#i know there no guarantees but i hope whatever path you choose for your identity is one you can take comfort in | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

survivedsarchived · 1 year ago

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though ezekiel could never claim to understand tomi's specific burden — he doesn't believe they're all too different. he too stood in the ruins of humanity and assumed another identity: he built a new life, his kingdom, and saw it fall. he still isn't sure what he is now, other than alive — and he wouldn't be that if it wasn't for tomi. and not just because of the operation: tomi makes him feel, in a way he thought he'd never get the chance to again — yet, he finds himself hesitant to put that into words.

but he thinks tomi's are sufficient. by my side — can tomi see how ezekiel's eyes alight with the suggestion? he presumes it must be apparent; he's made no effort to hide it. though they've been primarily occupied with so much — the surgery, ezekiel's recovery, the clinic, the fight — hasn't he been transparent in this?

“and there's nowhere else i'd rather be, tomi. truly.” ezekiel's hand lifts to press against his own heart, lingering for a beat before sliding upwards, towards his throat — fingertips grazing against the hard edges of scarred skin, a permanent reminder of tomi's presence in his life.

and he can't shake the guilt of it, regardless of what tomi says. ezekiel feels it, warm and heavy, in his stomach. but it isn't solely because of tomi; he still feels shame, knowing that his place on the list was manipulated. (he doesn't know how to live with it yet, knowing he'd certainly be dead had he rejected carol's gift and waited. there's hardly been a moment to reflect on it. he threw himself into the clinic, striving for even a sliver of atonement — something he feels still that he must reach for.)

despite this — he smiles. ezekiel beams at tomi, a nervous laugh building on his tongue. “you are a kind soul, tomi okumura, and i'm honored. i only hope i continue to be... worth it.” and worthy of tomi, this connection, this — friendship. but he also wants to be worthy of this community, and what it can become.

he hopes tomi can see it, too; that he's not fully soured by these past weeks. that he can still find within this place something akin to the home he'd claimed for himself.

lost in this thought, enamored by the idea, ezekiel nearly misses that — the slight movement of tomi's hand. but it catches his eye, mind slowing, and ezekiel stands momentarily in silence, wondering about it... before his gaze flickers slowly upward, meeting tomi's. he nods his head soberly, mouth puckering just slightly. “i had found a... morbid humor to it, i suppose. being sick at the end of the world. i'm still not certain which would be the easier death.” his mouth twists into a half-smile, tinged with a slight pain. “thanks to you, i suppose i'll never found out.”

the earlier thought returns. who is he now? no longer a king, a father, a husband, and now, no longer ill; and tomi stands before him, a doctor, or a baker. (could he be both?) the question must be heavy; ezekiel bows his head in sympathy, brow furrowed. “well— you are correct. it's quite a predicament. i suppose you have to ask yourself - how do you want to live your life? if the answer seems selfish — well, i personally don't think it makes you a villain. we are only guaranteed so much in this world. why not seize happiness where we can?” it's most likely far from the answer tomi desires. ezekiel wishes he could be more helpful. with a sad smile, he continues, “whatever path it is you choose... i'll be right here with you, tomi. supporting you in any way i'm able.”

tomi likes the thought of that -- together. he's never met anyone like ezekiel, and he's never had something like this ( whatever this is, whether it's the feeling of inspiration he looks to one person for, or if it's something else, something more intimate. ) his smile is warm, the idea of 'together' even more comfortable to him now, with no invisible wall separating them. he felt free when he first entered the commonwealth, able to do what he always dreamt of doing without the pressures of the things he was expected to do, but there was loneliness in that, too. now -- he has his sister, he has friends, he has . . . ezekiel. ❝ there's no one i'd rather have by my side, ezekiel. ❞ words are spoken in a promise, his eyes softening as he gazes to him.

tomi starts to wave his hands in front of him before ezekiel finishes his sentence. it's true that returning to surgery is the last thing he wanted, it's true that being a surgeon has always felt like a burden, and it's true that the pressures of what he has to do has nearly killed him time and time again. but he doesn't want ezekiel to feel bad for him for having to return to the job when it meant ezekiel is still here. ezekiel deserves that life, he deserves his future here, and as resentful as tomi is for the position he'd been put in, he doesn't resent what he's done for ezekiel.

❝ no, no, i'm glad that i could help you. i'm glad that it helped me get to know you better. and--- no matter where i end up, no matter what happens, i hope you know that you can always come to me for help. no, i never did want to return to this job. but that doesn't mean i'm upset with how things played out for the two of us. it was worth it. for you, ❞ he insists. that's what the problem has always come down to: he's grateful he can help people, of course he is, and it's always so difficult to explain to others, how he can be grateful for that while still not wanting to make a life out of doing it in that way. still, he doesn't regret what he could do for ezekiel. he never could.

ezekiel doesn't seem like the type to give up on anything; it draws a small frown from tomi, and he nearly reaches his own hand up to rest over his -- but he's too late, ezekiel's hand already retracting, and tomi left gulping back as his fingers curl into a light fist at his side instead, reeling in the small disappointment. ❝ it would have been a shame had you not made it to today. there's still a lot of hope left, ezekiel, and i know you'll make the most of it. you have since you got here. you've always impressed me. ❞

the question makes him freeze momentarily, because it's not a simple yes or no. he's wondered it this whole time -- if he ever had the chance to return to the bakery, would he take it? would it be the right one? or would it be a horrible decision, to leave people behind when they need help, just so he can bake cakes? and answering the queston from someone whose life he's saved, that's even harder. he clears his throat, and he looks down for a moment, his hands clasping together in front of him. with a deep breath, he looks back to ezekiel. ❝ i'd like to. ❞ lying to ezekiel doesn't seem like something he ever wants to do. ❝ i suppose the answer isn't that simple, though. does that make me a horrible person? to go back to the bakery, leave surgery behind again, when the people here need the help they can get? ❞ he doesn't mean to ask the question out loud; it just slips out anyway, the beauty of this friendship with ezekiel meaning he can be open and honest, even when he's not expecting to be.

#i love bisexuals #ezekiel is so lame <3 #doomdays #ch: ezekiel.#threads: ezekiel.

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weasleytwinwheezes · 4 years ago

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Always you |part two|

Draco Malfoy x Soulmate!Au

Summary: Torn apart by the war, Y/N hides the identity of her soulmate due to their complicated history. After running into him one day, she must decide whether or not to tell others who he is and if seeing him again is a good idea.

Word Count: 1,502

part one

Authors Note: thank you all for the kind words on part one! I’m having so much fun writing this fic and I hope you all enjoy! without further ado! part two! :)

Apparating quickly onto the dirt path that lay outside of the Burrow, you felt your knees weaken and legs shake. Your mind was a tangled mess of thoughts and your heart was practically screaming at you to run back to his arms.

But you couldn’t.

No, you wouldn’t.

He was the boy who broke your heart. He was the boy who jeopardized so many lives. He was an ex-Death Eater. He was the one you still loved. With weary bones and an aching head, you drug yourself up the small path to the arms of those you could trust.

-------------------------------

When you pushed open the kitchen door and collapsed into Molly’s arms, she seemed to immediately know what was wrong. A mother always knows what’s wrong with her hens, regardless if they were actually hers or not. She swept you into an oversized armchair and had a steaming cup of tea in front of you within minutes. Not daring to speak first out of sheer politeness, she sat by the fire with you quietly.

Your eyes shifted to the clock that was slowly moving your hand from ‘Diagon Alley’ to ‘Home’ and realized that must be how she knew you were coming. You watched as she sat and started to knit one of her famous Weasley sweaters, this one a familiar shade of green. Did she know?

Turning to the older witch you managed a choked whisper out, “Molly, I found him. After all of these bloody years, I found him and he found me. He knows I’m his soulmate. Five damn years later and he finally knows.”

“Y/n, I know love. I can see the dazed look in your eyes. That’s the same look all of my boys had for the first week after they met theirs. That’s how I did and still look at Arthur. But we don’t have to talk about it. We can just sit here and listen to the fire, if that’s what you choose to do. Just remember that whoever it is, is feeling exactly the same as you are. Possibly even worse, seeing as you’re here with me and not with him,” she spoke gently, staring at you with soft eyes.

“It’s just that, I don’t know how I could possibly be with him. He’s done so many terrible things, yet I know that isn’t who he is anymore,” you sobbed quietly, hiding your face in your hands.

“We can’t judge everyone based on their mistakes and we’ve all done things we’ve regretted. That’s how it goes in war. Whatever he did, I guarantee it was because he had no other choice,” she replied honestly.

You lifted your eyes to meet hers, feeling the tears slowly inching down your face. Bracing yourself for the question you knew lingered on the front of her mind and the tip of her tongue.

“Dear, if you don’t mind me asking. Who is it?” she questioned.

Merlin, please don’t hate me.

“Draco Malfoy is my soulmate.”

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Within the week you had received a multitude of owls, unsurprisingly. Molly was a great listener but keeping secrets wasn’t her strongest trait. You weren’t hurt by her sharing privy details of your life, seeing as it took the pressure off of your shoulders to share the information with your friends.

The letters ranged from a lovely ‘We’re here for you and whatever you need. Always’ from Hermione to a harsh ‘Seriously? The ferret? I thought we ditched him in sixth year!’ from Ginny.

To be fair, you weren’t surprised by the disappointment that seeped through the parchment from Ginny's words. She had in fact been the main one to help you pick up your pieces. While Harry, Ron, and Hermione were on the run during the war; Ginny was the one keeping you and the rest of Dumbledore's Army together. Without her help during that time, you couldn’t bear to think of what would have come of you.

It was a lovely Friday morning that you heard the tell-tell rapping of an owl. Heading towards the small window that was placed above your kitchen sink, you were faced with a rather regal looking owl. With feathers as black as night and large yellow eyes, you were at a loss for whom it may belong to. Plucking the small letter from its beak, you handed it a few treats as a thanks and watched it gracefully return to the skies.

Turning to the letter in your hands, you immediately spotted the Malfoy family crest on the wax seal. Your heart plummeting to your stomach as you stared at the black envelope. Somehow finding the courage to open it, with shaking hands you managed to separate the seal from the paper. Pulling the folded parchment from inside, you were met with an all too familiar scrawl. The same penmanship that had written you far too many love letters in your school days.

Releasing a rather large sigh, you forced yourself to read the words strown about the paper.

Y/N,

It was lovely to see you and even lovelier to touch you. I’m not entirely sure what to write without making an absolute git of myself, but I’m grateful for all the witches in the world- you’re the witch chosen for me. I know this conversation is long overdue and it might be one you don’t wish to have. But if you can find it in your heart to see me, I’ll be at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade on Saturday. Around noon.

Don’t worry about owling back with an answer, even if you don’t show up- I’ll still wait for you.

I’ll wait for you until you’re ready. I owe you that.

Yours

Regards,

D.M.

————————————

With a night full of debating the pros and cons of whether or not to even show, you had come to the conclusion that it would be best to get everything sorted out between the two of you as soon as possible. Throwing one last glance at yourself in the mirror, you once again smoothed down the beige sweater and grabbed the rest of your things.

Before disapparating to Hogsmeade, you made yourself a promise. A promise that was if at any point, you saw him and things became too much- you would leave.

Quickly apparating across the street from the crowded pub, you slowly glanced through the windows. Hoping for a glance of his platinum hair, to decide whether or not to even go in. Unbeknownst to you, his ice grey eyes had already landed on you. Deciding it looked safe enough and that you might have possibly beaten him there, you carefully walked across the street and into the Three Broomsticks.

Once inside, you were met with the same warm atmosphere from your Hogwarts days. You looked about the room with a loving gaze as you remembered all the fond memories. So many Hogsmeade trips spent curled up in a booth with a book and a large butterbeer. With a smile on your face, you ventured further into the room.

Looking about the room you settled on a booth towards the back of the bar. Carefully walking throughout the room, eyes trained on the ground- you didn’t notice the chair leg until it was too late. Gravity was not on your side as you felt the ground fall away from beneath you bracing yourself for a hit that would never come. Large arms wrapped around your waist and you immediately knew who it was. Sparks shooting throughout your body forced you to keep your eyes closed.

Feeling your body straighten up as your feet hit the floor, you slowly opened your eyes to look at the man in front of you. He had changed. In more ways that one. His eyes had seemed to be more dark grey than ice grey, perhaps due to the horrors he had to face during the war. His hair was no longer shaggy, it now was pushed back gently and styled with precision. He had always towered over you, but it seemed as though he had grown a foot more in the years past.

He was to simply state it- beautiful.

Hours seemed to pass as the two of you stared at one another, neither of you courageous enough to say the first word. Your eyes gazed over every inch of his face as thought trying to memorize it. If this could be the last time you ever laid eyes on him, you wished to remember it.

Your trance was broken by the sudden clearing of a throat and you looked behind you to see a rather old man trying to get passed. A firm hand gently pulled from the center of the aisle, sparking shooting from the elbow encased in his hands. Pulling your eyes to his face once again, you were met with that infamous smirk.

Before you had the chance to question him, he cut you off with a laugh, “Falling for me already?”

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talkingsong · 5 years ago

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It really do be like that sometimes.

I watched a memes video before this reading I’m sorry

They say astrology is the map of your life- everything that occurs within it can be explained by the stars. Today, July 25th, 2019, I’ve channeled messages for each zodiac sign. To read yours, simply scroll down, find your sun, moon, or rising sign, and read. Even if it isn’t July 25th when you read this, whatever message you see is the message designed especially for you, however the timing ends up working out.

ARIES

Don’t feel guilty for having the things that you have. Gratitude is a debt repaid for the gifts that you’ve received- if you didn’t deserve them, then you wouldn’t have gotten them. I feel like you guys have finally manifested what you want (or part of what you want) and that it has to do with physical items and material things, mostly. Get over your feeling that you getting what you want is unfair to others. Your ego is getting in the way. You’ve been communicating with the universe and it has been communicating with you- there is a current equal give and exchange between you and the universe. Cherish it in a self-less way. Find beauty in the connection rather than the fact that it’s YOU connecting with IT, if that makes sense.

TAURUS

Let go of your dependency on yourself. You will get much further if you allow other people into your plan and partner up to get things done. Rest when you’re alone- but understand that work is when you're with others. Achieve this balance and your bright future is already manifested.

Also, don’t oversmother your projects. Your progress is like taking care of a plant- water it once, leave it in direct sunlight for two hours twice a week. Sunlight is your attention. Water is the emotion and thought and intention that you put into your projects. Don’t drown the plant in either.

GEMINI

C’mon Geminis, you big, lumpy blobs of confusion and inner conflict. Your guides are pushing you to actually communicate with someone. Open up! Tell them what’s wrong! Even if you don’t want them to know or even if it’s hard, you need to in order to move forwards in your life. If someone asks you how you’re feeling, don’t just answer “fine.” If someone asks you what’s wrong, don’t just say “I’m tired.” Your partner or your friends or family have noticed that you aren’t as present as you usually are and you need to give them a reason, please and thank you.

Your guides are also pushing you to do something that they’re saying they’ve been telling you to do for a while now and you’re not doing it. They’re sending a gentle but firm reminder to get your ass in gear and start doing what you’re meant to. Gët gôīńg.

CANCER

This is about romance for some of you. Your guides are saying choose from the heart! Your logic marks the stepping stones for you to take your dreams into reality. So know that things are about to start moving really really fast and the things that you’ve been wanting are coming up quickly, don’t be stuck in that beginners energy. Pick the path you wanna go down, know that you can change it if you want down the line, but pick decisively and head down it! For those of you wondering: Yes, this man is the one that you’re meant to start a relationship with at this time. Have fun you two! Ahh.... use protection, I guess!

