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roronoaswifey · 9 months

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BABY DADDY ZORO BABY DADDY ZORO BABY DADDY ZORO.

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎

ೃ⁀➷cw. sexual content, mentions of substance consumption, foul language, slight infidelity, both reader and zoro got their names tatted on them, y’all got a baby girl, this isn’t a smutty as i has planned for it to be ngl

ೃ⁀➷zuha’s note. forever pushing lora’s zoro and his bruk ass pickup truck agenda .

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who, despite knowing you called things off with him weeks prior to finding out about your pregnancy, still knows absolutely no boundaries when it comes to you and his four year old daughter. shows up to your place on unexpected days, talking bout “wanted to see my babygirl, ‘s there an issue?”, crashes overnight on the couch because “the truck’s engine’s busted” or “‘s too dark outside and i left my glasses back home”. it’s terrible habits but he seems to always convince you to let him stay by the grin on your daughter’s chubby cheeks whenever she smells the scent of pancakes, eggs and bacon in the air with her favorite side of fresh fruit.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who always shows up to your daughter’s school events no matter the circumstance. he got work? somebody’ll take cover for his shift. truck broke down? nothin’ an uber won’t fix. he may arrive slightly late due to directional challenges, but he will still always show up. dressed in loose grey sweatpants with a white fitted tee and gold chain, he spots you dressed as classily as ever (bougie, he loved to call you) and notices your birkin bag saving a seat for him. he squeezes through the row and ignores the thirsty looks he receives, all in favour of sitting at your side, arm wrapped behind the seat of your chair and kisses your temple when you lean into his embrace.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who swings by every weekend to pick up his daughter for his turn of the rotation. if you ask him, he’d rather just stay over for the weekend and spend it with y’all three but he’s aware of your personal life outside of both him and your daughter, and complications (like whoever the fuck dropped you home that one friday night and gave you a cheek kiss when you’d asked him to stay a few hours with his baby) that can interfere in y’all’s relationship.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who, on the occasions you let him spend the night over, always makes it up to you. it’s always the same routine—you tell him to crash on the couch and leave as soon as the rise of dawn awakens and yet he always ends up in the warmth of your bed, one leg propped up with two hands on your hips and fucks into you with precision. the sinful arch of your back and your whines as you beg him for more drive him insane, makes him miss you so much more than he’s willing to admit. though for now, he’s content in showing you how much he longs for you through plunging his dick deep in your guts and silencing your moans with his tongue down your throat (to his dismay, you make him pull out and finish on your back).

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃��𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who loves to spoil you and his baby. doesn’t have the highest paying income but no matter his salary, he’d be more than willing to spend 50% of it on the both of you. anything his daughter wants, she gets. he knows you can good and well afford for the both of you but he feels it’s his job to make sure you both live a soft life. no matter the reason—job promotion, birthdays, anniversaries, just for the fun of it— he’ll always want to gift you. he isn’t the best with words but he genuinely thanks the heavens that such a wonderful woman was able to bless him the greatest of gifts.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who freezes in shock the very first time his daughter asks him if he’s still in love with you. he forgets she was blessed with your intelligence, but such a pretty and chubby face smothered in chocolate syrup from her ice cream sundae on their weekly hangouts asking him if he still loves mommy the same way her classmate’s parents love each other makes him realize that these habits between you and him may badly affect y’all’s kid’s future. still, he sighs melancholy and lightly flicks her nose that scrunches up adorably, and while she huffs childishly a “papa!”, he tells himself he’s in long due of a conversation with you. “i do, princess, more than you could imagine.” he answers, though he isn’t sure if she heard him as she quickly stuffs her mouth full of the sugary dessert once more.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who, for the first time in years, decides to actively start dating again. he quickly regrets his decision when he’s on a dinner date, faintly listening to some broad babble about whatever it is she’s talking about but realizing he genuinely cannot see this girl— or any other girl—in his distant future. he’s too busy thinking about the slight twitch in your eye when he’d let you know he would be on a date and may arrive later to pick up his baby. you asked him where he met said girl, and he honestly told you his work friend had set him up on a date. you wished him good luck and to not spare any details when he comes back, but he felt the strain in your fake smile. you’re too easy to read, he decided a while ago, or maybe he’s mastered the art of your deception. regardless, he regrets going on this date and regrets even further when he lets her blow him off in his truck, especially since he never got to finish his load before dropping her off home.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who still invites you and his baby over to his parents’ place whenever there’s any family cookout. terra loves you and her granddaughter, always bombarding zoro with questions whenever he goes to visit. she showers you and her granddaughter with so much love, calls you her daughter despite you and zoro having broken up years ago. she checks on you occasionally, lets you know you’re always welcomed in her home despite everything. she spoils her only granddaughter with gifts and treats and love, takes her on walks and offers to even let her sleepover at her place for the weekends. zoro takes note of that offer, especially since y’all’s anniversary is approaching round the corner.

𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐙𝐎𝐑𝐎 who brings you to the very first restaurant y’all had y’all first date at, years ago. on the roof patio of the five star restaurant, at the same table, he sees how your eyes sparkle in admiration at his efforts to recreate one of y’all’s most memorable moments in your past relationship. he’s dressed in the fanciest button up and slacks with dress shoes he owns, brings you bouquets of your favorite flowers and as always, pays for your meal. the date goes smoothly, as does most things you guys do, and he walks you back to his truck, hand in hand with the moonlight bouncing off the irises of your eyes. you catch him staring and he’s swears he’s fallen so deeply in love with you— or maybe he never truly stopped. it’s a scary but thrilling feeling, and from the heat rising on your cheeks and your shy gaze, he knows you feel the same. he can’t help but cup your face with one big hand and capture your lips in a sensual kiss, smiling when he feels you melt in his hold. you pull away shyly, nuzzling your nose into his and zoro swears on his mom he would run across the globe back and forth on a leg, go to hell and back, just to have you back in his graces.

needed to get this out of my drafts 🗿.

#roronoaswifey.exe #kazuha’s works 📂#‘thinking bout’ series #one piece #one piece smut #roronoa zoro #roronoa zoro smut #roronoa zoro x reader #zoro x reader #x reader

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mindblowingscience · 8 months

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A 50-year-old Swedish woman who lost her hand in a farming accident has been fitted with a cutting-edge prosthesis that has proved transformational. The bionic hand is based on revolutionary technology that connects directly to a user's bones, muscles, and nerves – creating a human-machine interface that allows AI to translate brain signals into precise yet simple movements. The woman who received the bionic hand, Karin (whose full name is undisclosed), now has a limited sense of touch and can move all five of her bionic fingers individually with a success rate of 95 percent. After two decades of living without a right hand, she can now carry out 80 percent of her usual daily activities, like preparing food, picking up objects, zipping and unzipping clothes or bags, and turning door knobs or screws. What's more, after receiving the prosthetic hand, Karin's excruciating phantom pain, which she said felt as though her hand was going through a meat grinder, decreased significantly.

