#because people need a reward for donating which is so annoying but whatever it takes

[krahka]

The KleskizhAUs and their Poetic Styles

Under read more because lomg

SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous Sith Juggernaut. Excessively proud of his Sith ancestry but also ridiculously light side and somehow doesn’t see this as a problem. Loves lightsabers, loves the Empire but is a little less clear on whether he likes the Empire as an institution or the Empire as the people, and hint, it’s the people, he’ll pick the people if he had to.

Poetry: ALL CAPS HAIKUS FREE VERSE ASTRONOMY METAPHORS EXTREMELY VIOLENT REFERENCES TO ANCIENT SITH HISTORY BEAUTIFUL WORDS BEATEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIS HEART OF DARK PASSION

DS!SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous and awful Sith Juggernaut. Believes himself morally and genetically superior to all others. Delights in toying with his inferiors, especially in breaking their hearts with his charm and facade of kindness. 

Poetry: Flowery and romantic and flattering. More or less copies of ancient Sith poems, but with the words changed a bit. They’re mostly for showing off how cultured he is and how much he loves you babe, so he doesn’t put in much effort. 

ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage. A scion of the Direnni but not on great terms with his family due to his allegiance to the Aldmeri Dominion and his marrying a Bosmer because of Spinner shenanigans. Ambassador of the Queen and definitely not one of her Eyes nosir. Got pressganged into the Buoyant Armigers after impressing Vivec by exemplifying all of hir favorite virtues and vices just by accident.

Poetry: Sonnets. Ballads. Sexually explicit but it’s so purple that you can hardly tell just how sexually explicit it really is. Mostly about his own adventures and the people he knows. Melodramatic as fuck. The stuff he wrote when Vivec specifically was taking an interest in him is his best work, since he starts getting more experimental and tones down the silliness without losing that red hot emotional core that really elevates the verse to something that so many people try and fail to replicate in the future that it’s become its own genre. 

DS!ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage what dabbles in necromancy. Believes himself the rightful king of all of High Rock with the Bretons as his rebellious subjects. Allied with Mannimarco because he promised him that when Planemeld happened, he could have his ancestral holdings all to himself, with all the people there living only to glorify him. The kinda guy you end up killing in the Daggerfall Covenant quests or in a Balfiera focused dungeon DLC. 

Poetry: Pretty similar to light side ESO!Kleskizhae, but if he thinks you didn’t appreciate his work he’ll torture you until you do. Try and critique it and he’ll just plain murder you and raise your corpse to grovel for his forgiveness and admit that you were wrong. Also his poetry is his annoying boss mechanic somehow. Didn’t read the books in his dungeon? Too bad because that’s how you defeat him. 

GW2 Klejskizae

Norn Herald. Skald, champion of Wolf, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers. A Delight unto all people of Tyria! Your new best friend who is not using your friendship with him to learn your secrets! Come and listen to him channel the spirits and the Legends next Dragon Bash!

Poetry: Actually more into prose. Veddas. Stories about heroes, exaggerated for effect. Tales that he keeps in his mind that he tells differently each time he’s asked to tell it, depending on what he thinks his audience needs to hear. The poetry tends to be more personal, often taking the form of prayers to the Spirits that are between him and them. Also will write songs, also about heroes, with calls to action for the Pact. 

TES!Specifically Klejskizae

Nord Skaald. Traveling yeller. Delighter of audiences all throughout Tamriel. Follower of the Old Ways. Probably also in the Blades. 

Poetry: SCREAMING TAVERN SONGS. Great heroes, sometimes gets kicked out of taverns in Skyrim because he’s performing songs about non-Nord heroes but how can you not be excited by EVERYONE

SWTOR!Specifically Klejskizae

Mandalorian what will scream battle poems in your ear as he faces you in glorious hand to hand combat. Has some very weird ideas of what being Mandalorian is, but they’re closer to reality than his Sith version’s ideas of being Sith. 

Poetry: You thought Sith Kleskizhae’s poetry was gory and violent? You haven’t heard Mando Klejskizae. They are ridiculous. Everything ends with lovers embracing for the last time as they die in battle and their death is described in excruciating detail.

FFXIV Kleskizhae

Ishgardian adventurer. Dragoony Bard. Got kicked out for being way too scandalous for the theocracy and for talking too much about how he thought that maybe we should just smooch the Dragons? 

Poetry: The poetry isn’t why he’s not liked back in Ishgard, though that poetry was a means to transmit his unpopular and scandalous ideas and activities. The poetry specifically is why he’s distrusted in Gridania after he met an elemental and challenged it to a rap battle and it went very poorly. (Kleskizhae won and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or that that’s not the point and there is no winning because he definitely won)

West Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sort of into the whole BoS thing of keeping dangerous tech out of people’s hands but also he’s into protecting people in any way he can, since they must protect those who will inherit the past, yes? That is what we’re doing, right? Right?

Poetry: He found a book of poems about Arthurian legends and they changed his life, as did Grognak the Barbarian which he’s sure is in the same canon. He’s also read a bunch of Shakespeare and only sort of understands it. So yeah, sonnets that are Shakespeare ripoffs. Casting modern topics into medieval terms. Sometimes it’ll get weird and his BoS worldview will come in and make them anachronistic but it’s unintentional because he just wants to write like the knights of yore. 

East Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Enclave soldier, later deserter once he sees that oh shit killing everyone wasn’t supposed to be what they were going to do! He wasn’t listening to the quiet part! Ends up aiding synths because it pisses off the BoS and also saves lives. Still believes in America but it’s one that maybe never existed. 

Poetry: The Enclave did preserve a lot of good American literature in their databanks, though they’re kinda sketchy about distributing it to their soldiers since even before 2077 they realized that a lot of the American canon contains like, anti-war, anti-corporate ideas and they couldn’t have that in their new society. He read Leaves of Grass once and it blew his mind. He might just surrender to the Brotherhood if they let him have access to their books, because he needs those. But also he might not because they would probably kill him and he’s also spending his post-Raven Rock time helping synths out of the Institute and that’s something they’d kill him for. And probably also kill a lot of other people if they realized that the Railroad had ex-Enclave in there. And the Institute doesn’t care for the humanities, which is why they had to create machines to teach them how to be human and then proceed to do such terrible things to the humans they’ve created; because they are less machine than they are and they resent them for it. 

Modern Vlogger Klaus K. Zheng

Relationship advice vlogger, specifically as a counter-voice to all those shitty misogynist PUAs that are targeting lonely straight men. Also here for the lonely women and the lonely queers since he’s a queer man himself. 

Poetry: He’s got a Master’s in Poetry and he feels it was time well spent, even if he didn’t care as much for academia as he did for the writing and the reading. One of the rewards for donating to his Patreon at a higher tier is a short poem written just for you about whatever subject you wish. (Assuming that it’s not extremely objectionable. He’ll gladly write poems about all sorts of sex acts, but he won’t write one about the virtues of white power.)

HZD Kleskizhae

Carja Warrior. Participated in the Red Raids because that was what the will of the Sun was but he couldn’t take the violence and the genocide and ended up joining with Sun-Prince Avad to overthrow the murderous king literally as soon as he could. Has been on a tour of goodwill ever since. 

