#i got worried i was disagreeing with parts of their post so i decided to make a completely new one haha;;;

[paimonial-rage]

alhaitham analysis

When you first meet Alhaitham, he comes across as someone that has a negative EQ. He's curt, rude, and critical. And yet the truth is surprising? Like looking at his character quest and how he basically emotionally manipulated the whole hive into revolting, this man is very emotionally intelligent. You can honestly see it in a lot of his lines too. When he speaks about people, yes, he may sound like he's simplifying or trivializing things too much, but he's not wrong. He understands people. He knows how they work. It's just that he views emotional labor as too much of a hassle majority of the time.

Spoilers below the cut

You can gather a lot about Alhaitham through Kaveh's character stories. Like while it may not seem like it, Alhaitham is genuinely trying to help Kaveh. He points out to Kaveh that the source of his problems isn't luck, but his sense of impractical idealism and inescapable guilt. Some may say Alhaitham lacked tact when saying this, but it was kindness on Alhaitham's part. Once someone can acknowledge the truth, no matter how hurtful, they can then make the needed changes for the better. When they met up again years later, Alhaitham asked him, "How has realizing your ideals gone for you?" This wasn't done out of a sense of pettiness, but to solidify the truth once more. It was to help.

I think if you don't know someone that operates in this way, Alhaitham's love language may be difficult to decipher. His words may seem cruel. It may seem like he's trivializing your problems. But to speak truth is to show that you're not a lost cause. He has proven he won't abandon you along the way. After all, to speak truth, no matter how hurtful, is to show love.

[bangchansgirlsblog]

IF YOU HAVE SWEET ANGEL SAVED THEN POST IT 👹

Sweet Angel 👼

Part three:

**

"Babygirl?" Chan knocked on her door softly trying not to startle her. "Can I come in?"

His heart was in his throat due to the state she had just walked into the house with. Her nanny had no idea what had happened and that made him so angry.

"What do you mean you don't know what happened?" He had asked and slammed the kitchen cabinets. This caused a few of the boys to jump as I.N had quickly made his way behind her.

"I pay you to look after her and you can't even do that?" He said walking back and forth in the kitchen.

"Hyung let's just calm down and figure out what happened. Shouting at her won't do anything for us." Han stepped in trying to calm him down.

"Fine." Was the only response he got out of his Hyung.

"Sir, I'm so sorry once again. I really tried-"

"I think it's best you leave love. We'll take it from here," Changbin cuts her off knowing that even if she tried to apologize, Chan would not accept it unless he had calmed down first.

She sadly nodded and grabbed her stuff before being walked out by Felix.

"Let me go talk to her," Chan quickly said grabbing his phone off the table.

"You should calm down first Chan, let I.N do the talking right now. We're all worried but she can't see you in such an angry state," Seungmin advised while he pulled him into a hug. He really needed it.

"Fine," he sighed and sat on the stool. "Is this my fault? I shouldn't have been so hard on her-"

"Hyung stop it, drink your water and calm down," Han looked at him worried. He simply nodded and took a sip from his cup as he patiently waited for I.N to come back.

**

"It's been 15 minutes and his not even-" before Chan could finish what he was going to say, I.N came back down the stairs looking defeated. His shoulders were slumped and the frown on his face could be seen from a mile away.

"What happened I.N?" Chan jumped out his chair quickly making his way over.

"She wouldn't let me in Hyung,"

“Okay..okay maybe u should go try-“ he rushed but was quickly grabbed by Leeknow.

“Let’s give her some time to calm down okay? Maybe another 30 minutes. She may just be angry. We don’t want to keep bothering her and suffocating her,” although Chan’s thoughts were foggy at this point, leeknow was right and he couldn’t disagree there, so he just let it go at the time being.

He nodded his head and sat back at his stool. His hands land on either side of his head as he slowly yanked at the hair of his roots while thinking. This was a sign for the boys to just let him be so they all decided to make theirselves busy by starting up dinner.

“Do you guys think it’s still early to go check on her now?” Chan sighed. It had been atleast 45 minutes and he couldn’t wait any longer, he needed to know what was wrong with his babygirl.

“Yeah mate, go on. Dinner will be ready soon,” Felix encouraged him. He gave them a small smile before he made his way up the stairs not trying to trup on his own feet.

The walk felt long until he was standing at her door and slowly knocking. No response.

He knocked again but still…No response.

"Babygirl?" He knocked on her door again but softly trying not to startle her. "Can I come in?"

She heard a few footsteps until the door finally slowly opened and Chan’s gaze slowly softened at the sight. Her hair was wet and it looked like she had come out the shower but her nose and eyes were red and puffy, looking like she had just been crying. The little sniffles confirmed it.

“Love? What happened today? Can I come in?” Chan was quick to question her. She just nodded and moved to the side.

She was silent as she tried to avoid his hard gaze. He struggled to come up with words, figuring out what to say and what to do.

“Hey,” he softly said towering over her.

“Hi..” she replied quietly.

His hand slowly wrapped around her. The warmth making her slowly melt but deep down she was still angry. She was still angry at him and the world so she didn’t bother hug back. She stood there numb and tired.

“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice was muffled by her hair.

“Not right now Channie, please.”

“Why not? Did someone hurt you? Did someone threaten you?”

“I- it’s just that. I’m still so upset at you. So just give me some space.”

Ouch. His heart hurt. He failed his own little sister. Her hand’s automatically letting go of her.

“Oh…look. Y/nnie I’m sorry for being hard on you but you need to understand-“

“That’s the thing . I don’t understand!” She snapped while taking a step back from him. The anger now boiling her blood.

“You’re still young Y/nnie. You will I promise..”

“I don’t think I’ll understand why my older brother keeps overworking me and making me feel like crap. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that!”

“Y/nnie…” he took a step to hold her hand but she shrugged it off.

“Don’t..”

“I understand that’s your angry at me. It hurts me-“

“No it fucking doesn’t Chan. Why don’t you get it. You’re so busy with being so in charge that you forget how to be a real brother.”

“Don’t say that please-“

“And you know what? Yes I’m being bullied. I’ve been bullied ever since I got here. I hate you. I hate your stupid job and I hate all you boys!”

That’s all Chan needed to hear before he fell to the ground holding his chest. A loud groan leaving his lips and he took deep breaths.

This took y/n back by surprise but her body reacted automatically by grabbing him in her arms.

“Chan?! What’s wrong? What’s the matter?!” She said panicked. Her eyes started to tear.

“Call- call the boys..” he struggled to say in between breathes as he clenched his chest in pain. His forehead sweating uncontrollably.

“Okay okay, just keep breathing- keep breathing Oppa,”

[therealvinelle]

(A question for both you and muffin)

What speed do you guys write?

I feel like you guys must write at such an incredible rate based on the work you produce in such a short amount of time. Any tips if you have any to increase output would be appreciated!

You were lost in the drafts! I'm so sorry.

To answer your question: it depends a bit on the fic, but typically we write as fast as we're typing, then get distracted, then write, then distracted. Sometimes we take turns being distracted.

It used to be we'd outline the entire chapter in great detail, but as we've gotten this down to a routine it's bullet points.

It's very relaxing and meditative.

As for how we're able to write that fast, I think it's threefold:

We're both picturing how a given scene should unfold, and then writing down what happens. I don't come up with a character's dialogue, I'm just writing what he said and describing how he says it or what he's thinking. Slowness or hesitation mostly occurs when we don't know what happens next or disagree.

No second guessing ourselves over one word or sentence for more than two minutes, no obsessing over getting that perfect sentence down. It was hard at first to get used to, but watching @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin get ahead and write the good bits while I was contemplating how to phrase the last sentence of a random paragraph taught me to just make a decision.

Validation - whenever I'm unsure about something, or catch Muffin writing some thing I don't love or she catches me, we can discuss right away. While it does happen that we write something, then afterwards one or both say "Hang on. That was really bad!" for the most part writing jointly means there's two people have looked at the text and found it satisfying.

My best advice is to just write, get used to just writing without worrying too much about it, and get yourself an honest person whose opinion you trust (there is a LOT of atrocious advice out there!).

(I also have an anecdote for this: there is an author I follow on a social media, who has written a fairly popular story. They also, like most of us, have reoccurring weaknesses as a writer. They mentioned having gone to a writing group or class (I don't remember which), and receiving feedback on these specific weaknesses. Rather than accept this feedback (which they had sought out by joining the group to begin with!) they came to their followers for validation, making fun of the advice and talking about how stupid the advice-giver was.

The lesson to be learned: constructive criticism can really suck because even though you sought it out, and the criticism you get is constructive and useful, you didn't want to hear it. Therefore, decide before you go if you actually want to risk being told something you didn't want to hear, and choose the criticism-giver carefully because they could be wrong.

The reason I bring this up in a post about writing speed is that you write very slowly when you're unsure of yourself, and insecurity forms a terrifying wall between yourself and that "publish" button. At least, my speed has improved vastly since @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin became my beta and later cowriter.)

You also want to be careful with planning the story. Planning isn't writing and it often isn't really planning either, it all too often slides right into coming up with headcanons and aesthetics for a complex daydream. If that's what you want to do, go forth, and god knows there's an audience for moodboards and headcanon posts, but if you're serious about wanting to get the story down in writing then you've got to ask yourself whether your plans for the story are in fact plans or not.

I will also advice, insofar it is possible, to not pour too much of yourself into your writing. If it's your darling who owns your whole heart, you're fiercely proud of it, then having somebody say "Hey, this could be a lot better" is all the more discouraging. Abandoning it if it loses traction or you're not sure where to go with it is also devastating. You should love what you do, by all means, but don't tie your self-worth as a writer in the individual things you produce. Even the greats have flops alongside their masterpieces, or just less good works. Focus on having fun and enjoying what you do, drop a project without guilt if you lose passion for it, put it on pause if you want to pursue a different project, and be clear on what feedback you want from beta readers. Fanfiction writing is a hobby, and unlike most hobbies it's completely free. Treat it as such.

Best of luck!

[back-on-my-autistic-bullshit]

Full Moon Stolitz thoughts

Alright I'm getting on this shit because I am obsessed with Stolitz unironically. Before I start this I want to be absolutely clear that (in my opinion) there is no "right" side in the overall situation between Blitz and Stolas. Both equally have problems that contribute to their miscommunication and I can sympathise with both of them. If you disagree, feel free to ignore this post and scroll on, I don't mind friendly debate with people I know well but strangers on the internet are a different story.

I do generally project heavily onto Blitz which yeah probably impacts my interpretation of this a lot but I'm just a guy on tumblr I'm not here to be 100% right I'm just posing my take on their behaviours etc etc

Mandatory Disclaimer: spoilers start below! Do not click read more if you care about spoilers for The Full Moon episode of Helluva Boss

That all said, I'm splitting this into three parts:

Blitz's behaviour throughout the episode

Stolas' behaviour throughout the episode

Blitz and Stolas' confrontation/argument/interaction at the end of the episode

Part One: Blitz's behaviour

Starting off with "When I See Him", the basics of it (that is played up a bit for comedy and more or less directly stated really at the start) is that Blitz is obviously covering up how he really feels by concentrating entirely on the sex he anticipates having, and acting like that is what is important to him.

