#i can make GUESSES but they would be entirely based on my own bias and thoughts and vibes

[little-mouse-adventures]

A Timeline of Events in the Artemis Fowl Series

If anyone's interested, I did do an actual analysis for where I pulled some of these dates from. But because I cannot type succinctly to save my life, it's 5,000 words long, so that's below the cut. I also put the timeline there again, but in three separate images, so hopefully they load well enough to be fully legible if the above isn't.

A thousand thanks to @sadbitchapologist and @zahnie for their help and advice with this, despite neither of them having any more than the barest interest in the series and therefore having no clue what I was on about. Thanks also to @orangerosebush for fielding completely out-of-the-blue questions about the French school system, so I didn't have to attempt to navigate web search results to figure out what mandatory gym classes were like for the sole purpose of plotting Luc's birthday on here.

An Analysis of the Timelines in the Artemis Fowl Series

A Brief Introduction

The Artemis Fowl series is made up of eight books covering a range of years and events. I wanted to see how accurate the timelines present in the books were, as well as try and plot out some other details implied in the novels but not explicitly stated, to have a better understanding of the overall world-building. To that end, I went through the series and made the above timeline. I colour-coded it based on the relevance of the specific items to certain categories, namely Humans, Fairies, Villains, and the Series itself. This does mean that some things could have fit into multiple categories. For instance, you will see some items involving Opal categorized as Fairy-Specific (such as her college years, as those are fairly neutral to the main plot or her villainy), Villain-Specific (such as her setting up her emergency fund, as that is mostly related to her schemes as opposed to relevant to her existence as a fairy, or part of the main plot of the series), and Plot-Specific (such as her opening the Berserker Gate, the primary plot point for the final book).

Before we really delve into things though, we should establish the baseline assumptions I was working with. Firstly, I am only using the original series. I have not used anything written in The Fowl Twins trilogy, given that those books seem to ret-con a considerable amount of the original information, and that is far too many headaches to give myself. Any supplemental series information, such as the short stories found in The Artemis Fowl Files, or anything from interviews is also not included. The premise here is: using just the original books, what is the event timeline of the world? The second thing we need to establish is that I am using the North American releases of the novels. I did make notes on where each bit of information comes from, but there isn’t really a citation style for this kind of thing, so I’m not sure how relevant that is. The third assumption is that the first book takes place the year it was originally published. According to my copy, the original publication was 2001, with the first American paperback edition coming out in 2002, and the first mass market paperback being released in 2003. This means our starting point is in 2001.

For sake of clarity, this analysis will start with setting the dates of the books and continue on from there.

The Basics of The Books

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the first book, Artemis Fowl (AF). It is actually not until the very end of the book that we get a solid answer for when it takes place. It’s only in the last few pages of the novel that Angeline Fowl leaves her attic room after all the plot points are tied up and announces that it is Christmas Day. This might be cause for concern – Angeline had not previously been established as a particularly reliable narrator – but given that we are asked to believe that Holly’s ‘feel better’ mood booster worked, and that neither Butler nor Artemis balk at or question the pronouncement that is Christmas Day, we’ll accept that it’s true and move on. This means that, with Butler’s earlier announcement that he was stuck doing four months of stakeout, we can say with a fair amount of certainty that Artemis obtained and translated the Fairy Book in September 2001, and managed to capture a fairy in December of the same year.

Moving on to Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (TAI), we are given a decent chunk of information, albeit spread out a bit. The first is the announcement that the ransom drop for Artemis Fowl I is to be held on the fourteenth. The fourteenth of what, you might ask? Well, we are told that Artemis is currently thirteen years old. Clearly, things are past September 1, 2002 (we know Artemis’s birthday is September 1 based on information in both the fifth and seventh books). We are also told that Luc Carrere has been trading with the goblins for six months, starting in July. That puts us in either December or January, but we can narrow it down further since Artemis gives us another helpful clue. He mentions they are not expecting to see the dawn while attempting to rescue his father in the Arctic. There are only a few latitudes on Earth where polar night (of any type) occurs, and at Murmansk, polar twilight occurs between December 10 – January 2. Combining all of this, we learn that TAI takes place December 14, 2002, give or take a few days to either side.

This can be corroborated by information in Book 3, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (TEC). After Holly heals Artemis Senior, we are told that it takes over two months for him to wake up. Since we are specifically told two months, as opposed to two and a half or three, we can conclude that the events of TEC take place in March 2003. Mulch gives us some information that confirms this. He was living in LA “less than four months ago,” and since he was conscripted to help with the events of TAI in December, a March plotline fits the bill. We are given further confirmation as well: Spiro mentions that Artemis will be fourteen in six months. A specific date for Artemis & Co.’s attack on Spiro’s Needle can be pulled from the throw-away line that Pex and Chips are “burying” Mulch on the full moon. A quick web search tells us that the full moon in March of 2003 takes place on March 14, and the rest of the events in the novel take place roughly two days to either side of that.

In Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (TOD), the fourth book in the series, we are given several very clear indications of when the events take place. Firstly, Artemis is contemplating that at fourteen years and three months old, he is the youngest person to successfully obtain The Fairy Thief. Based on previously noted details that his birthday is in September, the events of TOD must take place in December of 2003. Additionally, we are told that things are the middle of winter and Opal has been in a coma for eleven months and counting as of the end of TAI, another December plot.

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (TLC) requires the most math and interpretation so far to figure out when it takes place. We know Artemis is still fourteen, so the main events clearly happen sometime between January 2004 and September 2004. Beyond that, we are using a fair amount of context clues. Artemis and Butler have evidently been traveling for four months looking for demons, so we are dealing with events in at least May. But that still leaves us several summertime months to work with, so to establish a timeline here, we will need to look forward a bit. In the sixth book, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (TTP), it’s noted that Artemis is not yet fifteen, and has, on multiple occasions, spent the full moon in the study. Ergo, he’s spent at least a few months back from Hybras. If he has been back for two months and not yet turned fifteen, he would have had to have returned by July at the latest, and since he returns almost three years later than he leaves, we are looking at him returning in either May or June. This would have him disappearing to Hybras – and by extension, dealing with the earlier events in the book – in June, July, or August. After his conversation with Minerva, he notes to Butler that they “are planning a June wedding,” which wouldn’t make sense to say if they were currently in the month of June. From all of this, we can extrapolate that the first three-quarters of TLC take place in late July or early August 2004, with the triumphant return of our intrepid heroes occurring in June 2007.

As previously stated, TTP mentions that Artemis is still not fifteen, but is nearly there. He has also been home again for at least two months. This would put the events of the sixth book in August 2007. At least, the events set in the current time period. TTP does bring back time travel, and with it some problems. We are told that Artemis and Holly jump back nearly eight years to Artemis being ten and trying to fund searches for his missing father. This would put the events of the past in early 2000. However, other details presented regarding Artemis Senior’s disappearance, which we will discuss later, make that impossible. Artemis also admits, in TEC, that he was eleven when his father disappeared, not ten. If we take a bit of creative license with our interpretations and base the time-jump to the past on other presented information as opposed to the dates given in TTP, we can say that Holly and Artemis instead return to early 2001. This lines up with further details, such as the sinking of the Fowl Star (as calculated a few paragraphs down in this analysis) occurring in December of 2000, and the textual confirmation in TTP that it’s barely two months past that sinking when Artemis brokers the deal(s) regarding the silky sifaka lemur. Since, at the end of the day, the time jump impacts very little in the grand scheme of things, and the year 2001 actually fits in better with other textual evidence and events, that’s what I’m going with for this timeline.

The seventh book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (TAC) gives us a very helpful base point! It takes place on Artemis’s fifteenth birthday, September 1. From our previous results on setting dates for book events, that would be September 1, 2007. The sections in which Butler and Juliet are fighting mesmerized wrestling fans and meeting up with Mulch are noted in the novel as happening “the day before,” which would fall on August 31, 2007.

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (TLG), the eighth and final book in the series, creates some problems. If we assume that Artemis starts receiving treatment for his Atlantis Complex immediately after diagnosis in TAC¸ that would put him receiving treatment in September 2007. We are told he is certified as cured after six months. Yet we are also told that the rest of the events of the book take place in the week or so leading up to the Christmas holidays. Everything so far has said that the Artemis Fowl series follows the current calendar, in which case there is no way that six months can fit between September 1, 2007 and December 25, 2007. However, the only reference to Christmas is in two lines noting that the Fowl parents were planning on holidaying with their children on a foreign beach. If we simply say that six months have passed, and they are instead planning on spending the Irish school system’s spring holidays in the French Riviera, everything else lines up much better. So that’s what I’ve done. This would also put the resurrection of Artemis, after the events of the book and a further six months have passed, at roughly September of 2008. There is a pleasing symmetry to Artemis being born and then re-born in September, though if you want to get really technical and say the events of TLG take place during the 2008 March full moon as Opal claims (as noted in another web search as March 28), a six-month wait time for the clone to grow would put the resurrection in October. Still, there is something to be said for having a boy’s ghost haunting a clone of himself close to All Hallows. Since it’s the last plot point of the series, you can choose which you’d like; it doesn’t have to lead to anything else after it.

Let’s Talk Timelines: The Beginning of the Line to The End of The 19th Century

Now that we have our baseline book time periods established, we can get into the math used to determine some of the events in the timeline above. Several events are easy; we are given specific dates for them. Turnball Root meets Leonor in 1938, Juliet wins the Miss Sugar Beet Fair beauty contest in 1999. Other things are based on some basic math, such as Artemis claiming his parents got married fourteen years prior to AF¸ putting that event in 1987.

The majority of the items on the above timeline, however, do take some mathematics, extrapolation, and interpretation to plot out. To try and keep everything organized, we’ll start at the far left of the timeline, and work our way forwards, looking at events oldest-to-newest to explain why they are where they are on the graph. I won’t be getting too in-depth on everything in the graph, since I’m not sure how relevant the notes on the very minor side characters such as Carla Frazetti are, but I’ll at least try to touch on some of the more relevant points.

To start with, the Battle of Taillte was noted in the 2000’s as being ten thousand years ago, putting that at 8000 BCE. Similarly, the last dome breach at Atlantis was apparently eight thousand years ago in the 2000’s, so that would be 6000 BCE. Troll sideshows were legal in the early middle ages, which implies they were not legal after that. A quick web search says the early middle ages ended around 1000. The first crusades were in 1096-1099, and as those crusades are the start point of the Butler-Fowl working relationship, a point for noting that comes next on the graph.

