#I do study this professionally

[lizzyscribbles]

Okay but can we talk about the amount of electrolytes (sodium specifically) that Bakugo must need to consume to exist??

Weird thing to fixate on, I know, blame my degree, but think about this: His quirk relies on his ability to sweat, which means the more he sweats the more he can use it. The main thing you lose when you sweat is water and sodium, the longer you sweat, the more those leave your body, that's common sense. Sodium helps you retain water and maintain the fluid balance inside and outside your body, which is why you see it hanging out with water so much and why it's such an important electrolyte that gets lost easily. Yes, technically, you also lose magnesium and potassium, but you lose less of those in sweat than sodium.

Most people don't actually need to supplement electrolytes, even those who exercise regularly, (this is excluding those with illnesses, just considering the average person here), you can get what you need from plain water. Even some athletes don't necessarily need to, it tends to depend heavily on how long you exercise, which is why you see people who do ultramarathons or ironmans downing them. There's ways to test whether or not you actually need them, but suffice it to say, more often than not, just drinking normal water is perfectly fine.

But Bakugo?? There's no way that boy doesn't burn through sodium like it's a fucking competition.

See, the key to whether or not electrolyte supplementation is needed is often found in how long you exercise for, as well as the environmental conditions. Say, if you're exercising outside in the spring for like, thirty minutes to an hours, just water is going to be all you need. Contrast that with a hero course student who likely exercises excessively, multiple times a day, every day, and has a quirk that relies on sweat. That is a recipe for ✨disaster✨ and you know what I don't see on his, or LITERALLY ANY OTHER HERO'S, costume??

A WATER BOTTLE.

I don't care if it ruins the aesthetic you're going for, dude, get a freaking water bottle and some little electrolyte packets before you pass out. How have any of these kids not thought of having some form of water on them while hero-ing?? Like y'all gonna be out on patrol for HOURS without any source of hydration? What a great way to die!

Honestly though, how many times do you think Bakugo just keeled over as a kid? Like dehydration can be a sneaky little shit, and with a quirk like that I'm sure they became besties.

Honestly, I wonder if he does actually carry electrolyte drinks and packets around with him because of that. Like, Izuku had to drag his ass back home too many times while they were out playing as kids and he got tired of it so he spent forever researching different electrolyte brands and sleuthing out which had the best water to sodium to sugar ratio (because you do want some sugar in your electrolyte drinks, the sodium uses it as a quick transport to get where it needs to go) for optimal rehydration. And now he's like, hyperaware of the symptoms and anytime his classmates look even a tiny bit like they might be dehydrated he just storms up and starts throwing electrolytes at their face like:

"DRINK YOUR WATER YOU IDIOTS, DO YOU WANT SURVIVE THE FUCKING LEAGUE OF VILLAINS JUST TO DIE OF DEHYDRATION?? THAT'S FUCKING PATHETIC. SIT DOWN AND DRINK THAT BEFORE YOU PASS OUT, DUMBASS."

All while violently shaking a water bottle with the electrolyte powder to shove down their throat.

Aggressive love, yk? At least he's trying.

[malacandrax]

[radicalfemimist]

I don’t think we as a society talk nearly enough about how intricately connected cats and women are. cats are associated with women so heavily, not just in English but in other languages as well. the stereotype of the ‘crazy cat lady’, the fact words to refer to cats are often also used to refer to female genitalia, ‘cat fight’, ‘catty’, etc.

Cats have suffered alongside women, too, which is not something I have seen brought up. Cats were targeted during the Witch Hunts as well, and suffered similar fates as the women they hunted. During this time, cats were nearly driven to extinction, and the mice and rat population go out of control— which is believed to have heavily contributed if not outright caused one of the most famous plagues.

To this day, I think we need to analyze if it’s truly a coincidence that cats are often portrayed as mean or uncaring because they do not behave the same way as dogs— “man’s best friend”— that their boundaries are violated for fun and then people criticize the cat for reacting, for self-defense. They will mutilate a cat so it cannot defend itself, and then abandon it when it is understandably upset, when it can no longer feel safe.

If you look at the statistics, more cats enter animal shelters than dogs, and tend to stay for longer. Personally, my local humane societies seem to have almost exclusively cats. In part, this is because cats are more effective at reproducing than dogs, and there are very little if any resources dedicated to to TNR. This is also because people will not spay/neuter their cats, and then will abandon the cat and/or just the kittens.

I do not think it is entirely coincidental that cats are so heavily associated with women, and they are villainized for not being dogs. That dogs are called “man’s best friend”, but somehow that does not mean cats are called “women’s best friend”— instead diamonds are, for whatever reason, despite women’s shared history with cats, and shared experience of being villainized for having boundaries. They are made the villain for being cats instead of dogs, they are called uncaring and “assholes” because the way they show love is not identical to the way a dog does.