#Phantom hand #Phantom pain #prosthetics #science #biology #medicine #tech

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exhuastedpigeon · 2 months

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Buck kind of feels like he’s spent his entire life not realizing he was wearing chains around his ankles that were slowing him down, but now they’re off. When Tommy left his apartment he'd just stood in his kitchen with a goofy ass smile on his face because that happened right? He’d just been kissed by Tommy Kinard? That wasn’t a really vivid hallucination?

It feels like he’d spent all week swimming through a tsunami of confusion and frustration and jealousy and now he’s finally broken through the surface and he can breathe. It’s like the first gulp of fresh air after stepping out of a burning building. It’s like - it’s like someone put glasses on him for the first time when he didn’t realize he needed a prescription.

His first instinct is to call Eddie. He has his phone halfway to his face when he remembers that he probably can’t call Eddie about this, not right now. He needs to apologize, maybe grovel a little bit, before he can talk to Eddie again and he isn’t sure he’s ready to do that.

It’s not that he isn’t sorry. He’s maybe never been more sorry in his life, actually. It’s that - well. He doesn’t actually know. There’s something weird and vaguely Eddie shaped that’s been tickling at the back of his head since he first saw how fucking giddy Eddie had been at the airfield with Tommy that he doesn’t think he’s ready to look at yet.

Instead he does what he does best, he pulls out his phone and starts researching. Googling ‘Kissed a man for the first time’ isn’t that helpful, but it does lead him to r/bisexual. He feels another wave of relief when he sees how many people have felt similarly to him. To see there are thousands of people out there figuring it out too.

He’s not too old to be figuring it out. There's no such thing as too old.

There’s a post from a man in his 50s talking about getting his first boyfriend a few years after his wife passed away. The man responded to hundreds of questions asking how he figured it out - his kid came out and explained what bisexuality was and it felt like putting on a jacket that fit just right. Asking what it felt like to realize what he was - like slipping into a bath that’s the perfect temperature. Asking if he regretted not figuring it out sooner - not really, because he loved his wife and he wouldn’t trade their decades together for anything.

There’s another one from a woman in her 60s who realized she was in love with her best friend and that’s what helped her figure out her sexuality. He scrolls past that one pretty quickly after reading the initial post for no reason at all.

By the time he falls into bed a few hours later he feels like bisexual fits him. It’s like he’d been a trapped animal scratching at his cage and now it’s open and he can come and go as he pleases. It feels liberating.

#evan buckley #911 #911 spoilers #911 ficlet #evan buck buckely #bi buck is canon #911 7x04

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joelscruff · 2 months

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I’m going around asking all of my favorite Joel + age gap girlies this question out of genuine curiosity… I’m 25 years old and I gravitate toward age gap fics because um they’re hot but I was hoping that someone who is good with words can actually put INTO words… why is it so hot?? I find it so hard to articulate to people when they ask me… in your own words, what is it that makes you wanna read/write them?

for me i think it all boils down to the control of it all. i think irl most of the time if a man in his 50s is interested in a woman in her 20s a question arises of why exactly he's interested in her. like does he genuinely like her or is he just interested in her for her body/youth or because of her lack of life experience/ability to manipulate her. there's always that worry of whether he wants her so he can control her, gaslight her, etc. it's why a lot of us tend to shy away from older men in real life (and men in general lbr) because there's always that fear and question of what their intentions are.

in a fic, i am in control. i decide the intentions of the man, i decide exactly what he wants and why. i also can decide what the reader insert wants and whether she feels comfortable, uncomfortable, etc. it's the same reason why fics containing noncon/dubcon are so popular - it all comes down to control. in real life, of course we don't want to feel unsafe or frightened or be put in a situation where we genuinely fear for our lives at the hands of a man. but in fic we have complete control over it. it's fiction, so we can decide exactly what happens and cater completely to our own desires with absolutely no real danger.

age gap is hot in fic because we can essentially curate an older male character who fits our standards of safety and trust, put him in the situations that we desire and are always fully aware of his intentions. even if we choose to write an older male character with bad intentions, it's still hot because we are ultimately in control of what he's doing and there's no real danger or risk.

also.....old men are hot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#cat's asks

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choose-your-own-dentistry · 2 months

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im genuinely not sure where dunmeshi fans place the boundaries of which characters can be sexualized.

Chilchuck is a 28 year old who looks like a 13 year old human, which, given how often people mock the "anime girl who looks underage but is actually 1000 years old" trope, should put him into "shota bait" category, and yet that is not the case. people want to fuck that old man. i support them.

Leed, on the other hand, looks like a young adult woman. by the standards of her short-lived species, she IS one. she acts like one, too. and yet, there are several posts floating around asking people to be "normal" about her, because by HUMAN standards she's underage.

so, if we're not judging characters by their looks, behavior or sexual maturity, what are the standards? why should i be normal about Leed, but people can draw Chilchuck eating ass? where does Marcille fit into all this? she's 50, and according to the wiki, elven age of maturity is 80. is she underage, therefore making farcille a minor/adult ship? is it different because she's only half elf? am i going to get crucified by antis? these are all legitimate questions

#im not going to be normal about anyone‚ btw. im a creep im a weirdo etc.#excuse the typos. it's 3 am. im eepy.#cyod.txt #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi

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homestuckreplay · 2 months

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Week 1 Retrospective: Who Is John Egbert?

It’s official - Homestuck is one week old today! And while a week is not a long run for a comic, it’s already got more pages than the author’s earlier work Bard Quest, so maybe it’s something worth recognizing. So I wanted to mark a week of Homestuck by doing a deep dive on what we’ve learned about our protagonist John Egbert so far. It’s some fact collection, some wild speculation, and some ongoing questions. It’s over 3000 words, so it’s under a readmore for anyone who’s interested.

If that doesn’t sound like a fun time to you (or even if it does), you can take the John Egbert Big 5 Personality Test to see how you score on John’s five key personality traits. It’s 14 multiple choice questions, so a much quicker read.

We’re introduced to John on page 4, where we’re given five key interests of his: bad movies, programming computers, paranormal lore, amateur magic, and gaming. I’ll take these one by one and use them as a framework for John’s character so far.

“You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES.”

John has eleven (11) movie posters on his walls. Of these, three star Matthew McConaughey and two star Nicolas Cage. More notably, six have a Rotten Tomatoes rating below 50%, and two of these are below 10%. I haven’t seen any of these movies, but as far as I can tell, here are the one sentence summaries [broad spoilers for all these movies].

