This is a venting post but also want to know if anyone in the same situation as me and how they are doing. I was always skeptical of what I was studying mainly because I lack the main skills (research writing and critical thinking lol) I’m doing a bachelor of Arts but I see myself more doing math and stuff. The reason why I didn’t choose STEM is because I was 16 when i applied and just wanted to be cool 😭 anyways then I couldn’t change my degree because I’m privetly sponsored and it’s the rule. Now even if I convince myself to use my degree I lowkey feel like im not gonna enjoy it. Long story short, I want to start all over again and study engineering, this is what I really want and I had top grades in STEM when I was in high school so I know that I can do it and even have better grades than i do now. I was adviced by friends and family that’s its not worth wasting 4 years of my life studying when i could be building my wealth in this time, but im thinking ahead of time like in 15 years I don’t wanna be miserable in a public sector job, I wanna do something i like and am good at. Im still young and have the energy to study so I feel like why not. I haven’t met anyone similar to my situation so i kinda feel weird saying this outloud but yeah. What do u guys think or do u have any advice. Thank yeww

I’ll try to make this as concise as possible.
So I’ve started seeing my current boyfriend about 2 years ago. I am Christian and he is Muslim but we are both not religious. His family isn’t very religions and his sibling is married to a Christian and they’re happy and all is well.
My family, on the other hand, is very religious and when I announced that I’m seeing someone but he’s not Christian, they immediately told me to break it off before it gets harder to later. I have then been trying to speak to them and convince them that this is my choice and I’m not very religious but they keep saying that they see into the future and this won’t end well because his family is of a different background in terms of religion.
My sisters were also supporting me in the beginning but only when I mentioned that he might be able to convert (which is not the case anymore because converting has serious consequences that him or his family don’t want to go through) and when they found out he won’t convert anymore, they stopped supporting. We all live fairly close to one another so I see them and my nephews and niece a lot but I’m getting tired of seeing them and acting like everything is okay.
I’ve spoken to my mom and dad countless times, explaining to them how I’m not going to let go of my Christianity, how I will baptize my kids, we can also try to get something called a dispensation letter from a bishop that will allow this, I will introduce my kids to Christianity and they still won’t budge. I also clarified that even if I am to marry someone Christian, I will choose someone who’s not as religious and I won’t be taking my kids to Sunday school or forcing them to have the same level of faith that I or their grandparents have. They are also worried that when my kids mingle with my sister’s kids, that would be an issue.
They’ve also told me I must bear the consequences if I choose to take this path because I’m the one leaving theiChristianity’s path by my own will and I have to bear the consequences of them not meeting him, not attending my wedding, not meeting his family, not mingling with us at gatherings. My father also told me that they love me and because they love me they’re doing this to avoid the inevitable future I will be facing and that i should wake up and see that I’m doing is wrong and come back to the right path.
This has gone on for too long and it’s affecting me mentally and physically as I have gained a lot of weight emotional eating. My boyfriend’s family welcomes me with open arms and I see them regularly but not all of them know the issues we’re facing with my family.
TDLR: it’s getting tiring to do everyday tasks and act like everything is okay when it’s not. It’s also exhausting to be made to feel that I’m doing something wrong and throwing away my values and that it’s my fault if they stop mingling with me.

I’m not quite sure if it’s a subject that was commonly discussed among the fanbase before.
Here the thing.
During the first 3 seasons, we can watch a numerous times powerless scoobies walking all alone in Sunnydale. During the night. And without Buffy. I’m talking about randoms moments : walking to the Bronx, walking their way home from high school or casually enjoy their time outside at night At some points, I was even annoyed that they lived their life as if Sunnydale was a normal city; they rarely showed any kind of concerns of being attacked by vamp or demons until.. well.. they were attacked.
For obvious reasons, I GET why writers couldn’t make Buffy around them all the time. But I wish they could at least explain why Willow, Alex, Cordelia and the rest of them are so confident in their ability to stay alive without having Buffy near by. 😂
Did they even bring some kind of protection with them ? ( talismans, holy waters…) Of took roads/path that Vamp were unaware of ?

Linking a post at the bottom explaining what happened the other night a bit. Some backstory:
Friend has 3 kids with one woman; she is 4 states away and they had gone through a legal battle when the oldest was 6. Friends new wife has gotten worse as years have gone by; my wife witnessed the oldest kid ask for sanitary pads and the woman give her one. “I’ll need more later” “no you’ll waste them”. I’ve seen the woman lock my friend and 2/3 kids outside overnight and make them sleep in the car. There’s so much more she’s done.
The girl has cried for attention; she got in with the wrong boy last year and caused a big scene with her family, told lies about who it was and got CPS involved for a home visit. CPS has been to the house several Times in the last year, mostly due to her making complaints at school. They make sure house is ok & they leave; the girl was court ordered therapy for 2 months last year and that’s it.
After the events in my linked post transpired, her dad bought the other two kids cellphones & not the oldest. He’s told her she starts a lot of this “drama”.
Where I’m at is wanting to contact CPS myself, and inform them that yes the child has complained and home visits have showed it’s “ok” but that there’s more at play here. Am I overreacting? Do I need to stay out?
Linked post: https://www.reddit.com/TwoHotTakes/s/6AC2rtSXKF

I’ve been living in Gurgaon for a few years now. Had a good circle of friends when I was a teen in high school. But it has been 6 years now since I have graduated from high school. And with COIVD and all. I feel like my social skills have gotten rusty. Currently I’m preparing for an exam which will hopefully in the future get me a high paying job. And due to this, spend most of my time at home. I have been going to the gym for the past few months to work on my physique. And was hoping to join swimming lessons soon. But even at gym and these types of locations it often feels like people aren’t willing to socialise they just want to mind their own business. They appear crude and closed. And any attempt to socialise is shut down or brushed off.
I don’t even use Instagram, Snapchat and other social media apps designed to meet and converse with people since I’ve noticed I spend an exuberant amount of time on them and also seeing other people succeed and get ahead in life (even though it’s only either fake or selected data sharing) gives me insecurity. I feel fine when I’m off these platforms. But these platforms only make my mood worse and mess with my emotions. I can’t seem to control my usage. It’s either 4+ hours or nothing.
Due to a lack of any social media presence for 5 straight years, I’ve lost contact with any and all friends from high school, tuitions and other places.
The only one friend that I currently have who lives in my colony recommended me to get on these apps and download Discord, Bumble as well. And start messaging people over there. Text random people. Since that is how he made his current girlfriend and made dozens of friends from the opposite gender. His strategy was send Hi! to as many strangers as possible on Instagram. And then if anyone replies. Continue the conversation. And if not, then simply unsend the message. It’s a solid strategy I guess for someone who’s Vella and Berozgar and has a baap ka business. I have asked my friend to introduce me to his friends. But he keeps saying, akele nahi. If I also brought another friend. Then he might do it. Which is a valid request.
Is this truly the only method to meet people and make friends nowadays? I guess I can sort of understand how the veil of the Internet hides an individual and prevents them from danger and gives the illusion of safety. Also having a social media profile acts as a filter. Similar to how some corporate chooses individuals based on LinkedIn profiles. A good aesthetic profile passes the filter of many companies.
I guess yeah, how do you guys make new friends in your early to mid 20s? Is it impossible to do so without social media? I feel like my brain is starting to fry by being alone for so long. And I fear the longer I stay like this the worse the my health would get.
PS. I know this sub likes commenting a lot of jokes. But I’d appreciate if the comments only stick to giving genuine helpful advices.

Hi all! I’ve just completed a week as a solo female traveller in Tokyo. I’m moving on to other places but have decided to come back to Tokyo for another week because I love it so much!

1. If you want to see Shibuya crossing but don’t have / can’t afford a ticket to Skytree or Shibuya Sky, there’s a Mexican restaurant on the 14th floor of Shibuya metro station / Shibuya Sky that we just walked straight into. We got a booth directly overlooking the crossing, it was very quiet, we sat there for a few hours and had really nice drinks. (we being me and a first date!)
   
2. IMPORTANT: I’m not sure if other people are aware of this tradition - i wasn’t - but in smaller bars and izakayas there is a tradition of paying in rounds, i.e buying everyone at the bar a drink - usually 6-8 people in my experience. I was charged for this before I realised and then the next time, I was with a local Japanese companion who told me this is a cultural thing (we didn’t pay it and left). If you’re handed a free drink in a local bar just know the next tab is on you and there isn’t really a choice.
   
3. Express v Local trains - if you’re getting on the metro be mindful that it’s not an express train. These ones skip a lot of stops and you can end up accidentally going super far away without realising :/
   
4. I think i only saw this maybe once - but on the metro people don’t cross their legs and put their bags on their laps, EVEN when it’s dead quiet.
   
5. Smoking in public is EXTREMELY frowned upon (unless you’re outside a nightclub or bar). And for gods sake, do not throw the butt on the ground!! A lot of Japanese smokers carry around portable ashtrays so use theirs or even put it out and carry it with you in a bottle or something … This ALSO includes vaping. In busy areas like Harajuku they have tiny enclosures on the side of the road where people smoke. Same in shopping centres and some metro stations. (I’m European so this surprised me!)
   
6. If you need the toilet there’s one in every metro station. Starbucks will also let you use theirs. If you need a bin both options have them.
   
7. If you’re handing someone something it’s polite to do it with both hands. If there’s a tray for example at a cashier desk then use that.
   
8. Elderly people are highly respected in society. If your culture isn’t like this then be mindful and let them pass before you, open doors, let them skip you in the queue, give up your seat. (you should do this in your home country anyway but …)
   
9. People stare a lot. I find Japanese people curious, and if you smile at them or wave in response they light up! This was new for me because in my culture staring is rude. Don’t take it personally! It can lead to lovely interactions.
   
10. People don’t show skin. For me, 25 celsius is a summer day. For them, every single person is covered head to toe (unless dressed alternatively). I wish i had brought more long trousers and long sleeve tops!
    
11. They don’t wear perfume either. In fact if you smell perfume in public it stands out a looot because it’s so rare. My Japanese friend confirmed they wear very light stuff if anything. Just be aware if you’re taking the metro it might not be the best time to wear Hypnotic Poison …
    

That’s everything for now! Apologies if any of these seem obvious to you but they were things i found important to pick up on and be mindful of. Tokyo is the biggest city in the world yet it runs so smoothly - perhaps because of the amount of unwritten rules that people abide by to maintain politeness and give others space / consideration. Let me know if you also noticed any of these :)

I need some help &, don’t really know what else to do. Or how to properly convey this but, I would like to have a serious long term monogamous relationship with someone of the trans experience &, whenever I try, I seem to fail for some reason. I feel like, when I express my intentions & interest I’m looked at as if I’m lying/not telling the truth. Then, I have to pursue them & out in a bunch of extra work & the. it seems like I’m only getting attraction geared towards me bc of my genitalia, & anything else they like about me is second to that. other than that I feel as though I’m not taken seriously beyond that. Sometimes it’s my fault, but largely it’s not.
If I don’t give people their way they get upset & block me, if I don’t want to talk about something I get blocked, if I feel like they have a type In certain men that’s not me I get blocked, if I don’t want to meet their family members right away I get blocked. I’ve legit had people project things onto me that their insecure about, make snide remarks about me being a cis gendered guy, been called a nigga/nigger by some who aren’t black when we get into an argument , then when I snap I’m the bad guy. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but, any type of help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Just seen that people are calling for a boycott to Bham Pride due to the sponsors. Wondering what other people thought. My intention here is to learn about boycotting and not about political views around the reasoning in this case if possible - though it's obviously difficult!
Here is a snippet of an argument from Outcaststompbrum:
"Their main sponsor is HSBC - a company which is one of the largest boycott targets for their £100 million worth of shares in Caterpillar, who make equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes and build settlements for the zionist entity.
We demand Birmingham Pride drop HSBC and these other genocide-profiteering companies:
Amazon (glamazon) Invest $7.2bn in data centres in occupied Palestine via AWS.
Mondelez Invest in Israeli startups in occupied Palestine.
McDonalds Support the Israeli Occupation Force’s so-called IDF by providing free food and drinks to Israeli militants."
My main conflict is that to boycott it affects support for one community to push back against big companies which I'm not confident will be affected by a boycott. Would like to know more rather than just jumping on a bandwagon, e.g. I get the impression caterpillar makes equipment to demolish anything and they just happen to be used for crimes also. Happy to be redirected to information about these sorts of arguments.
Also please share any alternative events that you know of!

