#I'm so sorry op i just have a lot to say on this topic

[spellscarred]

So OP is very right, but I'd like to amend/add a few points here:

It's not specifically schizophrenia, but psychotic disorders in general that are comorbid; it used to be the norm, back in the mid-20th century, that autistic people were diagnosed with "early onset schizophrenia" back when we knew fuck all about both autism and psychotic disorders (DSM, 1952).

Since then we've learned more about both, to the point where we speak of a psychotic spectrum, under which falls schizophreniform (mild version of schizophrenia), schizoaffective disorder (psychosis meets bipolar in a way that mania doesn't account for psychosis), delusional disorder (lack of mostly hallucinatory symptoms), and the big fun one that no one's probably ever heard of: brief psychotic disorder/brief reactive psychosis, which is the bad boy that makes you react to stressors with a psychotic break (it's the one I have). You can see where, with autism causing stress from what allistics would call "mundane things and situations", this is a big underdiagnosed psychotic disorder in autistics.

Remember, the biggest difference between schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders is that the former is degenerative. If you have a stable psychotic disorder, it's not schizophrenia.

For OCD, my experience working in mental health and taking to people in the community is that trichotillomania and dermatillomania are the break-out stars often, as a form of stim, soothing behaviour against both boredom and stress. (If you have either, know I love you, I know it's difficult from personal experience, and you can see a psych about it if it's bad enough to distress you in your day-to-day.)

To add to the big, big list of comorbidities that aren't ADHD (because yes, there's a ⅔ increase in autistics and ⅓ vice versa, but at this point we in the community are so aware and even allistics are starting to pick up on it), in no particular order:

autism and panic disorders

autism and anxiety disorders

autism and depressive disorders!!!

autism and traumatic- and stressor-related disorders (you know why)

autism and dissociative disorders

autism and eating disorders

autism and learning disabilities

A few of these are actually already listed as comorbid as of May 13, 2013 (anxiety disorder and depressive disorders) but a few of them are listed as differential (psychotic disorders and learning disabilities). ADHD is seen as both differential and comorbid.

To get back to OP's point, it's generally accepted in the community that if you're autistic, maybe you should keep your eye out for ADHD as well, but that's not the be-all-end-all. Many autistics are good at introspection and self-reflection as a survival mechanism, so don't turn a blind inner eye to symptoms pointing towards these often comorbid disorders.

And to finish my statement: neurodivergence isn't a shorthand for autistic and/or ADHD, it's all these and more. If you use it as such, I'm doing to break into your house and put cat hair on everything you own.

weird that we treat autism and ADHD as intrinsically linked due to high rates of comorbidity but no one talks that way about autism and schizophrenia or autism and OCD or autism and bipolar disorder etc etc even though those are also often comorbid. gee I wonder why

[alacants]

re: the juanki/rafa lore. i wonder if you have any thoughts about their respective academies? the more i read about ferrero's academy, and how it's been this slow, long process started by ferrero's coach and like they all still live there and make improvements vs. rafa's just kind of springing into existence in 2017 i do wonder if that caused any feelings lol. there was that one interview where juanki said "i don't think it's right to just put your name on smth and show up 3-4x a year" lol

HA god i can’t believe i didn’t think to incorporate that angle—great point, that zinger was not meant to be subtle. that it can be overlooked out just bears out your point, really. equelite is fundamental to any consideration of juanki and Rafa Nadal Academy By Movistar is more or less an entirely separate entity from rafa nadal the person.

to be fair i understand it's more or less toni nadal’s project? (what isn’t toni nadal’s project…) but also—it’s part of the rafa nadal empire. the rafa nadal industrial complex. are they even competing for the same market share? i don't know enough about that market to judge—my gut says no, and i would imagine that to juanki it must feel to some extent like apples and oranges. but also, i'm sure, like who the hell do you think you are. perfect opportunity to claim the moral high ground AND the martyr's mantle.

(btw i remember hearing something about young jannik sinner being... invited? to the rafacademy, but it cost too much. can't for the life of my track that down so if anyone reading this remembers that please share because THAT is a fascinating alternate history lmao.)

it’s really just their image clash writ large, isn’t it. "the best in spain" vs "the best in the world." "achieve your goals" vs "the sky’s the limit." "it's not about me personally, also there's a giant mural of my face in the cafeteria" vs "the rafa brand is our most valuable asset and it would be idiotic not to leverage that." the natural counter-positioning to Extraterrestrial Star is Humble and Hardworking, and if you don't shape your own image someone else will shape it for you.

here are two world number ones who have made their sleepy hometowns (or as-good-as) the locus of their post-competitive networks. now let's see how different they could possibly be. toni cascales advised juanki from day one to diversify for both financial and psychological reasons, so there was the academy. the hotel. the winery. the valencia open. these are all very, like… reasonable projects. they probably seemed ambitious at the time! Meanwhile In Manacor, we've got the rafa nadal museum, the rafa nadal sports centre, and the rafa nadal international school. ngl as very much NOT a rafa expert i went to double check my hazy recollections of scale and the reality vastly outstripped them lmao. they've even got their own juicy urban planning war!

(an interesting aside here is that in 2014 jcf academy… well whether they opened a branch in shenzhen or just lent their brand to the enterprise is sort of an open question. it was certainly presented as a branch of jcf academy, in cooperation with gemdale/hongjindi sports, but now it seems to be operating entirely under the hongjindi name. this is relevant only in the sense that it’s interesting to see these sort of tentative overtures that ultimately either were withdrawn or petered out. whereas a friend recently told me about the ig ad they got for a rafa nadal academy seminar in a suburb of boston.)

this is extremely rambling and discursive lmao SORRY. i have a lot of thoughts in general about juanki and the academy that is his parent/child/home/cult/identity/locus of self/ready-made magical realism prompt. is it a piece of him or is he a piece of it. did he make it or did it eat him. the fact that toni cascales still introduces himself as "juan carlos' coach, i'll be his coach for the rest of my life." i imagine that you in particular, op, have already seen this but for those interested in this topic who haven’t, watch no strings: juan carlos ferrero from (iirc) 2005 to get a glimpse of just how deeply juanki is embedded in the place, how it’s grown around him literally from day one. "he likes racing so we built him a race course here on the campus. so he can be safe. :)"

it's in the eye of the beholder as to whether you find this wholesome and heartwarming or a seething hotbed of unexamined hangups. guess which side i come down on!

[leliwardens]

reddit source: 1 / 2

Really wanted to throw my own thoughts in on this whole thing before release since it's good talking point. Under the cut because it's long.

I think the OP of the thread is correct, there are a lot of factors that I'm sure lead to this. I really doubt the devs if they had actual choices they would of cut caring over worldstates. Solas's story not being finished is also correct, romance or no he clearly was the hook for the next game.

This all being said, sorry, once they involved The Inquisitor as a returning character that removes the closure for them and their romance. There needs to be attention and car given to that, now that that door is open. And relevant to this specific topic is this post:

...pardon my French but motherfucker what do you MEAN? So, the answer is...not even making it a choice? Epler your own words were "not to invalidate worldstates"! You literally have ONLY an option for a Bull who betrayed The Qun in Veilguard??? Killing him in a romance IS a valid ending, it has a slide and unique dialogue! It's not like a breakup with other LIs, this was built in and is not invalidated now? They could pull some switcheroo ala Leliana I guess for whatever reason and bring him back, but even then the CC says betrayed The Qun, which isn't what he does if you have to kill him, so it's still making it invalid.

And not only that, why would Bull's death matter after this game? It only matters in it because you're literally dealing with his potential partner/friend/coworker that killed him, and he is not notable outside that person, from both a character and player standpoint. Bull is just a Qunari, a good one, but it's not like he's a world leader or established person outside his role in the Inquisition, so his death matters little outside this context.

Not even to mention you literally get this exact set up with Hawke if they romanced Anders and killed him, it's one line but still means something!

Which all of this to me is just saying it doesn't matter.

And to circle back to the other topic in the thread is the returning characters and writing. I think it is bad faith to take those as anything but a joke, but I also think it is in rather poor taste and was kind of shitty to say after the news about limited choices LEAKED, not revealed, LEAKED.

