#gee; would you be able to guess based off of this list that i am a queer chinese canadian? how could you possibly know?

[thevalleyisjolly]

Transpacific Stories Rec List!

Happy Lunar New Year!  To celebrate, I thought I’d do a “Top 5″ rec list of creative works that I really enjoy by transpacific Asian creators.

1. diaspora babies by Kai Cheng Thom (poem)

This spoken word poem haunts me to this day.  There’s a lot of immigrant (especially Chinese immigrant) emotions mixed up with queer experiences as a child of immigrants, and the vibes are truly just indescribable.  It cannot be expressed, only felt, so link is to the 4 minute video with captions.

2. Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny by Love Intersections (documentary)

A documentary about Vancouver drag artist Maiden China, which also features lines from diaspora babies!  It is all about that queer Chinese immigrant experience, discussing the nuances of both individually and together.  What is it like to be a Chinese immigrant, or the child of Chinese immigrants, in a North American society?  What is it like to be queer?  What is it like where those two parts of you intersect? 

I had the chance to meet one of the directors on this project and listen to his guest seminar, and the story behind this documentary and the production house came from an incident where some members of the local Chinese Canadian community launched a very public opposition to LGBTQ+ policies by the school board.  The news media of course went into a frenzy over this, and the producers noticed how the story was framed as “the Chinese community is “traditional” to the point of homophobia” (which...yes, there was homophobia involved, but not because of an innate “traditional Chinese are all homophobic” quality).

The documentary creators wanted to unpack, explore, and challenge this, and also to assert that queer Chinese people exist, which is exactly what the documentary does.  It showcases a variety of different relationships and interactions that queer Chinese people have - with their families, their immigrant communities, their heritage traditions, their broader Western society.  It’s a really complex and nuanced discussion, and one of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched.

3. Disappearing Moon Cafe by SKY Lee (novel)

Oh, you thought I was done with the queer Chinese immigrant theme?  Absolutely never.  This is a landmark book in the history of Chinese Canadian publishing - it was the first novel by a Chinese Canadian author to ever be mass distributed by a publishing house (SKY Lee is a lesbian, so first queer Chinese Canadian author as well!)  It follows the story of the Wong family across four generations, discussing themes such as settler colonialism and the roles and relationships that Chinese immigrants had and have with that, migration, family, and the nature of queerness in a non-Western context.

(I do have a whole essay talking about how understandings of queerness are frequently grounded in Western perspectives and how SKY Lee challenges and reframes non-heteronormativity in a uniquely Chinese immigrant context.  But also, you will totally ship Kae and Hermia.   You just will)

A deeply emotional, intense exploration of Chinese Canadian immigration, from its history to its experiences, good and bad and everything in between.  Truly, this may be a fictional novel, but the research is so well done, and if not every detail is historically accurate, the emotional truth of it is.  An excellent book that gives you so much food for thought.

4. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (novel)

One of the most intense books I’ve ever read, and am still thinking about years later.  I can’t speak to the accuracy of the experiences it represents, but it is a book that will make your heart ache and long and wonder. 

The premise: Ruth, a Japanese American novelist, discovers debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami washed up on the cost of British Columbia.  One of these is a Hello Kitty lunchbox containing the diary of a girl named Nao.  Nao is a Japanese American teenager whose family had to relocate back to Japan.  She struggles with living in a foreign culture, family struggles and mental health issues, and severe bullying.  However, she also meets her great grandmother, a Buddhist monk over a hundred years old who was an anarchist, feminist, and novelist in her youth.  In documenting her great grandmother’s story in her diary, Nao comes to tell her own.  The novel goes back and forth between Ruth translating the diary and wanting to learn more about Nao, and Nao’s story (and her great grandmother’s) as documented in the diary. 

One of my favourite aspects of this book is the way it plays with perspective.  What is a story?  Who is telling it?  How is a story created and changed by every person who touches it?  What does it mean for a story to end?  Fair warning, there are some very heavy topics dealt with in this book, including depression, suicide, attempted sexual assault, and grooming.  It is a very good book, but please look after your own well-being first. 

5. M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang (1988 play)

You know the opera, Madame Butterfly?  The racist Orientalist story of the white American Navy officer who goes to Japan, marries a Japanese girl for convenience, abandons her and their child for an American wife, and then she kills herself because she’s so in love with him that she can’t bear it?  Man, just typing that out pissed me off, and it sure pissed off David Henry Hwang too.  So let me tell you what he did about it.

There was a historical incident where a French diplomat, Bernard Boursicot, was caught in a honeypot trap by the Chinese spy Shiu Pei Pu, who was a Chinese opera singer.  For those who are unaware, Chinese opera singers are traditionally men.  Boursicot was unaware of this.  He had a decades long affair with Shiu Pei Pu, who identified themselves as female to him, and they eventually lived together as a family with a child.  It wasn’t until Boursicot was caught smuggling documents and put on trial that he found out Shiu Pei Pu was AMAB.

M. Butterfly is a play based off of this story, with explorations of Orientalism and how Song Liling (the play’s Shiu Pei Pu) was able to exploit racist beliefs and tropes such as “yellow fever” to win the heart and confidence of René Gallimard (the play’s Boursicot).   There’s a monologue in the original 1988 play (I’m not sure if it’s in the 2017 revision though) that Song delivers in the first few scenes of the play that explicitly addresses and tears apart the original Madame Butterfly story (which makes Song’s later use of it to seduce Gallimard all the more spicy - dude, they literally told you from the beginning why they hate the story, and you still believe that they want to be your docile little Butterfly?)  The overall play is a fantastically clever deconstruction of truly so much Orientalism and really challenges how Westerners perceive and depict Asian (especially East Asian) people.

A note on gender in this story: When the play was first performed in 1988, Song Liling’s character is AMAB and largely identifies as a man, with the strong subtext that he enjoys presenting as feminine.  Since 1988, Hwang has acknowledged that the gender reveal of the original play reinforces gender binaries, and has expressed the desire to revise his depiction of gender in the play to encompass genderfluid/GNC identities, which he did in the 2017 Broadway revival.  I have not seen the new version of the play, in which Song identifies themselves as AFAB and male presenting to Gallimard, so I can’t judge how it was handled.  I’ve heard that 2017 Song embraces a more explicitly genderfluid identity, but cannot confirm this.  The 2017 revision is based off of new information revealed about the Boursicot case, including that Shiu Pei Pu initially introduced themselves to Boursicot as someone AFAB who was presenting as male. 

#rec list #diaspora babies #yellow peril: queer destiny #disappearing moon cafe #a tale for the time being #m. butterfly #gee; would you be able to guess based off of this list that i am a queer chinese canadian? how could you possibly know? #happy lunar new year everyone! #long post

[clevercatchphrase]

2020 Year Review~

2020. Pretty unique year, don’t you think? It’s the first year since 2002 to have only two different digits in it. After 2022, this won’t happen again until 2111. Yep. Absolutely nothing more interesting than that.

Anyway! It’s time I reflect on my 2020, look back on my yearly goals and rant about things that happened to me this year. I made a post like this last year, where I went over my 2019 goals and talked about what I accomplished and what I didn’t, and it’s only fitting I do the same again this year. Read more under the cut for a random stream of consciousness ramble!

So, first things first, let’s look at my 2019 goals;

Finish paying off that last student loan

Put more stuff on my redbubble

Illustrate my own fan fics

Sew at least one stuffed animal

Make an enamel pin

Read one new book a month

Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make

Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch

Boost my patreon

 Paying Off My Last Student Loan: Going down the list, I am proud to say that I FINALLY paid off all my student loans! (and not a moment too soon. The last payment I made was literally days before the first quarantine rolled out). It took me roughly 4 years on my part-time paycheck to pay off all my loans, and once I finished, I had no money to my name (literally; I had less than 1k as emergency money in case of car troubles or health issues). Heck, I’m STILL living at home as a save up for a place of my own. Finally paying off all my student loans DID activate my secret 2020 new year’s resolution, which was to adopt a cat! I did this too, literally a week later! She is the best thing that’s happened to me this entire year and I love her so much and she is the snuggliest cuddle bug I’ve ever met. I’m so happy she’s in my life now~

Put More Stuff On My Redbubble: ah ha ha ha… I thought I did this, but then I went and checked, and it turns out-! I did not. I made art I intended to go on my redbubble, but haven’t put there yet. They are all drawings of some OCs from a game I want to make, but because I haven’t progressed on making the game this year, I never got around to putting more stuff related to it on my redbubble. At the time of writing, there are 7 days left in December, so I guess I could go and put it up on my redbubble right now, but without context on where the characters are from, there wouldn’t be much point, now would there?

 Illustrate My Own Fan Fics: Another goal that I was so stoked to actually do… and then just didn’t. Gee, I wonder why I couldn’t find the energy or motivation to do it this year? Truly a conundrum. (Hey, you know what? If Ghost Switch counts as a fan fiction in a visual form, then I am doing GREAT on this goal. 2.5 years in, 1 of ~4 arcs done, and still going steady~)

 Sew At Least One Stuffed Animal: Okay, I have a valid excuse for not doing this one. I even knew which stuffed animal I wanted to make, and had the pattern drawn out and everything, but I had no money for materials because I had just paid off my student loans. And then, by the time I did have enough money again, quarantine was in full effect and I couldn’t go out to the fabric store. I’m still trying my best to stay out of public places even if the rules are laxer now, because I don’t want to catch the plague even if everyone in my goddamn city thinks and acts like the problem is over already. Even if they’re all wearing masks, even if they’re staying 6 feet apart, I still don’t want to risk it. I will stay inside until health experts give the all clear, and when that day comes, then I will buy some fleece and make a plush.

 Make An Enamel Pin: I ACTUALLY DID THIS ONE. TWICE! Halfway through quarantine, I was feeling anxious and depressed about my job and how they were planning to have me work with the public despite climbing infection rates and positive covid cases. I didn’t quit then, but in a desperate move to try and become self-sufficient, I went to madebycooper and made two enamel pins based on some butterfly dragons I drew last year. They’re on my etsy store now! I even went out of my way to open a P.O. box just to start a small business! I haven’t sold a single pin yet, and I’m actually really nervous to sell my first because I don’t trust the efficiency of the postal system thanks to the actions of the GOP that really screwed them over this year! (If you would like to see my enamel pins, click here!)

