Okay, so I discovered that blue mage is fun actually, which means an updated plate. Someday I perhaps ought to do a proper write-up on Matthias instead of just having scraps of headcanon ideas floating around my mind, or at least post more screenshots of his outfits.
What if abilities changed the appearance of a Pokemon?
A master post of all the ability forms drawings I've done! It's been such a fun series to work on and it makes me so happy that it's brought you all so much joy!
I regret not starting the little additional descriptions earlier and I thought of fixing that but I desperately need a nap so nope.
I did fix the one that ruffled the most feathers though - quite literally! The Skarmory saga is finally complete!
like we really hate to hear this - but power is in every human relationship. unless you are the exact same as your partner in age, class, race, ethnicity, religion, language, nationality, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, salary, education, etc, you have to negotiate the problems material power differentials pose to love, to treating others well. the response to this seems to have been to make certain points of difference - like age - load-bearing, in a way that erases others - class would be my example: far bigger a power disparity than, say, a ten year gap in age between adults is class and inheritable wealth, but you almost never see that acknowledged in the same way. and even if you were at parity in all those areas (gay twincest sweep??) there is still the emotional power that someone’s love and desire for you gives you over them. you can’t get rid of it. you cannot find the perfect relationship where it doesn’t exist by steadily winnowing down your “ethical” options via widening designations of “problematic relationships.” you have to confront the power you have over other people and think how you will wield it most lightly. sorry!
"The trolley problem makes you ethically complacent because it releases you from a third option" the Trolley Problem is a fucking thought experiment, idiot, and a real-life comparison to matters where you DO NOT HAVE A THIRD FUCKING OPTION.
Shut the fuck up, oh my god.
(via @cicadahaze )
I feel like they did pick a third option. When given a messy decision, where good and evil isn't black and white, they will break down and scream at clouds, rather than make a decision.
But in practice, this means no lever is pulled, simply by inaction. You don't have time to think, and only one of two things is going to happen, however you dress it. Choose to walk away, or waste time cursing god for putting you there. In the end, the result is the same.
The trolley problem speaks to what is in someone's heart, when all the chips are down, and you've got a terrible decision to make. We all know that the objective correct decision is to flip the switch to save the most lives. But could you really make yourself do it, if you were in that situation? Could you choose who lives and who dies, even for the greater good? Is that even your decision to make? And that's why it's such a good thought experiment.
But is it the objectively correct decision? I think most people would instinctively agree. It’s the most harm reduction, after all. But then you look at it more- is personally killing one innocent more moral than watching as five people die?
We look at variations- what if the single person is someone you love dearly? What if the single person is the sole scientist working on life saving research? What’s the most moral option to you? What do you think is the most morally correct? Which do you hold more responsibility for?
There’s the- I did not name or come up with this- fat man variation. You’re standing on a bridge over some train tracks. There are five people tied to them and the train is coming. You are the only one who can do something. You’re too small and too high up to do anything, but next to you is a man of the perfect size and weight to stop the trolley. All you have to do is push him off the edge and into the path to save those five. Is it more moral to murder him, or to let the five die? How different does it feel now? Is there an objectively correct option here?
And another one of my favorites. You are a surgeon. There are five people who desperately need organ transplants fast, or they’ll die. You do not have matching organs available to you. However, there is a perfectly healthy person in your custody whose organs would match all of the patients. He does not want to die to save them. Is it more moral to take his organs and kill him, or to let the five die?
That one has a very different result than the original trolley problem, doesn’t it? Sure, there’s other factors that we’ve created in the medical field, but ultimately, the medical field has decided that it is NOT more moral to save the five by killing one. The “objectively correct” decision would be to let the five die. When people and places do take organs by force, it’s horrifying.
What people see as the “objectively correct” decision changes completely based on context. It would also change based on moral philosophy. Utilitarianism, if I remember correctly, would always say that saving the five is more moral than saving the one… even in the organ donor problem. Some moral philosophies would say that inaction would not be a moral wrong, and that the moral wrong would be to personally take a life.