Even in the best case where no one went over the line with anger or yelling or death threats (not sure if these actually happened, just a hypothetical), why would they think this would be taken with anything but disappointment? Ik the wider customerbase of any game are ones that don't really engage with fandom just play the game and that's it, but the ones that do engage with the fandom and the game on a deeper level would be the same ones impacted by this decision and see these posts...? I dunno, it rubs me the wrong way. :/

I'm also unsure what joke is to be understood with bringing up Alistair specifically? He's untouchable post-Origins in all but Warden!Alistair in Inquisition. This also really isn't...the norm either? The worst you can do to Leliana is not do her personal quest, you can't even kill her or Zevran in DA2. You can ruin Cullen's life in Inquisition but it's a choice and honestly a "bad/evil" one all things considered.

I welcome returning characters and furthering their arc/story, whether it be happy, tragic, etc. That was a highlight of this franchise. But then I had a thought and checked Here Lies the Abyss and...

Ah well, explains a lot. I think the wrong lessons were taken from the concrit people had about this, presumably Hawke, personally I had no issues but that's me. So I guess the answer to that was still bring back a previous MC and companions just have no influence over them with worldstate choices...?

(And a quick sidebar, anyone can headcanon completely against canon no matter what happens just the same as you can if nothing happens. That's the power of ~imagination~.)

I'm still not sure what the takeaway from any of this was intended to be. I'm for sure keeping the best faith but this was still pretty souring to me overall.

I've gone into detail about many other aspects of this general situation so I'll cut it off here to avoid repeating myself.

[obsidianpen]

About that greyana topic -- i work in digital advertising, and we use AI on a daily basis; i just checked that invictus fic (sorry, i'm a harrymort girlie, and haven't read any tomione yet) and i know AI content generation so well at this point, that i can, with a 100% confidence (and i'm reeeallyyy confident), say that it's AI. AI has a very specific writing pattern, especially when prompting fiction content, that if not instructed correctly, it'll spit all these "posh" adjectives and verbs that sound unnatural and forced. This is the best way I can describe it, but if anyone's curious they can check the top 100 AI verbs and adjectives that AI uses, you'll find pretty much a lot of what's used in greyana's work as far as i saw in just 1 -2 chapters - fabric of time, journey, delve, beacon, navigate, etc. Not that it's forbidden to use such words, but again, it's very obvious context-wise that it's AI. : ) so don't bother with such people and keep slaying with your fics you're the best op xx

the professional anon of my dreams!!! Thank you SO much for this, it feels good to have someone weigh in who works with AI and can confirm, I’m sure I speak for a lot of writers here who say it’s a relief to know we’re not just being ‘mean’. 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

[lylahammar]

Artistic "advice" that follows this format of "do this ✅ don't do this ❌" has ALWAYS been a massive pet peeve of mine, and this is a huge one of many reasons. There is no "right" way to do art, I don't care what your personal feelings are about it. You can have stylistic preferences, but that's subjective personal taste, there are no rules. A lot of the time, this kind of advice comes off very counterintuitive and anti-stylization.

But in the case of what OP's talking about, it's an even larger issue. The spectrum of body types on the planet is MASSIVE and more diverse than any single artist can imagine. Literally any physical human trait that you can claim is "incorrect" in art is present in someone, often a lot of people, in the world. Stop telling people they're wrong for drawing in a certain way. It's entirely unhelpful. It's far more productive to give advice on how to find reference material and use it to help you represent specific traits that you have in mind.

you know those posts that are like

INCORRECT way to draw a fat body ❌

CORRECT way to draw a fat body ✅

I saw someone use an example of a body that had a round potbelly and slimmer limbs for the INCORRECT version, saying it looked bloated or pregnant… when it literally looked exactly like my body.

yes it’s important to know the dynamics of body fat on characters, how it hangs, how it folds, etc. because a lot of people draw fat characters as Skinny Lite™️ and that’s a representation issue.

but as long as a character is big and round?? that’s a fat person! fat people look like that too!

[ai-the-broccoli]

lawlight, told through taylor swift songs: a non-exhaustive list

no really, why do so many taylor swift songs fit Death Note (and sometimes especially Light and lawlight) so perfectly?

many others have already made pretty good posts on this topic before, but the parallels are truly kinda crazy, so here's my take on it. the rankings within each tier are not super fixed or meaningful, like honestly everything within each tier is pretty much the same degree of fitting to me.

(yes, I double-checked basically her entire discography for this. no, I still don't think this is a fully comprehensive list.)

Tier S - every single line is a fit

1. my tears ricochet (<- category C: "I Knew You'd Miss Me Once The Thrill Expired")

post L's death lawlight, from L's perspective: the song. nearly every line fits what the hell man. one of my favourites here

-> Full Lyrics

2. hoax (<- category C: "I Knew You'd Miss Me Once The Thrill Expired")

@kiyomitakada pointed this out and... yeah, every single line does fit! it's very lawlight from Light's perspective.

-> Full Lyrics

Tier A - the whole song fits well

3. Blank Space (<- category A: "Let the Games Begin")

we probably all know this one lol. while the idea that it was actually written as inspired by DN is a myth, it very much does fit.

-> Full Lyrics

and GOD did the MV imagery not help. like, I mean...

the MV uses a colour scheme of red/blue/black/white/green-ish, I think, which doesn't NOT look like the first OP of Death Note anime to say the least.

apple imagery. yeah. the above is literally something Light does in said OP. both song videos have close-up shot of biting a very red apple.

the character Taylor Swift plays in this video (who is supposed to be a satirical caricature based on media perception of her as a crazy obsessive jealous 'serial dater' women iirc) is depicted doing a lot of voodoo to torture her lover.

in one scene she seems to be in a great and dramatic frenzy with mixed emotions (sadness, desperation, manic, anger, hate, etc.) over the boyfriend character's... unconscious body? I'm not super sure if it's supposed to be unconscious. but it's like this:

and then after a while of this, we see a shot of her sneakily winking at the camera. but anyway so yeah this entire part weirdly actually reminded me of L's death scene for some reason lol

at the end of the MV there's a short B-T-S trivia clip. there's a freaking black notebook there:

it's titled "My True Loves" and the content has nothing to do with lawlight, because it just contains pictures of her cats... is what I'd say, but actually, if you stretch it a bit, there's a comparison to be made about the fact that J-Drama Light Yagami's actor is a cat lover who actually has a cat named L

anyway this isn't exactly a T-pose but it's not too far from one either

I think I've made my point.

4. Getaway Car (<- category B: ''Now This is An Open/Shut Case")

this is very the end of the Yotsuba arc to me, specifically from while they are catching Higuchi to after they catch him and Light regains his memories. man...

-> Full Lyrics

Tier B - largely/mostly fitting

category A: "Let the Games Begin"

the mind games begin.

1. Ready For It

Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him Wondered how many girls he had loved and left haunted But if he's a ghost, then I can be a phantom Holdin' him for ransom, some Some boys are tryin' too hard, he don't try at all though Younger than my exes, but he act like such a man, so I see nothing better, I keep him forever Like a vendetta-ta

and

Knew I was a robber first time that he saw me Stealing hearts and running off and never sayin' sorry But if I'm a thief, then he can join the heist, and We'll move to an island, and And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor Every love I've known in comparison is a failure I forget their names now, I'm so very tame now Never be the same now, now

+ the repetition of "Let the games begin". pretty self-explanatory

2. LWYMMD

I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh!

...and more. also you know how she T-poses at the end of the bridge in the MV, as she stands over many many other past version of herself?

very lightcore pose. (and this isn't even to mention how she kicks off other, "weaker" versions of herself off the giant T in the same scene, which is... arguably also a symbolic parallel to when Light screams in the helicopter as he regains his memory, if you see it that way.)

3. cowboy like me

And the tennis court was covered up With some tent-like thing And you asked me to dance But I said, "Dancin' is a dangerous game."

Oh, I thought This is gonna be one of those things Now I know I'm never gonna love again

I've got some tricks up my sleeve Takes one to know one You're a cowboy like me

this one even has the freaking tennis mention of all things it could've included

4. Mastermind

So I told you none of it was accidental And the first night that you saw me, nothing was gonna stop me I laid the groundwork and then saw a wide smirk On your face, you knew the entire time You knew that I'm a mastermind And now you're mine Yeah, all you did was smile 'Cause I'm a mastermind

honestly though, this one is more like the perfect Kaguya-sama Love is War Kaguya/Miyuki song. every single line fits them perfectly. but since lawlight also do mind games and all, the song also can be seen through a lawlight lens, although I maintain that it is still the perfect kaguprez song instead of a fully lawlight one.

