#anyway I just have 50 million thoughts about this issue

[writingquestionsanswered]

i’m not sure if this is something you can help with but i wondered if you had any advice for me,

basically whenever i try to write recently, i get somewhere between 50 to 1000 words in (which really isnt much by my standards) before i start to get extremely tired? i’m not sure why, and i am struggling to write because i just get exhausted instantly

Becoming Exhausted When Writing

It's really not uncommon for writers to experience physical exhaustion when writing--sometimes after only a short period of time. Here are some of the reasons this happens and some tips for how to deal with it. :)

1 - Mental Exhaustion = Physical Exhaustion - The brain is an organ, not a muscle, but it behaves a lot like a muscle in that it gets stronger with "exercise" and can become fatigued with overuse. Writing is kind of like doing a cardio session for your brain. The creative load requires your brain to work really hard and expend a lot of energy, so the bigger that creative load, the faster you're going to feel tired. If you think of unwritten stories as untamed jungles, some writers can be plunked into the middle of the thick vegetation, without a map or resources, and machete a straight path back to civilization. Many of us can't do that, though. We machete circles through the jungle, lost and bewildered, hungry and dehydrated, exhausted and mosquito-bitten--and that's exhausting. So, if you find yourself becoming quickly exhausted when you sit down to write, it's worth considering how much of a creative load you're putting on your brain. If it's not an issue of what to write and where the story is going, something else is going on. For example, if you've had a taxing brain day before you even sit down to write, your remaining energy will vanish fast. But, if you find yourself wandering in circles through your story, you may just need to do some better planning. Having a "map" through your story and heading into the story jungle with resources ready can make a big difference.

2 - Actual Physical Exhaustion - Sometimes the problem isn't with our brains but with our bodies. Lack of sleep, health issues, busy days, mild dehydration, and life stress are all things that can contribute to physical exhaustion that makes us feel sleepy when we write. Some solutions: make sure you get enough sleep or try taking a power nap before you write. Exercise or taking a walk before you write can give you an energy boost, too. Drink some water, coffee, or an energizing smoothie before you write. If you're under life stress, try meditating or taking a refreshing shower before you write.

3 - Creative Stress - Millions of years of evolution have led our brains to be wired to avoid things that are stressful because they might be dangerous. Originally, this was to help us stay physically safe. If you knew there might be lions down a particular path, the thought of going down that path would be stressful, so your brain would say, "Nope, don't go that way." It works the same way with writing. If writing feels stressful to you--maybe because you're not sure what to write or are giving yourself a hard time about not making word counts or deadlines--your brain perceives writing as a threat and says, "Nope, don't go that way." This causes your "fight or flight" response to kick in when you start writing. That might manifest as your inner critic, distracting yourself, or experiencing writer's block. Pushing forward anyway can create even more stress, and that's when you start to feel exhausted. The best way to deal with this is to make writing as stress-free as you possibly can so your brain doesn't perceive it as a threat. Make sure you know where your story is going and what you need to write during each writing session, whether that means just thinking about it ahead of time or planning it out. Don't give yourself a hard time for not meeting word counts or deadlines, and don't even strive toward those (unless you have to) if they cause you undue stress. Instead, try setting small, attainable goals and reward yourself for reaching them. For example, instead of trying trying to hit a particular word count, try to write for ten minutes each day. If that's not a problem, go for twenty and so on. Set your goal just a few minutes above what you know you can hit. Then, raise it accordingly. Also, try setting up a writing routine and making sure you have a comfortable, inviting place to write if possible. Taking a walk, shower, or meditating before you write can help here, too.

I hope that helps! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[brw]

soooo any in-depth thoughts/analysis on the recent x-force comic?

Ooooh okay, so I've definitely already ranted far too much to @elvain and @positivelybeastly but yes, I have quite a few, on various levels of complexity. The main thing that really stands out me is this; we have followed Hank for 50 issues of this, and a solid chunk of Percy's Wolverine. We have been in his head at different stages, and observed his thought patterns and his reasoning at different intervals, however weak or out of character those are. Not once did he ever mention or even think about Simon. So it really does stand out that without a moment's hesitation or consideration, he gave his life for Simon. No messing around, no second thoughts... because it was Simon, and Simon specifically. He would have never in a million years done that for anyone on Krakoa. He was willing to permanently ruin his relationship with Jean and with Emma and with so many people he cares about, but not Simon. Simon, he will throw himself in front of time and time again. Even if you're not reading these two as romantic, the literal actual text is clearly that Simon is on a higher tier of emotional importance to Hank, even the worst version of Hank, than anyone else. That stands out. Intentional or not, that is what happens! The only person who could get Hank to stop thinking about Krakoa or about mutantkind's survival above all ethics or morals was Simon Williams.

Now, Percy doesn't write a particularly strong Simon. While Simon is a pacifist, he also kind of fucking hates Logan, and I really don't think even pacifist Simon wouldn't tell Logan to get the fuck out of his face here.

(also, Simon is like 6'2. What the hell is Logan standing on to make him seem so tall?)

And I know for a fact that Percy hasn't read these issues because it doesn't make any sense to write Hank the way he does if he actually has this much knowledge... BUT. But. It does stand out to me how willing Simon was to put himself in front of that gun/nuke thing, because Simon has done that before, and he has died from it. He dies in issue one of Force Works to protect earth from the Kree Ionic Cannon, which comes across as a reference to the comic event Operation: Galactic Storm, where Simon fails to stop a bomb going off that kills many Kree soldiers and this trauma permanently changes the tone of the 1991 Wonder Man series.

Simon has become someone very willing to sacrifice himself to protect other people, because the fear of being responsible for so many deaths has outweighed his fear of dying himself. Anyway, after Force Works, we see Simon's funeral in Tales of the Marvels: Wonder Years, and Hank is briefly interviewed and shown at that funeral, and he looks absolutely miserable.

And it is just... does Beast Prime remember this? Remember how difficult it was to lose his best friend? Hank becomes increasingly reclusive and focused on curing the legacy virus at the expense of his friendships during the 90s; is this part of this? Does this influence just how quick of a decision it was, to put himself and his life in front of Simon once again sacrificing himself for the benefit of others?

As I said, I do not think Ben has read either Force Works or Wonder Years, because why would you read those for this and not any Hank McCoy comic ever, but it does remind me of those moments and there's just. a lot of parallels there I enjoy.

However, I do feel frustrated slightly by the decision made to literally blow up Hank from the 80s–2020s? That's 40 years, and a lot of people have contributed to Hank in that time. Morrison, Whedon, Lobdell, Gillen, Waid, Ewing, Wells, Claremont, and hell, even people who's Hank's I don't like very much, like Bendis or Fraction, they all still had at least something to contribute to the character and it feels wrong that so much of that history is just. gone. Is Percy's writing worth this loss? Has he made any interesting statements about Hank McCoy as a character to justify steamrolling over 40 years of history and established lore and character development? Abigail Brand, gone from Hank's memory. His time travel shenanigans, gone. Dark Beast, a vague comment. Breaking through the door of Avengers mansion to kiss Simon on the floor and give him red roses, also gone. Becoming feline, to the sands of time. It's just depressing that so much has been cut out because writing an actual redemption arc would require having positive thoughts about Hank and we know Percy doesn't have those. I suppose I'm also just generally against the idea that villains have to die to be redeemed, anyway; is it not more interesting and more complex when someone has done so many horrible things as Hank had done under Percy, and he still is capable of change? Why can he only prove that capability in death? It feels like a very lazy way out and I really hope MacKay or someone gives Hank those memories back because so many wonderful and interesting dynamics have been lost because of it and I don't want them just to roll over it as if it hasn't happened.

But it does still really stand out that. Hank was willing to give everything up for Simon, and Simon specifically. Simon was the first person Defenders era Beast could think of that would make things better, that he felt safe talking to, and Simon is the one and only person Beast Prime was willing to die for, to put all the rest of his motivations and impulses on hold for and give up his life because he couldn't bare to lose his friend again.

And now the new Hank is living in Simon's small, one bed flat in L.A.

He's not helping the X-Men fight Orchis or the sentinels, or help X-Force with the Sabertooth problem... no, he's followed Simon to L.A. despite being covered in fur. That's true love if I've ever seen it.

It is also absolutely hysterical how little X-Force did in their own finale. Because did Hank give up his life because he felt regret over what he did for them? Did they successfully inspire change or successfully stop him in any way other than drag a sentinel to bother Simon and Hank? No! They didn't do anything! Logan stabbed Beast Prime but that didn't stop him, Simon being at risk and being in danger did! The combined forces of X-Force and a giant sentinel are not enough to stop Hank McCoy but the actor from Arkon IV is. Not because Simon even spoke to Beast Prime, or because he's thought about Simon once in the past 5 years, but because it was impulsive. Hank loves Simon so deeply that he will give his life for him even at his very worst, even after 5+ years of no contact and no thoughts about him. That's the actual closing statement of X-Force. How much Hank McCoy would do anything for this d list lame actor/underwear model.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 39

We have finally escaped the time-loop of 1941! Only to land hard in 1947, a year that is notable for two things:

My dad was born

The Partition of India

Only one of those things is relevant to this episode, which is also a banger, because we have reached Demons of the Punjab

We are back with Jodie Whittaker, Yaz, Ryan and Graham, and this is a Yaz Episode! Which is nice because so far she has been very blank. Unfortunately she remains fairly blank because the episode is actually about her Nan, Umbreen - they go back in time to see Umbreen getting married in Lahore in the 50s. Except they miss and land in 1947 on a tiny farm. But that's okay, Nani is getting married! Except it's to the wrong man - rather than the Muslim grandfather Yaz is expecting, she's about to marry Prem, a dashing Hindu stranger.

And Partition happens. Also there are alien demons about.

It's slightly a shame this is not more of a banger, actually, and it would be if the actors were better and the writing was just a bit more thought out. The problem is that they shied away from being too explicit about the issues involved. Which, you know, I get - this is a British show and Britain is a racist cesspit and wouldn't put up with it, ON TOP OF WHICH they were blatantly aiming for allegory about how fascism is universally bad, like. I do get it.

But it does mean that the central tension - two brothers torn apart by Partition and its subsequent creed-based radicalisation - has nowhere near as much weight as it really should have had, because the Nasty Brother just says very vague strawman things to indicate that Hate Is Universal And Always Bad, rather than making meaningful and incisive points about this particular historical atrocity caused by the British Empire. And that means it ends up being a bit too unclear what his fucking problem is, and why he's ready to commit fratricide.

But it's otherwise a GREAT episode, my god. Beautifully shot, the plot is super simple to let the character work take the lead, and Bradley Walsh emerges as the unlikely Best Actor of All to smash it out of the park with sheer poignancy.

(Also like, I cannot stress enough that the vast majority of British people don't know what Partition is. They do not know. This episode introduced a swathe of British society to a vitally important historic event that this country caused and then deliberately forgot about. This means, oddly, that this stupid watch order triumphs again, because two episodes ago we watched Matt Smith attempt to suck off Churchill down to the balls - now, we get a straight up reference to the mass famine Churchill deliberately inflicted on India, plus the twice-stated statistic that a million people died in Partition. This is one of the most socially important episodes of Doctor Who ever made, I think, which I say non-hyperbolically.)

Anyway the alien demons turn out to be a race who used to be assassins, but their planet was destroyed while they were out doing killings and that, so now they go from place to place and mourn people who die alone and unmourned. They "witness". I like this as an idea. They look pretty cool, too. Except this means people keep seeing them standing over recently-deceased corpses looking like they belong to a Finnish heavy metal band before "vanishing" (trans-matting), and so assume they've murdered said recently-deceased corpse, and so they are now experiencing what I shall call the Absol Effect.

Two thirds into the episode, the Doctor discovers this. I will admit, she could have discovered this much sooner if they'd actually said in the first meeting. In that sense this is like the Testimony mirror people again, who could have prevented most of the episode by actually explaining straight away; but eh. Whatevs. It turns out, though, they're here to witness Prem's death; so the main cast now have to go the rest of the episode knowing this man is going to die tomorrow. As I say: Bradley Walsh's acting. That man can do an amazing wibbly lip, turns out. Fair play Brads.

Umbreen and Prem get married in the morning, but the Nasty Brother has called on a mob to come and kill them. Umbreen and her mam escape, but Prem is murdered in cold blood. It's very moving. My husband cried.

After all of that, though, I don't think we have a single new plot thread? NO WAIT - we do! Ish. The Thijarian ex-assassin professional mourners lost their planet. We've seen that before! Maybe it's connected.

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. NEW INFO: the Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (unless she’s Missy. Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?)

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years?

How does the Doctor survive River

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

I continue to hate polls. Polls, that is, not poles or Poles, those are fine. Polls though? Fucking useless.

Observe:

Oh? That so? How'd you figure that?

The King's College London study found 66% of children in state schools, aged six to 12, had a positive view of the royals, compared with 56% in private. Overall it found higher levels of support for the monarchy among children than among teenagers and young adults. The findings were based on questions for 2,000 pupils across 200 schools.

Wow! So from a sample size of basically fucking no-one, you discovered that children are more likely to approve of the shiny, sparkly kings and queens? Hey, maybe you should have asked them if they thoughts unicorns were real too!

It is not until the over-50 age range where a majority say the monarchy is good for the country, according to the long-running survey, which overall found 52% backing the royals. But this latest university study has looked at an earlier stage and found a majority of primary school children had a positive response to the monarchy, in terms of making them feel "happy", "excited" or "proud". On average, the study found 65% support for the monarchy from this representative group of primary schools, with the highest levels of 68% in faith schools.

I know it's important to verify things you just assume, but A) Fucking polls asking a handful of people and out of that extrapolating the situation for MILLIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE B) For your next trick are you going to poll water to see if it's wet?

But the big picture, according to lead researcher Dr George Gross, is to provide a more "nuanced" understanding of how attitudes shift over time. He says there has been a view that people become more "traditionalist" as they grow older and that is reflected in rising support for the monarchy. However, he says the latest findings in primary schools show a more complicated picture. "Our initial poll results certainly challenge the idea or consensus that the monarchy lacks support amongst younger people," says Dr Gross.

No! Your fucking survey demonstrates that children like the royals more than kids who have started to grasp the world! I don't want to talk down to five-to-ten-year-olds but they do not, perhaps, have a sufficient view of things to form an untarnished view on the position of the modern British monarchy! Or monarchy in general! You ever seen a fucking Disney film? Children have! How are you a doctor?

The support among children is closer to the most pro-monarchy age group, which is the over-65s.

There has ever been a curious link between those getting towards the elderly side of things and those on the very young. This is just another one. And, again, it's not complicated.

Dr Gross says it raises questions into what changes attitudes between the ages of 12 and the 18 to 24-year-old age group.

Does it?! Look out a fucking window, doctor! Read a fucking newspaper! Maybe try counting on your fucking fingers!

Royal historian Ed Owens said: "It is once these children hit adulthood that disillusionment with the monarchy starts to set in. The 18-to-24s have never been so sceptical about the benefits of constitutional monarchy." The royal author said this should be "set against a deeper disenchantment" about issues facing their generation, such as unaffordable housing and student debt, which he says means young people are rejecting the "political and social status quo", including the monarchy.

See? This guy gets it! It's not complicated!

Argh!

Anyway, I look forward to the next survey of two dozen random dickheads that can then be reported as conclusive proof of some shit that doesn't change shit for shit.

Fuck.

