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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

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The Girl I Met on the Internet (Holy, Part 1.)

Series description: Your bestie Kim was a free-spirited person who wasn’t exactly concentrated on finding herself a partner. Yet one day, she recieves a phone number and this time, you didn’t want to keep the person on the other end hanging. And so, you text them, no matter who they are.

Part summary: A party was something unseen in Brownsville, for at least five years. You and your friends go there - and you get a hold on an unknown person’s number sent to your bestie by Stanley Barber.

A/N: I know that I’ve done this with Whatsapp series already but... This just seemed like a super-sweet idea for a closeted queer Sydney is.

Tagging: x

Sydney’s tape: go fuck yourself

Series masterlist: H E R E

It was a wild evening. The kind of wild you knew you'll remember until the day you die. That was clear as day. Well, in the end, something like this happened once in every five years in Brownsville. What was happening, you might ask?

People puking on the toilets - some of them proceeded to do quite a variety of sexual activities in the said cabins. Drunk dudes were undressing, girls throwing their bras and/or panties (in the worse case) onto the stage. Everyone was dancing, yelling, laughing, and drinking more than they drank beforehand. Oh. And it was a concert. An indie band underground concert. Which naturally caught the attention of many youngsters living in the small town.

Naturally, everyone, there was drunk as fuck and when these said people weren't drunk, they were as high as a kite. Don't be silly - almost no-one there was over the age of 21. No, we're talking about high schoolers. Said reason was the main one for most of the parents not knowing that their children were out there, partying. The whole school was there in the underground club.

Your friend, Kim, managed to assemble the full party - you were there, your gay friend Aaron came, and on top, he brought his boyfriend with him. They disappeared for a while, leaving you and Kim and the bar to buy some beer. Naturally, you had a very vivid idea about what they were doing, but you just let the boys handle their business.

"So..." - You started quietly, looking around at all the young people. Not only your schoolmates were there, but also youngsters from the nearby towns had come there. - "You see some lucky person you like?" - At this question, Kim grinned and took another sip of her beer.

Kim was someone who didn't care about gender or relationships. She was mostly focused on having one night stands and God, she could afford it. She was, indeed, gorgeous in her way. And you were as pretty as she was, yet it wasn't in your nature to just... Approach people. For the most part, you were sure that you're into boys.

But many instances had shown you to never say never. For example, there was this so-called lesbian... Well, now, she was pregnant with a dude who was working in local 7/11, so she couldn't be such a lesbian she proclaimed to be just half a year ago, could she?

"What about you?" - Kim asked back without answering the initial question, sipping from her cup of beer while intensely looking at one chick on the dance floor who was breaking her pelvis while attempting to twerk. Or whatever she was doing.

"Nah. I'm far behind dudes for a while now. We don't wanna repeat the David thing which ended what... A month ago?" - Yeah. As you were shaking your head, there was a grin on your face. David was portraying the role of Mr. Perfect, to put it somehow. Well, in the end, he wasn't as perfect as he wanted you to believe. And when you realized how much of a fraud that person was, you brought the hell on him.

Yet as soon as Kim smirked, even more, you knew she's about to say something borderline controversial. - "Maybe you're searching in the wrong crowd? But who am I to judge." - You watched how her shoulders shrug as you rolled your eyes.

Kim wasn't as much help in the relationship advice department as you'd expect your best friend to be. Every time you've been whining about the escapades with boys, she looked you dead in the eyes, telling you to find yourself a girlfriend. To which, you usually rolled your eyes even harder, telling her that this side of things is her domain more than yours.

And again, she had a response to that - when you meet the person, there doesn't exist a thing like a gender. Sure, she was probably right, but you decided not to jump to conclusions. If you were about to live through some sort of a queer awakening, you wanted it to strike you just like that. You never talked to a girl to ask her out or whatever.

If it was about to happen, who would you be to stop it, right? But you weren't the person who would walk to meet it. So, for the last couple of years, it was Kim's mission to find you a girlfriend. And when you asked her why, she just answered that for a reason, she gets the queer vibes from you.

"Here are my favorite boys!" - Kim cried out as you both saw Aaron and his boyfriend making their way to you. They both looked relaxed as fuck, so that made you more or less sure about what these two were up to on the restrooms. Either they were doing the mentioned sexual activities or they were doing some drugs - and then doing something sexual. Aaron rose his hands above his head, straightening the football jacket on his shoulder just before he hugged one of your shoulders and one of Kim's shoulder. Kim sighed, leaning the back of her head into Aaron's broad shoulder.

"I have... This for you, miss Possible." - His fingers suddenly pulled a small paper from somewhere on his palm, handing Kim a piece of paper with a number written on it. This occurred rather frequently. For an unknown reason, guys neither girls never thought that Kim is an insufferable asshat. She was receiving numbers on pieces of paper now and then - well, she could decorate her whole room with the numbers. As usual, Kim took the paper and looked at Aaron, waiting for the story of this particular number. In the meantime, Aaron's boyfriend left you standing there, going for a cig outside. - "You won't believe this." - Aaron rose his eyebrow, shaking both of you with a childish smile. - "Stanley Barber gave me this number."

"Stan the Man is here? Why didn't you tell me earlier? He sure as hell has some good weed." - Kim widened her eyes, ready to go on a search for Stanley immediately. But Aaron was still holding her in one place, having a dead stare in his eyes. - "Hold your horses. To answer your question, yes, he has his joints with him. But this number belongs to one of his friends who was too shy to approach you. And in exchange for the weed, he wants you to text her." - Aaron explained simply.

Stanley Barber... How would you describe Stanley? You couldn't describe the boy. He was something completely out of this word. No, he and your group of friends weren't friends, but you weren't enemies either. You had more or less a neutral relationship. Sometimes you hung out around each other, sometimes you hadn't seen the boy in weeks. Well... At least you tried not to see him. Stanley himself was unmissable. This boy sometimes came stoned to school, wearing sunglasses and banging his head into walls left and right. His clothes were unmissable as well. Stan was just... Unmissable.

Yet, honestly, you never saw him with anyone who could be seen as a friend figure. Never fucking ever. There was a high probability that Stan was high once again. First and foremost - was this friend real? Second of all - was it a girl or a boy? As soon as you saw Kim's face, you knew she's not texting anyone - but for the first time, it struck you as wrong. Stanley was a cool dude for the most part. You could say that you technically liked the boy. When you realized how much weed he had already invested to keep the relationship on neutral, this was the smallest thing Kim could do.

"Not happening." - "Don't be a bitch." - Aaron rolled his eyes, sighing. - "Stanley gave you as much weed as a cow eats per month. This is nothing to repay him, huh? And... It can end in something fun for you." - The boy proposed and for once, you had to say that Aaron was right. - "Not happening, babe. Stanley's friend is just as weird as he is and I don't wanna do anything in common with that. But let's smoke some fucking pot!" - Kim put both her palms up the air, crying out cheerfully.

"You should text that person. Stan's cool for the most part." - You took Aaron's side in this not-even-an-argument. At that, Kim turned at you and put the small piece of paper into your palm. - "If you can't beat them, join them. I think I know how this would play out, so, now's your turn to try texting a stranger." - Her fingers gently patted your cheek before she turned on her heels, dragging Aaron along. You wanted to go home anyway. And as you watched Kim and the big quarterback disappearing in the distance, you turned on your heels to leave the place as well.

It was a nice evening. You had seen someone gulping down a whole fucking cup of beer under one minute without throwing it out, you saw a dude undressing in front of the stage, a shit ton of people making out, and a few of them throwing up. Sometimes doing these things simultaneously. Which was as impressive as scary. But honestly, you were fucking tired.

Silently, you snuck through the house, closing the door behind. Just when you wanted to call the whole operation a success, you almost stumbled over Mr. Skittles, your super-extra-old tomcat. Even when you almost screamed and Mr. Skittles almost hissed at you pretty loudly to put you back into your place, you both stayed silent and looked at each other. Not too long after that, you were already laying in your bed, trying to fall to sleep.

The next morning, Kim rolled to your house in her old, falling apart Beetle. She was looking worse than you - there were sunglasses on her eyes, she sure as hell hasn't done her make-up in the morning, she didn't even comb her hair, she just put a baseball cap over it. - "You look fucking disgusting." - Was the first thing you told her when you opened up the door. Kim leaned closer to you, pulling her sunglasses down for a minute to look you in the eyes. - "You. Have. No. Idea." - And with that, you set on your way to school.

There still was a mysterious number which was given to Kim. You didn't throw it away but you weren't exactly overhyped to text them. You didn't want to lose the small piece of paper, but you didn't keep it on your field of vision. But there was a day when you gladly took the gamble. It was a few days before one of the shorter holidays, so naturally, there was a big test coming your way. Kim and Aaron were shopping for your stay at your grandma's small cabin just a few minutes down the road.

You, in the meantime, were trying to study. But even the leaves falling on the ground were more interesting than the subject you were trying to study for. So, as you tried to build a small tower from your pens and markers and as it had fallen again, your eyes slowly traveled to the drawer where you stored the small piece of paper for the last few days. Well, you could try it, right? It won't hurt anyone. You didn't even know who's number that was. It would be just like snapping or texting on Omegle, huh?

Slowly, you stood up from your desk and walked to the drawer, taking it out. You were weirdly on edge. It was more than two weeks since the whole concert thingy - the person probably accepted that Kim fucked them over. So you didn't have to stress about this whole situation. You could maybe just make something up in case they would ask where you got the number? This was nonsense. You shouldn't be nervous about such bullshit. So all you had to do was that you had to text the first text. And so you went for it.

You: Is someone there?

That was a tragic first text, that had to be said. And as soon as your phone marked it as delivered, you threw the device away on your bed, turning to your table with your heart in your throat. Why were you feeling so sick? Were you about to pass out? Most likely yeah. And it got worse - because the person had responded.

(Unknown number): Yea, there is. And you are? Where did you get this number?

#i am not okay with this #i am not okay with this netflix #sydney novak #stanley barber #stan barber #stanley and sydney #reader x sydney novak #reader x sydney #sydney novak x fem!reader #sydney novak x y/n #lgbt #lgbtq #queers will rule the world one day #ianokwt #i am not okay with i am not okay getting cancelled

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mattzerella-sticks · 4 years

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An idea for a DC comic book

So I was thinking about superheroes and teams and DC Comics, and I’m not sure if there’s a team that is exclusively made up of LGBT+ superheroes. Which got me to thinking of “if I could make a team that was strictly queer, what would I choose?”

And I have two answers, really. A wish (if DC would let me get my hands on a few characters and make head canon into regular canon) and a practical.

Wish:

1) Harley Quinn

2) John Constantine

3) Kaldur’ahm

4) Bunker

5) Steel (Natasha Irons)

6) Guy Gardner - WISH because I think given recent storylines they can easily transition him into being pansexual

7) Wonder Woman

8) and... the Flash - again, WISH, because even though I know Barry Allen is bisexual in my heart DC will never pull the trigger, Piglet.

My practical team would be the same except instead of Guy and Flash it would be the Ray and we’ll leave it at 7. But why is there 8 in the wish? Because since it is a wish I have more of a drive to craft a story around it lol. And it goes... a little something like this.

A magical rock flies down from space and encounters, first, Harley Quinn. Basically the first issue would be her trying to get rid of it until finally she grabs it and gets teleported to where John Constantine was performing an exorcism. So it continues like that, with the rock leading them to where they collect their rag-tag team selected by the magical flying rock. Whether out on San Francisco bay or to a bus stop in a random city or to a big lap with robots. But as they’re going through this they try and piece together what they all have in common and why the rock is choosing them (*hint hint* it’s because they’re gay *hint hint*) so by the time they get to Natasha they figure it out.