5. Suburban Legends

I had the fantasy that maybe our mismatched star signs Would surprise the whole school When I ended up back at our class reunion Walking in with you You'd be more than a chapter in my old diaries With the pages ripped out I am standing in a 1950s gymnasium And I can still see you now

I didn't come here to make friends We were born to be suburban legends When you hold me, it holds me together And you kiss me in a way that's gonna screw me up forever

I know that you still remember We were born to be national treasures When you told me we'd get back together And you kissed me in a way that's gonna screw me up forever

idk the vibes here kind of make me think of the entrance ceremony scene lol

category B: ''Now This is An Open/Shut Case"

the Kira investigation.

1. I Can See You

I can see you in your suit and your necktie Passed me a note saying, "Meet me tonight" Then we kissed and you know I won't ever tell, yeah And I could see you being my addiction You can see me as a secret mission Hide away and I will start behaving myself

the MV is important context here again, because actually, the official video for this love song depicts one person watching/"seeing" another person through - guess what - surveillance cameras. in reference to the title which is also a line repeated in the chorus. so that explains it I think. also it's implied to be about a workplace relationship

2. I Think He Knows

He got that boyish look that I like in a man I am an architect, I'm drawing up the plans It's like I'm 17, nobody understands No one understands

[...]

He got that boyish look that I like in a man I am an architect, I'm drawing up the plans He's so obsessed with me and, boy, I understand Boy, I understand

Light's pov. the title line "I think he knows" keeps getting repeated in the song which if you view it through a lawlight lens that might be about Kira lol

3. willow

Now this is an open/shut case I guess I should've known from the look on your face Every bait-and-switch was a work of art

The more that you say, the less I know Wherever you stray, I follow I'm begging for you to take my hand Wreck my plans, that's my man You know that my train could take you home Anywhere else is hollow I'm begging for you to take my hand Wreck my plans, that's my man

L pov-ish.

4. The Tortured Poets Department

You're in self-sabotage mode, throwing spikes down on the road But I've seen this episode and still loved the show Who else decodes you?

And who's gonna hold you like me? And who's gonna know you, if not me?

and also:

Everyone we know understands why it's meant to be 'Cause we're crazy So tell me Who else is gonna know me?

...as well as more lines in the song that expresses the same sentiments, like: Who's gonna hold you? Gonna know you? Gonna troll you?

in any case, "who else decodes you?" is definitely a lawlight thesis. imo. in fact I may have even actually started an essay on it in fic format with that thesis. or not? who knows! maybe one day you'll see...

anyway, this song is post-Yotsuba arc-ish to me, sort of.

category C: "I Knew You'd Miss Me Once The Thrill Expired"

L's death and Light's grieving, eventually.

5. Haunted

from Light's pov, especially in anime canon probably.

12. My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys

My boy only breaks his favorite toys, toys, oh I'm queen of sand castles he destroys, oh, oh 'Cause it fit too right Puzzle pieces in the dead of night I should've known it was a matter of time Oh, oh, my boy only breaks his favorite toys, oh, oh-oh-oh

[...]

My boy only breaks his favorite toys, toys, oh I'm queen of sand castles he destroys, oh, oh 'Cause I knew too much There was danger in the heat of my touch He saw forever so he smashed it up Oh, oh, my boy only breaks his favorite toys, oh, oh-oh-oh

which is quite fitting. moreover, there's this...

He was my best friend Down at the sandlot I felt more when we played pretend Than with all the Kens

...as well as the the original version below:

He was my best friend and that was the worst part I felt more then, in brief moments Than with all the Kens

L's pov. the "Kens" mention here is kinda like Light apparently having like 6 girlfriends in college and not caring about any of them despite being significantly bad at getting over L etc etc I think

8. Hits Different

I actually didn't think of this song in association with lawlight at all before I saw @selfdigestion bringing up the connection, and.... YEAH this is pretty lawlight-coded as well

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense Why the wound is still bleedin' You were the one that I loved Don't need another metaphor, it's simple enough A wrinkle in time like the crease by your eyes This is why they shouldn't kill off the main guy Dreams of your hair and your stare and sense of belief In the good in the world, you once believed in me And I felt you and I held you for a while Bet I could still melt your world Argumentative, antithetical dream girl

and also:

I used to switch out these Kens, I'd just ghost Rip the band-aid off and skip town like an asshole outlaw Freedom felt like summer then on the coast Now the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings

which is what the song is overall about. (there sure are a lot of Light pov songs in this category man)

and on the topic of "Kens", as it is with the previous time song, in Light's case it makes me again think of all his college girlfriends that he doesn't care about. I'm not going to comment too much on the gender-reverse implications this has for the narrator "I" in the song, but I would think that the original lyrics "bet I could still melt your world / argumentative, antithetical dream girl" with echoing repetitions on the phrase "dream girl" should've already done it for me. anyway. moving on.

10. Would've, Could've, Should've

If you never touched me I would've Gone along with the righteous If I never blushed then they could've Never whispered about this And if you never saved me from boredom I could've gone on as I was

[...]

God rest my soul I miss who I used to be The tomb won't close Stained glass windows in my mind I regret you all the time I can't let this go I fight with you in my sleep The wound won't close I keep on waiting for a sign I regret you all the time

I don't know how to explain this one, but it's... something. I think it only makes more sense as a lawlight song if you want to place emphasis on the age/maturity difference angle, although even without that it would still partly fit.

17. Guilty as Sin?

My boredom's bone-deep This cage was once just fine Am I allowed to cry?

I dream of cracking locks Throwing my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks Crashing into him tonight, he's a paradox I'm seeing visions, am I bad? Or mad? Or wise?

This, plus the fact that it uses similar imagery (dying in a hedge maze, crashing over graves, etc.) as Saltburn (2023), which... has that infamous grave scene that reminded every Death Note fan watching it of Light Yagami on L's grave.

13. cardigan

A friend to all is a friend to none Chase two girls, lose the one When you are young, they assume you know nothing

[...]

But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs The smell of smoke would hang around this long 'Cause I knew everything when I was young I knew I'd curse you for the longest time Chasing shadows in the grocery line I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired And you'd be standing in my front porch light And I knew you'd come back to me You'd come back to me And you'd come back to me And you'd come back

yet another post-L's death lawlight song, this time with L+Light switching povs. with the final line I think of the anime scene when Light sees a vision/ghost/whatever it is of L on the stairs:

And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed You put me on and said I was your favorite

Tier D - honourable mentions

The Prophecy

I got cursed like Eve got bitten Oh, was it punishment?

lightcoreTM

False God

self-explanatory title

You Are In Love

You kiss on sidewalks, you fight then you talk One night, he wakes, strange look on his face Pauses, then says, "You're my best friend" And you knew what it was, he is in love

Mr. Perfectly Fine

So dignified in your well-pressed suit So strategized, all the eyes on you Sashay away to your seat It's the best seat, in the best room Oh, he's so smug, Mr. "Always wins" So far above me in every sense So far above feeling anything

lightcore #2

You're Losing Me

doesn't fit that well lyric-wise, but it sure has got a heartbeat sound effect (sampled with her own I believe) in it referencing the stopping of a heart that sounds a lot like the one used to signal cardiac arrest in Death Note anime.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

Were you sent by someone Who wanted me dead? Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed? Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy? In fifty years will all this be declassified? And you'll confess why you did it And I'll say, "Good riddance" 'Cause it wasn't sexy once it wasn't forbidden I would've died for your sins Instead I just died inside And you deserve prison, but you won't get time You'll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars You crashed my party and your rental car You said normal girls were "boring" But you were gone by the morning You kicked out the stage lights, but you're still performing And in plain sight you hid But you are what you did And I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive The smallest man who ever lived

lightcore #3

Anti-Hero

I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror

lightcore #4

Clara Bow

"The crown is stained, but you're the real queen Flesh and blood amongst war machines You're the new God we're worshipping Promise to be dazzling"

there is a joke I can make here about how "dazzling" is "kira-kira" in Japanese

lightcore #5

(man that's a lot of lightcore songs)

Other songs

...that grieve the loss of a lover,

or mentions a lover being a friend/not a friend;

songs with ghost/death/grave/tomb/cemetery imagery,

songs where the self or the lover is compared to God or a god,

songs that mention a difference in age or has the lover looking down on the narrator's maturity (e.g. illicit affairs, All Too Well),

songs where love is characterized as a game of cat and mouse;

and so on.

taylor swift seems to write about those motifs a lot, so there really are a lot of other examples to pull.

and that concludes my list, I think. there may actually be even more comparisons if you look into her album liner notes and such, but this is what I've got for now

[i-was-never-sane]

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

[TW: SH, MY FRIEND'S DRAMA]

Back again with some opinions.