Are we okay? Can't really say I'm getting by By avoiding his questions It's so complicated, I hate when it's complicated Why do I always end up in situations that are complicated?

Blitz knows there is something wrong, or off, between the two of them but he'd rather not talk or communicate about it - literally preferring to avoid the topic entirely because "complicated" = bad, and he has no idea how to fix that, despite the fact that most of his relationships have been and/or are still complicated, he doesn't know how to deal with that because he never learnt. He's started to with Fizz a bit at the very least, but he's definitely not in a place to do that with romantic relationships yet - but I digress.

Here I go again, getting in my head So I'll focus on the sexy stuff instead

Not too much to say about this part other than he is actively choosing to disregard his anxieties and worries about him and Stolas by putting on this mask of caring about the sex and nothing else. Honestly, not a surprise with Blitz, this is pretty average behaviour and is very much likely a common coping mechanism of his to avoid serious feelings when engaging in relationships of a romantic nature. Especially since he seems to place a lot of value in himself in how good he is in bed.

When I see him, I'm gonna do that thing he likes No need to change things, I'll just bring the ropes and spikes[/spice*] We've got a nice arrangement And it's working out just fine We'll keep it light

Can't wait to lose ourselves in nasty sex And make that bird squawk We'll just stick with what makes sense

Same as above, he's going to what's familiar and directly deciding he'd rather ignore any issues they have and not talk about them in favour of doing what they normally do on full moons and call it a night.

*my audio processing disorder really did not like that line, and I cannot completely tell if that's right - any mistakes in lyrics or other quotes from the show before or after this are almost definitely because of this so please feel free to correct me.

Moving on from the song, some things Blitz does or says during the conversation with Moxxie and Loona in the office that stick out to me.

It's the full moon, I gotta meet up with Stolas tonight. Felt like dressing up a little since it's been a few months since I've been inside his feathered ass.

This is personally really interesting to me since he's not been known to dress up explicitly to see Stolas before (excluding the posts that have been seen on the instagram accounts but I'm hesitant to count those as 100% hard canon, and they were outfits of a different variety - not a bowtie and suspenders as he's seen wearing in the episode). It's like he's trying very hard to impress him for.. some reason? I'm guessing he sees it as part of his whole plan to really sort of wow Stolas, get in there, get out, no touchy feely stuff. It comes off as the opposite to me though, it shows that he kind of values what Stolas think of him and his appearance - and that he wants to impress Stolas. This could just be him trying to prove his worth to Stolas so he doesn't get cast aside, but it could also be more.

This facial expression is very important to me. It's a split second frame of vulnerability in response to Loona saying the following:

Oh shit, he's getting bored of you.

This is genuine worry and concern on his face, he tried to cover it up with a smile but he is concerned. And yes, it could just be about losing the book, it probably is in part but I think it's more than that.

Loona also says this:

Yeah, man. If someone wants to see you less and less, big red flag. If they give you chances to ditch, they probably want out themselves. Just wanna be more passive aggressive about it, dicks.

When she says this Blitz reacts very on the defensive, repeating what she said mockingly and saying this:

How do you know, Loona?

It's a very defensive reaction and I'd bet he feels at least a little bit bruised and hurt at the thought of Stolas getting "bored" of him - which probably does not help at all with how he's struggling with how he currently feels about Stolas between the agreement for the book and not seeing him in a while.

Immediately after this interaction, he literally leaves his job (which like, yeah, he is own his boss I Guess he can do that whenever he wants but I can't imagine he does it a lot, I Hope, unless he thinks it's important) and goes shopping for more things to impress Stolas. It's a lot of effort to put into someone you don't really super care about, all things considered but let's just go with the devil's advocate here that it's not to lose the book and it doesn't really mean anything. Although I do find his choice to look at candles first interesting, assuming it's not for something else (resident sex repulsed asexual is struggling with thinking about that kind of thing - despite watching helluva boss lmao), Stolas seems to like candles. If I remember correctly, he has some near his bath.

An interesting detail for Blitz to know/remember/take into account, for someone he allegedly does not care about. Anddd that's it for Blitz's scenes in this episode.

Part 2: Stolas' Behaviour

Like with Blitz, I'm gonna focus on how Stolas acts in "When I See Him" first, then move on to what we see of him alone in the rest of the episode (which there's very little of, I think, unfortunately).

The summary of what I think of Stolas in this song is he clearly has a somewhat fairytale view of his relationship with Blitz still (which is only emphasised by how the song is disney princess like in nature), thankfully he knows he has to let him be separate from the terms of their agreement and has found a way for this to occur without horribly impacting Blitz's business. However, he (at least, at first) seems to think after this happens everything will go fine and be perfectly okay and happily ever after, or more likely hopes that is how the situation will end up - but we see more of his worries later on so he's evidently not completely deluding himself.

My derring-do is half disguised Behind a smile

I don't have a lot to say about this just that it shows Stolas is obviously aware that Blitz is performing at least a little when he's with him.

I swore I wouldn't dwell on the divorce

This line just interests me more than anything, it's understandable that he doesn't want to think about the divorce. God knows I wouldn't want to, but's it intriguing to see he's attempting to distance himself from it - I hope we see more about this in the future episodes, maybe.

So for my own health I'll remind myself That when I see him I know that it won't feel so tough I'll believe him And not the voice that says I'm not enough No need for an arrangement It can just be him and me I'll see us free How perfect it could be When I see him tonight

This bit is very sweet honestly, Stolas clearly yearns to be closer to Blitz - and he's trying his best to facilitate that. He just wants genuine connection and love, something he couldn't experience in his marriage with Stella. Stolas is obviously nervous and has some self worth issues to say the least, but he deals with them differently to Blitz. In fact, he finds that being with Blitz helps combat these (likely because he feels loved and/or wanted by someone).

Unrelated to dissecting the episode and the like, the voice acting for this part was incredible and I love the way Stolas' VA (his name has slipped my mind atm) conveys emotion in his voice - even while singing. He sounds very hopeful, yet the cracks and wobbles suggest how nervous he feels for the interaction with Blitz, even if he's currently acting as if he thinks it will end well.

Oh god I'll fucking die alone if this goes bad tonight

This bit really just kind of shows how nervous he does feel about talking with Blitz about giving him the crystal. And that he is scared it'll go wrong, it's nothing too crazy.

The detail of him having none of the medication he takes left is interesting to me though, just that he's still taking it, I guess - could suggest he's still struggling with anxiety etc etc.

Am I doing something I can't take back? Would he want me if he was free? And if he's only here as a prisoner What kind of a monster does that make me

Stolas is clearly feeling a lot of guilt for his past treatment of Blitz, and fear that his feelings aren't reciprocated - but it seems like he's more scared that he's been taking advantage of Blitz, than the thought that Blitz doesn't like him.

My entire life's been written in stone He taught me that I could choose

Blitz is the first person he really chose to meet or associate with, as a child and as an adult. There was no obligation to know him or socialise with him, or to be his friend (or more). In fact, it was discouraged if anything but Stolas chose to do it anyway - and it helped him realise he could do what he wanted, and gain the confidence to do so.

Part 3: Blitz and Stolas' confrontation

Stolas' body language here kills me, he's so nervous for what he's about to do, and despite his hopeful song early he's eerily somber - as if he knows this will end badly.

Blitz looks so afraid here, he's gone through all of this effort to try to impress Stolas and keep him from getting "bored" of him. Part of this is probably because he doesn't want to lose the connection he and Stolas have but honestly it's largely probably the fear of losing the book and his business that he's worked so hard for. Blitz is an incredibly ambitious person, and he's put a lot of blood, sweat and tears (mostly blood) into I.M.P and to have it taken away because of someone else due to not being good enough for them is probably one of his worst fears.

Blitz's immediate switch to trying to seduce Stolas is slightly jarring, but not all that surprising considering how this whole thing started. Blitz is desperate, trying anything to prove to Stolas he's worth keeping around. Meanwhile Stolas looks resigned, as if realising it really was just a performance for Blitz the entire time.

Stolas, please, I- I need this book. Please, I need this book, Stolas. I will do anything.

The immediate switch to begging, mixed with tears, took me off guard honestly. I didn't expect to see him do that but it makes sense considering how badly he treasures I.M.P and he really is just at the whim of Stolas and it could all collapse at any given moment.

I don't understand, why are you giving me this? Am I not like, fucking you good enough? Because I can- I can always do better.

This being Blitz's immediate reaction to getting the crystal from Stolas is upsetting. I was on the verge of tears here, he can't even comprehend that Stolas might genuinely want to give him a gift, not because Blitz isn't good enough, but because Stolas wants him to be independent. Blitz has never viewed himself as "good enough" for people and he puts on a lot of performances to convince himself he's worthy of being associated with others. This probably feels like, to him, a convoluted way of "getting rid" of him, instead of giving him freedom so he and Stolas can interact with less of a power imbalance.

This in an interesting roleplay, never done this one but I can get into it. How's this? Oh, Stolas, I'll stay with you, I love you soo much.

Blitz's immediate response to Stolas' confession being one of disbelief leading him into thinking it's some sort of roleplay or pretense because he can't possibly believe that anyone would actually love him is honestly worse case scenario and probably where all of this starts going downhill.

I have my answer, Blitz. You needn't say anything. I have wanted you, for so long. The fact that you couldn't believe that I might have these feelings about you, that your first instinct is that it's always about... sex. That's enough to know what this is.

This right here, is terrible. Miserable, even. Communication is starting to break down, Stolas doesn't realise or understand Blitz's point of view and I certainly cannot blame him for getting upset but how these two are communicating yet somehow falling victim to miscommunication at the same time is impressive at this point. They're both getting emotional, and it's fucking everything up but to be fair no one can remain 100% logical, this is nerve wracking and stressful for them both.

What? Fuck you, Stolas. You spring this feelings bullshit on me, are you fucking kidding? Can I get a fucking minute to think after everything you've put me through, you pompous rich asshole? Treat me like one of your little butler imps, you can't just dismiss me like that! I mean, you royal fucks think you can do this every time, like you can just play with our feelings because we're smaller and not as important! Well, I'm not letting you, bitch! Let's go!

This, this is incredibly cathartic in a weird way. It's not good by any means but for Blitz these bitter feelings have probably been somewhat simmering beneath the surface for a while and he hasn't been able to express them because of the nature of his and Stolas' relationship. The way he's phrasing this makes me wonder if he has previous experience with a royal demon doing this to him outside of now, and Stolas' father hiring him to be Stolas' friend when he was a child. It wouldn't be too unreasonable but putting that aside for a moment. The anger and lashing out here is probably a defense mechanism on his part, every time something has got vulnerable or upsetting in the past in this show Blitz always seems to get angry (an example that comes to mind at the minute is when Cash was celebrating Fizz's birthday - at the time he didn't say anything to Fizz but he stormed off, angry. Another one could be probably a few of his interactions with Verosika. I'd have to rewatch the show to find something more particular). The point is Blitz lashes out instead of being open and vulnerable, he doesn't mean or genuinely think any of this - and immediately regrets it as soon as he says it. But it's too late, it's been said.

