#i think hed like happy hardcore

[vinegardranker]

Sometimes you draw things as a treat

[designernishiki]

definition : a character who has an obsessive and possessive side in regards to their crush, ready to use violent and murderous means to maintain an exclusive bond.

this came up in a conversation with my friend and it’s stupid but im curious what other people think

[zeronetxt]

i just want to say this for the sake of saying this.

the batkids' fav kpop groups (according to me)

i hc that they listen to kpop bc I listen to kpop. so heres the list starting w the 4 robins

Dick Grayson

TRUST ME WHEN I SAY THIS MAN IS A GG STAN. i can feel the vibes from here. he might enjoy a few lil bg songs but he is def one of those cutesy gg stans. i think hed vibe well w fromis_9's music bc its really upbeat yk

ULT: fromis_9

Le Sserafim

Twice

Jason Todd

there is NO ONE. ON THIS SAD EARTH. that can convince me he isnt a twice ult. however, he probs enjoys hardcore/noise music from bgs as well (which is fair enough) so there we have ateez and skz. im CONVINCED hes a chan ult, no idea why though. also i put lesserafim there bc yes. that man is just gonna be girling girling.

ULT: Twice

ATEEZ or Stray Kids

Le sserafim

Tim Drake

i was a bit less sure on tim's one, but im pretty sure these would probably be some of his top three, since the music is somewhat either really poppy or really hardcore, but i also feel like he'd enjoy listening to nugu groups, mainly nugu ggs. probably learns choreos too (get it girl)

ULT: æspa

TXT

Red Velvet

Damian Wayne

on the OTHER side of the spectrum is damian. this guy definitely knows the big groups (by 'big' i mean yg, jyp and hybe groups. anyone else, and hed be like "who?") i know for a FACT hes a bp fan.

ULT: Blackpink

NewJeans

(maybe) BTS

in conclusion however, id like to point out they are ALL twice stans real men stan twice

thats the robins done (minus steph, shes up next)

I personally dont know what i rly expect from the batgirls this time 😔

BUT

the batgirls (im bouta lock in)

barbara gordon

THIS WOMAN IS A GG STAN. is all i have to say pretty much about her. i just KNOW she loves hwasa. or just the girlbosses of kpop because yes.

MAMAMOO

(G)I-DLE

(i cant think of a third one, but i feel a bit of itzy or lesserafim)

adding kiss of life bc yes

cassandra cain

now for cass, my theory is she likes more rock or 'happy' music, no in between. like my mind thinks she'd like tws for some reason, like plot twist might actually be one of her favs. but then i also see her vibing to dreamcatcher, rolling quartz and day6 clear as day(6)

Dreamcatcher

Day6

TWS (casual probs)

Rolling Quartz

stephanie brown

now listen when i say this. THIS GIRL IS A MULTISTAN FOR SURE. i also definitely see her being into the music with a lot going on, such as nmixx or nct, or the groups with a diverse music range such as txt, enhypen or boynextdoor (for me personally), and p1harmony. i think girl would just LOVE itzy, and sing it in the shower or smth

NMIXX

NCT

ITZY

now there are a bunch of other groups that i think one of them would like, but cant place my finger on eg. kard or nu'est. but meh whatever, i have most of my repressed thoughts out. the one thing i need to say though: EVERYONE STANS TWICE IN THE BATFAM. and/or (mostly and though) lesserafim. thats is all :)

bonus:

duke thomas

im a bit less sure w duke's but i def know (in my messed up head) that he likes bnd. now i have this belief that EVERYONE in the batfam is a once, its a rule atm, so obv he also likes twice

boynextdoor

twice

lesserafim or kiss of life (not sure which he'd like more tbh 🧍👺)

[mamadarama]

bad end alt timeline?? oaugh i love mama and do rlly want him to have a happy ending (honestly anything going well for him would be nice at this point) but im SO curious <3

ohh man. ok. ooookkkkaaaay. so i sort of havent posted details about this one cuz it is A LOT to take in all at once..... and as we all know im a hardcore hurt/no comfort fan which is not everyones cup of tea. but um.... okay. okay. this is going under a readmore cuz itll be a long one

its basically if madaras storyline ended very soon in a worst case scenario. his reason for going on hiatus from mam and disbanding double face is because hes tying up loose ends . he holds being related by blood to too high a status and wasnt able to recognize in time that just because he no longer has a blood family doesnt mean he has no family at all. it becomes too much for him to bear and hes lonely, and cant imagine where hed be in the future. he starts to feel like hes becoming a dead weight for his friends and causing them too much secondhand distress . he thinks it would be better if he ripped the band aid off so to speak, it would hurt for a moment but never again *. he finishes tying up the rest of his loose ends, and commits suicide by jumping into the ocean from a cliff with a lighthouse where he and kanata spent a lot of time as children. (this isnt canon i made it up for impact) he felt it fitting to meet his end where it all began, in the water that acted as his red string of fate, remained a constant in both his best and worst memories, and has long since become a symbol of his grief.

* he is wrong about this.

his grave is on this cliff. kanata visits often to talk to him. kohaku also does. his family did in fact come to the funeral. chiaki feels a little guilty despite knowing it wasnt his fault. its easier with kanata supporting him. madara left a note telling him to take care of kanata. leo locked himself in his room again and would have followed madara if izumi hadnt snapped him out of it. kohaku wears his hair in braids regularly now. no one mentions it or double face. rei is coping well, he recognized the signs and had anticipated this might happen but knew he wouldnt be able to talk madara out of it, so he focused more on making the most of the time they had left together. he seems a little more distant these days though. tsumugi tries not to think about it. sora thinks about it a lot, but the feeling eventually stopped aching and became more of recalling fond memories. keito and mitsuru feel sorry for madara. kuro is still in shock since he had no idea about madaras history, and it probably wont ever fully sink in, which might be for the best.

also as a little bonus , read the lyrics to hey you by pink floyd after you read this post.

so yeah! thats my catharsis fuel. dw im in therapy.

[zivazivc]

OMG🫣😝😍❤️❤️❤️ Liv's parents are sooo cool and their designs are sick!!! What are their inspiration and can you tell more about this family 🥺❤️ ?

Thank you very much! I feel like I really hit the nail on the head with their designs, but the truth is they were cooking in my head for a very long time before this.

From the first time I thought about what all the bandmates' parents would look like, I was already thinking of making Liv's parents both Techno/Rock fusions like her. I think what originally made me gravitate towards this idea is the fact that Liv is the only one in the band who has a very very strong sense of self and does not have any kind of identity crisis or self image issues. I feel like the only way to make this fact feel believable in a young character in her position is through their parents. So I gave her parents who are both similar to her and each other and who are together and loving, and who live in a society of other Rock/Techno trolls too. (Also thinking about it more, it just made sense that the "rockers" and the "ravers" would have the largest population of mixed offspring, they're also right next to each other on the map, so i came up with the Shallows and all of that because of this...)

Liv's genre at the very start was very simply just electronic rock. But as I discovered more music over the past months she became more industrial metal with punk elements. - My OCs develop a lot by me bouncing them off each other. When Hed and Liv meet, Hed's Rock/Metal instincts are very much suppressed from living almost his entire life around Funk Trolls. I needed Liv's genre (to obviously feel right for her, but also) to be hardcore enough to be able to bring out Hed's suppressed side without clashing with his love for rap.

At the moment this is the most "Hed and Liv making music together" song I have in my playlists:

Now that Liv's genre/playlist stopped changing so much and I've been happy with where I am with her for a while, I was able to determine her parents' genres based on that. Which was simply one parent being Industrial Metal and the other something electronic and punk (which I later found out is just called Electropunk lol).

Her dad Flint is heavily based on Keith Flint from the Prodigy. So heavily he is basically that guy's trollsona lol.

The Prodigy, if you don't know, were pioneers in fusing dance music with rock music. It was pretty fascinating reading about it. I recently watched this good and not-dragged-out video about their origins and till their biggest single Firestarter.

Even before I started designing any of them I knew I wanted to give one of the parents' very stylized neon "shark teeth". In my mind it felt like such a good fusion of sharp Rock teeth and the weird blocky neon Techno teeth. And when I fixated on Keith Flint for inspiration it just felt right to give them to him. Look at this guy!

I named the dad Flint simply after this guy's last name. But also it's a nice rocky name. Also flint was historically used to start fire which kind of makes it a punk name in my opinion too. Plus -> Firestarter, the big Prodigy single. :P

The mom I designed after I outlined the dad and I didn't have any particular person in mind for her. Her design is mostly Liv's characteristics that I didn't yet represent in her dad. Direct outside inspiration was more or less just these cool neon rave pants because she deserved some bright color lmao.

I gave her a German accent because I always imagined Liv with a vague European accent, and also simply because Germans seem to be the gods of industrial metal. But my music inspiration when drawing her was also Laibach, which is a Slovenian band, so I gave her the name Meta because it is both a German and Slovenian name (In German it's a short form of Margarete meaning "pearl", and in Slovenian the name literally means "mint".) Meta also just felt like a good fit to go along with Oblivion, Liv's full name.

Now as I've written all this and read the question again I realize this is probably not what you were asking for at all... But consider this as a bit of a behind the scenes for my AU. 😅 Bonus content on the dvd but instead in the form of a boring tumblr post. :P

[yamchaas]

Give me a minute here alright 😩

[rakkutron]

Kiri Headcanons

literally only one person follows me on here which means i can talk about the embarrassing shit that spawns in my brain about my hyperfixations however much i want,, so!! here’s my kirishima head canons 

-kirishima is just a big puppy

-no like legit he’s the human embodiment of a puppy 

-kirishima as a pro hero gets like a SHIT TON of fan mail and reads all of it

-occasionally, hed even write back

-on the topic of fan mail, he has a P.O. box for his fans to send stuff to because sometimes the mailbox gets so filled with stuff his fans send him that he cant make out whats fan mail and whats bills 

-that of course doesnt stop his fans from sending weird shit directly to his agency 

-one crazy ass fangirl sent kiri a literal vile of blood and he politely sent it back asking her too keep her blood inside her 

-kiri has a spare room in him and bakugous shared house dedicated to merch of the both of them, its really sweet

-kirishima think he would make a pretty good dad

-and hes right!