LEO

Add more humor into your life, dude. I understand that there’s a shit ton of energy going on here and you're thinking about a lot, but make room for some joking around, yeah? You’re in the process of finding what it is that you truly believe. And you’re starting to find what you want to protect and defend in your life going forward. I see you becoming an activist for something important to you, something that you’ve experienced at some point in your life that effected you strongly. It’s your time to follow a higher path and understand what that whole experience really was about. There’s a quote here that I’ll hope helps you, because I don’t really have much else to say considering this is more of a journey for the individual-

“Basically, we are all responsible for the preservation of our personal joy; but happiness is different. Joy is not circumstantial, happiness is. You can be depressed and still have joy. You can be suicidal and still have joy. We all stop thinking and we all stop talking and we all stop sharing and we all stop creating, because by doing any of these things we quickly find out just how unhappy we are. But that's okay. That's normal. Don't let the fear of unhappiness cripple your pursuit of finding what it is you believe. Since joy is found in belief, we all have to push through unhappiness to find joy. Basically.” ― Tyler Joseph

Hope this helps.

VIRGO

Ayyyyy, Virgos! Y’all are my people. I mean, I’m not a virgo, but like.... We get each other, y’know? Anyways-

I feel like you’re starting to call in more of your tribe. You’re attracting more friends and people into your life that actually love and care about you and build you up, and vice versa. I feel like you’re getting more genuine connection with your own intuition and emotion and spirituality as well. Continue on your path trusting yourself and those around you completely, and success is basically guaranteed.

LIBRA

Don’t overanalyze the options, you have a better choice. You need to confront whatever problem or issue that you’ve been avoiding, because you ignoring it is blocking you and your progress. To turn this around, make sure to stop procrastinating and just make a decision already. 77 might be an important number to you, or angel number 877.

SCORPIO

In the past you’ve been through a lot, especially with friend groups and drama, and because of it you’ve transformed into a more beautiful person. You now have the experience needed to plan your future accordingly because of what happened in the past and what you’ve learned from it. Trust yourself and stay devoted to the future you! Go ahead and get involved in any creative endevours that you’ve been thinking about taking and listen to your advice from your inspiration and your heart. You go, girl.

SAGGITARIUS

I feel like you’ve just completed some cycle or battle of sorts, and are currently in the limbo waiting period for something else to happen. I want you to know that all of the fear and the worry that you feel about the future is not something that you should be focused on. It’s distracting you from the magical opportunities coming your way and you need to redirect your attention to something more positive with the mindset of, “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” Let your intuition and faith guide you along your journey to the next stage in your life. I can assure you that more opportunities and more amazing things than you realize are waiting for you on the other side. Keep you head held high, my friend.

CAPRICORN

There’s unfairness in some aspect of your life, and you’re being called to balance out what you feel isn’t right. Let go of things that aren’t serving you- moreover, let go of things where you aren’t serving anyone else, including yourself. You need to start taking new things and new changes into consideration with little regard of a comfort zone. You’ve been recently stuck in your judgements and your old ways of thinking, and it’s time that you break free. No rush, though- your guides are only asking you to gently bring your attention to the unfairness in your life currently, and to take action as you see fit.

AQUARIUS

You’re getting your universal rewards, babyyyyy. As far as internally, you’ve manifested your own happiness in the form of hope, optimism, faith, empowerment, relief, growth, healing, yada yada. Externally you’re recieving job offers and new cars and travel and basically just all that good shit that you’ve been working on manifesting, my friend. This is your reward for being so dedicated and hardworking, especially through sticking with things even when times get tough. Out of all the groups, you guys have an extremely good week, month, year ahead of you. Take care!

PISCES

Okay, so I’m going to start this off by saying that I feel for most if not all of you, this message has something to do with your identity. Specifically for some, gender identity, especially if you’re transitioning to being female. I feel like you’ve had powerful epiphanies about who you are and what you’re to do from having terrible, ten-of-swords type experiences in the past. With the growth that you’re having, you're starting to understand the truth of your situation and changing your perspective on everything that you went through in the past, and I feel like you’re finally starting to feel liberated and powerful enough to take action. There’s such a powerful energy here for you, Pisces, and everything around you is changing. Everything you touch turns to gold. You’re growing wings. I can’t communicate how powerful this growth energy is. I feel that it all sprouted from alone time- taking a night to sit and think of things that you haven’t thought about in a while and address and finally confront the things that you feel threatened by- or, by confronting hidden subconscious feelings that you didn’t even know you had. You’re embracing your femininity, your water side, your intuition and the deeper depths of your body, mind and soul. I’m just hearing, “you know where to go now.”

It’s like you’re in control now of the waves that used to drag you down, and you’re re-crowning yourself as the master of the sea, a title you rightfully deserve.

My point is, you’ve learned so many lessons from this and you’ve been undergoing so many growth-spurts- you get to choose what to do with the power you possess. Choose wisely, Pisces. You can’t make a wrong choice.

Blessings.

#psychic #psychic readings #free #free psychic reading #general #general reading #tarot #tarot reading #free tarot reading #talkingsong #zodiac #zodiac signs #zodiac sign reading #astrolog #astrology #stars #planets #July 25th #2019

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hollenka99 · 4 years ago

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Khenir and Minarv

Summary: When the gods choose to target you, life will never be the same.

Warnings: implied gore, blood, mentions of death

I'm sure you've heard the tale of Khenir and Minarv. I find it is a popular story that you enjoy passing on to the generations succeeding yours. You humans always did take a liking to tragedies with silver linings. If it is one of love and godly intervention, you consume it all the more enthusiastically. Let us clarify something first. There has always been one detail you seem to insist on getting wrong. Birds have existed as long as there have been nuts, berries and the like to sustain them. Khenir never created birds and other winged creatures. In fact, he often admired the birds that visited outside his home. Took a fancy to capturing their likeness of paper too. The only avian species which owe their existence to him are loons and horned owls. Being the god of birds does not necessarily imply you are the creator of all birds. With that irk of mine expressed, I believe I should begin. These were the days before the human population was to reach a million. We gods were acknowledged with a fierce intensity. You feared us. More than that, you feared what we could do to you or your loved ones when displeased. Don't worry. I should assure you it took effort to anger me back then. To this day, I continue to see no use in introducing you to my brother sooner than is required. It was also the time of great animosity between Keajic and Scyta. The skies and sea respectively. You got a lot more storms out at sea back then. Once, she sent a great tidal wave to devastate a town Keajic had deep admiration for. To spite her back, he had directed a gale to steer a fleet lead by one of her sons into rocks. That was the least of it. Suffice to say, anything could set them off. And the results would be disastrous for all those involved. Which is where Khenir and Minarv come in. As you may know, whenever one of you is born, it is my job to determine how long it is before you meet Tain. I have no real say in when you will die, you understand. All I do is find the likeliest timeline of your life and note it in my records. You don't call me the Chronicler for nothing, after all. But you see, if there is one thing I've always admired about humanity, it's the flexibility of your lives. All it takes is one occasion to cause your life's course to completely diverge. Khenir was going to be a farmer like his ancestors before him and potential descendants after him. He'd likely find a woman to marry and raise children with. A rather insignificant and mundane life spanning 72 years. As for Minarv, he'd be raised to be a fisherman by his father and the rest of the community. There was no conventional settling down in his most probable future. Waves stretching past the horizon would be a common backdrop of his adult life until he had the misfortune of being the victim of a poorly treated wound at the age of 38. Oh, stop pitying him. What is it with you humans and your belief the only type of life that will bring happiness and satisfaction is one ending in old age? He would have been perfectly happy doing what he loved for a living. Honestly, you come across as obsessed with watching loved ones slowly decay before you while they still breathe. You call that desirable? Either way, those were the most likely outcomes of their life. With how easily paths can branch off, nothing is guaranteed. The easiest way for your life's course to be altered is divine intervention. Should I detect a child has the chance to be someone whose life future generations will regale the story of, I pay them a visit. To tell you the truth, your reactions to my presence have always intrigued me. Some parents are ecstatic to know their child may have notoriety one day. It isn't uncommon for parents to weep or becoming protective as the gravity of their child's potential future dawns on them. Were I mortal, I would likely be amongst the horrified too. You, of course, ruined it slightly by transforming it into a tradition. You pick any elderly male neighbour and have him be part of the child's 1st birthday celebrations. No man can ever truly replicate my visitations. Your efforts are but a cheap imitation. What is all this about having them blessed over a sundial or clock? Believe me, if I wanted to bestow anything upon your child, I would do so in person. Nevertheless, I appeared in the countryside and spoke to Khenir's mother under the alias of a travelling merchant. Still an infant, Khenir was nonplussed by my being there. I doubt his mother realised the truth of my identity when I gently touched her son's head. The young Minarv I met, on the other hand, was a charming little boy when I made my way to the coast. With great excitement, he gestured to his father's ship which had been approaching the docks. Said father was none too pleased to have me be the disguised god blessing his firstborn. Apparently, he had hoped it would be Scyta, if any of us at all. Oh, if only he'd known. The years passed and the boys grew to be young men. They learned the respective trades of their families while also developing hobbies involving the flute and sketching. Their individual paths carried on leading them towards a life unaware of the other. The thing with Scyta is that she enjoys acquainting herself with mortal men. Fishermen and sailors in particular. If I had to name her favourite type of mortal, it was one who frequented her domain and respected her authority over it. You can probably see where this is going. Yes, she is the one who instigated this whole mess. Although, I doubt she was expecting the result it got. Even I can't accurately anticipate the whims of my kin all the time. Not for lack of effort, I assure you. Scyta subtly pursuing Minarv? That I could have foreseen without trying. Predicting her spouse's reaction took no effort either. Schea had always been jealous of their wife. It's understandable when your significant other has a habit of using the very thing you control to entice mortals. What better to prevent a relationship than ensure the target of the affections was unavailable. The main flaw in Schea's plan was that they naturally appear as the most attractive person in the eyes of whomever sees them. Therefore, the two men would be enamoured by the stranger attempting to unite them. The result is always achieved regardless. All Schea needs to do is ensure the pair meet eyes while they maintain physical contact with both members of the couple. A hand on each back, one look and that was that. By the docks, with a crisp ocean breeze blowing, Khenir and Minarv met. As the months progressed, they spent as much of Minarv's time on land together as they were able. The fisherman would play music while the farmer would sketch him. They were in love and deeply so. No amount of conversation with the mysterious woman supposedly living near the shore could reverse that. Naturally, Scyta refused to admit defeat and move on to her next target. More so than that, events were beginning to unfold. Minarv frequently prayed to her for the sake of safe trips. Being intrigued by birds and their ability to fly is what attracted Keajic's attention towards Khenir. Each had a mortal on their 'side'. And these mortals were lovers? No, that wouldn't do. Whether the two gods had been looking to trigger a fight between themselves or not, they'd still found a suitable reason to. Things were about to get problematic. Minarv became caught in the crossfire when his ship sunk, causing him to be the only survivor. The crops in Khenir's region failed after Sugan was to persuaded to become momentarily involved. Their livelihoods were being threatened purely because Minarv refused to concede. I recall Schea was pleased with themself, thrilled to see a match they'd created cause such conflict. Casquej had inevitably grown fond of them, given his specialty is the creative arts. I was witnessing paths be rapidly redirected as the two men's lives were thrown into turmoil. Even Tain became agitated by this mess. More humans had died than was necessary and the increasing work on his part to stay up to date with it all was enough to get him to join our cause. I know, I know, I never imagined involving myself in ridiculous spats either. Regardless, enough was enough. My brother and I were mostly ambivalent about their fate. Casquej, however, wished for there to be a happy ending to the whole ordeal. Whatever worked. We promised to co-operate in an effort to stop the madness before all our kin were dragged into it. The plan, as you may recall, was to offer them a secret paradise. A world detached from time as they had known it. Somewhere they could be safe from their torment. Khenir could admire the wildlife to his heart's content while there were enough bodies of water to satisfy Minarv. More importantly, there was no threat of death or misery. I appeared to them as a child. Claiming to be one of my own half-mortal offspring, I convinced the lovers to follow me to a mountain pass. Once we arrived, I showed them how to activate the entrance. A set of instructions later and I left them to it. I made it explicitly clear, they were not to spend longer than a month over there in one go. Those instructions were simple enough. If I were mortal, I would have disappeared for a month, returned to the regular world for two or three months then come back to the haven I knew had been made for me. Humans will be humans, I suppose. These types of stories usually have at least one moment that could have been easily avoided if the protagonist had thought things through in the moment. A month there was approximately a week outside of it. I made it so in an attempt to aid them. They followed my precautions in the beginning. A month became 6 weeks sometimes or they'd return slightly sooner than they should have. Gradually, they strayed further from my warnings. With all this deviation, it was inevitable really. Scyta and Keajic discovered why their pawns were absent. I admit it did not help that they revelled in their paradise for three months straight by regular standards. To make it worse, they had the intelligent idea to go their separate ways by the shore. Which was where the gods were waiting for them. We gods have a habit of being ridiculously petty. I have no need to tell you that which you are already aware. If a mortal stands in the way of what we hope to achieve, and we are bitter enough, we will discard of a life. What is one or two amongst thousands, millions or even billions? Both Keajic and Scyta were more than bitter enough. Even Tain showed up to witness it, albeit from a notable distance. There are very few mortals who have been personally reaped by him. Being in the company of four gods must be overwhelming enough for mortals. Even more so when Death and Time act as onlookers to your demise. Perhaps that is why they gripped each other's hands as if it would prevent their permanent separation. Being favoured by me will only buy you seconds on your deathbed. I'll make those seconds seem longer than they are, providing a chance to say your goodbyes if desired, but they are still only seconds. That amount of time sounds short to you? Imagine how trivial that duration is to me, a being who has lived for millennia and knows infinity. Keajic denied Minarv the very air he took for granted. In retaliation, Scyta commanded the ocean to make its home in Khenir's lungs. As they both asphyxiated, their fingers defiantly remained intertwined. Why it took me until this point to put my foot down, I am not sure. Possibly because I believed it was not my place to directly intervene. What was more important was that I was inserting myself in the midst of the conflict. Time stopped. I berated Keajic and Scyta for using the men for their games. Minarv had respected Scyta. The same could be said about Khenir and Keajic. Now however? It would be a miracle if either of them respected us at all. They were not made to be tormented relentlessly. Leave your opponent's favoured be and continue your squabbling somewhere more mortals wouldn't be endangered nor risk having the courses of their lives skewed. Could we agree to end this now? The rulers of sky and sea exchanged a glare. As much as they were enemies, they seemed to share the same unspoken idea in that moment. At the time, I was under the impression they were silently agreeing my pleas were rational. I had expected to continue time once more, them to walk away and the human lovers to carry on living until their appointments with Tain were scheduled. My mistake was trusting them to not slight me. I will spare you the goriest details. No doubt you've already come across versions of this story that don't shy away from it. As wings forced their way out from underneath Khenir's shoulder blades, his muscles formation shifted too in an attempt to accommodate them. Everything Minarv wouldn't need any longer became lost to him. His lungs ceased to be just in time for Scyta to drag him under the waves. You may have found the red traces mixing with the ocean in the aftermath of his legs fusing disturbing but I've seen worse. In most depictions of them, I'm sure you'll find Minarv with a black tail littered with white spots or Khenir with wings of yellow, red and a particularly light blue. That's all linked to the whole creation of loons and flagfin shiners ordeal. A bird which dives into the water to feed and a fish to keep it fed. I suppose you may find it sweet with your notions of romance. Know that they change forms as often as the rest of us gods so these visual depictions are not always accurate. All immortality has given them is more time to spend with each other. Neither is capable of human speech any longer but they seem to have developed their own method of communication. With all the chirping, whistling and whatever else they have at their disposal, I can vaguely understand them. Minarv is responsible for your stories of sirens as well. Despite having their anatomy transformed in an effort to permanently separate them, the pair still resisted their limitations. As such, they had to determine if the other happened to be nearby. Once a singer, always a singer. Humans would hear Minarv attempting to attract his beloved's attention and created tales of a creature that lured you into the water. You know, I never enquired what either of them thought about those myths. Perhaps I should, the next chance I get. Ah, speaking of which... Look at that. There is only one great horned owl whom I know would stray so far from its native homeland. Hello Khenir! Just returning from a visit, I presume? I dare say I should see him myself. Care to share with me how it went? After all, I have all the time in the world.

