#even back in 2017 when i barely knew the game or also much about trans people i saw cuphead and was like hm. hm!

[jitteryjive]

i need to remake my cup bros ref… both cup and human designs… it’s been almost a year(?) and i’ve developed the headcanons and i would like to share with the class!!! (i wrote thirty tags. Please help me)

[razanartuk]

about me tag game thing

i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3

under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around

why did you choose your url?

this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.

i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.

oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.

anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.

one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.

any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:

emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier

dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.

horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.

mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.

do you have a queue tag?

no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended

why did you start your blog in the first place?

my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!

why did you choose your header?

in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.

what’s your post with the most notes?

i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.

how many followers do you have?

on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.

how many people do you follow?

i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.

have you made a shitpost?

let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?

that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful

do you like tag games?

yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward

do you like ask games?

i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing

do you have a crush on a mutual?

in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.

i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:

[jynxes]

Leather n’ Red - Reggie Peters

Summary: Much like the deceased boys of Sunset Curve, Duchess died right before the gig that could’ve been her band’s big break. Thing is, she left the dark room a little earlier than they did, made a couple friends and learned a few tricks. What will happen when she and the boys can be seen when singing with Julie, the only alive person that can see them all?

Paring: Reggie Peters x Duchess Himura (OC)

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: One f-bomb dropped, 2020 slang and the boys being confused

Thank you to @beansisarat7 for beta reading this chapter for me!

A/N: Here’s the second chapter! A quick little disclaimer, I’ve never actually been clubbing, so I’m sorry if this isn’t really right. That being said, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, especially since I did it instead of doing homework, anyway, I hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 2 // No cap, but go off I guess

After hanging out in the garage for a bit, Luke poofs us somewhere. The guys grunt a little, not used to poofing everywhere.

Reggie looks down at himself for a second, letting out a "Huh?"

We all look out below us onto a familiar street, watching people passing on the sidewalk in silence.

Luke breaks it, "Hey, I know being dead isn't our first choice, but I mean, it sure is easy getting around."

"It's like, super easy to get everywhere," I agree.

"Easy for you, maybe," Reggie says, "I lost my shirt on that one," he gestures to his bare torso. I let my eyes linger a little longer than they should've.

Then his shirt poofs back and I let out an almost inaudible, "aww." Based on the look Alex gave me it wasn't as quiet as I meant for it to be.

"Ooh never mind! There it is," Reggie says, happy his shirt is back and Luke chuckles.

Alex and I notice the sound of neon buzzing and look up to see a sign for the Orpheum.

"Okay, so, why'd you bring us here?" Alex asks, "Just another painful reminder of where we never got to play?"

"Yeah, thanks Luke, not cool," I back him up, Luke and Reggie look up to the sign before Luke brings his eyes back to Alex and I.

"I mean, dudes, the game isn't over yet," Luke says before poofing us down onto the pavement below and begins walking, "I'm telling you, we've been given a second chance. Let's find some music. Let's see how many clubs we can hit before sunrise."

"We're going clubbing! A'right!" I exclaim, getting excited and giving Luke a high five.

We keep walking for a second when we realize Alex isn't with us, we turn around, walking backwards, "Hey Alex, you coming?" Luke asks.

"Let's go!" Reggie yells to him.

"We're partying tonight!" I yell before poofing away the red and black striped sweater below my AC/DC graphic tee.

"So, where are we hitting first?" Alex asks, running to catch up to us.

"I, uh, I actually have no idea," Luke reveals.

"Okay, don't worry, I know a few places," I say confidently before remembering that they think I arrived at the same time as them, "If they're still here that is."

"Okay, tell us, where we heading first?" Reggie grins excitedly.

"We're gonna see if we can get into The Doe," I tell them, "It's about three blocks over," and with that I poof us to The Doe.

The boys look at the sign for the club, and then to the line to get in. If we were alive then we'd have to wait like an hour to get in, but since we're ghosts we can sneak in in two seconds.

"Come on!" I say, grabbing their arms and dragging them in.

There's some music playing, but it's not any 90s songs, nothing they'd find familiar. It takes me a second but I'm pretty sure it's that band named 5 Seconds of Summer or something, Billy's been trying to get me up to date with music and I've been doing fine so far.

"She looks so perfect standing there

In my American Apparel underwear,"

Yup, it's 5SOS, Billy would be proud.

"Wow," Reggie says, looking around at all the lights and people on the dancefloor.

"Yeah," I smile, "What d'you think? Is music different now?"

"Well, this is one song, but it's pretty good, no Sunset Curve though," he grins.

"Yeah, I agree. But it's pop rock, so it won't be as full on as Sunset Curve."

"Wanna dance?" he asks me, extending a hand for me to take.

'Fuck it,' I think, "Sure," I take his hand and we begin to dance. It's not really a song you can dance with a partner to, unless you're grinding I guess, but we make it work, dancing next to each other and he spins me every now and then which is fun.

When the song finishes we go to check out what Alex and Luke are doing. When we find them they're looking at the DJ's playlist, and they are skimming through the names trying to figure out which are rock bands and which they think would be best to listen to.

"Luke," I say, taking his arm, "Just let the DJ play her playlist. If you wanna hear the new music then just listen to it."

"But, Duchess, I wanna hear the competition. I wanna find out what rock bands are like now!" he protests.

"Please Luke?" I say, tugging on his arm again, "I'll dance with you?" I offer.

"Ugh, fine, only because I can't say no to a pretty girl that wants to dance."

"Sure you can't Patterson," I smirk, pulling him onto the dance floor as a slower song begins. It takes me a second until I recognize it as a song by the Vamps, Somebody to You.

"Look at me now, I'm falling

I can't even talk, still stuttering,"

We hold hands and dance, lip-synching to a song we don't even know, laughing when we clearly mess up. He spins me around a couple times, and I dip him at the end of one of the choruses making us burst into giggles. I'm really starting to like hanging out with the boys, they're great fun to be around.

The song ends and we hug, "So," I begin, "What did you think of that song?"

"Well, it's not rock, and it's definitely not Sunset Curve," I roll my eyes at these observations, "But it was good, I had fun dancing to it."

"See? Just because it's not rock doesn't mean it's trash," I laugh, and he rolls his eyes.

I turn to Reggie and Alex before taking a step towards Alex, "Well, since I've danced with these two morons, I guess I owe you a dance?"

I put my hand out for him to take and after looking to Reggie and Luke, who both nod at him, he looks back to me and takes my hand.

The song we dance to is Girls Like You by Maroon 5. It's a nice song, slower and a pop rock song that's more pop than rock. We both have a lot of fun doing turns and exaggeratedly pointing to each other for every,

"When I come through

I need a girl like you, yeah yeah,"

Alex is definitely a dancer, and a good one at that. We both have fun dancing more hip-hop when we get to Cardi's verse and we're laughing the entire time.

When the song ends we join the other two and they just look at us both wide eyed.

"What?" we ask.

"You two really like to dance," Reggie says.

"Yeah, guess Alex isn't the only dancer in the group now," Luke comments. Oh, if only you knew.

"So, next club?" I ask.

"Sure, where to next?" Reggie asks me.

I think for a bit before deciding, "How about we go to Okay?"

"Okay?" the boys chorus.

"Yeah, Okay, it's a club, you down?"

The boys exchange a look before shrugging, "Sure," Luke says, "Take us to Okay."

♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪

I take the guys to Okay and we dance for a bit, Okay plays a few older songs from like the 2000s and the 90s, so we actually know the words to these songs. We're goofing about and dancing when Reggie and I bump into someone, we exchange a look before looking back at the person we bumped into.

The person has short green hair, a long sleeved black and white top and a black skirt with black suspenders seemingly holding it up, they look great.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," they say before realizing what just happened. "Ghosts?"

"Yeah, we're ghosts, I'm Duchess," I tell them.

"And I'm Reggie," Reggie says, putting out his hand to shake theirs.

"Well, I'm Kai," Kai says, shaking Reggie's hand," And in case you were wondering I use they/them pronouns."

"They— th- what?" Reggie stammers, confused.

"Oh, uh, Kai, Reggie died in the 90s and only just left the dark room, he's still catching up," I explain to them.

"Oh, that's okay, I can explain if you want," Kai offers, and Reggie nods his head.

"When we refer to people we use pronouns, right?" Reggie nods again, "Well, instead of using he/him or she/her, I use they. Like what you would do if you didn't know if someone was a he or a she. Think of it like you found a wallet, you'd say 'oh, someone left their wallet here, I'll leave it so that they can find it,' do you follow?"

"Yeah, I do. Thanks for teaching me," Reggie smiles, still slightly embarrassed, "I use he/him pronouns, is that right?"

"Yeah, it is," I smile, "And I use she/her."

"Well, now that we're properly introduced, do you wanna come meet my friends?" Kai asks.

"Sure, can we go get our friends, Alex and Luke?" I ask.

"Sure, go ahead," Kai says, "We'll be over in the booth over there," they point to a booth in the corner of the club.

They walk to their both and Reggie and I scramble to find Alex and Luke. When we do we tell them we found other ghosts and Reggie explains to them Kai's pronouns, he seemed really proud to be educating them and it was honestly adorable.

We go over to the booth Kai pointed out to us and meet their friends, Mel, who died in 2017, is cis and uses she/her and Eli, who died in 2019, is trans and uses he/him. They're really cool people who told us a lot about newer music, and what it's like being a ghost. They also told us that they like to prank alive people even though they don't really know how to do much as ghosts.

"Just because you can't touch 'em doesn't mean you can't mess with 'em," Eli says with an evil grin.

"What do you mean?" Luke asks.

"Well, for instance, they can't feel your skin, but they can feel fabric and texture," Mel explains, "They can feel the wetness of water on your hand but not your hand. Ya get me?"

"Yeah, I get you."

"I know this is off topic but tbh I don't care, Luke, your fit is so 90s but like it's also fire," Eli compliments.

"Uhhhh," the guys sit with their mouths open, not knowing what to say, because they are not up to date with 2020 slang.

"Eli, dude, they're literally from the 90s," I laugh, "They highkey have no clue what you're saying."

"Oohhh, tea," Mel gasps.

"Yeah, they make knowing basic slang seem like a flex," I giggle.

"Cap, that's gotta be cap," Eli shakes his head.

"No cap, but go off I guess," I shrug.

"Damn, no need to be salty."

"I'm not salty, they're just himbos."

"They're himbos?" Mel asks, "You sure?"

"Well, yeah, but like they also create a himbo when combined. Luke is beefy, you see those arms? And Reggie is dumb of ass," I say before turning to Reggie, "said with love. And Alex is pure of heart. Ergo, they create himbo."

"Can't argue with that logic, but I'm shook, how do you understand what we're saying, and they don't?"

"Well, first off I died in 2005, second off, I've been here a little bit longer than they have, that's why I have the 200 IQ plays that they don't."

"Still don't know what you're saying," Reggie says.

"Stop messing with them," Kai scolds, "I'm sorry about them, I died in 2014 and spent a little while in the dark room, it took me a while to figure out what they were saying."

"It's fine," Alex says, "We just, uh, just have a lot to catch up on I guess."

"You do, but it's getting late and if we don't yeet ourselves back home then Angel is gonna kill us, again," Eli says.

"Bet!" Mel agrees.

"We gotta get going, is what they mean, but we'll see you around?" Kai asks.

"Of course," I say, "See ya."

"Bye guys," they all say.

"Bye," the guys reply before Kai, Eli, and Mel poof away.

"Shall we hit the next club?" I ask the guys and they nod. And so I take them to what will be our final club of the night, a place called Midnight.

I poof us there and the guys drag me to a table before all turning to me.

"What?" I question, confused.

"How the hell do you know all that stuff?" Luke interrogates me.

"Yeah, I thought you showed up same time as us," Alex adds on.

"And what's a himbo?" Reggie asks, the guys look at him, "What? It's a valid question!"

"Okay, well, I didn't appear into the afterlife with you," I elucidate, "I just became visible to Julie with you guys. I've been here for like a month and a half already."

"A month and a half? And you didn't think to tell us?!" Alex all but yells at me.

"Sorry! I was confused when I was brought to you and Julie and then I realized who you were, and then I found out Julie could see me! Sorry if I didn't spill my life story to you," I sass.