Little Monsters: A boy befriends a monster and visits the monster world, where they try to convert him into a monster too.

Con Air: A paroled man disrupts a gang of prisoner’s escape from a prison transport plane.

Deep Impact: Earth tries to prepare for extinction after a comet is found on a collision course with Earth.

Ghostbusters II: After going out of business, the Ghostbusters reunite to combat a negative energy slime monster.

Mac and Me: A boy befriends a young alien who gets separated from his family and lost on Earth.

Contact: An Earth scientist successfully discovers alien life and travels to an alien world.

A Time to Kill: A father is acquitted in court for killing the perpetrators of racial hate crimes against his daughter.

Failure to Launch: A 35 year old man’s parents hire a woman to persuade him to finally move out of their home.

Face/Off: A terrorist and a FBI agent go through facial transplant surgery and temporarily swap identities.

Armageddon: A group of space workmen go on a mission to stop an asteroid from destroying Earth.

Ghost Dad: A man temporarily dies but is able to interact with his children in ghost form.

From this we can see that John really likes science fiction movies related to aliens, ghosts and monsters, as well as action comedy. We also know from page 21: ‘Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you’. A Time to Kill and Failure to Launch are the only ones that don’t fit his taste. The implication here is that John really loved Matthew McConaughey in Contact and so watched his other movies even though they were things he wouldn’t usually watch.

I’m curious if these movies are intended as clues to John’s character, the future of the comic, or both. In terms of his character, they make me see him as someone who’s imaginative and goofy, young and carefree, not concerned with other people’s opinions, more interested in watching movies for their surface meanings and exciting stories, maybe wants to escape to a different world, might be a little bit gay.

In terms of the future of the comic, it could be that we’re going to see literal aliens or monsters - they could even be already here, keeping John ‘homestuck’. Slime monsters are particularly highlighted, with Slimer from Ghostbusters appearing on John’s shirt and computer background, and his chumhandle, ectoBiologist, relating to slime. Slime invasion honestly feels too obvious, and anyway, several of John’s movies are about befriending a more benign supernatural force - could John’s Pesterchum friends be something other than human? Or maybe it’s a more metaphorical meaning, referring to John having a very different life to his friends?

Two of these movies feature Earth extinctions by giant space rocks, but there’s absolutely no indication of this being a real world threat John is dealing with. Again, it could refer more generally to a sudden, life changing event that’s about to happen to disrupt John’s current state, something that would fit thematically with this being John’s 13th birthday, a milestone age.

There’s also a theme of crime and the legal system in several movies, including Con Air, the one that’s been most highlighted. The most obvious interpretation of John’s dad right now is that he’s a clown or performer, but there’s an outside chance he could be in law enforcement, or a criminal. It’s even possible that he’s currently in hiding or some kind of safe house. This would explain John being ‘homestuck’ and sick of spending time with his dad.

Speaking of John’s dad, I’m concerned for him based on the Ghost Dad summary - the comic keeps teasing his presence, but we haven’t actually seen him yet. Could he be a ghost? Or become one at some point? Alternatively, we know John has an already dead relative - could his nanna be a ghost? Did John dropping her ashes release her ghost? Family is a really common theme in movies, so I don’t know if a large number of these movies being about family (especially fathers) is relevant, but I’m noting it all the same.

“You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.”

John claims he ‘likes to program’, but it actually seems to make him angry. We first learn ‘[y]ou were never all that great with data structures and you find the concept [of the stack modus] puzzling and mildly irritating.’ We then see three files on John’s desktop, two in ^CAKE - ‘pff.^CAKE’ and ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK.^CAKE’ and one in ~ATH - ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.~ATH’. These tell a clear narrative of John trying to work on his programming and getting increasingly more frustrated with his attempts, until inevitably giving up. Both of the programming languages are puns, too. ^ is often called a carat (carrot cake) while ~ is a tilde (til death).

I know this is wild speculation, but… John started off coding in a harmless programming language, was already struggling, then for some reason switched over to the most ominous possible sounding language, screwed it up even worse, and now… he’s constantly haunted by the ghost of failed programming attempts in the form of his sylladex, which he appears to be new to using (he had no prior understanding of it on page 7 - although this could be handwaved due to video game tutorial logic), and which operates similarly to a computer program and seems to cause John endless frustration. He’ll have to figure out how to exploit the inventory system in ways that help him, which involves actually figuring out some stuff about coding, in order to partake in some real life ghostbusting, or monster hunting, or dealing with whatever threat he’ll have to deal with by using inventory hacks.

“You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE,” (...)

By far the interest of John’s that we’ve seen the least of so far, John’s love of the paranormal is mostly inferred through his movie preferences, and we don’t see any direct evidence of an interest in lore. However, I can’t stop fixating on John’s chumhandle: ectoBiologist. The comic’s first act was to draw attention to giving John a name, and for many 2009 kids, the names they go by online are more meaningful and representative of them than their real world names.

‘ecto-’ means ‘outer, outside, external’ according to dictionary.com, and it’s actually a common prefix in a variety of fields of biology, but there’s no such thing as ‘ectobiology’ as a field, or an ‘ectobiologist’ - neither term has any search results prior to Homestuck. I think it’s way more likely that this refers to ectoplasm, a term from both cell biology and spiritualism that was popularized by Ghostbusters to mean any substance secreted by a ghost, in practice often manifesting as green slime. Slimer, who we can guess is John’s favorite, is a benign ghost made of pure ectoplasm. I love the idea that John loves this dumb ghost so much that he’s memorized all the lore about them in their appearances throughout the franchise, and devised this username based on being an expert on these ghosts right down to their biology (or at least thinking he is).

The only catch is, ‘fondness for paranormal lore’ is very passive and doesn’t even imply much knowledge, much less action, while ‘biologist’ implies that John has been doing actual experiments. The idea of John trying to create a real life Slimer the same way other kids make slime in their kitchens is really entertaining, if an off the wall theory. Does ‘homestuck’ just mean John is grounded for an unethical science project?

(...) “and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN.”

The magic chest is one of the biggest, most eye catching and most colorful objects in John’s room. We see its contents on page 8, which lean more into joke store items than things a magician might use, except for the trick handcuffs and perhaps the collapsible sword. The narration on this page states that John is neither a skilled magician nor a cunning prankster. I’m nitpicking definitions here, but everything John has done so far has been way more about pranks than about magic.