#my writing #jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye egos #writersofjack #tw blood mention #tw implied gore #tw death mention #khenir and minarv

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pope-francis-quotes · 5 years ago

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5th September >> (@RomeReports) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancis speech to priests and religious in #Maputo's cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Pope Francis' speech to priests and religious in Maputo's cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

Dear Brother Bishops, Priests, Men and Women Religious, Seminarians, Catechists and Pastoral Workers in Christian communities, Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Afternoon!

I thank Dom Hilário for his words of welcome in your name, and I greet all of you with affection and much gratitude. I know that you have made a great effort to be here. Together we want to renew our response to the call that once set our hearts on fire and that Holy Mother Church helped us to discern and confirm with a mission. Thank you for your testimonies, which spoke of the difficult times and serious challenges that you faced, conscious of your own limitations and weaknesses, yet also marvelling at God’s mercy. I was pleased by something one of the catechists said: “We are a Church that is part of a heroic people” that has experienced suffering yet keeps hope alive. With this holy pride that you take in your people, a pride that invites a renewal of faith and hope, all of us want to renew our “yes”. How happy is Holy Mother Church to hear you manifest your love for the Lord and for the mission that he has given you! How she rejoices to see your desire to keep returning to your “first love” (Rev 2:4)! I pray that the Holy Spirit will always grant you the wisdom to call things by their name, the courage to seek forgiveness and to learn to hear whatever he wants to tell us.

Dear brothers and sisters, whether we like it or not, we are called to face reality as it is. Times change and we need to realize that often we do not know how to find our place in new scenarios: we keep dreaming about the “leeks of Egypt” (Num 11:5), forgetting that the promised land is before us, not behind us, and in our lament for times past, we are turning to stone. Instead of proclaiming Good News, we announce a dreary message that attracts no one and sets no one’s heart afire.

We are gathered in this Cathedral dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary to share, as a family, what is happening in our lives. Like a family born in the “yes” that Mary spoke to the angel. Not even for a moment did she look backwards. We hear about this first chapter of the mystery of the incarnation from the evangelist Luke. From his account, we may perhaps find an answer to the questions you asked today, and the incentive needed to respond with the same generosity and concern as Mary.

Saint Luke draws a parallel between events in the lives of Saint John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. By contrasting them, he wants to make us see how God’s acting and our way of relating to him in the Old Testament is yielding to the new way brought to us by the Son of God made man.

Obviously, in the two Annunciations there is the appearance of an angel. The first takes place in the most important city of Judea – Jerusalem – not just anywhere but in the Temple and, within it, the Holy of Holies, and the announcement is made to a man and a priest. On the other hand, the announcement of the incarnation is made in Galilee, in a remote and conflict-ridden region and a little town – Nazareth. It takes place in a house, not a synagogue or a religious place, and is made to a layperson and a woman. What has changed? Everything. And in this change, we find our deepest identity.

You asked what to do about the crisis of priestly identity, how to counteract it? In this regard, what I want to say specifically to priests is something that all of us (bishops, catechists, consecrated persons, seminarians) are called to cultivate and foster.

In a crisis of priestly identity, sometimes we need to step away from important and solemn places, and return to the places from which we were called, where it was clear that the initiative and the power was from God. At times, without wanting it, and with no moral fault, we get used to identifying our daily activity as priests with certain rituals, with meetings and conversations, where our presence in those meetings, at the table or in the hall is “hierarchical”. Then we are more like Zechariah than like Mary. Yet, “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the priest is very little indeed: the incomparable grandeur of the gift granted us for the ministry sets us among the least of men. The priest is the poorest of men unless Jesus enriches him by his poverty, the most useless of servants unless Jesus calls him his friend, the most ignorant of men unless Jesus patiently teaches him as he did Peter, the frailest of Christians unless the Good Shepherd strengthens him in the midst of the flock. No one is more ‘little’ than a priest left to his own devices; and so our prayer of protection against every snare of the Evil One is the prayer of our Mother: I am a priest because the Lord has regarded my littleness (cf. Lk 1:48)” (Homily at Chrism Mass, 17 April 2014). Returning to Nazareth can be the way of facing a crisis of identity and being renewed as shepherds, disciples and missionaries. You yourselves spoke of a certain exaggerated concern with managing resources or caring for our personal well-being. We then take “circuitous routes” that frequently end up giving priority to activities with a guaranteed recompense, and these make us resist devoting our lives to everyday pastoral care. The image of that simple young woman in her home, as opposed to all the activities of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, can be a mirror in which we see the complications and concerns that dim and dissipate the generosity of our “yes”.

Zechariah’s doubts and his need for explanations contrast with the “yes” of Mary, who asks only to know how everything spoken to her was to come about. Zechariah could not overcome his desire to control everything; he could not abandon the mindset of someone needing to be responsible for making things happen. Mary did not hesitate or think about herself: instead, she surrendered herself; she trusted. It is a constant struggle to experience our relationship with God like Zechariah, like a doctor of the law: always complying, always judging whether the recompense is proportionate to the work done, whether it is my due if God blesses me, whether the Church is bound to recognize my virtues and my hard work. We should not be running for our own benefit; rather, our weariness should be related to our “ability to show compassion; our hearts are to be ‘moved’ and fully engaged in carrying them out. We are to rejoice with couples who marry; we are to laugh with the children brought to the baptismal font; we are to accompany young fiancés and families; we are to suffer with those who receive the anointing of the sick in their hospital beds; we are to mourn with those burying a loved one” (Homily at Chrism Mass, 2 April 2015). We often spend hours and days accompanying a mother with AIDS, an orphaned child, a grandmother taking care of many grandchildren, or a young person who came to the city and is desperate because he or she cannot find a job... “All these emotions can exhaust the heart of a pastor. For us priests, what happens in the lives of our people is not like a news bulletin: we know our people, we sense what is going on in their hearts. Our own heart, sharing in their suffering, feels ‘com-passion’, is exhausted, broken into a thousand pieces, moved and even ‘consumed’ by the people. Take this, eat this... These are the words the priest of Jesus whispers repeatedly while caring for his faithful people: Take this, eat this; take this, drink this... In this way our priestly life is given over in service, in closeness to the People of God... and this always leaves us weary” (ibid.). Renewing our vocation often entails discerning if our weariness and worries are the result of a certain “spiritual worldliness” imposed by “the allure of a thousand distracting commercial advertisements in order to walk ahead, freely, along paths that lead us to love of our brothers and sisters, to the Lord’s flock, to the sheep who wait for the voice of their shepherds” (Homily at Chrism Mass, 24 March 2016). Renewing our call has to do with choosing to say yes and to let our weariness come from things that bear fruit in God’s eyes, things that make present and incarnate his son Jesus. Would that we might find, in such salutary weariness, the wellspring of our identity and happiness!

Would too that our young people might see that we allow ourselves to be “eaten and drunk”, and be inspired themselves to follow Jesus and, radiant with the joy of a daily commitment, not imposed but fostered and chosen in silence and prayer, desire to say their own “yes”. You who are still asking, or you who are already on the path to definitive consecration, should never forget that “the stress and quick pace of the world constantly bombarding us with stimuli can leave no room for that interior silence in which we can perceive Jesus’ gaze and hear his call. In the meantime, many attractively packaged offers will come your way. They may seem appealing and exciting, although in time they will only leave you feeling empty, weary and alone. Don’t let this happen to you, because the maelstrom of this world can drive you to take a route without real meaning, without direction, without clear goals, and thus thwart many of your efforts. It is better to seek out that calm and quiet that enable you to reflect, pray, look more clearly at the world around you, and then, with Jesus, come to recognize the vocation that is yours in this world” (Christus Vivit, 277).

The study in contrasts presented to us by the evangelist Luke culminates in the encounter between two women: Elizabeth and Mary. The Blessed Virgin visits her elderly cousin and everything is one great celebration of praise. There is a part of Israel that grasped the profound and dizzying change in God’s plan, and allowed itself to be visited. As a result, the child leaps in the womb. For a moment, in a patriarchal society, the world of men steps back and is silent, like Zechariah. Today too, we need catechists, Mozambican women who remind you that nothing should make you lose your enthusiasm for evangelizing, for carrying out your baptismal mission. In them, we can see all those others who go forth to encounter their brothers and sisters: those who, like Mary, visit others, and those who allow themselves to be visited, who allow others to change their lives by sharing with them their culture, their ways of living and expressing the faith.

The concern you expressed shows us that inculturation will always be a challenge, shuttling back and forth, as it were, between those two women who were both changed by encounter, dialogue and service. “Particular Churches should actively promote at least preliminary forms of inculturation. The ultimate aim should be that the Gospel, as preached in categories proper to each culture, will create a new synthesis with that particular culture. This is always a slow process and at times we can be overly fearful. But if we allow doubts and fears to dampen our courage, instead of being creative, we will remain comfortable and make no progress whatsoever. In this case, we will not take an active part in historical processes, but become mere onlookers as the Church gradually stagnates” (Evangelii Gaudium, 129).

The “distance” between Nazareth and Jerusalem is shortened and disappears with that “yes” spoken by Mary. Because distance, provincialism and party spirit, the constant building of walls, undermine the dynamic of the incarnation, which has broken down the wall that separated us (cf. Eph 2:14). You, at least the older ones among you, witnessed how division and conflict ended in war. You must always be ready to “visit”, to shorten distances. The Church in Mozambique is invited to be the Church of the Visitation; it cannot be part of the problem of rivalry, disrespect and division that pits some against others, but instead a door to solutions, a space where respect, interchange and dialogue are possible. The question raised about how to react to interreligious marriages challenges this persistent tendency of ours for fragmentation, for separating rather than uniting. The same is true of relations between nationalities and races, between North and South, between communities, priests and bishops. It represents a challenge because developing “a peaceful and multifaceted culture of encounter” requires “an ongoing process in which every new generation must take part: a slow and arduous effort calling for a desire for integration and willingness to achieve this”. This is the necessary condition for “progress in building a people in peace, justice and fraternity”, for “the development of life in society and the building of a people where differences are harmonized within a shared pursuit” (Evangelii Gaudium, 220, 221). Just as Mary journeyed to the house of Elizabeth, we too, as a Church, have to find the road to take in the face of new problems, taking care not to remain paralyzed by the mindset of opposition, division and condemnation. Set out on that path, and seek answers to these challenges by imploring the unfailing help of the Holy Spirit. For he is the Teacher who can show us new paths to follow.

Let us, then, revive our vocation and calling in this magnificent temple dedicated to Mary. May our committed “yes” proclaim the greatness of the Lord and make the spirit of our people rejoice in God our Saviour (cf. Lk 1:46-47). May it fill with hope, peace and reconciliation this, your country, our beloved Mozambique!

I ask you please to pray for me, and to invite others to do the same. May the Lord bless you and the most holy Virgin watch over you. Thank you.

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queenieofaces · 7 years ago

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Some reflections on writing ace and aro LARP characters

This post has been cross-posted to The Asexual Agenda.

As some of you may remember, I played New World Magischola (a Live Action Role Playing game set at a wizard college) last year. Since then, I’ve played a couple of other LARPs (including the second semester of NWM). At some point in the past year my friend @algebraicbubbles and I started tossing around the idea of writing our own LARP.* Our concept was simple: we’re both queer kids who love superhero fiction and often read superpower narratives as metaphors for queerness, so we wanted to write a superhero high school game (think Sky High in terms of aesthetic) that had queerness front and center. We jokingly called the game Superqueeroes because we both love terrible puns, and then we couldn’t think of a better name so it stuck.

Anyway, one thing led to another, we recruited another friend to our team, and then we wrote and ran the game this past summer. (If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, well, I was writing 11 character sheets, a world doc, and a whole lot of plot.)

This is less of a post about LARP and more a reflection on the process of writing ace and aro LARP characters, and how that’s different from (or similar to) writing ace characters in fiction. My hope is that this post will still be interesting to you even if you know nothing about LARP, and will be interesting to LARPers who aren’t that well-versed in asexuality or aromanticism.

Note: I’ve avoided plot spoilers in this post, but I necessarily have to talk about some character backstories. If you’re planning on playing Superqueeroes and would prefer to go in without any knowledge, it’s probably best to skip over this post.

In order to understand what the heck I’m going on about in this post, it’s probably necessary to give some background on the game. The premise is that the characters (there are 17 of them) are all seniors at a high school for kids with superpowers. The game takes place during graduation, when all the characters get to find out which superhero team they’ll be placed on after graduation, announce their new superhero name, and take their first steps into adulthood. (Needless to say, graduation doesn’t go entirely as planned, but what exactly happens is a spoiler, so you’ll have to play if you want to find out.) Some questions the players get to explore include: What does it mean to be a hero? How far would you go to achieve your goals? Who are you and who do you want to be? What kinds of relationships do you want to have and with whom? Who matters in your life, and how far would you go to keep them safe? Needless to say, it’s a game that’s really heavily about identity and relationships (of all kinds) in addition to being about having sweet superpowers and saving the day. It’s also worth noting that nobody has alignments, per se--anyway can become a supervillain if they so desire, or could become the greatest hero ever known. The path of the character is decided not only by their backstory and the game plot but also by their player and the relationships they choose to focus on. (For example, there’s a character who we expected to be played as a sweet, friendly social butterfly, who wound up being played as an incredibly socially savvy, kind of manipulative mastermind...which was 100% in line with what was written on the character sheet, even though we weren’t expecting that outcome.)

We decided early on that we wanted to have characters with a variety of genders and sexualities written explicitly into their character sheets. Some characters have their gender/sexuality explicitly defined (e.g. “you are bisexual” or “you are non-binary”), some have a list of other characters they’re crushing on (and the player can interpret how they identify in whatever way they like), and some were left undefined so the player could decide what felt best to them (although the understanding is, other than The Token Straight TM, every character is some flavor of queer). Some characters are dating other characters, some are hoping to date other characters, some are trying to figure out how to resolve the love quandrangle they’re stuck in,** and some are really tired of all the high school romantic drama. Non-normative genders, sexualities, and relationship structures are not that big of a deal in the Superqueeroes universe--nobody is going to face violence or backlash by coming out,*** although of course people can still be nervous about coming out or unsure if coming out is a good idea. Even without the possibility of negative consequences, disclosing part of yourself can be really scary and cause complications in your personal life. Again, some characters are explicitly out, some are explicitly closeted, and some are left up to the player to decide what feels best.

There is one explicitly ace character and one explicitly aro character in the game (although there are a couple of additional characters who could easily be played as ace or aro spectrum if their players so desired). I wrote both of them--in fact, I wrote a total of 11 of the 17 characters (and looked over/edited the other 6, while the other writer did the same for me). For the sake of this post, I’m going to refer to the ace character as G and the aro character as M. Most of the characters are written to be gender-neutral, and then we assign them genders and pronouns based on player preference--in run 1 of the game, for example, G was female and M was genderfluid. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to both characters with “they/them” pronouns in this post.

