#jude sutton

[boromirswife]

Gif Request Meme → @destroyingdestiny asked "you, me & the apocalypse" + favourite episode

► Episode 8, "7 Days To Go" / "Saviour Day"

[boromirswife]

timestamp roulette → you, me and the apocalypse episode 8, requested by @the-illuminated-one

[specialsituationsgroup]

YMATA vs ST VOY, pt 10/12

Jude Sutton / Chakotay Prodigal son turned spiritual guide; skeptical believer; principled contrarian; caring and brave; dead father issues.

[specialsituationsgroup]

Meanwhile in the afterlife...

YMATA headcanon, drabble

The nuns are having a partying in Her glory. Jude and Antonia are on the sides, drinkining. Sister Sophia is with them, knitting and regaling them with embarrassing stories about Celine growing up. Skye has reunited with Mary and introduced her to the baby. Tess and Buddy have taken Billy under their wing. 

Max and Molby are ranting about Ariel to feel better about trusting him / not leaving him to the general. 

Tim and the truck driver are stuck with each other. So is Leanne’s family. 

[specialsituationsgroup]

Morality

YMATA meta (spoilers)

I could not stop thinking about that paradox. Something incredible and awesome came out of it. =)

There are two main views on morality: virtue ethics (do as you would be done by) and utilitarian ethics (do whatever leads to the best outcome).

Jude is the ultimate Christian: prodigal son, convert and ultimately a martyr for the truth. He lives by virtue ethics. If you have to forfit your life to save your conscience/soul, so be it.

Gaines is the ultimate soldier, puting the mission before everything else, himself included, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. He lives by utilitarian ethics. If you have to forefit your conscience/soul to save other people's lives, so be it.

Both are selfless in different ways, and it's unfair to judge either by the yardstick of the other.

So was telling the Cardinals off the right thing? No. Still stupid/petty, sorry. But Gaines had a moment of stupid pettiness too. He was just lucky he had it with Leanne, who just had a change of heard about the very thing he was ranting on her for. Otherwise he and Scotty might have died horribly. I mean Gaines basically devolved to a sniveling mess when he pleaded for her help and she walked away (to help, but he didn't know that). It's not that Jude and Gaines are stupid/petty people, they just had a moment of petty stupidity, because they're human and imperfect.

The lesson being that every time we succumb to pettiness we throw a dice, and our fate depends on how good the person we told off is. Not the laser-guided karma we'd wish was true, but it's more useful to know the rules as they are.

For a show to have this alone would make it awesome. But it gets better.

99.99% of the time, utilitarian and virtue ethics are the same. But that .01% is crucial. Unfortunately, making them work together is nigh impossible. First, we are creatures of habit. Someone like Scotty, who'd have wisely kept his mouth shut in both cases, would still be unable to shoot Ariel or the President. Second, we easily confuse rationalizations for justifications. Rhonda abducts a kid to save her own from being abducted.

And the brilliance of YMATA is that if found a way to bridge the two. I had no Idea how important this line was when I first wrote it, but given all of the above, think about this:

"....break rules, but only when someone else failed to do what they should have, never for own benefit."

There. A principle to add to virtue ethics to cover the .01%.

I'd never though a black comedy would solve the biggest issue in western philosophy. Then again it is a show about extinction and salvation, featuring the best possible depictions of believers and non believers alike. I don't know if this was intentional or just came out form the writer's intuitive understanding, but mind. Fucking. Blown.

My new guide in life: What Would Gaines Do?

Thank you, Ian Holland.

[specialsituationsgroup]

Best support cast ever

YMATA meta

Dave is so zen and goofy, such a happy-go-lucky slob with a bucket lists that includes threesomes and car surfing; but he's also endlessly loyal and compassionate, and has a down-to-earth common sense.

Jude is both superficially cool thanks to his vices, and he's deeply moral. And there's a biting irony with him wanting to protect the desperately gullible, yet, as Layla pointed out, he’s just peddling a different bill of goods than, say, the giraffe cult.

Leanne is so crass and offensive, but she has a heart of gold under all that misguided 'supremacy'.

Gaines is a calm, manipulative, brutally pragmatic bad-ass; but at the same time he cares deeply and is scared senseless.

Buddy is a patriotic cross-dresser. Antonia is a modern female Robbin Hood. Skye is a pregnant, scorned woman wielding a nail gun.

Paula and Layla are lionesses.

Frankie is a six-year old strategist who wears only giraffe costumes and likes to hit things.

They're all so fun.