I am using gender neutral pronouns because I am uncomfortable with saying their name as of now.

This is not hate at all, I'm just trying to explain my view of the situation.

Okay so like my last post, I expressed that I do not support what my friend did with an AU.

And recently, Freddie, their boyfriend, has said that they have had multiple breakdowns and has done SH a lot lately. However, I have trust issues and find it quite hard to believe because my friend has never mentioned a partner. But, I don't wanna start accusations, it's my preview.

Even though I have my suspicions, I feel sorry that they are going through such a state, and I mean this wholeheartedly. No one should feel the need to do that.

But, that does not mean I will encourage the behaviour of both anon and my friend.

The anon was very wrong in how they worded that message, as I said last time.

My friend is also wrong with how they reacted.

To the anon who sent that.

You are wrong, very very wrong with how that message was delivered.

I understand your anger, and I am also saddened. But that was not a proper approach to the situation. Due to that, see how the people are highly affected.

How the other roleplayers are having to explain and pick sides.

How majority of us are super uncomfortable, stressed and/or tired.

But still, I, personally, view you both, OP and Anon, wrong in your own ways.

To my friend who started the AU.

Again, I feel sorry to how you are dealing with this, no one should do that to themselves.

But I would politely like to say that, the AU can serve as total disrespect to male victims and to people who highly value that story.

Which can make you look and sound very insensitive about that topic.

Now back to my view.

I have read the apology post, and I am not meaning to be bossy or mean or insensitive etc.

But, I am not satisfied with the apology.

Because the 'apology' itself didn't even have the words 'sorry' or 'I am so remorseful' in the first place

I found that the AU also made me mad, seeing as male victims are being discarded.

I remember talking to my friends in real life, the shock and confusion on their faces when I told them that boys could be SA'd as well.

I know some will say; "They made a mistake! Everyone makes mistakes." "They screwed up, but every human screws up!"

I get it, people do make mistakes, but what I saw on @unhinged-waterlilly 's post was something else.

The way they reacted, it just wasn't it for me. It disturbed me too much.

ESPECIALLY THIS POST.

And to find out that someone helped them write that apology made me think; 'Why would they take someone else's responsibility?'

I'm not saying it's their fault but, think about it. Just think about it. I know a person's mindset if they were asked to do something for a friend would be; 'Oh, okay! They're my friend, what's wrong with that?'

What's wrong is, you're doing something that isn't even your responsibility.

I am an atheist, but the stories and myths in Greek Mythology mean the world to me.

So seeing that Odysseus's trauma with Circe being altered so carelessly made me disappointed.

Lilly is and will always be right. If you're gonna make a character get SA'd, fucking learn about it first.

I do not know if I can forgive and forget. But I am trying my best to understand the situation properly, but I really am drained. Just like the others.

my friend's taglist.

@zariahthewitch @thegroovydaughterofhestia @if-chaos-was-a-boy @the-gods-strange-children

@silena-daughterofaphrodite @fabulousdaughterofhecate @weakest-son-of-sun

@chaos-pers0nified @neoptolemus-achilles-son @bast-the-best26

@goddess-of-bubblegum @gaygirldoodles @luck-is-crucial @reyna4ever

@vicious-daughter-of-zeus @feral-hermes-child @unfortunate-daughter-of-hestia

@that-girl-cupid @ariathemortal @love-lightning-forethought @emdabitchass @kaiaalwayswins

@champion-of-revenge @clown-energy-skyrocketing @zoe-aura-of-d3ath @itsyourboyezra

@lunar-eklipso-r @pink-koi-lovejoy @that-daughter-of-athena @sleepy-as-a-song @smileyalater

@gellyhelio @daughter-ofthe-moontitan @the-smart-and-the-dumb-one

@trinket-snatcher @southerndaughterofeos @creature-under-ur-bed @burnt-out-bitxhes

[lanaevyssmoved]

I've been pretty active in the Mass Effect fandom back in the day and a lot of my trans mutuals got shat on by cishet women for playing maleShep (they were more comfortable playing as him) and got called misogynist for it even though they didn't say anything misogynist. and I remember a lot of the same women had a meltdown when people referred to Shepard as they/them when speaking in general, and what I'm trying to say is - yeah, the terf and radfem rhetoric is very much a thing in fandoms as I saw it first-hand.

It was very upsetting to see my trans mutuals being scared of sharing their male (or nb) OCs, because you were automatically labelled a misogynist. I used to identify as a cis woman at the time too and even then, it was baffling to me that they'd come to this conclusion. I know how actual misogynists act like and they were far from that. A lot of my mutuals, including me after I started questioning my gender, left the fandom because we felt we didn't belong.

gonna talk about this undercut because ngl i feel a tad unsafe in this topic

i'm seeing this happen in the bg3 fandom with posts in the main tags where tav is being she/her'd exclusively and happy endings for characters being nuclear family/pregnancy and nothing else is a true happy/good ending, and the second trans folks and gay men tried to talk about this becoming the only accepted view for many people they were stomped into silence again for ruining peoples fun... by people not even realising this stuff is rooted in terf/radfem rhetoric. they just comment 'pregnancy is ok actually, let people have fun' without even checking the original OPs blogs and seeing how transphobic and homophobic they are.

we don't get upset because we're not being included. we're upset because we know what the fuck is going on and we can see it happening in real time and are trying to stop it before it becomes so widespread we don't feel safe enough to talk at all.

this also happened in the dragon age fandom and it's just. maybe rpg fandoms are just not safe spaces! that sucks!

i'm really sorry your friends and you had a rough time. i'm also sorry this is a repeating behaviour, no matter how many years pass. there's never a lesson learnt here, i suppose

[syncope-syndrome]

This is why I lowkey don't like the word "caretaker", or at least don't like how it's used as a catch-all, because the term implies a level of responsibility and familiarity that so many of these prompts don't... have room for? My point of view might also be skewered because of personal reasons, but, to me, Bob from Accounting hauling the hero over to his cubicle to stem the bleeding is not a caretaker in the way a bodyguard would be. Most of the people who are labeled as caretakers are only caretakers situationally, or are people forced to be caretakers in dire situations, so of course they have lives and other responsibilities outside of that, and of course they're not experts. Caretaking is a job and it's an exhausting one at that, and getting frustrated, tired, busy with other things, or not having the skills to match the job pushed upon you does not automatically make you "bad".

I would really like us to think critically about the implications of our collective idea of the "bad caretaker" trope, especially in regard to recent trends in whumpee tropes.

99.9% of the time, a "bad caretaker" is someone who is either untrained, unprepared, temperamental, impatient, or just disinclined to walk the whumpee through every step of non-whumped life like a golden retriever mama dog with a new puppy. In other words, a "bad caretaker" is someone who makes mistakes or has a life outside caretaking or is otherwise not a bottomless well of sympathy and patience.

Rarely have I seen a truly bad caretaker. Someone who is manipulative. Someone who exploits the whumpee's trauma behaviors rather than holding their hand and gently coddling them. Someone who acts maliciously in a way that puts their needs above the whumpees rather than in accidentally or just occasionally.

I'm not arguing that stuff like pouring antiseptic over an open wound is good caretaking. It's not. And it's little to negative help, so it definitely fits into that category, and I personally live for that shit. My issue is not that "bad" is applied to the untrained or unprepared. My issue is that that's all it's applied to. My issue is that we need to diversify the trope so it doesn't get skewed.

