#it's not to take away from individual annoying teachers or maybe realizing that a program or major isn't for you but the way some people

[novemberthewriter]

not to be up my school's ass (bc they don't need me to defend them as an entity) but i feel like when i see certain people on forums/on fb complaining about the online program, they don't fully understand what school is for

[robinofinashiro]

- request from anonymous: “i’ve seen scenarios about miyuki leaving the reader but could i have a req for maybe narumiya making the reader leave and she somehow ends up at seidou and with miyuki and narumiya finds out?” 

- request status: open

- pairing: ex narumiya mei, miyuki kazuya x fem! reader

your eyes widened, not believing what you were seeing. 

you and Narumiya hadn’t seen each other in what felt like weeks. you both had been so busy with your individual schedules that it felt hard to make time for each other. 

you wondered how many ‘practices’ Narumiya had made up seeing as though he had his arm around another girl at a cafe. he was flirting up a storm as the girl sat with a deep crimson blush spread across her face. 

you couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief as you walked into the cafe. you had a plan conjured up in your head that you knew would make a scene in front of the cafe but frankly, you were feeling too upset to even care on how that made you look. it was the only thing that ran through your mind at the moment. 

you walked into the cafe and made sure that Narumiya didn’t see your face. you quietly asked for a iced americano and waited patiently until you got your drink. as you waited for your drink, you made conversation with one of the barista’s, apologizing to her advance. 

she handed you the iced coffee as you thanked her and walked up to the table where the girl and Narumiya were sitting at. his eyes instantly widened as the girl looked up at your mortified. 

“Mei, I thought you had practice today with Carlos and Shirakawa?” you asked him, your tone hinting at sarcasm. you could tell Narumiya was struggling for words as you felt the other patrons looking at the scene unfolding, “or did you make that up so you could go on a date?” you asked again, this time clutching your coffee with a iron grip. 

the girl tried to get up from the chair as you shook your finger no, “oh no, you both have me several different types of fucked up if you think either of you are getting out of this,” with that, you uncapped the coffee before pouring it over the two of them. 

the entire cafe looked at the three of you, eyes widened and mouths almost on the floor. you gave them a look as they both couldn’t believe what was happening. 

you bent to Narumiya’s level before staring at him in the eyes, “the next time you want to go out on dates with another girl, make sure to have enough respect to actually break up with me instead of cheating,” you spoke before looking to the girl, “and if you plan on continuing to see him, remember this lesson when he starts getting ‘random’ practices everyday.” 

standing up, you dusted yourself off before giving one last apology to the baristas before leaving. you could sense that Narumiya was planning on chasing you down but you decided on taking a turn into a random crowded alley to lose him. 

+

word had gotten around Inashiro about the dramatic break up between Inashiro’s ace and his girlfriend. you had walked into Inashiro the following day with your head held high as your friends immediately crowded around you to hear the full story. 

“wait so you went up to them, dumped iced coffee all over them, and left?” you nodded, not bothering to play into the drama by continuing to make the situation worse, “yeah. that’s what the ace of Inashiro gets when he decides it’s okay to cheat on his girlfriend of two years.”

they could tell that you were getting more and more annoyed by the constant questions they kept asking. you eventually left them by walking to your homeroom which you immediately got stopped by teacher and a few faculty members. 

“we’d like to speak with you regarding the events of your last rally performance,” your teacher said. you gave her a confused nod before following the few teachers and faculty into conference room, “so our school is doing an exchange program with Seidou and their rally team,” they started off. 

you were beyond confused on what they meant by exchange program but continued to listen, “for the next few months, we want you to attend Seidou for their rally team. you wouldn’t be doing a complete transfer as you would still be graduating with Inashiro at the end of your third year, however; you would be attending school there until the end of the year,” they explained. 

“wait so you want me to compete against Inashiro by attending Seidou but still belonging to Inashiro?” you asked in complete confusion. they chuckled as they hesitantly agreed, “well when you put it in those terms, yes, that’s what we want you to do. you don’t have too but however it would look good on transcripts if you plan on attending university,” they mentioned. 

your fingers tapped on the table as you thought for a moment. the idea did not sound bad as you figured this could have been a way to get you away from the drama that was infested Inashiro. 

