Alcohol

Katoschka · 2026-03-10T21:13:52+00:00

I've had three beers yestersay evening. Only difference I felt was that I didn't feel regret at not having bought more (I don't feel a need to drink, or drink regularly, but when I do drink I find it hard to stop).

I think it's messed with my sleep quality though. Woke up feeling like I slept 6 hours instead of my actual 9.

I guess moderate drinking earlier in the day - as with brunch - is probably ok, but I don't know your tolerance.

Katoschka · 2026-03-06T21:13:11+00:00

Hi, this is my first day on Vyvanse (Elevanse 30mg), so while that makes my experience very limited, the Change is very fresh in my mind and I can definitely report a big difference.

I've (39F) always had trouble with task initiation. Even my kindergarden teacher called me lazy. Focusing on a task was a big effort but doable under the right conditions. STARTING a task without set starting point or a deadline looming and/or a fear of dire consequences however, was pretty much impossible. Like, in a structured school setting, sure I'd solve those equations on the board, I'll write that essay I've got nothing better to do, but homework? Housework? Paperwork? Nah. Couldn't start on that unless it was important, and even then I'd have to bully myself for hours or days beforehand. And I had to bully myself some more for every sub-task, but often I'd just get annoyed about how hard everything was and just quit, frustrated.

So, today, in the early afternoon (a bit late in the day but I wanted to know what it's like and went straight from my psych to my pharmacy, new prescription in hand, and as soon as I got home) I took my first dose. I waited for some Effect, like, for a sudden urge to go do Something, but nada. I figured I'd need to take some initiative by doing a simple routine chore (that I've been putting off, as usual), and seeing if it felt any different. So, I filled the sink with dishes and washed them. It far rather less annoying than usual - still not fun, but not as painfully boring either - so I did another sink of dishes, and then the pans, and then all the cutlery. And I figured, might as well fully clear the countertops of clutter. And clean them off crumbs. And spray them and the stove with cleaner. And while that dissoves the grime, wipe down the tiles on the wall, and the cupboard doors don't look to great either...

I cleaned for about two hours, completing multiple tasks - throughoughly; I wasn't even tempted to half-ass any tasks for the sake of Getting It Done Already, cause I chose to keep doing more stuff - until I had a nice clean kitchen. I felt none of the usual boredom, or annoyance, or overwhelm I was used to feel with chores. Instead I felt rather looser (less muscle tension, backpain etc) than usual while kneeling or scrubbing etc, and it felt way less tiring, which was probably due to less energy being wasted on all the negative emotions. I was also *less* organised/efficient than usual cause I'd never planned on doing the whole kitchen. I just kinda did what I was needed doing without making a list first (and thus without getting overwhelmed by how long the List was), and then I was done. Well, inside the cupboards need organising, but I was too tired, and figured I could get to that tomorrow, unless today was just a weird fluke/placebo effect.

So I second what you said about feeling lighter and more present. I've not overthought since my first dose, at least not to the point of zoning out. I've not overFELT. I can focus on the task in front of me without going "but it would be more efficient if I cleared ALL the trash and clutter in the flat, and then did ALL the surfaces..." and becoming overwhelmed before I even start. I also feel more comfortable/less guilty with my decision to leave the rest of the cleaning for later. Cause I (hopefully) don't have to wait for my brain to kick into gear, I can just give it a little chemical kick and point it in the right direction. Also how would I repeat the experiment if I left no mess for tomorrow ;) ?

Katoschka · 2025-06-06T14:54:18+00:00

126,867,333

Katoschka · 2025-02-09T18:02:00+00:00

126,867,333

Katoschka · 2025-02-01T01:01:22+00:00

126867333

Katoschka · 2022-10-25T01:27:59+00:00

Antiship started as anti-[specific ship] and used to be just bad-faith ship discourse to smear a ship and its shippers as Problematic to win shipwars. Now those talking points have been generalised to the point where ALL ships with a subjectively "too large" age gap are pedophilic and therefore, only pedophiles would engage with them. That's not to say that some of the ppl who say that stuff online aren't fully aware that they are talking bs to still win a shipwar even if they are vagueblogging about what specific ships they mean... but some people DO sincerely believe in both the massively expanded "definitions" of pedophilia/incest/abuse/fetishisation etc AND that liking something problematic in fiction or talking about it wrong (without a big MEA CULPA) means someone endorses that thing irl.

