#its not even related to my research right now lmao i'm just really interested in the topic

[darkbluekies]

I was actually going to sleep then I saw you respond to my ask, I'm actually very interested and intrigued so I wanted to respond immediately!

— Jesus fucking Christ they actually measured the entirety of the ship? That level of hm, how does one describe this, pettiness or determination? Perhaps a sense of both, I mean I'd get petty too if I lost something valuable and ended up getting an unfair compensation. I wonder what the reaction of the Germans were when they realized they actually measured it.

— oh god that's actually so fucking hilarious 😭😭 getting worked up over nothing, I mean, at least they had a design? 😭

— That's quite something, Grey Ghost? Why is QMS nickname Grey Ghost? Does it have relations due to it being not found?

— I... I have no idea what to say 😭 that's actually so ironic

— Holy shit a ship sinking in just 14 minutes is plain terrifying?? Why did it sink that fast anyways?

— Wow... That's actually really sad and quite brave of him too, I don't think I've heard of the Wilhelm Gustloff disaster and 9000 deaths in one night is crazy. Hopefully that guy is doing alright, it's possible he might get survivors guilt, I might research about the disaster and see what I can find!

— woah, the first design is quite pretty! The second one reminds me of a factory for some reason

Ahh this is what little brain juice I can squeeze out from my brain, though I actually enjoyed this and it made my night more interesting! :D I'll head off to sleep now, goodnight!

—🌊

— lol apparently? there were more petty things in that affair, such as painting a ship supposed to be given to White Star Line in Germany's colors, turnign the british officers' quarters to a cleaning supply room etc lmao

— it was a design alright ... just not a good one. The wings of the golden eagle fell of during a storm so they're at the bottom of the atlantic right now. The eagle looks even more stupid without the wings😭 (picture at the bottom)

—The ship was painted fully grey because it was used as a troop ship which made it hard to find it. The ship was extremely fast, so it was fast to catch her. These two characteristics earned her the name The Grey Ghost. (picture at the bottom)

— the ships weren't even alike???? one had an funnel and whatnot?? i'm not even sure how they thought that it would work ... and it clearly didn't.

— It was a foggy night and two ships were supposed to go past each other, but in the fog they couldn't see each others lights, so a norweigan ship called Storstad rammed the side of Empress of Ireland and cut up a gigantic hole. The ship itself was almost half the size of titanic. A lot of people died that night because they didn't have the time to get out.

— I'm not even sure it was legal to sink the WG? I know that it had been a hospital ship during WW2 (it's seen as a war crime to sink a hospital ship), but it seems like it had returned to a normal ship during the time WG was sunk. The reason (i think) why it was sunk was because a lot of nazi party members were on board with their families, supposedly relocating to another country, and was sunken by soviet submarines. WIlhelm Gustloff could only carry 1465 passangers, but had around 10 000 during its sinking. Although there were many bad people on board there were children as well. The actor was a small child, so i hope that he doesn't remember much of it, because I cannot imagine the horror he must live with otherwise.

— Unfortunately, the times were changing and the edwardian design was no longer popular :( I would have loved another Olympmic class liner :(

here's a before an after of the eagle lmao

From left to right: SS Normandie, RMS Queen Mary, RMS Aquitania

I could talk about ocean liners forever. If I got paid by the hour to talk about them I would be so fucking rich I'm telling you

#🌊anon

[zwei-rhunen]

Squeenix why do u do dis to me D:

Someone tell the lalafells that there's an untapped market to be had! Level 35-48 jewelry is the latest trend!

A once in a lifetime gil-gathering endeaver for your local, aspiring venture capitalist!!!!

.... in other news, I've been prepping myself for jewelery-crafting shenangians, which means clearing out my inventory LOL

But I got too invested and this time I took the time to research alot of the stuff that I've been hanging onto, and it turns out they're really easy to get later if i really wanted them back.

Most of it was either crafting materials (i thought they were turn-in tokens bc they looked special) or they were things that were fairly inexpensive to buy off other people if I wamted to do that in the future. I'd kept alot of things bc I wasn't as familiar with the UI/the game as i am now back when I tried downsizing in the past. Like I'd hold onto alot of junk bc for example, I'd research about this cool shiny item. and it'd start out so innocently lol.

I'd be like,

"oh I can use this to craft neat gear! Well I'll hold onto it bc i want to do that soon"

but then itd quickly spiral into

"oh, well I need a master crafting tome of X level, and to get that I need to collect these things. Okay that's doable. But wait, to do THAT, I first need to level up these 2 jobs so i can craft/gather the ingredients, alright.. (goes to level up the jobs) ...oh. i don't even have access to the zone that I need to collect those materials in, so then ACTUALLY I need to do the MSQ up to THIS point. Damn, thats kinda devastating bc I just spent all this time leveling lmao. Well, I got this far and i dont want to just toss these items, so ill just hang onto them for now

And then eventually I forgot about the details related to those items, but I remember how let down I felt while dealing with them so i just put it off and eventually they blurred into the clutter of the other stuff going on in my inv/I got invested into other goals lol

But now I've gotten better at asking the right things like "is this item rare? Where is it dropped? What is it used for, is it for crafting or a token or smth else? Also, does an NPC vendor ask for this in return for something cool? Could i buy this item on the MB later on?"