I(26F) am in a polyamorous relationship with my partner (22F). We’ve been together for about 6 months now. She lived in Korea for a year and that’s how we got together, and now she went back to the US. Because of me being in Korea, and her America, we decided to get married for visa reason. That would be easier for us to not be separated longer and have prolonged long distance relationship. I agreed to it, she agreed to it, and now I’m preparing the process to move to America. So here comes my worries. I’m quitting my current job, my future career that is kind of easier for me to plan for than in the US, my family and my friends, not solely because of her since I wanted to live abroad but also for stepping the step, a big chunk because of her. I had a boyfriend of 5 years and have broken up to be with her too. (She’s not aware I did this though I just did it because my ex was not open to polyamorous relationship) She’s the first woman I’ve ever slept with and been in relationship with. Also, I’ve never been in polyamorous relationship before, (it’s her first too) even though I do have polyamorous ideologies and was and am open to the idea of polyamory. It was through her that I first knew and experienced about this concept thoroughly, and have kind of thrown into a throuple situation too. I was aware of the situation and in my mind was okay with it. However, whenever she tells me about the girls that she “gets” or had sex with or just won’t stop talking about them and the details about sex they had, I can’t help but feel like she’s trying to brag about her other partners, and I can’t tell her intentions of telling it to me. Sometimes I wonder if she enjoys seeing me being uncomfortable or jealous and hurt, and it gets me upset. Maybe she just wants to talk about things openly, maybe she has sadist tendencies who knows. But I just have this vibe that she’s flaunting about it (e.g. “She told me I make her feel like a highschool girly”) she does have a playboy vibe, and maybe it’s just that Idk. Anyways, we have talked about it before that I don’t want to know much about her other partners, that seeing it in-person or hearing about it in details gets me uncomfortable, but whenever she gets with a girl she wants to talk about it. I just want to know the essential minimum, who is it and when they’re meeting. That’s it. I added another boundary today, being that when we finally live together, I don’t think I want her to bring other girls into our apartment. She can do whatever she wants outside, out of sight, but I don’t want her in sight with other people. I don’t think I can handle that far. She heard the boundaries and have respected partially, but also added that she would want to bring other people when I’m not at home. My point for telling her this boundary was that I want something at least sacred for just us. I also told her before that for me she is the primary partner, even if there are other people that I’m with. Emotionally. And it’s true. But I don’t think it is for her. Or that we have different type of polyamory. For me, I’d like to have a primary partner, which is her, and then comes other partners. We have signed the paperwork and we are legally married through proxy marriage. Now that we’re married, I can’t help but feel unsure and a little anxious about my future. A little more now than before when we were just dating. Even if it’s just a paperwork for me to be together. What if I go there, and she just finds someone that she wants to spend more time with and have deeper connection with than me, which it kind of feels like she already have someone in mind that she wants to do that in the future, and throw me off from the “primary partner position”. I’m going to feel like I’m stranded. She’s going to feel like I’m caging her or sth, but I would rly have no one there as I’m just moved in to a completely different country. I sound such a monogamous person but I do love the idea of having other partners. I have a few that I’m seeing rn as well. They are all wonderful people. Im just having a hard time finding the balance of respecting what she wants and what I want. She is a loving, caring person, and I love her a lot. But it just feels so unstable for me to move. I think I’m torn everyday feeling sure and unsure like on a seesaw. Knowing her and loving her I want to move right away, and also thinking of all the risks, I feel like I should pull away to protect myself. I feel like she’s going to want to keep push the limits. Adding another risk, if I petition for a marriage visa, and during the process if I get divorced, I won’t be able to sign for any type of marriage visa anymore. Also, if we get divorced after the visa goes through and I’m the US, I can’t get remarried for another 2-5 years, depending on when the divorce happens. Im not saying I’m expecting a divorce, but considering it’s a polyamorous relationship, and considering my emotional rollercoaster, I feel like anything could happen. I don’t know what to do or what to feel at the moment, but primarily I’m torn between moving to the US, or just stay in Korea cause if it happens, it has to happen within a month. Sorry that it’s long and kind of everywhere, but this keeps me up at night these days and I needed to make decisions quick so I thought I should ask it here. Thank you for reading my long story!

[svirtual]

FT

• PoGO Pokémon. All were obtained by a close friend. All will have SPA/ENG Tag (if not custom), OT Menri (if not custom), ID 538184/750488, and proof (1 PoGO pic, 1-2 transfer pics, 1 HOME pic if possible):

(Maybe some of the Pokémon won’t be available at the moment) Shiny Celebi 12€, Shiny Meltan 25€, Shiny Melmetal 20€, Shiny Genesect 6IVs (No PoGO Sticker) 35€. Shiny Zapdos, Moltres, Articuno, Entei, Raikou, Lugia, Groudon, Giratina, Reshiram, and Kyurem are available for 7€ each. Shiny Azelf 10€, Shiny Uxie 15€. Darkrai and Deoxys (Normal, Attack, Defense or Speed) 10€ each, Shiny Deoxys (Normal, Attack or Defense) and Shiny Darkray 20€. Shiny PokéBall Latias Lv 11, Shiny PokéBall Latios Lv. 8 35€. Zarude 30€ and Shiny Mew 60€ (Fixed OT)
I also have self-obtained regular PoGO Darkrais. 5€

• Self-Obtained Korean/Japanese Manaphy Eggs for BDSP. KOR: Naughty 31/31/17/3/31/15, JP: Timid 31/19/23/27/31/31. 15€
  
• Self-Obtained Mighty Mewtwo untouched 8€ (Training services included). Dream Ball, ENG, SPA or JP Tag. Pics + Video proof. OT VictyLusi IDs 429318/329117/898078 and OT Victy ID 401143
  
• Self-Obtained SV Event Shiny Lucario OT: VictyLusi (ITA) ID 625054, Violet (ENG) ID 607421, Scarlet (ENG) ID 75254, ビクティルシ ID 917509 and Victy (KOR) ID 768592. Pics + Video proof.
  
• Self-Obtained SV Event Darkrai OT: VictyLusi (ITA) ID 625054, Violet (ENG) ID 607421, Scarlet (ENG) ID 75254, ビクティルシ ID 917509 and Victy (KOR) ID 768592. Pics + Video proof.
  
• Self-Obtained SV Dream Ball/Love Ball Raid Palkia. 31/10/31/31/31/1-31/6/31/26/31/31-27/8/31/31/31/31, ENG, SPA or JP Tag. OT VictyLusi IDs 429318/329117/898078, Victy ID 401143 and Scarlet ID 75254. Pics + Video proof.
  
• Self-Obtained SV Heavy Ball Raid Dialga. 31/2/31/31/23/31, ENG, SPA or JP Tag. OT VictyLusi IDs 429318/329117/898078, Victy ID 401143 and Scarlet ID 75254. Pics + Video proof.
  
• Self-Obtained Walking Wake untouched 15€ (Training services included). ENG Tag Relaxed Lure Ball, SPA Tag Relaxed Lure Ball, JP Tag Gentle Dream Ball. Pics + Video proof. OT VictyLusi IDs 429318/898078 and OT Victy ID 401143. I also have a save with the event raid available so I can do custom OT/Lang and some IVs.
  
• Self-Obtained Iron Leaves untouched 15€ (Training services included). ENG Tag Sassy Friend Ball, SPA Tag Bashful Friend Ball, JP Tag Rash Dream Ball. Pics + Video proof. OT VictyLusi IDs 429318/898078 and OT Victy ID 401143. I also have a save with the event raid available so I can do custom OT/Lang and some IVs.
  

· Self-Obtained ENG Moon Bloodmoon Ursaluna, OT Scarlet ID 685039 31/5/31/31/24/2. Summary Pics proof. 4€
· Self-Obtained ENG Dream Bloodmoon Ursaluna, OT VictyLusi ID 429318 31/11/5/31/31/0. Summary Pics proof. 15€
· Self-Obtained ENG Dream Bloodmoon Ursaluna, OT VictyLusi ID 329117 16/31/10/31/31/0. Summary Pics proof. 10€
· Self-Obtained ENG Friend Ogerpon, OT VictyLusi ID 429318. 3 Masks included. 4€
· Self-RNGed ENG Star Shiny Love SP Modest Palkia, 23/19/31/31/27/31 OT VictyLusi ID 523976 or 27/10/15/31/31/31 OT Pearl ID 877713. Pics + Video proof. 4€
· Self-RNGed ENG Star Shiny Heavy BD Modest Dialga, OT Diamond ID 374552 31/3/18/31/31/8. Pics + Video proof. 4€
· Self-RNGed SP ENG Star Shiny OT Pearl ID 877713: Fast Impish Regirock 5IVs 29HP, Friend Careful Registeel 4IVs/29HP/21SpAtk, Moon Modest Regice 3IVs/0Atk, Dive Modest Articuno 4IVs/5Atk, Level Modest Zapdos 3IVs/0Atk and Love Modest Moltres 3IVs/1Atk/30SpDef. Pics + Video proof. 6€
· Self-RNGed BDSP ENG OT VictyLusi Dive/Great Shiny Unowns (Summary Pic Proof): A, B, C, H, I, J, K, L, M, P, S, T, U, V, W, Y and Z available. 0,25€ each
· Self-RNGed ENG OT Moon ID 129958: Moon Modest 5IVs 0Atk Lunala, Friend 6IVs Zygarde, Star Shiny Beast Lonely Stakataka 31/22/17/31/31/0. Pics proof. Lunala/Zygarde 2,5€, Stakataka 4€
· Self-obtained Shiny HA Jolly Hisuan Growlithe eggs: 5IVs –HP Fire Tera or 5IVs 30SpDef Rock Tera. Shiny Poke Modest 0Atk 4IVs Applin Egg. 4€
· Event Dracovish with proof. 2€
· SPA WCS Victini with proof. 25€
· SPA Celebrate Poké/Dream Ball Impish GMax Eevee OT VictyLusi ID 017759/220961 and Ultra Ball Impish GMax Pikachu OT VictyLusi ID 017759. 3€
· Code redemption services. Languages available: SPA, KOR, JP, ENG. If you want another language I would have to do another profile to do so but only 1(2 saves as I have both versions) 5€
· RNGed Shiny/Non-Shiny 3 Segment Dunsparce caught from Gen3-5 games service (Price depends on the original game, check each RNG specifications below). I can RNG in BDSP too.
· Register 807 Pokémon (Gen1-7) on Home Dex using Moving Key with a random wild Gen7 Pokémon. 3€
*Using Moving Key HOME copies PkBank data. As I have Dex completed you will register all of them even if I transfer only 1 Pokémon. That works to get Original Color Magearna (Just Gen 8-9 Pokémon left) Also Forms and Shiny will be registered too. (No Shiny Locked Pokémon entries anymore, I fixed that)
· All SWSH/BDSP Items less Key ones. 0,3€ each (Johto/Dream/Beast/Sport/Safari Balls are 0,25€ each). Scarlet-Violet ones are 0,2€ each or 0,25€ each (Special Balls)
· Training - Pokémon (SPA-ENG) services for Scarlet and Violet

• Custom OT/Lang Playthrough (6€ Base/DLC1, 10€ Base + DLC1, 12€ Base + DLC2 Paradox, 15€ Base + both DLCs). If you want all Legends from the game (DLCs included) price would be 25€ in total (28€ with Pecharunt*) *I will use 2 different saves because completing Pokedex would be easier in a CFW switch for Ursaluna BM/Paradox but I cannot use Online so the Mythical Pecha Berry and Pecharunt have to be caught in another Switch
• Miraidon/Koraidon 5€ (Custom OT Playthrough). Training service included. Treasures of Ruin are 1€ each, 2,5€ if both specific IVs and Ball.
• Ogerpon, Okidogi, Fezandipiti, Munkidori and BM Ursaluna. 4€ each (15€ in total if you want them all)
• Terapagos, Iron Crown/ Iron Boulder or Raging Bolt/Gouging Fire. 5€ each (12€ in total if you want them all from 1 specific version)
• 5IVs, -SpAtk, 6IVs, 5IVs 0Atk, 5IVs 0Spe SPA/JP Dittos. 1-4€ each
• Training: Level, Nature (Mint), IVs (Bottle Caps), EVs, TM/EM Moves, and Tera Type change. 0,5€ each
• Shiny Breeding: Ball, IVs (4-5), EMs, and Nature. You can request Pokémon as Shiny Eggs. 5€ each (If you ask more than 3 the price would have a discount)
• Shiny Paradox Pokémon: Ball (Training service included). 6€ each (3€ if you ask for more than 3)
• Vivillon services. I can get any Pattern but the most plenty I have are Marine, Sun, Jungle, High Plains, and Continental. We can use Union Circle so you can catch them yourself (as many as you want). 3€ each Pattern. For Shiny ones, the service is only available if they are caught by myself, not in online UC mode but I can do custom OT services (4€ each)

· Legends Arceus Evolution/Training Service (Level, Nature, IVs using Grits, Tutor Moves) and custom OT/Lang playthroughs for Shaymin/Darkrai, Arceus, Enamorus, or other Legends.

