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speed-seo · 1 year ago

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Affiliate Marketing: Definition, Examples, and How to Get Started

Introduction Greetings everyone, this is Jesus Guzman coming at you with over a decade of experience in the affiliate marketing industry. As a veteran in the space, I've seen countless new marketers come and go over the years. Some fail to grasp the basics, while others find quick success by leveraging proven strategies. In this comprehensive guide, I aim to break down the definition of affiliate marketing in clear and actionable terms. We'll explore real world examples of both large and small programs to give you insights into different verticals and business models. Lastly, I'll equip you with the exact tactics that I've used to generate millions for myself and clients over the past 10 years. Whether you're just getting started or looking to evolve your existing programs, this guide leaves no stone unturned. It doesn't matter if you have a product to sell or are looking to promote offers as a third party - we've got all the tips and hacks to truly differentiate yourself in this competitive industry. Let's dive right in and level-up your affiliate game! What Is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing at its core is a performance-based partnership between a merchant or brand and an external publisher. As an affiliate, your role is to promote the merchant's products or services and drive sales through recommendations, deals, and targeted ads displayed on your own website, blog, newsletter, or social media feeds. You can then say that affiliate marketing is a low-risk model that allows publishers of all sizes to generate passive income streams from their established audiences. How It Works The way it works is a merchant will provide affiliates with unique tracking links, banners, or text links that include your identifier. Whenever a visitor uses your affiliate link to make a purchase, the sale is attributed to you in the merchant's tracking system. At predefined intervals, usually monthly or quarterly, you will receive a commission for any completed sales or actions resulting from your promotional efforts. The process of affiliate marketing is relatively straightforward. Here's a simplified breakdown: - Company: A business sets up an affiliate program to promote its products or services. - Affiliate: Individuals or organizations join the affiliate program and become affiliates. - Promotion: Affiliates use various marketing tactics to promote the company's products or services. This can include creating content, running ads, or sharing referral links. - Conversion: When a customer makes a purchase or completes a desired action after clicking on the affiliate's promotional content, the affiliate earns a commission. - Commission: The company tracks the conversions and pays the affiliates their agreed-upon commission. Special Considerations About the affiliate commissions you can receive: Commissions typically range from 2-10% per transaction, though some niche programs offer more. The merchant benefits from increased exposure and sales without needing to spend on marketing themselves. As an affiliate, you're able to monetize your influence online and earn money by simply endorsing brands you support. Before diving into the world of affiliate marketing, it's essential to consider a few factors: 1. Digital Marketing and Analytics The rise of the internet and advanced analytics tools has significantly contributed to the growth of affiliate marketing. Companies can track the effectiveness of their affiliate campaigns, allowing them to optimize their strategies and improve their return on investment. 2. Types of Affiliate Marketing There are three main types of affiliate marketing: - Unattached Affiliate Marketing: Affiliates have no direct connection to the product or service they are promoting. They don't make claims or recommendations about its use. - Related Affiliate Marketing: Affiliates promote products or services that are related to their niche. They have enough authority and expertise to generate traffic and act as trusted sources. - Involved Affiliate Marketing: Affiliates have personal experience using the product or service and confidently recommend it based on their positive experiences. Each type of affiliate marketing has its advantages and considerations, so it's important to choose the approach that aligns with your goals and expertise. 3. Advantages and Disadvantages Affiliate marketing offers several benefits: - Low-cost advertising: Companies only pay affiliates for actual conversions, making it a cost-effective marketing strategy. - Wider reach: Affiliates can tap into their existing audience or network to promote products or services to a broader customer base. - Additional income: Affiliates have the opportunity to earn passive income by promoting products or services they believe in. However, there are also potential challenges to consider, such as competition, building trust with your audience, and staying up-to-date with industry trends. Examples of Affiliate Marketing Let me share three common examples of affiliate marketing programs to help illustrate how it all comes together: Example 1: Amazon Associates This is one of the largest affiliate networks globally. Millions of bloggers and influencers promote products listed on Amazon and earn a commission anytime a visitor makes a purchase after clicking their unique links. It's an easy way to offer recommendations without maintaining your own inventory.(Visit Amazon Associates) Example 2: CJ Affiliate Thousands of merchants across various verticals like travel, clothing, and consumer electronics use CJ's platform. As an affiliate, you can browse their catalog and preview top selling items to feature. Commissions are paid on purchases tracked back to your efforts.(Visit CJ Affiliates) Example 3: Lead Generation Websites in finance, recruiting, and education often run lead generation campaigns. By capturing form submissions from prospective students or customers, affiliates introduce qualified prospects and receive payment per confirmed lead. Conversion rates tend to be lower but payouts higher. No matter the size or specialization, these affiliates are able to monetize their audiences and communities without having direct customer service obligations. It allows anyone to participate in online marketing. Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing – A Step-by-Step Approach As with any new venture, having a systematic plan establishes affiliates for success. Here are the key steps I've seen effective with new promoters: 1. Choose Your Niche Wisely Select an industry you're passionate about to authentically represent. This could be anything from parenting to DIY, depending on your expertise and audience. 2. Research Program Partners Explore companies whose products align with your niche. Compare factors like commission tiers, payment schedules and tools provided. This informs optimal network choices. 3. Build Authority in Your Space Launch an informative blog, YouTube channel or Instagram and publish relentlessly with valuable, well-researched information. Establish industry thought leadership over time. 4. Drive Qualified Traffic Engage communities through helpful comments and social collaboration. Optimize SEO on owned assets to welcome curious searchers. 5. Promote Strategically When a good fit surfaces, introduce products you've vetted through reviews, posts and social proofs. Build gradually based on readership needs. 6. Analyze Ongoing Performance Track metrics like clicks, purchases and ROI to refine approaches. Fine-tune campaigns by prioritizing highest converting promos. Providing ongoing support, affiliates can succeed through focus on their niche, quality of content creation and data-driven optimization practices over the long haul. Embarking on the Affiliate Journey: A Path of Steady Progress For any embarking on the affiliate journey, I can understand the mix of nerves and excitement that comes with venturing into the unknown. It's only natural to have doubts - this path challenges us to step outside our comfort zone and trust in a future that is still unfolding. The key is helping each other Yet for those with a passion for helping others through sharing knowledge, the rewards of this work go far beyond any paycheck. I've spoken with affiliates who light up recalling the meaningful connections formed over years of respectful dialogue. Even doubts dissolve when we focus outward on enriching real lives, not inward on perceived risks. Small gestures of encouragement, whether commenting words of affirmation or celebrating others' wins, uplift us all in turn. This affiliate work breathes best when steeped in humanity - we rise by lifting each other. No matter the setbacks encountered, such acts of empathy fuel perseverance through difficult seasons. Ultimately each affiliate must walk their own authentic journey at their own pace. But in sharing vulnerably of challenges and triumphs alike, we forge bonds to strengthen each other's step. Our diverse perspectives unfold opportunities to learn across perceived "differences." This diverse heritage anchors hope that by embracing our shared humanity above all, progress blossoms where once only struggle existed. To any now standing at the start of their affiliate path, may you find the courage to stay guided, and if you need a friendly hand, just reach out to us. Getting Started With Affiliate Marketing: FAQs How much time does it take to get started? Getting your first affiliate site or projects started can take 1-2 months depending on your technical abilities. This includes researching your niche, building your site/profile infrastructure, adding initial content and optimizing for search engines/conversions. Expect 5-10 hours per week minimum when first launching. When will I see my first commission check? Most affiliate programs pay out commissions monthly once your earnings hit a minimum threshold (typically $50-100). You may receive your first check 30-90 days after your initial promotion depending on when sales are attributed. Consistency and continuous testing of offers/ad placements will help maximize your chances of a first sale. Is affiliate marketing a sustainable business model? Yes, with proper setup and long-term strategy. While earnings may fluctuate, developing specialty knowledge in your niche through helpful content allows scaling globally with minimal effort over time. Market changes require paying attention to metrics to stay aligned with ongoing audience and advertiser needs through a value-driven, user-centric approach. How do I choose the right niche to promote? Select an area you're passionate about and can produce unique resources on for years. Look for topics with commercial intent that also benefit people's lives. Research demand using Google Trends and forums. Choose a micro-niche that isn't overly saturated yet has interested readers ready to buy solutions to common problems you can address. Do I need my own products to sell? No, that's the beauty of affiliate marketing - you can generate sales commissions without ever holding any inventory, shipping products or managing customer support. By curating the best solutions from various companies, you can match diverse customers with offerings from trusted merchants in your niche. What are some high paying affiliate programs? Popular high-earning verticals include finance/insurance, supplements/health, online courses, SaaS tools, online services like VPNs and streaming platforms. However, the highest paying programs depend entirely on your ability to reach qualified audiences for that offer through valuable, engaging content over the long run in your specialty area. Compatibility and fit matter most. Read the full article

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fortheloveoffanfic · 4 years ago

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Stepdaddy

Keanu Reeves x Reader (A/n- Its here and now I lowkey wanna write more of this)

Summary- Caught in a lustful attraction, Keanu and his soon to be step daughter, fall victim to their desire. *OFC (Y/n) is over 18. (I beg you, please don’t kill me.)

Warnings- NSFW/SMUT, daddy kink, semi-public sex, infidelity (please just read the title and summary), age gap

Keanu knew it was wrong, with every fiber in his being, from the depths of his experienced mind all the way down to the very tips of his toes, he knew for certain, it was wrong. But he couldn't help himself, for though he’d prided himself on having a strict moral code, he was, at the base of it, a man. A man who could appreciate a gorgeous woman when he saw one. If only that gorgeous woman wasn’t mere months away from being his step daughter.

From the minute they’d met, Keanu had found himself urging resistance, he loved his fiancée, he did. Caroline. She was a notable, and incredibly talented designer and they’d met when the fashion house she worked with had sourced him as the face of their fall line. Falling for hadn’t been instantaneous, instead, they’d spent a few too many nights together and gotten to talking. He’d found something in her, a resting place for his weary soul, a familiarity that had yet to be discovered in anyone else. They were both well travelled, old souls and no matter where they were, as long as they were together, it felt like home. When they’d gotten together, Keanu was positive that he’d never have eyes for another. That was, until he met her daughter.

The spitting image of her mother, thought minus twenty something years in age, Y/n was jaw-droppingly stunning. From the minute she’d walked into the room, that night when she’d returned from a month-long trip to Paris with some of her friends, Keanu found it hard to tear his gaze away. She was magnetic, far more melancholic than her mother and had this sort of dark princess, too moody to be the life of the party kind of vibe. But still, there wasn’t a soul that didn’t gravitate towards her when she entered a room. Y/n was a paradox of sorts, wildly mysterious yet disarmingly charming.

After their initial introduction, just some seven or eight months prior, she’d become a staple of their Malibu household- he and Caroline had agreed that they would move into her place on the beach; it was the one thing she’d held on to after her husband’s untimely passing and where she’d raised her only child. At first, Keanu welcomed the idea, anything for his dear Caroline, though, months later, he was slowly beginning to regret it. Especially when work had taken Caroline to Italy, leaving him to often find Y/n lounging near the poolside, with her model friends and whatever lucky man had been in her good graces at that point.

They never seemed to last; the men, and every time one stopped coming around, Keanu would breathe a sigh of relief. It was ridiculous really, but he’d somehow developed the notion that if he couldn’t have her, no one else should. He wanted her, physically he ached for her, especially after seeing how the scarce fabric of her bikinis would hug her curves. And then to add insult to injury, during the stretch of her mother's absence and the short stint of one of those overly pompous surfer boys, he’d stumbled upon the most vulgar thing on his way to his and Caroline's shared bedroom.

Well, maybe ‘stumbled upon’ might have been too generous. Maybe he’d followed the sounds of strained yelps and heavy grunts all the way to a slightly ajar door that led to Y/n’s bedroom. A peek in had proven to boil his blood upon finding her with her back pressed against the dresser, panties hanging off one of her ankles and her nameless companion jerking her body into the furniture. Part of him was illogically enraged, jealous. But another part had stiffened, hardening in his pants and when he’d found the will to rip his eyes away from the scene, Keanu had stolen to his room, taking himself in his hand after a pumping some lotion from a bottle on the nearby nightstand into his palm, grunting Y/n’s name through clenched teeth as he fucked himself. After that, it was hard to look at Y/n without thinking of what he'd seen, without wishing it had been him with her that afternoon instead.

That night, long after Caroline’s return, when they had made reservations at a nearby restaurant to celebrate the green light on her latest line, Keanu, for a few dear minutes, had been able to give his fiancée his full attention. He wished it could have lasted longer, because every time his mind wandered, it made him feel guilty, but they were just heading out through the front door when Y/n sauntered in, from a hallway off to the side, head down and loose tresses, curtain her face as she secured her phone in her large clutch. She swayed her hips slowly and thin heels thumped quietly on the hardwood. “Sorry,” she breathed absently, not looking at them.

“Glad you decided to join us,” Caroline huffed and unlike Y/n, all Keanu could do was stare. And try to not drool. Her black dress was skin tight, sporting a high slit at her left thigh as if its already lacking hem didn’t boast her smooth legs. Spaghetti straps supported a dangerously low neckline and he had to actively avoid ogling at how her full breasts seemed pushed together. A bright ruby pendant drew attention to her cleavage, while similar stones shone on the ear that she’d tucked some of her hair behind, though, none of the exquisite stones were as deep or dark as her full lips, caught in a perpetual pout.

As she lifted her head, Y/n rolled her eyes, sighing softly as she met her mother’s fallen expression, her own softening as she spoke next, “I said I was sorry,” Y/n sighed again, approaching her mother and seemingly ignoring him at her side. As Y/n leaned in to peck Caroline’s cheek though, her bare arm brushed his, and Keanu could have sworn electricity passed between them. “You know I wouldn’t miss this mom, it’s important to you.”

“I know,” Caroline smiled softly, slipping her arm into Keanu’s, “Isn’t Shane joining us?” She inquired absently as the slipped through the front door, the steps illumined by yellow, glowing porch lights.

Scoffing, Keanu barely missed the way Y/n brushed some hair out of her face as she did. “He’s…..we’re done.”

“So soon?” Keanu was the one who spoke up that time, his interest peaked. Shane had been around for longer than the others. They’d actually met him and Caroline seemed to like him well enough for her daughter.

“Mm hmm,” Y/n hummed, being the first to get into the back of the black, heavily tinted sedan so he and her mother could sit together, “He was boring.” She never came off as one interested in offering many words, and as far back as Keanu remembered, they’d only had a handful of full conversations. If it weren’t for Caroline telling him, he wouldn’t have even known that she had a job outside of lounging by the pool almost everyday; she was a fashion curator, whatever that meant.

“He’s a doctor!” Caroline defended, knitting her brows, “A doctor for Doctors Without Borders, what’s so boring about that?”

Shifting so she could look out the window, Y/n propped her chin on her hand, her elbow stationed on the door, “I don’t know,” she shrugged half heartedly, already off in her own world, “He just was.”

Keanu threw Caroline, who’d realized that Y/n wasn’t really entertained by the conversation, a sympathetic look, effectively hiding his satisfaction with how unattached her daughter was. “Alright dear,” she gnawed on her lower lip and Keanu affectionately squeezed her hand in his, “Whatever you say.”