-if kirishima ever adopts a girl with bakugo he says he wants to name her ruby, hes proposed the middle name riot but bakugou always shuts him down

-kirishima is garbage at cooking, like literally, his food is hot fucking garbage (no offense to my liddle hard boi) 

-before he and bakugou decided to move in together he basically only survived off of noodles 

-kirishima only trusts bakugou to dye his hair since every bakusquad member has pranked him when asked (mina dyeing it ping, kami bright green, and sero with orange) 

-kirishima is a himbo (thats not even a headcanon thats a FACT) 

-kiri cried at graduation 

-i mean full out fucking sobbed 

-it was extremely uncomfotable

-he is NOT a cute crier 

-kirishima snores LOUDLY  

-before kiribaku went public kirishima used to pose as a fan and go on fanforums and pretend to be a hardcore shipper

-kirishima has written and read fanfiction MULTIPLE times on the fan forum to “deepen the act”

-his nicknames for bakugou include but are not limited to: kat, kats, and suki

-kirishima used to CONSTANTLY get bombarded about his lovelife before they decided to go public 

-most reporters didnt even BELIEVE the possibility he liked men

-but one time he did stumble across a “does kirishima is gay” article and absolutely lost his shit 

-sometimes kiri would try to spell it out for reporters when questioned abput a possible girlfriend by saying “i dont think my roomate bakubro would appreciate that very much” 

-reporters often took that to mean that hes loud in bed, so when asked about such implications he would go “oh yeah bakugous always complaining about how loud i snore” 

-much to bakugous dismay, kiri is big spoon 

-since we’ve already established kiri is a fucking dog, lets further it by saying head pats are he and katsuki’s love language

-kirishima has two moms who are extremely nice, to the point where it scares bakugou how one family can be so nice 

-kiris moms arent too fond of bakugous attitude but warm up to him when they see how happy he makes kirishima

-kirishima fucking LOVES physical affection,, like he needs it to SURVIVE 

[transheavy]

003 with medic for the ask meme... and maybe 002 with heavymedic (obviously without the nsfw question) Im Geniunely Curious

send me a thing and ill tell you all about my views on that character/fandom/ship!

003 - Medic

How I feel about him: I LOVE HIM!!!!! hes such a giant dork, and I always get attached to characters like him (its 100% bc my boyfriend is also an irl mad scientist sh) and they just make me really happy, and also i project myself a LOT on him....he was the first one I was introduced to and i always had an eye on him and Heavy!!!!!!

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

- Heavy Weapons Guy

- Misha

- Heavy

- The Tallest Class In TF2

- my first tf2 kin

My unpopular opinion about this character: he is NOT a sadist. he cares deeply about his team, but also i feel like hes not the 100% dad figure hes made out to be? to me hes more of a choatic uncle but i do think hed make a good dad. just a dad with uncle vibes. hes also fucking feral and emotional and i wish people let him be that!!!

One thing I wish would be comfirmed / happen in canon: JEWISH MEDIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and also heavymedic!!!!!!!!!!!

My OTP: HEAVYMEDIC!!!

OT3: dont have one for Ludwig sadly!!!

002: HeavyMedic

When I started to ship it: Durning my hardcore Overwatch phase over a year ago! I wasnt into TF2 but im a HUGGGGGEEE roadrat stan (its. one of my biggest fucking comforts ever) and it gave me really big roadrat vibes, I just didnt wanna let go of my ovw hyperfocus,,but i read fics and i enjoyed it! I didn't start start until i stumbled across a SUPERRRRRRRR sweet fic and it just. made me fall in love!!!! oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! id talk about them so much more if I wasnt so scared of making them ooc

What makes me happy about them: first off, it reminds me of me and my bf which makes me SUPER stimmy and happy!!!! It also reminds me of a lot of other comforts I have, like Reanimator and Roadrat which....(:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I also just love the little guy/big guy dyamnic, im SUCH a softie for ships like that and.....(((((:!!!!!

What makes me sad about them: the entirety of Naked and The Dead, first off (minus the end) and the amount that Medic missed Heavy when he was gone and also the fucking dumbasses in this community who bitch abt the ship

Things done in fanfics that annoy me: MAKING ! MEDIC ! WEAK!!!! medic can hold his own and hes a very strong man, emotionally and physically, for FUCKS sake he looked the devil in the eyes and said "FUCK you" for the most part, and I also dont like Heavy being potrayed as stupid or god forbid fucking abusive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What I look for in a fic: ....jewish medic....also my adhd prevents me from reading long fics so I rlly enjoy one shots!!! Also ones where Heavy is being comforted make me super happy, or where theyre on an equal playing field

Who I'd be comfy with them ending up with if not one another?: idk??? maybe medic and engie but....//: im not sure i dont like any other pairing minus them together

My happily ever after for them: THEYRE MARRIED AND RAISE THE BABOON BABIES AS THEIR OWN GN

[jaybaumans]

Which if the RLM boys would fare better in prison?

Oh WOW what a question. Let’s think this out:

1. Jay- no way could he make it past a month. Unless maybe it’s one of those nice, low security prisons where people who commit tax fraud go. Then I feel like he’d at least make friends cuz he’s pretty likable. But if we’re talking hardcore PRISON prison I think he’s just too pretty to get through it. He’d get picked on for being small and he’d lose his mind with the daily routine, bad food, and lack of privacy. He’d be shell shocked for sure. He’d probably go crazy or get hurt within like a month like I said, but I’d give him five months tops cuz he’s smart so he could last longer if he really tried

2. Mike- hes decently tall and moderately intimidating physically, and I think he can hold his own in a rough environment. I think he’d hate the food and he’d get pretty bored in the cell but I think he’s social enough to get by with the other prisoners. He’s funny too, so that’s a plus. But he doesnt have like a skill that he could take advantage of in there. Like he wouldnt have a way to smuggle in drugs for trade and probably couldn’t make weaponry or draw well enough to be a prison tattoo artist, which nobody would mess with (I saw a doc once). I think mike could do a year behind bars but after that I think it’d be too much for him.

3. Rich- he’s a handyman so he could make cool things and use them for trade. Like extra snacks and stuff so the cafeteria food wouldn’t be that unbearable for him. He’s social enough to be fine with the other prisons and make a couple friends/ make good conversation with people but he’d also be ok when he’s just alone in his cell. He’d probably just read books and nap when he’s not tinkering with things. He’d also make the best shank out of the bunch. So if it gets to that point hed defend himself, but he probably wouldn’t win. I think he could get used to prison and could do a good couple years no problem.

4. Jack- he’d go crazy for sure. Like first week he’d lose his damn mind. He’d spend all day writing to his wife and the other guys about how much prison sucks. All his phone time is spent talking to his kids. He would shut down if things ever got violent and he wouldn’t have anything to offer in terms of trade. He’d try to make friends but wouldn’t be able to fake happy and keep his cool for long. Mentally he’d last about a week but since he’d mostly keep to himself and not cause trouble I think he could do a good 6 months to a year before it became way too much to handle.

Conclusion: Rich would fare the best, given the prison wasn’t violently gang filled. It if it was I think he could hold up if he really committed. Rich is second place, and jay and jack are at right about the same place but if I had to choose i think jay would fare slightly better than jack.

[swampgallows]

I love seeing your Warcraft rave posts, and I've discovered a lot of new music as a result! Do you have any songs you associate with particular characters?

I’ve had this post in my drafts forever because it’s hard to call up the memory on command, so when I remembered them I’d come back to write them down! not all of them are rave music necessarily but hopefully they’ll still be new tunes :) 

I’ve since added pics and fixed links, so this post is now under a cut! 

In alphabetical order:

Anduin Wrynn: Force & Styles feat. Jenna — Heart of Gold [Happy Hardcore]

In the happy hardcore scene this is a HUGE love song, like, people GET MARRIED to this song; it is an ANTHEM that has been played out to a point where people groan at the first note. So it can be kind of bittersweet for some people, but luckily I don’t have that association so I get to just enjoy it and think of a small golden boy. 

(I do groan when it comes on though because it’s a whopping 8 minutes long and nobody ever mixes out of it early. They would never DARE)

“Another day has passed me by /Of shattered dreams, a distant cry /And a feeling that I’ve lost my world to you”

***

Bwonsamdi: Ozric Tentacles — Valley of a Thousand Thoughts [Psychedelic Rock]

If Bwonsamdi appeared in a Humongous Entertainment title, this would be his background theme song.

***

Garrosh Hellscream: okay this is the real reason i’ve put off this post for so long, i’ve had a Garrosh Hellscream gabber/hardcore mix (and by “mix” i mean a continuous vinyl DJ mix on turntables recorded in one take) in the works for actual years and I can’t decide on how I want anything to go but please just know I (obviously) have like an entire trove of songs for he.

For now I’ll leave you with these two:

Sabaton — Carolus Rex [Power Metal] (thank you @swarnpert!) “All I see, give to me, that is my decree / My will be done”

Advanced Dealer — Hellscream [Gabber/Hardcore]this track is nuskool DOODOO but it’s got siege samples and a harpsichord so i’m contractually obligated to link it. Plus I messaged Advanced Dealer about pressing it to wax and he was like “nah” so I’m mad lmao“I will show you what it means to be called Hellscream!”

***

Jaina Proudmoore: Plumb — Damaged [Downtempo/Trip Hop] (abuse tw)

She has been through way too much.

“Healing comes so painfully / And it chills to the bone”

***

Jastor Gallywix: Julie Coulson — Big Time Operator [Hi NRG/Eurobeat] 

I was so excited to get this ask because I’ve wanted to share this song with a Gallywix association so so so so bad hahahaha

“He’s a hard cash excavator / Mississippi alligator / All he wants is money!”

***

Khadgar: The Shamen — Ebeneezer Goode [Rave] (drugs cw)

This song is actually about ecstasy/MDMA [”these F-in’ ‘E’s are good”] but the literal interpretation about an old man who’s the life of the party is spot on.

“But once you know he’s fun, and something of a genius / He gives a grin that goes around from face to face to face”

***

The Lich King: The Police — King of Pain [Rock/Pop]

This one basically applies to the Lich King as a concept, as a bunch of different parts of it correspond to Arthas Menethil, Ner’zhul, and Bolvar Fordragon. Also I just really really really love this song and wanted to include it lmao

“There’s a king on a throne with his eyes torn out /There’s a blind man looking for a shadow of doubtThere’s a rich man sleeping on a golden bed /There’s a skeleton choking on a crust of bread”

***

Maiev Shadowsong: Scott Brown — Now is the Time [Happy Hardcore] 

Any version of this track works, but this one’s my favorite. (winks at @aeiroki​) 

“Now is the time!” 