· RNG for BDSP: CaptureSight + RNG Apps (PokefindeRNG Chatot). Legends and Arceus (Shiny, some IVs, Nature, Poké Ball), Unown (Shiny or 0Atk), SPA/ENG Eggs (Shiny, IVs, Gender, Moves, Nature, Ability, Poké Ball), Starters (Shiny, some IVs, Nature), Mew/Jirachi (some IVs, Nature) and Eeeve/Rotom (Shiny, some IVs, Nature, Poké Ball). Square Shiny service is available.

• BDSP custom OT/Lang playthrough 6€
• Normal Legends: 2€ Each (Nature and 3-4IVs), 6€ (Nature + 5-6IVs)
• Shiny Legends: 6€ Each (Nature and 3-4IVs), 12€ (Nature + 5IVs)
• Shiny Arceus 10€ (Nature and 3-4IVs), 14€ (Nature + 5IVs)

*If you buy more than one Legend, the price will be cheaper (Less 5IVs ones)*

• Shiny Perfect Eggs 2€, Normal Perfect Eggs 0,5€

· Breeding Services for SWSH (ENG Tag): Any Ball, IVs, Nature, EMs, HA, or Shiny. Normal: 0,5€ Breedject/1€ BR, Shiny Eggs cost 10€ each (I use CaptureSight to check Eggs data). Training Service Included: TutoDT moves (+PP max), changing ability or nature, and training EVs.

· Shiny Self-Caught Pokémon (I have Pic Proof) OT VictyLusi (Make them Competitive with Objects without extra payment) 0,2-0,5€

• ID 017759: Safari Ball Jolteon, Ultra Ball Drifblim, Premier Ball Diggersby. Master Orbeetle, Dive Ball Ditto, Luxury GMax HA Charizard (Level 50 & 80), Safari GMax HA Venusaur(Level 50), Friend GMax HA Venusaur(Level 80), Dream GMax HA Blastoise (Level 50) and Master GMax HA Blastoise (Level 80)
• ID 220961 Star Shiny: Poke Ball Skuntank, Poke Ball Glalie, Ultra Ball Galvantula, Heal Ball Clefable. Star Shiny Dream GMax HA Blastoise (Level 80)
• Star Shiny Poké Ball Linoone OT Asce ID 875609

· SWSH playthrough with custom OT/Lang 7€ (Wolves/Calyrex/Horses)/4€ (Kubfu/DLCs Legends) If you ask for more than one from the same save the price would be lower.

• Zacian/Zamazenta customized (Ball, Nature(Mint), IVs(Bottle Cap), TAG and OT) 4€
• Kubfu/Urshifu customized (Nature (Mint), IVs (Bottle Cap), TAG and OT) 4€
• Crown Tundra Legends: Calyrex, Spectrier, Glastrier, Swords of Justice, Keldeo, Dynamax Adventure Legends; 5-6€. Regis, Galar Birds, Cosmog; 2-4€. Customized (Ball, Nature(Mint), IVs(Bottle Cap), TAG and OT).

Ready 3€: Jolly Master Ball Zacian OT Lusi ID 551981, Quirky Master Ball Calyrex OT Lusi ID 871386, Hardy Poké Ball Calyrex OT Lusi ID 098775, Bashful Heavy Ball Calyrex OT Lusi ID 972832 and Dream Ball Rash Eternatus OT Shield ID 909190.
· Meltan & Melmetal: Custom Nature, Nickname, Language Tag, and Ball (LGPE only). Prices are 0.50€ Meltan and 2€ Melmetal

· Ribbon services are available for Gen3-8 (There are some excluded). The price depends on how many and type (Check spreadsheet)

“Any Pokémon from Gen3-7 would be traded through PkBank, HOME, Switch or Files”

· RNG Service from Gen1-7. Mons will be proofed and you can choose the OT/Lang of mons (Gen1-7), also you can ask for different types of RNG that aren’t listed. You can for ask Nature, Shiny, Hidden Power, IVs (Depending Game), and TutoEgg Moves. (Check spreadsheet)

· WISHMKChannel Jirachi, Ageto Celebi: Dolphin Emulator + Lua Scripts + Pokefinder + VBA + Ruby/Sapphire Save Files (+ Rscheksum for WISHMKR Jirachi). I can RNG Nature for Celebi. Channel Jirachis are available to RNG Nature, IVs, and Shiny (Star or Square). Colosseum Jirachis are fixed (Star Shiny or Good IVs). Check spreadsheet.

• WISHMKR Jirachi 7€ Normal/12€ Star Shiny
• CHANNEL Jirachi 12€ Normal/14€ Star Shiny/16€ Square Shiny
• JP Ageto Celebi 9€ Random/15€ with Nature

· Pokémon Box Mons. Dolphin Emulator + Lua Scripts + Pokefinder + VBA-M + Ruby/Sapphire Save Files. Shiny RNG service (Star or Square) is available (Check spreadsheet)

· RNG/SR XD/Colosseum Pokémon Services (Check spreadsheet). Square Shiny and TID/SID RNG are Available for both games (To get good Shiny spreads). (Dolphin Emulator + Lua Scripts + RNG Reporter + PokeFinder + XD/Colosseum Saves) (Check spreadsheet). JP e-reader ones aren’t available due to I don’t have the Card files to get them legit but Japanese Colosseum Pikachu from Bonus Disc is available.
· Manaphy Egg RNG Service: OT, Nature, IVs, and Shiny. Pokémon Ranger 1 Cartridge + TWLSaveTool + Gen4 Games + Desmume Emulator + Lua Scripts + Pokefinder. 8€ Normal+IVs, 15€ Shiny and 20€ Shiny+IVs

• Gen3 (RSE/FRLG): Visual Boy Advance Emulator + Lua Scripts + Pokefinder. Available RNG: Legends (Event not allowed)/Gifts/Safari/Wild/GameCorneStarters/Eggs and Square Shiny service available.
• Gen4 (HGSS/Platinum): Desmume Emulator + Lua Scripts + Pokefinder. Available RNG: Legends (Event not allowed)/Events(Regis/Sinjoh Ruins)/Gifts/Starters/Wild/Safari/Game CorneEggs/ID-SID RNG and Square Shiny service available.
• Gen5 (BW/BW2): Desmume Emulator + Lua Scripts + RNG ReportePokefinder. Available RNG: Dream Radar Legends(Less Palkia)/Wild/Gifts/Starters/Legends/ID-SID RNG and Square Shiny service available. *Entree Forest for DW Mons is available but you have to provide the save with Legit Mons
• Gen6 (XY/ORAS): NTR + PCalc + 3DS RNG Tool. Available RNG: Starters/Unowns/Event (Latios or Latias)/Eggs (TSV too)/Legends (Including Groudon/Kyogre and Deoxys) and save ID-TSV RNG. Square Shiny service is available.
• Gen7 (USUM): (NTR + PCalc)/(Citra Emu + Python) + 3DS RNG Tool. Available RNG: Starters (USUM), Wormhole Legends/UBs (Wild Included), Stationary Legends, Gift Pokémon (Including Shiny Partner Pikachu), Eggs (TSV too), Wild (SOS included) and save ID-TSV RNG. Ash Greninja and Square Shiny services are available.

I can breed all Vivillon Patterns less than 3 due to I created a new save file with the Region of my PAL DS changed. The only ones I can’t breed are Elegant because it is only for Japanese DS Regions and Modern/Savanna because they are for American DS Regions.

• Gen1/2 (Y/S/C). Mons Available: Legends (Including Celebi)/Gifts and Eggs (Only Gen2). Nature is determined by experience and Shiny Breeding is Available (With Glitched Shiny Ditto + Debug Menu for Speed Up). IVs RNG is available only, I don't do Shiny Legends due to there isn't RNG for that.

· RNGed Dittos Available (for 3DS or Switch):
-You can ask for Shiny, any IVs Spread, any Nature, custom OT, and Language Tag (Playthrough price not included)
-Tags already available: SPA-JPN, OT LUSI- Lusi
Spreadsheet with all FT and Prices:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uR9jqdMsJmfI69z05oj1XFrKhuScdrqe2yh4bY7_8lQ/edit?usp=drive_link
[ref]https://www.reddit.com/pokemonexchangeref/comments/hruzjp/uvictylusi\_exchange\_reference/

I am so unsure about my wife.

Dear Reddit. I come to you with my hat in my hand as I do not know what to do. I am split down the middle in terms of self respect, love, and fear.

I 36(M) have known my wife 35(F), since we were 18, and have been married since 2016

We have 2 kids M(8), F(9), a house, jobs, cars, dogs.

But things from the past have now come back to haunt me, and I am unsure about everything, about respect, love, pride, attractiveness, safe to say my mind is in the biggest turmoil it has ever been. I’m going to cut straight to the chase, with a little about me in order to get my point across as clear as I can.

We met young, and I found my soulmate with no prior experience with woman. She was my first everything, while I know that she has had a few sexual partners. This didn’t bother me at first, but years down the line I found out that while I was head over heels for this girl, she met with a random guy and had sex. (We were not a couple then, but became a few weeks later) She has not had many sexual partners; from what I’ve been told I am her 7th partner.

I must admit still to this day that, this episode doesn’t affect me much anymore, but with all that has/is happening right now its re-surfaces and stings like a needle.

Throughout our relationship she has done things that crosses my boundaries. Let me come with the examples here:

1) We were at a party with mutual friends, and one of our friends was hooking up with a guy, we went into their room and started teasing them as they were making out. Out of the blue, my wife, then girlfriend, grabbed his crotch and said “It’s not even hard” right in front of me, I obviously got furious, and we had a fight but made up over a few days.

2) During her school year, she had to travel to Germany with her class, and be with a German family as part of her education, sort of like an exchange student. While she was in Germany she went out with her entire class for drinks, and from what she says there was a few guys that was making moves on her, and since she got drunk and had no way to figure out how to get home safe to her exchange family, she decided to head home with one of her male classmates to his exchange family and went to sleep in his room. As she put it, he slept on the floor, and she slept in the bed. And he was a friend, not one of those making moves.

3) We were once again with mutual friends at a BBQ and was later heading out into the cityLife to hit up bars and discos. Me and my best friend were on the toilet, putting wax in our hair, putting on fresh cologne and all that jazz. She the suddenly burst in, saying she really needs to pee, proceeds to pull down her pants and thong, honestly from what I remember you could see everything. We had a big fight about this again.


4) This episode was last summer during two mutual friends that got married. She was the toastmaster, and after all was done, she needed to do a wardrobe change. We went to our hotel room; she got changed to another more comfortable dress. While walking back, we could see some of our mutual friends with their husbands, and she decided to lift up her entire dress up to the start of her bra and do a silly side-to-side dance. Everyone saw it no questions asked. I again got furious, and I told her calmly, that I will not tolerate this, and be disrespected like this, there is other men seeing what only I should be seeing. She apologized immediately, and I said, I don’t want to talk more about this now, as I don’t want to ruin the night. We didn’t talk about it afterwards.

5) This is a month ago. She was celebrating her 35 birthday and went out with all her girls. One of her girlfriends is addicted to social media, and she must post everything. I have a very strict rule when it comes to nights out, this goes both ways.

1. Don’t dance with other men!
2. Don’t go away from the venue alone!
3. Don’t take a pirate taxi, or a normal taxi home, call me instead!
4. Don’t flirt (This is a grey area, you cannot define flirting so if she flirts a little it’s fine, but don’t overdo it kind of way)
At this party I saw a video from the social media addicted girlfriend of hers on her snapchat story of my wife dancing and having a blast, she looked so good, and so happy, and I smiled when I saw it, quickly my smile faded away as a guy approached holding out both his hands towards my wife, and she looked different then, I can’t put it as to why, it’s like her personality changed, she looked very keen on going with this guy, to the dance floor, the exit, the toilets I don’t know because I could not see much from the video. What happened next is one of her other girlfriends grabbed her hard and pulled her away from the guy and the video ended.

I was the designated driver that night, so when she would call me in the night, I would come pick up her, and girlfriends and drive them home safely. But I got a call from one of her girlfriends that they could not find my wife anywhere and that she has been gone for like 30 minutes, they asked if I could track her from “Find my iPhone” but I have not saved her location so I could not. I got scared that she broke rule nr. 2 and that something bad might have happened.

Also in my mind, I thought about the video I saw, and then all else mentioned above. All the instances where she crossed my boundaries came flooding in. I am not proud of it. My first thought was her safety, the second thought was, did she envelope with this guy, and is doing something a married woman should not. Her girlfriend that called me, called me back 10 minutes later, saying they found her, and that she was just escorting the social media addicted girlfriend to her car, as she was not drinking, she basically broke rule nr. 2. I got relieved she was ok. But the pit in my stomach was still there.

