justrandomthoughtsforlater-blog

[justrandomthoughtsforlater-blog]

What do you mean by "in-group signalling" in that post?

I'm referring to the way a lot of people seem to treat "unconditional hatred for Generative AI" as a signifier by which someone reaffirms their belonging or allegiance to the category of Artist (imagined as a special category of people wholly separate from the category of Non-Artist) based on the conception that the only reason why someone might not hate GenAI (or might hate it but think some criticisms of it are unprincipled) is because they 1) aren't an Artist themselves, and thus 2) they either don't understand what being an Artist is like or they categorically hate and oppose Artists.

To name a concrete example:

Just a couple weeks ago I got an anon message pretty much along the lines of "I get it, you don't have a creative bone in your body and have to pretend that art theft is fine because you're incapable of creating art yourself" (despite pretty clear evidence of me being an Artist™, such as the fact that at the moment that anon was sent to me, you could scroll down like two posts on my blog and find me showing off how some of my music was featured in a doom metal compilation album).

This anon was sent in response to me saying that, while I have problems with the GenAI industry, I think "it's art theft" is not one of them because (by virtue of being a copyright abolitionist) I think describing any situation where a copy of something is made without affecting the original as "theft" is patently ridiculous. Like, that's a pretty clear example of how performing enough unconditional hatred of AI art is treated as a signifier of belonging to the Artist™ in-group, and failure to perform it is treated as a sign that you can only possibly be a ignorant and/or malicious Non-Artist.

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[justrandomthoughtsforlater-blog]

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to lead your gift horse across that burnt bridge but you can’t make a watched horse eat all your cans of worms in one basket

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Nausicaä by Julia Tveritina

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One of the great things about hanging out with people is that you can solve problems differently. When you get together with a bunch of other folks, it's easy for someone's special perspective to provide the exact answer to leap over a bullshit problem. Of course, it's also possible for a bunch of you weirdos to argue endlessly and not get anything done. Not that I'm pointing any fingers at the model train club.

For decades, long before I was in this town, the model train club has met on the second Tuesday of alternating months. Barring some unfortunate interruptions, like the time our town was invaded by aliens, and World War II, things have pretty much gone on schedule. Part of that is because of Pat Bartholomew, the club secretary, who has been working hard to repeatedly corral a bunch of nerds into a rented meeting room at the public library for a number of years that is frankly quite difficult to comprehend.

Now, don't take me for one of those little-train weirdos. I don't believe in any form of efficient rail-based transportation, because it's too reliable and fast, which ruins the whole journey, just like eating a gourmet meal in five minutes. No. I'm there to huff glue. Or at least that's what I tell them. Model train enthusiasts have all kinds of weird glues, and some of those adhesives are really expensive.

Luxury imported stuff from Germany that can stitch a vinyl seat together like nothing. If I go to those meetings, then I can borrow a bottle for five minutes, go out to the parking lot, and stitch up whatever part of my car fell apart this week. Ted Thorne-Toucher even had a bunch of that weird Ford glue from Sweden that can paste a cracked cylinder head back together.

Which is not to sound like I'm some kind of parasite. Like I said, everyone contributes their own solutions to a thorny problem. Just last week, Daytona McSlaughter had the wrong trim package on the little 1/22-scale Plymouth Valiant on her layout. Right away, I chimed in: that shit has the front bumper from a Dodge Lancer, who are you trying to fool? Maybe a little bit too loudly, since it turns out one of the ways that Pat has dealt with conflicts such as these over the years is by making two scale rail enthusiasts fight it out in "the Thunderdome" to see which one feels more strongly about being correct. At least they had some super glue on hand to stitch my wounds back up.

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The tragedy of my life is that I keep acquiring and displaying fetish art and having to be corrected by my friends.

Most recently, a friend came over my house and saw my computer background and went, "Wow, um, I didn't know you were into that." To which I look at the picture of the well drawn muscular female minotaur in historically accurate Greek clothing and I start geeking out about how I love the detail the artist did with the clothing and I point out the period appropriate folds and pins, how the artist even inserted the native plant that was used to dye the clothing this particular shade in the background, and even how the belt has technology AND historically accurate weaving patterns on it.

