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blackjackkent · 1 year ago

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Having trotted through a large collection of smaller conversations, we finally reach the central area of The Grove, where some tieflings are having it out with a group of the druids.

"Let my daughter go - right now!"

"She's a thief, hellspawn. And you will wait for Kagha's judgement. Now get back!"

"Argh. Let me through, mragrashem, or I'll rip your damn throat out!"

She looked ready to go through with it too, until the druid on the left straight up turned into a fucking bear, at which point the tieflings scarpered right quick.

I def need to play a druid so I can also do this.

If not friend, then why so friendshaped?

Friendshaped aside, these people are super skeptical of us. The lady in the center would have booted us out on our asses except apparently "Kagha" wants to see us.

Starting to explore the grove and talking with the other druids, we learn that Kagha is not the druid's leader, as I assumed. But she is the one behind the plan to eject the refugees. Halsin (who is possibly the leader I think?) was the one who welcomed them in in the first place, but he has currently disappeared, possibly held prisoner in the goblin camp. And he's likely the only one who can resolve the dispute in time to save the tieflings.

This sounds like we're probably gonna end up chasing down the goblins, but one step at a time.

Kagha is inside the stone structure that rings the grove, and she seems like a highly unpleasant person, as she is currently chewing out the tiefling child mentioned above with very little compassion.

"She stole the idol of Silvanus. She must pay the price. We will imprison the thief under guard of my serpent. When we cast out the rest, she may join them. Let the devil be an example. We will tolerate outlanders no longer. The grove will be made safe. The circle will be closed!"

You sound fun and like a paragon of nuance.

"Please! I'm sorry!" the tiefling girl pleads, her glowing eyes wide with fear as the snake circles her.

One of the other druids is trying to reason with Kagha.

"This is madness, Kagha! She's just a..."

"A what, Rath? A thief? A poison? A *threat*?" She glares down at the child with unmasked disdain. "I will imprison the devil. And I will cast out every stranger."

Hector finds he can't keep his mouth shut at this blatant, fear-driven cruelty. Why is he finding this so common in the world? He has been terrified every moment since he woke on the nautiloid ship, and it has not stopped him from being kind.

"Imprison her?" he says sharply, hearing his voice echo a little in the high-ceilinged cavern. "She's just a child."

The druid rounds on him, eyes flaring.

"She is a parasite. She eats our food, drinks our water. Then steals our most holy idol in thanks!" She looks at her companion imperiously. "Rath, lock her up. She remains here until the rite is complete." She pauses, and then the mask of leadership slips for a moment, and a flash of malice goes through her eyes as she looks down at the child. "And keep still, devil. Teela is restless."

The serpent hisses eagerly, eliciting a sharp squeal of fear from the girl.

The woman's force of personality is impressive - but Hector isn't going to let this go without an argument. This seems to be his standard operating procedure at this point - he really doesn't have a lot of experience with the conflicts of the real world, so he simply identifies the right and wrong of the situation in his opinion quite firmly and then pursues the right (usually to the benefit of the innocent, even at his own expense) until he runs out of options.

I was hoping for him to be more overwhelmed with the world but to be honest the game doesn't really support that as an option (unsurprisingly, really - it's not exactly the average background), so we're adjusting on the fly. :D The problem is often more that he doesn't always know the right thing to say to appease any particular person, there being a lot of nuance to the wider world that he is not familiar with, or sometimes he just biffs it because he's kind of awkward sometimes. :P He may be handsome but his charisma score is middling at best.

"You act rashly," he says firmly, mustering the air of spiritual guidance he learned in the temple. "As a cornered viper would. Free the child, or more tieflings will interrupt you."

In this case, he gets lucky - he's hit on the right note. Kagha hesitates, then scowls.

"Tsk. A gathered herd of the devils would indeed be disruptive." She lets out an irritated sigh, then shrugs. "It is as you say. Ssifisv - Teela, to me!"

The snake twists, then slides along the ground past the child, eliciting a whimper of fear. It comes into a coiled position at Kagha's feet and hisses angrily.

Kagha glares at the girl.

"Out, thief. My grace has its limits."

Hector turns to watch the girl scurry out of the cave - and in doing so, he notices Shadowheart convulse with a sudden noise of pain. Something on the back of her hand is glowing with a pale purple light.

"Nnggh. It hurts..."

The other druid - Rath - steps forward slightly, placatingly. "Thank you, Kagha. Master Halsin would--"

This name seems to rouse even more anger in Kagha than the child did, and she lashes out in the man's direction viciously.

"Halsin isn't here. Keep his name off your tongue, lest Teela pierce it."

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #what an unpleasant woman :P

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crehador · 8 months ago

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brother crab's winter 2024 parting thoughts: dog signal

alright well yysy it's not much to look at, the animation/art style isn't exactly "modern" or exceptional (though personally i was quite charmed by it)

that aside, this was overall a really pleasant surprise to me!

tl;dr: fun cast with some surprisingly compelling and deep(ish) backstories, would recommend but with the disclaimers that a) it's episodic and b) there's quite a lot of animal mistreatment since each episode is about helping a dog whose person isn't treating it right (most if not all the cases have hopeful endings, but some parts may be hard to watch)

also niwa and samura have the most HILARIOUSLY classic toxic yaoi situationship without any of the fun parts (the actual yaoi), more on that later lmao

full review:

the series is for the most part episodic, with each episode dealing with a dog owner who comes to a certain dog trainer for help. i'm a fan of a good episodic series, even when the episodes can be hit or miss, so the structure was very enjoyable for me

the stories of the main cast were surprisingly compelling, too. it seemed like it would be just a very silly show—what with it starting with a guy (cv knb murasakibara) walking another guy (cv knb kuroko) around on a leash in public for two hours—but the character backstories that were revealed throughout the series did actually feel delightfully nuanced to me

(for example "yeah that old man did hit a dog and that's not great but the dog in question was biting the shit out of the kid he sees as a son so it's not... not understandable that he would react that way and while i'm not saying he should be proud of hitting a dog i guess i am saying it does suck for him that son guy hated him and went no contact for years for it")

one of my favorite episodes, ironically, barely involved the main cast at all. most of the episodes deal with this dog training business training dogs (shock!) but in this one episode, fairly late in the series, the owner was a struggling mangaka suffering from immense social anxiety, whose only friend was his dog who one day suddenly loses his hearing

that's such a tough thing that you really wouldn't explain anyone to know how to handle on their own without training. the mangaka even runs into the mc (trainee dog trainer) early in the episode and receives a business card for the dog training shop, but instead of taking his dog in, he does his best on his own to develop ways to communicate with his newly deaf dog

and it works! not only does he find a way to keep his dog comfortable with him, his efforts make him less concerned with what other people think of him as well. he managed to go to the dog training shop in the end, to see if there's anything he could be doing better for his dog, only to be told that they can't do anything for him—because he's already done everything right

(in establishing a way to communicate with his deaf dog, that is. there are other issues he gets chewed out for, which i really liked and found realistic)

i feel like it was just such a well-timed episode as a narrative device, because it shows that while the main dog trainer is great (the trainee dog trainer mc practically worships him) it's not that everyone in the world is helpless without him

but anyway

REGARDING THE SITUATIONSHIP WHAT THE FUCK LMAO first of all i love it

samura has just been dumped by an extremely shitty girlfriend when he meets niwa, while out walking the dog (or attempting to walk the dog) said shitty girlfriend dumped on him

he's doing a terrifically bad job, to the point where niwa (pro dog trainer) can't bear to watch. so what does he do well of course he has to reeducate samura by... putting him on a leash and walking him around the park, in public, for two hours. to show him just how wrong he's treating his dog

samura somehow gets a job out of this and they start working together. at one point he reveals he is GOING TO THE SALON and GETTING HIS HAIR PERMED so that it is curly because niwa has a poodle and seems to like curly hair (???)

jump cut to the final episode and we're finding out samura's tragic lore—parentified by a narcissistic mom, down with too much filial piety disease. when samura finally decides he's no longer sending money back home, his mom comes to the dog training shop to be like "sir uwu you have to give my son a raise so he can keep sending money home uwu he's such a good hard-working boy please pay him what he's worth"

and niwa is straight up like "actually he sucks and you suck get the fuck out of my shop" AND THEN LATER IN THE EPISODE samura's mom calls him (has been calling him repeatedly since meeting his freak of a boss) and NIWA ANSWERS THE PHONE and while she's complaining about the money situation and the freak boss (niwa) he basically tells her "you still suck and your son still sucks but i'm keeping him, fuck off"

like my god?? that woman is going to go away thinking her son has gotten into an extremely abusive relationship with his boss. i mean fuck her entirely, she does suck, but that is very much Not the situation (even though it does Very Much appear to be the situation)

anyway. ultimately this one lands in the :) category for me, originally picked it up for the cast (kuroko and mukkun and also KENN) and didn't have very high expectations but am thrilled to be pleasantly surprised