I later picked them all up, and on the whole drive my wife obviously drunk, kept talking about nothing than men/boys “And then there was this guy” “And this guy looked like name of a friend we know” “and this guy reminded me so much of our boy” on and on, I was upset at this point, not showing it, but in my head I wanted to scream. All these emotions, all these times my line was crossed, the sex she had with another guy while I was in love with her. I know this is some sort of PTSD.

We got home, I put her to bed. And a few days went by, where I was silent, hurt, and went to the gym as much as I could as I could not look at her without being sad, hurt, angry. After about a week when we were lying in bed, I told her not to say anything but just to listen. It went something like this (it was not smooth at all, but I needed to get it out)

“In all our time together, you have touched a man’s crotch in front of me, went with another man and slept in the same room, not that I think anything happened between you two. You have basically shown your lady part, and butt to one of my best friends with me being present, at the wedding you decided to flash nearly your entire body to your girlfriends and their husbands in front of me, and lately at your birthday party (I explained the video) and then you were gone for like 40 minutes with no one knowing where you were. I’m not saying you did anything, but can you see how all of this puts a boulder in my stomach?”

She cried and said we have talked about this before, and we have, many times. I let say her piece. But in my mind, it went something like this:

“Yes we have talked about it many times before, but you keep triggering everything by crossing my boundaries, and you know it, so don’t cry and play the victim, this is your fault, and just because we have talked about it 2-4 times doesn’t mean that my feelings just disappear, feelings takes times, and when you constantly say sorry but then do it again, how am I suppose to heal?” I know I should have said this out loud, but I just got so small in the moment, as I opened up about some deep feelings.

This brings me to now. Why I am reaching out for external inputs on how to proceed.

I feel emasculated as a man, I feel disrespected, I do not feel like the most important person for her, I’m angry, hurt, and all of this has led me down following options none of which I want to do, but I feel like I must in order to respect myself, and say enough is enough.
1) I have been thinking of divorce.
2) Swallow my pride and move on, maybe talk it over with a professional.
3) Continue as always.
4) Give her an ultimatum, that if she crosses any of these in the future, I am gone for good.
It’s all very hard, because I love her so much, I love my kids, I don’t want to destroy everything. But I can’t handle being disrespected and emasculated any longer, and have my boundaries crossed again.

I trust her fully when she says nothing has ever happened, she is not that kind of girl, but you can always be surprised down the road.
Am I controlling, is this all justified in your eyes, am I wrong?
Any help, tips, how to proceed, personal opinions is welcome.
TL;DR Wife keeps crossing boundaries in the relationship, should I leave or stay?

Intro

It’s not much of a stretch to say that violence is the primary form of interaction in video games. With a handful of exceptions, most video games involve guys whacking other guys, with varying degrees of brutality. Even chill games fall into this - Stardew Valley has sections with combat in them! Considering the pervasiveness of violence in video games, there has been a ton of amateur and academic commentary on the topic. However, while this is a well-established school of thought, I haven’t seen people try to apply this to Fire Emblem specifically.
So, let’s do that now! In this post, I’ll be exploring how violence in Fire Emblem is implemented - what limitations are placed on violence, how it warps wider game and narrative design, and what it implicitly says and does not say. I hope this post doesn’t come off as too early-2010s “makes you think”-y, but I do think there are multiple interesting things worth talking about here!
Despite the length of this post, "a brief discussion" is an appropriate title, as we won't be able to go into depth on everything. After all, video games are holistic works, so the attitude towards violence is relevant to every aspect of their design. However, I have managed to wrangle some of these threads into the following structure: first a discussion on the fundamental mode of interaction in Fire Emblem, then how stories are constructed with regards to violence, and ending with the aesthetics of violence and how they relate to characters. Also, as FE is a huge series, be aware that I am gonna be making some broad statements which may not apply to each individual plot point of every game. I actually planned to write 3 case studies around Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses (which have the most interesting attitudes to violence in the series IMO) which point out these deviations, but this post is way too long and full of tangents already. If people are interested, I’ll make a followup to this post which goes into them in more detail. Also also, because of the nature of this post, I’ll actually give a useful TL;DR for once:
TL;DR: Nintendo games must be fun mechanically, and they can’t be too uncomfortable narratively. If you try to provide a counterpoint by saying “oh this Kirby final boss is super dark it eats 100 morbillion galaxies”, you do not deserve rights. IntSys has to keep to this as a 2nd party publisher, but they also have to deal with the fact that their games are at least nominally about ‘war’ (or at least they put their toes into that particular thematic pool). This conflict between making a fun video game for children/teens and the wider framing of the narrative leads to interesting narrative and aesthetic tensions. also fun is cringe, misery is based

“Do you like hurting other people?” (or The Fundamental Mode of Interaction)

OK LISTEN I KNOW I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO COME ACROSS AS A EARLY 2010s “VIOLENCE IN VIDYA BAD :O????” PERSON BUT I SWEAR I’M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS
The best place to start when talking about violence in video games is to think about the primary form of interaction in said game. In the case of Fire Emblem, this is in the in-chapter gameplay. Sure, in objective terms the player moves arbitrary objects across a 2D grid which perform subtraction on arbitrary objects controlled by the computer, but this is always framed as controlling a squad of soldiers to engage in (typically lethal) combat with enemies (who are normally also soldiers). When you’re not doing this in-chapter gameplay, you are preparing for the next chapter of combat. This involves surveying the area of combat, preparing weapon loadouts, etc, however more recent entries also include light life-sim-esque elements. To summarize, Fire Emblem’s interactivity involves ordering violence as well as the preparations to order said violence.
For players, this strategic thinking is extremely fun and is the primary draw of the series! You have all these tier lists of who’s better at killing, discussion of the maps where you do the killing, complaints about the length of gameplay sections where you don’t do killing, etc. This is by design, as while I don’t know the core brand tenets of Nintendo, I imagine the Reggie quote “If it isn’t fun, why bother?” is carved into a solid gold statue of Mario in the office lobby. This then is enforced on all associated studios, including IntSys and so Fire Emblem. While I would disagree with that Reggie quote (especially the bit where he says “If it’s not a battle, where’s the fun?” which is a wild statement to make about an entire medium), this approach to making games is ultimately fine, and so IntSys tailored the strategic gameplay to be satisfying to your dopamine receptors. You could analyse what the normalisation of violence even in ‘just for fun’ games says about wider gaming culture, but I won’t get into that here. In any case, let’s dig into a few specifics of FE’s interactivity.
One thing that’s interesting with regard to strategy games is the detached perspective of the player. You order units and observe the resulting violence, but it’s not tactile, you don’t directly swing the sword or shoot the bow or cast the spell like with action games. This adds a layer of separation between the player and what fundamentally happens, at least within the framing that the game provides. It’s not like Call of Duty, where your relationship to the violence is very visceral, where you view everything down the barrel of a gun. OK, I probably shouldn’t use a series that I have very little personal experience with (I only listen to the supplementary lore material, so let’s talk about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While you’re not directly in the driver’s seat, John Sekiro reacts to your every input with extreme responsiveness, so overcoming the game’s challenges i.e. stabbing people is incredibly visceral and satisfying. While this violence is fantastical in nature, there is sufficient blood and explicit sword-action to clearly say “oh yeah you are violently killing all of those bozos with a katana”. Coming back to FE, not only are you far more detached from the violence, it is presented in an extremely cartoony manner… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’ll get to the aesthetics later. Point is, Fire Emblem gives the viewpoint of a stoic commander, who Does What Needs To Be Done™, and not the viewpoint of an actual soldier who has to do the actual killing.
Now let’s view the player’s perspective on violence from a different angle. Fire Emblem intends for its combat to be relatively relaxed on the player side of things - the turn-based nature allows the player to calmly think through all of their moves, and you typically have perfect information on the enemies. The only exceptions to this are Fog of WaSame Turn Reinforcements, which are rare and typically unpopular amongst the fanbase. This leans into ‘combat as sport’, where (going back to the Reggie quote) you have a fun time picking apart a puzzle with the tools you have, and we all collectively enjoy this! This is a valid way of designing strategy games, and I like what IntSys has done. However, it’s not the only way of making these games - for example, in Total War you have to juggle all your battalions in real time whilst the enemy is bearing down on you, and the XCOM games always have Fog of War and limited information on the enemies, with you never knowing what kind of awful new monster is going to suddenly charge at you. Don’t get me wrong, neither of these follow ‘combat as war’, the principle that violence should properly mimic the stress, tension and unfairness of actual conflict. Hell, neither of them are particularly mature either - Total War is the strategy game equivalent of smashing action figures together, and XCOM emulates a pulp sci-fi alien invasion story. However, the additional pressures these games have make them hew slightly closer to actual conflict, putting you more in that mindset in a way that the clean fun Fire Emblem doesn’t really do. Again, I want to say FE’s approach to violence in in-map gameplay is fine, but when all three of these franchises have an explicit narrative framing of ‘warfare’, it does make Fire Emblem’s narrative a little more… stretched.
Finally, I want to briefly mention the maps. To steal from a brilliant Jacob Geller video, these are Worlds Designed For Violence. At least outside of the Kaga games, the maps you fight on are primarily designed around how the player interacts with them, i.e. fights on them. While I imagine the narrative designers and artists at IntSys are involved throughout the map design process, the gameplay flow probably takes precedence most of the time. Maps are not designed to resemble realistic places that you have to fight through, they are instead designed primarily to provide fun gameplay experiences before being dressed up by the artists to look realistic/fit the specific story beat. This is a more consistently entertaining approach to map design - heaven knows we have a lot of Kaga castle assault maps which are as fun as actually assaulting an entrenched position IRL - but this lack of friction could potentially take the bite out of the intended vibe, neuter any commentary on violence throughout the story.
You may have noticed that we’ve only talked about the “in-map” gameplay for now, when there’s an entire second half of these games, i.e. all the gameplay between the maps. Don’t worry, we’ll get to all of that, but this may fit better in:

Something something “ludonarrative” something something (or Narrative Implications)