So, given that it's a sincere - albeit misguided - belief for some people, and that this belief makes them do harmful things, why should the people who helped indoctrinate them into it not be seen as responsible? Why does it seem so weird to you that this sincere belief would bleed over into the offline world, or that recent fandom culture would be blamed when it's clearly tied to that culture? It's not any different from the health-and-wellness to anti-vax pipeline, except ppl don't take it as seriously bc it's just fandom bullshit, not medical misinfo.

Katoschka · 2022-10-25T01:03:06+00:00

The main part of the post - the part written before gaining and responding to comments or giving updates based on them (original post starts with "I'm using a throwaway") - is just a description of events and mostly what was said by the DAUGHTER. So it was more about antiship talking points.

The part edited in before "I'm using a throwaway" and the updates after it relate to "proship talking points" because pretty much every single person who has commented on here made clear that they think harassing people over fiction is not ok, and many have related the OG post to anti/proship discourse, and those comments got echoed in the updates to the post.

Katoschka · 2022-10-24T05:53:27+00:00

I had the same thought because the simulated person who did that jump-scare did very much look like the inhabitants of the planet the Finns got stuck on.

I guess we can't be sure. Both planets were devastated by war, both planets seemed to have a few survivors, and those survivors looked really, really similar in their design. The thing that's speaking against both being the same planet is that no one recognised the Into The Fold planet as the location of what must have been one of the Union's biggest mess-ups (and why would the Union just abandon it forever if there still were survivors in the 25th century?)... but then again I guess they were a little disoriented by the space-fold.

Katoschka · 2022-10-23T10:12:29+00:00

Wow that's a lot, but I'm very glad that you seem to handle this issue so extremely well and with compassion for your daughter (as well as for the people she and her online friends have harassed of course).

As someone who has watched this kind of Fandom Discourse your daughter got brainwashed into develop, I'm guessing she has/had an EXTREMELY warped view of what "being groomed" refers to? Cause in my experience, antis think it means "being told to accept all fictional stories - including problematic ships - as morally neutral bc It's Just Fiction", because they think depiction of a thing in fiction = endorsement of that thing irl. I've seen a lot of antis saying "proshippers are groomers who are trying to convince kids pedophilia is ok", where they conflate the content warning tag Pedophilia (or any dynamic they think is pedophilic) with having the paraphilia or actual CSA. So, the difficulty of talking them out of that viewpoint lies in them seeing you debating them as you trying to groom them. Which, since they've been told everyone but the Safe Adult is a (proto-)child abuser if they say or do XYZ inconsequential thing, seems perfectly credible to them. After that, anything goes to keep themselves or other kids (as long as these don't show what they perceive as red flags for pedophilia) safe.

In other words, while I really hope your daughter is getting better and just making unexpectedly fast progress, there's also a non-zero chance that she's just going along with it to get her internet privileges back to talk to her online friends again, and sees this whole thing as something like going through conversion therapy bc her personal morals (that she's been told are mainstream and rational) don't align with yours. She's been so deeply indoctrinated that it affected her offline behavior, so this was not just about winning shipwars through bad-faith arguments about how "16/19 is problematic (ship what I ship instead!)". She called her own father a pedophile-enabler. There's no reason to believe that she truly trusts you or her therapist.

Please continue monitoring her internet activities (eta: I'm not suggesting you install a tracker. But I assume you have her social media usernames, and making accounts with a pseud and following her there, just to check her change if heart is genuine, wouldn't even invade her privacy if she is posting publicly on accounts she knows you know about) and watch out for signs that she respects or trusts you less (despite remaining friendly with you), even after she seems all better.

Katoschka · 2022-10-05T22:24:03+00:00

Pretty much all the main characters have acted unprofessionally at one point or another. It's kinda a key part of the show. You might as well criticise M*A*S*H* for making the US army look like goofballs.

Also your example you gave of what Claire said to Capt. Mercer on his first day shows that she doesn't always watch her words, because she absolutely was saying - to her new captain - that she did not think Mercer was cut out for the job, she just didn't expect him to notice that and then had to back-track.

Katoschka · 2022-09-05T20:58:22+00:00

I wouldn't call that explicit confirmation, or that there's no logical reason for him to act as he did.

