#my bad days have started to snowball into bad weeks which are projected to become bad months and frankly all of you are making it worse

[crashed-on-mars]

can all of you shut up for literally five fucking seconds please

[j-reau]

There’s something I want to talk about that’s been sitting in my head for a few days now. I kept telling myself not to talk about because tumblr struggles with the line between feelings and drama, between change or growth and confrontation and vauging.

That’s not what this post is for me. It’s not drama or a vague post. It’s trying to work through how I feel, trying to talk to the community at large about stuff I think we can do better, or at least stuff I want for me and for my friends and writing partners. 

I think somewhere along the way, in its inability to wrestle with grey areas, tumblr as a whole lost the middle ground between self care and hurting others, and in doing so turned communication into confrontation. I’ll be clear about something to start this off; you don’t owe strangers on the internet anything. You don’t owe someone an explanation as to why you don’t follow them. You don’t owe a mutual an explanation as to why you write with someone else more or where your muse goes that day. You don’t owe anyone your time. You don’t owe anyone your mental health. Curating a safe space is important. Creating boundaries is healthy whether they’re for you or for someone else. I believe all of that to be true and I think that it’s important that on tumblr we absolve some people of the pressure put on them by themselves. I was once stalked by someone who I had never once talked to on this website who demanded to know why I wouldn’t write with them. I did not owe them explanation. Not for why I didn’t follow them and certainly not for why I eventually blocked them. And once they messaged me over and over from different accounts, my boundaries had been crossed and I felt very uncomfortable. So I understand the importance of making sure people know that that kind of pressure is fucked up. Because of my decision not to follow them, that person posted at length about how I was an elitist, unfriendly, etc. They even threatened self harm and guilt baited. And it is instances like that where I think it’s important that we make clear over and over and over that you don’t owe people an explanation. 

With all of that said, I think somewhere along the way we started applying all of those posts about how to deal with toxic people and strangers and started applying them to our friends. And that’s where things get uncomfortable for me and worth talking about for me. So I guess that’s what I want to do. Because to me, you absolutely owe your friends some communication. You owe your friends a reason. Even if it’s as simple as “hey I think I need some space, please don’t contact me for a while.” Relationships come and go and on a website like tumblr we get very close to some people fast, or we talk a lot and share a lot, not everyone is going to click. Not everyone is going to jive and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. But in relationships, communication is a crucial and important part of adult hood. Ignoring problems isn’t adult. Failing to communicate isn’t mature or conflict free. My best and closest friends are the people with which I can communicate. And in some relationships you’ll learn that your communication styles don’t match. And that’s okay too. But communication is important to any friendship, partnership, etc. Something as simple as “hey can we not talk about that? It makes me uncomfortable.” Something as simple as “will you do me a favor and blacklist your posts about _____ because seeing them makes me anxious.” Or even communicating needs for validation like “I’m feeling really sad and anxious today. It’s nothing you’re doing but could you give me a little reassurance?” Or “hey I’ve been busy this week. It’s not you but I need some space away from discord.” Communications don’t have to be arguments. They don’t have to be confrontations. They’re just expressing a feeling and allowing someone else to then accept the boundary or need you express and meet it, ask questions if they need to or whatever it may be. Like for example, “sure I can give you space. Do you want to just hit me up when you feel better or should I reach out in a few days?” 

I think maybe part of it is about how we place value on “friendships” and on partnerships writing on tumblr. And maybe that’s where some of us differ and I also think is an important thing that should be communicated. For me, I write with hundreds of people. I love writing with people. I love having tons of partners and writing with any of my mutuals who want to. When it comes to writing and people who I have writing partnerships with, my communication style is pretty straight forward. And it starts from jump, communicating if we want to ship or not, communicating what kinds of plots we like. And then later when someone has to say “hey can we drop this thread and start a new one?” Or “Sorry I vanished for a month do you still want to write this?” All of those things are communications and to me, come with trust that you will be honest and receive the other person in good faith. of course, in hundreds of people that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes it doesn’t go well, and that’s fine. These are writing partners and while my communication style will always be the same and be as honest and straightforward as I can give it, it may not mesh with someone else’s. But then there are friends -- good friends. And by good friends I mean the people you talk to frequently. The people you talk to about how you feel, about what’s going on in your life, about your insecurities or whatever it may be. The people you write with frequently or have built a relationship with, the people you tell with your words that you love or that mean a lot to you. Maybe some people on tumblr use words like that lightly. I don’t know. But for me those are meaningful things and the people I consider good friends are not the same as strangers and are not the same as casual writing partners. 

Something is exchanged when we RP. I talked about this in my last post. I talked about how it’s not “just tumblr RP” how there are feelings and intimacy that is personal and terrifying in writing with people and sharing your creative work with them and opening yourself up to rejection and insecurity. When you RP, when you talk a lot, when you become friends with someone even if it’s on the internet, just as in real life, you’re exchanging trust. You are opening yourself up to vulnerability in expressing your feelings, in sharing your world with someone and they are doing the same by accepting that, caring for that, sharing their own, etc. To me, once you hit the point of having exchanged trust with someone, that’s when you owe communication of some kind. It can be as small as “hey I can’t talk today” and as big as “this thing you did yesterday hurt my feelings.” But it’s so important to do it. That’s important for a number of reasons. It’s important because maybe there is a misunderstanding that can be cleared up. It’s important because maybe that other person may not even know they hurt you and could apologize. It’s important because vocalizing your own feelings is an adult point of growth for you. And a number of other things. 

And I GET IT. Trust me, I do. Communicating is uncomfortable. What about how anxious it makes you? What about how you feel panicked and sweaty and your heart races and you worry that it won’t be well received. Trust me, we all have been there. It happens to everyone and it fucking sucks. But the only way that gets better is with practice. I can already hear the tumblr mentality that says “you shouldn’t have to feel that way if you don’t want to,” and there’s some truth to that. But any therapist will tell you that communication is the key to coming to the other side of that and that the more you do it, the better it’ll be, the easier it’ll feel. Having been in several relationships with people that projected their feelings onto me or held me accountable for their happiness, learning to communicate boundaries, learning to communicate feelings versus intention and all of that were huge for me. This isn’t something I popped out of the womb understanding. It’s something I’ll surely fail at a thousand times. But it’s definitely something important to me to learn. And I think it’s something tumblr can benefit from. Because while “let people block you” is an important mentality for strangers, for abusers, for toxicity, etc it’s not a good mentality for friendships and relationships. Ghosting your friends is really hurtful. Cutting people who mean something to you out with no communication or explanation causes a snowball of bad feeling and anxiety in allowing you to have closure on your terms and the other party to have none. Expecting people to handle hurt and confusion and sadness in private without ever talking about it to anyone is really fucking isolating. Tumblr mentality likes to push that we should be able to axe people without consequence, that they should not ever wonder why, that they can not talk about it to anyone else, or express their sadness. But isolating people in their feelings isn’t healthy and it isn’t adult. There’s a lot of hurt that could be avoided on this website by people learning to communicate and by accepting that sometimes conversations have to be had, even if we don’t like it. Or at the very least, taking ownership for the fact that if we don’t want to have a conversation, that that is on us and not on the other person for feeling confused and not knowing what happened.

So I guess where I’m at here is that I just wanted to talk about that area, and open the floor a little to remind people about communicating. And what I mean when I say friends vs. strangers vs. partners is that I think we also need to be honest with each other and ourselves about who our friends are. Because once you open that trust with someone, there’s responsibility there with what you do with that trust. So be aware of where you open that trust. Be aware of what you say and how you treat people. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone you run across on the internet. I certainly am not. Even people I love writing with may not be my close friends, but I make sure that those are people that I’m not being vulnerable with and sharing feelings about things with and expressing how important they are to me. They are of course still important, but it’s different. Don’t fake friendship with people. Don’t love people into the safety and security of trust and communication that you’re not willing to have. It’s okay if communication isn’t your thing, but understanding that and understanding how you treat people because of it is important. Because communication is important. To friendship, to partnerships, hell even to relationships with coworkers and family members. As a community, I think it’s really important that we encourage being more communicative, and that communication isn’t conflict, and that sometimes having a quick conversation about something where both parties get closure or can say their piece or clear things up is the absolute best way to handle things. 

[zwritestuff]

Some Things Are Bound To Be (Chapter One) - Kyara

A/N: Okay, hear me out, I know this ship barely has a week of existing - I’m very aware of it, thank you very much. But this idea wouldn’t stop haunting me, and before I knew it I churned out 2.7K in the span of two days. Obssessions be like that, I guess. With that being said - I’m hoping that this will have between 5-7 chapters, because I can’t deal with long multi-chaps at the moment. A big, massive thank you to @fromthenorthernskies​ for beta-ing this 💓 And to Winter for always being on board with my shit and peer pressuring me to write this.

Summary: When simple office gossip snowballs, Kyne finds herself faking to be Kiara’s girlfriend, the daughter of the owner of the company she works at. Not that she has any complain, though.

***

Kyne had been working a little over a week at Schatzi Co. when she met Kiara, though she had heard rumors and hushed whispers about the only daughter of the owners of the company — some said she was a bitch, others that she was a spoiled brat; to Kyne, she was none of those things.

It might just be because she exchanged a total of four words with her, and Kiara treated her as politely as she could be before going on about her day. Either way, she never participated in the insulting comments some of her co-workers made about Kiara, because she didn’t have any bone to pick with her.

Priyanka, her best friend and the one that got her the job interview in the first place, had wisely suggested she stay out of the office drama, at least during her first weeks. She had been working there for a year now, so she knows what she’s talking about; she doesn’t mind when Kyne asks one too many times what did Kiara Schatzi actually do to earn so much hate from the employees, considering she rarely is at the company.

“I don’t know, existing?” Priyanka offers as an answer, while they’re having lunch together at her office. “She’s set to inherit the company once her father decides to retire, that much I know, but I’m not sure where this hate comes from — probably from something that happened before I worked here, but nobody would tell me.” She shrugs, biting her sandwich.

“Oh, c’mon, she can’t be that bad, can she?” Kyne asks, picking at her Adobo. Priyanka is about to answer when someone knocks at the door, and as soon as she tells whoever it is to come in, they see Julia’s head poke from behind the door.

She tells Priyanka that the head of the construction team needs to speak with her about a mistake in the planes for the new project, using that very nasal voice Kyne has become used to rather quickly, and saying in a pretty non-confrontational tone to not shoot the messenger.

Priyanka groans, excusing herself to Kyne before following Julia, who’s still apologizing on behalf of the contratist, and leaves Kyne alone with her Adobo.

Not even a minute goes by when the door is opened again, but this time, it’s Kiara that interrupts in the room.

“Miss Priyanka?” She says, looking around the room and finding Kyne instead. “Oh, hello. Isn’t this Priyanka Kapoor’s office?” Kiara asks, squinting slightly.

Kyne briefly thinks that the red suit fits her so well it should be illegal, but she just nods curtly.

“She just left with Julia, something about a plane for a project being wrong?” Kyne hesitantly replies, though she heard the conversation very clearly.

Kiara groans, rolling her eyes. “How could that woman outrun me when she’s wearing six inch heels?” She asks aloud, barely holding back a laugh. Kyne chuckles.

“I mean, I’ve been working here for a month and I’ve never seen her not wear six inch heels,” she says, though she’s not sure if Kiara pretended to get an answer from her. 

She feels a weird flutter in her chest when Kiara giggles, shooting a smile her way.

 “Yeah, I guess that’s probably it,” Kiara replies, “What’s your name again?” She asks, lingering at the door.

“It’s Kyne Aguilar, miss Schatzi,” she replies with a genuine smile. Kiara smiles back, and Kyne thinks the smile suits her very well.

“I’ll see you around, Miss Aguilar,” she simply says before leaving, and Kyne’s stare stays glued to the door.

When Priyanka returns, much later and with a very visible frown in her face, Kyne doesn’t mention her encounter with Kiara, because she doesn’t find it relevant when her friend is complaining about her professionalism being questioned by one silly mistake.

When the day is over, Kyne is just making her way to the parking lot to meet Priyanka when she runs into Kiara again. She’s walking with her dad, and it makes Kyne straighten her back and avoid looking directly at him. She mutters a good night sir as she passes by their side instead, and she’d swear neither he nor Kiara listened, but she nods politely and says a have a good night that echoes in the otherwise silent hallway.

She’s not sure why, but she barely pays attention to Priyanka’s rant about her day, answering with non-committal sounds, as her mind drifted off and replayed the brief moment she’d spent with Kiara.

Yeah, Kyne is definitely skeptical about the rumors surrounding Kiara.

***

Kyne quickly gets used to her routine at the company.

She’s always been good at math and numbers, so being an accountant was one of her first options going into college, though she would’ve been as happy getting an overall degree in math and teaching children.

Her job as an accountant isn’t as dull as she would’ve imagined, though; she’s the one that everyone comes for calculating budgets, how much would they earn if they invest on a certain project and all that jazz — all of this means people don’t necessarily see her as interesting, and therefore she never gets involved in any kind of office drama, which she appreciates due to the fact that her friends seem to be a walking target for drama worth of High School girls.

Priyanka was the one that introduced her to Scarlett and Bo, and though Kyne appreciates their friendship, she has to admit they’re a little bit messy. Just a little. Scarlett and Bo know everyone’s business at the office, primarily because Scarlett sleeps around more than they’ll ever admit to, and Bo is able to charm her way through people’s most pettiest complains about other co-workers. Oh, and Priyanka is there to de-escalate situations that come back to bite the pair in the ass.

So, overall, work isn’t monotonous at all; she has her friends that always have some sort of gossip to tell her — and there’s also Kiara.

Kiara started working full-time at the company shortly after she graduated from college, just one year after Kyne. This meant she saw her a lot more frequently, instead of sporadically running into her at the hallways once or twice a week — now, it’d be a pretty weird day if she didn’t see Kiara around, talking to people, collecting reports and having meetings with other important members of the company.

They didn’t talk much, though, only exchanging words when Kiara came to collect reports at Kyne’s office and they did small talk for a moment before Kiara went on with her day. Sometimes they’d greet each other if they happened to bump into the other at the end or beginning of the day. It was a cordial enough relationship.

That was until one day she comes to her office unprompted, asking her to follow the flow if her secretary, Lena, appears by looking for her.

“She’s more of an assistant that a secretary, you know? But she can be a bit too overbearing sometimes, though I’m sure I would have to blame my dad for that, he was the one that hired her for me,” Kiara rants, and Kyne just lets her, looking up from her reports from time to time to let her know she’s listening.

She’s pretty sure that this is the first time she’s exchanged more than a few words with Kiara, and there’s some sort of excitement — and a little bit of intimidation — bubbling up in her stomach.

“I mean, you’re the boss of the boss of my boss; if anything, you could just tell her to chill or you’ll fire her. That should calm her,” Kyne suggests, and she’d like to believe her deadpan delivery is what causes Kiara to giggle. 