John’s uses of the magic chest to date are…

various putting things into his inventory and removing them (funny, but unintentionally)

combining fake arms with cake (p.36) out of necessity, which ‘makes the cake at least 300% more hilarious’

merging hat with beagle puss to create a clever disguise (p.45) and wearing it for 25+ pages, which he acknowledges is a ‘shitty disguise’

attaching fake arms to harlequin doll (p.65), which makes it ‘AT LEAST a million percent funnier’

All of which are definitely not magic tricks, and honestly not even pranks. Arguably John’s best and most successful prank so far has been when he pretended not to have arms for the first six pages, before revealing his arms after the interface had gone to the trouble of moving the cake off his magic chest to get him some arms.

John keeps thinking about reading Colonel Sassacre’s Guide to Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery, but always finding some excuse not to. He can’t read it until he captchalogues it, but once he does that, it gets buried in his inventory. He assumes that the book can tell him the exact percentage increase of hilarity a prank leads to, but it’s too big for him to actually look anything up.

An outside theory for this that I don’t think is likely simply because it’s so much darker than the comic has been so far, is that John loves this book, but since the incident where his nanna was killed by a copy (perhaps even this copy?) he hasn’t been able to bring himself to read it. A far more likely theory is that while John is an aspiring amateur magician, it’s more of a big idea, and he hasn’t actually done any magic yet. This also tracks with his weaksauce pranks above. And if that’s true, then it says a lot about John that he defines himself by a hobby he aspires to but doesn’t actually practice - he’s someone with big dreams and less motivation, just like his big dream of going to collect the mail from his father despite the lack of motivation that’s kept him messing around for 70 pages.

“You also like to play GAMES sometimes.”

Potentially most important of all is Gamer John. We get a list of games John likes to play from inspecting his CD tower the same way we get a list of movies from looking at his posters.

Bard Quest

The Caper Havers

Problem Sleuth

And It Don’t Stop

What Pumpkin?

Ghostbusters II MMORPG

Little Monsters (for Nintendo)

Harry Anderson: Call My Bluff!

The first five games all reference previous work by the author of Homestuck, and as such probably don’t need in depth analysis. However, the fact that within the world of Homestuck, these are all games (instead of comics) is one of several suggestions that we should think of Homestuck as a game, something that needs further analysis.

The next two games are video game adaptations of movies we know John likes, and the last is a branded video game from Harry Anderson, whose book we’ve already seen in John’s magic chest. Notably, none of these are real video games in our world either. It says a lot that John plays game versions of things he already likes (he’s put ‘countless manhours’ into this assortment of quality titles).

However, it’s undeniable that the most important game in John’s life right now is Sburb. The poster is behind his head in the first panel, placed centrally with one of the only two splashes of color in the panel. The beta release is the only thing marked on his calendar for April besides his birthday, and the Sburb logo is even the picture printed on the calendar - perhaps it’s a calendar themed around new game releases? There’s clear delight on John’s face when he thinks about getting the beta, and his quest to fetch it from the recently delivered mail is the closest thing to a story this comic has so far.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about Sburb, so we don’t know what it says about John that he wants to play it. It’s publicized as the Game of the Year, and according to GameBro, the game may be about houses and the player may not get to thrash anything, although these details are provided by someone who hasn’t played the game so I’m not taking them as expert opinion. It might be multiplayer - TT has been pestering TG all day about playing it with her. Maybe John just wants to share a game with his friends.

Speaking of GameBro, John can’t stand the magazine, although he for some reason has a copy on his desk. He describes the publication as ‘a joke’ to TG, and he makes the effort to take it downstairs to the fire and burn it, presumably releasing asbestos fibers into the house and causing serious lung damage to himself and his father. Does he read this because it’s the only games magazine that exists? Or did he like it just fine until now, when it trashed the game he’s excited about, and now he’s furious with it? Either way, it tracks with John’s overall fondness for critically panned media that he would be angry about contrarian critics.

–

All of this has left me with a few questions about John as our main character. These are the things that I’m keeping an eye on and trying to answer as the story continues.

What is John good at?

We hear so much about what John is bad at. He’s explicitly stated to be bad at programming, pranks, and magic. He’s bad at using his sylladex. He’s clumsy and knocked over his nanna’s ashes. He’s got bad taste in media. He’s funny but only when he doesn’t try to be, and even then he’s sometimes the butt of the joke, where the joke is how not funny John’s joke is. He was tempted to squawk like an imbecile and shit on his desk. He has like six different prankster props and he doesn’t even use all of them. I’m saying all this with love and kindness because he also just seems like such a sweet kid, but so far he doesn’t have any defined strengths or skills.

Is he going to turn out to be really good at gaming and kick ass at Sburb? Are we going to get a curveball where it turns out John is an amazing baker, and he hates the cakes in his room and the smell of Betty Crocker because he can do so much better than that packet mix? Or is he starting off from this low point so he can develop skills as time goes on?

What is John’s relationship with his dad really like?

John doesn’t want his dad to monopolize his time and feels trapped in his room, despite his dad baking cakes and leaving notes on gifts telling John he’s proud of him. John’s dad gets his son one great present that John’s really appreciative of, and one terrible present that John immediately hates. All of this feels very reasonable and normal for a teen feeling misunderstood by a parent who’s trying their best.

And then there’s the clowns.

John can excuse magical frivolity and practical japery, but he draws the line at harlequins. He’s an aspiring magician, but his dad’s figurines are ‘fucking garbage’ and his dad ‘sure can be a real cornball’. John seems like somebody who gets angry at ultimately unimportant things, like bad reviews of games, too many cakes, and harlequin figurines, but because of the subject matter it reads like an intense rivalry between two highly specific subcultures that outsiders would group together. John is really making a huge deal of needing to disguise himself and mentally prepare himself to go down and face his dad, and I want to know if there’s any genuine reason behind John’s fear, or if it’s solely the overdramatics I’m starting to think are typical of him.

Is John ‘Homestuck’?

‘Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular.’ (p.30)

John clearly feels like he’s stuck at home, but is this the extent of the title’s meaning? His dad has recently returned from getting groceries, so leaving the house is in theory possible. Reasons why John might be homestuck include: he’s not allowed to leave the house (for example, he’s grounded, or his dad is very controlling), he can leave the house but there’s nowhere to go (he lives near major roads, bodies of water, farms, or other obstacles, and there’s no public transport to get anywhere), or he can leave the house but it’s not safe to do so (there’s some sort of external threat, either supernatural like a monster or alien invasion, or mundane like a criminal or bomb threat). Seeing out of John’s window and into his front yard does not provide any clues; it looks like an extremely average front yard with a tree, swing and mailbox, and we know the mail was recently delivered, so there can’t be anything too world-ending happening in the neighborhood. Right now John’s goal (the Sburb Beta disc) is inside the house, so this might not get answered right away - in fact, my running theory is that the game itself might hold the answers, as its logo is a house.

What’s the differentiation between John and the narrator?

