#because it’s like okay what does this even MEAN narratively (that’s the brain diseases talking)

[vigilskeep]

SIGH. i probably should have started this first full run of dai with my trevelyan instead and i don’t know what to do about that now

[lorenfangor]

I heard that #40 was super homophobic :/ so I skipped it. But now your fic is making me want to give it a try. How problematic is it? Are the characters worth it?

Okay.

Okay.

Let’s talk about #40.

The plot of The Other (a Marco POV) is that Marco sees an Andalite on a video tape sent in to some Unsolved Mysteries-esque TV show, and he assumes it’s Ax and hauls ass to save him from being captured. Ax, being Ax, has videotaped the show, and they pull it up and Tobias uses his hawk eyes to figure out that it’s not Ax, it’s another Andalite - one without a tailblade. Ax is appalled at the presence of this vecol (an Andalite word for a disabled person) and we find out that he and others of his species have deep ingrained prejudices against at least some kinds of disabled people.

Despite this, Marco and Ax go looking for the Andalite in question because he’s been spotted by national TV, and they meet a second one, named Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad. The vecol is Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, a former fighter pilot with a reputation and Gafinilan’s coded-gay life partner. The two of them have been on Earth since book 1; they crashed their fighters on the planet and have been trapped there thanks to the GalaxyTree going down. Gafinilan has adopted a human cover, a physics professor, and they’ve been living in secret ever since.

Thanks to that tape, Mertil has been captured by Visser Three, and he’s not morph-capable so he can’t escape. Gafinilan wants to trade the leader of the “Andalite Bandits” to the Yeerks to get his boyfriend back; he can’t fight to free Mertil because he’s terminally ill with a genetic disorder that will eventually kill him, and (it’s implied that) the Yeerks aren’t interested in disabled hosts, even disabled Andalite ones. Despite Ax’s ableism, the Animorphs agree to work with Gafinilan and free Mertil, and they’re successful. Marco ends the book talking about how there are all kinds of prejudices you’ll have to face and boxes that people will put you in, and you can’t necessarily escape them even if they’re reductive and inaccurate, but you can still live your life with pride.

So now that I’ve explained the plot, I’m gonna come out the gate saying that I love this book. I love it wholeheartedly, I love Marco’s narration, I love Ax having to deal with Andalite society’s ableism, I love these characters, and as a disabled lesbian I don’t find these disabled gays to be inherently Bad Rep.

that’s of course just my opinion and it doesn’t overshadow other issues that people might have? but at the same time, I don’t like the seemingly-common narrative that this book is all bad all the time, and I want to offer up a different read.To that end, I’m going to go point by point through some of the criticisms and common complaints that I’ve seen across the fandom over the years.

“Mertil and Gafinilan were put on a bus after one appearance because they were gay!”

this is one I’m going to have to disagree with hardcore. I talked about this yesterday, but in Animorphs there are a lot of characters or ideas that only get introduced once or twice and then get written off or dropped - in order off the top of my head, #11 (the Amazon trip), #16 (Fenestre and his cannibalism), #17 (the oatmeal), #18 (the hint of Yeerks doing genetic experiments in the hospital basement), #24/#39/#42 (the Helmacrons’ ability to detect morphing tech), #25 (the Venber), #28 (experiments with limiting brain function through drugs), #34 (the Hork-Bajir homeworld being retaken, the Ixcila procedure), #36 (the Nartec), #41 (Jake’s Bad Future Dream), and #44 (the Aboriginal people Cassie meets in Australia) all feature things that either seem to exist just for the sake of having a particular trope explored Animorphs-style or to feature an idea for One Single Book.

This is a series that’s episodic and has a very limited overall story arc because of how children’s literature in the 90s was structured - these books are closer to The Saddle Club, Sweet Valley High, Animal Ark, or The Baby-Sitters’ Club than they are to Harry Potter or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mertil and Gafinilan don’t get to be in more than one book because they’re not established in the main cast or the supporting cast, I don’t think that it’s solely got anything to do with their being gay.

“Gafinilan has AIDS, this is a book about AIDS, and that’s homophobic!”

Okay, this is… hard. First, yes, Gafinilan does have a terminal illness. Yes, Gafinilan is gay. No, Soola’s Disease is not AIDS.

I have two responses to this, and I’ll attack them in order of their occurrence in my thought. First, there’s coded AIDS diseases all over genre fiction, especially genre fiction from that era, because the AIDS epidemic made a massive impact on public life and fundamentally changed both how the public perceived illness and queerness and how queer people themselves experienced it. I was too young to live through it, but my dad’s college roommate was out, and my dad himself has a lot of friends who he just ceases to talk about if the conversation gets past 1986 or so - this was devastating and it got examined in art for more reasons than “gay people all have AIDS”, and I dislike the implication that the only reason it could ever appear was as a tired stereotype or a message that Being Queer Means Death. Gafinilan is kind, fond of flowers, and fond of children - he’s multifaceted, and he’s got a terminal illness. Those kinds of people really exist, and they aren’t Bad Rep.

Second off, Soola’s Disease? Really isn’t AIDS. It’s a congenital genetic illness that develops over time, cannot be transmitted, and does not carry a serious stigma the way AIDS did. Gafinilan also has access to a cure - he could become a nothlit and no longer be afflicted by it, even if it’s considered somewhat dishonorable to go nothlit to escape that way. That’s not AIDS, and in fact at no point in my read and rereads did I assume that his having a terminal illness was supposed to be a commentary on homosexuality until I found out that other people were assuming it.

“Mertil losing his tail means he’s lost his masculinity, and that’s bad because he’s gay! That’s homophobic!”

so this is another one I’ve gotta hardcore disagree with, because while Mertil is one of two Very Obviously Queer Characters, he’s not the only character who loses something fundamental about himself, or even loses access to sexual and/or romantic capability in ways he was familiar with.

Tobias and Arbron both get ripped out of their ordinary normal lives by going nothlit in bad situations, and while they both wind up finding fulfillment and freedom despite that, it’s still traumatic, even more for Arbron I’d say than for Tobias. And on a psychological level, none of the main cast is left unmarked or free of trauma or free of deep change thanks to the bad things that have happened to them - they’re no less fundamentally altered than Mertil, even if it’s mental rather than physical. And yes, tail loss is equated with castration or emasculation, but that doesn’t automatically mean Mertil suffering it is tied to his homosexuality and therefore the takeaway we’re intended to have is “Being gay is tragic and makes you less of a man”. This is a series where bad shit happens to everyone, and enduring losses that take away things central to one’s self-conception or identity or body is just part of the story.

Also, frankly? Plenty of IRL disabled people have to grapple with a loss of sexual function, and again, they’re not Bad Rep just because they’re messy.

“Andalite society is confusingly written in this book, and the disability aspects are clearly just a coverup for the gay stuff!”

Andalite society is canonically sexist, a bit exceptionalist and prejudiced in their own favor, and pretty contradictory and often challenged internally on its own norms. In essence, it’s a pretty ordinary society, and they’re really realistic as sci-fi races go. It makes sense from that perspective that Andalites would tolerate scarring or a lost stalk eye or a lost skull eye, but not tolerate serious injuries that significantly impact your perceived quality of life. Ableism is like that - it’s not one-size-fits-all. I look at Ax’s reactions and I see a lot of my own family and friends’ behaviors - this vibes with my understanding of prejudice, you know?

“Mertil and Gafinilan have a tragic ending, which means the story is saying that being gay dooms you to tragedy!”

Mertil and Gafinilan have the best possible ending that they could ask for? They are victims of the war, they are suffering because of the war, they get the same cocktail of trauma and damage that every other soldier gets. But unlike Jake and Tobias and Marco, unlike Elfangor, unlike Aximili? Their ending comes in peace, in their own home. Gafinilan isn’t dying alone, he’s got the love of his life with him. Mertil isn’t going to be as isolated anymore, he’s got Marco for a friend. Animorphs is a tragedy, it’s not a happy story, it’s not something that guarantees a beautiful sunshine-and-roses ending for everyone, and I love tragedy, and so I will fight for this story. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it deserved better. But it’s not less meaningful just because it’s sad. Nobody is entitled to anything in this book, and it’s just as true for these two as it is for anyone else.

“It’s not cool that the only canonically gay characters in this series don’t get to be happy and trauma-free and unblemished Good Rep!”

This is one I can kind of understand, and I’ll give some ground to it, because it is sucky. The only thing I’ll say is that I stand by my argument that nothing that happens to Mertil and Gafinilan is unusual compared to what happens to the rest of the cast, and that their ending is way happier than Rachel and Tobias’s, or Jake and Cassie’s. But it’s a legitimate point of frustration, and the one argument I’ll say I agree has validity.

(Though, I also want to point out that I think there are plenty of equally queercoded characters in the story who aren’t Mertil and Gafinilan - Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all get at least one or two moments that signal to me that they’re potentially LGBT+, not to mention Mr. Tidwell and Illim in #29 and their long-term domestic partnership. There’s no reason to assume that the only queer people here are those two aliens when Marco’s descriptions of Jake exist.)

“Marco uses slurs and reduces Gafinilan’s whole identity to his illness!”

Technically, yes, this is true, except putting it that way strips the whole passage of its context. Marco is discussing the boxes society puts you into, the ones you don’t have a choice about facing or escaping. He’s talking about negative stereotypes and reductive generalizations, he’s referring to them as bad things that you get inflicted upon you by an outside world or by friends who don’t know the whole story or the real you. The slurs he uses are real slurs that get thrown at people still, and they’re not okay, and the point is that they’re not okay but assholes are going to call you by them anyway. He ends by saying “you just have to learn to live with it”, and since this is coming from a fifteen-year-old Latino kid who we know is picked on by bullies for all sorts of reasons and who faces racism and homophobia? He knows what he’s talking about. He’s bitter about what’s been said and done, he’s not stating it like it’s a good thing.

Yes, absolutely, this speech is a product of its time, but it’s a product of its time that speaks of defiance and says “We aren’t what we’re said to be,” and in the year this was published? That’s a good message.

tl;dr The Other is good, actually, and Mertil and Gafinilan are incredible characters who deserve all the love they could possibly get.

[creatingnikki]

What 2020 has taught me

1. Those things that seem like content for sci fi or pure fiction are actually things that can happen. To the entire world. Like a pandemic. And to you. Like a seizure.

2. Everyone is sad. Everyone is struggling. In different ways and in different measures. Makes no one special. But you still get to feel sad for yourself and be compassionate towards others. But it's also okay to draw boundaries because you're everyone too. Remember, not special? You're sad and trying to deal with it too.

3. Every job you have will not add value to your life. It will not teach you new things or give you people you'll want to stay in touch with. Sometimes some jobs will only be a season of your life. Even if the season lasts for over a year. It's okay.

4. You know how you thought picking a college and picking a major and picking your first job and picking a specific industry were all the career decisions you had to make? Yeah, no. It's never a one time thing. You could have a job as a marketing strategist for two years and then want nothing to do with it. And then you'll have to make another decision and work towards it. So I'd like to call it moves. It's like chess. You always have to make a move. And it always has to be strategic, yes. But the truth is in your 20s it probably won't. Even if you try. And as long as you're trying, you'll be fine.

5. You may have different sorts of friends like the one you only talk to about kdrama with or the one you met when you went book shopping alone and the friendship is all about books really. That's normal. But irrespective of why and how you became friends with them, if you consider them a friend then there has to be this basic sense of care, respect and empathy for each other. I don't care what people want to say. If you're faced with the worst trauma of your life, the least your friends can do is check up on you regularly. On text. And if they don't even do that then guess what? They aren't friends. They are acquaintances. Social media and quick promises make everyone seem like your friend. But they are not. They are just nice people who will be nice to you for specific periods and then wander away like you are a speck of dust floating in their journey.

6. You speak a lot and write and you express yourself and you’re emotionally mature but oh my god. You still hold in so much. You’ve known that at a subconscious level and over the last year people - experts - have told you that. You have also realized that you make your pain and sadness about pettier things because dealing with them, admitting about them, sharing that with your friends, is easier. You do that so that you don’t have to deal with the real stuff. Because it’s so damn painful. And you don’t know how to do it. Yet. Acknowledging is the first step anyway right? I know you’re confused about how exactly to let go of all this pain and sadness and feel lighter, and you know that talking to people really isn’t the solution, but I also know you’re smart enough to figure it out. 

7. Talking about being smart...you know you’re different than others. Better. Special. Smarter. None of these are the right words. And you never voiced this out until this year because you knew it would make you come across as narcissistic. Some would say it’s because you’re an INFJ. But my mother once said that this may be the first time we are consciously living life but our souls are old and so our instinct and the things we know but can’t explain are because this isn’t the first time for our souls. The connections we feel with certain people, the reason we are so different from our siblings who grew up in the exact same environment with the exact same opportunities, our sense of right and wrong...it’s all because our souls learn and grow with each time and that’s why we are who we are. I think that’s probably how I can explain what I have always felt. That I am living in a different universe than everybody but I have to pretend to be in this one and dumb my emotions and thoughts down. Maybe that’s because my soul has lived through thousands of years while most around me are living their 100th life. Or maybe I’m just narcissistic, who knows?