Then I start explaining how I love the muscular choices of the minotaur, that I was so impressed with the artist's anatomically correct depiction of the muscles converging into the neck. That many people get an upright cow's neck wrong because cow's don't have collarbones, so it can be very difficult to merge the upper arms and a chest of a human with a cow's body. I draw her attention to the beautiful way they've merged the pectoralis major so smoothly while also staying true to how muscular they've depicted the rest of the body.

I finish up with my thoughts on the artist's bold choice to depict the minotaur as a female, and despite the underlying themes of a minotaur being violence, child murder, strength, and muscles. I segue into how unlike bulls, cow are perceived as mothers. That they are the major source of milk in human culture, and that idyllic depictions of them in a field usually depict calves frolicking nearby, yet the minotaur kills and eats children.

I finish and there is a long pause.

"Urban, this is fetish art." and she takes me to the artist's twitter and god dammit it's fetish art, not a bold statement on cultural perceptions of women and violence throughout history. I have been tricked again.

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When I got my CNA we didn't even talk about how they tested this or not, they just said--HEY, that .01% is CDIFF. Please dont get or give CDIFF to other people. It's in these waxy packets that the hand sanitizer can't dry out and destroy. The .01% is a HUGE deal and will MESS you up and OTHERS up. Don't be a super spreader of the .01%, just wash your hands.

Now being told how that 99.99% claim works, I also need to re-evaluate how I've used hand sanitizer in bug field work cause I maybe was being riskier than I thought....(in terms of touching bait and then later eating lunch aaahhh oh no)

I've noticed more and more in public bathrooms that people skip the handwash and just take a squirt of hand sanitizer from wall dispensers on the way out. hand sanitizer is NOT effective against most things that come out of your ass. i cannot stress this enough. i'm begging y'all. please. please please please please please use the soap.

i'm out here immunosupressed fighting for my life to not get naturally selected while people around me touch a public toilet handles and walk back to their tables to immediately eat a burger

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There was a Neanderthal in the kitchen.

His name was — inexplicably — Abba.

“That sounds so fake,” Brittney said.

The two of them watched Abba try to work his way around the concept of a box of Lucky Charms. He had managed the trick of the cardboard flaps, and was struggling manfully with the plastic bag.

“I like it,” said Charlie.

“Yeah, but Abba? We have the most scientifically significant discovery in human history in our kitchen, and his name is Abba.”

Abba flipped over the bag to see if the other side would open any easier.

“I can’t hear that name without thinking Waterloo,” Brittney said.

“Actually, that’s really interesting,” said Charlie. “We know he’s a father, and a lot of languages have a word for ‘mother’ and ‘father’ that are made from an open vowel sound and a bilabial consonant. Mama and papa. Ama and aba. Linguists say we borrowed these words from baby babble and used them to describe ourselves.”

Abba was trying to open the bag with his teeth.

“So?”

“So, if the same is true for Neanderthals, then for hundreds of thousands of years, for as long as we have known ourselves, we have held our children in our arms and loved them, and when they babbled at us we found words and named ourselves with them,” Charlie said. “We’ve done it since prehistory, and we’ve done it over and over again in a thousand languages until—”

There was a popping sound, followed by a little rattling hail of oats.

Abba stood at the epicentre of an explosion of cereal, blinking. Pastel-coloured marshmallows clung to his face and beard.

Brittney and Charlie stared to see if there would be a reaction of some kind. Then: “You good, Abba?”

Abba plucked a blue moon from his cheek and popped it into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully and gave a thumbs up.

“Also weird that Neanderthals had the thumbs up thing, apparently,” Brittney muttered.

“Well, it’s like what I was saying. He’s proof that we’ve been repeating the same behaviours over and over again through history.”

There was a thoughtful silence. Abba chewed noisily and with sticky delight.