From there, we get into more modern – relatively speaking – events. Briar Cudgeon and Julius Root are noted as attending the LEP Academy together and being raised in the same tunnel, as well as having about 600 years of history together. If one assumes “being raised in the same tunnel” is similar to the human equivalent of “growing up in the same neighbourhood,” we can assume the two were born roughly 600 years ago, in the 1400’s. Vinyaya is portrayed as being of a similar age to Root, so her birth can also be put in the same general era. We are also told that Fowl Manor was originally a castle built in the fifteenth century, that in the early 2000’s the theories of timeline corruption were first introduced over five centuries ago, and that cloning has been banned for over five hundred years, so those three events are also tossed into the 1400’s.

Julius Root is noted as doing his LEP basic training 500 years ago in Ireland, so that would have to be in the 1500’s. He would have attended the Academy before then, putting that in the mid-to-late 1400’s. As previously stated, he was in the Academy with Cudgeon. Opal also met Cudgeon in college, and competed with Foaly for science prizes there, so they were all in school at the same time.

Mulch now enters the picture. We aren’t ever given a specific age range for him, but we are told about his career. He has, apparently, spent three centuries in and out of prison after a couple centuries of success as a thief. This would make him at least five hundred years old. There is a brief mention that he tried the athletic route at college before becoming a thief, so he would have to be an adult at that point, putting his age at roughly 550 years during the events of the series.

We then enter a period filled in from one-off lines throughout the series, presumably added to give some depth to the world. Things about the wine cellar at Fowl Manor being a seventeenth century addition, Captain Eusebius Fowl and his crew dying in the eighteenth century, and Mulch first faking his own death over two hundred years ago.

Time Marches On: The 20th Century

There is nothing of much relevance to linger on between the 1550’s and the 20th century, so we’ll jump ahead to the 1900’s, when we have Holly Short’s birthday. She is in her eighties during TLC, and her father died “over twenty years ago” when she was “barely sixty” as of TAI. Based on that, she would have been in her early eighties in 2002, putting her birthday sometime in the 1920’s. What a doll.

A few more birthdays now appear, and we’ll ignore, for the most part, some of the irrelevant ones. I don’t think we are at all concerned with Gaspard Paradizo’s birthday, or Mikhael Vassikin. We are, however, rather more interested in Jon Spiro, Domovoi Butler, and Artemis Fowl I.

Jon Spiro enters the series in TEC, as a middle-aged American. A quick search on the Internet says that middle age is generally noted as being between the ages of 40 to 60. We are told that Spiro has worked in three main industries over the past two and a half decades. Additionally, we are told that law enforcement has been “trying to put [him] away for thirty years.” If we assume he entered the working world at twenty, spent five years developing his professional self, and then started going down a path of questionable legality to get the police after him, that would put him at fifty-five in 2003, and born in the late 1940’s.

It was a bit easier to determine Domovoi Butler’s age, and we can get more specific with his actual birthday. We are told that he is forty at the start of TEC, and he is still forty during TOD. From that, we can assume his birthday is not between March – December, which means it has to be between January – March. Now, we can just leave things there, but contextually, Butler says in late March 2003 that “a lot of people know [him] as a forty-year old man.” Since I doubt he’s the kind of person who introduces himself by announcing that his birthday was last week, we can assume that his birthday is not in March. Since about half the books in the series take place in December, and there is never any mention of Butler’s birthday coming up soon, we can likely assume it isn’t in January. We can therefore conclude Butler was born in February, 40 years before 2003, which puts his birth year in 1963.

We then have Artemis Fowl I. This one took the most extrapolation to determine. We know he has run an ethical empire for a few years as of 2007, which coincides with his return to his family after being kidnapped by the Mafia. He apparently ran a successful criminal empire for two decades before that, though, so in 2007 he has been working for at least 25 years. Based on the interactions he had with his own son, I’ve assumed he was also taught to take over the family business from a young age. If he started working at his age of majority at 18 (as possible in the 1980’s in Ireland, based on a web search), we can assume he was born in roughly the mid 60’s.

Billy Kong, born Jonah Lee, is one to touch on. He plays a large role in TLC, during which we are given possibly the most backstory of any villain in the series. He was evidently born in the early 1970’s, and was eight years old in the early 1980’s. Mathematically, that can only lend itself to so many birth years, so it’s easy enough to put his birthdate somewhere in 1973, and his brother’s death date in 1981.

While we’re here, let’s talk about the 1980’s. A lot of things happen in the 80’s, so we’ll be here for a few paragraphs. Butler would have graduated Madam Ko’s Academy in the early ‘80s, Artemis I would have started working in his family’s business and stolen some warrior mummies (of note, the theft is only noted as being in Artemis Sr.’s “gangster days,” but if you are a young, rich criminal, you’d likely commit a wild theft in your early years as opposed to your thirties, which is why this is put in here). Additionally, in the mid 1980’s, Holly graduates the LEP Academy and her mother dies, as noted in TTP when she is contemplating missing three years of her friends lives.

Butler would have started his five-year stint in Russia with an espionage unit in the mid-to-late 80’s, and become a big brother in 1985. Juliet is noted at being four years older than Artemis in AF in 2001, and he is twelve then, making her sixteen at the time. We can extrapolate the month from TEC, wherein she is apparently eighteen when she is called regarding her brother’s apparent death. At the time, we are told what gifts she received for her birthday, implying it was fairly recent. Additionally, Artemis was only thirteen at that time, which would make Juliet five years older than Artemis. If, however, we trust that acolytes at Madam Ko’s start their training on their tenth birthday and get one chance to graduate per year, it would make sense for that one chance to be on their birthday, or within a day or two to allow for as much training time as possible. Since Juliet was in the midst of this one graduation evaluation when she gets the phone call and joins the crew for the March heist at Spiro’s Needle, she’d have to be born in March. (We can also corroborate this with some details from AF: if AF  takes place in mid-September, that would be just after Artemis’s birthday, which puts the 4-year age difference back into play.)

Spelltropy begins for the People in 1987, if it appeared 20 years ago from 2007. Artemis I and Angeline Fowl would get married in 1987. They would have their first child, Artemis Fowl II, in 1989, as calculated by Artemis being twelve during the initial siege of the Manor in December 2001. Artemis II’s grandfather was noted as having been dead for over ten years at that point, and it was mentioned in TEC that Angeline married her husband before he really took over the family business, so those events would likely happen when Artemis was but a baby in 1990.

The ‘90s are a period where a lot of things are happening, but few are particularly important. Spelltropy has a cure found, Minerva Paradizo is born, Juliet begins her bodyguard training and her brother refuses to let her shave her hair. These, and other events in the 90’s, are mostly calculated by math along the lines of “Event A happened X number of years ago,” but since the 90’s was mostly a time of worldbuilding events rather than plot events, we’ll just skim over the specific details.

‘You Are Here’: The 21st Century, and Where The Storytelling Begins

Welcome to the 2000’s! The kick-off point of not only the 2000’s, but also the entire series, is the sinking of the Fowl Star. We aren’t given a specific date for this, but we are given enough information to extrapolate the date. Specifically, in September 2001, in AF, we are told Fowl Sr. has been missing for almost a year. In TAI, in December, we are told he has been missing for almost two years. That does have the potential to have the ship go down in either December or January, so we need to use a bit more details from TAI to make a final determination. Mikhael Vassikin and Kamar were told to dump Fowl’s body in the Kola if he didn’t wake up in “another year,” so they’ve been looking after him for one at that point. Fowl Sr. wakes up two weeks before the deadline, and as noted earlier, the ransom drop for him takes place December 14, after he has been awake for perhaps a week. From that, we can tell that the deadline for “another year” was mid to late December, putting the initial sinking of the Fowl Star in late 2000.

The analysis gets a bit confusing at this point, because 2001 is when future Artemis and Holly join the party via time travel, as well as having their regular selves in the timestream. Essentially, we’ve established the timeline for the events of TTP above, so we know the whole lemur fiasco takes place in March 2001. Artemis wakes up at the end of that book thinking about fairies, which ties in rather neatly to him then dragging Butler across three continents for six false alarms (with an assumed approximate 3 weeks between each jaunt) before striking metaphorical gold in Ho Chi Minh City in September. During their time-traveling, Holly also gets a chance to talk to Root, who wonders why she isn’t in Hamburg, which was noted in AF as Holly’s first major failure as a Recon officer and was nearly preceding the events of AF. The time-traveling would also mean that Opal would have had to harvest her DNA for future diabolical plans before March 2001, when her younger self travels to the future. Since it takes up to two years to grow a clone to adulthood, and her clone has to be ready in September 2003, we are a few months off in the time requirements, but really, for a practice that’s been outlawed for 500 years, I can offer a bit of leeway.

We are now well and truly in the thick of the main events of the series. Most of this will be tied into the initial assessments we made way at the beginning of this essay, where we established when each book occurs. Because of this, we aren’t going to spend time on anything plot-related. However, a brief note on Turnball Root and Artemis’s Atlantis Complex is likely in order. Artemis was, as previously stated, dealing with his return from Hybras and the after-effects of stealing magic during July and August of 2007. His Atlantis Complex, and Turnball Root’s plan to escape the Deeps prison, are in full swing in September of that year. We have a brief note in TAC during the evacuation of Atlantis, that Turnball had, a month before, spied on Artemis and noted his Atlantis Complex developing. Therefore, Artemis’s Complex likely came into play in late July or early August 2007. This is close enough to Artemis’s magic theft to make sense for the deterioration of his mental health, and enough time for Butler to have started to notice something was wrong, as he did. We can therefore assume that Atlantis Complex, at least in the case of magic-stealing humans who have a propensity for time travel and getting involved in supremely complicated and improbable plots, develops relatively quickly.

This leaves just one major discussion point from the last few books: the age of Artemis’s twin brothers, Beckett and Myles. The twins are first introduced at the very end of TLC. They are written as being two during the events of TTP, three during the events of TAC, and four during the events of TLG. Regardless of the time-traveling shenanigans of their elder brother, it is impossible for the twins to age two years in the eight months between Artemis’s return from Hybras in June 2007 and the finale of the series in March of 2008, so we need to look at what makes sense.