#crab watches #winter 2024 #parting thoughts #dog signal #one more tl;dr for the tags:#not visually GORGEOUS but overall a pretty good time + NIWA/SAMURA ONE OF THE MOST SITUATIONSHIPS OF ALL TIME LMAO

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stupidstupidratcreatures · 2 years ago

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jadis (+misc) thoughts

so there's a bunch of stuff i liked about. all that and a little bit that i didn't that's just been sticking with the comic since i started it

i did really really like how like... nuanced jadis was presented as. like all of the demiurges have a thing of "this person was made into what they are by their circumstances, they wanted on the winning team and not the losing one" (except for mammon LOL but he kinda had the same thing just in the reverse order) which i have continued to really like. but especially for jadis where like she's a victim ("" etc ymmv) of circumstance but also did have the agency to make one single choice, which was to immediately bite off more than she could chew and then be shocked into submission for all of it. i know abaddon had a whole thing about people trying to read into it as much as they could to make jadis a liar and how much she isn't that and like i don't think she is but i also don't think she's supposed to be this objective thing. like the specific word he used there was "reasonable". also re:that a little tom for the love of god can you turn off comments on your website they annoy me personally and also you it seems like

anyway so jadis got overwhelmed by knowing everything at once, we saw that happen to allison. like once that happens to you it's really hard to think about anything else. i think she just feels trapped by the whole thing, like she could (shulk voice) change the future by doing something else instead of what she's been predicted to do but the difference would be so small in The Scheme Of Things as to be meaningless. and yk like she does kinda do that, she spends weeks trying to get allison to just eat some food, which my next point: the three and a half years allison spent with jadis are presented as necessary recuperation instead of a waste of time. i really like that. like obviously she would've just died on the moon of rayuba if jadis hadn't offered her help but even beyond that the first panel after the six (billion. lol) month timeskip is her sitting outside, in clothes, not emaciated, eating and reading books. like that's really cool! she can do that again! and then the like zaid thing. which. man. first of all im just glad zaid and allison like actually were able to talk second of all he seems like a cool and nice dude. anyway like. zaid is obviously the reason allison leaves but like it's also just. jadis never had that. jadis can't have that. the only people that jadis is connected to are people who worship her for living in a hospital/being frozen in ice so like no help there like jadis is actually just fucking stuck there. forever. unless The Gang decides and is able to break her out. which i can dream both because i think it'd be cute and because it would be an actual cool writing move but like this will not be a thing that happens

anyway because of that i thought the thing where jadis introduced herself as the prescient one with the story about allison sitting next to that kid at lunch because she was the only one who wasn't weird about her and making her laugh before she died and then the. jadis saying goodbye to allison and thanking her for her presence as she says she's stupid for trying and she isn't coming with her. man can we get jadis a hug. for the love of god. like she's trying to help where she can and she's had way too much shit and she gave allison something physical to remember cio by even though shes being weird about it and. cries 10 million forever

also the way prosthetics were treated on the like 3 most recent pages felt really tasteless for reasons i don't feel like explaining but for reasons i think are probably pretty understandable. i really don't like the sff thing of prosthetics being treated as manifestations of like spiritual sickness (when they arent like symbolically evil etc etc) and like. for the arc that made me want to actually pick this back up because abaddon was talking about how trope-break-y it was etc etc like that's just really lame. letdown of the century, please be ableist in new and interesting ways next time. that said the "even if i'm in hell, nobody gets to tell me i can't enjoy myself" page is so fucking good. simply love to see it. cant wait for the page after that to be allison giving jadis a huge hug and bringing her with her and zaid

also, white chain alive! but we knew that already like she JUST got her human body. yes abaddon jokes a lot about doing character designs that he renders unusable by killing them on the next page but like cmon. we knew this. they didn't show a body

i'm going to bed now so the last thing i'll say rn is i'm still really fucking annoyed about allison only ever. i don't wanna say "feeling the bare minimum of emotion as required by the plot" because she feels very strongly about a lot of things but like you get what i mean. like a lot of the k6bd characters i get the sense of like, this is an interesting character. i want to know more about them and would be invested and entertained by a story different from the main one that focuses on them. like i don't get that with allison like she's being really depressed because the author wanted to write about depression now. like which is true of every character of course but. you know what like i played about 200 hours of a jrpg that i thought i would like way more than i did and that i tried to like way more that i did and like i'm so so so so so fucking sick of Main Characters who have zero like definable personality other than "i'm here to move the plot forward! i'm here for the audience to have a perspective imposed on them!" and like the evil mode thing doesn't even work there either because the jrpg guy had one of those too and his evil mode was still really dull but also actually a little bit interesting! like please for the love of god i need a character that justifies themself as a main character with something more than "audience perspective" like FUCK

#op #WARNING: BARELY-EDITED STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS #k6bd spoilers #but you already knew that #im going to bed for real gn

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becauseplot · 3 months ago

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Just read your new fic and uugh im simply obsessed with your writing really!!! The way you write Liz and Thiago scratches all the braincells i have about them

I especially love the way you portray their relationship! Im not aro myself, but i am ace and these portrayals of undefined relationships that dont fit the commom labels bring me so much joy. Even more so when its with my favorite characters being shown somewhat as part of the Aspec

Also i agree with you! The ordem universe really has a lot of potential for aro and/or ace readings of sooo many of the relationship between characters. Because i feel like the experiences that come with having contact with the paranormal impact the characters and their relationships with one another in such a deep level that ends up binding them together in ways that are often hard to define but definitely always fun to explore!

Back to your fic specifically, i think you truly get the intricacies of their bond, the way you write about their struggles with both the paranormal and with their own issues aways makes me go "Yes!! Yes you get it!!" When im reading. Their banter and mannerisms are really accurate, and im also a huge fan of how you potrayed Thiago's internal conflicts! In fact, the way you write him its one of my favorites aspecs of your ordem fics...

Sorry for the rambling! I hope its understandable, i just had to come and compliment your ordem writing again because its so good!!

Glad I could scratch the braincells!! This fic was a lot of fun to write, I simply adore them :D

I myself am aspec (heavier on the aro, probably some flavor of ace) so aromantic readings of ordem relationships are so special to me. And YOU. YOU get it EXACTLY. The circumstances that the characters meet each other in Ordem are incredibly distressing, often life-or-death, and highly unusual---of course the relationships that flourish out of them are going to be different from the more "typical" platonic, romantic, and familial relationships; and putting them strictly in any of those boxes often sacrifices the relationship's nuance. Thus, an aromantic/queer-platonic/unlabeled lens for analyzing the relationships can be very helpful! God I could write paragraphs on the matter (and I have, in insane late-night ramblings in DMs and discords hdskhdj) but what it boils down to is that it's care, and love, and at the end of the day, that's what these characters desperately need from each other, because the story they live in certainly isn't going to provide it for them.

Liz and Thiago are especially fun to chew on. Like many of the other characters, their relationship is founded on a trauma bond: only they really know what happened to Gonzales, Daniel, Alex, and the monster in Nostradamus, and they very nearly didn't survive it themselves. Grief, shock, and desperation are at the roots of their relationship, and their relationship flourishes out of that shared trauma---of course they're going to stick close together. So now you've got this powerful bond between two characters who met a month ago that is constantly being tied tighter by these missions, making them cling to each other harder and lean on each other more heavily as more people die and as circumstances become more and more dire.

So, "friends" becomes a seemingly weak word in the face of that, nor does it seem to check all the boxes when you have such strong feelings for the person that don't seem to fit under what you would typically feel for a "friend." BUT there isn't any language available to accurately or succinctly label your relationship otherwise. Thus, Thiago's conundrum in the fic.

Anyway, yes! Their personal struggles and the paranormal threats they face go hand in hand! The threats they face often pull out the rawest parts of characters, which makes them fun to analyze. I'm glad their banter and mannerisms felt accurate, it was one of the ones I was incredibly mindful of when writing this---taking extra care to make sure that this fic really felt like them. The banter and bickering are essential <3

Never apologize for the rambling! If anything I should apologize I've just dumped a bunch of paragraphs right back on you my dude lmao.

Thanks for the lovely comment, it made my day <33

#asks for curly #curlyosnf #dont mind me im just rambling #also btw i headcanon thiago as ace #which yeah i really tried to keep personal headcanons out of this fic (wanted to stick to what is strictly Canon as much as possible)#and it's not really a detail that's *especially* relevant to the topics explored in this fic? at least not directly.#but do know i was thinking about it while writing him #ace thiago beloved

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punmasterkentparson · 2 years ago

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Using Dialogue to Add Pauses

Use dialogue to create pauses and communicate emotions. Here's a snippet from something I'm writing now:

“Why you enjoy so much?” Kent seems to chew over his words. “’Cause it’s fun,” he says. “And, you know. Kind of a power trip.” “Power trip,” Tater repeats, not sure what it means.

