#me writing something less than 1000 words? hm! good. i'm learning.

[itgirlwife]

the one about puck's hair

summary: puck wakes up to malcolm counting their box braids.

ship: honeymoon suite | puck/malcolm

words: 639

notes: fluff, yes. malcolm is white.

Malcolm is mumbling something. 

The morning brain fog is too heavy to make out what he’s saying. He’s awake and he’s touching my hair. Braid by braid. That’s all I know. 

The sun comes into vision. The brain fog clears a bit. I hear numbers. “12, 13, 14…” Malcolm is counting something. What’s in front of him that he’s counting?

“What are you counting?” I ask groggily.

“Aw,” he says softly, kissing my shoulder, “you made me lose count.”

Fully awake, I turn to face him. “You were counting my braids, you weirdo?”

Malcolm has a reputation for doing things while I’m asleep. He’s shown me pictures he’d taken of me while I was sleeping. I’ve woken up to Squishmallows on my head. Books read to me, my nails painted; it’s nothing new.

“It’s not weird. I mean, do you know how many braids are in your hair?”

I shrug, “I can’t say that’s something I’ve thought about.”

He kisses my nose, “Exactly. I was thinking for you.”

“As you normally do.” I straighten out his bedhead with my fingers. He hums.

“Yeah. I do your thinking so much I deserve proper compensation.” He scoots closer, nuzzling his face into my neck, peppering kisses to the flesh.

“Do you take Kohl's Cash?” It’s hard not to laugh with his stubble tickling me.

He stops and smiles in my neck. “No, but I take kisses.”

Malcolm lifts his head to peck my lips softly, his lips still red and puffy from the night before. He pulls away with a smile.

“You got a little…” He gestures to my mouth, specifically the areas where my gloss had smudged. Embarrassed and annoyed, I wipe off the remains.

“Oh? The $30 lip gloss you smudged? Yeah, I know.”

He laughs and kisses me again, oblivious to the gloss on his lips. “Who spends $30 on a lip gloss anyway?”

“The hottest person you’ll ever meet.” I pull the duvet off my body, climbing out of bed.

“Guess I hit the jackpot, huh?”

“Yep, you sure did,” studying the floor, I pick up Malcolm’s button-down and slip it on. The shirt smells like him and me; vanilla and spice. 

“But seriously,” Malcolm continues, “they don’t tell you how many braids they put in your hair before they, y’know.” He makes a braiding gesture with his fingers.

“I don’t ask,” I shrug again, sitting at the foot of the bed. “Seems like a weird thing to ask anyway.”

Malcolm comes behind me, pulling my hair out of the shirt carefully. The braids fall down my back gently. I get goosebumps every time he touches it. I don’t have restrictions on who touches my hair, but if I did, Malcolm would be the only one with a golden ticket. I let him sit in during my hair appointment. About 2 hours in, he’d fallen asleep. When he woke up, my hair was done.

“Wow!” He whisper-shouted. He looked like he’d just seen a shooting star. “You look beautiful.” He moved to touch them, but I stepped back and shook my head. The braids were too tight.

Since then, I’ve had his help with styling and maintenance. He’s helped me put ribbons in my hair, put it in buns and ponytails for me (his favorite thing to do), and he reminds me to wrap them before I go to sleep. I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing it.

Malcolm kisses my cheek. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.” I felt the stickiness of my gloss when he pulled away. There’s a hint of cherry too.

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I get my hair done.”

“Don’t bother. That’s what you’ve got me for, right?” He caresses the braids before letting them fall down my back again. Braid by braid, once again, he goes back to counting.