So the next place they teleport to is Oa. Where they are surrounded by Green Lanterns. Two zip forward, recognizing them. It’s Kilowog and Hal Jordan. They tell the assembled that this rock is collecting heroes and Hal butts in “Well then it must be here for me!” “Oh so you’re gay?” “What!” “I can definitely see it...” leads to Hal floundering and doing that, “I’m not... but it’s not like I’m saying it’s a bad things blah blah blah” it flies off and finds Guy Gardner at his bar and Hal is surprised; “Yeah,” Guy says, “I... I’ve been trying to figure out a way to come out with it - since I’ve been sitting on this for awhile...” but he agrees to join and they get zapped to the Hall of Justice.

Harley thinks she knows exactly who it is and races to find Wonder Woman. Gets stopped, but she explains her case and Wonder Woman is moved to accept. However, before she can grab it, it flies away and they all chase after it. Finding the glowing rock circling... Barry Allen. “Diana! Do you know what this thing is?”

Basically the first adventure will also serve as Barry coming to terms with his own sexuality (that he didn’t realize at first, let’s say because he ignored it - similarly to the Iceman reason - because he already felt ‘weird’ enough). So at the beginning he’s like “it has to be a mistake.” Anyway he grabs it on accident and they all (Wonder Woman included) get transported to an alien planet.

The seven are part of a prophecy (not Wonder Woman) to help free a group of people from an evil dictator and restore the rightful ruler and allow love to live freely. And throughout the adventure they grow closer and after saving Mikaal Thomas (a Starman) they decide to stay together - sort of as an LGBTQ alliance within the Justice League. Harley chooses the name - “Champions of Love!” and it’s cheesy but they don’t fight it.

And we see Wonder Woman and Harley bonding; we get more Natasha Irons (which we need); maybe Kaldur and Miguel become a thing; Guy and John Constantine become BEST FRIENDS (and fuck buddies because come on) and Barry starts exploring a part of himself he didn’t allow himself to (which is like ‘I’ve been spending so much of my time thinking about what I can do but not about who I am’) and different LGBT heroes can guest star in adventures (and become members, Harley makes laminated ID cards) and what not. And reintroduce characters who we haven’t seen in a while and...

I just have a lot of ideas and DC should hire me, I know they’ve got an opening because Dan Didio’s gone lol.

#DC Comics #DCU #wonder woman #harley quinn #john constantine #natasha irons #miguel barragan #kaldur'ahm #guy gardner #barry allen #flash #green lantern #lgbtq #lgbtq superheroes #lgbtq comics

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 7 years

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Why were we allowed to read Animorphs as kids, anyway?

It’s a question I see come up in this fandom again and again: How the heck did Animorphs books make it into school libraries and book fairs across the country to be marketed to eight-year-olds when they feature drug addiction, body dysmorphia, suicide, imperialism, PTSD, racism, sexism, body horror, grey-and-black morality, slavery, torture, major character death, forced cannibalism, and genocide?

To be clear, I don’t actually know the answer to that question. It is, admittedly, a little odd to consider, especially in light of the fact that Bridge to Terabithia gets banned for killing one character (much less several dozen), The Witches gets banned for having a character trapped in the body of an animal (without even going into issues of predation or body horror), The Chocolate War gets banned for having moderately disturbing descriptions of violence between teenagers, Bird gets banned for dealing with the realities of drug addiction, Winnie the Pooh gets banned for having talking animals, Harriet the Spy gets banned because the main character lies to her parents, and The Secret Annex gets banned because Anne Frank describes normal teenage puberty experiences throughout her diary. And yet Animorphs was marketed to children as young as six nationwide, and (despite selling better than even some classics like The Chocolate War at its peak) no one ever bothered to burn those books or cry that they would rot children’s minds.

If I had to take a wildly inexpert guess, knowing as little as I do about the publishing industry and the standards parent groups use to determine whether books are “moral,” I would venture to speculate that there were several different factors at work.

Grown-ups judge books by their covers just as much as children do. For proof of that phenomenon, just scroll through the Animorphs tag on tumblr, any relevant forum on Reddit, or any old post that uses that stupid meme. The book covers suggest that the stories inside will be silly, campy adventures about the escapist fantasy of turning into a dolphin or a lizard. People don’t look too closely at the books with the neon candy-colored backgrounds and the ridiculous photoshop foregrounds, especially not when they imply a promise that the novels themselves will be the most inane form of sci fi.

There’s no sex. To quote the show K.A. Applegate most loves to reference: "I guess parents don't give a crap about violence if there's sex things to worry about." The large majority of books that get banned from schools are thrown out for having sexual content: the freaking dictionary was banned from California schools for explaining what “oral sex” is, And Tango Makes Three was removed from shelves because apparently married couples are inherently shocking if they happen to be gay, and the list of most-banned books in the U.S. is full of books which explain in perfectly child-appropriate terms what puberty is and where babies come from. Animorphs, by contrast, never gets more explicit than Marco calling Taylor a “skank” or Jake and Cassie’s few stolen kisses. The only mentions of nudity are implied (and even then only when the kids are first coming out of morph), and the most explicit thing we ever hear about Rachel and Tobias doing is staying up late in her room to do her homework together. It becomes unbelievably obvious in retrospect that there’s a decent level of queer representation in the books (Marco repeatedly describing both Jake and Ax as “beautiful” or “handsome,” Mertil and Gafinilan, multiple characters casually morphing cross-gender), but it’s also possible to overlook the queerness if you don’t know it’s there. There might be explicit autocannibalism in this series, but at least it never uses the word “nipple.”

There’s no profanity. Again, there’s a strong implication of profanity—Rachel and Jake especially often “use certain words to describe things” in a way that makes it incredibly obvious what they’re saying, and context clues tell us Ax says “fuck” at least once—but given that the strongest expletive that comes up with any regularity is “good grief,” this can act as an obvious (if dumb) heuristic for parents that a book is appropriate for children. People love to count the swear words in Catcher in the Rye when describing why it should be banned (generally without, heaven forbid, reading the goddamn book). Other works such as To Kill a Mockingbird have been banned for using a single word, regardless of context. If a parent is looking to object to a single word or set of words as grounds that a book is inappropriate, the worst they’re going to find is half a dozen instances of “heck” and maybe a dozen of “crap.”

Some of the worst content is context-dependent. As I pointed out above, at least five or six different characters (Tobias, Arbron, Alloran, Tom, Allison Kim) attempt suicide over the course of the series. At least three or four species that we know about (Hork-Bajir, Howlers, Nartec) get largely or entirely annihilated. However, in order to understand that any of that occurs, you actually have to read the books. Not only that, but you have to read them closely. Cates pointed out that some of the most disturbing passages from #33 are, in a vacuum, just descriptions of blinking diodes and weird hallucinations. The description of Tobias attempting suicide is just a long list of mall venues that flash by as he zooms full-speed toward a glass wall. Even the passages with Rachel threatening David (or carrying out those threats) don’t make much sense unless you know how a two-hour limit on morphing works. For the parent skimming these books looking for objectionable content, nothing jumps out.

The books are, in fact, appropriate for children. This quality is what (I believe) prevented parents like mine from taking the books away from us kids even after reading several entire novels out loud to us before bed. The books contain violence, but they sure as hell don’t condone it. They touch on subjects such as drug addiction and parental abuse, but they do so from the point of view of realistic-feeling kids and don’t fetishize that kind of content. Most of the lessons contained within are tough—that there’s no such thing as a simple moral code, that people with the power to prevent atrocity also have the obligation to do so, that members of the hegemony aren’t actually all that special, that the world is a scary and violent place for most people who have to live in it—but they’re also important lessons, and good ones to teach to children. I would be comfortable with my own children (assuming I had any) reading these books at the same age I started reading them, in first and second grade.

You have to understand the fictional science to understand (most of) the horror. Trying to describe some of the most horrifying passages in Animorphs is like “and then they flushed the pool for cleaning, but the pool was full of slugs!” or “but she explained to her son that she had to have a parasite in her brain so the parasite’s friends wouldn’t be suspicious!” or “and then the hawk ate a rabbit, as hawks are wont to do!” while one’s non-fandalite friends stand there and go “... so what?” The laws of Applied Phlebotinum in the series turn those earlier moments into a war crime, an assisted quasi-suicide, and a loss of identity, respectively; however, you have to understand the laws of applied phlebotinum in order to know that. For anyone not reading closely, the horror can be overlooked. For those of us who are reading closely, phrases such as “host breeding program,” “fugue state,” “eight minutes too late,” and “the howlers are all children” (or any mention at all of people being injured while taxxons are in the vicinity, for that matter) are enough to chill your blood. But again, for that to happen, you actually have to read the books. Which we can assume most of the people skimming for curse words do not.

Some of those exact same premises wouldn’t be horror at all if handled by a different author. K.A. Applegate subverts the “wake up, go to school, save the world” trope; normally premises that feature teen superheroes fighting aliens are considered appropriate for all ages (e.g. Avengers Assemble, Kim Possible, Teen Titans) because they feature bloodless violence and gloss over the question of whether aliens are people too. The utterly arbitrary standard that kids should be allowed to see violence but not blood allows for justification of movies like Prince Caspian, Night at the Museum, and Ghostbusters to feature characters getting murdered in all kinds of ways in PG-rated movies. “Violence” and “sci-fi violence” are two different categories according to the MPAA rating system; guess which one gets a lower rating. Of course, there’s a crapton of science showing it doesn’t make the tiniest bit of difference to kids whether or not they see blood, they’re still gonna learn violent behaviors and potentially be traumatized, but again where the arbitrary standard persists. Therefore, if most of the premises of Animorphs books don’t sound horrifying, they must not actually be horrifying. Right?

The books are almost as light as they are heavy. Part of the reason I have comfortably loaned my copies of the early books to friends with ten-year-old kids is that it’s not primarily a downer series. Animorphs aren’t R.L. Stein books, which always end on (the implication of) the protagonist’s death. They’re not uniform horrorfests like Dolls in the Attic or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Applegate doesn’t fetishize violence the way that Cassandra Clare and Ransom Riggs do. The most-quoted passages from these books are the ones that are funny, not horrifying. These are stories about the joy of aliens discovering Volkswagen Beetles, about the wonder of being able to fly away from one’s life, about friendship and the power of love being enough to make the gods themselves sit up and pay attention. The whole saga tells the story of six kids sacrificing more than their lives to save their families, and of how that sacrifice brings down an empire. I suspect that many parents were either paying so little attention they didn’t realize these stories could be classified as battle epics or as kiddie horror, or else were paying so much attention that they concluded that this series is a battle epic worth reading.

Then again, maybe there was a whole other set of market pressures which accounted for the lack of censorship which I don’t know about. If so, the economics side of tumblr is encouraged to enlighten me.

#animorphs #marketing #body horror #kiddie horror #censorship #seriously tho WHY WERE THE SIX-YEAR-OLDS READING ABOUT AUTOCANNIBALISM IN THE 90S #what even was that

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gheckoe · 6 years

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JAMES’S CURATED QUALITY FANFICTION PRIMER

for @rev0lutions-of-ruin, who tumblr does not like letting me tag

foolish bird avoids ao3 for years and misses out on the Good Shit, but it will be okay! she has THIS now. ft. DUMB LONG-WINDED CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE EXPLANATIONS, because i don’t think you would watch those movies willingly.

lots of selection - pick and choose, but if you don’t read “out of the dead land” i will be very sad. just treat this as really weird queer genre fiction and you’ll be alright. fics with pornographic content are marked as such, but said content is easy to skip as long as you can pick up on the warning signs.

we’re gonna start with the funny stuff.

nanananana BAT-DAD! (no ships, just bruce being a dad. safe for work and hilarious,)

who needs therapy when you have microsoft excel.

tim drake (robin 3) is a transgender teenage disaster. and bruce wayne is just generally a disaster. (same series.)

okay, now let’s get kind of sad. but not TOO sad.

nananananananana BATMAN (and superman)

this one made watching batman vs. superman worth it. not quite. but kind of. it’s fantastic.

i forget what happens in this one but i know i enjoyed it!

snk? why this, james. why this.

bad show, i know, but. formative experience. i figured out i was trans by projecting my feelings onto jean kirchstein. (not sure how, that’s just what happened.)

this one is stupidly fucking huge, in first person, and still isn’t finished.

included by virtue of some weird nostalgia. it’s half a million words long. try the first few chapters; i can’t guarantee anything that happens. don’t fucking judge me.

boring, punch me in the feelings already. more angst!

