldn’t. Tarnish, sensing Flam’s desire, offered assistance, and lifted Flam’s head in his magic, being gentle and mindful of Flam’s injuries. His ear twitching, he tried to listen to whatever it was that Flam was trying to say.
“Fthorry,” Flam said, spitting out a wad of blood-speckled, phlegm flecked saliva as he spoke. “Fthell Fthumac I’m fthorry.”
“I’ll do that,” Tarnish promised. “Now, are you ready to do this?”
“Tarnish, are you trying to get him to agree to this?” Twilight asked.
“Hey, princess, I don’t tell you how to do your job,” Tarnish replied.
“Actually, you do. All time. As one of my advisors, you constantly tell me what to do and how to do it.” Twilight’s voice was a flat deadpan that even Maud would appreciate, had she been here to listen. “What’s the hold up?”
Groaning, Tarnish rolled his eyes and shook his head. Lowering his head once more, Tarnish tried to look into Flam’s eye, his one somewhat open eye, and he smiled. “I bear you no malice, even with what happened in the past. Are you ready to do this? Do you think you can show your son that you are not a coward, and now that the time has come, can you accept responsibility for what you have done?”
A strangled sob slipped out of Flam’s lips and his whole body shuddered. Blood dribbled from his nose and from his ear, which had been split wide open from one of Applejack’s hammering blows. Tarnish, looking doleful and morose, stroked Flam’s neck, trying to offer him a little bit of comfort and compassion in his final moments.
“Be brave,” Tarnish whispered, “try to give your son something positive to see in you. This is hard on him, too. He’s really hurting. For the rest of his life, he is going to remember this moment… how do you want to be remembered, Flam Apple?”
Whimpering with fear, Flam nodded his head and peered through his swollen eye at Tarnish. Raising his eyebrow, Tarnish nodded back, wondering how much Flam was able to see. The stallion was weeping now, deep body-wracking sobs that made each of his legs twitch. His tail thumped against the cold ground as one of the ravens perched on a nearby headstone.
“Ready to do this?” Tarnish asked.
Flam nodded in reply and offered no resistance as Tarnish lifted him up. Unable to stand on his own, Flam wobbled a bit until Tarnish steadied him, holding him up in a supportive field of levitation. Flam managed to turn his head a little and he tilted it to one side, until he was able to look at his son. Tears streamed from his swollen eyes and he kept his single open eye on his son, unable to look away.
“It’s time,” Tarnish said, his two words filled with a purposeful sense of finality.
Again, Sumac’s magic sense went bonkers. He stared at his father, who stared back at him, and the little colt didn’t know how he should feel right now. Something about his father was different—without his mark, his father was so very different, but Sumac could not say why. Seized with a strange need to say something, Sumac broke away from his mother’s embrace and pushed forwards.
At his approach, Flam flinched in pain and turned away, which made something in Sumac’s barrel ache. Something moved in Sumac’s peripheral vision and it turned out to be Twinkleshine, who was now sticking to his side as he approached his father. Something was happening, Sumac could feel it, and he felt a growing sense of worry as he wondered how much time he had.
His rage was gone, his tantrum had burned itself out, and now, Sumac just felt numb, for the most part, save for the strange ache he was experiencing. He looked up at his father and he could feel all sorts of eyes upon him right now, far too many eyes for an introvert to feel comfortable.
“It’s better this way.” Sumac’s voice bubbled with phlegm and his voice was scratchy from bile. “If you couldn’t be a good pony, then you can be a good tree. You won’t be able to get into trouble or be tempted to do bad things this way.” Sumac’s voice sounded strange in his own ears and there was far too much pressure inside of his own head as his magic sense continued to intensify. Some sort of crescendo was fast approaching.
Much to everypony’s surprise, Flam nodded, his head bobbing up and down with a weak, feeble effort.
“Fthorry.” A long ribbon of blood flecked drool dribbled down from Flam’s swollen lip. “Ftho fthorry.”
In the back of his mind, Sumac realised that he could be vindictive right now and say something hurtful, something awful, he could say something that would no doubt hurt his father in his final moments, and that those hurtful words would be the last thing said between them. He glanced over at Twinkleshine, his head throbbing so hard that it caused his vision to fuzz over.
Unbeknownst to Sumac, he had reached one of the many forks in the road that he would encounter during his life. The path of good and the path of wrong. The path of wrong beckoned, it would feel good to lash out in these final moments and dish out the hurt, it had certainly felt good to vent his venom on Olive, on Catrina, and on the harpies. Sumac knew that his words would carry magical hurt, the worst sort of hurt, the sort of hurt that was like getting a sliver lodged in one’s brain, as those words would stay there, hurting for a very long time.