Then Brittney said, in a slightly far away voice: “So the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself.”

“Fuck off.”

[justrandomthoughtsforlater-blog]

Therapy journal

no assignment I don't think for this one, just venting about why the session felt not as useful

spent whole time talking about kent, which, verified by Venus, is pretty well processed now. Not mad at him, mad at everyone else now.

Did I have to make my frustrations and pain specifically known as a 16 year old? Why couldn't someone see? of course I didn't I was a kid without communication skills! And I wanted them to help him not me, his needs were more in my mind that was the whole problem.

Also, I do think I have rejection sensitive disphoria low key. I have been pretending I don't because it's gonna be a symptom of adhd that I find embarassing and so dumb. I spent so long not caring what others thought (because I was too tired and the only thing that mattered was that Kent wasn't making my life really hard that day) (and everyone told me I was a saint and that I pulled off my clothes (maybe not meaning it but that's beside the point)(I think I did pull it off, or at least if I saw high school me now I would go she's trying something and it's cool)).

Again, now life is better and it's manifesting in I caaarrreee what others think. Which is so dumb.

I don't want this to go the same way kyra did with me being frustrated that I need maybe a more adhd specific coaching cause Venus can do that so I should probably just voice that. But also we're also getting to the point of frustration I had where, so much in the world is left undone. So many people need help and don't ask. I want to benefit from a congregation that knows each other, from having close friends who live near to me, from a working lab. I jump in cause I want the outcome. I don't wanna sit quiet and awkward in my car, I want to alleiviate someones pain, and have friends.

If everyone just jumped in like me, I would be cared for, and so would everyone else. But almost no one does which pisses me off, or they do and I am not their prioritiy in their current state of over stretched, which makes me sad and lonely.

Where does this impulse to jump in come from? My mom does it... our family took in the less adept home teachers.... Don did it.... and without Don the vibe of the cul de sac---shifted.

Dad was always the tempering force, but it made me feel like he didn't care as much about his department as mom did, that he could stand parts of it failing.

kylie's mom cried cause I reached out to her, there was the meltdown about kids joining a "club" we had at recess at one point. sitting underneath the tree.

I feel like I'm looking for a trauma that makes me empathetic, but I think I was just a quiet kid with mini experiences of being left out, who had empathy, and then received praise for being the "only kid" to act on that empathy. It IS my job to look after others. If they are not welcome in my presence then that's my fault and that's me not using a spiritual talent I've been given. And I am good at it! Venus told me that my desire to meet new people in a class where I already had friends was actually evidence of my own high social IQ. I am part of the sauce that made Vanuatu and team Beetle work. There is a reason I leave the labs I'm in with good friends, it's not just meeting the right folks it's also me. no wonder I'm sometimes tired.

I Dont Trust Others to Pick Up the Slack. I'm always named, others are always either explicitly exclusionary, or praise me for taking one for the team, or something. I'm good at it!! Why would I stop?!?! I like the fruits! but I am indiscriminate with who I extend joy to, and then feel frustrated when I don't technically gel, or I get into a situation I don't like, and I was being nice, and if someone who fits better would be this nice I wouldn't be in this situation, navigating how to leave without that person having no one. Part of me believes that the worst will happen if I do not personally invest in others being okay. Kent threatening suicide, the suicide of that boy in junior high who I slapped his friend and people cheered. I don't see rejection of my love as bad, I can work and get over that, I see my own rejection of others as inherently risky and evil? not evil, but base, not divine. My body believes everyone is on the brink, and it's my duty to keep them off the edge, cause no one else will. That spills over into doing other work cause I love to pick up other people's mallets, but the part that makes me feel the least safe, the part I cannot set boundaries about, is interpersonal relationships.

Rules I have for others....

If you make me uncomfortable I won't bring you around my family. (cause my family is safe and you won't taint it, but also because I'll be embarrassed when they immediately notice my discomfort and ice you out.)

The gym is for me

If I can confirm with others you're weird, I will start associating less.