STEVEBUCKY

i don’t think you’ve watched the captain america movies, so i will explain them.

the saddest, gayest shit you will ever see. will fuck with your heart, ideally! but (as per always), skip the porn. this fandom is really big on it. UGH.

BUT it’s based off of movie adaptations of comic books, so the backstory is... ridiculous. i will summarize it for you. (tumblr ate this so here goes again)

THE DYNAMIC/history/massive goddamn ship manifesto

two guys, sitting in the great depression, two feet apart because it’s not socially acceptable to be gay

steve: tiny, blonde, always mad and big on SOCIAL JUSTICE. gets into fights for SOCIAL JUSTICE, despite growing up in the great depression when SOCIAL JUSTICE was not a commonly-known phrase or a common thing. he’s a bit of a shit, and he gets into shit. with his scrawny lil fists. he has all sorts of chronic illnesses but somehow manages to survive in a time with shitty medicine, and grow up to get into MORE shit. likes art, but is (partially?) colorblind

also he’s VERY HEAVILY coded as trans.

bucky: taller, brown hair, very popular but secretly a bit of a nerd (loves scifi, and is good at math). likes dancing, girls, and getting steve out of situations that he’s clearly over his head in and talking shit about it after. a bit of a charmer, etcetera.

there are some good fics from this era (”pre-war”) but idk where they are in my bookmarks. will update later.

so wait, what happens?

bucky gets steve out of dumb situations (like fighting a guy for talking during a movie) for pretty much all of their life. childhood friends until after high school-ish.

BUT, bucky is either drafted into the us army (it’s wwii now) or enlists, and steve is left alone in brooklyn, new york, to get into shit, without anyone to bail him out or prevent him from getting into MORE shit. so he finally manages to lie his scrawny, ill ass into the army, and (as one does) volunteers to get experimented on by the american government.

wait, what the fuck

comic books, okay. don’t @ me.

steve manages not to die! he finds a really pretty, badass lady to bisexually fawn over in the army (peggy carter is a fucking miracle), the experiments are a success and he ends up BIG and cured of all his ailments and with superfast metabolism (no alcohol) and superfast healing. he’s made it! (he basically just got really fast, unrealistic HRT hahaha)

... except the army can’t replicate the embiggening process they did with steve because the scientist that did it got killed, and steve is made into a glorified prettyman mascot to sell war bonds, instead of going to punch nazis, which he would be better at. he is a terrible mascot.

meanwhile, bucky has a shitty goddamn time in the european theatre. it’s terrible. he gets kidnapped by the EVIL SCIENCE NAZIS and put in a freaky camp and experimented on, poor guy.

you said you ship them, right? they’ve barely interacted so far, man. what the fuck.

alright alright i’m getting to it

steve the dancing monkey (in his words) is doing a Morale-Raising tour in europe for the troops and they hate it and he hates it. he discovers that... oh shit... bucky and his regiment (?) have been kidnapped by HYDRA! (the science nazis.)

naturally, he of little training MUST go save bucky, because the people that actually know how to save people know that it would be pointless to try. but steve “dumb shit” rogers will do it his own damn self. don’t @ him either. it’s the 1940s so he doesn’t have a phone.

steve will walk to austria, if he has to!... but he actually just gets a plane ride there, from peggy carter the badass and some other guy who’s not that relevant right now.

he KICKS NAZI ASS, SAVES THE PRISONERS, and MAKES MEANINGFUL EYE CONTACT WITH BUCKY ONCE HE FINDS HIM IN THE EVIL SCIENCE NAZI EXPERIMENTATION ROOM. bucky’s so out of it that he barely even tries to question why his old friend is suddenly hot TALL.

steve and the lads walk back from austria, and he is a Bona Fide War Hero and not just a mascot. he has the stylish grime and everything. on the way, he realizes that the lads are pretty cool, and assembles a Diverse Crack Squad of Guys That Really Wanna Kill Nazis from the cool guys he just met. upon return to wherever they were earlier, steve is made a REAL CAPTAIN now, and his Diverse Crack Squad is at liberty to... go kill nazis.

bucky tags along. he is very handsome and talented at math, so he is a SNIPER and saves steve’s dumb ass (from getting shot by nazis, instead of getting punched in the face) like he used to. the Diverse Crack Squad gears up to take down THE WORST OF THE SCIENCE NAZIS, on a train in the mountains! they can change the course of COMIC BOOK WWII!

you said it was tragic. show me the tragic.

the TRAIN INFILTRATION does not go as planned, and bucky is knocked from the train and falls to his cold, painful, (presumably) death. steve can’t watch.

they catch a REALLY BAD SCIENCE NAZI, but it is a very hollow victory. steve goes and tries to get drunk in a blown-up bar where he hung out with bucky and they were really queer together.

the OTHER really bad science nazi now has a plan to BLOW UP COMIC BOOK NEW YORK! steven will NOT allow this to happen.

he’s also kind of given up on life. he has a flair for the dramatic, and also the ambiguously suicidal.

not that being ambiguously suicidal adds to the Dramatic Romance of this. it doesn’t, and that would be creepy. the point is that steve rogers has a LOT of issues, including the ones that science can’t cure.

this SPECIFIC PLANE is headed towards new york, full of explosives. steve manages to get aboard the plane... and doesn’t even try to escape. he crashes it into the water in the atlantic ocean, saying goodbye to peggy on the radio as it hits. he is also presumed dead. it’s... basically a suicide attempt.

flash forward seventy-some years.

wait, wasn’t he in the avengers?

steve rogers is found inside the frozen plane encased in ice in the ocean. he’s revived (super healing, woop) and... doesn’t say anything, because he’s really not up to expressing feelings.

he has a TERRIBLE time. all of his friends are dead or old and went about their lives without him, and he’s alone in a confusing new world. (but the food is better, vaccines are good, and no polio.) he’s not fantastic at making new friends, because, as shown by him and bucky’s entire relationship, he’s a bit of a sad introvert and just picks one person and... holds on.

blah blah avengers one blah blah, new team and fighting BAD THINGS. but steve is too angsty to make friends. he joins the new security organization that peggy founded, SHIELD, without really inspecting it that well because... he didn’t plan to be alive past flying the plane into the ice, much less in the 21st century. he doesn’t know what he’d do otherwise.

idk that sounds a little slow

he has DEPRESSION. it is a little slow. but it’ll pick up! (not emotionally.) now it’s very anti-establishment action flick. enter CAPTAIN AMERICA (2): THE WINTER SOLDIER.

steve makes a friend. actually, two! sam and natasha are wonderful, and they have some things in common. but steve obtains friendship while realizing that SHIELD is corrupt to the core and actually infiltrated by HYDRA, so he and his new friends have to... burn it to the ground. he “died” (or tried to) to stop HYDRA, and it’s still here and worse then ever. things feel pointless.

to make it worse, he’s fighting this creepily effective impersonal masked assassin on a bridge and oh fuck, oh fuck it’s bucky and didn’t he die years and years ago and his arm is METAL what happened to him, and he’s pretending not to recognize steve.

HYDRA is planning to eliminate sources of resistance for their new world order via shooting them from the air, so steve has to take one specific FLYING DEATHMACHINE down. he does, and brainwashed HYDRA bucky, the winter soldier, is there to stop him.

steve makes an appeal to emotions. “bucky stop you can’t do this”

bucky is confused, but he’s been programmed to do this.

steve tells his coworkers to JUST SHOOT THE DEATHMACHINE DOWN ALREADY, because he’s... given up again. he’s very talented at equating heroism with self-sacrifice/suicide. but he disables the DEATH part of the DEATHMACHINE without it getting shot down.

bucky has been trapped underneath a beam, but steve’s with bucky till the end of the line, even if bucky is brainwashed and lacking memories. steve drops his shield in the water and falls.

it’s another attempt to die. stop that, steve. go to therapy.

bucky doesn’t remember who he is, but he jumps after him. steve is very injured from his fight with bucky, and wouldn’t have survived the fall, but bucky drags him to shore and... leaves.

steve wakes up in the hospital with his new friend sam. they’re going to track bucky down, even if it takes forever.

ISN’T THAT FUCKED UP? isn’t that sad? it’s terrible. now, fics. most of them are after ca:tws, because that’s when the ship got popular. a lot of them center around Finding Bucky and Getting To Know Him Again.

there’s a lot of sappy sad let’s-teach-bucky-how-to-be-a-person-again-and-get-steve-to-be-less-sad but i like the ones that are like sad action movies, or sad queer movies, and less like sad romance movies. my bookmarks are a mess, so here’s the best stuff i could dredge up.

out of the dead land: this one kills me every single time. there’s something terribly cinematic about it. but, as fandom is wont to do, there’s porn near the end. skip that part. ew. it’s an introspective scifi action epic, with just enough identity issues to make you want to cry! READ IT, IT’S IMPORTANT.

this: alternate universe, sans steve “dying.” epistolary. sad, as far as i can remember. (i’d rec the rest of this series but i think it’s best if you read this one first?)

courtroom/media fic. what if the winter soldier got arrested after the movie? (cap fandom does this kind of fake-media thing very well. i just reread it. it’s still good.)

this one isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it’s a different take on the fandom’s typical post-winter soldier bucky interpretation. quite short, 100% safe for work.

in this one, steve successfully gets drunk, makes some friends, and gains some coping skills. good for dark humour. there’s porn somewhere but i’m sure it’s easily skippable, otherwise i wouldn’t have bookmarked it. not 100% the best thing every but it’s pretty fun.

if you aren’t team s/b all the way then we can’t be friends, but here’s some other marvel stuff i guess

lesbians, ballet, feelings? it’s a rarepair but it’s pretty lovely. au, no background knowledge required. basically a beautiful indie film that’s kind of oscar-bait. you will like this one, i think. there’s probably porn somewhere.

trans black widow. (that chapter only, not sure what the rest is). not very well-written and i have terrible memory but i’m 75% sure it made me cry.

ENJOY! or try to. don’t feel obligated to. but please at least TRY out of the dead land, it is groundbreaking.

#teya #personap #fandom

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utopianparadoxist · 7 years

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This “Soft Dirk” bullshit being treated as people wanting to soften and Woobify Dirk is hilarious or it would be if it wasn’t heartbreaking

@swamp-wizard @kidgecko that’s p much it i either can’t remember or am blocked by everyone else.

Allow me to clarify the situation with Soft dirks and this whole discourse because a lot of you are profoundly misunderstanding it in your responses and I’m pretty tired of it.

None of this is about making Dirk “soft” or “cute” and you don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on if you think otherwise. It’s not about weabooifying Dirk and stripping him of all flaws, either.

Dirk still has severe issues in the “Soft Dirk” reading you’re claiming is about woobifying him. Dirk is still mentally ill, Dirk’s mistakes still hurt people (often WITHOUT his say in the matter which is the critical difference y’all keep ignoring), Dirk is still prone to hyper-isolating and closing himself off in unhealthy ways.