I feel like there is no way it is entirely coincidental, the way cats are hated and the way they are so heavily associated with women, with females.

[felondese]

coping by coming up with now-possible world states since our choices won't be referenced one way or another in dav. realizing that actually, i'm not limited now by canon options. the choices can be whatever i fucking want. or don't want. they can be fucking bonkers off the wall and if it's not referenced in game, it can be true and unquestioned!

yea i'm shipping everybody and bioware can't tell me it's not canon in my world state

[tosteur-gluteal]

Again, gouache painting I made to relax

[thebroccolination]

THE EX-MORNING SERIES CONCEPT

By now I think many people have heard that KristSingto’s upcoming series is an original script that was written for them. What we also have confirmed is that it was written about them.

[source]

KRIST: This series was written by P'Backaof and directed by P'Lit where they created this script from the start deliberately for the two of us and they got information for the characters etc. from KristSingto directly. In the series, the name for P'Sing is Tamtawan, and my name is Phatapi. And Tamtawan Tamtawan and Phatapi are KristSingto themselves.

INTERVIEWER: Does that mean you play yourself?

KRIST: [laughing] Yes, we act as ourselves, so it's not difficult at all.

Today, Aof elaborated on his part on Twitter:

[source: @backaof]

[translation: @_beinglistener]

And Jojo added:

[source: @jojotichakorn]

[translation: @_beinglistener]

So, two gay men are the leading creative minds behind KristSingto’s comeback series. Time to study up on your KristSingto history, kids. \:D/

Long live sanctioned RPF. 🎉

[subsequentibis]

i've had this thing for a little while where i'm like. fuck! a lot of the artists i look up to have really thin, precise lineart. i need to start using thinner lines so i can get the accuracy and detail and realistic, correct anatomy, and it makes you have to get better at colors because the color has to carry the piece more when the lines give them more space between, and it's made me a lot more critical with my work because i instinctively go for big thick linework, and my usual strokes look sloppy and disconnected when i use thin lines.

and then i realized it was also making me miserable and not want to work on anything, which was really getting in the way of doing art in the first place. so i cranked that brush size back up and it just feels good and easy and flowing again, and like. yknow. there's working towards improvement and then there's stalling yourself out because you're too focused on arbitrary measures. i think i'm gonna be happy with my thick lines for a bit.

[stuckinapril]

I think there’s something to be said for the fact that I used to dread presentations when I was younger but now plan to go out of my way to sign myself up for them so I can improve my public speaking. Me from not even two years ago would’ve never. But now ?? The more the merrier let me at them

[beguilingcorpse]

What are your thoughts on Muir's approach to plurality in TLT? I'm in therapy for DID and something I realized lately is that this book series has been instrumental in me understanding and accepting myself (and in explaining my relationship with my alters to others who have read the book).

Especially with the Paul thing. Especially with Pyrrha and G1deon after the latter's death. Especially with Nona feeling brand-new and still at the mercy of everyone's expectations of Harrow. It's not a 1:1 but I could seriously write essays about the two-people-in-one-body phenomenon you see so often in these books.

i should say up front that i am by no means a professional and that i do not have a dissociative identity disorder. but based on what i know about the lived experiences of folks with DID it seems like muir put a lot of care into depicting plurality and situations that are analogous to the real phenomenon of living with alters. i agree that i doubt anything is really intended to be a 1-to-1 match-up (as in, i don’t think muir set out to write a story ABOUT living with DID) but she’s spoken before about her own personal experience with psychiatric disorders and how that’s echoed in harrowhark, and i think that she recognized how much people with DID would relate to her characters and it seems clear to me that she really put the research into making sure that the experiences were accurate. the memory loss, switching, navigating a host body as a new alter, and paul’s ‘integrating’ especially seem like they were written with care and compassion in mind and it’s very refreshing to see media that treats DID as a lived experience that real people navigate as opposed to the common way that it’s treated in pop culture (i.e. split) which just sensationalizes and stigmatizes it

[cloudstarcats]

YOU WERE WRITING POETRY IN MY REBLOGS BRO. I SEE YOU!!! I SEE YOU!!!

ajsdkashdkjahsdkja yeah lol, I love ur post and thinking about ratio's love for humanity/life vs his desire to be recognized for his genius makes me sentimental af about him,,,

the push and pull of wanting to test the limits of the universe that he holds back not because he doesn't think he could accomplish it but because to do so would shatter the line he has drawn between his own self and the life he wants to keep out of harms way. Is is so much of a doctor, knowing that he could push past the boundaries of humanity yet to do so would discard the very thing he swore back when he first learned medicine, "Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient"

And he is such a man of principle, a man who sticks to what he believes to be true, to himself, that to cross that line and break that oath would render him the greatest fool in the universe.