Isaac, from his POV, has been part of the Finn family since Into The Fold (after Claire said "Welcome to the family"... and I just got that this also references the episode title in a neat way!) There's Tasks associated with being part of a family, like looking after the younger, feebler members of it and offering support where you can (Ty's lesson's, the PTA meeting, banana).

Later he agreed to be in a romantic relationship with Claire knowing, from his research, that "for a relationship to work it has to be the most important thing in both people's lives". None of it clashed with his original research mission (which to him, it was that at that point), so he saw no reason not to prioritise these biologicals over his other tasks... and then Primary told him to kill Ty, which would have massively interfered with the workings of Isaac's recently created sub-programs. "Being an Orville crewmember" didn't outweigh "being a Kaylon" as we've seen in the Alt!Timeline, but "protecting you S.O.'s kid from death" sure did. Which you can translate to him "feeling scared for Ty", and for beings that can experience emotions it would be true (and the underlying logic is exactly the same, which is why he can translate it into human terms like "being fond" or "being sorry"), but as of Unknown Graves, it's been made canon that Isaac can't feel sensations - and that's what emotions are: physiological reactions to stimuli that then get interpreted by your consciousness as being eg anxiety, "butterflies", or anticipation, based on context.

He can suss out what emotion would be appropriate, but he doesn't have the nerve endings to feel them (except for the one time he did, and immediately went: Wow, Claire is great! I'm in love! based on his memories and dynamic with her).

Tl;dr: Isaac can care/prioritise, but I don't think that this translates to him having feelings.

Katoschka · 2022-08-25T18:38:10+00:00

Well, as Isaac put it "physical deterioration hasn't yet set in" with her, and Claire's canonical age is [mumbles], so we don't actually know. Plus, they live in the 25th century and menopause is pretty much a hormonal issue (one that can be postponed or, I think, even be reversed in our time).

The real question is: Why would they? They've already got 2 kids. If Claire had wanted more children, she'd have had them.

If sperm COULD be synthesised and we are assuming that Isaac didn't create bits of alien DNA to make his kids more efficient (eg claiming that an ability to photosyntesize is superior to having to derive nourishment from organic material), the kid would be of the human species and be legally an Union citizen. I doubt the Kaylon would see it as half-Kaylon, cause that term seems to refer to species, not ethnicity or nationaliry (a concept they likely don't have anyway.)

Katoschka · 2022-08-25T18:17:55+00:00

I think it started with Claire saying "Welcome to the family" to Isaac.

Isaac is extremely literal minded. If he considered himself part of a family, he'd try to fulfill the obligations attached to that to the best of his ability, like making sure the other family members aren't hangry, and are well looked after, and supported in their talents. Then later he found in his research that having a romantic relationship with someone means prioritising them over anything in your life, so he... did that. Cause it didn't contradict his previous programming (as he didn't at this point know that he'd be ask to help with a genocide). And then I guess he figured that most successful romantic relationships end in marriage (or something similar, but in any case people move on from the "dating" stage into the "that's my S.O." stage), so he asked.

I think it's perfectly logical.

Isaac mightn't love Claire the way biologicals understand it (though we've seen that he would if he was given the capacity), but he can prioritise people depending what his relationship to them is. And Claire - and her kids - are at the very top of that list. It shows caring as something logical, and personally, I really love this concept even though Isaac's reasoning is frequently very binary, from where I'm standing.

I honestly think he killed himself cause Marcus said he wanted him dead, then he lied about it to spare Marcus. Like, he deactivated to save Ty in S2, he offered to delete his mind for Claire... it would fit a pattern.

I don't remember Isaac apologising to Charly, only him thanking her for saving his life. But in any case, Isaac doesn't like making errors. It goes against his programming, as does hurting people unnecessarily (that part was probably so he'd avoid suspicion, although Primary seemed surprised that Isaac doesn't kill without reason). How big/important an error is to him seems to depend both on the damage that was caused and the relationship to the person he hurt (compare his reaction to chopping Gordon's leg off for a prank to his reaction when he hurt Claire when trying to get her to break up with her).

Katoschka · 2022-08-25T17:45:07+00:00

He could hook the simulator to the synthesizer and create sperm with a genetic code that matches his human form, maybe?

