u/Master_Novel_4062

Imo it’s Edward IV. He was an idiot to marry Elizabeth Woodville and leaving his widow and young sons at the mercy of the clashing Woodville and Gloucester factions was very much avoidable. If Edward IV had married Bona of Savoy the Plantagenets likely would’ve at least lasted a few more generations. All of the following people are culpable to some degree though in my opinion.

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If Charlemagne had outlived all of his legitimate sons, what would have become of the Frankish Empire upon his death? Would any of his illegitimate sons have been considered eligible to inherit the throne, since legitimacy was much more flexible during this period (some scholars even believe Charlemagne himself may have been born out of wedlock). Would Louis the Pious’ eldest son Lothair have been crowned sole Emperor? Would the Frankish Empire have been divided up amongst Louis the Pious sons (Lothair, Pepin, and Louis; Charles the Bald hadn’t yet been born) even though they were still young? Would Bernard of Italy have had any claim on the Imperial Title or at least have had a better shake of things than he did in our timeline? Would it have just devolved into a complete free for all the minute Charlemagne breathed his last? I read that there was a cattle plague that traveled through Europe circa 810 that is believed to have killed Charlemagne’s two older heirs, Charles the Younger and Pepin of Italy, in addition to his disgraced eldest son Pepin the Hunchback. It isn’t a stretch to consider that Louis the Pious very well could have succumbed to this as well, which is what got me thinking about this question in the first place.

For me it’s gotta be a Pug. Personally I wouldn’t want to have a pet that’s suffering pretty much 24/7. The brachycephalic breeds in general are not favorites of mine. I just don’t see the appeal of bunched up snouts and labored breathing. I find it disconcerting.

I know it’s impossible and everyone keeps rubbing that in my face but I don’t see hope in my future. I’ve just made too many mistakes. I can never have the past that I wish I did and I’ve been given so many good opportunities in my life that I fucked. Every time I’m reminded of the irreversible forward march of time and how we’re all slowly running out of it I feel like ripping my eyes out. I just can’t handle it. I’ve wasted and squandered all of my talents and potential. Maybe my parents should’ve raised me differently, but I don’t want to blame them. I wish that I could’ve been someone who made them proud but I’m not. I would commit unspeakable acts to be able to start over again and do it all right this time.

I wish that I was born before social media and I wish that I was a kid before covid. I think of what was and what could’ve been and it’s all so much better than what is. I want it back. I want to be the person I was as a little kid again. I’m so jealous of everyone else in my life, they all run circles around me. I can’t live with the memory of all my failings. People always say to me “you’re still young” or “you can’t go back, you only have the future” but it just makes things hurt even more. I’ll never be happy again.

I don’t know how much longer I can live in this reality. I wish that I could just give up my life and start everything from scratch. I’m begging the universe at this point to just wake up as a little kid again. Everything was better back then but I fucked it. I should’ve never had the internet. I can’t undo my massive mistakes and I’m dying inside because of it. I don’t want to focus on the future, the past was so much better. I want everything to go back to the beginning. I’m so disconnected from everyone else in my life and I feel irreparably damaged fundamentally.

I’ll never be okay. I hate this life but I can’t handle the idea of all of my dead loved ones being gone forever, and I’m terrified of not existing too. I know I’m immature but I can’t handle reality, I can’t take it. I’m trapped and nothing will ever get better deep down. I know other people have problems which are probably worse than mine but I’m too desperate to have room for other people at this point. I just want to go back, please just let me go back and do it right this time. Everyone around me is doing so much better than me. I want to live up to them but I can’t. I have nothing. No skills or friends. I just want to do my life over. I can’t live with myself and I’m starting to hate everyone around me. I just want to have a do over.

