Learning the hard way manwa

I’ve noticed it’s been taking me a long time to get over a girl i dated for a short period of 1.5 months.
I think the problem is that it’s so easy to idealize someone when you don’t fully know them yet and you’ve only experienced fun and good times with them. In my case i got along easily with this girl and she’s my type. The only dates we had were us cuddling on the couch, watching movies, talking and being intimate. We brought eachother food we liked and even tho we didn’t have a strong spark or chemistry, everything was just comfortable. I only seen her best sides and it was too short to see real flaws.
I have no idea what spending a full day with her would be like. I don’t even know what it would be like waking up next to her in the morning or getting into a argument. I have no idea what it would be like to go through a difficult time with her. I don’t even know if we would really be compatible. Hell, i haven't even seen her outside the house or done any normal, mundane activity with her.
Now my mind is free to guess on what it could have been like if we had continued. And ofcourse, it makes up all the best possible scenarios. She’s suddenly the potential dream girl i lost. It’s hard to shake this feeling. She left me for her ex who came back, so i guess i’ll never know what it could have been like if her ex had not came back.
How can i think more rational about this?

What are people's thoughts on how AI will disrupt the profession? I feel that it will get rid of most staff work and some senior work in both auditing and tax but I can't imagine that anything that involves diving into guidance and analyzing guidance based on specific facts will be able to be AI driven.
Anyone have thoughts on how to stay more relevant? I am not a computer guy and have not bothered learning essentially anything computetech related.

I'm just curious if it is in any way possible to restore dyed crystals to their original state? Is there a way to strip or remove the dye or is it permanent in all cases?

TLDR; I have been officially diagnosed with ADHD, but it's taken a bit too long and insurance is destroying the little hope I have left.
Can you imagine living 33 years, struggling through the entire school system only to barely manage to get a GED, scraping by work and making sure to leave jobs before I get fired (because I would), barely able to sit down and get anything done. Ever. I've been living in a highly disorganized environment, forgetting literally everything, getting lost and in dangerous situations. Not doing the things I need to do, and pretending I'm a functional adult in the working world when my life is falling apart at home. The only times I can even enjoy my hobbies is when I'm hypomania, and depression basically ruins my life for at least 2 thirds of the year. (I also have bipolar 2)
I went in for ADHD testing in 2021 and came out with a bipolar 2 diagnosis. We worked for a year to figure out treatment for that, and we did. I definitely have that disorder and medication is effective, it just doesn't work enough. Lamictal manages the mania, and Wellbutrin levels out the depression (or at least brings it out of the extreme). Focus? Forgetfulness? Motivation? Distractions? Still detrimental to my life.
I want this job I'm at. I need to keep this job. I'm on the disciplinary track for making mistakes that cannot be fixed with the coping skills I've built up over the years. My timers, my lists, my reminders, my music, barely keeping me afloat but I'm still sinking every now and then. I'm trying so hard and it's not working. I can't get fired. The health insurance is too good. The vacation package is too good (I need this for medical appointments).
I went in AGAIN for testing, I finally got diagnosed and told I absolutely need to be treated.
I was prescribed medication by my psychiatrist all for my insurance to roadblock me and demand prior authorization. My therapy clinic where I need the PA from almost guaranteed I'll be denied first. She said most people are, but it's fine because my psychiatrist will just appeal it.
But none of that was with 100% certainty? I can't handle not knowing for sure. I need absolutes. I need a solid plan. I'm sure nearly everyone here has the same story but I'm having a really difficult time coping with the fact that I could be getting treated but I have to wait until god knows when before I am. What if I get fired within that time? I broke down yesterday and I'm better now but I can't get over it. I don't even know how much it's going to cost me (and I can tell you no matter what it is, it's already over my budget)
I'd appreciate some supportive words if you can, but it means a lot that you even read this so thank you.