Stolas flinches or pauses when walking a handful of times during this rant from Blitz, each time whenever he has an insult. Before he has even said anything it's immensely clear Stolas is very hurt by this.

Blitz. I think so very highly of you, I didn't realise you think so low of me.

This is the regret I was talking about, it's probably helped along by Stolas admitting he thinks highly of Blitz but god - he is crushed. And he immediately tries to apologise but Stolas teleports him out of there before he can even process it, leaving us on a terrible cliffhanger.

God, it's a fucking mess. They're a mess I'm so scared for the next episode and how they are even going to fix this. Someone get these gay demons a therapist, please, I beg.

All in all, ow my feelings, this episode hurt, I did cry. Stolitz have mastered the art of miscommunication, but that is hardly news. Blitz seems to have got a genuine wake-up call, sort of similar to how he did with Fizz and I'm hoping that kickstarts something to help him improve, because he does need to. At the same time, Stolas has kinda fucked up here, and does need to give Blitz more time to process since I imagine this is very fucking shocking to him. It's all one biggggg mess and god knows how it'll work out but I'm looking forward to finding out and hopefully not having my heart ripped out and spat on by the end of this season.

[noddytheornithopod]

The Fireside Girl Whose Flames Grew so Large She Burned Herself, and the One She Loves

So I just realised something about Act Your Age and a certain aspect of it that always bugged me and was a major factor in my frustration with the episode.

"Boo!!!!!! Shut up!!!!!!! You've talked about this episode to death already!!!!!!"

I don't disagree. I'm pretty tired of it, myself. To the point where I see "AYA sucks" takes these days I just roll my eyes and move on, even if I agree. But what I am posting about is a new insight that just occurred to me. As much as I hate to admit it, Act Your Age might be a train wreck, but it's a train wreck I can't take my eyes off of. It's a disaster, but it continues to fascinate me with the implications it has, even if they drive me up the wall.

So basically, one of the big things that bothered me is that Isabella and Phineas' relationship regressed, but in the main series, they seemed to be getting closer as the seasons progressed. Pretty weird to have the main show suggest one thing, only for Act Your Age to go "actually Isabella gave up once high school came around and basically kept her distance from Phineas as much as she could" and Phineas being depressed and thinking he's not good enough for Isabella (which I'd argue was made worse by Isabella's actions I just referred to, but that's a story for another time).

I could go on about how this was a barely thought out way to throw in some cheap angst that is immediately swept under the rug despite opening huge cans of worms, but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here because I think I might finally understand how this seeming contradiction now works.

Isabella grew distant from Phineas in high school BECAUSE they got closer.

This is all pure conjecture. The show could prove me wrong some day, and other people might have completely different ideas, but this is what I'm thinking.

As I mentioned, with the show, Phineas and Isabella seem to be getting closer overtime. Isabella might be running into bigger challenges to confess her love (still not over how it took a literal zombie apocalypse to stop her when she decided to just straight up confess), but Phineas also grows more comfortable around Isabella, something she obviously loves, I mean he even seems to care about her in a unique way (again, Pharmacists, the moment he realised she wasn't with him, he grew OBSESSED with finding her, risking his and everyone else's safety just because he feels that guilty and worried about their separation).

I don't know what the revival will do with Phineas and Isabella, but I expect more of the same. Mostly the occasional gag, maybe a sweet moment here and there, Isabella maybe tries something here or there even if it can't be a full confession. But for the purposes of this theory, I'm assuming that would happen, and they would continue to really like each other.

So yes, they're closer friends than ever. The spark has lit a fire. There's a line I like in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor where the character Merrin talks about how fire will warm you and keep you company, but left unchecked it will burn everything, leaving only ash. I'm paraphrasing, but in the context of the game, it's referring to protagonist Cal Kestis' struggle of growing more obsessed and passionate over fighting the Empire. This obsession indeed grows and consumes him to a point where he ends up in a very dark place by the end of the game.

So basically, what I'm saying is, Phineas and Isabella might grow closer, but that closeness will bring out their feelings more. Phineas ultimately realises how he feels by high school, of course. That is one part of the fire that has grown. But Isabella? She's probably getting more and more mixed messaging. Despite Phineas' growing love and affection towards her, she still can't just spell out how she really feels, which is what Phineas needs to understand. She might have her courage growing, but we've seen the Mysterious Force in Phineas and Ferb - Phineas remaining oblivious to Isabella's true feelings for him is part of the show's status quo. She's literally doomed to fail. Also, if she's even closer, she's going to feel even more afraid to ruin what they have. As brave as she is, this one anxiety is her Achilles' heel, and she's even more afraid of failing. It's too much pressure.

The Fireside Girl is burning.

She can't handle all of this. So what does she do? Give up. Phineas is her best friend? Doesn't matter, it hurts too much to even be around him. Is it contradictory that she's afraid of destroying what they have, but she does this out of hurt anyway? You bet, humans are messy like that. Always thinking she just might be there only to find he has something else distracting him, or anytime she makes progress, cosmic forces set her back. This fire is raging, affecting not just her, but Phineas, too. Her choice to grow distant makes him miss her. Worst part, he doesn't even understand why it's like this.

In the end, there is only ash. The relationship they had burned to a sliver of what it used to be. The saddest part is, I can't help but think Phineas would try to amend what was wrong, but that clearly fails too, leading to how he probably just thinks Isabella is above him and he doesn't deserve her love (oh hey, that part actually became relevant after all). He too enters a despair over their relationship, just accepting that she's not around anymore despite having stronger feelings than ever for her. He even seems to have a harder time inventing. The last of the fire goes out.

Lucky for them, a phoenix rises from those ashes. In Act Your Age, they finally talk (albeit briefly and in a very rushed scene that sweeps so much under the rug), and they can truly be open with each other again. A new fire is born, one that they can hopefully keep under control.

So what can we gleam from this? I feel like Phineas and Isabella actually could've had a real chance to get together earlier, but as things grew stronger between them, that made things more delicate, too. Not only did the circumstances of their ruthless status quo, but their own flaws ruined thins. Phineas' struggle to understand complex, hard to define emotions like love and his singular focus on what to do, not realising his love language is incomprehensible to Isabella... maybe his own love being incomprehensible to himself (see "I know cute when I see it on my cute tracker" lol). But more importantly, Isabella growing closer but still misreading what Phineas does, her own personal expectations AND fears being heightened by their closer bond, and expecting him to just get what she does. If they DID become closer, more time where he doesn't focus on her probably hurts even more.

In the end, Act Your Age had ideas, but they were afraid to commit to them. They somehow did both too much and too little. I actually think if they had a stronger vision, this episode could've been great, but it would also risk being too serious for Phineas and Ferb, and then people would be mad for DIFFERENT reasons. They didn't think it through, but well, some of us fans are just obsessive enough to pick up the pieces and try and make sense of it all. Because of our own burning fires of passion for this show, and for some of us, this relationship.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

What do you think about this take? Do you agree? https://www.tumblr.com/zuko-always-lies/764888302529757184/cobra-diamond-had-this-very-interesting-take-on?source=share

Half agree, half disagree. I'd say that's what BRYKE wanted people to see Azula's arc/ending as, a tragic "death" of her very spirit, leaving just a hollow shell behind. It's impossible to redeem or heal her, not because "she's too evil", but because she's just not there anymore. And obviously the opinion of the guys that had THE final say on the show affects the narrative since they decided what would or would not be part of it.

But they still allowed things like Aang saying "EVERYONE has the potetial for great good and great evil", Zuko looking at Azula with pity in the finale and even saying he believes even Ozai could change. And the head writer, Aaron Ehasz, REPEATEDLY pushed for a redemption arc for Azula, with a reconciliation with Zuko, and the seeds for it are all over the original show. It's not that difficult to look at all that and wonder "What will happen when/if Azula recovers from her breakdown?" because since the story stops just a few days after her fall from grace, it is not set in stone that she will stay like that forever, even if that's indeed what Bryke wanted us to take from that scene.

Most importantly, as of this moment, everything else Bryke approved of post OG series leaves Azula's fate far more open-ended.

The Yang comics disrespected her character horribly and made the heroes go from witnesses to her tragedy to people directly causing said tragedy - but Azula is also far, far, far more "alive" than she was at her ending scene. She's sick and evil, yes, but she has goals that she's actively working towards (even if they make no sense because Yang is bad at his job). She's not just in constant agony, crying and screaming and unable to even talk, or completely catatonic. Her soul is corrupt, but not gone.

Same for the recent (and much better written) Spirit Temple comic, in which Azula resigns herself to constantly repeating the same cycle of getting new people to boss around, pushing them too far, being abandoned and then replacing them, she is making the CHOICE to stay in that cycle. It's a bad choice, but it's hers. Once again, Azula is corrupt, not dead.

Korra is where it gets a bit tricky because, well... Azula is not around and is not spoken about ever. Since the comics happen before Korra and Azula spends 90% of her time in them disappearing into the woods and confusing the main characters, it's very possible that she's not mentioned because she fucked off from their lives years ago and they have NO IDEA what she's been up to, if she's even alive.

Is she commiting petty crimes just to get by and bitching constantly about no longer living in luxury? Is she plotting her vengeance against Zuko in some weird cult she's been the leader of for decades? Is she living happily on some remote island with tons of children and grandchildren? Did she die young after tragically jumping off a cliff or stupidly choking on food? Is she the drunk, mentally ill philosopher that ruins the day of every pretentious intellectual and acts obscenely in public, Diogenes style?

Who knows? Not me. And I don't know because Bryke, at some point, clearly decided that Azula did NOT "die" in the finale. It makes sense. They wanted the story to end after the three seasons of Avatar, but they've turned it into a full on franchise now, and Azula is one of the most popular characters AND a main villain, so bringing her back inevitably draws people's attention, regardless of if they want her to recover or to just be defeated by the good guys again.

Maybe they'll "kill" her again at some point, but considering she got a solo comic and is mentioned by name in the announced comic of Kiyi, her sister/replacement, going to the very school she used to go and how Zuko worries about what that might lead to, it's pretty clear that she will be affecting the narrative(s) for a bit more time, be it directly or indirectly.

Basically: I think I know what Bryke originally intended, I have no fucking clue what their current plan is (assuming they have one) and I don't care because I basically only take the original show into consideration and it left PLENTY of room for my headcanons.

[otomes-and-tears]

Well hello hello dear friend, here i am with request... I am terrible at formuling but hope i read the rules right and that you'll feel like it but here is a request.

It happened to me not long ago but may i ask for one ( or more ) blooming panic babes reacting to mc falling asleep on video call only a few minutes after starting it ? Bonus point for a redface on the keyboard.

♦️MC falling asleep on VC with Nakedtoaster ♦️

► Tags/Warnings: -

► Words: 459

► A/N: HELLO AL!! I liked this prompt so much I’m working on writing for the other love interests 💛

Decided to post Toasty first because… Well, favoritism!