[myfandomrealitea]

I'm sorry I just saw the screenshot of the reblog by that something-wizard. I just had to say: how DARE they to assume someone else's irl condition? how DARE they to assume how my life is and call me privileged based on the fact that I don't want politics or similar things in my fandom space? I'm going through a very HARD time in fact and because I'm dealing with those very things you said irl and CAN'T VOID THEM, I don't want to hear about them in my fandom space! There are more than one server, blog or similar spaces for each fandom. If one doesn't allow irl topics you can join another that does. If there isn't any? Make your own! I and others don't owe you anything, we don't have to explain why we don't want irl topics discussed in our spaces nor do we have to explain our living conditions to you! Also, having rules for our own spaces(blogs, servers and such) is not censorship. We are not saying "don't discuss irl issues in any fandom space or anywhere online ever art all !!!" We are saying "this is a specific place I created and I don't want those things discussed here, there are other places for that".

And to the op of that post and this blog: I'm sorry for my rant here. I just thought someone has to be very self-centered to think the way they do, especially as I go through a hard time their post was a punch to my gut today. Also thank you.

Based on the rest of the blog and their general responses to people they're just an ignorant troll trying to white-knight the internet and earn brownie points for virtue signalling. You'll see a lot of that when getting into online spaces revolving around media analysis or critical discussion.

Frankly, the best way to deal with those people is just to completely and blatantly block and ignore them. The less attention they get for their parading the less satisfying it is for them. Or if you do engage, do it only in a passive way like memes and reaction pictures, which don't actually give them what they're looking for—the chance to argue with you and look superior.

They just wind up looking like a dick.

The vast majority of the people lashing out at me on that post are people who firmly believe that because there is suffering in the world we must all suffer in solidarity. That we must relentlessly and restlessly fight in their honor.

Some might say that ideal is noble. I say its fucking stupid. Psychologists say its fucking stupid. People who have burnt themselves out trying to fulfil that expectation say its fucking stupid.

The people wilfully launching into the worst bad-faith assumptions about that post are the ones who need to sit back and reflect upon themselves. And possibly go back into the educational system.

I'm used to people making the worst assumptions of me. It doesn't bother me. It never will because they don't know me and all their grandstanding just makes them look like a judgemental idiot. I'm here to say what I think and to share factual information, and I'm doing so. If they disagree with that they're welcome to, but I'm not obligated to indulge them on it.

[fictionkinfessions]

Anonymous asked: its the anon that wanted incest tagged https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/760240297418588160/appreciation-for-andrewandy-graves-because-hes this one, sorry! and thank you.

this is a long post with additional anon ask responses.

Man. If that's incestuous, a lot of posts under the 'chara love' tag will be needing the incest cw tag.

Don't take this the wrong way. Incest is problematic and triggering and I do take tagging it seriously. But not everything is incestuous by default. We do need to account for alternate canons, platonicly intended sentiment, that in sme context people do not mean incestuous over / under tones even if they have an incestuous canon, and many other countless possibilities. And yes, I'm aware of the source material having incestuous overtones.

That said, the linked confession does not read as incest at all. I'm not going to tag it as incest for two reasons.

One) The op has confirmed none of that was intended as romantic or sexual, despite having an incestuous canon. A lot of other people, whether or not they have incestuous canons, often say the same or similar things. I think it would be hurtful and harmful to many people if we always interpret 'i love my sibling' as incestuous and not default platonic.

Two) I don't want to dilute the purpose of content warning tags. Meaning if a confession does not have explicit or implicit themes or topics, I will not use a content warning tag. That also means I will not blanket CW tag for sources. For example, if Supernatural has violence, blood, and murder, I'm not going to tag every Supernatural source confession with those tags. Otherwise it would become a useless tool to hide triggering content.

Considering I'm familiar enough with the name to tag the source, and that the op has a custom tag, perhaps blacklist one or both if it's a trigger for you.

Anonymous asked: I'm not the anon who asked, but the most recent Ashley Graves ask is this: https://fictionkinfessions.tumblr.com/post/760240297418588160/appreciation-for-andrewandy-graves-because-hes

I'm curious if the anon asking for a TW is OP of the ask or not? Because this ask doesn't seem to say anything inherently incestuous. If it is, sorry for my misinterpretation. But the only thing I could see as romantic in this ask is "taking me to prom," which siblings do sometimes platonically. The intent could be romantic, but imo, it's not INHERENTLY. And If OP meant it that way, I'm really not judging them for expressing how they feel. That's what the blog is for. But, if someone else is trying to take ANY expression of affection that way, just because of the source, then though those implications ARE in the text at some points, I still find it a bit unfair (especially on a kin blog).

So sorry if this is worded horribly or something, I am a little tipsy. And sorry if this sounds slightly personal, I am an Andrew.

Anonymous asked: ACTUALLY, if the last ask (about the Ashley Graves ask) went through, ignore everything I just said. I am drunk and thought I was being helpful, but I'm probably actually just complaining, lol.

Not the anon who asked for a TW on this post, but here is the link: /post/760240297418588160/appreciation-for-andrewandy-graves-because-hes

All I'll say is, I'm not actually sure whether this seems inherently romantic/incestous to me, but I have in fact been wrong before, and trust ur judgement MPC /gen

-Andrew

I'm neurodivergent so maybe I too am reading it poorly. But none of that confession sounded incestuous. It just sounded like a person grateful for an ally during a traumatic childhood.

Anonymous asked: Reply to https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/760375296515014656/mpc-can-you-tag-the-most-recent-ashley-graves?source=share

Okay, Anon, are you the same person who asked to tag incest for the post about my memory about going to the mall with Andrew?

Do you think me saying "I love you, you're an amazing brother" is incest? Damn, I can't appreciate my brother for being a good brother, can I? Or was it the fact I mentioned he took me to prom in my canon?

Do you just think everything I say about Andrew is romantically/sexually charged?

-Ashley Graves (who is now just completely pissed off)

MPC, I'm sorry for this mess. If you can't post this reply, just please let Anon know to better themselves and understand actual relationships 🤦🏻‍♀️

Clearly you can't, I guess. I can appreciate being told when I miss tagging something because I don't know the source or I miss subtext because I'm neurodivergent and don't understand the person. But like. Kinda weird they saw that and thought incest. I'm sure it's because of the source material, but still. Idk. That wasn't incestuous.

Connie / mod party cat

[gor3sigil]

That's absolutely awful that you were treated like that

I'm a guy (or... something like that, I wish I was a girl, but don't feel like one or have any interest in transitioning, and... you might get why there's other stuff that might complicate things as I say the rest of what I have to say)

I grew up with a man hating mother, since I was like 6 I had it deep in my head that men are dangerous, men are abusive, men just hurt people and always cheat. On a very core level I feel like men are subhuman (especially I feel subhuman as a man)... I would never in a million years direct that stuff at anyone else though, you know?

I'm not stupid, I understand that all this stuff going on in my head isn't reality, and that there's plenty of wonderful guys in the world. I don't have a right to shit on all the fantastic dudes I run into

Trans guys are awesome, deserve all the respect in the world. You deserve to be able to live your life and be supported in taking whatever path works best for you, and to have your identity respected 100%

Anyway, I hope my point's coming across ok and it's not sounding like I'm in the "why would you be a disgusting man" camp

That what I'm saying is even with shit like "men are trash, men are subhuman" running through my head... most hours of most days... mostly about myself, I'd never in a million years think it was ok to turn that on someone else. Like I'm legitimately deeply messed up with this stuff, think that should be pretty obvious, and I still don't think I get some kinda pass to say nasty stuff like that

Cause the fact is that those thoughts running through my head... they're pretty clearly not reality and not ok to fling at random other guys

Trans dudes are just as much of men as I am (maybe more, again, who knows on where I stand... don't worry to much about it to be honest, I yam what I yam). You deserve just as much respect as any other guy, and frankly no guy deserves to be treated as lesser just for being a man

(And... from another angle, I super feel you with those comments... I think a lot of my friends don't even begin to get how much they twist the knife in when it comes to my man hating, and really feed my ability to see myself as subhuman with their comments... which... when I step back from all the pain... it sucks cause all I want to do is make other people happy and make the world better, and it sucks that being a white dude means that, well that I'm seen as inherently predatory and abusive and I just kinda have to smile and take it even from friends I adore... even after they've said they see how it hurts me and don't want to do it anymore but then... just keep it up)

