The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
So he's going to implant a new set of vocal chords?
Now You Feel Like Number None [Bleach Arrancar Quest]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Florida
[X] Work with Szayel. In exchange you will askfor…
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
Fuck it, I'll take a chance.
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
Fuck it, I'll take a chance.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You have no idea how bad my phone's autocorrect is. And it's a dumbass kind of bad too. "Oh, you typed 'looming', nobody uses such fancy words, you must have meant 'looking.' Here let me help out."So he's going to implant a new set of vocal chords?
fuck you phone i write better English than you
Hmm... I don't see it as quite the same from an IC point of view, although I acknowledge it basically is, from a utilitarian "minimize negative utility" point of view. With the dancers, she chose not to go out of her way to fuck then over. Here, Yammy will suffer no matter her choice, she just has the option to actively work to somewhat reduce his suffering.
But you're right that it's a step backwards. I'm of the opinion that either refusing period or working to mitigate harm are the correct decisions and this is a bad idea on many levels. If we get healing, we will regret it, both immediately and in the long term. There's a reason I was writing IC self-justifications and flawed arguments instead of an OOC "here's what we should do" argument
I'm not voting to be healed because I think it's smart. I'm voting because it's the dumb, desperate, "hate yourself for this" choice, and that's what I wanna see. And also because I want Cirucci to see that Nemo isn't inherently kind and merciful, that we're a hollow trying to be good and sometimes we fail, and see how the relationship handles it.
It's not always a fallacy, and it's not even the argument I'm using.
You know, it'd be nice, just once, if a utilitarian doesn't pull this shit on me. Ethical systems other than yours are valid, principles aren't worthless, you are not the objective arbitor of right and wrong, and you don't get to tell me I'm selfish and immoral for not ascribing to your exact view on morality. You people always do this, and I'm sick of it. Find a new insult to throw at everyone who disagrees with you, because this one has gotten old.
- Location
- Australia
It's not a fallacy, though, not when there's legitimate reasoning behind the argument. The presence or lack thereof of reasoning is what differentiates the legitimate slippery slope argument from the illegitimate slipper slope fallacy.
Nemo would be replacing physical pain with emotional pain. She knows this. Nemo is not the kind of person who'd burden herself with guilt just to not feel pain anymore. She's had too much experience with pain of all types for her to make this kind of dumb decision.
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- Location
- madison
yes, having the obvious issues with your stance pointed out every time must get quite old.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I was greatly amused when people collectively decided to go visit Szayel in his laboratory because he would be in a better mood there and it wouldn't feel like ambushing him in some corridor. Like, had I not telegraphed enough that Szayel is at his creepiest when he is cheerful and enthusiastic in his interactions with Cirucci?
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
You do, but creepy and enthusiastic is not grumpy.
I actually kinda disagree here - she went from being a Hollow with high speed regeneration to an Arrancar with the same, and judging by the fact she was surprised her burnt-out lungs didn't heal I don't think she's ever had unhealing injuries before.
Yes, she's been willing to accept pain for a goal, to do the right thing, to prevent another person from suffering. But until now, her pain has literally always been transient and temporary. She has absolutely no experience with injuries lasting more than a day, or with ongoing chronic pain, and never needed to develop coping mechanisms. So I can totally buy her making a Bad Decision because of her wounds.
[X] Work with Szayel. In exchange you will askfor…
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
- Location
- in the trash
Much like Syazel, autocorrect thinks it's trying to help, but doesn't understand that its "help" just makes everything worse.
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Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
[X] Work with Szayel. In exchange you will ask for…
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
To those of you voting anything other than healing:
Please let Nemo heal so she can eat proper food again and gain full value of Grimmjow's bracelet!
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
To those of you voting anything other than healing:
Currently, Nemo's wounds is preventing her from enjoying cake. And that's just inhuman.
Please let Nemo heal so she can eat proper food again and gain full value of Grimmjow's bracelet!