► Masterlist

“Hey, have I ever told you that you need to quit your job?”

Toasty had, in fact, mentioned that. Numerous times, actually.

It’s not like MC disagreed. The insane work schedule, which lead to them working four hours overtime today, often made them feel like they were about to fall over and die from exhaustion, like the protagonist of one of the numerous shitty isekai romance web novels they’ve been reading lately.

It was getting ridiculous, honestly. It was only a question of time before they finally decided to take the leap and quit, but it never really seemed like the right time and MC really didn’t want to screw their colleagues over by quitting in the middle of an important project.

So they endured. Slept three hours, showed up to work by 6AM sharp and tried their best to stay alert by drinking ungodly amounts of caffeinated drinks.

By the time they got home, the only thing they had the energy to do was talk on the server and spend a couple of minutes on voice chat with Toasty, who seemed increasingly more concerned about MC’s health.

“You have, yes. And I will! Eventually…” MC tried to reassure them, but the excuse seemed weak even to their own ears. Whatever, MC was too tired to sound more convincing. “I’m getting really tired of this.”

Mc points to themselves, hoping that their general appearance is enough of an descriptor.

It didn’t do anything to quell their partner’s worry, however. And MC knew that he was about a second away from dropping any and all responsibilities and coming to visit them.

“You just seem tired in general.” Toaster muses

“I should let you get some sleep.”

“No!! Please.” You protest, and toasty pauses before he can log out of the call. “I… I had a long and shitty day and just wanted to listen to your voice for a bit longer. Can you tell me about your day?”

Toasty relinquished— of course they did. Neither of them really liked saying goodbye and having an excuse to delay it a bit longer was always something they’d take.

Their face was bright red as they recounted their activities for the day. The new project they’d been working on, the difficult raid they took part in and a weird experience they had at a restaurant earlier. Mc manages to listen attentively for all of five minutes before their eyes close, their face resting against the keyboard and spamming “g” on one of the channels.

Toasty looked on adoringly, torn between relishing on how pretty his partner was and absolutely hating how they’d been roped into working long hours again and he was too far away to do help them more.

“Sweet dreams, MC.”

[nomerrynolife]

About that Last Twilight ending...

So, I’m just gonna say it straight that probably doesn’t resound with the rest of you viewers here.

I don’t hate it.

BUT

I don’t like it either.

I won’t delve into the whole ableism/ableist issue as for one, I’m not a disabled person, specifically not a blind person. It is not my place to give an opinion on this as I can’t and won’t ever understand what it’s like to be blind. And there’s quite a few posts already that have commented on this issue quite strongly so that’s that.

I just wanna write down my thoughts as a BL drama lover, Thai Drama enthusiasts, and as JimmySea fan. Also, my POV as someone who is there at the Fan Meeting in Siam Pavalai. It’s been a week, and I was busy since and only had the time now to gather my thoughts and feelings towards the finale.

The Sudden Break-Up and Blocking. I’m not sure why the writers decided to made Day to be a brat who can’t have a proper discussion on Mhok’s decision to stay. Because we see in episode 11 that Day is actually happy and supportive and encouraging Mhok to go to Hawaii if he’s selected. The least the writer could do is make them talk (or argue) it out instead, breaking up is okay if they still disagree, but blocking Mhok for 3 years? A bit excessive don’t you think?

The Non-Existent Discussion About Mhok’s Trauma. This is like the elephant in the room that never got addressed or shown at all except the nightmare in episode 11 and occasional name dropping of Rung. We get it that Day can’t see that Mhok is having a nightmare, nor did he can read Mhok’s expression if he’s upset or sad about anything but throughout their friendship they didn’t talk at all about Rung and Mhok’s family in depth? They didn’t make Day asked what happened with Mhok’s sister? Like if the writers gonna make this as the reason Mhok is staying why didn’t this issue ever brought up before? This makes the break up uncalled for since Day didn’t know the real reason Mhok is staying and rejecting the job offer.

Day’s Not Giving Back – I know a lot of people is saying how Mhok keeps on giving and Day not giving back or did anything at all for Mhok, but I think Day’s contributions is Mhok’s improvements in himself i.e. giving up smoking, learning to cook better, learning to be a proper caretaker instead of just being someone who brought Day’s food. It wasn’t physical or significant but it’s there, no matter how small.

Mhok Excessive Flirting – I don’t mind (in fact I quite enjoy it) the flirting and sweetness and cutesy antics but after the blocking for 3 years Mhok can just comeback and flirt shamelessly and acting like nothing happen………… I know this is probably just to make a happy scene for us since we cried a lot over the previous episodes but come on now, as realistic as their flirting is no one in real world would immediately flirt after not seeing each other for 3 years.

Mhok Admitting He Did Pity Day (W.T.F??) – Out of all the fuck-ups in episode 12 this is the fuck ups I’m most angry with. The rest of the flaws in the episode is forgivable but this is like the Lord of the Fuck-Ups. We have seen from the first episode that Mhok is rather curious than pity, and we know the decision to decline the job offer stems from Mhok unaddressed trauma over his sister’s death. He rather be with Day instead of being away, worrying, wondering, and feeding on his paranoia (definitely NOT pitying) so when Mhok apologize and admitting that he did pity Day I almost threw my phone to P’Aof across the cinema hall.

The Sudden Eye Donation – I know a lot of people quite preferred that Day remained blind, after all the entire series centers around Day accepting his blindness, and to show that blind people can lead a normal life. The only thing I’m disagreeing over is how soon Day got the eye donation. I don’t think in any part of the world organ donation is easy to come by, let alone twice in the span of 3 years, no matter how rich his family is (Mhon isn’t exactly a politician that gets away with everything). In my head the ending would be Mhok and Day living life like normal couple, having a meal with Night, Porjai and Mhon, and the scene cut to shows Mhon’s phone ring at the back, showing Eye Donation Center calling and series ended there with P’Aof name appearing (you know like Inception ending where we didn’t know whether Dom’s coming back to his kids is real or not). The decision to make Day received the eye donation as soon as they make up seems lazy and unnecessarily convenient to me.

Day’s Heart Shattered into Pieces Comments – I saw someone said on twitter (I couldn’t find the link sorry) “did Day have amnesia or something” and did he forget he said “this is good” when he goes completely blind for the first time on the mountain and compare it to the last epilogue where Day said his heart is shattered into pieces when he goes blind. I think what was meant here is one can accept one’s fate, but still be heartbroken with it. I like to think this is like how we deal with death of loved ones, we accept that’s it’s God’s will but we are still heartbroken over it. Day did accept his blindness; doesn’t mean he can’t be heartbroken.

Scriptwriter Having a Blind Friend to Comment– There’s the series scriptwriter on twitter, where they said they have a blind friend and when they wrote the script, the scenes and the characters feelings is in consultation with the said blind friend. So, when the finale is written they did have an argument among themselves on how to go about, whether Day stays blind or gets an eye donation. I saw a lot of hate being directed to P’Aof, I just hope people know he’s not the only screenwriter on this series. And I know I said earlier on I don’t mind that Day got his sight back but I can’t help but feels like the whole point of one palm distance and “the last image that I see” is… pointless. The songs still slaps btw.

Did Jimmy Sea Have Any Say About Their Character At All? As someone who’s portraying the characters, did a very good job with it and seem to understand and empathize a lot with their characters' situation, I wonder if they have any say on Mhok’s character admitting he’s at fault or whether Day should be more considerate of Mhok’s situation. Because we never see Day equally apologizing for not giving Mhok the chance to explain himself. And it’s quite out of character for Mhok to admit that he did pity Day. What I see from Hollywood is that actors have “creative differences” with the scriptwriter all the time in regard to the character they’re portraying so that probably doesn’t apply to Thai entertainment.

People Wishing Death To Fans Attending – guys, come on. It’s a spur of the moment thing, we cheered because we were shocked, happy, annoyed (??). All in all, I have fun throughout the whole fan meeting, the excitement to meet JimmySea, the anxiousness in how it gonna end, the eye to eye contact with JimmySea during the group photo. They’re real people guys, so beautiful up-close. Namtan is ETHEREAL, such a Goddess.

One thing I’m glad that in this fandom, even after the critics, fans bashing and semi-disastrous finale, I see no one is blaming Jimmy and Sea. If anything, they truly deserve the praises, the love and the accolades that they have received so far from their outstanding portrayal as Mhok and Day.

For those who’s just starting to binge-watching the series, please do continue and don’t be discouraged seeing all these negative reviews and comments. Please enjoy JimmySea’s visual and acting (coz I love them so much they deserve the world even when the series ending is not what everyone’s expected and I’m crying as I’m typing this while begging you to not hate them), just that don’t get your hopes up, keep your expectations low and prepare to be let down at the end.

Here’s a couple of pictures at the fan meeting, if you got the chance to go to the next fan meeting please do. I practically sold my kidney for the last minute flight coz I'm waited only after I got the admission tickets to buy the flight tickets.

Thank you for these memories, thank you for enjoyment for the past 12 weeks, thank you JimmySea. I will cherish this forever 💜💙

[blueper-saiyan]

Okay so I just want to say about your Vegeta caring about Krillin and Gohan post, that you're kind of overlooking some very important reasons about why Vegeta was looking out for them. The first time he runs into them, he discovers that they had some dragon balls, and threatens to kill krillin over it. When he then finds gohan, he mock's the kid's father, hits him, and then spells out that he's only sparing gohan due to believing he's only minutes away from immortality. he was actually on his way TO KILL gohan and krillin when he found out gohan denied him his wish, only stopping bc he sensed guru powering up gohan. he then only teams up with krillin and gohan bc he knows how dangerous the ginyu force is. to spell it out: once they got all the dragon balls, not only does krillin and gohan betray him, but vegeta also internally thinks to himself how they're fools and he's gonna wish for immortality and be done with them.

when he finds out that they screwed him over AGAIN, he's clearly going to follow through his intention to try and kill them until krillin agrees to get dende to make him immortal. while vegeta is (somewhat hypocritically) astonished with the beat down frieza is giving gohan, he STILL tries to leave them both to die once frieza's far more powerful in his second form than he expected. Not take them both with him, but leave them to die while he escapes. Given Krillin and Gohan were both boosted, he thought of them as useful tools to survive and beat frieza, which was why he told krillin not to help gohan to instead give HIM a zenkai boost.

tldr; Vegeta was being very pragmatic, but the actual level of care is minimal- and therefore more consistent with how he treats raditz and nappa.

Sorry to just dump this in your inbox. but i just disagree with vegeta's intentions are woobified by so many fans, in namek and saiyan saga he was the same level of ruthless, just more pragmatic in namek by necessity. while there could be implied care for gohan, krillin and vegeta aren't at all friends, especially considering all the times krillin has admitted he thought vegeta should die (in the saiyan saga, vs zarbon, and after cell becomes perfect)

like vegeta is a BAD person. he's selfish and would've killed more people had he gotten the chance during those two arcs, and it bothers me when people think him not being a dick at EVERY opportunity equates to him being kind or caring.