***

Malkorok: Darrien Kelly & Scott Brown — Geleihoofd [Gabber]

It, uh. It means “jelly head” :o)

***

Medivh: Scott Brown — The Stranger [UK Hardcore]

I first read The Last Guardian in high school and had started my deeper foray into hardcore, so these two are deeply, intrinsically linked. I get serious goosebumps hearing it again.

“There was a stranger who came into our town. He was tall, and dark, and had eyes that could look right down into the bottom of you.”

***

Nathanos Blightcaller: Miss Nicky Trax — Hooked On You [New Beat] 

(more like nathanas/sylthanos but w/e) 

Not that anybody asked but I associate this track with Molotov Cocktease from the Venture Bros too. LOL

“I love him but I want you / Only for a day or two”

***

Prophet Velen: Vinylgroover & The Red Hed — Hell’s Drums [Hard House]

I can’t really explain this one; I recently got a grip of hard house records and the moment I heard this one Velen just popped into my mind. Plus I’m a sucker for drumline stuff

“A master of time and space”

***

Sylvanas Windrunner: :Wumpscut: — Wreath of Barbs (Prospero remix) [Industrial/EBM]

This is another old, old, old association. Like, vanilla night elf model Sylvanas and Myspace old.

“And bodies lay in decay / Dreaming of a greener day”

***

Princess Talanji: Temperature Drop — Mosquito’s Tweeter [Acid Techno]

I can just hear her singing this and wagging her finger!!

“Wash out your mouth / Your lies are getting rusty” (original)

***

First Arcanist Thalyssra: The Age of Love — The Age of Love (Watch Out for Stella Club Mix [Jam & Spoon]) [Trance]

I looped this a lot while doing the Insurrection questline lol. It starts with a quiet, somber heartbeat of a kickdrum, but watch out for the dentist drill…

“Come on, dance with me / Move your body, your life’s a beat”

***

Thrall: Toto — Africa [Rock/Pop]

I’m not fucking around.

“Hurry, boy, she’s waiting there for you!”

***

Tyrande Whisperwind: Eluveitie — Dessumiis Luge [Folk Metal (acoustic)]

This song, like many by Eluveitie, is sung in ancient Gaulish, and happens to be an old curse on Roman leaders set to powerful music. This has been *THE* Tyrande track for me since it came out in 2009.

“Etic secoui toncnaman toncsiíontío meíon toncsesit /Buetid ollon reguccambion exsops pissíiumítsoccaantí rissuis

(The small shall become great, the crooked become straight, and, though blind, I will see.)”

***

Varian Wrynn: Ensiferum — In my Sword I Trust [Power/Folk Metal]

(don’t tell anybody but i usually kick this up to 1.25 speed lmao)

“Pull your blade in a blazing shore / She’ll never wait and may make war”

***

Varok Saurfang: 3 Steps Ahead — I’m a H.C.M.F. [Gabber/Hardcore] 

Thunderdome was the same weekend as Blizzcon 2017 so the BFA cinematic and 3SA are just melded together in my mind.

“Don’t try to stop him, you can’t hold him back / He’s a hardcore motherfucker, leader of the pack”

***

Vol’jin: Strawberry Alarm Clock — Incense and Peppermints [Psychedelic Rock]

Quintessential 60s track. Don’t you think he’d smell like them too?

“Dead kings, many things I can’t define / Occasions, persuasions clutter your mind”

***

**BONUS** 

Thraina (Thrall x Jaina Proudmoore): The Police — Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic [Rock/Pop]

MY PARENTS!!!! This is like a “young Jaina” song for me too. Weird that I’ve included The Police TWICE but the calliope is just so cute!!

“It’s a big enough umbrella / But it’s always me that ends up getting wet”

–

This list is pretty long as it is but if there’s a character you want, i can try to find a song for them. The ones above are just immediate associations rather than hunting for tracks that “work”. There are certainly more characters but these so far are the only ones that really stand out for me.

I also recommend @fitzefitcher​‘s numerous playlists for everything from dungeons/raids to fanfics to ships!

[atthebell-moved]

syti characters list etc.

making a post for this so i can link it instead of writing essays in my notes. will add when more characters come up/as needed. spoilers for ch. 2 included below.

phil: fae, has wings, is old as shit, immortal. he traveled the world and built a bunch of shit (hardcore... im shot before i can finish the thought) and then died but Death was so enamoured with him they got married and she brought him back to life or whatever idk

kristin: Lady Death, death goddess, not quite as old as time but almost, idk lots of cool powers. she was very tired of her job after a bit but was inspired by this freak little man (i wonder who) and fell in love & blessed him. she still has her day job but shes started delegating more and going on vacation. idk im just saying things

techno: around 12-13, little piglin guy, changeling (if you want a long post explaining my reasoning on techno, wilbur, and tommy being changelings, lmk), also immortal bc changeling + son of Death. phil found him in the nether and brought him home.

wilbur: 8-9, human, changeling, also immortal bc changeling + son of Death. kristin found him while she was walking around a nearby city. wilbur and techno are twins bc idk i said so no theyre not the same age or species but wilbur decided it and everyone just lets him say it bc it makes him happy

tommy: itty 18m-2yo, vampire (not a turned vamp-- if you want more vampire lore pls ask i will never shut up about it. but yeah he just spawned in the woods one day) wilbur found him in the woods and brought him home; before that, tubbo and ranboo had been playing with him and bringing him snacks for a few months. phil and kristin, by adopting him as theirs (well. mostly wilburs fault but theyre happy with it obvi), have adopted him as a changeling.

puffy: no clue. probably a bit young to have teenagers but old enough to have been a pirate for like at least a decade so like. 35. idk. sheep hybrid, semi-retired pirate captain. once her boys get a little older she'll probably un-retire and theyll join her crew.

dream: 13, dragon! puffy found him as an egg that poachers were trying to smuggle at the docks and stole him back. his original clutch was gone, although they tried looking for them, so now he lives with puffy and foolish and shares his dad's hoard

foolish: 14, shark totem hybrid. idk puffy found him as a little totem baby/shark pup while stealing from another pirate and was like free baby why not idk

captainsparklez: adult werewolf, like 30-something. found eret in the same city kristin found wilbur in, and brought her home once he couldnt track down her sire. crumb appeared in his house one day and just never left, tubbo is a little wolf he found or adopted like normally or idk hes his kid with iskall who knows

eret: ~13? idk. eret was sired and abandoned as a very young vampire and the captain found him in an alley and brought him home, but hed been exposed to direct sunlight and it really damaged his eyes. they can see but theres weird film over everything; they use vampire magic to see a little better. i didnt

crumb: idk itty bitty like tubbo and tommy but theyre a weird little cryptid so ???. the ages in this make no sense anyway. but yeah shes like a cryptid creature with a box over their head who just showed up in the captain's house one day.

tubbo: 3-4 tiny tiny baby but old enough to get into the woods and cause mischief. like i said you can think of whatever explanation you like for how jordan got him i just think that hc is adorable

ranboo: ???, weird little woods cryptid. he has big floppy ears and long limbs and idk he looks funky. whatever you imagine him as, thats what he looks like. tubbo found him in the woods after he found tommy and theyve been hanging out for a few months. he speaks in little chirps and shit and can teleport.

schlatt bc i just mentioned him in ch 2: idk like 14, also a spawned vamp & not a changed one. him and wilbur like to shove each other into bushes. he likes to think hes a lone wolf but he hangs out with everyone. phil keeps offering to let him stay with them but he "has a very fucking cool castle, old man, leave me alone" (the castle is a stone hut in the woods, he is a disaster)

niki hasn't appeared yet but she will: like 7-8, itty little merling. she lives in a creek near the woods, wilbur found her there once after he fell in and goes and visits her twice a week. her and dream hang out sometimes when he wants to go swimming and idk ill think of more when i get to the chapter with her

and more to come!

[kawaiiwamine]

((I was hoping someone else would send it but you definitely do the character breakdown for Shuu. Iwasweetie or Iwamine or both. Someone talking about the rationalising of their muse is always interesting))

ask and you shall receive!! im putting the cut right up here bc uh wow lmao

Iwameanie

How I feel about this character

stupid sexy iwamine…. really tho thats the crux of its. hes hot to trot. and a megane. and scientists get extra hot points im just gonna say it. and hes gay. god made him for me. if iwamine shuu didnt exist i would have to invent him. i need him

All the people I ship romantically with this character

oh boy. i like shipping and i like him so ofc,

well i already talked abt my fondness for shuuya, so theres that

gotta have that papaiwa, of COURSE im too much of a softie to not have a scenario in which his crush is requited

with hitori? oh boy thats good. nanaiwa is good but not my ideal iteration of the ship. but idk smth abt him w hitori… theyre almost the same age, both are scalding hot, hitori is a character that i think would be capable of standing up to his regular shuu bs. its good! its always good whenever i see it and i want more!

you know what else is good? shuukazu! with kazuaki-kun! i can mainly thank selina for turning me on to it, it seems cracky at first but ive gotten to the point where im actually invested. its cute, what can i say? something about the coldest, meanest character having a soft spot for the frailest, squishiest character is just too delicious to pass up. and of course i have to mention that staff trio? ot3 to end all ot3s

im also gonna mention tohri (i like to call it nishuukikouji) its not one of my TOP ships and i dont think abt it too often but whenever i do see it im like yeah! hell yeah! and id def rp it given the opportunity

My non-romantic OTP for this character

i said this when i talked abt nageki but i feel like they could find some common ground in the right circumstances! shuu can be a good Fun Uncle that lets him get away with way more than hitori does lmao. really tho i would be happy to see him getting along w… anyone……. at all…………………………………

My unpopular opinion about this character

is genuinely wanting him to be happy unpopular? probably. ppl will say he doesnt deserve it but look… thats not the point……. the point is just that i need more positivity in hato dkjfhgkdhfj. also literally his entire life is just so sad its so pathetic and hard to watch i just need him to have like one good day at least ok. do it for me

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

well if ryuuji could not die that would be fucking SPECTACULAR. at the very least try to do as little murder as possible ok dear. make some friends or smth. please.

The man! The myth! The legend! Iwasweetie!!!