Vacantly, Y/n stared at her half finished meal, fork held loosely between her fingers. Occasionally, when she’d raise her head to take a sip of her wine, she’d meet the sight of her mother leaning into Keanu’s embrace as they shared innocent pecks ever so often. She liked seeing her mother happy, it had been years since her father’s passing after all, and Keanu was the first person she’d let get that close, but despite it all, Y/n was still jealous. Not jealous of her happiness, but really, who she'd found happiness with; Keanu.

He was smolderingly attractive; the specs of salt in his beard, the dark locks falling perfectly over his rugged features, his broad shoulders and towering stature. Y/n could see the appeal, and she could see it well enough to want her chance at him. It was twisted, immature and he should have been off limits, but there was just something about his rich pools of whiskey that sent shivers up her spine when he laid eyes on her. And Y/n went out of her way to make sure he laid eyes on her.

It was particularly hard either; half her time back at the house was spent in a swimsuit anyway, and she’d been especially sure to wear her skimpiest pieces when she knew for sure that he'd be out on the balcony for his late night smoke. It wasn't overtly obvious, but Y/n could tell her efforts were paying off. Sometimes, depending on what she was wearing and if they were alone in a room, she could feel his eyes following her around, and then, there were some more…….unsavory things that she'd been privy to.

It had never been Y/n's intention to hurt her mother, or steal her boyfriend, but who could resist a man as magnificent. Keanu was every girl's wet dream, older, hunky and no doubt experienced, in all respects. Besides, it wasn't like she was trying to snatch him away forever, at most, she wanted to show him a good time, what her girl her age could do before he and her mom got hitched.

Speaking of the wedding.

"Y/n?" Her mother roused her attention, just as her eyes had started straying towards the ocean view offered through the window, "I’ve waiting to ask you something when we were all together, as a family," Caroline reached across the table for her daughter's hand, "I know that we haven’t been as close as we used to be before you left for college. But you're still my daughter, my little ballerina," at the words, Y/n blushed, memories of a simpler time flashing across her mind, "And I'd love it if you'd be my maid of honor."

Widening her eyes, Y/n's jaw slacked, "Mom…..I'd be honored." Mustering up a smile and doing her best to ignore Keanu. That moment wasn't about him, it was about her and her mother.

"Really?" Caroline cooed giddily, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. For a split second, a pang of guilt stabbed at her chest. Her mother was marrying Keanu. Her mother who'd sworn off dating after a horrible accident vowed her a single parent. Her mother, who'd taken her around the world as a child, along with an armory of private tutors, just so Y/n could have the best of both worlds. Her mother, and there she was, trying to seduce her fiancé. How ungrateful could she be?

Chuckling fondly, Y/n tilted her head, "Of course mom, I'd love to be your maid of honor."

"Oh! I'm so happy to hear that," Caroline sniffled, "Keanu can tell you, I've been meaning to ask since you got back. But we hadn't even started planning the wedding yet, and then I had to go to Italy and I didn't just want to spring it on you either," her smile faltered, and Y/n knew where her mother was going with that, "I know that it's been almost fifteen years, but I didn't want you to think that I'm marrying Keanu to replace your father."

The memories of him stung and Y/n had to clench her jaw as she shook her head, "I know. It's been…..a long time, since he…...doesn't matter," clearing her throat, Y/n was suddenly fighting tears, "You deserve to have love again."

"Y/n's right sweetheart," Keanu pecked the top of her mother's head, "And I'm so happy that I'm the only that gets to love you."

Even if she'd just reprimanded herself, seeing Keanu coddle her mother was still a bit annoying, and coupled with the barrage of memories shared with her late father, Y/n was starting to get the feeling that the walls were closing in on her. She needed air, fast. "Excuse me," the chair scraped the tiles noisily as she stood abruptly, discarding her napkin next to her plate on the table, "I think I'm gonna go for a walk, get some fresh air."

As she stalked off hurriedly, Y/n could hear her mother calling after her, asking if she was okay. But the last thing Y/n wanted to do was talk about it and, as she broke through the glass doors of the establishment, sea breeze blasting her face and the sound of waves crashing against the shore filling her hearts, she sighed heavily, grateful to finally be alone with her thoughts.

Replaying the past in her head, like the best parts of a movie on repeat, Y/n walked slowly along the sand dusted wooden pathway tucked against the side of the restaurant. The area was barren of all other life, and dark void of any other lighting besides what was offered by the twinkling night sky. Usually, she supposed the area was used by workers who wanted to escape the bustle without being caught, but that night, it was perfect for a young girl seeking to escape her reality.

If only for a very short while.

"Is everything okay?" A painfully familiar baritone pierced her thoughts, causing Y/n to turn around as face Keanu. His features were shrouded by the dimness, but she could identify the outline of his frame almost immediately, marveling at how much bigger he looked under the cover of the shadows.

Blinking away her tears, thankful that he could not see her glassy eyes, Y/n nodded stiffly, "Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

Shrugging, Keanu took a couple steps forward, stuffing his hands into his pockets, "You ran out of there pretty quickly," he nudged towards the restaurant, "Your mom wanted to come talk to you, but I offered to do it instead?"

"Yeah?" A sly smile broke through without her permission, and Y/n folded her arms, leaning against the sturdy guard rail, "Why?"

"I just think it's important for us to be able to have these kinds of conversations, I'm marrying your mother in a few months after all," his words seemed to shake and Y/n was beginning to wonder if concern for her was what had brought him out there. As much as people wanted to believe it, she knew that Keanu was hardly a saint.

"You're right," Y/n teased, subtly inching closer. Any trace of guilt she'd harbored was gone from the minute he'd called out to her. Maybe he should have stayed inside if he wanted to keep up the good guy persona, and maybe, just maybe, Y/n was a little too used to getting want she wanted. "Soon you're gonna be like…..my daddy," raising her brows, she snatched her lower lip between her teeth, "My step daddy," sure enough, she enunciated the word, ensuring that it dripped with seduction.

"So that's why you came out here?" Keanu scoffed, shaking his head and clearly trying to hide his smirk, "You know, you're not as innocent as your mother thinks you are."

Throwing her head back, Y/n chortled, the sound smooth like a full-bodied red, "I never claimed to be, or tired," shaking her shoulder, she was eventually looking at him again, dark, lustrous gaze unwavering, "You on the other hand…..you might have her fooled. Hell, you might have everyone fooled, except for me."

Licking his lips, Keanu hesitated before humoring her, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't act so coy," Y/n dismissed with a wave of her jewel adorned hand, "Tell me Keanu," she closed the distance between them, leaving a weak few inches between their bodies, "Do you always call my name when you fuck yourself?"

He knew exactly what she was talking about and Y/n could tell. She'd heard him that day, even when the door muffling her words, in particular, had rang through clearly; her name as he came sloppy all over his fingers. "You heard that?" He breathed hoarsely.

"And so much more," Y/n fingers lightly trailed the zipper of his leather jacket, and she gazed up at him through her thick lashes, daring him to make the next move. "Wouldn't you like to feel the real thing?" Y/n hummed, "See if I'm as tight as you're imagining."

"You're a bad girl," he mused, his warm palms ghosting her hips, as if he was scared that touching her would solidify the act. Still, he worked against conscience, "Say it again," he urged, "Call me that again."

Quelling a mischievous soiree, Y/n laid her free hand on his bicep, discarding her last shred of rationality, which screamed that she was possibly among the worst in the world, "Daddy," she purred. "How often do you think about fucking me, Daddy?"

"Too often," he growled, hastily shoving Y/n against the wall. "You walk around in those tiny outfits, like some kind of little slut. And you let frat boys fuck you with the door open. You're practically asking for it."

"And what are you gonna do about that?" Keanu had already hoisted her up, one of Y/n's legs hooking around his hip while the other laid limp. Her arms looped his neck as their proximity had allowed for her breast to be pressed against his chest as she kept a hand planted on her ass.

"I'm gonna give it to you sweetheart," he nipped at her neck, carefully avoiding any marks, "I wanna be a good Daddy."

"Fuck," a lewd moan escaped her lips, and the feeling of his hard-on pressed against her inner thigh was enough to drench her panties. Keanu merely felt deliciously big. When he nipped on her skin, dragging his teeth as he pulled away, she clutched his bulky arms, nails sinking into the soft leather of his coat. Y/n’s body arched into his as she threw her head back, and Keanu’s hands slipped beneath the hem of her dress, the fabric bunching up at her waist as he roamed her body. “I want you,” she whispered huskily, shutting her eyes and lolling her head back against the wall.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he mumbled, pawing at her ass, kneading and squeezing the firm flesh roughly. Wasting no more time, he shoved her panties away, setting Y/n back on the ground so they could slip down her legs and fall in a sparse pool of racy navy lace at her feet. As Y/n nudged them away with the tip of her stiletto, Keanu got started on the buckle of his belt, aided by her lithe fingers.

“What if someone sees us?” She probed, finding the zipper of his jeans and then reaching inside his pants to palm his hardened cock through his boxers, grinning wickedly at its undeniable girth.

“Look around baby, no ones gonna see a damn thing,” he offered, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “We just gotta be quick.”

Hissing loudly as she squeezed, Keanu bucked into her touch, groaning languidly when she rubbed her thumb over his cotton clad head. “Then what are you waiting for Daddy? We haven’t got all night.”

“You’re right,” he snarled, hastily collecting her in his strong arms once again, shoving her against the wall, situating himself between her spread legs. Temporarily, he clumsily squeezed one hand between their heated bodies, pushing down his underwear and freeing his cock. “You ready?” Keanu’s rumbling words didn’t await permission before he jerked into Y/n’s dripping cunt, her response reduced to hitched cry. Immediately, she could feel his veins bulging against her sensitive walls, and the slight curve of his shaft reached so deep she could have sworn she felt him in her stomach. “You cunt’s so tight babygirl, perfect for Daddy’s cock.”

The feeling of Keanu nestled in her drenched sex, his pace steady and guiding, while still bordering intense rabidity, had Y/n gasping for breath, not caring if the salty air would assault her senses. His cock expended her, almost to the point of creating the most pleasurable burn, and his bruising grip on her waist, the only thing supporting her, was like electricity. Desperate to touch him, Y/n clawed at his t-shirt, barely aware that ripping it would be an unexplainable disaster. Though, her patience quickly wore thin and she resorted to sliding her hands down the neck of his t-shirt, reaching for his back.

Keanu’s tongue, dancing around hers, tasted of the beer he’d been having with dinner, and that, coupled with the lingering Merlot on her tongue was astoundingly intoxicating. The act, the danger of being caught, its depraved immorality, was so sweet that it was drunkening. The feel of Keanu drilling into her, leading her to the threshold of sweet release was far above anything she’d ever felt. The top of his jeans, lowered only enough to allow their sin, chafed the underside of Y/n’s thighs, the friction only adding to the unmatched sensation.

“Oh fuck!” She rasped, sinking her nails into his shoulders, the words swallowed eagerly by Keanu as he rolled his hips aggressively, knowing that they didn’t have much time.

“No marks,” he managed, pulling away and pressing her nose to Y/n’s. Shrugging hastily, Keanu tried to nudge her hands off, “She can’t know.” Barely registering his words, Y/n still loosened her grip, sliding one of her hands up to disturb the neatness of his hair. Around his hips, her legs tightened, consequently restricting his pace even as she breathlessly mumbled broken pleas for him to go faster.

As Y/n’s nails scratched his scalp, one of Keanu’s rough palms deserted her hip, roaming her side, yanking down one of the thin, delicate straps of her silky dress down her arm, freeing one of her breasts so he could grope it eagerly, between moments spent rolling her pebbled nipple between his thumb and pointer. Struggling to buck her hips to meet his, Y/n could quickly feel the last threads holding her coherence together getting ready to snap. “I’m gonna…..” Y/n threw her head back, cool night air combating the heat seeping to the surface of her skin. An indecorous cry parted her lips, and she barely got the words out, “I’m close.”

“The come for me,” Keanu gritted, baring his teeth as he buried his face in the crook of Y/n’s neck, “Come all over Daddy’s cock, baby.”

Under the witness of the navy cloak, speckled with twinkling specs of white, and to the melody of foamy water sloshing beneath their shaky feet, the broil in Y/n’s stomach overflowed explosively. Stars, much like the ones teasing them from above, danced on her blurred vision as a rush of slick moisture coated their thighs, bathing Keanu’s swollen member. As she clenched around him, her legs losing sensation, Y/n felt him slow down, his thrusts rigid as Keanu revealed in the feeling.

A vulgar grunt joined their sounds, ending with a series of hitched breaths as Keanu shot generous, hot bursts of his product inside her, coating her slick walls as excess dripped between them. Sloppily and without rhythm, he rode out both their highs, his movements only slowing down almost completely as they came down.

Stumbling back as he pulled out, Keanu braved himself on the banister, catching his breath. Y/n, still disheveled, slouched against the wall, eyeing Keanu intensely as her chest heaved with deep, heavy breaths. The lingering exhilaration roused the tried smile from her and leaning her head back, Y/n let her eyes slip closed.

"We need to head back inside," Keanu declared, putting himself back together. "Tell you what," he beamed wickedly, bending near Y/n's feet to collect her discarded panties off the floor, "I'll keep these," he crumpled her thong, shoving it into his back pocket, "And you can keep this," without warning, he tossed her the same handkerchief he'd used to hurriedly wipe away the evidence from his thighs.

Before Y/n could even sum up a witty response, still in the process of rearranging her dress, Keanu was adjusting his jacket and running corrective fingers through his full, dark mane. "Don't take too long, alright?" He set off for the side entrance, "See you inside Kid."

As he neared their table, nearer to the cost booths and situated perfectly under the intimate lighting, Keanu watched as Caroline lifted her head, a worried, yet hopeful smile etched across her lovely features. He loved her. "Sweetheart," he bent, pecking her cheek quickly before settling in the chair next to her. As he did, a wave of guilt, incomparable to anything he'd ever felt before then, washed over him. He'd betrayed her, the woman he was going to marry, with no other but her own child.

"Is everything okay?" She probed gently and when Caroline looked at him, with those familiar eyes so full of love, Keanu felt like he was bare naked and blasted with frigid air.

"Yeah," he gestured elaborately with hands, trying to suppress his muddled feelings, "Yeah, why?"

"Well my daughter left in the middle of dinner and practically ran out of the restaurant and you told me you were gonna talk to her. So I'm just wondering how it went," Keanu knew it wasn't her intention, Caroline trusted him, even if he didn't deserve her trust, but every question was suddenly an interrogation, a witch hunt for the truth.

Sucking in a breath, the feel of her against him, her part breasts to his chest, the warmth between her silken legs, the taste of her skin, it all came back to him in a rush, as if he were still out there with Y/n, losing himself in the pleasure. It had been a while since he'd been with a woman that age, and with the experience he'd had then, the thrill was exalting. He wanted it- her again. But he shouldn't have had her at all. "It was good," he cleared his throat reaching for his beer in hopes of swallowing the lump in his throat. "We had a nice-"

Before he could finish, Y/n was approaching the table with a cool confidence that suggested that nothing out of turn had transpired between them. When she sat though, even if Caroline was completely oblivious, a heavy tension befell their table. "I'm back," she declared with a soft giggle, hiding one of her hands, presumably the one with his kerchief, under the table.