My biggest question of all, and one that probably deserves its own essay. I’m fascinated by the lines ‘In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle.’ (p.27) and ‘In a home, a FIREPLACE needs a fire, because that's what FIREPLACE is for.’ (p.50). These lines carry so much opinion, but because the narrator is constantly addressing John with the second person ‘you’, I don’t think these are John’s opinions. The narrator does have a window into John’s thoughts, so the line between them can be blurred, but there's clearly a distinction somewhere, because there have been pushbacks and disagreements between the two of them.

One theory is that John’s dad is the narrator - John’s at home a lot for whatever reason, and so the constant and overbearing presence of his dad means that he can’t get him out of his head even when he’s alone, the commands at the top of each page reflecting John’s dad’s level of control over his son’s life. But I think this question is open ended enough that I’m not willing to commit to one theory yet. After all, we ‘examine 3rd and 4th walls of [John’s] room’ which is a directly meta allusion to the comic’s audience that only really makes sense if the narrator isn’t a character in the comic itself.

–

I think John Egbert has been really well characterized so far. He feels like a real kid, one who keeps getting off track and forgetting what he should be doing, but one who it’s enough fun to get to know that I don’t really notice. While the main character in media often doesn’t end up being the most interesting character, I do want to keep an eye on John because I think he has a lot going on to analyze. Above the style and the world and the mechanics, John as a character is the aspect of the comic I’m most interested in right now.

#homestuck #john egbert #analysis

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coochiequeens · 1 year

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As your bones lose density, the only way you will protect them is by keeping your muscle mass; building strength in middle age is part of what will define the shape and tempo of your old age. “

When 50-year-old Anna Jenkins, the founder of We Are Fit Attitude (Wafa), a woman-only health and fitness club, looked online for images of older women exercising, she was irritated by the pitiful size of the weights: the stock image is of a woman with grey hair lifting a 1kg weight, as if doing so were some kind of milestone. My personal bugbears are the photos in which there is a personal trainer with an expression of infinite patience next to the older woman, as if the latter is weak and half witted.

Stock photos are the internet’s idea of what the world should look like, sets of generic images intended to illustrate articles and advertising, often revealing more worldview than they probably set out to. There are famously a lot of photos of white women laughing near salad, meant for healthy eating content, but also reinforcing inane cheer and self-denial as cornerstones of femininity. If fitness imagery of the young is all about aspiration – six packs, muscle definition and impossible body fat percentages – fitness imagery of older people is almost anti-aspirational. Its message is: “You probably can’t do anything at all, but look over here, there’s a lady managing this tiny thing.”

Jenkins runs the Wafa classes remotely and in person for women ranging from their late 30s to their mid-70s. One Saturday, at a class in Merton, south London, they decided to create a new set of photos, repopulate the ecosystem of stock photographs, so that when you search for “older women exercising”, you will be able to see what that really looks like. “These are proper weights,” says Annette Hinds, 60. “We’re not pussyfooting about.”

Jenkins went into group work and coaching from personal training because she had noticed that, in the gym: “Women would go straight to the cardio machine because they knew how it worked. It’s a frightening environment when you think you don’t belong, when you’re unhappy in your body shape. But they didn’t need more cardio – at 45-plus your body needs strength work. Especially during the menopause. It’s just a fact.”

As your bones lose density, the only way you will protect them is by keeping your muscle mass; building strength in middle age is part of what will define the shape and tempo of your old age. But as Glenda Cooper, 51, who usually does this class remotely five times a week, says, there is more to it than that. “Women at this time of life have parents we’re caring for. I’ve got two kids. You don’t want to take up too much space, you feel invisible anyway, you don’t make time for yourself. It’s so important to have a sense of your own strength, which I think is absent from the rest of our lives.”

The atmosphere is fierce: as Lorraine Turner, 59, says: “I never used to think I was competitive, but later in life, I’ve realised that I am. I get a lot out of it if I push myself more.” Karen Silvestri, 60, remarks archly: “My husband’s a chef so I eat a lot and drink a lot. I still manage to retain this normal shape.”

Palmer’s daughter paid her a compliment on her butt the other day: “She said it wasn’t flat like a lot of women my age.” Downward comparison is very motivating, and it is also fun to watch when people are so unabashed about it.

“We’re a funny bunch, women, aren’t we?” Teresa Klasener, 61, says. She was very active until she got rheumatoid arthritis, then it all hit the skids until she started with Wafa two years ago. “We have all these mental blocks, we don’t prioritise ourselves, but once we’re in a group, we’ll fly.”

Jenkins says: “When I first became a personal trainer, I’d see a lot of women who were yo-yo dieters, and it was often because they were trying to be skinnier than their bodies were meant to be. I think exercise makes you confident in your shape as it is.” That might be the ultimate break with the visual norms of the fitness industry, that these are images of strength and exertion for their own sake, not for how they’ll make you look in spaghetti straps.

“I never knew what people were talking about with the endorphin thing,” Redford says. “And now, I do feel a sense of joy and self-congratulation, knowing that I just fucking went for it.”

#We Are Fit Attitude (WAFA)#Stock images or women #Women and fitness #Women and strength training #Women and aging

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thebookbutterfly · 7 months

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🦋 Chocolate Chips — John Wick x Reader

Summary: Every year you and John celebrate Helen’s birthday. This year would have been her 40th, so you decide to do something special.

Tags: #so much domestic fluff, #a teensy bit of angst, #sometimes babygirl is a 50 year old hit man, #he may kill people for a living but he is SOFT and I will not be taking any arguments about this, #slightly self indulgent

Warnings: Gender Neutral, but reader is suggested to have long hair, no use of Y/N, mentions of death obviously, no beta and no ‘ragrets’

- — - • - — - • - — - • - — - • - — - • - — - • - — -

John’s occupation put a lot of things in life into perspective. Getting into silly fights was simply not worth it. Not when every time he walked out the door the stakes were so high. That’s not to say that you never had disagreements. Just that neither of you were willing to partake in petty lack of communication.

You had known about Helen from the very day you and John had begun dating. It was hard not to. The man loved her so much it was written on every piece of him. Strangely though you didn’t mind. How could you? When that wonderful woman had brought him through so much shit and out to the the other side. To you.

Simply to say that Helen was a part of what made the love of your life himself. And so you didn’t mind his love for her at all. Especially now that his love for you was written all over him too.

It was Helen’s birthday today. You saved the date and had been sneakily preparing everything for weeks now. It would have been her 40th birthday, so you wanted to make it extra special this year. John had been out on a contract all day yesterday and so you weren’t too worried about him waking up as you crept downstairs and into the kitchen.

You removed the cake you had baked from the fridge where you had hidden it and placed it on the counter. Chocolate caramel. Her favourite flavour. The big silver four and zero candles were perfect. Along side the cake you placed a large vase full of daisies. It was perfect. All that was left to do was breakfast.