8. You shift between talking in first person and second person but that’s because that’s how you think in your head and talk to yourself and live your life. You ask yourself things and you accuse yourself of things and you apologize to yourself and you comfort yourself. I think that seeps into your writing and the changing of the voices. 

9. You always genuinely thought that you’d not be afraid of dying. And then what happened this October proved you shockingly wrong. I know it’s not so much being afraid of dying but the unbearable pain of knowing what that would mean to your family. So you have to be more prudent and less reckless with your life and the choices you make. 

10. Regret is not something that plagued you but this year the realisation and pain of giving away your favourite books from your own personal collection to people you care about as a show of affection and them turning out to be ass holes or losers has hit you so hard. So, yes. No more of that shit. I really fucking want my copy of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower back. UGH. With the childhood picture of me inside it! 

11. Sleeping at 5 am in the morning stops being fun or romanticised when you realise just how much harm it does to your body and mind. Literally every single disease and disorder can be traced back to a shitty fucking sleep schedule. It’s not just the hours you sleep but also the quality of sleep and the time you sleep at. So yes sleeping for 8 hours is healthy but not if that 8 hours is from 5 am to 12 pm. ‘Not a morning person’ is just another construct of capitalism and you don’t realise how many industries profit from having you believe that and staying up late or all night. Entertainment. Food. Alcohol. Pharma. Biologically and naturally you are a bloody morning person. And you don’t need 3 cups of coffee to begin your day or your phone notifications to get you to open your eyes and brain to wake up. 

12. Sometimes you really have to stop taking people so seriously. I know the idea of treating people as casual friends or entertainment makes you want to fight that concept but you know what? Some people like Pineapple are ever only going to be good for that. No matter how much they ‘grow and change’. So keep them in the background for whenever you want some entertainment or drama. But please don’t clear up your busy schedule to meet them or send them gifts on their birthday. 

13. If you don’t have the fruit juice or green juice within half an hour of making it then you are losing out on its most optimum health benefits. Or when you remove the white stringy stuff from oranges. That’s where all the actual nutrients are.

14. I am privileged and so are most of the people I interact with. The global pandemic has been hell for a lot of people around the world. Health wise. Financially. Losing people they care about. But I was blessed enough to be safe at home and have a job that I could smoothly do from home and not have a pay cut or 4-hour long Zoom meetings. So honestly when my friends tell me 2020 has been bad I have to stop and ask them why? Yes, the crippling uncertainty and anxiety is not something that can be undermined. But most people I know had very great positive life-changing milestones this year like moving away to another country for college or taking their first solo trip or getting married. So I have to ask them. Because I am not going to agree that everybody’s 2020 and pandemic narrative is the same. 

15. Money gets spent really quickly. When I left my job earlier this year because of personal issues, I thought I had enough savings to last me a year. Full disclosure - I mean to last my personal expenses because I live with my parents. But it didn’t even last me 3 months. And so to use money wisely and buy things that provide utility than instant gratification is something to follow. Also buying one pair of really expensive but quality shoes is better than buying 5 pairs of affordable but low quality shoes that will have a very short life and force you to buy more. I know that higher price doesn’t always mean better quality but sometimes it does. And as an adult now I want to do the whole quality > quantity thing even with things and not just people. 

16. Everyone in their 20s went through a crisis of what they should do with their lives and their careers and it’s not unique to the 21st century and the challenges of today. Whether it was Vincent Van Gogh in the 19th century or Sylvia Plath in the 20th, every single person, as brilliant as them went through the torture of making these decisions and living with their consequences. You may think I picked wrong examples for they both killed themselves but you know what? They were the people who really want to live more than anyone. They knew what life meant. And maybe if mental health help was more accessible back then their lives would be longer and more peaceful. 

17. Telling people everything is overrated. You don’t have to talk about every single thing that’s on your mind or that’s going on in your life. The good and the bad and the mediocre. You have to be mindful about how much of yourself you’re giving away. 

18. Re-watch Suits when people at work feel intimidating because the confidence + negotiation tactics that they show can actually work irl cos at the end of the day no matter in what position you’re dealing with people who have emotions and fears and insecurities and desires. You understand how to leverage that nobody can get the better of you. 

19. You belong to yourself. No matter how much you love someone or how much they have done for you or how much you owe them - you belong to yourself. You can’t live your life for someone else. Everyone belongs to themselves first. No relationship, no promise, no circumstance should make you feel like you have to give up your life and make it all about them. If and when the time comes to die for them, go ahead. Take a bullet. Donate that kidney. Write them in your will. But live your life for yourself. And let them live theirs. 

20. Twenty three was a challenging year. When it started you claimed the age 23 sounds boring and insignificant. Guess it proved you wrong. It hurt so much now. But that only means you’ll look back on it later and see how it added so much wisdom and resilience to your being. It doesn’t mean that it makes all the bad things that happened to you okay. Or that you should be grateful to them. Fuck no. It means that you should be kinder to yourself because at the end of the day, your mind and body find it in themselves to deal with whatever is thrown their way. They have your back. It’s time you learn to sit straight. 

[khadij-al-kubra]

Storytelling, Fate & Happy Endings

I’m still processing last nights episode (CR C2 Ep140), and much like every critter I’m SUPER emotional about it. But something about last night’s events and how they played out really got to me, not just as a fan but also as a storyteller. And even the day after, i was actually crying (still am crying in fact) more than i did last night watching it happen. At first i thought it was because i’m a fairly new critter and this is my first time watching a campaign come to an end. But the more i think about it and process, the more i realize that’s not just it. This effected me as someone who deeply believes in the power of storytelling and how it can not only effect but reflect the world around us. And because I have to get them out of my head, here are my thoughts on why last nights episode was so important, not just for CR fans but also as a an important narrative for right now.

...Yeah that’s a bit vague, isn’t it? Okay, let me explain. If you’re willing to take the time to read fellow Critters, I greatly appreciate it in advance. ^__^

WARNING: Major spoilers for CR Campaign 2 Episode 140 ahead. Also it’s gonna get kind of meta. And long. Because i have a lot of thoughts & feels.

So I think it’s fair to say that, as much as we would’ve been devastated by any of the M9 perma-dying in the last battle, part of us wasn’t expecting them all to make it out of there alive. Not even the players, I think, despite how much they likely didn’t want that to happen. Just look at the half-resigned way Liam talks about Caleb in the last few Talks Machina episodes. Or how, in game, Jester was fully prepare to die trying to stop the city from coming back. And for a while there, it seemed like some of them might not survive.

But then they did. Despite so many crappy rolls throughout the night they stopped Lucien, set free all the souls trapped in Aeor, saved Exandria, and brought each other back from the dead. Not only that, but they also did the impossible: They saved Mollymauk. Their lost friend who had such a deep impact on all of them even after his death. The delightfully charming asshole who was so full of joy and life and who, despite how the world treated him, was happily determined to leave every place better than he found it. Moreover, they almost didn’t succeed! But then they did, all because of teamwork, love and one last minute ditch effort ‘what-the-hell-have-i-got-to-lose’ dice role that none of them saw coming. And now they get to go home together, truly as The Mighty NINE.

Just this once, everybody lived! We got a happy ending!

And that’s HUGE in game...but also think for a second how that reflects outside of game too. Do you realize what a story like that means to people, especially given the year from Hell we’ve all had?

Think about it. This past year the world has suffered. We’ve all been impacted by the pandemic in some way shape or form, either on small levels or large. Our world has been at war with a virus that effected everyone and everything: Our sense of safety. Our health. Our economy. Our families & friends. Our freedom. (in the sense of our ability to travel & just be in close proximity to people without fear, but i digress) Deeply imbedded social and systematic diseases have been brought further to light in the past year and a half largely because of this virus. Some of us have lost people we love. Hell, the pandemic even effected the way that the latter half of Campaign 2 played out because of social distancing protocols. If you further compare this to Campaign 2, the world of Exandria was caught in the middle of a war that started because of social & systematic corruptions that had been rooted in two opposing kingdoms for years. And so many suffered and died because of it.

Then the Mighty Nein comes in. This ragtag group of delightful assholes with nothing to lose; these flawed but inherently good at heart and deeply human adventurers, broken and lost in their own ways, trying to make a home and family for themselves in a world that took advantage of them or left them alone or said they weren’t good enough...and they changed things. 

They grew. They fought back. They found moments of silliness and peace and joy and fun amidst all the strife and sometimes grief. Most of all, they tried. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of spite, sometimes even out of compassion, but mostly just out of love. And in the end, not only did they help people and stop a war for the sake of their loved ones, but they also saved their world from being destroyed by a rotted perversion of life from the past that threatened to consume everything they cared about. AND they STILL managed to bring everyone in their found family back to life. Does it erase the bad and sad things that happened to them? Hell no! But those things don’t negate the fact that in that moment, they made it out okay. That this was a victory and they won!

Think of what a story like that means to people right now.

I’m personally a pretty spiritual person, and much like our favorite clerics, I also believe in a higher power. But whether or not you also believe in a Divine being, the Universe or whatever, every D&D player believes in one thing: Fate. Luck. Call it what you will. But it was fate that made those dice rolls that saved everyone happen. It was fate that not only stopped Cognoza from returning, but also brought Jester and Caleb and Molly back to life, even when it seemed like it wouldn’t work. (and holy shit that gave me emotional whiplash!) 

After everything they went through, both individually and together, the Mighty Nein defied the odd and demanded that Fate let them save their loved ones. They demanded that the world give them back their friend; That they deserved to have their happy ending & get to go home alive together. Just. This. Once.

As a writer, I know firsthand that there are some stories we find and create ourselves, but then there are stories that have a way of finding us. Sometimes a story or world or character from somewhere in the Aether will pop into our minds one day and say, ‘I need your voice to tell my story.’ Maybe this is just me getting carried away with the meta brain again. And like i said, i’m a spiritually inclined person, so I believe in things like Fate and a Divine Higher power writing out the stories of the Multiverse. If you’re reading this (and thank you for taking the time to do so) maybe you do too. Or maybe you don’t. Either way, if you’re a fellow critter, then you’re clearly a fan of good stories and/or playing Dungeons & Dragons. So you know how fate/dice roles have a big impact on the outcome of a story, regardless of how tightly written a setup the dungeon master makes. Given all that and how organically stories tend to play out in D&D, I genuinely believe that Matt Mercer and the whole CR Team were meant to be conduits for a story where the flawed heroes save the world AND all make it home alive.

And I think Fate knew that we needed last nights battle to end like this. After all the crap we’ve been through this past year, we needed this happy ending, deserved it even! Not just us critters, the CR team too. As much as we all like to joke that Campaign 2 was secretly scripted, we all know that’s not true. Yes, the setup storyline and world were brilliantly crafted by Matt, and the character roleplaying is beautifully acted out by the team. But the twists and turns, the direction it goes, and how the game plays out is all up to fated dice rolls just like any other game. And something, some kind of force of luck, some force of fate, some Universal Divine DM out there made the roles happen the way they did last night.

It gave us a happy ending.

I believe that this was meant to happen; now of all times with everything else going on in the world. Amidst all this darkness and rot, both in game and in the real world, in the end of it all there was light and life. A reminder that sometimes people do live. They do get second chances. They do find a new family or reunite with old ones. That sometimes the world can be saved for a time, and happy ending do still exist. Even if it’s not broadcasted on the daily news amidst tragedy reports, or even tragedies that don’t get reported (which sadly are a lot, but again i digress).

Because the thing is, like Beau said, no one else will probably know they were heroes. No one will know what the Mighty Nein sacrificed to save all of Exandria. But they don’t need to know that for it to still be true, for life to happen again, and for a found family of nine broken people who love each other to go home together safe. It doesn’t invalidate that the good things happened. That at least for today everyone was saved. That flawed people were still able to do good because they tried. That they left the world better than they found it and got their own small but satisfying happy ending. Even if only for now, because we don’t know what’s gonna happen next Thursday. We don’t know what the future will hold for the Nein or Exandria when the Campaign ends or even when (hopefully) some loose ends will be tied up in later oneshots. But neither that nor the bad and sad stuff that happened beforehand in the game and in the character’s lives invalidates the fact that tonight they won. They lived.

So why can’t that be true for us in the real world?

I said earlier that, as a writer, I believe in the power stories have to not only reflect but also shape our world. This story is an example of why, but especially this episode, and that’s why i was so euphoric about the outcome. It wasn’t just a game for me, and i’m sure for others too. It was a much needed reminder that happy endings can still happen in real life, just as much as they can in stories. Even when everything seems dark and corrupt and rotten and hopeless, we can still keep fighting. We can keep trying. We can make new families and start over and be heroes in our on little lives in small ways. 