I (15f) have wasted my life so far. I have no skills or hobbies or social life. I’ve quit pretty much everything I’ve ever tried. Summer is winding down and I’ve wasted it completely. I’ve ruined every friendship I’ve ever had. I wish I was never exposed to the internet because I got addicted as a kid and it ruined my life. I wish that I could just go back and do it over. I can’t take this anymore. I have too many regrets that are weighing me down in life. I come from a good family and whatever but everyone else has achieved so much more than me. I just want to be young and innocent and full of potential again. I didn’t know what I had until I lost it. I know that my problems “aren’t that bad” but if I can’t even handle these God only knows how being an adult will go for me. I will regret all of my mistakes until the day that I die. I’m a teenager and I’m not living the teenage life at all. I don’t have any friends and I don’t even know how to do makeup. I’ve fucked it. I wish I grew up before the digital age because then maybe I would’ve learned to work hard and focus and build a good life for myself. It’s too late now though. I just wish that I could’ve been someone different. I’m a disappointment to everyone that knows me. Even posting this is embarrassing. I don’t know why I use Reddit. No one else I know does. Fml.

I (15f) was exposed to iPads from the time I was 6, given my own iPad at 9, and given a phone at 12. It has ruined my life. I was raised in a good family with a good socioeconomic standing but whenever I look back on my childhood I want to gouge my own eyes out because so much of it was wasted on screens. My eyesight was always bad genetically but screens have definitely made it worse. I can’t focus on anything. I have no social life and I’ve given up on pretty much everything I’ve tried. I haven’t been able to maintain friendships or connections over the years. There were people in my life who’ve tried to warn me but I wasn’t old enough to really understand until it was too late. It bothers me when people view “iPad kids” with scorn and ridicule them instead of seeing them as the victims that they are. Older generations wouldn’t have faired any better if they had the same circumstances as some of us do now. I wish I was born like 15-20 years earlier so I could’ve grown up in a time when technology still existed but there was a balance to things. Then I could’ve been an adult when the digital era commenced and been properly equipped to handle its pitfalls. I don’t think people who haven’t experienced this are truly capable of understanding the grief of it. I can never be an innocent kid again. I can never have those years back despite the fact that I would stop at literally nothing to be able to do it over. I can never be the person I could’ve been and it’ll haunt me forever. I’ll have to live with the scorn of older people even though they’ll never have to deal with these things the way I will. I’ve been permanently ruined and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to live with it.

I (15f) wish I had been born 15-20 years earlier than I actually was. I recently came to a difficult epiphany about how much time I’ve wasted consuming internet content over the years. I realized that I didn’t appreciate the real tangible things I had and wasted some of my best years, and now it’s too late to ever get it back. I haven’t developed all that many skills, and I’ve missed out on so many milestones. I don’t know how to do makeup, I don’t wear “cool” clothes, I have a nonexistent social life, and I never really stuck to any activities. I’ve never had a job or earned any money for myself. Part of what has made me beat myself up so hard over all of this is the fact that I had every opportunity in the world, and plenty of people tried to steer me on the right track, but I never utilized any of it. I’ve become a lazy, mediocre shell of who I could’ve been. I have cousins who are a lot older than me and were so much more accomplished than me at this age because they had less distractions in their lives. I wish that I had never been given internet access, it ruined me. Obviously I would never want to live in a world without modern medicine and pluming or something like that, but I wish that I had grown up before the digital age really took hold, and that I had had time to grow and develop before screens had the chance to mold me into who I am now. I was exposed to a lot of things I shouldn’t have been at far too young of an age, and I wish I had been innocent for longer. I wish that I had watched more movies or read more books or played outside more. I still did those things obviously, but I wish that I had done them more, and for longer. I’d be willing to give up my current life just to have a chance to start over in a better era and do it right this time around. I wish that I could go back and make up for all the lost time with people who aren’t around anymore, and do all the things that this version of me was too weak to. I want my childhood back. If I had grown into the digital age as a teenager/adult, I’d be fine with it I think, but as a child it’s an extremely destructive force. I know that the internet existed before 2010, but it was not at all comparable to what it is now. The early internet and Magazines and Television cannot in good faith be compared to social media and AI (personally I’ve never used AI but my point stands). I wish that I could just wake up and have the chance to be a kid again, and to rectify all of my failings. Hindsight really is 20/20. You never know what you should’ve chosen until life has already chosen for you. I really wish that I didn’t have to deal with the consequences of the times we live in. I don’t know how I’ll be able to face adulthood and carry all of this regret with me for the rest of my life.