 Read One Book A Month: I did this! With dragon books I bought a couple years back! In fact, I read FOURTEEN dragon books, and still have more books for next year to read! The 14 books I read this year were:

 The Hive Queen

The Poison Jungle

Wings Of Fire Legends: Dragonslayer

Dealing With Dragons

Searching For Dragons

Calling on Dragons

Talking to Dragons

The Bronze Dragon Codex

The Brass Dragon Codex

The Black Dragon Codex

The Red Dragon Codex

The Silver Dragon Codex

Dragon Strike, and

Hatching Magic

 To be honest, I had read The Red Dragon Codex years ago when it first came out, but completely forgotten what it was about. I remembered liking it, and I knew the reading level was on the lower side, but the whole dragon codex series was pretty good! So far, the Silver dragon codex was my favorite, and black dragon codex was probably the worst! Hatching Magic was also really slow and bad and had plot points that went nowhere, but the book was written in the 80s, so I don’t know what I expected. The Dealing with Dragons series was very charming and great for the most part, save for one line in the last book that really rubbed me the wrong way, and all the Wings of Fire Books go above and beyond in this third arc. The second legends book could be a little tighter, though (sky and wren are the best duo and I want a book solely about them, but I honest to god do not care about leaf and ivy’s stories.)

 Write one Page of any story every day/ complete at least one fic: I… did this? Okay, I kinda cheated near the end of the year. I was keeping up the one page a day thing for the first four months, but then the world went to shit and my schedule and habits got disrupted and I fell off my good track record. I completed 7 out of roughly 12 one-shots I had planned for this year (my goal WAS supposed to be one short a month, but… you know how it happens) I kept trying to catch up on this goal all year, but the days kept piling up…. Until November hit. I managed to write over 250 pages for Nanowrimo, and I consider this goal a win. 365 pages of fiction in total, which averages out to about one a day~. SHUT UP IT COUNTS.

 Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make: Another goal I didn’t have the mental energy to commit to this year. Truly a mystery to where all our willpower went in 2020.

 Fully Finish Scripting Ghost Switch: still haven’t done this one yet! The Snowdin arc is completely planned, but I just haven’t gotten around to getting the other areas. I’m not worried, though. I know all the major plot points I gotta hit, it’s just weaving them together in a way that flows nice is the final task. I’m not too worried though. I don’t expect to finish the Snowdin arc for another year and a half, at the bare minimum.

 And my last goal of 2020, Boost My Patreon. I did this at the beginning of the year, but then very intentionally stopped about a third of the way through. It didn’t sit right with me to tell you guys to donate to me when suddenly EVERYONE was financially strained from layoffs or being furloughed. I told my patrons the same, and if you ever need to stop donating to me to take care of yourself first, then by all means, please do. I would feel much better knowing you’re using your money to see yourself fed and housed instead of given to me (where it is pretty much only used to buy gas for my car, honestly)

 Welp! That was all my goals for 2020! I achieved 4 out of 10 goals plus 1 secret goal! Pretty much the same ratio as last year, but now this time I can blame all my failures on the pandemic! I don’t feel so bad about myself anymore~

 ON TO 2021!

 I have 11 goals for the new year, again some rolled over from this list, and some from even older years. They are, in no particular order;

 Read 12 new books (roughly 1 book a month)

Finish the first draft of 2019’s Nanowrimo project and rewrite it

Script TDV

Finish Scripting Ghost Switch

Build A Comic Buffer

Sew 1 Stuffed Animal

Finish 1 Song Comic

Make another Enamel Pin

Finish 2 short original comics (this one counts as 2 goals)

Finish the 5 remaining one-shot fics

 Now to go into depth on each one, more for my own sake, really. I want to know exactly what I have planned for each goal this year, and sometimes just looking at a short list doesn’t capture all the smaller details.

 1)Read 12 new books. Same as last year! I The only difference is I might not be able to make it all dragon-related books. (I try my hardest not to buy from amazon anymore, but half-price-books doesn’t always have the obscure stuff I’m looking for)

 2)Finish 2019’s nanowrimo project. If you read my 2019 year reflection, you’ll notice I said I wanted to do some original writing. And I did! The story I wrote for nanowrimo back then was a story I’ve been toying with since 2017, but it was only last year I finally got pen to paper. Now, you may find it odd that the keyword says “finish”. You may think, “but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for nanowrimo?” and to that I say, WRONG! I wrote 50k words for nanowrimo, but the draft was only about halfway complete. I was kinda discouraged about what I had written last year, because I didn’t like how it was coming out, but I did manage to get it half done. Now it’s time for me to bite the bullet and just finish the thing so I can finally revise it and make it into something I DO like. (It’s still gonna be hella long, tho. That’s what I get for trying to write an epic fantasy, I guess.)

 3)Script TDV. TDV is the abbreviation of the game I want to make. I… still need to do so much for this project OTL… In addition to getting the story solidified, I still need to draw art and game assets, and learn how to code for it, both of which are no small task. I keep having some sort of new year’s goal related to this on my list, and every year I just don’t hit this one. Will 2021 be different?

 4)Finish Scripting Ghost Switch. (Or at the very least, get the waterfall arc completely written out). I have a plan to break this down into simpler steps, by focusing on just one arc for a month or two. Every major arc has 2 to 3 parts, broken up by flashbacks, and if I can just finish one section a month, then I should have the entire thing scripted by the end of the year. It’s not a difficult pace, but seeing if I stick with it will be the real challenge, as it is will all my goals it seems.

 5)Build a Comic Buffer: I’m actually working on this one right now! Since I paid off my last loan and got a new job this year, my current Patreon goals are kind of out of date. They had all been centered around me paying off that last loan, and working towards full-time employment, but those are both completed now! So instead, I would love to get to a place where my patrons could read pages at least a week ahead, and to do that, I need to build a buffer. And since I’m working 5 full days a week now, I can’t afford to fall behind. But you can’t fall behind if you constantly stay ahead! I would like to have… a 10 to 12 page buffer. That’s roughly 3 months’ worth of pages to always have on hand in case I get swamped with work, or something. Right now I currently have a buffer of 3, which will cover me for half a January, which is better than not having anything at all, but still not the best. (ultimately, I would love to have a buffer so big, I could queue them up for the whole year. Wouldn’t that be something?)

 6) Sew one stuffed animal: same as last year. ASSUMING the plague gets under control in 2021, I don’t expect to get to this goal until the summer at the earliest.

 7)Finish 1 song comic: I have 7 song comics planned. One is a gift, one possibly for wandersong, one is a collab that’s currently in the works, but I’m waiting on a friend to do their part before I can continue mine, 2 are UT related, and 2 (well, technically 3, but one is the collab) are KH related. It’s one of the UT ones that will probably get finished, if I’m being honest. It’s completely story boarded, and now I just need to ink and color it. I would like to get it done for UT’s 6th birthday, since I made a song comic on the fly for the anniversary this year, and it was fun, and I’d like to do it again! So, look forward to that next september~

 8) Make another enamel pin: I have a dolphin design I’d like to make because dolphins are cute, if not little murder machines. (need to save up some expendable income first, tho. THESE THINGS AIN’T CHEAP TO MAKE.)

 9 and 10) start and finish 2 original short comics: I’ve got some comic ideas I want to do, but I need to get them written out first. I don’t think either would be too long. Each maybe a couple “episode’s” length, if envisioned on a website like webtoons or tapas. They’d both be heavy in allegory, but not overly drawn out (hopefully)

 11)And lastly, Finish the 5 remaining one-shots I had planned for this year but never got around to. I’m going to try to write one every other month. Pure self-indulgent shipping fluff. If I finish these 5, then maybe I’ll ask other people for more prompts and ideas, which I’ve never done before. We’ll see how it goes~

 Also, Like last year, I’d like to look at everything that’s happened to me this year, though to be honest, I’m not sure how much I remember/how accurate it’ll be. God, I don’t even remember what January was like. Who was I back then? Who were we all back then? I guess I’ll start my yearly retrospective in march because, heh, god we ALL know what started happening in march.

 Firstly, I paid off my last student loan! Then a week later on March 18th, I drove half an hour out of my city to adopt a cat and I love her and it was the best day of this year for me. Spring break is just beginning this weekend, but the attendance at the zoo is shockingly low this year. Apparently, a lot of people watch the news, and they’re all taking precautions about social distancing. I wasn’t too disappointed. Fewer people at the zoo, the easier my job is for me. I was looking forward to getting some free overtime on spring break, since I’m broke after paying off that loan, and I’m a cat parent now and have a furry child to feed. Monday rolls around. My manager calls me and tells me that the zoo is going into lockdown until further notice. I worry for the birds I take care of, but understand it’s for everyone’s safety.

 For two months I sleep in and watch way too much YouTube. I join a couple writing discords. I have nightmares about my birds escaping their enclosure and I dreamed one of the security guards I really like at the zoo gets covid and has to go to the ER. I woke up really upset.

 I started and finished BBS for the first time. I also replayed and finished KH2 final mix for the first time. It had been about 5 years since I last played KH2 before my PS2 died, and it was like coming home~ I also finished tearaway, and played and beat Ryme for a second time (which I can’t remember if I did that last year, but it was a fun experience regardless)

 Mid-June, and I’m allowed to start going back to work, be it on reduced hours. The zoo is still closed to the public, but I’m loving it! I get to work with full-time keepers and do full-time keeper things. It’s so much fun not having to deal with the public. August starts to creep up and there’s a rumor that the zoo will be opening to the public again, which I’m not stoked about. I don’t want to go back to standing in one exhibit all day, talking to guests who don’t listen to the rules or to me. 2 of my younger coworkers (who had both only been there a couple of months) get chosen for full-time positions, while I get passed up which really pisses me off. My other 2 coworkers quit when they think we might be reopening because they cannot risk catching the virus due to at-risk family. I am now the last keeper in the interactive bird exhibit.

 I keep working, the zoo slowly opens, but with me as the only interpreter in our interactive bird exhibit, we can’t open because I can’t run the entire exhibit by myself. So my exhibit stays closed. September comes and goes, and then October starts. Now there is more serious talk of opening my exhibit before the end of the year because the zoo expects to bring in larger crowds for the Christmas lights event in November/December. I ask if I get hazard pay or health insurance since I’m doing full-time hours until they hire more staff. They say no.

