#is based in specific things said by specific people. in this recent round of Bullshit i've only seen these comments coming

[shirogane-oushirou]

[cw mentions of ableism. talking / venting about the sharing vs non-sharing shit (i do not lean towards supporting one "side" over the other); starts out relatively neutral-toned but i start to sound frustrated part way through. i also have a more personal ramble at the very end that has a separate cw list. it's also long... don't feel obligated to read. i just needed to say things and be Done with it.]

man. i'm ready for all of the sharing vs non-sharing back and forths to stop.

to be clear: this isn't some "i'm above this argument" thing. on the contrary; i completely see where both "sides" are coming from! i simply mean it shouldn't be so difficult for a select few shit-stirrers to Get that selfshipping is a personal thing, and we should be able to ship in whatever way makes us most comfortable.

if someone is non-sharing, they should be allowed to create those boundaries without being harassed or called "immature" or "delusional" by sharing people. beyond how supremely ableist that is, nobody has the right to say they can't view their f/os in a certain way, no matter if other people don't understand those feelings.

if someone is sharing, they should be allowed to share their feelings for a character openly with other sharing people without being sent hate from non-sharing people who think they're "loose" or who want to be their f/o's "one and only". shaming people for being open to sharing is fucked from multiple "sexual / romantic purity" and "anti poly-[sexual / romantic / platonic] relationships" angles, and nobody has the right to claim sole and total ownership over a character they did not make.

and yet, every couple of weeks, we get posts from a vocal minority making a huge fuss over "the other side", when it's just a vocal minority FROM that other side ALSO making a fuss. and then those vague posts leave their intended orbit and cause more mis-worded posts and misunderstandings and off-the-cuff bigoted statements, and the cycle starts again.

we should theoretically be able to respect each other while focusing that energy on, oh i dunno, chasing harassers out of the community? getting selfshippers who aren't part of a specific marginalized group to help selfshippers from that group when they're harassed, maybe?? especially when the sharing vs non-sharing Thing very often coincides with bigotry; people who are harassing others tend to not just stop at being petty or mean, they make it personal.

and -- not as important but a nice little bonus -- i would think that working towards a community that's more safe for everyone in it would also "coincidentally" (/s) get rid of the shit-stirrers, whether because they were kicked out or because they realized what they were doing and grew as people.

---

[cw ableism, vague death ideation, non-physical self harm mention]

i was originally gonna put this bit in the tags, but i think i should put it under the cut bc it's a little personal + it got too long.

also, i try to stay in my lane and not discuss details about delusions or how to approach them -- i've only experienced them a couple of times, so i'm not going to claim to know much about them -- so if i've overstepped, PLEASE let me know and i'll edit or remove anything i've misspoken about.

but coming from someone who went too deep into selfshipping in the past and worries about the mental health of people who do: It's None Of Your Business!!

delusions aren't morally "bad" or "wrong". holding deep feelings abt a character isn't inherently delusion-based and also isn't morally "bad" or "wrong". and neither of those is the same as -- speaking from experience (above content warnings come into play here) -- being obsessed with a character to the point that you self-isolate and emotionally self harm because you wish so badly that the character was real and you believe there isn't a point to life if you'll never meet that character... and this is also not inherently delusion-based and ALSO not morally "bad" or "wrong".

these separate things -- delusions, deep feelings, and unhealthy obsession -- CAN intersect but just as often don't. none are immoral, and all are deserving of being approached with compassion and respect, in whatever way is most appropriate.

negative, harmful ACTIONS that some people take in these states are worth bringing up to them when it's safe to do so, depending on the details of their situation, but the states themselves don't have any moral weight. ie, if someone's harassing others for sharing their f/o because they're in a dark, obsessive place, that is a morally negative ACTION, not a morally negative mental state. they need to take responsibility for harm they've CAUSED, not for what they're experiencing internally.

but if you're calling people "immature" or "delusional" as an insult, something tells me you're not really considering that! whether through malice or just a lack of compassion, you don't see worth in how another person approaches this community.

you aren't better for thinking of a character a certain way, and neither is the person you're being ableist towards. if no harm is being done to you or others, you're just being a dick for the sake of being a dick. listen to other people, learn, and do better.

if you think someone is genuinely in a bad mental place because of selfshipping (wrt isolating and self harm), approach them as another human being. meet them where they're at. don't patronize them, don't call them "delusional", treat them like someone who has their own thoughts and values.

they may want help, or they may not, and you have to respect them for their choice no matter what YOU think is right. there is no truly right way to approach someone who's in a dark place, but you can at least avoid saying things that FOR SURE will make them feel talked down to, belittled, or shamed. if they aren't ready now, maybe they will be ready for help in the future, and shutting them down will make them less likely to seek that help.

(i was also going to put THIS in the tags but i should probably put it here: when i say 'learn and change' i mean it as a positive. people have the capacity to learn and grow and become better; if you've said something in all of this that can be read as harmful... consider why it's harmful and why you said it.

you aren't the same person you were a year ago. 5yrs ago. 10yrs ago. you have grown and you will continue to grow. but if you can be more aware of it and grow more purposefully and consciously? all the better.)

[coffee-at-annies]

@paintingtheice so I totally meant to post this yesterday and then fell asleep editing/adding on to this. This is not the essay on gendering Sidney Crosby we’ve talked about in dms it’s instead a different fandom essay that I started writing in my head half as a convo and then said fuck it essay time. @podcasts-8-my-heart this is also dedicated to you saying you’re proud of me for writing 2.5k+. I’m proud of you.

So I was thinking on my bus ride into work this morning (yesterday - yes it’s been a day this got long don’t look at me like that) about hrpf and SidGeno and some of the shifts I’ve seen fandom go through in my time following hockey. There are a million and one little reasons why things have changed and many of them can simply be chalked up to the passing of time; new information gets revealed, new events happen, roster turnover, and fandom/writer turnover. One thing that I think about a lot is when fic is set in relation to “canon.” The relationship with canon in hrpf is both deeper and more divorced than other fandom, but stay with me I’m gonna pull a bunch of words out my ass and hope it makes a lick of sense.

The first talking point/part of this thesis is recency bias. People are way more inclined to favor recent events over the past. You see this in the actual fandom with people reacting to losses or saying “we never win against [team]” when we have in fact won against that team as recent as last year. It’s this sort of bias that causes us as readers/writers to read something current and assume it’s always been this way and then experience cognitive dissonance with other depictions of the characters that are older or simply different. “He would not fucking say that.” Well once upon a time maybe he did. Maybe it’s out of character now, but back then it was the defining character study for how fandom understood him and you need to sit down and actually look at what people were saying. Maybe it was never in character but the author committed to being ooc and you can see how our understanding has drifted closer or farther away in the years since.

The second talking point is that when fandom isn’t reacting to current canon it has a tendency to latch on to specific parts of canon and not let go. I’m quantifying that as “events”. Fandom hates filler but it loves a plot point. In hprf in general and sidgeno specifically you see this in a lot of different ways. How many stories have been written about [insert team]’s cup run? The Olympics? I’ve read so many fics about 2015 Worlds despite never reading hrpf before 2016. We love an event. Do we actually care about every game of the season or tournament tho? Not really unless something specific to progress the plot or characterization happens. Geno visiting Sid at Sochi when they’re supposed to be enemies is more important than whoever Canada beat in the round robin.

Anyway this is all introductory backtracking because the original thrust of this essay was defining to myself the “when” that people write about. My brainstorming had it separated into the nebulous now, right fucking now when I (the author) wrote this, events events events, the vague future, the past aka when they were Youths™️, the generalized timeline (y’know, canon?) - usually characterized in hrpf by events, milestones, and team personnel, and timeline what timeline.

Are you saying to yourself, gee she just listed a bunch of stuff I hope she defines it. Well good for you, that’s literally the rest of this monster. Buckle up I’m about to say way more words. I do not think I’m 100% accurate perfect no notes. I’m sure parts of it are bullshit. But hey I’m gonna close my eyes and post it anyway.

1. [Nebulous Now] - Hey remember that paragraph on recency bias? Welcome to recency bias the fic setting. In my head, the nebulous now is +/- the last two or three years. It’s set around present day* or going back only as far as the author was engaged in fandom. You’ll probably know when it’s set based on team makeup, season highlights, major events, but it’s basically meant to be set now. It may care about schedules and specific details but reserves the right to throw it out the window if it feels like it. The problem with being set now is when you run across a fic that is 5, 10, 15 years old and is supposed to still be set in whatever the current year is.

*when the fic first started being written

2. [Right Fucking Now] There is nothing nebulous about when this fic was written or what it was written about. These are usually smaller fics** where inspiring event happened anywhere from the day the writer started writing to at most a month or two ago. Usually precipitated by X did Y in Z game against team A and got celebratory gangbanged in the locker room about it. (Y being goals, hat tricks, fights, ect.). You can’t get more specific than this baby. Fics set before/during/after a specific game fit here. All Star Game fics written around the All Star Break are here. Milestone events are here, for example Tanger and Geno’s 1K games. Fics written immediately in reaction to stuff like Contract-gate go here. Most playoff fic that references specific events or was written during the playoffs falls under here. The main clarifying point is it wasn’t written very long after the fact. Anything written now about last years All Star Game, Contract-Gate, Sid slutting it up at worlds and the Olympics, all fall under a different category. Which is a great segue to my next one.

** I said usually smaller but sometimes an author decides to write a big fic about the narrative arc of the season and we love them for it.

3. [Events Events Events] - This is probably the one that is the biggest broadest category and the one I have the hardest time narrowing down despite having more examples than I can shake a stick at. Simply put, this category is for fics that are concerned with a specific event, usually big, but sometimes small. This can be any event that stands out in a reader/author’s head. Generally the fic was written after the event happened from a place of knowing how everything shakes out in canon. These fics can feel different because the we walk in already knowing the start and stop and major events of the fic. From the reader’s perspective the event is over but the characters experiencing the event don’t know it.

SidGeno/Pens Examples include: World Juniors. The Olympics/the golden goal/Sochi. The cup runs are a subcategory unto themselves but the playoffs/finals are a big event. Major injuries like Geno’s knee surgery and Sid’s concussion. Duper’s retirement tends to be a foot note in cup run stories but it’s a small event. Trades def count since there are absolutely stories about the before/after of a trade. Vegas & Seattle Expansion Drafts. The lockouts (05 & 2012). I’m ignoring that the pandemic-stoppage is also under this cause I don’t like reading about it. Contract-gate is a recent example. Basically if you’re asking “hey does this event count as an event” the answer is probably yes because you’ve remembered it. If you can point to something specific on the timeline and zoom in on it then it counts.

***this one I keep tweaking it’s definition and I’m still not 100% happy. I just keep thinking about all the fic I’ve read in other fandoms that feel beholden to canon in ways that I end up bemoaning the lack of creativity. Nobody says it has to happen this exact way every time but authors who claim to hate that installment still faithfully recreate it every time.

So we’ve had now, and we’ve had the events that everyone (or just you) remember, what’s next is literally what’s next.

4. [Vague Future] - Quite literally 1, 5, 10, 20 years in the future. Next season fics. Retirement and post-retirement fics. Their kids getting drafted fic is this. Anything that makes you think further ahead than the end of the current season is probably in this category. It’s vague because who the heck knows if it ends up true or not. There is of course overlap with the Nebulous Now because its nebulous. Since everything is set vaguely now-ish, it’s hard to tell when now starts becoming the future. The season just started and all through the preseason I saw people talking about who they think is going win the cup this year. There’s so much hockey to be played still. The future is vague but it will eventually become now.

Also remember it’s all about perspective. There’s tons of movies set in the far distant future of the late 2010s and they don’t match up to our lived reality. Going back to the comment about cognitive dissonance, sometimes you aren’t writing about an event from a place of knowing; sometimes it’s just your best guess or heartfelt wish. It’s so easy to say “oh that’s an au” when maybe it wasn’t an au when it was written, maybe it was intended to be accurate to the author’s best guess. Sometimes fics from the past were set in the future but that time has been passed by life and going back to read them is weird but cool. It’s interesting to see where people thought the boys were going vs where they are. Who could have guessed the core would have careers this long or decorated but they have.

Speaking of writing from a place of knowing; this next one is sort of a subcategory of events, but was a specific enough setting of fic I wanted to call it out.

5. [Youth™️] - This is anything where they are children. It may be well research but for the most part it’s probably non-accurate outside of the broad stokes. It’s the prologue and chapter 1. Pre-canon and the first 20 minutes. Kid!fic. It’s all about the kids in this one. This is the start of the story and the time before that.

Hrpf examples include anything about juniors, Sid’s time at shattuck, and World Juniors. For SidGeno I’d probably include the 03 to 05 drafts. Can include Sid’s first year in the NHL and Geno’s flight from Russia and his first full year in the NHL (that’s the hard cutoff for me personally). You could potentially argue up to and including the 08 & 09 cup runs as like the climax of them being young NHL stars, and yeah sure I’m not a cop write whatever you want if it makes sense to you then it makes sense. I don’t think Sid getting drafted is a bad place to start a fic, especially if you’re doing an AU. There’s always a good argument to start at the beginning of the canon story.

I’m highlighting this because holy crud the number of fics I’ve seen from other fandoms that don’t even like the early material but start at movie 1 scene 1/book 1 chapter 1 anyway. It’s fanfic we don’t have to start at the beginning. You can, but its not necessary. I personally struggle with fics that don’t change anything in early canon but require you to read their version of it anyway, but I’m just one person. You do you.

This next one doesn’t have a snazzy name because look sometimes there’s a timeline and you wanna write something that encompasses it. If it’s granular I’d say you’re talking about Eventsx3 or Right Fucking Now. Overlaps with Youth™️ because you have to start somewhere and Nebulous Now because now is on the timeline. If there are expected events on the timeline like retirement from professional sports, that’s the vague future.

6. [Timeline] Sometimes authors want to care about the timeline or the fic is set over weeks, months, years. Most canons have a specific set timeline and hrpf is no different. However ours is actual literal years rather than something someone created and is thus easy to navigate. For my examples I’m generalizing over the span of months and years and then grouping by big events rather than calling out any one specific event.

[the early years] Anything from Sid’s first year to the 09 cup. Let’s be real here, most authors either write incredibly detailed fic about the whole timeline, or they’ll only write about Sid or Geno’s first full NHL years or the 08-09 cup runs. Everything else is usually glossed over. The babies era. Youth™️

Events include: Sid and Geno’s drafts. The 05 lockout. Geno fleeing Russia. Losing streaks. Mario’s return and retirement. Flower and Tanger getting called up. Sid living at Mario’s. Geno living with Gonch and learning English. Sid being named Captain. Hard cutoff is after the 07-08 and 08-09 cup runs.****

****You can argue that the 08 & 09 cup runs are their own subcategory but this is already long enough imo.

[post cup - international success and dead years] - the middle years. You’re probably only going to read event fic set during this time unless it was written in the nebulous now of those years.

Events include: the golden goal/2010 olympics. Sid’s concussion. Geno’s knee surgery. The 2012 lockout. Geno playing at home in Russia during the lockout. I think Geno & Ovi had a memorable All Star Game in here. Socchi Olympics. Worlds 2015.***** Tanger’s stroke. Olli’s cancer. Geno getting married. Trades include I wanna say Jordy, Talbo, Lazy. Gonch is in Dallas but I don’t remember if he was traded. This is also the spacetoaster era. Sid spending several years building a house only to move back in with Mario due to post-concussion syndrome.

*****Sid winning at worlds is I think the end of this era cause Worlds kicked off Sid’s “winning everything that he could possibly win” era.

[the sully era] The 15-16 & 16-17 cup wins against San Jose and Nashville. The threepeat attempt in 2018 with its second round loss to the capitals. The vegas draft followed several years later by the seattle draft. Geno had a kid. Once you get past the cup runs this really blends into the nebulous now. Maybe it’s cause I stopped reading fic religiously sometime between 2019 and 2021 but aside from the covid pandemic which I very much do not like reading about, there’s not much here to highlight other than player milestones and trades, but don’t worry Sid and Geno have had a bunch of milestones.

[modern pensblr] - The covid stoppage, pandemic-hockey, and now. Anything from 2020 to the current 2023-24 season. Very much the nebulous now but there’s tons of milestones for our two headed monster/core trio to celebrate.

Okay I know I just spent a while being very “general with specific” but this next category is for the people who just don’t care about anything I’ve talked about.

7. [Timeline what timeline] - This is the one where authors simply don’t care about the “when” of their setting. It’s an outgrowth of the nebulous now but it’s less tied to canon. It may reference a season but it doesn’t have to and will often ignore actual team makeup because “this is my fanfic and if I want to ignore that trade I can.” Non-hockey aus (one or both s/g) will often fall under this since you need to answer who is playing center for the Penguins if Sid drives the zamboni. Straight up aus are kinda here but I don’t think fics that are fully an au setting like a college frat or space au really counts for this conversation since the au comes with its own time period that is wholly divorced from canon outside of the cast of characters. This is also where fics that go “I’m going to write my own canon” belong (ie Geno is a flyer, what if Pens drafted Ovi instead of Geno, what if X player got traded to Y team and hooked up with Z player). Timeline can matter for some of those fics, but most of them only care as much as it makes sense to make the fic make sense. The important timeline information is that hockey is happening (or it’s the off season and hockey isn’t happening). These are the fics where the Pens are always conveniently playing Washington when Geno needs advice from Ovi or Vegas when Sid needs similar from Flower. As long as the fic is internally consistent what does it matter if you’ve forgotten this or that timeline detail such as setting a timeline in the first place. Hockey itself is so intertwined with the specific routines of a season that you can divorce that routine from reality and just have hockey. Fall becomes winter becomes spring becomes the playoffs, what more can an author ask for?

Done? Idk I’m out of words. Okay I love you for reading this far. Bye bye. Feel free to chime in in the notes if you’ve got your own ideas. I certainly don’t have a monopoly on thoughts and I’m not convinced I’m right either, just doing a deep think.

[elowenp]

“What do you want?” Barbara asks, voice crackling with static.

It’s a silly question. Tim wants crime rates to go down. Tim wants Gotham to be a safer city. Tim wants to be a part of making that happen.

“A code name that isn’t stupid.” he says instead.

Barbara sighs. It doesn’t sound like a sigh though. It just sounds like the static’s getting louder.

~

“Bernard Dowd, scholar of the ages.” Tim laughs, arm slung round Bernard's shoulder. “I thought you were meant to be the fun one?”

“I am.” Bernard groans, “as soon as these exams are done I’ll be back to the usual student life. Getting drunk, going on dates, Gotham won’t know what’s hit it.”

“Going on dates?” Tim asks jokingly, even as a well hidden part of him turns slightly panicked. “Any successes an old friend should be hearing about?”

“Not really.” Bernard shrugs, jostling Tim’s arm. “Just a couple of girls I was better off friends with.” He pauses, thinking, before continuing with his voice involuntarily going a little higher. “Couple of guys too.”

“Huh.” Tim suddenly becomes very aware of all the places where his arm is touching Bernard. He doesn’t move it. “Better luck next time.”

Huh.

~

Tim’s been avoiding Dick. He’s been awkward around him lately, Tim thinks that Barbara must have said something. He’s not stupid enough to have done something to send Dick spiralling without noticing it.

“What do you want?” Dick asks, curious, without warning.

Tim wants to ask if Barbara put him up to this but he knows it’s a genuine question. Dick isn’t manipulative like that, not with family.

What does Tim want? Isn’t it a little late for Dick go be asking that question? All the things that happened after Bruce’s death put a canyon of distance between them. It’s slowly been growing smaller but it hasn’t disappeared. Neither of them have had time enough to spend together for that to happen.

An awful, bitter part of Tim that hasn’t stopped screaming since Robin wasn’t his any more wonders if Dick would even be asking if Damian wasn’t out of town right now.

“For us to go train surfing.” Tim says. Petty. Just so Dick will say no and his anger can feel righteous instead of ill-deserved.

“Okay.” Dick says instead. Easy and confident. Himself.

“Oh.” Tim’s anger fizzles into non-existence. “Okay.”

The canyon grows a little smaller.

~

“We should go to a skatepark.” Bernard says, a little giggly from the beer in his hand.

There’s a matching beer in Tim’s hand although it’s still practically full. If there’s an emergency he’ll be of no use drunk. “What? Why?”

“Why not? You were so good in high school! And you had fun doing it.” Bernard’s tone turns a little less giggly. “You should do more things you find fun.”

Tim is surprised enough that the “Okay.” slips out of his lips unbidden.

So maybe the beer bottle is a little less full than he’d like to admit.

They borrow a board from one of Bernard's flatmates and catch a bus to a skate park Tim remembers using when he was younger. As they go Tim tries to remember why he stopped. He tries to remember when he stopped. He can’t recall the answer to either question and annoyance rises in his chest over it.