I will enforce some arbitrary physical boundary (no kiss, no nips, no title) but only when I've reached dissociation anyway...

my music is for me unless I trust you

snapchat is only for people I like for reals

I ghost instead of saying no......<-habit not rule that I am ashamed of

Habits that are a lack of rules.....

I offer help when I can't follow through

I spend money and don't ask to be payed back

I don't say what I want physically or stop things I'm not feeling cause I'm triggered

I don't ask for activities, food, or anything I would enjoy particularly

I don't address others mess or tardiness

I don't address my needs to those in charge unless I have another way to address them if they say no

I try not to take up space in my home (at least initially)

I don't do things (even things I don't want to) half heart-ed.

I don't stay quiet when comments are needed or socialization needs to be initiated.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I don't want to pick up my own mallet, cause I have to choose the end points of my own mallet. And I don't, so I'm lifting the whole earth. When it's someone elses mallet, I do what they ask, they pick the end points, and even if I'm taken advantage of, I don't have to decide the scope. I can delude myself that it's a small mallet, and if it gets too big I can flake, or feel the arrogant martyr, instead of lifting my own mallet and feeling like the weak villain for cutting bits off and telling others no.

my whole schtick is better a martyr than a villain. I'm tired, but if I shift, people will die (is what my body feels) and no one else seems to feel that way, or notice anyone, and it pisses me off. Step in, so I can rest, but part of me knows I can't ask them to lift other people's mallets, and mine doesn't feel important enough to ask for help with, cause no one has ever helped with it before without very specific instruction when I reached failure. Asking before failure turns me into those I help, beneath me... It is arrogance. If everyone else would get on my level, I wouldn't have to be so in pain. And it comes from being a kid, when adults SHOULD have been above my level, and weren't. but now we're adults, I don't know everything that's going on, and I can step away without blood on my hands. I am not elevated into the adult world by helping anymore.

You know what I get off on? I get off on being one of the adults. I love it. I loved being a kid who got jokes, who helped and was praised, who got the gossip, who got to cackle with her aunts, who got adult jobs and by entering the adult world KNEW things others didn't. If I was rejected by other kids it didn't matter, cause the adults didn't reject me, the elevated me to one of them. NOW though, when I do the same pattern instead of being elevated I feel childish and flakey for not being able to care for my own shit, tired of taking care of everyone elses, lonely cause I do look down on those I care for, and excluded by peers and adults for either taking on authority when I shouldn't have it (initial relationship with leila) or failing my own responsibilities when by all accounts I should have the experience to pull this off (my degree and relationship with mentors and supervisors).

Kids were hard--I didn't get them

Adults save me from that rejection by making me "one of them"---I gain adulting experiences and skills but also a caring arrogance. Other people's mallets meant acceptance and praise and shelter from being odd, day dreamy, left out, bad at kid stuff

As one of the adults---I couldn't get help until I had exhausted all the adult stuff I could try, so I don't learn others will help me or how to ask for help unless I have reached like-emotional muscle failure

I am focused on Kent's needs and not my own muscle failure so I don't ask

I now resent no one noticed

Now I'm an adult and I want the experience of being cared for--OR--the experience of being one of the special elites with unique extra responsibilities. One requires me to be a child again, which that ship has sailed, and the other requires me to abandon my own shit--making me feel like a failure of an adult and having the opposite effect.

I'm left feeling ineffective, flakey, taken advantage of, and both above everyone and so fucking dumb all the time. And I can't open up to new people cause when I'm in charge of the social situation I feel superior, and it takes time and stress to break me down and pass that baton so I can feel equal and not like a tired teacher in the world of idiots.

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bro i LOVE indigenous fusion music i love it when indigenous people take traditional practices and language and apply them in new cool ways i love the slow decay and decolonisation of the modern music industry

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@astriiformes tagged me to post about the books I have on my to-be-read list for 2025, and I promised myself I'd get through at least twelve of them, so here's a selection of the "at least twelve" I want to get through. I'm a habitual non-fiction reader because when I was 12 I hated everything "written for twelve year olds" and switched my focus to pop science (and to a lesser extent history) instead, so I am, consequently, much better at judging and picking up quality non-fiction than I am finding and reading fiction. I'm trying to spice it up by adding some (science...) fiction to the list this year, as I did last year.