How I feel about this character

oh boy we could be here all day. so obv i loved shuu from like. day one. heres the thing tho… im a big ol softie who wants everyone to get along and be happy. i mean ok yes i also love angst… a lot…. but when the canon situation is already sad af i gotta Do Smth abt it. bc really everything abt shuu is so depressing already it doesnt need to be any worse please

so yes iwameanie in everyone lives aus and redemption arcs and all thats GREAT. like it, love it, gotta have it. but i also had another idea, which is just: what if he was? nice?

(i was mainly inspired by a sketch moa drew of a disturbed yuuya contemplating the idea of a nice shuu. also there was very briefly an ask blog abt a nice shuu which i thought was adorable but sadly idr the url! if its even still up!)

another big advantage is that since iwasweetie is so diff from iwameanie in so many ways, i have a lot of wiggle room. hes so vaguely defined in canon, which means i have a lot of opportunity to kinda do w/e i want which is really fun! theres enough already there to guide me and him having pre-established relationships is also helpful ofc but it also feels v liberated.

also since his life Is better, i dont have to feel so guilty abt putting him thru angst! woohoo

so honestly after all this time i just. love him. how could i not? obv bc ive rped him for so long but also bc hes just more. well hes actually lovable. bc he doesnt kill kids. thats nice. also hes just way more down to earth and easier to relate to so thats a big advantage too! basically i just. adore him and i want him to be happy (most of the time)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

everyone i said for iwameanie! its already blog canon (or “kawaiicanon” as i say) that hes crushing hardcore on hitori. that doesnt mean its blog canon that it actually happens, or that it doesnt. its left open to possibilities. he just has that Crush, thats for sure

also, him with kazu would just be. unbelievably sweet. you already talked abt it and tbh i agree w it all. it would be so good for them to have each other and it would probably be nice for shuu to have someone to dote on, maybe hed take better care of himself if he had someone else to take care of too

My non-romantic OTP for this character

ok i already said nageki but im gonna reiterate it here bc their relationship is SO important!! i love them!! theyre a little ragtag family of misfits but their love is the purest the earth has ever seen and thats a cold hard FACT

OH YOU KNOW WHO ELSE? SAKUYA. sakuya obv has a dumb gay crush on shuu already, maybe it would be helpful for him to have a role model he looks up to thats actually. kind of a good influence??? honestly m le bel needs to just Die and then shuu can adopt him, problem solved

My unpopular opinion about this character

hes just objectively the superior shuu and thats how it is i dont make the rules

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

eat more. sleep better. be happier. go to therapy. and please come out, honey

[princess-megz]

Who do you ship your mutuals with and why?

this post is basically me giving lots and lots of love to my dear mutuals; i don’t wanna spam y’all so it’s all gonna be under here! nfkajsndc also this is in no particular order i love all of y’all so much based off of broduce trainees! 💖

@simplicitwannaone • laulau🐮hi first of all i love you second of all i ship you with senwoo i mean what i ship you with me ???? ?? not me i didnt say that i ship you with pjh your ultimate bias ?? i ship you with me i need to stop and do this serIOUSLY i ship u with your ong!!!! i ship you with gong seongwoo because first, your introverted personality irl will match with his outgoing loud one, also hes 179cm perf for your giant height u hardcore tol!!!! third hes also down to kabedon you give you cuddles so yall can be tol softs together

@heochannies  • meike 🌸visuaL!!!! i missed you welcome back minhyun bc yall give me ceo couple vibes daniel!! bc yall would look so so soft at home just cuddling and just you cooking and him just hugging your waist i just- awwwwwwww buT THEN LIKE if yall were going to like a fancy gala and you just dressed up in a long fancy gown and your face beat and him with his hair slicked back o my gosh yall would look sO GOOD i need to stop but yall would be couple goals jsndckjnak

@laji-101 • krissy❣️krISSY !! huehuehue i ship you with gunhee? guanlin? me? hehehe i ship you with guanlin! hes so soft irl and you wouldnt crush him when you hug him!!!! hed probably crush u but thats besides the point you guys awww soft awks couple best ship wow one tol and one smol how cute and u cant forget!!! guanlin is such a meme hes a s-swaggy rapper ;))

@seungkwanslowqualityenglish • mom!!!mom!!!!!! i feel like wine mom would look good with ahjumma jisung!! aside from the fact that yall have a lot of motherly instincts i think that you would smother each other in love and treat each other to cute lil dinners and he would buy you cute lil rose bouquets and i feel that this would be a rlly cute rlly domestic relationship d’awww but i lowkey ship u with jaehwan

@thegentlemanukulele • natnat 👑naTTT!!! Official Visual™ whats good i ship you with minhyun wait no dingdong but also minhyun stop what about dingdong mINHYUN I SHIP YOU WITH MINHYUN yall will be the official ceo organised couple u cuties i feel like with your soft innocence and his hardcore exterior w his soft heart yall will be so cute and there will be lots of cuddles and and and and jusT EVERYTHING about this ship is so adorable and uhngkasdckn its so cute youre so cute

@dae-vil • daEDAE ♡( ◡‿◡ )daedae!!!! are you feeling better i hope you are

@jihoonslattee • chiii (￣ε￣＠)chiiii!!! i ship you with jihoon !! anD NOT BECAUSE YOU BIAS HIM nksndckjn but because your lovely welcoming personality would be able to support him when hes feeling down :(( also i feel like you would be able to tolerate his lil aegyo moments unlike christy who would probably just roast the shit out of him and his somewhat cute fashion sense aww ^^ anD yall,,,, dance couple,, need i say more? the potential duet covers yall could do,, :’) thE BEST!!!

@peachiejihoonie • jiejie 😍wow my actual jiejie hows life with our parents been in the us???? good????? thx for leaving me behind in hk thx sis rlly appreciate it sjNCKSJN anYWAYS back to the point i ship you with lowkey minki??? mostly bc yall would be able to roast the living shIT out of each other with no feelings hurt bc ur a highkey savage and hed also be able to make u laugh a lot whicH IS SO CUTE and he’d act all tough when hes out on a date with u like ‘smh stay away creeper dudes this is mY gIRL’ and youd probably smack him but youd lowkey be shimkunging aw speaKING of creeper dudes although minki is lanky i think hed also be able to prOTECC u not that u need it but i feel like he’d have a protective instinct over u idk why bUT awwww jiejie youre so cute pls dont fight chi bc i shipped her w jihoon

@wildereyes • rach (ノ*°▽°*)raCH!!!! hehe hi!! i ship you w donghyun!! hes so soft and adorable and if youre ever having a bad day i feel like he’d be the type to do anything to make you laugh again :’) anD JUST him singing and you dancing and nsdkjackjsndkacn amAZING i support 101% yall would be so cute and i feel like yall would have compliment wars u know!! like ‘you look so cute today’ and his entire face would just light up and ‘nOOOooOOo youre the cutest’ and cue a never ending bickering match wow i love this nsdjnk

@kakaotaeks • eggslurper #2 lenlen!!lennie!!! we miss you so much pls come back when you have the time !! u know i gotta ship my homegirl with hyeongseob,, both yall wILD i mean who could forget the time when you got into fnc and started twerking #neverforget but when yall are together.. its just so soft,, so domestic with the cuddles on the couch and soft pecks while watching probably like a horror movie or something idk some sort of action/romcom d’aww

@ladynightmareii • snazzy :’)snazzy snazzy snazzy i hope youre well and getting better :also pls dont hurt me yes i do realise the age gap but this is just purely hypothetical pls dont hurt me :c

@imagineproduce101 • rinaaaa (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)rinaaa!! local v*dka aunt i ship you with jonghyun! bc ur kinda wild aaand hes basically the equivalent of a clumsy big bear plush, yall rlly balance each other out well! i highkey imagine yall spending a day at the arcade and running around and winning all the tickets possible, ending the day with a light stroll in the park with ice cream in your hands and just u know that cute wartortle smile he has and he just grins and you and wOW shimkung everywhere and omg when you get chilly he just takes off his jacket and puts it on your shoulders aWWW yall suit each other so well this is so cute im so soft for this

@scorpionallday • m!!!ahh u closet fangirl i see u ;))) short but sweet; i ship u with woojin bc ??? hes basically your other half ndckajndak i sweAR yall just- d’awwwww skdn asndka jsnc him with his low voice raps??? u and your harmonies. couple dances?? yes. hiS satoORI ;))))))) u and ur claimed ‘american accent’ smH

hehe i hope you guys enjoyed reading your lil paragraphs

[cherrykyeoms]

bf!Jeno

a/n: AND SO A SURPRISE BF!JENO TO MAKE UP FOR MY LACK OF POSTS FOR LAST WEEK!! also hmu in the asks guys i rlly wanna know u guys hehe ——– •so dis kid •aka my third bias •Lee JenoPE •okay hes such boyfriend material fite me man •i hope i dont swerve too much gotta stay loyal •so this kiddo was most probably the one who confessed to you in high school after being bestfriends since forever •like in a rlly romantic way •correction : cheesy romantic way •like its last period and ur at ur locker and u find a note written in rlly beautiful cursive and a really nice rose pasted to it saying “meet me at the music room •LONG STORY SHORT HE CONFESSED THEN AND THERE AND BOTH OF YOU WERE CRYING CUZ NOW YOU GUYS ARE A THING AFTER SO LONG AND LIKE YOU DONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT BEING SEPARATED •also i think you guys wld be that sporty couple in physc ed class everyone looks up to •swimming? you both rock it •boxing? hell yea •soccer? yea boi •also i think he wld also have a bit of a motherly side •if you were sick he wld go to your house everyday to check on you •hed probably even climb thru the window at 11 pm to check ur temperature lmao this cute :”) •also taeyong and doyoung wld instantly become your other moms too •if you were over at the dorms with jeno after sch and theres no one there tae prolly cooked somthing for you to eat or if he was rlly bust he wld have ordered takeaway before he left •the dreamies wld hardcore ship you to death •and of course haechan teasing you too •hed definitely love it if you came to watch him practice like you wld be his source of motivation and he wld feel more encouraged to dance to make you proud!! •tbh i do not see any fights •dis boi is rlly mature as from what i can tell •im getting rlly tired rn shit •I FORGOT TO MENTION HIS EYESMILE •OKAY LISTEN HIS EYESMILE IS SO HEALING •LIKE ITS PROBABLY A SHITTY DAYBAT SCHOOL AND THEN YOU SEE HIM WALKING TOWARDS YOU AT THE SCH GATE WITH THAT EYESMILE™ AND YOUR DAY IMMEDIATELY GET BETTER LIKE WOW!! LEE!! JENO!! HAS!! COME!! TO!! BLESS!! ME!! •and yes when he knew that his smiles help empower you as cheesy at his sounds he knew his reason to have a good day and to smile is for you to have a good day and be happy •UGHH ITS RLLY BAD :( •but pls love Lee Jeno senk you •also i want his hair from first and last era •have a wonderful day/night my little beans •SEND ME REQUESTS!❤️ •or just hmu in the dms or asks :)

