#sunk cost fallacy isnt real im out

[sporkberries]

my talents include starting projects and abandoning them

[richardsphere]

so im about 60 episodes into Ranma 1/2. Im gonna say, I struggle to grasp what it is that has kept me locked in. So here a post of me trying to figure it out...

A lot of the jokes just dont land for me. (i dont think "X is mistaken for perv" or "X is a perv" are funny jokes, and thats feels like its a good... 70-80% of the humour) And for an IP that's all about the Shipping.... well... The ships... all suck, i dont ship anything but "Ranma X therapy" and "Happosai X A Grizzly Death". I came in expecting Rankane to be one of those "slow-burn" where you'll eventually grow to see them like eachother even if you dont ship it at the start... but im 60 episodes in and they despise eachother nine-times out of ten. Shampoo had a brief moment where i thought her and Ranma were gonna bond over their alienation from society, from their respective reclusive upbringings. But like... nothing ever comes of them. Shampoo never gets to be more then "The Clingy Murder-Happy One". Ranma and Ukyo are... well the problem there is that Ukyo is in a total of 4-5 episodes (so far), and only matters in 3 of those. Her and Ranma at least like eachother as people though so... thats good, best ship by default. But "the one he likes as a person" means her very presence kind of... invalidates the premise of the show. Also Ranma is the only Kung-Fu Protagonist i've ever seen who... doesnt want to be a martial artist? Like he's proud of his skills and definitly has rare moments where he gets invested emotionally in a fight, but... even said pride reads very "my parents made me play Piano for 5 hours a day all my childhood, and told me my value as a person is inherently tied to this instrument, so i'm proud of my skills as a pianist because of a combination of Self Esteem issues and because of a sunk-cost fallacy where if I dont continue down this life I'll have invalidated my entire previous existence leading up to this moment". The show feels like Ranma isnt into martial arts, his family is into martial arts and Ranma just wants to earn a right to exist in their eyes. (and much like Heinz' mothers love was inextricably linked to Kickball, Genma's love is inextricably linked to Punching) in short: I hope the finale ends with Ranma feigning their death and running away to do something else, get a hobby... Maybe open an icecream parlor, they seems like they'd be into that. Anyway that tangent (and the rapidly emerging "icecream parlor AU"-fic in my brain) aside. This series is definitly doing something right (like i said, im 60 episodes in and Im still in it for the long-haul), but its really hard for me to figure out what it is thats locking me in. I guess if i had to put a word on it, its the "All-in-Zany" that's locking me in? Like they're entirely self-aware that there is no need to turn figureskating into a martial art but they do it anyway. And then they treat that premise as dangerously as any other martial art. I always like when a show is willing to do something off-the-wall and show real dedication to said off-the-wall thing. (IE: The S2 RWBY Foodfight). Yeah i think thats it. No other show would give me "Martial Arts Pingpong" or "Martial Arts Pancake Cooking" and then throw around dynamite-laced pancake batter.

[thekingofwinterblog]

It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

[spirit-shroud]

what are some roles that have been largely changed for cityrune? since you said queen was an influencer now :]

hi ty for asking me im vibrating. havent gotten to talk about this au now for three years and now that chapter 2 is like real and this time i can like........draw occasionally and i have more understanding of nuance...... [grips table] [screams]

this isnt quite what you asked but heres what's everyone from chapter 1 has been Up To with a little bit of context (and under a read more bc it got LENGTHY):

kris - professional stay at home teen (they live w/ asgore n help run the flower shop sometimes. this decision was entirely bc i dont like toriel). was wrongly diagnosed w Sudden Soul Rejection when they were incredibly young and given an experimental transplanted soul as a replacement. it works for them fine, give or take having to see gaster once a month for checkups. but sometimes the soul makes them skittish n decides they're going to sit in front of the pc and play 30 consecutive hours of a certain simulation game and not even let them drown people in the pool. if it were entirely up to them, they'd be like. passing out on the sofa to documentaries about bigfoot. or practicing cool knife tricks to impress their friends at their next tabletop meetup

- EDITED IN: the soul is kind of their friend. they are wearing a hypothetical get along shirt. most of the time, they agree on actions and things to do. tends to refer to themself + their soul as we/us which originally was just something they did in their head but they kept slipping in speech/text n just became a Thing of how they talk. switches to 'I/Me' whenever smth is wrong.