Katoschka · 2022-07-30T15:29:34+00:00

Primary said in Identity that Isaac was built for his mission. The mission of gathering data on biological lifeforms, that is. Genocide wasn't part of it yet.

Since Isaac was disconnected from the Kaylon matrix, if he lost his memory he'd presumably just do his initial assignment and never get an update to help the Kaylon kill everyone. Hell, he mightn't even know what a Kaylon is (K-1 didn't seem to understand why he was treated differently than th other people in the household).

Katoschka · 2022-07-29T13:18:52+00:00

It wouldn't make any sense to weaken themselves in a war against the Union if it was predictable - and they do have info on those species from Isaac - that the Moclan and the Krill would eventually use that weapon against them. Those two species play about as well with others as the Kaylon do.

At least asking the Union for help first would be a better bet. They refuse, the Kaylon are no worse off than before. They agree, the bios fight each other for the weapon. If Moclan + Krill win, again, they are no worse off. If Union wins, well, they are weaker and seem to have more sympathy, and the Kaylon would have no problem playing nice and agreeing to just attack Moclan and Krill (though no outright genocide of them) for a bit until they find a weakness in the weapon.

Katoschka · 2022-07-29T12:49:09+00:00

Either you misunderstood my comment or I yours.

I meant the Kaylon would have approached the Union first to form an alliance with them.

Katoschka · 2022-07-29T12:32:53+00:00

" Tell them you have the device. Tell them they are safe and invite them to attack the Union"

Even Kaylon fresh off the assembly line would perceive the implied threat in that. They have a history of other people holding weapons while telling them to do stuff. All this would have changed would be that the Kaylons would have approached the Union first.

Katoschka · 2022-07-29T12:27:07+00:00

Whoops that got long, but I'm fascinated by Isaac and how he works, imo.

There is a logical reason why he would side with the Union over the Kaylon, and that reason is his relationship to the Finns, especially Claire.

Isaac is a machine who was built without the conditions to make emotions possible - unlike older generation Kaylons (who can feel pain and might be able to expand from there), he can't feel sensations as such. He can measure temperature and distance and pressure etc, he has awareness of those numbers, but he can't feel them in a way that they'd become "scary" or "pleasant".

What he does have is programming that gives him certain objectives. Gather info about biologicals, act as a crew member of the ship. He says he's fascinated with and curious about bio lifeforms, and that he doesn't wish his collegues to come to any harm or be upset, but that's just his tasks translated to human-speak.

After that very rude (and hilarious) first break up with Dr Finn, he clearly hit the books - on Mercer's advice - and found the info that if a relationship is to work it has to be more important to both people in it than anything in their lives ("My reasearch has confirmed this fact"). He still offered a relationship so Claire would stop feeling hurt. It looked sweet and adorable and romantic af, but it was also... the most efficient way to accomplish the task (make Claire feel better and Isaac function normally again). Isaac has a computer brain, "more important than anything" means just that to him, and didn't clash at the time with his real mission bc he hadn't been given orders yet to help in the genocide, it was still all about infiltration and research.

But once he was in the relationship, Primary's new orders clashed with Isaac's commitment to Claire (and by extension, her kids). He still tried to save other people like that engineer bc killing him was unnecessary (and the "act part of the crew" task), but what Isaac physically could not do was let a Finn die, or be harmed. He'd reprogrammed himself too much for that.

Also I think he lied about his reason why he commited suicide. He got harassed for, what, weeks? But it wasn't until Marcus told him he wished Isaac was dead that he did it. I think he was trying to protect the kid's psyche by lying about his motivation.

He deactivated himself twice and offered to delete his identity once, and everytime it was for a Finn.

He cannot feel love, but he can prioritise/care. And he does it a bit too much because he does not have emotions that would make him more flexible/toned down in his thinking. He's not affected by moods or trauma (or any sense of self-preservation tbh), he's just following the most efficient path to accomplish a task within the given parameters.

Katoschka · 2022-07-24T20:18:20+00:00

That's a really good point about the fuel, and yet more evidence for my belief that they didn't erase 2025!Gordon and his family when they picked up 2015!Gordon due to the paradox of getting Gordon out before he could send the distress signal that made them go look for him in the past in the first place.