[therealestatesparkblog]

No, You Are NOT Going Too Far in Pursuit of Financial Independence

I was talking to my buddy and co-worker Craig Curelop recently. It was about 7:00 p.m., and we were having one of our not-infrequent discussions about financial freedom late after work. As usual, Craig was cooking dinner at the office after his workout. I suspect that he was cooking here in an effort to save money on electricity that hed otherwise have to use to cook at home (I cant even tell if Im joking about that or not). I was just here late, trying to catch up on emails. For some time, wed been having a debate about his approach to attaining early financial freedom. I was claiming that Craig goes too far in his pursuit of financial freedom. Craig was politely dismissing my claim and insisting that he was perfectly happy with his situation. Craigs Obsession with Financial Freedom Now, I think I have some good reasons to think that Craig is going pretty hardcore in pursuit of early financial freedom. He does a LOT. Craig house hacksin a house that is eerily similar to the property I first bought back in 2014my first house hack. His home is just a few blocks away from my property, but a bit newer and nicer. Craig, however, gets a far better financial return from his investment than I did and will likely do better with his investment than me over time, even though I bought an investment that has better numbers as a traditional rental property. How does he do this? Simplehe rents out his bedroom on Airbnb and sleeps on the futon in the living room! Craig bikes to workevery day. Thirty degrees and snowing like it is on the day I write this? Craig is still on his bike. Craig rents out his car on Turo, netting positive every month on vehicle expenses. Craig does not eat sugar. Craig does not consume alcohol. Craig is involved in extra-curriculars like Toastmasters in an effort to constantly improve himself. Craig reads incessantly. Craig hang-dries his clothes to save money on electricity. Craig gets up at 5:30 a.m. each morning to pursue his goals. Craig meets investors and potential contacts multiple times per week. Craig has literally optimized almost every part of his life in pursuit of early financial freedom. Is this too much? I certainly thought so at firstand I told him so. I thought so until our conversation the other night, when I suddenly remembered what I did to jumpstart my journey to financial freedom.

Related: 7 Daily Habits of Real Estate Investors Who Seek Financial Freedom My Obsession with Financial Freedom See, when I got started on this journey, the term house hacking (but certainly not the concept, which has been around forever) had just been invented by Brandon Turner in this article. The concept of biking to work was completely foreign to me. In fact, every single person I had ever even heard of (excluding the 40-year-old virgin) drove to work or took public transit. Riding a bike had just had not presented itself as an option until I began reading a blog called Mr. Money Mustache (one of my favorite blogs of all time). In spite of friends and family who thought I was crazy, I bought a house hack. I took this Mr. Money Mustache guys advice and biked to work. I read over 100 personal finance, business, psychology, and career-related books. I quit a stable, hard-earned job with middling corporate opportunity to pursue a highly risky job at a startup. I networked with investors all over the city. I tried to get up early to pursue a version of the Miracle Morning even though I hated it and am a night owl. I cooked all of my own meals and almost never consumed anything that even approached unhealthy. I kept a daily log. I even hung dry my laundry instead of installing a dryer. I did this for years. I still do much of this. I dont regret it one bit. In fact, looking back, I wish Id been more like Craigmore obsessed, more (not less) productive. You Dont Have to Be Perfect Forever! The reason I initially thought that Craig was doing too much was that I am currently growing soft. Nowadays, I still house hack. I bike to work, but much less frequently, and often on a custom built e-bike that I put together over the summer that is pretty awesome. This is partly due to a nasty foot injuryI suspect I will resume with biking more regularly on the road bike as the foot continues to improve and the weather gets nicer in the spring of 2018. I cook less and eat out a few times per month. I love Chinese food and am willing to splurge on it now a bit. I enjoy dates at casual restaurants with my girlfriend. I have a dryer. I still spend very little compared with your average American, but its creeping up a bit. I sometimes forget that Ineeded to do the hardcore things that Craig is currently doing to get where I am. Are they things that I want to do for the next 50 years? Are they things that Im even still doing today? No, not all of them. Am I proud that I did them and happy that they contributed to my current position? Absolutely. But the point of all of this is that I can afford to bring some luxuries back into my life now. I have enough passive income to purchase some of these things and still get ahead. And while my passive income more than pays for my lifestyle as things stand, it is not yet enough to comfortably fund the life I could see myself wanting in the futurea life that will involve fewer still of these optimizations. As my portfolio continues to grow over the next few years, I see a more permanent house in my future. I see potential pets. I see a very nice, large kitchen and a significantly improved bathroom in a future residence compared to my present situation. I see some luxuries that Id truly enjoy, like maybe a backyard or garage filled with home gym equipment (purchased second-hand via Craigslist, of course). I see myself gradually approaching a lifestyle that anyone would call middle or upper-middle class. But Ill be able to live that lifestyle at extremely low cost, with minimal waste, and fund it entirely with a surplus from real estate cash flow. This result will unfold gradually, as I consistently increase my passive income in the coming years. And this is possible solely because of the optimization that I implemented in the past and am continuing to ride in the present. Im starting to get soft, and I may well continue to soften in the future. To plan on living an entire life of perfect optimization would defeat the purpose of pursuing financial freedom. I seek bit by bit to build the exact life I wantand to only increase my standard of living in proportion to my passive incomeand never in excess to the point where I will grow fat and lazy. Im willing to go without some of the things I eventually aspire to in order to make that dream a reality. Craig has a similar vision. Craig will not be living on a futon forever. As his wealth grows, as he eliminates his student loans, and as these choices become less and less meaningful to his financial position, I am certain that Craig will cool it a bit. Related: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Financial Freedom Most 9 to 5-ers Overlook Once you are at a point where you feel that you can ease off the gas pedal, do it. Do it in certain areas that are most meaningful to you. As your passive income increases and covers your living expenses you can stop making the sacrifices that everyone thinks Craig and I are making! But What About Living in the Present? Notice, however, that neither Craig nor I give up or gave up certain things that are universally accepted as important to a well-lived life. Like travel. Like nights out with friends. Like attending sporting events. Like visiting family. Like attending life events of those we are close with. Like volunteering in the community. Those are the things we associate with living. Craig does not go too far in his pursuit of early financial freedom. Craig is one of the healthiest, most well-adjusted folks I know. In spite of his unforgivable love of Boston sports teams, including the New England Patriots, he is a genuinely funny guy, a hard worker, and has friends who come to visit him from all over the country. Craig is doing this whole thing exactly right and will enjoy experiences comparable to every other 20-something in Denver over the next few years, based on his interests. The only real differences between him and the rest of the pack are that he will arrive where he is going on his bicycle, and he will rest his head at night on a futon instead of in a bedroom. He says these things do not affect his happiness. And I believe him. How could they? I believe that Craig has some of the highest odds of anyone I know of achieving a $1,000,000 net worth by the age of 30. You might look at Craig and think, Thats crazy I could never do what he does and sleep on the couch while renting out my bed! But I challenge you to see things from the other perspectivefrom Craigs perspective and mine. Is it crazy to build that much wealth that early in life? Is it crazy to enjoy the same recreational activities as your peers, yet come out way ahead financially? Is it crazy to create a life that is healthier, more fun, costs less, and sets you up for greater career success or income generation? Is Craig crazy? Am I crazy? Or is everyone else crazy?