"Yeah, no that makes sense," Reggie agrees.

"Yeah, I mean it's not every day you meet your music idols," Luke says arrogantly.

"And it's definitely not every day you realize they're huge dorks either," I say, pushing Luke's shoulder gently and he laughs.

"Reggie did raise a good question earlier though," Luke says.

"Oh? And what is that?" I ask.

"What is a himbo?"

"Ah, no. You're not ready to learn that yet."

"What do you mean?" Alex questions.

"You're just not ready. Trust me on that. Now come on, do we wanna stay here or will I show you some new things in LA?"

"Let's stay here a bit," Luke suggests, and the boys agree.

"Okay, let's dance then," I say grabbing them to the dance floor. It's definitely different clubbing as a ghost, there's no eating or drinking and no mingling unless you meet other ghosts.

After a bit of dancing the music quiets down, it's still playing but if you sang into the mic onstage then you could drown it out. I look to Reggie and he smiles at me, I nod to the mic and he taps Luke's shoulder and points to the mic, we smile and go onstage.

I look at the DJ's playlist and find a song that would absolutely be fun to sing with the boys. It's a song by Green Day and so although it came out in 2004, they'll still know the band. Before I put it on, I explain to them that although yes, the song does have a slur in it, it was meant as a reclamation and beyond that we can just not sing it, we agreed on the latter. I hit play on the karaoke option and make sure the boys can see the lyrics.

And so we begin as any normal person would start a song, screaming at the top of our lungs,

"DON'T WANNA BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT

DON'T WANT A NATION UNDER THE NEW MANIA,"

Singing with the boys was so much fun, honestly, I want to sing with them again for sure! People are confused when we finish because no one was up on the stage and we don't exactly sound like Green Day, but they enjoyed it, nonetheless.

♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪

After staying in the club for a while the boys decided that they did want me to take them around the city. I show them all the new venues and places where bands play gigs, I show them what places shut down and what's there in their place.

The guys immediately stopped the tour when I revealed that I learned a couple ghosting tricks from my ghost friend. They really wanted to see what I could do, I can't really do much, but I showed them regardless. I lifted a couple things and set off a couple car alarms but I couldn't do much other than that. The guys found it really cool though, I gotta introduce them to Billy at some point.

The sun starts to rise and we decide that we need to start getting back to the Molina house, the boys want to wander for a bit longer, but I decide to go back to go check on Carlos, he's gotta be a little confused, especially after seeing Julie see me last night.

I poof to the door outside his room and knock quietly before hearing Carlos saying, "Come in."

"Hey Carlito," I smile after walking through the door.

"Hey Dee," he smiles, sitting on his bed, "What's up?"

"I just thought you'd want to know what's going on. Ya know, because of last night."

"Oh, yeah, could Julie see you?"

"Yeah, she, uh, she can."

"She can see you? How?!"

"Well, it's a long story, and I'm not 100% sure how she can see me either, but she can," I then whisper to myself, "I really don't understand why she can see the others and you can't though."

"What?" he asks.

"Oh, nothing. So, what's new, what are you gonna do today?" I deflect.

"Since we're moving, I have to pack my room, which means cleaning under my bed, and we both know that I don't wanna clean under my bed," the boy says, shaking his head.

"Hey!" I say, offended, "You found my demo under your bed!"

"Yeah, and who knows, I might find more demos and summon more demon ghosts!"

"I'm not a demon!" I protest, "I'm a ghost! A normal ghost, just tryna get through the afterlife."

"That's fair, well, I gotta get ready for school, but I'll see you after?"

"Yeah, of course Calo," I assure him, "I'll see you later."

"Bye DeeDee."

And with that I poof to the guys, they were still wandering around LA and when I show up we all decide to go back to the studio.

We all poof into the back of the studio and we hear Julie singing and playing the piano. This is surprising to the boys because she told them that she doesn't play, and it's surprising for me because I know that she hasn't played since her mom died, so it's a little crazy for all of us.

"Wake up your dream and make it true Look out, look inside of you When you feel lost Relight that spark, time to come out of the dark Wake up, mm-mm, wake up"

We all look at each other in awe of Julie. This girl has an incredible voice and she plays the piano amazingly, honestly I'm glad she's playing again, depriving the world of her talent is almost criminal!

When she's done, Julie lifts the last sheet of music off the piano reading the note that her mom left at the bottom of it before hugging it and crying softly.

♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪°•°∞°•°♪

[journeynaut]

This decade I went from being 14 to 24. From my understanding this means this decade has pretty much shaped my tastes, beliefs, and personality more than any other decade will. It’s also an important decade because at the beginning of the decade I felt like a real person, and now I feel like a ghost that occasionally almost inhabits the same space as this flesh prison.

Anyway, here’s a list of games that shaped me in reverse chronological order for maximum pretension. Spoilers and typos will be abundant. 

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

I like little, mostly irrelevant prepping activities in games. Currently, I’m playing Death Stranding, and my Norman Reedus always puts on a cap. Mostly to cover up his weird little pony, but also just as a thing to do to focus before a mission. Like, listening to Friends in the Armed Forces by Thursday before the helicopter lands. Like, grabbing your wallet in the morning. Or, like in Arthur Morgan’s case, putting on a bandana before being a nasty crime boy.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I always play characters as good and pure as possible. But after I got done doing my good boy crimes I could always return to camp. Sure, camp was always moving as we ran, but the people were there every time. The world of RDR2 is beautiful, I think the characters were my favorite thing about this game. The entire plot was that camp, the outcasts in it, and the dreams they followed. They fused a cowboy simulator with a cult simulator. It says, don’t worry, friend - just keep going and Eden is the next job.

This is a game where you give, break, and are broken in pursuit of a lie. This is a game where your perfect life never arrives and the simple pleasures you find are taken. In the end, you only do whatever little bit of good you can, thank your horse for carrying your weight and the weight of everything you carry, and lay down to go peacefully.

Night in the Woods (2017)

This last decade took my memory from me. When I was a freshman in college taking an intro psych class, the class took a short term memory test. I got second in the whole class. Now I’m sitting here trying to remember who said what in this game. But regardless, one character says something like, “Getting older is your list of first times growing shorter while your list of never agains grows longer.” Heavily paraphrased, probably.

I think there’s a Bojack Horseman episode where he says, life is a series of closing doors, isn’t it? In our modern capitalist hell, very few don’t get trapped. This game understands that sometimes you can’t get out, and sometimes you just need to break some fluorescent bulbs at a dumpster. Or in my case, procrastinate on my life by playing this game while everything fell apart around me.

World of Warcraft: Legion (2016)

Tanking in WoW was my most fulfilling gaming experience of the decade. I wasn’t great, but I could be good occasionally. There are a few moments of genuine pride I can remember. Which, now that I think back, might be some of the last times I felt pride.

I had never played WoW or even an MMO before Legion, but everyone has to get into an MMO when they’re in college, right? So I got into it for about a year, and I played it way too much. So much so, I lost myself after I stopped, both personally and in games. It was hard for me to stick to any game for a long time after I stopped playing, and it honestly still is.

It wasn’t the tanking or the pride or the addictive design elements that kept me coming back - it was the people. This became a Return To game for me. Whether I was playing seriously or just goofing off, I would return to the trans mog shop in Stormwind. There were a few players who would gather consistently and talk between queues. I barely knew anything about these people but I spent hours there with them. There was my healer and best friend who I played with every day. There was the carpet layer from Hawaii. There was the player we always assumed was a young girl but turned out to be some rich man? And behind the anonymity of my characters I was able to comfortably interact with the regulars and the passerbys and mess with the assholes. I learned that pretending to be an actor playing someone else is the best way to talk to people.

Even though I barely knew these people they became friends in the modern way people become friends where you see them every day, but are also shocked to find out any detail of their personal lives. I often wonder what happened to all the people I played with. I never said bye to them or anything. I wasn’t planning on never playing again. One day it just happened.

I’ve often thought about playing again. When WoW Classic came out I thought about playing it. I’ve even thought about getting into FF14. But you can never go home, right? Some things that were good can’t be good again.

Inside (2016)

God, this is extremely my shit. I don’t have anything touching or personal to say about this. Every moment of this game is so tight and perfect, and the aesthetic is spot on. Run on, my child, go be one with your blob friends.

Or maybe I just like it because I too am a disgusting blob monster haunted by a dreary dilapidated landscape.

Firewatch (2016)

The plot of this game is messy overall, but I think about the character interactions all the time. This is a perfect example on how good dialogue isn’t realistic. It should be what we want reality to be. Henry and Delilah have such a believable relationship, strictly because I wanted to believe in it. I wanted to believe two people could always be so perfect and so witty.

And Firewatch just won’t let you believe in it. At the end you can beg and beg for Delilah to stay, and she won’t. The game gently pats you on the head, and says, sometimes people are too broken to be perfect with each other.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

The PC version lets you set custom music to play as you drop in from the helicopter for your missions. This led to me hearing the beginning to Thursday’s Friends in the Armed Forces god knows how many times. Sure, maybe a 2009 emo song blaring out of a helicopter in 1980’s Afghanistan doesn’t exactly fit, but the mood fit. And it helped set the mood for the routine of going on missions.

Routine is what this game does so well. It’s an incomplete game with a not great story, and it fails at being a good Metal Gear Solid game. But the routine and mechanics blend together to create one of the best playing action games ever made. I never got tired of walking around my base, of boarding my helicopter to go drop into the desert, of launching random animals into the air with reverse parachutes.

This game also led to me formulating my Return To/Go Out theory of games, which I believe most games fall into. An old Mario game is a great example of a Go Out game. You never return anywhere; the princess is always in another castle. The Animal Crossing games maybe exist as the perfect example of a Return To game because you never even go out anywhere. You’re always there, where you mean to be. MGSV falls mostly on the Return To side of the spectrum, as it focuses on building up and managing your base and the people on it, something I’ll always be a sucker for.

Her Story (2015)

This is one of the last games that made me feel smart. As a person who feels chronically dumb as shit, that’s pretty rare. Sure, everyone in my life, and the university I went to, and all my grades say I’m not dumb. But we know that’s just because I tricked them all, and I’m actually a complete fool. But diving into this game’s wild and twisting non-linear story made me feel like a detective.

The Witcher 3 (2015)

Move out of the way Skyrim. The Witcher 3 was actually the best fantasy game of the decade. I played through all of The Witcher 2 in preparation for 3. I became so invested and involved with this universe. I feel like I should have so much more to say about this. In what was a very turbulent year of my life, this was the perfect escape. The world, writing, and characters are all so beautifully done. The DLC provides an emotional finale for the story. I never understood Gwent? But I did everything else in this game, and I still think about escaping into it again.

Also Triss for life.

Also also god, that show sucks shit though, doesn’t it?

Life is Strange (2015)

I love everything about Life is Strange. I love the melodrama, the stilted dialogue, the songs that still make me cry. I love the weird high school that resembles no high school ever. I’m not too much of a fan about what it says about me as a person though.

See, I let the entire town die to save Chloe. The crazy part is that I didn’t even think Max and Chloe were good together. When the game gave me a chance to kiss Chloe, I didn’t take it. I thought they had been apart too long, that they had too much personal baggage, that they were going through too much. But when the moment came I couldn’t let her go. I let the entire town get blown away to save her.

Transistor (2014)

Hey, do you want a cyberpunk, post-rock fueled, murder revenge love story?

Transistor had such an impact on me that Red and the Transistor are still my phone’s wallpaper and lockscreen. It’s the game I always mean to get around to playing again, but year after year I don’t. Maybe one day I will, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself about most things in life.

Regardless, this game acts as a perfect spiritual sequel to the studio’s first game, Bastion. In Bastion, everyone wanted to live in the perfect world that had been, but was now destroyed. In Transistor, the world exists - it’s there and could theoretically become whatever people want, and yet, no one wants to live in it. You’re not even trying to save the world; you want escape as much as anyone else. You just need revenge for the small part of your personal world that has been taken.

Also, at the end you get to basically fight yourself, and I’m such a sucker for when games have you fight someone with the same powers as you.

Gone Home (2013)

I had never been in love when I played this game. I thought I had, but being a teenager is dumb and weird. Of all the first times I wish I could experience again in games, this is up there on that list. Maybe even the top. Mainly because I understand love now, and I think it would make this game hurt more.