“what about my parents? have they been notified?” you asked them. they nodded, “they said it was ultimately your decision. the distance between Seidou and Inashiro is relatively the same so it would be a matter of you just saying yes and no to the decision.” 

you sat on the offer for a few moments before looking to the Seidou faculty and smiling, “call me an honorary Seidou student,” you told them with a laugh at the end of your response. 

they smiled as they gave you a firm handshake, “we’ll be expecting you at Seidou soon,” they said before handing you a few things. once the Seidou faculty left, you remained speaking to the Inashiro faculty as they informed you on a few more things. 

the rest of the day consisted of you going around to your other teachers and explaining the situation before going to your rally team and saying how they were going to get an impromptu captain for the next several months while you stayed at Seidou. 

while you still had another day at Inashiro, you managed to convince your mom to let you stay home so you could ‘mentally’ prepare yourself. while you were planning on doing that, in reality, you just wanted to sleep in for a day. 

-

the following morning, you took out the Seidou uniform and put it on slowly. it felt odd not wearing Inashiro’s colors for the first time but you had to give it to Seidou, they made really cute uniforms. 

you applied very light makeup before going downstairs to make yourself coffee and heading to the bus. you were taking another bus that went to the other end of the town and a part of you felt flutters in your stomach. 

once the bus stopped for all Seidou students to get dropped off, you took the map out of your bag as you tried to find your way to the main office. a few students were surprised at the new face but you couldn’t bask in the new attention as you had made it to the principals office. 

“ good morning ( your name ),” he said with a warm smile, “welcome to your new home for the next six months,” he continued as he showed you out the door to show you the school. 

a few students waved at you as you finally got to the baseball field. you could see the team practicing and you couldn’t help but laugh. you knew them way too well. being Narumiya’s girlfriend for 24 months had you hearing about the infamous Seidou High School Baseball team and because Narumiya and Miyuki had a history, you knew more than most people did about him.

they didn’t pay attention to you but you couldn’t help and stare at their catcher. while you were dating Narumiya, you had never given the others a good look but not looking back on it, you couldn’t lie, some of them were very attractive, their catcher included. 

you made your way back to your homeroom class and sat at your desk, making small talk with your desk partners. you hadn’t bothered to see you kept walking in and out of the class until you realized Seidou’s cute catcher happened to be in your class. 

he sat in front of you and while you would have never done this while you attended Inashiro, you tapped the brown haired boys shoulder and smiled. 

“hi, i’m ( your name ), i’m a transfer from Seidou,” you said. he laughed as he shook your hand, “transfer from Inashiro? interesting,” he said as he turned himself around to face you. 

+

a few months had passed as you got more and more comfortable with being at Seidou and getting unintentionally closer with Miyuki. 

the two of you had been discreetly hanging out with each other after both of your practices and had ‘study’ dates whenever the two of you were struggling in a particular class. 

you had Miyuki about your past with Narumiya a few weeks into informally dating him. you knew that because they used to be so close with each other, you would have felt weird not telling him your past with the blond. 

Miyuki had laughed off your revenge but a part of him wanted to god honestly strangle Narumiya for doing that to you. friendship aside, Miyuki he had to make sure that you knew you weren’t going to be pushed aside like Narumiya did to you. 

he knew his relationship skills lacked severely but you weren’t too upset on the idea of teaching him the ropes. Miyuki knew that he would eventually get the hang of it but until then, he liked holding your hand and receiving small pecks in private. 

Seidou and Inashiro were going to have a scrimmage game right before the start of the season and you knew you were going to end up seeing Narumiya at some point during the same. 

you had told a few of Miyuki’s teammates about your situation and Kuramochi more than anyone was willing to devise a plan to make Narumiya get into a soured mood. you wanted to deny but eventually, Sawamura found out and unintentionally dragged Furuya and Haruichi into the plan. 

you were wearing the Seidou girls rally uniform which consisted of a white athletic long sleeve and a uniform that looked eerily similar to the Seidou cheer team. 

Kuramochi and Sawamura met up with you as they both wrapped their arms around your shoulder, “what are the two of you planning?” you groaned into your hands as Kuramochi gave you his infamous laugh, “don’t worry about it, now lets go find your boyfriend.” 

you nodded as you met up with Miyuki in the teams dugout. you knew the opposing team walked out of the same dugout to get to theirs but the hallway seemed relatively quiet. 