[lorata]

How much of the detox for Centre kids is getting “I would have been Victor”/“I could have been a contendah!” syndrome out of their heads? Especially in an off-year/non-Career year, or a fluke year where something flipped the narrative?

so this is actually why they pull the Seniors out before the Arena -- because if they sit there listening to the trainers pull apart the mistakes the dead classmate made, 1) it's traumatizing but 2) the odds they will sit there going "I wouldn't have done that" start rising exponentially. it's helpful for the younger ones, to minimize the risk of them repeating the mistake later. for the ones who've graduated, they aren't going in, and you really want them grateful for their volunteer, not resentful

how much it works, at least right away, depends on the Arena

so like, Selene? NONE. zip, zero, zilch, she saw Petra's win and was like NOPE NO THANK YOU DO NOT WANT, she would have died right there in the mud, hats off to you Petra now let's run 50 million laps because she can hooooooly shit she's cured

(she has other issues! obviously! but "that could've been me" ain't one of them)

Petra, meanwhile, in the Victor Selene AUs, that is like ... her entire deal. she's full-on suicidal for months, multiple actual attempts, and it takes intense therapy and Brutus coming to visit her in detox and talk to her to get her out of that rut

Claudius' running mates were like ha ha ha WOW no thanks! that sucked! because yes on the one hand, boooo easy! it's all kids! but the trainers impressed on them very early that this was a trap, and Claudius and his mentor did something very smart and it was going to cost them later, so don't think he got lucky just because the Arena was full of twelve-year-olds. his classmates walked out of there like mmmyeah no okay we're good.

meanwhile Devon, we all know that what's name, Gavin? Gareth? (SORRY DUDE I FORGET YOUR NAME) has a bug up his ear even a year later convinced he could have won! he could have won more impressively! and they do what they can in detox but they can't, like, keep him there forever over this one issue, so they do what they can with him but obviously it's a burning resentment for a long time. obviously he's wrong and he will get over it, eventually, but mostly because nobody likes hearing it and at some point someone who knows more about the victor circuit (probably one of the PKs) will overhear him and knock him around a bit

I think Misha's Arena was one that could have led to like, hey that wasn't so bad, I could've done that! but Misha was just so good that they all watched like, holy shit, holy shit yeah no I would not have been that awesome, oh my god. ditto Claudius' year-mates knew years ago that he was going in unless he got put down for being too wild, so, not a surprise. Enobaria's were probably similar.

regarding years when it's NOT a Two year --

Creed's death was sort of preventable in that he fell asleep, if he had rested it might not have happened, but I think it was so awful that none of the others in his year were like "well RIP to him but I'm different". like if he'd died right there, then sure! they might have been like DUDE! take a nap! I would have remembered to sleep! but it took him so long to die that any thought of woulda-coulda-shoulda just ... bled out. (badum-pssh?)

I do think it still depends, like there are years where the Careers flat-out made mistakes -- taking too long to gloat, or falling asleep under Katniss' tree without setting a guard -- where those watching could be like, well that was dumb, I wouldn't have done that. and then there's Beetee, or Wiress, or Cecelia, or any of the ones where a tribute targets the Careers using poison or electricity or whatever, the runner-ups would be like WELP I'd be dead, glad that wasn't me! yikes!! and ones like Felix and Sloane, where someone fights and fights and fights and does their absolute damn best and dies anyway -- it's hard to look at that and go, well *I* would have just not died there. I mean, some do! but that's what the detox therapy is for.

[nopefer-art-tu]

OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE I ALMOST MISSED POSTING ABT BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN'S ANNIVERSARY???? im gonna get mushy here so if yall wanna skip this go for it i wont hold it against you lol but this movie means a lot to me (if u cant tell) and id just kinda like to share a little bit abt why

I remember when I first saw Brokeback, I'd been either a junior or senior in high school, and I had watched it with my ex. I literally have no clue how we got to watching it or who proposed we watch it in the first place, but I remember that even back then I had been incredibly moved by the story.

Cut to 5-6 years later, and in January of this year I'd been in the midst of a really, super dark depression thanks to some health issues that I've been dealing w for awhile now. It made it so that on top of COVID, I wasn't rly getting out of the house for anything but school, and even then doing that took a really big toll on my anxiety. So basically, from the time that the 2021 winter semester had ended for me in early December, to when school started back up again for the spring in late January, I hadn't left the house at all.

In mid January, like a week before school started back up for me, I was scrolling through Hulu, bored out of my mind and also trying to find something to occupy my time and thoughts w bc I'd been going stir crazy, and I saw that Brokeback had been listed again. I kinda lingered on it because I remember phil (@/senditothemoonn) had watched it like a month or two before and she had started talking abt it in our group chat and posting quotes abt it and stuff, and it had been awhile since I'd seen it so I was like hey! What the hell! Lets give it a watch, its time I watch it again anyways.

And like. Something happened to the world for me after that viewing. It was like it had blown apart, and when it came back together it was completelty rearranged for me.

I'm not entirely sure why that time around the movie has such a deep, DEEP impact on me when I had seen it before, and had been very touched by it back then. I think its partly that a. I never used to watch movies with subtitles, and so before I realized that I probably have issues with the way my mind processes sound, a lot of movie dialogue just kinda. Didn't get internalized by me for some reason? Even now when I rewatch old faves that I haven't seen with subtitles, I'm always astounded by what the hell theyre saying because I had never rly picked up on it before, lol.

And like...I mean if you've seen the movie then you already know this, but their accents and dialect are kinda hard to get through. ESPECIALLY when it comes to Heath as Ennis. Which isn't in any way a jab at him, I think every part of his performance is super thoughtful and well-crafted and every acting choice he makes serves the character in only positive ways. But when you already have issues processing audio, and when you have a character who's jaw is perpetually cleched so tight that the words literally have to "fight" their way out of his mouth, its just like. Not the best combination lol.

And so this time around when I saw the movie, I saw it with subtitles and it opened up a new dimension of the film to me. Honest to God, the first time I watched the movie, I had no idea that the shirts at the end were so signifigant because Jack had stolen Ennis'. I guess the first time I saw it, I didn't catch the part where Ennis talks about having left his damn shirt up there, and Jack just kinda shrugs it off and changes the subject. When I saw that moment this time, it didn't really strike me as anything important until the movie got to the end and you realize that Jack had kept the shirts all those long 20 years and UGH. I literally remember screaming with tears in my eyes, thats what happened to the shirt! There they are! And then when I saw that Ennis had put his shirt over Jack's to hang together on his closet door for the rest of his life? Dead. Dead, I was literally stabbed in the heart 50 million times and killed dead. I'd never made those connections before and now that I had I like. got it, yanno? I got why this was an oscar winner, and why people were sk devastated by its best picture loss. Not that I hadn't before, but it just hit so much harder.

So yeah, the subtitles probably had a lot to do w why its stayed lingering in my mind for a long while, but I also think its because in a few ways it kind of spoke to me and made me think about my health issues and the self-imposed quarantine that I'd put myself through for the better part of a year at that point.

To me, the whole story is about regret, about not taking the chances we have while we have them and having to learn to live with knowledge of the things we didn't let ourselves do and the memories we didn't let ourselves make.

I hadn't seen a lot of my family for awhile at that point because I just didn't want to be out of my house, and its only been recently that I realized how much life I've missed out on living for a good year and a half-ish or so. And like yeah, I have a reason, my health issues and super aggressive anxiety have kinda put me through the ringer. But I dunno like. I kind of empathized and related to Ennis' character in a really odd way, because he also let his fear control what he did and especially what he did not do, and for that, he ended up living a half-life and missed his chance of getting to spend his time with the person he loved the most.

For me, the fear of regret is one of my biggest motivators in doing literally anything. I've realized I don't want to end up like Ennis, isolating myself from my loved ones and missing out on the chance for love and life because of some issues I have. And I mean its not like they're not real issues. Just like the fears that motivated Ennis' actions, theyre very real concerns. But since seeing the movie, I've been a lot more proactive about seeing doctors and trying to get this shit fixed up, because I don't want to end up wasting my life away. I wanna find my Jack, and I wanna be happy, and I wanna live.

Anyways. Happy 17th birthday to my favorite movie in the world <3

[purplesurveys]

1672

Firstly, who do you work for? I work at a public relations agency. Small company compared to other multinational agencies we work with; we have grown considerably since the time I started but I also don’t think we’re over 100 just yet.

What is your position? I’m a senior manager.

What are your responsibilities? I’m tasked to be the jack-of-all-trades when it comes to everything account management, meaning to say I’m the main rep in my team in deliverables ranging from handling clients’ day-to-day needs, to mounting events, to organizing press release or PR kit sendouts, to leading pitch presentations. It’s also a complicated position to be in because I have to have everything done before routing it to my superior for approval, but I’m also in charge of overseeing and approving what my associates send me. In badly put terms, I’m the team member who needs to be present the most and file the least leaves lol

Do you enjoy your job? When clients are easy to work with, or when campaigns perform well, or when I actually like the campaign or brand I’m working with, I can enjoy it. But office life isn’t always that easy and glamorous so I’m also always in danger of burning out. I’m very 50-50 about the work.

Do you work with other people, or solo? It’s a very people-based job. I'm constantly speaking with my teammates, clients, suppliers, and other agencies.

What are your co-workers like? The ones who have been around longer are definitely fun and easier to work with, but I’ve observed that the newer wave of associates need a lot of babying and feeding...sometimes we’ll have a new teammate who works really well and is a joy to work with, but most are easily personally affected by feedback while also not performing well. Like, how are you going to get better if you can’t even accept genuine points for improvement said in the gentlest way possible? Hahaha. Personally, it’s a big shift from the time I was the newbie where my co-associates and I had no issue being left to our own devices.

What is/are your boss(es) like? My director’s very knowledgeable about the industry and always knows the right questions to ask, i.e. she’ll make me realize what I missed out on or what opportunities I’m not maximizing. She also tends to be frank, which is my preferred ways of working anyway and I’m always able to separate professional feedback from our personal friendship.

Do you wear a uniform? Nope.

Are you usually very busy, or is it slack? I’m always very busy and have been told to take it easy more than a million times at this point; can’t really afford to do that given how fast-paced everything is, though.

Do you get paid minimum wage, or above? Above.

What time of day do you usually work? I start at 9 AM and end at 6 PM, but 1-2 times a week I’ll extend beyond 6 to lessen my load for the next morning.

How many hours a week do you get? It’s supposed to be 40, but like I said overtime is a common occurrence. For the most part it’s not an issue for me because I get paid for it and I voluntarily take the OT anyway if it’s for finishing something I want to accomplish within the same day; the only time it’s grating is when someone schedules a call beyond work hours.

Would you like to keep this job your whole life? I’m only 25 and have a few things left on my to-do list in this company, so I don’t imagine staying in it forever. I’m perfectly fine, however, with staying in the same industry.

Why are you working this job right now? It pays good money and lets me access so many opportunities I wouldn’t even have thought about had I ended up at a different industry.

Are you saving or spending most of your money? Spending, but I’m making an active effort (ACTUAL NOW, hahaha) to save.

Do you deal with customers or clients? Clients. Our services include handling customers too, but that’s more on the digital/social media department’s work.

Are they generally agreeable? Eh, it’s a very stable 50-50. We have accounts who will easily go along with our recommendations and proposals, but there are others who can be stubborn. Even worse, there are also others who will change their mind on the fly, derailing whatever progress we’ve made on a campaign; this category of clients is also the likeliest to message at midnight or on weekends.

How do you react when they are not agreeable? Our team’s philosophy is always just to stand our ground and push our side because as the agency, we’re technically the ones trusted to know better. Sometimes they’ll give in, and sometimes we’ll have no choice but to go with whatever they want and just grind our teeth through it.

Have you ever been written up? What happened? Nope.

Are there any risks involved in your job? What are they? Not like physical risks or anything like that; it’s more on the toll it takes on you due to how fast-paced the job is. Burnout and exhaustion are things we look out for but fortunately we have a lot of mental health break days (like today) and we also have ‘rules’ we generally follow, like no calls are to be scheduled on Friday afternoons.

Have you ever forgotten to do something important? What happened? Yeah, it’s a common occurrence. It used to eat me up but after 2 1/2 years I just dust it off and move on. A missed deliverable isn’t going to lead to a third world war; and me panicking is never going to boost the team morale anyway.

Are you allowed to read/watch TV/play video games on the job? I do whatever I want to do on the job because I work from home and honestly because I am jaded enough to do so, lol. If I feel like taking a break, I’d go downstairs to have a bit of playtime with the dogs or play a few rounds of In the Seom on my phone.

What are your breaks like? Like I said, I make my own breaks and just schedule them around my to-do list for the day. When I get a bit of a lull (usually between 2-4 PM), that’s the time I catch my breath.

Do you ever get really bored at your job? Never an uneventful day in it; the most boring weeks would be around January when most of our accounts don’t really have any campaigns to brief us on yet.

How do you keep yourself entertained? I’m generous with the breaks I give myself; they’re my final thread to sanity lol.

Is your workplace clean? Who cleans it? That would be my room and I keep it clean for the most part. It only gets messy when I have to pack and ship stuff for media and influencers we send out stuff to.

Is your job physically demanding? Not for the most part, but being in PR we will sometimes have to mount activations that are largely physical – just this weekend I was part of a hike for one of my clients who was sponsoring said hike. In short, the day-to-day job itself isn’t physically demanding but it can be part of being in the industry.

What would happen if a robbery took place? I don’t have a clue, honestly. We don’t have a security guard who keeps watch and the office only has like 7-10 employees at most (when people do sign up for the F2F slots) so I’m guessing we’ll be pretty fucked. I should ask if there’s a button somewhere we’re supposed to click to alert the police...

What are your customers/clients’ biggest complaints? As far as I know we don’t get complains about our ways of working. If there were any, it’d be cascaded immediately to us anyway.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen happen at your job? Nothing in particular yet that would super stick out, but since we handle PR kits our office does become a warehouse of the most random shit quite frequently. Some days it’ll be running shoes and sports apparel, some days it’ll be 15 kg bags of dog food, sometimes it’s RTD chocolate milk; you never know the jungle you are to walk around hahaha.

Tell us about the time you were most upset at work. My dog of 14 years died and I couldn’t be with him during his dying moments nor grieve for him properly because I was stuck mounting an event for my least favorite client. I don’t think I ever gave my 100% for their campaigns after that and six months later we decided not to renew our contract with them.

If you’re upset, do you act any differently towards customers? I rarely get upset at work; it’s more often than not just feelings of stress. In those cases, I’ll most definitely be curt with clients. If I’m not feeling friendly on any given day, I’ll be transparent about it hahaha.

The phone rings, and you have to answer it. HOW do you answer? I work from home so I’ll use my phone as a reference – unless the person introduced themselves and briefed me about what they’ll be calling for, I will not be taking the call.

Is there a duty you really despise doing? I hate drafting contracts...too much at stake if you fuck up any word or have a typo on whatever money’s involved. Gives me too much anxiety and I wish they could just write themselves.

Is there a duty you love doing? Every single writing bit. I’ll always happily volunteer to write a script or a press release or whatever it is; I’ve never viewed it as just a task that needed to be done. Is there anything you are scared of at your job? Besides fucking up? Anything to do with money. I don’t know why I also have to be the one in charge of managing campaign budgets and invoices when I just signed up to do the PR side of things D:

Are there many things to laugh at? I wouldn’t say many but there are things that come up at least once a day.

What are the bathrooms there like? We have one and it’s alright. I like that it’s spacious and super clean and provides enough privacy.

How long do you plan to keep working there? Why? I have no idea, honestly. I’ve been told in a very subtle way, during a drinking sesh with my superiors, that I’ve been pretty much saved a seat at the table for the next position...which I have nothing but mixed feelings about. On one end, kind of cool they have that amount of trust in me and kind of makes me want to selfishly stick it out; on another note, I can’t help but mourn over it? The next position is already bordering the world of business development and networking, something I have no interest in. I went into PR because I like to write and because I love the field of communications; I was never in it to be so high up the ladder that my work suddenly becomes 90% business and 10% writing. At this point I’m pretty adamant in what I want to be doing, so it’ll be interesting to see how I react if I am ever going to be offered the gig.