Both times I played Gone Home I sobbed, and I’m certain if I played it again, I would sob again. This was the first game to impact me in that way. As I’ve grown more and more dead inside, as I feel less and less, I seek those experiences out. Why yes, I would like to play whatever the sad new indie game is. Why yes, I would like to listen to that song that makes me emotional over and over. That scene in a show made me cry? Yes, I will absolutely watch it again.

Gone Home, like Spec Ops, taught me so much about what games could be and do. In a decade of walking simulators, Gone Home still stands out as one of the best.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2013)

Animal Crossing is the best goddamn game series of all time, and this is the best one because you can stack fruit.

Hotline Miami (2012)

I have never done cocaine in the 80’s, but that’s pretty much this game, right? This murder simulator game does something to your body on like, a visceral level. Imagine it’s like your 20th attempt on a level. Your hands are shaking with adrenaline, but you have a careful plan. It immediately goes bad so you just panic and start running around knifing fools and it somehow works out anyway. That’s the thing that makes this work so well, and also the thing the devs absolutely did not understand when they made Hotline Miami 2.

You know what else makes this game great? The vibes. Miss me with your vibe checks if you’re not putting off Hotline Miami vibes. It’s the trippy and psychedelic story, it’s the way you have to walk through the bodies of everyone you just murked at the end of the level, it’s the game constantly asking if you feel good about what you’re doing. Hotline Miami and Spec Ops made me reevaluate how I thought about violence in games. Which isn’t to say I don’t play violent games, just that I think more about what the games are asking me to do.

Borderlands 2 (2012)

My experience with Borderlands was different than how most people played it. I didn’t really uh, have friends, so I played it alone. But it wasn’t an inferior experience. I got to play my haiku spouting sniper at my own pace. All the guns were mine. I could laugh at the dumb jokes as long as I wanted.

Hey wait, actually, is this game still funny? If I thought it was extremely funny originally, would it still hold up? Like, Mr. Satan being Mr. Torgue still has to be funny, right?

Anyway, most of the DLC for this game is pretty mediocre or just straight up bad, but the Tiny Tina DLC is some of the best DLC of the decade. Those madmen just made D&D in a goofy ass game where guns yell at you when you shoot them, and somehow made it an emotionally resonant end to the story.

Spec Ops: The Line (2012)

We all really missed what this game was trying to tell us, huh? It constantly asks you if you’re okay with the dehumanization of minorities and the glorification of imperialism and the military that runs rampant through games. Here we are going into 2020, and goobers are still trying to argue games don’t have politics in them. Anyway, gamers are dumb as shit, and we should have listened to Spec Ops more.

Portal 2 (2011)

This came out at the beginning of this decade, huh? Guess I gotta break out the walker and sign up for AARP. Anyway, being funny is hard. I mean, I’ve never managed to be funny so I assume it’s hard. I mean, sometimes my life is funny in a cosmically ironic way, like I’m god’s personal clown and not in on the joke.

Anyway, anyway, the puzzles are fantastic, and Portal 2 is funny as hell in a way I’m pretty sure would still hold up. The humor is definitely more overt than the original Portal, but Cave Johnson is a god tier character. I can’t remember what I did yesterday, and I still remember Cave Johnson lines from like, 8 years ago.

Minecraft (2011)

*twirls mustache* Not to sound like a hipster, but I started playing Minecraft in 2010 before release. My first world seed was the most perfect seed I ever encountered. It was a large island, the size of which, I never encountered again. Like, it was big enough that it felt like I had to branch out to explore, but also small enough that I could know it all. Playing on that island was the most pure experience I had with Minecraft, in retrospect. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t realize that actually everyone else was way better at building things and playing the game than I was.

But eventually you get bored of everything, right? So I found a server and joined the forums. Over time I grew a bit bored of the game, and eventually realized I wasn’t very good at it. But I stuck around on the forums. Like, for years. Playing on that server, even as my time actually playing lessened, and being on the forums defined my teenage years.

I had a complicated relationship with the forums and the game, though. I’m not good with people. That’s just something I’ve had to learn to accept. But I’ve actually gotten better over the years. Back during my teenage years I was awful with people. I was antisocial, standoffish, pretentious, etc. I also felt like I couldn’t get anyone to like me, which I now realize was my own fault. There was a group of players I wanted to be a part of, but also could never really break into. The game and forums became what I was experiencing and also everything I couldn’t experience. It’s what I did every day but also what I was missing out on. Even today my thoughts on Minecraft are complicated. That one song, you know the one, always makes me emotional.

I originally had a different end planned to whatever this list is. It was gonna be a pretentious ending about how a few years ago I tried to go back and play Minecraft but just couldn’t because you can never go home again. I was gonna talk about my first world seed and the optimism and exploration I experienced, and it was obviously gonna mimic my decade. Because, you know, pretentiousness. But I can’t do that now.

See, I just looked up that server, and I found out it’s still active. The website looks like when I left. The same people are in charge. It’s like a time capsule. Due to a lot of personal turmoil, I asked for a server ban and a forum ban to stop myself getting back on in January 2015. That was when my time with Minecraft came to an end. But here’s the crazy thing: a couple of weeks ago, almost 5 years after I quit, someone posted on my forum profile that they missed me. And we weren’t even close friends, I thought. I mean, no one liked me, right? And it wasn’t just this one person. Multiple people had left similar messages on my profile over the years.

Normally I don’t like when people have memories and perceptions of me. Like, hell is other people, right? But this kind of hurt my insides deep down, like nothing has in a while. I don’t quite have words for it because it’s so personally tied to how I felt about Minecraft, and thus the forums, and thus a lot of this decade. Does this mean that multiple people I’ve encountered over the decade miss me? That some amount of people greater than zero miss me not being around?

Anyway, this has gotten off track, but also maybe it hasn’t. The point I was trying to make was to make a pretentious list about how silly little things we do in our free time can affect us years later in ways we won’t realize and sometimes can’t understand.

In conclusion, games track better with the most personal moments of my decade better than almost anything. Games are great. The people who play them are often terrible. Video games forever.

[targentis]

wait wait how did you realise you kinned Descole? also how is it like realising you kin a character in general

this is my favorite story to tell oh my god thank you for asking. DFGFDGHS this is going to get really long im sorry

okay so mind you i just kin willy-nilly nowadays but Descole was only like...my second kin ever. so i was being really PICKY. at the time i only kinned Joker from Persona 5 and i was trying to keep it that way. i was like unfortunately i am a kinnie..............and i have one kin. what a fool i was.

luke @kirbapy and i had just become friends at that point, and i reblogged one of his pl posts. and he was like “wait do u know what pl is?” and i was like “oh yeah my mom and i used to be into it back in the day” and one day he just said like “ok im gonna kin assign you someone from pl.” and he gave me a whole list of people (i think Clive, Descole, and Randall?) and i was like cool i dont remember who any of these people aRE HGHDHD

one thing i DID remember, though, was watching Eternal Diva and LOVING IT when i was a kid so i was like hey...we should watch Eternal Diva together. cause you know. that was back when rabb.it was still alive..............

so luke and i watched Eternal Diva, and god please don’t make fun of me but i thouGHT I KINNED OSWALD AT FIRST. idk Composer Brain said that bitch who composed this opera is Me. composer brain was WRONG because the minute Descole started talking i just. i Felt It. i am not sure how to explain it but it’s the exact same feeling i used to get when looking at Joker, where like, ur heart starts palpitating and youre like Well This Seems Familiar and youre kinda like !!!!!??!?! yeah that’s what i decided to pin down as the kinnie feeling. tbh i havent felt this feeling about anyone else in a long time idk this is why i say Des is my only real kin now FDGHDFHG

i didn’t actually accept that i kinned him right away even AFTER all that i was still like “oh I don’t kin Descole, JOKER does.” but here’s the thing, dude. i have memories. i have So. Many. Memories from my Des canon. i cannot say the same for any of my other kins FGHDFHFG AND. AND!! i had kinnie dreams from as far back as 2017 (and those are only the ones i wrote down)!! like...i dreamt about the lighthouse in San Grio, and that airship chase scene, and the lift in the Obsidian Tower...just to name a few. OH and one of the Masked Gentleman’s miracles too. and i recalled Raymond by name from a few recurring dreams too--mind you, i didn’t even know the 3D pl games EXISTED until this year. so. idk man, my only explanation for all this is that I’m Descole.

god i could talk about this all day. there’s just. so much here. i’m sorry this ran on for so long dfhghdhfh i knew it would. this is barely scraping the surface too like i just...there are identifying details about my Des specifically that luke drew years before he met me, and there are just so many things i do and say that make sense by viewing it through the lens of I’m Descole.........and tbh? i just really like being Descole. lmao! it’s true! im trans so i know what gender euphoria is like but there is also a similar euphoria that comes from being perceived as that masked bastard. hence my. name. and no before anyone gets on my ass about this im NOT equating being trans to being a kinnie im just saying the feeling is similar DFHGHDFHFFH god okay ill stop talking now soRRY ADKGJDFHSGJ thanks for this epic question ily jak

[queeranarchist]

uhhh every 5th q for the ask meme?

:O

5) What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?

uhhh first time i remember was when I cut my hair off - for an SPN Lucifer cosplay of all things - and was like hell yeah I look like a dude! Radical! and then was like oh that is not a very CisThought™️

10) What have your experiences with packing or wearing breast forms been?

you know i bought a pretty expensive packer and it was waaay too large despite being one of the smaller ones of that model - this was apparently a problem a lot of guys had and their were videos on how to cut it to make it fit but it cost a lot and i was too worried about ruining it - anyway i moved house three and a half times in six months and my stuff is currently in between two houses and I have No Idea where it is and in the back of my mind there is the constant fear that someone will find that dick 

15) What labels have you used before you’ve settled on your current set?

i’ve used pretty much every label sexuality wise bc attraction is weird. gender wise i ided as a trans man until last yearish and now im just like im queer in all senses

20) What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?

prooobably a lot of gender abolitionist stuff like meets past self and just holds a reading group of Nobody Passes by Matt Sycamore - like i hate the transmed/truscum view point but i see that a lot of it is pushed by 15 year old trans guys and the whole wanting to be cis/as close to cis as possible and you can have pride in being LGB but not in being trans thing is pretty much how i experienced gender until last year where i was like time to make the Conscious effort to rework my thoughts, i didnt end up in the dysphoria discourse largely bc it wasnt a big thing when i first realised i was trans (lmao no trans issues were big things at that point) - in general i’d want to get myself to work on a more intersectional approach in terms of understanding that the gender binary is a western colonialist construct and that capitalism pushes queerphobia by wanting to minamalise community reliance and further their profit by pushing a nuclear child producing way of structuring relationships - basically get little me to turn all that angst and anger @ the system

25) What do you wish cis people understood?

that they arent the end goal, i detest the view they have that trans people should be glad to be told that they look like a “”””real”””” women/man - also that they dont need to understand, i dont give a flying fuck if they dont get how someone can identify differently to their assigned gender/be nonbinary/have a gender that changes, just use the right pronouns and name and be ya’know a decent person - and! that they dont need to know what “makes” someone trans and that that line of thinking veers dangerously towards eugenics

30) Who is the transgender person who has influenced you the most?

ahhh good question - i realised i was trans in a pre Caitlyn Jenner pre Orange is the New Black era so a lot of it was just me figuring out shit on my own - which gotta say wasnt necessarily a bad thing bc more visibility has also lead to more bulshit

I would probably say Matt Sycamore - the first book i read that was edited by her was Why are Faggots so Afraid of Faggots and like the queer radicalism and like anarchy from that helped me figure out and voice some of my disquiet with queer assimilation stuff and also the big We Won the marriage campaign queer stuff is Done mood that was 2017 after Australia’s same sex marriage plebiscite. her book Nobody Passes which focuses purely on gender stuff also follows a similar vein and its very very good

35) How do you feel your gender interacts with your race, disability, class, weight, etc. from the perspective of intersectionality?

outside of queer stuff i fit into a pretty privileged life, defs gonna say class played a major noticeable role in being able to get hormones despite having to go through a whole court process (pretty sure the government being the Worst to baby me is what made me an anarchist) and get top surgery pretty quickly once out of high school, my whiteness also provides a certain protection when you see the much higher rates of violence at trans POC, and I'm also able to access queer events and spaces without having to consider accessibility etc