A part of him, a dreadful part of him that lurked in the deep recesses of his mind, wanted his father to hurt, to ache, to suffer. Another part, a far more noisy part of him, a far more vocal part, reminded him that being a good pony would really impress Pebble right now. That part of his mind was the loudest, and it drowned out the vindictive suggestions that bubbled through Sumac’s subconscious.
“I’m sorry too,” Sumac whispered, feeling very awkward and rather queasy. “I have a temper problem, I know it doesn’t excuse what I did, but you said bad things about Trixie. She’s a good pony now, for real, and I just got upset. I love her a lot and she means a lot to me.”
After a moment of intense struggle, something that was almost a smile could be seen on Flam’s face, beneath his mustache. It was difficult to see, with the broken jaw and all of the swelling, but Sumac saw it as clear as day. He looked up at his father while Flam looked down at him, and he watched his father’s face contort in pain. After a moment, Flam looked over at Twilight, and something that was almost a pleading, pain-filled expression crept over his face.
After a moment, Twilight had a sharp inhale and her wings flapped against her sides. She bowed her head a little so that she might look Sumac in the eye and then she said, “Your father says to be good and don’t let your temper get the best of you. He is also thinking very, very hard about how sorry he is and he doesn’t want you to make the same mistakes that he did.”
Flam gibbered a bit and nodded.
There was a tug and Sumac allowed himself to be pulled away. As he backed away, his magic sense overloaded and he would have fallen over if Twinkleshine hadn’t grabbed him. The area around Sumac flooded with magic, but Tarnish’s horn wasn’t glowing in the slightest. There was a strange crackle in the air, a whiff of ozone, and the most peculiar smell of apple blossoms.
The ravens began cawing and screeching as a few tiny root-like shoots came out of the ground. Growing at an unnatural speed, they began to wrap themselves around Flam’s legs, and everywhere they touched, Flam’s pelt and skin began to turn into bark. It didn’t take long until Flam was held up by the growing, grasping roots and he was lifted away from Tarnish.
Now, the growing tendrils began to wrap around his body, and Flam’s features, which had been contorted with agony, started to turn peaceful. The stallion let out a gasp and then a sleepy sounding sigh as more and more of him was transmogrified into wood. His barrel became a trunk, his hind legs merged and formed the base of the tree, and his forelegs began to turn into sturdy branches. A twig and a leaf grew from his horn and his one open eye closed for the last time as Flam lapsed into his peaceful, arboreal slumber.
Looking up, it took Sumac a few seconds to realise that his father had become an apple tree. Mystified, the colt stared through his glasses, watching as the last changes took effect. He backed away, feeling torn up inside, and he clung to Twinkleshine’s leg as his father’s face vanished completely, swallowed by wood.
Looking disturbed, Twilight shook her head and backed away.
“Twilight?” Applejack asked, looking worried.
“I stayed with him the entire time,” Twilight said in reply as she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I had to know that it didn’t hurt because I wanted to reassure Lemon Hearts…”
“And?” Applejack moved closer to her friend’s side, looking worried.
“It was so peaceful,” Twilight breathed, still shaking her head. “I wanted to be with him, it was such a nice feeling… excuse me, I’m sorry, but it has left me kind of shaken… I wanted to be changed as well.”
Tilting his head back, Sumac looked up at the tree that his father had become. It was full, green, untouched by autumn, and appeared as though it was experiencing a vibrant spring. He stumbled forwards a bit, having trouble moving his legs, until at last he stood at the base of the tree. Lifting his foreleg, he placed it upon the trunk, which had a strange sense of warmth.
It was over, Flam Apple was no more.
ye!
Well, Flam isn't actually dead, just transformed into a different being.
7881436 Odd. Usually you see that brought up in objection to the police's conduct, not the judge's. I suspect there's still some context I'm missing, but I don't expect to ever get the full picture. It's just not that important, either for you to remember or for me to insist on answers.
Druidic magic can be quite pleasant indeed.
7881481 maybe one day he'll get another chance....
God these last few chapters have been murder on me. It just.... rings way too many bells. Hits too many nerves...
Excuse me while I go cry for a while...
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw10315-013_fluttershy_would_like_to_be_a_tree__by_flare3-d4ty99v.jpg
fluttershy's dream can come true now!!!
7881582 (Pulls out a tissue) Don't forget this!
Anyone got an axe?
7881672
You can grow from a little stumble.
