#this took ages because of research hopefully i helped

[harmonaesthetic]

Violet’s makeup

This post is going to be in-depth, so bare with me for its length. 

Looking through set photos and within the show, Violet seems to wear a few cosmetic products. 

Below is a closeup of Violet in Rubber Man for easier reference I’ve made.  

The makeup artist for season 1 was Eryn Krueger Mekash. I did some digging and it turns out she has spoken about her techniques/products!

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from February 10, 2011 in relation to lips:

“Lip stains are long-lasting and not drying or sticky — we can’t have hair sticking to lips during the dance numbers,” says Eryn Krueger Mekash, head of makeup on Glee, who uses Tarte Lip Stain in Envy on Dianna Agron and Lea Michele. 

With Makeup411 (a now defunct makeup magazine site), Eryn Krueger Mekash did a Beauty Breakdown on season 1 of Glee, here are the snippets worth noting:

[Lea Michele as Rachel Berry] Blush Stila Convertible Color in Petunia on apples of cheeks […] Mascara CoverGirl LashBlast Volume Blasting Mascara in black on top lashes only […] Lips Korres Lip Butter in Pomegranate or Smith’s Rosebud Salve

In another interview she brought up the foundation she used on Hollywood for the men to retain the “no makeup, it’s natural” look: 

I love using Tarte BB Treatment cream on men. It gives a touch of color and has a mattifying agent and SPF. […] Polished looks start with foundation that is buffed in and minimal powder. Those cameras can still see every brush stroke so that is still a big priority.

With Allure magazine, she said her personal all-time favorite products were:

"I have always loved Yves Saint Laurent Touche Éclat for lots of highlighting—undereyes, nasal labial folds. Also a great moisturizer and all around cure-all is Egyptian Magic. It's great for chapped lips, dry skin, rashes. I am ridiculous about my own makeup. I slap it on and blend it later—I have no time to do proper makeup on myself. My staples are Colorscience Sunforgettable Mineral Powder in Perfectly Clear, Benefit's Bad Gal Lash mascara, Senna Totally Transforming Concealer, Make Up For Ever HD Invisible Cover Foundation for special occasions, Laura Mercier Eyebrow Pencil in Blonde, and Make Up For Ever Aqua Eyes in Purple (6L), Taupe (24L), and Black. I don't like touching myself up and I want everything to last a really long time."

However in this interview with Style Caster:

EKM: We use Koh Gen Do Cleansing Spa Water Cloths, Moisture Foundation and Oriental Plants Skin Lotion Spray quite a bit. We also love Makeup Forever HDfoundation Matte Velvet Foundation and Acqua Cremes for staying power.

We use Colorscience Sunforgettable Powders which are waterproof […] 

Makeup Forever Mist and Fix, Stila Convertible colors (the cream blushes stay better), primers help to keep everything in place […]

Healthy looking skin is an important part of the youthful look – and not too much powder, not heavy foundation.

Now back to Violet’s makeup and what I believe she used and did.

I do not believe Eryn Krueger Mekash used much mascara on Taissa. If she did, it looks to be more on the top lashes (just like Michele’s on Glee). What’s visible to me though is the very subtle eyeliner around her eyes. There is no wing apparent. 

Violet’s lips do have a luster as you can see in the image above, but in the below image it’s more matte. I am torn between Tarte LipSurgence Natural Lip Tint and Stila Convertible Colors.

All-in-all Violet’s makeup is not heavy or flashy; it gives a natural, youthful impression. Clearly the makeup does vary with each episode but not a lot. Considering she is 15-years-old and juggling so much chaos, it makes sense for her character.

Below is another up close image, from Piggy Piggy before Violet takes the pills. 

[kindaconfusingme]

JULY UPDATE (master's thesis)

2nd Update (July):

Hello, hello!

Just thought I'd give a little update on how it's going, it's been a while since the first and last update so far. I'm still working with the data, it's taking longer than I thought it would (mainly because I am an anxious person with the wish to do everything to the best of my ability, leading to a lot of insecurity and sometimes procrastination. Hurray.) But everything is moving forward, which is a good thing, and I currently hope I'll wrap things up in a few weeks. Can't promise anything though, because if things went as I planned I'd be finished by now.

I'll keep you posted!

___________________________________

1st Update (March or April, I don't remember)

Hello!

I hope you can tell by the smiley little me above how thankful I am to everyone who helped share this survey and participated in it. And to everyone who wished me luck with my thesis!! (Oh, and to my friend Jojo, who took this little colored pencil drawing I sent her and digitalized it for me.) I know that this topic is very emotional to people, so I am extra appreciative that you took the time and energy to help me out. Since I seem to not know how tumblr works despite being here for nearly 10 years (as already said in my comment in the notes of this post that might have led you here), I am not yet sure how to efficiently ensure that everyone who would be interested in the results will be informed when they are “presentable”. This post for one will be updated when there is news (which will take an amount of time I can’t specify yet, the data analysis and putting it all into a written thesis will take its’ time) and I will leave it pinned on my blog until my thesis is complete so it is hopefully easy to find.

Thank you all so much and I wish you a great day, where- and whenever you exist at the moment.

___________________________

(Original post)

Hello, folk of tumblr!

I’m a german psychology master’s student and currently in the process of gathering data for my master’s thesis. Therefore, I’m searching for people who are interested in participating in an online survey. The study addresses how current and former Harry Potter fans deal with J.K. Rowling’s views regarding trans people.

For this purpose, a study was created that consists of questionnaires and a few open-ended questions. If you are over the age of 18 and are/were a Harry Potter fan, your participation would help me a lot! It would support both my master's thesis and the expansion of the state of research on this topic in general.

Due to the format of the questionnaires and the open-ended questions, it is advisable to work on this study on a PC. Especially because of the open-ended questions, the time it will take you to complete the survey may vary greatly, estimated is a time between 20 and 40 minutes.

The attached link will lead you directly to the study if you are interested.

Greetings and virtual thank you cookies to you!

Note: This study deals with an issue that causes a great deal of distress to many individuals. If you are one of those people, please handle it in a way that is safe for you.

Click here for the English version of the study

(https://survey.aau.at/index.php/199547?lang=en)

Click here for the German version of the study

(https://survey.aau.at/index.php/495548?lang=de)

[creampuffqueen]

tell us about the tlok gen 2 kids

ask and you shall receive!!!! making fankids is such an obsession of mine lol

so i have futures and kids planned out for pretty much everyone, but i'll just go over the main krew ships + kainora for now. and i'll try to keep it kind of brief but i have So Many thoughts about them so we'll see if i'm successful. i have like. an entire labelled timeline. it's wild

under a cut because this got so long holy crap

the easiest to start with is the bopal kids. they get married a couple years after the end of tlok and start having kids pretty soon after. they end up with four kids (somewhat considering adding a fifth but we'll see. there's already so many ocs)

their eldest is jade, who is an earthbender. then they have a pair of identical twin boys, named san and goji. san is named after bolin's father. san is an airbender, goji is an earthbender. their fourth child is a girl named tempa, who is an airbender. she actually ends up becoming blind later in life. not whatever toph had, as she was born seeing, but she had some degenerative disease that slowly took her eyesight. she actually ends up developing a technique similar to seismic sense, but with airbending, to help her get around! she keeps her head fully shaved so she can always feel vibrations in the air

the next up to have kids is, surprisingly, kai and jinora. this was not intentional on their part. but they've been dating since they were like 12-13, so i honestly don't think it's much of a stretch that they would end up becoming parents as teenagers. pema and tenzin are a bit upset that their daughter got pregnant at 17, but at this point they've accepted kai into the family, and they respect the young couple's decision to keep and raise the baby

and then after they have their first baby, they decide that they're going to hold off on getting married until their family is complete, so all their kids can be a part of the wedding. like bolin and opal, they end up having four kids as well. all of them are airbenders. their first born is a boy named sangye, second is another boy named tadashi, third is a girl named zaya, and fourth is a girl named tara. it's the jinora and tenzin parallels for me lol. two boys, two girls, four airbenders. despite their young age they are very good parents

then we have the korrasami babies. they have the smallest family, with just two kids. i did some research and as it turns out, sperm donation/artificial insemination procedures were a thing in the 1920s. of course they were WILDLY unethical at the time but hey, they did exist. this is how they end up with their kids. mako is the donor, which i know some people may find that weird but mako is their best friend, i feel like they would rather have a donor that they know and trust than just. some random guy

korra is pregnant with their first baby, who they name katara. she's a waterbender. asami is pregnant with their second baby, a little boy they name hiro, after asami's dad. hiro is a nonbender. they are literally the best moms ever <3

and last but not least, we have wuko's kids. for the longest time they are the cool, childless gay uncles. i think they're both really good with kids, but neither are ready to be parents for a long time. not to mention in my timeline it takes a solid ten years for wu to get the new democratic earth kingdom up and running smoothly enough that he can abdicate. and even after he abdicates and he and mako get married, they're still unsure about kids for a few more years. when they do decide to have kids, they both for sure want to adopt. i have a whole separate post i could make about mako quitting the police force to become a social worker and opening up a youth shelter. but he knows he wants to help out kids, so hopefully none suffer the way he and bolin did. wu does not want to have any bio kids, as he wants the royal bloodline to end with him so there is no possible claim to any kind of throne

but then korra and asami are like 'hey, if you guys want a baby, we're cool with helping out' because i mean mako already helped them have their family, they can do the same for him and wu. and since they're offering, mako and wu decide to take them up on it. korra ends up being a surrogate for them, and they welcome a little baby girl that they name naoki, for mako's mom

then, soon after naoki is born, they end up finding a trio of very young sisters out on the streets. their mother passed away, their father walked out on them, and they have no other family. the eldest girl is only 8 years old. when mako meets her it feels like he's looking into a window at his past self. the girls are very frightened, but mako and wu are able to earn their trust enough to help them out. and in the process of caring for them, they end up totally falling in love with these kids. they ask them if they want to be adopted. all three say yes

the girls are named kasumi, ryoko, and hikari. all three are firebenders. naoki also ends up being a firebender. there's so many firebenders in the wuko house. i'm also spreading my girldad mako agenda. him and wu taking these girls in and giving them a family is actually super emotionally healing for him. he's able to make sure another set of siblings out on the steet has a family

anyway that's a very basic rundown!! i love chatting about my next gen kiddos so so much so thanks for asking! and of course if anyone has any questions about specific kids or families please feel free to ask!!!