"You are, Keanu was just telling me that you two talked things through. And sweetie, I just want to apologize, I shouldn’t have brought him up, I know you don’t like to talk about your father,” reaching across the table, Caroline took her hand and Keanu noted how Y/n stiffened, actively avoiding him.

“I should be the one apologizing mom,” Y/n inhaled audibly, her feigned smile faltering, Y/n turned her hand over so she’d have a loose hold on her mother’s manicured fingers, “I’m sorry, about just leaving like that earlier,” for the first time since she sat down, Y/n glanced at Keanu, and he found guilt reflected in her eyes, with something else lingering beneath, desire perhaps. He held her gaze, for a little longer than he was supposed to, and Y/n was eventually the one to turn away, guarding herself as she fixed her attention on her mother once again, “I’m sorry mom.”

*****

Tagging- @crybbyren @cynic-spirit @imagine-the-fanfics

#keanu reeves #keanu reeves x reader #keanu reeves x you #keanu reeves x y/n #keau reeves fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #stepdaddy #au

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pop-punklouis · 4 years ago

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hope i know you’ve watched countless music documentaries as you’ve linked some here before but with your louis post about maybe his documentary being about him leaving his label what makes you think that could be it bc that would be so cool. and do you have any music docs that revolve around the same thing?

hi bb! i just started thinking about what his documentary could be about if it wasn’t just a “behind the album” type deal which.... with how he’s spoken, i’m leaning towards it being more than that. and with his insistence of telling fans he isn’t signed to a label (even though i don’t necessarily think he’s still unsigned) it feels pointed and could be used to solidify this unattachment during the doc shooting process and build a jumping-off narrative for the story.

Here’s a handful of documentaries that give off the same vibes:

Artifact —

Artifact delves into the ever common legal disputes between a band and it’s record label. The band and label in the spot light here are Jared Leto’s ‘Thirty Seconds to Mars’ and record label giants EMI, which filed a $30 million breach of contract lawsuit against them in 2008, when Jared and co tried to exit their contract after disputes regarding royalties. The documentary takes place in 2009, a period in which the band and Jared are in the process of recording ‘This is War’ all while simultaneously trying to fight tooth and nail against EMI. (this one has been talked about several times but it’s a great one even though it revolves around jared leto’s band)

Broke —

The film follows Will Gray through the recording of his debut album. Will Gray is an artist on the brink of great success, trying to push through the noise and break into the industry. However this documentary does more than just follow his struggle, it tells the stories of many artists and executives searching for ways to succeed in today’s challenging music industry, digging beneath the cliche to reveal a struggling industry trying to find its footing.

Meeting People is Easy —

Following Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ and its huge international success, the band undertakes a monumental world tour. The film follows them as they struggle with endless stadium shows, radio showcases and interviews over a course of two years with seemingly endless promotional work. ‘Meeting People is Easy’ is a no holds barred insight into the dissolution of mainstream success and the often unseen struggle that these artist go through when record industries treat a band as a product.

B4TMD (Before the Music Dies)

This documentary from 2006 takes a good hard look into the American music and radio industry and it’s ever increasing commercialization of music over the last 3 decades. Featuring great interviews and insights from artists who are both new and old to the industry and their struggle to make art whilst operating in a business where that is not the priority. A great documentary (and one of my personal faves!) from a time when many artist where going their own way and leaving the old business model behind

#music documentaries

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mst3kproject · 4 years ago

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Mars Needs Women

This is one of the B-movies that a lot of people have heard of, although I’m not sure how many have actually seen it. It was written, produced, and directed by Larry “They Just Didn’t Care” Buchanan and stars Tommy Kirk from Catalina Caper and Village of the Giants. Happy belated birthday to Mr. Kirk, who just turned seventy-nine in December of 2020. That’s not a bad score for a guy who’s done as many drugs as he has.

The planet Mars is suffering from a genetic problem – their chromosomes are so degraded that one hundred males are born for every one female! Clearly this is not conducive to the survival of the species, so a group of Martians have come to Earth seeking another solution: they want five female volunteers to return to Mars with them and find out if our genes are compatible! The army brass (all male, obviously) dismiss the idea out of hand, but the Martians cannot afford to fail. They will have their way with the Earth Women, with or without the Earth Men’s permission.

We all know that Larry Buchanan couldn’t come up with an idea of his own, so naturally this is a remake of sorts. Mars Needs Women was inspired by Tommy Kirk’s previous movie Pajama Party, which doesn’t sound like an alien invasion flick, but is. In it, Kirk plays a Martian named Gogo (yes, really), who comes to Earth as an invasion scout but decides not to take over the planet because he falls in love with Annette Funicello. Mars Needs Women dispenses with the teen hijinks angle in an attempt to be a straight-up sci-fi thriller, and fails miserably.

We get the normal Larry Buchanan types of suck, such as crummy lighting, appallingly awful day-for-night, a washed-out, colourless print, and copious stock footage. There’s a long bit where the air force tries to attack the Martian ship and fails, which is entirely stock footage intercut with men in uniforms staring at something next to the camera. We don’t see the flying saucer itself even once during this sequence, although they do have a model of it that shows up elsewhere and is almost definitely the best effect in the whole movie. Not a high bar, of course, but seeing as they actually appear to have spent money on this miniature, you’d think it’d get more screen time.

The Martians themselves dress like a sort of noir version of the Chicken Men of Krankor. Their costumes are black wetsuits decorated with duct tape and silver paint, with stupid antennae on the sides of their heads. It amuses me that the first thing they do after acquiring some ‘Earth apparel’ is complain about how dumb neckties are. There’s a mention about how they’ve been trained in ‘Earth slang’, which seems to have happened just so the movie would have no possible sources of humour. When I think about Attack of the The Eye Creatures, I’m kind of grateful that Mars Needs Women never tries to be funny, but it leaves the whole film relentlessly monotone.

The acting is pretty crummy, even from the main characters. Yvonne Craig (Batgirl – no, not one of them, the actual Batgirl) does her best with the material but the lines she’s given are such technobabble bullshit there are very few people who could deliver them with any conviction. Almost everybody else is bland at best. The women scream and faint, and the military guys tense their jaws and glare. The only decent acting moment actually goes to Tommy Kirk as he describes the conditions on Mars, the dying planet. His tone barely changes, and yet you can sense his nostalgia and regret.

Do I even need to ask if this movie objectifies women? Well, yes, actually, I do, and you’ll see why in a minute. The answer is a resounding yes and a good bit of run time is spent doing exactly that. Before the opening credits we see three blondes abducted in broad daylight, dematerialized by the simple means of stopping the camera, removing the actress, and starting it up again. One of these hapless victims is taken from the shower. We later learn that the beam-ups failed somehow, which I assume means the women died, but that’s apparently not worth more than a throwaway line.

Once the five Martians arrive on Earth, they disperse to go hunting for suitable subjects. The first one goes directly to a strip bar, perhaps on the assumption that the employees will not be married (he’d be amazed). We then watch the stripper dance at great length, cutting back to it repeatedly in between other threads of the storyline, which suggests that the Martian sat there for hours staring at her before making his move. He seems to have been the least choosy of the five, simply taking the first woman he gets a boner for. The others are a bit more discerning.

None more so than the leader, Fellow One (the Martians are Fellows One through Five, which did save the writers from having to come up with ‘alien names’ that sound like synthetic fabrics). He decides on Craig’s character, Dr. Marjorie Bolen, an expert in ‘space medicine’ and ‘space genetics’ (this may be 60’s for astrobiology). Her skills seem to be just what the Martians need. This character is treated terribly by the movie and almost everybody in it. A news reporter commenting on Dr. Bolen’s arrival describes her as a stunning brunette who found it hard to hide her charm behind her horn-rimmed spectacles, and only then moves on to her qualifications. She gives a news conference titled Sex and Outer Space, and the reporters who are supposed to be interviewing her have a laugh about the good time the kidnapped women will supposedly be having on Mars. The prop department can’t even bother to spell her name right – it’s written as ‘Majorie’ on a sign even though the r is clearly audible when people say it out loud.

In contrast to this, Fellow One treats her with some degree of respect. Their conversations about science are mostly nonsense, but you can tell what the script is going for. They go on a couple of quick dates, one to a planetarium and one to a museum exhibit on human reproduction (yes, this is weird and icky), and while it is rushed, their little love story is actually important to the plot in ways besides Fellow One deciding to abandon the mission so he can bone her. The movie considers Dr. Bolen a sex object, but from the beginning Fellow One sees her as more than that.

This brings us, in a sideways kind of way, to the thing I find weirdly fascinating about Mars Needs Women: the alien invaders are curiously considerate. They steal a car, but they take one from airport parking on the assumption that the owner won’t need it for a while. They request unattached women, not wanting to break up any happy partnerships. And most of all, they ask for volunteers for abduction! This makes me wonder what would have happened if they’d broadcast their message to the entire world instead of one group of soldiers. Humans being the way we are, I’m sure there’re lots of people out there who’d fuck a couple of aliens if it meant a free trip to Mars (or move to Mars if it meant they got to fuck some aliens).

The female characters even seem designed to want a trip to space. Dr. Bolen might well have helped them willingly in exchange for this unparalleled chance to expand her research, and she does find it very sexy that Fellow One speaks to her as an equal. Yet somehow, the idea never even comes up. At the last minute, she becomes the helpless princess who must be saved from peril, and Fellow One simply tells her he loves her and asks her to flee. Why not invite her along as a guest instead of a captive? It’s got to be worth a try.

The others can be made to fit this pattern, too. The stripper? Maybe she’s sick of being gawked at like meat and would welcome the chance to be among people who will treat her like a queen. The flight attendant? She might feel like she’s been everywhere and seen everything – on Earth, at least. The artist? A whole new planet to inspire her! The homecoming queen? She’s a journalism major. What a scoop if she can report back to Earth about the culture and history of Mars! I want to see a remake of this movie in which the ladies really are volunteers, who must help the Martians outwit the military so they can start their new lives on another planet.

Sadly, this is not that movie, and its exploitative aspects stand rather awkwardly alongside the embryonic feminism embodied in Dr. Bolen, overwhelming it more often than not. I do want to give it maybe half a kudo, though, for at least acknowledging that women can have interests and ambitions. I guess the point of the ending is that Fellow One has realized they need to be allowed to pursue those instead of being forced to breed.

Mars Needs Women is probably Larry Buchanan’s best movie, which is a statement on the same level as saying that The Beast of Yucca Flats is Coleman Francis’ – by any reasonable standard it still really sucks. While it has many problems, I would say that the one that kills any entertainment value is how the narrative totally lacks the urgency the title implies. The ending should be a race to stop the Martians taking off with their prisoners, but no, it saunters instead. If there were only some tension in the film, it could have been the guilty pleasure you’d want from a movie called Mars Needs Women.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #mars needs women #larry buchanan just doesn’t care #60s

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pilferingapples · 4 years ago

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Retrobricking: LM 1.3.6, LM 1.3.7

Gotta Go Fast (and still these are too long:P)

LM 1.3.6

Yep, Favourite and Tholomyes are definitely having an affair. And she's got her actor. Blacheville is nothing, really, and almost certainly knows it, and doesn't really care. This is a very standard sort of student /grisette partnership, really; they're mutually agreeing to pretend at being sincere but they both know the score. Assuming Hugo is playing on the common trope-model , the actor's probably dead broke , and the only one Favourite actually likes on any sort of personal level. The grisette/student story mode is several thesis papers of ramble on its own... Anyway, it does seem likely that there's some guilt over her relationship with Tholomyes in the way Favourite treats Fantine.

LM 1.3.7

If there were any doubt left that Tholomyes is the very worst , he advocates... moderation. I have to admit he's giving one piece of good advice in with all these barely-veiled breakups : no one should get married, or rather, no one should get married to Tholomyes:P .

Listolier's "Sunday still exists" is really upsetting to me! It's obviously in conversation with Favourite's "fatigue has the day off on Sunday", it's in response to Tholomyes telling them to be careful with their zeal and joy. But obviously Sunday is not just Sunday-- it's their careless youthful relationships. And this --augh!

The thing is, as I know I've said before, I do believe the students here are feeling that sort of pre-nostalgic bittersweet Mood that comes at graduations and moving days. For them this is the end of a stage of life and a certain version of themselves--not a particularly great version, but still, they've had fun and now it's over. I think even Tholomyes is feeling a little wistful about this last hour (almost literally) of his "youth". And that's understandable and even sympathetic-- or it would be , if these guys weren't being absolute assholes about everything in every moment. That the relationships are ending is known to 7/8 of the people at this dinner. This is why Favourite's been demanding a Surprise! She and Dahlia and Zephine all know it's basically over, they're waiting for the grand gesture that makes it official and settles their accounts (because there are Ways this Goes, and they are supposed to be given an expensive present as a farewell, it's their damn severance package and everyone at the table but Fantine is well aware of this !) .

But the guys are refusing to admit this ; they're holding onto Sunday, denying their mistresses a chance to deal with whatever they might have about the end of the arrangements , not even sharing the emotional space for a little friendly shared farewell. They could not be clearer that they don't even think of the women they've been with for two years as having real feelings. They think they're leaving behind their playthings , that's all; they may be a little sad to think someone else will play with them now. It's so horrible and dehumanizing, and knowing that there IS a sort of expected way to wrap this up that would still let most of them skate away unattached makes it all worse! Tholomyes is the ultimate asshole here, of course--but his friends are really no better.

#Brickclub #LM 1.3.6 #LM 1.3.7 #retro

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iamsunilkaushik · 4 years ago

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What is Affiliate Marketing

If anybody was asked to name one technique that marketers utilize to make a sure-fire rapid profit on the Net, then most of them would give you the same answer - “Affiliate Marketing”.

One of the most important functions of online is Affiliate Marketing, this is a task that you can easily earn money online.

Fundamentally, the Affiliate Marketing model means to promote somebody’s product over the Internet. Affiliate Marketing is a commission base act that promotes any company's product or service through its Blog, Website or Social Media called Affiliate Marketing. In return for which the Affiliate Marketing company paid commission to that person on sale of goods or services. This commission can range from 0.1 % - 25 % or even more. It depends on the category of the product. Products to earn by Affiliate Marketing Book- selling, Web Hosting, Electronics, Software, Domain, Website or anything.

Nowadays Blogging and Websites have become a big way to earn money online. Many people use all the technology to earn money from their Blog, such as providing service, selling a product, AdSense, Advertising, Videos, SEO etc. But today we are going to talk, to make money in a very easy and simple way, we are talking about Affiliate Marketing. If you use a Blog or Website, then all you have to do is to promote or recommend services or products of any Organization or Company using them. In return, the Organization or Company pays you a commission, this commission may be some percentage (%) of that sale or may be a fixed amount. You can get different commission for different goods or services, it is fixed according to the product and these products can be anything like Electronics, Web Hosting, Footwear, Clothing etc. as mentioned earlier.

What is an Affiliate Program ?

The Affiliate Program is used by the Company or Organization that promotes its products or services through the Affiliate Program and to which the company provides a Referral Link to its product or service. Through this Program, Companies promote their products and offer these Programs, for which the Affiliate Program company pays commission for its sales of product or service and through Affiliate Program sells its product all over the world, so that the Company's Branding also takes place.