Poetry: Overuses the words “glinting”, “scintillating”, “resplendent”, “radiant”, “brilliant” and other words that mean A LOT OF LIGHT because he’s really into writing ridiculous songs about the Sun. A lot more personal and emotional than a lot of Carja poetry, since it’s more about love than about praising the Sun or the King. It’s a new dawn, and what the world needs is love’s shining rays to heal her wounds. With the help of some Oseram who wanted to promote the newly invented phonograph, manages to become the first real pop star after the apocalypse.

DA Kleskizhae

Tevinter Battlemage. Was sent off to the front lines against the Qunari to keep from embarrassing his family and his master. Accidentally ended up embarrassing them anyway. 

Poetry: So he’s really into bringing up the Old Gods in his poems. He doesn’t worship them, he’s a good Andrastian, but you know how in the Renaissance everyone was a huge Greeceaboo? Yeah, it’s like that. 

WtA Klaus K. Zheng

Fianna Galliard. He’s a werewolf poet who sings ballads of his pack’s glorious battles and lifts their spirits in the name of Gaia and Stag!

Poetry: He’s got a soft spot for dirty limericks. All of the Kleskizhaes will make improv poems upon request when they’re drunk enough but Fianna!Klaus is the master of the drunken on-the-spot poem. Like they get way better when he’s drunk and they’re improvised, as opposed to the usual thing where they’re charmingly bad.

VtM Klaus K. Zheng

Toreador. Got the vampire bug some time in the Victorian era, I dunno if he was actually British or what.

Poetry: Lord Byron himself once called his poems “a bit maudlin.” His sire was certainly fond of his work, but if he had more time in his peak living creative years he would have probably been a better known figure in the Romantic movement. As it is he’s fairly irrelevant and forgotten by all but a few intense scholars of the period, and even they consider him a minor figure. 

Shadowrun Klaus K. Zheng

Elven Street Samurai. Just wants to make the world a better place through the power of love and also katanas. Probably unfortunately involved with Aztechnology which is gonna end badly for him probably. 

Poetry: Machines and corporations have not yet conquered the metahuman soul, and that is why he writes. Has been banned from a couple of Runner BBSs for constantly posting about his latest runs in the form of epic poem, and that’s not what these boards are for, @GLORIOUSSAMURAI, please turn off your caps lock

Star Trek Kleskizhae

Romulan Tactical Officer. Fought in the Dominion War, joined the Romulan Republic after Romulus asplode, because they wouldn’t let him quietly desert and because he believes in the true Romulan spirit that can never be repressed!

Poetry: He’s trying to revive ancient pre-Awakening Vulcan poetic traditions whilst failing to recognize that lots of it doesn’t work in the modern Romulan language. He’s always been super into poetry but after the destruction of Romulus, he becomes obsessed with writing the perfect series of poems to describe it for the future, so that people will remember what it’s like long after everyone who remembers it is dead. He hasn’t been successful yet and it’s upsetting him but he can’t just not do it. He owes it to the dead. 

Bionicle Kleskizhae

He's a proud Skakdi warlord of Fire who is trying his best to unite his proud and noble people against the wicked deprivations of the Makuta and might also be in the Order of Mata Nui because sometimes Kleskizhae is a spy? But always he is very loud. 

Poetry: Extremely long and elaborate war chants with 40 verses that he’s trying to get his guys to chant into battle but no one else but him can remember it all and he keeps adding more verses. But also he’s written love poetry that’s gone all the way around Greg and made romance canon again! He’s done it! With the chiseling of the tablets he’s made love real!

[gaslightgallows]

Spooptober Housekeeping

(cross-posted from Patreon)

Sorry, October Housekeeping. My husband won’t stop adding “spoop—” as a prefix to everything – he’s even using it as a verb now – and it’s infected me.

Anyway. There’s been a lot going on this month.

Master Vogelspinner (NaNoWriMo 2019 project)

1) To my personal astonishment, the NaNo prep reading is going very well! I’ve finished THREE of the six books I want to read before November: The Bloody Chamber, White as Milk, Red as Blood, and From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. I'm definitely not going to get through the rest by the end of next week but I think I'm at least going to finish the ones I've never read before!

Next on the list is Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente. I’m a little nervous about this one. I’ve started this book three times and only ever make it about halfway through before I am overcome by her command of language and imagery. Valente’s writing makes me despair of my own… which isn’t fair, either to her or to me, so Attempt #4 it is.

2) After a year of working on this book, I’m delighted to announce that I finally know what the plot is. That’s the plot, mind you, not the story. I’ve always known what the story is. The story’s the part that comes from the characters. The plot is what’s happening around the characters and what they are reacting to, i.e., the problem. I also now know what the overall theme is: the modernization of death care and the shift from taking care of the dead at home to having professionals to deal with them.

This realization on my part ended up being… unfortunately, very topical.

Sad Family Stuff

While Brian and I were on vacation in New Hampshire last week, we received word that his father had passed away in Texas. A neighbor has paid for the funeral services out-of-pocket, and we’re now working on raising funds to reimburse this very kind man, because he did not need to do that, but he did and that, that’s a Good Damn Neighbor right there. And we’d like to repay him.

Thanks to a number of very generous and deeply-beloved friends, as of this writing, we’re a little over halfway to our goal of $731. If anyone would like to/is able to contribute to these efforts, you may donate directly at paypal.me/eroivas, or you can purchase something from Brian’s Redbubble store (since I still don’t have any of my own merch).

We'll be closing our call for donations on Sunday, 10/27. Any proceeds in excess of the funeral expenses will be sent to Brian’s stepmother.

Annoying Patreon Stuff

Continuing on the delicate and uncomfortable subject of funds, I’ve noticed one or two patrons whose payments were declined last month. Folks, Patreon is a useful service but it doesn’t love any of us, not really, so please remember to check your accounts regularly to make sure you’re still supporting the people you want to support.

I’ve also had a few people recently who needed to reduce or cancel their patronage altogether, and to those people, I would just like to say: I’m sorry to see you go but I completely respect whatever reasons you had for leaving – or, in the case of reduced payments, thank you for sticking around in spite of whatever caused you to change your subscription amount!

Because while I do love money, I value your presence and encouragement far more. Thank you for continuing to support me.

…However.

The Lavender video

Due to these changes, I’m now once again $8/month shy of my first Patreon goal, a video about the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend of Ramapo, New York, which I just barely reached a couple of months ago. I’ve talked with my camera guy (i.e., Brian) and because we’ve already started the preliminary work, we’re going to go ahead with the project. But there’s still other stuff we’d like to do that won’t happen until we can cross that goal. So, if you’re able, please consider supporting me. Or supporting him! He also has a Patreon! It’s full of graveyards! And cosplay! And sometimes naked people!

In the meantime, I’m working on the script, he’s working on getting the equipment together, we’re both working on learning how to edit (Beware, patrons, for you may well be subjected to my terrible bumbling practice videos.), and we’ll be shooting some location footage at the relevant cemetery and street, shortly after Thanksgiving.

Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum

Let’s see, what else… Randomly-Generated Fiction installments will return in December. For the rest of this month and next, they’re being replaced by further chapters of The Egg of the Damned, the regrettable not-quite-a-novella I wrote in high school and am currently in the presence of retyping and rewriting so that I can make it 100% less racist (seriously, 17 y/o me, what the hell) and 3000% more queer.

I’d love to have it done and ready for publishing by April but I’m afraid that might be just a tad unrealistic.