And it must weigh on him some nights, like all choices weigh on a person, when he thinks of a way to solve a problem but knows that to do so would cost him his entire sense of self. To wonder why he can not be like the other geniuses, who create so much, but then to almost be upset with himself for even thinking that to be like them would be better, to disregard the feelings of others, to put yourself on a pedestal above the crowd in a way that is done not to be a leader but to be separated, divorced, from the public-

Herta does not teach on her space ship, she leaves her scientists to think of her as their own god, to worship her- Ruan Mei leaves her sentient creations behind, she tests them with knives when she knows they can feel pain-

Ratio could never do such a thing. Ratio spends his time as a teacher, though he is seen as the professor many want to avoid- there is no doubt that he teaches. He shares his knowledge, he provides a space for growing minds- he is not harsh because he does not care, he is not harsh because he sees his students as beneath him- he is harsh because they are students, and to learn is to struggle; to not be hard, to not push them, he sees that as his failure.

How could I ever hate him? How could I hate a man who does a job that perhaps harder then just spending his days on trips and researching in a lab- how could I hate a man who years to cure ignorance because he truly wants to improve the world, how could I hate a man who loves so deeply that it is the sole reason he will never be recognized by Nous; the being who has no room for caring in it, who will never cast his gaze on Veritas Ratio, though the man has done enough to deserve it.

How could I ever hate him? He who welcomes anyone willing to learn, who encourages thought, who cares. So much. And who suffers for it, in his mind, unaware that what he lacks is minimal to what he has; his burning love for life.

[too-many-rooks]

Thomas Levin as Jannick in 'Baby Fever' (2022)

Continuing my whistle-stop tour of Thomas Levin's career for gif making practice, this time where he appears as the manager/owner(?) of a sperm bank.

(He hates his incompetent coworkers so much)

[hypokeimena]

being a jewish ancient religion (post-temple judaism / hb+LXX+rabbinics) studyer is so funny because people will say stuff about the bible and i'll be like "well that's simply just not true" and then i remember about. like. christianity

[serpentinegraphite]

...re: your tags on the WFA Jason crowbar incident -- might one be directed to your referenced essay?

Since it's been a min, here's the DC meta post this ask is referencing.

I thought it was on my blog, but I haven't been able to find the essay in the weeks since this ask came in? It might have been a tag rant more than the proper essay I thought I had posted. Or I might have been thinking of a broader and more general essay on the current trauma in fanfic portrayal, which I have definitely posted on this blog somewhere and in several friends' inboxes.

The gist of the essay is that a) fandom as a whole has a tendency to treat panic attacks/flashbacks as the Only and Right Way to experience trauma, even though that's by far not universal and b) will apply this even to characters who have canon trauma and show specific trauma reactions!

With Jason Todd in WFA having a Crowbar Sound Flashback, it's a perfect microcosm of both! The problem, therefore, isn't necessarily WFA being Uniquely Terrible and Inaccurate; WFA just exclusively plays with a lot of softball, fandom-popular tropes, so it remains popular even and especially with people who aren't super familiar with the canon. And because WFA thrives on softball, popular tropes, of course it's going to pick up on the Best Way To Write Trauma.

The essence of the problem is actually the way trauma symptoms in fanfic are homogenized to the most palatable, most sympathetic reaction guaranteed to woobify even the most hardened crime lords and war criminals: a panic attack. But not ANY panic attack! Specifically the hyperventilating on the floor, curled up in a ball kind of panic attacks! (Characters who lash out in anger when they're scared? Characters who shout mean things? Not anymore! Now they're hyperventilating on the floor and they need tender care and possibly a hug.) The momentary full helplessness is integral to creating a miniature h/c journey for the characters (panic –> helplessness –> rescue –> bonding).

Panic attacks actually have a pretty wide range of symptoms! Sometimes they're focused more on derealization reactions or heart racing (loads of people irl end up in the ER thinking they're having a heart attack, when it's actually a panic attack).

This specific portrayal of trauma as panic attacks is, I think, most egregious with characters who would actually fucking die if they had this exact trauma response. E.g., Jason Todd, who infamously both commits crimes and fights them. If he has a panic attack at every scum bag who waves a crow bar at him, he's probably getting beaten to death with a crowbar again. If even one of his regular criminal contacts or enemies catches wind that he has a crowbar panic attack weakness, he's dead! And this could be played for drama in this kind of fanfic, but it never is. (Because drama isn't the point, quick and dirty h/c is.)