Has anyone ever screamed at your job? Why? Nah.

Do you ever need to mentally prepare yourself for work? There are phases that I do, phases that I don’t. I’m currently in a phase where I have to, yes.

How do you wind down after a hard day’s work? Spend time with the dogs, find a bunch of shit to watch on YouTube, catch up on my social media feeds.

Is your job stressful? Yes.

Who would you recommend your job to? Anybody who specifically wants to be in PR. You know how food can be an acquired taste? It’s the same with PR. You have to like it, or at least have the balls to tough it out in the industry, to last in it.

[enapoe]

ᨳ hypocrite pt. 2

synopsis - y/n's brother is a star soccer player — which is why she refuses to date athletes. (like she dates anyone). But when she's put in charge of the sports section in the school newspaper, she coincidentally makes the star player fall for her.

genre - soccerplayer!hoon × nerdy/writer!reader. FLUFF what is angst? we don't know her. hoon's a rich boy, yn has a famous big bro 🙄 cliché nerd catches athletes eye whatever, whatever

word count -

warnings - slight mention of gender / sexuality

A/N - umm.... the first part did really well and tbh with all of you this wasn't going to be like a series or anything it was supposed to be a long one-shot but my stupid ass pressed post instead of edit and then the story got posted and I didn't even noticed until 5 days later when it reached 200 something likes. Anyway thank you for loving the first post it means a lot 🩷🩷 love yah

PART 1

Having a famous brother is hard. Yeah, boohoo, you've heard it a million times. Jiho has been in the Daegu FC team for about five years and it's been five years since your family moved here for him. You're incredibly lucky to have such supportive parents, who not only support every one of their children's dreams but also adapt and bend themselves backwards to help their children achieve said dreams.

Your dream: writing. It's a little lame you can admit. Your little sister wants to be a princess and your brother is a star athlete, yet the only thing you could dream of doing in the future is sitting at a desk and typing away on your keyboard—maybe at three in the morning. Who am I to judge when creativity sparks? You're actually one of the head writers at school, you mainly are in charge of the hard facts and self depreciating issues while your fellow students prefer the gossip column.

It was 2:50 p.m. on Monday, today you were assigned to write a news report on the soccer team. Usually you write for the boys volleyball team since your best friend Nicholas is the star player, but alas the season ended a while ago.

So soccer it is. Yay.

But not all hope was lost. You'd be lying if you said looking at a bunch of handsome athletic guys didn't do something to your stomach. You are seventeen and straight, what else could be better?

Upon arriving at the field (which took ten minutes because some kid in the lower grade got his tie stuck in the elevator door) the boys were doing warm-ups and running across the field doing various exercises.

And God, when did it get so hot out here? You pack extra clothes for times like these, so you quickly let yourself into the girls changing room and slip out of the thick hoodie and long jeans you were previously wearing before, opting for the more weather appropriate white tank top and black shorts.

You don't really wear clothes like this besides sleeping or lounging at home, but you refuse to feel insecure. Besides it's only your body, you should love your arms and legs just like everything else. (Also it makes you look pretty hot).

Stepping out of the air conditioned changing room, into the blazing field felt like stepping into a sauna with a volcano inside. Of course there's students watching the soccer team practice. Boys, girls and everyone in between seemed to fill the bleachers. Cheering for who knows what. They weren't even playing against anyone.

Sitting down on the closet bleacher to the field you took out a new notebook and studied the team's strategies. That seemed to have caught the teams attention since out of everyone watching you were the only one whipping up notes and analyzing their play. At first they thought she was a scout looking to recruit them after highschool but after taking a closer look—getting someone with 20/20 vision—they realized she looked too young to be an agent.

“You know who she is?” Jake asked Sunoo. Sunoo knows everyone and everything when it comes to 1) gossip and 2) students.”Oh, she's y/n. Part of the student news club— or whatever club makes the papers. She's in grade eleven and friends with Nicholas from the volleyball team.”

Jake brushed his sweat damp hair back and checked you out. You were focused on writing something in the brown faux leather notebook and you didn't notice the sudden attention the team had on you.

“Wait here” he patted Sunoo in the chest and walked up to you. Jake was the cute Australian boy with unique features and a strong masculine figure, so of course you knew who he was. In fact you could name all of his friend group like they were a Kpop group. “Hey y/n, right?” His deep voice made you look up and take in how he looked angelic standing in front of the sun.

“Um—yeah, hi I'm y/n”

You stuttered like an idiot. Have you never seen a cute boy before? “Can I have your number?” He pointed his chin towards your open notebook resting on your thighs. Showing a lot of skin. A guy like him asking for your number? You must be in an alternate universe or in some prank episode of a generic YouTuber. But before you could reply, someone from the field yelled.

“Jake, stop flirting and get your ass back here!”

Working after school is the worst.

Not only are you exhausted from classes, you have to restock shelves and check out books for four hours. It could be worse. You could've been babysitting your sisters—which has been scientifically proven to make you feel the urge to jump off a bridge— but that was when you were broke and twelve years old, now you're seventeen and broke. Big difference.

While sitting at the front desk with your face in a romance book, you hear the door chime ring. You look up and meet the eyes of a tall and ever so handsome Park Sunghoon.

“Oh! Um, what are you up to here, Sunghoon?” you shut the book fast, because God forbid anyone see a teenage girl enjoying a romance book.

“I came here to talk to you” he smiled warmly and it oddly made you want to bask in all its glory. “Well, how did your reading go?” You looked into sunghoons eyes and never wanted to see anything else. If you go blind and the last thing you see were Sunghoon's glorious chocolate brown eyes, you'd be happy.

“hm?” Sunghoon looked puzzled for a beat. “right! The reading was good.” Sunghoon fell asleep whilst reading. “That's amazing, I-”

The chime ran once again but a familiar face walked through the door, Nicholas. Your Smile increases and you run up to a sweaty Nicholas and hug him. Tight.

“Kay, little one, that's enough” he pats your head laughing lightly. You look up, arms still wrapped around his waist. “Hey, you thought I was lying when I said I’d stop by to hang while you work?” You nodded, your lower lip jutted out ever so slightly. Nicholas looks back up to Sunghoon and reaches his hand out to dap him up. “How’s your season going?”

“Good, coach is saying we should have a party for the sports groups after the season ends. You know, if we win the finals at least” the tension between the two grew palpable. You had to do something, anything to stop the tense eye contact between Sunghoon and Nicholas. “Well, I’ll head out,” Sunghoon waved at you and turned towards the front door “good night y/n”

New day, same shit. You go back to the soccer field that somehow looks more crowded than last time. Which makes you wonder how many people actually like soccer and how many people just like looking and sweaty guys. No judgment, just plain curiosity.

But today's writing won’t be as lonely because Nicholas decided to join you in journaling, or he came to purely distract you just couldn't say no to him.

Sunghoon spots you immediately. His eyes form little crescents upon your arrival before he coughs and turns away to conceal the butterflies in his stomach and the intense blush forming on the apples of his cheeks. You were wearing a tank top and some sweatpants that somehow made you compete with the beauty of Aphrodite. Hair pulled back into a messy bun, you sported reading glasses instead of your normal contact lens. Sunghoon was a puddle in human form.

Raking his hand through his hair, he finally noticed the male sitting next to you.

“Hey, Sun, are y/n and Nicholas dating?”

Sunghoon seemed timid and shy at the thought of you kissing someone else. Why was he thinking of you kissing other people in the first place? No idea.

“What?” Sunoo turned around and looked towards the girl taking notes about the team's practice. “Stop being a little bitch and ask her out already!” he shoved Sunghoon towards the pretty girl. Sunoo could tell you had Sunghoon hooked around your finger. The boy was a goner

After hyperventilating for 2 minutes Sunghoon gained the courage to ask her out. He ran towards the stands and tapped your shoulder.

“Hey!” You looked at him and beamed. You were so obvious about your feelings Sunoo felt them from the field, yet Sunghoon was oblivious.

“Wouldyougooutwithme?” he asked “What? Sorry I couldn't understand you” you stood up and placed your ear where his mouth was. The crowd was pretty loud so you would have stood up either way to hear him. Nicholas wasn't paying attention to you two so if you embarrassed yourself he can’t make fun of you.

He took a deep breath and said, “would you go out with me?”

------

Heloo beautiful people im back after 4months?

Im so sorry, the quality of this story has gone down and def not worth the wait. Like the ending is so rushed!! but maybe ill write aboit their date to make up to you all! Love always

[squirrel-the-adhd-mom]

Chapter 2- Forgetful much?

9/27/2022

Theo must’ve been tired. He just now woke up it is 710 am. That’s a good sign! Let the day begin.

This morning was better than most. Theo didn’t get flooded or overstimulated. Me on the other hand gets over stimulated very easily. Especially with the mom, mommy, mama, mom, mom, mom, even after I have asked, “what?” A million times. So once I asked three times about different outfits and NONE of them were good enough I walked away and continued getting ready for the morning. I am learning that even if I get overstimulated if I can keep it from happening to him first thing in the morning the day goes better. So although I was slightly over stimulated and walked away he on the other hand came down stairs picked out his clothes got dressed and that was that.

He didn’t complete his work at school yesterday, refused to. So we had some math to do this morning. Man getting him to slow down and think can be difficult to say the least! After he actually took a breathe and thought about it, it took about 3 minutes and the survey on the bottom asked if it was easy, just right or hard, he marked easy! He is so incredibly smart. I am so unbelievably proud of him. Even on the hard days. Time to drop the babies off. Talk soon. <3.

I forgot something. Already this morning. Way to start the day Mikayla. Insert eye roll here. Best part is it is probably not important. Oh well. A while ago I order scholastic books for Theo to help him with reading. Note he CAN read… When HE wants to. Insert eye roll here. Anyways the books arrived. I hadn’t checked his back pack for more than the math paper work. Oops. Anyhow I wanted and the books were supposed to be kept at home. Son I start taking them out. Oh lord here it comes the freak out. Right in que. “No mom I want to keep my books in my bag.” I hear it in his voice anymore the flooding or over stimulation coming in for the punch. Compromise a hard pill to swallow in the ADHD brain but we did it. He got to keep one book in his backpack. Crisis averted. Still on track for a great day! Mental note: although compromise is hard for our brains (my son and I) if it avoids over stimulation for him just do and over come my slightly flustered brain later!

For real this time. It’s time for work! Talk later. <3

Made it to my first drop. Had a thought actually more so an experience. Something most people probably don’t experience because let’s face it. Your brain is more than likely not the exact same as mine. Even more so if you don’t struggle with ADHD.

I pulled into to a rest area to tighten straps and use the restroom I hadn’t stopped besides for diesel since I left the yard. For those wondering the first 50 miles after you strap and start moving you are supposed to stop and check them. Then it’s every 150 miles UNLESS you notice loose straps. Let’s just say I pushed it a little past that first 50 mile mark because my straps were not moving what-so-ever. Anyways as I am pulling into the rest stop there are not one but TWO highway patrol officers parked with lights on next to a box trailer, moving truck whatever. I am not sure how to explain this to someone who hasn’t experienced it so bare with me. INSTANTLY over stimulated. Heart racing, palms sweating fear… I am not sure that’s the right word. It’s not. Insecurity is though. Why? I am not sure. For whatever reason big or small when someone with authority is in my presence i instantly feel like I did something wrong. Is this a trauma response? No I don’t think so because 95% of every police encounter I’ve ever had has been them helping in some form or another. This to me happens because with ADHD we constantly question everything we do. We are impulsive. We do not think about the consequences until after the fact. That being said we are 10000x harder on ourselves than anyone could imagine being. Usually it effects issues with not liking confrontation because even though we may have done nothing wrong, what if we did? It’s a brain game a struggle that I wish I didn’t have to deal with. Police, highway patrol, whatever more times than not are good. So why in those moments does my brain flood. I have no clue. Insert eye roll here. It is incredibly frustrating.

On the way here my husband called and I was talking to him about my surgery coming up and I’m going to need help. I am an over doer through and through. My need to be “wonder women” best stated by my beautiful step mom kicks in the worst when I am at my weak points. Also annoying. For future reference when I bring up hyper fixation remember this because I am sure in future chapters you will hear about how my hyper fixation ended up with me hurting myself! Hyper fixation is a super power that is highly underhanded mainly because we can’t choose when it kicks in, and sometimes… actually almost all of the time it kicks in at the worst time possible.

There I did it again got off track.

I was trying to tell you guys that I have two really close friends Dee and Brandi and I recently decided when I am going to talk about them helping me and or handing out with them together their name will be Dbri. So I suppose when I mention Dbri just know or try cause I’ll forget that more than likely Dee and Brandi both assisted with whatever situation it might be!

No note from Theos teacher yet. Yay! But I need to get this load off my truck.

You know no one ever prepares you properly for parenthood. They definitely don’t prepare you to struggle with ADHD and raise children with it. The studies have came a long way since I was diagnosed but I can only imagine how different my life would’ve been if they would’ve known them what they know now. Shoulder shrug. Luckily I had parents that helped me the best I could. On that note having these “struggles” and trying to help your child be successful when he struggles with the same things is daunting. I don’t know if that even explains it well enough.

Oh yeah. I’m off work now. Making dinner. Two year old being well a terrible two year old. Theo is out riding his bike and Addi is out with a friend at a church activity. After I had Clayleigh, she will be one next month, I was hit really hard with postpartum depression. Can you even try to imagine everything that was already going through my head and then the constant struggle of depression on top of it. Holly shit. I am not sure how I survived not going to lie. During that time my house got out of control. Honestly it still is. I struggle a lot with being home. All the feelings of nothing I do is good enough, I work full time, mom full time and am supposed to keep the house on top of it. Fuck me, right? Being overwhelmed is much different than being over stimulated. Being over whelmed and over stimulated it’s the ultimate nightmare. All the feelings you feel already and validated by the “I don’t like that” comments that come from every angle. The having to ask for anything is hard enough let alone asking and no one doing what is asked. It’s a vortex straight to the pits of hell. For example. My son is currently walking around hitting everything with a fly swatter. I’ve asked three times now for him to quit. I want to rip the fly swatter out of his hands and spank him with it. But that is frowned upon, so I won’t. The sound and the destruction is an instant anger trigger. Then I ask him to not take something from his sister, he promptly does it anyways and tosses it out of her reach. Why do I even try to be calm? My blood is boiling, my heart is racing, my head is throbbing this overwhelming over stimulated state I do NOT like being in. I can’t function. I can’t focus. I need to finish dinner but I just want to run head first into a brick wall. At least then my head will have a reason to hurt and everyone on the outside looking in won’t be able to judge me but maybe laugh at how clumsy I am. Yet another ADHD symptom. Time to finish cooking. The night is young. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me again before the night is over.

Remember when we touched on the super power of hyper fixation? Maybe, maybe not. Either way is irrelevant to me. In fact the act it’s self more times than not I forget about after it’s done anyways. If i had to try and explain an amphetamine high it would be hyper fixation. Cloud nine. Nothing can stop you. Sometimes for five minutes. Sometimes five hours. As soon as the high is over the crash sets in. Pure exhaustion, as though you just all the way around the world not once but twice. It’s a blessing, but it is also a curse. Time for bed. I’ll explain more tomorrow!