Myles has already potty-trained himself, and done so at fourteen months, so they must be at least that old. Their other behaviours would make sense for them to be two in TTP. Diapers are still a part of their lives, and their language and vocabulary fit what a two-year-old would have, at least in Beckett’s case. Since Artemis was surprised by their existence, it doesn’t seem likely that  Angeline would have known she was pregnant, or at least not have told Artemis yet, when he went to Limbo. Ergo, they can’t be any older than two, since (one would hope) Artemis would have noticed his mother’s pregnancy if the twins were any older.

Additionally, in TLG, we know Artemis gave his brother a birthday present, so he had to have been around during the twin’s birthday at least once. With this fact, the twins cannot be born between March – June, which just leaves the question of when are the twins born?

 The most logical answer is February 2005. If Angeline was early on in her pregnancy, say six weeks (which is when most women start noticing symptoms), when Artemis disappeared in July 2004, she wouldn’t necessarily have told him yet. Then, if we assume that since most twin births occur around the 35-week mark, that would math out to having the twins be born in February of 2005. Fast forward, and they would turn one in February 2006, and two in February 2007, which puts them at the correct age for the events of TTP. [One could argue, of course, that a twin pregnancy in an older woman (unfortunately, there is nothing in the series to indicate Angeline’s age) and in a woman already dealing with significant stress could result in a very premature birth, thereby voiding any of this math and leaving the whole question of the twin’s birthday unanswered. However, since I’d rather not subject the Fowl parents to the strife and misery of having one son missing and presumed dead, and their younger children in the NICU with a low survival rate, I’m working with the assumption that the pregnancy was a healthy and normal one.]

The brief comment from Juliet in TAC about the twins being three can be passed off by them being a little over two-and-a-half and Juliet not being around as she is touring in Mexico. By the time TLG takes place, in March of 2008, the twins would have had their third birthday, allowing for Artemis to give Myles his chair as a birthday present, Beckett to be old enough to no longer need diapers, and the behaviours to act more like children than infants. While this doesn’t quite allow for the repeated textual confirmations in TLG that the twins are four, we’ll go with what mathematically makes sense.

That brings us to the end of the timeline! Not everything is touched on in the timeline, and not everything in the books is plotted (we are never given enough context to know Foaly’s or Opal’s birthdates, for instance). But the main events of the Artemis Fowl series are all analyzed, mathematically or logically or textually corroborated, and plotted out, for use or ignoring as personal preference dictates.

#artemis fowl #af timeline #you have no idea how irritated I am that there is nothing - NOTHING - in the series to give ANY context #on the ages for Angeline Fowl or Arno Blunt or Damon Kronski. #i can make GUESSES but they would be entirely based on my own bias and thoughts and vibes #which is INTENSELY irritating because i have basically EVERYONE ELSE #on the timeline SOMEWHERE #oh well. i think i have most of the events of the series on there? #if i missed something i'd love it if someone could point it out so i have a complete 'map' #oh though to be clear: i did very much do this for me! #this isn't meant to like...take away anyone's headcanons or ideas or whatever #if you wanna do something that directly contradicts the above - go for it! #i am just - as my cousin put it - 'that kind of fic writer' in which i will do insane amounts of research for the smallest of details #the one i wanted this for is honestly in a fic i haven't even started #and that is in fact several ticks down the Want To Write list #but that's neither here nor there! #i now have an outline of when things happen so i can do whatever i want with it :)

[lunar-years]

Ngl when I see ppl shipping Jamie and Dr. O'Sullivan I think they're at least a little homophobic and very straight.

well, i disagree with a blanket accusation of homophobia, but I do think it's an opinion that holds a very ~straight appeal~, definitely, lol.

there are honestly a boat load of reasons i hate it but they boil down to:

i kind of get why people (esp. a segment of the general audience) might be attracted to it because it's soooo something (bad) shows/sitcoms would do. Like, my god is it TRITE. Predictable, formulaic...boring as all hell! Of course he's going to get with the nameless sister who has less than five minutes total of screen time, just for a little added spice and drama, sure. That's what happens in (bad) shows. But luckily for the rest of us, Ted Lasso even at its worst is not that brand of bad, lol.

it's completely baseless? Nothing wrong with a baseless ship i guess, but at the same time...literally why this one? lol. Like, Jamie and Roy's sister share one scene together in which I don't believe they even say anything to one another directly? There is no chemistry, no...anything? The entire premise for the ship seems to be Jamie telling Roy his sister is hot. Which was very clearly intended as a way for Jamie to get under Roy's skin. Nothing about the scene makes me want to see those two dating.

the big proponents of it i've seen (often, definitely not always) seem to fit into one of two categories 1) people who don't really like Jamie and/or are upset Jamie "got in the way" of their ship, and thus want him to be written into a corner that pulls him away from their preferred couple/inherently shuffles up their dynamic. they don't actually care to watch a plot between Jamie & Roy's sister, they just want Jamie firmly categorized as Taken and thus Not Interested in Roy and/or Keeley, and this is a convenient and predictable(y stupid) way to do it. lol.

OR 2) people who DO really like Jamie and in fact really like Roy & Jamie, but in a very "no homo" way, who want to see more of their dynamic and have a way to define/further explore their closeness, whilst also justifying their own enjoyment of it, that's well set apart from "they have homoerotic tension." Jamie & Roy's sister dating holds an appeal because it more explicitly puts their relationship into firm "brotherly" territory. And I unabashedly loathe that for the same reason i loathe "Roy is Jamie's father figure!" ...foremost because no really, they can just be best friends!! Even if you do not want to ship roy-jamie romantically, you do not need to slap different familial labels on them (or put them into random other pairings) to make their relationship "more." Their relationship is already "more"...they are canonically best friends!! idk if I'm explaining this in the best way but the mindset behind it often feels very rooted in ~the nuclear family is the most important relationship a person can achieve~ and thus a need to fit everyone into traditional family roles (and in some cases that PLUS blatant homophobia) and it gives me a personal ick. Ew.

If you want to see quirky jamie & phoebe antics or roy and jamie bickering, Jamie x Roy's sister getting it on is in fact not actually necessary for any of that? (and imo doesn't add anything to anyone's arc) Going back to point one...using that pairing to get there feels TO ME very boring and sitcom cartoony.

(i also obviously dislike it for my personal shippy reasons and must acknowledge my bias. 🫡 Jamie dating his best friend's sister when he clearly has a crush on said best friend is a relationship-based mental low point/cry for help i do not actually want him to go through as my fav character, LOL.)

(disclaimer: people can of course feel differently and are entitled to ship whoever they want without even needing a clear reason or explanation! that's totally valid! i want to reiterate I don't think it's inherently problematic as a ship. I just personally think it's a rotten tomato of a plot point and i'm so beyond glad the show didn't waste time entertaining it.)

#ted lasso #asks #ship post #anti jamie x dr. o'sullivan #anti jamie x roy's sister #jamie tartt #dr o'sullivan #like. i also dislike roy x ms bowen but at least i see what attracts people to their dynamic. This one? not so much. idk. #booo the crowd is throwing tomatoes!! #hater hours

[asexual-means-no-attraction]

Being in a very mogai-infested fandom is pain, but I'm probably most annoyed by demisexuality being so rampant as a HC. There is no reason for that label to even exist. I just came across a fanfic and decided to read it just to see what the author considers to be "demisexual" and:

[[Casual intimacy isn’t his thing if he’s being honest. The idea of sex without the weight of romance isn’t something he feels he’s comfortable with.]]

That's... literally normal. In fact, it's what I was specifically taught as a child was normal. That sex should only be had with the person I loved, and preferably was already engaged/married to. Because my family is catholic and that's their conservative opinion on sex.

It's totally fine to not be into one night stands or other hookups, but you are not a different sexuality because of it, otherwise being catholic is also a sexuality I guess.

(I didn't proof read any of this, so apologies now)

Gonna go off on a tangent here, but I swear it's related:

Growing up I watched a lot of Disney. And something I noticed a lot in any non animation show or movie, was just how rich everyone was. A house would have only a father and daughter, but have 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, a massive living room and dining room, and a state of the art full blown security system that at the time I didn't actually believe could actually exist cuz no 'normal' person could have that. And that would be the standard for many movies that were very much supposed to be realistic in the settings. They'd even say these people have average jobs. Even the apartment in wizards of Waverly place was HUGE. With each kid having their own bed rooms significantly larger than mine. They literally own a family restaurant that they live upstairs in. But the apartment was bigger than my childhood home. And this is coming from a kid who grew up middle class, the most well of between all my friends. If I were to base what the normal American home looks like based on the media I watched as a kid, I would have a very warped idea of what homes look like. If you actually look at the stats, not even my middle class home is normal.

Mainstream media is produced by rich people (the workers under them not so much, but the actual person in charge generally), and that can easily give a bias or warped view of what's "normal." This is even more exaggerated by the fact that characters in mainstream media are designed to be interesting not normal.

So if you're basing your idea of attraction, dating, sex, etc on what you see in the media, it's going to be warped. Which I feel like ties into your comments quite well.

Usually when I see people try to explain what is and isn't normal for experiences of attraction I get examples of media and fiction. Usually examples of characters having one night stands or being playboys. Which:

1. Flirty play boy characters are common in the media because it's easy to make them a dynamic character. Giving them character development or to gain special feelings quickly give them a whole new perspective that audiences love (this isn't a bad thing for the record).

2. Most irl people who are like these fictional characters don't get nearly as many one night stands as they or the media claim. They aren't nearly as much of a player as they seem. And they're also usually pretty annoying unlike the characters in the shows who are made to be likeable. It's unrealistic in the first place.

3. Media itself is not a good standard of what is normal as it's entirely biased on what the producer deems as normal or average. See my tangent at the beginning. The characters aren't a good way to figure out what's "normal."

I have had people explain things usually actual people as examples which I think ties into my earlier rant in exactly the same way.

How you view the people around you (or more accurately your perception of them) is biased. You have a limited social circle and can't really base what's standard for society off of it. I'm guilty of this too. We all are. It's a very natural thing to assume everyone is like the people that you have experienced with-- for better or for worse..