Hi!
This project looks amazing. I am data scientist so my knowledge around databases is limited. Could someone help me clarify how NocoDB will help me?
My usecase is very simple and I want to keep things simple. I am currently keeping a list of URLs in a spread sheet with 4-5 fields that describe the URL. I want to use NocoDB to create a table, several views, and embed these views in different places on my website.
- Since my usecase is so simple, is it ok for me to be using SQLite for production VS Postgres for instance? Is it the case that if deploy on Heroku, and I don't specify a database, it will automatically use SQLite? What should I be worried about if I use SQLite? I want to avoid hosting a DB with another website and have extra assets to manage.
- What workflow makes more sense?

1. Continue updating my Google spreadsheet and periodically upload changes to NocoDB. I'm sure there is a way to automate the uploading part whenever the spreadsheet has changed.
2. Ditch the spreadsheet entirely and update my table and views directly in NocoDB?
3. Embed a form somewhere and use that to update my table?
4. Anything else?

Thanks for you help!

First of all, me and my friends love this game and made it our goal to do all of the AYCE game with 4 stars. Nonetheless, there are some QOL changes that we would appreciate for this already great game:
Change player spawns: Could we please get a way to switch player order in co-op? Or at least a way to change the starting positions of players? In the stages where the players are split into separate areas it would be more enjoyable if people could pick their role, instead of being forced into them by the player order.
Add/remove player enhancement: A way to add/remove players in the world map instead of the main menu would be nice. I noticed that you can add a player by pausing and pressing X(or A) on the new player's controller, but afterwards there is no way to kick that player.
Completion indicators: Could we get some indicator when selecting between the DLC's that marks that all levels in that specific world have been done with 3 stars or with 4 stars? It would make it easier to track progress.
Balancing question: Is the overcooked 2 tutorial even doable with 4 stars? First time you do the level, the timer does not start until the first order is delivered, making it manageable to do the 4star score, but 4star is not unlocked yet. On further attempts the timer starts right from the beginning, so you can't prepare a buffer of cut ingredients, which I think makes it impossible to 4star it. Might be that me and my friends are bad, but I don't think we are that bad :)
Also, if anyone else has any suggestions of small possible QOL changes, leave them here and they might one day be seen by the developers. Have a good day, everyone!

i am having a hard time finding fine / thin hair products with no or low packaging. most bar soaps weigh very heavy on my hair especially since my scalp tends to gets oiler quicker. i am using a double shampoo method with plenty of rinsing. i only condition the lower half of my hair and do a wash about every other day in addition to using a clarifying shampoo/ apple cider rinse once a week.
i am wondering if anyone has had success finding products that fall under this specific intersection!
some of the products i have tried in the past: chagrin valley ethique under luna seed phytonutrients currently using viori, but i am starting to notice scalp irritation/ dandruff
thanks all :-)

OK I need help with my 2.6-year-old's meltdowns. My daughter is pretty mild-mannered compared to other 2's I know, but she has meltdowns that nobody I know has experienced. I'm mostly looking for solidarity but would also love suggestions for how to handle them!
This often happens in the morning or the evening, which I know are times toddlers can be more dysregulated, but not all the time. This doesn't happen at daycare. Basically she gets herself super worked up going back and forth between two inconsequential choices where either choice is acceptable (to me). Examples: 1. Sitting down to read a book and I pull her onto my lap. She says she wants to sit next to me. OK, no problem, she sits next to me. She says no, she wants to sit on my lap. OK, also fine, back on the lap. No, next to me. No, on my lap, ad nauseum. And gets more and more upset and I get more and more frustrated because there doesn't seem to be anything I can say or do to help her work this out. 2. Dinnertime, she can stand in her kitchen helper to eat or sit in a chair. She wants to stand, no problem. Then she says she wants the chair, so I help her into the chair. Then she wants to stand, so I get her down, etc. 3. After dinner she says she wants to play with magnets (Connetix) so we start getting those out. She says she doesn't want to play with them. She does want to play with them. She doesn't. You can see the pattern.
I have an authoritative parenting approach (not authoritarian) where we give choices, help her to work through big feelings, firm but gentle natural consequences, etc, and I feel like I have a script for "normal" tantrums but I've never seen this addressed. She gets so worked up and I get frustrated because it is an endless loop and takes forever and usually I just choose for her and she melts down and then it takes even longer. She's super verbal and I think we've weaseled our way out of a lot of tantrums because she can explain what she wants so clearly, but this just feels like her brain misfiring. I've tried asking her about it later when she's calm and it doesn't seem to register.
Thank you if you've made it this far! Please help me or tell me your child does/did the same and that she'll grow out of it! I have heard that 2.5-3.5 is a real bear so maybe that's just what's going on. She's been doing this for probably 3-4 months.