And lastly – I’m thinking about going back to having reward tiers. Just having a single tier hasn’t encouraged people nearly as much as I’d hoped, so it seems I have to make more offerings unto ye readers.

So what would you like? I’m open to suggestions. Like, wide open. ‘Where are your manners, were you brought up in a barn?!’ kinda open. Stickers? Monthly postcards? The chance to prompt a short story? A cameo in a novel? Dev editing? (Fair warning, that would be a higher tier.) A Discord for discussion? I do not understand the Discord but if y’all want one I will learn to Discord.

Related: ever since I started this Patreon, I’ve been talking about eventually having merchandise of some sort for sale… but idefk how to merch. What do you want? What tickles your fancy?

Let me know in the comments on the post, or reach out to me on Twitter or at my author Tumblr @aflinley​ (yes, I have an author Tumblr, yes, it’s neglected) or, hell, email me at aprilflinley@gmail.com.

I want to knooooooooooow!

[jaimistoryteller]

Anon Answer

[ID: two anon questions: hi, saw you were looking to purchase a building through crowdfunding, and I was wondering why you didn’t just try to get a small business loan instead? it’s pretty selfish to use others’ money to fund your business without giving anything back. . . and no, a place where they can continue to throw money at you is not giving back to the community]

So, Anon, rather then post both of them, I just took a screen shot. Now I am going to gather that you are one of two types of people. 

Type 1. a flaming asshole troll who likes to cause shit, at which point you can go to hell in a handbasket. 

or

Type 2: someone who is too lazy to through my history. 

I’d like to say you were Type 3: someone who missed my general update, didn’t actually read the GFM page (because OMG one of the questions I answered in it is: who does it benefit besides me?), and was asking out of curiosity, but alas the fact both came from the same IP address according to when I blocked you it said I already had with the second, and the tone in the second, I’m going to politely tell you to Fuck Off. 

Now for others who might be wondering why, I will recap the last decade of my life plus my last update.

I was in a car accident, I now have permanent nerve damage, some days I can walk fine, other days not so much. But what about a wheel chair for those days you can’t walk? That’d be great, if I A. could use it with my house (I have steps between my room and the rest of my house, not counting the door to outside with even more steps) and B. if my hall was wide enough. So not a thing. Then there is the fact on those days all I can do is curl in bed and try not to cry from the pain, it’s something I wouldn’t wish on 99% of the world (I’m leaving space open for those people who really deserve pain, like mass murderers and what not). 

I tried working for three years following the accident, that just made things worse. I mean a lot worse. I stopped eating most the time, had a tricky time bathing, was in and out of the hospital for falling related injuries. It wasn’t good. 

So I decided, I tried the adult thing, I tried to work through the pain, even though all that did is make my pain worse and caused more physical damage, it didn’t do it. Let’s try applying for disability. 5 years worth of paperwork and court, just to have a panel of perfectly healthy judges tell me “You have a disability, we don’t think you are disabled enough to qualify for disability however.” 

Yep, they said that. I even took it to my therapist (yeah, I see one twice a month for depression, to go with the physical disability, I have annoying brain chemistry), and asked him to read it to make sure I wasn’t misreading. I wasn’t. 

Right. Well, I do commissions and ghost writing, but there are a lot of people who do both. Some months it pays the bills, others not so much. Then there are the months where things go wrong. I mean massively wrong. Like when I had to ask for help catching up the bills because I had spent 4 months sick and fell way behind, or when Sota got ill. 

I also sell my book Tales of Identity: Memories & Reflections.

Okay then. So, I haven’t been able to find a job in the area I can physically do, I can’t afford to move, I can’t travel to bigger cities because how would I get there and back since the pain would make it impossible to work or I would work and the pain would make it impossible to drive, but this living on commissions, ghost writing, and book sales in between working on my books isn’t providing enough money to survive healthily. 

So I did what I do, I went into figure-this-shit-out mode. The answer? Open a business of my own. Sweet! Except, I haven’t worked in 7 years, my credit is in the shit, and I have no one I can turn to as a cosigner. Well fuck. Now what? 

Oh! I know! GoFundMe and KickStarter! 

As I had used GFM before, it was the easier one to set up, so I set it up and began the sharing process. Do I expect to actually raise all the money on there? No, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. I am working on the KickStarter, but it’s a lot more detailed and takes more time to set up. Particularly when other things keep going wrong. 

If anon didn’t want to donate to GFM, they could have waited for the KS since that comes with various rewards based on money amount.

Now then, back to the anon’s question of who else benefits.

Well because of my disabilities, I included in the amount of money I am trying to raise, the money for a person to work there to do the lifting, stocking, and moving of stuff. That gives at least one person a full time job. If it works out the way I think it will, there will actually be three other people besides me working there, so that’s three people with full time jobs. Who will be able to pay bills and spend money in the community.

Then there is the fact I said an Indie Bookstore. Wait, why is Indie bold? Because my in pain self would like to point out that indie authors only get paid when their books are bought. Now with a traditional book store the book store goes to the publisher and says “I would like these books” and in a lot of cases they are fronted, aka the author gets nothing till they leave the shelf. In the case of an Indie Bookstore, at least with the ones I was talking to owners of, the owner buys the book, so the author gets the money then, and then it’s on the owner whether they sell or not. If the book does well, more of that book is bought. So, that gives any Indie Authors I know about (and yeah, I will be doing a call for indie authors to stock up on y’all’s books because lets support each other) at least a little bit of money. 

Then there is number three, if I am no longer having to ask for money because I have a stable or reliable source of income I can give back to the community by helping others. What a concept, if not needing help, can actually help other people. 

Which leads to number four, I also said market. Right now the farm market peeps are in whatever space comes open that week, which means their sales are not persistent because who knows where they will be. It will give them a place to sell their stuff from. But wait! There’s more, rather then having only one day a week they can sell stuff, they will have the option of ‘renting’ an area to sell stuff every day. So, it’s like they almost have a way to make a little extra money. Geez, what a concept. 

I apologize for the overwhelming snark and I appreciate each and every one of you people who have helped me in any way. You all are awesome, I hope you have a good day. 

GoFundMe for Cosmos Market - Indie Boostore, Arts & Crafts Market

[row-writes]

FE Echoes: My travel into Thabes (Spoilers)

I documented my progress into the Echoes post-game because a few friends were very interested in my reaction and thoughts, so here we go!

The fact that Fire Emblem Echoes turned out to have post-game content made this game in the series even more lovable to me, and a good friend of mine really wanted me to document the journey as I go, hence why I’m writing down my experience for the very first time. So without further ado, let’s head off into the oceans to Archanea and drop off this old lady. I just want to note how AWESOME I think it is that we’re heading to Archanea? In the past I often considered how cool it would be for the people of one continent to visit another, so the idea is very exciting to me especially because it’s one of my favorite FE continents. Combined with the ties to Archanea that some of the characters in Echoes have, I’m glad they decided to go for it. And I’m not even on shore yet, haha. Alright, so I’m a doofus and hardly made any screencaps of the first few battles on sea, but they were pretty straightforward to me. Except for the last one with the Blue Dragons, and the other terrors constantly pouring in as reinforcements. My attacking units were fine, but it was Genny and Tatiana that were often targeted by the reinforcements because there’s so little ‘safe’ spaces on this boat. You’re literally always surrounded in the first few turns.