We can leave the world better than we found it. 

And maybe, with hard work, imagination, luck and a little Divine intervention...we can also get the happy endings we deserve.

[qqueenofhades]

So I’ve been thinking about the end of empires lately, the way they behave, the patterns that emerge, things like that. Yes, I know. What a lovely topic. Lol. My brain likes punishment. Shhh. Anyway, I was wondering what we have learned from past ended empires that could help us understand today’s world? Do you have thoughts? Any book refs on this? Thanks qqueen!

Aha, okay, I'll give this a crack. I'll try not to get bogged down in too much pedagogical woolgathering about how it is defined, determined, decided, or otherwise applied as an analytical concept, but we'll say that an "empire" is a geographical, political and territorial unit that comprises multiple countries/regions, is united under one relatively centralised administration, ruled either by one all-powerful figure or a small circle of powerful elites (usually technically answerable to the former), and held together by military, financial, and ideological methods. The basic model, as established by the Romans: take their sons to serve in the army, make them pay their taxes to you, and worship Roma, the patron goddess of the city, alongside their own preferred religion. Simple, straightforward, and lasted for five hundred years (almost a thousand if you count the Roman Republic which preceded it). We hear a lot in Western history classes about the "Fall of Rome," which is usually presented in popular narratives as the moment when everything went to pot before the "Dark Ages." Is this true? (No.) If so, did it happen because, as is often claimed, "barbarians/savages were attacking Rome and overthrew it?" (No.)

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire is way more than we can get into in the course of one ask, and there are other fallen empires to consider: for example, the Aztec, Ashanti, Russian, and British ones. It's a subject of debate as to whether modern-day America should be termed an empire: it fits most, if not all, of the historical criteria, but is an empire only an empire when it declares itself to be one? The long and sordid history of American imperialism, whether it's a rose by any other name or otherwise, is covered in American Empire: A Global History by A.G. Hopkins, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr, and A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn. All are worth looking into.

Overall, I think the basic similarities for what makes an empire fall would include:

it geographically overextends itself (Roman, British)

it is attacked by foreign rivals and internal enemies (Roman, Aztec, Ashanti)

it becomes massively financially indebted and deeply politically unstable (Roman, Russian)

it resorts to heavy-handed attempts to punish dissatisfaction among its people, spurring popular resistance (Aztec, Roman, British, Russian)

it is emerging from a period of long war internationally and internally that has strained it militarily (Roman, British, Russian)

it simply gets devastatingly unlucky thanks to a combination of unforeseeable external factors (Aztec, Ashanti)

And so on. Basically, the administrative bureaucracy gets too big to manage itself, the ever-increasing financial exactions can't pay for the necessary wars to maintain and expand its borders, people become dissatisfied both outside and inside the imperial system, and since no human institution or nation-state lasts forever, down it comes. However, I would caution against too much insistence on a total or categorical end of any of these societies. You've probably heard of Jared Diamond, who wrote uber-popular bestsellers including Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, focusing on how human societies survive, or not, from an eco-scientific perspective. However, Diamond is not a trained anthropologist, archaeologist, or historian, despite writing extensively about these subjects (he's a professor of geography at UCLA) and a whole bunch of eminent historians and anthropologists got together to write "You're Full of Shit, Jared Diamond," also known as Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire.

This book basically blasts Diamond (as he deserves, frankly) for removing all social/cultural factors from his analysis in Collapse and only focusing on ecology/science/environment. Geographical determinism can shed light on some things, but it's very far from being a total explanation for everything, completely divorced from the human societies that interact with these places. For example, did the Easter Island society of Rapa Nui collapse because the Polynesian people "recklessly" overexploited the environment (Diamond) or the impact of European diseases, colonialism, slave trade, and other direct crises, combined with the introduction of the non-native rat to the islands? (Spoiler alert: The latter. You simply can't write about these societies as if they're just places where things somehow happened thanks to natural processes, entirely outside of human agency and cultural/social/political needs.)

Anyway, the silver-lining upside, especially in an incredibly gloomy political milieu where the current American system was nearly overthrown by the last president and hordes of his fascist sympathisers (as they were talking about on Capitol Hill today, incidentally), is that the usual story of human societies is resilience rather than disappearance. None of the empires listed above, with the exception of the Aztecs (conquered by the Spanish, decimated by smallpox, and resisted by internal indigenous enemies) totally vanished. Their structures and ethos often just got a change of paint and name and carried on. For all the ballyhoo about the "Collapse of Rome," the Western Roman Empire had been an almost entirely ineffective political entity for years and the capital had already been transferred to Ravenna well before 476. There were outsider attacks, but Rome had weakened itself by a constant succession of military coups, palace intrigue, too-heavy taxes, and a simply too-vast area to effectively control. The Eastern Roman Empire, however (aka the Byzantine Empire) carried on being a major political player straight through the medieval period and only ended in 1453, with the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople.

Even the Ashanti Empire still exists today, as a small independent kingdom within the modern African country of Ghana. The Russian and British empires no longer exist under that name, but few would deny that those countries still retain considerable influence in similar ways. When people talk about the "collapse" of societies, especially non-Western societies, it also produces the impression that they did in fact just disappear into thin air, often as no fault of the invading Westerners. (Sidenote: I suggest reading "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native" by Patrick Wolfe in the Journal of Genocide Research. The whole thing is online and free.) How many times have we heard that, say, the Mayans/Mayan Empire "vanished," when there are up to seven million Mayan speakers in modern Mexico? If you're insisting that they're gone, of course it's easier to act like they are.

Anyway. I think what I'm trying to say here is that in terms of lessons for the modern world:

empires always (always) fall;

this comes about as some combination of the above-mentioned factors;

however, the societies previously organised as empires almost never disappear, so the end of an empire does not necessarily mean the end of its attendant society, culture, countries, etc;

empires often re-organise as essentially similar political units with different names and can maintain most of their former status;

empire is an inherently unequal and exploitative system that often relies on taxonomies of race, gender, power, and class, with the usual suspects at the top and everyone else at the bottom;

empire is usually, though not always, related to active colonialism and military expansion, and as soon as it cannot sustain this model, it's in big trouble;

the idea that human societies just disappear solely as a result of inadequately correct economic choices and/or ecological determinism is a lot of shit;

And so on. The end of an empire isn't necessarily anything to fear, though it can, obviously, be incredibly disruptive for those living within the country/countries affected. And until we learn how to move, as a species, permanently away from political and ideological systems that give so many resources to so few people and nothing to so many others, we're going to continue to experience this cycle.

[elyvorg]

So… I was talking about aspec V3 headcanons? Well then, let me lay down the facts.

Maki Harukawa is on the aromantic spectrum. Yes, even though she explicitly develops a crush on Kaito, and no, I’m not trying to dispute that part.

This is basically canon. Let me tell you why.

Maki is aro

For this, we need to consider the conversation Maki has with Shuichi in the first training session in chapter 4, while Kaito has temporarily disappeared to the bathroom. On one level, this conversation exists to be the only actual meaningful indication* that Maki has romantic feelings for Kaito until she goes and confesses them. Someone like Maki wouldn’t care about asking Shuichi if he “liked” Kaede (in that annoying loaded meaning of the word “like” that specifically refers to romantic attraction) unless she was trying to come to terms with the idea that she also “likes” someone else in the same way, and the only plausible candidate for that is Kaito.

But even more striking about this conversation, far more so than the general implication that Maki would only bother asking this if she happened to be crushing on a certain spiky-haired space dork, is the way Maki approaches and thinks about this whole topic in general. Take a look:

Maki:  “Well… I assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird. […] Liking someone you just met… especially in a situation like this…”

Shuichi:  “… Then tell me… under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?”

Maki:  “…Huh? I… don’t know. I don’t… really understand what that is.”

I, as an aromantic person myself, fully agree with Maki that it just seems weird to start romantically liking someone you’ve only just met, especially in a life-or-death situation where surely there’s way more important things to be focusing on. But apparently, most people do not find this thought weird at all – love at first sight is supposedly a real thing that can happen, and something something dangerous situations can bring out more hormones and passion???? sounds fake but okay – and so opinions like mine and Maki’s here are very much outliers.

And not only that, not only does the thought of crushing on near-strangers bewilder Maki to the point of disbelief, but she also can’t even come up with an answer to when crushing on someone would ever not be strange and bizarre. Like the whole concept is just alien to her. She can barely even wrap her head around how “liking” someone in that way even works. The very reason she’s even asking Shuichi about this is because she doesn’t understand why she’s feeling this way about Kaito.

This is how an aromantic person would view this kind of thing. It doesn’t sound even slightly like something an alloromantic person would say in this situation. That’s not up for interpretation – that’s just the truth about these views that Maki is expressing. Again: I’m aromantic. I would know.

Even from a character who then does turn out to nonetheless have a crush on someone, these statements are pretty much as canonically confirmed arospec as you can get short of them straight up using the word "aromantic" or a variant.** And, well, obviously Maki isn't about to go calling herself that. From the way she’s questioning this, she clearly doesn’t realise that her perspective is the outlier, so she’s probably never even heard of the term. Besides, she most definitely has way bigger hurdles to be getting over first in terms of her self-acceptance before she's ever going to particularly care about figuring out labels for her orientation of all things.

Aros with trauma are still aros

Now, granted, I severely doubt that Maki being arospec is what the writers intended to convey. Haha, deliberate aro representation in mainstream Japanese media, especially something more complex than vanilla aro, that's a funny joke. What the writers probably meant by writing this conversation I just discussed is to suggest that Maki is viewing things this way a result of her trauma.

But hey, guess what? Even if it is because of her trauma - and I'm not denying that it probably is - that doesn't make Maki any less aro. Some people are arospec because of trauma, and that's equally as valid a reason to be arospec as without. Maybe Maki would have grown up alloromantic if she hadn't been scouted as an assassin, but that's irrelevant, because that's not the Maki who exists now.

In writing this conversation, the writers were presumably attempting to communicate that Maki is so messed up by having been manipulated and abused and moulded into a soulless killing machine that she can no longer comprehend the idea of how or why anybody (especially not herself) would fall in love with someone when they'd only just met, or even really in any circumstances at all. …And in doing that, the writers unintentionally wrote a character who, as a result of her trauma, is aro(-spec). This is an objective fact about the canon story that does not change just because the writers probably weren’t aware enough about aromanticism to actually realise this.

Aros who feel romantic attraction are still aros

So, of course, Maki does in fact come to romantically love Kaito despite this. That fact becomes very important to her, and me lengthily explaining here that she’s actually arospec is not remotely trying to diminish that. But it’s also very important to me that people realise that Maki’s romantic love for Kaito comes from an aromantic perspective. She eventually chooses to embrace those feelings not remotely because it just feels to her like the natural way things should go, but despite every single conscious part of her insisting that this is weird and illogical and doesn’t make any goddamn sense to even be happening at all. She is not going to suddenly fall into all the boring romantic cliches and stereotypical alloromantic approaches to love just because she does in fact happen to be experiencing romantic attraction. There’s nothing alloromantic about Maki’s crush on Kaito.***

As for the specific flavour of arospec that allowed Maki to fall in love with Kaito anyway? This part is somewhat more up for interpretation because there’s no real explicit indication of this in particular, but I personally like to go with the idea that Maki is demiromantic. It feels appropriate for Maki’s character and trauma to imagine that she can only begin to potentially feel romantic things towards a person when she has an emotional connection with them – when she trusts them and knows that they trust her. It doesn’t necessarily have to take very long – she’d only been friends with Kaito for a handful of days before that telling conversation with Shuichi – and she may not even have to have consciously admitted to herself that she trusts them, but she needs to have that bond. She’s normally so guarded and has such strong automatic barriers up during her interpersonal interactions that seeing most people in a romantic light literally isn’t even an option in her brain.

Maki’s confession of her feelings for Kaito does read as rather strongly demiromantic, I think. She makes a point that this is about who Kaito is and what he’s done for her, before even getting to the part where she admits to having fallen for him. And she says she “fell for” him, not that she was always in love with him or anything to that effect. This happened somewhere along the way during their friendship, because of their friendship, and because of Kaito being his incredible trusting supportive self towards her when she needed it most.

Maki Harukawa is demiromantic, and she’s wonderful.

  ---

[some grumpy Amatonormativity and Aro Erasure 101 footnotes, can you tell I am bitter about this kind of thing]

(* When I say “actual meaningful indication” of romantic feelings, I mean something that isn't just the narrative infuriatingly pointing at things that are actually perfectly platonic in nature and going “ooh look how romantic~!”. Newsflash: worrying about somebody and wanting to rescue them when they're sick and injured and have been kidnapped by someone you think is an evil sadistic mastermind is not somehow proof of romantic feelings. That is a thing that friends do. And on the same note, teaching somebody how to build a crossbow is not some kind of deep metaphor for romance; it is literally just a lesson in how to build a goddamn crossbow. Maki would have done both of these things in exactly the same way if her crush on Kaito didn’t exist.)