Narrative before/after dialogue = pause. People pause in speaking when they're thinking of what to say, processing what they heard, searching for the right phrase, deliberating whether they should say something, etc.

In this version, Kent needs to think over his entire response before he gives it. The reason for this may not be clear, but we feel him taking time to think over what he says or how he says it.

“Why you enjoy so much?” Kent seems to chew over his words. “’Cause it’s fun,” he says. “And, you know. Kind of a power trip.”

Alexei isn't familiar with the phrase "power trip" but he repeats it as soon as he hears it (to confirm what he heard, possibly) and then tries to think over what it means. You can feel that in the writing because Alexei's dialogue comes right after Kent's, with no pause.

“And, you know. Kind of a power trip.” “Power trip,” Tater repeats, not sure what it means.

But what if we change things around?

“Why you enjoy so much?” "’Cause it’s fun,” Kent says, and seems to chew over his words. “And, you know. Kind of a power trip.” Tater, not sure what that means, repeats, "Power trip."

I changed as little as possible in the phrasing, but it feels different, right? Kent immediately says "it's fun" in response, but needs more time to elaborate on the rest; from that, we get the feeling that it's the second part he's more hesitant to divulge, and that feels like the part we should pay attention to.

As for Alexei's dialogue, we can feel him taking a moment to run through what he heard before repeating the part he didn't understand aloud.

The placement of narrative and dialogue changes the speed at which the conversation "moves" and how fast we, the reader, "feel" that the characters are responding.

“Why you enjoy so much?” "’Cause it’s fun. And, you know. Kind of a power trip.” "Power trip?"

This exchange feels fast and easy for both speakers.

“Why you enjoy so much?” Kent seems to chew over his words. “’Cause it’s fun,” he says. “And, you know. Kind of a power trip.” Tater, not sure what that means, repeats, "Power trip."

This version is the slowest, because both characters take time (even a few seconds) before speaking. The narrative serves as that time between points of dialogue and information about why the pause is there. For Kent, he's "chewing over his words," which could mean he's being careful about what he says or how he says something. For Alexei, his pause is due to a language barrier, trying to engage in an important conversation while doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work to dissect new words, recall familiar vocabulary, and pick up on American cultural nuances he may not yet be familiar with.

Framing of the conversation and the characters can do a lot of the heavy lifting in communicating to the reader about what your characters are going through to make them speak faster or slower. But when you need to slow things down, adding small bits of text about the environment they're in, the gestures they make, or what they're thinking in between the dialogue is a really easy and useful trick.

Play around with your own writing to see how changing the placement (and amount) of narrative and dialogue alters the mood.

Happy writing!

#writing #fanfic #fanfic writing #ao3 fanfiction

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makeste · 3 years ago

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I like Bakuguo but his attitude is starting to really piss me off. He's talking about Daku as if he's just ~crazy~ and as if he isn't partly to blame for Deku's toxic self-worth issues. It's infuriating to watch. If Bakuguo doesn’t admit out loud and in front of his friends that his bullying of Deku played a part in Deku's current destructive state and if he doesn’t verbally apologize and reaffirm Deku's worth then I can no longer like Bakuguo's character or Hori's writing.

tbh I don't really know why this is the discourse of choice for people all of a sudden, but this is already the second ask I've gotten about it, so I might as well address it lol.

I think fandom is conflating fanon!Deku and canon!Deku here again. fanon Deku is of course much more sensitive and woobified and has much shakier self-esteem. fanon Deku is the one that turns evil in so many AUs because of Kacchan's bullying. fanon Deku is the one that actually jumps off the roof in so many fics, as opposed to fishing his notebook back out of the pond a few minutes later grumbling about how Kacchan needs to think before he speaks or else he could land himself in serious shit one day if god forbid anyone actually does take his cruel words to heart.

and just to clarify before I get any further, I am not saying this to excuse Kacchan's actions in any way, because what he did was still completely terrible and unacceptable and WAY over the line, and what's more he knew it, too. the bullying was still shitty and horrible and awful, and definitely impacted Deku and made him miserable. I fully acknowledge that, and that Kacchan has a lot of atoning to do for it. this is not a "Kacchan did nothing wrong" post.

but that being said, I don't think canon Deku's reckless self-sacrificing nature actually has anything to do with the bullying. I think they're two completely separate things. canon Deku actually has pretty decent self-esteem in spite of everything Kacchan did to him. canon Deku doesn't think he is useless. canon Deku had a wholeass fight with Kacchan less than 10 chapters into the series in which he explicitly spelled it out for Kacchan that he had a lot of worth, and was going to prove it to him. canon Deku was persistent in wanting to become a hero and hoping and believing that he could find some way in spite of being quirkless. canon Deku never let go of that dream even when no one else supported it. I don't think he would have even given up on it after being told no by All Might, tbh -- we just never got to see how it would have played out because of everything that happened with the sludge monster shortly afterward. but he's not the type to ever give up on something that easily, and we've seen that. canon Deku never thought he was useless, but rather wanted to prove to everyone else that he wasn't.

the drive that Deku has to save and protect others even at the expense of his own safety is something entirely separate from that. he doesn't break his body for others simply because he has no self-esteem and thinks that his own life isn't important. he does it because he can't stand the thought of someone else getting hurt, and knowing that he could have done something to prevent it. it's as simple as that. like, Spider-Man has the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing, right? and he doesn't have low self-esteem; he simply believes that if he has the ability to help someone else, then he has a responsibility to help them. it's a personal creed. and Deku is based on Spider-Man. his philosophy is based on that philosophy, which was one of Horikoshi's core influences and is one of the core creeds in superhero fiction.

Deku is self-destructive not because he doesn't value himself, but because he is literally physically incapable of standing back and doing nothing if he knows that he can do something. he's the type of person who sees a car speeding towards someone and leaps in to push them out of the way. NOT because he wants to get himself fucking pancaked by a speeding car, but simply because he can't sit back and watch the other person get hurt without taking action. his body moves before he can think. and that's where the whole "doesn't take himself into account" thing comes in -- the fact that his thought process simply stops at "get them out of the way of the car", and never extends beyond that to "hey, and maybe I should try to find a way to do this that doesn't involve me getting hit in their place." to him, that's simply less important than the first priority, which is getting the other person out of the way.

and regarding that last part, while that may seem like a self-worth issue if he's prioritizing everyone else above himself, I think what it actually is just selflessness taken to extremes. like for instance, when a parent sacrifices themselves to save their child, them placing the child's life above their own isn't necessarily because they don't see themselves as having value. rather, it's that they love the child so much that they place their well-being even above their own. and that's what Deku is like as well. except that in his case he cares about EVERYONE, and so is willing to sacrifice himself for anyone. and that selflessness is his defining character trait, and simultaneously the most admirable and the most terrifying thing about him. it's both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, which I think is fascinating to explore.

but anyway, so that's also why we never really see anyone thoroughly chewing him out for this behavior either. because the thing is, it is admirable how selfless he is. it's just that there's also a reason why most people are at least a little bit selfish. and that's because too much selflessness will ultimately and inevitably wind up getting you killed. at some point you either have to learn when to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, or else find yourself a loyal group of friends (or classmates) to watch your back, and make sure that mask gets on you when you need it. and maybe help you land the plane too while they're at it.

anyway so that was a lot of rambling, but basically it all boils down to three things:

when Deku berates himself for being useless (for instance at the end of the War arc), he's doing it out of frustration for not being able to push the others out of the way of the metaphorical car. that's the kind of uselessness he can't stand. the sitting-back-and-doing-nothing uselessness.

Kacchan's bullying was terrible, and it might have indeed played a part in Deku's choice of the word "useless" as a way of berating himself in these instances, but he is not the one who gave Deku this mindset of taking himself out of the equation. that's something that was already inherent to Deku from day one. (but that said, Kacchan has a lot of things to apologize to Deku for anyway, so if he wants to add this to the list I certainly won't stop him. he gets mad about Deku's suicidal attitude because it worries him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't feel responsible for it. people underestimated his feelings of atonement before 284/285, and I think they're still underestimating him now.)

and lastly, one last important note, which is that Deku's current "saving" mindset isn't wrong, just as Kacchan's "winning" mindset was not wrong either. the lesson to be learned here is NOT that being selfless and wanting to save other people is bad. rather, it's the fact that he's trying to do it alone that's got him all fucked up right now. basically when you think about it, selflessness is really just selfishness on someone else's behalf. which means that in order for Deku to be saved, it isn't necessary for him to change his outlook or his selfless attitude, even if it is pretty crazy lol. rather, all he really needs is a good group of friends who are willing to act selfishly on his behalf in return. protecting each other through mutual selflessness lol. teamwork as self-preservation. hence why the U.A. kids are here now.

anyway so yeah, I think that's everything. sorry this got so long and out of control lol. this is just a very specific nuanced thing that's hard for me to express, but which I feel is very important when it comes to Deku's character. Kacchan didn't unleash Depressed Nomad Deku on the world (or at least not in this respect). but that being said, he and the others will hopefully be the ones to nudge him back on the right course again.