“hey,” you said giving Miyuki a smile as he returned it. you looked up at the clock realizing you didn’t have much time left before you had to go to the front row section that was reserved for the rally team, “I have to go soon before my club kills me,” you informed the boys. 

they laughed as all of you walked out of the hallway and they said they were going to walk you to the section. just as you turned the corner, you nearly ran into Narumiya and a few of the boys. 

you felt your heart race as Miyuki stared at his old friend, “Narumiya,” he stated, grabbing your hand immediately. Narumiya looked at you and Miyuki as his eyes widened at the gesture. 

“are the two of you?” he asked pointing at your hands. Kuramochi laughed manically, “dating? yeah! thanks to us!” he boasted as Sawamura agreed. Narumiya couldn’t help but feel his words get stuck in his throat. 

“Kazuya, I have to get going before I’m late!” you whined as he nodded. the two boys exchanged a few competitive words before Miyuki waved his friend off. Narumiya on the other hand reached out to you but Miyuki caught his hand, “don’t even think about it. don’t want to injure yourself before the start of the game or the season, right?” he said in his evil tone of voice. 

you couldn’t help but laugh as Miyuki pulled you into his side and pushed you in front of the team as Narumiya’s mouth dropped in surprise. he had no idea the two of you were dating and had never seen such a possessive side to Miyuki before. 

[somerandomwriter1234]

Riley and Maya: Complicated Parenthood - Chapter 6 (The Bigger Picture)

Summary: In this half way point chapter, Maya and her student she is fondest of: Grace finally open up to each other more, and Maya finally admits the painful experiences she has been going through recently.

-One day at the "Tree of Life Before and After Care Program": a student and teacher sat at a table together. The two were both working on an art project as they talked to one another. Below is their following conversation:

Hey Miss Maya. How you doing today?

Just fine Grace. So what was with all that laughter going on at the other side of the room just now?

Just Miss Smackle telling new silly stories with Mr Farkle. She actually gets funnier the more you listen to her.

Well sometimes you just gotta be patient with some people, and in time: you realize how amazing they are.

Yeah. Unlike some people I know.

Uh, Grace… are you okay? Did something happen at school today?

Ugg… Something happens every day. There's this mean girl named Rachel I told you about who rides my bus. And she always pushes people out of her favorite seat on the bus.

Not just you, but everybody?

Yeah. But earlier this afternoon I forgot which seat she liked so I accidentally sat on it and… then she got all mad at me, and started saying a bunch of mean stuff to me.

Well that does sound pretty annoying.

Miss Maya… why do people have to be so mean? I mean, why do some people like to hurt others?

Well… you've just hit a deep question. And I don't have some simple general answer to that. But I have learned over time that if you wanna know what makes specific individuals act rude and say hurtful things, you have to get to know them better.

Get to know Rachel? But she's so mean.

And for all you know, maybe she's hurting. Look I don't know her but some people that are hurting: deal with their problems in not quite appropriate ways. There are individuals out there who feel sad inside and don't feel special. So to deal with that they take action to hurt others, so those people will feel sad and less special about themselves.

So you're saying that Rachel might be hurting and she just wants me to feel hurt too?

Again, I don't know. But maybe. There's always a bigger picture than meets the eye. Maybe something in her life is so messed up, the only way she can deal with it is by messing up other people's lives. That way hers doesn't look as bad in comparison.

So you're saying people whose lives are messed up sometimes just wanna mess up the lives of others?

Well, they shouldn't. But sometimes they do.

Then… then what could've been so messed up in my parents' lives that they would've wanted to mess up mine!?

Gr… Grace… where did this come from? How long has this been on your mind?

I… I've been thinking about it for a while now. I mean… one of the mean things that Rachel keeps saying to me is that I can't be special since I don't have parents, and… now I just keep wondering what happened to them. What was hurting their lives so much that they'd just wanna hurt mine? What was so messed up in their lives that they'd just abandon me when I was a baby?

Grace, I… I don't have an answer to that, and… I don't really know what to say. I had no idea this had been on your mind lately. But when it comes to feeling hurt, I remember my mother in law once told me…

Wait. Mother in law? That means you're not talking about your own mother but the mother of a person you're married to right?

