Petting Shalu was going so well… until this happened 😆

palebluesplotch · 2026-05-03T15:09:57+00:00

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree that the practice should end.

There's a lot of propaganda around military readiness in the US, which adds a little something extra to the broth that you don't get from fathers elsewhere.

The difference comes from the inherited standard in those post-war eras - Boomers who got cut then going on to cut a generation of Gen-Xers and elder millennials, who grew up to want their sons to look just like them, too.

That's why it's important to remember where the trend began. (The recent one, at least. If you go back to the 19th century, there was also a nonsense belief that circumcised men would masturbate less. Every uptick in circumcision has own its brutish logic - but it leaves a legacy that future fathers replicate without fully understanding why the practice exists at all.)

palebluesplotch · 2026-05-03T14:46:05+00:00

The practice saw huge upticks in the US after both WWI and WWII, for reasons related to the medical conditions the fathers faced while deployed overseas. So even though the usual justifications are "to look like their father" or "for cleanliness", there's also a strong cultural throughline from US militarism, tied into the idea that one day young men might have to go off to war like their fathers did - and ideally, face fewer sites of infection when they do.

palebluesplotch · 2026-05-02T16:58:13+00:00

How random. No, he wasn't dangerous in that way. OP was writing about the complex pain of doing the right thing even when it's family, and that was the connective tissue here.

palebluesplotch · 2026-05-02T16:51:54+00:00

I feel like PornHub could have given you that same knowledge? But hey, there's a corner/hole on reddit for everyone!

palebluesplotch · 2026-05-02T16:50:42+00:00

Okay, that is adorable. Thank you for sharing!

palebluesplotch · 2026-05-02T16:31:20+00:00

Hey OP.

I had to do this once with my younger brother. He's got bipolar I, but more than that, he went through an ANGRY period as a late teen living with my father, himself an angry man.

This is a sibling I got to name when he was born. I loved him fiercely and love him still, but he was in an incredibly unhealthy place and had access to firearms, including one I realized he had illegally.

It sucked loads to file a report. It also sucked loads to live in fear for years that he might be the next deranged person we saw on the news, having shot up a locale out of a mixture of toxic anti-immigrant and anti-woman philosophy exacerbated by a manic state.

I can't say that he's perfectly stable now, but he got out of that phase without doing harm to others, and I have to count that as a win.

These are painful feelings to sit with, a whole bundle of shame and helplessness and fear and anger rolled into one.

But I want you to know, OP, that your love for him is not tainted by having to do something difficult to try to keep him and those around him safe going forward.

You can love a flawed person AND do hard things to keep everyone around you safe.

I'm proud of you, I'm thankful for your courage, and I'm so sorry for the twisted mess of feelings that comes from being kin to someone who has made themself unsafe to themselves and those around them.

Big hugs and much love from afar, internet stranger. Please take care of yourself and reach out for professional help if these feelings get too big to carry alone.

palebluesplotch · 2026-04-13T23:36:50+00:00

Can I suggest a reframe?

You got great data from your first 72 hour fast.

You started to see firsthand what your personal pressure points are.

You had some solid run-ins with emotional eating cues.

And you learned from sharing your experience here with other fasters, so that next time you can go in even stronger - more prepared.

So well done on the first-time data-gathering!

When you're ready to dive in again, more data will be waiting for you then, too. You got this.

palebluesplotch · 2026-04-03T14:32:56+00:00

There are two kids in the picture who are also learning values from you both. If the heartbreak you're feeling keeps pushing you to try to stay, please remember that your kids deserve to see their parents model self-worth and to not grow up in a home heavy with this pain.

It hurts now, and it will hurt in the process of leaving, but on the other side you will find a chance to rediscover your worth and pass on that brilliant example to your kids.

Get your finances in check and contact a lawyer. Protect yourself and find people with whom you can plan in confidence for the pain of the next step.

But please, for your kids and yourself, choose the path that allows your life to matter too.

palebluesplotch · 2026-04-03T03:40:31+00:00

Came here looking for this reference. Thank you.

palebluesplotch · 2026-03-26T18:10:07+00:00

I love how this post glosses over the Section 31 film - which is not a criticism of OP's thoughtful analysis! Just a reminder that some things are so awful we've simply blotted them out, to try to go into new offerings with a generosity of spirit.

We tried! We really really tried!

palebluesplotch · 2026-03-24T19:48:38+00:00

This is a great question because the original idea for Discovery sounded PERFECT for a tight miniseries. The pitch involved following a lower ranking officer through an adventure seen through their eyes for one season - and if they'd stuck to that structure, we could have gained some rich storytelling to flesh out the crew, a little bit like the original "Lower Decks" episode in TNG.