[onskepa]

Whole new exposure

Helloooooooooo everyone! So for this fic, I decided to combine two requests since it makes so much sense to me, and also for how opposite they are to each other. Here are the requests!

Request A: can you do Sully family or Na’vi with a goth reader? this is the same person who asked for the goth reader. I know Slipknot and korn isn’t goth but can like can the reader listen to them or just metal?

Request B: can you please do Sully family with a gyaru reader?

Now I had to do a lot of research about the Gyaru culture since I don't know SHIT about it. But hopefully this fic is enjoyable for everyone!

BTW THIS TAKES PLACE IN MODERN ERA!!!

------------------

The sully kids all huddled on their family couch, peaking out to see the house across the street. It was a nice house, a two story home recently renovated. Only a few days into the market and in a snap it was sold. Today was the day the Sully family got new neighbors. Moving trucks were starting to pull up on the drive way, movers beginning to put furniture and other stuff inside. 

“You think they have kids?” Tuk asks as she shares her snack with spider. The blonde boy in question shrugs, “who knows tuktuk, but I hope they are nice” he says. Everyone nods in agreement. 

“Oh, maybe they are like lawyers or some big boss to afford to live in this neighborhood” lo’ak says. True to it, they live in a nice neighborhood that is upscale, calm and quiet. 

“Who knows, but remember what mom and dad said. We have to give our new neighbors the full Sully welcome, " Neteyam says. And as they all watched, a van pulled up to the driveway and four people walked out. There they were, their new neighbors. 

“What in Eywa’s name are those?” Kiri asks as she stares at the new neighbors. Well, two of them to be more specific. The new neighbors consisted of a mother, a father, and two daughters that seem to be around her and lo’ak’s age. 

 “Maybe instead of staring at them like creeps, we should go and greet ourselves? The cookies are ready so why not do it now?” Spider suggests. A small moment of silence passed before the siblings reached a conclusion. 

“Fine, but I swear if that creepy girl appears in my nightmares, I'm moving to grandma’s” Lo’ak says as he stares at one of the girls. Tuk runs happily to get her tray of cookies she baked with the help of Kiri and their mother. Already imagining how she will greet her new neighbors. 

“Come on baby bro, lets go greet them” neteyam says as he pats lo’aks shoulder. Grunting out his mask, when really he was just as excited as everyone else. So everyone prepares the needed welcoming and make their way to their new neighbors home. 

“Halloooo~!” 

“Sup” 

The sully kids were really at a loss for words. Tuk, who is even the more social butterfly among the siblings, couldn't find the words to greet them back. 

Why? 

Because the new neighbors were nothing like what they expected. Two girls stood in front of them. One of them had exaggerated bleach blonde hair with massive curls, decorated in prettys bows. Tan skin, save for the pale areas around the eyes. Light pink lip color, Lisa frank esk style with multiple colors and animal patterns and fuzzy shoes. Long colorful nails with various patterns and beaded gems and glitter.

The other was the complete opposite. 

Super pale skin, black lipstick color, dark eyeshadow, dark goth clothing with a band shirt of the classical band “Slipknot”. Chains on her skirt and dont forget her massive 5 inch boots with belts all over it. Choker around her neck and more belt bracelets. Long but sharp black nails with a more simple tone yet so shiny. 

“Um…hi, welcome to our neighborhood….” Spider said out slowly, still trying to process what he is seeing. 

The hyper pink girl gladly took the tray of cookies that tuk offered. “Thank you so much Nya~!” 

“Stop it”

“Make me”

“Sorry for the mess, we are still unpacking” the goth girl says as she opens the doors for the sully kids. Everyone walks inside to see the house, clearly it has been renovated and the smell of fresh pain along with stacks of boxes and unopened stuff laying around. 

“What are your names?” the pink girl asks. And everyone introduces themselves just like how their parents taught them in a polite manner. 

“What are your names??” Tuk asks, her nervousness went away. The goth girl pointed at herself, “you can call me ‘Zila’”. 

The pink girl snickered a bit, holding in a laugh, “yeah, like godzilla”. 

Zila slapped her sister on the shoulder, making the pink girl squeak in surprise. “Shut up, you know it means something else”. 

Kiri looked at the pink girl and smiles, “what about you?” she asks. 

With a small twirl on her hair, the pink girl happily answers “You can call me Asobi”. Zila rolled her eyes, “Junko would have been much better” she says. Asobi taps her sisters head like a kid, “nope, Asobi is leagues better than her”. 

A few seconds of silence passes by.

“So…. want a tour of our place?” Zila asks. 

After a couple of minutes touring their home, kiri took note that in the living area, kitchen, and guest bathrooms were all surprisingly normal. Neutral colors of greens and browns, giving a peaceful, calm vibes to the place. Something Kiri has come to like. 

“So that concludes our home” Zila says as she claps her hands in a swinging manner. Asobi stands beside her, rolling her heels back and forth. 

“Nu uh! What about your rooms? I wanna see” Tuk whines while stomping her feet. Neteyam was quick to shush her, even picking her up. “Sorry about my sister, she can be a bit nosey in places where she isn't supposed to be” Neteyam apologizes on tuk’s behalf. 

Asobi giggled a bit, going over to playfully pinch tuk’s cheeks, making tuk laugh a bit in return. “It's ok, we dont mind showing our room. Come here sweet pea” neteyam easily hands tuk over to Asobi as she happily accepts the child. Zila shrugs, not really caring at the moment. “Come on, back to the hall” Zila guided the group. 

Lo’ak sighs and walks up to asobi, “you don't have to give into her every whim. She is already spoiled by everyone in the family” he kindly warns. Tuk narrows her eyes on lo’ak as she sticks her tongue out at him. Making lo’ak doing the same in return. This little antic made Asobi giggles again. She pats tuk’s head, “its ok, Tuk is the baby of your family right? She deserves to be spoiled like a princess”. Tuk happily agreed with her statement. 

Down the hall they reached two doors. One was painted black with crimson accent trims, the other door was pink with light pinkish white trims. 

“Soooo…which one do you guys want to see?” Zela asks. The sully kids took a moment, having a silent conversation. 

“That one” They all said in unison. Kiri and neteyam were pointing at Zila’s door, while spider and tuk were pointing at Asobi’s room. Lo’ak was pointing at both of the doors. The two sisters looked at each other then back at the five kids. Asobi puts tuk down and both do a quick rock-paper-scissors game, Asobi wins, thus opening her door first. 

“Welcome to my-” 

“Candy core rotten teething hell of a room-” 

“Realm~!” 

Asobi enters her room, expanding her arms to show the full view of her room. And the Sully kids were having mixed reactions. 

“Oh wow….”

“It's sooo…..”

“Ummmm….”

“I LOVE IT!!”

Tuk, without hesitation, ran inside of Asobi’s bedroom and danced around, letting out another round of laughs and admiring every little thing. “It's like a princess room!” she shouts in excitement. Kiri inwardly hissed, “tuk! Don't go into her room like that!” she scolds, but Asobi shrugs. “It's ok, she seems to have fun anyways” Asobi says, “come on, you’re welcomed in” she encourages. 

Walking over, Asobi starts to show some items to tuk, to which the child happily admires every bit. It was like a dream bedroom! 

To kiri, it looked like a unicorn vomited everywhere. She can already smell the cotton candy scent emitting from the pink room. While it is cute, and definitely something Tuk would love to have, its way too much. Lo’ak and spider believed they would have pink eyes from so much pink going on. Neteyam being polite, rather than not having much opinion about the pink hell heaven room.

“So what is your room like?” Lo’ak asks to Zila. A little huff escapes her black lips and smirk forms. “Welcome to my little peace and quiet” Zila says while she opens her door.

If the outfits weren't enough to tell just how different the girls were, the rooms were a definite confirmation. Unlike Asobi’s chaotic room, Zila’s room gave away a sense of calmness but definit not a full chill, comfy place either. 

“You guys are welcome to come in too, nothing here will bite you” Zila says as she lays on her bed.

“What about scaring us?” Spider says in a nervous manner. There were two creepy looking dolls near the window. Something straight out of a paranormal horror movie. Zila looks over at her dolls. “Oh them, don't worry. I checked if they were haunted when I bought them. They aren't” she answers. 

Lo’ak raised an eyebrow, why does she sound so disappointed? 

Kiri looks around from the doorway, peeking in. It was a bit cold in Zila’s room, but less noisy and minimal stuff going on. 

“Got music to play? Its pretty quiet” lo’ak asks. Neteyam hit him on the back of the head, making lo’ak groan. “I have CD’s on that shelf, knock yourself out”. 

“Slipknot, slipknot, Black Veil Brides, slipknot, Rosetta Stone, Bauhaus, the cute, Pierce the Veil, ACDC, slipknot, within temptation, leaves eyes, oh, even baby metal” spider was listing off many band names of Zila’s collection. So say she wasn't picky in what she likes. And clearly a big fan of Slipknot with how many albums she has. 