One of the first challenges was that we wanted to keep our character sheets fairly short--I think almost all of them are in the 2-3 page range. We kept them concise to prevent people from having to memorize a boatload of information (it’s only a 4-hour game after all), and also to give people leeway to interpret characters as they saw fit. Our character sheets generally include information on the character’s family, power, gender and/or sexuality (although there were some we left up to the players as already mentioned), any past experiences that might be relevant (history of being bullied, for example, or a mysterious encounter with a superhero in their youth), their hopes for the future/general life philosophy, other characters they have relationships with (friends, rivals, siblings, study buddies, etc.), and a list of two or three possible goals for the character. As you can probably guess, that’s a whole lot of information to pack into a very small space, which meant that we could usually devote no more than a paragraph or two to a character’s gender and sexuality.

This, needless to say, made writing character sheets for the aro and ace characters hard. While in a work of fiction you might be able to really delve into a character’s backstory and motivations and flesh them out as a whole person, in a 2-3 page character sheet all you can do is gesture at a rough sketch and hope that the player can fill everything else in themselves. And while there are a lot of short-hand gestures that I can make to aro and ace experiences that I would expect aro and ace players to pick up on, I had no guarantee that the player we cast would be aro/ace or, in fact, have any knowledge of asexuality or aromanticism. So I had to come up with a really compact way to gesture to ace and aro experiences without creating a character that would be easily reducible to stereotypes.

First, I didn’t want either character to be defined solely by absence. There has been a lot of discussion about positive vs. negative definitions of asexuality over the years, and while I don’t object to negative definitions of asexuality in general, it was important (especially since I didn’t know who would be playing the characters) to define the characters not only by what they didn’t want but also by what they did want. M, for example, grew up with a huge extended family, and has always wanted that for themself, but knows that they don’t want a romantic partner, which makes the standard path to a big family tricky. G is an empath (which is how they figured out that they’re asexual), and sometimes has trouble understanding their peers’ romantic drama, not because they lack empathy (ha, puns) but because they don’t understand why people can’t just talk to each other and stop pining from afar. They have a classmate who they know is attracted to them, and they get to decide how they want to deal with that--do they want to take their own advice and hash it out with them or just keep avoiding them? M and G are both in situations that are directly linked to their orientations, but require more complex solutions than just saying, “Do not want.”

Second, I didn’t want either character to have no powers or a “late-bloomer” narrative. There are a couple of characters who have no powers at all, including one who is the child of two of the most famous heroes and who everyone is expecting to develop powers any day now. While having no powers seems like a really obvious metaphor for ace and aro experience, I didn’t want powerless ace and aro characters, especially if there was any chance that they were “late-bloomers,” since that would cast asexuality/aromanticism in a really negative light (it’s not just an absence--it’s an absence of what makes everyone else in the game special, yikes).**** Instead, both G and M have consistently undervalued powers, and a good chunk of their plot is trying to get people to take them seriously (also, arguably, an ace/aro experience, but one that’s a lot less value-laden than making them powerless).

Third, I didn’t want either character to be isolated or be a lone wolf. Especially in a game that’s so heavy on romance plotlines, the most stereotypical writing choice would have been to have G and M be the two characters uninvolved in romance plotlines. (There's a lot of commentary to be made here about the ways that aromanticism and asexuality are often equated, but that's a whole separate post in and of itself.) The second easiest choice would be to substitute very strong friendships for G and M’s romance plots. What I wound up doing instead was making very strong friendships normal for pretty much all the characters--most characters have at least one positive relationship (like a friend or a mentor) and one antagonistic relationship (although some characters have more of one or the other). M has no romance plotlines and G has a potential romance plotline they can pursue if their player wants to play them as romantically-inclined, but there are other non-ace non-aro characters who don’t have romance plotlines--there’s a bisexual character who thinks dating is way too much trouble, for example. Both G and M have figuring out what kinds of relationships they want in their life listed as one of their goals...but they’re not the only ones with that goal. They also both have very strong relationships with their families--M, as already mentioned, has a huge extended family and is in close contact with their siblings, while G has two university professor dads who would really prefer that they go to college rather than becoming a superhero straight out of high school. Basically, in a game about relationships and queerness, I didn’t want to paint M and G’s relationship desires as uniquely weird, and didn’t want to make romance a foregone conclusion for every other character.

Fourth, I wanted to avoid stereotypes about aromantic and asexual people--especially stereotypes about them being heartless, emotionless, robotic, alien, innocent/naive, etc.***** G directly counters a lot of ace stereotypes--they’re really emotionally fluent and not naive by any means. M is aromantic but cares about people really deeply and is far from emotionless (some might say that they have too many emotions). There is a cyborg character in the game, but it’s not either of them. I also wanted to avoid a lot of the “insufficient aro/ace” tropes that can appear in fiction--in a game where queerness is accepted and celebrated, I didn’t want either of the characters to be saddled with a plot where their orientation was “hurting” (or perceived to be hurting) someone else (as I have unfortunately seen happen in other games with ace characters).

I think I managed okay at all my goals--our first run, at least, suggests that I did. G and M were both fully fleshed out characters rather than collections of stereotypes. In the end, they became a superpowered duo (called “Emotional Assault” and “Battery”; yes, I have been crying about that truly awful pun for months) and also decided that once they got older, they were going to adopt kids together. They also schemed with some other students, brainwashed their principal, and helped a supervillain escape justice, but, you know, nobody’s perfect.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we run the game again--we were very careful about who we picked for our first run and how we cast, but if we run the game at a convention, for example, we’re going to have a lot less control over our player base. Even with our carefully curated group of players, we had a lot of trouble casting M in particular, in large part because not many people said they were comfortable playing an aromantic character. (Talking to players afterward, it seems like that was mainly because A. people wanted romance plots or B. they weren’t sure that they could accurately and sensitively portray an aromantic character. We had similar difficulty casting one of the trans characters.)

I think the big takeaway here is that writing ace and aro characters for LARP (especially if you’re going for compact character sheets) is pretty different than writing them in fiction. The space constraints are very different, and you ultimately don’t have control over the character--all you can really do is point the player in the right direction and hope that they follow your signposting. But the upside is that since character creation is collaborative, the players can take your characters in completely unexpected but delightful directions.

If you want to learn more about Superqueeroes, I have a whole tag for it on my other blog, which, granted, is mostly all caps text posts about how bad I am at naming things as well as some beautiful mood boards made by one of our run 1 players. There will almost certainly be future runs of the game, so keep an eye out for announcements about that if you’re hanging around New England LARP communities.

*For those of you wondering what a LARP is, there are a whole bunch of different styles, but in our case we were running a four-hour low-mechanics theatre game, so imagine doing improv theatre for four hours. Alternatively, imagine the games you might have played with your friends on the playground where you pretended to be ninjas or pirates or wizards. Basically, we got everyone together in a room and pretended to be superpowered teenagers for four hours. The three writers played NPCs, so I got to be the slightly douche-y, America-themed principal. It was good.

**I was very proud of the run 1 players for resolving the love quadrangle by all dating each other. Good job, kids.

***Although there are definitely LARPs that deal with heavy themes around gender and sexuality really well, we more or less wanted escapist fiction. We let people decide how dramatic they wanted to make being queer for their character--for some people it was really not a big deal at all, whereas for others it was a really central part of their identity. (Multiple characters wound up picking superhero names that were puns about their orientations, for example.) But removing the possibility of violence or negative backlash from the picture meant that people could pursue their love quadrangles or figure out how to tell their friends that they were non-binary without having to worry about whether they’d be fired or disowned or ostracized.

****There’s some good commentary from the author of The Wicked + The Divine about similar choices they made with regards to asexuality in their cast. (Major spoilers for WicDiv at the link, of course.)

*****Hey, have you read the Ace Tropes series yet? If not, you should do that! It’s really good!

#asexuality in LARP #actuallyasexual #asexual #ace safe #asexuality in fiction #superqueeroes game #cross posted to the asexual agenda #hopefully someone will find this interesting...hopefully...#hey look! it's an upbeat post from me! frickin' finally!#LARP

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reyintherain · 7 years ago

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Rey’s change of hairstyle (with brief comparison to Leia’s)

Inspired by this post. My thoughts turned out rather lengthy, and I didn’t want to hijack the OP’s post, so here is a separate one, no. 259 on the topic, because there is clearly not enough.

As someone who was raised to wear hair pulled back tight or braided when I was little (people used to say ‘loose hair -- loose morals’, which is a whole other topic on shaming and control of women’s role and image through hairstyle), having outgrown that, I for one can attest that loosening hair and wearing it down or whatever way you want is deeply liberating and empowering. It signals yourself and others you are not a kid anymore, and instead claim control of your hair, not letting anyone else control it anymore. It’s not that there was someone telling Rey how to wear her hair -- it’s more of herself imposing the three buns style and not letting it change for years. Symbolically, as been pointed out 7059 other times, it speaks of Rey learning to let go of her past, though she still struggles with it, evident of The Last Jedi. Her new costume, on the other hand, is an updated version of her scavenger’s suite, which is iconic by now brand wise, though it’s probably not the only reason why Rey returns to it. I won’t go into detail on the costume, though it’s telling that it (successfully) incorporates the past. With a new hairstyle and a new costume, Rey enters a new stage of her journey, part in the past, part moved on.

I don’t necessarily see Rey’s new loose hairstyle as a point in case of Rey being in love with Kylo, but rather more of her claiming control of her image, evolving it to a more mature style (with the help of the dark side, no less), though loose hair definitely speaks of a softer image, someone open rather than closed off, and Rey has been getting quite open with Ben, both getting to know him and letting him in.

Contrary to Rey (though we are only 2/3 in her trilogy), there is another great example in Star Wars of a loosening hairstyle as a means to convey romantic involvement. Leia exhibits the strongest case for that among the three leading women in each of the trilogies. Before getting to that, I’d like to clarify I’m not against loose hair (I love wearing my hair down, though the wind always makes a mess of it), or a connotation of princesses (see countless Disney films) wearing their hair down and free. It’s about Leia’s arc and how that’s reflected in her look. Leia progresses from a rebellion figure to a romantic lead and a sister between ANH and ROTJ. Her change of hairstyle from rigid buns and complex, nested braids to earthy princess waterfall hair has, at least partially, to do with softening Leia’s ‘boss lady’ image, all the way down to infamously needing her to show more skin in ROTJ to further soften/sexualize her. Hence, flowing hair fit for a dreamy princess (the very Letting Hair Down trope). Not to say that Leia or anyone cannot change their style, or cannot be feminine, or that wearing something feminine guaranteed makes them less authoritative or strong (see Leia and Amilyn in TLJ, ultimate examples of power ladies). To me, what happens with Leia’s hair throughout the OT just speaks more of a need to soften a ‘strong’ woman into more feminine coded, motherly, dove eyed, not rebellious at all, and hence more accessible to some. Not that Leia hasn’t shown kindness and softer sides before, but I digress. That being said, I do adore her long hair in the end of Return of the Jedi. It’s just a shame that women in Star Wars are often sidelined as soon as they get romantically involved and/or become mothers. (All hopes Rey won’t repeat that fate!)

The difference between Leia in OT and Rey is that unlike Rey, Leia starts with already mature hairstyles. Portrayed in A New Hope as a mature individual, she knows what she is doing and where she is standing. For Leia, letting her hair down isn’t about maturing, but rather about explicitly highlighting her softer, feminine sides, as well as reflecting a change in her arc. For Rey, having her buns untangle is a move towards maturing and growing, first and foremost. Unlike Leia’s arc at the end of ROTJ, Rey hasn’t been fully allocated a role of a lover, sister, or daughter of a famous figure. Her own arc is still going strong, and a major part of her journey is a search for identity and belonging. Rey’s looking for answers, on the island from her dreams or in the past, struggling and learning to acknowledge what she finds along the way (with the help of a magic mirror, or a dashing, albeit clumsy communication-wise, prince). It’s not a coincidence that her hair gets loose when she goes to that cave, determined to find the answers about her parents and, in return, herself; only to find that the answer is her. (Well, part of the answer. More on that later.)

That being said, Rey’s journey to maturity in TLJ is not limited to becoming an adult in a sense of figuring out who you are, what you stand for, or taking greater responsibility (Rey has been caring and responsible for others before TLJ too). It’s also about maturing and transitioning from childhood to adolescence, which includes sexual awakening and effects it has on interactions, views, and choices. In that context, Rey’s new hairstyle does portray our heroine in a bit more sensual key, the one who’s becoming aware of her sexuality, how she wants to present herself from now on, and how others perceive her (namely, Kylo), for instance, in that Snow White coffin, where Rey’s looking every inch a beauty of a grown woman. (Tbh, Rey looked rather feminine and cute in TFA too, and Daisy is naturally beautiful, so I don’t think it’s just TLJ where Rey is presented as feminine and beautiful. It has to do more with showing her beauty evolve, from cute and childlike in TFA, to a mature young woman in TLJ.)

Rey’s hair coming down signifies many things, and I believe more importantly her growth as an individual and a woman. Rey gets a new look because that’s what she wants, because she has grown, perceives herself differently and wants others to see her differently too. As in the case with real life and even more so on screen, what we wear reflects what we are and how we are seen to some degree. I would further argue Rey’s growth and hence the new look are not only seen by Kylo with whom there is clearly something not platonic going on, and definitely are not only for Kylo, though it’s been pointed out many times, humorously, that Rey dress up and put some makeup on before meeting Kylo in person (there is a grain of truth to that. Anyways.) It’s probably safe to say that others like Leia or Finn would notice a difference too (not just through the costume, and not necessarily in a sexual context like, say, Kylo could), just like Rey would be able to recognize growth in Finn. Heck, even that brief exchange with Poe can be interpreted as something more, not only because of Oscar Isaac’s insane charisma and chemistry with just about everyone, but because as an audience we now see Rey as a mature, attractive young woman, and are able to recognize (or assign) Poe’s look at Rey as something else. Again, it might be just the way Oscar gives his performance 100%, though no wonder Poe would look at Rey like that, smitten with what she’s just done with the rocks, her abilities, beauty, and most importantly -- love for BB8.

Romantic undertones to Rey’s new look are present too, especially taken together with her interactions with Kylo. However, he isn’t just there for sexy time in her life (which would be fine) -- he’s also helping her open up and go through some bitter truths, however painful and lonely they can be. In the crucial scene of descending to the dark side cave and coming out as, if not a new person, then on a path to become different, complete with a new hair, the mirror doesn’t just show Rey herself, but a certain blurry figure who has a role to play in her life at large, as well as her sexual awakening and exploration of thereof. In that context, Rey’s hair coming down, just before their highly intimate conversation, both of them losing layers of clothing and proceeding to touch skin to skin (what sort of explicit fanfic is this rian?), is yet another testament that Rey is a grown woman now, engaging in mature, sexually charged interactions.

I also think there is something poetic to Rey embracing a more natural hairstyle, with hair flowing down, signifying embracing her own nature, in search for a balance between her past and present, a balance between the light and the dark, and where she stands. It’s symbolic of letting out and facing darker fears and tough truths she previously kept tightly tucked away, just like her hair in the buns. The new hairstyle, on the other hand, is balanced, if you may, between a strict uptight do and letting it wild and loose (there is a small clip/band holding some off her face to keep it practical). That style, as opposed to three buns (not one, but whole three), is reflective of Rey opening up and getting closer to herself, who she is, and who she is becoming to be. Again, it’s not a coincidence the change happens right when she’s diving in the depth of the dark side cave (there is lots of interesting meta around on that). The dark side is not just calling Rey -- it’s a part of her. She willingly chooses to go there, and it’s telling that she doesn’t choose to return to the buns later on.

She is finding herself, redefining, and that aspect I think I like the most about Rey in The Last Jedi.