Then Bernard is saying something and it has Tim snorting with laughter and he forgets his irritation.

Once they arrive Bernard settles himself at the top of one of the ramps like it’s a throne. “Entertain me!” he calls, “Impress me with your wheel-board magic.

Tim manages a kick-flip on his first attempt and Bernard makes a loud noise of approval.

A lot of stuff comes back to Tim fairly quickly. Most of skateboarding had been muscle memory for him and that’s something that being a vigilante hadn’t exactly hindered. As things return to him he regains some faint memories of why he’d stopped. Nothing specific, just that feeling of not having enough time. Of thinking that going to the skatepark wasn’t a particularly useful way to spend his hours while there was still real work to be done.

Tim’s always been a vigilante first, but he thinks there must have been a point when that wasn’t the only thing he was. Well, when it wasn’t the only thing he was that mattered.

“Come on!” Bernard shouts, teeth flashing white against Gotham’s grey-black sky. “I was promised entertainment!”

Tim laughs. He seems to do that a lot around Bernard these days.

He starts moving on the skateboard, deciding to leave the existentialism for another day.

~

First Dick and now Bruce. Tim’s family has really been making a habit of being weird around him lately.

He would normally think that the Bruce was worried about him, that Dick had passed along some bullshit about his mental health and Bruce was practicing some silent vigil. The problem with that theory is that Tim’s been getting better recently, so there wouldn’t be much point. At least he thinks he’s been getting better. It’s difficult to tell sometimes.

Bruce has definitely been acting weird around him though, so maybe he isn’t getting better. Maybe Bruce spotted something Tim didn’t and he’s on the road to insanity.

“What do you want?” Bruce asks one day as they’re both working in the cave. Not Batman. Bruce.

It’s a far stupider question than it was when Barbara or Dick asked it. Bruce is the person who made Tim’s desires what they are. He’s the one who took Tim’s obsession and carved it into a goal.

“What?” Tim asks, loud and confused and maybe a little angry. “What do you mean ‘what do I want’? I want the mission! What else am I supposed to want?”

Bruce stays silent for a moment and Tim imagines him turning the words over in his head. “Nothing else?” Bruce asks. He sounds sad and it makes the anger drain from Tim’s body. “Just the mission?”

“I don’t need anything else.” Tim says hollowly.

Bruce just nods, thinking. It makes Tim want to scream even as satisfaction rises in his chest.

It’s always been a point of pride that he can to lie to Batman. He’s hardly going to change his mind about that now.

~

“People keep asking me what I want.” Tim says, sat on Bernard's bed. “I don’t like it.”

Bernard's turns away from the laptop on his desk so he can look at Tim. “You ever tell them the truth?”

Tim shrugs. He isn’t sure what else to do. “Ish?”

Bernard smiles. “Anyone ever tell you you’re impossible, Tim Drake?”

“Only everyone I’ve ever met.”

Bernard barks out a laugh before sobering up and looking at Tim with ill-disguised curiosity. “Do you want to tell me the truth about it? Or did you just want to say the thing out loud?”

“I’m not sure.” Tim admits, and he has to stop himself from acting taken aback by the fact he actually said that. Tim never says when he’s uncertain. There isn’t room for it. Bernard must know that too because he looks at Tim in surprise, then scoots his chair closer to the bed so that he and Tim are almost touching.

Bernard looks very cautious. “You know that’s okay, right?”

“I-“ Tim starts, because is it? Is uncertainty the kind of luxury he can afford? “I want to want things. But it feels like I’ve forgotten how.”

“You’ve had a rough couple of years.”

“How do you-“

Bernard smiles knowingly. “You’re not as hard to read as you think, Tim. Well you are. But it’s not difficult to tell that some bad things must have happened since I last saw you.”

“Yeah.” Tim says hoarsely, thinking back to the burn of his muscles as he dug up Kon’s grave, the stinging of desert sand in his eyes, the moment of confusion when he woke up in a league of assassins base unsure if he’d had to die to get there. “Yeah. Bad things happened.” He shakes himself a little, because those aren’t the thoughts he wants lingering. He focuses back on Bernard who’s closer than Tim had realised, worry creased between his eyes. “What about you?” Tim asks, trying to exert some measure of control over the conversation. “What do you want?”

“Thought we were talking about you?” Tim might have let it go with that if not for the note of nervousness in Bernard's voice and the red creeping up the back of his neck.

“We can talk about both of us.”

“It’s not important right now.”

Tim reaches out then. He takes Bernard's hand in his because Bernard makes him laugh and he looks so nervous and Tim wants to. Bernard looks down at their hands in surprise and Tim doesn’t actually feel worried. Just expectant that Bernard is going to squeeze their fingers together more securely. He does. “You sure?” Tim asks.

Bernard just looks at him. Mouth parted with shock. He seems to come back to himself though and his expression of surprise turns into something more confident. More familiar. “What if I wanted you?” he asks, hesitancy and confidence rolled into one voice.

“Give me some time to remember how to want things, and I think I’ll want that too.” Tim replies, just as unsure and utterly certain.

Bernard tangles their fingers together a little more firmly in response and Tim feels more hopeful than he has in a long time.

[snipehuntpotatosack]

Omniscient Science

A slightly scary-looking scientist has popularized the practice of yelling “Science is Right” at people who are in denial, to use a polite term, about well-established things. Like that it’s getting hotter. Or the mutability of species. Or the roundness of earth, etc. The tone imparted includes a certain righteous hostility. Of course, Mister scary-looking means, by science, what he knows to be actual, good, respectable science, as opposed to many things that get published as science which are not scientifically valid at all.

Then there are gray areas. I’ve recently seen web posts expressing this hostility toward “authors who say” “Relativity is wrong”, or “Darwin’s theory was wrong.” First, just to dispense with it, the number of humans qualified to comment in any way on the Special and General theories of Relativity is a very small number. I’m not one of them, but I know they are few.

 But apart from that, when the press (past) or the media (current) headlines something as “Article contests Theory of Evolution,” it is virtually never because an author thinks Darwin was totally wrong; that species are not mutable, that environment doesn’t affect speciation, etc. It’s always about much tinier things, much more technical details - something Darwin originally said about how the whole very complex process proceeds, especially regarding humans. Darwin, after all, had no idea about genetics – that came later. The basic world-changing idea is still established, lots of specifics are still to be teased out. As non-experts, we might reasonably call these “gray areas” rather than leap tooth and nail on some tenure candidate cause People magazine accused them of disagreeing with Darwin.

 Then there are areas which are not just gray but extremely cloudy, or worse. The media loves to run news about quantum physics. Which is whatever physicists say it is. An extremely well-respected and high-ranking quantum theorist, no names please, recently announced to the world that the entire universe is one quantum (i.e. a single unitary thing). He did not mean this In a philosophical way; he meant there is no time, no space, no causality as we mean it, just a frozen mass of structure that has ‘already happened.’ How there can be structure within a single giant quantum is not too clear, but… The crucial datum for believing this is a finding called ‘quantum entanglement’, showing that two quanta (infinitely small things) can influence each other across hundreds of miles of open space – like, from earth to a position in earth orbit, violating all prior understanding of physics. Based on this, says Mister Respectable, everything you think about reality is bullshit. Are you ready to swallow this whole? Of course, my attempt at explaining his position is full of error, because I am non-expert – which illustrates the problem in placing absolute trust in Science. This person is making a claim that may not be representable (or, fully defensible) in human language.

 Before closing, I would like to remind you of some other things that Science says now (or at least appears to say now, according to some people, some of the time, in some of the media), and also some of the things Science has said in the past.

 Science says that men are an inferior, toxic gender because their genetic tendencies, hormones, etc. predispose them to violence and bad thinking. You shouldn’t let this worry you too much, because not long ago, Science said the same but opposite About women, inferior etc., because of genetics, hormones, etc.

 I.Q. tests have long said that African-Americans are less intelligent than white people, on average. Most people, though not all, now agree the “Intelligence” test does not measure what we are trying to get at when we say “intelligence,” but instead some shared cultural markers. You would think, since this distinction was made decades ago, that by now, a new method of gauging Intelligence would have been agreed on and in general use. Sorry, Science doesn’t seem to be coping with this too well. In fact, Science doesn’t do well at anything about human minds, except to demonstrate again and again how bad those minds are at nailing reality on the fly, whichever color the head is.

 The list of things Science was absolutely certain about when I was half my current age, and has now completely flipped on, is too long to go on about; this thing is already too prolix. Just remember, Science has always endorsed absolutely bullshit things and then had to eat its words. That is the actual process of science – to keep correcting itself. For Mister Slightly Scary to say we can call a halt now – all things Science says RIGHT NOW are true, unlike in all of human history – is very strange. Maybe he thinks the rigor of science has gotten so keen, so diamond hard, that there are no major mistakes anymore. Well of course he would think that (maybe) – this is now, and he is living now, and you can hardly predict yourself to be wrong all the time. Or half.

 Maybe what he should have said (maybe what he really meant was,) Keep Your Political Bullshit Out Of My Science. But you see there’s a problem there too, in the age that spawned the phrase “the personal is political.” Maybe you can guess what the problem is; maybe you can sense the deep divide between someone who says that and someone trying to be a scientist.

I’ve tried to lay out  a defense of skepticism about science - not in favor of just believing whatever you like, but of ongoing suspiciousness, even if that sometimes makes one sound like a climate-change-denying Republican. I would never sound like him, cause he’s wrong on a specific; you have to go down to specifics. You see, they’ve been measuring the change in annual average thermometer readings since sometime back in the nineteenth century; it’s a little late to  backtrack on this one.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

Spooky Stories at Camp Quarantine: The Tale of the Swift Boat

Campfire story (n): a ritual where we all sit under the vast darkness of a midnight sky and tell ourselves a story about the big, scary monster that isn’t lurking just out of sight. You know. Probably.

2004 was a dark and stormy year.

The world pulsed with the still-raw trauma of the September 11 attacks. It was an anxious year of denial and bargaining, a desperate search for the loophole after Sirius Black fell through the veil. The twentieth century was dying and the third millennium was struggling to be born. It was the time of the Swift Boat.

The Usurper Bush the Lesser was in a tough place. If you were paying attention, you could see the signs that his stolen presidency was going to end in disaster and disgrace. And it was an election year, so people were about to start paying attention. So he took a lesson from his dear old Dad: he would unleash the hired help to unload a relentless fusillade of lies against his opponent.

Lying was an important part of the strategy because he was up against a strong challenger. John Kerry of Massachusetts was one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate; he was also a tall, fit, well-educated, impeccably diplomatic, Irish Catholic patrician who didn’t challenge anyone’s idea of what a president looked like. He talked like Barack Obama and looked like Mitt Romney. He was allowed to get pneumonia without anyone losing their goddamn minds, that’s how white and manly he was.

Most critically, though, he seemed to have almost unique standing to campaign against the Bush administration’s spectacular failure in Iraq. At the time, Republicans had – cynically, but effectively – made themselves synonymous with The Troops. Anyone who questioned their lies or challenged their reckless foreign policy was axiomatically discredited as “hating the troops.” Kerry, however, was A Troop, with a track record of telling the hard truth about an unjustified war. He had earned five medals in Vietnam and then used that moral authority to call for an end to the bloodshed. His service gave him a way to connect to a massive group of voters for whom the war had been a generational trauma – and it was a strong contrast to Bush, who had used his wealth and family connections to dodge the draft.

Enter the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This was a group of Vietnam veterans who, in mid-2004, collectively realized that Kerry had lied about his heroism, hoodwinked the military into giving him an award, not once but five times, and successfully covered up his perfidy for thirty-odd years, despite having been scrutinized by Massachusetts voters and press in half a dozen statewide elections. This fantastical tale was largely spun by Jerome Corsi, now known for spreading birtherism (the racist conspiracy theory that former President Obama was not an American citizen), narrowly escaping prosecution by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, and, most recently, hawking Trump’s favorite quack coronavirus cure. They were, naturally, bankrolled by obscenely wealthy Bush supporters.

Maybe these Swift boat veterans were purposefully lying; maybe they were sad old men whose trauma was manipulated by right-wing propagandists. But they did what they were supposed to do. Kerry’s campaign lost its footing and never quite got it back. Instead of being able to challenge Bush’s lies about about the war in Iraq that was happening at the time, he was stuck on the defensive against Bush’s lies about the Vietnam war, which had ended decades before. In one retrospectively critical moment of priming the conservative base for Donald “I like the people who weren’t captured” Trump, delegates at the Republican convention wore silly purple heart bandaids to mock the wounds Kerry received in combat.

We know how that ended. Bush won the popular vote by around 2%, which back in the day actually used to be enough to win the election. Thus, ISIS rose and New Orleans drowned.

The thing is, the bad guys don’t actually forget the past as easily as they hope you do. When a play works, they run it again. When a play almost works, they run it again but better. When a play doesn’t immediately work, it still rallies the right-wing base and softens up the general public for their authoritarian politics of lies and abuse, so they keep it in their back pocket. So we should probably try to understand the specific elements that made the Swift boat propaganda campaign particularly effective.

Imagine you’re an amoral Republican candidate and I’m your mercenary sociopath of a campaign manager. I’ve just said, “look, you’re getting your ass kicked, we’re going to have to swiftboat your opponent” and you’re like “what’s a swiftboat? Write me a memo!” So, here it is. (You may be thinking “but you don’t know anything about me, and I’d never be a Republican candidate for anything!” Lesson the first: it doesn’t matter, because your swiftboat attack has nothing to do with you.) 

A swiftboat attack is bullshit. We like to think the truth is the most effective political weapon, but what if there really aren’t any disqualifying skeletons in your opponent’s closet? If you’re going to sabotage them anyway, that’s kind of liberating. After all, true stories depend on facts, which can be too boring to stick with people, and don’t have made-to-spec story arcs that conveniently fit with your campaign’s themes. Plus, if you’re relying on some actual truth that exists in the universe, you’re running the risk that there’s some mitigating factor out there, some witness who can give different context or a wronged party who can say they’ve buried the hatchet. Worse, your opponent already knows about stuff they actually did. Campaigns do a ton of background research into their own candidates, specifically so that they’re prepared for a predictable attack. They can’t prepare themselves for literally anything your army of political strategists can imagine, so you will always have the element of surprise.

Swiftboating isn’t an attack on your opponent’s policy. It’s an accusation that they’ve violated some taboo. There’s some sticky detail that people won’t quite be able to forget, even if they are exposed to the eventual debunking. The story, whatever it is, should be most upsetting to a large, important block of voters who are inclined to support your opponent.

The allegations don’t come from you, your campaign, or even a sympathetic journalist. They’re laundered through apparent private citizens who are part of a group of people that the general public tends to find sympathetic. This makes your story seem more credible to at first glance, wrong-foots anyone who wants to defend your opponent against the allegations, and lets you get credit for insincerely denouncing the attack while continuing to benefit from it.

This is a dick-swinging exercise, so be shameless. You’re not just putting your opponent in their place by showing you can get away with lying about them, and maddeningly rejecting responsibility for your lies. You’re showing off an authoritarian contempt for truth itself.

You need a relentless multimedia assault, impossible for people to miss. You might have to bully legitimate media into teaching the controversy, but they’re wimps. You’re not trying to convince most people that this specific story is true, you’re just trying to plant some seeds of doubt, and to sap time and enthusiasm from your opponent and their supporters. Make the election as miserable as possible and voters will reward you for it.

The most important thing is that you want your swiftboat attack to be on some area where you have a real liability and your opponent has a real strength. You want them to have to defend themselves on something they should get to use as a selling point. Even better, you neutralize a totally fair criticism of yourself – no matter how accurate they are or how ridiculous you sound, the press will dismiss it as “both sides point fingers.”

Kerry’s campaign gets used as some kind of object lesson about the futility of primary voters trying to pick a candidate they think will win: “Kerry was supposed to be electable and Kerry lost, so there.” (You’ve probably heard the even stupider cover version, “if Hillary was so electable, why’d she let herself get targeted by all those criminal conspiracies, HMMMM?”) This is 20/20 hindsight spiked with the just world fallacy. John Kerry seemed like a good candidate because he was, in fact, a good candidate, which is why he did significantly better expected, and he came pretty close to beating the odds. If there’s a lesson here, maybe it’s that swiftboating can keep a clearly electable candidate from being elected.

That’s a real buzzkill because it means we can’t treat the primaries like a round of playoffs where we root for the most exciting player and then kick back to watch the finals. But what it lacks in self-gratification, it makes up for with agency. If a swiftboat attack is supposed to affect how people respond to a candidate, then people get to choose whether or not we play along.

Trump, a textbook narcissist who instinctively projects his infinite failings onto others, is almost a swiftboating savant. His campaign is being handled by the professional Republican operatives behind the original Swift Boat campaign. (Literally, some of the same guys.) So as we move into the general election, know that this is in their bag of tricks. If you start to hear alarming stories about presumptive Democratic nominee former Vice President Biden or any other prominent Democrats on the ballot …. give it the smell test, is all I’m saying.

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

[lokiarsene]

like yesterday, here's a bullet list of my thoughts for episodes 18~21

thoughts on episode 18:

oh no, it's the beach episode.

-- i really like how they show the way the PT take care of futaba. ren patiently cleaning up her room in between hours at the florist, them playing vidya with her, or just having lunch together in montage moments is very sweet. it makes me wish the anime had much slower pacing, more slice of life-y kind of drama.

-- watching yusuke, ryuji, and futaba lose their freakin minds over good curry is VERY relatable.

-- i still don't understand why ann and makoto thought that a two piece frilly bathing suit was the way to go with futaba. a one piece that she could wear under a long wrap or a hoodie would've made so much more sense... but >male gaze

-- have i told y'all how fucking tired i am of the sexualization of the teenage girls in p5 yet, and how it is one of the several things that fuckin ruined this game for me

have i?

well here it is again

none of the previous games were as bad as this b t w and p4 had one of the dungeons be a STRIP CLUB.

-- yusuke and his lobsters are wonderful.

-- oh god i forgot COMPLETELY about the whole 'mental shutdowns' thing in this game's plot. i think because it's all so pointlessly convoluted. p3 had something similar but even there it was just people turned catatonic for weeks on end when the monthly boss-shadows drew near.

i think the reason i find this so hard to understand is because from p3 to p4 the rules of shadows didn't really change so much. p3 had the persona users go up against shadow bosses; p4 had people confront the shadows within themselves, either accepting them completely (which then turned into persona), or the shadow 'absorbed' the person and ran rampant as a monster. neither of those rules really contradict each other, but in p5 personal shadows for persona users are gone completely, and how you deal with other people's personal shadows doesn't even involve them being present to complete the merge.

mona says that persona users can't have palaces, but persona users in 4 could and DID have 'dungeons' within the shadows' worlds. these dungeons dealt specifically with what was at the core of the shadows' emergence--a deep secret and a hidden truth that caused the shadow to grow, a place that was a replica and a distortion of reality based upon that suppressed truth. so that sure sounds like a fucking palace to me.

so....................... unless there's like, multiple realities folded into our own, and persona users can only access certain ones.................. i'm just super confused.

like, i know it's because the rules change game to game, but p3 to p4 didn't have any contradictions, and p2 didn't contradict anything in p3, either. it just went from a full party of wild card users to a singular one.

-- i'm glad ann's getting a little screentime here. i was just thinking about how other characters' development was lacking after makoto and futaba got so much focus.

-- mona's so sweet to ann ;-; now that he has a human form in p5r, i hope they become really good friends. she needs a kind guy friend that'll be reliable~ plus he makes her laugh.

-- sojiro talking about the anniversary of wakaba's death is......... really interesting........ considering that screenshot of futaba sitting next to a woman with the exact same haircut as her "deceased" mother.

-- ren reassuring mona that he absolutely has to be human, that he will return to who he used to be once they figure out what's happening in the metaverse is jsut jdfklasd

AND HIS LIL ROUND OF APPLAUSE WHEN MONA TALKS ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE'S GOING TO DO TO KEEP THE WORLD SAFE ;-;

AND THAT SHOT OF HIM SLEEPING CURLED UP ON REN'S STOMACH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

-- listen i know mona isn't rly a cat but he's the BEST cat

thoughts on episode 19:

oh it's the hawaii episode.

-- man what the hell kinda budget do these school's got that they can just go overseas with dozens of students on a yearly basis? that's impressive.

-- ryuji: "whoa, awesome! ..... i don't really get it, but awesome!" fjdsafds okay that got a laugh outta me. good one, ryuji.

-- ren: "i'm excited, too." (said in a monotone) fjklsadsl BLESS THIS BOY

-- ren's FACE when he learns that futaba installed a spying app on his phone and can hear him/see pictures he takes is...... kind of hilarious. especially if you have the headcanon that he and akechi send dumbass snapchats to each other a lot--which i do. and which you do now, too.