She feels a tad of pride in herself for making Kiara laugh.

“I would, but I’m not that mean — and she’d tell my dad, anyway,” she jokes with a shrug, and Kyne chuckles. “I have to go, I have a meeting to attend, but thank you for letting me hide here.” Kiara winks at her, and Kyne tries to ignore the weird flutter of her heart.

“You’re welcome to hide here any time, miss Schatzi,” she says earnestly, smiling up at her. Kiara hesitantly turns to look at her.

“You know what? Just call me Kiara.” She smiles back, and all Kyne can do is nod dumbly.

Kiara leaves and Kyne goes back to work, until it’s time for her lunch break, when Priyanka, Bo and Scarlett barge into her office and oblige her to accompany them to this new restaurant that opened two streets away. 

She passes by Kiara in the hallways, and Lena is talking her ear off. Kyne catches Kiara’s glance and she shoots her a smile, Kiara returns it in the form of an eye roll as she briefly looks towards Lena and then back at her, a sneaky smile creeping on her face.

Kyne snorts, trying to focus on the ongoing conversation between her friends, but, much like the first time they met, Kiara doesn’t leave her mind for the rest of the day.

If her friends notice she’s like a deer in the headlights, they don’t bring it up, choosing to instead poke fun at Scarlett for struggling to get Ilona from Human Resources to text them back.

***

It’s becoming a common occurrence for Kiara to hide in Kyne’s office. Kyne’s not sure if Kiara should do that as often as she does, but she supposes she’s allowed to since she’s the daughter of the owner — Kiara gets away with a lot of things she wouldn’t get away with had she been someone else.

Such as interrupting in Kyne’s office in the middle of the day, because otherwise she’ll snap at the wrong people, and she doesn’t want that. Kyne doesn’t really mind, if anything, she’ll gladly let Kiara crash at her office if it means she’s doing the company a favor. Besides, she enjoys her company. Kiara is funny, kind and interesting in so many ways; there’s also the fact that sometimes Kiara brings her sweets to compensate for using her as a couch therapist, which is definitely a bonus in Kyne’s books.

It all makes her wonder what did Kiara do to not be so well-liked among the employees, because Kyne really likes her — as a friend, obviously.

Her other friends, such as Priyanka, Scarlett and Bo —but mostly Priyanka— are always asking her why does the daughter of their boss spend so much time with her, especially during work hours, and Kyne just shrugs and gives vague excuses. She won’t tell anyone Kiara talks shit about the other CEOs like it’s her actual job, she’s not a snitch.

Scarlett likes to joke that Kiara has a crush on her and Kyne should take advantage of that, seduce her and get all her money. Kyne just doesn’t pay attention to them, and flat out denies such thing being a possibility. Because not even in ten lives Kiara would like her like that for more than obvious reasons.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Kyne,” Scarlett says one day, on their way to the parking lot. “Like, your flirting is shit, but you’re not that bad looking,” they tease, earning a few chuckles from the girls and an eye roll from Kyne at that.

“Says the one that still can’t get Ilona Verley to go out with them,” Kyne quips back, intelligently derailing the conversation thanks to Scarlett going on a tangent about how they don’t care if Ilona texts them back or not, and how they’re water under the bridge.

Kyne just brushes off her friends’ constant teasing, and doesn’t really bring it up to Kiara, because why would she? It’s just playful nagging, and she doubts anyone else gives two craps about what Kyne does and not.

Well, so she thought.

Kiara comes to her office one day, and nothing seems strange, not even when she settles a cup of coffee in her desk and offers her a bagel. She figures it’s just Kiara thanking her for never complaining when she comes to her for venting.

“Do you have plans on Saturday?” She asks out of the blue, and Kyne cocks a brow, taking a sip from her coffee. She shakes her head no, and Kiara bites her lower lip. “So, uh, the charity ball is on Saturday, I think you know that. And I’m fairly sure you’ve heard the rumors--”

“Wait, what? What rumors?” Kyne cuts her off, knitting her brows in a frown and staring at Kiara, who looks absolutely mortified.

“Oh, no, you have no idea, do you?” She asks, and Kyne can swear this is the first time she’s seen Kiara blush. She looks cute with her cheeks crimson red, actually; it’s a nice change from the poised woman she’s come to know.

“Of what?” Kyne presses, trying to not get distracted by Kiara.

Kiara proceeds to tell her through gritted teeth how many people at the company think they’re dating — apparently her constant visits to Kyne’s office had caused some eyebrows to raise their way. Kiara never bothered to say anything about those rumors, because as the future owner of the company she shouldn’t dignify cheap office gossip with an answer, but then shit hit the fan when the rumors ended up arriving to her father’s ears, and now he expected Kiara to bring her alleged girlfriend to the charity ball.

Kyne sits still at her chair, owlishly blinking at Kiara for a moment too long. She tilts her head, waiting for Kiara to say it’s all a joke and she just wants her to calculate something for her.

But that doesn’t happen, and Kiara just silently stares back.

“That would explain the looks Susan from customer support gives me when I pass from her office on my way to get lunch,” Kyne muses absentmindedly. In fact, if she thinks about it for more than a second, it makes a whole lot of sense. Now she gets why Jenna from the architecture team went on a tangent about how much she hates people that sleep with their bosses for a raise whenever Kyne was around, raising her voice a tad too loud so everyone would hear.

No wonder why one time Priyanka scolded her for not interacting more with their co-workers, saying she’d benefit by being up to date with the office gossip.

“Have you thought of telling your father it was all a misunderstanding?” She proceeds after a few moments, and Kiara shrugs.

“He was excited that I was finally going out with someone, and I didn’t want to ruin his happiness,” she explains, and Kyne cocks a brow. She always assumed Kiara was constantly dating people — with how gorgeous she is, it didn’t seem that much of a stretch.

Kyne thinks it through for an entire minute, and comes to the conclusion that though it is definitely a bad idea (lies have short legs, they say), there’s something that drives her to say yes. It might just be that she’ll never get to be with a pretty girl like Kiara ever again, fake or not, so she decides to bite the bullet.

“If I don’t get a raise after this, I’m going to work for your rival company and sell them all your corporative secrets,” Kyne deadpans, and it takes Kiara a full minute to understand that is Kyne’s way of accepting to be her fake girlfriend for the charity ball.

Kiara lets out a sigh of relief, slouching in her chair and thanking Kyne profusely, promising to take her shopping on Friday to find a dress for the charity ball. Kyne jokingly says she’ll suck the money out of Kiara’s credit card if given the opportunity.

“As if that was possible, darling.” She winks at her, and something inside Kyne twitches. “I gotta go, but I’ll text you later to sort this out.”

“Wait,” she interrupts her again, before she leaves. “How do you have my number?”

Kiara smiles mischievously, and Kyne mentally goes over what she ate today, because her stomach twitches again.

“I have my ways of finding out things,” Kiara says, winking one last time before she exits Kyne’s office.

Once she’s alone, Kyne wonders out loud what the fuck had she messed herself into.

[bestfriendforhire]

Children of BFFH, Entry 48

 Even after a couple weeks with the three brothers on their island, the world held constant wonder for me.  We had flown to this city on an airplane in the night, and parts of the city still seemed lively.  The view from the air had been dazzling. lights stretching out toward the horizon.  On the ground, I could see that many of the streets were lit, but empty.  I wanted to explore and learn more, but we were racing the sun.  Vampires were always racing the sun.  I had learned this.

 The blood knowledge granted me was full of facts and language skills, but Vito said he couldn’t share wisdom or understanding through blood.  I had no idea what he had meant initially, but Zachary and Papak⁠—Vito’s brothers⁠—helped Vito to show me.  I knew dozens of languages, but I could completely miss what was being said if I didn’t understand colloquialisms of the area in which they were spoken.  Likewise, I knew what numerous machines were, but I still didn’t understand the details of how they worked.  The blood knowledge granted me mental paintings, but I needed experience to relate to the artists’ emotions.

 Learning from the brothers was much more fun than the tutors in my old life, strict and impatient if I grew distracted.  My old home was probably long gone.  My dresses, hairbrush, and lyre certainly were.  Embroidery practice wasn’t necessary anymore, though Vito felt I should still perfect my skills just for the sake of having them.

 “What’s the matter, child?” questioned Vito as he wiped a tear from my cheek.

 I shook my head, saying, “Nothing.  Sorry.”

 Ariadne hugged me.  “Missing us already?  We will visit.”

 “I was thinking of my mother.  I know she’s been dead for hundreds of years, but I feel that I saw her just weeks ago.” I explained, brushing another tear away.  I knew Ariadne wouldn’t care about tears in her shirt, but I still did.  I lived in a time where fabrics were precious and tended with great care.  Ariadne could create new ones in an instant, already cut and sewn.  Magic lessons were more important now than knowing how to store my clothes.

 Ariadne squeezed me tighter, looking more like a girl my age than an old vampire of considerable renown.

 “Never forsake your tears, my dear.  Vampires who forget the concerns of mortals don’t tend to live long themselves.” stated Vito, smiling at me like a kindly grandfather.  “We’re here.” He announced, though the limousine hadn’t stopped yet.

 I looked out and saw a sprawling building, not the biggest I had seen since waking, but certainly quite large.  The brothers had spoken of James Michael Somerset III in so many different ways that I had no way knowing what he’d be like.  He was rich.  That much was inarguable.  I wasn’t certain if he was young or old, human or something else.  The brothers acted as if he was a younger brother, but spoke of him as someone of incredible power whenever I asked a question.  They made jokes about him, but warned never to underestimate him.  They were probably confusing me on purpose.

 I blinked, and then found myself staring.  A young man had appeared at the front of the house.  He wore a fine suit, similar to how the brothers dressed, and looked as if he was prepared to wait an eternity for us to reach him.  Yes, the limousine was a slow, meandering thing, but the brothers had insisted that acting mortal when observed was paramount for a vampire, lest we draw the attention of a Slayer.  I took most of my first week to realize that the Slayers were a family, not a group of vampire hunters, though they apparently did hunt vampires down if the vampires drew their ire.

 “I’m sure I’ve told you, Valeria, but you should always expect James to know more than you do.  These days, he tends to be more aware than my brothers and me.” Vito reminded me, smiling as he observed James.

 When we finally stepped out of the car, James immediately smiled, saying, “Always a pleasure to see you, my friends.”  He leaned down to look me in the eye and held out a hand as he said, “Valeria, meeting you is a pleasure as well.  I am James Michael Somerset III, and you are quite welcome to live here, though I left discussing your presence with Cosette to Vito and Ariadne.”

 Vito was frowning a little when I looked up at him.  “How long have you known?” questioned Vito.

 “Only three weeks, but I am quite certain that Cosette will oblige you.  Unfortunately, I can’t remain to see you inside.  I’m actually out on business at the moment, but Mila is ever willing to accommodate your needs.” he told us, disappearing as he said the last word.

 “But… I wasn’t even awake yet three weeks past.” I stated, looking to Vito and Ariadne for answers.

 “No, you weren’t, but James is James.” replied Vito, still frowning slightly.

 “You know there was probably a reason he couldn’t warn us.” suggested Ariadne.

 “How could he be out on business if he was here?” I questioned, hoping for an actual answer to this one.

 “James is James.” replied Vito with a shrug.  “He didn’t run off just now.  He either wasn’t really here, leaving an incredible illusion to greet us, or he teleported here long enough to greet us in person.  Either way, don’t expect anyone else to pull off such a trick.”  Then he muttered in a barely audible whisper “I swear I felt him, so he was probably here.”

 “In this household, you’ll be able to be yourself without disguise.  Most everyone has magic of their own.  Though some are very human physically, others will exceed you greatly.  Do be careful not to hurt anyone, or you might see what James is like when he’s in a bad mood.” warned Ariadne.

 The doors opened, and a very beautiful maid stood just inside the building.  I jumped, my head swiveling back and forth, when I caught sight of our driver stepping out of the limousine.  They looked like the same person!  That face… “Mila!?” I asked.

 “Yes, I am Mila Wilson.” replied the maid as she curtsied.  “If you need anything, just ask.  I’ll hear and attempt to help you.”

 “You’re the oracle of the mirror.” I told her, wanting to be certain.

 She smirked.  “I’m hardly an oracle, but I am well-connected.  My other body will get your bags, so please follow me.”

 “Always listen to Mila if she gives you instruction, my dear.” stated Vito as he and Ariadne went up into the house.  “Mila takes care of this household and all who dwell here.  She’s also the daughter of the brightest person you’ll ever meet, and her daughter is…  Well, how is Serenity these days?”

 “Exuberant just as often as when you last saw her.  I’m keeping her distracted with a project at the moment, so she won’t bother Valeria before she’s moved in.” explained Mila, sounding amused.

 Vito nodded and said, “‘Exuberant’ does seem quite fitting for her.  Valeria, don’t challenge Serenity at anything until after you’ve gotten to know her.  Just as you could accidentally hurt some of the more human children here, Serenity could accidentally hurt you if she gets carried away.”

 “She rarely hurts anyone other than herself more than superficially, at least physically.  The shock to people’s minds is more often the problem.” insisted Mila, glancing back at us.

 “Have there been any serious incidents lately?” questioned Ariadne in concern.

 Mila shook her head.  “No.  The worst we’ve had recently was a visitor who suffered from mild shock after having a snowball fight.  Serenity went a little overboard trying to protect her.”

 “Snowball fight?” I asked.

 “Ah, yes.  You would’ve been kept indoors in winter.  Rolling small balls of snow and throwing them at one another in a sort of game was common even when you were born.  Here, there are probably complicated rules and a great deal of magic involved.” explained Vito.

 “Magic more than rules in our snowball fights.” acknowledge Mila, sounding amused.

 When I stopped asking questions, Mila started explaining what rooms we were passing throughout the house, promising to show me a map and explaining more once I was in my room.  The second floor of the Northwest wing was where Cosette lived, and where I’d be staying if she agreed.

 The door opened as we arrived, and a pretty, chestnut-haired woman with deep blue eyes stood there in a lovely, white blouse and a dark blue skirt that barely went past her knees.  I knew that this wasn’t considered immodest now, but I also knew my mother wouldn’t have approved, even with the white stockings covering her legs.

 Brushing back some wandering strands of hair, the woman said, “What a pleasant surprise!  Please, come in.”  Then she stepped out of the way, motioning for us to enter.

 “Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we felt discussing things with you in person would be for the best.” replied Ariadne, squeezing me by my shoulders after she walked with me into the room.  “This is Veleria Cornaro.”

 Curtsying, I said, “A pleasure to meet you, Cosette.”  I felt nervous, reminded of when mother introduced me to different nobles.

 Cosette seemed amused when I met her eyes.  Had I done something wrong?  What if she turned me away?  What would become of me?

 “Nice to meet you, Valeria.  Care to sit?” she asked, pointing us onward farther into the room.