If you're in your teens and have teenage friends, it's gonna be really easy to feel like they're all obsessed with sex or dating. It's a new thing that you're (hopefully) just now really learning about and exploring. It's easy to go a little overboard with something new. And it's also normal to not be interested in something new. Some kids are gonna be really into dating while others aren't. Some are gonna go from one person to another, others aren't. Cuz no one knows what they're doing. No one knows their boundaries yet. No one knows what they want outta relationship yet. They're figuring it out. Whether you are interested in it or not-- both ends of the spectrum and everything in between is totally normal.

As a young adult you're still figuring things out so it's the same thing. Your own journey to figuring out what/who/how/where you want a relationship is gonna be unique then someone else's. It's normal for each person to have a different journey. This alone isn't some new identity.

Lastly, on a final note. The amount of people who want "sex without romance" is a lot smaller than we're led to believe. And the people who do feel that way are the ones who are abnormal. They may have trauma that influences it, they may not. They could be likeable, they could not. They may be abusers who just want someone to abuse, they may not have any ill will at all. They may be a shitty person, they may not. Regardless, our society pushes "romance goes with sex" a whole hell of a lot more than "sex and romance are separate." Like... a lot so. Historically and in the modern day.

So if your entire reasoning for a whole brand new identity is "I want to connect before we date or have sex," I need you to know how much that is actually extremely normal. And how much you've been influenced by biased media, possibly a shitty friend or ex, and just a warped pov in general (not necessarily of any fault of your own).

#answered #ask #discourse #lgbt discourse #long post #sorry for taking forever anon

[goatedgreen]

i often find that people who hate children the most are also people who dont often interact with them. they dont have the chance to see children having fun, showing you their art, playing games with them, etc. their only interactions with children come from hearing them cry on the bus, or throw a tantrum in the store.

then i get thinking. when do you take notice of children in public spaces? when theyre being quiet and well behaved? or when theyre being loud and disruptive? likely the second one right? why would you take notice of something outside your world view unless it was actively disrupting you?

then this view of children starts to make sense, its a confirmation bias. if the only time you notice children in public is when theyre making your public experience worse, then youre going to think that children in public are always making it worse.

a few weeks ago, on the bus home from work. a mother and her son were sat on the bus in the seats behind me. when the mother wasnt looking, the little boy pulled my hair. hard. like im talking a full on yank. wanna know what i did? i smiled at him ! i guess my hair was invading his space in the seat or something, which would be pretty interesting to some 3 year old little boy, he was investigating the world around him!!

i suppose i could have got mad at the mother for not paying enough attention to prevent this from happening or wtv, but she was extremely apologetic, and the little boy seemed to realise that what he had done was wrong. no one was hurt, and he got a positive learning experience from a stranger.

if i based my entire world view of children around that one interaction, it would make for a pretty bleak outlook.

personally i think “child haters” should take more time to notice a world outside their own, notice others more! take joy in the beauty of the world around you! once you start rejoicing in humanity you can notice that not only is the world not out to get you, but that even when things are annoying or inconvenient to you, its not the end of the world, and it becomes a lot easier to move through it

[duck-in-a-thrift-store]

Getting on my soapbox for a moment, topic being, uhhhh... religious influence on education and bodily autonomy? Smthn like that idk

(This ended up being really long, so, more below the cut)

My parents put my little sister in homeschool as soon as I graduated, which like, i WoNdEr WhY (it's me hi I'm the problem it's me)

And the program/co-op thing she's involved in is christian-based bc my folks are unfortunately conservative christians who think it's a good idea to bias their child's entire understanding of the world through their religious beliefs

So my sis was telling me about her health textbook the other day, and how it was kinda weird? Like, they have a unit on I guess dating and sex type stuff, but this textbook has some interesting opinions

Such as, suggesting kids (not like little kids we're talking about high schoolers here) avoid hugging their partner because it supposedly might turn them on??

And, ok, to be honest I have absolutely no idea how realistic that is, it sounds pretty silly to me, but like even if that totally is a thing that happens to people... who cares, right?

But no, obviously that would be just disastrous because we can't have anyone tempted to do something totally crazy like having sex before marriage, god forbid

And there's just that sort of "no touching" purity culture bullshit and it really pisses me off, especially as someone who was also raised in that mentality, and I was just lowkey flabbergasted by the ridiculousness and audacity of a health textbook to tell kids not to hug someone they're dating bc it might lead to premarital sex, and I basically said as much, smthn along the lines of "imagine sexualizing hugs" to my dad, trying to get him on my side I guess, but that isn't how it went

Let me preface this with: I love my dad. I do. And he has really been making progress in terms of letting me be me and still supporting me even though our views don't always align. But my dad can also be petty, and he's a very touchy-feely person and I'm very much not, at least with most people including him. We have a little bit of history of him trying to hug me, me rejecting it, and him getting butt-hurt over it. So there's your rant-relevant context I guess

So when I half-jokingly say "imagine sexualizing hugs," he shoots back with "imagine being uncomfortable with hugs" in like, a targeted mocking way, like that in any way makes sense to use as an insult toward your own child or anyone for that matter

I didn't have the presence of mind or energy to really unpack that in the moment so I kinda just went "bruh did you really just-" made some joke like "well gee sorry for being autistic" (which yeah that's part of it too) and dropped the conversation

But like.... does he really not see the irony?

One of the major reasons I'm not comfortable with hugs and touch in general is literally BECAUSE of how it's been sexualized, like, that's kinda the whole point?

Of course I'm not going to want to hug you, my father, when there are voices in my upbringing suggesting that touching people is sexual, duh

Like it's literally so obvious to me how the two lines of thought are inextricably linked and how this sort of ideology can fuck someone up because, hello, living proof right here dude, so let's maybe NOT teach the same shit to your younger child?

Yeah you're right I'm not comfortable with hugs and that's kinda sad but I'm trying to get you to see that part of why that is is because of the same idiocy you're letting someone preach to your daughter, so if you don't want us both to be like me,,, maybe don't do that

To the kids and anyone else who needs to hear it, when how and why you touch another person should be up to you and that person and no one else. If you want to hug someone and they vibe with that then hug them, please don't let some bible-thumping freaks tell you it's a slippery slope to sin or whatever. Your body is your own and you make the decisions about what to do with it. That is one of your most basic, most fundamental, most bar-on-the-floor rights as a human being. Anyone who tries to guilt you about something like this is trying to control you and you should be wary of them

Me personally, I just find it interesting how society is so set on calling drag queens and queer people groomers when there are literally religious teachers out here manipulating children into not having bodily autonomy

What's up with that?

#duck rants #hug discourse i guess? #hugs are both sacred and repulsive to me so yeah i was gonna rant about this #obviously #religious trauma #bodily autonomy #sexualization #stop sexualizing touch #education #health education #family issues #this is health class not sunday school #get your puritanism out of the damn textbook #so help me god #(yes i see the irony) #purity culture #fuck purity culture

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

You've probably explained it before because I remember rbing back and forth about it on one of my other accounts, but I've long since forgotten. Out of curiosity, is it okay for me to ask why you wouldn't classify Cutthroat as a yandere?

I don't think I've explained it before? Or if I have, I don't remember.

Of course, I'm not the abritrer of all things, but I personally don't think Cutthroat actually fits the bill as a yandere. I understand the similarities and why he appeals to yandere fans - and of course I have no issue with that, or having him mentioned in correlation to that, I just personally don't think that term is a good fit for him.

Of course I have to acknowledge my bias here that it's not my personal preference to use the term yandere in general. In my personal experience, it was like... One of those terms that I gave a lot of importance to when I was aged 12 and discovering anime, but nowadays using it as part of my regular vocabulary would feel embarrassing. It's a completely personal hang up, I don't think there's an age limit for using that word, that's just how it presents itself to me with my own experience. So I have a very neutral view of the word yandere: I may interest myself in its history, it's baseline definition(s), its iconic characters, etc., but I'm not interacting with people who care about yandere characters so I don't know what is generally accepted, where the lines are drawn, etc., in that fandom. Does that make sense? I'm looking at it from a "I know it but I'm not in the fandom" point of view.

The way I understand and view yandere characters is the baseline "this character presents as sweet and affective to their person of interest, but plot twist! They're a sicko [...]!" I see how Cutthroat shares traits with that, with his weirdly cutesy attitude in contrast to the violence exhibited in Episode 9, and his attachment to Swindler the entire way through. But the thing with Cutthroat that makes him not a yandere in my opinion is the complete lack of plot twist.

Of course there's the tiniest plot twist when it turns out oh, he's really doing it. But what I mean is that Cutthroat is introduced as a serial killer. That is even his name in the original dub. He kills and exhibits violence the entire way through. Moreover, there's no "complete switch in personality" normally exhibited by yandere characters: Cutthroat isn't being all sweet and making cookies for Swindler, only to reveal he can also be completely violent; he's ALWAYS a weirdo. He's ALWAYS the way that he is. He's a little childish and creepy from Episodes 1 through 8 and he continues to behave childishly and of course creepily in Episode 9.

Cutthroat, to me, isn't a yandere character. He's a serial killer character.

I don't know exactly what his deal is... But that's just who he is, and it's pretty plain. I don't think I'm giving a sufficiently thorough explanation of it, but to me he's missing the base of what makes a yandere a yandere. He may have traits in common with them, but he doesn't have the yandere personality, nor the yandere intent. He's just a killer waiting for the right moment to kill his prey. Like the man is a literal predator, not a yandere archetype.

Again I understand that he fits multiple key points that are likely to be attractive to fans of yandere archetypes. (Like literally the intense lover who's a violent murderer is a popular trait of the yandere, even if not the only one.) And for tagging purposes I understand how it makes sense to just put him in that category, especially if you're a fan of the yandere archetype and are going to expand on that in your writing. But if you ask me to cite a character who's a yandere I won't say Cutthroat. I guess I tend to mention it because I wonder if anyone else understands my very specific vision of "having dabbled in a little bit of yandere in the past".

One last aspect is that the yandere archetype is very much linked to women characters. In my opinion for a man character to be considered a yandere he would need to fit the bill very well. I genuinely think its history as a trope for women is way too important to be ignored. I don't think an untrustworthy and violent serial killer guy deserves to be called a yandere too easily because there are many interesting reasons why that archetype was created for girls. Etc. etc.

Thanks for asking though! I was thinking someone may ask me about that soon honestly asjsjaian

#ask #I probably wrote too much but I'm on mobile so I can't really tell...... Sorry I wish I could explain it better honestly??? #akudama drive

[chirpsythismorning]

I hope I don't sound rude (I saw the theory you reblogged)... I just really hope that what we see in the show is not the consequence of Mike travelling back in time or that the whole show is like a big d&d game.