 I immediately start searching for a new job feeling incredibly indignant/hurt/slighted/insulted/used/abused/ALL the negative feelings at my job. I had been there for 4 years, but never got a chance to work full time, while the two newest hires who had only been there 2 months both got moved up. I can’t help but feel they were holding one mistake I made two years ago against me and never wanted to give me a chance. (that, or they knew I was reliable when it came to showing up for work in such a volatile position that sees a lot of new faces, and they didn’t want to bother going through the process of hiring someone new) I don’t want to risk my life working around guests who don’t wash their hands and don’t properly distance. I don’t want to gamble with my health when they won’t offer me health insurance because I’m part time.

 Mid October, I get an interview for a full time job and get hired on the spot. I peace out at the zoo 2 weeks later, literally 3 days before they planned to open my exhibit to the public. It was a close call for me to escape before they opened to the public (and pettiness was only partially the reason I dipped out so close to opening). Sorry new hires who are now in charge of the bird feeding exhibit. I taught you the best I could in the short time I had. If the managers are struggling with what to do with one less person, I can’t say I feel bad. I can only hope they delayed opening/closed you down again for your own safety. You are not lightbulbs. I really hope the higher ups stop considering you as replaceable as one. Will I go back to the zoo to visit? Probably. But not for a year at least.

 I started my new job the very next day after I quit the zoo, and have been there ever since, (which isn’t that long yet, tbh. Christmas day was my 2 month anniversary). It’s full time, but it’s also a small business, and everyone’s hours this year have been on the short side due to the plague. I understand, though. They don’t want us to work if they can’t afford to pay us. Everyone is nice enough, though some people smoke and it’s hard to avoid them with how frequently we have to go in and out, and I really don’t want to get lung cancer, sorry not sorry, please and thank you. Also, with such a small team, gossip is certainly harder to go undetected, so it’s a relief knowing people don’t talk behind one another’s backs.

 I participated and beat my 4th nanowrimo in a row, I made TWO apple crisps on thanksgiving, and made baklava on Christmas and both of these recipes were my first time making them, and they both came out adequately! I voted the first day of early voting, and I did an art trade/collab with two of my friends for my birthday! (normally we would have done monthly “art days” where we get together and do art projects for fun because we’re adults and we can spend our time together however we want, but the plague said otherwise this year) We drew pokemon and it was fun! (hopefully I can show you all the results soon. At the time of writing, I’m still waiting for the last two colored parts to get back to me)

 I reached 100 pages on my undertale comic, and finish the first arc out of…! (im not sure. It’s either going to be 4 or 5, I haven’t decided yet)

 Over all, I managed to stay healthy as far as I know. I wasn’t as productive as I wanted to be this year, but then again, who was? (don’t answer that. I don’t need that kind of comparison in my life right now)

 Will 2021be any better? Honestly? I don’t think so. Not right away, at least. Just because a new year is about to start does not mean the slate is completely wiped clean. The change of the calendar year doesn’t magically make all our current problems disappear. Covid will still be here and cases will still climb when January starts. Small business will still be strained when the month rolls over, police will still go on murdering innocent civilians and getting away scot free, amazon and disney will still be monopolizing all consumer goods and media, and I can’t help but feel like there’s an impending shit show about to go down on inauguration day. I do hope things will get better, though. It’ll be arduous and unpleasant, but I do hope things will improve, because sometimes hoping is all you can do.

 Good night.

#long post #new year's resolutions #year review #year retrospective

[abigailsfictionalothers-archive]

Distraction - Natasha x My Marvel S/I

A/N: I struggled to write the actual beginning of this relationship, to actually give some context, for DAYS, but I was STRUGGLING, it was not working out, I was not feeling it. So I decided to write this small little fluffy little our-relationship-is-already-in-full-swing drabble instead, which came way easier, just to get a daydream and a little bit of our dynamic out on paper for the first time! I'll try to do the actual beginning stuff for context later! Been feeling weird about starting to self-insert in this universe, so I'm hoping this will help kick some stuff off 👉👈

For some context, my Marvel S/I's name is Maria (Ria) Stark (finally diverging from just naming all my S/Is after myself, WHOO!). Ria is still just me but with a different name and also cooler, as usual, haha. Ria is the child of Tony Stark, and is in a poly relationship with both Natasha and Steve! Ria also helps co-run Stark Industries in large part with Pepper Potts!

Word Count: 1052

I'm only gonna tag a few people since it's my first time writing for this ship and I don't wanna bother anyone who might not be interested, but if anyone who was tagged would not like to be, or anyone else would like to be tagged in future works for this ship, let me know! Tagging: @imagine-your-love-story @nekociapek @sacredempressnatlyia

Hope you enjoy!

~~~

It had been damp and grey outside since the moment I woke up, and I was quick to decide that I wouldn't be going anywhere that day. All the work I would be doing would be from the comfort of my suite in the Avengers Tower, and that was final. Besides, Natasha and Steve were out on mission with everyone else, so it's not like I had anyone to distract me, making this the perfect excuse to get some of my more paperwork based work finished.

Despite it being dark out, and me being tired, I managed to get a decent dent into my never-ending to-do list. I was fairly happy with it, and then Pepper called and asked after some things, so we chatted for a while, and I was still shockingly focused afterwards. The no distractions thing was really helping me find my groove.

That is, until I made out the sound of a helicarrier getting noticeably closer, and then and there I figured my streak would soon be over. I was never one to be able to stay working when my boyfriend and girlfriend were under the same roof, never mind my chaotic, chaotic father.

The noise began quickly as the Avengers dispersed throughout the tower, and I was once again shocked at how thin the walls and floors were in such a state-of-the-art building. I still attempted to peck away at my keyboard the smallest bit, hoping to make the most of my time, but my distraction soon arrived.

Natasha was leaning against the doorframe to my office space soon enough, still dressed in her tactical gear, giving me a small smile, "Hey, you're actually here!"

"Decided to work from home today. Been getting some paperwork done and over with. I imagine that's probably over now, though."

Her grin was devious, "You would be correct." She made her way over to me, doing her best to saunter. She stopped behind my chair, and I tilted my head back to look up at her.

"You look exhausted, Ri."

"Gee, thanks Nat."

"Put your work away while I go take a shower and spend a lazy afternoon with me."

"Ah. You must be tired too if even you're commanding a lazy day."

"Half a day. Indulge me and rest a little bit."

I hummed softly in agreement, "You think Steve would be available to join us?"

She shook her head slightly, "I doubt it. Last I heard, he was in for a long briefing and some reports."

I tsked lightly, "Looks like it will be just you and I then. What a shame."

A grin spread across her face once more as she took my face on her hands, still looming above me, "Us, getting to spend time alone together? A shame, truly. And a rare occurrence." She leaned down and gave me a feather-light kiss, which I made a small sound of approval into.

As she leaned back up, I smiled, "You're adorable."

She scoffed, "You are. Put your stuff away and find us something to watch."

"While you get ready I think I'm going to-"

She cut me off by leaning over and shutting my laptop, quickly snatching it from me.

"Hey!"

"If I don't take it now you'll never put it away."

"But I-"

"You don't need it right now."

"How am I supposed to-"

"Find something on the tv."

I pouted, "Meanie."

"You know I'm right."

~~~

By the time we were both in bed, flicking through options on the tv (I've always been terribly indecisive when choosing things for other people to enjoy), the rain had kicked up pretty significantly. We lightly bickered back and forth about what to put on, before settling on something random.

Natasha quickly snuggled into my chest as we chatted back and forth.

"So everyone did good on this last mission, then?"

"Yeah, we're definitely good at coming together as a team. It's a nice change."

"Dad didn't cause any problems?"

She laughed, "Well he's not the best at keeping quiet, that's for sure, but you knew that. He was on his best expected behavior."

"What a relief to hear that he causes chaos even when it's not just for Pepper and me. So do you think you guys are gonna have to head out on another one soon?"

"I think we've gotta do some digging first, so I think it'll be at least a week or two."

"So that eliminates all my chances of working from home again any time soon, then."

She lightly smacked my arm, smirking, "Guess you'll just have to spend time with your family and friends then. How unfortunate for you."

"You know I have a job, right? That I co-run a company?"

"I'm choosing to take note of the co part."

"You're stubborn, you know that?"

"You definitely already knew that."

"Of course I did, just figured I'd point it out in case no one else has ever been brave enough."

"I've heard it once or twice, but I take comfort in the fact that it's something you enjoy about me."

I leaned down uncomfortably to kiss her forehead, "I sure do."

She rolled over a little to sling her arm over me, "Take a nap with me."

"You know I'm not great at naps-"

"You are when you're tired and there's no distractions around."

"You're a distraction."

"I'll be taking a nap."

"There's a whole lot of other people in this building, too."

"I took care of it."

"What did you-?"

"Someone has to go out of their way to make sure you're resting, and I've personally taken on that mission myself. Turn off the tv."

I did as she commanded with a slight, playful eye roll, "You always act as if you know what's best for me."

"I do, don't I?"

"Probably, but that doesn't mean I have to take it without complaining,"

"You're just like your father. Close your eyes and go to sleep."

Feeling my eyes fluttering of their own accord, I figured it was useless to protest further. Pulling Natasha a little bit closer, I willed myself to put everything out of my mind besides the sound of the rain and Nat's breathing, and I did my best to relax in her arms for at least a little while.

#otp: made up my mind #my writing #self insert community #f/o community #lgbt self ship #nonbinary selfship #wlw selfship #nblw selfship #self ship writing #selfship writing #self insert writing #self ship #selfship #self insert #self inserting #self insert ship #self insert shipping #self shipping #selfshipping #self ship community #self shipping community #anti self shippers dni #romantic f/o #poly self ship

[fleamarketloveletters]

April 2, 1942.

Hello sweet,

Gee I wish that I could only get a letter from you. I don’t think I’ll hear from you much before Tuesday. You can’t imagine how I miss not receiving your dear letters.

I’ve been laying outside on my blanket all afternoon, with only my shorts on. All of us I guess were out there. The sun really burns down here. The only trouble with the south is it make a person lazy. I’ll be glad to start school this coming Monday. All day long until we start all we do is lay around in the sun and go swimming. I know why the southern people are so slow in their talk and movements. The heat does it. RIght now its just like a vacation to us but honest hon if I don’t start school soon I will go crazy because all I think about when I’m laying around is you.

