#I just wanted to know roughly how old Fyodor is

[lesssial]

Trying to figure out the year in Bram's/Fyodor's Backstory

So what I'm looking at is Vlad the impaler's timeline along with a few hints in the manga. But not much Dracula because I haven’t read the book, and also because the book takes place about 400 years later.

So the castle that Bram lived in, for people who don't know, is an actual castle in Transylvania Romania named Bran.

Basic info

-Bran castle was built between 1377 and 1388. (Vlad the impaler never set foot in it but Dracula lived there.)

-Vlad III ruled Wallachia

-Vlad the impaler / Vlad III lived from 1431-1476 (He was defeated by the ottomans not Romans and his head was shipped to Constantinople/Istanbul)

-Vlad III’s reigns; 1448 (For a few months), 1456-62, and 1476-77.

It is a bit hard to truly connect to two while they ruled two different regions (Transylvania & Wallachia)

The knights

In this panel, we can get a look of the types of armor these knights wore.

The majority of the helmets resemble a barbute helmet which was used in the 15th century

The rectangular shields (scutum) mostly disappeared by the end of the 3rd century

Mainly spears and Halberds (The spear ax things) with an occasional sword in the crowd of knights. (Spears were cheaper at the time)

The full body armor became popular between 1400-1500s.

Byzantine empire fell in 1453 while the holy roman empire fell in the 1800s.

What nation are the knights from?

This is the main question. Are these knights from the Holy Roman empire? The Byzantine empire before it fell? Most likely not the ottoman empire due to the amount of christian symbolism. It can’t be the Byzantine empire because they rarely if at all used Halberts. Also the Byzantine empire fell pretty early so it's unlikely they were associated with Bram’s defeat. It seems like the Holy Roman empire however they did not use rectangular shields, favoring a kite or heater shield instead. Then who else?

I couldn't find any good maps

Fyodor mentioned the North (Idk why Bram started blabbering about the west). Do you know what was north of Transylvania? The Kingdom of Hungary who also had a skilled army known as the black army that used rectangular shields and was big on spears and Halberd.

The Hungarian Black army (1458-1494)

From the evidence gathered so far, it must be 1458-76.

King Matthias & the Sultan

Here, Bram asks Fyodor who he serves, either King Matthias (The king of Hungary) or the Sultan (Leader of the Ottomans). Bram was suspicious of the Sultan for the reason that they started eyeing Europe once the Byzantine Empire fell, along with his history with them (Held hostage as a boy). The tension between King Matthias and Vlad III started when Matthias received a letter from the saxons allegedly written by Vlad III in which he offered support to the Ottomans. This was enough to convince Matthias of Vlad III’s treachery so he imprisoned him from 1463 to 1475. Vlad III was intercepted and captured by Matthias after he had escaped Ottoman capture and sought Matthias for assistance. This could be when Bram was defeated in the manga(?) So I guess the year may have been 1462-1463?

Some bonus info that I noticed is that Matthias signed a peace treaty with the Holy Roman empire in 1463. Maybe Bram was defeated after they signed the treaty so they could form some sort of coalition against him (This could explain why the knights all had religious imagery on their helmets).

Another thing is that Bram was impaled(?) alongside two other women. In the Dracula book, I believe it was mentioned there were three female vampires that the protagonist had to defeat before killing Dracula in the castle. This could hint towards the fact that Bram was in the castle when he was attacked and defeated.

(I'm having trouble mixing history and fiction. Fyodor definitely had a hand in this. No way he just came to warn Bram for no reason)

None of these images are mine (I'm sure you know, but just in case)

Yeah that’s all I got, please comment to correct me and/or let me know if you know anything. (Might edit later idk)

[wherearethefigs]

GASP, PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT YOUR LIFE IS STRANGE AU!!! IT SOUNDS SO GOOD!!

Oh, I didn't expected that! But I think I can give you some thoughts I had about this AU :)

Anyways, Fyodor would be Nathan, Mori, Mr.Jefferson, Agatha, Victoria and I think Higuchi would be Katie. Oh, and maybe Atsushi as Warren.

First of all, Chuuya would be Chloe, with the punk energy, the piercings and everything, he and Dazai(Max) are childhood friends who got separated when Dazai moved to another city with his parents. Chuuya would have remorse because he feels abandoned by his best friend, and then he meets Oda, who is Rachel, I'm kinda sorry for that😔

I think the history would be close to the game, but maybe with some changes in details and in the relationship between Dazai and Chuuya, with more romance in it.

Oh, I almost forgot about Kouyou being Chuuya's mother, Joyce, and Rimbaud his stepfather, David, and Ango would be Frank, the drug dealer. But I would change a lot these three personality, to do more justice for their original characters in the anime.

Chuuya and Dazai meet again for the first time in the college parking lot, where Dazai had arranged to meet Atsushi, and even after the rough day he had he would never say no to a Nakajima's ask, the conversation was normal and casual, even with the clear anxiety in Dazai's eyes, which became even stronger when Fyodor, the son of the rich Dostoevsky family, who always have what he want in his hands as a trophy, approached them with an unfriendly expression on his face.

"Dazai?" Atsushi called him concerned when he saw Dostoyevsky's heavy steps approach them.

Dazai didn't have time to answer him, he was pushed by Fyodor's as soon as he got close enough to reach him.

"Bastard! You are Dazai Osamu, right? Why did you report me for the principal?!" Fyodor shouted, his face flushed with anger, it was rare to see him lose his temper like that. But Dazai knew perfectly well why he was like that.

"I just said what I saw, a student had a gun in his hand!" Osamu replied, unmoved by the murderous look he received.

Atsushi watched the discussion confused and concerned with its end.

"So your hobby is also taking pictures hidden in a bathroom?" Fyodor commented wryly, his hand roughly gripping Dazai's neck.

Then Atsushi acted, held Dostoyevsky's arm tightly.

"Go away." He said seriously, as much as Nakajima was a kind person, he knew very well how to manage a fight.

"Never! Tell me what to do!" Fyodor exclaimed, throwing a punch in the boy's face.

The facts that followed this were confused, Dazai tried to hold Fyodor, but only managed to scratch him, Atsushi threw a punch back at the brunette. When Osamu fell backwards, due to Dostoyevsky's body bumping against his, and his hands scratched on the dry asphalt of the parking lot, a reddish truck approached, braking directly in front of him.

The photography student leaned on the bumper to get up.

And then the blue eyes he hadn't seen in years were wide open in his direction, as confused as his own.

"Chuuya?"

"Dazai?"

They asked at the same time, staring at each other for the second they had before hearing Fyodor's voice.

"You again?" The boy asked irritably, the hand holding his nose indicated that he had not gained much advantage in that fight.

Dostoyevsky was ready to attack Dazai again, but was stopped by Nakajima, who hit him with another punch, this time almost missing.

"Come on Dazai, go!" Atsushi said, receiving a creep from Fyodor who had fallen to the ground due the impact of the punch.

Osamu got into the truck with his hands shaking, as soon as the door closed Chuuya stepped on the accelerator, getting out of that place as quickly as possible.

Then, after minutes in the street, Dazai could see his childhood friend more clearly, and Chuuya Nakahara had changed. His red hair was now over his shoulders, his ears were full of piercings and his clothes were darker than they were years ago. He had changed so much. He looked nothing like the boy he roleplayed being pirates with when they were kids.

And there were also his eyes, they looked different from the old days. Without the hopeful glow of before, without the happiness, without the hope of when they discussed how they would left the boring city that was Arcadia Bay one day. Chuuya seemed to have changed, not only in his style, but also inside.

And in that moment, Dazai realized how much he had lost in all those years away. And how, perhaps, he no longer knew his childhood best friend.

xx

Now I'm really in love with this idea, but I don't know if I'm gonna write it, mainly in english cuz isn't my native language and I don't feel so much secure writing, but I don't know. And, sorry for any mistakes 👉👈

If you wanna know more about this plot, or maybe write it, you can always ask me!

[adargo]

Aurum

Written for the Fractured Fairy Tales zine. (Still available until the end of March!)

Please take a look at the beautiful accompanying art by ryethe as well <3

Northern wind swipes across the land. It ripples the surface,  moves pebbles both ice and stone,  water waving oh so gently, as if the lake before him longs to be a sea. 

To be moon-bound. It stings against the white of his skin, it guides away the warmth of his breath. Yet, he cannot retract his hands from the salt of the air, from the sight of the water. Hands, laid bare for hours upon his lap.  Hands, brittle-nailed fingertips bitten blue.  Hands, gifted by the Gods. 

Blessed. Cursed. Forlorn, he smiles, no longer knowing which one to pick. Northern wind swipes across the land, ripples the water and moves both ice and stone- 

Until he can’t feel its cold sting no more. “I…”

...

..

.

Sorrow finds him when he’s young.  It catches him for but an instant, through a woman’s longing stare at a lonely daffodil, surrounded by nothing but the birth of spring. Its remnants in her eyes wilt away underneath a hopeful smile, soft, like the blossom-pink of her hair. “Life is so very fragile, my child.” Violet only blinks. Contemplates. Watches her walk away. 

Stills- 

The daffodil droops on its stalk.

As he grows, it encounters him more and more often. 

In the lonely frown of a classmate, In the tears of a chaffed-open knee, In the words, spit like venom between adult’s mouths, In pain, disappointment, fury. He shrugs it off as easily as he drinks it in, the crippling feeling not as arduous before him as it feeds within others, finds that, in his youthful stubbornness, the light of a mere smile sometimes radiates stronger than any word, than any false promise.  “Tomorrow, things will be the same as always,” he simply says, the curl on his lips tugging on those of his little brother’s, the shake in those big eyes dying down even as words coated in spit and fire continue to seep through the floor beneath. 

It’s enough.

There comes a day when it isn’t. A day where the sun fails to blink through the carpet of clouds and not a single songbird’s melody reaches him.  The coffin sinks into the earth before his feet. Small fingers wrapped around his own. Priest’s lips parting and speaking holy words of deliverance, salvation, of light… It’s an entirely different kind of sorrow, Fyodor thinks.

Soon enough, green turns to gold, once water-filled veins crumpling underneath the soles of his feet as autumn arrives to claim its toll.  And he swears, with every new visit it brings, with every passing, every rip of a dying leaf from its shrivelled stem- the wind thugs at him, at something within him that bit more easily.  At something, wanting to wrench loose.  More and more and more-  “How do people end up like that?” a voice besides him starts, followed by a curious hum birthed from yet another’s throat.  The question isn’t meant for him in particular, but his eyes stray upon the figure across the street anyway, a sore image, huddled up in nothing but tattered cloth. “Who knows…”  “Just be very unlucky, I guess?”  Empty replies. Not that he expected much else from his classmates whom disengage from the topic as soon as the bus arrives, all racing straight to the back lest the best spots be taken… It drives off, leaving him rattled with all the possible answers he could come up with, the question still lingering in his mind as he wonders… 

One day, will it be different? 