So after restarting a couple of times, in which I also put the game down for a while to get a fresh view on it- I finally managed to get through. Though I have the help of Mila’s Turnwheel to thank the victory to. With the dragons and terrors now gone from our route, we finally reach the Archanean coast and arrive at the continent in a small village. There we drop off the old lady, who is the reason we’re here in the first place (though my responsibility for accepting, haha) We get our reward, and what do we do next? Well, after forging and upgrading some weapons, we don’t head back to Valentia- we go straight ahead into Archanean territory. Because there’s one last place we haven’t been yet, and that’s the Tabes Labyrinth. While I know something great awaits me there, it doesn’t ease down my excitement to explore just one bit. In fact, just entering the place and reading the content on the gravestone ahead of me multiplies it even more.

So Thabes originally housed an alchemist called Forneus? Praised for his intelligence, but eventually feared by all. Sounds like the classic ‘knowledge leads to power, power leads to corruption’. Fantastic. I spend another moment in the room just looking at my surroundings. The old dragon statues, which probably aren’t there just for decoration but perhaps hint at something? I sure hope so. I descend the stairs, eager for what is to come. The floor is straightforward. Not much to mention aside bandits, maybe some treasure here and there, but then I reach a room where we need to jump down in order to progress. I get brief Silent Hill 2 vibes before I decide to do so, landing in a room where I’m presented with another stone tablet. So there’s more than one? This continues on each new floor? Somehow this fills me with a sense of dread.

Alright. Sounds like he was utterly committed to his work. Which isn’t anything new, but upon remembering what the first tablet said, I don’t get good vibes in the slightest. With thirst for more of Forneus’s story, I progress on until I reach the next tablet. Wake the dead and controlling them as his army? Oh... that’s... not good.

I think we all know what happens when mankind tries to create a perfect creature. Don’t we? Holy shit, I now get a better imagination of the state many floors down below me.

Well... I’m not surprised. The guy’s absolutely obsessed and mad at this point in his research. Probably used them for his experiments, whatever that might contain for those poor messengers. Maybe he controlled the ‘dead’ messengers as his own soldiers to take out the ones the Council sent? Because I doubt a single Alchemist can take on a bunch of soldiers on his own.

I guess if dragging the Alchemist off doesn’t work, they decided to just keep him locked up forever? While I disagree that it’s the best decision, I understand why they did so. I mean, you gotta do something to keep an obvious madman, who has potential to create a disaster- in check, right?

Oh boy... dragons. Something is beyond here, I just know it.

Is that... the Fire Emblem? That dragon was sure doing me a favor by guarding it to try and keep me out. This confuses me, because it seems to be the one from the Archanea series. So imagine if it is, then... Forneus was locked up after the events of the two games? If not, they’d have to snatch the Emblem off this sealed door to use in their wars and allow Forneus to escape. Anyway, no time for speculation just yet, but... I don’t like the idea of taking the ‘seal’ off this door, because I’m sure shit’s gonna hit the fan as soon as I continue on. At this point, I retreat from the dungeon and get some extra training in for some of my units. Also because I didn’t want to get defeated and lose all of the progress I made so far. So after a while of recollecting myself, I went back in until I reached this door once more and take the Fire Emblem, which turns out to be called the Sage’s Shield- a shield that held something in Thabes at Bay. Oh boy.

A little further ahead, I find another tablet. So we’re only heading into the actual workshop of Forneus NOW? Heaven’s sake, what enemies could be awaiting for me there if everyone before that was considered to be just the base of the cake, so to say.

Descending down to the next floor, I realize soon enough that things have indeed changed. The halls are darker, a really eerie and disturbing yet beautiful tune is now playing. The enemies are different too, much tougher, and carry a lot of annoying poison. I try my best to maneuver around them without getting spotted, but I get ambushed really badly three times. Luckily I managed to make it out of the battles quite OK.

Are the Death Masks what the enemies were wearing on this floor? So the actual components of the masks are mere insects that awaken the dead when introduced to a dead body? So practically they are parasites, hosting themselves in a body and living through them. Very... interesting, but very disturbing to say the least.

UHHH. The last thing this mad genius needs is the blood of a divine dragon?? This relates to his pursuit of creating a singular perfect being, I assume?

OK, so I’m a bit confused. Because it doesn’t make sense that the Senate would grant Forneus what he needs for his experiments after going to such lengths to make to get rid of him in any way possible.

Is Forneus instead hinting at the messengers and soldiers the senators sent? Does he consider them the gifts he needed to ‘craft life anew’? Using their bodies to test the thanatophages on? Considering Forneus has lost it pretty badly, I can see this being a possibility? At this point I’m convinced that the first successful members of his ‘undead’ army were indeed the poor messengers and soldiers that never returned. Either way, he succeeded obtaining one of the two matters that consumed him- the undead soldiers. Not good, man. Now he’s halfway of what he wants, and now has the confidence of knowing that he indeed can pull this off, and that’s what a madman like him shouldn’t get.

Wait. WAIT. Did he give his blood to a thanatophage? I’m going to assume he also gave the thing the blood of the divine dragon that he obtained, or did he have an actual divine dragon locked up from which he tapped the blood? Because I don’t see the Senate donating either of those to Forneus, ever. Really, all I can do is speculate right now. I’ll have to discuss this with other friends after I complete post-game for sure.

Well, you did feed it your own blood, which is part of yourself. If it can get access to Forneus’s mind just via his blood, who is to say that he couldn’t obtain other parts of Forneus, such as his intelligence and madness? And the fact that this thing began to grow.... well, crap. The text is cut off, so is this where Forneus succumbs to either his own madness or the ‘thing’s’ influence, or did it even get control over him? I wouldn’t be surprised if Forneus turned himself into one of his undead soldiers either. Unfortunate that the text cuts off, because I’m going to assume this is the last tablet I’ll find judging by that...

Also, it’s QUIET HERE. The unnerving music is somehow already being missed. At this point my heart is racing, and I feel just like I felt when I first made my way through Mt. Silver in Pokemon Silver as a little girl, which is an amazing thrilling feeling I’ve ever hardly felt since then.

WELL. We all know who that symbol belongs to. This is where Grima originated?? Was Grima the matter  that consumed his mind that Forneus ended up creating? GRIMA IS MAN-MADE?? BY ALCHEMY AND BY ONE MAN??? WHAT.

Oh my God. There he is. I can only allow myself to quietly and slowly approach up the stairs, watching every movement of the beast with great and yet fearful intrigue. 

The beast roars an unearthly sound at me, summoning Dead masked summons on the field. But I have no eye for them, the only thing I can see is this dark beast and the very apparent Grimleal brand painted(?) on the floor? (I do doubt that was just paint, just saying)

The first thing I notice on the lower status screen is his title: The Creation. I guess in a sense, that’s all he was before anyone found him and worshiped him as a God. Yet, amusingly enough, the status ‘God’ is already present. This thing was created to be as powerful as a god by Forneus, what else could you possibly call a perfect singular being? But he was already a fell dragon, because he came from the inspiration of a great mastermind who fell as soon as he decided to pursue his insane and uncomprehending ideals. AND THE TRACK USED FOR THIS? It’s Forbidden Sanctuary from New Mystery of the Emblem. I don’t even need to look it up, it’s one of my favorite tracks from the game and I listen to it a LOT while I go for walks and while drawing. I used to go to church a lot back in the day, but the Pipe Organ has always been such an intriguing instrument there to me, hence why I love this track so much. The fight itself was as expected: lots of random summoned units after taking them out one by one. Baiting The Creation into battle made me notice another thing; He’s small, much smaller than we’ve seen him in... future visions, so to say. Now you can argue this is because it’s the battle model, but it makes sense with the lore we’ve been presented. The Creation obviously would continue to grow until it reached godly size. (And did the Creation always have such a bloated belly?)