“Yeah, still exploring different alternatives” Zila’s replies as she paints lo’aks nails black. Neteyam was chilling in her black velvet couch as he takes in all the stuff she has and the vibes she accomplished. However his curiosity was cut short when tuk and Asobi entered the room. 

“Look look! Asobi gave me a makeover!” Tuk happily shouted. Her braids were full of cute little bows, every color you can imagine, a rainbow tutu with way too many bracelets on each arm. And light colored makeup, only a bit of eyeshadow and pink rosey dust on her cheeks. “And she gave me a manicure!” showing off tuk’s nails which were a mix of blue and pink. 

Tuk skips over to her siblings to show off her new looks, kiri looks over at Asobi with a slight concern expression. “Don't worry, the makeup is vegan, and the nail polish can be easily wash away in a few hours” Asobi treasures. “Oh yeah, that's one thing you can count on. Any makeup, nail polish, other products, it's all vegan and certified animal cruelty free”  Zila informs as she finishes lo’ak’s nails. 

“Huh….thats actually nice” Kiri mutters. Tuk twirls around and sees Zila’s old Victorian doll house. Quietly she goes over to the girl and nervously asks “can…can I play with it?”. 

Neteyam sighs and leans forward to reach out for tuk, “come on tuk, you already had enough-” 

“Yeah sure go ahead” Zila happily answers. 

Neteyam slightly frowned at that, only for zila to smile at him a bit smugly. “What? She is the baby, no?” zila asks in a bit of a playful mockery. Turning to tuk, zila says “if there is anything you want tuk, just ask alright? No need to be scared”. Tuk nodded happily and went on to play with the doll house. 

Spider rubbed his chin as he observed Asobi and Zila chatting about something. Seeing how they behave and still wonder how the hell they are related. 

“Are you two really sisters?” spider asks so suddenly. Lo’ak and kiri were quick to hit him on the head, “SPIDER/BRO!” the two shouted in unison. Spider hissed from the pain he received but was quick to defend himself, “what? C’mon! They are totally different! I get it! Kiri and I are different too but we have similar styles and shit! So it's really confusing to me!”. 

Asobi lets out a fit of laughter, holding her stomach as she falls back on zila’s bed. Zila on the other hand was covering her mouth to hide her laughter. Spider couldn't help but blush a little, did he make a fool of himself? 

“Oh my…!! Hahahaha! Oh boy this will never ever get old..!! Pfft….HAHAHA” Asobi let out another round of laughter. 

“Indeed, it still amazes me that people are still unconvinced” Zila agrees. After a few minutes, the sisters calmed down. “Hey, how about some tea? All this talking is drying my throat” Zila suggests. Everyone agrees and heads to the kitchen to prepare some tea. 

Everyone sat down in the half empty living room with foldable chairs and one plastic covered couch. Having a few sips of green tea, all the excitement slowly calming down.

“So to answer your question spider…” zila says first, dragging a bit of her sentence. Asobi sits next to zila, in a criss-cross manner. Her hands warm from her tea cup, “we are most definitely related” Asobi answers. However, doubt is still there. 

“Look, we get the same reaction all the time. Yes our styles are very different, yes our manners are different, and yes our vibes are basically the opposite of each other” Zila goes on to say. 

“But that is it. That is the limit. Just because our lifestyles are different, that doesn't mean our blood makes it just as different. We were born and raised in the same way, neither of us are better than the other. We just like our own styles” Asobi finishes. 

“Yup. My style is alternative goth” Zila points at her clothes, Asobi does the same “and my style is gyaru. We Like to go all the way, down to our way of sleeping and living” Asobi explains. 

“But why…?” Tuk asks. 

“Why not?” the sisters as in unison. 

“Much like how you guys have your own style, so do we. Our styles define who each of us our, and live it like that” 

“We like what we do and not be swayed by the normies”. 

“We live like how we want to live” 

“Kids come down, they will be here any minute so get your act together” Jake shouts from the kitchen. It was evening as he and neytiri prepared the dining room, making sure that they looked their best for the arriving guests. 

Upstairs in game room where the sully siblings were at, all checking each other that no a hair was out of place. Yet at the same time they were each holding a different amount of guilt. 

“Were we too mean or rude…?” Lo’ak asks. Clearly asking the question everyone was thinking. “I want to say no but…we might have” Kiri answers. Neteyam scratches the back of his head, “Tomorrow we should apologize, it's the right thing to do” he suggests. Silently everyone agrees, and with that, they all head downstairs. 

And right on time as well. 

As the last sully reached the living room, the door bell was heard. 

“Show time” Jake says as he opens the door. 

New voices were heard, neytiri and jake greeting whoever came. 

“Come come, meet our children” Neytiri says a bit loudly, signaling her children to stand up. 

And entering the living room was a family of four. A man, a woman, and two identical daughters. Exact same hair color, same facial features, wearing wine red long sleeve summer dresses with matching black shoes.

“Hello children, I am Mr. Obeni, my wife Mrs. Obeni, and our lovely twin daughters, Zila and Asobi” 

“Halloooo~!” 

“Sup” 

“WHAT?!”

Sorry if this took a bit, had to keep going back to make sure I got the goth and Gyaru culture down. However I like how this turned out, until next time! See ya!

-------------

Zila = Meaning “shadow” in Hebrew

Asobi = from the anime "Lords or Pastimers"

[avatar-anna]

Hiii I just wanted to say I love your writing. You're one of my favorite authors on here.

If you're comfortable, could you do an asexual!reader confessing to H about their sexuality? If you're not comfortable that's fine :)

sorry this took me so long! i am not as well-versed about asexuality as i am with others on the lgbtqia+ scale, but i tried to do a little research beforehand, so hopefully i do all my ace readers justice (did i use that right? lol)

this is an au :))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and Harry were driving home after a date. Your fourth date to be exact.

The boy from your chemistry class asked you out with a note slid across a lab table, and you thought his curly hair and dimples were cute, so you said yes.

And he was everything a gentleman should be—paid for your movie ticket, held the door open, pulled your chair out when you finally went to a restaurant. He was kind and funny and a little dorky, but you were okay with that because you were too. It was how you'd become friendly in class. He saw the pins on your backpack from your favorite movie franchise and asked you about it, and you talked about it all through class and into your lunch period.

For all intents and purposes, Harry was the perfect boyfriend, though you hadn't put a label on anything yet. But there was just one problem.

You knew that as a teenager, you were expected to like certain things or act a certain way. Girls in your grade giggled with hushed tones about losing virginities and figuring out what they liked and didn't like; classmates fawned over celebrities and spoke dramatically about wanting to rip their clothes off and do all sorts of blush-inducing things to them.

You knew that this was how people your age were supposed to act, but you didn't. You thought a celebrity was cute, or felt envious when some girls started to have boyfriends and girlfriends, but you never had any...sexual desires.

At first, you chalked it up to you just not being as mature in that department. When you first started high school, you weren't the only one who didn't have a boyfriend or went "boy crazy" as your dad liked to call it. You just watched your shows and movies and blogged about them online. But now you were eighteen, and you still hadn't felt the urge to have sex with anyone. That is, you weren’t sexually attracted to anyone. You felt the urge to do things, but never with anyone. You didn't look at a celebrity or a classmate or people at the grocery store and wonder what it would be like, it was as if you were indifferent to all of that.

And then Harry asked you on a date, and you were so excited. You thought that this was it. It wasn't that something was wrong with you, you just needed to find the right person to have those feelings for. You were picky, that's all.

But after a few dates, you still didn't feel it, which was confusing because you really liked Harry. He gave you butterflies and you liked that you had so much in common. He was attractive, that wasn't up for debate, but you just didn't feel any kind of sexual desire for him. You made out a couple of times in his car, but even that was minimally enjoyable for you, but mostly because your head was always creating scenarios in which you would have to do things you weren't ready for.

You remembered before your first date how your older sister explained what she called "the rush." "You just feel it all over, and then, I don't know, it centers, you know, down there. It helps when having sex, but make sure there's foreplay. The rush won't be enough for your first time. Or the next. It really depends on the guy."

You liked Harry, but you didn't get "the rush." After your third date and kissing him in his car, you did extensive research, and to put it plainly: you were bone dry.

Was it medical? Did you just see Harry as a friend? Would this last forever? You were terrified about what this meant for the future. You knew how babies were made, and even at eighteen, you knew you wanted them eventually. What if you got married, and you were still bone dry and rushless?

All of this was going through your head as Harry drove you over to his house. You'd gone mini golfing, and towards the end, he said his mom was out with friends, his dad was on a business trip, and his sister was away at college. He had the whole house to himself, and he wanted you to come over.

It didn't take extensive research to know what he was hoping to do, even if he didn't say it explicitly.

And when you finally made it to his room, sat down on his bed, and he held your face in his hand, you closed your eyes and tried so hard, if not for yourself then for Harry. Anytime he kissed you, he did it with so much passion, like he was genuinely enjoying it. You wondered what that felt like. To not be so caught up in your own insecurities and self-doubt to enjoy something so simple like kissing someone you liked on his bed.

Objectively speaking, you thought he was good at it, though. It did nothing for you, but you thought he used the right amount of tongue and his lips were nice and soft, and he always had a gentle grip on your face. Any other girl would be lucky to kiss him, maybe even do more, but you just couldn't feel it. That desire to do more. All you wanted to do was stop.

You almost let him go through with it, thinking that maybe you just needed to get it over with, but as Harry's fingers undid the button on your jeans and began to creep down, you couldn't do it anymore.

"Stop. Please stop."

Thankfully, Harry immediately retracted his hand and stopped kissing you. "Sorry, I should've asked first," he said, inching away from you on his bed to give you space.

"I—I don't want to have sex with you," you blurted, standing up from the bed and putting more distance between the two of you.