This isn’t about making Dirk a hot anime boy, either! It has nothing the fuck to do with how pretty he is, the aesthetics of this branch of fanon are thoroughly secondary. I would personally fucking love greasy troll dissasociating Dirk if it’s your flavor, I want every brand of Dirk under the sun.

Where you lose me is making Dirk malicious and elitist, superior-minded and holding friends to high standards. You lose me there because that Dirk doesn’t fucking exist in the story and he’s a fake lump of bullshit you assembled out of stray pieces of the AR and a couple of Brain Ghost Dirk lines--who is JAKE’S BRAIN, not Dirk himself.

(You also lose me at the implication Dirk isn’t desperately, irreplaceably in love with Jake and vice versa which is well established and executed in the canon story we all claim to be fans of but w.e, I wouldn’t mind Dirkjohn if fandom at large actually understood and valued Dirkjake for what it is, a ship isn’t the problem here.)

The fucking perfect example of this is someone responding to the asshole STEM Dirk thing by saying Jade wouldn’t have been an asshole about STEM stuff because she would “tutor her friends” instead. You know who tutors his friends in the goddamn story we’re talking about?

Literally Dirk, is who.

Dirk, who accepts Jake’s adventurer persona but never even acknowledges Jake thinking he’s dumb except to compliment him all the while giving him length intellectual diatribes he knows Jake will understand.

Dirk, who practically does a backflip when Jane so much as MENTIONS an apprenticeship even as he talks about how serious and important he’s sure she considers her own craft.

THIS is what this fandom divide is, and this is why people are pissed about this asshole iteration of Dirk in fanon. It’s so prominent it drowns out the fandom’s ability to perceive Dirk as he ACTUALLY EXISTS IN THE COMIC, and the fact that it’s so pervasive is a problem for mlm people like me whether it’s convenient to your view or not.

And yeah, you’re all being fucking assholes trying to reduce all of that to just people wanting Dirk to be a Sexy Pure Woobie. That’s not what anyone in this section of the culture is going for, and it’s reductive and boring to imply it is.

People in your corner have literally called me--an mlm who relates deeply to Dirkjake as a queer narrative and hopes only that other queer mlm teens can find it as empowering as I do myself-- names like this is fucking highschool for trying to point out that maybe this overly harsh interpretation of Dirk isn’t sourced in the canon but in a bunch of hyper-moralizing that self-generated years ago and mixed with a bunch of homophobic sentiment.

Yes, that is villainizing. Yes, that is homophobia. The implications here are that Dirk is malicious and/or demanding (and thus a more acceptable target for violence and mockery, like with that particular piece of art where Jake likens him to a trash can and symbolically sets him on fire for example).

The implications here are ALSO that Dirk is disattached enough from his emotions that he would be untouched by being treated cruelly or with mockery anyway. This literally leads to dehumanizing a gay character by removing his emotions and desire for acceptance from his peers, which are oh...just the core elements his entire character arc revolves around.

Not even to get into how detrimental the whole air is to Dirkjake as one of the canon ships in the comic, or the perception of Hussie’s handling of lgbt relationships at large.

I’m tagging every single person who’s been contributing to this particular train of discourse. Please for the love of god if you have a retort to this just reblog it or send me an ask. Don’t vague me. Don’t come back with another post out of nowhere that clearly answers sentiments I’ve been spreading but doesn’t give me an opening to respond.

@ me or something I’m right here and perfectly willing to have a conversation and even if I HAD the follower count to sic on anyone I don’t think anyone is being fundamentally cruel or Problematic here, that just plain old is not where I’m coming from. What on earth do you have to lose?

Either have a conversation with me about this like I’ve been begging for for months or do me a favor and stop talking over a queer dude about this depiction of queer dudes and mlm ships in fanon. ESPECIALLY if you’re wlw. I have a niche in this fandom too, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that it be respected.

@swamp-wizard @kidgecko there’s a bunch of other people but I either don’t remember their names right or they have different mains or w.e cause I can’t @ them. Maybe I’m blocked by a few? Who the hell knows.

Wish I knew how to get this to the rest of the people I’ve interacted with about this. Information seems to get around in this circle of fandom so do me a favor and spread it around, I’m interested in hearing from everyone, including the people who have called me a geek. I really don’t care, I just want the conversation around Dirk in this fandom to evolve.

Hoping to hear from you. I’m going to be reblogging posts from other people in this Dirk movement that will shed additional light on where we’re coming from. Maybe you will actually read them, I hope?

#Homestuck #Dirkcourse #dirkjohn #dirkjake #Dirk Strider

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aprofessorbhaer · 7 years

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Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji Part 5

trigger warnings: anxiety, time period sexism, dead relatives,

Word Count: 1736

Part Five: Change

I awoke unusually early the next morning, considering I did it under my own power. Not keen to anger the master with possible tardiness, I got up and dressed without a reminder from Mey-Rin. She was not in our room, and when I went down to the kitchen, it was deserted as well. The fear that I had somehow overslept took ahold of me, and I quickly ate breakfast before venturing into the rest of the house.

The master had not yet called for his lesson, and I saw no one in the halls. I stopped to gather my thoughts for my next course of action.

“Mary?”

I spun around to see the young butler approaching me. “Yes, sir?”

“The master wishes to see you in his study.”

My stomach dropped with familiar dread. “Yes, sir.”

As we entered the room, I noticed that Mey-Rin, Finny, Baldroy, and Tanaka were all standing in front of a camera placed on the master’s desk. The master looked up and seemed to consider me before saying “Come and stand for a photograph, Mary.”

I was unsure what exactly that meant, but came forward. “Yes, my lord.”

The master disappeared under a black curtain attached to the contraption, and called out “Stand still for at least ten seconds.”

I obeyed. Once he came back from behind it, he commanded the other four servants to “Go and develop this photograph. Mary and I have business to discuss.” His employees scrambled to obey while he directed his attention to me. “Mary, just now I was telling Sebastian how I tire of hearing the violin, and wish to experience other instruments. Do you know what he said to me?”

I could feel a cold sweat on my skin. I couldn’t fathom where this discussion was going, but it didn’t seem good. “No, my lord.”

“He said that I knew someone who was proficient in another instrument, and if I so wished, I even had the opportunity to ask this person to teach me how to play as well. I, of course, assumed he meant you. Being a governess, you were likely trained in basic piano for the young ladies you taught. Such an instrument is hardly fit for the head of a household, which I told him. Do you know how he replied?”

I was starting to feel light-headed from nerves. “No, my lord.”

The master seemed to be enjoying himself. “He said, you were also a trained flutist! Now, I knew he must be mistaken, because even a servant girl must be aware that such a pursuit is only fit for men. So I asked him how he had come to know this. What do you think he answered?”

My hands were shaking again. I held them behind me. “I cannot say, my lord.”

The master stared hard at me. “He said, that I myself had seen you play. You had performed for us, at the dinner we held for that ignoramus Italian.” His eyes narrowed. “Would you care to explain how a young musician of the male persuasion and yourself could possibly be one in the same person?”

I cleared my throat for strength. “That day, I had been in the presence of Madame Red and Lady Elizabeth, my lord. For their entertainment, they sent me to your estate with a message to you from my lady.”

The master raised an eyebrow. “In male garb?”

I blushed. “My lady wished to be…diverted. I told her the story of how as a child I used to dress as my brother, and take his place. She…wished to see for herself, and Madame agreed.”

The master appeared unconvinced. “Indeed.” He was about to say more, when his door burst open. His servants had returned with the photograph he had taken of me. He looked at the picture, then held it out to me, asking “What do you see?”

I approached hesitantly. Taking the photograph, I said “I see myself my lord, and…” But I couldn’t finish my sentence. Behind the image of me stood a woman who possessed my dark, thick hair, pale skin, and tall frame, holding a baby in her arms.

The master looked at the people who had just entered the room. “Leave me and figure out how you will fulfill the job I assigned you.”

At the noise of their departure, I swallowed and looked up. “I see myself, my mother, and my brother, my lord.”

The master cocked his head. “Interesting. Did you know, Mary, that this photograph was taken by a camera that will show, in addition to the subject, the person dearest to them who is also deceased?”

“I did not, my lord. But that is a reasonable explanation.”

“Photographs of ghostly loved ones are reasonable to you, Mary?”

I looked again at the photograph. “I could not give you a better explanation, my lord.”

The master seemed unsatisfied, like my answer had been unexpected. “How did you take the place of a dead infant?” he asked bluntly.

For a few seconds I didn’t understand his question, but then I felt a pain in my heart when I realized. “My brother died at his birth, my lord, and the cost of birthing two babies at once in addition to the loss of one of them took my mother’s life. My father was very distraught. I realized, as I grew up, that I held a striking resemblance to my mother. This realization coincided with the discovery that my father had difficulty looking at me. I decided that if I was a boy instead, it might be better. So, I wore the clothes my father still bought sometimes, and he seemed happier. He called me by my brother’s name, and taught me what a firstborn would need to know.”

The master smirked. “So, you have a long history of crossdressing, do you?”

I looked down in shame. “Yes, my lord.”

“How did you come to have men’s clothes of your measurements for your recent performance?”

“I have not grown since the last time my father bought clothes for my brother, my lord.”

The master looked thoughtful. “I see. A madman, then.” He paused, then continued “Mary, you will teach me in your male clothing from now on. It will be much easier to explain away a male tutor than a female governess. If company should call, you will answer to…Martin. You will need to move your belongings to a new room, because you will now be living as a man. Tell the other servants that Mary has found a new job, and you, her brother Martin, will be taking her place. The fewer people who know the truth, the better. Go now, and return for my lesson.”

I could feel panic rise in my chest, but shoved it down to bow and say “Yes, my lord.” I left the room and returned to my own, packing my things. Luckily, I didn’t have much, and it all fit easily into the few worn suitcases I owned. I was just contemplating where I would put them while I underwent my transformation into ‘Martin’ when I heard a knock at the door. Opening it, I was faced with the young butler.

“I hazard to guess that you need a place to keep your belongings until you find your new room. Might I suggest keeping them in my chamber until further notice?”

I blushed at the favor, but could see no better alternative. “That would be very kind of you, sir.” I turned to retrieve my things, but somehow he was already carrying them. I hurried to follow him, apprehensive at the invasion of privacy I was about to commit, despite his permission.

When we had arrived at our destination, he put the trunks down and turned to me. “I would also imagine that you need a place to change into your new role. Feel free to use this room to do so now.”

I bowed. “You are too kind, sir.”

He smiled. “Not at all, my dear.” With that, he left, presumably to attend to his actual duties.

Once I had the room to myself, I sighed, sinking to sit on my sturdiest box. I would have to play my brother from now on. My dear departed brother. The role wasn’t a new one; I had played it most of my life, for my father. But at least that was a homage, in its own way. I did it to keep my brother alive, and my father smiling. Now, it would simply be a disguise, a blank mask.

I took a deep breath. Then I must make it more. I would live for the both of us; I knew how. It would be easy. Too easy. It may be easier than living only for myself. With that decided, I stood up, and began searching through my clothes. Everything was present; I’m sure I had Lady Elizabeth to thank for the inclusion of my male clothes. She likely felt it was the least she could do after her parents had released me from their service.

Once I had replaced my maid’s clothes for my suit, I cast around for something to tie my hair back, but nothing seemed appropriate. Glancing in the mirror cursorily, I decided I otherwise looked presentable.

