aita?

[insertusername]

am i the asshole?

Life isn’t always black and white. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s really at fault, and no one wants to believe they’re the bad guy. Sometimes you need an outside opinion. Or several.

Tell your side of the story and crowdsource an honest answer to the age old question; Am I The Asshole?

Top Level

with your character explaining a situation where they might have been the asshole.

Comment

with your hot takes. Anon or IC.

Comments

the prickly prick that'll bury us all

[pathoflogic]

I am Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky, from the Capital. I came to visit the Town-on-Gorkhon for my research into thanatology, and my arrival happened to coincide with the reemergence of a strange and disastrous plague known as "Sand Pest".

Be glad it hasn't spread. I approached the Town's rulers and insisted on quarantines, price-fixing, and the breaking up of social gatherings. They had no hospital and no morgue, and I was able to secure two buildings to serve as such. I also assisted Stahk Rubin in the creation of a vaccine. And I had to work far too damned hard to get any of that implemented! Nearly every resident of the Town, not to mention the authorities sent a week into the outbreak, is more intent on politicking than addressing a disease that could and very nearly did kill us all!

So what if I don't respect local traditions? Local traditions make it a hanging offense to draw blood and see nothing wrong with burning random women at the stake! Ignorantia non est argumentum*. I'm a man of science. Shamanism and miracle-working are incompatible with a learned and logical outlook.

In the end I concluded that the land under the town itself contains the plague-causing bacteria. It has contaminated the groundwater. The latest one was a tower known as the Polyhedron, which extends over the river. The children of the Town sheltered inside it and never contracted Sand Pest. It has great thanatalogical importance which I'm not certain I can render down for simpler minds.

The Sand Pest has peculiar properties, unlike those of any disease I have studied. The vaccine Rubin and I created has very limited effect and those who are infected die almost without exception. So long as people occupy the Town, there is a chance of fresh outbreaks. Learning this, I was able to convince General Block to raze the Town. The uninfected will build a new town across the Gorkhon, which will be a true utopia, or so I've been informed. I can't trust the motives of my so-called allies, either. Either they have lost their senses or I have.

I have acted justly to the best of my abilities. And yes, I have ended the lives of more than a few people in order to survive and continue in my efforts. I am not proud of this. If I have been inadequate to the task, that is unfortunate, but the results have more import than if I was - do we really need the vulgarity? - an 'asshole' about it.

I also discovered something ridiculous which makes it all moot, anyway. It was all in vain... Dixi**.

*Ignorance is no argument.
**I have spoken.