Don't worry, I'm aware that Vegeta wanted to backstab Krillin and Gohan. Honestly, when I wrote the post I thought I was giving Vegeta a little too much sympathy and I did consider adding the times he thought about killing Krillin and Gohan to make it fair, but I decided that bogged down the post when the actual question was “why did Vegeta expend more effort on preserving Krillin and Gohan's lives than Raditz and Nappa's when he’d known the former for 1 month and the latter for 25 years?”

Honestly, I think that parkergeorg has a solid explanation of it. Hopefully that has logic that works better for you, since it comes down to it being situational and a result of Vegeta actually being concerned enough about Freeza to realize he needs allies rather than taking allies for granted/using them as a demonstration of how strong he is.

I will say that although you're right about most of Vegeta being shitty to Krillin and Gohan (trying to kill them before the team up, plotting to kill them after they'd teamed up, going to go kill them once they'd taken the dragon balls), this part:

"he STILL tries to leave them both to die once frieza's far more powerful in his second form than he expected. Not take them both with him, but leave them to die while he escapes."

is anime filler, and I'm not even sure if it made it into Kai? It's definitely not in the manga; Vegeta doesn't try and leave the fight. He definitely did do all of those other terrible things though.

"tldr; Vegeta was being very pragmatic, but the actual level of care is minimal- and therefore more consistent with how he treats raditz and nappa."

I'm cool with that explanation. I still think that he put more effort into keeping Gohan alive than Raditz or Nappa, because there was genuinely no reason to save Gohan from fourth form Freeza, or alert them to where Freeza was, but I'd accept that Vegeta's willingness to backstab them both balances it out. I should have been more explicit in the original post that "there wasn't a difference in how he treated them" was a valid response. I do think there's a recognizable difference, but that doesn't mean you have to agree with me.

"Sorry to just dump this in your inbox. but i just disagree with vegeta's intentions are woobified by so many fans, in namek and saiyan saga he was the same level of ruthless, just more pragmatic in namek by necessity."

I don't mind, don't worry. I have seen what you mean about woobifying him, I find it annoying even though I occasionally do it myself (probably inevitable for a favorite character), and that wasn't what the intent of the post was. I did try and propose the purely pragmatic explanations of Vegeta's behavior, but I guess I didn't give it as much focus. I will say that I still think he's lying when he says he doesn't care/that he saved them to show off/whatever, but as parkersgeorg pointed out, the lie doesn't have to be to cover for caring for them in a way that involves actual concern for others. He could just as easily be avoiding admitting that he might need help later because that's humiliating and he's supposed to need no one.

"like vegeta is a BAD person. he's selfish and would've killed more people had he gotten the chance during those two arcs, and it bothers me when people think him not being a dick at EVERY opportunity equates to him being kind or caring."

I know he's awful, it's a solid part of what makes him compelling as a character. It makes the times where he chooses not to be awful more interesting by contrast, which is why I made the original post, along with the comparison to how he treated his other allies. However, you're right that there's a reasonable enough pragmatic explanation for trying to keep Gohan and Krillin alive, barring the final save with Gohan, and that could still be argued as preserving an ally in case he needs him later. I certainly wouldn't call his actions kind or caring even if he did save them out of respect instead of pragmatism though. When I say care, I mean it also in the sense that I care when my favorite tools break, but it's certainly not the way I care about a person. It covers a wide range of emotional investment, that he could be at any level of.

There's another post around somewhere that points out that because we expect Vegeta to be the worst all the time, when he doesn't live all the way down to those expectations it's a pleasant surprise, so it feels like he's done way better than less than the bare minimum. That's what causes the phenomena you've noticed. However, I'm still curious about when/why he is a dick and when/why he isn't a dick, as well as wtf is going on with his worldview, so I made the post, and I got some interesting explanations out of it. I think your perspective on it is worthwhile too so I'll post this.

[marvelstars]

Padmé, Luke and Anakin: compassion as unlimited love

Disclaimer: this is an answer that got too long for @husborth great points about the fandom mistreatment towards Padmé and her role in Star wars and wanted to add my two cents. You can read Husborth´s great take here:

You made many good points about Padmé character mistreatment by the fandom, I just personally disagree that this perjuice agaisnt women is a Christian/Catholic cultural staple, the belief that women are weak is part of many cultures unfortunately but in the old and new testament from the Bible is common to see figures of women taking leadership roles that lead towards the salvation of their people not by being violent or men like but by being wiser, patient, understanding and brave stories like Ruth or Esther show this. Lucas got inspired by some of these stories to develop Padmé and Leia and it´s also why he wanted to add a daughter for Anakin and the reason why Luke originally was going to be a woman.

But getting back to Padmé, this is why I personally get mad at Obi-Wan for using Padmé´s worry for Anakin to get in her ship without her knowledge so she would lead him to Vader and the fact he didn´t do anything to try to convince Anakin that Padmé didn´t know he was there and he didn´t particulary care to use her or thought about her well being given he knew Anakin was completely out of control.

I don´t think the fandom talks enough about this fact. Obi-Wan USED Padmé to get to Mustafar so he would be able to kill Anakin by an order from Yoda. This is pretty clear in ROTS and it´s also why while they had a pretty cute friendship and familiar relationship, I don´t see Obi-Wan as a character who understood what happened with Anakin and also don´t see post destruction of the Jedi temple, for very understanding reasons why he would have compassion for Anakin, this is also why the Obi-Wan series kind of get away from canon imo, Obi-Wan wasn´t raised that way and his plan of using Luke to kill Vader and the Emperor in the original trilogy by raising up Luke´s idea of his father while Vader was his killer when he knew they were the same person supports this imo.

But I disgress the fact is that out of most characters in Star Wars, Padmé is the one character who recognized a psycotic break when she saw one. It isn´t Padmé´s fault the only way Obi-Wan saw to stop Anakin was to cut him into pieces and let him dying burning alive.

I agree with you in that the narrative ultimately gives Padmé the reason and that compassion would have gone a longer way and ultimately saved the galaxy, that Luke´s story reflects this, that punishment only served to add fire to the darkside and even killing Anakin would have zero effect on Palpatine´s Empire and given Anakin was the one who ultimately killed the Emperor when Yoda was defeated, then Anakin´s death would only mean a longer time for the Empire if not the 10,OOO years Palpatine planned for the Sith Empire but Obi-Wan didn´t know the details of Anakin´s fall, he didn´t know about his nightmares or how much Palpatine grooming got into Anakin´s mind and how to treat a person in the middle of losing his mind and given his formation, killing was what he was teached to do with a Sith.

So Obi-Wan saw a Sith who just destroyed his family, Padmé saw Anakin, the sweet slave kid who risked his life to help a Queen and her planet, the joking husband who loved her with his life, who was happy to leave everything behind, his work, his role as Jedi Knight to help her raise their kid on Naboo, she saw Anakin completely out of his senses, paranoid, hurting and alone and decided what was needed was her giving him some breathing room so he would get back to his own senses, Padmé here knows about the darkside but isn´t sure how this affects a person this was why she backed away from Anakin when he started talking about taking over the Empire and become Emperors because this wasn´t her husband talking anymore and still she tried to convince him to get away from it all in an intent to help him get back to himself.

At this point Padmé knows he´s not been sleeping or eating, that he had nightmares of her dying which awoke what happened with his mother, that Palpatine has become a tyrant who has keep a close realtionship with Anakin since he was a little kid and that Palpatine used her and the crisis on Naboo to become Chancellor, it isn´t hard for Padmé to put two and two together to understand Anakin´s mental unstability has a lot to do with Palpatine and that this happening just after Palpatine became Emperor isn´t a coincidence.

I personally liked a part of the alternative story in which Padmé tried to kill Anakin using a dagger because this is also in character for Padmé, at least her amidala persona would have thought about this in a pragmatic way but I also believe she ultimately would have taken the path of compassion,in a way also reflecting back towards Luke own decision.

This is also why Vader keep beating himself over Padmé and their child death for years, because he knew he could have used this oportunity to be with Padmé and raise their kid but this guilt also pushed him deeper into the darkside for many years while also keeping him connected to the light side which Palpatine noticed, instead of feeling satisfaction for power Vader just fell into a state of constant mourning for Padmé, their kid, the younglings and everything he did that day while trying to make it count for something working on the Empire because he knew there was no fixing what he did and that he was completely consumed by the dakrside.

Now this is also why I give Luke so many points for getting to her mothers conclusion with not much or at all information Padmé and Obi-Wan had about Anakin. He just goes out of his way to save Vader because he doesn´t want to become a patricide but also because he felt this yearning from Vader for a Son which reflected his own yearning for a father. Luke is showing compassion that reflects his mothers but his reasons for going ahead with it had a lot to do with how he was raised, family is important on Tatooine, he grew up with her grandmothers family, he knew how the darkside worked because he also felt that strong temptation himself and also almost fell in the throne room, which also served him to understand how easy it´s to fall under such pressure and that his father had a similar pressure and he knew Vader had tried to protect him in his own twisted way which meant Luke was Vader´s weakness and he´s Vader´s weakness because he loves him.

I agree with Husborth Padmé and Luke correlation in their compassion towards Vader should be talked more as well in the fandom imo all these nuances are what make of star wars such a good story and it´s a shame we often forget in the fandom to talk about it in a nuanced way.

[keynb]

So I usually don't share my opinions due to my worry that people's lack of media literacy will misconstrue my words, but with some of the behavior I'm seeing I felt tempted. This is not to invalidate anyone, and what I'm about to say is entirely just my thought process. If you disagree that's fine, I'm not posting this to start an argument.

Anyway, was I super mega-bummed about Buddie karaoke being cut? Of course! Is it kinda messed up that the karaoke was a big part of the promo and now we won't get to see it? Definitely, yeah I was really upset. But after thinking about it for a little bit? It's not that big of a deal and I get it. I mean I am advocating for them to, like, release some extra little bits of the karaoke moment after the episode is released or at least tell us what the song was cuz Oliver and Ryan seemed to have a good time doing it and Oliver was so nervous about singing lol. But they made it clear that this season was a very "build as we go" situation and I believe they genuinely thought they were gonna be able to include more but that it just ended up not working out that way. I don't think they meant to shipbait us or anything either, I think they focused on Buddie in the promo cuz the main event was the madney wedding and chim being missing so they didn't wanna reveal anything about that particular plot, so they focused on the bachelor party instead. I know being teased about something and hyping it up repeatedly just to have it cut completely the day before is terrible, but with the workflow they're doing right now I feel like we shouldn't have been as surprised that they ended up, like, miscalculating a bit and having to cut more than they anticipated. And I'm sure they also prioritized the Madney content more than the bachelor party (which is good cuz this episode is about them) so those clips had to go. I feel like it was just an unfortunate series of events and not intentional on anyone's part. I've decided to give them some grace because making a TV show is hard, let alone doing it all so close to the release of each episode. I AM begging for the name of the song they sang at least!! Oliver was terrified to sing so he deserves that much lol. (BTW people saying "he got DRUNK for that scene how could you!" If you're joking then that's whatever but if you mean it seriously, I would like to say that he seemed more tipsy than anything, Oliver didn't say he had to be completely wasted to do it. He said they drank a little to loosen inhibitions but I don't think they'd get DRUNK. Lol Oliver has a hard time keeping an American accent sober, you think he'd be able to do any better genuinely tipsy?)