I’m oh so awfully lonesome for you! Darling it seems a million miles away from you. All I think of all day is how long will it take before I’ll be able to be married to you.

You would enjoy seeing all the planes overhead every second. They certainly are a beautiful sight, their chrome bodies glistening against the blue sky. They are colored with red noses and bands around their wings. Each squadron have different colors. I’ve never in all my life seen so many planes overhead constantly. Darling, all I say is “Gee hurry up those five months so I to can be behind those controls.” Honest hon, my hands itch at each throb of their motors. One of the planes from the base here is on the cover the of the “March Illustrated” magazine.

Did you see this week’s Liberty? The marine and his girl-friend? It reminded me of you and I walking along together when I was home. Only you were a way prettier girl than the one on the cover. I always have said your beauty is unsurpassed.

It’s comical, I’m as broke as a marine could be. But all of us are the same. We don’t know when we will get paid as you have to sign the pay list a week in advance before pay day, and the regular pay day is this Sat., but we didn’t or rather weren’t allowed to sign in Quanitco because of the fact we were leaving. If I have to wait until two more weeks I don’t know what I will do. Right now I’m finding out how little things such as soap, hair tonic and so forth mount up. When you have money you always can get them but we all are what you might call sunk! Everybody is even banning writing paper. So far I’ve been lucky on that matter. I’m down to about 10 stamps but from today on the mail will go free for us fellows. Hurrah! (Ouch my sun burn!)

Hey Kiddo -- My pal Montgomery just came down and told me that the Capt. is coming around with the pay list, so we most likely will get paid Sat. I hope!

They are very strict around these barracks. No smoking or chewing of gum, or candy inside. We have to wear a certain uniform to go outside at all and that’s our suntans. There is a two way sound system in each room to the majors office. That’s so there will be no swearing or foul language amongst us. Gee they really keep us all in a straight line here. It’s a good thing. I like it and find it easy because its more the way I like it. It’s nicer not to hear swearing and be swearing all the time. I’ve broken off from it already the whole lot. You see darling most of the fellows going to school are the intelligent type of the Corps so that accounts for the refinement.

“Dit happy” or what I will be in a few weeks, so say some of the former students. That means you get crazy from the radio key. Huh, something new every day!

I did a lot of washing today also. I bleached my belt to make it white. You know, “salty dog” like? I’m going to have some pictures taken at the photographer for you, sometime this month. It takes time because they are even rushed. (All you do in the Marine Corps it seems, is wait in line for something or other.)

Gee do the navy guys have to wait on us down here. They do the police work around our barracks and have mess duty and all the dirty work. Those sailors are a sloppy looking bunch. It seems they have no discipline at all. They all have hair that grows over their ears and their uniforms are as messy as the mess they work at. I still say the marines certainly are the most disciplined and neatest service.

We are right in with fellows from San Diego. Lots of them were telling us about being there when the picture “Shore of Tripoli” was being filmed. Really interesting. They have to come to Jacksonville too because of all the tech and mechanical schools for the Marine Corps and Navy are here.

I bet all you poor northerners are shivering away in the cold and here we are basking in the warm sun. Or the old joke about Florida goes “-- Having wonderful time, wish you were here.”

Hon, when graduation comes and I make the grade for pilot I’m going to put in for the fighter or dive bomber pilot. It pays the best. Even the rear gunner draw flight pay even if they don’t get to be pilots. They draw pay and a half if they get a job as radio man or gunner.

All I did was lay out in that sun and look up at those flying leathernecks way up in the sky doing all sorts of acrobatics. What a thrill it gave me.

I wonder if the mail will be as prompt seeing we don’t have to put stamps on our mail? Let me know hon how it gets along? Thanks.

I’ll be thinking of you this coming Easter Sunday dearest. I would give anything for be going to church with you that morning. I would just love to go to N.Y. and show you off to all those people who walk up and down 5th ave.  You would make them look silly compared to the way you would be dressed and all. Your beautiful darling. I only wish I could see you Easter Sunday. Maybe Darling we will be together next year is God is good to us. Maybe we might even be married that would certainly be heaven itself.

When I get paid I am going to try to buy my camera back again because I would like to take a lot of pictures of here and send them to you.  You know I really haven’t sent you only one or two and that is unusual considering the places I’ve been.

Dimples, now I’m going to field strip my rifle and oil it and and all so as it will be raedy for parade Sat. So we will bring this encyclopedia to a close.

I love you always my dearest and please believe me when I say that all I ever have on my mind is just beautiful dear you.

With all my love, always,

Your,

Jack

XXXXXOOOOOO

P.S. I don’t trust this new idea about free  mail yet so I’m putting on a stamp. *How’s our little dinner coming?)

[langblrstudysession]

I am learning Arabic now, but I have difficulties in getting a teacher and any environments who can I share with them or learn together bout arabic. Do u have any suggestion for me, ? Or, can I learn written and spoken Arabic only by myself, ?

Well, I by no means think that language classes are the end all be all. If you have access to them, great, but if you don’t, don’t even sweat it! Before I had taken Japanese or Korean classes (which I didn’t do until college btw), I had been studying on my own, on and off, for a few years. Here is how I typically approach my new languages (and this works well for me, personally):

1. Learn the alphabet, well

2. Learn the super useful and basic sayings and how to introduce yourself

Of course, this just always seems like the best and easiest thing to do. Not only are these the things that are most important, so I’ll likely run into them all the time, but by learning basic phrases, I can get a feel for the way the language works, both in regards to how the language sounds, and how sentences are typically constructed. This early on, even when I don’t know all of the words, I like to point out certain patterns I see while looking at the translations (For example, when I was learning Korean, even though I didn’t really know any words or grammar, just by looking at translations of basic phrases, I could see “Oh, sentences in the past tense all seem to have this -ㅆ어요 ending whereas present tense sentences only had -요,” things like that.

3. Vocab, vocab, vocab!

Even though you may not know how to hold whole conversations, I feel like learning basic vocabulary at this point is the best idea. Verbs, places, time, direction words, family members, colors; all the super important things that you would likely want to talk about on an every day basis. Just build it up for a while.

4.  Grammar!

I feel like once you have a substantial amount of vocab knowledge, now is the time for you to be focusing in on grammar. Of course at this point you already may have noticed a few things without having studied it, but now you can really dig into the grammar rules and start learning how to put together your own sentences. Thanks to all the vocab you now know, you should be able to construct sentences/hold conversations and talk about your self on at least a basic level, ask for directions, order food at a restaurant, things like that. 

5. Get more comfortable with the past and then the future tense

Once I’m comfortable with the present tense, I focus on learning past, and then future tense (and if we’re talking Spanish, the 1,000 other tenses 😒) Once you’re finished with this point, I consider myself having created a solid foundation. Now all I have to do is decorate it! :) 

6. a. Expand on vocabulary, then b.expand even further on grammar. 

When you’re at least somewhat comfortable enough to recognize when sentences are in present, vs past, vs future,it’s time to hone your skills! Now is the time to learn all of that not-your-everyday-conversation type vocab, like more specific colors or body parts, outer space, less popular animals, more places and verbs, etc. This is where I typically try to get all fancy with sentence enhancers (aka adverbs, adjectives, idioms). 

Going back and forth, repeating steps 6a and b.

You can never have too much vocab or grammar knowledge; it just keeps growing and growing. 

Gee, writing this list out makes language acquisition seem like a short and easy process lol, but we all know it takes so much time and dedication. Once you’ve done all of this, I think you should be about at an intermediate level (on paper at least). It sucks not having anyone to practice speaking with, right? 😭 For the longest time I didn’t have anyone to speak any of my languages with. Now that I’m older, I guess I just have no shame in my languages. I walk around my house speaking Korean all the time. I get my pronunciation from dramas and music. I speak Spanish with my coworkers at my job. But if you really have no one, just sing! Or repeat things out loud that you hear in the movies or shows you watch. 

So yea, I definitely know for a fact that it can be done. You already have a tumblr account, so that’s good. There are so many resources here. Notes, links, friendly people who will answer your questions the same as a teacher would, friendly people who will chat with you in your target language. Then there’s youtube, and there are endless apps and websites dedicated to teaching languages. I said it once and I’ll say it again, folks: Don’t underestimate the power of the internet! We can do so much on here, and for free. Take advantage of everything, and learn to work with what you’ve got, and when I say that, I mean both tangible and intangible factors. So much of how quickly and effectively you will learn, is based off of how well you do that (work with what you’ve got). If you know you love music, use it to learn. If you’re a doodler, draw out your notes. Some people like the sticky notes thing. If you’re like me and like to travel, go to countries that speak the languages and force yourself to talk to people. If your interest in languages and or motivation to study comes in waves (like me again haha), then work with that. Realistically, that happenes to a lot f us, I think. I stopped trying to fight it. If I am studying Korean for 2 months and suddenly I just want to study Spanish for 5 days, then I just do it, otherwise trying to force myself to study becomes a drag. I don’t ever want this to become a task for me rather than being fun.

Sorry this became so long 😭 but I really hope it helps! I’m considering starting Arabic, btw. I definitely want to start a new one this year, I just don’t know yet whether I want to start learning French again, or start learning Arabic or Mandarin. Anyway, happy studying!! :) 

#polyglot #lanaguages #arabic #learn languages #langblr #studyblr #study #studyspo #study motivation #study tips #learn arabic #spanish #english #dutch #dannish #finnish #romanian #russian #germany #french #portuguese #japanese #korean #learn spanish #learn korean #learn japanese #italian #omniglot #persian #chinese

[rocketmail5555]

Does rocketmail still exist

Does rocketmail still exist? my rocketmail ID cannot be accessed anymore. Yahoo will say that such ID cannot be found in the database? rocketmail and ymail accounts are no longer being issued, but you should be able to use your rocketmail account still unless  Rocket mail sign in it has been 12 months since you logged on.

Its very easy to lay the burden of proof all on those who believe. Its also easy to quickly categorize all those who believe in God into one category (like those who say I dont believe in evolution, or religion starts wars, blah blah blah) Oh BTW humans start wars, I find it hard to believe the concept of love thy neighbor started a war, BUT THATS JUST ME.