This is just my personal taste tho. I hope the lab is real, Henry, the lab kids and that tragic past are all real. And have always been real. I'm kinda sure we'll see time manipulation in S5. I just hope that whatever happens, happens as a consequence of what Henry is doing, now. Not whatever Mike did in S1.

When it comes to all the major theories out there (besides maybe byler which i'm 100% confident in), I myself don't subscribe fully.

I don't even subscribe fully to my own theories, and it's because we've got all the answers in front of us, but we're forced to piece together a story backwards basically.

It's more than likely all of us are right in small ways. I think that there is probably even a piece of truth hiding in most of the theories out there, and so when it comes down to me agreeing with this or that theory, it's less me being convinced and wanting it to happen, and more so me just adding it to the pile of:

OKAY. MAYBE. I COULD SEE IT. WE'LL SEE I GUESS.

There are definitely some theories I like more than others bc they feel strongly supported based on what I've found, and so there is an element of bias of course. In the case others hate those theories, they'd probably put those at the bottom of their list.

Currently I'm like 98.9% confident with birthdaygate, 66% confident in twelvegate (it fluctuates), 39% confident in lettergate, 14% confident in flickergate and the rest of the gates are either way lower or somewhere on the low end in between. But you'll notice none of them are zero bc I would be a fool to assume anything is impossible.

When it comes to that theory in particular, parts of it fit and make a lot of sense. Other parts seem like they could be hinting at other things and just fit there as well.

I wonder if this could be part of the Duffers nervousness over the ending of the show being disappointing for fans? The whole time travel theory in general is something a vast majority of fans hate, and the Duffers haven't really talked much on their end about time travel and the show all being a d&d game (why not talk about it...), which does make me wonder if they've planning on the ending bearing some resemblance to a revelation like that, and so then it would make sense for them to be defensive about it. They also might feel an obligation to really work hard in s5 to make it satisfying despite it being something we were convinced we didn't want.

I do agree that time travel/'it was all a d&d game' type theories create this paradox of everything we've seen essentially being pointless. Years upon years of story-building all for nothing. We know that there will be plenty of ga saying that about milkvan in s5 when byler is endgame...

Regardless of whether that theory is entirely on track with what will play out on the show, we are bound to have some things that occur next season that will force us to rethink how we thought about the show from the beginning. Whether that be specific moments/memories having more significance than we thought, or characters having different feelings/motives than we thought, there are a lot of different avenues with which someone is bound to feel cheated.

I do hope that it was all planned from the beginning? Or at least the core of how it ends was in their sights early on? That way we can hope that along the way they kept that ending in mind.

Though what makes this idea also scary is that those kinds of endings can also be quite disappointing for the majority. Think about How I Met Your Mother as one example. That show went on for years with the creators ending it in a way that made most fans feel kind of cheated. Despite them having the ending in their sites the entire time, they spent years making that ending unsatisfying, and they also made no effort to improve upon that ending when the time finally came, to at least match with the story they crafted along the way, instead they kept an ending that satisfied the person watching the pilot episode and basically fuck the rest I guess.

I would hope that whether it was all planned from the beginning or not, they would look at what fans are saying and at least take some of it into consideration. As opposed to just going with an idea they had back in 2015 and not expanding on it or changing it for the better.

The good news is they did come out post-s4 and admit that they did take into account some feedback and as a result went back to tweak s5 a bit. Let's just assume it was to expand on stuff the audience wouldn't have been prepared for if they didn't take that time to improve/expand upon it.

TBH I'm still in my own world with my own theories that sort of contradict that one you mentioned. If anything I respect it because it forces me to rethink my own hypothesis for whats to come. And that's changing every day.

Thanks for the ask!

#byler #stranger things #mike wheeler #stranger things theory #stranger things 5 theory #stranger things theories #st5 predictions #some theories i love bc they're just so epic #some theories are meh to me personally and in those cases i just move along #some I LOVE but i just don't think will happen bc i'm not fortunate enough to be blessed like that #some theories are way better than anything the duffers could think of #that scares me #but i do trust them atp #they've had a lot of time to plan for s5 and i do think they saved a lot of concepts to be explored for the last season #there's going to be a lot of stuff that's a long time coming that will finally be addressed #that on it's own is going to be satisfying to me

[sapphos-darlings]

I have no one else I could possibly talk about this with, so I wanted to reach out and maybe get a reality check.

is it stupid of me to be seriously considering making plans to travel to meet someone I met online only a few months ago?

as I’m putting together my plans for the summer, there’s a way it could actually happen, but based on certain factors, it’s a decision I would have to make fairly soon. meeting her wouldn’t be the only thing I’d be doing there (more or less professional development), but it would be the primary reason why I went there instead of somewhere else more reasonable (she lives overseas).

we met in a group discussion space catered to shared skills/interests, and falling for her or anyone there was never my intention. at that point, I was still struggling to pinpoint my identity, and was experiencing a lot of denial and negative thought patterns surrounding it.

she’s a writer, and as I started reading her work, it made me really think. suddenly, I was writing too and thinking about things I had never really fully processed before. slowly but surely, i watched so much of my internalized homophobia dissipate, and I feel freer than I ever have.

in discussing the writing and shared interests, somehow, we clicked instantly. I can’t pinpoint when it went from us being close in a platonic way to something else entirely, but it has. I’ve never felt this way before and I think about her all the time. i find myself blushing and getting butterflies even when we are just having a regular conversation. we talk every single day and both lose some sleep over it because time zones, but I just love listening to her. there are so many coincidences with aspects of our lives that it just feels like something too big to ignore.

we’ve discussed meeting as a definite hypothetical, like… it has to happen someday, but who knows when. As such, we have a lot of specific things we’d like to do if it ever happened as well. so now I’m staring this opportunity in the face like… am I moving to fast? am I crazy? and if I am, would it be that bad if I want to do something a little reckless for the first time in my life? even if it were to end in heartbreak, I feel like I need to see at least one great love story in my life through. but it could just be the initial infatuation talking. I’m new to this, as we’ve established, and I’m in my early 20s.

so, if you have thoughts, let me know, and don’t be afraid to be brutally honest.

My dear Anon, sounds absolutely wonderful! You are in love and that is very exciting! Things we do for love can feel wild and crazy and that is not always a bad thing, and sometimes taking risks is worth it. Been there! (Heartbroken in the end, but no regrets.)

But as an older adult, let me give you a little checklist and a talking-to about what you're about to do. You're probably reading this hoping I'd say go for it, because you definitely sound like you have already pretty much decided to go no matter what I say, but please, recognize that bias and take your time. That means debating yourself, making proper lists weighing pros and cons, actually looking at your money situation and thinking ahead, second-guessing and spending minimum three days before actually making a decision.

Seriously consider following:

Are you giving up a serious opportunity for work or education, or are you just picking a slightly less good one because this girl is there? I'd say do not throw away possibly one time opportunities for your own education or work for a chance with someone. But! If the choice is between like "the best and most fitting overseas school program" and "the third best/most fitting school program and meeting the girl", then I'd say taking the chance with this girl is worth it.

What's your financial situation now? How about in three years? What's best for your education and finances in the long term? Do not go overboard now if that means emptying your bank account, but rather save up and travel in a year or two.

Prepare for the worst: what if she's not at all like you imagine? What if you meet her and find there's no attraction? What if she gets cold feet? What if she breaks your heart? Take a good moment to plan for the worst. It's not to say "don't do it", but to make sure you have a plan B, C and D. Read again the first point and consider, is it worth it if she breaks your heart?

Seriously, you need a plan B. Plan your trip and your stay and your education/job/whatever you're there for also independent of her. Look out for yourself.

You need to tell someone that you're meeting a person. You can just say an online friend, but remember that all rules about meeting people online stand here too, especially when you're in a foreign country: Meet in a public place, ask for her picture beforehand and talk to her in voice chat, make sure you have people who know where you are and with whom, inform your emergency contact, and so on.

And I think that's it. Do not throw away work or education for a chance, don't ruin yourself financially, make sure you're safe and secure, and prepare for heartbreak. Remember, this has to be worth the time and money and possible sacrifices even if nothing comes of it. This girl can't be your only reason.

Other than that, well. Think about the story you'll have.

-Lavender

#ask

[retphienix]

Persona 5 Royal.

Hm.

I think even with the newform of post shortening I'll read-more this, so let me get a gist out of the way.

This easily became one of my favorite games. It's on the list, it's embedded in my mind, it's granted me interesting plot lines and characters and it's quickly given me something I'm happy to love.

There's the gist; And the elephant in the room is that I got a smile out of the mysterious glance at what appears to be Akechi in the background, that's fun.

Now to say.

Much.

I'll try to separate different thoughts with a header of sorts because this is gonna be a mess.

This game is honestly pretty incredible.

I feel like this is a weird way to start this out but, I didn't expect to so quickly play an RPG that so enraptured my mind and heart after DQ11.

I've played a ton of games that have touched me in various ways, but it's rare for me to play one that so thoroughly entrenches itself in the miasma of experiences that make up who I am; Just finds my core and sets up shop. Offers a mirror, offers challenges, offers a shoulder, and plenty more.

Playing a game like that isn't common; It's a matter of having something to say, or do, or show, and it's a big matter of personal bias.

It's just how art can hit ya, or miss entirely. Sometimes you find one that stops you in your tracks and you dwell on it for years after.

Despite playing a lot of games, I, and I assume most others, don't play games that hit that note too often.

It's rare.

I've played so many games I would happily recommend for being phenomenal in their own ways, but that list isn't fully comprised of titles like that.

When I played DQ11 I found myself with a story so dense with things I appreciate that it took over my mind for months. It's still left quite the impact, being a title that can easily bring a happy tear to my eye if I dwell on it too long as I find what they've told to be such a beautiful heroes' tale.

Persona 5 has hit that same deep place in my mind, and, in the grand scheme of things, so quickly after I just found a different title that did the same.

And this isn't by any means a ramble on how P5 is perfect; Far from it because that doesn't exist and because it was created by people- people aren't perfect- people don't make perfect things.

Just in the way of cultural differences and personal morals there are things in P5 that I simply believe weren't handled as well as they could have been, be that gay characters, flip flopping on whether sexual assault as a subject deserves respect or laughs, or the ways in which relationships with minors and adults are presented and treated.