I (15f) have many problems I wish I didn’t have to deal with, but I’ll just focus on one particular one here that kind of feeds into all of the others. I keep reading and hearing reports about how screens destroy people’s attention spans and resilience, and I have to agree. I deleted TikTok a couple months ago for that reason, and I don’t use instagram or YouTube shorts, but I think the damage has already been done in some ways. The problem because especially bad after quarantine. I can cut it out of my life all I want but it’s too late to really change things or make up for lost time. When I read about how different people were decades ago it just makes me sad. It’s isolating to hear so much rhetoric about how so much of your generation is doomed and a failure, but I can’t really convince myself otherwise. I’d do anything to have been born 20 or 30 or 40 years earlier. That’s why I have a difficult time blaming “kids these days” for the challenges they face. Every one of all ages is responsible for their own choices of course, but when older people designed a system that set up future generations for failure, and then blame those same generations for failing, it seems pretty hypocritical to say the least. I’m not trying to absolve myself at all here, I know I’m part of the problem as much as anyone else in my position, but for the people who have the privilege to watch this disaster unfold from box seats, I don’t think they’d be much different if they grew up during these times either. And we could’ve been like them if we weren’t ruined before we had the chance to truly understand what we were getting ourselves into. This feeling is a burden that I carry everyday, an existential one. All those experiences and memories I’ll never get, and I’ll always have to look back on what otherwise would’ve been a good childhood with despair and regret instead. We can enforce new regulations and spread more awareness in the future, but it’s not going to save those who’ve already fallen, and as one of the fallen, it’s cold comfort. I’ve committed myself to trying to read more and be more observant of my surroundings, but I’m constantly weighed down by feelings of regret for what was and could’ve been, and the sense that the trajectory the world is going down is out of my hands, and there’s little that could be done at this point. Wishing so badly to start over or have a different life had made me think more about all the potential times or places I could’ve been born instead of this. I know I should be grateful that I’m not them, but thinking about how all of world history has sucked for 95% of people is extremely depressing to me. I know I’ll never have what I want, but god I’d do anything to have this weight lifted off of my shoulders. I would keep everything in my life the way it is if I could’ve been born into the mid to late 20th century instead of now. I just have such a morbid chasm inside of me that robs me of any ability to feel joy or hope. Meds, therapy, yada yada yada been there done that, but it can’t change what’s already set in stone. The only thing that’s holding me back from giving up at this point is fear of what it entails and what nothingness really is. I don’t want to be extinguished forever, I just want a way out of my life. I can’t handle it anymore. I’m scared of dying but I’m also terrified of having to live with this and regret it all forever.