Anyway back to the question. Its a simple question, and although most of you would probably deny that you'd reject God, my guess is you'd probably find a way.  Well gee if we cant prove it scientifically it cant be real. Well based on the current evolutionary scale of we meer humans, I'd guess we know about .000000001% of all there is to know. 

rocketmail is still live 

So I find it quite bold that you've simply dismissed the possiblity of God. When in reality you've done so for the sole reason, because you've chosen to. Or even better, wasting your life away trying antagonize those who do believe, sorry if I come off blunt, but I just find it such a waste of time. Theres so many things to discover, yet you waste your time trying to deter those who do believe in a higher power. Id hate to burst your bubble but that will only leave you with a lifetime of agony.

Now please dont get me wrong, I am not categorizing all atheists into one bucket. Im simply calling out those that fall into the bucket in the last paragraph, because trust me just there are just as many closed minded religious people as there are atheists.  And many atheists are very open minded.

So please answer honestly, if you knew God existed, would you still not accept it?

Update: actually abc yes it has, you exist. And you werent created from nothing. Cause and effect my friend.

Update 2: Everand, has the thought occurred to you that God doesnt need this measly 100 years of your existance to prove to you it exists, when it has the next 40 billion......?

AnswerSave

Visit the Yahoo Mail site. ... Click "I can't access my account," found underneath the login area of the screen. Select "I forgot my password" from the list of options on screen and click "Next." Enter your full RocketMail email address in the space labeled "Yahoo! ID." Enter the code posted on the screen and click "next."

[falling-stars-and-open-scars]

An Introduction &Mental Clusterf*ck

06/21/20

Hiya Tumblr, how’s it goin? I’ve been meaning to write sooner, but never seem to really get the time/chance to. If you’ve recently started following me, welcome! I’m sorry we had to find each other like this, but it is also nice to know that we’re not alone. 

I suppose I should do a bit of an introduction: (Going to go ahead and put Trigger Warning here out of respect because you never know what might be triggering to someone so best to cover all bases) 

Name: I’ll go by Star, I guess

Age: 31 (I feel a bit like a creep being on this platform as it’s not really aimed at my demographic, but at the same time, I feel like I can relate more to the posts/memes/people here than I can on other platforms)

Location: USA, Central US to be more specific without giving too much away

Conditions/Ailments: Well, this is a bit tricky as I’ve never been truly professionally diagnosed with anything. I have some type of depression (bi-polar II disorder or something similar to that). I have engaged in self injurious behavior from the time I was 13 years old with my most serious occurrence at age 28/29 being ruled as an attempt. Up until October of 2019, I had been clean from SI/SH for a full year -- even with my parents getting an ugly divorce after 30 years of marriage and being placed in the middle of that ugliness. I relapsed because of an argument with my best friend over a guy she was dating at the time, which lead her to say “You don’t care about me!”...when, in therapy, I had to list the reasons why I would/should stay clean.....guess who was my number 1 reason? Yeah, her. So for her to say that I don’t care when my whole reason for not going deeper into the dark rabbit hole that is depression and SI/SH.....yeah, it hurt a lot. But, thankfully, we’ve made up and she’s no longer dating that idiot and I have been clean. Another “condition” I have would be an eating disorder. It’s kinda hard to really put a label on it, but if I had to I would say I have BED and am developing ANA-like behaviors. In the past, like when I was 12-13 years old, I looked into Ana and Mia. I even purged a few times as I got older (16-18 years old), but stopped because I had just gotten braces/gotten braces off/had a surgical procedure done where they break and reset my jaw to fix my overbite [called a Class II Skeletal Malocclusion] and didn’t want the stomach acid to ruin my teeth that I had just spent all this time getting fixed. I have always been about 20 pounds heavier than girls in my age group. If they were 100 pounds, I was 120; if they were 130, I was 150. This went on for some time until my “father” (let’s be real, he’s a sperm donor and nothing more) went to prison for some stupid sh*t that he knew better than to do (he is not mentally well and has a lot of delusions about reality and perspective). Anyway, while he was away, I ballooned up and also got a little bit of PTSD because of police being involved -- for a few years, anytime I heard sirens or saw police lights, I would break down and cry. Since then, I’ve just continued to gain and gain and gain. 

Weight: My hw was 290 around December 27th 2019. I weighed myself yesterday and I am down to 271. My goal is to be at least 200 by the end of the year. I have been restricting (going from originally 1,500 to 1,200 to 1,000 per day), I have fasted (started doing it around January/February but stopped; my fasts were usually only 16-18 hours and I would only have liquids during that time -- water, tea, or zero calorie drinks like Powerade if I was feeling really bad). I know that’s not really enough to claim that I’m Ana, however, I do get anxiety when I eat something and do not know how many calories something has. For example, my friend wanted to get ice cream a few weeks ago and I legitimately wanted to cry in frustration because I couldn’t get an accurate calorie count for the item I wanted and wanted to cancel because I didn’t want to splurge or “ruin any progress” I had made. I count calories a lot with LoseIt and based my day off of “well, were you good and stayed at or below limit or did you go over”/”did you have a good day or were you being bad?”. It gets to a point to where my boyfriend will offer me a sip of regular Coke and I say “No, it has calories”. A literal sip....tiniest bit of ingestion...and I avoid it like the plague. 

Stats: Height = 5 foot 6, Weight = 271 (currently), Body Type = ?I dunno, I used to be kind of an hourglass as a teen so....maybe hourglass?

Struggles: Weight, obviously. I would love to be under 200, I would love to be 160 like my friend and get the compliments that she gets all the f*cking time. The girl can post a picture of her and her dog and everyone is commenting about how beautiful she is....like, guys, it’s not about her, she’s literally trying to show you her dog but all you thirsty b*tches see is her and think that if you compliment her enough times she just might say hello to you. That’s not to say that my friend is not pretty; she is pretty. It’s just the fact that she’s had people falling over themselves trying to compliment her and shower her with attention and for what? Because she simply exists in the size that she is. The same people/friends that we have will comment on how drop dead beautiful she is but will then share a meme fat shaming someone else and I’m like “gee guys, you DO realize that I’m bigger than the girl in the meme that you’re fat shaming so.....you can understand why I feel like you think I’m disgusting, right???” I’ve always been the fat funny friend. I’ve never been attractive to anyone my age, except my boyfriend, and he had even stated early on that I’m “cute” at best...has said that I’m not considered sexy and that if I lost over 100 pounds then I would be able to be a model. My friend has told me if I ever got to her weight, 160 or less, that I would “look sick”. I don’t care if I “look” sick, I DO care about not having to go to a special store JUST to buy clothes. I DO care about not having to worry about what other people think if I have a piece of cake at a birthday celebration or if I have an extra spoonful of potatoes at a family BBQ. I DO care about hearing people talk about my weight behind my back. I DO care about not being able to fit into a bathtub, or movie theater seats, or most chairs without it being a tight fit. I DO care about getting into/out of a car and it not shake from my movement. I DO care about how people judge me by my size. I DO care that I don’t get any compliments. I DO care that I’m not attractive to people my own age, but older men (50s and 60s) dig me. I DO care that I’m only attractive to certain groups of people with a “fat white girl” fetish. I DO care that I am NOT normal. I DO care that, despite being healthy overall, I’m constantly worried that a doctor or nurse will say something about my weight. I care....it may not seem like it....because I’m big....but I do care. 

Goals: Get to 200 by the end of this year. That is my biggest goal. If, for some reason, I do not meet that goal, my secondary goal will be get to 240. As long as I don’t go back up to 290........as long as I keep losing.....I’ll have to take the small victories where I can. I also want to stay clean from SI/SH. It’s been difficult with my parents divorce. It’s been difficult with school/work/trying to balance that out. It’s been difficult because I think I’ve been slipping into a depressive episode recently. I’m tired all the time, don’t sleep well, work like a dog all the time; every instance of self-care (brushing my teeth, taking a shower, shaving, etc.) seems like a chore that I’d rather just ignore. I don’t really want to do anything other than stay in bed and shut out the world. I crave those depression naps/sleeps I used to take when I was younger (wake up, maybe eat something, immediately go to bed, sleep for 3 hours, eat again, sleep for another 3 hours, stay up until it’s time to sleep again; getting almost 10-12 hours of sleep per day). I think I’m starting to slip again, but as long as I resist it, things should be okay. Maybe I’ll bounce back soon.....

Family dinner tonight, BBQ. I’m not counting or restricting today; even though I probably should. I’m not sure how I’ll burn it off. I work tomorrow and, can on average, burn 1,500. But that won’t help me today, will it? It’ll be around 2 or 3pm and probably last until 6pm....which gives me 3 hours to burn it off before a 9pm bedtime (I’m old and need my sleep). Problem is, boyfriend is going to be with me the whole time, so it’s not like I can say “Honey, let’s do Ring Fit for 3 hours!” without throwing red flags up, especially since I can only do Ring Fit for about 20 minutes at a time. I could just take it as a L today and try to work extra hard during the week.....maybe? We’ll see. 

Thanks for stopping by and reading this long a$$ mental clusterf*ck of an introduction! Be good. <3 You are valued and cared for. Please drink some water. <3 Headpats to you! <3 

Until Next Time.....

[lovelyparanormalbooks]

100 Truths Blogger Tag

Hey everyone! Wanted to do something fun here (while y'all 'wait' for my mega wrap up post to be completed oops) so I decided to do this tag! Stolen from the Mango Queen May @ Forever and Everly so definitely check her out, and her post is here. Anyway, without further ado, the tag!* *Still feel like I'm rambling though. Am I?

The Basics

1 What’s your name?

Cas; technically a nickname and unrelated to my "real" name but ah well.

2 Any nicknames or aliases?

Cath, Rose, and as for other nicknames too many to count/list.

3 Your gender?

Female! She/her.

4 Your star sign?

Taurus, even if it's not always obvious I am quite the stubborn one though mostly in subtle ways.

5 How old are you?

I mean, you can probably find that answer at least somewhere around this blog but I'm not gonna give it to you straight, but I am a teenager in high school, I'll give you that much.*

*Is this too cryptic? I really don't mean to be, it's just I'd like to keep it 'undisclosed' even though I've probably blabbed before.