The trolley problem is wonderful. It makes you uncomfortable, it forces to you to make a binary choice, and more importantly, it forces you to think about why you made that choice. It questions underlying assumptions. If an option is “objectively correct”, why is that? If you’re so uncomfortable that you need to search for another option, why? What moral concepts are motivating that?
I love the trolley problem.
yeah the point of the problem is to force you to defend a position and say why pulling or not pulling the lever, or pushing the man, or not doing so, or whatever other variant is the best option given a binary choice. You can come up with a lot of reasons to defend either choice, it’s not a binary “this is why someone would pull the lever”, but you have to be honest with your consequences. People complaining there isn’t a third option are missing the point because they’re not answering the question.
Let’s use a physics example since the notes seem to like this metaphor. You are asked to give the rate at which something is accelerating down a slope. Complaining that the problem excludes the third option is like answering this physics problem with “well who put it on the slope”. Sure, it might be meaningful in a bigger picture, but it does nothing to answer the question in front of you. Every number in existence is a valid answer (though many are wrong), but “why is it on the slope?” isnt an answer.
However, by criticizing the problem people manage to avoid actually defending their positions. “I think 5 people dying is preferable to me killing 1 person” is a lot harder to say than “I shouldn’t have to make this choice”. What these people miss is that in life, you will be faced with hard choices, and even though it might not be fair that you have to make them, “this isn’t fair” is not its own choice.
In a blistering display of incompetence, the US Dictator has levied a 10% tariff on the islands of Heard and McDonald, external territories of Australia.
Heard and McDonald are uninhabited. By humans. They are home to a number of penguin colonies, however, as well as seals and other critters.
If the penguins withhold all trade with the US until the tariffs are dropped, does that mean they'll have won the trade war? Will the Penguin War go down in the history books next to the Emu War, making it the second time humans have lost to flightless birds? And in this case, without a single shot being fired.
ALTI regret to inform you that it is real and batshit. LOL!
PBS: 5 places Trump has targeted for tariffs even though they have few or no exports
Scientific American: the Uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands are a Pristine Biological Wonderland
Sydney Morning Herald: the tiny Australian islands no one expected to draw Trump's fury
No but the Hunger Games really said "what do you hate more- the atrocities or the people who commit them against you? Because like it or not there IS a difference. If you hate the people who commit acts of pure evil more than you hate the acts themselves, what will stop you from becoming just like your enemies in your pursuit of justice? What will keep you from commiting those very same acts against THEM when the opportunity arises? And what then? The cycle of pain and suffering will never stop. Round and round it'll go. Nothing will ever change. But. BUT. If you hate the atrocities. If you hate the vile, senseless acts MORE than you hate the people who did them to you. If you are able to see that evil is evil regardless of who does it... The cycle ends with you. No, you may never get justice. But you will never be responsible for making others, even your enemies, suffer the same crimes you have. The atrocities will never be committed by you, never by your hand. And that's the way you change the world. It's the ONLY way" and that's why I am sure it will never stop being one of the most relevant works of fiction ever created
a talking point i often see when defending the consumption of dark content is that it’s a coping mechanism for those with trauma which is very valid and true but i also want to make this abundantly clear: you can like dark content for no reason. you can enjoy fucked up shit in fiction because it’s enjoyable and entertaining. trauma is not required as a ticket for entry. enjoy your dark content bc it’s fun and sexy and don’t let anyone take that away from you
If you think having uncomfortable conversations is hard - wait until you see the result of not having them.
unavoidable that you will be the villain in someone else's story. You will be painted in an unfavorable light. You will be the irredeemable one. and all of this will happen despite how nice you might usually be or how kind or how respectful or how warm. and you will just have to move on.