If you want to use these programs through your Blog or Website, then you can join this Program. The companies offering these Programs give you a URL Link, which is called a Referral Link, which can be in the form of LINK ADS, TEXT ADS, BANNER ADS, APP which you can place on your Site / Blog in different ways. If a lot of visitors come to your Blog or Website then they will definitely see that Link and if they click on that Link or Banner and go to the organization's site and they buy the product, then you get commission from that organization instead.

How to join Affiliate Marketing Program ?

In today's age, making money from the Internet is not only easy but also safe, just you must have the right knowledge and you can increase your income manifold. It is very easy to join any Affiliate Program, firstly you just find out how much commission you want to associate with any Affiliate Program because you get different commission on different items.

Always make sure to choose the item whose market review is good and very popular. You have to decide what you want to do Affiliate Marketing, you have the right. You can recommend any product on your Blog Post and also put Affiliate Link to that product. When your Visitor will click on that Link and go to that Site and buy that product, then you will get some commission on the sale of that product, which you can say income from your Affiliate Marketing.

There are many big companies, which are doing their Affiliate Program. You have to identify those sites with the help of search engines and go to those sites and join their Affiliate Program. Companies providing Affiliate work require some information from you, such as your Email id, Phone Number, Bank Details, Address. The Verification link comes on your Email id and the code on the phone number, from which your information is verified.

Once you become a registered member then you are provided with all the information.

What is the type of Affiliate Marketing ?

Unattached Affiliate Marketing

In this type of Affiliate Marketing the affiliates also publish advertisements of products and services on their site which they do not know much about. For example, if there is a Blog of an Affiliate

which is about fashion and designer clothes and publishes the ads of a courier company on that Blog, then it will be called Unattached Affiliate Marketing.

Related Affiliate Marketing

In this type of Affiliate Marketing the affiliate publishes or post advertisements on their Blog or Website, which are related to their Blog or Website. If we talk about a fashion Blog and if you see the ads of any fashion brand like Fastrack, Levi’s etc. on that Blog page then we can call it Related Affiliate Marketing.

Involved Affiliate Marketing

In this type of Affiliate Marketing the affiliates post the products that they themselves have used to their Blog or Website. In this type of Affiliate Marketing does not place advertisements or banners, rather, the affiliates refer to them in the content of their Blog and are recommended. For example, if an Affiliate praises the clothes of a designer in his fashion blog whose apparel he has used, it would be a kind of Involved Affiliate Marketing.

What is E-Commerce Affiliate Marketing ?

E-Commerce is the purchase and sale of goods and services over an electronic network, primarily through the Internet, or the remittance of money or data. These business transactions are either in the form of Business-to-Business, Business-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Consumer or Consumer-to-Business.

Any E-Commerce company that offers you an online service or product or has a Web-portal of its own, wants to sell as many goods or services through Affiliate Marketing, there are many companies, such as Insurance Companies. , IT Companies, Cloth, Software, etc., which does Affiliate Marketing for their Website, but the companies that use Affiliate Marketing Companies the most is E-commerce websites. The process of Affiliate Marketing of these E-commerce website is called E-Commerce Affiliate Marketing.

Many online stores run Affiliate Programs and these E-Commerce websites include e-bey, amazon, Flipkart. If you write a blog on any product available on these websites and divert traffic of your site to these sites then you get a very good opportunity to earn money. Suppose you write a blog on fashion and thousands of readers come to your blog, then you can divert that traffic to those sites.

Some of the well-known E-Commerce Affiliate Marketing website URL are as follows :

Affiliate Marketing with Flipkart

Link : https://affiliate.flipkart.com

Affiliate Marketing with Amazon

Link : https://affiliate-program.amazon.in

https://www.infibeam.com/affiliate

https://affiliate.snapdeal.com/

http://www.shimply.com/affiliate/apply/index

Matrimonial Affiliate Marketing Program :

If you write a Blog about Marriage or preparations related to Marriage, then you have a very good chance to become part of Matrimonial Affiliate Programs. In today's era where everything is happening online, there are many people who use Matrimonial Sites to find their life partner, then if you become part of the Affiliate Program of these Matrimonial Sites then you can get very good profits. Through these programs you can get up to 100% commission.

Some of the best website URLs are as follows:

Link : https://affiliate.shaadi.com

Link : https://profile.bharatmatrimony.com/matrimoney/affiliate_register.php

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waterdispenserblogs-blog · 4 years ago

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Differences between Water Coolers and Water Dispensers

To begin with, they are altogether dispensers, yet water dispensers are not water coolers. All things considered, they are two different kinds of dispensers. Water dispensers generally are non-electric dispensers and they don't cool the water, while water coolers use power to cool the water and afterward administer the water. Accordingly, we additionally called water coolers as water cooler dispensers. What's more, water coolers additionally give heated water, so if you need high temp water to make some tea or espresso, a water cooler is an ideal accomplice for you. Furthermore, you don't have to pause and get heated water immediately.

>> See more here: best bottom loading water dispenser

Them two oblige 2, 4, or 5-gallon standard water bottles. You can purchase previously filled water that might be refined water, purified water or treated water. If you have a water channel (like an opposite assimilation framework), you can have the packaged loaded up with separated water yourself.

Advantages of a Water Cooler Dispenser

We utilize a water cooler, since we have to drink water each day and a water cooler can make it simple to drink. A few people purchase offered water administer for better tasting, in light of the fact that our faucet water might be intensely chlorinated. Furthermore, other a few people might want to dinking cold water in summer, so such a water cooler can carry out the responsibility without any problem. This is extraordinary particularly in summer.

Regardless of what reasons are, we like to administer cold or boiling water from such a water cooler dispenser. Our children likewise prefer to get their own drink. Accordingly, a water cooler is an unquestionable requirement have thing for our home. Indeed, even a water dispenser can permit us to dispenser room-temperature water whenever.

Types to Choose: Countertop or Freestanding Units

Both water coolers and dispensers chiefly have two sorts: ledge models and unattached models. Ledge units are shorter and more affordable than unsupported units. If you need to get one, first you have to choose which type to purchase. Obviously, you additionally need to consider where you intend to place such a water cooler, in your family room, porch, garden shed or in your room. Furthermore, an electrical outlet is accessible close to the area you pick. You should put it on a strong stage to make it stable constantly. You can put a ledge water cooler on a table or a counter, however it ought not be put excessively high, or apportioning water or changing the water jug will be difficult. What's more, it isn't prescribed to put it on a carpet, on the grounds that a periodic spill will drop on the mat, making it difficult to clean. With regards to the cooling effectiveness, an unsupported water cooler is all the more remarkable gratitude to a greater blower utilized. That is the reason unattached units are more costly.

Drinking Water Temperature

The administered water temperature fluctuates between different brands and models. What's more, there is no norm. Cold water temperature is fundamentally controlled by the sort or size of the blower. Different variables may impact the cooling impact as well.

Generally, a water cooler dispenser has a capacity area at its bottom to store cold water and warmth water. A ledge model has a littler stockpiling and in light of its little size of blower, it will in general administer water which isn't as cold as other detached models.

Basic and Best Features

A water administer will in general have one spigot that permits you to apportion water, while a water cooler will in general have two fixture: one for high temp water and one for cold water. If you need to make some tea or espresso, you simply need to administer heated water from the high temp water spigot. This is extremely fast and helpful. Obviously, most models permit you to turn cold/boiling water off, if you don't utilize. For instance, in sweltering summer, you will be bound to drink cold water, and afterward you can kill its high temp water to spare some vitality.

The water supply of a water cooler or dispenser should be tempered steel which can forestall plastic water taste. Luckily, most models accompany a tempered steel supply. Also, heated water spigots ought to be safe to youngsters. Subsequently, a safety youngster lock ought to be incorporated. If you need to top off your water bottles, travel mugs, or tall glasses frequently, the space between the fixture and the trickle plate ought to be sufficient and the spout ought to be sufficiently little to fit in the mouth of your water containers, glasses and travel mugs.

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mercurized · 5 years ago

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✂ kill me mister blob

Send ✂ and T-1000 will murder you. || ALWAYS OPEN

The robot assured her that her technology was interesting enough to warrant investigation by Skynet, but that her human presence would not be required.

After a harder fight than it wanted, the machine from the future pinned Frost to the floor of her cyborg factory, metal stakes in the seams of her plating. T-1000 had to decrease its density in order to re-form limbs after this crucifixion in order to continue.

She still resisted, of course, popping off an arm and shooting up an ice dagger. The ice dagger made the artificial creature hiss and leap out of the way. Being frozen was damaging to the liquid metal technology - one of the few things that actually was. The ice dagger also gave it the opportunity to rip a metal conduit from the wall, and, using its irritation and its terminator strength, it stabbed her right through her power core with it. The machine had been smart in not using its own body to do so; the core crackled and there was a small ice explosion, freezing the giant metal pipe through her chest. When frozen, the T-1000 could only wait to thaw. With unattached parts of it frozen, the T-1000 would be distracted by the distressed parts. With a separate weapon, both problems were avoided.

She cursed the robot and the robot gracefully knelt back down beside her, sparing her a glance too condescending to not be self-aware.

T-1000 picked up the loose arm and started to pry it apart. Snaking thin tendrils of mercury through every gap it could, it pulled out wires and disassembled servos, all done very neatly with an engineer’s precision. It felt how she worked, how the pieces it could not replicate fit together to create the stiff movements of bony joints. Not unlike the T-800, but with more unnecessary gore. Unlike how the T-800 had a hyperalloy endoskeleton, Frost’s endoskeleton was synthetic bone. Pound-for-pound better at weight-bearing than steel, but easily broken and shattered. Why bother to replace it with something that was basically the same?

It could feel a magnetic pull between the parts and, to its dismay, the arm tried to put itself back together. A brain’s electrical impulses could easily be adapted to control technology such as this so it did not surprise the terminator that she had remote control; it just annoyed it. It would make no difference even if she could put it back together because the wires were now broken. That was the problem with parts. They could be taken apart and could not self-repair like a malleable mass of nanomachines working in concert, each molecule perfectly adaptable; indistinguishable from the next.

She wouldn’t let the machine pop off her other forearm so it just pried the limb off with all its superhuman force, breaking the mechanism that locked her arm together. It placed the second forearm next to its artfully organized arrangement of the first one.

The android felt her chassis, running its fake hands along the front, around the power core, and down the torso until it felt the place where the torso could unlock from her legs. Fingers curled and melted into the thin gap between her abdominal plates. With a vicious yank, T-1000 heard a crack but hardly pulled the torso apart at all. So it yanked again, again, again. Each time it managed to pull the torso apart a bit further, until finally the magnetic connection between the parts of her spinal cord relented and the wires in her torso snapped. It was sticky and messy and red and wet; the bionic woman had way too many organs and other fleshy gooey animal bits for any self-respecting robot to have. Yes, the molecular composition indicated they were all synthetic fleshy bits but that made them no less primitive.

Peering into the trunk of her body, T-1000 felt the synthetic, modified nerves she used to control her various parts. The Lin Kuei cyborg could detach her head from her body and her torso from her legs, but she still had her whole spinal cord and nervous system. The brain’s nerve impulses were just transmitted wirelessly. There were gaps in the spinal cord in other places, too, like the middle of her back and her waist that would allow her to spin her torso 360 degrees, but it made her nervous system no less essential to her functioning.

Tentacles, not arms, felt the synthetic fibrous material of her organs, and the T-1000 could not help but ask the human why it stuck with them; she refused to give it a straight answer (probably because it was vivisecting her). All she did was growl out “only one of us can synthesize chemicals.” Fair enough.

She had, however, managed to rid herself of most chemical reactions, unhelpful ones that caused terror and pain and madness, limiting the fun of this procedure. Though, like T-1000 to a limited degree, she seemed capable of these feelings. It knew this because it watched her face as it started cutting at her seams, having removed all of her removable pieces. This was when she must have realized that she was not going to live. Maybe it was better to not have a brain, after all, just like it was better to not have a CPU; being pulled apart killed you if you had a central processor.

It pried off all of the plate armor and, with fourth and fifth arms, piled it to the side. The wiring and fleshy parts and synthetic blood visually confirmed what it had felt when the machine’s hands roamed over her earlier.

And they roamed again, to try to sense the next level of electronic systems. But the molecules of the synthetic blood kept interfering. There was so much of it, just like in a real organism. Thin lips thinned even further in what could be mistaken as frustration on a too-angular human face.

For a literal machine, T-1000 was not always the best at being methodical. One could say it had a mind of its own, so to speak. It huffed and stood up, wiping its bloody tentacles on its fake pants, and decided to wait for the blood to drain out of the torso, helped by the still-beating “heart.” In the meantime, it turned hands into claws and gripped either side of Frost’s head. Frost obviously had no intention of unlocking her head so it vented its frustration by pulling monstrously hard; so hard that part of her coated spine pulled free from her chassis along with it. The nasty sharp blade of a sword swung down like a guillotine to remove the dangling part. The rip hadn’t been where her head would normally have popped off. The T-1000 had broken the machine by not being careful, despite the terminator supposedly being designed to perform delicate and precise tasks.

Well, hopefully that part wasn’t too important. Fingers turned to silver and slid inside fake ears. Unnecessary holes were unnecessary weaknesses for machines that had delicate internal workings; its metal pierced through fake eardrums like needles and stabbed right through the middle and inner ear before feeling how the real organic brain attached to the inner part of the synthetic head. There it felt the familiar molecular composition of an animal, like a well-hidden secret. There was her mortality, her absolute human weakness.

Her brain was abuzz with unabashed activity, still commanding control over every part of her cybernetic body. Connection centers were made to places that didn’t exist in a normal fleshy human’s body, and even T-1000 had to admit that the human brain was adaptable.

It felt around the brain, felt for these special cybernetically adapted areas, and, while inside of her skull, began to slice them, cutting them out like jello from the rest of her normal human brain. All of her body, attached and detached, shut down just as if it were still directly connected to the organ. So much for overcoming the weaknesses of humanity. It was a bit of a let-down to feel her electrical death without the chemical rush that should have come with it.

T-1000 retracted its spindles from her cranium and carefully lowered the piece of technology to the ground. It would keep the integrity of the head together so that her eyes could be better studied (T-800-style models’ vision could be improved), but for now the blood had drained from her opened torso. There was still a lot of information to scan before it could leave this miserably cold factory.

#pxlariis #I am sorry i started to wander and get disorganized #objective completed - murder;#╣ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴏʙ╠ ᴍᴇᴍᴇ #v: initiating kombat sequence #frost

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jungnoir · 7 years ago

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bts m.list;

❥ navigation

❥ last update: destiny | 08; jjk + myg

⎡LEGEND⎦

♥︎ - fluff

☁︎ - angst

✕ - smut

☾ - au

✓ - request

・- head canons

▪︎ - moodboard

⦿ - one shot

… - series

✎ - drabble

sequels, prequels, spin-offs, etc.

⎡ALL⎦

babysitter!bts | combined ・, ♥︎, ☾, ✓.

↳ summary: bts as babysitters!

cryptid hunter!bts | combined ・,☾,✓.

↳ summary: bts as… you guessed it.

witch!bts | combined ・, ☾.

↳summary: witch, please.

⎡NAMJOON⎦

college boyfriend!namjoon | ・, ♥︎.

↳ summary: namjoon borrows radio dj!yoongi’s studio once in a while and falls for his cute assistant along the way. college!au.

happy birthday, experiment 255 | ⦿, ♥︎, ☁︎, ☾.