So sorry about the long message, I have trouble keeping things short cause I really want to... really want to avoid being misunderstood

Just know that what you're feeling on all this is so valid, and that even if someone's coming to you from a place of pain it's never ok to put you or anyone else down like that

Tran dudes are awesome. Pre-op, post-op, in a t-shirt or in a dress, no matter how they choose to present or live their lives, trans guys are men and deserve love and support and respect. Like there's no right way for you to be you, and... it's like that Van Gogh quote about "If I'm worth anything later I'm worth something now. Wheat is still wheat even if people mistake it for grass while it's growing", however it goes

Trans men are men, not matter what people mistake them for during their journey (trans women too, but... that's not the topic right now). You keep your head up and know you're as much a man today as you will be in 10 years, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a rude fool

But yeah, sorry this is so long. Hope I at least got my point across though. There's never an excuse to treat someone like you and other trans guys get treated, no matter what someone's hang ups are

I hope you have a nice day, I hope anyone who takes the time to read this long ass thing has a nice day too

Thank you so much for this adorable message, and I'm so sorry you went through all of that. I hope you find peace and are able to live as yourself and be proud of who you are. You deserve love and support and I send you plenty of it 💙💙💙

[theflyindutchwoman]

I read your reply to an ask about Tim and Isabel laughing together about the meditation and I think there are quite a few strange things in that episode. I do not really understand what the writers were trying to do, because to me Tim and Lucy’s communication is all off this episode. And communication is what they are so good at and really their strong point. It starts with Tim inviting Isabel to Lucy’s place and forgetting to tell her (I can forgive him on that, he had a good reason to forget..). But Lucy thinks it is weird, but says it only to Tamara. Isabel’s presence affects both Tim and Lucy’s behavior in a space (Lucy’s apartment) they are usually so comfortable. It is such a contrast to how close and cosy they were just before she arrived. 

Later Tim expresses to Isabel that Lucy is different, but does he communicate this to Lucy really? When Lucy and Isabel are in the car waiting, Isabel suggests they should turn off their mic, so Tim cannot hear and they talk about what being undercover entails. When Tim asks later what that was about and Lucy makes a joke instead of being honest, it gave me an iffy feeling. Cause no wonder he is already a bit defensive when Lucy wants to be vulnerable and says she is worried he won’t be able to handle her being undercover. I think he might suspect that the conversation he was cut out from was about discussing undercover experiences. On the one hand I think it is great that Lucy brought up her worries about how going undercover will affect their relationship and that she cares how it affects him (which is kind of how I read what she said). On the other hand she is not involving him in how she feels about it and what worries she was for herself. 

Also a bit sad that an episode that involved a lot of them not communicating well with each other ends on that note too :(

Sorry, this was a a lot of thoughts  and I do not if it makes sense. I am very curious what your take on it is :)

The way I see it, Isabel was used as a catalyst to propel this part of the UC storyline : how this is going to impact their relationship. Up until this point, Lucy and Tim had avoided that topic like the plague. Even after Noah's remark that UC was a relationship killer or his question as to why she hadn't done any op since finishing UC school… Isabel's return is what forced them to finally start this conversation. So I get why their communication was a bit off : this is only the beginning, where they themselves are trying to figure out how they feel and are unsure on how to proceed.

In some ways, it is a parallel with 1.01, when Isabel crashed back into Tim's life, pushing him to open up to Lucy. This is how their bond started… And this is the same here : Isabel showed up (almost) unannounced and soon after, Lucy and Tim started to be more open about their feelings. You can see the progression between 5.20 where he shuts down and try to pretend that everything is alright and 5.21 where they actually start to hash this out.

But yes, like you said, there were a few strange things… And I'm not sure if that was on purpose or if something got lost in the execution. Let's start with Tim inviting his ex-wife to Lucy's apartment… I get the idea behind this. By having Isabel coming over, it sent a clear message : Tim is basically living with her and he didn't want to hide anything from her. 'A place of honesty'. Plus, it made the transition in the scene easier. Just like I can understand why he didn't tell her… It's not like there isn't a precedent of his brain going blank when he sees Lucy in the shower. Don't get me wrong, it would have been preferable to ask her if she was OK with this beforehand… But as it was a last minute thing, I can get over it. The problem is that all these points were negated right away. If this was supposed to show them as a united front, then having Lucy being weirded out a bit changes the narrative. Especially since, like you said, it goes unaddressed. And that's really where the scene goes downhill for me. She is not only relegated to prepare the coffee while Isabel and Tim go to the living-room to talk (they could have stayed in the kitchen), she also has to sit on the floor, practically at their feet… Let's just say that this image made me very uncomfortable. I doubt it was intentional but still. And even without all the implications behind this, having Tim and Isabel sitting together with Lucy on the side contradicted this idea of united front. It completely threw off their dynamic and as it directly followed that lovely scene at the very beginning, it made the contrast even more jarring.

And it didn't end there… I feel like the writers suffered from a tunnel vision problem. They were so focused on making Isabel friendly that it sometimes came at the detriment of Lucy and Tim, as individuals and as a couple. The thing is, I really appreciate that they wanted her to be friendly with the both of them. She wasn't used as a device to come between them (not in a love triangle way) and that is so refreshing. But the execution didn't fully come through. Her scene with Tim at the station, where she laughs with him about the meditation, felt too much like a joke at Lucy's expense. And her scene with Lucy in the car, when they turn off the mic just to mess with Tim, came across as almost callous in light of his insecurities regarding secrets. And I don't think that was the intention at all in both cases. The scene between Lucy and Isabel was great on paper : Lucy has always looked up to the other female agents (Capt. Andersen, Nyla, even Angela though we don't have as many scenes). And she was already curious of Isabel when she met her in 1.03. So it made sense that she would want her opinion. And I liked that she felt comfortable enough to joke with her or that there was no jealousy/rivalry. But the camaraderie went a little too far when Tim or Lucy became the butt of the joke - at least, for me. Although the 'keeping secrets' part was addressed a bit in 5.21… So there's that. And it was clear during the episode that Isabel was overcompensating : I can't imagine how hard it must have been for her to go back to her old life, facing the people who saw her at her worst. It just needed a few tweaks here and there to make it more seamless.

As for that final scene in 5.20, I actually get where Lucy is coming from. She does open up first by sharing how much she loves undercover. She is being vulnerable here. She is aware that this is a sore subject with him and I believe a part of her might be afraid of his reaction as well. And that's why she wants to know how he feels. She knows his baggage here. Besides, that's her MO. They always focus on the other. Had she touched on how she felt, Tim would have jumped on that, instead of his own fears. There's also the fact that it is her choice to pursue UC, so she might consider her own worries to be her burdens, if you know what I mean. They are both learning how to be in this relationship, so they are bound to make some mistakes. Since 5.20 served as an introduction for the undercover mission in 5.21 and for that whole UC arc, I didn't mind that their communication was still off by the end of that episode (though I get it). I think the hesitation and the fear that were palpable helped a lot as well. So is the fact that they took a step in the right direction in 5.21 : they kept maintaining a line of communication and they both shared some of their fears. It's a work in progress in so many ways and there should be more to come. Maybe once we get to the bottom of this arc, everything will fall into places. I hope this helps a bit :)

[spaceboibrainrot]

Hey, if you are talking about the same post I'm thinking of (sorry if you are not): nobody defended assault. I interpreted the comment more like that both assault and murder are bad in real life, but people act like only assault is, which is just not fair.

As for the post, it was more about OP saying: "There are a lot of aspects that would make this ship bad in real life, so I don't get why people only have problem with one aspect and not the others. They are fictional characters, it shouldn't matter to you anyway, if you wanna ship them, just do that, there is no need for a justification.

I did see that post but I was referring to various posts and just in general since I've seen a far bit of the topic in my 6 months in this fandom I've seen a fair bit so it was mostly a coincidence with the other post timing wise

[infriga]

I watched the live action One Piece because of you and your excitement over it and I really loved it, so thank you! Wondering if you have suggestions of where to go next? Read the manga or watch the anime? It honestly seems a bit overwhelming, so not sure where to start.

