#unlike a lot of my thoughts this one directly relates to textbook knowledge

[whatudottu]

Today, let’s talk about Kinecelerans and their lives on Earth.

Y’all have probably noticed that these lads get a bit sick due to Earth’s slower rotation and I wanna talk about why, as well as how one can adapt and actually live in this slower world.

Starting off, I’ll talk about how Humans live on Earth for the sake of context. Or, more accurately, how we sleep. Humans have a sleep-wake cycle that matches up with the rotation of the Earth, mainly because our brains produce melatonin in the absence of light, and we have long evolved to adapt to this schedule. This is a circadian rhythm, named for being a cycle that’s approximately a day.

Approximately, you ask? Yes, our sleep-wake cycle isn’t exactly 24 hours, it’s a little more like a 24-25 hour cycle. It’s the reason why flying west gives us less jetlag than going east, because it’s better for us to lengthen or days than to cut it short. I’ve also heard at some point that it’s the reason why a shifting work schedule is better for your rhythm, but I can’t go into more detail on that front.

BUT! Kinecelerans don’t have a 24-25 hour circadian rhythm, they have whatever hour rhythm their planet rotates at. Sure, assumably they have a little leniency for a longer day, but ultimately Earth’s rotation speed is significantly slower than Kinet to the point of sickness. I may not have any numbers to talk about their specific sleep-wake cycle needs, but I will detail how it DOES make them sick instead.

If a Kineceleran were to actually try to stay awake for the Earth day, they would be awake for at least a few Kinet days. This would definitely be sleep deprivation, and if I know the internet, everyone’s had at least one day of it. The longer sleep deprivation goes on, the more side effects one has.

Referring back to Humans, this involves a lot of perceptual and cognitive distortions, with hallucinations and delusions coming in at the 4-5 day mark respectively. In terms of physical harm, lack of sleep does indeed cause a weaker immune system, because you’re not having any restorative sleep in between your bouts of wakefulness.

Not to say that Human symptoms translate exactly to Kinecelerans, but that right there is the key to this talk.

Hypothetically, though probably unrealistic, a Kinet day could very well last 1-2 hours. Though this most likely isn’t the case, a Kineceleran trying to stay awake for a full Earth day would be sleep deprived for 12-24 days in a row. This is at maximum, and sure it’s a definite stretch, but this is the primary reason why most Kinecelerans get sick from the slower rotation.

It’s not motion sickness, it’s sleep deprivation sickness.

Of course, a Kineceleran can clock off for their sleep every so often, but another problem arises. What about the production of melatonin, or some other sleep chemical that Kinecelerans may instead possess. While it could be possible that they don’t need an absence of light to activate sleep chemical production, let’s turn to the next common natural light source on Kinet.

Lightning.

Sleeping during a lightning storm, especially without a roof over one’s head, would not be evolutionary that great. Maybe instead of the light itself preventing sleep chemicals, it can be the presence of adrenaline (or, again, some equivalent) that keeps Kinecelerans awake. Naturally they’d be full of the stuff, being rather active, so typically stormy nights are troublesome for the many home grown Kinecelerans.

On Earth, after a certain time of morning, there’s a lot of activity outside. Noises and a whole heaping of lights may cause a Kineceleran to associate the hustle and bustle of Earth to the likeness of lightning storms, and their body acts as such by producing stress hormones. So even if they do catch their ‘z’s during the day, they can end up being partially sleep deprived if they didn’t catch enough of their recommended hours (and maybe minutes)

But that doesn’t mean Kinecelerans can’t overcome these issues.

Being born on Earth may help.

Helen Wheels, who we all know is a hybrid get back in your corner rooters, may still have half an inclination to sleep more often than a Human would, but she’s probably sleeping less than a Kineceleran should. Full Kinecelerans born on Earth may also adapt their sleep-wake cycle, maybe power nap when they would typically be asleep and fully clock out at night, sorta like the difference between weekdays and weekends.

Visitors and immigrants especially may also adapt too, but less in changing their cycles. No, what happens here is architecturally. Surely, no doubt, Kinecelerans would have their own ‘block-out-blinds’ over on Kinet for the especially excitable, advertised to block out the flashes of light and significant noise of the storms.

Earth may not be as bright as a flash of lighting, but the light is consistent and lasts for many Kinet days. The hustle and bustle of Earth however, is a lot quieter than a lightning bolt. Soundproof rooms with no windows (or some super intense block-out-blinds) are a Kinecelerans perfect bedroom, and allows for them to clock out whenever they need to.

Maybe occasionally they spend too long outdoors, meaning their adrenaline is still running even when they’re super tired, but isn’t it the equivalent thing for Humans and our screens?

Haha, anyway, I hope you enjoyed these thoughts.

And get your sleep too.