- Location
- Australia
This is Nemo - as a hollow - refusing to hunt a kind of food despite the advantage in doing so. Whether it was because of her own compunctions or because she didn't want to her friend to think badly of her, Nemo was willing to accept greater hunger - the most primal of pains for a hollow to feel - just to avoid some manner of emotional pain. The Nemo of today would not have taken a step back from that, and instead has taken several steps forward.
Leaving Yammy to suffer with no mitigation whatsoever when she can do otherwise is a greater evil then helping Szayel and lessening the pain he will have, even if it makes you complicit in hurting him.
Doing nothing when you can do otherwise and then patting yourself on the back for being moral is the greatest of hypocrisies. Because in the end, you did nothing at all.
Doing nothing when you can do otherwise and then patting yourself on the back for being moral is the greatest of hypocrisies. Because in the end, you did nothing at all.
- Location
- Australia
This is wrong. If we help him, he will pervert La Marana and twist it to evil ends. In Yammy's case we will make it better, but we will give Szayel new ways to commit crimes worthy of Hell, and do so in a way that tarnishes something Nemo likes and dishonours her teacher.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
They're going to suffer no matter what we do, and tainting how we view Maraña would impact our ability to keep trying to make Las Noches and Hueco Mundo less terrible places in which to exist. It would also give Szayelaporro additional tools with which to torture more people, while potentially betraying our mentor's trust that we would not pass on his Art to the blatantly unworthy. Given all this, I think there's a pretty strong utilitarian argument in favor of going full Rohan here.
If you really want to deal with Yammy's suffering, find a way to kill him, don't just experiment on him while trying to find a way to torture him enough that he's useful while not torturing him as much as Szayelaporro intends.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
But are those crimes really any worse than what he'll do without Marana?
I would argue that there's little difference between turning an innocent person into a pill and turning them into a magical leather jacket.
- Location
- Australia
If he had the skills to make Yammy into a bomb but no skills that would let him make the Sarcophagus, he would've made a Yammy bomb instead of the Sarcophagus. It would've been cruel, still, but less cruel. Giving Szayel more skill won't simply alter the form his evil takes shape into a different but equivalent one, it will give him a greater capacity for inflicting cruelty unto others.
- Location
- Australia
[X] Work with Szayel. In exchange you will ask for…
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
-[X] Healing your crippling injuries. With the Quinta as your mistress, there is no risk of him offending her by turning you into a freaky mutant, but letting Szayel play around with your insides might still have consequences, even - especially - if he believes he's helping you doing so. Then again, these consequences could be positive…
Shwaggy
Weapon of Math Instruction
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
[X] Refuse. Nothing is worth the moral hazard of working on this project, or the dangers of Szayel's laboratory. You will offend the Espada, who might not even understand why you're letting go of such an opportunity, but Style will let you do so smoothly enough that he won't hold a grudge.
To the people leaping towards "Heal my lungs", I'll point out that this is a case of accepting literally the first thing that comes. That doesn't say the best things about Nemo, if she'll accept something like this - and that physical pain can sway her from her vaunted morals.
Additionally, at a thematic level Nemo is non-congruent with biohorror enhancements. Like, it actively disrupts the thematics of the character, who is "moth, shadows, stealth, gothic horror". Her personal theme's horror isn't biohorror and it's not really organic - indeed, she loses (apparently) her organic elements in Ressurecion. Letting Szarel make "improvements" - quite apart from being a bad idea for all kinds of IC reasons - is also bad for OOC, stylistic reasons.
Additionally, at a thematic level Nemo is non-congruent with biohorror enhancements. Like, it actively disrupts the thematics of the character, who is "moth, shadows, stealth, gothic horror". Her personal theme's horror isn't biohorror and it's not really organic - indeed, she loses (apparently) her organic elements in Ressurecion. Letting Szarel make "improvements" - quite apart from being a bad idea for all kinds of IC reasons - is also bad for OOC, stylistic reasons.