"Um...okay?" Harry said, clearly feeling awkward and a little hurt by your blunt tone.

You wanted to comfort him, to explain that it wasn't just him, that you were pretty sure it was everyone. But you were too embarrassed, too freaked out by your abnormal feelings.

"Please take me home."

"Sure. Of course."

Harry took you home, and neither of you said a word the whole way. You could tell he wanted to, though. But you couldn't bear to say anything, worried that your frayed nerves would make you throw up. So you stayed silent, not once looking in Harry's direction.

"I'll see you tomorrow—"

You were out of the car and running up the steps to your house before you could hear the rest, trying to hide the fact that tears were slipping down your cheeks.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

At school the next day, you dreaded seeing Harry. You considered skipping, but you couldn't come up with a good enough excuse for your mom to believe, so you shouldered your bag and went.

Harry offered you a small smile from his seat at the lab table, but all you could do was look at him before turning away from him as much as you could in your seat. As class went on, you drowned out the sound of your teacher's lecture, perfectly aware of Harry sitting next to you. You felt like you couldn't breathe, your mind playing last night over and over and over again.

Then your computer pinged with a message from your school's instant messaging app. It was from Harry.

Harry Styles: can we talk?

Y/n Y/l/n: sure

Harry Styles: im sorry if i made u uncomfortable last night. i think i jumped the gun a little

Y/n Y/l/n: its ok

Harry Styles: no. i didnt ask if u wanted to. thats on me

Y/n Y/l/n: its...not just u

Harry Styles: what do u mean?

You sighed. Were you really about to tell him the truth? At least it was easier to do it over text.

Y/n Y/l/n: idk. i've just like never wanted to have sex before

Harry Styles: ever?

Y/n Y/l/n: no

Y/n Y/l/n: i know im a freak

Harry Styles: youre not. everyone is ready at different times

He was being so nice, but he wasn't getting it. And neither did you until you had this conversation, until you spelled it out for someone else. Sighing, your fingers moved across your keyboard, hitting send before you could take the words back.

Y/n Y/l/n: and what if im never ready? what if i just don't want to?

You stopped messaging after that and left class the second the bell rang, not wanting Harry to try and talk to you in person. You hid from him during lunch and avoided his texts on your phone. You just needed to be alone.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

That weekend you were at home, watching football on TV with your dad while your mom made quesadillas for lunch. You were half watching players run across a field, half drifting off to sleep, which meant you didn't hear anyone knock on your front door or feel the couch move as your dad stood up to answer it. When he came back, he nudged your shoulder gently. "It's for you, kiddo."

Curiously, you walked over to the front door, freezing in your tracks when you saw Harry just outside waiting for you.

"Hi."

"Hi."

You didn't know what else to say. You were sure he'd leave you alone after avoiding him all week, but here he was.

"I've been thinking about what you said in that message," he said out of the blue.

You felt nervous all of a sudden. Why was he here? Hadn't things been awkward enough?

"Oh. I mean, I guess I just assumed we were broken up because of what happened in your room, but if you wanted to do it in person, I guess that's—"

"No, you're not understanding me," he said, looking at you funny for drawing that conclusion, but what were you supposed to think? He clearly wanted sex, you didn't, end of story. "I—Can we sit down?"

You nodded, motioning for him to sit on the porch swing. You joined him, but kept your distance and looked down at your hands folded in your lap.

"Like I told you, I thought about what you said, and it got me thinking about this article my sister made my family read after she came out as bi. It just kind of explained all the different...things, I guess."

"Things?" you asked.

"Yeah, like, gay, bisexual, lesbian. She said that now that a member of our family was part of the lgbtq community, we had to be well versed, so she gave us homework, and I—I remembered this."

Harry reached into his backpack, which was when you realized he brought it with him. An easy mistake to make when you tried your hardest not to look at someone.

He pulled out stapled packets of paper, all of which came out to a hefty stack. "Have you ever heard of asexuality?"

You shook your head. It sounded familiar, but you were ashamed to admit that you weren't as knowledgeable about all of this as Harry seemed to be.

"Well, according to this, it's when someone experiences little to no sexual attraction," he said, handing over his first packet.

You flipped through it briefly, reading bolded titles like "Facts about Asexuality" and "Sexuality is a Specturm" and "Many asexual people desire and have romantic relationships." But before you could read more, Harry was handing you another packet.

"And there's a spectrum obviously. Like you could want to have sex, but not be sexually attracted to someone, or someone could not feel the need to have a sexually intimate relationship, but might have sex with someone on occasion. It’s a little more complicated than how I’m explaining it, but it’s all in there. Does this...resonate with you at all?"

Did it? You kept leafing through all of Harry's research, trying to determine if this was how you felt. Some of it definitely did resonate with you, like not being sexually attracted to someone. You were curious about sex, but you thought it was merely clinical because you couldn't think of anyone to do it with. You were okay with flying solo, though, and that was fine for the time being.

You didn't say anything to Harry while you read through some of the packets. Part of you had been worried that you'd never be able to fall in love, or that no one would be able to fall in love with you, but that didn't seem to be the case. The longer you read, the more you felt seen, felt hope in the fact that you weren't alone in this, that other people loved and experienced sex and lived normal lives despite where they fell on a spectrum.

Tears welled in your eyes all of a sudden. You were overwhelmed by all of the information and part of you connecting with the words of the page in front of you, but part of you was also touched that Harry went out of his way to help you understand something about yourself you didn't. He could've just moved on, found someone else to be with, but he cared about you enough to help you make sense of your feelings.

“I—Yes, thank you,” you said quietly when you realized you hadn’t said anything in a while.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked. “I know it probably wasn’t my place to bring all of this to you, but I just wanted to help—”

You cut him off by hugging him, tucking your cheek against the soft material of his t-shirt. This you could do, you started to realize. You liked when you held his hand or when he hugged you, but you’d been so worried about anything leading to more it ruined all the other stuff, you couldn't enjoy it as much before.

Harry was hesitant to wrap his arms around you, but he eventually did, pulling you closer and squeezing you tight. It felt nice being close to Harry like this, but you wondered what this new discovery of yours meant for you and him. He probably wanted to be with someone sexually attracted to him, someone more willing to satisfy whatever needs he might have, and you weren’t sure that was you. In your brief glance at the papers in your hands, people who were asexual didn’t just never have sex, but you wouldn’t be anytime soon. Not until you figured yourself out more.

But did what you need line up with what Harry wanted?

Pulling away so you could look at him better, you said, “Thank you. For everything. I know that not many people would go out of their way to do all this.”

“You’re welcome. No one should go through life feeling like they don’t belong, least of all in high school.”

“I, um, I suppose this means that we’re, you know, not together anymore,” you said, trying to broach the subject as best you could.

To your surprise, Harry looked at you confused. “What are you talking about?”

You shrugged, trying to appear more nonchalant than you felt. “I just, you know, figured you would want to date someone who was ready or wanted to—”

“Y/n,” Harry said gently. He placed a hand on your knee, but it was more so to get your attention back on him than anything else. “I didn’t ask you out because I wanted to have sex with you. I asked because I like you.”

“You do?” you couldn’t help but ask. “Even if I’m...asexual?” The word felt foreign on your tongue, but it felt right too.

“Of course. Your sexuality is part of what makes you you. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

His words made you feel giddy. You weren’t sure when or if you’d be ready for sex, but you still really liked him, and the fact that he seemed to know you in a way no one else did made you feel even closer to him.

“So what now?” you asked.

Harry chanced holding your hand, and you let him, your hands fitting against each other’s perfectly. “We go slow. I feel awful about crossing so many of your boundaries the other night, and I don’t want to make that same mistake again. If you’re ever ready or comfortable enough with me to take that next step with me, we can, but for right now I’m happy to just hold your hand. And possibly kiss your cheek from time to time.”

How was he so perfect? It was then that you found yourself wanting to do more, to be more, if only for Harry’s sake. That would come with time, or maybe it wouldn’t, but Harry seemed content to wait with and for you, and even more content should you not want to do anything remotely sexual with him at all.

“I’d really like that,” you said, and taking a chance, you kissed his cheek.

There was still a lot of learning to do, and a lot more self-discovery to go, but one little kiss to express your appreciation felt fitting, and you wanted to do it. You wanted Harry, just not in the same way other people might have.

You blushed when Harry held his cheek on the very spot you kissed him. And when he regained his composure, he opened his arms up for you to snuggle up against.

It was the perfect way to end this afternoon, having Harry hold you on the porch swing while he swayed you back and forth until you eventually fell asleep. A perfect perfect day with a perfect perfect boy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i would protect harry and asexual!y/n with my life😤😤

[deepwithintheabyss]

about your dad jason post. um. pls tell me more this sounds very interesting

Haha you have fallen into my trap >:D

(there was no trap)

Okay so basically this idea was supposed to be like SUPER angsty but then idk baby fever or something took over? I was possessed by the ghost of a tired mother of two children? I have no idea this idea wildly spiraled out of control and feels like I am channeling my own exhausting experiences with dealing with children into it which is weird because I've like never really had to take care of any children....

ANYWAY

To sum up as to how this happened, Tim got hit by something that de-aged him and slowly was erasing his memory, he and Jason were trying to reverse it before he lost all his memories but didn't manage to find something, upon Tim's request Jason ensured the BatClan would not be taking care of toddler Tim and instead is the one doing it

So now Jason is just, trying to deal with a toddler while trying to be a vigilante while trying to further their research into how to turn Tim back because the magic users can't help while trying not to have a breakdown over the fact that he's falling in love with taking care of a child (being a dad) and fearing about the "what if I never manage to turn him back I can't take care of him forever I would have to give him away to someone" and the "oh no when he turns back this might ruin our relationship I promised Tim I wouldn't let the BatClan take him in not that I would take care of him" while also stressing over the fact that he's like going through a lot of Tim's and his families personal stuff in his research and kinda slowly starting to gain and entire new view of Tim (that isn't helped by the little Tyke (and god do I love that word) but that he can at least try to reassure away with "this child isn't Tim")

Anyway yeah it's incredible cute and stressful moments of Jason taking care of a toddler while also angsty reminders that this isn't meant to last at all and that he probably won't get to have this for long or ever again.