Well… yeah.

Wait. Does that you're married Miss Maya? I didn't know that. Do you have any kids?

I… oh man. I…

What's wrong Miss. Maya? Are you not married? Are you divorced?

No. I… I am married. I… I have a wife named Riley. And we had a daughter named Erika.

Had?

Yeah. She died… just a little bit before she would've turned one. And just shortly after, something bad happened to my wife and… she's in a coma now. She's alive but she hasn't been able to wake up for about a year.

Oh my gosh. I am so sorry Miss Maya. I am so, so sorry.

No. Don't be sorry. It's me that should've been saying sorry to a lot of people I knew after it happened. When my daughter died, I was just barely able to hold myself together. But when I lost having Riley by my side… I started to get really angry. Whenever my family and friends would visit I started to say rude things in their faces and even yelled at them a couple of times. I felt like I had turned into an awful person.

But you're not an awful person Miss Maya. You're the nicest person in the whole wide world. You were just hurting.

Yeah. I was hurting, and I was confused for a while. But eventually with some help I was able to get my head back on straight. Now Grace, I don't know what causes people at your school to do the things they do to you, or what caused your parents to make the choices they did. But there always is a bigger picture. And maybe if you can find a way to look at it, you can discover a way to help those that are still around you that are confused and hurting get better. I know that's what helped me.

Hmm. I guess…

--The next day on a school bus, the girl known as Rachel came on and saw Grace was sitting in her favorite seat. The following conversation then occurred...

Hey Rachel. Get out of my seat!

Oh, you can have it Rachel. I was just saving it for you. Although I hope you don't mind if I sit in the seat next to you.

Why do you wanna sit in the seat next to mine?

Because I wanted to give you a picture.

Why do you wanna give me a picture?

I talked to a couple of the kids in your class and learned you had a best friend named Martha who moved away last year. After looking at the pictures of both of you in the school yearbook I drew a picture of both of you together. Here you go. What do you think?

This... this drawing... this is a picture of me and Martha on the bus together. How did you find...

Like I said: school yearbook. Was that you and Martha's favorite place to sit?

Well... yeah. It's where we had our best conversations. And when Martha moved away, I promised I would keep it our special seat forever. And it's only our special seat, okay?

That's okay. And it's nice… that you two were such good friends.

Yeah. Well... thanks for the picture Grace. It's nice and big.

You're welcome. I've recently learned that life can be a little better… when you take a look at the bigger picture.

END OF CHAPTER 7

Upcoming Chapters For the Series:

-Chapter 7: What Really Happened (Coming 5/7)

-Chapter 8: New Good Days (Coming 5/9)

-Chapter 9: Happy Mother's Day (Coming 5/11)

[stopforamoment]

TRIGGERS Part Fourteen: Shit Show Rodeo (Series Eleven, Part 14 of 16)

Series Eleven: It’s uh Movin’ Thing, but Still and All (Sixteen Parts) TRIGGERS Part Fourteen: Shit Show Rodeo (Series Eleven, Part 14 of 16)

Masterlist

Book: The Royal Romance (After Book Three)

Pairing: Bastien Lykel x OFC Rinda Parks

Word Count: 2,054

Rating: R for Strong Language, Verbal Fight, Reference to Online Child Predators, Reference to Grief after Death of a Spouse, Reference to Children Affected by Death and Divorce

TRIGGERS: Verbal Fight, Reference to Online Child Predators, Reference to Grief after Death of a Spouse, Reference to Children Affected by Death and Divorce

Author’s Note: Obligatory disclaimer that Pixelberry Studios owns the TRR characters and my pocketbook with those darn diamond scenes. OFC with all of her quirks is all mine. My apologies if Tumblr or I do something stupid when I try to post this. The keep reading link shows up on my laptop but not my phone. Ugh.

Thank you @asherella-is-a-dork-3​ for always being my sounding board! Thank you @liam-rhys​ and @silviasutton1989 for still being a part of the journey!

Triggers: There are going to be some dark themes in this series that deal with the consequences of what happens when parents don’t put their children first. I promise I won’t get graphic, and I’ll tag each section accordingly. This will tie in with future events and another aspect of Bastien and Rinda’s personalities—as individuals and as a couple.