(To clarify, here I’m going to talk about the wider plots and narrative structure as opposed to characterisation, as that fits more into the aesthetics of the series)
It’s not bold to say that the narratives of games have to warp around the core gameplay structure. Especially in AAA video game production, the narrative designers usually have to take a back seat to the systems and level designers, at least outside of the initial rough outline they provide in the original game pitch. In this case, the job of the writer is to form vaguely coherent connective tissue between individual levels, setpieces and expensive pre-rendered cutscenes. This must be a very difficult job, and is probably the reason why most video game stories are the way they are. I am not privy to IntSys internal meetings, but I imagine they abide by this paradigm, trying to give a reason for why you fight 20 battles which roughly align with plot beats that were decided years ago.
Put another way, the writers of Fire Emblem must contrive a reason why the characters fight a vast number of violent battles in a strategic manner. This has a pretty easy solution - war! We have found something it’s good for, as whenever the gameplay designers decide that an extra map is required, the writers can just insert “oh no there’s a blockade of enemy soldiers in the way, guess you gotta kill them all”. This is the case for almost all the games and is a fair enough narrative choice, as it’s frankly one of the few scenarios where you could reasonably contrive so many battles, but it’s worth examining this in a bit more detail.
Even in the framing of warfare, there are still a lot of skirmishes, which sometimes the narrative or tone fails to support - or at least, their presence means that violence isn’t taken that seriously. Let’s take an example from early in Awakening: Emmeryn sends the Shepherds to negotiate an alliance with Regna Ferox. On the way, they are ambushed by Risen on the Northroad (1), have to fight the border guards who think Chrom is a bandit I think??? (2), and then after arriving they need to take part in Regna Ferox’s ritual combat to secure their alliance (3). These beats aren’t necessarily bad, and I actually think Awakening uses these opportunities quite well: the Risen are established as a constant threat to the world (except not really in the main story but that’s a whole other thing), “Marth'' gets more development, we set up Regna Ferox as fighty people who like to fight, and while the middle encounter is very tenuous it does set up a funny joke in Cynthia’s paralogue. However, I want to communicate that if the map/encounter designers need X maps between plot points A and B - in this case, needing low-stakes trials in the tutorial period - then there’s gonna be a fair bit of narrative filler. That is to say, there must be multiple combat encounters that kinda just happen, which makes violence a lot more casual in the narrative. See also the myriad examples of “oh shit random bandits attack!”, used to have a lower stakes map, with bandits appearing and vanishing as needed. This works fine enough in the context of ‘combat as sport’, allowing your favourite scrunglo to build up a triple-digit body count, but this casual attitude circumvents potentially interesting ideas with regards violence. Taking the example further, banditry and its causes are never seriously explored, as bandits are just treated as a filler enemy (except in Based As Hell Thracia 776).
Another narrative consequence of needing so many fights is that… you need to fight. That is to say, any anti-war sentiment or appeal to diplomacy in the series is fundamentally undercut by a) strategic combat being a core appeal of the series and b) narrative beats needing to be structured around fighting enemies. It’s a struggle to have moments of diplomacy and reconciliation when you had a fight within 3 minutes of said moment, lest some people start screaming that things are getting boring. This also makes any appeals to pacifism kinda moot. Xander’s quote about “war bad” in Conquest is utter bullshit, as a huge part of the marketing around that route focuses on the coolness of the tactical combat and its challenge. Eirika and Ephraim can never be equal, because Ephraim’s “fighting is fucken awesome” is encouraged by the gameplay, and Eirika can NEVER save 11037 because we need a final boss and no-one else fits the bill.
Speaking of, in video games it’s best practice to have a big bad guy you fight at the end of the story, the toughest mechanical challenge coinciding with the narrative climax. In Fire Emblem, you have one grand final battle which decides the fate of the war and/or world, before cutting to a brief wrap-up and then credits. This is an attempt to make these games satisfying, which is fine, but this is at odds with an anti-war message (which FE often gestures towards) - that is, actual wars tend to be deeply unsatisfying in a narrative sense! Oftentimes, after a decisive battle, things just kinda keep going for a little while afterwards with casualties continuing to pile up until peace terms are agreed. In the few cases where there is a final battle, it’s more of a formality as the decisive moment occurred months ago. See World War 1 and… World War 2 for examples of each, not to mention a whole host of war-related books and films. The problem with doing this in a video game is that it would require having multiple one-sided fights past the most climatic fight, which would be unfun, and we return to that fucking Reggie quote again. While video games can effectively explore this anti-war narrative space - This War of Mine is a fantastic example - it just doesn’t gel with the fun games that IntSys wants to make. I bring this up in the context of FE because Fire Emblem has such an aesthetic focus on warfare compared to other video games, so it sticks out even further. Even in FE6/FE9 where the war is effectively over in the final few maps, the enemies still remain extremely challenging, because if they didn’t things would be boring.
A few minor things that didn’t fit in above before we wrap up this section. First of all, in making an action packed story, Fire Emblem neglects an important aspect of army life in warfare - the “hurrying up and waiting”. In the majority of cases, the breaks between fights is under 10 minutes, it’s just glossed over. Fire Emblem Three Houses is the exception to this, but there it’s more framed as school life. Some people may say “what’s the point in having large amounts of timewasting where nothing happens in my game about war” and to that I would say fuck you, I want to play Jarhead Emblem. Next, Fire Emblem involves fighting people AND monsters, but these targets are typically given equal narrative weight, outside of maybe a funny line of dialogue about someone being afraid of monsters. In 99% of cases, enemy soldiers you fight have no more humanity than literal monsters. The death of any of your beloved soldiers is a tragedy with big sad death quotes, the death of those poor fuckers is quite literally a statistic which is proudly used to rank how well your guys have done at the end of the game. Finally, the limited scope of the violence the series can show limits the potential impact of scenes. In some cases, this is good as the implication is enough, e.g. the ‘Monica’ scene in Sacred Stones is wonderfully grim and would be weakened by anything explicit. However, a number of other scenes are neutered by the limitations on violence. This fundamentally relates to the aesthetics of the series:

insert prozd tweet/skit here (or Aesthetics, Tone, and Characters)

I’ve been talking a lot about ‘the violence committed’, and this might have seemed a bit weird to you. It’s a true statement, but because the violence is mostly cartoony and abstracted - bad guys disappear into nothingness, there’s no blood, etc - it’s hard to think of it in that way. It’s basically impossible to place Fire Emblem in the same artistic sphere as, say, All Quiet on the Western Front. This aesthetic sense was partially tech-limited in the early NES and SNES games, which was grandfathered into the more graphically complex titles, but it’s also related to how the aesthetics unavoidably warp the tone of the work. IntSys needs their games to be relatively lighthearted and unconcerned with the consequences of its violence, as one of the core appeals of these games is the charming cast of characters. As you would expect, it would be a lot harder to appreciate your goofy blorbos and their lighthearted chats about nothing if you could see the brutal consequences of their triple digit body counts. If violence was more realistic, there would be a lot less “ooh I like training and/or this one hyperspecific food” or “I like peace, but I guess violence may be possibly needed sometimes” and there would have to be a lot more trauma and dourness. There are also age rating concerns, as you can’t exactly sell Come And See Emblem to pre-teens. And once more, to clarify: Fire Emblem as it exists now is fine! I like the lighthearted tone of this series, and I like the characters that reside within it. However, a few problems do arise from IntSys’s approach to violence, as occasionally they brush up against darker ideas but (due to similar reasons to the above) they can never commit to them, which neuters their potential impact. This is especially troublesome with regards to characterisation, as the little dudes are a core appeal, so if something is off that could cause problems. In a sense, at points we have severe aesthetic tension.
A fairly useful case study to see how this affects characterisation is with Mozu in Fire Emblem Fates. Mozu is a charming character, a genial country bumpkin with a bit of an edge at times, who has fond memories of her hometown. This lines up with the lighthearted tone of her recruitment paralogue, where (checks notes) her entire village gets massacred by inhuman monsters, with her mother literally being murdered right in front of her, and she joins up with Corrin’s party because there is literally nothing left of her old life. I understand that people who experience extreme trauma do still manage to live meaningful lives, and that IntSys wouldn’t want to have a character who is a barely functional traumatised mess for 90% of the campaign. However, this doesn’t explain the sheer dissonance between the relatively normal and well-adjusted Mozu who quietly remembers her lost loved ones, and the fact that her village got My Lai’d a handful of weeks ago in the game’s timeline. IMO this would work a lot better if there were a few survivors (instead of literally everyone else dying), with Mozu actively choosing to leave her old life to help others instead of being forced to leave by circumstance. This reduction in scope would mitigate the dissonance between the character and what actually happens to her. This is by far the most extreme example in the series, however I’m sure you can think of others. My issue here is not with having ‘normal’ characters, or with them suffering tragedies, my issue is the dissonance between the two when viewing the scope of said tragedies. This is just one way the series wants to get into darker territory, then swiftly backing off instead of delving into the consequences.
This aesthetic restriction also affects the potential impact of dramatic scenes in the main story, limiting what the focus of these scenes can actually be. This little bit will involve heavy spoilers for Genealogy of the Holy War and Spec Ops: The Line (I KNOW THESE GAMES ARE VERY DIFFERENT WITH VERY DIFFERENT INTENDED DEMOGRAPHICS IN VERY DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS, SHUT UP). Both have a very important narrative moment around their midpoints, involving fire magic/white phosphorus respectively. In each game, the deaths that occur are utterly horrific when you think about them. In FE4 the focus is on the drama of the plot twist and effects on the characters, with the actual effects of the violence being left to implication. We don’t know if this was the original intent of Kaga and the team, or if this was enforced by various tech- and publisher-related restrictions, but in either case we do not see anything explicit. In any case, in Spec Ops: The Line, the horror and graphic nature of the violence is completely inescapable, and therefore forms the core of the turning point of the story. The specifics of the violence itself are crucial - the game does not work if you don’t see the consequences of the white phosphorus - and it leads beautifully to the complete descent of its endgame. You may be saying “of course you couldn’t show that violence in FE, it’s a kids game” which is true, and in any case the scene in Genealogy is very good, even without showing the violence. I imagine if we get a remake in the year 202X we wouldn’t see anything explicit anyway, partially due to the publisher but also because the scene doesn’t necessarily need it. The point I am trying to make is that the aesthetics form a limitation on what Fire Emblem can explore, narrative space that the series fundamentally cannot reach.
One more thing, and this isn’t really about the games themselves but the impressions leading into them, and how the aesthetics can affect that. Do you guys remember when the intro cutscene of Three Houses was released a few weeks before release? I do, and I also remember the collective shock of the community when seeing the early previews. It was so drastically different to everything that had come before, and consequently was really intriguing - you can see a lot of speculation in the above comments. To clarify, I don’t want to pretend that 3H is some kind of super mature ultra gritty war story, or that blood = good game, but that beginning cutscene gave one hell of a first impression. Even though the game isn’t that much darker than any other FE game, the sheer unexpectedness put people off-kilter in a kinda awesome way. Does the game actually deliver? YMMV, but I think this (and some of the later cutscenes, such as the mid-game Dimitri one) work quite well. Sometimes, a little injection of harsher violence can go a long way.

Conclusion

Frankly I don’t really have a conclusion, sorry. As you can see, there are so many disparate strands, I can’t possibly make one grand thesis statement. Maybe the inherent contradictions of having warfare in a family friendly video game weakens the potential end result? I guess, but I don’t want to imply that what we have now is bad, as it is pretty good tbh. So, uhh…
…
OK, if I had to say something, it’s more about the process of making this. Having to try and think about how violence intersects with a video game you like takes you in a number of different directions. Ultimately, this process was really fulfilling for me, and I would recommend that you do the same (for FE or anything else)! Trying to analyse something you enjoy from a perspective not usually applied is pretty neat. If you guys have any thoughts (on the points above or your own), I’d be very interested to hear them!
Also, if people are interested, I’ll try to make a few case studies. I would focus on Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses, as (when thinking on this topic) I found that these games were consistently the most intriguing, with the most interesting relationships to violence. This would probably take a while though, as I am gonna be very busy in June, and I probably won’t have time this month either.

It’s only Tuesday, and I had a dude cancel a date the other day and block me out of nowhere on Sunday. A dude ghosted me on a date last night. I was feeling so low that a dude I hooked up with a few times messaged me later and said “come suck me or I’m blocking you permanently”. I was afraid to not be wanted by a man again, so I headed to his house so at least my mouth could be of value. He blocked me as I was pulling into his driveway.
It’s just the same story over and over again. Blocked, ghosted, not wanting more than sex(usually once then they ignore me). I’ve talked to thousands of guys online and in person over the last decade. I’ve gotten 3 dates with 3 different dudes, and nothing since. One dude didn’t like me so much that he later told me to not tell anyone we went on a date, but that I could say “we were friends hanging out”. No, I wasn’t misconstruing things. We repeatedly discussed going on a date.
I know I shouldn’t focus so heavily on relationships, but it hurts so much to never feel wanted. I’m ugly and have a shitty personality, so it’s partly my fault. I just find it hard to fake it. People keep saying that someone is out there, but from a logistical standpoint, they’re not out there. If I achieve triple what I’ve been able to in the last decade before I die of old age, I might barely make it to a failed relationship. I’m so bummed about all of it lately, and depression is sinking back in. I go back and forth between wanting to kill myself and just feeling nothing but anger. What do I do?
I don’t have anyone to talk to, so here I am…

I’m confused by the words and actions of my wayward ex. She left me for her AP 6 months ago. In the first 4-6 weeks she was hostile towards me. From 6-10 weeks she mentioned maybe wanting to work things out about 3 times and was generally very nice to me. Weeks 10 onwards she precedes to block my number and refuses to acknowledge my presence. In the last 3 weeks up to 10 days ago she reaches out and asks how I’m doing, says she still misses me and is friendly. Fast forward to 10 days ago and we’re back to not acknowledging my presence.
For those that are wondering, we’re still in contact due to a house we built together that has just finished. I’m trying to get answers about the house and she’s not responding.
So my question for the waywards that have left their ex’s for the AP’s - aside from Dafuq!? - is did you miss your ex after you left them and why?
Because this is doing me a confusion.

HEADS UP POST HAS SOME BACKSTORY TO IT!!!!
My best friend of 10 years and girlfriend for 7 of those years recently rekindled our romance after not talking for 8 months she’s 23 and I’m 24. We are not official and keeping our options open so it was cool that we were talking to other people. I know she’s talking to one other guy. We ended things because of a night out drinking she got shit face drunk while I stayed sober because I was driving. Went back to her place to make sure she got home safe. She insisted on having sex with me even though I told her now and tried to leave multiple times because I didn’t want to take advantage of her in her intoxicated state. She told me to just lay with her until she fell asleep so I did. 5 mins later she gets on top of me and holds my hands down while putting her boobs against my lips. She then grabbed my hands to place on her butt while she twerked on me. We did some oral stuff but no penetration.
The day after she blocked me on everything and told me that she doesn’t remember that night and I took advantage of her which pissed me off because I would never do that to someone I deeply loved for the past decade even throughout high school when we started to date.
Now a week later she is in a relationship with the other guy which leads me to believe that I dodged a bullet with her.
NOW FOR THE RESON OF THIS POST Her new boyfriend is the guy she’s been talking to. The guy is 27 with two kids one is 6 and the other is 2. His ex wife (they are separated but still haven’t gotten a divorce and live together) cheated on him during marriage and he cheated back as revenge. She (my ex) has never dated anyone with kids. She has told me that she doesn’t want kids ever and doesn’t expect to be raising his kids ever or being a stepmom ever. She’s told me that her new “boyfriend” and her haven’t even gone on an official date like dinner type stuff just hanging out at night every now and then for an hour or two.
I definitely do not plan on getting back with my ex but I’m just curious how long do you think this little relationship between them will last???