7881674 I disagree. Moral taint is indelible.
7881679
Wow, that's quite an assumption for what I have planned.
Yikes.
I think I'll just keep the details to myself.
7881685 You do that
7881692
How did you reach moral taint from a minor stumble, anyhow?
I said stumble, not rounding up dissidents and gassing them in a camp.
I honestly don't see how anybody could make such a leap, it baffles me.
7881700 I'm going off what DragonRaiderX9 said here, an interpretation you endorsed. To me, what he described were the given circumstances of a tragic character, and the setup for a tragic plot to play out. Tragic plots climax in moral falls, which are then followed by too-late realizations of one's moral failings. And then, either voluntary exile or suicide, in justified self-punishment.
The specifics of who gets rounded up and sent off where are more or less irrelevant.
7881710
Twilight will have more of a crisis of faith, not a moral failing.
7881723
Correct.
AaaaaaaCHOOOO!
The tree's totaly gone
SORRY...
7881679 A statement which has been proven wrong on multiple occasions in the REAL world.
7881715 Same thing, in some moral systems. Not mine, I should clarify, but mine is globally marginal.
7881744 Just because society, laudably, sometimes chooses to act otherwise does not mean a given person is innocent.
7881679 It sounds like your saying once you make a negative moral choice you can never be considered moral again. I don't think that's what you ment. Growing and changeing, becoming better, they don't erase past mistakes but said mistakes by no means make redemption impossible. If that is what you mean, then you world is a very dark and hopeless place, I hope it's not. My point, redemption, growing into a better person is a choice. Flam chose poorly, letting his mistakes define his entire life, whiile Tarnish chose wisely deciding his past needn't be his future. All the redeemed villains made that choice, heck Sunset sang whole song about her choice to be redeemed.
7881776
Then Tarnish is doomed and can't be saved.
7881784 No, that's honestly what I meant. It's not how I think society should treat people in its penal law. The penal law should be geared toward rehabilitation, that is, promoting the ability to live an undisruptive life in society. But it is how I endeavor to live my own life. For example, if I imagine I've disappointed someone, I do my level best to withdraw from my association with that person, under the assumption that disappointment will always define that relationship. It's a lonely sort of life, and cultivating guilt wears on the soul, but that's just incentive to do perfectly next time. In the meantime, there's always Internet arguments.
7881801 That's correct (I should probably mention that out of the Weedverse I've only read this story, Enter the Dragon and Horrendous Hypothesis; I have no idea what Tarnish did and I've half-convinced myself that it's completely innocuous). Ponies and their government can and should treat him like an ordinary member of society, since he behaves like one, but that's no weight off his soul.
It should also be noted that not all people are held to the same standard. Society's role models must be held to a higher standard of behavior than ordinary folk. Otherwise, what business does society have keeping them as role models?
7881031
I meant it more from a meta-perspective than anything. That we didn't find out what his plans were until after he was quickly neutralized as a threat. Again, I have no issue with the characters in the story treating him like a big deal. As a reader, I just had a hard time seeing him as anything than an incredibly dishonest thug, and especially not a top-tier villain. I hadn't been shown anything to the contrary to that point, and I can only judge based off of what I see. Especially since the true extent of his influential magic has never been seen, only spoken of.
7881710
Since my name came up, I feel the need to point out that I never expect things to become irreversibly bad with Twilight. Kudzu gets dark and depressing sometimes, but always seems to pull back just before becoming grimdark. I just feel that things will get bad for Twilight before it gets better. Far more bad that it needs to get, but since Twilight likely will likely keep bottling things up, I don't see what else can happen. I fully expect a reconciliation at the end, it's just going to be a complicated, ugly, interesting mess.
7881934
Look what it did to Flicker.
As much as i understand turning him into a tree wouldn't Lima have issues with this as its preventing their souls from going to her. Or does itonly matter when their stolen from her.
7881956
Eventually, trees die.
Well, that transformation scene sounded quite peaceful and pleasant, in the most existentially terrifying way. 'Scuse me while I go lay insomnic in bed for a few hours.
7881937
Yep. Flicker, Tarnish, Maud. And the opposite, to some extent, in Vinyl and Octavia. It's a concept that's everywhere in this little world you've crafted and you've done very well by it
7881957 true but it would be artifically legnthing his life time. The only other series ive really ever read with a personified death that interacts with the deceased is discworld and the hour glass mechanic in that gets pretty screwed up when you mess with somes life. Since you haven't delved much into lima's side of things i dont know how she measures life or sees it.
7881975
Lima only gets upset if the rightfully dead are stolen away from her. Flam hasn't yet died, so she can be patient. He won't be going anywhere.
