Slaskia

So I've been trying to reduce my sugar intake, which is not easy because, here in my country, sugar (and it's cheaper cousin High Fructose Corn Syrup) is in freaking everything (and I learned that's due to the sugar lobby paying off some people to make fat the #1 dietary enemy a few decades ago, when it's sugar that has the bigger negative effect on health). To clarify, I'm talking mainly about avoiding added sugar, not the ones that are naturally in whole foods, like fruits, and honey.

However, I also know the 'sugar substitutes' used can be/may be questionable in terms of health effects AND their sweetness potency can be very high compared to plain o'sugar, thus I avoid those as well. So I quickly learned that anything that says ZERO SUGAR on the package is loaded with artificial sweeteners...at least when it came to sodas (I have an on and off again battle with cutting sodas out of my life). For some reason it hasn't completely dawned on my primate brain that this applies to other foods as well.

Last shopping trip I bought some beef jerky that said 'ZERO SUGAR' on the package (yeah, you can guess where this is going). Today I decided to snack on it. First piece I was shocked at how sweet it was and for some reason I managed to eat a couple more before I finally looked at the damn ingredients package....

...at the very bottom of the list was sucralose (best known as the sweetener 'Splenda'): this shit is 600 times sweeter than sugar! Ugh...and the aftertaste lingers, even after eating a few crackers I can still taste it! Not helping is that due to my efforts thus far I've been less tolerant of highly sweet things, this was very much more on the ewwwww side than 'yum'.

Lesson learned: ZERO SUGAR on anything does not mean ZERO SWEETNESS. Quite the opposite, actually....

I've been working on summarizing stories of my main Transformer's AU, as I no longer have the mental energy to write them into proper fics (and it took a long time for me to get start writing a summary....). For one fic in particular (The finale of the 'A Single Thread' series, my Starscream origin story series.), one hurdle was figuring out how and when a particular character dies (for a bit of context, this fic is set just as the War of Wrath starts).

Well, I finally figured it out and wrote down a summarized version of that scene. The summary of this fic is nearly done in general now, so in a couple of days or so, it will be posted on my Ao3 account.

This actually popped up a few days ago, while watching dash cam vids of bad drivers on YT...but...

What if...

During quiet spells in the war, Optimus Prime took up trucking jobs...but his experiences doing those jobs is what eventually drove the normally patient/loving Autobot to become violent toward humans?

Let's face it...there's a ton of rude/idiot drivers out there...and some go out of their way to harass truckers. I can see OP eventually getting fed up and semi-transforming to yeet the idiots out of his way....

I mean...I kind of want to sketch comics showing this slow decline of OP's sanity...but I have enough projects...and drawing robots/mechanical things in general still intimidate me.

Normally don't bother with this, but...I feel I need to set some actual goals for 2024.

Primary goals

- Get a job

- Finish/summarize what's left of both the Astral Aligned and Karmaverse storylines (Note: those I only post on my Ao3 account).

Secondary goals

- Continue Therapy

- Continue going to the gym/get healthier

- Continue working on original world ideas

A thought experiment if you will.

Electric dragons are known for using lightning as their breath weapon. With lightning comes thunder, which can be very loud up to around 120 decibels. That upper limit is where immediate damage to one's hearing can occur (it's why I never go to concerts: those events tend to put the volume up to that level). Electric dragons are at the point of origin of that sound every time they breathe their breath weapon.

Naturally, one would assume such dragons would have 'hardier than normal' cochlea's or have some other defense against the sound of their own breath weapon. However, I think it would be kind of interesting if there was a story/world somewhere where electric dragons cornered the market on hearing aids....