-- mona's depression is ten times more sad because he's a cat okay :c why they gotta make the cat so cute

-- ren, ryuji, and ann's lil sleepover is adorable. especially since ann chastises ryuji for not knowing one of the basic rules of a sleepover: if you start talkin' about your crushes, you gotta start with your own~ thems the rules lads

-- rip principal bloatneck.

-- honestly that truck shoulda at least TRIED to stop.

-- "A LO HA." goddammit that's adorable

AND HE GIVES THE LEI NECKLACE TO MONA FJDSKFJDSKL ren you're so SWEET.

-- I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT MONA CALLS SAE "ONEE-NO-NIIJIMA" FJADSKLFJDSKL ahhhh it's so cute.

-- the PT targeting okumura, who is essentially the dave thomas with political ambitions of the persona 5 world, is far funnier now that i phrase it like that.

-- ANN, OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE, SAYING THAT THEY PROBABLY BROUGHT THIS RECENT TROUBLE ON THEMSELVES, IS A FUCKING STUPID WRITING DECISION. I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE DIDN'T LOOK AT THAT AND GO, "ANN WOULDN'T SAY THIS. ANN HAS NO REASON TO SAY IT." god. lmao PLEASe let p5r be a goddamn second draft.

-- mona's totally right that ryuji's just concerned with getting popular and his dick wet. like,,, that's why this argument only made me hate ryuji more than i already did. he gets pissy when mona points out the truth.

god he sucks lmao

I'M SORRY I'M SO SALTY YOU GUYS

LOOK I'LL SAY SOMETHING NICE: SAE AND AKECHI ARE COOL

-- i really like how guarded akechi's face looks in his conversation with sae, and how off his guard he looks when she tells him that she's not going to hold back, especially since the culprit is doing such dire, awful things. he's not exactly surprised, but he's definitely uneasy and shaken by what he hears. which makes me wonder who he’s really concerned for--himself, or for ren (and the PT by extension, but akechi only really seems to care about ren, so).

the reason i like that is because the okumura arc in p5 is really where akechi's mind starts its downward spiral. principal kobayakawa's death obviously rattled him, especially since the only reason the principal died was because shido saw him as useless and disposable, something akechi is desperate NEVER TO BE. and it's that + what happens with okumura that really kicks him over the edge.

i hope p5r will give us the chance to pull him back from it. he deserves a better chance than the game's subpar writing gave to him.

thoughts on episode 20:

-- ren wakes up in a panic because he thinks he sees mona on his bed ;___________;

-- goro snoopin' on the PT's LOUD, TOTALLY CONSPICUOUS conversation in front of okumura foods' HQ is kind of adorable if you remember he clearly loves star wars (HE HAS A LIGHT SABER), and the camera cuts to his face right as they're talking about big bang and outer space lingo.

-- oh, haru. i really wish you were the black mask. that would've been so much cooler--and an actual twist. her total hopeless panic about being a beauty thief could still be a thing (because it is actually endearing), it'd just be an act. but that's me talkin' fix-its again.

-- i really like the scene of haru defending mona to the PT on the rooftop, then cutting to show just how strained her relationship is with her father. she exists to be useful to her father's ambitions and nothing else, and that scene really drove home just how painful that is for her.

-- REN TWIRLS HIS HAIR BETWEEN TWO FINGERS WHEN HE'S DEEP IN THOUGHT. AHHHHHHH I FORGOT HE DID THAT

-- oh hey remember how the game went through the trouble of showing how haru's fiance is a sexist, violent, animal-hurting piece of shit and then promptly failed to actually separate her from him in game (i think you only can do that in her s-link?? the s-link you can barely finish in your first run of the game??), and in t hEN SHOWED HER IN THE CAR WITH HIM LATER, LOOKING HORRIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE?

god this story makes me so fucking mad lmfao STOP PUTTING GIRLS IN PHYSICALLY OR SEXUALLY VIOLENT PERIL AND NEVER ACTUALLY ENSURING THAT THEY'RE SAFE, YOU DAVID CAGE LEVEL OF HACK BULLSHIT WRITERS.

-- ryuji running into the attic, all worried about mona, with a first aid kit, is..... very good. very good and endearing. good on you, ryuji.

-- haru gently encouraging mona to tell the truth is also really good. idk if i just missed it in the game or what, but i really like how she's presented in the anime. she's like a counterpart to ren--soft, sincere, observant, patient, yet she's made of pure steel beneath all that.

thoughts on episode 21:

-- WHY WAS HARU'S GRANDFATHER GIVING COFFEE TO A FIVE YEAR OLD

-- haru, the reason your father's heart grew twisted is thanks to capitalism. you gotta change the heart of capitalism.

-- not to be all poochie here but whenever akechi isn't on screen, all i can ask myself is whERE'S AKECHI?

-- HOW CAN I TAKE THE EVIL DAVE THOMAS SERIOUSLY WHEN HE'S DRESSED LIKE FUCKIN MEGAMIND?

-- okay see this is where i'm thrown completely out of the story or even really liking haru. haru just listened to her dad's shadow saying he would PIMP HER OUT TO HER FIANCE WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. and she still is just like ~no i want him to go back to being kind~

bitch are you nuts

are you NUTS

youR DAd SHOULD DIE AND YOU'D BE BETTER OFF

CONSIDERING HOW THE GAME GOES, YOU ARe BETTER OFF

god. i'm getting so mad again lmao

-- ren approaching haru to point out that if the truth of her father's crimes comes to light, she'll forever be associated with him (and with all the harm and ruined reputation that brings) is, once again, further reminder of just how... damn good ren is. he doesn't hesitate to speak from the heart nor does he ever fail to listen to someone else speak from theirs.

-- also not for nothing but uh

how did the cops not like

figure out how the PT phan-site was set up within the first few months and track it down to mishima? was that ever addressed at all?

-- honestly another reason why i get so fucking mad about this okumura stuff is the game goes SO FAR OUT OF ITS WAY to make you feel BAD that he died, when he was by all rights a fucking shitheel monster, yet when akechi dies it's like 'oh well. that sucked.' fuck off, atlus. the death of a greedy, heartless CEO isn't more sad just because his gaslit daughter is conditioned to be sad about it.

i understand that a large part of the shock after okumura's death is because the PT don't know if they did anything wrong. but okumura was in no way a good person. he was in no way a person whose redemption overruled all the hurt and harm he did. that has been the case for EVERY PT target before this, so why the fuck is okumura suddenly so different? why SHOULD he be?

the difference between him and, say, akechi is that okumura et. al. all made those choices on their own to do terrible things. they delighted in it, they enjoyed it. but akechi, much like futaba, was forced into a cycle of self-destruction--it’s just that in futaba’s case, her self-destruction targeted herself, and akechi’s was quite literally weaponized and used against others. he approached shido as a young teenager and was then used by him for years.

a teenage boy being used as a magical hitman by his shitlord father is far more deserving of sympathy and redemption than grown adults who willingly make the decision to harm, abuse, and prey on others. but no, the game didn’t want to do that.

this is another big problem i have with p5's second and third acts: it's so tonally dissonant and sloppy. it's like they didn't try to actually be as rebellious and hellraiser-y as the first act WANTED to be, and it all ends up being such a limp-dick shriveled mess of "let's fight against this rotten society!! ......... as long as it in no way actually upsets anyone or does any REAL change." fuck off lmao

that's not me even commenting on the "twist" and how it needed to be explained MULTIPLE TIMES to the player for it to make any sense.

and it still doesn't make sense to me btw.

so that's another thing i hope p5r fixes.

-- rip evil dave thomas megamind.

-- akechi floating the idea to sae that the phantom thieves had nothing to do with okmura’s death is............................ interesting.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THERE MUST BE A BETTER SOLUTION

It's as if they were sent back 50 years in a time machine. Instead of getting a prototype out quickly and gradually refining it, you can think instead That's an interesting idea, you can choose your pain: either the short, sharp pain of raising money itself can kill you.1 I didn't notice my model was wrong until I tried to convince users to pay for what we'd built. It would be pretty straightforward to make a list of the most successful startups almost all begin this way. The way I've described it, starting a startup is best seen not as a way to get there is to go through good and come out the other side senses weakness—if they sense you need this deal—they will be very tempted to screw you in the details. The people we funded came from all over the country indeed, the world and afterward they went wherever they could get more funding—which generally meant Silicon Valley. And Wufoo got valuable feedback from it: Linux users complained they used too much Flash, so they must be promising something people want is to take a long view and arguably you can't afford not to, you can expect to have a toplevel to be convenient, and mandatory type declarations are incompatible with a toplevel, then no language that makes type declarations mandatory could be convenient to program in. The fact is, most startups end up nothing like the initial idea is that, in the narrow sense of the word 'is' is. There were interesting things about the architecture of our software, but we can be sure people are going to build things that get used for pornography, or file-sharing, or the expression of unfashionable opinions. One YC startup negotiated terms for a tiny round with an angel, only to receive a 70-page agreement from his lawyer. I was talking recently to a friend who teaches at MIT. Icio.

No matter what you work on, you're type-B procrastinators—the whole company starts to resonate at their frequency. Microcomputers seemed like toys when Apple and Microsoft started working on them. If taste is just personal preference is a good sign when you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific group or type of user. Occasionally it's obvious from the beginning when there's a path out of an idea, how do you get good ideas for startups? All the time you spend practicing a talk, you could succeed this way.2 Once a product gets past the stage where it has glaring flaws, you start to get used to it, and learn what they know. 30 would be enough to feel like a little bit in the commitment department, and that will kill you very rapidly. You have to be more interesting than a stretch of flashy but mindlessly repetitive painting of, say, genetics. Now almost every drawing teacher will tell you that taste is just personal preference, then everyone's is already perfect: you like whatever you like, and it frees conscious thought for the hard problems.3 The numbers for me ended up being something like 500 to 800 plans received and read, somewhere between 50 and 100 initial 1 hour meetings held, about 20 companies that I got interested in, about 5 that I got serious about and did a bunch of work, and when you're not paying attention, you keep making these same gestures, but somewhat randomly.

How do you tell whether something is the germ of a giant company, or just a niche product?4 Whereas there appears to be great demand for them. I'm not a very good speaker. But Mark already lived online; to him it seemed natural. My friend Robert learned a lot by writing network software when he was an undergrad. Inductive proofs are wonderfully short. What goes through the kid's head at this point is not trying to paint like Michelangelo. And this team is the right one to do it.5 The people who really care will find what they want.

The person who needs something may not know exactly what they need. The point is, you may end up hooking a very big fish with this bait. There have been startups that ignored this advice and got away with it because no one else is likely to tell you something like you like to do that instead of becoming a serious rival to Silicon Valley? So Hamming's exercise can be generalized to: What's the best thing you can do, but assume the worst about machines and other people.6 This is another one I've been repeating since long before Y Combinator. What does he think great artist means? Countless startups destroyed themselves this way during the Internet bubble.7 To do good work yourself if you're too far removed from one of these centers.8 They want to invest in their portfolio companies. That might seem a stupid thing to ask.9

Notes

Bullshit in the time. The Industrial Revolution, England was already the richest of their hands.

If you can discriminate on the subject today is still hard to say for sure a social network for x. One advantage startups have exits at all. Since they don't have to spend all your time on is a way that makes you much more depends on the server.

Later stage investors won't invest.

The problem is poverty, not just that they violate current startup fashions. This is a case of journalists, someone did, but this disappointment is mostly evidence that the meaning of the deal. If you want to pound that message home. If a conversation in which multiple independent buildings are traditionally seen as temporary; there is something there worth studying as a single VC investment that began with an online service, this is also not a VC recently who said they wanted to.

An accountant might say that a shift in power to founders. But a couple hundred years ago.

People tell the whole story. Maybe it would take forever to raise money after Demo Day pitch, the LPs who invest in a situation where the acquirer wants the employees.

Ed. It shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach students how to allocate research funding moderately well, since 95% of the company is presumably worth more, while they may introduce startups they like to partners at their firm, the editors think the main reason I say the raison d'etre of prep schools is to claim retroactively I said that a their applicants come from going to need to warn readers about, and also what we'd call random facts, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by you based on revenues of 1.

There is a function of prep schools do, but suburbs are so different from technology companies between them. Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this type are also the main effect of low salaries as the first philosophers including Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions.

The wave of the tube of their assets; and not fixing them fast enough, a day job. 65 million. But a lot of people who are younger or more ambitious the utility function for money.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Ben Horowitz, Paul Buchheit, and Chip Coldwell for inviting me to speak.

[violetganache42]

My Thoughts on the Logan Paul Controversy

WARNING: The following post contains descriptions of the graphic material that was recorded on Logan’s most recent vlog, which was thankfully taken down. It also consists of opinions on his and Jake’s unforgivable actions prior to this incident, as well as cursing and the possibility of some heated rage, in which I would like to apologize for in advance. If I also come off as rude in some aspects, then I’m sorry for that too. No one ever thought 2018 was going to start off like this and leave them with intense fury over it. I would also like to apologize if the topics of depression, mental illnesses, and suicide upsets or triggers anyone who is reading this. That is not my intention whatsoever. This is my overall opinion on a very controversial issue and I don’t mean to upset or trigger anyone in doing so. With all that said and done, reader discretion is advised.

Okay, I never talk about them, but because of what recently happened, I want to quickly address the elephant in the room: I hate Jake and Logan Paul. Actually, “hate” is not the right word to describe them; how about “loathe?” Maybe “despise?” “Spite?” “Resent?” Whatever the word choice is, the two are both terrible celebrities together and individually for a variety of reasons. 

As you already know, both Jake and Logan achieved their fame back in 2013 when Vine was around, achieving 5.3 million and 3.1 million followers respective by the time of its shutdown. When they switched over to YouTube on November and September of 2016 accordingly, it all went downhill from then on. In general, they spew diss tracks at each other, churn out frantic videos in order to gain viewership and consume free online content, and sell merchandise from their clothing lines instead of being TV actors. The only problem is kids between the ages of 8 and 15 aren’t necessarily part of America’s economy, so combining their focus on this specific demographic with their insatiable thirst for fame and greed, it’s basically a lose-lose situation for them. But that’s not all I have to say about them because looking at them individually, they have their own brand of problematic behaviors and content.

In Jake’s case, he endured the most controversy because he’s been exposed as nothing but an annoying douchebag who did the following: made racist remarks on his minor characters in his videos, accused of emotionally abusing and manipulating his ex-girlfriend Alissa Violet, cyberbullied and brought down people online, constantly disrupted his peaceful neighborhood and his neighbors with his stunts and pranks, delivered pop culture phrases in an obnoxious manner during an interview that came off as—how the kids describe stuff nowadays—“cringey.” Not to mention his atrocious music video for his song “It’s Everyday Bro” dealt some serious damage to his career by receiving over 3 million dislikes on YouTube. He even got fired from Disney mid-season of Bizaardvark on July 24 for acting like his fame gives him the freedom for doing whatever the fuck he wants. What grinds my gears about him is he made all these apology videos and keeps claiming that he’s changed and moved on, but there is strong evidence that proves otherwise.

As for Logan, he has managed to escape controversy up until now by having roles on films and TV shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Weird Loners, Airplane Mode, the YouTube Red film The Thinning, and in the upcoming movie Valley Girl, taking part in a partnership with Dwayne Johnson, and opening his own brand called Maverick. Heck, his diss song, “The Fall of Jake Paul,” had managed to gather better reception from his fans, scoring only 173,000 dislikes, which is far less than the 3 million dislikes from “It’s Everyday Bro,” because of the actual effort put into it and the massive controversy Jake currently has. Of course, it still doesn’t change the fact that he is still a horrible person when you consider the info above, and his newest vlog helps showcase it. Without further ado, it’s time for me to stop talking about the past and focus on the present… and boy, do I have a lot to say about this.

For those of you who not aware or are just hearing about this, allow me to explain what exactly happened; however, I am generously giving you the choice to skip this because what I am about to describe may make you feel uncomfortable. For those of you brave enough to read the issue, please keep scrolling.

Earlier this week, on New Year’s Eve, Logan and three of his friends were traveling in Japan when they stumbled upon Aokigahara, which is best known as the country’s “Suicide Forest.” They all ended up going in the forest when they discovered the corpse of a man who hung himself, one of the most common methods suicide victims use to kill themselves in there. One of the friends was feeling uneasy about what they were witnessing, and despite his seriousness, Logan laughed it off and soon referred to it as “a moment in YouTube history,” only for him to get one hell of a reality check. As of now, so many people via YouTube and Twitter have reacted in absolute anger and/or disgust at what he had done and have been calling out on it, including Robyn from Anime America, Joey the Anime Man, Gaijin Goombah, Lost Pause, Game Theory, Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Game of Throne’s Sophie Turner, JackSepticEye, Stefan Karl, and even PewDiePie of all people. The immense amount of backlash had gotten to a point where he deleted the video and posted two apologies, one each on Twitter and YouTube. I will get to those later, but for right now, let me give my input on this.

First off, let’s break down the group’s reaction. Since the video was removed, I was able to find snippets of their dialogue from it thanks to CNN, which can be found here.

Logan: This is a first for me. This literally probably just happened.

Friend: I don’t feel good.

Logan: What, you never stand next to a dead guy?

Friend: No.

Logan: *laughs* It was gonna be a joke. This was all a joke. Why did it become so real?

Friend: Depression and mental illnesses is not a joke. We came here with the intent to focus on the haunted aspect of the forest. This just became very real.

Oh, boy. Where do I even begin with this? Logan, your friend is absolutely right. Depression and mental illnesses are not jokes, let alone FUCKING suicide! This was his first time seeing an actual dead body with his own two eyes and you laughed it off like it was nothing! For all we know, this could’ve been your first time seeing like this too, but why the fuck would you joke around like that if you were originally planning to explore the Suicide Forest’s haunted atmosphere?! It completely depletes the initial intent of your plans for your vlog all because of your “humor” in this! On a side note, whoever his friend is, can we please give him a round of applause for having the knowledge to understand what is and isn’t a joke? Because at least he gets the situation they were in.

And that brings me to another point I want to bring out: why he was joking around with what he saw. After they all ran out of the forest and into the parking lot, Logan said this that really caught my attention:

Logan: “…the smiling and laughing… is not a portrayal of how I feel about the circumstances. Everyone copes with shit differently… I cope with things with humor.”

WHAT?!

I’m sorry, but no! That is utter bullshit! Using humor to cope with something such as fear is fine, but using it to deal with the fact you stumbled across a REAL corpse?! That’s crossing the line! It helps illustrate that what you did was inhumanely wrong, and you know what?! The backlash proves it! When it became known to the public with around 6.5 million views, the viewers were repulsed by what you did! You showed them, from fans and people who don’t like to YouTubers, celebrities, and the media, that you have zero respect for the suicide victims through your insensitivity and voyeurism of this seriously important subject!

Not even your “Viewer Discretion is Advised” banter helped prevent this from happening, which leads me to readdressing your target demographic! For all we know, there could have been little children watching this and they would have either been scared that they saw the same hanging corpse or influenced negatively as shown by this tweet below!

“The other day my 7 year old sister showed me logan pauls video on the dead body and i was disgusted and told her to turn it off.My sister is 7 YEARS OLD and loves and watches logan paul all the time. later we went outside to do painting and she painted a hanging man in a forest” — Aoife Dormer (@aoife_dorma)

If anything, you could have emphasized your warning on how there are graphic material that are not suitable for children/minors, replaced “Advised” with “Recommended,” and made the video 18+ so that they would’ve been unable to watch it! Even so, it still didn’t change the fact it broke one of YouTube’s policy: prohibiting the depiction of violent, gory, or graphic material in a shocking, sensational, or disrespectful manner unless the footage is used for educational or documentary-based purposes. I’m not gonna touch upon how the staff aren’t pressing this forward or why they didn’t react sooner, but I digress. In my opinion, not changing the rating of your vlog—and having it violate a YouTube policy regardless—was part of a completely careless move on your part.

Oh, and this doesn’t end there; this actually leads into my next point: the apologies and the aftermath.

In the midst of the swift outcry of the enraged public, Logan deleted the video and tweeted an apology on New Year’s Day at exactly 10 PM about what he posted, but instead of taming the flame, it made things worse… and I can easily tell why. Much like the last remark, this one contradicts what he says.

“I didn't do it for views. I get views. I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity. I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention and while I thought, 'if this video saves just ONE life, it'll be worth it,' I was misguided by shock and awe, as portrayed in the video.”

Dear God, there is a shit ton wrong with this tone-deaf apology it makes me want to scream! What pisses me off the most is his claim and there is strong proof in not only this tweet but also in my thoughts on the vlog that highlights how that is bullshit as well!

You should’ve thought about your actions ahead of time! You were given multiple choices on what to do when you and your friends encountered the hanging dead body in Aokigahara: “Should I keep this vlog?” “How should I feel about or respond to this?” “Should I edit it out or leave it in?” “How will everyone else react?” At the end of the day, you chose the wrong choices and it resulted in heated negative consequences.