#bnha 319 #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #bnha meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #long post

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tomwambsmilk · 2 years ago

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“And has a tendency to want to be good in this world. And she can be pretty harsh on Tom and I think Greg’s gut would be like, “You know what, leave her you’ll be less tortured.” taking out the buzz worthy quotes, i don’t think morality always has to be an overall picture of the world. maybe it can just be that he wants to see his friend have better. i just feel like that is a valid theme for both tom and greg, they tend to be the most open and probably think with their hearts because they don’t have to be as guarded or are as traumatized as the roy siblings

So I didn't answer this right away because I wanted to roll it around my brain for a bit. I don't necessarily entirely agree, but at the same time, you are kind of getting at some interesting ideas so I want to break it down a little.

But first - I'm going to drop the screenshot just so we're clear on what Nich actually said in its full context. Because he did say Greg was "on the side of morality in the show”. We don't have to talk about it but that did come out of his mouth, and if we take it at face value I do think it's a questionable statement:

Nich Braun is really the one who brought morality into this particular conversation. Yes, we can absolutely analyze the end of season 3 and Greg's potential response to Tom's actions through other lenses, but the reason we're talking about morality is that Nich started talking about morality, and his explanation for why Greg would be supportive of Tom hinged on the idea that Greg "wants to be good in this world" which… is a position that implies that either Greg sees himself as a moral actor or Nich sees Greg as a moral actor, depending on whether we take this at face value or assume Nich was implicitly speaking from a “Greg headspace”. (I do think there’s some real ambiguity in that.) And that's a really fascinating statement given how rarely his actions seem to reflect that on the show, hence the other post I wrote breaking down what we can assume about Greg's understanding of morality and what it means to be good from this. I do think a lot of people are overly fixating on the “Greg is on the side of morality” and “Shiv can be a real bitch” without considering the wider context - but we also can’t discount that he said those things just bc they’re kind of uncomfortable.

(And now that you mention it and I've been chewing on it for a while, it's extra interesting that Nich decided to bring up morality when he clearly didn't need to... He could've just said "Tom is Greg's friend and he wants better for him" and that would've been true and valid. So his need to morally justify it - or his reading that there is a moral dimension to this - is extra fascinating. But I'm getting sidetracked.)

So. Depending on exactly what it is you mean by "I don't think morality always has to be an overall picture of the world" I'm not sure how much I agree with that. I do agree that morality isn't the only lens through which to analyze the Succession characters and their actions and motivations, although it is one I keep coming back to because it is interesting to me personally. That being said, I do think it is an omnipresent dimension, even if we aren't actively analyzing the show through that lens. Most actions do have a moral dimension to them, and that's especially true on Succession. It's not always a clear-cut dimension - there are a lot of nuances involved in the choices the characters make - but I do think the questions of "are these choices morally good? are they morally bad? are they somewhere in between? what does this say about the characters?" are inescapable. It's very valid to have a conversation about "was it morally justifiable for Tom to betray Shiv, and is it morally justifiable for Greg to support him in that", even if the characters themselves aren't using that as a decision-making framework, because there is a moral dimension to those decisions, even if the characters don't think of it that way. And that conversation is especially valid because it is a complex question, and while I do have my own opinions on the subject there are a lot of different viewpoints that I think have some degree of validity to them.

It's also perfectly valid to say "tbh I don't really care and that isn't a lens that's super interesting to me personally". Morality is only one of the issues Succession grapples with, and you aren't required to hold an equal interest in every single facet of the show.

I also want to touch very briefly on the end of your ask because the idea that Tom and Greg are "thinking with their hearts" is REALLY interesting to me. I think you probably aren't gonna like the rest of my answer, so I'll say upfront that I do think analyzing the end of Season 3 through the lens of Tom and Greg's particular relationship, and the ways in which their lesser degree of attachment to the Roys proper allows for a greater degree of openness and emotional intimacy is absolutely a valid take. That's a very real thread, and holding the two of them (and I think Tom in particular) up as a foil to the Roy siblings is certainly interesting. But... I do think you have to go a bit deeper because while that idea is true, it's definitely not quite as straightforward as all that, and I don't think it can be entirely divorced from the question of how you're approaching morality.

On the one hand, you're right that they aren't as guarded as the Roy siblings are... On the other hand, they are still very guarded. Tom isn't very guarded with Shiv in season 1, but he is pretty guarded with Greg - at least in terms of actually expressing affection for him, hence all the bullying (that and the power trip involved, of course). By season 3 this has flipped somewhat, and we see him being more guarded with Shiv and more open with Greg, which is a really fascinating development in the Tom-Greg power dynamic - by being more open with Greg, Tom is effectively giving him a degree of power over him. But it's not as simple as Tom being open so much as - a) Tom seems to have a greater capacity for openness than Shiv and the Roy siblings do, likely as a consequence of not being brought up in the Roy family, and b) who he is open with and when is contingent upon a myriad of different factors. (On top of that - I don't know that Tom is all that open with Shiv at the beginning. We see him eating his emotions quite a lot - in the fight with her at the beginning of 1.06, on their wedding night, Ternhaven - hell, most of Season 2. There's a selective openness there which could be a whole point of analysis on its own.)

And I think I actually would characterize Greg as being pretty guarded, but he's also desperate for connection and affection, and that desire is constantly at odds with his fear of vulnerability. He's anxious that he's going to get burned by Ken, but he gives Ken the papers anyways. Tom is his best friend but he still feels the need to have leverage over him. So yeah, comparatively speaking Tom and Greg are more open than the Roys are, but they are still in the same cutthroat world, and so they can't really be all that open and unguarded. But there is a very interesting arc in terms of how their relationship with each other evolves in this context.

The idea that they think with their hearts is interesting, and if you weren't on anon I'd probably DM you to get some clarification on what exactly it is you mean by that because there are a couple of possible interpretations that come to mind for me. On the one hand, if you're talking about being driven primarily by a desire for love rather than being strategy minded, you're absolutely right - but in that case, this definitely is a trait they share with the Roy siblings. Every single character on this show is primarily motivated by love, even if they aren't admitting that to themselves.

(Another reason that's interesting to me is that I'd actually characterize Tom's arc as learning not to love, as becoming increasingly calloused and self-serving and strategic rather than prioritizing the people he loves. We see that death knell hit his marriage first - understandably, to be sure. I don't think it's going to stop at his marriage, though. I don't think Tom and Greg's relationship is coming out of this unscathed. I think Tom is increasingly starting to think like a Roy, and I think his new partnership with Logan is only going to enhance that, and I think that Greg has proven himself slimy and untrustworthy in the past and that he may end up as collateral damage because of this. But those are just my personal predictions, so who knows how it will actually play out.)

Anyways. To circle back, the one way Tom and Greg are different from the Roy sibs is Logan has spent the Roy kids' whole lives pitting them against each other. That means that in their pursuit of Logan's love, they have no choice but to go after each other. That's why they're only able to unite at the end of Season 3 after they've each individually despaired of receiving Logan's love and approval. They can either have Logan's love or they can have each other's, but not both.

Whereas Tom and Greg aren't stuck in that kind of dichotomy. Tom also wants to be loved, but his primary target is Shiv, and she isn't asking him to sacrifice any of his other relationships. She does ask him to sacrifice his career ambitions, which he does until he realizes it likely still will not result in the kind of marriage he wants. Greg wants to be loved by anybody, frankly, and Tom is the one who's most consistently validated him (as Nich pointed out), so by Season 3 Tom is the target of Greg's affections. And by the end of season 3, we get the sense that Tom does love Greg and will continue to do so even if Greg continues to try and fuck him over (although obviously, he'd prefer for that not to happen), if only because he doesn't hold Greg's momentary jaunt with Kendall against him. So yeah, in a sense both of them are able to pursue love more freely and openly because they don't have Logan pitting them against each other. (I do think this is likely to change at some point, but again, we're wading into my predictions here).

There's another dimension to the idea of them "thinking with their hearts" though, which is that it could also refer to the idea of them thinking with their desires. And this is where we circle back to the question of morality, I think, because... It sounds lovely and romantic to think with your heart, but if you want to be a good person you also need to think with your actual head. You kind of need both. Yes, I think a general state of willing the well-being of other people (which can be characterized as 'thinking with the heart') is important, but the thing is you also have to contend with the fact that your desires and your emotions can mislead you. In the course of your life, you will want things that do harm to others, or to yourself. This is part of being human. Your emotions, if not properly managed, will cause you to misread situations and react inappropriately. Desires and emotions are tools, important tools, but that can't be all you're running on because you will get into trouble.