You Need to Get Obsessed with Optimizing Your Life, Too! Almost every day since I started optimizing my life, my life has gotten better. Ive become healthier, wealthier, stronger, happier, a better skier, a better rugby player, and more in tune with my family. Ive experienced career accomplishments. Ive since met a wonderful girl who Ive dated for a year and half and love very much, and I have what I consider to be a pretty good, fun-filled life. I believe that this progression of events is not unique to Craig and me. Almost everyone I know who has gone on to achieve financial freedom at an extremely early age, who has accumulated a large amount of wealth in a short period of time, or who has started a successful business has done some version of aggressive, all-out optimization in pursuit of their goals. Maybe successful folks didnt sleep on a futon or even house hack. But you can be sure that they devote outsized time, in the beginning, to getting some kind of venture off the ground. You can be sure that they earn more than they spendby a lot. You can be sure that they become obsessed with the success of the venture theyre involved in. Every blogger on this site is obsessed with their craft. They study it relentlessly for years. You need to develop the same healthy obsession with your goals as well. No one has come to me and said they regret these types of choices. No one regrets giving a worthy goal their best efforts. And even if they do, in most cases, choices like these are easily reversible. You can always stop reading, stop networking, stop biking, and stop house hacking if you decide its not for you. Craig can simply stop listing his room on Airbnb tomorrow if he wants and live at a lower cost than almost every American, in the heart of an expensive city at that! Yes, folks can build a million-dollar net worth as middle-class wage earners over a period of decades. Thats not hard and can be achieved automatically, with merely sane spending habits, buying a reasonable home, and contributing to a 401(k). Im not talking about achieving this result. I dont write for folks looking to achieve this result. I seek to help people trying to achieve early financial freedom in a fraction of that time. And to do that, you need to become obsessed. And if you truly want to give yourself the best chance at achieving this goal rapidly, you need to optimize with a passion and zeal. The part of the journey that Craig is currently in is the part that so many more of you readers need to undergo to truly jumpstart your journey to financial freedom. This should be the fun part. Its where you really make the changes necessary to become successful. Ive met dozens of people who are undertaking this journey and house hacking (yes, with kids) in the bottom units of up/down duplexes. Ive met people who have begun biking to work. Ive met people who read relentlessly or who take action day after day in pursuit of success with their career or side hustle. For the first time in years, many of them are excited to take on life. They identify the correct opportunity, the opportunity that offers them a real shot at achieving their goals, and they pursue it 100 percent, with their best efforts, for years. Dont mistake these folks for the outliers. The folks who achieve financial freedom rapidly without making optimized choices in almost every area of lifechoices that increase their wealth, productivity, and happinessare the exception, not the rule. Conclusion Look, I totally understand that Craigs approachor even my approachmay not be something that you want for your entire life. Frankly, I DO NOT plan to house hack in perpetuity, and I am reasonably sure that at some point Craig will move on from his futon to a bed, then a house that he eventually wants to reside in semi-permanently. The whole point of this is not to live like this forever. It is to do it as long as necessary to achieve your goals. The point is to create and execute a plan to create the life you want and then live that life exactly as you want, as the person in nearly complete control, forever after. And along the way, youll probably find that many of these sacrifices are actually all-around improvements in your day and lifestyle! Im not trying to convince you to live on a futon. Im trying to tell you that doing so will not impact your happiness if you go in with the right mindset. And that it is not and should not be a permanent state of affairs. Im trying to tell you that choices like that are the ones that increase your odds of accumulating money and freeing up time with which to pursue big income and investment opportunities unavailable to folks with tiny savings rates and no free time. You may think that Im strange for biking to work, making my own meals, and living in a house hack. You may think Craig is strange for renting out his bed and car, sleeping on a futon, and biking to work. But to us, this life is better than an alternative that involves long commutes, being handcuffed to a mortgage, and engaging in unhealthy or unproductive behaviors that dont produce results or fond memories! And in five, 10, or 20 years, the folks who make choices like this are more likely than not to be multimillionaires with multiple properties and multiple sources of income. Dave Ramsey famously says, Live like no else now so later you can live like no one else. The implication of this is that you have to give up happiness and sacrifice now to live the life of your dreams later. This is not how I have experienced things. Life was better immediately after making the choice to optimize my lifestyle around my goals, AND it continually improves as I reap the financial, career, health, and relationship results of those choices. I feel good about where Ive been, where I am, and where Im going. You can live better than everyone else now, in an extraordinarily low-cost, productive, and impactful manner, AND live like no one else later. I made the mistake of thinking that Craig was going too far in pursuit of financial freedom. But he can and should go farther and faster if he can and will continue to love his life. Let me state it all again: He enjoys it. And he should enjoy it. He is becoming healthier, wealthier, happier, and more self-confident with each passing day, week, month, and year. I too have enjoyed it and will continue to enjoy it. You should enjoy it, too. I honestly believe that those of us who pursue early financial freedom and make the optimizations necessary to make that a reality experience a better life in the interim while pursuing it, a better life approaching Financial Freedom, and a better life after achieving financial freedom. There is no sacrifice in this way of life. The improvements you make to your life may have positive effects immediately and will likely only continue to grow. I give you permission to choose the healthy, wealthy, happy path that you know will leave you better off when its all said and done. And once you decide to go for it, optimize for happiness, health, and wealth without apology. Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers.

What lengths do you go to in your pursuit of financial freedom? Have you ever encountered criticism for living the way you do? Share below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/pursue-financial-freedom-unapologetically

[allofbeercom]

The hygge conspiracy | Charlotte Higgins

The Long Read: This years most overhyped trend is a wholesome Danish concept of cosiness, used to sell everything from fluffy socks to vegan shepherds pie. But the version were buying is a British invention and the real thing is less cuddly than it seems

Inescapably and suddenly, Britain has been invaded by hygge. The Danish word, previously unknown to all but the most hardcore Scandophiles, is now the subject of an avalanche of books, hundreds of Identikit newspaper features, and endless department-store winter displays. Every story on the subject explains that the word defies literal translation, before offering cosiness as a workable approximation its not exactly that, but rather, a feeling of calm togetherness and the enjoyment of simple pleasures, perhaps illuminated by the gentle flicker of candlelight.

Not the least of the paradoxes of this craze, which you might also call a wildly overhyped trend, is that simply pronouncing it is almost impossible for British tongues. The first mention of hygge in any text where it sits so invitingly on the page, with its row of curvaceous descenders usually comes with a phonetic guide. This is in order to prevent readers from committing the faux-pas of uttering higgy or huggy or, worse, hig. Hue-gah, hoo-gah, heurgh and hhyooguh are among the approximations offered in the (at least) nine books on hygge published this autumn. (The Sun, helpfully, suggests it should rhyme with cougar.)

The titles of these books, carefully calibrated for search-engine optimisation, are: Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness; The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well; Hygge: A Celebration of Simple Pleasures, Living the Danish Way; The Cozy Life: Rediscover the Joy of Simple Things Through the Danish Concept of Hygge; Hygge: The Complete Guide to Embracing the Danish Concept of Cosy and Simple Living; The Art of Hygge: How to Bring Danish Cosiness Into Your Life; How to Hygge: the Secrets of Nordic Living; The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well; Keep Calm and Hygge: A Guide to the Danish Art of Simple and Cosy Living.

It is the most striking publishing trend I can remember, in terms of the sheer number of titles published at the same time, Caroline Sanderson, who writes about non-fiction for the Bookseller magazine, told me. And so, inevitably, there is also a 10th book a parody. Its publication was announced only 29 days after the first of the straight books came out. Say Ja to Hygge: How to Find Your Special Cosy Place suggests that the crucial word be pronounced huhhpg-ghuhrr. This is not the only occasion when the parody is hard to distinguish from the volumes it is apparently spoofing.

Just as chic is the thing that everyone knows about the French, the word hygge must now be affixed, almost by law, to any media story about Denmark or, indeed, anything remotely Scandinavian, whether the subject is clothes, furniture, cookery, travel, or working hours. The headlines are mostly absurd. Get Hygge With It! Hungry For Hygge! Ten Reasons to Hygge It Will Make You Happier, Fitter and Slimmer! Give Your Home a Hygge! There is even a New Statesman article titled The Hygge of Oasis: Why I Find This Band Strangely Comforting.

According to this now vast popular literature, the creation of an atmosphere of hygge is aided by glgg (mulled wine), meatballs and cardamom buns. Certain activities and entertainments, often involving candles, woollens, or nature, are also said to promote feelings of hygge. One of the less sophisticated books suggests projects for making winter bunting and a mug cosy, the latter to be fashioned from buttons, sequins and an old sock. Its advice to take up the hyggelig activity of cycling is accompanied by a motivational quote from that byword of existential contentment, Sylvia Plath.

I have seen hygge used to sell cashmere cardigans, wine, wallpaper, vegan shepherds pie, sewing patterns, a skincare range, teeny-tiny festive harnesses for dachshunds, yoga retreats and a holiday in a shepherds hut in Kent. The Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton has even opened a Bar Hygge craft beer and open sandwiches a speciality. Its hard to pinpoint a definition for the Danish word hygge, proclaims the website. It sits somewhere between warmth and comfort, cosiness and friendship, making the most of every moment, away from worries. We wanted to borrow some of that and bring it to Northampton.

Hygge has been listed as a word of the year by both the Collins and Oxford dictionaries alongside Brexit and Trumpism in the lexicographers annual public-relations exercise. Tremblings of a hygge backlash, seen in skits such as a Daily Mash piece titled Hygge Is Byllshytte, serve only to emphasise its ubiquity. The Eurosceptic Daily Telegraph ran an article suggesting that readers adopt a bracingly British version of the trend brygge.

One morning in October, I walked around John Lewiss London flagship store with Philippa Prinsloo, its head of design: we ran our hands over fake-fur throws and hot-water bottles, felt the nub of Scottish woollen blankets, admired hyggelig tableware that favoured sharing and simplicity. The theme of the homeware displays was, she said, winter warmth. Making sure things are ready to cosy down. An early adopter, the store first promoted hygge as a theme last autumn (we should have done it again this year, said Prinsloo). Will hygge last, I asked her? Will it be more than a flash in the plan? Oh yes, definitely. People really want it and need it at the moment.

Hygge is catnip to social media: on Instagram there are almost 1.5m #hygge posts of falling leaves, bowls of pumpkin soup and babies adorably wrapped in blankets. On Pinterest, there has been a year-on-year rise of 285% in hygge-themed pinning. Interest is especially strong in Britain, according to a spokeswoman for the site, where it skyrocketed in September this year.

Hygge is now the subject of an avalanche of books. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The author of one of the books on hygge, Meik Wiking, called it the second Viking invasion. But thats not quite right: hygge has been deliberately imported and reinvented by eager Britons. The concept may be indelibly Danish, but the hype has been made in London. And amid the clamour and frenzy of late 2016, this sudden taste for closing the door to the world, for retreating back to the hearth, is selling like hotcakes.

Hygge has not arrived in our midst by accident.Its sudden presence in Britain is a matter of deliberate inducement and persuasion. In its most visible manifestation the onslaught of books on the subject it is a trend that has been carefully concocted in the laboratory of London publishing houses, and then disseminated through the ready collaboration of an enthusiastic neophile press.

It is book editors largely young, female and bright who created the formula of hygge for a mass British audience. The starting point for these young lifestyle alchemists was an article that appeared on the BBC website in the first autumnal days of October 2015. Its writer, Justin Parkinson, had been casting around for news features and zeitgeisty articles from the open-plan expanses of New Broadcasting House, London, four glassy floors above its newsroom. Hed read about hygge in Helen Russells popular memoir The Year of Living Danishly, and hed heard the word on a TV cookery programme. I wondered whether I could work it up into a feature, he told me recently, so he Googled hygge UK.

I thought some people might think it was a slightly poncey, head-scratching idea, he said. In fact, his article, published on 2 October 2015, received over a million hits, and was outread that day by only five stories two pieces on a school shooting in Oregon, and articles on Syria, terrorism and cancer. It was a small island of cheer on a grim news day. The article was immediately followed up by others in the Express, the Independent on Sunday and the Telegraph, the beginning of an extraordinary spike in hygge coverage: in 2015, the word appeared in 40 pieces in national newspapers. This year, that figure has shot up to more than 200, a bump of 400% and thats not counting the huge proliferation of articles in blogs and lifestyle magazines.

One person who saw the BBC article was a publisher named Anna Valentine. She was starting a new imprint, Trapeze, at the publishing conglomerate Hachette, whose UK headquarters occupy an angular modern building on the north bank of the Thames. The BBC article ticked so many boxes on so many levels, she said. Denmark, with its crime drama, its New Nordic cuisine, its classic design, its consistent spot at the top of national happiness league tables, was hot, for a start. Then there was the notion intriguingly, in a time of Brexit that we are looking to other cultures for guidance on how to live our lives. If you look at the biggest-selling lifestyle books, its things like Marie Kondos The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, which is inspired by Japan. Then there was Norwegian Wood last years non-fiction surprise hit, a Scandinavian ode to the charms of wood-chopping.