One day, will it change? Fyodor stares into a city sorrow-built. 

It stares right back into him.

And yet, one day, as time continues to tick forwards and seasons pass him by… One day, it makes way for something else. “Come here you little shit!” A sharp sound reverberates throughout the dense network of alleyways, metallic and far heavier than the voices mixed in with its echoes.  “You’re just going to scare it off like this…” “Shut up.” Three kids, not much older than himself, stand near an old garbage container, one of them holding up something akin to an old walking stick that he’s sure doesn’t belong to them. A hiss comes from above their heads, a clawed paw reaching out to flick at the stick before a distressed cry follows.  A warning. A plea. They don’t notice him until he speaks, until he’s there almost right next to them. “Preying upon those weaker than you…” They turn to him in surprise, almost staggering- as if they’d just seen a ghost.  “How typical.” “The hell did you just say?” comes the stick-wielder’s dented response, a different kind of fury settling in his eyes than the one contained in his own. He doesn’t back off when the other, confident and broad, steps forwards, invades far too close, grabs him roughly by the hem of his coat. 

Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak a single word. Doesn’t need to.  “Dude…his pin…” another speaks up and the eyes before him consequentially flicker to the gleaming gold and silver on his chest, a token of his descendance.  Ever so slightly, the grip on his coat falters. 

“Let’s just leave it man, it’s not worth it,” yet another calls. Fear, a spider that crawls over his voice. And despite his better judgment, the smirk edges unto his lips, high purely on control, for he knows the other has no choice but to let him go and leave things be.  The price for messing with a noble is one nobody wants to pay, after all. So all he receives is a flinch, a somewhat coarse release of his coat bordering on a push, and a positively fuming glare pointed his way before the other turns and leaves, even dropping the stick in the process.  He stands there as he watches them go, lips smoothing back into a thin line, adrenaline falling away in his veins… When he glances up at where the cat was before, his eyes find nothing but a wisp of stray furs. So he smiles, at nothing in particular, only to turn and leave. “Why did you help me, human?” It hits him out of thin air, rising, resonating around him, blowing wide his eyes, near-stumbling his feet- He stills. 

There, the cat sits, black and fire-patched fur dancing upon brilliant white. “Why, like all the others, did you not just ignore it?” Once again, it speaks, yet its mouth does not move as the words wisp around him, swerving into him from all sides. Still, he dares to calm his jittered breath as those big eyes search his own. 

Curious. Analysing. “Because it was wrong,” comes his answer, doubtless like falling rain.

A simple truth. The cat only blinks at him slowly, crescent moons thinning. “To show you my gratitude, I will grant you a gift.” Wielding a thousand voices, the words shatter through him and reality alike, every echo sucking away every colour, every shape, until there’s nothing left but him and the big, brilliant brown eyes peering up from below. “A gift?” It nods, slit pupils disappearing again for but a moment. “Upon the touch of your finger, you shall deliver this gift upon the Earth.” Dark eyes stare into him like he is a story, an open book. As if they can see his past, his present, everything that’s yet to come. “It can be anything you wish for.”

Anything… He breaks loose from the gaze before him, only to stare at the depth of the mists.  In it, he sees the loving smiles of his family, the cheery grins of his classmates, the helplessness of an old man stumbling in the middle of the street, the starving gaze of the homeless, the layers of greed exchanged through blackened fingers… It all traces out to the same end.  Unsmiling, he understands, lays his eyes to rest at the palms of his open hands as a voice whispers to him in the solitary of his mind. 

One day, will it change?  He knows what he needs to do. The violet in his eyes hardens as it meets the warm timbers before him once more, his words laced with certainty on his lips, right before the world fades to black. “I wish for-

…

..

.

Just for a moment, as he stirs from deep sleep, his brother’s wake-up call coming from beyond the door like any other morning as quick feet jumble down the stairs and into the kitchen for breakfast, Fyodor thinks it was all just a dream.  It almost makes him want to laugh out loud, almost, right until the doves on his windowsill flutter off by the smallest twitch of his fingers.  

They never do. And so, that very same evening, he awakens,

stretched-out fingertip hovering over the stilled body beneath, over nothing but a heap of flesh and bones that had simply ceased to function...  Shuddering, his breath evaporates into the frost of stale air. His eyes, stuck to the sight before him, ever-quivering.  There’s no mistaking that the man was a thief, he had witnessed it so first-hand, being quite the dusk-lurker himself. If only to observe, to validate humanity’s cruel nature.  The man before him had no mercy, no regard for life as long as he could take whatever he wanted. 

So why should he treat him any differently?  The quiver in his eyes steadies, all doubt and remorse hardening into pure, rebirthed resolve. “I wish for the touch of death.” He smiles as he stares into the city before him, equally tied. 

This is only the beginning.

He starts out small, 

merely scavenging the maze of the underground like the inner walls of a house, mapping, observing, sniffing out sinner’s blood from the shadows. It doesn't take him that long however, to actually unravel his claws and strike- making no distinction between those renowned for their crimes and those pulling the puppet strings, hands coated just as red.  He will paint them white. With every new moon, another target hits the floor.  Yet by the time he’s made a name for himself his family is none the wiser of his nightly escapades.  The dream-like effect sticks to him every morning, right until white-speckled wings flutter up and away from his windowsill and the housecat’s hiss reaches him from across the kitchen table as he calmly eats his breakfast. “So cranky lately,” his mother comments though doesn’t think anything more of it. She turns to him again about seeing a doctor for his hands. He only nods, knowing she won’t continue on the subject anyway as she prepares for another long day of work. His brother is not that easily sated, the lie Fyodor had coaxed up about accidentally burning his hands against the hot hearthstone of their fireplace all the more festering the worry in his voice. “Do they still hurt?” he asks, eyes bleeding with that innocence Fyodor himself can never attain again. He only nods, bandaged fingers curling into the cloth on his lap. “It’s going to for a long while...” It’s not exactly a lie, but that doesn’t lessen the sourness of its taste. 

A necessary evil.

Soon enough, rumours are circling through the halls of his school, the mysterious deaths striking the city a subject on nearly every tongue he passes, newspapers and magazines marked with his actions plied open to dozens of curious eyes. NO CRIMINAL IS SAFE- is what he catches by a glance and it almost makes him chuckle, if not for the truth of the media’s statement. The vile fear him while the virtuous praise him. But Fyodor knows that even with the support of the common folk, the law will not turn a blind eye to his methods… Gloved hands dig further into the warm confinement of wool as he feels something unfurl in in his bones, biding, like rosebuds awaiting spring. Another smirk edges itself upon his lips.  It’s time to step up the game.

And as summer and ice rake through the land, inevitable and merciless, year after year after year- he is never far behind. Every step, calculated, careful, but not entirely absent of flaw. Sometimes, he still catches glimpses- Of horses’ wails, heavy hooves rampaging through both wood, steel and flesh as a carriage runs rampant throughout the streets, only because he was on the outer end of it. 

Of the detective’s gun staring him down, long hair fluttering behind an idealistic mind reflecting his own, spouting at him how wrong, how disturbed his sense of justice is. 

Of innocent blood spilled by his hands, as well as those he owns, of snapped puppet strings, of unforeseen slip-ups.

Of life, death and everything in between. “Brother, look!” The familiar call sucks him back into the present, effectively cutting still all thoughts. He looks up to see his little brother run excitedly to the fence bordering the forest road, to the pack of deer staring back at them from the center of the meadow.

Yet, they’ll never come closer. It’s almost as if with every layer of youth that melts away from his skin, the toxicity of what lies underneath festers, spreading death like it’s a disease instead of deliverance. “Come on,” he coaxes gently, smile slipping over his lips as smaller feet run up behind him again, passing him by just as quickly. He watches the other scavenge, bright grin stretched across his face as he points out whatever new he spies around the snow-carpeted path. It seems so unreal. Like he’s walking inside of a dream he’s not supposed to have. Eyes untracking, he thinks back to the city he had changed- the lives he had changed. Crime-rates dropped to the bottom, corruption signalised and dealt with, the right pawns shifted into the right places… 

An example to the world. He takes a breath, the snow crunching underneath his feet a sound far too nostalgic. It hadn’t been easy at moments, to find the right pieces to play with, to buy, be it with simple greed or cold-blooded manipulation, just so he could focus on the big guns whilst they took care of the fodder. Adding log after log upon the funeral pyre, lighting up his path, that long black and white-tiled lane ahead of him.  Yet…  There’s so much more to come.  Suddenly, feet are circling around him, impatient and curious. On pure instinct, his hands delve deeper into the thick pockets of his coat as he regards the mischievous smile on his brother’s face. “So…what did you get me for Christmas?” Inwardly, he gives a laugh, eyebrows raising up to the heavens. “Not much of a surprise if I tell you, is it?” The other scoffs, hopping off to the side of the road to stare at nothing in particular. “You never even drop a hint,” comes the complaint and he can’t do anything but chuckle this time, knowing it’s true, almost fails to catch himself from stopping to pet the other on the head, a habit so drilled into his bones from when they were younger- it catches him off guard. That feeling- that yearn for warmth. Instantly, he pushes it away, again, again, and again. 

For thinking about it will earn him nothing... He simply walks on and soon, small feet follow again, never noticing the worried frown on the other’s face. Peering upward to a sky, grey and stacked to the brim, he tries to distract himself from his previous thoughts- turns back to the flutter of pages in his head, all the steps he still has to undertake, the obstacles he still has to overcome. A list, never-ending. A murder flutters through the white peaks of pine and violet wanders back to the small form up ahead, jumping up and down in the thick, unblemished snow, the grin now aimed at him just as bright but so, so much more warm. 

Golden. And it’s a terrible ache- to think about the times when they would huddle up on the couch by the fire for sleep to take them, where thumb-fights and forehead-poked goodbyes were all just a normality, of touch. I cannot stay here, he thinks, the repeated thought coated in worry, in sorrow, in fear- There’s a sound, birthed from his next step, far from the simple crunch of snow and the gentle jitter of laughter up ahead. He never even noticed they strayed off the path. Eyes wide and heart stilled, he stares at the crackle of ice underneath his foot. And then, everything is but a blur. First comes a shout, a name drifting over the stretch of a frozen lake, echo overcome by the deafening shift, the break that follows. Hands, shooting out of their illusionary restraints, reaching, grasping, feeling. 

A thousand knives shoving into his skin. 

Relief is a wave, far different from the bitter sting of ice, yet it rips through flesh and bone all the same, for he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s- The feeling is strange, overbearing, right there between the crease of a glove and thick, woollen cloth. -gone. Small fingers, clasped around his naked wrist. “Life is so very fragile, my child.” That day, the light dims in his heart. 