(** It's exactly like how characters can be considered canonically confirmed same-gender-attracted when all they've done is show attraction to the same gender****, without them actually needing to explicitly refer to themselves with the word “gay”, or “lesbian”, or “bi” or whatever else. Anyone who tried to insist that was necessary in order for it to “count” would instantly be written off as homophobic. So if that’s the case, then a character explicitly saying something such as “I don’t understand what it means to like someone that way” equally constitutes them being confirmed aro, and trying to argue that it doesn’t “count” without outright hearing the word itself is, guess what…?)

(*** This also inherently means that there’s nothing straight about Maki’s crush on Kaito either, since societally-expected “straight” attraction is allo as well as hetero. I gather that some people in this fandom like to devalue and erase Maki’s crush (and potentially also Maki herself) because they feel that it’s an Obligatory Forced Straight Romance and don’t like that, or something along those lines. Well, good news! It’s literally not that, actually, because Maki isn’t straight.)

(**** …This only applies so long as it actually is very clearly romantic or sexual attraction and not just people deciding platonic affection is totally romantic thanks to the disease that is amatonormativity. Because, you know. That happens. Literally all the time. (Even from V3’s narrative itself; see footnote 1.))

[ayankun]

WandaVision episode 6

FIRST OFF

Whenever I go back to pause things for clues, and find exactly what I’m looking for, I don’t feel justified, I feel that much more insane:

It’s really hard to make out, but I had an alright look at it on my folks’ QLED, and it’s definitely a flying saucer doing an alien abduction on what looks to be a person inside an old CRT TV (with some kind of robot head/boombox on top???)  There are secret aliens in this show, you guys, the facts don’t lie.

HmmmMMMM I wonder if Agnes is as innocent as she looks:

Also, I didn’t see that she was wearing the brooch in this ep, and I was majorly disappointed in that.

Two things here:

No, that’s not a twins joke.

Another Moonmen Confirmed

I know green is his color or whatever, but that hat is literally 10 years ahead of its time

Also, I took the playing-DDR-at-home scenario at face value, and only on the first rewatch did I realize it was a very pointed turn-of-the-century reference.  I am an Old.

There’s a good, subtle Rule of Threes in this ep.  The Setup:

The Sokovian Halloween flashback works on so many levels.  It’s so funny:

The fact that they went trick-or-treating at all

The “speaking Sokovian”

The treat being a fish

They have to share the fish

The concept that this event gave them an infectious disease

“You probably suppressed a lot of the trauma” -- it’s a good sitcom joke but.  the trauma is the joke.  The joke IS THE TRAUMA!!!

Elizabeth Olson is a dream with all her wonderful faces she has this ep.

Vision’s unsettling passive-aggression-sitcom-cooperation whiplash is WOW, consider me unsettled!!!!!!  “Be. Good.”  UGH.

(Just noticed one here, but there are a number of continuity errors in this episode, enough to be distracting later on, and is this a deliberate choice?  Please let it be deliberate.  I didn’t watch a whole lot of Malcolm in the Middle, is it known for its continuity errors?

)

“It’s their first Halloween.” LOLOLOL they are TEN YEARS OLD and this is their FIRST halloween I LOVE IT

DOUBLE RED HERRING CONFIRRRRRRRRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agent Jimmy Woo accidentally identifying himself as the sassy best friend added 20 years to my life.

Found.  FOUND.  Not “created,” “manifested,” “willed into being using my insane witch powers.”  Third Party Confirmed.

I like that it’s the 90s and we can swear on TV now.  “Hell” “kick-ass” “damn it” “fu---dge”

I think the most biting part of Vision finding the whacked out folks is that the soundtrack just kind of ... ignores that anything’s wrong.  Yeah, it’s kinda-spooky Halloween music, but it’s still 100% in-world kinda-spooky-sitcom-Halloween-episode music. 

OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE AD:

As a 90s child, let me tell you, this is a blisteringly accurate representation of children’s marketing from the period.  The shark is wearing sunglasses AND he has a surfboard!!!  And he’s selling you yogurt of all things!!!!!  This is the supreme distillation of what being a child in the 90s was like.

How disappointed I am that they went with crab instead of lobster.

Heard it through the grapevine that this is a representative of Wanda’s imprisonment on the Raft.  That happened in Civil War, right?  So the next ad is The Snap?  We’re running out of iconic decades, too. so, hold on, new thought.

90s: Civil War

00s: Infinity War

10s?????: Endgame???? or?????????

??: Whatever happened between Endgame and WandaVision, given that the ads are stepping forward through Wanda’s IRL life events!!

I don’t want to know how many episodes are planned/announced, but I don’t know what to expect from the format after they run out of decades from which to draw.  Maybe there are only one or possibly two “sitcom” episodes left.  Maybe after that it just breaks down and they can pick and choose from the worlds/styles we’ve already established.  That’d be p neat.  A very unique kind of chaos.

god she’s so cute

Okay, somebody explain to me Pietro.  I honestly walked away from last week thinking he was just some townsperson chump, but then I was reminded that this is the Quicksilver actor from all those X-Mans movies I never watched, soooo people are saying Multiverse Confirmed?  But, if this is X-Mans’ Pietro, then why did he die the same as MCU Pietro?  Or is he literally MCU!Pietro’s corpse, given that he looked all dead same as when she saw Vision’s corpse?  If MCU!Pietro, then why different face???

????????????????

Also I found him highly suspicious, what with all the questions he was asking.  But the only sort of person who would truly want to know the answers to those questions would be someone who already had them ... so I think he was just asking on behalf of the audience, and the delivery was all wonked out.

Rule of Threes - The Reference:

Ok, real talk, whenever computers/networks/data/encryption/servers/mainframes et al come up in mainstream media, I just look away.  I don’t need the kind of psychic damage that comes with such egregious mishandling of the topic.

That being said, does Hayward having eyes through the barrier mean that he could possibly be involved in getting it set up?  Because look.  If Hayward-after-Hayward’s-Villianous-Ends is one antagonizing force, then is there really room for the Third Party (Confirmed) antagonizing force that’s lurking in the negative space silhouette of the Inciting Incident?  With Wanda as the Red Herring antagonizing force, that’s just.  There’s just too many villains, alright?  We gotta start merging these plotlines.

(then again, when I just said “eyes” I realize probably understanding the true nature of his new secret “CATARACT” project will clear a lot of things up.  I’ll wait for enlightenment)

Agnes’ license plate in this episode is 0A1-B2C, which I think is a reference to the way reality is getting pared down to bare bones at the edge of town.  Note that this is not the same license plate number as seen last ep.

ALSO, I drove home behind a NJ plate just an hour ago, and was staring at it for a long time, trying to fit it into the puzzle before A) realizing that this was Real Life and not part of the show and B) WTF is a NJ plate doing in front of me in California.  In any case, I can confirm that NJ plates do not appear to have this number-letter repeating format.

So let’s talk Agnes.

Demonstrated knowledge of the situation in ways others haven’t (”There’s the star of the show” “kids, you can’t control ‘em”)

Shows up when needed most (explained as being Wanda’s doing, but is it)

When Wanda was having her babies, though, who was trustworthy enough to be summoned?  Was it Agnes?

Wanted to babysit REAL BAD

Was in the opening credits framed possessively with the twins

Doesn’t appear to have an IRL identity according to Jimmy’s crime board

Keeps talking about her husband but we’ve never seen him.  Highly unlikely that he’s real

Was the one to find Sparky “dead” - internet thinks she was lying to Wanda about how or possibly if he was dead (I’m trying not to read the theories, so idk exactly what the angle is there)

In an episode where everyone is wearing their original comic outfits, Agnes is dressed as (and laughs like!) a witch

She name-drops Wanda as the one controlling everyone; Norm (or the guy playing Norm) only said “she” and “her” -- meaning Agnes?

Naughty

So we’re 99% sure Agnes is Agatha Harkness, right?  I never read no comics, so I’m taking the internet’s word for it, but from what I can tell, I think we must be right.  If that’s the case, then I’m thinking it’s not impossible for her to be pulling some strings around here (giving Wanda a justification for her “that wasn’t me” doorbell ring, for example, and pulling a double red herring on the fact that she shows up whenever the narrative Wanda her nefarious scheme calls for it).

To devil’s advocate myself, though, we also have Monica’s word that it was Wanda in her mind, lessening the impact of Agnes falsely confirming what Norm only implied.  Also she’d have to be acting for Vision’s sake (and ours) and, if so, then what did Vision’s brain-touch really do, and how did she know he’d find her there, and what did she intend as the result of that interaction etc etc.

If Wanda’s (or Wanda + Third Party Confirmed (Agnes??)’s) powers aren’t enough to sustain the simulation of life on the edges of town, how much worse is it going to be now that there is even more area to try to control???

I don’t know if this is strictly an intended read, but the idea of Halloween as a fun, scares-for-entertainment’s sake type holiday, the rounding off the edges of concepts like “skeletons and ghosts are what people are after they die, let’s decorate the town with them and have a good time” kind of is a haunting parallel to the nature of Wanda (et al) covering up the horrible truth of the situation with this happy-go-lucky sitcom glamour.

How much does one hate seeing Vision giving his life for the greater good (the greater good) for the second time?  In other news, I think I’m seeing some specifically Mind Stone type energy-colors coming off of him, and very little Wanda type energy-colors.  Third Party Confirmed.

Also, I was thinking from last week that perhaps Hayward’s Villainous Ends included capturing the reanimated Vision to be one of those Sentient Weapons his organization is all about, but I Do Not Think his reaction to seeing that sought-after prize disintegrate in front of his eyes really matches up with that theory.  Again, will be patiently waiting for Jimmy to check his email to see what CATARACT is all about!

Rule of Threes - The Payoff:

Also, anyone ID the movie playing in the background?

Ok, final thought.  I watched this about four times today, and on the big-ass TV at my parents’ house finally paused and got up close to see what that white shape is in the reflection.  Thought it might be a skull, but, it’s worse.

These caps do not contain enough data to verify my claim, but I PROMISE YOU it’s a TV

A square old thing with a round screen and antenna on top. 

I SWEAR to you, when I looked into the TV, into Wanda’s eyes, only to see the reflection of a TV, of her looking at me looking at her I had a visceral fear reaction.  Like.  LEGIT nauseous skin crawl.

(All the other episodes have ended with our POV as the fourth wall, from the general (or exact!!!) position their household TV is known to be.)

This is my favorite show Of All Time.

[indigoire]

Hey. I talk about suicide under the cut. Only read if you’re in a good place mentally, okay?

I have a huge amount of mixed feelings about “stay alive for others”, the narrative that mentally well people push onto those with suicidal thoughts. Like, “your family/friends love you” or “your pets love you” or “you would be missed if you were gone”. 

It’s a stopgap measure. It’s a temporary way to make someone rethink picking up a gun or knife or pill bottle or doing something reckless. It should only be viewed as a last desperate plea. 

Because then when the danger has passed the suicidal person is left with what? A huge amount of guilt, that’s what. The idea that they are selfish for wanting the pain to stop. The idea that their only worth is the value to their friends/family (which can be easily “fixed” by self isolation and lashing out btw). 

Give suicidal people stuff to live for. Stuff to look forward to. Things that their diseased brains won’t fixate on and torment them with. Superficial things. Promises. Hope. Dreams. 

“The new season of your favorite show is coming out in a few months.” “We have plans to travel to Hawaii in the future.” “I don’t want to miss the weekly d&d session.” “Spring is just around the corner, I want to live to see the flowers and wear shorts.” “I’ll get to see my dog when I visit for break.” “This movie I’ve been looking forward to comes out in a few weeks.”

Little things like that. Give them something to live for, that isn’t tied up in people’s feelings or their own self-worth, because I guarantee you their brain will torment them over those things. Like it already torments them. Of course I don’t want to kill myself and make my brother cry, but that thought of hurting him doesn’t help me in the long-term. What does help me in the long-term? Creating goals that don’t have a downside, looking forward to things that make me happy even when my brain rejects happiness, and genuinely wanting to live to see another day, if only because Black Panther comes out in February and I don’t want to miss it. Just an example, but you get what I mean. 

Give suicidal people stuff to live for, not more guilt to add to their burden. Thank you. 

[katieiscunning]

MTMTE #15: I see you have some nice robots there! I sure hope nobody MURDERS A BUNCH OF THEM.

Also Rodimus gets a blow job I guess?

Apparently the reaction to this cover was loud enough for word to get back to Alex Milne who had no idea what anyone meant about it being suggestive. I… am not sure about that. Also, yes, those are Overlord’s lips. He just... has really big lips? Like it’s canon? Like compared to any of the other robots?Which is something I personally don’t feel comfortable joking about because of the charged racist and homophobic history of such jokes? 