Whereas before, I'd just be like "okay. what can i use this for?? " And then I wouldn't see any crafting use for it, so I'd just toss it, and then 10 mins later id go to Mor Dhona and realize DANG IT was a TOKEN, i coulda traded that for smth interesting!! And it seems like a PITA for me to get again 😭 .....so thus began my hoarding :)

can't regret what you don't discard! lmfaooo

Also said screw it and sold off most of my food bc I realized by the time I worked thru all those edibles, id probably have a sub and would be able to buy HQ food really easily. Like, I'd been holding onto the food from when I had brute-force-leveled CUL to 50, and I'm still gonna have like ~200 hours worth of exp lmao.

I also actually, seriously reviewed the differences in food stats for once in my life (this deserves so much praise tbh bc I do not care for their details as long as I'm getting the exp buff lmao) and realized my level 15 HQ food is useless to hang onto bc my lvl 40 normal foods are still way better, and all this other info that's probably common knowledge lmao (and ik i CAN get more efficient with this if I prioritized food with stats that align with which jobs I'm gonna main for now but um. this is far as I care to go into the weeds with food details for now lmaooo like... no. stop thats too much to worry abt for me 😭😂😂 i mean like, i know (i think i know?) Strength and determination for tank, spell speed/piety for casters, skill speed for dps bc it just sounds like it makes sense lol. So like ill half-assedly try and pick the best stat buff food but its not really smth tht im overly concerned abt atm tbh. Maybe later at a higher level but for now everything seems to be okay without needing to suffer over the details)

So I sold off a buncha stuff off to an NPC and now i have a whole page and a half of space. I'm so excited!

I also reviewed the clutter in my chocobo sidebags and finally traded in the ancient gear drops to Rowena and sold off some faded maps that i realized are really common and can get again later lol

I'd have more space but i think I can use those few items up in the short term so it's just a waiting game for moar space uwu

But, yeah!!

✨️ A page and a half of inventory!! ✨️

I haven't had this much space ever since probably the MIDDLE of doing the main 2.0 MSQ!! xD

#lmao #zwei writes

[lusree]

Ohhh, so you're from Asia too? Nice! I live in Malaysia specifically so... greetings from Southeast Asia! And yeah, it's already late here but I just happened to be awake right now so 👀

I do see a lot of people playing Mystic Messenger during the pandemic so I'm relieved that people like you are the reason that this fandom is still alive and kicking until now!

It's okay buddy, we're all been in that phase where we thought otome games are just for some idiot hopeless romantic people who don't have a life UNTIL we actually become one of those people lmao. And, oh my God, you're so lucky to have irl friends to talk about Mystic Messenger 😭 no one in my circle even know what Mystic Messenger is so it's been a lonely journey for quite some time until I came to tumblr lol

I also a fairly new player as well. I started playing Mystic Messenger around April 2019! I already knew about the game in 2016 but my phone just don't have enough space for me to download the massive game file 😭 so I just forgot about it until I get a new phone and download it again. Just like you, I'm so confused on how the game work, the route and all those stuff so I did my own research and thought "Hey, it's not as difficult as I think it is!"

And... it's not too much if I say that Mystic Messenger was my life savior back then. I actually got rejected from my dream university despite me working so hard to get an excellent result in my national exam and being an active student during my high school years. Not only that, the other offer I received is the course that I wasn't interested. So you can imagine how broken and lost I am and I really can't see my future back then. It was one of the darkest moment in my life with my parents keep pressuring me to the point that I keep shutting myself out from everyone.

I find my sense of purpose again when I started playing Mystic Messenger. Their bond, their unwavering support to each other and their unconditional love towards MC... I'm just so happy whenever I open the game and chat with them. I can espace from my problems for a while when I'm with them... and I get the courage to get up again thanks to each one of them. Eventhough there's still a bit of sadness at the corner of my heart, but at least I'm not as depressed and lost like before.

I'm sorry if my story is a bit... dramatic lol. This game means a lot to me even after all these years and I feel happy that I'm able to share my story with you ^^

Yay! I was correct! ^^

And I'm from India! So greetings from my corner of Southeast Asia♡

I totally understand how you felt! One of my friends was in a similar kind of situation and it really sucks...... I'm so happy that you are able to move on now. You're really brave and strong and you have your whole life ahead! You are moving on, and slowly but surely you will find yourself again. I'm sure you can do it! Just don't lose faith in yourself! I'm cheering you on! ♥️

I have an immense amount of emotional connection with Mystic Messenger as well. This is very personal to me but MM helped me trust in love. I know it sounds extremely sappy but it is what it is ^^. I was always skeptical about true love. I never thought that I would fall in love with someone or I never thought I "could" fall is love with someone to be exact. Well, then Mysme happened and Saeyoung happened and a lot happened after that and I love him. Just as much as I love my family. I'm fully aware that he is a fictional character but he is a huge comfort to me now along with the rest of the RFA. Mysme played a huge part in finding myself. Helped me explore the sides of myself that I had been avoiding.