[agapi-kalyptei]

the sequel to the 80/20 rule

"Remember Hofstader's rule: everything takes longer than you think it does, even when you account for Hofstader's rule"

Even without a strong parasocial relationship with her, it's comforting to see the How To ADHD lady grow older and more accomplished and talk about finishing writing a book. The quote above from a comment on that video reminded me of the rant I wanted to write about a few numbers that are actually useful in real life:

80/20

90/90

1 day for 2 minutes / 1 hour for 1 minute

10'000 hours

⁜

First, the classic 80/20. Some of my favorite applications include:

20% of your friends create 80% drama

80% of my art supplies and instruments collect 100% of the dust (was sad to see my viola go, but it was the only sane decision)

80% of your scrolling time adds (2)0% to your happiness

80% of your followers are inactive

20% of your mutuals actually could be RL friends

80% of the art you make can be unremarkable, but there will still be 20% of people who will think it speaks directly to their soul

20% of the things you learn can cause 80% of your growth

(with ADHD) the tasks that seem like 80% of your mental burden actually take only 20% of the energy (doing dishes, phone calls)

※

Second, there's a software development wisdom saying "the project/task is now 90% done... now for the other 90%".

While doing dishes might be hard to get started with for some of us, for the most part, the task progresses in a linear fashion - washing 20 plates takes about 4x more than washing 5 plates, give or take.

For tasks involving a lot of mental work, like art projects, product design, comedy, game development, I'd say that "the blessing is in the details". Think about how many jokes you can easily ruin by adding or removing just one word, or using just a few synonyms. Move one sentence around, add or remove a dramatic pause, and you can absolutely kill the pacing and punch of the joke.

Having the joke idea is 90% of the work. Flashing out the joke is another 90%. Having a "final draft" of your fiction, or your thesis before editor's review, a peer review or fact checking, is the first 90%. Having a youtube video "almost done, just a few things to iron out" means you still have many hours to go through everything, re-render it, re-re-review things, ask for a friend to review it with fresh eyes, find another mistake, etc.

There's a related rule, about multiplying estimates by their lack of detail. Let's say you come to me with the proposal to make "a new facebook". You say a few sentences of what is and isn't in the scope, give me your elevator pitch, I think "ok hm 20 developers, 4 years". But because we haven't ironed out so many things, I multiply it by ten, and tell you that number.

The smaller the scope and the more flashed out the details are, the less you multiply it. If you ask me to change a color of a button, I can say it's 10 minutes, give or take 50%. If you ask me to add polls to the site, I'll say it's a few months, give or take 50~400%.

⁂

Third is the rule of thumb TV and movie production goes by - expect to deliver 2 minutes of finished footage per day.

This of course varies by industry, country, budget, team size, production values etc. But it's important to have a humble but repeatable pace. For me, I find when editing 7-camera ERSO footage, it's about 1 hour for 1 minute of the result. (Assuming all the busy work and color grades have been done.)

Find your own rule of thumb. Maybe you can compose 1 minute of music in a week of work. It probably doesn't feel like enough. But maybe it's what you need to not burn out.

⁙

Fourth is the classic 10'000 hours to become very good at something. Playing an instrument, composing music, drawing, teaching, programming.

"Oh, but I spent 1000 hours and I'm already very good." I'm glad! Congratulations, honestly. But I'm sure you'll be a lot better after 9000 more hours. Remember the shuhari (守破離) concept:

At first, you're in the shu (守) "protect", "obey" phase. You follow a recipe, you learn the basics, you obey instructions.

Once you're competent, you move to the ha (破) "detach", "digress" phase - you've learned the rules, you know why they exist, and you're capable of breaking them here and there when it makes sense.

Sometimes, if you truly master your craft, you get to the ri (離) "leave", "separate" phase, where everything comes naturally, and you're ready to redefine the rules.

Not everybody gets to the "ha" or "ri" levels of mastery, and that's OK. It's fine to suck at art and have fun. And it's ok if you as an amateur make something good, and people like it! It's not bad to enjoy simple pancakes done by following a recipe, because, hey, they're pancakes. They don't need to have 20 exotic organic ingredients from a specialty shop.

There are no shortcuts to mastery. The best you can do to better use your time is to be deliberate about your practice. Have a good teacher, and pay attention to how you're learning. If you think you know something, to verify it, teach it to someone else. If you can't teach it, you haven't mastered it.

The 10'000 hour rule is also very comforting - if you feel like you suck at something even after spending a lot of time on it, just remember that progress is a long path, and mistakes are just the uneven stones on the path.