You were NOT raising awareness for suicide prevention, which is the main reason why this tweet makes me livid! The vlog proves you laughed at what you saw and cracked jokes about it, despite your friend’s input on this unsettling discovery! A lot of people, even YouTube, agree that the material was shocking for the viewers, you sensationalized at said material, and you were outright disrespectful about it by treating suicide like a fucking joke through your “coping mechanism!”

You were not “misguided;” basically, this third reason ties in with the second one.

Because of this, an insane amount of criticism was unleashed, with Sophie calling Logan “an idiot,” his claim “mocking,” and his apology “self-praising,” Aaron referring to him as “pure trash” who can “go rot in hell,” and surprisingly Rebecca Black stating that how someone with “such power and influence could intensify “an entire family’s grief beyond measure.” And guess what? She is right! One of the people calling out on him was Anna Akana, who and her brother both had to deal with the loss of her sister after she committed suicide! Not only that, but there are also people struggling with depression and have contemplated suicide, especially in Japan, who are infuriated and sickened by what they watched/heard because they knew what he did was an epitome of bad publicity... No, “bad” isn’t the best way to describe this; what they discovered was appalling publicity! It’s even worse when you realize publicity is one of the main contributors to suicide contagion, especially when a young age group is exposed to it! Given Logan’s fanbase mainly consists of children and young teenagers, that vlog was a repulsive influence on them and would most likely worsen suicide contagion despite it being removed from YouTube, which reiterates Aoife’s tweet about her younger sister painting a lynched man! The damage has already been dealt and it pisses me off so much that he would influence minors like that!

And that is just the tip of the iceberg because he posted a longer apology video on YouTube the next night amid the rampaging counteraction. Did it do anything to at least settle this dispute? Let’s find out.

“I've made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment and I don't expect to be forgiven. I'm simply here to apologize. So what we came across that day in the woods was obviously unplanned and the reactions you saw on tape were raw and they were unfiltered. None of us knew how to react or how to feel. I should have never posted the video. I should have put the cameras down, stopped recording what we were going through. There's a lot of things I should have done differently but I didn't and for that from the bottom of my heart I am sorry. I want to apologize to the internet, I want to apologize to anyone who has seen the video, I want to apologize to anyone who has been affected or touched by mental illness or depression or suicide but most importantly I want to apologize to the victim and his family. For my fans who are defending my actions, please don't, they don't deserve to be defended. The goal with my content is always to entertain, to push the boundaries, to be all inclusive. In the world I live in I share most everything I do. The intent is never to be heartless, cruel or malicious. Like I said I made a huge mistake. I don't expect to be forgiven. I'm just here to apologize. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm disappointed in myself. And I promise to be better. I will be better. Thank you.”

*frustrated sigh* Oh, dear Lord. There is a reason why posted the transcript of his apology than share the video itself, which I’ll get to after I give my two cents on this. ...Ever since last night, I had a difficult time trying to find a way to reply to this. I read a couple articles saying the video was emotional and somber because of how he was on the brink of tears and it left me at a point of uncertainty; I kept asking myself if he really does deserve to be forgiven or not, but after seeing other posts and getting an update on his newest video, it snapped me out of my state and told me that forgiving Logan would mean defending him, just like his fans... and there was no way in hell I would succumb to a level as low them supporting him. So with my spark reignited, it’s time for me to break this shit down once again!

Logan, let me start this bit off by saying this: it is far too late for you to apologize. What you did was irredeemable, vulgar, disgraceful, and plain rude of you to not only those suffering from depression, mental illnesses, or suicidal issues, but to the entire country of Japan. During your trip, you behaved immaturely by making a complete racist jackass out of yourself in front of foreign tourists/residents while wearing a kimono and made a complete fool out of Americans and Westerners, but your vlog on New Year’s Eve took it too far! You desecrated a corpse, went through him to see if he had any of his belongings with him, laughed and joked about it, and showed no remorse or empathy about what you and your friends came across! Because of you, Japan is now coated in anger; you made them hesitant on us being part of the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo tweeted at you to get out, and you’re now denounced by the Japanese Suicide Prevention Group all because you ridiculed their strict laws and significant efforts into helping lower suicide rates and gave a giant middle finger to country in general by treating it like it’s a fucking playground! What you did was an act of pity because of the imminent backlash and I will never. Forgive. You.

That’s not all; as it turns out, even though Logan clearly said he doesn’t expect forgiveness, his fanbase—like I’m gonna call them by their referred fandom name—still forgave him because they believe “he didn’t mean it” and even had the audacity to attack a Japanese vlogger named Reina Scully in a racist manner all because she criticized his Suicide Forest vlog. ...Okay, first: WHAT?! Second: THE FUCK?! Like before, I apologize for suddenly snapping, but that’s NOT how you defend someone! You do not make harass the harasser by sending them racist remarks, let alone telling her and the Japanese to kill themselves! That is just sick and inhumane! No wonder people are telling others to stop supporting the Paul brothers; their fans are worse than the commonly known bad fandoms!  *sigh* Well, at least it was best of me to not apologize to Logan because there was no way I was going to stoop as low as them. It was also perfect timing on my part because I recently discovered on that his apology video was monetized; in other words, he made thousands of dollars off of it...

Holy fuck! This is all kinds of despicable and messed up! Making between $8.5K and $68.1K off of a simple apology?! Now I am so glad I ultimately kept to my opinions about this sicko instead of accepting him like his other fans because this is one of the many examples of being greedy and money-hungry. 

Because of this, people immediately took to Twitter to repeatedly slam him until it was promptly demonetized. Shortly thereafter, conflicts began to surface regarding YouTube; a petition opened up calling for Logan to be banned from the site (which now has over 130K signatures) and many are giving the website and its staff flack for being hypocritical of the way they review the content of videos. To be honest, I don’t blame them. Although I’m glad they commented on the issue, it obviously wasn’t enough. What used to be a site that got its start from cat videos has become its own economy with terrible decisions they’ve made, from the Fair Use dilemma to labeling LGBT+ videos as “mature content.” Seeing how significant the past few days has become, they really need to wake up, get their humungous sticks out of their asses, and actually contribute than just simply stating what rule Logan violated. Regardless, with all of these factors combined into one, it is easily safe to say this second apology was typically a clear bust.

And what does Logan do now that both apologies were shown to be practically useless? He announces his hiatus last night on Twitter, stating he is “taking time to reflect.” Of course, and not surprisingly, there is a long thread which consists of a division between his effortlessly influenced fandom of youngsters and those who despise him for what he has done, both over the years and on New Year’s Eve.

...I’m done. I’m fucking done. I’m not dealing with this shit anymore. Everything about this is wrong and I am certain I am going to get a headache out of this. I don’t care if he is “reflecting;” knowing him, he is still going to be the same idiotic frat “celebrity” that he is, especially when Maverick Apparel came forward today to say they lost $4 million in profit because of him… and Jake dissed in him in one of the most inappropriate ways ever. Ugh!… Can this nightmare end already?! I swear, it keeps finding ways to make me want to continue this rant! Well, guess what? Not. Anymore. I am concluding this right now and I don’t care what will happen to these two sickos in the near future.

*sigh* Well, to wrap things up, Logan is nothing but a stupid, inane, thick-skinned, money-hungry, thoughtless jackass who only cares about getting richer and, much like Jake, using his fame to do whatever the fuck he wants because he believes there is no such thing as “bad publicity…” until now, that is. He may have been able to dodge controversy in the past, but thanks to his obnoxious, immature personality, he has made him a danger to three important fields after his trip to Japan; he has demonstrated how much of an inadequate influence he is to juveniles countless times in the past and has managed to do so once again with his now-deleted vlog, he has made the entire Japanese country hate him for even stepping foot on their cherished land, and he has sparked yet another battle against YouTube’s policies and regulations.

Logan, I’m going to say this once and only once: it is your fault you showed Japan just how disgustingly inhumane you are by not only fucking around with their cherished laws, traditions, culture, history, and landscape. It is your fault for recording the footage of the corpse, laughing and joking about it, and not giving a single shit about suicide, depression, and mental illnesses. It is your fault you unleashed hell on earth that pitted most of the social media users against you. It is your fault for creating your half-hearted apology tweet and your equally monetized apology video that only added fuel to the fire. It is your fault Japan hates you for treating them poorly. It is your fault you’re now facing serious consequences after showing the world what you did in front of that dead man. It is your fault for ending 2017 and starting 2018 on abysmal notes. I hope your multi-millionaire empire crumbles by having the YT staff banning your vlog channel. I hope the actions you—and Jake—have illustrated over the years and the consequences you face will deal more major blows to your precious careers.

To everyone reading this, I want to say I am genuinely sorry that you saw that vlog or heard what has been going on. I am even sorry at myself for subjecting myself to this horror of learning who the Paul brothers are just to get this rant out of the way. They have a horrible sense of humor and none of the stuff they do is funny, let alone how serious suicide is.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, claiming an average of 44,965 American lives every year, and for every 25 attempts that are made, it annually costs the country $51 billion. In Japan, despite now having over 21,000 people claiming their lives every year—with the majority caused by men—and its suicide rate declining, it still remains as one of the highest rates when compared to other countries. The most common place for the Japanese to kill themselves is in Aokigahara, which has received its infamous nickname, “the Suicide Forest.” It earned its name and has become the 2nd most suicidal place on Earth because around 100 Japanese residents travel there to commit suicide because of its thick trees and its seclusion; two of the frequent ways they kill themselves is through drug overdose or by hanging themselves though other methods are not uncommon. Since then, Japanese officials have been putting their best efforts to decrease the suicide rate.

Suicide is an urgent situation, with depression being the #1 cause of it if left untreated, undiagnosed, or ineffectively treated and mental illnesses, disorders, and contributors such as physical ailments, previous suicide attempts, limited access to mental health treatment closely following suit and cannot be left unnoticed. If you or a loved one is experiencing suicidal thoughts or actions or have had a series of suicidal thoughts or actions, it is not too late to seek help. Whether it is in America, Japan, or anywhere else in the world, call the numbers below based on what country you live in:

United Kingdom: 116 123

United States: 1-800-273-8255

Canada: 5147234000

Mexico: 5255102550

Ireland: 116 123

Brazil: 212339191

Argentina: +5402234930430

Spain: 914590080

Portugal: 225 50 60 70

France: 0145394000

Greece: 1018

Germany: 08001810771

Italy: 800860022

Poland: 52770000

Holland: 0900-0113

Denmark: +4570201201

Sweden: 46317112400

Finland: 040-5032199

Norway: +478153300

Belgium: 1813

Austria: 017133374

Switzerland: 143

Egypt: 7621602

South Africa: 0514445691

Israel: 1201

India: 8888817666

Australia: 131 114

New Zealand: 045861048

Singapore: 1800 221 4444

Philippines: 028969191

Russia: 0078202577577

China: 85223820000

South Korea: 112

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[drferox]

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #21

Looks like it’s time for another round of 20 questions and comments. I’ve tried to tag you all again, but if you asked on Anonymous I have no way of tagging you.

Anonymous said: Do you prefer treating certain animals over others? I'm friends with a few vets and I know one who's pretty much specialized in cats and another who can treat most companion animals but has a strong preference for dogs (good thing dog vet was out hiking with cat vet when cat vet's dog got a face full of porcupine quills lol) .

I do have a preference for cats, we just seem to come to a better mutual understanding, and I'm very softly spoken in person so the cats are less inclined to panic. I used to get along well treating cattle for some reason too, but I'm pretty exclusively in small animal practice these days.

Anonymous said: Does your clinic have a Facebook page? If so - how would you feel if clients posted pictures of their pets to it? My vet recently got my rat through a tough injury and I'd like to post a picture of her now that she's all healed up, but I don't know if that'd be weird or if any of them would even see it.

We love it when it happens. Happy pets with a nice comment on our Facebook page is always welcome. Sometimes we let people email us photos and we post them for us too.

Anonymous said: I know is Aus we're usually told to take injured wildlife to our local vet. Do you mind it, or should they be taken somewhere else instead?

It's perfectly fine for triage, but if somebody brings in an endangered species with a reasonably good prognosis, we'll often recommend it goes to a better equipped clinic for that species. Note very clinic has UV lights for turtles, for example.

Anonymous said: Hello, many years ago I lost my chihuahua to a broken back which I believe stemmed from him jumping onto our couches and beds so often. The experience was very traumatizing for me but now I have another chihuahua who jumps often and I don't often take him to the vet so I was wondering if it is common for smaller dogs to hurt themselves from jumping so often?

To actually break the back would be unusual, but slipping an intervertebral disc so that it prolapses up into the spine is relatively common after jumping off things in tiny dogs.

@justaphage said: I've been wondering about probiotics (this is not a question about the health of my dog, she's getting treatment). Multiple times (and with two different vets) when my dog had diarrhea they gave us a probiotic along with the dewormer or antibiotic and I've been thinking: my doctors never prescribed or suggested that when I'm sick in a similar way. Is there some difference in what we know about dog/human probiotics or is it just a difference of the culture of medicine.

It's probably more a culture of medicine than anything else, but also probiotics are kind of wishy-washy in terms of clinical evidence. There's some evidence to say they're sometimes very useful, but other times not so much. Keep in mind though that dogs are also much more likely to eat poop from other animals and so will be picking up all sorts of intestinal microflora.

Anonymous said: I came across your weed toxicity post for pets and had a question: a friend of mine recently told me he got weed extract for his anxious rescue pet (can't remember if it was a dog or cat) but prescribed by a veterinarian I didn't ask him more about it because I was too confused at the moment, knowing that weed does not have the same effects on dogs and cats as it has on people. do you think this is legit or was he bullshitting me?

It's hard to know, especially given that I have no way of knowing which country you're in, or what your laws in relation to marijuana are. Certainly there are some veterinarians working on cannabinoid extracts with known concentrations and milligram dosages, but if I was told this locally I would be extremely skeptical.

@fallowsthorn said: On the "cats don't usually get round tumors" thing - weirdly enough, our cat has a bunch of them. Our joke is that he gets a new one every time he goes to the vet, because every single time, the tech says something to the effect of "well this isn't normal for cats but...." They're just little bumps of fat, they don't grow, and he doesn't poke at them or seem in pain, but he's got like twenty of them by now and it's super weird.

It is super weird. Cats usually get inflamed fat rather than fatty tumors, but there's always somebody that does things differently.

Anonymous said: Hey Dr Ferox! I'm just asking purely out of curiosity, have you ever had a kitty patient come in with an aural hematoma?

I have once, but I can't remember whether it had been in a fight or had an ear infection, or both. We treated it surgically, the same way as a dog.

@daedricprincessxoxo said: I've decided to start as a technician before becoming a veterinarian, after a CVPM at a big-deal hospital told me how much she recommends it. After ages of financial constraints, I finally began the course to become licensed!! I'm to excited not to share!!!

That is very exciting and great to hear. Best of luck with all of it.

@insatiable-obsession said: Hi I love your blog! It's so informative and real, and I'm trying very hard to get into the vet world (unsuccessfully applied to several vet clinics and hopefully going to vet tech school next year!) I was wondering if you have any advice or opinions on zoo work/zookeeping? Also to give you a fun break from all the vet questions, do you prefer: sunset or sunrise? Camping or going to the beach? Christmas or Halloween? Pen or pencil? Sweet or savory?

I really don't do much with zoos and prefer not to analyse them too much through a veterinary lens, because I want to keep them as something fun. Like everything else in life zookeeping is possible to do very well, and possible to do very badly. You could pop across to @why-animals-do-the-thing for more zookeeping connections.

Anonymous said: I'm so annoyed right now. So ever since my friend got a dog we were trying to get them to get him fixed (her dad who's totally hyper masculine is against neutering) then they got a girl dog and refused to get her fixed (we convinced the mom but not the dad). They tried to rehome the girl earlier in the year and until tonight they've refused to get one of them fixed. Tonight the girl had 9 pups and it's the only thing that convinced them to get her fixed (after she's done nursing) They also are keeping one of the male puppies. The dogs go out on a cable because they don't have a yard. The dogs are big too they're an staff bully breed mixes.

I don't know what to tell you Anon. It's a poor situation for those animals to be in, but I can't tell you anything to make it any better, and as long as their minimum welfare standards are met, the animals can't be seized.

Anonymous said: I am considering harness training a new cat. I have only indoor cats. If I allow my new cat out in a harness will I need to do anything different for care of my indoor cats, because all the cats will be in contact together at home. My indoor cats are up to date on their rabies and distemper vaccines, do they need anything else? 

You should call your own vet about what concerns are relevant locally. You are very clearly not local to me and I cannot give you specific veterinary advice, but I suspect parasite control is going to be important for your cats.

Anonymous said:What do you do if your pet dies at home? Like with the body?

Depending on where  you are, you can have the option to bury your pet at home, or you can arrange burial or cremation either through a vet clinic or a pet crematorium directly.

Anonymous said: I have a 3.5 month old kitten and he occasionally like tries to eat litter? i use a clay bases non clumping litter and i move him away whenever he starts but like? Could there be a medical reason? Is he just weird? Were taking him to the vet soon to be neutered and im going to ask them then. Thank you!!

There is no way for me to tell whether your kitten it eating litter because it has a nutrient deficiency, an abnormal behavior or is just chewing on things with a novel texture. Hope your vet visit goes well.

Anonymous said: Hi, not sure if you can help, but figure it's worth a shot! I'm in my parasitology class and I'm having the hardest time keeping the Spinose ear tick and the ear mite straight in my head due to their extremely similar scientific names(otobius megnini and otodectes cynotis respectively) and both residing in/around an animals ears, can you offer any advice?

Sorry I don't have any advice for you, other than O. megnini being an overseas parasite and not one I have to deal with.

Anonymous said: I came across your blog while having a nasty bout of heartburn and I got to wondering: can animals suffer from acid reflux or have symptoms similar to GERD in humans? If so, do you know of any cases or treatments?

Small animals can also suffer acid reflux and subsequent oesophageal ulcers. It's particularly common in brachycephalic dogs. There are a variety of potential predisposing causes, some of which are managed medically, but some require surgery. Hiatal hernias are a good example.

@softlyfiercely said: Am curious re: your thoughts on a childhood memory. We had snails in our yard growing up (southwestern USA) and we loved them. My brother & I fed them lettuce & built them little stick-and-leaf villages. Once we brought one inside to show a family friend. He dropped it. Its shell cracked & it looked in bad shape. We were distraught and begged mom to bring it to a vet. She did not. But would a vet have been able to help? How do zoos care for endangered snails? Can snail shells be repaired?

Some clinics equipped for exotics can and will treat snails, but not very often. It's possible to repair small areas of damage to the shell, so long as the body has not been damaged and does not come into contact with any glue or compounds used.

@malted-shark said: Just wanna' say. Sardine sounds like my Basil at the vet. He has aggressive on his chart and they legitimately have to launch a liquid sedative in his mouth. I wish I was kidding. I wish he wasn't such a nightmare at the vet. He's like that at home sometimes too. Particularly, he doesn't like it when things aren't done EXACTLY to his liking and don't dare try to restrain or hell is to be paid. I just let them handle it, I get scared of him.

With cats like this, sometimes all you can and should do is sedate them for an exam. It's stressful for the cat and dangerous for the handler otherwise.

@peaceofpuregold said: As a primary human to two feral (currently not so feral with a lot of patience, training, and good luck in the mix) can confirm at least 70% of the feral cat escape phrases. All I was missing were the washing machine related ones. I might use this to make a bingo card.

If you do make a feral cat bingo card, let us know!

@hesmyboi said: Came for Trashbag, stayed because I adore animals, I like your style, and I'm having fun learning about veterinarian stuff

And we're very pleased to have you here with us. Thank you.

[jetdeer67-blog]

Muscular Tension Part 1

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While I’m waiting until I get the energy to get aggro again, and I will, I wanted to write about a topic I’ve been meaning to address for a while,  a detailed look at the idea of muscular tension.  What it is, why it’s important, how we can or cannot measure it and what confusion comes out of the concept in a practical sense.

I’ve sure as hell typed up most of this in my Facebook group enough times to make this easier for me: I can type it up once and just link to it in the future.  Honestly, that’s why I write most of what I write.  Write it once, link to it forever after.  Eventually, maybe put it in a book.  This series will certainly be long enough.

As well, this article is going to act as a background piece for some stuff I intend to write about going forwards regarding training, muscle growth and what the actual PRIMARY driver on growth is (hint: it’s still not volume).  But since I’ll likely have several articles using this information, it’s faster and keeps the articles shorter to write it up once and link to it.  Even if this thing got rapidly out of control.

So with that short introduction, I want to look at the concept of muscular tension.  What it is/represents, why it’s important to the training process and, perhaps more, err, importantly, how so many people completely misinterpret the concept in a real world training way.