 “Thank you, my dear.” replied Vito, gracefully walking past her and taking a seat on a comfortable-looking sofa.  Furniture had changed a great deal over the years, and I couldn’t gauge whether much of what was in here would be considered expensive or not.

 Ariadne and I sat next to him, and Cosette took a seat opposite to us on another sofa there.  She was well-bred.  Her posture as she walked and sat made me certain of it.  She was speaking with one of the oldest three vampires and still seemed confident in her domain.

 “I accept.” stated Cosette after we sat in silence for several seconds.

 Huh?  What just happened?

 “Are you sure?” questioned Ariadne.

 “Yes.  Though this is certainly unexpected, You and Vito wouldn’t bring such an untrained vampire here if she did not need someone to care for her.  She obviously needs some more practice blending in, although I’d guess her to be at least a couple hundred years old.  How did you find her?” questioned Cosette.

 I couldn’t figure out what I was missing, but I knew I must be missing a great deal.

 “Quite right.  She is five-hundred-and-sixty-four years old, but her mind matches her body.  Whoever prepared her blood bath was quite skilled, so her body was almost at peak condition within days.  There was an accident at an archaeological site, and the worker’s blood revived her when the seal was broken.  Highly unusual circumstances.  She’s fifteenth century Italian and from a noble family at that.  Furthermore, she possesses quite rare magic.  Even Ariadne hadn’t seen the like among the fey.” explained Vito as if talking about an enjoyable outing.

 I had so many questions.  What was a blood bath?  Who was injured?  What were the fey he spoke of?  Would asking anything be considered rude by Cosette?

 Apparently reading my worries on my face, Cosette said, “A blood bath is, more or less, what it sounds like, Valeria.  A vampire is immersed in blood that was transformed, allowing it to retain vital energy for many, many years.  That was primarily used as a way to hide during dangerous years for our kind.  Your body drank up the blood and its energy.  A more experienced vampire would have been able to completely wake themselves after the blood ran out.  Since you were newly turned when you went in, you didn’t have that sort of reflex, drying out till you were indistinguishable from a well-preserved corpse.”

 “What seal was broken?  Who was injured?” I asked, since she seemed obliging.

 Ariadne hugged me again.  “One of the workers was struck by a crumbling pillar.  The lid of your coffin was broken, allowing his blood to nourish you.”

 “And what are the fey?” I asked.

 “Magical beings whose blood mingled with that of humans off and on throughout the years, granting magical gifts to the descendents.  Some can disappear at whim.  Others can control light, sound, or fire.  There are fey who change their shape faster than you can change your clothes.  Categorizing them all would be tedious, so we tend to lump them together more often than not.” she told me.

 “What is your magic like?” questioned Cosette.

 Seeing Vito nod, I showed her.  Her eyes widened in surprise, and she smiled at me in delight.  Maybe she really would accept me.

[bosstoaster]

When I am dead Shiro

(Ways to say I Love You)

“Pidge?” Lance called, stepping into her workroom.  “Are you here?”

From one corner of the dark room, Pidge waved him over.  “Yeah.  I’m here.”

Lance cocked his head as his brows rose.  Pidge sounded bad.  Like she had a bad cold, and she was stuffed up.  Which was not what he’d thought when she’d said she wanted to show everyone something.

As he opened his mouth to ask, Hunk stepped into the dark workroom next.  He nearly collided with Lance’s back, and had to stumble and catch himself.  “Dude, walkway.”  Once they were both shuffled to the side, he looked around and spotted Pidge.  “Hey.  What’s up?  New project?”

Pidge swallowed hard and curled in further on herself.  “Kinda.  Can we wait for Keith?  I don’t want to have to explain twice.”

Eyes wide, Lance caught Hunk’s gaze.  He frowned, brow furrowed.  The unspoken question was obviously - what’s up with her?

Lance just shook his head and shrugged one shoulder.  Pidge had seemed fine at dinner, and now she was very clearly not.  

Luckily, they didn’t have to wait long for Keith.  He came in, without his jacket and with a towel slung behind his neck.  “What’s going on?” He asked, still in that snappish tone that hadn’t faded since the Zarkon fight. 

Pidge took a deep breath, like she was fortifying herself, then stood.  Each step looked heavy as she trudged over, then called up a new, bigger screen.  It was blank for the moment.  “I was going through some older files.  I needed one of my back ups for- well, it doesn’t matter.  Because I found something Shiro left.  Before he vanished.”

Immediately, Keith tensed.  His fingers gripped at the towel like he wanted to tear it apart.  “You shouldn’t go through Shiro’s stuff just because he’s not here,” he spat out, eyes narrowed.  “You hate it when people do that, what makes it okay when you do it?”

Pidge took a step away, blinking rapidly.  It took Lance a second to realize the reaction was because she was fighting back tears.

His stomach, already twisting uncomfortably, dropped to his feet.

“Keith,” Hunk murmured, half scold and half soothe.  “Let her finish.”

Pidge swallowed audibly, then rallied.  “It was- it was labeled for me.  That’s why I opened it.  Not because- whatever.  It said... here.”

With that, she tapped on her armor’s keypad.

An image of Shiro appeared on screen.  He was sitting on a bed in what was probably his room, frozen in place.  Then he started to move, shifting as he got comfortable.

The metal hand raised, and Shiro gave a flash of a smile.  “Hello.  Shiro here.”  Then he paused, brow furrowed.  “No, that’s awful.  I should have thought this out better.  Guess that’s what’s editing is for.”  

Shiro paused, tapping his fingers on his knee.  Then he took a deep breath and looked at the camera again.  “Hello, everyone.  I tried to think of the best way to do this.  Winging it isn’t my preferred strategy, but I think it’s best for this kind of video.  Um.  If you’re watching this, then I’m dead.”

Oh.  No wonder Pidge had looked so wounded.  She must have already watched this.

Lance’s chest ached at the sight of Shiro, more than he would have thought.  They cared, and it had been a hard, hard few weeks without him.  But seeing Shiro like this, smiling, awkward, almost shy, brought back a few specific moments.  The times he’d joined in the fun and played with them, like the snowball fight or making gun noises.  It was a side of Shiro that he knew was there, but that Lance rarely got to see.

Except now he never would again, because Shiro was gone.  And not all of them had Keith’s stubborn denial.

“He-” Keith said, sounding like he’d been punched in the throat.  “He’s not...”

“He’s gone,” Pidge shot back, though it was tired.  “Maybe he’ll come back.  But we can watch it.”

On screen, Shiro continued, oblivious to their argument.  “I’m sorry about that.  It was always a possibility, but not one I wanted to drive home.  But after we went and rescued Allura, and Haggar got that hit on me... well, I thought it was best to have something.  Not a will, really, but a final statement.”

Shiro reached down, his hand covering where that awful slashing wound had been on his side.  For a moment, his face twisted, and it looked like it still hurt him.  Lance had thought the pod had cured it.  Had Shiro hid that from him, or was he just remembering?

“I want to say I’m proud of you all.”  Shiro straightened suddenly, like he’d put on a military uniform.  “All of you have gone so far above and beyond, and I’m not sure you recognize how extraordinary you are.  The circumstances are near impossible, but you’ve overcome time and time again.”

He paused again, eyes distant like he was looking beyond the camera.  “I probably should have recorded separately for all of you.  That would have been smarter.  I’ll cut this up later.”  Sighing, Shiro cleared his throat, then focused again.

“Hunk, do you remember... I don’t know exactly when it was.  Maybe a few days after we first started everything.  My sense of time isn’t always...”  Shiro shook his head, then focused again.  “You came to me one morning.  Early.  I was shocked you were up, actually.  It was before I realized you were an early bird too to make breakfast.  You asked me to go over some flying tips in Yellow.  It was obvious that you weren’t really comfortable coming up to me like that.  I think you still aren’t, actually.  

“I was so glad and flattered you did.  I don’t know how much I helped that day, but you helped me.  You could have gone to Lance or Keith.  Maybe you did, I don’t know.  But it made me feel like I was helping.  Approachable.  Like I could be a leader in more than just telling you when to form Voltron.”  Shiro smiled, distant and nostalgic.  “You’ve come the farthest, I think.  Almost all at once, too.  You went to the Balmera, and came back with such resolve.  And since then you’ve been a pillar.  You understand.  And even when you’re scared, I can count on you to be one of the fiercest of us.  So thank you for that day, and thank you for all the work you do that we take for granted, and thank you for being so powerfully you.”

Lance glanced over, and saw Hunk’s eyes and cheeks wet with shameless tears.  Reaching out, he grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed.  He got a powerful grip in return, and Hunk gave a loud sniffle, clearly only barely holding back.

Shiro paused again.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then smiled.  “Lance.  I worry, with you.  I worry with everyone, but especially with you.  Not for the reasons you’re probably thinking.  I mean, yes, I worry you’ll get tied to another tree, and I worry you’re going to get put to death by some easily offended local.  But mostly I worry I’m too hard on you.”  

He reached up and rubbed over his eyes.  “You’re so bright.  You’re happy.  Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be on that end.  And I never want to hurt that.  I just want to keep you safe.  You’re so good.  Amazing, even.  Your skill with a gun is nothing short of remarkable, but where you really shine is with everyone else.  You lighten a mood and raise morale and you just make us more human.  You remind me that there’s good out there, and fun, and happiness.  Please don’t ever lose that.  And, if I can give you one last piece of advice - embrace your strengths.  Yours.  Not the ones you think heroes have, but the ones that are uniquely you.  Appreciate yourself a little more.  We do, even if we don’t always say it.”

Lance stared at the screen, his mouth hanging open.  He felt Hunk squeeze his hand again, but he couldn’t focus enough to return it.  He hadn’t known Shiro felt that way about him.  Hadn’t known he meant so much to his hero - or to the man behind that.  Tears built in his eyes, and he didn’t bother to fight as they spilled over.

After a moment, Shiro nodded, then took a deep breath.  “Pidge.  This- I probably shouldn’t say this.  I shouldn’t put this on you.  But I have to say this at least once.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I should have-”  He paused again, this time choked off.  “I’m sorry I didn’t keep your father and brother safe.  I tried.  I swear to you I did, but it wasn’t enough.  And it should have been better.  If I could go back and fix things, make it so Matt or Sam came back to you instead, I swear I could.  You deserve to have them back.”

Clearing his throat, Shiro rubbed over his eyes, then swallowed hard.  “Sorry.  That’s not fair to put on you.  But you know everything else I’m going to say.  You’re amazing.  Brilliant.  Everything else that they used to say on the trip to Kerberos.  I know you’re going to find them, and they’re going to be just as impressed with you.  It’s been an honor to get to know you, too.  Oh, and, uh, when you get home?  Give Bae-bae a hug for me.”

Pidge let out a faint noise, that might have been a suppressed sob or a laugh.  Then she covered her face with her hands, her whole body curled in like she was trying to protect herself.

Reaching out, Lance took hold of her arm and pulled her in closer.  Pidge went, crashing half into his chest and half into Hunk’s.  He didn’t hear her crying, but he felt her trembling.

Next to them all, Keith stood, his hands clenched into fists and his gaze bright and defiant.

“Keith,” Shiro said.  His tone was suddenly different.  Less deep.  Less gentle, too.  It was a tone that Lance had never heard from him before.  

This was what Shiro sounded like to Keith.  What he probably sounded like before he was captured.

“Keith, I’m mostly sorry to you.  I’m hoping by the time you see this, we’ve come to an agreement.  I’m letting it go for now because it’s seriously upsetting you, but I can’t do that forever.”  He dropped his gaze, shoulders slumped.  “I hate to put this burden on you.  But I know you can do it.  From the second we started to talk, when I saw you fly for the first time, I knew you were going to be great.  But it’s more than that.  You’re my best friend, too, and I didn’t expect that.  I didn’t plan on becoming close to you, important to you.  I wish I could have been better at it.  You deserve someone more stable.  Someone who stays by your side.  Someone less wounded.”Each breath shook, now, as Shiro tried to keep himself under control.  “I wish you could see you the way I do.  I wish you could see how strong you are, how worthy.  I wish I was going to be there to watch you reach that potential.  But even more than that, I wish I was the person you could rely on.  I’m not, Keith.  I tried to be, but I’m not- I can’t...”  Finally, Shiro’s expression crumpled, and he curled in on himself like there was a heavy weight on his back.  “You’re not alone.  Please don’t feel like you are.  You have a family now, more than me.  Let them help you.”

Shiro’s fingers curled into his hair, as he took several more ragged breaths.  “I love you all.  I do.  More than a team.  You’re my family.  Thank you all.  You reminded me what kindness and love felt like, and there will never be a way for me to give that back to you.”

“Coran and Allura, I- fuck.  I can’t do this.”

Shiro reached out, and the video cut off.

They were left in darkness.

Lance clung to Pidge, feeling the moisture build on his shirt as she continued to shake.  Hunk pushed in close, wrapping them both in a tight hug.

Swallowing back the lump in his throat, Lance looked over.  “Keith.”

But Keith didn’t look over.  He was still tense like there was a threat in front of him.  In the dim light, his bared teeth and bright eyes gleamed dangerously.

“You fatalistic bastard,” Keith hissed.  “Don’t you-”  he cut himself off and shook his head.  “He’s not dead.”

And with that, Keith turned and stormed out.

Swallowing hard, Lance closed his eyes and leaned into Hunk’s embrace.

“Should we go get him?” Hunk asked, around his sniffles.

Pidge shook her head.  “No.  Let him be angry.”  Her fingers dug into Lance’s shirt.  “Please stay.  Please don’t leave.”

“We won’t,” Lance promised, and he felt Hunk tighten his grip on them both.

In the dark, surrounded by friends, Lance let the tears fully take him, and mourned for both the man, and the lack of an ending.

[cazzle-dazzle]

Another reason I’ve been inactive is cuz I’m going through a weird patch of losing interest in a fandom I was once REALLY passionate about and in to. This happened before when I lost touch with Sanders Sides ages ago, but it still kinda hurts and makes me feel sad cuz here’s this thing that I was once SUPER happy about and looking at content for it would always brighten my day just a little and helped me so much through bad days and poor mental health patches. But now it doesn’t feel the same, it doesn’t make me feel all happy anymore and I just feel all disconnected from the it.

I’m just,,,,, I’m a HELLA sentimental person and I hate the process of becoming uninterested in an interest (to my knowledge, im not nd so im not gonna call them hyperfixations or special interests). It’s what I imagine falling out of love feels like.