(There's also the thought of maybe exploring the angsty idea more of why someone would want to have a tool that de-ages and memory vibes someone (in a way so that they regain their memory while growing up but having it more yknow, distant) and some ideas of hinting at Ra's being involved maybe, and like the entire thing with the BatClan in general which might just be a misunderstanding etc. but I'm not sure how much drama I want? Because I hate it when stories add so much unnecessary drama I want to keep it simple)

Anyway then the second story would (hopefully) be Tim and Jason trying to navigate their relationship post reversal and how to deal with the situation and all the memories and their view on the other person and their own feelings on that matter and some others (romantically feelings heh) and how they would rationalize that to each other and to everyone else

This turned very rambly and there is still some missing but eh

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for failing to stop my ex from experimenting on her child and creating a monster, and then lying to her that said child was dead?

A long time ago I (27 back then M) had a job as security for this scientist (20's-30's F). She used to work with my father before an accident took his life and she continued on with his research. I fell in love with her and we eventually started dating.

After a while she started to grow distant from me and eventually broke it off. She then got with this utter piece of shit asshole head scientist (fuck if I care M) who probably never actually loved her and is a total creep. Of course I stayed by her side no matter what (its was my job) to protect her and hopefully help her understand that this guy sucks but to no avail.

One day the two of them approached me and told me they were expecting a child. Being top scientists and the parents, they decided to experiment on their unborn child and inject the womb with cells from an alien parasite. Obviously I was highly against this and expressed that to my best abilities, but her mind was made up. Things escalated and I was shot by the asshole scientists she chose over me. I never got the chance to convince her this was all wrong and she shouldn't subject a child, least of all an unborn one, to that.

Eventually I woke up and escaped a test tube. I had failed her and the child both, so I locked myself away in a the basement of a mansion for around 30 years, sleeping in a coffin to pass the time. One day I was found by a group of people who were hunting down her son who had become the monster he was doomed to be... I joined them and finally put an end to the shithead scientist who headed the whole experiment and took her child away from her turning him into this monster. We killed him and eventually defeated her son once and for all.

During the jouney I joined them on we found a cave and there she was. She couldn't age, couldn't die because of the alien cells that entered her body. She wanted to know if her son was dead and I told her he was which was a lie. We killed him eventually but this happened before that.

AITA?

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hi! Feel free to ignore this if you want to. But I've been questioning if I(we?) may be a system.

I'm pretty sure I have a lot of trauma[especially from a young age], and most of my life is blocked out. I also just struggle with memory in general.

I hear voices, whenever they aren't talking to me it's very muffled, but I can understand them when they're talking to me. I also know some things about them such as names, ages, and vaguely what they look like.

I don't switch[or at least I dont think I do], but I do seem to experience passive influence. It mainly happens when I experience extreme anger, I do stuff but whenever I look back it never seems like me. And one of the voices seems to take responsibility for it.

I also feel like a parent or older sibling to these voices. Along with feeling like I'm older then the body I'm in.

I'm really just confused here, I'm trying my best to research everything but it's hard to understand sometimes.

hey there -

our host is co-conscious right now, and isn’t really capable of adding to this response. however, we feel it’s safe to say that our syscovery started out quite similarly to how you’re describing yourself. our host could hear different voices in his mind, many with different names, ages, and preferences. the voices sounded fuzzy and unclear unless he focused to try and pick out what was being said.

to be fair, our host also didn’t think he ever switched when we were first learning more about our system. since then, we’ve realized that just because our host is capable of seeing and hearing the world around him, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s always the one interacting with it. the more we learned about our system, the easier it has become to realize when a switch has taken place, and to recognize what a switch looks like for our system.

our did is covert. to outsiders, we very well may seem and appear as a singlet. our switches are subtle, and those who don’t know us would likely not suspect that we’re a system at all. having covert switches and masking all the time means it took a long time of self-reflection and questioning ourselves to understand that we were switching at all!

at this point, we’ve had time to get to know each other and have been working a lot on our internal communication. as we talk to each other, it’s gotten much easier to determine who’s actually fronting at any given point in time.

we’d definitely recommend checking out our resource post for questioning systems. if you suspect you have a trauma history, it would probably be wise to look into and research dissociative disorders. also, if you’re in therapy, it would probably be a good idea to bring up your concerns in a future session.

here’s the post:

there’s tons of resources in that post, and we’re continuing to update it as we find more. hopefully this can help set you on the right track with learning more about yourself.

remember it’s okay to question plurality or systemhood, even if it turns out you’re not actually plural. it’s okay to question, and it’s okay to try and learn more about yourself! questioning plurality doesn’t really harm anyone, and if it turns out you were wrong, that is totally fine.

we hope you’re able to find the peace, support, and resources that you need, anon. best of luck to you with everything.

🐢 kip and 🖋 cecil

[cherryhomo]

Hello, I have never talked to you before and it's not been much time since I follow you but you seem like a really understanding person and I don't have anyone to talk or ask for advice and i hope this doesn't bother you or anything and of course you don't have to answer if you don't feel like it but I have seen you have ADHD and I wanted to ask you how you try and deal with it cause i have been medicated with ansiolitics for so time now cause my psychiatrist said everything that was/is happening to me is cause anxiety but i got looked up by another one and he told me it was a clear untreated adhd case and everything he told me made perfect sense and now i'm really lost and i haven't been doing great and i just don't know how to deal with all this and i don't deal good with changes so i would love to have some advice so i don't go more crazy and do something stupid.

I'm signing with my fav number so if i ever message again you can remember easily

-13

hi 13!!

so what you’re describing is pretty similar to what happened to me - i was seeing a psychiatrist from age 14 and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and it took me, at 20, doing my own research and realising that oh shit maybe i have ADHD and finding an ADHD specialist to finally get diagnosed. i’m assuming you’re afab (sorry if i’m wrong!!) as afab people are much more likely not to get diagnosed with ADHD until adulthood - and afab people are 15% more likely to be treated for depression and anxiety before being treated for (or diagnosed with) ADHD, so the good/sad news is you’re not alone!

i know it can be a really confusing time, as it feels like everything you’ve known and thought about yourself isn’t real. however, an important thing to remember is that really, nothing about you is changing, except for the reasons you do things or behave a certain way. you are still the same person - the ADHD has always been there, always been a part of you, now you just know what it is. and now that you know what it is, it should be easier to deal with!

my advice would be to keep talking to the new psychiatrist and see what they say. maybe you can try medication - you said you’re on anxiety medication, do you feel like it helps? if not, it might be because the root of your anxiety (the ADHD) isn’t being treated, and maybe with ADHD medication, you’ll notice your anxiety decreasing as well. even if you don’t want to try ADHD meds (i do and i love them but they’re not for everyone), hopefully the new psychiatrist can work with you to figure out things like coping mechanisms.

i hope you’re able to find some peace and comfort in your diagnosis. i know it’s a really confusing time, and i still hold a lot of what i honestly think must be trauma from being diagnosed so late and spending my entire teenage-hood thinking there was clearly something wrong with me, i wasn’t good enough, etc etc.

i read an interesting paper on the topic of mis/nondiagnosis of afab people with ADHD yesterday that really resonated with me, if you want to look it up and read it it was called ‘Mis. Diagnosis: A Systematic Review of ADHD in Adult Women’ by Darby Attoe and Emma Climie (if you can’t find it feel free to message me, i have a pdf)!

sorry for the long answer!!

[continuations]

Thinking About AI

I am writing this post to organize and share my thoughts about the extraordinary progress in artificial intelligence over the last years and especially the last few months (link to a lot of my prior writing). First, I want to come right out and say that anyone still dismissing what we are now seeing as a "parlor trick" or a "statistical parrot" is engaging in the most epic goal post moving ever. We are not talking a few extra yards here, the goal posts are not in the stadium anymore, they are in a far away city.

Growing up I was extremely fortunate that my parents supported my interest in computers by buying an Apple II for me and that a local computer science student took me under his wing. Through him I found two early AI books: one in German by Stoyan and Goerz (I don't recall the title) and Winston and Horn's "Artifical Intelligence." I still have both of these although locating them among the thousand or more books in our home will require a lot of time or hopefully soon a highly intelligent robot (ideally running the VIAM operating system -- shameless plug for a USV portfolio company). I am bringing this up here as a way of saying that I have spent a lot of time not just thinking about AI but also coding on early versions and have been following closely ever since.

I also pretty early on developed a conviction that computers would be better than humans at a great many things. For example, I told my Dad right after I first learned about programming around age 13 that I didn't really want to spend a lot of time learning how to play chess because computers would certainly beat us at this hands down. This was long before a chess program was actually good enough to beat the best human players. As an aside, I have changed my mind on this as follows: Chess is an incredible board game and if you want to learn it to play other humans (or machines) by all means do so as it can be a lot of fun (although I still suck at it). Much of my writing both here on Continuations and in my book is also based on the insight that much of what humans do is a type of computation and hence computers will eventually do it better than humans. Despite that there will still be many situations where we want a human instead exactly because they are a human. Sort of the way we still go to concerts instead of just listening to recorded music.