You set to work, cutting up fruit and frying bacon and eggs. You knew John would be starving when he woke up, he always was after a hit. You supposed hunting someone down burned a serious amount of calories. Lastly, you set to work on the pancakes. You knew they were Johns favourite and you were more than happy to indulge him, especially today. He always asked for heaps of chocolate chips in his. You rolled your eyes affectionately at the thought. He was a chocolate fiend but when he stared at you with those big brown eyes. Ugh. Who were you to say no to such a gentle, beautiful man?

You were just plating up the last of the pancakes when you heard soft footsteps padding down the stairs, followed by the excited skitter of Boy as he raced his dad down to the kitchen. John was silent as death so you knew the fact that you could hear him approach was deliberate and more for you than anything else.

Boy entered the room a minute before John did; tail wagging like crazy. You laughed at his enthusiasm and leaned down to ruffle his ears affectionately. John’s sleepy form shuffled in just as Boy managed to land a lick to your cheek. He smiled at the sight of his little family. Boy: seemingly very proud of himself and you: wiping the drool off your face as you stood to greet him.

It was unfair, you thought, for the boogeyman to be someone as cute as him. John was wearing a soft long sleeve shirt and his favourite pair of flannel pyjama pants. As usual he had stolen one of your scrunchies to pull back his long hair— a green one with ducks on it, this time.

You had offered to buy him some of his own. Cool ones to fit his bad-boy assassin image; you had teased. But he had somewhat sheepishly declared that he liked yours better. You didn’t mind. After all you stole a fair share of his clothes too. So you had compromised and bought a few extra for yourself, that way he could be a thief and you wouldn’t run out.

Johns eyes drifted to the cake and the vase of flowers on the counter, and he froze. You watched as the memories hit him one after the other. Boy, sensing his dad’s distress, waddled over to his side and plopped himself down on John’s foot. The contact jolted him back to reality and he lifted his watery eyes to yours. “You did all this?” he finally choked out.

You stepped over boy and slipped your arms around his waist.

“It would be her 40th. I wanted to do something special for her this year,” you replied before a bit of hesitancy creeped into your voice. “Is it okay?”

John wrapped his arms around you, tugging you right against his chest. It took him a minute to reply and your heart thundered as you waited for him to say something. He buried his head into your neck and you cradled him there with the palm of your hand on his nape. Keeping him safe— holding him together as he answered with tears in his voice.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.”

You breathed a sigh of relief. Reaching with your unoccupied hand you began to trace constellations on his back. It was a habit you had gotten from him, actually, but it had stuck with you. He had spent years with nothing but violence for company, so you relished touching him gently.

Slowly, you pulled him to face you. You pressed a kiss to his forehead and swiped away his tears with your thumbs.

“I love you,” you said softly. You held him firmly willing him to really hear it.

“I love you too, so much.”

You stood there for a second, just holding his face in your hands. Enjoying the warmth of his skin. Boy sensed the shift in mood and slowly his tail began to thump against your legs.

“You had a long night last night,” you broke the silence. “Let’s get some food in you. Then after that we can light the candles and you can tell me about some of your favourite memories of Helen. Yeah?”

John nodded, straightening, but kept his grip on your waist as he surveyed all the food you had made.

“I’d love that. Do you mind if we have a look at the photos too?” He asked softly.

“I already put the photo albums out on the coffee table,” you replied with a cheeky grin.

His chest rumbled as he laughed, “Am I that predictable?”

You beamed at the sound, poking him in the ribs as he snuck Boy a piece of bacon. Big softie.

“I think I just happen to know you quite well. You’re much less mysterious than you think,” you teased him and tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear.

“Alright, I’ll accept that,” he said with one last peck on your lips. “Now, let’s eat before this goes cold.”

#john wick fluff #sometimes babygirl is a 48 year old man #he’s just a little guy #john wick x y/n #john wick chapter 4 #john wick is babygirl and I refuse to hear any arguments about this #john wick x reader #john wick x you #john wick fandom #john wick fanfic #john wick #no use of y/n #so much fluff #no beta we die like men #angst #send help #john wick x gender neutral reader #gn reader #gender neutral reader

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warcrimesimulator · 9 months

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A 33-year-old New Zealand woman who was accused of faking debilitating symptoms has died of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS).

Stephanie Aston, 33, passed away in her home in Auckland on 1 September, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Aston became an advocate for patients' rights after doctors refused to take her EDS symptoms seriously and blamed them on mental illness. She was just 25 when those symptoms began in October 2015. At the time, she did not know she had inherited the health condition.

EDS refers to a group of inherited disorders caused by gene mutations that weaken the connective tissues, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These tissues are responsible for many important functions, and they support the skin, bones, blood vessels, and other organs.

Symptoms of EDS include fragile, small blood vessels; loose joints; abnormal scar formation; abnormal wound healing; and soft, stretchy, velvety skin that bruises easily, per the NIH.

There are at least 13 different types of EDS, and the conditions range from mild to life-threatening. EDS is extremely rare: Only one in every 5,000 people have it. Patients with EDS can sometimes receive treatments that might help manage their symptoms—such as physical therapy—but there is no cure for the illness. People who live with EDS often have to restructure their lives to learn how to protect their joints and prevent injuries.

Aston sought medical help after her symptoms—which included severe migraines, abdominal pain, joint dislocations, easy bruising, iron deficiency, fainting, tachycardia, and multiple injuries—began in 2015, per the New Zealand Herald. She was referred to Auckland Hospital, where a doctor accused her of causing her own illness.

Because of his accusations, Aston was placed on psychiatric watch. She had to undergo rectal examinations and was accused of practising self-harming behaviours. She was suspected of faking fainting spells, fevers, and coughing fits, and there were also suggestions that her mother was physically harming her.

There was no basis for the doctor’s accusations that her illness was caused by psychiatric issues, Aston told the New Zealand Herald. “There was no evaluation prior to this, no psych consultation, nothing,” she said.

She eventually complained to the Auckland District Health Board and the Health and Disability Commissioner of New Zealand. “I feel like I have had my dignity stripped and my rights seriously breached,” she said.

Research suggests women are often much more likely to be misdiagnosed than men. A 2009 study of patients with heart disease symptoms found 31.3 per cent of middle-aged women “received a mental health condition as the most certain diagnosis”, compared to just 15.6 per cent of their male counterparts. Additionally, a 2020 study found that as many as 75.2 per cent of patients with endometriosis—a painful disorder that affects the tissue of the uterus—had been misdiagnosed after they started experiencing endometriosis symptoms. Among those women, nearly 50 per cent were told they had a “mental health problem”.