So TLDR: I don't think ABC meant to make us feel tricked, I just think their "lay the tracks while the trains still moving" method messed up a little. I also don't think they were intentionally shipbaiting us because with Madney being the focus of the next episode, they wouldn't wanna spoil or tease anything regarding their storyline, so they mainly focused on the more lighthearted Buddie bachelor party shenanigans, and they just overestimated how much they'd be able to fit in, and Madney should be the main focus anyway as this is not The Buddie Episode. If they continue to do stuff like this (tease and hype up scenes in promo that end up being cut, whether its ship baiting or not) then I will have more of a bone to pick

Also also, not to make it all about Buddie but as an endgame Buddie truther, I would really like to make a good impression to encourage them to make the moves to make Buddie canon. Like vent on your social media as much as you'd like but don't comment on official ABC posts saying they're like traitors or smth WE GOTTA BE PROFESSIONALS GUYS, this show isnt just about Buddie!! We need to find a balance between expressing our love for Buddie so they see our passion for it but not so much to the point it becomes insane, you know? And I say that with THE utmost love.

[dominote]

omg... please may I know more abt bb playing L in ur tv show au 🫴 (no pressure, I just saw ur tags and I'm so intriguied :3)

aaaa yes!! i'm not gonna give away the WHOLE THING yet (i have over a thousand words of pre-planning notes that WILL magically be turned into a fic sooner or later), but i can definitely tell you about the premise!

so, basically - a few establishing notes:

BB survives. he's let out on probation post-canon for being on good behaviour; near pulls some strings and makes sure he's kept a close eye on.

he does this by putting him with mello and matt, who also survive the events of death note. don't worry about how. the important part is that mello's the only one left who heard about BB directly from L himself, and mello can't really argue with that logic, especially with near saying mello is better suited for something than him.

mello publishes a book about the kira case because he strongly disagrees with near about keeping things under wraps. letting light yagami be remembered as a good boy and kira as a martyr to his followers? nahhh. let the world see the man behind the "divine justice" for the charming snake he was, and let kira's followers see exactly how human their god was. some details are edited, of course, but it's largely a factual account of the case where it's clearly stated when aliases are used to protect the privacy of affected people. even a lot of details about L are released, because mello wants the original L to be remembered properly, not be tucked under light's and near's asses as though there was never a difference. near doesn't agree with mello, but he doesn't stop him, either, as long as he gets to approve the final draft before release.

the book becomes an absolute bestseller, obviously. everyone wants to know the real story of the battle between kira and L. before long, directors and movie studios clamor for mello's attention, wanting to sign deals for the rights to make a movie or tv show based on his retelling of events.

obviously, they need actors for the tv show mello agrees to sign with. hideki ryuga's the director's top choice for light, not just because of the resemblance, but the fact that he's local to tokyo and the bonus of his name coming up as an alias used by L himself - it's perfect. recognizing that mello is really, really picky about the casting for L, though, the director lets mello sit in on the casting for that role.

no force in the world (matt) could possibly have kept BB from making it to the audition.

mello has little choice but to admit that yeah, okay, going for accuracy, applicant rue ryuzaki is unfortunately the best casting choice among the options. he is also one of mello's roommates and a nightmare to work with-- yeah, the director's already got him signing the contracts, sure, whatever.

BB is absolutely gleeful.

he is also, in fact, a nightmare to work with.

hideki ryuga, his co-star, puts up with him. so does misa amane (playing the role of misa amane). everyone else is desperately unsettled by his method acting ass.

in an attempt to bond, hideki takes BB out to party. while the night is a bit of a mess, they do at least get absolutely schwasted in the end. sensing weakness, BB pounces to ask the question that's been burning in his mind ever since he heard about hideki ryuga being an alias of L's.

L doesn't just use other people's names. he takes them as trophies. he defeats them first.

oh, yeah, a very drunk hideki ryuga confirms. yeah, i did encounter the guy, actually.

hideki ryuga does not realize in the slightest at this point that the perpetrator of the los angeles BB killings has just decided he is now the most interesting person around he can hyperfocus on.

[khiphop-discussions]

RAP:PUBLIC Ep.5 Part 3 Thoughts

Final part of ep.5! Spoilers ahead as usual

Here's part 2 & Part 1

So I'm picking back up right as Block 3 changes their leader to Reddy.

Block 4 changes from Boi B to Punchnello.

Block 8 changed it to Hippie Kunda. She or Drain K should have had it from the beginning. Gamma's goal was to save himself as he knew he was in danger. They were nice to give it to him. I hope Gamma shows us some more of himself. He hasn't done too well so far.

Why is Block 5 panicking so bad? They are a solid team even with 4 people? It seems way too early to panic. Wouldn't the "less popular" people on other teams want to join a smaller team later on? Too many people on one team makes it easier for you to be seen as less important.

Wait, isn't block 5 splitting up akin to them just abdicating the block 5 leadership immunity? Couldn't some random ass person just proclaim themselves as Block 5 and thus become leader? Then no matter how bad they do in any mission they can't be eliminated due to having leader immunity?

Nah, I think the protocol has to be that the leader brings them to the team and then all members have to vote to change them into the leader. It doesn't work based on the rules but it was a fun hypothetical lol

Anyway, back to the point, I don't think it's a good idea to just leave the leader immunity on the table. It's a waste of the immunity.

To me, it doesn't make sense for them to split up if they want to be a team so bad. JUST BE A TEAM IF YOU WANT TO BE A TEAM! There's no guarantee that you'll be able to come back together later.

OH THANK GOD! They shut down the recruitment period before any of them could change teams! I think the game actually saved them from themselves! Lol

Kaogaii is annoying but so funny at the same time.

Block Tournament is the next mission

[surpresses comments about shyboiitobii to avoid annoying y'all lol. I'll do a separate post]

I don't fully understand the rules but I'm not rewinding. I'll just go in semi-blind lol

It turns out this is a 4v4 round so block 5 will have members that have to perform twice.

They are the smallest block so they get to decide all the matches. See? They always givebthe disadvantaged teams some type of benefit to shake things up.

Khundi is so petty lol

Anyway round 1: Block 6 vs Block 7

Block 5 vs Block 8

So Block 2 vs Block 3

Block 1 vs Block 4

4v1 goes first. Boi B, Since, Punchnello, and Sky Minhyuk go first vs Damini, Jeffrey White, Jtong, and Zene the Zilla.

Block 4 performance is fun and energetic. Damn, Sky Minhyuk got so good!

Block 1 next. It's like 30 seconds in but I think Block 4 is better. They came with stronger performance and skills out the gate. Damini is better too. Her coice isn't as scratchy as on smtm11.

Cocona coming down to dance with Damini. Since had to make her ass sit down lol she was doing too much.

It was good but Block 4 was better for me.

Oh shit! I TOTALLY forgot Jo Gwangil was here.

Block 1 won with 3 more votes? I disagree but whatever.

Next 2 vs 3 so we'll start ep.6 with that!

But for now, the Titanic episode is over! (Episode 7 is just as long though. We can worry about that later lol)

[krinndnz]

An Ad-Hoc, Informally-Specified, Bug-Ridden, Single-Subject Study Of Weight Loss Via Potassium Supplementation And Exercise Without Dieting

Here's the short version: I lost 30 pounds in 6 months by chugging a bunch of potassium salt and exercising a lot. My subjective experience is that cranking my potassium intake way up made it possible to do a lot more exercise than I had been doing without also eating a lot more. Exercising more without also eating more led to weight loss (as one would hope!). I did not diet: I ate as I had been doing and as it pleased me to do. Do with the raw data as you please.

Losing weight this way is unusual and worth paying attention to because many things about increases and decreases in weight and obesity are very poorly understood. Many people would like their personal weight and obesity levels to be different, so anything that improves our collective understanding of how to make that happen is valuable. However, losing weight this way is an experiment: it's not necessarily safe to do what I did! Part of why I did it was to find out what would happen, and if you have any kind of existing kidney problems then you definitely should not do what I did. Note to other transfemmes: if you're taking spiro, that counts as a kidney problem.

I also don't want to overstate the significance of this experiment: what I've been up to in the last 6 months amounts to a single data point that happens to also be 1,100 spreadsheet cells. It's a data point that is highly suggestive, sure, but it would be extremely ambitious to say that it proves anything beyond "this worked for me" and perhaps "it's not impossible for this to work". I am writing about it because as far as I know, this particular experiment is something that nobody else has tried, and, again, anything that improves our collective understanding here is valuable.

The long version comes next: how I came to be doing this experiment, what I did in the experiment, what I plan to do next, and finally what I think about it all. The really long version is the ongoing conversation that this post is part of, starting with A Chemical Hunger, which is a book-length literature review about the 1980s–present global increase in obesity prevalence, also the posts about single-subject research where the same authors discuss the limits of what can be learned from experiences like mine, also the Experimental Fat Loss guy and his wide variety of diet-only experiments, also some critics who disagree.

How I came to be doing this

At the tail end of 2022, I noticed both that my BMI had hit 30 and that I had become very unhappy about my weight. There's a specific photo where I didn't realize until I saw the photo that my belly was hanging out over my waistband and it's vividly unpleasant in my memory. Around the same time, I happened to find the potassium-supplementation community trial that the Slime Mold Time Mold folks were running. The value proposition was "this will be easy, cheap, and safe, but also it might not actually work," and that sounded good to me, so I signed up for it and took a modest amount of potassium all through December and January. It kinda-sorta worked: I lost 6 pounds. Not nothing, but "it kinda-sorta worked" is the most one can really say about losing 6 pounds in 60 days.

The low-dose potassium delivered on all of what the SMTM folks promised, though. It was easy, cheap, and safe. So I kept doing it and, since I was already doing the potassium, decided that I should get an exercise habit going. I am a big believer in the idea that it's a tremendous amount easier to go from doing Something to doing More Something than to go from doing Nothing to doing Something. The low-dose potassium got me through the first step: once I was doing Something about my weight, it was relatively easy to do More Something. When the community trial ended in early February, I didn't have to worry about messing up its results by departing from the trial's instructions, so I started taking more potassium and building my own experiment. I also kept in touch with the SMTM authors, who were very encouraging. 🐯💕

By late March I had brought myself up to daily amounts of potassium and exertion that seemed good to me, and I stuck with those. This is the first time in my life I've focused on trying to lose weight, and I was not fully prepared for how demoralizing it is that the weight change from day N to day N+1 sometimes seems perversely unrelated to what you were doing on day N. Fortunately I have experience with spreadsheets, so I put together a tracker for myself that focused on the trailing-week average of my daily weight and exercise measurements as well as long-term graphs. Three months of data were enough to put together a chart whose trendline said very, very clearly, "what you are doing is working — keep it up!" With any kind of long-term project it's very important to create and sustain sources of feedback. All else being equal, the longer it takes before you can get a read on "is this going well or poorly?", the worse it will go.