Hey did you know there’s like a story in comics as well as a cover? Weird. 

Our whole first page is a horribly slow montage of Chromedome trying to reach the door. 

It’s painful, an excellent representation of how he feels, and the very real impact of the slow cell. He eventually make it to the door just in time for CARNAGE

And then, of course, we go back in time 30 minutes to Whirl getting to shoot the big laser canon. He’s interrupted by Pipes, who’s trying to send a message home. As he leaves, he drives into someone.

There’s enough of him left to crawl to the alarm. As he goes, his broken brain starts to play out fractures of his message and it should be sort of corny but it’s so brutal and nasty and cruel and we are only 8 pages in and it works. 

We then, of course, go to somewhere else 30 minutes ago. Brainstorm’s office. Rewind’s there looking for Chromedome because:

We know this is because Domey’s been working with Brainstorm on Overlord, but it’s always nice when Rewind gets jealous. He’s one of the kindest characters in the book and it’s always good to see that he’s a mess too. 

Also Swerve’s there to trigger a metafictional bomb in his own face. 

And then the alarm goes off.

There’s a two page spread of other characters in the moments before- Rodimus trying to get Perceptor to talk without technobabble, Rung visiting and forgiving Fort Max, Tailgate making a secret present for SOMEONE before Cyclonus barges in- he’s discovered that they’re hosting movie night.

All of them end with that same red panel. 

And you know? This isn’t a new thing. We see this sort of narrative technique in movies a lot- especially disaster movies- but damn it is effective. And it’s scary too. Because this isn’t a bomb- it’s one guy. Using this trope here tells us that the scenario is just. That. Bad.

Overlord finds Ratchet first, but Ratchet is the crankiest old soldier around and manages to get in a chin shot. He’s semi-saved by Drift and the two signal Rodimus then prepare to make a stand.

We only see the aftermath.

Ultra Magnus takes him on, and he’s another big giant war bot so things should be different this-

Nope.

Rodimus, spurred into action, commands a charge. But Magnus is dying on the floor and nobody can save him. Drift signals the brig- we don’t see why yet- and Rewind tells Cyclonus that nobody can kill Overlord.

Meanwhile, Rodimus has been grabbed, and Chromedome finally reaches the deck. He gets a moment-long meeting with Rewind.

Then Fort Max charges into action! Chromedome and Drift discuss a mysterious back-up plan that needs Overlord downstairs. They manage to force/trick him back into the slow cell and start to close the door. Rewind, figuring out that Chromedome was behind it, has words for Chromedome, but Chromedome’s distracted.

But just when things look like they’re going okay, the door jams on Overlord’s sword. And there’s only one guy small enough to get through and pull it free.

Rewind acts without thinking about it and without hesitating. He even manages to make a bitter little joke with an old functionist saying. He gets through, frees the sword, and the door closes so hard that it takes Chromedome’s arm with it. 

They can’t hear each other. It’s just as heartbreaking as you’d expect.

Then, behind him, Overlord stands up. And Chromedome starts to run.

He makes it to the Bridge. He grabs Chekov’s laser canon from earlier in the issue. He mercy kills his own husband, who, because it was a slow cell, has been trapped in there for far too long already.

AND THAT’S A WRAP.

It’s hard to talk about this issue. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum- either in terms of narrative or social implications- but that’s sort of how I’ve been trying to review these things so far, so it deserves an effort at least. 

And honestly? The issue deserves that sort of analysis too. It’s a knife edge of a three-part tragedy- the first part the set up, the second the murder spree, the last, the sacrifice. It gives you everything you need to understand the central conflict between Chromedome and Rewind, with one starting, and one ending trapped in the same cage. Rewind’s selflessness and emotional intelligence gets to shine compared to Chromedome’s mistakes.

That’s what makes this story work, really. Rewind has agency here. Is he reacting to Chromedome’s mistakes? Yes, but he’s also choosing what to do himself. He doesn’t even hesitate. As he says earlier, he knows exactly how tough Overlord is, and he does what he does anyway. Rewind goes out a hero. 

Outside that, in the narrative, this issue gets the benefit of being the payoff for over a year’s worth of comics. It’s bloody and horrible, but it’s everything MTMTE has been building to- even if really it’s only the start of the climax of Season 1. We get Fort Max back in time for redemption and revenge. We get Ultra Magnus failing. We get Pipes finally fulfilling the tragic red shirt stamp that was put on him all the way back in the disease arc.  This is how you do action without forgetting that it’s people who make you care about what’s blowing up.

Buuuuuut

Yeah, so we had one gay couple in the IDW Transformers comics at this point. And after this issue, we have 0. Is that helped by them being the only romantic couple? Maybe, since at least they’re not being valued less than straight robots. Is it helped by Rewind going out a hero on his own terms (unlike the other major deaths this issue?) and not catching a stray bullet? Maybe, but he still ends up dead.

I get the narrative point of having Rewind die for Chromedome’s mistakes. And having the couple exist at all paved the way for the HELLA GAY Transformers comics we have now (like seriously so gay). If Rewind’s story needed to be pitched as tragic for that to happen-  which it’s possible it did, we all know how much companies love gay tragedies - then it was worth it.

But back when this came out, they were the only gay couple and there was no reason to think there were more coming. Ending that means something too.

So I can understand coming away from this crying, or angry, or anything in between. Follow your heart, etc etc. It’s probably going to end up getting lasered into space dust anyway. 

NEXT WEEK: FOUR HUNDRED FUNERALS AND NO WEDDING

[borisherrmann]

Episode 10: Thermogenic Supplements for Fat Burning

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Show Notes

The Palaeolithic diet and cardiometabolic syndrome: Can an ancient diet be the way of the future? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958818300144

Can omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids improve metabolic profile in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958817301179

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR): Mythology or polymorphism(ology)? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958817300058

Can methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) polymorphisms increase the risk of chronic disease, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)?https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958817300125

The effect of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on fibrin and thrombin generation in healthy subjects and subjects with cardiovascular disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25703517

Effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on platelet function in healthy subjects and subjects with cardiovascular disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23329646

The influence of diet and nutrients on platelet function https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24497119

The influence of herbal medicine on platelet function and coagulation: a narrative review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25839871

Comment on “Danshen and the Cardiovascular System: New Advances for an Old Remedy” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26951503

Effect of omega-3 fish oil on cardiovascular risk in diabetes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20534874

Diurnal changes and levels of fibrin generation are not altered by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). A randomised, placebo-controlled crossover study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22334531

Effects of continuous positive airway pressure on coagulability in obstructive sleep apnoea: a randomised, placebo-controlled crossover study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22334531

Podcast Transcript

Greg: Hi, welcome to the Body Science podcast where it’s all about being fit, happy and healthy. Today we have a very exciting co-host Dr. Brad McEwen, he’s a nutrition expert, naturopath, herbalist, educator researcher and mentor with over 19 years of clinical experience. Dr. Brad has a PhD from the University of Sydney, a masters of Health Science in human nutrition from Deakin and among his other qualifications include neuropathy, is that the right way to say it?

Dr. Brad: That’s it yeah.

Greg:  And sports medicine. He’s got a real passion for teaching and educating and has been working with our sales team a fair bit in that capacity recently which has seen our very excited, look with over 15 years of experience some of the things that have happened on the way and I just need to take a breath and reread this because this goes on. Brad received the urban hard Mamun Young Investigator award that was?

Dr. Brad: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Greg: From bases hemostasis?

Dr. Brad: Bases hemostasis and its very big award, it’s an international award to affirm research and education. And one of the exciting things is people from Princeton, and throughout Europe have won this award. So not many people from Australia so, I felt very excited,

Greg: Going to clap that one in?

Dr. Brad: Yeah so, it’s really exciting work.

Greg:  I have to cut you off there because I’m only half way through. You’ve also received an Excellence in practice lecturer for research of the year for the Dorothy Hall Memorial Award, did I say that right for the advancement of natural medicine in Australia?

Dr. Brad: Yep

Greg: That’s huge, this year was finalists for practitioner of the year in 2017 what does that mean?

Dr. Brad:  So, practitioner as I’m a naturopath nutritionist and herbalist so you get nominated from the work that you do we are coping with patients and you know in the public as well so, it’s quite exciting to be nominated. And last years also nominated for lecturer of the year as well.

Greg: You are a busy man.

Dr. Brad: Yeah, I’m busy I’m very passionate I love what I’m doing so you just keep moving forward it’s exciting times.

Greg:  So, let’s talk about some of your peer review and your journals, you’ve been so you touched areas of diet, nutrition, cardiovascular health, type 2 diabetes, there’s a whole lot of words here that I can’t even pronounce.

Dr. Brad:  That’s right so I have a wide range of different interests one of course the sports medicine sports nutrition, so we’re going to talk about today. As well as you know cutting metabolic syndrome which is all related to like blood glucose regulation and metabolism that’s a very big topic and we’ll be covering that too. And it’s sort of all these things relate to not just general health but  optimising health getting the best  out of everything each day.

Greg:  Love it so, today I’m around the topic of optimising health. I’m going to throw a little curveball at you I’d like to chat today about Thermogenics, is it for you, why do people take them who should take them you know?

Thermogenics are a massive category in sports nutrition is you’d be aware of. There’s a left and right side of defense-type to Thermogenics out there as well which will not worry too much about delving into what other people are doing but we’ll talk about we’re doing and obvious the product we make is called HydroxyBurn shred.

So, do you want to talk about the formula?

Dr. Brad:  Yeah that would be great. Firstly, you know when we’re looking for some kind of thermogenic what is a thermogenic? So, looking at the name of it, it just means genesis of heat, if you look at it that way. But when we’re looking at sports nutrition and performance and the everyday warrior kind of effect the thermogenesis is also building up metabolism activity you know sustainability getting to the end of the day and not feeling as tired, that’s the kind of things that thermogenesis works with as well. It’s that building up that metabolism. And when looking for a combination of you know different herbs and nutrients, one thing to look for is the quality of the formula, but also looking at the synergy of the formula.

Greg: Yeah nice.

Dr. Brad:  So, it’s a synergy you can have a lot you can have a really nice formula and you look at it and go what’s doing, you know what is this formula trying to do they’re just throwing in a thousand things. And looks on the label and a milligram of each or something like that, it’s not therapeutic it’s not therapeutically designed in any fashion.

Greg: Okay.

Dr. Brad:  So, yeah, we are looking at HydroxyBurn Shred like you said great product, we are very excited with this one over the years so it’s very good. One of the first ones I do look for as an ingredients garcinia, and it’s had its ebbs and flows, it’s been on tv shows the last couple of years has been on some TV shows and blogs and stuffs like

Greg: Famous doctor in America who pulled garcinia into the world.

Dr. Brad:  Yeah, yeah and highlight. And the exciting thing is I first worked in a health food store back in 1992, back in the olden days. And though they didn’t have garcinia but they had hydroxycitric acid. That does from the brindle berry at the time. So, garcinia is more of a potent form of the hydroxycitric acid. And the way how this works as it builds up the metabolism, thermogenesis, works with appetite suppression but, you will still eat but just not as much. It’s not like that pharmaceutical kind as well as you know working on the energetic pathways. So particularly fatty acid metabolism. And if you combine that with you know a good diet of carnitine, it’s that combination like I was saying synergy it’s that flow of the formula and looking at you know the dosage of you know acetyl l carnitine there’s four grams a day that’s a good dose, a good dose.

Greg: It’s one of the highest in the industry and I don’t think a lot of people actually understand what a clinical dose is.

Dr. Brad: And that’s the tricky thing, when you look at therapeutics and clinical dose versus something is just written on the label people get mixed up very easily. So, in this case if we’re looking at a therapeutic formula a clinical kind of dose, we need to look around the four grams a day because you’re going to get the results. And the way how this works going to talk about a biochemistry is in the body have like a Krebs cycle and the way I see that it’s like a big turbine on a plane. And it actually has a site I want to imagine it spin it. When that turbine slows down the machinery of the cell slows down you get tired overall, muscle gets tired, the body feels tired your mind gets tired and then overall you just feel you know really tired and fatigued. What acetyl l carnitine does it pretty much picks up the fats your fatty acids and drives it into the Krebs cycle, for is something they called beta oxidation. So, it’s like a side thing shadows are through most people look at you know glycolysis is a form of energy so, you’re just breaking down carbohydrates and glucose. On the side chain of that you’re breaking down fats and that’s part of your thermogenesis as well as your energetics. And this will give you your long-term stamina and endurance burning off the fats. And if anyone’s using this to shred to lose some weight etc.  and look good you know you need to be able to pick up those fats and utilise them more effectively and that’s where acetyl l carnitine comes in versus normal carnitine.

