#but win a small victory

[navybrat817]

Okay, lovelies. Remember when I said the good vibes you were sending me may have tipped the scales in my favor? Well, buckle in because I'm about to get personal. 😂❤️

Like many people out there, I have student loan debt. My hubby has student loan debt. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month. Not only do we have student loan debt with terrible interest rates, we also had medical bills and credit card debt to take care of unexpected emergencies over the last few years. It's stressful. Many of you understand.

My family has never had much and hasn't been able to help, which I don't expect them to. I work hard to do what I can. I still had 10 years to pay on my loans when I checked a month ago. 10 years. There has been no end in sight.

Until now.

After a lot of hard work and working with a financial advisor, we paid off our two major credit cards today. I am paying the remainder of my student loans in full tomorrow. And within the next year, the remainder of my husband's student loans will be paid in full. Not only that, we will have a true emergency savings account opened by the end of the year.

Lovelies, I sobbed. Full on sobbed. Ugly cried until my chest and head hurt. The stress of this debt has weighed on me and kept me up at night. I worried for my kids. I worried for myself. And now I can actually put some of this money toward both their future and mine. It's an amazing feeling.

Now, we're not out of the woods. 😂 My hubby still has that last student loan, along with a car payment and our mortgage. But, fuck, the weight is so much lighter and I feel like I can finally breathe. We needed this win.

Appreciate the good vibes, lovelies. I'm sending them back your way. I hope any weight you have weighing down on you is lifted. I hope you can breathe a bit easier.

Love you all. ❤️

PS - The advisor also said no big spending, but my teammate said I should buy myself something nice and that candles don't count. ☠️ Can I buy a fictional husband? 🤣

[wickmitz]

— THE ELECTRIC-FEVER REMEDY.

[lovereadandwrite]

LOVER BOY WINS AGAIN

[oceandiagonale]

Actually, Guzman is his spanish name.

OH YEAH some other folks pointed that out too, makes sense since it's an irl Spanish name (probably why I see it around a lot!) 😳

(normally it's a surname, I've only seen it used as a first name once in a blue moon -- but also in the pokemon world it's pretty clear that naming conventions aren't the same lol)

[dittolicous]

i dont care where you live in the usa or w/e... if you dont vote for biden you are throwing away your vote and enabling trump. because *everyone* thinks their vote doesnt matter and piddles around because of that. hell, everyone thinks 'its only me, it wont make a difference' about THOUSANDS of things, like littering, picking seashells, taking stones from rivers, etc. and in all of those situations THEYRE FUCKING WRONG. if anything unites us, its our damn ability to think we alone are the outlier despite everything indicating otherwise.

and miss me with that 'biden is just as bad/is a murderer' shit. 1) cool, and how do you plan to change things in a mr. nazi-dictator trump world? how are you ACTIVELY making a difference? 2) CHANGE IS INCREMENTAL. the reason things suck so much is because the left keeps taking slow change as 'no change' and giving up before we can gain any momentum to make big change!

if you vote in hamas or w/e to protest... you might as well throw dirt at all those suffering innocent people. you arent saving palestine that way. that is not a helpful protest. you'll only enable trump to win by throwing away your vote. it is the one bit of actual power you have, so USE IT RIGHT! stop in-fighting for one moment! look at what is possible to achieve in reality! dreams arent fulfilled overnight!

when you feel like your vote doesnt matter, remember this - you have to try anyways

[highfantasy-soul]

I'm going to preface this by saying: if you aren't ready to regulate after what just happened with the election, keep scrolling! You don't have to rush your horror at what happened and immediately get back up and at em if you truly aren't ready. But if you find yourself falling into doomerism and your emotions AREN'T temporary mourning (or you're ready to hear something other than doomerism), maybe this post is for you.

---

If you think this election means we're "past the point of no return", you haven't faced a lot of failure in your life, have you? You haven't read a lot of history about social movements and revolutions, have you?

Do you think we just started working for this election alone and now that it's over...the buzzer has sounded and the game's over? I know that's a minimizing comparison, but really, what other situation do you know of in real life where if the outcome you didn't want occurs, it's over, no coming back, can't fight against it?

Was there 'no coming back' for Germany after the Nazis took power? Was there 'no coming back' from the Trans-Atlantic slave trade? Did the oppressed and their allies just say 'well, we tried to make the slave trade illegal and it didn't work - how is everyone still working as abolitionists?? Do they not know how damning this is??' No. Well, probably some of them did, but the others - the ones who had been fighting before any sort of legislation was ever conceived, they took the hit but kept fighting.

Just because the fight is hard and you don't succeed every time you try something doesn't mean it's over. We just elected the first fucking trans woman to Congress! But because Trump won the presidency, that all of a sudden doesn't matter? You think you can just throw in the towel?

Grief and horror and dejection (yes, even plans to escape the country if you're part of the most affected groups) is 100% normal and good to feel. BUT never ever ever let that balance tilt to full-on doomerism that paralyzes you and makes you stop fighting forever. Take the time you need to process, but telling everyone that we're 'past the point of no return' is doing the work of the oppressors for them.

When I was getting my degree in criminal justice (criminology: law and society undergrad and full on CJ masters), I read enough history to understand that we're crawling up a mountain of shattered glass. Those before us bled to death crawling up that mountain so that their bodies could shield us and allow us to crawl up a bit farther before we start getting cut. Which allows us to crawl that much farther and lay down ours so those after us can be protected from the glass that cut us.