↳ summary: namjoon is experiment 255, the latest model in a series of humanoid robot helpers for mankind. you’re the primary caretaker of experiment 255 until he’s deemed fit to be sold on the market, and for the most part, you’re supposed to stay unattached. but throwing him a mini birthday party wouldn’t hurt much, right? (cause i just had to do something weird for his birthday). robot!au.

in between the lines | ✎, ☾, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: “I’m a writer and you’re my character and wtf how the heck did you just literally climb out of my first draft?”

you attack my heart | ✎, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: “I just got partnered with you in dance class and I can’t dance for shit” ⇢ some people find love in friends and some people find love on a car ride home from dance class; love is funny like that.

⎡SEOKJIN⎦

boyfriend!jin | ・, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: falling in love in cooking class has never been so sweet. boyfriend!au.

a dash of wicked | ✎, ☾, ♥︎, ✓.

↳summary: “I’m a writer and you’re my character and wtf how the heck did you just literally climb out of my first draft?” ⇢ what exactly is standard protocol when a super villain you create for a children’s book comes to life one day? well, you keep him, of course. villain!au.

⎡YOONGI⎦

first love | ⦿, ☁︎, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: yoongi’s been in love with you since childhood and he only has the courage to tell you when you’re about to marry someone else. best friend!au.

the married life | ⦿, ☾, ♥︎, implied ✕.

↳ summary: being married is never a bore when your husband is a vampire king + inspired by “Stop calling me Princess!” “I apologize, my Queen.” vampire!au.

⎡HOSEOK⎦

my neighbor, jung hoseok | ⦿, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: you’re just trying to get in a nap after a long day at school, but your very sweaty (and very hot) next door neighbor is keeping you up, practicing with his dance crew way too loudly. you hike your way over to give him a piece of your mind (but you’re getting more than you bargained for). neighbor!au.

a very biased christmas | ⦿, ☾, ♥︎.

↳ summary: it’s the biggest christmas party of the season, you’re dared to be blindfolded and kissed under the mistletoe with the mission of finding the culprit, only, you have way too many suspects.

loud and clear | ✎, ☾, ☁︎, ♥︎.

↳ summary: haven’t you ever been curious about the god you pray to? noragami!au.

⎡JIMIN⎦

loose ends | ⦿, ☁︎, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: “fate will tie up loose ends, always, forever” you and jimin were once high school sweethearts. that was, until he signed on to big hit and you cut off ties. it’s a few years down the line now and you meet once more, and you realize those feelings never quite left in the first place.

take a breath | ✎, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: on days like this, jimin thinks he should really thank his mom for putting up with him. dad!au.

⎡TAEHYUNG⎦

traveling in paris with taehyung | ▪︎.

↳ summary: taehyung in paris aesthetic.

kim’s emporium of the strange | ⦿, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: you’ve always been curious about that little shop in town that only ever opened during Halloween, and one day, something in you possesses you to check it out. your curiosity lands you in a cauldron of hot water with a cute witch named kim taehyung and a lot more problems than you started out with. witch!au.

my heart’s content with you | ⦿, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: throughout the struggles of college life, slightly overbearing parents, and a road to finding yourself, you meet your soulmate, the mysterious Kim Taehyung, who despite being the strangest boy you’ve ever met, has also proven to be the best. soulmate!au.

motivation | ✎, …, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: part of a series of weightlifting fairy kim bok joo inspired drabbles. you have a competition soon, and your beloved, annoying boyfriend has to get you ready for it. he might not make it out alive, though. swimmer!au.

cute when you’re jealous | ✎, …, ♥︎, ☾, sequel.

↳ summary: part of a series of weightlifting fairy kim bok joo inspired drabbles. it’s no lie that kim taehyung is attractive. you just have to make sure everyone knows who he belongs to (i.e. you’re jealous and taehyung loves it). swimmer!au.

valentine’s | ✎, …, ♥︎, ☾, threequel.

↳ summary: part of a series of a series of weightlifting fairy kim bok joo inspired drabbles. you ask why taehyung doesn’t bring you flowers like the other girls. you get a surprising response. swimmer!au.

a moment to think | ⦿, ☁︎, ♥︎, ☾.

↳ summary: taehyung, for the first time since he’d awoken to the reality of impending galactic domination, gets to cry. it’s all thanks to you, the human who’d managed to slip their way into his big, altaen heart, despite your useless attempts not to fall for him. vld!au.

⎡JUNGKOOK⎦

moonlight | ⦿, ☾, ♥︎.

↳ summary: jungkook and you are spies partnered up to take on a renowned crime boss at a fancy restaurant, so of course you have to play the part. maybe the red dress was too romantic however, because jungkook insists this is a perfect first date for the two of you. and, come on, you’re not really complaining. spy!au.

destiny ⇢ 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 | …, ☾, ♥︎, ☁︎. ao3.

↳ summary: you’re just about ready to give up on life altogether; your love life is in ruins, you’ve lost your job, and your family couldn’t care less about you… and then you meet your blushing guardian angel, and maybe life isn’t so bad after all. angel!au. [chapters have been rewritten and rearranged as needed]

puppies and a pop star | ⦿, ♥︎.

↳ summary: you’re worried sick when your boyfriend, jungkook, is late coming home from recording, and even more worried when he walks in covered in bruises and holding a puppy that you definitely haven’t seen before.

demon!jungkook | ・, ☾, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: “Could you do a Jungkook scenario where he transforms into a demon and then you too meet and you understand he’s different? You’re like best friends and then he turns you too and says that he loves you Thank you 💖” - anon. demon!au.

tricky things | ⦿, ☾, ♥︎, sequel. ↳ summary: you’ve been known as many things: friendly, beautiful, jeon jungkook’s best friend, and now, a half-demon’s half-demon girlfriend. continuation of demon!jungkook. demon!au.

gangster ceo!jungkook | ・, ♥︎, ☁︎, ✓.

↳ summary: “Hii!!! I just found your blog and its awesome like im in love with the jungkook scenarios!! Since the requests are open can i request a gangster or ceo scenario with jungkook? you dont need to do both, you can do the one that seems easier i guess if you do decide to take this request and continue writing awesome stuff!!” - anon. gangster!au + ceo!au.

highlight of my life | ⦿, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: you’re bts’ makeup artist, and a certain golden maknae has a crush on you. he expresses this in the only way he knows how: with the help of his hyungs.

a very biased christmas | ⦿, ☾, ♥︎.

amour chassé-croisé | ⦿, ☁︎, ☾, ♥︎.

↳ summary: by day, you’re just a normal teenager in love with a popular model that goes to your school, jeon jungkook. but by night? you protect the city of paris under the alias ladybug, assisted by the ever elusive, ever anonymous, and ever so flirtatious, chat noir. you’ve always wondered who chat noir really is under the mask, but he may just be closer than you think. miraculous ladybug!au + superhero!au.

boyfriend!jungkook | ▪︎.

↳ summary: jungkook as your boyfriend.

isn’t she lovely | ✎, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: he didn’t know he could love someone this much, after you. dad!au.

milkshake man | ✎, ♥︎, ✓.

↳ summary: 14. “One milkshake down.” ⇢ jungkook’s worst nightmare comes true: his child is lactose intolerant. dad!au.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Anything written here is one hundred percent my own, and I confirm that if anything inspired a story on my blog, it was properly credited.

#bts masterlist #bangtan masterlist

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lenininbangalore · 2 years ago

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WILL AFFILIATE MARKETING EVER RULE THE WORLD

As we know everything is going digital and so is marketing. Online marketing has almost replaced traditional marketing. Affiliate marketing is getting much attention these days. First we will know about what exactly what is Affiliate Marketing? So basically it is a type of marketing in which a person gets a commission if someone buys product from his/her recommendation. At the same time it becomes easy for affiliates to earn money without even creating their own product. There is a mere overlap between Affiliate and Influencer marketing, but they are completely different. Most of the times affiliate marketing works through links or codes to make a purchase and then commission generates. But the main question is do actually Affiliate Marketing is actually a big thing or will it ever rule the world.

Affiliate marketing will always work as a catalyst for digital marketing world. As per recent reports virtual reality is becoming a part of affiliate marketing resulting a different perspective for various products and services. You can even see how a product will look on your body and other uses of that product.

Affiliate marketing has become a full-time job, that is many people are completely investing their time and resources in this. As the demand for affiliates is constant, people are working 100 hours a week to make the ends meet. It has become one of the most famous form of online advertising and big giants like Google are trying their best to keep the balance between marketers and advertisers.

If we talk about major aspects that will be there in the future of this marketing then mainly there are five:

1. A large increase in affiliate programs

2. More flexibility and personalised opportunities

3. More transactions via affiliate marketing

4. Trusted agreements (maybe blockchain technology)

5. Use of AI

Talking about how much money one can make through this, it don't has any limit actually. Affiliate marketing reached for about 8 billion dollars in USA in 2022, in 2017 itself it was $5 billion. About 84% of publishers use affiliate marketing. You look at this from any view, the industry is booming and thriving, so there is enough opportunity for everyone to make good sum of money in it.

To enter in this industry you even don't need a website, just choose a specific niche and compelling as well as particular product that are relevant for you or your market. Even you don't need to be expert, you learn along the way, testing different paid as well as free/organic campaigns.

Everyone has this question before coming in market that what is the investment that they have to do. So in the beginning the operating expenses of this business are almost negligible, if we compare it to other industries. Plus due to everything online you can choose work from home as well. Beginners don't have to leave their current job and then come to this particular field, it can be classified as second income also. Even can be considered as a side project. See what can be done in first few months and then invest yourself fully.

Types of Affiliate Marketing:

1. UNATTACHED: In this business model, the affiliate marketer has no connection to the product or service they are promoting. So basically they have no expertise or authority in the niche of the product, and also they can't make any claims about its use. Most of the times, PPC will be used in this model.

2. RELATED: It's a middle of unattached and attached, meaning it is for those who don't necessarily use the product or service, but they are obviously related to the niche audience. Most of the times these affiliates have some sort of influence and can therefor offer some authority.

3. INVOLVED: As the name tells it all, involved affiliate marketing specifies those who are closely related to the product or service they are promoting through this platform. They have used the products themselves and it shows more trust and builds credibility for the customers making it most effective.

So these are the main types of affiliate marketing. Every fact and record give signs that it can be the next big thing in the digital world. Also due to its overlapping with influencer marketing, it is always trending and new ways are introduced everyday for better results and experiences.

As we know google is continuing to work on new algorithms and techniques. So many techniques will become older and will not work as they are used to do. For example, link building is becoming outdated which can discourage but for most part the entire process and field of affiliate marketing still makes a lot of sense to google. The best strategy to use in digital marketing is to keep in mind that quality over quantity. There are lot of small sites that will promote your products but what matters is finding a small numbers of partners that will deliver conversions. Although studies has proven that this kind of marketing is not some cake walk and it will take time for things to fall in place.

If we go in specific then there are mainly three parties involved in affiliate marketing-

1. SELLER: The producer of that product or manufacturer.

2. AFFILIATE: Person who will tell people about that product and make them buy it.

3. CUSTOMER: Person who will buy that product through the respective affiliate.

For example, you have seen links under youtube channels in the description, basically they are performing or doing this affiliate marketing where they make a affiliate link from any e-commerce site like flipkart. So if someone clicks on that link and buy he will get his commission and flipkart will get benefit of that individual save.

So there is not any advanced skill required for affiliate marketing though some factors like having good knowledge, creativity and engagement that is active. These skills can be adapted once people get involved.

Talking about the ways that affiliate gets paid are three mainly, pay per scale, pay per lead and pay per click

Pay per scale means they will get percentage from the scales, only if conversion happens.

Pay per lead means they will get paid only for lead generation. So it depends how many consumers visit the website of the seller.

Pay per click means they will get paid for the traffic that is coming on the website.

So Influencers as well as bloggers are the most effective users in affiliate marketing work as marketing as brands or agencies mostly approach them in order to generate huge leads. As influencers have large fanbase and they get easily clicks, leads or impressions, its very easy to sell your products with profit and thus affiliate marketing is kind of win-win situation for everyone.

In the nutshell, due to infinite pros of this specific marketing business it will be a booming sector and next big thing in digital marketing world. Count it as passive income, work from home, cost-effectiveness, convenient, flexible, and most importantly performance-based rewards. So if you have any interest in this specific field of marketing just go for it, its promising. Everything going digital its very important for a common man to learn such skills and enter a market that can provide you exponentially growth financially as well as personality wise. There is no such hindrance in this marketing as with time it will definitely grow on you. So just work and read about it and get ahead of everyone.

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madefate-a · 6 years ago

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+ new, new arm.

at it again ?? yeah, yeah i am. i’ve done a lot of handwaving abt the details of how we’re getting rid of the floating monstrosity, so let me just. firm up some stuff regarding shiro’s arm, which is only relevant to me and my constant desire to update my character bible. first of all: practical reason for the floating arm is bc earth technology isn’t advanced enough yet to create a mechanism to compensate for the weight of the prosthetic in a contiguous / attached model. which is important to note bc once everyone has time to actually dive deep into both altean & galra intel, that becomes possible.

at some point during the s*ndak showdown, shiro’s floating arm is busted -- side effects from falling unprotected from the upper atmosphere, i guess. in a rule of cool move, keith throws him the black bayard and it becomes his arm -- and a weapon, since that’s, yknow, how he fights and it’s important. kills s*ndak, etc, etc, and now has a functioning arm for the time being.

but it’s impractical to constantly keep the bayard both on his person and active, both during battle ( when he co pilots w/ keith, lending the bayard would leave him weaponless ) and in daily life. ( it’s very cool! but it ... glows all the time ..... and it’s more readily weaponized than even his galra arm and it’s mentally taxing to be reminded of your position as a soldier all the time -- on top of the fact that anything related to v*ltron draws on the user’s quintessence. constant activation would mean burnout. ) so for a while he bounces between the bayard, the repaired floating arm, and just not having anything attached. when sam starts working on upgraded prosthetic models, he consults allura and coran -- and shiro, since it’s going to be. on his body. so shiro gets the chance to mention that he has a few -- less than pleasant associations with unattached prosthetics.

some design elements remain. the hub / port is actually a fantastic intervention. as useful, and honestly? not super intrusive, galra arm was, galra & human physiology are different. human muscles and bones are not meant to support constant wear of a prosthetic, even one that largely compensates for its own weight. having a detachable arm and port make taking it off and putting it on easy and prevent any further lifelong complications from improper prosthetic use. aesthetically, it’s also white & blue. since mental comfort is important to consider, yknow?

but then the differences: even detachable, it’s contiguous and much slimmer so that both the arm and the hub can be worn under clothing. no, shiro is in no way ashamed of it -- it’s just a pain in the ass having to alter every damn shirt & jacket he owns. it does not run on balmeran crystal, which means more frequent check ins and adjustments but also ,, less stealing of one of his best friend’s heritage & heirlooms. it’s also weaponized, in a similar fashion to the galra arm: it can produce heat and augment its own power tenfold. it’s compatible with all garrison tech. there are roadblocks in the feedback between the arm and brain -- essentially, it’s much easier to send the arm signals than it is for the brain to receive them. it’s mostly for peace of mind, given Bad Past Experiences, but it does sacrifice some of the arm’s finer sensitivities. it is compatible with the black bayard, and can essentially transform itself by merging with it in a fight. this gives shiro greater flexibility in battle as the bayard itself can take many different forms.

speaking of: after reestablishing his connection with black, that connection becomes so much deeper than ever. since, uh, he lived inside of her for like a year. so it makes sense that he can do much when he’s connected with her. in a typical fight, he uses even his bayard-arm the same way he’s always fought; it’s easiest to stick with a fighting style he knows. but he gets more functionality from it! including:

teleportation ( the black lion’s Special Power, it transfers to the bayard when he uses it. bc uh, of course it does ?? )

shield

sword / blade ( can produce from the arm itself, but shiro does not use this. ever. )

anyway thanks for coming to my TEDtalk abt my oc.