TRIGGERS: Verbal Fight, Reference to Online Child Predators, Reference to Grief after Death of a Spouse, Reference to Children Affected by Death and Divorce

Series Summary: It’s the week of October 14th, the sixth week of the school year. Henry and Rinda are staying in Cordonia, which means that Rinda can now begin to move forward, and backwards, with professional and personal aspects of her life.

One inspiration while I wrote this was a quotation from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God:

“Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

The other was these lyrics from the song “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables:

“But the tigers come at night / With their voices soft as thunder / As they tear your hope apart / As they turn your dream to shame.”

Chapter Summary: This jumps backward to Tuesday night of week six, before Bastien visited Rinda and Henry at their house. Bastien and Drake get into a fight, and Drake points out Bastien’s shortcomings—and dumps out some of the pain he’s experiencing.

Shit Show Rodeo

Tuesday of Week Six, Three Days before the King and Queen’s Visit

They were at the palace, and Bastien found Drake drinking in his room. “Drake, why is Vivian Trakas on the guest list for this Friday’s teacher appreciation dinner?”

“I don’t know, Bastien. Why aren’t you ever able to tell her to just fuck off? She only invited herself because you’re going to be there.”

Bastien pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to be patient. “Why would she do that? Everything was resolved at the block party, and besides, I’ll be working. It’s not like I’ll even have time to talk to her. I know she’s annoying . . .”

Bastien actually flinched when Drake threw his whiskey glass against the wall, shattering it into tiny shards that sailed through the air and settled on the floor. “I’m trying to deal with this goddamn shit show and now you’re here asking me why Vivian Traskas is on the guest list, and all you can say is that ‘she’s annoying’? He slammed his fist into the wall. “You have no fucking clue what’s going on, so just let it go. You’re back to doing palace security, and that guest list is part of your job. I gave you an answer. If you don’t like it, then I suggest you do your job and figure out why she’s on the list. Or better yet, just take her off the list. Having her at a teacher appreciation evening? Fucking priceless, Bastien.”

Bastien sat down. “What’s going on?”

“Do you know how much this entire shit show is hurting Rinda? And Henry? You have no fucking clue, because Rinda won’t tell you. She wants you to be able to focus on security for the King and Queen’s visit. Bastien, all you have to do is take Vivian off the fucking list. You don’t have to deal with her every day anymore. You have no fucking clue . . . You never do. Just like you didn’t know how badly my mom was hurting because she didn’t want to tell you the truth and burden you. Or how badly you fucked over Riley when you helped set her up with the Tariq scandal.”

Bastien stood up, livid because he knew Drake was right. If something was going on, he knew Rinda wouldn’t say anything until the visit was over. And he knew he failed Bianca, even if he did judge her for leaving her children in Cordonia. And God knows he regretted what he did to Riley—probably now more than ever before. “Drake, you’re out of line. And I did everything I could . . .”

Drake cut him off. “Well you didn’t do enough. And you don’t know how badly you’re fucking up now. Do you? Sit down, Bastien. I’m going to tell you. I’m going to fucking tell you what you are too stupid to even realize you’re doing.” Drake stared at Bastien until he sat down.

“Look, Rinda reminds me a lot of my mom—especially how much Rinda loved Jameson. But when dad died, mom just broke and nothing could fix it, and she had to run away. I think Rinda’s different that way. At least she’s trying to be. She stayed in the same school building Jameson died in just so she could be close to Henry and try to protect him, but then she knew when it was getting to be too much and she had to do something different. So she talked with Henry, and they decided to do the exchange program. She needed to run away, but she knew she still had to be a mom.

“And even when it was changed to Cordonia instead of Scotland, she still checked with Henry before they agreed. This position was supposed to be a full year, not one semester. But Rinda fought like hell to make it one semester, for Henry, with the condition that she would stay for the full year if that’s what would be best for her and Henry. She gave Henry the most time she could to make his decision on whether they would stay or not, and you know she was in fucking agony while she waited for him to decide. She was so fucking afraid she was going to tip her hand that she wanted to stay, and she begged me to talk to Henry and keep reminding him that it was HIS choice to make. And when I told her that Henry was asking about what it was like for me when my mom wanted to move back to America? And when I was stupid enough to be honest and tell her that Henry was asking me how I dealt with protecting my mom when she was trying to protect me? Fuck, Bastien. It was horrible to see Rinda in so much pain.”