The fandom I’m talking about now is specifically the Dream SMP but also kinda MCYT in general. I got into both in early December of 2020, like RIGHT when the exile arc started. And I had a BLAST diving headfirst into it. I watched the season 2 finale live and was just so happy with this content. But I never really got into season 3 and lately it’s just been a snowball of dying passion, I just couldn’t get interested in Wilbur’s revival, or Las Nevadas, or the prison, or the nuke and egg plot. I think the final nail in the coffin was Ranboo’s third canon death, I just didn’t care about what they could possibly do with the series after. Dsmp had me in an absolute chokehold for the first couple months of 2021, but I didn’t really care for the main storyline so for the better half of a year, my interest was solely in fan content (art and fics and stuff like that) of broad interpretations of the characters and au’s. This was also the time I was becoming aware of how much I enjoyed the idea of self-insert content but I was also hesitant to indulge in it since dsmp (and au’s)/mcyt content in general is HEAVILY linked with the creators and their lives and I just felt really uncomfortable with having a s/i there because it would never feel like interacting with fictional characters, it felt like also interacting with the people behind them and I felt way too uncomfortable pretending to be friends with ACTUAL. PEOPLE.

So yeah I ended up having a really complicated on/off interest with dsmp/mcyt for a while but the past couple weeks I’m just kinda done with it all. I miss all the really good stuff at the start of it but it hasn’t been able to make me feel anything close to that since.

Lmao guess I just needed to rant about that. I’ve always been pretty insecure about having interests so i just. Don’t talk about them. Anywhere. Me making fan content at all is already a lot for me even tho literally no one cares cuz the stuff I make and the media I indulge in are nothing bad but I always feel so embarrassed about it anyways.

To end this all off on a more positive note- I’m starting to pick up a new interest: DC. Ngl, I’m kinda terrified of it. There’s YEARS worth of comics, so many shows, so many movies, so much EVERYTHING to start looking into but I started a couple weeks ago and I’ve liked what I’ve dabbled in so far. I’m watching the og Teen Titans series from 2003 which is SICK AS HELL!! Can’t believe I never watched it when I was younger. As overwhelming as the extent of content there is, it’s also a kinda comforting, im going back to more familiar territory with completely fictional characters where I will have no guilt or fear of creating parasocial relationships. I’m also considering actually fully indulging in self-insert content with DC, make art of my s/i of them doing their thing and having superhero friends and just let me project!! Another thing I’m considering is dabbling in some writing so like headcanon bullet lists or little ficlets

But yeah I suppose a tldr of this post: I’m pretty much leaving the dsmp/mcyt fandom and I’m gonna start reblogging DC stuff to my page and making self-under content.

[edwad]

If you had to choose 10 marxian econ books for someone who has only read marx, what would you recommend

by “marx” i have to assume you mean capital because that really is the root of “marxian econ”. it won’t suffice to just have read the manifesto or something like that and i don’t want to recommend books that will be saying things that you’re totally unfamiliar with because you’re skipping straight into the secondary literature which already largely assumes a reader which is familiar with capital. anyway, heres a list, which isnt in any particular order and which includes a few things that i’m still working through for myself:

1. essays on marxs theory of value - isaak rubin 

hugely important book which essentially all value-form theory derives from. written by an extremely knowledgeable marx scholar who had a much better idea of what marx was doing in capital than most marxists today. last month brill published a book called “responses to marxs capital” which includes some of rubin’s other writings, most of them being published in english for the first time. hes a huge figure in the literature and definitely worth looking in to. 

2. marx, capital, and the madness of economic reason - david harvey

i was obviously going to put something of harvey’s in here and i think his last book is a fairly good summary of the best of what hes done up to this point with some welcome additions (the visualization of capital, the stuff on anti-value, etc). not perfect but he definitely provides a good framework for how to understand the geography of capital which doesnt require necessarily agreeing with him on everything. honestly, if you keep up with harvey at all you’ll be able to tell that its mostly just typical harveyisms with the inclusion of some stuff from his recent talks (which have all been almost exactly the same). 

3. in the long run we are all dead - geoff mann

maybe this looks more like a book on keynesian rather than marxian econ, but its real argument is that keynesianism as a long historical project (meaning long before and after keynes himself) has been an immanent critique of liberalism and revolution and that keynes is to us what hegel was to marx. a really great book that covers a lot of ground which isnt always explicitly economic, but definitely worth the read if you have the patience. if you want a longer review, i left a pretty lengthy one on amazon a few months ago where you can get a better idea of what i got from this book, what its limitations are, and why i think its so important. 

4. monopoly capital - paul baran & paul sweezy 

an older book which hasnt exactly aged well, but its thesis has become extremely popular again since the crisis. written by baran and sweezy, the fathers of “the monthly review school” of economics, its played a huge role in the direction of marxian debates from the 1960s up until today. the authors were both tending in the same intellectual direction in their earlier works (sweezy’s theory of capitalist development and baran’s political economy of growth, the former still being considered one of the best introductions to marxs work and its relevance to the 20th century, with much controversy of course) and this was the result of them coming together to talk about what they saw as a monopoly capitalism which was fairly different in character than the “competitive capitalism” of marx’s day and therefore had to be dealt with differently. 

5. capitalism - anwar shaikh

probably the most ambitious work the left has seen in a long time which tries to thoroughly critique neoclassical theory and develop an alternative economics which is rooted in what shaikh calls the “classical” school (”classical-marxian” would probably be more appropriate but i think hes trying to downplay his reliance on marx). in it, shaikh takes a good look at many of the competing schools of thought (neoclassical, post-keynesian, sraffian/neo-ricardian, etc) and sees how they stand up analytically and empirically, taking issue with their underlying assumptions and the inevitable problems which arise from building a theory on false foundations. 

one of his bigger points is that the neoclassical theory of “perfect competition” is nonsensical but wasnt thoroughly combatted by heterodox economists, who only made it so far as asserting the “imperfect” nature of competition, which, in shaikh’s eyes, is to simply add imperfections after the fact into the theory which necessarily begins with the absurd assumption of perfection. the book’s argument is that the theorists of “imperfect competition�� still rely on the theory of “perfect competition” as their starting point and never really manage to escape the latter because they havent actually created an alternative way of thinking about competition, they’ve just inserted a complication into a theory which was a completely unrealistic assumption to begin with. much of his attack is directed at the monthly review school and the idea of a “monopoly capitalism” which is supposedly different in form than the allegedly “perfect competition” of capitalism during marxs life. in this sense, this book serves as a counterbalance to the MR approach and is also probably the most successful attempt at situating marxs TRPF within an empirical study of kondratiev waves. 

hes also got a website with a bunch of resources and a lecture series from a course he did on the material in the book which is pretty interesting, but it assumes a good deal of familiarity with economics. 

6. a history of marxian economics - michael howard & john king (2 volumes)

this is a pretty thorough history of the internal debates among marxian economists ever since the death of marx all the way up to 1990. it covers a lot of ground and doesnt shy away from controversies where marx didnt come out on top. of course, a good amount of this is subject to the interpretation of the authors and they definitely have a great deal of input, but its a very impressive work which i frequently use as a marxian encyclopedia of sorts. 

7. the making of marx’s capital - roman rosdolsky

despite some problems, rosdolsky’s classic book on the development of marx’s critique of political economy is easily one of the most important marxological works ever written and it still holds a lot of sway. taking the grundrisse as its starting point, the author unpacks marx’s project and constantly asserts marx’s method and in particular his explicit reliance on hegel’s logic, pitting marx (as he was in his drafts) against the then contemporary thinkers and critics which were prone to misusing or misunderstanding the arguments in capital. as a disclaimer and partial criticism of rosdolsky’s portrait of marx, i dont believe that we can simply say that marx in the late 50s was identical to the marx of the 60s and 70s that wrote and published capital, but i also dont think that means we necessarily have to discount the grundrisse (or theories of surplus value, etc) simply because they werent written at precisely the right time for marxs thinking. 

i only just got my own copy a couple of weeks ago so i cant say too much more but i have skimmed through chunks of the pdf and its totally unavoidable in the secondary literature so im not totally unfamiliar. its one i plan on tackling in full very soon.

8. moneybags must be so lucky - robert paul wolff

another marxological one, this tiny book is a literary analysis of capital and in particular the first part of volume 1. wolff does a great job of deconstructing the arguments in chapter 1 to try and clarify what marx is doing and why with a lot of humor and philosophical tangents. one of his biggest points is that marxs heavy reliance on irony was the only adequate way of capturing the contradictory nature of capitalism and is therefore part of the theory itself, rather than simply being a way to dress up the theory and make it more palatable to readers. i approached this book after id already “read marx” too, but it was extremely useful because it wasnt until i read it that i finally started to actually understand marx. for that reason, i dont feel particularly bad about recommending it to anyone thats already familiar with capital because it does a great job of making the most difficult part of volume 1 infinitely more exciting and comprehensible – especially since its never enough to just read capital once. 

9. the production of commodities by means of commodities - piero sraffa

against my better judgement, i’m putting this on the list knowing full-well that i’m going to be harassed by an anon which has been on my ass for about a year now ever since i first recommended sraffa’s book in a reading list despite the fact that ive never finished it (barely even read it to be more precise). i do, however, know that its had a huge influence on the trajectory of marxian thought since 1960 and that many of the thinkers are still trying to recover from the theoretical displacement implicit in sraffa’s thesis. 

its a math-heavy book (which is why i havent been able to wade through it) and its status as a work coming from the “marxian” approach is hotly contested, but its certainly had its way with the marxian school (not to mention the neoclassical school, which has an easier time simply ignoring sraffa entirely), generating countless debates among scholars, many of whom simply wish that this book had never been written. for a short summary of the debate and whats apparently at stake, ive got an old post where i worked out some of the initial responses to sraffa and how this has snowballed into the controversy that it is today. ive got it on this list because of how unavoidable it is. you cant go into the secondary literature at anything resembling an intermediate level without knowing sraffa’s name and why everyone feels so strongly about him.

10. an introduction to the three volumes of karl marxs capital - michael heinrich

i dont quite like that im ending this list with a book that presents itself as an “introduction” when we’ve already established that this is a bunch of recommendations for someone thats already acquainted with capital, but sadly this is the only full-length book that heinrich has in the english language and its reading of capital is so unorthodox that it feels totally alien against all the traditional interpretations of marx. honestly, it doesnt feel like an introduction in the first place, reading more like a challenge and an intervention into the secondary debates about what marx is saying in capital which derives from the german debates which constitute the parameters for the “neue marx-lekture”, or “the new reading of marx”, which sits uncomfortably among the more typical marxisms that surround it on all sides, especially among non-german theorists/readers. 

as far as the dominant reading of marx goes, nearly everything this book says betrays marx’s project, but heinrich knows marx very well, better than most of us (as even his biggest critics readily admit). this may be considered reflective of a “new reading”, but that doesnt mean the old ones are any better or that this one is necessarily a “revisionist” project as many claim (or at least, i wouldnt consider it to be revising marx even if its guilty of revising “marxism”, which is by no means necessarily a bad thing). on the contrary, i think heinrich has the best understanding of marx out of pretty much everyone else right now and thats why i wanted to end with this one. yes, you should read all of the others, especially since you cant understand the way we read and think about marx without coming across the work of people like sraffa and sweezy, but that doesnt really change the fact that heinrich points to a big problem with the way we read and think about marx, that the debates have been getting it wrong all along and largely misunderstanding marxs actual project, miscontextualizing it and falling into dogmatism for various political or academic reasons. 

what heinrich does is to show how the way marx is read and interpreted often misses or downplays the most crucial elements of what marx is actually trying to get across. marxs critique of political economy simply gets converted into a newer, more correct political economy which simply builds on the classical school (shaikh), or it suffers in the hands of those that believe its foundations need to be updated as if it isnt all that relevant anymore (sweezy and baran), or that many of its categories are lacking utility and can simply be done away with (sraffa). rubin’s work plays a big part in establishing the NML reading and harvey draws on heinrich’s scholarship a lot, but nobody really does it as well as heinrich himself and i genuinely think hes lightyears ahead of everyone else. a lot of people are starting to agree and i was one of the most recent converts on the heinrich hype train which has been growing for the last couple of years. 

any day now, we should be getting one of his older books, the science of value, in english and i plan on devouring it as fast as i can, but sadly its been in limbo for several years, with its initial release scheduled for 2014 (if i remember correctly). in the mean time though, we’ve only got his introduction to capital and a bunch of shorter pieces/videos.  

so i guess thats my list of 10 things to read after marx with some explanations on why i think theyre important, culminating in ideologically correct heinrich-worship. this was sorta fun and if you have any other questions feel free to ask. 

[whatimconsuming]

The story of Discord is the story of platform shifts. Jason Citron started his career in game development studios creating some of titles for Xbox and Play Station 2 (that’s how old he is 😂) that you probably never heard of 😬. Platform Shift: Mobile In the 2008, the “app store” was just announced and Jason thought this would be the perfect time to take the entrepreneurial plunge. His thesis was that with the launch of mobile gaming on the iPhone he would get “free distribution” if he manages to become a “launch title” (ie develop his game before the app store is live). After all, whenever a new console comes out, there is always new set of games that offer a new kind of experiences that are “native” to that console and new gaming behaviors are born….this was a once in a life opportunity. Jason raised some seed capital from the uncle of one of his roommates and was off to the races building Aurora feint. He pulled off being a launch title and Aurora feint was one of only 50 games that were available on the app store on the blessed day.

The Good News: it got rave reviews…partly because of the limited competition at the time, but also because Jason was just an extremely talented game developer. The Bad News: the business model didn’t really work. Aurora feint’s Business Model The Business model for the game was very similar to other stuff that Jason had worked on in the past. He gave the game away for free and build a premium version that had multiplayer dynamics (such as competing with friends on leaderboards...competing in ghost matches....etc)….this was a very common behaviour for PC….but what he didn’t realize at the time was that with new platforms…comes new expectations and subsequently new consumer behaviors. The $8 price tag (probably out of thin air) to access those social features didn’t really work. As time went by, and more games were build around the iPhone, and the price tag was anchored at $0.99 - $4.99. Jason and his 5 person company made a meager $30k in revenue from this game….a far cry from a “hit” game.