#rey #tlj #tlj meta #rey meta #sw meta #tlj spoilers #swtlj #rey's journey #sw spoilers #*#girl it must be also so much easier to pull off that simple do #than the three buns #honestly how did you manage all those years in a desert?#i'd probably cut my hair off lol #here ya go first meta #long post

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tipsycad147 · 5 years ago

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Alexis J. Cunningfolk

It’ll be nine years next month that I’ve been running this little business of mine. Nine years of making remedies, teaching classes, writing blog posts, finding my voice (currently singing in the key of soft dyke / salty hag), and making lots of mistakes along the way. I love the freedom of owning my own business but I’ve made it unnecessarily difficult for myself at times, too. I’m hoping that this post helps folk stop or avoid altogether these same mistakes. Or maybe this is just a big public post-it note to myself to continue to work on not making these mistakes, because I am certainly still making a few of the mistakes listed below.

While the following post does have someone who runs their own business as an herbalist in mind, it can apply to a wide array of those in self-employed in all sorts of businesses. To be clear for the folks who haven’t been paying attention in the far back, I am not in any way trained as a business coach but I do have a tea-stained certificate in Making Mistakes as a Solopreneur (it arrived three months late and torn in two!).

So here is what I’ve learned about making your life more difficult as an herbalist (or healer or friendly neighbourhood witch).

Do unnecessarily (and often repetitive) work.

Whatever you can automate, do. I started my business during the whole “handmade gets itself online” movement and I loved all the purposeful details that went in to creating products. If you ordered from my shop when I was still selling tea and herbal remedies, for example, you would have received a tea-dyed receipt with your order hand written on it. I was particularly proud of this detail - something I didn’t see other folks doing in their packaging.

Precious as that was, it was an absurd thing to be doing when I was receiving as many orders as I did during the height of my remedy-making business. Because I was not only hand-writing receipts, I also hand-stamped and decorated all of the shipment boxes, handwrote addresses (again on that tea stained paper), and hand-wrapped all my remedies in colourful paper and washi tape. And that was just the effort spent after making the remedies in the first place (which were largely under-priced to begin with). But I was absolutely convinced that things like these hand-written receipts were what made folks like my business. And maybe that was true to a point - I got frequent feedback that receiving one of my packages was like getting a delivery from a store in Diagon Alley - but it burnt me out. I needed to choose to do one, maybe two of those things, and automate the rest.

Whatever I can automate these days, I do. And guess what? It’s not stripped the soul from my business but in fact given me more space to feel spiritually connected and renewed in my work. Ways to automate your work as a herbalist include:

If you have a newsletter, at a minimum set-up automated emails for when someone joins your list. This is a great way to warmly welcome someone into your community and can act like a map and compass to your work and what thing on your website someone might look at next.

Use the auto-generated receipts and shipping labels provided by whatever platform you sell your goods on.

Use canned responses in replying to customers when appropriate. Gmail allows you to save a series of canned responses that you can generate into an email - I do this a lot and then customise the email from there.

Create handouts for your clients and students that covers basic information that you find yourself sharing again and again. I have print-outs on making tea, taking herbal hand, foot, and body baths, using essences, and more.

Those are just a few broad suggestions - I’m sure you can find many more for your own particular practice. But, please, automate and let it open you up to the path of delegation, cooperation, and the psychic group witch mind dismantling the kyriarchy. Or whatever.

Commit to your relentless belief that you are an imposter.

I wish someone had told me about imposter syndrome before I started my business. I was still running high on my own special morning blend of imposter syndrome when I started studying herbalism and it coloured my early learning experiences. If you’ve heard about imposter syndrome but don’t quite know what it means or if it applies to you here are some resources:

Nine Ways to Fight Imposter Syndrome

Dealing With Impostor Syndrome When You’re Treated as an Impostor

5 Different Types of Imposter Syndrome (and 5 Ways to Battle Each One)

Look, you’re not serving yourself or your community by feeding the imposter monster. It’s fed enough by society at large and overpowering systems that we can’t easily change as individuals. Want a magickal plant-centred suggestion? Give your feelings of being an imposter to a plant and see what they give you back.

Be overly complex in your communications - including client care instructions.

I mean, I love to extrapolate far beyond what is necessary (hi, have you read any of my blog posts?) but just because you providing more doesn’t mean that it’s better. Folks are going to follow-through on your recommendations if you keep it simple and easy to incorporate into their lives.

Learn to edit down your emails, your newsletters, your product and class descriptions to a point where you’re still communicating the essentials and you and those you serve will be better for it. This goes for how you talk about your work face-to-face with folks. You want to hand folks the equivalent of a verbal business card and not a college length thesis.

It’s not to say that there is never time for lengthy communications, but overall, shorter is better. And remember when I mentioned those educational handouts in the first part of our journey down mistake lane? Make those concise, too. You want folks to actually read what you give them so that they’ll feel more empowered to follow-through with their care.

Undercharge and still feel bad about what your rates.

I’ve written about money and accessibility already on this blog (part 1 | part 2), but struggling to charge what you and your services are worth are a big one. Then throw in the complexity of cultural identities and narratives around money and what you should and should not charge for (i.e. healing and magickal services) and it can feel even more complex. Since I’ll be continuing to write about money, worth, and feelings, here’s my short response to the voice in your head that’s constantly shaming you about your prices : The body that carries that voice needs to eat, needs a safe place to sleep, needs access to transportation, needs to be able to do the things which makes them feel pleasurable and whole. Honour that voice for trying to protect you and keep you safe, and then give it something shiny to look at while you get on with running a business and living a life beyond its fear.

Set boundaries - and watch yourself roll right over them.

Appointments are only an hour but here I am two hours in and just now starting to wrap up.

I don’t do discounts but I’m afraid of losing business with this person so I better give them a big discount.

I shouldn’t be answering emails on 3 AM on a Saturday, but if I don’t respond right away I’ll lose business.

There’s too much suffering in the world for me to take regular time off!

Treat your boundaries like the edges of your most sacred space. Imagine your boundaries as the grove, the temple, the mountain, the church or sanctuary where your spirit is remembered in all its wholeness. When you begin to treat your boundaries as sacred and powerful in their sacredness and that your boundaries make you better as a healer, I can guarantee that you’ll be able to run your business better. And then, when the time comes to change a boundary, you’ll be doing it from a place of feeling empowered instead of backed into a corner.

Hold yourself to ridiculous standards of creativity and making.

Hey don’t do this! Take time off! Value what you’ve created! Creating something and then presenting it to the world can be absolutely terrifying - don’t welcome in any more fear than necessary to the process.

Eat some lunch. Take a breath. All of this is absurd and necessary and in both situations fear is a lousy companion.

Don’t listen to your own advice.

Please do the opposite of this.

I could insert a whole flowy bit here about trusting your intuition and turning the knowledge you’ve gained from experience into wisdom, but here’s the short cut. Do what you advise other folks to do all the time. I know for many herbalists, myself included, it includes things like, drink water, get more sleep, go outside, allow yourself to zone out, seek pleasure, ask for help, so on and so forth… Imagine if you took your own advice as sincerely as you dealt it out.

Have some mistakes you want to share? Comment below and let us commiserate together. Let’s keep growing through and laughing at our mistakes - seeing them as the calling cards of the trickster gods that they are.

http://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog?offset=1563117120516

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lifechangerforchrist-blog · 7 years ago

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You Are So Valuable, and until You truly comprehend this, You won’t be walking in Your full potential that God has for You. This is deep my friends, but it’s from the Heart. <3</p>

Jeremiah 29:11-13

11 For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and welłl-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call on Me and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear [your voice] and I will listen to you. 13 Then [with a deep longing] you will seek Me and require Me [as a vital necessity] and [you will] find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

In my mind as a child, I only saw myself as a survivor. Every day was another day to wake up and Hope and pray that I and our family would be able to have somewhat of whatever you would call a normal day. Which to us the norm was not your typical norm.

You see coming out of an abusive environment your self-worth, well to be quite honest with you, I really didn’t see any Value in myself. My thoughts were very poorly how I viewed who I was as a person. And to be quite frank about it, I lost my identity as a young girl. when you’ve been abused you seem to go into survival mode grasping at anything that will make you feel better, for me that was wanting to be anyone but “Ginger.” Always looking to others finding out what good qualities they had, so that I could take on those traits because know you everybody else was better than me. At least that's how my mind thought anyway. I always thought of myself as someone that was, less than, not enough, helpless, stupid and even ugly... Yes, that was the old me. Sad but very true.

It wasn’t until I found JESUS, and started learning about what His word said about me! I never really understood How valuable of a person I was. It had to be revealed to me. Now, mind you, it didn’t happen over night. I had to dig deep and press in for several years until one day I really starting comprehending it. I diligently read it in FAITH until It became a Revelation to me!

I encourage you to dig deep, get into God’s word daily, stay plugged into a good church that will teach you the infallible doctrinal truth of the word of God. Stay connected with people of Faith and in an environment where you will learn and grow. It isn’t always easy hearing the plain Truth, but my friend that is what it takes for your life to change.

People that genuinely love you, they will encourage you, pray with you and tell you what you need to hear not what will tickle your ears for a moment, you know the FEEL GOOD message. I thank God for all of those pastors, teachers, mentors, and people he put in my Life over the years that Helped me by praying with me, standing with me when I needed it the most. And now I can add Dr.s to my life! The Lord will put you on the right path where He will use those in your midst to help catapult you to the next spiritual level that he has for you! Don’t get weary keep pressing in. He sees where you’ve been and sees where you are, but better yet, He knows where you're going and what you are BECOMING IN HIM! PRAISE THE LORD!

One of the many things I’ve learned over the years is that CHRIST died for all! Once a person accepts Him as “Savior into their hearts, they receive His forgiveness and unconditional Love! “ Man, I can’t even describe How beautiful this new ground will be as You walk in His ways, and learn what His calling is for your life. Because there has been No Greater Joy, than serving my Savior!

You see I have been bought with a price. I am no longer the same old Ginger that I once was. I have become a New Creation in Christ. I see myself differently than through the eyes of a little-broken girl, that thought there was no Hope for me. Who thought, I had no place in this world or that I could be rewarded for anything that I could possibly make a difference in. That my friends is... so far from the Truth. God’s rewards are rich and His blessings are continual to the overflowing and His Love and Blessings never run dry.

God has a plan for each and every one of us. He knows what we're becoming, we just need to trust Him and follow His voice and go where He tells us to go. We are “Life changers!’ I encourage you to stir up the gifts that He has so graciously placed inside of you.! You are important to the father, you are loved, you are treasured and He has so much in store for you. Don’t let anything deter you from that truth. <3

We might see Failure, other people might see failure, But God sees VICTORY because He see’s Beauty, Christ gave us Beauty for Ashes. Start seeing yourself the way God see’s you.”

<3</p>

Ginger Miller

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 1 John 1:12

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:4

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philipians 4:13

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. John 15:16

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6

For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:20

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, Colossians 1:13

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. Ephesians 3:12

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. Ephesians 1:4

And who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 2 Corinthians 1:22

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Ephesians 6:11

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ... 1John 1:10

1John 5:14-15

I do not boast on my thoughts or what other people say of me. My total confidence is In the one that bought me with a Price, His own Life He laid down.

It totally disturbs me when I hear people talking about me, myself and I kind of success and having confidence in self. I mean we need to be built up and encouraged Lord knows we all need that. But our true self-worth only comes from who’s we are and who we are in CHRIST.

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monstrousthingsrp · 7 years ago

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Welcome to Monstrous Things, Elva!

“Maybe if she was a muggle they’d call it anxiety but now it’s something bigger than that. It’s magic, magic that has been poked and prodded by Pandora Lovegood. There is something wrong with her, and she’ll never know if it’s Pandora’s fault or hers.”

We can’t wait to see your take on the somewhat two-faced Ginny Weasley. We particularly liked your interest in emotions, given how important they are to the character, and your decision to put her in charge of registered wands. We look forward to the tumultuous path you have in store for this little firecracker!

We are also happy to accept your FC change to Madelaine Petsch!

OOC Details

Name: Elva

Pronouns: they/them

Activity Level: If accepted, it would be my aim to be online daily. There might be the odd day I can’t write replies, but I will be careful not to take on too many threads at once so that I can reply in a timely manner!

Other: N/A

General IC Details

Name: Ginny Weasley

Age: 25

Gender/Pronouns: She/her

Desired Changes: I’m not overly keen on Deborah Ann Woll as Ginny, so if accepted, would it be possible to change her fc to Madelaine Petsch please? Or perhaps we could discuss fcs?

Please describe the character’s education experience:

Ginny didn’t particularly enjoy her time at TRAUE – the texts were bland and their teachings one-sided, and Ginny had always favoured practical tasks – but she admired Professor McGonagall, who always knew how to raise a student’s spirits. Ginny doesn’t have that quality herself, and she’s never particularly wanted it, but she sees the value in it, especially after Pandora’s tests which threw everything off balance. Where would Ginny be without TRAUE? It’s a frightening thought to a wix who has only experienced life as it is now. She often wonders what it was before – before the statute of secrecy was abolished and muggles colonised the wix. But with no way to find out, she doesn’t dwell on it. Her youth didn’t leave her many scars, after all, being equal parts clever, beautiful and funny, she got through most of her years at TRAUE relatively unscathed. It was rather dull actually.

Job/Role:

(Failed) Experiment | Wand Permit Officer. There was a part of Ginny that was thrilled to be selected by Pandora Lovegood. She shoved the words “test subject” out of her head; told herself it wasn’t duty or a burden, but an opportunity. And so she let Pandora hit her with the Loyalty Serum. This was how she was going to help muggles and wix everywhere; by helping Pandora develop a serum that would neutralise the threat of magic – or, if you want to be specific, the person wielding it. But Pandora Lovegood fucked her over. Sometimes Ginny can forgive, and sometimes she wants nothing more than to burn that laboratory to the ground. Ginny gets to do neither, unfortunately, for Pandora has lost all interest in her, leaving her to the care of her underlings. But Ginny and her family have a reputation - they are a good, loyal family, who has served the muggle government without fail. She is passionate about repaying the government for her education and supporting the system that has enabled her to thrive. This passion led her straight to her current job; she began training for the position of Wand Permit Officer as a TRAUE graduate and has been there ever since. The job description is simple, but accuracy is vital. It includes:

issuing wands to all new students of TRAUE, with permits

issuing replacement wands to all registered wix holding valid permits for wand which has been lost, stolen, or damaged

judging the condition and quality of all confiscated wands and cataloging them for re-issue

communicating with wand manufacturers to ensure there isn’t a surplus of wands.

Character Traits

+ Staunch: Ginny is no less loyal today than before Pandora Lovegood used her as a pin cushion. It was always her family that motivated her – their safety and wellbeing, and if they were lucky, the promise of new opportunities for bettering their name and income. The only thing that’s changed is how Ginny expresses her loyalty. She used to do whatever was required of her, a servile little girl who grew into the role of Ministry employee, as dull and dim-witted as the desk behind which she sat. Her lipstick was fooling no one. But now she expresses her loyalty differently. She’s still motivated by her family, but is this life really the best one available to them? Ginny has a heart for rebellion, and until now it’s been locked away with years of TRAUE education. Thanks to Pandora, Ginny finally has the key and that rebellion is about to come out. So what if she doesn’t get to decide when and how.

+ Patient: Ginny shows incredible patience towards her friends, which makes her an excellent person to turn to when someone needs to rant or rage. She knows people need to get that stuff out of their system. If left to fester – well, let’s just say Ginny knows better than most that it can get pretty ugly in there. And so she listens, sometimes because she genuinely cares, sometimes because she’s bored, and sometimes because she wants to see the vulnerability in others for a change. Usually its the other way around; Ginny has one of her outbursts and there’s no controlling it, and no controlling who sees. Then she has no patience at all, but that’s not her is it? Not really.