40) How did/do you manage waiting to transition?

mmmm honestly at the time it was the worst and looking back on it i am still very angry and bitter at both my school and, you know, the government in general

i did the whole im trans use the right name and pronouns @ the school people (with my parents there so they couldnt use that as an excuse) about nine months before they started doing so AND this was also after my parents flat out ignoring that I was trans for months before that and i did not uuhhh deal well with any of that mentally At All. my school was pretty much like yll be bullied we cant as if every kid i interacted with didnt already know - and when they eventually did it wasnt a big deal with kids - i only heard second hand about some shit that was said about me which gotta admit was kinda laughable bc i had people i barely knew tell me what people in my grade had said and i was like….dont know who that is but Okay - i was too out of the gossip loop to have anything to be upset about 😂 also i had two (2) teachers in the entire school that used the correct pronouns despite me fully out for near three years by the time i left school tho i didnt actually recognise how bad that was for me until i left high school and was like ???? dont want to die all the time ?? what is this

medically was also bulshit bc the australian system used to have anyone under 18 have to go through court to get HRT, it took me nearly three years and was incredibly fucked and even tho the laws been changed now i am still ready to throw down with whoever implemented it in the first place even tho their probably old and close to death themselves

ANYWAY in terms of providing a better answer than i didnt and was v sad and angry for a v long time - i surrounded myself with queer people, i ventured into the city for some youth queer groups, went to a camp purely for young queer people, read a lot of books about trans people etc 

Ask me questions ~

http://queeranarchist.tumblr.com/post/183686207345/datgenderqueerboi-trans-ask-game-what-has

[terraisnotonfire-blog]

How Do You Know

From a very young age, my wish everytime I saw a shooting star, blew out a birthday cake, or even when I prayed to God, was to wake up the next morning reborn as a girl.  And I do mean a VERY young age, like 5 or 6, my wish was to be a cat, but that only lasted a couple of years, and from then on it was wishing to be a girl.  When other kids were fantasizing about the kind of power they would wish for if they got the Dragon Balls, my fantasy was to be a girl.  This isn’t a joke.  I had a dream when I was like 10 that Krillin and Bulma flew in with the Dragon Balls into my bedroom, and they offered to let me make a wish, and I straight up wished to be a girl.  When people asked me what super power I would like to have, it was always shape changing.  My explanation was that it was versatile.  If you wanna fly, turn in to a bird, if you wanna be invisible, turn in to something so small you can’t be seen.  But really I just wanted to shape change in to a girl.  And if the power followed Animorph rules, you know I’m going over that 2 hour mark.

A few years back, my life was at its lowest. No job, single, car out of commision (a bus hit it while it was parked), all my closest friend were hundreds or thousands of miles away, just a real shitshow.  WoW was my only solace.  And this was right after Draenor launched, so it wasn’t a particularly stable solace.  Around that time I was starting to have heavy thoughts about transitioning.  I imagined myself as being at a crossroads.  I had been working off and on on a erotic gender transformation adventure game, real masturbatory wish fulfillment stuff, and I started really throwing myself in to again, trying to sort of burn myself out I guess.  Get it out of my system.  TI also bought things that would make me feel more girly.  Things didn’t work out with it at the time, I wasn't ready to give myself to it, and I ended up deciding that life as a man was the path to take, and I moved forwarded.  I’m a firm believer in multiverse theory, and I felt that this was a pretty big branching point for me.  I felt in some universes I made the decision a lot easier thatn I did this one, like I was maybe a few steps away from being in a universe where I went the other way. but I’ve been second guessing that lately.

I had a couple of relationships over the next few years, one of which ended after only a month, but god bless her heart, she had promised to peg me, and she kept that promise, she came back a few weeks laters, I bought some lingerie and wore it proudly, knowing that it didn’t matter if this turned her off, the relationship was over anyway, I could do what I want.  And for a first time, between two awkward uncoordinated plus sized people, it went pretty well.  But the theatrics of it all, and having shaved legs for weeks, that kept me happy for a while.

So, nearly a year ago, back in July of 2017, I met the girl I am with now.  She had just come out of a six year relationship and was looking to explore her sexuality, she let me know this going in, and I was game.  Honestly, it took the pressure off, because I knew I couldn’t provide everything she would want from a man.  But one of the things she wanted was a ddlg relationship.  This had never been something that interested me, but I’m gonna be honest here, I figured I should give it a shot.  Give her something that she’ll want to stick around for.  I was hella depressed and was not ready to get this invested in a girl only for her to vanish after only a couple of weeks.

So I gave it a whirl, and goddamn it is exactly what I needed.  For once, I felt what I imagined a man should be like.  I don’t care if you have any moral or ethical hangups.  I am sure you have justified reasons for thinking the lifestyle is bad,  But I make her feel warm, and safe, and beautiful, and loved, I read to her when she can’t sleep at night, I hold her in my arms when the monsters and the nightmares get bad.  I make her feel wanted and appreciated when no one else does.  And when she is really good, I play with her.  I don’t fuck her.  I have no interest in that.  But hands are involved, if you catch my drift.  I just want to make my princess feel good because that is what she deserves.  Its one of the few times in my day to day life that I feel confident and strong.

But despite how great this makes me feel, I’ve started to come to realize a few things.  For all intents and purposes, this relationship has allowed me to be the epitome of the man that I can be.  It has brought out every drop of masculinity I have.  And I realize how not great I am at it.  I can barely take care of this fully grown person, there is no way I can take care of a baby person.  I am just not cut out to be a father.  And secondly, if this is the epitome of manhood for me, if this is what me going down this path has lead to, if this should make me happy, why do I still feel like I’d rather be a girl.  Why do I still fantasize about it constantly.  Why is it that the only time I get off while fucking her is after I’ve edged for an hour looking at transgender women getting fucked, and pretending I’m them.  So if my manhood holds nothing else for me, maybe its time to let it go.  Like as much as I love this part of my life, and if I do transition, I would do everything in my power to transition this with it, and make it work.  But if its what is going to keep me back from fulfilling how I’m supposed to be, maybe its time to let it go.

What if I didn’t go down a separate path?  What if wasn’t a crossroads?  Maybe it was a bridge to the next part of my life, and I’m just standing there, doing nothing.  I feel like I’m in a video game and  I’m putting off the main quest, but I’m running out of side quests to complete.  Except this is Majora’s Mask, not Breath of the Wild.  And there’s no Song of Time to take me back.  I’ve only got 72 hours, how many am I going to waste on the Treasure chest mini-game?

I feel like the whole reason I want to hook this girl up with my princess is because I want to see if my princess could have chemistry with a transwoman.  And I want to see what being a trans woman is like up close, if its a lifestyle I could lead.  Maybe there is a part of me deep down that hopes seeing it up close will dispel the fantasy I’ve concocted in my head and bring me back down to earth.

Deep down, I’m scared.  What if I go through with it, and I’m not happy?  What if it really is just a fetish?  What if I lose all my friends and its for nothing?  What if what little family I still care about turns their back on me because I’m going through a phase?  What if my princess, the one person I truly love, leaves me and I never find that kind of joy again?

But what if its the Dawn of the Final Day, and I haven’t even gotten the Moon’s Tear yet?  How do you know?

[joseyfeli1-blog]

This is it. Halloween 2017

So this Halloween (sadly) i will not dress up. But i will strip down, Ayyyyy!!

alright back to business. Sexuality, Identity, and least important of this bunch, Biological Sex.

This post is for my blog and to be written down. I am still closeted, which i only will tell people that i believe will not care so much about this info. Serisouly in my life, it isnt a huge thing for me.

So it has come to me, throughout this year i really shouldn’t say i am cisgender, and heterosexual. And for me that was strange for me to be so okay with. Yet it wasn’t of how accepting and how much i love myself. No. it is truly cause i knew i wasn’t but never went to go check up the lgbt+ shit, and didn’t care about this stuff. But here i am, caring about myself (how do i feel about that? ehh). Sexuality was never something i cared to bring up/talk about, but Senior year (high school) and im just realizing that from past experiences that, yeah, it is more complicated than - hetero, cis. Yeah no, mostly all my lifes explanations are paragraphs, or essays. long story short, This post is really not for the people who would support me (though Thank You so much) and also not for me to accept me. Again I never cared for my sexuality and i still dont, but since i might get asked, and i would like an straight(Hah!) answer.Okay so here it is…

Identity

A big thing this is. Most explanation will be put into this (not for people to believe me, just so its written somewhere). I want to be identifyed as Genderfluid, three genders, Male, Female, and Non-Binary. For friends on here, dont worry im fine with the pronouns and or whatever you all me. I enjoy no remembering that im biologically male, but i understand people wont care for me in the future. Plus about 17 years of it, kind of numbs you to caring about the pronoun game. So why identify as genderfluid and not be cisgendered? Well for me i am self aware that i depreciate myself (all the fucking time) and some part of it was, so i mustnt hate myself enough to realise i should accept the idea of me being identified as the other two genders. So i thought about, i hate most masculine shit. feminine shit? Love a lot of it! Shit with no gender?  Cool as fuck. So why be filtered Josey? why not embrace this threepeice mofo? 

Why do i believe myself to be these genders?/ Why identify as them?

picture a triple Venn diagram please? Male, Female, Non-Binary.

Why male? i WILL NOT degrade the beauty of the other two genders to have me as a full addition. (self-depreciation, i know, again self aware af) 

Why Female? They all are strong as H E L L! to be apart of them, thats a nice thought. Plus ive had a front row seat of how most common men act towards women and i will not be apart of those asses(i am a different kind of asshole, but that is for another post, not the time right now) I never liked the way how most people talk about how lesbians are only hot and the they are sexualized, THEN! when they bring it up! everyone calls them crazy and disregards the actions of sexualizing women loving women.

Why Non-Binary? They have no need for being either common gender, Awesome! in my opinion. The fact that i never cared for my gender  through my young life, speaks out to me, not loudly, but i know i barely care for the thing in between my pants, regardless my bio sex. In fact, i wont have memories of me being called specific pronouns and shit where i feel nostalgia over them, you wanna know why? Cause i dont remember being called a boy and enjoying it! i just remember having a great time with video games or walking around the houses ive been in.

Seriously days go by without me acknowledging that im male, so in my opinion no it doesn’t matter to me what people think of me, nor if they will support my identifications. Hence, Genderfluid, not trans, not just Non-binary. But three halves, to make a whole.

Sexuality

Alright the simpler part of this post. So when growing up, media, my family, myself, just thought it was okay for making me believe that: Yes! i am hetero! i like women! and it is okay how many are being degraded!

took me a second, but luckily i do not think that at all anymore. (for people that are going to argue me, realize that: too bad if im wrong! i aint changing this post for you!) Now sadily it took me tim eto notice how heteros i knew/ know think its fine how they think so lowly of the people they find sexually attractive, but opinions opinions! so i digress.

I am DemiPansexual (and probs demiromantic, not the time to figure that shit out yet.;p)

Demisexual- Part of the Ace spectrum, you are sexually attracted to no one other than people you have created such powerful bonds with, the immensity or lack of strong bond is obviously individual preference.

Pansexual- People sexually attracted to people whom are themselves as much as possible. See People, we dont care for biological sex, identity, or sexual orientation of whomever we feel attracted to sexually. Again personal reference is what you are looking towards other people (or yourself? who nows? some freaky narcissistics out there, @rapforeminem im looking at You!:p). For me, people being themselves the most, and me seeing them sexually attractive because of it- That (again for me) is someone living their life where they cant stop learning themselves and aspiring to be themselves as we all know, we gonna die soon. the fact is (in my opinion), People dont change, they adapt and grow. They become what their soul is. i believe that souls know what we will become, hopes that we discover all 100% of ourselves, i pray to know all of me, but im also scared, so i will not try to really go out for the answer, if it happens, it happens, and cool too. To see someone be themselves and embrace it, brightens my mood. seeing their bright eyes, makes me bite my lip (like a loser and/or fangirl, lol), it makes me feel good/ special to be there for it. it is special and sweet. anyhow, i hate seeing people as sexual objects, i know i very much did before, but for me, it was normalized! for me! i am justifying me right now, im justifying when i didn’t know that was not how i like to think and act.