I'm currently reading the very last one, Selfish Genes to Social Beings, and am hoping (in vain?) to get it done before I get back to university on Sunday. Currently stalling on chapter 6 of 13-or-so, so probably not. (It doesn't help that like...see...I've been to the optician four times in the past three weeks...and I've come away with a new prescription three of those times, with more on the way...and on top of all that, I have a "dissertation to draft" or something. It's hard.) It's very readable, though, I'd recommend it.

Tagging: @magiefish, @t4tbruharvey, @specialagentartemis and...whoever else I've interacted with who has a long list of things to read on their plate.

Detailed exposition below the cut, because one of my other goals is to get used to expositing more frequently and more clearly:

Fiction:

On The Origin Of Species and Other Stories (Bo-Young Kim, 2021) - I was looking for short story collections to try and get back into the habit of reading at lunchtime, and a user I follow recommended this one. The theme is, roughly, "posthumanist stories about evolution" and it's great so far - I've only read the first one, but. Like. (Staring out over the water) Man.

Children of Ruin (Adrien Tchaikovsky, 2019) - I really liked Children of Time, which is about artifically-evolved hyperintelligent spiders colliding with the descendants of the dying civilisation that accidentally created them while trying to force-evolve servile primates. They make a computer out of ants and store a person on it. It absolutely ruled the whole way through, so obviously I have to read the sequels - I hear this one is about octopi, but I'm about 12 pages in, so who can say.

Absolution (Jeff VanderMeer, 2024) - again, I finished Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance last summer, specifically because I discovered he was dropping a new one, and really enjoyed them. I think my sibling has made off with this one for now, though.

Non-fiction:

Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences (Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szerzynski, 2021) - my best friend got me this for my birthday. I've read a small chunk of the literature on the Anthropocene, and the concept succeeds and fails in ways I find really interesting, so I'll happily read an entire book about it.

The Serviceberry (Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2024) - I've been meaning to read Braiding Sweetgrass since forever, and the economic angle of this one really intrigues me - I've encountered similar ideas in the course of reading anthropology, but one of my missions for this year is to start reading indigenous authors directly instead of just letting anthropologists paraphrase them, so I'd like to get a hold of a copy at some point.

Rebirding: Restoring Britain's Wildlife (Benedict Macdonald, 2019) - I read the first chapter of this in Year 13, which was about the history of Britain's relationship with its wildlife, and it was horrifying. I must read more.

The Museum of the Wood Age (Max Adams, 2022) - my brother gave this to me for Christmas and it looks awesome. It's about wood technology - "basic devices" like screws, levers, and wheels, as the blurb calls them - and its adaptability. I'm always a fan of flipping the script on quote-unquote "basic technologies" and simplicity/complexity is a favourite issue of mine, so I'm quite excited about this one!

The History of Magic: From alchemy to witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the present (Chris Gosden, 2020) - picked it up at a local bookshop for £6 (a steal) last Christmas because it was there, started reading it, got distracted, never made it past the second chapter. What I did read was very good, as is everything else I've read by Chris Gosden - albeit very broad in scope, so it'll be interesting to see what he chooses to cover! Probably one for after I graduate in June. Most of these are for after I graduate in June.

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Suhir Hazareesingh, 2020) - another book I got halfway through and then dropped when school started again, way back in 2021. I distinctly remember that it was impressively well-written and engaging, and I'm not usually one for biographies, but the guy is really compelling, as are the details Hazareesingh includes on the specifics of the Haitian Revolution and the links between revolutionary action and Haitian culture. It's high on my "HAVE to finish this at some point" list.

