neo's bizarre university and work and canada adventure: part 2

09/11/2024

although i've long dreamed of living in a foreign country, it was always such a distant, abstract future that i never really crafted a real plan for how to achieve that goal. it was always a problem for "after i graduate from university". well, it recently dawned on me just how close that reality is now and that i'd have to very quickly start thinking about how i'm going to start my life in Québec, as has been my dream for the past 2 years. i've had to think hard about what kind of career i wanna have and what steps to take to make my immigration possible.

this is part 2 of a two-parter article! picking up where the previous left off, here i'll talk about my research for my (hopefully) upcoming QC immigration, the plans that might work out, the ones that probably won't, and how my previous experience has influenced my options.

neo's bizarre university and work and canada adventure: part 1

04/10/2024

although i've long dreamed of living in a foreign country, it was always such a distant, abstract future that i never really crafted a real plan for how to achieve that goal. it was always a problem for "after i graduate from university". well, it recently dawned on me just how close that reality is now and that i'd have to very quickly start thinking about how i'm going to start my life in Québec, as has been my dream for the past 2 years. i've had to think hard about what kind of career i wanna have and what steps to take to make my immigration possible.

this is part 1 of a two-parter article! here i'll bring some reflections on my school and work experiences. my long and roundabout trajectory in school is such an integral part of neo lore that i always seem to end up talking about it to anyone i meet. the more time passes, the less fun and the more distressing it becomes to talk about it.

jim and athena, siblings extraordinaire

15/05/2024

as someone who has spent a great portion of their life on the internet since late childhood, i've made countless online friends - some fleeting, fading as times and interests change, but others enduring through long periods of no contact and shifting circumstances. and some online friendships can be indeed so remarkable that they become part of our own personal mythos, every interaction giving us a new story to tell our other unrelated social circles.

such is the case for my dear Jim and Athena, a couple of now 30-somethings from the US. we've shared a special bond ever since we met and they quickly became my own figures of legend. so i want to immortalise our friendship in this post, telling the full story of how we met and where we are now, with every laugh and hardship in between.

mr worldwide, neo

20/04/2024

i've always felt pride in having multiple ancestries, but as i grow older and start to think about where i want to go in life, thinking about where i came from kind of muddles my sense of belonging and identity. i wanted to talk about my feelings on ancestry, ethnicity and nationality, hoping that the reflection will make those feelings clearer.

the 10-year old self-indulgent pet playlist

07/04/2024

i present to you my "pet playlist". it dates back to december of 2014, a statement that makes me feel old, and is still being maintained by me! every once in a while i add or maybe remove a couple of songs. right now it contains around 80 tracks, some of which i added shortly after discovering, while others are songs that i've known for a while and that were repurposed for the playlist. they may or may not be part of my core musical preferences; what matters is that they follow a loosely-defined theme, one that is summarised by the playlist's title: you've got the power and control.

"neo is very good with languages!"

31/03/2024

the itch to learn new languages has been a constant companion since my childhood, and it is one that feels so satisfying to scratch. portuguese is my native tongue, and nowadays i spend most of my time immersed in english, but the position of "third language" has had many contenders over the years. this post is a chronicle of precisely how each target-language came into my life, more so than it is an account of how i approached learning each of them to varying degrees of success.

the title is something i've heard a lot from others, and it does give me a sense of pride, although i cannot claim to have necessarily retained any proficiency in most languages i've been interested in.

the top-secret elidiharrow scenario

29/03/2024

this is mostly a reproduction of a tumblr post!

i said i wanted to write again, but as ever i am plagued with "i have the ideas but not the words" disease. that may be why i always liked the style of writing called "brainstorm scenarios with friends in the form of imagines and what ifs". seeing as that is not currently possible, i shall dump those ideas here.

so here's my thoughts for the top secret elidiharrow scenario featuring consensual stabbing.

harrow's ship history: "it's complicated"

26/03/2024

this is mostly a reproduction of a tumblr post!

like most people who have a WoL they care about, i was quickly bitten by the so-called "brainworms" about potential pairings. as i went through MSQ for the first time back in 5.3, i kept a mental note on which characters seemed like they would have interesting interactions with Harrow; and when i caught up, i had a lot of time to feed the brainworms. not all of those potential pairings stayed relevant, but about a year ago (2023) i made this post about characters with whom Harrow makes a cool ship. at the end, i elaborate a bit more on one of my ships that i keep coming back to.

please explain your weird obsession with religious characters, neo

26/03/2024

this is mostly a reproduction of a tumblr post!

after seeing dune part two twice (three after writing the original post) in the cinema, i was compelled to lay out exactly what it is that attracts me to characters and settings with a strong religious motif, even though i am not religious and these tastes do not in any way represent my personal values.

so here is a list of religion/cult-related tropes that will 100% of the time make me insane over a character or setting. it's not mandatory that all of them apply at once, any linear combination is guaranteed to be neocore.