Sometimes, I can't believe how well written this story is. I've been following it since chapter 20-something (don't quote me on that; I'm not entirely sure), and it still baffles me how morally centered it is. It's easy to forget that this is based off of a children's show when nearly every chapter delves into some aspect of morality, and at a deeper level than "don't do this because it's bad" like too many stories do. In my time reading the Weedverse, I've learned more about myself as a person and about those around me. It feels like I'm taking psychology all over again.
TL;DR: I am deeply invested in the lives of magical talking ponies that battle against moral woes and evil foes who teach people life lessons. And I love it.
Every morning, Flam will have wood.
7881985
This is a rated E story. You need to leaf that kind of humour alone.
7881825
The point of a role model is not to view them and say "Ah, look at how they live. It's a good thing SOMEONE'S like that." It's for you to be striving to live as they do. However this is almost never the case. Instead society uses these people as a way to free itself from the guilt of self-observation. Instead of saying, "Look at how dirty, lazy, and corrupt I am." it holds up its shining star members and says "Look, this is the best of me. Clearly this represents the majority and anything not to this standard will be ignored."
In reality, all should be held to the same standard as those. Otherwise they are not the measure to live by, to be like. There's no point for a role model at all if society isn't tailoring itself to become like those examples who - in actuality - are the outsiders for being so different.
7882004 I was only going out on a limb.
7882013
Branching out, eh?
7882005 I suspect we're saying the same thing, from different perspectives. For you, a person living in a society should (but frequently doesn't) hold himself to the standard set by his society's ideals even if he fails to live up to them. For me, a person outside a society, observing that society (say, a reader of a piece of fiction), should expect a society's ideals to be higher than its practice.
Finally. So tired of always seeing the 'there's a better way!' types turning out to be right all the time. Admit you were wrong, learn that life isn't somehow bereft of hope just because evil people get what they deserve, and move the fuck on.
7882025
I, in fact, believe that. If society says a person should be virtuous, then people should be judged for not being virtuous. Likewise, this includes those who hold any position of authority. They are people, the same as those who do not enforce it.
Saying 'we should be virtuous' as a goal... a goal that no one bothers to reach for, gives no results, doesn't feed the spirit of its people or drive them forward. It feels preachy and easily ignored. Rather than saying 'we should be virtuous', instead it says 'being virtuous would be cool, but that's alright if you aren't' - which effectively means nothing aside from giving an allowance for people to work against society in a negative manner, adding to the corruption and dereliction of communal strength which also degrades individual value and purpose. To a given value of virtue, any society chooses what is wrong and right for it, after all... some societies will get it wrong, but the corruption would be less prevalent.
7881814 I think you must have misunderstood me here. I was asking "are you saying one moral misstep is all it takes for damnation"? That there is no hope of turning your life around once you make a misstep? If morality is indelible, then it static and unchangeable, meaning anyone who makes an amoral choice is amoral, with no hope of redemption. By that logic the entire species of man is cancer upon the UNIVERSE and the only moral choice is suicide. That's a depressing and down right destructive attitude. mistakes are indelible not morality is not. You talk of expecting society's ideals to be higher than the individual, but I'm sorry the idea of an indelible mortality is not a higher ideal, it's a lower one. If society says morality is indelible then anyone who ever makes a mistake is irredeemable. Morality is not indelible because not all moral choices are equal, manslaughter isn't murder because despite both cases being the death of another sapient due to a amoral choice, one is with out intention of causing death while the other is purposely seeking to cause it.
Flam is immoral because he decided to continue to make amoral choices. Tarnish is moral because he decide to stop making amoral choices and make moral ones. Luna, Discord, Sunset, Starlight, Thorax all made amoral choices for differing reasons (yes Thorax made amoral choices, due to ignorance) but all became redeemed because they chose to change their ways and make better decisions.
Bad choices can't be taken back, and some are unforgivable, but nor all bad choices are equal, thus morality is not indelible.
7882057
For me, virtue and morality is a cap that I wear. I like wearing it, I like living in a situation that allows me to keep it on for extended periods. I like pointing at my cap and reminding myself how nice it is.
The wrong sort of trouble comes though, and the cap comes off. It goes byebye. As a human being, I've done some bad, bad things, and I've done them for very good reasons. Does that justify what I did? Probably not. Do I lose sleep over it? Not really, I just don't sleep much at all.