One reason women’s health conditions are often ignored or misdiagnosed could come down to where the research stands. A 2022 paper states that “females remain broadly under-represented in the medical literature, sex and gender are poorly reported and inadequately analysed in research, and misogynistic perceptions continue to permeate the narrative”. Women’s pain, in particular, is especially under-researched: 70 per cent of people with chronic pain are women, yet 80 per cent of available studies on pain have focused on men or male mice, per Harvard Health Publishing.

#I am feeling new levels of violence every day

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un-father · 5 months

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I thought to say this as a reply to a comment someone left on my "You are too young to be Daddy" ask but I thought is something people should see.

"Shaming" someone because they are too "young to be Daddy/Mommy" or "You are in the wrong, if you want a Daddy/Mommy they should be way older than you!" are best ways to gatekeep.

Why?

Imagine a young man/woman thinking "You know what I see myself in this role" and everyone else around them going "Nope, you can't. Come back when you have a few grey hairs" and they get discouraged by them. Now someone who may have had years exploring the role, learning to be better at it just won't do it. And by the time those who said "You don't fit the age requirement" say they do, that person may just not be interested anymore. Could have been a great one or maybe they could have learnt that it was not for them. We will never know.

And then you have the other end those who say "I would like a Daddy/Mommy" and then people go "Sure! But make sure they are at least X years old" and then you wonder why so many young subs end with someone shitty? Well you made them think that one person who made them feel safe, secure and seen was not right because "They aren't that much older"

And what of the subs who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc? Should they be left out because finding someone much older than you is harder?

Is the age gap that important to you? Good, you know what you want. But don't tell others they should want the same or they should fit your criteria. Don't gatekeep the community just because someone doesn't think the same as you.

#un-father.txt

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remindingpersephone · 1 month

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Here we go again

Hi gang. I'm back on my Chris-Get's-Healthy kick, again. I know I've talked about this and asked for your help in the past. I am once again attempting to quit sugar and work out more.

If you have offered me advice in the past and are tired of my requests, yet again, for advice and ideas, I understand. I get it. Believe me, no one is more tired of my bullshit and my inability to stick to a regimen and make the healthy choices than I am.

This last time I was derailed by my mom's illness and death. I just did not have the mental space or physical energy to commit to disciplined nutritional choices and consistent work outs while taking care of her. But the reasons don't really matter because there were excuses before this one, and on and on. I have been starting and giving up on, healthy living routines since I was 18 years old. Let's do the math, that's 30 years!

A little background: I am not a yo-yo dieter. I very slowly put on weight starting with my first desk job at 20 and never dropped it. The weight has never bothered me. I am a confident woman who has never needed to fit into a six 6. I am also single by choice and nothing in the last 30 years has given me a reason to change my mind about this.

This situation now is that I'm looking hard at 50 and the little aches and pains: the trick knee, the occasional sciatica, the feet that get a little too sore too soon, are, I feel, all red flags signaling that hitting snooze on my health is no longer an option.

I truly believe that fitness and nutritional eating are not only the key to staying fit and active, but I think if I just commit and get through those first few tough months, I would actually like it.

Lately I've been drinking my Dr. Pepper and eating my high-calorie cheesy pasta and lots of sourdough bread (all my favorites), but they just haven't been as satisfying as they once were. [Sidebar: I realize some of this could be residual depression and grief making life just not as wonderful as it once was. That will take time.]

Mostly, I'm just tired of giving the "I have got to get my health in order" thoughts the mental real estate in my brain. I need to deal with it so I can move on from it. So it is not such big part of my daily thoughts.

My long-winded and self-indulgent post here is just to ask once again - and I swear for the last time - what do you all find works for you as far as fitness and nutrition goes? My fitness goals are:

to get stronger and improve flexibility and mobility while protecting the joints and ligaments

staving off osteoporosis

alleviating some peri-menopause symptoms

My nutrition goals are:

to kick the sugar addiction once and for all and change my palate so I don't crave sweet things so much

prevent diabetes/heart disease, etc. before they start

improving gut health

I welcome all comments and advice, and that includes the tough-love "girl, you have got to get your shit together!"

#fitness and nutrition #here we fucking go again

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ovaruling · 10 months

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i found this very interesting, especially as a woman who has cheated death several times, came away from it disabled, and is now fiercely determined to live independently into old age, child-free (in this case, the relevance of that being the context of having no children to assist me with care or basic function as i age).

however, this is also important for all women, because being able to carry fitness (and by fitness i refer to the ability to complete everyday tasks and basic mobility without extreme difficulty or injury) into old age is a topic that affects us as a sex with some growing urgency.

statistically, we know (or should, by now) that women cannot depend on male partners/family members to care for us in times of illness or crisis, and that also goes for caring for us as we age. they leave. they shirk. they hope we’ll just die and relieve them of the burden of caring for us.

and even if male partners are not a factor, aging women ARE seen as a burden–to our families, to our friends, to our loved ones, to our doctors, to our governments, to our societies. having children or a partner or family members or friends does not necessarily guarantee that they will assist you in your old age.

so it is of utmost importance that we as women educate ourselves on how to stay as physically independent as possible as we age. here is an excerpt of the article that describes why i think this is so important:

"Think of the Centenarian Decathlon as the 10 most important physical tasks you will want to be able to do for the rest of your life. Some items on the list resemble actual athletic events, while some are closer to activities of daily living, and still others might reflect your own personal interests. I find it useful because it helps us visualize, with great precision, exactly what kind of fitness we need to build and maintain as we get older. It creates a template for our training.

I start by presenting my patients with a long list of physical tasks that might include some of the following:

1. Hike 1.5 miles on a hilly trail. 2. Get up off the floor under your own power, using a maximum of one arm for support. 3. Pick up a young child from the floor. 4. Carry two 5-pound bags of groceries for five blocks. 5. Lift a 20-pound suitcase into the overhead compartment of a plane. 6. Balance on one leg for 30 seconds, eyes open. (Bonus points: eyes closed, 15 seconds.) 7. Have sex. 8. Climb four flights of stairs in three minutes. 9. Open a jar. 10. Do 30 consecutive jump-rope skips.

The full list is much longer, with more than 50 different items, but you get the idea. Once they’ve read it, I ask them to please select which of these tasks they want to be able to perform in their ninth, or better yet 10th, decade. Which ones do they choose?

All of them, typically. They want to be able to hike a mile and a half, or carry their own groceries, or pick up a great-grandchild, or get up if they fall down. Or play 18 holes of golf, or open a jar, or fly somewhere on a plane. Of course they do.