What An Owl Knows (Jennifer Ackerman, 2023) - Ackerman's The Genius of Birds had a massive impact on me and the way I thought about intelligence (human and animal) when I was like, 14, and I was a big fan of the half of the sequel The Bird Way I managed to get through in 2020. I've always been a fan of making the self-deprecating joke "I call myself Owl online because I appear to be wise but am actually very stupid," and this book seems like it's trying to swing the pendulum back in the other direction - so, of course, I must read it.

Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are? (Franz de Waal, 2016) - relatedly, I've read a lot of cognitive archaeology over the course of my degree, much of which plays on the same things I found interesting about The Genius of Birds, but it's obviously hominid-focused, and where it isn't the lens is mostly on other primates and occasionally some cetaceans and corvids, and it's prone to making sweeping statements about what animals can/can't do. This one came up in a book I read last year, which was also about conceptions of 'intelligence,' and we had a copy lying around, so it's on the list.

Selfish Genes to Social Beings: A Cooperative History of Life (Jonathan Silvertown) - relatedly relatedly, I know a guy who does social cognition and philosophy of nature, and this one partially derives from trying to pick up on those threads, as well as get to grips with the "cooperation versus competition" arena of the philosophy/science of evolution. I'm reading it right now and while I have some nitpicks about the way it talks about human cooperation (of the "reliance on modelling leaves it stripped down and apolitical" variety), the science is very clearly presented and the author is pretty funny.

Assume also that whatever godforsaken iteration of the Skulduggery Pleasant threequels drops next is on this list, as well as a variety of other books I have yet to acquire a copy of. Most of these are recent to very old Christmas/birthday presents, so I'm prioritising the things I have a physical copy of for now.

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I used to love working in the performance hall at my university. Partially because I would occasionally indulge in being an arrogant STEM little shit with my incomprehensible chemistry homework hehehe. But mostly because it always sounded beautiful in there with people practicing and performing and having taken 2 (two) organ classes I knew they had to work harder than I could ever dream to get that good. This also applied in the library where humanities people worked. The conversations were vast, the books large, the energy dedicated, my awe palpable. I get to turn from my little math with extra words worksheet and watch people engage with real culture and effects of historical happenings and learn so many people's names??? sorry you have to do that yikes my work has a correct answer and an end lol. (until it doesn't and now we're both in hell (affectionate)).

I love working in the science library because I'll be writing my silly little anthropology chapter about how the ontological turn is kind of doing structural-functionalism again but with more self-righteousness and I'll glance at the person working next to me and they're comprehending some kind of grotesque cylinder with a billion writhing equations attached to it. Sorry that's happening to you. Would you like to hear about my personal dislike for Martin Holbraad

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I like thinking about chips too much I'm sorry. trying chips from other places works for a while until you learn the equivalent defaults for other places in the world and the novelty wears off.

Serpentine Locks should taste like eel, and resist the impulse to be eel sauce flavoured which is just sparkly barbecue sauce in this context.

Gnome toes sounds like a euphemism like mountain oysters and should be flavoured thusly

Holy Angelic Pussy Flamethrower must resist the urge to just become hot sauce flavoured, and not even good hot sauce, gimmick hot sauce.

Old lays competition flavours and my never ending search for my favorite of the sparkly barbecue flavours under the cut that I hope works.

Lays used to have competition flavours submitted by consumers they would make. It made some odd ones. Here's a link documenting and reviewing from 2014 to 2018 https://www.masslive.com/life-and-culture/erry-2018/08/3516b5b48088/i-ate-26-alltime-lays-crazy-co.html

Wasabi Ginger was amazing. It was so so good and it made your breath so so bad. It was weird enough to be polarizing so no one would want to steal your chips on a road trip. Best flavour. I miss it all the time.

Crunchy Taco was actually made by the devil. It was frighteningly accurate to specifically a cafeteria lunch taco. I'm sure they just used cheap pre packaged taco seasoning blend a la white people taco night, but there was an additional taste of like...linoleum and sadness. Very accurate, very transporting, very bad. Came in only family sized, we threw the bag away with barely a dent made in its contents.