[wiihtigo]

Could you talk more about sam and max being autistic idk I just like hearing your thoughts about it your doc was cool

you come to me on the day of my daughters wedding and ask me about sam and max autism headcanons, forcing me to open tumblr and start writing what ive been thinking recently about maxs autism in relation to him in 305

i talked about this in private a bit but i think 305 could be taken as an allegory for maxs giant autism and thinking you dont feel things the right way with ASD

-max turns into a giant horrible monster in 305, this could be taken as him literally seeing himself as a monster and the whole town, all their friends, see him as such and want him DEAD all except sam whos constantly vouching for max this entire episode. at the end when superego was like "wow! max is actually capable of self sacrifice! amazing!" sam says "told you so." very smug because he knew all along, he always knew max was capable of kindness and love because he sees it firsthand every day!

theyre partners and best friends, of course he knows him better than he knows himself. Literally in this case, where superego, personification of part of maxs brain, thinks hes not capable of feeling things in a normal, proper way, max doesnt think that about HIMSELF, superegos issue with max (maxs issue with himself lol) is that he thinks hes capable of more and max is just ignoring him he says specifically hes tried to push max towards the finer things in life and being more proper (max trying to push himself? talking about max and superego as separate when theyre essentially the same is so hard #HELP.) he thinks hes selfish and cruel and not capable of a selfless act.

theres even a line superego says to sam where he says "you of all people should be able to understand my frustration after years of being partnered with a creature driven by pure id" which is like. does max think sam gets frusterated with him and doesnt want him as a partner because of the way that he Is. max. this is a nice little parallel to sam just last episode having that thought "max is getting so powerful now soon he wont even need me :(" but thats getting away from my point a little. (veering into max depression discussion which is a whole can of worms on its own, but it is worth mentioning autism and depression often go hand in hand and some of maxs self worth issues can be attributed to feeling weird about his autism traits)

anyways of course max was capable of a selfless act, of course he would save sybil and her baby, he loves sybil and he loves babies and he has a lot of love in his little heart. so skipping ahead a bit to the biggest scene in sam and max that baffle and confuse millions, maxs reaction to coming back to sam.

a lot of people are confused by maxs nonchalance and casual retelling of the horrible events that apparently went down in his timeline where he had to kill his sam. (interestingly but a little off topic, he specifically says HE blew sam up, whereas in this tl, max killed HIMSELF, sam didnt do a thing. in fact he wouldve probably stayed trying to save him until they both blew up if superego hadnt convicned him itd be tooootally fine to leave. seriously sam its OK hes NOT going to blow up i promise. ok bye bye."

so max comes back, immediately tries to jump back into normalcy and jokes and feels unsure and uncomfortable when sam doesnt reciprocate. he looks confused when sam hugs him even. a lot of people are like "what the hell did he mean by this" but TBH as someone with ASD and lots of experience in the "getting bad news over the phone and then going to a funeral" pipeline i really felt a mind and soul connection with max there! this is mentioned somewhere int he sam and max bible for the cartoon but steve purcell writes something along the lines of "max sees things differently from anyone else" on the topic of his strange reactions to things. which is like. You have autism ->

theres an unskippable line in 305 right before you get to the endgame where sam says "why does max have tear ducts? i cant remember the last time ive seen max cry." and then immediately gets into maxs juxtaposed reaction to sams death to sams absolute MISERY over maxs. max might not feel grief in the way people would expect from a person. he might not even be sad. he might not feel things in the "proper" or "normal" way but that doesnt make him a 50 foot shambling eldritch monster, hes just wired differently. as someone with autism ive felt it too where i dont think i feel things in the right way. if something really sad and fucked up happens to me i dont feel sad and the only thing im immediately concerned with is feeling uncomfortable with watching the people around me crying which, as im typing this, makes me feel like a monster freak for being so cold and cruel, but thats the point im trying to get at, 305 could be read as an allegory for this exact feeling.. because at the end of the day max is just max and sam is happy to see him and accept him as he is. hes not a monster, hes just sams partner and best friend and its ok to be exactly the way he is without feeling the need to change

[tempestsreach-blog]

Fuck Diet Culture

This is going to be long.  It’s going to be rambly.  It’s going to be sad.  It’s going to be angry.  There’s going to be language some people don’t like. I can’t NOT talk about it though. 

Fuck diet culture.  Let me say that again.  Fuck. Diet. Culture. It has taken such a huge chunk out of my life.  I have lost pieces of myself I’m not sure I’ll ever get back.  The only way to heal is to go through.  I can’t go back.  I have to move forward.  But I can’t do it quietly.  I can’t hide.  I can’t live in the same shame I’ve spent the last 40 years in.  Literally.  40 years of my life wasted to this.  I can’t bear to live the back half of my life in the same way.  What the hell is the point? I’m not going to write this in any particular order because all of the thoughts and feelings swimming around are snapshots of things in my life that diet culture has broken in me or stolen from me. A lot of you aren’t going to agree with me.  That’s okay.  Truly.  This is about ME.  This is to help ME heal.  You can talk to me about your struggles, your diets, your ups and downs, your successes and whatnot.  I am here for you in all of it. But I won’t diet with you anymore.  Never again.

Currently I am having severe knee pain.  One knee is worse than the other, but both are bad.  I should go to the doctor.  I should have gone to the doctor years ago for it.  Want to know why I didn’t?  My weight.  I have injuries from overuse and over exercise and I am terrified that I am going to go to the doctor and the first words they’re going to say are “Well, if you lost 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds, it probably wouldn’t hurt so much.” instead of listening to me, examining me, scanning my knees and HELPING me.  I don’t feel this way irrationally.  This shit happens.  I am in pain.  I don’t know how to get help without being told to go on another diet that will not work.

Because diets don’t work.  Not long term.  I am excellent at losing weight!  I’ve done it over and over and over.  Then I stop restricting, counting, starving, and pushing myself.  Then my body says “What the fuck were you doing?” and puts it back. I lost the ability years ago to know whether I’m actually hungry or not.  I eat too fast when I do eat because if I snarf it down super fast I can get it in before my brain says “You’ve had too much.  Did you count those calories?  How many miles on a treadmill will you do to make up for that?  Did you actually earn this meal?”

Every time.  Every meal.  Every morsel.

I have never been officially diagnosed with an eating disorder.  Only been told by therapists and psychiatrists that I definitely engage in disordered eating.

No shit.

Every diet under the sun.  Cabbage soup.  Phen Fen.  Weight watchers (MULTIPLE TIMES), TOPS, Noom, My Fitness Pal calorie counting, intermittent fasting,  and every whacky bullshit thing in between promising results.  I’ve purchased fancy scales.  I’ve even tried one that wouldn’t show you your weight, but the color of your progress in the app.  Here’s a hint… if you gain, your color is black like death.  I’ve failed a million times and I’ve blamed myself.  I am the failure.  So I hate my body a little more every day and I stress about how I’m going to NOT pass my disordered eating and my food issues onto my kids.  My stress levels are through the roof and 98% of it is diet culture related. What the fuck is that about? Every time I start a program I hit it hard.  Last time I tried anything involving tracking or counting I was so starving by the time I got home from work that I almost ripped a child’s head off (not literally OBVIOUSLY) but I screamed at her at the top of my lungs because she hurt my feelings.  It wasn’t until after finally allowing myself to eat another morsel of food that I realized I was hangry.

Why is living in a larger body not acceptable?  We all talk about diversity and equality as though we believe it with our whole hearts, but that doesn’t cross over to fat.  Or skinny if we’re really being honest.  How many times have you heard or seen online “Oh my god, she’s so skinny.  Feed her a damn cheeseburger!  She looks anorexic.”  I know I have.  I know I’ve said those words.  I will punch myself in the gut if I ever say them again.  

Every body is different.  We are supposed to be.  Let’s not BLAME genetics like it’s a bad thing.  Let’s realize that it’s what nature has intended.  My father is over 6 feet tall and a large man.  He’s just a big man.  He went on Nutri System when I was young, lost a ton of weight, and put a bunch back on over the years because he is a big man.  My mother was not tall, but was always large.  I hated her body because HER PARENTS told her all the time she was fat and unworthy and cautioned me not to grow up to be like her in any way.  Even when she was poor and homeless she was still large.  That was the way her body was.  I wonder how different her life might have been if the size of her body hadn’t been a factor in the way she was raised or treated.  How might that have made my life different?

I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes at me right now about being vocal about another health plan or saying to yourself “just because you have trouble with diets doesn’t mean they don’t work”  I know there are people close to me thinking “She just always gets excited when she discovers a new diet, that’s probably what this is.”  NO.  

This is me finally realizing that I can heal and healing doesn’t mean I need to weigh 157 pounds. (That’s the weight limit for women my height to enter the air force when I did in 1992) This is me finally realizing that I’ve been lying about the weight on my drivers license for 30 years because gods forbid anyone saw my real weight on that document. This is me realizing that I’ve spent my life trying to live up to other people’s ideals of what I should look like because I assumed they wouldn’t like me otherwise. This is me realizing how much unintentional harm I could have been doing when sharing another diet, another idea, another bout of “well this is working really well for me!” with people I care about. This is me realizing how much damage I’ve been doing to myself living with this level of shame for 40 years. Hiding what I’m doing.  Suffering in silence.  Hiding food. Restricting.  Binging.  Over exercising to compensate.  Spending money on one last diet.  Spending emotional energy on one last hope. We were in Las Vegas for what was supposed to be a fun vacation last week and I was so hot and miserable and so steeped in hating my body because my painful knees were betraying me that my internal monologue was a never ending loop of “I’ll hit weight watchers REALLY HARD when we get home and get rid of this weight, then I’ll figure out my knees and work on maintenance” Let me say that again, clearly.  I struggled to enjoy my vacation because I was obsessing about restricting food AFTER my vacation. One last time.  One last meal.

BULLSHIT.

We walked by shops with weird and pretty fashion dresses. (I freely admit I don’t understand fashion) the husband and I would both point out ones we thought were pretty.  My brain would get stuck on “Yeah, but they don’t make them in my size” or “Yeah, that would NOT look good on me.  It looks fine on that size 0 mannequin”  Pretty on other people.  Other people are pretty.  Not me. Diet culture is pervasive and all consuming.  In big ways and little ways.  I’m 5 ft 9.  I’m not a tiny person at any weight.  I’ve always been told I’m too big.  Even when I sit, I slouch a little and/or tuck my legs and feet up under me to try to make myself appear smaller and less invasive.  This is subconscious.  I don’t always realize I’m doing it until my knees remind me. Most of my life has been things that get in the way of my diets.  “I should start the diet today, but it’ll have to wait until next week because so and so’s birthday is this week and I want to be able to enjoy that.”  or “It’s late fall, I should just start now but first there’s my birthday, and then Thanksgiving, and December happens and there’s all kinds of treats then.  Better wait until January, but not the first because that’s new year’s...maybe the following Monday.” or the ever popular “I already had a bad eating day today, I’m a failure.  Why bother?  Fuck it.  I’ll try again tomorrow.”  That one was always followed by binging because of the last supper mentality.  If I’m starting a diet tomorrow I better eat EVERYTHING NOW. This is how I’ve lived my whole life.  The time not spent dieting was just the time in between diets where I was planning my next diet.  So much life wasted.  The only time I was not actively dieting or planning the next diet or suffering from “I’m just too exhausting to put effort into food right now” was during my 4 pregnancies.  I let myself eat whatever and whenever because I was nauseous all the time anyway and something in my brain made me fuel my body for the babies. When the youngest was born and the on call doctor who delivered her told me I was too fat to have my tubes tied I definitely started planning diets again in that moment.  I believe now, years later, that my diet and diet culture ruined mind and body is part of what kept me from being as successful at nursing the kids as I wished I had been.  I assumed my body was broken and not good enough for my babies.  The last time I lost a LOT of weight it was because I didn’t want to ruin someone’s wedding pictures.  True story.  This was nothing that person felt or anything they told me.  IT’s what my brain said to me.  It’s how I de-valued myself.  There are very few current pictures of me now because I’ve been stuck in a place where I feel shame when I see them. When I’m dead, memories and pictures are all my kids and grandkids will have, and I hate myself too much to let anyone take them. That’s not okay.

I dream about food.  I daydream about food.  Food I “shouldn’t” eat.  Food I “should” eat.  When to eat.  When not to eat.  Every spare ounce of energy is spent thinking about food or hating myself which leads to more thinking about food. I am not in a place where I can prepare dinner for my family right now because it’s too hard to put that much energy into food.  I force myself to pick the recipes from the app and get the shopping done via instacart so all anyone else has to do is pull up the recipe and make the food.  If I’m looking at the ingredients or trying to prep anything I stare at every individual thing debating whether or not I “should” eat it.  This is going to take me a long time to break free from.  Today I finally feel like I CAN break free. There is nothing wrong with being in a large body or a small body.  Food is not good or bad.  Food is food.  I have to say these things.  I have to repeat them to myself or I fall down the rabbit hole again.  None of this is work anyone can do for me.  I have to live it.  I have to work through it.  I have to figure it out. If you read this far, my statement stands.  If you’re on a diet, I will listen to your woes and hold your hand and I will not judge you for it.  This was very hard to write because I am certain some of you who believe in diets, ways of life, and wellness eating may block me now because I spoke my mind.  I’ve clung so tight to the people I love and refrained from being honest and speaking my mind for fear of abandonment.  I’ll have to live with it if that’s the case here, because people sometimes need to do what’s best for them.  Airing this out is one of those things for me.  It’s a scary thing for sure. I also want to say that I’m happy for this to lead to discussion.  I’m not going to shut anyone down for wanting to talk to me about this.  I am always open to learn new information and see different perspectives.  Just know that if I’m emotional and feeling a lot of strong things about how my life has been up to this point, and I am entitled to believe what I believe just as you all are.  I’m happy to share sources and books I’ve been reading on the subject.  They are not diet books.

Here’s to doing better from here on out.

Here’s to finally being free.

[popculturebuffet]

One Year Anniversary: Top 12 Ducktales Episodes!

Happy anniversary all you happy people! Yes it was one year ago today I started reviewing animation and it’s been a ride to be sure. I’d always WANTED to be a reviewer: I love going on and on about stuff I love, really digging into it and picking it apart... but I could never get started. I tried youtube but I didn’t have the money for the equipment nor a proper shooting space to record, so my efforts.. were not great. And while I TRIED text reviews, my own looming pile of self hatred meant every attempt I made was shot down when it got hard as me not being good enough. 

But one year ago I finally got past that. I’d already been reviewing a bit, doing invididual issues of comics... but got way in over my head trying to do the current line of X-Men comics as it came out, and wisely bowed out of that. But that left a gap: I had nothing to cover week to week and with a demanding new job, I drifted into just doing in charcter chats, little fan fictions script styles. Not bad work, I should do some more at some point and I even got a comissoin once in a while, but nothing I could really live on and not what I wanted to do with my life. 

Enter Ducktales. I’d always WANTED to review the show.. and when the double premire happened, I decided fuck it, and put up my thoughts. And then decided.. hey maybe I can do this every week.. and slowly.. my work evolved, getting better and better, getting more and more likes. I picked up Amphibia when that came by week to week.

And eventually.. this went from a hobby, if one I was passionate about to a career. Not a largely paying one, as only one person was really intrested in paying me for it, friend of the blog and our fincial backer @weirdkev27, but .. it’s money and i’m now making about 30 dollars a month due to a comination of comissions and patreon. Other contributers are always welcome mind you, my patreon is here if your curious and comissions are 5 dollars an episode, but i’ts just nice to have money coming in. To have gone from simply WANTING to review things and make a living off it.. to simply doing it. 

And it’s been one hell of a year.. and not just because 2020 felt like hell or 2021 began with a full on insurrection. I feel like i’ve acomplished a lot in the year i’ve been doing this: I finished what I started with Ducktales season 3, getting better and better as I went. And I didn’t stop there with ducks: I started covering what brought me to Ducks in the first place, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and while that retrospective has slid a bit on the schedule, I intend to get it back on track this month. I reviewed a bunch of Darkwing Duck episodes leading up to the Just Us Justice Ducks.. chronologically anyway. The actual airing order reads like someone took 50 issues of a comic, made it rain with them, then just started reading whatever ones they picked up randomly. I also covered some of Duck Master Carl Barks work with the classics Night on Bear Mountain, A Christmas for Shacktown and Back to the Klondike, with more to come. 