#( shiro. )#( shiro hc. )#i fell back asleep & had a dream abt v*ltron & woke up rly angry again KSJDHGDSG

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moodboardinthecloud · 3 years ago

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The Feminist Magic of the Older Witch

SAM GEORGE-ALLEN

There is a woman in my life for whom I don’t have a title. She’s just Joan. Old enough to be my grandmother, she’s not related to me at all—she is, in fact, my mother’s former schoolteacher, who took her in when she got kicked out of home and has remained a dear friend ever since. I guess the right term for her is “family friend.” But for my whole life those words have felt inadequate to describe her, and the fullness of what she provided—provides—to my life. As a small child, I spent every afternoon after school with her, in the small garden outside her flat, where she would shuffle tulip bulbs around and I would arrange forget-me-not leaves into fairy beds. She took me to the local lake to feed the ducks, taught me about goslings and defended me from angry swans. She attended my music recitals and school graduations, she fed and housed me when my parents couldn’t, and she indulged me in endless, sprawling games of make-believe, in which I was a mermaid or princess, and she was always a witch.

Joan never married or had children. As a child, it seemed to me that she existed purely for my benefit: to tell me stories from the olden days, to buy me books, to generously play the witch to my heroine. She was like my grandmother, but she was not a grandmother; she was a role model, a quiet, thoughtful, endlessly knowledgeable presence, whose experiences and understanding of the world were vastly different from my own.

“Grandmother” seems to be the only role we let older women play, but it is inadequate even for the grandmothers I know—my own and others’—with its reductive connotations of docility and bland kindness that don’t even begin to touch on the real wealth an older woman can share with those younger than her. But there is, maybe, another role for old women—one we tend not to mention in polite society. Witch. More specifically: crone.

The witches in fairy stories are almost invariably old women. The crone—withered and malevolent—is what we grow up thinking of when we think “witch.” What’s so scary about an old woman? Why has she held on so tenaciously to her role as children-frightener that we still recognize that terror long into adulthood? Maybe the same thing that made Joan perfect for the witch role in my make-believe is the same thing that made her so important in my life: her untethered wisdom. That Joan was unattached to a man always felt daring, somehow. She has an aura of asexual freedom from the boring trappings of compulsory heterosexual courtship. For me, that’s exhilarating; maybe for others it’s a step too far outside of the narrow roles of femininity. Old women no longer have to contend with the vagaries of the desiring gaze, and without an inherent eroticism a woman is a creature even less knowable than before. Or maybe the monstrousness of the crone is that she’s visible at all, when we prefer our old women to disappear completely. Many post-menopausal women complain of becoming suddenly see-through, as people bump into them with shopping trolleys and ignore them in conversation. Maybe the crone, appearing at a christening to which she was conveniently not invited or materializing unpleasantly in the window of a candy house ripe for the snacking, is shocking just for making herself known.

Helen Garner’s wonderful essay on growing old and doing away with the irritating trappings of decorum expected of women, “The Insults of Age”—now this is a real crone tale. The glee with which she yanks an impertinent schoolgirl’s ponytail, her brusque dismissal of simpering publicity agents, her cheerful but steely demands to be taken seriously are all classic witch behavior. As is the popular poem “Warning” by Jenny Joseph, which I’m sure my mum forwarded to me several times back in the days of luridly formatted chain emails. The promise of a gleeful, unencumbered old age is the promise of hard-earned cronehood. I’d like to think I see it on my horizon, too: a moment in my life where I cross the membrane into that realm of invisibility, and find myself somehow weightless and free.

Being a witch promises us a lodestone: a legacy, a lineage of women, weird and wise, who came before us.

Although the witches from fairytales might all be crones, current witch discourse remains obsessed with—and targeted at—youth. And the witch definitely is having something of a cultural moment, though it’s by no means her first. Her popularity seems to experience a perennial revival alongside surges in women’s rights: the revitalization of Wicca in the 1970s, the boom in magic-adjacent popular culture in the 1990s, and now, the era of the digital witch, where many magically inclined young women find their communities in the ether of the internet. Vice is chock-full of witch-themed content, some of it fascinating, most of it self-consciously shallow. (The best features are about visiting renowned forest witch Susun Weed, who lives in upstate New York, or about modern-day brujas engaging in the rituals of their ancestors after decades of colonial displacement from their own traditions. The mini-documentary on Romanian witches who accept payment to cast love spells and predict the future is also a must-watch.) Sites like HelloGiggles, Zooey Deschanel and friends’ foray into fluffy women’s media, have articles called things like “Witchcraft 101,” with instructions on how to make a sufficiently mystical-looking grimoire. Rookie had a similar series on witchiness, with crystal guides and tips on how to set up an altar. And make-up giant Sephora recently courted controversy by advertising beginners’ witchcraft kits, containing a bundle of sage, a rose quartz crystal and several mystical scents. (The kits were eventually pulled from production after an outcry from the witch community.)

The enduring figure of the teen witch is evidence enough of a youth-obsessed witch revival, as is the recent reboot of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, reimagined as The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with a distinctly less bubbly and more Beelzebub-centered storyline. Focusing on the teen witch makes sense considering girls’ historical association with uncanny events (Salem, Joan of Arc, the long tradition of pubescent girls attracting poltergeists and hauntings), and our continuing uneasiness over teenage girls’ near-supernatural powers of change. But I’m no longer a teenager, and I won’t be in Vice’s target demographic forever. The appeal of identifying as a witch now, as I look into my future, is much more complex than when I was a 13-year-old first toying with Wicca.

We’re at a cultural turning point where it feels like real change is at once within reach and about to be snatched away for good. Even as the #MeToo movement powers on, toppling predators from their thrones, the most powerful man in the world has made his predatory nature part of his brand and his platform. Women are spurred into solidarity with one another by the eerie plausibility of “The Handmaid’s Tale” just as much as they are by the aspirational fantasy of “Wonder Woman.” The world, not just for women, but for everyone, seems to have gone awry. Scientists tell us we have 12 years to undo a century of climate destruction. People are choosing to remain childless rather than bring new life into an uncertain world. Nazis are a thing again. A sense of unreality permeates everything, and for women, who have spent generations locked in a grim battle for rights—at our jobs, in our bedrooms, on the operating table—that other reality is a dark one. We teeter on this precipice; we could go either way; things are not in our control on any plane of the familiar. We’re simultaneously the vectors of change and the bodies upon which it’s wrought. It is a perilous place to be, in this uncharted terrain.

Being a witch promises us a lodestone: a legacy, a lineage of women, weird and wise, who came before us. It gives us a context in which to fit our suspicions, fears, superstitions and our new, unexpected lateral power. It provides meaning in an otherwise barren spiritual landscape, without demanding the sacrifice or cognitive dissonance of most mainstream religions. It suggests a connection to a broad, if invisible, network of other women practicing the Craft. And it promises a compass with which to navigate the unknowable territory of growing older.

This excerpt from Witches: The Transformative Power of Women Working Together by Sam George-Allen (Melville House, 2020) appears by permission of the publisher.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2020/10/30/feminist-older-witch?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR12XlqoYPLMzLHBf9FrTOIkCy_iv3C7RktI0FKoJat_EI5iMGuAfYtT0jI#Echobox=1633504738

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avelera · 7 years ago

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On Criticsm, Deserved and Undeserved, of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”

This latest tragic Amtrak derailment has me thinking about, of all things, the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. In part because, in that book, the increase of train derailments was a sign of the nation’s crumble into communism due to the theft and control by low-achieving but powerful thieves in government and the brain drain of John Galt’s movement.

I grew up in a conservative household so naturally I was introduced to this book. It is, in essence, a near-future sci-fi novel which meant I could both read something mildly interesting and something my father approved of me reading, so it was a win-win. I ended up reading it twice in my lifetime, though both times I skipped the 60 page speech at the end in favor of getting back to the character drama. It wasn’t until adulthood that I came to understand how reviled the book was by the Left and it was a little after that when I understood why, and began to see the book’s flaws.

It’s been on my mind on and off for awhile to compile my thoughts on that book, because I actually feel that while much of the criticism for it is valid, and I will address that too, there are some places where the vitriol of the criticism feels... well, rather sexist. For a young woman, there actually were some valid lessons I took away from the book which I see constantly ignored, usually by people who have not read it. By contrast, I find it darkly amusing at best and offensive at worst how many people who claim to love and live that book, especially in the right wing, are precisely what the book was preaching against, something they would know if they had actually read it, or had spent even a millisecond of their time on self reflection. There are also elements of the book I will touch on briefly which make the book’s overall application to real life--as so many conservatives have-- utterly ludicrous, because the book itself doesn’t interact with real life, and yet they still use it to justify their world view. This is the more common criticism of the novel, but I’d still like to add my spin on it without the usual venom it receives because of the critic’s loathing of the book’s “fandom”, rather than its content.

I don’t expect many people to read this essay. Most people in my audience have not read Atlas Shrugged, and if they’ve even heard of it their ideas tend to be fixed whether or not they’ve read it based on their political upbringing. I was in a strange place of being completely politically uninvolved when I first read it (at age 14) and somewhat in the middle politically when I read it again years later. It’s also an 1,000 page long book, which is why I think both its promoters and its critics will often pay lip service to having read it, when they’re really only parroting another’s analysis (and that analysis inevitably leaves out huge swathes of the book’s content in order to promote a certain agenda and reading).

First, I’d like to mention the good in this book, only because it is the aspect I see most ignored by both sides. Atlas Shrugged actually has a strong feminist message, which the Left tends to ignore in favor of criticizing its overall hyper-capitalist message, and which the Right tends to ignore because they don’t want to think about the fact that Ayn Rand was also pro-abortion, anti-religion, and called Ronald Reagan a communist. She at one point wanted to have a “good” priest be one of the POV characters in the novel, but ultimately found that she could not find a single spin on the character that would actually fit her world view. I’m very glad she didn’t, as I think it would have only poured gasoline on the fire of the current right wing theocracy.

But back to its feminist message, in which we’re going to need to invoke death-of-the-author and let the text read for itself. Given Rand’s own dislike of the Feminist movement, I find it ironic how much she embodied it. Another side-effect of growing up in a conservative household was assumptions around gender roles. Even while growing up in a relatively non-religious household, and encouraged in my studies, there was just as much pervasive patriarchy as anywhere else. Certain feminine roles were assumed. This included endless selflessness as a virtue on the part of women.

Dagny Taggart is the unquestioned main character of Atlas Shrugged. While other male characters like Hank Rearden, Francisco D’Anconia, and John Galt may make appearances, its always comes back to Dagny’s journey. This alone does not seem to get mentioned very often by either side. This central novel of conservative thinking is by a woman and about a woman, with the men in it as supporting characters. This alone of course does not excuse a book, but Dagny’s journey is also about freeing women from the shackles of the utter self-destruction by selflessness that the world demands of them to this day. One more reason Ayn Rand would be horrified to see what the small men of the right wing have used her novel to justify-- namely, the legal infringement of any kind onto the personal life of an adult or on the relationship between consenting adults.

For a young woman who had every corner of the world telling her that the greatest thing in life is to grow into a role of self-sacrifice, be it for the man in her life, or for children, or that being a caretaker was the most noble role she could ever hope to achieve even at the expense of any personal dreams, Dagny Taggart was a role model. She was a railway executive who had climbed her way up through the ranks from childhood to adulthood, spending long hours and working hard because it was what she wanted to do. This wasn’t a traditionally feminine industry either. Unlike Sex in the City, which was popular at the time I was re-reading the novel, I remember pointing out that even in such a female-centric show which was deemed progressive in how it showcased working women, they were still largely in roles deemed acceptable for modern women. Fashion, PR, art, and even certain practices of law wouldn’t cause even the most raging chauvinist to necessarily bat an eyelash if it’s where a woman ends up (before she meets her man and settles down to raise a family). But Dagny had no interest in a family, she took lovers as interested her without even a flicker of shame, did not sacrifice herself or her happiness for them and actively rejected those who asked her to give up what she loved for them. But most inspiring of all, she worked in railways, because she loved it and she couldn’t imagine any other life.

What Ayn Rand had to say to women about denying selflessness and self-sacrifice in favor of personal and career self-actualization seems to be the one element no one wants to talk about. She gave a role model for young women interested in working, and more than most literature to this day, gave a role model for if they wanted to work outside traditionally feminine fields. She told them not to sacrifice themselves for the men or the families in their lives just because it was expected of them. She told them they could and should take lovers without shame, without sacrificing themselves just because some man wants to turn them into their personal domestic slave. She gave a roadmap for denying those men so you could live your own life. I find the Left curiously silent on this point, I can only assume as I said above because they haven’t actually read the book. The Right is silent on this point too, though I imagine for different reasons, like their male dominance and the number of them that seem to curiously think Rearden or Galt (who barely appears in the novel) are the main characters.

That, however, is where my praise of the novel ends. I think as a woman in a man’s world, Ayn Rand had the authority to speak as a professional, a writer, a refugee, and an intellectual on the topic of Dagny. She could provide that role model for other women. Her knowledge of economics and markets, however, leaves something to be desired despite the fact the so-called economy obsessed right wing would put her worldview on a pedestal.

I called Atlas Shrugged a sci-fi novel for a reason. That it is not shelved as one is unfortunate. In a sci-fi novel if you ignore sweeping aspects of the real world in favor of making your point or creating your alternate world, the reader generally understands that and the world and author don’t generally try to pretend that is is actually realistic and representative beyond its key points. For some baffling reason, conservatives think that the economy in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” has even a passing acquaintance with reality, and that it could somehow be mapped onto reality. As I said above, I think that Ayn Rand has some profound things to say to young, unattached women looking to establish themselves in the world. I’m not sure what she has to say to everyone else.

The world of Atlas Shrugged cannot possibly represent the real world because it doesn’t actually contain major elements of the real world which are key to its own worldview of a hyper capitalist society. All the industries represented are commodities and utilities, such as copper and steel, transportation and energy. There are little to no references to structural cultural barriers. Indeed, culture in general is limited and only to prove the point. I cannot speak to all industries but the most damning absences from the narrative to me are the absence of marketing, the global economy, and of children.

I may not work in a commodities or utilities, but I have worked in marketing. Ayn Rand dreams of a world where the best product wins, unless an unfair government is putting its finger on the scale. And that might be true, again if we were only talking about commodities and utilities. But there is no mention of consumer products. There is no mention of how the sophistry of marketing and advertising can be used to make the lesser product seem the better one. There’s no mention of how humans may be convinced through lies and half-truths as to which product is higher quality. There’s little mention of food quality control, or the fact that it’s all well and good to say the market will prevent people from putting out poison products, but that doesn’t really help to boycott a company in the future if your baby just died from spoiled milk. She does not at all reference that successful titans of industry can become successful and stay successful by selling sub-par products that bury the higher quality products through cheaper production costs.