To address the latter, I’ll have to make a couple of digressions but, hey, let’s remember who I am and how I (over) write.  And it will take multiple parts.

How Muscles Work

Ok, so picture one of your major muscles, pecs, biceps, quads whatever.  The muscle has several components.  At either end is the tendon which attaches the muscle to the bone.  Tendons are just dense connective tissues although their density changes from the bone end to the muscle end getting less dense as you move away from the bone and towards the muscle.  When the tendon meets the muscle, this is called the musculotendinous junction.

Fun-fact: when people ‘tear’ a muscle, it is almost unheard of to tear the tendon from the bone because that connection is insanely strong.  Rather, the relatively weaker musculotendinous junction is typically where the injury occurs: the muscle tears away from the tendon (rolling up like a window shade when a full tear occurs).

So between the tendons is the muscle itself which is also made up of multiple components.  This includes the myofibrils themselves, the actual contractile components of the muscle which generate force.  There is also the sarcoplasmic component which is mostly everything else: fluid, enzymes, glycogen, everything that’s not the myofibrils for all practical purposes (as I wrote about a few weeks ago, despite years of debate, it’s now looking like the idea of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is an actual phenomenon).

There are also various connective tissues, titin, desmin and a host of others that connect the myofibrils in all sorts of complex ways. Some run along the muscle fibers, some connect the muscle fibers to one another in a grid, some connect it to the other parts of the cell.   It’s just this interconnected lattice of stuff. Here’s a basic graphic showing how all of this works/fits together, linked from this page.

So it’s time to generate force.  The brain sends some signals, which move down the motor nerve until they reach the neuromuscular junction.  Then a bunch of stuff happens causing muscles to contract, generating force to (hopefully) accomplish whatever is being attempted.  I’ll discuss some of the details of this in a bit.   As I’ve discussed previously, there are a fairly large number of factors that can influence on the actual force produced.

The big one of relevance here is the physiological cross sectional area of the muscle or muscle fibers.  So imagine you took a cucumber and cut it down the middle top to bottom so you’re looking at the round end.   That diameter allows you to calculate the cross sectional area.  If you cut a muscle in the same fashion, that distance across would be the same thing essentially.  I said ESSENTIALLY.

And the amount of force a muscle can generate is related to this measure times what is called specific tension.  Specific tension is the amount of force per unit cross sectional area that can be generated.

The Initiator of Muscle Growth

For decades it was stated that “We don’t really know what makes muscle grow” and this assertion was used to defend the absolutely goofiest bullshit training approaches that you can imagine.  If you can’t say what generates growth, then any training system you can dream up is fair game so long as it “works” or at least seems to.

It didn’t help that so many things seemed to work.  Well, especially once steroids got into the game and literally anything did work because steroids build muscle without training to begin with.  Any stupid shit you do in the gym works so long as your dose is high enough (the main volume component of training is volume of gear used).  Hence any stupid shit got defended for training because we supposedly didn’t know what triggered the process of muscle growth.

This isn’t to say that a variety of theories weren’t thrown out over the years.

The most common and still believed to this day was probably the idea that training breaks down muscle which is then built back up to higher levels.  This was based on the almost wholly incorrect idea of supercompensation but that’s another topic for another day.  It also doesn’t work that way in the least.

It was also related to the idea that muscle damage per se was a stimulus for growth (why so many people continue to chase DOMS/soreness) although that’s mostly thought to be incorrect.  Many types of training stimulate growth with no damage and if anything, muscle damage may be detrimental to growth.

This tied in somewhat with an energetic theory of growth, the idea that training reduce skeletal muscle energetic status (i.e. ATP/CP) which somehow triggered growth.  In my first book The Ketogenic Diet, I wrote about a then highly regarded theory that training would cause a depletion of ATP in the muscle causing it to reach ‘rigor’ and lock-up with the subsequent lowering causing the damage that turned on growth.

Dan Duchaine’s Bodycontract training system (something that probably 3 people reading this will remember) was based around this: a set of 8-12 to failure to deplete ATP and then 3 heavier eccentric reps to cause targeted muscle damage after the muscle fibers had hit rigor (he called it ‘targeted intensity’).  I doubt this model in fashion anymore given that muscle damage doesn’t seem to be a big player in growth overall.  I certainly haven’t seen it discussed in a lot of years and I wouldn’t argue nor defend it 20 years later.  Mind you, it has elements of the actual picture but isn’t entirely correct.

There were ideas related to ischemia/hypoxia (basically low blood flow/Oxygen) which were dismissed for years but may have some merit when you consider some of the blood flow restriction work (BFR).  I’ll be writing up another longwinded article on this but short version: hypoxia would appear to be an indirect contributor to growth in that it helps the body to recruit more muscle fibers.

Others felt that flooding the muscle with blood was the key: the pump theory of growth, essentially.  This might actually have some validity if you’re on steroids to keep the drugs within the muscle longer so that they bind to the receptors longer.  Maybe.  But big picture the pump doesn’t seem to mean very much.  Humorously, others felt that keeping blood moving through the body was the key, hence the PHA training system (that maybe 2 people reading this remember).

There’s also been some theorizing about cell swelling for over a decade now but I haven’t seen anything particularly convincing in that regards (most of the research seemed to be in liver cells under non-physiological conditions such as saline infusion and such).  I’m not saying it doesn’t play some role.  I’m saying I’m not convinced it’s that big of a deal in the big picture under normal conditions.  I could be wrong.  If this were a thing in muscle, pump training might play a role in that it could conceivably cause cell swelling.

A super goofy study came out recently using ‘sarcoplasmic specific’ training protocols that generated immense increases in muscle thickness immediately after training due to fluid shifts.  But you wanna look good in the club for a few hours, this is your jam.   Go get your pump on and then go get your drink on and you might get lucky.  Perhaps Arnold was right.

Currently there is interest in the metabolite theory of growth although, as I’ll write about eventually, it’s unlikely to have much merit (I’ll address it briefly in Part 2 or 3 of this series) in terms of metabolites directly stimulating growth.  Like hypoxia, accumulating metabolites probably just help to recruit the highest threshold muscle fibers at the end of a set (this will make sense when I explain the process below).  Don’t get hung up on this right now, I have a tediously long article coming later.

Then there was the hormonal response theory, that the testosterone or growth hormone response to training, was important.  And, pretty much it’s not with any effect being extremely minimal since those small spikes in hormones just don’t amount to much.  At best it plays a very minor role; at worst it is 100% irrelevant.  Sure, injecting supraphysiological levels of drugs matters.  Spiking testosterone or growth hormone for 15 minutes not so much.  The growth response to training is almost purely local.

The one I’ll mention last, because it was probably the closest to right, was proposed by Vladimir Zatsiorky.  He pointed out that during any given set, a certain number of muscle fibers would be recruited to generate force.  But that recruitment per se wasn’t sufficient.  Rather, those fibers had to be fatigued as well (this was based on the idea that fatigue of a fiber per se triggered growth which isn’t quite right).   Basically you had to recruit the fiber (unrecruited fibers aren’t trained) but you also had to subject it to sufficient work to cause it to adapt.

So with all of those theories floating around, it seems easy to understand why people would argue that “We don’t know what causes muscle growth.”

Tension/Mechano Sensors

As it turned out, the idea that “We don’t know what causes muscle growth” was wrong to begin with.   As early as 1975, researchers had the picture about 90% worked out and it had been established that the primary initiating factor for growth in adult skeletal muscle was the exposure of muscle fibers to high levels of tension with the researchers concluding:

It is suggested that increased tension development (either passive or active) is the critical event in initiating compensatory growth.

Yet people maintained that “We don’t even know what causes growth” for decades afterwards.  Well, I’m sure they didn’t know.  But physiologists sure as hell did.  Or had enough of a model, that would then be shown to be more or less correct.

Now tension can be generated in different ways and you will read about active vs. passive tension.  I’m not getting into this in any detail but passive tension are things like those goofy ass studies where they tie a weight to a quail’s wing for 30 days.  The chronic weighted stretch exposes the muscles to passive tension overload and causes rapid growth along with an increase in muscle fiber number (hyperplasia)   This doesn’t work in humans, by the way.  Active tension is what we are interested in, when a muscle is forced to actively generate force.

One nifty way they create increased active tension in animals is through what is called the synergist ablation model.  This is a nice way of saying that they cut one of the muscles (the synergist) that supports a joint.  This causes the remaining muscle to be overloaded to an insane degree overnight.

And growth is absurdly fast and potent.  It’s like 50% in a matter of days in animals or something (don’t swear me to that number).  So in a human it would be like cutting the soleus so that the gastrocnemius has to take over. Suddenly the gastroc exposed to an enormous overload since it has to take over for the cut muscle.  It might be the the only way for some people to get calves.   I am joking by the way.  I think.

But let’s move to something a bit more physiological as an example of active tension.   For example, lifting a weight where muscle fibers must generate force to perform the movement.   This requires them to generate/exposes them to high tension which, as above, is the initiating factor in muscle growth.  Like I said, we knew this in 1975.  Or at least had an inkling that this was the case.  And it turns out to absolutely be the case (literally any review paper you read on mechanisms of hypertrophy regardless of the author or their bias will list tension as the primary factor in initiating growth).

What we didn’t know up until fairly recently (by which I mean like 15 years ago or so) were the actual biomchemical pathways that were involved in turning on protein synthesis.    And we now know that the primary mediating factor for muscle growth is something called mTOR (the mammalian target of rapamyacin).

Training activates mTOR and so do amino acids, especially leucine which is where the whole BCAA thing comes from (they are still garbage, for the record).  Yes, there are other pathways and factors involved such as AKT and ribosomal activity and many others but mTOR is kind of the key or final pathway.  If you block mTOR (with rapamyacin), protein synthesis from training is blocked no matter what else you do.  You can think of mTOR as sort of the final pathway for all of this stuff.

What was missing for a while was how the first achieved the second.  That is, how was a purely mechanical signal (muscle tension/mechanical work) being translated into a chemical/biological signal?  Because at some level, this didn’t make much sense.  How can a mechanical process activate a biological one?

What did make sense was that some biological change in the muscle, ATP or lactate or hormones or whatever was causing it that it was related because it makes sense for one biological change to trigger another. This was clearly a case of a mechanical effect causing a biochemical pathway to activate.

What was going on?

Bioengineers to the Rescue

As I originally heard the story, the muscle physiologists couldn’t get anywhere with this and got some bioengineers to come take a fresh look at the problem.  This was kind of before all of that other connective tissue stuff like desmin and titin I mentioned above were known about mind you.  The idea that muscle fibers were connected to other parts of cell wasn’t a thing at the time .  You just had muscle fibers kind of running down the length of the muscle with tendons on the end and when they contracted, movement occurred around the joint they were attached to.  And somehow that could turn on this biological growth process.

And supposedly the bioengineers were like “Ok, so if you had some sort of tissue that connected the actual muscle fibers (running lengthwise down the fiber) to other structures in the cell, that could explain how a mechanical signal turns into a biological signal.  The fiber contraction would pull on those other tissues which alters cell structure and could translate into a biological signal.”  This would provide a mechanism for mechanical tension to turn on a biochemical cascade.

And I’m sure the muscle physiologists were like “Lol, ok” and then looked for these supposed structures and were like “WTF, they were right” or something.  And then probably took credit for the idea when it was all said and done.

Now I may have dreamt all of the above up (it wouldn’t be the first time) but, even if I did, it turns out that this is exactly what is going on.  Essentially, there are mechanosensors within skeletal muscle that, when activated, transform a purely mechanical signal (muscle fibers generating/being exposed to high tension loads) into a biological one, the activation of mTOR.

Note: I don’t know exactly when the above model became a thing but it was somewhere between 1993 when I graduated from UCLA and the early 2000’s when I took an advanced exercise physiology class at UT Austin.

So what are the mechanosensors?  So far as I can tell, they are currently calling these things Focal Adhesion Kinase which, when they do their magic, activates mTOR (this appears to be mediated through the generation of phosphatidic acid which is why those supplements were popular a while back).  Going forwards I’ll just abbreviate this process as FAK/PA/mTOR.

Boom, a mechanical signal is converted into a biological one.  Tension overload activates mTOR and growth is stimulated.  Problem solved.

Note: Other systems have this too.  Bone is an interesting one where high force impact loading activates mechanosensors called osteocytes within the bone that turn on the process of increasing bone mineral density as an adaptive response.  Even more interesting, after some number of high force stimuli, the osteocytes become refractory to further stimulation.  That is, there is a per workout or per day maximum to the stimulus.  Hmm, that sounds familiar.  Even the cell swelling theory is thought to work through physical stretching of the cell where the mechanical stretch turns on biological processes even if I remain unconvinced that it’s a major pathway in skeletal muscle growth.  But, fundamentally it’s mechanosensors all the way down.

And, once again, that is the primary initiating event in turning on hypertrophy: high tension forces generate a biochemical cascade that turns on protein synthesis.  Yes, there are other players in this process but this is the key one.  Importantly, it looks like there need to be a sufficient number of high-tension contractions for this to occur.  It’s not just a function of exposing a muscle to a singular brief high tension load.  You have to do it a number of times for the mTOR cascade to get activated.

But at this point nobody knows how many contractions are required on either a per set or per workout level (though it’s funny that everything seems to be coming back to Wernbom’s recommendations from 12 years ago and it won’t surprise me in the least if he was right all along).   A single maximum daily contraction doesn’t turn on growth and a group that did 5 maximum single reps twice/week showed no growth so there’s clearly more to it than just high tension.  Some volume of high-tension contractions is required (and nobody including me has ever said differently, that volume doesn’t matter.  I’ve said that it wasn’t PRIMARY because it isn’t).  Put more succinctly.

High muscular tension is REQUIRED but not SUFFICIENT to stimulate growth.

Without a high tension stimulus, growth isn’t turned on (and note that I didn’t say high LOADS, I said high TENSION which I’ll explain later).  But other factors play a secondary role to the presence of mechanical tension.  Volume is one of them.  You need some amount of contractions under high tension conditions to turn on growth.  We just don’t know how many yet.

Which is basically what the Zatsiorsky model of growth I described above is getting at.  He put it in terms of recruitment and fatigue which is wrong but his general picture was still right.   Just making a fiber generate high tension isn’t sufficient to trigger growth.  Some number of contractions is also required to activate the FAK/PA/mTOR cascade.

High tension is still the key which is why running and other low intensity activities don’t generate muscle gains.  Ok, that’s not true, they do in total beginners where even that low intensity activity probably is a tension overload for a little while.  Then again, so is Wiifit at that level.  But beyond a certain point, those activities do not increase muscle mass.  I’ll address the low-load/BFR stuff, which seems to contradict this (except that it really doesn’t), briefly later in the series and in excruciating detail eventually.

So we ask: how do we generate high tension in a muscle?  Now I have to digress into some details.

Recruitment and Rate Coding

Fundamentally there are two ways that the body can get muscles to generate force.  The first is through recruitment, actually making the muscle fibers themselves activate to generate force.    The second is through rate coding, the rate at which signals are sent down the motor nerves to those fibers which impacts on how they fire.  The combination of the two determines the force output of the muscle and the body has different “strategies” for using one or the other depending on the situation (and this gets insanely complex and I am so not going to try to get into it because it’s not big picture relevant).

I should that there are two primary types of muscle fibers, Type I (slow twitch, oxidative) and Type II (fast twitch, glycolytic).  There are also a bunch of sub-fiber types like IIa, IIx, IIax and some hybrids but I’m going to ignore the details here since they aren’t really important.  I’m just going to pretend that there are Type I and Type II to keep it simpler.

Type I are typically smaller, contract slightly less quickly, generate less force, are more aerobic and fatigue very slowly.  They are good for endurance activities.  Type II are typically larger, contract a bit more quickly, generate more force, are more glycolytic and fatigue more quickly.  They are better for high-intensity activities.   Type II fibers generally have more potential for growth as well.

During activities, muscle fibers are recruited in a fairly orderly way from smaller (Type I) to larger (Type II) depending on force requirements according to what is called Henemman’s Size Principle (not to be confused with Henneman’s Wife’s Size Absolutely Matters Principle).    So Type I are recruited first, with Type II coming in later progressively.  And there is a continuum of both types of fibers with a continuum of characteristics that will come in progressively as the intensity of activity goes up.  It’s also way more complex than this, don’t worry about it.

At around 20% of maximum force, basically lower intensity aerobic work, only Type I fibers are needed.  This is why it can be continued for extended periods: Type I fibers are highly aerobic and don’t generate many waste products.  You can go until you get bored or dehydrated.  I mean, ultra-endurance “runners”, who may be going 3.5-4 mph (a brisk walk) will cover hundreds of miles at that pace.  It’s all Type I fibers at this level.

As force requirements go up, Type II fibers will be recruited to a greater and greater degree.     So you move to faster running and start to recruit some Type II fibers.  Now Type II can still be somewhat aerobic, especially at this level.  So you still don’t fatigue particularly rapidly.  Forever maybe become 6 hours on the bike or when glycogen runs out.

Now you’re running near your maximum sustainable speed, something you could do for an hour.  Lots of Type II fiber recruitment.  Not all of them, but more. There’s waste products being generated but they are not accumulating.  It hurts but you can keep going.  Then you go all out sprinting, HIIT type.  Depending on the intensity you probably get damn close to full recruitment.  Waste products build up rapidly and you fatigue in 45 or 90 seconds.

And that’s how fiber recruitment basically works, at low intensities the body only needs low-threshold Type I fibers with higher threshold fibers being recruited progressively with increasing intensity.  At least up to the point where full recruitment occurs.

What is that point?  In a weight training sense, maximum recruitment occurs at about 80-85% of MVIC (maximal voluntary isometric contraction which I will roughly take to be synonymous with 1 repetition max even if it’s not exactly the same).  At that level, all muscle fibers are recruited.  Beyond this point, the body generates more force with rate coding and other complex neural stuff as there are no further fibers to be activated.

A quick note: there is a long held-belief that the body can only recruit a small portion of available muscle fibers but this is fundamentally wrong.  Using a technique called the Interpolated Twitch Technique (ITT), it’s been found the people can recruit 98-99% of their biceps fibers.  In contrast, they can only recruit 88-90% of their quadriceps muscle fibers (low back is down at 75% if I recall correctly and I suspect this is to protect spinal disks).  This leads me to speculate that the “empirically observed” and “semi-research suggested” idea that legs need more volume than upper body might be related to this.  If even during a hard set you can’t get full activation of your quads/legs, you might need more total volume to get the same overall growth stimulus.   We really need more structured and systematic work on this.

In any case, this recruitment threshold of about 80-85% 1RM (and some put it closer to 90%) has a couple of implications.  The first is that beyond about a 5-8RM you don’t get any more fiber recruitment.  Doing a 3RM or 1RM won’t recruit any more fibers than a 5-8RM.  You’ll certainly see different neural patterns, rate coding and such.  But from a fiber recruitment standpoint there is no real difference and going heavier beyond a certain point won’t lead to further recruitment.  I’ll come back to the other implication later down.

Fun fact: The above only holds for large muscles like arms, quads, pecs, the ones we care about.  In smaller muscles like the eyes and fingers, recruitment occurs up to about 50-60% of max with rate coding dominating after that.  This provides much finer muscle control; if it didn’t work that way, your eyes would fly back and forth as you tried to read this and you’d have no control over your fingers for fine motor tasks.  This is also why all those finger and thumb muscle strength or endurance studies have less than zero relevance to training (and why citing them to make any argument about real-world weight training is not only pointless but shows a lack of basic physiology knowledge by the person doing it).  They simply don’t apply.

Ok, so that’s recruitment and rate coding and implies that getting full recruitment of a muscle means training at 80-85% or heavier.  Except that that isn’t correct.

Two Ways to High Tension

So if you start at 80-85% of MVIC, maybe a 5-8 RM you get full recruitment from repetition 1 and throughout the entire set and I’ve written previously that if you had to pick a single repetition range for growth, this is it.   I based the argument on optimizing both recruitment and total mechanical work.  Because working in this range will cause full fiber recruitment from the first repetition and allow you to perform the most repetitions under that condition compared to either heavier or lighter sets.  Knowing that we need fiber recruitment and some number of contractions this would arguably be the most efficient way of achieving that.

In any case, if you do a 5RM you’ll get 5 total reps at full recruitment. If you do 3 reps with 5RM you get 3 reps with full recruitment.    Of course, you can probably do more sets of 3 at a 5RM than sets of 5 at a 5RM and might get more total per workout contractions. Those sets of 3 will be a higher quality technically or in terms of bar speed as well.  So you can do 5 sets of 3 with 5RM for 15 effective reps versus perhaps 2 sets of 5RM for only 10 and with better technique and speed.  This is how strength/power athletes typically train, using a heavy load but not taking it to failure so that more total high-quality sets can be done.   The same principle can hold for hypertrophy but let’s move on.