And that's where I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head, albeit possibly accidentally if your end goal was to examine this through an amoral lens. I think it's one of the reasons why people struggle with the relatability of the Succession characters. They aren't good people, they keep doing things that are morally reprehensible, and yet... we find them compelling because we get it. We understand their desires and we recognize them in ourselves. We understand their emotions and we relate to them ourselves. What they're doing is wrong but we see how they got from point A to point B. The extent to which this is true for you personally for each character depends on your particular personality and traumas and issues, but I think it is true for everybody and that's part of why there's so much rancid discourse in the fandom. You see a character that's relatable and you either become a blind apologist for them, or you despise them because they remind you of what you hate in yourself. And I do think that instinct is there for everyone, even if you've learned to temper it, and if you don't think it's there for you that might be because you're lying to yourself just a bit. (Or maybe you're a normal well-adjusted person who finds all the characters abhorrent, but I think most people who are part of the Tumblr succession fandom don't fall into that category.)

To bring it back to Tom and Greg - yeah, I think they might actually be "thinking with their hearts", and I think that's part of the problem. They're being driven by their emotions and their desires, and they aren't thinking about the moral qualities of their actions, and that's why they keep making morally dubious choices, and it's why they're likely to continue making increasingly morally dubious choices. I think on some level that goes for all of the characters on the show, it's just that "thinking with their hearts" looks different for each of them.

(TBH there is a little more to it than just that, if we're going to analyze the moral dimension of these characters, but I'm saving that for a different post because that'll be the tangent to end all tangents.)

I imagine this is a manifestly unsatisfying response because it is basically the opposite of how you want to analyze the show. And at the end of the day - yeah, I do think "Tom is Greg's friend and he wants better for him" is an accurate assessment of the core of what's going on. Where the morality discussion comes in is a) Nich Braun positioning this as a morally good act, or at least a morally good act in Greg's mind, and b) the wider context of Tom betraying Shiv. Because it is possible to say that yes, Tom should leave Shiv, and yes, Shiv has been terrible to him, and no, betraying her like that was not a morally justifiable thing to do, depending on what your moral framework is (side note: personally I do think there is one convincing argument for it being justified, which I don't see laid out very often, but I am restraining myself from getting into it here). So the fact that either Nich or Greg (depending on what Nich Braun actually meant in the interview) thinks what Tom did is morally justified tells us a lot about Greg's moral framework (or possibly Nich's), and if, like me, you already spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about how the Succession characters approach the concept of morality than that is exceedingly fascinating.

#asks #anon #I do see what you’re saying. I do #and you aren’t necessarily wrong… but the morality conversation is a very valid one #especially because nich brought it up #which is kind of haunting me now bc your ask is what made me realize that he didn’t have to make this a moral question. why did he do that #also I didn’t get to this in the piece bc it would reiterate a lot of what I said yesterday. but Greg’s primary motive being #‘I want what’s best for my friend’ does tell us a lot about how he approaches moral situations #so the two themes - morality and their relationships - are very linked

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itsbenedict · 4 years ago

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Two-Faced Jewel: Session 2

Zero and @eternalfarnham are Looseleaf and Saelhen du Fishercrown, a mothfolk animist and a half-elf conwoman. A botched heist forces Saelhen to keep up her fake identity and embark on a quest to places unknown, with Looseleaf to keep a watchful compound eye on her. This time, they prepare to set out for the jungle city of Thunderbrush.

[Campaign log]

It's less than a week after the incident with the pit under Yoshimimoto Plaza. Looseleaf returns to school with Saelhen in tow, and Looseleaf's roommate Oyobi spends some time training them up in basic monster self-defense- the two of them are now level 2! Saelhen gains a Cunning Action, and Looseleaf embarks on the Path of the Mutable Spirit. (There's no combat this session, so more on that later.)

In spending some time with Looseleaf's roommate, Saelhen picks up on... certain nuances.

looseleaf: what you know about your roommate is that she is very friendly and outgoing. the reason she's barely home most of the time is that she's always out partying or fighting or otherwise living it up on campus, and she's pretty well-known and popular amongst the student body. she's technically Martial Arts but takes a few Natural Arts classes, including your archaeology class. she wants to be an adventurer and join the Deathseekers' Guild, and she's taking multiple periods of Severe Zoology to learn to fight monsters. she thinks you in particular are adorable and has probably invited you to various social gatherings. she seems kind of spacey and unreliable, though, and doesn't seem to take you seriously.

saelhen, what you know about looseleaf's roommate is that she a freak nobody else seems to pick up on this, since there's not a lot of other elves at Blacksky, but you can tell from the way she wears her clothes and how she interacts with strangers to the uninformed observer, her fashion sense is sort of rugged and sporty and normal to an elf, her usual outfits are the equivalent of going around dressed in torn booty shorts, a spiked choker, and an ahegao t-shirt she is very obviously making a statement, and that statement is "i can do whatever i want, and if you have a problem with that you can [insert grossly offensive euphemism here]" her super-smiley friendly attitude is clearly part of this- she is breaking every single rule in the elf book, going right for the friendship throat in every social interaction and ignoring every single nicety that's supposed to precede friendly contact she acts a little different around you- like, she expects you to be in on the joke she's playing on everyone around her. she'll say something seemingly innocuous that's a actually a horrendous boundary violation in Kanzentokai, and then look at you with an expectant smile, to see if you appreciated the hilarious prank she just pulled. being around her is like being in the studio audience for a cringe comedy sitcom

Why are we learning so much about Oyobi? Well, partially because I can't help but overthink every single bit character, but also for reasons that'll become clear shortly.

After a few days, Saelhen and Looseleaf are invited to the Provost's office, up at the top of Blacksky Tower. (Ominous sort of place, for a faculty building- hewn out of a single chunk of sparkling black stone, oldest building on campus.) They are not invited to sit- the office contains no chairs.

Provost Hamori Los has good news for them! The people she's had secretly monitoring Saelhen for the past few days- did she forget to mention that?- have determined, by triangulation, that the arrow on Saelhen's bracer is currently pointing in the direction of Thunderbrush, deep in the giant-spider-infested jungle. So that where they'll be going, on a fun field trip!

Looseleaf could not be happier about this. Or less happy. She's really got precisely the amount of unhappiness that she's obligated to feel about giant spiders, being a giant moth.

Luckily, they won't have to trek through the jungle- Hamori has arranged for transportation via the ferry at the town of Cauterdale, which should allow them to bypass a treacherous trek into the depths of the Remoline Rainforest. They'll each be provided 100gp as funding for this academic enterprise- and Headmaster Goodcrest of Thunderbrush Metropolitan University has agreed to provide lodging for them on arrival. Everything is handled for them- so there shouldn't be any problems!

There is one more thing, though- all the different schools want in on this trip, so one school doesn't get all the credit. They're required to bring along a representative from the School of Arcane Arts and the School of Martial Arts, on top of Looseleaf from Natural Arts. And on top of... the representative from the School of Restricted Arts.

This dude is named Vayen, and he's not much for conversation. Or explaining what he's even doing here. Or doing anything besides skulking a careful distance away from the party, staring and listening. What does the School of Restricted Arts even study, again?

Anyway, Looseleaf has someone in mind from Martial Arts, so she leads the party to the School of Arcane Arts to do some recruiting! After being chewed out by Two-Brains for trying to post notices outside the official student notice board, she puts up her ad:

It's not long before she gets a bite!

Orluthe Chokorov is a cleric-in-training, under Diamode, the Goddess of Family. He's been enrolled in Arcane Arts at the insistence of his family... but he seems to think he's a "fake", and is desperate to go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it means he passes his classes without having to actually... be able to do whatever it is he's taking classes in. He says he can fight, though- in fact, he's eager to fight! He once beat Bud Chestplate, did you know?

There are perhaps less delinquent candidates they could go with, but there's something nice about a party member with secrets Saelhen could use as blackmail.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...rest assured that I shall be the soul of discretion. As will Looseleaf." "Though I fear that deception of this sort does not come easily to me..." Looseleaf: "Noeru, if he doesn't want to get into it, he doesn't have to- oh my god."

Having recruited Orluthe, the party heads back to Looseleaf's dorm to ask Oyobi about the Martial Arts students- maybe she has some idea as to who would make a good candidate for the trip!

(This isn't me foisting her on the players, though I did suggest it- after the party of two squishies got wiped in the first encounter, I offered them the chance to put together two NPCs who they'd get to control in combat. Their character sheets were more or less created by the players, and I matched their mechanical requirements to NPCs. We may end up having multiple characters per PC, later- this is sort of a trial run.)