For some people, all that's required for being the villain in their story is that you don't let them walk all over you.
to this day i cannot BELIEVE aang called up and blew off like nine avatars just because they didnt offer any vegan options to ending the war
roku: my best friend assaulted me as a senior citizen :(
kyoshi: sometimes some murder is OK
kuruk: just punch people that disagree with you
aang: okay i’m starting to think that none of you took this avatar thing seriously
You're not wrong
Aang when he is told he’s the Avatar at age 12: *has a melt down because he understands the seriousness of this function and the consequences his new responsibilities will have on his personal life*
other Avatars at age 16: I’m the avatar? Cool! Hey look it comes with a glowing eyes feature!
aang: fuck this noise, i’ll get advice from the last air nomad avatar
yangchen: i gave up that hippie bullshit first chance i got, i love murder
I will never not laugh at the bit where Aang is like "finally, an Air Nomad, you get me, right?" and Yangchen just says "sorry bud, I also vote murder".
A close second on that note is of course the trial of Kyoshi in which she manifests in the courtroom just to say "Actually, I did murder him and I'd do it again. But consider: the bitch had it coming".
#tbh I think there's something to be said for the fact that Aang was 12 when he ran away from home#and how there's more than a bit of evidence that the adult airbenders had a less strict pacifistic approach#Aang was purposefully sheltered by Gyatsu to protect his childhood and so he has the ethics of a child#and when he awoke there were no other air nomads around to sit him down and have The Violence Talk#about how yes we're pacifists and murder is bad but there are exceptions#like Gyatsu was a kindly man of the highest order but uh#he didn't just lay down and die on a pile of skulls he just found#man went out taking like 20 fire nation soldiers with him#Aang: ''I could never kill! Gyatsu taught me to abhor all forms of violence“”#Gyatsu: deals out death to attacking soldiers like he's got a side hustle as a claymore mine
And the fact that he figures out a more technically complex and socially stable way to remove Ozai without making him a martyr just shows that he has a lot more skill at the problem at hand than most the previous ones.
To me, that whole scene was very much the previous avatars saying “when all you have is a hammer” and Aang going “okay, but what can I do with this Swiss Army knife?” and they don’t give very useful advice about it.
Personally I also don't think the prior Avatars were all that helpful, but they weren't all saying murder was okay. Aang's there asking for help with Avatar skills because he'd had so minimal training, maybe there's something in the toolbox he doesn't know how to use yet, but they're all trying to make him comfortable with using the hammer he already has and knows how to use. What they were saying was what they thought he needed to hear, based on what they regretted most from how they'd acted as Avatars, and what they thought was most needed here.
Roku regretted not killing Sozin specifically because it gave him the opportunity to come back and kill him, then the Air Nomads. His lack of decisive action led to a lot of tragedy, and so his advice was to make sure whatever he did, make sure it was permanent, or Ozai would come back.
Kyoshi regretted not moving sooner on the threat of Shin the Conqueror and waiting until he was at the very edge of Kyoshi Peninsula before actually doing anything. She allowed a lot of destruction on the continent because she didn't move fast enough. Her advice is to move swiftly instead of allowing Ozai more time to act.
Kuruk basically did nothing as Avatar by his own admission and basically just said that Aang had to do something, and not to back off of his responsibilities because it was hard.
Yangchen is complicated because, well, she isn't talking about one of her own regrets. She's the one trying to give the 'Violence is sometimes necessary' talk to Aang, because she's the best person to tell him his duties as Avatar have to outweigh his duties as an Airbender. Arguably she is the one telling him to murder Ozai, but personally I read that as more 'you need to do what's right for the world, and I am giving you permission to break our cultural rules to do that. Because I am the only person you can ask for absolution.'
They were all trying to offer him spiritual guidance and support, but Aang wasn't looking for emotional support here, he was looking for solutions. Because he had already decided he wouldn't kill Ozai. No advice or absolution was really going to change that he already knew he wouldn't do it.
[ID: Tags that say, "#LMFAO #aang is that one kid in the group that actually does the project n everyone else fucks around #we know this coz in korra he straight up gives her the avatar state back n everyones like 'shit wait spirit avatars can do that'?? #well yeah if theyre competent #aang was a 4.0 student stuck w/ 4 ppl on sports scolarships to help him save the world". End ID]
jarael
