HOT OR NOT MEME

[devoutish]

1. Post images of your characters (please link large ones!)
2. Tag other characters with an IC rating.
3. Have very objective and important IC discussions about those ratings.

Taken from here

Comments

[hellrisen02]

Let's just say: been there, done that, got the participation award.

[kestreldawn]

Oh? Were you a soldier?

[hellrisen02]

Was. A pilot, mostly, and whatever else I needed to be.

...Some would say still am, but it's more habit than anything. [Thirty years hadn't broken the habit yet.] I hear being an anti-government fighter is all the rage these days, but this place doesn't make the choice that hard, 'f you ask me.

[kestreldawn]

A pilot? What sort of ships did you fly?

[Well, that's an interesting admission.] Care to elaborate?

[hellrisen02]

Oh, a little bit of everything. But mostly a weapon of mass destruction. I figure 'mobile suit' will go right over your head.

[Bless the sanctity of memeland!] About habits, or the veneer of liberty? [Not that he won't be a smartass about it.]

[kestreldawn]

.. A weapon of mass destruction? [No, no, kriffing no. It's too much like the Death Star. Her tone immediately changes into something colder.] You had no qualms in taking the lives of many?

Your choice.

[hellrisen02]

[Ah, it's not a surprising assumption to make, is it; the rules of their engagement could be explained: military targets only, solitary action; keep civilians out of it. Don't make a target of the colonies.]

[But a few decades later, justifying it doesn't seem especially necessary. Especially when he never saw the nobility in it to begin with, way onlookers did.]

I have no qualms about the necessity of fighting to achieve peace. [Unbothered by the tone and unapologetic; his canon is kinda all about pacifism VS rebellion. You could say he's had the discussion.] A soldier knows their life is forfeit when they choose to fight. If they're afraid, they have no business picking up a weapon.

[kestreldawn]

Some of them don't have a choice. Some of them are turned into soldiers because there are no other options. They learn not to feel fear in terms of completing missions, taking lives - but it doesn't mean they aren't afraid.

[hellrisen02]

Ain't that the truth.

[Fear of death- of his own death, anyway- that was something he'd given up so long ago that he couldn't remember feelingit, but he's seen it in enough eyes to know it about as well as any. The five of them... They were all 'perfect soldiers' because they'd overcome that fear of losing, that's what the philosophers of their day posited. But all of them feared something. They were still human.]

[Passing on the buck of bloodshed generation to generation. The old coot was right, that really was humanity's worst trait.] I used to fight so the ones that came after me wouldn't have to, anymore. But peace and liberty don't last unless everyone is willing to take responsibility for it.

Luckily, shedding blood isn't the only way to fight.

[kestreldawn]

[Jyn nods slowly; she hasn't yet determined which side this person might be on, or if there'd even be something remotely comparable from where they're respectively from. But she's cautious by nature - hadn't always been, of course, but life quickly rectified that.] No, it isn't, though I don't think many often remember that.

[hellrisen02]

Sometimes, people need to learn not to bow to their base instinct, is all. [Trust never came easily to the kind of people who had been scorned by war and politics.] Not that you shouldn't base your actions on what you feel. Emotions and instinct are different.

[kestreldawn]

Some would say that instincts should be listened to more carefully than emotion. Personally, I believe there's a medium between the two; instincts are innate, they are involuntary and reflexive. They're what link us to the non-humanoid creatures of the galaxy. But emotions is what helps separate us from them. I think we need a mixture of both in order to do what's best.