With a cleric(?) and a ranger on the team, plus whatever Vayen is that he won't tell them, they're feeling ready to hit the road- right after a shopping trip.

Saelhen buys...

1x bag of 1000 ball bearings

1x traveler's clothes

1x hooded lantern

15x doses of insect repellent salve (much to Looseleaf's great offense)

2x uses of sealing wax

1x tinderbox

fuck it, 4x more bags of 1000 ball bearings

Zero: 'what are you going to do with five thousand ball bearings' 'when the time comes, i'll know'

Looseleaf buys...

1x pint of oil

1x bag of 1000 ball bearings also

5x healer's kits, to distribute to the party

1x pouch of various plant seeds

1x map

Notably absent is any food, since they have Oyobi in their party- she's a ranger with the Goodberry spell. (I've reflavored it to just mean she's good at foraging and always has rations on hand, because holy crap, Goodberry rules-as-written is totally worldbreaking- why would farms exist?)

During their shopping trip, Saelhen manages to get Oyobi alone, without the rest of the party. Oyobi's shtick has been fun, for her, as someone with very little regard for elven rules of politeness, but... it's still a little much. She asks Oyobi to tone it down.

Oyobi Yamatake: "I mean, I thought you had to no-sell it to keep up the fake noble act- I didn't think it was actually getting you!" "That's priceless, oh my god." "What's there to take a 'break' from, anyway? What's wrong with just living?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Primarily, the fact that I really need not to twitch in front of the Provost's silent murder goon." Saelhen jerks a thumb over her shoulder, then belatedly checks to make sure that Vayen is not in fact literally right behind her. Benedict I. (GM): Make a Perception roll? Saelhen du Fishercrown: aw, hell, he definitely is, isn't he

She rolls a 13, and no one in particular rolls a 17. So, everything is fine. They keep their voices down, anyway.

Oyobi Yamatake: "I mean, is it really a problem? Can you really not keep a straight face?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "I mean, I can." Saelhen sweeps a hand over her face and is the picture of serenity. "Why should the lady Noeru de la Surplus concern herself with small lapses such as these?" "Surely someone shall find it in their hearts to forgive all trespasses." Oyobi Yamatake: She snorts. "Okay, I get your point." "But really, don't you think it's weirder for an elven noblewoman not to react?" "You don't think he thinks it's suspicious that you take it all in stride?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "The character is admittedly kind of a freak. I'm making allowances. I mean, this is fun and all, but if no one sees through the bit at all and I'm stuck in it long-term, which it seems like I am, it's like..." "Just being back in Kanzentokai, except worse, because no one is making me." "And drow catch a lot of crap anyway. They don't need me to teach them that elves can be assholes." Oyobi Yamatake: She frowns. "You can't make me try to keep up with the rules, y'know. I'm not going to put up with that garbage ever again." "But I can tone it down with the..." "Y'know, the stuff I'm going out of my way to do, if that helps." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "The wink-and-nudge, yeah. That would help." Oyobi Yamatake: She sighs. She seems a little put out by all this, but pretty quickly puts her happy face back on.

Meanwhile, Looseleaf and Orluthe seem to have lost track of Vayen. It doesn't take them long to find out where he went (well, after Looseleaf rolls a nat 1 on investigation and accidentally pisses off an old lady she mistook for Vayen). Turns out... he's hiding behind a statue of Ccorde, spying on Saelhen and Oyobi.

Looseleaf doesn't buy his crappy excuses, but also... she isn't altogether opposed to the concept of spying on "Lady Noeru de la Surplus", who really ought to have someone keeping an eye on her. So, she just hands him a medical kit- a kit she happens to have used her animist class feature Soul Link on, so she knows where it is at all times. (She's done the same to the bracer.)

Now, with the shopping done, it's time to hit the road! They have a couple options: go on foot, or requisition some giraffes.

(In this world, they domesticated giraffes instead of horses. Why? Because it's a fantasy world and why not?)

The city's main giraffe rental is run by the Ecumene of Understanding, based out of the Temple of Andra. You can rent giraffes for free, as long as you're willing to serve as a courier for the Ecumene- their convoluted legal system requires them to send mail between cities frequently, and they've only got so many clerics on hand. So, anyone wanting to travel the roads can receive a delivery quest from the Ecumene, and rent mounts for free in exchange!

They meet with the Bishop of Understanding of Oyashio, Sarat Aerens.

Aerens has a simple request for them: in addition to visiting Thunderbrush's Temple of Andra with a mail delivery, they're to bring back a report from said temple on the whereabouts of the Siren's Arraignment, a ship that departed from Oyashio and never arrived at its next destination, Snowhold. There's suspicion that the Siren's Arraignment never departed from its supposed origin of Thunderbrush to begin with, either- so the Ecumene put some clerics on the job to investigate, and the party's job is just to relay their message.

With that, they're given giraffe passes, and directed down to the stables, where they find the stablehand, Updraft, having some difficulties.

Benedict I. (GM):There's no one at the pickup window, but there's a sparrow aarakocra just behind, trying to get a giraffe several times her height to get up and out of the damn water trough. Updraft: "...not a bath, ye stubborn git!" "Ye drink from that, lackbrains!" "Y'really want t'be tastin' yer arse?" Looseleaf: OH I CAN HELP WITH THIS FINALLY, A PLACE WHERE I CAN APPLY MY ADVANTAGE ON ANIMAL HANDLING

Looseleaf uses her Soul Read ability to tune in to the giraffe's feelings and recent history, and discovers that someone fed it a hot pepper and it's in, um, anal distress.

Orluthe volunteers to do some healing to the giraffe, with his Lay On Hands ability. Is... that a cleric thing? Do clerics do that? Probably. In this world, clerics perform magic by inviting their god directly into their mind to borrow their brainpower and work miracles directly, and it sure looks like he does that when he does his healing. He channels a god, for sure!

Benedict I. (GM): As he touches the giraffe, you see his body begin to glow, and his facial features are overlaid with another face. "...A giraffe?" "A waste, I suppose, but... perhaps it'll win us some favor." The voice he speaks in sounds more feminine, somehow.

Some religion checks reveal that this doesn't seem quite right for a cleric of Diamode, the goddess of Family. But hey, healing's healing, right?

With that, they're able to get their giraffes no problem- and next time, they'll be on the road to Thunderbrush!

#tfj log #twofaced jewel

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healthytimes-blog1 · 8 years ago

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The Weight Loss Trap: The key reasons why Your Diet regimen Isn't really Performing

Understanding exactly what it is about an offered diet that works for a given individual stays the holy grail of weight-loss science. But professionals are getting better.

They likewise know that the very best diet plan for you is really most likely not the very best diet for your next-door neighbor. Private responses to various diet plans-- from slim and vegan to low carb and paleo-- vary enormously. "Some people on a diet program lose 60 pound. and keep it off for 2 years, and other people follow the exact same program consistently, and they acquire 5 lb.," states Frank Sacks, a leading weight-loss scientist and professor of heart disease avoidance at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "If we can find out why, the prospective to assist individuals will be big."

" There's nothing wonderful about exactly what they do," states Wing. "Some people highlight exercise more than others, some follow low-carb diet plans, and some follow low-fat diet plans. The one commonness is that they needed to make changes in their everyday habits.".

Hall, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), started seeing The Biggest Loser a couple of years ago on the recommendation of a buddy. "I saw these folks stepping on scales, and they lost 20 lb. in a week," he says. On the one hand, it tracked with extensive beliefs about weight loss: the workouts were punishing and the diet plans limiting, so it stood to reason the males and women on the show would slim down. Still, 20 lb. in a week was a lot. To comprehend how they were doing it, he decided to study 14 of the participants for a clinical paper.

The entrants lose an enormous quantity of weight in a reasonably brief amount of time-- undoubtedly not how most doctors suggest you lose weight-- but research study reveals that the same slowing metabolism Hall observed has the tendency to happen to regular Joes too. Many people who slim down gain back the pounds they lost at a rate of 2 to 4 pound. each year.

Hall, Sacks and other scientists are revealing that the secret to weight reduction seems extremely personalized rather than fashionable diets. And while weight reduction will never be easy for anyone, the evidence is installing that it's possible for anyone to reach a healthy weight-- individuals just require to find their best way there.

That's not what took place when individuals went slim, though. The diet trend accompanied weight gain. In 1990, adults with obesity comprised less than 15% of the United States population. By 2010, many states were reporting weight problems in 25% or more of their populations. Today that has actually swelled to 40% of the adult population. For kids and teenagers, it's 17%.