I decided that my goal would be to get my BMI from 30 (the lower limit of "obese") to under 25 (the upper limit of "normal"). Happily, the math is very easy there: for my height, a BMI of 25 rounds off to 200lbs. I further decided that I was willing to spend all of 2023 working on this. That decision is why I'm writing this post now: halfway through a project is a natural time to pause and take stock.

What I did

By the end of March, my regimen was firmly settled and I kept at it through the end of June without further tinkering. The daily goals I settled on were 10,000mg of potassium and 1,200kcal of exertion. That amount of exercise worked out to be 90 to 100 minutes per day. For contrast, in 2022 my average amount of exercise per day was 15 minutes and my average exertion was 500kcal.

I used my smartwatch's exertion number ("how many calories are you using above the amount you need to burn to be alive at all?") and gradually walked up my daily goal, settling at 1,200kcal/day partially because it was working and partially because one hour of watch face equaling 100kcal was helpful for being able to read "how close to my goal am I?" without thinking hard about it. Most of the exercise was treadmill time, usually a brisk walk or light jog. Over the months I also did some running, some bicycling, and some hiking, but treadmill time was the reliable, unremarkable, do-this-every-day core of my exercise regimen. It took a while to ramp up to that amount of exertion and there were definitely days when I stumbled, for good reasons and bad. However, in general I hit the exertion goal and in particular had it absolutely dialed from early March to mid-April.

It was easier to be totally rigorous about the potassium-intake goal — it helped that that part only took a few minutes per day, instead of 90+ minutes! I used potassium chloride powder (whatever came up first on an Amazon search since all KCl should be alike) mixed with regular Gatorade (i.e. not the sugar-free kind) to make it taste okay (I recommend blue Gatorade, it's the closest to appealing when kaliated — the yellow lemon-lime was meh and the fruit punch red was awful). I added two heaping teaspoons of KCl powder to a 20oz. bottle of Gatorade and drank that. KCl is about 52% potassium and a heaping teaspoon of it is about 6500mg, so I rounded up a smidge and called that 6600-and-a-bit milligrams of potassium per bottle. On Thursdays and Sundays I drank 2 full bottles and on other days 1.5 bottles. I recorded this as 10,000mg of potassium on regular days and 13,500mg on Thursdays and Sundays.

Is 10,000mg of potassium a lot? It's a lot more than average! The SMTM potassium trial post contextualizes it helpfully:

For a long time, the recommended daily value for adults (technically, the “Adequate Intake”) was 4,700 mg of potassium per day. But most people don’t get anywhere near this amount. In every CDC NHANES dataset from 1999 to 2018, median potassium intake hovers around 2,400 mg/day, and mean intake around 2,600 mg/day. In this report from 2004, the National Academy of Medicine found that “most American women … consume no more than half of the recommended amount of potassium, and men’s intake is only moderately higher.” Per this paper, only 0.3% of American women were getting the recommended amount. Similarly low levels of intake are also observed in Europe, Mexico, China, etc. But in 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine changed the recommended / adequate intake to 2,600 mg/day for women and 3,400 mg/day for men. They say that the change is “due, in part, to the expansion of the DRI model in which consideration of chronic disease risk reduction was separate from consideration of adequacy,” but we can’t help but wonder if they changed it because it was embarrassing to have less than 5% of the population getting the recommended amount. In any case, recommended potassium intake is something like 2,500 to 5,000 mg per day for adults, and many people don’t get enough. Potatoes are exceptionally high in potassium. A single potato contains somewhere between 600 and 1000 mg of potassium, depending on which source you look at. They are the 6th highest in potassium on this list of high-potassium foods from the NIH, and 9th on this old list from the USDA. If you do the math, this means that someone on the potato diet, eating 2,000 kcal of potatoes a day, gets at least 11,000 mg of potassium per day, more than twice the old recommended intake.

This explanation is most of why I decided to stabilize at about 10,000mg per day: because that's about how much potassium people were getting during the SMTM potato diet community trial. Because that community trial involved around 200 people, it was unlikely that there would be any truly heinous health effects from knocking back that much potassium, especially together with the anecdotal evidence that inspired the trial. Aiming for that amount also meant that it would be easier to compare my results to something that worked decently well and to ask questions like "is there something special about whole potatoes, or is it mostly the potassium?" If it's mostly the potassium, you'd expect my results to be closer to the full-potato-diet results than to the low-dose-potassium results — which is what happened.

I measured those results in a very basic way: ordinary bathroom scale, first thing in the morning, every day. Considering how much noise there is in weight measurement, there's just no advantage to measuring it more often. I kept the circumstances of the weigh-in simple and stable, trusting that that was good enough. I also measured exertion in two other forms — step count and exercise minutes — but that was mostly for my personal curiosity because both are basically downstream of exertion as such. Similarly, I tracked my sleep but didn't expect that to matter a whole lot.

While I was affirmatively not dieting, I want to make sure to talk about my food habits because I could be missing something that's easy for others to see as unusual but seems totally ordinary to me. My meals are heavy on pasta, rice, bread, and granola. I work diligently to get enough dietary fiber. I eat some meat but not a lot (eating a pound of meat in a week would be above average for me), and I enjoy coffee but not a tremendous amount of it since usually I make Chemex-style coffee and having a bunch of that in a day would be too time-intensive. My go-to snacks are cashews, pistachios, cherries, and granola bars. Like most people, I should eat more dark leafy greens than I do. I use a generous hand when measuring out olive oil. I believe that if you need either milk taste or milk fat, you shouldn't half-ass it, so when I need milk taste or milk fat, I rely on whole milk and heavy cream. Fats, generally, taste good. I eat more whole food and food I personally cook than I eat packaged and processed food, and I only infrequently eat restaurant food (weekly pizza night, maybe twice a month other than that). I really like sour candies but basically stopped eating them last autumn after some very patient coaxing from my dentist. Once in a while, dark chocolate, usually with the nuts and fruit.

I ate as I had been doing: I ate the food I felt like eating and ate as much of it as I felt like eating. If I felt like eating more or less, I did that. Since I wanted to keep the exercise habit going regardless of whether or not I lost weight, it was very important to me to not make the exercise any more difficult than it had to be. Going hungry would definitely make it more difficult, so I avoided doing that. One way in which I'm very sure my experience generalizes is, it's much easier to persuade people to try "add this supplement to what you're already eating" than to get them to try "replace all of your current food with potatoes," especially when talking about long-term or indefinite-duration changes.

What I plan to do next

I'll be thrilled if I can recapture something like the 7-week March/April streak I had going. Most days in this period (44 out of 49) were PB days (i.e. a day where my trailing-week-average weight was the lowest it had been since the start of the year) and no two consecutive days in this period were non-PB days (i.e. if a day wasn't a PB day, both the day before and the day after were PB days). I was losing almost 2lbs per week and exercising a lot and I felt great. However, my intuition is that that was the honeymoon period of going from mostly-sedentary to exercising regularly, and that I should expect further progress to be more difficult, to be like the less impressive results I got in May and June.

Still, the thing as a whole has definitely been successful enough that I'm going to keep at it until the end of the year, re-evaluating again in December (and maybe when I hit my weight-loss goal, which should happen around halfway between now and then). Since I'm using January 1st as my anchor date for the start of the experiment, it lines up nicely with the calendar if I just keep going all year and see what happens. Besides, I only need 6 months more to generate a year of data, while someone going from a cold start would need a whole year.

Given that I have a setup that is working pretty well, I'm reluctant to tinker with it. I might add one more high-potassium day in addition to Thursdays and Sundays, and I might start tracking some extra data — even though I'm not trying to change them, recording my food habits seems like the most helpful additional thing I could record.

If I develop health problems I'm gonna pull the ripcord (and post about it). There are already too many shitty fake weight loss regimens in the world that fuck up the health of people who try them, we do not need more.

What I think about it

Since I'm the one doing this experiment, I get to be excited about how it's working out for me personally, which is to say, very well indeed. Right now it seems pretty certain that I'll be able to reach my goal of losing ~50lbs in a long-term-sustainable way and just as importantly, getting myself to a much better baseline state of physical fitness. I feel pretty great about that part!

The experiment is not just for me, though: the reason it's an experiment rather than just "I'm trying to lose weight" is that I am keeping track of things carefully such that other people could carry out the same steps I did and get results similar to or different from mine and ideally everyone eventually comes to pretty firm conclusions about whether this — losing weight via potassium and exercise without dieting — works or not. My chugging potassium and Gatorade for six months to a year is the very beginning of that process, and I expect that the difficult parts of the process will be carried out by people with more expertise and resources than me.

I also expect that I have not tumbled to the One Weird Trick for weight loss that everyone else just overlooked. As someone with plenty of programming experience, I have a hearty suspicion towards "well, it worked on MY setup" stories. One obvious alternate explanation for my successful weight loss is "well yeah, you doubled your exertion and kept your food intake the same, of course you lost weight" — but I don't find that explanation satisfying. To start with, if it were that easy, people would do it more often. There are a tremendous number of people who would like to lose weight and a tremendous marketplace of devices, services, and professionals to help them use exercise for that purpose, and yet in a 20-year NCHS study, average exercise rose without obesity falling. It's also very, very easy to find fat people who exercise plenty — you will find them more or less anywhere you find lots of people exercising, as well as in places like sumo stables. A member of my family has taken up powerlifting in the last year, making him both fitter and heavier by quite a bit.

Additionally, there's studies like Keating 2017 concluding that short-term exercise intervention doesn't do enough to matter, or like the Wu 2009 work concluding that exerise-and-dieting isn't meaningfully better than just dieting over periods of 6+ months, and then there's the STRRIDE study, Slentz 2004, concluding that jogging 20 miles a week can get people to lose about 7 pounds over 8 months. The STRRIDE study caught my eye because it's pretty similar to what I did: they took obese mostly-sedentary folks, had them exercise more, and forbade them from eating less. However, once you do the math the results are much less similar: the average STRRIDE participant did around half the exercise I've done for at most a fifth of the weight loss (i.e. around 1lb/month vs. around 5lbs/month and around 3mi/day vs. 7mi/day). If someone else told me "Krinn, your naïve just-hit-the-treadmill exercise regimen is 2.5x as effective as an exercise regimen supervised & measured by professionals," I would want them to provide some compelling evidence for that.

If you tell someone you want to lose weight and would like their advice, it is overwhelmingly likely that the advice will involve exercising more. Everyone has heard this advice. And yet, as Michael Hobbes observes in a searing piece for Highline, "many 'failed' obesity interventions are successful eat-healthier-and-exercise-more interventions" that simply didn't result in weight loss. Even if we as a society choose to believe "more exercise always leads to weight loss, most people just fuck up at it," that immediately confronts us with the important question, why do they fuck up at it? and its equally urgent sibling, what can we learn from those who succeed at it to give a hand up to those who have not yet succeeded?