As I studied computer science both as an undergraduate and graduate student, one of the things that fascinated me was the history of trying to use brain like structures to compute. I don't want to rehash all of it here, but to understand where we are today, it is useful to understand where we have come from. The idea of modeling neurons in a computer as a way to build intelligence is quite old. Early electromechanical and electrical computers started getting built in the 1940s (e.g. ENIAC was completed in 1946) and the early papers on modeling neurons can be found from the same time in work by McCulloch and Pitts.

But almost as soon as people started working on neural networks more seriously, the naysayers emerged also. Famously Marvin Minsky and Seymour Paper wrote a book titled "Perceptrons" that showed that certain types of relatively simple neural networks had severe limitations, e.g. in expressing the XOR function. This was taken by many at the time as evidence that neural networks would never amount to much, when it came to building computer intelligence, helping to usher in the first artificial intelligence winter.

And so it went for several cycles. People would build bigger networks and make progress and others would point out the limitations of these networks. At one time people were so disenchanted that very few researchers were left in the field altogether. The most notable of these was Geoffrey Hinton who kept plugging away at finding new training algorithms and building bigger networks.

But then a funny thing happened. Computation kept getting cheaper and faster and memory became unfathomably large (my Apple II for reference had 48KB of storage on the motherboard and an extra 16KB in an extension card). That made it possible to build and train much larger networks. And all of a sudden some tasks that had seemed out of reach, such as deciphering handwriting or recognizing faces started to work pretty well. Of course immediately the goal post moving set in with people arguing that those are not examples of intelligence. I am not trying to repeat any of the arguments here because they were basically silly. We had taken a task that previously only humans could do and built machines that could do them. To me that's, well, artificial intelligence.

The next thing that we discovered is that while humans have big brains with lots of neurons in them, we can use only a tiny subset of our brain on highly specific tasks, such as playing the game of Go. With another turn of size and some further algorithmic breakthroughs all of a sudden we were able to build networks large enough to beat the best human player at Go. And not just beat the player but do so by making moves that were entirely novel. Or as we would have said if a human had made those moves "creative." Let me stay with this point of brain and network size for moment as it will turn out to be crucial shortly. A human Go player not only can only use a small part of their brain to play the game but the rest of their brain is actually a hindrance. It comes up with pesky thoughts at just the wrong time "Did I leave the stove on at home?" or "What is wrong with me that I didn't see this move coming, I am really bad at this" and all sorts of other interference that a neural network just trained to play Go does not have to contend with. The same is true for many other tasks such as reading radiology images to detect signs of cancer.

The other thing that should have probably occurred to us by then is that there is a lot of structure in the world. This is of course a good thing. Without structure, such as DNA, life wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be reading this text right now. Structure is an emergent property of systems and that's true for all systems, so structure is everywhere we look including in language. A string of random letters means nothing. The strings that mean something are a tiny subset of all the possible letter strings and so unsurprisingly that tiny subset contains a lot of structure. As we make neural networks bigger and train them better they uncover that structure. And of course that's exactly what that big brain of ours does too.

So I was not all that surprised when large language models were able to produce text that sounded highly credible (even when it was hallucinated). Conversely I found the criticism from some people that making language models larger would simply be a waste of time confounding. After all, it seems pretty obvious that more intelligent species have, larger brains than less intelligent ones (this is obviously not perfectly correlated). I am using the word intelligence here loosely in a way that I think is accessible but also hides the fact that we don't actually have a good definition of what intelligence is, which is what has made the goal post moving possible.

Now we find ourselves confronted with the clear reality that our big brains are using only a fraction of their neurons for most language interactions. The word "most" is doing a lot of work here but bear with me. The biggest language models today are still a lot smaller than our brain but damn are they good at language. So the latest refuge of the goal post movers is the "but they don't understand what the language means." But is that really true?

As is often the case with complex material, Sabine Hossenfelder, has a great video that helps us think about what it means to "understand" something. Disclosure: I have been supporting Sabine for some time via Patreon. Further disclosure: Brilliant, which is a major advertiser on Sabine's channel, is a USV portfolio company. With this out of the way I encourage you to watch the following video.

So where do I think we are? At a place where for fields where language and/or two dimensional images let you build a good model, AI is rapidly performing at a level that exceeds that of many humans. That's because the structure it uncovers from the language is the model. We can see this simply by looking at tests in those domains. I really liked Bryan Caplan's post where he was first skeptical based on an earlier version performing poorly on his exams but the latest version did better than many of his students. But when building the model requires input that goes beyond language and two dimensional images, such as understanding three dimensional shapes from three dimensional images (instead of inferring them from two dimensional ones) then the currently inferred models are still weak or incomplete. It seems pretty clear though that progress in filling in those will happen at a breathtaking pace from here.

Since this is getting rather long, I will separate out my thoughts on where we are going next into more posts. As a preview, I believe we are now at the threshold to artificial general intelligence, or what I call "neohumans" in my book The World After Capital. And even if that takes a bit longer, artificial domain specific intelligence will be outperforming humans in a great many fields, especially ones that do not require manipulating the world with that other magic piece of equipment we have: hands with opposable thumbs. No matter what the stakes are now extremely high and we have to get our act together quickly on the implications of artificial intelligence.

[tkblythofficial]

u might be onto something when you said J only got casted as Sejanus as a way to lure R and make her sign for Lucy Gray 👀 cause Francis made it VERY CLEAR to the public he didn't want anyone but R for the role and made her multiple offers to fly and accommodate her family/bf so she could say YES, i remember reading on reddit how even after she declined 3-4 times lionsgate had casting sheets requesting for a R look alike, they wanted her so badly!!! And now I also remember during an interview with the 4 of them (R, T, J & H) J admitted that he got a casting request and sent - by his own admission- a mediocre ass tape, like man said he didn't even learn his lines and never expected a call back but he got it, T and R were like "why would you say this?" lmao Considering they ended up pretty much watering down Sejanus character so much on the film and most of his scenes were cut, they took the risk of casting J in order to secure R. Thank godness it worked!

I actually think J has potential as an actor, I acc liked his portrayal of Sejanus and gave him bonus points for having actual chemistry with T too. He was a highlight in WSS too (in my opinion) But he definitely needs to work on his own way to stardom without his gf intervention. I won't blame R for needing extra support on set since she's so young and new to the industry plus she was going through a massive wave of misogynist hate so I get it, hopefully since things are staring to get better for her and people are recognizing her talent she can now branch out to greater projects. We all know R is the actual star in this relationship.

YES to all of this. It’s very obvious that R got J the job. R had her sister in the film as well. They would have done anything to have her as Lucy Gray lol. They were so desperate for her and probably said to themselves “fine, let’s hire whoever her boyfriend is and hope it works out.”

And that’s the interview I was referring to (the one with R, T, J and H) where J was unprofessional and irritating. Everyone else had normal answers with how their audition process went and then there’s J who blatantly disrespected the process because he knew R got him the job already. Admitted that he didn’t know his lines, do research or anything. R and T are professional and SMART enough to know that he shouldn’t be admitting that and basically was signaling for him to shut up. R was so embarrassed and put her head down lol.

And biases aside, I agree with you about J! He does have talent and potential but R and J need to stop working together. R has multiple projects lined up for the next 1.5 years and J has 1 for right now. She’s young and new to the industry so having someone she trusts is helpful but the reality is it’s not always going to be that way. If she needs someone, maybe her sister and family can help her. I don’t want her to rely on J (or any bf!) for emotional support too much because that could end badly.

Also men tend to get resentful when women have better careers than them. They can feel emasculated if the woman keeps helping them find jobs.

Side note, I wish Snow White released this year instead of 2025 tbh. The hate train will be full speed during the promo tour but once the movie is released and those losers stop pretending they love Snow White, she will be fine.

I see R having an Anne Hathaway type career. Where people eventually realize how stupid the hate train was, all those incel takes will age poorly and she gains public favor in a few years :)

[starseneyes]

i love your spapel metas and analyses so much! keep them coming please!

can i ask you if you are a film or media studies graduate? because your posts are so well thought of and formulated.

Hello, Anon! Thank you so very much, and I'll do my best to keep 'em coming.

My background is incredibly varied, but it definitely all feeds into how I write these.

It all started with Little Rachel growing up on sets. Not only was I a background/bit actor/commercial actress from a young age, but my mother was a hair and makeup artist.

Whenever I was bullied in school, my mom took me on set. And folks there were welcoming. Directors almost always invited me to sit over their shoulders so I could see the monitors. I'd help out at Crafty. I got to run lines with Michael Rooker, once, as he prepped for a scene.

When mom worked on this one 90's show in Wilmington, she was too tired to collate her scripts by the time she got home. I volunteered to stay up and do it, which gave me the opportunity to see how revisions worked.

Sometimes we got advanced copies of episodes, and I'd sit down with my mother to see how they translated from script to screen, and then how the editors changed the advanced copies to the final versions that aired. It was all fascinating to me.

By age 13, I wrote my first screenplay for fun for Star Trek: Voyager. And I was constantly on editing teams and video teams in high school.

At 16, I joined AFTRA as a Voice Over Artist, and made a decent chunk of change doing it until 2008 when things went sideways in the industry. Also, the Studio where I was a contract player changed hands, and the new owner cared more about shareholders than us peons.

In college, I chose to go after Communications, and both my degrees are in it (Bachelors in Communications - Mass Media, Masters in Strategic Communication). But my minor was Film. I directed, edited, story-boarded, wrote, acted, and lit so many projects. Nothing ground-breaking, of course, but I learned a lot in the practicality of it and used my knowledge of growing up on sets to help our work really shine.

I went into Journalism between Freshman and Sophomore year and did that for many years, working in Broadcast and online journalism as a producer and researcher. My first job at 19 in the newsroom was to watch Iraq War and 9/11 footage and mark which parts were airable and which were not.