Exactly what the majority of these diets shared was a concept that is still popular today: eat less calories and you will reduce weight. Even the low-fat craze that began in the late 1970s-- which was based upon the intuitively appealing but incorrect idea that consuming fat will make you fat-- depended upon the calorie-counting model of weight reduction. (Since fatty foods are more calorie-dense than, say, plants, reasoning suggests that if you eat less of them, you will take in less calories in general, and after that you'll reduce weight.).

What Hall discovered, nevertheless-- and what frankly surprised him-- was that even when the Biggest Loser candidates acquired back a few of their weight, their resting metabolism didn't speed up in addition to it. Instead, in a harsh twist, it remained low, burning about 700 fewer calories per day than it did before they began dropping weight in the first location. "When individuals see the slowing metabolic process numbers," says Hall, "their eyes bulge like, How is that even possible?".

For the 2.2 billion people all over the world who are overweight, Hall's findings can look like a formula for failure-- and, at the very same time, scientific vindication. They show that it's certainly biology, not simply a lack of self-control, that makes it so hard to drop weight. The findings also make it seem as if the body itself will undermine any effort to keep weight off in the long term.

The scientists have actually determined some resemblances amongst them: 98% of individuals in the research study state they modified their diet in some method, with the majority of cutting back on what does it cost? they consumed in a given day. Another through line: 94% increased their physical activity, and the most popular kind of exercise was strolling.

Dieting has actually been an American preoccupation because long prior to the obesity epidemic took off in the 1980s. In the 1830s, Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham touted a vegetarian diet that left out spices, condiments and alcohol. At the turn of the 20th century, it was trendy to chew food up until liquefied, sometimes approximately 722 times prior to swallowing, thanks to the guidance of a popular nutrition expert named Horace Fletcher. Tradition has it that at about the exact same time, President William Howard Taft adopted a fairly modern strategy-- low fat, low calorie, with a daily food log-- after he got stuck in a White House bathtub.

The scientists have actually also looked at their mindsets and habits. They found that most of them do not consider themselves Type A, resolving the idea that only compulsive superplanners can stick to a diet plan. They found out that lots of effective dieters were self-described morning people. (Other research study supports the anecdotal: for some reason, night owls tend to weigh more than larks.) The researchers also noticed that individuals with long-term weight loss had the tendency to be motivated by something aside from a slimmer waist-- like a health scare or the desire to live a longer life, to be able to spend more time with liked ones.

The most revealing information about the windows registry: everyone on the list has actually lost substantial amounts of weight-- but in various methods. About 45% of them state they lost weight following various diet plans on their own, for circumstances, and 55% say they utilized a structured weight-loss program. And many of them needed to attempt more than one diet plan before the weight reduction stuck.

Hall quickly learned that in reality-TV-land, a week does not always equate into an accurate seven days, but no matter: the weight being lost was real, fast and substantial. Over the course of the season, the candidates lost an average of 127 lb. each and about 64% of their body fat. If his research study might discover what was taking place in their bodies on a physiological level, he thought, maybe he 'd be able to help the shocking 71% of American grownups who are obese.

Research study like Hall's is starting to discuss why. As demoralizing as his preliminary findings were, they weren't entirely unexpected: more than 80% of individuals with obesity who drop weight gain it back. That's because when you slim down, your resting metabolic process (what does it cost? energy your body uses when at rest) slows down-- possibly an evolutionary holdover from the days when food deficiency was typical.

The 1960s saw the start of the massive commercialization of dieting in the U.S. That's when a New York homemaker called Jean Nidetch started hosting good friends at her the home of talk about their concerns with weight and dieting. Nidetch was a self-proclaimed cookie lover who had actually had a hard time for several years to slim down. Her weekly meetings assisted her so much-- she lost 72 pound. in about a year-- that she eventually turned those living-room events into a company called Weight Watchers. When it went public in 1968, she and her co-founders ended up being millionaires overnight. Almost half a century later on, Weight Watchers stays among the most commercially successful diet plan business on the planet, with 3.6 million active users and $1.2 billion in revenue in 2016.

What researchers are discovering ought to bring fresh intend to the 155 million Americans who are obese, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Leading researchers lastly concur, for instance, that exercise, while important to great health, is not a particularly trusted method to keep off body fat over the long term. And the excessively simple arithmetic of calories in vs. calories out has paved the way to the more nuanced understanding that it's the structure of an individual's diet-- instead of just how much of it they can burn exercising-- that sustains weight loss.

In the following years, when being rail-thin ended up being ever preferred, nearly all dieting advice worried meals that were low calorie. There was the grapefruit diet plan of the 1930s (where individuals consumed half a grapefruit with every meal out of a belief that the fruit included fat-burning enzymes) and the cabbage-soup diet of the 1950s (a flatulence-inducing plan where people consumed cabbage soup every day for a week along with low-calorie meals).

But a slower metabolism is not the full story. Despite the biological chances, there are many individuals who are successful in reducing weight and keeping it off. Hall has seen it occur more times than he can count. The catch is that some individuals appear to prosper with almost every diet method-- it simply differs from person to individual.

The idea of the calorie as a system of energy had been studied and shared in scientific circles throughout Europe for a long time, however it wasn't until World War I that calorie counting became de rigueur in the United States Amid worldwide food lacks, the American federal government required a way to encourage individuals to cut back on their food consumption, so it provided its very first ever "clinical diet" for Americans, which had calorie counting at its core.

It's likewise fueled a rise in research. Last year the NIH offered an estimated $931 million in financing for obesity research study, consisting of Hall's, and that research study is offering researchers a brand-new understanding of why dieting is so hard, why keeping the weight off with time is even more difficult and why the dominating knowledge about weight reduction appears to work just in some cases-- for some individuals.

That may be depressing enough to make even the most determined dieter quit. "There's this notion of why bother attempting," says Hall. However finding answers to the weight-loss puzzle has never been more crucial. The vast bulk of American adults are obese; nearly 40% are clinically overweight. And physicians now know that excess body fat drastically increases the threat of serious health issue, consisting of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, breathing problems, major cancers and even fertility issues. A 2017 research study found that obesity now drives more early preventable deaths in the United States than cigarette smoking. This has actually sustained a weight-loss industry worth $66.3 billion, offering everything from diet plan pills to meal plans to fancy gym subscriptions.

The scientists at the NWCR state it's not likely that the individuals they study are somehow genetically endowed or blessed with a personality that makes weight loss easy for them. After all, the majority of people in the study say they had actually stopped working several times prior to when they had actually tried to lose weight. Rather they were extremely inspired, and they kept attempting various things up until they discovered something that worked for them.

" Why do not they just eat less and exercise more?" he remembers thinking. Trained as a physicist, the calories-in-vs.- calories-burned equation for weight-loss always made good sense to him. However then his own research study-- and the participants on a smash reality-TV program-- showed him incorrect.

" You take a lot of individuals and randomly appoint them to follow a low-carb diet plan or a low-fat diet," Hall states. "You follow them for a number of years, and what you tend to see is that average weight-loss is almost no different between the 2 groups as a whole. But within each group, there are people who are really effective, people who don't lose any weight and individuals who put on weight.".

For the past 23 years, Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, has actually run the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) as a way to track individuals who successfully drop weight and keep it off. "When we started it, the viewpoint was that practically no one succeeded at reducing weight and keeping it off," says James O. Hill, Wing's collaborator and a weight problems researcher at the University of Colorado. "We didn't think that held true, but we didn't understand for sure due to the fact that we didn't have the data.".

To certify for preliminary addition in the computer registry, a person must have lost a minimum of 30 pound. and preserved that weight reduction for a year or longer. Today the registry includes more than 10,000 individuals from throughout the 50 states with an average weight reduction of 66 lb. per individual. Usually, individuals on the existing list have kept off their weight for more than five years.

What he didn't anticipate to learn was that even when the conditions for weight-loss are TV-perfect-- with a hard but encouraging trainer, telegenic medical professionals, stringent meal strategies and killer workouts-- the body will, in the long run, fight like hell to get that fat back. With time, 13 of the 14 candidates Hall studied acquired, on average, 66% of the weight they 'd lost on the program, and four were much heavier than they were prior to the competitors.

Like most people, Kevin Hall used to believe the factor people get fat is easy.

When asked how they've had the ability to keep the weight off, the large majority of individuals in the study state they consume breakfast every day, weigh themselves at least as soon as a week, see less than 10 hours of television per week and workout about an hour a day, on average.

However the majority of people do not need to lose quite so much weight to enhance their health. Research study shows that with just a 10% loss of weight, individuals will experience visible modifications in their blood pressure and blood sugar level control, reducing their threat for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes-- two of the costliest illness in terms of health care dollars and human life.