That day, the reaper disappears from the city.

Never to return.

…

..

.

Northern wind swipes across the land, ripples the surface, moves pebbles both ice and stone, water waving oh so gently-

But his hands, his hands are all he sees. “Would you like me to take it away?” Its words whisper into him, whiskers like shards of pure white. Divine. Merciful. “Without reason, without a light, how will you move forwards?”

Light, his mind mimics, a concept too far too grasp. Right until the moment he’d lost it. Right until he had sniffed it out with his own two hands. “I…” “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” The voice comes unbidden and for once, Fyodor leaves the shock on his face unveiled in its wake. “How it spreads death so easily, denying any form of life…” He only stares at the man. At the loose, black sleeves dangling in the wind. At the white cloth wrapped thinly around skin. At an empty eye, peering into an equally empty lake. 

At salt and water. “Death…” his lips repeat thoughtlessly, gaze once more turning to the waves before him. Maybe… “Is that not why you’re here?” The man is staring at him now too, the words flowing from his mouth holding more certainty than actual wonder. Like he’s an open book. 

And then, silence. 

The slither of wind over salt-dried stone. 

Darkness staring into darkness. It holds him down as the question repeats itself in his mind, beats back and forth against glass walls. His head an empty cathedral. His hands open heavens. “Maybe…” Fyodor’s lips part, violet breaks away from pitch black. “It is because I’m not that different from this place.” Because just like the salt quenches the life from the lake, his hands suck away any and all they dare to touch… He thinks back to the day he wished for this, to the day he moulded his future in a mere second, the path he’s walking down framed at all edges, like a painting not yet ready, but soon to be. What colour would the ridges be… “Hm,” the man hums, stepping closer before gingerly sitting down next to him, the large, salt-stricken rock no doubt going to stain the black of his coat. “Perhaps, we are alike then.” It was the strangest thing, for he doesn’t know this man at all, and yet, within those dark pools drinking him in, he meets something he never expected to find in his entire life. 

Understanding.

Still… 

“No.” Fyodor just says, nothing but sorrow in his voice. 

“You are nothing like me.” 

You cannot be. A scoff then, and Fyodor can’t really hide his surprise at the smile the other shoots him like there’s no truth to it at all. 

Disarming. “Maybe not,” the other speaks, all carefree, unconvinced- It sends him dizzy, makes him fail to notice that curious gaze stray downwards. Unyielding, the words of a God invade his mind once more, echoing in his head like mixed prayers. A wire waiting to snap. Jittering on and on and on like a symphony composed of a thousand songbirds that fly to and fro, to and fro, to and fro- 

And then his lungs forget how to draw in air, 

his eyes darting down to the hand covering his own. 

Touching him.

No, the thought is instant, a knife at both his mind and throat. 

No, no, no, no- “But you can’t hurt me.” The words shatter him, gently, like the gaze pointed down at his hands. Warm. Breathing. Alive.

“For I am…”

The man looks at him and Fyodor drinks in his sorrow like gold in the flame of fire.

“No longer human.”

Light.

Northern wind swipes across the land, ripples the water, moves both ice and stone…

But Fyodor only smiles as it sears passed his cheeks.

I think I’ve found it.

[sunshineweb]

51 Ideas from 2020

Dear Tribe Member,

Despite the despair all around, I trust 2020 treated you well and that you and everyone around you are keeping safe and healthy.

Right before the year ends, I thought I’d share a handful of ideas I’ve learned, re-learned, and wrote about in the past twelve months. Here are 51 of them categorized under the subjects of investing and life. I hope you find these useful, as much as I did.

Investing 1. Losing Money on Stocks is NOT a Shame People talk about regret aversion and how we make decisions to avoid regretting an alternative decision in the future. But I would rather call it ‘shame aversion,’ because most of the time most if you see guilt or shame as a more powerful emotion than plain regret.

So, we feel guilty for not investing in rising stocks when we see our friends making money on them. We feel guilty of not having invested in stocks when the prices were down, and we knew (now, in hindsight) that we should have sold our houses then to invest.

We feel bad accepting we made a mistake that causes us to hold on to our losing stocks (bad businesses) because the shame of such acceptance would be too heavy to bear on our already frail hearts. So, not only would people bet heavily on hot stocks in frothy markets, but they would also double-down when these stocks fall to avoid the shame of turning their paper losses into real ones.

My dear friend, there is no shame in losing money on a stock or any investment. Everyone loses at some point in time, and there is not a single investor who has never made a mistake.

Of course, that does not mean you bet your house on stocks – even the best ones. Losing ₹ 1 crore on a ₹ 100 crore net worth is not the same as losing ₹ 1 crore on a ₹ 2 crore net worth. So, you should always be worried about losing big money permanently. But that worry should show up in the kind of work you do on your process to pick stocks, not after you have already lost money.

Investing or money are such insignificant parts of this beautiful thing called life that you must not lose sleep over them, forget losing your life.

Markets change, cycles turn, everything passes, and there are numerous opportunities one gets to rise after a fall, clean the dust, give up any guilt or shame of falling, and start walking again.

The noted British writer and speaker Alan Watts said –

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the Gods made for fun.

Russian philosopher and novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky agreed in a way when he said –

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

Learn from your mistakes, but stop taking them, or yourself, so seriously.

2. When Not to Sell Your Stocks My biggest lesson in compounding is that saving more, thinking long-term, and allowing compound interest to work in your favour act as accelerators for wealth creation. There is nothing complex about this.

You can even be the world’s worst market timer and still build great wealth over 3-4 decades only if you do one thing – keep buying quality investments, and never sell.

Of course, the idea of buy and hold is simple, but not easy to practice.

The act of ‘not acting’ on a longer timeframe is made up of hundreds of small decisions that lead to the ultimate decision to ‘not act.’ Also, businesses change from time to time, and so do emotions, and so do the behaviours of other investors around us, and so do conditions in the stock market and of our portfolios. And that’s why sitting on stocks – the ones that remain high quality – is not as simple as it sounds. And that’s why patience is one of the most important yet difficult skills one must cultivate while investing in the stock market.

George Baker made a powerful remark which Thomas Phelps quoted in his book 100 to 1 in the Stock Market –

To make money in stocks you must have “the vision to see them, the courage to buy them, and the patience to hold them.”

Patience is the rarest of the three and is not an easy skill to develop however easy experienced investors or advisors may make it sound. But if developed and practiced well, it pays off handsomely in the long run.

That’s how fortunes are made in the stock market.

3. Catch the Compounding Train, Even If You’re Late When you look at the compounding graph it gives an impression that getting an early entry is the only way to benefit from it. But even if you catch the compounding train late, it can still get you to your destination –

A prospective Berkshire Hathaway shareholder in 1992 had no way of knowing the specific actions Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger would take to build value over the next quarter century…[In spite of that] The search for the “next Berkshire” is a near obsession for many value investors. We all want to get in on the ground floor of something great and compound wealth at 20 percent over a half century or more. However, for the vast majority of us, that dream is pretty much impossible to achieve and there is a risk that costly mistakes might be made in the process of pursuing it…However, what can be known, and likely has predictive value, is how management views capital allocation, the quality of a company’s culture, and the general capabilities of the managers involved…In 2016, there is no doubt that there are companies one could invest in on the ground floor that will become phenomenal success stories in the decades to come. There is substantial doubt that investors will be able to identify those companies. However, today there are many candidates for investment where the companies are already well under construction and we can get in on a higher floor.

4. Investing Math is the Simple Part “Investing is simple, but not easy,” said Charlie Munger.

Why? Because…

Understanding that sensible investing is about buying a thing worth Rs 100 at Rs 50 is simple, but actually buying something worth Rs 100 that falls to Rs 50 is not easy.

Working on spreadsheets is simple, but not twisting spreadsheets to fit your version of reality is not easy.

Calculating past growth and profitability numbers for a business and understanding whether those are good or bad is simple, but actually trying to understand a business deeply enough to visualize how it will look like in the future is not easy.

Knowing that a business has moat as seen from its superior profitability and clean balance sheet is simple, but understanding whether this moat is sustainable or fleeting is not easy.

Calculating book value of a company is simple, but understanding whether that book really has value, and roughly how much, is not easy.

Knowing the results that numbers shout out of financial statements is simple, but knowing which of those results are signal and which are noise is not easy.

Knowing how DCF works is simple, but looking at businesses with a DCF frame of mind is not easy.

Calculating precise intrinsic values for businesses is simple, but trusting approximations that really work is not easy. (Keynes said – “It’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.”)

Knowing beta is a measure of volatility is simple, but appreciating that volatility isn’t the real risk you face in investing is not easy.

Earning alpha from an investment for a year or two is simple, but appreciating with complete humility that it is next to impossible to sustain it over a long period of time is not easy.

Understanding that money can multiply 100x in 25 years when you compound at 20% annually is simple, but sitting through these 25 years patiently when others are cashing in after having made 5-10x is not easy.

The celebrated American physicist and a great teacher Richard Feynman said that there’s a big difference between ‘knowing the name of something’ and ‘knowing something’.

Math helps you know the name of a lot of things, which is simple. But it’s your mindset that helps you really know things, which is not easy.

Of course, understanding basic math is a prerequisite for becoming a smarter investor. But if you need math to tell you whether you are doing right in investing or not, you are doing something seriously wrong.

5. The Math of Debt Alcohol math. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it’s hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication. ~ Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

Debt math is exactly like that. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it’s hard to stop early, it will be impossible later.

Economics has a term for this – debt spiral, which is a situation where an individual, or a business, or a country sees ever-increasing levels of debt. This increasing levels of debt and debt interest becomes unsustainable, eventually leading to debt default.

See this chart.

In 2004, at the Berkshire Hathaway AGM, a 14-year old shareholder asked Warren Buffett to share his top finance tips for young people.

Buffett replied –

If I had one piece of advice to give to young people, it would be just to don’t get in debt. It’s very tempting to spend more than you earn, it’s very understandable. But it’s not a good idea.

6. The Getting Rich Quadrant

Just to explain a bit about the illustration in case you have any doubts reading it –

High income-low cost is the best combination that can take you to self-created riches, but only if you are able to invest the surplus so created sensibly, and for the long run

High income-high cost is the life a lot of people working in white-collar jobs live. We enhance our lifestyle with every increase in income, without much consideration to calling it ‘enough’ and creating greater surpluses as incomes rise. It’s like running on a hedonic treadmill (Wikipedia explains hedonic treadmill as an observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes). This is a must-avoid situation when you start earning good income.