The pivot to OpenFeint One day, while discussing with the another founder, Citron realized that the iPhone did not have Xbox live in it, but their Aurora Feint 2 did have a similar feature. From my very shallow understanding Xbox live is just a platform that allows gamers to play multiplayer games, communicate with each and discover new games. In an act of desperation, Jason decided to spin out those social features and sell them to other developers, in an attempt to become equivalent the Xbox live for iPhone….the only problem was he didn’t really have any money to pay his engineers let alone hire new ones to build this in time…or anyone for that matter….to get Jason put up a landing page...photoshopped a couple of fake screenshots ...the message was "xbox live for mobile." He convinced Techcrunch to cover “the launch” and took that mailing list to investors…sprinkled some “vision” on it and raised a bridge round. He used the money from that round to hire 10 new developers to actually build the product The $104m payout

Over the next two years Openfeint took over Jason’s life. As someone whose life revolved around gaming, I can’t even imagine how it must have felt like to build the entire infrastructure for social gaming on the iPhone. By 2010, Openfeint had more than 10 million users and was powering 30 of the top 100 games on the App Store. Next year the company was acquired by a Japanese company (named GREE…but thats not really important) for a whopping $104 million (for reference the company ever raised $3m). When Jason signed on the dotted line, it was under the expectation that he will now have the resources to build the Xbox live for mobile. But as with many acquisitions…the story took a sour turn after the deal closed… Rinse and repeat (for iPad) Jason took a 7 months hiatus after being booted out of his own company. Jason took the time-off playing video games….A LOT of video games. Around that time, in 2013 the iPad was in its first years of inception and slowly making it to the main stream. While everyone saw iPad as a tablet, Jason saw it as a new platform shift for gaming…specifically for playing team-based games. He hypothesized that the iPad would make these kind of multi-player games more accessible and that the only problem was that there wasn’t enough high quality games being produced. Ready for round 2…Jason started another company…this time named Hammer and Chisel. Hammer and Chisel was a game development house that focused exclusively on creating high-quality iPad games. The vision for Hammer and Chisel was to replicate the Openfeint model for iPad. Fates Forever

After a few hit-and-miss with launching different games (3 to be specific), Jason had Another ONE(idea) up his sleeve…this time for a game called Fates forever. In a true Sell-Build-Ship manner that we can come to expect from Jason, instead of putting in the hours to build a game and see it crumble in-front of his eyes, he, instead, chunked up the art ....and started posting it on reddit along with explaining how the “game worked”(there was no game at the time…just some art). He took feedback from and incorporated it into into the art and ultimately the game mechanics. Six months later, Fates Forever shipped to the app store, and yet again didn’t really live up to the expectations of Jason or the team. The pivot to Discord

Jason was going around in circles trying to figure out how he can “fix” Fates Forever. In a conversation with Stanislav (Stan) Vishnevskiy (a developer at Hammer and Chisel then and cofounder of Discord later) Jason was complaining to Stan that the chat experience on Faints Forever sucked. He then went on a rant explaining how the ideal communication platform SHOULD work for developers. And so the OG idea of Discord was born. The idea was building Teamspeak meet skype. To take a step back Teamspeak was one of the more popular tools at the time used by gamers who played team vs team games. The problem with Teamspeak, at least from Stan’s prespective, was that to start a conversation on Teamspeak users had to download the app, pay for it and share their IP address (IP address is kind of like your mailing address) with other team members. Cutting through the noise Jason and Stan started building the first version of Discord as a side project within the company. First 20 customers The first 20 customers for Discord were friends, friends and friends. For the first 5 months, Jason and Stan were building Discord and hammering their gamer friends to use it. Their friends signed up but weren’t actually really using the product. Everytime they asked them why, they highlighted that they needed this feauture or that feature. Stan and Jason would go build it and come back to them…they got excited for a minute and then demanded more features. This loop kept going on and on and at some point the team had spent 3 weeks not shipping anything, they figured that maybe Discord just wasn’t as important as they had previously thought. First 200-300 customers Those 3 weeks where yet another reminder to Jason of how important distribution was. He figured that gaming communities were far and wide on the internet and that the product was at a point where it could be stress tested by more than just his unappreciative friends. So Jason and Stan got one of the friends to post in the Final Fantasy 14(a popular game at the name) subreddit. They reason they narrowed down to this one specific game was that there was a new expansion (i.e new features, content..etc) coming out which meant that was a lot of anticipation, speculation and excitement about the new release on reddit.

Their friend posted a simple link saying “"Hey...did anyone try this new voiceover IP app called discord [link to a voice chat].“ Jason and Stan immediately jumped onto the voice chat and started talking to anyone who showed up. The Redditors would go back, say "I just talked to the developers there, they're pretty cool," and send even more people to Discord. That kind of kicked the snowball off the top of the mountain.

Fun fact: Discord now claims this day (May 13, 2015) as their “launch day” First 1000 customers For the next 1000 customers, Jason and Stan focused all their product work on just 3 games, all of which had upcoming expansions (i.e new releases) in an attempt to make integrations with these games as seamless as possible. They then did the same Reddit routine, got a friend to post on the game’s subreddit asking if member had tried using Discord and accompanying that message a link to a voice chat where Jason and Stan were waiting to meet and greet and answer any questions anyone had. To double down on that strategy, Jason and Stand started doing some 1:1 promotion with “guilds” of these games. Guilds are “an organized group of video game players that regularly play together in one or more multiplayer games. Many guilds take part in gaming competitions, but some guilds are just small gaming squads consisting of friends. “

[lawrencedienerthings]

It’s OK to bottom out, like the time I was the Easter bunny who cried

Colorado News https://coloradomedia.co

Day three in the same yoga pants (without doing yoga). Not sure which clothes are clean or dirty anyway, as the laundry pile is severely compromised.

The kids wanted chocolate cereal for dinner, and they got chocolate cereal for dinner. Captain’s log: Star Date, 2020. This is week five of our stay-at-home quarantine and it feels like a galaxy far, far away.

The first month was full of optimism and hope. FaceTime and Zoom cocktail hours with old friends. Small homeschool wins between tantrums, an actual science project completed with materials from our junk drawer, a decent essay about what we did during the weekend—surprising, as we did the same thing everyone else did, which was nothing. A few meals around the table with semi-fresh vegetables and conversation.

The devolution was so slow that it was almost imperceptible, one wheel coming off at a time. One too many nights with the kids crawling into the bed between us. One parent not working while the other tried to juggle a business from home, with the family circus background noise, as revenues evaporated. The stress of debt.

It all skidded to a halt on Easter. On Easter, as is typical in Telluride, it snowed.

MORE: See all of our Write On, Colorado entries and learn how to submit your own here.

We usually rejoice in snow. Even if we can’t ski, the moisture is good for farming, for the ecosystems. But it was my breaking point. We had decided on a family hike after sub-par Easter baskets and some reserved frivolity.

Apparently I had goaded the kids with talk of a snowball fight, just trying to get them outside for some fresh air and exercise. “Let’s go!” I said with a voice that was pretending to be cheery to hide the emptiness. It was somnambulance. One foot in front of the other.

My 11-year-old pegged me with a hardpacked ball of crusty ice mixed with gravel. In the face. It hit me with the weight of all of it, all of the bills unpaid, the effort of buying too much candy and silently filling baskets in the middle of the night, the unbearable uncertainty of being in charge and having no real idea of how to manage it all. I cursed and burst into tears.

It was a cascade; the kids started crying too, ashamed and hurt. I had officially ruined Easter.

I’m not the only one feeling despondent, collapsing in a bad moment, dropping below the surface as we all try to float in the current. Regular people are gasping for air, never mind the most vulnerable among us: People living alone, sequestered from human contact. Elderly people in nursing homes. Victims of domestic violence living 24/7 with abusive partners. Health care workers dealing with exposure and fear.

And of course the victims of the virus, dying in hospital beds with no visitors to hold hands or say final goodbyes. Days later, I learned of three people who had committed suicide. People battling much more challenging situations than I was; it was sobering. 

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UNDERWRITTEN BY TOBACCO-FREE KIDS ACTION FUND

OUR UNDERWRITERS SUPPORT JOURNALISM.   BECOME ONE.

I’m not asking you not to cry when the snowball hits. I know you have a game face and no one expects you to put that on every day. But we all need to do more personal things than just sew face masks or donate to GoFundMe pages during this crisis.

Check in on your neighbor. Leave a plate of food for someone who lives alone. Call that friend who is balancing too much, and has no support.

The strange thing about a lifeline is that it can be a buoy for the sender and the receiver—at a time when we feel so lost and adrift, connecting to someone who needs it can be powerful.

And it’s acceptable to break down, no matter if you are generally even-keeled and mostly surviving. We are all entitled to a bad day, an Easter failure, or a random moment of weakness. If there is one thing that connects us all, it is our imperfection.

We are only human, and it is OK to not be OK. 

Deb Dion Kees is an editor/publisher living in Telluride.

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[bettsfic]

Do you ever deal with having too many ideas? I come up with a story, completely plot it out, outline it, establish my characters, and next thing I know I’m coming up with a completely different story line that I feel like I have to flesh out. I feel like I’m constantly hopping around, back and forth, between a million different stories and getting very little actually finished. Do you have any advice on maintaining focus?

god for real tho. i met with my thesis advisor a few weeks ago, and i had to sheepishly tell her how many projects i was tackling, to which she said, “well it’s better to have too many ideas than too few.”

(and then at the end of the meeting, she told me to send her everything i had so far, and i was like, “you mean short stories,” and she said, “no, everything.” i told her that would be about 300 pages, and she insisted that was fine.)

and wow, that made me feel so much better. in my head it’s like. something to be ashamed of, writing too much and too quickly and having too many ideas and scattered attention. but in the grand scheme of things, we’re in the minority. a lot of writers have trouble getting anything down. a lot of writers only get a good idea once in a long time. so i try to be grateful of the constant buzz of ideas, because there might come a day when it stops.

i read something yesterday that was a reminder of the old adage, the only way to become a writer is to treat it like a job. ass in chair, two hours a day or more. 

and oh boy, thinking about writing the same way i think about my bullshit 9 to 5 really brings the muses out!! tbh i think the idea of Forcing Yourself to Write Things is very much a privileged notion and a skewed perspective. the people who are saying this are already successful, and they want to portray their work as if it were some immense burdensome struggle, like you too can have all this if you make yourself suffer. 

moreover, i just? don’t? want? to see? writing? that way? as some kind of productive output, like i’m a machine. like my creativity is a factory for churning out media to be consumed en masse. so i think the idea of focus and diligence is all bullshit. writing is absolutely a discipline, but it is not factory labor. you do not have to clock in, work on your designated project, and clock out. maybe that works for some people, but it doesn’t for me.

that said, not being able to finish things is totally frustrating and disheartening, because it feels like you have no control at all, jesus-take-the-wheel style. so i’ve tricked myself into a few workarounds so that i get shit accomplished. 

i let myself write whatever is in my head. i do not deny myself anything. if a scene or piece of dialogue comes up, i stop what i’m doing and write it down, because ignoring it feels like being given a gift that you decline. it feels rude. but here’s the crux: if this happens, i don’t force myself to finish whatever story that scene belonged in. sometimes it’s ok to just write the scene and do something else. sometimes it’s ok to let that one scene take you to the next and let the story consume you, and put everything else to the side for a bit. but the point is: write it down. no matter what. give in to the ideas that come to you. 

don’t feel bad about giving up on a story. a lack of focus is a consequence of expectations, and i think most expectations--for yourself and for others--are stupid. they put people in unasked for boxes and lead to disappointment. so i don’t feel bad about myself for giving up on a story just because i expect myself to complete shit. sometimes the story just isn’t good enough, or it’s not ready to be written yet. giving up on stories that lose my attention without beating myself up makes focusing on the more worthwhile projects that much easier. this may seem counterintuitive, but i swear, the second i took the pressure off myself to follow through, the easier it became to follow through. it took the obligation out of it. i could say to the story, “i could give up on you if i wanted, you know. you’d gather dust in this folder for eternity, unfinished.” and sometimes the story would be like, “yea ok,” but sometimes it goes, “NOOOO just one more scene. one more scene pls.” and i end up finishing it, because i give myself permission to quit. 

i limit the scope of the project. i try to write the first scene of every story idea i have, and sometimes i write more, sometimes i finish the story, and sometimes i give up on it. but i need to write the first scene to figure out how long the thing is going to realistically be. if i think it’s a short story, but i come up with enough content that it’s going to be a novel, i either:

table it for a time when i have the patience and focus to work on a longer project

ask myself, “how can i reel this in?” and pare down the plot until it’s a totally manageable length and something i can get finished in a week or two. because once a short story is down, you have a completed work, and if you want to expand it later when you have time, it’s still there for potential revision.

practice writing short stories over allowing them to greedily take up more space than you intend. this really helps with focus. it’s like building muscle. keep things concise and short and finish them quickly and move on, and then you learn how your writing pace really feels when it’s in check. you know how it feels when something is complete. you know how it feels when something isn’t worth pursuing. you learn how much effort to put into it. your stories may ask for a lot of attention from you, they might beg you to expand and become complicated and overlong, but you don’t have to give in to them. it is better to complete a short story and move on so you have a completed draft to work from later than it is to start a novel and abandon it. 

notecards! buy some notecards and write all your scene ideas down in summary on them, then organize by project and keep in a little box. you might neglect some, you might pick up others later, but the point is that all your ideas are put in a readily accessible place. 

and lastly, prioritize using the snowball method. make a list of all the stuff you’re working on and order it by whatever will take the least amount of work to complete first. finish that item, and then go to the next, until your To Be Written list is pared down and you can re-focus your efforts. if you get to an item and think “this isn’t worth finishing” move on to the next. 

thanks for the question! hope this helps!! 

[the-wheel-comes-full-circle]

Chapter 22 of the Snowball

Aaaand I'm back! I'm so sorry for how long the wait was this time but ACOWAR thoroughly destroyed me and I needed some time to re-evaluate my whole life basically. Thank you to anyone who messaged me asking me to continue or even gently prodding me to continue or I may never have gotten around to this again haha.

link to previous chapters x

A few days whirled anxiously past Feyre as she awaited news from Lucien that he would be able to get Elain to them soon. Feyre's nails were chewed almost to the point of bloody, and she only ate when Rhys and the others reminded her to or she would have forgotten.

Nurse Alis had come through with her promise to release a statement about Feyre's many trips to the emergency room, courtesy of Tamlin, and the media had whipped itself up into another frenzy over the new information.

As a result, Tamlin had been very quiet lately. The messages to Feyre from him stopped, and he must have started paying off reporters who snapped photos of him or had started asking questions about how he was running his business. Hybern had also been eerily quiet which worried Feyre as they had gone against his order to drop the accusations.

The others continued to make calls to media outlets or friends within companies, doing whatever they could to slow down Hybern's plans, but Feyre felt it was all useless unless they could get Elain out of the crossfire.

Rhys had tried to distract her by taking her for walks, or out for lunch, but even those had come to a stop as reporters constantly hounded them, sometimes even waiting on the footpath outside to ask them questions when they left the house.

"How long do we have until the eviction?" Cassian asked when they were all sitting in the living room one afternoon.

"Two weeks if we're lucky." Mor grumbled.

"We'll think of something." Rhys said deep in thought.

Feyre thought he looked paler than usual and she cursed herself for not remembering when the last time he ate was.

"What did the lawyer say when you last met up with him Azriel?" Amren asked.

"He said that gaining public support won't be enough to stop Hybern, we nee to outbid his project as well."

"So we outbid him." Mor said with conviction.

Azriel only shook his head. "I've seen what we'd need to raise in order to outbid Hybern. Even if we bled all our bank accounts dry, including Rhys's, it just isn't enough."

"Can't you get other Illyrians to donate some money?" Nesta asked, sounding bored. She had draped herself along one of the only large couches in the room, forcing Feyre and Rhys to both occupy practically one armchair, with Cassian sitting on the floor.