After much trouble, I allow Kamui to finish the beast off with a lovely critical hit. I mean, he doesn’t like dragons, right? Especially necrodragons. Well, I figured: Kamui, feast your eyes on this beautiful beast.

Joking aside; after the battle there’s a quote; “The horror has passed. Yet still a foul air lingers, filling this place with a sense of dread...” Upon proceeding, I obtain a Rusted Ring. Immediately, I like to imagine this belonged to Forneus. Before me remains the almost glowingly red mark of the Grimleal on the floor. It, together with the quote after beating the creation makes it more than clear that the beast and Forneus’ intentions are not gone. Just into slumber, or waiting once more. I think we all know that.

Further ahead a new glowing mark presents itself; the familiar brand of the Exalt. While I understand the reference and the ties it represent, it confuses me. Why is it here? And I’ve yet to come up with anything to explain it’s presence. Standing on it, it teleports me out of the labyrinth, and away from the horrors and tainted creature I’ve witnessed there. Almost like nothing happened in the rest of the continent while we’ve been exploring down there. Almost unsettling so, because nobody does know of the beast’s existence except for the select group of people who confronted it. I’m sure the Senate expected horrible things to come from this madman, but if only they actually knew what was hiding down here, many and MANY floors underneath the desert sand. Probably growing in silence, growing stronger gradually. And the sheer power of this creature in the far future, judging by the events of Awakening. Or they were more than aware, and then the decision of locking Forneus up in his workplace might’ve not been just for the sake of the man, but rather for whatever the man would spawn in his tainted experiments. That said. Holy. Shit. THIS.... answers questions I’ve had involving Grima ever since Awakening. And holy crap, I did NOT expect this kind of lore to be behind him. To be created by one man and to grow into one of the most feared Dragons in Fire Emblem tales? That’s literally unheard of in FE lore, up until this point. My opinion? I loved the HECK out of this! Many people ask why they even included Grima’s backstory in a game that’s not revolving around the events of Awakening- but I LOVE that they did this, because you didn’t expect this at all? I love that they did postgame content like this to begin with, because I don’t think they did it before like this, ever??? And if you think about it, MORE things about the FE lore could be explained like this. I LOVED Echoes as it is, but I think with this... it might just have to be my favorite Fire Emblem game of all time. As much as PoR and RD will forever be personal favorites, I just have to acknowledge that Echoes is currently my absolute favorite FE game. What a FREAKING journey. Wow! Also, just a personal note that I found incredibly amusing and coincidental: Back in October 2016, I wanted to draw some FE Final dragon bosses for the Inktober challenge. Out of ALL the dragons I had to pick from, and picking a few was rather tough because I wanted to draw them all- I decided to go only with Duma, and Grima. ...Both Duma and Grima are in Echoes. A game I never knew I’d play as I was drawing these dragons, but while drawing Duma I so badly wished there’d be a remake of Gaiden, but realized it probably wasn’t ever going to happen. Yet, here we are. A friend of mine made a joke; “Row, you subconsciously predicted both final bosses of the game.” Not just that: as mentioned earlier, the track Forbidden Sanctuary is one of my all time favorite FE tracks, so I listen to it a lot. I also listened to it whilst drawing Grima back in October, because that’s when I just moved the entire OST to my mp3 and couldn’t wait to listen to it. That’s WHEN I realized how much I loved this track. Seriously though. What are the odds of that? It’s almost... weird. Fire Emblem is great.

[mikazukikannagisjourney]

Last Chance to Make New Year’s Resolutions Come to Fruition: Spring Equinox Message!

Abstract: Spring Equinox this year also coincides with the coming of Aries season and the astrological new year. Thus, making new beginnings and commitments have much more momentum right now. Make the changes you wanted in your life, the universe supports your goal!

With all the crazy and chaotic energies happening in the world, don’t we all want our lives to move forward? Yes, it can be quite frustrating to be stuck somewhere all day, especially when we have been used to having a lot of activities outside. But instead of thinking that cabin fever sucks, why not use this chance to make lasting changes? Especially with the Spring Equinox coming tomorrow, March 20, 2020 (equal day and night time that signals the move towards spring and summer), this is a great opportunity to make and keep new year goals and resolutions that seem to be evasive since the Gregorian year started. And by Gregorian year I mean the start of 2020.

It is also very important to note that not only is tomorrow the earth starts shifting towards longer days and shorter nights here in the Northern Hemisphere, and longer nights and shorter days in the Southern Hemisphere (showering love to everyone through inclusion), but tomorrow also coincides with the beginning of the new Astrological Year as well as Aries season, so that’s quite a double dose of energies that can push forward the major bulldozing and removal of everything that no longer works, relationships that have grown stale, previous ideas and beliefs that feel so alien because these no longer reflect the wonderful person you have grown into, and all the things, material or non-material that have been sucking your high vibrational energies dry and have been causing you so much unnecessary stress. Seriously, despite the disease scare** across the world, getting even more stressed will only affect the immune system even more negatively by reducing the production of White Blood Cells (imagine: Less Macrophage waifus in your body. Or if you like Killer T’s or our good old pal Neutrophil-sempai yeah sure. Lol I love Cells at Work - Hataraku Saibou so yeah, I am doing my best to make things light here) so might as well take precautions on the personal level because that’s the only thing each person can have almost 100% control over.  Other than that, I think this is a great opportunity to revamp our lives in however ways we want. But if you feel like it’s already too late to start anew and go over your January goals...

YOU’RE STILL FINE, LET’S DO IT!! We still have a big push to start this thing!

So ditch the guilt for not starting early enough, you’re gonna be OK because for the next 5 days the Equinox energies are here to help all of us (believers or not) move forward to our new life chapters as well as into the new decade. And it’s a great wave that we can all catch and reap the benefits as well as the rewards from.

But hoooow?

Well, I am glad you asked. What is wonderful about these energies is that aside from helping us move forward with what we want, we can also better align with the higher vibrational versions of our selves aka HIGHEST SELF so that we not only can make personal goals that we absolutely want to happen, but also next-level goals, the divinely-guided ones that can steer us into the person we were supposed to be. These are the goals that can shape and transform us and our inner world. And spoiler alert: these are not all earthly goals. Some of these can be goals that you never expected to even think of dreaming to achieve. So you might wanna think about that too.

Thus the next 5 days starting from the equinox is  a great way to start meditating (if you haven’t already) and asking the universe, source, god, friendly star entities, whoever and whatever you consider your higher power to provide you guidance on what you need to do to grow into the person who shines their light in these dark and tumultuous times. And be open-minded on what answers will pop up. Ponder and meditate on those too. Just feel free to play with whatever you pick up while you meditate: visions; smells; sounds; textures; tastes; the whole gamut of feelings available.

But what if I don’t have any unfulfilled goals right now? I started them all and finished more than half before January ended.