Low income-high cost is a disastrous situation if not corrected early in time. In such cases, people borrow from the future to live in the present, and the situation can get really painful and unmanageable with time. If you find yourself in such a situation, the first thing to do is to move to the low income-low cost quadrant, by spending as less money as you can. Moving straight to a high income-high cost quadrant could be difficult as incomes could be decided by various external factors. However, first moving to the low income-low cost quadrant before finally shifting to a high income-low cost quadrant is relatively easier.

If you are in a low income-low cost situation, congratulations! Now you just need to find ways to move to a high income situation. This is easier said than done but you may search for ideas around you to grow your income. Maybe, start a side business, work on additional jobs, or ask your boss for a raise. However, if you are stuck in this situation for long, and only have a tiny surplus available, the only way to get rich is to invest so well that you can compound even this small sum greatly. This, in most cases, is hope against hope and impossible unless the investment Gods have destined for you multi-baggers after multi-baggers.

Someone wise said –

Save part of your income and begin now, for the man with a surplus controls circumstances and the man without a surplus is controlled by circumstances.

I hope you are already doing this in your pursuit of financial freedom.

If not, I hope the above quadrant guides you, even if in a little way.

7. Financial Freedom At the start of 2020, I spoke at the Value Investing Summit in Kuala Lumpur, on the subject of ‘financial freedom.’

Click here to watch the video of my talk, or watch below.

There are intermittent audio issues due to a problem with the microphone. But I know you are wise enough to not complain about the same and instead able to connect those dots looking at my slides and your own wisdom.

8. Notes from Warren Buffett’s Latest Letter Click here to download the notes.

9. Virus is NOT risk Virus is NOT risk. It is an uncertainty. Learn to differentiate between the two please.

Risk is measurable, like the odds of winning on any roll of a fair dice. Uncertainty is not measurable. It is and unknown unknown.

Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing. Risk comes from looking to Mr. Market for advice instead of opportunities. Risk comes from focusing on the outcome (what will happen in the future) and not the process (what can I do now). Risk comes from acting like others are acting, and mindlessly. Risk comes from investing in fundamentally bad businesses when their stocks have fallen, especially when you start to believe their cheapness provides you value. Risk, ultimately, comes from focusing on return and not risk.

In short, YOU are the biggest risk to your investments, not COVID.

Human nature has not changed between these two times –

Image Source …so just manage the risk called YOU…like the virus that knows how to manage itself well.

10. Becoming An Investing Buddha When it comes to investing, making money in stocks when everyone is making money in stocks isn’t a big deal. Rather, it’s the ability to handle good and bad times with equanimity, combined with courage and decisiveness, that really matters in the long run. Of course, most of us simply aren’t wired to be equanimous at most of the times, and it’s terribly difficult to rid ourselves of the emotions of ecstasy (when things are looking up) and misery (when things are looking down). And that’s why ensuring that we avoid all of those ways that can cause us wealth destruction – trading, timing, high fee, inadequate diversification, and leverage – is paramount. Everything, including our triumphs and disasters, anyways shall pass. But the equanimity with which we allow them to pass will keep us sane always.

Anyways, considering the rough waters that we have sailed through in the markets this year, I made this illustration that contains the iron rules of becoming an investing Buddha, or the one who invests in such a manner that allows him to be at peace at all times.

As Lord Krishna taught Arjuna, as we wade through the ocean of life, it throws up all kinds of waves that are beyond our control. If we keep struggling to eliminate negative situations, we will be unable to avoid unhappiness. But if we live a life of sanity and learn to accept everything that comes our way, with equanimity and without sacrificing our best efforts, that will be true Nirvāṇa.

11. Owning Stocks is a Long-Term Project In the long journey of the stock of a high-quality business, the daily short-term jumps – or volatility as they call it in business news – that makes people nervous are “non-events.” Annie Duke writes in her brilliant book Thinking in Bets –

In our decision-making lives, we aren’t that good at taking this kind of perspective – at accessing the past and future to get a better view of how any given moment might fit into the scope of time. It just feels how it feels in the moment and we react to it.…We make a long-term stock investment because we want it to appreciate over years or decades. Yet there we are, watching a downward tick over a few minutes, consumed by imagining the worst. What’s the volume? Is it heavier than usual? Better check the news stories. Better check the message boards to find out what rumors are circulating.

Even noted psychologist Daniel Kahneman agrees –

If owning stocks is a long-term project for you, following their changes constantly is a very, very bad idea. It’s the worst possible thing you can do, because people are so sensitive to short-term losses. If you count your money every day, you’ll be miserable.

12. Why Value Investing Works I read a post some time back wherein Jack Schwager, the author of Market Wizards series, when answering a question on whether value investing works, turned to the wisdom of Joel Greenblatt, one of the foremost experts on the subject. Schwager quoted this from his interview with Greenblatt – “Value investing doesn’t always work. The market doesn’t always agree with you. Over time, value is roughly the way the market prices stocks, but over the short term, which sometimes can be as long as two or three years, there are periods when it doesn’t work. And that is a very good thing. The fact that the value approach doesn’t work over periods of time is precisely the reason why it continues to work over the long term.”

13. Oh, EBITDAC! “Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine,” so said Lord Byron. Well, laughter is great. A meme circulated on Twitter some time back suggested that companies suffering from the global pandemic will trot out a new performance metric: EBITDAC, for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and coronavirus. It’s apparently not a joke.   Some companies are actually tweaking their figures to avoid triggering defaults on loans, like this German firm that has added back €5.4 million profits to its first quarter that it said it would have made were it not for the hit caused by lockdowns!  

In simple terms, EBITDA, the elder brother of EBITDAC, is a measure of a company’s overall financial performance and is used as an alternative to simple earnings or net income. EBITDA, however, can be misleading because it strips out the cost of capital (debt) and essential investments like property, plant, and equipment (because it is prior to depreciation).

By the way, Charlie Munger has said this about EBITDA —

…every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the words bullshit earnings.

Not sure what he has to say on EBITDAC!

14. How to Get Rich Bloomberg carried this nice piece from Nir Kaissar and Barry Ritholtz, where the authors write to answer this question – How do you get rich? By earning a lot or saving a lot?   Here is Barry’s point of view on the subject of “frugality” –

I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of “sustained and disciplined frugality.” With that said, here’s what to keep in mind:

1. Focus on the big things; the little things will take care of themselves 2. We all only have so much internal discipline, a consequence of limited mental bandwidth. Don’t fritter it away on things that don’t matter very much. 3. Spending should always be a function of what you can afford, not a slavish devotion to some puritan ideal. 4. Money can bring security, comfort and happiness, but beyond a certain point returns on having more of it diminish rapidly. 5. Experiences tend to beat material goods in terms of money well spent.

First, the big things: Your education, your career choice, your work ethic, who you marry, who you work with, your skill set, your compensation, your health, your outlook, how you think about the world and the commitment you make to yourself about continually learning and improving. Get those right, and those $5 lattes become pretty irrelevant.

Basically, the advice is this – avoid the hedonic treadmill and you will be much better off in your financial life. “Hedonic treadmill” is basically a theory positing that people repeatedly return to their baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. It is an important concept to grasp when it comes to understanding happiness, which we often lose in forever chasing rainbows.

15. The 60/40 Solution While searching through my collection of resources on Peter Bernstein, the author of “Capital Ideas” and “Against the Gods,” I came across this brilliant article he wrote for Bloomberg many years back, titled The 60/40 Solution, wherein he talked about the lessons from history (emphasis mine) –

The constant lesson of history is the dominant role played by surprise. Just when we are most comfortable with an environment and come to believe we finally understand it, the ground shifts under our feet. Surprise is the rule, not the exception. That’s a fancy way of saying we don’t know what the future holds. Even the most serious efforts to make predictions can end up so far from the mark as to be more dangerous than useless.

All of history and all of life is stuffed full of the unexpected and the unthinkable. Survival as an investor over that famous long course depends from the very first on recognition that we do not know what is going to happen. We can speculate or calculate or estimate, but we can never be certain. Something very simple but very penetrating stems from this observation. If we never know what the future holds, we can never be right all the time. Being wrong on occasion is inescapable. As the great English economist John Maynard Keynes expressed it some 80 years ago, “A proposition is not probable because we think it so.” The most important lesson an investor can learn is to be dispassionate when confronted by unexpected and unfavorable outcomes.

16. Make-Lose Vs Lose-Make Nassim Taleb, out of my journal, explains the concept of path dependence, which is the dependence of outcomes on the path of previous outcomes, rather than simply on current conditions –

Ironing your shirts then putting them in the washing machine produces a different outcome from washing your shirts first, then ironing them.

The reader can either trust me on this, or try the experiment with both sequences on the next Sunday afternoon. Now, assume that your capital is around one million dollars and you are involved in speculation. Apply path dependence to the reasoning.

Making a million dollars first, then losing it, is markedly different from losing a million dollars first then making it.

The first path (make-lose) leaves you intact; the second (lose) makes you bankrupt, insolvent, maimed, traumatized and more generally unable to stay in the game, thus unable to benefit from the second part of the sequence. There is no make after the lose.

Reminds me of Warren Buffett’s “Rule No. 1 – Never LOSE money.”

Consider a weak, fragile business. It is path-dependent. With stretched balance sheet, large capital requirement, and inadequate capacity to suffer, a prolonged weakness in the economy can destroy it. It is then difficult for it to rise from that ruin. When you own such a business, you have to do a lot of praying to the economics gods. Such a business starts from a “lose” and now it’s difficult, almost impossible, for it to “make” back what it lost.

On the other hand, a robust and anti-fragile business, with clean balance sheet and low capital requirement, which has built a capacity to suffer over years, is not path dependent. It can survive a weak economy. Even if the weakness persists, at worst, it may lose what it has already made, which is better than starting with losing it all.

So, check out what you already own in your portfolio. Is it in the “make, then lose” category, or “lose, then lose everything” one?

Stick with the former. Discard the latter.

17. The Dunning-Kruger Effect

18. Chance Has No Memory In activities largely involving luck (like fair coin toss, gambling, investing), past outcomes have no effect on the current outcome. Chance occurrences do not have any relationship to things that happened before.

The probability of a child being a boy or girl is, theoretically 0.5. Since chance has no memory, that’s the same probability EVERY time. Even in a family of 10 daughters, the probability of the eleventh child being a son is, theoretically, 0.5. In a country like India, that’s an important thing to remember for parents with first 2-3 daughters but still wanting another child believing that would be a son.

Now, it may sound simple but a lot of us struggle with this idea.

People have a hard time remembering this when they invest in stocks. For example, when I see that my past 3-4 stocks have not earned me quick returns like what other stocks have earned for my friends, I am more inclined to bet on the next stock thinking, “It hasn’t happened in a while, so it’s bound to happen soon.”