DemiPansexual- So why use both? Well, i shouldn’t call myself/ use the ace spectrum to use for myself, again big respect for each one of them, because  i have seen people that i didn’t have/ picture of having a profound bond with. And I love the soul of others, they’re so pretty! Especially when they are really unfiltered.

now because i am pansexual, doesn’t mean i have to seek out the entire soul of another to be even a tiny bit sexually attracted to them. That is my opinion. This Whole Fucking post is my god damned opinion, why type and post it? it will give me god damn peace broham. having something written, helps me cope, so in a sense, this helps me be me, acceot myself and my complicated sexuality/identity.

So for people whom talk, or want to talk to me (there is no line for that), and dont know how to talk to me aafter i come out, just notice, i never really talked about myself in these ways before! i never really cared, i am numb to how poeple just saw a straight regular boi. GOD do i wish it was that simple, literally over an hour typing this shit! But of course to end it,

Biological sex

i am boi

Alright that is it! Hahaha, okay so this is going out at 2:00 am in texas time, but 12:00am (Halloween) for westcoast of the united states. ill reblog during the day of Halloween. not to advertise myself, but for people that want a coming out post, and or support me no matter what (thank you again, love you lot) i identify as.

Oh and i understand that there are so many! so many spectrums and other shit, so if you read all this, or just feel like im incorrect and ou are in fact more intelligent in this subject than me and try to tell me “that i am actually something else”, or “there is a better title for you” i wont listen right now, im fucking exhuasted okaying this post as is, ill check on myself and the wikipedia if I feel the need to. And if you do not beileive or disagree with any part of my coming out shtuff, talk to me directly, no need to hurt my supporters, followers, people i follow, random Tumblr users, and especially mutuals( I Love you guys! MWAH!). Message ME that im wrong or dont exist! not the people that had no idea this post was being done! give me your hate! im cool with it! I Will allow it!

Anyway! Happy mother fucking Halloween California! Have a safe and fun one this year! and everywhere else for that matter. 

[aaltjebarisca]

What to Do When You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (and How to Break the Cycle)

If your car were to break down tomorrow and need a couple hundred dollars’ worth of repairs (plus towing costs), would you be able to afford it? Do you have to carefully track when your bills come to ensure that they don’t overdraw your checking account when they do? Do you anxiously await your next paycheck so that you’ll be able to eat something other than ramen? If so, you might be stuck in the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

Evidence seems to suggest that the majority of Americans are similarly struggling. One 2017 study from Career Builder says that 78% of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck. When you live in this cycle, all of your money goes toward your basic costs of living, leaving you little to none leftover to put into savings and causing you to worry about whether you’ll make it to your next payday.

Not only is this an incredibly stressful way to live, but it puts you at risk for serious financial troubles if you end up needing money for something outside of your everyday budget. What can you do when you barely have enough to cover rent, let alone contribute to your 401(k)? And how do you break out of this cycle?

Why Are So Many Struggling to Save?

It’s not just people who are irresponsible with money who have trouble. While very few of us are perfect spenders, there are many factors that can lead a person to live paycheck to paycheck. Consider those living in high-cost areas who spend half their income on housing expenses and have to allocate the rest toward paying for groceries and other bills. Or, consider workers in low-wage jobs with few prospects for advancement.

There are many reasons why people struggle to break out of this cycle. Some people are simply bad at managing their money or never learned good financial habits, while others have limited means or too many financial burdens for their money to keep up.

“Some are simply ill-equipped to manage their own money, while others are affected by stagnant wages and fewer benefits,” explains David Bakke, writer for personal finance blog MoneyCrashers.com.

Figure Out Where Your Money Is Going

Todd Kunsman, founder of the personal finance and investing website InvestedWallet.com, knows firsthand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. Luckily, he was able to get out of the cycle by paying attention to his finances. He started by creating a spreadsheet that tracked all of his income, expenses and bills.

“This gave me the big picture and helped me realize some quick wins of where I could stop spending and save a few bucks. It might not be much, but it is a start,” he says.

How does he think he ended up in this cycle to begin with? While he counts having a low salary as a contributing factor, he adds, “the majority of my situation was by not evaluating my financial decisions. I had two student loans out of college and little in a savings account. I immediately got an apartment. One year after working, I got a brand new car. Now I have two student loans, a car payment, rent, utilities and still very little saved. Quickly, I ended up only having about $20-50 each paycheck which would go to food, gas and maybe some leftover could go to savings. Oh, and I still had a few hundred on a credit card too. Financial disaster waiting to happen!” he says.

When you’re going over the numbers of what you spend your money on, try to think critically about the types of things you’re spending money on, and whether you could be more sensible in the future.

Bakke also advises people to get a budget and work on reducing expenses first, then to start aggressively tackling credit card debt, so you aren’t wasting money paying interest.

Alex Tran, a digital marketing strategist for Hollingsworth, a national e-commerce and logistics company, used to live paycheck to paycheck. She said that people who want to get out of that cycle should be obsessed with where their money is going.

To do this, she suggests downloading your bank’s app and signing up for services that allow you to see your credit score and create a budget for free.

“Check your accounts every 2-3 days, make sure your credit report hasn’t changed drastically, categorize your spending in Mint (this will help you determine your budget and if you’re going over it). Once I became less afraid to see my bank accounts, I knew what I should do with my paycheck and 10 years down the road, what I could do because I decided to save rather than spend,” Tran says.

Work on Your Situation

At the start of the budgeting process, a lot of people will focus on minimizing smaller expenses, such as a daily coffee run, which is a good start. But when you’re looking for ways to improve your financial situation, you should evaluate every aspect of your budget, including some of the bigger things that might take more effort to change, such as your income and housing costs.

Lots of people wish they were in higher paying jobs, but it can be hard to make that a reality. However, keep in mind that with your finances, you’re playing the long game. Just because you can’t get a new job tomorrow doesn’t mean you can’t start working on skills to build your resume.

Kunsman says utilizing free or low-cost resources allowed him to switch jobs from email marketing to digital marketing and start earning more.

“I started taking free courses from Google on paid advertising, SEO and analytics. I also read a bunch of marketing blogs, started a blog and looked for other ways to learn more. Doing this led me to get a job at a marketing agency, which accelerated my skills and salary to the next level,” he explains.

Use the internet to your advantage. There are countless free, reliable resources available to anyone with an internet connection that will make you more marketable and teach you how to be successful in your search for a better-paying job.

If a big portion of your budget goes toward housing costs, look into ways you could spend less. While it’s not always ideal to have to downsize your living space, the money you save moving into a smaller apartment could end up being worth it. If moving isn’t possible, consider bringing in a roommate.

Get a Side Gig

“I am the queen of side gigs,” Tran says. “I teach yoga, work a full-time job, do marketing projects/freelance on the side and write for various publications because it’s my passion. I find things that I can easily commit to and not stress over. I do things that are fun and bring value to my life.”

If a little bit of extra money each month would provide enough of a cushion for you to start saving for the future, it may be worth it to take on a side hustle.

With the abundance of gig economy apps out there, it’s easier than ever to score part-time work. If you love dogs, consider walking dogs for cash on the weekends using an app like Rover. If you have a car and some free time after work, you could spend a couple hours every weeknight driving for a ride-hailing app. Or, if you have a hobby that you’re skilled at, look for ways to monetize it through freelance work.

“This can also protect you in job loss, where you still have some income coming in and are building a buffer of funds during a job search,” Kunsman says.

Ask and You Might Receive

Not having money can be a cruel Catch-22: Sometimes, you don’t have enough to cover your bills, so they’re marked late and begin accruing fees, making it even more unlikely that you’ll be able to pay them off.

Avoid this punishing spiral by being unafraid to ask for help when you need it. It may seem unusual, but many times your creditors will be willing to work with you; after all, they’d rather have you pay your bills than have to send you to collections. If you know your payment is going to be a little late, talk to them ahead of time to let them know what’s up, explaining your circumstances. They may waive the late fee or push back your due date. The key is to be proactive and talk to them before it becomes a problem.

Likewise, figure out if you qualify for any social programs or government help. Situations like yours are what they’re there for.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Check out government programs like unemployment, food stamps, subsidized housing, etc., if you are eligible. Look for low-cost business courses at community colleges, senior centers, libraries and community centers to improve your skills. Attend networking events and reach out for better career opportunities,” recommends Sharon Marchisello, author of the personal finance book “Live Well, Grow Wealth,” which is based on her experiences living frugally, saving, investing and retiring early.

When Tran was trying to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, she was always looking for programs or deals that would help.

“Find low-income or income qualified deals. For example, in Seattle and New York, we have income qualified housing. If you make middle-income, you can qualify for reduced housing in these areas. There are also deals for internet, cellular/landline phone service, food programs (EBT), reduced rates for students and low-income [people] at parks and museums, education stipends and grants, and much more. You just need to look for them,” she says.

Be Ruthless About Cutting Costs

Do you really need cable? In this day and age, probably not. What about Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime? Oh, that one might hurt a little more. Opting for a cheaper phone plan? Life will go on, but it might be a little less enjoyable now that you can’t watch funny cat videos anytime, anywhere.

If you’re really serious about carving extra room in your budget to start saving, that money has to come from somewhere. Start by looking at all the things you regularly spend money on, and find areas where you could cut back. You don’t want to make your life miserable – if you really need a streaming service subscription, maybe limit it to just one, with the cheapest plan available – but you do seriously need to consider whether certain amenities are worth the budget space.

“Take extreme steps in the short-term. Maybe you cut the cable and get your TV needs from Netflix alone, which is a huge money saver,” Bakke says.

Additionally, see if there are lower cost swaps you can make. Look for cheaper car insurance or trade in a gas-guzzling car rental for a more fuel-efficient model. Limit yourself to eating out once a month or go out for lunch instead of dinner to get better deals.

Pay Yourself First

“Most people get paid, pay their bills, spend a bit, then save whatever might remain. Many times there is not much left to save, if anything. Instead, put a savings plan in place and save a percentage of money first, then pay your bills,” Kunsman says.

By making your own savings your first priority when you receive your paycheck, you not only ensure that you’re building a safety net, but you make it less likely that you can reason with yourself as to why you need to spend those leftover dollars on something rather than tucking them away for the future.

Even if you’re only able to contribute a little bit, you’ll slowly be building up that safety net, which could end up being a vital part of what gets you out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Ellie Thompson, CEO of Money Therapy, a financial consulting company located in Washington, D.C., explains why.

“Starting an emergency fund is essential to getting out of your paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Why? So you can pay cash for your unexpected expense instead of reaching for your credit card, furthering yourself in debt. Start funding an emergency account that you put money in every month until you reach $1,000. You can start with small amounts – even $25 a month can make a difference,” she says.

The Bottom Line

Getting out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle is easier said than done. These are just some of the ways people have helped themselves out of the cycle, but depending on your situation, your experience may vary.

However, remember that achieving financial security happens like anything else: one step at a time. Just because it feels overwhelming or even impossible doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. Having just a small emergency savings fund can prevent a flat tire or leaky roof from becoming a financial disaster – and that is money well saved.

Have you ever lived paycheck to paycheck? Do you have advice to share? Tell us in the comments below.

The post What to Do When You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (and How to Break the Cycle) appeared first on ZING Blog by Quicken Loans.

from Updates About Loans https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/break-out-of-the-paycheck-to-paycheck-cycle

[aaronsniderus]

What to Do When You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (and How to Break the Cycle)

If your car were to break down tomorrow and need a couple hundred dollars’ worth of repairs (plus towing costs), would you be able to afford it? Do you have to carefully track when your bills come to ensure that they don’t overdraw your checking account when they do? Do you anxiously await your next paycheck so that you’ll be able to eat something other than ramen? If so, you might be stuck in the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

Evidence seems to suggest that the majority of Americans are similarly struggling. One 2017 study from Career Builder says that 78% of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck. When you live in this cycle, all of your money goes toward your basic costs of living, leaving you little to none leftover to put into savings and causing you to worry about whether you’ll make it to your next payday.

Not only is this an incredibly stressful way to live, but it puts you at risk for serious financial troubles if you end up needing money for something outside of your everyday budget. What can you do when you barely have enough to cover rent, let alone contribute to your 401(k)? And how do you break out of this cycle?

Why Are So Many Struggling to Save?