"Losing weight and keeping it off is hard, and if anyone tells you it's simple, run the other way," says Hill. "But it is absolutely possible, when individuals do it, their lives are altered for the better." (Hill came under fire in 2015 for his function as president of a weight problems think tank moneyed by Coca-Cola. During his tenure there, the NWCR published one paper with partial funding from Coca-Cola, however the researchers state their study, which Hill was associated with, was not affected by the soda giant's financial support.).

In a 2015 study, Segal and Elinav gave 800 males and females devices that determined their blood-sugar levels every five minutes for a one-week period. They submitted surveys about their health, offered blood and stool samples and had their microbiomes sequenced. They also utilized a mobile app to tape their food consumption, sleep and workout.

The Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa is established on that thinking. When people register in its weight-loss program, they all begin on the same six-month diet plan and workout strategy-- but they are motivated to diverge from the program, with the aid of a doctor, whenever they want, in order to determine what works best for them. The program takes a whole-person technique to weight-loss, which indicates that habits, psychology and budget-- not simply biology-- notify everyone's strategy.

Exactly why weight-loss can differ so much for people on the exact same diet plan still eludes researchers. "It's the biggest open question in the field," states the NIH's Hall. "I wish I knew the response.".

Once she started dealing with the group at the Bariatric Medical Institute, Casagrande also tracked her food, but unlike Jeans, she never delighted in the procedure. What she did love was exercise. She discovered her exercises easy to fit into her schedule, and she discovered them motivating. By fulfilling with the clinic's psychologist, she likewise discovered that she had actually generalized stress and anxiety, which assisted explain her bouts of psychological consuming.

Up until now, research to support the probiotic-pill method to weight loss is scant. Ditto the hereditary tests that claim to be able to tell you whether you're much better off on a low-carb diet plan or a vegan one.

It took Casagrande three tries over 3 years before she finally lost significant weight. During among her relapse periods, she gained 10 lb. She tweaked her strategy to focus more on cooking and handling her psychological health then tried again. Today she weighs 116 pound. and has actually preserved that weight for about a year. "It takes a lot of experimentation to find out what works," she says. "Not every day is going to be ideal, however I'm here due to the fact that I pushed through the bad days.".

In many cases, individuals try a few different strategies prior to they get it right. Jody Jeans, 52, an IT project supervisor in Ottawa, had been obese considering that she was a child. When she concerned the clinic in 2007, she was 5 ft. 4 in. tall and weighed 240 pound. Though she had actually dropped weight in her 20s doing Weight Watchers, she acquired it back after she lost a task and the tension led her to eat way too much. Denims would get up on a Monday and choose she was starting a diet, or never consuming dessert once again, just to ditch the plan a number of days, if not hours, later. "Unless you've had a great deal of weight to lose, you do not understand exactly what it's like," she states. "It's overwhelming, and people take a look at you like it's your fault.".

However as science continues to point toward personalization, there's capacity for brand-new weight-loss items to flood the zone, some with more evidence than others.

It took Jeans five years to lose 75 pound. while on a program at Freedhoff's institute, however by paying attention to portion sizes, documenting all her meals and consuming more regular, smaller meals throughout the day, she's kept the weight off for an additional 5 years. She credits the slow, consistent speed for her success. Though she's never been particularly encouraged to work out, she discovered it valuable to track her food each day, along with make sure she consumed enough filling protein and fiber-- without needing to depend on bland diet staples like grilled chicken over greens (hold the dressing). "I'm a foodie," Jeans says. "If you informed me I needed to eat the exact same things every day, it would be torture.".

Another area that has actually some scientists thrilled is the question of how weight gain is connected to chemicals we are exposed to every day-- things like the bisphenol A (BPA) discovered in linings of canned-food containers and cash-register receipts, the flame retardants in sofas and bed mattress, the pesticide residues on our food and the phthalates discovered in plastics and cosmetics. What these chemicals have in typical is their ability to imitate human hormones, and some scientists worry they might be ruining the fragile endocrine system, driving fat storage.

" We have a strategy that includes getting enough calories and protein etc, however we are not married to it," says Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, a weight problems professional and the medical director of the clinic. "We try to understand where people are having a hard time, then we adjust. Everyone here is doing things a little in a different way.".

" Unfortunately," he states, "that's not the norm. The quantity of effort had to understand your patients is more than numerous physicians put in.".

Natalie Casagrande, 31, was on the exact same program that Jeans was on, however Freedhoff and his colleagues utilized a various method with her. Casagrande's weight had actually fluctuated throughout her life, and she had attempted hazardous diets like starving herself and working out continuously for quick weight reduction. One time, she even dropped from a size 14 to a size 0 in just a few months. When she registered for the program, Casagrande weighed 173 pound. At 4 ft. 11 in., that suggested she was medically overweight, which implies having a body mass index of 30 or more.

They found that blood-sugar levels differed commonly amongst people after they consumed, even when they consumed the exact very same meal. This suggests that umbrella recommendations for the best ways to eat could be meaningless. "It was a major surprise to us," says Segal.

" The old paradigm was that bad diet plan and lack of workout are underpinning weight problems, today we comprehend that chemical direct exposures are a crucial third factor in the origin of the obesity epidemic," states Dr. Leonardo Trasande, an associate professor of pediatrics, environmental medication and population health at New York University's School of Medicine. "Chemicals can interfere with hormones and metabolism, which can contribute to disease and special needs.".

The researchers developed an algorithm for each person in the trial using the data they collected and found that they could properly anticipate an individual's blood-sugar action to a provided food on the basis of their microbiome. That's why Elinav and Segal think the next frontier in weight-loss science depends on the gut; they believe their algorithm could ultimately help medical professionals prescribe highly particular diets for people according to how they react to various foods.

When individuals are asked to picture their ideal size, numerous cite a dream weight loss as much as 3 times as fantastic as what a medical professional may suggest. Given how challenging that can be to pull off, it's not a surprise numerous people offer up attempting to drop weight entirely. It's informing, if a little bit of a downer, that in 2017, when Americans have never ever been much heavier, less individuals than ever state they're aiming to reduce weight.

Some speculate it's individuals's genes. Over the previous a number of years, scientists have recognized almost 100 genetic markers that seem connected to being overweight or being obese, and there's no doubt genes play an important role in how some people break down calories and shop fat. However professionals estimate that obesity-related genes account for just 3% of the differences between people's sizes-- and those same genes that incline individuals to weight gain existed 30 years ago, and 100 years back, suggesting that genes alone can not describe the fast rise in obesity.

Another frontier scientists are checking out is how the microbiome-- the trillions of bacteria that live inside and on the surface of the body-- might be affecting how the body metabolizes specific foods. Dr. Eran Elinav and Eran Segal, researchers for the Personalized Nutrition Project at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, believe the variation in diet success may lie in the way people's microbiomes react to various foods.

Unsurprisingly, there are enterprising services attempting to cash in on this concept. Online supplement business currently hawk personalized probiotic tablets, with testimonials from customers claiming they reduced weight taking them.

Freedhoff says learning exactly what variables are essential for each individual-- be they psychological, logistical, food-based-- matters more to him than identifying one diet plan that works for everyone. "So long as we continue to pigeonhole people into particular diet plans without considering the people, the most likely we are to face issues," he states. That's why a substantial portion of his meetings with patients is invested speaking about the individual's daily obligations, their socioeconomic status, their mental health, their comfort in the cooking area.

What's more, a current study of 9,000 people discovered that whether an individual carried a gene variation connected with weight gain had no impact on his/her capability to drop weight. "We think this readies news," states research study author John Mathers, a teacher of human nutrition at Newcastle University. "Carrying the high-risk kind of the gene makes you more most likely to be a bit heavier, but it should not prevent you from losing weight.".

A March 2017 research study found that people who internalize weight stigma have a harder time maintaining weight loss. That's why most specialists argue that pressing individuals toward health objectives instead of a number on the scale can yield much better outcomes. "When you exclusively concentrate on weight, you may offer up on changes in your life that would have favorable advantages," says the NIH's Hall.

For Ottawa's Jody Jeans, recalibrating her expectations is exactly what assisted her lastly reduce weight in a healthy-- and sustainable-- way. People may take a look at her and see somebody who could still manage to lose a few pounds, she says, but she's proud of her existing weight, and she is well within the variety of what an excellent doctor would call healthy." You have to accept that you're never going to be a willowy model," she states. "But I am at a very great weight that I can manage.".

Hill, Wing and their coworkers concur that maybe the most motivating lesson to be obtained from their registry is the easiest: in a group of 10,000 real-life biggest losers, no two individuals lost the weight in rather the same way.

In an August op-ed released in the journal the Lancet, Freedhoff and Hall jointly called on the scientific community to spend more time finding out how doctors can assist individuals sustain healthy way of lives and less on exactly what diet plan is best for weight loss. "Crowning a diet plan king since it provides a clinically meaningless difference in body weight fuels diet hype, not diet plan assistance," they compose. "It's high time we start helping.".

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