Also side note this one is just basically sparkly barbecue chips but California Chips had a flavor called Earthquake that was great. Now it is gone, briefly resurrected by Maverick Chaos chips, but now chaos chips are different and just not sparkly barbecue, and voodoo chips are close but not there. I relate to your issue of barbecue ribs not actually being innovative, and also on top of that they are a ghost of the true king of barbecue flavor chips of the past.

wacky chips flavors sound so nice but it's almost always just cycling through the same 5 ingredients. that is not "barbecue ribs" that is onion powder and artificial smoke. that's not "roasted chicken" that's onion powder and rosemary extract

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so much care put into housing this aging spider. why are my eyes wet

(tiktok link)

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the fundamental problem on this website is that if a homeless person tried to talk to most of y’all you’d be scared out of your minds

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Spoke to a gen z person the other night and apparently the young folks don't know about the very legal sites from which you can access public domain media (including Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and other Victorian gothic horror stories)?

Like this young person didn't even know about goddamn Gutenberg which is a SHAME. I linked to it and they went "aw yiss time to do a theft" and I was like "I mean yo ho ho and all that, sure, but. you know gutenberg is entirely legal, right?"

Anyway I'm gonna put this in a few Choice Tags (sorry dracula fans I DID mention it though so it's fair game) and then put some Cool Links in a reblog so this post will still show UP in said tags lmao.

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I read other people's takes and have more thoughts.

Lots of folks are calling the Lion Turtles a Deus ex Machina, which I technically agree with, but don't feel that way??? and had to examine that.

I think the show does a great job of showing aang interacting and entering into the spirit world often, even accidentally when under duress. He enters accidentally when Roku calls while Sokka is kidnapped by Hei Bai, getting a warning about Sozin's comet. He goes into the spirit world to find the moon and ocean spirit during the siege of the north, interacting with Koh and combining forces with La. The spirit library happens. He sees Yue post getting hit by lightening. He gets called there again by Roku to see Roku's past in season 3. He spends time reconnecting with the avatar state, which seemed like spirit world or spirit world-esqe training to me. Even in the swamp, the fact that he is the bridge to the spirit world, seeing through the swamp is emphasized.

I think the only way to see the lion turtles as satisfying is recognizing that as the last of his kind, aang was constantly receiving massive spiritual help. Everyone wanted to see Ozai defeated, it had consequences felt in the spirit world even by those not wanting to be involved in human matters (like our library owl Wan Shi Tong) those indifferent but directly affected like Hei Bai, and forces of nature the fire nation's worst disrespected and killed like Tui. The spirit world actively teaches and helps Aang who respects it, while the firenation abhors whatever it cannot extract and use, harming it.

The constant involvement of the spirit world throughout the story was enough for me to not be surprised when Aang once again found himself accidentally in the spirit world (though with the avatar state currently blocked that adds another dimension of should that still be happening?) The lion turtles being involved felt like an additional spirit guide for our VERY spirit connected Aang.

However, in pondering how I could see the story otherwise ending here are the options I see (though I don't personally think they fit as well. They either have pieces I think the current ending does well anyway, or would hurt a different part of the finale, or it's a case of wanting something darker than an at the end of the day kids show will allow)

here's my pitch

Aang does not meet the lion turtles. He goes on his swim, comes back saddened but determined to kill Ozai. Maybe he enters the spirit world and sees Gyatso's final moments of self defense and feels he must do it. This leads to

He does kill Ozai---this could be done in the moment of the avatar state returning, he sees the other avatars support, and the action is not just his own, it's everyones, relieving him a little bit of the guilt by spreading it to his past lives. I don't think this is different enough from Aang's previous loss of control with the avatar state