I had opened the door and was turned to close it behind me when I heard “Good! You are ready.” Turning, I saw the young butler approaching. He stopped in front of me, smiling. “My master has renewed his request for his lesson.” His eyes traveled over me, taking in my new appearance. They stopped at my hair. Dipping his gloved hand into a suit pocket, he drew out a simple black ribbon.

Holding it out to me, he explained “I thought you might have need of this.” I reached out for it, but he withdrew his hand. “Allow me, miss.” With a gentle pressure on one of my shoulders, he turned me around. I felt him gather my hair up delicately, then bring the ribbon underneath and secure it. Turning me back to face him, he surveyed his work. Nodding, he seemed pleased. “Very good.”

I bowed lowly. “Thank you so much, sir. You think of everything.” Straightening, I saw that he was smiling again.

“Not at all, miss. I am merely one hell of a butler.” He then turned and disappeared.

Tagging: @all-american-anteater, @tayzbell, @nyadchild, @mael-strm, @my-pen-is-my-sword, @tridentsong,@simplyace,@ilovetardisblue,@beautifulword–shenanigans,@assemble-the-fangirls, @fandom-queer,@neon-blue-star, @aceofairships, @the-fuckening-sun,@band-freak-junkie,@icarewayyytoomuch, @tori-alexide, @onceuponatimealittlekid,@aceitup, @ishanijasmin, @lilaaaaaay, @yesshadycheesecake, @donmihalych, @music-means-life, @xerneasx95, @yourjustassaneasiamx

Let me know if you want to be added to or taken off the tag list :)

#anime #black butler #bb #kuroshitsuji #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #My writing #original character #oc

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imsohealthy1 · 4 years

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Start Living Your Life By Design w/ Rai Henry

Life, as we all know it, has modified and our artistic expression has modified as effectively. As an alternative of specializing in self-actualization, many are turning to the powers of neighborhood, collective, and creativity as a way to heal and step into alignment. Rai Henry is a private coach who’s captivated with serving to others reignite their creativity, and step out of the hustle and into the circulate.

Click on play to hear proper on this web page, no app wanted:

Being Intentional About Your Life, Enterprise, & Values

When you might not think about your self a ‘artistic’, Rai believes that anybody who’s tapping into part of themselves as a way to specific it to others suits into the artistic mould. By being intentional about your life, enterprise and values, Rai helps others present up in a means that aligns along with your DNA, or Divine Pure Method.

By means of deliberate work, you may acknowledge the blocks in your life and learn to circulate by means of them. Rai desires to get to know you and open you as much as the limitless prospects which are ready for you. By focusing by yourself private duty you may look inside to attain higher circulate, heal from trauma, and begin dwelling your life by design.

Are you prepared to make use of your artistic expression as a software for therapeutic, aligning, and thriving? Share what you liked most about Rai’s distinctive and refreshing perspective with us within the feedback beneath.

On As we speak’s Episode

Uncover what it means to be artistic and make an impression aligned along with your imaginative and prescient (11:15)

Why the person self-actualization strategy is being changed with the collective (18:20)

The way to expertise the power of creativity and circulate and acknowledge your blocks (20:30)

Suggestions for increasing your view of abundance and co-creation inside your tribe (24:50)

The way to give your self permission to thrive after trauma and be taught to belief your self (28:08)

Assets Talked about In This Present

Observe Rai on Instagram

Create, Collab + Movement Web site

Sponsor a Scholarship for BIPOC Creatives

Be a part of the Pay attention To Your Physique E-newsletter

Quotes

“That’s actually what I’m right here to do. Assist folks present up on the earth, have an effect, however actually discover their true values alongside the best way.” (10:07)

“In a time like at present the place the world goes by means of such revolution and transformation, it may be very simple to really feel like you’re doing it alone, when actually we’re doing it as a collective.” (17:21) “Have been shifting from that particular person mannequin, and the one means to try this is to be clear, to be susceptible, and to be open about what you’re experiencing with the intention to hook up with your neighborhood or your tribe and develop past your personal limitations.” (19:59)

“I didn’t have any of the steerage, I didn’t have any form of blueprint or framework to work from. However I solid it myself, together with spirit guiding me and the attractive, what I name messengers, that confirmed up at totally different phases of my life. And I’ve charted that course of, and I’ve taken notice of what these key elements have been, and I’ve utilized them to the ideas of your heroes’ journey, and that’s the framework for the work that I’m doing proper now.” (34:27)

“We’re all on one journey, however there are infinite prospects. So it’s so essential to recollect it’s completely as much as you to decide on the circulate that works for you. Select your circulate by unlocking that potential and being intentional and deliberate concerning the life that you simply wish to stay, or the enterprise that you simply wish to create.” (37:00)

Start Living Your Life By Design w/ Rai Henry FULL TRANSCRIPT

Steph Gaudreau That is Episode 290 of the Pay attention To Your Physique podcast. On at present’s episode, I’m welcoming coach Rai Henry. She’s sharing with us how one can reignite your creativity and step out of hustle into circulate.

The subsequent evolution of More durable To Kill Radio is right here. Welcome to the Pay attention To Your Physique podcast. on this present, we’ll discover the intersection of physique, thoughts and soul well being, and assist you to reclaim your skills to eat and transfer extra intuitively. Hear your physique’s alerts, and belief your self extra deeply.

I’m Steph Gaudreau, a licensed intuitive consuming counselor, dietary remedy practitioner, and power coach. On this podcast, you may anticipate to listen to skilled visitor interviews and solo chats that may assist you to deepen your belief with meals motion and your physique. Keep in mind to hit the subscribe button and share this podcast with your folks and family members. Now on to the present.

Good day, my pal. Thanks for being right here on the podcast at present. I’m so very grateful that you simply’re taking a while out of your day to hang around with me. And never solely me, however my great visitor, Rai Henry, who you’ll hear from in only a couple minutes. Earlier than we dive into the present at present, simply wish to provide you with an replace. You understand, typically within the expertise house relating to operating web sites and all types of different nice stuff. It’s time to do some upgrades. So I’ve been dwelling in expertise improve land for the final couple of weeks.

And it’s form of messing with me there’s lots shifting and altering and occurring however I’m so enthusiastic about it as a result of it signifies that when you’ve got certainly one of my applications. In case you are getting emails from me, all of this stuff are going to be so a lot better by way of the person expertise, so it’s 100% value it. Should you’re not on my Pay attention To Your Physique Insiders publication, be sure to enroll, go to StephGaudreau.com/LTYB for Pay attention To Your Physique. I’ll ship you updates as issues are rolling out. I’ve acquired some issues that I’m nonetheless engaged on and I’ll inform you this a lot, there’s stuff coming down the pike, it’s July 6, as I’m recording this, it’s going to most likely be out into the world by that time. However I’ve needed to give myself a deadline or else I’ll simply hold extending it out and that isn’t bringing these hopeful alternatives that may assist you to to not solely tune into your self, however to work on that meals and physique piece that I do know you’re so in search of. And the extra I hold on to those issues that I’ve been engaged on the board’s not serving to you so anticipate that that stuff’s going to be out fairly quickly and if you wish to be the primary to know, get on the publication checklist, StephGaudreau.com/LTYB and in addition one other name to motion in case you’re not subscribed to the podcast, please try this in your podcast app and share this episode out. You’re keen on this episode with Rai Henry please share it out.

You may tag each of us on Instagram I’m comfortable to reshare it I might love to listen to your ideas and I do know that Rai would as effectively. Her deal with on Instagram is SunnySunrai (https://ift.tt/38Ua46Q) go forward and tag her up, tag me up, and provides her a comply with whilst you’re at it. So at present, Rai Henry goes to be becoming a member of us. She is bringing such a beautiful perspective to creativity, getting over your power blocks, stepping away from the hustle, and into alignment and circulate. She is an unbelievable coach. And her power is so great and so grounding and he or she’s going to be right here on the podcast at present, sharing all of that with us. She has an unbelievable program known as create collab and circulate. That is actually for black, indigenous and other people of coloration to work on the journey to therapeutic by means of artistic expression. Rai talks about this program within the podcast, however I might like to remind you if you’re any person who would like to sponsor a scholarship for Create, Collab, And Movement for a black indigenous particular person of coloration, through Rai, please go forward and head over to her web site, and we’re gonna hyperlink all of that within the present notes as effectively. You may also discover the small print to that in case you go to her Instagram into the hyperlink in her bio, and you discover the Create Collab and Movement particulars. Alright, with out additional ado, let’s leap into this episode with Rai Henry.

Ms. Rai, how are you?

Rai Henry Unbelievable. Hello, Steph, how are you? I’m good.

Steph Gaudreau Thanks a lot for becoming a member of me on the podcast at present.

Rai Henry Thanks for having me. I’m actually excited to have this dialog.

Steph Gaudreau For the oldsters listening, simply to offer a little bit little bit of background. I first noticed your wonderful, great Spirit come by means of on Instagram, with Collin Fidel from queer Cosmos who has been on the present right here not too way back, a few months in the past just a few months in the past at this level and I used to be out within the backyard. I used to be, I used to be trimming tomato crops. And I used to be listening to this Instagram Dwell that you simply did with Colin. And Gosh, I simply so appreciated listening to your ideas and your views on creativity and circulate and the way you’re employed in spirit. And simply every little thing that you simply needed to speak about. I used to be captivated.

Rai Henry I’m so grateful. I’m life. Simply Collin and being there assembly you. It’s a good looking factor. Thanks for tuning in and sharing that with us.

Steph Gaudreau Completely. And so we, , it’s attention-grabbing more often than not, when I’ve of us on the podcast, it they are usually folks that I’ve some reference to, I’ve met them earlier than or we’re in we’re Instagram mates, or, , we’ve had the prospect to speak and so we hopped on a name final week and acquired an opportunity to attach. And I simply thought, I like your perspective. I like what you’re doing on the earth and the authenticity and just like the transparency of coronary heart that you’ve got. And I simply actually, I felt so related to you and what you’re doing and so I do know that that is going to be a extremely cool dialog for people listening as a result of clearly, this podcast although it’s known as Pay attention To Your Physique and we will form of take that in so many instructions have such an attention-grabbing means of connecting creativity, and spirit and actually circulate and the way that intersects with just like the fullness, I consider folks’s expertise on this planet in so many alternative dimensions. So I’m wanting ahead to chatting with you about all of that at present and possibly some extra that we don’t have deliberate as a result of we’re taking this type of as we go, because it was, yeah for, for those that aren’t aware of you, are you able to give us a little bit little bit of background? You understand, who’re you? What do you do? What’s your mission at present? What’s lighting you up on the earth proper now?

Rai Henry Oh my goodness, thanks, Steph, primary, for simply having me on and for talking so superbly concerning the preliminary connection that we shared. And, , if I needed to specific the price it and even put phrases to what I’m doing on this world proper now, I’m displaying up and expressing myself in essentially the most genuine means. And in doing so, connecting to folks such as you. And so that appears like displaying up and being very heart-centered, very spirit centered within the work that I do, which is to assist artistic professionals be very intentional and deliberate about their life but in addition their enterprise.

And so I’ve a venture administration background. And most of the people after they hear that mechanically suppose what on the earth are you doing working within the artistic world, however , as a PM, my experiences taking me to so many alternative locations. I had a advertising and marketing agency of my very own model and advertising and marketing agency. And through that point, I serve small companies and MP O’s and primarily these within the Chicago market the place I used to be positioned. And my expertise as a venture supervisor for these companies.

It simply revealed to me that each single enterprise proprietor, each single skilled and artistic printer, so to talk, they’ve one factor in widespread, and that’s that they’re all in search of to indicate up on the earth and be seen and in addition join. In order that’s actually what I’m right here to do is assist folks present up on the earth, have an effect, however actually discover their true values alongside the best way. And so , after I take into consideration even Colin, proper and my reference to Colin, he’s simply such a good looking artistic printer. And I met him by means of pal who I’ve recognized for years, all of us have that factor in widespread. All of us present up in another way within the work that we do. However all of us are right here to specific ourselves creatively and it’s simply my job to assist.