That's awesome! I love inspiring people to try One Piece, it's a really fun ride! It's always great seeing new fans coming in to enjoy the series! 🤗

I wanted to be as informative and thorough as I could for anyone wondering about this, so this might be long, but I'll provide a summarized version to start then include the long version under a readmore if you want more info in order to decide. Sorry if it gets a bit rambling lol.

So the answer to the "anime or manga" question is not necessarily complicated, but it is a little more nuanced than some fans will lead you to believe (a lot of manga-only elitists have a hate boner for the anime to a degree that imo isn't warranted) . There are a few major factors.

Summarized version:

1) this one's obvious, but bears saying; if you prefer manga, go with the manga, if you prefer anime, go with the anime. If you like both, go with both, unless you only want to consume one. Some people tend to gravitate towards one over another, and that's fine.

2) if you're interested in consuming both, I recommend starting with the anime, then going to the manga after, to avoid tainting your experience with the anime by comparing it to the manga all the time. If you only want to consume one, stick to the manga, because it is the better version. If you're on the fence or haven't decided yet, start with the manga then decide if you want to also try the anime later.

3) if you want to consume the anime, then determine how much of the original experience you want to be retained. There's not many filler episodes, but they do exist, and there are watch lists that explain which episodes to skip if you don't want to watch them. Otherwise obviously the manga is the true original and is the best version of the story. The anime isn't terrible, I still enjoy it, but it does have its flaws compared to the manga. That said, it does also have some benefits you can't get from the manga such as the top notch voice acting (at least in Japanese) and incredible soundtrack. Also the animation in Wano has been sending One Piece fans to the emergency room with priapism lately so do with that what you will.

4) determine how much time you're willing to invest. The manga is going to be the fastest way to consume the series, but there is a fan edited version of the anime that speeds up the pacing to match the manga, and thus takes a lot less time to catch up on. You can also read the manga then look up your favourite scenes in the anime as a supplement without investing into watching the whole anime, either shorter or longer version. The only thing to keep in mind is don't ever skip any canon arcs, you WILL regret it later. Oda never forgets.

Where to watch/read:

If you want help finding a good place to read or watch the series, for free or otherwise, let me know and I can provide some links! I can also provide recommendations for which movies to watch and when if anyone is interested in those, or even just OP fanfic recs if there's a market for that lol.

Now, for:

The long version (oh god I'm so sorry this got so long I am incapable of talking about this topic succinctly):

1) what type of media do you prefer and have an easier time consuming? Comic or animation?

I have an anime only friend who struggles with reading comics for some reason (he can read books just fine, but he struggles with comics and he doesn't know why), but he loves the anime, and is even currently rewatching it so we can catch up on watching Wano together since that arc is ending soon and we like to wait and binge entire arcs instead of watching weekly. If you prefer one over another, then whichever that is, is fine fine to go with. If you don't have a preference, then your next factor is:

2) do you want to only consume one, or are you open to consuming both?

I read the manga and watch the anime. I get a slightly different experience from both, I prefer the art and pacing of the manga, but I love the voice acting and music of the anime, and some moments just hit harder for me in the anime. I haven't cried very often reading the manga, but I have cried quite a bit more watching the anime when seeing the same scenes, like full on sobbing at some points ngl. It's not that I think the moments are done better in the anime or that they're not just as sad, but I have an easier time crying when seeing something in motion with sound for some reason. I rarely ever cry when reading books or comics. It happens, but not as easily or as often. Also while the animation throughout most of the series is middling (not bad but not amazing) for most of the series, aside from major fights, the most recent arcs have seen a huge upgrade in regards to the animation, WCI to some extent but especially Wano. The animators have just been going HAM on the animation during Wano. Like, it's all but impossible to find good examples without spoilers because of just, how many spoilers there are at that point in the story, but I'll at least show Luffy being pretty lol:

That said, the anime isn't without its flaws, but I'll get to that in a bit.

If you do want to consume both, then personally I recommend watching the anime first. I find people who read the manga first are more prone to comparing everything in the anime to the manga and wanting things to fit 1:1, which I think puts the anime at a disadvantage and makes people a bit more hypercritical of it. But ultimately this is up to you. Maybe you don't know yet if you'll try both, in which case the manga is probably better because it's the version that, by its nature, is the best version, and will give you the original experience, and you can decide later whether you want to supplement that with the anime as well.

If you only want to consume 1, at least mainly, then the next factor is:

3) How much of the original experience do you want to stick to?

The One Piece anime doesn't have nearly as many filler arcs/episodes as other long running shounens have had in the past, and past Enies Lobby there's almost no filler arcs whatsoever, aside from the rare 2-5 episode arcs, usually ones that advertise the movies that came out not long after they aired. But there are some full filler arcs earlier in the anime, and the general consensus is that most are pretty meh. Not horrid, but nothing special, and many of them ended up accidentally contradicting canon when new information about the world or certain in-world systems came out later. There are watch guides for skipping these widely available, and most OP fans do recommend watching the G8 filler arc because it's viewed as the only one that is on par with, or at least close to, canon content. I enjoy it myself as well personally.

That said, one of my biggest gripes about the anime, especially after sabaody up until Wano, is how it takes Odas more mild level of sexualization in comparison and dials it up to 1000. At its worst it has taken scenes where a female character is introduced with a full body shot and a name/title card in the manga, and turned it into a scene where the camera zooms in on her boobs, thighs, waist, butt, and then slowly pans up her body starting from the feet, including boi-oing noises or weird many sound effects with each zoom in shot. It also increased the boobs sizes and decreased the waist sizes constantly, put a lot more effort and attention into boobs jiggles than was necessary, and at least one point they even blatantly zoomed in on Nami's boobs bouncing isolated on the screen while she was running for absolutely NO reason. Oda doesn't do this in the manga. He doesn't introduce women in bits and pieces focusing on their body parts in an oggling manner, he doesn't put their boobs front and centre unless it's maybe by accident because of necessary framing. Even when he has sexy shots of women, they're usually full body shots that also even manage to serve as establishing shots most of the time. I also often get the feeling that a lot of it is also him being aware of his target audience in Japan, which is teenage boys. You can see a lot of how his approach adjusted when he has a different audience in mind in the Live action, not only regarding stuff like diversity (which WAS present in the original, their real life equivalent ethnicities have been said to be diverse for a long time, but Oda himself, as much as I love him, only has one skin tone marker in his whole house apparently and he uses it for every single character in colourspreads and covers, including the characters that are supposed to be black, and the anime isn't much better on that front, so it's nice to really see the proof of the diversity visually in the live action in a way that doesn't come across as clearly in the anime or manga), but also in regards to adjusting shounen tropes to better fit a live action setting. You can see in a lot of his SBS answers that he takes his target audience and what he wanted to see as a young boy into account a lot even if he might otherwise explore different tropes or depictions or structures in a different medium or genre.

BUT the anime does have its flaws. I won't pretend that Oda doesn't draw his female characters sexier as the series goes on, and while he also does with the men (Zoro canonically has the biggest bust size on the crew according to Oda lmao) it's not to the same degree as the women. This is especially concentrated around Nami, possibly because Oda's wife is a Nami cosplayer and iirc he met her while she was cosplaying Nami. It's the most overt in certain later arcs, but not too present in earlier arcs up to, say, Sabaody. But, while he does draw the women sexier, he's not... Idk the right terminology to use but he doesn't employ an oggling pov towards the women very often. Not never, but compared to the manga you relatively rarely get much particular purposeful focus on body parts like boobs or ass, there's also never any panty shots (seriously, not a single one in the entire series). That's not so say that the series is always perfect in this sense, but rather that's to compare it to the anime. And while there are some things One Piece doesn't do perfectly sometimes, there are also a lot of things it definitely gets right about how the women are written as complex multifaceted people with conflicts and motivations just as deep and diverse and complicated as the men. They mostly just look extra seggsy sometimes, at least the main ones do. And YMMV, but personally I'm okay with some sexiness, so long as it doesn't compromise the characters story and personality and doesn't go overboard to the point of being softcore porn, which Oda doesn't do in the manga. And I also don't like how often criticism of sexiness turns into shaming any clothing that shows more skin. There's a difference between disliking fanservice and going full conservative prude.