Distilling his trauma about dying into panic attacks dismisses his entire history and canon trauma response (rage and vengeance and trying a completely different tactic from Batman to better the city of Gotham when the Red Hood is being a good guy and not just being a crime lord for profit). Here is a solid discussion on how Jason reacts to his own death (I'm new here and this essay is already long lol, I'm not citing whole comics runs or anything myself), with a great addendum from Ragnarok-hound in the tags on the Doylist reasons for why the canon goes over Jason's death again and again anyway.

The problem further stems from everyone learning panic attack symptoms from a combination of personal experience (which for the AO3 crowd in the shippy tags does not as often include people with uh combat or crime experience) and actual mental health web resources, so any panic attack scene reads like it was written by someone between high school and college age checking off a list of psych textbook panic attack symptoms. So it makes sense why they would go with the thing that is easiest to write for them and stick with the approved symptoms they know will garner the most sympathy from the audience and, importantly, other characters in the scene. E.g., to return to bullying WFA's portrayal, having Bruce arrive to tell Jason everything will be okay and fix everything.

(I think ymmv more on Bruce portrayals, depending on Your Preferred Batman, whether that's the corresponding era of comics with Red Hood, the animated series, or some campy/classic live action Batman portrayal, but one thing that is pretty consistent in every Batman media is that he's not fucking great at feelings, so even with a generous reading, WFA simplifies a lot of fraught history between Jason and Bruce here. Further, I could write an entire second essay on how bystanders in fanfic always have the perfect response, to either use the right therapy speak and handle a panic attack perfectly or hug the person to help them calm down or what have you, but this is long enough as it is. To be brief, though: sometimes, especially in a situation like Jason and Bruce's, it's perfectly normal to see someone panicking and then also panic and fuck things up even worse! It's also common to feel frustrated or tired of seeing someone panic over the same thing! Like I know fanfic and WFA are wish fulfillment, but like. There's a lot of nuance and basic trauma understanding missing here.)

And that brings us to another point, which is that PTSD triggers don't necessarily manifest as anxiety disorders and textbook panic attacks. I mean, this feels obvious, but there are a lot of ways to experience PTSD! and that's the thing about Jason Todd! He has trauma, not an anxiety disorder! While panic attacks as the default and most common trauma reaction are very common in fanfic, it's not like even the top most common trauma trigger reaction? And it's weird that it's everywhere like this. Trigger responses have a wiiiiide range, e.g., nightmares, lashing out (the Netflix Jessica Jones show was especially good at this actually! Billy Hargrove on Stranger Things is a fucking perfect example too), dissociation (The Raven Cycle books do a great job with this, and then the fanfic forgets that it happened entirely), or simply activating one's fight or flight instinct (and we've seen with Jason, it's often a fight instinct!). There are probably also loads of Batman comics exemplifying each of these variations, but a) as stated I'm new here, I don't have comprehensive citations for every character (yet) and b) I really want to illustrate how fanfic specifically keeps sticking to one particular portrayal in a way that most canons don't.

Jason Todd can be easily written as having a Specific Traumatic Incident (dying hideously via crowbar) or having complex PTSD (little daily bullshit! you can do an entire deep dive on complex PTSD resulting from poverty, homelessness, and regular repeated exposure to violence as a child e.g. by being Robin, which is not even getting into the stuff you can gather from popular hc/later retcons about his mom's drug use or how his dad's working for Two Face and getting sent to prison might have affected him; another example it's a common hc that he's straight edge because of what drugs may or may not have done to his mom depending on the canon you're working with, but I don't see a lot of people writing him with the corresponding control issues that often pair with that). There are a lot of options is what I'm saying.

WFA choosing to double down on the sound of a crowbar scraping (when also like he's the one using a crowbar for actual mechanic things in this scene, he's probably used to a variety of metal scraping sounds, okay I'm nitpicking here again) over any of the more complex trauma under his belt is very lazy writing. They're distilling his entire history to one specific sound that causes a very targeted panic response, which I know. Is the format. That's how WFA works, it's not supposed to be deep, but this is again, a pattern I keep seeing again and again in fanfiction (to bully another fandom: Stranger Things fans insisting that Steve Harrington is afraid of his own swimming pool when the canon strongly contradicts that; he's swim team captain for 3 years running after this AND that's actually Nancy's trauma reaction, not Steve's).

Again, the problem isn't necessarily specifically with WFA or people who enjoy it or with h/c. But, yeah, the crowbar scraping sounds panic attack is a huge disservice to Jason's character, and it's like a ubiquitous pattern of writing trauma in recent years.

[boolger]

Im going to a job interview today for a big girl job and idk what I’ve gotten myself into 🥲🥲

[cheekblush]

really starting to believe that psychic who claimed i’m cursed

[dontwanderoff]

it's interesting looking back on dale's apartment (cozy and warm and filled with SO much personality) and then knowing that when they move in together, you don't see much of a change to helen's house. you don't really see any dale in there.