I might say that particular person hook up with their values after which work out how one can present that up, or how that reveals up of their enterprise fashions. However extra importantly, of their stroll in life. I take into consideration these artistic millennials primarily that’s like Normally, the folks that come into my house, they’re in between that bizarre 20 somethings and 30 somethings they usually’re like, I don’t actually know what to do to get the place I wish to go.

However I do know the place I wish to go. I simply don’t know the step-by-step. I simply don’t know that clicked down. And so stuff, that’s the place they arrive to me. And we actually work out how one can come into alignment by means of intentional deliberate work these life-style rituals after which convert into your work. And in order that’s, that’s how I’m displaying up. And that’s what’s bringing me pleasure. And the one motive why I’m certified to try this as a result of I do it each single day in my life, proper? I don’t have any credentials that make me extra engaging than one other. I simply present up and I actually do open up my coronary heart to obtain and subsequently reciprocate that within the work.

Steph Gaudreau Oh my gosh, so many locations, I may leap from there. I like it. And , there’s such a resonance whenever you have been describing that not simply pondering of myself, however simply such a resonance within the readability and the reality. There’s only a reality to what you talked about. And I feel that’s most likely what attracts so many individuals to you, as a result of individuals are in search of this stuff that you simply’re speaking about, proper? They’re in search of to make an impression in a means that’s actually aligned. They’re in search of to specific themselves creatively. You understand, one of many issues that I heard you talked about, I imagine it was within the IGTV that you simply did with Colin was, you talked concerning the time period artistic, and why so many individuals, like we need that a lot as a result of it’s form of our human nature to wish to create, however that time period can journey so many individuals up. So what do you imply by that?

Rai Henry Sure artistic, proper? We’re all right here to specific ourselves and so artistic as anybody. I feel that at deadlines, we do connect so strongly to labels and identifiers. You understand, whether or not like I’m a venture supervisor. Effectively, that title is so restricted. And though that could be a particular ability that I’ve labored very exhausting to realize and to serve in, it’s not the complete scope of who I’m. And so I consider creatives as anybody in search of expression. And , that may be personally or professionally, it doesn’t simply imply that you simply’re in an area the place you’re both an artist or a creator by way of a bodily or digital expertise. creators are cooks, creators or dad and mom creator creatives, or any means any one who’s tapping into part of themselves to specific and so I imply, this might go layers and layers deep, , stuff after I take into consideration listening to your physique, the artistic power that I’m talking of, is that sacred power proper in that sacred chakra, proper and for anybody who might or might not be acquainted, , I do imagine and this comes from numerous wealthy years and yoga apply for myself but in addition going by means of trainer coaching. How does that hook up with our bodily our bodies?

And the way will we specific ourselves to subsequently heal, bodily heal spiritually heal mentally, and join the I received’t, I don’t wish to say damaged? However these elements of ourselves that we compartmentalize these identities that we come compartmentalize, how will we convey them into the one that’s artistic expression, that’s the purpose is to determine all of those elements of you and see the sum complete. And I feel that on the coronary heart of it, that’s what each single particular person on this planet is making an attempt to do. However it may be exhausting typically when there’s so many distractions in so many illusions. And I’m right here to assist folks, , work by means of that work out, like, what does that seem like and the way do I get to what I name DNA, my divine pure strategy in life, , it’s my strategy. It’s not one thing based mostly on the surface or these exterior elements. However I actually went inside. I went, , to my inside locus system, and I found out what’s my course of and that’s, that’s what I do. So I don’t, I don’t determine that out for my shoppers, however I maintain their arms and we co-create the plan for the plan of motion for that. These are the artistic, these people who find themselves in search of that DNA.

Steph Gaudreau Hmm, I like that. So thanks for explaining that. I feel lots of people are going to listen to the time period artistic another way now based mostly on the way you described it. It nearly looks as if there’s this tendency for folks to make the method of creation or being artistic or sensing that artistic power that form of bubbles up by means of you as being actually vital after which stepping into the ‘Am I doing it proper? Am I doing this? Proper? You understand, we make it, we get like this, this large, vital factor. And I feel what I hear you saying is that it doesn’t need to be that means.

Rai Henry No, under no circumstances. The truth is, I might say it’s simply so simple as, the place are the blocks in my life? And the way can I circulate by means of them? You understand, one of many books that I like, Goodness, Artistic Living, my goodness, and I’m having a mind fart, certainly one of my favourite books, talks about how one can have a artistic, Artistic Living Past Concern. That’s it. And so I completely love the strategy of figuring out the areas that we really feel blocked, that we really feel resistance, any of that battle or overwhelm nevertheless it reveals up for us both bodily, psychologically, or emotionally, what how, the place do I sense it? How can I establish it?

What are these blocks and normally, as soon as we will establish the blocks, we will then put a plan of action? But it surely’s actually exhausting to try this when now we have a lot coming at us. And in a time like at present the place the world goes by means of such revolution and transformation, it may be very simple to really feel such as you’re doing it alone when actually we’re doing it as a collective. However there are such a lot of approaches to it. And why I feel it’s essential for every of us to indicate up myself your stuff is that all of us have one thing that would assist the subsequent particular person. It doesn’t imply you must take my strategy or my means, however it means that you’re not alone. And there may be somebody right here who can present you even when they’ve solely made it to step three, and , and there’s are inclined to go, even when they’ve solely made it to step three, in case you’re somebody who is perhaps at the first step, feeling a little bit bit misplaced and feeling that block. That is the place it’s essential to hook up with your neighborhood and ask for assist but in addition be capable to acknowledge that it exists. And I feel we’ve spent a lot time within the house of the person strategy to working by means of this stuff. However the person strategy, , it’s simply not sufficient anymore. The collective is important.

Steph Gaudreau Hmmm, Yeah, I like the way you talked earlier about that co-creation. And I feel that there’s a really individualistic, , power to our society, proper, the place we’re similar to, I’m in my very own silo over right here doing my very own factor. And I feel what I hear you saying is that that’s solely going to take us thus far.

Rai Henry Completely. I might argue that it’s solely taken us thus far. And we’re watching it shift, , and final two weeks, I feel I’ve talked to perhaps 20 folks, 20 people, we’re all seeing the identical factor. We’re all talking the identical assist. We’re all in search of methods to indicate up. All of us have imaginative and prescient. All of us have the fervour, the will and the flexibility to maneuver ahead. However we’re additionally experiencing this shifting within the collective consciousness. Which is which are we on that, , for our hierarchy of wants, after we take into consideration that, are we working towards self-actualization? Solely? Sure, that’s part of it. However are we additionally in search of what I might , body is collective precise actualization, we’re shifting from that particular person mannequin. And, and the one means to try this is to be clear, to be susceptible, and to be open about what you’re experiencing with the intention to hook up with your neighborhood or your tribe and develop past your personal limitations.

Steph Gaudreau Gosh, I like that. Earlier you talked about circulate and also you talked about these locations the place we might have blocks, I’m questioning if for you or perhaps a number of the issues that you simply assist your shoppers do and whenever you’re working with folks, so be at liberty to reply on both degree, if it’s private or the way you assist of us do that, however how do you personally or along with your shoppers, how do you assist them expertise the just like the sensations or the sentiments, that power of creation or creativity and in our circulate, after which perhaps how feeling blocked would really feel as a result of I feel we hear about this lots in sure circles, power or we’re speaking about power or we’re speaking about such as you talked about earlier chakras or no matter it occurs to be. And so there’s this we talked about creation and we talked about being blocked or having circulate and feeling caught. And do you may have any ideas or any methods you take a look at this for serving to folks expertise this of their bodily physique?

Rai Henry Oh, completely, um, , within the bodily, I might say the very first means that we would acknowledge blockages in circulate is in ache, proper? Ache and discomfort in our bodily our bodies. You understand, the rationale why in yoga, we do that, the asanas are these bodily actions is to assist assist the circulate of power within the physique. And so after I take into consideration that with shoppers, if , I’m not, I don’t, I incorporate yoga naturally in my life. In order that’s one thing that I do personally. And what I prefer to share with my shoppers is simply my journey of that so after I’m feeling stiff, or I’m feeling discomfort, I observed that if I’m getting into a particularly our connecting with new folks and new experiences, as my physique is recognizing, or sensing something which may throw me off or make me really feel uncomfortable, any form of discomfort, anxiousness, stress, any of that.

I’m checking in with myself, and I’m ensuring that primary, do I really feel secure? You understand, that’s primary, like, do I really feel secure? Quantity two, is that this an area that I’d really feel nervous and anxious as a result of I really feel perhaps imposter syndrome? Or, or is that this an area of being , ill-prepared? Is that this one thing that I have to work on internally to indicate up extra authentically? After which lastly, is that this insecurity? You understand, is that this reflecting from an area of I don’t really feel like I belong right here or I completely know I belong right here. However I’m, I’m afraid of being judged proper. I’m afraid of what others might consider me. So we see that displaying up lots. I feel that millennials particularly will not be essentially afraid to place ourselves on the market.

However so many people are delicate to what others might imagine or say we’re simply extraordinarily empathic this specific era, I might argue the identical even, , for you Steph. I do know that , you’re not you wouldn’t think about your self a millennial, however I do wish to put this out right here that, , for me, after I, after I seek advice from millennials, they’re undoubtedly these late 80s, , until the early 90s, , I take into consideration mid to late 80s or early 90s, that that group, the place we’re extraordinarily delicate as a result of we’re additionally we’ve been bombarded with the technological age. So we’re experiencing the world very in another way than these earlier than us. And I feel that if you’re feeling blocks in your bodily physique, it could present up in methods like that and issues like that, but in addition, after we take into consideration relationships, in case you’re not seeing reciprocity in your relationships, that’s one other block. Should you really feel like perhaps you’re over-giving and also you’re not seeing what you may some may name a return on funding or return on power. That’s one thing to discover. Now, that doesn’t imply that

it doesn’t imply that you simply’re not truly being reciprocated. However very oftentimes, our notion about how we give in trade may be off. It’s normally our notion. And so one of many issues that I share with a shopper not too long ago is, I do know that you simply really feel such as you’re giving, giving, giving, and pouring into this specific relationship and never getting it again. So primary, you undoubtedly have to have a look at your self and see is identical change that you simply wish to make. But in addition, I problem you to have a look at the expertise and see if maybe, the universe is offering you abundantly, what you may have been giving and reciprocating it again to you. But it surely’s simply coming from a special house, you may’t see it as a result of it’s not coming from the place you anticipated it and so simply shit difficult the assumptions round reciprocity. The assumptions round giving and receiving, I feel these are all elements of recognizing your blocks. And , I, my specific workaround as soon as we acknowledge them, what will we do about them is, , one thing that I’m doing in my group program that we talked about, on our name not too long ago create column and circulate. And what that’s, is simply my alternative to work with a smaller group of people that might not be capable to go the one on one route with me, however who nonetheless, , they’re nonetheless dedicated to figuring out the blocks, however then additionally determining what are these inside patterns programs that they’ve developed the life which may be creating or supporting these blocks versus clearing them out and creating extra alternatives for circulate.