And the Duck didn’t stop at just reviews I did on my own: Kev comissioned two MASSIVE retrospectives from me: My first for him was Ride of the Three Caballleros where in just a few short months I covered the boys entire televisied careers together from the movie, to house of mouse, to mickey and the roadster racers, to ducktales (again) and finishing with the wonderful Legend of the Three Caballeros. It has probably the worst Daisy imaginable, but otherwise is really excellent and i’m glad I finally watched it. I also covered Don Rosa’s two stories with the boys as part of it. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed every minute of it... okay most of them again Three Cabs Daisy is the worst. And once that finished Kev started up another idea: Shadow Into Light: a look at Lena’s character arc from start to finish that has gone on to be my most popular series on this blog, and that finishes next week. And there’s more to come as after that there’s a short breather with a look at Lilo and Stitch’s crossover episodes.. folllowed by me looking at all three of season 2′s ducktales arcs. And I fully intend to have covered every episode of the series by this time next year, so stay tuned. 

Outside of ducks though I didn’t slow down. I restarted my Tom Lucitor retrospective, covering what i feel to be one of Star Vs’ two best characters, tied with eclipsa, and my personal faviorite as he redeemeed himself, found love and I bitched a lot about the horrible directions the series took and probabably will more as that’s still not done yet. I did what I always wanted to do and started looks at some of my faviorite comics ever, starting with Life and Times and adding in New X-Men and Scott PIlgrim. I also threw in the awesome comic Blacksad. I did pride month for the first time and not only came out publicly, but also did two whole arcs i’m proud of with The Saluna episodes of Loud house and the rednid episodes of OK KO, and generally just had myself a good old fashioned time as an out bi man reviewing childrens cartoons. 

I started Season 2 of amphibia with it’s lows of an endlesss road trip and highs of adding Marcy to the cast and giving us more of the silky voiced keith david. And finally Patreon wise Kev’s taken me on a hell o fa journey: In addition to the restrospectives i’ve covered some additional darkwing duck, and a simpsons homage to the duck comics... but also got a bit weird and obscure with detours like the lost animnaics sucessor Histeria, the apocalyptic comedy where Santa dosen’t know how doors work Whoops! and the adventures of Santa’s bratty teen daughter jingle belle. In short.. it’s been a long year but damn has it been fun and there’s more to come. I’d like to thank all of you for reading, thank my Patreons Kev and Emma for supporting me, and thank my family for doing the same.  So with that out of the way, I figured the best way to celebrate was to do something i’ve been wanting to do for a long time, something honoring the show that gave me this calling in the first place. And with Season 3 sadly being the last, and enough weeks having passed for me to digest it between the finale and today, I could think of nothing better than my top 12 episodes of Ducktales.

Ducktales is one of the best cartoons of the 2010′s. Brilliantly taking EVERYTHING that had come before, the comics, the original cartoon and every bit of duck media period to craft a masterful, unique and wonderful reboot. It was funny, it was insane, and it had damn good character arcs. By the end every member of the main cast along with major supporting cast members like Fenton, Drake and especially Lena, had changed and signifigantly at that. The show was everything I could’ve dreamed of and more and I miss it terribly, hoping DIsney will do a revivial movie at some point. For now though, Frank and Matt’s run on ducktales, as they called it and I do too since i’m a massive comic book nerd, it’s time to look back on my favorite tales of ducks. So grab your sharks, your number one dimes and your friendship cakes with clear gay undertones and join me under the cut as I celebrate one of my faviorite shows and my anniversary in the best way possible. 

12. House of the Lucky Gander! 

 So as i’ve gone on about before and no doubt will again, Donald kinda got the short end of the stick in season 1. While Frank and Matt had good story intentions, keeping Donald away from adventure since he had no interest in it, in practice it meant a beloved Disney Icon who they and disney HEAVILY promoted as part of the series and whose being here this go round was a big draw for fans of the comics.... was only in a quarter of the season and only got TWO plots centered around him in 23 episodes, with only one being the main plot of the episode. The PIlot and Finale both centered around the family more as a whole if your curious how I counted those so while he got plenty of focus in both, it’s still not a day in the limelight sort of thing. 

But unusually for Donald, he lucked out as his one big starring role for Season 1 was both one of my faviorites and one of Season 1′s most inventive outings.  A lot of the episodes enegy comes from a one two punch of a great guest star and one of the series best settings. The guest star is of course everyone’s faviorite overly lucky himbo Gladstone Gander. The show adapted the prick perfectly: The original Gladstone from the comics.. was the worst asshole imaginable, utterly insufferable. And for a villian, and Donald’s rival, that’s all well and good.. but his super luck meant he RARELY , if ever, suffered any consequences for being just...

The 87 series simply made him nicer, while Going Quackers simply removed his luck. No adaptation really got how to make this fucker work.. until this one. Here Frank split the diffrence: Gladstone is still smug.. but he’s no longer actively malicious. While he is an insensitive prick to Donald in this one, unlike the comics he’s not constantly bragging about his luck or how great he is or actively BAITING Donald to fight with him or trying to ruin his relationship or a million other reasons he sucks and I hate him.

This version by contrast... is generous. He’s not the most empathetic, because he doesn’t get how life works, but he does share the riches of the casnio with everyone and in a cameo appearance in “Treasure of the Found Lamp” gladly offers his nephews some diamonds. He’s got a nice surface level charm to him that makes you understand why people like him.. but it’s also clear ther’es nothing UNDER that of value, making you equally understand why Scrooge and Donald hate him. Gladstone in this reboot is a perfect example of why we need reboots or new adaptations in the first place: Because sometimes the original got something wrong or something can be done much better by the new writers. 

He’s perfectly paired with the setting: The House of Lucky Fortune, a mystical casino with an East Asian astatic based in the country of Macaw and provides two great plots. Donald’s really highlights his character: His understandable jealousy at gladstone earning the boys love through nothing while he struggles to make a living for them, and how he feels like a looser and like Gladstone is simply showing that off instead of just not knowing what empathy is. Having Louie be the one to bond with Gladstone was also just pitch pefefct, as is showing some depth for the boy by having himr ealize his hero is an asshole and be the one to help donald in the end. 

The other plot is just pure joy though and is where the setting REALLY shines: Scrooge and the rest of the kids try to leave.. but can’t find the exit. This is where the creative part comes in: The Casino simply morphs to keep people trapped, and caters to them, giving them whatever they want to keep them trapped. In the cases of the kids it’s all hilarious and adorably in character: Huey becomes entranced by a fancy water show, in one of his best bits of the season, Dewey gets a pet tiger who sadly did not come home with him and Webby gets to live the dream we’ve all had of stuffing her face directly in a choclate fountain. Scrooge’s escape is likewise clever: He simply prepares to get a room.. then books it as the check in desk is ALWAYS near the front. 

We then find out Gladston’es trapped get the whole mystical contest with absolutely gorgeous animation, i’ll talk about it in full some time but this episode is just a treat to watch, has a great arc for donald and had some memorable gags. I can’t help but smile when I watch it. 

11. The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!  As I mentioned before i’m a superhero nerd so naturally Fenton was one of my faviorite parts of the show. Frank and Matt were just damn good at crafting superhero stories, and like gladstone improved fenton turning him from an awkward donald stand in to an awkward peter parker-esque science nerd who just wants to be a good person and the best hero he can be. He got into science not just because he thinks it’s neat, but because he honestly wants to help people and you can’t help but foot for him whenever he pops up. Lin Manuel Miranda is a large reason for that, bringing his incomparable a-game to the character. While we sadly didn’t get a ton of gizmoduck focused episodes, the fatct we got AS MANY as we did and that Lin didn’t drop out for a minute even with his busy schedule was a miracle and I’m acknowledging that. 

As for why this one, I feel it builds brilliantly on the previous Fentoncentric episode Who Is Gizmoduck?! which just BARELY didn’t make this list and uses the fact we haven’t seen fenton in a while as both a plot point and to move some things forward without having to spend screentime they clearly didn’t have. By having Fenton be just burnt out on superheroics it finds a way to both explain where he’s been, he’s been busy with his new job, and give us an interesting angle to the old “superhero is tired of the life” thing. He never once complains about saving people or stuff... it’s just like any job it gets tiring after a while. As someone who has his dream job but has struggled with it from time to time, I vastly relate. 

Though while I love my boy and Lin is game as always, the episodes real MVP is my other boy Huey. The episode has moved Huey up from being simply Fenton’s fanboy to being his best friend, and adorable as hell relationship. The two clearly respect and appricate each other and Huey is looking out for his buddy the whole episode. His love of love is also just really cute. Added in the mix is Webby, who in one of my faviorite gags of the series, finds out Fenton is  Gizmoduck because Huey is incredibly and insanely blatant with his unecessary coverup. But she of course is game to help while Fenton is trying to play it casual. We also just get a waterfall of great gags as everyone overdoes it wingmanning for fenton: Huey sets up an itallian bistro and tries to purposfully create a lady and the tramp situation, and sings opera (With Manny on acordian), the wonderfully 80′s suit from Fenton’s dad his mom gives him to wear, and Launchpad, who gives us a tremendous list of his exes, and plays my favorite song of the series: It’s a Date, a micheal mcdonnel riff. 

This episode also wisely ups Mark’s Beaks game as Fenton’s arch enemy, still keeping him hilaroius, with the guy acting like a bored teenager and guzzling so much nanite jucie he turns into a hulk, as well as said hulk mode leading to a ton of great gags from kidnapping the children (”I got your kids.. are they your kids? I don’t know how this family works), to “take that coach dad” to eating a pie with tins and all and wondering about said tins. But he’s an actual threat now, taking on fenton in one hell of a fight, and having an utterly transcendent scene where he hacks his way past gyro’s security while dancing.. and dabbing because of course he does. It’s a fun, well done character piece that’s mostly here for i’ts laugh but Fenton’s struggle with Gizmo overtaking his life, and finding out someone he truly hit it off iwth only wanted him for that.. it’s really good stuff and Lin’s delivery after Fenton finds out, the pure pain and betryal in his voice, is just excellent. Also that opera scene is poetry. 

10. Quack Pack!

One of the episodes that started my career naturally landed here. Not for that reason though: Quack Pack is a fun riff on sitcoms, specifically the tgif ones of the 90′s that Disney Afternoon Kids no doubt also watched, the kinds Disney Channel still makes today, and most importanly the kind the Disney Afternoon itself made like Goof Troop and well... Quack Pack. 

Riffs on sitcoms are nothing new and the last year has been FULL of them. 2020 gave us this episode, Beef House and the wonderful “The Perfect House” episode of Close Enough, and this year gave us WandaVision, my second favorite MCU project so far, right behind Black Panther, which used the sitcom deconstruction to create one hell of a character study. 

So you’d think with a year having passed and this concept happening as an entire mini series would dull this one.. but no. it’s still damn funny, having fun at the cliches while, again like WandaVision, having one of the main cast be responsible by accident but go along with it. The episode pivots from glorious affectionate parody of cheesy sitcoms, to that plus horrifying “Humans”, and a character piece for Donald. This brings Donald’s hatred and fed up ness with adventure to a head revealing his fondest wish is just to have a normal life and not loose anyone again. 

It takes one of his best friends to snap him out of it. Look Goofy is my second faviorite of the sensational seven, an episode with him was already an easy sell for me.. but the episode uses him really well. First for laughs as he’s gentically dispositioned to be a perfect sitcom neighbor.. but also for heart. With his family preoccupied and a bit hurt, i’ts Goofy who cuts to the heart of the issue, pointing out NO ONE is normal and even his normal domestic life raising Max, who we see go to prom with roxanne eeeeee, has all sorts of chaos. Normal is what you make of it and pining for some ideal that will never happen was just tearing donald apart piece by piece and by letting go of that.. he finally begins to grow as a person throughout the season. It’s also a great thematic tie in to the season’s overall plot with Bradford and what Makes donald, despite also disliking the chaos his family gets into, different. Donald accepted it and grew as a person.. Bradford clung to his hate and it ate him alive. Or turned him into a non-sapient kind of vulture. Before I close this part out Jaleel White is also excellent and I wish eh’d get back into voice acting. He’s so freaking good at it. Seriously man i’d love to see him and ben in a sonic property together as a mythology gag. Same with Jims cummings and carey. Just think about it whoever owns the sonic movies.. think about it. 

9. The Last Adventure!

Look I knew this was coming, you knew this was coming. But it had to be on here. The Last Adventure is not perfect: The lack of a build up episode like the previous two finales had really hurt this one: even at about 70 minutes, it still feels rushed in places and Huey, one of hte main characters of the season, dosen’t feel like he has a full payoff to his character like Dewey and Louie got. 

But despite those flaws.. this episode is just a damn good ending. Almost everyone gets a big moment paying off their character arc, everyone in the party that comes to rescue webby and huey, along with the two themselves, gets a moment to show off, and everything comes together to give us one last epic sendoff. There’s just moment stacked on moment stacked on moment from Launchpads heroic second wind and donning of the gizmoduck armor, to Webby’s tearful confrontation with Beakley, to Huey using the greatest adventure of all line to foil bradford in one of the most deligfhully nuts moments of the series, I could go on for days with just how triumphant this finale felt. While it left a lot of doors open.. that feels like part of the design. It’s the end of the fight with FOWL.. but our heroes will never stop adventuring, never stop going and never stop being in our hearts and the curtain call at the end is now my faviorite bit of end credits ever, perfectly giving the main cast and friends one last chance to take a bow in their own unique ways. I will always miss this show but I will never be disapointed by the note it went out on. 

8. The 87 Cent Solution!

Look some episodes are show stoppers, some are heartfelt tearjerkers, some are all this and more.. and some episodes are just clever and hilarious. The 87 Solution is the second funniest episode of Ducktales with me and my go to episode when watching the show. It’s just pure fun and with a clever premise: Scrooge notices 87 cents have gone missing, and already coming down with a cold, goes mad with paranoia as the kids slowly don face masks, something that has become even eeerier given everything, one by one realizing he needs to stop. 

While David Tennant is an EXCELLENT dramatic actor, his comedy timing is really something that shoudln’t be ignored and i’ts on full display here as his performance gets more and more deranged, to thep oint he thinks an 8th dimensional imp is repsonsible. He nicely balances the disturbing side of Scrooge’s paranoia, his distancing from his family, with plenty of great gags about it too, the standout being when he offers 2 million dollars to whoever took the money like he’s publicly appeasing kidnappers. It’s fucking brilliant. 

But while David is awesome as ever what really, truly makes the episode is my boy, one of my faviorite characters on the show if not my single faviriote FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Keith Ferguson is ALWAYS a dream as the character but this is his best performance by far. Part of this is the addition of Zan Owlson, Kev who I mentioned earlier’s faviorite Ducktales character. She’s not only throughly likeable in her own right, but provides the one thing Flinty was missing; a straight man.. or woman in this case. Scrooge wasn’t TERRIBLE in the roll, but can easily step away from his shit or foil it. Owlson has to put up with Glomgold’s nonsense while desperatly trying to stop him from undoing all her hard work with sheer force of jackass. The two jut play off each other brilliantly, Glomgold not getting sh’es not his employee but his equal and Owlson constnatly snarking at him. 