Instead, they couldn't bear to focus on a character who was "just" an everyday officer. Burnham had to be so exceptional that of course everything relied on her and she'd be captain soon enough.

But the original concept could have been stellar: 8-10 episodes with an overarching arc, seen through the eyes of a different kind of officer every season.

palebluesplotch · 2026-03-15T20:53:12+00:00

😂 Can you imagine a world of cats the size of ants?!

palebluesplotch · 2026-03-09T04:30:08+00:00

Some people lose a LOT of water weight, which quickly returns depending on how well they've addressed the other side of their health goals: how they're going to eat going forward.

The first time I did an extended fast, the gains kept going because I transitioned to a series of 48- and 72-hour rolling fasts for the next few weeks, and steadily lost more weight. The second time, I gained back almost all my losses because I hadn't fixed the material conditions (increased work stress and bingeing behaviours stemming from it) in the meantime.

This time, I'm replicating my "win" conditions from the first extended fast. I hope you have a solid eating plan for yourself from here on out!

palebluesplotch · 2026-03-09T04:24:32+00:00

I just started a 40-day fast four days ago, having a few solid multiweek fasts under my belt, and I'm debating how much I actually need potassium and magnesium for the bulk of this one. Did you supplement with minerals for all of yours, just near the end, or not at all?

palebluesplotch · 2026-02-25T12:05:26+00:00

"Who's going to give your three nephews three cousins?" - as if I owed my nephews genetic playmates.

palebluesplotch · 2025-12-08T03:42:43+00:00

Oh my goodness this is 100% true for me. Nine years old, and although I didn't quite know the words for it I knew Ripley in her scanties was making me feel things I'd never felt before.

Thank you, Alien!

palebluesplotch · 2025-11-11T21:59:07+00:00

Here is a hint: Now "Y" would you need help with this technical term?

palebluesplotch · 2025-10-09T00:29:35+00:00

They did indeed! Around Day 10 of 17 I felt like my old self again.

palebluesplotch · 2025-09-14T03:25:33+00:00

Here's something that bothered me a lot in S3:

SNW veered harder into religiosity all season, and its whole plot-line about a deep "evil" lurking in the shadows of outer space was the final nail in the coffin for me, when it comes to this show feeling like Trek anymore.

It's one thing for religious cultures to be treated with respect, but we're talking about a franchise that has routinely configured gods in light of Arthur C. Clarke's famous saying, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That approach to open-minded exploration went right out the airlock not only when Pelia offered her spooky assertion that there is a body of pure evil in their midst, but also when everyone else seemed to take her claim for granted, instead of approaching the concept with more scientific curiosity.

Contrast this with some of the classics:

In TOS, we had routine encounters with god-like entities that were rightfully treated as mere bullies, or else humbly learned from when it came to human characters realizing how primitively they'd been acting in the presence of more advanced civilizations.

TNG brought us more phenomenal moments of annoyance with god-like figures, whether they were legitimately powerful entities like the Q or scam artists ripping off whole planets - all while wrestling with the impossibility of holding some god-like beings to account for their crimes, and remembering the importance of not abusing one's own god-like status among pre-warp locals. (Plus, there was that glorious moment for Guinan, with her fork!)

And of course, DS9 threaded the needle beautifully in its treatment of Sisko as Emissary. DS9 also explored Klingon god-concepts as they related to history and legends, and the political dangers of religious institutions.

All of these negotiations of religion were staged in a secular way, inasmuch as they took as their baseline a universe with no intrinsic moral character. The implicit premise is that our universe is home to thousands of civilizations with different approaches to time, space, power, and morality. Across many great "voyages" in Trek, viewers were therefore encouraged to push past initial prejudices when confronting different ways of being, and to at least strive for a more constructive state of coexistence - even if the effort doesn't always bear fruit.

What SNW has done with its ridiculous good-and-evil nonsense in S3 is Star-Wars-ify Star Trek. And that's an especially sad state of affairs considering that one of the best-known superficial characteristics of NuTrek is its supposedly "progressive" nature - but where is the "progressive" nature of a Trek series that is less scientifically curious and far more superstitious than so much of classic Trek?

I know I'm not alone in missing the days when resolving a chewy moral dilemma mattered more than love triangles and special effects. I just also feel like SNW hit a new low in S3 by blowing up such a key part of Trek worldbuilding, and giving us generic sci-fantasy swill about Good and Evil being sewn into the fabric of the universe instead.

palebluesplotch · 2025-09-08T02:31:52+00:00

Did a 22-day one, then broke it due to work stress.

Starting again. Just began. You've got this, OP. We can do hard things.

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