So, the normal carnitine if I can call it that, does a good job, acetyl carnitine drives it in faster and does a much better job at doing it. It also works with the mental side as we’re discussing earlier you know before the show. It’s a memory concentration and focus. So, when you’re training you’re working out and you may be in you know the Olympics, or comm games or some other event you want to be able to have that focus and drive and you’re go for gold, you know what I mean. And things like carnitine, acetyl carnitine particularly, gain that focus, gain that drive and drive it forward and your body follows. So, you can have the big heart and a good mind for it, the focus and then the body follows and you get through it. Fast recovery too.

Greg: Oh, to win too, fast recovery.

Dr. Brad:  Fast recovery because it’s allowing you to sort of pick up the leftover fats that’s in the bloodstream after the workout or after the event and you can burn that off so you get a better recovery.

Greg:  Other things we do look at is caffeine

Dr. Brad: Mm-hmm so got some caffeine right here for everyone to the headache a bit of caffeine each and way, how caffeine yes does work as a stimulant which is what everyone knows. But it’s also an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, there’s a lot of work with vascular blood flow. So that’s what a vasodilator is what it’s called so it opens up the arteries and veins get a circulation running more effectively. So, by doing that you can actually get these herbs nutrients to the target tissue faster, shovel it on get it in there faster. And caffeine yeah again it’s a mental stimulant so again it’s that focus and drive. And the best thing about this we’re getting a very good therapeutic dose it’s a perfect way to do it and it’s not going to give you the jitters. Like you feel to have a couple of coffees you get that sort of weird jittery feeling, these kind of with this product particularly I haven’t seen that with anyone okay and I’ve never seen that.  So, to me as I said it’s a synergy, it’s a formula and then we’ve got other elements in there as well and we’ll go through a lot more detail as well because I’ve it’s quite a great formula. Is we’re looking at tyrosine.

Greg: Tyrosine has really become quite popular in the last couple of years in sports nutrition so what do you think that is?

Dr. Brad: So, I think tyrosine is mainly used for like thyroid function so metabolism and which is true so what it does I want you to imagine your thyroid hormone. And as part of it you have a backbone which is a tyrosine then you have your iodine is attached. There’s something called t4 which is your normal form of thyroid hormone for iodine’s, then you have your t3 which is three iodine’s. And as part of that process and when you have a good nutrient flow particularly combine it with other formulas so we’re looking at companion products here you’re able to increase your metabolic rate, general metabolism. And a lot of people these days they feel tired, weak, sluggish they drag themselves out of bed the whole energy pathway systems sluggish, it’s just modern life you know. And if you combine it with again acetyl carnitine and other nutrients, you can stimulate that flow again get that energetic pathway up and running and the other thing at tyrosine does it works down different pathways for serotonin, melatonin. So, we’re looking at the feel-good stuff.

Greg: Yeah you got to feel good.

Dr. Brad: You have to feel good, you have to you know you have that drive and focus going. But also, as part of that you work with your daily rhythm. So, people think everything circadian rhythm, yes, we all hear about that but there’s also something called diurnal rhythm and that’s our day/night, hot, cold, it’s our everyday rhythm. Circadian rhythm is good because it’s 24 hours a day but at the right temperature everything doesn’t change it’s stable. But I don’t know about you that the world changes every day,

Greg: Every minute.

Dr. Brad: Every minute it’s changing. So, therefore if you regulate your diurnal pattern and its tyrosine is one of the nutrients for this, even acetyl l carnitine, caffeine works with it as well. So, some people and I have a little bit of caffeine before bed and you think also keep you awake and it’s like no because it actually gets into the system they say nourishes the system and when I wake up in the morning I’m firing.

Greg: Yeah okay.

Dr. Brad: So, it’s a combo kind of effect there. In this case here the tyrosine, serotonin, melatonin working with a thyroid hormone, so its metabolism but also to feel good. So, you are not on edge. It’s the perfect thing about it.

Greg: Well that’s good, is it, do you think it’s important to have the emotion and the mood pathways is that the word you use before?

Dr. Brad: Pathway yes.

Greg: Associated with a thermogenic?

Dr. Brad:  I think so because the reason being is we always hear about the mind-body-spirit. You know what I mean, there’s a lot of people talk about that or mental emotional physical and some people think of it as a little bizarre. Do you know what I mean? But I see as a whole and if you work on one part the rest of the body can follow effectively. So, if you can work on the mind/body/spirit, the mental physical, emotional, balance everything out perfectly you get better focus, better drive you’re moving forward in life. And like I said earlier is if you’re a weekend warrior, Olympic athlete or you know or just do a little bit of training just for physical health and well-being you know what I mean. The idea is if you actually maintain overall good health it’s a perfect way to do it. Better recovery, better stamina endurance and the benefit for this as well is it could be a high-level executive sitting in your office all day none of this nine-to-five, you’re in the office at 7:00 you’re leaving at 7:00 a.m. leaving at 8:00 p.m. like you’re working hard and you don’t get time to work out physically but you’re working out mentally. You’re doing a lot of work that way, this kind of combination would help that as well.

Greg: Okay so you would use this thermogenic HydroxyBurn Shred on, non-training days as well.

Dr. Brad:  Yes, you can, yeah, I have full faith in the product that way to do it. Some people just do it on training days yeah like where we’re going but to me perfect you can do that but when you think about it if you are a high-level executive every day is a training day.

Greg: Yeah exactly.

Dr. Brad:  It’s a different way of thinking so in that case take it you know some people may take it breakfast and lunch, so split the dose so that’s you’re for example two and a half Garcinia breakfast and lunch we’ll just five on one go you know and some people just take it beginning of the day

Greg: So, here’s a big question everybody wants to know, because obviously on the label we say can be used as a pre-workout so take the day dose once and take it once a day or you can split it before breakfast before lunch or as you just said some people can take tolerate caffeine at night and sleep beautifully. So, how would you, I throw a couple of scenarios at you

Dr. Brad:  Perfect.

Greg: We’ve got a young female, 20s, training a couple of days a week, you know wanted to lose a bit of weight feel good about themselves coming to summer how would you have them take this product?

Dr. Brad:  So, they want to feel toned and terrific?

Greg: Toned and terrific

Dr. Brad:  Toned and terrific perfect. So, the advice if they came to see me, so I’m their practitioner they came to see me I’d be doing it every day, not just on their training days because that way you get the energetics of the person up and running, they feel good, they get more motivation, more drive and focus. And by doing that you feel good but, also you able to achieve more, you get more done in that day and if you maintain the consistency that’s the main thing maintain the consistency, you know we’re heading into that time point toned and terrific. So, perfect issue.

Greg: So, would you have them taking morning and lunch or one in the morning before training or how would you have that person take that?

Dr. Brad:  That’s good question. What I would do is on if they’re training in the morning I’d do the double, do it that way and on their off days one before breakfast one before lunch. So, I know sometimes people might forget you know which way to do it just take it and I say once they get into the rhythm literally a week of doing it it’s automatic now. So, training days do the full dose or the double dose in this case, do it before what do you recommend about thirty minutes

Greg: Yeah, we push thirty minutes like that.

Dr. Brad:  Thirty minutes is perfect industry-standard.

Greg: Okay second person like while we’re picking brains here we won’t touch the executive right now but I’ve got a 40-year-old bricklayer. How would you have them take the product?

Dr. Brad:  And sometimes people have a bit of a joke about a 40-year-old brick layer as well why they doing just laid bricks there’s actually a lot of work.

Greg: That’s an eight-hour workout.

Dr. Brad:  It’s eight-hour workout five days a week, so it’s full-on heavy but it’s also accuracy and focus because you have to, it sounds funny just laying bricks but you’re no, you’re building something that’s the thing you’re building something. So, you actually laying down these bricks making sure the concrete’s lay it out the bricks are evenly spaced just for the aesthetic look. But also, for the structure, the structure has to be perfect as well and has to last. So, it’s actually a lot of pressure, a lot of mental acuity lining it all up and a lot of physical work doing it. So, for them and also heading towards one whether they’re going to be sweating as well we’re even during winter because they’re physically active eight hours a day like what you’re saying. So, for me I’ll be doing before breakfast I’ll be suggesting it before lunch. Because that way gives them that sort of longer soild eight-hour workout effect better recovery at the end of the day. And I’ve even had some people take an extra one later on.

Greg:  You can say that because you have a clinical practice. We have label requirements; it does say or as advised by your health care professional your professional so guys get on board. So, let’s now talk about some you know this new generation of 50-year-olds, that are training, loving life the kids have moved out if they’re lucky.

Dr. Brad:  If they are lucky.

Greg:  They starting to a lot more functional style training you know people challenge what does that mean I’m what I’m talking about it they’re not bodybuilding specifically they’re just moving their bones, trying to get their heart rate up trying to work well. How would somebody apply HydroxyBurn Shred to their lifestyle? Like obviously the word HydroxyBurn Shred doesn’t sound like gee that’s a health and wellness product. I need to get that into my life at this age but  you know 50s the new 30,  so how are we talking to  someone in that age group to  take this product ? Why would they take this product?

Dr. Brad:  Well these are all good questions because this is something that’s going for their mind. So, they go into a health food store or wherever they’re going to, and they’re saying like you said I’m becoming physically active, I’m in the next phase of my life. So, I’m going to the beach or going for walks doing light or heavy gym work doesn’t matter what it is and I want better recovery I want better endurance and I just want to get through the day better and get more out of it and as well and feel healthier because I’m in the next phase they may be worried about you know chronic diseases etc. Because that’s why they become a more physically active to sort of stave that away. In this case with this kind of formula it is workable, there’s no problem unless they have a physical health condition they don’t need to go and see their doctor about always check with the doctor. But the thing is, the combination and nutrients in his formula like we’re saying earlier it’s mood, energetics, recovery stamina, endurance. So, the idea behind this is going to help their mental acuity so if they’re worrying about you know cognition issues later on like they’re doing crosswords it’s taken me longer or something else like that, this kind of formula going back to acetyl carnitine, the tyrosine those metabolic boosters are going to allow that focus and drive.

Greg: So, it extends way past the actual training session?

Dr. Brad:  Way past. Now this formula has numerous applications much more we’ve got time for to talk about today you know I mean but, it has multiple uses. And yeah you could be University student like was saying earlier you know before the for the podcast, we got the 50s, you got the 41-year-old bricklayer you know you got all these different people and these are all different groups of people with all different needs. And then these may be more physical, more emotional, and more you know mental and the way how the synergism of this formula works, it’s the companionship of the molecules or the nutrients in there that makes a difference. So, the formulation itself and by combining it this way you have greater application and then sustain results as well that’s the exciting thing about it.

Greg: Okay, Thermogenics everywhere let’s talk about manufacturing standards and what should people look for when they’re going to buy a thermogenic at a retail store?

Dr. Brad:   So, one of the main things to look at is you know how the labels laid out, is a nice and clean easy to read. It’s one of the first things you do. And then in Australia particularly we have very strict good manufacturing practice as what it’s called. So, they’re looking at the safety the quality and one of the big issues we’re looking at of course is stability. Stability is a very big thing and a lot of products get tested you know every three months from the moment it’s manufactured from baseline 3 6 8 etc.

Greg: And you are talking about a therapeutic product?

Dr. Brad:    Therapeutic products and where that’s listed with is the Therapeutic Goods Administration or the TGA is we’ve referred to it and this is an Australian government body that has listed medicines. And listed medicines had very strict you know guidelines of how they’re manufactured, how they’re stored, how they’re tested for stability so after two years of manufacture they have to still have exactly what was in it when it was first manufactured.

Greg:  Made label claim expiry date.

Dr. Brad:    Made label claim expiry date, versus food products. So, food products of course have some kind of safety and quality because we’re consuming it but, the level verses are listed medicine for a therapeutic list of medicine is not the same.

Greg:  So, what should people be looking for when they want to find a therapeutic product?

Dr. Brad:    Very good question. So, when you’re looking for a therapeutic product one will normally have something similar to that things set on there you know therapeutically formulated but, then on the front panel its normally has something what they call an OSI. So, it’s Australian listing number and that means it’s a listed medicine versus a food, this is again the stringent detail there and it has a code number there. And that code number stays with the life of that product and that way it’s been tested for safety, quality and stability over time.

Greg: And that’s a big thing stability. You have no idea what you put in your mouth sometimes

Dr. Brad:    That’s it and it comes down to you know what you get what you pay for you know that I’m saying and now that’s what it means you give you pay for. So, you pay money on the product and you’re checking it you’re reading it and you want to make sure that it has you know 2.5 grams of garcinia per serve for example. And in this case, it has that.

Greg:  A lot of brands don’t even tell you what they’ve got in there.

Dr. Brad:    And that’s a tricky thing and that’s where they haven’t gone through possibly the same safety quality checks of course it’s not listed Medicine. So, in that case you know for me I like to know what I’m getting and also like to know that if I buy today and I’m taking it next month from the month after, like I’m not taking it as prescribed, it’s a bit lazy or something.