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She looked way more skinny than last season, her behavior seemed more ‘jumpy’, and her makeup was applied either heavily or in a sloppy fashion, I don’t know.
Her demeanor wasn’t the same, either, in the way she spoke, held eye contact, etc.
Not sure what is up, but there are definite noticeable differences in appearance and behavior from past on-screen performances.

The next installment in the popular Grand Theft Auto series, GTA 6, is expected to feature a host of improvements to its graphics and gameplay mechanics. Fans have long been clamoring for an update to the game's visuals, and it seems that Rockstar Games is delivering just that.
According to insiders, the game will take full advantage of the next generation of consoles, with stunning visuals and improved physics engines that will make the world of Grand Theft Auto feel more alive than ever before. The game is also expected to introduce new mechanics that will add depth and complexity to gameplay, giving players even more options and ways to interact with the game world.
Of course, for those looking to enhance their experience with previous games in the series, GTA 5 Modder 👑 Buy gta 5 accounts http://Furymodz.com // Fortnite // GTA 5 Accounts, Mods 💎 Creator on Patreon: http://patreon.com/furymodz 🎪 offers a variety of mods and accounts that can make playing GTA V even more fun and engaging. So whether you're eagerly anticipating the release of GTA 6 or still enjoying the previous game, there's never been a better time to dive into the world of Grand Theft Auto.

Hello,
I'm trying to build a recommendation model that would allow the user to insert a paragraph where they would describe a medical research study and my model, idealy, would suggest them a few techniques that would be useful to their study.
My data set, I created a huge data set (more than 40K rows) where I have a

• description column : The description of the study (a resume)
• techniques column : the names of the essential techniques used in the study.

What's the best way to solve this? I'm thinking of two possible solutions :

1. Transform this porbelem into a text classification probelem with multiple labels (labels being the different techniques), in this case, I will have tens of thousands of labels which is too much.
2. Or transform this into a sentence similarity problem where I will search for studies that are similar to my input and then sugget they use the same techniques? not sure if this will give me good recommendations since studies are and should be different in the medical field.

​
Any ideas? thank you :)

My D wife had me wear a chastity device this weekend and within ten minutes it became very uncomfortable. As I learn to be obedient I’m filling comfortable with wearing one. I just can’t figure out why it was like this. Here’s the explanation. Upon donning it felt fine but within 10 minutes I had a burning sensation under my penis where my shaft connect with my scrotum. The device went that far back. I’m kind of wondering if maybe I was aroused and that’s what made it uncomfortable or if maybe it was to small?

Disclaimers: No way to 100% confirm this, and I am in no way saying that it is true. Please do not take any of this as fact. I'll also try to consider counterpoints during all of this. Remember that even if this is all true, it's still vastly incomplete. Also, please beware spoilers.
Past examination:
When the first trailer was released I, like many other people, assumed that there would be 2 Eikons for each element. This had to do with two main factors:

1. When Ifrit first appears, a soldier says "A second Eikon of Fire? But that's impossible..."
2. Promotional material described Ifrit as a "dark Eikon".