I like being a moral, virtuous person, but life has been downright cruel to me. I grew up in a completely different situation that most human beings. I've experienced poverty on a level that most cannot comprehend. I was taken away from my family and my tribe as a kid and some really evil people tried to scrub away my tribal and spiritual identity. I've endured shock therapy and torture while trying to preserve my own identity. (Aversion therapy, lovely stuff) I got locked up in a place called the CSTC in Washington State and was tortured for over a year because I held on to my (delusional) tribal beliefs and didn't dive into Christianity, as was expected of me. Belief in an invisible sky wizard was fine, society accepts that delusion with open arms, but believing in the spirits that I had grown up with? That's mental illness.
So, a long time ago, I gave up on rules, morality, and virtue. I became like the worst sorts of people that society had to offer, because I was surrounded by them. There were no rules. Only survival.
I lived.
7882074 I thought I answered this already, but let me be perfectly clear. To the question "'are you saying one moral misstep is all it takes for damnation'?" my answer is "yes." To the question "That there is no hope of turning your life around once you make a misstep?" my answer is "no." You can always change your actions, and it's good that people do, because fewer bad actions means fewer hurt people. But changing your actions doesn't absolve you of anything. Neither does the judgment of your peers, or your betters, or anybody or anything else, though all those things may improve with time. Nor should you change your actions because you expect to gain absolution from it, but for its own sake.
7882089
Likewise. However I still hold this belief. The things I've had to do to protect myself, my family, my property, and people important to me were neither few nor of hale morals. But at the same time there are people running about causing hell for people from those high up in the food chain all the way to the bottom, all of them hurting others for their own benefit. That's no way for a society to advance and maintain a healthy spirit. But we accept it with a 'that's how things are'... which is a further symptom of these problems.
Without enforcement, the same morals you and I keep on until we need to dirty our hands become more and more intangible. People as a whole care about them less and less. They grow more selfish, more indolent. Which is a shame because as individuals we're growing more intelligent and aware in other areas, yet the societal corruption cancels out the positive growth with negative growth in other areas.
7882096
Oh fan freaking-tastic, another SEMANTICS issue. OK indelible is the wrong term for morality, indelible means permanent, morality isn't a permanent thing, it can be changed and altered. Actions are indelible. attitudes are not. Morality is an attitude, amoral people can become moral and moral people can become amoral so that's it, actions are indelible, morality isn't. Your terminology is faulty not your philosophy.
7882162 When I said "moral taint" (interesting aside: the only person to use the term "morality" in our little exchange was you) I meant it in the sense of a mark on a record-sheet. That mark cannot be erased. So sure, if you want you can phrase it like "actions cannot be erased or undone, should be remembered, and should color further actions."
I prefer to use the term "moral taint" and call it "indelible" because that phrasing emphasizes permanence, carries a sense of gravity, and is a striking bit of imagery. The alternate phrasing I outlined above is disappointingly bloodless.
7882089
I don't know of any sky wizard, is that one of your spirits?
But I don't think your torturers knew what Christianity was, more like they claimed such to excuse their behavior.
I'm no theologian, but I DO know that religion isn't bad, it's people using it as a scapegoat, an excuse for bad or evil behavior that gives it a negative rep.
7882219
Quite a few of them were nuns.
Funnily enough, I almost became a priest. I went to seminary school. Things happened though and things didn't work out.
I still pray to Yeshua on occasion, asking him to save me from his followers.
Can Flam be returned to his equine state? Will he be? Also, something tells me that transmogrifying your worst enemies into trees (or statues!) is a terrible idea in the long run. Trees live for incredibly long times, just ask the Redwoods. Statues (especially those laced with magic) can survive for a nigh-infinite amount of time. Grogar is indeed fantastically powerful–he's dead and can manipulate events from beyond the grave with the help of eldritch magic–so reanimating a terrible foe from an oaken form doesn't seem outside of his power. If he did, and if Tarnish and the Crown continued to preserve dangerous threats, then Grogar might just go full Shub-Niggurath and create a horrid swarm of Dark Young. Thousands of mindless abominations with magical abilities directly connected to the Outer Gods sounds like a recipe for disaster. Death would be a mercy upon both Flam, whatever poor suckers tried to harm the Druid's Grove, and the world as a whole.
Seriously. Dark Young are no joke.
7882222
Yeah, I have one friend who says "OMG" often.
She identifies as a Norse pagan druid, so when she says that, it always makes me wonder who she's referring to.
She's a decent sort, but it gets confusing.
I know some nuns as well, they are the sweetest old ladies you'll ever meet.
Every Thanksgiving they volunteer at the local Baptist church to provide dinners for the less fortunate.
The "nuns" you describe sound like they came out of a Hitman game.