But now lets ask the question what the process of fiber recruitment looks like if we start below 80-85% of max.  So let’s say we’re lifting at 70% of max, maybe a 12-15RM on average.  Now, by definition, the body doesn’t need to recruit all muscle fibers in this situation since force requirements can be met by less than 100% fiber recruitment.     For some number of reps in the set, full recruitment will not be achieved since it’s not needed.

But as the set continues, some of the initially recruited fibers will start to fatigue.  When that occurs, the body will recruit higher threshold fibers to maintain force output and continue the set.  And more fatigue will occur.  And more fibers will be recruited.  And this will occur until, at some point in the set, full recruitment of all available fibers has occurred.  And that full recruitment will be maintained until the set is terminated either because the lifter stops or muscular failure occurs (defined here as the repetition not being completed no matter how much force the lifter exerts).

So, hypothetically, say you start lifting at 75% of max, about a 10-12RM or so.  For the first 5-6 reps you won’t reach full recruitment as the body can generate enough force without needing all muscle fibers to contribute. As fibers fatigue, the body will recruit more fibers and over perhaps the last 3-5 reps (or whatever number) you will get full recruitment. Which means that it’s only over those last 3-5 reps that the highest threshold/Type II fibers are being recruited, hence exposed to high tension, and doing mechanical work and hopefully activating the FAK/PA/mTOR cascade.

Which raises the question of when in the set do all fibers reach full recruitment.  I am aware of two studies on the topic.

In one study, trained men performed a set to failure in the leg press at either 90% or 70% of 1RM with surface EMG (admittedly limited as a methodology) being used to determine activation.  On average, the subjects got 8 reps at 90% and 18 reps at 70%.  Without getting into the weeds on what they measured (it was a bunch of peak and average EMG), what the study ultimately found was that the peak EMG at 70% was the same when compared to the “matched repetitions” of the 90% set.  Which is a weird way of saying that the peak EMG was the same for the final 8 reps of the 18 rep set as for the 8 reps of the 8 rep set.   Either way you get 8 repetitions with full recruitment.  You just have to do 10 non-full recruitment reps first with the lighter weight to get those same 8 full recruitment reps.

A similar study in untrained women using rubber tubing found the same thing. It looked at trap activation during a lateral raise at either a 3RM or 15RM set.    And what it found was that full activation was reached from the first rep in the 3RM set as would be expected.  But full recruitment was not reached until the last 3-5 reps in the 15RM set.  So in the 3RM set, 3 total reps were done under full activation, in the 15RM, 3-5 reps at full activation were done.  Both groups got essentially the same number of full recruitment reps.   The 15RM subjects just had to do 10-12 reps without full activation to get there.  And I do wish they’d stop using such extremes, comparing perhaps 85% to 75% or whatever to see how it differs.

What you see is that submaximal loads lifted close or to failure can cause similar fiber recruitment patterns as heavy sets.   

I’d note and I’ll come back to this in a later part of the series that this is how low-load/BFR training essentially works.  By taking a low-load set to failure (and this doesn’t happen if you stop short of failure which is a big pointer in to what’s going on), you reach or achieve full muscular activation near the end of the set.  In a conceptual sense, you sort of have to by definition since failure is 100% regardless of how you get there.  A 5RM is 100% effort at the end but so is a 30RM so long as both are to true failure.  So the fiber recruitment patterns would be expected to be at least similar.  And they basically are.

The same occurs with BFR with the metabolites/hypoxia helping with fiber recruitment.  Simply, they increase high threshold fiber recriutment even with the submaximal loads.   At the end of each set the highest threshold fibers are recruited and exposed to a tension stimulus for a sufficient number of contractions.  Yadda yadda, FAK/PA/mTOR cascade.  Mind you, you have to do 25-30 painful, pointless reps first to get to full recruitment and tension but that’s what’s happening.  But it sure looks edgy on Instagram and isn’t that what training is all about?

Put more simply, whether you do a set of 3-8 with 80-90% 1RM, a set of 15RM with 70% 1RM or a set of 30 with 25% 1RM (or BFR it), you end up getting some number of repetitions under full recruitment and high tension.  In the first case it’s from the first repetition and you get 3-8 reps under full recruitment.  In the second full recruitment occurs around reps 10-12 and you get 3-5 reps under full recruitment, in the third case, you waste your life doing 25 worthless reps to get to the 5 or so good ones or however many it is.

But it’s all ultimately a path to high tension overload of the high threshold muscle fibers (yes, there is some speculation that low load/BFR may target Type I and this is assuredly a durational/fatigue issue that I’m not getting into here).

As I wrote on Facebook the other day: All roads lead to high tension.

It’s just a matter of how you get there.

Effective Reps

While I’m on the topic I might as well address a relatively new concept which is that of “effective reps”.  The idea here is that it’s only those repetitions of a set done under full (or near full) activation that “matter” in terms of the growth stimulus.  The total sets don’t matter.  The total reps don’t matter.  It’s the effective reps that matter. I don’t know that I’d argue this in the strictest sense although it’s certainly true if you’re talking about the highest threshold muscle fibers.  Clearly fibers are being recruited or trained without full activation.  Just not all of them.

If you did a 5RM set, that’s 5 effective reps since they were all done under conditions of full recruitment.   So if you do a set of 12 near failure and get full activation for reps 10 through 12, that’s 3 effective reps.  If you do a set of 35 reps with 30% of your 1RM, you just fucked around for ~30 reps to get to the 3-5 or so effective reps.   The end result is effectively the same.  Get it?  Effectively?  Effective reps?  Effectively?  Nevermind.

Now we still don’t know how many effective reps are necessary to optimally activate the FAK/PA/mTOR pathway.  Once we do, and if we also find out that it saturates at a certain point on a per workout or per week level we’ll be able to end this fucking volume debate once and for all.

So if we determine that 20 or 40 effective reps per workout or whatever (or so many contractions per week) is optimal and/or the limit to the growth stimulus, we have the basic answer of how to optimize training for growth.  I still suspect Wernbom’s earlier data will turn out to be roughly correct.

Because we know that there are different ways to get the same number of effective reps.  So consider someone doing multiple straight sets of 8 say 4X8 on a 2′ rest.   Let’s say they start 2 reps in reserve/reps to failure, so it’s a 10RM load.  Realistically, the first set might get a couple of effective reps under full fiber recruitment.  With each successive set, assuming the rest interval isn’t too long to allow full recovery, as fatigue accumulates and the set gets closer to failure the number of full recruitment reps per set will increase.  Becuase what will happen is that set 1 is at 2RIR and set 2 is at 1-2 RIR and set 3 is at 1RIR and set 4 is 0 RIR.

So on set 1 maybe it’s 1-2 effective reps, on set 2 it’s 2-3, on set 3 it’s 4 and on set 4 it’s also 4.   What’s that, 11-13 total effective reps across the 4 sets.  Do it for a second exercise and maybe you double that to about 20-26 effective reps or whatever it works out to.   So that’s one way to do it: some number of straight sets with an incomplete recovery that results in an accumulating number of effective reps per set over the workout as full recruitment starts earlier in each set.

Or consider the various rest-pause approaches such as Myo-Reps or Doggcrapp (or simply rest-pause).  Here you start with a heavy set, often called an activation set.  The idea is to either start heavy enough (i.e. with an 8RM which is about 80% of max) or get close enough to failure with a submax weight to get full fiber activation in that first set.  So you get to rep 8 with maybe 2-3 full activation reps and stop the main set set (Myo-reps used to use speed cutoffs, DC went to failure).  Now rest 15 seconds, long enough to recover a bit but not completely.

Now you get 2-3 more reps which are probably also still under full activation so they count as effective reps (and they do that without requiring another 5 reps of a straight set).  Rest 15″ and you get 1-2 more.  Rest 15″ and you get 1 more.  So maybe it’s 8-9 effective reps across that singular rest-pause set.  If you do two of those sets you get 16-18 total effective reps which is about the same as the straight sets although it only took you two rest-pause sets versus 8 straight sets to do it.

Is this making sense?

The corollary to this is that sets that are too light AND nowhere close to fatigue, may not contain any effective repetitions, or certainly not many (or certainly not effective reps for the highest threshold muscle fibers).  If you do a set of 6 with a 12RM, you’re not recruiting the highest threshold Type II fibers at all.  Not unless you do repeat sets with a short rest interval so that there is cumulative fatigue across the sets.

So if you do 6 sets of 6 reps with your 12RM but only rest 15-30 seconds between sets, fatigue will accumulate and you’ll reach full recruitment eventually.    Maybe by the fourth set you’re getting some effective reps or whatever and that increases with each subsequent sets.   It “works” although you basically fucked around for the first 3 sets to even get close to a meaningful training stimulus.  As I think about it, Gironda’s 8X8 probably worked by this mechanism.  It was an honest workout.

In this vein, there is a recent super stupid study that looked at what they called the the 3/7 method.  Using untrained subjects, it compared a single set of 3,4,5,6 and then 7 repetitions at 70% of max (12RM) with like 15″ rest between mini-sets to a group doing 8 sets of 6 with 12RM.  And the 3/7 method worked better than the straight sets (inasmuch as more or less everything works on beginners).  Because with that short rest, it probably got at least some effective reps near the end despite being pathetically submaximum.   In contrast, 8 sets of 6 at 12RM is a series of warm-up sets and I bet they were lucky to get even a few full recruitment reps during that workout.

I made similar comments about the Haun et al. study Mike Israetel was involved with.  It used repeat sets of 10 at 60% of max with the subjects reporting 4 reps in reserve.  So it was 4 reps from failure and there was an 8-10′ rest interval due to the goofy nature of the workout setup.  So there was no cumulative fatigue (RIR stayed at 4 across the workouts and study).  If I’m being generous let’s say each of those warmup sets got maybe 1 effective rep per set.  Maybe it’s 2.

Don’t believe me?  Go back to that 15RM study I described above.  Full recruitment didn’t occur until rep 9-12.  10 reps with a 14RM load and you maybe get full recruitment on rep 9.  8 if you’re lucky.  1-2 effective reps per set at best.

First let’s compare a workout with 1 effective rep per set to a real workout.  At 10 sets/week that’s 10 effective reps per week.  NOT per workout.  PER WEEK.  You can achieve the same thing with 2 all out sets of 5RM.  Go to 20 sets per week and that’s 20 effective reps per week.  4 sets of 5RM per week.

At 32 sets/week maybe they got 32 effective reps.   I can do that in 4 all out sets of 8 in a single workout.   I could also do 2 sets of 8RM twice/week and go home.  In those 4 sets I might accomplish the same number of effective reps as 32 piss-ass sets.  I’ve done 32 effective reps in 32 reps vs. 32 effective reps in 320 reps.  1/10th the volume by reps and 1/8th by sets.

If I go nuts and double my workout to 4 sets of 8RM twice/week, I’ve gotten 64 effective reps in those 8 sets.  I’ve done 64 reps in 8 sets versus 320 reps in 32 sets for TWICE the effective reps.  And that’s without spending 2 hours in the gym fucking about.

Even if you give the benefit of the doubt and say the 10 reps at 4RIR gave 2 effective reps per set, 32 sets is 64 effective reps PER WEEK.  If I train a muscle group for 4 sets of 8 to failure twice a week I achieve the same thing.    8 sets for 64 total/64 effective repetitions vs. 32 sets and 320 reps for the same 64 repetitions.  And I get to do it without having to live in the gym fucking around warming up for 2 hours.

Basically the workout in Haun et al. was a lot of pissing around.  And maybe that’s why it needed such ludicrous volumes to accomplish anything at all.  The sets were so piss-ass low intensity, low fatigue that almost none of the reps were an actual stimulus to the muscle fibers. These are warm-up sets at the rate of 6-7 sets per muscle PER HOUR.  You could do that all day long until you went nuts from boredom.  Seriously.

The fact that the growth appears to have been predominantly sarcoplasmic speaks to that.  Actual myofibrillar protein synthesis wouldn’t be turned on if there aren’t enough high-tension reps to activate the FAK/PA/mTOR pathway.  But you get a lot of volume and stress sarcoplasmic components with that kind of ineffective training.  And if that’s your goal, go to town.  Or just learn to train for real.

Because contrast that to the Barbalho papers on women and men where all sets were truly taken to failure and where the low volumes did just as well if not better than the higher volumes.  Because in every set that was done, a large number of the reps were done under full recruitment and were effective reps.  When they were doing 4 sets of 4-6RM in that week that’s 16-24 effective reps per workout because every rep was done under full recruitment from rep 1 until the end of the set.  And that was true of every week since they were true RM loads (I still do not believe the squat workouts were achievable, mind you).  It would take 16-24 sets of piss-ass low intensity work getting 1 effective rep per set to accomplish the same stimulus or 8-12 if you got 2 effective reps.  So 1/2-1/4th the volume if you actually train hard.

And no I’m not saying you need to train to failure.  I’m making a point about how different approaches to training can generate vastly different numbers of ‘full recruitment/effective reps’ per set, workout or per week.  You can do way more sets but if they are ineffective in terms of not achieving full recruitment for sufficient tension overload, they may still work worse (or certainly no better) than a lower number of sets that are actually challenging.  And that alone might explain all of the volume debate or the discrepancies in the studies (which really don’t exist as currently 6 of 8 studies show the same thing with one shit show and one outlier people refuse to discount).

Because studies that use lower volumes of actually intense work (you know, all the ones supporting low to moderate volumes which represent 6 out of 8) are getting plenty of effective reps with a low volume of training.  And if there is a per workout saturation point, higher volumes shouldn’t work better.  And, in contrast, those that are using piss-ass intensities are not.  They only appear to ‘need’ such high volumes because the workouts are so ineffectually designed.

You know, like a workout where supposedly guys did 5 sets of 8-12RM on 90 seconds in the squat or bench which is utterly impossible (PROVE ME WRONG, FOLKS).  Which would ONLY be remotely achievable if “failure” were defined as about 4-5 reps before actual failure.   Which if I don’t miss my guess is exactly what happened in that particular study (I would love to see video of even one of the workouts).

Because the workout is simply impossible to do once much less 3X/week for 8 weeks if the sets are anywhere close to failure.  They can’t have been close to failure becuse the workout would be impossible at the higher volumes.  Mind you, it’s not as if the statistics supported the highest volumes anyhow but I digress.

Because in 5 truly hard sets with a sufficient rest interval, you can readily achieve the same number of effective reps as 15 piss-ass intensity sets with a stupid workout design.  You may only ‘need’ high volumes if you simply don’t, can’t or won’t train with any degree of intensity.  And that’s probably exactly what is the case.

All those bros in the gym doing 20 sets/muscle group who get “big”.  Well it’s probably taking them those 20 sets to get an effective stimulus as someone doing 4-6 hard sets.  Which is what I’ve said before: If you think you NEED 70 sets/week for a muscle, you don’t know how to fucking train with any sort of intensity or focus.  Visit me in Austin and I’ll prove it to you.

Summing Up Muscle Tension: Part 1

Ok, so this already got away from me and it’ll probably go 4 parts to address this all.  The basic gist of Part 1 is this.  High muscular tension is, without debate, the primary initiating factor in muscle growth and we’ve known this since the 70’s.  And every review paper regardless of author or their personal bias or online bullshit states this.

This occurs through mechanosensors, probably Focal Adhesion Kinase which translate a mechanical stimulus (high tension in muscle fibers) into a biochemical cascade involving mTOR.  Tension alone is required but insufficient.  Some number of high tension contractions is required to turn on this cascade but we don’t know how many in either a per set, per workout or per week fashion.

What this means is that the process of turning on growth means 1) recruiting the high-threshold/Type II muscle fibers and 2) exposing them to sufficient amounts of mechanical work to turn on this cascade. 

Towards that I examined how fibers are recruited in response to force requirements.  The take-home is that you can get full recruitment with heavy loads of 80-85% of max or so or by taking lighter loads near or to failure.   With lighter loads, as fatigue sets in, the body will progressive recruit higher threshold fibers, eventually reaching full recruitment at some point late in the set.  Both ultimately end up causing recruitment of muscle fibers, exposing them to a high tension load.  A heavy set of 5 and a set of 30 taken to failure probably both get about 5 full recruitment reps.  The 30 reps to failure just made you do 25 pointless reps to get there.

This led into a discussion of the idea of effective reps, those reps in a given set or workout that are done under full recruitment/high tension conditions which, as noted can be achieved in different ways.  Straight sets at a low RIR/RTF is one way, rest-pause is another.  There are also stupidly ineffective ways of training that have so few effective reps per set that this might explain why some research or theorists suggest that the body needs an insane volume to generate growth.

When the intensity of your sets is utterly piss-ass low, you probably do need 5X the volume as if you actually knew how to train with some degree of focus or intensity.  But you’d be better off learning how to train with some degree of focus and intensity than just doing more bullshit sets.

But regardless of how you get there, the key to turning on growth is doing a sufficient number of high-tension contractions.  High-tension alone isn’t sufficient but without it, nothing happens.  All of the insufficient tension work in the world simply doesn’t generate growth.

But this raises a question which is this: How do we measure tension in the muscle?

And the answer is that we can’t in the gym, not in any meaningful way.  Not yet anyhow.

But we have something we can use as a proxy for tension.  Something that we can measure and track to give us some indication of what tension the muscle might be experiencing.  If you’ve read much of my work, you know what it is.  If not, you’ll find out next week.

Where in addition to explaining what that proxy is (hint: it’s weight on the bar), I’ll move into a detailed discussion of the misunderstandings that come out of using that proxy.   Of which there are many.  Yeah, this is gonna be one of my stupid long article series for sure.  But I need to get this written down once and for all.  See you next week.

Read Muscular Tension Part 2

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Source: https://bodyrecomposition.com/training/muscular-tension-part-1.html/

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Startups Weekly: Where social startups will get funding in the future

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/startups-weekly-where-social-startups-will-get-funding-in-the-future/

Startups Weekly: Where social startups will get funding in the future

[Editor’s note: Want to get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that startups can use by email? Subscribe here.] 

While consumer tech has matured as a startup category in recent years, many investors continue to be bullish on specific trends like online gaming, voice, and the unbundling of platforms in favor of focused social networks. That’s the key takeaway from a survey that Josh Constine and Arman Tabatabai did this week with 16 of the most active investors in key social product categories over on Extra Crunch. Here’s an excerpt of the responses, from Olivia Moore and Justine Moore of CRV:

“Unbundling of YouTube.” You can build a big company by targeting a vertical within YouTube with a product that has better features and more opportunities for creator monetization. Twitch is a great example of this! We’re also watching early-stage companies like Supergreat (in beauty) and Tingles (ASMR).

Voice as a social medium. Voice continues to pick up steam as a broadcast medium via podcasting, but we haven’t seen a lot in social or P2P voice yet. We think a successful platform will leverage the fact that voice content can be created and consumed while doing other things. We’re big fans of companies like TTYL and Drivetime that are making strides here!

Flexible digital identities. Gen Zers are online constantly but have different preferences across platforms/friend groups about how they want to “show up” digitally. The rise of “Finsta” accounts is one good example of this. Companies like Facemoji already help users create social content using a curated digital avatar — we’re excited to see what else founders build here!

Synchronous, shared mobile experiences. We’re bullish on apps that connect users in real time to have a shared social experience. Most apps now are “single-player,” which creates scroll fatigue. HQ Trivia was an early example more on the entertainment side, while companies like Squad help users browse the internet and watch TikTok together.

Other respondees include: Connie Chan (Andreessen Horowitz). Alexis Ohanian (Initialized Capital), Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst), Josh Coyne (Kleiner Perkins), Wayne Hu (Signal Fire), Alexia Bonatsos (Dream Machine), Josh Elman (angel investor), Aydin Senkut (Felicis Ventures), James Currier (NFX), Pippa Lamb (Sweet Capital), Christian Dorffer (Sweet Capital), Jim Scheinman (Maven Ventures), Eva Casanova (Day One Ventures) and Dan Ciporin (Canaan).

EC subscribers please note: a second part of this survey will be running this coming week, focused specifically on social investing in the COVID-19 era.

Are VCs investing — or maintaining?

Speaking of financing, who is actually writing checks right at this moment in time?

“I’ve seen a lot of VCs talking about being open for business,” Eniac Ventures founding partner Hadley Harris proclaimed on a fundraising-trend panel this week, “and I’ve been pretty outspoken on Twitter that I think that’s largely bullshit and sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs.” Instead, as Connie Loizos covered for us on TechCrunch, he said he didn’t have time to talk to more founders because he was so busy helping existing portfolio companies.

Not every investor agrees with that viewpoint —  VC Twitter features many an anecdote about fresh companies getting funding. 

Let’s just hope that both things are true, because it is already rough out there. 

Does your startup qualify for a PPP loan? (And should you apply?)