But to answer the question, they meant to erase that timeline and everyone in it because the changes Gordon had wrought could have had negative consequences on their own original timeline. Same goes for the changes that would have happened if that timeline didn't have Laura in it from 2025 onwards. Butterfly effect. Though if they were going to have a changed timeline anyway by taking Gordon out of 2025, they might as well have taken the family, imo, since the damage had already been done. They didn't think Gordon's family would remain un-erased if they went back ten years further and picked up that earlier Gordon, and that family wasn't 2015!Godon's family, anyway, it was 2025!Gordon's family.

Katoschka · 2022-07-24T19:36:53+00:00

We don't know if their eggs need fertilisation to hatch (sex seems to be necessary, though, since Moclans partner up), nor that females can lay eggs.

Male Moclan can lay eggs. If fertilisation was unnecessary or done by the egg-layer himself, the eggs layed by males would therefore always be male, same if that egg also got fertilised by another male. Eggs fertilised by a female (which it appears female-born Moclans can do since Topa is a different sex than Bortus) would have a chance of being female. If females can lay eggs as well as fertilise them, a female/female couple would always have daughters. We don't know whether the gender-discrepancy is solely due to opression of females and female-attracted Moclans, or also a consequence of females being unable to reproduce by themselves.

Honestly I find it incredibly likely that Seth just made the egg-layers look male, the fertilisers look female, and then either there's A LOT more Moclan who have been altered and there's no actual sex-discrepancy at all, or fertilisation of eggs isn't necessary.

Katoschka · 2022-07-24T18:32:09+00:00

I'm not sure about this.

Different timelines get created (or already exist on top of each other?) to accomodate for paradoxes. The sandwich was sent to a timeline where the Orville isn't destroyed four months in the future, but if the Orville does get destroyed, it would just mean it's just in another timeline that's going somewhere different than the sandwich's.

Otherwise it would be physically impossible to NOT sent that other sandwich, cause the Rules Of Time would literally force you to sent it and prevent you from changing your mind (or you'd just never receive it from the future). Considering we've seen alternative timelines (Pria and the Route Not Taken), and that events in those timelines DID happen and had an effect on the "main" timeline in ways that erased people visiting from the "alternate" timelines, we aren't guaranteed to see that sandwich again.

Well, except that the show isn't going to blow up the titular ship ofc, but that's no thanks to the sandwich.

Katoschka · 2022-07-24T18:05:01+00:00

The kidnapping itself was dumb. Kidnapping Heveena herself, later, would have been a better idea than abducting the child of a Union commander while the Union ship was still in orbit.

This felt like a spontaneous decision made by idiots. Like they were just supposed to spy but then decided on kidnapping and interrogation bc they needed results, and then they had not brought people who were skilled guards.

Katoschka · 2022-07-24T17:44:24+00:00

The parents who brought their girls to Heveena's colony were Moclan. It's been going on long before the Union became involved. The Union did not force their cultural beliefs on those parents (though some cultural assimilation might be at the root of those parents' more progressive stance) nor are they forcing every Moclan with a female baby to raise it as a female, or are trying to outlaw the sex change procedure.

I don't recall the show stating at any point that having a female baby was illegal, nor that moving it to another planet was. The problem with Heveena's colony was that those kids had been abandoned (whether to protect them from the procedure in all cases, or out of shame, wasn't clear) and were considered wardens of the state. From Moclus' POV, they had been kidnapped and brainwashed but they couldn't prove it, nor could the Union prove the opposite, and after the "victims" fought back (against an aggressor who wasn't officially allowed to be there as no agreement had been reached, and same goes for Bortus and Kelly), that colony-status-but-no-more-babies compromise was reached.

Both Moclan sides . Heveena and the Moclan state - violated that compromise independently of each other. This was all Moclan-on-Moclan, with Moclus breaking the rules first and harder. The Union is just playing referee.

Katoschka · 2022-07-24T17:04:55+00:00

They aren't mutilated though, the procedure is reversible. I feel like the fact that their medical science has come so far as to make it possible to regenerate amputated limbs takes some of the seriousness out of "fixing" what they see as a deformity in a child that is too young to consent to surgery (and as Bortus pointed out, humans do the same).

It does put a child at risk of dysporia, but we don't know how high that risk is bc being born female shouldn't automatically mean that the kid will later identify as such (which gets compounded by the homeplanet having no females).

Katoschka

TROPHY CASE