"They don't have anything left to donate." Rhys explained.

"Okay but haven't you guys ever heard of a fundraiser?" Nesta asked again.

"Rhys already told you that the Illyrian community has nothing left to give." Cassian replied dangerously.

"That's why you invite rich snobby people who have so much cash they don't know what to do with it." Nesta shot back pulling a face at Cassian.

Rhys leaned forward with interest. "I'm listening."

"Have a big party or something and invite every rich person in town because they love getting dressed up and telling other people who important they are. Not to mention Feyre is a pretty popular person right now, I bet they'd practically claw each other to talk to her." Nesta said the last bit with the slightest amount of poison which made Feyre's face go sour at the idea.

"If we charged everyone an entry fee, had a bar, food, other services... we might be able to reach that target after all." Azriel said with a hesitant smile.

"That was a great idea Nesta." Amren said.

"Thanks, now let's hear Cassian say it." Nesta said sitting upright so she could see Cassian better.

Cassian's face was stony as he glared at her. "What do you want me to say, that for once you didn't say something dumb?"

"Nothing could be as dumb as your face." Nesta replied icily.

The group rolled their eyes and changed body positions to face away from Nesta and Cassian's bickering.

"We could invite the media too, get a lot of attention for this and get half the town to attend." Rhys continued as if the interruption had never occurred.

"Do I really have to talk to all these strangers?" Feyre asked only half mockingly.

Rhys turned to her and squeezed her hand. "It'll only be for one night. And I'll stay with you the whole time."

Feyre offered him a grateful smile and squeezed his hand back.

"Please let me plan this party!" Mor interrupted quickly. "I'll organise a venue, decorations, a band, entertainment-"

"Just remember this is to raise money Mor, not spend all of it." Rhys cut in quickly.

Mor just clicked her tongue at Rhys in disapproval. "Of course. I'll be asking generous donors to help us cater for and to provide a venue for our Charity Gala. I can be very persuasive when I want to be." Mor beamed.

"Charity Gala?" Amren sputtered.

"Well we want this to seem like a grand event don't we?"

"I can help organise a guest list." Azriel added helpfully.

"How soon can we plan this?" Rhys asked them all.

Mor looked thoughtful. "If everyone helps out... four days."

"Four days?" Amren, Azriel, and Feyre all yelled. Cassian and Nesta were still arguing in the corner of the room too absorbed in each other to take part in the conversation.

But Rhys looked pleased as he looked at his cousin, nothing but trust and respect in his gaze for her.

"What about Elain?" Feyre asked quietly.

The group was silenced, even Nesta turned her attention away from Cassian to listen.

"We just have to hope we hear from Lucien soon." Amren eventually said.

"And if we don't? It's not like it's your sister in danger, as long as you save your own asses, right?" Nesta hissed.

"Don't be stupid, girl. Feyre is our sister now, and so is her family." Amren declared.

Cassian snorted. "Don't tell Rhys that."

Rhys flashed Cassian a crooked grin but didn't correct him.

"As long as Feyre is our friend, we will always look out for her and her family." Amren continued, gaze boring into Nesta's until Nesta finally nodded in submission.

Mor got to her feet suddenly. "Well let's get started then! We don't have much time!"

Feyre hadn't been given a specific task so she mostly shadowed the others, doing tasks for them, making calls, but never leaving the house. The others left as they pleased but the reporters waiting outside hassled and grabbed at Feyre every time she tried to open the front gate.

Cassian had nearly knocked one of them out the first time a man with a large camera had grabbed Feyre's wrist in an effort to stop her, so Feyre had stayed indoors. Willingly though.

She was hunched over the kitchen table two days later, face screwed up in concentration over decoration plans that Mor wanted her opinion on, when her phone began ringing from an unknown number. Cautiously Feyre answered it.

"Hello?" She asked.

For a moment there was silence and Feyre nearly hung up when a chillingly familiar voice replied.

"Ah Feyre. I thought we had an agreement." Hybern drawled from the other end.

"I don't know what you mean." Feyre said, slowly rising to her feet. Panic gripped her as she left the kitchen in search of anyone in the house who could help her.

"I've been hearing quite the gossip lately. First there was something about a nurse, claiming to support your wild stories about mistreatment."

Feyre reached the living room only to find it empty so she turned and practically ran for the stairs.

"Now I hear something about a gala your... friends are hosting. A charity event no less. It really is shameful of Rhysand to ask for others to donate their own money in order to get what he wants." Hybern continued as Feyre reached the upstairs hallway.

"Nearly as shameful as forcing a whole community to leave their homes, or live in dangerous conditions for the rest of their short lives." Feyre snarled back.

Hybern tsked at her over the phone. "You are playing a very dangerous game Miss Archeron. Of course it's even more dangerous for our dear Elain."

Feyre burst into Rhys's room as he was also in the middle of a call. One look at Feyre's distraught face though and Rhys immediately hung up mid-call.

"Who is it?" He mouthed to her.

"Hybern." Feyre mouthed back. "Call Lucien. Now."

Feyre turned to face the door so she could concentrate on Hybern's next words as soon as she saw Rhys punching in the new number into his phone.

"I have become rather fond of your sweet sister. It's why I ignored your earlier stunt. You must understand,that I am not a bad person Feyre." Hybern said with force.

"You'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe."

To her surprise, Hybern laughed. "I can see why you ensnared both Tamlin and Rhysand, little huntress. But this ends now. If I don't hear that your pathetic gala is cancelled by the end of the day, your little Flower will have disappeared."

Hybern hung up before waiting for her response. With shaking hands, Feyre dropped the phone and turned to face Rhys.

He had his hand cupped over his phone so his words wouldn't be heard by Hybern as well while Feyre was talking to him, but he now uncovered it so Feyre could hear him.

"-need to leave as soon as you can. We understand. Thank you." Rhys hung up and took a step towards her. His eyes were calm but Feyre could see the worry and stress building up behind them.

"I told Lucien his time was up and to do whatever he needed to do to get Elain out within the next few hours. Is that okay?" Rhys asked uncertainly.

Feyre only nodded her head, exhaling deeply. She reached out a limp hand to the door for support as a sudden onslaught of dizziness came over her, but there was no need, as Rhys had already caught her and pulled her into his chest.

She closed her eyes as Rhys smoothed her hair soothingly with one hand, while the other was circled around the small of her back protectively.

"What did Hybern say?" He asked quietly.

"He wants us to cancel the Gala or he..." Feyre stumbled over her words as the danger Elain was in settled over her. "He's going to-"

"It's okay. Lucien's had an escape route for them planned for days. He'll get her out." Rhys quietly interrupted so Feyre didn't have to continue.

"How long?"

"He should have already left to get her. He'll be here soon with Elain, I have no doubt about it."

"How?" Feyre asked brokenly.

"Because he sounded so sure of himself for once Feyre. Lucien won't fail you this time." Rhys said kindly.

[encrucis]

How to stop letting perfectionism control your life

1. BREAK DOWN PROJECTS INTO CONCRETE TASKS

It’s admittedly one of the most common pieces of productivity advice, but this one is especially important for perfectionists: break down projects into manageable tasks. For some people, it helps to break projects into time increments (more on that in a bit), and for others, into steps. Either way, you’re armed with a set of discrete actions to take rather than a big, vague cloud of high expectation hanging over your head.

2. DEFINE THE NEXT ACTION IN A PROJECT RATHER THAN ALL SUBSEQUENT STEPS

For perfectionists, there’s a risk that a to-do list may “become unwieldy and overwhelming, and reflect a perfectionistic version of each task that’s over the top compared to what’s actually necessary and realistic,” says Dr. Alice Boyes, author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit and The Anxiety Toolkit. “For instance, the person will plan to make and update daily a 10 column spreadsheet when really a three column spreadsheet updated weekly would do.”

To head this off, she suggests defining the next immediate step for each project and no more. “For example, if the task is fixing a broken drawer, the next action might be to ‘buy super glue from dollar store,'” she says.

3. SET PRIORITIES BY DESIGNATING A, B, C, AND F TASKS

Perfectionistic tendencies are often ingrained early in school, where we learn that our future success depends on earning excellent grades. I absorbed the idea that straight As were necessary for success and to get them in my competitive school system, I had to always go above and beyond.

But as an adult where an “A-performance” is a constantly moving bar, I quickly learned that putting “A-effort” into everything is a recipe for burnout.

“[T]rying to do everything well—and exerting the same level of detail, effort, and energy to all your endeavors—leaves you feeling stressed and exhausted all of the time, and as though you never get to work on what is most meaningful to you,” says Dr. Jeff Szymanski, a clinical psychologist and author of The Perfectionist’s Handbook.

To help you prioritize various aspects of your job, Szymanski recommends stepping back and asking yourself a bigger question: “What do I want my life to stand for?” Then, identify your “A tasks”, the three work skills and tasks at which you would most like to excel, and write them down. Follow that by identifying your B tasks: those at which you can give 80 percent, your C tasks: “tasks that essentially no one, including you, sees or regards as significant” and which you can be average at, and finally F tasks: “Tasks that have become time-consuming but that, in reality, don’t matter.”

4. SET A REALISTIC SCHEDULE AND TRACK YOUR TIME

Often, perfectionists bite off more than we can chew—one consequence of not prioritizing. We then expect ourselves to accomplish an unrealistic amount in our available time. When we don’t meet these impossible goals, we feel like we’ve failed, and feeling like a failure makes it hard for us to get motivated. It’s a vicious cycle.

Experts recommend assigning your tasks a time limit to force yourself to not get lost in perfecting each and every detail. Bring awareness to how you use your time and “look for where perfectionism might be creating problems/imbalances,” says Dr. Boyes.

While I don’t use a time tracking method, I find that managing my to-do list helps me moderate overcommitting by having a visual reminder of what I’ve set out to do rather than keeping it all in my mind.

5. FOCUS ON PROCESS GOALS RATHER THAN OUTCOME GOALS

Perfectionists often become so focused on the end result of a project that we don’t appreciate and enjoy (or ever really get started on) the process. Too often, we miss out on the satisfaction of small wins that keeps us intrinsically motivated.

When set up right, a to-do list can help you focus on the process (which you have control over) rather than obsess over future outcomes (which are largely outside of your control.) Set up your projects to include mostly “process goals” as opposed to “outcome goals.” For example, writer and entrepreneur James Clear was able to create a wildly successful blog by following the process goal of publishing a new article every Monday and Thursday for three years.

“Imagine if I had set a deadline for myself instead, like ‘get 1,000 subscribers in 12 weeks.’ There’s no way I would have written every Monday and Thursday and if I didn’t reach my goal, then I would have felt like a failure.” he says.

“A better way to achieve your goals is to set a schedule to operate by rather than a deadline to perform by.”

Reframing success around the process of actually publishing rather than the outcome of shares or views has been a critical change in mentality for me.

6. START FRESH EVERY DAY

We tend to psychologically overestimate what we can do in a given day and then feel bad when we haven’t achieved a measure that was actually impossible.

Indeed, a large number of Todoist users let their tasks “snowball,” so that their unaccomplished tasks start to accumulate in the “overdue” section. Their to-do list is no longer a tool to help manage and control projects but a reminder of everything they haven’t done. This is a particularly stressful frame of mind for a perfectionist.

Make it a ritual before leaving work for the day to open your Next 7 Days view and drag and drop any leftover tasks due Today to later in the week, or even in the next week.

7. GET HELP

When you’re a perfectionist, there’s always a risk of overdoing even the best-intentioned self-help strategies.

“Perfectionism presents a paradox: If you suggest something which might be helpful for my perfectionism, I might very well get bogged down on the issue of whether I am following your suggestion correctly. So, if to-do lists turn out to be helpful, that’s terrific,” but if it “doesn’t turn out to be helpful in a sustained way,” Greenspon advises seeking therapy.

“[T]alk with someone about where all of the anxiety and concern about being perfect comes from in the first place!” he says.

Dealing with my perfectionism has been a journey that continues. Through therapy, reading (extensively) about perfectionism, and journaling, I’ve come to recognize a self-critical voice that I once thought was helping me but in truth was undermining my goals. My decision of the last year to leave my job, start freelancing, and move abroad came about once I started to let go of the need for assured success and understand that there was a lot that I couldn’t know and couldn’t control.

My life—and my to-do list—is not something I can plot out to perfection in advance but rather something I’ll be constantly rewriting. Recognizing that fact is what finally allowed me to let go of my impossibly high expectations for myself and instead do my best to enjoy the inevitably imperfect journey along the way.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90371259/how-to-stop-letting-perfectionism-control-your-life

[morelifeangel]

How I learned to stop worrying and set better goals

Setting goals is something of a hot topic right now.  From motivational speaking to discussions about ‘adulting’, we’re pretty obsessed with setting and meeting goals.  We want to exercise more, spend less time on the computer, finally write that story—but despite our best efforts, we keep failing to meet those goals.  Over time, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle where we’ve failed in our heads before we even get started.

Over the past few years, I’ve been able to meet a couple of big, fairly tricky goals, and I feel like I’m starting to work out some of the ‘secrets’ to setting and meeting goals.  I’m not at all perfect—I’ve probably failed as many as I’ve attained—but I think some of what I’ve found may be useful to others.

Before I get into it, though, a trigger warning.  Because I’ve achieved some goals related to fitness and to weight loss, I will be discussing both in this post.  This may be triggering for some readers who struggle with body image or with eating disorders.  If that describes you, that’s okay!  I would suggest not reading this post.  I have tagged it with “dieting”, even though I wouldn’t describe what I’ve done in that way, to make it easier to filter out content that may be distressing.  If you feel okay with reading this, click to read more.

For those who are still with me, I think it’s useful to discuss both some of the goals I have achieved and some of the goals I haven’t achieved.

 I have been able to:

Go from being pretty much totally sedentary to working out 5 times per week, with a noticeable improvement in my endurance and lung capacity

Lose a significant amount of weight (about 25%), and keep it off for over a year

Teach myself HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (not an expert, but good enough to manage)

I have failed at:

Writing a long-form fanfiction (50,000 words+)

Learning to sew

Learning back-end web development

I mention some of both to be honest about my failures, but also because a lot of the times, your failures teach you as much as or more than your successes.

With that in mind, let me talk about the three main mistakes that I think trip people up the most when they’re trying to set goals.

Let me paint a picture for you.  Tell me if this seems familiar.

You wake up on a weekend with a burst of energy, feeling great.  Dusting off your proverbial to-do list, you remember that you’ve been meaning to learn Spanish.  Well, this is the time!  You’re going to do it.  You run out and get some books, index cards, maybe a subscription to Duolinguo.  You’re going to practice for thirty minutes, five days per week.  In three months, you’ll be able to chat with strangers in Spanish.

Two weeks later, the books are gathering dust, you know only a handful of words, and you’ve given up on the entire project.