The implications here are that Eikons are elemental-based, can only have one of each other at any time, and the concept of a dark Eikon being a thing. This could potentially mean that each element has a dark, and light Eikon so to speak.
After the recent showcase, I no longer believe that to be the case.
Let's examine a few facts that we know for sure:

1. There are eight Eikons for eight elements. Leviathan is all but confirmed, but we don't know its status.
2. These same Eikons have been present for a long time, but with different dominants. This can be confirmed by the presence of Bahamut, Odin, and Phoenix on the flags of Sanbreque, Waloed, and Rosaria respectively. Also due to the old book describing their existence shown in the trailers.
3. Something called the "Blight" is desolating the lands, which is described as "encroaching civilization".
4. Dominants turn to stone by overusing their Eikons.
5. Remnants of an advanced ancient civilization called "The Fallen" can be found in Valisthea.
6. Civilizations have formed around the Mothercrystals, which are described to have their light fading. Mothercrystals also provide magick, and aether for the people.

The theory itself:
The Fallen are an ancient civilization who fell to their own folly over war, and internal conflict. They created the Mothercrystals to absorb Aether from the land, and fuel the war. They might have also had an external enemy, and used the Mothercrystals to combat them.
After their extinction, people didn't know about the origin of the Mothercrystals, and used them for their humble needs, which eventually grew, and grew. Overuse of the Mothercrystals cause the blight, which is why it affects the borders first.
I am not sure about the relationship the Eikons have with the Fallen (or with the Mothercrystals for that matter). But I do strongly think that this set of Eikons we have is not the first one.
The reason I think this is because in the recent showcase, a new Eikon has been shown called 'Typhon':
​
Typhon's faceplate
Now, while YoshiP, and Koji showed these clips, they called them "Eikon Battles". Granted, Typhon could just be a large enemy, and "Eikon Battles" be just the name of the system used for these setpieces.
But let's assume that Typhon is an Eikon for a moment. It's interesting to note that the colour of its crest is gray, implying the absence of an element. Typhon is also a classic FF creature, commonly associated with wind. My theory is that this Typhon is an Eikon of a previous set of icons that has now become some sort of undead (maybe also spreading the Blight?).
There's another hint to this in that the faceplate has a halo. Like it's some sort of divine being. That halo (and several other details about the faceplate) is not present in the actual monster design, while the other Eikons have been fairly consistent in how they've been depicted:
​
Typhon ingame
This could potentially explain Ifrit's origins, as a bearer of a previous set of Eikons who somehow got awakened in the modern era.
If the Eikons are indeed divine beings as has been referred multiple times in the trailers, they could take a role similar to FFX's Sin: they are here to keep humanity primitive, and maybe test their warring tendencies. The same force responsible for the Eikons could have been The Fallen's opponents as well.
All of this perfectly ties into three of the classic FF themes: Dualism, the breaking of cycles, and the power of humanity standing against divine intervention.
What do you think? Not concrete by any means, but I do believe I'm not totally off the mark here.