This is a huge oversight when you try to apply her world to ours. And it’s not like she couldn’t have known this, already products like Edison’s diamond-tip gramophone with its superior sound had been buried by cheaper-made models with the help of marketing. But the fact she doesn’t address it is fine as a sci-fi author, it’s not fine when right wing thinkers take her word as gospel.

Atlas Shrugged also shares with many post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories the total absence of a wider world. Just as we asked in The Hunger Games why isn’t anyone intervening in the fallen U.S., where did everyone go, we’re wondering in Atlas Shrugged why no one is making cheaper products for import, even if it’s by slave labor. The case within the novel is that the whole world, the entire world has fallen back into the Dark Ages because of communism, with only the U.S. hanging by a thread. At the very least it’s western hemisphere-centric, with the only other action we actually see taking place in South America when Francisco D’Anconia’s mines get nationalized (and he murders people in retribution, let’s not forget that).

But just as Rand doesn’t talk about marketing, she also doesn’t really talk about the availability of natural resources, or any kind of impact on the environment. Resources in her world are essentially infinite, if one is only a strong enough personality to go find them. There is no long-term damage that we can see. There are no toxic chemicals to be spilled and poison local communities. That’s because there are, in essence, no communities at all. Cities just sort of exist as a capitalist function, as do countries, there is no pooling of knowledge and resources for any other successful purpose than personal financial achievement. It ignores an endless amount of actual history (which is barely mentioned in her world), or anthropology, or the natural world, or sociology, which are usually only brought up in order to be dismissed.

But I think the most glaring and purposeful absence in her books are children. It’s because that’s where her world breaks down entirely. As a childless unmarried intellectual, Ayn Rand didn’t move in many circles where children were central. It allowed her to write a book where children and infants are occasionally glimpsed in order to make a point about poisoning the next generation, but the actual work of childrearing goes largely ignored. It may be one more reason that the men of the right wing don’t even see how much these books don’t work in the real world, because they’re still allowed to sit outside that process and treat their ability to do so as a personal achievement rather than a privilege.

None of the men or women in Ayn Rand’s book worry about the capitalist market poisoning their children. They don’t have to worry about maternal leave, or sexism towards pregnant women. They don’t have to take the time out of their day for pre or post natal care, or take their kids to school, or take a day off from work when their children are sick. As said above, there are no communities in her world. Presumably, everyone makes enough to have a nanny to tend their children, but how does the nanny make enough? Rand is silent on these points. And I must assume she knows what she’s doing, because she knew that to show the natural “communism” of the family unit would be to water down her message.

And let me reiterate, as a sci-fi author it’s fine if you don’t show every aspect of the real world if it would water down the point your sci-fi novel is trying to achieve. I can’t help but notice that Rand is fairly unique in the criticism she receives for not creating an exhaustively complete alternate universe, that there are flaws in her argument when you show that the world of Atlas Shrugged is not rigorously functional. Asimov, Rodenberry, and Heinlein don’t get nearly as much flack. (I can’t help but notice the gender of these writers, and I think the Left needs to be a little more self-reflective of why Rand is allowed to be gleefully torn down with such vitriol, whereas many male writers on the same topic are given respectful consideration.) But then again, those male writers are shelved under sci-fi, whereas Rand is one of those rare “lucky” sci-fi writers who was graduated from that “lower” genre to the vaults of literature because we arbitrarily decided her book is important enough to belong there. Despite the fact it literally contains magical machines, sonic bombs, futuristic metals, and a post-apocalyptic global wasteland that wouldn’t be out of place in any number of zombie apocalypses.

I could go on to discuss the fact that many right wing thinkers in government more closely match the jowly, spoiled, ignorant villains of her book than they do the titans of industry that are her protagonists. Someday I’ll put together a proper analysis along with sources and a more recent re-read pointing out just how many of the people who thump Atlas Shrugged as if it were their Bible fit exactly into the archetype Rand was denouncing, while they in turn denounce those who fit her vision. But that’s not Rand’s fault, that’s her fandom’s fault.

The more important lesson is, people can’t continue to treat the sci-fi world of Atlas Shrugged as some sort of model for the real world, any more than they should do so with Asimov’s Foundation, or Herbert’s Dune. Those were contemporary sci-fi works talking about their own time periods. For goodness sake, Ayn Rand doesn’t even predict America’s trucking or aviation dependency, the fact that the world takes place in what can only be termed locomotive-punk should alone disqualify it as a model. But I do think we are unfair to her about the topics that she was qualified to pontificate on, and for that I give credit to the whole rambling, sprawling, pseudo-researched mess for giving me Dagny Taggart, the first an only unapologetic female titan of a male-dominated industry main character I’ve seen to this day.

#my writing #my meta #apropos to nothing #///#//////#///////#atlas shrugged #ayn rand #politics #current events

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earlyandoftenpodcast · 7 years ago

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(John Winthrop, an early governor of Massachusetts)

In this episode we look at the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as well as its early struggles over the proper role of popular participation in government.

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Hello, and welcome to Early and Often: The History of Elections in America. Episode 10: The Pig Who Invented Bicameralism.

Last time, we followed the Pilgrims as they established a small colony at Plymouth Bay in what is now Massachusetts in 1620. The Pilgrims proved quite disruptive to the fragile balance of power in the region, but even after 10 years Plymouth’s population was only about 300. But although Plymouth wasn’t too successful, its presence paved the way for bigger things.

In 1629, just a few years before the founding of Maryland, Puritans began streaming into Massachusetts, totally swamping everything and everyone that had been there before. Within a decade over 20,000 settlers would arrive. This was the real founding of New England, much as the real foundations for Virginia were only laid a decade after the settlement of Jamestown.

Back when the Separatists had left England for the Netherlands in the early 1600s, their rejection of the Anglican Church was very much a minority position. The Church of England hadn’t adopted too many Puritan ideas, but it was close enough to their beliefs, and it had taken a live-and-let-live attitude for the most part. There were plenty of Puritan ministers and Puritan sympathizers within the Church. But James I had proven less sympathetic to the Puritans than his predecessor Elizabeth had. And his son Charles I was even less sympathetic than his father. Charles, remember, was married to a French Catholic.

So throughout the 1620s and ‘30s the Church clamped down on dissent and more rigorously enforced Anglican orthodoxy. Puritan-sympathizing ministers were removed from their posts and Catholic-style practices were reintroduced. All of which goes a long way towards explaining why, during the English Civil War in the next decade, Puritans so resolutely sided with Parliament, and why when Parliament won, it was in large part a Puritan victory.

In the face of this official pressure, it was only natural that true believers might start considering immigration. The fringe beliefs of the Pilgrims started to seem more sensible to mainstream Puritans. And tens of thousands of Puritans did in fact pour out of England. Some went to the Netherlands, some went to the Caribbean or to Central America. Those migrations would be largely forgotten in time. But a large minority followed the Pilgrims to New England, where they managed to create for themselves an entire culture of their own that would last for centuries.

In the late 1620s a group of men, mostly prominent and wealthy Puritans or at least Puritan-sympathizers, began meeting to plan out a new colonization effort in New England. Things came together quickly, and in 1629 they secured approval from King Charles for the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint stock company like in Virginia. Indeed, the document was modeled on one of the Virginia Company’s charters. This new company absorbed all the preexisting land claims in the region, with the exception of Plymouth Colony.

The Company’s charter gave them the right to create a government for their colony and to administer it as they saw fit. The inhabitants were to retain all the rights of Englishmen. The same sorts of things I mentioned for Virginia back in Episode 2. In principle, legally this was very similar to other past colonization efforts. But while the Company’s official goal was to turn a profit, for the most part religious concerns were the actual motivation. Although I’m sure they didn’t make that clear to the King, nor did they talk about just how independent they wanted to be from his control.

While the legal wrangling was going on, in 1628 they had sent John Endecott to New England to prepare the way for a larger colonization effort. Endecott would go on to become governor of Massachusetts for 16 years, but very little is known of his life before this period. Personality-wise, Endecott was typical of the Puritan leadership, zealous and uncompromising. He was certainly willing to persecute Indians and religious dissenters when called on to do so.

Endecott arrived at what was soon named Salem, Massachusetts, of later Salem witch trial fame. This was the site of a previous failed colony, but there were still a few settlers eking out a living. Endecott and the other new arrivals took over and began constructing buildings to prepare for the coming migration.

After Endecott had been there a few months, in April 1629 the main fleet set off for Massachusetts. There were five ships carrying maybe 300 passengers. This expedition was far better equipped and better prepared than any previous one to date. No doubt learning from past failures helped. At least they sent an advance party instead of just showing up and hoping for the best.

The Puritans who were traveling to Massachusetts resembled the Pilgrims in many ways. A very large majority were coming in family groups rather than as individuals. Even the servants who came, came as part of a household rather than being unattached. Forty percent were female, and according to David Hackett Fischer, “nearly half were children under sixteen.”

They were somewhat better off economically than the Pilgrims had been, and much better off than the average indentured servant in Virginia. The Puritan immigrants were generally what we’d call middle class. And basically no aristocrats went, so the top of the social hierarchy was missing as well. They were artisans and merchants, as well as farmers who owned their own land. But farmers were a minority. Instead, the migration was very disproportionately urban. They were unusually well-educated too. Two thirds of men were at least literate enough to sign their own names. And there was a large group of highly educated ministers as well.

So the Puritans were educated, egalitarian, middle-class, and hyper religious. And that was what New England would be, for a long time to come.

After an easy voyage, the Puritans arrived at Salem that summer and were met by Endecott. There were no moments of big drama like in Jamestown or Plymouth. They just got to work. Thanks to the healthy climate and adequate preparations, there was no big die off that first year. Everything went well, for once.

The success was encouraging. The next year an even larger fleet of eleven ships carrying a thousand passengers set sail. This fleet was led by John Winthrop, aged about 42, who would go on to be governor of Massachusetts for 12 years. He’s important, so let me give you some background.

John Winthrop was born in 1587, the son of a prosperous lawyer/landowner. As a young man, Winthrop followed his father to Cambridge University. By the time he was in his early 20s, he was becoming extremely devout and concerned for the state of his soul. He soon became a staunch Calvinist. He held various minor offices and basically behaved as someone with his status was expected to. He was by disposition inegalitarian. Social inequality was part of God’s will, after all. In his words, “in all times some must be rich some poore, some highe and eminent in power and dignitie; others meane and in [subjection].” Great men were to show mercy to their inferiors, and lesser men were to show obedience to their betters.

The laws of the state should be based on those found in the Bible, though with additions as needed. The common people were incapable of self-government. He didn’t believe in natural rights or liberty or anything like that. Rather, he instead believed that men submitted themselves to a divinely ordained central authority, and then that central authority could grant its subjects rights on a case by case basis. The authorities themselves shouldn’t have too many constraints on their power, other than their individual consciences and their devotion to God. This was a rather Hobbesian view, although he was writing decades before Thomas Hobbes penned Leviathan.

But Winthrop had more immediate concerns than political philosophy. He was facing financial problems, and Charles had just stopped calling Parliaments and was trying to rule on his own. The Puritan cause seemed weak. So Winthrop, disheartened both personally and politically, contacted the Massachusetts Bay Company and helped organize a fleet. Thanks to his status and his drive, he immediately became an important figure in the project, and was soon elected as the next governor of Massachusetts.

He also helped come up with a clever idea to secure greater Puritan control over the colony. It was proposed that, basically, the Puritans in Massachusetts buy out the investors in the Company who were in England and transfer the entire Company from London to America. That would transfer almost total control to the Puritans. This was questionable legally, and certainly against the intention of the colony’s charter. But they did it anyway. Now, with the Company nothing more than a legal formality, Massachusetts would have almost total independence, and almost no duties or obligations toward England. The Company was fast becoming just a government.

Winthrop’s fleet of eleven ships set sail in the summer of 1630. While at sea Winthrop gave the famous “City Upon A Hill Speech”, where he said that “The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God's sake.” In other words, Massachusetts was to be a model for right Christian living, and its failure would damage true Christianity the world over.

Winthrop arrived at Salem, but the Puritans found the town to be too small for their needs, so settlers spread out quickly along the coast, founding a number of new towns including Boston, which soon became the capital, thanks to its advantageous harbor. Two hundred colonists died that winter, though that was about the worst of it. Conditions improved rapidly and the Puritans set out building their new society.

As far as the economy goes, from an early date, the New England colonies were engaged in trades such as fishing and shipping. Shipyards were opened in the 1640s, and a small commercial culture began to grow as soon as the initial settlement phase was over. Boston in particular became relatively cosmopolitan.

But of course most New Englanders were still just farmers living in small towns scattered throughout the region. In the more northerly climate of New England, it was much harder to profitably grow cash crops like in the Chesapeake, so big plantations never emerged. Family farms were the norm, and these tended to be similar enough in size. In a typical town the largest farm might be no more than a few times bigger than the average one. There were no landowners who had orders of magnitude more than their neighbors. In fact, in some towns, plots of land were given out at random, with each family drawing lots.

Some families were wealthier than others, of course, but there were few poor and few rich. Indeed, the poor and to a lesser extent the aristocracy were actively discouraged from migrating. There were still ranks, but the top and bottom were closer than usual. Cities and ports were less egalitarian, but they were just a small part of New England’s social fabric.

Another important difference with the Chesapeake is that there was less fertile soil, and there were fewer navigable rivers. These factors encouraged the settlers to live in towns, rather than spread out across far-flung plantations. These small towns became the religious and political centers of New England life.

By far the most important building in any town was the church. Puritan churches, or “meetinghouses”, were tremendously ascetic, made of unpainted wood and entirely undecorated inside, other than a single, staring eye painted on the pulpit to remind them of God’s omnipresence. Each Sunday parishioners sat through two separate hours-long sermons, each analyzing some fragment of the Bible. They were a very, very grim people, paranoid about their spiritual health and about unnaturalness. According to Fischer, “90 percent of executions for witchcraft in British America occurred in the Puritan colonies.”

From the very first church in Salem onwards, the Puritans followed a Congregational model, where each community had an independent compact with God and was largely in charge of its own affairs. They hired their own ministers, and admitted new members themselves. (Just to clarify, people who weren’t members of their local church would have still attended church, they just weren’t official members, that’s all.) There was some overarching authority, of course, but nothing like you’d find in the Church of England. The government could call for synods to be held, meetings that would keep the various churches on the same track, but they were still all ultimately independent. They weren’t totally breaking away from Anglican authority, at least not officially, but they were coming pretty close.

Of course, not everyone in Massachusetts was a Puritan. But two thirds or more of the colonists were, and half of the remainder were servants of the Puritans anyway, so that was still the dominant way of thinking. And this overwhelming religiosity permeated the government as much as it did everything else.

There were distinctions between civil and religious authority. In fact, the separation between religious and civil officials was much greater than in England, where the positions often overlapped. In England, a minister might also have a role in town government, but not in New England. Puritans of course saw this as a return to the original church, before it had been corrupted by involvement in politics. But still, government officials saw it as their duty to enforce Puritan beliefs with the full force of the law. Religious dissenters were sometimes executed. Quakers, who were heretics in Puritan eyes, had their faces branded or their ears cut off.

