I love working afternoon shift I love it I get to work through all my brain worms instead of being able to hide in the back office I love just stewing on them and hoping they stay put
en knee wey
I've been lowkey inspired for months by @bumblebee5514 's amazing psychology introspection on Our Boys™. Thought to myself PSYCHOLOGY IS EASY! I HAVE PSYCHOSIS! I CAN FOLLOW THEIR TRAIN OF THOUGHT TO DO MY OWN WORK FOR GRAVES! not realizing in doing so i was going to open a wormhole into a hyperfixation as old as the first Aquarius horoscope I read when I was like seven. Except instead of going "omg that's so me......" I'm going "oh em geee that's so Graves" like I joke I want to crack that man's brain open like a walnut and put it back together but UGH
But I'm at WORK and can't CONCENTRATE ENOUGH so instead have this reddit comment that I think covers the dual sides of Graves' motivations as a Marines dropout who started his own PMC (a fuck you to the government? an "I can do better"?? a way to exert control over a lifestyle that he had rose-colored lenses about until he got under someone else's command and realized he didn't like it???)
Disclaimer that this is all headcanon and speculation, based on results taken from the MBTI test I filled out based on what we know from canon and my own perspective of Graves' character! Also the reddit poster DID claim bias towards ESFP's, but I still think it covers Graves the face value of why he started the Shadow Company versus what he really wanted. There's an edge of me trying to apply Lawful Good logic to him as well but I'm less skilled at dismantling D&D alignments than the personality quiz stuff that's been shoved down my throat since grade school.
Both concepts are, structurally, similar but one is more long term. Both are enough to make me go "eugh my blorbo is so doomed by the narrative...... cool motive still mass murder........."
Graves wants to have fun!
His fun is saving America (you can't tell me this man didn't love Captain America as a child) and fighting The Big Evil! But then he joins the Marines and the freedom he wants is in the hands of someone else! He can't go defeat The Big Evil because there's paperwork and strategy and "Graves, that's not a sound argument" in a world that he sees as a simple black and white. Why can't they just storm the terrorist compound, they just bombed a convoy! A hospital!! He wants the rush of taking down the ones he perceives as Evil, what his country sees as Evil on the news every night, but the Marines won't let him!
So he makes his own PMC! A fun little clubhouse in his backyard where he and all the other outcasts can hang out and get paid big bucks to fight The Big Evil! Sure there's still paperwork and strategy, but HE'S the big boss, HE'S the one making the calls. Never mind who signs the paychecks, he's fighting for Freedom on his terms, baby! He's stickin' it to The Man (read as: the Marines he didn't fit in with).
Shepherd becomes his biggest paycheck. Old fashioned General who believes in sacrifices for the greater good. It's okay though, he still has his Shadows! He still gets to run his PMC like the coach of an American football team! The Good Ol' U.S. of A telling him who's evil and letting him deliver justice under a nice layer of black tape! He gets the fantasy version of the military he'd grown up dreaming about, fighting for the Land of the Free!
But also Graves wants to be happy.
Maybe he grew up in a military family, maybe he didn't. Maybe he grew up with patriotism and freedom in his veins and when he joined the Marines, he had to adjust real quick to the concept of morally grey. It makes him feel sick in his stomach to watch terrorists kill innocent civilians and not be able to do anything about it. He doesn't get to go in, guns blazing, and get a medal of honor for his bravery. Half the time he doesn't even see the warzone.
He tries to ignore the sensation when the American military does the same thing: swathes of innocents killed to get a terrorist cell, entire hospitals cleared out in search of a needle in a haystack. He knows it's in the name of democracy, of freedom, so he pretends he's okay with it, but in the end, he just doesn't have the stomach for the righteous American justice!
So he makes a PMC. Hopes that gives him the simpler black and white back, that being surrounded by passionate individuals with the same mindset will help steady the nausea in his stomach. Sure, he's still following orders, but he's also in high demand, so he can turn down a contract if it makes his skin twitch. He can afford to ignore the tones of grey and black seeping into his precious world of white and lawful and just. The ones who question the right and wrong have a big enough paycheck not to say it in front of his face. The ones who don't either don't care about getting their hands dirty, or see the world just like Graves does.
It doesn't make him happy when it's his men on the line, getting gunned down by Konni during the missile transport while Shepherd refuses his call for aid. It doesn't make him feel just or right to know his men died and he couldn't help them because America's reputation was more important than the lives of his Shadows.
It doesn't make him feel just or right when Shepherd tells him to turn on the 141 and Vaqueros, men and women he decreed brothers in arms not 48 hours prior. He's just following orders, why did everyone have to make it messy? Why couldn't they just stand down and let him fix the mess, sweep the grey out of his life so everything could be right again?
"Sacrifices for the greater good" is a mantra Shepherd and others beat into him and is his guiding light as his Shadows pull screaming kids from the corpses of their dead parents as he clears out Las Almas in hopes of finding Hassan. The children are innocent enough, but the adults know what they're doing. They're not giving up Hassan because he's protected by the cartel, so they're no better than AQ, than all the other innocents killed in the name of fighting terrorism back when he was a Marine.
He reminds himself it's for the greater good. That the blood on his hands won't haunt him once America is safe. That the Vance and Dipaolo and Erikson and all the others will forgive him from Heaven.
Graves just wants to be happy and do good for the world. He wants the bodies to be worth the sacrifice. And he'll keep walking until they do, no matter how high the corpse pile or how big the hole in his chest grows.
Thinking I might move to a sideblog on my main instead of having two separate ones. Tiya Chilo is old and can't focus on multiple blogs and logins like she used to (also I only JUST realized I can comment in replies as a sideblog, Tumblr updates are sometimes actually useful). Would make it much easier to manage content sharing and having everything in one place.
game of thrones and asoiaf aren't everyone's cup of tea but that's why i'm here to curate the experience and apply it to our favorite war criminals
because the hound? let me lick him. ruined face, massive body (a bear! a bear! all black and brown and covered in hair!), all sharp teeth and snarling lips because the rule is cruel and hard and "there are no true knights" but also he's a scarred and traumatized child underneath it all, who sees rose tinted glasses sansa, who believes in knights and fairy tales, and it's too much like himself that he tries to break her world of view for her own safety under the guise of a mad dog laughing in her face
but also "The Hound pulled her to her feet, not ungently."
"With a delicacy surprising in such a big man he dabbed at the blood welling from her broken lip."
"Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers. The room was too dark for her to see him, but she could feel the stickiness of the blood, and a wetness that was not blood. “Little bird,” he said once more, his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone."
"I could keep you safe," he rasped. "They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them."
And of course in the show: "You won't hurt me." "No, little bird, I won't hurt you."
apologies for not hitting it with kinktober. i'm probably gonna do some through november (sorry to no nut friends) but i also wanna try setting my blog up a bit more ( ◜‿◝ )♡