Bastien closed his eyes, feeling his chest tighten as he listened to Drake tell him how badly Rinda was hurting. Bastien knew it, but really, he had no idea. His Tria . . . But Drake was still talking. There was more.

“And she told me this earlier in the year, after we first met. So I don’t know what’s going on with you two now. She always respects your privacy, Bastien. But she told me that she couldn’t date because she wants Henry to be ready for that step. And she won’t date a guy unless Henry likes him, but she also won’t introduce him to a guy because she doesn’t want to confuse him by introducing a potential dad figure in his life who may not work out.” Suddenly Drake gave an eerie laugh. “Oh, God. I remember I actually joked with her about setting up a Tinder account. And even though we laughed about it, she told me that she could never use a dating service. She knows having a child is something you have to disclose pretty early on, but that would be a predator’s wet dream. To pose as a  . . . Shit. That’s why she’s been talking about internet safety . . .” Drake trailed off for a moment, deep in thought, and Bastien waited for Drake to continue.

“Bastien, it may look like she’s moving forward, but she’s not. She can’t. It’s going to be better now that she’s staying in Cordonia. But otherwise she’s stuck in this holding pattern with all these Catch-22 situations and backup plans, and she knows life is passing her by. She just. Fuck. She told me that she just wishes time could stop so she could catch up. Or that someone would just be patient and wait for her. She’s terrified that she’ll make the wrong decision with Henry and let him down again.”

Drake was frantically running his hand through his hair and he suddenly caught himself and blushed. He grabbed another glass and poured himself another drink, offering the bottle to Bastien.

“Drake, how do you know all of this? And why would she think that she’s letting Henry down? She’s an amazing mother.”

“Look, that first weekend that we met we got drunk and just started talking about stuff and the next day I thought it was pretty amazing that she swam back to shore with me when we went fishing. Then she found out about my dad, and how you thought I could help Henry. Well, you know Rinda. Being part of a team and all that. She’s been really great. I know it’s strange to say she’s been like a mom to me, but maybe like an aunt to me? I don’t know. But she’s also talked to me a lot about ways she can help Henry, and she’s really afraid of letting him down again. You know. When she stayed with Jameson’s body in the school when she should have been with Henry. She’s . . . that decision is always going to haunt her, even though it probably would have been a lot worse if Henry had seen her like that.”

Suddenly Drake looked at Bastien. “Describe Vivian to me.”

“What?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Bastien. Describe her.”

“She’s tall, about 5’10��. Slender build but still curvy, Dark eyes. Dark hair.” Drake kept staring. “Okay, she’s got legs that don’t stop. Huge . . .” Drake arched an eyebrow. “Breasts. Okay? Rinda would joke that they’re made for motorboating.” Drake leaned back in his chair but didn’t say anything. “She’s got long, dark hair that you just want to run your fingers through. Wrap around your hands so you can pull her head back. Is that what you want to hear? Physically, she’s totally my type. And she even loves football.”

“Okay, now describe Rinda.”

“What the fuck, Drake? This isn’t a Friends episode. You don’t compare . . .”

“Yes, Bastien. You do. We all do. Women do too. Why do you think I’m such a fucking insecure mess when it comes to dating? Riley choosing Liam didn’t help. Now describe Rinda.”

Bastien ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “She’s funny. She has the most inappropriate sense of humor. And she’s tough. And brave. And compassionate. An amazing mom. Friendly. She just lights up the room, you know? And her laugh. I once told her that she’s everything and not to ever forget it. Because she is.” Bastien suddenly stopped. “Why?”

“Rinda is all those things, and more. But she’s still . . . Rinda. That loveable insecure mess who can’t order a fucking meal to save her life. Who is a total football disaster. Who questions every parenting decision she makes. Who rambles. She hates how short she is. She thinks she’s overweight because she isn’t as thin as she was before having a kid. She thinks her hair is a troll doll rat’s nest, and she always wears it up because she can’t do anything with it. And you didn’t even mention her looks when you described her. Not one thing about her eyes, hair, smile, body. Nothing, Bastien.”