Then you are amazing! Honestly. And what better way to celebrate than making a fresh new inner self, because that part of you that already achieved your goals is for sure wanting to set new ones, maybe more flexible and chillax visions of you. So you still would benefit from getting an inner-self revamp and goal revamping or revisiting.

How to do this?

Also simple. Here are some suggested steps:

List all of your new year goals 

Tick the ones that you accomplished 

Write your feelings when you accomplished them 

See if it’s a goal that can get better through an upgrade (eg. saved x amount of cash. next goal can be save 2x amount of cash), and lastly,

Ask yourself: Is this goal worth upgrading or is it worth making new goals?

If you feel deep within your heart that upleveling your goal is worth it because you know 100% that you’ll feel so happy and fulfilled doing it, then please do, by all means! Any and all forms of growth and development are wonderful, and that’s also going to improve your skills in the long run. Who knows, you can grow into an expert in that field too. So yeah, I support you!

But.. What if a considerable chunk of what you did and accomplished didn’t give you the amount of satisfaction that you were expecting to receive? Or, you felt drained?

Don’t despair, my friend, because all of those activities ARE NOT IN VAIN. These are not a waste of time. Why? Because at the very least, they’re great lessons made especially for you. It just means that your inner self just wants to get more out of life, and you’re starting to yearn for bigger goals. Maybe goals that you haven’t thought of doing yet, or goals that you kept shoving in the back of the oven. Or it is also possible that you just need to expand your comfort zone, or do stuff you haven’t done before but were always chilling at the corner of your mind. It is also possible that you just need to do something new, just to feel alive.

Whatever the case, a breath of fresh air is what the doctor recommends. And you can definitely benefit by harnessing the incoming Equinox energies! Aside from asking the higher dimensional realms for extra guidance and support. I mean, any form of support and cheering is better than none so why not take this chance as well? What is there to lose?

If you’ll ask me, you can only gain newer perspectives. Newer ways of solving things. Newer ways of looking at things. Once you’ve crossed that path, you can only go forward, because neural networks get rewired each time you CHOOSE to change and EMBRACE everything that goes with it. Basically BECOMING the identity instead of just seeing yourself as someone who does things is a better goal because by BECOMING, it becomes who you are as your own personal choice. For me, my personal identity is a life-long learner who learns to improve my personal life and other people’s too. Yeah I got this idea from Vishen Lakhiani, it makes so much sense to me because I was already doing identity shifting even before he coined the term. Fun 13 years that was, and counting. So it’s both borrowed and personal, I couldn’t care any less lol

OK past this point are personal ramblings. You can end your reading here =) Thank you and be blessed always!

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

Of course, changing things just when things are getting settled can be very, very unsettling. For me, even if I am open to changes, it can still get really annoying. I already started going out of my comfort zone as advised by my higher self since November last year, and it’s not as easy as I wanted it to be, because I had to purge so much stuff, more than my body could ever handle. I also started to purge inherited emotions, ideas, patterns, karmas, and all that garbage that I have been holding onto energetically, because aside from not being for my highest good, these things have held me back because deep down, I KNOW that I can do more and be more. I am B-MO lol but really, aren’t we all B-MO? =D

I wish I wasn’t kidding when I kept saying that it wasn’t easy making changes. Honestly, it wasn’t. We’re hardwired to be habitual creatures, it’s in our DNA, and by going against our instincts and relying more on intuition can feel like swimming upstream, up a waterfall. Also, I have a stubborn streak (a Saturnian gift which I am doing my best to be happy with), which can really get in the way of instilling new habits and schedules, especially just implementing a weekly Kundalini meditation to clear off energies and learning new stuff. Another thing that is tripping me up right now is adding my paypal donation link below each post, which is pretty much divinely-guided and right now I am hoping that some magic can happen, one way or another. It felt uncomfortable but I also chose to do it, even if a tiny part of me, the fearful one who wants me to stay in poverty consciousness is guilt-tripping me even until now. If I could just obliterate that part of me so that I can let abundance come in, I will do it in a heartbeat. And right now I am still in that process so wish me luck to succeed.

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Well, this turned out to be longer than I intended it to be. But still, I hope it helps others a lot, even just one person. Of course, if it helps more then the better it is to have this posted. 

One last thing: An Energy-infused photo to support you with the incoming Spring Equinox energies:

If you reached this part of the post, seriously thank you so much. You can have all my hugs, my UwUs, and uhm.. Everything else in between. UwU

Be blessed by the Divine Realm always, and may you become the healing you deserve.

Mikazuki

PS. If you found the information in this post to be very helpful, insightful, and of great value to you and your own personal journey, please feel free to reblog, share and heart/like, or if you feel super-generous, energetic exchanges are welcomed! Please click here and use this email address: may_chan_otaku@yahoo.com 

Thank you so much and be blessed!

More personal rants under the slash lol no need to read unless you want to get triggered lol

----Trigger warnings: ranting--------

**  I personally believe that the “pandemic” is nothing more than a scare tactic instigated by uhm, “you know who” (Voldemort? Sauron? lol) because based on some of the statistics which I have been doing my best to read, the disease only affects susceptible members of the population aka people with weak or compromised immune systems, especially people around the age of 60 years and above. Also I am miffed that many reports kept focusing on number of deaths instead of adding very pertinent info such as total number of cases, demographics of suspected and infected individuals and number of deaths versus total number of cases with full age demographic of the entire population of infected individuals as well as the entire population structure of each country. I am basically saying that a lot of things should be considered before making rational or irrational choices or procedures, because any incomplete info or analysis can affect decision-making and make matters worse. I believe it’s called looking at all options including past events and how these were mitigated and assesing all possible ways to create solutions. Seriously, deciding out of hightened emotions and under fear can create more horrible events. Try deciding from a place of confidence, peace, love, and gobbling a lot of information and regurgitating that information to create BETTER solutions. Sheesh.

As with most of the diseases out there, proper hygiene and personal responsibility are still the most important things each person can do to control ALL COMMUNICABLE DISEASES. And in my own, personal opinion, some other viral and parasitic diseases have more lethal effects because ALL members of the entire population demographic can readily die from it without proper detection and care. Think HIV, Dengue fever, trypanosome diseases, malaria, etc.. Just my two cents on this whole thing. But if you disagree then it’s fine. I still love you OK? I guess I am a lot more passionate than I should be because I love studying epidemiology and pathogens and how these things can be controlled, plus some background on cell signalling and formation of cells helps a lot. I wasn’t kidding when I said I learn and apply what I learned to help myself and other people, that’s a large part of my personal identity. =)

[emarawork2015]

Need To Market Online But Don't Know How? Try These Tips!