Valentines aim was paradoxical: to publish books that would be bought by people who arent book-buyers. Hygge seemed like a perfect distillation of popular lifestyle obsessions beginning with mindfulness, which has moved beyond being a publishing phenomenon and into being a way of life, and has fed into so many trends, like healthy-eating books and adult colouring books. She added: It seemed to tie into an interest in digital detox, too. So many recent fashions, she said, had been about self-discipline and self-deprivation tidying up, clean eating. Hygge was an antidote to all that.

I reflected on the publishing industry offering first one trend, and then its remedy, as if handing out a sequence of uppers and downers. The industry loves repetitions and hybridisations crossing one already popular book with another, so as to cook up a new, or sort-of new, book, designed to replicate the success of previous formulas. (In this context of test-tube book-breeding it is perhaps inevitable that there is a hygge-themed colouring book on the market this autumn. Watch out, too, for books about lagom a Swedish word meaning lack of excess next autumn.)

Around London last winter, other editors were thinking similar thoughts. In the sleek art deco headquarters of Penguin Random House, Emily Robertson and Fiona Crosby were working, separately, on potential titles for their respective imprints, Penguin Life and Michael Joseph. Each had also spotted the BBC article, they told me, when we met in a room off one of the buildings echoing marble hallways. I spend an embarrassing amount of my time flicking around the internet, said Robertson, looking at what people are reading and sharing on Twitter. Pinterest is big for this. Its a case of looking at what people are talking about.

Once the idea had been hatched, it was time to find writers but this was not a straightforward exercise: the notion of hygge is so taken for granted in Danish language and culture that there was no readymade cohort of authors or experts to call on. The editors had to either track down a willing Dane, or identify someone with tangentially related knowledge. Valentine contacted an agent she knew, who suggested Charlotte Abrahams, a British writer on interiors and expert on Scandinavian design. Robertson approached political scientist Meik Wiking, who runs the Happiness Research Institute, a Copenhagen thinktank. Hygge wasnt exactly the kind of thing the institute researched, but the commission was canny, since the association suggested to the reader that hygge might help provide a shortcut to Danish levels of wellbeing. (The Happiness Research Institute has since become a ubiquitous presence in newspaper reports on the subject, lending the imprimatur of social science to the hygge industry.) Crosby found Marie Tourell Sderberg, an actor in the Danish historical drama 1864, which had been shown on BBC4.

For each of these authors, the idea of writing about hygge was unexpected Wiking told me his friends were amazed that anyone thought he could get a whole book out of the concept. Abrahams was actually hoping to write a book about running, but she set about putting together a proposal: she had heard of hygge, but not given it much thought. (When I visited her at home in the Cotswolds, later, she confessed that candles gave her migraines.)

It was only at the end of January, through a colleague in the Penguin rights department, that Crosby and Robertson realised they were both publishing books on the same thing. Thats despite the fact that they work in the same open-plan office and can see each other from their desks, if they stand and look over the piles of Zadie Smiths and Deborah Levys and Jamie Olivers. The discovery necessitated a meeting over bad coffee, but it was a friendly encounter, not hygge at dawn, said Crosby.

It was actually quite reassuring, Robertson told me because it meant hygge was definitely a thing. (Abrahams interviewed Meik Wiking for her book while he was working on his, The Little Book of Hygge, though he didnt let on.) The first volume to come out, in August, was Louisa Thomsen Britss The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well, published by Ebury, which is also part of Penguin Random House.

So far Wikings book has been doing best a brisk trade at 46,000 copies in the UK, according to Nielsen Book Research, and it is being published in 23 other countries. That means that the British, oddly, have become the agents of the dissemination of Danish hygge, as if the very idea had been invented in London which, in a sense, it was.

Each book has its different flavour. Wiking takes a broadly sociological approach, laced with disquisitions on interior design and cooking. Sderbergs is a notably pretty book, homey and intimate, scattered with reflections from ordinary Danes. Abrahams writes as a foreigner investigating hygge; she combines expertise on Danish design with a memoir-ish approach about the search for contentment in her own life.

But for all the earnest cultural analyses, linguistic glosses and quotations from Kierkegaard, it is the images, more or less common in style to each title, that one falls for: hands cupping warm mugs; bicycles leaning against walls; sheepskin rugs thrown over chairs; candles and bonfires; summer picnics; trays of fresh-baked buns. To look at them is to long for that life, that warmth, that peace, that stability for that idealised, Instagrammable Denmark of the imagination.

A family relaxing together around a candlelit table epitomises hygge. Photograph: Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

When you arrive in Copenhagen, it quickly becomes clear that for Danes, hygge is so omnipresent as to be almost invisible. It is used in numerous common phrases Hyg dig!, or have hygge, is a common way of saying goodbye, for example. It offers itself up elastically in noun, verb and adjectival forms, and is part of innumerable compounds: you can listen to hygge-music, have a hygge-Christmas, sit in hygge-corner with hygge-lighting perhaps enjoying hygge-chat. There is a verb, rhygge, which means, literally, to raw-hygge, that is, to enjoy strong, or authentic hygge; to hygge with someone might mean to have a certain kind of sex (and not the abandoned, up-against-the-fridge kind). As we walked down a street together in central Copenhagen, Mette Davidsen-Nielsen, chief executive of the newspaper Information, answered her phone to her daughter. When she finished the brief call she told me that shed used used the adjectival form of hygge three times I kept telling her it would be hyggelig to see her.

Hygges sudden popularity abroad seemed both pleasing and bemusing to most of the Danes I spoke to, as if there were a sudden craze in Germany for books extolling the spiritual virtues of British-style apologising, complete with an encyclopaedic range of helpful accessories available for purchase. For others, its escape from national boundaries seemed a potential subject of study. We should have an academic conference on the international fame of hygge, said Carsten Levisen, an associate professor of linguistics at Denmarks Roskilde University. He believes he is the first person to have written an entire academic book chapter on the word from a linguistic perspective. I surprised myself by being able to do it, he said.

For all its ubiquity, hygge is also recognised as a self-evidently positive and particularly Danish value. Though the word itself is actually imported from Norwegian, its emergence as an element of national culture is sometimes traced back to Denmarks loss of territory in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was forced to abandon tracts of what are now Norway, Sweden and Germany. It is stitched deeper into its language than equivalents in neighbouring countries (such as the German Gemtlichkeit, and the Swedish mys) and is firmly entangled with the way that Danish society organises and projects itself.

You could almost see hygge as the private, intimate analogue of the public, civic Danish welfare state. Both hygge and the welfare state rely on a state of trust, a feeling of smallness (small nation, small circles of friends), and an assumption of equality. Each feeds on the other: the welfare state offers the conditions for hygge to prosper, for it ensures a 37-hour working week and the time to devote to hyggelig activities; and on the other hand hygges disdain of hierarchy and conspicuous consumption imparts values important to sustaining a society in which stark differences in financial means are banished. In Denmark our basic needs are covered, Marie Tourell Sderberg told me when she hosted breakfast for me at her apartment candle flickering, bread straight from the oven. We dont need to fight for our survival and so we have time to do things that we find meaningful.

Everyone has their own, highly personal image of the most hyggelig hygge. One brisk October evening, I met up with a contributor to Sderbergs book called Mikkel Vinther, who is a teacher of social media at a school that offers continuing education to adults. He took me to a Copenhagen community centre. It was hosting a cheap communal supper to be followed by a game of bingo (organised fun is a noticeable feature of Danish social life). There were 200 people there; everyone seemed young, middle-class and attractive. Our neighbours at the big communal table leaned over curiously. Excuse me, are you doing an interview? asked one of them. He was called Simon Falk Christensen, and worked as a project manager for Danish State Railways. Intrigued, he offered his own definition. For me its a lot about family. Being together. Candles. Its never about being posh, about cakes from the right place. Its cake you baked yourself. Its a feeling. Its something that has meaning in itself, its not a means to becoming a better person, like doing exercise. I associate it with being a child, the smell of my mother cooking onions in the next room. The smell of the Christmas tree.

Over lunch the following day, Davidsen-Nielsen and her colleague, media commentator Lasse Jensen, debated the meaning of hygge. Intellectualism is not hygge, said Davidsen-Nielsen. Severe debates on philosophy and ideas thats not very hyggelig. Alcohol, sugar and fat are the three key ingredients of hygge. He added: It used to be beer and aquavit, now its wine. She said, Theres something about socks and hygge. He added, Handknitted socks.

While hygge had many variations, depending on whom you asked, it was always anti-modern, and always tinged with nostalgia. Your mobile phone is not hygge. In its native form, hygge is regarded as essentially uncommercial, and by definition modest; yet at the same time it is helped along by certain consumer props especially candles or gently glowing lamps.

Davidsen-Nielsen told me that walking down the street in the dark, she could look into her neighbours windows and spot who was Danish and who was foreign, just by their lighting as if hygge was not merely the essence of Danishness, but also a kind of cultural border that outsiders could not quite cross. Sderberg, too, told me a story about Syrian refugee friends of hers, who had searched all over Copenhagen for fluorescent tubes to light their apartment the tale was told fondly, but their choice of domestic lighting was a marker of their otherness no Dane would make a choice so lacking in hygge. (I had never encountered a cosy bicycle shop before I visited Copenhagen but their windows were draped with chic, low-wattage bulbs agleam in the dusk. Davidsen-Nielsen gave me an artificial candle, which is the coming thing in Denmark, as everyone is starting to get worried about how unhealthy it is to breathe candle fumes. It flickers convincingly; it is made in China.)

To Danes, nothing could be less political than hygge since talking about controversial subjects is by definition not hygge and yet it is clear that the concept lends itself to political use. Davidsen-Nielsen and Jensen told me that the prime minister, Lars Lkke Rasmussen, was hyggelig the kind of guy you could imagine having a beer with. Hes folksy and informal. Hes one of the guys. And he gets away with murder almost, said Davidsen-Nielsen. Hygge is a useful strategy for disguising power. Politically, you can cloak quite aggressive or radical acts with an impression of hygge. Hygge says, lets forget about everything. Lets block out the world and have some candy.