Title: Wildheart Mastery
I. Introduction
Wildheart Mastery is a leveling system designed for a taming skill in a game. In this system, players can tame various animals and creatures, bond with them, and utilize their abilities to aid in their adventures. The system focuses on progression, rewards, and the diversity of animals available to tame.
II. Leveling Mechanics
Experience Points (XP): Players earn XP by taming, bonding with, and training their tamed animals. Completing specific taming quests or challenges also grants XP. Levels: The Wildheart Mastery skill has 50 levels. Each level requires an increased amount of XP to progress. Players unlock new abilities, creatures to tame, and rewards at specific levels. Taming Difficulty: The difficulty of taming a particular animal depends on its rarity, level, and the player's Wildheart Mastery level. Higher-level players will have a higher success rate in taming rare and powerful creatures.
III. Animal Types and Abilities
Common Animals: These are abundant and relatively easy to tame, even at lower levels. Examples include rabbits, foxes, and deer. Their abilities focus on gathering resources, scouting, and basic combat support.
Uncommon Animals: These are slightly rarer and more challenging to tame. Examples include wolves, bears, and large birds of prey. Their abilities provide more advanced combat support, better scouting, and faster resource gathering. Rare Animals: These creatures are difficult to find and require a high Wildheart Mastery level to tame. Examples include unicorns, griffins, and dire wolves. Their abilities offer powerful combat skills, healing, and high-speed transportation. Legendary Animals: These are unique, extremely rare creatures that can only be tamed through specific quests or events. Examples include dragons, phoenixes, and krakens. Their abilities are incredibly potent, offering game-changing combat, support, and exploration capabilities. IV. Taming Abilities and Rewards
Passive Abilities: As players level up their Wildheart Mastery, they unlock passive abilities that enhance their taming, training, and bonding with animals. These may include increased taming success rate, faster training, or improved resource gathering. Active Abilities: At certain levels, players unlock active abilities that allow them to control their tamed animals more effectively in combat or exploration. Examples include commanding an animal to attack a specific target, using an animal's ability to reveal hidden areas, or mounting a flying creature for transportation. Taming Tools: Leveling up in Wildheart Mastery provides players with advanced tools and equipment to aid in taming animals. These may include special baits, lures, or traps that increase the likelihood of encountering and taming rare or legendary creatures.
Customization: As players progress through the Wildheart Mastery levels, they unlock unique customization options for their tamed animals, such as skins, armor, and accessories, to distinguish their creatures from others and showcase their mastery. Special Mounts: At higher levels, players can tame creatures specifically for use as mounts, providing faster land or air transportation, access to hard-to-reach locations, or increased carrying capacity for resources. Taming Titles and Achievements: By taming a diverse range of animals and reaching specific milestones, players earn unique titles and achievements, allowing them to display their dedication and mastery of the taming skill.
V. Social and Cooperative Aspects
Animal Trading: Players can trade tamed animals with other players, offering a way to acquire desired creatures without having to search and tame them personally.
Breeding: At higher Wildheart Mastery levels, players can breed their tamed animals to create offspring with unique traits, abilities, or appearances. These offspring can be raised, traded, or sold. Cooperative Taming: Some rare or legendary animals may require a group of players to work together to tame. By cooperating, players can access powerful creatures that would be too challenging to tame solo.
Taming guilds
: Players can form or join taming guilds, where they collaborate on taming challenges, share knowledge and resources, and participate in guild-exclusive quests or events. Guilds can compete with other guilds in taming competitions, earning rewards and prestige for their members.
Taming Tournaments: Taming guilds or individual players can participate in tournaments that test their taming and training skills. Competitions can include categories like speed taming, battle prowess, and showcasing unique animal abilities. Winners receive special rewards, titles, and bragging rights. VI. Balancing and Endgame Content
Tamed Animal Maintenance: To prevent players from amassing an unstoppable army of powerful tamed creatures, a maintenance system is implemented. Players must feed and care for their animals, which requires resources and time. Neglecting an animal may result in it becoming disobedient, running away, or even turning hostile. Scaling Content: The game world will feature areas and challenges
that scale in difficulty based on the player's Wildheart Mastery level and their tamed animals' abilities. This ensures that players face challenging content regardless of their progression in the taming skill.
Legendary Animal Questlines: As players reach the endgame levels of Wildheart Mastery, they will be given access to legendary animal questlines. These story-driven quests involve unique challenges, puzzles, and battles to tame the most powerful and elusive creatures in the game world. Raid Content: At the highest levels of Wildheart Mastery, players can participate in large-scale raids with their tamed animals, requiring teamwork and strategic planning to overcome powerful foes and reap the rewards. Continuous Updates and Expansions: The game will be regularly updated with new animals to tame, biomes to explore, quests, and challenges. This ensures that dedicated players always have fresh content to engage with and goals to strive for. In conclusion, the Wildheart Mastery leveling system offers a deep and engaging taming skill for players to explore. With diverse animal types, unique abilities, cooperative elements, and challenging endgame content, this system will captivate players and encourage

Hey guys i had a really good price for turnup prices this sunday (93) so i bought about 8000 turnips (most of my savings in game) thinking there’s no way i’d lose money, but my turnup prices have been going down more and more pretty steadily through ought the week. does anyone have a decent or good price on turnips right now ? i could visit your island and sell them ? thank you !