Is that inspiring to know that you're planting seeds in a garden you'll never get to see? Never knowing if those seeds will truly come to fruition despite the pain and horrors you faced? Nah, probably not. But the alternative? Giving up because you didn't get everything you wanted (and deserve as a baseline for being alive) in this one election - that doesn't mean it'll never happen. You know what's a guaranteed way to make sure it DOESN'T ever happen? Deciding we're past the point of no return and paralyzing yourself.

I'm not suggesting we wait till next election and try to get them then. I've been working outside elections a long time - everyone who ever made a difference in the cultural landscape worked outside elections. Maybe it's time you started, too.

You'll face a hell of a lot more failure than just one big blow every 4 years, but if you get back up after each failure and keep at it, you WILL make a difference.

[bandzboy]

it’s so insane how some of the ot6 fans are reacting to the news of seunghan coming back because i think for a while, they really thought they won. they thought he was gonna be another idol who was gonna get kicked out for doing normal human shit that for some reason, bothers them to the core. things he did PRE DEBUT were bothersome to this people.

but then, he came back. if it wasn’t for the members constantly supporting him behind the scenes and the fans who were constantly reminding sm that they cared about him and wanted him back then maybe this wouldn’t happen and it’s truly sad to think how these crazy fans who have no life almost controlled the narrative yet again.

i am glad seunghan was not another victim of this. it must have taken a lot of courage and self determination to continue despite being slandered by the media and the ot6 fans and also other kpop stans. all of this to say, that i hope another situation like this doesn’t happen again. it’s too normal in this industry to punish idols for being human but i hope this starts a shift in the right direction

[jokestersinmyhead]

Latest system win: we have a middle who is afraid to swallow pills and/or take meds so we tend to miss our meds if she fronts during the times the body is supposed to have meds. Today she was able to swallow the meds with a slushie and was totally okay with taking them when prompted and took them right on time! We're all really proud of her and hopefully she's able to keep taking them when she fronts going forward (:

[aliceofclover125]

On the topic of more interactions I'd want from BG3: revisiting Gale's comment about transactional relationships with the gods

I play a tempest cleric, and the dialogue option I chose was that not all of us have such a transactional relationship with our gods—to which he replies that there still has to be SOMETHING u want in return for your faith

Playing Durge brings that interaction into a whole different light, bc that's what Durge is stuck in with Bhaal. But in every single situation of transactional relationships, whether with a god or not, the person giving has too much taken. They're used and discarded when they're no longer of use. Gale and Mystra. Astarion and Cazador. Shadowheart and Shar. Lae'zel and Vlaalkith. Wyll and Mizora. Karlach and Gortash. Orin and Bhaal. Durge and Bhaal. Durge and the Emperor. All of them are nothing but transactions that benefit one and not the other—and our protagonists are absolutely fucked over by it

And then, by contrast, u have relationships where nothing is expected, and these characters thrive. Shadowheart and Selûne. My cleric Durge and their goddess Mielikki. Astarion and Durge. Lae'zel and Durge. There's a freedom gained and a space for healing when a relationship exists out of a selfless desire to simply help someone. To just be friends

It's such a GREAT contrast and I wish we could revisit that and have Gale realize it too

[crazycatsiren]

But you know what? At least all the fucking laundry is done! 🧺

[navybrat817]

Okay, lovelies, I know I constantly say I'm tired on here (and I still am 😂), but I also want to share positivity or little victories.

We'll call it Winning Wednesday.

My win today? A teammate plans to mention me specifically in a meeting tomorrow because of a few helpful tips I've given her for work. 🥰

What about you lovelies? What are some wins?

[marvelmaniac715]

I just had a massive clean out of my camera roll - I deleted at least 5000 pictures - and that’s not even to MENTION my screenshot folder which contains (and I just double-checked) 23,731 pictures, and I’m too afraid to tackle that one today 😭. Still, small victories and all that.

[feleshero]

❝ if you're feeling down, i can feel you up. ❞

To Rizz, or Not to Rizz: @gwenbiote

Ay! The way her spine seemed to recoil into attack-mode at what should've been a very innocuous, albeit a little cheeky, question. She doesn't even feel the reason forming in response until she's halfway through uttering,

❝ God... You sound like my Ex. ❞

Babe, you okay? You didn't laugh at my football story... want me to make you feel better? Baby, what's wrong? I bought you tres leches and you didn't even lick it... want some feel-good?

You're way too deep, Hardy. There's supposed to be energy in the air, and where are you? With him.

❝ I dunno, Gwendy... This is the lowest I've ever felt. Might take more than a little feeling-up to get me back on my feet... ❞ She sounded despondent - but the deep stretch she was sitting into erupted into a giggle and a purr. She'll be fine.

[bluepallilworld]

I got a Victini yesterday. In Pokémon White.

And not by hacking, cause I don't know how to do that.

Or at least, I'm pretty sure it's kinda legit. I did it through these

which I got on Etsy. Both work, and have basically every event on them. They just distribute the pokemon/event items from a second DS, provided I just change the date on the DS I use them with to when the events took place.

So I might use a Victini in my Pokémon Black nuzlock, and a Zorua(though I already have access to that event cause I had gotten two Celebis during their event giveaway when they came out). There's more than that on these, but obviously won't be using all of them for the nuzlock. One of which is a shiny Rayquaza btw.

Wooooo that's so cool!

[omarwolaeth]

thinking 'bout how the lads interact with what the bracelets represent, especially in their decks

[mossywizard]

🙏🏻very smart person think I’m cute And smart please