Thinking about Saeyoung helped me make peace with my insecurities and feel better about myself. I related to him in many ways and his growth as person made me feel proud and hopeful. It showed me it was okay to be vulnerable. Even though I'm still not fully comfortable with myself, I feel its a step in the right direction ^^

Saeyoung is so similar to me and yet so different. He's definitely not perfect and that just makes him more human. I'm simply enamored by Saeyoung as a person and the beautiful relationship he has with his mc. And I can't help but desire it. Perhaps it's a form of self gratification of mine. ^^

And that's the end of my sappy self rant session. In conclusion I love Saeyoung. And I don't care he doesn't exist. There's a lot more I want to say but I'm not that good of a writer :>

Btw! Do you have twitter? The mysme fandom is pretty active there as well! And I made a lot of friends there too!^^

#friend's ask #princessjung #self rant #I love Saeyoung #mystic messenger

[marculees]

You know you’re a nerd when your idea of fun is writing titles for research you’d like to in the future 🤓🤡

#just spent 2 hours writing up theory and discussion #no one asked?? #its not even related to my research right now lmao i'm just really interested in the topic #i also have fun writing module and assessment plans for classes i want to teach in the future #someone pls help me i think i've finally cracked #rambling on main

[ais-n]

2| and where is the trauma? both hsin and boyd were severely sexually abused. and emilio's illness is always treated as a joke. look Ais, your series has done me so much good between the bad it did. i found i'm gay lmao and i'm grateful for that. i'm grateful that you wrote this ok. but there are things that were offensive, and maybe it was unconscious, since i doubt you wanted to be racist or write a mlm relationship but more like hetero. i wish i could just enjoy the books but my heart breaks

3| idk what the one who questioned that could possibly mean between all the things but thats what i mean. i appreciate you a lot. i hope this didn’t make you feel worse or whatever. but some people really did end up hurt badly after reading icos and im one of them. with all respect, and hope that i didnt disturb you much, farewell.

++++++++++++

Aha I just realized I can put both 2nd and 3rd asks in one! Which is good because, again, the gay comment makes me laugh out loud XD As I said in the other post, thank you again for reaching out, for explaining your concerns, and for the courage you no doubt had to bring forth in order to do so.

I’m getting right into the answers in this one although I will probably ask more questions for clarification on some of the points, as I did on the first one, to make sure I’m not misunderstanding or misinterpreting anything.

More below the cut! :)

EMILIO’S ILLNESS

I’m really sorry but I wasn’t sure what you meant by that. Which illness? How is it treated as a joke? Could you clarify? 

TRAUMA

So this I thought was super interesting that you felt there was no representation of trauma in ICoS, or I assume you also mean its aftereffects. That’s actually one of the few points I feel pretty confident saying the series does portray a lot of, both in some cases the experience of it and in other cases the repercussions. 

One of the reasons both of them are so severely dysfunctional individually and together is because of trauma.

I don’t want to muddy up this post with a huge tangent but someone had asked a few years ago about the result of the Aleixo mission on Boyd, if he was diagnosed with anything, and so on. If you’re interested, I wrote a long ass reply about the psychological effect of sex trafficking on survivors/victims and talked about some of the things you see Boyd do that are a bit reflective of that. More info at https://aisness.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/boyd-aleixo-psychology/

I think there probably would be more information on all this by now, or at least I certainly hope there would be, but at the time of writing Fade that was the sort of research that was available. 

Although, full disclosure, I don’t tend to write characters looking up the DSM symptoms for this or that; I write what feels right for them psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and oftentimes later look it up and realize they would have likely been diagnosed with this or that thing or they could be displaying traits of this or that.

At any rate, with Boyd, his trauma started early on, and pretty much everything about him is a reflection of that in some form. I don’t see trauma as specific to sexual assault; it’s most certainly a result of that but also of many other things. Boyd dealt with a lot of neglect and/or emotional abuse as a child, he was bullied by his peers, and generally speaking it was difficult for him to feel like he belonged anywhere. He was very often judged by others, often negatively, for things completely outside of his control, like his parents, their jobs, his home, the amount of money his family had, his looks, etc. 

