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unpopular opinions

Do you think people are too sensitive? Or that Superman isn't so super? Think cats aren't cute? The Beatles are overrated? Love pineapple on pizza? Maybe you just don't like chips rly. Even the best of us have some controversial opinions. Let people know what a monster you are.

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with your characters’ unpopular and/or controversial opinion. Or share few of them at once. In person or via text. Prepare for disagreement.

comment

to tell them why they're wrong, validate a kindred spirit, or just troll them for caring about such a silly-ass thing in the first place.

[ blank top levels will be deleted. ]

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There's not always a perfect, heroic solution that ends with everyone being happy. Sometimes you have to do bad to do good and sometimes it means sacrifice, whether on someone else's part or your own. Unfortunately.

I agree with what you said about sacrifice. Sometimes it's inevitable. There's no perfect solution, you just have to do the best you can with the information you have and hope that you've got it right. And then live with the consequences.

I wouldn't compromise my principles, though. Break rules if I had to, sure. But I wouldn't do something I knew to be bad - truly morally wrong.

There are some -- very rare -- situations where some perfect solution might swoop on in at the last minute, but I think not preparing for the worst is foolish. It's not likely to happen, even though I'm not blind to the fact that it can. I'm just glad others see it that way and don't automatically refer to it as "pessimism".

I don't know. Depending on the opposing outcome, I think I'm willing to break the rules. I guess it would depend on the level the situation is at, how dire it is, how many it might affect... it's hard to say without knowing the exact scenario.

I think it's realism. If you wait around for the perfect solution and there isn't one, you've got no solution at all. If it's just about you, then maybe it doesn't matter, but if there are people relying on you? You owe it to them to have prepared. Even if you don't like what you come up with.

Oh, sure, I wouldn't break the rules if I didn't absolutely have to, either. I only meant that something being against protocol isn't the same as it being against your core values. The first you can live with if you have to. The second maybe not. That's just how I see it.

I definitely agree with that notion. If it's about yourself maybe, sure, but in the end what happens to yourself tends to affect other people so you have to consider it just as well as you might anything else. If it's other people -- and especially if it's your job -- you should do your best to be prepared, sometimes for the worst, for their sake.

[ Jill makes a small sound, not quite amused but not disagreeing with any of this, either. ]

I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm also willing to live with the worst consequences if it means meeting a goal. Then again, I'm also selective in what specific kind of goal I'd be willing to do that for. [ Generally it has to involve a specific person, she's not going to admit to it but she wouldn't lie about it, either. ] Some things end up mattering more than you might realize when they're put on the line and you have to come up with an answer fast, I think.

That's it. If it's your job, it's part of what you agreed to when you took it on, and you can't just shrink away from it. You can't put it on someone else.

[ She speaks with all the certainty of a spacer who has been given that message in a dozen different ways. Again and again in training - if you want your own command someday, Tayrey, this is what you have to know about it. It's genuine, on her part. She takes her responsibilities seriously.

But the flipside of that is that while Ari might be qualified now, and very proud of it she is, her responsibilities at present amount to managing a little astrogation department through second-shift while all the careerists with actual seniority are asleep. She hasn't got an inflated sense of her own importance, and that's what stops her from insisting that she'd never, ever compromise a core value, no matter what. Even if she's thinking it. ]

In a real emergency, sometimes doing anything at all is better than spending too long deliberating and doing nothing. But what kind of goals do you think are worth as much as you're saying?

Going out playing hero is a fast way to get yourself and others killed. Sometimes you gotta play the bad guy and sometimes life chooses sides for you. Sacrifices gotta be made to survive. End of the day you gotta do what you have to in order to protect em.

Edited 2022-08-31 15:25 (UTC)

On the other hand, though, I think sometimes it's a viable option even if it isn't ideal. Depending on the situation, sometimes it can be wrapped up nicely with a bow and you can call it a day. Other times it's the way you say and... I think other times, still, there's a third option. I'm just not so full of myself that I think everything is going to go the right way if I stick hard and fast to my morals, you know?

[ Which is to say she agrees with what he says. Sometimes you have to choose other people over your own morality or what makes you happy -- and sometimes even over your own well-being. It just depends on which you want to choose in the end. ]

It's a nice thought to have, though, that at the last minute a perfect solution will come down for you. I think it's worth believing in, but you need to have an alternative idea to use in those last few seconds if it doesn't.

Sometimes you gotta stick to your guns. People can't always decide what's best for em and someone's gotta take charge.

Curious: What's option number three for you?

For those last few seconds.

Fair enough, though I can't say I'm always content with being the one to do that.

The third one? The final option? That would be to throw myself into it however I can, even if the outcome is losing myself in the process. Of course, that's an extreme circumstance. I can't say I'd be willing to sacrifice everything for just any scenario.

I guess I... always assumed I'd go out fighting, anyway. It's not something I fear.

Yeah.

[ It's said low and quiet with a heavy feel to it. It couldn't be helped, and though they were similar and saw it in a similar light, it was still different in some ways. ]

You can't avoid the sacrifices no matter how much you try to protect people. Sometimes protecting people is the sacrifice.

[ There's a weight she recognizes, both in familiarity to him and within her own voice. It's not exactly a subject she was planning on broaching with him, but now is as good a time as any other. ]

Sometimes, but that would suggest there are people worth running yourself ragged for -- unless anyone will do so long as the job is done and done well.

[ She doesn't mean to sound confrontational, but there's an argumentative edge to her voice that's hard to deny. ]

[ The weight holds him in place for now. There's a distance that's yet to be crossed having words cross in place of physically. This kind of thing is never planned, yet, it seems inevitable to bring up -- with them and despite living it. Words were needed at some point. ]

It's both -- For me. [ It's almost too quick he adds that last part like it wasn't a given or something she'd already know, but... ] There are some more than others even if they all are supposed to hold equal weight.

[ He pauses taking serious consideration and giving an honest, yet surface response. ]

It's what we're supposed to do, [ and with the slightest hesitation: ] right?

[ His eyes almost with a gleam of hope speckled in with trying to reach her own simultaneously. Chris almost reaches a hand for her, to gently brush his fingertips over her shoulder tentatively before settling with a light squeeze.

A moment later he adds: ]

Sometimes it doesn't always work the way we plan things.

[ His words hold more weight, but he doesn't plan on going anywhere. He'll stay where he is and with her, reassuring and however she needs -- however she'll take him in this moment that feels like the seams will tear open at any second. ]

[ The weight is on her chest, tight around her neck; like a familiar, gloved hand squeezing just enough to remind her of where control lies. She is in control now, though. It doesn't have to be withholding. There aren't barriers between them, time or distance or even death. There's nothing stopping her right now other than herself. ]

I haven't given it a lot of consideration, if I'm to be honest with you. I try to address things as they come.

[ Which isn't to say that she doesn't have some semblance of a plan -- or multiple ones -- in regard to specific situations. Situations involving him in particular are the ones she has an idea of the direction she'll go. ]

What we're supposed to do and what I end up doing aren't always one and the same, even when given the opportunity for choice.

[ She'd push him to make the decision she wouldn't. She'd choose him over the world then go on and make him choose the world over her. She had the ability to do that, at least. ]

No. [ Less decisive, more quiet. Like someone has said more than he has and she's done more than just revealed her hand to him. ] It would be nice if things did go the way we planned them, though. Maybe just once.

[ She tautly smiles at him, as soft as her gaze might be. It's held up threadbare, ready to snap. It still feels like there's time they're owed that they can never get back. ]

...for what it's worth, I'm sorry for taking some of those decisions out of your hands and not allowing you to have options.

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