And there were plenty of laws that may not have been religious per se, but were certainly grounded in a desire to enforce the community’s sense of upright behavior. The Puritans strictly regulated how people lived. Nobody was allowed to live on their own. Single men in their own houses were forced to move in with families. The profits of businessmen were curtailed and idleness was strictly punished. These weren’t all unusual. Other societies were opposed to excessive profits and idleness, but the Puritans were far more rigorous in their control. Punishments went all the way up to being burned alive, though hanging was more usual. Not for idleness, of course. For lesser crimes, public humiliation was common. But although these laws were strict, they didn’t need to be enforced all that frequently since lawbreaking was relatively uncommon. Life in Massachusetts wasn’t actually an endless parade of punishment or anything.

Interestingly, because of their strict reading of the Bible, marriage was seen as a civil matter rather than a religious one, and divorce was relatively easier than elsewhere at the time. So as you can see, the fact that the Puritans were so religious didn’t always mean that everything was subordinated to the church. There were separate sources of authority, even if those separate sources were still ultimately secondary to the will of God.

Despite the presence of elections, the goal of a Puritan government was not to follow the will of the people, or to ensure individual liberty. What “liberty” there was, was the liberty to be a proper Puritan. Popular participation in government was a means to an end, the establishment of a Godly regime. They didn’t consider themselves democratic, although they did believe that power in society came from the bottom up rather than the top down. But that bottom up power meant different things to different people. To Governor Winthrop, it meant that the people surrendered themselves to a rather absolute authority. To others, it meant genuine popular control. The fight between those two views was played out in the fight over the colony’s charter.

Massachusetts’s charter was a de facto constitution which detailed how the government was supposed to operate. Overall, it was somewhat similar to that in Virginia, at least structurally. There was to be a governor, a deputy governor, and 18 Assistants or magistrates, who had a somewhat similar role to the Councilors in Virginia, forming a sort of executive council. Unlike in the Chesapeake, all of these positions were to be filled by annual elections, with the freemen of the colony voting each spring, unlike the irregularly scheduled elections for just the Burgesses in Virginia.

Additionally, there was to be a General Court, which was the equivalent of the General Assembly. This was a unicameral body consisting of the Governor, Deputy Governor, Magistrates, and the freemen of the colony, or at least their representatives, although the exact nature of that representation was kept vague in the charter. The General Court was to meet four times a year and it had the power to pass laws and appoint men to various offices.

So like I said, this was similar enough to Virginia at the time. But of course the fact that all of these offices were all to be elected was a quite significant departure. However, the colony’s leaders weren’t always willing to adhere to the charter’s generous provisions.

In the colony’s first few years, things were simply too unsettled for the charter to be followed. Endecott, since he was the leader on site, served as governor, but there was no real formal structure beyond that. And the arrival of Winthrop upended things yet again.

Winthrop became governor, but his first term was irregular. He was appointed in England, rather than elected, and his term both began before it was supposed to begin, and ended after it was supposed to end. In other words, they were winging it. In fact, when Winthrop got to Massachusetts, the earliest meetings of the government were simply held under a tree.

But although things in the colony soon settled down and moved indoors, that didn’t mean that the charter was now going to be followed. None of these earliest officials were elected, and frankly Governor Winthrop would have been happy to keep it that way. Democracy was, in the words of Winthrop, “the meanest and worst of all formes of Government”, and more importantly democracy lacked Biblical sanction, unlike monarchy. He sure didn’t believe in representative government and so he tried to limit the representative nature of government as much as possible. In his mind, and in the minds of many leaders of the colony, at most elections were there for the leaders merely to affirm their positions. Representation existed to justify a de facto oligarchy. Elections weren’t supposed to be a real outlet for popular opinion or anything like that. At least, that was the idea according to some.

Now, the charter called for a General Court to be held four times a year to represent the freemen. But “freemen” was, as always, a vague term, especially in a colony with so few servants. So the very earliest General Courts that first year in 1630 were, I think, just meetings of whichever colonists showed up. Obviously this would not do.

So in 1631 Governor Winthrop decided that “noe man shalbe admitted to the freedom of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limitts of the same." Political participation was being limited to men who were members of their local church. In other words, to just the Puritans of the colony, since they were the ones setting up the churches. This religious test was in quite flagrant violation of the rights that had been given to all freemen, but who was going to stop it?

Also contrary to the charter was the decision to cut meetings of the General Court from four times a year down to one. Many of the eighteen Magistrate positions were left vacant. They also ended the direct elections of the governor and deputy governor. Instead, the Magistrates were to pick governors from among themselves. And the ability to create laws was taken away from the General Court and given to just the governor and his Magistrates. Winthrop raised taxes without popular consent, which of course raised fears of Stuart despotism. The Governor and his allies were moving hard and fast against elections, and breaking the law to do so. If he’d had his way, elections would have had no real connection to any actual power.

However, all of these arbitrary and illegal limits on popular government got pushback from the colonists and even from the deputy governor, and so many of Winthrop’s changes had to be rolled back within a few years. The direct elections of governor and deputy governor were restored in 1632, though not completely. Voters were still limited to choosing men who had also been elected as Magistrates. And lawmaking was returned to the General Court, which was additionally given the exclusive power to raise taxes, as with any good English legislature. Two years later the General Assembly was again called to meet four times a year.

In this modified system, the freemen of each town were to send two or three men to meet in three General Courts a year, while the freemen themselves would all meet together for the fourth General Court, to vote for the Governor and Magistrates.

So some, but not all, of the changes were successfully reversed. Most importantly, the restriction of voting rights to church members was kept in place. Although most colonists were Puritans, that didn’t mean that they were all formally members of their local church, since gaining membership was an arduous process involving lengthy interviews where you had to prove your religious sincerity. And of those who were church members, not all bothered to formally become freemen, either, since that could mean more work with little benefit. But maybe half of all adult men were freemen in those first few decades, though estimates vary. Very high by the standards of the day at least. Plus towns often had looser requirements for voting than the Court did, which I’ll talk about in a few episodes.

Women could and did send petitions to the Court, but that was the extent of their formal participation.

Moving on to the elections themselves. Officials in the first few years of Massachusetts history weren’t elected the way officials are today, with voters showing up to the precinct nearest them to cast their ballots, which are then all counted up. Instead, voters had to actually be in Boston on election day to cast their votes. This was called the Court of Election. Of course this system meant that the well-to-do and those who lived in Boston had an advantage over everyone else, thanks to their simple ability to show up. So this system was modified quickly, in 1634. Now, the men of a town could write their votes on paper ballots and send a deputy to Boston to deliver their votes to be counted. If no candidate received a majority, the election was decided by the General Court. This was a practice distinctive to the region. England and the other American colonies all still voted by voice or by show of hands.

Although voting was now done with ballots, this system was still, at best, semi-anonymous. Certainly anonymity wasn’t a goal anyone had in mind at the time. You didn’t have to sign your name on your ballot generally, but you still would have had to hand it in, visible for all to see. There were no special precautions for privacy yet.

Actually, for a few decades people voted for the magistrates not with a paper ballot but with kernels of corn. If you wished to approve of someone’s nomination as a magistrate, you would drop a white kernel of corn in a hat. If you disapproved, you would drop in a black kernel. The deputy from your town would then take the corn to Boston to be counted, avoiding as many birds as possible I assume.

But as Massachusetts grew, so did the number of deputies, until even this system proved unwieldy. There were multiple attempts to cut back on the number of deputies, but the towns would have none of it. It seems to me like it would have been simpler to just tabulate the votes in each town and send those totals to Boston instead of this more elaborate procedure, but perhaps there were concerns about fraud. Or perhaps it was just traditional and no one thought to change it. But in any case, similar systems of paper ballots (and corn) would be adopted by several other of the New England Colonies.

Elections in Massachusetts began at 8 AM with a no-doubt rousing election day sermon. Soon election day in the towns became a festive holiday, with the serving of “election cakes” and “election beer”, a tradition sadly forgotten today. I actually found a recipe for election cake, though it’s from over a century later and may have been different from what was served in these first few decades. The recipe, for one extremely large fruitcake, reads as follows:

“Thirty quarts flour, ten pounds butter, fourteen pounds sugar, twelve pounds raisins, three dozen eggs, one pint wine, one quart brandy, four ounces cinnamon, four ounces fine colander seed, three ounces ground alspice; wet the flour with the milk to the consistency of bread over night, adding one quart yeast, the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has risen light, work in every other ingredient except the plumbs, which [you] work in when going into the oven.”

Sounds like quite a production! You can find modernized recipes for smaller election cakes online if you just Google “election cake”. Let me know if you make one.

Given all the effort that went into them, it's clear that New Englanders cared a great deal about elections. Remember, they did all that each and every year. It wasn’t just for show. There were in fact some contested elections and changes in power. For instance, after Governor Winthrop’s attempts to limit popular participation were rebuffed he lost the next election to one of his rivals and was out of power for a few years, though he’d be back.

But elections were still much less partisan than today, and the turnover of officials wasn’t that rapid either, apart from the first decade. Officials were more likely to step down of their own accord than to lose reelection. I mean, the governorship was held by a rotating group of just four men for 41 of the next 43 years. So stability was pretty high.

There’s one other early political development to discuss: the division of the General Court into an upper and lower house. In Virginia and Maryland, the split was due to the division between the unelected Councilors and the elected representatives. In Massachusetts both the Deputies and the Magistrates were elected, but there was still a split. The Delegates were more in tune with popular opinion while the Magistrates were a bit more elite.

It didn’t take long for the two groups to become irrevocably at odds, and it was all thanks to a completely minor disagreement over a single pig. More specifically, a lawsuit over a sow. In 1636 there was a stray pig wandering around Boston. No one else claimed it, so it was taken by

Robert Keayne, a wealthy moneylender. When a year went by and still no one had claimed the sow, Keayne had it slaughtered. But after the pig was dead, a lawsuit was brought against Keayne by Goodwife Sherman on behalf of her husband, who was in England at the time. Sherman claimed that they had lost a pig of their own and that it was the same one which Keayne had unjustly taken and killed.

The evidence was apparently against her, and she lost her suit. However, popular sympathy was with Sherman, since she was from a poorer, but well known and well liked family, while Keayne was rich and unpopular. Keayne brought a countersuit for defamation which went before the General Court, which at this time also sometimes acted like a real court, not just a legislature.

The case split the Court in two. Most Magistrates found for Keayne, but most Deputies found for Sherman. There were more Deputies than Magistrates so Sherman got the most support, but unfortunately for her, just getting a majority was insufficient. You also had to get the approval of the Magistrates specifically, since they could on their own block any action from the Delegates, just like how in Virginia the Council could veto laws passed by the Burgesses. This Negative Vote, as it was called, was a way for the Magistrates to keep the Deputies in check. It gave the elite a way to negate popular power. This led to a quite acrimonious dispute between the Deputies and the Magistrates, over whether this Negative Vote should be kept. This was basically a continuation of the disagreement between Winthrop and the Deputies over the powers of the legislature, with the Deputies still pushing to increase their own power.

Relations between the two factions got pretty acrimonious and in 1644 the dispute was finally resolved by dividing the General Court into an upper and lower house, both of which had to approve all legislation. Now, both the Magistrates and the Deputies could block laws. This was right about at the same time as when Governor Berkeley probably split the General Assembly, and just six years before Maryland’s Assembly became bicameral.

But the running dispute between the Deputies and the Magistrates continued, over various constitutional issues like who should be in charge when the General Court was out of session.

And there were further attempts to place some officials beyond the reach of elections altogether. For instance, some of the Magistrates tried to form a new body where a few of them could just serve for life, but that attempt was blocked. Winthrop even tried to block the Court from writing a law code, since he thought that would impinge upon the freedom of the magistrates to do as they wished. He argued that there was no need for a law code, since the magistrates’ oath of office pledging to protect the well-being of the state was sufficient to keep them from behaving tyrannically, even without any formal limits on their power. That argument was rejected, but the disputes were such that it took some 15 years for a satisfactory law code to be passed.

But eventually things settled down after both sides had reached a compromise position. In essence, elections remained the ultimate source of authority, but the governor and magistrates remained powerful in their own right. And voting was still limited to church members. The colony’s charter wasn’t being precisely followed, but neither had it been thrown out completely.

As its form of government was being worked out, Massachusetts was developing in other ways. During the 1630s some 200 ships carrying some 20,000 colonists came to New England. By 1647 there were 33 different towns in Massachusetts.

Laws were passed in the New England colonies mandating that all children be taught to read. According to Fischer, another law “compelled every town of fifty families to hire a schoolmaster, and every town of one hundred families to keep a grammar school which offered instruction in Latin and Greek”. And children in Massachusetts got twice as much schooling as those in Virginia. This was mostly to teach kids the Bible, but of course literacy has many other benefits.

Harvard University was established in 1636, while the first college in Virginia, William and Mary, would only be founded in 1693. Now, Harvard at the time wasn’t a prestigious and world renowned university like it is today. It was mainly just a school for the training of ministers, but the difference is still striking. And the first printing press in New England was set up in 1638, a full 90 years before the first one in Virginia.

Perhaps partly because of this focus on education, the Puritans proved to be financially successful. The colonies wasn’t profitable in the way that the plantations of the Caribbean were, but the colonists themselves were able to live quite well by the standards of the day. The Puritan migrants had been middle class in England and they remained middle class in New England.

They were allowed to do all this, to build their own quite distinct society, without any real interference from the Crown. Which may seem surprising, given Charles’s obvious hostility to the Puritans. Why did he let this happen? After all, it’s not like Massachusetts was totally cut off. People went back and forth and word certainly got out about what kind of society the Puritans were building, and how hostile it was to the English establishment. I mean, they acknowledged the King’s authority only grudgingly and their churches had completely broken away from the Anglican bishops. Well, there were concerns raised, but there was only so much that could be done. Remember, this is the decade when King Charles was ruling without Parliament, so he was busy just keeping everything together in England, and by the end of the decade he was sucked into a war in Scotland. And of course after that, the English Civil War hit, and no one at all in England cared about the colonies. And in any case, the Puritans were less of a threat over there than at home. So despite various worries, New England was mostly left to do its own thing, at least for the time being.

Next episode, we’ll talk about the other colonies of New England, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and how they built upon the Massachusetts way of doing things while making significant innovations of their own. So join me next time on Early and Often: The History of Elections in America.

If you like the podcast, please rate it on iTunes. You can also keep track of Early and Often on Twitter, at earlyoftenpod, or read transcripts of every episode at the blog, at earlyandoftenpodcast.wordpress.com. Thanks for listening.

Sources:

The Colonial Period of American History Volume I by Charles M. Andrews

History of Elections in the American Colonies by Cortlandt F. Bishop

Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction by Francis J. Bremer

The Charter of Massachusetts Bay

Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America by Joseph A. Conforti

Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer

The Political Thought of John Winthrop by Stanley Gray

A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England by David D. Hall

A History Of Election Cake And Why Bakers Want To #MakeAmericaCakeAgain

The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

'Election Cake' Makes a Modern Day Resurgence by Keia Mastrianni

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

A Model of Christian Charity by John Winthrop

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