Sound familiar?  It’s okay, we’ve all been there.

But it illustrates the single most common problem I’ve seen and experienced in setting goals.

Mistake #1: Setting goals that are too aggressive

Look, when you’re trying to change a habit or set a new habit, you aren’t going to be able to go from zero to sixty in one jump.  In my observation, that’s one big reason most diets fail.  If you try to go from eating fast food three nights per week to eating nothing but whole foods and smoothies, you’re going to fail.  It’s too much of a change.

Moreover, when you fail, you feel bad.  Feeling bad makes you more reluctant to try in the future.  Conversely, every time you win a small victory, you feel good, and that makes you more eager to try again.

This isn’t at all original to me, by the way.  This is the principle behind Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball plan, which calls for you to pay off your debts from smallest to largest.  On paper, that’s actually not ideal; if a higher debt has a greater interest rate, you pay more with this method.  But psychologically, when you pay off that first debt, even if it’s small, it starts to teach you brain that you can do it.

To shamelessly steal a quote from Jeff Haden, “Small successes are fun—and motivating.”  (From his book The Motivation Myth, which I highly recommend.)

There’s still the problem of getting those first few successes, though, and in my experience, it’s the beginning that’s the hardest.  (And by the beginning, I mean, the early part of a new habit or routine after the initial shiny has worn off but before it’s part of who you are.)  That leads us to:

Mistake #2: Relying too heavily on willpower

Here’s the deal.  If your plan relies on willpower or ‘just doing it’?  It’s going to fail.

It’s not you.  You’re not a failure or lazy.  You’re just human.  Humans are hard-wired not to waste energy unless there’s a pretty immediate reward to get or threat to avoid.  And it needs to be immediate; people will run away from a house fire but they’ll struggle to quit smoking.

Especially when you’re setting your first few goals, you can’t rely on willpower alone.  Your desire to achieve a goal isn’t strong enough to motivate you when the going gets tough.

The good news is, there are ways to get around that.  I’ve found two methods that work extremely well for me. 

First, use inertia to help you.  Inertia is a property of matter is your tendency to keep doing whatever you’re doing.  It’s why you have trouble turning off Tumblr and going to bed at night, even when you know you have work or school in the morning.  But this can work for you!  When I wanted to start working out, I rented a locker at the gym and stored some things I needed for work there.  That meant that I had to at least go to the gym every morning before work.  Once I was there, it felt sort of silly not to work out.  Getting up and out the door was the hard part, but I didn’t have a choice.

Second, bribe yourself.  Some people get sniffy about this, but let’s be real—it works for animals and humans are just very smart animals.  The trick here is the length.  Too short and you can’t use it effectively.  Too long and the reward is too distant to be worth it.  For rewards, then, I find that between ten and twenty days is the sweet spot.  It’s feels like long enough that you’ve really earned something nice, while also getting you on the road to making a new habit.  For instance, I just set a goal of doing a moderately difficult exercise routine for ten consecutive days.  When I hit that goal, I rewarded myself with some conlang books I’d been eyeing.

Even with this in mind, though, you are going to fail—both at steps along the journey and sometimes at entire goals.  Which leads me to:

Mistake #3: Giving moral weight to your goals

There’s a lot of baggage tied up in setting goals, and this is particularly true if your goals are related to fitness or weight loss.  We tend to describe food as ‘good’ or ‘bad;’ eating that doesn’t align with a current diet is often referred to as ‘being naughty.’  While it’s most noticeable in food-related goals, you see the same weight placed on other goals.  We tend to treat a failure to meet a goal as a moral failing—that we were insufficiently determined or hardworking.

There are a two issues with this.  First, it makes us feel guilty when we fail, and guilt is paralyzing.  When we feel guilty, we tend to run away from something.  We don’t like feeling guilty, so we avoid situations where it might come up.  Shame also makes us less confident in our ability to achieve our goals.

Second, it’s simply bullshit.

Unless your goal has to do with not harming others (e.g. someone who has a temper and is trying to stop lashing out at people around them), your goals are value-neutral.  That is, it does not make you good or bad to read a new book every week, take up running, or learn to play the piano.  It can be highly satisfying, but the vast majority of goals have no moral dimension.  They’re something you do for yourself.

When you shift your mindset away from thinking of meeting your goals as ‘good’ and failing in them as ‘bad’, you can better focus on the details.  Instead of thinking, “Ugh, I didn’t write at all this week, why am I so lazy,” you can think, “Hm, I didn’t write this week.  What factors caused that?  What can I do to adjust those factors so I succeed next week?”

That’s it!  Now go forth and make some (modest, achievable) goals!

[education30and40blog]

What Donuts Can Teach Schools and Teams About Lasting Change - Education Elements

See on Scoop.it - Education 2.0 & 3.0

SUBSCRIBE By: Gabrielle Hewitt on August 28th, 2019 Print/Save as PDF What Donuts Can Teach Schools and Teams About Lasting Change LEADERS  |  SCHOOL DISTRICTS Share: “And we both hit our goal weight!”  “That’s amazing! So how did you celebrate?” “We ate an entire box of donuts! And then gained all of it back.”  On an August visit with a group of teachers I’ve been partnering with for over a year, our conversation steered toward the idea of setting goals. In the education world, goals are set all the time, and often displayed or communicated prominently. A teacher may set the goal of 10 consecutive perfect attendance days, 90% of students showing mastery on an upcoming unit exam, or 100% of students growing 1-2 reading levels in a single year. Outside of the education world, too, we set goals all the time. Many of these are health-related – eat more greens, lose weight, drink more water, get more sleep. Some are financial goals – get a raise, save for a vacation, make a million dollars. And still others are achievement-based goals – write a book, buy a house, run a marathon. As the teachers I spoke with this summer shared, they set a goal to lose a set amount of collective pounds, and they did! But there was a huge problem with their apparent success. Two weeks later, they had gained it all back...and then some. They had hit their goal, but had failed to build a habit.  These teachers’ experience is a common one in any individual or organization solely focused on goals as a method to make changes. As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, “Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment.” It doesn’t create enduring success, but only momentary success. Yet, this is often the way teachers, schools, teams, and districts structure their vision for success. Is the goal we want to set aligned to the results we want to see? But as Clear continues, “We think we need to change the results, but the results are not the problem.” So what is the problem? Our habits or systems that we use. It’s just like placing a bucket under a leaky roof. We are focused on the results of having a clean and dry floor, but as soon as that bucket is gone, the problem persists. Instead, we need to fix the system or habit - in this case, the leak.   “Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.” - James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits The word habit comes from the Latin word habitare, literally meaning to live or dwell. In the upcoming book, The NEW Team Habits, authors Anthony Kim, Keara Mascareñaz, and Kawai Lai define a habit as something that, “is a regular tendency, behavior, or practice. Habits are the things we do so often they become second nature.” Habits are part of a person’s daily life, and a team’s daily processes, and most of our habits aren’t even noticeable. Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, estimates that up to 45% of the decisions we make are habits. That’s nearly half of our waking hours! We don’t decide to brush our teeth. We do it by habit. We don’t decide to check email on our phone. We do it by habit. Habits are the powerful but silent drivers of our systems, and without intentionally building them, even if we end up hitting our goal, our success will be fleeting the second we eat the donut or remove the bucket.      So what does this mean for your school or district team? As we move to set new goals for an upcoming academic year, here are 3 tips to remember if we want to build habits that create lasting change on our teams, rather than momentary success:  Keep an eye out for The NEW Team Habits releasing this fall! Co-authored by Anthony Kim, Keara Mascareñaz, and Kawai Lai, The NEW Team Habits is the follow-up guide to the best-selling The NEW School Rules, created to help leadership teams transform the habits that keep them from success. Pre-order Now 1. Implement 1 “tiny” change Stanford Behavior Scientist, BJ Fogg, advocates for the introduction of a “tiny habit” as a way to create big change. Want to build a habit of flossing? Floss just one tooth. Want to build upper body strength? Fogg says to just do one push-up a day. Want to be able to disconnect from work at the end of the day? Delete the email app from your phone. Want more efficient meetings? Try 1 protocol designed to increase efficiency. The point is not that doing one push-up makes us strong, but that objects in motion tend to stay in motion (thanks, Newton and 8th-grade science!), and if we start with one tiny thing, it will have a gradual snowball effect that compounds over time and creates a bias toward action.    2. Start with what feels “safe enough to try” Frequently, team decisions and actions get bottle-necked as leaders look to build consensus or the perfect plan before actually trying something out. Anthony Kim and Alexis Gonzales-Black write in The NEW School Rules,  “When staff and school teams [adopt a mindset of] ‘safe enough to try’ instead of consensus, it can become a mantra that empowers teams to take action.” Often what prevents us from beginning is feeling like we are not ready or worrying about an error or failure. But failure is the oldest way to learn and in fact, IS learning. By operating with a safe enough to try mindset that a proposal is good enough to test without harming our schools, students, or teams, and that we desperately need failure data to learn what works and has an impact, we can compel the change we want to see by focusing all of our efforts on just putting out a minimum viable product and iterating as new data comes in.   “When staff and school teams work with the New Rules of aim for ‘safe enough to try’ - a phrase that is used in the practice of Holacracy - instead of consensus, it can become a mantra that empowers teams to take action.” - Anthony Kim and Alexis Gonzales-Black, Authors of The New School Rules   3. Think like a scientist, and test! Our understanding of habit cycles has given us a lot of insight into how you can both build good habits and disrupt bad ones. Made famous more recently by Duhigg as the “Cue-Routine-Reward” loop,  research has shown that every habit - good or bad - has three phases. Variations of this three-part habit loop exist, but the essence is the same. Duhigg says the “cue” acts as a trigger for a behavior to start, just like waking up and having a craving for coffee. The “routine” kicks in, which is the habit itself, like going into the kitchen and starting the coffeemaker. Then the final phase is the reward, or what trains your brain to make your behavior automatic by desiring to repeat the cue-routine pattern. The reward, in this case, is that hot cup of caffeine. If the reward is perceived as desirable, this cycle eventually causes your brain to crave the coffee, making the cycle habitual. If you wanted to set a goal to, say, drink less coffee by building a different habit, you have to figure out how to give yourself the same reward by testing a different routine until you get the same jolt of energy as the coffee provides. As you experiment with different routines and find the one that delivers the same reward as that cup of coffee, over time, you will develop a new craving that can overwrite the old habit.  The same can be said for leaders wanting to build new team habits. Let’s take a weekly meeting for example. Some leaders have told us that attendees walk in and immediately begin venting. It’s become a habit to start the meeting off on this foot. To test ways to build a different type of habit, the leader could test different starting routines. The cue is the entry into the meeting space; the routine is the act of venting, and the reward is the feeling that person gets of being seen and heard. Why not try out another routine like a meeting check-in that helps people also feel seen and heard, but in a positive way that disrupts the habit of venting? Or test playing music as attendees walk in? As districts and schools gear up for a new school year, they ramp up the writing of new strategic plans, team projects, and school-level goals. But if we want to see lasting change as evidenced by hitting our goal, we have to begin by building better team habits. Otherwise, we will gain all of our “old weight” back until we are just left with donut crumbs.  Want to learn more about building team habits? Register to attend our New Team Habits Institute in Denver on November 6-7. In the meantime, pre-order The New Team Habits: A Guide to the New School Rules to kickstart lasting change on your team or leave a note below to connect.  Author’s Note: P.S. This blog post is not an indictment on donuts. They are delicious and provide a much-needed service in the comfort food industry, but if you build better habits, you can enjoy the donut guilt-free. In D.C.? Check out my favorite donut shop. About Gabrielle Hewitt Gabby Hewitt is a Senior Design Principal at Education Elements, working directly with large and small schools and districts to impact student growth and success. She spent six years in the classroom as an 8th grade U.S. History Teacher, first in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and later with KIPP DC. In her first year in the classroom, she was selected to receive the Maryland Association of Teacher Educators Distinguished Teacher Candidate award. During that time, Gabby also wrote the county-wide history curriculum for middle schools and assisted the Prince George’s County Social Studies Department with the rollout and integration of the Common Core State Standards. Gabby led teams as both the Social Studies Department Chair and Eighth Grade Level Chairperson before leaving the classroom to train and manage the development of resident teachers in her charter network. As the Manager of Professional Development for the Capital Teaching Residency program with KIPP DC, she developed skills in planning and facilitating adult professional development, project management, and effective teaching evaluation models. Gabby holds a B.S. in Political Science and a B.A. in Mass Communication from Louisiana State University. She earned her M.S. in Educational Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Born and raised in New Orleans, Gabby currently lives in the Washington D.C. area with her husband and sons. When she is not working, you can find Gabby pursuing her passion for photography, finding new coffee shops, and chasing around her two little ones. Connect with Gabrielle Hewitt First Name Last Name Email Website Comment*

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Canes Clinch, Pietrangelo, Pearson, Byfuglien, Friday Picks, and more… (Apr 5)

The interactive playoff draft list is ready for download now! Don’t wait until five minutes before your draft or deadline to purchase it. If you haven’t already preordered it, get yours today! If you have already purchased it, jump right in. It’s available in the Downloads section on the Dobber website (login required for the site, not the forum).

Once you purchase the draft list, please take a moment to get familiar with it before your draft. Read the Instructions tab before you begin using it. The Excel spreadsheet file is interactive (macro-enabled) and not just a “list.” The point total projections depend on which teams you set to advance, or you could go with Dobber’s picks if you’re really not sure. I’m not trying to make it sound super complicated or anything, but it’s better to be prepared. Hey, we just want you to win your league!

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Thursday was all about teams trying to clinch playoff spots and teams trying to jockey for position. This doesn’t matter to fantasy teams that happen to still be active (like me in my roto league), but it certainly matters to those who are preparing for playoff pools. Even though almost all of the playoff teams are set, hopefully you don’t have to commit to choosing players right now.

When you’re the Carolina Hurricanes, clinching a playoff spot is a momentous occasion.  

The last time the #Canes clinched a playoff berth was April 4th, 2009

Ten years ago to the day, WE'RE BACK

Read More » https://t.co/hmxKvfXOSB pic.twitter.com/V49Bk3w4gG

— x – Carolina Hurricanes (@NHLCanes) April 5, 2019

Yes, the “bunch of jerks” punched their 2019 playoff ticket with a 3-1 win over New Jersey. Even though the Canes won’t be providing any victory celebrations after any home playoff wins, I have a feeling that they’ll be a popular underdog to pull for.  

Petr Mrazek stopped 36 of 37 shots to earn the victory. Mrazek has had quite a run recently, posting an 11-2-0 record with a 1.68 GAA and a .944 SV% since mid-February. Both he and Curtis McElhinney will be UFAs at the end of the season. Since the Canes are a top-10 team in goaltending, I would have to believe they would bring back at least one of these goalies next season and maybe even both. If you need to pick a Canes’ goalie for your playoff pool, it’s probably Mrazek, although he and McElhinney have basically been splitting starts for the past few weeks.