+ Good-humoured: Ginny is fully capable of having a serious conversation, but she also sees the value in doing reckless shit every now and again purely for the hell of it. The world would be a dreary place if people cried at every sad thing that happened. Faced with two options, to laugh or cry, Ginny would choose to laugh ever time. It’s what makes her violent episodes so jarring to onlookers. They expect tears, and get laughter instead. But it is also Ginny’s positive, optimistic outlook on life that make her appear so strong. She sees the humour in a situation and extracts from it every shred of hope and relief she can find. She does this to help others, of course – she has a feeling it will take more than a laugh or two to save her.

- Vengeful: If you cause Ginny or those she cares about any injury, she will seek to harm you in return. There are simply some things that can’t be forgiven or forgotten until both parties have suffered. Before Pandora’s tests, Ginny’s vengeful outbursts were small, like passing you salt instead of sugar to put in your tea. But with Pandora’s meddling and the heavy dose of anger that accompanied them, Ginny’s lust for vengeance is all the stronger. She may be small but she is learning size is no guarantee of power. And it isn’t just violence. Ginny seeks vengeance in all variety of ways, such as helping Dean Thomas escape his cage.

- Insecure: The side effects of the loyalty serum were born from somewhere. Maybe there was a small voice in the back of her head telling her everything she was taught at school is wrong – Ginny won’t attest to that. But she has had doubts for as long as she could remember; doubts about her own strength, being liked by her peers, being the only daughter amidst six sons, matters of the heart… sometimes she even worries about worrying. Maybe if she was a muggle they’d call it anxiety but now it’s something bigger than that. It’s magic, magic that has been poked and prodded by Pandora Lovegood. There is something wrong with her, and she’ll never know if it’s Pandora’s fault or hers.

- Proud: In a moderate dose, pride is a good thing, but it is pride, and the act of having her pride hurt, that most often triggers an outburst from Ginny. Combined with her other weaknesses – her spite and sense of vengeance, as well as her insecurity – it can be incredibly damaging. Ginny is too proud to admit when she needs help, that she’s struggling. She’s too proud to show weakness or shame; too proud to admit that she was wrong and that she has made mistakes. Looking back, she feels like a fool for following Pandora’s orders, not that she had a choice in the matter anyway, so why not go gladly to the laboratory? Ginny can be open about some things, sure, but never the things that hurt and cut and scar.

OOC Questions

List three aspects of the character or world that that caught your interest.

1. I love Jekyll and Hyde, and the whole idea of there being two warring sides of one person, the good and evil, the accepted and unacceptable, the public and private, or outer and inner self. Society is so eager to tell you that certain behaviours and identities are wrong, that they make you a failure or a sinner, and I would love to explore this from Ginny’s perspective. What has she been denying about herself? What has she been taught is evil? What prejudices has she learned? I think it’s important to state that Ginny’s reaction to the Loyalty Serum is not a metaphor for mental illness; it merely triggered her being done with this shit, but not really knowing what it is she’s done with, or what to do about it. Everyone is a monster in this rp, which is going to be so much fun for character development. I would love to develop Ginny, but I would also love to see how other players develop their characters, and what plots can be spun from that development. In short, all the plot potential, so juicy!

2. They are adults! I am a little tired of playing these characters as teens, so I was happy to see something new. When portrayed as teens, these characters are often defined by their money and background. As adults, they get to create their own identities, which I find very interesting. What choices have they made in the past to get them where they are now? Are they happy? If not, what are they going to do about it? The barriers holding adults back often take a different shape; maybe it’s not having money, fear of losing your job, fear of losing your friends, your second family; maybe you’re simply stuck in old habits. These characters know a little bit about who they are, and sometimes that can be painful. I will repeat what I said above, lots of opportunities for juicy plots!

3. These characters are almost completely divorced from canon. I love that muggles and wix live side by side, and I LOVE that werewolves have a place in this world too. I’m also very excited to see the Lovegoods and Weasleys thriving in government, and all the typically wealthy and affluent wizarding families have been forced from their seats of power. There are too many things about this AU which excite me! I also love how open you are to LGBTQIA+ characters and writers, as well as other rep. This is awesome.

What is your dream plot?

I want Ginny to get angry. Really angry. I don’t think she would ever defect, given how the Resistance is known to butcher their own people as well as their enemies. But I would like her to consider it as an option, before realising she wants nothing to do with either side. Unfortunately, this makes her the only player on a team of one. But she has cause to be angry with Pandora Lovegood; I imagine that anger will explode, then maybe she will find a way to channel it into something useful.

So I guess my dream plot is to see Ginny exploiting the system for her own gain, and the gain of those she decides to help along the way. One way she could do this is by falsifying documents to gain wands illegally for unregistered wix. I could see Ginny doing this out of spite, at first, before realising she actually gives a shit about this stuff and that she genuinely believes every wix should have a wand. It will be a power trip for Ginny - as Wand Permit Officer, she literally holds the power of wix in her hands. The wand, and the secret. She could tip off her friend at the Ministry without any problem and somewhere miles away a wix will be stripped of his wand.

While Ginny is a muggle sympathiser, she has pride, and what she and other wix experience is not equality. It reminds me of colonialism and the spread of Christianity and the “phasing out” of other cultures. She isn’t like Hermione; she doesn’t hate what she is. Or she didn’t - not until Pandora changed her. Maybe all Pandora did was hold a mirror to the sides of herself she never liked. Either way, she’s changed things for Ginny. But first, I would like to see Ginny push against this change, and pretend to be her old self.

#monstrous enter if you dare #ginny weasley #hp rpg

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tessatechaitea · 8 years ago

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New Super-man #5

MAGA!

Don't worry! Global warming from air pollution isn't a problem! Everything will be okay when seeing a blue sky is a rare occurrence. This was the sky every day in Eastern China and Hong Kong. And this was from 1997.

The comic book shows The Bund at night where you can see stars. When they erupt out of their submarine to discuss books with the people, The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom even comment on how "mesmerizing" the stars are. Ha! As if. The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom have stolen Starro from the Ministry of Self-Reliance (I know, I know. So ironic that they'd have Starro!) and they're planning on using it against the communist regime who won't let them read The Cave of Time in its original English. All they get is the Chinese Translation with the Government Approved Endings! Kenan has just walked in on his father wearing his Flying Dragon Father costume and now he has questions up the proverbial wazoo. Is the wazoo actually proverbial? Do things have to have been mentioned in The Book of Proverbs to be proverbial? What is a proverb anyway? Like a combination verb and pronoun? Flying Dragon Father tells his origin story to his son because he wants Kenan to fight for the correct side. The correct side is obviously the one against China's governmental interests. Those fucking Communists are evil. Not because they're Communists, of course. Capitalists are fucking evil too! The common factor there is the part where the people who come to power by whatever means one comes to power in whatever economic or political system exists in the country they were raised tend to be ambitious, selfish, greedy assholes. The kind of people who would rule well don't crave the kinds of power, status, and money that comes with ruling. So they never wind up in power. Go figure, right?! Flying Dragon Father met Kenan's mother in the early college incarnation of The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom. They have their Harry Met Sally relationship that eventually leads to Kenan.

I wish she'd become the Leather Liberty Goddess.

Flying Dragon Father reveals the big shock twist: the Ministry of Self-Reliance killed Kenan's mother! Okay, so it wasn't as shocking as you might have thought by my calling it a big shock twist and using an exclamation point. But if you're familiar with my blog then you know exclamation points mean nothing! It's like I'm a rich kid just burning money if money were exclamation points and they made people wealthy. Now Kenan has a decision to make. Does he continue to fight for the Ministry of Self-Reliance or become a mole for the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom? Or does he go his own way and forge his own path which will probably lead to Laney Lan's bedroom and some kinky ass roleplay. Kenan chooses to go off with his father to help the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom. Bat-man and Wonder-Woman also head to The Bund to try to stop the Book Club. Also joining the fray? The Great Ten! You might remember one of them, August General in Iron. If you remember any of the other nine, you get a cookie. But not my cookie.

Even Book Clubs of Ultimate Freedom have to deal with power-mad narcissists who insist on ruining everything by thinking the end justifies the means.

Uncle Human Firecracker actually says, "Whatever it takes for the greater good." See? Total dickmonster. Mmm, dickmonster. Both Kenan and Flying Dragon Father aren't too happy about Uncle Human Firecracker's methods and decide it might be time to stop him. Isn't this always the way with book clubs? They always fall apart due to infighting.

I just realized why I like Kenan so much. He's a total Huck Finn.

I like to assume that I can say something like "he's a total Huck Finn" and people will completely understand what I mean. While I believe the literary canon really needs to be expanded to include more voices of non-white males, I still think it's usefulness in writing shorthand to others is beyond compare. The literary canon should never shrink, it should just grow bigger and bigger. Sure it's more work for those who want to understand everything anybody ever writes. But fuck is it useful. I'm not religious but you'd better believe I've read The Bible because without that foundation, you're not fully accessing a majority of Western Literature. If the Ultimate Literary Canon of Freedom is expanded enough, people will be expected to also know The Koran and the Bhagavad Gita and, um, the other ones that are probably important to people who didn't grow up with a white, Western education. Uncle Human Firecracker somehow does something to remove Kenan's powers. He probably had some of those miniature red suns in his glove. Kenan almost drowns but Flying Dragon Father rescues him and takes him to the Ministry of Self-Reliance to be healed. So people's loyalties are becoming a bit fuzzy due to other loyalties. Meanwhile, Uncle Human Firecracker shoves a bunch of Starro-captured motherfuckers onto a plane. He's going to fly it into Beijing and the seat of Communist power so that he can mind-control them all into becoming a democracy. Sounds about right. But! On the plane is Lixin, the fat kid whose lunch money Kenan used to steal! He's not supposed to be there but his parents own the airline and he's trying to make a Youtube video or something in the cockpit. I guess he's going to have to be the hero on the hijacked plane! Always bet on fat! Super-man doesn't get his powers back even with a blast of yellow sun radiation. It looks like he lost his powers when he felt his dad was disappointed in him. So his powers fluctuate based on his esteem? That's actually a good thing for Kenan! Mostly, he's as cocky and arrogant as I am.

Heh heh. Compliance devices.

Super-man and Flying Dragon Father rush off to stop the plane. I guess Kenan's powers will come back now that he knows his father is proud of him. I hope Lixin becomes his pal! Does Lixin mean "Jimmy Olsen" in Chinese? What Did We Learn? Being confident is where real power comes from! You know that's true because it's what all the Men's Rights Advocates say! I think they're basic rule is to be confident even when you know you're a disgusting piece of shit that no woman in their right mind would ever touch. The worst part about this advice is that it's right. Being confident is attractive! The problem is faking confidence simply to get laid. If you need to get laid and you want confidence, pay a sex worker (preferably in someplace where it's legal because it should all be legal and by participating in places where it isn't legal, you're just encouraging illegal sex work which endangers women). They'll tell you how big your cock is and how good you are at the penetrations! Even if you blow your load too early, they won't act disappointed and upset and become bitter and resentful that you're not seeing to their needs. Although thinking you're good at sex when you're not might be harmful to your relationships in the long run. But at least getting laid might keep you from going on the Internet and getting involved with these MRA jerks. The Ranking! +1! This comic book is the best! Or close to the best! Don't challenge me! What I say here doesn't have to match up with what's over there on the sidebar in the Rankings. Especially if you're reading this on Blogger since I never fucking update the list on that site.

#New Super-man #DC Comics #Gene Luen Yang #Viktor Bogdanovic #Richard Friend #Hi-Fi

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thestrategicmom · 4 years ago

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2020 Vision (Part 2): Oh, The Places You'll Go... With Intentionality

Disclosure: Some of the links included are affiliate links, meaning at absolutely no cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and purchase any of the great books I reference.

"You have brains in your head, You have feet in your shoes You can steer yourself Any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy [or gal] who’ll decide where to go." -- Dr. Seuss

In last weeks’s post, we started to create a renewed 2020 vision by focusing on gratitude, the first of our vision focus areas: gratitude, intentionality, optimism, and faith/serenity. Together these can help us align our vision and goals to achieve greater joy, fulfillment, and purpose during one heck of a year and beyond.

I’m not sure if it’s the quarantine fatigue, or the fact that I’ve read it countless times over the last few weeks to my daughter, but Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go has been on my mind a lot lately. In addition to being an ode to resilience, optimism, and exploration, the book reminds us that we have some control over where life takes us. While it’s overwhelming to think about all the things we can’t control right now -- this virus, the economy, or our jobs -- it’s encouraging to redirect our focus and energy to the things we can control.

There is a difference between going to a store and going to a store with the intention of purchasing a specific item. In the context of 2020 vision, intentionality, our second key area, is the essence of focus. Intentionality is defined as “being deliberate or purposeful with your thoughts and actions.” Derived from the Latin word intentio, which means “directed at”, intentionality is all about consciously directing your mind and energy towards a target or goal that you want to manifest. If we determine who and where we want to be, and make decisions and cultivate habits with the deliberate goal of achieving those targets, we can literally will our aspirations and vision into reality. In short, intentionality is about doing stuff on purpose.

Below are three simple ways to sharpen your 2020 vision by mastering the art of intentionality, allowing you to use this unprecedented time to define, design, and attain a renewed sense of happiness and purpose.

Know/Learn Thyself

At its core, intentionality is all about living proactively rather than reactively; it allows life to happen for us rather than to us. However, before you can consciously create a plan and vision for your life, you need to figure out where you’re going. What do you want? What drives, defines and matters most to you?

Discover Your Compass: Whether we realize it or not, we all have core values that determine what we believe is important, fulfilling, and meaningful. However, even though core values give our lives meaning, we rarely take the time to consciously identify which values matter. Consider your most meaningful life experience. What were you doing? How did you feel? Which core values were on display? While your personal values may not necessarily point you to an exact destination, they are a trusty compass that can help determine the right direction to go.

Set Up Some Milestones: While our values give our lives directional guidance, goals are practical milestones that confirm our progress in the right direction.

Based on your values, what are some goals that can be your milestones?

For every goal that comes to mind, ask, “To what extent does this align with my core values and vision,” and prioritize, as needed.

Goals should start off small and actionable, but should continue to stretch you over time.

Your goals can be as simple as starting to journal with a goal of writing down a sentence or two recap each day, or starting to exercise by walking around the block once a day for a week.

The best goals keep us moving forward while still being attainable. Once you complete a goal, level up and identify the next milestone to start working toward. Maybe your journaling goes from a couple sentences to a page or two over time, or your exercise goes from walking around the block to walking or running a mile.

Act Accordingly

Now that we’ve defined what motivates us, and identified practical ways to more intently focus on the things that matter, it’s time to start acting. Acting in accordance, or better yet, in advancement of your values is how you take small steps toward living your literal best life.

Build Conscious Habits: Habits are nothing more than daily routines and rituals triggered by a cue, prompting us to take a certain action in hopes of receiving some reward. Habits aren’t just what we do, they’re who we are. Habits are our code, how we’re programmed to behave. James Clear’s Atomic Habits shares the most effective way to build intentional habits: focus not on what you want to achieve, but instead who you wish to be. If we use Clear’s Four Laws of Behavior Change to build identity-based habits, congruent with our values, we’ll be well on our way to creating a Post-COVID life that’s personally fulfilling and successful.

Make Deliberate Decisions: While habits are routine, and often subconscious, decisions typically require more effort and thought, and should be approached with just as much, if not more, intentionality. Reflect on your core values, goals, and ‘who you wish to be’ when making decisions, particularly big ones. Dig deeper and for each decision ask yourself, What’s my motivation? What am I hoping to achieve or gain? And what will happen if I say no? Fully understanding and appreciating your rationale, incentives, and alternatives is the best way to make decisions that may not always be perfect, but are well-informed, deliberate, and defensible.

Be Consistent, Be Accountable, But Give Yourself Grace

While our core values tell us which doors to seek, and our actions are the keys to those doors, consistency is what keeps those doors open long enough for us to create the outcomes we want. Consistency requires building small, empowering habits, but it also requires holding ourselves accountable and just saying no to excuses.