If you look at the Mayo Clinic’s list of child abuse, Boyd falls pretty well under emotional abuse and a bit under neglect, and you can especially see the toll that had on his personality by reading the signs and symptoms of emotional abuse in particular:

Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem

Social withdrawal or a loss of interest or enthusiasm

Depression

Avoidance of certain situations, such as refusing to go to school or ride the bus

Desperately seeks affection

And general symptoms:

Withdrawal from friends or usual activities

Depression, anxiety or unusual fears, or a sudden loss of self-confidence

An apparent lack of supervision

Self-harm or attempts at suicide 

If you look at Complex PTSD, and in particular Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) you can see a lot of Hsin:

Attachment – “problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others’ emotional states”

Behavioural control – “problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems”

Dissociation – “amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events”

I wouldn’t say Hsin dissociates quite that extensively but I feel like he does display some dissociative tendencies at times.

Boyd has some too, like

Self-concept – “fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self”.

I think in some ways you could argue they both display aspects of:

Affect or emotional regulation – “poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes”

When Boyd was little, he often wondered why other people were treated better than him - why, when he was getting perfect grades, he was going above and beyond whenever possible, when he was trying to be “a good boy” all the time, when he went out of his way to stay quiet and not bother anyone – why, despite all his attempts, other people were celebrate yet he was reviled, even if the people being celebrated were awful people doing awful things. He used to study other people relentlessly, trying to understand what it was about them that made them acceptable and what it was about him that made him not.

That’s why, despite being such an introvert, he’s good at blending in and going undercover; it’s why he can adjust to new situations and, in a way, act - because he always had to monitor and adjust himself his whole life just to feel seen and loved. His dad loved him on his own so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but with the trauma that came from the loss of his dad, and what happened with Lou, plus everything afterward, it really messed everything up.

Boyd was not a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but more of emotional abuse. Well, I guess, I should say for the most part he wasn’t.

Hsin was definitely a victim of childhood sexual abuse and probably physical abuse (that bit I can’t recall for sure). He was raped even as a small child, and that led into different aspects of his life. One reason, for example, he would go berserk and was seen by the Agency as unreliable in cases of him seeing sexual assault was because he saw, in some way, himself in those victims. It was probably his way of protecting people when he hadn’t been protected, himself. 

I can’t speak too much on Hsin’s specific mental health status or repercussions because I didn’t write him so I’m not fully in his mind, but I do know that sort of berserker aspect is part of what came from his sexual abuse and physical abuse and just generally how he grew up. If I recall correctly, a lot of that led into why he was so unstable and dangerous when Emilio first found him; why it took so long to get Hsin to find a way to deal with the violence and aggression and anger in him, in addition to everything else that would have happened regardless of that childhood trauma. Why, too, it was such a huge deal when Boyd was able to earn Hsin’s trust, because he had learned in his life to trust almost no one.

You can see some of the way they both display aspects of C-PTSD as adults as well in the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Adults

I should be clear: I am NOT a psychiatrist or psychologist so I’m not suggesting that they would be specifically diagnosed with any of these disorders were they to get official diagnoses. However, the reason I bring it up is to show that a lot of the series reflects the way their coping mechanisms lead them to interact within themselves and with the outside world, all of which is often directly or indirectly tied to trauma.

Why is Boyd so terrified of anyone seeing him without his shirt in the beginning? Trauma. Why is he depressed? Trauma. Why is he suicidal? Trauma. Why does he go out of his way to avoid a certain block? Trauma. I would have to look at specific symptoms of different things but I would guess that you could also tie back some of his instability and his sometimes inconsistent reactions to trauma as well. Sometimes he does things or says things that may seem a bit reckless, or cold, or some other unexpected thing at that time - and a lot of times it’s probably in part related to how he learned to cope with things and what his levels of defensiveness are or his fears are at that moment. But he also has a complete inability to see the good in himself for a long time which also ties back, I would think, to some of the things he experienced growing up/previously.

Boyd is an incredibly unreliable narrator. He spends most of his narration thinking about how awful he is, how he should just die, how he isn’t doing a good enough job, and so forth. Yet, that fails to show the impact of some of his choices and decisions. Boyd was pretty much the first person to treat Hsin like a normal human being, to not see him as a surrogate of anything or anyone, to not have any ulterior motives or expectations of him (no matter how well-intentioned), and to truly gain his trust as a result. Yet, Boyd didn’t really see it that way. He didn’t see how important it was for Hsin that he ended up in his life; he didn’t get why Hsin was exasperated the times Boyd said he (Boyd) should just die, that there was no value to his life. He didn’t believe he could be loved so he couldn’t see it was even a possibility at first. Therefore, he spends a lot of his narration over the series belittling himself and downplaying any of his own achievements while simultaneously rewarding or acknowledging what others around him are doing. Not every moment of his narration, of course, but his default state of self is to think he sucks and others are probably better.