By Kelly Erin

Some internet marketers have been operating their businesses since the internet first took off in the mid 1990s, and they still don't know everything there is to know about marketing. That's because we're speaking about business, and business isn't a topic you can ever perfect; it's an ongoing venture. To get started on your journey, check out this article. To attract new customers to your website, you should offer free content and resources. Discussion forums, web videos and helpful guides all can significantly increase the number of visitors your site receives. While not every visitor will become a customer, many will, and your content will encourage them to visit again. During an internet marketing campaign you may run into negative reviewers of your website, product or services. This is human nature and is bound to happen even for the best of the best. Instead of being defensive in response to negative reviews, apologize and ask how you or your company can make it better. This shows other potential customers that you care about them. If the reviewer continues to rant after you apologize, it is better to ignore them even if you wish you could tell them where to stick it! Remember that press releases can be your friends. If you are talking about a new event or product, throw the idea to the media. All forms of media are constantly looking for new things to talk about, and you may just get a huge promotion from simply telling them what you will be doing. To have an internet marketing site that is truly worthwhile, it is important that you are always combating attrition. If you have a potential customer, you must hook them in whatever way possible. If your website is not clean, they may turn away. If your site is not interesting, they may turn away. If your marketing website includes sound, be sure to provide convenient controls for people who are at work or simply prefer a lower volume. Sound can be great for grabbing someone's attention, but if it becomes annoying they may simply browse away from your page and you will lose the customer. An effective way to advertise online is to push your customers to advertise to their friends. This can be done by giving out incentives for services done by consumers such as referrals. A good example is to give bonuses if a customer recommends three people. That way you can have four customers instead of one. If you want to make it big in the internet marketing world, don't be afraid to outsource work. If you can find someone to do what you need to do in less time than it will take you, try it. That will leave you more time and energy to do things you're great at doing, like coming up with new product ideas or testing new marketing strategies. Do spend time and effort finding quality service and content providers and then, invest in paying them enough to make it worth their time, so they have reason to keep working with you, of course. Consider advertising your website on Facebook. Facebook advertising is extremely targeted and relatively inexpensive. One ad campaign on Facebook can dramatically increase the number of people that visit your website and place orders for your products or services. Additionally, Facebook ads generate automatic testimonials when users click on "Likes your Page." If your customers show an interest in charities, donate a portion of your proceeds to one. Clearly advertise this to the visitors, but don't do it excessively. It does not need to be a huge percentage to see additional sales. Try upselling your customers. When they reach an older page on your site, provide them with links to related newer products. This may cause them to add additional items to their orders, as they may see it as a convenient way to save by purchasing related items at the same time. Every market in online business is going to have its peak season, so you need to learn to identify these seasons if you plan to be a successful internet marketer. Some seasons do well while others do little to nothing at all. Figuring out which season is best for your business can definitely be rewarding.

About the Author:

We have already observed how prospecting tips via the web gives a way to get in touch with new customers. It is also valuable for interacting along with your audience. It gives communication among organizations and their prospects in ways in no way before achievable. Use the tips from this short article and develop your technique step by step.

Need To Market Online But Don't Know How? Try These Tips! from 10 first best of http://ift.tt/2tgzgDb via IFTTT

[fesahaawit]

8 Tips for Appreciating What You Have

Hey guys!

I just finished reading a killer article on appreciating what you have over at ExperienceLife.com ( pretty cool site/magazine btw, never heard of before?) and littered throughout it were handfuls of great tips to help you become better at life.

If you read minimalism blogs you may have heard some of these before, but I thought we’d highlight a bunch of them here in case they spark some good brain power.

Let me know if you’ve tried any!

#1. “Pack all of one kind of clothing item in a box — sweaters, shoes, etc. — and for the next month, take out only what you need. After 30 days, consider donating what’s left over.”

Beautiful. I’ve never tried this one on purpose (only in between moves), but from my limited experience it definitely helps sort your “loves” from your “mehs” :) And how awesome would it be to actually love ALL the clothes you put on vs only a % of them?

#2. “Put a week’s worth of clothes in a suitcase, as if you’re going on a trip. Then wear only what you’ve packed for those seven days. See how it feels to work with a smaller wardrobe.”

YES!! And you also find that you don’t even wear all the items you’ve packed either, at least if you’re an overpacker like me :) I swear I never wear 30% of the stuff I bring, yet I continue to pack them up every dang time… Still, there’s always that “freeing” feeling that anything you need for the next X days is right there in your suitcase for you. Which also helps you get dressed faster too! Less options = more speed.

(On an un-related note, I’ve started combining different parts of my clothes into “themes” in my closet, which has made quite the difference every time I get dressed  now. Instead of separating out all my t-shirts and socks and boxers in their respective areas, I now clump them up into two different sections – the clothes I need for the morning, and the clothes I need at night.

For example, in the mornings I need socks, t-shirts, and jeans, so I put them all together in one spot making it easier to grab and match up. Then in the evenings, when I take a shower and need to get my pjs on, I head straight for the “night section” which now includes the other piles of shirts and pants and socks (different from those above), as well as the new home for all my boxers.

So basically any time I need to get dressed now, I just head straight to the respective section and avoid having to sort through double the clothes to find what I’m looking for. It’s not life-changing stuff, but I gotta say – it’s certainly making my mornings and evenings more pleasant! Who knew mashing things up would actually be better for efficiency? :))

#3. “Make nonspending into a game. How many days can you go without buying clothes, nonessential trinkets, or little “rewards” for yourself? When you do buy something, start over the next day and see if you can beat your record.”

Agree 100%!! This has been one of the BEST things I’ve done for my money by far since paying attention to it all (the other being tracking my net worth every month). I lasted 40 days in a row the first time I tried this, and it completely shifted my mindset going forward as well as my wallet. I’ve since cut out 90% of my mindless shopping, and probably save about $200 a month now. I’ve never tried to beat the 40 day record, but maybe that’s the next challenge? :)

#4. “After your next grocery trip, see how long you can go without buying food again. You’ll be surprised how creative you can be with leftovers. Plus, it trains you to use what you have and reduce food waste.”

This one’s the scariest of them all, haha… Perhaps I’m too picky or just a big ol’ wuss (or both?) but my lack of culinary skills and desire here would fail me pretty big. There would literally need to be a cash prize or trophy or something at the end to push me to want to try this as I’d probably end up eating the leftover baby food if put to the test, haha… Though I here it’s pretty tasty?

#5. “Before you walk into a store, make a list, or stop and ask yourself exactly what you’re going to buy. Then make a beeline for those items and head to the cashier.”

If only!!! Target would go out of business! ;) But yes – hell of a good habit to get into if you can pull it off. (Maybe a better challenge is to just pick out *3* extra items anytime you ever go anywhere?). I will say this though – going shopping while hungry and going shopping while not are two compleeeeeeetely different experiences. Don’t dare set foot in a grocery store before you’ve eaten!

#6. “Look around one room in your home. If you were to suffer a natural disaster and lose everything you see, what would you miss? Would you feel relieved if certain items were lost?”

I TALK ABOUT THIS ALL THE TIME!! Such a great – and fast – way to put things in perspective. My wife and kids might say differently, but outside my coin collection I personally wouldn’t miss much (though it would be rather annoying having to replace all the stuff you do need!). We posted about this the other year and it was pretty interesting to see peoples’ responses… Let me see if I can find it real quick..

Ahh, here we go! “It’s Your Own Fault You Own Expensive Stuff” It’s actually a bit different now that I read it again, haha, but still along the same lines of seeing how you’d react in a situation where your stuff gets taken away…  Good mental exercise to go through for sure.

#7. “Whatever object you see first when you glance away from reading this, keep looking at it for 30 seconds. Try to view it as if you’ve never seen it before. Notice the detail, the color, the shape. This meditation technique trains your brain to focus on one thing at a time — and appreciate what you’re seeing.”