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The Hurricanes’ victory combined with the Montreal Canadiens’ loss to Washington means that the Habs’ playoff hopes take a significant hit. The Canadiens have the same number of points as the Columbus Blue Jackets, but the Jackets have a game in hand. The Jackets’ last two games are against relatively beatable opponents in the Rangers and Senators, but nothing is guaranteed of course.   

The Habs had their chances (Max Domi and Artturi Lehkonen each took six shots), but Braden Holtby was up to the task in stopping 33 of 34 shots in the Capitals’ 2-1 win. Holtby has been getting it done for fantasy owners at the tail end of the season, reeling off five consecutive wins. Check out his splits this season (from his Frozen Pool profile):

Qtr         GP          W            L              OTL        GAA       SV%       QUAL    QUAL%

1              13           5              5              2              3.24        0.900     4              30.8

2              16           11           5              0              2.61        0.918     10           62.5

3              15           5              6              2              3.35        0.903     7              46.7

4              15           11           3              1              2.20        0.921     10           66.7

The defending Stanley Cup champions have now clinched the Metropolitan Division and should be considered the favorite to represent the division in the Eastern Conference Final.

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Whatever the opposite of a revenge game is this is it pic.twitter.com/WQNQox405t

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) April 5, 2019

All I can say is thank heaven I dropped Brian Elliott yesterday because I was about to run out of goaltending starts and still had plenty of forward starts. That was Elliott’s night, all in a span of less than seven minutes. Hopefully you didn’t fall victim though.

Alex Steen inflicted the most damage for the Blues in their 7-4 win over the Flyers, scoring two goals and adding an assist with a plus-3. You can’t be blamed if you completely ignored Steen, as he had been held without a point in his previous five games.  

Alex Pietrangelo recorded three assists for the Blues. The father of triplets has now reached the 40-point mark for the third consecutive season and fifth time in six seasons. Obviously this is a dip from last season, which Dobber (who is a father himself) warned you about before the season. Pietrangelo’s second-half production (27 points in in 42 games, 0.64 Pts/GP) has been noticeably better than his first-half production (13 points in 28 games, 0.46 Pts/GP), which may be related to the Blues’ remarkable second-half surge. Or maybe it’s because he’s adjusted to life as a busy dad.

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The Canucks might have nothing left to play for, but don’t tell Tanner Pearson. The recently acquired left winger scored another goal and added an assist, which gives him four goals in his past five games and eight goals in 18 games as a Canuck. The Canucks are dying for top-6 forwards that can play alongside their big three of Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Bo Horvat. Pearson might be proving that he can at least be that guy beside second-line center Horvat.

Just to get you excited for next season, Quinn Hughes assisted on both Canucks’ goals, giving him three points in four games as a Canuck. Between Cam Robinson and me, there’s a disproportionate amount of Canucks’ highlights on here. With that in mind, here’s one more of one of Hughes’ assists.  

Quinn Hughes — the real deal in Vancouver.

What a pass. pic.twitter.com/4kiesNKDQu

— NHL (@NHL) April 5, 2019

We’ll have all summer to debate whether he will start next season on the Canucks’ PP1. The Canucks use Alex Edler a ton, so I wouldn’t quite pencil Hughes in yet. But it’ll be a matter of time.

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Jaroslav Halak stopped all 26 shots he faced in the Bruins’ 3-0 win over Minnesota. That’s five shutouts this season for Halak, which is not bad for a backup goalie. Halak’s ratios (2.34 GAA, .922 SV%) are among the top 10 among goalies who played at least 30 games. Halak is signed for another season in Boston, which might be something to think about when valuing Tuukka Rask next season. Rask has won 27 games and played in just 45 games this season, which are his lowest totals in six seasons.

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The Colorado Avalanche were another team that clinched a playoff spot on Thursday, thanks to a 3-2 overtime win over Winnipeg. Philipp Grubauer stopped 34 of 36 shots he faced in the win, which gives him a 7-0-2 record over his last nine starts. He has posted a 1.63 GAA and a .953 SV% over that span, which should cement him as the Avs’ starting goalie to start the playoffs and into next season.

The Avs clinched a playoff spot in spite of missing Mikko Rantanen, who has missed the past seven games with an upper-body injury. Alex Kerfoot has been subbing for Rantanen on the Avs’ top line. Although Kerfoot was held without a point on Thursday, Kerfoot had been taking advantage of the situation with eight points in his last six games.

Dustin Byfuglien might have been angrier than you were that he didn’t receive much power-play time on Thursday.  

Dustin Byfuglien just slammed his stick in anger on the #NHLJets bench, breaking it, after not getting a second of power play time. Jacob Trouba stayed out for the entire 2-minute man-advantage. That's…not good. On several levels. #wfp

— Mike McIntyre (@mikemcintyrewpg) April 5, 2019

So once all was said and done, Jacob Trouba logged over five minutes of power-play time, while Byfuglien logged just 36 seconds. It’s not as if Big Buff was stapled to the bench in this one, as he took on over 25 minutes of overall icetime. Trouba is an RFA this offseason and rumors have constantly been swirling that the Jets will trade him. However, Trouba potentially sticking around and the presence of Josh Morrissey could result in a changing of the guard for Winnipeg’s PP1. By the way Big Buff has just two points in his last nine games, and that’s even with an assist on Thursday.

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Not that there should have been much doubt, but the Pittsburgh Penguins also clinched their playoff spot on Thursday. Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby each recorded three points with each taking five shots on goal. Kessel has now reached 80 points for the second consecutive season, while Crosby has a chance to reach 100 points for the first time in five seasons if he can record two points on Saturday against the Rangers.

If you’re trying to plan playoff matchups in the Eastern Conference, this might help:  

Looks like Penguins vs Islanders in first round as long as Pens get home point vs Rangers Saturday. And of course Maple Leafs vs Bruins. Hurricanes will get Capitals or Lightning. I’m gonna say Tampa. Columbus vs Caps.

— Bucci Mane (@Buccigross) April 5, 2019

  With Nikita Kucherov's 40th goal of the season, the Lightning are the first team to boast three 40-goal scorers (also Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point) since the 1995-96 Penguins. 

Almost forgot to mention: Jake Gardiner returned to the Leafs' lineup on Thursday, although he was held without a point in just under 17 minutes of icetime. 

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Leon Draisaitl scored twice on Thursday, which gives him 49 goals on the season. These were his first goals in four games. The Battle of Alberta on Saturday night might be a mean-nothing game in the standings, but it will at least be worth watching to see if Draisaitl can become the second player to reach 50 goals, following Alex Ovechkin. The only other player with a snowball’s chance in hell at reaching 50 is John Tavares, who would need to record a hat trick on Saturday to reach that mark.

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Chances are that you’ll have more than enough options for Saturday, even with players potentially sitting out to get some extra rest before the playoffs. So Friday is the day to load up on players who will play on a light schedule (just three games). I mentioned both of the Strome brothers on Twitter, since the Rangers and Blackhawks are among the teams that play.

Some more players to consider (if you can still add them for Friday):

Oliver Bjorkstrand – Eight goals in his last eight games, also 30 shots in his last six games

Anton Khudobin – Confirmed starter on Friday (see Goalie Post for more goalie starts). Won three of his past four games, with the other game a shootout loss. Posted a 1.94 GAA and .943 SV% over that span.

Kevin Shattenkirk – No points in his last six games, but still receiving first-unit power-play time

Tony DeAngelo – If Shattenkirk isn’t available, or you could pick him over Shattenkirk outright

Alexandar Georgiev – Also a confirmed starter for Friday. He seems to alternate between good and bad starts, but the pressure is completely off as he and the Rangers get to play spoiler against the Blue Jackets.

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For more fantasy hockey information, or to reach out to me directly, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

  from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-canes-clinch-pietrangelo-pearson-byfuglien-friday-picks-and-more-apr-5/

[therealestatesparkblog]

What Being a CPA Has Taught Me About Becoming a Millionaire

Usually my articles are all about taxes and how real estate investors and business owners should approach various scenarios and apply sets of tax regulations. I always try to share my knowledge to help you improve your bottom line. What Ive come to realize through speaking with and advising hundreds of real estate investors and having a front row seat to their financial lives and mindsets is that Ive learned quite a lot about wealth over the past two years. Ive learned about creative and unique means to generate wealth. Ive learned about market niches that are rarely brought up in the BiggerPockets Forums that turn out to be quite lucrative. Ive learned about ways to mitigate exposure to various financial and market risks. However, one of the most beneficial thing that Ive learnedand the topic of todays postis how millionaires build their wealth. Im not talking about the mega-millionaires. While Im sure everyone would love to be in the mega-millionaire category, frankly its unattainable for most. Im talking about the Millionaire Next Door type of millionaires. This type of millionaire is, as Ive found, relatively easy to become. Full disclosure: Im not a millionairenot even close. However, I have been lucky enough to interact with and advise many homegrown millionaires. Hopefully, youll still be able to take away something of value from my article. So what does the everyday millionaire do differently than the rest of us? They develop key habits, defer their gratification, and treat their passive income like the most important business theyve ever run. The #1 Non-Money Habit of Millionaires The number onenon-money habit that will make you a millionaire is waking up earlier than the rest of the world. I know its hyped up and over-sold. I always rolled my eyes when I heard about this habit, too. Im not a morning person, and the thought of waking up before the sun was dreadful. But that was before I got into the business of advising successful real estate investors and business owners. That was also before I established this habit for myself. Waking up early has plenty of benefits;however, the two that stand out the most when Im conversing with clients are that it gives you time to work on projects you never have time for and it jump starts your productivity. Related: Building Wealth: What Key Practices Separate Millionaires From the Middle Class? The difference between people living mediocre lives and people living successful lives is that the successful people create time to work on the projects that the mediocre people dream about. Dont have time to review three real estate deals a day? Wake up early! The projects dont have to be real estate-related; in fact, they dont even have to be business-related. Maybe you dream about starting a podcast or writing a book about the tea and food pairings. Maybe you just want to paint more often or get in shape. When interviewing my clients, other investors, and business owners, Ive realized the most successful ones have some sort of cool project theyre working on. As I noticed the trend, I began inquiring not only about the projects, but also about how they have time. The answer almost all of these successful people provided was that they wake up early. Its that simple. And think about itwhen you wake up early to work on the project youre always putting off, do you think youll be excited to wake up? Not only will you be motivated to get out of bed, but your entire day will essentially see a jump start in productivity. You will create this sort of productivity momentum, which will result in you performing better throughout the day at your job, business, real estate, or whatever it is youre working on! I dont have scientific data. I dont know the neurology behind it. But I do know that almost all of the successful investors and clients Ive collaborated with wake up early to work on their various projects. I was skeptical at first, but I tried it. I read Miracle Morningfor some motivation, and Ive now created a habit of waking up early. My productivity has exploded, and Ive seen the benefits spill over into other areas of my life life business, investing, relationships, and overall health and happiness. Best of all, waking up at 5:00 a.m. isnt bad at all after a week or so. Im used to it and have a routine that motivates me to jump out of bed every morning. If you get nothing else out of this post, I highly recommend trying this for 30 days. The benefits will exceed your expectations. Deferring Gratification and Value-Add Spending All, let me repeat, ALL of the successful people Ive spoken with understand the art of gratification deferral. The thought process goes like this: That purchase will make me happy, but is it necessary today? Do I really need that product or service? Will it help me reach my goals? Oftentimes, the answer is a simple no. So they put off buying the new shoes, fancy dinners, and concert tickets. They buy used vehicles rather than new and expensive cars. They focus on saving and investinggrowing their dollar and paying their future selves. This allows them to get out of the rat race and snowball their investments into financial freedom territory. Buy the Tesla once your net worth reaches $1,000,000. Your future millionaire self will thank the present you for waiting. Another key trend semi-related to this topic is that the successful investors and business owners focus on value-add spending and savings. For instance, one of the investors I know built up an enormous amount of wealth by simply owner-occupying multi-family properties and slowly rehabbing all of the units. He would buy a four-plex, live in one unit for a year, rehab it, then move to the next unit and rinse and repeat. While he was flipping the unit, the other three would be rented out, covering his mortgage and then some. He used this strategy for two four-plexes, and it took him about eight years to complete. He was able to 1031 exchange those properties into a much larger apartment complex, which is valued at over $1,000,000. Related: 5 Habits of the Wealthy That Helped Them Get Rich One of my clients spends tens of thousands of dollars each year on seminars and trainings. However, she has a high net worth and has determined she can do this without it negatively impacting her financial position. Her business is centered on building a network of people, and shes quantified the value of every $1,000 she spends at these seminars and found that she will eventually earn revenue about twice the size of the cost to attend. But it wasnt always this way. Had she spent thousands of dollars going to a seminar while her business was trying to get on its feet, she may not have succeeded at all. In the early days, her money was better spent creating content, advertising, building a local network, and implementing business systems. She understood that while the seminars may be valuable, there were better things to spend her money on at the time to grow to a level where it was financially feasible to attend these larger events. Treating Real Estate Investing Like a Business One of the more eye-opening conversations Ive ever had was with a gentleman who invests in apartment buildings. I was showing him a property I thought was a good deal, and before he even looked at the deal, he asked me how the local economy was. The investors that see large-scale success analyze real estate in a completely different way than the rest of us. The successful investors start by analyzing economic conditions of various cities, towns, etc. When they find one they like, they narrow down their search and identify the best locations and neighborhoods in the area. They dont start with Realtor.com. They also dont necessarily start by contacting a real estate agent. They want to understand the macro and microeconomic conditions that may affect their investment performance to determine if its even worth their time to continue looking in the target area. Then they worry about building relationships and getting boots on the ground. And when you think about it, that simple reversal of the typical methodology many of us employ makes complete sense. Why invest in the best neighborhood in a city that has declining economic conditions? Its backwardlogic. On top of that, before they even attempt to identify a property, they learn all they can about the competition in the area. If they want to invest in apartment buildings, they will find out exactly what the other apartment buildings in the area have to offer. If they find a value gap, they exploit it. For instance, the gentleman I briefly mentioned above told me that his apartment building has washer and dryer hookups, and no other apartment building near him has washer-dryer hookups. Something that simple can give you a huge competitive advantage over all the other investors in your area. Thats how businesses are run. Theres a constant jockeying of positioning to have the best value-add offerings. The investors who understand and can identify competitive advantages will win every time. The Wrap-Up Being a CPA has allowed me to peer into the financial lives of many successful real estate investors. Though Im not a millionaire myself, Ive identified habits, mindsets, and logic that I believe can make anyone a millionaire if they are all applied. I find wealth a fascinating topic, and I hope you are able to take something away from this article. Until next time! Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers. Which of these lessons strikes a chord with you?What would you add? Leave your comments below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2016/01/31/cpa-taught-millionaire/