I transitioned into theater for a decade, there, and my film side took a step back. I've worked so many different jobs and for so many different clients.

Written articles, a cook book, website content, helped with front-end app development, emails, print pieces, etc. Professionally, these days, I'm a Digital Marketer. Been working freelance for 6 years, now.

I dream of writing TV (and I was a finalist with a Pilot of mine in a contest last year), but the reality is that living in Virginia makes my options and opportunities small. Having a Special Needs child makes moving to California without a job lined up pretty impossible.

But, I'm not disheartened. Chances still exist. Someday, perhaps, I'll sell a script. Perhaps, I'll get to act, again, when the time is right.

And in the meantime... I write scripts. I participate in online table reads with friends. I write these Metas and have so much fun using that portion of my brain, again.

Because while I'm so stoked these Metas have been well-received, I'd write them even if nobody read them. I write because I must. Because I love it. And because no matter where my life takes me... these bits and pieces remain a core part of me.

Anyway, that's a long-winded response, but hopefully I didn't offend you since you've made it through the Metas! Again, thank you for reading and asking the question! I wish you well in all you do.

[mareastrorum]

WIP Wednesday: TF&TS (Bounties)

Here are two related scenes from early chapters of a longfic I am working on.

Fanfic Summary: Mollymauk Tealeaf survived the encounter with the Iron Shepherds, but a short time later, a spirit had begun hunting him, claiming that he stole his body. This Campaign 2 AU begins with Episode 26 and continues on from there.

This fanfic will be posted on AO3 starting hopefully by Friday 7/28.

3 FESSURAN 835 PD

“I have encountered some ‘inspiration’ to improve on my work. Acquire some specimens for me.”

The man picked up a slip of paper with scribbled notes. “How many?”

“An initial set of twenty will do for now. Ten thousand gold for living subjects. One thousand for remains. I anticipate that obtaining survivors will be implausible, considering their abilities. However, I will take any live ones you can find.”

“Is there a deadline?”

“Preferably as quickly as possible, though there is no particular end date. To encourage expediency, hint that the bounty will be reduced as more subjects are obtained.”

“Any other conditions?”

“Unspoiled. Deduct from the pay for lost limbs, severe damage, et cetera. Use your discretion.”

“Very well. I will get word out to the appropriate channels immediately.”

“Be sure to keep this anonymous. They are all dissidents, but with this new war, there is no need to risk further social upset. A quiet purge of the more heretical Julous remnants is best.”

“Of course. Anything else?”

“Find more on that one from today. He had a team as well—look into them, especially the Xhorhasian.”

“Yes, Archmage.”

* * *

17 CUERSAAR 835 PD

Bull wasps were such an interesting species. Other than the usual diet of pollen and fruit, the aggressive insects also hunted. In addition to spiders and insects, they used mandibles to cut into corpses and harvest flesh from within, feeding the next generation on the fallen. They had an uncanny memory for faces, recognizing their foes and attacking without hesitation.

However, bull wasps preferred live prey. An apt symbol for the Archmage of Dysology.

Master Doolan Tversky had lived nearly two-hundred years by now, and the clever gnome had never quite grown out of her enjoyment of pulling things apart. Tversky was responsible for researching arcane biological threats to the Empire. Biological weapons were rampant in the prior age, and her research into the monstrosities of Molaesmyr, Shattengrod, and Xhorhas ensured the safety of Western Wynandir.

At least, that was the explanation provided to the Crown so that its representatives would stop asking annoying questions when the Cerberus Assembly took steps to understand such magics.

And now, the Assembly had provided a project far more intriguing than mutated and extraplanar monsters. A domestic threat, long tolerated because of their usefulness in eradicating fiends, undead, and fey without cost to those in power. Simple, non-magical mortals capable of using their blood to evoke enchantments. How intriguing such a weapon would be in the Assembly’s hands. How dangerous it would be in the Crown’s. How profitable it would be in the Myriad’s.

How fortuitous it would be in Tversky’s.

The operating room was too crowded, but there was no helping it. They had to work quickly in light of the unnaturally rapid onset of postmortem decay. Dozens of assistants, dressed head to toe in medical gowns, face masks, and hair nets shifted about five tables busily, like wasps tending to their queen’s commands as they prepared the dead for processing.

Tversky stood atop a floating disk and looked down at the corpse before her. She began dictating while an enchanted quill rapidly took down notes. “The date is the 17th of Cuersaar, 835 post-divergence. Subject number 21 is an adolescent human, estimated fifteen years of age, approximately five-foot-four-inches tall, weight one-hundred-fifty-one pounds, no remarkable identifying features other than numerous inch-long scars on the right palm.”

The other teams called out their confirmation of the same scars on their subjects. One of the assistants was sketching the hand and scars in case the arrangement was relevant. Another inspecting the skin raised their hand.

“Master Tversky, there are small scars on the outside of each upper leg,” the woman noted. “They resemble hyper-pigmentation spots. Same position, each approximately equidistant from the hip and knee.”

“Subjects 5, 13, 20, 29: confirm,” Tversky droned as she moved to inspect the scars herself. It would have been easy to miss if they had not matched. Within seconds, four more voices replied to confirm their subjects shared the same marks.

“Subject 20 has similar marks on upper arms, also equidistant from shoulder and elbow,” a man called from another table in the operating theater. Without instruction, another voice confirmed the same for subject 29. Tversky checked the human before her; indeed, there were two matching scars on his arms. She made a verbal note, her quill dutifully recording.

“Subject 29 also has matching marks on hips,” a woman added. No one else confirmed. This human did not have that set either. Odd. The larger subjects had more marks.

Interesting.

“Gather records of control subjects of the same race and sex for comparison,” Tversky instructed. An aid standing by made a note and disappeared out of the operating theater. “The rest of you, I expect careful dissection of each section bearing those matching scars. Continue.”

The others droned in the background as the teams shifted around their subjects and dictated their own reports. Buzzing insects hovering as they collected information.

“Subject 21 was deceased upon arrival, reportedly due to resisting arrest…” Tversky continued narrating as she inspected the wounds. Severe contusions on a right broken arm—the blow of a blunt weapon. Burns on the face, likely from some magical attack. But the lethal strike had been a large laceration across the neck, severing major arteries, destroying the windpipe, and damaging the spine in a single strike. Bounty hunters were so indelicate with her subjects. Her assistants were much more adept at pulling the subject apart to understand them.

The pungent smell of rotten meat and sharp sweetness filled the air as they began to cut. The face masks hardly blocked anything, but there was no avoiding it. The work continued rapidly, a well-choreographed dance while voices hummed, flat and on numerous registers.

Limb by limb. Organ by organ. Piece by piece.

“Master Tversky, there appears to be no alterations to the blood,” a man called from behind.

Tversky frowned and shifted her hovering platform over to the machines behind the operating table. The assistant stepped back from an apparatus with a small monoscope aimed at a blood sample held before it. She looked through the lens and was disappointed to find normal cells magnified in her view. Nothing strange about the blood. No altered structure. No unexpected developments. No arcane glow. No hint of magical taint.

That couldn’t be right. How could these cultists use blood as a component for magical enchantments if the blood itself did not carry any power? Perhaps the blood itself was not the source of the magic, but merely a conduit. Or perhaps the effect only lingered while the subjects lived. Could the act of sacrifice have meaning? There was only one school of magic that operated on such rules.

Necromancy.

To think the Assembly had allowed the Claret Orders to operate within the Empire for so long, and this was what they had been up to. The Martinet would want to hear of this. Such power could not be trusted outside the Assembly’s control.

Tversky looked back at the dissected corpses, each attended by several assistants who were carefully cataloguing their findings. A dragonborn, two humans, a gnome, and a dwarf, so it was not specific to race. These particular subjects were seen casting spells, but others were not. So far, she had categorized them into four potential groups, and they all could invoke those weapon enchantments, so that had nothing to do with their other magical capabilities.

Even more confounding: most had been carrying marks or talismans of the Raven Queen. That goddess abhorred necromancy—rather, so the clergy claimed. Could it be that perhaps these cultists were intentionally offending her? Or was it that the common understanding of her followers was subterfuge?

Perhaps those ties should be confirmed before informing the Martinet. After all, he had a habit of disproportionately weighing theories of the gods’ machinations. Tversky preferred to follow clues to their logical conclusions. At least, at first.

Tversky waved her quill over and used it to begin scribbling notes by hand. Even if the blood itself was not magically imbued, there was some significance to the spellcasting. The Orders called themselves “blood hunters” after all. She would need to test it properly to establish what sort of component it was. Perhaps infusing test subjects with the blood would yield something interesting. She rapidly wrote a note for her subordinates, which folded into a wasp and flew out the door.

What else? Those short-sighted Cobalt Soul idiots could be sitting on something useful. They were close-minded morons, but they were still adept at hoarding niche information. Tversky’s subordinates would not be able to access any of it because of the organization’s ridiculous ban. She scribbled another note to Baroness Iresor, the paper rapidly transforming and on its way. That young woman was lazy and distractable, but she had a knack for getting information that was otherwise off limits.

“We are ready to proceed, Master Tversky,” one of the aids called.

Tversky sighed. Right. Next were the bones. She returned to her position by the subject, now carved open with several assistants recording their own notes by dictation as they readied their instruments.

“Proceed, then,” Tversky instructed. The sound of snaps and cracks soon filled the air as needles and blades carved into the remains.

Those cretins had better find a live subject soon. Tversky was bored already.

[flyingbooks42]

ack i feel bad bc i was going to send you an ask for ffwf last week today but kept forgetting to do it until literally today. so i'm going to give more questions in one to make up for it

1: who is your absolute favorite character to write?