Steph Gaudreau I like that. Gosh, a lot. So there’s a lot goodness in, in what you’d find yourself doing what you talked about. I feel It’s actually superior. It’s actually impactful to listen to you speak about what we’d usually, I suppose, in a extremely left-brained means of this factor is, , despite the fact that we’d perhaps affiliate creativity, or a generative strategy with being extra right-brained and extra, extra artistic and issues like that, we nonetheless oftentimes, and I say we, we, like, as a society, as a tradition, oftentimes distill that down into pondering, , only a rational mind pondering exercise. And we get actually caught there, proper? We’re similar to, I can’t consider something, I can’t consider something. And I wish to hear you saying right here on this dialog is that it’s so highly effective to have the ability to tune into this multi this multiplicity of various energies and demand, like the size which are round us with the universe and what we’re co-creating with one another and being open to the place issues are coming from, , am I receiving abundance in only one means? Or can I broaden my view of what that’s? So I feel that’s going to be actually useful for folks as they’re seeking to broaden their very own. What’s the phrase I’m in search of? Hey, I forgot my cellphone quantity earlier. What are you’re speaking about forgetting the identify of the e-book. I used to be like, I actually forgot my cellphone quantity earlier. After we’re a proper, it’s Monday. It’s increasing our nearly like our lexicon of what we will use, to develop that consciousness. So I like that. You understand, one of many issues that you simply additionally speak lots about is with the ability to give your self permission to thrive after trauma after tough circumstances. And the way can there nearly be this mistrust of self? I imply, are you able to suppose that is significantly related proper now greater than ever, however what do you imply by all of that?

Rai Henry It’s I imply layers and layers deep seven, , I’m sitting right here pondering to myself about the perfect place to talk is from my very own story. And , I’ve had a good looking I might, I might say lovely, effectively rounded, adolescent to maturity, , transition. It’s been I’ve skilled a little bit little bit of every little thing. I’ve lived in numerous totally different locations I’ve met and related with lots of people. My being raised, born and raised in Detroit to selecting Chicago as my grownup house after which, , being now, right here in Dallas, Texas, I take into consideration all the experiences and the way I’ve needed to ebb and circulate by means of my final, let’s simply say decade to get the place I’m at present. And there have been some instances there have been actually particular occasions in my life that have been extraordinarily traumatic ones which have function and worth, ones that I don’t glorify by any means, however one which ones that as I’m faraway from them, and them form of externally stepped, , taking that exterior, take a look at it from the large image, I can see how simple it could possibly be for somebody to have these experiences and fully shut out from actuality and from risk.

And I needed to pull myself out of a few of these areas. And naturally, I didn’t do it alone, proper? spirit assist from remedy, there are tons of modalities that have been part of serving to me get to the place I’m at present. So , I simply wish to put that on the market that everybody’s strategy is exclusive and totally different, however I did have to tug myself out and that is the half the place I say, , specializing in your self and your personal private duty and your private integrity. These moments may have been defining moments or they have been proper. However they might have been the start of a really totally different path for me. I bear in mind after I misplaced my aunt, which was she is my nice aunt, her identify is Colleen. And he or she was certainly one of my closest relations, somebody who was so pivotal and giving me an opportunity, she gave me an opportunity, selection and alternative as a little bit black lady. She made certain that I may see the world that I may have choices that I knew that there was a power inside me higher than something that I understood on the time as a toddler, proper? And so she instilled these sorts of values and in these confidence elements in me, however when she died, I used to be 24 I imagine, and I hit a fork within the highway.

Look, I used to be every little thing that I used to be engaged on. I used to be by definition of success, , I might say I used to be fairly profitable. Working my agency having an incredible staff to assist me making an impression by means of my work. However I fully disassociated from it. I used to be not related to myself, and I used to be very a lot so simply going with no matter occurs I think about the primary 25 years of my life dwelling on autopilot. That’s how I might describe it. After which that traumatic expertise shedding her which, , I had a number of earlier than that, however that was my what I might say my awakening second, the place I for the primary time realized I had to select for the primary time about how one can view the world, her demise both would signify for me the start of like, a extra pessimistic view on life. She simply was such a blessing to everybody Steph. God, each single particular person she touched on this planet, I do know she had a optimistic however the folks everybody liked her and he or she simply was simply strolling personified pleasure and happiness.

And so shedding her meant, effectively, if if I can lose this type of love and assist if she may be taken from me, and from the world, this reward. What does this imply for the subsequent? What? What am I going to do with this subsequent a part of my life? Do I imagine this will nonetheless keep on by means of me? Do I imagine in what she’s been instructing me for therefore lengthy, which is that every little thing is in divine order? As a result of in that case, then how did I lose you to most cancers? You know the way? So I actually went right into a darkish house. And it despatched me on a little bit little bit of a downward spiral. I did shut my agency and I took a while to do what Joseph Campbell talks about, which is, , I needed to go on my journey. I heard demise signified the true begin of my hero’s journey. And that course of delivery what I do at present. And that course of actually has given me the framework for serving to individuals who might undergo these traumatic experiences. And that’s only one, in fact, my background once more, with out going all the best way again to my childhood, however I’ve seen lots, , my mom was a single father or mother, and my father, whom I’m so blessed to have him life at present, and I like dearly, , he was incarcerated for a giant a part of my life, all through my early teenagers. And so , my story, my statistics definition is, I imply, it’s difficult. It’s undoubtedly a rocky story. I’m a first-gen faculty scholar, I had nothing however financial hardship and simply you’ll preparation getting into what many would name youthful maturity.

I didn’t have any of the steerage, I didn’t have any form of blueprint or framework to work from. However I solid it myself, together with spirit guiding me, and together with the attractive what I name messengers that confirmed up at totally different phases of my life. And I’ve charted that course of. And I’ve taken notice of what these key elements have been. And I’ve utilized them to the ideas of your hero’s journey. And that’s the framework for the work that I’m doing proper now. So it’s very tried and true. And I’m not simply on it, however I’ve studied, , and had many individuals, my shoppers, and my colleagues and my mates take the identical journey, and I’ve charted their progress, and I’ve requested them, What have been you experiencing at this stage? What occurred when grief got here in? What sort of selections did you make to beat that grief to acknowledge it, however nonetheless to beat it? In order that’s, , that’s what I imply by thriving is giving the framework for having skilled trauma, but in addition figuring out that experiencing the trauma will not be the place it stops. It’s normally a good looking alternative on your phoenix second, that chance to come back out on the opposite facet thriving as a result of it lights one thing new in you. It. I imply, it’s not all the time a good looking story, proper? It doesn’t all the time really feel good. However the prospects for a brand new life after trauma are limitless.

Steph Gaudreau Wow. Thanks for sharing all of that with us. Thanks for sharing a few of your story. And actually giving us that perception as to how trauma doesn’t need to be the tip and the way there’s a lot risk that each particular person has the flexibility to outline that for themselves. It’s simply completely lovely. I don’t know have the rest so as to add? Apart from that, as a result of I feel you, you ended it on such a strong second. Gosh, simply so grateful for this dialog and I’m actually excited to see , the place you go along with every little thing, together with your program. So, earlier than we hop off, I might like to have you ever share how can folks comply with you get to know extra about you and listen to extra about this system that you simply’re operating and every little thing that you simply’re creating on the earth.

Rai Henry You understand, Steph. I simply wish to remind , as I say to myself and affirm it, I’m additionally sharing this with the world that , we’re all on one journey, however there are infinite prospects. And so it’s so essential to recollect prefer it’s completely as much as you to decide on the circulate that works for you. So to decide on your circulate by unlocking that potential, and being intentional and deliberate concerning the life that you simply wish to stay and or the enterprise that you simply wish to create with they actually work hand in hand. And if you wish to know extra about that, whether or not you’re a artistic printer, somebody form of newer and , you wish to put your self on the market, however you don’t know the way and even my CEO degree shoppers, those that, hey, I already, I’ve actually carried out the work round my enterprise, and I imagine I’ve one thing that works however I would like to determine methods to be extra intentional and socially accountable and spiritually grounded in my work.

Wherever you fall on that spectrum. You’re welcome to come back and join with me. An amazing place to search out me and simply to come back say hello is Instagram. So @sunnysunrai and that’s https://ift.tt/38Ua46Q which is a play on my identify. And so I invite folks to simply come and say, Hello, join with me that means. Steph will inform you I take the time to say good day. I actually do wish to get to know you and from there, , there are two essential methods to work with me and that’s by means of both being lucky sufficient to come back to certainly one of my cohorts, which I don’t have a full schedule for however I can inform you, we’re operating by means of it for the subsequent three months, we’re actually operating the group program, this primary session, the primary couple of classes are actually centered on black millennials, as a result of within the sense, the sensitivity of every little thing taking place, I actually wish to serve my rapid neighborhood and guarantee that they’ve what they want. And Steph was certainly one of my sponsors for that program. So if you wish to be taught extra about that, you may simply go to CreateCollabandFlow.com. That’s an excellent place to simply work with me and extra of a bunch setting. So it’s a little bit bit extra of the DIY, however I’m right here with you all the course of for 4 weeks, strolling by means of your artistic circulate.

And in case you’re somebody who’s like, hear, I’m able to go all the best way and I would like a little bit bit extra assist. And I can simply present up 100% proper now. We will work one on one they usually’re ready to try this, I might be honored to speak with you extra on that. And so an excellent place to try this, once more, is simply come say hello to me on Instagram, and I’ll get to know you extra, we will hop on a name and actually see the place you’re. So these are form of these two pathways, both by means of the group or by means of the one on one expertise. And both means, you’re gonna be doing the identical work, there’s only a totally different degree of duty, and inside, , dedication to creating for both of these.

Steph Gaudreau I like that. Thanks a lot for sharing all of these totally different ways in which of us can get to know you. And sure, we, , after we simply kind of related for the primary time we had a pair backwards and forwards, I like that voice message perform on direct messages. And it was nice to actually join with you and I so respect that you simply took that point. We’re going to hyperlink all of these items up within the present notes. So if of us are driving or doing no matter they’re doing, they usually don’t have an opportunity to jump over, instantly upon listening, they’ll return to the present notes and get all of this nice information. Undoubtedly in case you’re somebody who desires to assist and, , make that, that supporting donation for Create, Collab And Movement, oh my gosh, I’m simply speaking so quick Create, Collab And Movement your program to sponsor, black artistic or any person who desires to do that program with Rai, please verify that out. You understand, that’s a method that you could make a distinction and take some motion on the earth. And so, Rai, gosh, I’m simply so glad that we have been ready to do that thanks for approaching. Your power is so unbelievable. You might be so grounding. And after I speak to you, in my physique, I acquired this actually expansive, open feeling. You understand that that power is flowing by means of you and it’s very, very highly effective. So

Rai Henry Thanks, Steph, I’m so grateful and simply thanks for once more for sharing the house and, , it’s my biggest need that those that are listening are impressed and may really feel what we’re sharing proper now.

Steph Gaudreau 100% Oh my gosh, thanks a lot, Rai Henry. I actually, actually respect it and I can’t wait to speak to you once more quickly. Likewise, speak to you quickly. Thanks.

There you go, that could be a wrap on this episode with Rai Henry. such a beautiful episode. My coronary heart was so full after this dialog. I’m so glad. Not solely that I related together with her through Colin, who you heard about on the podcast, however that I used to be capable of introduce you to Rai and the work that she’s doing on the earth relating to creatives, expressing your artistic power, stepping into that circulate state connecting to your physique in that means, and utilizing creativity and artistic expression as a method to heal. So glad that she was capable of be part of us at present and also you heard on the high of the present and also you heard Rai speak about please think about sponsoring a scholarship for a black indigenous or particular person of coloration for raised Create Collab And Movement program. You will discover all the particulars for that at her web site and you will discover the hyperlink within the present notes. If you wish to go on to that you could go to StephGaudreau.com and you will discover this episode there. You may also discover the hyperlink in Rai’s Instagram profile at SunnySunRai (https://ift.tt/38Ua46Q). Keep in mind additionally to share this episode out on Instagram & tag each of us. I’m at Steph_Gaudreau and Rai is that SunnySunRai. We might love to listen to your ideas on this episode, what actually resonated with you? And we’d love to try that. So thanks a lot for doing that. Thanks for tuning in. And we’ll be again subsequent Tuesday with one other episode that can assist you actually tune in to hear extra deeply to attach with your self on all the ranges that we’ve talked about on at present’s present bodily, psychological, emotional, non secular, and actually simply thrive and circulate. Alright till subsequent week after we’re again collectively, be effectively!