Pumparum
another little crow
- Location
- Somewhere
[X] Work with Szayel. In exchange you will ask for…
-[X] Nothing. By feigning pure scientific interest in his work and an eagerness to help him, you will please him greatly and make him less likely to scrutinize your work, putting you in a better position to make the Sacrophagus less inhumane, and perhaps giving you the opportunity to pilfer Szayel's notes on other subjects for your own use.
-[X] Nothing. By feigning pure scientific interest in his work and an eagerness to help him, you will please him greatly and make him less likely to scrutinize your work, putting you in a better position to make the Sacrophagus less inhumane, and perhaps giving you the opportunity to pilfer Szayel's notes on other subjects for your own use.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think you're somewhat overestimating (exaggerating?) the use and utility Szayel's going to get out of modifications made to the Sarcophagus, re: proliferation and shit. Skills tend to be kinda broad in how they're applied and encompass a variety of related ideas. And given his compliments and the way he talks about it it's clear that Szayel doesn't view La Maraña as meaningfully different than what he does, he just thinks Nemo's dressing it up in different language. And I don't think he's really wrong? Not where it matters? Fundamentally we're not granting Szayel any capabilities he doesn't already have and we're not providing him tools to accomplish anything he can't already. We're supplying another perspective, advice, and critique along with a second set of hands able to roughly keep up, a sort of parallel expertise. We're teaching him in the broadest sense, we're hardly passing along the secrets of our art.
I'm not a fan of the utilitarian argument tbh and it's not one that I'm particularly making. It's not really effective I find since it tends to skate by, y'know, a lot of the real reasons people do shit in favor of pointing at an equation and going "but do it tho".
I would argue that this is a use of La Maraña to make Las Noches a less terrible place. It's not in a grand and sweeping way, it's honestly not even in a way that might matter to the person involved 'cause Yammy's pretty far gone but overall I think that it's a positive application for Nemo? Unpleasant yeah but ultimately beneficial in terms of growth and worldview. It's not a fantastic set of choices and it's not even necessarily about "oh she's just soothing her conscience" it's...I dunno how to properly articulate it. It's using something she has, whatever scraps of control she has over an otherwise unwieldly situation to try and make it better. Like it's not morally damning if she leaves Yammy, like I said he's pretty far gone and it's not like he'll know. Her influence on this situation is small and her contributions minute compared to Aizen, Szayel, and Cirucci even. She's really not to blame for what happened to him even if she feels like she is.
It's more that...well Yammy's basically helpless? Which is a weird thing to say about a doom tank with a life expectancy measured in months, who's bound to go out as basically his own funeral pyre. But he has nobody who cares about him, nobody who misses him, and nobody who really mourns him. There's nobody else but us right now who could make anything even the slightest bit better for him (well able and willing). Using our influence to ease his pain, help the person who needs it most even if that person is ultimately fucked is kinda...in the spirit -lawl- of what's changing in Las Noches? Making it better? "Even if it's pointless you still have to do it" to pull from Emil. Ultimately the arrancar are kinda fucked from the start, members of a doomed army in service to a God that doesn't care. But even though it's bleak and hopeless they're still managing to get by in their own way, even if it's just moment to moment or day to day. And that's really just this writ small y'know?
So yeah, to be a little less sappy about it I don't really view this as a perversion of the Art, as tainting it or corrupting it. A compromise yeah but Nemo's not strong, she's not an Espada and even the Espada don't get to make the rules really. Just the rules Aizen doesn't care to already set. Compromise is what the world's giving her.
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- Location
- Spain
[X] Work with Szayel. In exchange you will ask for…
-[X] Nothing. By feigning pure scientific interest in his work and an eagerness to help him, you will please him greatly and make him less likely to scrutinize your work, putting you in a better position to make the Sacrophagus less inhumane, and perhaps giving you the opportunity to pilfer Szayel's notes on other subjects for your own use.
-[X] Nothing. By feigning pure scientific interest in his work and an eagerness to help him, you will please him greatly and make him less likely to scrutinize your work, putting you in a better position to make the Sacrophagus less inhumane, and perhaps giving you the opportunity to pilfer Szayel's notes on other subjects for your own use.