So I just recently got an above ground pool and it hasn’t been filled yet and it was raining pretty hard over the night, so should I drain the pool or leave it as is, no chemicals have been placed in yet

Disclaimer: I’m an on and off 20 year D2 vet. Roast me if you must.
I just discovered D2RMM and am loving it. As a newish dad I’ve found I now have a very small fraction of the free time I used to. I still want to play D2R, but just don’t have time for the full on grind anymore. Basically, I wanted to play D2R but just in a sped up way (maybe with a bit of new items and content). Enter D2RMM. Basically it allows you to modify the game and change things like running speed, exp gain rate, drop rate, inventory size, gem/rune stacking, new uniques, increased mob density, etc. There are so many options to alter the game to get what you want out of it. It is awesome. The only caveat is you have to play offline, which is actually proving to be rather fun and refreshing. Has anyone else experimented with D2RMM? What are you favorite mods?

Hello again fellow nerds! Late again this week, sorry.
I'm away on holiday next week so I'm going to propose a short operational pause over Easter - I'll return with a Chapter 5 post on the weekend after.
Previous posts if you want to go back and catch up: Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3 - I've also pinned all the chapter posts to my profile if you want to come back and find them later.
This week we are covering the period from Euromaidan to the eve of the 2019 presidential campaign. I think this chapter is where the authors are on familiar turf and really start to hit their stride - I'm interested to see if you agree. You could also (I think) quite happily open this book at Chapter 4 and start from there. So if you've been thinking about joining in but worrying about having no time to catch up, feel free to jump straight in here (and go back later if you have time).
There is plenty to chew over in the actual book this week so I will try not to drown you in additional commentary/links/tangents. Post Euromaidan and the Crimea/Donbas invasion, there are several concurrent threads: the disappointment of the Poroshenko presidency and his turn to ethno-nationalism, changes in attitudes within Ukraine and growth of civic identity, and Ze's political engagement and eventual decision to run for president. How those all fit together and influence each other is the interesting bit.
As ever, I will throw out some questions to start the ball rolling but feel free to comment on anything that takes your interest.
As an aside, was this a bit of a scoop? The donation to the military was openly done (and got him banned from Russia), but I don't think it's ever been officially confirmed that Kvartal were involved in Maidan protests:

We know from informants that Zelensky and some of his Kvartal crew, based in Kyiv at the time, joined some of the protests and made donations to support activists and events on the ground. Later on in 2014 Zelensky also made a donation of 1 million hryvnyas to the Ukrainian Military and ATO needs. But unlike so many of their generational peers, they did so without seeking a high profile or personal leadership roles. Support for this type of protest activity is also a theme in Zelensky’s post-2014 performances.

(1) The role of Ze/Kvartal 95 in changing attitudes - was he merely reflecting changes in society during this period, or contributing to a change himself? Per the book:

Kvartal’s content became more political after the annexation of Crimea, as did the patriotic content of its songs, our analysis finds...
The themes in Zelensky’s work coincided and resonated with key features and trends in Ukrainian society, most notably an emphasis on civic identity, meaning above all an attachment to civic duty and Ukrainian statehood rather than an identification with an ethnonational collective identity, which has been an increasingly important feature of Ukrainian politics since at least 2014.

The counterpoint to this is our other sub fave Jessica Pisano, who sees more of a role for Kvartal in shaping attitudes through their performances. Here are some links to previous discussions of her work: Journal of Democracy article; Democracy Paradox podcast; JPWS article
Of course this isn't necessarily an eitheor question - many thousands of academic words have been written about how art is in dialogue with society - but how do you think the relationship operated in this case?
As Onuch and Hale note, Ze himself seems to have chewed this question over:

Zelensky viewed such programming as having an important role to play in Ukraine’s political life and thus already considered himself to be actively involved in politics. This is something of a running theme in his interviews. In one, he compares the role of political humor to that of a speed limit sign, a way of communicating to people behind the wheel (politicians) that they should adjust the way they are driving because there is dangerous road ahead. Elsewhere, he further explained that “humor reflects society. Humor is a kind of easy way for any leader of the country (this is very important) to understand where he lives, in what kind of situation.”