It’s not just people who are irresponsible with money who have trouble. While very few of us are perfect spenders, there are many factors that can lead a person to live paycheck to paycheck. Consider those living in high-cost areas who spend half their income on housing expenses and have to allocate the rest toward paying for groceries and other bills. Or, consider workers in low-wage jobs with few prospects for advancement.

There are many reasons why people struggle to break out of this cycle. Some people are simply bad at managing their money or never learned good financial habits, while others have limited means or too many financial burdens for their money to keep up.

“Some are simply ill-equipped to manage their own money, while others are affected by stagnant wages and fewer benefits,” explains David Bakke, writer for personal finance blog MoneyCrashers.com.

Figure Out Where Your Money Is Going

Todd Kunsman, founder of the personal finance and investing website InvestedWallet.com, knows firsthand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. Luckily, he was able to get out of the cycle by paying attention to his finances. He started by creating a spreadsheet that tracked all of his income, expenses and bills.

“This gave me the big picture and helped me realize some quick wins of where I could stop spending and save a few bucks. It might not be much, but it is a start,” he says.

How does he think he ended up in this cycle to begin with? While he counts having a low salary as a contributing factor, he adds, “the majority of my situation was by not evaluating my financial decisions. I had two student loans out of college and little in a savings account. I immediately got an apartment. One year after working, I got a brand new car. Now I have two student loans, a car payment, rent, utilities and still very little saved. Quickly, I ended up only having about $20-50 each paycheck which would go to food, gas and maybe some leftover could go to savings. Oh, and I still had a few hundred on a credit card too. Financial disaster waiting to happen!” he says.

When you’re going over the numbers of what you spend your money on, try to think critically about the types of things you’re spending money on, and whether you could be more sensible in the future.

Bakke also advises people to get a budget and work on reducing expenses first, then to start aggressively tackling credit card debt, so you aren’t wasting money paying interest.

Alex Tran, a digital marketing strategist for Hollingsworth, a national e-commerce and logistics company, used to live paycheck to paycheck. She said that people who want to get out of that cycle should be obsessed with where their money is going.

To do this, she suggests downloading your bank’s app and signing up for services that allow you to see your credit score and create a budget for free.

“Check your accounts every 2-3 days, make sure your credit report hasn’t changed drastically, categorize your spending in Mint (this will help you determine your budget and if you’re going over it). Once I became less afraid to see my bank accounts, I knew what I should do with my paycheck and 10 years down the road, what I could do because I decided to save rather than spend,” Tran says.

Work on Your Situation

At the start of the budgeting process, a lot of people will focus on minimizing smaller expenses, such as a daily coffee run, which is a good start. But when you’re looking for ways to improve your financial situation, you should evaluate every aspect of your budget, including some of the bigger things that might take more effort to change, such as your income and housing costs.

Lots of people wish they were in higher paying jobs, but it can be hard to make that a reality. However, keep in mind that with your finances, you’re playing the long game. Just because you can’t get a new job tomorrow doesn’t mean you can’t start working on skills to build your resume.

Kunsman says utilizing free or low-cost resources allowed him to switch jobs from email marketing to digital marketing and start earning more.

“I started taking free courses from Google on paid advertising, SEO and analytics. I also read a bunch of marketing blogs, started a blog and looked for other ways to learn more. Doing this led me to get a job at a marketing agency, which accelerated my skills and salary to the next level,” he explains.

Use the internet to your advantage. There are countless free, reliable resources available to anyone with an internet connection that will make you more marketable and teach you how to be successful in your search for a better-paying job.

If a big portion of your budget goes toward housing costs, look into ways you could spend less. While it’s not always ideal to have to downsize your living space, the money you save moving into a smaller apartment could end up being worth it. If moving isn’t possible, consider bringing in a roommate.

Get a Side Gig

“I am the queen of side gigs,” Tran says. “I teach yoga, work a full-time job, do marketing projects/freelance on the side and write for various publications because it’s my passion. I find things that I can easily commit to and not stress over. I do things that are fun and bring value to my life.”

If a little bit of extra money each month would provide enough of a cushion for you to start saving for the future, it may be worth it to take on a side hustle.

With the abundance of gig economy apps out there, it’s easier than ever to score part-time work. If you love dogs, consider walking dogs for cash on the weekends using an app like Rover. If you have a car and some free time after work, you could spend a couple hours every weeknight driving for a ride-hailing app. Or, if you have a hobby that you’re skilled at, look for ways to monetize it through freelance work.

“This can also protect you in job loss, where you still have some income coming in and are building a buffer of funds during a job search,” Kunsman says.

Ask and You Might Receive

Not having money can be a cruel Catch-22: Sometimes, you don’t have enough to cover your bills, so they’re marked late and begin accruing fees, making it even more unlikely that you’ll be able to pay them off.

Avoid this punishing spiral by being unafraid to ask for help when you need it. It may seem unusual, but many times your creditors will be willing to work with you; after all, they’d rather have you pay your bills than have to send you to collections. If you know your payment is going to be a little late, talk to them ahead of time to let them know what’s up, explaining your circumstances. They may waive the late fee or push back your due date. The key is to be proactive and talk to them before it becomes a problem.

Likewise, figure out if you qualify for any social programs or government help. Situations like yours are what they’re there for.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Check out government programs like unemployment, food stamps, subsidized housing, etc., if you are eligible. Look for low-cost business courses at community colleges, senior centers, libraries and community centers to improve your skills. Attend networking events and reach out for better career opportunities,” recommends Sharon Marchisello, author of the personal finance book “Live Well, Grow Wealth,” which is based on her experiences living frugally, saving, investing and retiring early.

When Tran was trying to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, she was always looking for programs or deals that would help.

“Find low-income or income qualified deals. For example, in Seattle and New York, we have income qualified housing. If you make middle-income, you can qualify for reduced housing in these areas. There are also deals for internet, cellular/landline phone service, food programs (EBT), reduced rates for students and low-income [people] at parks and museums, education stipends and grants, and much more. You just need to look for them,” she says.

Be Ruthless About Cutting Costs

Do you really need cable? In this day and age, probably not. What about Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime? Oh, that one might hurt a little more. Opting for a cheaper phone plan? Life will go on, but it might be a little less enjoyable now that you can’t watch funny cat videos anytime, anywhere.

If you’re really serious about carving extra room in your budget to start saving, that money has to come from somewhere. Start by looking at all the things you regularly spend money on, and find areas where you could cut back. You don’t want to make your life miserable – if you really need a streaming service subscription, maybe limit it to just one, with the cheapest plan available – but you do seriously need to consider whether certain amenities are worth the budget space.

“Take extreme steps in the short-term. Maybe you cut the cable and get your TV needs from Netflix alone, which is a huge money saver,” Bakke says.

Additionally, see if there are lower cost swaps you can make. Look for cheaper car insurance or trade in a gas-guzzling car rental for a more fuel-efficient model. Limit yourself to eating out once a month or go out for lunch instead of dinner to get better deals.

Pay Yourself First

“Most people get paid, pay their bills, spend a bit, then save whatever might remain. Many times there is not much left to save, if anything. Instead, put a savings plan in place and save a percentage of money first, then pay your bills,” Kunsman says.

By making your own savings your first priority when you receive your paycheck, you not only ensure that you’re building a safety net, but you make it less likely that you can reason with yourself as to why you need to spend those leftover dollars on something rather than tucking them away for the future.

Even if you’re only able to contribute a little bit, you’ll slowly be building up that safety net, which could end up being a vital part of what gets you out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Ellie Thompson, CEO of Money Therapy, a financial consulting company located in Washington, D.C., explains why.

“Starting an emergency fund is essential to getting out of your paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Why? So you can pay cash for your unexpected expense instead of reaching for your credit card, furthering yourself in debt. Start funding an emergency account that you put money in every month until you reach $1,000. You can start with small amounts – even $25 a month can make a difference,” she says.

The Bottom Line

Getting out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle is easier said than done. These are just some of the ways people have helped themselves out of the cycle, but depending on your situation, your experience may vary.

However, remember that achieving financial security happens like anything else: one step at a time. Just because it feels overwhelming or even impossible doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. Having just a small emergency savings fund can prevent a flat tire or leaky roof from becoming a financial disaster – and that is money well saved.

Have you ever lived paycheck to paycheck? Do you have advice to share? Tell us in the comments below.

The post What to Do When You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (and How to Break the Cycle) appeared first on ZING Blog by Quicken Loans.

from Updates About Loans https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/break-out-of-the-paycheck-to-paycheck-cycle

[mikebrackett]

What to Do When You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (and How to Break the Cycle)

If your car were to break down tomorrow and need a couple hundred dollars’ worth of repairs (plus towing costs), would you be able to afford it? Do you have to carefully track when your bills come to ensure that they don’t overdraw your checking account when they do? Do you anxiously await your next paycheck so that you’ll be able to eat something other than ramen? If so, you might be stuck in the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

Evidence seems to suggest that the majority of Americans are similarly struggling. One 2017 study from Career Builder says that 78% of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck. When you live in this cycle, all of your money goes toward your basic costs of living, leaving you little to none leftover to put into savings and causing you to worry about whether you’ll make it to your next payday.

Not only is this an incredibly stressful way to live, but it puts you at risk for serious financial troubles if you end up needing money for something outside of your everyday budget. What can you do when you barely have enough to cover rent, let alone contribute to your 401(k)? And how do you break out of this cycle?

Why Are So Many Struggling to Save?

It’s not just people who are irresponsible with money who have trouble. While very few of us are perfect spenders, there are many factors that can lead a person to live paycheck to paycheck. Consider those living in high-cost areas who spend half their income on housing expenses and have to allocate the rest toward paying for groceries and other bills. Or, consider workers in low-wage jobs with few prospects for advancement.

There are many reasons why people struggle to break out of this cycle. Some people are simply bad at managing their money or never learned good financial habits, while others have limited means or too many financial burdens for their money to keep up.

“Some are simply ill-equipped to manage their own money, while others are affected by stagnant wages and fewer benefits,” explains David Bakke, writer for personal finance blog MoneyCrashers.com.

Figure Out Where Your Money Is Going

Todd Kunsman, founder of the personal finance and investing website InvestedWallet.com, knows firsthand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. Luckily, he was able to get out of the cycle by paying attention to his finances. He started by creating a spreadsheet that tracked all of his income, expenses and bills.

“This gave me the big picture and helped me realize some quick wins of where I could stop spending and save a few bucks. It might not be much, but it is a start,” he says.

How does he think he ended up in this cycle to begin with? While he counts having a low salary as a contributing factor, he adds, “the majority of my situation was by not evaluating my financial decisions. I had two student loans out of college and little in a savings account. I immediately got an apartment. One year after working, I got a brand new car. Now I have two student loans, a car payment, rent, utilities and still very little saved. Quickly, I ended up only having about $20-50 each paycheck which would go to food, gas and maybe some leftover could go to savings. Oh, and I still had a few hundred on a credit card too. Financial disaster waiting to happen!” he says.

When you’re going over the numbers of what you spend your money on, try to think critically about the types of things you’re spending money on, and whether you could be more sensible in the future.

Bakke also advises people to get a budget and work on reducing expenses first, then to start aggressively tackling credit card debt, so you aren’t wasting money paying interest.

Alex Tran, a digital marketing strategist for Hollingsworth, a national e-commerce and logistics company, used to live paycheck to paycheck. She said that people who want to get out of that cycle should be obsessed with where their money is going.

To do this, she suggests downloading your bank’s app and signing up for services that allow you to see your credit score and create a budget for free.

“Check your accounts every 2-3 days, make sure your credit report hasn’t changed drastically, categorize your spending in Mint (this will help you determine your budget and if you’re going over it). Once I became less afraid to see my bank accounts, I knew what I should do with my paycheck and 10 years down the road, what I could do because I decided to save rather than spend,” Tran says.

Work on Your Situation

At the start of the budgeting process, a lot of people will focus on minimizing smaller expenses, such as a daily coffee run, which is a good start. But when you’re looking for ways to improve your financial situation, you should evaluate every aspect of your budget, including some of the bigger things that might take more effort to change, such as your income and housing costs.

Lots of people wish they were in higher paying jobs, but it can be hard to make that a reality. However, keep in mind that with your finances, you’re playing the long game. Just because you can’t get a new job tomorrow doesn’t mean you can’t start working on skills to build your resume.