Around, late april, M(20) found out, my sister F(19) wanted to spend a weekend with her boyfriends house. My family is fairly conservative and boyfriends M(20) family is pretty liberal, he went to an international school and is not pure Filipino.
I'm from the Philippines where people are pretty conservative so naturally my Christian Family was taken aback, denied her from going despite her insistence and flew her back home as she goes to college really far away, this was during their ILW which is basically a week where all classes are online, so she technically had no class for a week. Now she's extremely angry why she wasn't allowed to go, angry at the whole family and me (because I agreed that she shouldn't have gone).
For culture context. Shes Still living at home, but has an apartment near the college. It's quite common for young adults who arent married to still live with the family, even when they have a job. Legally shes an adult, but unlike western cultures, we don't really have that concept of when your 18, "You can do whatever want", everyone is still closely involved, emotionally, physically, and financially. An parallel to this would be our financial culture, Where in western countries its quite common for 18 y/o to get a part time job, while not unheard of here, its not as common, our parents still pay for everything. Although me myself don't adhere to this, I work part time and go to college, which is already quite an outlier at 20.
I said that we wanted what was best for her and just want to look out for her, Early on our father jumped ship really early, and we also have history of unplanned pregnancies and women not being able to pursue their dreams (i.e stopping college) so that to probably motivated the reactions, when she was home they discussed it in depth on why such a thing wasn't allowed, at no point did we insist they break up, and I actually would prefer someone to be there for here when we cant. She keeps insisting the boyfriend who she's been dating for about 3-4 months now has the best intentions and they wouldn't be having sex.
I know this is a pretty liberal platform and most of you think that sex isn't a big thing but It is for our family, and allowing the eldest daughter in the family to spend a few days at the boyfriends place who we haven't formally met was out of the question, we've met on occasion but haven't really talked in length because her college is pretty far from mine. It puts a strain in our family and I want to know how to navigate the situation. I've already planned to meet and have lunch with the guy in a few days to get to know him, but would like additional input into the situation. I know not to aggravate her even more by disagreeing with her, and plan to actually to just give her safe sex advice instead, but I would just like to know everyone's thoughts on the situation.

Marketing is one of the most crucial operation for a Shopify store. There are lot’s of tactics Marketing is one of the most crucial operation for a Shopify store. There are lot’s of tactics to grow quickly and none of them not working. Well, if you looking for a way to create solid marketing plan, then this guide is for you. In this guide you’ll learn

• Definition of Marketing
• Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market
• Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding
• Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy
• Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels
• Marketing Plan Template
• FAQs

Definition of Marketing

American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Source
What do you see here?

1. Marketing is not about activities, it contains activities, set of institutions and process.
2. Function of marketing is not generating sales. It’s creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that has value.
3. In this post we’ll focus on Shopify stores marketing. However in the big picture marketing has not limited with companies. Marketing can be done within organization or society.

Let’s summarize what marketing definition for a Shopify store. Marketing will create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for customers. As you can see main subject in here is customers. Because of this, I’ll put customers as the center of this guide. Everything we’ll do has to something with them.

Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market

This is a practical guide for marketing so I want to continue with a hypothetical Shopify stores for each steps.
Let’s say we have a Shopify store that has some high-end, organic baby clothes targeting new parents.

Market Research

How can we do the market research?
Let’s say you have a new Shopify store that has less than 500 order per month. You can hire expensive agencies, expensive experts to research the market, create market reports for you, etc. Even if you do that, I highly suspicious if it helps you.
However you can talk with your new-parent friends. Ask them about how do they decide to buy baby clothes? What they are looking for before completing their purchases? Do they get any expert opinion before making buying decision? How do they search online and what they want to see? Is there any great YouTube channels about this.
Don’t have any friends? Checkout your friends not a new-parents but parents and ask similar questions to them. If you also don’t have them, try to make new born friends. I know how hard it is but let’s be honest here. If you don’t know anybody in your target audience, how do you manage to get know them? All of the successful stores I saw they have direct relationship with their target audience.
When you make your research with real people, then you can extend your project to online. Try to search as they do. What do you find? Deep in dive and take your notes.

Competitor Analysis

When you done this market research, you’ll also see there are some other brands. This is a huge subject but let’s call these brands as competitor for now.
Now it’s time to analyze them.

1. Checkout their branding strategy.
2. What are their value propositions?
3. What is hot about them? Return guarantee, free shipping etc.
4. What is not hot about them? Poor product or store design, low UX on the website, etc.
5. What people think about them? Google reviews, Trust pilot reviews, product reviews on the store.
6. Are there any partnership or influencer program they’re running?
7. What is their Google/YouTube campaign strategy? Check it here.
8. What is their Facebook/Instagram campaign strategy? Check it here.

Create a spreadsheet with all of this information. We’ll use this when working on positioning and marketing strategy.

Define Your Target Market

What do you say about our target market? Can all of new parents be our target market?
Nope, it can’t. You need to deep dive into your market and find a sub-segment, a niche that will need your products much better than anybody else and afford it easily.
This is what I called ideal customer profile (ICP). Check out what is ideal customer profile and how to create your ideal customer profile posts to learn more about the concept.
For our hypothetical store, ICP can be something like this;
Demographics

• Age: 25-45 years old
• Gender: Primarily women, but also some men
• Education: College degree or higher
• Income: $75,000+ per household
• Location: Urban areas
• Occupation: Professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents

Psychographics

• Values: Health, wellness, sustainability, social responsibility
• Lifestyle: Active, eco-conscious, family-oriented
• Interests: Organic food, natural products, children’s activities
• Media consumption: Social media, parenting blogs, magazines
• Shopping habits: Researches purchases thoroughly, values quality over price

Pain Points

• Concerns about harmful chemicals in baby clothes
• Difficulty finding stylish and affordable organic baby clothes
• Wants to make sustainable choices for their children

Needs

• High-quality, organic baby clothes that are safe and healthy for their children
• Unique and stylish designs that make their children look and feel good
• A brand that shares their values and commitment to sustainability

Buying Behaviors

• Researches products online before making a purchase
• Reads reviews and testimonials from other parents
• Shops at specialty stores and online retailers
• Willing to pay a premium for quality and sustainability

After creating ICP, it’s important to spend some time on empathy map. Don’t forget to check it, too.
Now we know our baby clothes Shopify store market, customer’s buying process and our ideal customer profile.

Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding

I’ll follow the American Marketing Association (AMA) in here too.
First look at brand definition. AMA defines brand as “any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services”.
Branding is for creating and managing your brand’s identity. It involves your mission, values, culture and public image.
I’m not an expert on brand, but I know how branding can be effective for your conversions and performance. Here are some checklist for you.

1. Design consistency is the key. Your visual identity should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
2. Copy consistency is the key. Your communication style should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
3. Experience consistency is the key. Let’s say your brand looks like a high-end brand and when a new visitor visit your store first they see is an annoying popup saying want to get 10% OFF. This is simply how to destroy your brand.
4. Craft a story and stick to it. What makes you create this brand? Faces behind the brand. This is a huge leverage for creating trust and building bonds.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy

So far we identified our target market and ideal customer profile. Check out competitors and creates the branding for our store.
Now it’s time to work on go-to-market strategy and crafting our marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Let’s say you recently launched your Shopify store or add a new line of products.
You need a plan to introduce your store or new products to the market. This is what we called go-to-market(GTM) strategy.
Main goal of the GTM is letting people know that there is a new brand or product line. It’s similar to launch marketing. Key message here is there is a new products/brand launched and it offer the best for you. Give it a try, you’ll love it.
All of your messages and communication should be parallel to this process.
Our focus is convincing people to try our products/brand. So I always offer a special campaign just for the launch to give people to a reason to try your products/brand.
For our hypothetical Shopify store we can run a special campaign for launch like;

• Free shipping until X date.
• 5 different boy and girl bundle with 40% OFF to try our products.

Marketing Strategy

This is your plan of actions to sell or advertise your products. Now we can talk about selling part of the marketing.
Let’s say you have GREAT advertising creatives and a huge budget and just spending it. Don’t wait to crack the code and having lot’s of sales.
Your marketing strategy should be follow sales funnel. If you don’t have a high-converting sales funnel, you can’t expect people to buy from you. Check out How to Build High Converting Sales Funnel For Shopify post.
AIDA Sales Funnel Framework
Now we can continue with our hypothetical store example. We’re selling high-end, organic baby clothes on our store. We crafted our ICP, empathy map, work on branding and created our story.

Example Marketing Strategy

First step we’ll work on attention step. Our focus is getting attention of our target market attention.
We can create a educative e-book like “7 Harmful Chemicals Commonly Used in Baby Clothes and How to Avoid Them” and run some campaigns targeted new parents on social network (Facebook, Instagram or YouTube)
This ads will land on a landing page that gives brief information about why we should pay attention to chemicals in baby clothes for our little ones and make a promise like “I spend my last 5 years about researching chemicals on baby clothes and prepare this book for you and your little one”. Also there can be a quick video about our story explaining our expertise in this field and why we’re building this brand.
We can ask for their email address to share the book with them. When they enter their email address, we’ll send them this ebook.
After first email with the ebook, we can send a few more emails with easy to digest information about chemicals.
This will create an expertise image on our target customers and start to create a bond with them. Not a bad start, right?
At the same time we can use this content on our social media, right? Quick videos, infographics and posts about the chemicals in the baby clothes.
After getting a few thousands subscribers we can organize a webinar to answer questions. This will also a great content for re-used social media content and creating trust and expert image.
Then we can share a time-limited promotion with this people for a bundle. Like we’re running a campaign and these 5 chemical free baby clothes bundles 10% discounted until next week!
We can send emails about it and use this campaign for remarketing for only people who show interest in our e-book and webinar.
This is a very brief template of marketing plan.
Now let’s take a look at more common one.

• Post product photos on social media with lot’s of hashtags
• Run a Meta campaign without any targeting, land people on product detail page
• Give them WELCOME10 discount if they enter their email address
• Send them 15 emails in the next 5 days to maximize your sales.

It’s time for you. Which one do you want to choose? All of the experts recommending this without even asking who are your customers. Can you believe it?
Don’t forget that marketing strategy is not a hope. It’s a well documented plan of actions designed for turning strangers into customers.

Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels

Inside the marketing strategy, channels plays a vital role. There are lot’s of ways to group channels. I’ll use most basic one.
Inbound Marketing Channels: With the inbound marketing your customers will find you and start the interaction. Most common channel for inbound marketing is organic search engine optimization.
After creating high quality content, when customers search something online, they can see your articles and first interaction happens.
Outbound Marketing Channels: With the outbound marketing you reach out to customers. Facebook/Instagram/YouTube ads, influencer marketing, display ads, podcast ads can be count in this category.
As you can imagine inbound marketing channels takes lot’s of efforts and time however over the time you’ll have organic marketing channel and it brings you customer without needing any budget.
Outbound marketing channels generally works with advertisement models and you need budgets to run these channels.
Most of time I recommend to start with outbound marketing channels and then invest inbound marketing channels overtime. Don’t forget to check Mastering Paid Ads For Shopify post.
Succesful marketing plans should be supported by high converting growth and conversion plans. Don’t forget to check Growth Guide For Shopify and Conversion Optimization Guide For Shopify too.
to grow quickly and none of them not working. Well, if you looking for a way to create solid marketing plan, then this guide is for you. In this guide you’ll learn

• Definition of Marketing
• Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market
• Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding
• Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy
• Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels
• Marketing Plan Template
• FAQs

Definition of Marketing

American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Source
What do you see here?

1. Marketing is not about activities, it contains activities, set of institutions and process.
2. Function of marketing is not generating sales. It’s creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that has value.
3. In this post we’ll focus on Shopify stores marketing. However in the big picture marketing has not limited with companies. Marketing can be done within organization or society.

Let’s summarize what marketing definition for a Shopify store. Marketing will create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for customers. As you can see main subject in here is customers. Because of this, I’ll put customers as the center of this guide. Everything we’ll do has to something with them.

Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market

This is a practical guide for marketing so I want to continue with a hypothetical Shopify stores for each steps.
Let’s say we have a Shopify store that has some high-end, organic baby clothes targeting new parents.