Greg: Might have all three at once

Dr. Brad:     I might have bought a three deal. Yeah and in that case, you want to make sure that you know in three months’ time for example the stability is showing that it’s exactly what’s in there is what is in there at that time point all out to past expiring in some companies, so good quality stuff.

Greg: Fantastic well HydroxyBurn Shred is a listed medicine is that the correct wording that you like to use when you talk about or sell products?

Dr. Brad:    Perfect listed medicine.

Greg: So, people shouldn’t be afraid to go and ask for a listed medicine or how would you ask your naturopath? How would you ask your retailer if you want a therapeutic versus a food Sample?

Dr. Brad:     So ,  what you do , you go in to the retailer  and you say look I’m after a good  quality list of Medicine you know HydroxyBurn Shred in this case or to be tone and terrific  you know and you want quality and safety also the safety is the other word I want to emphasize as  well because it’s the safety knowing  what’s in there is what’s in there and  the doses are correct.

Greg: Yeah, it’s the quality. So, you walk in there and say I’m after a therapeutic formula that’s a listed medicine, where we go fantastic. I mean you’re talking about safety you’re not talking about gee it’s safe to take you’re talking about what’s on the label is in the product so that’s what makes it safe what you’re reading is what you’re getting.

Dr. Brad:     What you’re reading is what you’re getting so good point actually there’s two points to that is

Greg: We don’t want people to think it’s soft because it’s safe.

Dr. Brad:     That’s right it’s and that’s a thing that I hear from time to time oh it’s a soft product because it’s safe and its blah, blah, blah, like don’t know where you come from you know what I mean? This is actually for me when I’m looking at a product this is higher quality. Safe is good you want to be safe but also, I now know this product is high quality it has what I’m looking for I can read the label and it has exactly what’s in it

Greg:  And those actives that are in there until expiry date.

Dr. Brad:     That’s right and it’s been tested safety and quality. And you know what you’re getting so and that’s the exciting thing about it. So, in Australia the standards are very, very high and highest in the world we actually have a lot of countries look at our standards

Greg: It’s fantastic too we should be proud of that.

Dr. Brad:     We’re very proud of it.

Greg: Fantastic, that’s exciting. So, Dr. Brad we might wrap that one up here, I can you tell us how do we contact you if we want to come and see you, if do you do private consultation anymore or you more

Dr. Brad:  I work a lot more in our educational research field and manufacturing, and I’m not taking on any extra patients at the moment.

Greg:  I’m sorry everyone you can’t reach out but you can probably we’ll put some of your published research up would that be a problem?

Dr. Brad:  That’s all good with me.

Greg: Fantastic, thanks so much for your time today really appreciate you on board. We are going to get you back next week to talk about some other products I enjoyed that.

Dr. Brad:  Alright thank you.

Episode 10: Thermogenic Supplements for Fat Burning published first on http://www.bodyscience.com.au/

[bodyscienceau]

Episode 10: Thermogenic Supplements for Fat Burning

This podcast is brought to you by HydroxyBurn Shred.

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Show Notes

The Palaeolithic diet and cardiometabolic syndrome: Can an ancient diet be the way of the future? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958818300144

Can omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids improve metabolic profile in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958817301179

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR): Mythology or polymorphism(ology)? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958817300058

Can methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) polymorphisms increase the risk of chronic disease, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)?https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212958817300125

The effect of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on fibrin and thrombin generation in healthy subjects and subjects with cardiovascular disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25703517

Effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on platelet function in healthy subjects and subjects with cardiovascular disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23329646

The influence of diet and nutrients on platelet function https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24497119

The influence of herbal medicine on platelet function and coagulation: a narrative review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25839871

Comment on “Danshen and the Cardiovascular System: New Advances for an Old Remedy” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26951503

Effect of omega-3 fish oil on cardiovascular risk in diabetes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20534874

Diurnal changes and levels of fibrin generation are not altered by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). A randomised, placebo-controlled crossover study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22334531

Effects of continuous positive airway pressure on coagulability in obstructive sleep apnoea: a randomised, placebo-controlled crossover study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22334531

Podcast Transcript

  Greg: Hi, welcome to the Body Science podcast where it’s all about being fit, happy and healthy. Today we have a very exciting co-host Dr. Brad McEwen, he’s a nutrition expert, naturopath, herbalist, educator researcher and mentor with over 19 years of clinical experience. Dr. Brad has a PhD from the University of Sydney, a masters of Health Science in human nutrition from Deakin and among his other qualifications include neuropathy, is that the right way to say it?

Dr. Brad: That’s it yeah.

Greg:  And sports medicine. He’s got a real passion for teaching and educating and has been working with our sales team a fair bit in that capacity recently which has seen our very excited, look with over 15 years of experience some of the things that have happened on the way and I just need to take a breath and reread this because this goes on. Brad received the urban hard Mamun Young Investigator award that was?

Dr. Brad: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Greg: From bases hemostasis?

Dr. Brad: Bases hemostasis and its very big award, it’s an international award to affirm research and education. And one of the exciting things is people from Princeton, and throughout Europe have won this award. So not many people from Australia so, I felt very excited,

Greg: Going to clap that one in?

Dr. Brad: Yeah so, it’s really exciting work.

Greg:  I have to cut you off there because I’m only half way through. You’ve also received an Excellence in practice lecturer for research of the year for the Dorothy Hall Memorial Award, did I say that right for the advancement of natural medicine in Australia?

Dr. Brad: Yep

Greg: That’s huge, this year was finalists for practitioner of the year in 2017 what does that mean?

Dr. Brad:  So, practitioner as I’m a naturopath nutritionist and herbalist so you get nominated from the work that you do we are coping with patients and you know in the public as well so, it’s quite exciting to be nominated. And last years also nominated for lecturer of the year as well.

Greg: You are a busy man.

Dr. Brad: Yeah, I’m busy I’m very passionate I love what I’m doing so you just keep moving forward it’s exciting times.

Greg:  So, let’s talk about some of your peer review and your journals, you’ve been so you touched areas of diet, nutrition, cardiovascular health, type 2 diabetes, there’s a whole lot of words here that I can’t even pronounce.

Dr. Brad:  That’s right so I have a wide range of different interests one of course the sports medicine sports nutrition, so we’re going to talk about today. As well as you know cutting metabolic syndrome which is all related to like blood glucose regulation and metabolism that’s a very big topic and we’ll be covering that too. And it’s sort of all these things relate to not just general health but  optimising health getting the best  out of everything each day.

Greg:  Love it so, today I’m around the topic of optimising health. I’m going to throw a little curveball at you I’d like to chat today about Thermogenics, is it for you, why do people take them who should take them you know?

Thermogenics are a massive category in sports nutrition is you’d be aware of. There’s a left and right side of defense-type to Thermogenics out there as well which will not worry too much about delving into what other people are doing but we’ll talk about we’re doing and obvious the product we make is called HydroxyBurn shred.

So, do you want to talk about the formula?

Dr. Brad:  Yeah that would be great. Firstly, you know when we’re looking for some kind of thermogenic what is a thermogenic? So, looking at the name of it, it just means genesis of heat, if you look at it that way. But when we’re looking at sports nutrition and performance and the everyday warrior kind of effect the thermogenesis is also building up metabolism activity you know sustainability getting to the end of the day and not feeling as tired, that’s the kind of things that thermogenesis works with as well. It’s that building up that metabolism. And when looking for a combination of you know different herbs and nutrients, one thing to look for is the quality of the formula, but also looking at the synergy of the formula.

Greg: Yeah nice.

Dr. Brad:  So, it’s a synergy you can have a lot you can have a really nice formula and you look at it and go what’s doing, you know what is this formula trying to do they’re just throwing in a thousand things. And looks on the label and a milligram of each or something like that, it’s not therapeutic it’s not therapeutically designed in any fashion.

Greg: Okay.

Dr. Brad:  So, yeah, we are looking at HydroxyBurn Shred like you said great product, we are very excited with this one over the years so it’s very good. One of the first ones I do look for as an ingredients garcinia, and it’s had its ebbs and flows, it’s been on tv shows the last couple of years has been on some TV shows and blogs and stuffs like

Greg: Famous doctor in America who pulled garcinia into the world.

Dr. Brad:  Yeah, yeah and highlight. And the exciting thing is I first worked in a health food store back in 1992, back in the olden days. And though they didn’t have garcinia but they had hydroxycitric acid. That does from the brindle berry at the time. So, garcinia is more of a potent form of the hydroxycitric acid. And the way how this works as it builds up the metabolism, thermogenesis, works with appetite suppression but, you will still eat but just not as much. It’s not like that pharmaceutical kind as well as you know working on the energetic pathways. So particularly fatty acid metabolism. And if you combine that with you know a good diet of carnitine, it’s that combination like I was saying synergy it’s that flow of the formula and looking at you know the dosage of you know acetyl l carnitine there’s four grams a day that’s a good dose, a good dose.

Greg: It’s one of the highest in the industry and I don’t think a lot of people actually understand what a clinical dose is.

Dr. Brad: And that’s the tricky thing, when you look at therapeutics and clinical dose versus something is just written on the label people get mixed up very easily. So, in this case if we’re looking at a therapeutic formula a clinical kind of dose, we need to look around the four grams a day because you’re going to get the results. And the way how this works going to talk about a biochemistry is in the body have like a Krebs cycle and the way I see that it’s like a big turbine on a plane. And it actually has a site I want to imagine it spin it. When that turbine slows down the machinery of the cell slows down you get tired overall, muscle gets tired, the body feels tired your mind gets tired and then overall you just feel you know really tired and fatigued. What acetyl l carnitine does it pretty much picks up the fats your fatty acids and drives it into the Krebs cycle, for is something they called beta oxidation. So, it’s like a side thing shadows are through most people look at you know glycolysis is a form of energy so, you’re just breaking down carbohydrates and glucose. On the side chain of that you’re breaking down fats and that’s part of your thermogenesis as well as your energetics. And this will give you your long-term stamina and endurance burning off the fats. And if anyone’s using this to shred to lose some weight etc.  and look good you know you need to be able to pick up those fats and utilise them more effectively and that’s where acetyl l carnitine comes in versus normal carnitine.

So, the normal carnitine if I can call it that, does a good job, acetyl carnitine drives it in faster and does a much better job at doing it. It also works with the mental side as we’re discussing earlier you know before the show. It’s a memory concentration and focus. So, when you’re training you’re working out and you may be in you know the Olympics, or comm games or some other event you want to be able to have that focus and drive and you’re go for gold, you know what I mean. And things like carnitine, acetyl carnitine particularly, gain that focus, gain that drive and drive it forward and your body follows. So, you can have the big heart and a good mind for it, the focus and then the body follows and you get through it. Fast recovery too.

Greg: Oh, to win too, fast recovery.

Dr. Brad:  Fast recovery because it’s allowing you to sort of pick up the leftover fats that’s in the bloodstream after the workout or after the event and you can burn that off so you get a better recovery.

Greg:  Other things we do look at is caffeine

Dr. Brad: Mm-hmm so got some caffeine right here for everyone to the headache a bit of caffeine each and way, how caffeine yes does work as a stimulant which is what everyone knows. But it’s also an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, there’s a lot of work with vascular blood flow. So that’s what a vasodilator is what it’s called so it opens up the arteries and veins get a circulation running more effectively. So, by doing that you can actually get these herbs nutrients to the target tissue faster, shovel it on get it in there faster. And caffeine yeah again it’s a mental stimulant so again it’s that focus and drive. And the best thing about this we’re getting a very good therapeutic dose it’s a perfect way to do it and it’s not going to give you the jitters. Like you feel to have a couple of coffees you get that sort of weird jittery feeling, these kind of with this product particularly I haven’t seen that with anyone okay and I’ve never seen that.  So, to me as I said it’s a synergy, it’s a formula and then we’ve got other elements in there as well and we’ll go through a lot more detail as well because I’ve it’s quite a great formula. Is we’re looking at tyrosine.

Greg: Tyrosine has really become quite popular in the last couple of years in sports nutrition so what do you think that is?

Dr. Brad: So, I think tyrosine is mainly used for like thyroid function so metabolism and which is true so what it does I want you to imagine your thyroid hormone. And as part of it you have a backbone which is a tyrosine then you have your iodine is attached. There’s something called t4 which is your normal form of thyroid hormone for iodine’s, then you have your t3 which is three iodine’s. And as part of that process and when you have a good nutrient flow particularly combine it with other formulas so we’re looking at companion products here you’re able to increase your metabolic rate, general metabolism. And a lot of people these days they feel tired, weak, sluggish they drag themselves out of bed the whole energy pathway systems sluggish, it’s just modern life you know. And if you combine it with again acetyl carnitine and other nutrients, you can stimulate that flow again get that energetic pathway up and running and the other thing at tyrosine does it works down different pathways for serotonin, melatonin. So, we’re looking at the feel-good stuff.

Greg: Yeah you got to feel good.