Kunsman says utilizing free or low-cost resources allowed him to switch jobs from email marketing to digital marketing and start earning more.

“I started taking free courses from Google on paid advertising, SEO and analytics. I also read a bunch of marketing blogs, started a blog and looked for other ways to learn more. Doing this led me to get a job at a marketing agency, which accelerated my skills and salary to the next level,” he explains.

Use the internet to your advantage. There are countless free, reliable resources available to anyone with an internet connection that will make you more marketable and teach you how to be successful in your search for a better-paying job.

If a big portion of your budget goes toward housing costs, look into ways you could spend less. While it’s not always ideal to have to downsize your living space, the money you save moving into a smaller apartment could end up being worth it. If moving isn’t possible, consider bringing in a roommate.

Get a Side Gig

“I am the queen of side gigs,” Tran says. “I teach yoga, work a full-time job, do marketing projects/freelance on the side and write for various publications because it’s my passion. I find things that I can easily commit to and not stress over. I do things that are fun and bring value to my life.”

If a little bit of extra money each month would provide enough of a cushion for you to start saving for the future, it may be worth it to take on a side hustle.

With the abundance of gig economy apps out there, it’s easier than ever to score part-time work. If you love dogs, consider walking dogs for cash on the weekends using an app like Rover. If you have a car and some free time after work, you could spend a couple hours every weeknight driving for a ride-hailing app. Or, if you have a hobby that you’re skilled at, look for ways to monetize it through freelance work.

“This can also protect you in job loss, where you still have some income coming in and are building a buffer of funds during a job search,” Kunsman says.

Ask and You Might Receive

Not having money can be a cruel Catch-22: Sometimes, you don’t have enough to cover your bills, so they’re marked late and begin accruing fees, making it even more unlikely that you’ll be able to pay them off.

Avoid this punishing spiral by being unafraid to ask for help when you need it. It may seem unusual, but many times your creditors will be willing to work with you; after all, they’d rather have you pay your bills than have to send you to collections. If you know your payment is going to be a little late, talk to them ahead of time to let them know what’s up, explaining your circumstances. They may waive the late fee or push back your due date. The key is to be proactive and talk to them before it becomes a problem.

Likewise, figure out if you qualify for any social programs or government help. Situations like yours are what they’re there for.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Check out government programs like unemployment, food stamps, subsidized housing, etc., if you are eligible. Look for low-cost business courses at community colleges, senior centers, libraries and community centers to improve your skills. Attend networking events and reach out for better career opportunities,” recommends Sharon Marchisello, author of the personal finance book “Live Well, Grow Wealth,” which is based on her experiences living frugally, saving, investing and retiring early.

When Tran was trying to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, she was always looking for programs or deals that would help.

“Find low-income or income qualified deals. For example, in Seattle and New York, we have income qualified housing. If you make middle-income, you can qualify for reduced housing in these areas. There are also deals for internet, cellular/landline phone service, food programs (EBT), reduced rates for students and low-income [people] at parks and museums, education stipends and grants, and much more. You just need to look for them,” she says.

Be Ruthless About Cutting Costs

Do you really need cable? In this day and age, probably not. What about Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime? Oh, that one might hurt a little more. Opting for a cheaper phone plan? Life will go on, but it might be a little less enjoyable now that you can’t watch funny cat videos anytime, anywhere.

If you’re really serious about carving extra room in your budget to start saving, that money has to come from somewhere. Start by looking at all the things you regularly spend money on, and find areas where you could cut back. You don’t want to make your life miserable – if you really need a streaming service subscription, maybe limit it to just one, with the cheapest plan available – but you do seriously need to consider whether certain amenities are worth the budget space.

“Take extreme steps in the short-term. Maybe you cut the cable and get your TV needs from Netflix alone, which is a huge money saver,” Bakke says.

Additionally, see if there are lower cost swaps you can make. Look for cheaper car insurance or trade in a gas-guzzling car rental for a more fuel-efficient model. Limit yourself to eating out once a month or go out for lunch instead of dinner to get better deals.

Pay Yourself First

“Most people get paid, pay their bills, spend a bit, then save whatever might remain. Many times there is not much left to save, if anything. Instead, put a savings plan in place and save a percentage of money first, then pay your bills,” Kunsman says.

By making your own savings your first priority when you receive your paycheck, you not only ensure that you’re building a safety net, but you make it less likely that you can reason with yourself as to why you need to spend those leftover dollars on something rather than tucking them away for the future.

Even if you’re only able to contribute a little bit, you’ll slowly be building up that safety net, which could end up being a vital part of what gets you out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Ellie Thompson, CEO of Money Therapy, a financial consulting company located in Washington, D.C., explains why.

“Starting an emergency fund is essential to getting out of your paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Why? So you can pay cash for your unexpected expense instead of reaching for your credit card, furthering yourself in debt. Start funding an emergency account that you put money in every month until you reach $1,000. You can start with small amounts – even $25 a month can make a difference,” she says.

The Bottom Line

Getting out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle is easier said than done. These are just some of the ways people have helped themselves out of the cycle, but depending on your situation, your experience may vary.

However, remember that achieving financial security happens like anything else: one step at a time. Just because it feels overwhelming or even impossible doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. Having just a small emergency savings fund can prevent a flat tire or leaky roof from becoming a financial disaster – and that is money well saved.

Have you ever lived paycheck to paycheck? Do you have advice to share? Tell us in the comments below.

The post What to Do When You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (and How to Break the Cycle) appeared first on ZING Blog by Quicken Loans.

from Updates About Loans https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/break-out-of-the-paycheck-to-paycheck-cycle

[mredwinsmith]

Dear Beau: Building an Industry

Trigger Warning: Suicide, Sexual Assault

Dear Beau,

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the articles you wrote earlier this year on gender equity and your commitment to join a team that supports this work. You chose well going to New York, where you get to work with Eileen Murray, one of the best coaches ultimate has ever seen, and New York Bent, a team that has put out some of the limited information we have on the herstory of women in ultimate in addition to their incredible highlight reels. I also really appreciate you sharing your story. Finding your voice can be challenging, especially when your ideas feel delicate and unfinished due to the simple fact that the topic of equity is so complex. Or, at least, I feel this way.

You see Beau, we’re not all that different. I too spent my childhood staring at that same Michael Jordan poster above my bed believing that flying was possible and all I had to do was keep practicing. I too am extremely competitive and have spent my life with sports as a top-priority, and I too recently moved across the country from the Bay Area to work in the equity movement in ultimate. I am nervous about sharing this story, in fear of how people will respond, and I’m frequently paralyzed by confusion of what is the right thing to do right now. To be honest, I really have no clue what will work when it comes to equity. It is not an easy task, which is part of why it hasn’t been achieved.

Our bodies have similar privileges too. Our white skin means in America, we have a police system designed to protect us rather than profit off our bodies (link an article on the prison industrial complex). Our college educations means we have access to significantly higher-paying jobs, and our cisgendered bodies mean we don’t have to worry about how we fit into the sports landscape.

And we’re also pretty different. Our bodies are political, whether we want to talk about it or not. My short hair makes people regularly question my identity, turning every day into a coming out experience. My gender means watching sports is acknowledging that less than 10% of sports media will reflect people whom with I identify, and when it does, it focuses on our private lives and not our athletic accomplishments. My body is too short and too muscular to be considered feminine, and my body, as much as she is strong, she has also survived a sexual assault from the man that was her first ultimate mentor, her training partner, and her best friend who would commit suicide eight months later.

That was four years ago. Although I’m in therapy, I still struggle to get through days, having attempted suicide multiple times, feeling the weight of this truth is too big of a burden to bear. I still struggle to connect with friends, family, and teammates, not knowing how to share with them the extent of the experience. I still think about him frequently in ultimate settings: trainings, watching films, and warming up before the first pull of tournaments, as recent as New York Warm Up a few weeks ago.

Times are changing. I am getting better, although I will never be able to go back in my life and take these experiences back. I can’t say this hasn’t impacted me and the work I do and the questions I ask: how can, my company, Upwind Ultimate LLC., create a positive sports experience for folks who have been sexually assaulted, marginalized, and abused by society, at both the local and structural level? How can a company be successful in capitalism while also acknowledging that capitalism is both patriarchal and racist by nature? How can professional sports be a place of healing and growth for players, rather than using them for their bodies until they are too beat up to contribute?

Recent stories from Sophie Taylor, Helen Thompson, and Danielle Byers, tell me I’m not alone in this journey. In fact, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, found that 1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted, and 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. In some initial studies for Upwind’s #HUCKYES campaign, results confirmed these 1 in 5 numbers for college, and also found that 84 percent of the folks who responded knew someone who has been sexually assaulted. A survey from Fools Fest found that again 1 in 5 folks have been sexually assaulted, and that 88 percent of folks know someone who has been sexually assaulted. How can we have a professional league that hires women out of strong college programs that we know are statistically dangerous to women, and then not expect them to have lifelong issues with the repercussions? It’s one of the reasons we can’t copy-paste a men’s pro league format onto a women’s or mixed pro league; they’re different products with different ingredients that need different business models. (I’m not going to argue semantics here on what “different” means. The way you and I were born with more differences than just height.) It’s also one of the reasons our budgets for professional men’s leagues should include training on sharing emotions and supporting those who have sexually assaulted other folks. We only address part of the issue if we work solely with survivors and not perpetrators.

When we ask for gender equity in professional ultimate, we need to ask not for equity of opportunity, and instead for equity of industry. Furthermore, when we ask for gender equity, we need to ask it for all women, and not just for some women (as Samiya Ismail of Western Washington University reminded us at the Intersectionality and Race in College Ultimate discussion at College Nationals a few weeks ago), which means when we create support systems for our players, we have to create them with the most marginalized groups at the forefront, for that is true equity. At Upwind, we use equity instead of equality because equity acknowledges the historic and current conditions that have marginalized folks, and attempts to amend these past and current injustices and biases, whereas equality, however, assumes that everyone comes from the same playing field and deserves equal treatment. You can find out more on our website.

Some steps have been taken recently to improve the experiences of women in ultimate, particularly at the level of showcasing top talent. One-off games and “professional” seasons have been created for six teams in the US this year, with some other mixed teams on the West Coast, and a European Women’s All Star Tour, sponsored by the AUDL. These teams, although a step, are not equity, and barely close to equality for that matter. In fact, for the most part, they are inconsequential due to the lack of a long-term or structure to collect on the investment of these teams. They have the potential to fall down the same trap as the All Star Tour did from a couple years ago in 2015 and 2016, it happened, we came, we saw, we loved it, the organizers got tired, and the tour hasn’t happened again. Another possibility is that the AUDL has the opportunity to capitalize on the footage of well-branded teams that participate in the Americus Cup. If it’s not too late, those club teams should sign deals that give them percentages of cash for every clip the AUDL wants to use of them.

Building an actual gender equitable industry in ultimate means securing legitimate long-term funding and consistency in promotion and support for ALL players, especially including women, Trans, and gender-nonconforming folks. It means writing new policy to allow more folks to play, hiring trainers who understand all types of bodies and can respectfully treat all of our players, offering a multifaceted healthcare approach to deal with both the physical and emotional trauma they might bring to the table, and it means paying the folks out there on the front-line of the gender equity discussions. These conversations are emotionally exhausting and if we want continuity in progress, especially in a capitalist system, we need to put our money where our mouth is and pay to learn as we might when we see a physical trainer or a therapist.

Building a gender equitable industry also means not starting from scratch and ignoring the work that so many women, Trans, and gender non-conforming folks have done over the years for their women’s and mixed teams. This has happened time and time again in social justice movements, when we pretend that now, all of sudden, we have these great new ideas instead of building on the foundations of people who have already been working on these issues. It also means believing people, women in particular, when they come forward with stories of sexual assault, and being willing to address all of the issues they deal with in the healing process.