Market Research

How can we do the market research?
Let’s say you have a new Shopify store that has less than 500 order per month. You can hire expensive agencies, expensive experts to research the market, create market reports for you, etc. Even if you do that, I highly suspicious if it helps you.
However you can talk with your new-parent friends. Ask them about how do they decide to buy baby clothes? What they are looking for before completing their purchases? Do they get any expert opinion before making buying decision? How do they search online and what they want to see? Is there any great YouTube channels about this.
Don’t have any friends? Checkout your friends not a new-parents but parents and ask similar questions to them. If you also don’t have them, try to make new born friends. I know how hard it is but let’s be honest here. If you don’t know anybody in your target audience, how do you manage to get know them? All of the successful stores I saw they have direct relationship with their target audience.
When you make your research with real people, then you can extend your project to online. Try to search as they do. What do you find? Deep in dive and take your notes.

Competitor Analysis

When you done this market research, you’ll also see there are some other brands. This is a huge subject but let’s call these brands as competitor for now.
Now it’s time to analyze them.

1. Checkout their branding strategy.
2. What are their value propositions?
3. What is hot about them? Return guarantee, free shipping etc.
4. What is not hot about them? Poor product or store design, low UX on the website, etc.
5. What people think about them? Google reviews, Trust pilot reviews, product reviews on the store.
6. Are there any partnership or influencer program they’re running?
7. What is their Google/YouTube campaign strategy? Check it here.
8. What is their Facebook/Instagram campaign strategy? Check it here.

Create a spreadsheet with all of this information. We’ll use this when working on positioning and marketing strategy.

Define Your Target Market

What do you say about our target market? Can all of new parents be our target market?
Nope, it can’t. You need to deep dive into your market and find a sub-segment, a niche that will need your products much better than anybody else and afford it easily.
This is what I called ideal customer profile (ICP). Check out what is ideal customer profile and how to create your ideal customer profile posts to learn more about the concept.
For our hypothetical store, ICP can be something like this;
Demographics

• Age: 25-45 years old
• Gender: Primarily women, but also some men
• Education: College degree or higher
• Income: $75,000+ per household
• Location: Urban areas
• Occupation: Professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents

Psychographics

• Values: Health, wellness, sustainability, social responsibility
• Lifestyle: Active, eco-conscious, family-oriented
• Interests: Organic food, natural products, children’s activities
• Media consumption: Social media, parenting blogs, magazines
• Shopping habits: Researches purchases thoroughly, values quality over price

Pain Points

• Concerns about harmful chemicals in baby clothes
• Difficulty finding stylish and affordable organic baby clothes
• Wants to make sustainable choices for their children

Needs

• High-quality, organic baby clothes that are safe and healthy for their children
• Unique and stylish designs that make their children look and feel good
• A brand that shares their values and commitment to sustainability

Buying Behaviors

• Researches products online before making a purchase
• Reads reviews and testimonials from other parents
• Shops at specialty stores and online retailers
• Willing to pay a premium for quality and sustainability

After creating ICP, it’s important to spend some time on empathy map. Don’t forget to check it, too.
Now we know our baby clothes Shopify store market, customer’s buying process and our ideal customer profile.

Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding

I’ll follow the American Marketing Association (AMA) in here too.
First look at brand definition. AMA defines brand as “any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services”.
Branding is for creating and managing your brand’s identity. It involves your mission, values, culture and public image.
I’m not an expert on brand, but I know how branding can be effective for your conversions and performance. Here are some checklist for you.

1. Design consistency is the key. Your visual identity should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
2. Copy consistency is the key. Your communication style should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
3. Experience consistency is the key. Let’s say your brand looks like a high-end brand and when a new visitor visit your store first they see is an annoying popup saying want to get 10% OFF. This is simply how to destroy your brand.
4. Craft a story and stick to it. What makes you create this brand? Faces behind the brand. This is a huge leverage for creating trust and building bonds.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy

So far we identified our target market and ideal customer profile. Check out competitors and creates the branding for our store.
Now it’s time to work on go-to-market strategy and crafting our marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Let’s say you recently launched your Shopify store or add a new line of products.
You need a plan to introduce your store or new products to the market. This is what we called go-to-market(GTM) strategy.
Main goal of the GTM is letting people know that there is a new brand or product line. It’s similar to launch marketing. Key message here is there is a new products/brand launched and it offer the best for you. Give it a try, you’ll love it.
All of your messages and communication should be parallel to this process.
Our focus is convincing people to try our products/brand. So I always offer a special campaign just for the launch to give people to a reason to try your products/brand.
For our hypothetical Shopify store we can run a special campaign for launch like;

• Free shipping until X date.
• 5 different boy and girl bundle with 40% OFF to try our products.

Marketing Strategy

This is your plan of actions to sell or advertise your products. Now we can talk about selling part of the marketing.
Let’s say you have GREAT advertising creatives and a huge budget and just spending it. Don’t wait to crack the code and having lot’s of sales.
Your marketing strategy should be follow sales funnel. If you don’t have a high-converting sales funnel, you can’t expect people to buy from you. Check out How to Build High Converting Sales Funnel For Shopify post.
This article first published at MarketingLib.
Don't forget to check Growth Suite on Shopify App Store.

The Purpose of Life for Man

One of the most direct verses on the subject of "the meaning (or purpose) of (human) life" in the Bible can be found in Revelation:

"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."-Revelation 4:11

This, of course, should prompt us to ask what exactly does God take pleasure in?
Conversely, what doesn't He take pleasure in?

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"-Micah 6:6-8

God does not take pleasure in mere outward religiosity and ritual, but rather finds honest acts of love towards Him and others as more important when pertaining to our fulfillment of what God expects from us as His creation. God takes great pleasure in us doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him. This is what He requires of us. In other words...

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."-Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

The Book of Ecclesiastes is an existential treatise on the futility of finding any meaning or fulfillment in life apart from God. In it, "the Preacher" (or "Teacher" in some translations) explores the limits of human experiences which may provide meaning or fulfillment in this life before the author of the book inevitably concludes that the only thing we can do that has any kind of meaning or permanence in the end is fearing God and keeping His commandments. The reason for this is because the march of time and our own mortality effectively make most human endeavors hevel. The Hebrew word "hevel" is translated as vanity in the King James.
The following is taken from BibleProject:

In Hebrew, hevel literally refers to “vapor” or “smoke.” The teacher uses this word 38 times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes as a metaphor to describe how life is temporary and fleeting, like a wisp of smoke, but also how life is an enigma or paradox. Smoke appears solid, but when you try to grab it, it’s like nothing is there.

[...]

The author’s basic goal is to target all of the ways we try to build meaning and purpose in life apart from God and then let the teacher deconstruct them. The author thinks that people spend most of their time investing energy and emotion in things that ultimately have no lasting meaning or significance. And so he allows the teacher to give us a reality check.

The Preacher gives us a "reality check" by demonstrating how time and death effectively make things like scientific and artistic discovery (1:10-11), mirth (2:1), alcohol (2:3), architecture (2:4), amassing property (2:7-8), and luxury (2:8) all hevel. Materialism and hedonism fail to fulfill, and though wisdom and righteousness are acknowledged by the preacher to be advantageous, the righteous and wise are still often victims of injustice and unfairness in the world while the wicked get to prosper and have longevity at times (1:13-18). Generally, your life will probably be better by living in the wisdom given in Proverbs (Ecc. 7:11-12; 9:13-18), but it's no guarantee that you will have a good life as bad things still happen to good people, and good things still happen to bad people. This isn't entirely "hevel" but it's confusing and disorienting because things don't always work out the way we think they should in this life.
Again, from BibleProject:

So what’s the way forward in the midst of all this hevel? Paradoxically, the teacher discovers that the key to truly enjoying life is accepting hevel, acknowledging that everything in your life is totally out of your control. About six different times, at the bleakest moments in his dialogue, the teacher suddenly talks about “the gift of God,” which is the enjoyment of the simple, good things in life such as friendship, family, a good meal, or a sunny day.
You and I can’t control the most important things in our lives. Nothing is guaranteed, and, strangely, that’s the beauty of it. When I adopt a posture of complete trust in God, it frees me to simply enjoy life as I actually experience it and not as I think it ought to be. In the end, even my expectations about life, my hopes and dreams, are all “hevel, hevel. Everything under the sun is hevel.”
The teacher’s words come to an end, and the author takes over, bringing the book to a close. He says that it is very important to hear what the teacher has to say. He likens the teacher’s words to a shepherd’s staff with a goad, a pointy end that will hurt when it pokes you. But that pain can ultimately steer you in the right direction towards greater wisdom.
The author warns us not to take the teacher’s words too far. You can spend your entire life buried in books trying to answer the existential puzzles of human life. Don’t exhaust yourself, he says. You’ll never get there. Instead, the author offers his own conclusion that we should “fear God and keep his commands; this is the whole duty of humans. For God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil” (Ec. 12:13-14).

Fearing the Lord doesn’t guarantee success in this life, but it is the right thing to do, and ultimately God will clear the "hevel" and bring His justice on all we have done. Therefore, we ought to keep God's commandments.
Through Jesus, we see the Bible clearing the confusion many have, and still have, about God's commandments and what exactly they are (in essence, at least):

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-Matthew 22:37-40

The apostle Paul puts it like this:

"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."-Galatians 5:14

The apostle John, like this:

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."-1 John 4:16

In other words, the first and second greatest commandments can be seen as inextricably intertwined, as one cannot truly love God without loving their fellow man, and vice versa.
So, to put it bluntly, the meaning, or purpose, of (human) life according to the Bible is simply love.

"What Does It Mean to Love Biblically?"

But, what exactly is love anyway? We know that, according to the apostle John, God is love. But, what does that mean exactly?
The ancient Greeks had anywhere between four and eight different words for love (depending on the source):

• Storge: affection
  
• Philia or Phileo: friendship
  
• Eros: sexual, erotic
  
• Agape: unconditional, divine, selfless
  
• Ludus: flirtatious, playful, casual, uncommitted
  
• Pragma: committed, long-standing
  
• Philautia: self-love
  
• Mania: obsessive, possessive, addictive, dependent
  

The word translated as "charity" in the KJV's rendering of 1st Corinthians 13 is agape. A more accurate translation of the word would be "love," more specifically, the love of God. In this passage, Paul talks about the importance of having this kind of love for others compared to all the things we might typically obsess over concerning the things of God. Even things like charity to the poor itself, if not motivated by agape, does not impress God! Our motivations and heart matter to God just as much, if not more, than our actions themselves.
This is what the Bible defines as true love, or at least, is the kind of love it's most concerned about.
In order to demonstrate to another that we love them, we sacrifice something. For God, He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins (John 3:16). For Jesus, he sacrificed himself to save us from our sins:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."-John 15:13

In essence, true love is self-sacrifice. Putting others before ourselves is the greatest kind of sacrifice.
God didn't have to send His Son, but He did. Jesus didn't have to accept the mission, but he did.
God loves you, and Jesus loves you.
We demonstrate to others that we love them by sacrificing our wants and desires for them. These sacrifices can range from really small, to really big. Loving others is a daily practice of making greater and greater sacrifices.

“You can will to love people. Love is not a feeling. Love is a willing, and the Lord says to love people. He did not mean [to merely] feel love for them” — A.W. Tozer

A stumbling block for many in their walk with God is the inability to love one's enemies and to love unlovable people as Jesus did. It’s difficult for us to show love to people we don’t feel love for; to people we despise or dislike. We also tend to struggle with extending grace and mercy to those who’ve hurt us. I myself often wonder whether I am even capable of loving everyone the way Jesus does.
As I grow in my faith, I realize it’s not that I’m incapable of loving like Jesus; I’m just not always willing to. My unwillingness to love indicates that I am unwittingly adopting the worldly view of love, which is based on feelings and merit. I am choosing not to love people I feel are underserving of my love. The more I study Scripture, though, the more I realize Biblical love is not a feeling or an emotion; it’s a decision. It is an action, and it’s sacrificial. It’s not something you feel; it is, again, something you practice.

“Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ’s command.” — Tony Evans

Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). He also said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). Since the Lord commands us to love, that means it is within our power to do so; therefore, love is a decision we make. Although feelings will accompany love, it’s not an emotion; it’s the decision to love regardless of how we feel.
As believers, we’re taught to love our enemies, and do good to those who hate us, and if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, "turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39). It’s not easy to do; hating our enemies comes naturally to us because of our evil nature. It is impossible to love our enemies on our own strength; we need the help of the Spirit of God.
The decision to love your enemies arises from the decision to obey the will of God and the desire to be Christlike. We choose to love our enemies because God said so and loved us first. Jesus said we are to love as he loved us.