Conversely, Hsin is a confident narrator. He often doesn’t doubt himself, doesn’t care what other people think, and is very sure of himself in a lot of aspects like his physical prowess which, itself, is already above and beyond nearly everyone else. Yet he also learned not to trust or rely on anyone else in his life, so he’s incredibly suspicious of others because that’s how he had to learn to be. So, especially in the beginning of the series, in his narration he tends to be very factual about his own achievements and not shy away from acknowledging the things that are powerful about him (even if he doesn’t always see it as anything that special), while simultaneously seeking out anything untrustworthy, unreliable, incompetent, or unworthy about those around him. His narration tends to point out the flaws of those around him because he learned that if he doesn’t protect himself, he’s vulnerable, and when he’s vulnerable he gets hurt.

The result of that is, if you read their narrations straight as if it’s all perfectly reliable, Boyd seems even more unreliable and Hsin seems even more perfect than they actually are, because their default states of being overlap in a manner which magnifies the flaws in Boyd and the merits in Hsin. 

Both of them learned to be how they were because of how they were raised, what they went through, and more. Same as how they react to various things throughout the series.

I can’t more specifically comment on anything without knowing what in particular you were thinking of when commenting in the ask about trauma and sexual abuse. But I think generally speaking, they already start the series having learned coping mechanisms that work for them based on trauma they already individually experienced. Those coping mechanisms end up oftentimes being challenged and at times destroyed or reworked throughout the course of the series. That is what leads to a lot of their ups and downs as individuals and as a couple; why their story isn’t a straight arc going up but instead derails a lot. And why they both spend the entirety of the series coming to terms with who they are both internally and externally, and what that means for their relationship, and how they can find a way to grow as a person and a significant other. They both ultimately have to work on trust; Boyd has to learn to trust himself, Hsin has to learn to trust others, and they have to learn to trust each other.

The way people deal with trauma is not the same for everyone. Sexual abuse doesn’t result in the same reaction for all people. I’m not sure if maybe one of the things you were thinking is maybe about sexual abuse during the series itself? I already linked something that goes more in depth on Fade so I won’t touch on that book, and I really can’t speak for Hsin because he isn’t my character so I don’t want to misrepresent his thought process as hidden behind narration or actions at different points.

The only other thing I can think of that maybe you’re thinking about is Boyd’s valentine status, and how he doesn’t seem to have overtly strong reactions to anything until Fade. If that’s one aspect of what you were thinking about, part of that is just how Boyd deals with things. He tends to avoid things that are difficult for him or he has difficulty focusing on, and oftentimes shuts down emotionally. 

I think honestly he probably dissociated to some extent during a lot of things; kind of separated his body from his mind and felt like whatever happened, happened. For a lot of the time that he was a valentine early on, he had such little love for himself that regardless of how upsetting anything was, how little he wanted to do certain things, he felt on some level like he deserved it. Some things were probably a subconscious form of self-punishment for being born, for being who he is, for surviving when Lou didn’t, for surviving when his dad didn’t, for never being enough for his mother, for just plain existing. Then as time went on he grew to rely on Hsin and find strength in him. It’s also not like every mission he had was a valentine one, or even that every valentine has to end in anything physical. 

That’s why he was able to find ways of dealing with things in some form, even if he didn’t like it or was uncomfortable at times, until the Aleixo mission. He thought he knew how to handle things; he thought he had found apt coping mechanisms. But that mission tore that all apart and nearly destroyed him. His coping mechanisms didn’t work the way they had and now he had to find a new way to survive, and from there came a lot of his instability and more that you see in Fade and as I mention in that blog post.

But in short, I feel like the majority of the series ends up touching, indirectly or directly, on some form of trauma as experienced currently or in the past by one or more of the main characters, and their resulting actions then drive the plot. That is one thing we were very specific about doing: having the plot adjust to the characters rather than force the characters to adjust to the plot. That’s why Afterimage exists, actually; the original plan was sort of like 3/4 of Evenfall and then kind of jumping into aspects of Fade. But we realized at the end of Evenfall that certain things would occur which would then lead to Afterimage and Afterimage then led into aspects of Interludes, which then led into aspects of right before Fade, which then affected a huge part of Fade itself, which then informed 1/27. We didn’t set out to write a series specifically about trauma, it’s just sort of one of those things that happens if you take two characters who have been treated so cruelly or poorly for so much of their lives, and put them together as any sort of team - but especially a team that becomes a couple, and a couple that becomes all but married.

+ +

Regarding the other stuff, I haven’t had a chance yet to check if you answered my question about the hetero relationship comment, so I can’t comment on that until I know more of what you mean. But I would say that generally speaking, I don’t know that I believe it’s necessarily fair to label anything as strictly “hetero” vs “m/m” vs anything else for a relationship. That brings with it a lot of assumptions of what it means to be not only gay or LGBTQIA+, but also straight. It seems to suggest there is only a single way or a very strict set of ways for a cis male and a cis female to be together both in a relationship and to have sex, and I guess I don’t feel like that’s necessarily reflective of reality. People are very complex and so are their relationships, as well as their sex lives.