Now from what I've seen this has gotten significantly better in Wano in the anime, probably because Oda himself purposefully played down even his own horniness during Wano because of the focus on traditional Japanese aesthetics and dress. Idk if it will get bad again after Wano, but a lot has changed regarding the way the anime is animated and directed since the last time it was bad, so hopefully not. But this can be a significant barrier to the anime for some people. If that's the case, then I definitely recommend the manga. It's the original, and in comparison it is practically chaste. It's not prevalent throughout the entire anime, it's mostly bad for the stretch from Fishman Island to the end of WCI, which consists of 3 big arcs and 2 smaller in-between arcs, but improves significantly in Wano, and isn't too bad in arcs before Fishman Island. Still more egregious than the manga, but not to the same degree. So it's possible you can tolerate it for that stretch since there are still lots of good moments in the anime in these arcs too. Though I'll note that there's quite a bit of censorship in the anime compared to the manga, Zeff eating his own leg for example, while included in the live action, was not included in the anime. Instead he lost it when it got caught in some ship debris while he was rescuing Sanji from drowning. Stuff like gore and blood are also tones down a lot. The live action honestly isn't any more gory than the manga is, even at the beginning. There's even less blood in the live action, the wound Zoro got from Mihawk was nastayyyy in the manga. Bro nearly got bisected fr.

Though I will say that I think one thing that helps make the more sexualized aspects of the series feel more balanced and a lot less center stage is that Luffy himself, the main character, is completely and totally 1000% gender blind. He's not blind to stuff like masculinity or femininity, but he's blind to whether masculinity or femininity is something that is only applicable to men or women. He likes plenty of manly things, there's a gag about him not wanting frills on his shirt because he doesn't think they're manly and he doesn't like that, but he doesn't think that it makes a man less of a man if he wears a frilly shirt, and he's not opposed to wearing other clothes that might be more feminine coded like his fuckin cute li'l dress thing in Egghead, or the literal dress he wears proudly for all of 3 seconds in Film Gold lmao. There are plenty of men in the series who wear frilly shirts. There are also men who wear makeup, wear pink, crossdress, etc. Luffy could not give less of a shit what men, or women, wear. He does not discriminate between women and men in how he treats them in any way shape or form, his awareness of gender expression is limited entirely in how he personally expresses *his* idea of *his* gender. If a woman pisses him off he'll beat them up just as easily as he will a dude. If a trans man says they identify as a man, he'll refer to them as a man, even if they have a more feminine appearance, and vice versa. He does not blink an eye at non-binary/genderfluid/queer characters, etc. That's one of my favourite things about his character, in part because I'm aroace and identify with him and his gender blindness a lot (among other things, he is an aroace icon for a reason lmao), but also because it's nice to have a 100% gender blind character as the main pov throughout the series.

Then there's the final factor, which is

4) How much time are you willing to spend?

The anime is undoubtedly the longer time investment. Which can be good or bad depending on your view. I know when I caught up sometime after episode 505, I was devastated at not having any more episodes to watch. I started out thinking "this will take me forever and I probably won't finish it", then shifted to "damn those 100 episodes went by fast, but that's okay, I still have 400 episodes left" to "200 episodes already? Well I'm not even halfway yet, that's fine" to "300... Oh God I'm already more than halfway" to "400!? Where are they all going?? Why aren't there more?!?" to "well I HAVE to read the manga now because I can't stand to wait for the episodes to come out weekly" then I banged out the rest of the series in the manga in a few days like I was a drug addict trying to hide my stash from the police by snorting it all at once. So to some, the length can be a blessing rather than a curse lmao. But if you are worried about length, the manga is a lot easier to go through without taking months and months to catch up, unless you take your time reading it. There is a fan edited version of the anime called One Pace, which takes out all the filler and adjusts the pacing to be closer to the manga, which might also be an option if you want to watch the anime but still want a less exhaustive itinerary to watch. They. Might even edit out a bunch of the excess sexual shots and editing in the anime though I haven't watched it myself to determine that. The main issue is that One Pace hasn't completed every single arc, but it is an option for watching the arcs it does have. I know Dressrosa is one of the longest arcs and might benefit from some trimming. I also recommend, if you choose the anime, to watch episodes in batches rather than weekly. While the pacing of the manga is quite a bit faster, so it lends itself to weekly updates better, the anime does suffer from being watched weekly. I've always binged arcs all together and I find that improves the experience a lot.

Aside from that, you can also always just read the manga then only look up and watch particular scenes you wanna see in the anime to get the experience with the voice acting and music and animation, without having to invest as much extra time into it. I may not be a dedicated anime hater, but I do agree that the manga is undoubtedly superior to it as a whole, so while I don't think there's anything wrong with being anime only, if you are open to both, but only want to choose one to consume, it's the manga all the way. You only have to start at chapter 1 and go from there. Or episode 1 for the anime.

I hope this helped, and wasn't too confusing or overwhelming. I know how daunting the series can be to get into so I wanted to try and be comprehensive and objective, and provide some approachable options for people new to the series by explaining some pros and cons of each approach.

[obsidianpen]

Anon who asked about baby sleep here. Sorry OP, I'm def not your MIL, and I seem to have struck a nerve, maybe your MIL asks you why your baby doesn't sleep the night and makes you feel pressured? That wasn't my intention at all, I'm sorry, I believe that every mother+child unit should do what works best for them, whithout pressure or guilt or shame. Nobody knows better than them. That being said, I don't breastfeed (can't, but it's a long story) and my babe doesn't take confort from my nearness to fall back into sleep during the night, he needs movement, he needs to be paced back and forth while in my arms, so I provide him this when he needs it, and sometimes he needs it a lot, so some mornings I'm shipwrecked. It's all right now, but soon I'll need to resume my job because money, and my job is stressful and demanding, so I fear: now I'm doing my best, but what if soon my best won't be enough? I also would like to say this: I'm not going to feel guilty or lacking for saying that I need sleep, and that I would like for my baby to sleep more. I feel that now motherhood is all about the baby wellbeing, the baby needs are at the center, he is like a mini God, he must be nursed, he must not cry, he must be constantly held, and that's all right, but what about the mother? Who doesn't sleep, eat, or rest for months, why is nobody thinking about her wellbeing while everybody knows that the baby wellbeing depends from hers? I rec to read "Matrescence" by Lucy Jones, to challenge our beliefs about motherhood. I wish all best to you and your wonderful baby, OP

hi again anon - I don’t really think you’re my MIL. 😜 this is kinda long and off topic so the rest is below!

She doesn’t ask why he doesn’t sleep - he does sleep! Really well most the time, actually! He just sleeps near me, that’s what she doesn’t get, and that’s fine, it can just get tiresome to talk about sometimes. 🙄 i hope you didn’t think i was saying… gosh most of those things you mentioned! You (and all parents but especially those who gave birth) do deserve rest, and of course your baby does too, and going back to work suuuuuccccckkkks when you have a baby (I was back full time for a few months in there), and it’s all really hard and of course no one should feel guilty about having needs. And some babies are just ‘harder’ than others, and it’s just the way they are!! Mine def went through a phase where he HAD to be rocked to sleep or it wasn’t happening. 🤷‍♀️ he grew out of it, though, so it does pass!

It sounds like you need some serious support, because you’re right - you shouldn’t be shouldering all that alone. There’s a reason they say it takes a village - one person being solely responsible for all of a baby’s needs isn’t just unfair, it’s really impractical and can be really harmful for both mom and baby. I had to woke things out with my partner where he would take the baby every weekend morning for a few hours so I could just sleep for a while, because I was doing the bulk of the night work, and that made a huge difference in my mental health. We can’t do it alone, we are not a village! But you are totally right - there is SO much focus on the baby’s wellbeing and basically none on the mother once baby is born. Post-partum care here is just…. Tragic really. Nonexistent aside form one quickly visit at six weeks, if that.

Onviously I have a lot of beliefs about a lot of things on this topic (for the record, I sleep with my baby close because that’s how I can also sleep, but that’s not the case for a lot of people/babes/moms and not what I think everyone else should do!), but the bottom line is that we don’t live in a society that supports mothers (or people who give birth) pretty much at all. That’s the real issue. Imagine having a year long paid maternity leave! How many lives that would improve… and here we are “lucky” if we get six weeks paid. 🥲

thank you for the rec!