6 Your relationship status?

Single; I've moved past the point in my life (intermediate/middle school and early high school) where I'd pretend it was "it's complicated" when that just meant about my friendships; lmao.

7 Any children?

Nope.

8 Any pets?

I mean we have like 19 chickens I think, by my last count? I'm not great at keeping track. But out of those there are the four which are most like pets to me, a black orpington and three blue orpingtons :)

9 Any tattoos or piercings?

Nope and I doubt there ever will be I'm too indecisive and why have piercings when the only thing I'd ever get pierced are my ears, and you can just have clip ons?

10 What do you like about yourself?

Uhh well I'm not one of those people who constantly puts themselves down so that's a start? (And I really don't mean any offence to anyone who is like that, I hope you start seeing what an amazing person you are! 3>

11 What do you dislike about yourself?

Lack of confidence on some occasions I suppose? I try to be more outgoing and I am a slightly more extroverted ambivert but I think in certain situations I just need to be more willing to take a chance.

12 Righty or lefty?

Right :)

Lasts

13 The last thing you drank:

Water. It's sitting in front of me slightly to my left as I speak :( (in case you haven't been able to tell I'm not a fan of water)

14 The last thing you ate:

An apple.

15 Your last phone call:

To a friend while I was walking to school, because when you're by yourself you get bored.

16 Your last text message:

Hoped it'd be something exciting, but nope it's just ":)" (minus the quote marks).

17 Your last email:

Sent email? To myself, a day ago, sending myself a resource for mock exams (sigh).

18 The last song you listened to:

Why would I remember, I'm not bothered checking but it was off my "pop ballads" playlist and pretty sure the song was almost over when the period ended and I stopped listening to music.

19 The last book you read:

Bright Thrones by Kate Elliott, though that is technically a short story... Oh well.

20 The last time you cried:

Ahh damn not a great story. In the car on the way home Wednesday two weeks ago, but that was really a chain reaction event which started around the start of lunchtime that day.

21 The last blog you read:

Forever and Everly!

22 The last person you spoke to:

A friend while walking to my dad's office where I am now.

23 The last place you visited:

School?? It is after school right now and I haven't gotten home yet...

24 Your last holiday abroad:

China! I mean more specifically Beijing as well as Shenyang, Dandong (the border with North Korea), Yuanjiang and Anhua.

Have you ever?

25 Have you ever gotten back with an ex?

That would require you to have one in the first place, so no.

26 Have you ever been cheated on?

Yeah no.

27 Have you ever cheated on someone?

No.

28 Have you ever lost someone special to you?

Luckily, no.

29 Have you ever been so drunk you threw up?

I have yet to experience the feeling of being drunk and don't think it's something I'd like to try anytime soon based on other peoples' accounts of it.

30 Have you ever fallen out of love with someone?

Yes?

31 Have you ever met someone who changed you?

Define change in this context? People I've met have definitely made me a better person though.

32 Have you ever been in a situation where you found out who your real friends are?

*long sigh* unfortunately too many times.

33 Have you ever kissed someone you probably shouldn’t have?

The sarcasm is back; that would have to require actually kissing someone.*

*Random fun fact: when I first wrote this response it was worded terribly, I think something like "have to require having actually kissed someone" which makes absolutely no sense at all.

34 Have you ever found out people were talking about you behind your back?

Yep.

35 Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

Not that I'm aware of. 36 Have you ever kissed a stranger?

See answer to question 33. 37 Have you ever had your own heart broken?

I don't know how to answer this one? No?? But, books, so yes?

38 Have you ever had sex on the first date?

Not an original answer but gee I'm underage and never been on a date! 39 Have you ever been arrested?

Gladly no, though this one time we did do something "suspicious" lol. 40 Have you ever been attracted to someone that isn’t the gender you usually find attractive?

Yes I think so. 41 Have you ever done something you regret?

Probably, though there isn't a specific instance that comes to mind. 42 Have you ever had a threesome?

No! 43 Have you ever embarrassed yourself in public?

Highly doubt I haven't though I don't remember anything in particular that was especially mortifying? 44 Have you ever misjudged someone?

Definitely, and I'm always very quick to correct myself afterward. I find it amusing when my judgment is extremely off though.

Your Beliefs and Opinions

45 Do you believe in God?

No thanks. 46 Do you believe in yourself?

Yes.

47 Do you believe in Santa Claus?

No but Santa is great.

48 Do you believe in ghosts?

Kind of? But not really. 49 Do you believe in aliens?

Eh, they could exist, doesn't really concern me? I don't think they're gonna take over the world but hey if they did it would probably be better than Trump being president? 50 Do you believe in miracles?

Yes, they're signs you're doing things right. 51 Do you believe in the power of positive thinking?

Absolutely. 52 Do you believe in love at first sight?

You'd think I wouldn't, but I do? Like I definitely think you have to get to know each other and all that but I think there is that sort of instant connection, but it's not always going to turn into love. 53 Can money make you happy?

It can. But it can also very easily make you extremely unhappy so there needs to be a balance. But if you're in a good place I don't see why an extra pay check is gonna ruin your life. 54 Would you describe yourself as a feminist?

To be honest I'm not a big fan of the word, particularly with the whole misconception of it being "women > men" etc; but I definitely support equality and would consider myself an equalist. (See this post; this is pretty much my viewpoint summed up.) 55 Are you pro-life or pro-choice?

100% pro choice. I don't think it should matter what your own opinion on abortion is; that's for you. But others should be allowed to do what they want with their body. 56 Do you have strong political beliefs?

Yeah I guess? I do try and keep myself educated about such things but I'm not like a political activist or anything. 57 Do you have strong religious beliefs?

No way. 58 What do you think the most important thing you can give a child is?

Freedom.

Right Now

59 Are you eating anything right now?

Nope! 60 Are you drinking anything right now?

Nah. 61 What are you listening to right now?

The satisfying (don't @ me) sound of a printer printing... but it just stopped. 62 What are you thinking about right now?

Feminism/equality, having a chat with friends about it. 63 What are you waiting for right now?

Waiting to go home; two minutes till work ends. 64 What are you most excited about right now?

My band is playing on a pretty big stage on Saturday so that's something! 65 What’s your pet hate right now?

Does this mean pet peeve? And nothing extremely specific right now except people with their stupid far right extremist views. 66 What’s your favourite thing right now?

Dunno. 67 If you weren’t answering these questions, what would you be doing right now?

Probably studying, whoops.

Firsts

68 Your first best friend:

Siân, love you girl.

69 Your first kiss:

Yeah nah, not happened yet. 70 Your first celebrity crush:

I have no clue, but probably Theo James? 71 Your first holiday:

China 2011 :) 72 Your first pet:

A beautiful grey chicken named Ash. 73 Your first regret:

Oh gosh this was awhile ago but way back in 2012 when the guy I liked moved away right after he *may* have found out I had feelings for him (not certain about this but hey I'll never know). 74 Your first job:

Basketball referee. 75: Your first childhood memory:

My first birthday party. I'm told I probably don't actually remember it and only know what I've been told of it and thanks to the photographic evidence though, which is probably true since I have like no memories before the age of eight.

Which would you choose?

76 Love or money?

Love, of course. I read YA.

77 Twitter or Facebook?

I use Facebook more because the lovely Twitter locked me out (much appreciated, not). But I prefer Twitter for sure. Facebook can be useful as band promo though so it's not all bad. 78 Hook up or relationship?

Relationship! Casual isn't really for me. 79 Dogs or cats?

Dogs. 80 Coffee or tea?

Don't like either, prefer hot chocolate but coffee. I actually have more tea but I don't like it very much. 81 Beer or wine?

People always laugh when I say this, but in my opinion beer tastes like slightly off sparkling water. Why would you enjoy drinking that? Red wine for sure. 82 Sweet or savoury?

Sweet :) 83 Introvert or extrovert?

Can I choose ambivert? Otherwise extrovert. 84 Vampires or werewolves?

This makes me instantly think of Twilight, so vampires of course. 85 Seaside or countryside?

Countryside, cmon. I don't like water much and I love country music. 86 Summer or winter?

Winter!! 87 Books or movies?

If you don't already know, I'm not a fan of movies at all and obviously books win. Books or tv shows though... That's a whole different story. 88 Horror or comedy?

Recently I admitted to some friends I've never watched an actual horror film and they were absolutely shocked. But yeah, comedy definitely.

A few random questions to finish on

89 Do you wish you could change your past?

Sometimes I do, but then I decide it's not that big of a deal because you know, the past is full of mistakes I've learnt from. The lessons are more important than erasing the mistakes.

90 What’s your dream job?

This is something I always get stuck on. Musician? Entrepreneur? Lawyer? Activist? Writer? Actress? 91 What’s your guilty pleasure?

$3 hot chips at your local dairy. OOPS.

92 What are you afraid of?

Disappointing people. 93 What was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up?

No clue really but I think it was probably an actress!

94 If you could have any super power, what would it be?

I'd like to be able to fly, teleport, read minds, control time... You can tell I can't decide. 95 If you could change anything about your life what would it be?

I would like to live somewhere else, really, with a better education system... I shouldn't say that but still. You can't change your feelings *shrug*. 96 Would you want immortality?

I think it would be cool, especially if you had someone by your side. Immortality alone though... Not so keen. 97 If you could interview anyone alive or dead who would you choose?

I would absolutely love love love to interview Roger Federer. Why? Just because, it's Roger Federer so duhh. 98 Would you say you are happy?

Yes, I am grateful that I have a supportive family and live in a safe place. 99 What one piece of advice would you give to yourself at age eighteen?

Don't mess up your life! Kidding, but hey I'm not that age yet so I'll pass on this question. 100 Where would you like to be in five years’ time?

Ahh, five years... I'll probably be at uni, but ideally I'd like to be in the US whether it's to do with academic or music I care less. Well this has been an obnoxiously long post about myself but if you managed to read all of that kudos! Please tell me something most people don't know about you in the comments so I feel a little less self absorbed.

#ParanormalBooks

[pie-and-shotguns-blog]

Title Lyric from “Patience” by Guns and Roses

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We really aren’t sure what to do with this ep. (I vote cry, rage, and then pick up the pieces and move forward.—Marge) On the one hand, it was a really good episode, beautifully written by Robert Berens and a perfect setup for the backdoor pilot to Wayward Sisters, the much anticipated SPN spin-off. On the other hand, they fucking killed one of our favorite BAMF WOC characters, and they did it off-screen AGAIN, and they kinda fridged her AGAIN. Yes, her death was noble and she was bad ass to the very end, but it still felt a lot like we—and she—got screwed.