While conversely at least some of these faults could be argued for by virtue of life itself not being perfect, but then it becomes a matter of what is your art's morality; What is it trying to say, and is it being presented because it's true to life, or because it's titillating, silly, or something a creator believes to be right.

I digress.

This is a ramble on how what P5 is is something extremely special to me. And an incomplete one at that, as I couldn't possibly revisit every important moment in this 236 hour (inaccurate*) long story on a post made at a whim at the end of said playthrough.

*= I was AFK a lot, and my gameplay included a lot of rendering video, it wasn't this long but my save sure was lol.

I don't (currently, maybe I should) keep notes of my playthroughs- the posts themselves are catalogues of my thoughts at each time. The finale post is more to sum up where my heart lands me, not to substitute a well rehearsed and scripted video essay.

I guess that makes this even less than an essay- it's just a ramble, lmao.

Let's start with the end because it's so fresh.

I'd say what I understand to be the base game ending (I'm assuming it's just the previous god going) was bombastic, exciting, and even had the bite of the metaverse disappearing and Mona potentially dying. I fucking adore that.

The ending of Royal is a lot more clean... and reminds me of something I already mentioned lmao.

Spoilers for DQ11 skip to next red text:

but both include a Perfect ending and a Broken But Hope Filled ending but inversely placed in the story.

DQ11 ends on the Perfect ending, with the weight of knowing you created the Broken But Hope Filled ending and effectively killed yourself out of that ending to create the perfect ending.

The point of it all being that you did the best you could for the world, then found a way to try to do even better for another cursed world (parallel timeline shenanigans), so you sacrificed the life you've fought for, and the relationships you've forged to 'try again'. The Perfect ending in this case IS perfect, just not for the Hero. They gave everything up for this as a sort of ultimate sacrifice.

P5R ends on the Broken But Hope Filled ending and you spent the last dungeon literally killing the Perfect ending because you refuse to give up the relationships you've forged and the meaning you find in the struggles you're lives have experienced.

I find that interesting. (continued but not spoilers anymore)

Royal's ending is bittersweet. We're saying goodbye (THAT SUCKS), the metaverse is (I believe) gone again- but that sting isn't as bad since it's already done that before, Akechi is 'dead' but he simply doesn't compare to Morgana who was a true friend through the entire game, and we gave up a utopia to get this.

The entire moral that lead us here is literally golden in my book- I appreciate the insistence that our experiences hold value, including the negative ones as we grow from them. But I think as far as ending on a bang or whimper it's a lot less flashy than the base ending seems to have been assuming assumptions assumingly on what that is lol.

Basically, I think base had a better ending, but Royal had more to say and what it had to say was very good in my book, it just then had to end and kinda went "Uh, then we ended, shit."

I still teared the hell up multiple times doing my Earthbound walk about in the post game. And I still wish desperately that I got to get closer with Yusuke and Haru.

AH I love all the damn characters so much.

I feel I've said it all on these fuckers, I love these dunces and they are the best. The party is one of the absolute best out there- it's truly a crew you WANT to be in, you want to go hang with these guys at a ramen place, you want to go hang at a library because one of them needs help with something, you want to go wander the shops with them, you just want to be friends with absolutely all of the party members (maybe not Akechi in the later game when he actually joins the party but that's a whole other complicated goof).

It's an accomplishment to go and create so many likable and befriendable characters- I love em.

And the side characters and confidants are just a fantastic eclectic group- I'm being so vague simply because due to how P5 is formatted, I'd argue 99% of my posts are just me talking about the characters because you GET to do all these things with them. You GET to go to the movies and study and hang at the baths- so I've said all there is, I'm sure.

But I love them. <3

Another thing I've talked plenty on already but is worth mentioning in this finale post is that fantastic gameplay

I literally can't expand on it much in one post so I'll leave it simple.

It's flashy, it's EXTREMELY involved, it's combo heavy in a fantastic way (and with multiple avenues for combos!), and the worst I can say about it is that on Normal difficulty it became exploitable pretty early on and didn't really challenge directly much until the end, but, difficulty is not the end all of the gameplay's quality.

You want to feel involved and challenged in *some* way (if not direct difficulty), and I felt both of those things- just without much risk of failure. Arguably- ARGUABLY- that's damn near perfect. But for preference, I'd have preferred a slightly harder time- more HP on enemies and more risk of losing- but this isn't a complaint- it's a recognition that I will probably highly enjoy replaying on a harder difficulty :)

Simplifying the entirety of the gameplay to combat would be a crime though because this game was also half life sim, and quite an enthralling one at that. Hell, half isn't enough, MOST of this game was life sim, and I loved it so much more than I thought I would.

It also kinda screwed me a bit because I LOVE reading everything I have access to at any given moment.... and this meant a metric ton of reading every day, sometimes accomplishing next to nothing.

You could easily do all the things I did in this game in like 10 hours of gameplay, but it took me 23 times that because I would regularly take trips EVERYWHERE to seek out new NPC dialogue that added nothing to the game itself but was quintessential to my experience.

Loved it.

And before I close for good on this playthrough, I want to just speak some appreciation towards some of the morals and themes in here.

Not all, I'm stupid (for one), and tired (another), and some fucked up third thing as well so just a couple that I feel like talking about.

For one, RIDICULOUSLY big fan of the personal justice angle. It lent itself to so many narratives about the problems with the world from the angle of these things being normalized, expected, or accepted by society at large- but that doesn't mean we should accept them and stop trying to make things better.

It's just a solid theme to build around and it tied itself to the motivations of our characters so damn well with many of them being upset at how Adults handle the world or mistreat others and seeking to make things better.

Also, if the like 8 times I brought it up didn't make it clear, a big fan of the strength of kindness in the Akechi - Joker storyline. It's really a show of how Joker's refusal to turn his back on others, even people as, to be frank, shit as Akechi with his murder fun time nonsense, is literally what grants Akechi his moment of redemption.

That murder kid really tried to turn self sacrifice into a selfish move for personal revenge, and Joker's refusal to be insincere to him left Akechi stunned as his motivations were changed in real time right before he died- that's just a fun narrative, man.

And while I think it made the stakes feel less "scary" than the prior chapter, I really do enjoy how Maruki was our final baddie since he's quite literally a goodie.

It offered a completely different angle to challenge the PT's morals and allowed us to end on a narrative about the worth of our whole life experience rather than a narrative on defeating evil, it was honestly a really good choice in my book.

And I suppose that wraps up this mindless ramble.

To close I just want to say, I fuckin' love this game. It's a favorite now, as I've said.

I'd also like to say I'm surprised that getting to the post game wasn't as demanding as I was initially lead to believe.

I had been lead to believe, since launch of Royal, that this game was some weird "Do it perfectly or you're fucked" kind of game.

I avoided playing Royal for YEARS, because I thought I'd HAVE to shove a guide down my throat in order to experience half the game.

But as it turns out the Royal content is rather short, all things considered. And the requirements are MILES less intense than I was lead to believe- like- MILES. I thought you needed all confidants or else, like, it's not that hard lol.

Getting a perfect run on a blind run is a bit rough, but even that isn't remotely out of the cards if my playthrough is anything to go by.

And on whether / when I'll play more; Now that I've seen the credits, I'm not sure.

This playthrough was.... strange for me. When I pick a game up for the blog I usually stay pretty consistent with it. I've had flubs here and there over the years, but this might be the single most disjointed playthrough I've ever done- with months of no updates multiple times throughout just because of where I was outside of playing.

But because of this, I've basically been playing this game for 8 months. That's a long time to be on one single player game that I think a few weeks coulda done.

Kinda want something else. But my desire to play through on a harder difficulty, on NG+, and to get a perfect end to my playthrough with all confidants maxed remain.

Part of me wants to just jump right back in- especially since very very little of it would "need" (I do this for fun lol) to be blogged about in the first place, but a lot of me wants to sit this on the shelf and come back later in life.

And a lot of me also worries that doing that might table it too long, as I table many things and then decide new experiences trump them.

This game has the benefit of being one of my all time favorites now, so it's less likely, but I mean. FFT is an all time favorite. Doing modded runs of that for the blog has been backlogged for years. I don't want to put replaying P5R off that long at all.

But enough idle worrying in my game diary.

I am going to play something else for a while. That's my current plan. Mostly because that whole mishap with myself that caused this playthrough to be so disjointed is very much still a struggle- so I don't want to dive into a full new playthrough that's just as disjointed.

I might set a date for myself; Come back in a year's time perhaps. I have nothing set in stone. But I want to replay this. Harder difficulty, NG+, perfect confidants. I want that.

We'll find out when.

In the mean time I'm going to bask in the post-game joy of this phenomenal title.

I'm grateful for the opportunity.

And thank you to all who saw fit to interact through this playthrough- I doubt many would get this far into this nonsense post to see said thanks, but I'm sending that out there into the world all the same.

This was a ridiculously positive gaming experience in terms of the game, and a pleasure to chat with some fans.

Everyone, have a good one :)

#Persona #Persona 5 #P5 #P5R #Persona 5 Royal #RetPlays

[queenharumiura]

ship bias x2

SEND ‘SHIP BIAS’ AND I WILL SHARE UP TO 5 SHIPS I HAVE A BIAS FOR FOR MY MUSE! [x] ||Accepting- if you ask about my other muses in other fandoms or what||

Wait--- x2? Oh----- oh okay, let's see if I can do with without any repeat answers. Under readmore bc it's gonna be 10. (No particular order)

Kyoko x Haru (okay look, I'm not gonna say that I want Haru to be ms. Steal your girl, but SHE CAN ABSOLUTELY BE MISS STEAL YOUR GIRL. I won't sit here and lie. I think they have a great dynamic together and they're just two girls who historically have been bashed so much by the fandom. They can be happy together and Kyoko can hold Haru back every time anyone says anything mean.)

Spanner x Haru (Idk I just think it'd be fun. Haru is a smart cookie and can probably hold a conversation fine. Try out the different lollipop flavors, suggest her own. He wanted to see a Yamato Nadeshiko and Haru aspires to be one but her personality disallows it. I just think it would be kinda funny cute that she'd keep trying to prove herself as one but keep failing at it. idk don't question my tastes.)

