Munchausen's culture is being stigmatized even in stigmatized neurodivergencies communities. It really feels like a lot of people in pro-stigmatized neurodivergencies communities have the mindset of "Munchausen's? What's that? Oh, the people who fake things? I mean I guess they can be here, but like, are we sure that's a real disorder or is it just psychiatrists overpathologizing shitty people's behavior :////" I really don't like the definition of Munchausen's just being "disorder where people fake sickness" because it's like, yeah I guess you can define it that way, not inaccurate, but that's super (over)simplified.
-🐡
You are correct, Fugu. It is truly an oversimplified definition which fails to account for the suffering of the person with it. It creates a fundamental misconception that we just do it for fun. That's not at all what it is; however, such a lacking definition is bound to facilitate such misconceptions becoming perceived as commonplace. I do not like it.
Do you ever write something and you're like hm this sucks and you know it's supposed to bc things that are good generally start out sucks before you make it better but it still sucks that it sucks
Even after the 4th episode, I still don't know what I should think about this show. It's not one I would recommend but it's somehow compelling. Every week, I'm waiting for the new episode. Every week, I'm watching it live. Every week, I still don't know why. The story is not new. The setting is not new. The overall idea is not new. But this show has something to it that I just can't let it pass me by without taking a look.
The jokes are so silly that I laugh even though they are really not that good. I always like when shows or movies break the 4th wall no matter how cheap it is produced. It's always something interesting to me and I l just find it so funny to see how the other characters in the backgroud are just awkwardly standing around and wait until the monologue is over. Breaking the 4th wall only works as a joke here, but it works for me and I find it funny everytime.
Okay, that's too much about my bad taste in humor.
Moving on to my biggest problem with this show which is the reason I was so disappointed when I watched the first episode: they are all flat characters. The trailer looked very promising and I liked the fish metaphor, but in the end the trailer was a lie. The characters don't have any depth. The metaphor is not important. The love story is not the "both develop feelings for each other"-trope, it's the "one of them tries to win the other"-trope which I really don't like any more.
In the first two episodes, I had hope we will see more about Pi still feeling unworthy and that changing his looks didn't make him feel any better about himself. But now it looks like he's totally fine. Yes, he still thinks of himself as a loser but he has gained a whole lot of self-confidence. It feels like the message the show wants to bring across got lost on the way because Mhok never once says he liked Pi even before he changed. He just rolls with it and doesn't seem to be sad at all. I'm wondering if he will tell Pi at some point... If not, then there's no point in even rooting for him.
And this all would be fine if the show wouldn't try so hard to convince me it has a deeper meaning. Its only purpose is to entertain, to be funny and that part works totally fine but the show takes itself too seriously. They tell me there's depth. The characters are literally telling me but I can't see any action adding up to what they're saying.
This brings me back to the characters having no character traits which is why I find it hard to like them. I don't dislike them as well. They are just there, they exist, they carry the whole thing but there's nothing interesting about them. I'm not invested into their stories at all.
Pi is supposed to have depth but if you think about it, he has no character. The only things we know, he is a loner, supposed to be weird and likes Nan. He is very hysterical. They cover how flat his character actually is, by letting him be hysterical over everything but he's just loud and there seems to be not much going on behind this hysteria. The show could have used that hysteria to show there's something much more sadder and lonely underneath, like they did in the Netflix show "Politician" but sadly, they didn't.
But I believe Pi is supposed to be like this, so unapproachable because the audience isn't supposed to like him. We are supposed to like Mhok because he's stuck in this one-sided love and we feel sorry for him. But apart from this, Mhok doesn't have character traits as well.
Same with Nan. I know, Nan is supposed to be this very distant person Pi somehow likes with no particular reason. He just likes Nan because Nan is everything Pi wants to be. But that's all we know about Nan: he is popular.
Anyway, this could all be part of the plan and we actually get to know more about the characters but until now, they just exist. "Fish upon the sky" doesn't bring a memorable special feeling across. It is very untouchable and you can sort of project yourself into their world because it has no particular form or worth. The whole world doesn't work without these few characters. They carry this whole thing and there's nothing exciting to discover.
Let's see what next week will bring us. Surely not a kiss between Mhok and Pi because we're not in epsiode 6 or 7.
Note: I don't get why the title is "fish upon the sky" whilst the baloon thing seems to be very important. They could've just come up with a title containg the word "baloon". They could've literally name it "ballons upon the sky" and it would still make sense.
Extra note: I haven't talked about the non-consent thing because I feel like enough people have pointed it out already. Let me just say, I agree. Who on earth eats popcorn from people's hair? This is disgusting and an invasion of personal space because Pi doesn't want Mhok to do that. And now it's romanticized, I can't. I thought, the kiss last week was the worst, but in the end, Pi just imagined things. Still, Mhok didn't do anything to stop the kiss. Still, not right at all because Pi was very drunk. And this popcorn scene was like so bad...if somebody would do that in real life, they would be so dead.
It's true that the body regains weight after losing it, which is because once you have fat cells can not disappear, only get smaller. However if you change your lifestyle permanently (in a healthy way, so not dieting, just eating healthier foods) and regular exercise it is possible to maintain the lower weight. You say you're basing your blog on scientific arguments and condemn scientists for leaving formation out of consideration, even though you do it yourself. - An actual overweight scientist
Just today on my blog, I provided links to two meta-analyses and one report from the Australian Department of Health supporting my claims. You provided no evidence at all. So by the official rules of science (which you know, because you are an actual scientist), I win.
If you want to keep playing the game, you need to provide a reference for a meta-analysis of at least 10 randomized and controlled experiments that demonstrates that “chang[ing] your lifestyle permanently (in a healthy way, so not dieting, just eating healthier foods)” results in clinically significant, sustained weight-loss for longer than 5 years for more than 90% of the participants. Good luck!