Anyway. So apparently there is a wraith (one of those creepy-ass human-looking things with the stabby-spiky-appendage that descends from their wrist so they can eat your brains. Remember the ‘Pudding’ episode – 5×11?) and he eats nothing but psychics. Real psychics, mind you, not the ones that litter every major thoroughfare of every street from the suburbs to the big cities, with the neon hands of fate and TAROT CARDS and quite often “for rent” signs, which always make us wonder how they didn’t see that coming, hahaha. But this is Supernatural, so there are real psychics, and he eats them.

DAWN: How many REAL psychics can there be, though, even in SPN-land? That wraith looks pretty well-fed for someone whose only food source is relatively rare. MARGE: I wondered about that too but then I thought about how many we’ve seen in comparison to how many we’ve seen of other creatures… Seems like psychics might be plentiful? Possible, not probable? ERICA: Y’all think of things much differently than I do. My main thought was “what happens when he runs out?” MARGE: I mean, I think it’s just a taste he’s acquired. He can go back to eating us regular old humans, I guess. It just won’t be as satisfying for him. Poor little-dissatisfied wraith… Ugh. ERICA: I don’t know though…the way he phrased it, it struck me as an addiction thing, sooo…. MARGE: Wraith rehab? No? lol

Back at the bunker, Dean is isolated in his room, listening to music, drinking lots of beer, and being sad in general. Sam is checking on Jack, who hasn’t left his room since they got there and he got settled in. Sam gives Jack the video message that Kelly recorded for him while she was still pregnant. Just as Jack begins watching his mom, which was so very sad, Sam’s phone rings.

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This psychic-eating-wraith from the opening scene is the lead-in for the return of our favorite BAMF-but-soon-to-be-dead character who is also our backdoor for the Wayward Sisters spin-off: none other than Missouri Moseley, folks, played by the inimitable Loretta Devine (yas queen). We’ve missed her and we’ve always wanted her back so the fandom was THRILLED to learn that she was going to re-appear this season. She tells Sammy she’s been out of the life for a while but now she needs some help on a case with which she has a personal connection.

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We’re just gonna come right out and say it. No point in teasing this one out. Missouri comes back for this one episode, y’all, and they kill her ass off in the first 20 minutes without breaking a sweat, breaking the hearts of the entire fandom and enraging more than a few, us included.

MARGE: I actually threatened to riot on Twitter… It was an emotional moment. DAWN: I am displeased. Very displeased. ERICA: “Displeased”….such a gentle word for the rage that consumes me. MARGE: I also scream-tweeted at Robert Berens. Oops. Sorry, sir… ERICA: Ditto, fam.  

So it was awful, it hurt, but did she go out like the badass that she is? Yes. Yes, did she ever. She chose her death, in order to save her son and granddaughter from the wraith because she saw that it was the only way they would live—literally she saw that, because Missouri is psychic AF, and she checked to make sure. And then she sends Dean into the fray, with the directive to save her family. So, he did. Kinda. Really, her family sort of saved her family, with Dean’s assistance, but we’ll get there in a minute.

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Missouri sent Dean and Jody to find her son James Turner (played by Adrian Holmes), and granddaughter, Patience (played by Clark Backo), and to protect them while she stayed behind at the murder scene of her protege, Dede, knowing that she was going to die. Then she basically told the wraith to get fucked:

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DAWN: Their last name is Turner, not Mosely. Rufus’ last name was Turner. Headcanon accepted. MARGE: Definitely! I LOVE the idea that Missouri and Rufus were a thing… Maybe that’s why Rufus was such a hateful old cuss. He had an awesome thing with someone as badass as Missouri and lost it?… I wanna feel like they had the kind of love folks write fairytales about. Ok, enough speculation on that or I’m gonna get all misty-eyed. DAWN: Yeah, I’m going to need that fanfic in a hurry. Somebody get on that. MARGE: We should add it to our ever-growing list of things we want to write… LOL

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SO, Jody and Dean run off, find James and Patience, who Missouri believed was psychic before James cut her out of their lives (initially because Missouri ‘incorrectly’ predicted that James’ wife would survive an illness but also for fear that Missouri would ‘influence or poison’ Patience).

MARGE: Total speculation, but I think Missouri probably told her boy his wife was gonna live because she didn’t want to break his heart… maybe that was it. Geez.

Patience dreams of being attacked by the wraith and then goes to school, which is where she was attacked in the dream, and just so happens to be… guess what… attacked by a wraith. Everything looked a little deja-vu-ish, of course. Who would’ve thought? Channeling a little of granny’s badassery, Patience knees the wraith in the dangly-bits and then breaks off his stabby-spiky-thing. Signs of spunk—we like it. Patience is pretty cool so far. The acting could use a little bolstering, but we definitely believe she’ll get there. It’s hard to judge based on first appearances but who are we kidding, we do it anyway. Dean and Jody show up just in time to confront the wraith but he manages to elude them and almost hits Dean with his van while escaping.

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Cut to the Turner home where Dean, Jody, and Patience break the news to James about the attack and the likelihood that Patience is, in fact, possibly psychic (DUH! Missouri Moseley is like never wrong.—Marge) He decides it’s time to run, sends Patience to her room to collect her things, and then, gee, what do you know, the fucking wraith is hiding in the closet. Cue – classic-horror-genre-girl-scream and Dean, Dad, and Jody scrambling upstairs to find an open window. The wraith has kidnapped Patience so Dad uses a little divination he learned from his mama to find her… yes… the skeptical father who cut MISSOURI MOSELY out of her granddaughter’s life is like, meh, desperate times… let’s do some magic real fast to find my girl. Which is reasonable… but still. What an asshole.

Patience is in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse, tied up, and the wraith is being a total fucking creep—talking about how he’s going to feed on her over and over and really draw it out… just…ewwwww. And then, what a shock, Patience has a vision… in which her father, Jody, and Dean all get stabbed to death. It doesn’t look like a vision at the time though, so yano, we think everyone just died horribly painful deaths. It was sort of awful but then we realize quickly it was actually a vision and Dean, Jody, and Dad are just arriving on the scene to save the day. This is the part about how Missouri’s family actually saved themselves with Dean’s assistance. Because of her vision, even though she is tied up and can’t fight, Patience is able to warn her Dad, Dean, and Jody all before the wraith can land the stabbing blows that supposedly killed each of them earlier. Dean manages to take the wraith out and Patience is freed. Hooray for happy endings… except MISSOURI IS STILL DEAD.

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Meanwhile, back at the Bunker, Sam is trying to “train” Jack to use his powers and Jack is basically a surly teenager who doesn’t want to do his homework. Sam pressures him; Jack freaks out; Sam leaves him alone to cool off.

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And then we see Sam, reading a book about parenting gifted children while surveilling Jack via his laptop, which honestly was the cutest thing ever and very likely caused the entire fandom to spontaneously ovulate. Even the men.

MARGE: That takes talent.

Sam is distracted by his reading, so it takes him a few minutes to notice that Jack is no longer on-camera. Cue Dad-panic at it’s finest from Sam Winchester. He runs to the library and finds Jack hiding in the corner.

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They have a heartbreaking talk about being different and misunderstood, how hard it is, and why Dean can’t deal, and honestly, Sam would have been such an amazing daddy and it’s horrible that he will (probably) never get that chance. *SOBS* Jack confesses that he already believes he is probably evil because his powers have never presented unless something negative was happening. Sammy gives him a little bit more sunshine and rainbows and Jackieboy seems to be feeling better about things.

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MARGE: Seriously folks, we talk a lot about Jensen Ackles’ award-worthiness, but for real Jared Padalecki deserves just as many accolades. He is just as capable of an amazing emotional portrayal of Sam Winchester and it hits us in the feels just as hard as Jensen’s Dean. This scene was so incredibly well done.  Also, while we’re throwing praise, Alexander Calvert, is absolutely killing it as Jack so far! Excellent casting choice, for sure! ERICA: I think this is the point in our live-tweeting that I thought about what a good dad Sammy would’ve made if only JOHN WINCHESTER HADN’T DISAPPEARED DURING A FUCKING HUNT. GodDAMNIT John. MARGE: I tweeted something about how Sammy and Jessica’s kids would have turned out. *crying in the corner*

Back to Dean, Jody, James, and Patience. They’re back at the Turner house and discussing the future, of course, because Patience has just found out she’s psychic… Dad tells her to bury her gift (proving that he has learned NOTHING from all of this), Dean gives the typical ‘this life is nothing but “pain, horror, and death” so if you’ve got a shot at normal you better take it’ speech, and Jody, (ALWAYS mother of the year even when they aren’t her kids) drops some truth about what happens when you try to suppress some part of yourself to please others. She lets Patience know if she ever needs anything, Jody is just a phone call away.

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And this is how you set up a spin-off folks! We are SO PUMPED about Wayward Sisters. Dean and Jody head out and we are left to wonder what will come of Patience Turner.

Dean returns to the bunker, he and Sammy briefly discuss the case and Missouri’s death. Then Dean asks Sam if Jack’s gone dark yet, of course. Sam confronts Dean about telling Jack he would kill him if need be and then we have another emotional brotherly battle because Dean lets loose about his animosity towards Jack. He tears into Sam about how he shouldn’t pretend to care about Jack since he only cares about what he can use him for. He says Sam just wants to use Jack as a “can-opener” to the dimension where Mary is trapped with Lucifer. Dean screams at Sammy about how he can’t even look at Jack because when he does “all he sees is everyone they’ve lost”. Sam remarks that their Mom took her shot—she chose her path. Dean replies with “What about Cas?”. Ouch. This is where we see broken-boy Dean Winchester at his finest. He lets Sammy know that the reason he can’t get on board with being Jack’s care-taker is because Jack is the reason they lost Castiel. That Jack made Cas promises, Cas believed everything he said, and what did it get him?