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Healthy Meal Plans For The Week

#Healthy Meal Plans For The Week

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Queer Eye's Antoni Porowski on Netflix and Opening a Restaurant

http://tinyurl.com/y4mserk6 Antoni Porowski could be finest generally known as one of many 5 pleasant hosts on Netflix’s Queer Eye, the bubbling replace to the truth program encouraging on a regular basis individuals throughout the nation to live their best lives. Because the culinary professional of the quintet, Porowski has expanded his position because the forged chef and parlayed that right into a rising model, most notably with the opening of his new fast-casual restaurant Village Den in Manhattan final fall. Today, a part of build up a private model that comes with internet hosting a way of life, actuality, or sport present is a robust social media presence. For celebrities and Instagram “influencers,” that now entails signing contracts and offers for paid partnerships to spice up not solely the model but in addition the pocketbook. However checking out which paid partnerships are helpful ought to require each technique and sincerity. A lot of Porowski’s Instagram feed options stylized meals pictures of Village Den dishes (brunch is very ’gram-worthy), skilled portraits, professional-looking selfies, the occasional doggo snuggle, and a few scattered sponsored content material. Amongst them are Instagrams promoting Olly Diet gummies, Boursin cheese, and Whole Foods meal planning. Porowski’s newest deal is a partnership with Saeco, an Italian producer of guide, computerized, and capsule espresso machines. In mild of the brand new collaboration (in addition to the information this month that Queer Eye has been renewed for at least two more seasons on Netflix), Porowski sat down with Fortune to overview a few of his newest enterprise dealings—to not point out share a number of life-style secrets and techniques, suggestions, and tips in order that we, too, would possibly be capable to lastly throw that good banquet. Saeco This interview has been condensed and evenly edited for readability. Fortune: Congratulations on Queer Eye being renewed for 2 extra seasons! What are you trying ahead to most arising for the present? AP: Thanks! The second season of Kansas Metropolis begins Season 4. It’s complicated as a result of we even have Japan season. (It’s not likely a season, however it type of is.) We’re going to be beginning in Philly very quickly, and it’s simply going to be nice to be again with the boys and doing the factor that we like to do, and simply assembly new individuals. I really like assembly individuals. I’m such a people-person, and attending to know their tales, getting as a lot info as I can, after which determining, “Okay, I’ve a restricted period of time with you, and what are we going to do this I hope you’re going to recollect for the remainder of your life? No stress!” However that’s all the time a enjoyable, tense, however emotional and thrilling problem. And it’s completely different each single time as a result of each particular person is completely different in their very own method. I believe with everyone, it’s simply being excited in regards to the particular person. I had by no means been in Tokyo earlier than. I had by no means been to Missouri earlier than. I’d been to Philly a number of instances, however actually for weekends with buddies and simply have dinner at their houses. I don’t know an excessive amount of in regards to the metropolis. I like that it’s near New York. So it’ll be very nice as a result of I’m hoping to sleep in my very own mattress. I’ve had an house for seven months, and I’ve slept like a month-and-a-half in it! So, selfishly, that’s very thrilling. But in addition, multiculturalism means one thing completely different wherever you’re. And it exists in Kansas Metropolis as a lot because it does in New York. There could also be extra range in New York. Even statistically—it’s not even a subjective factor. However I’m all the time curious to see what does that imply right here. With a metropolis as historic as Philadelphia, it feels very old-world America, with the cobblestoned streets and the structure. I need to see like, “What’s the immigrant story there?” Like who immigrated there, and when. Who stayed, and which meals stayed? And that’s one thing that’s so fascinating to me as a result of I believe it feels a lot of how we behave and the kind of individuals we’ve change into, the folks that we’re surrounded by, even when they’re a distinct tradition. How did you become involved with Saeco? What’s your thought course of about which model collaborations and sponsored adverts it’s best to run? Have you ever ever turned down sponsored content material? If that’s the case, why? It didn’t take an excessive amount of investigative journalism to seek out out that I’m obsessive about espresso. I point out it in virtually each single interview that we’ve been in. I discuss it, advert nauseam. I publish it on Instagram Tales, supporting all types of various espresso from like the large guys to the smaller little roasteries. Whoever it’s. I simply frickin’ love espresso. It brings me a lot pleasure. Certainly one of my favourite writers and poets and musicians—like Patti Smith talks about her cup of black espresso. Espresso and Cigarettes is one among my favourite little vignette movies of all time. So when the workforce at Saeco got here up, we simply began having a dialog and attempting to determine like how are we going to develop significant content material. I believe we had been on the identical web page from the get-go: It needs to be private. They didn’t include pointers like, “So that is what we would like you to do.” It was a really open-ended query: Inform us about espresso in your life. And it seems like that’s so basic. However then once I began occupied with it, and I began breaking it down, I used to be like, “Oh, I get what you’re saying.” It actually wakes me up within the morning. It will get me going. It permits me to operate in entrance of different individuals as a result of I work quite a bit. But in addition, it’s my method of getting just a little second of self-care on a Saturday, once I need to take the time and alter it, and customise it, and make my lovely cappuccino with the froth that reminds of the way in which that it was in Italy once I was there. And at evening, if I’m making an espresso glaze for my braised beef brief ribs, it’s there for me. It’s like my finest freakin’ buddy. And I simply love the ritual of it. I really like the scent. There are two completely different smells that come out of this machine. That’s a bizarre sentence. One is when the espresso, when the espresso beans are being floor. There’s this freshness of it. After which there’s a second at any time when it’s brewing, and it comes out. Then there’s simply that mild purring-kitten sound, when the machine will get activated, that’s very sensory. Saeco How is the restaurant enterprise treating you? What recommendation would you give to different culinary entrepreneurs seeking to open their very own eating places and small companies? It’s doing nice. I had no thought how highly effective catering is. And at first I used to be like, “No, I need single plates.” However companies like to have recent meals. However they don’t have the premises or mainly the setup to create their very own meals, and so they need to have issues catered. In order that’s been superb. We’ve been doing supply for SNL to Instagram. It’s a extremely enjoyable a part of the enterprise as a result of it’s self-sufficient. I’m not there day by day as a result of I’m touring on a regular basis, however meals, clearly, is a super-important component, and the primary phrase for me is consistency. Each dish has to style precisely the identical each single time. If any person is available in and will get that Thai hen bowl, once they come again, I need them to have that have re-created. No matter it’s. Whether or not it’s their espresso drink, whether or not it’s their smoothie. It needs to be the identical each time. And profitable eating places have mastered it, from Jean-Georges with ABC Kitchen to Mercer Kitchen. Like that tuna pizza and that spring roll have been precisely equivalent—each single time I am going. They by no means waver. In order that’s my objective. And by being on Instagram, individuals all the time tag me once they’re there with pictures of the meals. So once I don’t see micro-cilantro and crushed peanuts on my Thai hen bowl, I textual content my enterprise companions straight away, and be like, “Guys, let’s do higher. Please.” For entrepreneurs, simply just be sure you have consistency and know what your sturdy fits are. And simply be sure that it’s executed the identical each single time. How does social media play into your entire completely different tasks and companies? Particularly in regard to the culinary business, ought to it’s the centerpiece of your advertising and marketing technique or is there one thing else that ought to take priority? Whether or not it ought to be there, I’m not going to reply as a result of I’m not accountable for that. However with some issues, I believe it’s as necessary as it’s to be artistic and to plant seeds for beginning and progress. It’s crucial to be perceptive and to know when to be reactive and to answer one thing that’s already there. Whether or not you like it otherwise you hate it, Instagram is there for now. So let’s use it as a instrument. And within the place that I’m in, everybody’s following what I do organically, and it’s bringing it again to your preliminary query of why it’s necessary for me to collaborate with manufacturers like Saeco. Like for me, I’ve been acquainted with the model since I used to be a child, and that was the model that individuals had of their houses. It was very acquainted to me. I didn’t have a fantasy as a child of representing an espresso machine model firm. However nonetheless, to be hooked up to one thing that you just actually love, even different manufacturers, like Boursin cheese that I ate as a baby, it makes me proud and excited to kind of like discuss it. And Instagram is an ideal medium the place you get to specific your self in that method as a result of not everybody does it. I do know influencers and personalities produce other individuals handle their accounts, and that’s high-quality. Zero judgment. However I have to be totally in management as a result of I do know that followers of the present are good. They know who we’re. They know what’s actual and so they know what’s faux. And the stuff that I do that’s most natural is the stuff that I get the most effective suggestions from. On the present and with endorsements alike. So honesty is all the time key. Saeco Lastly: The proper banquet. What ought to it entail, and the way can the remainder of us ever hope to realize it? Completely! I had the proper banquet a few week in the past. There have been two folks that I’d by no means met earlier than, and one like a great acquaintance and one among my finest buddies. And I didn’t know what the hell I used to be going to make! Typically it’s a mistake, however I made a dish that I had by no means ready earlier than, and thank goodness it was profitable. However make one thing that you just’re snug with. The factor with me is once I prepare dinner on the present and once I’m engaged on the cookbook, I make a lot meals. So once I go to somebody’s home, I all the time get uncomfortable once they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t need to make something for you as a result of I’m like afraid you’re going to guage it.” And it’s like, “If you happen to make me burnt toast, with butter, I’m going to be thrilled as a result of I simply know that you just made it for me, and that brings me pleasure. Not too burnt, however medium-burned, you realize?” Simply the thought, the trouble that any person places into making one thing. You are able to do easy issues. I don’t take note of tablescapes, however I really like flowers. I reside very near the floral market. So I really like my peonies and my parrot tulips, and simply fill a vase up. Get some good linens that you just purchase on sale someplace, Williams-Sonoma or Ikea, or wherever it’s. Get some cutlery on the great little farm desk. Hold it easy, and all the time have a board when everybody is available in, so that they have one thing to nosh on—whether or not it’s charcuterie, cheese, or make a pleasant gooey cheese. Simply have meals, have alcohol. Play music, dim the lights. You don’t want vivid lights at dinner. I prefer it to be moody. Play some Miles Davis, and simply do issues which are necessary to you. Every time I preserve it particular to what my pursuits are, I get to create an expertise for any person. And other people all the time depart remembering that. The joke with me is at my dinner events, everybody’s like, “I’m all the time passing out on the finish of your dinner events as a result of I get drunk, and I fall, and the lights are all the time so dim.” However that’s precisely what I need! I need your tummy to harm. Take heed to good music. Be just a little tipsy, so you are taking an Uber house. And be full. That, for me, is the making of an ideal banquet. Sure, there’s an ideal method of roasting a hen, filleting fish, of doing all this stuff. Nevertheless it actually doesn’t must be sophisticated. Extra must-read tales from Fortune: —Big Gay Ice Cream cofounder on rising a small enterprise from coast to coast —Israeli pastries get a New York City makeover at this six-seat bakery —To fight meals waste, these Brooklyn companies teamed as much as brew bagel beer —Certainly one of Mexico Metropolis’s hottest restaurant teams fuzes Mexican and Japanese influences —Take heed to our new audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily Follow Fortune on Flipboard to remain up-to-date on the newest information and evaluation. Source link

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