Shouichi x Haru (... look, maybe-- it could work. idk. Don't ask me. By vibes I feel like maybe it could work. He gets stressed a lot and his stomach hurts a lot. Haru is that kinda gal who is very supportive and is good at caring for people. It might work.)

Chrome x Haru ( ^^ In this meme I am truly going: Do I honestly think Haru could fall for girls too? Absolutely, literally fite me. Be the best supportive girlfriend ever. Help build up that confidence! Make sure she eats well! They can build each other up. THE DYNAMIC)

Squalo x Haru (Okay look, okay look- only in this meme am I willing to out myself for this. I will preface by saying I do prefer him with other people, but i'm running out of peeps okay? Will I say that I think they'd be funny on the premise of loud and louder? The annoying lil one who will constantly be a nuisance as she gets into fights with Xanxus? Who will sneak in and embroider lil sharks on towels and such because it's cute? I think it's hilarious to think about.)

... Xanxus x Haru (LOL again, i'm running out of people and i'm not gonna lie, I am verily amused by the idea that Haru is extremely stubborn and will fight back. Still, if she takes notice that someone is troubled and may need help (regardless of if they admit it or not), she would try to help them. If someone out there just needs someone who can show actual care for them and be patient while doing so, she can be that girl. They may lash out or what, but if they don't truly mean it in an antagonistic way- she can turn the other way. Everyone takes their time to heal through things. Haru just wants to be helpful and be supportive. SOBS)

Dino x Haru (Sorry Dino-san, I forgot you existed for a hot sec;;;;;;; I mean- I guess it could work? He's a lady-killer so I can see how this could probably work. I'm not entirely sold on it ngl, but welp- what are options)

Mukuro x Haru (First of all, honorary mentions don't count, right? RIGHT? I'm not repeating. ANYWAYS, I mention this based off the fact that AUs are useful in many ways. It was gonna be a childhood friends who met while she was on vacation and when they meet again as they're older, he's quite different and she continues to reach out, trying to understand what happened. Try to help him process through what had happened to him. Slowly become friends again and then see where things went from there. Good times.)

... 3p counts... right? Taurus trio (Hibari x Haru x Yamamoto as they are all taurus AHAHAHAHHHHAHHAHA I won't say much more on this i'm guilty as charged)

... yes another 3p bc yes. Bermuda triangle (Belphegor x Haru x Gokudera bc idk eye of the storm, the Bermuda triangle supposedly just wrecks things and whatever bc I forget. Was it magnetic wave disruption? ANYWAYS. That's why I coined the term for the pair. I like it bc it's chaotic, don't come at me. I'm already ashamed)

WHEEZE Please no one judge me. I tried my darnedest to keep to the meme prompt. OTL I still cheated a bit but I HAD TO. I WAS RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS.

#Ubiquitarian #meme answered #Answered ask #Thanks for the ask! #Neo speaks #((Please no one judge me too hard for this lololololol))

[the-kipsabian]

18, 22, 26, 30, 32, 39? Wrestling asks for u, pls ramble for me

bless you babe 💜

wrestling asks

under a read more cause OH BOY this got long sorry not sorry

18: Best feud i dont know if i have one solid answer for this, but lemme just ramble a few that come to mind when i think stuff ive enjoyed.. few of the first ones i ever witnessed years ago, eddie guerrero vs rey mysterio. this is like my introduction to wrestling, the first time i got familiar with the context of heels and faces, etc. this was ultimately really stupid (the whole eddie was dominics dad, you know the one lol), but its the one im extremely nostalgic for and i will always remember it fondly despite that lol

then i dont remember a lot of it tbh, but at the time matt hardy vs edge (when he came back innnnnn 2007?? was that the year lmao), it introduced me to the terrible world of wrestling love triangles and also i do believe this was the first time i saw a bloody cage match. also the tension in this from that era will live with me forever my god

just a bonus mention to randy orton (or technically the ortons i guess) vs the undertaker. that shit went HARD in my tiny teen brain jfc

for more current stuff.. i mean i was always a fan of the whole kip sabian/miro vs best friends stuff. it had so much potential on all ends, im just very upset it got cut when it did cause kip was injured. also that is to date my favorite wrestling wedding honestly. only really rivaled by the indy/dexter one but anyways lol

also very much a fan of whatever the fuck jay white and kazuchika okada have going on at all times. i dont think i have to explain how much i enjoy the (sexual) tension and taking any times i can get to yell at jay and look at okada buT ANYWAYS

and a special mention to the one i know nobody else ever liked, but the whole thing seth and murphy had going on with the mysterios during the pandemic. it was the one thing that kept me really interested in wrestling on a weekly basis, i personally found it incredible until the end after they completely shafted murphy before releasing him etc., but prior to that everything in that was absolutely my shit. everything from the monday night messiah to the goddamn disciple run. i could base my entire personality around that whole storyline and im not kidding lol

ALSO ALSO literally anything eddie kingston has going on. him fighting anyone, right now especially garcia and claudio tho, is just fucking lit at all times. this man knows whats up

22: Worst entrance theme im trying to think whats a bad theme but not associated to someone that i dont care for.. and unfortunately i have to say clark connors. ever since salty pointed out they are just robot farts i cant fucking unhear it and everythings gone to hell since LOL

like i love clark but my god

26: One unpopular opinion of yours oh im sure i have many lol. lemme just keep this very tame and say i dont think aew in its current state is very good. and this isnt just my "give me kip sabian back" bias, i just really dont care for the product, or any of them tbh, as a whole right now. i want the early days back when they showcased smaller talents more and actually had storylines i could care about and not just teams and factions like this is new japan all over again woo

30: You get to make your own stable. Who would it consist of? What is their name? ..is it a cop out to say i dont wanna make one, i just want to join in the united empire? im gonna say that anyways cause yes. please. ive made my case for ue before, but its like. they are a group of misfit assholes around the world, which hey i fit the bill too, trying to prove themselves cause everyone sees them as foreigners wherever they go and whatever they do so they never fit in geographically, but keep on fighting to prove everyone wrong in that way. and i want that too you know ..also i just really like united empire i dont fucking care (also its half nine in the morning im on my first cup of coffee i cant think sorry)

32: Who would you like to be in a mixed tag team with? so this comes from two places. but its cause ive been very infatuated with him recently, and ive kinda realized that if i ever were a wrestler (i wont be cause lmao what is being in shape or starting a physical career at the ripe age of 30) i would definitely lean towards being a technical wrestler out of the given options.. so yeah zack sabre jr cause im a biased bitch lol. also the smol and toll dynamic with two loudmouth bitches just yelling accented insults? yeah who am i to say no to that lol

39: What is your best wrestling related memory? okay im sure the best one is yet to come (JERSEY IN A MONTH +1 DAY I GET TO MEET SO MANY BABES), but theres two. 1. my first (and only) live show in 2019. sure we had kinda shit seats now thinking about it, but getting to chant live that sami zayn sucks alongside my brothers and like two other random kids in the audience will live with me forever tbh. and 2. when we got into watching old (we're talking about like 2016) nxt with @ss-trashboat to get her back into watching wrestling after a few years and yeah. it literally started with her saying she had never seen tyler breeze and here we are now, like two years later, watching (at least my first) g1 together <3 wrestling brings people together, as its also the thing that brought us together like eleven years ago as friends to begin with, so. yeah im very fond of stuff like this <33

#wrestling musing #you wanted me to ramble here i ramble #thank you babe <33 #coughedfeathers #thank you for asking! <3

[crowtongued]

{--You know, I think when it comes down to it, I really dislike when people woobify or change a “bad guy” character to a good one complaining about how they “ruined” that character in canon specifically because let’s be honest, it’s pretty much always a character that people like and want them to be “pure” and untainted because they decided to see that character as inherently good even when the signs were there that that person had real potential to be a massive dickbag. (And of course there’s the other caveat that they want to be seen as a good person while still liking the character, and so sweep all the character did under a carpet to maintain their own image of purity).

And when its fiction, that’s all well and good I guess. You do whatever you want with it.

But the problem is, people do this in real life too. Like a lot a lot. People decide they like a person for whatever personal reasons and then it comes out they did something terrible like rape or murder or some other horrible crime that hurt people, and some people will just double down and be like “I can’t believe they would do that, they’re so nice to me.”

Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a capital crime. It could just be abuse. Physical, mental, emotional, financial, whatever. But because someone personally charmed them into liking that person, they refuse to believe that person could hurt someone else, and hurt them really bad at that. Especially when that bad guy in real life is really skilled at crying and playing the victim and seeming really convincing, because they’re just a conman at the end of the day who’s really good at acting and making valid sounding arguments.

People deify real world criminals every day, just because they liked something about them, and have villainized good people, even murdered them or drove them to suicide, because they decided they didn’t like something superficial about them and made up excuses for themselves and others why it was justified and righteous. Hell, there are entire organizations that have hustled millions in profit doing it. Humans are fucking terrifying in this regard.

So I mean. Write what you want; no one can stop you, but I prefer to be a realist and not tailor the narrative to what I want it to be even if its just a total fabrication grounded in pure fantasy.

Idk. I really have to give a side-eye towards people who foam at the mouth about dictating who is good and who is bad not based on the facts presented to them, but based on what they want people to be according to their personal bias’. They’re definitely not the kinds of people I’d trust to have my back if a predator of any kind decided to come after me, whether it be for something serious like a real life crime or just my reputation. I don’t overly trust the judgement of people like that, just speaking from personal experience being thrown under the bus many times in my life, and getting the short end of the stick only because I was less popular than the other person. People have literally gotten away with malicious murder and been hailed heroes because of this shit.

I guess tl;dr is let bad guys be bad guys. You don’t have to agree with them or like them in their villain arcs but trying to paint over it and pretend they’re something else is a little sus imo. And for fuck’s sake, leave people alone who write villains without watering them down to appeal to your sense of morality, they’re villains for a reason.--}

#ooc #the mun #unpopular opinion #rape mention tw #not fandom specific I just have a lot of OPINIONS

[politically-incoherent]

Couple of things I scrounged up today in my excursion of the hellhole between information and propaganda on Twitter and news article, after news article:

- Kamala Harris has called for a 6-week ceasefire. Said the deal was laid and it’s entirely on Hamas to cooperate. I’ll give credit to where it’s due. It is on Hamas to quit denying the deal.