I’m not sure how specifically the series ended up hurting you but I’m very sorry you felt hurt by anything. That’s a terrible feeling to have to experience. I hope that in whatever way, however it may work best for you, you have the time and space to reflect and recover and rejuvenate. You, like everyone, deserve it.

And honestly, if that means you have to leave the series completely in your past, never to think about it again, if that’s what’s healthiest for you, I truly wish you are able to do so. Stories are there to connect with other people, to share our thoughts and sometimes help us work our way through our own while reading. No story is worth your mental health being put in question. If it is truly upsetting to you to think about the series, it is absolutely not worth your energy. You are more important than a story will ever be. Everyone is. And I say that despite how much I love and rely on stories to get me through life.

If part of your duress is you like aspects of the writing style but the series itself and its contents upset you, you could try reading some other stuff. I have some things I wrote solo that you can find on my AO3 if you want. But also you can find other writers entirely. Depending on what you’re looking for in a story, and the sort of topics you’ve learned work well for you or don’t work well for you, you should be able to find a ton of great series out there and great authors out there who will leave you with the happier aspects of your reaction to ICoS without anything more detrimental like it sounds happened for you with ICoS.

Regardless, I truly wish you the very best. As I said in the other one, please stay healthy and safe! And, if you’re in a place to manage it, stay happy as well :)

Brightest of blessings to you and yours, my friend!

#ask ais #icos #in the company of shadows #Anonymous

[echoes-of-realities]

hello! this is completely random but i saw in your bio that you have a BA in anthropology. I'm currently trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and anthropology sounds really nice. Are the jobs opportunities good when you graduate? I'm also from Canada! Thank you!

Hey! I’m going to put all this under a cut cause it’s, uh, a Lot of information lmao.

So I don’t know how much you know about anthropology, but the cool thing about it if you’re going into research, is that you can do basically anything with it tbh! At its most simple, anthro is the study of humanity, so that includes literally anything to do with humans. What to study residential school experiences of Indigenous people in Canada? There’s a plethora of research opportunities about First Nations people, usually under the sub-discipline of Indigenous anthropology. What to study the effects of the lack of media representation for LGBTQ+ people? Queer Theory is a huge aspect of modern anthropology. What to study human evolution in the Horn of Africa? Paleoanthropology is a huge field. What to know Far Too Much about projectile points across the prairies? Archaeology is for you. Want to study RV-ing retirees? There’s literally a book on it.

Anthropology is broken down into four sub-disciplines: 

Linguistic Anthropology: Studies relationship between culture and language; everything from language revitalization to how language usage can further oppression. This field is closely tied to linguistics, but is actually very different to it. Linguistics generally studies the structure of language, while linguistic anthropology studies how language can produce/maintain culture, and vice versa.

Biological Anthropology: Sometimes called physical anthropology, it’s the study of humans and non-human primates in terms of biology, evolution, and demography; paleoanthropology and primatology both fit here, as does forensic anthropology. I.e., the TV show Bones, except actually accurate lmao. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bones and it’s actually what got me interested in anthropology in the first place, but literally every time I watch an ep now I’m like “You can’t estimate sex from that. That’s wrong you can’t estimate race. Age estimates range from 24-82 not within two years. You can’t do that!” ff

Archaeology: There’s a Whole Bunch of specializations in arch like bioarchaeology or lithic analysis or pottery analysis; archaeology is kind of….. lagging behind the other subdisciplines in terms of feminist theory and queer theory and treating PoC respectfully. (Especially Indigenous people, NAGPRA exists because archaeologists continually dug up Indigenous graves and then refused to give the Native Americans and First Nations the remains back so……) But! There are a lot of younger archaeologists reforming the discipline and making feminist and queer theory more common in the field. Black Feminist Archaeology by Whitney Battle-Baptiste is the first archaeologists that comes to mind off the top of my head in terms of including more PoC voices in archaeology, but there’s Many others doing good work!

This is totally a self-plug lmao but if you want to know more about homophobia and sexual harassment in archaeology, which is unfortunately rather commonplace, here’s a link to my final project for my Gender in Archaeology class about the topic, it’s a narrative video game and I’ve Very Proud of it.

Cultural Anthropology: Just like it sounds, this is the study of cultures. “Culture” is a Really Contentious term in anthropology and there’s no way I’m getting into the decades of debates here lmao. But essentially, cultural anthropologists study all aspects of different cultures, from the Big Men of the Indigenous peoples in Papua New Guinea to gender relations in small fishing villages in Portugal to homeless drug addicts in urban centres. Often issues of cultural appropriation, racism, homophobia, gender vs. sex (spoiler: they’re Very Different and completely depend on the culture), and oppression fall into this subdiscipline, but they can be explored in every field of anthro.

If you Really want a taste of Cultural Anthropology, watch Ongka’s Big Moka, which I’ve watched no less than seven times because basically Every Intro level anthro class plus second year classes without prereq’s show it. My best friend who’s also in anthro and I joke that we know more about Ongka than we do certain family members, which is 100% true.