That’s great, I say. You’ll make that kid’s day when you pick her up like that. But now let’s do a little math. Let’s say the kid weighs 25 or 30 pounds. That’s basically the same as doing a squat while holding a 30-pound dumbbell in front of you (i.e., a goblet squat). Can you do that now, at age 40? Most likely. But now let’s look into the future. Over the next 30 or 40 years, your muscle strength will decline by about 8 to 17 percent per decade—accelerating as time goes on. So if you want to pick up that 30-pound grandkid or great-grandkid when you’re 80, you’re going to have to be able to lift 50 to 55 pounds now. Without hurting yourself. Can you do that?

I press the issue. You also want to be able to hike on a hilly trail? To do that comfortably requires a VO2 max of roughly 30 ml/kg/min. Let’s take a look at the results of your latest VO2 max test—and guess what, you only scored a 30. You’re average for your age, but I’m afraid that’s not good enough, because your VO2 max is also going to decline. So you can pull it off now, but you likely won’t be able to do it when you’re older.

On it goes. To lift a 20-pound suitcase overhead when you are older means lifting 40 or 50 pounds now. To be able to climb four flights of stairs in your 80s means you should be able to pretty much sprint up those same stairs today. In every case, you need to be doing much more now, to armor yourself against the natural and precipitous decline in strength and aerobic capacity that you will undergo as you age.

Eventually, my patients get it. Together, we come up with a list of 10 or 15 events in their personal Centenarian Decathlon, representing their goals for their later decades. This then determines how they should be training. In the end, most people’s Centenarian Decathlons will probably overlap to a degree. Someone who enjoys stand-up paddleboarding, for example, would perhaps choose “events” focused around building core and cross-body strength. But she will likely be training the same muscle groups as I am doing for archery, and maintaining a similar degree of stamina and balance.

The Centenarian Decathlon is ambitious, no question. A 90-year-old who is even able to board a plane under her own power, let alone hoist a carry-on bag, is doing extremely well. But there is a method to the madness. These individual tasks are not out of reach. There are octogenarians, nonagenarians, and even centenarians right now who are running marathons, racing bicycles, lifting weights, flying airplanes, jumping out of airplanes, skiing the Rocky Mountains, competing in actual decathlons, and doing all sorts of other amazing things. So all these events are within the realm of possibility."

#tumblr formatting made this IMPOSSIBLE for some reason so bear with me #save

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dangermousie · 6 months

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Finished.

God, what a glorious, glorious, glorious ride, a truly solid epic drama in a way I haven't seen in a very long time - there were two other flawless cdramas for me this year - Lost You Forever 1 and The Ingenuous One - but TIO was a smaller scale story and LYF ended in medias res. AJTL was the only complete, epic cdrama this year for me, but oh boy, was it beyond.

First, my two tiny niggles - this is a drama where the 40 episode limit fit badly, like tightly pinching shoes. You can tell how they had to speed and cram to get in the resolutions of dynastic struggles in An and Wu and the war with Beipan. This drama really needed to have been 50 eps. (The cramming also resulted in the sole plot arc that made me go huh - LTG random decision to try to marry Ruyi before he rides off to what he thinks is his last battle and his just as random decision to go "oh well" and agree to release NYZ and then when NYZ shows up before he can be released because he broke out and wreaks havoc, let them walk out. Maybe if they had more time, it would have made more sense, otherwise it felt like an aberration in a character arc that before and after was consistent and made sense.) Second niggle is not really one because it's clearly due to censorship - the last minute redemption of the Wu emperor etc - the writer made is as believable as she could but you could feel the censorship sticky hands all over it.

But those are minor complaints. Overall this was solid from beginning to end, very adult and with secondary characters who all felt real and complex and interesting. A few thoughts:

Our main OTP was incredible. So adult, so competent, so badass but still feeling human. I bought that those two were larger than life legends AND flesh and blood people. And that chemistry!

I loved that this drama allowed relationships to be messy. Yes, we have our epic main couple but I especially loved what happened with Chu Yue and Shisan and LTG and Ying. I loved that neither was an epic romance. With CY and Shisan, I loved that they didn't make him realize he loves her forever blah blah - he was an incredibly consistent character - charming, loyal and utterly clear he's incapable of permanent commitment to a single woman and she never could change that. And yet he died in large part to protect her, and it's in keeping with his character and it makes sense that this solidified her remembering him forever - he's not just the one who got away, but he DIED for her. It's very clear if they both lived, this would have gone nowhere and ended with him wandering off or her moving on wanting commitment from someone who is capable of it, but as it is, it froze the possibility of love in ember.

And I loved the narrative of LTG and Ying. They both come into marriage in love with someone they can never have (Ruyi and YL), they both have similar backgrounds (royals but neglected and looked down upon), they both share the same goals (power but to take care of people) and they really are friends. I love that when we last see them, they have what is a great period marriage - no love but respect and common goals. And she still mourns YL and he probably still thinks of Ruyi but the thing is, I love that the narrative leaves the possibility of them eventually falling in love with each other (or other people) because as she tells him - you think you will always love a particular person but life is long. (And it's so true - she will remember YL until she's old, once again in part because of the unfulfilled possibility of it - but it doesn't mean she won't be able to open her heart to someone again.) It's a surprisingly hopeful ending for them and I love it. I'd totally watch a show where they discover love with each other tbh.

I did love that no character (except possibly Prince Danyang) got everything they wanted even if they emerged alive. They got some and had to give up some.

I loved what it had to say about having to be worthy of your power and position - you are not owed fealty by birth but you have to earn it. It was a surprisingly anti-imperial show for a recent cdrama.

All the deaths of our faves gutted me, none as much as Yuan Lu's. Oooof.

As to the ending, I can tell people are gonna have fits but I like it. I love many an ending legendarily reviled in cdrama fandom (Princess Agents and Novoland Eagle Flag have perfect endings in my opinion; I realize that opinion, especially about PA is enough to get me throttled in certain quarters but it is what it is) and I came to cdramas back when pretty much every costume cdrama ended horrifically tragically - think of the endings of the Chinese Paladins, The Myth (for a long time my n1 drama even though it made me cry so hard I threw up, ending-wise), The Young Warriors, Little Fairy, even Lan Ling Wang, Glory of the Tang Dynasty and Bu Bu Jing Xin if we are going somewhat later. I mean, one of my favorite dramas ever is Royal Nirvana and that ending is like drinking a thermos full of depression. This is nothing.

Honestly, I would have been fine if the ending for our OTP really was them dying pretty much together, in their different battles. That hint that they are alive and living with their kids is lovely and welcome, but I'd have been fine without it and it raises a lot of questions (though if anyone could fake their deaths and survive that sort of thing, it would have been them so fair enough.)

Anyway, this is basically my love letter to this drama. It was amazing and I am so glad I watched it.

#cdrama #a journey to love #liu shi shi #liu yuning #alen fang #fang yilun

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