It’s like Ranveer Singh singing in the movie Gully Boy, “Apna time aayega…” (my time will come).

19. Formula for Survival in Life and Investing While reading notes from the 1989 AGM of Berkshire Hathaway, I came across this passage where Warren Buffett was asked about his approach to risk and investment decision making, and he replied –

Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we’re trying to do. It’s imperfect, but that’s what it’s all about.

As an equation, it reads thus –

Success in investing = (Probability of gain X Amount of possible gain) – (Probability of loss X Amount of possible loss) = A positive number

Michael Mauboussin describes this concept as expected value. It’s actually a very simple concept.

In essence, you don’t have to be right a lot, you just have to be right about your big bets at the right time. Here, while the probabilities matter a lot, so do the consequences i.e., amount of possible gain/loss.

It’s important to get that equation right.

If you are willing to buy a stock, say, priced at 60-70x P/E or more, thinking the probability of it going higher is good, also remember the consequence of a period of weakness/slowdown in business. Such expensively priced stocks ride on high expectations, and the consequences of a small slip could be really bad.

Given that we often tell ourselves false stories to avoid the truth, with our minds clouded by denial, optimism and negative decision-making tendencies, the expected value idea can help us avoid the landmine of expensive, hot and bad stocks that cover a large ground in stock investing.

Buffett says, “In order to succeed you must first survive.”

So here’s the mantra.

In life, to live, simply avoid dying (till you can).

In investing, to succeed, simply avoid ruin (till you can).

20. Why We Make Bad Decisions Short answer – We have design flaws. We are fairly sure we are way above average, and we are also sure we see everything perfectly.

Long answer – Ray Dalio wrote in his book Principles –

The two biggest barriers to good decision making are your ego and your blind spots. Together, they make it difficult for you to objectively see what is true about you and your circumstances and to make the best possible decisions by getting the most out of others. If you can understand how the machine that is the human brain works, you can understand why these barriers exist and how to adjust your behavior to make yourself happier, more effective, and better at interacting with others.

21. Not Everyone Should Pick Stocks Despite the growing popularity of investing, not everyone is suited to manage his or her own stock market investments, it is not a matter of pride if you are able to do it or a matter of shame if you are not able to do it well.

The idea is to just let your savings compound at rates that help you maintain your purchasing power over years. Whether you do it through your own stock picking skills, or hire a fund manager, does not make a difference. The only condition is that your money must be handled well.

Seeking help is always a good idea. And accepting that you may not be capable enough to manage things on your own is even better.

Your stocks don’t know you own them. And, whatever those people who entice you to get rich through investing may promise you, please don’t see investing in stocks as a way to get rich. Such ideas are often masked by survivorship bias, which is a logical error of concentrating only on people or things that “survived” some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not. So, taking inspiration from other investors who have made good money from “100-to-1 stocks” and ignoring others who followed similar processes but ended up with disasters can lead you to false conclusions about your own potential as an investor and stock picker.

Look at investing as a way to keep you rich i.e., help you grow your purchasing power. Look at your work – job / profession / business – to make you rich and thus focus more energy and focus there than on the stock market.

22. Stock Prices: Information or Influence? In one of his papers on qualities of great investors, Michael Mauboussin writes that investing is an inherently social exercise. Stock prices often go from being a source of information to a source of influence.   Consider the history of stock market bubbles. As stocks surge, people who own them get rich on paper. This causes envy among people who do not own the surging shares. Their mind shuts down and they end up buying stocks at extremely high prices (even Newton did that!). This feeds the process. Everyone wants to get on board the stock’s gravy train because everyone else is.   Wise investors do not get drawn into such whirlpool of influence. They ignore the views of others and use their own minds. This is difficult, though, as it requires the trait of not caring what others think of you, which does not come naturally to humans.   Mauboussin writes that the crowd is often right, but when it is wrong you need the psychological courage to go against the grain.

23. Beware the Excel Spreadsheet Here is how we twist spreadsheets to fit our versions of reality when it comes to investing in stocks –

24. The Only Way to Win in Investing Here is a story I read recently –

A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young boy. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!” So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer………………….. $ 2.00 Knowing where to tap…………………….. $ 9,998.00

Knowing where to tap – the process – makes all the difference, whether you are working with a hammer or with your money.

25. When Long-Term Investing is a Bad Idea Long term investing is a good idea. Forced long term investing is not. When your premise does not work out, or you no longer believe in a stock, you must sell, even if it means a loss. A lot of investors hold on to bad stocks just to get their “money back.” This, I believe, is one of the biggest reasons to lose money in stocks. Remember that the deeper you fall with bad stocks, the more you must gain back to get your money back. And it is often a bad idea to try to get your money back the exact way you lost it.

When it comes to losing stocks in your portfolio, always remember the first law of holes – If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

26. A Pocket Guide for Wealthier Life I recently made a pocket-zine for my kids that contained some lessons on living a good life.

They loved holding and reading it as much as I loved creating it.

Well, call it a positive feedback loop, that zine has led me to create one more. This time on the most important things in personal finance.

I call it – Personal Finance for Smart People: A Pocket Guide for Wealthier Life.

Click here to download the PDF version.

Please note that personal finance is, well, personal. So, it is OK if you reject all the ideas in this zine. See these ideas in context of your own financial goals and circumstances.

27. Investing’s Five Most Irrelevant Facts

* * * Life 28. Imagine! Here’s a note from Ashlee Vance’s biography of Elon Musk –

Visual thinking is a great way to understand complex or potentially confusing information, and also a way to organize your thoughts and improve your ability to think and communicate.

Imagine someone talking to you, and starting with the word – “Imagine…”

You are completely hooked, isn’t it?

Consider this excerpt from Richard Feynman’s The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, where his father helps him visualize about dinosaurs –

We had the Encyclopedia Britannica at home and even when I was a small boy my father used to sit me on his lap and read to me from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and we would read, say, about dinosaurs and maybe it would be talking about the brontosaurus or something, or tyrannosaurus rex, and it would say something like, ‘This thing is twenty-five feet high and the head is six feet across,’ you see, and so he’d stop and say, ‘let’s see what that means. That would mean that if he stood in our front yard he would be high enough to put his head through the window but not quite because the head is a little bit too wide and it would break the window as it came by.’ Everything we’d read would be translated as best as we could into some reality and so I learned to do that – everything that I read I try to figure out what it really means, what it’s really saying by translating.

Then consider how Warren Buffett visually convinced me why gold was a bad investment…

I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side… Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today’s market prices about $7 trillion dollars – that’s probably about a third of the value of all the stocks in the United States… For $7 trillion dollars… you could have all the farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon Mobils, and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around money… And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67-foot cube of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and fondling it occasionally…Call me crazy, but I’ll take the farmland and the Exxon Mobils.

I’ve tried my hands at visual thinking this way –

You may want to check out my Wall of Ideas for more such examples of visual thinking.

Now, visual thinking is not a new lesson that I would attribute to Elon Musk. But imagine the kind of businesses he is building, to save the world, which he had originally visualized when he was under ten years of age.

When it comes to investing, you can avoid yourself a lot of pain by just visualizing your life after you’ve lost a lot of money trading and speculating in the stock market. If the visuals unnerve you, don’t do anything that would get you into such a situation. That’s also the concept of inversion.

I personally used visual thinking when I was deciding about quitting my job to start Safal Niveshak to help small investors become better at their investment decision making. Of course, when I had started planning my future after a job, the first visual was that of – not being successful in my future work, getting over my savings, and having to return to a job.

But another visual I saw was of helping people, enjoying the freedom of doing things my way, and spending a lot of time with my family. And I thank my stars that this was more powerful than the visual of losing everything.

29. Chop Wood, Carry Water Many of us get caught up in the end results of what we’re working toward or the way things will be when we finally achieve something.

I lived the same way till a few years back.

I thought that once I achieved some future state – promotion, financial independence, enlightenment, the top of the mountain, etc. – I will finally be content. I lived in the future or the past … in my head.

But the truth is that none of these destinations brought me any lasting contentment. Further, getting to where I wanted to go or being “successful” never meant that the work that led me there went away. Instead, I realized that contentment can only be found in every ‘now,’ in being fully present with ordinary daily activities – with chopping wood and carrying water.

It’s only when I was able to find fulfillment in life’s ordinary activities – like eating, walking, writing, cleaning the floor, or washing dishes – I could finally be at peace. It was just me, and my doing. And I realized, this is all that mattered. In this, there was everything.

You see, once you finally achieve “enlightenment,” you must still chop wood and carry water. You must still do your work, do it well, and when you find success, do it again.

Tom Barrett explained on his blog Interlude Retreat –

We travel to the ocean or to mountains, rivers and canyons, in part to escape the mundane world of work, but also to experience the awe that arises more spontaneously in nature’s magnificence. We give ourselves an incredible gift when we can experience some of the same awe in the mundane world of our daily lives. The weed that grows in the crack of a sidewalk is a phenomenon as miraculous as the redwood tree that towers into the sky. The raindrops that streak the window are no less an occasion for awe than the spray that dampens our face at the waterfall. The fingers that tap a keyboard are as worthy of praise as the feet of a ballet dancer.

When we open awareness to the tasks in our lives they become lighter. When we are able to be in the moment, we no longer feel compelled to watch the clock. Whatever your work might be, bring all of yourself to it. When you are fully present, you may find that your labor is no longer a burden.

Wood is chopped. Water is carried. Life happens.

30. Have courage Life is not always easy. But you get through it with courage. There will be times in your life where you’d rather hide or run or bury your head in the sand than face whatever challenge is in your way. In those times, I want you to remember to be brave and show courage. Also, do not be afraid to take risks. You can accomplish great things by taking the right kind of risks. Do not also be afraid to make mistakes, but make sure you learn from them. There are, after all, no mistakes…only lessons. Most importantly, when you fail, get back up, dust yourself off, and try again.

31. Be kind, always Put kindness first. Kindness is when you empathise with others in their troubles, when you treat others the way they want to be treated, when you think and act selflessly without expecting anything in return, when you appreciate others for their work, when you forgive others for their mistakes, and when you carefully listen to someone sharing their problems. “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle, everyone’s lonesome,” said Marion Parker. Given this, learn to deal kindly and compassionately with others. That is your only hope to happily live yourself and leave this world a better place than you found it.

32. Seize each day Steve Jobs, as he shared in his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, read a quote early in his life that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ This is what Jobs told the students – “It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past thirty-three years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” Keep this perspective that you don’t live forever and should focus on doing what really matters, today. This moment, this day, is all you have. Seize it.