[majestical]

can you go into any detail about why never have i ever isn't good? i really wanted to watch it, but if it's trash i don't wanna bother. thank you!!

alright I sat on this for a few hours so I could finish the rest of the show and write this in the morning and now it is morning. also there are going to be quite a few spoilers in here so just...do what you will with that knowledge i guess. also, if you still want to watch the show, I’m not gonna stop you. I binged the entire season yesterday and I have final exams next week. warning: this is super long.

ngl I was planning on just deleting the post you’re referring to, because at that point I had only watched half the season but I already saw a lot of things I didn't like: an Indian character who seemed a little ashamed of her heritage, too many pr*yanka ch*pra references, some strange and unnecessary ableism (i mean, all ableism is unnecessary but this particularly so), bad stereotypical Indian accents, the main character thirsting over white/white passing boys (this is Mindy's show, can you expect anything different?), and a disgusting amount of fatphobia (there is one fat character who is Devi’s age and his only personality traits are eating and making a fool of himself). 

the show also conflates indian and hindu a few too many times, even though there is a self-aware quip about it. and there’s a joke thrown in about m*di that *i guess* is supposed to show that this family at the least knows who the prime minister of india is? but with india’s current political situation and the knowledge of the atrocities committed by m*di I really did not like that a reference to him was thrown in there. I suppose it is an example of how the desi diaspora (particularly upper-caste, upper middle class Indians) are quite disconnected from the homeland, but like...does Mindy not watch the news? m*di literally committed genocide.

there’s also a lot of antisemitism. Devi’s academic rival, Ben, is introduced like a walking Jewish stereotype: just check out this post because op says it better than I could. there’s also a joke where Devi says out loud that she wishes Ben was killed by N*zis. I honestly don’t even know how that made it into the show and none of the context surrounding the joke is funny.

okay on to my personal qualms with the show. I wasn’t a fan of either of the love interests. neither of them really respected Devi as much as I would have liked, and personally, I found it tiring to see women/girls of color chase after men/boys who can’t reciprocate in the same way. I didn’t love how paxton (the cool jock love interest) kept leading Devi on and would then act aloof and I honestly would have preferred if Devi and ben hadn’t kissed, because I just prefer their frenemy dynamic over some potential romantic one. i also just could not relate to Devi at all...I was just too repressed in high school to relate to anything Devi does. she’s also just super unlikeable in the first eight episodes, but she kind of grew on me in the last two. I saw a comparison made between Devi coping with her grief with hypersexuality and the coping mechanisms used by the main character on Fleabag, which kind of made sense to me, even though they are pretty different shows otherwise. and she does get some comeuppance for her actions towards the end. even then, devi never really confronts her trauma directly, especially her paralysis, and her actions are excused too many times for comfort.

a lot of the storyline depended on teen romcom cliches, and were sort of excused because the main characters are poc. i wish this trend didn’t happen so often, especially when it comes to mainstream stories of young women and girls of color. i was also surprised that this show doesn’t really give much screentime to other indian kids that Devi might interact with. that would have been a much more three-dimensional approach to a show like this, but i also think this had to be sacrificed to keep up with the teen romcom aspect of the show. i was also not a fan of the will-schuester-wannabe history teacher. 

BUT (if you have been reading this much I sincerely applaud you) there were a few things I did like about the show. I loved Devi’s friends and honestly if I had her friends in tenth grade I would never ditch them for some boy. when I was a high school sophomore, I was closeted, had a musical theatre obsession, and ate dosas for dinner so I felt like a mix of all three of the girls. in fact, I found eleanor’s and fabiola’s storyline to be a lot more compelling that Devi’s at times. i even really enjoyed ben’s arc (and loved the andy samberg narration in his episode, especially because he pronounced Devi’s name with the soft “dh” sound...absolutely wonderful!). i thought fabiola’s coming-out scene was sweet (even though it was very textbook) and i thought eleanor being dramatic was very funny. 

in my opinion, the last two episodes were the best. we really got to dig deeper into Devi’s relationship with her mother and it was eerily reminiscent of my own. she gets told that she has to move to india because family is there, so she naturally fights with her mom and storms off. that literally happened to me (minus the running away part...I actually did end up moving to India in the middle of high school), and other moments like those just hit close to home and made me want to finish the show. i personally didn’t relate to the whole “am I indian or not Indian enough” struggle until I started living in india, but my indian friends who did go to high school in america were all too sympathetic to this struggle. 

so overall, there are some bad things and some good things about this show. if you relate to the premise of the show at all, you may like it more than I did, but if you were raised in india (which is the demographic that most of the criticism is coming from) or generally enjoy good writing, you probably won’t like this as much. i do hope that this show helps pave the way for some representation that brings more nuance to indian-american identity, and different types of indian-american identities (working-class, immigrants who aren’t upper-caste, people who have been living in the states for several generations, LGBT people, indian muslims/christians/sikhs/etc) without unnecessarily bringing down other minorities. and once again, i am really happy that a girl named maitreyi ramakrishnan is getting famous and NOT anglicizing her name. 

i hope this response was good and if you do decide to watch, let me know how you like it!