- also edited in: they believe the soul they have is their original soul bc nobody has told them otherwise. whenever theyre like 'oh yeah we think about our soul n view it as a separate entity to us like. all the time. it likes to hurt if we make too many choices it doesn't seem to like and kind of forces us to be a toned down version of what we want to be but thats just how souls are haha' and everyone is like.... 'Hey Kris That's Really Not How It Is.' theyre like. 'huh. gonna ignore that for now' - this was going to be a plot point

toriel - head of H0MEWOR1D (H01)'s department of education; kind of lost her roots as a simple math teacher as she was pushed into a lot of power she didn't even really seek out. divorced asgore over some miscommunications in their relationship; also loosely as a result of grief from asriel's death

asgore - the same. runs a lil flower/gift shop. people come in more to talk with him than to buy flowers most of the time, though

asriel Flowey - he's back in flower form, thanks to the government an accident. causes a lot of technology glitches wherever he goes, and wants revenge. isn't sure how to go about it. asriel "died" around 8 years before the story takes place and kris still misses him and refuses to even THINK about even the IDEA of calling someone their sibling after what happened, just in case it somehow happens a second time

susie - more of the same really. she spends most of her time either at grillby's (she's sort of become his assistant n helps with opening/closing. it just happened) or getting into low-stakes trouble w/ kris

noelle - she's in the city's equivalent of college and shes so tired. shes So Abysmally Tired n got kinda pushed 2 follow in her mom's footsteps. she's rarely around anymore except through text or on monsters & mages (dnd) night. (however.........she will come back w/ a long break n hang out w everyone again)

berdly - tbh i didnt even consider berdly when i made the au initially. idk what he's doing. probably in a similar situation to noelle??? canonically got kicked out of the M&M group due to clashes w/ other players but lurks in their group chat to posts memes sometimes

didnt rly think of any other of kris' classmates (+ their families) after ch1 and probably will continue to not, until chs 3-5 come out and i gotta whip up roles and histories for like. a lotta guys all of a sudden. i also forgot about noelle's parents

sans - runs a convenience store that everyone kind of thinks is a front, but also it has really cheap snacks and the local teens make a point of stopping there after school. so essentially, more of the same papyrus - similar to ut. is a very polite and sweet boy but you'll know when he's coming

grillby - he's back. he runs a bar like back in ut but the cozy vibes and weird-for-a-bar hours keep attracting kids who need parents, so half of his menu is comprised of overly sweet mocktails. usually only frequented by monsters

QC - same as usual. has a "rivalry" with grillbz but, theyre besties and have a book club

mettaton - he's real and he's back. he's similar to how he is back in ut w/ his EX body. likes to hang out at grillby's and talk to unsuspecting fans. has a show for everything

napstablook - similar to how they are in ut. helps mtt with making music sometimes. doesn't leave the house too often, but spends a lot of time posting on undernet

undyne - unfortunately. more of the same. she is a cop in the monster district. i am also upset by this but couldn't think of anything better for her

alphys - a doctor studying under dr. gaster in the hopes she'll one day take over his research. she spends most of her time as a nurse with a bigger title, though, and blocks out the weirdness of her job with anime.

gaster - weird guy. H01's top soul researcher and resident House wannabe. trying to manufacture the ultimate soul that can be controlled with simple internal switches, but so far he's only had 1 (very limited) success with a certain human. monsters just melt, and darkners just sorta......get weird... he's onto Something, though.

ralsei - lonely boy with some very strange hobbies. popular on UnderNet for poetry, baking videos, and general cryptid vibe. is the DM for the monsters & mages group (also seems to think everything is actually very fine in H01 when it is very much not)

lancer - about the same. professional Round Boy. lives w/ rouxls full time. follows susie around like a lost puppy and calls himself her "underling."

rouxls - runs a hotel/casino kind of deal where the objective Bad Guys hang out, and usually ends up doing any of the spade king's paperwork.

spade king - mafia godfather. kind of a dick. don't play cards with him

seam - works with the spade king as his right hand cat more or less because they have for a lot of years and are in that 'sunk cost fallacy' zone. thinks of retiring to a quiet life in the monster section of town like, daily

jevil - used to work with the spade king, but got imprisoned for Crimes. got weird after The Accident (separate from asriel's accident)

temmies (all) - dont really get mentioned except offhandedly but they run the monster space station. so far, are the only monsters who have ever been to space.

as far as chapter 2 goes:

yeah i dont have much so far for characters. in the original version of the au i accidentally made darkners as a whole just kinda..... not great? like all sorts of weird organized crime ties n sort of going out of their way to be A Problem to the city (not even in like. a revolution way. in a working against them but with the same goals kinda way). with the whole context it worked At The Time, bc i just had the spade king to look to as a villain, and also in this au the darkners are just trying to survive a world that ultimately was not built for them (that humans think they own, and monsters sort of... seeing this and wondering what it'll mean for them whichever one wins), but w/ new info abt how the dark world works n more guys to work with i want to kind of. edit the vibe a bit. like yea darkners will ultimately do whatever it takes to take over H01, but maybe in a better way than like. idk. all this. it doesnt have to be peaceful or anything it just has to be more adaptable as we meet more kinds of darkners

however yeah i thought up 'queen as some sort of childless mommy blogger/influencer' and that completely revived all memory i had of this au. she should be on mtt's talkshow. also she sells collectible wine glasses w/ her likeness

spamton is another one of gaster's failed soul experiments, but he hasn't melted yet, and seems............fine? sort of. so he hasn't gotten decommissioned yet. he does want to give you malware tho. hot monster singles in your area n all that

im blanking on the rest of the guys but i hope any of this was comprehensible

[lilkittay]