33. Embrace your imperfections As we wade through life’s muddled waters, especially as young adults, we tend deep down to be hopeful that we will eventually manage to settle down well and find perfection in a number of areas. We dream of one day securing healthy relationships, deeply fulfilling work, happy family life, and the respect of others. But life, as it is, has a habit of springing surprises, and rushing us in its overwhelming tide. It sometimes deals us a range of blows, leaving our dreams shattered. And like a favorite cup or plate, we sometimes crack. We may even break.

Obviously, you must not throw yourself away when this happens. Instead, you can relish the blemishes and learn to turn these scars into art – like ‘kintsugi,’ an ancient Japanese practice that beautifies broken pottery. In Zen aesthetics, the broken pieces of a ceramic pot should be carefully picked up, reassembled, and then glued together with lacquer inflected with gold powder. The Japanese believe the golden cracks make the pieces even more valuable. It embraces the breakage as part of the object’s history, instead of something unacceptable to be hidden or thrown away.

It is beautiful to think of kintsugi as a metaphor for your life, to see the broken, difficult, or painful parts of you as radiating light, gold, and beauty. It teaches that your broken places make you stronger and better than ever before. The times when you get hurt and broken, you can feel totally rotten. But there can also be a strange beauty in the way you process the cracks in your life and the lessons you take from them afterward. You can decide to cover up, or you can decide to walk out into the world as yourself, with your cracks shining gold.

34. Find your true desire, then live it In a thought-provoking lecture many years ago, British philosopher and writer Alan Watts told the audience this –

Students…come to me and say, ‘We’re getting out of college and we have the faintest idea of what we want to do.’ I always ask the question, what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life? …Students say, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows, you can’t earn any money that way. Let’s go through with it, what do you want to do? When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him: you do that and forget the money. Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life full of what you like doing, than a long life, spent in a miserable way. After all if you really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually become a master of it. The only way to become a master of something is to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is…Therefore, it’s so important to consider this question: What do I desire?

What you desire is the reason for which you get up in the morning. Go, search for it. And till you find it, keep looking and do not settle.

35. Live like a verb, not a noun I recently came across this thought-provoking paragraph from the English actor, comedian, and writer Stephen Fry, while browsing a notebook I had scribbled thoughts in some years ago – “Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it. That is your punishment. But if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing — an actor, a writer — I am a person who does things — I write, I act — and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.” Learn to give yourself permission to ‘do’ what brings you the greatest joy – except, say, getting involved in drugs etc. That’s the way you will find satisfaction in life. What will lead you to a fulfilling life isn’t the nouns you may use for yourself – dancer, writer, investor, teacher – but the verbs you will be – the growing, learning, and pursuing that will happen in the process.

36. Forgive over and over and over You are going to have your heartbroken. Whether it’s a fall out with a friend you thought you were close with, or that career that you wish you got. It’s life, it’s going to happen. Take it for the lesson it was and move on. And never hold on to grudges against others and yourself. When we harbor unforgiveness and blame others for all our misery, it slowly eats us away, breeding hatred, and destroying our relationship with that other person, and also with our inner self. But when you decide to forgive, it is like an instant miraculous healing process. It is the key to moving on.

When people do not act as you would wish them to, exercise the muscles of your good nature by shrugging your shoulders and saying to yourself “Oh well.” Then let the incident go. Also, try to be as kind to yourself as possible, by forgiving yourself for mistakes made. The Greek philosopher Epictetus advised, “Do not measure yourself against others or even against your ideal self. Human betterment is a gradual, two-steps-forward, one-step-back effort. When you learn to forgive, others and yourself, and let go, you will be surprised to discover the lightness and freedom that unfold thereafter from within you. Forgiveness won’t necessarily erase all your pain. But it does mean that the hurt is no longer center stage.

37. Do not take life so seriously Our DNA is 96% chimpanzee, so what’s the point of taking life any seriously than a chimp does? Laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. Do not worry about things you cannot control.

You get around 80-90 trips around the sun. Embrace them and enjoy your ride to the fullest. 99% of what you will think as problems won’t even be real problems anyway, just situations your mind would make into some big and unnecessary drama. So, remember to relax. Do not live in your head so much.

38. Value People In his book, The Education of a Value Investor, Guy Spier writes about a story of one Ian Jacobs, a Columbia Business School graduate who successfully applied for a job with Warren Buffett. Along with his cover letter, Jacobs enclosed a cheque to compensate Buffett for his time in evaluating this job application. Jacobs’s cheque showed how much he respected the value of Buffett’s time. Guy writes –

The key, in my experience, is to value people as an end in themselves, not as a means to our own ends. Mohnish (Pabrai) often quotes a beautiful line from the Bible, “I am but dust and ashes.”

Thanks in large part to Mohnish and Warren, I began to realize that I ought to focus more on what others need from me instead of constantly trying to get them to fulfill my own needs. This might sound obvious, but it’s been a huge psychological shift for me, and it’s really changed the way that I live my life.

This is so unlike what happens in the financial services industry where people selfishly work for their own incentives, others be damned! And this is one of the key reasons for my disgust with this industry.

It is important to see and treat people not as ladders on which one must climb to achieve one’s personal success, but as part of a wonderful ecosystem where one can survive and prosper only when others survive and prosper.

Like here is what Buffett has a key part of his Owner’s Manual –

We will be candid in our reporting to you, emphasizing the pluses and minuses important in appraising business value. Our guideline is to tell you the business facts that we would want to know if our positions were reversed. We owe you no less.

In other words, Buffett treats shareholders and managers in his acquired businesses as he would wish to be treated if the positions were reversed.

This is in fact the Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity – One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

39. Don’t worry too much about making money It won’t change the way you live. Time spent earning enough money is time reasonably well spent. Time earning an excess of money far beyond that required to meet one’s needs, however, is time wasted. So, know how much is enough.

As far as saving money is concerned, take it seriously but not too much that you compromise your and your family’s present. Especially when you are making a reasonable income and are already saving enough, remember what Warren Buffett says –

…who is to say whether it is better to defer a dollar of expenditure on your family – on a trip to Disneyland or something that they’ll get enormous enjoyment out of – so that when you are 75, you can have a 30-feet boat instead of a 20-feet boat. There are advantages to spending money on your family when it is young – giving them various forms of enjoyment, education, or whatever it may be. But it’s crazy to be spending 105% of your income.

40. Don’t put off “living happily ever after” for another year. Don’t assume you’ll have another year. You won’t get this life again. No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. Life will not lengthen at your command. As it started out on its first day, so it will run on, nowhere pausing or turning aside. Stop being busy. Tell the ones you love how much you love them often enough. You could be very happy with almost nothing if you had a loving family, and you weren’t competing with a lot of other people who had more than you did.

41. How to Get Rich Quick Get rich quick by doing these five simple things –

Create value for others;

Contribute to someone, without keeping score;

Say what needs to be said;

Learn something new, something scary; and

Reject false shortcuts.

42. Deal well with your fears. We’re all fearful…of some things…and many things. I’ve never seen any person who has no fear. However, in dealing with fear several times over the past few years, I have realized one very important thing.

It is that, in our life, the issue is not really ‘fear’ but rather, what we do despite it. We can either get managed by fear, or manage it. We can either acknowledge fear or fall into an emotional whirlpool. We can either accept fear or pretend that it doesn’t exist at all. We can either give up or get up in the face of fear.

In fact, fear is what keeps us safe at most times in our lives. Fear keeps us out of harm’s way. All we need to have is the courage to manage it. Now, nobody can give us the courage. Even if Buddha were sitting right here next to you, he couldn’t give it to you. You have to practice it and realize it yourself. You have to make a habit of mindfulness practice to get over your fears. Then, when fear strikes you, you will already know what to do.

43. Life is Short

Most of what happens to us in life is anyways beyond our control, and we must learn to let it go.

But I firmly believe in what Mark Twain said –

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Now is the time, my dear friend, to explore, dream, discover. Because life, as we may live it, is really short.

44. You Are A Black Swan Black swan is a Latin expression, which was commonly used as a metaphor to describe something impossible or something non-existent. It came from the old-world belief that all swans are white since no one had seen a black swan before. Every time someone spotted a white swan, it was confirmation of their belief i.e., “all swans are white.” But this long held notion was invalidated the day first black swan was spotted.

A black swan event has following three attributes, writes Taleb in his book –

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact (unlike the bird). Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

Apart from the central theme of black swan, Taleb’s book is choc-full of mind stretching ideas. I’ll leave you with the very last passage from The Black Swan which I found remarkably comforting. Taleb writes –

I am sometimes taken aback by how people can have a miserable day or get angry because they feel cheated by a bad meal, cold coffee, a social rebuff or a rude reception…We are quick to forget that just being alive is an extraordinary piece of good luck, a remote event, a chance occurrence of monstrous proportions.

Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favour of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff. Don’t be like the ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking the gift horse in the mouth – remember that you are a Black Swan.

45. Enjoy the Journey Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) is the autobiography of American writer and philosopher Robert Pirsig, wherein he chronicles his motorcycle journey across the country with his son. It is however much more than just an adventure tale. Through his journey, Pirsig explains his philosophy on life, creating a manifesto through motorcycle maintenance.

There are many lessons to be learned from this book, but a handful of persist throughout the story that can help reshape your perspective. Like, here is what Pirsig writes on how we lose so much time on unnecessary affairs that we move swiftly past what is really important –

We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.

Then, here is Pirsig’s idea of how to fix the world –

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle.

One of the most beautiful lessons I take from the books is the idea of enjoying the journey instead of just waiting for the destination. As Pirsig writes –

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you are no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.

46. What We Leave Behind I read a beautiful, new post from Prof. Scott Galloway titled What We Leave Behind, wherein he writes how the fastest path to a better life is regularly assessing what we leave behind, and that money or wealth are not as important parts of the equation of what we leave behind as we usually think about. Spending time with our children is.

Prof. Galloway writes –

Money is a vehicle for the transfer of time and work from one entity to another. So, if we spend less money on one thing, we can invest more time on another. Could we invest less in stuff, less in commuting, and more in relationships? I’ve been howling in the money storm for so long. Believing my worth to others was a function of the stuff I had, or didn’t have.

We proffer admiration, affection, and a sense of awe on people who aggregate wealth. But that affection is often misplaced, as wealth can lead to greed and lack of empathy. This is an opportunity to spend less on stuff, spend less time commuting, and reallocate that capital and time to our partners and children.

On my podcast, the Prof G Show, I interviewed philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris. I asked him for one piece of advice on how to be a better man. He offered that rather than trying to parent, cajole, discipline, or guide your children, your real purpose is just…to love them. My nine-year-old has been having a hard time with corona. I’m spending less time correcting, explaining, arguing, and more just loving…sitting in his room when he’s doing homework, engaging in conversation, and watching The Simpsons together. We’re on season 5, there’s 31.

And…we’ll get there.