Almost nothing written about hygge in Britainsuggests that it has a troubling side. Wikings book does mention that hygge may sometimes feel excluding to outsiders. It would be considered less hyggelig if there were too many new people at an event. Foreigners, he told me, find it hard to penetrate tight-knit Danish social circles: hygge can only really exist within groups who know each other already. But he stops well short of the kind of critique that, for instance, Dorthe Nors brought to bear when we spoke. Somewhere along the way, hygge became a form of social control, said the Danish author, whose novel Mirror, Shoulder, Signal will be published in Britain in February. Its a little like feel-good in America the cult of the feel-good book or the feel-good movie. Its a cocoon.

Last year Nors published a chilling short story, inspired by an article she had read about a Danish man who had murdered his wife. He was quoted as saying, Nors told me, that he committed this act shortly after the couple had got hyggelig together on the sofa. In the storys introduction, she writes, Hygge is used as a way to suppress feelings in a family or relationship. Every time someone wants to address some kind of unpleasant emotion, this person is in danger of spoiling the hygge and will be told: Now, lets just hygge which basically just means: Lets just stay on the surface and behave hyggelig Its a beautiful thing, the Danish hygge. And its also a little bit dangerous. Nors happily admitted to a little inconsistency, for she loves to partake in a bit of hygge (she has candlesticks in her office, for example). But, she said, You should see us at Christmas. It scares the freak out of me. Youre not allowed to be unhappy.

The suppression of difference inherent in hygge, Nors said, was not confined to family life. She related the word to Denmarks historically largely agrarian economy and rural society. Its a very small nation and we all used to be farming, although thats changing fast. In this kind of society, conformity is really important. Hygge provides a way of establishing consensus. Those who rock the boat, who think differently, who speak out they are spoiling the hygge, she said.

Aside from hygge, there is one other peculiarly Danish notion that visitors tend to encounter. This is the so-called Jante law a set of attitudes said to govern Danish social life, described in Aksel Sandemoses satirical 1933 novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks. The first rule of the law, which takes its name from the fictional town of Jante, is Youre not to think that you are anything special,and the others are more or less variations on that theme: essentially, dont get too big for your breeches. Dont stand out. Dont be different. Sandemoses novel caused controversy for its unblinking vision of rural small-mindedness, but Danes recognise the law of Jante as containing a certain truth: that conformity, and an almost aggressive modesty, are central to Danish culture.

The founder of the far-right Danish Peoples Party, Pia Kjrsgaard. Photograph: Keld Navntoft/EPA

These qualities may promote unity and solidarity of a sort useful in maintaining an egalitarian society, but its not hard to see the drawbacks of cultural norms that suppress individuality or dissent. In the chapter on hygge in Levisens book Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A Case Study on the Danish Universe of Meaning, he recounts a story about Sepp Piontek, the German football manager who took the Danish national team to their first World Cup in 1986 and quickly discovered that hygge was an obstacle to the teams success. In order to achieve any results in Denmark, the national team had to go through a minor cultural revolution, Piontek wrote in his memoir. The general attitude was that it should be fun and hyggelig to be a part of the national team.

A common critique of hygge, according to Mikkel Vinther, is that it makes the democratic process weak because to discuss difficult things is not hyggelig. Vinther, himself, is more positive: it has the potential, he argues, to provide a powerful, non-confrontational way for people to come together. But first it needs to be reinvented: he wants to develop what he calls hygge 2.0. The culture minister, Bertel Haarder is in the process of establishing a cultural canon for Denmark, inviting Danes to submit ideas about what they find most valuable in their national life. But Haarder himself has sounded a note of caution about placing hygge in such a list it should be done only if it is something that includes rather than, as is often the case, excludes. On second thoughts, I dont want to take hygge with us into the future, he said in an interview earlier this year.

Hygge is, itself, the place where politics are set aside, Levisen told me. But it is precisely this sense that it is beyond politics as well as its ubiquitous, irreducible Danishness (and thus not-foreignness) that allows it to be mobilised by politicians, particularly those of the xenophobic far right, who have become a rising force in Danish politics over the past decade. (For those who idealise Danish society, it came as an unpleasant shock when it was reported earlier this year that parliament had approved a plan to strip refugees of their valuables, including jewellery and watches, with an apparent unconcern for any troubling historical resonances.)

A case in point is Pia Kjrsgaard, the founder of the anti-immigration, anti-Brussels Danish Peoples Party, which is currently the second-largest party in parliament. Kjrsgaard has subtly projected herself as the protector of Danish hygge against the unknown forces of the globalised world. According to Nors: Hygge is part of the whole set-up of the radical right wing in Denmark. Their commercials will have all the emblematic hygge symbols.

Kjrsgaard, who is now the speaker in Denmarks parliament, gave an interview last year in which she described, in detail, the importance of making her office hyggelig with family photos, lamps, porcelain and knick-knacks. I cannot thrive and work in offices that arent hyggelig, she said.

Creating a hyggelig work environment is completely ordinary in Denmark when I visited the ambassador to Britain, Claus Grube, he lit candles, switched off overhead lighting and put a cushion behind my back. But Kjrsgaard and her allies use hygge with particular, and deliberate, force, according to Nors, promoting a popular image in which being Danish is about sitting round a table and eating cake or pork. And, they imply, everyone outside that is not Danish and it taps into a fear that globalisation and refugees will destroy everything. The Danish Peoples Partys perspective is that Denmark is an almost perfect country, with its long history, its generous welfare state, and its cultural distinctiveness. But anything that threatens that safe community, including alien values and ideologies, cannot be tolerated.

The lightly encoded thought process, then, is that if hygge is uniquely Danish, and hygge can only be enjoyed by insiders, then migrants and outsiders will destroy the nations hyggelig atmosphere, and therefore effectively destroy Denmark. Lotte Folke Kaarsholm, an editor on the newspaper Information, said, Of course hygge excludes. The whole problem with Scandinavia is that these countries can only really work if you shut the borders. You have all these ideals of kindness on the inside, but for our solidarity to function, you need pretty tall walls.

Handknitted socks are quintessentially hygge. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The year in which hygge has explodedas a British lifestyle trend has been extraordinarily turbulent. If 23 June was like an earthquake, 8 November was its answering tsunami a phenomenon yet more tremendous than the original shock. For all those who mourned and worried about the victories of Brexit and Trump, there were others who rejoiced. These disturbances revealed societies, on both sides of the Atlantic, that are utterly divided. Young vs old, educated vs uneducated, rural vs urban, women vs men, black vs white societys cracks became gaping and obvious. If years can have moods, 2016 was savage in its anger and abject in its fear.

In fact, the mood of 2016 could even be described as uhygge. The word does not, precisely, mean uncosy it does not summon up sharp-angled open-plan offices with severe furniture. It means frightening; it means sinister. If hygge is sitting round the campfire, all differences forgotten, warmed by the dancing flames, uhygge is the darkness beyond that enchanted circle. Uhygge, in fact, threatens to engulf the warmth, the solidarity, the kindness. In the unfathomable bleakness of uhygge exist those terrible things from the outside that could destroy you. On some atavistic, deep-buried level, migrants, refugees, and those with starkly different values, bring with them the fearful perfume of uhygge.

In the tension between hygge and uhygge, the warmth of the hearth and the family, and the terror of the lonely world outside, are linguistically bound together. You can see this reflected in Danish culture most obviously, for those of us in Britain, through its crime drama. Dorthe Nors joked to me that she thought Nordic noir was a kind of pressure release from all the hygge all the dark stuff has to come out somewhere, right? Watching such programmes is a way of keeping uhygge things at bay, safely confined in a corner of the room, on a screen. The hero of the TV series The Killing, police officer Sarah Lund, operates in a Denmark that is dank and grey, cold and unforgiving the chill grey weather and long winters from which hygge is particularly adept at affording protection. She herself is far from the campfire. She is alone. She is terrible at intimate relationships; she backs out of rooms where hyggelig family activities are taking place.

The series, with its darkness and violence, exemplifies uhygge and yet the viewer will, most likely, experience it from the safety and warmth of the family home, bottle of wine open, heating turned up. A detective story is a way of dealing with the dark: it is about gathering and containing death and horror within a safe and predictable narrative structure.Hygge does the same work through different means: it draws us in towards warmth and togetherness and forgetting. But it also somehow depends on the existence of the dark, too. In Wikings book theres a remark to the effect that an especially hyggelig situation he remembered (the scent of a stew simmering on the stove, an open fire, a group of friends) could have become more hyggelig with the addition of just one thing: a raging storm outside.

Hygge is, then, a retreat, an escape, a turning-inwards. If its emergence as an element of national culture is often traced back to Denmarks loss of territory an embrace of the intimate smallness of newly sharp national borders perhaps its distinctly British avatar disguises a similar national turning-inward, a pulling-up of the drawbridge against the terror of the world.

The editors who coaxed the British hygge trend into existence were not weirdly accurate weather forecasters, predicting the full bleakness of the conditions to come when they commissioned their books back in February. But they had put their fingers in the wind and, consciously or otherwise, found in hygge much that chimed with the times.

If this is the year in which globalisation has been found wanting by millions, hygge appeals to an earlier age, an imagined past, where one could take back control or make a country great again. The consumerist trappings of hygge, the books and throws and cushions and candles and holidays and recipes, are not just sold as products with a particular and practical use, but rather as magical objects that might summon up feelings and emotions: of safety and solace, of comfort and calm, of a being-in-a-time-before. Hygge appeals to both sides of our great political divides: on the one hand it nostalgically hints at a better past (of community, of family, of simple pleasures) and on the other it offers a refuge from the great, unleashed tempests of the times.

Carsten Levisen asked me if I thought the appetite for hygge in Britain was partly about a fantasy of what Britain might have become, if it had had the chance: Denmark as a kind of alternative, but squandered, possible future. Perhaps, but if he is right, it would be a wonderful contradiction. When Britons are asked whether they want a stronger welfare state and more equality the basics of a more hyggelig life they tend to vote no pretty hard. Britain is hungry for the accoutrements of hygge, but not the costs such as high taxation that come with it.

If, for Danes themselves, hygge has an element of fantasy through the way it draws back from difficulties, difference and debate then the British import is a fantasy of a fantasy. Hygge may be quintessentially Danish, but there is something utterly British about the nostalgic longing for the simple accoutrements of an earlier time especially if it can be bought. At the same time, it is hard to deny that just at the moment, the most natural thing in the world is to want to huddle round the fire and wish the outside away. Settle in: its going to be a long winter.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-hygge-conspiracy-charlotte-higgins/