(2) Ripe for an outsider - There is some implication that FCPP (and the whole establishment) were so unpopular that "the stage was set... for Zelensky or someone like him to take up the baton and challenge the incumbent, somehow conveying that change was possible":

These trends in identity came in tandem with massive disillusionment not only with Poroshenko but with the entire political status quo and pretty much all of the Ukrainian politicians that were part of it. In December 2017, a Democratic Initiatives survey found that the negatives outweighed positives for all prominent politicians when it came to measures of (dis)trust and (dis)approval. For Poroshenko, disapproval outweighed approval by 62 percentage points, with the presidential frontrunner Tymoshenko not far behind at 53. The demand for fresh faces became a common topic of political conversation. The same Democratic Initiatives poll also revealed that 67 percent of the public thought Ukraine needed new political leaders, while only 19 percent thought that Ukraine’s problems could be solved by its current leaders...
Oligarchs are thus notorious for seeking out people whom the electorate might take to be a fresh face and organizing electoral campaigns around them, hoping to usher their own people into power by doing so... It was thus rather common in Ukraine for new parties and new political figures to emerge, typically with oligarchs or other establishment figures lurking behind the scenes or ready to strike a deal when a price was set...
In light of this desire for fresh faces, the idea that Zelensky could one day enter electoral politics was far from radical.

Obviously as sub members we all think Ze is special, but has the book convinced you that there was an element of him being in the right place at the right time? Could Vakarchuk (Is he going to be mentioned in every single chapter? We shall see...) or somebody else have ridden this wave in the same way?
I did also think it was quite interesting to consider that Ze's role as a political outsider wasn't necessarily the surprising bit (despite how it is painted internationally) - but, as it turns out, the fact that he ran without being mere front for an oligarch.
(3) Ze's decision to run - of course we've all thought about this in depth, and the authors grapple with it a bit in this chapter. The book considers the theory that SoTP was all part of the plan:

It is far less clear that Zelensky himself is so accidental. As the show raised his profile and people started to see him as a contender for the presidency, it was common for observers to wonder whether the show had made the real candidate or whether the real candidate had made the show for this reason. While its timing and success point in the latter direction, there is no conclusive evidence. Both Zelensky and Kolomoyskyy, owner of the show’s television channel, deny it was created as a political vehicle for the lead actor’s presidential bid. Instead, they claim they simply wanted to make a good show that might at most send a political message. According to one report, the idea for the show emerged “several years” before its 2015 debut, which would date its origins to before the Euromaidan.

My own view is that SoTP was not initially made with any political ambitions. There are plenty of suggestions that the idea had been brewing for some time before they made it. Here is an interesting article from 2016 about how Kvartal made their money - not directly from selling to Ukrainian TV, but from repeat viewings and selling concepts abroad. SoTP was a bit of a showcase for their change of direction now that the Russian markets were now out of bounds.
Ze's apparent hesitancy before this March 2014 address on TCN, recently discussed here, suggests that he wasn't yet at the point of seeing himself as a potential leader at the point when SoTP was made. I think that came later, after SoTP helped other people see him as a potential president, which allowed him to think of himself that way. And if you combine that with growing and genuine disgust at divisive FCPP and perhaps the risk of FCPP losing to someone even worse... I think it was a gradual decision rather than a master plan. There's maybe an argument that he was mulling it over around S2 (credit to u/bestjicama for the theory that S1 was him talking himself into it and S2 was him talking himself out of it!) but I don't think anything was decided until 2018. Maybe late 2017 (and was the ZeKubiki glow-up part of the plan...?). Or maybe we'll never know. But I'm sure we all have an opinion!
Happy reading x
References: A couple of the Kvartal 95 songs referred to in this chapter have been subtitled: They Beat Us, We Fly; Do Not Separate, Loving Crimea - let me know in the comments if you have found more!
Music: Chuty Himn by Skofka