And of course both things hit their peak in the climax with the family staging a fake funeral (Though no one told donald it was fake), and we get the funniest scene in the entire fucking show as Glomgold burts in in a white suit, money shades and full dance number to “All I Do Is Win’, which when first watching this I was convinced the song was somehow accidnetly on in the background but nope. They got it after using it in the test phase and the scene is better for it. Glomgold twerking on Scrooge’s casket, trying to get on it to dance, and having to be placated like ac hild is the icing on this very rich cake

And the reveal scene is also gold as Glomgold gets into a YEARLONG staring contest with a baby, fails to steal more than the 87 cents and, in my faviorite touch, put on an imp costume just to make scrooge seem crazier... then keeps the damn thing on the rest of the time for no explicable reason. The episode is the show at it’s comedic peak while giving Glomgold a chance to be a genuine threat and that’s Glomgood. 

7. Let’s Get Dangerous!

Frank’s Rebooted Version of Darkwing Duck is probably his greatest achivment with the show. While this show is a team effort, something I slowly realized as I reviewed the show, it’s very clear from the way he talks, how well he knows the show and how much effort was put into porting Darkwing into the reboot that this was his baby. While redefining ducktales for the 2010′s was clearly a huge dream of his... doing the same for the master of suprise was an even bigger goal. And as a huge fan of superheroes i’ve seen my fair share of half assed takes on laired and complex characters. The XCU alone is one giant grab bag of missed opportunities for me. 

So i’ts no exageration when I tell you Frank.. nailed it. In one of the most brilliant moves i’ve seen for a superhero work Frank worked his love of the show into the reboot.. by having Darkwing have been a show, one Launchpad loved.. and so did Drake, who was inspried by the show to become an inspriation himself and while his attempt to do that through a zack snydery reboot failed, Launchpad encouraged him to do it for real. Drake was still himself, but the meta aspect and the toning down of some of darkwing’s more obnoxious traits that didn’t work in a universe that, while patently rediciulous still took it’s characters seriously, he made a BETTER version of the character.

This is where all that comes to it’s peak, and hoppefully convinced Disney to let Frank , and possibly matt, run the reboot. And no, even if Point Grey is producing that dosen’t stop that: Thanks to Invincible i’ve now realized that Seth and his friend Evan producing the show dosen’t mean it’ll be RAN by them, nor unrelated to this. It just means their helping make it and if anything given how lush and gorgeous invincible’s animation is, it’s a VERY good sign their helping out with it if it’s true. 

But wether this versoin continues or not, Frank gave it his best shot. Part of his diffrent angle is having Drake as a rookie here and as such here we see him truly struggle: he’s had his origin, he ahs the cape, he has the gadgets (in a brilliant turn thanks to fenton, who he actually likes... but is so far the ONLY person to not get he’s Gizmoduck), and the city.. but no crime to fight and no real idea how to go about his lifelong dream. The events of the episode slowly shape him: WHile he already had the spirit for darkwing, never giving up, looking good in a cape etc, this episode gives him the heart the same way it gave his original it: With Gosalyn. Dimantopolis and Beatriz just play off each other perfectly, as the two go from neimies to slowly bonding as Drake realizes this kid needs him and that he needs to fight for more than just filing the ohle inside, and goes to hell and back to help her get her grandpa back, with one of the best moments of the episode to me being when Launchpad helps her realize how hard he’s been working at it, an exausted drake refusing to acccept that he can’t get her grandpa back because he promised. He grows from simply trying to live the dream.. to surpassing the original. We also see more from Launchpad, who grows into his new family and helps push his boyfriend and newa dopted daughter in the right directions. The episode really evolves these characters from the simple disney afternoon versions, who while awesome were made into fully fleshed out characters. Gosalyn still has her edge but now has a hard lesson to learn about doing the right thing, forced to give up someone she loves for the greater good but finding a new family in the process. 

Part of what makes the episode work though as while it is funcitonally one big darkwing duck reboot pilot that’s awesome, heartrending and a joy to watch... it’s still a ducktales episode in parts without either part hurting each other. Huey plays a vital role, figuring the ramrod is too good to be true.. and discovering just how it is, then when captured, slowly unravling why Bradford’s there and being at least in part responsible for outing him as a FOWL agent. While this is largely Drakes story the rest of the cast is still vital to it: Scrooge trusting in huey, Louie serving as his logical counter and Dewey meanwhile bonding with team darkwing and helping Gosalyn, knowing exactly where she’s been and providing a nice foil. The episode is just one long and impressive love letter to the original show while creating it’s own thing and that’s really this reboot in a nutshell. It also has some of the best fights of the series, with the first fight between darkwing and bulba, where our hero, unlike his original counterpart, easily troucnes bulba using his speed and skill, is the standout. 

6. Woo-Ooo!

I covered this one recently so I won’t go on for too long.. but I will say I hold this one up as the gold standard for first episodes. In one hour, hell even in jus the first half we get a sense of the whole cast, the tone of the show, and the world we’ve been thrust into. It gets all the table setting out of the way by weaving it into a compelling story of Scrooge getting back in the game, finding a reason to get back to what he does best in those he loves most and setting up the season long arc effortlessly in the process. The worst I can say about the episode is it sets the bar a bit high for Season 1 and a lot of the first half really struggled to reach these heights. This episode is a masterwork and the perfect showcase for what the series would be at it’s height. 

5. Moonvasion!

Speaking of Golden Standards, Moonvasion is one of the best season finale’s i’ve seen. it’s not THE best.. but that’s a really high bar to clear and that spots currently taken in my heart by “The Crossroads of Destiny” from Avatar the Last Airbender. But while not the best of it’s kind, it’s sitll the best the series put out and is an utterly satisfying epic that ties up season 2. 

While I love the Last Adventure, it had a LOT to tie up and was really hampered by having to do all of that with no direct lead in. Moonvasion by contrast hits the ground running with the Moonlanders arriving on earth and all hell breaking loose, and the episode itself breaking into two stellar plots. Scrooge leading an army of every ally he has against the invaders, and Della seemingly going for reinforcements.. but really just trying to keep the kids safe from it, to their anger once they find out. 

Both sides end up going badly: Scrooge looses most of his army as Lunaris was one step ahead of him and is left iwth Beakly and Launchpad, while Della ends up marooned.. and finds Donald. The reunion between the two is the highlight of the special, as the two argue as you’d expect (And Dewey cutting in seemingly to stop it.. only to rant at Donald for costing him “ten years of turbo” is the best gag of the episode), before embracing. 

Our heroes naturally find ways to bounce back though. Louie, capping off his growth for the season, convinces his mom they can’t just hide.. and in the second best scene of the episode sings the lullabye she wrote.. one Donald sung them every night

And no sooner than Della gets her step back and realizes that dangerous or not she and her newly reunited family have to get back in there, do the cousins show up on Fethry’s giant shrimp/girlfriend Mitzi, and our heroes head back. 

Scrooge’s plot hits i’ts peak though as he’s forced to accept the help of an unlikely and unwelcome ally: Glomgold, who turns out to be exactly what they need: While his plan is as stupid, short sighted and insane as you’d expect, complete with forcing Scrooge to dress up as santa just to piss him off and dressing his sharks in parkas (”I call them sharkas”), the sheer lonacy throws Lunaris off as he dosen’t know how to deal with this and Glomgold not only gets the better of him but gets his company back as part of his scheme.  “You were prepared for our best but not our dumbest!” “And i’m the dumbest theirs ever been! Muahahahaha! Wait...”

And of course our other heroes arrive just in time to save things.. and the episode still manages to pull off what many works struggle to, something tha’ts very hard to: a SECOND climax. Lunaris decides to just say fuck it and blow up the earth and i’ts up to our core family to kick his ass in space. Epic space battles, Della’s girlfriend meeting the family and more insues and an emotoinal, action packed and fully satisfying finale is had by all... and it’s all topped with one of the best sequel hooks i’ve ever seen as FOWL makes themselves known to us.. and prepares to strike. 

4. How Santa Stole Christmas! This one will also be short as i’ve talked about this one.. a lottttt. The initial review, my best christmas specials list and my best of 2020 list. I stand by all of that: this is a unique and wonderful christmas special, i’ll be watching it every year, and i’ts full of charm, humor and gay subtext. In short it’s this series but on christmas footing. 

3. Last Crash of the Sunchaser! 

Another one I covered very recently, this episode is a master piece of suspense, slowly building tension as our heroes get closer and closer to the truth about Della.. and to death, the simple but deadly stakes making this an absolute nailbiter from start to finish. This is some of the series best pacing bar none... but what seals it is the ending: the masterful flashback finally explaning whatever happened to Della duck, our heroes lashing out at each other.. all cumilating in the best Scene of the show. I said it might be in the review but no I can confirm: Scrooge bitterly ruminating over things while we find out just how much he’s lost... ending with him tearfully and angrily sitting once again alone in one hell of a powerful shot echoing Scrooge’s first apperance. Damn fine stuff. 

2. Escape from The Impossbin Only one episode not only matches Last Crash in mounting tension and atmosphere but suprasses it. With FOWL and Bradford’s true nature now out in the wind, this episode uses that to create tension and rattles it’s two most unshakable characters: SCrooge’s normal boundless confidence is shot, not sure he can win this time against an opponent who knows him as well as he knows himself while Beakly slowly unravels, pitting Webby against the boys.. and pitting herself against Webby when Webby sees her terroizing them is only dividing them. Both plots start out funny enough but slowly escalate in tension and stakes until by the end your on the edge of your seat. The Beakly plot is the standout of the two, giving Bentina the starring role she badly needed, having gotten even better in light of the finale. Everyone is at the top of their game and everything builds up to one hell of a twist ending and one hell of a badass boast from our heroes: Their down.. but their far from out and this is far from over. 

1. Nightmare On Kimotor Hill!

I”ll be reviewing this episode in full later this week as part of my Lena retrospective, but I stand by putting it up top. This episode is ducktales in it’s purest form and focuses on it’s best original character as Lena grapples with her self hatred and her past. That core helps anchor an amazing concept: going into the Kid’s dreams and finding out their greatest desires. The results.. are all gloriously rediclous and are easily the best gags of hte series as a whole: Dewey’s high school musical santa claus is going ot high school nonsense from getting a’s in Dewology to running away from the abstract concept of a love intrest, to not getting the sybolism of himself crying a moon made of his own tears. Louie quite literally becoming garfield, and my faviorite scene of the show: Huey, wanting to be the tall older brother..g iving himself horrifcly long leg. While everyone else is just understandably baffled, what makes the scene is the banter between Dewey and Huey, with Schwartz and Pudi at their best as Dewey first freaks out and then asks what the hell man, while Huey defends his weird decision (”I”m not good at imagination stuff okay!”), and then tries to get a jar of pickles. Each dream is just so oddly and wonderfully specific to each kid and each one of the triplests dreams, as well as violets being color coded down tot he backgrounds is a very nice touch. The visuals here are just peak ducktales, using the setting for all it’s worth and the climax is utterly emotoinal and heartbreaking... and Lena’s break from her abuser, finally realizing she has the power now is not only a wonderful metaphor... but also just so damn cathartic. And that’s why this one’s the best to me personally: it just packs so much into 20 minutes: some of the series best and most creative jokes, a gripping emtoinal arc, and so much more. It’s just that damn good and tha’ts why it’s the best... that and starting Huelet for me. Seriously that LIbrary scene is so fucking cute. 

Thank you all for reading. If you liked this artcle, join my patreon and help me get to my stretch goal for monthly darkwing duck reviews, a review of super ducktales and more after! Until the next rainbow... it’s been a pleasure. 

[vampish-glamour]

first, i want to say that i hope this doesn’t come off angry. i just don’t see a lot of people with your views and i have some questions and thoughts. also, if only for clarity’s sake, i’d like to ask that you humor me with the existence of an ace spectrum.

i’m not sure why you’d think it’s beneficial for asexuality to have one rigid definition (and it seems that may most closely fit with “aro-ace”), and if someone doesn’t fit it exactly, you think they should simply fuck off with the label? A million different people go through life, discover, and think of themselves in a million different ways.

There are a few caveats in different manifestations of asexuality that can describe the different ways people fit idk, as an example very low attraction, because once you start just sticking with more allo-aligned labels, people will start having certain expectations of you, and if you can’t perform that, well, where does that leave a person? Like, in any instance regarding being with a person, you’d likely have to explain yourself, your low sex drive, attraction, interest in the act itself, or what-have-you anyway, but in my own exp, it seems more legitimate and comfortable to have a term rather than word spaghetti with no root.

I just cannot see how theoretically cutting out language that’s already extant and already has comprehensible explanations for any other party concerned could help anyone. And forgive me if that’s not your intent, but claiming asexuals and asexuality are a monolith that can only be a certain way as opposed to existing on a spectrum makes it seem that way. It seems to do more othering and dividing than unifying, and to me, when weighing the similarities and differences between people who are on the ace-spectrum vs. not, it doesn’t make much sense to group people who don’t exactly fit a perfect void of attraction with people who regularly, actively seek out and have sex. There’s space in between two extremes, imo.

To be clear, too: asexuality is an umbrella term for people that use subidentity, I’m not trying to contradict myself by creating the perception that ace subidentities are themselves divisive. That and I think it’s a little late in the game to start caring about how messy and ever-expanding the English language is lol (and that being a purist about it can get dangerous, if that’s a concern). hope ur havin a good one, and thanks if you actually read✌️

Hi! Thank you for first clarifying that you don’t want this to come off as angry, since it’s really hard to tell sometimes through text on a screen.

Just a preface I’m adding after writing this; I used “you”/“your” a lot, and I mean it as a general “you”, not you as in anon.

Right off the bat, I can humour you with the existence of the ace spectrum in the form of the allo spectrum. Asexual means no attraction. You can’t have a spectrum of having no attraction. Allosexual apparently means having attraction, and that you can absolutely have a spectrum of.

I always use the number line example. Think of a number line between 0 and 10, 0 being asexual and 10 being hyper sexual (not a sexuality, but the best opposite to asexual I can think of atm). Why would everything in the middle be considered asexual, when asexual is 0? I would consider everything in the middle varying degrees of attraction. Even if you’re at a 1, you still experience attraction, and aren’t at 0. Therefore you aren’t asexual. This is because “no attraction” is a much more rigidly defined thing than “attraction”.

You can do the same thing with homosexual/heterosexual and bisexual. Say that 0 is either homosexual or heterosexual, and 10 is bisexual. Since homo/hetero are the more rigidly defined sexualities here (exclusively attracted to the same/opposite sex, while bisexual is attracted to both sexes), you’re not homosexual or heterosexual unless you’re at 0. However, even if you’re at a one because you experience more attraction towards one sex than the other, but still like both, you’d be bisexual.

Point is, you can’t have a “spectrum” of something that’s at zero. You can’t have a spectrum of feeling nothing, or a spectrum of exclusively being attracted to a certain sex. But you can have a spectrum of how much attraction you feel/allosexuality, or a spectrum of bisexuality.

The reason I think asexuality needs to be rigidly defined is because words mean things. What’s the point of having asexual as a label if it can mean whatever fits the individual? We don’t see this with heterosexuality. Nobody is trying to define heterosexuality as having a fluid and flexible meaning. How ridiculous does it sound to say;

“I’m on the hetspec! I experience attraction to the opposite sex, but I also experience attraction to the same sex sometimes so that means I’m demiheterosexual or gray-het”.

Ridiculous, right? So why are we doing the exact same thing with asexuality by saying “I experience some attraction, so I’m on the ace spectrum and I’m demisexual, gray ace, etc.”?

So yes, if somebody experiences attraction, they should absolutely fuck off from the asexual label instead of changing its meaning to fit them. I would say the same thing about a homosexuality spectrum or a heterosexuality spectrum. Yes, everyone has different life experiences and all that, but that doesn’t mean they need to be calling themselves something they’re not.

For the expectations issue, you’d likely have to have that conversation with a partner anyways. I think that most people don’t have a clue what half of these labels mean, so saying “I’m gray ace” will mean nothing to them, and you’ll end up having to go “that means that I...”. So why not just start there? Once again, just because this is an experience people have doesn’t mean they need to change a label to suit them.