Even as I attempt to hold myself accountable for consistently writing, I’m quickly learning that excuses are very effective lies we tell ourselves so that whatever we aren’t doing isn’t our fault. We don’t have time, we’re too busy, or we’re just trying not to go crazy while being confined to our homes. While all of these points are valid, if our goals and habits are truly rooted in things that matter to us, we should work to find a way before trying to find an excuse.

Living with intentionality is a journey. Your values will evolve, your goals will change, and you’ll inevitably make decisions and engage in habits that aren’t necessarily aligned with either. And that’s okay. It’s okay if there are moments when we fall short and aren’t operating with precise intention. This is a continuous process. Forgive yourself, give yourself grace, but keep your eyes on the prize. Being consistently mindful of your values and intentions can prevent you from acting in ways that undermine the vision and life you want to manifest.

By this point, COVID-19 has pushed us all outside of our comfort zones, living in a wild west of uncertainty, disruption and change, but imagine who we could be, what our lives could become, and where we could ultimately go if we made decisions and spent our time and energy mindfully rather than mindlessly. Armed with intentionality, we can use this time of forced introspection, (which feels oddly similar to Seuss’s Waiting Place) to determine the places we want to go, who we want to be and forge a path to get there! Designing and manifesting a life of intentionality may seem like a tall ask, but if we “step with care and great tact” there is no doubt we can and will succeed, “98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.” So, use this time while you’re trapped at home to define what intentionality means to you, your family, and your future, and oh, the places you’ll go.

If you enjoyed this post and would like more information on being intentional with your life, check out my posts on value and goal-based living, intentional self-care, childcare and development, and relationships.

#The Strategic Mom #coronavirus #intentionality

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andrewdburton · 6 years ago

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Financial freedom and the value of time

Note from J.D. Last October, I had a chance to read an advance copy of Grant Sabatier‘s new book, Financial Freedom, which was just released this morning. I liked it. I loved parts of it. In fact, the second chapter of Financial Freedom inspired my article about how time is more valuable than money.

Today, I'm pleased to present a (heavily edited) excerpt from that second chapter. Here's Sabatier on why time is more valuable than money — and why you can and should retire early. (Links and photos are from me. Everything else is from the book. Note, however, I've heavily edited this chapter in order to abridge it and to make it more readable in blog format.)

If some ninety-year-old rich dude offered you $100 million to trade places with him, would you do it? Of course not. Why? Because time is more valuable than money.

The average person has approximately 25,000 days to live in their adult life. If you’re reading this, you likely need to trade your time for money in order to live a life that is safe, healthy, and happy. But if you didn’t have to work to make money, you’d be able to spend that time however you wanted.

No one cares about your time as much as you do. People will try to take your time and fill it up with meetings and calls and more meetings. But it’s your time. Your only time. Financial Freedom is designed to help you make the most of it. Make money buy time.

My goal is to help you retire as early as possible. When I say retire, I don’t mean that you'll never work again, only that you’ll have enough money so that you never have to work again. This is complete financial freedom — the ability to do whatever you want with your time.

Traditional Retirement Advice Doesn't Work

I don’t ever plan to retire in the traditional sense of the word, but you could say that I’m “retired” now because I have enough money and freedom to spend my time doing whatever I want. I no longer have to work for money, but I still enjoy making money, and it’s attached to many of the things I enjoy doing. I love working and challenging myself and hopefully always will, so checking out to a life of leisure just isn’t my vibe.

If you want to “retire” sooner rather than later, you need to rethink everything you’ve been taught about retirement and probably most of what you’ve been taught about money. As a society, we have collectively adopted one approach to retiring: get a job, set aside a certain portion of your income in a 401(k) or other retirement account, and in 40+ years you’ll have enough money saved that you can stop working for good.

This approach is designed to get you to retire in your sixties or seventies, which explains why pretty much every advertisement about retirement shows silver-haired grandmas and grandpas (typically on a golf course or walking along the beach).

There are three major problems with this approach:

It doesn’t work for most people.

You end up spending the most valuable years of your life working for money.

It’s not designed to help you “retire” as quickly as possible.

The first major problem with traditional retirement advice is that even if you follow it perfectly (and most people usually don’t), you still might not have enough to live on when you are in your sixties.

The popular advice to save 5% to 10% of your income isn't enough. You should be saving as much money as early and often as you can. If you want to be sure you'll be able to retire at 65, you need to start (and keep) saving at least 20% of your income from the age of 30.

Here’s how big a difference it makes.

If you're making an average of $50,000 over this 35-year period and saving 20%, or approximately $10,000 per year, you’d have deposited $349,860 by the time you retire. Factoring in the 7% growth rate adjusted for inflation, that investment would be worth $1,615,340.

And this is assuming that your salary never increases, which it very likely would over time, so you'll have even more money.

Saving 20% of your income will significantly increase the chance that you can retire after 40 years. But this brings us to the second and third major problems with traditional money advice: It isn't designed to help you “retire” early and requires you to work full time between your twenties and your sixties.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, and people can live perfectly happy lives working for 40 years and then enjoying the fruits of their labor when they’re older. But it requires a huge trade-off — basing 40 years of your life around earning money — and the payoff isn't guaranteed.

A Dream Deferred

All my life, I grew up around people who worked and hoped they could retire one day.

Neither of my parents come from money, and I knew growing up that we didn’t have a lot of money. We weren’t poor by any stretch, but given that we lived outside of Washington, D.C., surrounded by some of the wealthiest suburbs in America, my parents lived a frugal lifestyle. My parents bought used cars, we took an annual beach vacation, and we drove twelve hours each way to spend holidays in Indiana.

Despite our East Coast address, my parents retained their Midwestern values. I was consistently exposed to the classic American work ethic: get a job, pay your dues, save wisely, and if you play your cards right, you can retire sometime in your golden years. Everyone I knew worked well into their sixties, if not longer. My grandparents worked well into their seventies because they couldn’t afford to retire earlier than that.

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Both of my parents are in their sixties and still working. They probably have enough money to retire, but they worry it might not be enough in the long run. They also both wonder what they would do with their time if they did retire.

When you spend almost your entire life working for a paycheck, what happens when you break that routine? What happens when your identity is wrapped up in your title and job responsibilities? What happens when you’re now too tired to pursue your dreams, or maybe it’s been so long that you lost your dreams along the way?

My dad recently told me about a few of his neighbors who had retired after 40 years in the workforce. “They spend a lot of their time in their yards picking up sticks,” he said. I don’t know these people, but I can’t imagine this is what they hoped they’d be doing in the twilight of their lives.

This illustrates a common problem with the typical approach to retirement that few people consider: Despite the fact that they work so hard to be able to retire, 48% of Americans over 55 haven’t even thought about what they want to do when/if they retire.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me pretty sad, because it means many Americans are choosing to work for several decades of their lives without giving any thought to what they’re working toward. They have collectively adopted the traditional retirement narrative — work until your sixties or seventies — without pausing to question whether this is what they really want out of life or if there’s a better way.

A New Perspective

In her deeply moving book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, nurse Bronnie Ware says the top two regrets of those facing the end of their lives are “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me,” and “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

She goes on to say that the vast majority of her patients never accomplished at least half of their dreams, often because of their choice to keep working instead of following them. These people pushed on, saved, and worked only to look back and wonder what it was all for.

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Is this what you want? Do you want to defer your dreams until sometime in the far-off future when you might not have the energy or drive to do anything but pick up sticks all day?

It was only after I started my quest to save $1 million as quickly as possible that I started to notice the limits to typical financial advice and the traditional retirement narrative. As I learned more about how to earn, save, and invest money, I realized that making money quickly isn't nearly as complicated as it’s made out to be. In fact, given the efficiencies of the internet, it’s easier to do than ever before.

What's difficult is letting go of the assumption that there's only one surefire path to retirement — earning a steady paycheck for several decades and saving a portion of it for later — and that any other path is reserved for the lucky few.

The more money you make, the more money you can invest, and the faster you'll reach financial freedom.

Caveat It’s important to note that there are some limits, and being able to “retire” early is definitely a privilege that not everyone has or will have.

There are millions of people in the United States who are simply trying to keep a roof over their heads and buy food to feed their families. If you're making less than $25,000 per year, then it will be a lot harder to retire early because you simply won’t be able to save as much as someone earning a higher income. (Unless, of course, you can live on $5,000 a year, like the happy wanderer I met in Flagstaff, Arizona.) I’m not saying it isn’t possible; it will just require a lot of creativity and sacrifice.

The hardest part of fast-tracking financial freedom is learning to look at the world differently, to accept that even though you may not know a single person who has done it, it's possible to earn enough so that within just a few years, you'll never have to worry about money again.

But if you want to live life on your terms, you need to manage money on your own terms as well, and that requires a new perspective.

Time vs. Money

One of the main reasons traditional retirement and personal finance advice is so limiting is because it's based on the false assumption that money is limited. The vast majority of personal finance advice out there is focused on cutting back and spending less and doesn’t acknowledge the simple truth that money is limited only if you don’t try to make more of it.

Money is inherently infinite.

It’s a human invention, and as long as people are helping the economy grow by working, spending, and investing, governments can print more money to keep up. Yes, there is and always has been a massive gap between those who have a lot of money and those who don’t, and billions of people live in places where they don’t have the moneymaking opportunities that those of us in democratic, capitalist societies have.

But, in theory, there's enough money in the world for everyone to have all the money they need.

The problem is, many people don’t take advantage of these opportunities and instead accept whatever money they are given — generally whatever their bosses are willing to pay — without considering other ways to make more money. They say they want to make more money but spend all their free time binging on Netflix, gaming, or just wasting time.

This is too bad, because when we believe that money is scarce, we end up sacrificing a great deal of time in order to make and save it. And unlike money, time is inherently limited.

In one of my favorite books, Your Money or Your Life, author Vicki Robin asks us to ponder a simple but transcendent question: What are the hours of your life worth? What are you willing to trade them for? How much money are you willing to trade for your time?

If we believe money is scarce, we'll spend precious time trying to save it when we actually don’t have to. We’ll spend hours clipping coupons, driving an extra mile to save three cents a gallon on gas, or hunting for a deal online just to shave a few bucks off our bill.

I once spent over four hours looking for the best deal on a new TV. It was only later that I considered that the money I’d saved hardly made up for the time I’d wasted — time that I'll never get back.

The same goes for earning money. Every minute we spend trying to make money is a minute we can’t use to do something else — it’s gone forever.

Trading Time for Money

Most people work between 70,000 and 80,000 hours over the course of their careers, but even that doesn’t account for all the time they spend because they have to work. The average American commutes 52 minutes to and from work each day. That’s about 8,700 hours over the course of a typical career. All told, you’re spending more than a year of your life doing something you wouldn’t have to do if you didn’t have to earn money to survive.

Even these stark numbers don’t tell the whole story.

The average American works 34.4 hours a week. If we add in time for commuting, that’s about 38.7 hours. There are 168 hours in a week, so after you subtract about 56 hours for sleeping, that leaves 73.3 hours.

That sounds like a lot — more than double what you spend working in a week — but consider that not all hours are created equal. Studies have shown that we're most alert and energetic early in the day, but that’s the time we’re usually working. By the time we get off the clock, we’re usually so tired or run-down from working all day and commuting that we don’t want to do anything except sit on the couch. This is why the average American watches 5.4 hours of TV a day.

Sure, we have weekends, but how often do you spend those running around trying to catch up on all the errands and chores you didn’t get to during the week?

The point is, you are trading the best hours of your week and your life for a paycheck.

I’m not anti-work; in fact, I like working. Humans need to work to be happy. But like time, not all work is created equal. There's a huge difference between working at a job you hate, being stuck at a desk or on the clock for 40 or more hours a week, and doing work you love and are passionate about, on your own time, and having the freedom to do something else if you want to.

The same trade-off occurs when you look at your life as a whole. You typically have more energy and are healthier in your twenties, thirties, and forties than you are later in life. But if you have to spend those decades working for money, then you’re not taking full advantage of this time.

From a financial standpoint, if you gradually save a small percentage of your income over the course of 40+ years, you’re wasting time that your money could use to grow. When you invest money in the stock market, it grows in value over time because (on average over the long term) it earns returns every year. If you’re saving only 5% to 10% of your annual income each year over the course of several decades, you’re not giving your money nearly as much opportunity to compound as you would if you invested more earlier in your life.

You're wasting time.

Don’t waste time. You are in control. Remember, it’s your time. If you take advantage of opportunities to make more and make the most of your money, you can save a lot more money and correspondingly even more time. Every $1 invested today is worth hours, if not days, of your freedom in the future. The more you save today, the more time you buy in the future.

Time Is More Valuable Than Money

Fortunately, the relationship between money and time isn't strictly linear: If you want to make more money, you don’t necessarily need to sacrifice more time to do so. You don’t have to be limited by your own hours or even the hours in the day.

You don’t have to look far to find examples of people who can work half as many hours to earn twice as much money as someone else, and it’s not always because they're smarter or more experienced, or work in a more lucrative field. You can even find people who make money by trading very little, if any, of their own time because they’ve invested a lot of time up-front in building consistent long-term income streams.

Likewise, people who invest their money spend minimal time (other than what it takes to set up and manage their accounts) trying to make that money grow because as long as their money stays invested in the stock market, it will grow automatically over time. This is known as passive income because you don’t have to actively do anything to earn it, and it's the ultimate moneymaking strategy. What’s better than being able to make money doing literally nothing?

Once you reach the point where you no longer have to trade your time for money, you can choose to spend that time however you please. When you have enough (or even just close to enough!), you can quit the higher-paying job you hate to take a lower-paying one that's meaningful to you. You can explore, grow, give back, follow your passions, and find new passions. You can travel the world, pick up a new hobby, learn a new skill, volunteer — the possibilities are infinite.

Anita retired at thirty-three so she could sleep in every day and travel the world without having to negotiate vacation days with her boss or worry about missing an important email.

Sarah retired at thirty-two so she could learn to play the violin and start a band.

Michelle did it at twenty-eight so she could live in an RV, travel the country, and blog full time.

Justin did it so he could sit in a hammock at eleven a.m. on a Tuesday and read a good book.

Kristy and Bryce did it at thirty-one and thirty-two, respectively, so they could travel the world on a whim.

J.P. did it so she could walk her dog in the middle of the day, discover new passions, and raise a family.

Brandon retired at thirty-four so he could spend his time making music and exploring new passions.

I retired early because I didn’t want to spend the best years of my life working in a poorly lit cubicle at a stressful job I didn’t particularly enjoy. And because I did it, I had the time to write Financial Freedom and teach others how to escape the rat race.

The vast majority of personal finance advice out there is focused on helping you maximize whatever limited money you already have. It’s focused on frugality, scarcity, cutting back, and spending less, and doesn’t acknowledge that money is limited only if you don’t try to make more.

Money is unlimited. Time is not. Don’t waste time. Don’t defer your dreams into the future.

Want to read more? Pick up a copy of the book or head on over to Sabatier's website, Millennial Money. Adapted from Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier by arrangement with Avery, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2019, Grant Sabatier.

The post Financial freedom and the value of time appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/financial-freedom/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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sebeth · 7 years ago

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Injustice: Gods Among US #3

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

Injustice #3 by Tom Taylor, Jheremy Raapack, and David Yardin.

Drone Command, Nevada: The United States military launches a missile towards an unnamed location in the Middle East. Superman prevents the missile from reaching its target.

Military officials meet with the President of the United States and other members of the government.