2: is there a character that you love so much but just struggle with writing them?

3: where do you write (google docs, word, directly into ao3, etc)? and where do you prefer to write (physical location, if any)?

4: description of the fic you are most hyped about writing please.

-- @lokigodofaces

No worries! I take ages to answer asks anyways.

1.Probably Loki

2.Most characters, to be honest. I don't really "get" characterization unless I've read a ton of meta about the character

3. Mostly google docs, though sometimes also notepad++ (a txt file editor, and I prefer to work on my desktop in general but I sometimes also work on my laptop especially if I'm away from home, just wherever I am.

4. I currently don't really have enough time or energy for writing fics, but there are two fics that are fairly frequently occupying my brain.

I've written 1-2k words of the first one. It's a queerplatonic Tesseroki fic where, after Loki drops off the Bifrost, instead of being found by Thanos, they die - but not really, since Space wants them to live and the other Infinity Stones help them retrieve Loki's soul and connect it to the Tesseract's. In this AU, the Tesseract was used as a power source and engine for a spaceship, and Space can only influence the way that it is used in subtle ways, so that the spaceship tends to trade hands between different groups of space patterns quite frequently (in the hope of there being someone who will realize that the Tesseract is a sapient being) and some think that it is haunted. Once Loki's soul is connected with Space's, they share the spaceship-body, and since the systems that control the Tesseract did not account for a second soul in there, Loki is able to more directly affect the world than Space. The fic'll be episodic, with a mostly-rotating crew of OC space pirates and some crossovers and probably encounters with other MCU characters. There's also a secret in it that I don't want to spoil and, though I don't know how obvious I made it, I want to see people's reactions when they figure it out.

The second one I haven't written any of but I have planned it out in my head, though it'll probably be quite a long time until I actually write it. It's a crossover between the Machineries of Empire series and the MCU where Asgard exists in the Machineries of Empire-universe and frequently wars with the Hexarchate. This all originated from me thinking that humanoid-voidmoth!Loki would be interesting (voidmoths are the Hexarchate's spaceships, and they're sentient) and then that Jedao/Loki would be a fascinating ship because they complement each other and have many of the same issues, so they could either make each other better or way, way worse (it'll mostly be in the "worse" category in the fic because 1. drama and 2. this is in the Hexarchate, but I'm aiming for a positive ending). In this AU, Kujen was working on humanoid voidmoths at around or before the time of Jedao's birth or before, and managed to make them humanoid and even age from infancy to adulthood like a human being but wouldn't yet get the hang of consciousness & memory transfer into a humanoid voidmoth body until the canon time period in which he did. Asgard found and attacked the one of his labs in which he was researching this, and Odin took a humanoid-voidmoth baby in order to hopefully figure out how the enemy's spaceships worked. Flash-forwards a while, and Loki is a prince and young general of Asgard who is brilliant at calendrical warfare, especially space battles. Asgard is mostly specialized in infantry battle, especially since by using the Bifrost's teleportation they bypass the need for spaceships when invading enemy territory, and they disdain space combat. During this period, Jedao and Loki interact with each other through battles where they're generals on opposing sides and they develop a respect for each other. Then, Hellspin Fortress happens and at some point after or before that, the rough equivalent of Thor 1 happens (Loki finds out that he's a voidmoth-not just born of the enemy but a tool of the enemy- and Thor is banished due to an impulsive & aggressive action and Loki makes bad decisions born of panic and self-hatred and at the end of the whole thing Loki falls into space (from a spaceship)). This is getting pretty long so I'll just leave it at that for now, but the fic has plenty more to it.

[bonesandthebees]

1. My favorite fic of yours

I LOVED clinic, tied for second are 17 hours and the stars and their children!

3. The best character you've written for

it's been said before but Wilbur is your brand! also I love the way you write Techno

6. Something I remember vividly from reading one of your fics

your "quick easy breakfast" thing from the authors notes of clinic KEKW - i now have rice with egg and soy sauce regularly (which actually helps me remember to eat - undiagnosed ADHD pog?)

8. What I like the most about your writing

I love the specific voice you use, and your choice of adjectives and grammar! A lot of fics are really good but the authors don't quite have the same linguistic skill you do!

9. A fic i'm excited for you updating/posting

I'm super excited for the rest of stars! I love the political tension and the fact that this is a very new concept (space royalty pog)

11. Something I wish/hope you write

I don't know how much expertise you have in this area or if you're willing to research it but I would love a ballet au, or other dance au! I feel like there's a lot of potential in a modern setting dance studio au, whether it's just the setting for the plot or the plot is centered around dance itself :3

12. A fic of yours that i've re-read

I've read clinic like three times! I love it so much :DDD

13. If i've ever shared/talked about your fic to someone else

OH BOY HAVE I EVER! Every fic I read that I particularly love I talk about to my sibling (the one who finally caved and read 17 hours kekw) and i'll ramble for ages but never do it justice because it's my dodgy memory versus your amazing writing :)

:>

hi crow anon!!!

wow I'm surprised how many people say 17 hours is their favorite fic of mine. I loved it of course because of how cool the concept was and how wonderfully mine and roxy's writing played off of each other, but still never expected so many people to think of it as a favorite so that makes me so happy to hear!!

omg a compliment on how I write techno... tysm I literally am always so unsure in my characterization of c!techno that's why he's my least favorite to write bc I'm just always so worried if I'm doing him justice or not

LMAOOO totally forgot about that time I talked about breakfast in the notes of clinic. tbh I should start making goofy authors notes like that again. also I haven't actually eaten eggs with rice and soy sauce for breakfast in a LONG time. lately my breakfast has been lighter stuff like fruits and cheese, but I kinda miss the rice and eggs so might get back into it (also ADHD pog!!)

that means so much aaa I've worked very hard over the years to develop a specific voice in my writing so I'm really glad it shines through. I know my writing isn't super flowery which is a personal preference of mine, but I'm happy it's distinctive all the same. it takes a lot of years to develop a rhythm with the words and grammar you use when writing, so it just makes me happy to hear someone notices it :)

hehe i'm so excited to update stars. gonna finish the next chapter tomorrow hopefully so maybe it'll be out on monday??

fun fact i literally watch vlogs from ballerinas on youtube all the time (have one open in another tab rn) and I've watched a lot of documentaries on ballet dancing as well (also, I took ballet as a kid but only when I was little and not for very long). I LOVE learning about ballet, but I've always been unsure about making a ballet au solely bc I obviously write crimeboys, but the part of ballet i'm most interested in is dancing en pointe, and men don't usually dance en pointe. I'm still considering researching more into the men's side of ballet, but there's just such a limited number of women on the dsmp that it would be a bit tricky for sure

god rereading clinic 3 times?? that's so long I have so much respect

awww it makes me smile to hear that people talk about my fics to each other :D

ty for this crow anon!!!

ask game!

[notquitepublic]

so, Fun Fact* time

There's a shortage of Vyvanse in Australia right now, has been since late last year, and it's not expected to clear until the end of this month (hopefully). The DEA does not care.

"Can't you just use another med?"

No.

Why not?

Fast-acting stimulants come in two varieties: amphetamine-type (Adderall, Vyvanse, dex) and methylphenidate-type (Ritalin, Concerta, Focalin). (Note: Strattera is an SNRI, not a stimulant.) Generally speaking, patients will respond well to one or the other, not both. Anecdata: I tried Ritalin for two days, on the minimum strength, and both the full and half pill gave me heart palpitations. Not fun.

There are three commercially available amphetamine-type stimulants: Adderall (mixed amphetamine salts), Vyvanse (lisdexamphetamine, an inactive prodrug that the body converts to dexamphetamine upon absorption), and pure dextroamphetamine. Only two of these, Vyvanse and generic dex, are available in Australia. We don't have access to Adderall, and given its age, it would be a miracle if the TGA approved it.

There is one (1) company that holds the patent for Vyvanse in Australia. They've been at manufacturing capacity for something like two and a half years now, and have applied for an increase in the DEA-regulated cap. The DEA has denied an increase because "well, nobody else is at capacity, so it's not a problem."

Except, of course, this is the only company that can supply Australia (and New Zealand), so whatever doses could've been made and shipped globally couldn't have actually been shipped here.

Idk, I just need to scream about this.

I've been on dex for a month now because I got incredibly lucky with finding Vyvanse and my performance at work has been on a steep decline because it's just not as effective as Vyvanse is for me. It took me a week to figure out how the dosing should work, because dex is shorter-acting and only comes in 5mg pills, so I didn't realize that the dosage I got from the converter I used is actually what I need to take every time, not across a day, like I initially thought. I'm also on a lower dose (I'm pretty sure) because I don't want to deal with splitting pills, which isn't helping.

I literally need this medication to function. I've been researching how dangerous it is to take in pregnancy because my husband has outright stated that if I have to go off my meds for nine months or more, our marriage will fail. It's not an option for me to just go without, because my life will fall apart.

ADHD for me isn't some cutesy "teehee I forget things and it's hard to pay attention," it's "I literally forget to (go to the bathroom | eat | drink water | perform other bodily care tasks) because I'm hyperfocused on something else."

My ADHD is severe.

I tick every single one of the inattentive symptoms and about half of the hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. Probably more, because my version of "sitting still" includes stimming and I have multiple coping mechanisms for dealing with the inevitable boredom and understimulation of daily life. I've got multiple comorbidities caused directly by my ADHD. It's a goddamn miracle I managed to go so long undiagnosed and unmedicated, and I don't want to go back to where I was then.

I miss actually being able to focus.

There's a disabled wheelchair-using MP here (Jordon Steele-John) who likened going without medication to him not using his wheelchair for months. It's that serious.

* funness of fact is subject to readers opinion