The fantasy of being thin

A quite good essay about the "When I'm thin everything will be better" thinking of a lot of dieters: The fantasy of being thin.

I must admit, I have pretty much literally thought "How dare they take my hope away?!" when reading fat acceptance blogs and their message that diets don't work. Because if that's true, then that sinks the only (fairly slim) chance I have of getting rid of my reflux, which is something I'm not ready to come to terms with. But if it's true then it's true, it's like debunking ineffective cancer cures etc. And as she says in the post, if you spend all your time pinning your hopes for bettering your life (in whatever way) on losing weight, and it never happens, then that's a waste of all the time and energy you could have spent pursuing those goals in other more effective ways.

I still think Weight watchers has been good for Cam and I even if we end up as fat at the end as we were at the start, since it's gotten us exercising and eating healthier. (I've seen one or two blogs which even argue against that, but them I don't take so seriously)

EDIT: the other thing I find annoying about fat acceptance blogs, which is totally not their fault, is all this talk about "eating whatever you want" when if I did that I would be seriously sick. Stupid allergies for all the foods I really like :(

What do you hate to love?

I'm on a webcomics discussion community snarkoleptics. Every now and then you get someone posting about how much the latest storyline of PvP totally pissed them off, and they just can't stand it any more, and there'll be a chorus of people going "God, me too" and "I gave it up years ago"... but also "I know, I don't know why I keep reading it but I Just Can't Stop!" (plus of course people who think PvP is awesome and everyone else should shut up about it). I was in the "Why can't I stop reading this?" camp myself for ages, I only managed to stop reading it a few days ago.

So I was wondering: what are the continuing series (whether books/comics/shows etc) that you just can't let go? Not the ones you know are bad but enjoy anyway, or mostly enjoy but are occasionally pissed off at. I mean the ones that you don't enjoy, that pretty much always make you wish you hadn't read/watched it, but somehow make you come back for more. (I realise the line between "Mostly good but sometimes really annoying" and "Mostly annoying but sometimes really good" is pretty blurry)

And: what is it that draws you back? With PvP I think it's the fact that while I find the characters and plots really annoying, and am not generally that amused by the humour, Scott Kurtz has honed his craft to such a degree that everything else (the flow, the expressions etc) is just really well done and draws you in. Also webcomics are so convenient and free it's easy to stick to them out of inertia.

Would people agree that people often get disproportionately angry at the authors of these sorts of irresistibly-crap works, since they cause more extended pain than repulsively-crap stuff? In my experience you get a lot of fannish entitlement: "You are a bad person for not writing the sort of story I would enjoy more".

One of my achilles heels is hating not knowing how something ends. I've gotten pretty ruthless about just skipping to the ends of annoying books, and am refusing to even look at the new Obernewtyn book, but it still pains me.

And then of course there's movie adaptations of beloved books/comics. I tend to refuse to watch them unless I've heard they're good, but I know a lot of people are drawn like a moth to a flame and then are inevitably, painfully burned.

Important note: I realise that by it's nature this sort of question calls for a lot of negativity, but please try to avoid any "This sucks and so does the author and everyone who likes it" "No, it's awesome, and YOU suck!" "No, YOU SUCK" etc. Enjoyability is not an objective measure that makes any sense to argue about.

EDIT: Also, this is what you hate to love, try to avoid assigning motives to other people you've seen criticising something you like, since from the outside it's hard to tell the difference between genuine hate and "I criticise because I love". That said, I am reminded of Star Wars Fans Hate Star Wars :)

(n.b. This is the only post I wrote while sick which I think is up to being posted without serious revision, so I'm posting it to make myself feel better about not posting the others)