This is such a refreshing thought. It reminds us to examine our lives way more often and with deeper reflection. We are building a legacy every day, whether or not we are intentional about it. As we move forward through these challenging times, let’s keep our hearts and minds fastened on that we will leave behind.

47. Meditation Meditation has been a great tool to help me learn to be mindful, which is to be present and aware, moment by moment, regardless of circumstances. And when it comes to investing, I find mindfulness to be one of our best defenses against behavioural biases. Why?

You see, the stock market is by definition, anxiety-inducing. Ben Graham called stock price fluctuations represented by Mr. Market as manic depressive. Look at people trading inside dealing rooms. Or just look at the talking heads on business television and you will know what I’m talking about. Amidst this chaos, a state of mindfulness can help you put your mind in a healthier, more balanced and unemotional state.

You won’t be worried about short term fluctuations in stock prices.

You won’t act in haste or on impulse.

You won’t be distracted by regrets of your past performance or worries about your future returns.

You would keep yourself immune to the news and noise all around.

You would try to do your best work in the present, with utmost focus and discipline.

These are all necessary attributes you need to achieve success as an investor. As Charlie Munger says –

A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they’ve got terrible temperaments. And that is why we say that having a certain kind of temperament is more important than brains. You need to keep raw irrational emotion under control. You need patience and discipline and an ability to take losses and adversity without going crazy. You need an ability to not be driven crazy by extreme success.

This is all what meditation and mindfulness can teach you, and much more. Try it to see for yourself.

48. A Father’s Lessons for a Good Life I made a pocket-zine for my kids that contained some lessons on living a good life. They loved the idea and the lessons. I loved their smiles.

  Click here to download the PDF version.

49. Weathering Life’s Storms In ancient Greece and Rome, many prominent thinkers subscribed to a philosophy called Stoicism. As part of this philosophy, they practiced a thought exercise called premeditatio malorum, which means premeditation of evils.

It simply means taking a moment to think through everything that could go wrong with a particular plan. It means visualizing a bad future.

The idea behind premeditatio malorum is that by contemplating calamity, we rob future hardships of their bite and appreciate what we have now. In other words, anticipating adversity is likely to diminish its power on us when it actually strikes.

Now, meditating on the worst that may happen to us seems like a negative way to live life. On the contrary, this exercise is calming, because it leads us to prepare ourselves mentally and otherwise to deal with an uncertain future. Also, if we take time to think through the bad things that may fall upon us, what Charlie Munger calls the places where we may die, we may find ways to not go there in the first place.

Imagine getting hit by the corona virus, or losing your job, or the stock market tanking and your investments getting wiped out. Then, while letting the future be because you anyways don’t control it, try doing things that may keep you at safe distance from these possibilities as much as possible.

In particular, while practicing premeditatio malorum, the Stoics frequently reminded themselves that both they and their loved ones were mortal, and bound to die one day, and that life was inevitably transient. This is one of the best ways we can indulge in this thought practice, by meditating on mortality.

As the Stoic philosopher Seneca advised –

Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.

50. Start Preparing for Tomorrow We often blame our past and worry about our future.

The fact is that – and you also know this – life is in living NOW. It’s all about the…

Things we learn now;

Choices we make now;

Habits we form now;

Actions we take now; and

Enlightenment we receive now

Regretting about the past – “If only I could’ve started investing earlier!” or “If only I had not made that investing mistake!” – is like wasting time and energy on the impossible. And worrying about the future – the Tomorrow – is like having no belief in your capabilities.

If you can live in the present, connect with it, accept it, and experience the joy of flying in the NOW, you would surely head towards a brighter Tomorrow.

In fact, the best possible way to prepare for Tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today.

When I was ten years old, my grandfather would draw me a house with windows and doors. He would tell me how many brick lengths the bottom and sides needed, and how many brick lengths each window and door would take.

Then he asked me how many bricks it would take to build the whole house. If I had trouble answering, he wouldn’t get upset.

He would simply say: “This is how you build a house. One brick at a time.”

Well, this is also how you prepare for Tomorrow.

By seeing it now, and then, as Charlie Munger would have loved to see you do, working backward to achieve it.

As Stephen Covey writes as his second habit of highly effective people – Begin with the end in mind.

Well, that’s where you should also begin – End…Tomorrow. Then work backward.

51. Fear Here is a beautiful poem from Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese poet well known for his book, The Prophet, that strikes a chord deep within.

FEAR (Khalil Gibran)

It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way. The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.

* * * Benjamin Franklin said, “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

I’m so grateful to have you share this journey with me in 2020, and I look forward to continuing our connection in 2021, whatever it may bring.

Stay happy and healthy.

Happy 2021.

With respect, Vishal

The post 51 Ideas from 2020 appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

51 Ideas from 2020 published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[elatedmarvel]

Shadow: Part 6

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Natasha and Bucky rescue someone from their past. Being hunted down, they bring you to the Avengers. Will it be enough to keep you safe?

Warnings: like a swear word or two, blood and violence 

A/N: This chapter is super long but I didn’t want to break it into two smaller parts. Thank you so much for reading! ~J

Masterlist  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5

Your knees burned as they scraped across the hard ground as you were shoved to kneel. The handler keeping a tight grip on your hair was not being merciful like you would have hoped and pushed your head so you were staring at the floor. From the corner of your eye you can see him, in the same position as you were.

How had they known?

Several weeks after the soldat shocked you by agreeing to run away, you were on top of the world. Maybe it was your high spirit. Maybe you had been too happy and the universe could not allow that.

The two of you planned every detail. You would continue on as normal for a month, training, eating, complying with everything the handlers requested. During the second to last mission instead of getting the final hard drive you would steal keys to Fyodor’s car. Drive for an hour before ditching the car and get another. You would not take any possessions, money or food. No warning or trail, the two of you would disappear and start a new life.

It had been all going so well until you were run off the road 2 minutes after stealing Fyodor’s car. You had not planned on them coming a full 2 hour earlier than the assigned meetup time.

Now here you were, dressed to the nines, bloodied and on the verge of tears. You knew they would not be kind and you were hoping that if they were to kill you, that it would be swift and painless.

“Do you take us for fools?” Ivan boomed as he walked into the room. You swore it dropped ten degrees as he entered.

“You’ve been too compliant my dear. You smiled too much. Had to make sure our assets were still ours” he says as his shoes come into your view.

“Nothing to say now huh? I would have expected this from you Y/N, but from the fist of hydra, now that was a shock.” you could hear the smile on his face and before you can react you feel him kick your gut. You let out a small cry and instantly the soldat is thrashing against his handler.

“Let her go! It was all my idea! Don’t you fucking touch her!” he yells as he swiftly flips the handler and comes to standing. Immediately 3 guns were trained on him and you hear the chuckling.

“Soldat, you have fallen so far. And to think we gave her to you as a treat. Let her up.” Ivan slowly draws.  

Your handler grips your hair as he pulls you to standing and you notice the room you're in for the first time. It’s cold and dirty and very sparse besides the chair and machine in the center. The color drains from your face when you see the soldat’s eyes trained to the chair and the slight fear in his eyes and you know.

“No” you breath out.

“Yes” and Ivan seems almost giddy as he smiles with all his teeth. “We still need you to finish the mission. You’re so close, just need to make sure nothing like this happens again. Strap him in.”.

The room explodes with motion. You try to get to the soldat and he moves to you. You realize that they had planned for this and the guards easily capture him and lead him to the table. It horrifies you when you realize how many times they have down this. Even though he is thrashing and trying anyway he can to escape their grip, they still hold him. They know all his moves, every trick and idea that pops into his head. He’s done them multiple times before and they have started to anticipate.

You crack and fight the guards that have surrounded you. Taking them down was easy as you let your rage burn. You were almost to the soldat when you hear the click and feel the pressure against the back of your skull.

“NO!” he screams from the chair, but there’s nothing he can do.

Slowly you turn around and see Ivan’s grinning face.

“The soldat chose correctly. You are a remarkable fighting machine Y/N. Too bad. You had such fire in you”

“Do it” you breathed hard and leaned into the gun. Maybe if they killed you they would leave the soldat alone. You knew your hope was in vain, but it kept you from crying and shaking on the spot. The soldat kept thrashing and yelling, desperate to keep the love of his life alive. Ivan just chuckles before a guard handcuffs you and he holsters his gun.

“Sorry my dear, but I’m going to need you alive for the last part of the mission. Also wouldn’t want to miss this.” and he grabs your face and shoves it toward the chair and the soldat.

You make eye contact with him and you can see the fear in his eyes, for you and for him.

You can't cry now, you have to be strong for the both of you, you have to be his rock right now. Ivan must have nodded because the machine started to lower over his head. You kept looking at him and he kept his eyes trained on you.

He was trying so hard to memorize every inch of you, the way you walked, the way you smelled. He didn’t want to lose you. He swore to himself that he would remember you, that they could never take you away from him.

The slight hum and his screams made it clear the machine was on. You couldn’t bear to look anymore but Ivan kept a tight grip on your head. He was going to make you watch your doing.

It felt like hours to you when his screams finally faded away and the machine lifted. He moved to sit up straighter and you could see the sweat sticking to him. His cold and dead eyes glanced over your figure before it trained itself on Ivan.

“Готовы к соблюдению” he says with no infliction and you feel a chill run up your spine.

“Ah soldat. Nice to see you again. Take her to the cellar and lock her there.” Ivan orders. The soldat is up in an instant and strutting over to you. Roughly, he grasps your arm and drags you out of the room.

“Медведь” you whisper, praying that this would snap him out of it. No luck as he doesn't even turn back to look at you and continues down the hallway. He opens a door on the right and roughly shoves you in. He looks at you once more before he slams the door and you can hear him walk away.

Your body gives away and the tears come before you can even understand what was happening. Sitting on the ground with your hands tied behind you, it all hits you. He was gone, your медведь was gone and he wasn’t coming back. It was all your fault. He had warned you not to run away, how it would end badly but you didn’t listen. Your stubbornness is making him suffer and a sob tears through you.   

Sitting in the back of the car, it was so familiar you swore you were having deja vu. The soldat and the handlers all in the front of the car with you forgotten in the back. It reminded you of the first day you had met the soldat, the first time you had ever been close to your love. The same person who was here now, but not here.

You lost track of time in the cellar but you figured it had been maybe a week since he was wiped. Was that enough time for him to start remembering? Everytime he delivered you food you would whisper things he had told you about his old life. He always looked at you with cold eyes and walked out.

They had finally came and got you this morning, stuck you in a dress and shoved you in the back of the car. You knew it was for the final mission, but you had no idea what you were supposed to do. No one said anything to you and you were not allowed to speak unless spoken to.

The asset never even glanced your way the whole night. Your медведь was truly gone, you weren't even convinced that he was under the cold exterior. The car rolled to a stop and you were surprised when Ivan addressed you.  