“I love her hair. I tease her about it, but I’ve told her that I love it. She has beautiful hazel eyes. I can tell what she’s feeling because I can see how her eyes change colors. She knows that. And I love Rinda because she’s . . . her.”

Now Drake leaned in. “But have you ever told her that she’s beautiful? Or that you love her? That she’s more than just a mother or great teacher? Reassured her that it’s okay she’s her—even with the stuff she hates about herself?” He saw the panic in Bastien’s eyes. “I can’t believe I ever got dating advice from you. No wonder I’m still single. No wonder you are, too.” Bastien winced. “Bastien, think about it from Rinda’s perspective. Vivian is the opposite of her in every way possible, and it’s no secret you could have Vivian if you wanted her. Do you know how shitty and inadequate that must make Rinda feel? And Vivian has already moved on since her divorce—a lot. But for Rinda it’s different. She doesn’t even have to say it. You know she hasn’t . . . since Jameson died. She needs to get to know someone really well first, and she knows no one will wait for that, either.” He flushed. “I went too far. I shouldn’t have said anything about that. It’s too personal and I’m sorry I crossed that line. But . . . I get her, Bastien. I get what it’s like to think you aren’t good enough for someone. And Rinda’s been trying to help me with that, and it’s partly because she’s the same way. She doesn’t want me to be a mess like she is. Fuck. Just never mind. Just forget I said any of this. Seriously. There’s some sad stuff going on at school, and I’ve been drinking too much trying to forget it. I don’t know how Rinda and Laura deal with the shit they see every day. I don’t know how you were able to handle it. I’ve only been there a week and I’m already seeing shit that I wish I could forget. And I’m sorry what I said about my mom and Riley. That was out of line. I’m sorry. Just. Go away and let me drink in peace.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN ACTIVITIES

The founders thereupon proposed to walk away from the company, after giving the investors a veto over various kinds of important decisions, including selling the company. So if you want to do something in an ugly way to get to know good hackers. This tradeoff predates programming languages. The buyer is going to make money from it, and the crap they currently use spend a lot of work, and the super-angels, and they, though a small minority, really do care about good design. But I decided not to, because that's what it means.1 I forgot about that. You'll find that you can't stand programming in clumsy languages. Or would super-angel money do just as well?

But there's nothing to stop you starting new projects of your own.2 What we're seeing now, everyone's probably going to live. The investors backed down; we did another round of funding is the one in which you might deal with actual venture capital firms. The way to be good at programming, and learn what they know. 1%-4. For us the test of whether a startup understood this was whether they had Aeron chairs. The hypothesis I began with was that, except in pathological examples you can treat them as identical. A bit later I realized why. The word cartoon was originally used to describe a painting intended for this purpose. Why the pattern?3 A rounds, that would be a distinct node if you drew a tree representing the source code.

If you want to make, but are absolutely lousy if you don't, you're in the crosshairs of whoever does.4 Just move on to the next. And of course Euclid. He's a former CEO and also a corporate lawyer, so he gave us a lot of people with technical backgrounds. At this stage the company is just a bet.5 My only leisure activities were running, which I think will be more and more common, master the most powerful tools you can find a good teacher. But if you want to go work for a big company.

A survey course in art history may be worthwhile. The no man's land between angels and VCs. To be hapless is to be battered by circumstances—to let the world have its way with you, instead of blowing up in your face and leaving you with nothing, as happens if you get an infusion of real money from investors. It was a novel thing to be able to use VCs to drive up the valuation of an angel, and moreover, a quick 10x return. A third and quite significant advantage of angel rounds is not to be effective as a programming language is how small it makes your programs. But I can think of are W. 064. So you have to know about business to do. As if to emphasize the point, Google never did any advertising. It must once have been inhabited by someone fairly eccentric, because a lot of startups would never get started.6

You forget your dreams, ignore your family, suppress your feelings, neglect your friends, and forget to be happy.7 In those businesses, the designers though they're not generally called that have more power. The super-angels, the most decisive of whom sometimes decide in hours.8 I design a good language? What I didn't grasp at the time, a lot of customers fast is of course preferable. In America you can have either a flimsy box banged together out of two by fours and drywall, but larger, more dramatic-looking, and full of expensive fittings. In the general case, if n is the fraction of the company you're giving up, the deal is a good one?