- Watching people switch from ‘PA does not condone Hamas’ at the beginning of this war to see it “if you’re not pro-Hamas, you’re not pro-Palestine.”

- Seeing the UN finally acknowledge the barbaric sexual violence during the October 7th attack.

- People claiming that the aid is expired food and moldy. I can’t really tell in the picture for an expiration, but I didn’t see any mold (or seasoning):

- Watched videos of Gazans throwing away food aid.

- Gazans, or rather people speaking for Gazans, complaining about air aid and not aids coming in from trucks (so they can kill more drivers, I guess). Then proceed to watch videos of trucks (roughly 50+ aid trucks being delivered daily) get pelted by rocks as they drive by.

- Muslims burning French flags on top of American flags as a protest. If you can’t respect our country/countries, why should we respect your state?

- Read an article that came out today that Hamas is claiming that Israel lied about any UNWRA workers involved with the October 7th attack, and that they’re threatening CNN staff to make things up. Then Israel proceeded to release audio clips of those employees on a phone call conspiring with the attack on their own accord on Twitter. (Lmao)

- Read through the NYT Expose about how Schwartz had extreme bias in her article about the Hamas systemic sexual violence during the October attack that was released in January. The bias that’s pinned against her is based on 3 tweets she liked on Twitter. That was her bias, apparently. Her article itself was researched with testimonies and it gets finally validated by the UN today.

- Hamas told BBC that they can’t give a list of hostages to Israel because they “don’t know who’s alive and where they are.” One person made an argument that with all the bombings and whatnot, it would be hard to pinpoint them. Then another argument was made—“how can we trust Hamas with the numbers of deaths if they can’t provide information on the hostages?” Both valid arguments, in my opinion.

- Watched videos of Palestinians praising Hitler. Viewed him as a hero. (Do me a favor and quit calling Israel/Jews Nazis).

- UNICEF refuses to provide any aid to Israel children.

- A bus stop in Toronto says “no service for Jewish bastards.”

Also, I’ll have to look into Ireland being affiliated with Nazis? It might make more sense why Ireland won’t allow the US to drive their ships past them to prevent US from supplying Israel.

#god there’s still so much shit to dig through #and digging is making me less neutral

[skypancake]

fall 22 + why i started this blog

it’s a bittersweet time as the semester comes to an end, the profs i didn’t like i’m happy i don’t have to do any more work for them, but on the other hand the ones i do like i don’t get to be in their class anymore ;-; or i suppose i could take their class again, but it doesn’t really make sense to, you know? one of my profs is retiring, and preferred we write good things about her on rmp lol

next semester should be interesting, 15 units, i’m taking physics, psych, history, and comp sci. i wasn’t able to get them all online like i’d wanted to, so i’ll have to expend some gas, but maybe i’ll actually see some friends more often now that i’m on campus. should i get a board? i don’t know how much sense it makes considering i’m not on campus all day, i’d probably wanna get new shoes too, then, considering i feel i should know at least some tricks, and i don’t wanna tear my canvas shoes as is

i think my parents think that by pursuing a cs major i’ve an innate interest in the subject, which isn’t necessarily true. i mean, i don’t hate it, but i don’t have a passion for this craft, either. my actual goal career-wise is to own a/multiple successful business(es), and i’m told comp sci is a useful skill across many disciplines, while you’ll learn more by actually doing business than looking at it from an outside perspective, possibly the instructor being a dinosaur who doesn’t know a thing about what they’re teaching. but yeah, my mum pulled me over and showed me the microsoft teams and other shit she was doing, i think she and my dad are trying to set up my mind into the idea that i’ll be working for someone else my entire life, a pitfall i’m doing my best not to fall into. if money’s tight i’ll give in to the traditional system, but my time is mine. i own it, and i’d rather not sell it to somebody else

i made a topic change for my final essay in english 10 days before the semester’s ending, but seeing as i got more research done in 3 hours compared to less in 4 with my other topic it should hopefully be that much better, i guess this topic just speaks to me more. one of the other ideas was based on bo burnham’s “welcome to the internet” delving into how the internet has changed people, but that might be too broad/specific a topic considering i couldn’t find anything about that specifically (like comparing the 80s-90s to now), though i might’ve also just been using the wrong keywords. another i just thought of was how negative the american news is, don lemon looks like he’s dying, and all these awful stories combined with the negativity bias and availability heuristic can make taint the image of the world in someone’s eyes, this is an idea stolen from jarvis johnson, i don’t remember which video. unrelated, but he also mentions at some point while giving advice to somebody (about relationships?), to not be burdened with the present or past if things went south, because something way better could be right around the corner. i also couldn’t find which video this was

another one of my profs is the whole reason i started this blog, she had a survey at he end of every week asking how we were doing and the like, which i absolutely poured my heart into with thoughts and stories, and her compliment of they being engaging and such inspired me to possibly put these things out there for more people to see. whether they do or don’t is fine, i write these things in a google doc for myself anyway

i am wondering how to publish things like poetry or short stories though, is tumblr the right platform to do that? i would assume the platform itself matters somewhat, idk 

#college

[yukiakaren]

Kpop title track ranking: IZ*ONE

In this series I’ll be ranking kpop groups/soloists title tracks based on my taste.

Today YouTube’s recommendations led me to IZ*ONE videos and that sparked the idea to do this ranking for their songs. I have to say that all of their Korean title tracks are awesome, so even the song that ends on the bottom of the list is something that I could happily listen to any time. 

Secret Story of the Swan - I have to admit it took a while for me to get it, the HEAVY brass sound was so overwhelming at first but when it clicked oh wow I got so addicted to it. Such an awesome song!

Panorama - It’s just stunning. How can things be this stunning, I fail to understand.

Fiesta - Fiesta is just such a joy to listen to. It truly makes me wanna dance to it, albeit I have two left feet, so I don’t really dance xD

La Vie en Rose - Such a stellar debut! So gorgeous, it really showed the direction IZ*ONE went. It’s just so pleasant and easy to listen to, I can’t help but to enjoy.  

Violeta - Another so pretty and just gorgeous song from IZ*ONE. Even though I had to put it last it doesn’t take anything away from this song, it’s so good!

Extra shout-out to D-D-Dance, it didn’t deserve to be released in Universe and not get the recognition it should have gotten! Such a gorgeous song just like all of their proper title tracks.

And because they don’t have that many title tracks I decided to do an extra top 5 for their b-sides as I’m actually a big fan of so many of those!

AYAYAYA - Oh this one was love from the first listen. It’s just so up my alley, the more mature sound from IZ*ONE that is more my thing compared to the cutesy side, albeit I enjoy many of the cute ones surprisingly a lot as well.

Highlight - The first IZ*ONE b-side that I fell in love with. Yup, it was that MGMA performance that I happened to check out and after hearing Highlight just had to look up the official audio for it and oh yes that really was the right thing to do. It’s so good!

Open Your Eyes - I have to say I just surprised myself by picking this one as I thought it would be the top two and rest would be from the One-reeler album, which I own, hence the bias. But after going through all b-sides, this one stood out too much for me to ignore it. It is in my IZ*ONE playlist but I never realized how much I like it before today. I really love the vibe that instrumental gives!

O Sole Mio - Back on the track with the One-reeler songs! I have to say I bought the album on a whim but absolutely fell in love with most of the songs in the album. It’s just such a easy and coherent listen as a entire album! And of the b-sides, at least today, I feel like O Sole Mio is the best.

Mise-en-Scene - I had such a hard time picking between Mise-en-Scene and Sequence here! They both are great but I guess just out of spite I chose Mise-en-Scene as Sequence got hyped a lot when it came out but not a lot of people appreciated Mise-en-Scene as much.

I really love IZ*ONE’s songs and they were such a great group! I hope that maybe one day they could make a comeback, I would really love to see that.

#Kpop title track ranking #IZ*ONE #IZONE #me

[wiw3]

What is Love?

Baby don’t hurt me. Anyway, love is on my mind after watching A Beautiful Mind, the Russell Crowe movie about John Nash’s famous battle with schizophrenia and mathematics. I don’t think I’m necessarily schizophrenic, but I have delusions of grandeur, among other things. There are days where I entirely believe my purpose is to make life better, days where I’m entirely consumed by the precipice of making my life better, and days where I’m absolutely swallowed by the idea of hating society.

But I need people, it’s a core fact of my life. I need to be around people, I need to work and be liked for that work. It’s in that pursuit that I find meaning, and in that meaning that I find happiness. A to B, B to C, C to D, and then miraculously, All of the above, are my answers to what love is. 

It is something impossible to understand, which isn’t an original thought one bit, but the fact of the matter is that there are certain unalienable truths that we, as people, are predestined to not understand. A white guy in his early 20s struggling to understand the comprehensive struggle that was and still is being a black person in America. Understanding by not understanding is the building-blocks of empathy. Empathy is the first building block to love.

Letting go of your ego, understanding that there are certain experiences that you will fundamentally miss out on, because of your lack of melanin, your lack of breasts, lack of a certain job, or father figures, you turn these into what make you fundamentally unique. We turn the bad into good, so that we might survive, so our distain for life may not consume us and turn us into perpetual, irredeemable misanthropes. We choose to still believe in good. We choose to still try for better, to believe that we, and by extension, the world, deserves more. 

Love is understanding that you don’t understand. It is giving everything, every bit of yourself to another person, but that’s built on history. People don’t trust unless they’ve been around one another for a long time, because everyone’s been hurt, and that’s a human’s programmed way of doing things. I would much rather approach a human on the street, tell them exactly the strangest things about me, have them do the same, and then we decide our compatibility based on the things we’ve done, not who they think we might be on the surface, because of their experience.

It is to fight all rationalization. Love is to resist all urge to run, to resist all urge to shirk accountability and to be something someone needs you to be, not what you need yourself to be. Divorces tend to happen when one person is consistently giving in to another’s whims, or at least unhappiness brews based on a “staying together for the kid” mentality. Am I letting too much of myself bleed into this analysis? Is too much of my personal bias showing? I guess we can only ever truly claim to be able to speak from our own understanding, but I understand that my mind misses fundamental understandings from others’ minds... We are all outsiders, but the way we become insiders is by listening to each other. 

If nobody fits in, then everyone fits in, but if nobody’s loved, then that’s just it. 

#love #empathy #understanding #fundamentalism #this felt preachy #i'm sorry #creative writing #writing #blog post #post