I find the SMTM authors' metaphor for this helpful:

[exercising more and eating less] is not an explanation any more than "the bullet" is a good explanation for "who killed the mayor?" Something about the potato diet lowered people's lipostat set point, which reduced their appetite, which yes made them eat fewer calories, which was part of what led them to lose weight. Yes, "fewer kcal/day" is somewhere in the causal chain. No, it is not an explanation.

Since I've been doing this for six months, I feel pretty certain that the potassium is doing something positive for me and I'm entirely willing to put in another six months to find out what happens for me. Finding out whether that generalizes is beyond my power: all I can do is explain what worked for me, one middle-aged Seattle housewife, and hope that it's useful to people who are in a position to do serious work about it.

One kind of serious work that's available is the very cool analytic techniques that other people in this conversation have used while looking at their data. If you are the kind of person to get elbows-deep in R or Matlab, feel free to grab my day-by-day measurements for that (I release this data under Creative Commons' CC0 if that's relevant to you). I'm not going to do that, though, partially because it's been a long time since I last used R but mostly because of the thing I said earlier about my whole experiment basically being one data point. If you have a data series, then yeah, get in there with some numeric interrogation, but if you only have one data point, that data point is what it is and statistical analysis can't really add to it. All I can claim here is that this is a new data point: people going about their everyday lives do not spontaneously increase their potassium intake severalfold and the background work from the SMTM potato diet and potassium community trials tell me that no-one's run a study looking directly at what happens if you do increase your potassium intake that much.

Do you want to increase your potassium intake that much? If you do, I have to re-emphasize the potassium community trial's safety warning: if you have existing kidney problems, do not try this. Also I'm gonna deploy the boldface again to make sure I get this across to other trans women: on this topic, taking spiro counts as a kidney problem! I am not a doctor and I'm extremely not your doctor, you should talk to your actual doctor if you have any kind of potential kidney issues and even if you're in good health and want to try chugging a bunch of potassium, you should titrate up gradually the way the SMTM writeup suggests (which is also the way I did).

In addition to a general spirit of responsibility, those warnings are important because otherwise just telling you that this is easy would sound like a recommendation. Did I mention that the experiment was easy? Easy easy. Piss easy. Lemon squeezy, etc. Of course building an exercise habit wasn't easy, but the potassium part didn't make it easier or harder, and the potassium part itself was pretty trivial. Mix this powder into Gatorade a couple times per day, drink it, done.

That said, if you do want to try this, godspeed and please write down how it goes for you. I recommend building positive reinforcement into whatever you use to track it; my personal spreadsheet for this is adorned with color-coding and happy emoji. I also recommend at least thinking about the following questions, whether you're going to do this, evaluate the results of this, or both.

How safe is it, in general rather than for me particularly, to chug this much potassium? This is the big one: "just mix potassium salt into Gatorade and drink it a few times a day" is so incredibly easy that even if the effect size is small, it could benefit a huge number of people, but of course it doesn't benefit them if it's not actually safe to do that.

Does this replicate? If it's not safe it matters a lot less whether it replicates, so the safety question comes first, but if it is safe, then one would immediately want to find out whether it works for 1% of people, 10% of people, or 50% of people.

How much do other mineral nutrients, particularly sodium and magnesium, matter for this? Maybe they need to be combined in some specific way, as this Twitter thread suggests.

Do sex hormone levels matter? I'm a trans woman and I've been having problems with access to HRT in this timeframe. Given how many things in one's body testosterone and estrogen affect, and given that previous obesity research has shown differences based on hormone profiles, that's definitely something to keep an eye on. Also because spironolactone in particular messes with renal function and potassium metabolism, I expect that it affects this. Digression: spironolactone is total bullshit as an anti-androgen of first resort. It sucks and I hate it and I should have switched to other anti-androgens even sooner than I did. If you're using spironolactone as an anti-androgen because it was the first thing your doctor tried for that, you really should try something else and see if that works.

I steadfastly avoided dieting. I like my existing diet just fine, and that's why I preferred the "what if I just chug a bunch of potassium" plan. All else being equal, I'd rather try things that let me eat what I like than things that require throwing my relationship with food into upheaval. But of course you wonder, what would happen if you did combine dieting and exercise and potassium? The ExFatLoss guy has been busy trying a lot of diet-only interventions and he's got a lot of interesting results. I am not the person to try it, but it's one of the obvious things to try, so I hope someone does try it.

How does this interact with the munchies? If you decide to try what I tried and you, like me, enjoy living somewhere where marijuana is legal, I think you should look at whether the potassium changes how you experience marijuana-induced hunger/overeating. One of the things I found very striking about the matter is that it was possible for me to chug enough potassium that the marijuana-induced hunger was drastically reduced. I expected the opposite since the potassium was causing me to eat less (relative to exertion) at other times. However, I have very strong habits about marijuana (exactly twice a week, edibles only, same amount every time) and I'm not willing to change them for this, so who knows how this aspect will work out for others. Definitely something to keep an eye on, though. Even if I wasn't losing weight, the potassium reduces marijuana-induced overeating enough that I'd probably keep going with it just for that effect.

Conclusion

I spent 6 months trying to lose weight with lots of potassium and exercise but without dieting. So far I have succeeded. Unless something disastrous comes up, I'm going to keep trying it for at least another 6 months and going to keep recording what I'm doing. I'm particularly curious to see where I'll plateau, since I assume at some point I'll start getting really hungry and/or tired instead of accidentally starving. I hope that my experience and the data I've recorded from it, are useful to people who are looking into questions about obesity and weight. Please feel free to use my data and my writeup (this post) for that. If you want to try doing as I've done, good luck and stay safe: this has worked for me but it is still experimental, it might be unsafe and/or fail to work for you.

[izzydizzy13]

ok real talk for a second

how are we avoiding AI gang?

Like, I see a lot of people quitting Instagram bc of their policy to feed art to the Meta AI, and I agree that it is not Cash Money of them to do that... but I am also not entirely sure how it changes anything, because doesn't literally *every* website populate Google? If so, doesn't Google's AI take that anyway, as well as any image AI that uses Google as a database? so most of them, from what I can tell...

Am I fundamentally misunderstanding how this works? I ask because most of the art I have seen here recently hasn't been glazed as far as I can tell visually, and while Tumblr isn't feeding images straight to AI the same way Instagram is, I am still worried for y'all. I kind of hope I AM just confused, because it would be fantastic to have places where I could upload unglazed works in their pure, unswirly form. I just thought I could Glaze my future works and upload them wherever I would usually upload, including Instagram because, well, their AI isn't any better at reading it than Dal-E as far as I'm aware. It is gonna be quite annoying though, because it takes upwards of an hour to glaze something to the Default strength, and I like uploading silly little doodles that only took like 5 minutes in and of themselves lol, so I'll have to be more picky about what I post...

Anyways, I am gonna start using Glaze on my art at the minimum, I tested it with an older work and it's not very noticeable. I'll drop the glazed piece here for anyone who has been curious about how it would affect their art visually and been too scared to try using it

the grass looks bad because of me, that's my fault for not knowing how to draw grass. The Glaze is that swirly triangular pattern that is most noticeable in the exact middle of the image, on the shorts and leg. It is virtually invisible on the face, which is the part I care most about anyway. So, while yes it would be an annoying affect if it were something really aggressively well-rendered, I've got very few issues with it for my more cartoony art style. It's the default amount of glaze, so not the highest tier of protection possible but enough.

I didn't really care about AI theft when it was still in its infancy, I still don't think it's the end of the world or anything like that, people enjoy art for the personal connection it has with its artist, and I like to think AI will never fully replicate that... not to mention that all of these AIs are in for a legal nightmare once someone sues for copyright infringement ... but, with how high quality the images are becoming and how thoroughly integrated it is into many of our browsers and websites, I still don't wish to help it any further if at all possible.

For anyone who wants to utilize this anti-AI Glaze, here's the link to downloads for Glaze

There is a browser version as well, though it requires an invite (automatically granted to anyone who doesn't use AI via email) I haven't tried that one yet, my computer is thankfully able to run the desktop version so I've had no need to get an invite.

If this is the first you're hearing about Glaze, I should also mention that there is a thing called Nightshade on this very same website. It does a very similar thing to Glaze, except for that it also gives AI models incorrect information when fed to it that, through a bunch of technical stuff that I don't understand, actually makes the AI worse than it was before. I've decided to just use the regular Glaze since, personally, my goal isn't to screw over the devs who made the AI, even if it's something I disagree with. I just don't want my work utilized, so I will Glaze it and move on. I can't really blame anyone who uses Nightshade though, just explaining why I don't.

I was also wondering if any of y'all have a contingency plan in the case of AI developing to the point where Glaze doesn't work anymore... like are we just gonna have to delete everything from the last however long we've been glazing or what? yike

[chaifootsteps]

ngl that tree’s hair post is too legit. I remember following you before you were obsessed with criticizing vivzie,, It’s been so long I don’t even remember what I followed you originally for but I dont mind other than worrying about your mental health. In the past I’d write huge analyses of fandom stuff or just really any topic ngl (especially controversial ones) and people would argue with me left n right. The way it made my blood pressure boil, the agonizing need for the last word just for a little drop of vindication. It became a horrible cycle, and I’m seeing that happen with you and it just concerns me.

I’ll admit once I stopped worrying about the hypocritical people in my phone/computer my life became much more peaceful. I was less consumed with morality and decided to just exist and focus on my hobbies. I hope you can put your passion to something more worthy of your time and care.

You’re welcome to disregard this message if you find it upsetting, offensive, or you just plain disagree. I don’t really have an opinion about Vivzie or HB/HH cause I don’t really watch or engage with that fandom, so this message isn’t really biased to anyone. Just wanted to say this all cause you seem like a very headstrong person and I believe if you put that determination into something else besides discourse you can amount to great things.

Thanks,

Tree-Hair Anon (?)

Well, I certainly appreciate the concern, and also the fact that you haven't jumped ship by now, something you would be more than justified in doing! But I've got to admit, this does come across as fairly condescending.

It might not always seem like it but I promise you guys I have things I do with my time and energy other than this. I go to the gym, work my day job, engage with other human people, touch a considerable amount of grass. I have multiple passion projects I'm working on that I don't talk about here, because like hell I'm exposing my (or other peoples') fledgling little newborn baby projects to a whole horde of touchin' fingers before they've even had their first round of vaccinations.

I'm not even particularly obsessed with criticizing Vivzie, at least no more than I am with criticizing anything else I bitch about here. People just wanted to talk about that, and then they really wanted to talk about that, and then before I knew it I had Vivzie's ex-friends and people from Spindlehorse sending me top secret things and telling me not to share them. So that part of this is trying to do what I can for them, but for the most part, I just enjoy sitting around gossiping and hearing what everyone's got to say. If it gets to be too much, I close the inbox, no big deal.

All this to say, I appreciate the thought, but I'm good! Seriously. Someday (probably sooner than later) this will all be over and I'll be okay with that, but for now, it's all good.