“All you have to do is stand there, look pretty and drag Fyodor to the back room. Understood? The soldat will take care of the rest.”

You nodded stiffly. You hoped that if you showed your compliance they would let you go back to the Red Room unscathed.  

As you walked in with the soldat you realized this would be the last time you saw him. Not sure what had overtaken you you whispered the one thing you had never told him.

“I love you.”

As expected he made no gesture that he had heard your proclamation and you continued with your head hung low. You were sure your heart was physically breaking in two.

Getting Fyodor to the back room was easy, you gave the signal that you wanted to have sex with him again and he followed you gladly. As you entered the room something felt off. The soldat stood in the middle of the room, was he supposed to be seen?

You didn't think to question it, you knew better at this point. You were not surprised when the soldat ripped Fyodor from you, flung him to a chair and tied him down.

“The files. Where is the last one?” he spoke so low and deadly it gave you chills. His voice was so much different from your медведь it only made your already broken heart tug a little more.

Fyodor looked from him to you for a moment before he understood what was happening. A small smile crossed his face. “You’ll never find it” and he grinned again.

“Because it is implanted in you correct?” the soldat said.

Fyodor now had the decency to looked scared. “I can tell you everything on the file” he tried.

Not even a split second later did the soldat bring out a blade and sliced his arm. All you could hear was Fyodor’s screams as you watched in horror as the soldat dug around for the chip. Finally, he removed his hand and pocketed a small silver chip.

Slowly, he turned around and locked eyes with you. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as he whipped out a gun, the gun they had given you on missions, and shot Fyodor in the subclavian artery without breaking his stare.

“NO!” you could hear yourself scream as you ran to Fyodor and tried in vain to stop the bleeding. You could hear his bubbled gasps as he started to bleed to death. You looked around in panic and saw the soldat standing there focused on you.

He opened his mouth to say something but heavy footsteps in the hall disturbed him. Hesitantly, he turned to the window and leaped out. You knew that no one would see him, he would be a ghost.

You knew what it looked like. You were covered in Fyodor’s blood, fingerprints all over the gun that had shot Fyodor who had been spotted with you around his arm for weeks. As soon as the guards entered the room, you were as good as dead.

You’re self-preservation took hold and you grasped the gun tightly in your hands as the door opened. Three shots rang out, each one hitting the targets head on.

The only person left standing was the head of ABA, Fyodor’s father. You made eye contact with him and you saw his shock. Using this to your advantage you trained the gun on him as you stepped closer to the window yourself. You could have cried when you heard the click instead, signaling the gun was empty.

“I’m sorry” you choked out before you let yourself fall. Landing with a hard thud you knew you had to go, he would be ordering the guards to find you.

You ran as fast and as far as you could before collapsing in the forest that had surrounded the mansion you were brought to earlier. You estimated that you had run 2 miles in your frenzy and that would be enough for now. But, you had to get even further away. You had to disappear as well as you could.

You were wanted and you knew from the pure look of rage in his eyes that he was coming for you. Just like that your life in prison was traded for a life on the run.

Translations: Готовы к соблюдению - ready to comply

Медведь- bear 

Part 7 

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[fyodorscenarios]

Hi! May I request a scenario for Fyodor's reaction to his longtime s/o defecting (or attempting to defect lol) to the ADA because she can no longer agree with his ideals and goals?

I’ve found in my time writing so far that I love writing angst for some reason. I’ve been so excited to write this one that I actually ended up writing a plot outline the same day I received it. I’m happy that I got around to posting it!

I’ll admit that I should’ve been working on earlier requests, but I’ve really been itching to write this one. Plus writing angst seems to make me feel better when I’m feeling extra depressed, like I did when I wrote this last night.

-

Your feet strike the pavement rhythmically as you propel yourself forward. Despite your anxiety, it was always best to find a rhythm to avoid collapsing. You had always known when to run. It was now or never.

You would stop him, or you wouldn’t. At this point, it was uncertain as to which was more likely. You had seen him, not how others had, but in a unique way that made you distinct. If anyone knew how to stop him, it was you.

He was coming for you, that you knew. He wasn’t a heavy sleeper. Paranoia came in waves; he is always just around the corner, unrealistically.

If you could find that building, he wouldn’t approach you out of caution. You would be safe there, at least for a short time.

The building was far from where you had been staying, into the city centre. You weren’t sure how far it was, and the streets you ran through were deserted due to the early hour.

You’re passing through another long alleyway when it hits you, a deep sense of foreboding. A nauseous feeling creeps up on you, bile pooling in the back of your throat. You skid to a stop, finally beginning to feel the toll of your run. The pain travels from your feet to your legs, forcing you to keep balance by placing a hand on the nearby concrete wall. You trudge forward, the feeling still tugging at your mind.

You’re met with yet another damp wall. A dead-end. Vines lay over its bricks like bright green snakes.

You stare wide-eyed at the serpents, just for a moment. You must run again, and yet you feel as if there is no point.

You turn around and meet your reason, his violet eyes seem to glow.

You decide to resign yourself to your failure: a single wrong turn. You step forward, refusing to let him back you into a corner, at least for now.

You can see his frown as he approaches you with quick strides. It must be genuine. You almost regret all that you’ve done in life.

He’s close to you now, just inches away. He doesn’t seem angry, like you had feared. You share a glance for a moment, it’s hard to say what he’s thinking. He knew that it would come to this, he had probably noticed the subtle changes in your behaviour.

“Do you understand what you’re doing?” he asks, quietly. His words bring a sinking feeling to your chest.

“Fyodor, I —” you falter slightly, and he cuts you off.

“You’re making a mistake,” he says, “that’s what you’re doing.” His tone, still quiet, is imbued with a subtle anger. His words seem to pierce your heart like a needle.

You roughly bite the tip of your thumb, a habit you had picked up from him. It’s true that you became more like the person you were with.

“I know why you’re leaving,” he continues. “you don’t see the merit in the things I do. You never really have I suppose. There is so much I wish to do for the world and its people. I’ve told you before, the deaths of few will better the lives of many. It’s logic, my dear. I will create the promised land, and the good will flourish.”

“Would you like to hear what I think?” you say. He continues to stare at you, a frown still etched on his face. You take this as reason to continue.

“Perhaps in your eyes I’m selfish, but I can’t stand the thought of you killing anymore. I don’t want you to hurt yourself like that. I don’t want you to fall deeper into your own despair until there’s no goodness left in you. I see it all the time, how wonderful you are. You’re ruining yourself, tearing yourself apart! Screw the happiness of the world! I want you to be happy! I was hoping that this would all end quickly, that afterwards we would settle down and I could forget about it all. I’ve realized now that there’s nothing to hope for, that nothing will satisfy you but perfection. The world and the people in it will never be perfect Fyodor, and you’ll just keep expending all your energy on this useless venture until you rot. I don’t want that for you. I don’t.”

He’s still staring at you, so you wonder if you should keep speaking. However, you know you won’t convince him. He’s too far gone, as they say.

“I hope you’ll understand one day, Fyodor. I hope you’ll realize that people don’t have to be enlightened, that salvation is not possible without sin. I’ll always love you… Despite your faults and all the terrible things you’ve done and will do, I’ll always love you. It’s for the best that I leave. I’d like to have more good memories of you than bad, I don’t wish to see you sink further into your deeds. I’ll miss you… always.” you say.

You can feel yourself crying now. Calm warm tears run slowly down your cheeks. You feel as if you must look away from him. He says nothing for a few moments, though they feel much longer than they should.

Fyodor approaches you slowly, you can see his feet moving towards you. You make no movement, you’re not sure if you can. His arms wrap around you, and he pulls you into a hug. Somehow, he always manages to feel cold to you.

“I can’t say I didn’t know that it might come to this.” Fyodor whispers. It occurs to you that he’s never once raised his voice at you.

Fyodor begins to stroke your hair, his fingers slowly removing its knots formed by the wind. His finger tips feel soft against your scalp.

“You considered what would happen if you tried to leave like this, didn’t you? I cannot allow you to meet with them, the detectives. Did you really think that they could stop me? That they could help you save me from myself, if we put it more in your terms?” Fyodor asks, and you wonder why you’re crying more. Perhaps there is no hope for him, you think.

You choke out a sob, though you try to hold it back. You hope he won’t be sad. “I thought there might be a chance. Though not anymore, right?” you manage through your tears.

“I’ve accepted my fate,” you continue, “perhaps we’ll meet again… in a better world.”

He pulls away slightly to see your face, he’s smiling sadly. You had never seen such sorrow on his face before, but it’s gone in a second.

Fyodor leans forward to kiss you one last time. His lips are cold, and despite their pressure against your’s, he makes no move to bite your lips as is his usual. It’s a strange kiss, one that you wish you could be frozen in for an eternity.

As he pulls away you fight the urge to scream. You feel like throwing a fit and smashing your skull into the wall until it cracks. You wonder if the feeling comes from regret, from grief, or if Freud was right about Thanatos. You begin to tremble, you wish you wouldn’t.

Fyodor stares at you with a strange warmth in his eyes. You continue to restrain the screams you wish to produce.

You take a deep breath before speaking again, hoping for composure. “G-goodbye Fyodor… I love you.” your voice shakes with your form.

“Rest well my love,” Fyodor replies, “the world will be made better in your memory. прощай.” *

With this final word Fyodor lays your soul to rest. His finger is all it takes for your blood to flow outwards, spattering onto his clothes and face; Fyodor pays it no mind. He cradles your old form in his arms, it’s heavier than when you were held within it.

There’s an aching he can’t explain, it has been building in his heart since he realized that you had finally left. Fyodor hasn’t cried since childhood, though he almost feels as if he will now.

The inevitable had finally occurred. Someone as pure as you, one he did not deserve, would have never stayed, he thinks.

Fyodor is shaking slightly now, perhaps your trembling had transferred to him. He wonders if now, without anything to tether him to this world, he can fully sacrifice his morality and soul to better it.

He must repress it once again, he realizes, the grief that comes with death. He must move forward. The body’s eyes look dull now, so he presses them shut.

He’s not sure if he can give you a proper funeral. He’s not sure if he has the time. Fyodor recalls words from the past; hymns spoken and chanted at past processions. There’s comfort in them, despite their sadness.

Fyodor takes a deep breath, attempting to calm himself before he speaks them. “With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of Thy servant where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting.” **

For you, Fyodor would create the promised land. There was nothing more he could live for.

-

* Proshchay. Literally “forgive me”, but used as a goodbye. Implies that one doesn’t expect to see the other again in their lifetime. (source: Mango languages (I’m learning Russian and it fit…))

** The Kontakion of the Dead. A hymn used in Orthodox funerals and memorial services