Two debates have been raging around government support for startups. First, the big, messy new Paycheck Protection Program — designed to cover expenses for small businesses — does seem to be somewhat available to startups, based on revisions published by the Small Business Administration late last week. But things get complicated quick depending on your fundraising and cap table, as Jon Shieber covered last weekend for TechCrunch. Venture firms typically have controlling interests in a portfolio of companies that total more than 500 people, so if such a firm also has a controlling interest in your startup, you may not be eligible. Even if the VC stake is under 50%, preferred terms that came with the fundraising may your application afoul of the rules.

To help founders work through their own situations faster, startup lawyer William Carleton wrote a quick guide for Extra Crunch. Here’s where he says you need to start:

Do you have a minority investor which controls protective covenants in your charter, or which controls a board seat afforded certain veto rights on board decisions? If the answer to either fork of that question is “yes,” you almost certainly have confirmed that you will need to amend your charter and/or other governing documents before proceeding with a PPP application.

The other aspect, of course, is whether startups should be applying for this in the first place. Congress broadly intended the money to go towards small to medium sized businesses, most of whom would never be considered for venture. Shieber’s article is full of comments on that topic, if you feel like weighing in….

The commercial real estate comeuppance

If you’re like me, and you’ve started companies in the Bay Area and struggled to find office space you could afford, enjoy this bit of schadenfraude as you plot your remote-first future. Because the commercial real estate industry is facing an existential crisis after many, many years of rent-seeking upon the Silicon Valley tech economy (and everyone else).

Connie explored this exploding topic with a range of startups, investors and CRE agents in a big feature for TechCrunch this week. One analyst “expects the market to come down by ‘at least 10% and probably 20% to 30%’ from where commercial space in San Francisco has priced in several years, which is $88 per square foot, according to CBRE. Driving the expected drop is the 2 million square feet that will come onto the market in the city as soon as it’s possible — space that companies want to get off their books.”

It’s quite possible to imagine even bigger declines, given the broader hits that most any possible tenant is also taking to their budgets. Who knows, maybe this whole process will even help make the Bay Area and other wealthy metros a little more affordable again.

Edtech gets hot again, according to investors

After lots of money and lots of struggle over the past decade, edtech is suddenly hot again thanks to the pandemic. Natasha Mascaranhas has been covering the trend recently, and dug in this week with a big investor survey on the category for Extra Crunch.

“One investor pivoted from spending a third of their time looking at edtech companies to devoting almost all their time to the sector,” she tells me. “Another, who has been bullish for years on edtech, says its business as usual for them, but that competition may arise. An ed-tech focused fund thinks the sector has been underfunded for a while, so the moment of reckoning has begun.”

Respondents include:

Jenny Lee, GGV

Tetyana Astashkina, LearnLaunch

Jean Hammond, LearnLaunch

Marlon Nichols, MaC Venture Capital

Mercedes Bent, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Jennifer Carolan, Reach Capital

Shauntel Garvey, Reach Capital

Jan Lynn-Matern, Emerge Education

Lesa Mitchell, Techstars

Tory Patterson, Owl Ventures

Ian Chiu, Owl Ventures 

Tony Wang, 500 Startups

Across the week:

TechCrunch

Economists haven’t thrown out the models yet (but they will)

Five CEOs on their evolution in the femtech space

Equity Monday: Hunting for green shoots amid the startup data

Extra Crunch

How SaaS startups should plan for a turbulent Q2

Fintech’s uneven new reality has helped some startups, harmed others

Fast-changing regulations give virtual care startups a chance to seize the moment

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson on shifting a 3,000-person company to fully remote

Amid unicorn layoffs, Boston startups reflect on the future

#EquityPod

From Alex:

We started with a look at Clearbanc  and its runway extension not-a-loan program, which may help startups survive that are running low on cash. Natasha covered it for TechCrunch. Most of us know about Clearbanc’s revenue-based financing model; this is a twist. But it’s good to see companies work to adapt their products to help other startups survive.

Next we chatted about a few rounds that Danny covered, namely Sila’s $7.7 million investment to help build technology that could take on the venerable and vulnerable ACH, and Cadence’s $4 million raise to help with securitization. Even better, per Danny, they are both blockchain-using companies. And they are useful! Blockchain, while you were looking elsewhere, has done some cool stuff at last.

Sticking to our fintech theme — the show wound up being super fintech-heavy, which was an accident — we turned to SoFi’s huge $1.2 billion deal to buy Galileo, a Utah-based payments company that helps power a big piece of UK-based fintech. SoFi is going into the B2B fintech world after first attacking the B2C realm; we reckon that if it can pull the move off, other financial technology companies might follow suit.

Tidying up all the fintech stories is this round up from Natasha and Alex, working to figure out who in fintech is doing poorly, who’s hiding for now, and who is crushing it in the new economic reality.

Next we touched on layoffs generally, layoffs at Toast, AngelList, and not LinkedIn — for now. Per their plans to not have plans to have layoffs. You figure that out.

And then at the end, we capped with good news from Thrive and Index. We didn’t get to Shippo, sadly. Next time!

Listen to the full thing here!

[theconservativebrief]

New reports indicate special counsel Robert Mueller remains intensely focused on longtime political consultant and lobbyist Roger Stone, as he has for many months now. But why?

Since at least February, the special counsel’s team has subjected at least 10 people to detailed questioning about the political operative and longtime Trump ally. They’ve asked about Stone’s finances, his political groups, and anything Stone might know about WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, hacked material, and Russian interference generally.

This has been the leakiest subplot of the Mueller investigation to date — because many witnesses who have gone been in to be questioned about Stone have gone right out and told reporters what the special counsel’s team asked them.

As a result, a plethora of articles keeps revealing new tidbits about what Stone-related topic Mueller is apparently interested in. This week alone, we’ve heard of the special counsel’s team asking about Stone’s 2016 conference calls, his emails with former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon, and his contacts with conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi.

Yet despite all these leaks, the full explanation for Mueller’s keen interest in Stone remains obscure. There’s still no public smoking gun evidence proving Stone was involved in the leak of the hacked Democratic material. And it’s not entirely clear what crime, if any, Stone might be on the hook for. We appear to be missing part of the story — maybe a lot of the story.

One conclusion we can draw, though, is the special counsel seems to know something that has convinced him that talking to many people around Stone is a worthwhile use of his resources. It could relate to documentary evidence that hasn’t yet leaked. It could relate to what cooperators like Rick Gates and now Paul Manafort have told investigators. But we likely won’t get the full story unless, or until, Mueller decides to file new charges.

Roger Stone is a legendary Republican “dirty trickster” operative who’s known Trump since the 1980s, advised him off and on over the years, and worked briefly for Trump’s presidential campaign in its earliest months, before departing to help his candidacy from the outside. Last year, he was mentioned from time to time as a person under scrutiny in the Trump/Russia probe in 2017 — but Mueller’s focus on him really seemed to intensify in the beginning of 2018.

Since then, Mueller has questioned at least 10 people extensively about Stone. They include some people who were are part of Trumpworld — but also many who are not, and who are of interest solely because of their connection to Stone himself:

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign staffer who’d worked with Stone for years until they had a falling out, was subpoenaed by Mueller in February. Nunberg at first said he’d refuse to testify, but eventually did so. “They want me to testify against Roger,” Nunberg complained beforehand. “They want me to say that Roger was going around telling people he was colluding with Julian Assange.”

Ted Malloch, a UK-based Trump supporter and author, was questioned by Mueller’s team about Stone, WikiLeaks, and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi in March.

Michael Caputo, a longtime close Stone associate and former Trump campaign staffer, was questioned in early May.

Jason Sullivan, John Kakanis, and Andrew Miller, three people involved in Stone’s 2016 political work, were all subpoenaed in May. The first two went in for questioning, but Miller has so far refused to, instead filing a lawsuit challenging Mueller’s authority as special counsel. (An appellate panel will hear arguments on his case on November 8.)

Kristin Davis, the former “Manhattan Madam” who’d also done political work with Stone, was subpoenaed by Mueller in July, and went in for grand jury testimony in August.

Randy Credico, a radio host who Stone claimed was his intermediary with Julian Assange, was subpoenaed in August and testified in September.

Jerome Corsi, a conservative writer and conspiracy theorist who questioned President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and wrote for the website Infowars, was subpoenaed and went in for testimony in September. ABC News reported Wednesday that Corsi is returning for another grand jury appearance, and that he is becoming “a central figure of interest to Mueller.”

Steve Bannon, who had already been questioned by Mueller’s team back in January, returned in late October for another round of questioning which reportedly focused on Stone.

And those are just the names we know — Mueller’s team has likely questioned more people whose names haven’t become public.

In the midst of this, Mueller turned two Trump allies who know Stone into cooperating witnesses, and has reportedly asked them about him.

Rick Gates started cooperating with the special counsel in February, and CNBC later reported that Mueller was questioning witnesses about meetings and dinners that Gates and Stone both attended.

Paul Manafort started cooperating in September, and ABC News soon reported that Mueller was “pushing” Manafort “for information on Roger Stone.” (Manafort and Stone have been friends for decades and co-founded a lobbying and PR firm together back in the 1980s.)

Mueller also wants to question somebody else about Stone: President Donald Trump. Among the topics the special counsel’s team listed for an interview with Trump back in March, per notes from Trump’s lawyers, was: “What did you know about communication between Roger Stone, his associates, Julian Assange or WikiLeaks?”

Meanwhile, in all these months the special counsel’s team has still never even reached out to Stone himself. When federal investigators are quizzing everyone around you about you, but not talking to you at all, that’s … not a great sign. (Mueller similarly avoided reaching out to question Manafort and Gates before he indicted them.)

The witnesses questioned about Stone have generally told reporters that they thought Mueller’s main interest was sussing out potential connections between Stone and WikiLeaks.

Mueller has alleged that, in March 2016, Russian intelligence officers hacked Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails. Seven months later, on October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks began posting batches of those emails online, and would continue to do so up until the election.

There are many unanswered questions about how what happened in between — most notably, how exactly the Podesta emails got to WikiLeaks, and whether any Trump associates were involved in or informed about this or other hacked material.

But in the two months or so before the Podesta email release, Roger Stone said a lot of interesting things. He publicly claimed to have “communicated with Assange.” He talked about an intermediary of his who’d met Assange. He hyped the release of new WikiLeaks content related to Clinton. And he ominously tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary”.

In private, he made similar intimations. He told Sam Nunberg that he’d “dined with my new pal Julian Assange.” Asked by Breitbart’s Matt Boyle if what Assange had on Clinton is “good,” Stone answered, “It is,” and suggested he wanted to tell Steve Bannon about it. In subsequent emails with Bannon, he then claimed to know what Assange was thinking. And as late as this year, Stone was trying to get Trump to pardon Assange.

Since then, Stone has tried to put forward innocent explanations for all of this. He’s suggested that he was joking and bullshitting in many of these claims, such as dining with Assange. He’s said that his contacts with Assange were only through an intermediary, radio host Randy Credico, and that he was often just repeating what Assange himself had said publicly. And he’s said the Podesta tweet was about an unrelated matter.

But his denials have often shifted. Just this week he said he’d never communicated with Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks, and the next day his emails with Bannon about Assange emerged. And previously, Stone and WikiLeaks both claimed they’d never directly communicated, but the Atlantic’s Natasha Bertrand got ahold of Twitter DMs they’d exchanged a few days after the Podesta emails went up.

Still, there remains no public proof that Stone knew anything specific about the Podesta hack or Assange’s plans. There’s a lot of vague, shady hinting from someone who has a reputation of being a bullshitter. There’s not yet a smoking gun, so far as we know. But something is likely motivating Mueller to focus so intently on this.

Yet despite the frequent speculation that Mueller will soon indict Stone, nobody seems to be sure on exactly what he’d be indicted for. It doesn’t seem that just talking with hackers would be a crime. Whatever Stone did would likely have to clear a pretty high bar, both in terms of evidence and seriousness, to justify an indictment for something like conspiracy. (Marcy Wheeler lays out several interesting possibilities in this post at EmptyWheel)

There are issues beyond WikiLeaks, too, that Mueller could be interested in. Stone had other shady contacts — with the Russian intelligence-run Twitter account “Guccifer 2.0,” and a Russian calling himself “Henry Greenberg” who’d offered dirt on Hillary Clinton. We’ve heard less about these in recent leaks from the people questioned about Stone lately, though. Then there is the web of political groups Stone deployed on Trump’s behalf — Mueller has been scrutinizing their finances, which could raise campaign finance issues.

But as for WikiLeaks and Podesta, it will be interesting to see what happens with Jerome Corsi in the days to come. According to NBC News, Mueller’s team has evidence suggesting Corsi — a Stone associate who had worked for the fringe website Infowars — knew in advance that Podesta’s emails had been stolen and given to WikiLeaks. Furthermore, there are other messages “in which Stone and Corsi seem to take credit for the release of Democratic emails,” the NBC reporters continue.

If this is accurate — and we haven’t seen the underlying evidence — it could be the missing link showing Stone did know about Podesta’s hacked emails specifically in advance. That would be a major revelation, connecting Trump’s circle to nonpublic knowledge about Russia-hacked material for the first time. However, Corsi is anything but a reliable source (he’s a longtime conspiracy theorist who helped create birtherism). In any case, Mueller is calling him back in for more questioning Friday.

Original Source -> Robert Mueller sure still is interested in Roger Stone

via The Conservative Brief

[automatismoateo]

The other day I argued with my mom when she claimed that the acceptance of LGBT people is leading to the decay of society and the acceptance of pedophilia. (This is a stupidly long angst-addled rant). via /r/atheism

Submitted July 22, 2018 at 05:54AM by GemRocking (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2LDN1Rl) The other day I argued with my mom when she claimed that the acceptance of LGBT people is leading to the decay of society and the acceptance of pedophilia. (This is a stupidly long angst-addled rant).

I wasn’t going to write this post; I try to be self-sufficient and not get easily “triggered,” but some things just make me frustrated, angry, anxious, and sad. I had this conversation with my mom the other day and it’s been bugging me ever since, and I want to vent here where people are actually fucking sane. I’ll try not to be long-winded and just recollect the main things that happened.

Important context Mom is a mental health professional. So she won’t change her mind on anything because 1) the Word of Gawd says 2) she knows what she’s talking about, fuck you.

Another thing is that I myself have a preference for the same sex. I know that every third kid in my generation does, or says they do. I have a lot of shame over it because I’ve been taught that LGBT people are stupid, confused, hell-bound perverts.

My mom actually knows about my same-sex attractions, and at one point I’d told her about some of my religious unbelief—namely that I questioned the existence of God and divinity of the Bible. But I’ve started lying to her in recent months because of how tense and painful our relationship got, and because I’m in a Christian academic program that requires really rigorous statements of faith and I don’t want my parents to know how good of a liar I am.

TL;DR Mom mentioned a TED talk she’d recently seen about how pedophilic relationships should be accepted and embraced by society. She claimed that we were going down a dangerous path now that LGBT stuff is legal and widely accepted. Argument ensued.

Disclaimer I know I’m ranting about my mom here, and I do feel kind of bad about that. I’m going to do my best to be respectful to her (not necessarily respectful towards her beliefs or the way she expresses them). I don’t want to sound condescending, and she told me repeatedly the other day that I was being puffed-up and acting like I knew everything. As a teen, I know that I’m prone to be big-headed and I just don’t want to come off that way. Also bear in mind that this is completely from my own perspective, so it’s bound to be very biased, and I haven’t processed this conversation with anyone else.

Memory

Mom mentioned a TED talk she’d recently seen about how pedophilic relationships should be accepted and embraced by society. She claimed that we were going down a dangerous path now that LGBT stuff is legal and widely accepted. I challenged this idea (don’t remember what I said, just that I questioned if embracing homosexuality leads to pedophilia).

The conversation kind of went in circles. Here’s something you need to know about religious people: they don’t see things distinctly. Everything that’s a sin is just “degeneracy;” it’s all one and the same, it all ties into itself. No distinctions can be made. She wouldn’t accept my argument that distinct moral differences can be drawn between homosexuality and pedophilia based off of how it affects the parties involved, i.e. that in pedophilia, one of the parties is always at a disadvantage and is objectively damaged.

My head’s so full of the shit that went down in this conversation that I think the best way to organize what happened next is a bullet list; whenever I’m trying to recreate something Mom actually said, I’ll italicize it.

When I tried to say that embracing LGBT stuff won’t lead to pedophilia because there are distinct moral differences between homosexuality and pedophilia, she scoffed and said that they’re the same: they’re both sexual sin and perversion. Then she said that it’s a slippery slope, because she’s been around for so many years. “When I was a kid, homosexuality was heard of, but there were hardly any homosexuals. Now 75% of the population is confused. We’ve embraced all kinds of disgusting things.”

“Now if you’re a man that thinks you’re a woman, a woman that thinks you’re a man, a man that wants to wear silky women’s underwear, you can march around in the street and do it! You can have a whole parade to celebrate it and do it in the town square!”

“Now that people think that we just ‘love who we love,’ they’ll say that people are born pedophiles and they deserve ‘equal rights.’ Homosexuality used to be illegal, and now it’s all legal and encouraged.”

“And all this horrible pornography didn’t exist when I was a kid. The acceptance of this is leading to more and more depravity.” When I asked if she had any evidence that pornography leads to pedophilia, she said, “There’s evidence that it leads to all kinds of shit!” I asked if there was evidence that it leads to anything specific, and instead of directly addressing the point, she got really angry and threw out this complete red herring: “You want me to say specific things in front of your brother?? You want me to? There’s evidence that it leads to sex with siblings, sex with animals, sex with objects, sex with children—everything!”

She claimed that homosexuality should still be classed as “homophilia” in the DSM. I asked her why, asked if it met the criteria for a mental illness, and she came up with some pious Christian bullshit before saying that it causes distress. I asked her for evidence that homosexuality causes distress, and she said, “Are you kidding me? Look at the suicide rate among those people! Yes, they’re miserable.” I asked if the suicide rate is high definitively because they are homosexual, and I got, “Yes!” Case closed, I guess.

I asked if she had any evidence that the acceptance of LGBT stuff is leading to the acceptance of pedophilia, and she staged the following argument: the TED talk was recorded and aired, and thus, people accepted it. I pointed out the flaw in this reasoning, and she said, “It doesn’t matter! It was allowed to happen, and it would have never been allowed before!” I suggested that perhaps the rise of the Internet and the huge number of platforms to publish opinions on could be a factor here, as previously in history, the media has been much more monopolized and such a wide range of ideas might not have been allowed to air. “No, that’s stupid, [Gem]! It wasn’t published because there are more options now, it was published because we’re morally corrupted! You’re being ridiculous.” I hate to admit that this stung a bit, because I thought I had a pretty good point there, even though I’m aware that many other factors effected the press historically.

She pulled up a study on the overlap between homosexual males and pedophilic males, claiming that homosexuality causes pedophilia because of this study, and she mocked me when I questioned whether there could be other causes for this overlap.

She concluded this trainwreck of an argument by saying, “There: I have ‘evidence’ right here for you—the TED talk exists, it was made and recorded and released. I’ve pulled up a study. You have no evidence.”

Conclusion

During this debate, she played the parent/age card a lot. “I’ve been around on this earth and seen how the world has changed; you’re only arguing this because you don’t know a time when the world isn’t so depraved.” She also called me “little girl” at one point; I think she’d said something like “You think you know everything, little girl, but you don’t.” She also said, “I’m really disappointed in you; I thought you’d gotten over this. I’m disappointed that your views on this are so worldly.” I thought I’d kept this discussion really tame—I never questioned it when she cited the Bible as evidence for her arguments, and I let a lot of bullshit slide. She also asked why I was defending homosexuality, even though I danced on eggshells to be sure I wasn’t too pro-gay or whatever. Apparently pointing out that homosexuality and pedophilia are on very different tiers is equal to defending homosexuality.

I guess it hurt my feelings a bit, in one respect, because she knows that I’m same-sex attracted, yet she still goes around saying that LGB people are mentally ill, that homosexuality should be illegal, and that they’re as wicked as pedophiles and murderers. I think maybe she’s trying to shame me into turning straight or something. It’s not like this is the first time she’s said any of this, by the way—she consistently reiterates these views.

I feel like she discredits me unfairly. I feel like I’m a lot more capable of discussing these topics than my authorities allow for. But again, that’s likely teenage angst and Marilyn Manson my idol talking. What pisses me off about a lot of these conversations is that she occasionally speaks brazenly of sexual things that I’m not allowed to reference explicitly because I’m a kid. So I just have to be quiet while she talks and pretend I’m shocked and disgusted by what she’s describing.