So, as you can see based on the subdisciplines, there’s a Whole Realm of possibilities when it comes to jobs. The most common is basically going into research (which includes ethnographies), becoming a professor at a post-secondary institution, or going into applied anthropology.

Research: Research can be done on basically any topic, but anthropological research is rather unique (some sociology research uses the same practices, but not as commonly as anthro). Of course, there’s the research that archaeology and paleanthropology do that falls closer to a “hard science”, but cultural anthropological research is different. Ethnographic research is holistic and includes living in the community for an extended period of time (usually over a year), learning the language, and participant observation (you must participate in the community you’re studying; this is where researchers in “hard sciences” usually scoff and accuse anthropology as being subjective and not objective, which is true, but what most scientists don’t like to acknowledge is that all science is subjective because it is done by imperfect humans).

Professor: In order to become a prof, you need to have a master’s degree (people with masters can teach undergrad, people with a doctorate can teach graduate courses), so you do need an area of research to do your thesis on. Most anthropologists eventually become college/university profs once their research days end, or they teach during the school year and do their research during the summer. One of my fave profs does bioarchaeology in Tanzania every couple summers with some grad students so!

Applied Anthropology: Applied anthropology is probably the biggest area of careers tbh. Technically applied anthropology is just anthro applied to practical problems, so it can technically be anything. Most often, it includes medical anthropology (which is one of my areas of research studies how cultural ideologies of health and wellbeing go into healing, Lots of interesting commentaries on Western medicine and traditional medicine and how one culture’s idea of “healthy” is often Very Different to another’s), work with NGOs or activism organizations, archaeologists, museum or archive work, ecological or environmental anthropology, political anthropology, economic anthropology, forensic anthropology, and so many more tbh.

So yeah, that’s a rundown of anthropology and the ways your career can go. Honestly—and this isn’t me being all “my field is the Best Field” or anything lol—I think everyone would benefit from taking a couple anthro courses. I took The Anthropology of Sex, Gender, and Age in culture my first semester of my first year, and it’s still one of my favourite courses ever, and honestly I think that everyone going to college should take that course. Not only do you learn about how sex, gender, and age all culturally determined (no, sex is not biological because “biological” is culturally determined; most Papua New Guinean tribes have no concept of chromosomes, so “sex” isn’t based on chromosomes for them), but you’re also taught empathy in that class. Same with the Anthropology of Race and Racism class I took. Being uncomfortable is the most important part of unlearning toxic ideologies, and those two classes really embrace the uncomfortable. The biggest thing you need to be an anthropologist is empathy imo. The main goal of anthropology is to gain an emic perspective (i.e., an “insider’s” perspective) when doing research. I was always Really interested in social studies as a kid because I loved learning about different cultures so anthro is basically the “adult” version of that lmao and anthropology is essentially an extension of that.

I will say, that it’s pretty hard to do anything in anthro without at least a masters degree, so you have to be prepared to do A Lot of schooling. As for job prospects after grad, it depends entirely on where you live and what field you wanna go into. There’s far more job opportunities for anthropology in Toronto than in a small town with 7,000 people. And the fields really matter too. For example, if you want to practice forensic anthropology in Canada, you essentially have to wait for the current forensic anthropologist to die or retire, whichever comes first, before you even have a chance at a job. But as for medical anthropology or anthropology that involves working with or researching for Indigenous peoples, especially in Canada, there’s basically always job opportunities because they are in high demand of research or of people who can act as consultants.

Anyways, this is Long but I hope it helps, and btw, this basically only scratches the Surface of anthropology. I didn’t go into anthro’s long, uh, let’s say shitty history, for simplicity’s sake, of racism and colonialism here, not because I’m ignore it but just because it’s Long and I don’t have the time right now lol. But most modern good anthropologists don’t shy away from criticizing anthro and being vocal about it’s past and current issues, as well as advocating for how to fix them. Anyways. If you have any other questions feel free to send me another ask, or just PM me too! I’m happy to give information about anthropology!!

#anon #ask #I'm actually presenting to a high school about careers in anthro next week so this was helpful lol! #basically I'm going to use most of this for that presentation so that's partially while this is so long #the other part is that I Ramble lmao

[ettadunham]

do you listen to a lot of podcasts? which ones do you recommend? i'm just finishing listening to ars paradoxica and i need something to fill the gape it'll leave lmao thanks!

Hey you!!! I probably don’t listen to all that much compared to the more hardcore listeners, but I did manage to find a bunch of cool stories relevant to my interests if I do say so myself :P

I actually made a podcast page listing them all out, and I also put links in the pictures to each of their official sites. I would probably recommend any of those, but I’ll also try to give a quick rundown on each, just because I love talking about them.