It’s not really cutting out language, it’s moreso trying to return the language to what it was before a bunch of people changed the meaning to suit their own needs. I raise you the question; do you think I’m claiming all homosexuals are a monolith by saying “homosexual means exclusive attraction to the same sex, and if you don’t fit that definition you’re not homosexual”? Or by saying “homosexuality doesn’t exist on a a spectrum, you’re either gay or you’re not”? Because that’s exactly what I’m doing with asexuality, I’m saying that it means no attraction whatsoever, and if you don’t fit that definition, the label isn’t for you.

Why is it so important for people to be able to force themselves into a label that doesn’t fit? Why is it better to take away the meaning of a word until it practically has no meaning, than to establish a specific meaning so the word can properly describe something? I don’t think it’s dividing at all to preserve the meanings of words to prevent them from becoming utterly meaningless.

Would you say that it doesn’t make sense to group together people with a perfectly 50/50 split attraction to men and women, with people with say a 10/90 split? Because both of those are just as bisexual as the other. Unless you’d rather call the 10/90 demihomosexual or demiheterosexual, we can apply the same logic to allosexuality. If you experience attraction, even if it’s just a little bit compared to somebody who experiences ten times more than you do, you’re still allosexual. You are not asexual unless your attraction is zero. In the same way that you are not homosexual unless your attraction to the opposite sex is at zero.

I have a hard time explaining myself and I feel like my points may be all over the place.

So here’s a summary:

The asexual spectrum exists, but it’s actually the allosexual spectrum. This is because you cannot have a spectrum of feeling no attraction, but you can have a spectrum of feeling attraction

Sexuality needs to be rigidly defined to hold weight and meaning. Otherwise you’re throwing around words that mean nothing. When somebody says they’re asexual, do they mean they experience no attraction whatsoever, neither romantic or sexual, or do they mean they only feel sexual attraction towards people they form a bond with? We don’t know. When you widen the definition of a word so broadly, it ultimately becomes meaningless.

Homosexuality does not exist on a spectrum of some attraction to the same sex, some to the opposite sex, and heterosexuality does not either. We recognize that as bisexuality. So why should asexuality exist on a spectrum of experiencing varying degrees of attraction, but not always zero, when that should logically be recognized as allosexual?

There is no reason for people to need to change the meaning of a word to suit their needs. If the word doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit.

I hope that sort of explains my reasoning! I have a hard time properly getting my thoughts into words, so I’m worried that it makes perfect sense to me in my head but the words I’m writing don’t communicate my thoughts. If that’s the case, I’m hoping the summary helps. 😄

[mcu-fan-fics-blog]

The Helping Hand

Summary: Y/N Krast Illegitimate Daughter of Tony Stark. Product of an unwanted teen pregnancy. What would Howard Stark be capable of doing to assure his sons future? What will happen when Tony meets our Beautiful, young, genius, rich philanthropist.

Word Count: 3000 approx

A/N: Sorry for the wait I've been a little busy the last couple of weeks. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Next chapter will be Civil war I hope to upload again soon. In the mean time if you have some ideas or thoughts send them my way.

Tw: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Drug use, Drug addiction, Teen Pregnancy. (If there are any I missed please tell me.)

Ch.7

Chapter 8: Time and Irony Walk Hand in Hand

Ch.9

"Well this is nice…" You say as Natasha drags you along. You see currently you and Natasha are quote on quote shaking a tail. Whatever that means… "Shut up and keep moving." You stop moving and pull your arm away. "Stop Nat we've gone far enough. It was probably just a coincidence we didn't really get that far from the food truck." Finally taking the time to catch your breath. "I think we should get back to the compound. Tony and Bruce must be waiting for me." You say looking around for a cab lucky for you one stopped right before you and you got in.

The ride back to the Compound was quiet. When she's about to make her way in, you stop her. "Nat… I know that didn't go the way either of us wanted it to go but I still had fun. And again what I'm trying to say is that I would like to do things your way, candlelit, waiters, and wine. If you want to of course." You fidget with your fingers waiting for her response. "Y/n I would love to… but I like the way you do things. You're not the Wine and Dine type... I like that." She mentions as she walks back in. You quickly follow suit after she makes a comment about your blatant staring.

Once you stop on the elevator FRIDAY greets you. Telling you that Tony and Bruce are waiting for you in the lab. "Well Nat this is goodbye for now, see you around." You say stepping off of the elevator. Suddenly this weight comes crashing down on you. Remembering what Bruce told you the worry in his eyes. Dread fills your body when you're walking towards the lab. "Guys I'm back… anything good for me?" You state casually trying your hardest not to sound hopeful. "Well yes and no…" Tony states putting the tablet down. "I'm going to be honest with you… your heart is trashed, absolute garbage."

"Way to make a girl feel special." You say with a dry laugh. "But I think we can build something. And with my arc reactor technology we can make it work." He states tapping at his chest. This is where Bruce jumps in "with the help of Dr. Cho we could try and make a new cradle… and use it for its intended purpose this time around. Making a heart powered by the arc reactor." You nod taking all the information in. "Well this is good right? How long would this take." This is where both Tony and Bruce go quiet. "Y/n the process is relatively easy, what's difficult is getting our hands on the Vibranium."

"Which is basically a non existent problem at this point… Bruce is just paranoid, my contact will pan out you'll see." Tony jumps back in clearly annoyed that Bruce was disclosing such trivial issues. "Even if we do get the Vibranium Y/n there's something we don't know… If you'll even survive the transplant." Your eyes meet his and he elaborates. "Your body might not be strong enough to handle it." Suddenly the inevitability of the situation dawns upon you. "Well I'm still doing it… I'm dying anyways. What difference does it make if it's a month from now or five. I'm doing it." 

"Well, let not be hasty alright. We can still look for other alternatives." Bruce tries to argue. "Look, this is Y/n's decision. She's old enough to make her own decisions. Plus the more we work on this the higher survival chances are." Tony argues. You clear your throat when you notice some visitors standing by the door. "How long have they been there?" You ask, trying to mask your anger. Pietro and Steve both give you sheepish smiles that don't quite reach their eyes. "Look Y/n we just wanted to make sure you were okay… and by the looks of it you're not." 

You stand making your way to stand in front of Steve who had just taken a defensive stance. "Well you're right I'm not okay. Now what are you going to do about it Cap… Other than feeling pity every time you look at me." You say pushing your finger on his chest. "This does not leave this room you understand?" You say looking at both Steve and Pietro. "But, My sister…" You nod "Figure it out pretty boy. Now if you could leave the adults have to talk." They both sigh but take their leave. You turn and notice Tony and Bruce staring, not saying anything. You can only laugh at the sight. 

As much as you did want to be mad you couldn't. You were starting to come to terms with the fact that your business was now becoming their business. "I just wanted to watch them squirm." You clarify making Tony laugh. "Well I'd say you achieved that." Bruce mentions. "I'll give them til the end of the day. What do you think?" You say looking at Tony. "How much are you willing to bet, Billionaire to Billionaire?" He asks, challenging you. "50 million dollars." He scoffs. "Don't be a prude, make it Euros." You nod. "Best money there is." You say agreeing with him. "I'll hold you to that Y/n." He says as you leave the lab.

Two days later you were busy. You'd been in contact with Bruce and Pepper. Currently you were looking for someone to mentor. Someone you could leave your legacy with. Logan was an obvious choice but you knew he wouldn't take it. "You wanna give it a break Y/n you're not going to find the perfect candidate in so little time." Logan mentions. When suddenly your secretary enters with more forms. "Ms. Krast these are the applications from Midtown Science High. There's only four. Liz Allan, Ned Leeds, Flash Thompson, and uhh Peter Parker." You sigh with a smile forming on your lips. "They've got to be here my mentee. These kids are geniuses." 

You say as you look through the applications. Slowly crossing off the first two, that Flash kid and Liz. Ned and Peter it was a tough choice until you saw some of yourself in Peter's eyes. "It's him." You say under your breath catching Logan's attention. "Peter Parker… I want him, he will be the future of our company. Make arrangements. I want him to feel welcomed." You say as you start to gather your things. "Send out the acceptance letter today." You say to Logan on your way out. "Will do Boss." He says with a smile growing on his face as he reads the file. Peter didn't have it easy on the contrary he lived through a lot but he still managed to be him.

The next week went by in a blur. Your will and testament were drafted and certified. You were set on that end and now on the other front. You were currently parked outside Midtown High waiting for the bell to ring. When it does a couple of minutes pass when a fresh faced kid is knocking on your window. "Y/n Krast nice to meet you kid." You say rolling down the window. He seems a little nervous. "Come on in Peter. We're going to get to know each other a little before we begin working with the internship." He nods enthusiastically, a small smile forming on his lips. "Tell me about your Peter, I mean outside of what I already know."

"Well I'm what most people would call a nerd. My aunt may always say that's not true but it is." You hum in agreement pulling out of the school parking lot. "Well being popular is overrated anyways." You jump in. "And Ned, my best friend, we're huge fans of you and your work." He says his speed increases as he starts to ramble about how he followed your trajectory as soon as he found out who you were. "Well I'm glad you like what I do Peter but in my eyes were equals. I will teach you my ways and hopefully you'll take over once I'm dead. Keeping my legacy alive long after I'm dead." You say seriously making him settle and quiet down. 

"Ms. Krast you can't be serious." He says giving you an incredulous look. "I was an orphan… I was given a chance. Someone believed in me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you remind me of me… and I would like to give you that same chance that I was given." You say sincerely. "Y/n that's too generous… Plus I don't think that I'm what you're looking for. I'm clumsy and…" You stop the car making him look at you. "You may not be ready now or tomorrow but if you let me teach you, you will be." You say reassuringly. "Plus I don't plan on dying anytime soon." You say playfully at the end causing Peter to laugh successfully lightening the mood. "Also another plus for you after this year's audit we'll be working hand in hand with Tony Stark."

At the mention of Tony's name he lit up ten times more than you thought possible. It made you laugh a little but you understood him. "That's amazing. Me working for Y/n Krast and Tony Stark, a literal dream come true." You nod at his statement. The day went by incredibly fast. He was a nice kid, respectful and smart, a little naïve but overall sensible. You went to his favorite pizza place and talked, went to Krast Industries and introduced him to Logan. Showed him his dedicated work space. "So here's your badge, don't lose it. Umm… you'll be here every other day after school, and if you have some special dates tell Margaret the secretary and she'll make a schedule around it." You say as you're walking towards the elevator. 

Peter stops abruptly turning to face you. "Thank you really." He then proceeds to rather hastily pull you into a hug. You're shocked initially but hug him back nonetheless. "Don't sweat it kid." You say patting his back. "I'll have one of my drivers give you a lift home alright." He nods. Just before you press the button for the elevator the doors open. Revealing Pepper Potts and Tony Stark. It makes you laugh internally knowing that the young boy beside you just had his world rocked. "Ms. Krast this is real right?" He asks in a high pitched voice. You nod.

"Pepper Tony, I would like you to meet my new mentee Peter Parker." You say nudging him forward. "Hi, you're Tony Stark." He says in a daze. "Yes kid I am Tony stark and you are?" Tony could literally not care less. Until you gave Pepper a look and she nudged Tony. "Alright kid it was nice meeting you." He says overly enthusiastically. Peter takes the compliment either way. "Alright Peter go over to Margaret she'll take you to the driver. We have some urgent business to attend." He nods and waves goodbye shyly and takes his leave. "Right what do you guys need." Pepper clears her throat "Well actually Tony and I wanted to invite you out to lunch." 

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get going." You say walking off with Pepper. "You'll be pleased to know that you won our wager. They know..." Tony mentions at the restaurant. You laugh. "Told you!" Pepper gives you a look. "They're worried about you." You sigh. "Pepper, believe me I'm worried too." Tony quickly steps in. "Which you don't need to worry about too much, everything is in place. Everything panned out Dr. Cho was more than willing to help us. So whenever you want." He says again not meeting your gaze. "I was… ummm. Actually thinking we should hold off on that." 

"What… why?" They both ask almost immediately. "I'm okay right now." Tony scoffs. "So you rather wait till you have another episode to undergo the procedure." You hum. "Precisely see you get it." Watching their confusion you continue. "I've got things I have to leave ready. Time that I can't take for granted." Before they could argue with you said. "I need time… I-i drafted my will a couple of days ago." You say burying your head into your hands. "It's funny really… how you get things you're willing to live for. And life just comes along and takes it from you." Your mind drifts off to Viv and David. You wipe your tears and excuse yourself. Just as you're about to leave you remember. 

"Put the money in a college fund for the kid." You grab Peppers shoulder and nod. "We'll keep in touch." You say leaving the restaurant.  

Three weeks later 

Pretty early on you noticed Peter's jumpy behavior. It wasn't long till you found out his little secret. Again smart kid heart of gold even, but too naïve for his own good. You'd had one of your AI robots track him after he'd shown up a little dinged up. Telling him you knew took some time. You didn't know the extent of his capabilities, but you'd seen the kid walk on walls and kick some ass.

As cute as he looked in that makeshift costume you had a better one in mind. "Peter I would like to show you something." You call out from your workstation in the lab. "Ward pull up spider schematics please." You call out. "What do you think?" You say as Peter glances at his new suit. "I-i um… It's awesome but who is at for?" He said quickly. You almost burst out in laughter right then and there but you played along. "Well I was in Queens the other day and there was this mugging and some hero came out of nowhere and stopped the mugging." You say as you deconstruct the specks of the suit. Watching as peter gawks at the hologram. 

"When I noticed his suit wasn't really a suit, I made him one. You think he'll like it?" Peter nods eagerly, you hum in response. "Alright then try it on, see how it fits spider boy." Peter stands there with his mouth hanging open and you could swear saliva came out. "You aren't that good at keeping secrets kid." You say handing him the suit. "I expect you to be careful, kid." Peter starts to ramble trying to explain himself and begs you to not fire him. You physically had to stop him from pacing. "No ones firing anyone. I'm proud of your kid again, just be careful." Emphasizing the last part. "I will" after all that's out of the way you and Peter spent the day testing out the specks in his new suit. Web slingers and all. Yo I didn't leave until he got the hang of it. It took a while but it was well with the wait. 

The next day you wake up to the news seeing a familiar twin on the news. Not good Lagos had gone wrong, the building collapsed and Wanda was to 'blame'. You hurriedly made your way through your morning routine and raced to the compound. As soon as you make it to the common room you can tell something's off. "How is everybody?" You asked Steve who was the first you saw. "I'm assuming you heard about the incident." You don't have the heart to say yes so you just nod. "We're all a little down on morale. Nothing we can't fix." You say, giving you a small smile. You hate that he is down playing this because of your current dilemma. "It wasn't your fault." You say. As you walk off towards Pietro. 

"Are you okay?" You ask this time actually worried Pietro doesn't seem like his usual self. "No...It's Wanda. She hasn't talked to anyone she hasn't eaten she hasn't left her room." He says all in one breath. He finally stopped stirring and slid down to the floor and sat. "Its my fault. I-i could've moved faster, I could've saved them." He says defeatedly. "Maybe… Maybe not" You say bluntly sitting in front of him. "You can't go back now. And I know it's a sour experience. You made the right decision." You sigh. "You made the choice that saved the most lives." He nods letting out a deep breath. "I know… I know but Wanda. If I had saved those people Wanda wouldn't be feeling like this right now." You shake your head. "You fail to realize that if you had done that you would've died along with the other victims. Wanda will come around and let me talk to her." He only nods. "She's in her room."