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ERICA: Let me preface this next comment by saying that I love Jensen Ackles and his acting–it’s exceptional. But I’m not gonna lie–I’m having a REALLY hard time with Dean this season. Like. We get it. You’re pissed at the world. We get it. Guess what, booboo, this is the life you signed up for. This is the life you dragged Sammy into 13 years ago. You flat out told Patience that it’s all death and horror and blah blah, and yet here you are, acting like you DIDN’T drag your brother into that life. Time to stop acting like a child. I expected this 13 years ago, but you’ve grown from here. Time to act like it. (Addendum: I’m also super salty lately, so there’s that.) MARGE: I’m with you on a lot of that. I just wanna scream STOP BEING MEAN TO SAMMY in order to process your grief. I know it’s a normal psychological response, and that he doesn’t have anyone but Sam to take his frustrations out on, but come on man, Sam loves Cas too… Sam just lost his mom too, AGAIN! What makes your pain more important, Dean? End rant.

Jack is in the hallway, listening to every single word of this heated exchange of course and somehow, through his powers that are yet to be determined, he reaches out to Castiel. Final scene: CASTIEL IS ALIVE! We actually get to see Cas alive (at least he appears to be). We don’t know where he is, but he looks relatively normal, if a bit confused. At first he’s on the floor looking dead, but evidently, he is actually asleep, knocked out, or ???, and as Jack whispers his name, he wakes.

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We didn’t get to see any apocalypse world action in this episode, which made us sad since that is what we’ve been living for so far this season. We did, however, get the promise that it is coming via a few interactions on Twitter (Fan-girl Squeal!):

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Roll credits. I guess there’s some hope left from this episode after all.

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“All we need is just a little Patience” Supernatural recap 13×3, “Patience” Title Lyric from “Patience” by Guns and Roses Courtesy canonspngifs.tumblr.com We really aren’t sure what to do with this ep.

[topfooddist]

Ground Rules for Successfully Selling Your Business

Sooner or later you are going to exit your business. The question isn’t whether or not you will be ready. The sixty four thousand dollar question is whether or not your business will be ready.

It is estimated that seven out of ten privately held businesses have no succession plan to transfer the business to the next generation of owners. What does that mean to you? It means that if you do not currently have a plan in place to transfer your business to family members, existing partners, management or employees, someday you will think about selling your business.

That day might come sooner than you anticipate. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you are not currently ready to retire that you have plenty of time to prepare your business for sale.

As a business broker, I have been involved in a number of transactions (and potential transactions) where the business owner wanted to sell, or in some instances, was forced to exit the business earlier than expected. In fact, retirement is NOT the number one reason why businesses sell.

Here is a list of the most common reasons why owners sell (or otherwise discontinue) their businesses: Burn-out (the number one reason for selling) Health issues Personal diversification Retirement/semi-retirement Death Divorce/partner disputes Business growing too fast Second generation not up to the task Loss of market share

TAKE GOOD CARE

The sad truth is that many business owners do not take good care of their most valuable asset: the business. They don’t groom someone to continue the business in their absence, and do not keep the business in salable shape during the time they operate the business.

Business owners tend to get too bogged down in the day to day business operations to worry about–or plan for an event that they perceive won’t occur until sometime in the distant future; selling the business.

Unfortunately, fate sometimes dictates circumstances beyond your control, and tough decisions must be made. If your business isn’t ready to sell when the time comes, what are your alternatives?

1. Liquidation of business assets-may be a solution, but one that usually returns very little money to the business owner. If the business had been an operating business, the underlying assets (except for real estate) may be outdated and of little use to anyone. At auction, the assets will bring only what the attending bidders are willing to pay. In some instances, underlying assets are sold to liquidators (or scrap) for only pennies on the dollar. Liquidation of a going business often occurs where the owners have become ill or disabled, or need to retire and have not planned adequately for their exit from the business.

2. Closing the business-is even less attractive than liquidation. That is because many who find themselves in this situation have a tendency to “put off” liquidating the underlying assets in hope that maybe someone will come along to buy this business. This almost never happens.

BUILD WEALTH NOW BY PLANNING FOR THE SALE OF YOUR BUSINESS

Okay, so you think you have enough to do without throwing more onto the pile. Am I right? That is why I have written this article for you. It provides a “down and dirty” overview of things that you ought to begin thinking about and planning for right now. Doing so will provide you with an additional safety net that will help safeguard your valuable business asset.

Here are just a few of the benefits of planning now:

A planned sale allows for your goals and objectives on your timetable You may begin to identify potential buyers You may be able to create an attractive acquisition candidate You can begin to understand why a buyer may want to buy You might learn why buyers would not want to buy-and be able to fix the problems You may begin to realize the worth of your business now, and learn how to increase the value as part of your retirement planning

BUSINESS VALUE HOUSEKEEPING CHECKLIST

Record All Sales

Business owners often invent remarkable ways to beat the tax collector. But the taxman can be a business owner’s best friend when it comes to selling one’s business. Income taxes are a great investment in the years immediately preceding an anticipated sale of the business.

Paying income tax proves to the buyer AND the banker that your business operations have been profitable. Nobody wants to pay more income tax. But consider this example: Ronald Bunk systematically underreported business income by an average of $ 20,000 per year. Assuming a combined tax rate of 40%, Mr. Bunk saved $ 8,000 in taxes per year. But, the underreported income also reduced the company’s earnings base by $ 20,000 per year. If, for example, the business could be sold for a multiple of 5x the company’s reported earning base—the company would sell for $ 100,000 less ($ 20,000 average earning base not reported times the price multiple of 5) than it is really worth!

Without considering the time value of money, it would take in excess of twelve years of (illegal) tax savings to make up for the loss of $ 100,000 in business value. The lesson: In trying to screw the government, business owners often find themselves on the short end of the stick; often in more ways than one.

Eliminate co-mingling of business and non business assets

A common practice among closely held companies is to co-mingle non business assets and expenses with business assets and expenses. I have seen businesses owning motor coaches, boats and airplanes; all reported as business assets. The costs of maintaining and operating the assets were expensed as regular business operating expenses.

It is true that those businesses (not audited by the IRS) are saving a certain amount of income tax, and providing an extra “fringe” benefit for the owners of the company.

Wise business owners should endeavor to separate non business assets from the business in the three to five years before a planned sale of the company. Doing so will make it much easier to accurately measure and reflect the true earning power of the business, as it will be unfettered by the capital investment in non business assets and the associated costs.

Buyers of your business are generally purchasing future income and benefit streams that will be produced by your business. The leaner and more productive your business is-the more it is worth. It is never too early to begin segregating non business assets from your business, as it may take some planning and time.

Do your own due diligence

Some executives of both public and private firms get a physical check-up once a year. Many of these same executives think nothing of having their personal investments reviewed at least once a year, if not more often. Yet, these same prudent executives never consider giving their company an annual physical, unless they are required to by company rules, regulations or some other necessary reason.

Anyone interested in purchasing your business will perform “due diligence” procedures on your business before closing on the purchase. All too often, sellers are surprised at the skeletons purchasers can find in the closet. These skeletons can reduce the value of your company, and in some cases, kill any chance at closing a sale. What skeletons are your company’s closets?

Why not give your business a periodic physical? In essence, I am suggesting you would do well to treat your business as if someone else owned it-and you were the potential purchaser. What problems would you discover that could cause you and your advisors to reduce or withdraw your offer?

Spending the time and money to discover and fix your company’s problems now will pay huge dividends in the form of increased company value-which is exactly what you want when it’s time to sell.

Compliance with taxing and regulatory authorities

Mountains of regulation often seem to impede a company’s growth and profitability. Some regulations might seem rather easy to “slight” or ignore.

Take for example one of my recent sellers who swore to me that the business had no regulatory violations of any type. I reminded the seller that anything “hidden in the closet” would most likely be discovered in a buyer’s due diligence (investigatory) process. “Nope-no problems of any kind” I was assured.

Well, guess what the buyer’s due diligence turned up? Seems the seller had a couple of shipping/storage containers sitting behind the building-which the sellers KNEW were in violation of local zoning ordinances. How did they know? They had received four previous “reminders” from the trustees about the containers, and the need to remove them.

“Why didn’t you mention that to me, or disclose that fact on your disclosure statement?” I asked. “Gee, nothing ever happened and the township never did anything-so we just figured it was no big deal.” Was the seller’s reasoning.

No big deal, except when the purchaser turned up the non compliance issue, it threw a few extra wrinkles into the mix. In that case, the issue was easily resolved (yet, much to the additional cost and chagrin of the sellers). But, sometimes known violations are not so easily remedied. In those instances, a seller runs the risk of blowing a good deal.

What’s the bottom line?

Clean up any tax, industry, OSHA, EPA or zoning issues with which your company does not comply.

Organize and keep records available. One never knows when opportunity might knock. If and when it does knock, will you be ready to strike while the iron is hot? How many times have you heard someone say something like, “I’d sell anything, including my business for the right price?”

Maybe you have even said it yourself. But would you know what paperwork and documents a serious buyer will immediately need in order to pursue the purchase? When a qualified buyer is ready to begin serious due diligence, they will need a variety of company documents.

Following is a partial list of things a buyer will ask for: * Three to five years income tax returns * Copies of one to three years quarterly payroll reports * Three to five years CPA prepared financial statements * Current year to date financial statements * Detailed depreciation schedules listing each fixed asset owned by your company * Corporate Minute Book with updated minutes * Recent aged accounts receivable trial balance * Recent aged accounts payable trial balance * Company organization chart * Copy of the Summary of Insurance Coverage (provided by your carrier) * Information about Employee Benefits provided by the company * Information about Employee Retirement Plans * Copies of labor contracts * Copies of other contracts to which the company is a party * Copies of licenses, registrations for patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc.

The foregoing list is an example of the types of records your company should have up to date and on hand at all times. These records are extremely important to speed the sales process along. Though this advice sounds basic, I often encounter companies whose records are not complete and up to date. This situation can dramatically affect a potential sale.

I suggest using a three ring binder to keep the basic updated records available at all times. This also makes other business needs for the documents much more manageable.

CONCLUSION

You can increase your wealth by knowing a few simple ground rules for successfully selling your business. Just like other owners of closely-held businesses, you know how to operate your business on a day to day, month to month and year to year basis. But your experience in running the business has not prepared you to know how to sell your business.

While the information I provided in this article is not all inclusive, it should help you get started in preparing your business for a successful sale-no mater when the business might be sold.

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