(Also, please hit me up if you’re looking for some specific content or filter options relating to these or some other podcasts I may be familiar with enough to answer ;) )

Now, since aP is the reference point you gave me (my kind of anon ;) ), I’ll start with some ensemble sci-fis right out of the gate, from the plot heavy to the character-centric:

Marsfall - intense space drama about a Mars expedition crew. There’s only one season out yet, but it’s real strong right out the gate, and I’m already in love with Jacki and ANDI (the commander and the AI of the ship, respectively).

Wolf 359 - starts off more as a space sitcom, but then shit eventually gets pretty real and intense. Already finished with over 60 episodes and all sort of additional content available, so the perfect binge material. (Also, bonus cameo by the ars crew at some point.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris - this one had a long hiatus after its first 5 episodes, but it’s coming back, so now is the perfect time to start. It has a bit of Firefly vibe to it (bunch of misfit smugglers in space on the run from a totalitarian government), but a lot more diverse.

Station to Station - leaving space for a bit, S2S is taking place on a research ship, where our scientist protagonist is looking for her missing lab partner. Weird shenanigans and memory problems ensue. (Season 1 is complete as of now.)

What’s the Frequency - aptly titled, WTF is a period detective noir story with some pretty weird shit going on connected to radio dramas, which I still don’t quite understand? Is it the devil? Is it even sci-fi? Who knows, not me.

The Bridge - there are sea monsters, a Transcontinental bridge, and watchtowers to keep an eye on things. The show follows the crew of one such watchtower. This is also where my plot-heavy -> character-centric concept kind of falls apart, because the show does a slightly different thing. In every episode, there’s a separate story narrated by one of the characters (usually Etta, the protagonist) about the lore of the Bridge, while the plot slowly moves along. Some of these stories of course involve the characters themselves, but you often don’t actually know for sure. Also, a pretty dope intro (ta-da-dam-ta ta-ta-da-damm ta-da-dam-dam ta-ta-da-dam DAM DAM TA-DAM TA DA DAM TA DAM TA DA DA TA-DA DAM DAM TA DA DA DAM DAM TA TASJGFKADFJ;DAL - anyway, it’s great :P).

The Bright Sessions - a show about people with abilities in therapy. There’s an overarching plot, but even once that unfolds, it still relies much more heavily on the characters, and what they’re going through in each episode. An excellent gateway podcast altogether, that is soon coming to an end.

Non sci-fi ensemble shows:

Under Pressure - also featuring ships and sea monsters like some of our previous entries, but now it’s a drama about a scholar joining a submarine science expedition to write a philosophy paper... but in reality, is there to deal with her grief.

Homecoming - about a program that’s supposed to re-integrate veterans back into society with some shady methods. Overall, this story wasn’t really in my wheelhouse, but it’s one of those high profile podcasts that have people like Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer voicing characters, so that’s nice.

Okay, so I left shows relying on one or two people’s narration for last, but these are actually some of my faves, so I hope you got this far. Pretty much all of these have some sort of fantastic elements, but I will try to put them in an order of plot-reliance:

Alice isn’t Dead - a truck driver is looking for her missing wife who isn’t dead. There’s also a conspiracy and serial killer monsters lurking on the roads. Podcasts in general have a lot of good horror to offer, but I just... can’t do them. AiD is my exception, and it’s narrated by Jasika Nicole, so... how could i say no?

The Far Meridian - an agoraphobic young woman wakes up every day to find that her home (a lighthouse) turns up at a different place. There may also be additional mysteries. Lots of magical realism, and shit getting weirder and weirder as the episodes progress. Created by one of the ars writers, it’s a gentle balm for your soul. Season 1 is already out in full.

Girl In Space - this one is about a girl in space. Shocking, right? She loves cheese and Jurassic Park, and is totally alone on her space station... until she’s not. Technically might qualify more as an ensemble at this point but... eh.

Mabel - haunted house, mythical creatures, and a caretaker leaving voice messages for her charge’s missing(?) granddaughter. Gets gradually weirder, gayer and more poetic as it progresses.

Within the Wires - I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH!!! I’ll start with that, because I should probably also confess that after listening to the first episode, I was convinced that it wouldn’t be my thing. The first season is told through these weird relaxation tapes, that you’re probably only half-listening to at the beginning. But things do become much clearer by the 3rd-4th episode or so, and by then it’s much easier to follow. It also has an anthology structure, where each season tells a different story with a different narrator, but it’s still connected and takes place in the same universe. Anyway, let’s just say that it’s probably my second favorite show after ars at this point.

Investigative fiction podcasts, which is sort of a very specific subgenre with plenty of content, I’m guessing:

Limetown - 10 years ago the people of Limetown disappeared overnight, and now a radio host is set to solve the mystery. Season 2 is coming this year, which is great, because S1 ended on a cliffhanger in fucking 2015.

Rabbits - a radio host is looking for her missing best friend, who disappeared playing a weird, ancient game, probably. Also by the same people who did popular shows like Tanis or The Black Tapes - but overall I heard mixed things about those, especially in the long run. I liked Rabbits though.

#messages #anon #podcast #Anonymous