“What he was doing was acting against the United States military. What he was doing was committing treason! He has already murdered on our soil without punishment. And we have no idea how his blundering actions in Biayla may destabilize our efforts in the region. Sir, Superman has decided to police the entire world. He has already toppled one government. If he is allowed to continue, unchecked, uncontrolled like this…”

The military, via shell corporations and independent contractors, kidnap Martha and Jonathan Kent and destroy the Kent fam. Superman is unable to stop the kidnapping when Mirror Master teleports everyone away.

Mirror Man taunts Superman: “You’ll what? Put your fist through my chest? Seriously, that was some pretty dark stuff. Know this. You’re never going to see your parents again. They’re somewhere even you can’t find or touch. But they are alive. The old man put up a bit of a fight, and I had to take the fight out of him with some good old-fashioned violence, but he’ll live. And they will stay alive if you heed this message. It’s a simple message. Stop what you’re doing. Stop interfering with governments and wars and go back to punching giant space robots and stuff. Do this and your parents keep breathing. Forget your place again and we’ll start sending you little pieces of one of them. Maybe we’ll even let you choose which one.”

Clark should have seen this coming when he revealed his secret identity to the world. Clark’s parents are a huge bargaining chip. Factor in the numerous criminals who hold a grudge against Superman and it’s guaranteed someone would attack the Kents.

Wonder Woman summons a group of heroes to the Watchtower. Flash, Shazam, Nightwing, Raven, Cyborg, Green Lantern, and Hawkwoman are in attendance.

Batman is not at the meeting. Did Bruce send Dick in his place? Or did Dick come as part of the Titans? Was Bruce even invited? Or did Bruce simply refuse to come?

Raven’s skin is red – a sure sign of Trigon’s influence.

Diana attempts to rally the troops: “No one standing here today was untouched by the tragedy that took place last week. Every one of us lost friends and loved ones in Metropolis. There are heroes who should be standing with us here today who we will never see again. Superman has not been mourning. He has been fighting. He took a tragedy and began to act to make sure it could never happen again. Last night, in response to Superman’s recent actions, his parents were taken from their home. They will apparently be killed if Superman continues to get in the way of governments. I am Princess Diana of Themyscira and I know my place. I believe in what has been started. I believe we can make a real difference. I believe we can not just save the world but change it for the better. I believe in Superman. And I will not stand by while he’s attacked in this way.”

Diana is definitely fiercer and more war-like in the Injustice continuity – she’s the devil whispering in Clark’s ear. Clark went to Biayla simply to prevent the deaths of innocents – Diana is the one who charted the course to world domination.

The Injustice continuity is an “Elseworlds” tale but there are numerous “What If’s” during the course of the series. What if Batman had travelled to Smallville immediately after the Joker’s murder and brought Ma & Pa Kent to Superman? What if Diana was her traditional, peace-keeping self?

The heroes agree to fight for Superman. The heroes track down and interrogate the Rogues: Hawkwoman battles the Weather Wizard, Cyborg fights Captain Boomerang, Shazam tackles Gorilla Grodd, and the Flash confronts Captain Cold.

Captain Cold directs the Flash to the World’s End bar in Keystone City. Cold requests the Flash take it easy on the Rogues: “Hey, do what you have to with Mirror Master but go easy on the rest of ‘em, yeah. Heroes weren’t the only ones lost in Metropolis, you know?”

Good point. The majority of Superman’s enemies would have died in Metropolis: Metallo, Toyman, Rampage, etc.

We see Mirror Master, Cheetah, Scandal Savage, and the Clock King, among others, in the bar. The assembled heroes storm the bar. Mirror Master nearly escapes but is captured by Raven. Mirror Master reveals that the Kents are in Salar De Uyuni, Bolivia.

“Salar De Uyuni, Bolivia. More than four square miles of salt flats. The largest natural mirror in the world.”

Flash brings Mirror Master’s belt to Superman so he can use it to enter the reflection.

The POTUS is informed that “the one card we can play” has failed. The POTUS enters his office only to be confronted by the Batman: “That was incredibly stupid. You don’t touch a man’s parents.”

Bruce would not be amused by assaults on parents.

The President states: “They said it couldn’t be tracked back to me.”

Batman responds: “It couldn’t. I was playing a hunch. It’s not a hunch anymore, though.”

World’s Greatest Detective!

The Presidents asks Batman if he will tell Superman of his involvement. Batman warns the POTUS of the ramifications if Clark does fall out: “Are you really that naïve? Think about who you are dealing with? No one would know they’ve touched you. There’d be no evidence. You’d just go missing. The police wouldn’t think to look for your body on Saturn! Your plan failed, Mister President. And it failed in a way that will strengthen not only Superman’s resolve, it will unite all of them behind him.”

Batman doesn’t seem to have any hope in preventing his fellow heroes from falling down that slippery slope.

Superman and the Kents emerge from the reflection in Bolivia.

Ares’ observes Wonder Woman rampaging against military intervention in Bialya: “Despite her desire for peace, she revels in war.”

Diana argues with Ares: “I am not at war with Qurac. Qurac has ignored the request for a ceasefire. It continues to bombard neighboring Jusdal despite the country being largely defenseless. We are simply stopping this bombardment. Once the shelling has stopped, the conflict will end as all conflicts do – with a conversation.”

Diana is in serious denial or simply doesn’t understand that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Ares questions Diana: “Will you take her place? Will you lie in his bed?”

Diana responds: “Lois was an incredible woman. I will let him grieve. He is the greatest man I have ever known. I will be whatever he needs me to be.”

Diana is rather opportunistic in this continuity. She is definitely the power behind the throne. I’m not thrilled that Diana’s aiming to be the “new Lois” in Clark’s life. “Injustice Diana” definitely lacks the principles and restraint of mainstream Diana.

Diana, joined by Superman, brawls with Ares. Clark is shocked by Diana’s impalement of Ares.

If we remove Diana, would have Clark gone down the path that he did? She is shown to be a sinister influence on him. A less principled Diana and a traumatized, grief-stricken Clark are a very dangerous pair.

#Injustice #Superman #Wonder Woman #Ma Kent #Pa Kent #Batman #Mirror Master #Raven #Ares

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keep-dreaming-lynnette-blog · 7 years ago

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How to Run Your Affiliate Store with Shopify?

There are two ways you can take while making an affiliate store with Shopify, contingent upon what number of affiliate shippers you need to collaborate with.

Key #1: CURATE PRODUCTS FROM MULTIPLE MERCHANTS

To incorporate items from various retailers in your Shopify store, you'll have to change your topic's code so your "Add to Cart" catch is supplanted with a catch that takes individuals to the trader's site utilizing your affiliate interface.

Shopify has a couple of assistance strings to walk you through the procedure, contingent upon the way you need to approach it:

String #1: Replace the add to truck catch with an email connection or contact shape

String #2: How to alter "Look at" Button for affiliate ahref= joins

String #3: Swapping out the "add to truck" catch with Amazon affiliate connect – What is the best technique?

Key #2: CURATE PRODUCTS FROM AMAZON

In the event that you need to get your feet wet with an affiliate store without the bother of tweaking your topic's code, begin by curating items from Amazon just with the clever and moderate Spread App.

For just $5 every month, Spread effortlessly imports Amazon item postings into your e-commerce store and replaces your "Add to Cart" catch with a "View On Amazon" catch naturally.

Here's a case of an Amazon just store by the fine people at Canopy:

How to Create Your Affiliate Store with WordPress

A large portion of the affiliate stores I go over in my work as an affiliate chief keep running with self-facilitated WordPress.org. That is on the grounds that there are heaps of WordPress particular topics and modules accessible to affiliate advertisers hoping to make an affiliate store.

The storefront is an instinctive and adaptable free WordPress subject. As the authority WooCommerce topic, it's kept up by center designers to offer you world-class support and profound coordination with WooCommerce.

Shopisle WordPress Ecommerce Theme – Free

This exquisite eCommerce WordPress topic from ThemeIsle highlights a few capable elements including a subject choices board, limitation and program capacity. The outline tasteful of this subject would settle on it an extraordinary decision for a dress or frill store.

WooCommerce – Free + Paid options

WooCommerce is an adjustable online business stage that can be introduced as a module for WordPress. In spite of the fact that not an affiliate module particularly, a few affiliate store subjects and modules have been outlined particularly to work with WooCommerce and it has a clever element that enables you to make affiliate items indicating outer retailers.

FREE PATH: CURATE PRODUCTS FROM MULTIPLE MERCHANTS

In case you're looking to minister affiliate items from various retailers without spending a dime, here's a straightforward way you can take:

Step 1: Install the WooCommerce module on your WordPress site and take after the straightforward well-ordered wizard to finish setup.

Step 2: Using a Google spreadsheet, manufacture the rundown of affiliate items you intend to incorporate into your store. You'll have to log in to your affiliate systems for this procedure so you can without much of a stretch get your affiliate joins. In case you're searching for more projects to join, look at this site for internet business affiliate programs.

Accumulate the accompanying data:

Item Name

Item Description

Item Image

Cost

Connection (your affiliate interface)

Step 3: Using the item data you accumulated in the initial step, explore to Products >> Add Product.

WooCommerce Dashboard

Step 4: Create an item posting for each affiliate item you're curating by:

Include item name

Include item portrayal

Set item picture

In the Product Data segment, tap the drop down and select External/Affiliate item

Enter the item URL (your affiliate connect)

Enter the catch content you'd get a kick out of the chance to utilize (i.e. Checkout at [Retailer], Buy Now)

Include the cost

Discretionary: include item labels, select the item classification and include extra photographs

Affiliate Product Listing

Step 5: Pat yourself on the back! You now have an affiliate store with items from numerous retailers that cost you only your opportunity to make.

You can likewise utilize the PG Simple Shop module to accomplish something comparative, so on the off chance that you'd rather not utilize WooCommerce visit the designer's data page for an instructional exercise on that module.

PAID PATH: CURATE PRODUCTS FROM AMAZON

Many affiliate advertisers concentrate exclusively on advancing Amazon affiliate items in their store on the grounds that the brand acknowledgment helps in visit to deal transformation. While you can utilize the freeway I delineated above to make an Amazon just store, there's a decent lot of manual work included, particularly in case you're wanting to clergyman bunches of items.

The paid way underneath uses a reasonable $30 module that enables you to include Amazon items in mass, turn item depictions to dodge punishment from web crawlers and a great deal more.

Here's the procedure included:

Step 1: Install the WooCommerce module on your WordPress site and take after the basic well-ordered wizard to finish setup.

Step 2: Purchase and introduce the Woozone WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates WordPress module.

Step 3: Next you have to arrange the WooZone module with your Amazon account points of interest (counting your Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, and Affiliate ID) by going to Woozone >> Configuration >> Amazon Config.

Step 4: To begin adding items to your store, enter your catchphrases in the convenient Bulk Import highlight (found at Woozone >> Import Products >> Advanced hunt) to get a rundown of accessible items. From that point, essentially utilize the checkboxes on the left hand side to clergyman your items.

Step 5: Congrats! Presently your WooCommerce store is populated with huge amounts of Amazon affiliate items.

The advantage of utilizing WooCommerce to make your affiliate store is whether you ever choose to offer your own items, you can include them into your store without extra modules or stages.

5 Success Tips For Your Affiliate Store

Since you realize what an affiliate store is and how to make one, I'd get a kick out of the chance to share 5 hints to make your store a win:

1. Pick a Niche or Customer Type

To guarantee your affiliate store emerges, it's imperative to minister a firm arrangement of items.

To do this, pick a specialty (i.e. wellbeing sustenance, child's attire) or client sort (i.e. yoga devotees, outdoorsy men) to base your store on. Attempt to pick something that covers with your own particular advantages or interests so you can genuinely share why your store matters to potential clients.

2. Imbue Your Store with Personality

It's imperative you assemble trust with your guests, regardless of the possibility that you'll, in the end, be sending them off to different retailers to make a buy. One simple approach to do this is by mixing your store with identity – your identity to be correct.

To do this, make a statement of purpose that passes on how your business came to be and why it is important to potential clients. You can make a considerably more profound association by consolidating your own story and photograph at whatever point conceivable.

For instance, on the off chance that you were overweight your whole life lastly got fit because of a large number of the wellness items in your store, that makes a convincing individual story you'll need to highlight vigorously on your site.

3. Be Up Front About the Affiliate Relationship

Certain affiliate store proprietors think they'll get more commissions in the event that they conceal their affiliate connections from site guests – either by covering divulgence explanations in darken puts on their site or excluding them by any stretch of the imagination.

There are a few reasons not to do this, including:

It's illegal and you could be liable to soak fines if the FTC gets you.

You could be denied endorsement to an affiliate program if an affiliate chief doesn't see legitimate divulgences while inspecting your application.

You could be kicked out of an affiliate program if an affiliate administrator doesn't see legitimate exposures while doing a consistency check.

Adroit customers who know your site is an affiliate store will believe you less in light of the fact that they don't see legitimate exposures.

One final thing to consider: regardless of the possibility that your item postings point to legitimate retailers, guests may be befuddled or go ballistic when they're sent to different locales when attempting to buy your curated items. By being forthright about your affiliate relationship and how the site functions, you'll increment trust and expel any questions they have about shopping with you.

4. Wipe out Conversion Killers

To wind up plainly painful, your store needs to effectively guide guests from your item pages to various retailer destinations utilizing your affiliate joins. That is the reason it's basic that you wipe out non-significant outbound connections and different diversions that reason guests to leave or drop off. A few cases include:

Connections to different sites

Telephone numbers

Standards or advertisements

Non-affiliate gadgets

While certain outer connections are fundamental, similar to those setting off to your online networking accounts, consider limiting their position to your footer to keep guests on your web page longer.

5. Make High-Quality Content

There are two incredible advantages to making fantastic substance for your affiliate store through blogging and getting dynamic via web-based networking media.

One, it'll direct people to your store, which is important to acquire affiliate commissions.

Second, some affiliate administrators search for certain online networking accounts or a dynamic blog before favoring new affiliate applications.

Top Brands For Your Affiliate Store

In case you're not inspired by adopting the Amazon just strategy, there are numerous other affiliate programs you can incorporate into your affiliate store.

Here are 25 affiliate programs by unmistakable brands to consider:

Apparel, JEWELRY, and ACCESSORIES

Reebok – 7% for each deal, 30-day treat

NET-A-PORTER – 6% for each deal, 30-day treat

Target – 4-8% for each deal, 7-day treat

Kiyonna – 8% for each deal, 60-day treat

ModCloth – 7% for each deal, 45-day treat

Lease the Runway – 7% for each deal, 30-day treat

Nourishment and BEVERAGE

Sunfood – 10-20% for each deal

Vega – 8-15% for each deal, 60-day treat

Nuts.com – 8% for each deal, 30-day treat

2 Good 2 Be – 8% for each deal

Plonk Wine Club – Up to 40% for each deal

Gourmet Food Store – 10% for each deal, 60-day treat

Coordinate Eats – 5% for each deal, 90-day treat

Kids and TOYS

Gymboree – 8% for each deal, 30-day treat

Place Me In That Story – 10% for each deal, 45-day treat

Child Cubby – 4-8% for every deal

The Honest Company – 5% for each deal

Kiwi Crate – $10-$20 per membership/15% for each deal, 30-day treat

Kidorable – 10% for each deal, 90-day treat

Peppercorn Kids – 10% for each deal, 90-day treat

Hardware and GADGETS

All Battery – 15% for each deal

TigerDirect – Up to 3% for each deal

iTunes – 2.5-7% for each deal, 24-hour treat

Newegg – Up to 2.5% for each deal

Best Buy – 1% for each deal

Conclusion:

Beginning an affiliate store is an ease other option to making a conventional web-based business store. Simply make sure to treat your store like a genuine business by picking a specialty, upgrading your site and marketing your store to forthcoming clients. All things considered, the more activity you can send to retailers, the more commission you'll win.

#affiliate store #shopify #Amazon #azon

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