The sports industry is not just about what happens on the field, it’s how we consume it. The cost of a well-branded piece of clothing can be raised when the team does really well, whereas ticket prices might decrease if the team does poorly. The profit is in how we value the brands of those teams, and as a result, the individual athletes who play. Beau, I think you understand how expensive ultimate is at the club level and how much we need something like professional ultimate to increase access for those who can’t afford it. In your first article, you wrote briefly about the relationship between the Flamethrowers and Revolver, explaining, “My large paycheck didn’t feel right when so many struggle to pay their club dues, so when I went to the San Francisco FlameThrowers in 2017, I wanted to get everyone paid. I went back to negotiate for my favorite club team, Revolver. Revolver was still opposed to Pro, but eventually enough got on board thanks to some money and practice fields gained in exchange for signing with the FlameThrowers.” Did San Francisco Fury ever see any of those funds or even have the chance to access them?

It’s issues like this that highlight the difference in financial experience between women and men in sports. Abby Wambach brought this up in her recent baccalaureate speech discussing her experience receiving the ESPY Icon Award in 2016, an award she shared with Kobe Bryant, and Peyton Manning. She explains:

“Each of us, Kobe, Peyton and I—we made the same sacrifices, we shed the same amount of blood sweat and tears, we’d left it all on the field for decades with the same ferocity, talent and commitment—but our retirements wouldn’t be the same at all. Because Kobe and Peyton walked away from their careers with something I didn’t have: enormous bank accounts. Because of that they had something else I didn’t have: freedom. Their hustling days were over; mine were just beginning.”

Getting to play on the biggest stage is one thing; reaping the economic benefits is another. Feeling emotionally supported and valued is a new game altogether.

So where do I and Upwind go from here? Before working on Upwind, I had limited experience in business. I was a camp counselor for 12 years, a high school debate coach, and held a variety of educational project-based jobs, on top of spending the majority of my free time playing, training, and watching sports. When I started Upwind, I took on the roles of 10 different full-time positions, all the while pursuing a full-time MBA and writing a chapter for the updated History of Ultimate. I’m the worst customer service representative, I have multiple outstanding projects, so many unopened emails, an “About” page that is overdue for an update, and hundreds of photos that I have yet to edit and publish.

The funny thing is, Beau, failure is to entrepreneurs what throwing practice is to ultimate players: necessary. Every day I have to ask if I have the courage to go out of my comfort zone to reach new levels of success in both my personal and professional life. And you’re right, Beau, we have to change “I need to help” to “I am going to help.” We have to take this same mentality of growth we have in the gym and apply it to the work we do in the equity movement. Just because I’ve lifted once in my life doesn’t make me jacked. Just because I’ve read one article today doesn’t make me woke. It’s a process of unlearning and growing and reawakening consistently. Trust the process, right? Can you ever say you’ve done enough training?

Over this past year, Upwind has essentially been playdoh. A lot of people ask me, “what is Upwind? What does it do?” And it’s true that I haven’t been entirely clear. I’ve been honored to work with a large group of part-time folks. So far, projects have included Upwind Academy, online courses on the intersection of sports and society; The Current, our weekly (now bi-weekly) newsletter; The Upline Cut, our podcast centered on stories by and about womxn of the world; The Crosswind Tour, a 47-city, 106 day trip to play, discuss, and celebrate the current equity movement in ultimate; multiple coverage angles of games, players, and teams at both the elite and local level; unique merchandise to spread the brand; and a partnership with Colorado Kali focused on their promotion and accessibility, and also getting to enjoy their historic postseason run, finishing second at D-I college nationals.

As the only consistent and singular staff member at Upwind (still), I tried to plan events and activities that both promoted new storylines, shown light to those that existed, and experimented with various ways to engage the community in both fun social events and difficult conversations. There were a lot of wins and a lot of losses, both metaphorically and literally. It’s time now to pull all of those lessons together and make something out of it.

That is why, with this article, I am announcing the development of Upwind’s Policy Institute for Equity in Sports focused on creating policy change at the local, state, and international level, both in government and in our respective sports governing bodies. This Institute will begin with exploring policies on opening up sports to more genders while also providing ways to connect the politics of our bodies to the politics of the environments we live in. I’m hoping to open its doors in the next 2 to 3 years. If you want to get involved, you can sign up here.

I’m also announcing the official kickoff to seeking investors for a professional league focused on providing a platform for the women’s and mixed teams that already exist, with the option to expand into the men’s division. I have a pitch, I have a budget, I have a 10-year plan. At this point, I need help from folks who are interested in working in the league, current teams that want to be involved, and investors who are interested in building the sports league of the future: a league that is up-to-date with social norms and identity politics, and leads the way in innovation and player development and support, both on and off the field.

Teams who want to participate can sign up here.

Folks who want to be a part of the team moving forward can sign up here.

Investors who want to invest anything from $100 to $100,000,000 can sign up here.

Thanks for reading, Beau. None of this was meant to attack, more to start a conversation between us, and attempt to be as honest as you were while sharing my own story. Plus, I can’t ignore that by writing to you, this article gets significantly more attention than if I just wrote it and signed it alone.

And for now, it’s back to the drawing board. Let me know if you want to join!

Sincerely,

Laurel Oldershaw She/Her/Hers CEO, Upwind Ultimate LLC.

The post Dear Beau: Building an Industry appeared first on Skyd Magazine.

from Skyd Magazine https://ift.tt/2MZU4Vm

[adambethyname-blog]

NFL Protests Reek of Leftist Nonsense

I have been a Tampa Bay Buccaneers season ticket holder since 2005, the first year I could afford season tickets after starting my career. I have been a die-hard Bucs fan since I moved to Tampa Bay in 1980 as a five year-old kid from New York.

Even now, I sit in an office that is painted pewter and red and adorned with all kinds of Bucs memorabilia. When something newsworthy happens with the Bucs, my phone usually rings from friends or family asking what I think about this or that. "Did you see so-and-so got cut?" "Did you see so-and-so got arrested?" "Who are the Bucs going to draft?" My reputation as a fan of the team gave me some kind of unofficial and undeserved credibility as some kind of expert in all things Buccaneers.

Which brings us to Sunday and the fervor surrounding Kneel-gate. Naturally, I was inundated with questions about my own team allegiance. Would I give up my season tickets? Would I repaint the office?

A little backstory: last year, Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans sat for the National Anthem for one game. I owned a Mike Evans jersey. When we got home from the game, I threw it on the barbecue and broadcast it on Facebook live. I was never going to wear that jersey again. My father is a veteran. My stepfather is a Vietnam War veteran.  I couldn't wear that jersey in front of them without feeling a sense of shame. So I cooked it up nice and crispy.

But after Sunday, I wasn't quite as impulsive. ESPN's Darren Rovell estimated on Twitter that "approximately 12%" of NFL players sat for the National Anthem on Sunday. That's about 180 players total. Some players knelt, some players locked arms, some teams stayed in the locker room (Pittsburgh). Again, Mike Evans took a knee (even after promising last year that he was done with the protests) with new Bucs wide receiver Desean Jackson.

In the aftermath of the Sunday games, I read all of the news sources chronicling what happened. People analyzed and scrutinized the gesture and what it meant, but a pattern started to develop: there wasn't any clear message that was being sent. The pattern was there was NO pattern. There wasn't a unified message.

Then it hit me. This is all nonsense.

All I kept seeing was this giant word salad of key terms being spouted by sweaty, barely educated man-babies in shoulder pads. Words like "oppression," phrases like "systematic racism," and catch-all terms like "equality" were being tossed around by these players. They were saying so much, but saying nothing at all.

It reminded me of another "movement" that seemingly had no purpose. The Women's March.

Like Kneel-Fest 2017, I have no idea what all those women in pink vagina hats were marching for, but again, I heard terms like "equality" (which they have), to fight "oppression" (pretty vague), and "women's rights," (huh?).

The Huffington Post ran a photo essay of "89 Badass Signs From the Women's March." Here's a collection of some of the signs that they featured:

"Support your sisters, not just your cis-ters." (Some kind of pro-trans message)

"Black Lives Matter, Women's Rights Matter, Too! #ImWithHer (Pro women's rights plus black people's rights and being for Hillary simultaneously while white men get nothing.)

"I March For My Daughter - All Women With Disabilities (Pro-disabled rights, who knew that was a thing?)

"Trump" : (n) Anti-woman (Anti-Trump, obviously)

"Sexual Assault Is Not A Joke - Words Matter" (Anti-sexual assault. Then again, who is "pro-sexual assault?")

And on and on it goes, but the point is, there's no coherent point or message here. It's just a crowd of women dressed as genitalia spouting off about random topics. Ask yourself, in the wake of the piles of garbage left behind by the Women's March, what changed? What was the end result of that mass of screeching humanity? The answer is nothing. Which brings us back to the NFL and the genesis of where this whole kneeling-for-the-Anthem blather started.

Colin Kaepernick.

Go all the way back to the first time Kaepernick sat for the National Anthem. After the game, he told the press the following:

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

While the comment is vague and non-specific, Kaepernick is referring to cases like Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, etc. where black people ended up dying after altercations with police (we won't debate the circumstances of those deaths here, but we will acknowledge Kaepernick's protests are related to those situations). And this next comment may shock you, I'm actually okay with that. If someone sees an epidemic of black people dying at the hands of police officers for whatever the reason and they feel the need to stand up and do something about it, I'm okay with that. In the end it means less work for our cops and less crime on the streets.

But here's the thing: don't take your anger out on the flag and the National Anthem. First, the police are local and municipal, not federal. Second, you've now made attacking the flag a sign of your protest and I want nothing to do with that, regardless of how noble your cause is.

It turns out, Kaepernick has never even voted in his life. The Sacramento Bee reported that Kaepernick turned 18 while living in California but never registered to vote.

“You know, I think it would be hypocritical of me to vote,” Kaepernick said. “I said from the beginning I was against oppression, I was against the system of oppression. I’m not going to show support for that system. And to me, the oppressor isn’t going to allow you to vote your way out of your oppression.”

Actually, Kap. That's exactly what voting does. Voting isn't showing support for the system. It's just a tool, the people are the machine. You find a like-minded candidate and you vote for them. Or better yet, run for office yourself. You've got money. You've been donating to social justice causes. Get a campaign together and facilitate change on your own.

I mean (snicker), it's not like you're playing pro football or anything....  (too soon?)

Regardless, Kaepernick is out of football and isn't taking a knee anywhere this season.

But as Week 3 in the NFL opened this past week, we started to see the Kneelers crawl out of the baseboards, coming to a huge crescendo on Sunday, even garnering criticism from President Donald Trump who said that he would love to see the kneeling S.O.B.s "fired."  

This prompted a statement from the NFL condemning Trump's comments. "Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities."

But with all of these teams linking arms, players kneeling, etc., it is starting to look like this is more of an anti-Trump movement or a "free speech" movement which is silly because no one is being arrested for these protests.

"He's supposed to be running our country, not tweeting, texting and speaking on NFL guys and what their rights are. It's crazy to me. He's a joke. He's a clown and I speak how I see it," said Buccaneers receiver Desean Jackson, who knelt on Sunday.

"It was very childish on his part. It seems like he's trying to divide us. I think this is an opportunity for me to do what I can. A lot of guys around the league did it and I understand why," said Jackson's teammate Evans who also knelt.

Wait a second, I thought this was about police brutality, or oppression, or something....? Now it's an anti-Trump rally? This is beginning to sound suspiciously like....

.... The Women's March.

That's when I realized that all this kneeling and staying in the locker room is all just idiocy. None of these weak-willed cretins who are kneeling know what the hell they're doing and the one guy who had half a clue is out of football. I'm not angry at the players. In an odd sort of way, I pity them. They're getting used by progressive left-wing activists to push a cause; essentially sour grapes for an election that didn't quite go the way it was supposed to.

So, no. I'm not burning my jersey this time. I'm not canceling my season tickets. Why? Because this is just noise. Noise created for the sake of noise. It's a tantrum. It's the kid in the Target aisle being dragged by his arm toward the door as he wails for the toy from the latest Marvel movie. Eventually, it will be over, the tears will dry, and like the Women's March, no one will care anymore and we will eventually forget what the heck anyone was ever complaining about in the first place.  I'll just shake my side to side and say "Bless your heart, you dopey little morons."

In a few months, everyone will be standing for the Anthem or we'll just stop caring because the truth is, nothing is going to change and nothing is going to change because no one knows what they're even trying to change. Trump will still be president (quite frankly, this will help his re-election campaign) and all anyone will remember is that a bunch of overpaid crybabies disrespected the flag and the country because of .... something.