You knock on her door a couple of times… no answer. So you make yourself comfortable and prepare yourself. Your knock every minute or two and you're constantly yelling in your head. Half an hour goes by and nothing. You go back to mentally yelling, when suddenly you're being dragged by the collar of your shirt into the room with the doors shutting behind you. "You're stubborn like a mule." She says not sparring you a look. "Yeah well I'm dying what are you gonna do about it." You quipped smiling at her. She chuckles. Suddenly the light leaves her face. "I killed people… I put people in danger, I put my own brother I'm danger." You nod. "You also saved hundreds of people. God only knows what that gas would have done. So thank you Wanda. You're my hero." You say sending her a smile.

Right when she's about to say something a certain red friend phases through the wall. "You will never cease to amaze me Vision." You say while looking between him and the wall. "You have very good taste in clothes." You mention as you eye him. He smiles. "Vision. We talked about this, there's a door for a reason." Wanda states. "Yes, well the door was open so I assumed…" He says, explaining himself. "What did you need Vision?" Wanda asks cutting him off. "Well Mr. Stark asked me to come and get both you there is a team meeting. With secretary Ross." 

[evakuality]

Mia, episode one

Okay, so as I have said numerous times and at length I haven’t seen Mia’s season before.  I can’t stand Noora’s season so I’ve never wanted to watch this one.  But I’m giving it a go because apparently it’s better than Noora’s.  I already really really dislike Alex, though.  He’s gross to the last moments of Hanna’s season so this may be an uphill battle getting me to like him.  Plus, this is likely more a live reaction thing since I really have no idea what’s coming (except that it’s based on Noora’s things)  We shall see.  Anyway, let's get to this:

1. The opening bits just reminds me how ridiculous kissing looks like up close and from the outside.  I don’t know what the point here is, but I’m vaguely uncomfortable rn, so if that’s the intention, then well done I guess!  These tongues are really bothering me for some reason.  Kiki really needs to have more self respect.  I mean, I know she gets there, but this is not it, child.  He’s really not great.

2.  Seeing a shot of the girls: wow I missed these people so much!!!! (It’s been a couple of days, self.  Chill out!!)  Again, this is super pretty.  The colours etc of this scene are lovely.  More cool and cold than Hanna’s (I guess because of the time of year????) but lovely anyway.  I do not like this swinging camera though; it’s making me queasy.  I am also seriously side-eyeing the ‘kissing’ thing between Hanna and Mia.  Like, I want to believe the creators were leaning into the gay vibes the two gave off last season, but... eh.  It feels off a bit.  Still.  Mia’s gaze when she says ‘why not?’ when asked if they should all be lesbians is... well, I think a case can be made that Mia is into Hanna at least.

3.  Oh.  Hans my love.  It seems this place is a mess and disgusting, but aww I do love him!! ‘I’m finished in a second’ - lol.  Poor Mia, but she knew he had a visitor and she pushed her way in anyway.  She deserved to cop what she saw.  But she’s right of course.  If they keep doing the gross clean ups for him, he really will never learn.  I love Hans, but ‘tomorrow’ is waaaaaaay too late in a situation like the one they have here.  He really needs to start thinking about other people!!

4.  Aww I do love Mia and Hanna, and I’m glad we still have their friendship here.  But is this sort of awkward not-quite-hug thing normal in Germany?  None of these people look like they want to hug each other and are just doing it out of some sort of obligation.  I get that between Hanna and the boys (there’s some history there after all), but Mia and them?  Still, it’s nice to see these storylines continuing from season one so fluidly.  Like there’s very little awkward ‘so let’s summarise the previous season in stilted dialogue for you’ and yet new viewers should be able to pick up on what’s going on through context and in the ways they have integrated and alluded to it all.

5.  Alex comes on screen and I’m all ‘ugh’ and then sadly he says some stupid stuff.  Mia is super pretty in this scene, though, and I’m a bit baffled about why they chose to film her in such a gorgeous way and then to put Alex in pale colours against a pale background.  He doesn’t stand out at all.  ‘He’s insecure, he just wants his parents’ attention’ - I kind of like that this is coming from Kiki because she sees him with rose-tinted glasses and so it can be seen as biased and excusing him for no reason.  But since I assume this is heading in the direction that Noora’s did, where William didn’t ever have to change but we were expected to excuse him because we found out bits about his background, I’m also assuming that this is going to be a case of ‘Kiki, while being obsessive and too naïve about him in some ways, was right all along about him’ but I guess we’ll see.  Also, he’s basically with Kiki and yet he’s still looking at Mia like that?  He’s clearly not changed at all since last season.  

6.  I just realised we haven’t had any moments with Mia alone yet and we’re already more than halfway through the episode.  I don’t know where I’m going with that but it’s just interesting.  Hanna was so in her head and by herself so often, and it was really nice to be so tight in with her.  It’s a bit odd to not have that anymore.  I know that the two characters are different but I miss that getting-to-know-you stuff of the main character.

7.  The stuff with Kiki is really good, though.  I like the way her issues are being highlighted but in a way where it’s clear that her thought processes aren’t immediately obvious as toxic.  It’s really good that what she says and does is logical and can be seen as ‘healthy’ and so dismantling that thought process is really important to teach.  Now, I only saw Noora’s season once so I don’t know how much is coming from the original but even if this is coming through from there, I like the way it’s going.

8.  Alex again.  I do not like him.  His attitude to girls is so shitty.  I mean I know this is William’s fault but I still really really do not enjoy this type of guy.  Again he’s shot in faded out and pale colours vs her darker and stronger ones.  I don’t know what the point is, but I assume there is one.  Maybe that she doesn’t really know him and so she’s only seeing a pale and washed out version of him.

9.  Hanna, darling, I’m with you.  I too hate volleyball and when I was at school our PE teachers were obsessed with it and we had to play it FAR too often for my liking.  Also these looks they are giving each other are super gay.  I don’t make the rules!

10.  This Christmas scene is so super cute!!  The colours etc are glorious.  Hans’s little festoon of lights is adorable.  This little hug with Carlos and Kiki; it’s nice to know where that’s going.  She definitely deserves someone like him (someone who is a bit messy and has some faults but who grows and is under it all a loving friend, and above all is someone who genuinely cares about her).  I know 50 billion people have pointed it out, but I love that Matteo is off to the side and away from the group and that although he’s sort of joining in, he’s not a full part of it.  It’s nice the little hints of how his season is going to go.

11.  Boo Alex.  Blackmail isn’t cool.  It wasn’t cool in Hanna’s season and it’s not cool now.  

And we’re at the end.�� We still have very little time just with Mia, just this little moment right at the very very end.  I miss that tight PoV and I hope we see more of it soon.  I still really really dislike this type of love interest and this type of romance.  Alex may not be as bad as William (mostly because he’s better acted) but he’s still a few million miles away from any guy I’d want anything to do with romantically.  Let’s see if that changes as we go on.

[thelovelyghostwriter]

How many responses have you gotten so far, if I may ask?

Hello, thank you for your question. I open the Q&A if you guys want updates on the survey or any problems I'm facing.

Currently, there's 380 responses in total. [It was actually 362 last night, don’t know where I got the boost overnight, perhaps that Kurapika post] 

tThere's actually 84 questions in total, but I coded it in such a way that certain questions don't appear when you indicated an option. For example, if you indicated that you are not up to date with the manga (indicating that you have read the post-Election arc AND read till Chapter 390), the questions regarding the Succession arc theories and predictions will not appear. This is why the manga readers' survey is actually longer.

Currently, 149 respondents indicated that they had read up to date, and therefore, they indicated

Another example is the shippings part. For example, if you indicated you don't ship anything, you won't see the list of ships. If you only indicated that you ship, let's say, het ships, you will only see the het ships. This is to make it easier for people to do the survey. The key is for others to not answer unnecessary questions.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk about certain issues/explanations that I need to address.

The reason why I'm always emphasising the goal of 385 responses and above (400 is a good number) because based on calculations. I checked on MAL and that there are over 1.2 million who have watched HxH. The "population" in this case is the total number of people who have watched/read the series. Since some people do not have MAL, the actual population number is higher (currently, we do not know what is this exact number).

At 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level*, the ideal sample size is 385 in populations above 100K, and it doesn't change after 100K.

*I do not really know how to explain this, but don't worry too much about it.

Alright, so I'm at 380, do I still need more than 5 people?

Yes, I need more people. Why? I have three concerns:

1) I said this before, but I need more men/boys to do the survey.

As mentioned, I did not put demographic questions because my country is strict with asking people for personal data. While this survey is casual, I do not want to encounter future complications. However, I can roughly guess the gender composition of respondents because of certain questions and the way the survey was distributed. 

Firstly, this survey blew up mostly on Tumblr and there’s a lot of mixed statistics. This says that 47% are female in 2021 and this other article says 72% of women use Tumblr in 2014. Anyway, most of my online (majority from Tumblr) are women and they had actively helped me sent it out to other women who likes the show as well. This same thing happened to my friends in real life. 

Actually, this is one of the biggest limitations of this survey - convenient sampling, which is giving the survey to only people that we know. Our friends who may have similar views/interest will get to do the survey, but people that we are not friends with who may have a different view/interest does not get to do the survey. Their thoughts/opinions are not recorded. 

Secondly, there are certain questions that makes it easy to guess for me if the respondent is a woman/man. 

For example, the “which character do you simp for” question. 

“nil” means they don’t simp for anyone by the way. Also, note that this is just the word cloud diagram. I will chart them manually in bar charts later on. 

Usually, when someone indicates a lot of male characters, they are normally women/girls. The ones who indicated Killua Zoldyck and Gon are usually young girls. Of course, I’m not saying men won’t indicate they simp for a male character or something, but yea know, common sense a bit here. The likelihood of someone placing Chrollo being a woman/girl is higher than the respondent being a man. That also same goes for the shipping questions. 

The survey is posted on Reddit that consisted of 83.1% males in the HxH area, according to the 1K survey that they had. This helped me boost more people (and possibly guys who do survey). However, I think only about 20 to 30 people did it (based on the boost I got after the Reddit thread was posted). I also had help from a large hxh IG account that had slightly more guy followers to give me a shoutout. I also went to reach out to some accounts whom I know the admin are guys. 

I still need a bit more help though, because currently the survey results... I’m sensing that there are more women/girls who did it from the way the results are turning out. 

Why is this important? 

It’s simple. I cannot just release the results that had an uneven ratio of the gender of the respondents and claim that this is the hxh fandom. It won’t be representative of the hxh fandom population as a whole when there are many cis-men who actually had watched/read the show, and absolutely loved it. I think it’s important to hear people’s opinions, be it men, women, young, old. 

Currently, I’m trying to attract more men to do the survey by designing my hxh analyses posts from Tumblr and transporting them to IG, because I realise they like these kind of posts and they get to see my bio profile (with the survey link) + post about the hxh survey. I also get to befriend some of them in the process (and also because I have long been wanting to post my hxh analyses on IG, but it’s just a hassle to make it into pretty poster designs). So win-win. 

Of course, anyone is welcomed to do the survey. I just need help with “balancing” it out, so please help me by sending it to your bros, guy friends, boyfriends, fathers etc. Or if you know any social media platforms where most guys dominate, then yeah please send them. Or if you’re a guy, then yea go ahead and try the survey. 

2) While the responses are 380 in total, the number of people who have read up to date is 149. 

Okay, I’m not saying I need to get people who had read up to date to be 385 as well. Realistically, not sure if I can do it. However, most of the questions pertaining the Succession arc are the most interesting ones and it takes a large chunk of them. 

So yes, it will be great to have more people to do the survey especially if they had read the manga so that we can have more respondents in those questions. 

3) The 385 response calculation is only assuming 5% confidence level and 5% margin of error. 

I don’t exactly know how to explain this, but I will try to quote for the margin of error: 

“Company X surveys customers and finds that 50 percent of the respondents say its customer service is “very good.” The confidence level is cited as 95 percent plus or minus 3 percent margin of error. This information means that if the survey were conducted 100 times, the percentage who say service is “very good” will range between 47 and 53 percent most (95 percent) of the time.”

So if you put it in HxH context, with 95% confidence level, and 5% margin of error, it goes like this: 

50% of respondents indicated that Bisky is their favourite HxH girl (this one is only one option). If this survey was conducted 100 times, the % of people who indicated Bisky as their favourite girl would be from 45% to 55%. 

But if I actually key in 3% margin of error, the sample size goes up to 1056. 

I’m willing to open the survey for 1.5 more weeks. Three reasons: 

A) I will wait for more responses of course!

B) I am currently busy with my part-time student research assistant job during summer break till this week, and they are rushing to finish up the research paper. Therefore, it’ll be nice to just wait while I do my work. 

C) I am planning to write up the theories that I had included in the survey. This means having a lot of time finding the links/threads to the theories and reading them, making sense of it. I plan to post it and also merge that in my report. 

I’m closing the survey in 1.5 weeks because I need time to do up the charts and report by mid-August because I’m afraid I might be busy once the semester starts and I won’t have anytime to do this mini fun project. 

Another thing I want to address: 

Most of the time, certain options I created is based on technical reasons. The other reason is by mistake. 

For mistakes, I went to fix them if someone highlights a mistake.

Now, for the technical reason. I did not appreciate this response in the NOTP section that says: 

The reason why I listed out almost all ships in Hunterpedia, including the ones with a large age gap and the incest ones is simple - because it helps me chart easier when I put them into options. It also decreases the chances of nonsense answers like this one. It also places less fatigue on people doing the survey.  Text boxes are only meant if the options aren’t clear or “others, please state” so that I can include people’s opinons. 

The reason why I didn’t do that for the NOTP section is that I was unable to do a certain specific coding. That’s why it ended up as a text box. It’s also based on the assumption that if something is really your NOTP, you’d know and remember it. 

Why do people online goes straight to trying to prove they are morally superior and whatnot, assuming that I listed the options because of my morality. You do not know me personally. It is based solely on technical reasons.

This is why I used this disclaimer: 

Which part of this is not clear. You can leave, just like what I said in the beginning. Another thing is not following instructions and being rude about it. 

I had also instructed clearly to list out the NOTP combinations. I even noted it clearly. Some people put “any incest/pedo ships”, which happened more than five times. What’s more, one response contained “don’t tell me what to do”. 

Yes, I get it, you don’t like these type. But what you’re doing is making me guess everything, which is unproductive. If you don’t like certain ships that are common but a “taboo” like “HisoGon”, “Killumi”, then say that. If you say it generally, I’m just going to assume the ones on the Hunterpedia list. 

Another thing is the “any toxic ships”. This is very vague. Often, some so-called “wholesome” common ships in hxh are toxic. Mind you, Killugon is also a toxic ship (let’s not be blind to the CA arc please, this pairing is unbalanced), yet almost everyone perceives it as wholesome. Most characters in hxh are toxic in their own ways, and for sure their canon dynamics if they are in a relationship are likely more toxic than what is often portrayed in the headcanon way. I am wondering what to do with this, I might put it as invalid or “no”. 

This is why my instructions are to list them. I had already edited the question twice to make it even clearer yet there’s people who defy them. I’m not just doing the instructions out of fun or make people’s life harder. Those are instructions. 

I do not understand why certain people have to feel offended/be rude at an anonymous survey. 

I can understand if people don’t follow instructions because you might missed it out and I can help to chart it for you. It’s totally okay, everyone makes mistakes, but I do not appreciate the extra unsolicited comments about me because it implies that you have read them, you just chose not to follow it. 

If you think there’s a better way to do it, then DM me. I will explain to you why I had done it so, or I might even change it based on your suggestion. For example, someone actually told me to add certain options and I did it. Another person suggested to add the non-romantic dynamics and I love that, though I think it’s a little too late to add that. Maybe in the next survey.  

If you do not like the instructions, kindly exit the survey. Nobody is forcing you to do it. It won’t record your response if the survey is incomplete for one hour.