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”-Romans 5:8

So Biblical love is sacrificial love. It is not a feeling but an act of will; the desire to put the welfare of others above your own. This type of love is not a love based on affection or emotion. Instead, it’s agape love, a love that is not concerned with self but is concerned more with the good of others.
We are not going to like everyone, nor are we called to; we are called to love everyone regardless of how we feel about them. It’s possible to love someone without feeling love for them when we decide to love everyone the way God loves us. The more we love through our actions, the decision to love will become a choice the heart is more willing to make.
Again, this doesn’t mean you will like or feel love for everyone, but when you put your trust in the Lord and pursue wisdom and holiness through prayer and Scripture, you will naturally develop a love for others.
To put it succinctly: Biblical love seeks the best interests of others, even our enemies, often to the detriment of ourselves. "Best interests" here doesn't necessarily mean what the other person thinks are their own best interests. It just means we do for them what we know or believe is best for them, and what we know or believe is best for them should be informed by an active participation with the Spirit of God and by His Word (the Bible) itself. Feelings may or may not accompany this, but how we feel towards the other is not what determines whether or not we're exhibiting the love of God, in the view of Jesus and the apostles. In their view, it's about whether or not we can still decide to seek the best interests of those who might harm us, or who we might not even like.

What the Real Heavenly Treasure Is

Now, this all brings us to an important question that needs to be answered: Is it wrong to love God and others while making a reward the objective for doing so?
We must ask this question, because all throughout Scripture we are told that the faithful followers of God will be "rewarded" some day for everything they've done to merit this. Giving an exhaustive list of passages that proves this point would be endless, but here are some examples of just a few:

"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."-Luke 14:12-14
"I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."-Acts 20:35
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil."-Luke 6:35

The answer to this question depends on what we define as "rewards." Most will typically adopt some vague idea of material possesions that await the believer when they get to heaven as one's reward for faithfulness towards God, or that the reward is simply an escape from punishment for one's own sins, or perhaps even some combination of these things both.
However, none of these are the "rewards" the Lord is promising to those who obey the first and second commandments. If they were, our motivation to love God and others would ultimately be selfish. Think about it. Our motivation for rewards would inherently be me-centered, and not other-centered.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives the following command:

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."-Matthew 6:19-21

We know there are heavenly treasures, because Jesus says so, but what are they? The issue of heavenly treasures or eternal rewards is riddled with question marks. It’s a subject that has been abused by some (“Store up treasure by giving to my ministry”) and left in the too-hard basket by others.
But the answer here is simple, and two-fold. One of our rewards are God Himself:

"After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."-Genesis 15:1
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."-Hevrews 11:6

What is the reward of the seeker but to find that which is sought? If you are searching for God, you will find Him and He will be your very great reward.
Now, if you are the newest believer or the eleventh-hour worker, you will be as richly blessed as the oldest, most faithful saint. Eternity will not be divided into the haves and have-nots, for we are all one in the New Jerusalem.
But we can distinguish God our reward from the heavenly treasure that Jesus said can be stored up. You cannot "store up" more of God, after all.
So what are heavenly treasures? The answer may surprise you, but it’s people.

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."-Psalm 127:3

What is the only thing you can take with you? People, a.k.a. eternal friends, a.k.a. spiritual offspring. This Psalm is not just talking about biological children. God has bigger plans for you and they involve spiritual children. Lots of them. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Don’t limit God.
So much time and effort is spent debating heavenly treasures as though they were some great mystery. What are they? Jesus makes it plain: it's people.

• Just as Abraham was called to be the father of many nations, so are you.
  
• Jesus said those who followed him would be fishers of men. What is a fisherman’s reward? It’s fish, or people in this case.
  
• What is the reward of the one who sows and waters the good seed? It’s a harvest of people.
  
• What is treasure that never wears out and cannot be stolen? It’s people.
  

God's heart cries, “I treasure children. The more, the better!” In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus introduces God as our heavenly Father. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says God is a Father who rewards us. And what is a father’s reward?
It is children.
“Sounds great, but I am no evangelist.” You don’t need to be an evangelist to win eternal friends. Believers can live such godly lives that unbelievers will be won to the kingdom (1 Pet. 2:12; Matt. 5:16).
God's desire is to grow the world’s largest family and He treats people like treasure. This is obvious once you see it. Indeed, it’s a theme that runs throughout Scripture:

"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth."-Deuteronomy 7:6
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth."-Deuteronomy 14:2
"And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments;"-Deuteronomy 26:18
"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;"-1 Peter 2:4-9

Like Jesus, Paul eagerly gave to the poor (Gal. 2:10). He did not give out of religious duty or to put a shine on his reputation. He did it because he loved people and wanted to share the love of God with as many as possible (1 Cor. 13:3).
Life is a gift that is easily wasted. We can waste it running after inferior rewards that rust, or we can do what Jesus and Paul did and invest ourselves in the only reward that lasts: people.

God Is Faithful

Someone once asked me, "Why would God be concerned as to whether or not we 'have trust and confidence in him' when He's judging us and when He determines what our fate will be?"
Having trust and confidence in God, according to the Biblical authors, is required for us to fulfill His commandment that we love Him, and thus also love others. (See Hebrews 11.)
As with a spouse, you cannot truly love them if you do not have some level of trust or confidence in them, and vice versa. All relationships require trust, from both parties. God wants us to trust Him that He will keep His promises towards those of us who love and follow Him. He also wants to trust us that we will enter the kingdom of heaven with a righteous and loving character. He doesn't want another rebellion in paradise, so He's trying to see if we truly love righteousness for righteousness' sake. A truly righteous person wouldn't want to rebel against Him when the time comes that they enter the kingdom of God themselves, because a person with a righteous character wouldn't ever do such a thing.
As Open Theists, we believe we're being consistent in our belief that God, at times, puts trials before us to test whether or not we will remain trustworthy enough in our character to be deemed worthy of entrance into His kingdom. The Classical Theist doesn't have the luxury of being consistent if they have this same belief.
In the Book of Job, Satan makes an accusation towards someone God has deemed as truly righteous: Job.
Satan assails God’s wisdom and character in running the world by alleging that people only serve Him because of what they get out of it. God protects them from disaster and blesses them in other ways. Their obedience, he is suggesting, isn’t really a free choice. "There is no genuine virtue in the world," Satan is claiming. "There are only self-serving bargains, and obedience for the sake of being protected and blessed is one of them. Hence, true holiness and virtuous obedience are an illusion." "Take away a person’s protection," Satan insists, "and let me have my way with people, and they will stop living for God" (Job 1:9-11; 2:4-5).
God has so much faith in Job that he will not succumb to proving the false accusations being levied towards him and God's way of running things in general that He ends up accepting the challenge. For God, this is as much a test of His faith towards His servant as it is for Job for his Lord. The adversary, we see, was assailing God’s integrity and wisdom in overseeing the creation. Satan was, in effect, accusing God of being a Machiavellian ruler. In the context of this narrative, it was an assault that could only be refuted by being put to the test.
Had God simply forced Satan into silence, without proving him wrong, it would have simply confirmed the accuracy of Satan’s charge. It would have shown that there is no integrity or wisdom in how God runs the world after all. "There is only the exercise of power, used to manipulate beings into obeying Him. People serve God only as a bargain, not out of genuine love."
No, the challenge had to be answered by having it put to the test. The most righteous man on the earth was thus chosen to be tested. If Job failed, the narrative suggests, then Satan will have made his point. If he succeeded, however, then God’s wisdom and integrity in running the cosmos will have been vindicated. Hence, the protective fence around Job is removed and Satan is allowed to afflict him.
In the end, Job proves faithful to God and is even referenced in the New Testament as an example of the kind of faithfulness He expected of first century believers facing persecution and trials:

"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."-James 5:11

While most of us aren't dealing with the life-threatening kind of persecution that believers faced in the first century, for the very fact that the eschatological end of physical Israel and the Old Covenant system was fastly approaching for them (and already has approached), we still each face our own trials that God puts in our lives as individuals to see if we truly love Him. Job is simply the ultimate example of one who loved God because they chose to, not because God forced them to.
After all, you never know if your love is pure if it isn't tested...

Momma made for Pennywise, at her request, an “Annabelle” doll. A Raggedy Anne doll, really. Just like the original haunted doll, movie tropes aside.
Penny’s had it for a while now, and still treasures it. She took it to school for show and tell not long ago, and another girl that she’s befriended fell in love with it.
Pen asked Momma if she could make another just like it just for her.
She’s been working on it for a while now, as she’s had time, and got it finished just today. Gonna give it to Penny to give to her friend.
“It’s perfect” I commented. Can’t tell the two of ‘em apart. A certain girl’s gonna be very happy and surprised. You went to a lot of trouble for someone you don’t even know.”
“I enjoyed it. She’s Penny’s friend, and Penny asked me to. How could I say no?”
Would’ve taken her less time, but she’s a perfectionist. Every tiny stitch and detail has to be just right.
Always been that way. When I first started seeing her, she was working two jobs. A weekend carhop (how I met her), and her full-time job keeping the books and handling payroll for a cotton gin.
I went to pick her up for lunch one day, and sat and waited for two hours while she tracked down a discrepancy and balanced her books. They’d been off by two cents, lol.
Just her nature. I marveled at her. She never left our place to go out in public unless she was looking her best. And for such a tiny girl, she walked tall. Head up and back and shoulders straight and proud. Stalked like a young lioness and moved like a ballroom dancer. Water flowing over stone.
That afternoon of our (now late, lol) lunch date, I still remember the drive. Wind through the window whipping her long hair. She smiling because she knew I kept stealing glances at her.
She took me to a place she said I’d like in another town. Small family owned and operated local restaurant that had been in business for decades. Advised me to let her order for me.
The place was doing a brisk business still, as I followed her to the table she wanted. She drew lingering glances from most of the people in the place. Men, and some women, too. Then I was only beginning to realize just who and what I’d found.
“She’s very ladylike” my Captain once remarked to me. She’d come to see me at work, and he’d watched her, smiling. “She certainly carries herself like one.”
“That she does, Sir. That she does.”
He gave me some advice just before she and I were to be married:
“I’m going to tell you something, OP: it really Will be her and you against the world. That’s not just a saying. You will put her First in all things. Before yourself, before friends, before family, before the Marine Corps. She comes first, always. Do that, and you won’t go wrong. Consider that an order, Sgt, understand?”
“Lima Charley, Captain.”
Good advice.

Hi! It’s been a couple of years but I fell in love with this fanfic on AO3 with Jikook and now I can’t find it. Here’s what I remember: - Pairing was obviously Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin - Written in English - Published around 2020 - I believe it was completed - No more than 10 chapters - Potential tags: Unrequited Love, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Alternative Universe (no band), Insecure Park Jimin, Jeon Jungkook is Whipped, Roommates(?)
General Plot: Told from third person Jungkook’s perspective, Jimin and Jungkook grow up as family friends to wealthy families/parents. Jimin disappoints his parents by dropping out of college and following his dream of becoming a veterinarian while Jungkook continues in his parents footprints. Jungkook notices Jimin distancing himself and realizes he loves him. Jimin has always loved Jungkook in very endearing ways. Jungkook confronts him and they grow close again.
A very specific scene I remember: Jimin feels bad for his embarrassing displays of affection for Jungkook. When they were in high school, Jungkook told him he liked Golden Retrievers, so the next day Jimin flooded his locker with pictures of golden retrievers to make him smile.
Someone please help me find it! Or at least tell me you remember it and I’m not crazy!
Thank you

Hey, first time posting here, looking for advice or experiences. I’ve had BDD pretty mildly for many years, but in the last couple of months it has spiralled madly into near constant intrusive thoughts about my appearance. My weight (but I do also have an ED), my face, my forehead, my hair, my mouth, my shoulders and neck; I can’t stand any aspect of my appearance and even my Big Black Hoodie (tm) isn’t really helping anymore. It’s not like I’m factually conventionally attractive either. I’m pretty objectively ugly. My positive affirmations really just consist of “I look like a person” lmao.
But it’s started to have a pretty significant impact on my school life. Being in the library/study area makes me so anxious and worked up, feeling like everybody’s looking at me all the time even if it’s basically empty. I struggle in class too but there’s not much to do about that. I struggle to focus on schoolwork (meant to be working right now lol) and it’s not impacted my recorded grades yet, but I have mock exams really soon and I’m scared as hell. Attending is getting more anxiety-causing by the day and I have to hype myself up just to walk down corridors in case anyone sees me. I want to ask the receptionists if I can be excused to a separate room during study periods (usually in the library) by default rather than going in, trying, and having to leave. Maybe getting permission to skip assemblies too (too many people) and extra freedom to step out of lessons if it gets too much.
I don’t want in-school counselling. Been there, done that, I don’t think it would benefit me. And I don’t want my parents to be contacted about it (for context I’m in year 12 in the UK). If any of you have any similar experiences, other accommodations, or know if they’ll need to contact my parents please let me know. Thanks for reading :)