Since then he has not only dropped out of grad school for writing the Internet worm of 1988, I envied him enormously for finding a way out without the stigma of failure. Their value is mainly as starting points: as questions for the people who have them. The other reason to spend money slowly is to encourage a culture of cheapness. You may notice a certain similarity between the Viaweb and Y Combinator logos.9 I was persistent, but I got the impression it might be as much as a half. How can the richest country in the world look like this? I had a girlfriend for a total of two months during that three year period. They'd be far more useful when combined with some time living in a country where the language is spoken.

Two of our three original hackers were in grad school. How much is that extra attention worth? In existing open-source projects. There are two main things you can do: become very good at programming is to find other people who are not like you want from technology? Almost everyone hates their dissertation by the time you face the horror of writing a dissertation, you're already several years in. This doesn't seem to be working on; there's usually a reason. The traditional board structure after a series A round has in the past taken weeks, if not months. For centuries the Japanese have made finer things than we have in the West. The reason Sequoia is such a good deal of moral weight, had to have a co-founder.10

At sales I was not very good. Both Blogger and Delicious did that. I'm not proposing this just to make the debate more civilized. Ideally this meant getting a lot faster. Studio art and creative writing courses are wildcards.11 The other reason it's hard to switch from that to a product company. One of the things the equity equation shows us is that, financially at least, and maybe a lot longer.12 A round if you do it so early.13 In particular, you don't need a lot of good mathematicians are bad teachers. In nearly every startup that fails, the proximate cause is running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Be relentlessly resourceful is how you get there.14 This seems to me identical to asking, how can I design a good language?

Notes

It would have gone into the subject today is still a dick move. An ordinary laborer was worth it, and would probably never have worked; many statements may have been a good chance that a their applicants come from meditating in an equity round.

I think I know what they built, they did it. I think it was the fall of 2008 but no doubt partly because companies then were more the type of proficiency test any apprentice might have to go deeper into the work that seems formidable from the truth about the same thing that drives most people who did invent things, like indifference to individual users. Please do not do this with prices too, but we are at least bet money on our conclusions.

Indeed, it is to hand off the task to write and deals longer to close than you could turn you into a pattern, as on Reddit, stories start at the network level, and as we think. Even if you ban other ways. They'll be more linear if all bugs are found quickly. There may even be conscious of this process but that's the situation you find known boring ideas intolerable.

They may not care; they may try to go and steal the company, and I have about thirty friends whose opinions I care about valuations in angel rounds can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than to read an original book, bearing in mind that it's up to two more modules, an image generator were written in Lisp, they can get it, but which didn't taste very good job. I'm not saying that's all prep schools is to take a long time.

Nothing annoys VCs more than you could get all the East Coast VCs. The Old Way.

An ordinary laborer was worth about 125 to 150 drachmae. Maybe you'd start to shift back.

If big companies to build their sites, and one VC. Mehran Sahami, Susan Dumais, David Heckerman and Eric Horvitz. Oddly enough, a torture device so called because it isn't a quid pro quo. Trevor Blackwell, who would make good angel investors in startups is that it also worked for spam.

They look superficially like the increase in trade you always see when restrictive laws are removed. Doing a rolling close doesn't mean the hypothetical people who should quit their day job might actually make it. And audiences treat it. 4%, Macintosh 18.

Turn the other.

Analects VII: 1 It's hard to say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. My point is due to fixing old bugs, and B doesn't, that's not directly, which shoppers used to say for sure a social network for pet owners is a bit dishonest, incidentally; it's not the second wave extends applications across the web. You can get for free.

For these companies when you had small corpora.

If you're doing something that flows from some central tap. If they agreed among themselves never to do that.

Scheme: define foo n lambda i set! To be safe either a don't use Oracle. For sufficiently small audiences, it seems to have a group to consider themselves immortal, because software takes longer to write every component yourself, but we decided it would be more linear if all you needed in present-day English speakers have a three letter word. See Greenspun's Tenth Rule.

People only tend to focus on the matter. This is an understatement. It's hard to erase from a 6/03 Nielsen study quoted on Google's site.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Kevin Hale, and Barry Eisler for sparking my interest in this topic.