Dr. Brad: You have to feel good, you have to you know you have that drive and focus going. But also, as part of that you work with your daily rhythm. So, people think everything circadian rhythm, yes, we all hear about that but there’s also something called diurnal rhythm and that’s our day/night, hot, cold, it’s our everyday rhythm. Circadian rhythm is good because it’s 24 hours a day but at the right temperature everything doesn’t change it’s stable. But I don’t know about you that the world changes every day,

Greg: Every minute.

Dr. Brad: Every minute it’s changing. So, therefore if you regulate your diurnal pattern and its tyrosine is one of the nutrients for this, even acetyl l carnitine, caffeine works with it as well. So, some people and I have a little bit of caffeine before bed and you think also keep you awake and it’s like no because it actually gets into the system they say nourishes the system and when I wake up in the morning I’m firing.

Greg: Yeah okay.

Dr. Brad: So, it’s a combo kind of effect there. In this case here the tyrosine, serotonin, melatonin working with a thyroid hormone, so its metabolism but also to feel good. So, you are not on edge. It’s the perfect thing about it.

Greg: Well that’s good, is it, do you think it’s important to have the emotion and the mood pathways is that the word you use before?

Dr. Brad: Pathway yes.

Greg: Associated with a thermogenic?

Dr. Brad:  I think so because the reason being is we always hear about the mind-body-spirit. You know what I mean, there’s a lot of people talk about that or mental emotional physical and some people think of it as a little bizarre. Do you know what I mean? But I see as a whole and if you work on one part the rest of the body can follow effectively. So, if you can work on the mind/body/spirit, the mental physical, emotional, balance everything out perfectly you get better focus, better drive you’re moving forward in life. And like I said earlier is if you’re a weekend warrior, Olympic athlete or you know or just do a little bit of training just for physical health and well-being you know what I mean. The idea is if you actually maintain overall good health it’s a perfect way to do it. Better recovery, better stamina endurance and the benefit for this as well is it could be a high-level executive sitting in your office all day none of this nine-to-five, you’re in the office at 7:00 you’re leaving at 7:00 a.m. leaving at 8:00 p.m. like you’re working hard and you don’t get time to work out physically but you’re working out mentally. You’re doing a lot of work that way, this kind of combination would help that as well.

Greg: Okay so you would use this thermogenic HydroxyBurn Shred on, non-training days as well.

Dr. Brad:  Yes, you can, yeah, I have full faith in the product that way to do it. Some people just do it on training days yeah like where we’re going but to me perfect you can do that but when you think about it if you are a high-level executive every day is a training day.

Greg: Yeah exactly.

Dr. Brad:  It’s a different way of thinking so in that case take it you know some people may take it breakfast and lunch, so split the dose so that’s you’re for example two and a half Garcinia breakfast and lunch we’ll just five on one go you know and some people just take it beginning of the day

Greg: So, here’s a big question everybody wants to know, because obviously on the label we say can be used as a pre-workout so take the day dose once and take it once a day or you can split it before breakfast before lunch or as you just said some people can take tolerate caffeine at night and sleep beautifully. So, how would you, I throw a couple of scenarios at you

Dr. Brad:  Perfect.

Greg: We’ve got a young female, 20s, training a couple of days a week, you know wanted to lose a bit of weight feel good about themselves coming to summer how would you have them take this product?

Dr. Brad:  So, they want to feel toned and terrific?

Greg: Toned and terrific

Dr. Brad:  Toned and terrific perfect. So, the advice if they came to see me, so I’m their practitioner they came to see me I’d be doing it every day, not just on their training days because that way you get the energetics of the person up and running, they feel good, they get more motivation, more drive and focus. And by doing that you feel good but, also you able to achieve more, you get more done in that day and if you maintain the consistency that’s the main thing maintain the consistency, you know we’re heading into that time point toned and terrific. So, perfect issue.

Greg: So, would you have them taking morning and lunch or one in the morning before training or how would you have that person take that?

Dr. Brad:  That’s good question. What I would do is on if they’re training in the morning I’d do the double, do it that way and on their off days one before breakfast one before lunch. So, I know sometimes people might forget you know which way to do it just take it and I say once they get into the rhythm literally a week of doing it it’s automatic now. So, training days do the full dose or the double dose in this case, do it before what do you recommend about thirty minutes

Greg: Yeah, we push thirty minutes like that.

Dr. Brad:  Thirty minutes is perfect industry-standard.

Greg: Okay second person like while we’re picking brains here we won’t touch the executive right now but I’ve got a 40-year-old bricklayer. How would you have them take the product?

Dr. Brad:  And sometimes people have a bit of a joke about a 40-year-old brick layer as well why they doing just laid bricks there’s actually a lot of work.

Greg: That’s an eight-hour workout.

Dr. Brad:  It’s eight-hour workout five days a week, so it’s full-on heavy but it’s also accuracy and focus because you have to, it sounds funny just laying bricks but you’re no, you’re building something that’s the thing you’re building something. So, you actually laying down these bricks making sure the concrete’s lay it out the bricks are evenly spaced just for the aesthetic look. But also, for the structure, the structure has to be perfect as well and has to last. So, it’s actually a lot of pressure, a lot of mental acuity lining it all up and a lot of physical work doing it. So, for them and also heading towards one whether they’re going to be sweating as well we’re even during winter because they’re physically active eight hours a day like what you’re saying. So, for me I’ll be doing before breakfast I’ll be suggesting it before lunch. Because that way gives them that sort of longer soild eight-hour workout effect better recovery at the end of the day. And I’ve even had some people take an extra one later on.

Greg:  You can say that because you have a clinical practice. We have label requirements; it does say or as advised by your health care professional your professional so guys get on board. So, let’s now talk about some you know this new generation of 50-year-olds, that are training, loving life the kids have moved out if they’re lucky.

Dr. Brad:  If they are lucky.

Greg:  They starting to a lot more functional style training you know people challenge what does that mean I’m what I’m talking about it they’re not bodybuilding specifically they’re just moving their bones, trying to get their heart rate up trying to work well. How would somebody apply HydroxyBurn Shred to their lifestyle? Like obviously the word HydroxyBurn Shred doesn’t sound like gee that’s a health and wellness product. I need to get that into my life at this age but  you know 50s the new 30,  so how are we talking to  someone in that age group to  take this product ? Why would they take this product?

Dr. Brad:  Well these are all good questions because this is something that’s going for their mind. So, they go into a health food store or wherever they’re going to, and they’re saying like you said I’m becoming physically active, I’m in the next phase of my life. So, I’m going to the beach or going for walks doing light or heavy gym work doesn’t matter what it is and I want better recovery I want better endurance and I just want to get through the day better and get more out of it and as well and feel healthier because I’m in the next phase they may be worried about you know chronic diseases etc. Because that’s why they become a more physically active to sort of stave that away. In this case with this kind of formula it is workable, there’s no problem unless they have a physical health condition they don’t need to go and see their doctor about always check with the doctor. But the thing is, the combination and nutrients in his formula like we’re saying earlier it’s mood, energetics, recovery stamina, endurance. So, the idea behind this is going to help their mental acuity so if they’re worrying about you know cognition issues later on like they’re doing crosswords it’s taken me longer or something else like that, this kind of formula going back to acetyl carnitine, the tyrosine those metabolic boosters are going to allow that focus and drive.

Greg: So, it extends way past the actual training session?

Dr. Brad:  Way past. Now this formula has numerous applications much more we’ve got time for to talk about today you know I mean but, it has multiple uses. And yeah you could be University student like was saying earlier you know before the for the podcast, we got the 50s, you got the 41-year-old bricklayer you know you got all these different people and these are all different groups of people with all different needs. And then these may be more physical, more emotional, and more you know mental and the way how the synergism of this formula works, it’s the companionship of the molecules or the nutrients in there that makes a difference. So, the formulation itself and by combining it this way you have greater application and then sustain results as well that’s the exciting thing about it.

Greg: Okay, Thermogenics everywhere let’s talk about manufacturing standards and what should people look for when they’re going to buy a thermogenic at a retail store?

Dr. Brad:   So, one of the main things to look at is you know how the labels laid out, is a nice and clean easy to read. It’s one of the first things you do. And then in Australia particularly we have very strict good manufacturing practice as what it’s called. So, they’re looking at the safety the quality and one of the big issues we’re looking at of course is stability. Stability is a very big thing and a lot of products get tested you know every three months from the moment it’s manufactured from baseline 3 6 8 etc.

Greg: And you are talking about a therapeutic product?

Dr. Brad:    Therapeutic products and where that’s listed with is the Therapeutic Goods Administration or the TGA is we’ve referred to it and this is an Australian government body that has listed medicines. And listed medicines had very strict you know guidelines of how they’re manufactured, how they’re stored, how they’re tested for stability so after two years of manufacture they have to still have exactly what was in it when it was first manufactured.

Greg:  Made label claim expiry date.

Dr. Brad:    Made label claim expiry date, versus food products. So, food products of course have some kind of safety and quality because we’re consuming it but, the level verses are listed medicine for a therapeutic list of medicine is not the same.

Greg:  So, what should people be looking for when they want to find a therapeutic product?

Dr. Brad:    Very good question. So, when you’re looking for a therapeutic product one will normally have something similar to that things set on there you know therapeutically formulated but, then on the front panel its normally has something what they call an OSI. So, it’s Australian listing number and that means it’s a listed medicine versus a food, this is again the stringent detail there and it has a code number there. And that code number stays with the life of that product and that way it’s been tested for safety, quality and stability over time.

Greg: And that’s a big thing stability. You have no idea what you put in your mouth sometimes

Dr. Brad:    That’s it and it comes down to you know what you get what you pay for you know that I’m saying and now that’s what it means you give you pay for. So, you pay money on the product and you’re checking it you’re reading it and you want to make sure that it has you know 2.5 grams of garcinia per serve for example. And in this case, it has that.

Greg:  A lot of brands don’t even tell you what they’ve got in there.

Dr. Brad:    And that’s a tricky thing and that’s where they haven’t gone through possibly the same safety quality checks of course it’s not listed Medicine. So, in that case you know for me I like to know what I’m getting and also like to know that if I buy today and I’m taking it next month from the month after, like I’m not taking it as prescribed, it’s a bit lazy or something.

Greg: Might have all three at once

Dr. Brad:     I might have bought a three deal. Yeah and in that case, you want to make sure that you know in three months’ time for example the stability is showing that it’s exactly what’s in there is what is in there at that time point all out to past expiring in some companies, so good quality stuff.

Greg: Fantastic well HydroxyBurn Shred is a listed medicine is that the correct wording that you like to use when you talk about or sell products?

Dr. Brad:    Perfect listed medicine.  

Greg: So, people shouldn’t be afraid to go and ask for a listed medicine or how would you ask your naturopath? How would you ask your retailer if you want a therapeutic versus a food Sample?

Dr. Brad:     So ,  what you do , you go in to the retailer  and you say look I’m after a good  quality list of Medicine you know HydroxyBurn Shred in this case or to be tone and terrific  you know and you want quality and safety also the safety is the other word I want to emphasize as  well because it’s the safety knowing  what’s in there is what’s in there and  the doses are correct.

Greg: Yeah, it’s the quality. So, you walk in there and say I’m after a therapeutic formula that’s a listed medicine, where we go fantastic. I mean you’re talking about safety you’re not talking about gee it’s safe to take you’re talking about what’s on the label is in the product so that’s what makes it safe what you’re reading is what you’re getting.

Dr. Brad:     What you’re reading is what you’re getting so good point actually there’s two points to that is

Greg: We don’t want people to think it’s soft because it’s safe.

Dr. Brad:     That’s right it’s and that’s a thing that I hear from time to time oh it’s a soft product because it’s safe and its blah, blah, blah, like don’t know where you come from you know what I mean? This is actually for me when I’m looking at a product this is higher quality. Safe is good you want to be safe but also, I now know this product is high quality it has what I’m looking for I can read the label and it has exactly what’s in it

Greg:  And those actives that are in there until expiry date.

Dr. Brad:     That’s right and it’s been tested safety and quality. And you know what you’re getting so and that’s the exciting thing about it. So, in Australia the standards are very, very high and highest in the world we actually have a lot of countries look at our standards

Greg: It’s fantastic too we should be proud of that.

Dr. Brad:     We’re very proud of it.

Greg: Fantastic, that’s exciting. So, Dr. Brad we might wrap that one up here, I can you tell us how do we contact you if we want to come and see you, if do you do private consultation anymore or you more

Dr. Brad:  I work a lot more in our educational research field and manufacturing, and I’m not taking on any extra patients at the moment.

Greg:  I’m sorry everyone you can’t reach out but you can probably we’ll put some of your published research up would that be a problem?

Dr. Brad:  That’s all good with me.

Greg: Fantastic, thanks so much for your time today really appreciate you on board. We are going to get you back next week to talk about some other products I enjoyed that.

Dr. Brad:  Alright thank you.