GET BACK

there was a time in my life where i had a very close deep platonic friendship with a person. at times, i felt simply that i wished they were closer by and not far away. i struggled to explain or understand what my feelings for them were, or if they were even reciprocated. they could never replace my partner, my feelings were of a "i would like to be close and share resources but in a platonic way and with separate living spaces but in the same city" to hang out more but not drive anyone crazy.

our friendship for years was stable, they were a rock i could rely on. or so i thought.

i went through a major change in my life, and at the same time my partner also began a major change in their life. different, and our paths were each our own and very different terrain and yet we could support each other side by side.

my friend decided they needed to have their ownl crisis, they decided not only to mimic the change in my life, but to mimic the change in my partners life as well. and to execute these changes simultaneously.

it felt like a lot of things. one up us? special snowflake olympics? not wanting to be left out? reenactments of childhood traumas where our personal struggles represented siblings ordeals. ohh not this time i wont be pushed to the back burner. im gonna be the pan of grease on fire that ruins dinner! psh.

the one thing it never felt was genuine. no matter how much they tried to convince the kitchen sink their struggle was real, it was fabricated and they built a whole fantasy world in their memories to convince themself of its truth. too rushed. too much haste and later searching for reasons, grasping at any threads, and making up stories by tangling that mess together.

sunk cost fallacy. wont give up the one last thing in it all either.

get back to where you once belonged

it felt crazy. it was crazy. they became crazy. crazier and crazier... it had always been and only became more like watching some kind of sad mockery of a mountain of misguided misunderstandings.

their mimicry/mockery of our struggles, always generating a bigger crisis than what we were struggling with, made me feel as though the tears sweat blood and pain of my own journey were meaningless. unseen. every word i shared met only with some personal anecdote, some self-centered blather. i didnt matter at all and they didnt understand what i or my partner were going through, despite bumbling along in our wake...

the damage is done and sorry will never put humpty dumpty back together again

the creature that replaced my friend i hardly recognize. i swear i was once best friends with a real person, not some overthought persona. not some piecemeal shattered psyche.

i don't care about cartoon card games

i stepped back a bit, put in a little distance for a while just to get a clearer view.

apparently in my absence they reached for the nearest human object in orbit and now theyre "dating" theres so much pathetic desperation there and now its my fault some other person is stuck with it.

i haven't had enough time to process this into words to begin to describe the underlying deeper implications of such behavior, or its underpinnings, or how i feel about it. it isnt mentally healthy.

im not happy for them

as usual, this crap always comes when my path in my career life is taking its own turns. When my growth there hinges on me breaking through the few walls made my neurodivergence that i have to dismantle brick by brick to understand the things i just dont get.

never me always thee

because i was given a different instruction book than everyone else but im playing their game

even if i had my old friend back, im not sure they could help me through this. my partner is here for me serving their role and being always my better half so that is as it should be. no complaints there

but i must face this alone. so much of it is going to be laying bare my own flaws and shortcomings to myself, and having them laid out before me by my leaders. flaying raw my ego and emotions. my friend is incapable of true, dedicated support. no insight. no hint any thoughts or fucks are given.

its all mememememe in there. i swear it wasnt always that way... sigh

never time for me. never time for a halfass attempt at it being about me only me. without payment without exchange without forcing on me their needy needs when i am vulnerable and theyre not welcome.

and fuck. will this ever get better. i dont know.

my old friend helped me through a lot of the past few years of my life in invaluable ways.

then their bff irl died and i guess i filled the void. at first i was bittersweetly honored to fill that role. but i never knew what that friends role was.

i dont know what anything is, im just a tourist

sometimes i feel like i think it would do me some good to go camping alone and just get away from everyone. take my bike, and my tent. hug my partner and say feed the cats and ill text you odten so you dont worry. and just go be alone with myself.

and remember what it was like.

and find out if i still like being alone with me

get back to where i once belonged

it used to feel like talking to my friend was like i could let them inside my head and show them the carnival in there and they could share that space and see me but now i wonder did they ever see anything at all?

no.

this time im owning my crisis. nobody is going to steal it. nobody is going to copy it. nobody is going to yell louder through it and invalidate my existence.

help me dont trump me

get back.