He does kill Ozai, no avatar state---he's so spiritually torn up about it he doesn't avatar state do it, he calms down like in the show, but knows he must live on. His final growth against running from his problems is taking absolute responsibility for his own (and by extension his culture's) survival, even if he is forever changed. This one is somber, perhaps more grounded, but I think the energy bending communicates the same taking responsibility for his survival and his roll as avatar, but in a way that is less dark, and easier to do on a kids show. That might be the ultimate limitation, but I explore it a bit more later (Side-note: this version also does better if Hama gets a different path, getting a chance to teach Katara something additional to blood bending, showing retention of something other than cruelty when forced to survive at any cost, gets to use blood bending for something other than pain and torture.)(Maybe Hama and Jet get a chance to funnel their rage into more effective attacks living and working with the white lotus in my mind idk. They both have a lot of justified pain and amazing skills, they should get something better than dying in police custody and vaguely dying after his mistrust of Iroh and Zuko and worry about fire nation attack is shown to be misplaced at that moment but justified. Hama would be a great foil to Iroh, but that's a different ramble post to make)

He doesn't kill Ozai---he calls on his friends and ultimately we see that the advice he was not given by his past lives was rely on others and build a team. This is hard cause everyone else in the finale fits in their job really well and I don't want them to be stuck being aang's lacky for a last minute ozai kill, that seems like a worse deus ex machina than the turtles tbh. I don't know who could kill him where it would be satisfying...... The world, beginning with sokka and katara have risen to protect the last airbender I guess.

He falters trying to kill Ozai and dies.---killing is also a new tool, see below. The team swoop in too late and take Ozai out with an ultimate victory, but with issues of martyrdom and etc. otherwise posited. this one sucks cause either there is no more avatar, so the world has to do it's own work and an era is over, or there is no one to teach airbending to the new avatar born. The world must gather to do a better job for the new one... Also I think it gives a message about airbenders being ultimately weak that i don't love??? idk. We'd probably get some heart wrenching scenes of Aang getting rest and the new avatar being found and cared for by the gaang but again, not kid show material to kill your protagonist really and I don't love it for other reasons. is killing not a new tool? I've had several people I've talked to point out very probable deaths of folks while Aang is in avatar state rage, so why is he not killing people now?? But I don't think Aang has ever killed someone intentionally, so for him, killing is also a new tool, just as untested as lion turtle energy bending, with the same metaphor of the will and hope of a survivor against a force trying to erase them, just a lot more real and dark for a kids show. Again Hama and Jet being used and respected more brings learning to kill into the picture, but even Katara did not kill the man she went out to exact revenge against, so the show at large doesn't have a lot of interest on dwelling on that question of "this is when killing is justified". The show must be batman, otherwise it has to get much more complex about how it makes those decisions about on screen death, violence, who decides, etc. I think people's dissatisfaction with the lion turtle ending is ultimately totally justified. I think there is a reason moments like zuko and azula's agni kai get shared more often than the final energy bending scene, it does feel more grounded in what we know about these characters. However, I don't think that the turtles were so out of the blue to break the immersion in my experience, and I do think that Aang asserting with energy bending, in a controlled personal/non avatar state where he won't accidentally kill, where he wills that hope and his own survival will triumph, that he IS as powerful as he needs to be, is a good ending. It's an ultimate expression of not just all the bending weapons he could use, but of channeling spirit power, his connection to the spirit world where all other airbenders have passed to, where he has gained the most teaching, of how he's grown up. It is not just him choosing the "vegan option"(though that is hilarious). I think it is a conclusive narrative for him. He followed his talents of answering the spiritual call he hears (instead of running from his responsibility as bridge and protector of the world), learns something that will take incredible spiritual and emotional control to use (instead of losing control of the avatar state), demonstrates he DOES have control of the avatar state (by turning it off at the key moment), then uses his own energy (without distraction or sway of others), as last of his kind (but possibly connected to those passed on in energy and culture), to assert that he Will survive, by his own responsibility and hope, preserving an adult version of his ideals that give him said responsibility and hope (his new solution is not passive, is pacifism is not dodging but engaging on his own terms with a power large enough to make a difference). Whether this bears out when considering whether we should be pacifists when facing oppression is a different story. We aren't the avatar, and this is a children's show. But I think the ending holds water well enough, even if it leaks.

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