*Goes to stare as his coffee cup*

*Sees how pretty all the leaves are on it and the neat little mermaid logo staring back at me*

*Now getting thirstier and thirstier and just want to dump it all down my throat!!*

*10 more seconds to go in this experiment, ack…..*

*Ahhh, that’s the good stuff…. *gulp gulp gulp* … Thanks for keeping my cocaine caffeine warm coffee cup!*

#8. “Track the moments of your day in a journal: what you eat, read, work on, drink, even daydream about. Just jot down a couple of short sentences about each. Then read them a few days later. You might be surprised to find how many moments you don’t recall because you were operating on autopilot.”

Totally. I used to do this every morning during the first year of the Benjamin Franklin Experiment and loved flipping back through the pages to remember what transpired just a few days before. It really is amazing how many of the details you forget. Probably good for the bad parts, but not so much for the joys in life! Haha…

It can also do wonders for your finances too, btw – if you swap out “moments” with “expenses”. Check out our friend Cait’s Mindful Budgeting Planner which is great for this type of tracking!

There you have it… More experiments to try whenever you’re in the spirit :)

Check out the full article on these tips here: “The Art of Enough“. It really is a great read, especially if you’re new to the more minimal lifestyle idea.

And let us know if you end up trying any of these, or have already! You never know what’ll turn into a habit over the years, so always good to test things out and see what happens.

See ya back on Friday.

8 Tips for Appreciating What You Have posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[heliosfinance]

8 Tips for Appreciating What You Have

Hey guys!

I just finished reading a killer article on appreciating what you have over at ExperienceLife.com ( pretty cool site/magazine btw, never heard of before?) and littered throughout it were handfuls of great tips to help you become better at life.

If you read minimalism blogs you may have heard some of these before, but I thought we’d highlight a bunch of them here in case they spark some good brain power.

Let me know if you’ve tried any!

#1. “Pack all of one kind of clothing item in a box — sweaters, shoes, etc. — and for the next month, take out only what you need. After 30 days, consider donating what’s left over.”

Beautiful. I’ve never tried this one on purpose (only in between moves), but from my limited experience it definitely helps sort your “loves” from your “mehs” :) And how awesome would it be to actually love ALL the clothes you put on vs only a % of them?

#2. “Put a week’s worth of clothes in a suitcase, as if you’re going on a trip. Then wear only what you’ve packed for those seven days. See how it feels to work with a smaller wardrobe.”

YES!! And you also find that you don’t even wear all the items you’ve packed either, at least if you’re an overpacker like me :) I swear I never wear 30% of the stuff I bring, yet I continue to pack them up every dang time… Still, there’s always that “freeing” feeling that anything you need for the next X days is right there in your suitcase for you. Which also helps you get dressed faster too! Less options = more speed.

(On an un-related note, I’ve started combining different parts of my clothes into “themes” in my closet, which has made quite the difference every time I get dressed  now. Instead of separating out all my t-shirts and socks and boxers in their respective areas, I now clump them up into two different sections – the clothes I need for the morning, and the clothes I need at night.

For example, in the mornings I need socks, t-shirts, and jeans, so I put them all together in one spot making it easier to grab and match up. Then in the evenings, when I take a shower and need to get my pjs on, I head straight for the “night section” which now includes the other piles of shirts and pants and socks (different from those above), as well as the new home for all my boxers.

So basically any time I need to get dressed now, I just head straight to the respective section and avoid having to sort through double the clothes to find what I’m looking for. It’s not life-changing stuff, but I gotta say – it’s certainly making my mornings and evenings more pleasant! Who knew mashing things up would actually be better for efficiency? :))

#3. “Make nonspending into a game. How many days can you go without buying clothes, nonessential trinkets, or little “rewards” for yourself? When you do buy something, start over the next day and see if you can beat your record.”

Agree 100%!! This has been one of the BEST things I’ve done for my money by far since paying attention to it all (the other being tracking my net worth every month). I lasted 40 days in a row the first time I tried this, and it completely shifted my mindset going forward as well as my wallet. I’ve since cut out 90% of my mindless shopping, and probably save about $200 a month now. I’ve never tried to beat the 40 day record, but maybe that’s the next challenge? :)

#4. “After your next grocery trip, see how long you can go without buying food again. You’ll be surprised how creative you can be with leftovers. Plus, it trains you to use what you have and reduce food waste.”

This one’s the scariest of them all, haha… Perhaps I’m too picky or just a big ol’ wuss (or both?) but my lack of culinary skills and desire here would fail me pretty big. There would literally need to be a cash prize or trophy or something at the end to push me to want to try this as I’d probably end up eating the leftover baby food if put to the test, haha… Though I here it’s pretty tasty?

#5. “Before you walk into a store, make a list, or stop and ask yourself exactly what you’re going to buy. Then make a beeline for those items and head to the cashier.”

If only!!! Target would go out of business! ;) But yes – hell of a good habit to get into if you can pull it off. (Maybe a better challenge is to just pick out *3* extra items anytime you ever go anywhere?). I will say this though – going shopping while hungry and going shopping while not are two compleeeeeeetely different experiences. Don’t dare set foot in a grocery store before you’ve eaten!

#6. “Look around one room in your home. If you were to suffer a natural disaster and lose everything you see, what would you miss? Would you feel relieved if certain items were lost?”

I TALK ABOUT THIS ALL THE TIME!! Such a great – and fast – way to put things in perspective. My wife and kids might say differently, but outside my coin collection I personally wouldn’t miss much (though it would be rather annoying having to replace all the stuff you do need!). We posted about this the other year and it was pretty interesting to see peoples’ responses… Let me see if I can find it real quick..

Ahh, here we go! “It’s Your Own Fault You Own Expensive Stuff” It’s actually a bit different now that I read it again, haha, but still along the same lines of seeing how you’d react in a situation where your stuff gets taken away…  Good mental exercise to go through for sure.

#7. “Whatever object you see first when you glance away from reading this, keep looking at it for 30 seconds. Try to view it as if you’ve never seen it before. Notice the detail, the color, the shape. This meditation technique trains your brain to focus on one thing at a time — and appreciate what you’re seeing.”

*Goes to stare as his coffee cup*

*Sees how pretty all the leaves are on it and the neat little mermaid logo staring back at me*

*Now getting thirstier and thirstier and just want to dump it all down my throat!!*

*10 more seconds to go in this experiment, ack…..*

*Ahhh, that’s the good stuff…. *gulp gulp gulp* … Thanks for keeping my cocaine caffeine warm coffee cup!*

#8. “Track the moments of your day in a journal: what you eat, read, work on, drink, even daydream about. Just jot down a couple of short sentences about each. Then read them a few days later. You might be surprised to find how many moments you don’t recall because you were operating on autopilot.”

Totally. I used to do this every morning during the first year of the Benjamin Franklin Experiment and loved flipping back through the pages to remember what transpired just a few days before. It really is amazing how many of the details you forget. Probably good for the bad parts, but not so much for the joys in life! Haha…

It can also do wonders for your finances too, btw – if you swap out “moments” with “expenses”. Check out our friend Cait’s Mindful Budgeting Planner which is great for this type of tracking!

There you have it… More experiments to try whenever you’re in the spirit :)

Check out the full article on these tips here: “The Art of Enough“. It really is a great read, especially if you’re new to the more minimal lifestyle idea.

And let us know if you end up trying any of these, or have already! You never know what’ll turn into a habit over the years, so always good to test things out and see what happens.

See ya back on Friday.

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