And maybe this is also my teen angst and big-headedness talking, but I felt that this discussion was pretty unfair. I know that adults have wisdom that children don’t, but her “I’ve been around longer than you” and “You don’t know anything, little girl” bullshit felt more like a silencing tactic than anything. I know she’s superior to me in most ways because she’s grown up, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t think for myself. That doesn’t mean I have to always go along with her beliefs. It doesn’t mean I can’t form opinions about the way things were in the past or how things have evolved over time just because I wasn’t there to personally experience it—I’d even argue that I might have a better-rounded opinion of past decades than many people who lived through them because I’ve read about them in a more all-encompassing way, while they experienced decades through their own neighborhoods and upbringings.

I’m too fragile for this. Like I said, I try to be thick-skinned, but sometimes these conversations strike me at the wrong time. I ended up in a suicidal spin, I scratched myself up and cried for a good twenty minutes. Sometimes I feel really trapped; this ridiculous homeschooled Christian conservative environment feels so fucking suffocating at times, where I can’t even express a pretty moderate opinion about how homosexuality is morally different than pedophilia without upsetting people. And I know I’ll have to fight tooth and nail to get out of this place. My parents want me to go to a local Christian college and live at home with them until I’m like 20. They want me to marry a man and raise children near to them. They want me to do something God-honoring with my life. But I have to deal with knowing that I’m not who the fuck they think I am, and I can’t live that life; I’ll either have to go through hell to become independent and be myself, or I’ll die. Then I think that none of this is legit; I’m just a whiny, entitled, rich American teenager that doesn’t know how to deal with life or be a decent, productive human being because I’m constantly succumbing to my own angst and throwing pity parties.

I guess I learned my lesson: shut up and agree with my authorities externally, think for myself in secret. Anyway, I apologize for being so wordy, but I had a lot to get off my chest. Thanks for sticking around, if you made it through. Love y’all. Satan curse.

[derenyanai]

Ashes of the Old World Session Branch 13-B Part 1

Time: Sometime after Session 12 Characters: Zealous Terminator

Starting things off for the hell of it, Zealous, You're in Anxe, a city known for being really tall and built out of mostly towers, the excited comradery and celebration of the populace is fairly loud after the wierd spider invasion has been fought off recently in part thanks to your "friends" , Your "friends" are currently having to deal with tarnocks trial coming up, something about a guard going missing, as you might have been told by uncle ashara, either while he was drunk or slightly less drunk, either way you have free reign to explore, what do you do? 

"Hm, I wonder where everyone is at right now?" I wonder quietly as I step through a door, looking about himself to get an idea of what the whole place looks like at this time of the day. At this very moment, I felt like actually exploring the library for some books on famous wrestlers. Hopefully I can find some interesting lore.

The library is a dusty bastard, people with pointy hats and vaguely important looking educational based cloths filling these halls, probably from various schools and colleges, while not a large buidling its pretty sizable and presumably chock full of books on various subjects, >Roll some hot saucy Investigation check to look for your desired books

While few books you find have the term "Wrestler", You find atleast five in total revolving around arena games and pit fighting, One actually going into a specific biography about one of these participants in these games "Sexy Fred" detailing how sexy he was and the force at which he ripped opponents in two and danced beautifully after victory, two of the books have two different accounts by two seperate authors about the start of competive fighting stating there own home town as the start of it, contradicting each other atleast every respective chapter, The remaining two are ledgers holding lentghly lists of known "wrestlers" or "arena fighters"

"This sounds fun." I stated as I flipped through the pages, "This Sexy Fred sounds quite livid." After few minutes of reading into it, I had already begun to form ideas in my head. This... "arena games" and "pit fighting" sounds like something I should look into. I turn to the nearest coneheads which are also deemed as guardians of the library. "Hey, where can I find pit fights?" I ask.

The nearest conehead, A halfling with freckles all round thier face and bright orange hair almost going down to thier feet, confusidly looks to Zealous, she looks tired trying to determine if shes even awake after just glancing at him for a couple seconds, with the only immediate response being, "....what?"

"The pit fights, the arena gaming, the place where Sexy Fred fights at. Can you point the direction out to it for me, please?" I ask, growing mildly concerned for the exhausted ginger in front of me.

"...Finals coming up and I'm already hallucinating" The ginger halfing shakes her head, as if trying to disprove to herself that Zealous is even there "....And you're still there, Hello, sorry I don't....I don't know what your talking about, I don't know a fred, Is he a friend? I can check the ummmm...Lost and found....no thats....you can't put people in there, no"    The tragic lack of coffee in this time becomes violently apparant

"If you are taking history finals, you are failing it terribly, my young fair madame!" I shout at the librarian as I waved at her. "Sexy Fred is somewhat of a gladiator I hear. Never mind, is your elderly one or a supervisor around?"

"No they're at the college, they make me buy books they wrote and the libraray sells them here, 50 gp is fucking bullshit, course requires it too, they only reference ONE FUCKING PAGE, I just wanted to learn astrology dammit, The fuck is an algebra" Ginger Halfling has started crying

I sigh out of exasperation. I do not know why this young lady is telling me her troubles with school and finances. I just want directions to a pit fight, or an arena. "Right... I don't know what an algebra is either, but if it's important, you might as well learn it." I stroke my orange beard out of frustration. Right then, I might be best be off to find a place that sells or gives information about maps. Wait, I am at library. I slap my forehead and began to search for maps.

Yeah don't even roll for that, they got maps, theres even a large sign saying MAPS, at the reception desk

I pick up the map and began to look through them for locations of the pit fights and arena games. I am on a mission ladies and gents! Zealous Terminator is coming!

There is actually several in and around Anxe, Roughly Thirteen competing ones in the lower city tier, Three in the mid city tier and one large one in the highest tiers

Assuming I am already on the lower city tier... I am going to go ahead and visit one of the thirteen pit fights then work my way around from there. Hm, I wonder if I should be concerned with Tarnock's trial? I should be looking for evidences to help him break free. Oh well! TO THE PIT FIGHTS! 

I ran as far as my tiny little legs can take me.

The Richard Butter Slam, Is the fighting pit you come up to first, it looks a little bit in disrepair, wooden boards covering atleast two destroyed windows,

A small line out front, A bugbear with yellow spots, A father and his five children, An elf, and various more nameless npcs  large bouncers standing at the door 

I sure hope these bouncers don't recognize me. By their sizes, I should be able to slip by easily between their legs!

?????.....why are you worried about them reconizing zealous?

You'll never know if I need a code or password to get into the fight club.

(Look at this fuck forgeting the first rule of fight club) That has nothing to do with being reconized, but i suppose if you wanna slip in without being noticed by bouncer senpai you'll half to make a sleath check

The Bouncers notice Zealous-Kohai very shortly paying very little mind untill looks like hes doing a sneak , closing thier legs before he can walk underneath them "Hold it, where you think you're going?"

I look up and then chuckled uneasily, "Erm.... inside?" I said.

"If you watching get in back of the line, Or are you looking to get messed up?" The bouncer grunts

"Look at me and tell me what you think?" I point to my mask and my outfit, surely it is painstakingly obvious! "I am here to MESS someone up."

>Roll the better of intimidation or persuasion

"................" The bouncer is having the hardest time not laughing "You Serious??? HAHAHAHAHA" welp there he go, doing a laugh

Can I do a punch to make him change his mind?

Shit fam give a go >roll your attack

The bouncer is hit in such the right spot to spit out a whole Electrum piece, The other Bouncer is looking with concern "Lenny, We talked about this don't eat coins"

"No thats from....way back I don't.....look fucker just go in ow" Lenny bouncer grimaces

With a prideful grunt, I walk into the fight club! As upon entry, what do I see?

Zealous should be able to gaze upon, A bunch of chairs and tables filled with people, Surrounding a platform created by just having a bunch of crates pushed together, there is what looks like a fishing net at each side of the crate platform, This building clearly wasn't intended for this kind of activity but was makeshiftedly turned into it.

There is two people fighting inside the platform currently one with a club and the other punching him real hard, loud cheering from the crowd

I have urges rising inside me, warrior's blood boiling, screaming me to join in the fight. However... I think I am going to look around or hear anyone talk about this... "Sexy Fred". I walk about in the arena, also looking for something to eat. I am not just being here to revel in the fight, I am also here to eat food and pick up on the lead on the guy as well.

There is alot of Butter stands like selling whole sticks of butter, in The Richard Butter Slam arena, As well as barrels of ale, Bread stands, A stand deep frying bread using ale, wierd stuff

Hm, I think I am in mood for some Buttered toast and a glass of ale.

Costs about 12 copper in total, most of the price coming from the butter, its not very expensive down here and thats probably because everyone is poor as fuck

I SHALL TAKE THAT! Upon after purchasing them, of course. 

pffft, alright the conversion rate of gold to copper is 100 Cp per Gp, so...math that out, or just pretend its pennies to dollars if that helps. The stand (user) owner happily gives you your change and hands you your food

Nice! I grabbed dem food and then walked toward the table nearby and began to eat them as I watch the fight! I am totally secretly studying my next possible fighter's fighting techniques.

I'm just realizing zealous is probably the richest fucker in the room....Anyway! Yeah the two fighters are distributing a whole wallop to each other, While the club wielder have the clear damage advantage the fist fighter is moving around to dammed fast,making it hard to land anything on him, sliding around each swing and bopping the club wielder's nose, after a couple good snoot boops Club user finally collapses onto the platform, an announcer shouting, "Ohhhh! and thats another win for Legs Leviticus, The Club Conroy is going to be mad about that when he wakes up"

"END HIM!" I shout from the chair, shaking my fist violently as I spew butter and bread from my seat.

Legs makes his way to the end of the platform looking down at Zealous "What is with this....Sassy lost child?"

"I AM ZEALOUS TERMINATOR!" I shouted from the distance.

"Well you aint gonna be shit after I'm done with you" Legs motions upward with his thumb as if to challenge Zealous, Club is being picked up and dragged away by staff

"THAT'S A CHALLENGE I SMELL. I SHALL TAKE YOUR CHALLENGE!" I shout and charged toward the clearing, entering the ring by doing some sort of acrobatics for a dramatic entry.

Take a wild guess on what you're going to >Roll

You look like your about to make a glorious  amazing and majestic flip entry, Right up untill you hit into the fish nets you've apparantly completly fogotten about, Legs seems concerned motioning to where Club is being carried out, theres apparantly a small flap where in fighters enter and leave the platform

I hurriedly remove myself from the net to face the Legs more properly. I also make mental note that there's a small flap in case I should inspect it. "Alright, just... give me a second here." I muttered quietly as I attempt to get myself upright.

Task is simple enough not to require a roll, since the net is fixed to the crates and the cieling, There is very little way to get tangled, inless you break it

Nah, no need to break it. Anyway! I get into the clearing and face the Legs more properly. I size him up from the ground, assuming he probably got a huge size advantage on me?

Apparantly yes, standing 6 feet tall and having him some pointed ears, legs starts stretching his legs

I point up toward the Legs and shout out in a mighty prideful cry, "ARE YOU READY TO GO BACK TO YOUR MOMMY FOR SOME COOKIES AND MILK!?"

"SOMETIME LATER TODAY SURE, BUT NOT BEFORE I TEACH YOU SOME TABLE MANNERS" Legs exclaims stomping his legs onto the platform floor

"THEN GET SOME TABLES AND I'LL GLADLY ACCEPT YOUR LESSONS. TEACHERS NEEDS TO HAVE PROPER SUPPLIES TO TEACH THEIR STUDENTS!" I screamed at top of my lungs and proceed to grab at this man's legs.

Oh boy Combat start, Roll some crunchy Initiative, mostly just to determine who goes first

Good Shit, >roll athelics to grapple

The legs to fast to touch as they hop out the way of your grab attempt, His turn

Seeing you leaned over he reels one of his legs backward and strikes it forward, this misses, but shortly after his other legs comes trailing behind, but this has about the the same success, zealous turn

I tackle and wail on the remaining leg he has on the floor!

TO BE CONTINUED->

[toddlazarski]

Whiffs of Napoli at San Giorgio Pizzeria

Shepherd Express

Chicago or Sheboygan. Eight years ago, this was basically the Milwaukee menu for serious scorching-oven fare. The former’s wave of Neapolitan pizzas seemed to be peaking, highlighted when GQ’s Alan Richman dubbed Great Lake as the ‘Best Pizza in America’. (It mattered so little in the oceanic pie world of Chicago that the place would be closed within a couple years). The big city scene was rounded out by the likes of the excellent Spacca Napoli, exocticized by the fired coal offerings of Coal Fire. Meanwhile our small town  neighbors to the north held every Milwaukee foodie’s favorite in-the-know secret: Il Ritrovo.

We had Piccolo. Also, maybe you could count whatever was happening at the short-lived efforts of Dick’s nightclub. Aside from that, well, it’s best not to think of the stone ages in today’s bustling scramble scene of catchup. Now we have Wolf Peach - much more than a pizzeria, but still, some occasional Neapolitan-leaning gems can be found alongside bone marrow and such. There’s Anodyne, a coffee shop’s success meeting the owner’s backyard passion project, yielding a from-Italy oven, some figuring-it-out salad days, and now frequent pizza brilliance. There is Carini’s, the Shorewood meets Sicily stalwart having added a 900-degree Acunto fire-breather. More recent is Bay View’s Santino’s, whose food can best be summed up by the fact that the restaurant often feels like the set of The Sopranos. Earlier this summer Di Moda opened in the space of Trocadero, because out with the gastropubbery, in with the fancy pizza. There will certainly be more. While the best of the new school has been Zarletti Mequon - Brian Zarletti schooled by maestro Roberto Caporuscio, president of the Association of Neapolitan Pizzaiuoli, in the hard streets of midtown Manhattan.

Amidst the wave it’d be easy to overlook San Giorgio, the new, next-door opening by the owners of Calderone Club. Especially considering it’s residence in the oft-forgotten, by Milwaukeeans at least, downtown dining scene. Especially in the large shadow cast by Calderone Club itself, the much beloved, pretty ordinary spot for Milwaukee pub style pizza.  

But, note the window placard on some walk by: “Vera Pizza Napoletana” it states atop the logo - a serious jester shrouded in white, pizza peel yielded like a most potent tool of war, his focus only on the red orb before him, it seeming to contain all importance in the world, even despite the steaming Vesuvius outline in the background. Or grab a spot at the “pizza bar” - a melding of the two greatest things made by man - and spot the same certificate hanging on the back wall. What it means: they are a member of the VPN, an official delegation that designates its members as making “true Neapolitan pizza.” Admittance is based on, among other specifications, having a 900-degree wood-burning oven, using ‘certified’ mozzarella, type “00” wheat flour, tomatoes yielding from the lush soil around Mount Vesuvius. There’s also plenty of overcooked minutia: intricate requirements such as “proper work surface (usually a marble slab),” and oregano that is "Origanum vulgare from the ‘Labiatae’ family.” But, what it means hanging here: San Giorgio joins the aforementioned Il Ritrovo, Sheboygan’s other pizza spot - Harry’s, and Madison’s Naples 15  as the only spots in the state for such certified ‘za.      

Does any of this matter? Is such acronym salad but a marketing ploy? Is it misplaced rigidity? Isn’t adherence to tradition a bit overrated in comparison to, you know, taste? And, when you’re pizza-hungry, do you mind if, say, they're using a “low speed approved mixer”? Or if the pie is over the 11-inch maximum size? Are all of these just crusty stipulations, rules ordained by the hall monitors of technique?

These are the things to ponder as you sit in the considerable shadow of the blue tile beauty made in Naples - a Stefano Ferrara, or, basically, a Mercedes Benz of domed, high-temp ovens. And it burns just so, like a finely tuned, precision-engineered machine. Or you think it does, until maybe you hear one pizzaiolo tell the next, under his breathe, in a moment of heated frustration, "I'll kill you," and you realize, with the glimpse of one mistake, one disagreement, that it’s a very different kind of precision at work here. There’s something inherently temperamental at play, the world of careful cooking and fetishistic focus mixing with kitchen bullshitting and operatic southern Italian machismo right before you. There’s no setting a timer and walking away. There’s a constant checking of the temp with a gun, an indicator of the dynamic state, there’s a spinning of the pizza peel, like Federer flipping his racket, the easy familiarity with a tool, known through repetition, non-sentient friendship, a paint brush pointed toward doing serious life’s work.   

The entire presentation feels more art than kitchen procedure. It’s also at least part pizza porn - what with the in-and-out of the long peel, penetrating and prodding. And it feels all aesthetic pleasure. Especially as the waitress whisks another fire-kissed pie of San Marzano tomatoes, and nostrils fill with the woody essence of charred flour, and there’s Italian marble under your elbows, and Louis Prima overhead.    

For certain people, it feels special, essential - the kind of people that plan their honeymoon around making it to Naples, and then decide to spend the rest of their lives denigrating Rome and the Amalfi Coast, fiercely defending Napoli’s place as the actual greatest place in all of Italy, if not the world. For others, San Giorgio is simply a classy, laid back, downtown-y type place of which there are less and less downtown these days.    

Whatever your personal baggage walking through the door, there’s not much getting around it: the way pizza freaks talk about pizza is awful. Like BBQ geeks, with their ridiculous wood preferences, the need to pepper convo’s with terms like “bark,”  to let you know they know of what they speak. Or the way mixologists denigrate lesser bitters, with a scoff, like our president toward reality. Having said that, for those same certain people, Neapolitan style pizza, like Naples itself, is well deserving of a flight or two of poetic fancy.

To start, the style is a texture lover’s dream. A perfect synthesis of dough and char, of pillow and base, of stretching and body, of delightful little black air bubbles, popping up like corpuscles, hardened flakes mixing with softer pockets. What pizza nerds call ‘leoparding’ happens underneath - dark spots bleeding through the golden crust, indicating a happy marriage between worlds of cool dough and extreme heat. It adds up to what might be the mouth’s version of getting into a really comfortable bed - memory foam melding into a just-firm-enough mattress.

Atop such framework, variations abound. There is the Margherita - wielding San Marzano tomatoes, fresh Fior di Latte mozzarella, Parmigiano, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil. (The ‘extra’ is an extra stipulation, of course). Or there is the Margherita D.O.C. - the same but with Mozzarella di Bufala, the D.O.C. meaning “Denominazione di Origine Controllata,” another authentication, which also, yes, indicates designations within designations, wheels within wheels. Whichever, whatever, these are the most elemental, the best introduction, either would rightly act as a top notch representative - the bread, sauce, melted cheese combination sort that should be sent up in one of those space ships, along with Robert Johnson recordings and Michelangelo prints as a sort of message: “beat this, aliens.”   

The “Calabrese” is the next, logical punch up.  Along with San Marzano tomatoes, mozz, something called Caciocavallo Cheese, and red pepper flakes, it showcases soppressata, maybe the most criminally under-used aspect of Italian culture, which holds enough spice, enough zing to make pepperoni seem rote.    

On the white pizza side, there is the “Quattro Formaggi,” which might very well translate to fat ‘Sconnie guy. It is smoked Provola cheese, fresh mozz, Fontina, Gorgonzola, and a bounty of fresh garlic. An oily, pungent punch of gooey melted cheese, sharpness mixing with smoothness, contrast and medley at once, it is a tongue and breath bop of rich saltiness and airy satisfaction. If going such a sans tomato route, the “Genovese” is built on a basil pesto sauce, popped by cherry tomatoes, with a Citterio Genoa salami that is good enough to make the over-gushing about soppressata seem a bit silly. It’s similar to what the crispy pancetta atop the “San Giorgio” does, this being another white pie offering with braised fennel, more fior di latte mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, baby arugula, a sunny side egg, and plenty of potential to kick start nap time. 

Really, if you top any such carbohydrate beauty with shimmering, globby cheese chunks, any type of sauce whatsoever, there can be no wrong orders. The only mistake to be made here is filling up on burrata, or the arancini, or the excellent croquettes. Or, asking for a pizza to go, which San Giorgio prefers not to do, religiously adhering to the belief that the oven is part of the experience, that it needs to be eaten hot, fresh, immediately. Not reheated, like by a tasteless barbarian.

Pizza. But not pizza ‘to go.’ And there you have it, the thing that somehow says it all: something both impossibly simple and elegant. The essence of elevated street food. But not in the hipster sense, in the 2000-year-old  timeless fashion, where fire meets grain, there are few, but fresh, ingredients, carbs and proteins in a single bite, cooking done with man’s first and most basic invention, a reduction to essentials, an overwhelming sense of everything you want in your mouth - all at once, in one hot bite.       

There is a street in Naples’ old district, where pizzerias abound, and mopeds whizz by, and there seems like an almost irresponsible number of corner cafes, and the cobblestone paths are packed and loud, and intimidating, if not just for the sheer volume of life. Within that first bite, between swills of Peroni, San Giorgio can feel like via Tribunali. Or at least as close to Naples as many might come. Despite being on Old World 3rd street, despite upbringing and the emotional bind of childhood pizza memory, and the reality that Midwest pizza might still be the appropriate everyday preference, and regardless of whatever VPN means or doesn’t mean, it’s nice, if for just a moment, to find that true taste, sense, of somewhere else.