I (15f) have many problems I wish I didn’t have to deal with, but I’ll just focus on one particular one here that kind of feeds into all of the others. I keep reading and hearing reports about how screens destroy people’s attention spans and resilience, and I have to agree. I deleted TikTok a couple months ago for that reason, and I don’t use instagram or YouTube shorts, but I think the damage has already been done in some ways. The problem because especially bad after quarantine. I can cut it out of my life all I want but it’s too late to really change things or make up for lost time. When I read about how different people were decades ago it just makes me sad. It’s isolating to hear so much rhetoric about how so much of your generation is doomed and a failure, but I can’t really convince myself otherwise. I’d do anything to have been born 20 or 30 or 40 years earlier. That’s why I have a difficult time blaming “kids these days” for the challenges they face. Every one of all ages is responsible for their own choices of course, but when older people designed a system that set up future generations for failure, and then blame those same generations for failing, it seems pretty hypocritical to say the least. I’m not trying to absolve myself at all here, I know I’m part of the problem as much as anyone else in my position, but for the people who have the privilege to watch this disaster unfold from box seats, I don’t think they’d be much different if they grew up during these times either. And we could’ve been like them if we weren’t ruined before we had the chance to truly understand what we were getting ourselves into. This feeling is a burden that I carry everyday, an existential one. All those experiences and memories I’ll never get, and I’ll always have to look back on what otherwise would’ve been a good childhood with despair and regret instead. We can enforce new regulations and spread more awareness in the future, but it’s not going to save those who’ve already fallen, and as one of the fallen, it’s cold comfort. I’ve committed myself to trying to read more and be more observant of my surroundings, but I’m constantly weighed down by feelings of regret for what was and could’ve been, and the sense that the trajectory the world is going down is out of my hands, and there’s little that could be done at this point. Wishing so badly to start over or have a different life had made me think more about all the potential times or places I could’ve been born instead of this. I know I should be grateful that I’m not them, but thinking about how all of world history has sucked for 95% of people is extremely depressing to me. I know I’ll never have what I want, but god I’d do anything to have this weight lifted off of my shoulders. I would keep everything in my life the way it is if I could’ve been born into the mid to late 20th century instead of now. I just have such a morbid chasm inside of me that robs me of any ability to feel joy or hope. Meds, therapy, yada yada yada been there done that, but it can’t change what’s already set in stone. The only thing that’s holding me back from giving up at this point is fear of what it entails and what nothingness really is. I don’t want to be extinguished forever, I just want a way out of my life. I can’t handle it anymore.

I (15f) live a ignominious life, completely devoid of substance or meaning. I was born into plenty of opportunity but managed to squander it all. I am generally isolated from the outside world, I have no friends that I hang out with, and every day that goes by just feels like more time that I’m wasting but I don’t know what to do and even if I did I don’t know how to do it or even if I’m capable of doing it. I barely get by in everything I do, which isn’t very much at all, and I have zero plans for my future. I think about all the things my parents were able to do when they were my age despite having less than me, and it makes me want to crawl out of my own body. They tell me that they grew up in a different time and I shouldn’t worry about it, but that sentiment just makes me feel even worse. I feel like there’s something broken about my generation and these times. They’re older and they had the crescendo of their lives in the world that was, so they don’t feel the active sense of despair and destruction that I do. I think about all those times when I was a kid when I just absorbed myself into this technological dystopia instead of actually living in the moment when I still could and it crushes me. I know I have no one to blame but myself ultimately but I wish I had more structure in my life, or had appreciated what I had back when I was still salvageable. I’ve tried to talk to adults about it before but I don’t think they can truly understand the unique and unprecedented breed of hopelessness that marks these times. Our collective gilded cage is decaying around us. I think that, even if I were able to come out the other side of this and find some achievement or satisfaction in my life, I’d still be permanently weighed down by the memories of how I was and I could never truly shed them. I feel like my life story is permanently blotched and contaminated. It’s hard to reconcile the complicated emotions of having derived a lot of pain from your childhood and not wanting to think about it despite your parents having had the best of intentions. I imagine that if it all could be done over, even just one alteration to the timeline could’ve changed everything. I know the default response to these kinds of posts is the usual “meds and therapy” but I’ve tried both and they haven’t given me anything that could truly mend this. This is something I have brought on myself, it’s not a natural condition. I don’t know how to overcome this. I don’t know if I ever will. What I do know is that the world isn’t going in a good direction and it hasn’t been in a long time. It causes me a great deal of pain when I see it but I can’t tell myself it’s wrong that this generation is experiencing a downward slide in comparison to previous ones. Maybe I’m just not made for this world. Maybe I’ve made all the wrong decisions up until this point. I never seem to know what the right one in front of me is, I can only see with hindsight. I’m pathetic, I have no admirable qualities or values that I’m able to put to good use. If my life is to amount to anything let it be this: the generation of today needs to make sure that the generations of tomorrow turn off all the extra noise, actually live in the real world, and don’t continue the trend we’ve created.

Imo it has to be the Lancasterverse duology. I’ve rewatched those videos probably at least 8 times. My second favorite would probably be the videos he did on Brian and Dennis Wilson. I knew the Beach Boys had crazy lore but I have no idea it was that crazy.